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魚山目録

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Text ID
KR6t0425
Date
1300–1340
Dynasty
日本

Yúshān mùlù 魚山目録

Catalogue of Mt. Yú [Shōmyō] by 宗快 Shūkai (撰)

About the work

A two-fascicle systematic catalogue of the shōmyō repertoire of the Tendai-Ōhara gyo-san liturgical-music lineage, compiled by Shūkai 宗快 宗快 (1276–1340), an Ōhara Raigō-in scholar-musician. The work is the principal catalogue of the gyo-san repertoire of the Kamakura / Nanboku-chō period and complements the performance anthologies (Chōe’s Gyo-san shi-shō KR6t0424, the anonymous Gyo-san shōmyōshū KR6t0423) with a more bibliographic and systematic survey.

Abstract

The two fascicles catalog: (1) the major repertoire — over 200 shōmyō pieces in regular performance use at Ōhara in the early 14th c., with attention to their liturgical occasion, melodic mode, and textual source; (2) the specialized repertoire — the more obscure pieces performed only at particular festivals; (3) historical and biographical material on the principal shōmyō masters of the Ōhara lineage from 最澄 Saichō through 良忍 Ryōnin to the early 14th c.

The work is the principal documentary source for our knowledge of the medieval Japanese Buddhist musical tradition: which pieces were in regular performance, how they were classified by mode and occasion, who performed and taught them, and how the tradition transmitted itself across generations. It is also significant as a musicological reference for the medieval Japanese musical mode system — the gyo-san modes (the go-on shichi-jō 五音七調 system) being one of the most carefully theorized of pre-modern East Asian musical mode systems.

Date. Composition during Shūkai’s mature career as an Ōhara teacher, c. 1300–1340. He died in Ryakuō 3 / 1340 at age 65.

Structural Division

The CANWWW entry (div25.xml, T84N2714) records the work as a 2-fascicle treatise by Shūkai with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.

Translations and research

Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. No English translation. Major studies: Imatomi Yū, Tendai shōmyō no kenkyū (Hōzōkan, 1991); Sawada Atsuko, Nihon shōmyō no kenkyū (Iwanami, 2009); on Shūkai specifically: Nelson Steven G., “Court and Religious Music in Heian Japan,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 2 (CUP, 1999).

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