Lǐqù shì mìyào chāo 理趣釋祕要鈔
Secret-Essentials Notes on the [Amoghavajra] Adhyardhaśatikā Commentary (Jp. Rishu-shaku hiyō-shō) by 杲寶 (Gōhō, 撰) — recorded by 賢寶 (Kenpō, 記)
About the work
A twelve-fascicle medieval Tō-ji Shingon scholastic commentary on Amoghavajra’s Lǐqù shì 理趣釋 (KR6j0193, T19n1003) — the great Tang Esoteric exegesis of the Adhyardhaśatikā Prajñāpāramitā (Rishu-gyō 理趣經). The work was composed orally by Gōhō 杲寶 (杲寶, 1306–1362) in a sequence of lectures delivered at Tō-ji’s West Cloister 東寺西院 during 1356, and recorded in writing by his disciple Kenpō 賢寶 (賢寶, 1333–1398) — the two together representing the medieval Tō-ji scholastic tradition at its mature systematic apex.
Prefaces
The work has no formal author’s preface; each fascicle opens directly with a dating-and-circumstance header recording the date of the lecture and the place of transmission, and closes with Kenpō’s own colophon. The opening header of fascicle 1 sets the scene:
“Mìyào chāo fascicle 1. 5th day of the 4th month of Enbun 1 [延文元年卯月五日, = 1356 CE]: at evening, the jinen-monk Kenpō received transmission at the Tō-ji West Cloister Sengakubō 東寺西院僧房.”
The closing colophon of fascicle 1 (line 538 of the source text) expands on the circumstance:
“On the 25th day of the 4th month of Enbun 1, transmission received at Zuishin-in 隨心院. Four days previously, the master-superior 師主上綱 had attended the residence of the present monjū 門迹; the disciple, summoned, had taken lodging there from the day before. Today the transmission of this scripture is begun. — Daihōshi Kenpō 大法師賢寶.”
Later colophons record the continued transmission through 1356: fascicle 2 was begun on 9th day of the 10th month, fascicle 3 on the 15th, fascicle 4 on the 19th, and so on. Each was 清書 (fair-copied) by Kongōdaishi Kenpō. Later transmission notes record further re-copyings: an Edo-period revision by Gōkai 杲快 of deep-grade rank on the upper-tenth of rīn-getsu (= 6th month) of Meireki 3 = 1657 CE, and a single inspection on the 22nd day of 9th month of Kanbun 4 = 1664.
Abstract
The Mìyào chāo — “Notes of Secret Essentials” — is the definitive medieval Tō-ji exposition of Amoghavajra’s Lǐqù shì. Its method is the standard Shingon threefold scholastic apparatus:
- General doctrinal frame (大意) — the place of the Rishu-gyō and its Tang-Esoteric commentary within the Vajraśekhara corpus, its delivery at Paranirmitavaśavartin Heaven 他化自在天 (the highest of the desire-realm heavens), its place as the sixth assembly of the eighteen-assembly Vajraśekhara cycle, and its lineage of transmission from Vajrasattva through Nāgārjuna’s recovery from the Southern Iron Stūpa down to Amoghavajra.
- Title-and-name analysis (釋名) — phrase-by-phrase exegesis of the long Sanskrit title and of Amoghavajra’s Chinese rendering, with the underlying Esoteric-doctrinal apparatus of the seven suchnesses 七眞如, the five Buddhas, the four wisdoms, the six great elements, etc.
- Sequential textual exegesis (入文判釋) — chapter-by-chapter and phrase-by-phrase commentary on the entire Lǐqù shì, organized into twelve fascicles corresponding to the major mandalic-structural divisions of Amoghavajra’s text.
Gōhō’s treatment is distinguished by its extensive and explicit citation of prior medieval commentaries — by 空海 Kūkai (the Rishu-gyō kaidai), by Heian-period Ono-ryū 小野流 and Hirosawa-ryū 廣澤流 figures, and by his immediate Tō-ji predecessors — and by its careful distinction of multiple manuscript recensions of Amoghavajra’s text (the “Tang version” 唐本, etc.). The work also provides extensive maṇḍala-ritual exposition: the seventeen-deity assembly, the outer Vajradhātu chapter, the seven-mother-goddesses chapter, and the closing dedications are each given their full ritual-and-iconographic protocol.
The Mìyào chāo stands as one of the principal medieval Tō-ji scholastic monuments — the Lǐqù-cycle counterpart to the Yǎnào chāo 演奧鈔 (KR6j0666, T59n2216) of the same Gōhō–賴寶 Raihō–Kenpō trio on the Mahāvairocanasūtra commentary tradition. Together with the parallel anonymous KR6j0194 (理趣釋重釋記), it constitutes the medieval Japanese apparatus for Amoghavajra’s Lǐqù shì.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. (The work is referenced extensively in modern Japanese-language Rishu-gyō-and-Rishu-shaku studies but has not been the subject of a dedicated Western-language monograph.)