The Religious Traditions of Japan, 500-1600 Richard Bowring CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS j cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.otg Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521851190 ©Richard Bowrmg 2005 The book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2005 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue recordfor this book is available from the British Library ISBN-13 978-0-521-85119-0 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-85119-X hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this book and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Japan Foundation in the publication of this book. J Contents List of illustrations page ix Preface 7il Glossary of commonly used Buddhist terms xiv A note on dates xvi Abbreviations xvi Introduction Terminology 1 Shinto 3 Buddhism 4 Preview 6 Part I The arrival of Buddhism and its effects (c.538-«00) Chronology 12 1 The introduction of Buddhism- 15 1.1 Gifts from Paekche 15 1.2 Patronage at court . 19 1.3 The'Beetle-wing'cabinet 23 2 Creating a dynasty 36 2.1 The problem of succession 36 2.2 Native beliefs 38 2.3 The Jingikan 41 2.4 Inventing the past 46 3 Buddhism and the early state 54 3.1 The emergence of a religious organisation 54 3.2 Sutras to protect the state 64 3.3 The Medicine King and the Pensive Prince .68 r Masarykova univerziia Filozofická fakulta, Ústřední knihovna jyst.c. 5Í.-10WH Sz2 ¥az Monuments at Nara. 4.1 Kofukuji 4.2. Todaiji 4.3 The question of ordination 4.4 Explaining anomalies 4.5 Hachiman 77 77 78 86 88 91 vi Contents 4.6 Twice a sovereign 4.7 Buddhist scholarship Part II From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji (800-1180) 94 98 Chronology no 5. The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai 113 5.1 The situation in 800 113 5.2 Saicho 115 5.3 The Tiantai tradition 119 5.4 The Lotus sutra 125 5.5 The creation of Tendai 129 6 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Shingon 135 6.1 Kukai to China 135 6.2 Fundamental characteristics of tantric Buddhism 141 6.3 Kukai returns 146 6.4 The creation of Shingon 148 6.5 The Shingon tradition after the death of Kukai 151 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan 153 7.1 Tendai politics 153 7.2 Tantrism triumphant 162 7.3 Religious aspects of life at court 168 8 Shrine and state in Heian Japan 179 8.1 Kasuga 179 8.2 Cataloguing the native gods 184 8.3 The Ise and Kamo shrines 191 9 The rise of devotionalism 196 9.1 Turning to face west 196 9.2 Amitabha's vows 198 9.3 Early Pure Land Buddhism 200 9.4 Covenanting for salvation 204 9.5 Visions of heaven and hell 212 10 In a time of strife 217 10.1 Prophecies of doom fulfilled 217 10.2 Pilgrimages to Kumano 222 10.3 Japanese monks in Song China 226 10.4 The spread of tantric modes of thought 229 Contents vii Part III From the destruction of Todaiji to the fall of Go-Baigo (1180-1330) Chronology 242 11 For and against exclusive practice of the nenbutsu 11.1 Honen 11.2 Myoe 11.3 Shinran 12 Religious culture of the early 'middle ages' 12.1 Baking the cake 12.2 Todaiji and Ise 12.3 Of deer and monkeys 12.4 A dream of swords and sheaths 13 Chan Buddhism 13.1 The early development of Chan 13.2 Chan meditation techniques 13.3 Chan after the end of the Tang 13.4 Chan in the thirteenth century 14 Zen Buddhism 14.1 The beginnings of Zen in Japan 14.2 EiheiDogen 14.3 Official patronage 15 Reform from within and without 15.1 The Saidaiji community 15.2 Dancing to salvation 15.3 Worshipping;the Lotus 16 The emergence of Shinto 16.1 Japan in 1280 16.2 The mandalisation of Japan 16.3 Watarai Shinto 16.4 New myths of origin 16.5 The literal reading of metaphor 17 Taking stock 17.1 Buddhist historiography 17.2 Metropolitan Zen 17.3 Zen in the countryside 245 245 253 262 267 267 268 274 280 287 287 293 295 301 304 304 308 317 321 321 328 332 344 344 345 351 354 358 363 363 368 371 viii Contents PartlV From the fall of Go-Daigo to the death of Nobunaga (1330-1582) Chronology 380 18 Two rival courts 381 18.1 Class as a factor 381 18.2 Go-Daigo's legacy 384 18.3 Saving the souls of warriors 393 18.4 The growth of Pure Land congregations 394 18.5 The Lotus sects 397 19 Muromachi Zen 400 19.1 The five mountains 400 19-2 "Those below the grove' 404 19.3 Three men of Zen 409 20 The end of the medieval 419 20.1 Yoshida Shinto 419 20.2 The rise of Honganji 423 20.3 Playing with fire 426 20.4 Jesuits 430 Appendices: Reading Shingon's two mandala 436 The Diamond World mandala 436 The Womb World mandala 441 Mandala in use 445 References 448 Index 462 Illustrations Plates 1 Kofukuji Buddha: Kofukuji Museum. Formerly in Higashi Kondo; photo: Asukaen 11 2 Gilt-bronze Sakyamuni triad: Horyuji Kondo; photo: Asukaen 24 3 'Beetle-wing' cabinet: Horyuji; photo: Asukaen 26 4 'Casting away the body', cabinet panel: Horyuji; photo: Asukaen 28 5 'The worship of relics', cabinet panel: Horyuji; photo: Asukaen 30 6 'India as a devil', cabinet panel: Horyuji; photo: Asukaen 33 7 'Mt Sumeru', cabinet panel: Horyuji; photo: Asukaen 34 8 Bhaisajyagururaja: Yakushiji; photo: Asukaen 69 9 The Yakushij i pedestal: Yakushij i; photo: Asukaen 71 10 Nikko: Yakushiji; photo: Asukaen 73 11 Gekko: Yakushiji; photo: Asukaen 73 12 Gandharan Bodhisattva: © Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum 73 13 Maitreya: Chuguji; photo: Asukaen 75 14 Todaiji in the late eighth century. Drawing courtesy of Joan R. Piggott 83 15 Shinra Myojin: Onjoji (Miidera); photo: M. Sakamoto 109 16 Mahavairocana in the form of a bodhisattva: Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection; photo: Paul Macapia 144 17 A six-pronged, double-ended vajra: Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection; photo: Paul Macapia 150 18 The main Inner Shrine at Ise, side and front elevations. Courtesy of Isejingu 193 19 Aerial view of the Inner Shrine at Ise. Courtesy of Ise jingu 193 20 Gorinto grave markers 237 21 Kuya: Rokuharamitsudera; photo: Asukaen 241 22 Myoe meditating in the forest: Kozanji 258 23 A Kasuga 'deer mandala', late fifteenth century: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection; photo: James Austin 276 24 'Acalanatha's sword': Seattle Art Museum, Margaret E. Fuller Purchase Fund; photo: Paul Macapia 284 25 Aizen myoo: © Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum 327 26 Japan in the shape of a vajra: Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection; photo: Paul Macapia 347 27 Reaching the Pure Land through the ten worlds: © Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum 379 IX List of illustrations 28 A portrait of Ikkyu by Bokusui: Tokyo National Museum 29 The eccentric Fenggan: Tokyo National Muse™ 30 A winter scene, Sesshvi Toyo: Tokyo National Museum 3 J Diamond World mandala, Toji. Heian period; photo: Benrido 32 Diamond World mandala (diagrammatic outline) 3 3 Womb World mandala, Toj i. Heian period; photo: Benrido 34 Womb World mandala (diagrammatic outline) Maps 1 The provinces of Japan in the eighth century 2 Japan and Korea: early sixth century 3 Japan and Korea: late sixth century 4 The home provinces in the early Heian period 5 Sea routes taken by Saicho and Kukai 6 Route taken by Ennin during his travels 7 Hieizan and the surrounding area 8 Shrines according to the Engishiki (927) 9 Route of the pilgrimage to Kumano 10 The travels of Ippen and Nichiren 11 Areas of Christian influence in Japan, late sixteenth century 413 416 418 438 439 442 443 14 18 18 112 117 155 157 187 223 333 433 Preface This book began life as something different. As my own interests shifted from Heian to medieval literature, where religious matters play a far larger role, I found myself handicapped by my ignorance of Japanese Buddhism. Faced with such a dilemma, one's first instinct is to turn to a survey in an accessible Western language. A number of works suggested themselves -Japanese Buddhism by Charles Eliot (1935), Japanische Religionsgeschichte by Wilhelm Gundert (1935), the work of Hartmut Rotermund, Kitagawa's Religion in Japanese history (1966), and Daigan and Alicia Matsunaga's Foundation of Japanese Buddhism (1974) - but all of them needed updating and none of them was quite what I had hoped for. There was clearly a need for a new history of the subject. Having now become sidetracked into matters religious, and intent, as usual, on running before I could walk, I devised a grandiose plan for a book on the history of one particular temple. The temple I cKose was Daigoji. Soon after, I was awarded a two-year British Academy Readership (1995-97), which gave me the freedom to start on the necessary groundwork. I owe the Academy a great deal for allowing me to retool myself at what I fondly, but probably misguidedly, thought of as mid-career. It did not take me long to realise four things. Firstly, that the choice of Daigoji had been a good one. Secondly, that the sources for a such a study were not in a usable state and that obtaining access to them (never mind reading them) would take years. Thirdly, mat such was the state of the field that I really needed to write a history of Japanese Buddhism first, and only then try and deal with the history of a single temple. And fourthly, that it would be impossible to treat Buddhism in isolation from what we think of as the 'native tradition', namely Shinto. A good outline of this latter subject has been available in German for some time (Naumann 1988, 1994), and we now have an excellent short introduction in English (Inoiie et al. 2003), but there is nothing that attempts an overall picture of Buddhism, let alone both traditions. There is certainly room for a wide-ranging history of Japanese religion as a whole, and that is what now lies before you. I trust that those who put their faith in me will not be disappointed by the results. It is not what was first proposed; it is only the first of a projected two volumes; it has taken far too long; but it does fill an important gap, of that I am quite sure. xi xii Preface Preface xiii The title, if I may borrow a phrase from Basil Hall Chamberlain, cost me much cogitation. Can there be such a thing as a history of religion, as distinct from, say, a history of politics or social movements? If it were not simply to be a history of doctrine, what would it look like? Should I dare to impose the concept of 'religion' on a culture that did not have an equivalent of that overarching term until modern times, presumably because it never felt it necessary, or indeed possible, to compartmentalise that particular area of human desire and experience, isolating it from other forms of activity (McMullin 1989b)? Would a balanced history of Japanese religion not end up as nothing more or less than a history of Japan, tout court? Perhaps, in the end then, it is simply a matter of emphasis: there are always choices to be made, and the choice made here is to focus on how a series of religious ideas and organisations affected the life and development of the nation. This is not, however, a history of doctrine, nor a history of institutions, for I have allowed the material available to dictate the approach. Some readers may, in their turn, think the results rather too scattergun, since they will find themselves being shuttled between art history, doctrine, institutions, and social and political history as and when it seems fitting. One of the most difficult tasks has been to try and treat Buddhism and the local cults together, because although for most of Japanese history they were inseparable, their stages of development have not always interlocked as neatly as one might hope. An author who tries to cover such a wide span of history must, of necessity, make difficult choices. This book is not for the general reader, in the sense that it presumes a knowledge of at least the outlines of Japanese history. If this were not assumed, then the book would indeed have been a history of Japan rather than of one aspect of it, and it would have been twice as long. The reader should also be aware that much has been left out and that topics for further research lie on almost every page. On the other hand, it may be that I have attempted too much. The question of doctrine was a difficult one, because this was an area in which initially I had almost no expertise. I toyed with the: idea that doctrine could be safely ignored, but was soon disabused of this notion: too much of what happened had doctrinal roots. I remain somewhat/unsure of my ground in this area and would like to thank in particular Professor William M. Bodiford, who, as a very careful reader of the initial typescript, pointed out numerous areas where I had been either slipshod or mistaken. I hasten to add that the second half of the book has not had the advantage of his eagle eye. Readers with some knowledge of the subjects being treated will undoubtedly find favourite topics treated too lightly or not at all. This is in the nature of the exercise and cannot be helped. Perhaps of rather more concern, however, will be the noticeable lack of reference to ongoing historiographical debates in Japan: terms such as kenmitsu taisei, Kamakura New Buddhism and hongaku shiso are not used. Although one cannot in all conscience ignore these debates, since they inform almost everything one reads, I have decided against referring to them overtly, primarily because I did not wish to burden the reader with matters of academic discussion that would not only need a great deal of background explanation to make sense, but that draw their lifeblood more from present-day sectarianism (both academic and religious) than from the past itself. The reader who knows Japanese may also be dismayed to find almost no Japanese references, but this has been deliberate. Since this book is intended mainly as an introduction to an audience that does not read Japanese, or may be only in the middle stages of that daunting enterprise, a Japanese inventory would have been out of place. It is in fact a tribute to the quality of research on Japan now being produced in languages other than Japanese that the bibliography looks as impressive as it does. If I have managed to present an adequate synthesis of present scholarship and so provide a reliable background against which future work can proceed, then I will have done my job. My debts to the whole community of scholars in this field will be obvious; debts I owe to the friendship and support of colleagues in both faculty and college are no less for being personal; and for one in particular: shiru hito zo shim. Selwyn College Cambridge Glossary xv Glossary of commonly used Buddhist terms abhiseka An act of anointing or consecrating, typically used in tantric rituals. bija A Sanskrit syllable representing a particular buddha or bodhisattva, typical of tantric practice. bodhicitta The awakening of intent to seek enlightenment. bodhisattva An awakened being who aspires to become a buddha by dint of practising compassion for all sentient beings. buddha A fully awakened one, who has experienced nirvana and will never be subject to rebirth again. Sakyamuni is the historical buddha of our age but there have been buddhas before and will be buddhas in the future. In Mahayana Buddhism these buddhas are seen as co-existing and eternal. dharma The physical and mental elements or events that constitute existence (distinguished from the following by being in lower case). : Dharma The teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha. Hinayana The Lesser Vehicle. A pejorative term used by followers of the Mahayana to refer to all other Buddhist traditions, in particular those that use the Pali canon. jdtaka A story illustrating an event in one of Sakyamuni's previous lives. Mahayana The Greater Vehicle. The name adopted by those who considered that the achievement of nirvana was not enough and should be seen as. merely one stage on the greater path of striving for lull buddhahood. nirvana That state of liberation which comes about when one has fully extinguished the desire that leads to the cycle of birth and rebirth. samddhi Concentration, meditation. samsara The cycle of birth, death and rebirth from which the Buddha's teaching seeks to liberate us. sahgha The assembly of monks and nuns. srdvaka One of those who actually heard Sakyamuni's teachings and Tathagata vajra vinaya reached nirvana as a result. Mahayana Buddhists often looked down on them as being incapable of reaching the higher levels of bodhisattvahood. The "Thus-come One'. Another term for a buddha. A 'diamond-hard' sceptre used in tantric ritual, adopted from the thunderbolt weapon used by the Vedic god Indra. It symbolises the absolute state of emptiness towards which the adept is striving. In tantric Buddhism, the -vajra often has a sexual connotation. The body of rules that govern the behaviour of the sangha. xiv A note on dates Introduction The order of dates follows Japanese usage: year-month-day. The month and day are given according to the Japanese calendar, but the year date is Western and should therefore be regarded as a guide rather than an exact equivalent. Because the Japanese New Year usually started in what we think of as early February, for dates in the first and twelfth months one would probably have to add or subtract one year to obtain the correct figure. For more details on the Japanese calendar, see §7.3. Abbreviations Ch. Jp. Kr. Sk. T. Chinese Japanese Korean Sanskrit Takakusu Junjirö and Watanabe Kaigyoku (eds.), Taishö shinshü daizökyö, 100 vols. (Tokyo: Taishö Shinshü Daizökyö Kankökai, 1922-33). Terminology The decision to start this history in 500 (or 538 to be precise) and to end in 1582 was based largely on the fact that these two dates mark major events: the official arrival of Buddhism from Paekche, and the utter destruction of the monasteries on Hielzan by Oda Nobunaga. We do have some limited knowledge of the tradition prior to the sixth century, but the lion's share is archaeological rather than textual, and since I am no archaeologist and since ninety per cent of the information still lies shamefully untouched in the huge tomb mounds of the Yamato plain, I have decided not to speculate. After all, it is bad enough trying to deal with the sixth and seventh centuries, when one's earliest textual sources date from the early eighth century and when these sources were designed for the specific purpose of producing a series of masterly smokescreens. Comparisons may be odious, but they can also be useful to help highlight characteristics that might .otherwise be hidden from view. As luck will have it, another country on the other side of the globe experienced similar events at roughly the same time. The traditional date for the landing of St Columba on Iona is 563, and the dissolution of the monasteries, which caused far more damage than Nobunaga ever contemplated, happened between 1535 and 1540. This relative closeness of dates is, of course, entirely an accident, but both ends of the story help to throw the Japanese example into relief. At one end, compare the nature of Japanese Buddhism and the way it interacted with local cults with' what happened in Britain as Christianity took hold. British paganism took some time to die, but die it did; overwhelmed by the new arrival that simply subsumed what it could not destroy. The local worship of gods and spirits in Japan, however, did survive, long enough and strong enough indeed to form the bedrock of a new state ideology in the nineteenth century. Wiry and how this happened in the case of Japan is a source of considerable interest. Undoubtedly, the flexible nature of Buddhism with its concept of multiple realities and the philosophical breathing space it gave xvi 1 2 The religious traditions of Japan, 500-1600 Introduction 3 conventional as opposed to absolute truth had a large part to play. There is good evidence to suggest that Buddhism in fact created the ground on which Shinto later flourished. It is this subtle interplay that makes this history of Japanese religious traditions so difficult to write. And at the other end of the story? Well, let us just say that what are usually interpreted as the actions of a megalomaniac in the 1580s in Japan can be given a useful perspective if looked at through the prism of the dissolution of the monasteries in sixteenth-century Britain. Problems of church and state are universal. Mention of the word 'church' brings us to the tricky matter of terminology. One answer would be not to attempt translation at all but simply to use the romanised form of Japanese names of institutions and titles; but this might well make the text unreadable for all but the specialist. The number of Japanese characters sprinkled throughout the text is already bad enough. On the other hand, one must also avoid using equivalents that mislead. In the field of religion the most natural English equivalents are so redolent of Christianity that one hesitates to use them. It is instructive that the Japanese themselves deal with Christian ranks and titles not simply by using Buddhist equivalents, but by inventing new words: a Catholic archbishop, for example, is Daishikyo and an Anglican archbishop Daishukyo X^Wi. When in doubt, I have followed their example, not by inventing an entirely new word, but by choosing as neutral a term as possible. For example, it would have been very useful to have been able to use the term 'Buddhist Church' to refer to Buddhist institutions as a group, but this would have produced tire impression that there was such a thing, when in fact the lack of unity was precisely the distinguishing characteristic of Buddhism in Japan. In one sense, yes, everyone knew that all 'Buddhisms' were connected, but there was no Buddhist 'pope', no overall authority, no one god, no sense of unity, and different institutions haggled and fought more between themselves than ever against a common enemy. Any sense of fragmentation one might find in the Catholic Church in Europe pales in comparison. At the heart of this lack of cohesion lay one of the central tenets of Buddhism, namely the acceptance of, and sometimes the encouragement of, multiple truths, which inevitably led to a plethora of doctrinal differences. Since there could be no single path to enlightenment and/or salvation, each institution could have its own ideas as to what constituted the true path. It is this that lies behind one of the more curious (for the outsider) occupations of Buddhist scholar-monks, their obsession with categorising, classifying and ranking various teachings. In such a context, to use the word 'Church', even in inverted commas, would be to lay down expectations of an underlying unity that are never going to be 1 fulfilled and that will inevitably lead to misunderstandings. Where necessary, I have resorted to the rather clumsy 'Buddhist institutions' or even just f 'Buddhism', which is unforgivably vague but has the advantage of not being 'Church'. The same goes, mutatis mutandis, for the individuals involved. The lines between lay and non-lay are at times extremely difficult to draw. It is '- tempting to use the term 'clergy' to distinguish the professionals from lay believers and supporters, but in the Japanese context this must include 'monks', a category which in the Western context is normally set in opposition to 'clergy'. Titles raise similar questions. Distinctions are made in Japanese that are not made in English and vice versa, so one has to come to ] some sort of compromise. Another title that causes difficulty is tenno JzSk, which is usually translated as 'emperor'. This Chinese term that originally referred to the divinity who appears as the Pole Star was adopted as a title by Japanese rulers in the early years of the eighth century. Piggott (1997) uses the translation 'heavenly sovereign', which is a little unwieldy but better than 'emperor', which suggests to the modern ear an empire that never " existed. 'King' would be better still but might give the erroneous impression '. of someone who ruled directly and personally, which was certainly not the case. When it occurs as a personal title, I have left it untranslated as Tenno. When it occurs as a generic term, I have preferred 'sovereign' or 'monarch', * with 'royal' as the adjective. This may ruffle a few feathers. A short glossary of Buddhist terms that are used in this book without further explanation will be found on page xiv. Shinto ' As will become clear in due course, part of the object of this book is to problematise the term 'Shinto' and the reader will find that it appears > relatively late in the narrative. In the earlier sections I have preferred to use such circumlocutions as 'local cults' or 'native deities' (jingi WK), although even the word 'native' can be misleading here, since the question of what is or is not 'native' is open to much debate. I have used the word 'shrine' to translate the term yashiro f± or jinja If ;T±, and 'priest' (shinshoku WM) to refer to those people connected to shrines, the majority of whom were : ritualists or assisted in rituals. The Council for Affairs of the Deities of Heaven and Earth (Jingikan ffl ffi W), as ;one of the earliest government ; agencies, had its own titles, but these are rarely mentioned in what follows. 4 The religious traditions of Japan, 500-1600 J During most of the period that we are dealing with, Shinto ranks refer not to I a rank within a national system but to positions within individual shrines: guji, kannushi Mi head priest gon-guji WklSnl assistant head priest negi fig: senior priest(s) gon-negi WMUL assistant senior priest(s) shuten priests miko MiCs shrine maidens jinin |$A shrine servant Buddhism This is more complicated. The generic term for a Buddhist establishment is tera or -ji, both written #, a word that makes no distinction as to size or function. Early establishments in Japan were clearly temples in that their prime purpose was not to house celibate men dedicated to a contemplative life and cut off from normal society but to house priests whose duty it was to perform rituals for the peace and stability of the state. It took some time for what, we would recognise as monasteries to emerge. The same building or compound might change its usage many times. Some tera were clearly monastic institutions first and temples second. In other cases the reverse might be the case, and in yet others there would be no sign of monasticism at all. Some were vast complexes, others were single, small buildings. At the risk of some slight confusion, it seems sensible to allow a degree of flexibility, although I have given preference to the term 'temple', since at least it suggests something non-Christian and has a wider remit than 'monastery'. Later reformist sects that began by challenging the whole significance of ordination used an entirely different term for their buildings, dojo lit *§. One occasionally finds this translated as 'chapel', but I have preferred the more neutral'meeting house'.. So much for the buildings. But what about the people in them? The generic Japanese word is so (Ch. seng -ft), which is usually translated as 'monk', although it comes to mean this via a rather circuitous route. The Sanskrit term is bhiksu (Pali: bhikkhu), which means a mendicant. The Chinese seng is in fact a short form of sengqie {ff$0, which transliterates the Sanskrit sahgha, meaning the 'assembly [of ordained monks]'. The term then became used for a single 'member of the sahgha'. Here, too, the reader must allow for a degree of flexibility, because many of these members of the sahgha or Introduction 5 'monks' in the Japanese context were not what we would normally term 'monks' at all. Some were primarily scholars, others mainly administrators. Some had priestly functions, some were simply eccentrics who lived outside the system altogether, and at a later stage some could best be described as having a pastoral role, being leaders of congregations. The same man might act as a monk in one scenario and a ritualist in another, so I have used a variety of terms on the principle that to court occasional confusion is better than to cause constant misunderstanding. As far as women are concerned, the study of women and Buddhism in Japan is still in its infancy.1 Although in the Nara period they seem to have had an equal role with men as ritualists, this situation did not last for long and one has fewer qualms in calling female members of the sahgha 'nuns'. Even here, however, we are not without problems. The Japanese term ama is flexible and was often used with respect to women who had simply decided to 'retire', from either official court duties or sometimes just household life. It does not always refer to an officially ordained female. The question of nomenclature arises again with respect to those official Buddhist titles which were given to members of the government office whose duty it was to oversee all Buddhist establishments, the Sahgha Office (sogo IfS). There were three main ranks: sojo HIE, sozu -ft $5, and risshi W-ffl-The first two are often translated as archbishop and bishop, but I have chosen Lhe following slightly odd-sounding equivalents, for the very reason that they reveal difference rather than suggest a misplaced familiarity: sojo sahgha prefect sozu sahgha administrator risshi preceptor In addition to these official ranks bestowed by the state, each monastery/ temple had its own organisation. Here we run into the problem from the opposite angle. The fragmented nature of Buddhist institutions is mirrored in the nomenclature. A tree chart for one temple might be roughly equivalent to another, but the ranks would have completely different names. This reinforces the impression of a lack of unifonnity, but to avoid a plethora of Japanese titles, the only answer is to use one English equivalent, hence the following titles, referring to the highest position in a monastery, will all be translated 'abbot': zasu 3E± at Enryakuji, Kongobuji, Daigoji; chori at 1 This is true both in Japan and abroad, although the situation is improving rapidly. See Ruch 2002 and Horton 2004 for recent work in English. 6 The religious traditions of Japan, 500-1600 Introduction 1 Onjoji;/h/i fiffi at Zen monasteries; choja Jft# at Toji; and betto % % at Todaiji, Kofukuji, etc. For the reformist sects, with their anti-monastic bias and their predominantly lay organisations, one has the choice of 'priest', 'pastor' or 'minister1, depending on the exact relationship between lay members and their leader, although all these could also run into the familiarity trap. For the Jishu order one is even tempted to use the term 'friar', were that not so specific in a Western context. Preview It may be helpful at this point to give a synopsis of what follows. This history begins with the arrival of Buddhism. The Buddha is first interpreted as a strong foreign deity, whose magical powers are well worth appropriating. His cult is therefore introduced top-down and kept firmly in the hands of the ruling clans. Initially there is a certain amount of tension between the proponents and opponents of the new arrival, but a modus vivendi is soon found, Buddhism being simply added to the number of cults whose main duty it was to protect the ruler and maintain the status quo. There are signs here of an incipient state religion. Moves are made to bureaucratise the localised, disparate cults that had existed before the arrival of Buddhism into a hierarchical system and from that point on they always remained indissolubly linked to questions of sovereignty. In sharp contrast to events in Britain at roughly the same time, the survival and indeed growth of local cults is helped by Buddhism's willingness to accommodate rather than confront. It should be borne in mind that Buddhism arrived in Japan after a very long journey from north India, through Kashmir and Afghanistan, along the Silk Route north and south of the Taklamakan Desert, and then through the whole of China and Korea. It called itself the 'Greater Vehicle' (Mahdyana) and had developed doctrines and practices that were quite distinct from the southern Theravada tradition based on the Pali scriptures and found today in Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand. The encounter with Chinese culture was decisive, and it is important to remember that to the Japanese the canonical language of Buddhism was classical Chinese, not Sanskrit or any of its many varieties. - From the mid-sixth century to the tenth, new schools of Buddhist thought and practice were developing in China and as contact between Japan and China increased, these new traditions found a secure haven in Japan, far more secure, as things turned out, than in China itself, where Buddhism often had | t0 gght to hold its own. Each new tradition had its champions, who competed | with each other for various forms of Japanese state support and patronage. I There was no 'Buddhist Church' as such, merely a collection of traditions, : each with its own political ambitions. Rivalry between institutions could be \ intense. Although it is often tempting to think of a Buddhist establishment as \ a simple power block, it was nothing of the sort. In fact, temples were more J often than not the sowers of discord and they never managed to create a I mechanism for mediating conflict. Buddhism remained in the hands of the ; elite until the twelfth century, and during that period it became more and ! more involved in the production of this-worldly benefits and protection via I the manipulation of spells, magical images and gestures for which I have ' used the term 'tantric'. It was, to all intents and purposes, the preserve of the ? aristocracy. Tilings began to change around 1100. With the advent of men like Honen, '* the exclusive right of members of the sangha to salvation was challenged, i The possibility that salvation might be made available to everyone, no matter '- what their status, was now made explicit. The sangha did not disappear, of course, but they no longer had a monopoly. Some remained within the ? traditional structures of power and continued their role as priests acting on „' behalf of those who ruled, but we begin to see the emergence of many who preferred a pastoral, ministering role. The practice of faith was made easier ''- partly by narrowing the choice of devotional object to a single Buddha, f usually, but by no means exclusively, Amitabha, and partly by the invention of simple formulae for expressing devotion. Sermonising became common and Buddhist art expanded its reach into the didactic, into,the production of illustrated scrolls for use by preachers. It should be stressed that these "* changes can be seen across the board, not only in the new non-monastic ' movements. Given that Buddhism had been introduced from the top, it is I only to be expected that this kind of reformist movement would emerge; indeed it is slightly surprising that it did not take off earlier. There are obvious parallels here to the Reformation movement in Europe, with its questioning of the role of a clergy and its championing of the individual's I right to have unmediated access to the deity, but the end result of such changes was to be quite different. The 'opening out' of Buddhism that we find from 1100 manifested itself in a number of different ways. There was a growth in cults directed towards not just one Buddha but one specific image. Certain images in certain temples became the object of popular devotion, the Amitabha triad at Zenkoji Wit^f, for example, and unofficial holy men became the self-appointed guardians of 4 8 The religious traditions of Japan, 500-1600 these cults. There was also, of course, an economic imperative behind such developments. There emerged mendicant orders, and three devotional sects, Jodoshu ?P±f?, Jodo Shinshii Sill and Nichirenshu Bit, each of which had a charismatic founder. What distinguishes these sects was their insistence that they and only they had the correct message, an intransigence that clashed with Buddhism's more usual elasticity. It is not surprising that they were subject to considerable persecution and oppression, and in fact only gained real influence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, at which point they became a magnet for those who were interested in fomenting large-scale social unrest. There is, however, a danger in concentrating too much on these sects; and to do so is to obscure the fact that the more established, official institutions continued to dominate. Reform movements, such as a drive to revive proper observance of the monastic precepts which had fallen into disuse, also emerged from within. They were joined in the thirteenth century by the Zen monasteries, which were the last significant religious import from China until the seventeenth century. All these developments need to be considered in relation to local cults. The attempt to impose a system in the eighth century was not sustainable and fell apart, but the cults as discrete entities survived and prospered by coming to an accommodation with Buddhism, which easily explained them as manifestations of an underlying unity and which needed them to naturalise itself fully. Tantric Buddhism, in particular, became involved in the quasi-nationalist enterprise of proving that Japan, as the land of the gods, was not at the end of a long developmental line but was in fact the original home of the buddhas. From here it is not far to insisting on the primacy of native deities. It is in essence the history of a long slow Japanese battle for self-justification, legitimation and self-respect in the face of the frightening debt that they owed to Chinese culture and Buddhist thought. Parti The arrival of Buddhism and its effects (c.53 8-800) Plate 1 Kofukuji Buddha. I Bronze head of Yakushi, the Medicine Master, c.685. Height 1.07 m. Kofukuji ? Museum. This sfrikingly handsome head was discovered in 1937 while repairs were ? being made to the Eastern Golden Hall (Higashi Kondo) of Kofukuji.. It was found | under the main dais on top of a wooden box that contained a number of other parts of Buddhist images mat had obviously been melted by intense heat. There are traces of f gilt.on the face and red on the lips. Most of the back of the head is missing. It is thought to be the central figure of a Yakushi triad originally installed in the ! Yamadadera in 685. It turned up at Kofukuji in 1187. Kofukuji was badly damaged by j the forces of Taira no Shigehira in 1180 and although the Eastern Golden Hall was ( rebuilt by 1185, they had considerable difficulty in obtaining a suitable image. The ' monks eventually solved the problem by simply removing the triad from the Yamadadera. It survived one fire in 1369, but was destroyed in a lightning strike in 1411. 12 The arrival ofBuddhism and its effects The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 13 Chronology i Note that dates prior to the eighth century are based on eighth-century texts and are | therefore largely unverifiable | 538 Official introduction, of Buddhism according to Gangdji garan engi narabi ni J ■:. ruki shizaichd. * 552 Official: introduction of Buddhism according to Nihon shoki. .. 577 A Japanese envoy returns from Paekche with Buddhist texts and six specialists: * a precept master (risshi), a.meditation master (zenji), a nun, a master of spells | (jugon no hakase). a sculptor and a temple architect. Y 584 Soga no Umako creates a building to house a statue of Maitreya that has arrived t from Paekche.. The Soga clan search for someone to perform ordinations and j eventually find a former monk from Koguryo called Hyep'yon, who carries out the first 'ordinations' in Japan for three young, women. Discord between I Mononobe and Soga over the latter's. adoption of Buddhism continues, coming to a head when the Mononobe opposition is destroyed in 587. 588 More craftsmen and artists arrive from: Paekche, led by. the monk Hyech'ong. Soga no Umako begins work on the Asukadera (Hokoji), completed in 596. The ■ . three young women travel back with some Paekche envoys to study:Buddhism I and receive correct ordination. 590 The three women return and lake up residence in Sakuraidera. 593- Work begins on the Shiten'ojiinNaniwa. Compound in use. by596. { 595 The monk Hy.eja arrives from Koguryo. He returns to Koguryo in 615. ■ 600 Official mission sent to Stii China. '' 601 Work begins on Wakakusadera (later Horyuji), which is completed in 607. : 602 The Paekche scholar Kwalluk arrives with a series of important works on astronomy and divination. 603 Twelve-grade cap rank system introduced at court; ■ ■ 604 . The Seventeen Articles promulgated; with Buddhist sentiments expressed. 609- Paekche: priests are; shipwrecked in Kyushu and decide to stay, in Japan. They are housed at Asukadera. 621 Diplomatic relations begin with Silla. . ' 622 Death of Prince Shotoku. 623 Sakyamuni triad at I loryfjji produced. \ 624': First official Buddhist bureaucracy instituted, by Suiko. as a result of a priest . having committed, murder. Kwalluk made sangha prefect (jo/o) and a Koguryo monk called Tokchok made sangha administrator (sitzu). Census of temples taken, revealing forty-six. Hyegwan arrives from Koguryo and is immediately made grand sangha prefect and accommodated at Asukadera.... 628 Death of Suiko. 630 First mission to Tang China. ■ i 645 Soga clan destroyed. Taika Reform. Beginning of full state control over ; Buddhism with an edict reinforcing the establishment of a Buddhist prelacy. 651 Over a thousand' priests (both men and women) invited to the palace to read a large number of sutras. 661 Dosho returns to Japan. 668 Silla destroys Paekche and unifies the Korean peninsula. 670 Horyuji burns down. 671 Tenji falls ill and orders the first mass ordination of novices as a means of effecting a cure. 672 Civil war (Jinshin no ran). Succession of Tenmu. 677 Large assembly at Asukadera. 680 Tenmu begins work on the Yakushiji to save his consort. A hundred men signed up as priests to pray for Tenmu's recovery from illness. 694 A hundred copies of the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom sent to the provinces to be read on the eighth day of the first month every year. 698 Yakushiji completed. 700 Dosho requests cremation. Said to be the first example in Japan. 701 Taiho Codes. 710 Capital moved to Heijo-kyo (Nara). 712 Kojilci completed. 715 Genmei retires; replaced by Gensho. 716 Doji returns to Japan. 720 Nihon shoki completed. 721 Genmei dies. 724 Gensho retires; replaced by Shomu. 734 Demand for higher intellectual standards in temples. 735 Smallpox epidemic lasts for two years. 741 Order for temples to be constructed in each province. 748 Gensho dies. 749 Todaiji Vairocana Buddha completed. Shomu retires; replaced by Koken. 752 Official opening of Todaiji. 754 Jianzhen arrives in Japan. 756 Shomu dies. 758 Koken replaced by Junnin. 760 Koken's mother Komyo dies. 763 Death of Jianzhen. 764 Junnin replaced by K5ken under her new title Shotoku; Dokyo in favour at court. 770 Death of Koken/Shotoku; replaced by Konin. 781 Death of Konin; replaced by Kanmu. : 784 Move to Nagaoka-kyo. 794 Move to Heian-kyo. 14 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects § _ I t i I Map 1 The provinces of Japan in the eighth century. Note that the boundaries were in many cases vague and never as clear as a map such as this might suggest, especially in the east of the country. 1 The introduction of Buddhism 1.1 Gifts from Paekche Tlie entry in the chronicle Nikon shoki B ^fclilB (720) for the year 552, winter, tenth month, reads as follows: King Songmyong M fJB of Paekche H M (also known as King Song) dispatched envoys to Japan, led by Norisach'igye, a talsol M2^ of the Hui family from the Western Sector. They had with them an offering of a gold and copper statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, together with several banners and canopies, and several volumes of surras and treatises. In a separate declaration, the king praised the merit of propagation and worship, stating: 'This Dharma is superior to all others. It is difficult to grasp and difficult to attain. Neither the Duke of Zhou nor Confucius was able to comprehend it. It can give rise to immeasurable, limitless merit and fruits of action, leading to the attainment of supreme enlightenment. The treasure of this marvellous Dharma is such that it is as if one owned a wish-fulfilling gem that granted every desire. Every prayer is granted and nothing is wanting. Moreover, from distant India to the three kingdoms of Korea, all receive these teachings and there is none who does not revere and honour them. Accordingly, your servant Myong, King of Paekche, has humbly dispatched his retainer Norisach'igye to transmit it to the Imperial Land and diffuse it through the home provinces II fa, thereby fulfilling what the Buddha himself foretold: "my Dharma will spread to the East.'" That day the Heavenly Sovereign [Kmmei] heard: this declaration and leaped for joy, declaring to the envoys, 'Never until this moment have we heard such a fine Dharma. But we cannot decide on the matter ourselves.' Thereupon the Sovereign inquired of his assembled officials in turn: 'The Buddha presented to. us by the state to our west has a face of great dignity, such as we have never known before. Should he be worshipped or not?' Grand Minister Soga no Iname HScSt U replied: 'The many countries to the west Hilftlll all worship it. Can Japan alone refuse to do so?' But Mononobe no Okoshi %Q cf|511M and Nakatomi no Kamako 4" Si IS ? together addressed the Sovereign saying: 'Those who have ruled as kings over the world, over this our state, have always taken care to worship the 180 deities of heaven and earth ^fMtWSA-b# in spring, summer, autumn and winter. If we were now to change and worship a foreign deity we fear we may incur the wrath of the deities of our own land W&W.' The Sovereign then declared: Tt is fitting that we give it to Soga no Iname, who has 15 iggggSjl iiliiiiiiSllliil Oa-:(| TansSs im ■i -'..if.. !■ :>i....... ........■.■Vin.iru,>j"' ChikiM IllllliillliSlillSL :V/ ' •*(■' Hyn:.i.: 106 200 3110 km —I i - i —i 50 100 150 200 miles 16 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 1 The introduction of Buddhism 17 expressed his desires. We shall ask him to worship it and see what results.' The Grand Minister knelt down and received the statue with great joy. He enshrined it at his home at Oharida and practised the rituals of a world renouncer with devotion. He also purified his home at Mukuhara and made it into a temple. Later, an epidemic afflicted the land and cut short the lives of many. As time passed, matters became worse and there was no respite. Mononobe no Okoshi and Nakatomi no Kamako together addressed the ruler, saying: 'This epidemic has occurred because our counsel went unheard. Now, if you rectify matters before it is too late, joy will be the result. Throw away the statue of the Buddha at once and diligently seek future blessings.' The Sovereign responded: 'Let it be done as you advise.' So the officials took the statue of the Buddha and threw it into the waters of the Naniwa canal. They then set fire to die temple in which it had been enshrined and burned it to the ground. At that moment, although there were no wind or clouds in the sky at the time, a fire suddenly broke out in the Great Hall (Sakamoto et al. 1967, vol. II: 101-02; Aston 1972, vol. II: 65-67). This passage was written 168 years after the events it describes and is contained within a chronicle whose compilers had a very specific purpose in mind. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the account has been shown to contain a whole host of problematic features. As might be expected, the language betrays an exclusively Japanese perspective and the representation of a Korean king sounding so humble is doubtful, to say the least; native Korean names such as Norisach'igye (the reading is tentative) had already been replaced by Chinese-style names in Paekche by the mid-sixth century; the order of titles is incorrect and should read: family name, rank {talsol) and then personal name; 'Western Sector' is an anachronism; and the key term 'Heavenly Sovereign' ^ il was certainly not in use in sixth-century Japan. King Songmyong's declaration also contains two passages which have been lifted from Yijing's translation of the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom,1 which was not completed until 703 and did not reach Japan until 718. Although the delicate balance maintained between the new foreign deity and the native gods was a likely outcome, it must never be forgotten that all passages from Nihonshoki are far more a product of 720 than of 552. We are fortunate in having access to another account of these events in the History of the Gangdji monastery with a list of its treasures (Gangoji garan engi narabi ni ruki shizaicho TGlfi^filflMMSM^fBjftMtt), a history and inventory that was drawn up in 747. This short work postdates Nihon shoki, of course, and is no less tendentious, stressing as it does the pivotal role of 1 Sk. Suvarnaprabkasottamasutra, Ch. Jingguangming zuishengwang jing, Jp. Konkomyd sai-shoo kyo kltmm-M'SM, T.665. i I the Soga house, and in particular Suiko Tenno ftt^^M (r. 592-628), in the i struggle to secure the future of Buddhism in Japan; but it is nevertheless I important because it gives us quite a different picture of what might have happened.2 In this account, Buddhism is said to have been introduced in 538, there is no separate declaration, and the image that arrives is a statue of Sakyamuni as a prince, accompanied by vessels for an anointing ritual. It is strongly suggested that the image had been requested by the Soga rather than having simply arrived out of the blue from Paekche. It is now thought likely that the later date of 552 in Nihon shoki reflects not historical accuracy, but rather the tradition that placed the beginning of the decline of the Dharma (mappo jfcS) in this year, exactly 1,500 years after the putative death of t Sakyamuni in 948 BCE. Written in the early eighth century to legitimise the position of the ruling family, Nihon shoki succeeds in creating history and masking the past to an extraordinary degree; our major source for the whole period becomes our major problem. It is, of course, quite possible that the Japanese had been exposed to Buddhist ideas well before this time; a large number of small Buddha figurines that may well predate the mid-sixth century have been found along the Japan Sea coast facing the Korean peninsula, and it is always tempting to question official dates in official texts. But on the other hand, we must avoid the temptation to assume that Buddhism had been long established on the peninsula itself. Admittedly, Koguryo to the north had adopted certain elements of Buddhism as early as the reign of King Sosurim (371-84), but the situation in Paekche and Silla, the two states closest to Japan, was quite different [map 2]. As far as Paekche was concerned, Buddhism was not in fact a major influence until the reign of King Song (r. 523-54) himself, who sponsored • the construction of the first large temple, the Taetongsa A^xF, in the capital Ungjin M W • The case of Silla is equally instructive: cut off from direct contact with China, it was not until the reign of King Pophung SIR (r. 514-40) and, in particular, his successor, Chinhung M M (r. 540-76) that Buddhism became adopted as something close to a state religion, a pattern that was to be repeated in Japan two hundred years later. Once Buddhism had been accepted by the courts of both Paekche and Silla, it flowed on into Japan with hardly a break. Map 2 shows the situation in Korea at die time of the gift in (let us say) 538; but this was to change rapidly [map 3]. In 551 Silla moved north against 2 Forttie text see Sakurai et al. 1975: 7-23; for a translation, Stevenson 1999. 18 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects NLikTllIľRN,.,-- IsSlIll ■p.- .>-■■. U-iii'in ■ Sil.I .A PAEKGgg jSsiSll r. O 100 200 300 100 500 km 0 50 100 L 50 200 250 300 miles Map 2 Japan and Korea: early sixth century ■"l.'RYÖ ,mW .-----s .' 'Kŕ ÜSHU 0 100 200 m 400 ™hm 0 50 I0O 150 200 250 300milcs 1 The introduction of Buddhism 19 Koguryo and occupied the whole of the Han River basin, giving itself direct access to the Yellow Sea for the first time. It continued to expand, putting constant pressure on Paekche (King Song died in battle in 554) and occupying the region of small states known as Kay a in 562. If the gifts from Paekche to Japan had not been requested by the Soga, then at the very least they were part of a diplomatic offensive to ensure support from the Yamato court. 1.2 Patronage at court Map 3 Japan and Korea: late sixth century Given that our earliest sources of information about this early period are dated almost two hundred years after the events themselves, the description that follows should be read as a 'traditional account'; there is little that is independently verifiable. In whatever manner Buddhism was first introduced to Japan, it is clear that the initial experiment failed in the face of opposition from both the military, in the shape of the Mononobe, and the ritualists, in the shape of the Nakatomi. But the flow of priests, artists and architects devoted to the worship of this powerful foreign god known as 'Buddha' $11$ did not dry up. On the contrary, events on the peninsula were unstable enough to generate a constant influx. An embassy arrived from Paekche in 577 bringing gifts, texts and men skilled in temple construction. Despite further discord which surfaced in 585, the Soga pressed ahead and finally eliminated the Mononobe in a massacre in 587. In 588, three women were allowed to cross (or perhaps they were sent) to Paekche to obtain formal ordination (they duly returned in 590), and more craftsmen, led by Hyech'ong RH (fl. 595-615), arrived from the peninsula. This enabled Soga no Umako IS ? (d. 626) to start the construction of a temple, known as Asukadera M Ms in southeast Yamato. It was completed in 596 and furnished with a large image made by the sculptor Tori Busshi ifcfUW&S in 606.3 One must presume that most of the priests who worshipped there were from Paekche. During the long reign of Suiko, who was placed on the throne after her father's death by Umako, her maternal uncle, Buddhism gradually became entrenched under the patronage of the ruling families, despite the odd difficulty. The building of large tomb mounds came to an end around this time, to be replaced by smaller mausoleums, temples and pagodas. Recent excavations of pagodas have re- s Asukadera is thought to have been the first temple built in Japan. At a later date it became formally known as Hokoji SRtt (perhaps in honour of the Sillan King Pophung?) and was then renamed Gangoji when it was moved to Heijo-kyo c.716. 20 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects i t vealed jewels, gold ornaments, mirrors and swords in small chambers buried f beneath their central pillars - precisely the same kind of material found in the \ larger tombs of a few decades earlier. From the very beginnings, then, Buddhism was connected to funeral rites and commemoration of the dead. The figure most closely associated with this whole process is Suiko's ! nephew Prince Shotoku HHi;? (572-622), who acted as Regent. Whether they were truly 'co-rulers', as a recent study would have it, or whether i Shotoku qua male was the de facto ruler, is difficult to tell (Piggott 1997: 79- ^ 81). Unfortunately, almost nothing we know about Shotoku can be taken at > face value, because by the time Nihon shoki was written his persona had ' already taken on semi-divine attributes and he was the object of a cult; but, at t the very least, he can be counted as the inspiration behind some of the most outsf^ding architecture of the period and he may also have been indirectly responsible for some of the earliest Japanese Buddhist scholarship (Deal 1999: 316-33). Another inventory of 747, which records the contents of Horyuji j£lt#, lists three commentaries (gisho H5Pl) said to be the work of Prince Shotoku himself.4 This attribution has long been accepted as fact, but is probably little more than a pious fiction. There are two main problems. Firstly, given the state of Buddhist scholarship in Japan at this stage, it is simply difficult to believe that Shotoku himself could have written them. Secondly (and perhaps more seriously), there is no reference to this extraordinary achievement in Nihon shoki, which in all other respects tre;i Shotoku as being close to a saint In the circumstances, it seems safer to assume that they were the work of a group centred on the Koguryo scholar Hyeja MM, who was. Shotoku's mentor from 595 to 615. The nature of the first two of these surras will be described in due course, but the Lion's roar of Queen Srlmald is of particular interest here because the forceful portrayal of the bodhisattva path for both layman and member of the sangha that it contains is couched in terms of a discussion between a young queen and the Buddha himself. The queen. emerges as a wise, compassionate ruler, responsible for spreading the Buddhist Dharma and fully knowledgeable about the tenets of Mahayana. Given Suiko's central role at this time, it seems a natural choice for her to sponsor and have copied. . Shotoku is also said to have been responsible for the so-called 'Seventeen articles' of 604. Among statements of general principle, we find: 4 The sutras were the Lotus sutra (Sk. Saddharmapundarikasutra, Jp. Hokekyo Sc¥S), T. 262; the Vimalakirti sutra (Sk. Vimalakirtinirdesasutra, Jp. Yuitnagyd If B), T. 475; and the Lion's roar of Queen Srimala (Sk. Srimaladevisimhanadasutra, Jp. Shomangyo IffSIE), T. 353. 1 The introduction of Buddhism 21 Reverence for the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. These are the last resorts of humankind, pillars of faith in every realm. What world and what people fail to treasure this Dharma? The Three Jewels will not fail to win over even the most evil man, and so will the crooked be made straight.5 The first moves towards regulation came in 624. Nihon shoki reports that in that year a priest was accused of murdering his grandfather with an axe. Suiko demanded an investigation, and severe punishment would have been meted out to all priests had it not been for the intercession of a man called Kwalluk MW), who had arrived from Paekche in 602. In the end it was agreed that what must have seemed at the time to be a group of immigrants rapidly growing out of control would need some form of regulation. Kwalluk was made sangha prefect {sojo M IE) and a Koguryo monk called Tokchok was made sangha administrator (sozu ft IP). At the same time, the lay office of Dharma Master (hozu gfe %) was established to oversee the financial administration of the increasing number of temples. This triumvirate was to develop later into a full-blown Sangha Office (sogo ff ffl), which was to remain the chief instrument of state control for centuries. An opportunity was also taken at this juncture to carry out a census of Buddhist institutions. The entry in Nihon shoki for the ninth month of the same year reads: There was a review of temples and priests, men and women. The reasons why temples had been built, the reasons why people had entered the Buddhist path, as well as the year, month and day, were all recorded in detail. At this time, there were 46 temples, 816 men and 569 women: 1,385 in total (Sakamoto et al. 1967, vol. II: 210-11). Within less than a hundred years of its arrival, then, Buddhism had gained enough of a presence among the ruling elite for it to be treated as an institution in its own right. We see here the beginnings of a Buddhist establishment, and the beginnings of regulation by the secular authorities. The pattern was already a familiar one in both China and Korea. Control was made palatable because it came with patronage and no one who believed in spreading the Buddhist message could afford to turn away from such support. Of course, this ran counter to the Buddhist ideal that it was the duty of the layman to support the monk in his quest and that great merit would thereby be accrued, but at this stage in Japan there were no monks in the sense we would normally understand the term. It is clear from the entry in Nihon shoki with which we began that we are dealing with priests, male and female, whose duty it was to worship an image. It was to be some time before anyone 5 Piggott 1997: 92. Note that the first mention of these 'Seventeen articles' is in Nihon shoki and so their authenticity must remain somewhat suspect. 22 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects recognisable as a 'monk' emerged, since Buddhism was quite naturally being interpreted as just another cult at this stage. When Suiko died in 628, the usual disputes over the succession broke out and violent confrontation continued for the next fifteen years. Finally, in 645, Nakatomi no Kamatari and Prince Naka no Oe destroyed the Soga and forced most members of the clan to commit suicide. This ushered in what is known to history as the Taika Reforms ^cfbrSff- There is, however, a good deal of scepticism about the reliability of the Nihon shoki sections that deal with these reforms and it is probable that many of the administrative changes attributed to this period were in fact instituted much later. Certainly we have to wait until the Taiho Code of 701 before, a new system of administration was really put into practice. But for Buddhism the impact was more immediate: patronage shifted from private (Soga) hands into those of the monarchy and the newly emerging bureaucratic state. The establishment of a fully fledged Buddhist prelacy seemed to be only a matter of time. In the same year, a long edict was proclaimed at the one state-sponsored temple to be built so far, the Great Paekche Temple (Kudara Odera g^f A#),6 in which the principle of central control was again made explicit and ten 'learned masters' (jisshi +W) were appointed to run Buddhist affairs along early Tang lines. This particular administrative system was not to last long, however, for the pattern soon reverted to that established by Suiko. Prince Naka no Oe was de facto ruler from 655 to 671, only ascending the throne as Tenji TennS ^H^fi in 668. During this period, events on the continent had considerable impact on domestic issues and it is clear that lineage ties between Paekche and Yamato were still strongly felt. In an attempt to save Paekche from being overrun by Silla, a Japanese force of some 5,000 men was sent across in 661, and a much larger fleet two years later, only to be crushed by a Tang naval force in a sea battle off the mouth of the Paekch'on River 6 SiT- in 663. From then until 676, when the Tang forces finally withdrew from the peninsula, Japan felt under constant fear of invasion.7 When Tenji died, the civil war known as the Jinshin no ran 3r $ CO ftL broke out, his chosen heir was killed and his younger brother eventually took power in 673 to rale as Tenmu Tenno ^S^S. It was under Tenmu that the ruling family was finally to stake its claim to divine stauis. 6 After 677 this became known as Datkan daiji and then simply as Daianji ;*:3c^f after the move to Heijo-kyo. 7. See Batten 1986. Batten argues that major administrative changes took place in three phases: immediately after 645, from 664 to 671, and post-702. f ■ I 1The introduction of Buddhism 23 ■ 1.3 The'Bcetlc-wing'cabinet The best, and possibly only, way to find out how the Buddhist message was understood at court at this early juncture is to look at what remains: of the material culture it produced; and this means in essence Buddhist temples and images. Of course this brings with it its own problems. In the case of temples, ; the dating of wooden buildings is fraught with difficulties and the only thing ; one can be sure of today is that what one sees is not what was originally built. f Not a temple exists that has escaped at least partial destruction at some stage in its life, and it is difficult to monitor change with any accuracy: Most f Buddhist halls now contain a bewildering array of statues and paintings from the whole span of Japanese history, and considerable care must be taken to ensure one knows the provenance and date of each article. Some halls are little more than museums. In such light it may seem foolhardy to attempt to flesh out a history of early Buddhism in this way. Yet we have little choice. The new deities from the continent were entirely the preserve of the \ aristocracy and the court, who showed their interest by sponsoring the building of temples and images; in this sense, the Buddhism of this period 1 can only speak to us through its art and architecture. We are fortunate to have one or two examples that remain to speak with eloquence. The temple that today contains the most informative material from this period, is. Horyuji r.'rR"'?. Originally known as Dcarugadera J*!-1!} .V, it was begun by Prince Shotoku about 607. Destroyed by fire in 670, it was rebuilt i soon afterwards, but on a slightly different site. The oldest buildings in the i western precinct are the main hall and the pagoda, which date from 680-90, I although the murals inside the main hall are thought to date from r\7l 1, as ; are the clay diorama and statuettes inside the pagoda. ; A few precious objects were saved from the 670 fire, the most important being four wooden statues of the Four Heavenly Kings (Shiten'o ("] M I-) carved: from camphor; some sections df what is: known: as (he Tenjukoku tapestry M H Hi II embroidered with scenes from a 'heavenly realm of i longevity', said to have been created in memory of Shotoku; a number of | small gilt-bronze statues; two large images of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, > known as the Guze Kannon fti&HiB and the Kudara Kannori WffiSef; the i main gilt-bronze ^lakyamuni triad [plate 2], which is dated 623; and the ; 'Beetle-wing' cabinet [plates 3-7]. An inscription on the back of the halo of the Sakyamuni figure gives a full description ofits provenance. The former Dowager Sovereign [Prince Shotoku's mother] passed away on the ' twelfth month of the thirty-first year of Hoko [621 ], and on the twenty-second of the 24 The:arrival of. Buddhism and its effects -i Plate 2 Gilt-bronze Sakyamuni triad, 623. Height of central figure 8.75 m. Horyuji Kondo. I The introduction of Buddhism 25 first month of the following year the Prince himself JiHiSli fell ill and refused to eat. His consort also took to her bed, worn out with nursing him. Together with his sons and his ministers, and in deep distress, she vowed to take.refuge in the Three Jewels and to set up an image of Sakyamuni of the same stature as the Prince, hoping to turn away the illness by the power of this vow, to prolong his life and secure a peaceful sojourn in this world. But if it were already determined by his karma that he should turn his back on the world, [she prayed that] he should rise to the Pure Land and quickly gain enlightenment. On the twenty-first day of the second month she herself died and the Prince reached enlightenment on the very next day. In the third month of 623, in honour of this vow, this image of Sakyamuni with attendants and other adornments was completed:. . In the end, may they take advantage of the short time allotted to them, and in the knowledge of the way, now pass from life into death in peace and tranquillity, and may they follow the Three Masters, honour the Three Jewels, and together reach the other shore. May all beings in the Six Realms, the Dharrnakaya, gain knowledge, obtain liberation from the bonds of suffering, and likewise gain ennghtenment. Shiba Tori W| J§itf!I, Head of the Saddler's Guild, Buddha Master, was ordered to make this image (Nata rokudaiji taikan kankokai 1968-72, vol. II: 23). Monumental bronzes of this type do not survive in China or in Korea, but the origins of the geometric hardness of the design, the long rectangular face and set jaw, together with the flared drapery, can be recognised in the stone carvings of the Northern Wei (385-535) at Yungang and Longmen, filtered through Koguryo and Paekche. A description is best left to an expert: The ringlets, which were not cast with the head, are coded in a non-conventional anticlockwise manner. Fitting them on was no small accomplishment. Some two hundred are massed on the head, all but seven missing at the back. They show no signs of gilding, so were probably painted in the blue colour specified for Buddha's hair. The back of the head is bulbous, a feature little noticed from the front . . . The urtid 1=] 3g in the middle of the forehead, most likely a semiprecious stone, is missing. The exposed gilding reveals the outlines of the eyebrows. Within the 'almond-shaped' eyes are engraved balls, they too without gilding and perhaps once painted black . . . Only the outer tips of a moustache remain; the rest has flaked off. The lips are very slightly turned up at the ends to form an attractive, faint smile; and were presumably first painted red. The strong groove between hose and mouth is a Tori characteristic, as is the rather heavy jaw. In a strange way^ the ears simply drop - his left ear is 1.8 cm longer than the right ear - and are unperforated (Kidder 1999:218)! But perhaps the most informative of the artefacts that survived the fire is the 'Beetle-wing' cabinet or TamamusbJ.-zushi3i.SH.?, created between 640 and 650. This cabinet is important because it tells us how far its sponsors had moved towards understanding the basic tenets'of Buddhist teaching. It has been studied in depth for clues as to early architecture, gilt, lacquer and 26 The arrival of Buddhism ana" its effects i Plate 3 The 'Beetle-wing' cabinet, c.650. Height with base 2.327 m. Horyuji. ■■■!.} J The introduction of Buddhism 27 techniques of working wood, but of more interest in the present context is the subject matter, of its illustrations. The cabinet without the base stands 2.18 m high and, if one were sitting level with it on the floor, one would be looking directly at the centre of the lower section [plate 3]. It has an elaborate double roof with fish-tail ends. The surviving fish-tail was stolen in 1911 and what we now see are replicas. The box section on top has double-opening doors on three sides, the back being closed with a single sheet of wood. The divider half-way down is in three sections with a single-petal lotus design known as ukehana carved on the underside. At the bottom are another two layers, with another lotus-petal design known as kaeribana on top. The whole cabinet sits on a large base. The middle section has four illustrated panels. . Most of the wood used was Japanese cypress (hinold) except for the lotus petals and the front steps, which are of camphorwood {kusunoki). The cypress is native to Japan but not to Korea, which is a strong pointer that the object itself was not imported. The wood is covered with a series of thin translucent lacquers which now give a very dark reddish tinge. The main ornament is in the form of intricate gilt-bronze carving attached to the face of the wood, but the most remarkable feature can be seen on the top section where, kept, in place by metal strips, are a whole series of green iridescent wing-sheaths from a species of native beetle (Chrysochroa fulgidissima schoenherr): Many of these have now fallen.off, but the greenish- light reflected from thousands of these sheaths must have been an extraordinary sight. It has.been calculated that 2,563 sheaths were used on the. upper portion, so at least half that number of beetles were sacrificed to the greater glory of the Buddhist Dharma. If we include the lower section, the number rises to 4,665. Similar ornamentation has^ been found on a dagger and an arrow in the mid-eighm-century royal storehouse the Shosoin lE^'K and in Korean tombs, but examples are still extremely rare. This feature, of course, is the provenance of the name 'Beetle-wing'. The statue that is now in the top of the cabinet is not original, but there was undoubtedly a figure in this position; it may have been of Sakyamuni, but it may equally well have been the sovereign Suiko.. For reasons which will become clear later, we: shall start with the panel on the right-hand side [plate 4]. The provenance of this subject is beyond doubt. It comes from Chapter 17 of the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom? Entitled 'Casting away the body', this is a retelling of a familiar story of how the Buddha once sacrificed himself for the sake of a tiger and her cubs. 8 For further discussion of this sutra, see §3.2. 28 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 1 The introduction of Buddhism 29 Plate 4 'Casting away the body'; . ::'t ■ t .;:| : Once there was a king called Maharatha who was a wise ruler. He had :three sons,. Ylahapranada, YTabadeva and Mahasattva, the youngest. Mahasattva was the Buddha in a former life. One day they went out into the forest and came across a tiger who had given birth to seven cubs just seven days previously. Both mother and cubs were starving. Since tigers are meat-eaters, the only food they could offer was themselves and this they were, of course, reluctant to do. Mahasattva, however, came to an awareness of the insubstantiality of his own body and returned later to where the tiger was lying. He hung his clothes on a branch nearby and lay down by the tiger. But the tiger was too weak to move. Mahasattva had no weapon, so went to the top of the hill overlooking the scene, drove a dried bamboo stake into his neck to produce a flow of blood and then cast himself down. The earth shook six ways, the sun lost its power, and petals and perfume rained down. The tiger ate Mahasattva, leaving only his bones. There they were discovered by his distraught brothers. There was much grief and in the end his father and mother deposited his bones as relics in a large seven-jewelled stupa. The painting depicts this scene but with the minimum of violence. In the famous cave paintings at Dunhuang in Gansu Province in western China : there are a number of examples of this tale, most of them depicting things in gruesome detail. By contrast, here we have the Buddha hanging his clothes on a tree, casting himself off the cliff and then lying peacefully at the bottom, giving himself to the tiger and her cubs. The essential message is here without the gore. One very curious aspect of this painting is the C-shaped rocks and caves of the cliff, depicted in slab-like sections; this continues to provide art historians with a puzzle. We find these elements on the painting on ihe opposite side, and they are a marked feature of the whole cabinet, but their continental source is hard to identify. Nothing at Dunhuang really serves as a reference point and so, in the absence of any better roots, it is assumed lhat Ihe origin of this style must lie somewhere in Korea. The message of this panel is a fairly simple one. The first of the six perfections of the bodhisattva is that of 'giving'. Compassion for others was always.seen by advocates of Mahay an a to be what best characterised their beliefs. What of the front panel [plate 5]? Working down from the top, we have a lotus flower in the centre supported on clouds. Wisps of smoke, perhaps perfume, rise from it. A little lower to the left and right appear two angel-like figures known as apsaras, who hover (descend?) holding between them another lotus. The currents that eddy around them suggest quite violent motion. In the upper middle floats an incense burner with three lines of smoke rising from it. Each of its claw-shaped feet rests on a lotus bud. Lower 51 30 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 1 The introduction of Buddhism 31 Plate 5 "The worship of relics' still sit two monks left and right, each holding an incense burner with ladle attached. At the very bottom in the centre sits a large table with animal feet testing on a lotus base. From either side and from the top of the table rise curls of smoke which in turn support a fully opened lotus in which stands a pedestal. On the pedestal we find a round receptacle garlanded with flowers. It looks like a relic box. In the bottom left and right corners sit two Chinese lion-dogs (shishi gazing up at the arrangement in the centre. This painting is the subject of some debate. There are those who argue that it is simply a picture of an offering to the Buddha in the top section with all the usual paraphernalia of such a scene, but since the other panels are linked to texts; it would be helpful to identify some source. Perhaps Chapter 17 of the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom can do dual service. Before the story of Mahasattva and the tiger proper, the chapter has a preliminary scene in which the goddess Bodhisattvasamuccaya asks the Buddha about the occasion when in a former life he underwent countless austerities and eventually sacrificed liis own body. In reply the Buddha stamps on the earth, which then shakes in six directions and disgorges a large seven-jewelled stupa. The Buddha makes obeisance to this stupa and when asked why, replies that herein lie his own relics. At that tune the Buddha turned to the sage Ananda and said, 'You should open the stupa, take out the relics that lie within and show them to the assembly. These relics indeed hold the fragrance of countless merits of the six perfections.' Then Ananda followed the Buddha's instructions, went to where the stupa stood, bowed in homage and gave offerings, and then opened the door of the stupa. There he saw the relics, of marvellous colours, red and white. And he spoke to the Buddha saying, 'World-honoured One. The relics within are coloured red and white.' And the Buddha said to Ananda, 'You should bring them here. These are the relics of die true body of the wise one (Mahasattva).' Thereupon Ananda lifted up the jewelled casket and returned with it to where the Buddha was and he offered it up to him. And the Buddha said to the whole assembly, 'You should now make obeisance to these relics; They are fragrant with constant practice of keeping the precepts, concentrating the mind and seeking wisdom. They, are fields of merit that are extremely difficult to obtain.' Now the assembly heard these words and their hearts: were filled with pleasure and happiness and they all rose from their seats, put their hands together in prayer, and gave homage to the relics of the Mahasattva. And die World-honoured One, desirous of cutting the net of doubt for all the assembly, explained whence these relics had come (T. 663, vol. XVI: 354,a.6-19). Not all the elements in the picture are explained by this quotation alone, but in the absence of any better suggestion, it would seem to be a good candidate. It is about the importance of relics. 32 The arrival ofBuddhism and its effects 1 The introduction of Buddhism 33 . The panel on the left illustrates yet another scene of self-sacrifice [plate 6], q The source this time is Chapter 14 of the Nirvana sutra entitled 'On holy :.| actions'. Again it is a story that deals with the activities of the Buddha in a ;| former life. Buddha recounts the story in the first person. Once, when he was 'f a bralrmin undergoing ascetic practice in the Himalayas, the gods decided to ;| test him. Indra transformed himself into a devil and descended to where the :| young brahmin was practising. In a loud voice, he proclaimed the first half of | a key verse that encapsulated Buddhist thinking: 'All dharmas are forever | changing, this is the law of birth and death.' The astounded brahmin ; eventually realises that the devil, despite his appearance, has the key to ; enlightenment and he begs him to give him the second half of the verse. After | some discussion the devil agrees, on condition that the brahmin gives himself % up to be eaten, because he is starving, can find no food and can only survive j on living flesh and blood. The brahmin agrees and then hears the second half :l of the verse: 'Once birth and death are annulled, quiet and annulment bring .1 bliss.' Having promised to give up his life for the message, the young • brahmin writes down the verses wherever he can, then climbs a tall tree and ' J casts himself down to die. In that instant the devil changes back into Indra I and the brahmin is helped gently to the ground, and praised and worshipped as the future Buddha. f The general design of this panel is very similar to the one on the right. It | too moves from bottom left up and over in a circular movement accentuated | by the shape of the cliff and the caves. The brahmin is also depicted three 4 times. Standing bottom left looking at the devil, he is dressed in bark or deer- ; j skin clothes and has the long hair of an ascetic. Half-way up we see him ^. writing the verses on a rock, and then we find him casting himself from the 't top, to be saved by Indra on the right. Flowers and perfumed smoke mark his ,; descent. The message here is twofold: self-sacrifice is a central Buddhist \ virtue and enlightenment is open to all, even to what appears to be a devil. i When we move to the rear of the cabinet we find another, large picture -J corresponding to that on the front [plate 7]. It is a painting of Mt Sumeru, f which was thought to lie at the centre of the Indian universe: Right down the "| centre we have the mountain, towering, above the waves. On top of the 1 mountain is Indra's palace, which links this panel to the last one. On both | sides immortals fly on phoenixes with banners raised, and below them lie the i sun and the moon. The sun contains a three-legged crow and the moon a hare. | In the middle of the mountain are the four palaces of the four guardian kings and around the base winds a double-headed dragon. In the sea at the bottom stands the Palace of the Dragon King with fish-tail ends to the roof and an Plate 6 Indra as a devil. 34 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 1 The introduction of Buddhism 35 Plate 7 'Mt Sumeru1 ulterior divided into three sections. In the middle sits the Buddha with a woman on either side. On each side of the palace in the corner sits a garuda bird, each holding a small dragon in its beak. There are at least two sources for this panel. The first is a passage from the 'Devadatta' chapter of the Lotus sutra. The crux of this chapter is the example of the Naga (Dragon) King's daughter who manages to achieve enlightenment, so giving hope to all women. This has been augmented by the painter with reference to the Sutra of the Dragon King of the Sea? Immediately before preaching on Vulture Peak, the Buddha causes Mt Sumeru to appear and the Dragon King comes up out of the sea to hear his message. The Dragon King then asks why it is that a decline in numbers of dragons is now being reversed with an increase. The Buddha explains that in the past many dragons heard the Dharma, became good Buddhists and were eventually reborn as humans. Now humans are becoming more and more decadent and so are being reborn as dragons. The king then allows the Buddha to preach in his palace. The women depicted are the king's wife and his daughter. The daughter hears the Buddha preaching and hears him say in particular that women too may eventually become buddhas. She then debates the matter with Kasyapa, who believes the opposite. The Buddha informs them that there is no distinction between the genders when it comes to enlightenment and that the daughter will clearly achieve her goal, hi the end the king asks the Buddha to save those dragons who are petrified with fear in case they are eaten by garuda birds. The Buddha preaches to the garudas, who also promise to uphold the Dharma. To what use was this shrine put and why was it created? There are, of course, no definite answers but it may well have been used as a centrepiece for oral explanation. It is the correct height and holds within its panels many of the central propositions of Mahayana Buddhism: the possibility of enlightenment for all, compassion for others as the first of the six perfections to be practised by the aspiring bodhisattva, and the concept that the Buddha was not a man who has 'already gone before' but an eternal presence: The use of the 'Devadatta' chapter of the Lotus sutra suggests that the intended audience were the women at court. Together with the statues from this early stage, it shows us that despite the fact that the Buddha was being worshipped by priests as a deity, the central tenets of the Buddhist message were begiririing to be understood and honoured by the elite at court by the middle of the seventh century. Ch. Haihngwangfing, Jp. Kairyüö kyö JÜSHiK, T. 589, vol. XV: 134-57. 2 Creating a dynasty 37 2 Creating a dynasty 2.1 The problem of succession j, It would be reasonable to assume that each successive monarch wanted to establish a dynasty but had not discovered how best to control the pattern of events. Certainly, the kind of upheaval that tended to surround each change at 1 this stage was hardly conducive to stable government, and there seems to have been no law of succession. It was, of course, difficult to forestall all the problems and rivalries that might emerge after one's death, and smooth transitions were not exactly the rule from this point on, but it was Tenmu -\ who took the first major step in this direction. By ordering the compilation of J written records, and particularly of lineages, he began a process that came to fruition fifty years later in the first chronicles, whose mission it was to reveal an unbroken line of succession leading back to the beginning of time and the [ earliest godsJ In an edict of 681, he proclaimed: i I hear that 'imperial records' [teiki i£|B] and 'accounts of origin' [honji handed % down by various houses have come to differ from the truth and that many falsehoods have been added. If these errors are not corrected now, the meaning of the records and accounts - the warp and woof of the Japanese state and the foundations of royal rule - [ will be lost before many years have passed. Therefore a study of the royal records for f the purpose of selecting out and recording what is true, and an examination of 'ancient accounts' [kyuji II fp] for the purpose of rejecting errors and determining truth are ordered so that we may have true records and accounts passed on to later generations (Kurano and Takeda 1958: 45—46). It would be difficult to find a statement more self-aware in its duplicity. He who writes the first history and manages to bury all previous and competing narratives has invented the most powerful tool of all, and we have already seen what an effective smokescreen these early chronicles create. Most of \ what appears in this chapter is subject to their control. Their aim was to show that the present state of affairs had always pertained, and that the tutelary deity of the ruling family had from the very beginning been at the apex of a ; divinely ordained hierarchy and part of the natural order of the universe. When Tenmu died in 686, he left two possible heirs, Prince Otsu jzW and Prince Kusakabe The first was quickly eliminated, but the mourning for Tenmu took over two years, and before Kusakabe could be proclaimed as the next sovereign, he too died. His mother Jito S$E took his place, ruling from 690 to 697. In 690.1.1 an entry in Nihon shoki records what may be the first description of a formal investiture ceremony, and in 692.3 she made the first royal 'progress' to the shrines at Ise. This was to be the first of a number of such tours, which were clearly designed to impress the presence of the centre on file periphery, but perhaps Jito's greatest contribution to the survival of the Japanese monarchy was to introduce the concept of abdication, a technique which made it possible for the reigning sovereign to control succession and so maintain a dynasty. Was it to avoid the elaborate rites that accompanied the death of a sovereign and to allow the shift of authority to be made swiftly and with the minimum of fuss? In 696 she announced her intention to resign, and the next year Kusakabe's son Kara became sovereign at the age of fourteen. He was to be known to posterity as Monmu Terrno ~$CM,^.