750 lucia dolce
available in print. Contrary to Shingon’s major thinkers, of whose
work dedicated collections have been compiled and critical editions
published, Taimitsu writings are scattered across a variety of Buddhist
collections. The Taishō canon devotes two volumes to Taimitsu (vols.
75–76), which mainly consist of doctrinal works by Annen and medi-
eval ritual anthologies, and late, mainly ritual, exegeses, in part of vol.
- But major works by Ennin and Enchin are included in other vol-
umes according to the division of the canon into genres: those dedi-
cated to commentarial literature in Japanese (zoku kyōsho ), in
particular vols. 58 and 61 (esoteric commentaries), since much of their
doctrinal interpretations took the form of sūtra commentaries; and the
volume dedicated to catalogues of the inventories of esoteric material
introduced from China (vol. 55). Furthermore, the most important
Taimitsu ritual anthology is included in the iconographical section of
the canon (TZ, vols. 8 and 9).
The other major Japanese canonical collection, the Nihon daizōkyō
(Suzuki Gakujutsu Zaidan, 1973–1978) devotes three full and one
partial volume to Taimitsu (vols. 43–45, and part of vol. 42), which
include works not available in the Taishō canon. Most of Enchin’s
works (including several medieval-period hongaku texts attributed to
him) have been collected in four volumes of the Dai nihon bukkyō zen-
sho (vols. 25–28, Chishō daishi zenshū). A more recent effort to make
Taimitsu works accessible to the scholarly community are the four
volumes of the Zoku Tendai zensho devoted to esoteric Buddhism.
These contain several medieval works, including a number of Jien’s
writings from the Kissui Archives of Shōrein (vols. 2 and 3)
and sixteenth-century ritual encyclopedias (vol. 4), in addition to the
first critical edition of the version of the Commentary to the Dari jing
known as the Yishi (vol. 1).^9
(^9) The Commentary to the Dari jing was of great significance to Taimitsu think-
ers because it combined esoteric notions with Tiantai thoughts and thus represented
an illustrious precedent of Taimitsu efforts (Asai 1986, 1987; Ōkubo 1996; Dolce
2006a, 147–48). Two versions of this commentary existed, both exegeses of the first
six fascicles of the sūtra: the Darijing shu, in twenty fascicles, compiled between 725
and 727 by Yixing (683–727), which recording his master Śubhākarasim ̣ha’s
interpretation; and the Darijing yishi, in fourteen fascicles, rearranged after Yixing’s
death by two fellow disciples, Zhiyan and Wengu. The exegesis of the
sixth chapter is the section in which the two versions of the commentary differ most.
Sectarian scholarship has claimed that Taimitsu scholiasts used the Yishi rather than
the Shu. Source evidence, however, demonstrates that they employed both versions
of the Commentary.