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The Suxidi jing
The source of the soshitsuji class was the Suxidi jieluo jing
( T. 893), a scripture that, surprisingly, is not concerned with doc-
trinal matters but with the ritual rules for a successful performance.
Traditionally classified as a Dari jing-type of scripture (because it was
translated in Chinese by the same scholiast, and in some lineages the
two texts were handed down together), this sūtra is thought by mod-
ern scholars to represent a lineage of scriptures related to the notion
and representation of the uṣṇīṣa (butchōkei ) (Misaki 1988,
112–45). It was known in Japan since the Nara period. Saichō and
Kūkai brought back new copies from their continental journeys, but
the sūtra never played a hermeneutical function for Kūkai, who clas-
sified it among the vinaya genre of scriptures.
Ennin, on the contrary, wrote the first extensive commentary to the
Suxidi jing, and placed it at the foundation of a doctrinal apparatus
in which it embodied the supreme accomplishment (soshitsuji) that
completed the practices of both the Womb and Diamond Mandalas.
Enchin, too, considered the mantras of the Suxidi jing to be the essence
of the two worlds. By the medieval period the status of the Suxidi jing
as a scripture that defined the identity of tantric Buddhism had been
unequivocally established, as diverse contemporary materials attest.^14
Yet the text presented several problems that would prove consequen-
tial in Taimitsu history. Two, in particular, should be mentioned.
The power of the soshitsuji initiation was said to be in a fundamen-
tal mantra (konpon shingon ); however, it was not identified
in the text itself, nor in Ennin’s Commentary. Furthermore, Enchin’s
account of Faquan’s transmission suggests that the mantras of the
threefold siddhi in which he was initiated differed from those given
in the Suxidi jing. Later scholiasts identified the fundamental mantra
with a number of alternatives: the mantras allegedly transmitted to
Saichō in China, the mantras from the Yuqi jing (Annen, Jien),^15 or the
(^14) For instance, the Hasshū koyō , a thirteenth-century outline of Jap-
anese Buddhism, explained esoteric Buddhism as the “secret doctrine of mantras”
of the Dari jing and Suxidi jing without mention of the second major scripture, the
Jin’gangdingjing (Ōkubo 2001b). Nichiren’s classification of tantric Buddhism always
included the 15 Suxidi jing (Dolce 1999, 355–56; 2002, 73–80).
See, for instance, the Soshitsujikyō mondō, in one fascicle, compiled by Jien in
- ZTZ (1993) mikkyō 2 [kyōten chūshaku rui 1]: 190–201.