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Robert E. Morrell (1930-2016)

Robert E. Morrell, who taught Japanese literature and Buddhism at Washington University in St. Louis for 34 years, died May 11, 2016, in St. Louis after a brief illness. Sachiko Kaneko Morrell, his wife of more than 60 years, was by his side. Morrell was 86.

Born Jan. 19, 1930, in Johnstown, Pa., Morrell earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh in 1952. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and, for a time, considered the priesthood. But in 1954 he traveled to Japan, married Sachiko, and soon thereafter entered the University of Chicago philosophy program, earning a master’s degree in 1959.

Morrell continued his studies at Stanford, completing a doctorate in Japanese language and literature in 1968. At Washington University, he joined the faculty of Arts & Sciences in 1965; was appointed associate professor in 1972; and full professor in 1987. He was named emeritus professor in 1999.

An authority on Buddhist thought in classical Japanese literature, Morrell was author of “Early Kamakura Buddhism: A Minority Report” (1987), which focused on smaller and frequently overlooked Buddhist sects of the Kamakura period; and “Sand and Pebbles: The Tales of Muju Ichien, A Voice for Pluralism in Kamakura Buddhism” (1985), the first complete English rendering of Muju’s “Shasekishu” parables.

In 2006, he and Sachiko Morrell — who worked in the university’s East Asian Library for 30 years — co-authored “Zen Sanctuary of Purple Robes: Japan’s Tōkeiji Convent Since 1285.” The book traces the history of Tōkeiji, the famous Rinzai Zen convent, from its founding, through the Edo and Meiji periods, to the present day.

Robert Morrell also co-authored, with Earl Miner and Hiroko Odagiri, “The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature” (1985); and, with J. Thomas Rimer, the “Guide to Japanese Poetry” (1975/84). He wrote numerous journal articles and book chapters, contributing to the classroom staple “Sources of Japanese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600” (2001), as well as “Religions of Japan in Practice” (1999) and “Great thinkers of the Eastern World” (1995), among others.

Longtime colleague Rebecca Copeland, chair of East Asian Languages and Cultures in Arts & Sciences, fondly recalled Morrell and his wife performing as part of an informal musical quartet, as well as his proficiency with computers and digital media. “In many respects ‘computer’ was Bob’s third language, alongside English and Japanese,” she said. But more importantly, “in his quiet, unassuming way, Bob took the time to invest something of himself in his students. I’ve seen him spend hours discussing Buddhist issues, helping students to become aware of new ideas and ways of thinking.

“He nurtured and inspired several generations of Asian scholars.”

Morrell is survived by his wife, Sachiko Morrell, and their daughter, Audrey Morrell.

PDF: Sand and Pebbles
The Tales of Muju Ichien, A Voice for Pluralism in Kamakura Buddhism
by Robert E. Morrell
Sunypress, 1985

Sand and Pebbles presents the first complete English rendering of Shasekishu--the classic, popular Buddhist "Tale Literature" (setsuwa). This collection of instructive, yet often humorous, anecdotes appeared in the late thirteenth century, within decades of the first stirrings of the revolutionary movements of Kamakura Buddhism. Shasekishu's author, Muju Ichien (1226-1312), lived in a rural temple apart from the centers of political and literary activity, and his stories reflect the customs, attitudes and lifestyles of the commoners.

In Sand and Pebbles, complete translations of Book One and other significant narrative parts are supplemented by summaries of the remaining (especially didactic) material and by excerpts from Muju's later work. Introduced by a historical sketch of the period, this work also contains a biography of Muju. Illustrations, charts, a chronology, glossary of terms, notes, an extensive bibliography and an index guide the reader into a seldom seen corner of old Japan.