§k (r. 697-707). When Monmu died, he was replaced by his mother Genmei ju^M (661 721; r. 707-15) who was in turn replaced by his sister Gensho tgIE (r. 715-24). The women seem to be trying to ensure that orderly succession became second nature. Although this period is often treated as little more than a trough between the high-points of Tenmu-Jito on the one hand and Shomu-Koken IE jfe • Pit (724-58) on the other, it was in fact during this time that the capital was moved to Heijo-kyo (Nara *S.B) and Kojiki and Nihon shoki were written down and made public. In order to secure the future, the ruling family had to be able not only to control local cults and the rapidly expanding presence of Buddhist institutions; it also needed to put in place a rule of law. In 684.10.1 the old titles had been abolished and replaced by new ones which reinforced the importance of lineage: mahito RA for members of the immediate family; the ubiquitous aspmi/ason S) E for others with blood ties to the monarch; and sukune %W for those close to the centre but without blood ties (Aston 1972, vol. II: 365). Penal and administrative, codes based on Chinese models are thought to have been promulgated in three stages: the Kiyomihara Code W not extant but said to have been completed by Jito in 689,1 the Taiho Code of 701, and the Yoro Code M^B^, compiled in 718 but not fully promulgated until 757. Only the last of these survives to 1 An entry in Nihon shoki for 689.6.29 reads 'One section of the Code in 22 volumes was distributed to all local governors'; it is thought that this refers to the completion of the Kiyomihara Code, which had been ordered by Tenmu. . 38 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 2 Creating a dynasty. 39 any degree^ but as each built on its predecessor one is justified in extrapolating backwards, if done with care. The administrative framework that emerged had the sovereign nominally in control of two main councils, the Council of State (Daijokan i;tt) and the Council for Affairs of the Deities of Heaven and Earth (Jingikan #ffi'g'). The latter is usually described as being a Japanese innovation, entrusted with the delicate task of extending central control over all deities in the land, local and tutelary. That said, however, the term jingi, a short form of the phrase tenjin chigi ^piftffi, had a long pedigree in China and a number of the statutes and rituals in the Yoro Code have precedents in those parts of the 'shrine regulations' {tiling of pre-Tang and early Tang codes that are extant. We know from an entry in Nihon shoki for 692.9.14 that records the Jingikan presenting four 'sacred treasure books PSf if nine keys and one wooden seal' that the institution itself was already in existence by this time. 2.2 Native beliefs It is now time to ask ourselves a difficult question: what were the indigenous beliefs in Japan before the arrival of Buddhism? The gifts that arrived from Paekche in the middle of the sixth century could hardly, of course, have simply filled a void: so to what were the Mononobe and Nakatomi referring when they warned: 'Those who have ruled as kings over the world, over this our state, have always taken care to worship the 180 deities of heaven and earth in spring, summer, autumn and winter. If we were now to change and worship a foreign deity, we fear we shall incur the wrath of the deities of our own land'? The question is far more difficult to answer than it appears at first sight because we immediately run into the usual historiographical impasse: there are, by definition, no native sources that predate the introduction of writing into Japan, so an early text such as Nihon shoki of 720 is already heavily 'contaminated' by Chinese influence and Buddhist presence. A term such as 'the 180 deities of heaven and earth' is a nice case in point: it might sound indigenous, and the magic figure 180 might possibly have roots in pre-Buddhist Japan; but the rest of the phrase has a strong Chinese flavour that clashes loudly with the nativism of its context. Things are made doubly difficult because it is precisely during the two hundred years that stretch from the early sixth century to the eighth that Buddhism was accommodated and that indigenous beliefs adapted to this powerful intruder. This fact is worth I stressing, if only because attention is more usually focused in the other I direction, namely on the degree to which Buddhism succeeded by being so f responsive to every new environment it faced. It is true that Buddhism I sometimes goes so far in this process that one is tempted to talk not of the 1 'Buddhist conquest of Japan' but of the 'Japanese conquest of Buddhism', | but it is equally true that indigenous cults changed radically in turn. The I problem is in measuring this change with little evidence other than the I contents of tomb mounds, which date mainly from 300-600.2 The largest of I these were assigned to various monarchs in the Meiji period (with varying I degrees of plausibility) and they have been off-limits to archaeologists ever | since. By and large, the smaller ones that have been excavated have revealed f large quantities of material goods of value such as bronze mirrors, swords, | horse trappings, and clay replicas of human figures, horses and boats, but, as : one might expect, there are no inscriptions. Any description, then, of f indigenous beliefs and cults in the sixth century must remain tentative, f It would appear that from earliest times the Japanese, like most early 1 societies, had a strong sense of sacred space and of the numinous nature of [ certain places and objects. The term used to describe such elements is kami l jjf, a word that can refer both to an object and to the presence represented by \ that object. A kami might be an oddly shaped rock, tree or mountain, or any : other phenomenon or place that had important connotations for a particular [ group. These places were treated as contact points between this world and the I other world from where all uncontrollable events originated. They were therefore held sacred and it was considered important that they be kept clear \ of this-worldly pollution; if pollution did occur, dire consequences might well result, since kami were a source of all that was unpredictable, of life and \ health but also of misfortune and disaster. Constant and regular observation r of ritual was necessary in order to placate, cajole or simply demonstrate that ithe presence or force represented by the site was being remembered and respected for what it could do. We have here the beginnings of the shrine or yashiro ft. . We cannot tell at what stage temporary structures erected at sites for ritual purposes might have become fixed shrines, nor how the practice of ritual was ! organised, but it is probable that by the sixth century the Nakatomi family [ group, or uji J$, had become hereditary ritualists for those shrines that had [ particular significance for the rulers of central Yamato, so it is reasonable to | assume that others performed similar duties in Mother areas. This development ;| 2 See the useful chart of keyhole-shaped tombs in Piggott 1997: 32-33. 40 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 2 Creating a dynasty 41 presupposes a process by which a divine presence, amorphous but specific to a:locale, became the ancestral deity of an uji, symbolising its corporate identity. This was presumably common by the sixth century and, given the reported response of the Nakatomi in 552, one can perhaps posit a series of tutelary deities, honoured at a shrine, with a priestly family charged with ritual. This might also suggest some form of ancestor worship, but here too we have to be careful. The deification of family founders - and we know that this occurred in the eighth century with Fujiwara no Kamatari, for example -presupposes anthropomorphism and may well involve a transformation quite distinct from the process described above. There is no evidence for this kind of belief in earlier times, and its emergence may itself have been a result of the influence of imported Chinese concepts. It is also difficult to tell at what stage this kind of kami took on semi-human characteristics. The beginnings of such a process would lie in the impulse to name, but the nature of our sources does not allow us to state when this may have occurred. Certainly, there is no evidence of any attempt to carve images of native deities at this stage. Developments at a later stage suggest that once the link between local deity and family had been created it was difficult to break, so that a group might well find it necessary to maintain such ties even when it moved far from its 'original' home. This could be done either by creating a legend that deity X had moved from A to B at some stage in the past for some good reason, or, as in the case of the ruling family in the eighth century with its main shrine at Ise, by making sure that one important member of the family was resident in the shrine as a representative. One important corollary of the localised nature of cults was that they were essentially unrelated to each other. Certainly, this was not a coherent system. In view of what we know of matters after 720, whatever the Mononobe and Nakatomi may have been referring to in 552, it was nothing resembling an organised 'religion'. The most unfortunate gap in our knowledge about pre-Buddhist Japan concerns attitudes to death. Recent studies have drawn our attention to the wealth of information about burial rites for dead rulers that can be gleaned from forensic examination of Kojild and Nihon shoki, but no scholar can escape the grip of the sources (Mace 1986 and Ebersole 1989). We know very little about attitudes in the sixth century, never mind about what underpinned the production of the tomb mounds (kofun) that were so conspicuous in the fourth and fifth centuries. There seems to have been a concept of a psyche (tama ® or §1) that gave the body life but that also might wander away on occasions such as sleep, dreamtime or death; one might try I and call the tama back with an arm-waving ritual known as tamafuri and it f was thought that the tama of the deceased could well return of its own accord I at certain points of the year to receive ritual recognition. But the relationship ! between tama and kami is unclear. What seems to have happened is that I during the sixth and seventh centuries Buddhism made death its own, I appropriating it so completely that it now appears to us that the native cults { simply had nothing to say about death, which common sense tells us is an I untenable proposition. We have been left with only half the picture. What t 'native' prayers have survived are mainly concerned with agricultural rituals, Iand shrines seem to have had nothing to do with burial or the dead, such things being regarded as little more than a source of this-worldly pollution. The uncanny illusion is thereby created that Buddhism simply filled a void as f far as the rites of death were concerned, which cannot be correct; its success f m this particular arena was so complete that it obliterated what came before. ' 2.3 The Jingikan J To return to Tenmu Tenno and his strategies of legitimation. Given the \ disparate, highly localised nature of these cults and the fact that power had Ionly just been won as the result of a vicious internecine war, hegemony could not be expected overnight, if at all. An administrative framework was needed to impose a hierarchy onto the cultic landscape. As we have already pointed out, the earliest extant statutes [ryo that governed the operation of the i Jingikan are those in the Yoro Code of 718, but there is some justification for j reading at least the outline back into the middle of the previous century. They I consist of twenty short articles outlining the duties of the council, mainly I concerned with certain key rites: observances for the natural agricultural { cycle such as spring planting and the annual harvest rite, together with "f prayers for the avoidance of natural disasters and the health of the monarch. J The most important of these were the Toshigoi (or Kinensai if ¥H) and the 1 Tsukinami no matsuri B^ZHS- I 1 The worship of the gods of heaven and earth should be performed by officials, in I accordance with the prescribed forms. [There is no consensus on the distinction I between the gods of heaven and those of earth. Tokugawa scholars have argued [ that the gods of heaven were directly linked to the monarchy, and those of earth I not so linked, but this is only one of a number of theories.] "I 2 Early spring: Toshigoi no matsuri If-'ff II, for a good harvest. [Offerings, were I presented to all shrines in the Yamato area.]. . 42; .:. Thearrival'ofBuddhism and its effects 2 Creating a dynasty 43 Late spring: Hanashizume no matsuri IBtEJS, for good health. [This was held at the. Omiwa shrine. It was believed that the scattering of blossoms in the wind was linked to the spread of epidemics. Here, too, offerings were presented to the shrine.] ... Midsummer. Kanmiso no matsuri flj^lf, offerings of summer garments to the deities [presented to the Ise shrines]; Oimi no matsuri A,1!^ 'the Great Taboo' [offerings presented to the Food Deities at the Hirose shrine]; Saigusa no matsuri = possibly to give thanks for rice wine [offerings to the Isakawa shrine, a sub-shrine of Omiwa]; Kazakami no matsuri MMS, for good weather [offerings to the Wind Deities at the Tatsuta shrine]. Late summer: Tsukinami no matsuri ft ^ jg, a 'monthly' thanksgiving [held in the Palace, but actually only on two months of the year]; Hishizume no matsuri IB^C S, to avoid fire; Michiae no matsuri MM, 'the Banquet of the Roads' [to keep the roads in the capital clear of dangers], Early autumn: Oimi no matsuri and Kazakami no matsuri. Late autumn: Kanmiso no matsuri and Kanname/Kamunie no matsuri ipfl'ir^ 'the Divine Tasting'. [Offerings of the first fruits of the year's harvest, held at the Ise shrines.] Early winter: Aimube no matsuri 'ffiU'^ 'the Joint Tasting' [similar to above but offerings were sent to major shrines in the Yamato area]; Tamashizume/ Omutamafuri no matsuri H ?S f§ 'Pacifying the Spirit' [to insure that the monarch's spirit did not leave his body; held at the Palace, this was a rite that enacted the capture of the Sun Goddess when she hid herself away in a cave]; Onie/Omube no matsuri 7^f S 'the Great Tasting' [the main thanksgiving festival, held in the Palace]. Late winter: Tsukinami no matsuri and Hishizume no matsuri and Michiae no matsuri. The offerings, rituals and dates for all these festivals are as set out in separate ordinances {bechishiki S!l ). For the Toshigoi and Tsukinami, all officials are to gather at the Jingikan. The Nakatomi are to read the norito; the Inbe to present the offerings. 10 On the accession of the monarch, all deities are to be worshipped. There shall be partial abstinence for one month and complete abstinence for three days. Offerings should be prepared three months beforehand. . 11 During partial abstinence all officials should carry on their work as usual; but they should not visit anyone in mourning, call upon the sick, or eat flesh. Nor shall death sentences be pronounced or criminal cases be judged. No music shall be played and no unclean or inauspicious tasks be performed! During complete abstinence, no duties may be performed except those to do with ceremonial observances. Partial abstinence is to take place before and after complete abstinence. 12 One month's abstinence is to be treated as a Grand Festival; three days as a Middle Festival; one day as a Small Festival. 13 On the day of accession the Nakatomi shall read the divine ritual (yogoto SSil), and the Inbe shall present the regalia: the mirror and the sword.. 14 The [Special] Great Food Festival (Omube) will take place once in every reign, 9 presided over by the provincial officers. Other festivals shall be celebrated annually by officials from the Jingikan. J 5 When a festival is to take place, the officials shall inform the government as to when the abstinence is to begin; the government shall then inform other offices. 16 All offerings of food, fruits and drink at festivals shall be examined by the chief official, who shall personally ensure they are correct and proper. No ill assorted or unclean items must be permitted. 17 When offerings are made on occasions other than the regular ceremonies, diviners of the fifth rank and upwards shall be employed for this service. 18 On the last day of the sixth and twelfth months, on the occasion of the Great Purification, the Nakatomi shall offer the purification wand (nusd), the masters of writing shall offer up the sword of purification and recite the liturgy. That done, the hundred officials and their families, male and female, shall assemble in the place of purification. The Nakatomi shall recite the prayers {norito) and the Urabe perform the cleansing. 19 When the great Purification is performed in the provinces, every province is to be provided with one sword, one animal skin, one hoe and other miscellaneous gifts. Each household is to receive one strand of flax and each provincial governor one horse. 20 The taxes levied on the servants of the shrines, whether miscellaneous or land tax, shall be devoted to the construction of shrines or to the provision of offerings to the gods. Land tax proper should be treated as rice reserve, inspected by local authorities' and reported to the office (Inoue et al. 1976: 211-15).3 These statutes are short and perfunctory, with detail in some areas but not in others, and we have to wait another two hundred years, until the Engishiki of the 920s, for further information, by which time the whole system had been considerably expanded. Nothing, for example, is said about the activities of priests or about the organisation of any shrine system, possibly because no such system existed. The staff of the Jingikan was not large, with a head (jingihaku W ffifS) of rather low rank, two assistant heads, two secretaries, two clerks, thirty deity households (kanbe %$P), twenty diviners, thirty attendants and two servants (Naumann 2000: 47-67). Clearly, the provision of gifts and offerings from the centre was designed to create the illusion of a system, but very few shrines are mentioned by name, which suggests that the process of creating a hegemony was only just beginning. The very sparseness of the laws betrays the difficulty of the enterprise. We have to wait until well into the eighth century before we see an appreciable increase in the number of official shrines receiving such offerings; the first recorded offerings to shrines outside the immediate Yamato area, for example, is in 698. 1 Trans, adapted from Sansom 1934. Note that many of the Japanese readings given here are probably later inventions. 44 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects \ . f f Hidden in item 14 of this list is a reference to what is now known as the ') Daijosai Tvf S, a special expanded thanksgiving ceremony that took place | only once at the beginning of a new reign in celebration of the enthronement ■[ (Liscutin 1990). It was first held in 691 in the reign of Jito, and again in ~; 698.11.23 in honour of Monmu. Our earliest source for a description of this ; rite is the 'Rituals of the Jogan era' (Jogan gishiki of 872, which | undoubtedly represent something grander, but the main outlines were j probably the same. Although the heart of the rite was private to the monarch, _| the whole country was expected to participate in the preparations, so it was I designed to emphasise the hegemonic role of the figure at the centre. .....!. Preparations began in the spring with the choice of which two districts would ; be responsible for the arrangements; it was their role to provide the sacred j rice, construct the buildings and send the young women who prepared the ' I food and drink. As in normal years, the Omutamafuri or Chinkonsai was held ; just prior to the ceremony itself, to ensure that the monarch's psyche would not leave him in his weakened state near the end of the year. The ceremony itself was held in a specially built enclosure with two small lodges inside. At night, the monarch purified himself, entered each lodge in turn in the company of two maidens, where he laid out rice for the gods and shared sake with them; it is thought that some sacred communion occurred at the point that the monarch shared the sacred wine. A couch called a shinza PHI was also present in both lodges, but there is no indication as to its use. Conflicting j theories, of course, abound. There was, in addition to this, a separate en- j thronement ceremony (sokui no gi HP H) that was firmly based on Chinese precedent, although it was still held under the auspices of the Jingikan. Some idea of the language involved in these various rites can be gathered \ from the following Toshigoi liturgy, which dates from the eighth century: Before the mighty ancestral gods and goddesses who augustly reside in the plain of J high Heaven, before the many kami enshrined in Heaven and Earth,, we raise our | words of praise. And to the mighty kami we humbly speak: in this second month of S the year, at the beginnning of the sowing of seed, we humbly raise our words of praise I even as we bring choice offerings from the divine descendant at this moment of the ,' majestic and brilliant dawning of the morning light. Before the presence of the kami who govern the crops we do humbly speak, praying that they will grant a late-ripening . ::| harvest of grain. With foam on the water up to the elbows and muddy water up to the I thigh as the rice is planted, may it grow into countless bundles of long-eared grain, | vigorous grain. If the mighty kami grant that it shall ripen, we shall offer up the first- | fruits of the grain, a thousand, yes, ten thousand ears. j Let offering jars be filled to the brims, let full-bellied jars be arrayed in rows. We I shall offer liquid and grain with words of praise, together with things that grow in the , j 2 Creating a dynasty 45 broad meadows and moors, sweet herbs and bitter herbs. We shall offer things that live in the blue sea-plain, beings wide of fin and narrow too, seaweeds of the deep and those of the shore. And for divine raiment, we shall offer up bright cloth, shining cloth, coarse cloth, all with our words of praise (Piggott 1997: 210). In light of the above, it is striking to find that those sections of Nihon shoki that cover the reigns of both Tenmu and Jito contain surprisingly few entries devoted to cult affairs. In particular one notices the paucity of references to the shrines at Ise, which are famous for being the home of the ancestral deity of the ruling family. Exactly why the tutelary deity of the rulers should be based at Ise is not known. There is no sign that they ever had any roots there; on the contrary, the early movement into Yamato was always presented as having come from the west rather than the east. It is thought that Ise may have been adopted as late as Tenmu's reign. Nihon shoki tells us that he prayed to this deity for success in battle while he was in the Ise region during the Jinshin civil war, and that early in his reign preparations were made to send a princess of the blood to the shrine as a surrogate for the sovereign (itsukinomiya If 3E). Both chronicles record the mythical origins of this practice, but it is likely that this reference in fact records its genesis. When Jito went on her tour to the east in 692 there is a mention of two deities at Ise, which is taken to mean that both the Outer (Gekii ^'gf) and the Inner Shrine (Naiku W§) were in existence by this time. And what of the deity itself? We know that they adopted a sun deity, anthropomorphised it at some stage, and placed it at Ise, but what was its name and what was its gender? Not that too many people would have known. In Kofiki the name is written which could be read either Amateru omikami or Amaterasu omikanii. In Nihon shoki we find both X 0 9 M., which was given the reading Ohirumenomuchi and suggests the female gender, and ^ ffl X If Tensho daijin, which is genderless. The name Amaterasu only becomes fixed with Yoshida Kanekata ■§ 03 M ~M in the sixteenth century. The gender tended;to fluctuate and for much of the medieval period the name used was Tensho daijin with the assumption that if one had to choose then it would be male. Having a divine ancestor is one thing. Being divine oneself is another. There is no sign in the chronicles that monarchs like Tenmu were considered to be divine in and of themselves, but the picture changes when we look at the late eighm-century poetry collection Man'yoshu MMM, which includes much from this early period. Here we do find poems that make such a claim. It undoubtedly began as hyperbole. The poet and court eulogist Kakinomoto no Hitomaro ffi-^Aff H, when writing of Tenmu after his death, used the 46 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 2 Creating a dynasty 47 term kamunagani Y,k$, 'as a very god', and in a number of longer poems the divinity of Ihc ancestor is transferred directly to the reigning monarch. In particular the term akitsukami M^>W or 'manifest deity' occurs a number of times. It did not take long for this hyperbole to be transformed into norm, so we. find that the edicts known as senmyo JKi^t that appear in Shoku Nihongi H S 2fcM, a chronicle that covers the years 697-791, use this concept of akitsukami quite freely. The edict read out at Monmu's accession to the throne in 697 shows that the rhetoric of divine lineage was by now fully developed: Hearken all ye assembled August Children, Princes, Nobles, Officials of the Realm-under-Heaven to the Word which he speaks even as the Word of the Sovereign that is a manifest God ruling over the Great Land of Many Islands. He says: Hearken ye to the Word of the Sovereign who proclaims thus: We have listened with reverence to the noble, high, broad, warm Words of the charge vouchsafed to Us by the Sovereign Prince of Yamato, who is a manifest God ruling over the Great Land of Many Islands in performance of the task of this the High Throne of Heavenly Succession, in the same wise as the August Child of the God of Heaven, as it was decreed by the God which is in Heaven, that from the beginning in the High Plain of Heaven, through the reigns of our Distant Ancestors down to these days and onwards, Sovereign August Children should be bom in succession for ever to succeed to the rule of the Great Land of Many Islands. And, even as a God, it is Our wish to give Peace and Order to this Realm-under-Heaven and to deign to cherish and soothe its people-He says: Hearken ye all to the Word which the Sovereign proclaims, saying thus: And therefore all ye functionaries of every kind, even unto the officers appointed to govern the countries under our rule in the four quarters, do ye, neither mistaking nor violating the laws of the land which the Sovereign House had proclaimed and enforced, ever striving, without delay or neglect, with bright, pure and true hearts, earnestly labour and serve. He says: Hearken ye all to the Word which the Sovereign proclaims saying thus: And all people who, hearing and understanding in this wise, shall serve Us faithfully, We will in divers ways reward, praising them and lifting them up (Aoki et al. 1989-98, vol. I: 3-5).4 2.4 Inventing the past The process of inventing the past came to fruition with the completion of Kojiki in 712 and Nihon shoki in 720. We have already had occasion to touch 4 Trans, by G. B. Saosom in Snellen 1934: 169-70. on both of these chronicles, but they demand a closer look since the stories they tell reverberated through the whole of Japanese history. From the outset it is important to note that although at various stages they were to be treated as sacred texts to be revered and studied, they were never recognised as having been 'revealed'. They were not the word of a creating deity but written by court scribes as history, the aim of which was to legitimate the pre-eminence of the ruling family by explaining its divine roots in prehistory, and to explain the status quo by illustrating how contemporary power relationships at court and within the country were a direct reflection of relationships established in the distant past between different ancestral deities. They were therefore intensely political products. This is not to say, however, that they are of no use to the historian of religion. Kojiki covers the story of Japan down to the death of Suiko in 628, although it tails off well before that period. Written in a difficult hybrid style that retains a great deal of native Japanese beneath the cloak of a script borrowed from China, it traces the genealogy of the ruling family back to the very beginnings of the world. It does so largely in mythical style, telling its tale through vignettes and poems, mixed with the usual lists of names. Concerned mainly with domestic affairs, it hardly mentions China or Korea, organises itself not by date but by the name of sovereign and length of reign, and ignores the introduction of Buddhism completely. The suggestion that it was largely a product of the Jingikan is entirely plausible. When discussing Kojiki, however, one must never forget one uncomfortable fact: very soon after its compilation, perhaps within a space of ten years, to all intents and purposes it disappeared and was not read or studied again until the rise of philology in the eighteenth century. This means that although it can tell us a great deal about the ideology and intentions of the early state, when discussing the application and growth of such an ideology post-720 it must always cede precedence to Nihon shoki. Nihon shoki is quite different. Written in classical Chinese, this is much more recognisably historiography, with careful dating. In the later sections it reads veiy much like a diplomatic history, with constant cross references to Korean sources and other variant accounts. The use of the term 'Nihon' H could be seen as a willingness to objectify Japan in Chinese terms, although it could also be seen as justification for treating Japan as coeval with the origin of the sun. The historical account is brought down to the abdication of Jito in 697 and the sections that cover the last seventy years are seen to be increasingly reliable, if just as subject to political imperatives. The earlier sections cover similar mythical material to Kojiki but there is a much more 18 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 2 Creating a dynasty 49 critical mind at work here, since many different and often contradictory versions of events are included. This has two effects: it imbues the text with a self-awareness that constantly reminds one of the slipperiness of historical 'fact'; and it also provides us with a large collection of what we might call allomyths, against which one can read the account as presented in Kojiki.. It gives us an opportunity to study mythmaking as a dynamic process. The use of either of these texts is fraught with difficulties at every turn. As we have seen, it remains a possibility that a written version of anything, including myth, produced in the early eighth century has been influenced by three hundred years of exposure not only to Buddhism but also to Chinese thought and institutions in general. This is clear from even a cursory glance at the preface to Kojiki, which is full of classical Chinese references. Nevertheless we cannot simply reject these narratives as being too difficult to use just because of the tangled web they weave. Careful analysis can give us brief glimpses of a Japanese vision of the world that predates the introduction of Buddhism. Whether it can give us a glimpse of aboriginal beliefs prior to the advent of Chinese influence is an entirely different matter. Rocher, introducing a trenchant and wide-ranging treatment of most of the early myths, writes of the problems created by this text as follows: Two approaches stand out. Either the stories are denied coherence, broken up into a mosaic of motifs, each one attributed to a different origin as if myth can only make sense as etymology; or their systematic nature is recognised, only for it to be situated outside the.realm of myth: in other words, the intelligibility of the texts becomes one of politics. Implicitly all scholars appear to assume that the mythological dimension of the chronicles belongs to a past long gone, in which case analysis is condemned to take on the guise of archaeology. One ends up repeating that Kojiki and Nihon shoki are the result of a long process of compilation; that the stories they contain were reworked, pruned, and put to the service of an imperial ideology; and that the original voice is lost to \is, having passed through, three stages of disenchantment: religious, ritual and ideological. In short, we are invited to believe that there is a conflict between what is political and what is mythological, as if myth could only blossom in the purest of pure spontaneity (Rocher 1997: 4). For our purposes the most important sections of the chronicles are those that cover the 'Age of the gods' (jindai no maid iff ft #): Book One of Kojiki, and Books One and Two of Nihon shoki. The Kojiki narrative begins by recording the names of three deities (Amenominakanushi, Takamimusubi and Karriimusubi) who came into existence in the Plain of High Heaven (Takamanohara ift^M) when Heaven and Earth began ;^ffiíí/|t;Ž.B#, but these are single deities, ungendered and originating nothing; they simply exist. Four more single deities then emerge, to be followed by deities in pairs. Among these are the male-female pair Izanagi and Izanami: Together, as brother and sister, they create the land (of Japan) by stirring a spear in the sea, the brine dripping from the end of the spear coagulating to form an island called Onogoro. Descending to the island, they discover their sexual difference and, circumambulating a pillar, conjoin to produce offspring. The first result is a mere leech, which they cast adrift on the water. After discussion as to why the ritual has failed, they decide it was because the female spoke first. Repetition of the ritual with the male speaking first brings success. They give birth to all the islands of the Japanese archipelago, followed by thirty-five more deities, each one representing a natural phenomenon. This apparently limitless process of procreation is brought to a sudden stop when Izanami dies giving birth to the fire deity, which burns her genitals. Enraged, Izanagi buries her and kills the offending child. Many more named deities emerge from the bloody corpse. In deep distress, Izanagi tries to follow his sister into the underworld, Yominokuni, asking her to return. In his impatience, he breaks a taboo and produces light, only to reveal her decomposing body full of maggots 'squirming and roaring'. Chased by hags, he flees using a combination of grapes and peaches as decoys. When Izanami herself comes after him, he blocks the way with a large boulder and makes his escape. They agree to part for ever, Izanami vowing to kill a number of children every day, and Izanagi vowing to replace them every day. Returning to this world, he purifies himself by washing and in the process produces a stream of further deities, among whom are the Sun Goddess Amaterasu ('she who lights the heavens'), who comes from his left eye, and two males, Tsukiyomi ('he who understands the moon'?), who comes from his right eye, and Susano-o ('the raging male'), who comes from his nose. Nihon shoki contains a large number of variants at this point. It uses the same metaphor of a reed-shoot emerging from a marsh, for example, but calls the first deity Kunitokotachi ('earth standing eternal') in one version and Umashiashikabi-hikoji ('male spirit of the excellent reed shoots') in another. If, contra Rocher, one does believe that unadulterated myth can at least be approached, this is the closest we will ever get to it. One might define it as that which provides narrative explanations for the greatest conimdrums of existence: why the sun and moon; why death; how does life begin; what is our place in the order of things? So what are we to read from such a narrative as this? The lack of a creator is marked and there is no attempt to identify an absolute origin. The universe begins with the spontaneous generation of solid out of liquid, and the language is full of vegetable metaphors. The impression 50 ; The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 2 Creating a dynasty 51 of these opening sections is of untrammelled fecundity, of natural growth, of consumption and defecation, and finally of sexual reproduction; but rampant : generation must be somehow controlled if the world is to be anything but chaos, hence the emergence of death: Izanami gives birth to something so dangerous that it kills her. Even this is not enough, because her corpse gives violent birth to a million maggots. This nightmare of uncontrolled fertility is only ended with the discovery that death must be a final parting and that the dead must be barred from re-entry into life. Within this discovery the proper cycle of birth and death is proclaimed. And is the circumambulation of the pillar a wedding rite? Naumann rejects this out of hand: What we have here is the corrupted tale of a brother-sister pair who, either as the first pair at the beginning of the world or the only survivors from the flood, are driven to incest if life is to continue. Wandering the world - clearly discernible even in the first version with the island of Onogoro as the pillar at the centre of the earth - makes it clear to them that they are the only living beings in existence. Their meeting for a second time is a sign from heaven that their marriage is the will of heaven. Still, of course, it is necessary that the first product of such a liaison turns out badly. This motif is twisted in this slightly corrupted Japanese myth: the first failure is attributed to the fact that Izanami spoke first when they met, since it was not seemly for a woman to speak first. The deeper moral expressed here, namely the condemnation of incest, is suppressed. This was unavoidable in a land where marriage between close relatives (even half-siblings) was seen as entirely natural and was frequently practiced by the highest levels of the-nobility from the monarchy down (Naumann 1988: 63-64). Nothing like this kind of narrative has been found in sources from the continent, so it probably betrays the existence of an earlier stratum of myth, unconnected to either Chinese or Buddhism. Some have suggested that astrology might be the key to unlocking some of the more puzzling aspects. Note how, like all such texts, it manages successfully to hide from the reader the truth of its genesis: the narrative is often sustained not by logic but by a simple procession of names, names of deities that turn out to be descriptive labels of their roles and their natures. This: act of naming is, of course, an intensely human activity, but what is being described is the emergence of the world prior to the emergence of man. It is important for its impact as a statement of fact and truth that this human agency be hidden from view. Here we find one of the greatest differences between Kojiki and Nihon shoki: the compilers of the latter were happy to foreground the act of composition and problematise the writing of history to a quite remarkable extent. There is another kind of myth, but perhaps differing only in degree. It is marked by political intent; it explains things of a slightly lesser order than the first: why the status quo, for example? Not eternal truths as such, but political realities presented as eternal truths. And it is this kind of myth/history that emerges at the second stage. It is no accident that it is at this point that the main deities begin to assume quasi-human characteristics. Izanagi gives his daughter Amaterasu some jewels (the word is tama, which also signifies a 'psyche') and tells her she will rule Takamanohara. To Tsukiyomi he gives the night; and to Susano-o he gives the sea. The moon is never mentioned in the narrative again, but Susano-o certainly is; he becomes a central figure in what follows. Refusing to accept the fact of his mother's death, he confines to mourn her. 'He wept and howled until his beard eight hands long extended over his chest. His weeping was such that it caused the verdant mountains to wither and all the rivers and seas to dry up. At this, the cries of malevolent deities were everywhere abundant like summer flies; and all sorts of calamities arose in all things' (Philippi 1968: 72). This behaviour threatens to destroy the whole world. Banished by Izanagi, he goes to Takamanohara to take his leave of Amaterasu, but she mistrusts his intentions and thinks he has come to threaten her too. To prove his good intent, he challenges her to a duel that involves bearing children. She uses his sword and produces females; he uses her tama jewels and produces males. Claiming victory for no particular reason, he breaks into an orgy of destruction, ruining the paddy fields, and defecating in the sacred hall where the Harvest Festival was held. These wilful acts of pollution are followed by further violence culminating in a scene where he throws the hide of a piebald colt that has been flayed backwards into the sacred weaving hall. This leads to the death of one of the women weaving there (although the Nihon shoki version has his sister being injured in this act of desecration). Terrified, Amaterasu hides herself in a cave, plunging the universe into darkness. The other deities perform an elaborate ritual involving a mirror, magatama jewels/ scapulamancy, and a lewd dance, eventually luring her forth by feigning gaity and blocking her passage back into the cave. Susano-o is subjected to purification and sent away to Izumo, where he founds a dynasty of rulers. Interpolated at this juncture is the Izumo myth cycle, which happens to contain the majority of the most memorable vignettes and folktales. As soon as we enter the cycle, for example, we find that Susano-o has become completely transformed. Although he eventually ends up in charge of the underworld, he is feted as the bringer of agriculture and the founder of a dynasty that ruled over Izumo. He is credited with having created the first Japanese waka poem, with all that meant in terms of cultural prestige, and the story of him killing a snake and finding a sword in its tale has echoes of the 52. . The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 2 Creating a dynasty 53 discovery of metallurgy.3 The accounts in Nihon shoki and the gazetteer Izumo fudoki hjff ®±I3 of 733 take this aspect much further and make it clear that he was seen as being responsible for having brought this culture across the sea from the Korean peninsula (Grayson 2002: 465-87). The cycle continues with the grand exploits of Susano-o's descendant in the sixth generation, Okuninushi. We return to Takamanohara in Kojiki, Chapter 32. Amaterasu decides that the sovereignty of Japan should lie with one of her offspring but it turns out that the land is now in uproar and quite ungovernable; a number of her sons fail to pacify the land and it is only after much diplomacy that Okuninushi and his sons are prevailed upon to surrender their land to the deities of heaven, in return for which a shrine is raised in their honour. This part of the narrative, known as the kuniyuzuri BK, was to become a central element in the continuing attempts to justify the sovereign's hegemonic rule over the whole land. Amaterasu's grandson Ninigi then descends from heaven to a mountaintop in Kyushu to claim his inheritance. Some generations later his descendants move east and conquer the central region of Yamato, where they settle. Izumo then reappears and is eventually incorporated under Yamato sovereignty after its major deity, the Great Deity of Miwa jzffi~fW, from Sk. šramaná), although permission for this had to be obtained. At this point a permit was issued and the novice was '•• See also the translations in Saosom 1934: 127-34 and Piggott 1987: 267-73. expected to observe the ten basic precepts. After some years of discipline, the novice could apply for full ordination and receive all 250 precepts, an act known as jukai S JrS . It should be stressed, however, that this was prescriptive and not descriptive of actual practice. Nor did it necessarily pertain to the increasing number of non-official institutions that could accept members in any number of ways. The situation as far as women is concerned is not so clear, particularly before the setting up of state-sponsored nunneries in 741 under Shomu Tenno, whom we shall discuss in due course. Some of the earliest 'servants of the Buddha' were women and it will be recalled that the census taken in 624 had revealed 816 men and 569 women. Women who had served at court tended to enter nunneries on retirement and there were a number of such institutions built, usually connected to a temple. At first sight, this early ratio would seem to be in sharp contrast to the situation in the Heian period when nunneries all but died out, but this is misleading since the category of 'nun' was a flexible one (see §15.1). Details of the lives and work of the officially recognised members of the sahgha, details that might bring them alive for us, are hard to come by for tins early period. Appointments to the chief state offices are usually recorded in Nihon shoki and Shoku Nihongi and one also comes across occasional mention of one or two members being returned to lay life because their expertise was needed by the court. In general, however, it is rare to find any extended descriptions. One unusual exception is the following death notice for the venerable Dosho JIBS for 700.3.10. The venerable Dosho died. The Sovereign was greatly distressed and sent messengers to convey his condolences. Dosho was from Tajihi in Kochi. His family name was Fune no Muraji; his father was Esaka of twelfth rank. Hemaintained the precepts to the Ml and set great store by the virtue of endurance. Once, a student decided to put him to the test and secretly made a hole in bis chamber pot so that when he used it, it leaked out and wet the bedding. But Dosho just smiled. 'Naughty boy. Messing up my bed': that was all he said. Initially, in the 4th year of Hakuchi (653) during the reign of Kotoku Tenno, he went to China as part of an embassy. There he happened to meet Xuanzang, who became his mentor. Xuanzang loved him dearly and had him stay in his quarters. 'In the past', he said, 'when I travelled to the Western Regions, I was starving on the road and could find no village where I might beg for food. Suddenly a monk appeared. He had in his hand a pear, which he gave me to eat. After I had eaten it, my strength returned day by day. You are another such with a pear in his hand.' And he added, 'The sutras and treatises are deep and mysterious; they are unfathomable. Better to learn how to meditate and pass on that knowledge to the East.' Dosh5 received instruction and began to learn to meditate. He gradually became adept at achieving enlightenment and then he returned to Japan with another embassy. 60: : The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 3 Buddhism and the early state 61 At their parting Xuanzang brought him all the relics and sutras and treatises in his possession and offered them to Dosho saying, 'You will be able to broaden the path. Now use these works to pass on the teachings to others.' And he gave him a bowl and said, 'This bowl I brought back with me from, the West. When you use it to boil up medicines, it always works miracles.' Dosho thanked him and they parted in tears. .When they reached Dengzhou many of the party fell ill. Dosho brought out the bowl, heated up water, cooked gruel, and gave it to all who were suffering. They were cured that very day. So they loosened the ropes and left with a fair wind. On reaching open sea, however, the ship became becalmed and did not move for seven days and seven nights. Everyone was frightened and said, 'If the wind had been favourable we would already be home, but the ship does not dare move forward; there must be some reason.' Then a diviner spoke up and said, 'The Dragon King wants the bowl.* Dosho, hearing this, replied, 'But this bowl was a gift from the Tripitaka [i.e. Xuanzang], Why does the Dragon King desire it?' But everyone else argued that unless they gave up the bowl, they would all become food for the fishes. And so he took the bowl and cast it into the sea. Immediately the ship began to move forward and they returned safely to Japan. Dosho built a separate meditation hall in the south-east corner of Gangoji and lived there. And all the monks in Japan who were intent on practising came and studied meditation under him. Later, he travelled the land, digging wells by the roadsides and building ferries and bridges at every river crossing. The Uji bridge in Yamashiro is his work. He travelled thus for ten years or more. Then came a decree and he returned to live in the meditation hall, meditating as before. Sometimes he would rise only once in three days; sometimes only once in seven days. Then one day an attractive scent came from his cell. His students were frightened and went to see what had happened. He was sitting there on a rope mat, not breathing. At the time he was 72 years of age. His students did as he had requested and cremated him at Awahara. This was the beginning of cremation in Japan. It is said that after the cremation his relatives and his students started arguing over who was to have the bones, when suddenly a whirlwind sprang up and blew away his bones and ashes no one knew where. And people marvelled. Later still, when the capital was moved to Nara, his younger brothers and his students petitioned to have the meditation hall rebuilt in the new capital. This is the one now in Ukyd in Nara. It contains many sutras and treatises. The writing is clear and there are no mistakes. They are all texts that Dosho brought back with him (Aoki etal. 1989-98, vol. I: 23-27).2 . Although the ideal was that the special status afforded members of the sahgha was a direct result of strenuous ascetic practice and learning, in reality they were treated as little more than state employees doing a job of work. There were, of course, many men and women who did not fit into this mould, but these were at best tolerated by the court, regarded with suspicion, and 2. It is doubtful whether this was the first cremation in Japan, although it certainly became accepted practice at about this time. Jito was the first sovereign to be cremated, on 703.12.17. treated as a social problem. Life must have been difficult for the more independent-minded man or woman who took self-cultivation seriously and who wished to live out the Mahäyäna bodhisattva ideal of a life spent in the service of others. A man like Gyôki ÍtS (668-749), for example, perhaps the best known of these independent spirits, who simply refused to live in a community and preferred to spread the Buddhist message on foot as medicine man, ascetic and popular preacher, was seen more as a threat to public order than as an ideal to be followed (Piggott 1997: 223). He gathered around himself a large number of female followers, which must have also been frowned upon. Self-initiation (shido fkS) was naturally discouraged, but it too proved difficult to control and a few charismatics did manage to live outside the system and still receive recognition. One might have supposed that it would have been in the interests of good government to have severely restricted entry into the profession via strict control over ordination. Since being a member brought with it freedom from taxes and other advantages, there was always a danger that large numbers of men and women might wish to take up the option. Ordination was certainly a matter of great concern for state and saňgha, but sometimes things worked in the opposite direction. At times of crisis, when a ruler fell grievously ill for example, immediate recourse was had to mass initiation (if not full ordination), which was clearly seen as a form of symbolic human sacrifice: men and women were thus dragooned into religious service. It is unclear whether this was an actual expansion in numbers or merely an occasion to give self-appointed, unofficial members official recognition, but it was a natural response for a court that thought in terms of presenting 'offerings' to placate a wrathful deity. The following entries from Nikon shoki are instructive in this regard, since they show both profligacy and restraint in equal measure: 680.11.12. The first Consort fell ill. Having made a vow on her behalf, [the Sovereign] began the buildingtif the Yakushiji and had 100 men renounce lay life. As a result, she regained her health. 680.11.26. The Heavenly Sovereign fell ill, so 100 men were ordered to renounce lay life. After some time, he recovered. 685.9.24. The Heavenly Sovereign fell ill and so for three days sutras were read at Daikan Daiji, Kawaradera and Asukadera. Accordingly rice was donated to the three temples, the amounts varying. 685.10. This month there were readings of the Diamond sutra in the Palace. 686.5.24. The Heavenly Sovereign had a fever, so there were readings of the Baisajyagururajasutra at Kawaradera. 686.6.16. Prince Ise and number of officials were sent to Asukadera to command the priests: 'Of late Our body has been ill at ease. We hope that some relief may be 62 . The arrival ofBuddhism and its effects obtained through the awesome power of the Three Jewels. Let the Prefect, Administrator, and Preceptor offer up prayers.* 686.8.1. On behalf of the Sovereign eighty men were made to renounce lay life. 686.8.2. 100 men and women were made to renounce lay life. 100 images were installed in the Palace and the 200 fascicles of the Kanzeon kyo read out. 694.8.17. 104 men were made to renounce lay life for the sake of Princess Asuka. 696.12.1. There was an order that ten men per year should become priests on the last day of the twelfth month to perform readings of the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom. [This entry is usually thought to mark the beginnings of the nenbun dosha ^fiffM or 'yearly ordfnand' system, which came into effective operation at a much later date.] Scattered here and there in the chronicles are signs of a constant concern that the distinction between an officially sanctioned member of the sahgha and a self-appointed healer of body and mind was not clear enough. In 717, for example, we find the following entry: Item: We establish offices and entrust matters to the able so that they can teach and lead the people. We create laws and set up regulations so as to prohibit dishonest practices. Recently there are those who have ignored the regulations, who have done as they please, cut their hair and beards, and simply donned the clothing of a member of the sangha. They look like proper members but they harbour evil intent. This gives rise to deception and mischief. Item: Members of the sangha should live quietly in temples, study the teachings and pass on their learning. The regulations state that if a man wishes to beg, the Three Deans' must sign the petition. Begging is only allowed before noon; and it is not permitted to ask for anything other than food. Now there is a man called Gyoki, whose followers gather together on the streets, preach wildly of what is good and evil, who organize bands, and burn their fingers and elbows, who teach beyond the temple gates, who beg for things other than food, who fake enlightenment and who mislead the people. Morals are in chaos and the four classes neglect their work. They both mistake the Buddha's teachings and break the laws. Item: Members of the sahgha are permitted according to the Dharma to save people by sacred spells and to cure illness with medicines. But now we hear they go into people's homes, falsely call up dark magic, use shamanistic arts, wrongly divine good and bad fortune, strike fear into the hearts of young and old alike, and do as they wish. There is no distinction between sacred and profane and this gives rise to disaffection. Henceforth, if anyone is ill and desires to be cured, be should request the services of a man of purity, inform the sangha authorities, obtain the signature of the Three Deans, and ask for his services for a fixed period. This period is not to be exceeded. It is because the authorities have been lax that things have reached such a pass. Henceforth this must cease. Post this at all towns and villages and make sure that the law is upheld (Aoki et al. 1989-98, vol. II: 27-29). In the tenth month of the next year, 718, the Daijokan sent an order to the Sahgha Office, which read: 3 Buddhism and the early state 63 All those whose intelligence is outstanding, who are promoted by their peers and who are masters of the Dharma should manifest the highest merit. And those who never tire of learning and who are always at their master's heels, those who are worthy of having students themselves, should all have their names and their experience recorded and passed on to the authorities. The learning of the five traditions E w. and the teachings of the three baskets are full of debates and disputation. Only a man who is fully conversant with the principles of his tradition should be made a master. Every such person in each tradition should be recorded. Next come meritorious roots, character, and whether or not they take their practice seriously. They should be encouraged to study what fits their character. Priests are not to indulge themselves in pleasurable pursuits. They should lecture on the principles of their tradition, study the teachings of other traditions, chant surras and practise meditation. Each one is to specialize in a subject. Intelligence and merit should be recognized and their practice and abilities recorded. Soapstone and jade, each has its own lustre. The music of Yu and Zheng do not share the same tunes. The waves of pure water created by a teacher of great merit purify the heart of the Dharma; the brightness of the lamp of a teacher of great intelligence reaches into the court. And moreover, the Buddha himself warned against members of the sangha who slander the Dharma and destroy the teachings. For a man to mistake the path and denigrate the laws of the Sovereign is expressly forbidden in the regulations. The Sangha Office should be vigilant and make correct decisions. Those men who do not live in temples, who turn away from right practice, who follow their own desires and enter the mountains, building huts or caves, sully the purity of mountains and rivers and spoil the natural beauty of the mists. In the sutras, it is said: "Those who beg every day and clog the markets and the towns may feel that they are pursuing enlightenment, but in fact they take it to excess.' Such types are to be discouraged (Aoki et al. 1989-98, vol. II: 47-^19). Two years later this was followed by a rather unusual incident when 320 men were confirmed as having entered religion, only for the majority to be pronounced fakes five months later; all but 15 had their permission withdrawn. The problem of legitimacy was to remain central to state-sangha relations for the whole of Japanese history. And what of the temples themselves? Buddhism had begun in Japan as an elite but essentially private affair, and it took a little while before the ruling family realised that it was a resource that had to be harnessed more closely. This was done not by trying to control the spread of temples built by noble families, but rather by joining in and creating a number of state temples founded and sponsored directly by the sovereign. This did, of course, place a considerable burden on state coffers; so much so, in fact, that in 680 we already find a decree to the effect that: Henceforth all temples, with the exception of two of three state Great Temples, will cease to be administered through the state office, although those temples that hold sustenance-fiefs will be allowed to retain them for a period of thirty years, but no 64; The arrival ofBuddhism and its effects 3 Buddhism and the early state 65 longer. Asukadera should not really be administered by the state, but it was originally one of the Great Temples and has always been under state administration. It has also been of great service in the past. For these reasons, it should remain under state control (Sakamoto et al. 1967, vol. II: 440; Aston 1972, vol. II: 346). But the evidence is contradictory. The Heian period history Fuso ryakki ifeSi Eg-IB states that during Jito's reign some 545 temples were receiving some form of royal patronage, but in 720 there were only four officially designated state temples, known as daiji j\ #, where most rituals and readings for protection of the state took place - Daikan daiji Jz If # (home of the Sahgha Office), Gufhkuji SkWi^f (formerly Kawaradera), Yalmshiji MM# and Gangoji 7CM^ (Piggott 1997: 154). Great effort and much funding was also put into the collection and copying of surras. In 673.3 scribes were put to work at Kawaradera to start a process of copying texts, and in 675.10 messengers were sent in all directions to look for material. It may have been to celebrate the completion of this effort that a large vegetarian feast was held at Asukadera in 677.8, on which occasion 'princes of the blood, other princes, and ministers were each ordered to provide one person to renounce the world, without distinction of age or sex' (Sakamoto et al. 1967, vol. II: 428; Aston 1972, vol. II: 337). 3.2 Sutras to protect the state One of the most important tasks that priests in the officially state-sponsored temples had to perform was the reading of certain surras that were known to have state-protecting powers, a ritual learned from China and Korea. Sutras at this early stage in Japan had two main uses. Reading and studying them naturally formed a major part of the education of a monk or priest, although it is impossible to gauge how many could read enough classical Chinese to really understand them and how many simply learned the contents and teachings by word of mouth. Their main mode, however, was as ritual objects to be copied, revered and recited. Recitation in the correct ritual circumstances would ensure that the promises contained in the surra Would come to pass. It is worth remembering that the Japanese never felt the need to translate sutras from the Chinese; the fact that they remained in a foreign language (albeit available to an increasing number of Japanese scholars) helped the ritual process, keeping them and their contents at one remove and so enhancing their magic potential. The following entries in Nihon shoki are typical: 676.11.20. Messengers were sent out to all parts of the country to set up readings of the Stitra of golden radiant wisdom and Sutra for humane kings. 685.3.27. There was an order: 'In all provinces and in each house if ic a "dwelling for the Buddha" #f!# is to be built to accommodate an image of the Buddha and surras. This is for worship and offerings.' [This entry is problematic. The term may refer to fully fledged temples, or it may simply refer to rooms in the mansions of local magnates.] 692. (intercalary) 5.3. An order went out that the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom be read in the capital and the four home provinces [to stop floods]. 693.10.23. From this day the Sutra for humane kings was read in all provinces. The reading lasted for four days. 694.5.11. One. hundred copies of the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom were distributed to the provinces to be read without fail in the moon's first quarter of the first month every year. The cost was to be borne by each provincial office. So what was it about these sutras that gave them such power, beyond being recognised as the word of the Buddha? It is perhaps worth mvestigating fheir contents. The sutra most often used in this context was the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom (Jp. Konkdmyd kyo Ik^WM.)? It is not known when it was originally composed, but it was first translated into Chinese by Dharmaksema (385^33) sometime after his arrival in China in 414. The earliest surviving Sanskrit manuscript has been dated to the middle of the fifth century and so postdates the first Chinese version. There are also versions in a number of Central Asian languages and it was considered particularly important in the city state of Khotan on the southern fringes of the Taklamakan Desert in what is now Chinese Turkestan. The sixth-century translators Paramartha and Jnanagupta did further work on the first version, but the results are not extant. Yijing's if (635-713) translation, with the slightly different title Konkdmyd saishoo-kyo ,4.which was to become standard, was produced sometime in the early 700s and brought to Japan by Doji MM in 718, so the only version available in Japan in this early period was the first one. It opens with a passage of self-praise and, as with so many Mahayana sutras, proceeds to develop not a narrative but rather a reiteration of the importance of constant performance and defence of itself, offering a litany of its own value to all who are in distress, v [This king of sutras] has been blessed by the Buddhas in the four directions, by Aksobhyaraja in the east, in the south by Ratnaketu, in the west by Amitabha, in the north by Dundubhisvara. I will proclaim this blessing, this excellent, auspicious confession, whose aim is the rain of all evils, producing the destruction of all evils, 3 Sk. Suvarnabkasottamasutra\ Ch. Jingguangmingjing, T. 663. 4 Sk. Suvarnaprabhasottamasutra; Ch. Jingguangming zuishengwangjing, T, 665. 66 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects conferring every blessing; mining ; every misfortune, the. basis of omniscience, thoroughly adorned with every splendour. For those beings whose senses are defective, whose life is expended or failing, beset by misfortune, their faces averted from the gods, hated by dear, beloved people, oppressed in such places as households, or at variance with one another, tormented by the destruction of their property, both in grief and trouble, and in poverty, likewise in the plight of fear, in the affliction of planet or asterism, in the violent grip of demons, one who sees an evil dream full of grief and trouble should listen to this excellent sutra, when he has bathed well and is pure. For those who hear this sutra, the profound Buddha-region, with pure minds and good intentions, adorned with clean garments, and for all beings, such most severe misfortunes are forever extinguished by the splendour of this sutra (Emmerick 1970: 1-2).. . . In the second chapter the scene is set with a bodhisattva called Ruciraketu asking himself why the Buddha's last life was so short. He is then visited by the whole assembly of gods, bodhisattvas and buddhas, his house and then the whole city being transformed into a pure Buddha field. The message he receives is that the life of the Tathagatha is actually without limit, eternal. The whole assembly proclaims verses to this effect. Then a brahmin asks for a relic of the Lord. This is refused with the explanation that there can be no relics since the Buddha's life is eternal and irrfinite. The scene ends and the assembly disappears. We then enter the heart of the sutra. Ruciraketu sleeps and dreams he hears the words of a confession. He then goes to the Buddha and recites tiiese words at length. They form a kind of prayer that all men might be saved through the power of a bodhisattva's vow, a vow that takes the form of a confession of all past evils. This confession is what releases the bodhisattva's power to help all living beings, it is the sutra: T will expound this confession, the splendid, excellent Suvarnabhasa, by which is quickly obtained the destruction of acts and hindrances' (Emmerick 1970: 11). The implication is that whoever worships and praises the Buddhas by means of this kind of confession will succeed in achieving perfect enlightenment. We then have a prayer, a short explanation of the concept of emptiness, or sunyatd, and a long succession of proclamations by various kings and gods to the effect that they will protect all those who pay homage to the sutra. Of particular importance is the statement by the four great kings, Vaisravana, Dhrtarastra, Virudhaka and Viriipaksa in Chapter 6, where they pledge to protect all those states where this sutra is correctly honoured. These were the four kings in whose honour Prince Shdtoku had created one of the first Japanese temples in the 590s at Naniwa, Shiten'oji HSOi^. The rest of the sutra repeats its own excellence; and in Chapter 12 we read: 3 Buddhism and the early state 67 When a king overlooks an evil deed in his region and does not inflict appropriate punishment on the evil person, in the neglect of evil deeds lawlessness grows greatly, wicked acts and quarrels arise in great number in the realm. The chief gods are wrathful in the dwellings of the Thirty-three when a king overlooks an evil deed in his region. His region is smitten with dreadful, most terrible acts of wickedness and his realm is destroyed on the arrival of a foreign army (Emmerick 1970: 59). The passage then goes on to warn, somewhat in the manner of Mencius, that if a king stops acting like a king, he forfeits the right be called a king and may be overthrown. Chapter 14 'On the refuge of the yaksas' explains how those who hear this sütra will be saved from all sorts of afflictions, and that wherever it is heard and worshipped will come under the protection of all the gods of heaven. This surra, then, is not a narrative or a theoretical discourse, but rather an extended proclamation of its own efficacy. The Sütra for humane kings (Jp. Ninnö kyö t£l)5 does not exist in Sanskrit and was probably created in China in the late fifth century. There are two versions: a 'translation' attributed to Kumärajiva (T. 245) and a later 'revision' by the Tang tantric master Amoghavajra (T. 246), produced in 765-66. The first version was used in public ritual during the Sui dynasty and again in the early Tang. The first mention of its formal use in a ceremony in Japan is in the fifth month of 660 under Saimei Tennö and from then on one finds it often: mentioned in the context of rituals in times of crisis. Ritual 'congregations' known as Ninnö-e C 3E presumably run according to the instructions given in the eighth chapter of the sütra itself, were called for to guard against pestilence or flood. This role in state ritual stemmed directly from the text itself. The Sütra for humane kings is dedicated to the idea that the path by which the bodhisattva accomplishes enlightenment is equivalent to the path by which the king of a state achieves power, a link that was always implicit in Mahäyäna Buddhism although not always expressed so boldly. The Buddha first of all presents the bodhisattva path and then moves on to explain how a king can protect his people and his state in degenerate times. Despite tbc fact that this sütra contained non-standard terminology for the stages of the path, introduced the concept of three rather than two truths (something that was borrowed and refined by the founder ofl'iantui Buddhism, Zliiyi). and had an idiosyncratic dating for the onset of the Latter Days of the Dharma, in the end it was the message of the second part that led to its popularity as a staple of state ritual. The answer to the question of how the king should best protect 5 Ch. Renwang jing. For a full study see Orzech 1998. 68 The arrival of. Buddhism and its effects 3 Buddhism.and the early state 69 his state lay, as one might expect, with the scripture itself: the text itself, properly treated and honoured, would provide magical protection for rulers and their states in the face of all manner of calamities. Produced at a time of crisis for Buddhism in China (calamity, for example, is defined as an increase in unfilial behaviour and irreverence shown to teachers and elders), the sutra creates a bond between king and sahgha. By claiming to be the key to survival, it in turn ensures its own survival. Survival of the state in a time that is clearly identified as being in the 'Latter Days of the Buddhist Dharma' depended on the willingness of the ruler to support Buddhism, the most obvious sign of which would be the honouring of this particular text. 3.3 The Medicine King and the Pensive Prince The average person at court did not, of course, read or study sutras and left recitation to the professionals. The spiritual potential of Buddhism for most people lay in the visual impact made by images, and above all by the remarkable sculpture that was produced during this period. It was to these images that offerings were made and it was in front of them that one was made to feel the magical properties that might bring health and fortune. A sense of the sheer variety can be gained by looking at just two, very different examples. Both of them also illustrate how closely the iconography ties Japan in with the rest of Asia, in particular Central Asia, at this early stage. It is a mark of the degree to which buddhas themselves were seen as cult images, who would repay attention offered in the form of ritual by bringing wordly benefits of good health and prosperity, that one of the earliest and oft-carved images was that of Yakushi M.M (Sk. Bhaisajyagururaja), the Medicine King. This was a fully fledged Buddha whose origins lay more in Central Asia than in India. He can be found standing but is more usually sitting cross-legged in the lotus position (padmdsana) with the soles of his feet facing upwards, his right hand raised in the abhayamudra sign of fearlessness, and his left hand lying open above the: knee with fingers pointing towards the supplicant. In the palm of this hand is a small round medicine jar, although this has often been lost. The most spectacular example of a Yakushi image can still be found in the temple of the same name, Yakushiji 3tf|5# [plate 8]. In 680 Temnu's consort contracted an eye ailment and the sovereign ordered the construction of a temple. What then happened is unclear, because it is some time before we fmd any further mention of a Yakushiji in the records; it is not referred to Plate 8 Bhaisajyagururaja, the central image from Yakushiji. Early eighth century. 70: The arrival of Buddhism and its effects when Tenmu himself fell ill six years later, for example. The next reference comes m 688, when Jito held a ceremony there. By the end of the century, however,: Yakushiji had become one of the big three temples in Fujiwara-kyo, ranking in importance with the officially supported Daiariji and Asukadera. This site is now known as that of the 'former', or 'Hon-Yakushiji', because in about 718 the temple was moved to its present site in the western sector of Heijo-kyo (Nara). The Hon-Yakushiji was the first temple in Japan to have two pagodas, a feature that was carried on to the new site. Both were the equivalent of five storeys high, in this case with three main storeys separated from each other by. two' roofed 'porches'. Running, through, the centre was a core pole supporting the usual finial with nine rings topped by an intricately carved and justly famous bronze 'water-flame' (suien ^fcj&I). Research into the plans of temple compounds during this early period shows a startling lack of conformity, but the outlines of a progression are clear to see. All temples had a north-south orientation. In early examples the pagoda was at the very centre surrounded by halls; then it was placed immediately inside the gate with the halls aligned behind it on a north-south axis; then the decision was made to strike a balance between pagoda and main hall, aligning them on an easl west axis, sometimes with the pagoda.to the east, sometimes to west. Eventually,; as in the case of me Yakushiji, we have two pagodas. The final stage was to move the pagodas entirely outside the compound, as if they were simply meant to guard the southern approaches; This gradual displacement is highly instructive, because it represents a relegation to the margins of what one would normally expect to be the central element of a temple the pagoda qua stupa, the repository for a relic of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni. At the Yakushiji, the Main Hall with its image of Yakushi takes.centre stage and the pagodas ate pulled away to the two southern comers. There is much scholarly discussion as.to.how much was transported and how much built anew oh this occasion, and the argument chiefly: revolves around the Yakushi triad in the Main HalL Given the quality of the casting, it is probably early eighth century.. The. halo behind the: head of the central figure is of much later: provenance,, possibly, seventeenth century. Yakushi sits on a rectangular pedestal over which flows a heavy cloth that falls in rich folds: Behind the cloth the pedestal [plate 9] is decorated with a series of patterns among which is a grape-vine lining the top rim, unusual, for Japan, and there are exquisite renditions of the four Chinese tutelary deities of the four directions, the scarlet bird of the south, the azure dragon of the east, the white tiger of the west and the black tortoise entwined with a snake, that 3 Buddhism and the early state 71 represents the north. Each of these represents seven of the twenty-eight constellations. These are pre-Han mythological figures that can be found in stone carvings from the Northern Wei, on memorial tablets of the Tang, and inside Koguryo tombs. This kind of Chinese geomancy continued to exert considerable appeal in Japan for many centuries. The figures that appear just above these signs point us even further west. In the centre is what appears to be a fat three-toed naked demon, who is holding up a column of jewels. On either side sit squat pairs of aboriginals with curly hair who seem to be listening to the message of the Buddha from within a cave. No one has yet come up with a satisfactory explanation of what these figures are meant to represent, but there are precedents in China. Plate 9 The Yakushiji pedestal. 4 72 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects It has been suggested that they may represent the twelve yaksa generals who pledged to protect those who accept the teaching of the surra, but they do not give the impression of being particularly fierce or armed.* The 'caves' are formed by a band in two waves that are reminiscent of the looped garlands that can be found at the base of many Gandharan friezes and are similar to those found by Aurel Stein at MIran on the southern fringes of the Taklamakan Desert. This pedestal is stark proof of how close we are at this point to the art of Central Asia. A further link to this region far to the west of China proper lies in the figures of the two bodhisattvas who flank the central image, representing the sun, in the form of Nikko H it (Sk. Suryaprabha), and the moon, in the form of Gekko E ft (Sk. Candraprabha) [plates 10-11]. They are sanctioned by scripture, but by the same token suggest a Central Asian origin, perhaps Zoroastrian, that takes us back to Afghanistan. A glance at the Gandharan prototype with the same elaborate jewellery on the neck and arms, and the hair swept up and back in a high cockade, immediately reveals a lineage that goes back some 400 years [plate 12], They stand over three metres tall in a pose that suggests bom gentleness and firmness. The clothes on the lower half of their bodies area mixture of robes that cling closely to the outline of the legs with a much freer overlay of draped material that gives a feeling of lightness and accentuates hips that appear to sway. The. fact that the initial vector for the introduction of Buddhism was visual rather than textual did, of course, reduce the role of the written word. But it should not be forgotten that ultimate legitimation for the efficacy of the image lay in texts, in this case the Bhaisajyagururtijasutra (T. 449). The Buddhist Sanskrit version of this sutra was only discovered in Giigit in 1931, but it is generally considered to have been composed in the region of Kashmir in the second century BCR. The particular attributes of this Buddha - emitting strong light, accompanied by the sun and moon, and inhabiting a Pure Land that was decorated in lapis lazuli and gold - again: give, us reason to place his origins in what is now Afghanistan. He is. mentioned in fifteen Chinese texts, that-range from the third to the fifth century, but worship of him in China does not seem to predate the Sui Dynasty. Like most Mahayana surras, it begins with the description of a scene with Sakyamuni Buddha surrounded by an assembly, and then moves into a question-and-answer session, the purpose of which is to persuade. 6 The Rath Gyorgy Museum in Budapest has a similar demon made of grey earthernware, said to be from the Xiditig Pagoda in Henan Province and dating from the early Tang. 3 Buddhism and the early state 73 Plate 10 Nikko from Yakushiji. . Plate 11. Gekko from Yakushiji. Plate 12 . Bodhisattva from Gandhara. Second to third century CE. 74. The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 3 Buddhism and the early state. Säkyamuni lo proclaim on the particular merits that will be gained from the worship of. Bhaisajyägururäj a. What emerges is: not a story but a description of a Pure Land, a list of the vows that Bhäisajyagururäja took when he was a bodhisattva, and then an exhortation to worship both Buddha and text. If one has faith, if one copies the sütra,. 'accepts' it, presents offerings in its honour, and trusts implicitly in its beneficial effects, one will experience a myriad benefits. It makes no bones about the kind of worldly benefit available if one is prepared to accept the teaching as: medicine. The seventh vow, for example, is: ■■ If there are any sentient beings, who are ill and oppressed, who have nowhere to go and nothing to return, to, who have neither doctor nor medicine, neither relatives nor immediate family, who are destitute and whose sufferings are acute - as soon as my name passes through their ears, they will be cured of all their diseases and they will be peaceful and joyous in body and mind. They will have plentiful families and property, and they will personally experience the supreme enlightenment (Birnbaum 1979: 153-54). The image of Yakushi was: obviously designed to impart a sense of mysterious power over matters of life and death, illness and disease. Quite a different impression is given by the sculpture that is now known as the Pensive Prince, redolent of the inner calm that comes from meditation and detachment [plate 13]. Dated; to the seventh century and made of camphorwood that was originally gilded, this image is now held in the Chügüji the nunnery that was linked to Höryüji The figure is bare to the waist and has the hairstyle of a child, tied up in two buns. A full skirt flows over the legs and down to the base of the pedestal. Some art historians argue for a fairly early date (c.630) largely on the basis of the folds in the skirt, which are clearly in the style of the Shaka triad in the Höryüji [see plate 4]; others prefer to stress the quiet, features and the subtlety of the hands, which, together with the fact that the image is made not from a single piece of wood but from over twenty-four interlocking pieces (a technique known as yosegi zukuri), suggests ä much later date. It may well be, of course, that the more intimate, almost vulnerable, feel of this image has more to do with 'function than with date, but there is no escaping the great contrast it presents with most other sculptures from this period. It would, however, have looked different when it was first made, since there are marks that show it had a metal crown concealing the hair, necklaces and other ornaments attached. Buddhist images of this type, seated with the right leg resting on the left knee and the right arm touching the chin (the pose is known as hanka shiyui-zö, ^ lad JS, fi£ ft), are rare. Most date from the seventh and eighth Plate 13 The Chuguji Maitreya. 76 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects centuries, and only about thirty survive, the majority being small portable gilt bron/.es. It would not be unreasonable to identify this, figure, as that of the young: Šakyamuni the moment before his enlightenment, but it could equally be said to represent the Buddha of the future, Maitreya (Jp. Miroku M W)). Why is this? An explanation must be sought in Korea. Maitreya was the next Buddha in line after Šakyamuni and his cult was common throughout Central Asia and China. Some believed that one should strive to reach the Heaven of Contentment (Tusita), where he (and.others) were known to reside;, others believed that he would appear in this world at the appointed time. In Paekche, and later in. Silla, this cult, took a particular form... There emerged a belief that Maitreya was already present in this world as a member of a group of noble youths, known as hwarang 7£S|5. These hwarang later.became known for their martial prowess in the service of the king but at this stage; they seem to have been a religious order. There is a gilt-bronze image in the Toksu Palace Museum in Seoul which is of Maitreya in this form, although there remains some disagreement.as to its provenance: It is very similar to the Chuguji figure. Also related is another well-known statue carved from red pine and now held in Koryuji fir HE # in Kyoto. A reference dated 603 in Nihon shoki refers to a statue of Maitreya being sent to Prince Shotoku as^ a gift from the king of Paekche. Shotoku passed.it on to Hata no Kawakalsu >i-;P<ÍW?.. who built the Hachiokadera to accommodate it. An entry for 623 refers to another such gift sent from Silla in memory of Shotoku. It is possible that the Háchiokadera was later renamed Koryuji, but this is by no means certain. It has been argued that the Chúguji image was probably produced and dedicated between the death of Sh5toku in 621 and the end of Tenji's reign in 673. Certainly, Shotoku became identified with Maitreya and many of the temples associated with his name are known to háve contained images of this Buddha of the future: (Lancaster 1.988: 135-53; Guth 1988: 191-213): V 4 Monuments at Nara 4.1 Kofukuji It was in fact the female sovereign Gensho Tenno who oversaw the move of the capital from Asuka to Heijo-kyo (Nara) that started in 710. The scale of the enterprise was such that it took twelve years before the main palace buildings were completed. Officially sponsored state temples such as Daianji and Yakushiji were dismantled' and transported north, as were a number of privately funded temples, the most important of which was the family temple (ujidera of the Fujiwara HHR, construction of which began around 715. The Fujiwara family had been founded by Tenji Tenno, who gave Nakatomi no Kamatari MfiL (614-69) the separate name Fujiwara in recognition of his support. The ujidera had started life in 669 as a small temple in Yamashina to commemorate Kamatari's death. His son Fuhito ^Ftfc^ (659-720) moved it first to Asuka and thence to Nara, rebuilding it in grand style and giving it the name K5fukuji HHM#j% although the name Yamashinadera was also used. The ground chosen for K5fukuji, on the eastern fringes of the new capital, was already sacred to the Fujiwara house; it stands next to what later became the Kasuga shrine, their main ritual centre.1 Kofukuji became one of the most important and influential of all Japanese temples, mainly because of this connection to the Fujiwara, who began to wield considerable power soon after the move to Nara. In 724, following what was rapidly becoming a tradition, at least among female sovereigns, Gensho retired in favour of her nephew, Monmu's eldest son Shomu ffi IS; (701-56; r. 724-49). Shomu had some difficulty establishing his credentials, not least because he was the first male sovereign for some time not to have a royal mother; he was in fact the first of what was to be a long line of rulers with Fujiwara mothers and he in turn made a Fujiwara daughter his queen-consort. She is known to history as Komyo it Efi, a devout Buddhist, who played a major part in ensuring the growth of Kofukuji. A major step was 1 For further details on the early history of Kofukuji see Grapard 1992a: 48-70. 