Chūgoku Jōdokyō no girei
Zendō to Hōshō no sange no ritsudō o chūshin to shite, by Saito Takanobu
Saitō Takanobu’s (齊藤隆信) Chūgoku Jōdokyō no girei Zendō to Hōshō no
sange no ritsudō o chūshin to shite (中国浄土教の儀礼 善導と法照の讃 偈の律動を中心として) has just been published from 法藏館 (ISBN: 978-4-8318-7398-9; 15,000 yen +tax). The
author says, "The rites of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism have been little
studied. The reason for this is simple; it is because the major part of the
rites is oral transmission from a master to his disciples and it is hardly
possible to reconstruct the whole rites performed at a time." Saito has
researched the rites through the prosody of gāthās mainly composed by Shandao
and Fazhao. The book is mostly written in Japanese.
The following is the English table of contents on pp. 14-19 (slightly modified
according to the author’s request).
Harumi Ziegler
Part 1 General RemarksC
Chapter 1 Introduction
1. Purpose and meaning
2. Methodology
3. Outline
4. Shandao and Fazhao
Chapter 2 Formation and Collection of Shandao’s Writings in Five Parts and Nine
Volumes
Definition of the problem
1. Formation of Shandao’s writings
2. Collection: Shandao’s writings as Buddha’s sermon
Summary
Chapter 3 Various Texts of Shandao’s Writings
Definition of the problem
1. Review of the classification
2. The Guannian famen
3. The Banzhou zan
4. The Guanjing shu
5. The Fashi zan
6. The Wangsheng lizan ji
Summary
Chapter 4 Fazhao’s Writings
Definition of the problem
1. The Dasheng Zhulinsi ji
2. The Wutaishan Dasheng Zhulinsi Shi Fazhao de jian
Taishan jingjie ji
3. The Nianfo Dasheng Zhulin zhi si zanfowen
4. The Jingtu wuhui nianfo songjing guanxingyi (full
version)
5. The Jingtu wuhui nianfo lüe fashiyi zan (abridged
version)
6. Chinese poems (five poems)
Summary
Part 2 Itemized Remarks
Chapter 1 The Hou Chu Amituofoji by an Anonymous Translator of the Later Han
Dynasty and Its Use
Definition of the problem
1. Manuscripts and printed editions
2. Textual criticism and its contents
3. Commentaries and preceding researches
4. Translation or composition?
5. Use of the text: in connection with fanbei (the chanting
of hymns)
Summary
Chapter 2 Prosody of the Gāthās of Worship and Praise in Chinnese Pure Land
Buddhism: From Vasubandhu’s Wangsheng Lun to Shandao’s Banzhou Zan
Definition of the problem
1. Formation of the gāthās of worship and praise in Pure
Land Buddhism: conjunction of worship and praise
2. Vasubandhu’s gāthās of the Wangsheng lun
3. Tanluan’s gāthās of the Zan Amituofo ji
4. Nāgārujuna’s gāthās of the Shierli
5. Jiacai’s gāthās of the Jingtu lun
6. Shandao’s gāthās of the Banzhou zan
Summary
Chapter 3 Rhythm of the Gāthās of Praise in Shandao’s Wangsheng Lizan Ji
Definition of the problem
1. The position of the gāthās of worship and praise in
Chinese literature: Its effects viewed from Chinese Poetry
2. Yancong’s gāthās of praise for early morning
3. Shandao’s gāthās of praise for daytime
4. The reason why Shandao’s several gāthās of praise for
daytime were dropped in the full version of Fazhao’s Wuhui nianfo fashi zan
5. Textual genealogy based on rhythms
Summary
Chapter 4 Rhythm of the Gāthās of Praise in Shandao’s Guanjing Shu
Definition of the problem
1. Features of the Guanjing shu and Shandao’s religious
activities
2. Rhymed gāthās in the Guanjing shu and its evaluation
3. Popular poems in the early Tang dynasty
Summary
Chapter 5 Ritual Laws of Shandao’s Fashi Zan
Definition of the problem
1. Structure
2. Relevance to ceremony of lecture on sūtras
3. Prayer for Emperor and Empress
4. Relation between worship-praise and worship-repentance
Summary
Chapter 6 Rhythm of the Gāthās of Praise in Shandao’s Fashi Zan
Definition of the problem
1. Three elements of Chinese verse
2. Other rhetorical elements
3. Omission of phrases discovered through the study of
meter
Summary
Chapter 7 The Rhetoric of “Return to the Pure Land” Seen in Shandao’s Gāthās of
Praise
Definition of the problem
1. Examples suggesting “Return to the pure land”
2. Shandao’s view of human beings and “Return to the pure
land”
3. Interpretations found in commentaries of Shandao’s
writings
4. Gui qu lai in Chinese poetry
5. Is the term “Return to the pure land” right or wrong?
Summary
Chapter 8 Ritual Laws of Fazhao’s Two Kinds of the Wuhui Fashi Zan (full
version and abridged version)
Definition of the problem
1. The Jingtu wuhui nianfo songjing guanxingyi (full
version)
2. The Jingtu wuhui nianfo lüe fashiyi zan (abridged
version)
Summary
Chapter 9 Rhythm and Popularity of Fazhao’s Gāthās of Praise
Definition of the problem
1. Poems and gāthās of praise
2. From unrhymed gāthās of praise to rhymed gāthās of
praise
3. Literary evaluation of Fazhao’s gāthās of praise
4. Fazhao’s poems
5. Popularity of Fazhao’s gāthās of praise
6. Significance of dialect in the rites
Summary
Chapter 10 Worship of Fazhao and the Decline of His Religious Rites
Definition of the problem
1. Four Fazhaos
2. Worship of Fazhao
3. Decline of Fazhao’s religious rites
4. Development of wuhui nianfo
Summary
Chapter 11 (written in Chinese) Fazhao’s Poems and the Gāthās of Praise
Definition of the problem
1. Shandao and Fazhao
2. Fazhao’s poems and the gāthās of praise
3. Fazhao’s selection from among Shandao’s gāthās of praise
Summary
Last Chapter Conclusion, Problems, and Prospects
1. Shandao’s gāthās of praise
2. Fazhao’s gāthās of praise
3. The gāthās of praise as popular literature
4. Problems and prospects
Part 3 Materials for Study
Harumi Ziegler, retiree from UCLA
