Forbidden Direction / Kataimi

Overview

This canonical ID (30) currently groups 6 source layers with divergent titles. Milestone-1 migration preserves every layer below without inventing a single merged narrative. Status: needs-review.

Also attested under these titles

Ngöndro — Preliminary Practices
Lu — Registers
Fugeki
Kokūzō Gumonjihō
Nyūbu Shugyō — Entering the Mountain

Research layers

Layer 1: Ngöndro — Preliminary Practices

Source file: 01_Buddhism.md

Tibetan lineages commonly organize preliminaries around refuge/prostrations, bodhicitta, Vajrasattva purification, mandala offering and guru yoga, often with very large repetition counts.

Access: lineage-dependent.
Reliability: A/B.

Layer 2: Lu — Registers

Source file: 02_Daoism.md

Chinese: 籙
Ordination registers authenticate a Daoist priest’s identity and relationship with celestial armies/offices.

Ritual significance

Receiving registers through shoulu establishes a covenant and authorizes interaction with specified gods and spirit generals. Registers can list divine officials under the practitioner’s ritual command.

Reliability: A/B.

Layer 3: Fugeki

Source file: 03_Shinto.md

Male/female spirit-medium specialists capable of receiving divine spirits or communicating with spirits of the dead in broader Japanese religious culture.

Reliability: B.

Layer 4: Kokūzō Gumonjihō

Source file: 04_Syncretic_Japan.md

Esoteric Buddhist practice associated with Ākāśagarbha/Kokūzō and extraordinary memory. Kūkai’s biography famously associates him with a demanding mantra-repetition practice.

Access: deeper forms under esoteric instruction.
Reliability: B.

Layer 5: Nyūbu Shugyō — Entering the Mountain

Source file: 08_PRIMARY_SOURCE_PROCEDURE_UPGRADES_v1_7.md

Japanese: 入峰修行
Authorization: GUIDED LINEAGE PRACTICE
Principal specialists: Miyake Hitoshi; Haguro and Ōmine studies

Three broad forms identified by Miyake

Entering sacred mountains to offer flowers, read/bury sūtras and worship deities because the mountain is understood as a maṇḍala.
Entering for an extended period of ascetic practice.
Further forms involving specialized mountain itineraries/rites depending lineage and season.

General lineage-safe sequence

Join a recognized yamabushi/shugen group under a sendatsu guide.
Complete preparatory purification and instructions.
Dress/equip according to the lineage.
Cross the boundary into sacred mountain space.
Recite the prescribed formulas at entry.
Proceed station by station under the sendatsu.
At each sacred locus, perform the assigned action: sūtra/mantra, prostration, offering, austerity, cave entry, waterfall, or contemplation.
Interpret the terrain as sacred geography/maṇḍala rather than ordinary transit.
Maintain food, speech, sleep and behavioral discipline prescribed for that “peak.”
Undergo the route’s symbolic death/purification/rebirth stations where that lineage uses them.
Reach the culmination/inner mountain locus.
Perform the culmination liturgy.
Exit the mountain through the prescribed route.
Complete reintegration/closing and communal observance.

Route warning

Honzan-ha historically used jubu, a forward sequence between Kumano and Yoshino; Tōzan-ha used gyakubu, the reverse-order peak from Yoshino toward Kumano. Haguro has its own seasonal peak structure. Never merge them into one route.

Learning

Nyūbu is learned by doing the route under a sendatsu, with oral explanation of each station. Maps alone omit mantras, taboos, timing and embodied discipline.

Layer 6: Forbidden Direction / Kataimi

Source file: 13_FORBIDDEN_TABOO_RESTRICTED_INDEX_v2_1.md

Class: CALENDRICAL TABOO
A direction can be temporarily forbidden because of a directional deity’s position.