Ketsujō (Determination) by Jikigyō Miroku and New Miroku no Miyo (Era of Miroku)

Abstract

Jikigyō Miroku (real name Kobayashi 1671-1733) was an ascetic of the fifth generation from Kakugyō Tōbutsu (1541-1646), an ascetic who practiced a unique Mt. Fuji faith. The details concerning the Mt. Fuji faith were written by Jikigyō when he was sixty years old, in his second work Issai no ketsujō yomiuta (Determination of all and my poetry).

Getsugyō, his mentor, proposed that the Miroku no miyo (Era of Miroku) started on 15 June 1688, which transferred world domination from Japanese traditional gods to the god of Mt. Fuji. Forty years later, Jikigyō expanded the doctrine of his mentor in his first work Ichiji fusetsu wo hiraki Miroku no miyo no wake wo kakioki mōshisōrō (I open a secret letter which cannot be explained, and write the circumstances of the era of Miroku). When Jikigyō was getting old he restarted Miroku no miyo at the summit of Mt. Fuji. He called his climbing of Mt. Fuji the next year as Issai no ketsujō (Determination of all).

Jikigyō is a famous ascetic in the history of Mt. Fuji faith, but his second book has not been studied. I have tried to study it using a transcribed text from a manuscript wrote by Jikigyō himself. The significance of this paper is that the presented synopsis is easy to understand, and that it examines the word of ketsujō as a keyword for Jikigyō.