“Remapping Buddhism as a ‘World Religion’: Gyōnen’s 凝然 Essentials of the Eight Sects (Hasshū kōyō 八宗綱

要 , 1268), and Modernist East Asian Agendas”

(Dajue Monastery 大覺寺 , Bronx, NY, 1976)

I. Chinese Buddhism by the Book

The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, by Takakusu Junjirō, ed. Wing-tsit Chan and Charles Moore. (Honolulu: Office Appliance Co., 1956).

Compiled from lectures that Takakusu wrote, ca. 1938-1939, to use for discussion of Buddhist thought at the first International East – West Philosophy Conference, Hawai’i, 1939.

Front Gate of Dajue si ( 大覺寺 ), Bronx, NY, 1976:with Buddhist monks (left to right)

Shengyan 聖嚴 , Renjun 仁俊 , Minzhi 敏智 , Dongchu 東初 , and Jingtong 靜通

Minzhi 敏智 (1909-1996):

● Studient at Min’nan and Wuchang academies established by the reformist monk Taixu (1890-1947); graduate of Wuchang in 1935.

● 1935-7, Chan training at Tianning monastery; becomes Dharma-heir in Chan lineage of Tianning Monastery, via Chan master Zhenglian 證蓮 .

● 1938, appointed director of the Tianning Buddhist Academy, the curriculum of which he completely revises, making it one of the most influential modern Buddhist academies. 1946-9, abbot of Tianning.

Dongchu 東初 (1908-1977):

● Student at Taixu’s Min’nan Academy.

● 1934-6, Chan training at Tianning Monastery; receives Dharma- transmission from Chan master Zhenglian.

● Becomes abbot of Dinghui Monastery, Jiaoshan, where also receives Dharma-transmission from Zhiguang (student with Taixu at Yang Wenhui’s Jetavana Academy, Nanjing). Founds Jiaoshan Academy.

Renjun 仁俊 (1919-2011):

● Student at Tianning Buddhist Academy (1938), with Minzhi as director); then to Taixu’s Minnan Buddhist Academy (1941-43).

● 1943, returns to Tianning Buddhist Academy to serve as instructor; then as instructor at Taixu’s Jing’an Buddhist Academy, Shanghai; in Hong Kong (1953), meets and becomes disciple of Taixu’s influential student, Yinshun 印順 (1906-2005).

Shengyan 聖嚴 (1930-2009):

● 1847-8, student at Taixu’s Jing’an Buddhist Academy (where Renjun is instructor); later becomes disciple and Dharma-heir to Chan master Dongchu (1902-1977).

(L) Taixu 太虛 (1890-1947), Buddhist modernizer and founder of Wuchang, Min’nan, and other academies;(R ) Yang Wenhui 楊文會 (Renshan 仁山 ) (1837-1911), at whose Jetavana Academy (Nanjing), Taixu studied.

A modernist meta-narrative of Buddhist history constituted and contested across continents

• Essentials of the Eight Sects (Hasshū kōyō 八宗綱要 ), compiled in 1268 by Gyōnen 凝然 (1240-1321), Japanese monk of the Kegon (Huayan) School, Tōdaiji monastery, Nāra.

The text (or derivatives thereof) adopted as a primer in Chinese Buddhist academies of Yang Wenhui and Taixu, among others.

• The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, by Takakusu Junjirō, ed. Wing-tsit Chan and Charles Moore. 1939. (Honolulu: Office Appliance Co., 1956).

A work produced for comparative discussion of Buddhism as a ‘world philosophy / religion’ that, in turn, disseminated that narrative to

countless American students.

Shengyan’s reminiscence of his encounter with Gyōnen’s Essentials of the Eight Sects at the Jing’an Buddhist Academy, 1947-1948:

有分別的介紹而沒有粽合的比較 不拘一宗一派

II. How a neglected, medieval Japanese treatise became a universal ‘Buddhist primer’ in East Asia:

‘Copyright waived’ 1887 reprint of Gyōnen’s Hasshū kōyō, with

commentary of contemporary Japanese scholars.

Japanese Discovery and Dissemination of Gyōnen’s Essentials of the Eight Sects (Hasshū

kōyō)during the Meiji and Taishō eras, ca. 1878-1924

• 15 editions of the original text, with commentary, printed in Japan between 1878 & 1909.

