Biéxíng 別行
Special Performances by 寛助 (撰)
About the work
A seven-fascicle Shingon ritual encyclopedia by Kanjo 寛助 (1057–1125), the great late-Heian Shingon master of the Hirosawa-ryū 廣澤流 lineage, abbot of Ninnaji 仁和寺, and confidant of Cloistered Emperor Shirakawa 白河院. The work, whose simple title Biéxíng literally means “Special Performances” or “Distinct Rites,” compiles the individual-deity rituals (bessen-hō 別尊法 / bessōhō 別尊法) of mainstream late-Heian Shingon practice — the visualization, mudrā, and mantra procedures for each of the principal “honored ones” (sun 尊) of the esoteric pantheon.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: the work is universally ascribed to Kanjo in the Shingon catalogs and is the most extensive of his many compilations. The composition window is ca. 1090–1125, within his mature scholarly career. As abbot of Ninnaji (from 1102) and master of Cloistered Emperor Shirakawa, Kanjo had access to the entire Heian Shingon ritual corpus, both Hirosawa-ryū and Ono-ryū, and the Biéxíng draws on both.
Doctrinal content: fascicle 1 covers the principal Buddhas: Mahāvairocana (大日), Akṣobhya (阿閦), Ratnasaṃbhava (寶生), Amitāyus (無量壽), Amoghasiddhi (不空成就), Bhaiṣajya-guru (藥師), Amitābha (阿彌陀), Śākyamuni (釋迦), the Lotus Sūtra personification (法華), Maitreya (彌勒), Mahāpratisarā (隨求). The opening Mahāvairocana contemplation is given in full: the practitioner visualizes “at the summit of Mount Sumeru, an immeasurable and vast palace made of the four jewels, with the syllable aṃ transforming into the Light-Mind Hall of the Vajra-Realm Palace”; the palace has eight pillars and four gates with auspicious banners on either side; within it are five towers covered with banners and a five-family mandala dais; in the central Buddha-family disc, the syllable aḥ becomes an eight-petalled lotus, etc. Each deity then receives a complete contemplation in this format.
The subsequent fascicles cover the bodhisattvas, the vidyārājas, the devas, and the protector-spirits in the standard pantheon-order, each with the canonical contemplation, mudrā, mantra, and (where relevant) ritual-purpose schedule. The work is one of the foundational ritual references of medieval Japanese Shingon and is heavily cited in subsequent generations of kuden and ritual-compilation literature.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Kanjo and the Hirosawa-ryū are treated in the Mikkyō daijiten s.v. Kanjo, Hirosawa-ryū, and in Ryūichi Abe’s general histories of Heian Shingon.
Other points of interest
The work was the practical reference manual of imperial-house Shingon practice in the Shirakawa / Toba / Sutoku cloistered-emperor period — it embodies the institutional Shingon of that era at its most elaborated.