The Tannisho

The Tannisho (歎異抄) is a document recorded in the 13th century in Japan by a Buddhist lay-priest named Yuien (唯円, 1222 – 1289), more properly known as Yuien of Kawada (河和田の唯, kawada no yuien) who had been with Shinran in his final years. Shinran (親鸞, 1173 – 1263), the founder of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Buddhism, had been part of a larger exile of Pure Land Buddhists under Honen in the Jogen Persecution (承元の法難, jōgen no hōnan) of 1207. Years later, the exile was finally lifted and Shinran had moved back to the capital with his daughter and a few other close confidants. Yuien was among them. Yuien had originally come from what is now the city of Mito in Ibaraki Prefecture (back then the province of Hitachi). In his later years, Yuien preached Buddhism in the Yoshino area of Nara before he passed away there.

The Tannisho was composed after Shinran’s death, when regional interpretations of Shinran’s began to take shape. Yuien was concerned about the divergences, and hence wrote a recollection of his conversations with Shinran: the Tannisho, or “Lamentation of Divergences [of Shinran’s teachings]”.

The Tannisho is central to Jodo Shinshu teachings, and is thus studied and discussed among followers since antiquity. It is fairly short, but contains many intimate insights to Shinran’s thinking, as Yuien recalls them. Compared to Shinran’s own writings, which can be long and difficult, the Tannisho is much more accessible.

In my earlier days as an avid Jodo Shinshu follower, I read and studied the Tannisho many times but in recent years I was shocked to discover that online resources of Jodo Shinshu and the Tannisho had all but vanished due to Internet attrition. Thus, this is my effort to rescue the excellent translation of Dr Taitetsu Unno from obscurity, but also to inject new information for future researchers, namely, the original Japanese text with reading guides thanks to some resources I picked up in Japan.

Format

In keeping with Unno’s format, and due to length of content, I have divided up the Tannisho like so:

Please note this is still a work in progress…

Sources Used