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

This document provides procedures for the Nyoirinho, an esoteric Buddhist ceremony conducted in front of a central image of Nyoirin Kannon (Skt., Cintamanicakra Avalokitesvara) to extinguish bad karma. This particular Chinese translation is the work of Vajrabodhi (act. ca. first half of the eighth century), though there is also a translation by Amoghavajra (705-774). The scroll is missing sections at the beginning, but the relatively large characters and the handsome Japanese brush style suggest that it was copied in the mid-Heian period (794-1185). The method, in which the manuscript has been punctuated with reading markers, comes from a Tendai Buddhist lineage.