68. TACHIKAWARYŪ
Nobumi IyanagaIt is challenging to write about the Tachikawa-ryū in brief, because
almost all of what has ever been written on this topic is based on a
preconceived image and is in need of profound revision.^1 This pre-
conceived image can be summarized in a few words. The well-known
Japanese dictionary Kōjien (fifth edition, 1998) has a useful
entry entitled “Tachikawa-ryū”:
(The name is based on the fact that a master of the way of yin and yang
of Tachikawa of the country of Musashi learned [this teaching]
from Ninkan , and spread it.) A current of the Shingon school. Its
secret art is to attain buddhahood within the present body (sokushin
jōbutsu no hijutsu ) through the sexual intercourse
between man and woman. Its founder was Ninkan of the later Heian
period; it came to completion under Monkan of the fourteenth
century, but later was repressed as a perverse teaching.This image of the Tachikawa-ryū as a “perverse teaching” can be traced
back to a text by Yūkai (1345–1416), later considered the most
influential author of the Kogi (“old doctrine”) branch of the Shingon
school. The work is entitled Hōkyō-shō ( T. 2456)^2 and is cer-
tainly his earliest writing (1375). It can be characterized as a “heresio-
logical” work, meaning that its main purpose was to criticize doctrines
and practices that the author accuses of being “perverse.” In Japanese
Buddhism, there are few works that can be categorized as heresiologi-
cal, but this one, as with all the heresiological works of Buddhism or of
other religions, must be read with a discerning and critical eye. Ana-
lyzed critically, it proves to be full of insinuations of every kind, based
on intrasectarian (or perhaps more general ) political motives. Almost
all of Yūkai’s sources of information can be found in earlier works,
and some of the information that occurs in this text for the first time is
(^1) Readers should note that the theory presented in this essay is not a generally
accepted opinion either in Japan or elsewhere. They are invited to judge for themselves
its validity.
(^2) This work is also translated into English in vanden Broucke 1992.