人天教

Readings

Pinyin: réntiān jiào

Wade-Giles: jen-t'ien chiao

Hangul: 인천교

Korean MC: incheon gyo

Korean MR: inch'ŏn kyo

Katakana: ニンデンキョウ

Hepburn: ninden kyō

nhân thiên giáo

teaching for humans and gods

• A "plebian" Buddhist faith, exemplified by the (originally lost) Tiwei boli jing 提謂波利經 , the Sutra of Trapuṣa and Bhallika. Called by some scholars characterizes this as a "third tradition" of Buddhism in the period of division, after the philosophically oriented "gentry Buddhism" of the south, and the politically oriented "Caesaro-papist State Buddhism" in the North. According to Daoxuan in the Xu gaoseng zhuan 續高僧傳 T 2060, this movement was characterized by fortnightly observances in which members of yiyi 邑義 societies met together, wearing special robes and taking up bowls, and observed precepts and a fast, T 2060.50.428a19–21. This fortnightly observance was clearly a kind of uposatha (Lai 20), and in this regard is connected also with the popularity of rites of confession in this period. In taking on originally monastic forms for lay use, the movement thus also seems to be part of an interesting trend through the period towards the laicization of originally monastic practice (as is the case also with the popularity of confession rites in this period more generally). The term 人天教 is found in an early panjiao system in the works of Liu Qiu 劉虬 (437–495), where it refers specifically to the teaching given by the Buddha to Trapuṣa and Bhallika, during the first twenty-one days after his awakening, according to the Tiwei jing. This teaching, characterized by basic doctrines of the precepts, good deeds, and karmic retribution, is taken by Liu Qiu to be the lowest of a series of ranked Buddhist teachings that culminate in the Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra. See Whalen W. Lai, The Earliest Folk Buddhist Religion in China: T'i-wei Po-li Ching and Its Historical Significance, in Buddhist and Taoist Practice in Medieval Chinese Society: Buddhist and Taoist Studies II, ed. David W. Chappell (Honolulu: Asian Studies at Hawai`i , University of Hawai`i Press, 1987), 11–35. [resp. Michael Radich; ref. Nakamura]
• This is the first in Zongmi's 宗密 fivefold taxonomy of the teaching 五教. It consists in the basic teaching of karmic retribution, which enables beings to gain a favorable rebirth as either a human being or a god. 〔翻譯名義集 T 2131.54.1081c1〕 [resp. Charles Muller; source(s): JEBD]

Dictionary References:

Bukkyō jiten (Ui), 842

Bulgyo sajeon, 734a

Zengaku daijiten (Komazawa U.), 998d

Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha), 220a/244

Bukkyōgo daijiten (Nakamura), 1070d

Fo Guang Dictionary, 254

Ding Fubao

Bukkyō daijiten (Mochizuki), (v.1-6)1127c,1192a

Bukkyō daijiten (Oda), 523-1-1*537-2-26*1367-1

Copyright © 2010 -- Charles Muller

generated: 2014-02-10