[Buddha-l] Vinaya in Japan

Piya Tan dharmafarer at gmail.com
Sat Feb 2 23:06:57 MST 2008


Went Fai,

Was there even any "HInayana" in Japan, much less in Nara?

Piya Tan



2008/2/3 Wong Weng Fai <wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg>:

>
> I believe Saicho was not happy that the Vinaya was essentially Hinayana
> Vinaya. He sort to establish his own Mahayana Vinaya and met a lot of
> resistance from the Nara Hinayanists. Eventually I think he got his way
> and established his own system - which eventually became the nationally
> accepted way of doing things - until Shinran did away with the vinaya
> with his "neither monk nor lay" deal which included allowing "monks" to
> marry.
>
> I hope the experts can comment on this.
>
> W.F. Wong
>
> On Sun, 3 Feb 2008, Bankei wrote:
>
> > Could someone please assist me in understanding the history of the
> vinaya in
> > Japan?
> >
> >
> >
> > My understanding is that Japanese monks initially followed the vinaya
> but it
> > was quickly bypassed for various reasons. I think Saicho, the founder of
> > Tendai, wanted his monks to be ordained under the Bodhisattva precepts
> only
> > and not under the vinaya. There may be various reasons for this, the
> major
> > one possibly being the hold the big Nara schools had on admitting monks
> > because they controlled the ordinations.
> >
> >
> >
> > But there were still monks ordained under the vinaya, including monks of
> the
> > more older schools. But discipline became lax. Some of the reasons
> Dogen,
> > Eisai etc went to China was to bring back texts, knowledge and proper
> vinaya
> > lineages.
> >
> >
> >
> > Some of my questions are:
> >
> >
> >
> > Were Dogen ���� (founder of Soto) and Eisai ���� (founder of Rinzai)
> properly
> > ordained under the vinaya in China?
> >
> >
> >
> > Did they start ordaining monks on their return to Japan? If so, how did
> they
> > fill the property quorum?
> >
> >
> >
> > And generally, what happened to the vinaya ordination tradition in
> Japan?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> >
> >
> > Bankei
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> >
> >
>
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