From prominence to obscurity : a study of the Darumashū : Japan's first Zen school

Abstract

From Prominence to Obscurity

focuses on the Darumashū (Bodhidharma school), a little known but

important agent in the formative history of Zen in Japan. In the late

twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Darumashū – established by the monk Dainichi Nōnin (fl. 1189) – was considered representative of the Zen school, one of the budding movements in the Buddhist landscape of medieval Japan. Later the Darumashū was to disappear, marginalized and absorbed by competing claimants to Zen orthodoxy that would affirm themselves. Besides examining scattered references to Nōnin and his lineage, the dissertation considers relics and other objects that were venerated at the now vanished Darumashū temple Sambōji. In addition, the dissertation provides analyses and annotated translations of three long-neglected doctrinal treatises that emerged from the Darumashū itself, entitled Jōtōshōgakuron, Kenshōjōbutsugi and Hōmon taikō. Furthermore, it traces criticisms of the Darumashū in the writings of Eisai (1141-1215), Dōgen (1200-1215) and the Shingon monk Raiyu (1226-1304).