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四座講式

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Text ID
KR6t0442
Date
1196–1232
Dynasty
日本

Sìzuò jiǎngshì 四座講式

The Four-Seat Lecture-Liturgy by 高辧 Kōben (撰)

About the work

A single-fascicle four-part kōshiki by Kōben 高辧 高辧 (1173–1232, more famously known as Myōebō Kōben 明惠房高辨 or simply Myōe 明惠), the Kegon-Shingon scholar-mystic of the early Kamakura period and one of the most distinctive religious figures of medieval Japan. The catalog title 高辧 / 高辨 is an orthographic variant of his given name. The Shiza kōshiki — “Four-Seat Lecture-Liturgy” — is one of the most influential kōshiki of the Kamakura period and is performed annually at Myōe’s monastic foundation, the Kōzan-ji 高山寺 in northwestern Kyoto, to this day.

Abstract

The work is structured as four distinct kōshiki sub-liturgies, each treating a different devotional theme. The CANWWW structural division (the only Taishō item in div25.xml with a detailed toc) records the four sub-parts as: (1) Nehan kōshiki 涅槃講式 — “Lecture-Liturgy for the Buddha’s Parinirvāṇa”; (2) Jūroku Rakan kōshiki 十六羅漢講式 — “Lecture-Liturgy for the Sixteen Arhats”; (3) Yuiseki kōshiki 遺跡講式 — “Lecture-Liturgy for the Sacred Sites [of India]” (i.e. the aṣṭamahā-sthāna, the eight great Buddhist holy sites in India); (4) Shari kōshiki 舍利講式 — “Lecture-Liturgy for the Buddha’s Relics.”

The four-fold structure reflects Myōe’s distinctive devotional orientation to the historical Buddha rather than to the cosmic Buddhas (Amida, Dainichi) of the dominant Pure Land and Shingon traditions of his day. Myōe was famously devoted to Śākyamuni as a living presence — he wrote letters to Śākyamuni in a quasi-personal mode, kept a celebrated dream-diary (yumeji-ki 夢日記) recording dream-encounters with the historical Buddha, and twice attempted (1203, 1205) to journey to India to pay personal respects at the Buddhist sacred sites (both attempts were abandoned on the advice of his Shintō patron Kasuga Daimyōjin).

The four kōshiki of the Shiza are accordingly historical-Buddha-centric: each turns on a different aspect of the Śākyamuni devotional cult. The cumulative liturgical work is one of the principal alternative-devotional texts of medieval Japanese Buddhism — neither Pure Land nor Shingon esoteric but rather a kind of historicist-Mahāyāna devotion centered on the founder.

Date. Composition during Myōe’s mature career, c. 1196–1232. The four parts may have been composed separately and gathered together. Myōe died in Jōei 1 / 1232 at age 60.

Structural Division

The CANWWW entry (div25.xml, T84N2731) records this is the only Taishō item in the Shittan-bu / Shōmyō-bu sequence with an internal toc sub-list. The four sub-parts are:

  • T84N2731-1: (1) 涅槃講式 Nehan kōshiki (Lecture-Liturgy for the Parinirvāṇa) — T84, p898.
  • T84N2731-2: (2) 十六羅漢講式 Jūroku Rakan kōshiki (Lecture-Liturgy for the Sixteen Arhats) — T84, p900.
  • T84N2731-3: (3) 遺跡講式 Yuiseki kōshiki (Lecture-Liturgy for the [Indian Buddhist] Sacred Sites) — T84, p902.
  • T84N2731-4: (4) 舍利講式 Shari kōshiki (Lecture-Liturgy for the Buddha’s Relics) — T84, p904.

No related-text cross-references are tabulated in the CANWWW entry.

Translations and research

Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. Niels Guelberg, Buddhistische Zeremoniale (kōshiki) und ihre Bedeutung für die Literatur des japanischen Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1999) — extensive treatment of the Shiza kōshiki as the most studied kōshiki in modern Japanese scholarship. English: George J. Tanabe Jr., Myōe the Dreamkeeper: Fantasy and Knowledge in Early Kamakura Buddhism (Harvard UP, 1992) — the standard Western monograph on Myōe; partial translations of his works.

Major Japanese studies: Kawai Hayao 河合隼雄, Myōe Shōnin no yume 明惠上人の夢 (Iwanami, 1987) — psychological-religious study of Myōe’s dream-diary; Tanabe Genji 田辺源治, Myōe Shōnin no kenkyū 明惠上人の研究 (Kyoto: Heirakuji, 1973); Etani Ryūkai, Kōshiki no kenkyū (Sankibō, 1986).

Other points of interest

The Shiza kōshiki is still performed annually at the Kōzan-ji in Kyoto on the anniversary of Myōe’s death (the 19th of the 1st month, conventionally moved to mid-February in the modern calendar). It is one of the principal continuously-performed medieval kōshiki in the modern Japanese Buddhist liturgical calendar — a remarkable 8-century continuous performance tradition.

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