Fujaku（普寂）is the Buddhist thinker in the middle of the Eighteenth century and one of the most famous scholar monks in the Edo period. He holds up the religious revival of the true law by Shakyamuni Buddha and practices the so-called lesser vehicle. Though he may be one of the most important Buddhist thinkers in the Edo era and can be one of the sources of the modern Japanese Buddhism thoughts, there has not been a research of his biography by now. The scholarship for now has defined Fujaku as a heretic in almost all the Japanese sects, or as a monk who argues the correspondence of all the sects from the point of superdenominations. Those opinions would show that he stands out from the existing structure of Japanese Buddhism sects. I make it clear in this thesis on the basis of my researches of Fujaku’s thinking that his life and his self-identification with paying attention to the relationship between the Jōdo sect and Fujaku. Fujaku was born at a Jōdo-Shin sect temple at Ise prefecture in the Hoei（宝永）4, 1707, and studied at Kyoto and so on in his youth. He had a serious doubt on the orthodox faith of the Jōdo-Shin sect by getting an illness and left his home temple at twenty eight years old. After that, he stayed at the temple at Owari prefecture to be famous as a place of the precept reformation. Fujaku became a Jōdo reclusive monk there, because he was looked after so much by Kantsu（関通）who was a very famous Jōdo reclusive monk at that time. After becoming a reclusive monk, Fujaku had wondered from place to place for around ten years. When he was forty one years old, Fujaku received the 250 precepts and became a full-fledged bhiks.u. At the age of fifty seven, he became the chief clergy of Chōsen-in（長泉院）that was a Jōdo precept temple at Edo. He passed away as chanting Nenbutsu at seventy five years of age in the Tenmei（天明）1, 1781. Though he officially spent his life as a monk of Jōdo precept denomination, he took a cold attitude toward the Jōdo sect in his life. Moreover, he did not so specially respect Hōnen （法然）of the founder of the Jōdo sect. He thought himself as a descendant of Dōsen（道宣）and had a highly regard and a sympathy for Dosen of the founder of Nanzan Ritsu sect. Fujaku interpreted Dōsen as the revivalist of the true law by Shakyamuni Buddha and the historical mediator between Shakyamuni and Fujaku himself. Fujaku, however, did not observe closely all the precepts advocated by Dosen and not strictly have a sense of a member of the Nanzan-Ritsu sect. His signature of“Bhiks.u Fujaku at the precept temple Chōsen-in at the Eastern capital”shows his identification as a precept monk according to the true law.
