| This dissertation examines the religious history of the Obaku school of Zen during its early decades of development in Japan in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It explores the religious, sociopolitical, and cultural reasons leading to the emergence of Obaku, a lineage within Chinese Rinzai, as an independent sect in Japan, and explicates the characteristics that distinguish the sect from Japanese Rinzai.;Obaku was transmitted to Japan from China in the mid-seventeenth century by the founder Yin-yuan Lung-ch'i (1592-1673) and a number of his Chinese disciples. The sect then spread throughout Japan through the collaborative efforts of the Chinese founders and the talented group of Japanese disciples they attracted. While the Chinese masters set the Zen style that characterized the sect and determined the monastic code that governed life in Obaku temples, Japanese monks were instrumental in establishing good relations with the secular authorities, founding temples, and promoting the teachings among the common people.;The dissertation is divided into two parts: the first part sets out the early history and characteristics of the sect as a whole, and the second part focuses on the life and work of an individual Japanese master, Tetsugen Doko (1630-1682). Part one sets Obaku into the historical context of early Tokugawa Japan, exploring its relations with the existing religious world and the secular authorities. The reaction within the Japanese Buddhist community is described using primary materials highly critical of Obaku. Part two describes the life and work of Tetsugen, the most famous of the first generation of Japanese converts, known for his woodblock edition of the entire Chinese Tripitaka, relying upon both traditional and modern biographies of the master. Tetsugen's teachings are explored through close readings of his written work and related primary materials from period sources.;Annotated translations of one anti-Obaku tract, the Obaku geki of Mujaku Dochu, and Tetsugen's major composition, the Tetsugen zenji kana hogo, are included as appendices. |
