Pure Land School Research Articles

Wine, Rice, or Both? Overwriting Sectarian Strife in the Tendai Shuhanron Debate

This article examines the Shuhanron emaki (The illustrated scroll of the wine and rice debate) as not only a reflection of late Muromachi-period cultural trends, but also a reworking of its sixteenth-century historical setting. The work ostensibly features three men who each argue their various positions: one extolling wine, the other rice, and the third a balance of both. Yet its references to the Lotus school (also the Hokke or Nichiren school), the Nenbutsu school (the True Pure Land school), and the supremacy of the Tendai school with its belief in the Three Truths and the Middle Way, point to the Tenbun Hokke Uprising of 1536. This conflict featured these three religious parties in brutal violence that devastated the capital, already ravaged by famines and unending warfare. In playfully representing a utopian, yet realistic world full of food and merriment, the of this work urge sectarian reconciliation by showing what peace could potentially bring. KEYWORDS: Shuhanron emaki-Tenbun Hokke no ran-food-chanoyu-tea (ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) The 27th day of the 7th month of 1536 (Tenbun 5) was a particularly bloody and destructive day in the Japanese capital, even in the context of the Period of Warring States. Forces from Enryakuji of the Tendai school ... burned twenty-one temples of the Hokke school (hokke ... meaning lotus, a popular designation for members of the Nichiren school of Buddhism, which preached sole belief in the Lotus Sutra). These fires eventually consumed more than half of northern Kyoto, as well as most of the southern half. A diarist estimates that three thousand may have been slaughtered, though he fears many more may have perished.1 This day of violence marked the end of the Tenbun Hokke Uprising (Tenbun Hokke no ran ...) that had its beginnings in 1532. For four years, a confederacy of Hokke commoner sectarians had maintained an autonomous government in Kyoto. In the power vacuum of the capital in late Muromachi Japan, various warlords, the essentially impotent Ashikaga shogunal house, and sectarians of the Hokke, Ikko, and Tendai persuasions crafted shifting alliances to defend, to regain, or to increase their prerogatives in new configurations of authority only possible in an age of such turmoil. In 1532, the Hokke sectarians were briefly allied with the Hosokawa and even Enryakuji in a coalition of erstwhile foes to defeat the Ikko movement, burning down the True Pure Land headquarters of Yamashina Honganji.2 By 1536, however, the monks of Mount Hiei turned their eyes to the increasingly powerful and independent Hokke sect as a threat, just as they had targeted the Ikko school only four years earlier. The episode that allegedly provoked the Enryakuji monks to strike so violently against the Hokke in 1536 was, many said, an embarrassing loss of face at a lecture on the Lotus Sutra by a Tendai prelate who could not answer a lay Hokke adherent's interjected challenges (Stone 1994, 242). Yet Mount Hiei provided more substantial grounds, accusing the Hokke sectarians of damaging private property, exercising their own judicial authority, usurping taxation rights, and expressing hostility toward believers of other sects. These various accusations were for the most part true, and boiled down to the fact that the Hokke Uprising catapulted into power its followers.a new, wealthy class of Kyoto denizens called the utokunin ... (profit makers or virtuous people ).by legitimizing their activities ideologically.3 As Berry observes, Fueling sectarian feeling was political and social antipathy to commoners who had assumed the governing privileges of the old elite (1994, 166). Thus, Enryakuji ultimately moved with such shocking viciousness to protect its own vested interests in maintaining the traditional balance of power-a balance that the Hokke school had severely disrupted on multiple fronts, politically, doctrinally, and economically. …