77 78 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects taken in 734, when the monk Genbo S 95 (d. 746) returned to Japan after eighteen years' study in China carrying with him Buddhist images and a very large collection of sutras, amounting to over 5,000 volumes. He was immediately appointed her personal meditation master (zenji fl?W) and his collection of texts was housed at Kotukuji, transforming it overnight into an important centre for Buddhist scholarship. She also built a special temple for him called Kairyuoji ?§||ZE#, a specific reference to the sutra of that name that dealt with the enlightenment of the Naga King's daughter, which we have already discussed with reference to the 'Beetle-wing' cabinet at Horyuji. Genbo himself was made Sangha Prefect in 737.2 Work on the temple complex continued right through to 772. Kofiikuji soon became known for its Ritual Assembly of Vimalakirti or Yuima-e lt^#, and for the academic discipline known as Hosso ffiffl ? The interest in the Vimalaldrtisutra is usually traced back to Kamatari himself, who is said to have been cured of an illness in 656 after a woman from Paekche had urged him to chant the fifth chapter, which treats of illness and its essential unreality (Tyler 1990: 78-80). The name Kofakuji itself is thought to have been chosen from a passage in Kumarajiva's translation. The Ritual Assembly, which we shall treat in more detail later since it became of real importance in the subsequent Heian period, started life simply as recitations of the surra itself, but it soon turned into a major seven-day rite during which doctrinal debates and lectures on a variety of subjects were held, partly as an attempt to encourage scholarship. The main lecturer was appointed by the sovereign and to be chosen for this position was a certain mark of future advancement. 4.2 Todaiji The first twenty years of Shomu's reign were highly unstable. There were powerful rivals, unhappy at the way Gensho had arranged the succession; there was a disastrous smallpox epidemic that raged from 735 to 737, killing, according to some estimates, almost a third of the population; and in 740 the court was faced with having to raise a force of 17,000 to deal with a serious uprising in Kyushu. This was followed by yet further unrest when Shomu himself caused enormous worry and expense by trying to shift the capital 2 For more on Genbo see Bingenheimer 200 i; 107-12; Grapard 1992a: 66-67. 3 For a fuller discussion of Hosso see §4.7. 4 Monuments at Nara 79 twice, to Kuni MÍZ on the Kizu river in 740 and to Shigaraki which was even further away from Nara, in 742. Why he vacillated in this fashion is not really known. It was only in 745 that the decision was made to remain at Heijo-kyo. It was Shomu who planned and oversaw construction of the monumental Todaiji W.f\^Ť with its large bronze statue of Vairocana Buddha. A project of unprecedented size and expense, it was originally planned in 743 for the site at Shigaraki but eventually built at Nara. Although, as we shall see, the native deities were still worshipped and the necessary rites continued, the reigns of Shomu and his queen-consort Komyo were marked by the amount of attention paid to all things Buddhist. Buddhist ceremonies, such as the yearly confession of sins (keka 'MM), became prominent events at court, and members of the sarigha must have been a more common sight within the Palace grounds. Although officially sanctioned ordinations continued to be restricted to ten per year, the number of unofficial initiations grew considerably: 900 in 737; 750 in 743; 400 in 745; 3,000 in 748; 1,000 in 749; and 800 in 757. A large number of men and women were clearly being recruited as 'offerings'. Not only did this begin to have an adverse effect on those who had a serious commitment to the religious life, it exacerbated the problem of finances, for these numbers represented a not-insubstantial diminution of the tax base. There was also during this period a surprising shift of attitude towards those religious figures who had put themselves beyond the pale: Gyoki (668-749), for example, had been heavily criticised in 717 for maverick behaviour, and an entry in Shoku Nihongi for 730.9.29, which is assumed to refer to him, talks of worryingly large crowds gathering in the east of the capital to hear 'misleading' prophesies. He certainly gained a reputation as a charismatic proselytiser who was not content to remain within the precincts of a temple. But in the tenth month of 741, 550 of his followers were allowed to take proper vows and four years later in 745 he himself was raised to the rank of Grand Prefect by Shomu. It was clearly in Shomu's interests to harness as much support as he could for the project that became Todaiji. Between 737 and 741 orders went out for the construction of more temples in the provinces and for the building of seven-storey pagodas for enshrining copies of the Lotus sutra. The logical progression of this was seen in 741 with the institution of a network of provincial temples for both male and female members of the saňgha, Kokubunji Hio^r and Kokubunniji Hir>/E#. Ten copies each of the Lotus sutra and the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom were also provided for each province. In this way Shomu tried to extend his 80 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects authority far out into the provinces on the back of a nationwide temple-building project. Until Todaiji was completed, the central pivot for this statewide kokubunji system was Dalanji, which had been moved to Nara and rebuilt under the supervision of the monk Doji. Shoku Nihongi notes that in 756 twenty of these provincial temples had already been completed. It was undoubtedly Komyo who lay behind the addition of temples for women. We know very little about the ordination of nuns, but we do know that women carried out many of the same tasks as men at ceremonies within the Palace itself. This lasted until about 770, when Shotoku Tenno MWSHSl, the last female sovereign for many centuries, died. As we have already mentioned, from that point on there was a rapid decline in officially recognised female members of the sarigha, so that by the early Heian period they receive only limited mention in the sources. The term ama M, however, which is often translated as 'nun', was also used to refer to those many women who were accepted as initiates on an unofficial basis by men like Gyoki. If anything, the number of such women increased as time went on. There were, of course, many reasons for taking such a step: bereavement, divorce and retirement. It soon developed to the point where this became a socially acceptable status for any woman who was no longer active as wife or mother.4 It was also Komyo who encouraged the copying of surras. Partly this was for distribution to the growing provincial network, but to copy a sutra was in any case an act of great merit and could be either done or ordered for a variety of personal reasons. K5my6 was in charge of the sutra scriptorium (shakyojo.MMffi) that was funded by the government, which perhaps explains the production of copies on such an enormous scale during this period. The scriptorium itself and the public nature of this enterprise was not to survive the move to Heian-kyo (Kornicki 1998: 78ff). The piece de resistance of Shomu's reign was undoubtedly Todaiji and its smaller sister, Hokkeji We are probably now at the stage where an institution such as Hokkeji can legitimately be called a 'nunnery' or 'convent'; the equivalent male establishment, however, was still more in the nature of a temple than a monastery. The titles reveal a good deal about their respective roles: the Hokkeji was named after the Lotus sutra, the one major scripture that specifically held out the prospect of enlightenment for women. The formal name of TSdaiji on the other hand was the Temple for the Protection of the State by the Four Divine Kings of the Golden Radiant Wisdom sutra (Konkomyo shiten'o gokokuji ^^£^H5cl8H#). This 4 On this as yet poorly researched subject see Groner 2002: 245-88. 4 Monuments at Nara 81 suggests that what lay behind the project was yet again the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom (in the second translation by Yijing), but in fact the image housed in Todaiji is indubitably that of Vairocana, part of a rather different tradition. Construction of Todaiji was clearly intended to bolster Shomu's position as sovereign, but the project was too large for a mere domestic audience. By presenting what might be seen as an act of gross self-aggrandisement as an act of benevolence for all, he was not just indulging in further state patronage. It was tantamount to claiming the role of ruler as cakravartin, or ruler on a world scale, much in the manner of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty iSf (r. 502^4-9), who created his own ordination rituals and raised the status of the layman above that of the monk (Janousch 1999), or of Empress Wu Zetian BtIK (r. 684-705), who also used Buddhism to great effect. And there were precedents in China for such a monumental image: there remains a ten-metre high carving of Vairocana in the cliffs at Longmen near Luoyang, commissioned by Gaozong fif Sr? in 672, and we also know that Empress Wu commissioned a huge bronze image in 700. But this was something on a truly grand scale: Japan, less than two hundred years after the introduction of Buddhism, was about to produce the largest and most magnificent monument to Buddha the world had yet seen. The proclamation of 743 reads as follows: Although of little virtue, we have humbly assumed this great rank. Desiring to succour all, we have devoted ourselves to soothing all living beings. From shore to shore this realm has been permeated with benevolence, but the Buddha's teachings have not yet penetrated everywhere. May Heaven and Earth be graced by the power of the Three Jewels, and may all living things prosper and countless generations bounteously continue their labours. Here, on the fifteenth day of the tenth month of the fifteenth year of Tenpyo (743), we take the great vow of a bodhisattva to construct a golden image of Vairocana. The image will be cast in bronze, exhausting the copper in the realm. A great mountain will be excavated, a hall of worship erected, and the whole universe shall join us in this endeavour. Thus shall the whole universe gain benefit and reach enlightenment. It is we who possess the wealth under Heaven, we who possess its power; and we shall use this wealth and power to erect the sacred image. But while it is easy to conceive of such a task, it will be difficult to fulfil our desires. We fear the people may be worked so hard that they will fail to sense the sanctity of the task, and, on the contrary, may feel resentment and cornmit crimes. Therefore, let all those who are committed to this great enterprise be assured of merit in absolute sincerity, arid worship Vairocana Buddha three times a day. So will the image take shape. And if there are those who desire to bring but a blade of grass or a handful of earth to help create this image, then they shall be permitted to do so. Governors and district chiefs 82 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 4 Monuments at Nara 83 are on no account to importune or threaten the people, nor demand extra taxes from them. Let my command be proclaimed far and near, that all may know my will (Aoki et al. 1989-98, vol. II: 431-33).5 Preparations for the huge figure to be cast in Nara began in 745. The project involved levelling off a large area of land at the foot of the sacred Mt MIkasa just to the northwest of Kofukuji and creating a compound that covered 6.6 km2 (4 sq. miles). The layout was the same as that of the new Yakushiji, with the main hall in the centre facing south dominating a compound flanked by two pagodas, each over 100 m in height, arranged on an east-west axis.6 This main hall now measures 57 m long, 50.5 m deep north to south and 49.1 m high, but we know that the building we see today is quite different from the original, which at 86.1 m (eleven bays) was longer by another third, giving far better proportions than the present squat construction that dates from the late seventeenth century. Inside this huge hall sat the statue, almost 16 m high. The original base remains, but the head and most of the rest of the torso dates from the seventeenth century and is unfortunately somewhat ungainly. After some false starts the casting began in 747 and was completed two years later. This was by no means the end of the process, since the statue had yet to be properly prepared, gilded and covered, but Shomu visited the site in the first month of the year to review progress. Some idea of the difficulties involved in this kind of work can be obtained from the following description: The monumental statue was cast in eight stages, working upward from the base to the head. After the bronze for each level had been poured, the molds for the next level were positioned and earth was piled up around them, both to hold them in place and to provide a surface for the bronze foundries. Thus by the time the casting was complete the entire statue was covered with a mound of earth. As each level of molds was removed, imperfections in the casting had to be repaired: the flashing that would have occurred along the seams of the mold would have required chasing, and the hollows caused by gassing would have required recasting. This time-consuming process lasted from 750 until 755; moreover, the 966 snail-shaped curls had to be cast one by one and set onto the head. At the time of the dedication ceremony in 752 the image was only partially completed (Morse 1986: 51-52). A few months after Iris visit, Shomu retired and forced through the succession of his daughter by Komyo, Princess Abe, known as Koken #H. Shomu was ailing and wanted to spend his remaining time overseeing the grand project and making sure that Koken's rule was secure. The official opening ceremony was held three years later in 752 and was presided over by s Trans, adapted from Piggott 1997: 104-05. 6 See the useful plan in Coaldrake 1986: 34, which shows both original and existing structures. 84 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 4 Monuments at Nam 85 the monk. Bodhisena llf S13IIJI7> (704—60), who had arrived in Japan in 734, the only Indian known to have done so in pre-modern times. Shomu himself died in 756. In the end, the image took 444 metric tons of refined copper, 7 metric tons of unrefined tin, and 391 kg of gold leaf (which had been discovered in the north of Japan at just the right moment). The project was so vast that a special agency called the Zo Todaijishi jalli^^s] was created to oversee the operation. This eventually grew to be the largest agency in the government and once the temple was completed it was transformed into a general agency responsible for all further palace and temple construction until the end of the century.7 ; Once created and in operation, Todaiji became the centre of all Buddhist activity that had relevance to the state. Perhaps for this reason, the curriculum was eclectic from the beginning. For academic purposes the community was divided into six groups, each responsible for studying the texts and practices of a particular academic tradition (see §4.7). Each subject had its own building, its own specialist library and its own administration. The first head of the community was Roben Jl 8$ (689—773), who had originally been trained at Kofukuji. He founded a strong tradition of Buddhist scholarship at Todaiji, as befitted a temple complex of such magnitude, and there was soon a full programme of festivals, readings and congregations throughout the year, designed to celebrate a wide variety of sutras, most of them — as one might expect - of the 'state-protecting' variety (Piggott 1987: 166-87). How was it that the central figure of Todaiji turned out to be the cosmic buddha Vairocana and not the historical buddha Sakyamuni? It is generally assumed that the decision to build in honour of Vairocana was in response to the recent arrival in Japan of the sutra in which he is a major figure, the Flower garland sutra (Ch. Huayan jing, Jp. Kegon kyo spjUSK, T. 278). This vast work was probably compiled in Khotan sometime in the third century CE, but the Huayan doctrinal tradition to which it gave birth (and from which it should be distinguished) was a product of late Sui and early Tang China. Its founder was the scholar-monk Zhiyan W.fl (602-68), but it reached its apogee with Fazang 5feH (643—712), who won the patronage of Empress Wu. The empress, was so interested in this sutra that she personally invited the Khotanese monk Siksananda to work on a new translation.8 On a far grander scale than previous 'state-protecting' sutras, offering the protection not just of guardian kings but of the cosmic Buddha himself, it was adopted as the 7 For farther details of the construction and financing of Todaiji, see Piggott 1987. 8 For details of Empress Wu as a patron of Buddhism see Weinstein 1987: ¥1-M. basis of a new and more grandiloquent state religion. The idea that the physical world was one and the same as the spiritual suggested that temporal power could be identified with spiritual power and so made the identification of ruler and Buddha that much easier. The sutra was in turn adopted on the same basis in newly unified Silla, where it was represented by Wonhyo T&li (614-86) and Uisang ttffl (625-712), who founded the first Hwaom WM. temple in Korea, Pusoksa Wfc^r, in 676. The first sign that the sutra was in Japan comes in 722, when Gensho Tenno had it copied in memory of Genmei. Both Genbo and Daoxuan jfiMf (702-60) brought copies with them in 734 and it is usually Daoxuan who is credited with its introduction. But Daoxuan was in fact better known for his knowledge not of Huayan but the vinaya, and it was a monk called Simsang Hf f¥ (Jp- Slnnjo) from Silla who first explained the sutra to Shomu in 740. He began by expounding the text in his capacity as lecturer (koji Ulif) to be followed by a series of 'repeaters', or fukushi USf, who paraphrased what he had said so that it could be absorbed a second time. In this fashion he managed to cover twenty books a year, in a format that was continued throughout the Nara period (Girard 1990: 224). There can be no doubt that these monks, coming from China in the mid-730s, brought with them news of the high esteem in which this sutra had been held by Empress Wu and its major role at the court of the Silla kings. The central figure of this vast text is Vairocana, who was the outcome of a movement to unify all buddhas under a single entity; as the ultimate transcendent buddha of Mahayana, representing all matter and mind, nirvana and samsara, he was a natural symbol for a ruler to adopt. One may doubt whether Shomu knew much about the complex doctrines of Huayan/Kegon, but he was clearly interested in appropriating to himself the most powerful, all-encompassing Buddha of them all. It is thought likely that the iconography actually came from the description of Vairocana in the Sutra of Brahma's net (Jp. Bonmo kyo %MW)? which had been compiled in China during the: fifth century and also brought to Japan by Daoxuan. It was often treated as a closing chapter to the Flower garland. It is here that we read of Vairocana preaching on a throne of one thousand lotus petals, each petal containing a historical buddha, each one master of a universe containiag a trillion worlds - a symbol of the Pure World that is the cosmos. This was an image of authority on not just a national but a world scale.10 ' Ch. Fanwangjing, T. 1484. 10 For a translation and study of the Sutra of Brahma's net see de Groot 1967. 86 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects 4.3 The question of ordination We have already drawn attention to the contradictions that arose from the clash between a desire to control the spread of people opting out of normal civil life on the one hand and the willingness to 'offer up' large numbers of men and women for initiation in times of crisis on the other. The latter habit was bound to lead to a lack of commitment and it is hardly surprising that the behaviour of priests within the temples became a matter of concern to the Sahgha Office. Those men who had experience of life in Chinese institutions were often shocked at the laxity of standards in Japan. In 734.11.21 the following order came from the Council of State: The survival of Buddhism depends on [the quality of] members of the sangha. The ability and training of ordinands is the responsibility of the relevant bureaus. Recently such training has been lax and petitions for ordination made by individuals have increased: this is against the spirit of the law. From henceforth, no matter whether it be a novice or a lay person, an ordinand must have memorised the Lotus sutra and the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom and in addition have prayed and practised for a minimum of three years. If this happens, then scholarship will improve and private petitions will naturally cease (Aoki et al. 1989-98, vol. II: 283). One area of particular concern was the ordination process itself, which had always been crucial to membership of the community. Full ordination (jukai 58 3$) was a ritual whereby the precepts of the sangha were conferred on an ordinand, giving him or her the right to accept alms. In return, the ordinand vowed to uphold the precepts and live according to the rules of the order. There were a number of different versions of the vinaya belonging to different traditions, but the one in common use in China was known as the Regulations in four parts (Ch. sifenlu, Jp. shibunritsu ES^rfi^), stemming from the Dharmaguptaka tradition in India. This contained 250 precepts for men and 348 for women. It is indicative of the haphazard way Buddhism had been introduced into Japan that the vinaya seems to have arrived in piecemeal fashion and at this stage the stipulations were probably honoured more in the breach. Strictly speaking, indeed, no one in Japan had ever been ordained correctly because the regulations clearly stated that for an ordination to be valid ten fully ordained members had to be present, a preceptor, a master of ceremonies, a teacher and seven witnesses. In theory, therefore, one could argue that the whole Buddhist enterprise in Japan was illegitimate. It was for this reason that moves were made to try and persuade a proper vinaya master to come from China and overhaul the system. On the occasion 4 Monuments at Nara 87 of the ninth mission to the Tang court in 733 two men from Kofukuji, Yoei S§?R and Fusho were sent with the specific task of finding the necessary ten men. Daoxuán met them, agreed to help and left immediately, fravelling with the returning mission and arriving in Japan in 734. He was soon setting up seminars devoted to the study of the vinaya. Yoei and Fusho stayed on in China as students for the next nine years. Eventually they met the master Jianzhen (Jp. Ganjin, 688-763), who was lecturing on the subject at the Damingsi ^S^f in Yangzhou J§ jlil. They persuaded him that his presence was needed in Japan, but it was to be over ten years before he finally arrived. On the first occasion he tried to leave without official permission and was betrayed by a student. The second and third attempts were thwarted by bad weather and when he tried a fourth time, he was arrested by the Tang authorities. On his fifth attempt the ship was blown to Taiwan and he returned to mainland China with great difficulty. It was only on the sixth occasion that Japanese envoys finally managed to transport him to Japan. He was already a blind old man of 68. Even then the Tang emperor requested that he be accompanied by a Daoist priest. The Japanese refused and were reduced to smuggling his party on board. He arrived in Japan in 754 with a party of twenty-four men and women, many of them fully ordained members of the sangha.11 On his arrival, Jianzhen was installed at Todaiji without delay and given the job of instituting the correct ordination procedures for Japanese monks. He set up the required platform (kaidan 1ŮM) in the fourth month of that year and at the initial ceremony administered a number of different rites. To Shomu Tenno and his immediate family he conferred the 'bodhisattva precepts' (bosatsukai WWlfc). This was a set of ten major and forty-eight minor precepts listed in the Sutra of Brahma's net. This sutra, which is presented in the form of a direct sermon by Vairocana himself in response to a request from Šakyamuni, is in two sections: the first contains an exposition of the ten stages of the bodhisattva path; the second section is a list of simpler precepts, which were commonly used in China for 'confirming' laymen and laywomen as devotees of the Three Jewels, as supporters of the sangha.12 He also re-ordained some eighty priests connected to the palace with the full, 11 See Takakusu 1928-29, a translation of To Daioshó tóseiden S^cWfSSÍiEW, composed in 779 by the monk Genkai ŤĚPtl. 12 These were: not to kill, not to steal, not to be unchaste, not to lie, not to sell liquor, not to tell others of errors made by members of the sangha or lay supporters, not to praise oneself and defame others, not to begrudge others either property or the Dharma, not to become angry, and not to slander tlie Three Jewels. See Groner 1984: 119. 88 The arrival ofBuddhism and its effects correct 250 precepts {gusokukai HS^). Not all this activity went down as well as it might: there was naturally some resistance from those who were unhappy to be told that their earlier ordinations had been invalid. A debate was held at the Yuimado at Kofukuji at which monks tried to argue the case for 'self-ordination', using as support quotations from a Chinese text entitled the Divination sutra (Jp. Senzatsu kyo riiiSS).13 In the end, however, the majority agreed to be re-ordained. Jianzhen's arrival therefore led to considerable changes. The first was this establishment of an official and permanent ordination platform at Todaiji. Two more platforms were set up in 761 to serve east and west Japan: at Yakushiji in Shimdsa, and Kanzeonji in Daizaifu, Kyushu. Ordinations are recorded at Daikan Daiji in 703, Asukadera in 708, Yakushiji in 721—22 and 726-27, and Kofukuji in 743, but there had been no fixed location for the ceremony prior to this point. The second change was in the way ordination certificates were granted. Before Jianzhen, both permission to become a novice and permission to proceed to the next stage had required certificates signed by the Ministry of Administration; Jianzhen managed to alter this procedure so that the second stage was left to the Sahgha Office to handle themselves. Was this a major concession to self-rule? Since the issuing of novice certificates (docho B£St=) remained the business of the ministry, the answer is probably 'no'. In 756.5 Jianzhen was honoured with the headship of a newly constituted Sahgha Office, but it was not to last. He resigned this position in 758, persuading the court to build him his own temple, Toshodaiji MWtW^f, with its own ordination platform. This marks the beginning of what later became known as the Ritsu # tradition. All monks were initially urged to study there at some stage during their training, in line with the temple's name (fS£§ representing a transliteration into Chinese of the Sk. caturdisa, meaning '[all] four directions'), but the actual status of the platform itself is not entirely clear. Although the temple continued to grow and prosper into the Heian period, Todaiji remained the main ground for ordinations. 4.4 Explaining anomalies Our account of the progress of Buddhism so far has concentrated on political and institutional matters, but what of personal beliefs? How much do we know, for example, about attitudes to death and the afterlife two hundred 13 Ch. Zhanchajing,T. 839. 4 Monuments at Nara 89 years after the arrival of gifts from Paekche? Sources are, of course, scarce but we do have the collection of tales entitled A record of strange happenings in Japan (Jp. Nihon ryoiki B ^ Mil SB), compiled around 820 by Kyokai MM, from Yakushiji.14 Although, strictly speaking, this is a Heian text, the majority of stories deal with the Nara period. Written by a man who was more interested in proselytising than in doctrine, this work is thought to have been prepared as a source for sermons and preaching, giving us a glimpse of what an 'ordinary' Buddhist message might look like. It is full of admonitions and dire warnings. Good and evil deeds cause karmic retribution as a figure causes its shadow, and suffering and pleasure follow such deeds as an echo follows a sound in the valley. Those who witness such experiences marvel at them and forget they are real happenings in the world. The penitent withdraws to hide himself, for he burns with shame at once. Were the fact of karmic retribution not known, how could we rectify wickedness and establish righteousness? And how would it be possible to make men mend their wicked minds and practice the path of virtue without demonstrating the law of karmic causation? In China the Mingbaoji M $S IB was compiled, and during the great Tang the Banyao yanfi WtMWSL was written. Since we respect the documents of foreign lands, should we not also believe and stand in awe of the miraculous events of our own land? Having witnessed these events myself, I cannot remain idle. After long meditation on this, I now break my silence. I have recorded for future generations the limited information that has come to me in these three volumes called the Nihonkoku genpd zen 'aku ryoiki (Nakamura 1973: 101, adapted). The full title of this collection is A record of strange happenings in Japan [explained in terms of] immediate karmic response to both good and evil (Jp. Nihonkoku genpd zen 'aku ryoiki H^BJSIS#SMMt3) and its main aim is to illustrate the workings of'karma, the idea that actions are never random but always have causes and unavoidable consequences (inga HS); and, as the term genpd ('retribution here and now') suggests, those consequences may be just round the corner rather than postponed to a future existence. There is another message in the title, for it stresses the fact that these strange events have happened in Japan, as well as elsewhere. There is more than a suggestion of rivalry and pride: Japan is now fully incorporated within the Buddhist sphere and its marvellous power can be experienced here and now. Introducing the concept of karma in this way has two benefits: firstly, it has great interpretative power, providing a rational, satisfying explanation for everything from strange, untoward events to why things simply are as they " The translation of the title takes a clue from LaFleur 1983: 26-59. 90 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects are; secondly, it turns out to be a very useful threat to encourage people to behave properly, to do good deeds, uphold the principle of filial piety, and avoid actions destructive of public order. We encounter here Buddhism as a mechanism of social control, masquerading as the bringer of salvation. It is a world of cautionary tales: 'On a man's rebirth as an ox for labour and showing an extraordinary sign because of stealing from his son'; 'On the death penalty for constantly boiling and eating bird's eggs'; and a world of poetic justice: a man who kills horses by working them too hard loses his sight when both of his eyes fall into a kettle full of boiling water. Faith brings its rewards: 'On a deaf man whose hearing was restored immediately owing to his faith in a Mahayana scripture'; and there are dire consequences for those who dare to ridicule the Dharma: 'On ridiculing a reciter of the Lotus siitra and getting a twisted mouth as an immediate penalty'. Karma works against the background of transmigration through the cycle of birth and death, traversing the six courses (rokudd aI); these were commonly divided into the three pleasant ones - gods (tenbu i^iSI?), humans (ningen Aftfl) and demi-gods (ashura HfsJH) - and three less pleasant ones -animals (chikusho hungry ghosts {gala M$L) and creatures of hell (figoku ffelR). The hierarchy may be fixed, but they all coexist in this realm of ours and the boundaries are pervious; bodhisattvas, for example, may take human form (keshin ihM) as part of their vow of compassion; this is how one explains the existence of such shamanistic figures as Gyoki and the legendary founder of the tradition of mountain ascetics, En no gyoja IS fx #. Kyokai argues in favour of accepting self-ordination, for instance, because the person involved may just be an incarnation of a higher being; one never knows. Note that the gods in this system are still within the cycle, and gods themselves must eventually be reborn as humans if they are to achieve enlightenment, since this can only ever be achieved from the human state. Being human is therefore already a state of merit, although no one in the six courses can escape decay of the body. The anonymous poet who produced what are known as the 'Buddha's footprint poems' carved into a stone at Yakushiji in 753, perhaps some thirty years before Kyokai's birth, put it as follows: The human body / is a hard thing to attain: It has become / a refuge for the Dharma; Strive onward, all! / Press forward, all! Where the Four Serpents / and the five Demons All accumulate - This vile body - We must loathe and cast away / Must free ourselves and cast away. (Cranston 1993: 774-75, adapted) 4 Monuments at Nara 91 From the number of references that Kyokai makes to passages in various different surras one might gain the impression that he was unusually widely read for a man who had little interest in doctrinal matters, but that would be misleading. In fact he made excellent use of a Chinese compendium entitled Zhujingyaoji (IflMft)'3 compiled by Daoshi xttiji in 659, which consists of important illustrative passages from the sutras listed according to theme. The Chinese flavour emerges in other ways too. In addition to karma and the rokudd, there are signs that the quintessentiaily Chinese idea of purgatory was known and understood. At death one goes into a kind of liminal state, which can last for anything up to three years. Every seven days for the first forty-nine days one goes through a critical stage, which is thought of in terms of court proceedings with the judge of the underworld Yama (a pre-Buddhist Indian figure) presiding. Rites and gifts from the dead person's family are therefore needed to help him or her on the way, but the eventual destination is still thought of in terms of karma (Teiser 1994: 1-15). 4.5 Hachiman The Buddhist acceptance of multiple truths, the concept of rebirth, the ability of gods to reveal themselves, the Kegon concept of the interpenetration of all phenomena, and the fluidity inherent in the idea of the six courses, all pointed in the direction of a possible accommodation between buddhas, bodhisattvas and native deities. It might seem that under Shomu, the court was allowing enthusiasm for all things Buddhist to eclipse the interests of these deities, but the sovereign, as high priest, would ignore the latter at his peril. Shomu knew very well that on the domestic stage the legitimacy of his rule still depended on their goodwill and on the efficacy of the myths now enshrined in the early books of Kojiki and Nihon shoki. Perhaps the best way of showing how this balance was maintained is to look at two edicts proclaimed in 749 when Shomu and Komyo visited the site where the image of Vairocana was taking shape. The first edict, spoken by Tachibana no Moroe ffi^yi, used extremely humble language towards the image of Buddha: These are the words of the Sovereign, the servant of the Three Jewels, that he most humbly offers up (M S§ ) before the image of Vairocana. Although gold has been offered to us by people from other lands, it was thought not to exist in this land of Yamato since the beginning of heaven and earth. But in the east of this land over 15 Jp. Shokyoyoshu, T. 2123. See Nakamura 1973: 36, n. 155 for a list of themes covered. 92 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects which we rule, the Governor of Michinoku, Kudaranoo Kyofhku, of Junior Fifth Rank, has reported that gold has been found in his territory at Oda. Hearing this, we are astonished and rejoice, and feel that this is a gift bestowed on us by the compassion and good fortune of Vafrocana. We accept it with reverence and humility and now lead all our officials in worship. Reverently we proclaim this in the awful presence of the Three Jewels (Aoki et al. 1989-98, vol. Iff 65). The second edict, which comes immediately afterwards, is quite different in tone and shows a desire to treat the 'gods of heaven and earth' on the same footing. Hearken all ye assembled, princes of the blood, princes, nobles, officials and people of the realm-under-heaven, to the word which he speaks even as the word of the Sovereign Prince of Yamato who is a manifest deity; hearken ye all to the words which he speaks as a manifest deity in performance of the task of ruling over this land, to sit on the high throne of heavenly succession through generations and generations, to control and cherish, from the first reign of sovereigns who came from the High Plain of Heaven through the reigns of his ancestors down until this day, saying: a report has been made to us that in the east of this land, which we rule thus in benevolence through heavenly succession down to the present reign in honour and awe of the will of heaven and earth, gold has been found. We consider that of the various laws, the word of the Buddha is the most excellent for protecting the state. Thus in this realm over which we rule we ordered that the Sutra of Golden Radiant Wisdom be honoured, that an image of Vairocana be fashioned, and that prayers be offered to the gods of heaven and earth. In our desire to pay due honour to the reigns of our ancestors for whom we have such awe and to lead and guide our subjects, we tried to ensure that misfortunes are corrected and dangers pacified; but even so our subjects worried lest the project be uncompleted and we ourselves were concerned that the gold was insufficient. But now we have been granted this sign of the supremely auspicious word that is the Three Jewels and the gods of heaven and earth together deem it good. A good example of this process by which the native deities and buddhas came to support each other occurred during the construction of Todaiji itself. The work at Nara began in the eighth month of 745. When Shomu suddenly fell ill the following year, help was requested from the deity Hachiman AH who was resident in Usa ^fe in northern Kyushu. The origins of Hachiman are obscure, but he was connected to families that specialised in metalwork, who may well have had access to the latest continental casting techniques. This may explain why he was one of the first deities to attract a Buddhist title - Daibosatsu J\i&M, the earliest example of which is dated 798 - since casting was so central to the production of Buddhist images. It is highly likely that the first buildings at Usa were Buddhist, for we have a record of a temple called Mirokuji MWl^f being built there as early as 725. Hachiman 4 Monuments at Nara 93 was also believed to have helped the court defeat the rebels in Kyushu in 740, which could explain his later identification as the god of war. On that occasion, the court presented Usa with copies of two sutras and ten Buddhist priests and ordered that a pagoda be built; he was already a composite deity for whom Buddhist gifts were not considered out of place.16 Exactly why this deity and this region should suddenly reach national prominence at this juncture is not known, but the catalyst was certainly Todaiji. Shomu made a quick recovery and Hachiman was promoted to Third Rank. In 747, when the casting of the image was to begin, Shomu turned to both Usa and Ise for help. Ise did not respond, but Hachiman issued his famous oracle, vowing to ensure the completion of the image by making the molten copper flow like water. A month after the statue of Vairocana was completed in the tenth month of 749 came news that another oracle had been pronounced by Hachiman announcing that he wished to move to Nara to lead all native deities in defending the grand project. As a result, a ritual icon (shintai If St) representing him was brought to Todaiji with due ceremony. He was installed as protector of the temple and given the unprecendented honour of First Rank. In this fashion he became the prototype of all subsequent goho zenjin HtSlliPf, deities whose primary function was to protect Buddhism. The Usa shrine was given the status of a daijingu A if H in 756, putting it on the same level as Ise. It need come as no particular surprise that Buddhism eventually found it quite easy to accommodate Hachiman in this way. There were already a large number of deities that had been picked up en route and it is this habit of accretion that helps to explain the presence in Japanese Buddhism of Indian deities such as Brahma (Jp. Bonten and Sakra (Jp. Taishakuten fffflP^:), who not only acted as protectors of the Dharma but were in fact seen to rule over the gods of. heaven and earth. From the above description it should be clear that Hachiman was seen as having special status. As Buddhism continued to spread to other areas and small temples began to proliferate, we find one of two things happening: either existing local deities found themselves co-opted, or, as elsewhere in the Buddhist world, priests set about inventing local deities as being one of the easiest ways of attracting local devotees. A deity would be identified, and then named, and then worshipped in a temple. Priests often used the idea that these spirits were as much in need of salvation as anyone else. The earliest " The well-known link between Hachiman and the legendary fourth-century ruler Ojin is probably a later invention, given that it is not mentioned in any eighth-century source and first appears in 844. See Bender 1979 and Grapard 2003. 94 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects reference we have to this tactic occurs in the Muchimaro den KSrSS-B, a biography of Fujiwara no Muchimaro (680-737), written in 760. In the first year of the Reiki era [715] Muchimaro dreamed that he met a 'strange person' who had a most unusual appearance. This strange man said to Muchimaro, "That you are a person who is devoted to the Buddhist Dharma is well known to both men and deities alike. Therefore I request that you build a temple for me to help me fulfil my vow. Because of my past actions (shukugo), I became a deity long ago. I now want to take refuge in the Way of the Buddha and undertake meritorious works, but have not yet found an [appropriate] link [to the Buddha]. I have come to tell you this [in the hope that you will assist me].' Muchimaro suspected that this [strange person] was Kehi-no-kami. Although Muchimaro wanted to reply, he was unable to do so and awoke from his dream. He thereupon [directed the following words to Kehi-noTcami] in a prayer; 'The ways of deities and men are separate: one is hidden, the other visible. I do not know the identity of the strange man who appeared in my dream last night. If I can get a sign [that it was you who spoke to me in my dream], then I shall without fail build a temple for you.' At this point the kami seized hold of the layman Kume Katsutari and deposited him in the branches of a tall tree, thus providing the sign that Muchimaro sought. Muchimaro now understood [that this encounter with Kehi-no-kami] was real and so built a temple for him. The jinguji that is now in Echizen Province is this [temple] (Weinstein 1999, paper 3: 12-13). The term jinguji f$?Jf # refers to a Buddhist temple that was built either in the precincts of a shrine or close by, at which daily services - usually the chanting of sutras - were often performed for the local deity by a 'shrine priest' (shasd StflTor guso HMW). We meet this interesting title for the first time in the account of the founding of Mirokuji at Usa; it too suggests that Buddhist priests were taking the initiative in the worship of local deities. We do not know for certain, of course, but it may be that jinguji actually predate shrine buildings themselves. An entry in Shoku Nihongi for 766 tells us of the dispatch of an emissary to arrange for the construction of a sixteen-foot image of the Buddha at the Ise Daijingu, meaning that a jinguji had been established in the heart of the ruling family's cult centre. 4.6 Twice a sovereign The period from the death of Shomu in 756 to 784, when the decision was made to move the capital away from Nara, was one of constant upheaval. In an unprecedented move, Shomu had named his daughter as his successor, and 4 Monuments at Nara 95 on his retirement in 749 she became sovereign as Koken Tenno As long as her father was alive, she was under no apparent threat, but after Shomu's death in 756 discontent became openly expressed and she came under pressure from her mother, Komyo, who was allied to her nephew, the chief minister, Fujiwara no Nakamaro. She was forced to abdicate in 758 and become a nun, ceding her role to Crown Prince Oi, who became Jitnnin Tenno W-1 ^ S. After the death of her mother, however, she reasserted herself and eventually, in 764, seized control again. In this highly unusual second reign (764-70) she took the name Shotoku Tenno Still^ll. One of her first acts was to order the construction of another temple to be called Saidaiji ffi^;^, clearly designed to rival her father's monument. Not much is known about this project, except that it made little progress. It was at this juncture that there occurred one of the more remarkable episodes in Japanese history. In 766, Shotoku began appointing monks from the Sangha Office to the Council of State and in the process went so far as to promote her personal priest and confidant, a Hosso monk called Dokyo jIH, to the highest post of First Minister and Master of Meditation (Daijo Daijin Zenji Sf), eventually granting him the title of 'Dharma King' (Hoo ft I). The usual interpretation of this relationship is that Dokyo was planning to take over the succession and create a Buddhist theocracy, and it is true that he was promoted well beyond the dreams of most priests; but whether we should see this as Shotoku gaining absolute control over the sangha, or as Dokyo gaining control over the government, is difficult to judge. There are strong echoes here of Empress Wu Zetian, who had also tried to use the wealth and power of Buddhist institutions for her own benefit. Dokyo's downfall came when in 769 it became known that an oracle at Usa had proclaimed he should become the next reigning sovereign. Shotoku was forced to have the matter investigated and Wake no Kiyomaro (733-99) was sent to Usa to investigate. He received a second oracle which claimed mat the first one had been a fraud: Since the establishment of our state the distinction between lord and subject has been fixed. Never has there been an occasion when a subject was made lord. The throne of heavenly sun succession shall be given to one of the royal lineage; wicked persons should immediately be swept away (Bender 1979: 142). Dokyo naturally came under suspicion for having engineered the first oracle himself, but he survived a little while longer until Shotoku's death in 770. Having then lost his patron, he was immediately banished. We shall, of course, never know the truth as to his motives or whether he was the victim 96 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects of a plot rather than the perpetrator of a plot that went wrong. But why were appeals made to Hachiman in the first place? Why not Ise, for example? Was it because whoever instigated these appeals felt instinctively that Shotoku and the court would only listen to an authority that had both Buddhist and native credentials and not just the latter? If so, this would suggest that the role played by Ise in the legitimation of monarchy had, at least temporarily, become less significant. Shotoku was, after all, a serious Buddhist, who had even allowed monks to be present during her Daijosai rituals (Inoue et al. 2003: 55-56). This view is strengthened when we look at one of her edicts dated 765.11.23. Today is the day for the Toyonoakari festival as part of the Great Thanksgiving. On this occasion we are faced with an unusual situation, because we have already received the bodhisattva precepts as a student of the Buddha. Therefore first we serve the Three Jewels, next we pay homage to the deities of heaven and earth, and lastly we have returned to rule once more, intent on exercising pity and compassion on imperial princes, our ministers and other servants, and all common people in the realm-under-heaven... There are those who believe that the deities should be kept separate from and be untouched by the Three Jewels; but if one reads the sutras one discovers that it is the deities who protect and pay homage to the Buddhist Dharma. Surely therefore there should be nothing to stop either those who have become ordained or those who have taken lay orders becoming involved in the worship of such deities. What was originally thought taboo is not taboo and so we hereby order that the Great Thanksgiving Festival be held [as normal] (Aoki et al. 1989-98, vol. IV: 103-05). This statement could perhaps be seen as a healthy sign that native rites and Buddhist rites were being considered as essentially one and the same thing, but in fact it reads more like a piece of sophistry, with Shotoku riding roughshod over complaints and assigning priority to Buddhism; the deities were, after all, seen to be 'paying homage' to the Buddhist Dharma. In the end, we do not have enough information to decide whether Japan was in danger of becoming a state run by the Sangha Office or not at this point, but this edict suggests that, at the very least, the deities were being given a secondary role. There is one other event in Shotoku's reign about which we do not know as much as we might like. Shoku Nihongi has the following entry for 770.4.26: After the uprising of the eighth year [of Tenpyo-hoji, i.e. 764] had been put down, the sovereign took a vow and ordered the construction of one million small three-storeyed pagodas, each 4 sun 5 bu [c.13.5 cm] in height and 3 sun 5 bit [c.10.5 cm] in diameter, each containing one of the following dharani: Konpon, Jishin, Sorin and Rokudo in 4 Monuments at Nara 97 the base. Once this had all been done, they were distributed among the various temples. The officials and artisans, one hundred and fifty-seven in all, were rewarded according to station (Aoki et al. 1989-98, vol. IV: 281). This somewhat laconic statement refers to a project that, if it had been completed, would have been another monumental achievement. As it is, some 40,000 of these small pagodas survive today. Shotoku was trying to go well beyond Shomu in the attempt to prove herself as bodhisattva-queen. What the entry hides is the momentous fact that these dharani spells were not written (how could they be if such numbers were planned?) but actually printed on small pieces of paper. This makes those that survive among the oldest printed items in existence. Was this simply an inability to realise the significance of the arrival of a new technique that was to change the world? Or do we put this silence down to Shotoku's enemies, perhaps unwilling to give her the credit for such an enterprise? With Shotoku out of the way in 770 there was an immediate reaction against any further intrusion of Buddhism into the life and rituals of the monarch, by far the strongest reaction we have seen since the initial rejection of Buddhism in the mid-sixth century. Just before she died, Shotoku was forced to name as her successor a distant cousin, the 62-year-old Konin %{1 (r. 770-81), at which point the succession switched back to descendants not of Tenmu but of Tenj i. Under Konin and in the early years of the reign of his son Kanmu US (r. 781-806), affairs were more or less run by Onakatomi no Kiyomaro X41 EftfftS (702-88), who was both head of the Jingikan and Minister of the Right. He sacked the administrative head of the Ise shrines, replacing him with his own nephew, and he gave himself the new post of saishu to ensure that rituals at Ise were kept under strict control. Orders were given to remove the Ise jinguji that had been built by Dokyo in 766 and the whole area was cleansed of Buddhist presence. It is at this time that taboos against Buddhist vocabulary were established at Ise and Kamo, and during certain court rituals that involved the monarch, in what is now recognised as the first example of an official attempt by one particular group to produce clear water between Buddhism and jingi worship. One might even be tempted to talk here of the birth of the kind of self-conscious native tradition that now goes by the name Shinto Pii, were it not for the fact that the measures were confined to the monarch and to Ise. Elsewhere interaction continued apace, and even at Ise it was not long before Buddhism came to make its presence felt once again. It was, of course, Kanmu who decided to move the capital away from Nara, first to Nagaoka MM and then to Heian-kyo ^FSSriR. Unrest continued 98 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects throughout the period and Kanmu, in particular, had some difficult years at the beginning of his reign with constant fighting in the northeast of the country. It is sometimes claimed that he was at loggerheads with the Buddhist establishment and that this was why he decided to move the capital north to escape their influence, but this is most unlikely. The move, when it came, had more to do with Kanmu (being a descendant of Tenji) wishing to finally distance the monarchy from the Tenmu line, which was so clearly identified with Nara and had its home and its sacred spaces in Yamato (Toby 1985). Kanmu was not particularly anti-Buddhist, but he did feel the need to revive the kind of strict controls that we find in the Regulations for members of the sangha. In 783-84 the gifting of land to temples was banned, and the prohibition on simply 'initiating' people in the provinces without recourse to the Sangha Office was reinforced. A large number of these 'monks' were forcibly returned to lay life, particularly if they were found to have families of their own, and emphasis was placed on the meditational duties of priests in order to try and depoliticise their activities. In 798 an age restriction of thirty-five was imposed and candidates were required to sit a test and pass five out often topics set. In 801 a distinction between Sanron and Hosso monks was made and in 803 both traditions were allotted five monks each. Here we have the real beginning of the nenbun dosha quota system, fixing the number of ordinands initially at ten per year. 4.7 Buddhist scholarship The constant refrain one finds in official documents bewailing low standards among members of the sangha was based on a general concern that priests were simply lazy and wasting their time, and on a more specific worry that an inability to read surras would interfer with their prime function: recitation for the protection of the state. As it happens, it is not difficult to learn how to recite in rote fashion from a text one does not really understand, and there is a quantum leap from this to being able to read Buddhist scholarly treatises and explain doctrine. Leaving aside the commentaries ascribed to Prince Shotoku for a moment, it is only in the latter half of the eighth century that we begin to encounter this level of learning. Perhaps we can also now begin to talk of monks living in monastic institutions. Up to this point we have used the term 'priests' because it is likely that their primary role was of worship and ritual, but there now developed what had been there from the beginning in India: groups of men and women living in celibate communities apart from 4 Monuments at Nara 99 the rest of society, devoted to meditation and the study of texts, and occupying what we might legitimately think of as a monastery rather than a temple. One commonly encounters the term 'Nara rokushu' 3? H/nIk, first used in 760. It is sometimes translated as 'the six Nara schools' or even 'the six Nara sects', but this is misleading: in some contexts the word 'seminar' is more appropriate; in others 'tradition'. Certainly, in the beginning, the term shu was written not with the character f?, which can have a sectarian flavour, but with which simply meant '(study) group'. By and large, the title of a seminar referred to the name of the sutra or treatise studied. It was natural for certain monks to specialise in certain texts, and it should therefore come as no surprise to find that some temples became known for the study of one particular tradition rather than another; but there was nothing particularly exclusive about the arrangements. Tddaiji, for example, as the hub of the whole system, was home to all six seminars. Here we shall introduce all six in outline. The object is not to discuss Buddhist philosophy in detail (which is beyond the scope of this history) but merely to illustrate the kind of concepts that were occupying the minds of scholar-monks. All except one of these traditions were of Indian origin. Ritsu W- was the study of the vinaya. This became a recognised tradition of scholarship with the arrival of Jianzhen and the building of Toshodaiji. As a seperate tradition, however, it did not survive past the end of the Nara period and had to be revived in a rather different guise in the twelfth century. Kusha ft# was the study of Vasubandhu's important work Abhidharma-kosa (Jp. Abidatsuma kusharon HSMfi ni),1' an epistemological analysis of being, which formed the bedrock for an understanding of how Buddhists viewed the world. It covered such fundamental topics as the distinction between absolute and conventional truth, and the Four Noble Truths. These were, firstly, that existence is defined as suffering; secondly, that the cause of suffering is our insatiable thirst for life, which inevitably leads to rebirth; thirdly, that in order to eradicate suffering one must eradicate the thirst and aim to reach that state of perfect liberation from desire known as nirvana; and fourthly, that the way to achieve this is to follow what is known as the Eightfold Noble Path: right views (seeing the world as it really is) and right intention, both of which have to do with wisdom (Sk. prafna); right speech, right action and right livelihood, which have to do with conduct 17 T. 1558-59. This was first translated into Chinese by Paramartha in the mid-sixth century, although the Japanese used Xuanzang's seventh-century version. 100 The arrival of Buddhism audits effects (Sk. sila); right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration, which have to do with meditation (Sk. samadhi). Then there is the doctrine of non-self (Sk. andtman, Jp. muga MS). There is no such thing as a permanent self and it is precisely because we cling to the idea of such an unchanging core that we experience suffering. Body and mind are analysed into five aggregates (Sk. panca-skandha, Jp. goun ES): form (Sk. rupa, Jp. shikiun feU), sensation (Sk. vedand, Jp. juun perception (Sk. samjnd, Jp. soun SIS), mental formations (Sk. samskdra, Jp. gyoun frill) and consciousness (Sk. vijnana, Jp. shikiun WM). The self that we think we experience is nothing but a cluster of these aggregates, a grouping of mental and physical elements known as dharmas (Jp. ho all of which are in constant flux. The categories of 'form' and 'mental formations' are in their turn subdivided into yet further dharmas. A person has no core entity, being nothing more than a set of events and elements that are causally connected over time. I am not as I was a moment ago, but neither am I a random cluster. Death is simply another event in this continuing flux. As with the person, so with the world: all objects are also made up of conditioned, transitory dharmas. Nothing is permanent. Only three dharmas exist that were considered unconditioned and hence permanent: space, the state of nirvana achieved through 'analytical cessation', and the same state achieved via 'non-analytical cessation'. The fact that a dharma is conditioned does not make it any the less real. Dharmas come into existence through the law of dependent origination (Sk. pratityasamutpdda, Jp. engi MM), which is analysed as a chain with twelve links. Everything is mutually conditioned, everything dependent on a cause and itself the cause of something else. So every dharma has its own set of connections, both temporal and spatial, that form its dharma-realm (Sk. dharmadhdtu, Jp. hokkai SI?-), although since dharmas come and go on the instant this means that everything is interconnected with everything else in unimaginable complexity. Jojitsu $&M was the study of Harivarman's Establishing the truth (Sk. Satyasiddhi sdstra, Jp. Jojitsuron $cSKb, T. 1646). This was critical of the Abhidharmakosa, precisely because although it explained the emptiness of the self, it did not extend this to dharmas themselves, seeing them as real. The study of this text did not survive as an independent tradition past the end of the eighth century, at which point it was subsumed in what follows. Sanron =Lm was so called because it was based on three works: the Root verses on the middle (Sk. Mulamadhyamakakarika, Jp. Churon, 411m, T. 1564); the Treatise in one hundred verses (Jp. Hyakuron, Iffm, T. 1569); and the Twelve approaches (Jp. Junimonron, -f-^f^fm, T. 1568). This was 4 Monuments at Nam 101 essentially Indian Madhyamaka thought, which denied that anything, including dharmas, could have inherent existence. They were constantly changing in response to conditions and so must also in the ultimate analysis be characterised by emptiness. Emptiness is not, however, nothingness; it simply means that a dharma lacks a permanent, unchanging core; it is but the temporary sum of all that has brought it into being. And since emptiness is also a characteristic of nirvana, it follows that according to absolute rather than conventional truth, conditioned existence, samsara, must be the same as nirvana. Sanron as a separate seminar did not survive the Nara period, but the study of these works was essential for anyone interested in Mahayana doctrine and it continued to form part of the training of all serious scholars. Hosso ffiffl (the name means 'characteristics of dharmas') developed out of the Indian Yogacafa tradition. It took matters a stage further and made explicit what Sanron had implied, namely that if all dharmas are empty then they can only be the product of mind. It accepted that all dharmas are characterised by emptiness and without innate existence, but it was more interested in the question of why we see things as we do. How does our consciousness work to produce the illusions it does? Such an analysis would presumably bring us closer to understanding how enlightenment could be achieved. Hosso based itself on the assumption that the objective external world is nothing but a fabrication of our own consciousness, which, because we are ignorant of the truth, produces representations of externality and gives rise to the illusion that both self and other exist. Objects do not have independent existence apart from the perceiving mind, but because of the way human consciousness works, perception continually causes us to posit real objects and (the illusion) of a perceiving self. Since existing as a human involves us in a continual flow of ever-changing perceptions, we are continually inventing for ourselves objects of desire, which, of course, lead to attachment and suffering. Hosso starts its analysis by categorising the countless dharmas of existence into a hundred types, beginning, as we might expect, with the dharmas of mind. Eight forms of consciousness are distinguished: hearing, smell, taste, feeling, mental cognition, the defiled mind (klista-manas), in which the consciousness of ego resides, and lastly the dlaya vijnana or Store Consciousness (Jp. arayashiki psfUljSife), where the illusions are generated. The mind in its active capacity, for example as intention, instigates the performance of intentional deeds (Sk. karma). These deeds, once performed, leave traces or consequences which are said to redound to the mind, now in its sustaining capacity as mental continuum or store-consciousness of each sentient being. Specifically, the 102 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects traces of acts enter the alaya by way of 'unpregnation? or 'suffusion' (Sk. väsanä, Jp. kunju Hf?) and are thus regarded as the implanted 'seeds' (Sk. bíja, Jp. shuji S?) of future conscious acts. The 'seeds' planted from without by the active mind mingle with the 'innate seeds' (this is a matter of some sectarian dispute) and all proceed to influence each other according to their respective moral species as pure, impure, or neutral. Eventually this process of mutual influence (again väsanä) brings about the fructification or maturation (Sk. vipäka, Jp. kahd ^M.) of the seeds in the form of new mental phenomena. This 'biogenetic' model of the mind serves, among other purposes, that of explaining dependent origination by showing how there can be retribution for acts when there is no personal agent or self to whom those acts might be charged (Gimello 1976: 234). In this sense, the Store Consciousness constitutes our whole experience and ensures that the illusion of a dichotomy between self and other will continue. If this were all, of course, then there would be no way out and enlightenment would be impossible. But the Store Consciousness, which accounts for a person's continuity through the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, does contain pure 'seeds', some of them innate, which can be germinated through the practice of meditation, right thought, and a determination to see beyond the idea of self and other; the nurture of these seeds involves many acts of compassion and will take aeons to bring to completion. Hossô also posits a hierarchy of three aspects of human perception and tmderstanding: the imagined, the dependent and the perfected. A favourite analogy of Yogäcära thinkers is that of the mirage. The water that appears before the eyes of the parched desert traveller, for example, does not really exist; it is only imagined. Nevertheless the appearance or visual idea of water does exist; it exists in dependence upon the traveller's imperfect faculties of perception and his wishful, projective thoughts. When the traveller has realized that in the vision of water there is actually no water, then he has 'emptied' the mirage of own-being and seen the fact or truth of the matter to perfection (Gimello 1976: 248). Once all the seeds in the store are pure, a fundamental transformation (äsraya-parävrttí) occurs within the defiled mind, the Store Consciousness stops generating illusions, and the opposition of self and other disappears. This is the onset of enlightenment. The emergence and survival of Rosso as an independent tradition in Japan was the result of historical accident and is an interesting example of the vagaries of transmission. Its parent, known in Chinese as Faxiang íŕlEI, was based not on earlier translations of Yogäcära treatises by Paramärtha (Zhendi m W, 499-569), but on those produced a little later by Xuanzang ^ S (c.596-664). Xuanzang is, of course, famous for the journey he made to India 4 Monuments at Nara 103 and back and for the sheer number of translations he produced. The reason for preference being shown to Xuanzang's interpretations owed more to imperial patronage for the man himself than to anything else. In China the Faxiang tradition itself was not to survive the Anlushan rebellion of 755-57, but survive it did in Japan, partly because of Fujiwara patronage and partly, no doubt, because of the sophistication of its doctrines. Hosso texts were initially brought to Japan by Dosho, who settled at Gangoji, but Genbo had also studied in this tradition and such was the influence of the Fujiwara that Kofukuji eventually won pre-eminence for this area of scholarship. One unorthodox element that seems to have been transmitted to Japan as part of Hosso doctrine was the idea that there was a particular class of beings (Jp. shusho ftttt), known as icchantika (Jp. issendai —iWSI) or incorrigibles, who, because of the type of innate seeds lying in their store consciousness, would never be able to achieve enlightenment no matter how hard they strived. This ran counter to the more inclusive Mahayana universalism and caused considerable controversy. It is not clear whether this theory came from Xuanzang's experience in India or from some other source, but the fact that it remained a central tenet of Japanese Hosso was perhaps not unrelated to the aristocratic nature of its Fujiwara patrons. Although there must have been a number of monks who felt rather uncomfortable with the ramifications of such overt discrirnination, the term shusho has strong overtones of status being defined by one's birth. The Kegon (Ch. Huayan PIS) tradition is the only one to take its name from a sutra, the vast Flower garland sutra. There were two full translations into Chinese: the first in sixty volumes by Buddhabhadra, and the second in eighty volumes by Siksananda. The sutra itself is a collection of texts from different traditions and different periods, some of which, such as the Dasabhumika (Jp. Jujikyo +ffife) and the Gandavyuha (Jp. Nyuhokkaibon 7^&Wau) existed as works in their own right, in both India and China. These texts were grouped together under the general theme of man's quest for enlightenment. Perhaps best thought of as a presentation of the universe through the eyes of someone already enlightened, a bodhisattva, the sutra consists of a series of long sermons. There are eight grand assemblies (#), two on earth, four in the realm of desire, and the last two back on earth. Vairocana is present throughout but does not speak, only emitting light occasionally from different parts of his body at various stages. The long progress of the candidate for buddhahood towards final enlightenment passes through five stages (&). 104 The arrival of Buddhism and its effects The philosophy that emerges is a complex one, treated by many as the crowning glory of Chinese, thought. The central figures are, therefore, all Chinese: Dushun ttJK (557-640), Zhiyan (602-68), Fazang.&cJi (643-712) and, later, Zongmi (780-841). It marks the maturation of a process by which the Chinese made Buddhism their own, often analysed as a Chinese response to Madhyamaka and Yogacara thought. It is not a commentary on the sutra so much as a complex analysis of the process towards, and experience of, enlightenment that takes the journey and the vision illustrated in the sutra as its starting point. This sinification of Buddhism began with Dushun, who started with the traditional terms 'emptiness' (Sk. sunyatd, Jp. kit 2c) and 'form' (Sk. rupa, Jp. shiki #,), but shifted to 'principle' (Jp. ri W) and 'phenomenon' (Jp. ji #). He proposed three 'discernments' II or meditational stances that would eventually lead to enlightenment: firstly, the 'discernment of true emptiness' MSH, which was the straightforward Mahayana view that there is no such thing as an unconditioned dharma; secondly, the 'discernment of the mutual non-obstruction of principle and phenomena' MMMM.W, which marks the change in terminology; and lastly, the 'discernment of the total pervasion and inclusion' /HM^SR, which reinvests phenomenal reality with significance. This is seen as a necessary procedure if the paradox of the bodhisattva, enlightened yet still present in this world, is to be explained. The replacement of 'emptiness' by 'principle' signals an important step in the direction of evolving a more affirmative discourse . . . The second discernment elucidates various ways in which phenomena and principle interrelate. Because they instantiate principle, all phenomena are thereby validated. This positive valuation of the phenomenal world culminates in the third discernment, that of total pervasion and inclusion. With this final discernment principle itself is ultimately transcended, and one enters the world of total interpenetration for which the Huayan tradition is justly famous. Each and every phenomenon is not only seen to contain each and every other phenomenon, but all phenomena are also seen to contain the totality of the unobstructed interpenetration of all phenomena' (Gregory 1991: 7). The cosmos that is discerned in this third phase is the Dharma Realm, the ultimate absolute nature of the universe, identified with the Dharma Body (Sk. dharmakdya, Jp. hosshin 8c $t), the body and mind of the Buddha Vairocana. Dushun's initial analysis was later recast in terms of four approaches, rather than three, the fourth view being particular to Huayan/Kegon. It described the terms in which a Buddha saw the universe. 4 Monuments at Nara 105 1 The universe as phenomena (Jihokkai #£&!?■): waves on the ocean appear to exist in and of themselves. 2 The universe as principle (rihokkai St&l?-): the ocean appears as water and one does not see the waves. 3 The universe as the unimpeded interpenetration of principle and phenomena (riji muge hokkai SlP^fllitiSsJ?-): one sees the waves and the water as at once distinct from each other and as one, dependent on each other. 4 The universe as the unimpeded interpenetration of phenomena and phenomena (jiji muge hokkai ^t-MW&W): this is Indra's net, covered in jewels at each knot, each jewel reflecting all the others. All things that exist are interdependent, all in one and one in all, the part dependent on the whole as the whole is dependent on the part. Everything has in common the fact that everything is emptiness, and it is this emptiness that links everything in a mutual relationship: the Dharma Realm can be therefore defined as pure relationship. The distinction between nirvana and samsara collapses. Another central element investigated by Huayan/Kegon doctrine was the idea of Buddha Nature {bussho #&tt). We all have within us the potentiality for buddhahood, that element of pure principle without which we would never have any aspiration towards becoming enlightened in the first place. This was also known as the 'Womb of the Buddha' (Sk. tathdgatagarbha, Jp. nyoraizo ffltMM). Enlightenment can be seen as the fusion of this individual element with the Dharma Realm. Part n From Saichö to the destruction of Tödaiji (80ÍM180) ilalls Plate 15 Shinra Myojin This remarkable statue of Shinra Myojin Sf Jf from Onjoji IIM^F is the oldest surviving example of an image of a gohojin Wi&T$, or protector deity of the Buddhist Dharma. Many of these were native to Japan but a number had continental origins. As his name suggests, this particular deity was from the Korean state of Silla. Onjoji tradition had it that he appeared to the founder and First abbot Enchin- (814-91) as he was about to return from China via the northern route along the west coast of the Korean peninsula in 858. On both voyages Enchin used a Sillan vessel. Nothing definite is known of Shinra Myojin's origins but he may well have been a protector of seafarers. His role expanded at Onjoji as a result of the bitter rivalry with Enryakuji that eventually led to the schism that produced the Sanmon-Jimon groups in the late tenth century (see §7.1). Ennin at Enryakuji had adopted as his protector the Chinese deity Sekizan Myojin tutelary deity of Mt Chi in Shandong Province, and when the split occurred Onjoji created its own deity. The first written evidence of Shinran Myojin is a record of the court granting him senior Fourth Rank upper grade hi 971. Scholarly consensus is that this statue, which as a National Treasure is now kept in the Shinra Zenshindo f|f|!^ in the Onjoji compound, was produced about 1052. It was presumably created either on the basis of an iconographical drawing or from memory but no other example of this striking figure survives (Guth 1999). 7500^637700663^6 110 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji lit Chronology 794 . Kanmu moves the capital to Heian-kyo. 796 Toji, Saiji and Kuramadera established. 797; Kukai composes Sango Shiiki. Shoku Nihongi finished. 798 Kiyomizudera founded. 800 MtFuji erupts. . 804 Saicho and Kukai travel to Tang China. 805: Saicho returns, 806 . Kukai returns. Kanmu dies and Heizei becomes new sovereign. 809.. Heizei deposed and Saga becomes sovereign. 822 The Shingon'in is set up at Todaiji. Saicho dies. 835 Kukai dies. 838 Ennin travels to China. 847 Ennrn returns. 858 Enchin returns. 860 Iwashimizu Hachiman miyadera established. 901 Sugawara no Michizane banished to Daizaifu. 907 Tang Dynasty collapses. 914 . Miyoshi Kiyoyukicomposes Iken junikajo. 924 First rites held for Shinra Myojin on Hieizan. 927 tngishiki presented to the throne. 938 K5ya starts his activities in the capital. Taira no Masakado rebels. 948 ■"; Kitano shrine established in honour of Michizane. 966 Ryogen made Tendai abbot. 974 : Kagero nikki written about this time. : 983 Chonen travels to Song China. 985 Ryogen dies. Genshin's Ojd yoshu completed. 1003 Jakusho travels to China: . . 1007 Michinaga makes a pilgrimage to Kinpuseri. 1010 :' Genji rrionogatari started aibouf this time. 1017 Genshin dies. 1023; Michinaga makes a pilgrimage to Koyasan. :, 1027: Michinaga dies. 1052 Byodoin established at Uji by Yorimichi. Traditionally, beginning of mappo. 1072 Jojin travels to Song China. 1081 Dispute breaks out between Enryakuji and Onjoji. 1086 Shirakawa abdicates and Insei period begins. 1090 Shirakawa's first pilgrimage to Kumano. 1095 Monks from Enryakuji bring the Hie palanquin to the capital. 1102 Todaiji and Kofukuji in conflict. 1113 Monks from Enryakuji and Kofukuji in conflict. 1126 Golden Hall dedicated at Chusonji. 1131 Kakuban requests permission to establish the Daidenpoin. 1140 Monks from Enryakuji burn down sections of Onjoji. Saigyo becomes a monk. Kakuban moves to Negoro. 1143 Kakuban dies. 1156 Hogen Disturbance. 1158 Go-Shirakawa begins his rule as retired sovereign. 1159 Heiji Disturbance. 1160 Disturbances on Hieizan. Enryakuji monks invade the capital. Minamoto no Yoritomo (aged fourteen) escapes to the Kanto. 1163 Monks from Enryakuji burn sections of Onjoji. 1164 The Heike nokyo produced. 1165 Continued disturbances. 1168 Eisai travels to Song China and returns with Chogen. 1173 Monks from Kofukuji burn Tonomine. 1175 Hdnen leaves Hieizan and begins his proselytising. 1178 Taira no Kiyomori defends scholar-monks in Enryakuji against worker-monks. 1180 Todaiji and Kofukuji destroyed. 112 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji Map 4 The home provinces in the early Heian period 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai 5.1 The situation in 800 The writing of a historical narrative such as this is, of course, governed by the nature and quantity of available sources, many of which are narratives in their own right with their own agendas. Such accounts can in their turn become causes for subsequent developments, immutable parts of history with their own dynamic, so that even though one might wish to rewrite them, they cannot be ignored. Given the importance of lineage in the transmission of Buddhist teachings, Buddhist histories tend to be a series of hagiographies of charismatic monks (kosoden KiiMlf)- No matter how firm one's resolve might be to escape the idea that 'great individuals make history', it is difficult to avoid in such a context, since the narratives themselves and their influence form a large part of the object of study. It is with this caveat in mind that we shall approach the early Heian period through two remarkable individuals: Saicho ift?! and Kukai SS. Between diem, these men set the parameters that have governed the development of Japanese Buddhism ever since. Up to this point, the process had been one of slow absorption over a period of some two centuries. There were, of course, local peculiarities, but by and large the pattern differed little from that prefigured in Korea: the introduction of a powerful new deity, or set of deities, duly appropriated by the ruling class for its own purposes. Initially the vector was visual, an impressive array of sculpture, painting and architecture, only gradually augmented by the written word; and the doctrines of personal liberation and salvation that were contained in these writings were, for the most part, hidden from all but the literate few. In contrast to China, where Buddhism encountered a number of sophisticated conceptual systems from the outset, local Japanese cults were of a very different order and could offer little philosophical resistance. Of course, the understanding of Buddhism in Asuka and Nara was governed by native concerns and interests, and in this sense Buddhism in Japan was 113 114 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji always going to be different from anywhere else, but it was essentially an instinctive rather than an intellectual response to an external stimulus. With the emergence of Saicho and Kukai, however, we enter a very different phase: the beginnings of what can truly be called a 'Japanese' Buddhism. This new development had much to do with the situation as it was developing on the continent. In 676 Silla Sf B succeeded in unifying the southern part of the Korean peninsula and was to hold this unified state together until about 889. To the northwest lay the large state of Parhae ffilM (Jp. Bokkai), which had been founded by defeated remnants of Koguryo in 698 and continued to control a large swathe of Manchuria until falling to the Khitan invasions of 926. Parhae sent regular missions to the Japanese court in the early Heian period, but it is doubtful whether anything significant in terms of Buddhist influence travelled this route. Silla, on the other hand, became a major centre for Buddhism during the late seventh and eighth centuries, producing such men as Wonhyo ftK (617-86), Chajang II (fl. 636-45), Uisang mm (625-702) and W6nch.uk US! (613-96). Even so, the country that the Japanese were most interested in was China, and it was to the various Buddhist centres there that Japanese monks preferred to go and study. The irony is that Buddhism was never entirely safe in China. Although it flourished in the reigns of Empress Wu (r. 684-705) and Emperor Xuanzong Xf? (r. 712-56), Buddhist scholarship was dealt a heavy blow in the Anlushan S IS lit rebellion of 755—57. The inevitable destruction of monasteries that resulted from seven years of warfare in the area meant not only the loss of buildings, which in better times could have been replaced, but also a disruption in scholarly traditions, which had far-reaching implications for the subsequent development of Buddhism in China. Many of the most significant Buddhist commentaries and treatises produced in the first half of the T'ang disappeared after An Lu-shan - although it should be noted that they were often preserved in Korea and Japan. Even such a doctrinally important school as the Fa-hsiang with its voluminous literature vanished with hardly a trace after the An Lu-shan rebellion, only to survive in Japan with its elaborate doctrinal system intact (Weinstein 1987: 61-62). / Under Daizong f\5? (r. 762-79) there was vast expenditure on rebuilding monasteries and a concomitant concern about taxes and rampant abuse of the habit of selling ordination certificates. This led to less enthusiasm for Buddhist institutions on the part of his successor, Dezong Hi ^ (r. 779-805), although he gained a reputation as a devout Buddhist near the end of his reign and authorised the establishment of the Institute for the Translation of 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai 115 Buddhist Scriptures (Yijingyuan PS IT) in 788. Xianzong Mm (r. 805-20) was also a strong promoter of Buddhism, despite continued worries about its undue wealth and the deleterious effect of allowing unofficial ordinations, and it was indeed his activities that led to the famous complaint of 819 written by the Confucian scholar Hanyu against the emperor's reverence for a finger-bone relic of the Buddha. Buddhism finally came under sustained attack, however, in 835 when Emperor Wenzong 3tM (r. 827-40). started a major purge of the whole institution, calling for severe discipline to be reintroduced. The coup de grace came during the reign of Wuzong |K;g? (r. 840^-6) in what became known as the Huichang suppression UMlffifl, which included wholesale destruction of temples and libraries, the forced laicisation of tens of thousands of monks, and reported massacres. We know a good deal about the events of these years from the diary of the Japanese monk Ennin HSt (793-864), who travelled in China from 838 to 847 and witnessed much of the distress of those years (Reischauer 1955a and b). Buddhism would, of course, survive in China, but the effect on Japanese monks of this single-minded repression must have been profound. Although it would be going too far to say that China lost its role as the fount of Buddhist knowledge and practice at this point, Japanese Buddhists certainly began to feel a stronger sense of their own worth and their own abilities. 5.2 Saicho Saicho was born in 767 and died in 822. At the age of twelve he was sent to the kokubunji at Omi to study with the monk Gyohyo frit (722-97) who had himself studied under Daoxuan. At the age of fourteen he became a novice and at nineteen he went to Nara to study for ordination at Todaiji. It is known that during these years Gyohyo introduced him to a wide range of Buddhist doctrines, including Kegon and Hosso texts. Having completed the required study of the 250 rules, Saicho left Nara and went north to the mountain known as Hieizan, which overlooked Lake Biwa to the east. This was a rather unusual step to take. Whether there was already a temple there is not known, but the living conditions must have been very harsh, and it suggests that he took his taining extremely seriously, preferring the rigours of mountain asceticism to any advancement within the Buddhist hierarchy. Certainly, anyone who wanted to make their mark politically would have remained in Nara. Life on the mountain seems to have ■ been divided between long stretches of meditation practice and further study, and it was during this time 116 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji that he first encountered reference to the Tiantai doctrinal tradition. He then managed to obtain from Nara copies of the major works of the founder of this tradition, Zhiyi Hrll (538-97): the Profound meaning of the Lotus siitra (Jp. Hokke gengi feW&WL); the Words and phrases in the Lotus siitra (Jp. Hokke mongu ffiSf^'frJ), a phrase-by-phrase explanation of the text; and Mahdydna calming and contemplation (Jp. Maka shikan iSMlhll), a treatise on the meditational techniques considered necessary to achieve enlightenment.1 These texts had in fact been brought to Japan only thirty years previously by Jianzhen but had remained largely unstudied until Saicho came across them. What really triggered his interest is not known. By 788 Saicho had managed to have a small hall dedicated to Yakushi built on the mountain, and in 793 this was renamed the One-Vehicle Calming and Contemplation Hall (Ichijo shikan'in —^.itWM), a direct reference to Tiantai doctrine. In choosing Hieizan Saicho was either prescient or extremely lucky, because when the new capital was established at Heian-kyo, Hieizan found itself guarding the northeast approaches, a direction that was considered to be particularly prone to evil influences. It is likely that it was Saicho's continued presence on the mountain that drew him to the attention of the court and Kanmu Tenno. In 797 he was appointed naigubu (Wft^), the title given to those monks who served in the palace itself.2 By 801 Saicho was becoming known for his learning and his views on the pre-eminence of the Lotus siitra, for in that year he persuaded ten monks to come from Nara to participate in a series of lectures that he had initiated in 798. The next year, 802, he was invited to participate in some seminars on Zhiyi's works held at Takaosanji it? B ill # to the northwest of the new capital. Partly as a result of his performances on these occasions, he was granted permission to accompany a mission that was on the point of leaving for China; he was to study Tiantai further and bring back more accurate texts. He was also allowed to take with him the novice Gishin HM (781-833), who is said to have studied some colloquial Chinese at Todaiji. Missions such as these were few and far between, being both costly and extremely dangerous, and over twenty years had passed since the return of the last expedition. Preparations began in 801, but the four ships involved were not ready until 803 and they ran into bad weather even before they had left the Inland Sea: three were heavily damaged and the fourth one (carrying Saicho) limped on to Kyushu to await instructions (Borgen 1982). Eventually ' Ch. Fahua xuanyi,T. 1716; Ch. Fahua wenju, T. 1718; Ch. Mohezhiguan, T. 1911. 