high grain prices ［穀貴］ ( kokki): Also, calamity of high grain prices. One of the three calamities described in the Great Collection Sutra. The sutra says: “Though for countless existences in the past the ruler of a state may have practiced the giving of alms, observed the precepts, and cultivated wisdom, if he sees that my teaching is in danger of perishing and stands idly by without doing anything to protect it, then all the inestimable roots of goodness that he has planted through the practices just mentioned will be entirely wiped out, and his country will become the scene of three inauspicious occurrences. The first is high grain prices, the second is warfare, and the third is epidemics.” The calamity of high grain prices is identified with the calamity of famine.