Robert F. Rhodes - Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan

2017 Institute of Buddhist Studies
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

22 21 20 19 18 17 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rhodes, Robert F., author.

Title: Genshins Ojoyoshu and the construction of Pure Land discourse in Heian Japan / Robert F. Rhodes.

Other titles: Pure Land Buddhist studies.

Description: Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, [2017] | Series: Pure Land Buddhist studies

Identifiers: LCCN 2016048661 | ISBN 9780824872489 (cloth; alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Genshin, 9421017. jysh. | Pure Land BuddhismDoctrines.

Classification: LCC BQ8549.G464 O35373 2017 | DDC 294.3/9260952dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016048661

The Pure Land Buddhist Studies series publishes scholarly works on all aspects of the Pure Land Buddhist tradition. Historically, the series includes studies of the origins of the tradition in India, its transmission into a variety of religious cultures, and its continuity into the present. Methodologically, the series is committed to providing a venue for a diversity of approaches, including, but not limited to, anthropological, sociological, historical, textual, biographical, philosophical, and interpretive, as well as translations of primary and secondary works. The series will also seek to reprint important works so that they may continue to be available to the scholarly and lay communities. The series is made possible through the generosity of the Buddhist Churches of Americas Fraternal Benefit Association. We wish to express our deep appreciation for its support to the Institute of Buddhist Studies.

University of Hawaii Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.

Genshin has long been acknowledged as having played an important role in establishing Pure Land praxis in Japan. But scholars have treated him largely as a forerunner who, once acknowledged, can safely be ignored.

Robert Rhodes study presents a different picture. In Japan prior to Genshins jysh only a few short works on Amida were composed, and these did not distinguish Amida from the other buddhas and bodhisattvas of the Tendai pantheon. The jysh was the first major work created in Japan to present a Pure Land praxis, and it did so by crystallizing a set of ideas and practices around the figure of Amida. As a Tendai monk Genshin naturally cast his work in the framework of Tendai praxis, and this made the jysh accessible to other Tendai monks such as Hnen and Shinran two centuries later.

In his introduction, Rhodes makes an important methodological point when he says that failing to recognize Genshins involvement with the entire range of Buddhist thought and practice not only fails to do justice to the breadth of Genshins intellectual achievements but also makes us lose sight of the historical and intellectual milieu in which he developed his Pure Land system (p. ). To comprehend Genshin we need to view him in his own context. This means grasping the teachings with which he was familiar and to which he was responding: He was not writing for us, so we need to take into account his own understanding of what was known and believed by those for whom he was writing.

Rhodes carries out this essential task in the first part of his study, and it is key to the revisionist character of his work. As he points out, Hnens interpretation of Genshins teachings on nenbutsu has become normative and accepted without examining Genshins thought. While Genshin did lay the foundation for later developments by Hnen and Shinran, Rhodes argues that Genshins thinking was also reinterpreted to accord with a new set of doctrinal emphases. Because Hnens understanding of Genshins contribution to Pure Land has been accepted as adequate, the study of Genshin himself has appeared unnecessary. If we are to perceive Genshins own formulations of Pure Land praxis, we need to distinguish between Genshin per se and Hnens interpretation of viii Genshin. Given the history of sectarian interpretation, this distinction is not as obvious as it may seem.

The willingness to ask questions that supposedly have already been answered is what makes progress in the historical study of the Buddhist traditions possible: Rhodes shows us the value of questioning the conventional wisdom of our field. His study of Genshin is an important contribution to scholarship, and we are pleased to include it in the Pure Land Buddhist Studies Series.