Kaiken 快憲 (Kuàixiàn; b. c. 1480/1481, fl. 1527–1537), Japanese Tōdaiji 東大寺 Sanron 三論 scholar of the Muromachi period. Bore the academic title gikō 擬講 (“lecture-candidate”) of the Sanron Engshū Myō-mon 三論圓宗妙門, an internal Tōdaiji Sanron-school examination rank. His mother Myōyū 妙祐 died c. 1521.
Kaiken delivered a complete chapter-by-chapter kōshaku lecture-series on Nāgārjuna’s Zhōng lùn between the second month and the eleventh month of Daiei 7 (1527), at age 47, dedicating the merit to the seventh memorial year of his mother. The lectures were redacted as KR6m0002 Zhōngguān lùn èrshíqī pǐn biéshì 中觀論二十七品別釋 (T65n2256), a single-fascicle close paraphrase of 吉藏 Jízàng’s Zhōngguān lùn shū (T1824 = KR6m0006). Ten years later (Tenbun 6 / 1537), at age 57, Kaiken executed a clean copy at the Hachiman shrine within the Tōdaiji precinct, dedicating it to the tutelary kami of Tōdaiji (Hachiman of Iwashimizu, Nikkō-Futarayama, Kiyotaki) and to the spirit of Emperor Shōmu, the founder of Tōdaiji. The 1537 colophon laments having “no one to whom to transmit the Dharma” (可傳法器無之), suggesting that Sanron scholasticism at Tōdaiji had by then become a thinly-attended specialism. Death date not securely attested; active at least through 1537. No CBDB or DILA Authority match has been confirmed.
Works:
- KR6m0002 Zhōngguān lùn èrshíqī pǐn biéshì 中觀論二十七品別釋 (T65n2256), 1 fasc., 1527/1537.