Zonkaku
Zonkaku was a prominent Buddhist priest and scholar of early Jōdo Shinshū during the late Kamakura era and Nanboku-chō period. Zonkaku worked to systematize Shin doctrine and expand the tradition throughout Japan. As the first person to write a commentary on Shinran's Kyōgyōshinshō, Zonkaku played a major role in shaping medieval Shin Buddhist thought and practice. He was the eldest son of Kakunyo, the third caretaker of the influential Hongan-ji temple, a tradition which would become central to the institutional formation of Jōdo Shinshū. Although widely recognized for his scholarship, he was embroiled in disputes with his father over temple authority, succession, and regional administration.
Zonkaku devoted his life to the propagation of Pure Land Buddhism. He traveled widely throughout the Kantō region, Mutsu, Ōmi, and Bingo Provinces, all while copying texts, instructing disciples, debating other Japanese Buddhist schools, and establishing networks of followers connected to both Hongan-ji and Bukkō-ji temples. His proselytizing activity contributed substantially to the spread of Shin Buddhist teachings during the tradition's formative period. Zonkaku served as the first head priest of Jōraku-ji in Kyoto's Shimogyō ward and later became the fourth head priest of Nishiōri-ji. His extensive missionary activity and prolific writings made him one of the most influential figures in the medieval development of Shin Buddhism.
Biography
Zonkaku was born on July 11, 1290, as the eldest son of Kakunyo and Hario no Tsubone, daughter of Sōkyōbutsu. His childhood name was Kōshimaro. He was adopted in 1297 by Hino Chikaakira, a former provincial governor, and later again in 1305 by Hino Toshimitsu, at which time he adopted the name Kōgen.From an early age he undertook a wide-ranging Buddhist education. In 1302, he began his studies under the priest Keikai at the Jōshin-in temple in Nakakawabe, Yamato, which was a betto of Kōfukuji. In 1303 he traveled to Nara, where he was ordained at Tōdai-ji and received the precepts under Keikai, Jitsui, and Ryōkan of Kōfuku-ji. He studied Buddhist doctrine and also received transmissions of esoteric Buddhist practices associated with the Kongōkai mandala. The following year he received the precepts on Mount Hiei at Enryaku-ji and studied Buddhism and received esoteric teachings. He continued his scholastic training through the late 1300s, including a concentrated period of instruction at Anyō-ji under the Nishiyama elder A Nichibō Shōkū, as well as study at Shōmon-in in Bishamon-dani.
In 1310 he returned to Ōtani and began assisting Kakunyo in teaching and administrative duties. He lectured on Shinran's Kyōgyōshinshō at Senju-ji in Echizen in 1311, the fiftieth anniversary of Shinran's death. Kakunyo transferred custodianship of the Ōtani Mausoleum to him in 1314. Zonkaku married in 1316, and in subsequent years he produced copies of several of Shinran's autograph manuscripts. His eldest son, Kōso, was born in 1320.
In 1321 Kakunyo formalized the Ōtani mausoleum as Hongan-ji, establishing the bettō as its head position. However, serious disagreements over the hereditary succession of the custodianship and over policies for guiding followers in the Kantō region led to Zonkaku's first disownment by Kakunyo in 1322, after which Kakunyo never saw him as his successor again. The division was partly based on Zonkaku's association with the powerful rival Shin temple of Bukkō-ji and its leader Ryōgen, which Kakunyo saw as a threat to Honganji influence. Kakunyo's breaking of ties led Zonkaku to become even more closely associated with Bukkō-ji temple. This caused serious divisions between Shin Buddhist congregations and various Shin groups withheld their support from Honganji due to the dispute. Despite several attempts by Shin congregations to reconcile the two figures, Kakunyo never trusted Zonkaku after this time.
During this period Zonkaku continued writing, producing works such as Jōdo Shinyōshō, Shoshin Hongeshū, Jimyōshō, Haja Kenjōshō, and Nyonin Ōjō Kikigaki for Ryōgen of Bukkō-ji.
Zonkaku also spent extended periods of his life engaged in itinerant propagation. He resided in Kamakura from 1332, later departing for Bukkō-ji in Ōmi in 1333. His son Tsunetoshi was born in 1334. When Ryōgen was killed by bandits in 1335, Zonkaku continued missionary activity independently, including extended activity in Bingo Province, where he composed Kenmyōshō and participated in a public debate with the Nichiren sect, resulting in treatises such as Ketchishō, Hokke Mondō, Hōonki, Shidōshō, and Senchaku Chūkaishō.