• 6 additional editions produced between 1912 &1924.

• 1880s, Gyōnen’s Essentials is adopted as a “primer” ( 初學科本 ) of Buddhist history & thought in newly founded Japanese Buddhist academies and universities.

Updated and Expanded Surveys of Buddhist Historymodeled on Gyōnen’s Essentials of the Eight Sects

• Short History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects (Nihon bukkyō jūnishū ryakushi 日本仏教十二宗略史 ), 1886. English version translated and edited by Nanjō Bun’yū 南条文雄 (1849-1927).

An ecumenical project by Japanese priests from five different

Buddhist sects, initiated and overseen by the Higashi honganji

Jōdo shinshū sect 東本願寺浄道 真宗 . Edited by Ogurusu

Kōchō 小栗栖香頂 (1831-1905), who wrote the introduction.

• Essentials of the Individual Buddhist Sects (Bukkyō kakushū kōyō 佛教各宗綱要 , 5 vols. 1896.

An ecumenical effort led by the influential Jōdo shinshū Buddhist

priest and modernizer, Shimaji Mokurai 島地黙雷 (1838-1911). Six reprints in the first year; four revisions over the next

decade.

European Translations and Appropriations of Nanjio’s Short History of the Twelve Sects (Jūnishū ryakushi)

• A Short History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects, translation by Nanjio Bunyiu (Nanjō Bun’yū). Published by Jōdo shinhū, 1886.

• Le Bouddhisme Japonais: Doctrines et histoire des douze grandes sects Bouddhiques du Japon, by Fujishima Ryauon. Maison Neuve, 1889. French translation of Nanjio’s Twelve Sects. Takakusu’s Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy is modeled closely on this work.

• “The Ten Schools of Chinese Buddhism,” by Sukumar Dutt. In History of Philosophy, East and West, edited by S. Radhakrishnan (London, 1952).

• Western surveys of Buddhism in China and East Asia that reference Nanjio’s Short History or Fujishima’s French translation:

Ernst Hackmann, Buddhism as a Religion. 1910.Wm. Elliot Griffis, Religions of Japan. 1912.Reginald Fleming Johnston, Buddhist China. 1913. Samuel Beal, Catena of Buddhist Scriptures. 1871.Lewis Hodous, Buddhism and Buddhists in China. 1924.Karl Ludwig Reichelt. Truth and Tradition in Chinese Buddhism.

1927.

Chinese Appropriations of Gyōnen’s Essentials (Hasshū kōyō)

Yang Wenhui 楊文會 ( 仁山 ) (1837-1911):

• Primer of Buddhism for Beginning Students (with Commentary) 佛教初學課本 / 註 . Commentary by Wan Shuhao 萬叔豪 . 1906. Used at Yang’s Zhiyuan jingshe Buddhist academy, Nanjing, 1907-1909.

• The Sects/Schools of Buddhism, with Detailed Annotations 佛教宗派詳註 . Yang Wenhui, commentary by Wan Shuhao 萬叔豪 . 1921. Pref. by Ding Fubao 丁福保 . Contents Abstracted from Yang’s Primer of Buddhism for Beginning Students.

• Brief Exposition of the Ten Sects/Schools 十宗略說 . D.u. Yang Wenhui.

Taixu 太虛 (1890-1947): • Origins and Transmission of Each of the Buddhist Sects/Schools 佛教各

宗派源流 . 1922.

• Outline for the Study of Buddhism 佛學概論 . 1930, pp. 31-52. Authored and used at Taixu’s Wuchang Academy.

Additional Surveys Modeled on Gyōnen’s Essentials

• Gao Zhenru 高真如 . Basic Tenets/Sects of Buddhism 佛教宗要 .

• Huang Chanhua 黃懺華 (1890-1977). Overview of the Individual Buddhist Sects/Schools 佛教各宗大意 (1931).

_____________. Outline for the Study of Buddhism 佛學概論 (1935).

_____________. History of Buddhism in China 中國佛教史 (1940).

• Zhou Shujia 周叔迦 (1899-1970). Basics of the Eight Sects/Schools 八宗概要 . In Zhuji 著集 , no. 2181-2454.

