. dharma prince shukaku 797
who in the same era also received roughly thirty (Tendai zasu ki).^5 In
each case, the recipient monk often bequeathed (yuzuri) his reward
to a disciple, and it is also clear that Shukaku was in the background
of Dōhō’s reception of rewards. Likewise, although these appointment
works do not provide details, it is evident that these rewards were
almost uniformly granted through the influence of Go-Toba, espe-
cially after he became the cloistered sovereign in 1198.
Shukaku studied royal court protocol under the tutelage of court
chroniclers, and also took an active role within the larger cultural
world of the cloistered sovereign and the nobility. He was a waka poet,
a patron of the great monk-poet Kenshō (ca. 1130–ca. 1210), a
collector of poetic works, and the center of a poetry salon. Like Jien,
who as a member of the leading northern Fujiwara family was an active
poet as well as a Tendai abbot and head of the elite cloister (monzeki)
Shōren’in and other temples, Shukaku was the abbot of Ninnaji, the
O’Muro royal cloister within it, and the array of temples mentioned
above while also pursuing various forms of learning, including the arts
and non-Buddhist literature in general (geten).
Shukaku’s legacy is ultimately attributable to the broad corpus of
works he wrote and collected. We can first take note of the genres
of writing he influenced.^6 In terms of Buddhist music, Shukaku
wrote such works as the manual Hossokushū , compiled the
Shikanyōshō , and was associated with Fujiwara (Myōon’in)
no Moronaga (1138–1192), whose eminent disciple Fujiwara Takami-
chi (1166–1239), father of the original Biwa lineage, spent his later
years in Ninnaji.
Shukaku also wrote protocols (kojitsusho ) in the form
of records (gyoki ) concerning not only esoteric Buddhist and
monastic practice but also Chinese poetry, waka, string music, and
calligraphy. Other records by Shukaku include depictions of the bond-
establishing consecrations (kechien kanjō ) he performed at
court as well as various journals (hinamiki ) he kept throughout
his life at Ninnaji. Shukaku’s writings represent a broad chronicling of
rites, general activities, and studies, similar to those of the so-called
(^5) O’muro sōjō ki, in Nara kokuritsu bunkazai Kenkyūjo, ed. 1967, 1: 86–119; Tendai
zasu ki, in Nara Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kenkyūjo, ed. 1964–1967, 1: 119–22, 127–31,
149–50, 156–63. 6
We draw here on a vast corpus of research, most of which has been conducted
under Abe Yasurō’s direction; see Abe Yasurō 1998, 122–26 for a discussion of these
genres in succinct terms.