Zhìchéng jì 治承記
Notes from the Jishō Era by 勝賢 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle personal ritual diary and lineage-document by Shōken 勝賢 (1138–1196), the great late-Heian / early-Kamakura Shingon master of Daigo Sanbō-in and Tōji. The title takes its name from the era-name Jishō (1177–1181), during which the central event documented in the text occurred — Shōken’s performance of the gushi kanjō (full-equipment abhiṣeka) at Daigo Sanbō-in for the ācārya Kanshō 寛昭 on the 12th day of the 4th month of Jishō 3 (= 1179).
Abstract
Authorship and dating: the work bears the title-formula “Sanbō-in’s Transmission-Abhiṣeka Private Record” (三寶院傳法潅頂私記). Shōken was the son of Chū-naidōin Mitsuyori 中院通頼 — i.e. of the high Fujiwara aristocracy — and the senior disciple of Shōkaku 勝覺 (1057–1129) and Yōgon 永嚴 (1075–1151) in the Sanbō-in transmission. He rose to be Tōji chōja and abbot of Daigo-ji, and was the principal religious counselor of Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa 後白河院. The composition window for the work as a whole is 1179–1196: the central event is dated to 1179 and Shōken’s death sets the upper bound.
Doctrinal content: the opening section gives the gushi kanjō lineage-chain (血脈) for the Sanbō-in transmission:
The Enmei-in transmitted to Kōzu Shōnin of Kita-o of Kami-Daigo; the Shōnin transmitted to Jōjakukō; Jōjakukō transmitted to Mineé Eshin; Eshin transmitted to Shōkaku — and so this ritual procedure is the Sanbō-in [tradition]. Jōjaku also transmitted to Jakuen-Nyūdō; Nyūdō transmitted to the Ono Sōzu — so the Ono Sōjō did not personally see it. (延命院傳上醍醐北尾廣壽上人。上人傳常寂公。寂公傳峯懷尋。懷尋傳勝覺仍此式三寶院又常寂傳寂圓入道。入道傳小野僧都。仍小野僧正不見之給歟)
An iconographic illustration is reproduced: “Shōken, Junior Sōjō, entered the dais at the age of 22; received the Vajra Realm ‘Firm-Vajra-Platform’ lower-realm; Auspicious Vajra.” (權僧正勝賢御入壇二十二歳得佛金剛界堅固金剛台下界吉祥金剛). This dates Shōken’s own abhiṣeka to ca. 1159.
The main body of the work describes in extraordinary detail the 1179 ritual at Sanbō-in: the date is fixed as “Jishō 3 = 1179, 4th month, 12th day; the day’s Star-Stem is yang-earth-rat (己亥); the new birth-star is yang-metal-rat (庚子); a sun-day and a secret-day; performed at this temple’s Sanbō-in.” The presiding ācārya (大阿闍梨) is “Hōin Gondaisōzu” (Shōken himself); the receiver-ācārya is Kanshō 寛昭, age 44, resident of Ninnaji. “On the 8th day prior, Kanshō arrived at this temple and lodged at the western annex of the Muryōkō-in 無量光院. He entered the [main] hall daily; from the 10th day, three days of palace-shrine offering with paper offerings of three folios of thick paper and one length of white cloth bestowed.” The work proceeds to describe each ritual-stage in painstaking liturgical detail — the sokusai-homa hundred-day three-times-daily acala recitation; the candidate’s three-month preparatory observation per the Shèshànjié jīng (攝眞實經, ie Sarvatathāgata-tattva-saṃgraha); the daily provisions; the procession schedule; the giving of fuse (布施) in fixed quantities.
The work is one of the most detailed liturgical-historical documents of late-12th-century imperial-grade Shingon practice surviving from any source. It also preserves an exceptional lineage diagram for the Sanbō-in tradition.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Shōken and the late-Heian / Kamakura Sanbō-in tradition are treated in Brian Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes (2000), and in the Mikkyō daijiten s.v. Shōken 勝賢.