According to The Genko Era Biographies of Eminent Priests, a dragon lived in this pond, and when it made an appearance, rain would fall.
3. This refers to Kobo’s claim, made in his Secret Key to the Heart Sutra, which the Daishonin cites later, that while he was praying to end an epidemic the sun came out at night. See also the text on pp. 722–724.
4. A ritual implement used in esoteric Buddhism, symbolizing the adamantine resolve to attain enlightenment, which can destroy any illusion. The Biography of the Great Teacher Kobo states, “On the day when he set out by ship from China . . . he faced in the direction of Japan and threw the diamondpounder up into the air. It sailed far away and disappeared among the clouds,” and “He journeyed to the foot of Mount Koya and determined to establish his place of meditation there . . . and later it was discovered that the three-pronged diamondpounder that he had thrown out over the sea was there on the mountain.”
5. Fuyutsugu is Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu (775–826), a court official of the early Heian period (794–1185), who eventually became minister of the left.
6. Matsuna is Wake no Matsuna (783– ), a son of Wake no Kiyomaro. As a court noble, he and his brother Hiroyo sponsored a lecture by the Great Teacher Dengyo at Takao-dera temple in Kyoto.
Fourteen representatives of the six schools of Nara attended the lecture.
7. Priests in Japan had been ordained exclusively in the Hinayana precepts. Dengyo had repeatedly sought imperial permission to establish a Mahayana ordination center at Mount Hiei, over the fierce objections of the Nara schools. His continued efforts in this direction, coupled with his dramatic success in the prayers for rain and with the requests of Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu and others, finally moved Emperor Saga to consent.
8. There is no source for the statement that Gomyo (750–834), a Dharma Characteristics priest, was Dengyo’s teacher.
9. Reference is to the eighty-second emperor, Gotoba. In 1221, after having retired, he attempted to overthrow the Kamakura government and had a great number of priests offer esoteric True Word prayers for the victory of the imperial forces. However, the leader of the Kamakura shogunate emerged victorious.
10. Secret Key to the Heart Sutra.
11. Shiva and Vishnu.
12. The eight schools are the Dharma Analysis Treasury, Establishment of Truth, Precepts, Dharma Characteristics, Three Treatises, Flower Garland, Tendai, and True Word schools. The nine schools comprise these eight plus the Zen school, and the ten schools are those nine plus the Pure Land school.