__________. History of Buddhism in China 中國佛教史 , Zhuji, 184-207.

• Jiang Weiqiao 將維喬 et al. Overview of Buddhism 佛教概論 (1930), 3.1-96. Authored for use in the Philosophy Department, Guanghua

University. • Tang Yongtong 湯用彤 . “There are No Ten Sects in Chinese Buddhism” 中國

佛教無十宗 . In 哲學研究 3 (1962). Also, 中國佛教宗派問題 [ XX] 論 . 1963.

Adoption of Gyōnen’s Text, or Derivatives thereof, in Buddhist Academies of Republican Era China

Yang Wenhui 楊文會 , Inner Curriculum for Buddhist Schools 釋氏學堂內班課程 :

Jetavana Hermitage/ Academy 祇洹精舍 , Nanjing (1908-1910)

Specifies use of Primer for Beginning Students 佛教初學課本 in the “general education curriculum” ( 普通學 ) for first year students

Canonical texts from each of the “ten schools/sects” ( 十宗 ) are studied in the “specialized curriculum” ( 專門學 ) for advanced students.

Taixu 太虛 , Autobiography 太虛自傳 :

Taixu’s Origin and Dissemination of the Individual Sects 佛教各宗派源流 used in first year “general education curriculum” ( 普通學科 ), Wuchang Buddhist Academy 武昌佛學院 .

III. Global Encounters and ‘Religion’ ( 宗教 )in the Emergent East Asian ‘Nation State’ ( 國家 )

Japan:

● 1854, Japan opens to foreign trade and Christian missionaries.

● 1868, Meiji Restoration. Modernization; rise of constitutional nation state in Japan.

● 1871, confiscation of Buddhist land-holdings; reorganization of Buddhist temples and lineages into organized “sects/schools” (shū 宗 ); redefinition of legal status and privileges of Buddhist clergy and institutions.

● 1872-89, juridical separation of “state” and “religion,” the “secular” and the “religious.” Religious freedom and legal

status for “religions,” as long as they conform to civil norms. 1889, Meiji Constitution.

China:

● 1839-1842 and 1856-1860, the ‘opium wars’ and ‘unequal treaty’ concessions; expanded Christian missionary presence.

● 1894-95, Sino-Japanese War; Qing Court cedes Manchuria to Japanese.

● 1898, Hundred Days’ Reform in Qing Dynasty China.

● 1911/1912, fall of Qing Dynasty (and imperial rule); rise of Chinese Republic and nation state; constitutional governance.

● 1913, constitutional separation of “religion” and “state,” “secular society” and “religion”; “freedom of belief within scope of the law.”

● 1898, begin confiscation of Buddhist properties to create secular schools; 1927-37, “Anti-Superstition Campaign,” further inroads.

Buddhist Responses: How to be a “Religion” in a Modern, Secularized State.

Buddhist encounters between Japan, China, Europe, and America:

● 1872, Japanese Jōdo shinshū (True Pure Land) priests sent to Europe: examine the relationship between “religion” and “state,” university curricula, and the “scientific study of religion.” 1884-86, Nanjō Bun’yū sent to study Sanskrit with Max Müller at Oxford. (Translates Müller’s Introduction to Scientific Study of Rel.)

● 1880s, private universities established by major Buddhist sects in Japan; curriculum includes history of Buddhism & the “study of religion.” 1889 – 1905, the ‘scientific study of religion’ is formally established as an academic discipline at Tokyo Imperial University.

● 1878-84 and 1886-89, Yang Wenhui visits Europe, meets Müller and Nanjō; Taixu to Japan (1925), Europe & US (1928-29).

● 1904-09, the rise of ‘modern’ Buddhist academies in China.

Ca. 1870s:

Enter the translingual neologism

zongjiao (J, shūkyō 宗教 ), the topos of ‘religion’

and the discourse of ‘world religions’

New and Shifting Fields of Discourse

The Irrational & Supernatural ↓ religion

• systematic doctrine, belief • holy scripture • identifiable institutions and authority • ethics (with elements of rational and socially progressive morality)

↓ ↓ organized inchoate religion vs. “popular religion”

↓

“superstition” and

“magic”

The Rational & Empirical ↓ the secular

• science and technological progress

• civil society, grounded in a

rational, philosophical and humanistic morality.

• teleological concept of social progress, which culminates in ‘modernity’ ( 現代 ), and ‘modern society.’

