アジャータシャトル物語が経てきた変遷及びその思想史上の意義(第1部)

Abstract

The theory of the "Ajase Complex", developed by Kosawa Heisaku and his discipline Okonogi Keigo, is based upon a Buddhist narrative about King Ajātaśatru (Jpn. Ajase). However, the narrative as it appears in Kosawa and Okonogi differs from all known traditional Buddhist versions. This has led to Buddhist and Buddhological criticism of Kosawa and Okonogi. This paper surveys almost all known traditional Buddhist versions of the narrative (with the exception of some later Pāli materials; brief reference is also made to Jain materials). This survey shows that two traditional versions of the narrative, found in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāna sūtra (MPNS) and the Contemplation Sūtra (Cont.), which were Kosawa and Okonogi's ostensible canonical sources and also the primary points of reference for t heir critics, in fact themselves represent idiosyncratic, highly modified versions of the Ajātaśatru narrative, in comparison to other traditional versions. The second part of the paper analyses possible connections between the unusual elements of the MPNS, Cont. and Kosawa-Okonogi versions of the narrative, respectively, and patterns in the more general religious and historical environment at three key moments in the narrative's long history: the medieval China; Shinran's Kamakura Japan; and modern (post-Meiji) Japan. Changes undergone by the narrative in these versions can be interpreted as part of large patterns of religious concern and change in these periods, when the versions in question were produced and received. In this light, Kosawa and Okonogi's use of the narrative looks less like an abberrant departure from a stable orthodoxy, and more like the latest chapter in an ongoing process of creative adaptation of the narrative to various agendas. In spirit, then, their use of the narrative is entirely of a piece with the processes that produced the MPNS and Cont. versions themselves.