Abstract
This essay traces the Japanese reception of Zhuhong’s Tract on Refraining from Killing and on Releasing Life in the early modern period. Ritual animal releases have a long history in Japan beginning in the seventh century, approximately two centuries after such rituals arose in China. From the mid-eighth century, the releases became large-scale state rites conducted at Hachiman shrines, which have been most widely studied and documented. By contrast, a different strand of life releases that emerged in the Edo period owing to the influence of late Ming Buddhism has received comparatively little scholarly attention despite the significance for the period. Not only may the publication of a Sino–Japanese edition of Zhuhong’s Tract in 1661 have been an impetus for Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s Laws of Compassion in the late-seventeenth century, but also approximately thirty Japanese Buddhist texts inspired by Zhuhong’s Tract appeared over the next two and a half centuries. As Zhuhong’s ethic of refraining from killing and releasing life was assimilated over the course of the Edo and into the Meiji period, life releases became primarily associated with generating merit for the posthumous repose of the ancestors although they were also said to have a variety of vital benefits for the devotees and their families, such as health, longevity, prosperity, and descendants.
Highlights
In his Sankyohojobenwaku (Clarification of life releases in the Three Teachings, 1803), the Shingon cleric Kanjun retold one of the most popular karmic tales from Yunqi Zhuhong’s Jiesha fangsheng wen (Tract on refraining from killing and on releasing life, 1584) in the Japanese vernacular: In the Great Ming, the husband and wife of a certain Cheng family loved eating turtles. They were able to obtain a large soft-shell turtle. They gave it to the kitchen maid and told her, “Go and cook it.”
The kitchen maid saw that the soft-shell turtle was afraid that she would kill it and tried to run away, and she felt pity for it
Along with Ming-Qing morality books and merit ledgers, Zhuhong’s Tract spurred the publication of approximately thirty Buddhist texts on the topic of refraining from killing and releasing life from approximately the time when Shogun Tsunayoshi promulgated the Laws of Compassion until Japan transitioned into modernity in the Meiji period (1868–1912).[1]
Summary
In his Sankyohojobenwaku (Clarification of life releases in the Three Teachings, 1803), the Shingon cleric Kanjun retold one of the most popular karmic tales from Yunqi Zhuhong’s Jiesha fangsheng wen (Tract on refraining from killing and on releasing life, 1584) in the Japanese vernacular: In the Great Ming, the husband and wife of a certain Cheng family loved eating turtles. Along with Ming-Qing morality books and merit ledgers, Zhuhong’s Tract spurred the publication of approximately thirty Buddhist texts on the topic of refraining from killing and releasing life from approximately the time when Shogun Tsunayoshi promulgated the Laws of Compassion until Japan transitioned into modernity in the Meiji period (1868–1912).[1]. Whatever the influence of this Ming-Qing morality book literature may have been on Tsunayoshi’s policies, the 1661 Sino-Japanese edition of Zhuhong’s Tract triggered the publication of approximately thirty Japanese Buddhist texts whose cultural force outlasted Tsunayoshi’s short-lived Law of Compassion These publications included a variety of genres such as anthologies, karmic tale collections, and ritual texts on life releases that appeared over the two and a half centuries, beginning with Asai Ryoi’s Kaisetsu hojomonogatari (Tale of refraining from killing and releasing life, 1664), a vernacular rendition of Zhuhong’s Tract, and ending with Taikyo’s Hojomeikan roku (Record of the supernatural recompense of life releases, 1898). As Buddhism came to dominate funerary practices in the Edo period, life releases became especially associated with generating merit for the ancestors
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