This study examines the discovery and significance of the Daruma sect’s （darumashū 達磨宗） historical record Ichijiketsu 一字訣, written by Butchibō Kakuan 仏地房覚晏 and housed in the Sanzen-in 三千院 temple’s Enyūzō 円融蔵 （Perfect Interfusion Archive）. In 2018, I came across Butchibō Kakuan’s Shinkon ketsugishō 心根決疑, the study of which led me to discover the Ichijiketsu.
We can gather from the preface, postscript, and the main contents of the Sanzen-in’s copy of the Ichijiketsu that its current edition is based on a 1222 manuscript, with the addition of kunten 訓点 punctuation and an explanation of its contents written in a mixture of kanji and kana. This document can be identified as Butchibo Kakuan’s work by the fact that the preface is signed Kakuan 覚宴, and because the work’s author is identified as the 52nd in the same lineage as Zhuo’an Deguang 拙庵徳光, its 50th successor. My claim of Kakuan’s authorship is further supported by the fact that this document and his Shinkon ketsugishō share quite a number of similarities in content.
I will go into greater detail about this manuscript later, but for now, suffice it to say that it resembles the Shinkon ketsugishō in the way it explicates the Śūraṅgamasamādhi-sūtra 首楞厳経, the Perfect Enlightenment Sūtra 円覚経, the Sugyōroku 宗鏡録, and the Vijñaptimatratā 唯識 doctrine. Moreover, Zongmi 宗密 is the only Chan monk mentioned in the Shinkon ketsugishō, whereas Zhuo’an Deguang, Bodhidharma 達磨, Huike 慧可, Huineng 慧能, and Zongmi all appear in the Ichijiketsu, making it more like a Zen text than the Shinkon ketsugishō.
While I have previously identified the Shinkon ketsugishō as the second oldest of Japan’s Zen manuscripts, the Ichijiketsu’s preface and contents reveal that it in fact precedes the Shinkon ketsugishō. By continuing to deepen our understanding of the Ichijiketsu, we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the Daruma sect, as well as of Zen sects more broadly, in the early years of the Kamakura period. As such, it is clear that this historical document is of exceedingly great importance.
