Hirako Takurei 平子鐸嶺, a pioneer in the study of Chingai 珍海, noted that “Chingaiʼs biography was not clear at all from the olded times. There was no mention in the Genko Shakusho 元亨釈書 written by Kokan Shiren 虎関師錬, until Mangen Shiban 卍元師蛮finally recorded it” （1914, p. 476）. Actually, before the Honcho kōsōden 本朝高僧伝 of Mangen Shiban, no well-organized biography of Chingai was compiled.
In the Enkōdaishi gyōjō gazu yokusan 円光大師行状画図翼賛 edited by Enchi 円智 and Gizan 義山, monks of the Jōdo sect, of around the same times as the Honcho kōsōden, we also find Chingaiʼs biography. Hirako seems to have been the only person to take note of it. Hirako （1914, p. 500） took the skeptical view that the Enkōdaishi gyōjō gazu yokusanʼs description of the death of Chingai is only “an old tradition” and does not reflect any historical fact. Therefore, I would like to examine the theory of Hirako and clarify the historical background of the problematic tradition by examining the document considered to be “an old tradition.”
