Jiun Onkō

Jiun (慈雲) (August 24, 1718 – January 22, 1805) was a late-Edo period Shingon monk. He emphasized the Vinaya and advocated “Shōbōritsu” (正法律, True Law Vinaya). Founder of Unden Shintō (雲伝神道). He was also known as a distinguished calligrapher.[1] His secular surname was Kōzuki (上月). His Buddhist name (hōi) was Onkō (飲光). He was also styled Hyakufuchidōji (百不知童子), Katsuragi Sanjin (葛城山人), and Sōryūsō (雙龍叟). He is honorifically called Jiun Sonja (慈雲尊者).[2]

Life

Jiun was born in the Takamatsu Domain warehouse district on Nakanoshima, Ōsaka (present-day Kita Ward, Osaka) as the son of Kōzuki Yasunori. Fulfilling his father’s dying wish, he was tonsured at age 13 at Hōraku-ji in Settsu Province and studied Esoteric Buddhism and Sanskrit under the abbot Nin’kō Teiki.[3] At 16 he traveled to Kyoto to study Neo-Confucianism with Itō Tōgai. The following year he went to Nara for further study in Shingon Buddhism and Shintō, began research on the precepts at Nonaka-dera in Kawachi Province, and received full ordination (gusokukai) in 1738 (Genbun 3). He received the kanjō initiation the next year and became abbot of Hōraku-ji, but ceded the post after two years. He later studied Zen with the Sōtō monk Daibai in Shinano Province and received certification.

In 1744 he revived Chōei-ji in Kawachi and began lectures on the Vinaya. In 1750 he promulgated the “Fundamental Monastic Code” to restore the True Law Vinaya and corrected the sewing of the kesa in his Hōfuku Zuge. After authoring the seven-volume Nankai Kikiden Kaikōshō (1758), he retired to the hermitage Sōryū-an on Mt. Ikoma to focus on research and composed the thousand-volume Sanskrit treatise Bon-gaku Shinryō, which rejected the magical interpretation of Siddham letters and instead analyzed Sanskrit grammar to accurately read Buddhist scriptures. This work was later highly praised by French Sanskrit scholar Sylvain Lévi.

In 1775 he wrote the twelve-volume Jūzen Hōgo. The next year he entered Kōkiji in Kanan with the support of the Yamato-Koriyama lord Yanagisawa Yasumitsu, who made Kōkiji the head temple of the True Law Vinaya and revered Jiun deeply.

In his later years Jiun propounded an original theory of Shintō, making Iwahune Ōjinja his main training site. His Shintō teaching was later called Unden Shintō (雲伝神道) or Katsuragi Shintō (葛城神道). It interpreted Shintō through the lens of Shingon mandala doctrine and sought to reconstruct the older Ryōbu Shintō, placing the essence of Shintō in sovereign-subject morality while criticizing Confucian ethics and claiming Japan required no appearance of foreign sages. This stance was a response to Restoration Shintō.[4]

Major Works

  • Bon-gaku Shinryō (梵学津梁)
  • Jūzen Hōgo (十善法語) NDL Digital
  • Hōfuku Zuge (方服図儀) Vol.1 Vol.2
  • Shinju Gōdan (神儒偶談) Upper Lower
  • Other collected writings as listed in modern editions.

References

  1. ^ At Kōkiji Temple a special thick brush used by Jiun was discovered and restored. "High Monk Jiun’s Beloved Extra-Thick Brush Restored for His 300th Birthday" Nikkei Shimbun Evening Edition, November 5, 2018. Accessed November 7, 2018.
  2. ^ Comprehensive Buddhist Dictionary Editorial Committee (1988). Comprehensive Buddhist Dictionary (in Japanese). Hōzōkan. p. 98.
  3. ^ Japanese Classical Literature Dictionary Editorial Committee (1984). Dictionary of Japanese Classical Literature, Vol.3 (in Japanese). Iwanami Shoten. p. 144.
  4. ^ Institute for Japanese Culture, Kokugakuin University (1999). Shintō Encyclopedia (in Japanese). Kōbundō. p. 431.
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