2 Originally ten such priests were appointed and so they were also known as the ten meditation" masters (juzenji -hBSP). See Groner 1984: 31. 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai 117 118 Prom Saicho to the destruction ofTddaiji 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese'Buddhism: Tendai 119 all four ships left from Tanoura S ffi in the seventh month of 804. Unfortunately this was the worst time to sail: not only was it the typhoon season but Japanese ships lacked the keels that would have helped them run against the prevailing westerlies. Two of the four ships were forced to turn back. Saicho's ship managed to reach Mingzhou %M 'H'\ on the first day of the ninth month [map 5], The official mission left immediately for the capital at Chang'an jlS;, but Saicho headed southwest to Mt Tiantai ^SLll, where he arrived on 804.9.26. He was treated well, met the governor and obtained an introduction to Daosui MM, who had studied under Zhanran fi#f* (711-82), the second most important master of the tradition; it is from Daosui that Saicho claimed to have received personal instruction and certification. On 804.10.13 he is said to have received a transmission of the Ox Head tradition of Chan at the Chanlinsi iff#Tr"3 and an esoteric initiation known as the Rite of the Buddha's Pate (Jp. Dai Butcho ho at the Guoqingsi Mfm=5. 'Transmission' in this context probably meant little more than learning a technique or ritual from a master, but to be able to claim such an experience was crucial to all who went to China. The legitimacy thus obtained was priceless and well worth the dangers of travel, especially if some sort of certification could be produced. Saicho spent his time on Mt Tiantai studying and arranging for a large number of works to be copied (he returned with about 230), mcluding the Tantra of wondrous attainments (Jp. Soshitchikara kyo IiftSII),4a tantric text that would later be of considerable importance. In 805.3.2 he and his companion Gishin were formally acknowledged as monks of the Tiantai tradition. Both men then returned to Mingzhou, where they found that the mission was not scheduled to leave for another month and a half. Saicho took the opportunity to visit two temples in nearby Yuezhou Hffl, where both he and Gishin received further esoteric transmissions.5 Saicho then returned with the main mission in the fifth month of 805 and was back in Japan within two months. His stay had been less than nine months in total. It is clear from Saicho's experience that a wide variety of doctrines and practices were available both on Mt Tiantai itself and at temples in the 3 See more on this tradition in §13.1. Having the patronage of Kanmu, Saicho had been given plenty of expenses for his journey. Part of the allowance was spent on a building in the Chanlinsi intended to serve as quarters for the Japanese students who would follow. It was destroyed in the Huichang suppression of 845 but rebuilt by Enchin at the Guoqingsi with funds supplied by Fujiwara no Yoshisuke WM&ffl, Groner 1984: 64. 4 Sk. Susiddhikaratantra, Ch. Suxidijieluo jing, T. 893. 5 On the vexed question of precisely which transmissions were received, see Groner 1984: 52-63, and on the question of the authenticity of certain key certificates, see Chen 1998. vicinity, and that he made full use of this eclectic mixture: Although Chang'an was the main centre for tantric Buddhism, such practice had spread widely in China by this time and, given the interest of early Japanese Buddhism in spells, rites and their effects, it is only natural that Saicho should pay it particular attention. The point here is that what we shall later describe as the tantricisation of Japanese Tendai in the tenth century was merely an extension of earlier concerns and not something out of character. Saicho was initiated into a number of different rituals and mandalas. Their exact nature was to become a matter of great controversy later when Kukai's followers tried to stigmatise Saicho's experience as inferior and muddled compared with Kukai's inheritance of the 'true' tradition. And, as we shall see, the matter is made even more complicated since Saicho himself received instruction from Kukai after the latter's return to Japan. 5.3 The Tiantai tradition What is meant by the term 'Tiantai tradition' and what did it signify at this juncture? The name is that of the mountain southeast of the city of Hangzhou tftffl in Zhejiang Province, where a monastic centre had been established by Zhiyi in 575. The teachings became associated with this mountain complex and with the Guoqingsi that was built in memory of the master in 601. But this link should not blind us to the fact that the tradition was widespread and taught at many other centres, perhaps the most important being the Yuquansi lEIft^ near Qingzhou SiW (Hubei Province), founded by Zhiyi in 593, which became known for its eclecticism and in particular for its interest in tantric ritual. It is here, for example, that the tantric master Yixing — ff (683-727) is said to have studied Tiantai, and the kind of rituals that Saicho found at Mt Tiantai may well have had their beginnings at Yuquansi (Groner 1984: 51; Penkower 1993: 191-93): Tiantai was the earliest of the three great traditions to emerge in the sixth and seventh centuries (Faxiang and Huayan being the other two), and it wrought a fundamental change in Chinese Buddhism, marking a shift away from the kind of translation and exegesis that had been driven mainly by a desire to understand correctly the writings of the Indian masters towards a Buddhism more in tune with Chinese attitudes, thought and habits. Numerous surras were studied arid interpreted in ways that went far beyond a literal appreciation of their content; as we have already seen in the case of the Flower garland sutra, they were used as springboards for philosophical 120 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji. speculation. To a large extent this can be put down to the nature of the sutras themselves,. which tended to be illustrative and discursive rather than theoretical or argumentative, open texts that invited the kind of commentary that lay claim to a discovery of an underlying meaning. In the course of the Tang, these three traditions influenced each other greatly, but they had very different functions and interests. One might describe Faxiang ffiffi as a highly specialised scholarly tradition that analysed the mechanisms of human consciousness; and it was so closely tied to the fortunes of the translator Xuanzang that it failed to survive the Huichang suppression. Huayan ¥iic was a highly speculative. philosophical inquiry into the nature of enlightenment and the path of the bodhisattva. Tiantai was something rather wider in scope, a movement which tried to be as inclusive as possible, bringing some semblance of order to the Buddha's teachings, interesting itself in intensely practical matters such as how to meditate, and, above all, breaking down the barriers between monk and layman by stressing the possibility of enlightenment for all. Tiantai teachings were not actively supported by the early Tang rulers, who may well have found it difficult to give support to a community that had been closely involved with a ruling family they had just overthrown (Weinstein 1973). When they were not actively putting Buddhism under pressure and supporting Daoism, they showed more interest in supporting Xuanzang and the Faxiang tradition that grew out of his work as a translator. The accession of Empress Wu brought a irrrther shift in patronage as she supported Huayan scholarship and showered honours on its first systematiser, Fazang. The emphasis changed yet again under Emperor Xuanzong, who became interested in what the newly arrived tantric masters from India had to offer, a development that we shall investigate in due course. This continued low profile of Tiantai teachings throughout the period may help to explain why it took so long for them to be recognised in Japan, why both Faxiang and Huayan became the object of interest well before the Heian period, and why we have to wait until the almost accidental discovery of Tiantai texts by Saicho before they begin to make an impact. It has in fact proved quite difficult to identify what Zhiyi's teachings actually were in the sixth century. Most of his work has come down to us in the form of lecture notes taken by his student Guanding SH (561-632) and by Saicho's time these were commonly read through the prism of commentaries composed by Zhanran, much of whose work was devoted to responding to doctrinal developments in traditions of which Zhiyi himself could not have been aware, including the growing impact of Chan. It seems 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese'Buddhism: Tendai 121 to have been Zhanran, for example, who produced the indissoluble link between Tiantai doctrine and the Lotus sütra, arguing that Zhiyi's genius lay in his discovery of the profound meaning hidden in this sütra, which he had then revealed in his two major commentaries. Even so, the variety of influences that Saichö encountered in 804-05 make it plain that Tiantai was not as monolithic at this stage as later sectarian historians have tried to make out. The situation was, in fact, extremely complicated, and it is unwise to try and illustrate what Tiantai may have meant to Saichö by presenting a description of Tiantai that has been filtered through later Song polemics. Perhaps it might be safer to use a text such as Gishin's Tendai hokkeshü gishü ^Äffiäp§K(JÄ, which was presented to the Japanese court in 830, but, although this text is readily available, it does not give an adequate explanation of the doctrines to the uninitiated (Robert 1990; Swanson 1995). Tiantai doctrine is complex and difficult to present without lengthy excursions into paradoxical arguments. The best we can do here is offer some general pointers. Fundamental to Tiantai is the concept of 'three truths' (Ch. san ti ELW). The Indian tradition had a tried and trusted concept of two truths: 'conventional truth' (Sk. samvrti-satya), which was how the unenlightened saw reality, as samsära, all conditioned things being governed by the law of dependent origination; and 'supreme truth' (Sk. paramärtha-satyd), which was how the enlightened saw reality, as nirvana, all conditioned things being characterised by emptiness. Out of this Zhiyi developed a third truth, producing a triad of the 'empty' (Jp. kit f£ ), 'provisional' (Jp. he fH) and 'mean' (Jp. chü 4"). There are in fact four layers: firstly, the state of ignorance, which assumes a complete lack of truth; secondly, the understanding that all is emptiness; thirdly, the return to the conventional, but now armed with certain knowledge of the provisional nature of reality; and fourthly, the 'mean', which affirms the second and third layers, seeing them as two sides of the same coin, the one inevitably entailing the other. Emptiness is just as real and non-real as provisionality, which can be defined as assuming something exists 'for the sake of argument', a heuristic technique (Sk. upäya, Jp. höben ff M. ) to lead people to enlightenment. The ultimate form of truth therefore lies in understanding that each pole presupposes its opposite, is only definable in terms of its opposite, and is in this sense indivisible from its opposite. But this kind of truth is not exclusive and does not negate the duality; it must be seen as having equal importance to the other two, because it too is relative and reliant on difference. By. saying that samsära is nirvana, one is not denying their difference; one is merely saying that although both are at root characterised 122 [From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai 123 by emptiness and could thereby be treated as identical, nothing can exist without its opposite, since everything is relative, so their difference can never be fully negated. In Zhiyi's own words, 'the threefold truth is perfectly integrated; one-in-three and three-in-one' HMHHl-"HH—.6 It is when one understands this truth and sees things as they really are that one is in a state of being enlightened. The Tiantai solution to the problem of suffering lies in thinking through to the end a tendency foreshadowed in much Mahayana thought. The overcoming of suffering is seen as ultimately a question of coming to understand that the apparent dichotomy between suffering and liberation. (enlightenment, bliss) is false, rather than the elimination of a real entity called suffering. The torment of finitude lies, in this view,, in the mistaken notion that torment and bliss (as well as finitude and infinity) are mutually exclusive, in the erroneous view that to attain bliss it is necessary to eradicate torment rather than to experience that bliss within, or perhaps even as, the (first-order) torment itself. . . This identity [of good and evil] is also supposed to preserve the difference and even the conflict between the two, such that identity and difference are seen to be mutually entailing and mutually inclusive. This understanding of identity is mediated by the notion that each of the two opposite 'parts' that constitute the situation ... is, itself alone, the whole. Hence suffering is both sufferfng-and-bliss, and bliss is also suffering-and-bliss. In this sense they are identical to one another, even as they maintain their difference from one another rather than being dissolved in some neutral tertium quid (Ziporyn 2000: 113). The process by which one reaches first an intellectual and then an intuitive understanding of the 'mean', and hence enlightenment, involved three modes of calming (Ch. sanshi ELlh) and three of contemplation (sanguan £S). By contemplating the dharmas of mundane existence as dependency originated, devoid of self-existence, and hence utterly inapprehensible, one 'enters emptiness from provisionality' #fgA3?. The delusions of view and cultivation that bind one to samsara are severed, and one achieves the liberation of nirvana. By applying the same critique to the truth of emptiness itself, one severs biased attachment to emptiness (i.e., the delusion mat eclipses the infinite sandlike features of existence) and reaffirms.its fundamental identity with provisional existence. In effect, one fearlessly 'reenters' or 'comes forth into' provisional existence from emptiness t^AIIS but this time as the self-sovereign master of samsaric existence rather than its naive victim. From this point on both extremes of existence and emptiness are 'simultaneously illumined and simultaneously eradicated' H M IE t . When all vestiges of dualism (i.e., root nescience) vanish, the transcendent and unalloyed middle -the third and absolute truth - is revealed (Dormer and Stevenson 1993: 12). 6 Swanson 1995: 7. This three-way distinction may have been developed from a 'creative misreading' of a crucial verse in Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika. Reaching enlightenment is one thing. But how can it be that we also have the possibility of reaching buddhahood, which is quite another? This can be explained by using the concept of the ten realms (jikkai + #). Each consciousness has available to it ten ways of perceiving the world. Known as the ten realms, these were (in ascending order) hell, hungry ghosts, animals, demi-gods, men, gods, sravakas (Jp. shomon IB), pratyekabuddhas (Jp. dokugaku WM), bodhisattvas (Jp. bosatsu Hrfl) and buddhas. Sravakas were those 'auditors' who had heard Sakyamuni himself preach and so achieved instant enlightenment, becoming what was known as arhats; they were not teachers and so were not in a position to produce merit through compassion; pratyekabuddhas were those who had achieved enlightenment but simply happened to have no one they could teach, so they were not in a position become bodhisattvas either; bodhisattvas have the desire and the techniques to help others achieve nirvana and so are ranked higher than the other two. It will be noticed that these ten realms include six that have the same names as the 'six courses' mentioned earlier, but in Tiantai doctrine these are not courses into which one may be reborn but realms of consciousness, all of which entail each other (Jp. jikkai gogu +#5^). And since they do entail each other and are coeval, then human consciousness can experience all of them. All things therefore have the potential to experience all realms, including that of buddhahood. Zhiyi shared with his contemporaries a concern to bring some semblance of order to the jumble of texts that had accumulated in China over more than four hundred years of translation. Each sutra claimed to be the final word of the Buddha but the ideas presented were often contradictory, so scholars felt the need to classify scriptures into a hierarchy with their own particular truth at the apex. Zhiyi was also interested in this kind of classification, which was known as 'discriminating between teachings' (Ch. panjiao fiifc - in Japanese this term was reversed as kyohan f£fJJ). But his intention was to try and synthesise rather than divide, the general effect of the exercise being to relativise the content of the various teachings and so reduce the potential for conflict. The end result of his systematisation was a division into four broad categories of teaching: tripitaka, shared, distinct and perfect (or integrated). The tripitaka teaching (zangfiao M Ht), the Hfnayana teaching of the sravaka, is designed for beings of dull capacity who are deeply entrenched in mundane existence. By characterizing existence as suffering, they are induced to renounce samsara, remove the delusions of view and cultivation, and attain the nirvana of the arhat. This goal is achieved through an analytic reduction of existence to its dharmic components (fenxikong SrfffS) and, ultimately, the featureless quiescence of emptiness. Although the tripitaka teaching affords liberation from samsara, it remains caught up in the 124 FromSaicho to the destruction of Todaiji 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai 125 duality, of existence and emptiness and so falls short of the middle way. Hence it remains a biased and merely provisional doctrine - one that must wait for the more profound teaching of the Mahäyana to be completed. The shared teaching (tongjiao Hffc) receives its particular name for two reasons: first; because it advocates an immediate or intuitive understanding of emptiness (tikóng that is foundational to all Buddhist teachings, Hinayana as well as Mahäyana; and second, because it incorporates the alternative soteriological ends of ail.three vehicles (i.e., šrävaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva) within its scheme of the path. Both features - its emphasis on emptiness and its salvific ambiguity - make the shared teaching a. purely transitional and therefore incomplete doctrine. The separate teaching (biejiao SOS) is the exclusive domain of the bodhisattva: its principles, its language, its practices, its professed goals are purely Mahäyana, unshared by any of the lesser two vehicles or teachings. For the first time the middle truth of Buddhahood is openly established as the supreme goal, and the two truths of emptiness and provisionality demoted to the status of expediency. Nevertheless, spiritual progress in the separate teaching is decidedly gradualistic (Jianci W-fc) in character. Over a course of fifty-two levels ... the bodliisattva proceeds in dialectical sequence (cidi 5*C W, ) through the three truths, passing first from mundane or provisional existence to emptiness, back to provisionality (with simultaneous discernment of emptiness), and finally to the middle. Only with the last twelve levels of the fifty-two - the ten bhurni or bodhisattva stages, plus penultimate enlightenment (dengjue ^ ji) and wondrous enlightenment (miaojue &fcfE) - are the two biased views of emptiness and provisionality shed, root nescience penetrated, and the middle truth of Buddhahood revealed. In this respect, even though the separate teaching ultimately reaches the middle, its approach is roundabout and crude, for it lends excessive concreteness to the dualism of existence and emptiness and its attendant delusions and requires a string of biased expedients to redress these imbalances and achieve its final goal. The perfect teaching (yuanjiao H f!c), as its name suggests, is the only teaching among the four that conforms directly to the nature of ultimate reality. Hence it is equivalent to the genuine (shi f) one Buddha vehicle mentioned in the Lotus sutra. Here the perfect (yuan II) vision of the inconceivable middle truth is presented 'all at once' (dun ig), without the mediation of the provisional and gradualistic expedients that characterize the tripitaka, shared,..and separate doctrines. Being the most marvelous and profound of paths, it is. intended only for bodhisattvas of keenest ability (ligen %llffi) (Donner and Stevenson 1993: 14-1.6). These teachings had been pronounced by the Buddha at five periods in his lifetime, each time with increasing insight and wisdom, the last period being that of the Lotus sutra, which illustrated the One Vehicle, holding out the promise of ultimate buddhahood, as opposed to the Three Vehicles, which stop short at the stage of the bodhisattva. The One Vehicle in fact makes the assumption not only that salvation is universally attainable but that we all have the potential to become a buddha ourselves, in this very life and in this very body. From an Indian, pre-tantric, perspective this is a quite extraordinary claim, but it was typical of the more optimistic approach taken by Chinese Buddhists. This shift was to affect all subsequent forms of Buddhism in China, particularly the development of Chan. The process by which one was supposed to reach this goal was described in the meditation manual Mahdydna calming and contemplation, where Zhiyi went into considerable detail about how one put the three truths into practice in terms of the fourth, perfect teaching. It began with the arousal of bodhicitta, the determination to achieve enlightenment and beyond, and then led the practitioner through a series of stages towards the ultimate goal, stressing the need to 'seek upward for enlightenment while transforming sentient beings below' Qp.jdgu bodai geke shujo _h^#^Tft^?4). The dictum that encapsulated the complexity of what one was seeking was 'three thousand [worlds] in a single thought' (Jp. ichinen sanzen — ik =. ). Mahdydna calming and contemplation is perhaps best known for its presentation of four methods of religious discipline (samddhi), which were linked to visualisations and to which we shall have occasion to refer later: 'constantly sitting' (Jp. joza sanmai f SHS), associated with Manjusri; 'constantly walking' (Jp. jogyo sanmai %fi=M), associated with Amitabha; 'part walking/part sitting' (Jp: hangyo hanza sanmai ff ¥ 31 H l£ ), associated with Samantabhadra; and 'neither sitting nor walking' (Jp. higyo hiza sanmai also known as 'following one's own thoughts as they arise' (Jp. zuiji 'i $t @ M), linked to Avalokitesvara. The inclusion of cult elements into meditational practice in this way was to be a matter of contmuing controversy in the interpretation of Mahdydna calming and contemplation in China, and in Japan it was to develop in interesting ways, especially as regards Amitabha. 5.4 The Lotus sutra And what of the.,Lotus sutra(Jp. Hokekyo ffi^H),7 which had such influence in East Asia and gave rise to such intricate philosophical discourse? The first Chinese translation was produced by Dharmaraksa in 286 CE, which predates the earliest Sanskrit MS (found in Gilgit, Kashmir in 1931) by many centuries. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the Lotus was never central to the Indian tradition, and the Tibetan canon contains not one single com- 7 Sk. Saddharmapundarikasutra; Ch. Fahua jing, T. 262. 126 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai \21 mentary, but the situation in Central Asia and China was entirely different: in the guise of Kumarajiva's Chinese version of 406, it became tire most influential sutra of them all. The sutra opens in Rajagrha where the Buddha has just entered meditation after having preached the 'Great Vehicle'. His listeners see a vision and Mafijusri tells Maitreya that this happened once in the distant past, just before a buddlia preached the 'Wonderful Law' and finally revealed the true nature of all things. Emerging from his concentration (Chapter 2), the Buddha then explains to his disciple Sariputra how difficult true wisdom is to comprehend: it is beyond language, and only a buddha can grasp its full import. Sariputra has to beg him three times before he agrees at least to try an explanation. At this point 5,000 listeners get up and leave, secure in the belief that they already know all there is to know. As language is inadequate to the task, we are given not a discourse or a sermon, but rather a series of vignettes and images, some of which become full-blown parables, all designed to make the message accessible. Not for nothing did the Lotus eventually become the most illustrated sutra of them all. The Buddha explains that although prior to this point he had indeed taught that there were Three Vehicles that would bring one to enlightenment, there is in fact only one. The three had been presented as heuristic devices, provisional truths to fit audiences of lesser capabilities. Now the final truth is to be revealed. The Three Vehicles were those of the sravakas, pratyekabuddhas and bodhisattvas. The first two were stigmatised as followers of Hinayana, the Lesser Vehicle. What made them lesser examples to follow was not so much their lack of compassion as their lack of any means by which they could teach. It was the bodhisattvas, who had both compassion and the means to express that compassion, who were the true followers of the Mahayana or Greater Vehicle. But what was this new, single vehicle? The Lotus identifies it simply as the 'Way of the Buddha'. At the end of Chapter 2, the Buddha prophesies that Sariputra will eventually become a buddha himself, and one finds such prophecies repeated throughout the sutra from time to time. This is far more radical than.may appear at first sight, since we must remember that Sariputra was a disciple, a sravaka, hence supposedly one of those who followed the Lesser Vehicle. The message is the astounding one that everyone has the potential not just to achieve enlightenment and enter nirvana, but to become a buddha in his or her own right. It is for this reason that Mahayana is seen to be a message of universal liberation with compassion at its heart. The Lotus sutra represents Mahayana at its most militant. Unlike most other Mahayana texts, which dwell at length on the concept of sunyatd, the nature of emptiness, the Lotus is more accessible, tells memorable stories, and openly challenges every other path, claiming supremacy for its own message. Now that the central message has been delivered, there should be no more to say, but the sutra continues to expand, dealing in more detail with the question of intelligibility: how can a truth beyond language be expressed? Chapter 3 discusses the kind of heuristic techniques one may use. By using an analogy, the Buddha explains why, despite knowing the ultimate truth, he had previously preached a lesser truth. The analogy concerns children in a burning house, who can only be saved by an act of deception on the part of the father. These analogies are a marked characteristic of the sutra as a whole. He then prophesies buddhahood for others of his followers and Mahakasyapa expresses his delight with a further parable (Chapter 4) about a son leaving home, becoming a beggar, and later being given a menial job in a large household, not recognising that die head of the household is his father until the truth is revealed to him after many years. The menial job is a metaphor for the Lesser Vehicle, the revelation is that of Mahayana. Yes, says the Buddha (Chapter 5), take the example of the rain, which falls equally on the whole of nature; different plants and trees react in different ways and only a very few have the potential to end up as the largest trees. He then prophesies buddhahood for even more of his disciples (Chapter 6). They in turn explain their situation in terms of someone who has lived most of his life in extremely poor circumstances while remaining unaware that a friend had long ago sewn a rich jewel into the lining of his garment. Salvation has always been within easy reach; they have simply been ignorant and unable to see it (Chapter 8). Chapter 10 is devoted to the proposition that the sutra itself is even more valuable than the relics of Sakyamuni and should be honoured above all things. At this juncture an immense stupa suddenly rises out of the earth containing the body of a previous buddha called Prabhutaratna, 'Many Jewels', who had apparently vowed to appear in the future whenever the Lotus was expounded. The stupa opens up and Sakyamuni takes his place beside Prabhutaratna. As a result, the buddha field of Sakyamuni, this world of ours, is suddenly transformed into a Pure Land and all other buddhas from all other worlds gather to honour the pair. The message of this image is equally as astounding as the prophecies of buddhahood for all. Early Buddhism believed that although there had been buddhas in past aeons and there would be buddhas in the future, time was linear and only one buddha could exist at anyone time. We were fortunate to have been born at a time when the message of the 'historical Buddha' 128 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji Sakyamuni could still be heard and practised, but Sakyamuni himself was now 'the thus-gone one' (Sk. Tathagata). What is now being shown in the Lotus is that more than one buddha can exist in the same world at the same time. Sakyamuni was in fact a temporal manifestation of an eternal and infinite buddha, who is always present: we have not been left behind to fend for ourselves. There follows the crucial 'Devadatta' chapter (Chapter 12), which was in Dharmaraksa's version but not apparently in the text used by Kumarajiva; nevertheless, it was seen as intrinsic to the text by the time of Zhiyi. In it, Sakyamuni prophesies that even Devadatta, his cousin, who was reputed to have tried to kill him a number of times, would eventually reach ultimate buddhahood; he goes on to show how the power of the Lotus sutra even allowed a young female, the daughter of the Dragon King, to achieve this ultimate goal. She admittedly achieves this by undergoing instantaneous transformation into a male, but this was good enough for the large number of women who sought refuge in Buddhism, despite its tendency to misogyny. It was largely a result of the existence of this chapter that the Lotus became a central text for women at court to copy and honour in various ways. The main theme of this first section, which Tiantai doctrine identified as the 'Entrance of traces' (Jp. shakumon 3$; PI), was therefore the revelation of the One Vehicle, holding out the possibility of buddhahood for all. The second half of the sutra is taken up with questions about the span of a buddha's life and further proof of the fact that the single life of Sakyamuni was in a sense an illusion: his life is in fact limitless and eternal. It is known as the 'Entrance of origin' (Jp. honmon Jf-H). We then have further vows and explanations of the merits that will accrue to those who propagate the message. There is constant self-referential praise whereby all manner of merits and blessings are prophesied to flow from the act of homage to the text itself, the sutra prefiguring its own transformation into a cult object. This, then, is the text that Zhiyi used as the main source for his philosophical inquiry. One suspects that he chose the Lotus over all others not only because it presented the two most important messages of the Mahayana in unambiguous fashion but because, as a text that proclaims rather than explains, it lays itself open to the exegete, who can then proceed to fill the gap with his own discourse. The first ten or so chapters of the siitra are clearly coherent, but this cannot be said of the rest, which must have been the result of much accretion. This was a well-recognised fact in China and there is a long history of debate and disagreement over different recensions and added chapters. But once a scholar such as Zhiyi had decided on which 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai 129 text to trust, what might appear as accretion is treated by the believer as the word of the Buddha, so a perceived lack of coherence must only be apparent, something to be overcome; it becomes the duty of the scholar to discover coherence and reveal the message within the text. This is what men like Zhiyi and Zhanran felt they were doing, so what sometimes appears to us as philosophical inquiry grafted onto the sutra was to them a revelation of the secrets within. The Lotus is the most influential of all surras in Japanese history and we shall have occasion to refer to it often in what follows. It was always read in conjunction with two other much shorter works, Innumerable meanings (Jp. Muryogi kyo M fi IS 8? ) at the beginning, and the Contemplation of Samantabhadra (Jp. Kanfugen kyo WHWW) at the end. The descriptions in the latter siitra became the basis for a number of meditative techniques and, perhaps more importantly, rites of repentance that included acts of spiritual purification. 5.5 The creation of Tendai Saicho returned with the mission in the fifth month of 805 and was back in central Japan within two months, presenting a list of what he had brought with him. Copies of the main texts were ordered for the major temples in Nara, although this was a laborious process, which was not to be finished for ten years. Unfortunately, Kanmu Tenno's health was failing, so what attracted the immediate interest of the court was not so much doctrine as the possibility that Saicho had returned with new and more efficacious rituals and spells. Within a month he had been asked to perform a tannic consecration rite at Takaosanji known as a kanjo SJK ceremony, involving the sprinkling of sacred water over the initiate. Eight monks were involved, two of them standing in for Kanmu himself, who may have been too ill to participate. It is sometimes claimed that this was the first time that a mandala had been used in Japan as part of such a ceremony, but the details are sketchy. What it does show is that soon after his return Saicho was being feted as a major asset by the court. By this time it had already become a habit to use terms that initially identified certain doctrinal positions, such as Hosso or Sanron, as convenient administrative labels under which the continually growing Buddhist establishment could be classified and controlled more effectively. This bureaucratic use of the term 'tradition' (Jp. shu §?) was, of course, influenced 130 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji by the habit of doctrinal disputation between these different groups or seminars, but, as we have seen, monks studied a wide range of subjects and disputation often took the form of a ritual performance. Institutionally it was clearly important to Saicho that he achieve recognition for his 'subject' as soon as possible. The most obvious manifestation of this categorisation was the system of 'yearly ordinands' {nenbun dosha ^ftg.^), granted as a favour from the court. Since such ordinands could have accounted for only a fraction of the men (and women) actually leaving lay life in any one year, it was more of a symbolic gesture than anything else, but, somewhat like the institution of a chair for a subject at a university, the symbolism was important. In 803 the granting of these had been specifically linked to the 'shu', and restricted to Hosso and Sanron. Saicho lost no time in suggesting a revision to this procedure; instead of the existing 5/5 Hosso-Sanron split, he proposed three for Hosso, three for Sanron, and two each for Kegon, Ritsu and his own group, to which he gave the name 'Tendai', representing, of course, the Japanisation of 'Tiantai'. These suggestions were quickly accepted by the court, giving Saicho at least some of the recognition he needed. In the case of Tendai there was a stipulation that each new ordinand would enter one of two courses of study: the tannic course, the Shanago MIPS*, which took its name from the Mahavairocanatantra (Jp. Daibirushana-kyo ^ClSllMIPM),8 or the meditation course, Shikango JhUSt, which took its name from Zhiyi's Mahayana calming and concentration (Jp. Maka shikari). These two categories were in use until at least 890. Kanmu died soon afterwards and the actual granting of ordinands to Tendai was held over to 809, at which point Saicho received an allowance of eight students to cover the intervening years. So 809 saw Hieizan finally begin to expand; but it also brought the return of Kukai, who had been studying esoteric ritual in the Tang capital of Chang'an. We shall deal with Kukai's achievements and his difficult relationship with Saicho in the next chapter; suffice it to say here that, although it was to be some time before Kukai received recognition, Saicho quickly realised the importance of Kukai's experience of ritual at Chang'an. He immediately requested copies of the works Kukai had carried back and is thought to have helped him become established at Takaosanji. In 812, he asked Kukai to initiate him properly into the two major rituals for two mandalas that Kukai had studied in depth and that Saicho himself had not experienced. He also 8 It is important to note that this was not in fact one of the texts that Saicho brought back but a version that he had studied before going to China. There is no sign that he himself had ever taken instruction in these rites. 5 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai 131 decided that students doing the Shanago course should study with Kukai. It must have taken considerable strength of character to admit Kukai's superior knowledge in this manner. By 814, however, relations had soured, as Kukai moved to establish his own tradition. Saicho's last years, from 814 until his death in 822, were spent devoted to two causes: a defence of Tendai doctrine against an attack from Hosso; and a battle for the principle that the Tendai tradition should be allowed to ordain its own monks rather than having to rely on the ordination platform at Todaiji. A defence of Tendai necessitated an attack on other doctrines that did not take the Lotus as the final truth and that imposed a different system of classification on the teachings. Perhaps the best-known disagreement was with the Hosso scholar Tokuitsu W. ~ (7807-842?), who was living in a temple in Aizu, in northeastern Japan and whom Saicho may well have met when he travelled to the Eastern Provinces in 817.9 We do not know for certain, but the debate may have started when Tokuitsu read Saicho's Doctrines of Tendai on which others rely {Ehyo Tendaigishu ftcS^siftJft) of 813—16, where he had first proclaimed that in his view all Japanese were already advanced enough to be able to understand the Perfect Teachings. Certainly, Tokuitsu was well informed about Tendai, as is clear from his first tract On Buddha Nature (Busshosho tt S>), in which he attacked the supposed pre-eminence of the Lotus. The debate that followed was in the form of a series of such tracts exchanged between them. There is some puzzlement at how Tokuitsu managed to learn so much about Tendai, stuck as he was in the wilds of northern Japan, but he may well have previously studied the Fahua xuanzan SSjIS; jf, an anti-Tiantai commentary on the Lotus written by Cien SiM (632-82) (Groner 1984: 93-106; Tamura 1985: 48-81). It is not surprising that a Hosso scholar should have had problems accepting Tendai doctrine, since the traditions disagreed so fundamentally on the question of innate Buddha Nature (bussho). Tendai's wholehearted acceptance of Mahayana universalism as expressed in the Lotus assumed that every sentient being had the potential to become a buddha. Hosso, as we have seen in §4.7, took from its parent, the Faxiang tradition, the assumption that there were five different types of sentient being, a theory known in Japanese as the gosho kakubetsu setsu iffi^S'JIK. There were those predestined to become arhats; those predestined to become pratyekabuddhas; those pre- 5 Tokuitsu is credited with seventeen works. Only two of these survive: a series of questions about Kukai's teachings entitled Shingonshu miketsumon iM TS *M$h 3C , T. 2458 and Shikanron itllliw. Many others are quoted extensively in Saicho's writings. Groner 1984:92, 132 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji destined to become buddhas; those with some 'untainted seeds' who might attain any of these goals; and lastly those unfortunates who lacked any such seeds and were therefore fated to a repeated cycle of birth and death for ever. These were the 'incorrigibles'. This disagreement then spilled over into further argument about the interpretation of certain key passages from the Lotus, about Tendai's concept of the 'four teachings', and about the nature of the sutra itself. HossS insisted that the idea of Three Vehicles was the ultimate truth and the One Vehicle was itself simply a skilful device invented to encourage the fainthearted. The significance of this disagreement lay in the standard of debate. Tokuitsu had a fairly strong tradition of Faxiang criticism of Tiantai doctrine on which to rely, but even so his use of quotations was correct and judicious. Saicho had somewhat less to rely on, since Tiantai had not had to deal with Faxiang doctrine in such a direct manner before; he was thrown back on his own resources and showed the depth of his scholarship by using against Tokuitsu the awkward fact that the Yogacara doctrines stemming from Paramartha's earlier versions did not argue for the existence of an 'incorrigible' group and differed significantly from those views held by the Faxiang school as it emerged from Xuanzang's work. Japanese Buddhism was clearly ready to strike out on its own. The second controversy that involved Saicho until his death was, in the beginning, political rather than doctrinal in nature, although perhaps such a distinction is invidious. It involved his attempt to obtain permission to ordain monks of the Tendai tradition on Hieizan rather than on the ordination platform at Todaiji, but it led in the end to a radical break with established ordination practices, drawing a sharp line between Tendai monks and all others. Saicho's desire to win independence from Nara was understandable in the context of his desire to establish the one true doctrine as pre-eminent in Japan, but then so was the tremendous opposition that such a proposal aroused in the Sarigha Office, whose head at the time was a Hosso monk called Gomyo It^rJ. In essence, Saicho wished to have Tendai monks simply excluded from the monastic register held by the Office. This may possibly have been a sign of unhappiness at the degree of control the state had over the sangha, but it is far more likely to have been driven by rivalry with Hosso. The dispute ran from about 817 to his death in 822. After a number of false starts, Saicho gradually became convinced that to achieve such a goal in the teeth of powerful conservative forces,'|he would have to shift the argument to a debate on doctrinal grounds: thf| eventually led him to take an extreme position, arguing that the traditional 250 rules had been designed for J The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Tendai 133 men of lesser ability, for followers of the Lesser Vehicle. They were therefore quite unsuitable for followers of the Mahayana, especially those who were practitioners of the 'perfect teachings' exemplified in the Lotus. For this argument to succeed, Saicho first had to split the term that covered precepts and rules, namely kairitsu flRfls into its component parts. This gave kai, which meant 'moral precepts' (Sk. sila), and ritsu, which meant 'rules' (Sk. vinayd). The morality he identified with the Mahayana and so retained; the discipline he identified with the Hinayana and so felt free to reject. It is worth noting that this was an unprecedented procedure both in China and in Japan, where all members of the sarigha, no matter what persuasion, were ordained with both because they were considered indivisible. For his own Tendai monks Saicho proposed a new set of 'Mahayana precepts' that he termed the 'perfect precepts' (enkai IHsSt), which were in essence the ten major and forty-eight minor precepts listed in the Sutra of Brahma's net, the set that we have already seen being used to initiate lay Buddhist supporters (Groner 1984: 169-263). This apparent statement of equality between sangha member and lay supporter did not mean, however, that life was going to be easy for his students. The requests that Saicho sent to court to support his case for separate recognition make it clear that the regime he intended to impose on his students was rigorous in the extreme; Tendai students were to be sequestered on the mountain for twelve years of hard study and meditation. ■> Faced with a major disagreement in the monastic establishment, Saga Tenno UlIR^Jl refused to make a decision and sent the last of Saicho's petitions to the Sangha Office for further review. Saicho himself died in the fourth month of 822, his wishes unfulfilled. Such was his prestige, however, that the petition was granted seven days after his death. Perhaps the state wished to avoid the calamities of an angry spirit on the loose. Whatever the reasons, the ramifications of this agreement were to be far-reaching: Japanese were moving rapidly from the purely receptive stage to making their own contributions to the doctrinal development of Buddhism. There is one other matter that is the subject of some controversy: the degree to which Saicho may have believed in the possibility of achieving not just enlightenment but buddhahood in this life, an essentially tantric concept that usually goes by the name sokushin jobutsu BP JspJ^cfSi. As a result of the. disagreements between Saicho and Kukai, their successors made great play of who should have the honour of having introduced this idea into Japan first. There can be no doubt that Saicho did discuss;the subject in his later writings and he certainly used the term sokushin jobutsu^ as well as jikido fiitt 'direct 134 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji path' and tonkyo ©ifc. 'sudden teacliings', which meant something very similar. This was to provide a precedent for Tendai to develop a strong interest in tantrism after his death. The basis for this belief in sokushin jobutsu, however, was quite different from that used by Kukai. It came from the passage in the 'Devadatta' chapter of the Lotus where the daughter of the Dragon King achieves buddhahood. The dragon king's daughter who converted others [to the ultimate teaching] had not undergone a long period of religious austerities; nor had the sentient beings who were converted undergone a long period of austerities. Through the wondrous power of the sutra, they all realized buddhahood with their bodies just as they are (sokushin jobutsu). Those with the highest grade of superior faculties realize buddhahood in one lifetime; those with the medium grade of superior faculties require two lifetimes to realize buddhahood. And those with the lowest grade of superior faculties will realize buddhahood within three lifetimes. They will meet the bodhisattva Samantabhadra, enter the ranks of the bodhisattvas, and acquire the dharanl which will enable them to master nonsubstantiality (Hokke shuku, Groner 1989: 62). 6 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Shingon 6.1 Kukai to China Born in 774, Kukai (jg$J, or Kobo Daishi ^ffi^gHj as he was to be known) entered the Daigakuryo college as a scholar in 791. This was an institution dedicated to training scholars along Confucian lines, with the aim of providing for the growing bureaucracy. It was here, for example, that the rites in honour of Confucius (sekiten WM) were held (McMullen 1996). Kukai concentrated on classical literature but soon found his interest waning and he left after some years to become a self-ordained mendicant. The justification for such a move can be found in his first work, Goals of the three teachings {Sango shiiki H tfc ifl If) of 797, an erudite discussion of the merits of Buddhism, Daoism and Corifuciamsm. In the introduction, he wrote that his eyes had been opened by an encounter with the Buddhist tantric ritual known as 'Akasagarbha's technique for seeking, hearing and retaining' (Jp. Kokuzo gumonji ho ImSH^IMrf )£), which promised a perfect memory: There was a monk [at the college]. He showed me Akasagarbha's Monjiho. It says in the text that a person who recites these True Words one million times according to the specific rite will be able to memorize the meaning of all the sutras. I put my faith in this testimony of the Buddha, watching for flames to fly from the sparks of struck flint. I scaled the peak of Mount Tairyo in Awa, I persevered in meditation as far as Muroto Cape in Tosa. The valleys did not fail to resound, the brilliant star [of Akasagarbha, i.e. Venus] shone down in grace. In the end, I came to shun all thought of worldly glory, day and night I thirsted for the smoke and mist of mountain crags and mired wilderness. To see fine raiment, plump steeds, and a stream of fleet conveyances instantly awakened in me grief at the phantom lightning flash [which is this life]; to see deformity and pauper's rags gave me no rest from the sad awareness of cause and consequence. Through my eyes I was compelled [to take the tonsure], for who can snare the wind? (Hare 1990: 254) We know very little about his other activities during this period except that he must have spent considerable time studying in one of the temples at Nara, 135 136 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji if the learning that is apparent in Sango shiiki is anything to go by. His formal initiation as a monk took place in 804, only days before he was due to leave for China. He tells us that his initial plan was to stay and study in China for twenty years. In particular, he was intent on finding out at first hand about the rituals that were described in texts such as the Mahavairocanatantra (Jp. Dainichikyo AHS, T. 848), which had been translated into Chinese in the 720s and brought to Japan by Genbo in 735. Tantras were in large part ritual manuals, extremely difficult to grasp without prior experience of the ritual itself or without the guidance of a master, so it is hardly surprising that Kiikai found the text impenetrable: 'As soon as I opened its scroll to read its lines', he wrote, 'my mind grew dark. It was then that I vowed to travel to China to study it' (Abe 1999: 109). At this point fortune smiled on Kukai. As we have seen, the mission of 801-06 that carried Saicho ran into considerable difficulties, and a second attempt only received authorisation in the third month of 804. Kukai's request to travel with this mission must have come at the last minute, for he was hurriedly ordained as a monk at Todaiji in the next month and was on board within a few weeks. His obvious facility with classical Chinese may well have been the deciding factor in allowing him to go. As it happened, he travelled on a different ship from Saicho. Kukai was blown far to the south [map 5] and arrived on the coast near Fuzhou M'JM after a full thirty-four days. It took some time before permission to land was granted, since the authorities in Fuzhou were not used to receiving such missions. Permission to travel to the capital took even longer, and in the end only twenty-three members were allowed to proceed; the rest had to travel north to Mingzhou to prepare for the return journey. Kukai was extremely fortunate to be allowed to go with the main mission, and even more fortunate to be allowed to stay and study. They left Fuzhou on 804.11.3 and took forty days to reach Chang'an, where they met up with some members from the second ship, which had managed a much faster crossing. The requisite imperial audience was obtained, but Emperor Dezong was already ill and died in the first month of 805. The main mission left Chang'an soon afterwards, reaching the coast in the fifth month and arriving in Japan a month later. At this juncture, the two ships that had been driven back to Kyushu left for China, hoping perhaps to obtain audience with the new emperor, Shunzong It . Unfortunately, only one of them survived the journey and Shunzong had already died by the time they reached the capital. In the second month of 805, Kukai was given permission to reside at the Ximingsi gf HH^F, a major centre for scholarship and translation in Chang'an, 6 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Shingon 137 and it was here that he came into contact with monks capable of reading Buddhist Sanskrit. He lost no time in learning as much as he could. Although Kukai was probably not, as legend has it, the inventor of kana, there can be no doubt that the knowledge of the Sanskrit syllabary that he and others gained in China played a major part in the development of a Japanese script during the course of the century. Some four months later, he came under the tutelage of Huiguo M^: (746-805). Huiguo had studied under Amoghavajra (Bukong 705-74), who, as we shall see, had been a central figure in the spread of tantric Buddhist ritual at the Tang court. Within the space of three months, Kukai claims, he had learned enough to be counted a master in his own right. Huiguo died in the middle of the twelfth month of 805. It was at this point that, contrary to his initial intention, Kukai decided to return to Japan with the second party. He was back in Kyushu by the end of the year. Twenty years had been squeezed into just thirty months. He was thirty-three. The only information we have about Kukai's time spent in China comes from either his own account or later hagiographies, and there is little open to independent verification. He was certainly lucky to have reached the capital; not only was it to give him the kind of 'imperial' cachet denied Saicho, but he happened to be there at a time when tantrism was in vogue and under imperial patronage. Even had he not, as he tells us, come to China for this express purpose, he might well have become involved in any case. Kukai's account of his meeting with Huiguo at the Qinglongsi #fl^ and his subsequent induction into tantric secrets leaves us in no doubt that he was claiming a special form of transmission for himself: I called on the abbot in the company of five or six monies from the Ximing Temple. As soon as he saw me, he smiled with pleasure and joyfully said, T knew that you would come! I have waited for such a long time. What pleasure it gives me to look upon you today at last! My life is drawing to an end, and until you came there was no one to whom I could transmit the teachings. Go without delay to the altar of abhiseka with incense and a flower.' I returned to the temple where I had been staying and got the things that were necessary for the ceremony. It was early in the sixth month when 1 entered the altar of abhiseka for primary initiation. I stood before the Womb World mandate and cast my flower in the prescribed manner. By chance it fell on the Body of Mahavairocana Tathagata in the centre. The master exclaimed in delight, 'How amazing! How perfectly amazing!' He repeated this three or four times in joy and wonder. I was then given the fivefold abhiseka and received instruction in the grace (kaji) of the Three Mysteries. Next I was taught the Sanskrit formulas and rituals manuals for the Womb World and learned the yogic practices which use various sacred objects of concentration to gain transcendental insight (de Bary et al. 2001: 163). 138 From. Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji The term abhiseka here refers to a consecration that involves sprinkling sacred water over the head (Jp. kanjo Si H), the ceremony that Saicho had performed on his return. There were usually three levels: an initiation ceremony called 'binding the relationship' (Jp. kechien kanjo ^^MK), which involved the casting of a flower or sprig on to the mandala to identity one's deity; 'studying the Dharma' (Jp. gakuhd kanjo PteiSIK), which involved much learning of mantra and mudra, and practising visualisation techniques; and 'transmission of the teachings' (Jp. dengyo kanjo ^WMM), when one became qualified as a master. At this advanced stage the mandala might simply be imagined by both master and student (Abe 1999: 124). We are also told that Huiguo urged Kukai to carry his knowledge back to Japan, and that Kukai himself was chosen above all other students to write his master's epitaph. It was on this basis that Kukai's followers were to construct a lineage and eventually claim him as the 'Eighth Patriarch of Shingon'. According to later Japanese tradition there was a series of patriarchs leading down to Amoghavajra, then directly to Huiguo and Kukai. The implication of this is that there was a 'school' of tantric practice which came to an end in China in 805, which was then transmitted to Japan in the body of Kukai and in the form of Shingon. There are, of course, a number of problems with so sectarian a view. We know, for example, that tantric practice did not simply die out in China. We also know that, although Huiguo was certainly listed as one of six prominent students in Amoghavajra's will, when the master died in 774, Huiguo was only twenty-nine and it was in fact Huilang MSS who was officially recognised as his successor.1 Huilang died four years later in 778 and what then transpired is unclear, but Huiguo left no writings and would probably have remained an obscure figure had it not been for Kukai's subsequent activities. But the main problem lies with the idea of a patriarchial tradition itself. Although transmission of tantric teachings did, of necessity, involve a student learning direct from a master instead of simply via texts, there is little sign that the tantric masters in Tang China ever saw themselves as creating a 'school', and it is of interest that neither the catalogue of the Chinese Buddhist canon produced in 730, nor that of 800, had a special section devoted specifically to 'tantric texts'. Tantrism was more a matter of individual enterprise. A more detailed discussion of the nature and principles of tantrism will be found in the next section; suffice it to say here that it involved a special use 1 See Chou 1945: 306; Matsunaga 1973: 227^-2; Orzech 1989: 91. 6 The beginnings of a 'Japanese'Buddhism: Shingon 139 of language and images, elevated ritual above philosophy, and believed there to be a shortcut to enlightenment and buddhahood. But tantric masters were also highly political animals and saw themselves as full participants in the business of governing the state. This should not surprise us. It was a good reflection of how tantrism saw itself in India: It appears that the central and defining metaphor for mature esoteric Buddhism [in India] is that of an individual assuming kingship and exercising dominion. Thus the understanding of such terms as tantra in Buddhist India would invoke, first and foremost, the idea of hierarchical power acquired and exercised through a combination of ritual and metaphysical means. Based on this power, the varieties of understanding and of personal relationships become subsumed to the purposes of the person metaphorically becoming the overlord (rdjddhirdjd) or the universal ruler (cakravartin) ... It is astonishing to realize that so many significant terms found in the standard esoteric manuals and the Buddhist tantras have political and military significance as well as religious, and the bivalence or paronomasia of these terms in aggregate is extraordinary (Davidson 2002: 121). So what did Kukai encounter at Chang'an? Although Buddhist ritual texts had been brought to China in piecemeal fashion over the centuries, the beginning of tantrism proper is usually linked to the arrival in Chang'an of the scholar Subhakarasirnha (Shanwuwei SftS, 637—735) in 716. It was he who, with the help of Yixing —fr (687-727), translated the Mahavairocana-tantra, the text that was to puzzle the young Kukai. He was closely followed by Vajrabodhi (Jin'gangzhi ifelfl!?, 671-741) and his student Amoghavajra (Bukong -f- , 705—74). From the start, these men were treated as state employees, accommodated in monasteries, put to work translating the new texts they had brought with them, and, once they had proved themselves, performing rituals for the court and the emperor. Vajrabodhi, in particular, was known for his unusual powers as a thaumaturge and was constantly on call to perform rites for clement weather or to cure an illness. He was also responsible for the first translation of the other major text of Chinese tantrism, the Assembled reality of all the tathdgatas, which was also known as the Diamond tip (Jp. Kongocho ^HDlS).2 The legend that surrounded this particular text is an interesting example of how narratives of origin could be used to create a sense of authority and power. Partial translations of this text were produced by both Vajrabodhi (T. 866) and Amoghavajra (T. 865), but it was made plain that these had been made from a much truncated version that Vajrabodhi had managed to bring from India. The far larger version, 'broad 2 Sk. Sarvatathagatatattvasamgraha, also known as the Vajrasekhara, Ch. Jin'gangding, T. 865. 140 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji 6 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Shingon 141 and long like a bed, and four or five feet thick', which had been copied from an even vaster text held inside an iron stupa, had been thrown overboard to save the ship. The complete teaching therefore could only come from he who had seen and studied the original text, or from someone who had been taught by such a one. Of such material is religious authority often concocted (Orzech 1995). Soon after Vajrabodhi's death in 741, Amoghavajra was allowed to travel to India, returning in 746 with yet more Sanskrit texts. It was at this point that he was allowed to create an altar in the palace so that Emperor Xuanzong could receive an abhiseka initiation. This intrusion of Buddhism into the inner sanctum was an unprecedented development of tremendous symbolic significance; hardly surprising that Kukai was to work so hard to achieve a similar feat on his return to Japan. Amoghavajra himself survived the Anlushan rebellion of 755 and achieved even greater prestige and authority under Emperor Daizong, promoting the idea of emperor as imiversal monarch and developing the theoretical and ritual underpinnings for a highly politicised form of tantrism with the twin goals of sudden enlightenment for the individual and protection of the state. The small temple widiin the palace became a fixture and Amoghavajra became renowned as a miracle worker, with power to control the elements and call up divinities to defeat the emperor's enemies. In such an environment, it was more a question of individual presence and authority than any emphasis on doctrinal superiority of a 'school'. It was above all Amoghavajra's relationship with his emperor that Kukai wished to emulate. It is striking that one of the texts he brought back with him was an important collection of letters that had been exchanged between Amoghavajra and Emperor Xuanzong (T. 2120). Compiled by Yuanzhao MM (d. 800), probably in the 780s, this collection was designed to persuade the new emperor Dezong, who had reduced patronage and stopped rites being held in the palace, of the importance of tannic masters; it represented biographical documentation of an ideal relationship between master and ruler. The message was not lost on Dezong, and certainly not on Kukai. It is probable that most of what Kukai took back with him. to Japan had emanated from Amoghavajra and so was only forty years old at most. Although it is true that Kukai studied Sanskrit, most of the new texts that he obtained, the rituals that he learned and the mandala that he carried with him were heavily influenced by Chinese practice. The new version of the Sutra for humane kings by Amoghavajra, for example, kept its original concern with the link between surra and state, but added a number of important tantric elements, including the Four Wisdom Kings (^3E) and a long dharani near the end. Ritual handbooks produced by Amoghavajra himself make it clear that the dharani was to be seen not simply as an addition but as a condensation, the essence of the surra: the relationship between text and spell had been radically altered (Orzech 1998). 6.2 Fundamental characteristics of tantric Buddhism At the risk of losing sight of Kukai for a while, it is important to be clear what 'tantric Buddhism' means. Tantras were texts that explained and described ritual practice. There was always a strong interest in ritual in Mahayana, but tantrism takes this one step further and places the practice of ritual and invocation at the core. From one angle this might be seen as little more than sympathetic magic performed for worldly benefit (Jp. genze riyaku StSirtliit). We have a tendency to look upon such practices as debased, but in tantrism the principle of non-dualism was so thoroughgoing that the mundane was never divorced from the more 'exalted' realms; it was precisely success in attainment (siddhi) in the latter that brought success in the former. It is this attitude that explains the willingness of tantric masters to use their powers in the service of rulers and the state. Far from being a prostitution of talent, it was a sign of their prowess. There was, of course, what we might term a much deeper level, where the practice of ritual was explicitiy linked to the search for enlightenment, liberation and buddhahood. The core beliefs of tantrism are, firstly, buddhahood is possible in the here and now, and secondly, the ultimate mystery is in some form communicable. Now for many Buddhists these are anathema, since they fly in the face of so much that was said about the long, heroic path to be trodden, and even the most optimistic: doctrines of Mahayana universalism had always argued that the experience of enlightenment itself was beyond the capability of language-; to express, hence beyond normal cognition. It is useful to see tantrism as an attempt to provide an answer to the problem of language and the limitations it places on the human mind. The position was justified as follows. It was universally accepted that the Buddha had taught various doctrines at different times to different audiences and had cut his cloth accordingly. Just as Mahayana saw the path of the auditor (sravaka) as being an inferior vehicle (Hinayana) compared with that of the bodhisattva, so now tantrism claimed that there was a different way, via the practice of ritual. This new 142 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji j tannic path was recognised to be an extremely risky one, but the rewards i were correspondingly greater. It employed special methods which only those k of very strong faculties should dare use, but the prize held out was \ buddhahood in this very life. By using incantation, ritual gestures, visualisation and other techniques, one could link oneself to beings and deities in other spheres of existence, either dominate or identify with them, and thus rise into higher spheres of being, eventually coming face to face t with and identifying oneself with the cosmic Buddha, Mahavairocana. [ The rituals involved speech, body and mind, the so-called practice of the j 'three.mysteries' (Jp. sanmitsu Hf): speech, in the form of mantra or \ invocations; the body, in the form of mudra or signs made by the hands; and sight, through contemplation and imagination. Language is the way human beings make sense of the universe, the tool we use to differentiate and hence generate meaning. But this process gives rise to the illusion that everything differentiated has self-presence, precisely that illusion that Buddhism is dedicated to destroying. Language must therefore be used against itself; it cannot be disposed of entirely, but it cannot be allowed to fulfil its normal function, namely to carry everyday meaning, for this would distract. The only way this can be done without succumbing to pure nonsense is if language is treated as pure sound, but sound that is known to hold within itself profound significance, a significance, however, that can only be grasped by the owner of a secret key. So it was that Chinese tantrism chose to retain the 'original' Sanskrit sounds (or what passed for those sounds). Mantra or dharanl (the two were often not distinguished clearly before Kukai) were seen to contain the concentrated essence of the teachings; far from being nonsense syllables, they were the sound of the universe. As Kukai himself put it in 'An interpretation of the Lotus sutra' (Hokekyd shaku ^tkMMM): The 'revealed' consumes many words to carry one meaning. The 'tantric' unleashes countless meanings from within each letter of a word. This is the secret function of dharanl. Because of this, dharanl is translated as sdji SJ^f, the container of all. However, this meaning of dharani has been kept secret by the Dharma transmitters of the past. This is what I have now introduced as the mantra scriptures (shingonzo mMM) (Abe 1999: 264, adapted). In Japan the situation was to go one step further, from sound to shape. The written forms of the Sanskrit syllables known as siddham (Jp. shittan S8H) became a sacred script, and the written sign took on the same power as the sound it represented. It became the object of visualisation. Mudra likewise were symbolic of states of mind, the body being used to perform various gestures pregnant with signification. Visualisation was 6 Tiie beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Shingon 143 helped by the use of mandala, symbolic representations of the universe. Acts of imagination were especially important since they showed that the dichotomy between form and emptiness was false. We have here an attempt to deal with the problem of language by cutting it away and replacing it with the whole human body in its every aspect, with pure form. Enlightenment is then no longer beyond language but speaks through the world in all its materiality. It was in this sense that tantrism could claim that enlightenment was communicable; the communication was to be achieved through performance. And what was the cosmic Buddha? It had long been recognised that Buddha existed in a number of forms. Sal^amuni, as the historical Buddha, was of this earth, a manifestation of limited duration whose teachings must to some extent have been conditioned. This form was called the Response Body (Sk. nirmdnakaya, Jp. djin MSr), because it appears as an object to our senses and responds to our needs. The body of a buddha such as Amifabha, who was present but not historical in the same sense, was called the Reward Body (Sk. sambhogakdya, Jp. hoshin ^.M), which he had received as a reward for his constant practice and perfect merit. But there was a third, even higher form: the tantric teachings dealt with the Dharma Body (Sk. dharrnakdya, Jp. hosshin S M ), the absolute, eternal, cosmic Buddha. Dharmakaya originally meant something like 'the body of the teachings [of the Buddha]' but this was subject to a process of semi-reification as 'dharma-body'. The representation of the dharmakaya in the figure of Mahavairocana ran a danger of losing its metaphorical status. There was an ever-present danger of personification, of course, but philosophically the term was understood to mean absolute unity, an all-embracing 'body' that enfolded all types and forms of consciousness and was above any duality. Differences and distinctions were collapsed and both nirvana and samsara were subsumed within it. In the ultimate analysis, then, nirvana and samsara were one and the same thing, indivisible to the enlightened mind. AH things partook of enlightened mind and enlightened mind expressed itself in all forms. The consequences of such teaching were far-reaching. The material world, be it body or object, was reinstated as an integral part of truth and reality. The reification in a word like hosshin was not therefore accidental. The absolute speaks through the material world and we respond to it through our bodies. The impasse of language was thus avoided and we could then reach directly into the heart of the absolute. But perhaps the most striking result of this emphasis on the material, and the affirmation of all things, is that human desires are seen in a different light. They become not the root cause of From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji 6 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Shingon 145 Plate 16 Mahavairocana (Dainichi), in the form of a bodtiisattva, showing the characteristic rmidra known as the 'wisdom fist', the sexual connotations of which are quite clear. illusion and suffering but rather something innately pure, the outward ex^ pression of our Buddha Nature. The objective then becomes not to negate them but harness their energy and direct them into the quest for enlightenment. Desire is a sign of activity and without such activity enlightenment will never be attained; it is this kind of thinking that lies behind such phrases as 'passions and enlightenment are identical' (Jp. bound soku bodai ffilUJIll #$5), and behind the tendency to treat basic human instincts as a manifestation of pure energy. Sexual desire becomes a subject of serious interest, particularly since it results in physical union and a paradoxical momentary dissolution of self. Such a doctrine is open to abuse, of course, and this is why the word 'risky' always comes to mind.3 Since the absolute expresses itself in myriad forms, there is nothing that the mind may not use in its search for enlightenment; hence tantrism is also marked by a multiplicity of shapes and images. The normal habit of Buddhism of appropriating to itself the powers of local deities as it spread is here magnified to an astounding degree; perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in the mandala, that staple of tantric ritual. There is one extant illustration of Amida's Pure Land that has been dated to 763, a woven tapestry that survives in fragmentary form in the Taimadera HHM^f in Nara prefecture, but the more abstract, geometrically patterned mandala are mainly connected to the tantric rituals that Kukai encountered in 805. As representations of the universe, they are very powerful statements of mind over matter, and of a fear of undisciplined space. Mandala may also be three-dimensional arrangements of statues, of which there are any number of examples in Japan, or two-dimensional paintings, which could be either spread out horizontally or hung vertically. They may be dedicated to individual deities (Jp. besson-mandara SWISS) or contain a vast number of deities surrounding a main central figure, but in all cases the mandala is seen as sacred space into which a deity may be invited and, as the result of certain ritual actions and mental effort, personally encountered by the initiate. They are designed to be entered.4 Although the examples that were brought back to Japan by Kukai and others in me ninth century contained much that was Chinese in origin, their Indian roots are by no means erased; they retain, for example, a large number of deities that are not specifically Buddhist in origin. The rationale for their presence, which was as important in Nara and 3 In this context see Astley-Rristensen 1991, which treats in detail a short sutra well known for its argument that passion, including sexual desire, is at root pure and to be harnessed in the interests of the search for enlightenment. 4 See Appendices for further treatment. 146 FromSaicho to the destruction of Todaiji pre-Nara Buddhism as in tantrism, is that they have all been converted at some point to become themselves 'Protectors of the Dharma'. Appearing in a mandala meant that they too were now emanations of the Buddha and so they took on even greater powers. A number of these deities therefore arrived in Japan with their own cults intact and they coexisted with more orthodox Shingon practice while remaining distinct. 6.3 Kukai returns Unlike Saicho, whom we have seen being feted on his return and immediately encouraged to perform new rituals for the benefit of ruler and court, Kukai came back as an unknown monk with few connections. He brought with him 142 sutras, 42 Sanskrit texts, 32 commentaries, 5 mandala, and a large number of paintings and ritual implements, all of which he gave to the head of the mission to take to the capital, together with an 'Inventory of imported items' {Shorai mokuroku mMBM), but Kukai himself stayed in Kyushu. For some reason that is still unclear, he waited until the accession of Saga Tenno in 809 to return to Heiankyo. The exact role played by Saicho at this juncture is also uncertain, but both men certainly worked closely together for a few years. The well-known break in relations occurred later, in 815.s Saicho was understandably anxious to borrow and copy everything Kukai had brought with him. He recognised the importance of both the texts themselves and the experience that Kukai had gained in Chang'an. Both men needed each other at this stage: Kukai needed Saicho to help him become established, and Saicho needed Kukai for his knowledge. It was because of Saicho, for example, that Kukai was settled at Takaosanji to the northwest of the capital, a mountain retreat that became his home for the next nine years and where he flourished under the patronage of Saga. It was there too that in 812 he was allowed to conduct a kechien kanjo for Saicho, his students Kojo *S (779-858); Encho HrS (771-837) and Taihan mm (778-?), and more than two hundred others. The co-operation and friendship did not last much longer, however. The real reasons for the split are not known,, but by 815 or 816 relations had soured. This is sometimes put down to the fact that Taihan, sent by Saicho to study with Kukai, eventually refused to return to Hieizan, but at heart there was a fundamental doctrinal difference between the two men: to Saicho, who was, after all, convinced that the Lotus sutra held the 5 For a refreshingly non-sectarian treatment of this relationship see Gardiner 1994; 194-224. 6 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Shingon 147 final truth, tantric ritual was simply one of a number of legitimate practices; for Kukai, it represented the ultimate. Perhaps his role as master of ceremonies at the initiations of 812 convinced Kukai that he might be able to stand on his own. Perhaps he came to realise that to succeed in becoming tantric master to the monarch he had to distance himself from Saicho, and that in the context of Japan at the time, he had to create a 'tradition' of his own. Certainly, from about this time, we start to see Kfikai composing a series of polemical texts that were to form the doctrinal foundation for Shingonshu RH Ik, a designation first used in 834. In 816 Saga granted him title to build a major religious centre at Koyasan rSKrlil in the mountains southwest of Nara. The first buildings of what was to be the complex known as Kongobuji #HI|I##, or the Temple of the Vajra Peak, were consecrated in 819. Kukai's intention was to design the whole complex in the form of two mandala with a large stiipa at the centre of each sacred area, although it so happens that today only one large stupa remains (Gardiner 1996: 256-58). The rest of his life was spent trying to raise funds for more building on the mountain, although he was always under considerable pressure to spend more time at court, and could never be absent for long. He could hardly complain, of course, given that the role he wished to play was of tantric master to a Buddhist ruler, a role that certainly clashed with the ideal that the sahgha, although supporting the state, would remain independent of it. It presupposed that the Buddhist establishment would in fact become one with the state, with the ruler initiated and ordained as chief priest. In founding Koyasan, Kukai was again trying to emulate Amoghavajra, who had created a large complex at Wutaishan, but he lacked the necessary resources, and raising funds for this enterprise remained a constant headache for the rest of his life. He also took great care to keep in close contact with the temples at Nara, and the creation of a separate Shingon initiation hall at Todaiji in 822, at which it is thought he performed a kanjo) initiation for deposed sovereign Heizei, can be seen as a major development, bringing tantric practice into the very heart of the Buddhist establishment (Grapard 2000b). This was followed a year later by an agreement whereby Saga allowed him exclusive use of Tdji iS#r\ one of only two temples that had been created within the bounds of the new capital. In 824 he joined the Sangha Office. In 827 he himself advanced further in the Buddhist hierarchy and was made Grand Prefect. In 832 he fell ill and retired to Koyasan, where he died two years later. Three months before his death, however, he was still intent on emulating the success of Amoghavajra, requesting permission to construct a Shingon hall in the grounds of the palace itself: 148 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji 'S=8tlt I have heard that there are two kinds of preaching of the Buddha. One is shallow and ^ incomplete whde the other is tantric. The shallow teaching comprises the scriptures f with long passages and verses, whereas the tantric teaching is the dharani found in the scriptures. The shallow teaching is, as one text says, like the diagnoses of an illness ; and the prescription of a medicine. The tantric method of dharani is like prescribing appropriate medicine, ingesting it and curing the ailment. If a person is ill, opening a medical text and reciting its content will be of no avail in treating the illness. It is ; necessary to ingest it in accordance with proper methods. Only then will die illness be -1 eliminated and life preserved. "-> However, the present custom of chanting the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom at the palace is simply the reading of sentences and the empty recital of doctrine. There is no drawing of Buddha images in accordance with proper technique nor the practice of ! setting up an altar for offerings and for the ceremonies of empowerment. Although the \ reading of the sutra may appear to be an opportunity to.listen to the preaching of the ■ f nectar-like teachings of the Buddha, in actuality it lacks the precious taste of the finest '' essence [ghee] of Buddhist truth. I humbly request that from this year on, fourteen monks skilled in tantric ritual and -j fourteen novices be selected, who, while properly reading the sutra will for seven [ days arrange the sacred images, perform the requisite offerings and recite mantra in a I specially adorned room. If this is done, both the revealed and tantric teachings, which S express the Buddha's true intent, will cause great happiness in the world and thereby .[ fulfill the compassionate vows of the holy ones (Gardiner 1996: 264-65, adapted). ' j The reference here is to the Misaie fflllf #, which involved recitation and lectures on the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom; it was held over a period of seven days between the eighth and the fourteenth of the first month. Given that the new version by Amoghavajra was now in use, Kukai was concerned to incorporate the proper tantric rituals. This was eventually done (but a year after his death) and the ritual, the Go shichinichi mishiho Ifc-t; 0 W&W;, became one of the most important in the court calendar from this time on, dedicated both to requesting blessings for the coming year and to anointing the ruler (Abe 1999: 347-55). 