Muju and his writings will interest students of literature as well as scholars of Japanese religion, especially Buddhism. Anthropologists and sociologists will discover details of Kamakura life and thought unrecorded in the official chronicles of the age.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Chronology

Introduction

Part I. Muju Ichien (1226-1312)

"No Fixed A bode": 1226-1261

Choboji* : 1262-1312

Muju's* World of Ideas

Part II. Sand and Pebbles (Shasekishū 沙石集)

Translations and Summaries

Part III. Casual Digressions (Zōtanshū 雑談集)

Selected Translations

Appendices

A. Two Tokugawa Biographers: Kenryo and Tainin

B. Muju's Doctrinal Affiliations

C. Muju and the Esotericism of the Samboin School

D. Yamada Family Genealogy

Notes

Glossary of Selected Terms

Glossary of Selected Characters

Selected Bibliography

General Bibliography

Index

PDF: "Mujū Ichien's Shinto-Buddhist Syncretism: Shasekishū, Book 1"
by Robert E. Morrell
Monumenta Nipponica xxviii: 4 (Winter 1973), pp. 447-88.

Tsuma kagami 妻鏡 "Mirror for Wives."
PDF: ”Mirror for Women: Mujū Ichien’s Tsuma Kagami.”
by Robert E. Morrell
Monumenta Nipponica 35, no. 1 (Spring 1980): 45–75.

"Tales from the Collection of Sand and Pebbles"
by Robert E. Morrell
Literature East and West, xiv:2 (1970), pp. 251-63.

PDF: Early Kamakura Buddhism: A Minority Report
by Robert E. Morrell
Asian Humanities Press, 1987

PDF: Zen Sanctuary of Purple Robes
Japan's Tokeiji Convent Since 1285
by Sachiko Kaneko Morrell - Robert E. Morrell
Sunypress, 2006

Zen Sanctuary of Purple Robes examines the affairs of Rinzai Zen’s Tōkeiji Convent, founded in 1285 by nun Kakusan Shidō after the death of her husband, Hōjō Tokimune. It traces the convent’s history through seven centuries, including the early nuns’ Zen practice; Abbess Yōdō’s imperial lineage with nuns in purple robes; Hideyori’s seven-year-old daughter—later to become the convent’s twentieth abbess, Tenshu—spared by Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle for Osaka Castle; Tōkeiji as “divorce temple” during the mid-Edo period and a favorite topic of senryu satirical verse; the convent’s gradual decline as a functioning nunnery but its continued survival during the early Meiji persecution of Buddhism; and its current prosperity. The work includes translations, charts, illustrations, bibliographies, and indices. Beyond such historical details, the authors emphasize the convent’s “inclusivist” Rinzai Zen practice in tandem with the nearby Engakuji Temple. The rationale for this “inclusivism” is the continuing acceptance of the doctrine of “Skillful Means” (hōben) as expressed in the Lotus Sutra—a notion repudiated or radically reinterpreted by most of the Kamakura reformers. In support of this contention, the authors include a complete translation of the Mirror for Women by Kakusan’s contemporary, Mujū Ichien.

Table of Contents

Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments

1. Winds of Doctrine: The World of Thought and Feeling in Late Kamakura Japan 

2. Mujū Ichien’s Mirror for Women (Tsuma kagami, 1300): A Buddhist Vernacular Tract of the Late Kamakura Period

3. Abbess Kakusan and the Kamakura Hōjō

4. Princess Yōdō’s Purple-clad Nuns

5. From Sanctuary to Divorce Temple: Abbess Tenshū and the Later Kitsuregawa Administrators

6. Everyday Life at Matèsugaoka Tōkeiji : Sacred and Secular

7. The “Divorce Temple” in Edo Satirical Verse

8. Meiji through Heisei: Tōkeiji and Rinzai Zen Continuity

Appendixes

Chart A.Zen Lineage from Śākyamuni to the Tōkeiji
Chart B.Kakusan’s Relationship to the Hōjō and Adachi Families 
Chart C.From Ashikaga to the Kitsuregawa Administrators
Chart D.Relationships in the Tōkeiji Succession during the Late Muromachi and Early Edo Periods
Chart E.Tōkeiji Head Abbesses and Acting Abbesses

Notes
Annotated Cross-Referenced Index to Major Cited Texts
Bibliography
Index