Description:
The Gangōji garan engi narabini ruki shizaichō (hereafter Gangōji engi) contains entries that cannot be accepted as historical facts, entries that do not fit with the historical period for which they are claimed, and items that raise doubts due to internal inconsistencies in the text itself. The text makes a dubious claim of composition on the eleventh day of the second month of Tenpyō 19 (747), but should be considered a forgery from a later period. The document appears to have been written as an engi for Toyuradera (Kenkōji) in the late ninth century, the first stage of compilation. It was probably revised and extended into its present form in the late Heian period (late-eleventh to mid-twelfth century) as an engt of Gangōji, the second and final stage of compilation.