Zhuī jì 追記
The Supplementary Record by 守覺親王 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle Shingon school-political treatise by Shukaku Shinnō 守覺親王 (1150–1202), serving as the appendix to his personal trilogy of KR6t0197 Right-Side Record, KR6t0198 Left-Side Record, and KR6t0199 Imperial Record. Where the trilogy is autobiographical-reflective, the Supplementary Record is doctrinal-political: a sustained reflection on the proper relationship between the Ono and Hirosawa branches of Shingon, and on the rules for selecting an appropriate ritual lineage for imperial-house performances.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: the work is securely attributed to Shukaku Shinnō. Composition window ca. 1185–1202, in his last years at Ninnaji. Two principal copyists’ colophons: Jōō 1 (1222), 12th month, 25th day, copied from the autograph by Provisional律師 Shinjū 信什, with the note “Shinjū is the Sōjō of the Daihi-in. The former Sōjō is the Richi-in Sōjō Ryūchū.”; and Keichō 12 (1607), 6th month, late ten-days, copied at the Shōgon-in 莊嚴院 of Yuki-no-shita in Kamakura (鎌倉雪下), by Dharma-transmission monk Kyōi 恭畏.
Doctrinal content: the work opens with the central political problem of late-Heian Shingon institutional life:
The Ono and Hirosawa followers do not preserve the proper bone-structure [of their schools]; they recklessly attempt to perform rites and ambitiously seek to undertake public ceremonies. For the dharma and for the way, this is most improper. The reason is: the eastern temple [Tōji] gate is from the original high-ancestor Daishi’s transmission. Although the [Daishi’s] treasures are one single jewel, the haughty grasp of his later disciples has divided it, and after the Ono and Hirosawa it has already extended into more than ten flows. From this cause, with time the wind has shifted; the seals of master-teaching are scattered region by region.
Shukaku then sets out his three-fold rule of authority: “Of the three: sūtra-teaching, ritual-manual teaching, and master-teaching, if all three are in mutual conflict at some particular point, then one is to abandon the two of sūtra and ritual-manual and follow only the master-teaching.” He notes that this rule is the source of much confusion: “Master after master has rather boasted of this principle, and oral-tradition matters have flowed out and lost their original base — many such cases I see.”
The work then turns to specific schoolful practical issues:
- For the outward etiquette and ritual formulae: the Daigo school should use Kakutō-in Sōjō’s record [= Jōken? = Shōken?]; the Kanshū-ji school should use Kanshin’s Hō-mu-ki [= KR6t0188 Denju-shū]; the present school [Ninnaji] should use Hōju-in Sōjō’s record and my own writings (愚記).
- The distinctions between Great Method (大法), Secret Method (祕法), and Great-Secret Method (大祕法), with examples: some methods are Ono without Hirosawa; some Hirosawa without Ono; some are common to both but inappropriate for public performance; some are appropriate for public performance — and the two great schools each have their own.
The text concludes with an injunction to “hold to the old standards” and not to issue official commissions that confuse the lineages: “Sometimes the order to perform the Ono method is sent to the Hirosawa, and the order to receive the Hirosawa method is sent to the Ono — such things have repeatedly happened. This is entirely from the darkness above; also from not distinguishing one’s own house from another’s house.”
The work is the most explicit late-Heian / early-Kamakura treatise on the politics of Shingon transmission-lineage assignment in imperial-house Buddhism, and reflects Shukaku’s mature concern that the post-Heian disorder of the Genpei War had thoroughly disrupted the institutional integrity of his school. The closing reference echoes the famous Daishi tradition: “The Great Master’s biographical tradition says the same; it is most reverently to be relied upon — keep it secret, keep it secret.”
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Shukaku’s institutional concerns are treated in Mikael Adolphson, The Gates of Power (2000), and Brian Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes (2000).