Synopses & Reviews
This volume is the culmination of an eight-year project of the Taisho University Center for Comprehensive Buddhist Studies (Sogo Bukkyo Kenkyujo) led by Professor Hirokawa Takatoshi. The project has sought to present a translation of Honen's seminal work, the Senchakushu, previously unavailable in a complete English text. The Senchakushu was compiled over a period of intense devotion to Amida Buddha. In the style of scholarship prevalent during this period, Honen presents this spiritual vision through adapted textual passages from the Pure Land tradition.
Review
"The publication of this book is an auspicious event since it makes widely available to the Western academic world the 'magnum opus' of Honen ..., the primary instigator of the new trends in Japanese Buddhism during the Kamakura period." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Spring 2000
About the Author
Honen Bo Genku (1133-1212), or simply Honen, is one of the most outstanding figures in the long history of Japanese Buddhism. Along with Dogen, Nichiren, and Shinran, his disciple, he represents the core of the revolutionary Kamakura Buddhist movement that created the first popular and uniquely Japanese forms of Buddhism.