The Taxonomical Field and Lexicon

Religions classified by sacred scriptures (or lack

thereof) and linguistic genealogy

Religions classified by historical period and

duration

religions classified by nation (region),

culture, race

Religions classified by by attribute and type (animistic, magical /

ritualistic, moral, etc.)

“Religion” as a distinct yet universal dimension of

human existence

Taxonomy Configured as Historical Teleology

A “World religion” of and for modernity

↑

“World religions” (religions or universal import or reach)

↑

Religions “of the world “

↑

“Ethnic” or “national” religions

↑

“Primitive / natural” religion

• Spiritual, rationally moral, text-centered, socially progressive, individualistic. Singular?

• Transcend geopolitical, ethnic, linguistic boundaries by dint of universal (humanistic?) message & appeal. Single inspired ‘founder.’

• Aggregate accumulation of the different ‘expressions’ of ‘religiosity.’

• By language, region, ethnicity, with no overt objectification as a discrete religion/tradition.

• Magic, ritual, animistic & polytheistic, tribal, inchoate / diffused.

Evolution of religion as no evolution at all . . .

Though presented as ‘evolutionary’, the vertical alignment of religious ‘types’ into a single linear progression, with existing religious cultures assigned to specific historical ‘stages’, freezes religious cultures in taxonomical and teleological place—relics that are denied the possibility of further change.

A religious “survival of the fittest”: The analogue to Herbert Spencer’s (1820-1903) evolution of social & political forms. (Multiple translations of his writings into Japanese, ca. 1866-1900.)

The question of “Buddhism’s” evolutionary destiny, and the place of different “Buddhisms” on the historical ladder. Whose tradition is the Buddhism of modernity?

IV. Master Narrative & the Struggle for its Control

● A sweeping historical narrative that represents Buddhism as a

unitary tradition evolving across three lands: India, China, Japan.

● Different developments/teachings are ‘staged’ accordingly (time,

place, race, phase, doctrine (?).

● Compels local traditions to define themselves according to its

narrative arc and taxonomical grid.

● Struggle to control the master narrative: whose tradition or locale

speaks authoritatively for “Buddhism” in the “whole”—or as a

“world religion” of modernity?

Essentials of Eight Sects, Overview of Ten Sects, History of Twelve Sects, Gyōnen Nanjō Bun’yū Yang Wenhui

I. Introduction: I. Introduction: I. Introduction:

▪ Overview of the ▪ Cosmology ▪ Cosmology Buddha’s Teachings. ▪ Śākyamuni Buddha ▪ Śākyamuni Buddha

▪ Buddhism in India ▪ Buddhism in India ▪ Buddhism in India

▪ Buddhism in China ▪ Buddhism in China ▪ Buddhism in China

▪ Buddhism in Japan ▪ Buddhism in Japan

II. Individual Sects II. Individual Sects II. Twelve Sects

[“Ancient” Sects, Nara Period]

[“Medieval” Sects, Heian]

[“Modern” Sects, Kamakura]

Essentials of the Eight Sects, Gyōnen

Brief History of the Twelve Sects, Nanjō Bunyū

Overview of the Ten Sects, Yang Wenhui

II. Individual Schools/Sects [“Ancient” Sects, Nara Period] [Ten Schools/Sects 十宗 ]

1. 具舍宗 1. 具舍宗 1. 律宗

2. 成實宗 2. 成實宗 2. 具舍宗

3. 律宗 3. 律宗 3. 成實宗

4. 法相宗 4. 法相宗 4. 三論宗

5. 三論宗 5. 三論宗 5. 天台宗

6. 天台宗 6. 華嚴宗 6. 華嚴宗

[“Medieval” Sects, Heian Period] 7. 慈恩 宗 ( 法相 / 唯識 )

7. 華嚴宗 7. 天台宗 8. 禪宗

8. 真言宗 8. 真言宗 9. 真言宗

III. Supplement/Appendix [“Modern Sects,” Kamakura Period] 10. 淨土宗

9. 淨土宗 (Hōnen)

禪 10. 禪宗 (Eisai)

淨土 11. 淨土真宗 (Shinran)

12. 日蓮宗 (Nichiren)

Gyōnen’s Essentials and its Modernist Appeal

I. Introduction: • Overview of the Buddha’s Dharma; the tradition in India, China, Japan.

II. Individual Schools/Sects:

1. Abhidharmakoṣa ( 具舍宗 ) of Vasubandhu -- Hīnayānist ( 小乘 ).

2. Satya/tattva-siddhi śāstra ( 成實論 ) of Harivarman -- Hīnayānist ( 小乘 ).

3. Vinaya school/sect (律宗 ) – Dharmaguptaka vinaya line of Nanshan Daoxuan ( 南山道宣 ). China. Hīnayānist and Mahāyānist.

4. Dharmas and Marks School (dharmalakṣana) 法相宗 = Yogācāra of Vasubandhu and Asanga, via Chinese master Xuanzang.

Mahāyānist.

