Kōben 高辧 (also written 高辨, more famously known by his clerical sobriquet Myōe 明惠 or Myōebō Kōben 明惠房高辨, 1173–1232), Kegon-Shingon scholar-mystic of the early Kamakura period and founder of the Kōzan-ji 高山寺 in northwestern Kyoto (founded Kenpō 1 / 1212 with the gift of the site by Go-Toba). Born into the Yuasa family of Kii province (modern Wakayama), orphaned young, ordained at the Jingo-ji 神護寺 in Kyoto in 1188. He trained in Kegon scholasticism at the Tōdai-ji and in Shingon esoteric practice at the Ninna-ji, becoming the foremost Kegon-Shingon syncretist of his day.
Myōe is one of the most distinctive religious figures of medieval Japan, known principally for:
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The Saijarin 摧邪輪 (1212) — his polemical response to Hōnen’s Senjaku-shū, one of the principal Nara-school refutations of the Pure Land senju-nenbutsu doctrine.
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The Yumeji-ki 夢日記 — his celebrated dream-diary, kept from 1191 to 1232 over 40+ years, one of the most remarkable continuous dream records in world religious literature.
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The Shiza kōshiki KR6t0442 — his four-fold lecture-liturgy for the historical Buddha, still performed annually at Kōzan-ji.
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The two attempted India journeys of 1203 and 1205, abandoned on the advice of his Shintō patron Kasuga Daimyōjin (through oracle delivered by the Kasuga miko).
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The Tōrō-no-kura 鳥羽の倉 retreat and his austere ascetic personal practice, including his famous cutting off of his right ear in Kenkyū 6 / 1195 as a self-disqualification from political-ecclesiastical office.
The DILA authority id is A001014. He died at Kōzan-ji on the 19th of the 1st month of Jōei 1 / 1232, age 60.