796 brian o. ruppert
It is interesting to note that the section on Shukaku is absent from
the mid-Kamakura work O’muro sōjō ki (Record of Transmissions
of O’muro), the standard early work of Ninnaji describing the lives
and activities of the dharma princes. However, we can glean informa-
tion about him from the later Ninnaji go-den (August Biographies of
Ninnaji) and other works.^3 Shukaku received the precepts from his
uncle, Kakushō, in 1160. He received the status of singular ajari mas-
ter (isshin ajari ) by royal order in 1168, and soon after
was granted the dharma-transmission consecration (denbō kanjō
) by Kakushō, who died the next year. Shukaku was thus officially
named dharma prince in 1170.
Following the usual privileges of the O’muro dharma prince, Shu-
kaku was now granted the abbacies of royal-vow temples of both
the cloistered sovereign and the nyō’in female cloistered sovereigns,
including the great six “shō” temples (rokushōji) of Higashiyama, sev-
eral of the “round” (en) temples near Ninnaji, the Shōkōmyō’in south
of Heian-kyō, and the Hōkongō’in and Saishōkō’in, among others. He
was conferred the second highest princely rank in 1176 and would
later go on to perform a whole series of esoteric rites (shuhō), venera-
tive memorials (kuyō), and bond-establishment consecrations (kechien
kanjō) for the royal house and high nobility. Indeed, Shukaku’s recep-
tion of the official monastic administration apparatus in 1195 from
his nephew, the sovereign Go-Toba (r. 1183–1198), constituted the
regularization of the dharma prince as head administrator, given that
Kakushō’s reception had been the only previous example of such con-
ferral. This signals that Shukaku had now achieved an extremely high
position both socially and historically.^4
Although during his life Shukaku seems to have received just four
royal rewards (kenjō ) for his performance of important rites,
his disciple, younger brother, and successor as dharma prince Dōhō
(1166–1214) was described in the Record of Transmissions of O’muro
as having received some thirty such rewards. The only figure in the
medieval records to match this number was Dōhō’s contemporary Jien,
(^3) These two works are both included in Nara kokuritsu bunkazai Kenkyūjo, ed.
1964–1967; respectively, 4 Ninnaji shiryō, vols. 1 and 2.
Ninnaji go-den (Shinren’in-bon, Shinkō’in-bon, Kenshō-shosha-bon) in Nara
kokuritsu bunkazai Kenkyūjo, ed. 1964–1967, 2: 30–34, 86–87, 145–51. See also Abe
and Yamazaki 1998, 14, Ronbunhen.