National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

　　Ruihi Sho (Compilation of Various Secrets) was compiled by Kanshin (1085–1153), who was the founder of the Kajuji Family. It excerpts sentences of sutras regarding various issues related to the practice of esoteric Buddhism and collects the oral teachings and instructions of the high priests of virtue, as well as pictures. Presently eleven copies of Ruihi Sho are kept in Kosanji Temple in Togano, Kyoto Prefecture. These four volumes (Volume of the Four Heavenly Kings Following Maheśvara, Volume of the Five Great Wisdom Kings, Volume of the Juichimen (Skt. Ekādaśamukha-avalokiteśvara) and Volume of the Water of Love) had been originally kept in Kosanji Temple as well. The beginning of each volume is stamped with the red square seal of “Hobenchi-in (方便智院).”
　　Three of those four volumes other than the Volume of the Water of Love have a colophon, describing that Joshin (a pupil of holy priest Myoe) in Kosanji Temple copied in Jokyu 2 (1220) the transcription of what the priest Chikai copied and the autograph of Kanshin in Nimpyo 4 (1154).
　　And in the Volume of the Four Heavenly Kings Following Maheśvara and the Volume of Juichimen, four iconographical pictures of the Four Heavenly Kings and eight iconographical pictures of Kannon Bodhisattva are drawn, respectively.
　　The pictures of the former are notable because they include ones that can rarely see, including the icon of Ogurisu Yakushi Hall, the icon of the Main Hall of Kajuji Temple and the icon in the Miei-do Hall of Kajuji Temple. Above all, the iconographies of the heads alone of the Four Heavenly Kings drawn next to the icon of the Miei-do Hall are valuable because they are thought to have been copied faithfully from the relevant volume transcribed by Chikai and thus they indicate the actual figures in the Nimpyo era.
　　The pictures of the latter are the original ones that are excerpted in the forty-fourth volume “Juichimen jo” of Kakuzen sho (the illustrated ritual manual of the Shingon esoteric Buddhism: the version included in The Tripitaka Taisho Edition). It is very interesting because the close connection between Kakuzen sho and Ruihi Sho is suggested. In this volume, the picture of the smaller Juichimen (Ko-Gannon) to which the Assembly for the Service of the Second Month (Shuni-e or Omizutori) held at Nigatsu-do in Todaiji Temple is dedicated is also drawn.
　　Thus, the two volumes containing the iconographic drawings noted above are extremely valuable in terms of studying iconography, as they are old copies indicating the Buddhist icons in the late Heian period prior to Kakuzen sho.
　　Volume of the Four Heavenly Kings Following Maheśvara is copied on the back of the old Japanese calendar (guchu reki).