Shì dài 柿袋
The Persimmon Pouch by 眞譽 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle Shingon ritual notebook by Shin’yo 眞譽 (also written 真譽), bearing the curiously informal title Kakibukuro — “The Persimmon Pouch,” the everyday Heian-period storage bag for written notes. The work catalogs in note-form the iconographic and procedural particulars of dozens of bessen-hō 別尊法 (individual-deity rites) — five-pronged bell setups, five wrathful kings, six Avalokiteśvaras, the White-robed [Avalokiteśvara], the Brushwood-handwashing rite, robe-empowerment, rain rites, Bhaiṣajya-guru, Amitābha, the Jewel-Pavilion, Maitreya… — together with notes on incense recipes and ritual implements.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: the header attribution “Jimyōbō” 持明房 identifies the author with Shin’yo’s well-known bō-name. Shin’yo was a Daigo-ji 醍醐寺 Shingon master active in the mid-to-late 12th century (CANWWW assigns him to AUT01113); his precise lifedates are unknown, but the work’s content places him squarely in the late-Heian generation of Ono-ryū systematisers. notBefore = 1130, notAfter = 1190 brackets a defensible composition window.
Doctrinal content: the work’s table of contents is itself an inventory of late-Heian Shingon ritual practice — over 60 ritual-categories listed across the opening page, ranging from the central pantheon (Acala, the five wrathful kings, the six Kannon, the Eleven-faced Kannon, the Cintāmaṇi-cakra Kannon, Mañjuśrī of one syllable / five syllables / eight syllables, Bhaiṣajya-guru, Amitābha, Maitreya, Ākāśagarbha) through the protector-deities (Hāritī, Sarasvatī, Mārīcī) to highly specialized procedures (Vajra-king rite, water-empowerment rite, rain-suppression rite, child-sūtra rite, Northern Dipper homa). Interspersed with the deity-list are technical notes — for example, on the incense recipes: “Gyokujū-an-shitsu incense: use moss from the pine tree as substitute” (玉柔安悉香松ノ苔ヲ替用云云); “Fukū-kenjaku [Amoghapāśa] incense: use shōbu of the Ishigami [-jinja] type” (不空羂索香石上ノ菖蒲ヲ用也云云). These ritual-implement notes are characteristic of mid-Heian Shingon practical compendia.
The final entries give the detailed iconography for several specific deities — Maitreya’s Sanskrit name, secret name (Swift Vajra, Xùnjí jīngāng 迅疾金剛), seed-syllable, and three-equality-form (lotus with water-jar above) — providing usable practical references.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Shin’yo / Jimyōbō and the Kakibukuro are treated only in specialized Japanese scholarship: Mikkyō daijiten s.v. Jimyōbō Shin’yo.
Other points of interest
The title Kakibukuro itself — “the persimmon pouch” — reflects the working-notebook character of the genre: a portable bag of jottings on ritual practice, kept for ready reference. The text exemplifies the late-Heian Shingon commonplace book genre that emerged from the mature Ono-ryū / Hirosawa-ryū systematizations of the previous generation.
Links
- CBETA: T78n2477