6.4 The creation of Shingon Driven partly by force of circumstance and partly by the very nature of what we have seen to be the tantric enterprise, Kukai probably started the process of creating his Mantrayana tradition (Shingon m ft) in about the year 815. The main problem he faced was how to establish the uniqueness of his teaching when, as we have seen, tantric elements had been central to Buddhism from its inception in Japan, and Kukai had clearly been exposed to 6 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Shingon 149 them before he left for China. About a quarter of what are now recognised as tantric texts were already available in Japan during the course of the Nara period: Doji had studied with Subhakarasimha and brought back both the Assembled reality of all the tathdgatas and Yijing's new translation of the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom; Geribo had returned with the Mahavairocanatantra. The use of spells against bad weather and illness, especially involving the worship of Yakushi, was commonplace, and there were plenty of tantric deities already in place. So how was Kukai to distinguish between these pre-existing tantric elements and the tradition he wished to establish? And how was he to do this without alienating the Buddhist establishment? There were, of course, some extreme novelties in what Kukai brought back, in particular the use of mandala and the attendant kanjo rite, which had such resonance with the act of coronation. There was also the central role played by the mantra that gave their name to the whole tradition, and the siddham letters that looked strange to a Japanese eye, and sounded even stranger still. In his 'Inventory of imported items' Kukai made it clear that he saw himself as being in the possession of a new 'vehicle', which he called Vajrayana (Kongojo and he was already marking a major distinction between these new 'secret teachings' {mikkyo ffc) and the 'revealed teachings' (kengyo Hit) of Mahayana. But he took some care to show how these new discoveries were not really at odds with present practice; they simply operated at a much deeper level. Dharani in Japan prior to his return, he argued, had been, if not misused, then misunderstood. In their new guise as mantra or shingon they were not simply secret spells and incantations to avoid calamity or bring good health; they were the key to achieving buddhahood, which, as he explained in On the meaning of 'becoming a buddha in this body' (Sokushin jobutsu gi BP Jr$C,#&ft), could be attained in the here and now. Japanese before him such as Doji had certainly studied in Chang'an and worked with Sanskrit masters, but much had happened between 718 and 805. Amoghavajra had developed his links to imperial power and Kukai had been close to the realities of mature tantric Buddhism in action. He also had the luck to return to a Japan on the cusp of a further period of sinification with the enthusiastic encouragement of Saga. In his later works, such as On the ten stages of mind according to the secret mandala {Himitsu mandara jujushinron Ji^MiH£'ij>Jj£r), written at the behest of Junna Tenn5 ffl ^ M in 830, he developed his own version of kyohan or the ranking of teachings. Here too, mindful that he should not antagonise his fellow priests, he took care not to denigrate existing traditions of scholarship but argued 150 From Saicho to the. destruction qf'Todaiji Plate 17 ; A six-pronged, double-ended vajra, the characteristic implement of Japanese tantric ritual. The chosen weapon of the Vedic god Indra, it was often identified as either a thunderbolt or an adamantine sceptre, used to symbolise the diamond-hard nature of perfect wisdom. Vajra can come in different shapes. The three prongs at each end are said to symbolise the three mysteries of body, speech and mind. instead that tantric practice was simply on a different level; the very secrecy of the enterprise seems to have acted more as a draw than as an annoyance, because tantrism was to succeed eventually in permeating all aspects of intellectual life in Japan. The first datable text by Kukai after the 'Inventory' was his 'Written appeal to those who have an interest' (Kan 'ensho WiWM) of 815, which takes the form of an open letter requesting help in copying thirty-five scrolls of tantric scriptures. It was sent to at least ten monks in different parts of Japan, Tokuitsu among them. Indeed it was in response to this letter that Tokuitsu produced his Shingonshu miketsumon, which queried a number of Kukai's assertions. On the face of it, Kan'ensho seems a curious way to obtain copies of something, and the ulterior motive may have been simply to bring these hew texts to a wider audience, spreading the new teaching by indirect means, since it also contains a description of the tradition and details of the Shingon lineage that Kukai was beginning to construct. One important difference between Mahayana sutras and Mantrayana tantras was that the latter were seen to have been passed down not from Sakyamuni, but from Mahavairocana. It was this provenance that gave them their special status; it gave them the right to lay claim to exclusive truth. Both Kukai's Kan'ensho and his treatise 'On discriminating between revealed and secret teachings' 6 The beginnings of a 'Japanese' Buddhism: Shingon 151 (Ben kenmitsu nikyo ron yfcWM^-WLW), written at about the same time, are known for this theory that Mahavairocana, as the dharmakaya, 'preaches' (hosshin seppo SJHftffi). This doctrine proved to be extremely controversial. It was all very well using it as a polemical tool in the attempt to show that one's teachings were qualitatively different from anything that had come before, but such rhetoric brought with it the obvious dangers of personification. As always with tantrism, the problem starts when metaphorical language is taken literally. To say that the dharmakaya 'preaches' is on a par with saying that the absolute 'speaks' through the sum of its manifestations in the universe. The language through which tire experience of enlightenment was communicated was that of ritual, the 'three mysteries'. But normally the absolute was seen to be entirely static, since any activity, even that of pure mind, would presuppose the existence of some form of dualism. Kukai got round this problem by arguing that the dharmakaya had two aspects, that of Principle MSt and that of Wisdom M; ultimate reality contained within itself the wisdom that could recognise itself, expressed in the term 'principle and wisdom are one' (richifu'm IS^F^). This dual aspect of the universe was reflected in the dual use of the Womb World and the Diamond World mandate. Even so, the idea that a supposedly abstract, static dharmakaya could teach was disconcerting and led to a serious sectarian split in the mid- to late Helan period as to whether or not it preached regardless of whether anyone was listening. The 'old' view, represented by Kukai, was that the dharmakaya preached 'independendy of any union with the practitioner, directly from the fundamental source of reality (honjishin $Ife#)', whereas the 'new' view, as represented by Kakuban Kff (1095-1143), argued that it only preached 'in the form manifested to practitioners in meditative absorption (kajishin Wft%y (Gardiner 1994: 56). 6.5 The Shingon tradition after the death of Kukai Kukai's followers, under the guidance of Shinnen (804-91), devoted themselves to building temples on K5yasan. Meanwhile, the centre at Toji gained prestige and eventually the two major institutions clashed. In 876 Shinnen 'borrowed' certain important documents in Kukai's hand from Toji, took them to Koyasan and then refused to return them. This was to lead to a bitter conflict between the two, which continued until 919, when the court decided to combine the abbotships of both institutions, so avoiding the kind 152 . From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji of damaging split that occurred on Hieizan. As far as further trips to China were concerned, both Shinnen and Shinzei (800-60) tried to reach China in 836 but failed. Four Shingon priests did in fact study in China and return with a large number of texts: Jogyo SS! and Engyo Hff in 838-39 with the last official mission; Eun M.M in 842^17, and Shuei Sit in 862-65. Dharma Prince Shinnyo R$u£fe3H, the son of Heizei who had been passed over in favour of his uncle Saga in 809, also left in 862 and managed to reach Chang'an two years later. Remarkably he succeeded in obtaining permission to travel on to India via south China, but died somewhere en route, possibly in Malaysia. The main reason for the relative decline in the fortunes of Shingon in the fifty or so years after the death of Kukai, however, was the degree to which Tendai adopted tannic practice and robbed Shingon of its exclusivity. As we shall see, Ennin HC (794-864) returned in 847 after ten years in China and Enchin H:F# (814-91) returned in 858 after five years, both of them having studied in Chang'an. In a sense, then, Kukai's mission proved extremely successful; it was simply that his own followers were not the main ones to benefit. Despite considerable difficulties, Kukai's tradition did flourish in another form; successive sovereigns made sure that they had their own temples, which became centres of tantric practice in their own right. Uda Tenno 3s # (r. 887-97, d. 931), for example, who during part of his retirement lived in the Nirmaji tft# that he had founded in 888, oversaw its development into a major tantric centre; and it was also during this period that Daigo Tenno patronised Daigoji SW#, situated in Yamashina to the east of the capital. Both of these temples were to wield considerable power because of their connections to the monarchy. But problems continued to arise between the two mam centres of Toji and Koyasan, not only over borrowed manuscripts but also over the number of yearly ordinands each was allowed. When all authority reverted to Toji in 919 under Kangen WM (853-925), Koyasan fell into disrepair. From time to time a major figure such as Fujiwara no Michinaga (JtlSCiiS would make a pilgrimage (in 1016 and 1023), but we have to wait until the twelfth-century revival under Kakuban. i iffy. ■ ] 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan i 7.1 Tendai politics In 812 Saicho, ttarjJdng he was about to die, granted the ' seal of transmission ; of the Dharma' (fitho insho ft5*EPS) to Ench5 IBS (771-836?), but in the [ event he recovered and lived for another ten years. In 822 he changed his ; mind and designated Gishin ft m (781-833) as his successor (McMullin | 1984a). The next year the Ichijo shikan'in, which had up to this point simply !. been known as 'the temple on Hieizan' or Hieizanji JttKLlJ^f, was given the \ new official designation of Enryakuji Mif. This finally marked it as | somewhere a monk could 'belong', an important development, since until I : that time all monks on Hieizan had been forced to register with other I. ... institutions. It was also agreed that a number of Saicho's administrative I ■ proposals be put into effect, namely that Tendai monks were to be allowed to i carry out their own ordinations on their own platform, lay administrators (zoku betto fr-BO H) were to be appointed to test new ordinands, and the results were to be reported not to the Sangha Office but directly to the | . Council of State. Three officials {sango HSS) were appointed and Gishin was ]■■'■' made head of the establishment in 824. He is therefore known as the first J :. abbot (zasu Hi) of Enryakuji, although the first person to actually receive | ; the title was to be Ennin. The post of lay administrator became increasingly | important and contributed to the growing cross-influence between Tendai I monks and the nobility, so much so that it was soon adopted by a number of :i. :. other major temples. The first fill! ordination of fourteen monks with the i ' Mahayana precepts was also seen in 823. Here again, Tendai gained I ■ considerable privilege by being allowed to have the certificates (kaicho MM) j issued by the Council of State, by-passing the more normal Sarigha Office I route to which the Nara schools were tied. It also meant that the monks ; concerned did not have to travel to Nara for interview and confirmation, but =[ could stay on Hieizan and start their training immediately. An ordination Iplatform was built in 825. As one might expect, these developments met with | considerable opposition from Nara, and Tendai monks found themselves ■!:: 153 154 :FromSaicho to the destruction ofTodaiji constantly blocked for appointment as lecturers to the three major ceremonial assemblies, the Vimalakfrti Assembly (Yuima-e iff) that was held at Kofukuji in the tenth month, and the two recitations of the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom, the Misai-e (fflJS#), held in the first month at the Palace, and the Saisho-e (§I#1i'), held in the third month at Yakushiji. When Gishin died on 833.4.7 he designated Enshu H# as his successor, but because Encho was still alive this decision was challenged. The resulting conflict simmered on for some months until in the tenth month of 833 another of Saicho's students, Kojo 3l HE, appealed to the court, which eventually ruled in favour of Encho; Enshu and his supporters were forced to leave the mountain, finding refuge at Murqji il ifc #, southeast of Nara. Enshu and his student Kenne IS It went to China in 842 and returned two years later with a document testifying that they had received instruction from the Tiantai master Guangxiu Kf^ (772-844?), but this was not enough to overturn the court ruling (Groner 2002: 21). Encho died in either 836 or 837, and for the next eighteen years no one was officially appointed to the post of abbot, although it is assumed that Kojo was in charge. In 847, Ennin (793-864) returned home after a stay of nine and a half years in China. Ennin is perhaps best known for the diary that records his experiences in China. Entitled Nitto guhd junreigyoki ASSiSiSiSfrlEl, it is particularly valuable for its detailed description of the activities of Buddhist monks and priests and for the picture it gives of China before and during the Huichang suppression under Emperor Wuzong that had such a devastating effect. Ennin left Japan with what was to be the last embassy in the sixth month of 838 and, after the usual difficult voyage, landed (or rather was wrecked on the coast) just north of the mouth of the Yangzi [map 6]. While the main party eventually moved on to Chang'an, Ennin found himself confined to the city of Yangzhou and in the end never received official permission to achieve his main aim and go south to Mt Tiantai. The next year he left with the returning embassy, but the ship was blown back onto the southern coast of the Shandong peninsula [il M ^ ftr, at which point Ennin managed to arrange matters so that he was left behind when they sailed. He was looked, after by Korean monks at the Fahuayuan S¥K,a monastery on Mt Chi (J?flj, but also written at the eastern tip of the peninsula. Forced to abandon any idea of reaching Tiantai, he decided instead to make a pilgrimage to Wutaishan £ H til, where, after considerable bureaucratic difficulties, he eventually arrived in the fourth month of 840. There were Tiantai monks here too of course, but Wutaishan was chiefly known as the centre of a major cult to Manjusri. From there Ennin went on to Chang'an, T 56: From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji where he was allowed to stay, studying under a number of masters, including the well-known Faquan i£4fi, who espoused a somewhat different tantric tradition from that of Huiguo. Two years later, the pressures on Buddhism started to increase and he was eventually forced to leave, travelling incognito to the coast in 845, but not finding a convenient ship until 847. He returned to Japan with 584 volumes (221 of them tantric in nature), 59 different mandala, a range of painting and ritual artefacts, and a good knowledge of tantric ritual. This, above all, was to be a priceless gift for the Tendai tradition, which was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with its perceived lack of tantric expertise. He was given a rapturous welcome on his return to Hieizan and eventually appointed abbot of Enryakuji in 854. He brought back new forms of Tendai meditational practice that he had experienced at Wutaishan, but, more importantly, his return ensured that tantric practice would take proper root among Tendai practitioners. Among the new rituals he brought back were the 'Eight-syllable rite for Mafijusri' (Monju hachiji ho ~% % A?ft), first used in Japan when Ninmyo Tenno fell ill in 850, and the 'Ritual of abundant light' (Shijoko ho MStJtife), which was designed to challenge the status of Kukai's Go shichinichi mishiho and became the central Tendai rite for protection of the ruler and the state. He also carried with him the first image of Manjusri riding on a lion, and established a cult in honour, of the deity Sekizan myojin #liffllf, to whom he attributed his own good fortune in making a safe return journey. One monk in the party was in fact allowed to go to Mt Tiantai, the young Ensai HI W. (?-877). It was rumoured that he stayed in China because he succumbed to the charms of a nun, and when Ennin tried to contact him in 846, he failed. But Ensai had been entrusted by Ennin with a letter containing fifty questions from the scholars on Enryakuji to Guangxhi on Mt Tiantai; these questions were duly answered and the answers sent back to Japan, so Ensai must have at least remained in contact with someone.' At a later stage, he moved to Chang'an, where Emperor Xuanzong iSSj? allowed him to live in the Ximingsi and from where he helped a number of subsequent Japanese arrivals. In the end he stayed in China for almost forty years, only to die in a shipwreck on his way back to Japan in 877. . During this period the Saicho-Ennin lineage established a strong base in what became known as the Eastern Pagoda (Todo Sfl?) of Hieizan, with its esoteric materials stored in a building called the DharanI Hall (Sojiin MW$m), 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan 15 7 1 <,M .K \ Sj^wV" m>"S WSBBS&I&B^ lake ' J" ' I SB3SSB. , "i -.-i n-.-i L -\KC U1W \ ■ Hi i j['-W i Map 7 Hieizan and the surrounding area begun in 853 and finished ten years later. Ennin also started to open up another area to the north called Yokawa Ml 11 [map 7]. When he died in 864 he was succeeded by Anne ^? It, but Anne himself died four years later in 868 to be replaced by Enchin (814-91), who became the fifth abbot. Enchin had been ordained in 833, underwent the full twelve-year retreat on Hieizan, and was appointed Head of Tantric Studies (Shingon gakuto If f f) in 846, but his position was made extremely awkward by the return of Ennin the next year; so awkward in fact that he eventually decided that he must follow in Ennin's footsteps and go to China himself. He too managed to study with Faquan in Chang'an and returned in 858 with another large collection of texts and artefacts. It is thought, for example, that it was Enchin who brought back the first mandala devoted to Aizen myoo iES=9§3i, the King of Lust, who was to figure so prominently in subsequent tantric rituals in Japan. On his return he based himself not in Todo or Yokawa but at Onjoji H^l#, near Otsu at the southeastern foot of the mountain, where he created his own rival esoteric centre and established a cult to his own guardian deity Srrinra myojin Sf 1 This exchange of letters, known as 'Decisions from China' ('Toketsu' Iff is extant and available in the series Dai Nihon bukkyo zensho. 2 See plate 15, p. 109. 158 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji This decision was to have mifortunate consequences, magnifying a personal antipathy by giving it clear physical expression. For the next century tension grew between the Saicho-Ennin lineage, based at Todo and Yokawa, and the Gishin-Enchin lineage, based mainly at Onjoji. Disputes constantly bubbled up as to who had the right to succeed to the post of abbot of Enryakuji, the most prestigious position in Tendai. From the monks' point of view matters of lineage were of high seriousness, but seen from the vantage point of the bureaucrat, this kind of behaviour was injurious to peace and stability. The scholar Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki HWM'U (847-918), for example, in a strongly worded Confucian statement of 914 entitled 'Twelve opinions' (Iken junikajd ffifS) took a very dim view indeed: The number of people initiated as yearly ordinands or in special ceremonies permitted by the court has risen to two or three hundred per year. Of these more than half are evil and wild sorts of people. In addition, many people among the farmers [without government permission] shave off their hair and wantonly wear monastic robes in order to escape their tax and corvee labour obligations. As the years have passed, their numbers have increased until two-thirds of the population have shaven heads. They all keep a wife and children in their houses. Although they resemble monks outwardly, they eat meat and fish; their minds are like those of butchers. It is even worse when they assemble and behave like a band of robbers and secretly mint then-own money. They do not fear punishments from heaven or concern themselves with the Buddhist precepts. If provincial governors try and make them behave according to the law, they assemble and become violent. In previous years, when Fujiwara no Tokiyoshi, the governor of Aki, was surrounded and when Tachibana no Kirmyasu was threatened and robbed, it was precisely this type of evil monk who did so ... . If the edict from the Chancellor's Office had been late, or the court's messenger had been delayed, Tokiyoshi and Kirniyasu might have died terrible deaths. If they are not prohibited, then I fear that they may rebel [against the government]. Therefore I ask that when monks behave in such evil ways, they be arrested and forced to return their certificates of initiation and ordination. They shall then be required to [again] wear lay clothing and return to their former occupation. In addition, if privately-initiated novices join together in evil groups, then they should be put in restraints (kentai) and forced to do hard labour (Groner 2002: 8-9). The court certainly had reason to be worried. Factional strife finally boiled to the surface during the tenure of Ryogen (912-85) of the Ennin line. Exasperated by continual complaints from the rival faction, he stopped inviting them to major ritual gatherings altogether and excluded them from the process of decision making, using the Yokawa sector as his personal base. In 982 there arose a dispute over who was to become abbot of Hosshoji $S 1ft #, a dispute in which armed conflict was only just avoided. Matters went from bad to worse in 989, when the abbot of Onjoji was appointed 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan 159 abbot of Enryakuji by the court. Incensed at this proposal to give the post to someone from the opposing faction, the monks at Todo and the third centre on the mountain, the Western Pagoda (Saito H ^), dug in their heels, eventually forcing the court to back down. Four years later, the dispute between the two finally broke into armed conflict, which in turn led to much destruction of property; bad blood between the two became the norm. Despite this failure to achieve unity, Ryogen is seen as the man who succeeded in giving Hieizan the kind of the financial and political base that was to secure for it an unassailable position as the major Japanese Buddhist centre for the next five hundred years (McMullin 1989a; Groner 2002). He himself seems to have lacked a powerful sponsor, in his early years, making his name instead through sheer brilliance in debate. Lectures, recitations and formal debates were major events in the Buddhist calendar and it was through participation in such assemblies that one secured advancement. The most important of these was the Vimalakirti Assembly held at Kofukuji. It had started as a private memorial service in memory of Fujiwara no Kamatari, the founder of the clan, but had since burgeoned into an assembly that tested the knowledge and scholarship of monks from a wide range of traditions. Ryogen first became known outside Hieizan when at the young age of twenty-five he was allowed to attend this event in 937. Only about two years later he came to the attention of Fujiwara no Tadahira Jfe3]2 (880-949), who asked him to become his personal priest. It was largely thanks to the patronage of Tadahira and his son Morosuke gf If (908-60) that Ryogen found himself able to establish a power base of his own on Hieizan at Yokawa. It was a symbiotic relationship, whereby in return for acting as a ritualist for the family at crucial points, his building plans were funded. He became the first monk to perform at court the 'Ritual with five altars' (Godanho EMS) to the five Wise Kings (Go daimyoo jE^BJlI), with which Murasaki Shikibu would begin her record of a prince's birth fifty years later, and in 977 he performed the 'Ritual of abundant light' for Fujiwara no Kanemichi Sfiji, the first time a rite that was normally devoted to helping the sovereign at times of celestial disturbances (it had been introduced by Ennin and first used in 850) had been carried out for someone other than the monarch. Tannic knowledge, which had previously been the exclusive property of the ruling house, was slipping more and more into private hands. In 950 Ryogen was appointed religious guardian to the future ruler Reizei IÉ). There are two aspects of thusness: the unchangeable aspect W m ÍU and the conditioned one WB-mtti. The unchangeable aspect was what underlay the mind of all sentient beings, but it tended to become impregnated with ignorance, in which case it was transformed into the conditioned aspect, which eventually gave rise to the phenomenal world, the world of samsara. How ignorance arose, however, was not normally explained. For Annen, ignorance was subsumed under thusness, since noming could be external to an all-embracing principle. The logic of this stance was that thusness transformed itself into ignorance and so gave rise to samsara. This is a sensible way to deal with the problem of the origin of ignorance, but it has interesting side-effects. If phenomenal reality is thusness transformed, then ignorance is enlightenment, samsara is nirvana, and phenomena can be affirmed in toto. But in this case where is the imperative to seek after enlightenment and nirvana? We shall see later how this attempt to take non-dualism to its logical, conclusion led to the development of the concept of 'original enlightenment' (hongaku ^Ji) in the. medieval period, something that had interesting and sometimes disturbing consequences for Japanese Buddhism. And how does the idea of sokushin jobutsu fit in here?4 The topic was one of considerable debate and disagreement throughout the tenth century. We have seen that, when Saicho mentioned the possibility of 'realisation of buddhahood in this very body', he used the story of the Dragon King's daughter as an example of someone who had achieved rapid advancement along the path by relying on the perfect teachings of the Lotus. This path towards buddhahood was analysed as having six. levels, which were called 'identities' (soku SP) because one was identifying oneself with the Buddha. Each of these had further subdivisions: 'Realisation of buddhahood in this very body' occurred at the 'first abode' (shoju%}&) of the fifth identity, the point when any tendency to backslide was conquered and one deserved the title 'sage'. Not that anyone really expected to reach this in one lifetime; Zhiyi himself stated that he felt he had only reached the third level of identity, although later scholars dismissed this as a case of modesty. When this fifth level was achieved, perhaps after two more lifetimes, the 4 For more detailed discussion of Tendai views of sokushin jobutsu from Saicho to Annen see Groner 1992. 166 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan 167 bodbisattva was thought to have cast off a normal body (bundanshin ftHLSt, subject to karmic transformation) and taken on a dharma-body (hen 'yakushin 1\ IlJIzSr, that could transform itself for the good of others). So how then could f the process be really called 'in this body' (sokushin #)? Saicho left this problem unanswered. Annen, in his Sokushin jobutsu gi shiki EP J'/^f^KfASrl, argued that this change of body at the 'first abode' was not a true abandonment of the body \. (jissha Sf#) but rather a transformation (tensha Wjgf), so this was why one ! could talk of one and the same body. He also argued that 'becoming a ] buddha' was a process which in fact could start as early as the second identity - when the practitioner had only just heard of the Buddha's teachings. He thereby stretched Saicho's concept of sokushin jobutsu to the limit, opening up the possibility of buddhahood in this life for all sentient beings. Annen was by no means the first scholar to try and argue in this fashion. When Saicho's student Kojo had earlier questioned the Tiantai master Zongying i?K by letter about the fifth stage, the reply had stated that in order to reach this stage one's state of mind at the end of the fourth stage must already be free of all ignorance. This meant it was therefore logically possible that partial buddhahood might start at the fourth stage. Once this had been admitted, the way was open for those who wished to drive the level : even lower, and eventually Tendai monks did start arguing that buddhahood was achievable during one lifetime; the increasing influence of tantric practice in Tendai was certainly partially responsible for such a development (Groner 1992: 444). A further example of his willingness to extend all boundaries and his unequivocal affirmation of the whole phenomenal world can be found in Annen's espousal of the idea that natural objects might also be able to achieve buddhahood, a concept known as somoku jobutsu ^ytc^f^, Indian Buddhism distinguished quite clearly between sentient and non-sentient, and enlightenment, never mind buddhahood, was only ever a matter for the sentient. In China, the concept of the non-sentient possessing Buddha Nature was tacitly acknowledged by a number of scholars in the Six Dynasties. Jizang rail (549-623), for example, mentions the idea in the third section of his work Dasheng xuanlun but perhaps the most influential text in this regard was Zhanran's Jinbei lun sfei^fm.5 But here again the emphasis is mainly on the ubiquity of Buddha Nature rather than a discussion of how inanimate objects might have consciousness. It was only Japanese Tendai 5 For a translation and study see Penkower 1993. ■'• monks who took the matter further and presumed that individual objects in nature had mind and could engender an individual inspiration towards enlightenment. As the exchanges in the various 'Toketsu' letters show, this was largely incomprehensible to the Chinese monks at Tiantai, and it is hard not to assume that the particular interest that Japanese showed in this concept owed much to native Japanese beliefs. Here too Annen was a major influence. His work Kanjo somoku jobutsu shiki SS^^^f^fifB discusses the matter in great detail and makes a strong case for its logical necessity; it was, of course, possible to go as far as to define the non-sentient as that which had already achieved buddhahood and which therefore had no further need for consciousness. This too was destined to be a powerful and long-lasting element in subsequent Japanese Buddhist doctrine. Doctrine and practice being indivisible, it is not surprising to find Annen also discussing the rules by which monks were supposed to live. Here, his impact was just as influential, if not more so. It has been argued that it was partly a result of his permissive stance that Tendai continued to show such remarkable laxity as regards monastic discipline, one of the distinguishing characteristics of Japanese Buddhism. We have seen how in his desire to create his own school and in his conviction in the truth of Mahayana universalism, Saicho had ended up dismissing the 250 rules of the vinaya and instituting the bodbisattva precepts of the Sutra of Brahma's net as the 'Mahayana' precepts for the Tendai tradition. This was accepted soon after his death, but unfortunately this set of ten major and forty minor rules was too vaguely expressed to act as a proper basis for monastic life. It was largely thanks to Annen's ordination manual Extended commentary on universal ordination with the bodhisattva precepts (Futsu jubosatsukai kbshaku UMrf S M M If W) that this remained the case for much of subsequent Tendai history. Since in China they were applicable to both monk and layman, they had clearly not been designed simply to replace the vinaya (Groner 1990). The crucial problem with these Mahayana precepts was that they were based not so much on action as intention and they were vague enough to need detailed interpretation. Saicho's immediate successors were too busy with tantrism and, although undoubtedly concerned about a lack of discipline, no one before Annen actively turned his mind to fleshing out the precepts. This may well have been because certain elements in tantric ritual demanded that the adept in fact break what would normally be a proscription. We find Annen going even further and placing these precepts below another set, the four samaya precepts, which were to be found in the Mahdvairocanatantra and were said to have been granted directly to Salcyamuni: § 168 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji 'si 1 not to abandon the true dharraa; . ] 2 never to abandon the aspiration to enlightenment; > 3 never to refuse to confer Buddhist teachings on someone who sincerely . '■; A wishes to study them; 4 to benefit sentient beings. fSl By treating these samaya precepts as superior, Annen opened the way for the Mahayana precepts to be seen as relative, as themselves little more than heuristic devices for those with lesser abilities. This meant that they might be broken in certain circumstances; and if even these rather vague statements need not hold, then what hope was there for monastic discipline and whither Tendai? Controls were, of course, imposed, but via piecemeal regulation by ::;f; those who ran the temples and monasteries rather than by common precept. f This breakdown was in a sense inevitable once tantric ritual, designed for the very few and kept secret precisely because it contained such dangers, became available to all. Once the line between ordinary monk and adept became obscured, and once intention was allowed to predominate over action, there were no safeguards and the way was wide open for abuses to find their own justification. Take the concept of confession followed by forgiveness, link it to the ideal of compassion, and then mix in the belief that karmic consequences could be alleviated and even negated by the magical use of certain dharani, and one can imagine any crime being accepted as having been 'unintentional'. This development can be well understood in the context of Mahayana universalism and as a consequence of the rapid spread of ;i| tantrism within Tendai, but the results for monastic discipline were to be dire and largely irreversible until a reform movement emerged in the thirteenth -M century. ;S§ 7.3 Religious aspects of life at court Let us step away for a moment from both the politicking of monk and patron | and the picture of scholasticism that the above description might suggest, and instead ask ourselves how far Buddhist doctrine and practice-had permeated v:| everyday life at court. Most of our information comes from the diaries and romances that were produced in increasing numbers in the mid-Heian period, but there is one other important source: the three-voiumed Text to illustrations of the Three Jewels {Sanbo ekotoba ELMWiW), compiled by Minamoto no Tamenori MMiS. in 984 (Kamens 1988). The Sanbo ekotoba was produced for the nineteen-year-old princess Sonshi who had taken initial 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan 169 vows as a nun in 982 and was ordained by Ryogen two years later. She clearly needed the most basic information. Book 1 contains thirteen jataka stories about the Buddha in his former existences, stories that are taken from a variety of sources including Zhiyi's Sijiaoyi \BWM (T. 1929) and the Sutra of golden radiant wisdom. They all illustrate the importance of self-sacrifice and of compassion: the first six are devoted to the six perfections (pardmitd), the next seven are more heterogeneous. Book 2 contains eighteen tales dealing with the introduction and subsequent history of Buddhism in Japan, seventeen of which are taken straight from Nihon ryoiki. Again, the effect is to illustrate both the truth of karmic retribution and the need to build up reserves of merit. Book 3 explains to the young woman the importance of making sure that lay men and women pay homage to the community of monks and nuns; this is followed by a calendar of the main Buddhist rites held throughout the year, listed month by month. What Tamenori describes, however, are not the rites themselves but their provenance, giving the princess the kind of historical background that she would not normally have learned. This section is of importance to anyone interested in tracing the origins of certain ceremonies at certain temples, but it should not be assumed that they were all automatically an integral part of lay life at court. On the contrary, Sonshi needed to be informed about them and so they were probably seen as something apart from normal court life. The court had its own busy schedule, which included much that was not specifically Buddhist. Mention of Sonshi reminds us that women as well as men felt the need for solace and salvation. Nuns had played an important role in the early introduction of Buddhism in Japan and many of the female sovereigns of the Nara period had willingly become influential patronesses. As we have seen, nunneries were set up alongside temples during the reign of Shomu, for example, and although we do not know much about the official ordination of women, there were clearly many who, privately or not, took certain vows of abstinence and changed their lifestyle accordingly. Some entered nunneries, others simply stayed at home but 'cut their hair' as an outward sign of an inner resolve. As we enter the Heian period, however, official nuns and nunneries begin to disappear from the record. The last time monks and nuns are recorded sitting together at a ceremony is 727 and the last mention of a large number of nuns being ordained is in 828. Both Tendai and Shingon banned women from many of their temple precincts, and hence from their mountains, so by the mid-ninth century it seems that officially recognised nunneries were few and far between. When court women 'cut their hair and became nuns (ama it was often because of grief, illness or bad fortune, 170 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan 171 and it was not necessarily an irrevocable step. If a woman was in danger of dying, at childbirth, for example, she might well have her locks cut short as a form of protection against evil spirits. This was certainly the case with tff Michinaga's daughter Shoshi when she was in the midst of a very dif- ; ■[ ficult labour. Sonshi seems to have been an exception, and it is indicative that - \ Sanbo ekotoba was written for her not on the occasion of her initial gesture, I but when she confirmed her resolve to leave lay life two years later in 984. :Sf Increasingly the terms 'taking vows' or 'cutting one's hair' in the Heian period became little more than a metaphor for the act of a woman reaching middle age and moving from the stage of being sexually active to something :l more contemplative, and occasionally scholastic (Groner 2002: 245-88). A reading of the diaries written by both men and women during the tenth and eleventh centuries tells us that although Buddhism was firmly entrenched by this time, court life consisted largely in the performance of a series of public and private rites and rituals, only some of which were Buddhist in origin. It is not entirely clear whether the average courtier knew the origin of any particular ritual, and, given the ignorance and lack of interest of most people in most countries of the world in the specific origins of the rituals that :Q\ govern their lives, this should not be surprising. In a world where medicine was still rudimentary and the majority of events, whether good or bad, were unpredictable, rituals were always best adhered to 'just in case', wherever they came from. It is convenient to divide these observances into two broad types. Firstly, official court events that either were held at set times every month, or were instituted on special occasions to meet immediate and sudden needs such as illness, epidemic or bad weather; these, of course, could be public or private, although the distinction became more and more difficult to draw as Fujiwara family interests became indistinguishable from those of the state. Secondly, those taboos and observances that were part of everyday life, ranging from the normal ceremonies that marked important stages in the life-cycle, such as birth, coming of age, marriage, death and mourning (forty-nine days), to rituals undergone for specific reasons. These two types were 'broad' in the sense that: they too often overlapped. Neither could many of them be marked specifically Buddhist, 'Chinese' or native, although in some cases this would .: ;| have been obvious. What binds them together is a concern with the here-and-now, with this-worldly benefits. Pain and misfortune came in many guises and forms, but common to them all was the fact that they were beyond human control and could strike at any time. Rituals and observances were almost the only tool one had to build a defence against such evil influences. Undeipinnhig the official court events was the calendar and almanac that was in the hands of a specific agency called the Bureau of Divination (Onmyoryo |§||jIK). As the name suggests, the work done here was largely based on a study of Chinese Yin-Yang theory. This is sometimes loosely called Daoism, but this term should be avoided for it suggests elements of a priesthood that are quite out of place in the Japanese context. It was the job of the officials in this bureau to provide assistance on a wide range of matters: 'the observation of the heavens, the recording and interpreting of heavenly movement, signs, and portents, the use of yin-yang techniques of divination, "observing the earth" or geomancy based on rive phases (gogyd Sfr) theory, calendar calculation, and timekeeping' (Bock 1985: 10). The information thus provided was often used in conjunction with purification rites, officials from this bureau working together with diviners from the Jingikan. Their advice was sought whenever an important event was being planned or something untoward such as an eclipse or the discovery of a freak of nature occurred. It is this obsession with ensuring that certain activities took place at the correct time that explains the number of times court diaries describe events happening at all times of the day and night, with no apparent regard for more normal diurnal behaviour. The official calendar in use for most of the Heian period was the Xuanming Calendar (Senmy5reki M.RMM) of 822, the seventh of eight calendars produced by the Tang court, brought over by an emissary from Parhae in 859 and adopted in 862. It was a mixed solar-lunar calendar. The natural year (solar) was divided into twelve equal parts known as setsu SB, each setsu divided into two, giving twenty-four divisions; these were named after agricultural and climatic features distinctive to north China rather than Japan, but they were never changed. The winter solstice (toji 4?-31) fell at the midpoint of the first setsu of the year, so the solar year began on what is now 21/22 December. The lunar calendar, with the new moon falling on the first day of the month, deviated from the natural year considerably, necessitating the addition of an intercalary month (jungetsu M E ) one month in every thirty. The beginning of the Japanese civil year was deemed to fall on the first new moon preceding the midpoint of the third setsu of the solar year, between what would now be 21 January and 19 February. This dissonance between the official lunar calendar and the natural cycle was often remarked upon: the first poem of the Collection ancient and modern (Kokinshu ^"4"H) c.905, for example, plays on the fact that the first day of spring (risshun 3i#, on what would now be 4/5 February) had come 'within the old year'. 172 Front Saicho to the destruction of Tödaiji 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan 173 . Superimposed on this template, was a diary of court ceremonial. As one :-)| might expect, there was a concentration of ceremonies at the begiririing and '.\ end of the year, but every month was marked by at least two major festivals. '.■■:| Some were Buddhist; many, such as the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival of the J First Fruits (niinamesai), were agricultural in nature; yet others were adopted directly from Chinese practice.6 But as we progress into the period, we ' encounter the increasing importance of tantric rites offered publicly and \;||: privately by both Shingon and Tendai Buddhist monks and a concomitant I decrease in the prestige of the officials in the Onmyoryo. It is this i phenomenon that is often used to explain why the Japanese continued to use the Xuanming Calendar for the next eight hundred years, despite its increasing inaccuracy. What interest there might have been in the Onmyoryo *| in astronomy as a science gave way to predictions and the interpretation of a . wide range of omens. A new astrology emerged, based on the Sutra of constellations and planets (Sukuyd kyo Iff SHI), which had been brought back by Kukai. This was said to be a translation by Amoghavajra of an Indie "V original, but it had obviously been embellished with a substantial accretion of Chinese lore. It described the Seven Planets (shichiydsei -bHM), the Sun B, Moon }\, Jupiter -KM, Mars -A; M, Saturn ±11, Venus <\lH'.. and Mercury 2kM, moving through the twenty-eight constellations (or 'lodges' suku t§) of the Indian zodiac. Ritual gatherings at court and in private gradually became elaborate and costly affairs with multiple daises being constructed, massed groups of monks whose job it was to keep up a constant stream of incantations, and exorcists whose duty it was to draw off evil influences. There was a whole series of rituals to draw on the power of various buddhas, bodhisattvas and other defenders of the Dharma thought particularly efficacious for protecting ; both state and sovereign from all forms of calamity. There was the Daigensui ho ^CTfi^S, for example, brought back by Kukai's student Jogyo 3tH and made an annual observance in 851 on the occasion of worries that attacks by pirates from Silla might increase; held to honour Daigensui, master of all demons, one of the eight attendants of Vaisravana (Bishamon lil^PI), who -was himself one of the Indie protector gods, it involved the presentation of a series of weapons on an elaborate altar (Grapard 1999: 536). And there was the Rite of the Peacock King Sutra (Kujakukyo ho fLSgS), held to 6 For further details see Herail 1987-91, vol. I: 50-107. McCullough and McCullough 1980 contains a list of the official dates for the first half of the first month (vol. I: 380-85) and for the second month (vol. I: 400-03). encourage rainfall in times of drought. Some idea of the pressure generated by such occasions can be gleaned from Murasaki Shikibu's description in her diary of the noise that surrounded the birth of a prince (Bowring 1996: 8-11). And then at the other end of life, mourning the death of a friend or relative was naturally a Buddhist matter, although, as the following description of Go-Ichfjo Tenno's funeral in 1036 shows, there were certainly other elements involved as well: As was customary, Go-Ichijo's funeral procession set out for the cremation site at night. The vanguard consisted of twelve torchbearers and twenty monks in double columns, preceded by a yellow silk banner bearing a Buddhist mantra. Next came twenty men supporting four long silk screens, two on the left and two on the right, which were intended to shield the coffin from vulgar eyes. The coffin, resting on a litter borne by twenty men, and further protected by a second, smaller set of screens, was preceded by two men carrying a 'light litter', on which a lamp burned. The coffin was followed by an 'incense litter', containing a censer and vases of flowers. The bearers of both the light litter and the incense litter marched between the inner and outer screens, as did the Regent, Ministers of State, and other dignitaries, who followed next, wearing mourning garments and straw sandals, and holding peeled-wood staffs. Similarly accoutered, a great throng of lesser officials and minor functionaries streamed along outside the long screens, some carrying torches. At the cremation site, which was strewn with white sand and guarded by two torii, temporary structures had been erected for the use of the nobles and monks; and tentlike screens, firewood, water, and other necessities were in readiness. Designated nobles removed the coffin lid, inserted firewood, and lit fires. Buddha-invocations were chanted as the body burned. Personal belongings of the Emperor (toilet articles, an armrest, shoes, an inkstone box, etc.) were later consigned to the flames. Around eight o'clock the next morning, the fire was extinguished with rice wine, and the spot was sprinkled by the monks with dirt and sand. After the bones had been ceremoniously sealed in an urn, a Controller set out to take them to a temple, while the other mourners remained for the final rituals at the site, which included the erection of a stone stupa and the planting of trees. The dignitaries then went home, apparently by ox-carriage, stopping at the Kamo River for a brief purification (McCullough and McCullough 1980, vol. I: 373-74). In a society with an average life expectancy of about thirty, it is hardly surprising that avoidance of illness and: disease was a major preoccupation. Major epidemics, probably smallpox, are recorded for the years 947, 974, 993, 994-5, 998, 1020 and 1025. In addition to such figures as Yakushi, to whom the nobles often turned for a cure, there were other gods of more obscure origin who were feared because they were known to be responsible for epidemics (ekijin £§9$). Treated properly, they might be prevailed upon to desist. One such was Gozu Ten'o ^ffi^i, the bull-headed king, with his 174 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan 175 wife, the Dragon King's daughter Barime no miya HSi^CS, and his eight children or Hachioji A 3E -?. The origin of this cult is not icnown but it certainly predates the Heian period and there are a number of signs that it may well be Korean (McMullin 1988). How this cult became established is unclear, but in 863 an epidemic of tuberculosis was put down to the anger of a large number of court nobles who had lost their lives as a result of intense pressure placed on them by the most powerful man at the time, Fujiwara no Mototsune S8L In an attempt to pacify the anger of their departed vengeful spirits (onryo SM), Mototsune organised a large goryoe fflffi# in the palace garden known as the Shinsen'en Willi ?e. This was a large public event at which certain rites were performed in front of six ryoza (S.M) or 'spirit seats' that represented six of the individuals concerned. The departed spirits were at once blamed, honoured and appropriated to the Fujiwara cause. Whether this was the first time the cult had been used in this manner we do not know, but goryoe of this type were held throughout the Heian period at times of epidemic and other disasters. Soon after this particular event, the cult of Gozu found a permanent base in the Gion IffiH temple in Higashiyama, now home to the yearly Gion matsuri, still one of the major festivals of Kyoto. Gion stands for Jetavana, the name of the estate given to ^akyamuni Buddha by the merchant Sudatta, which may or may not explain the presence of a bull-headed deity. The first element to be established in this area of Higashiyama was in fact a temple called Kankeiji Hlt#, founded by the monk Ennyo Wffl in 876. Various divinities then arrived but it took until 926 before a hall, the Tenjindo 'XWs?, was built for them. This is a typical example of how the establishment of a Buddhist temple could lead to the worship of other deities and eventually produce what we now think of as a shrine. Kankeiji was affiliated to Kofukuji in Nara until sometime in the 970s when it was appropriated by Enryakuji, probably thanks to the influence of Ryogen's patron Morosuke, a relationship that we have discussed earlier in this chapter (McMullin 1987). This started a process by which the original rites were replaced by tantric Buddhist rites and links were created between the Gion divinities and the buddhas and gods on Hieizan. , The second area to be considered, that of taboos affecting the individual, was a mixture of native and Chinese elements. It has been estimated that for various reasons 'the ordinary Heian aristocrat could expect to spend from twenty to seventy days per year in ritual seclusion' (McCullougli and McCuIlough 1980, vol. I: 364). When a period of monoimi ©,fS, as it was called, was observed by the ruler himself, the whole court fell into a state of paralysis, but they were also of importance to the individual courtier and could be brought about by any number of different things: dreams, unlucky omens, or simply lustration before an important ceremony. Men such as Fujiwara no Michinaga were always consulting diviners as to these matters and recorded the day's events in a diary known as a guchureki JH&M, which had headnotes in the form of an almanac. From this, one could tell whether the day would be auspicious or not, whether it would be wise to wash one's hair or cut one's nails, and where one's Star of Destiny {honmydsho ^fifr S) lay. Clearly this kind of information must have come from the Bureau of Divination, or perhaps a private sub-section of it. The following oft-quoted passage from Fujiwara no Morosuke's Admonitions (Kujo-dono no goyuikai f^&tWtW&Tfc) of 960 shows the degree to which ritual behaviour ruled the life of the average noble. Upon arising, first of all repeat seven times in a low voice the name of the star of the year. Take up a mirror and look at your face, to scrutinize changes in your appearance. Then look at the calendar and see whether the day is one of good or evil omen. Next use your toothbrush and then, facing West, wash your hands. Chant the name of the Buddha and invoke those gods and divinities whom we ought always to revere and worship. Next make a record of the events of the previous day. Now break your fast with rice gruel. Comb your hair once every three days, not every day. Cut your fingernails on a day of the Ox, your toenails on a day of the Tiger. If the day is auspicious, now bathe, but only once every fifth day (Sansom 1958: 180). This shows a remarkable degree of interest in the body as the instrument of ritual, something that links directly to the principles of tantric Buddhism and to native ideas of purity in equal measure. Astrological signs were taken very seriously indeed, since they governed one's whole life. Rites to the Pole Star {hokuto 4b4-), the tenno ^fi of the heavens, for example, were considered to be of particular efficacy for increasing one's life span, and it was also thought necessary to keep awake all night on the Day of the Monkey once every sixty days in order to stop elements in one's body leaving it to report one's misdoings to the heavenly bureaucracy, a belief known as koshin M^K7 Another particularly interesting set of taboos, known as 'directional interdictions' {kataimi ~J5&), had to do with certain baleful deities such as Taiichi Taihaku and Daishogun JkMW- (who were both manifestations of Venus), Konjin and Oso TEH, who were constantly on the move both in 7 Grapard 1999: 549-50. The idea of being reported to a heavenly bureaucracy was Chinese in origin. In Japan a wordplay on 'monkey' (saru ^) and the verbal negative suffix -zaru gave rise to the three monkeys who were not meant to see, hear or speak about one's misdemeanours to the deity. 176 From Saicho to the destruction ofTddaiji the skies and on land, and who had to be carefully tracked to ensure that the individual at risk did not bump into them. This could and did make travel even more troublesome than it already was, because it often necessitated long detours, known as katatagae 7J M. Not that certain courtiers were above using this as an excuse to prolong a visit to a lover, or to avoid a difficult meeting (Frank 1998). It might seem from the above account that courtiers of both genders were so hemmed in by ritual activity that they would have been frightened to move far beyond the confines of their immediate surroundings, but such was not the case. Men often had to travel considerable distances as part of their duties, often with large retinues, and we know from women's diaries that they too had the freedom to travel, although they usually needed the excuse that they were going on personal visits to a temple. The advent of Shingon and Tendai led to a growth in the number of important temples that were established in mountains and forests some three or four days' journey from the capital. In order to increase their financial security, these temples, places such as Ishiyamadera, Hasedera, Shiten'oji, Kiyomizudera and Koryuji, established festivals and attracted visits by all sections of the population who might want a wish granted or who had special reason to pay their respects to a particular buddha. They were far enough away from the capital to demand some degree of fortitude and perseverance, especially for a woman used to the comforts of the court, but not impossibly distant. Each trip meant considerable preparation including abstinence and purification. Such a journey might be motivated by the desire to fulfil a vow, to ask for the birth of a child, to escape from a difficult situation, or even to explore the possibility of becoming a nun. Be they journeys for pleasure or for more serious purposes, such week-long visits to temples in the Yamato area were an accepted part of life at court (Ambros 1990). Something of the solace such journeys might bring is captured in the following passage from Kagero nikki $b ffi 0 IB, written by the mother of Michitsuna in the summer of 971: When I look into the darkness in the shadow of the hills, the fireflies seem to glow with a startling brilliance. Back at home in the old days when.I was not so weighed down with sorrow, I used to get annoyed when I couldn't hear the 'voice one will not hear twice'. Here the cuckoo birds sing all over the place to their heart's content. And the water-rails tap out their song; one would think they were right at the door. This is a dwelling where melancholy thoughts are all the more intense . . . The voices signaling the end of the day, the cries of the evening cicadas, the little bells in small monasteries around here calling 'me too, me too' as though competing with each other, and, as there is a shrine to the gods on the hill in front of here, the voices of the 7 Buddhism and the state in Heian Japan 111 priests intoning the sutras - listening to all of this, I cannot help sinking deep into my thoughts (Arntzen 1997: 237-39). We also have a detailed record of a rather more elaborate pilgrimage that Michinaga made to Kinpusen A1#LU at the southern end of the Nara basin in the eighth month of 1007 (Herail 1987-91, vol. II: 179-87). Kinpusen is the general name for the area of mountains that rise south of Yoshino but it also refers more specifically to Sanjogatake (1,719 m) in the Omine range. Like almost every large mountain in Japan, it was treated as sacred space and had been a centre for mountain ascetics as long as anyone could remember. Legend had it that it contained all the gold that would be used when the future Buddha Maitreya (Miroku) came to restore the world (Tyler 1989: 152). It is mentioned in Nihon ryoiki of c.820 and there is a record that the deity of Kinpu was given the rank of Junior Third Grade in 852. There seems to have been some form of organisation of ascetics by the time of the monk Shobo UK (832-909), who is said to have installed a large image of the tantric deity Kongo zao ^ ill H 3E on the mountain. Somewhat later, a syncretic native-Buddhist deity, Zao gongen JiszEffili, destined to become the main deity of all such mountain groups, was installed in the Zaodo on the summit of Sanjogatake. After a long period of abstinence (seventy-five days), Michinaga's party left his home at two in the morning on the second of the month, but it was not until about eight o'clock that they finally boarded boats to travel down to Iwashimrzu Hachiman. The journey itself (or perhaps one should say 'progress') then took eight days. He reached the Yoshino river on the seventh of the month and stayed overnight on the ninth at a temple called Gion, which may have been near the temple at the foot of the mountains, but may have been halfway between the lower temple and the Zaodo. The main business of prayer and dedication was carried out on the eleventh. Among the gifts he took were one hundred copies each of the Lotus sutra and the Sutra for humane kings dedicated to members of his family. He also had buried there a copper and gold casket in which he put copies of the Lotus sutra, the three Maitreya sutras, the Amida sutra and the Heart sutra. These were to ensure not only that he be reborn in Amida's Pure Land but that the teachings would be preserved for the advent of Maitreya when Michinaga would be able to return and achieve final enlightenment. This habit of burying sutras (known as maikyo 38) was a characteristic of the mid- to late Heian period and was linked to the concept that the Buddhist Dharma was already in a state of decline and that ways had to be found of ensuring that it was not lost for ever. 178 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji Michinaga's own record, is unclear as to. whether he actually made the. gruelling ascent of Sanjogatake itself or not. One may doubt it, but the fact remains that this very casket was discovered in 1691, buried near the peak of the mountain near the Zaodo. The journey back to Heiankyo only took two days, partly on horseback and partly by boat. 8 Shrine and state in Heian Japan 8.1 Kasuga One might be forgiven for assuming from the last few chapters that the native gods were given short shrift during the Heian period, so it is the object of this chapter to correct such an impression. With the move of the capital north, to Nagaoka and thence to Heiankyo, and with the subsequent development of Shingon and Tendai in the ninth century, interaction between native gods and Buddhism increased rather than decreased, and the picture becomes more complex. While it is true to say that the general principle of coexistence was accepted and built upon, this does not mean that the two simply coalesced; they remained two sides of the same coin. Buddhism grew in influence as it gradually made its presence felt in the personal as well as the public sphere, with the result that it eventually entered the bloodstream of Japanese culture at every level. The native jingi cults fulfilled quite a different, largely local role, and it is this that allowed them not only to survive but indeed flourish. This was largely thanks to a philosophical flexibility within Buddhism, which recognised the possibility of provisional truths. Buddhism needed local gods to ground itself in new areas via these intermediaries, and in turn it provided local cults (and the families behind these cults) with something of much greater significance, a universal context which became increasingly necessary if the divine right to rule was to be maintained. It was through the medium of Buddhism that local cults began to develop shared characteristics. They needed each other in equal measure. Kasuga # S and the mountain behind it, Mikasayama Hilill, had been a sacred site well before the Nara period, but at some stage during the eighth century it became the main cult centre for the Fujiwara, who were created out of the Nakatomi. The division between the two was made explicit in 698 and from that time on the role of the two families diverged markedly, the Fujiwara being the secular branch, the Nakatomi remaining as the sacerdotal branch, both serving the ruler at the centre in their own ways. The traditional date for the founding of the shrine at Kasuga is 768. Note in this regard that 179 180 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji 8 Shrine and state in Heian Japan 181 this is well after the acknowledged date for the founding of the related temple, Kofukuji (714), so the establishment of a permanent shrine at a sacred site in this fashion may well have come about in response to the presence of Buddhism rather than the other way round. The main shrine houses four deities, ranked in order from east to west, the shrine itself facing south: Takemikatsuchi from Kashima gift, and Futsunushi from Katori ff^X, both tutelary deities from eastern Japan; then Amenokoyane, Fujiwara no Kamatari's ancestral deity, and his consort Himegami, who was later treated as representing Ise at Kasuga. In Koshaki rST±fB, which may be datable to 940 but may also be a product of the mid-Kamakura period, these deities are identified as those gods who helped the Sun Goddess emerge from her self-imposed isolation in the Rock Cave; they thus restored sunlight to the world - symbolic of their role in the Japanese state.1 At some later stage, these gods realised they were too distant from the capital and decided to move closer, to Kasuga: clearly the mythical expression of territorial gains. The journey of the god Takemikatsuchi from Kashima to Kasuga, riding on a deer, became a common subject of Kasuga devotional art, as is the sacred sakaki tree that was connected to the incident at the Rock Cave and was later used by monks and priests at the Kasuga-Komkuji complex when they wished to press a complaint against the court. We know next to nothing about the very earliest rites at Kasuga but they were formalised by the mid-Heian. The following passage that survives from the 'Rituals of the Jogan era' (872) describes the Grand Rite. At dawn on the day of the Rite, a member of the Jingikan, accompanied by a young girl whose duty is abstention and purity, cleans the interior of the shrine. Priestly officials decorate the shrines, placing the shrine-treasures in front of the four shrines as well as near the fence running in front of them. The various officials make offerings as usual. The Chieftain of the House enters the sacred area of the shrine through the Southern Gate in the western corridor, and goes to his seat in the Outer Area. Following him, members of the Fujiwara house who hold the sixth rank and below approach and take their seats, and write their names on the tablets. Tablets, brushes, and inkstones must be prepared in advance by the officials. During that time the sacral woman leaves her carriage and approaches the shrine. She passes through the Northern Gate in the western corridor. By then those who hold the rank of tayu, and who preceded her, have formed a single line . . . After the sacral 1 For a detailed study of these deities and the problem of their origins, see Grapard 1992a: 29-44. Grapard also points out that this arrangement is the exact reverse of that in the Hiraoka shrine dedicated to the ancestors of the Nakatomi, where the ancestral deities outrank the tutelary ones. woman reaches her seat, those holding the rank of tayu leave, while those who hold the rank of naishi go to their seats. At this point the head of the uchi-kura orders that the pendant strip offerings must be displayed on a shelf outside the gate, and he waits there for the Elders of the house and of the court. Those who hold the rank of naishi take their seats by the shrines and inspect the offerings (Grapard 1992a: 58-59, adapted). The formula (saimon MJC) proclaimed by the head priest at the Grand Rite makes it clear that at this stage the offerings at Kasuga were to placate the four deities in the interests of the sovereign and that the sovereign expected support from the Fujiwara in return: By the august decree of the Sovereign, in great awe, we humbly speak in the awesome presence of the four mighty gods, Takemikatsuchi-no-mikoto who resides, in Kashima, Iwainushi-no-mikoto who resides in Katori, Ame-no-koyane-no-mikoto and Himegami, who reside in Hiraoka, thus: in the manner in which the mighty gods have ordained, we have planted firmly the pillars of the shrine in the rocks deep under Mt Mikasa of Kasuga. The crossed beams thereof reach toward the heavens, offering a shelter from the gaze of heaven and from the blazing sun. And in it we have prepared and offered these treasures for the gods: august mirror, august sword, august bow, august spear, and august horse; and for sacred raiment, we offer up bright cloth, shining cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth. And we place in rows the first-fruits sent in tribute from the provinces in all directions as offerings: the products of the blue sea, things wide of fin and narrow of fin, seaweeds from the deep and seaweeds from the shore, and even unto the sweet herbs and the bitter herbs from mountain and moor. Let the offering jars be filled with sake to their brims, yea, let the bellies of the rows of jars be full, and let all manner of goods be heaped up like a range of hills. Let the surname, clan-rank-title, Court rank, and position of those who are. shrine-chiefs be made known. May the choice of great offerings which we present be pleasant offerings, be abundant offerings, and may they be received in tranquillity and pleasure. So we pray as we raise our words of praise to the four mighty gods. Since we serve thus by our worship, we pray that now and in the future our Sovereign may reign in tranquillity and be blessed with a prosperous reign. May it be firm like a solid rock, eternal as an enduring rock, and be caused to flourish. May all the princes and court nobles of all the families from each locality who have participated and served here be at peace. May the August Sovereign flourish in his palace more than the plants and trees which grow, for a reign that prospers, thus we pray as we humbly raise our words of praise (Bock 1970-72, vol.; II: 71-72, adapted). The fortunes of the shrine (and Kofukuji as well, as we shall see) are closely linked to those of the Fujiwara house itself. Their rise in power and influence is mirrored in the official ranks given to the deities: between 777 and 859, for example, Takemikatsuchi rose from Upper Thifd to Upper First Rank. Visits to Kasuga by the sovereign began in the late tenth century but it was not until the early twelfth century that the Kasuga cult shifted from being a Fujiwara 182 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji preserve to something of greater significance. The Buddhist element was important in this development. It is likely that from its inception the shrine was always seen as linked to Kofukuji, vital for its protection but in the end -1 subsidiary. And when retired sovereigns gave gifts, they were often in \ Buddhist form. In 1092, for example, the shrine had occasion to rebuke the ■'■.■'[ ex-sovereign Shirakawa, who, in recompense, presented the shrine with a :'f$i copy of the Buddhist canon and a building in which to house it. Other gifts included two five-storeyed pagodas (in 1116 and 1140). There was no sense V:3| of contradiction; it was merely seen as a stronger form of power and protection. Buddhist rites were also held at the shrines, in particular the 1 Biennial Discourses on the Lotus sutra (niki no gohakko - f established by 1018 at the latest. It is therefore impossible to discuss the : Kasuga shrine without reference to Kofukuji. When the monk-poet Saigyo visited Kasuga sometime in the middle of the twelfth century he is said to have found the shrine ringing with the Buddha's word (Tyler 1990: 61-62). Private temples (ujidera) such as Kofukuji were created largely for the protection and worship of the dead. Temple and shrine were complementary in this sense: the one handling the immediately departed, the other handling the divine ancestors and the local deities of place. At Kasuga the two were not antagonistic; they were known to be distinct, but functioned as one unit. As we have seen, Kofukuji was known as a major centre for Hosso studies but it also adopted tantric practice. Thanks to its patrons, of course, it continued to grow after the capital moved north and built up considerable holdings throughout the early to mid-Heian, appropriating Hasedera from Todaiji, for example, in about 990. But it took some considerable time before the gods at Kasuga were directly linked to specific buddhas. In 1016, for example, Fujiwara no Michinaga is said to have proclaimed that the only deity qualified to be called bodhisattva was Hachiman, and the oldest extant documents to contain such associations at Kasuga only date from 1175. Such links were made on various grounds. In the case of Kasuga, the .deity Takernikatsuchi, who,'as we have seen, travelled from Kashima oh a deer, was identified with the bodhisattva Amoghapasa (Edcukenjaku' ^Sli) primarily because one of the bodhisattva's iconographical signs was a deerskin thrown over his shoulder. The link may have been entirely fortuitous, but was no less convincing. "■;!! As the power of the Fujiwara grew in the eleventh century, so did the landholdings that supported what was now a shrine-temple complex. The Fujiwara ended up by occupying all the senior positions in Kofirkuji's hierarchy. This led to further expansion and the establishment of sub-temples 6" Shrine and state in Heian Japan 183 (inke Brig?) such as the Ichijoin (c.980) and the Daijoin X^ffi (1096), which became independent institutions with their own extensive landholdings. This was the phenomenon known as monzeki HI®. From about this time it became commonplace for members of the court aristocracy to create private temples which their sons would occupy until such time as a suitable appointment became available. Most monzeki were attached to larger institutions but remained in private hands, and in some cases became richer and more important than their 'parents'. By 1180 these two sub-temples in fact dominated the whole complex. Every time the Fujiwara were 'granted' land for services rendered, part of the grant was offered in gratitude, and much of the land was located in the central regions. By the end of the eleventh century Kasuga-Kofukuji owned, and therefore governed, almost the whole of the province of Yamato, and Nara itself had grown to be a large city, devoted to its support. So powerful did the priests and monks become, that whenever they were dissatisfied with a decision at court they would threaten to arrive in Heian-kyo with the sacred sakaki tree to press their case. As we near the end of the Heian period, we notice a change. As power at the centre weakened and the relationship between Fujiwara and monarchy began to mean less and less in real terms, the cult centre realised that in order to survive it would have to broaden its base of support. It controlled most of Yamato, but the rituals were still of a private nature, closely tied to the Fujiwara family; this was no longer enough, because what was now needed was a much more direct, emotional, spiritual connection to the ordinary people of the province. So in 1135 an entirely separate shrine, the Wakamiya shrine, emerged, housing a new deity who was claimed to be the son of Takernikatsuchi and Himegami. This in turn created an entirely new ceremony, the 6-matsuri. Despite their closeness, the monks had not been able to participate in existing Kasuga rites, which had been held twice a year in honour of the four main deities, but now these new rituals were open to all those in the province under the jurisdiction of the complex, and Kofukuji imposed a levy throughout the province for its support. A new deity emerged from this process, known as the Kasuga Daimyojin # 0 ^cKJpf, a composite figure representing not only the five original deities but also the power of the Kofukuji as well. We do not know exactly when this happened but the name itself was certainly in common use by 1152 and it was under the protection of this deity that the city of Nara continued to grow in economic significance, becoming itself a 'sacred city'. It was the existence of this more public deity that helped the diffusion of the Kasuga cult throughout the provinces via sub-shrines established on land that belonged to either temple or shrine. 184 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji 8 Shrine and state in Heian Japan 185 8.2 Cataloguing the native gods I The Heian court took ritual matters extremely seriously, since they affected -f-M: the realities of sovereign power vis-a-vis possible rival bases of influence. In the provinces, rituals were more localised and the sense of being part of a centralised hierarchy naturally far weaker. We saw earlier how during the late Nara period there emerged the idea, convenient for those who were consciously trying to spread Buddhism through Japan, that the local gods not j only were in need of salvation but knew only too well that they wlto suffering as unenlightened beings. In Buddhist terms, they had been reborn into the 'realm of the gods' orjindo Pit.2 The implication of this is that . deities were seen as anthropomorphic beings, not only at court (where it helps to explain the bestowal of court rank on certain deities), but also in the countryside and among the population at large. And if a deity was capable of suffering and of wreaking havoc as a result of such suffering, what better :W§,\ strategy than to establish a temple in his honour? Hence the establishment of jinguji dedicated to bringing succour to the deity in question, in return for which the deity would become a protector of the Buddhist Dharma. The gradual process whereby Buddhism married itself to local beliefs by the simple expedient of offering itself as another, rather more efficacious, form of worship, is illustrated in a number of stories situated in the ninth century, and the process was to continue throughout the Heian period. A typical tale would tell of certain natural disasters that upon investigation turned out to be curses placed on the locality by a deity in torment. Occasionally this suffering had been caused by acts in a previous life, and it was only Buddhism that could solve the difficulties. In addition to jinguji there were chinjusha H xftt, small shrines set up either inside temples or in the temple precincts, where the local gods were worshipped as protectors of the temple. It is possible that these were in fact the prototype for what later became permanent Shinto buildings. The installation of Hachiman as the protector of the Todaiji in 749 is the typical example of this process. As we have seen, Hachiman was from the very beginning a syncretic figure of obscure origins and the earliest non-Buddhist figure to receive the appellation 'bodhisattva'. He emerges again in 859, when, as the result of a second oracular pronouncement from Usa, he made it clear that he wished to be worshipped much closer to the new capital. iff Fujiwara no Yoshifusa B.S linked this to the celebrations for the accession 1 2 For further discussion of this terra see § 16. of his grandson Seiwa to the throne. This marks the origin of the Gokokuji flHxF at Iwashimizu /J< on Otokoyama JPjLJJ, at the confluence of the Katsura, Uji and Kizu rivers. It so happened that the individual who had received the oracle was a monk called Gyokyo Uffc from the Daianji, who was then appointed to run the establishmen at Iwashimizu. Members of his lineage became hereditary betto of this 'palace-temple' {miyadera 1§ #F) dedicated to Hachiman. If Iwashimizu was essentially a Buddhist temple set up to honour a deity, there were other cases where the term shrine-temple complex is more appropriate. The earliest reference we have to the idea that a local deity might actually be the incarnation of a buddha is in a petition sent by a Tendai monk to the court in 859, asking for permission for two state-funded monks to offer surra recitations for the benefit of the gods of Kamo and Kasuga, but apart from one further reference in 937, we have to wait until the twelfth century for this to become commonplace. The principle is known as honji-suijaku ^fttellMi, a term that comes from the Lotus sutra. Honji refers to the 'fundamental ground', namely the buddha or bodhisattva concerned, and suijaku to the 'dropped footprint (or trace)', the particular form in which he chooses to manifest himself in Japan, a concept that was to dominate religious flunking throughout the medieval period. The resulting deity was known as a gongen 11 or 'provisional manifestation', a term first used at the Atsuta shrine in 1004, at Yoshida in 1007 and at Kumano in 1083. So what of the relationship between shrine and state during the Heian period? The attempt to impose order on a collection of independent shrines with their attendant cults via the administrative organ of the Jingikan was, as we have already argued, more a matter of hope than reality, and at this remove there is little we can do to verify the degree of its success. This is particularly so because our main source of information on how the system was meant to work, the Procedures of the Engi era (Engishiki Ml!^), a compendium of ordinances and supplementary legislation compiled in 927 (but not promulgated for some reason until 967), was produced just as the system was on the point of breaking down and giving way to something far more circumscribed. Since this collection presents the culmination of a long process most stages of which we lack, the early years of the Heian period are somewhat of a closed book in this regard, but Books 1-10 of the Procedures, devoted to the Jingikan and its associated rituals, do allow us to flesh out the rather sparse details that are provided by the Yoro Code of 718. The picture it presents shows that no matter how personally involved members of the court might be with Buddhist ritual, no matter how deeply Buddhism penetrated 186 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji into the ritual of state, local cults were not to be ignored. The welfare of the state as such might be best guaranteed by the activities of tantric masters, but the ability of the centre to impose itself on the rest of Japan depended just as much on its ability to control the cults, those repositories of local power and local allegiances. It is for this reason that although we find no list of temples, of buddhas or bodhisattvas, we do have catalogues of native gods, and Books 9—10 of the Procedures present such a catalogue: 2,861 shrines housing a total of 3,132 deities. It is known as the jinmydcho jj^tfi (Bock 1970-72, vol. II: 107-71). The jinmydcho must be used with caution, since it does no more than reflect conditions in the mid-tenth century and we cannot extrapolate either backwards or forwards with confidence. Indeed we have no way of telling whether all the shrines mentioned still existed at the time or not. It undoubtedly reflected the political ambitions of its compilers. The shrines listed, known as shikinaisha S;F*Jf± ('shrines listed in the Procedures'), were officially recognised ones, although a number listed in the Nara chronicles are missing. Recognition had been ritually expressed by the yearly presentation of offerings in the form of food and clothing (heihakii W r|l) provided on the occasion of the Toshigoi festival, when an official from each shrine (hafuribe M nB) was supposed to come to the capital to receive the gifts. As an outward expression of control and belonging this was a perfect arrangement, but such an onerous system could not last for long and in 798 the number of shrines involved in this procedure was drastically reduced: 573 shrines (known as kanpeisha HTSFJifc) were to continue to receive offerings direct from the Jingikan, but the rest (known as kokuheisha H^ftt) were to receive their gifts from the provincial governor on behalf of the court. The Procedures further divides the 3,132 kami into 'major' and 'minor' ones, with an extra category of 285 kami of unusual power and effectiveness, known as myojin ■ Thirty-eight kami had flteir cults in the Palace itself and there were three more taken care of in the capital, but the majority were spread around the provinces [see map 8], : The distribution of these official shrines has long been the subject of comment ,and research, for in places it is counter-intuitive. Among the provinces with the highest concentrations there are some oddities: Yamato (286); Ise (253); Izumo (187); Omi (155); Tajima (131); Echizen (126); Yamashiro (122); Owari (121); Kawachi (113); Mutsu (100); and Izu (92). Mutsu is a puzzle that can only be explained as part of the military push to the north that got underway in the early Heian. And the fact that the small islands of Iki and Tsushima on then own contain as many shrines as the 188 FromSaicho to the destruction ofTodaiji whole of Kyushu must be related to the importance the court placed on the sea routes to the continent. This catalogue, then, reinforces the point that the court's desire to control shrines was as much a political as a spiritual imperative (if we can sensibly distinguish between the two). And just as Kojiki and Nihon shoki hide more than they reveal, this list of shrines may hide a more mundane truth: that of a rivalry between Nakatomi ritualists and other sacerdotal lineages such as the Inbe or 'Abstainers'. The Nakatomi was the house from which the Fujiwara were created as a secular offshoot in 669, so it is hardly surprising that they should still wield considerable power and be creating their own enemies. Inbe no Hironari ft , for one, complained bitterly in his Gleanings from ancient stories (Kogoshui "S'llJrj 3t) of 807 that the Nakatomi had engineered the omission from official registers of a number of shrines not under their jurisdiction. The Procedures of the Engi era also contains important details on a large number of rituals, ceremonies and shrines. Books 1-3 deal with the annual ceremonial calendar, both fixed and 'extraordinary'. There were five large national ceremonies (Toshigoi, Tsukinami, Kanname, Niiname and Kamo) and thirteen smaller ones, all designed to ensure the orderly flow of a life based largely on agriculture, involving purification rites, offerings of food and drink, and prayers for good harvest. Prevention of untoward events of all kinds from bad weather to illness was the overriding aim. The resources and the ritual activities to be performed were laid down in painstaking detail: the exact amounts of cloth, the weight of the rice, the number of bottles, kinds of utensils and their number. Long lists are given of shrines and deities to be involved in particular ceremonies, such as national prayers for rain in times of drought (amagoi) or for the cessation of rain in times of flood, or indeed when emissaries were to be dispatched to China. The demands of such a system, in terms of time, effort and economics, were very heavy indeed. It has been estimated that for the yearly Toshigoi festival alone the Jingikan had to provide offerings to 737 kami, involving such amounts as 75,510 yards of hemp, 737 shields, 737 spearheads, 198 deer antlers, 198 sake jars, 811b of abalone and 811b of bonito, among a host of other offerings. As one scholar has put it, 'the maintenance of the realm of the invisible required much visible, material stuff, and just as much work' (Grapard 2000a: 83). As we have already hinted, there are signs that the system as described in the Procedures only worked for a short time (if at all) before the scale of things had to be curtailed; a corrective tonic for anyone who might wish to idealise the situation is provided, yet again, by Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki in his 'Twelve opinions' of 914. He was, at the very least, even-handed in his 8 Shrine and state in Heian Japan 189 opprobrium of those involved in 'religion'. Talking of the festivals held to avert natural disasters, he wrote: the said festival offerings are distributed to the various representatives to present them at their own shrines. The priests should have performed purification and fasting and then reverently bear them to present them each at his own shrine. But, in the very presence of the high nobility, they proceed to take the offerings and silk and tuck them into their bosoms, they throw away the handle of the spear and take only the head, they tip up the bottles of sake and drain them in a single draught. Indeed, not one person has gone out of the gates of the Jingikan bearing the offerings intact! How much more so with the sacred horses! Straightway traders outside the Ikuhomon buy them all and take them and depart. In this situation can the festival deities rejoice in the sacrifices? If they do not rejoice in the sacrifices how can we expect abundance and prosperity? I humbly entreat [your Majesty] to depute one person of the rank of scribe or above, to each of the provinces to take charge of the priests and cause them to receive and take home these festival offerings, and in sincerity to deposit them properly at the home shrine as if they were in the presence of the deities (Bock 1970-72, vol. I: 13-14). The first real sign that the court recognised the impossibility of the burden and the need for retrenchment comes in 966, when, on the occasion of a request for prayers for the cessation of rain, we find a list of just sixteen shrines, all located in the Kinai. Three more were added in 991, one more in 994 and two more in 1039, making a final list of twenty-two, and it is by that number that this group is now known. Upper: Ise, Iwashimizu, Kamo, Matsuno'o, Hirano, Inari, Kasuga Middle: Oharano, Omiwa, Isonokami, Yamato, Hirose, Tatsuta, Svnniyoshi Lower: Hie, Umenomiya, Yoshida, Hirota, Gion, Kitano, Nibunokawakarni, Kibune It will be noticed that the seven 'upper' shrines include not only the two shrines connected to the ruling family, Ise and its counterpart in the capital, Kamo, but also the major Fujiwara cult centre of Kasuga and the Hachiman 'palace-temple' at Iwashimizu. The Fujiwara were also represented in the middle set by Oharano and in the lower set by Yoshida. There are also a number of local cults which must have been included for political reasons that are now impossible to recover with any certainty (Grapard 1988). It is important to note that many of these shrines were closely associated with jinguji, which may, as we have hinted, have predated the shrines themselves. These combinations grew into powerful complexes. At Kasuga a jinguji did exist in the area of the shrines but it was soon dwarfed by the overwhelming presence of Kofiikuji nearby, the Kasuga-Kofukuji complex 190 From Saicko to the destruction of Todaiji 8 Shrine and state in Heian Japan 191 eventually becoming the major landowner and de facto ruler of the whole province of Yamato. Other such complexes were Hie-Eiuyakuji, Iwashimizu Hachiman Gokokuji, Gion-Kankeiji and Kitano-Kannonji. Despite the wish of the court to maintain control, the furthest it went in terms of imposing a hierarchy on shrines was to insist that Ise was supreme, and to catalogue them into 'major* and 'minor'. The localised nature of many of these cults was such that no thought was given to arranging them in tree-and-branch formation according to inter-shrine relationships. Connections between shrines on the ground were not that obvious. Since many of the centres belonged to family cults, their fortunes were dependent on the fortunes of the house, and the shape and status of shrines continually fluctuated throughoul Japanese history. Kasuga, for example, gained in autonomy as the Fujiwara became more powerful; Ise, on the other hand, eventually lost its exclusive ties to the royal family. By the twelfth century it had become possible for people other than the ruler to present offerings and to request the performance of rituals, and Ise eventually became a popular site for pilgrimage. In the process, its vision of itself was to change dramatically. Jingi worship itself remained stubbornly a matter of ritual dedicated to the particular and the local. There was no doctrine, no written scripture apart from the occasional prayer, and no link to the individual per se, since access to a shrine qua sacred ground was severely restricted to the ritualists themselves. One would not, for example, go oneself to pray at a shrine; at most, one might pay a priest to perform a rite. This combination of sririne plus temple was therefore a natural marriage and proved durable, lasting right through to the early Meiji period. The gradual process by which a few of these cultic centres widened their appeal beyond their immediate locale and their specific patrons to become important sacred sites in the popular imagination was intimately connected to loss of patronage from the centre in the later Heian period. Steps had then to be taken to create a broader base for support. As Buddhism moved from being state ritual to something far more 'personal' in.terms, of both patronage and doctrine, the native jingi belief gradually moved from the particular to the more general. But it was a slow process. Nor should we see it as a systematic shift: each shrine and cult changed in its own fashion and for its own reasons. The link between jingi worship and a sense of nationalism came very much later. 