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The Great Treasures of East Asian Buddhism and Minobusan

Chuichi Kimura 1

1身延山大學

Irregular Papers

ABSTRACT

On Mount Minobu is located Kuonji Temple, and from ancient times this area was known to believers as a sacred place, referred to as “The Mountain of the Founder of the Nichiren School.” The Minobu Archive is under the jurisdiction of Kuonji Temple, and in this collection are many Buddhist scriptures, apocrypha and other treasures of Buddhist literature. These are widely used not only by researchers of the Nichiren School of Buddhism, but also by many researchers of East Asian Buddhism in general. The works are introduced in the three-volume “Index of Writing in the Minobu Archive” and the “Index of Art and Writing in the Minobu Archive.” However, in the present situation researchers in far places can only find the tiny amount of information contained in these indexes that is open to the public, and must actually come to Mount Minobu if they wish to use the works in the Minobu Archive for their research. In this paper, entitled The Great Treasures of East Asian Buddhism and Minobusan, I will first simply discuss the life of Saint Nichiren, the founder of Nichiren Buddhism, as it is deeply related to the first period of the chronicles of the Minobu Archive. Next I will discuss the theory behind the collection of writing in the Minobu Archive, and the purpose and methods of collection. Afterwards I will divide the history of the Minobu Archive into 6 periods, discussing the state of the collection in each period. Following this I will discuss the modern investigations of the Minobu Archive that led to the creation of the“Index of Writing in the Minobu Archive,” and finally I will write about the works that are preserved separately from the Minobu Archive, discussing the state of preservation and the value of the other important writing. Through the consideration explained above, I sincerely hope that this paper can lead to the development of East Asian Buddhist research and can provide a chance for new discovery.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.