804 nobumi iyanaga
certainly his addition, drawn from his own imagination (for example,
Yūkai’s assertion that the first disciple of Ninkan was a “master of the
way of yin and yang”).
For clarity of exposition, it seems best to present my principal con-
clusion first and then develop the main points. When we talk about
the Tachikawa-ryū, we must distinguish three different meanings of
the term. The first is the real Tachikawa-ryū, a Shingon sub-lineage
that did exist from the early twelfth century onward. The second is
a special religious current that existed from the mid-thirteenth cen-
tury or earlier, and which declined rapidly around the beginning
of the fourteenth century. What is particularly confusing regarding
this current is that it has no specific, historically attested name. The
only known designations are a few expressions such as henjōju no hō
(“teaching of strange/odd achievements”?), kikuran no ryū
(“current of chrysanthemum-orchid”), or kono hō, kano hō
, (“this teaching, that teaching”). For lack of a better
term, I will hereafter use the expression “that teaching,” because it
was under this appellation that the Tachikawa-ryū was described in its
most detailed source, the Juhō-yōjin shū.
Finally, the third meaning is merely a name, a label for a vague
set of Shingon lineages and currents of thought that were condemned
as non-orthodox by certain Shingon monks (who claimed to be in
possession of the orthodoxy) and which were accused of advocating
teachings more or less related to sexuality (even if this cannot be con-
firmed by examination). What confuses the study of the Tachikawa is
that the common use of the term “Tachikawa-ryū” derives from this
third “thing” that has never really existed. For reasons of convenience,
I will use the expression “non-real Tachikawa-ryū” to designate this
third meaning of the word.
Another point that must be made before entering into a discussion
of the facts is the nature and definition of mikkyō lineages. From a cer-
tain period that can be situated around the Insei period (1086–1192)
onward, mikkyō lineages began to split into many sub-lineages, each
of which claimed greater authority and legitimacy than all the others.
In fact, the differences between lineages were minimal and were based
on minor changes in ritual procedures (mainly the mantra and mudrā
pairs). A lineage was a group of masters and disciples transmitting a
well-defined set of ritual transmissions and sharing a blood lineage
(kechimyaku ) document. In reality, each mikkyō practitioner
tended to receive transmissions of several lineages (what we can call