Bücher der Reihe Hamburg Buddhist Studies

Genshin (¿¿; 942-1017), also known as Eshin sozu (¿¿¿¿) , is one of the most prominent masters of Japanese Tendai Buddhism. This study focuses on one of his seminal works, the Ichijo yoketsu ¿¿¿¿ (Determining the Essentials of the One-vehicle), and evaluates its influence on subsequent representatives of the tradition in the medieval period. It elucidates how Genshin and his most significant writings, i.e. the Ichijo yoketsu and the Ojoyoshu ¿¿¿¿ (The Essentials of Birth in the Pure Land), were understood in the Buddhist milieu of the Japanese Middle Ages. By shedding light how the Ichijo yoketsu was quoted in connection to the sangoku mappo ¿¿¿¿ paradigm ("decline of the dharma throughout the three countries" of India, China, and Japan), the present book contributes original and relevant insights into Japanese Buddhism. It primarily takes an intertextual approach, which is carried out with the help of digital resources and tools. Yet another feature is the first English-language translation of the Genshin sozu den ¿¿¿¿¿ (Biography of the General Vicar Genshin), the oldest full-length biography of Genshin. While the work presents a wealth of new knowledge and hitherto unexplored angles, it does not intend to conclude its matter. Rather, it aims at inspiring further interest in the study of Genshin and his many unexplored works.

The "Anunatvapur¿atvanirdesaparivarta" is a short Mahayana sutra extant in its entirety only in Chinese translation. To judge from its use as a proof-text in the seminal philosophical treatise "Ratnagotravibhaga", which quotes roughly half of the sutra, it is a fundamental scripture expressing ideas about the unitary nature of säsara and nirväa, and each individual's innate capacity for awakening, called in this text and elsewhere 'tathagatagarbha,' 'embryo of the tathagatas.' Although the text has hitherto drawn the attention primarily of Japanese scholars, this is the first critical edition of the sutra, aligning its Chinese text with the available Sanskrit, offering a richly annotated English translation, a detailed introduction which places the work in its historical and doctrinal context, and a number of appendices exploring key notions, providing a reading text shorn of annotation, and enumerating the prolific quotations of the work found in Chinese Buddhist literature. This volume is thus an important contribution to studies of developing Mahayana Buddhism, Buddhist doctrine and the textual history of scriptures.