Vol. 24 | A Prehistory of Jodo Buddhism, Part 3

Reading the full series? Browse all volumes here.

Before diving in — Vol. 2 sets out the author’s framing and caveats.

It was monks in the line of Saicho’s disciples — Ennin and Enchin among them — who developed Tendai esoteric Buddhism, or taimitsu. This instalment begins with Ennin.

The nembutsu Ennin brought to Japan

Ennin was an eminent monk of the Tendai Shu, born in 794 and died in 864.*¹ 794 was also the year the capital was established at Heiankyo, present-day Kyoto. Like his master Saicho, he crossed to Tang China with a kentoshi mission, and as the previous instalment described, one of his aims was to bring esoteric teachings into the Tendai Shu.

Ennin studied more than esoteric Buddhism, however. His most significant achievement was learning the gokai nembutsu at Mount Wutai — a mountain thick with temples, and today a World Heritage Site — and incorporating it into Tendai Shu practice after his return.*²

Before going further, a brief word on Chinese Jodo Buddhism is in order. Jodo Buddhism originated not in Japan but in China. It begins with Tanluan, an eminent monk of the fifth and sixth centuries, who set out a path to buddhahood through faith in tariki, or Other Power.

In modern Japan, Jodo Buddhism has formed institutions of its own — the Jodo Shu and the Jodo Shinshu (more precisely, each of them contains several branches, and it is these that are constituted as religious corporations). China took a different course. Chinese Jodo Buddhism might be better described as a lineage of Buddhist thought than as a school of Buddhism.

A Jodo monk named Fazhao, meanwhile, founded a temple called Zhulin Si on Mount Wutai. It was there that Ennin, on reaching the mountain, learned the gokai nembutsu. Ennin, in other words, was not only one of the men who laid the foundations of taimitsu, as the previous instalment described, but also one of those who imported Chinese Jodo Buddhism into Japan. In China as in Japan, Jodo Buddhism places the nembutsu at its centre.

What, then, is the gokai nembutsu? A Jodo Shinshu temple in present-day Japan has uploaded a video of it to YouTube, and readers are invited to watch.

How far the gokai nembutsu has changed between Ennin’s day and our own, the author cannot say. With that caveat, watching the video, it strikes the author as something like a fusion of the Buddhist nembutsu with kagura, the music performed at Japanese shrines.

That said, according to the historian of religion Satoko Koyama (cited above, *²), the Chinese gokai nembutsu that Ennin studied used five distinct melodies. It was, in other words, already a musical form of the nembutsu by the time Ennin learned it.

After returning to Japan, Ennin incorporated the gokai nembutsu into the jogyo zanmai, a practice in which the practitioner circles an image of Amida Buddha continuously for ninety days.

Kanso nembutsu and shomyo nembutsu

The Jodo Shinshu, which would emerge later, holds — put simply — that birth in the Pure Land is settled at the moment the heart of faith is settled. Reciting “Namu Amida Butsu” is not a means of obtaining salvation, but is understood as an act of gratitude for a salvation already given.

The nembutsu no doubt existed in Japanese Buddhism before Ennin. But it was after him that monks who placed the nembutsu at the heart of their teaching appeared: Kuuya, whose name is known today above all through the sculpture depicting him, and then Honen and Shinran. Ennin’s influence on the Japanese Buddhism that followed was, in that sense, considerable.

So what is the nembutsu?

To the author, an entirely ordinary Japanese Buddhist, the word calls to mind something along the lines of “reciting Namu Amida Butsu and the like”. A dictionary, however, suggests this is not quite right.

《To call to mind the form and virtues of a buddha; also, to recite a buddha’s name aloud.》*³

The dictionary sense, then, is reciting a buddha’s name rather than reciting a sutra. And it requires holding the buddha in mind as well.

As for “Namu Amida Butsu”, which has come up several times already, a Jodo Shinshu website glosses it as: I revere the buddha of immeasurable light and life, Amida Nyorai.*⁴ Reciting it, then, can be taken either in the sense the author had assumed or in the dictionary’s sense.

The dictionary entry continues with the phrase kanbutsu and shomyo. Most Japanese people, frankly, would not know what these two terms mean. But the author takes them to hold the key to what the act of nembutsu concretely involves.

To put the conclusion first, kanbutsu and shomyo are two different ways of performing the nembutsu. Kanbutsu is short for kanso nembutsu, and refers to picturing the buddha in the mind — the first half of the dictionary definition above. Shomyo, by contrast, is short for shomyo nembutsu, the nembutsu recited aloud. On one view, then, “nembutsu” used on its own is a collective term covering both.

Why has the author dwelt on the nembutsu at such length? Because the Jodo Shinshu, in which the Ohmi Shonin were devout believers, placed the shomyo nembutsu in particular at its centre. Explaining that required covering the prehistory of Jodo Buddhism as well. The author has tried to include only the bare minimum, and even so the prehistory alone has taken three instalments.

The prehistory of Jodo Buddhism ends here, at least for now. That does not mean the next instalment can turn straight to the Jodo Shinshu and Shinran. Before that, something must be said about Shinran’s master, Honen.

OHYASHIMA is seeking information about the Ohmi Shonin

In connection with this series, OHYASHIMA welcomes information about the Ohmi Shonin. The author would be particularly grateful to hear from:

Museum curators and archivists — in Japan or elsewhere — who hold collections related to the Ohmi Shonin
Those who work for companies with ties to the Ohmi Shonin, or whose own ancestors were Ohmi Shonin
Those who know of Ohmi Shonin merchants who conducted business outside Japan

OHYASHIMAは近江商人に関する情報を求めています

本連載にあたり、近江商人に関する情報を募集しています。たとえば、下記に該当する方はぜひご存じの情報をお寄せください。