Yòu jì 右記
The Right-Side Record by 守覺親王 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle moral-disciplinary essay by Shukaku Shinnō 守覺親王 (1150–1202) — the first of a three-volume set together with KR6t0198 Saki (Left-Side Record) and KR6t0199 Gyoki (Imperial Record). The trilogy is collectively known as the Ninnaji Omuro Hokuchiku Goshō 仁和寺御室北竹御書 — “the compositions of the Ninnaji Omuro at the Northern-Bamboo [retreat]” — and constitutes the most personal of Shukaku’s writings: not ritual manuals but autobiographical reflections, moral exhortations, and political-historical commentary composed in his final years.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: the work is universally ascribed to Shukaku Shinnō. The composition window is ca. 1180–1202, with the upper bound set by Shukaku’s death; internal references and the trilogy’s framing point to the years immediately following the Genpei War (1185–1202). The colophon records that the source manuscript came from “the autograph of Saint Ryūchū 隆澄”, with the side-note that “*Ryūchū is the * Daisōjō of the Richi-in 理智院; his transmission was the first master of Ninniku-yama Shinkai 忍辱山親快.” A further Edo-period note dates a copyist transmission to Keichō 12 (1607) by Kyōi 恭畏 of the Ono branch.
Doctrinal content: the work opens with an explicit Confucian framing: “There is a former saying: ‘the upper-wise and the lower-fool do not move’ (上智下愚不移). Although this is so, those who can be taught are still the lower-fools. They are not to be abandoned. The middle-disposition (中情) — i.e. the ordinary person — is movable; therefore by all means is to be taught.” Shukaku then sets out his typology of moral character:
- Upper-wise: one outstanding figure in a thousand — rare beyond rare.
- Lower-fool: one obstinate fool in a hundred — also infrequent.
- Middle-disposition: in the heart of every gathered person — if associated with evil it becomes thistle, if associated with the good it becomes vegetable (交惡則爲枳。與善則爲菜).
He continues by setting out his program of moral cultivation: first regulate the outward bearing, then settle the inward heart; the heart-straight bearing will follow and become straight; the bearing-crooked heart will follow and become crooked; the heart and the bearing are mutually as water and vessel; the heart is the water, the bearing is the vessel. The work draws on Confucius’s five constants and nine virtues (孔宣立五常之中先以禮。分九徳之中先以恭) and on the Buddhist principle that “deep faith requires the unseen attestation of yin-and-yang; sincere mind relies on the empowering grace of the Buddha-dharma” (深持信須陰陽之冥鑒。篤至心憑佛法之加被). The blend of Confucian moral psychology with Shingon Buddhist devotional framework is characteristic of late-Heian aristocratic Buddhism.
The work is one of the most personal documents of high-medieval imperial-Buddhist subjectivity and a key witness to the yamato-Confucian / Shingon synthesis of the late 12th century.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Shukaku’s literary writings are treated in Brian Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes (2000); the Heian jiten s.v. Shukaku Shinnō; and in the Japanese commentary literature on the Senzaishū.