Three ages (Buddhism)

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The three ages or three times ( skt. Tri-kāla ; tib. Dus gsum ; Chinese  三 時 , Pinyin sānshí , W.-G. san-shih ; jap. Sanji ) are a concept coined in Chinese Buddhism for the descending classification of History of the impact of the teachings ( Dharma ) of a Buddha (mostly of the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama ) after his departure from the world. It is also known as the amalgamation of the individual names of the ages under the name Zhengxiangmo ( Chinese  正像 末 , Pinyin zhèngxiàngmò , W.-G. cheng-hsiang-mo ; Japanese shōzōmatsu ).

Classification

A distinction is made between

  1. the true, or orthodox teachings (Skt. samyag-dharma ; avitatha , ānudhārma , uccāraṇa , Dharmata , dharma-DESANA , dharma-Netri , dharma-paryâya , dhārmika , dhārmikī , Naya , niṣyanda-dharma , Netri , pravacana , prāvaccana , buddha-dharma , buddha-netrī , śasana ; Chinese  正法 , pinyin zhèngfǎ , W.-G. cheng-fa , Japanese shōbō ): doctrine, practice and enlightenment are possible. This period lasts either 500 or 1000 years, depending on the design.
  2. the formally similar or scholastic teaching (skt. saddharma-pratikṣepa , saddharma-pratirūpaka ; Chinese  像 法 , Pinyin xiàngfǎ , W.-G. hsiang-fa ; Japanese zōhō or zōbō ): Doctrine and practice are possible, but it is there is no more enlightenment. This period lasts either 500 or 1000 years, depending on the design.
  3. of the late and already decaying doctrine (skt. saddharma-vipralopa , carima-kāla ; Chinese  Pin , Pinyin mòfǎ , W.-G. mo-fa ; Japanese mappō ): There is only the doctrine that both practice and enlightenment are not possible anymore. This period lasts 10,000 years. After it ends, even the Buddha's doctrine ultimately disappears.

Development and dissemination

The doctrine originated in India, but had not yet been systematized there. Mainly the term of the first age was used to summarize criticism of various developments in the Buddhist communities ( sangha ) under a general term and thus to be able to characterize them as a departure from the true teachings of the Buddha. The earliest writings in which this topic appears conceptually include a. the Saṃyutta Nikāya and the "Cakkavatti-sīhanāda Suttanta" in the Dīgha Nikāya .

The two sutras Sūryagarbha and Candragarbha , which were translated into Chinese by Narendrayaśas in the 6th century and later integrated into the Mahāyānābhisamaya sūtra , emerged under the impression of the anti-Buddhist rule of the Alchon king Mihirakula . The latter text was translated into Chinese by Jñānayaśas (564-572) ( 大乘 同性 經 , Dàshéng tóngxìng jīng , Ta-sheng t'ung-hsing ching ; Japanese Daijō dōshō kyō ) and formed one of the fundamental texts for the development of the end-time ideology in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism.

The system was only developed in China in the 6th century. A first allocation of the three ages to specific periods of human history was made by Huisi ( 慧思 , Huìsī ; 515-577), the second patriarch of the Tiantai zong . For him the last age had already come. A little later, these theses gained special weight in the Buddhist communities of China, when a great persecution of Buddhists took place under Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty from 574 to 577.

Based on the assumption of its presence as the age of the degeneration of the Dharma, Xinxing ( 信 行 , xìnxíng ; 540-594) developed the three-stage teaching ( 三階 教 , Sānjiē jiào ), in which the selection of various Buddhist doctrines is determined depending on the ability to learn and thereby one special attention was paid to the incapable of learning as characteristic beings of this age.

The masters of Chinese Amitabha Buddhism Daojo ( 道綽 ; 562–645) and Shandao ( 善 導 , Shàndǎo ; 613–681) were also convinced that they had been born in the mòfǎ .

The concept had been known in Japan since the Nara period , but it was not until the socially and politically chaotic period of medieval Japan (from the late Heian period ) that it became widespread in the religious teachings of Buddhist schools. The approximate starting date of the mappō was usually 1055 . Since this period at the latest, it has become a theoretical basis for various currents in Japanese Buddhism , especially for the new mass movements of the Kamakura period (Amida and Nichiren Buddhism). However, it was rejected. B. by the Zen master Dōgen .

The Mappō ideology (末法 思想, mappō shisō ) was also important to the old schools of Nara Buddhism, although their representatives (including Jōkei , Eison , Ninshō , Jitsuhan , Kainyo , Kakushin , Kakujō , Shunjō, and Donshō ) were not like them Reformers of the new schools formulated a practical surrender to the time of decline, but instead a return to old ideals. This was expressed u. a. in a renaissance of Shaka worship and a movement ( initiated in particular by the Risshū ) for the restoration of the monastic monastic rules ( Vinaya ).

Amitabha Buddhism

The three ages play a particularly important role in Amitabha Buddhism : Since there is no realistic prospect of human beings being able to attain enlightenment in the last age (in which humanity currently finds itself according to this system), the suffering beings must be in the spirit of Doctrine of the Buddha be given a different view. For Amitabha Buddhism this consists in the entry into the Pure Land (Skt. Sukhavati ) of the Buddha Amitabha .

Since people can no longer learn or practice traditional Buddhist practices, they must be given another means of doing so. In Amitabha Buddhism this consists in the complete trust in or in the hope in the " power of the other ", i. H. the power of Amitabha to receive all sentient beings into his Pure Land.

Nichiren Buddhism

The Mappo ideology was of eminent importance to the Buddhist reformer Nichiren . During his time as a Tendai monk on the Hiei-zan , he developed the core of his religious teaching: In the age of the degeneration of the Buddha's teaching, only the Hokke-kyō gave people hope of salvation from the cycle of suffering (輪 廻rinne ) to offer. Nichiren saw the spread of the lotus spirit and thus the salvation of Japan as his holy task, since the historical Buddha could no longer convey his teaching in this age.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rüsch, M. (2012). On the staging of catastrophic circumstances, their averting and reconstruction: About the role of the Mappô idea in Shinran

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 .
  • Daigan Lee Matsunaga and Alicia Orloff Matsunaga: Foundation of Japanese Buddhism; Vol. II; The mass movement (Kamakura & Muromachi periods) . Buddhist Books International, Los Angeles and Tokyo 1976. ISBN 0-914910-27-2 .
  • Fischer, Peter (1976). Studies on the history of the development of the Mappō concept and on the Mappō-tōmyō-ki, communications of the German Society for Natural and Ethnological Studies of East Asia, vol. 65; Hamburg: Society for Natural History and Ethnology of East Asia
  • Kyoshin Asano, The Idea of ​​the Last Dharma-age in Shinran's Thought (Part 1), Pacific World, Third Series Number 3, 53–70, 2001 PDF ( Memento of July 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  • Kyoshin Asano, The Idea of ​​the Last Dharma-age in Shinran's Thought (Part 2), Pacific World, Third Series Number 4, 197–216, 2002 PDF ( Memento of July 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  • Marra, Michele (1988). The development of mappō thought in Japan (I), Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 15 (1), 25–54. PDF ( Memento from December 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  • Marra, Michele (1988). The development of mappō thought in Japan (II), Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 15 (4), 287-305. PDF ( Memento from December 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  • Nattier, Jan (1991). Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline, Berkeley, Calif .: Asian Humanities Press.
  • Eric Zürcher, Eschatology and Messianism in Early Chinese Buddhism, Leiden: Leyden Studies in Sinology 1981