Kusha-shu

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The Kusha-shū ( Japanese倶 舎 宗) was a school of Japanese Buddhism during the Nara period .

history

The Kusha-shū was developed by Chitatsu or Chidatsu (智達) and Chitsū (智通), two students of Xuanzang or students of his students around 660, in Japan in 665 as a counterpart of the Chinese Jushe zong ( Chinese  倶 舍 宗 , Pinyin Jùshè zōng , W.-G. Chü-she tsung ). The exact line of the transmission of the teachings is historically unclear, but names often mentioned in connection with it are: Dōshō (638-700; 道 昭), Jōe (644–714; 定慧) and Gembō or Genbō (? –746; 玄 昉).

Although the Kusha-shū is one of the traditional six schools of Nara , it was never an institution of its own. Most of their teachings were received as preparatory to understanding the previously established Hossō-shū . In 793 the Kusha-shū became an integral part of the Hossō-shū and has only received academic reception since then.

Fonts

The basic text of the Kusha-shū is the (Abidatsuma) Kusha-ron (阿 毘 達磨 倶 舎 論; German about "treasury of dogmatics"), a translation of the Abhidharma-kośa (bhāsyam) of Vasubandhu made by Xuanzang between 651 and 654 . This is a highly systematic and very detailed rendition of the Abhidharma literature with special attention to the respective standpoints of the Sarvāstivāda and the Sautrāntika , whereby the Sarvāstivāda devotes most of the space, but argues mostly on the side of the Sautrāntika.

Teaching

The topic of Kusharon is particularly extensive because of the amount of teachings that go back well into the first centuries before the Christian era and includes, among other things, mythological cosmology, rules of meditation and regulations pertaining to Buddhist monastic communities. It remained the standard glossary for Buddhist terms and concepts until the late 18th century.

The philosophically most important concepts in Kusha-ron concern the foundations of existence , the analysis of a total of 75 factors of existence in five categories (four conditional ( rūpa , citta , citta samprayukta saṃskāra and citta viprayukta saṃskāra ) and an unconditional ( asaṃskṛta dharma )), the analysis of causality in six types of direct and four types of indirect causation, the eternal existence of the factors of existence in the three worlds ( past , present and future ) and the presentation of an atomistic theory to complete gaps in the Dharma category systematics in the area of ​​matter.

literature

  • Daigan Lee Matsunaga and Alicia Orloff Matsunaga: Foundation of Japanese Buddhism; Vol. I; The aristocratic age . Buddhist Books International, Los Angeles and Tokyo 1974. ISBN 0-914910-25-6 .
  • Gregor Paul: Philosophy in Japan: from the beginning to the Heian period; a critical investigation . Iudicium, Munich 1993. ISBN 3-89129-426-3 .

Web links

  • Abhidharmakośam - Sanskrit original in excerpts together with the Chinese translations of Paramārtha and Xuanzang