ABSTRACT
The birthplace of the monk, K yokai, is not known. He lived at Yakushi-ji, and espoused the teaching of the Yuishiki '*~ School as his doctrinal base. In addition to Buddhist studies he compiled the Ryoiki, in the preface of which he says .... 1
As the passage which follows consists of a quotation from the Nihon ryoiki, it will be seen that this "biography" fails to reveal even the birth and death dates or the birthplace of the subject. Some scholars assume that he came from Kii *2{jt province, because that is the location of several legends recorded in his work, those which can be dated approximately within his lifetime and which offer precise local names of the area? Probably we would be safe in surmising that he was from a province in or near Kinai ~J7'3, where most of the legends originated? His signature, "Kyokai, a monk4 ofYakushi-ji on the West Side of Nara," is found at the beginning of each volume and at the end of the third volume. Only the last of these signatures specifies his clerical rank, Dento ju-i ~~f:tf1L, next to the lowest of the five clerical ranks.s
I. Shiban, Honcho kosoden, VI (DBZ, 102), 125-126. 2. Hashikawa Tadashi, "Ryoiki no kenkyii," Geibun, XIII (No.3, 1922), 194. 3. Takase Shogon, Nihonkoku genpo zen'aku ryoiki (Kokuyaku issaikyo, Shiden-bu, XXIV),
4. Skt. sramafJa, transliterated as sha-men i'J>~~, ~~~, etc., in Chinese and shamon in Japanese, originally means "ascetic, recluse," and is later used in the same sense as biku 1t.Ii (Skt. bhik$u), a (Buddhist) monk. In this work the Japanese terms shamon, so fff (see below, n. 17), and biku are all translated as "monk," since they are used interchangeably in the Nihon ryoiki.