5. Three Treatise School 三論宗 = Madhyamaka tradition of Nāgārjuna, introduced to China by Kumārajīva. Mahāyānist.

6. Tiantai/Tendai School 天台宗 . China. Mahāyānist → One Buddha Vehicle.

7. Huayan/Kegon School 華嚴宗 . China. Mahāyānist → One Buddha Vehicle.

8. True Word or Shingon School 真言宗 . China, flourishes in Japan. Esoteric.

III. Supplement/Appendix: (9) Chan/Zen 禪 & (10) Pure Land 淨土

The Universal with an Edge: refinement and exclusion within the Buddha’s Dharma?

The “eight (ten) sects” are arranged in a sequence that recalls Kūkai’s ( 空海 , 774-835) “ten mentalities or perspectives” (jūjū shinron 十住心論 ):

A comprehensive classification ( 教判 ) of Buddhist teaching in India, China, and Japan organized by relative degree of expediency and truth or reality.

Elementary/expedient ( 小乘 , 大乘 ) → Advanced/true (Shingon 真言 ) (Zen, Pure Land??)

India (early, late) → China → Japan Era of the Buddha → Heian & Kamakura period Japan

“Though [Gyōnen] professes that the sects are listed according to no particular

order, order is most definitely detected in his arrangement.” - Editors of an early 20th c. Japanese reprint of Hasshū

kōyō

Nanjō’s 十二宗略史 Short History of the Twelve Sects

• Same structure as Gyōnen’s Essentials, with added emphases and select changes to the order of the sects: Jōdo shin & Nichiren sects placed last.

• Gyōnen’s hierarchical classification (the “ten mentalities”) is replaced with a “neutral” historical framework (“ancient,” “medieval,” “modern” Japan).

• But hints of teleological trajectory and hierarchy remain:

-- Jōdo Shin and Nichiren claim historical primacy over other

Buddhist schools, past and present, as the predestined fulfillment of a

progressive revelatory unfolding of the Buddha’s teaching.

-- Kamakura Period (13th c.) Japan is represented as an evolutionary

watershed in Buddhist history, when ‘Buddhism’ encounters Japanese

ethnic essence.

-- ALL prior Buddhist teachings and literatures of India, China, and Japan

are cumulatively preserved in Japan.

Fujishima’s spin on Nanjō: The Modern Triumph of Japanese Buddhism

and the Jōdo shinshū● Jōdo shinshū (the True Pure Land School) represents the final,

predestined historical unfolding of the Budddha’s teaching—the epitome of evolution across three continents. It renders obsolete all other (earlier) Buddhist schools and teachings (senchaku 選択 ).

● A religion of rational faith, spirituality, and morality, individualistic and accessible to all peoples: the ‘universal religion’ for modernity.

● Buddhism disappeared long ago in India; was once vital in China but since ‘corrupted’ and in ‘decline.’ (‘Ignorance’ and intellectual insufficiencies of Chinese ‘priests’; sectarian distinctions muddied).

● Only in Japan has Buddhism continuously ‘flourished’; its traditions, texts, teachings cumulatively preserved and studied there

“Only to Japan can we assign the name ‘true or orthodox Buddhism’.”

Chinese Discomfort with the Hasshū kōyō Yang Wenhui Preface:

“When students wade into [this text] and begin to make comparisons, they

should take care not to enter as lord-and-master and exit as slave.”

Ding Fubao Preface to Yang’s Text for Beginning Students:

“The teachings [of Dharma] holistically interfuse [with one another], and in

their interfusion, they are [collectively] sublime ( 妙 ). People are given to biased

grasping, and through biased grasping [the teachings] become mutually

conflicting. This problem arises from the inability to integrate the [different]

schools, which causes them to become as mutually repellant as water and fire.”

