Gǔlèi Chāo 穀類抄 / Kokuruishō
Notes on the Classes of Grains attributed to 兼意 (Ken’i, Japanese Shingon monk, b. 1072 – d. after 1145, late-Heian / early-Kamakura)
About the work
The Kokuruishō is the dietary-pharmacology counterpart in the late-Heian / early-Kamakura Daigo-ji trio that comprises also the Yakushushō 藥種抄 (KR3ec073, on medicinal substances) and the Kōyōshō 香要抄 (KR3ec075, on aromatics). The work covers cereals, beans, and the dietary substances most important in monastic and lay diet — rice (米), wheat (麥), barley (麰), various millets (粟、黍、稷), beans (大豆、小豆), sesame (胡麻), and the other staple grains plus their preparations.
Each substance is treated as both a foodstuff and a pharmacological agent, in the manner of the Sino-Japanese shíliáo 食療 tradition that runs from 孟詵 Mèng Shēn’s Shí liáo běncǎo KR3ec008 (Táng) through the Heian-Japanese reception. The Japanese reading (wamyō) is given for each substance, drawing on the Honzō wamyō KR3ec072 tradition. The work is shorter than the Yakushushō and Kōyōshō — grains are a more limited substance class — and survives less fully.
Prefaces
The local repository file is an empty placeholder; the Kokuruishō text is not present in this fragment. The work survives in part in medieval Buddhist-canonical compendia and the Zoku gunsho ruijū tradition.
Abstract
Ken’i (兼意, b. 1072), the late-Heian Shingon monk to whom the trio is conventionally attributed. The Daigo-ji documentary tradition is the principal source for the attribution; the actual compositional history may involve later editorial layers.
The work’s significance is as the dietary component of the late-Heian Buddhist-monastic pharmacopoeia. Together with the two sister works it documents a Buddhist-mediated transmission of Sino-Japanese pharmacological knowledge in the late-Heian / early-Kamakura period.
Translations and research
- Endō Jun’ichirō 遠藤潤一郎. 1995. Kamakura-jidai no honzōgaku 鎌倉時代の本草学. Yoshikawa Kōbunkan.
- Goble, Andrew Edmund. 2011. Confluences of Medicine in Medieval Japan. UH Press.
- No complete Western-language treatment.
Links
- Wikipedia (ja): 香要抄 (treats the trio together).
- 穀類抄 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB