Printing Blocks of an Edo-period Sub-commentary on a Tiantai Buddhist Treatise (Shikyōgi shitchū hanjidan 四教儀集註半字談)

In the hot summer of 2002, when I first arrived in Tucson, Arizona. Ms. Harriet Barker called me with a set of printing blocks for her collection. According to her, one of her relatives was a movie star and acquired them in Japan. Her relative willed these blocks to her and she kept them as treasures. After examining the wood printing blocks in Ms. Harriet Barker’s collection, I conclude that it belongs to the original set of woodblocks of  Chikū  癡空 (1780-1862)’s work  Shikyōgi shitchū hanjidan 四教儀集註半字談 (5 fascicles), which was supposed to be stored at Tōeizan 東叡山 of Japan compiled and printed by Izumiya Shōjirō 和泉屋庄次郎 of Edo (now Kyoto) 江戶 in 1849.

 The reason why this block was brought to the US is unknown. However, one copy of the complete work can be found in Harvard-Yenching Library at Harvard University (Call number: TJ 1873.4 0436.3). Click the link here for more information. Ms. Barker loaned me the blocks for research and I brought the blocks with me to Harvard-Yenching Library and Library and Congress. I found the exact page printed from these blocks.

This book is a subcommentary of Mengrun’s 蒙潤 (1275-1342) commentary on the Korean monk Ch’egwan 諦観 (d. 971?)’s work  Tiantai Sijiao yi (Cheontae sagyo ui) 天台四教儀. Chegwan was a special envoy dispatched by the Korean king to send back the lost works by the patriarchs of the Tiantai school. But when he arrived at Mount Tiantai and met Master Luoxi Yiji 螺溪義寂 (919-987), he then decided to stay in China. He wrote this book to elaborate on the basic teaching of the Tiantai school without telling anybody. This book was discovered until his belongings were searched after his death. Monk Mengrun wrote a commentary of this book during the Yuan dynasty which was brought to Japan.

Japanese monk Chikū was a scholar-monk who specialized in Tiantai teaching. He was a prolific writer and many of his works were commentaries. He had been invited to Tōeizan Jyōmyōin 淨名律院.

Ms. Barker contacted me once again about ten years later and taught me that she survived the White Mountain Wild Fire because of the blessing of the blocks. How inconceivable. The fate of the blocks is unknown now.

References

Kiuchi Gyouou 木内 堯央

〔近代高僧素描〕慧澄癡空

日本仏教史学 17, 49-53, 1981-11-00

日本における天台宗の展開 /

Nihon niokeru tendaishū no tenkai. 

Author: 木内, 尭央(1939-) 木内, 尭大 ; Kiuchi, Gyōō.; Kiuchi, Gyōdai.

Publication: 逗子 : 宗教工芸社, 2012.10. 2012