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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.

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