Manzan Dōhaku

Manzan Dōhaku (卍山道白, 1636–1715) was the central Tokugawa-era Sōtō reformer, the figure who codified the *isshi-injō* (single-master / face-to-face certification) standard for Dharma transmission that has defined modern Sōtō institutional practice since^[1]. He was tonsured at age 10 under Dōhan Issen at Ryūkō-ji, trained under Bunshun Kōshū and Tokuō Ryōkō, and received *menju shihō* (face-to-face transmission) from Gesshū Sōko at Daijō-ji in 1680, becoming Daijō-ji's 27th abbot the same year. In 1694 he converted Genkō-an in Kyoto from Rinzai to Sōtō.

Manzan's reform — pursued jointly with Baihō Jikushin and ratified by the Bakufu Jisha-bugyō in 1703 — overturned the medieval *garanbō* (temple-line) succession system whereby Dharma certification was attached to the temple a monk happened to be appointed to rather than to the master who actually trained him; under *isshi-injō*, transmission must come from one's actual face-to-face teacher and cannot be changed by later temple appointment^[1][2]. The institutional dispute is the central subject of William Bodiford's *Monumenta Nipponica* article "Dharma Transmission in Sōtō Zen: Manzan Dōhaku's Reform Movement"; the 1703 ruling actually recognised both temple-centered and person-centered systems, so the framing of a clean Manzan victory is somewhat misleading. He also produced the *Manzan-bon Shōbōgenzō*, the 89-fascicle edition of Dōgen's *Shōbōgenzō* that remained standard until twentieth-century recensions^[2].