[Buddha-l] Shiguseiganmon - Bodhisattva Vows

[Franz Metcalf]

Gang,

To answer Bernhard's (and my own) question, the text of an H-Buddhism  
post from a few years ago:

> From: "Paul Swanson" <pswanson at nanzan-u.ac.jp>
> Subject: Re: QUERY> Pre-Tiantai Source of Four Vows?
> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007
>
>
> Dan Leighton asked:
>
>> On a Zen e-mail list was the recent inquiry:
>>
>>> I'm interested in the origin of the Four Vows (_shigu seigan mon_;
>>> 四弘 誓願) - the one that begins "Beings are numberless, I vow  
>>> to
>>> free them."
>> .....
>> [snip]
>>
>> The question here, does anyone know of sources for these four
>> bodhisattva vows prior to Zhiyi?
>
>
> Robert Rhodes has argued that, as far as we can tell, Zhiyi formulated
> the Four Vows as we know them. See his article on "The Four Extensive
> Vows and Four Noble Truths in T'ien-t'ai Buddhism," _Annual Memoirs
> of the Otani University Shin Buddhist Comprehensive Research  
> Institute_,
> vol. 2 (1984), pp. 53-91.
>
> Paul Swanson
> Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture

Cheers,

Franz