Zonkaku was eventually pardoned by Kakunyo and reinstated to the position of administrator of Hongan-ji in 1338. However, further disagreements led to him being disowned again in 1342. He was then pardoned once more in 1350. Kakunyo died in 1351, and in 1353, Zonkaku relocated to Ōtani Imakoji, where he remained for the rest of his life. He died on March 22, 1373, aged 84.
Zonkaku stands as one of the most significant doctrinal architects of medieval Jōdo Shinshū. His synthesis of Pure Land faith with local religious realities, interpretation of kami worship, and his extensive missionary work influenced the reception of Shin Buddhist teachings across diverse regions of Japan. Although his relationship with the Hongan-ji lineage was often tumultuous, his writings and interpretations exercised long-lasting influence on both institutional and popular forms of the tradition.
Religious Thought
Zonkaku is known for his developed Shin Buddhist scholarship which cites and relies on the works of other Pure Land schools, especially the Seizan sect and the Chinzei sect. He is also known for some unique interpretations of Shinran's teaching. This led to divergent views of Zonkaku’s place within the development of Shin Buddhism, with some scholars seeing him as diverging from Shinran.In his Rokuyōshō, the first ever commentary on Shinran's Kyōgyōshinshō, Zonkaku writes that the meaning of "Jōdo Shinshū" is the "Pure Land School". According to Dobbins, this means that Zonkaku did not consider Shin Buddhism to be a Pure Land school that was completely separate from the others as Kakunyo did. Instead, Zonkaku saw it as a part of the entire Pure Land movement founded by Hōnen. Zonkaku's teaching often drew from that of other Pure Land schools, such as the Seizan branch of Jōdo-shū. Because of this, Kakunyo saw him as deviating from the true Shin Buddhism.
Zonkaku's doctrinal innovations are visible in his Rokuyōshō, a commentary written in conscious response to other Pure Land schools and to various critiques of Shinran's teaching. Zonkaku’s use of Seizan materials, such as ideas associated with the Anjin Ketsujōshō, shows familiarity with their terminology without wholesale acceptance of their doctrine. Furthermore, his extensive but indirect reliance on Chinzei school works, such as Ryōe's Muryōjukyōshō, demonstrates an awareness of their teachings as well. Zonkaku's Rokuyōshō often quotes, rearranges, supplements, or transforms these materials external to Shin Buddhism to articulate his own doctrinal stance and to clarify Shinran’s thought in the context of the wider Pure Land scholasticism.
Pure Land apologetics
Zonkaku's Haja Kenshōshō provides a defense of Pure Land Buddhism against attacks from other schools as well as from civil authorities. In it, Zonkaku defends the Pure Land teaching as one which makes Mahayana Buddhism accessible to all beings, even to the peasants and samurai.The work contains an extensive account of over seventeen false views about Pure Land Buddhism that Zonkaku refutes in turn. These include false accusations against the Pure Land school, and claims that correct Pure Land practices are heretical or false. He is also conciliatory towards Shinto kami and shrines, seeking to portray Pure Land followers as respectful of all Japanese faiths. He also rejects certain heretical interpretations of Pure Land Buddhism, such as the licensed evil view which says nembutsu practitioners should do evil deeds. Zonkaku also criticized the military monks of Mt. Hiei for their violent attacks against the Pure Land school, intimating that it was these monks who deviated from the true Buddhism.
Zonkaku also engaged in extensive debates with the Nichiren school, whose founder Nichiren had extensively criticized Pure Land Buddhism. This led to other apologetic works such as the dialogues Ketchishō and Hokke Mondō. The key points of these works include how the Pure Land teaching is in harmony with the ultimate intent of the Lotus Sutra, and debates on the value of the nembutsu vis a vis the Lotus Sutra. Citing the Lotus Sutra itself which teaches birth in the Pure Land in the chapter of Medicine King Bodhisattva, Zonkaku argues against the idea that the nembutsu is in conflict with the Lotus Sutra
Because both the nembutsu and the Lotus Sutra are the true Dharma of the One Buddha Vehicle, I believe they are one Dharma...Because both are the one true Buddha-wisdom. True reality and the Name are not separate; they are equally the One Buddha Vehicle...Although the text does not explicitly state they are one Dharma, in reality, there is no other Dharma outside the One Buddha Vehicle of the Buddha's wisdom.According to Tanaka Ryosuke, the theory of the identity of the Lotus Sutra and the nembutsu was not Zonkaku's invention, but was a widely held theory at the time. Furthermore, Zonkaku argues in his Rokuyōshō that for Shinran, all the great sutras like the Lotus and the Avataṃsaka Sūtra "either explicitly or implicitly reveal the benefits bestowed by Amida", and that "the Master deeply understood that all the sutras expounded in the Buddha's lifetime reveal the benefits of Amida's great compassion."