Ippen
Ippen Shōnin (上人) | |
|---|---|
 Statue of Ippen at Shōjōkō-ji, Fujisawa, Japan | |
| Title | Grand Master (Daishi; 大師) |
| Personal life | |
| Born | Kawano Tokiuji (河野時氏), Tsūshū (通秀), or Tsūshō (通尚). 1234 |
| Died | 1289 (aged 54–55) |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Era | Kamakura Period |
| Notable work(s) | Ippen Shōnin Goroku (一遍上人語録; The Record of Ippen's Sayings) |
| Other names | "Itinerant Shōnin" (Yugyō Shōnin 遊行上人) or the “The Saint Who Cast Aside” (Sute Hijiri 捨聖) |
| Posthumous name | Enshō Daishi (円照大師) or Shōjō Daishi (証誠大師) |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Buddhism |
| School | Ji-shū |
| Dharma names | Chishin (智真) |
| Monastic name | Ippen (一遍) |
| Senior posting | |
| Teacher | Shōtatsu (聖達) |
Disciples
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Influenced by
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| Part of a series on |
| Pure Land Buddhism |
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Ippen Shōnin (一遍上人) 1234–1289 also known as Zuien was a Japanese Buddhist itinerant preacher (hijiri) who founded the Ji-shū (時宗; "Time sect") branch of Pure Land Buddhism.[1]
"Ippen" was his monastic name, while his Dharma name was "Chishin" (智真). Ippen means one (一) yet all pervading (遍), and is respectfully referred to as "Ippen Shōnin," where "Shōnin" (上人) signifies a holy person, as well as the "Itinerant Shōnin" (Yugyō Shōnin 遊行上人), and the “The Saint Who Cast Aside” (Sute Hijiri 捨聖).[2] His posthumous names are "Grand Master Enshō" (Enshō Daishi 円照大師; granted in 1886)[3] and "Grand Master Shōjō" (Shōjō Daishi 証誠大師; granted in 1940).[4] His secular name may have been Kawano Tokiuji (河野時氏), Tsūshū (通秀),[5] or Tsūshō (通尚).[6]
Life
[edit]Ippen was born at Hōgon-ji, a temple in Iyo Province (modern Ehime Prefecture) on the island of Shikoku. He was originally named Chishin (智真). He studied the Senju-in Dani lineage of Kōyasan,[7] Tendai at Mount Hiei, Kyoto, and Jōdo-shū at Dazaifu, Fukuoka on Kyushu.[8]
When his father died, the 25-year old Ippen returned to secular life and assumed family responsibilities. He got married and became head of the household.[9]
During a pilgrimage to the Kumano Shrines, the kami enshrined there revealed to Ippen that enlightenment was determined by Amitābha and that Ippen should devote himself to preaching the importance of reciting his name, a practice called nembutsu. Ippen and a band of followers then travelled throughout the country proselytizing with their ecstatic nembutsu dance,[10] and won a wide following among common people.[11] Other practices associated with the Ji-shū include scheduled sessions of chanting (hence the name Ji-shū "Time sect"), the handing out of slips of paper (o-fuda; お札) with the nembutsu written on them,[12] and keeping a register of the converted. This practice of distributing slips of paper with the nembutsu as a talisman was purportedly practised by Kūkai, and was a popular form of Pure Land devotion at the time.[7]
Ippen's insistence on constant traveling and giving up of family and possessions led to his nicknames: Traveling Saint (遊行上人, Yugyō Shōnin) and Holy Man of Renunciation (捨聖, Sutehijiri).[8]
Doctrine
[edit]Ippen's doctrine was primarily influenced by Shōkū, founder of the Seizan branch of the Jōdo-shū, who "insisted that the various Buddhist practices contain no more than a portion of the merit of the single practice of the nembutsu and serve merely to lead people to recite the nembutsu."[13] However he was also strongly influenced by the nondualism of Zen and studied under the Zen monk Kakushin (覚心; 1207–1298), who was a student of Dōhan (道範; 1179–1252) and Dōgen (道元; 1200–1253).[7]
Ippen led the Ji-shū community on continual itinerancy (yugyō), guiding the people (including peasants and outcasts) to the Pure Land through the practices of dancing nenbutsu and fusan (distribution of nembutsu slips).[14] His doctrine is represented by the “Eleven Nondualities” of Other-Power, and his community was known as the “Assembly who contemplate life as the moment of death and recite the nenbutsu.” Regarding the dancing nenbutsu, Ippen taught: “Merely hearing that the nembutsu is the teaching of Amida brings such joy that one cannot help but dance."[14] Ippen’s dancing nenbutsu differed from the itinerancy of other practitioners, resembling more a popular spectacle. In populated areas, a raised platform called an “odori-ya” was set up; men and women dancers (among Ippen’s 20–40 companions, nearly half were nuns) formed a circle, singing and dancing until the spectators too were drawn in, reaching states of religious ecstasy. Its extreme and frenzied character provoked resistance from conservative circles.[15]
