. tachikawa-ry 809
Shingon center of] Tōji and the Tendai school, but these days, they have
spread so widely that everyone trifles with them in the capital as well as
in the countryside. I heard that in these sūtras it is said that intercourse
with women is the most crucial thing in the Shingon teaching, and that
it is the highest among the [practices for] attaining buddhahood within
the present body. If one avoids it, then the path to the accomplishment
of the buddhahood is said to be distant. Meat-eating is the inner realiza-
tion of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas.... If one dislikes meat-eating,
one will be lost in [choosing the right] door to get out from the realm of
birth and death. This is why you must not discriminate between the pure
and the impure.... All the dharmas are pure, and thus, one will attain
rapidly buddhahood within the present body: this is the doctrine taught
in these sūtras, as I heard. I heard also that if one performs the ritual as
taught in them, the principal deity (honzon ) will suddenly appear
and teach the practitioner all things of the three worlds [of past, present,
and future], give him felicity and knowledge, confer high ranks on him,
so much that this practitioner seems as if he had obtained magical power
within the present body. (Moriyama 1965, 530–31)The first part of the Juhō-yōjin shū is an autobiographical account
of the author and his learning. Born in 1215, Shinjō began his studies at
the age of eighteen, probably in Echizen, and continued to study differ-
ent Shingon rituals and doctrines in various places, including Kōyasan
and Kyōto, until 1262. After this introductory passage, the author
recounts his encounter with a special teaching, which he consistently
refers to as “this teaching” or “that teaching.” He learned the teaching
and received its canonical texts from a monk he met by chance, and
he lists the titles of these texts. Shinjō then presents a series of critiques
against the teaching in which we can find details concerning some of
its traditions in relation to its transmission lineages.
The second scroll begins by relating that some readers of the first
scroll criticized the author for having failed to describe the concrete
features of the ritual prescribed by “that teaching.” In response to this
criticism, the second scroll supplies a full description of the ritual in
question (Moriyama 1965, 555–58). After this description, Shinjō gives
his own opinion of the ritual—namely, that it is not a Buddhist ritual
at all but a demonic ritual; and he goes on to say that even if it has
some effect, the practitioner will eventually lapse into utter confusion
and madness, and so on (Moriyama 1965, 562–64). Finally, the author
expounds some doctrinal reasons as to why “that teaching” cannot be
a Buddhist teaching.
The determinant factor for why I believe that what is described in this
work is not the Tachikawa-ryū is the transmission lineages recounted