Kikai 喜海 (Girinbō 義林房)
Japanese Kamakura-period Buddhist monk of the Kegon 華嚴宗 school, resident at Kōzan-ji 高山寺 on Toganoo 栂尾 (西山栂尾 / 西山梅尾) in the hills northwest of Kyōto. Foremost personal disciple, attendant, and posthumous biographer of Myōe Kōben 明惠高弁 (1173–1232), the reformer who rebuilt Kōzan-ji as the great Kegon-revival monastery of medieval Japan. His monastic bō-name was Girinbō 義林房 (also recorded as 喜海上人 Kikai-shōnin).
Best known as the principal compiler of the Myōe-shōnin gyōjō 明惠上人行状, the canonical biographical record of Myōe written shortly after his master’s death; this work is foundational for all later Myōe scholarship. He was also a productive Huayan lexicographer in his own right, compiling phonetic-glossarial commentaries on both received Chinese translations of the Huāyán jīng: the 80-juan Śikṣānanda recension (T279) → KR6e0014 Xīnyì Huáyán jīng yīnyì 新譯華嚴經音義 (compiled 1227, copied and re-collated 1228–1229 in his Toganoo cell), and the 40-juan Prajñā recension (T293) → KR6e0042 Zhēnyuán Huáyán jīng yīnyì 貞元華嚴經音義. Both glossaries circulate jointly in the Taishō canon as T2206 A and B and are among the most important Japanese medieval contributions to Huayan philology. A further short Kegon-doctrinal handbook, KR6t0034 Huāyán wǔjiào zhāng míngmù 華嚴五教章名目 (T2338), is also attributed to him.
DILA Buddhist Person Authority id A001182 (Wikidata Q11419213). The colophon dates 嘉祿三年 (1227), 安貞二年 (1228), and 寛喜元年 (1229) embedded in KR6e0014 fix the terminus for that compilation precisely and place him concretely in Myōe’s Toganoo community in the master’s final years.