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王子五位

Pronunciations

Basic Meaning: the five stages of princes

Senses:

  • One of the four types of 'five stages' associated with Dongshan Liangjie 洞山良价 (807–869). See 洞山五位. This particular schema was devised by Shishuang Qingzhu 石霜慶諸 (807–888) and explains (1) the concept of the five stages of practice and their merit 功勳五位 and (2) the independency and identity of ultimate reality and temporal phenomena 正偏五位 through the metaphor of the status of a prince, who symbolizes buddha seed-nature 佛種性. Each stage corresponds to stages of (a) 功勳五位 and (b) 正偏五位 as follows:
    1. 誕生王子 a legitimate son (corresponds to 向 and 正中偏).
    2. 朝生王子 an illegitimate son (corresponds to 奉 and 偏中至).
    3. 末生王子 an unlikely but potential prince (i.e., as the youngest brother) (corresponds to 功 and 偏中正).
    4. 化生王子 a general (i.e., a non-court leader of people) (corresponds to 共功 and 正中來).
    5. 內生王子 a kingʼs younger brother (i.e., an inner-court brother) (corresponds to 功功 and 兼中到).
    Note that historically there have been many interpretations of this schema, including that seen in Goi kenketsu ganji kyaku 五位顯訣元字脚, which posits that 王子五位 is actually unrelated to the other three of the four sets of 'five stages' . For more on this, see the entry in Zengaku daijiten. 〔五家宗旨纂要、中〕 , 〔人天眼目 T 2006.48.320c17〕 . [Stefan Grace; source(s): ZGDJT, Yokoi]
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    [Dictionary References]

    Zengaku daijiten (Komazawa U.) 0121a

    Japanese-English Zen Buddhist Dictionary (Yokoi) 520

    Bukkyō daijiten (Mochizuki) (v.1-6)3866c

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    The rights to textual segments (nodes) of the DDB are owned by the author indicated in the brackets next to each segment. For rights regarding the compilation as a whole, please contact Charles Muller. Please do not reproduce without permission. And please do not copy into Wikipedia without proper citation!

    Entry created: 2018-04-05