Kaijō 戒定 — Edo-period Japanese Shingon scholar-monk, author of the Dokusho nijū-nisoku 讀書二十二則 (KR6t0248, T79n2542) — “Twenty-Two Rules for Reading” — a pedagogical essay on the philological method to be followed in reading the works of Kūkai 弘法大師 (the Shingon founder, Henjō Kongō 遍照金剛). The essay opens: “In ancient times our school’s founder, the Henjō Kongō master, brilliant and wise, was able to comprehend the many arts and master the all-knowing-wisdom. At first he studied the classics and histories, the hundred schools; later he penetrated the doctrinal-principles of the exoteric-and-esoteric teachings in their countless variations. Whether in prose or verse, abundant with the floweriness of the High Táng; whether in doctrine or principle, fully exhausting the deep secrets of the exoteric and esoteric. He composed the Niki hōyaku, Jūjūshin etc., and so established the learning of our school. As for the writings: they are well-balanced in word-and-substance — never abandoning literary skill; in doctrine-and-principle they are dense and rich — never failing to make their point…”
The work treats the proper method by which students should approach Kūkai’s literary corpus: attending to the huàyán (華人之語法 — the language-method of the Chinese), the rhetorical conventions, the literary-allusions, and the textual-philological methods required of the serious reader.
No lifedates are recorded; the work appears in the Nihon Bukkyō zensho (B0559) and the Taishō, conventionally dated to the late-Edo period (18th–19th century).
DILA Buddhist Person Authority A000510.
Source: DILA A000510; the work itself (KR6t0248).
There is also a distinct Wǔdài shíguó period Chinese Chán master Dòngxī Jièdìng 洞溪戒定 (Five-Dynasties period) recorded at DILA A009346, not to be confused with the present Edo-period Japanese Shingon Kaijō.