762 lucia dolce
demonstrate the extent to which rituals were crucial in the process of
legitimization and thus inseparable from the articulation of Taimitsu
doctrinal standing. The same sectarian concerns affected the liturgies
performed for a particular purpose and for the benefit of a sponsor
(bessonhō^22 ). These amounted to the main activity of the eso-
teric lineages, and their successful performance assured political power
and social standing to clerics and their lineages. The intra-sectarian
and inter-sectarian agendas of the rituals are unfolded in the antholo-
gies in which they were collected and in the selection of a number of
liturgies as the exclusive expertise of the Taimitsu lineages.
The Liturgical Canon
The ritual anthologies compiled from the eleventh century onward are
the major sources to document and reconstruct the variety of ritu-
als developed in Taimitsu centers. They are valuable because they are
not mere collections of liturgical manuals but provide the doctrinal
underpinning of each liturgy, its history and canonical sources, the
visual material necessary for its set-up, and numerous records of
actual performances. The number of ritual anthologies seems to have
grown during the mid-Heian period, attesting to the multiplication
of the dharma lines. Traditionally, in fact, each collection was meant
to embody the ritual capital and monopoly of a single lineage. Yet
the eclectic training of the compilers and the inclusion of rituals of
competing lineages indicate the ambiguity of such sectarian identity
(Dolce forthcoming).
Research on these collections is almost inexistent. An overview of
the most influential is thus required and is here provided.^23
The Shijūjōketsu ( T. 2408), in forty books, is the first
attempt in Taimitsu to collect oral instructions related to the meaning
and performance of various liturgies. It records the oral transmission
of Kōgei, the founder of the Tani-ryū, as transcribed by his disciple
Chōen. Following the tripartite pattern of Taimitsu hermeneutics, the
anthology covers the liturgies related to the two mandalas and the
soshitsuji class and then discusses various individual practices without
(^22) Rituals for a single object of devotion as opposed to those involving the two
major mandalas.
(^23) The only comprehensive overview is Bernard Frank’s study of late Heian and
medieval iconographic collections (Frank 1986–87), which however concentrates on
Tōmitsu anthologies and devotes less attention to Taimitsu corpora.