The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism

Abstract

Abstract In this book, Mark Blum offers a critical look at the thought and impact of the late thirteenth‐century Buddhist historian Gyōnen (1240–1321) and the emergent Pure Land school of Buddhism founded by Hōnen (1133–1212). Blum also provides a clear and fully annotated translation of Gyōnen's Jōdo Hōmon Genrushō, the first history of Pure Land Buddhism, and his only known surviving Pure Land text. Part I of the study, Gyōnen and Kamakura Pure Land Buddhism, largely concerns Gyōnen himself. One of his most lasting impacts was as fashioner of a view of Buddhist history that Japanese society was to find quite persuasive for the next 600 years, and it is the author's thesis that he should be regarded as the first proper Buddhist historian in Japan and that the Genrushō should be seen as an important expression of his historical perspective. The Genrushō is both a philosophical inquiry into the historical nature of orthodox Pure Land doctrine and a remarkable record of people of religious impact in this tradition who actively led lineage ‘branches’ of the Jōdo school (Jōdoshū) during the Kamakura period. Part II, The Origins and Development of the Pure Land Teaching, presents a full translation, the first in any modern language (including Japanese) of the Genrushō itself. Detailed annotation is provided in notes to the numerous people, texts, monasteries, geographical locations, and doctrinal concepts named in the text. Part III is a facsimile of the xylograph edition upon which the translation is based. There are three appendices: Appendix A is a concordance to the translation; Appendix B looks at Gyōnen's personal Pure Land beliefs; and Appendix C provides a list of Gyōnen's known extant works. There are two bibliographies for the book, one of primary and the other of secondary sources, and also a select glossary.