FUSŌ GOBUSSHIN RON - ENGLISH TRANSLATION – - Fascicle 1 - Translation Treatise on Japan's Protecting Buddha's and Gods - Preface. Anciently, the Great Priest Furi Qisong1 (1007-1072) hid himself near the West Lake for thirty years. Broadly he perused the instructions from Lu2, widely he searched the Indian scriptures, and he wrote down [his findings] in Fujiaobian 輔教編 ("Compilation in aid of the Teaching") and Fei Han 非韓3 ("Refuting Han [Yu]"), thirty chapters in all. He came to the aid of the teachings of Śākya[muni, which] were already on the verge of collapsing. I was forced to withdraw4 to the village Nanmoku,5 [where] I 1 Song Mingjiao dashi is the Chinese priest Furi Qisong 佛日契嵩, a.k.a. Mingjiao-dashi. (N.B. The Japanese pronunciation of the name 契嵩 is "Kaisū.") Amongst other things, he was an exponent of the sanjiao heyi 三教合一 ("Unity of the Three Teachings"). Bussho kaisetsu daijiten lists six titles under his name. 2 The words "the instructions of Lu" are evidently opposed to the words "Indian scriptures," i.e. Buddhist texts. The same applies to the seven loci one can find through the "SAT Daizōkyō Text Database"; here, too, the words are opposed to zhufen 竺墳, (six times) and shidian 釋典 (one time). The term evidently refers to the Confucian corpus (perhaps to Lunyu?). The compound is not listed in Morohashi, 3 Both in Fujiaobian (3 fasc.) and in Fei Han, Qisong takes a non-exclusivist position towards Confucianism and Taoism. N.B. For the change of the characters in the titles, see Honkoku, note 1. 4 The point seems to be that Chōon creates a parallel between Qisong, who went to live on the West Lake and studied, and Chōon himself, who also went to live in the countryside in order to study. The wording, both the auxiliary 令 and the verb nogareru ("to evade, to escape, to run off"), is intriguing. It might be interpreted as a reference to the banishment to which Chōon was sentenced because of his involvement in the publication of Taisei-kyō. The facts are as follows: it was under the name of Chōon Dōkai (1628-1695) that Taisei-kyō was published in 1679. After the bakufu had decided to acknowledge the complaint of the Ise Shrine that Taisei-kyō was a fraudulent text, Chōon was placed under house arrest in the Kōsaiji 広済寺 in Tatebayashi, by way of punishment. The Kōsaiji had been founded for him in 1669 by the future shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. His arrest lasted only three months, from the 10th month until the 8th day of the 12th month of Tenna 2 (1682). The following year, Chōon travelled the country, visiting such Shōtoku-related places as the Shitennōji in Osaka and the Hōryūji in Nara. In the 5th month of the same year, Tsunayoshi's successor as lord of the fief Tatebayashi died, so the fief was abolished. Having lost his patrons, Chōon wanted to leave the Kōsaiji and go elsewhere; eventually, he settled for the Fudōji in Kōzuke (see next note). (Based on Ōbaku bunka jinmei jiten, s.v. "Chōon Dokai.") According to Chōon's biography Kurotaki Chōon oshō nenpu 黒滝潮音和尚年譜, Chōon had been in the Kurotaki region before, in 1675; both then and at this occasion, he was invited by local patrons to come to Kurotaki. read [the writings of] Mr. Hayashi [Razan]. (0:1b) [I concluded that] overtly he supported the Way of the Gods (Shintō), but that secretly he suppressed the Practice of the [Way of the] Gods (Shinpō).6 In all openness he criticised7 Buddhism and made it out to be a heterodox theory. Thus, I could not suffer to remain silent, and I wrote this treatise. I hope that those men who have an interest in the gods and Buddha's will read it, will declaim it. What is correct and what is false is as easily distinguished as a Chinese and a barbarian in the clear See the entry in Nenpu for 1683: 潮音禅師が天和三年(1683)の秋、館林の萬徳山を辞して黒瀧山 に隠棲したが、それには黒瀧山の高源和尚や桐渕心源居士などの強い招請があったからで、潮 音禅師は、年譜に「師、曽って官寺を厭うの志あり、官府に聞きて萬徳を辞す。始め補陀に入 らんと欲す・・・・」. 5 Chōon Dōkai's literary pseudonym was Nanboku Shōfu 南牧樵夫; he left a Nanboku shōfu hyakugin shū 南牧樵夫百吟集（batsu of Genroku 7, 1694; 4 copies of the printed edition survive). Nanmoku (a different pronunciation of the same characters) also represents the place name Nanmoku-mura, Kanra-gun 甘樂郡, Kōzuke Province (Gunma-ken). In Tenna 3/7/1 (1683), Chōon became the new abbot (shinsan 晉山; Bukkyōgo Daijiten p. 779) of Kurotakiyama Fudōji 黒瀧山不 動寺 in this village. It remained his residence until his death, though he continued to travel widely. In the winter of Jōkyō 5 (1688), his patrons and disciples asked him to make the Fudōji the chief temple of his school 潮音派下の本山 and a 開法道場. Chōon consented, and on the 4th day of the 10th month he conducted a ceremony for the opening of the hall 開堂を行う. (Based on Ōbaku bunka jinmei jiten s.v. "Chōon Dokai.") 