Qiúwénchí biǎobái 求聞持表白
Ritual Statement for the Gumonji Practice by 覺鑁 Kakuban (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle ritual statement (表白 hyōbyaku — a kōshiki-adjacent liturgical-prefatory text) by Kakuban 覺鑁 覺鑁 (1095–1144), for use in the Gumonji-hō 求聞持法 — the Vajra-Wisdom-Memory esoteric practice descending from Kūkai. The CANWWW catalog spells the author’s name 覺鎫 (a graphic variant). The Gumonji-hō is one of the most distinguished esoteric practices of Japanese Shingon, claimed by Kūkai himself to have been the practice through which he attained his initial breakthrough.
Abstract
The Gumonji-hō — short for Kokūzō Gumonji-hō 虚空藏求聞持法, “Ākāśagarbha’s Wisdom-Memory Practice” — is a mantric-meditative practice in which the practitioner, sealed in solitary retreat for typically 100 consecutive days, recites the mantra of Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva one million times. The traditional claim — going back to the Kokūzō-gyō sūtra and Kūkai’s autobiographical account — is that completion of the practice confers perfect memory (求聞持 gu-mon-ji, “seeking-hearing-holding”): the ability to remember whatever one hears or sees, perfectly and permanently.
Kakuban’s hyōbyaku is the ritual statement to be recited at the commencement of the 100-day retreat. It addresses the doctrinal frame of the practice, the practitioner’s purpose, the dedication of merit, and the petition for divine support. The text is one of the principal sources for the late-Heian Shingon practice culture as it was institutionalized in Kakuban’s Negoro-ji reform movement.
Date. Composition during Kakuban’s mature career, c. 1120–1144.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div25.xml, T84N2727) records the work as a single-fascicle text by Kakuban with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. No English translation. On Kakuban and the Gumonji-hō: Hendrik van der Veere, A Study of the Thought of Kōgyō Daishi Kakuban (Hotei Publishing, 2000); Ryūichi Abé, The Weaving of Mantra: Kūkai and the Construction of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse (Columbia UP, 1999), ch. on the Gumonji-hō; Hayami Tasuku, Heian kizoku shakai to Bukkyō (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1975).
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: 覺鑁 (Kakuban)
- Companion: KR6t0437 (Kakuban, Aizen-ō kōshiki)