Text Documents And Extracts Chiefly From Manuscripts in Bodleian Vol 01 Part 02

SR No.: 020817
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller, Bunyiu Nanjio
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1883
Total Pages: 131
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_English & Book_Devnagari
File Size: 10 MB

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BUDDHIST TEXTS FROM JAPAN.
when one repeats the name of Amitâyus-(Na-mu-a-mi-da-butsu, i.e. Namo 'mitâyushe or 'mitâbhâya Buddhầya)—for another or others, both will equally receive the favour of Buddha. This is one of the eleven different Buddhist sects in Japan at the present day.
The principal sect of the doctrine of the Pure Land' was first established in Japan by Gen-ku, who had the other name Hô-nen, in A.D. 1174, when he was forty-two years of age. He was formerly a priest of the Tendai sect, and discovered this doctrine in the works of the Chinese teacher Shân-tão (Zen-do), after repeated and careful examinations, to which he is said to have been led by the work of Gen-shin, the sixth patriarch. After his discovery, he left the Ten-dai sect, and taught the people this practical doctrine. He had more than 380 disciples, among whom there were many distinguished priests. He wrote a work at the request of his disciple Yen-shio, a retired prime minister. In this work he quotes several authorities, and adds many important notes. He also compiled a commentary on the Three Sutras of the Pure-Land sect. His writings, both in Chinese and Japanese, are numerous. His sect was so flourishing, that many priests of other powerful old sects were very much afraid lest their own sects would perish. They consequently accused him as a false teacher, and in his seventy-fifth year, A.D. 1207, Gen-ku was exiled to the province of To-sa, in the Shi-koku, or Four-Province island. But he was set free and called back to Kioto in A.D. 1211. In the following spring he died, being eighty years of age. There are many works on the life of Gen-ku. He is the last of the seven patriarchs, according to the Shinshiu sect, established by his greatest disciple Shin-ran, thirteen years after the death of Gen-ku.
Soon after Gen-ku's death, however, some of his other disciples founded their own sects, of which two are now in existence under the same name of Zio-do-shiu, or Sect of the Pure Land.' The founders of these two sects are Ben-a, of the Kin-zei-ha, or Sect of the Western Island, where he lived; and Shio-ku, of the Sei-zan-ha, or Sect of the Western Hill near Kioto. Ben-a died in A. D. 1238, and Shio-ku in 12471.
Although Gen-ku established the principal sect of the doctrine of the Pure Land, his leading opinions were almost forgotten after his death. But in A. D. 1224, i.e. the thirteenth year from his death, his
Butsu-zô-dzu-i, fasc. 5, fol. 9 b.