The Pure Land in Chingaiʼs 珍海 Ketsujō ōjō shū 決定往生集: Chingaiʼs understanding of Daochuo 道綽 in Chapter 1

Abstract

In Chapter 1 of his Ketsujō ōjō shū 決定往生集, Chingai 珍海 introduces his view of the Pure Land. He basically relies on the ideas of Jingying Huiyuan 浄影寺慧遠 and Jizang 吉蔵, and defines a Pure Land as a land of inferiority compared with all other Pure Lands in the ten quarters.

Moreover, Chingai reinforces his idea of a Pure Land as a shabby land by explaining that both Tanluan 曇鸞 and Daochuo 道綽 also interpreted Maitreya’s land as a poor land for people with inferior abilities. However in Tanluan’s Wangsheng lunzhu 往生論註 and Daochuo’s Anleji 安楽集, there are no explicit references that a Pure Land is an inferior place. On the contrary, they seem to demonstrate that Amitābha’s Pure Land is better than all the other Pure Lands. Therefore, it can be said that the basic understanding concerning the idea of Pure Land of Tanluan and Daochuo and that of Chingai are contradictory. Chingai describes his Pure Land as a crude place based on Huiyuan’s and Jizang’s interpretations of that land mentioned in the Avataṁsaka Sūtra. From this, we can say that Chingai tries to support his concept of a Pure Land by correlating his theory with Daochuo’s idea of that land defined in his Anleji.