8.3 The Ise and Kamo shrines Details of the shrines at Ise are provided in Book 4 of the Procedures, which considerably expands on the information given in the only other sources from this period, the Handbook of ceremonial at the imperial shrine {Kotaijingu gishikicho MiX.ffl'&Wi^M.) and the Handbook of ceremonial at the Toyouke shrine (Toyouke no miya gishikicho IIS cSfS^lil), both produced in 804. At what was later to be called the Inner Shrine (Naiku F^H) was Tensho Daijin, with six small 'separate' shrines (bekku SilHf) and twenty-four minor ones. The family that provided the priests (negi WM.) was the Arakida Jtl^BEI. At the Outer Shrine (Geku resided the food deity Toyouke with one 'separate' shrine and sixteen minor ones, all managed by the Watarai Sc# family. For the purposes of describing festivals and offerings, however, both shrines were usually treated as one. The income for the shrines came from taxes levied on a number of sustenance households (kanbe ijif P), which by this time had reached about 1,375, spread throughout nearby provinces. A record dated 806 gives a total of 1,230: Yamato 100, Iga 20, Ise 945, Shima 65, Owari 40, Mikawa 20 and Totomi 40. Although itutially the taxes were supposed to be channelled through the Jingikan, in practice the lands were administered by a guji 'B ^I, who was always drawn from the Nakatomi clan and who ran them like private estates. The Procedures also devotes a large amount of space to a catalogue of what was needed during the reconstruction of both shrines, which was scheduled to occur every twenty years. It is not known when this became a requirement, but tradition had it that it started with an edict issued by Jito Tennd in 689. Since the pillars were of long-lasting Japanese cypress, this regular, rebuilding was not in fact an architectural imperative; it may have had more to do with the concept of maintaining purity, although there was another useful side-effect: the buildings themselves may have been simple in style and modest in size (although we do not know this), but the ability to rebuild on such a regular basis was certainly a demonstration of conspicuous consumption and of considerable economic clout (Bock 1970-71, vol, I: 123-50). Although a messenger was sent from the court on important ceremonial occasions, the sovereign had his own representative at Ise, the Consecrated Princess {itsukinomiya, or saigu Sf tif). Book 5 of the Procedures contains regulations governing her choice, the rituals for her installation, yearly supplies, and her ceremonial duties. The; period of purification before she went to Ise was lengthy indeed, involving up to a year secluded in the Palace grounds (the Shosaiin WM^m), followed by another year spent in a specially 192 From Saicho to the destruction ofTodaiji 8 Shrine and state in Heian Japan 193 built dwelling away from other human habitation, a hut known as the 'Palace in the fields' (Nonomiya IS). It often took her three years to eventually take up her post. Some sense of the seriousness with which this was all taken can be gauged from the following list of words that were taboo in her presence, a restriction that had been imposed c.770: The inner seven words are: the Buddha is the 'Central One', the sutras are 'dyed paper', a pagoda is a 'yew tree', a temple is a 'tiled roof, a monk is a 'long-hair', a nun is a 'female long-hair', a Buddhist meal is 'short rations'. Besides these there are the outer seven words: death is called 'getting well', illness is 'slumber', weeping is 'shedding brine', blood is 'sweat', to strike is 'to caress', meat is called 'mushrooms', a tomb is a 'clod of earth'. There are also other taboo words: a Buddhist hall is called 'incense burner' and an updsaka is called a 'bow-notch' (Bock 1970-72, vol. I: 152-53). If what we have today is anything to go by, and that is by no means certain, the architecture at Ise was distinctive: not so much the raised floor, since this was a common feature of Japanese buildings designed to counteract heat and humidity, but the fact that it took its shape from a traditional granary. This was, of course, entirely in keeping with the agricultural tone of almost all the rituals. The shrine itself was also unusually modest in its proportions, a simple oblong structure with its entrance on one of the longer sides, facing south. Another distinctive feature was the roof, with ten cylindrical billets placed at right-angles to the ridge pole and exaggerated finials at either end. The contrast with the monumental nature of Buddhist architecture could not be more stark [plates 18-19]. Not only was the shrine hidden from view, an inner sanctum guarded by a series of fences and gates through which only the sovereign and the priests might pass, but there seems to have been little ornament. Even today the sense of monumentality comes rather from the tall trees that surround it than the architecture. Inside the main shrine the deity was represented by a bronze mirror and directly beneath this stood a special pole driven into the ground.3 Known as the shin no mihashira j^fflJfi, this had nothing to do with the shrine qua granary and all to do with the shrine as cult centre (Naumann 1988: 119-20): Book 6 of the Procedures describes the process of installing a Consecrated Princess (known as the saiin WWc) at the Kamo shrines Jli^ilftL The Upper and Lower Kamo shrines, lying just to the north of the capital of Heian-kyo, were originally part of a triangle of shrines (Matsuno'o to the west and Inari to the east) dedicated to regional deities. The earliest references we have to J For a discussion of the regalia, which included this mirror, see § 12,4. Plate 18 The main Inner Shrine at Ise, side and front elevations. Plate 19 Aerial view of the Inner Shrine at Ise showing old and new together. 194 . From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji 8 Shrine and state in Heian Japan 195 something called a 'Kamo ceremony', which may have been a cross between a folk festival in hope of good weather and ritual pacification of the local deities, occur in 698 and then again in 711. This was preceded by a private ceremony called the miare (Bock 1970-72, vol. II: 4-6). The sacerdotal lineage at that time was the Hata H, a prominent family who traced their origins back to immigrants from Korea. The crucial change came when the capital itself was moved north from Nara to Nagaoka in 784, at which point the Kamo deity was raised to Junior Second Rank. When the decision was made to move from Nagaoka to what was to become Heian-kyo, even closer to the shrines, his rank was raised even further. Kamo in fact is a classic example of what might happen when a local deity and his shrine were appropriated by and absorbed into a major family cult, in this case that of the ruling family itself. This was of course all part and parcel of the need to 'occupy' the space of the new capital in every sense of the word. The ceremony itself was continued and became one of the most important occasions in the capital, still celebrated today in the form of a large public procession of colourful historical figures through the streets of Kyoto. The institution of the Saiin was established by Saga in either 810 or 823. Just as in the case of Ise, this was. an arrangement whereby a young princess was installed as representative of the sovereign at the shrine, charged with the duty of maintaining the necessary purity, and carrying out a series of rituals. The first such, princess to be installed was Uchiko '-Uf! jF- (807-47); the last one was Reishi 11? in 1204: The institution therefore lasted four hundred years and was filled by over thirty-five different young women of royal blood. In this sense, then, Kamo performed the same role at Heian-kyo as Ise did in the wider sphere, but this should not lead us to assume that it was in any way an offshoot or branch of Ise. This is perhaps the clearest example of the kind of autonomy and lack of mterconnectedness that we find in early jingi worship: The roots of Kamo were entirely unconnected to those of Ise and its distinctiveness was always maintained. At this stage, different, cult centres did not see themselves as being linked to each, other in either hierarchical or indeed linear fashion. Economic ties in terms of land and other forms of patronage from the centre certainly increased the ostensible hold of the centre over the periphery, but this did little to increase cohesion between the elements themselves. In this sense the 'system5 was a mere fiction and the most important shrines are best studied as a collection of cultic sites with as many differences as similarities. Kamo also happens to provide us with a glimpse of the kind of tensions that could exist between Buddhism and jingi worship. In the public arena, this was clearly visible in that nobody other than the sovereign was allowed near the shrines themselves and one could only communicate with those who served in them through intermediaries. In the shrine precincts this was mirrored (as at Ise) by the prohibition on certain words, many of them connected to Buddhism. Of even more interest, however, is what might occur in the private sphere. Senshi mJ- (964-1035), who served at the shrines from 975 till her death, has left us a collection of poetry entitled Poems on the awakening of faith (Hosshinwakashu f$4>?ul&ii), in which she reveals that privately she looked to Buddhism for personal solace and the possibility of salvation (Kamens 1990). The collection bears eloquent witness to the personal unhappiness that was thus generated between the role she had to play as a ritual representative of the ruler (politico-religious) and her own personal convictions. Nothing could be a better illustration of the distinction between Buddhism and jingi worship at this time: they coexisted, avoiding direct conflict because they covered different parts of the religious spectrum. A problem would only emerge, as here, in extremis. 9 The rise of devotionalism 197 9 The rise of devotionalism 9.1 Turning to face west It is clear from Poems on the awakening of faith (1012) that Senshi, who served at Kamo for sixty years, found little personal solace in her rituals al the shrine and was a committed Buddhist, constantly fretting at not being able to increase her stock of merit through devotion. The bulk of her collection is devoted to poems linked to lines from the Lotus sutra, for it was this text that gave her hope of salvation as a woman; but mere are a number of poems that refer to a different object of devotion: 'Though my thoughts are there, I cannot express it in words, for it is taboo; turn in that direction and weep, that is all'. The taboos on Buddhist vocabulary we have already met; the direction in this case is west, the object is the Pure Land, and the Buddha in question is Amitabha (Jp. Amida MM$t). Senshi was not alone in her desires. At almost exactly the same time, Murasaki Shikibu finishes off a letter to a friend with a note of resignation: Why should I hesitate to say what I want to? Whatever others might say, I intend to immerse myself in reading sutras for Amitabha Buddha. Since I have lost what little attachment I ever had for the pains that life has to offer, you might expect me to become a nun without delay. But even supposing I were to commit myself and turn my back on the world, I am certain there would be moments of irresolution before he came for me riding on his clouds (Bowring 1996: 58-59). And then we have Michinaga himself. For most of his life he was catholic in his observances and saw no reason to be exclusive in his devotions. The reason he buried cylinders containing sutras on Koyasan in 1007 was that he hoped that when he was eventually reborn in Amitabha's Pure Land, he would be able to return to this world and listen to Maitreya expounding the Lotus sutra that he, Michinaga, had buried for the express purpose; he would then become a buddha himself. By 1019, however, as his illness grew worse, the specific references in his diary to Amitabha increase in frequency as he takes vows and starts to build what was to become the Hojoji with its magnificent Amitabha Hall. He died in 1027, but the very last entries in his diary are for 1021. For the first five days of the ninth month of that year, he records nothing but the number of invocations to Amitabha that he managed: they range from 110,000 up to a fantastic 170,000 per day (Herail 1987-91: 625). Despite the romanticised account of his death in A tale of flowering fortunes (Eiga monogatari StlS^ig), we know from other contemporary records that he eventually died in terrible pain and distress, but all accounts show that it was to Amitabha that he turned in his final days: Altogether detached, it seemed, from worldly concerns, Michinaga fixed his gaze on the nine Amitabha images, which were visible through an opening in the west side of the encircling wall of screens. Even the wisest men are said to feel the three attachments at the time of death, but there was no more room in his mind for worldly splendour - a clear indication of his future state. He had even lost interest in receiving Shoshi and Ishi; although he yielded to their entreaties, he sent them off again after a few minutes. His only desire was to concentrate his thoughts on Amitabha Buddha as death approached. He wished to see no forms other than the signs and attributes of the Buddha, to hear no sound other than the words of the Buddhist teachings, and to think of no object other than his future life. He lay facing west with his pillow to the north, his eyes on the signs and attributes of the Tathagata Amitabha, his ears filled with holy invocations of the Buddha's name, his heart fixed on the Land of Ultimate Bliss, and his hands grasping the braids held by the Amitabha statue. He looked the very image of a buddha or bodhisattva in human form (McCuUough and McCullough 1980, vol. II: 763). What these examples all illustrate is that Buddhism at the Heian court was not just a matter of grand ritual carried out by priests for peace, prosperity, health and maintenance of the status quo; there was a parallel process by which courtiers absorbed the Buddhist message on an individual level and looked to it for a message of salvation. The trappings of a state religion had already given way to a form of 'privatisation', in the sense that it had become difficult to distinguish between Fujiwara house ritual and state ritual; but here we are talking about something far more personal: devotion to a specific Buddha with the next life in mind. Monk and priest were there to perform certain rituals, but the natural tendency towards uhiversalism within Tendai was giving rise to a much greater involvement of lay people. And with this inward turn, concern with obtaining protection in and for this life became, if not supplanted, then balanced with a fascination with death, an interest in preparing for a future life, and a vision that this life was a form of hell. 196 198 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji 9.2 Amitabha's vows Amitabha means 'Immeasurable Light', although he is also known as Amitayus, meaning 'Immeasurable Life'. He is clearly a product of the Mahayana and is thought to have emerged when Buddhism came into contact with Iranian culture. The tradition that has Amitabha as its main object of devotion is known as Pure Land Buddhism and the three surras that Japanese Pure Land Buddhism was to single out for special study and reverence were the Sutra on visualising the Buddha of Immeasurable Life (Kan muryoju kyo il il Jiff,SO, which has no Indie version and was probably composed in China or perhaps Central Asia (Fujita 1990; Tanaka 1990), the Smaller Sukhavativyuha (Amida kyo M K M. ), translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva c.402, and the Larger Sukhavativyuha (Muryoju kyo Siii), which exists in five Chinese versions, the favoured one being a fifth-century revision of a third-century translation. Amitabha's Pure Land offers a much easier path to enlightenment than that normally proposed in early Buddhism. Salvation becomes open for all, achievable not through strenuous discipline over an inconceivable timespan by men of extraordinary stamina and self-control, but by lay men and women. Belief and devotion were all that was necessary to lead one into this Pure Land that lay in tire west and from where final liberation was guaranteed. Theoretically, the Buddha taught that one could achieve real liberation only from the human state; but what we have here is the development of a half-way house beyond the six courses and the cycle of birth and rebirth that is samsara, a haven from which it is not possible to regress and from which further progress towards nirvana is a foregone conclusion. Note that we should not really say that one was 'reborn' into this Pure Land, because rebirth was part of samsara; one was guided and delivered into it. The majority of believers, of course, could see no further than this first stage, which was more than enough for most mortals to envisage and to strive for. A good description of Amitabha's Pure Land of Supreme Bliss (Sk. Sukhavatl) can be found in the Smaller Sukhavativyuha. It is a realm of artifice: the ground is made of gold, it is furnished with ponds and steps of precious stones, celestial music is heard, the wind blows softly through jewelled trees, and beautiful birds sing the message of the Buddhist Dharma. But despite this element of physicality in its representation, it is pure, unsullied and ethereal. It would be difficult to locate oneself within it, for example, or to recreate it geographically in the mind's eye, because the description is not architectural. How many believers thought of it as a 'real' 9 The rise of devotionalism 199 place and how many as a state of mind is difficult to gauge of course, but the artificiality is certainly a function of its being seen as something other than simply a beautiful environment. The historical Buddha Sakyamuni, who is the 'presenter' of the description in this surra, makes the following promise: Sariputra, living beings who hear this should generate an earnest desire, wishing to be reborn in that land. Why? Because in that land one will be able to meet in one place persons of such high virtue as the many living beings I have described here. Sariputra, one cannot be reborn in that buddha-field, if one depends on the merit of only a few roots of goodness. Sariputra, if good men or good women hear this explanation of the qualities of the Buddha Amitabha, and embrace his name #trf £ *f, and keep it in mind single-mindedly and without distraction, be it for one day, or for two, for three, for four, for five, for six, or for seven days, then, when their lives come to an end, the Buddha Amitabha, together with his holy entourage, will appear before them. At the time of their death, their minds free from any distorted views, they will be able to be reborn forthwith in Amitabha Buddha's Land of Supreme Bliss (Gomez 1996: 148). It is, however, in the Larger Sukiidvativyuha that we find the famous forty-eight vows made by Amitabha in a previous incarnation as the bodhisattva Dharmakara. Some of the most important are as follows: 1 May I not gain possession of perfect awakening if, once I have attained buddhahood, my land should still have hells, hungry ghosts, or animals. 2 May I not gain possession of perfect awakening if, once I have attained buddhahood, any one among the humans and gods in my land return to one of the three unfortunate paths of rebirth after their normal life span has come to an end. 11 May I not gain possession of perfect awakening if, once I have attained buddhahood, the humans and gods in my land are not assured of awakening, and without fail attain liberation. 13 May I not gain possession of perfect awakening if, once I have attained buddhahood, my life span has a limit, even a limit of hundreds of thousands of million of trillions of cosmic ages. 18 May I not gain possession of perfect awakening if, once I have attained buddhahood, any among the throng of living beings in the ten regions of the universe should single-mindedly desire to be reborn in my land of joy, with confidence, and gladness, and if they should bring to mind this aspiration for even ten moments of thought and yet not gain rebirth there. This excludes only those who have committed the five heinous sins and those who have reviled the True Dharma. 19 May I not gain possession of perfect awakening if, once I have attained buddhahood, any among the throng of living beings in the ten regions of the universe resolves to seek awakening, cultivates all the virtues, and single-mindedly aspires to be reborn in my land, and if, when they approach the moment of their death, I did not appear before them, surrounded by a great assembly (Gomez 1996: 166-68). 200 From Saicho to the destruction of Todaiji 9 The rise of devotionalism 201 If it was believed that Amitabha had vowed to save all humanity for ever by welcoming them into his Land of Supreme Bliss, then Vow 18 was problematic, since it contained what can only be called an exclusion clause. The Chinese monk Shandao H # (613-81) provided an answer to this problem in his commentary to the Sutra on visualising the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, It is in this sutra that Sakyamuni Buddha teaches Queen Vaidehi, who has been imprisoned by her son Ajatasatru, the consolation of sixteen meditative techniques (JS) by which she may visualise the Pure Land and in the end see Amitabha himself. This is followed by a description of nine possible ranks of deliverance in the Pure Land (three sets of three ranks) known as the kuhon KSa, which depend on the level of achievement of the individual and range from those with the highest merit right down to those who have committed the worst of crimes, the lowest of the low (gebon gesho Tr«T£). At this point the Buddha tells the queen that even at this lowest-stage, salvation is possible if the person calls, out 'Homage to Amitabha' with full sincerity. Shandao asserted that Vow 18 was merely cautionary in nature and that this passage constituted an absolute guarantee. There were five practices that could lead to entering the Pure Land of Supreme Bliss: reciting the surras, meditation, veneration, the giving of offerings, and lastly, recitation of the name. 9.3 Early Pure Land Buddhism By the time Buddhism reached China, Amitabha was already an established figure in the Mahayana pantheon. The first signs of something approaching a cult come in 402 when Huiyuan II (334-^16), who had settled at the Donglinsi in Lushan ÄiJj, collected a group of monks and laymen, 123 in all, in front of an image of Amitabha. They called themselves the White Lotus Society Ď 31 It and together made a vow to help each other reach the Pure Land. The text of the vow and a description of the occasion can be found in Huiyuan's biography in Biographies of eminent monks.1 Much emphasis is placed on the techniques of visualisation that are described in one of the earliest Buddhist texts to be translated into Chinese, the Samädhi of direct encounter with the buddhas of the present? Amitabha 1 Ch. Gaosengzhuan, Jp. Kôsôden B'-ffiW, T. 2059, compiled by Huijiao Big c,530. For a full translation see Ziircher 1972, voi. I: 240-53. 1 Sk. Pratyutpannasamädhisutra, Ch. Banzkou sanmeijing, Jp. Hanju sanmai kyo &£fa~MfflL, appears here not as an exclusive figure but merely as a major example, the aim of the exercise being to produce a mental image as if one were standing face-to-face in the Buddha's presence. Huiyuan's death is not recorded as part of his biography, but we do have descriptions of the deaths of his students, descriptions which clearly underlie similar accounts of deliverance into the Pure Land from tenth-century Japan (Ziircher 1972, vol. I: 221-22). The habit of relying on Amitabha to the exclusion of other buddhas, however, is usually traced back to the figure of Tanluan SR (c.488-c.544) from Wutaishan. We already find here the practice of reciting the name of Amitabha, although it is still just one of many practices or 'entrances' (R) to his compassion, Daochuo MW (562-645) and Shandao (613-81) took this tradition much further by linking it to the emerging idea that the world had already entered the Latter Days of the Dharma, meaning that people were so mentally feeble that devotion to Amitabha in the hope of reaching his Pure Land had become the only hope for salvation for anyone. Shandao is also thought to be the origin of the parable of the 'white way between two rivers' (niga byakudo — M which became the subject of so many illustrations later in Japan. A man is travelling west through land inhabited by wild beasts and robbers. He comes across two rivers: one stretching north is of water, the other stretching south is of fire. Between them lies a narrow white path. The man is convinced he will either drown or be consumed in flames. It is only Amitabha, standing at the other end, who can convince him to tread the narrow path and thereby escape evil for ever.3 Pure Land Buddhism as it developed in twelfth-century Japan looked to figures such as Daochuo and Shandao as the patriarchs of their tradition, but Pure Land Buddhism in fact started in Heian Japan from rather different roots. Before the mid-Heian, interest in and devotion to Amitabha was only sporadic. There is the occasional reference in Nihon shoki to Pure Land surras as early as the mid-seventh century, but statues and images of Sakyamuni and Maitreya far outnumber those of Amitabha until the late eighth century, and even then, Amitabha simply figured as one of a number of buddhas and bodhisattvas to whom one might appeal for help. The halls that were built to hold these statues either were dedicated to the repose of the dead or were to ensure good fortune in this life; there is little evidence that they were geared to the personal salvation of the donor or sponsor. Scholarly consensus is that Amitabha only becomes noticeable in the late Nara period and even then does not stand out in particular from any other buddha or bodbisattva. It is 3 For two good illustrations, see RoseoEeld and ten Grotenhuis 1979: 133-37. 202 From Saichob>fi%mWW) and Visualising the syllable A (Ajikan M ? M), that discuss visualisation techniques. There are also commentaries, such as Hokekyo hishaku S;lill!£$#flP on the Lotus sutra, that explore the main Mahayana sutras from a tantric perspective. Also of interest are those texts on such deities as Aizen myoo St^HftHi and Kangiten WM%, which suggest that Kakuban was prepared to deal with the more overtly sexual aspects of tantric doctrine that stemmed from an interest in and analysis of passion and lust. But his central importance lies in his analysis of what was later labelled himitsu nenbutsu. In this context the important works are Secrets of the crucial moment of death (Ichigo taiyd himitsu shu — M f\M ItfSfJft), Amitabha: a secret interpretation (Amida hishaku and Mantras of the five spheres and nine syllables: a tantric interpretation (Gorin kuji myo himitsu shaku "SMfl^Msa^M), none of which can be dated with any accuracy but which were probably written at Negoro. The first two were clearly written under the direct influence of Jichihan; they contain the same kind of explanation of the significance of the three syllables in Amitabha's name, for example, although Kakuban went further and specifically identified him with Mahavairocana.2 The fact that the tantric adept can have direct access to Amifabha here and now via ritual identification means that the nenbutsu is 'seen not as an invocation to some external divinity, but rather as a constituent element of the human body, innate, perfect, inherently pure. The nenbutsu was identified with breath, life force, or both at once, so that to live at all, simply to produce the two-part instinctual rhythm of breathing in and out, becomes a constant intoning of the nenbutsu' (Sanford 2004: 121). As he explained in his discussion of breathing (juzokukan SSM1S) in Aizen-o koshiki It§§IE!l^: When one opens one's mouth and closes one's lips, the two syllables a and hum are spontaneously generated; when one raises a hand and moves a leg the two great 2 For Kakuban's explanation of the meanings of the syllable 'a' see Yamasaki 1988: 212-14. 234 From Saicko to the destruction of Todaiji 10 In a time of strife 235 elements of wind and consciousness of necessity arise. Fix one's mind intently, count one's breaths, and concentrate on the seed character of the main image. This is the profound secret of the mystery, of yoga, the most direct path to achieve instant enlightenment in this very body. . . At the moment of exhalation, this syllable Mm leaves the lotus seat of the heart and, guided by our great compassion, reaches out to all worlds in the ten directions without exception, comes into contact with the three karmic activities of all sentient beings, and both purifies and eliminates obstacles present since the non-beginning of time... At the moment of inhalation, this syllable a penetrates throughout the body, destroys the three negative passions of one's [pure] nature, fixes itself in its appointed palace, and there rests at the level of enlightenment that is without thought (Rambelli 1992, vol. I: 141-43; Sanford 1994). Since breathing is the classic example of intentionless activity common to all sentient beings, all activity is salvific in its effect, both for oneself and for the world at large. Once faith was present and initiation had taken place, then salvation was guaranteed to all. It should be obvious why such teachings as these were only vouchsafed to a minority of advanced practitioners. Tantric Buddhism was originally designed as a 'dangerous' path, a shortcut to enlightenment via intense ritual activity carried out with body and mind, but a shortcut lirnited to the very few. Simply opened out to all, it would fail to provide any incentive for meritorious activity. The very compassion that motivates the revelation of a shortcut to all humankind would be in danger of rendering compassion meaningless and unnecessary. As Kakuban writes in Secrets of the crucial moment of death: According to the kind of tantra H§l performed at the moment of death, even monks and nuns who have broken the precepts will obtain deliverance. Those men and women who have done evil too will assuredly be welcomed into Sukhavati. How much more so then those who have wisdom and who have kept their vows! How much more so men and women of virtue! This is the result of the tantric contemplation known as shingon. Have deep faith in this and do not harbour any doubts! (Rambelli 1992, vol. 1: 144). It should be clear that Kakuban prefigures much of what was to follow in the Kamakura, period, although the kind of Pure Land belief that was to come rejected the validity of tantric ritual in an age of decline and its doctrine remained at the level of the common man. To espouse a doctrine of non-duality and claim that one's system is all-encompassing, one must be prepared to absorb a whole raft of apparently heterogeneous elements. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Kakuban's Mantras of the five spheres and nine syllables, where he presents nothing less than an explanation of the basic principles that govern the dharmakaya, the cosmos and all that it contains. The key number is, of course, five. The 'Preface' explains: In my humble opinion, the 14 mandala [of the five spheres and nine syllables] are the inner realisation of Lord Mahavairocana, and the essence of Amitabha, the honoured one; the universal entrance to great awakening in this present existence, the single path to deliverance. You ask why? Those who see only a little and hear only a little will still succeed in seeing the Buddha and hearing the Dharma in this very existence, and those who perform just one visualization or are mindful for just one thought-instant will achieve freedom from suffering and bliss in this very body. How much more so those whose roots of faith are pure and clean and who devote themselves to ascetic practice? They will reach the level of enlightenment of Mahavairocana Tathagata himself with ease; they can expect deliverance into the Pure Land of Amitabha the Perfect by [simply] calling on his name. Such is the benefit of calling on his name; how could the merit of contemplating reality ever be in vain? _ The revealed teachings [tell us that] Amitabha exists apart from Sakyamuni Buddha, but in the tantric teachings Mahavairocana is none other than Amitabha, lord of the teachings of Sukhavati. You should know that the Pure Lands in all ten directions are all transformed lands of the one Buddha; all the Tathagatas are none other than Mahavairocana. Vairocana, Amitabha: these are different names for the same entity. Sukhavati, 'Secret Grandeur' (Mitsugon rB^): these are different names for the same place. Through the divine strength of empowerment (fay; M fif) of Mahavairocana's ultimate wisdom (mydkanzatchi MUSH1)- the aspect of Amitabha is manifest above the body of Mahavairocana. Therefore if you succeed in this visualization, [you will realize that] from the buddhas, bodhisattvas and saints, down to men, gods, nagas, demons and other protectors of the Dharma, there is not a single one that is not the body of Mahavairocana Tathagata. If you open the entrance of the five spheres, the dharmakaya as essence (jisho hosshin S tti£#) will be manifest. If you set up the entrance of the nine syllables, the sambhoghakaya as enjoyer of bliss (juyuhojin g fB S # ) will show himself. We already know that the two buddhas are equal. How in the end can the wise and the saintly disagree? The Pure Land and the Tusita Heaven are the playgrounds of the same buddhas. 'Secret Grandeur' and 'Flower-store' (Kezo MM) are the lotus-throne of the one mind. How regrettable that the wise ones of old fought over difficult and easy ways to reach the [Pure] Land in the West. How marvelous that even those of dull wits in our age can attain deliverance.! have written this secret commentary for one reason: [to show] that the difficulty of deliverance is caused by clinging to existence (Nasu 1970: 13-14; Rambelli 1992, vol. II: 24-26; van der Veere 2000: 135-38). Of the 'three mysteries', body, speech and; mind, that were the key to obtaining tantric enlightenment, Kakuban paid most attention to that of speech, gomitsu But to see this term as referring to sound alone would 236 From Saicho to the destruction ofTödaiji 10 In a time of strife 237 be an error. What Kakuban meant by gomitsu was all the activities that surrounded the. use of 'seed syllables' and the siddham script. As we have seen, these graphs were at a double remove from Japanese and were treated as being beyond language, uncontaminated by ordinary meaning. They were central to Kakuban's thought, an ideal medium for representing in visual and verbal form matters such as the nature of non-duality and the constitution of the universe; they could be manipulated, 'spoken', written, memorised, visualised and explained like a language, but remain alien. It is not difficult to imagine that in lesser hands, they might quickly take on aspects of the fetish. Taking his cue from the sixth section of the Mahdvairocanatantra, entitled 'The manifestation of siddhi' iSMttiMuu, and using other sources such as Amoghavajra's commentary on the same tantra and Subhakarasimha's Manual for the destruction of hells (Jp. Hajigoku giki $iftb Kakuban devoted a good part of his Mantras of the five spheres and nine syllables to an exhaustive exploration of the five-syllable mantra of Mahavairocana, dh-vi-ra-hum-kJiam (Jp. a-bi-ra-un-keri). These five syllables in their siddham form are seen to hold the key to understanding the make-up of the universe and hence to achieving buddhahood in this very existence. The dharmakaya consists of five elements 5 A, which in turn are linked by analogy to a whole series of other 'sets of five', all symbolised by these five graphs. To enumerate all these sets is by definition to describe the cosmos, and as the goal of the adept is to identify with the cosmos, this can best be done via visualisation of, and identification with, these graphs that contained within them all things. This homology on a truly vast scale is possible because of what one might call 'tantric logic', whereby similarity becomes proof of identity. A single point of contact can be enough to link two aspects together as part of an underlying pattern. In order to achieve his aim, Kakuban makes full use of traditional Chinese sets based on the theory of the Five Elements, five shapes, five colours, five viscera and so on. His system is not entirely waterproof and there are signs of various-conflicting 'lists', but, by and large^ the following chart shows how the analysis proceeds: Seed syllable Element Shape Colour Human body kha or kham Air Jewel All colours Top of head ha or ham Wind Crescent Black Head to throat ra or ram Fire Triangle Red Throat to heart va or vam Water Circle White Trunk a Earth Square Yellow/gold Lower body The above list does not exhaust the series by any means. Kakuban, whose own name means 'becoming enlightened to vam', goes on to describe a mandala for each syllable and how visualisation should take place. Perhaps the most interesting step is the inclusion of the five sections of the body. Though by no means his own innovation, it allows him to clarify in a concrete way how the practitioner can identify himself with the cosmos. In tantric doctrine the human body is seen not as a pile of filth and excrescence, but as the prime, privileged instrument for the attainment of enlightenment and salvation. This is made visually explicit early on in the work when we come across the illustration of a series of 'mandala' which actually consist of stupas with five spheres, one of them in the shape of a human being. This is now known as a gorinto Efftlg and is to be found in almost every cemetery in Japan today. We do not know for certain, but it is thought that Kakuban may well be responsible for this particular shape being so common [plate 20]. The latter part of this work turns to deal with a nine-syllable dharanl invocation to Amitabha: Om-amrta-tese-hara-hum (on-amirita-teizei-kara-un). These nine syllables are explained in similar fashion to the five and their ritual use is linked explicitly to the nine levels of rebirth (kuhon) of Pure Land belief. Plate 20 Gorintö grave markers 1 Part III From the destruction of Todaiji to the fall of Go-Daigo (1180-1330) Plate 21 Kuya This wooden carving of the itinerant Kúya (aka řCoya .ííitli, 902—72) was carved by Kósho jgfl§, fourth son of Unkei MB. (d. 1223), in the early Kamakura period. Height 1.18 m. Kyoto, Rokuharamitsudera. Although Kuya himself lived 250 years prior to this carving, he clearly symbolises the ideals behind popular Amidism that were so prevalent during the Kamakura period. Here he stands holding a staff topped with a stag's antler in his left hand and sounding the gong that hangs round his neck with his right. The six small statues emerging from his mouth are six figures of the Buddha Amida, representing the six characters of the nenbutsu chant: namu Amidabutsu SliffliíEffl. 242 ..: From Todaiji 's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall Chronology 1180 Todaiji and KOTukuji destroyed 1181 Chögeri begins plans to rebuild Todaiji; Kiyomori dies: 1185 New buddha at Todaiji completed. Battle of Dannoura. 1187 Bisai travels to Song China for the second time. . 1191 Hisai returns. 1192 Yoritorho takes over as Seii Taishögun. Go-Shirakawa dies. 1194 Eisäi refused permission to establish Zen as a separate school. . 1197 Bakufu offers up 84,000 stüpas to commemorate the dead. 1198 Honen composes Senchakushü but keeps it secret. 1199 Shunj 5 travels to Song China. Mongaku banished to Sadö. Yoritomo dies. 1200 Dogen born. Bakufu bans the nenbutsu. ' . 1201 Shinranconverts to Pure Land. 1202 Eisai founds Kenninji. 1206 Myoe establishes Közanji. Chönen dies. Rise of the Höjö regents. 1207 Honen banished to Tosa, Shinran to Echigo. 1208 Establishment of the Tsurugaoka Hachiman/ingw/7. 1211 Shunjö returns from China. Honen settles at Ötani in Higashiyama. 1212 Honen dies. Myöe'& Zaijarin. 1214 Dogen leaves Hici/an. 1220 imn'sGukanshö written about this time.: 1221 Jökyu disturbance^ Go-Toba sent into exile.:.. : 1223 Dogen goes to Chinas Continued pressure from Bakufu on nenbutsu sects. 1227 lloncirs grave destroyed. Dogen returns from China. 1228 Continual conflict between Hieizan and Köfukuji around this period. 1232 Death of \1yoc. 1238 Daibütsu erected at Kamakura. 1239 Go-Toba dies in exile.;. 1243 Founding of Töfukuji. 1244 Dogen moves to Echizen. 1246 Lanqi Daolong arri\ es in Japan. 1248 Ippen becomes a mendicant. 1253 Nichiren begins proselyti sing. Dögeri dies. Kenchöji established. 1256 Sliinran disinherits Zcnran. ' 1260 Nichiren composes Risshö ankokuron,:' ....... 1262 Shinntn dies. 1263 Höjö Tokiyori dies. Wuan Püning asks to return to China. 1271 Nichiren banished to Sado. 1272 Honganji founded at Ötani. 1274 Nichiren founds Ruonji. Ippen goes to Kumano. First Mongol invasion. 1278 Lanqi Daolong dies. . From Tödaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 's fall 243. 1279 Wuxue Zuyuan arrives from China. 1281 Second Mongol invasion. 1282 Nichiren dies. Enkakuji founded. 1289 Ippen dies. 1290 Eizon dies. 1294 Nichizo establishes the Hokkeshu in Kyoto. 1302 Bakufu places a banning order on the Ikkoshu. 1322 Kokan Shiren's Genko shakusho. 1324 Daitokuji founded. 1325 Muso Soseki becomes abbot of Nanzenji. 1331 Go-Daigo fails in his attempt to win power. 1332 Go-Daigo banished to Oki. 1333 Go-Daigo returns to Kyoto. 11 For and against exclusive practice of the nenbutsu 11.1 Honen Go-Shirakawa is said to have remarked that only three things refused to obey his decree: the River Kamo, dice, and the monks of Enryakuji. The history of the late twelfth century is one of almost constant strife between Enryakuji and Onjoji, with K5fukuji frequently involved. Time and time again these temples sent some of their workforce into Heian-kyo, using the threat of divine retribution from the native deities to cow the court into submission and overturn decisions that were not in their favour. The court often felt itself trapped between the demands of these rival temples and began to call on the services of its own troops to counter what was an increasing threat. It was this kind of violence that had culminated in the destruction of both Todaiji and Kofukuji at Nara in 1180. Go-Shirakawa might - if he had been prescient enough - have also added the military to his list, for it was his dependence on armed groups under the command of Taira no Kiyomori ^PWlS that was to bring about his downfall. This was followed by the rise of Minamoto no Yoritomo M IS H and the establishment of a very different kind of power base far to the east in Kamakura. It is not surprising that there were some monks who felt disillusioned with such easy recourse to confrontation and with the more worldly interests of the institutions to which they nominally belonged. The mountain that was Hieizan was large enough to support a good number of such men, who found refuge in the various small bessho scattered in the high valleys and in the foothills, where they could concentrate on their meditation exercises and their devotions; and it was from among such a group that there emerged the figure of Honen (1133-1212). Honen was trained as a Tendai monk on Hieizan from 1147 to 1175. As a matter of course, he was introduced to Genshin's Essentials of deliverance, and at some point during his training, spurred on by independent study of 245 246 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall Shandao's commentaries on the main Pure Land sutras, he became convinced that Japan was now so far advanced into the Latter Days of the Dharma (mappo) that what Genshin had talked of as a last resort for those incapable of other forms of meditation - namely intoning the phrase 'namu Amidabutsu' - was in fact the only path to salvation left. Single-minded attention to this one practice (senju nenbutsu M & f$) was the last remaining technique. Textual proof for such a doctrine was later provided in his tract Choosing the nenbutsu as the fundamental vow: a collection of quotations (Senchaku hongan nenbutsushu MM^fMfeMMf, thought to have been written for his most influential supporter Kujo Kanezane, but which was kept secret and not made public until just after Honen's death in 1212. Senchahishu, as it is known for short, is a scholarly compendium of selected passages from a variety of Pure Land texts interpreted largely through the prism of Shandao's commentaries, which aims to prove that verbal recitation of Amitabha's name was the highest form of practice. The passage usually taken to encapsulate his argument comes near the end of the work, in which the term 'Saintly Path' refers to traditions other than those that propose deliverance into Amitabha's Pure Land: Upon reflection, I realise that, if people wish to escape quickly from samsara, then of the two excellent teachings they should, for the time being, ignore the Entrance of the Saintly Path (shodomon KM PI) and choose instead the Entrance of the Pure Land (Jodomon 7§±f"3). And if they do so, then of the two main categories of practice, the [five] correct ones IE versus other diverse practices Si, they should, for the time being, abandon the latter and choose instead to rely on the former. And if they do so, then they should ignore the secondary set of such practices and concentrate single-mindedly on the definitive one. And by 'definitive' we mean recitation of the Buddha's name. If they recite his name, they will be delivered into the Pure Land without fail, for this is the fundamental vow of the Buddha (Ohashi 1971: 158).' Leaving Hieizan for good in 1175, Honen settled closer to the capital, where he must have already gained some form of patronage, since he was soon able to construct two small buildings. Not a hijiri in the sense of someone constantly on the move, actively spreading the word among the people, Honen preferred a sedentary life, hardly ever moving from his temple. Over the next fifteen years he gradually won recognition for his learning and grudging respect for his rejection of Tendai politicking and occasional violence. By 1190 he was a prominent figure, well liked by a wide range of nobles, most conspicuously Kujo Kanezane, one of the most powerful states- 1 Trans, adapted from Dobbins 1989: 14 and Senchakushu English Translation Project 1998: 147-48. See also the extended discussion inTanabe 1992: 84-95. 11 For and against exclusive practice of nenbutsu 247 men of the time. But only five years later he was being bitterly attacked as a radical for his teachings, and much worse was to follow. How was it that this quiet monk, who had the best of intentions and the backing of some of the highest of the land, ended up causing so much trouble and dissent? The problem lay in the implications of such an extreme simplification of practice. On a theoretical level, it could be justified as the logical extension of Mahayana universalism and it might also be welcomed as a vital step forward in the spread of Buddhisrn throughout Japan at all levels. In this sense it can be seen as the culmination of the process of making Buddhist practice relevant to a wider and wider audience that we have noted in our analysis of the situation in the late Heian. On a practical and political level, however, H5nen was opening up Pandora's box. There were two major problems. The first was his belief that it was too late to choose other approaches to salvation and that recitation of the phrase '■namu Amidabutsu' was the only answer. Although the quotation above shows that Honen himself was in fact quite careful not to dismiss other paths out of hand, using the phrase 'for the time being' (shibaraku) twice, the term senju 'single-minded practice' could be (and was) interpreted as 'exclusive practice', and it was this charge of exclusivity that was most frequently brought against him. What was more, Honen was one of the few Buddhists in Japan to dismiss native deities out of hand and openly denigrate their worship. Never before had there been such doctrinal intolerance that damned non-practitioners to a lesser fate. This was seen by many as un-Buddhist by its very nature. The second problem was, if anything, more serious. The key to salvation was being offered to everyone, with no reference to class, karma or present activity. It applied equally to the simplest peasant and to the wisest monk. Hardly surprising that such an optimistic message found a ready and wide audience, but hardly surprising too that it provoked a powerful backlash. It was fine in theory, but it struck at too many vested interests, questioning the very heart of the whole monastic enterprise and annulling the distinction between ordained member of the sahgha and layman. After all, if immediate salvation was guaranteed to the lowest of the low through a simple act of verbal repetition, why submit oneself to difficult practice? What was the point of the sahgha at all? A strong reaction to this kind of teaching, then, was only to be expected. More difficult to fathom is H5nen's role in all of this. The sources leave us with a contradictory picture of a blameless, well-intentioned man who initiated an awkward movement almost by accident: Despite the kind of high-level support on which he could rely, and despite his own care to maintain 248 . From Todaiji s destruction to Go-Daigo's fall good relations, friction between his supporters and the Buddhist establishment inevitably grew. The crisis came in 1204 when Tendai monks appealed to their head abbot to prohibit the 'exclusive practice of the nenbutsu'. The immediate cause of this demand is not known, but there is no doubt that by this date Honen was already thought of as having 'followers', many of whom were in fact answerable to no one but themselves. At this stage, it may have simply been that the religious establishment was taking umbrage at the setting up of what looked like a separate sect, since official permission still had to be obtained before a new religious group was allowed to operate, but in fact Honen's response to this appeal suggests that things were indeed getting out of hand. He immediately issued what are known as the 'Seven injunctions' {shichikajd seikai -faffijffiflffllS), a document which was duly signed by 190 of his nenbutsu practitioners: To all those nenbutsu hijiri who call themselves my followers (PI A): 1 Do not denigrate other buddhas or bodhisattvas, or attack Shingon and Tendai, if you have not yet studied a single one of their teachings. To partake in disputation one must first be a scholar. It is not for fools. And moreover, those who slander the true Dharma are eliminated from Amitabha's [eighteenth] vow. You will fall into hell as a result. Is this not the height of folly? 2 Ignorant as you are, do not indulge in doctrinal disputes with men of wisdom or when you encounter monks from other persuasions. The discussion of principles is for wise men, not fools. Disputation itself gives rise to much suffering. The wise man maintains a distance of one hundred yojanas [from such activity]. How much more so the practitioner of the single-minded nenbutsu —falkM. 3 Do not, in your ignorance and inclination, tell those of other persuasions and other practices that they should abandon their activities, and do not subject them to wanton ridicule. It is fitting to work hard at one's own practice without interfering in the practice of another. In [Guiqi's] Xifang yaojue IJIft it is written: 'Always show respect to those of other persuasions and practices. If you denigrate them, you will incur a limitless burden.' How can you possibly break this rule? And what is more, Shandao himself was particularly severe on this matter. Not to know the proscription of the founder Wffl is folly indeed. 4. Do not proclaim that those who practise the nenbutsu have no interest in the precepts; do not label those who indulge in lascivious behaviour, drink alcohol, eat meat and only very rarely observe die precepts simply 'performers of diverse practices' (zogyonin MlrA), and do not teach that those who rely on Amitabha's fundamental vow need have no fear of doing evil. The precepts are the foundation of the Buddhist Dharma. Practices are various, but all give priority to the precepts. This is why Shandao never raised his eye to look upon a woman. The aim of this document is at one with the prohibitions of the vinaya. Those who do meritorious acts must follow these rules or lose the Tathagata's teachings. To deviate is to turn one's back on the founder. Is there anyone who does not depend on the teachings? // For and against exclusive practice of nenbutsu 249 5 Do not, as an ignoramus not yet able to distinguish between right and wrong, deviate from the sacred teachings; do not rashly give your opinion of what is not taught by your master; do not earn the scorn of the wise by disputing without cause, and do not try to mislead the foolish. The ignorant [heterodox] Mahadeva is now reborn in Japan and talks heresies at random; not a whit different from the 'ninety-five kinds of non-Buddhist doctrines'. This is greatly to be lamented. 6 Do not, in your ignorance and dullness, take special delight in proselytizing; do not, in your ignorance of the True Dharma,. spread heresies or try to convert ignorant priests or laymen. To become a teacher without having achieved liberation oneself is to break the bodhisattva precepts. Those who live in darkness desire to show off their talents, treat the Pure Land teachings as a performance, are avid for fame, desire pattonage, expound their own ideas blindly, and both ridicule and mislead the people. The punishment for slandering the Dharma is grave indeed. Such people are bandits, rather. 7 Do not expound heresies that have nothing to do with the teachings of the Buddha as if they were the true teaching; do not deceive by calling them your master's teachings. Everyone explains matters according to his own understanding, but in toto they are blamed on me alone. To sully the teachings of Amitabha and to besmirch the name of the master is the grossest of evils, to which nothing can compare (Ohashi 1971:232-35). This is an extraordinary document and a number of scholars have had difficulty accepting that Honen could have issued it, since it places his followers in such a bad light. But if it is genuine, then it shows that the political chaos of these years was being used by some to justify a breakdown of morals across the board. Honen's message was in this sense too all-embracing, too optimistic, and too simple, leading inevitably to the kind of antinomian behaviour at which he hints in these injunctions. There is a lot of wringing of hands here, as if Honen knew that the belief that repetition of 'namu Amidabutsu' alone wotdd guarantee the Pure Land had lit a spark of permanent carnival-like activity that he was powerless to extinguish. But how are we to explain the fact that Honen continued to teach as before and yet, at the same time, became so worried about the possible effect of his teachings that he made sure the tract Senchakushu never saw die light of day until after his death? Some have simply accused him of duplicity, but a more charitable explanation would be that while being genuinely convinced that he had discovered the one and only path to fit the present age, and that he was doing the right thing by broadcasting this message as widely as he could, he was at the same time genuinely dismayed at the anarchic effect his teachings were having. The seven injunctions suggest that the Buddhist authorities had good reason to be concerned and were right in asking for some sort of ban, although we have no independent evidence as to the scale of the problem. 250 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall And what of Honen himself? Even allowing for the hagiographic haze that surrounds him, he seems to have been beyond reproach. Such were his connections and his standing that this public acknowledgement of difficulties won him some time; but it was to be no more than a temporary reprieve. A year later, in 1205, Jokei MM (Gedatsubo ^WS, 1155-1213) attacked what he saw as a heretical sect by writing a petition to court, known as the Kofukuji sojd MVi. Jokei had been trained at Kofhkuji, although he had left the main temple compound by this time and was living in relative seclusion at Kasagidera S11 # to the northeast. It is fair to say that at Kofukuji the adherence to the Hosso view that there was a class of incorrigibles, who could never reach full enlightenment no matter how hard they tried, had become considerably attentuated by this stage. Jokei himself was certainly eclectic in his interests, encouraging the worship of relics, devotion to Sakyamuni, Avalokitesvara and Maitreya, as well as trying to revive study of the vinaya (Ford 2002). What made him most unhappy was what he saw as the sheer exclusivism of Honen's teachings and the threat this posed to the institutional status quo. He drew up nine charges against what was now being seen as a newborn tradition: 1 The error of establishing a new tradition without proper court recognition. 2 The error of designing new images for worship. In particular for allowing an image of the Pure Land in which only followers of the exclusive nenbutsu are bathed in Amitabha's light and everyone else is excluded. 3 The error of slighting Sakyamuni Buddha by arguing that there is none other than Amitabha. 4 The error of rejecting all other ways of cultivated merit apart from the nenbutsu. 5 The error of turning one's back on the native deities. 6 The error of denying that diverse other religious practices may lead to rebirth in the Pure Land. 7 The error of misunderstanding the nenbutsu by claiming that its verbal form is superior to its meditative form. 8 The error of harming the Buddhist order by maintaining that violation of the precepts is no obstacle to rebirth in the Pure Land. 9 The error of bringing disorder to the country by undermining other Buddhist teachings (Morrell 1987: 66-88). The threat posed by the invention of a new tradition was real. We know from Senchakushu that Honen was intent on providing himself with a lineage running back into China on which the legitimacy of his brand of Pure Land teaching could be established, a teaching that was distinct from the kind of practice that had developed slowly and organically within Tendai. And in this attempt to prove that the new was old, he was spectacularly successful, for 11 For and against exclusive practice ofnenbutsu 251 the lineage that he invented eventually became accepted as historical truth.2 Somewhat surprisingly, no immediate action was taken as a result of this doctrinal attack by Jokei, but the next year a number of Honen's most prominent followers were accused of using nenbutsu sessions with court women as a cover for sexual activity, and two of them were summarily executed in the second month of 1207. Honen himself was exiled to Tosa but allowed back into the capital four years later, partly because it was accepted that he himself had not been entirely responsible, and partly because he still had influential backers. He died in Kyoto in 1212. We are fortunate in having an account of this affair written not long after the event by Kanezane's elder brother, the abbot of Enryakuji, Jien M H (1155-1225). It appears in his Selections from the brush of a fool (Gukansho If a history of Japan written in 1219. This account is of particular interest because Jien was both a member of the Buddhist establishment most directly affected and yet a sympathetic ally, who had in fact helped Honen find somewhere to live when he returned to the capital in 1211. And in the Kan'ei era (1206-07) there was a holy man called Honenbo. About this time, while resident in the capital, he established the nenbutsu tradition, calling his teachings the 'exclusive practice of the nenbutsu'. 'All you need to do is say "Namu Amidabutsu". Do not bother with other practices, revealed or secret,' he would proclaim. Strangely ignorant, foolish nuns and priests were delighted by this teaching, and it began to flourish beyond all expectations and to grow in popularity. Among them was the monk Anrakubo a retainer who had served with [Takashina] Yasutsune Upon ordination he became a practitioner of the single-tninded nenbutsu, and, together with Juren ffilt, he advocated the practice of Shandao, singing praises [to Amitabha] six times a day. There were numerous people, among them nuns, who turned to this teaching and placed their trust in it And what is more, they went around proclaiming that if you joined them, Amitabha would never ever chastise you, even if you were to indulge in sexual relations or eat fish or fowl; that once you had entered this path of single-minded practice and placed your faith in the nenbutsu and that alone, he would come to welcome you at the end. As people in both capital and countryside were all becoming converted, a lady-in-waiting at the detached palace of the retired sovereign, along with the mother of the Ninnaji priest [Dojo sSffiJ], joined in as believers. They summoned Anrakubo and others in secret to have them explain the teachings. He proceeded to visit them together with his companions, and even stayed overnight. I know not what to say. The upshot was that both Anrakubo and Juren were beheaded, and Honen ended up exiled, unable to remain in the capital. And so the affair was dealt with and it seemed for a while that things had settled down. But Honen had not really been a participant and so he was pardoned. He 2 Sharf 2002: 298-301. Such was the influence of this invention that it is only now that scholars are challenging the picture it paints of Pure Land movements in China. 252. From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall eventually died at Otani in Higashiyama. And as he passed away, they all gathered round, discussing his deliverance into the Pure Land, but there is no proof that it actually came to pass. The ceremonies at his deathbed were nothing like those reported when Zdga died. The effects of all this are felt to this very day; and perhaps because this single-minded practice with its tolerance of meat eating and sexual relations remains largely unchecked, many monks at Enryakuji have now risen up and are threatening to drive out the nenbutsu group led by Kuamidabutsu [1156-1228] (Okami etal. 1967: 294-95). Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this passage is Jien's unwillingness to blame Honen for the excesses of those who were 'delighted by this teaching'. It suggests a reluctance to face tire fact that the teachings must ultimately have been to blame, since they inevitably challenged the legitimacy of the Buddhist order and threatened to privilege layman over monk no matter how carefully Honen stepped. The essential difficulty at the heart of Honen's teaching is here transformed by Jien into a question of public order, as if he found it difficult to look any closer. Perhaps this is hardly surprising, since the concept of salvation for all based on a single verbal ritual act was both a natural consequence of Mahayana optimism and a path that was to lead to considerable political difficulties. In this sense, Honen's teachings served to bring into relief a contradiction that had been present in Mahayana Buddhism from the very beginning. It is in this light that we should interpret the fact that there are at least twelve documented instances of suppression of one or more Pure Land factions in the years between 1207 and 1330, all instigated by monks (Dobbins 1989: 20). In 1227, for example, Tendai monks came down from Hieizan, destroyed Honen's grave at Otani, and publically burned copies of Senchakushu. The sangha felt under threat. It is instructive to compare Honen with Kakuban. Kakuban taught the certainty of salvation to all in the knowledge that the involuntary act of breathing itself was by definition salvific, but this was to a limited audience of specialised practitioners. He was subjected to vilification and banishment of a kind, but not because of his doctrine. Honen, on the other hand, ran the danger of persecution precisely because he taught a simple path to everyone, sangha member and layman alike. It was always going to be difficult for the Buddhist establishment to face up to the fact that it was losing exclusive access to the rights of salvation. Was Honen then a revolutionary? There is one interpretation that sees in him a kind of Japanese Luther, a defender of everyman, insisting that salvation was universally available and not in the gift of an essentially aristocratic authority. A recent book even talks of Pure Land teaching as the 'liberation theology' of medieval Japan, taking religion away from the state 11 For and against exclusive practice of nenbutsu. 253 and vested interests and giving it gratis to the people (Machida 1999). There is a grain of truth in this. Replace Hieizan and Kofukuji with the church of Rome, and Amitabha's vows by the word of the Bible, and one does begin to see one or two similarities. That Honen's teachings were fundamentally as troublesome as Luther's there can be no doubt, exposing, as they did, a major paradox, and although there was no Japanese Reformation at the time, the subversive potential of Pure Land Buddhism survived to become a real threat to secular power in later centuries; but as far as the individuals themselves are concerned, we do not have enough reliable material on Honen the man, and what we do have is contradictory and heavily overlaid with centuries of tendentious commentary. Certainly there was much to protest about in the venal conduct of religious affairs, and the results of Honen's teaching were seen to be rather frightening: but turn to the type of practice recommended and what do we find? A traditional recipe: a mantra of sorts. Not a mantra in the tantric sense, but still a phrase which if repeated over and over again was believed to have remarkable effects. One occasionally finds Pure Land teachings being described as 'rational', but the image that really sticks in the mind is a famous carving made about this time of Kuya [see page 241], the early Heian forerunner of Honen. Emerging from Kuya's half-open mouth are six small statues of Amitabha strung out along a line of wire; an evocative statement of the magical potential of sound, the very embodiment of nenbutsu. 11.2 Myoe The unhappiness generated by the wider implications of Honen's teachings, which seemed to be so at odds with the lifestyle of the man himself, was given even greater impetus with the publication of Senchakushu in the months after his death. Criticism was registered right across the monastic institutions, but perhaps the most famous response came from the monk Myoe BftM (1173-1232), who immediately wrote, a highly charged rebuttal entitled wheel to crush heresy {Zaijarin MMWi), accusing H5nen of having played fast and loose with his sources. He too, however, reveals the contemporary puzzlement at the contradiction between what people knew of the man and what was revealed in the teachings: Of late, a saintly monk has written a book; it is called Senchaku hongan nenbutsushu. [In it] he flounders around in the scriptures and makes fools of us all. His intention is to create a tradition devoted to practices to ensure deliverance [in the Pure Land], but 254 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfall in fact he ends up creating obstacles to such practice. For many years now I myself have had deep admiration for this monk and I used to attribute the numerous heresies one hears about to irresponsible statements by lay men and women taking his name in vain. Never once have I tried to ridicule him, and, although I have heard tales told, I have never once believed them. But now, having recently read this Senchakushu, I find myself saddened beyond belief. When I first heard the title, I looked forward to paying honour to his skilful commentary; but, having read the work, I now feel resentment that the true meaning of the nenbutsu has been so misrepresented. Now I know for certain that the heretical views held by his myriad followers, both lay and ordained, have all arisen from his work. Now that he is dead and gone, these practices have become even more popular. Once committed to writing, it becomes a treasure for future generations. Transmitted to followers, it becomes revered as if it were the words of the Buddha himself. All believe it to contain the essence of the Pure Land tradition (&£g?), to be the treasure chest of those who practise the nenbutsu. And so, if you dare to criticise it, you are immediately saddled with criticising the nenbutsu itself. And when you occasionally meet a believer, merit is seen to consist of [exclusive] belief in this one practice. Eventually the single taste of the Dharma rain will become divided into sweet and sour, and the community of monks will be driven to schism, a great error. How greatly this is to be deplored! So, I recently took the opportunity of a lecture on the Dharma to destroy [the thesis of] this work by presenting two major criticisms: 1 The error of rejecting [the importance of the arousal] of bodhicitta 2 The error of likening those who enter the Entrance of the Saintly Path (shodomori) to robbers (Kamata et al. 1971:44-46). Myoe proceeds to explain how Zaijarin was first drafted as a private critique, only to be then made public at the behest of a patroness. One of his main complaints was that Honen had been extremely selective in his use of quotations from Daochuo and Shandao, hiding the fact that neither of them had ever actually argued that the verbal form of the nenbutsu was the one and only practice possible; they had always taken care to see it as one of a whole range of practices. Honen, he argued, was misrepresenting the Pure Land tradition for his own ends. Myoe was a careful scholar and knew his Pure Land texts well, so his criticisms were always apposite. He was also concerned that the absolute necessity of bodhicitta, the initial aspiration for enlightenment, had simply been discarded. Without this, he argued, the process could hardly begin; the Pure Land was not so much a place to which one was translated, but rather a state of mind into which one would be transformed. This kind of criticism, whereby Myoe took the stance of a defender of Pure Land orthodoxy, was particularly damaging, since it could not be simply put down to a monk fighting for his own vested interests, or trying to maintain the line between monk and layman for this-worldly reasons. 11 For and against exclusive practice of nenbutsu 255 Who was the author of such a bitter denunciation? The question is much easier to ask than to answer. Myoe is one of the most interesting figures in the history of Japanese religious life, but in the usual historical surveys he receives only cursory treatment, mainly because he was neither the founder of a tradition nor a major political force. This marginalisation is especially regrettable because he is that rare creature ~ a Japanese monk who allows us to see something of the person behind the role. For most of his life he kept a written record of his dreams. This is a unique document, giving us a glimpse into the inner life of a Buddhist monk of intense personal religiosity.3 There is, however, another reason to draw attention to his life and work. Eclectic in both doctrine and practice, he represents what one might call a conservative radicalism: someone committed to traditional learning and scholarship, unhappy with the militant exclusionism that was emerging, and yet maintaining a firm resolve not to become personally absorbed into the Buddhist establishment. He preferred the role of monk as hermit. Myoe was born in 1173 in the west-central area of the Kii peninsula. His parents both died when he was young and he entered Jingoji 5$ fl # on Takaosan ~MM\li to the northwest of Kyoto in the care of his uncle Jogaku ±M as early as 1181. This temple had figured prominently in the early Heian period and had been Kukai's first base, but had since fallen into disuse. Most of its treasures had been transferred to the Ninnaji and it was little more than a ruin when Jogaku and Mongaku %9k arrived to restore it in 1168. In 1188 Myoe became a monk, receiving bis full ordination (gusokukai) at T5daiji. From the begirrning he showed an interest in both Kegon doctrine and tantric ritual, and by 1193 he had become recognised for his learning. In that year, the head of the Sonshoin M US Em Kegon seminar asked him to represent .Kegon at the annual court lectures (kujd tefm). Typically he turned down the offer, a clear sign that he had no wish to proceed with an official career. He soon became disillusioned with monastic life and in 1195 went into seclusion at Sbirakami S _h in Kii. It was during this time that intense efforts brought on a severe mental crisis, which ended with him slicing off his right ear in front of a portrait of Buddhalocana (Butsugen Butsurno #HSr$fS), in order to show his utter devotion to the task of achieving enlightenment. We are told that blood spattered over the portrait' A portrait - it may or may not be the very one - survives with a poem and the following inscription that shows Myoe's state of mind: 3 For this reason his writings have been of particular interest to psychologists; see, for example, Kawai 1992. 256 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfall The mother of the earless monk. Homage to the mother of all buddhas! Take pity on me! Do not ever leave me, in this life or those that follow! Homage to mother, oh mother! Homage to mother, oh mother! (namu haha gozen). The beloved son to whom Sakyamimi bequeathed the Dharma upon his death. Joben (Brock 1984: 333). Three years later Myoe returned to the area around Jingoji, but there too he felt unhappy and soon returned to Kii, where he was to spend the next nine years in seclusion, with one or two companions and supported by his mother's family, the Yuasa. It was now that he started writing on Kegon doctrine. It was also during this time that he became obsessed with the idea of travelling to India. There were two periods in particular when this obsession reached a peak and on both occasions he was only saved from his madness by a manifestation of the deity at Kasuga, who persuaded him that Buddha was not in India and could equally well be reached in lapan. In 1210 the sovereign Go-Toba granted liim a bessho at Toganoo WM near Jingoji, where he was to remain for the rest of his life, winning a reputation as an incorruptible monk of great learning and compassion and also gaining a number of patrons, among them some very highly placed women. The bessho eventually became the temple we now know as Kozanji itjlll#. In 1212 came the controversy over Honen and the writing of Zaijarin. From this time onwards Myoe became increasingly involved in tantric ritual, but we know that he also made himself available to the public on many occasions. In a diary entry for 1229.5.15, the famous scholar Fujiwara no Teika %M wrote in his usual self-pitying mode: About eight [in the evening] my wife and daughter went on a private visit to Toganoo. Myoe administers the precepts there on the fifteenth and the last day of the month. Monks, nuns and laymen all gather together there as if the Buddha himself were alive, they say. Although I realise how important it is to link oneself to one's karma, I hate crowds, so - poor lonely outcast that I am -1 ended up by missing his teachings. This was indeed most regrettable. On this occasion they went with Koshrn as guide and returned at about four [the next afternoon]. Apparently everyone had been jammed into such a small room that they had no idea who eke might have been there, except that someone did tell diem that Lord Tamenaga had been present. And, in particular, I heard that Lord Morikane and Lord Sadataka had been there. As usual, this outcast was missing from their number (Imagawa 1977-79, vol. V: 27-28). Myoe lives in the lapanese imagination not so much through his own writings as through his biography, which presents the classic picture of an incorruptible medieval monk leading a life of strenuous self-examination, extreme self-imposed hardship and meditation, and totally dedicated to the search for enlightenment in a Mahayana context. The primary sources for the 11 For and against exclusive practice o/nenbutsu 257 historian are a series of works known as gyojo (fftt) or 'records of conduct', the most important of which was written by his companion Kikai MM (1178-1250). This source, as one might expect, is inescapably hagiographic in intent and yet less obviously full of legendary material than many other sources. But, as one might expect of a man who went out of his way to fashion a life as a particular kind of quest, ultimately in the image of ^akyamuni, the process of creating a legend started with Myoe himself. Hardly surprising, then, that it accelerated after his death. The picture presented is largely that contained in Myoe shonin denki ty} M _h A W b3 , which, although also attributed to Kikai, is of indeterminate authorship and probably dates from the late thirteenth century. It is here that one encounters the legendary feats of meditation in trees, what can only be called a 'love letter' written to an island on which he secluded himself, and meetings with eminent figures that he may not actually have met He emerges as Buddhist hero-monk, not typical of any school or sect but certainly meant to be typical of the period in which he lived.4 To turn from biography to autobiographical material is to face the Dream diary itself. This remarkable document, which was kept secret in Kozanji and not made available until fairly recently, records dreams and visions experienced over a period of forty years.5 Many have to do with his frustrations stemming from religious passion and uncertainty, but many more are obviously sexual in nature. The intensity of his practice is only rivalled by his overwhelming chagrin at not having been born during the lifetime of Sakyamuni himself. Occasionally he adds his own interpretations to the record. Dreams were very much seen as legitimate signs of one's spiritual progress, whether they arrived by chance, or whether they were actively encouraged by visualisations and states of trance. Indeed the line between active visualisations, meditation and dream becomes extremely difficult to draw, especially at the degree of magnification we find with Myoe, and there is little sign that he himself felt moved to draw such distinctions. There can be no doubt that he was particularly susceptible to creating and recalling dreams, and the evidence of this: diary would: suggest that he was the visualiser par excellence. As a young monk, he had copied out extracts from texts that specifically dealt with this subject. Entitled MukyoshdWWW, these 4 On this subject see 'Kegon's Myoe as a popular religious hero', and 'Zeami's Kasuga ryujin or Myoe shonin' in Morrell 1987. The letter is translated in Tanabe 1995. 5 See Girard 1990, which contains a full translation of all known fragments of the diary together with a detailed introduction on the subject of dreams in Buddhism; also the English translation in Tanabe 1992. 258 Prom Tödaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfall 11 For and against exclusive practice of nenbutsu 259 Plate 22 Myoe meditating in the forest. passages discussed how to obtain dreams, how to interpret them and recotmt them, how to distinguish between 'real' as opposed to 'illusory' dreams, and how to deal with dreams of bad omen. The ability to remember dreams is not given to all, and not everyone is able to write them down. To record a whole lifetime of dreams demanded an extraordinary feat of mental energy. It is difficult to choose examples that will not distort, since they range from the cryptic to the prolix and rambling, but the following entries should give some idea of the richness of this record: In a dream, there were two great golden Peacock Kings, which were larger in size than a man's body. Their heads and tails were decorated with an assortment of jewels, and from their entire bodies came a fragrant force that permeated the entire world. The two birds frolicked and flew through the sky, and from the jewels came a great voice of sublime beauty resounding throughout the world. The sound of that voice recited a verse: 'The 84,000 teachings and the means for countering [ignorance] are the wonderful Dharma preached by Sakyamuni, the honoured one.' A man was there and he said, 'These birds always dwell on Vulture Peak; they have great affection for the unsurpassed Mahayana in which they delight, and they are far removed from attachment to worldly matters.' After the birds recited the verse, I held two sutra scrolls in my hands. On one scroll was written the title, 'Buddhalocana Tathagata', and on the other was written 'Sakyamuni Tathagata'. I thought of how I had obtained these two surras from the peacocks, and a feeling of great joy arose when I heard the verse. As 1 chanted 'Praise be to Safsyamuni Tathagata! Praise be to Buddhalocana Tathagata!', tears of joy began to flow and I rejoiced at holding the two scrolls. When I awoke from my dream, the bottom of my pillow was soaked with tears. I was staying with Military Guard Sakiyama. As I was tired, he took my pillow and placed skiiimi leaves under my head. In a dream after that, there was a large rock whose pinnacle had no end. Sea water flowed from above like a waterfall. It was a most excellent token that I experienced with great delight. There was a living thing shaped something like an octopus, which I thought to be the soul of the priest Shogi. It was moving into the house; and Girin grabbed it, hacked at it with a sword, and threw it limp into a pond. It resembled a turtle in shape, and wanted to go to the other shore, but sank to the bottom. In a dream on the night of the sixth day of the eleventh month (during my early evening meditation when I sat in meditation and wanted to practise tantric methods), there was a very dignified, beautiful lady in a room. Her clothing was marvelously exquisite, but she showed no sign of worldly desire. I was in the same place with this noble lady. Not having any feelings for her, I ignored her. She was fond of me and did not want to be separated. I ignored her and left. Still she showed no sign of worldly desire. She held a large single mirror around which she wrapped some wire. She also held a large sword. Interpretation: the woman was Vairocana; that is, she was certainly a queen (Tanabe 1992: 161, 166, 168, 185). 260 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfäll Myöe has a reputation for being one of the restorers of the Kegon tradition, but: this is somewhat misleading. While it is true that he picked out -the Flower garland sütra for particular study and so in one sense turned the spotlight on to it and away from the Pure Land texts or the Lotus, he did not contribute in any meaningful sense to the further development of Kegon doctrine.6 He chose it for his own purposes mainly because it was considered to be the first of the Buddha's teachings and was therefore closest to Säkyamuni himself in time. It also happened to be the most difficult of sütras. True to his tantric training, however, and true to the spirit of the age, he used the sütra not so much as something to study and decipher but as an object of devotion and meditation. When dealing with Kegon (Huayan) there is always the problem of whether one is talking of the teachings or the sütra itself, for the relationship between the two is not entirely straightforward. It is generally understood that the sütra was an illustration of the main Buddhist truths, but Huayan doctrine soon became a philosophy in its own right that could be studied independently. Myöe was unusual in his insistence on concentrating on the sütra itself rather than the doctrinal tradition, and given the vast and amorphous nature of the work, it was inevitable that if he was to use it as an object of devotion (somewhat in the manner that elements of the Tendai tradition treated the Lotus), it should suffer reduction. In the work Sanji sanböraishaku Hilf ELWcWkW (1215), Myöe discussed a set of three phrases that expressed praise for the moment of bodhicitta and for the Three Jewels; this was intended to be written on a scroll, hung up, and used for veneration and recitation. It may well be, of course, that this kind of thing was directly affected by the emergence of the nenbutsu and other methods that advertised themselves as short, easy paths, although whether or not Myöe produced it in direct response to 'namu Amidabutsu' is difficult to judge. Myöe continued to develop these simple techniques for encouraging mindfulness in the common man, making particular use of two rituals that have already been described: the 'Mantra of radiant wisdom' (kömyö shingon %^mn) and the 'Visualisation of Buddha's ürnä' (bukkökan^^tW). The mantra, which Genshin had used during funeral rituals, was recited over purified sand that was in turn spread on the person's grave to release the light of Vairocana over the body and ensure salvation. The practice of visualising the bright light that emerged from the tuft of hair on the Buddha's forehead 6 See Grirard 1990: 58ff for a discussion of the revival of the Kegon Seminar at Todaiji under the monk Bengyö MM (1138-1202). 