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2. The Vulgate Manual and the Development of Dōgen's Zen
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The Vulgate Manual and the Development of Dogen's Zen Despite its historical interest and the attention it has attracted from contemporary scholars, the Tenpuku text of the Fukan zazengi seems to have had no impact on the development of the Soto school. Until its rediscovery in this century, it apparently remained unstudied by the Soto masters; in its place, another, somewhat different version of the Fukan zazen gi gained currency in the school. This version—usually referred to as the rufu, or vulgate, text—alone has been the subject of study and commentary by the tradition. The differences in content between the two versions will be discussed in detail later; in what follows here, I shall limit myself to consideration of some historical questions, including the provenance of the vulgate text and the circumstances surrounding its composition. The existence of the Tenpuku manuscript indicates that Dogen originally intended the Fukan zazen gi as an independent treatise on the theory and practice of meditation, and in modern times the essay is always treated as such. The fact is, however, that we have no early manuscripts of the vulgate text and, indeed, no definite evidence that it was ever transmitted as a separate work prior to the eighteenth century. The modern treatment of the Fukan zazpn gi seems to originate with Menzan's influential commentary , the Fukan z.aztn gi mange. Menzan's text for the commentary was a meditation manual embedded in the Eihei koroku, the "extensive record" of DSgen's Zen teachings, compiled in Chinese by several of his disciples. This manual, known as the Koroku text, became the basis for all later printings of the Fukan z.az.en gi. To understand the provenance of the version of the Fukan aazfn gi in common use today, therefore, we must review something of the textual history of the work from which it was drawn. 2 j£ Texts It isnot entirelyclear when or by whom the record ofDogen's teachings was put together. Some of the Eihei koroku may reflect Dogen's own editing, but the final work was presumably done shortly after his death by his chief disciple and dharma heir, Koun Ejo (1198-1280), and/or by the other disciples to whom the compilation of the individual fascicles is attributed.1 We cannot entirely rule out the possibility that the edited text of the Fukan Zflzen gi, which appears in fascicle 8, reflects, at least in part, the editorial work of Ejo and the other disciples responsible for this section of the Eihei koroku', but there is reason to think that this is not the case, and that the tradition is justified in attributing the vulgate Fukan zazen gi to Dogen himself. First, there is considerable doubt as to whether the manual was actually included in the compilation of the Eihei koroku worked on by his disciples; second, and more importantly, there isinternal evidence tosuggest that it originally belonged to a group of meditation texts composed during the last decade of his life. Let us, then, consider these two points in turn. The standard modern version of the Eihei koroku, and the one used by Menzan, is an edition published in 1673 by Menzan's teacher, Manzan Dohaku (1636-1715). According to the preface, it is based on several manuscripts and corrects the various mistakesand corruptions that its editor felt had crept into the work during the course of its transmission.2 Unfortunately , we knowlittle of Manzan's sources, but his edition shows considerable differences from the earliest extant version, a manuscript, known as the Monkaku text, that dates from the end of the sixteenth century.3 Some of the differences undoubtedly reflect Manzan's editorial decisions, but they are sufficiently pronounced to indicate that there were at least two separate textual traditions of the Eihei koroku. It has been suggested that both go back to the time of Dogen, and that the Monkaku manuscript preserves an early draft of the Eihei koroku subsequentlyrevised—possibly by Dogen himself— in the "ur-text" of the tradition favored by Manzan.4 Given the present 1. Of the ten fascicles, seven are devoted to a record of Dogen's formal lectures (jodo) presented at Kosho ji (kan i), Daibutsu ji (kan 2), and Eihei ji (kan 3-7); the remaining three rolls preserve his informal teachings (shosan and hogo, kan 8), verse appreciations of Ch'an sayings (juko, kan 9), and poetry (geju, kan 10). According to the colophons of these...