Ōjō yōshū 往生要集

Author/compiler: Genshin 源信, Tendai monk, 942-1017, also known as Eshin Sōzu 惠心僧都. Imprint: N.p., n.d. [Kyōto ?, printed first half of 13th century, between 1216 and 1255] . No kanki. Description: 3 kan, each originally containing 2 jō 帖, making a total of 6 jō. Now rebound in 3 jō, detchō style, in a chitsu case. (Maki 上) ff. [66]; (中) ff. [62]; (下) ff. [92] , total 220 folios, all unnumbered. 24.8-25.2 x 14.8 cm. Incomplete copy. For lacunae, see 'Notes on this copy' below. Blockprint, on thick ganpi paper printed on both sides. Printing frame 21.3 x 13.5 cm. No borders, no vertical rules. Kanbun text, with handwritten kunten and kaeriten. 6 lines to page, 17 characters to line. Renewed covers of stiff paper added (late-Edo or early Meiji period ?), presumably when the surviving parts of this incomplete copy were reconstituted in detchō form. (Stab-holes at the spine indicate that the volumes were thread-sewn at some stage, though the original form of binding was detchō.) Small title slips of recent date, sprinkled with mica and kirihaku, carry handwritten gedai: Ōjō yōshū 往生要集. Edition: Jōdokyō-ban (works printed at Jōdo and Jōdoshinshū monasteries from Kamakura to early Edo period). An apparently unrecorded edition belonging to the rare kentōbon 遣唐本 recension of this work. (The kentōbon, unlike the ryūwabon 留和本 or standard rufubon text which circulated only in Japan, was a revised text printed for dispatch to China for study there.) The present edition, whilst demonstrably a kentōbon, differs markedly from (a) the earliest surviving edition dated Kenpō 4 建保四年 (1216), belonging to the ryūwabon group, (b) the Kenchō 5 (1253) edition mentioned above, and (c) the edition in Daitōkyū Kinen Bunko with a handwritten shikigo dated Kenchō 7 (1255). It is printed in a form of script older than the latter, and therefore predates 1255. A peculiarity shared by all early editions is the omission of one stroke from the character 敬. Contents: A compendium of selected passages from the Buddhist canon on the Pure Land of Amida, and on the means (chiefly through nenbutsu) of achieving rebirth there. Compiled by Genshin and completed in 985.

Unrestricted

Acquired from Kōbunsō, 15 March 1974.

Kenneth Gardner, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese books in the British Library printed before 1700 (London and Tenri, 1993). B. Buddhist works 仏書 4. Jōdo, jōdo shinshū sects 浄土・浄土真宗

Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 仏書解説大辞典, vol. 1, pp. 364-6; KEJ, vol. 6, p. 77; Jōdokyō-ban no kenkyū 浄土教版の研究, pp. 40-3, 63-7; Kōbunsō kohanpon mokuroku 弘文荘古版本目録, p. 20; TT, vol. 84, no. 2682.