11 For and against exclusive practice of nenbutsu 261 was something that Myoe borrowed from the heterodox Huayan thinker Li Tungxuan SMS (635-730), whose writings helped Myoe understand how Huayan might be transformed into a devotional practice as well as being a source of intellectual excitement (Tanabe 1992:143-52; Gimello 1983). Yet one further tie between Myoe and Kegon is revealed by the existence at Kozanji of what is known as the Narrative scroll of the origins ofHwadm (Kegon engi emaki -3SI8&Eil#). This tells the story of how Huayan (Kr. Hwaom) teachings were brought to Korea by two monks, Uisang Hlffi and Wonhyo 7C ^. The primary source for this material was the biographies of these two men in the Song biographies of eminent monks of 988. A major role in the story of Uisang is played by the Chinese maiden Shanmiao who falls deeply in love with him but is in turn converted by him. When Uisang returns to Korea, Shanmiao not only secures him safe passage by turning into a dragon to carry his ship across the stormy waves, but also helps him to found the first Hwaom temple at Pusoksa. As we have seen, Myoe had a special concern for women and after settling at Kozanji built a nunnery in 1223 at Hiraoka for the widows created by the civil wars that had raged during his lifetime. He named it Zenmyoji after the heroine of the story, Shanmiao.7 Myoe also had a special relationship with the Kasuga deity. While in Kii he had occasion to pray for the survival of his aunt in pregnancy. She survived the ordeal, which was considered to be a result of his successful intervention with the evil spirits that had been trying to drag her away. This woman must have had psychic powers herself, because when Myoe announced in 1203 that he wished to go to India she started a fast during which she became possessed by the Kasuga deity and demanded that he stay in Japan. India would come to him in the form of visions, and, in any case, since all was mind, there was no need to travel. At this point Myoe is said to have visited Kasuga a number of times to converse with the deity. A similar encounter took place two years later when be was again planning a journey to India. This time he went as far as to calculate the distance between Chang'an and Magadha and worked out how long it would take him to reach his goal. Sickness overwhelmed him at this point, however, and the deity again intervened. It now became clear to Myoe that the Kasuga deity was in fact a manifestation of Sakyamuni; he could now comfort himself that the Buddha himself had come to Japan: 1 For a full study of this scroll and how it might be linked to Myoe, see Brock 1984. The scrolls are normally dated 1224-25, although Brock suggests a slightly earlier date, prior to the founding of the nunnery. 262 From Todaiji's destruction to Go~Daigo's fall This August Deity is the king of the teaching in this age of five defilements. It is the representative manifestation of the Tathagata Sakyamuni. Truly, every single practice and ritual indicates its relationship as the incarnation of Sakyamuni, the honoured one. The descent of the Great August Deity is a marvel in this latter age and a superior thing for our country (Tanabe 1992: 38-39). How very different from Honen, who was so convinced of the lightness of his belief in mappo and Amitabha that he rejected native cults out of hand. Myoe had no compunction in having recourse to this homegrown deity, whom he now knew was actually the manifestation of the Buddha in Japan. 11.3 Shinran The logic at work in Honen's belief in the efficacy of the nenhutsu, linked to the conviction that such a path was in fact the only conceivable one for those living in an advanced state of mappo, was carried even further by Shinran Hit (1173-1262). Shinran underwent the usual Tendai training on Hieizan, but left the mountain for good in 1201, becoming a committed follower of Honen. Both men were separated by the 1207 banishment, H5nen being sent to Tosa and Shinran to Echigo, and their paths were not to cross again. Why Shinran was exiled is not known, although it is thought that he took a wife somewhere about this time, which may well have been taken as illustrative of precisely the kind of outrageous behaviour HSnen's teachings were encouraging. Certainly it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this act, for it broke a fundamental rule of monastic life. But things were never this clear cut in Japan. There were always religious figures who found it impossible to survive in the regimented world of the monastery: like Honen before him, Shinran could leave Hieizan and yet continue to live a life that was recognised by others as being different from a normal lay life. What was different in Shinran's case was the openness with which he married and the fact that despite taking such a drastic step, he remained a revered figure accepted by a growing audience. From 1207 to 1214 Shinran stayed in exile in Echigo/Then in 1214 he moved east to settle at Inada H H in Hitachi, where he stayed until about 1235. It was here in eastern Japan that he set about proselytising his faith in Amitabha among the farmers and peasants of the region. Although figures are hard to come by, his following (known by the generic term monto FTO) was largely among the rural poor and the illiterate. Ignoring almost entirely the distinction between monk/priest and layman, he cultivated a form of 11 For and against exclusive practice of nenbutsu 263 worship that was protestant in nature. Believers would form 'congregations' (ko Wr) which met at regular intervals in meeting houses (dojo iflil) under the guidance of a leader (otona Zi^s). Here, often in the presence of an inscription reading 'namu Amidabutsu', or some variant thereof known as the myogo horizon ^^r^U, they would practise common devotions, chant the nenbutsu, listen to simple sermons, and (at a somewhat later stage) chant wasan ffiH or short Japanese hymns. This kind of practice undoubtedly had its roots in local custom and nurtured a strong sense of participation in a communal act of worship. It can be imagined how far this was from the traditional behaviour of monks in temples. The leader of the group must have had some education and status, but Shinran's ideal was democratic and he fought all his life against the doctrine of the primacy of the monk. He founded no temples. Although he did not discourage the use of images of Amitabha, it was the nenbutsu that lay at the heart of practice; the act of gratitude for the gift of faith. Whether or not there were congregational rules at this early stage we do not know, because the earliest extant ones date from 1285 (Dobbins 1989: 67). Shinran seems to have continued preaching in this fashion until about 1235, at which point we find him moving back to the capital. It is thought that this came about because in that year the military authorities placed a ban on any nenbutsu teaching in and around Kamakura, so he may have felt that it would only be a matter of time before similar pressure was applied even further east in Hitachi. Whatever the reasons, he was back in Kyoto by 1237, although he had no fixed residence and was supported largely by gifts in kind sent from congregations in the Kanto. There were a number of well-defined groups by this time: the Takada fif EH monto in Shimotsuke, the Yokosone ©itfll in Shhnosa, the Kashima ffift in Hitachi, and the: Oami j H m ), which purports to be representative of Hongren's teaching, but which in fact tells us about Chan meditation in the early eighth century. This too stresses the essential purity of the mind - it is like the sun covered in cloud. By maintaining awareness of mind (Ch. shouxin one will force the clouds to dissipate. There is no point in thinking or relying on buddhas outside the self; one becomes enlightened by discerning one's mind, which is done by sitting in meditation. At such times all sorts of strange psychological states will arise, but the object of meditation is to negate these by concentrating on the operation of mind itself, thereby coming to a realisation that all is illusion. Gently quiet your mind. I will teach you [how to do this] once again: make your body and mind pure and peaceful, without any discriminative thinking at all. Sit properly with the body erect. Regulate the breath and concentrate the mind so it is not within you, not outside of you, and not in any intermediate location. Do this carefully and naturally. View your own consciousness tranquilly and attentively, so that you can see how it is always moving, like flowing water or a glittering mirage. After you have perceived this consciousness, simply continue to view it gently and naturally, without [the consciousness assuming any fixed position] inside or outside of yourself. Do this tranquilly and attentively, until its fluctuations dissolve into peaceful stability. This flowing consciousness will disappear like a gust of wind (McRae 1986: 130). Note that this is not simply wiping the clouds away but rather concentrating on the sun and then concentrating on the clouds of illusion, which eventually melt away, for they are not really there. This is more a matter of clarity of vision than of cleansing something. Clearly the term shouxin is crucial here. What seems to be asked for is being constantly aware of one's own consciousness without consciously doing so, since all ratiocination is impure. One concentrates on impurity and ignorance until all discrimination ceases and the mind can then respond perfectly and naturally to outside stimuli, although by this time one also realises that there is no inside or outside. There is much that is Daoist here, although the influence is more general than specific. Early Chan texts are difficult to understand precisely because they were trying to put across something difficult: how to contemplate mind with mind and in the end achieve a realisation that the object of one's concentration was non-substantial. Buddhism before Chan had been more to do with interpreting texts, devotion to an image, producing material offerings, and performing certain prescribed rituals; Chan saw itself as trying to replicate 13 Chan Buddhism 295 the experience of Sakyamuni himself. No wonder the message was difficult to put across. Various techniques were tried, such as an explicitely metaphorical analysis and interpretation of previous texts {Ch. guanxin shi H/[>!?); which attempted to show, for example, that accepted Buddhist activities and descriptions were actually only ways of explaining the technique of meditation, but in the end this too proved problematic and inevitably led Chan in the direction of non-linguistic, non-verbal methods of explanation (McRae 1986: 198-201). 13.3 Chan after the end of the Tang It is only because of the chance finds at Dunhuang that we have as much information as we do about the history and development of early Chan. The situation post-800 is, if anything, even more problematic. Our main sources for developments over the next two hundred years were compiled well into the Song (Northern Song 960-1127; Southern Song 1127-1279) and must therefore be read as having their own strong agendas. To see Song Chan literature as providing a reliable history of Chan for the period 800-1000 is unwise. The narrative of lineages and the biographical vignettes, for example, are constructs reflecting Song Chan interests and concerns. They create a strong backdrop - a late Tang 'golden age' - against which they define themselves as a school and a tradition. 'The Song construction of the "Chan lineage" and its history was so ingenious and convincing that it succeeded magnificently in drawing attention away from its own creativity and directing it instead to the ostensible glories of the past' (Foulk 1993: 149). There is therefore actually very little we can say with any certainty about the late Tang except that Chan survived the Huichang suppression rather better than any other Buddhist group, for the greatest destruction was wrought in the north and in the cities. After the demise of Shenxiu, the main centre of gravity for Chan shifted to the south and out to the provinces. What is more, transmission from master to student of the kind that Chan espoused could do without large libraries, expensive sutra repositories, and the kind of critical mass of specialists in certain difficult philosophical texts that made the other, more scholastic groups so vulnerable to the destruction of their material surroundings. As it is impossible to present a coherent narrative of what may have been, it seems wisest simply to reflect the Song sources and present the Chan of this period as a collection of memorable masters, via whom the tradition 296 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfatt transmitted itself. Although each instance of transmission is given a concrete historical context, the end result is curiously ahistorical, since each individual's moment of realisation is but the iteration of the first such moment, when the Buddha achieved his own enlightenment. From that point on, transmission was understood as being mind-to-mind as illustrated by the myth of the primal scene where Sakyamuni is said to have silently offered a flower to his disciple Mahakasyapa, who received it with an enigmatic smile and nothing more (Jp. nenge misho f£P$S$l). These masters and their dialogues come to us in such collections as the Anthology of the Patriarch Hall (Ch. Zutang ji, Kr. Chodang chip HSH) of 952, the Song gaoseng zhuan compiled by Zanning (919-1001), and two early Song Chan 'transmissions of the flame': the Jingde chuandeng lu JtHHSsKife of 1004 and the Tiansheng guangdeng lu ^11 iff® of 1036.6 The three most prominent figures in this tale are Mazu Daoyi JSffljli— (709-88), Shitou Xiqian fiMWM (700-90) and Linji Yixuan H^ffiS (8107-66), who, since we have no contemporary accounts, are best taken out of time and interpreted as paradigmatic figures representing various approaches to Chan practice, many of them marked by a lack of restraint and a deliberate wildness. These biographical collections, all set in a familiar pattern dealing with the difficult path to. enlightenment, battles with the master, later life as a teacher, and ending with a miraculous death, also contain anecdotes presented in the vernacular and relating to master-student interaction, the so-called 'encounter dialogues' (Ch.jiyuan wenda tS^fuJII). They were later to be excerpted to become collections of 'sayings' (Ch. yulu, Jp. goroku fnS), ostensibly verbatim transcriptions of short sermons by a master, mixed in with master-student dialogues, verbal and non-verbal. It is likely that much of this literature was written, or at best rewritten, by the Song compilers. The realism that characterises the records of the patriarchs' words is often so finely detailed that it betrays the works as fiction. The point is particularly apt in cases where not only the exact words but also the unspoken thoughts of a master are quoted verbatim . . .Another factor that suggests that in many cases the use of realistic, concrete settings is a purely literary device is that the descriptions of the monastic environment of the Tang.masters often contain anachronistic details. Tang masters are depicted hi monastic settings with facilities, officers, and activities characteristic of Song-style monasteries (Foulk 1993: 153). In this fashion the conscious attempt to depict the idealised practice of these late Tang masters gave birth to a new form of literature that was at once 6 For the justification of the translation 'flame' rather than 'lamp', see Foulk 1993: 200, n. 20. 13 Chan Buddhism 297 entertaining and instructive, Chan masters became the new cultural heroes, allowed to indulge themselves within the special confines of the Chan temple in the kind of behaviour that would normally have been seen as detrimental to public order and decency. So the Song sources present us with a drama of what may have been. Mazu takes on the role of the unpredictable one, known as the major exponent of what one could legitimately term 'organised violence' in Chan, mixing shouts, rudeness and beatings with strange paradoxical language to break down rational modes of thought in his students. Simply sitting in meditation was for him a futile exercise. [One day when Mazu] was walking in attendance on Bojang, a flock of wild geese flew off overhead. Mazu asked Bojang, 'What is that?' Bojang replied, 'Wild geese, master.' Mazu: 'Where did they go?' Bojang: "They've flown away.' Mazu turned his head and, seizing Bojang's nose, violently tweaked it, so that Bojang cried out in pain. The master asked, 'How could you say that the wild geese have flown away? They have been here from the very beginning.' Through these words, Bojang awakened (Buswell 1987: 337). Shitou took the role of the quieter figure, often appearing as a foil to Mazu. Linji, who lived somewhat later (d. 866), represents the culmination, the ideal master and the paradigmatic teacher. His activities are described in the Linji lu^bl^M, usually dated c.1120 (note that this is a full 250 years after his death, although an earlier version of his biography can be found in the Tiansheng guangdeng lu of 1036). It is an anthology of pungent sayings and short sermons, the aim being to make the student look into his or her true nature and discover, the Buddha Nature within. This is all done in a style peculiar to Chan, 'brisk, barking sentences in the colloquial language of the period, earthy, at times coarse or vulgar in expression' (Watson 1993: xxiii). The Master ascended the hall and said, 'Here; in this lump of red flesh there is a Trae Man with no rank. Constantly he goes in and out the gates of your face. If there are any of you who don't know this for a fact, then look! Look!' At that time there was a monk who came forward and asked, 'What is he like - the true Man with no rank?' The Master got down from his chair, seized hold.of the monk and said 'Speak! Speak!' The monk was about to say something, whereupon the Master let go of him, shoved him away, and said, 'True Man with no rank - what a lump of dried shit!' The Master then returned to his quarters. Followers of the Way, if you want to get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by others. Whether you're facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up with, just kill it! If you meet a buddha, kill the buddha. If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. If you meet your parents, kill your parents. If you meet your kinfolk, kill your kinfolk. 298 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall Then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely anywhere you wish to go (Watson 1993: 13, 52). For later Chan teachers and students alike, these works, which chronicle in various forms the practice of former masters, became the canon, largely replacing traditional Buddhist surras. But this process of committing these activities and sayings to paper had unforeseen results. By its very nature, it betrayed the original enterprise: not only did it run counter to the underlying early Chan principle that language itself was at the root of the problem, but once a tale of wild and violent methods had become a permanent record to be revered and memorised, it lost its immediacy. One studied, one did not emulate. Institutionalisation had again taken its toll. And yet, there is another possibility that must be considered. The wild and violent methods may only have ever existed on paper and we may be dealing with myth-making on a grand scale.7 In this sense, it is wise to resist the pressure exerted by the texts themselves to persuade us that Song realities had been subject to an inexorable process of degeneration from High Tang practice: The idea of a pure Chan that is now forever lost and can only be grasped as past example rather than experienced as present action is itself a Song invention, a natural response by those who were engaged in the difficult task of institutionalising a practice that grounded itself in the denial of institutions. By the latter half of the Northern Song (960-1127), it is safe to say, the group that traced itself back to Linji had become orthodox Chan, although its apparent prominence, especially in the eleventh century, may again be partly a result of the fact that the influential Tiansheng guangdeng lu (1036) was compiled by a monk of this persuasion. As one might expect, factions continued to come and go throughout the period. It was also during this time that Chan began to develop its own monastic codes called 'pure rules' (Ch. qinggui, Jp. shingiWtM), which eventually supplanted the vinaya in all public monasteries and became the norm in China (Yifa 2002). Here too, Chan monks promoted the idea that such codes dated from the Tang period, although in fact the earliest description we have is a brief section of the Jingde chuandeng lu of 1004 entitled Chamnen guishi iff PI SI and the oldest code that survives in toto dates from 1103, the Chanyuan qinggui MM W M compiled by Zongze 8.8 It has been persuasively argued that the Chan tradition that attributes the creation of specifically Chan monasteries to 7 This is essentially the approach taken by Faure 1991. 8 See Collcutt 1983. Collcutt analyses these two sets of rules to discover what changes occurred between 1004 and 1103. 13 Chan Buddhism 299 the monk Baizhang Huaihai (749-814) in the mid-Tang is another myth and that there is no sign whatsoever of such institutions in the Tang sources. The myth was needed in order to provide a proper historical foundation for what was in fact an unprecedented rise to prominence of Chan in the Song period (Foulk 1993: 156-57). Quite how Chan came to dominate the scene is not yet entirely clear, because we do not know enough about developments in the early years of the Northern Song to be able to trace its rise with any precision. Certainly, by the early eleventh century, with the two 'transmissions of the flame' in 1004 and 1036, the latter compiled by the son-in-law of an emperor, the process must have been well under way. A major reason for Chan's success lies in the way it managed to identify itself as being Chinese rather than foreign. As the Chan master began to supplant the Buddha as the source of all wisdom, so there developed a canon that consisted not of translations from Indie languages but of vernacular Chinese. The slogan 'special transmission beyond doctrine' (Ch. jiaowai biezhuan, Jp. kyoge betsuden S 9YW\®$) allowed Chan to distance itself from the traditional canon but in the process gave rise to another kind of dependence on texts. During the early Northern Song period Chan masters became fully accepted members of the literati. This allowed them to carry Buddhist values into the heart of Chinese culture in a way that had not happened in the Tang, and the influence thus gained was enormous. But there was a price to pay. In return for the influence, Chan masters found themselves developing what has become known as 'lettered Chan' X^W, a term that was often used pejoratively to refer to an excessive interest in literary pursuits and erudition that could easily undermine the religious message. The fact remains, however, that Chan would not have survived and prospered had it not linked itself to mainstream Chinese literati culture in this way. It was through the activities of men like Faxiu S?5f (1027-90), also known as Yuantong Chanshi HjiPBifi, that Chan became the predominant Buddhist institution in the Song and the beneficiary of state patronage.9 During the early years of the Northern Song the state began to draw a clear distinction between public and private monasteries, the abbacy of the latter being based on hereditary principles. A large number of these originally hereditary monasteries were converted to public ones, known as shifangjuchi yuan +"S'flJ#l^, and simply redesignated as 'Chan'. The abbot of such a monastery had to be a recognised enlightened master but did not have to be '' See in this connection the discussion of Faxiu in Gimello 1992. 300 FromTodaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall from a particular branch of the main lineage. So in many ways Chan became the public face of Buddhism, patronised and supported by the state. This naturally led to a need to satisfy government regulations: There was in the Song an elite group of Buddhist monks (and a few nuns and laypersons) who were regarded as living members of the Chan lineage by virtue of the fact that they had formally inherited the Dharma from another recognized member of the lineage in a ritual of dharma transmission. In the accounts of the early generations of the lineage in China, the flame histories depict the patriarchs handing over robes and bowls to their disciples as proof of dharma transmission - visible signs that the formless Dharma had indeed been vouchsafed. In the Song, however, it was only by the possession of an 'inheritance certificate' (sishu MWf), a kind of diploma received in the ritual of dharma transmission, that a person was recognized as a member of the Chan lineage (Foulk 1993: 159), It can be imagined how sought after these certificates might be; they became objects of power in themselves, the outward symbol of something intangible yet desirable. By the time we reach the Southern Song (1127-1279), then, Chan had become predominant in China and fully integrated into Chinese intellectual life. It had also adapted to its role and contained a strong admixture of the kind of ceremonial, ritual and magic that Chan masters of the mid-Tang had been so insistent on rejecting. Rather than 'blaming' this on the adulteration of a purer Chan, it is probably, more correct to see the very concept of 'pure' Chan itself as a Song invention; the adrnixture had been there all along and was an inevitable consequence of success. It would not have been so influential if it had actually insisted on the kind of purity that it invented for its own past. What else was there apart from Chan? In Kaifeng the translation bureau was funded by the state and produced a large amount of material that was tantric in nature and kept to a limited circle. This activity did not survive the move south in 1127. Then there was Tiantai. Tiantai had lost much of its influence as a result of the Huichang suppression and was reduced to requesting copies of some of its major texts from Korea and Japan in order to recreate itself. The major figures, of the Tiantai revival in the Song were Zhili &llt (960-1028) andZunshi (964-1032), who between them secured its survival and indeed its rebirth. But this was an uphill straggle in the Northern Song, because Tiantai was very much a regional phenomenon, largely confined to the area around Mingzhou, Hangzhou and Mt Tiantai itself. Special permission had to be sought from the court, for example, for the inclusion of Tiantai texts in the newly planned printed version of the canon, and people like Zunshi relied heavily on contacts with influential bureaucrats. 13 Chan Buddhism 301 13.4 Chan in the thirteenth century It is at this point that we can link back to things Japanese. The two founders of Zen in Japan are usually said to be Myoan Eisai 53 $1 IS 13 (1141-1215), who went to China in 1168 and again in 1187-91, and Eihei Dogen Jc^PjStc (1200-53), who was there from 1223 to 1227. What kind of situation did they encounter? The pre-eminent figure in Southern Song Chan was undoubtedly Dahui Zonggao XWM% (1089-1163) of the Linji lineage. Dahui's rise to prominence dates from 1134. Before that time he had lived and studied in relative seclusion, but in 1125 he went to study, under Yuanwu Keqin Hill ^Kl (1063-1135), the compiler of Emerald Cliff record (Ch. Biyanlu, Jp. Hekiganroku H Ir ft , 1128), the first major collection of 'cases' (Ch. gong'an, Jp. koan For some time Chan monks had been in the habit of extracting snippets from the 'records' (yulu) of past masters, isolated them as 'ancient precedents' (Ch. guze, Jp. kosoku f^IJ), and commenting on them, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose. By the mid-eleventh century the core situation was known as a 'case to be investigated' or a gong'an.10 The process was incremental and difficult to stop. Yuanwu's Emerald Cliff record, for example, took a previous eleventh-century collection entitled Master Xuetou's verses on a hundred old cases (Ch. Xuetou heshang baize song'gu Hjsftlfal FlSU'ig r&) and added an introduction (Ch. chuishi, Jp. suiji Htf) and extensive commentary to each 'case', sometimes also dropping in comments on the appositeness, or more usually inappositeness, of the relevant verse, so becoming in his turn 'magistrate'.11 A gong'an collection, therefore, reveals many layers, all of them dedicated to undercutting the stability of language while at the same time playing: a complex game of competing authorities. Herein lies their fascination. It was while working with Yuanwu that Dahui is said to have achieved his first experience of enlightenment. Eventually, in 1134, he ended up in Fuzhou and it was here that he began to emerge as an important teacher (Schlutter 1999; Levering 1999). His approach to the use of gong'an was somewhat different from his master. In particular, he was worried that a student might be led astray by the erudition and word-play of verse and commentary. There was even a legend that he tried to have the blocks of the 10 See Fouik 2000 for a discussion of the history of this term, which originally referred to a magistrate's table or bench and by extension a legal 'case'.) " For an example of a typical Emerald Cliff record entry see.Foulk 2000: 29-30. Also on Yuanwu see Hsieh 1994. 302 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfall Emerald Cliff record destroyed (Buswell 1987: 345). In order to disrupt this intellectual interest in the literary form of a gong'an, Dahui is known to have advocated concentrating on one crucial phrase (huatou Hit). This led to what is known as 'contemplating phrases' (Ch. kanhua, Jp. kanna #fS), which shifted the use of gong'an from being a heuristic device to an object of meditation. Rather than puzzling over an exchange or over an odd juxtaposition of prose and verse, one concentrated on a short phrase or even a word, hoping thereby to pierce through to the mind of the master who made it. This was sometimes expressed as using poison (language) to counteract poison and has clear parallels in tantric attitudes to the same phenomenon (Buswell 1987: 347^18). As Dahui put it: A monk asked Zhaozhou: 'Does even a dog have Buddha Nature?' Zhaozhou answered: 'No!' (w«5£). Whether you are walking or standing, sitting or lying down, you must not for a moment cease [to hold this noAra in your mind]. When deluded thoughts arise, you must also not supress them with your mind. Only just hold up this huatou. When you want to meditate and you feel dull and muddled, you must muster all your energies and hold up this word. Then suddenly you will be like the old blind woman who blows [so diligently] at the fire that her eyebrows and lashes are burned right off (Schlatter 1999: 115). Before we return to the situation in Japan, there is one other major Chan lineage of the Southern Song to be discussed, the Caodong (Jp. Soto WM). The name of this lineage is drawn from two monks, Caoshan Benji W llrffi (840-91) and Dongshan Liangjie StilfiffT (807-69), who were claimed as its founding patriarchs. Dahui was not particularly happy with their approach: In recent years there has been a bunch of heretical teachers who preach Silent Illumination Chan. They teach people to do this all day without regard to anything else, ceasing and resting, not daring to make a sound and afraid to waste any time. Often literati, who because of their intelligence and keen aptitude strongly dislike boisterous. places, are being made by these heretical masters to do quiet-sitting (jingzuo iP*fe). They see that they can save effort [doing this kind of practice] and so regard it as correct. They do not even seek wondrous enlightenment but only regard silence as the highest principle (Schliitter 1999: 111). The two most important Caodong masters of the Southern Song were Hongzhi Zhengjue S@i£S (1091-1157) and Zhenxie Qingliao Iff T (1088-1151). From their point of view, Chan was first and foremost a matter of ridding oneself of all the corrosive habits of discursive thinking. Dahui's complaint was that they overemphasised the importance of 'silent illumination' (Ch. mozhao WkW.), and so saw enlightenment as a state of mind. 13 Chan Buddhism 303 Simply by pacifying the mind, one would reach the point of full realisation of one's own original enlightened state, one's own Buddha Nature. But for Dahui enlightenment was not so much a state as an event that had to be worked towards. It seemed to him that they saw the act of meditation itself as the actualisation of enlightenment tout court. Although there was undoubtedly some element of caricature in Dahui's description of Caodong practice, not unrelated to the degree of competition for support among local literati, it is true that they advocated sitting in meditation and emptying the mind until it was a clear mirror. For them one's Buddha Nature manifested itself in the very process of emptying the mind and there was no striving needed; indeed striving could damage and interrupt the process. Buddha Nature as the inherent state of man had to be 'experienced' in.this sense, rather than 'realised', fn the end, it is a question of degree, since we know that Hongzhi himself did use other means, including gong'an, of which he compiled two collections. Whether Dahui's criticism was fair or not, Caodong did become associated with sitting in passive silence - quietening the mind and suppressing thought - inducing a state of unreflective calm, which could not, in Dahui's eyes, lead to the individual achievement of enlightenment. Disagreements such as these would surface again in Japan. 14 Zen Buddhism 305 14 Zen Buddhism 14.1 The beginnings of Zen in Japan Although knowledge of Buddhist techniques of meditation had, of course, been introduced into Japan at an early date, one cannot really talk of the formation of Japanese Zen until the late twelfth century. Chan teachings were indeed known as early as the eighth century, following the arrival of Daoxuan, who taught the monk Gyohyo who, it may be remembered, was Saicho's first mentor. What is more, Saicho claimed to have received instruction from a monk called Xiuran at the Chanlinsi on Mt Tiantai, who identified himself as a follower of the Ox Head tradition. Among the texts that Saicho brought back with him to Japan was a copy of Shenxiu's ff& Guanxin lun and the biography of Huineng, Caoxi dashi biezhuan, mentioned earlier. Although both Saicho and, indeed, Ennin, who came across some rather unruly Chan monks while he was in China, were familiar with early Chan, this was simply incorporated within the Tendai tradition as one element of the practice known as 'constantly-sitting' (joza zanmai ftffiH^), and the term zenso p-if that one comes across in Heian texts meant 'monk adept at meditation' or 'monk whose duties include meditation'. It was not until Japanese started going to China again in the late twelfth and thirteenth r!| centuries that they discovered that in their absence Chan had become the major force in Song Buddhism. Apart from late tantrism and a greatly weakened Tiantai, the older philosophical traditions had almost died out. The figure usually credited with introducing Song Chan into Japan is Myoan Eisai (§13.4), although this happened more by serendipity than by design. Certainly, he, and others like him, did not travel to China with a view to importing an entirely new set of Buddhist ideas and practices, but were more concerned with finding some way of revitalising their own institution. Eisai arrived in 1168 to find that most state-supported Buddhist institutions were now run by Chan abbots, and it was in these monasteries that he found the kind of strict adherence to regulations for which he was looking. His first visit to China, in 1168, lasted only six months. The dominance of Chan meditation practices and the decline in Tiantai and other forms of scholarship with which he must have been familiar came to his attention, of course, but on his return to Japan he continued to study and practise Tendai ritual as normal. On revisiting China almost twenty years later in 1187, however, he first of all asked permission from the Chinese authorities to travel on to India and when that request was refused, he decided to stay on the southeast coast at Wan'niansi H^=# on Mt Tiantai, where he studied for three years under the Chan master Xu'an Huaichang iMMMWL, returning to Japan in 1191 with the necessary certificate showing that he was now a registered Chan master. He began by establishing one or two meditation halls in Kyushu, but on reaching Kyoto ran into considerable opposition from Enryakuji. They did not see why yet another tradition should be given official approval; they were also somewhat resistant to the idea that their discipline might be in need of reform. Eisai was in fact seen as a threat. In 1194 the Tendai establishment secured a temporary ban on his attempts to promote his views, which in turn provoked him to produce the polemical work On protecting the nation through the encouragement of Zen (Kozen gokokuron PUPlSBIfm). Driven out of Kyoto, he arrived in Kamakura, where his rejection by the monks at Enryakuji was seen as more of a recommendation than a bar and where his knowledge of things Chinese was recognised to be an important asset. Hojo Masako ^h^iSc-Tf- (1157-1225), Yoritomo's wife, became his patroness and appointed him founder abbot of Jufukuji fpfi#. Eventually the backing of the shogunate allowed him to return to Kyoto, where he oversaw the building of Kenninji SC#F, completed in 1205. In 1214 he wrote Kissayojoki ?R5r? S£fB for the third shogun Sanetomo (1192-1219) fif§ introducing the culture of tea drinking for the first time. Eisai and men like him were employed by the Kamakura shogunate firstly because they had up-to-date knowledge of China and secondly in their role as ritualists. Perhaps their chief asset was the hostility shown them by the Tendai establishment, for the Hojo were not supporting Zen per se; they were simply taking advantage of a new source, of knowledge and spiritual power that had no existing ties to any other centre of power in Japan to give their rule authority and prestige. Eisai himself was very far from being an advocate of meditation practice to the exclusion of all else - indeed normal Tendai ritual was maintained at both Jufukuji and Kenninji, the latter not even being provided with a hall for communal meditation (sodo f# S), which was usually the focal point in a Zen monastery. The temporary ban imposed on Eisai in 1194 shows that it was not just Pure Land Buddhism that was in danger of prohibition. Part of his self- 304 306 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall 14 Zen Buddhism 307 defence in Kozen gokokuron involved a careful explanation of the fundamental differences between what he understood as Zen and the Zen of the monk Dainichi Nonin A" B MM, who was already infamous as the prime exponent of a movement called the 'Daruma tradition' M JS . Daruma stands for Bodhidharma, but who was Nonin? Until reconstructed by recent scholarship, this group had been effectively written out of history, but we now know that it was quite influential and remained a substantial force until well into the thirteenth century. Certainly, when Nichiren B 21 (§15.3) attacked Zen (among others) eighty years later, he was referring not to Eisai,. but to Nonin. Honen and Dainichi (Nonin) both appeared during the Kennin period [1201-03], and . they gave rise to the Nenbutsu and Zen traditions. Honen said: 'Since we have entered the period of the final Dharma, not even one man in a thousand has obtained any benefit from the Lotus sutra.' Dainichi said: 'The transmission [of truth] is something special, independent of teachings.' The country is filled with these two teachings. The scholars of Tendai and Shingon flatter and fear the patrons of Nenbutsu and Zen; they are like dogs wagging their tails in front of their masters, like mice afraid of cats.1 The scholar-monk Kokan Shiren fftfflffiiW. (1278-1348), also writing somewhat tendentiously in his History of the Sakyamuni [tradition, written] in the Genko era (Genko shakusho TXl^MW) of 1322, explained Nonin's role as follows: Having heard of the popularity of the [Chan] school in Song China, a certain Nonin sent his disciples there to question the dhydna master Fozhao [Dejguang of Ayuwang '■' shan. Impressed by the faith of these strangers, [Fo]zhao took pity on them and offered them a Dharma-robe and a picture of Bodhidharma. Nonin, bragging of these courtesy gifts, began to spread Chan teachings: But since he lacked a direct transmission from a master as well as a disciplinary code, the people of the capital scorned him. When Eisai began to preach the mind, the nobility and common people alike confused him with Nonin and wanted to reject him ... [Finally] Hieizan monks ■' supported his Zen preaching. Eisai debated several times with Nonin on doctrinal matters and eventually defeated him (Faure 1987: 29).. Kokan Shiren's bias is probably responsible for the disappearance of Nonin from history. It is generally accepted that Nonin did in fact send two students to meet Choan [Fozhao] Deguang MM[BM]W.it (1121-1203), who had studied under Dahui Zonggao, their mission being to request certification of Nonin as a Chan master. Bizarrely, this request was granted and on the ' From Kaimokusho Hag>, quoted in Faure 1987: 28, the source of much that follows. strength of this he became a well-known figure in Japan. Exactly how he became interested in Chan in the first place and how he first conceived of setting up as a master in his own right is not known. But then, given that Chan was so prominent in Song China, it might seem surprising that this move came so late in the day. What comes as no surprise is the response of the Buddhist establishment in Japan. They saw any move to isolate what they saw as one element of Tendai practice, 'constantly-sitting', and to transform it into a separate tradition as a threat, above all a political problem. Nonin was an obvious and easy target because the claim that he had received legitimate transmission was preposterous, and other claims, such as the idea that his 'school' was in possession of various important Buddhist relics, for example, were also open to attack. Among the recently discovered Daruma texts is one entitled 'On the attainment of bodhisattva awakening' (Joto shogakuron jS#~IESin). This text is made up of three sections: a history of Chan, starting with the usual legendary material about Bodhidharma and ending with the arrival of Zen in Japan with Nonin's students; a discussion of the phrase 'the mind itself is the Buddha'; and lastiy, a description of the benefits that reciting the text itself would bring. The discussion in the second section makes great play of the idea that one simply looks for one's own Buddha Nature to achieve enlightenment. From the attacks made on Nonin by Eisai and others, it would seem that his understanding of Zen had certain antinomian elements, which could easily fall into the assumption that practice and meditation were unnecessary. This would explain, of course, why he had popular appeal and why his success was viewed with such anxiety. Not surprisingly, Eisai tried to distance himself from precisely this aspect: Someone asked: 'Some people recklessly call the Daruma tradition Zen. But they themselves say that there are no precepts to follow, no practices to engage in. From the outset there are no passions; from the beginning we are enlightened. Therefore do not practice, do not follow the precepts, eat when hungry, rest when tired. Why practice nenbutsu, why give maigre feasts, why curtail eating? How can this be?' Eisei replied that the adherents of the Daruma tradition are those who are described in the sutras as having a false view of emptiness. One must not speak with them or associate with them, and must keep as far away as possible (Faure 1987: 39).2 Another aspect of this early form of medieval Zen was the cult of Buddha relics which, it was said, had been brought back from China by Nonin's 1 From the chapter entitled 'On solving the doubts of worldly people' tft Aft^im in Kozen gokokuron. 308 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall students. These were enshrined in the Sanboji Hf#, a Tendai temple in Settsu Province, as further proof of legitimacy, and, together with a robe supposedly handed down through Fozhao Deguang, they soon became the object of intense worship. The influence of this Daruma tradition was felt most strongly among the followers of the monk Dogen (1200-53). 14.2 Eihei Dogen Dogen jijfi studied first as a Tendai monk on Hieizan, moving to Kemiinji in 1217 to study under one of Eisai's students, Myozen (1184-1225). In 1223 he accompanied Myozen to China, to the Jingdesi M ® # on Mt Tiantong 3z m LU , where they studied under a Linji master called Wuji Liaopai M IS T W.. Myozen died there two years later and when Dogen returned to Japan in 1227 he brought MySzen's ashes back with him. There are two traditional sources for our information about Dogen in China: the Record from the Baoqing era [1225-27] (Hokyoki MUfB), which purports to be a record of notes taken at the time, but which is now accepted to be an edited version of D5gen's reminiscences produced by the Daruma monk Koun Ejo (ffiSISP, 1198-1280) soon after Dogen's death; and Kernel's record (Kenzeiki SlffiftlB),- a hagiography written by the fourteenth abbot of Eiheiji zKT#, Kenzei (1415-74), but read in modern times in the form of a heavily annotated edition (Teiho Kenzeiki IT ffi 7M fift 13), produced by the Tokugawa-period scholar-monk Menzan Zuiho jSUjS^ (1683-1769). The narrative we glean from these texts tells us that Dogen had considerable difficulty in finding a Chan master with whom he felt an affinity, and that he travelled to a number of monasteries in Zhejiang Province, including visits to Tiantai and Jingshan M Ul, in his quest for the right teacher. What he was looking for was an answer as to why practice and meditation were necessary, if all we were being asked to. do was realise that we were already enlightened; in other words, why was the Daruma tradition wrong? A full two years later he finally returned to the Qingdesi, where he 'discovered' the master Tiantong Ruing ^m.$UW (1163-1228), who had been appointed abbot there in late 1224. Rujing, it turned out, was a trenchant critic of most Southern Song monks and monasteries, considering them far too lax; as a monk of the Caodong lineage he had a particular dislike of the use of koan, preferring to stress instead the virtues of silent meditation (Jp. shikan taza .Riffle). Dogen knew immediately that this was the master with whom he wished to achieve enlightenment, an aim in which he eventually succeeded, 14 Zen Buddhism 309 casting off body and mind (Jp. shinjin datswaku jSSr.il). He received a certificate of succession and a robe, and returned to Japan as a fully fledged Zen master with a recognised lineage. Just as Kukai had returned to Japan four hundred years earlier embodying within himself the succession of Shingon, so Dogen embodied the flame of the line of Caodong, which was not just transmitted but bodily transferred to Japan. The problem with this account, as with so many other stories that deal with Japanese monks in China, is that very little of it is verifiable. from contemporary sources. No one has yet tried to argue that Dogen never went to China at all, but there is little sign in his writings that he travelled very widely, or that he ever left Jingdesi for any length of time (Heine 2003). What is more, the presentation of Rujing as a revered master who had passed on to Dogen the one true form of Chan practice is only attested in Japanese writings that date from well after Dogen's return to Japan. Rujing himself is hardly mentioned in standard histories of Chinese Chan and seems to have been little more than simply one of the abbots of an important monastery; he belongs to history as Dogen's teacher, in much the same way that Huiguo is chiefly known as Kukai's master. What remains of his teachings, as preserved in two short collections that only survive in Japanese editions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, gives little sign that he had ever been dismissive of normal Linji practice.3 So one needs to be aware that Rujing lives almost entirely through Dogen. There seems to be no doubt that he was of the Caodong lineage, but, as we have seen in Chapter 13, the automatic link that is often made between Caodong and the advocacy of exclusive silent meditation is highly problematic. But more of this later. Back in Kyoto in 1227, Dogen first stayed at Kemiinji but moved south three years later to Fukakusa, where he eventually established a small monastery of his own, the Gokurakuji Ss^xf. It is thought that he may have written an early version of his manual on meditation techniques, the Universal promotion of the principles of seated meditation (Fukan zazengi ia ffijlEif H), about this time, although the earliest extant copy is an autograph dated 1233. In 1231 he wrote 'Bendowa' PJttfS, a series of questions and answers that explain his understanding of Zen Buddhism in Japanese. From the very beginning he was determined to be independent of Tendai and to transmit what he considered to be the true way to enlightenment. This allowed him doctrinal freedom, but by the same token cut him off from 3 Bidefeldt 1985: 27. We are told that a copy of Rujing's 'recorded sayings* only reached Dogen in !242. 310 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfall traditional forms of patronage. Nevetheless, he managed to raise enough funds to start building a meditation hall at Fukakusa and in 1236 he renamed the growing complex Koshoji Sit.4 Two years earlier, in 1234, he had been joined by Ejo, whose record of Dogen's teaching at Fukakusa, Zuimonki MfHlfB, is still used today as a beginner's introduction to Zen, despite the fact that it reveals areas of fundamental disagreement between Dogen and Ejo. Ejo himself was joined in 1241 by a further group of Daruma followers, together with their master Ekan SH. Suddenly, late in 1243, Dogen upped sticks, left Koshoji, and moved his whole group to a new and extremely isolated area in Echizen. The reasons for this abrupt departure are not known: it may have been that pressure from Hieizan became too intense, particularly since he was now harbouring members of a group that was considered heterodox and disruptive, but another factor may have been his discovery of an entirely new source of patronage, the locally based warrior class on which he was to rely for the rest of his life. His chief support from this time on was a man called Hatano Yoshishige &#IFiilll, a Kamakura Bakufu retainer, who offered him both land and the resources to start building. In 1246 the monastery was given the name Eiheiji ^hPtF. During the last seven years of his life Dogen concentrated on writing a series of works on monastic regulations. These dictate in close detail the correct way to comport oneself within the monastery on a daily basis, how to work, eat and indeed defecate. Based on the principle that all actions were connected to enlightenment and that one of the best ways to express the concept of non-self was to subject oneself to strict regulations, they formed the basis of what is now known as the Eihei Code (Eihei shingi ^cTff S). Perhaps the most important of these tracts was 'Bendoho' Pilfe, which set down rules as to how monks were to sit, sleep, move about in the meditation hall and meditate (Beilefeldt 1988: 50). He also encouraged the participation of local lay men and women in rituals such as the recitation of the precepts, so that Eiheiji soon became recognised as an. important place of spiritual power. That said, however, he was not interested in collapsing the distinction between monk and lay supporter and in fact strengthened it as.time went on. How Dogen managed to coexist with members of the Daruma tradition who came with Ejo and Ekan is still a mystery, for there was undoubtedly considerable tension, as the following exchange between Ejo and Gikai (dated c.1254) illustrates; both men were originally Daramashu adherents: 4 This name was a reference to Xingsheng wanshousi PHfiUJBpTf on Jingshan. 14 Zen Buddhism 311 Gikai: My Dharma comrades of past years would say: 'The Buddhist [expression], "All evil refrain from doing; all good reverently perform" (shoaku makusa skuzen bugyo ISSl#f if !J) actually means that within [true] Buddhism all evil ultimately has been retrained from and all activities are Buddhism . ; .' Therefore merely lifting an arm or movhig a leg - whatever one does, whatever phenomena one produces - all embody [true] Buddhism ... Ejo: In our master's [i.e. Dogen's] community there were some who spread such heterodox views. That is why he cut off all contact with them while he was still alive. Clearly die reason he expelled them was because they held these false doctrines. Those who wish to honour the Buddhism [taught by] our master will not talk or sit with such [heretics]. This was our master's final instruction (Bodiford 1993: 34). This suggests that in the end those who insisted on retaining their antinomian beliefs and refused to submit to Dogen's strict regime were forced to leave the community, but we simply do not have enough information to be sure. There is much that is contradictory in D5gen's writings, for the main reason that his attitude to Zen theory and practice seems to have undergone a series of changes after his return to Japan. Take, for example, his attitude to his putative master Rujing. Before 1240, Rujing is mentioned only occasionally in Dogen's writings and lectures, and even then he is not singled out for particular praise. Neither is there any overt criticism of Dahui Zonggao. In 'Bendowa', for example, Dogen writes of five lineages without any sign of opprobrium: The Sixth Patriarch had two 'supernatural feet': Huaizhang of Nanyue and Xingsi of Qingyuan. Both carried on the transmission of the Buddha seal, becoming the teachers of men and gods. As their two factions developed, they opened five gates: the schools of Fayan, Guiyang, Caodong, Yunmen, and Linji. Today in the great Song, it is the Linji school alone that dominates everywhere. The five houses differ, but they all [bear] the one Buddha mind seal (Bielefeldt 1985: 31, adapted). From 1240 onwards, however, we find a marked shift; the Caodong lineage, and Rujing in particular, is given increased emphasis as Dogen felt the need to carve out a space for himself. By 1243 and the tract 'Butsudo' #&)fi this had developed into a militant claim that Caodong was the only true line and that names for various lineages zf? should be abandoned entirely, since they were misleading: there was only one transmission, the rest were fictions. The treasury of the eye of the true Dharma of the Old Buddha [Huineng] was correctly transmitted only to the Eminent Patriarch Qingyuan. Even if we concede that [Huineng] had two 'supernatural feet' equally possessed of the way, the Eminent Patriarch [Qingyuan] represents the sole pace of the true supernatural foot . . . The Great Master Dongshan [Liangjie] was the legitimate successor in the fourth generation after Qingyuan. He correctly received the transmission of the treasury of the 312 From Tôdaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall eye of the true Dharrna and opened the eye of the marvelous mind of nirvana. There is no other transmission; there is no other school (Bielefeldt 1985: 31-32, adapted). It is at this point that Dôgen, in the essay 'Sesshin sesshô' !EJí>SŽtt (1243), for example, attacks the degeneracy of Southern Song Chan as exemplified by Dahui and his student Choan Deguang, and in the process he begins to exaggerate the degree of antagonism between the various traditions. Why? It will be remembered that Deguang was the master from whom Nônin had claimed succession. It has been suggested, most plausibly, that it was the presence of Daruma monks in his community that led Dôgen to pick a doctrinal fight with Deguang and, by extension, with the whole Dahui lineage. The criticism itself was certainly doctrinal, but the motive was political. Neither should we forget that if Dôgen was trying to carve out an authoritative position for himself, he had also to define himself vis-á-vis other groups of Zen monks, who, as we shall see from the next section, were rapidly outpacing his own group in terms of influence, patronised by the good and the great. His own Kôshôji, for example, was dwarfed by the new Tôŕukuji which had been built just next door. He was thus inexorably led to define his own vision of what Zen should be in contrast to those who traced their own lineage back to Linji (Jp. Rinzai), making use of Rujing and the Caodong label for what was largely domestic purposes. This exaggerated stance was taken up much later in the writings of Tokugawa Soto sect apologists, in particular Menzan Zuihô, who strengthened the polarity of the argument and claimed that Dôgen had only ever been interested in 'quiet meditation' (shikan taza) to the exclusion of all else. Dahui, in particular, who had championed the cause of contemplating short phrases {kanna zen #fffp) and criticised Caodong practice as mere passive quietism that forgot the importance of sudden enlightenment, was treated as being quite beyond the pale. Unfortunately, although this may well have served the immediate interests of Menzan, who was involved in a difficult struggle of his own with other Zen sects, such a view of Dôgen does not fit the facts as we now have them. If Dôgen was indeed critical of the use of koan, how was it that while still in Kyoto in 1235 he produced a collection of koan cases, entitled Eye of the true Dharrna: three hundred precedents (Shôbô genzô sanbyakusoku M), the title of which was probably taken from a similar collection edited by none other than Dahui himself? And how was it that a few years later he began a project to write extended commentaries on these cases? In the end, the nature of the enterprise changed somewhat and the result was the large collection of essays in Japanese entitled Eye of the true Dharrna {Shôbô genzô IE ÍŽ IS M), written over the 14 Zen Buddhism 313 period 1231 to 1253, for which he is so famous. The fact remains, however, that many of these essays are rooted in a discussion of one or two koan.5 On more careful analysis, it turns out that the criticism of Dahui, which had admittedly been started by Dogen himself and then picked up by Menzan and exaggerated, was really limited to Dahui's arguments in favour of kanna zen and his concentration on the short word or phrase (wato fSK). It was not that Dogen decried the use of koan per se; he merely had different ideas as to how they should be best used. The idea of kanna zen had emerged from a desire to negate the intellectualism that came from the study of such a complex literary product as a koan, with its multiple voices, its interlocking layers of authority, and its fascination with language. This worry was such that, as already mentioned, a myth had even grown up that Dahui had tried to destroy the woodblocks of Yuanwu's Emerald Cliff record. Dogen, in his turn, saw yet another way to use koan. If Dahui was concerned to condense the case into a single word and then to concentrate on that one word, the Dogen that we find operating in the Eye of the true Dharrna did exactly the opposite, adding his own particular brand of complexity, embracing the fertility and plurality of language itself in order to produce in the individual an awareness of the shifting sands on which bis thought always stood. Perhaps the best example of this is the essay 'The ungraspable mind' (Shinfukatoku >fo~^W#), which deals with the case of the Zen master Deshan W. ill, an expert on the Diamond sutra, who stopped one day to buy some refreshments (Ch. dianxin, Jp. tenshin Ife'D*) by the roadside. The old woman asks him: 'According to the Diamond siitra, the past mind is ungraspable, the present mind is ungraspable, and the future mind is ungraspable. So, where is the mind >\j that you now seek to refresh K with rice cakes?' Deshan is simply struck dumb at this sophisticated piece of wordplay. The general response to this koan was to praise the old woman as being enlightened. The kanna zen response to this would have been to concentrate on the word 'tenshin', but Dogen takes the opportunity to expand. He criticises the koan for stopping at that point and proceeds to invent a further conversation that builds on it No point, he says, in just praising the enlightenment of the old woman. Better to retort and ask her: 'As past mind is ungraspable, present mind is ungraspable, and future mind ungraspable, where is the mind that now makes the rice calces used for refreshment?', in which case the old woman could have responded: 'You know that one cannot refresh the mind with a rice cake. But you do not realise that the mind refreshes the rice cake, 5 The following discussion makes much use of Heine 1994. 314 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfall or that the mind refreshes the mind.' And so on, and so on (Heine 1994: 254-56). Just as Dogen's collection of 300 koan are given quite straightforward commentaries rather than the juxtaposition of cryptic phrases that one finds in more normal koan collections, so the essays and sermons in the Eye of the true Dharma are prolix rather than cryptic, discursive rather than disjointed. Dogen is not afraid of explaining at length. This does not really make him any less difficult, but it does pull Zen prose in quite a new direction; there is a poetic quality to his writing. Take, for example, the following from 'Koan as manifest activity' (Genjo koan Mffi&M): Enlightenment is like the moon that dwells in water. The moon does not get wet and the water is not broken. It is a broad, bright light but dwells in a foot or an inch of water. The whole moon, the whole sky dwells in the dew on the grass, in a single drop of water. Enlightenment does not break the person, just as the moon does not break the water. Just as the man does not stop enlightenment, so the dew drop does not hinder the sky or the moon. Depth can be measured as height; time can be measured by volume of water and by breadth of sky and moon (Terada and Mizuno 1970, vol I 37). But what of Dogen's attitude to what is usually considered the most important activity for Zen monks, the act of seated meditation (zazen MS) itself? We must not be misled by Tokugawa Soto masters trying to tell us that Dogen's special form of 'just sitting' (shikan taza) was unique, somehow different from all other techniques of meditation. One text that has occasioned a good deal of study in this regard is his meditation manual Fukan zazengi. As already stated, although it is possible that a manual was written immediately after DSgen's return to Japan, the earliest example we have is an autograph dated 1233 (the so-called Tenpuku MS), which is in fact little more than a revision of the section on meditation entitled 'Zuochan yi' IESH, in the standard Chanyuan qinggui of 1103. It in fact had no influence because it remained in manuscript form until quite recently. The commonly available text (rufubon) of Fukan zazengi, however, is of much later provenance and represents a revision of this first manual. This second version, still in use today, was first extracted by Menzan from Eihei kdroku, a collection of Ddgen's discussions and writings edited by Ejo and published by Manzan Dohaku (1636-1715) in 1673 (Bielefeldt 1988: 36). It has been dated somewhere between 1242 and 1246, just at the time Dogen was establishing himself, attacking Dahui, and drawing legitimacy from a newly defined role given to Rujing and the Caodong/Sotd lineage as the true heirs of the patriarchal tradition. J 4 Zen Buddhism 315 The key question as regards meditation was how the monk was supposed to control the mind during practice. Whereas someone like the Tiantai master Zhiyi had gone into considerable technical detail about how one should go about preparing oneself mentally for the ordeal, Zongze's rather simple text pays little attention to this aspect and even runs the risk of appearing to support an entirely passive approach to simply clearing the mind. In the second version of Fukan zazengi, Dogen puts it as follows: Sitting fixedly, think of not minking. How do you think of not thinking? Nonthinking. This is the essential art of zazen. Zazen is not the practice of dh.ya.na (trance): it is just the entrance to the Dharma of ease and joy. It is the practice and verification of ultimate bodhi. The koan realized, baskets and cages cannot get to it (Bielefeldt 1988: 181, adapted). Whether this really helps us to understand is a moot point, because it somewhat begs the question of how we can think of non-thinking, how we can use the mind against itself, detach ourselves from the stream of discursive thoughts that the mind continually provides us with when awake (or asleep). What is clear, however, is that Dogen was as concerned as other Zen masters to counteract any idea that simply emptying the mind and avoiding all thought was the answer, because that would be too easy, an example of 'mental vacuity' (kyokin buji or of 'suspending thoughts and freezing the mind' (sokuryo gydshin J, liSE't>) (Bielefeldt 1988: 136). To think of non-thinking had to be an active procedure, whereby every thought that arises is not so much killed as dissolved within itself, turned back on itself in a radical form of reflexivity. This was, of course, one of the reasons why no Zen master could seriously ignore the use of koan, which provided a mode of discourse that forced the mind to think against itself, whether via the path of building up a creative intellectual impasse or via concentration on a single word. When Dogen died in 1253, the community at Eiheiji was faced with a problem. He left no obvious monk to fill his shoes and his success had been largely built on his own charisma as a teacher. Ejo took over the leadership, but he lacked Dogen's authority and was not immune from challenge. Somehow, however, the group held together. Dogen's senior students, men like Giin (1217-1300) and Gikai «^ (1219-1309), both of whom used the character 'gi' that identified them as Daruma followers, spread out into various parts of Japan founding a series of monasteries. Giin founded Daijiji in Kyushu in 1282, patronage for which came from a warrior family with close ties to the Hatano. He had studied in China in 1264-65 and had gone there, so it is said, to obtain Chinese recognition for Dogen's goroku. 316 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall Gikai had studied under Ekan and had strong local ties in the Echizen region. After making efforts to finish the construction of Eiheiji and being appointed third abbot from 1267 to 1272, he then moved northeast into Kaga to found Daijoji Jz^^r. It was here that he was joined by Keizan Jokin II lilffili (1264-1325), who succeeded him as abbot in 1298 and whom many see as the 'second founder' of what would eventually become known as the Soto tradition. By 1300 there were five largely independent groups based on five monasteries: Daijiji in Kyushu, Daijoji in Kaga, Eiheiji in Echizen, Hokyoji Wit^f also in Echizen, and Yokoan %MM in Kyoto. Much of the history of this period from Dogen's death to 1300 is obscure, and things are made much more difficult by the fact that what sources we do have are tendentious in the extreme. What is clear, however, is that these monks had discovered a rich and relatively untapped source of patronage: local warriors and local farmers who had become wealthy landowners in their own right. It was a combination of this discovery and the willingness (indeed positive desire) of the monks themselves to travel throughout rural Japan and proselytise in areas remote from the traditional bases of power that laid the foundation for what was to become one of the largest Buddhist organisations in the land. There were two other reasons for its eventual success. Firstly, the nature of the monks themselves. Up to this point the higher echelons in monasteries had been those scholar-monks (gakuryo |B{g) who were capable of reading difficult doctrinal texts and surras; those who were given jobs such as perforrning menial tasks and routine rituals such as chanting surras or sitting in meditation were distinctly second class (Bodiford 1993: 16). Dogen, however, reversed these priorities: he wrote essays on the importance of cooks and bothered himself with the minutiae of everyday life. The ability to meditate was given a much higher profile than before and knowledge of the written tradition thereby reduced in importance. Huineng, after all, had been an illiterate. All these differences drew in a different kind of monk, the kind of person who was quite happy to live away from the main centres of population. Secondly, although Dogen and his followers might have been exclusive about their own practice, they were only too willing to fit in to what was a very eclectic landscape, taking care not. to denigrate local spirits, and becoming closely involved with mountain cults wherever they found themselves. Without this flexibility and the awareness of what was felt to be sacred in the population at large, this sect would never have achieved the popularity it did. 14 Zen Buddhism 317 14.3 Official patronage Dogen and those who came after him made a conscious choice to stay away from the centres of power and seek life and patronage in the provinces; and this turned out to be the source of much of their strength. But there was another very different kind of Zen institution developing, one patronised by the new rulers in Kamakura for largely political ends. Not that members of the Kyoto aristocracy were uninterested. They in fact became great patrons themselves, but as an institution the court was too closely identified with Tendai and Shingon to be able to lay exclusive claim to Zen for their own. Kamakura, on the other hand, needed a new spiritual backing for its new authority, and Southern Song Zen offered interesting possibilities. Not only was it a form of Buddhism free from ties to Kyoto, but the monks involved were men who had recent experience of living in China; they were a valuable commodity. Once it became clear that Kamakura was interested in becoming patron to a new group of religious advisers, the number of monks travelling to China increased rapidly. We have seen how Eisai was given protection by Hqjo Masako and allowed to set up operations at Jufukuji in the very early years of the century. Dogen went to China in 1223. Enni Ben'en HlfSIH (1202-80), who came from a similar background, left Japan in 1235 and stayed for six years studying at Jingshan under the Linji master Wuzhun Shifan iS^PSSSS (1177-1249). This choice, if choice it really was, was to have interesting consequences. Wuzhun Shifan happened to belong not to the dominant lineage that traced itself back to Dahui Zhonggao, but to a rival group that claimed its lineage from Huqiu Shaolong ^SWffiil (1077-1136). The Huqiu tradition was in turn split into two factions, one descended from Poan Zuxian (1136-1211) and the other from Songyuan Chongyue (1132-1202). Later, in the fourteenth century, this question of affiliation was to have important political ramifications. After his return to Japan in 1241, Enni continued to correspond with his Chinese master, with the result that a large number of Japanese monks were to receive their frairhng at Jingshan. Obtaining the patronage of Kujo Michiie (1192-1252), for whom he wrote Shoichi hogo H — to explain the essentials of Zen, he managed to resist pressure from Emyakuji and eventually became the founder of the impressive complex in Kyoto known as Tofukuji He was eclectic in his practice arid continued the Japanese tradition of lecturing on tantric texts alongside the practice of meditation, but 318 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfall at least Tömkuji was organised as a Zen monastery under the correct regulations, with Zen ritual, bureaucratic structure, and four daily sessions of mandatory zazen? Staying for most of the time in Kyoto rather than Kamakura, Enni was fortunate in his patron and kept close ties with the aristocracy. One of his students, Mukan Gengo ftlliS'lfl (1212-91), in turn became the founder of Nanzenji fSjSNf. It was at this stage, in the mid-thirteenth century, that something entirely unexpected happened: a number of Chinese Chan masters decided to move to Japan. By no means all of them were actually invited, and each one of them must have had his own reasons. In some cases the perceived threat from the Mongols was enough to persuade them to move; in others it may have been as a result of factional rivalry and marginalisation. Whatever the causes, one should not underestimate either the dangers of the voyage or the boldness of the move. It was to have a lasting impact on Japan, for it was really a result of the arrival of these men, more than a dozen in all, that Zen eventually took such strong root in Japan and was not simply re-absorbed into Tendai. The man who did more than anyone to bring this about was the fifth regent Höjö Tokiyori tiUHfffi (1227-63). 'Tokiyori was the first member of the Höjö family, and one of the first Japanese laymen, to explore fully the religious and philosophical assumptions of Zen, to devote himself seriously to the practice of Zen meditation and confrontation with a Zen master (mondo), and to finance the building of monasteries in which Song Zen monastic discipline and practice were enforced' (Collcutt 1981: 58). It is important to remember, however, that men like Tokiyori looked to Zen masters to provide cultural and spiritual prestige; the positing of some natural affiliation between Zen principles and the warrior ethos is little more than a modern myth. The first such Chinese master to arrive was Lanqi Daolong 18 K ät IH (1213-78), who came in 1246. Making his way up to Kamakura, he soon came to the attention of Tokiyori, who built for him Kenchöji MA^f. This was to be the first Zen monastery in Japan properly modelled on Song lines, with no concessions being made to either Tendai or Shingon practice. He soon had an enrolment of several hundred monks. Lanqi stressed daily meditation sessions and discussion of köan, together with strict observance of the regulations. Tokiyori also extended his patronage to Wuan Püning 7G(SÜf ¥ (1197-1276), a renowned master who was already in his sixties when he arrived in Japan. He became the second abbot of Kenchöji, allowing Lanqi to move to Kyoto to transform both Kenninji and Töfukuji into more recog- 6 CoSlcutt 1981: 45. Collcutt is the source for much that follows. 14 Zen Buddhism 319 nisable Song-style Zen monasteries. Wuan Püning found Tokiyori a good disciple and granted him a seal of transmission (inks f?l rlf ), thereby recognising his achievement of enlightenment; in the end, however, he found it very difficult to adapt to life in Japan and after Tokiyori died in 1263 he requested to be allowed to return to China. When Lanqi himself died in 1274, Tokiyori's son Höjö Tokimune B# f? (1251-84) sent for a replacement, Wuxue Zuyuan iHPÜBÄ (1226-86). This too turned out to be a fruitful relationship, although we should not be too quick to paint a picture of a military ruler debasing himself in front of a Chinese monk. The following tale probably illustrates more accurately what the real relation was between these two men: In their encounters, the Chinese monk, Zen master though he was, did not forget that he was dealing with the most powerful warrior in Japan. Discussions on Zen were conducted through an interpreter. When the master wished to strike his disciple for incomprehension or to encourage greater effort, the blows fell on the interpreter (Collcutt 1981: 72). This points up an extraordinary fact that is easily forgotten: more often than not, when a Chinese master was involved, Zen was not taught verbally but via written dialogue (hitsudan f 1). Interpreters were available for a man like Tokimune, of course, but within a monastery the only language that master and student normally had in common was written Chinese. Little wonder then that Zen in the larger official monasteries patronised by the Kamakura authorities became increasingly involved with the ability to read and write classical Chinese, which in turn demanded a good knowledge of Chinese culture. Somewhat ironically for a practice supposedly based on the spoken word and direct person-to-person interaction, texts became even more important in Japan than they had been in China. The monk Mingji Chuzhun ifgt (1264-1336) put it well when he sent a poem to his patron Otomo Sadamune that read in part: Not long after I arrived to live nearby as a guest We made good friends and got to know each other well. To communicate my feelings I used a brush to transmit my speech And you grasped my meaning by using your eyes to hear my words. (Pollack 1985: 157, adapted). And what of the life within these monasteries? The Zen monastery and its lifestyle are today so accepted as Japanese that it is difficult to realize how exotic the new Zen monasteries must have seemed in the thirteenth century. Not only were monastery buildings different in style, disposition, 320 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall and furnishing from anything existing in Japan;, the robes of Zen monks, their manner of walking and bowing, their etiquette before and after eating, bathing, and even : defecating were also distinctive. So too were the sounds of the Zen monastery: the signals on bells, clappers, and gongs that regulated the meditative pattern of daily life; the musical accompaniment of the ceremonies and chants; even the style of sfitra chanting. The vocabulary of Zen monastic life included hundreds of terms unfamilar to Japanese ears. And, as a final reminder of the foreign origin of the institution, spoken Chinese was heard frequently . . . until the end of the thirteenth century, and the Chinese literary flavour continued to thicken in the fourteenth. The new Zen monasteries were outposts of Chinese religion and culture in medieval Japanese society (Collcutt 1981: 171-72). The three most important buildings in the monastery were the Buddha Hall (butsuden #1 MS), the Dharma Hall (haito SJi) and the Monks' Hall (soda 1if !sl). Of these the Buddha Hall housed images and was used for devotional prayers. The Dharma Hall was similar to the lecture halls in traditional temples except that it was designed not for disquisitions and lectures on the sutras but for discussion between the abbot and monks in open assembly. It was the Monks' Hall, however, that was peculiar to Zen. Previously in Japan monks had lived in separate small cells. In a Zen monastery the rule was communal living and it was in the Monks' Hall that they all sat in meditation, ate their meals and slept. Their personal living space was restricted to one mat on a long knee-high platform, just deep enough to allow them to stretch out and sleep when necessary (Collcutt 1981: 206-15). The life of all monks was rigidly governed by rules and regulations, which helped to bring home to the monk a number of Buddhist 'truths': that every daily activity of whatever hue was an enlightened act; that enlightenment would only be found through strenuous exertion and the willingness to undergo privation; and that the self did not exist. These rules were central to Zen of no matter what persuasion and ranged from instructions on how to meditate to how to eat, wash and carry oneself. 15 Reform from within and without 15.1 The Saidaiji community Both Honen and Shinran were ordained, but had become disillusioned with the way in which the Tendai tradition had allowed itself to become mired in secular and political matters; they questioned the relationship between Buddhism and secular authority, re-evaluated the raison d'etre of the sahgha, and professed a radical egalitarianism. Both men were convinced that their brand of popular devotion was the only path to salvation in a degenerate age; it was precisely this strength of conviction that ensured they became sectarian founders but it also ensured that they incurred the enmity of both the ecclesiastical authorities and those who ruled Japan. There was an open recognition that then radicalism amounted to a denial of the sahgha: it was too dangerous to gain wide support. But not all such reformers caused antagonism. We also have examples of priests and monks who had just as strong convictions, but who preferred to work within the system, putting their ideas into practice with the active help of at least some sections of the establishment. They knew only too well that standards in monasteries were lax and that the very success of Buddhism, especially as regards its relationship with the state, had led to a secularisation with which they were uncomfortable. One such was Eison WiM (1201—90). Eison was the son of a Kofukuji scholar-monk, something that should give pause for thought precisely because it sounds so normal. Shinran was excoriated for taking a wife but in fact it was only too common in the older monasteries. Eison received the usual precepts at Todaiji and spent his early years studying tantric practice at Daigoji, but then at some stage he began to have serious doubts as to whether his ordination had been really valid according to a strict interpretation of the rules, and in 1234 he was given permission to join a small band of six monks at the Hotoin Hflrl^ at Saidaiji MJ\^r who were engaged in a strict regime of observing the precepts to the letter (Groner 2001 and 2004). Attending lectures on the four-part vinaya at T5daiji, he became more and more convinced that his ordination had indeed 321 322 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall been invalid, since the monks who had carried it out had not themselves been correctly ordained and were not themselves living according to the precepts. Many were, like his father, married. This laxity had been the norm ever since the tradition created by Jianzhen lapsed, but it was only now, when the country and its traditions seemed to be falling apart around their ears, that some members of the sahgha began to take matters into their own hands. Eison himself began to prepare very carefully for a self-ordination ceremony (jisei jukai @ W S Jfi), memorising and chanting the precepts, performing rituals of confession, and looking for a dream or a sign that he was ready. Finally, in 1236, he broke out of the normal pattern and in the company of some monks of like mind, including Kakujo (1194-1249), Enjo it (1180-1241) and Ugon ^ft (1186-1275), he performed the ceremony in front of a statue of Avalokitesvara in the Hokkedo S^il at Todaiji. A statue, given the right environment and the right practitioners, was felt to have the presence and power to confer precepts on a monk. Self-ordination of this type had been generally accepted for the shorter Mahayana precepts (the bosatsukai) but this occasion was rather different, since Eison and his companions were taking upon themselves the full 250 gusokukai. Since the procedure was not officially sanctioned and relied on private conviction, he knew it would be a highly contentious act and took great care to make a record of the event and the activities leading up to it. Eison and his companions knew that they had taken an extremely radical step, particularly as it had been performed at Todaiji, where he had previously been ordained on the more usual, 'correct' platform. It could be seen as inviting chaos, and it could also be taken as an insult to other monks; hardly surprising that he and his fellow monks found life at KSfukuji difficult as a result. He moved to the Kairyudji WWSM, where he hoped to be able to settle. The monks in this temple were devoted to a set of precepts that had been brought back from China by Shunjo itfB (1166-1227). Shunjo had studied in the Hangzhou-Mingzhou area from 1199 to 1212, returning with a large number of texts (327 vinaya, 716 Tendai, 175 Kegon, 256 Confucian or Neo-Confucian). Unfortunately not even a list of these works is extant, but we know that tiiey were eventually brought to a temple in Higashiyama, formerly named H5rinji ffifl^f but restored for Shunjo and then renamed Sennyuji ^St?.1 In the end, however, Eison fell out with these monks as well and moved on to the dilapidated grounds of Saidaiji, which he set about 1 Walton 1989. It became a tradition to inter the ashes of sovereigns at Sennyuji. This began with Shijo Tenno, who died in 1242, and ended with Komei Tenno in the early Meiji period. 15 Reform from within and without 323 restoring. Here he created a new order of monks, which over the years has been given a number of different and highly tendentious labels; we shall call it the ' Saidaiji order'. Eison set about instituting the correct procedures for fortnightly assemblies, as stipulated in the vinaya. He ran into criticism from both Kdfukuji and Todaiji, of course, for being so literal, but in general the attacks on him were not as virulent as one might expect. Perhaps there was a recognition that, unlike Honen, he was not denying the validity of the sahgha; he was actually devoted to strengthening it. Neither was the position at Saidaiji without its own contradictions. Once a new order had been established, it was in the interests of monks like Eison and Kakujo not to encourage any further such activity, since this would have led to a plethora of new orders and eventual breakdown. Indeed, although in the beginning he made no distinction between different kinds of precepts, offering a comprehensive one (tsukai M?S) for all monks entering his community, he eventually returned to the kind of ordination conferred at Todaiji. The details of these shifts (although of major importance to those who were involved) cannot be dealt with here; suffice it to say that Eison and his community were committed to following the precepts to the letter, which was unusual enough for them to stand out. The restoration of the serious study and practice of the vinaya that began in the Saidaiji community was mirrored by a revival in religious establishments for women. It has been shown in the course of this history that official nunneries all but died out in the early Heian period, but this should not lead one to assume that women were thereby unduly discriminated against. Admittedly, one or two sacred mountains - Hieizan for example - were barred to them, but there were many others - the royal temple of Daigoji for example - to which they had free access. They may not have been treated by the state as nuns in an institutional sense; but there were in fact large numbers of court women in the Heian period who led a religious life as a matter of choice. Some created their own private institutions; others decided that patronage offered a more powerful model of religious practice than entering a religious order (Meeks 2003: 205).2 But now, about the same time that Eison started his work, there was a revival of interest in the creation of nunneries. It began with Hokkeji fefll the nunnery that had initially been created to stand alongside Todaiji. By the 1230s it was in a dilapidated state but still 2 This remarkable thesis has corrected a large number of misconceptions about women and Buddhism in this period, patting the subject on an entirely new footing. 