6 Chōon's criticism is, apparently, that Razan acknowledged Shinto, but then interpreted it as Confucianism in another guise. A similar distinction between 道 and 法 is made in the second preface of Taisei-kyō (edn of 1679, Jo 22b; edn ZST vol. 1, p. 14). Here, 道 is identified as the Confucian Way, and 法, as the three Japanese Shinto Sects: 「神者儒宗雖道焉、唯標兩氣之靈而已、 不知其躬體常鎮、或議時現時滅、或議人魂凝鬼。吾神不然、三躬五品之靈鎮、而居效驗靈感極、 不可與彼類說。法是通三法、以別謂我三部。宗源摠謂三才五鎮、齋元別謂三璽三持、靈宗通謂 一性五心、為吾道學元也、至爰精盡矣。」 - "Although the Confucian School does talk about gods, it only highlights the spirituality of the two qi ( = Yin and Yang). It does not know that the gods' bodies are eternally at rest (tokoshie ni shizumarimasu). [The Confucians] either discuss [the fact that the gods] appear one moment and disappear the next, or that human souls coagulate into spirits. Our gods are not like that. The spirituality of their three bodies and five grades is at rest, and they are at the apex of effectivity and spirituality. You cannot discuss them as similar in kind to [those Confucian gods]. Law (nori) corresponds to the Three Laws, so, specifically, to our Three Categories. The Sōgen Sect comprehensively speaks of the three talents and the five pillars (yo no naka no i-shizumari). The Saigen Sect specifically speaks of the three seals and the three keepers. The Reisō Sect comprehensively speaks of the single nature and the five hearts. These are the origin of our learning of the Way. When it reaches this point the purity culminates." Not the clearest of texts, but it shows that 法 in contexts like these specifically refers to the three Shinto sects Chōon, too, distinguishes. 7 In wenyan the character 闢 is glossed as "to open" or "to avoid, to pass by," but in later stages of Chinese the character can also mean "to oppose and turn down." Cf. also the compound 闢異, which is the title of a treatise by Yamazaki Ansai 山崎闇斎 (1618-1682). mirror on the dais.8 How, therefore, could [this treatise] not be of some small help9 to these two teachings (i.e. Shinto and Buddhism)? The time is Jōkyō 4, Junior of Fire & Hare. (To An'ei 4, eighty-nine years have gone by.) 10 The mountain priest Chō[on] from the Black Fall [monastery] wrote this preface himself. 8 The four characters 當臺明鏡 appear in Fuguo Yuanwu chanshi Biyanlu 佛果圓悟禪師碧巖録 (T2003; TZ vol. 48, p. 169a, line 15). As this is a kōan, it does not really clarify what Chōkai is trying to say. The context is as follows: 「垂示云。魚行水濁。鳥飛毛落。明辨主賓。洞分緇素。直似當 臺明鏡。掌内明珠。漢現胡來。聲彰色顯。且道爲什麼如此。試擧看。」. The English translation (The Blue Cliff Record, Thomas Cleary, transl., BDK English Tripitaka 75, Berkeley, Cal.: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1998; p. 159) just says: "When fish swim through the water is disturbed; when birds fly by feathers fall. Clearly discriminating host and guest, penetratingly distinguishing initiate and outsider, one is like a clear mirror, like a bright pearl. When a native comes a native is reflected; when a foreigner comes a foreigner is reflected. The sound is obvious; the form is evident. But why is it so?" A more precise translation of the relevant sentences, based on the yomikudashi given in Hekigan-roku (beginning of section 29; see Iwanami Bunko edn, vol. 1, p. 329) would be is: "It is exactly like the clear mirror in the tower, the clear jewel in the palm of the hand. The Chinese appear in it, and the barbarians come. Their voices are clear and their appearance distinct. Well, tell me why it is like this. Try to give me [an answer]." 9 The compound 小補 occurs in Mengzi 7A13; "... to mend in a small way" is how Legge translates it. Cf. Honkoku, note 2. 10 Jōkyō 4 corresponds to 1687, and An'ei 4, to 1775. (1:1a) Treatise on Japan's Protecting Buddha's and Gods - Fascicle 1. Composed by the priest Chōon, Succeeding11 Abbot of the Black Fall (Kurotaki) [Fudōji Monastery] in Kōzuke. In the "Biography of Prince Stable Door"12 in his [Honchō] jinja kō ("Essay on the shrines of our country") (fifth [fascicle], third [page] right [side]), Mr Hayashi says: "When I examined Crown Prince Shōtoku, I made an extract of what is recorded in Nihon shoki, which is as above. Someone asked: 'In the biography of Yunju Daoying in Chuandenglu13 it is said of Crown Prince Shōtoku, that "The great Abbot Huisi of the Southern Peak14 was reborn in Japan and became king." Ganjin,15 too, said: "I had heard that Lord [Hui]si of the Southern Peak was reborn in Japan and spread the Law of the Buddha.