Meiho Sotetsu

Meihō Sotetsu (明峰素哲, 1277–1350) was Keizan Jōkin's elder principal Dharma heir, founder of the Yōkō-ji branch of the early Sōtō school and abbot of Daijō-ji in Kaga, the temple Tettsū Gikai had established after the Sandai sōron^[1]. Tradition places him alongside Gasan Jōseki as the two heirs through whom the early-Sōji-ji and early-Daijō-ji communities were transmitted: in the standard medieval Sōtō genealogy he is the senior heir, and Daijō-ji and Yōkō-ji preserved the original ascetic-monastic emphasis of the Eihei-ji-Daijō-ji line^[2].

Although Gasan's lineage came eventually to dominate the medieval and modern Sōtō school, Meihō's branch — passed through his own heirs Mugai Chikō and others — remained an important countervailing influence, and Yōkō-ji continued to serve as Keizan's mortuary temple and one of the school's two head institutions for several centuries^[3].