"Dharma Prince Shukaku and the Esoteric Buddhist Culture of Sacred Works (Shōgyō) in Medieval Japan"

Brian O. Ruppert

"Dharma Prince Shukaku and the Esoteric Buddhist Culture of Sacred Works (Shōgyō) in Medieval Japan"

Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia

“Shukaku Hosshinnō (1150–1202), pronounced Shūkaku at Ninnaji, the second son of cloistered sovereign Go-Shirakawa (r. 1155–1158), was one of the most influential masters in the history of Shingon lineages. Along with the Tendai abbot Jien (1155–1225), Shukaku broadly influenced not only the temple-complex establishment of his time but also the aristocratic lineages in the arts. However, until recently, modern and contemporary scholars have all but ignored him in the larger development of Japanese Shingon. As with such figures as Ninnaji’s Saisen (1025–1115), editor of Kūkai’s works and the first great commentator on Kūkai’s oeuvre, who remains largely ignored by academia throughout the world, Shukaku’s remarkable activity and clear influence in the course of medieval and early modern Shingon ritual and intellectual practice has been until recently a largely untold—and unstudied—story…”

2011