Biography as Scripture: Ōjōden in India, China, and Japan

Records of individuals who achieved rebirth in the pure land of Amitabha Buddha began as a genre of hagiography in eighth-century China and began appearing in Japan in the late tenth century. Thereafter these ojoden were produced repeatedly throughout Japanese history in greater numbers than in China, and came to function as a form of prooftext for the establishment of the Pure Land school. Focusing on an apocryphal Indian ojoden created in the late Heian period, this paper evaluates the form and content of ojoden as a unique genre of Japanese religious literature exhibiting influences from monastic bibliography, miracle texts, and the category of adbhutadharma in Indian Buddhist literature. KEYWORDS: ojoden - hagiography - biography - miracles - setsuwa - Honen - China - India - Heian (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) It goes without saying that the literature of biography and its elaborate cousin hagiography play an important role in all religious traditions. A wellfunctioning religious system has many needs to provide for its community. One of those needs is to produce and maintain personal narratives that supportJ that religion's messages. In this paper I will consider the role of a unique form of biographical narratives known in Japanese Buddhism by the rubric ojoden ..., or biographies of people known to have attained a special rebirth outside sansara known as ojo, rendered here as Birth, in which one has reached the paradisic Pure Land of the Buddha Amida (Amitabha/Amitayus). Within this genre, special attention will be given to a little-known text from the late Heian period called Tenjiku ojo kenki ... [Miraculous accounts of Birth in the Pure Land in India, zjz vol. 16, 337], which forms a rather unusual example of Birth stories located in India. After a brief overview of the history of ojoden and discussion of how they might be studied, I will show how this particular Indian ojoden is both typical and atypical of the genre, and what it suggests about the nature of the genre itself. The term ojoden should perhaps be called properly ojo-nin-den ... because for all their depictions of the specific events of an individual's experience of ojo, the format is generally predicated on the frame of a biographical statement about individuals whose piety/diligence/praxis resulted in this specific religious attainment. While some refer to this form of soteriology as grace, the stories one encounters in the ojoden genre suggest another religious paradigm, for they always link ojo to praxis of one sort or another. The stories in ojoden may seem utterly imaginary or extremely mundane, and in combining these two aspects many resemble the magico-realism of contemporary South American literature. But in general they typically blend both the didactic and the doctrinal, mixing historiographic and hagiographic information in a way that skillfully brings the ideals of religion into the lives of what appears to be historical persons, and indeed many of the individuals are well-known historical personages. There are exceptions, however, because even though we know that the compilers of these texts often knew many of the people of whom they wrote and chose as exemplars of shared religious ideals, we also have examples of complete fiction purporting to do the same thing, as I will show below. I cannot do justice to the rich heritage of this literature in China and Japan in the space available and bemoan the fact that no complete translation of any of these works has as yet been published. The following, somewhat limited discussion, is an attempt to come to terms with the the nature of the genre itself, asking why it arose, what motivating factors can we discern in its authors or compilers, why it persisted into the modern period, and where should this genre fit in to our general understanding of Buddhist literature in a Japanese cultural context. Historical Overview of Ojoden The idea of broad, inclusive biographical compendiums is essentially a Chinese rather than an Indian conception, the most famous being the Kosoden, or Gaosengzhuan [Biographies of eminent monks, t 50. …

The Gold-Colored World: "Eulogyon the HolyRegions of Mount Wutai"

Dunhuang, an oasis on the Silk Road, is generally credited as the point of entry for Buddhism into China. Mount Wutai (Five Terrace Mountain 1i_ L1J),a sacred Buddhist mountain associated with the bodhisattva Mafijusri, was an important pilgrimage site for the disciples of tho AvataQlsaka, Pure Land, Tiantai, Chan, and Tantric schools. There must have been considerable communication between Dunhuang and Mount Wutai in the Tang and Five Dynasties era, judging from the materials found at Dunhuang, which include an intriguing corpus of poems celebrating the mountain appearing in over thirty manuscripts preserved in the Pelliot, Stein, Leningrad, and Beijing collections. 1 The authors are thought to be monks or lay devotees, and the poems date from the Late Tang to the Five Dynasties period. This essay focuses on one set of poems from the Wutai corpus: the "Eulogy on the Holy Regions of Mount Wutai" (Wutai shan shengjing zan 1i_L1.J~:tl_), eleven poems by Xuanben, monk of the Golden Terrace ~_"T~*, dating from the ninth century. The poems not only describe the most important miraculous sites on Mount Wutai but significant Indian figures as well. The "Eulogy" demonstrates an extraordinary mix of Chinese

