事相料簡

Shìxiàng liàojiǎn 事相料簡

Considerations on the Phenomenal-Aspect [of Ritual] by 覺印 (記)

About the work

A single-fascicle doctrinal-ritual essay by Kakuin 覺印, dated by its terminal colophon to Eiryaku 2 (= 1161), 2nd month, 26th day, recorded by the elderly Kakuin in his hermitage at the Shirakawa monks’ quarters, in order to correct the divergent positions of his fellow disciples” (永暦二年二月二十六日。於白川僧房爲改同法等侶之異執隱老覺印記之). notBefore = notAfter = 1161 is exact.

Abstract

Authorship and dating: Kakuin (CANWWW AUT01116) is identified in the colophon as “elderly” (隱老 = ‘retired-elder’); the work is therefore a late composition of his career. The two principal later copyings are: An’ei 4 (1775), 6th month, 29th day, copied and collated by Sonken 尊賢, and Kansei 6 (1794), 6th month, 2nd day, by Saigō 濟豪.

Doctrinal content: the work is organized as a numbered series of “ritual-aspect considerations” — i.e. discrete cases in which the standard ritual procedure has fallen into doctrinal error and Kakuin proposes a correction. The opening table of contents lists seven distinct cases:

1. The Yuqi jing’s verse “as the lights of the multitude of stars are shot forth” (如射衆星光事).
2. The “Buddhas of Determinate Realization” (決定如來事).
3. The Renwang sūtra method and its mandala (仁王經法并曼茶羅事).
4. The identity-or-difference of the Garuḍa method and the Kalavāka method (金翅鳥法與佉樓羅同異事).
5. The identity-or-difference of Mahākāla and Daikoku-tenjin (摩訶迦羅與大黒天神同異事).
6. The Honmyōkuyō image-positions (本命供圖位事).
7. Whether the spirit-offering image diagram may be used as a ritual practice (神供圖樣行法不可事).

Kakuin’s prefatory framing is uncompromising: “The phenomenal aspect of mantra ritual takes its foundation in the secret reception of the kuden and is upheld through faithful practice; it is not a matter for speculative consideration nor for debate. It is to be transmitted as water poured into a vessel with not a drop spilled, in unbroken transmission. But over the long years there have not failed to be errors of transmission, and master-to-disciple succession has accumulated mistakes — how many? This is why I now find each of us thinking his own school has fallen and lamenting the dharma’s decline; some call themselves a ‘separate practice,’ some a ‘compendium author,’ and although they record the sun-method they were taught, with annotations of variant readings, they fail to clarify the textual basis of these — so the meaning falls short and the tīyāo escapes them, and the essentials are still missing.” (是迷安文煩竪義也). The first case develops the Yuqi jing’s “as the lights of the multitude of stars” verse against this background.

The work is a primary witness to mid-12th-century Shingon scholastic anxiety about the integrity of the ritual transmission — a concern that, two generations later, would drive Kakuban’s 覺鑁 Shingon reformation.

Translations and research

• No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
• Kakuin and the Hirosawa-Ono late-Heian scholastic anxieties are treated in Japanese studies of the kuden literature; Mikkyō daijiten s.v. Kakuin 覺印.

Links

• CBETA: T78n2480
• DILA authority: A001116 (覺印)