Nanjō Bun'yū

Nanjō Bun'yū ( Japanese 南 條 文 雄 , * July 1, 1849 in Ōgaki, Mino Province ; † November 9, 1927 ) was a Japanese Buddhist scholar and religious scholar of the Meiji and Taisho periods . His birth name was Tani Kakumaru , he used Sekika ( 碩果 ) as a pseudonym . The anglicized spelling Nanjio Bunyiu is also common . The Sanskrit scholar is particularly known for his catalog of the Buddhist canon , which was the standard directory for the Sino-Japanese canon in a western language until the Taishō complete edition was completed.

youth

Kakumaru was born as the third son of Tani Eijun, a priest of Seiun-ji ( 誓 運 寺 ) in Ōgaki in Mino Province, today's Gifu Prefecture . It was in 1871 - than those of the Meiji reformers operated Buddhist persecution was in full swing - from Nanjo Jingo adopted as heir, and he took the name Nanjo Bun'yū and clerics was. His adoptive father, also a clergyman, came from a daimyō family that had had its seat in Hameiishi ( Hōki province ) until it was deposed by Tokugawa Ieyasu .

In the same year he began to practice Buddhism and "Western studies" at the Takakura School in Kyoto . In 1872 he became head clerk at the headquarters of the Ōtani branch of the Jōdo-Shinshū ( Higashi Hongan-ji ). Three years later he reached the position of Rokuji.

Studied in England

In 1876 he received a scholarship from the Ōtani to study in England, where he arrived in August with no language skills. He studied English in London for over 2 years. From February 1879 he studied Sanskrit - of which he had no prior knowledge - under Prof. Max Müller . At that time he referred to himself as the "Priest of the Temple Eastern Honganji, Japan". After 1880 he dealt with and edited the Sanskrit originals of Sukhāvatī-vyūha (Japanese 無量 寿 経 , Muryōju-kyō ), Amida-kyō and the Vajracchedika (Japanese 金剛 經 , Kongō-kyō ).

Canon catalog

Prince Iwakura had promised the British government a copy of the entire Buddhist canon ( 一切 經 , Issaikyō ) on his European tour . This was then kept in the library of the India Office (now SOAS ). The knowledge of European scholars was insufficient at the time to develop the material. Starting in April 1880, after an autopsy of the inventory, Nanjō created his catalog, which follows the structure of the Ming Beijing edition (Mi-tsang 1586-1606; Chinese  大 明 三 蔵 経 目 禄 ). The San Tsang (Chinese 三藏, Sanzang ) is - like the Pali canon - in Sūtra ( Chinese  経 , Pinyin jīng ), Abhidharma ( Chinese  律 , Pinyin lǜ ) and Vinaya ( Chinese  論 , Pinyin lún ; from five different traditions ), however, based on the origin of the texts, it is still divided into Hinayāna and Mahāyāna . There is also the group “miscellaneous” ( Chinese  雑 , Pinyin zá ) and apocryphal writings.

This was the first time that a complete Sino-Japanese canon was clearly laid out in the Western language. Nanjō's pioneering canon catalog (mostly cited as "NJ [number]" in older literature), with its comments and explanations, is still a valuable source today. It also contains directories of Indian authors (Appendix I), Chinese translators (II) and authors (III). Other scholars then created a romanized index of Chinese titles and a Japanese sutras index.

Teaching

After his return in 1884 he became a teacher at the Ōtani school in Tokyo. The following year he was appointed lecturer at the Faculty of Literature at the Imperial University . In 1887 he went on a five-month pilgrimage to India, including China on the way back.

On his return he took over the management of the Futsu school in Nagoya . The Ministry of Education awarded him the title of "Doctor of Literature" in June 1888 and his sect honored him with the title "Kengaku Itto Gakushi", which was followed in 1894 by "Gakushi". 1890–94 he taught in the girls' department of the peers school. From 1895 he was headmaster of the Shinshū-Kotogaku (for the organization of the Japanese education system of the Taishō-era: Hermann Bohner in: Ev. Pedagogical Lexicon , 1929).

When the chief of the Shinshū traveled to Siam in 1900 to receive a relic of the enlightened one from King Chulalongkorn , he was accompanied by Nanjō.

The following year he became a professor at Shinshū College, two years later its president. In 1905 he became a member of the Japanese Imperial Academy . His sect bestowed his highest academic ordination with the title of Kōshi and the rank of Gon-sōjō ( 権 僧 正 ; about an "auxiliary bishop" according to Catholic terminology).

At Shinshū Ōtani College he became director in 1914. When the college became a university in 1922, he assumed the office of president. This institution is still a leader in the publication of canonical texts, including those of the Tibetan tradition.

In 1917, the Tennō awarded him the - purely ceremonial - court rank Shogoi (5th upper). In 1922 there was an increase in rank in the Jushii (4th following). He also acted as an educational advisor to the colonel of the Ōtani-shū.

From 1923 he was the high priest of the Nissen Temple in Nagoya, where the relic brought from Siam was / is. At the same time, he traveled around the country preaching until an illness forced him to recover in Fukui for about a month . Almost all of his life-long records were burned as a result of the earthquake on Sept. 1, 1923.

When he, after his resignation from the position of the university president , was already seriously ill in 1927, his court rank was increased by a further level ( shōshii ). At the same time, the sect named him Daisōjō ( 大 僧 正 ). He died on November 9, 1927.

Works

• A Catalog of the Chinese Translations of the Buddhist Tripitaka…; Oxford 1883; PDF 14.6 MB reprint: San Francisco 1975

* Ross, Edward Denison; Alphabetical list of the titles of works in the Chinese Buddhist Tripiṭaka being an index to Bunyiu Nanjio's catalog and to the 1905 Kioto repr. of the Buddhist canon; [Calcutta] 1910 (Archaeolog. Dep. Of India)

* Tokima Daiyō; Ogiwara Umai; Japanese Alphabetical Index of Nanjiō's Catalog…, Tokyo 1905

• A short history of the twelve Japanese Buddhist sects: translated from the original Japanese; Tokyo [1886] (Bukkyō-sho-ei-yaku-shuppan-sha); XXXI, 172 p. PDF 9.3 MB
• Bunyû Nanjô: A Brief History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Schools. (Translated by Julian Braun) Frankfurt: Angkor Verlag 2013. ISBN 978-3-943839-21-0
• H. Kern; B. Nanjio (ed.); Saddharmapuṇḍarīka; St. Pétersbourg 1908-1912 (Imprimerie de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences), XII, 507 p .; Sert .: Bibliotheca Buddhica, 10 [In Nāgarī] Vol.1 , Vol. 2 , Vol. 3 , Vol. 4 , Vol. 5 .
• B. Nanjio (ed.): The Laṅkāvatāra sūtra , Kyoto, Otani University Press 1923 [In Nāgarī]

Further Buddhological studies and an autobiographical work (1926) appeared in Japanese.

Web links

• Literature by and about Nanjō Bun'yū in the catalog of the German National Library

literature

• Buswell, Robert Jr; Lopez, Donald S. Jr., eds. (2013). Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 571-572. ISBN 9780691157863 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ M. Zumoto, "Nanjio Bunyiu: His Life and Work" . (PDF, 185 kB), Pacific World Ⅲ, No 6 (2004), 119-137
2. ↑ Nanjō Bunyū; A catalog… , 1883, introduction.
3. ↑ Tokima Daijō et al. 1905.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Nanjō is the family name, Bun'yū the first name.