Raihō 賴寶 / 頼寶 — Late-Kamakura / early-Nanbokuchō Japanese Shingon scholar of Tō-ji 東寺, the senior of the Three Treasures of Tō-ji 東寺三寶 (with Gōhō 杲寶 (杲寶, 1306–1362) and Kenpō 賢寶 (賢寶, 1333–1398)) — the trio of medieval Tō-ji scholastics who systematized the post-Kūkai Shingon doctrinal tradition. Raihō was Gōhō’s teacher; his lifedates are not securely preserved but his floruit must be the first half of the 14th century, as Gōhō received his oral instructions on the Dàrìjīng shū 大日經疏 directly from him during the 1320s–1340s.
His extant works in the Buddhist canon include:
- Shì móhēyǎn lùn kānzhù 釋摩訶衍論勘注 (T2290) — annotations on the Esoteric Awakening of Faith commentary (Shì móhēyǎn lùn T1668).
- Zhūfǎ fēnbié chāo 諸法分別抄 (T2448) — records (記) of doctrinal-distinction analysis.
- Zhēnyán míngmù 真言名目 (T2449) — exposition (述) of Shingon technical terminology.
He is also the oral source for the Yǎnào shāo 演奧鈔 (KR6j0666, T59n2216) — the 60-fascicle Dàrìjīng shū commentary that was Gōhō’s lifework — which was created by Gōhō from “口訣悉筆記之” (verbatim transcription of Raihō’s oral teachings).
Raihō’s scholarship represents the foundational generation of medieval Tō-ji systematic scholasticism: he preserved and organized the late-Heian Tō-ji oral-transmission heritage and passed it to Gōhō, who in turn passed it (largely via Kenpō) into the later medieval-and-early-modern Shingon scholastic tradition.
Source: DILA Buddhist Person Authority A001829; the preface to the printed edition of Yǎnào shāo (T59n2216, by Ryūkō 隆光 of Nara, 1712 CE).