Master Yinshun and the Pure Land Thought

The Chinese scholar-monk Yinshun (1906-), who is conceived as the founder of the renjian fojiao which is spread in Taiwan, dedicated quite a large part of his literary production to the Pure Land doctrine. This paper is divided into three main parts. The first section is an introduction to Yinshun's works on Pure Land and includes the criticism that those writings received. The second part discusses the concepts of purity and pure land in Yinshun's writings. Finally, the third and main part includes monographies on the main Pure Land in Mahayana Buddhism (the Pure Lands of Amitabha, Aksobhya, Maitreya and the Medicine Buddha), as concerned and analysed by Yinshun. This study aims to define Yinshun's philosophy through the analysis of his interpretation of the Pure Land doctrine, and provides a portrait of the Pure Land school in the contemporary Taiwan through questioning Yinshun's hermeneutics of Dharma. In addition, this work touches the issue of the relationship between tradition and innovation, by taking Yinshun and his Pure Land philosophy as case-study.

Hōnen's Senchaku doctrine and his artistic agenda.

As the founder of the Pure Land School, HŌnen (1133-1212) had a profound impact on the doctrines of the medieval period. His teachings on the exclusive selection of invocational nenbutsu generated a new doctrinal matrixwith far-reaching social and theological implications. Less well understood is the relation between HŌnen and the visual images of Pure Land Buddhism. A fresh examination of HŌnen's writings illuminates the monk's novel interpretation of a key soteriological icon: the paintings of Amida's welcoming descent with his celestial assembly. Special attention is given to the GŌshŌ mandara and its role both as a manifestation of HŌnen's doctrines and as a prototype for later paintings of Amida's welcoming descent with twenty-five bodhisattvas.

Study of Two Folios of the Uighur Text “Abitaki”

Recently we found 25 folios in Uighur of the the so-called “Abitaki” text in Beijing. The word “Abitaki” (< Chinese “Amituojing/Amitaking = Sanskrit Amitābha-sūtra) is used only as a code name written in small letter on the left side of some folios of the manuscript. But it has nothing to do with the famous scripture “Amitābha-sūtra” (one chapter, translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva in the 4th century AD). I hold that it belongs to a lost Buddhist Chinese book called “Da Bai Lian She Jing” (The Great White Lotus Society Sūtra) consisting of 4 chapters of the Pure Land School and it was copied in Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). Here I study and publish 2 folios (belonging to the 3rd chapter) of the text. The whole text will be published in the near future.

ON PURE LAND BUDDHISM AND CH'AN/PURE LAND SYNCRETISM IN MEDIEVAL CHINA

Modern studies of Buddhism and Chinese religion often refer to an indigenous Chinese Pure Land that arose in the medieval period. This school is typically characterized as a distinct tradition with its own teachings and its own line of patriarchs, including T'an-luan (476-542), Tao-ch'o (562-645), and Shantao (613-681). In the Sung, exegetes such as Yung-ming Yen-shou (904-975) are credited with creating a of Pure Land teachings and Ch'an, and the result-Ch'an/Pure Land syncretism-emerged as the dominant form of Buddhist monastic practice from the end of the Sung down through the present day. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.231 on Wed, 05 Oct 2016 04:23:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms ON PURE LAND BUDDHISM 331 In this article I argue that there is little evidence of anything resembling an independent or self-conscious Pure Land tradition in medieval China. Pure Land cosmology, soteriology, and ritual were always part-and-parcel of Chinese Buddhism in general and Ch'an monasticism in particular. Accordingly, there was no need for a synthesis of Pure Land and Ch'an. The modern conception of a Chinese Pure Land school with its own patriarchate and teachings, and the associated notion of Ch'an/Pure Land syncretism, are inordinately influenced by historical developments in Japan and the enduring legacy of sectarian polemics in contemporary Japanese scholarship. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.231 on Wed, 05 Oct 2016 04:23:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Preparing for the Pure Land

Buddhists see life and death as a whole with death as the beginning of another new life. Death is a fact of life for the Chinese, as it is for all people. When they think about death, many Chinese immediately call to mind the terms J ing Tu Zhong or, in recent times, Nian Fo. These Chinese terms are interchangeable and have been translated literally into English using the two words, "Pure Land". Because Jing Tu Zhong, "Pure Land" has been imbedded in the Chinese point of view for thousands of years, most Chinese only think of Jing Tu in terms of saving people after they have died, so that they will go to the Pure Land. Most people forget the other, more important religious aspect of this concept, which is to prepare the living to enter the Pure Land after death. In fact, Nian Fo is an extremely important and worthy school of philosophy, which not only guides the living to prepare for death but also to guide the dying as they face and pass through the fear of death. This paper discusses the Chinese peoples' conception and meaning of the Pure Land by following the original history of the concept of the "Pure Land" and the related sutras. Additionally, this paper addresses the contemporary chanting ceremony of Amitabha's name, how chanting practices in the Pure Land School deals with concerns about dying and the human spirit, and the Pure Land ceremonies used in conjunction with chant before and after death.