Although he regarded faith in figures other than Amida Buddha, such as Jizō Bodhisattva or Yakushi Nyorai, as “miscellaneous practices,” according to the Illustrated Biography of Ippen Shōnin, he nevertheless visited fourteen shrines to form karmic bonds. His view of the kami is exemplified by the saying: “Always revere the majesty of the kami, yet do not disparage the virtue of their original basis.” This meant, in accord with the popular Japanese Honji suijaku theory that held that kami are manifestations of buddhas, that to worship the kami (the native deities of Japan) and to revere the virtue of the buddhas who are their original basis did not obstruct the practice of exclusive nembutsu. He even accepted the divine oracle of Kumano Gongen and divine poetry at Kagoshima Jingū.[16]
He was highly praised by Yanagi Muneyoshi as one who penetrated the profundities of Pure Land teaching, but Ippen himself placed value not on abstract speculation but on the practice of single-mindedly reciting the six-syllable nembutsu. With the wish that as many people as possible could achieve this rebirth (a concept known as issai shujō ketsujō ōjō, the certain rebirth of all sentient beings), not just those directly connected to Ippen, he distributed slips inscribed with "The anjin [faith] of the Universal Vow of the Six and the Eight" (安心の六八の弘誓), meaning, the six characters "Namo Amida Butsu" (南無阿弥陀仏; Homage to Amida Buddha) and the eight characters "Ketsujō Ōjō Rokujūmannin" (決定往生六十万人; 600,000 people are determined of birth in the Pure Land).[17] The figure “600,000” derived from the first characters of Ippen’s gāthā: “The six-character Name is the Dharma teaching of Ippen; the dependent and true realms of the ten realms are the body of Ippen; the abandonment of ten thousand practices and meditations are the realisation of Ippen; the highest grade of the highest rank [referring to the ranks in the Contemplation Sūtra] of persons are the supreme and wondrous flowers (puṇḍarīkas)." This represents all sentient beings: he would first allot 600,000 slips, then repeat the distribution for further groups of 600,000.[18] It is said that the number of adherents who received Ippen’s slips and inscribed their names in the subscription registers reached 2.5 million.[19] Toshio Ōhashi compared these slips to tickets guaranteeing rebirth in the Pure Land—like boarding passes for a train bound there.[16]
Maintaining his creed of itinerancy without fixed abode (issho fujū) and the maxim “My work of guiding is only for this one lifetime,” Ippen, thirteen days before his death, on the morning of 10th day of the 8th month, 1290, entrusted a few of the books he possessed to monks at Shosha-yama for dedication. He then burned all his remaining writings and texts while chanting the Amida-kyō, declaring: “All the sacred teachings of the lifetime of the Buddha are exhausted and brought to completion in Namo Amida Butsu.” Thus he left behind no scholastic system.[20]
Legacy
[edit]Before his death Ippen burned all his writings, saying that "they have all become namuamidabutsu (devotion to Amida Buddha)", but copies were kept by some of his disciples. Dennis Hirota has translated some of these writings into English in No Abode: The Record of Ippen (1997).[21]
After Ippen's death many of his disciples appear to have committed suicide, throwing themselves into the sea in the hope of being reborn in the Pure Land. Such phenomena perhaps help to explain the limited spread of the Ji-shu, and the ecstatic fervor of the early Ji-shu also seems to have militated against mainstream acceptance.
In 1292, three years after Ippen's death, Ippen's birthplace, Hōgon-ji, was rebuilt by his disciple Sen'a and became a Ji-shu temple.
