Birth story of Prince Shotoku

[ho...@pearl.ocn.ne.jp]

Dear PMJS members,

I have two questions about the birth story of Prince Shotoku, which Kume Kunitake and others have thought mirrors the birth story of Jesus Christ. The longest version of the story is found in the Jougu Shoutoku Taishi Den Hoketsu Ki (上宮聖徳太子傳補闕記). If anyone on the PMJS listserve can answer these questions, I would be very grateful.

Has there been a scholarly analysis published in English of the possible relationship between the birth story of Prince Shotoku and the birth story of Christ? If so, I'd like to get the reference for it so that I can read it.

Is there an English translation of the Jougu Shoutoku Taishi Den Hoketsu Ki (上宮聖徳太子傳補闕記)? So far, I have not been able to find one. It is the opening paragraph describing Prince Shotoku's birth which I am interested in.

Thank you for any information the PMJS members can give me.

Sincerely,
Bradford Houdyshel
Nara, Japan

[Michael Wachutka]

Regarding your second question for information about an "English" translation of the Jougu Shoutoku Taishi Den Hoketsu Ki,
I can only repeat my answer to a similar query on pmjs in February 2002 by referring to the following work, which however (alas?) is written in German:

Bohner, Hermann: _Shotoku Taishi_. [Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft fuer Natur- und Voelkerkunde Ostasiens; Supplementband 15] Tokyo: OAG, 1940.
(for copies in Japanese University libraries, see: http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA02378094)

I cannot think of any study on Shotoku Taishi more detailed and exhaustive than this one.
Amounting to 1033 pages (!), Bohner translates and comments on virtually *all* existing texts, temple-scrolls, inscripts on statues (you name it) concerned with Shotoku Taishi and includes all then-existing secondary studies in his comments.
Only Shotoku's commentaries on sutras (Hokke, Shouman, Yuiman) are not translated completely and only used as sources.

The translation of "Jougu Shoutoku Taishi Den Hoketsu Ki (上宮聖徳太子傳補闕記)" - juxtaposed and enhanced with passages from other sources, mainly the Shōtoku-Taishi-Denryaku (聖徳太子伝暦) - can be found from pp. 55 onward.

Best regards,

Michael Wachutka

Tuebingen University, Germany /
Tuebingen Center for Japanese Studies
(at Doshisha University, Kyoto)

> Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 20:07:17 +0900
> From: ho...@pearl.ocn.ne.jp
> To: pm...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [PMJS] Birth story of Prince Shotoku

[Lisa Kochinski]

To Bradford Houdyshel

Michael Como has written in English about the cult of Shōtoku Taishi. While not directly related to your query, it might be of interest.

Como, Michael I. Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Best regards,

Lisa Kochinski

-- 

Lisa Kochinski

MA Student

International Masters Program in Japanese Humanities

Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

http://www2.lit.kyushu-u.ac.jp/en/impjh/

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[Robert Borgen]

Although I have to confess this is merely self promotion and hardly an answer to the question, but if you are interested in early accounts of Shōtoku’s life and don’t read German, you might want to look at my translation of Shichidaiki 七代記 (“A Record of Seven Generations”), which appeared in the inaugural issue of Nihon Kanbun Kenkyū 日本漢文学研究 (March 2006), published by Nishōgakusha University.  I can be found online at:  http://www.nishogakusha-kanbun.net/01kanbun-16borgen.pdf

Unfortunately, the surviving manuscript is incomplete.  It begins in the middle of Shōtoku’s “constitution,” and thus completely misses the story of his birth.  Incidentally, WorldCat seems to think there’s an English version of Bohner’s translation, published in 1965, but I’m suspicious.  The only libraries it shows owning copies are in Denmark, so I can’t easily confirm that they’re in English.

Robert Borgen

[Ross Bender]

For even more on Shōtoku Taishi, this time the powerful medieval cult, see David Quinter's article "Localizing Strategies: Eison and the Shōtoku Taishi Cult" in the most recent Monumenta Nipponica 69:2 (2014), pp. 153-219. Eison was a monk at the Nara temple Saidaiji, founded by the Last Empress of Nara Japan.

Ross Bender

https://independent.academia.edu/RossBender

[Or Porath]

For more on Shōtoku Taishi and medieval cults, see Kenneth Doo Young Lee's The Prince and the Monk: Shōtoku Worship in Shinran's Buddhism.

Best,

Or Porath

PhD Student
Department of Religious Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara

[John Szostak]

Also on Shōtoku Taishi cults, this time from an art historian's perspective, see Kevin Gray Carr's Plotting the Prince: Shotoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (UH Press, 2012).

http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8620-9780824834630.aspx

- js

John Szostak
Associate Professor of Japanese Art History
University of Hawai'i at Manoa

July 2014-June 2015
Resident Director, Year-in-Japan Program
Deputy Director, Konan International Exchange Program
Konan University, Kobe, Japan
Tel: +81 (0) 78-452-1641
Fax: +81 (0) 78-435-2557
http://www.adm.konan-u.ac.jp/kiec/english

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