Zé chāo 澤鈔
The Marsh Compendium by 覺成; edited by 守覺親王 (輯)
About the work
A ten-fascicle Shingon ritual encyclopedia preserved in the Sawa-shō (Marsh Compendium) of Shukaku Shinnō 守覺親王 (1150–1202), the great Ninnaji imperial-prince-monk. The title Zé chāo / Sawa-shō refers to the Sawa-bō (Marsh-Chamber) at Ninnaji, one of the principal medieval Shingon sub-temples. The work compiles materials transmitted by Kakujō 覺成 of the Hirosawa-ryū transmission, edited and supplemented by Shukaku Shinnō.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: CANWWW records the author as Kakujō 覺成 (AUT01122) with role “unknown” (i.e. compiler-of-records or transmitter), and the editor as Shukaku Shinnō 守覺親王 (AUT01123, role 輯 “compiled/edited”). The composition window is ca. 1150–1202, bracketed by the assumed mature career of Kakujō and Shukaku’s death. The dual attribution is characteristic of kuden-based texts where the oral source is one person, and the written redaction another.
Doctrinal content: fascicle 1 covers the Buddhas: Akṣobhya, Ratnasaṃbhava, Amitābha, Śākyamuni, Bhaiṣajya-guru, Buddhalocanā. For each, the work gives the dais-visualization in the standard format, but in addition gives the specific liturgical formulae — the vow-line (發願句), the prostration-formula (禮佛), and the mudrā-and-mantra sequence:
Akṣobhya. Great-Round-Mirror-Wisdom Akṣobhya, with the Vajra-family entourage in attendance. Vow-line: I take this mind to make… (the specific form is to be written separately). Prostration: Hail to Akṣobhya Buddha — to be performed. Although there is no proper Akṣobhya prostration at the opening of his rite, the four-summoners’ three repetitions may be used.
Five-pronged. In the centre of the dais is an eight-petalled lotus. Above it is the syllable a transforming into a white elephant. Above the elephant the syllable a transforms into a pure moon-disc. Within the moon-disc the syllable a becomes an eight-petalled lotus. On the lotus-platform the syllable a transforms into a five-pronged vajra-pestle. The pestle transforms into Akṣobhya Buddha, sitting in the earth-touching mudrā, body-immovable. Blue light radiates from his crown, subjugating the māras. The four close-attendant bodhisattvas and the Vajra-family deities each holding their characteristic emblems surround him in front and behind.
Kōya Kondō houses Akṣobhya, that is, the heart of body-immovability — for the purpose of the boundary-binding of the site. The meaning of boundary-binding is the subjugation of māras — that is its specific great importance.
The remaining nine fascicles continue through the major bodhisattva-, vidyārāja-, and deva-rites in the same format.
The work is one of the major Hirosawa-ryū ritual encyclopedias of the late 12th century and a principal source for subsequent Kamakura imperial-house practice.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Shukaku Shinnō and the late-Heian Ninnaji compilation tradition are treated in Brian Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes (2000); the Mikkyō daijiten s.v. Shukaku Shinnō, Sawa-shō.