Art
[edit]
Ippen himself was greatly devoted to paintings of Shandao's allegory of the "White Path", so it is appropriate that his life led to the production of a great many portraits, sculpted images, and illustrated narrative scrolls (emaki 絵巻).
The Ippen Hijiri-e (一遍聖絵) was edited by Ippen's disciple Shōkai (聖戒) and, according to an inscription dated 1299, was painted by the artist En'i (円伊) (Kankikō-ji 歓喜光寺, Kyoto, and Tokyo National Museum). The twelve handscrolls on silk show Ippen's trip around Japan, and are well known for their naturalistic depiction of "famous places", including Mount Fuji (富士), Kumano, Shitennō-ji (四天王寺), Zenkō-ji (善光寺), Enoshima (江ノ島), Yoshino (吉野), Itsukushima (厳島), and Naruto (鳴門). The treatment of space shows the influence of Song and Yuan Chinese landscape painting. A second type of biographical handscroll Ippen Shōnin Engi-e 一遍上人縁起絵), edited by Ippen's other disciple, Sōshun (宗俊), was painted sometime between 1304 and 1307. The original scrolls no longer exist but were copied in many other versions including those at Shinkō-ji (真光寺), Hyōgo Prefecture. These versions are characterized by the addition of the biography of Ippen's most important disciple, Taa (他阿, 1237–1319). In the Shinkō-ji version, the first four scrolls depict Ippen's life, while the last six concern the life of Taa and the spread of Ji Sect teaching. The Kinren-ji (金蓮寺) in Kyoto has a Muromachi period copy of the now-lost work dated 1307.[22]
References
[edit]- ^ Buswell, Robert Jr; Lopez, Donald S. Jr., eds. (2013). Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 374. ISBN 978-0-691-15786-3.
- ^ Sae, Shūichi (2002). わが屍は野に捨てよ [Cast My Corpse upon the Field] (in Japanese). Shinchōsha. p. 24.
- ^ Imai, Masaharu (2023). "円照大師" [Great Teacher Enshō]. 世界大百科事典 [World Encyclopedia] (in Japanese). Heibonsha.
- ^ Yabuki, Yasuhide (2015). "大正十一年の「立正大師」諡号宣下をめぐって" [“On the Bestowal of the Posthumous Title ‘Great Teacher Risshō’ in 1922”]. 日蓮教学研究所紀要. 42: 35.
- ^ 歴史シンポジウム「遊行ひじり一遍」 [Symposium on History: The Itinerant Saint Ippen] (in Japanese). Hōgonji Temple. 14 May 1983.
- ^ Sae, Shūichi (2002). わが屍は野に捨てよ [Cast My Corpse upon the Field] (in Japanese). Shinchōsha. p. 52.
- ^ a b c Proffitt, Aaron P. (2023). Payne, Richard K. (ed.). Esoteric Pure Land Buddhism. Pure Land Buddhist Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-8248-9380-4.
- ^ a b Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System. "JAANUS / Ippen 一遍". aisf.or.jp.
- ^ Yusa, Michiko (2002). Japanese Religions. Routledge. p. 59. ISBN 0-415-26284-4.
- ^ Moriarty, Elisabeth (1976). Nembutsu Odori, Asian Folklore Studies 35 (1), 7-16
- ^ Ippen, Jaanus
- ^ Dobbins, James C. (1988). "Review: No Abode: The Record of Ippen. by Dennis Hirota". Monumenta Nipponica. 43 (2): 253. doi:10.2307/2384755. JSTOR 2384755.
- ^ Ippen (1239-1289), The Ji School, The Votive Nembutsu.
- ^ a b Tachibana, Toshimichi; Umeya, Shigeki (1989). 一遍聖絵 [Illustrated Biography of Ippen Shōnin] (in Japanese). Shunjūsha. pp. 4–16.
- ^ Shimokawa, Kōshi (2011). 盆踊り：乱交の民俗学 [Bon Odori: The Folklore of Orgy]. Tokyo: Sakuhinsha. pp. 126–136. ISBN 978-4-86182-338-1.
- ^ a b Ōhashi, Toshio (1978). 一遍と時宗教団 [Ippen and the Ji-shū Order] (in Japanese). Kyōiku-sha. p. 13.
