『鎌倉の二位の禅尼へ進する御返事』と『津戸の三郎入道へつかはす御返事』(九月十八日) とについて

抄録

It is said that “The Answer to the Kamakura Second Degree Zen Nun” (hereafter (1)) and “The Answer to Tsunoto no Saburo Entering the Way” (on September 18) (hereafter (2)) were written by Honen-bo Genku. Because there are some similar sentences in them, it seems that one preceded the other.
The purpose of this paper is to examine which one was written first. I conclude that (2) was written first, then (1) was written relying on (2) by a later and different writer.
Having compared the contents of two letters, I have found that some sentences in (1) are out of context with (2). I have also found that some of the first half of each sentence are extremely similar, while the corresponding second halves are completely different. Therefore, I suppose that these two letters were written by different writers.