Jiang Weiqiao and Han Tongzeng, 佛教概論 :

“Each school for the most part denigrates other schools and lauds the

superiority of its own. For beginning students this is very problematic.”

圓融 , 融和 , 融貫 , 綜合 vs. 偏執 , 偏滯 , 排斥 , 分別

Yang Wenhui’s Treatment of the “Ten Sects”

• Placement of Vinaya School/Teaching first and Pure Land School/Teaching last – a soteriological or “path” narrative.

• Emphasis on integral complementarity of the ten schools.

Brief Exposition of the Ten Sects/Schools 十宗略說 states:

“The foregoing nine schools individually accommodate ( 分攝 ) the myriad capacities; but the last school [of Pure Land] universally accommodates ( 普攝 ) the myriad capacities. Regardless the particular teaching that one pursues, they all serve as provisions ( 資糧 ) for [rebirth in] the Pure Land. As such the nine schools enter into this one school [of Pure Land]. Upon rebirth in the Pure Land, each and every teaching [of Dharma] is apprehended in its integral totality. Thus the one school or teaching [of the Pure Land] enters the nine, and they interfuse without obstruction ( 融通無礙 ).”

V. Yang Wenhui and the Japanese Jōdo Shinshū mission to China

1875 Jōdo shinshū initiates mission in Shanghai, led by Ogurusu Kōchō小栗栖香頂 (1831-1905). Yang and others are initially supportive.

1876 Ogurusu (under Shinshū supervision) writes Basics of Shinshū Teaching ( 真 宗教旨 ); circulated to prospective Chinese converts.

1878-84 Yang befriends Nanjō Bun’yū in England.

1890 Nanjō (and Ogurusu) arrange for copies of lost Chinese Buddhist

texts to be obtained from Japan. Includes numerous Pure Land tracts and commentaries, especially Shandao’s ( 善導 ) 4-fascicle Commentary to the Contemplation Sūtra 觀無量壽經疏 .

-- Controversies erupt between Chinese Buddhists and Japanese

Shinshū priests over interpretation of Shandao’s teaching.

1898 A Shinshū mission is established in Nanjing, Yang’s hometown.

-- Open ideological conflict between Ogurusu and Yang. Yang refutes Ogurusu’s Basics of Shinshū Teaching ( 真宗教旨 ).

Yang Wenhui, Primer of Buddhism for Beginners佛教初學課本注 ( 淨土宗 ):

“Among persons today who are intellectually discerning, there are none who do not give utmost importance to places of learning. To borrow the simile, the Western Pure Land is simply the epitome of universities ( 大學 ). Amitābha greets and draws living beings there from every direction so they can pursue study. He supplies them with meals and clothing. Tuition is not required. Nor does he set a quota on the number of students admitted, or their age. The grounds and facilities of the campus are themselves of unfathomable size, their dimensions utterly without limit. Persons who enter his school, regardless of their ability, eventually achieve ‘assurance of the unoriginated nature of the dharmas’ (anutpattikadharmakṣānti, 無生法忍 ). . . . To put it in the most absolute terms possible, all the manifold teachings of the ten directions and three periods are replete there, without exception. Hence among all the Buddhas, there is not one who does not sing its praises.”

(L) Shengyan’s diploma from the Buddhist Academy at Jing’an Monastery, Shanghai;

(B) Class graduation photo, 1948.

● The truth to which the Buddha awakened is unitary, eternal, ineffable in its essence.

● The Buddha expediently preached different teachings in accordance with the differing capacities of his audience ( 權教 , 方便教 ). His teachings were oral, and site/audience specific; later collected, codified, organized into sūtra and canon by his followers.

● Various scriptures and teachings of the Buddha “conceal” (yin 隱 ), “manifest” (xian 顯 ), and transform in response to historical time, circumstance, and capacity, as they are transmitted through India, China, Japan.

● Despite such apparent historical vicissitudes, awakened saints/sages (sheng 聖 ) are ever-present and ever-ready to manifest in the world to revive or set the Dharma right: an historical economy of self-correcting revelation.

● Gyōnen says of his list of eight sects (expanded to ten, with Chan and Pure Land), “It is not a sequential order of shallow to profound, but a purely nominal listing.”

