Ōjōyōshū, Nihon Ōjō Gokuraku-ki, and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan

Abstract

The place of narrative in organizing our experience in world has been topic of much discussion in recent years. This paper starts from position developed by psychologist Jerome Bruner, who argues that there are two distinct modes of thought, paradigmatic (or logico-scientific) and and that they are equally important in ordering experience and constructing meaning. Texts written in both of these modes were crucial in establishment of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan during Heian Period. The Ojoyoshu, written by Genshin in 985, is perhaps single most important text in development of this form of Buddhism in Japan, but insofar as it presents a systematic and comprehensive outline of Pure Land cosmology, doctrine, and practice, it is an example of a text written in paradigmatic mode. But another text from this period written in narrative mode, Nihon Ojo Gokuraku-ki by Yoshishige no Yasutane, played an equally important role in spread of Pure Land Buddhism. This text is a collection of forty-two brief of people believed to have been born in Pure Land. These serve both to prove that Pure Land really exists and provide us with models with which to fashion our lives so we can gain birth in Pure Land. KEYWORDS: Ojoyoshu - Nihon Ojo Gokuraku-ki - Genshin - biography - Yoshishige no Yasutane - Pure Land Buddhism - narrative (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) IN ACTUAL MINDS, Possible Worlds, psychologist Jerome Bruner distinguishes two distinct modes of thought, paradigmatic (or logico-scientific) and both of which he argues are equally important in ordering experience and constructing reality. The paradigmatic mode is descriptive and explanatory, and categorization or conceptualization and operations by which categories are established, instantiated, idealized, and related to one another to form a system (Bruner 1986, 12). Bruner gives logic, mathematics, and modern scientific method as representative examples of this mode of thought. On other hand, narrative mode employs storytelling as a way of organizing our experience in world. Bruner concludes that two modes are complementary and that efforts to reduce one mode to other or ignore one at expense of other inevitably fail to capture rich diversity of thought (BRUNER 1986, 11). The distinction that Bruner makes above highlights increasing attention given to narrative construction of meaning in a wide range of disciplines, including literary studies, history, philosophy, theology, ethics, and psychology.1 If, as Stephen Crites (1971, 291) has argued, the formal quality of experience through time is inherently narrative, then attempts to describe such experience through time must also be undertaken in narrative mode. Following this line of thought, philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre (1984) and Paul Ricoeur (1992) have stressed importance of storytelling in constructing personal identity and in shaping how we relate to world around us (that is, ethics). A similar point is also made by theologian Michael Goldberg. By allowing a particular story to direct our attention to world in some specific way, we let it direct our activity in world in a certain manner. As story shapes our understanding of reality, it simultaneously qualifies way we relate to reality. By articulating a certain vision of world, narratives provide us with a way of articulating what we are doing in world. (GOLDBERG 1991, 176-77) In other words, narratives both shape our perception of reality and provide guidelines or normative patterns to explain how we should behave in light of that reality. One example of way in which this new focus on narrative has manifested itself in field of religious studies is revival of interest in sacred biographies (which includes, but is not limited to, works belonging to long disparaged genre of hagiography). …