小善成仏から願成就へ、<「方便品」三世代関与説>をもってする『法華経』「方便品」の救済論の測深=From the Crest Concept of Shozenjobutsu (小善成佛) to the Ground Idea of Ganjoju (願成就) : A Speculative Analysis Plumbing the Soteriological Depths of the Lotus Sutra by means of the Hypothesis of "Three Generations of Authors/Compilers" Who Participated in the Editing of the Skillful Means Chapter
For us who read carefully the Sanskrit text of the Lotus Sutra (abbrev., LS), it is obvious that the concept of the Shozenjobutsu (小善成佛), i.e. instantaneous realization of Buddhahood at the smallest act of paying homage to the Buddhas) should constitute the soteriological crest of the Sutra. However, so far this idea has not been scientifically analyzed in its original context. For this purpose, I put forward here a hypothesis of three generations of authors/compilers who participated in the editing of the Skillful Means Chapter (方便品, abbrev. SMC) of the Sutra. I hope that this will contribute to the understanding of the reality of this enigmatic text. The three generations were as follows: The first generation: the founding Master of the group adhering to LS, who is thought to have attained the Supreme Truth of the Buddha-Vehicle (佛乘butsujo). The second generation: the founder's immediate pupils, who after the death of the Master collected his words and edited them into the hypothetical Proto-Lotus Sutra (abbrev. PLS). The first part of it can be called the "Proto-Skillful Means Chapter" (abbrev. PSMC). The third generation: the disciples of the second generation, who were not completely satisfied with the PSMC as the supreme expression of the Master's truth. They searched for the ground of the PSMC in other teachings left by the Master and thus found the paragraph of the Shozenjobutsu. They added this paragraph (verses 77〜96 in the extant text of the LS) to the Proto-SMC. With this hypothesis of "three generations", the concept of Shozenjobutsu can be re-established as the crest of the unique soteriology of LS through the following procedure: To restore the original meaning of Shozenjobutsu, there are two obstacles to be overcome. The first one is the widely accepted idea that the paragraph of the Shozenjobutsu is a non-original part added to the text in later ages. Actually, the verse part of the Chapter of the Past Buddhas" (過去佛章Kakobutsu-sho) does not exist in the prose part of the Chapter, which should be preceded by the original verse part. The second obstacle is the formal, surface understanding that the paragraph which tells us that the people of the days of the past Buddhas actually attained Buddhahood through such small acts. The first obstacle can be eliminated if we notice the fact the first passage of the paragraph (verses 71〜76) actually corresponds to the prose part of the Chapter. This fact makes me surmise that the third generation retrieved the remaining thirteen passages (verses 77〜97) from the original teachings of the founding Master. These verses generally contain the aorist formula: te sarvi bodhiya abhusi ldbhinah ('they all attained [literally, became the attainers of] Enlightenment') in their last lines. The third generation must have realized the following fact: "The Master declared that 'little boys, who even in playing piled pebbles here and there into small heaps taking them to be stupas dedicated to the Buddhas, all of them actually attained Enlightenment' (verse 82).Therefore, we, too, who did such small acts of paying homage as young children, attained Buddhahood that very instant." They recognized the ground of this instantaneous realization of Buddhahood in the fact that they had already been Buddha when they did such a small acts. And their reasoning concerning the grounding of this instantaneous realization of Buddhahood on the fact that they were already Buddhas led them back to the fundamental presupposition of Ganjoju (願成就), that is, the recognition that the vow of the Buddha Sakyamuni to make everyone a Buddha had been carried out since he attained Enlightenment at Gaya. The reasoning of the first representatives of the third generation (what we may call 'third generation (a)') stopped at this point, i.e. when they grounded the possibility of Shozenjobutsu on the fundamental presumption of Ganjoju. This fact seems to be suggested by the possible meaning of the phrase bodhdya janetha cc