● Retention/universality: “A unitary transcendent truth is given particular historical and cultural expressions, which are harmoniously mediated and retained without violation of the ‘unity’ and ‘universality’ of the transcendent.” (Ketalaar)

Fujishima

Jōdo shinshū (True Jōdo Sect):

“It is not simply a religion in the ordinary sense of the word, that is to

say, an exultation of sentiment at the expense of reason. Its teaching

additionally contains the element of philosophy. . .

What is more, it can aspire to the title of a ‘universal religion’ because

its appeal reaches just as readily to elites as to lower classes.”

“The doctrine of this school differs resolutely from those of all other

schools. This uniqueness rests with its exclusive reliance on the

superior grace and power of the original vow of Amitābha [Buddha] . . .

the essential condition for salvation.”

Fujishima, continued

“Buddhism in India has, since long ago, disappeared completely. . . In

China, the thirteen sects of the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna flourished up

to the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties but has been in

a state of continual decadence ever since.

“The reason for this negligence rests with the overall ignorance of

the [Chinese] priests, who are too insufficiently learned [in Buddhist

sūtras and treatises] to rise to the intellectual level of the teachings of

the true Buddhism.

“Because Buddhism in other places and times was never been as

flourishing as in Japan, its books, its sects, its priests—who are in

general better educated than their counterparts in China—and

especially the Mahāyāna teachings experienced no such decline.

“Also, only to the [Buddhist tradition] of Japan can we assign the name ‘orthodox Buddhism’.”

Taixu, Source and Rivulets of the Schools: “Precepts, meditative concentration, and

insight constitute the Path that is a single thread. Is there even one among the eight

sects that, with bias, casts aside the precepts, concentration, or insight? There

is not one that does not regard purifying a Buddha-land as the fundamental [task of]

cultivation and [the place where] the myriad wholesome [actions] coalesce in common.”

I. Chinese Buddhism by the Book

The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, by Takakusu Junjirō, ed. Wing-tsit Chan and Charles Moore. (Honolulu: Office Appliance Co., 1956; reprint, 1973).

Compiled from lectures that Takakusu wrote, ca. 1938-1939, to use as a core text for discussion of East Asian Buddhist thought at the first international East – West Philosophy Conference, Hawai’I, 1939.

Tianning Monastery in Changzhou, Jiangsu

Takakusu, Essentials of the Japanese Buddhist Sects

• “In Japan the whole of Buddhism has been preserved . . . In Japan Buddhism is the living and active faith of the mass of the people.” P. 9

• “The only way to give a résumé of Buddhist philosophy in all its different schools is to give a résumé of Buddhism in Japan. It is in Japan that the entire Buddhist literature is preserved and studied.” P. 10.

• Question: What of Buddhist “sects” in China? Distinctions lost and vitality declined after the Tang.

Karl Reichelt (ca.. 1927) example of narrative globalization

Essentials of the Eight Sects, Gyōnen

Brief History of the Twelve Sects, Nanjio Bunyu

Overview of the Ten Sects, Yang Wenhui

I. Introduction: ● Overview of the Buddha’s Teachings. ● Buddhism in India ● Buddhism in China ● Buddhism in Japan

Introduction: ● cosmology ● Śākyamuni Buddha ● Buddhism in India ● Buddhism in China ● Buddhism in Japan

[Introduction]] ● cosmology ● Śākyamuni Buddha ● Buddhism in India ● Buddhism in China 中國佛教

II. Individual Schools/Sects [“Ancient” Sects, Nara Period] [Ten Schools/Sects 十宗 ]

1. 具舍宗 1. 具舍宗 1. 律宗

2. 成實宗 2. 成實宗 2. 具舍宗

3. 律宗 3. 律宗 3. 成實宗

4. 法相宗 4. 法相宗 4. 三論宗

5. 三論宗 5. 三論宗 5. 天台宗

6. 天台宗 6. 華嚴宗 6. 華嚴宗

[“Medieval” Sects, Heian Period] 7. 慈恩 宗 ( 法相 / 唯識 )

7. 華嚴宗 7. 天台宗 8. 禪宗

8. 真言宗 8. 真言宗 9. 真言宗

III. Supplement/Appendix [“Modern Sects,” Kamakura Period] 10. 淨土宗

9. 淨土宗 (Hōnen)

禪 10. 禪宗 (Eisai)

淨土 11. 淨土真宗 (Shinran)

12. 日蓮宗 (Nichiren)