The Foundation of Temples of the Pure Land School in Late Medieval Times

The Foundation of Temples of the Pure Land School in Late Medieval Times

Activities of the Pure Land School in the Hokuriku District during the Muromachi Period

Activities of the Pure Land School in the Hokuriku District during the Muromachi Period

Shinran's Views on the Founders of the Pure Land School

Shinran's Views on the Founders of the Pure Land School

The Activities of the Fujita Sect of the Pure Land School in the Early Modern Age

The Activities of the Fujita Sect of the Pure Land School in the Early Modern Age

Pure Land Buddhism and The Buddhist Historical Tradition

In this paper I will offer an analysis of what it means to be a ‘historical tradition’. My purpose in undertaking this analysis is to apply the result to a problem of modern Buddhology, namely, the important question as to whether the Sino-Japanese ‘Pure Land School’ of Buddhism is to be considered as part of the Buddhist Historical Tradition. Before defining the term ‘historical tradition’, let me remark that I shall be seeking a descriptive or ‘empiricist’ view of what constitutes a given historical tradition. I shall not deal with any particular theory of history containing non-empirical elements, such as for example the Marxist View of history. My view could also be described as the Earl‘ Buddhist View of history. One might ask, is there such a thing as ‘Early Buddhism’? I take it as having been demonstrated by Dr David J. Kalupahana that there is such a thing as ‘Early Buddhism’. His method is to compare those same suttas occurring in the Pali Nikayas and Chinese Āgamas. Since these sources are most likely the earliest historical material available to us, then it is reasonable for us to take any common and consistent doctrines we might find in them as the ‘Early Buddhist View’. As Dr Kalupahana very ably demonstrates, we do indeed find such a common doctrine, which amounts to a form of empiricist philosophy. Thus, we can label this as the Early Buddhist View.

The Activities of the Fujita Sect of the Pure Land School in the Late Middle Ages

The Activities of the Fujita Sect of the Pure Land School in the Late Middle Ages

Views of the Patriarchs of the Pure Land School on nien-fu: Some Distinctive Features in the Case of Tao-ch'o

Views of the Patriarchs of the Pure Land School on nien-fu: Some Distinctive Features in the Case of Tao-ch'o

K'uei-chi's View of the Pure Land School as Originally for Ordinary Beings

K'uei-chi's View of the Pure Land School as Originally for Ordinary Beings

The Teachings of Rennyo Shōnin : the Life of Faith

usually centered upon the life and teachings of H6nen Sh6nin (II33I212 and Shinran Sh6nin (1173-1262), the founders of J6do Shti (Pure Land School) and J6do Shinshil (True Pure Land School) respectively. 1) At the same time, there have been significant attempts to understand Japanese Pure Land Buddhism within the context of its earlier developments in India and China. 2) In spite of this, the usual presupposition underlying current discussions of Japanese Pure Land thought and practice is that Shinran's use of the tradition in interpreting his own unique religious insights, especially his doctrine of faith, carried Pure Land tradition to its highest, and therefore doctrinally normative development. 3) It is precisely because there is much truth in this notion that little attention has been paid to the development of Pure Land thought and practice beyond the age of Shinran.

On Yin Shun Fa-Shih's “Ching T'u Shin Lun”, a Phase of Pure Land School of Modern China

On Yin Shun Fa-Shih's “Ching T'u Shin Lun”, a Phase of Pure Land School of Modern China

“Sincere Min” Interpretated in Three Pure-land Schools

“Sincere Min” Interpretated in Three Pure-land Schools

The Formation of Honen's Doctrine and the Pure Land School of Nara

The Formation of Honen's Doctrine and the Pure Land School of Nara