Zhōngyuànliú shì 中院流事
Matters of the Chū’in Lineage by 宥快; recorded by 成雄 (記)
About the work
A single-fascicle Shingon kuden compendium preserving the Chū’in-ryū 中院流 oral teachings transmitted by Yūkai 宥快 (1345–1416) to his disciple Jōyū 成雄. The text opens with the explicit attribution: “Yūkai’s oral [teachings]; Jōyū has recorded them.” (宥快口成雄記之). Together with the companion KR6t0212 Chū’in-ryū daiji kikigaki, the work is the principal documentary record of Yūkai’s late-career codification of the Chū’in-ryū transmission.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: composition window ca. 1380–1416, between Yūkai’s reception of the Chū’in-ryū transmission (KR6t0209, 1377) and his death. The text records: “The master said: ‘Of his school, although there is the hōkō transmission, we should take the orthodox to be those whose succession through Raishin 賴審 of the Kosaikō Boin 胝母院 [= ?] and Genkai 玄海 etc. is unbroken; their great-matter transmission is the principal one.” Subsequent transmission records are signed: “Yūsei 宥勢 of Nyoirin-ji recorded the work.”
Doctrinal content: the work opens with the fundamental lineage matters (許可) — the kyoka / permission, including the dharma-transmission ordination-seal (傳法印信), the Yoga-Vehicle ordination-seal in two layers (this being also called the Tenchō ordination-seal), the third-layer ordination-seal, the Vairocana method’s ordination-seal, the Great-Stūpa great-matter ordination-seal, and the post-Sōjō oral teachings (recorded by Genkai). The text then sets out the Chū’in three-great-matters (中院三箇大事):
- Vaiśravaṇa great-matter.
- Third-layer great-matter.
- Nanzan (Kōyasan) Eight-Petal Peak great-matter.
These are noted as appearing in Genkai’s record. The work then traces a sub-transmission: “The Shin-Nanin Niren received this transmission: the permission-transmission-and-dharma-seal which has two layers, and the third-layer seal — this is the Yoga-Vehicle great-matter, i.e. the Tenchō ordination-seal.”
A particularly interesting closing note discusses the textual transmission of Kūkai’s Shōryōshū 性靈集: “The last three fascicles of the Shōryōshū are said to have been collected by Shinzei [眞濟]; but in the present age these are lost — those three fascicles are gone. The present version’s last three fascicles are those collected by Saisen [濟暹]; this is why the last three fascicles are abundant.” (一。性靈集末三卷ハ眞濟聚給ト見タリ。今程世ニ絶テ此三卷無之。今有之濟暹聚之云云仍末三卷多之也). This is a historically valuable note on the textual history of the Shōryōshū.
The work is one of the principal mid-Muromachi documents of Kōyasan Chū’in-ryū transmission practice.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.