Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra: Esoteric Patterns in a Medieval Interpretation of the Lotus Scripture

本研究透过重新评估日莲（1222-1282）与密宗的暧昧关系，重新审视日莲的教义与实践。本书利用日莲文集中的各种材料，包括幸存的书法曼荼罗和他注释的《法华经》副本等图像来源，这些材料迄今为止一直被西方和日本的学术界所忽视，本书将日莲的思想置于《法华经》深奥解释的诠释学和仪式传统中。在揭示日莲的密宗渊源的同时，本研究也揭示了密宗佛教在日本的发展。日莲是镰仓时代运动之一的创始人，今天被称为日莲学派。他的宗教思想集中在一部经典《法华经》上，他遵循中日天台宗的训诂学解释这部经典。然而，日莲的解释发展沿着排他性的路线，强调绝对优越的法华经和严厉批评其他学校和当代运动。日莲思想的这些方面有助于描绘他作为佛教原教旨主义者的独特形象。本研究表明，日莲的这种形象是基于现代宗派议程和对13世纪日本佛教发展的根本误解。我的论点是，日莲所建构的“正统”和“正形”，是对属于日莲公开批评的一种传统，即密宗（或密宗）佛教的元素进行复杂挪用和重新表述的结果，他对这种传统的批评更像是一种合法化的分类策略。虽然人们对中世纪佛教的印象集中在致力于一种单一的、非深奥的佛教实践的虔诚学校的诞生上，但本项目所遵循的假设是，深奥的佛教是镰仓时期佛教的主导形式，它是日莲教育的一部分，也是天台宗所坚持的《法华经》训诂传统的一部分。日莲与日本天台宗（我们今天称之为太光宗）内阐述的密宗互动的动态是这个项目的特别焦点。太密宗本身是一种鲜为人知的密宗佛教形式。我对《法华经》的教义和仪式方面的研究表明，太密宗的僧人们对《法华经》进行了一个密宗化的过程，这一过程在平安时代中后期在日本得到了充分的发展，并传播到太密宗的宗派圈子之外。正是在这种背景下，日莲采用并重新使用了基本的深奥训诂范畴，并借用了特定的深奥仪式元素。这项研究表明，日莲阐述了另一种诠释模型，而徘徊在一个传统的天台宗结构和明确否定密教的价值，重申密宗佛教的语言，本体论和救世论的类别，在他的环境中流行。这本书分为两部分。第一部分以《法华经》的特殊诠释学为背景，探讨日莲对密教的态度。第二部分阐述了采用密宗范畴的问题，重点放在日莲体系的一个组成部分：他建立的偶像作为崇拜的主要对象（honzon），并有意识地根据密宗的模式构建。我认为日莲的曼荼罗的多义性质和汇聚的影响，从各种来源的形状，它承担。此外，我分析了一个具体的先例日莲的honzon详细，曼荼罗在密宗仪式的莲花（hokkeho）。

This study reconsiders the doctrine and practice of Nichiren (1222-1282), one of the major figures in Japanese religious history, through a re-evaluation of his ambiguous relation to esoteric Buddhism. Making use of a variety of material from the Nichiren corpus, including iconographic sources such as the surviving calligraphic mandalas and his annotated copy of the Lotus Sutra, which have hitherto been neglected by Western and Japanese scholarship alike, the book situates Nichiren's thought within the hermeneutical and ritual tradition of esoteric interpretations of the Lotus Sutra. In bringing to light Nichiren's esoteric antecedents, this study also sheds light on the development of esoteric Buddhism in Japan.Nichiren was the initiator of one of the Kamakura period movements, today known as Nichiren school. His religious thought focused on one scripture, the Lotus Sutra, which he interpreted following the Sino-Japanese exegesis of the T'ien-t'ai/Tendai school. However, Nichiren's interpretation developed along exclusivist lines that emphasized the absolute superiority of the Lotus Sutra and harshly criticised other schools and contemporary movements. These aspects of Nichiren's thought have contributed to drawing a picture of him as a Buddhist fundamentalist sui generis.The present study demonstrates that such an image of Nichiren is based on modern sectarian agendas and on a fundamental misunderstanding of the development of thirteenth-century Japanese Buddhism. My contention is that the 'orthodoxy' and 'orthopraxis' that Nichiren constructed were the result of a complex appropriation and reformulation of elements belonging to a tradition that Nichiren criticized openly, that is, esoteric (or Tantric) Buddhism, and that his criticism of this tradition rather was a taxonomic strategy of legitimation. While the received image of medieval Buddhism has focused on the birth of devotional schools devoted to a single, non-esoteric, Buddhist practice, the hypothesis followed in this project is that esoteric Buddhism was the dominant form of Buddhism in the Kamakura period, it was part of Nichiren's education, and part of the exegetical tradition of the Lotus Sutra as upheld by the Tendai school. The dynamics of Nichiren's interaction with the esotericism elaborated within Japanese Tendai, what we today call Taimitsu, are the particular focus of this project. Taimitsu itself is a little known form of Tantric Buddhism. My research into its doctrinal and ritual aspects demonstrates that Taimitsu scholar-monks carried out a process of esoterization of the Lotus Sutra, which reached its full development in Japan in the mid- and late Heian period, and spread beyond Taimitsu sectarian circles. It is in this context that Nichiren adopted and re-employed fundamental esoteric exegetical categories, and borrowed specific esoteric ritual elements. This study suggests that Nichiren formulated an alternative hermeneutical model which, while hovering within a traditional Tendai structure and explicitly negating the value of esoteric teachings, reiterated the linguistic, ontological and soteriological categories of esoteric Buddhism, prevalent in his milieu. The book is divided in two parts. Part I considers Nichiren's attitude towards esoteric Buddhism in the context of the specific hermeneutics of the Lotus Sutra. Part II develops the issue of adoption of esoteric categories, focusing on one constituent of Nichiren system: the icon that he established as the major object of worship (honzon) and consciously constructed according to esoteric mandalic patterns. I considers the polysemic nature of Nichiren's mandala and the converging of influences from a variety of sources in the shapes it assumed. Furthermore, I analyse one specific precedent of Nichiren's honzon in detail, the mandala used during the esoteric rituals of the Lotus (hokkeho).