There exists a facsimile of the Shōbōzan Rokusoden 正法山六祖伝, written in 1589 at the Reiun-in 霊雲院 subtemple of Myōshinji. Here I introduce a revised edition of it and that published in 1640. The note added to the copy consists of short life histories of the first abbot of Myōshinji, Kanzan 関山, to the sixth, Sekkō 雪江. The appendix relates the origin of Myōshinji （妙心禅寺記）. The author of the first to the fifth chapters, along with the appendix, was Sekkō. The chapter on Sekkō was written by his disciple Tōyō 東陽. In contrast of the concrete histories of the second to the sixth abbots, Kanzan’s life history is fictitious, without his death data. Sekkō confessed the lack of material about Kanzan in his comment. We offered the testament of Kanzan earlier in this Journal （IBK 62（2）, 2014; 68（1）, 2020）.

Here we offer a revised text of the appendix, that is, the beginning history of Myōshinji, including the latter half of the biography of the first abbot, Kanzan. Sekkō was forced to depend on rumors only for the first half of his treatment of Kanzan, as he confessed. But the latter half of the first chapter is an important source.

The story of the regional name ‘Hanazono’ （Flower Garden） is interesting. In the early years of the capital at Heiankyō, the rice field for the emperor was set in the north-west corner of the capital city. Later his house and garden became the palace of prince Arihito 有仁（1103-1147）. He adorned this garden with flowers. So people called this palace ‘Hanazono’ 花園 meaning the flower garden. The emperor Hanazono （1297-1348） obtained this palace and changed it into a Zen temple. His teacher Daitō Kokushi 大燈国師 named the temple ‘Shōbōzan Myōshinji.’ The emperor installed his master’s first disciple, Kanzan, as the first abbot.

This manuscript of the Shōbōzan Rokusoden is preserved in the library of Ryūkoku University. We owe thanks to the library for their permission to use it for this study.

The headquarters Zen temple Myōshinji was planned in 1337 by Emperor Hanazono. He donated his palace Hanazono meaning the flower-garden for a Zen-temple. The first abbot of Myōshinji, Kanzan, was appointed by the Emperor, since Kanzan was the top disciple of Shūhō.

Shūhō named the temple “Shōbōzan Myōshinzenji” after the renowned account of the succession from the Buddha to his top disciple Mahākāśyapa. The key-words of that account were used for the title of “Shōbōzan” (正法山) and “Myōshin-zenji” (妙心禅寺). In studying the texts on which Shūhō may have depended in his naming, we found that the source is not Mumonkan (無門関), but a citation of a Sūtra in the Ninten–Ganmoku (人天眼目), namely the Sūtra on Questions Put to the Buddha by King Mahābrahma to Resolve Doubts (『大梵天王問仏決疑経』).

The account of succession from the Buddha to Mahākāśyapa is: “When Buddha showed his disciples a lotus bloom, Mahākāśyapa only smiled. Then Buddha said to him that he had a ‘shōbō-genzō’ (insight into truth); ‘nehan-myōshin’ (calm and right sense) and ‘jissō-musō’ (real and no figure), so he shall bestow it to him.” In accordance with the account Shūhō named the new temple of the palace of the Emperor Hanazono “Shōbōzan Myōshinji Zen-temple” (正法山妙心禅寺).

The Sūtra was excluded from the canon because it touched on discussing political affairs or because it used the taboo-character, shū (宗), which had been used for the names of the kings of the Song (宋) dynasty. These pieces of evidence were cited by Muchaku (無著,1653–1744) in his Zenrin-Shōkisen (禅林象器箋). The Mumonkan (無門関) added the term, “wise doctrine” (微妙法門), to the above cited account along with “the expression regarding separate transmission apart from the teachings” (不立文字教外別伝). But it turned out that Shūhō had not based himself on this version.

At the last conference of Japanese Association of Indian and Buddhist Studies, the author discussed the revised edition of the manuscript of the Shōbōzan Rokusoden 正法山六祖伝 within the chapter of ‘the origin of Shōbōzan Myōshinji Zen Temple’ 正法山妙心禅寺記, and mentioned the first abbot Kanzan Yegen 関山恵玄. Now he offers a revised text successively on the biographies of the second abbot Juō 授翁, the third Muyin 無因 and the fourth Nippō 日峰, considering the corrections and readings of Sekkō 雪江. The copiest is identified as the third abbot of the Reiunin 霊雲院, Gekkō Genshin 月航玄津. There are also mistakes made by the author Sekkō. For instance, the phrase 瑞泉日峰舜禅師 is to be corrected to 海清日峰舜禅師, but the editor Tōyō 東陽, the copiest Gekkō and the early Edo period publisher Nōsen 能仙 all failed to make the correction.

The author has connected Nippō with the Zuisenji 瑞泉寺 of Inuyama 犬山 because he was from Owari 尾張 （in Aichi Prefecture）. Jūo first practiced under Shūhō Myōchō 宗峰妙超 at Daitokuji, and was given the name Shūhitsu 宗弼. He did the same under Kanzan 関山. Muyin, also from Owari, ordained at Kenninji Temple 建仁寺 under Jūo, where he became the Ina 維那, but in his thirties moved to Myōshinji Temple, where he became the third Abbot, succeding Jūo. While Setsudō, a disciple of Muyin, was at Myōshinji, the prime minister Ashikaga Yoshimitsu 足利義満 got angry with Setsudō, who was intimate with Yoshimitsu’s enemy, and placed Myōshinji under his uncle Teiyō 廷用 of Nanzenji 南禅寺. After Yoshimitsu died, Teiyō gave Myōshinji back to this school. Some decades later, Nippō, the fourth Abbot of Myōshinji, restored the temple. Thus Sekkō 雪江 wrote these life-stories on his Shōbōzan-Rokusoden.

As mentioned, this manuscript was copied by Gekkō Genshin at his Reiun-in sub-temple of Myōshinji in the year of 1589. We obtained the copy of the manuscript preserved in the library of Ryūkoku University via Shitennōji University, and deciphered and studied it in this paper. We are in debt both the libraries for this study.