- ^ Sae, Shūichi (2002). わが屍は野に捨てよ [Cast My Corpse upon the Field] (in Japanese). Shinchōsha. p. 125.
- ^ Sae, Shūichi (2002). わが屍は野に捨てよ [Cast My Corpse upon the Field] (in Japanese). Shinchōsha. p. 125.
- ^ Irisawa, Noriyuki (2010). ビジュアル百科 日本史1200人 [Visual Encyclopaedia: 1,200 People of Japanese History]. Tokyo: Seitōsha. p. 79.
- ^ Tachibana, Toshimichi; Umeya, Shigeki (1989). 一遍聖絵 [Illustrated Biography of Ippen Shōnin] (in Japanese). Shunjūsha. pp. 1–45.
- ^ Dennis Hirota, 'No Abode: The Record of Ippen, Ryukoku-Ibs Studies in Buddhist Thought and Tradition, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press 1997 ISBN 0-8248-1997-7.
- ^ Ippen
Bibliography
[edit]- Asano, Jun’i. (1999) 一遍上人と大三島 (Ippen Shōnin and Ōmishima). Imabari City, Ōmishima-chō: Manpukuji.
- Foard, James Harlan (1977). Ippen Shônin and popular Buddhism in Kamakura Japan, Dissertation, Stanford University. OCLC
- Foard, James Harlan (2006). The Pure Land Tradition: History and Development, Fremont, CA: Jain Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89581-092-2. pp. 357–398
- Griffiths, Caitilin J. (2011). Tracing the Itinerant Path: Jishū Nuns of Medieval Japan, Thesis, University of Toronto.
- Hirokami, Kiyoshi. 一遍 (Ippen). 日本大百科全書 (Nipponica Encyclopaedia of Japan). Tokyo: Shōgakukan.
- Hirota, Dennis (1997). No Abode: The Record of Ippen, (Ryukoku-Ibs Studies in Buddhist Thought and Tradition), Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, ISBN 0-8248-1997-7
- Imai, Masaharu. 照大師 (“Great Teacher Enshō”). 世界大百科事典 (World Encyclopedia). Tokyo: Heibonsha.
- Kaufman, Laura S. (1992). Nature, Courtly Imagery, and Sacred Meaning in the Ippen Hijiri-e. In James H. Sanford (ed.), Flowing Traces Buddhism in the Literary and Visual Arts of Japan, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press; pp. 47–75
- Matsunaga, Daigan, Matsunaga, Alicia (1996), Foundation of Japanese buddhism, Vol. 2: The Mass Movement (Kamakura and Muromachi Periods), Los Angeles; Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1996. ISBN 0-914910-28-0
- Noda, Hideo. 明照大師嘉号請願考 (A Study on the Petition for the Honorific Title of Great Teacher Myōshō). Kōryō Shigaku [鷹陵史学] 12 (1986): 156. Kyoto: Bukkyō University Institute for Historical Research.
- Ōhashi, Toshio. (1978) 一遍と時宗教団 (Ippen and the Ji-shū Order). Tokyo: Kyōiku-sha.
- Sae, Shūichi. (2002) わが屍は野に捨てよ (Cast My Corpse upon the Field). Tokyo: Shinchōsha.
- Shimokawa, Kōshi. (2011) 盆踊り：乱交の民俗学 (Bon Odori: The Folklore of Orgy). Tokyo: Sakuhinsha, 2011. ISBN 978-4-86182-338-1.
- Thornton, S.A. (1999). Charisma and Community Formation in Medieval Japan: The Case of the Yugyo-ha (1300-1700). Cornell East Asia Series no. 102, Ithaca: Cornell University, ISBN 1-885445-62-8.
- Tachibana, Toshimichi & Umeya, Shigeki (eds.). (1989) 一遍上人全集 (Collected Works of Ippen Shōnin). Tokyo: Shunjūsha.
External links
[edit]
- Jodo Shu Research Institute
- Stewart, Harold, Ippen
- The Yugyo-ji temple / Head temple of the ji-shu sect
- 念佛金言录
- Shonin Ippen, E-den (Biographical stories vol7)
- The Ji Sect (時宗)
- Ji-Shu Main Temple website
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