B o o k Reviews 255 Saito Enshin, trans. Jikaku Daishi den 慈覚大師1五；The Biography of Jikaku

The life of Ennin 円 仁 (793-864; posthumous title, Jikaku Daishi) is the stuff of which legends are made. A gifted young Buddhist monk who studied directly under Saicho, a pilgrim to T’angr Cmna, a transmitter of Chinese cul ture and religion to Heian society, an honored teacher of emperors and nur-turer of the budding and eventually overwhelmingly influential Tendai school of Buddhism on Mt. Hiei — these are all parts of Ennin s full and fasci nating life. The phase during which Ennin traveled and studied in China is well known in the West, thanks to Edwin Reischauer’s pioneering translation, Ennin 5 Travels in T，ang China (Ennin's diary) and his study Ennin s Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law (1955). Ennin's life and work after his return from China, however, has so far been neglected in English scholarship, despite its greater importance for the understanding of Japanese religion. Saito Enshin，s translation of the Jikaku Daishi den, the traditional biography of Ennin, goes a long way toward filling this gap, and 256 Japanese Journa l o f Religious Studies 20/2-