Tenkei Denson 天桂傳尊 (Keian 1 → 1648; Kyōhō 20 / 1735), Edo-period Japanese Sōtō-Zen master and one of the principal independent doctrinal voices of the late-17th and early-18th-century Sōtō scholastic revival. Style-name (字) Tenkei 天桂 (“Heaven-Cassia”); dharma-name Denson 傳尊. A contemporary and sometime rival of 道白 Manzan Dōhaku (1636–1715), Tenkei represents an alternative Sōtō scholastic line — more focused on doctrinal commentary than on Manzan’s institutional-reform programme.
Founder-abbot of Taizō-mine 退藏峯 (Taizō-bu) at the Shi-zō-ryō temple in Settsu province (modern Hyōgo).
His major writings include:
- The Hōon-hen 報恩編 (“Compendium of Repaying Kindness”, the present text KR6t0306) — a systematic three-part commentary on the foundational Cáodòng-school doctrinal verses: the Sandō-kai 參同契 of Shítóu Xīqiān 石頭希遷 (700–790), the Hōkyō zanmai 寶鏡三昧 of Dòngshān Liángjiè 洞山良价 (807–869), and the Five Ranks (正偏五位 Shōhen go-i) doctrine. Composed in the 1720s–early 1730s.
- Tōjō shitsu-naimon ron 洞上室内聞論 — commentary on Sōtō cell-rules.
- Yōki kōroku 用機光録 — a collection of his teaching responses.
Tenkei’s commentaries on the Sandō-kai and Hōkyō zanmai in the Hōon-hen became the standard Sōtō doctrinal interpretation of these foundational verses for the next two centuries — institutionally complementary to but doctrinally distinct from the Manzan school’s reading of the same texts. The principal modern study of Tenkei is Sasaki Genjun 佐々木現順, Tenkei Denson no kenkyū 天桂伝尊の研究 (Hōzōkan, 1978).