Shíbādào kǒujué 十八道口決
Oral Transmission on the Eighteen-Stage Ritual by 頼瑜 (撰)
About the work
A two-fascicle oral-transmission (口決 kuketsu) record of the eighteen-stage ritual (十八道 jūhachidō) by 頼瑜 Raiyu (1226–1304), composed when he received the transmission at the Daigo-ji Hō’on-in 醍醐寺報恩院 from the Daigo Sanbō-in-ryū Henchi-in (三寶院正流遍智院 Sanbōin shōryū Henchi-in) lineage. The transmission’s exact date is preserved in the colophon: Kōchō 1 (1261), 6th month, 16th day (弘長元年六月十六日).
Abstract
Dating: explicitly Kōchō 1 = 1261, 6th month, 16th day, when Raiyu (age 36) received the transmission at the Daigo-ji Hō’on-in.
Method: the work records the oral instructions (御口決 gokuketsu) given by Raiyu’s master in the Daigo Sanbōin-ryū tradition. The opening notes that the Ono Sequence (小野次第) has two versions — one composed by the Ishiyama master (石山御作), the other by Enmei-in 延命院 (the version followed in the present work). The transmission protocol is described: “First arrange water-sprinkling and anointing-incense vessels on the table before the master; the master takes the incense and anoints his hands and wrists, performs the body-protecting rite as usual; then with empowered incense-water he sprinkles his own body and the disciple’s body. Then he contemplates the syllable [A] in his own chest; the disciple imagines the syllable [Vaṃ] in his chest. The master-and-disciple in sequence contemplate themselves as Mahāvairocana and Vajrasattva…” (Raiyu glosses: “This is in imitation of the Iron Stūpa transmission of the dharma.“)
The text proceeds through the full sequence of the eighteen-mudrā ritual with oral-instruction commentary, recording variant practices, contrastive readings between the Ono-ryū 小野流 and Hirosawa-ryū 廣澤流 transmission-lines, and the various Daigo-internal sub-lineage variants.
Significance: a primary documentary source for the jūhachidō ritual tradition of the late-Kamakura Daigo Sanbō-in Hō’on-in lineage. Compare Kakuban’s century-earlier jūhachidō shata (KR6t0223) for the parallel earlier-Heian witness. The work is the first of a seven-part series of Raiyu kuketsu (oral-transmission) handbooks (KR6t0235–KR6t0240 and KR6t0241) compiled during his transmission-receipts at Hō’on-in.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- For the Hō’on-in / Sanbō-in transmission-lineages see Kushida Ryōkō, Zoku Shingon Mikkyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū (1979).