Paper short abstract:

Twenty-three Dialogues（『二十三問答』）has generally been attributed to Musō Soseki(夢窓疎石,1275-1351). This paper challenges this attribution, arguing that there is a high possibility that Twenty-three Dialogues was written in the Edo period by an author who assumed the name of Musō Soseki.

Paper long abstract:

Twenty-three Dialogues（『二十三問答』）has generally been attributed to Musō Soseki (夢窓疎石,1275-1351), a prominent Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk who lived in Medieval Japan. This paper will re-examine this attribution, and challenge it on several grounds.

First, the earliest extant manuscript of Twenty-three Dialogues dates to 1618, more than 250 years after Musō Soseki's death. Second, extant manuscripts contain no information about when and how the text was composed, and, importantly, we find no mention of Twenty-three Dialogues in the Musō kokushi nenpu 夢窓国師年譜 (Chronology of the State Master Musō) edited by Syun'oku Myōha 春屋妙葩. Third, after scrutinizing the details of Twenty-three Dialogues, we find considerable differences between Twenty-three Dialogues and other texts that are more firmly attributed to Musō Soseki, such as Muchū mondōshū夢中問答集, Musō kokushi goroku夢窓国師語録 (Quotes of the State Master of Bukkoku), and Seizan-yawa西山夜話. There is hardly any overlapping content between Twenty-three Dialogues and these other texts. Furthermore, the main idea of Twenty-three Dialogues bears the marks of influence from the Nichiren Sect.

Overall, this paper concludes that there is a high possibility that Twenty-three Dialogues was written in the Edo period by an author who assumed the name of Musō Soseki.

Paper Download (3 MB)

Paper short abstract:

This paper proposes an analysis of the doctrinal contents of those kana hōgo written in the medieval period but published in the early modern era. Piercing such texts' apparent simplicity helps us to better trace how particular doctrines of the past spread through Edo-period Japanese society.

Paper long abstract:

The doctrines of the various branches of the Rinzai school have yet to be defined with full clarity. A number of their characteristics can, however, be identified in those main currents observable throughout the course of the school's history. Within this course, the medieval period in particular—namely, from the school's introduction to Japan up to the beginning of the Edo period—saw Japanese Zen undergo a series of evolutions that produced in it a wide variety of doctrinal positions. In contrast, after the beginning of the Edo period, with the decline of the political and cultural influence of the Rinzai branch, this broad doctrinal variety would begin to progressively decrease, even as a new power balance was sought within a new religious landscape.

The publication of texts within the kana hōgo (vernacular sermon) genre also begin in the Edo period. Notably, perhaps because Japanese Zen did not produce other concrete treatises on its doctrines, these kana hōgo became the main route by which Japanese people gained access to the teachings of this school. Many kana hōgo were, moreover, texts originally composed during the medieval period, and by that very token contained therein doctrinal conceptions born of an era quite different from that in which they saw publication.

In this paper, we will propose an analysis of the doctrinal content of some kana hōgo, not only to understand properly the purpose of the texts themselves, but also, by keeping in mind the gap between their production and their publication, to think about the way such texts were received during the Edo period.

Of course, kana hōgo were intended simply to explicate the teachings of Zen—or the teachings of the Buddha as a whole—not to promote any such-and-such sub-branch. They do not deal, in explicit terms, with particular doctrines internal to the Rinzai school. As a result, in order to probe beyond this surface simplicity, we will need to examine their contents in the light of other materials from the medieval period of Japanese Zen.

Paper short abstract:

Using in particular the case of illustrated scrolls and picture books produced from the Muromachi period to the early Edo period, this paper explores the cross-genre relationship between kana hōgo (vernacular sermons) published in the early Edo period and contemporary works of vernacular fiction.

Paper long abstract:

Many of the illustrated scrolls (emaki) and picture books (ehon) produced between the Muromachi era and the early Edo period concern fictional stories written in the script and language of contemporary Japanese. It has been noted that the popularity of such works, known collectively as monogatari zōshi (vernacular tales), seems to have continued unabated even with the rapid spread of early-modern print technology, and amid all the revolutionary changes that followed in its wake. What has been less explored is the manner in which the new literary environment influenced such tales. In this paper I focus on one particularly salient trend in vernacular stories of the time: the noticeable incorporation within their narratives of contemporary Buddhist discourse, in language reminiscent specifically of sutra lectures and Buddhist sermons published likewise in the vernacular.

The genre of texts known as kana hōgo (vernacular sermons) received wide publication beginning in the early Edo period. Communicating the doctrines of important sect-founding Buddhist masters or other exceptionally learned monks in the vernacular kana script, such works came to exert a broad influence on the larger world of vernacular texts in general. Recent scholarship has tended to preoccupy itself with textual subgenres built around chronological subdivisions, focusing more narrowly on perhaps otogi-zōshi, or kana-zōshi, or even kana hōgo alone. It has thus tended to overlook the potential relationships cross-occurring among vernacular genres, such as between the aforementioned Buddhist sermons and vernacular tales. In this paper, I will explore a number of examples of such cross-genre influence in hopes of making such relationships clearer. By deliberately ignoring conventional distinctions of genre and periodization, I hope furthermore to elucidate some of the more specific circumstances under which vernacular tales were produced.