Dōgen’s Religious Discourse and Hieroglossia

Abstract

There are at least two difficulties for a correct understanding of this article.1 The first one, clearly, is the precise meaning of the cryptic word “hieroglossia,”2 a term surely opaque to anybody who comes across it for the first time. It is a word that I partially coined myself,3 and my only hope is that the pedantic temerity of this neologism will not obscure the fact that the underlying reality it tries to evoke is sufficiently interesting for such a coinage to be not only forgiven, but also used as a workable concept. The second difficulty is the choice I made to focus on the writings of Dōgen 道元 (1200–1253). I do realize how impudent it is for someone who has mainly studied the teachings of Tendai 天台 Buddhism, Japanese Buddhist poetry (particularly on the Lotus Sutra), and scholastic Buddhist debates (rongi 論義) to address as towering a figure of Japanese Buddhism as Dōgen-zenji, who cannot be approached without a life of study. He who perpetrates such a deed will embody perfectly a famous line from an old French movie: “You can know a fool by the fact that he would dare anything.” Therefore, before entering upon the main topic, I deem it to be both a courtesy and a duty to explain these two points.