Yūhan 宥範 (1270–1352) — Late-Kamakura / early-Nanbokuchō Japanese Shingon scholar-monk of the Ono-ryū 小野流 lineage, the principal medieval commentator on Yīxíng’s Dàrìjīng shū 大日經疏 outside of the Tō-ji tradition. He self-identifies in the colophon of his Miàoyìn chāo as “Ono-school descendant Acting Junior Bishop Yūhan, aged 61” 小野末葉權少僧都宥範六十一 — the latter giving us, against the 1330-CE completion date of that work, a firm birth-year of 1270 CE.
His religious name is recorded variously: in the Miàoyìn chāo preface his ordination-style is given as Ajaku 阿寂 (the form used as recorder of T58n2213). His death in 1352 (at age 82) is preserved in the standard Shingon-school registers.
His extant works in the Buddhist canon include:
- Dàrì jīng shū miàoyìn chāo 大日經疏妙印鈔 (KR6j0663, T58n2213) — his magnum opus, an 80-fascicle scholastic commentary on Yīxíng’s Dàrìjīng shū (KR6j0662). Composed in two stages: an initial Aban hōrakushō 阿鑁法樂抄 (35 fascicles, 1299–1300 CE) was reviewed and renamed Miàoyìn chāo by his master; a second expanding-the-fragmentary recension was prosecuted 1308–1330 CE to produce the present 80-fascicle text.
- Dàrì jīng shū miàoyìn chāo kǒuchuán 大日經疏妙印鈔口傳 (KR6j0664, T58n2214) — a 10-fascicle oral-transmission supplement to the Miàoyìn chāo, recording the verbatim teacher-student oral exchanges that accompanied the written text.
- Dàrì jīng gōngyǎng cìdì fǎ shū sījì 大日經供養次第法疏私記 (KR6j0671, T60n2220) — an 8-fascicle commentary on the gòngyǎng cìdì fǎ offering-ritual subcommentary (KR6j0670, T39n1797, attributed to 不可思議).
Yūhan’s lineage descends, by the Miàoyìn chāo colophon, from Genkaku 嚴覺 — a key 11th-century Ono-ryū transmitter — and continued through seven generations of teacher-disciple succession down to Yūhan himself, “carrying the matrilineal-succession unbroken from the cognitive support of the dharmakāya-Buddha.” His scholarship represents the Ono-ryū parallel to the more famous Tō-ji Sanbō 東寺三寶 scholastic tradition (賴寶, 杲寶, 賢寶) — the two together constituting the medieval Japanese systematization of the Dàrìjīng shū commentarial corpus.
Source: DILA Buddhist Person Authority A000824; Wikidata Q56253552; the autograph colophons of T58n2213 and T58n2214.