324 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfall home to a small, active community of women, former ladies at court, widows, and daughters of priestly families committed to living a life of ritual and meditation. Encouraged, perhaps, by the success Eison was having in raising awareness of the importance of the vinaya for monastic revival and in raising money to support this endeavour, the women at Hokkeji approached him to help them rebuild an order of nuns. In 1245 a small group of them received from him the 348 precepts. Strictly speaking, he was doing the impossible, because the rules stipulated that ten fully ordained nuns had to be present for an ordination to be correct and such a situation had never pertained in Japan, but the value of the act was felt to far outweigh this technical problem. By 1249 there were 26 women living at a revitalised Hokkeji, 12 of them fully fledged nuns (bikuni tfcfiJS) and a private precepts platform for nuns had been established. By 1280 the number had risen to 183, with 48 bikuni and over 100 laywomen also listed as supporters. We have the names of 16 such women, including Kunyo 3! #n, who is thought to have been Hachij5'iu Takakura, a poet of some repute. Other women were sometimes single, sometimes the widows of scholar-monks, and must have included former concubines. Abutsuni, the author of Diary of a waning moon (Izayoi nikki +7\:& H IB) stayed there around 1252 (Hosokawa 1999). The community at Hokkeji continued to strengthen and in many respects began to take on the characteristics of a literary and artistic salon, of the type that had been common in the mid-Heian but which had been more difficult to maintain in the disturbed climate of the late twelfth century. Hokkeji was only the first of a whole series of such establishments that were revived at this time, including the old Horyuji nunnery of Chuguji 41 rli#, where the central figure was a nun called Shinnyo «&] (1211-?). The Saidaiji order became a magnet for a number of men of like mind, monks who felt that the grand establishments had lost their way amid secularism and warfare, and that it was essential to rediscover the true vocation of a member of the sahgha. This involved embracing a lifestyle that had more in common with the European friar than the monk. It is generally considered that the driving force behind this particular aspect of their work, social welfare and charity, was Eison's student Ninsho iStt (1217-1303), although it is known that Eison himself was constantly on the move, drawing large crowds, holding public services, offering the bodhisattva precepts to laypeople of all types, and declaring that no animals should be killed in certain designated locales. It involved mixing with the lowest in society, beggars, lepers and the like, and bringing to them salvation, alms, medical 15 Reform from within and without 325 help, and a message of hope for the future. It involved creating bath houses, visiting prisons, providing basic food in times of famine and difficulty, and using medicines; but it also presupposed a willingness to become involved with burying the dead at all levels. Buddhism had always played a central role in funerals and mortuary rites ever since its arrival in Japan but until the end of the Heian period this was limited by and large to those who could actually afford such rites. Official state-sponsored temples such as Todaiji were not involved in funerals at all but the raison d'etre for most ujidera that were built in great numbers around the capital was precisely to commemorate deceased members of important families. A typical aristocratic funeral might involve a procession from the home to a designated spot on a hillside. If the body was cremated, the ashes might be buried there and then under a mound or small stupa, or perhaps brought to the grounds of the ujidera to be interred. Any pollution would have been cleansed in the burning and in any case it was thought that the sacred ground cleansed the bones as opposed to the bones polluting the ground. This was certainly the case on Koyasan. If the family wished to bury the whole body without cremation, matters were a little more complicated; they might have to wait until the body had entirely decomposed some years later before performing a second burial and bringing the remains into the temple grounds. As far as the sovereigns themselves were concerned, their burial mounds were dotted around the hillsides of the capital and there was no specific burial ground until Sennyuji became the designated area in 1242. Funeral services and proper burial were completely beyond the means of the majority of the population, who were often driven to leave corpses rotting by the side of the road or cast them into rivers to be carried to the sea. Cremation would have been an expensive business. Mid-Heian court diaries are full of entries where courtiers are caught unawares in the presence of death and have then to ask for advice as to the precise degree of contamination they have incurred. Only with the advent of the Saidaiji order in Yamato (and Soto Zen in the provinces) do. we find the development of common grave sites open to those of little or ho rank. The willingness of the Saidaiji order to become involved in this work was presumably part and parcel of the 'rediscovery' of what it was to be a member of the sahgha. Charity work needed money and the Saidaiji community became known for its ability to raise money for such projects. Having newly established temples, the monks did not have large landholdings and so were forced to introduce kanjin techniques to survive and to do! their work. Mortuary rites also brought in funds, particular when the population at large became 326 From Tödaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 's fall 15 Reform from within and without 327 convinced that one could help the dead by conunissioning prayers and ceremonies at certain defined stages after death. One might wish to argue that none of this was very new and that men like Honen and Shinran had been dedicated to precisely this kind of work, but secure information of their activities in this regard is remarkably sketchy and their message of salvation was, after all, geared almost entirely to the afterlife. The Saidaiji order made great play of the compassionate role of the bodhisattva and Eison himself was posthumously known as Bodhisattva Kosho PI 111 #11. A dedication to working amongst the lowest of the low, outcasts and those known as 'non-humans' (hinin fe-K), lay at the heart of the revised vision of what a monk should be, and it is reasonable to credit him and his order with bringing the concept of salvation to the large underclass of those who worked in trades that were considered most polluting. There are signs that this mission recommended itself to the powers in Kamakura, for it was in the interests of public order if nothing else, but much research remains to be done on this order to gauge its true effect. One of the doctrinal underpinnings for this kind of work was worship of Manjusri, whose sutra (Monjushiri hatsunehangyo 33%M%\\MMM&, T. 463) explained how he might at times appear as a hinin to test compassion. The usual rationale for discriminating against outcasts was that a person's present situation must, by definition, be a result of something they had done in the past; they had earned their present state and could do little to change their lot. But Manjusri offered a way to alleviate this condition; if one placed one's trust in him and worshipped him, he had the wisdom and the power to negate such karma. The Saidaiji community is known to history for this series of innovations and the revival of the serious study and practice of the vinaya (the order is known as Shingonritsu Stiff?, but this label was invented in the sixteenth century), but Eison's own activities were much broader than this might suggest. He is known, for example, to have commissioned a large number of images. In 1255 he had an image of Manjusri made for a temple near Nara called Hannyaji K^f^F, which was dedicated to the salvation of the hinin who lived in the area. In his Kanjin gakushdki Us #IPIE@E., he records the difficulty he had raising the necessary funds: I had this image carved in order to make it the focus of reverence for all living beings. Originally I intended to conduct a kanjin campaign among the rich and poor, and use their donations to obtain materials for the image. However, the city and the countryside have become saturated with those seeking alms from the faithful. Since kanjin has become commonplace, it will not necessarily arouse the deep faith [that inspires donations]. Therefore we did not circulate kanjin appeals but have instead relied on spontaneous contributions (Goodwin 1994: 119). The main public image at Saidaiji was one of Sakyamimi, completed in 1249, almost an exact replica of the Seiryoji Buddha (§10.3). This image was important because it was said to be life-size; it was packed inside with a large number of texts, relics, a roster of 6,670 names, and five silk viscera in a symbolic attempt to bring the image alive, to represent Sakyamuni still active in this world (Groner 2001: 121-33). Eison's personal object of devotion (gojibutsu WMW), however, was not sakyamuni at all but Aizen myoo ftS BJI3E, the King of Lust. There is a well-known image of Aizen that Eison had commissioned in 1247, still housed at Saidaiji. Aizen was worshipped for a wide variety of different reasons. He could, for example, bring disaster on your enemies (and it was said that Eison used him against the Mongols) or make someone fall passionately in love with you. In other words there was a 'voodoo' tinge to his worship. He was also used in tantric rites of a more obviously sexual nature. It is probable that Eison used this image for more orthodox reasons: it had the power to crush desire and free one from lust, rather than indulging in lust itself. 328 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall 15.2 Dancing to salvation The other order that emerged at this time could hardly have been more different. It was inspired by one man, Ippen — M (1239-89), who was a charismatic but never ordained. Committed to circumventing the established order by going straight to the people and ignoring institutions, Ippen differed from both Honen and Shinran in one crucial aspect: he was eclectic to the point of carelessness, tolerant of any and all gods on the implicit understanding that ultimately they were all manifestations of Amitabha. This also meant that his ties to the plethora of cults were such that he cannot be identified with any particular one. With a figure such as Ippen, one is talking not of someone performing a series of discrete pilgrimages but of someone whose whole life was a pilgrimage. There was undoubtedly a pathological element in Ippen's constant wanderings, as if he were incapable of staying put in one place for long, but in his movement from one cultic site to another, in the willed denial of stasis, the mundane becomes translated into the sacred and the traveller performs his own salvation. And in the wider sphere of things, it is almost as if his own mission was put into the service of linking together a whole series of sacred locations in one unifying movement. This was similar to the activity of a kanjin hijiri, but was not tied to a specific site and not connected to the raising of funds for that site; it was something far more spiritual, at least in the beginning. It had the effect of shifting the emphasis away from sacred sites per se and into the traveller himself. It stemmed from a deeply rooted conviction that itineracy had been the path chosen by Sakyamuni: to travel the land and spread the message of the Buddhist Dharrna was the only true path for the believer. There are strong connections here with the Tendai practice of jogyo zamnai or the 'constantly walking samadhi'. It also fulfilled another function, of course: that of the missionary. Ippen's career as an itinerant priest began quite late in life, when he was already in his thirties. He was born into an important warrior family and retained throughout his life an understanding that native deities and familial gods were an integral and implicit part of the sacred in Japan. His early study of Buddhism was as a member of a Pure Land confraternity, the Seizanha BlIlM, which had been founded by Shoku" HS. This particular branch of Pure Land Buddhism taught that the moment of chanting the nenbutsu was the moment of one's symbolic death and deliverance. It was in this sense that one could be said to be able to reach salvation in this very life and in this very body. But it was also thought that this state of blessedness lasted only as IS Reform from within and without 329 long as one chanted. The result was that the chanting had to be continuous to be truly effective. It was out of such a belief system that Ippen's own brand of practice was to emerge. He was married at one stage but eventually 'left the household' in 1270, travelling first to Zenkoji the important cultic centre devoted to Amitabha. From this point on; he began his life of constant motion, a group beginning to form around him from about 1274. Legend has it that it was at Kumano that he had the revelation that was to provide one of the more distinctive elements of his devotional practice. The sources we have about Ippen are, of course, hagiographic in nature and some of them (such as the collection of his sermons and sayings) date from as late as the eighteenth century; he left no doctrinal writings. He must have had natural charisma, since he attracted a small band of devoted followers who gave themselves to the same form of hardship in travel. By 1278 he had gathered round him seven or eight committed followers, among them Ta'amidabutsu Shinkyo i&MM^B^M (1237-1319), who joined in 1277 as they were passing through Bungo Province and who was to be a significant figure after Ippen's death. In 1279 the group adopted a form of ecstatic dance, which became known as nenbutsu odori ±ff'ffi. Part showman, Ippen encouraged this dance as an integral element of devotion, linked of course to the chanting of the nenbutsu itself, fn the early stages this seems to have been a truly spontaneous outbreak of ecstatic expression, but even during his lifetime it was already turning into a staged event, a draw for crowds, an enticement to what was seen as the main act, which was known as fusan Kit, die distribution of amulets or fuda IL on which was written the words 'Homage to Amitabha Buddha: deliverance guaranteed for all' (namu Amidabutsu: ketsujd ojo rokujumannin ^MMM^B&fE&Si/^-tM A). The revelation received at Kumano had been that the simple act of receiving such a fuda with this phrase printed on it would create a bond {kechien ft" It) between the individual and Amitabha and so ensure a welcome into the Pure Land. Not only did Ippen therefore go one step further than his teacher Shoku and imbue the written, rather than the spoken, word with ultimate power, he even denied the necessity of faith in the recipient. All that was needed was to abandon the idea of self and give oneself fully to the word in spoken or written form; although one might legitimately question whether it was possible to 'give up any idea of self without a strong drive of faith. As with the other Pure Land movements, the antinomian possibilities of such a creed are only too clear, but Ippen, known as 'the saint who had cast all away' (sutehijiri ^Tii), was very well aware that for this kind of nenbutsu to be effective one had to be prepared to sacrifice everything. It was a tough life 330 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall that he demanded from his followers, who had to entrust themselves to him entirely. It is not until 1280 that we find the term JisM being used (by Ippen himself) about the group, so it was probably around this period that he began to see himself as the leader of an order. There were perhaps twenty to twenty-five members, who were sworn to follow him and obey him in return for the secure knowledge of their absolute salvation. The origin of the term jishu itself is obscure, but it is probably a short form of rokuji nenbutsushu 7\B# ifrMM. meaning 'the group that chants the nenbutsu for six ji [twelve hours]', referring to the way the group would divide into groups and take turns to chant, so that the end result was almost an endless recitation. The group was not without its setbacks, of course. Arriving in Kamakura in 1282 at an awkward time, just as Hojo Tokimune was about to leave the city, they were unceremoniously thrown off the public highway, looking and probably sounding like beggars. Then later that year, having licked their wounds, they moved to Kyoto, where their arrival caused a near riot. Hardly surprising that many people were less lhan complimentary, accusing them of being little more than a band of monkeys. It was only in the last years of Ippen's life (1280-89) that moves were made to create a more coherent order. The lack of a clear distinction between the priestly and the lay, which was fundamental to his early appeal, gave way to a clearer demarcation. A distinction became apparent between those who had given everything up to travel with him (dojishu Rl ft ), those lay adherents who had received the amulet, practised the nenbutsu, but were not mendicants (zokujishu #?Bt^), and lastly lay supporters (kechienshu fni^t), who offered hospitality to the dojishu and gave them financial support. Clearly the last group far outnumbered the first and by the time of Ippen's death it was said to have numbered half a million, although this probably meant little more than that they had heard of the order and were willing to help. One of the distinctive elements in the Jishu armoury was the death registers {kakochb 5fi*K). The first entry in the Jishii kakocho is dated 1279. Not that these registers were themselves a new phenomenon, but in the hands of Shinkyo and those who came after him they were transformed into a remarkable tool for both proselytising the faith and controlling followers. The kakocho, of which there were fair numbers, were registers of those who had died and achieved deliverance. Soon, however, it became common to have one's name written in before one's death in order to secure salvation in advance, although the head of the community had the power to rescind this 15 Reform from within and without 331 promise by the simple but powerful expedient of adding the cruel words 'no deliverance' (fudjd ^FGiŠi) to the entry. In the very beginning only dojishu were eligible for registration but in the course of the fourteenth century this was extended to the zokujishu, so numbers steadily increase into the thousands. These registers were a symbol of the absolute power wielded by the head of the order. Efforts were made to standardise things such as dress, and the dances became formal events rather than spontaneous outbursts, but serious moves to create an organisation started only after Ippen's death in 1289. When he died, seven of his followers drowned themselves and Shinky5 himself initially decided to lead the rest of the followers in a pact to starve themselves to death but, it is said, he was eventually persuaded by a local warrior to carry on the work of distributing/Mířú!. Shinkyo began by travelling, as his master had done, although he did not range so widely and kept, by and large, to central and eastern Japan. After some sixteen years he settled down in the Kanto region and established a meeting house (dojo ilil) at Muryokoji in Taima WM, Sagami Province, not far from Kamakura, handing over the travelling duties to his chosen successor, Chitoku @# (1260-1320). A branch of the order, later known as the Shijoha Híffi^, was also set up in Kyoto under Shinkan (1268-1341). So began an inevitable process of institutionalisation by which the Jishu became a curious mixture of the itinerant and the sedentary, with the head of the order remaining in the main temple and the itinerant second-in-command based at a different centre but devoting most of his energy to emulating Ippen the traveller and dispenser offuda. An organisation needed a base and it was under the guidance of Shinkyo that a series of meeting houses were built by powerful warrior families in central and eastern Japan such as the Hoj5, in return for the provision of religious and pastoral services. Certainly one reason for the success of the Jishu among the warrior class was its habit of being entirely open to native deities; warriors had never been very happy with the exclusivism of Honen and Shinran. By 1306 Shinkyo had managed to create an organisation centred on about one hundred of these meeting houses, spread out over a wide area from Echizen to Sagami, all administered from Muryokoji. While a strong element of itineracy was maintained, the order was essentially transformed into a sedentary one and they took on pastoral roles much like parish priests. An almost total reliance on the goodwill of patrons had a dampening effect on their behaviour and led to a loss of the eccentricity that had been so marked in the founder. The order became fully domesticated and encorporated into the structure of social life. 332 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall 15 Reform from within and without 333 Shinkyo's campaign to propagate the order and his role as sole master took textual form in the illustrated scroll known as Ippen shonin ekotobaden j ± A St Biff of 1303-04. This 'proved' Shinkyo's right to take over the mantle from Ippen and included a substantial number of sermons given in the form of answers to letters from lay supporters. The Ekotobaden became the central scripture of the order. Each house had a copy which was revered and which was used for teaching purposes. In typical Japanese fashion this 'scripture' is not a revealed text but one that talks of origins, lineage and ; legitimation. In this way, Shinkyo managed to put his own stamp on the order -] and raise himself to a position of even greater importance than Ippen himself. j He succeeded in creating a solid economic base using the patronage of local warriors by stressing that the nenbutsu could overcome even the taboo on taking life; salvation was secure even though one had died fighting. When Shinkyo died in 1319, his chosen successor, Chitoku, took over the headship, but he died the next year and the headship then shifted to Shinko p(3t3 (1280-1333). This was to cause considerable trouble. Another follower, Donkai #S (1265-1327), who had been put in charge of a meeting house in Kyoto, protested that Shinko could not become the head of the order for the simple reason that he had no experience of mendicancy. This led to a split in 1325 between the Taima group, based on Muryokoji, and the so-called Yugyo Mf} group, which was based in Kyoto but soon had a Kanto base as well in the form of Shojokoji fitWlfc^f at Fujisawa. In the end, it was really Donkai who founded what became known as the Yugyoha and there then emerged a dual leadership: the Yugyo shonin, based in Kyoto, whose job it was to travel and dispense fiida, with a retinue that was to reach substantial proportions in the Tokugawa period; and the Fujisawa shonin based in Fujisawa, who ran the organisation and was the titular head. This was supposed to allow for elements of the itinerant origins of the movement to survive the shift towards institutionalisation. In the end, of course, such a compromise could never work well, for the simple reason that this particular order needed a charismatic leader, the inevitable consequence of which was constant fragmentation. 15.3 Worshipping the Lotus The phenomenon of militant exclusionism that we have seen generated in this period, a phenomenon that ran counter to the general open-mindedness of most Buddhist doctrine and practice and not unnaturally upset the established Map 10 The travels of Ippen and NicMren 334 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall 15 Reform from within and without 335 order, reaches a climax in the figure of Nichiren 0 M (1222-82), notorious for the strength of his convictions and for the uncompromising way he pursued his goals. Whether through conscious erasure or not, contemporary documents do not in fact mention Nichiren by name: all we have of a biographical nature are his own doctrinal essays and his numerous pastoral letters, which must be used with the usual caution. The extant corpus contains 498 items, of which a remarkable 115 survive in his own hand and 25 more of which were destroyed in a fire as late as 1875.3 No student or follower who actually knew him personally has left a record; the earliest biography, Goden dodai M fil ±fv, was written by Nichido 0 M (1283-1341), who was born the year after Nichiren's death. A later source entitled Genso kedoki 7nffilbSlB, written by Nitcho 0 U3 (1422-1500) in the fifteenth century and first printed in 1666, contains much that is legendary in nature. It is hardly surprising to find legends encrusted around such a charismatic figure, a man who attracted a loyalty as fierce as his own character. Unlike other important clerics of the time, Nichiren was assuredly not of aristocratic birth. He was to make much of the humbleness of his origins in a fishing village, in what is now south Chiba, although the fact that he was sent to be educated at the local temple, Kiyosumidera i^S^, suggests he may have been more than simply the son of a fisherman. Nevertheless, he was certainly a provincial with no contacts and no expectation of patronage. His intellectual abilities were such, however, that he soon exhausted what the temple had to offer and at the age of sixteen left for Kamakura. He stayed there for four years and then moved to Kyoto and Nara. We have very little hard irrformation about the next sixteen years and it is not possible to trace his exact movements, but he must have spent a number of years on Hieizan, and we know he was also at Koyasan for a period. It was during this time that he became convinced that salvation lay not in Amitabha nor indeed in any form of Buddhist practice other than the study and worship of the Lotus sutra. In 1253 Nichiren returned east. Relying entirely on his willingness and ability to preach, he slowly gathered together a series of what we might again call 'congregations', many of his followers being laymen and laywomen, only a small fraction of whom were either able or willing to become fully ordained. Such was his self-confidence that he proclaimed the right to ordain monks himself. This alone would have been enough to brand him a sub- 3 It should be noted that the authenticity of quite a number of these essays is in question. See Sueki 1999 for a discussion of the considerable difficulties this can cause. versive, but Nichiren was convinced of his legitimacy, even going as far as to express pride that many of his followers were, in official eyes at least, un-ordained or mukai M'ffi. Certain in his own mind that the reason for continued natural disasters and political unrest was the fact that the Lotus sutra was not being given its rightful place in the nation's affairs, either by the Buddhist establishment or indeed by the leadership in Kamakura, Nichiren wrote the tract for which he is best known. On establishing the true Dharma to bring peace to the nation (Rissho ankokuron JilES'Blfm) in 1260 and sent it directly to Hoj5 Tokiyori (1227-63), the former regent who was now living in retirement at a Zen temple. Written in the form of a dialogue between 'a visitor' and 'the master', it is openly critical of the country's leaders, calling on them to castigate all those who propagate Pure Land teachings or who profess to practise Zen; he warns of terrible disasters if the Lotus sutra is not given its full due. There is no sign that anyone in authority took this outburst seriously, but someone took care that its contents became known, with the result that Nichiren's house was destroyed and he barely escaped with his life. Such attacks only served to strengthen his resolve to continue his mission and in less than a year he was back proselytising in the streets of Kamakura. At that point, it was decided that his presence constituted too great a threat to public order (and to himself), and he was hnmediately arrested and banished to the Izu peninsula. Rissho ankokuron is important for two main reasons: its unblinking critique of the status quo, and the fact that it contained a prophecy that came to pass. As we have seen throughout this study, there never was a time in Japanese history when Buddhism did not have a complex and difficult relationship with the state, but the received wisdom up to this point had been that Buddhist institutions were politically important because they gave protection to the ruler, and, by extension, to the state (chingo kokka SI If Hit). Nichiren fumed this logic on its head and placed the onus firmly on the ruler. We all desire peace and stability, but this can only be ensured if the nation and the ruler pay due respect to the correct Buddhist Dharma (namely, the Lotus sutra) and actively fight the spread of useless falsehoods. As long as the autliorities fail to do this, they are at fault; and when calamity does strike, as it surely will, it is they who will be to blame. Then there was the matter of prophecy. Using a series of quotations not only from the Lotus but from such sources as the Sutra for humane kings, Nichiren described what was bound to happen to a state that continued to ignore the correct teachings. Many of the disasters he listed had naturally 336 ■ From Tödaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall 15 Reform from within and without 337 already occurred in Japan, but not yet a foreign invasion. The prediction of military conquest and overthrow of the ruler by outside forces is common to a large number of Mahayana sutras: in essence it often acted as self-advertisement, part and parcel of the attempt to secure state support and patronage. In this case, Nichiren could hardly have been more fortunate, for his particular prophecy was to come true. He returned from Izu in 1264, but was clearly still in considerable personal danger, because we find him daring to enter Kamakura itself only four years later, in 1268. This was about the time that the Bakufu received its first threatening missive from Khubilai Khan. We do not know enough about the flow of information to know whether someone of Nichiren's marginal status could have had much inkling of what was happening on the continent, so he may well have been as surprised as everyone else at this turn of events, but, in any case, to him it was absolute proof that he had been correct all along. He gained some notoriety as a prophet and increasing confidence in his mission. Although the authorities in Kamakura never gave any sign of having taken his thesis seriously, the way in which his predictions seemed to have validity helped swell the ranks of those willing to follow him. In 1271 the pressures he continued to create for himself by his relentless verbal attacks on all who failed to see his point of view eventually proved too great and the Bakufu was forced to banish him yet again on grounds of sedition. This time he was sent to the island of Sado, a move that may well have saved his life. While on Sado he produced a large number of pastoral letters to his congregations in the Kanto and continued refining his own vision of how the Japanese people might best achieve salvation. Eventually pardoned in 1274, the date of the first Mongol attack, he returned to Kamakura to be questioned about his views. Unhappy that the authorities continued to be unresponsive to his message, however, he gave up 'direct action' and retired instead to Mt Minobu US;, where he established a temple to look after his growing band of clerical disciples and student priests. Who were his followers? Neither the number of monks who worked with him nor the number of the lay communities that supported him is known, but they were not large and it is important not to be misled by the later success of the Hokkeshu, the Nichiren sect that traced itself back to his initial inspiration. The majority were middle- and lower-ranking samurai and local landowners, many of whom must have first encountered his teaching while they were serving in Kamakura. Convinced, one assumes, by his force of character, they returned to the countryside and formed the nuclei of communities throughout the Kanto region (Stone 1999c). The 'professional' followers or priests were of three types: those who were based at local Tendai temples but who travelled to the homes of supporters to preach and elaborate on the content of Nichiren's pastoral letters; those who had richer patrons and who served as religious advisers on their estates; and lastly those who led a monastic existence and went to study with Nichiren at Mt Minobu from 1274 onwards (where there were, he claimed, more than one hundred by 1279). Nichiren made every effort to instil a sense of belonging into this thinly spread congregation, which was constantly subjected to official censure and, occasionally, outright violence. They were constantly buoyed up both by Nichiren's own charisma and by the self-fulfilling prophecy of the surra itself, that in the Latter Days of the Dharma those who tried to maintain the correct teaching would inevitably be subjected to persecution and ridicule; although quite why a middle-ranking samurai should choose to belong to a community under such pressure is a difficult question to answer. Was it that Nichiren came from the Kanto and spoke their own dialect? His pastoral letters, which occasionally contained doctrinal arguments but more often than not simply gave thanks for gifts or acts of kindness always followed by words of encouragement, were an important tool of propagation. The tone of these letters is one of a preacher bringing advice and succour to his flock. It would seem that a large number of his lay supporters were women, not surprisingly perhaps since the Lotus paid particular attention to their fate and offered the clear example in the Dragon King's daughter of a girl who had managed to achieve enlightenment faster than any man. In one remarkable passage he advises the wife of a follower on whether she could continue reading and studying the surra while menstruating. Since it was not pollution from an external source but merely a characteristic of the female sex related to procreation, he could find:no doctrinal basis for such a taboo, he said, and urged her to continue with her devotions (Yampolsky 1996: 255). The degree to which Nichiren politicised religion was unprecedented, particularly the way in which he linked the possibility of personal salvation to the creation of an ideal state. This might sound suspiciously like nationalism but that would be very far from the truth, because for Nichiren the very definition of an ideal state was one that upheld the practice of the Lotus. Buddhism had always taught that doctrine was dependent on differences in time and place, but Nichiren was particularly interested in the element of time. He accepted the premise of mappo but saw it not as an occasion for pessimistic resignation but as a marvellous chance. How? Because the Lotus which gave humanity the one best chance of salvation tells 338 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall us that it will only be expounded in this world and only in a time of mappo. The proper, ideal time was therefore here and now. A Buddha Land on this earth was within everyone's grasp: When all people throughout the land enter the one Buddha vehicle and the Wonderful Dharma alone flourishes, because the people all chant lnamu-my6hd-renge-kyo' as one, the wind will not thrash the branches nor the rain fall hard enough to break clods. The age will become like the reigns of Yao and Shun. In the present life, inauspicious calamities will be banished, and the people will obtain the art of longevity. When the principle becomes manifest that both persons and dharmas 'neither age nor die', then each of you behold! There can be no doubt of the surra's promise of 'peace and security in the present world'(Stone 1999a: 291-92). Obviously, it must be the duty of the authorities in power to facilitate this and when the state refused to recognise this fact, it was doomed. The arrival of threats from the Mongols was clear proof: Because all the people of the land of Japan, from high and low without a single exception, have become slanderers of the Dharma, Brahma, Indra, Tensho Daijin, and the other deities must have instructed the sages of a neighbouring country to reprove that slander . . . The entire country has now become inimical to the Buddhas and deities . . . China and Korea, following the example of India, became Buddhist countries. But because they embraced Zen and nenbutsu teachings, they were destroyed by the Mongols.. The country of Japan is a disciple to those two countries. And if they have been destroyed, how can our country remain at peace? ... All the people in the country of Japan will fall into the Hell without Respite (Stone 1999b: 413-14). . So Japan fully deserved the punishment that was to come. No wonder that the authorities came to see Nichiren as a threat, for this kind of politicised radicalism might so easily spill over into civil discontent, hardly what the country needed when the Mongols were knocking at the door. He was also a potential liability since, far from being nationalistic about the enterprise, he was actually welcoming the invasion as proof of divine retribution. It increasingly becomes a wonder that Nichiren was treated quite so leniently as he was by the authorities, although it is more than likely that our sources exaggerate the threat and that in fact he hardly registered in the larger scale ofthings. Although in his direct criticisms of the authorities Nichiren was pessimistic about Japan's ability to withstand attack, doctrinally he knew there was hope, and that hope lay in one man: himself. He liimself was living proof that the true Buddhist teachings still survived in the world in one place - Japan; and if his message was heard and Japan mended its ways, it 15 Reform from within and without 339 could become the source for regenerating Buddhism throughout the world. What had arisen in India and come east would return from east to west with renewed splendour.4 This optimistic vision can be seen as a strategy for countering the essentially pessimistic doctrine of mappo, and marks another point where Nichiren differed from Honen. Pure Land Buddhism, based on a thoroughgoing dualism, saw no possibility of hope in this world, preferring to stress the irredeemably vile nature of life in the here-and-now, and arguing that a guarantee of enlightenment was only available in the next life. So what was the message of the Lotus that made it of such central importance? As we have already seen, although the sutra had been central to Tiantai Buddhism in China, by Nichiren's time Japanese Tendai had become inextricably involved with tannic ritual and Pure Land beliefs. Nichiren saw himself as the reviver of a 'purer' Tendai, restoring the Lotus to its rightful place at the pinnacle of the Buddha's teachings. It will be recalled that the sutra had two major but interlinked messages. Firstly, that salvation in the form of buddhahood is potentially available to all. Of course, this became a creed common to Mahayana in general, but in this particular case salvation was to be obtained through devotion to the sutra itself. Secondly, that more than one Buddha can exist at any one time and they are in essence transcendental beings; Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha, did not disappear but is with us always, offering his guidance. He may no longer be present in physical form, but he is eternally present within the Dharma. In this sense, the Tathagata is the surra. Hardly surprising then that Nichiren eventually chose the teachings rather than the teacher as his object of devotion. One of the rhetorical tricks by which the Lotus sutra tried to ensure its survival at the heart of Buddhist teaching was the extent to which it predicted its own dire fate in the Latter Days of the Dharma, when it would be shunned, its teachings ignored, and those who defended it would be subject to persecution. Devotees of the Lotus had to be constantly on their guard against anyone who 'slandered the Dharma', by which was meant anyone who treated the sutra with anything less than complete faith and anyone who was attached to other, provisional, teachings. But it also put forward the proposition that it was precisely in such an age that it would come into its own, being specifically designed to fit the capabilities of those born in such an age. To this extent, those born at this point were paradoxically considered fortunate, since the ultimate teaching had been reserved for them. 1 See in particular his 'Kenbutsu miraiki', translated as 'On the Buddha's prophesy' in Yampolsky 1996: 73-81. 340 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall It is difficult not to conclude that in many respects Nichiren was drawn to a text that mirrored his own character - militant and with a highly developed persecution complex. The warnings in the surra were to be taken quite literally. A devotee of the truth in an age of mappo must, by definition, encounter and indeed encourage persecution for his or her faith. Not only must one be prepared to give one's life in defence of the surra, one is duty-bound to attack all wrong thoughts and ill-founded beliefs in a constant battle to defend the truth, a process known as shakubuku Ofiji. [If] even one with deep faith does not rebuke the enemies of the Lotus, no matter what great good he may produce, even if he recites and copies the Lotus a thousand or ten thousand times, or perfects the way of contemplating the three thousand realms in one thought-moment, if he fails to rebuke the enemies of the. Lotus, then it will be impossible for him to realize enlightenment. To illustrate, even if one has served the court for ten or twenty years, if, knowing of the ruler's enemies, he fails to report them or to oppose them himself, then the merit of his service will all be lost and he will instead be guilty of a crime. You must understand that the people of today arc slanderers of the Dharma (Asai 1999: 250). But what does it mean to worship and pay homage to a text rather than a Buddha? Perhaps the question is misplaced, because, as we have just seen, to Nichiren the text was the body. So it is not so much privileging the Dharma over Buddha as recognising the Buddha in the Dharma and seeing them as indivisible. There can be no doubt that Nichiren believed that to read and pay homage to the Lotus was the only way one could encounter the body of the Tathagata in the age of mappo. It was therefore imperative to give all humankind the opportunity to carry out such devotions, and it was with this in mind that Nichiren developed the idea, perhaps as early as his exile in Izu, that chanting the title (daimoku jg @ ), in other words reciting the phrase 'Homage to the Lotus sutra' ('namu myoho renge kyo' WM'&feM^M}, was the best way of showing one's devotion. Although this might be seen as an extremely 'easy' practice, the equivalent of Honen's 'easy' nenbutsu, Nichiren did not see it in this light. For him it was difficult, because such practice would inevitably bring with it persecution. How was it that the title of a sutra came to be imbued with such power? There is good evidence that chanting the daimoku was practised as a form of religious exercise throughout the late Heian period. In Genshin's time, for example, reading and discussing the Lotus formed an integral part of devotions that ended with recitation of the nenbutsu (Bowring 1998), and there are records from the late twelfth century that suggest extended recitations of the title alone were practised. But it remained largely a private 15 Reform from within and without 341 practice among aristocrats. There were in fact good doctrinal grounds, starting with passages in the sutra itself, for considering the title to represent its essence in a unique way not found with other texts: the whole of Zhiyi's Fahua xuanyi ffiipStt had been an investigation of this very phenomenon. But Nichiren went further: he transformed recitation of the daimoku into a practice for all; he claimed exclusive efficacy for this practice and damned the rest; and he maintained that this form of recitation was not second best to reading the whole, but was itself the ultimate practice. In Nichiren's later writings, chanting the daimoku is presented not as a beginning step or accommodation to those incapable of the greater practice of reciting the sutra, but as the highest form of practice, the ultimate of the Buddha's teaching, which he had embodied in the title of the Lotus sutra specifically for the Final Dharma age when people would need it most. The daimoku contains all good precepts and the merit gained by observing them. All the practices undertaken by the Buddha over countless kalpas and the enlightenment he consequently attained are contained within the sutra's title and 'spontaneously transferred' to those who embrace it (Stone 1998: 138-39). It is at this point that Nichiren's relationship to Pure Land and tantrism comes into question. To the outsider, influence from both would seem undeniable, and yet it is well known that Nichiren saw them both as the 'enemy' and constantly railed against them. As far as Pure Land practice is concerned, one could well argue that Nichiren invented the daimoku to be the substitute or equivalent of the nenbutsu as a ritual recitation designed to lead the believer to enlightenment. The crucial difference lay not in the form of practice but in the doctrinal foundation of that practice. Perhaps a key to his violent denunciation of Pure Land practice lies in this very closeness. A similar reaction can be seen vis-a-vis tantrism, although here the relationship is a little more complicated. The main reason why we find Nichiren critical of both Tendai and Shingon was that they failed to understand the overriding importance of the Lotus and downgraded it in their systems of classification, and for Nichiren there could be no graver crime. One of his explanations as to why a ruler such as Go-Toba had failed was that he had paid undue attention to tantric ritual and thus ignored the 'true' teachings. This was equally the problem with the government in Kamakura. But this sectarian stance should not blind us to the fact that there is much in Nichiren's own practice that draws fundamental inspiration from tantrism. As the marginal notes on his own copy of Kumarajtva's text show,s he read widely in tantric treatments of 5 Nichiren's personal copy is known simply as Chit hokekyd SfS¥i. On the subject of Nichiren and tantrism is general see Dolce 1999 and 2002. 342 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall J 5 Reform from within and without 343 this and other surras, and his very first extended essay (Kaitai sokushin jobutsu gi ySHtiiP Mwas a discussion of the Lotus from a tantric perspective. The tradition of using the Lotus as a tantric text can be traced back to Subhaicarasimha, but the extensive use of a Lotus mandala, which is based on the fact that a Lotus Hall lay at the very centre of the Womb World mandala, is really a product of the mid-Heian period. The rites connected with this important example of a besson mandara SOU It sir H are known as hokkehd ft 0 &, and they are dealt with in considerable detail in the two major collections of ritual texts from this period, Kakuzensho IftiPPI^ of 1217 and Asabasho M^M^P of c.1240. At the centre of the hokke mandara, of course, we find the jewelled stupa with Sakyamuni and Prabhutaratna sitting inside; but the central figure in the Womb World mandala is Mahavairocana. Although for sectarian reasons, Nicbiren tried to distinguish between Mahavairocana and Sakyamuni, in fact he was led to adopt the tantric identification of these figures on the basis of what was said in the second half of the surra (chapters 15-28, 'entrance of origin' honmon ^P1, see §5.3) about Sakaymuni being eternally present. This in turn led Nichiren to place much more emphasis on the honmon section of the sutra than any of his predecessors. It was here, he argued, that one found expressed both the concept of 'the three thousand worlds in one thought-moment' (ichinen sanzen '^iifcEL^f) and the idea that enlightenment was to be found not so much in the contemplation of principle (ri M) but rather in activity or actual practice (ji ♦). In addition to the daimoku, then, Nichiren also created his own form of mandala; not iconographic but logographic, in line with his belief that the text of the Dharma had to be the object of devotion (horizon ~Jf-M). It would seem that Nichiren worked on this idea while in exile on Sado, although most of the surviving mandala in his own hand (and 128 examples from the years 1271-82 do survive) are from his later Mt Minobu period. Each one is individual and distinct, and no images are involved, the whole object being made up of a collection of titles and siddham seed syllables. In the centre is always the daimoku phrase surrounded by a symmetrical arrangement of names written vertically and leading away from the centre, perhaps with a stupa shape in mind. Sakyamuni is always on the immediate left of the daimoku and Prabhutaratna to the right; these are followed in turn by the names of certain bodhisattvas central to the sutra, although sometimes one also finds figures inscribed who do not appear in the Lotus sutra itself, such as Dainichi, Fudo and Aizen. Some of the larger mandala were clearly meant to be hung up and treated as devotional objects, whereas others were small enough to be carried on the person as talismans. Being gifts from Nichiren himself, they could be seen as performing a social role as well, perhaps marking the entry of a person into the community of believers and supporters, as many of them are inscribed with the name of the 'owner'. 16 The emergence of Shinto 345 16 The emergence of Shinto 16.1 Japan in 1280 By the late thirteenth century, the developments that were discussed in §12.1-12.4 had strengthened considerably. The investigation into the origins of Japan and speculation as to the nature of the sovereign's power at a time of double rule was now given an unforeseen catalyst - the threat of invasion from the continent. Jien had interpreted the Kamakura part of the new power structure in a positive light - he saw it as a transformation of the sword that had been lost at Dannoura. He had not foreseen how soon this new sword would be asked to respond. Khubilai Khan first made direct contact with the rulers of Japan in 1266. A letter addressed to the 'King of Japan' arrived in Kyushu and was forwarded from Dazaifu to Kamakura. It then found its way back to the capital. There was general paralysis at court and in the end it seemed best to ignore it, so no reply was forthcoming. The Japanese authorities continued to ignore Mongol envoys and their threatening messages in the hope they might simply go away. The first attempt at an invasion did not in fact materialise tmtil 1274, and when it happened it was a somewhat desultory affair. Later Mongol and Japanese accounts inflate the number of warriors involved by a factor, of at least ten, and recent research suggests that no more than 3,000 warriors were involved on either side. The Mongols were probably outnumbered and failed to make much impact, being forced to return to the Korean peninsula at the head of a strong easterly wind. Japan was- much better prepared for the second attempt in 1281, surprising the Mongols with forward defences that gave them little room to land. On this occasion adverse weather conditions made things worse and the Mongols again retreated after less than six weeks of skirmishing (Conlan 2001). Such was the rather banal reality, somewhat at odds with the frightening image created by later chronicles and by courtiers willing to exaggerate at the time. It was widely reported that Japan had only been saved from certain destruction by the many prayers and rituals carried out at temples and shrines, and that salvation had come in the form of a 344 typhoon that was later interpreted as a 'divine wind' (kamikaze PJH), a term that is first met in the early poetry collection Man 'yoshu MMM used as a descriptive epithet for the shrines at Ise. This is an early sign that the role of Ise was to change radically during this period. It may be useful to be reminded what else was happening in 1280. Dogen had been dead for some thirty years and, although his successors were making some headway in the provinces, the future of his particular Zen tradition was not at all secure and would remain uncertain until the emergence of Keizan Jokin at the turn of the century. Other Zen institutions, far more interested in locking themselves into the structures of power, were becoming established not only with the Hojo in Kamakura but also with a number of influential Kyoto nobles; even so, the future here was also uncertain and would remain so until the ranks of Zen masters were joined by an influx of Chinese emigres. Ippen was active, in constant motion, spreading the gospel of Amitabha along with an eclectic approach to native deities. Nichiren in the east had only two more years to live. Elsewhere, devotion to the buddhas and rituals for the gods were becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish, and the metaphor of two sides of the same coin is increasingly fitting. Hieizan and Kofukuji were still at loggerheads, and whenever they wished to petition in the capital against some decision they continued to bring the local dieties with them in the form of either a mikoshi or a sakaki tree. Was there a nascent sense of nationalism? Perhaps. But one should resist drawing a direct connection between such events as the Mongol invasions and the rise of a sense of nationhood among the warriors, for example. Their interests were by and large parochial and they fought with material rewards in mind. On the other hand, two ideological movements were about to emerge that certainly were firmly rooted in the idea that Japan was special in both a physical and a spiritual sense. The first of these was essentially Buddhist in nature; the second could not have existed without Buddhist influence, especially the tantric variety, but showed signs of wishing to strike out on its own. Eventually it was to give rise to anti-Buddhist sentiment. 16.2 The mandalisation of Japan On Hieizan, monks and exegetes were busy developing those ideas first expressed in Ydtenki in 1223 (§12.3), especially as regards the deity Sanno. The best guide here is the collection entitled A gathering of leaves from the 346 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall 16 The emergence of Shinto 347 valley mists (Keiran shuyoshu M JSL Ja S£^t, T. 2410),. which was compiled, between the years 1311 and 1348 by the monk Koshu 7r;l? (1276-1350). Only about one-third of this work is extant but even in its present state it can be described as encyclopedic. The approach taken here is almost entirely tantric and the existence of popular Pure Land sects is entirely ignored. Indeed, it would be misleading if one tried to characterise this vision as a rejection of, or even just a reaction to the phenomenon of Honen or Shinran, for their existence is not even recognised. The world revealed here is one dedicated to the protection and maintenance of an ideal system, revealing subtle patterns that were seen as lying just beneath the surface and proving that the status quo was not only inevitable but permanent. Justification for much of this was found in an important play on words, the kind of paronomasia that we have come to expect of tantric logic. It so happened that the characters fz H ^ H could either be. read Dai Nihonkoku, in which case they would mean 'The great land of Japan', or Dainichi [no] hongoku, in which case they could mean 'The original land of Mahavairocana (Dainichi)', who in his manifestation as Tensho Daijin ('the great deity of heavenly brilliance' being obviously the same as 'the great shining one') had his seat at Ise. Once the concept behind the double reading of the term fz B 3fc H was understood and accepted, the whole geography of Japan could be analysed along tantric lines, in much the same way as we have seen in the case of Kumano (§ 10.2). This leads to what has been called the 'inandalisation' of Japan, whereby shapes of Buddhist ritual objects, in particular the vajra, could be shown to underlie its geography (Grapard 1998; T. 2410: 626b) [plate 26]. In this way further proof could be excavated to show that the body of the land was indeed the body of Dainichi. One is reminded somewhat of the belief that the whole of southern England is crisscrossed by a web of ancient, mythical, force fields known as 'ley lines', linking ancient monuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury, although the example of Japan contained much more potential in this regard. The recognition of identity in spatial terms was mirrored by a concomitant collapse of temporal distinctions, since the gods and buddhas that stood at the origin of a particular shrine or temple could be contacted and brought into the present through the simple act of pilgrimage and the observance of certain prescribed rites. History, and therefore by definition karma, could be transcended in this fashion, so that Japan as the abode of Dainichi could be treated not only as the centre of the universe but as eternal and beyond time. Keiran shuyoshu was, among other things, a guide to Hieizan showing how every square inch could be interpreted as the manifestation of some aspect of Tendai doctrine. diamond world womb world. Plate 26 Japan in the shape of a vajra, south at the top. This set of correspondences, showing that physical reality was sacred in and of itself, was mirrored in more philosophical form in another series of secret texts, only a small proportion of which have ever been published. They go now under the generic but not entirely helpful title of 'original enlightenment discourse' (hongakuron ^SH), essentially an investigation of the central tenet that all sentient beings, and indeed the non-sentient, are always already enlightened, hence the term 'hongaht\ Such a doctrine of extreme optimism is in marked contrast to the inbuilt dualism on which Pure Land Buddhism was based. There are a number of interesting consequences if this doctrine is accepted, all of them unsettling (Stone 1999a). It Was, of course, recognised that this tantric overcoming of the law of cause and effect, and the conditioned nature of all elements of existence, was a particularly difficult mode of thought that could only be vouchsafed to initiates. Firstly, if non-dualism is taken to its logical conclusion and there is no way of distinguishing between nirvana and samsara, then the world as we see it is both enlightened and enlightenment. This means that the status quo is a Pure Land that never changes, since it is by definition eternal. From here it is but a short step to moving beyond a position of simple equivalence - mind equals empirical reality - to a position ) 348 From Tódaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall whereby empirical reality is not simply affirmed but actually valorised above mind, ritual activity given preference over meditation. From the standpoint of nonduality, there is no hierarchy whatsoever among the three truths, because one truth encompasses three truths, and the three truths are implicit in one. But from the standpoint of duality, the truth of conventional existence is superior, while those of emptiness and the middle are inferior. The truth of conventional existence is the realm before our eyes, the myriad phenomena, the body of what is originally unborn . . . Emptiness and the middle are the adornments of conventional existence (Stone 1999a: 201). The ramifications of such a view have much in common with the effects that stem from the mandalisation of Japan. There is also, as we shall see a little later, a sense in which this chimes with the development of an intellectual, philosophical strain of Shinto. Secondly, if liberation is to be defined simply as coming to a full realisation that one was already enlightened, what is the point of the sangha and what is the point of practice? Time, after all, had no meaning. As one can imagine, there were considerable disagreements as to how to deal with this particular problem, which in the end came down to how easy, or difficult, it might be to achieve such a realisation. One could always try and save the situation by arguing that serious practice was needed for realisation to be achieved, but one could equally see it from another angle: if the end result of treading an arduous path was to discover that none of it had really been necessary, since to stand at the beginning of the path was actually to stand already at the end, then why start down that path in the first place? Hardly surprising that these texts were not broadcast widely, since to have done so would have immediately led to yet more antinomian behaviour. Perhaps it is also not surprising to find Buddhist concepts wrapping themselves around local cults on Hieizan, where the Buddhist element was already predominant, but this was also happening elsewhere, with increasingly interesting results. As far as Ise is concerned, the earliest date we have for the next major step in the Buddhist appropriation of local tradition, and in particular, of course, the two shrines most closely associated with the sovereign, is the group of tales and anecdotes entitled Collection of sand and pebbles (Siiasekishu Š>HÍÍ) compiled by Mujú Ichien |,if± —HI (1226-1312). In a section dated about 1262, he wrote: We have come to identify the deities of the Inner and Outer Shrines with Dainichi of the Two Mandala; and that which is called the Rock Door of Heaven is the Tusita Heaven, also called the High Plain of Heaven. Events which took place during the Age of the Gods all have their [Buddhist] interpretation. In the Shingon view the 16 The emergence of Shinto 349 Tusita Heaven, indeed, is spoken of as the Dharma World's Palace of Inner Realisation, the Land of Secret Grandeur {miisugonkoku §S8). Dainichi emerges from his capital of Inner Realisation and leaves his trace (ato o tare W J S V ) in the land of the sun [Japan]. So the deity of the Inner Shrine is Dainichi of the Womb World [mandala]; and patterned after this mandala of the four enclosures are the several shrine fences: tamagaki, mizugaki, aragaki etc. Similarly there are mine billets (katsuo 'gi H^) [on the roof], which symbolise the nine Honoured Ones of the Womb World. The deity of the Outer Shrine is Dainichi of the Diamond World mandala, or sometimes identified as Amida. There are five moon discs there, presumably to symbolise the five wisdoms of the Diamond World. When the two mandala, Womb and Diamond, are seen in terms of Yin and Yang, because the Yin is the female and the Yang the male, the Womb World has an eight-petalled [lotus pattern] which corresponds to the eight [inner] shrine maidens. And this is why there are five male kagura dancers [in the outer shrine] corresponding to the five wisdom males in the Diamond World (Watanabe 1966: 60; trans, adapted from Morrell 1985: 73-74). . This theory, which was later to be labelled 'Shinto of the two mandala' (Ryobu Shinto SqWjI) by Yoshida Kanetomo in the late fifteenth century, may have been in circulation for some time. Dainichi had long been associated with Tensho Daijin, because of the similarity in their names, but this was now extended much further to include the idea that Japan was in fact the centre of the universe. Since the two tantric mandala identified with 'principle' and 'wisdom' made up the universe, the shrines could be described in like fashion; together and in union they symbolised the birth of Japan.1 Ties between the sovereign and Ise had been slackening for some time, a classic symptom of which was the collapse of the system of the consecrated priestesses, which fell into disuse in the mid-thirteenth century. With the exception of two very short interludes, from 1246 onwards no representative of the court was sent to Ise and the arrangement was never revived. The monk Tsukai visiting Ise in 1286, recorded his shock at finding the shrines in a terrible state of decay. It is hardly surprising that faced with such a drastic decline in their main source of patronage, the shrines were forced to look elsewhere for support. The priests turned to a much wider audience and tried a number of new strategies to encourage patronage from wherever it might be available. One outcome of this financial need was the encouragement of pilgrimages to Ise, which had started with Chdgen's large retinue of 1186. Pilgrimages of this size were, of course, somewhat rare, but there was another upsurge a hundred years later in 1272-86. Gradually the circle widened so that by 1318 we have evidence of the first rules for visitors (from 1 For a more detailed discussion of the two Shingon mandate, see Appendices. 350 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall the provinces of Mino and Owari), rules which were needed to protect them from the various entrepreneurial ventures that had sprung up to take advantage of this new phenomenon. It is important to recognise that Buddhist monks were just as involved in this movement as the Ise priests themselves, if, indeed, that distinction makes any sense at this stage (Teeuwen 1996: 80). The shrines had to be careful, however. Much of their appeal and ultimate justification came from the fact that the main deity of the Inner Shrine was indissolubly linked to the monarch and his lineage, to the court, and thereby to the state. Without this special relationship much of Ise's raison d'etre would have disappeared. But this had to be run in parallel with making the shrines more accessible. It was, for example, inevitable that once the shrines started to spread their appeal to the rising warrior class in the east, the ban on offering prayers for anyone but the monarch would fall into abeyance. There emerged men and women who went by the name of nottoshi SJilW or kitdshi Iff IS W, who were paid to convey (or perhaps one should say purvey) a. benefactor's private prayers to the gods. The Ise shrines were beginning to create their own path to wealth and Japan-wide prominence. In the process, new forms of ritual had to be developed, since no tradition of offering services for individuals existed. These new rituals and the mantra that went with them employ a mixture of Buddhist and Yin-Yang terminology, and mark a shift from purification seen as cleansing the state of impurities, to purification as a means of attaining individual enlightenment (Teeuwen 1996: 96). As the word 'enlightenment' suggests, the influence of Buddhism was still very strong. The passage from Nakatomi harae kunge quoted in §12.2 shows that this was already the norm in Ise by the late twelfth century. The increasing influence of tannic Buddhist concepts and vocabulary on Ise and the ease with which priests became monks after their retirement, suggests that compared, say, with the degree of antagonism between Enryakuji and Kofukuji, the strains between Buddhism and the native tradition at Ise were few and far between. A way was even found to explain the taboos against certain items of Buddhist vocabulary and against allowing monks close to the shrines that had been instituted after Shotoku Tenno's death and the banishment of Dokyo in 770. These restrictions could not be simply ignored, since they were expressed so clearly in texts such as Procedures of the Engi era. The best-known account of how this awkward fact of life was rationalised can be found again at the beginning of Muju's Shasekishu. While I was on a pilgrimage to the Great Shrine during the Kocho era [1261-64], an official explained to me why words associated with the Three Jewels of Buddhism 16 The emergence of Shinto 351 were forbidden at the shrine, and why monks could not closely approach the sacred buildings. In antiquity, when this country did not yet exist, the deity of the Great Shrine, guided by a seal [mudra\ of Mahavairocana inscribed on the ocean floor, thrust down the august spear. Brine from the spear coagulated like drops of dew, and this was seen from afar by Mara, the Evil One, in the Sixth Heaven of Desire. 'It appears that these drops are forming into a land where Buddhism will be propagated and people will escape from the round of birth and death,* he said, and came down to prevent it. Then the deity of the Great Shrine met with the demon king. T promise not to utter die names of the Three Jewels, nor will I permit diem near my person. So return quickly back to the heavens.' Being thus mollified, he withdrew. Monks to this very day, not wishing to violate that august promise, do not approach the sacred shrine, and the sutras are not carried openly in its precincts. Things associated with the Three Jewels are referred to obliquely: Buddha is called 'The Cramp-Legged One' [tachisukumi]; the sutras, 'coloured paper' [somegami]; monks, Tonghairs' [kaminaga]; and temples, 'incense burners' [koritaki], etc. Outwardly the deity is estranged from the Dharrna, but inwardly it profoundly supports the Three Jewels. Thus, Japanese Buddhism is under the special protection of the deity of the Great Shrine (Watanabe 1966: 59; Morrell 1985: 72-73). So much for an explanation of an apparent anti-Buddhist theme in the rituals at Ise; but the quotation above contains some oddities. 'In antiquity, when this country did not yet exist, the deity of the Great Shrine, guided by a seal [mudra] of Mahavairocana inscribed on the ocean floor, thrust down the august spear.' This is a classic example of how Buddhists managed quietly to rewrite the myths as presented in the early chronicles. It is admittedly rather difficult to explain the gross error here - was it not common knowledge that the spear was thrust down by Izanami and Izanagi, not their offspring? - but the important element is the tantric seal lying on the bottom of the sea, placed there by Mahavairocana as a guide. Tbisis entirely a medieval invention. 16.3 Watarai Shinto What of the second ideological movement? It. may come as a surprise to discover the term 'Shinto' appearing so late in this book and some explanation for this decision is probably due. Up to this point non-Buddhist elements have been identified either as 'jingi worship' or just 'local cults'. The official term was always jingi and the term 'Shinto' does not occur very often in the sources: in fact between 720 and 1604 only 186 occurrences of the word have been found, just over twenty examples per century (Teeuwen 2002). It appears four times in Nihon shoki, never in Kojiki, once in the 352 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall lengthy Shoku Nihongi, and only sporadically thereafter. In this early period it is often used in contrast to the Buddhist Dharma (buppo signifying 'the realm of the local deities/cults'. A classic case of the term being used in a derogatory sense can be found in the early Heian description of a jinguji, Ise no huni Tado jinguji garan engi narabi ni shizaicho §}iI#Jli§f ftlM^SfliXWtR, where the kami of Tado admits that because of kalpas of sinful karma he has received retribution in the form of being bom in the realm of the gods (Sflr'iii?). One might say, therefore, that it is a Buddhist term for the local cults, borrowed from its usage in such Chinese texts as the Biographies of eminent monks, with the term jfi being used as it appears in rokudd AMI, in a Buddhist sense. If the word had slightly negative connotations, this would explain why it is not found in official contexts. Use of the term 'Shinto', therefore, has been held back until now (1280-1320), because it is only at this point that one encounters the beginnings of a self-conscious discourse. A tradition that had been almost entirely based on ritual now found it politic to develop a textual basis, an intellectual justification which would help it claim equality with (and eventually supremacy over) Buddhism. Such a development does not, of course, come out of the blue, but there is very little in the way of texts between the late twelfth-century Nakatomi harae kunge and the first products of what is now known as Ise or Watarai Shinto K#Wit. The significance of the 'discovery' that Mahavairocana and Tensho Daijin were one and same deity had tremendous importance for the shrines at Ise, of course. It meant that the gods were not simply the traces of a Buddhist original but were original in themselves, and from there it was not going to be a large step to reversing the equation. But one of the difficulties we have in tracing how this came about is the awkward fact that many of the prime movers were Buddhist priests; there is also considerable evidence to suggest that not only were Buddhist works studied at Ise but shrine priests prided themselves on keeping the precepts. Many of them, of course, retired to temples and monasteries. Much work remains to be done before the picture becomes clearer (Bodiford 1998). As it turned out, however, the reassertion of the native tradition, when it did come, started as an internal squabble between the Outer and Inner Shrines (Teeuwen 1996). In the drive for self-preservation, each shrine needed a secure independent base of funding and this inevitably led them into economic competition with each other. The Outer Shrine, which had up to that point been considered the subordinate partner, laboured under a major handicap: neither the shrine itself nor its main deity, Toyouke S'S, was mentioned in Nihon shoki and, although both deity and shrine are mentioned 16 The emergence of Shinto 353 in later sources such as the Toyouke no miya gishikicho SS^fS^iR of 804 and Procedures of the Engi era of 927, they were seen as having little or no pedigree. In order to prove that they were at least the equal of the Inner Shrine, the priests of the Watarai house began to produce a series of sacred texts during the course of the thirteenth century that set out to rewrite history, reverse the order of precedence, and prove that the Outer Shrine was rightfully the dominant member of the pair. They also contain new traditions about the origin of Japan and its monarchy. The best-known of these texts were: Hoki hongi JSX^fB, Yamatohime no mikoto seiki fS fjfr tfi H3, Gochinza denki fPSIJlfliffii, Gochinza hongi fPHS^IB, Gochinza shidaiki mtBM^^fd and Jingi fuden zuki WffiitfiBffl. The first five of these were later singled out for special attention by Yamazaki Ansai UldSHlSf (1618— 82), but there are many more that have yet to be studied in any detail. The Gishikicho of 804 describes how Tensho Daijin asked that Toyouke, the deity who was in charge of food (mike fDSl), be moved from Mt Hiji in Tanba to serve at Ise, and this event was generally accepted to be the origin of the Outer Shrine. Then Toyouke was gradually provided with a new identity, becoming identified with Uka no mitama #11831, a food deity who does appear in Nihon shoki as a child of Izanami and Izanagi and could therefore be seen to be the equal of Tensho Daijin (Teeuwen 1996: 39^10). It then became associated with the discovery and use of fresh water for sustaining life. When Tsiikai visited in 1286 he reported that the Inner Shrine was related to fire and the Outer to water, and Gochinza denki has: Izanagi and Izanami . . . first gave birth to the eight great islands [of Japan], next to the deity of the sea, next to the deity of the wind, and so forth; later, although ten thousand years had passed, the working of water still had not appeared, and the world was famished. Then the two deities . . . offered the beautiful Yakasa Jewels to the Nine Halls, thus producing a deity called Toyouke Kodaijin. By way of a thousand changes and ten thousand transformations, [this deity] received the working of water (suitoku zkH) and brought forth the knowledge to maintain life. There it is called Mike-tsu-kami (Teeuwen 1996: 42^43). The next passage goes on to make the bold claim that an alternative name for Toyouke was Ame no Minakanushi ^P^S. This sleight of hand is in fact a gross contradiction because it serves to raise Toyouke above the parents. Amenominakanushi occurs only twice in the early chronicles, but in the most exalted position of all: in Kojiki it is the very first deity to be mentioned, and in Nihon shoki it is listed once, very briefly, in a variant passage at the beginning. In this way Toyouke is shown to be the first of all deities and the closest Japanese culture has to a progenitor. This then allowed the Outer 354 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall Shrine to claim that Toyouke had always acted in conjunction with Tensho Daijin and that they were equals at the very least As a passage in Yamatohime no mikoto seild put it: The Two Imperial Great Shrines of Ise are [the dwelling of] the gods honoured by Izanami and Izanagi, the gods of the mausolea of the ancestors and the shrines of the state (sobyo shashoku mMl&M). They are die ancestors of all gods, the progenitors of the Hundred Kings. They are the One and Highest. All the other gods are their children and then servants. Who would dare resist them? (Osumi 1977: 31; Teeuwen 1996: 62, adapted). Of the two 'Chinese' terms being used here, sobyo refers to the Inner Shrine as the ancestral shrine and shashoku to the Outer Shrine dedicated to the gods of land and food. The rivalry between the two shrines broke out in earnest in 1296-97 when the Outer Shrine first dared to use the term 'sovereign deity' {kodaijin SkXW) about Toyouke in a letter to the court. This then led to legal action brought by the Inner Shrine, which naturally wished to guard its special status. Neither side seems to have won the legal argument, but the most important outcome of the disagreement was the emergence of the texts we have just mentioned, which claimed to be of great antiquity but were in fact written by members of the Watarai house. 16.4 New myths of origin If the native tradition was beginning to flex its muscles and claim supremacy, what, one might well ask, was it going to do about doctrine? It was never going to be possible for Shinto to produce a doctrine to rival that of Buddhism. For one thing, it lacked the vocabulary. It is more fruitful to think of the native equivalent of doctrine - we might call it 'Shinto theory' - as being a new discourse of origins, mirrored in the explosion of interest in stories about the founding of temples, shrines, sacred sites and indeed Japan itself. But this should not be taken to mean that Shinto theorists shied away from doctrine altogether. They concentrated on the concept of purity, gradually transforming it into something much closer to a morality. Take, for example, the following text that is often seen as central to medieval Shinto. It comes in the form of an oracle: The mind-god is the fundamental basis of heaven and earth. The body is a transformation of the Five Elements. You must therefore make the origin the origin, and rest in the original beginning; you must make the basis the basis, and depend upon your basic mind (honshin). To receive divine beneficence, you must give 16 The emergence of Shinto 355 priority to prayer; to obtain protection, you must make uprightness the basis. If you respect heaven and serve the earth, revere the gods and honour the ancestors, the Ancestral Temple [sobyo] will never cease to sustain the sovereign's reign. Furthermore, you must cover your breath concerning the Buddhist Dharma and worship the gods. The sun and the moon circulate the four continents and illuminate the earth, but they will [especially] shed their light on the upright (Osumi 1977: 30; Teeuwen 1996: 101).2 Ransacking both Buddhism and Chinese Yin-Yang discourse to transform their own vocabulary, Shinto ideologues tried to create a metaphysics of the base, origin, uprightness and purity, which may well have been influenced by ideas stemming from Tendai hongaku. Certainly they share the same interests in treating the here-and-now as sacred, returning to the origin, and nullifying the effects of history by proclaiming the reality of an eternal present. But it is instructive to see that even here they found it impossible to break away from a concern with sovereignty; the argument inevitably drifts back to matters of lineage. In this sense, Shintd was tied to political realities from its inception and always found it difficult to escape into something of more universal significance, without the aid of Buddhism. It is in the context of the development of a metaphysics that the question of how the compound WJE was actually pronounced becomes of interest. It is possible that until the late fourteenth century the word was pronounced jindo' radier than 'shintd', and that the shift to 'shintd' mirrors the new obsession with origins and purity of intent. A passage from a somewhat later text, lectures on Nikon shoki by the monk Ryohen OA dated 1419, reads: On the term jjf Jf: we do not read tiais jindo but shintd, with purity (sumute ?§ A -r). This signifies straightforwardness (sugu nam gi). And straightforwardness means 'just as it is' (ari no mama). So the shrines at Ise manifest the deep significance of Shinto by not cutting the reeds or brushwood [on the roofs], not shaving the rafters, not adorning boats or carts, and not wearing patterned clothes. And another text says: do not play flutes or drums, and do not deal in bright colours; which means that at Ise they do not cut the ends of the reeds, they lay rafters of unshaven wood, and they do not play sacred music with either flute or drum (Tamura and Sueki 1990: 517; Teeuwen 2002: 242). There is an interesting use of linguistic terminology here. The word jindo displays voicing on both syllables and the Japanese word for 'voicing' is nigoru, which also means 'to muddy'. To devoice from jindo to shintd is 2 Note that the phrase 'cover your breath concerning the Buddhist Dharma' (buppo no iki o kakuskite ffiffi/ & JMS/t) is ambiguous. Here it is likely to mean 'show utmost respect to', but in the Edo period it was interpreted to mean the exact opposite: 'do not mention'. 356 From Tôdaiji 's destruction to Go-Daigo 's fall 16 The emergence of Shinto 357 therefore to purify, precisely the metaphor that governed Shinto discourse from now on. Whether this was a new reading of the term or not, however, is difficult to fathom from one isolated example. Ryohen may simply have been explaining a fact rather than proposing something radical.3 'Returning to the origin' also involved a more literal revisitation of the earliest Japanese sources. There were, of course, many reasons for this desire to rewrite the past in order to redefine the present, and the drive by the priests of the Outer Shrine to reverse the order of precedence at Ise is but one of what turned out to be an outpouring of origin tales of shrines and temples throughout Japan. Certainly, Watarai priests were only one of many groups interesting in performing radical surgery on the oldest of sources. Not only was the logic behind Nikon shoki now quite alien, being so much a product of its own time, but newer gods were needed. Invention in the guise of rectification was again the order of the day as the records were subjected to an imaginative re-reading. It will be recalled that Kojild itself had, to all intents and purposes, disappeared. No tradition of its decipherment had ever been instituted and it had lain largely untouched and unstudied; this was a condition that was to last a long time, until the rise of a radical native philological movement in the seventeenth century. Nihon shoki, on the other hand, could boast an almost continuous tradition of reading and commentary, a tradition that had been kept alive by the Urabe h bp family and which culminated in Shaku Nihongi % H .^IB produced by Urabe Kanefumi M'X and his son Kanekata Mlo some time between 1275 and 1300. Kanekata also produced his own Nihon shoki: jindai no maki ff'f^^H of roughly the same date. These works are not straightforward commentaries. Concentrating almost entirely on the 'Age of the gods', they often invent their own versions of events and feel little compunction in usurping the role of the original: not a difficult procedure when the text itself was, if not exactly secret, then not widely disseminated. Take, for example, myths that deal with the origin of the universe. What stands out here is the central role given to two deities, Amenominakanushi and Kunitokotachi. In Nihon shoki these names, redolent of centrality on the one hand and foundations on the other, are just that, names, and they disappear from the rest of the chronicle. But in the medieval tradition they emerge from obscurity to play major roles. The rather vague statements at the 3 Another example of the reading findo can be found in tale 7.3 in the early twelfth-century Konjdku monogatarishu (Yamada Yoshio et al. 1959-63, vol. II: 124). The editors state that their furigana readings were chosen to reflect late Heian pronunciation as far as possible, but the whole question calls for further investigation. beginning of Nihon shoki were clearly unsatisfactory in a Japan that had fully absorbed tantric Buddhism and the concept of Mahävairocana. There was a strongly felt need for a more coherent narrative with an identifiable figure standing at the origin. Even so, one searches for a core story in vain; it was as if everyone felt free to invent his or her own version. The opening section of the collection of tales entitled Kokon chomonfú ríf 4" H 1*6 Ä, compiled by Tachibana Narisue f3i$i# in 1254, is a fairly straightforward paraphrase of the beginning of Nihon shoki: Before heaven and earth were divided, [the cosmos] was like a congealed egg. The clear parts floated up to form heaven and the murky parts sank and stagnated to form earth. Then something appeared between heaven and earth, the shape of a reed shoot (ashikabi í^ŕp). It then transformed into a deity. This was Kunitokotachi no mikoto WIS AW. In the intervening period there have been seven generations of heavenly deities and five generations of earthly deities. The age of man began with Jinmu Tennô, the son of the deity Hikonagisa takeugayafuki awasezu. It was in his reign, in the ninth month of the twenty-eighth year, that all the deities were first honoured (Nagazumi etal. 1966: 49). But turn to Yamato katsuragi hózanki ^fflSí$ÄlJ4@B and we get an entirely different tale: It is said that the creation of heaven and earth involved water vapour changing and becoming heaven and earth. The winds of the ten directions blew against each other and protected the waters. And on the waters a deity was born with a thousand heads and two thousand hands and feet. It was called the Spirit King of Eternal Compassion (Jôjujihishinnô "ŠÍíMWM£.) and also Visnu (MM). From the navel of this deity in human form sprang a golden Lotus of the Marvellous Dharma with a thousand petals. Its light was exceeding bright as if shining like ten thousand moons. Within the flower a deity in human form sat in the Lotus position. His gaze was immeasurably bright and he was called Brahmä. From his heart came eight children and from them were born the people of heaven and earth. They were called heavenly deifies or the ancestor gods of the monarch of heaven (Yamamoto Í998: 36-37). Later on in this text, we find this Spirit King being identified with Ameno-minakanushi/Toyouke. The reference to Indie deities here may be thought curious but should not come as too much of a surprise since, as we have seen before, Buddhism had absorbed many such a deity as gohô zenjin. This passage is in fact borrowed from a collection of tales entitled A miscellany of metaphors and examples (Zčhiyu kyô JHfifelS, T. 204). As far as the creation of earth itself is concerned, we also find a series of rewritings that usually incorporate tantric Buddhist elements and begin to interpret Nihon shoki passages in ways that make the miderlying symbolism 358 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall explicit. Muju, it will be remembered, described a mudra lying on the ocean floor. This crops up again in a text called Jingi hisho W9". The two deities Izanagi and Izanami opened up Mt Sumeru and looked into the sea below but there was neither land nor island. So they thrust down the 'reversed spear of Heaven' (ame no sakahoko) and stirred and searched. The drips from the spear hardened and became an island, and the five characters A-bi-ra-un-ken appeared. Then a strange wind arose and the 'five-cornered island' was created. This was Awajishima. And many deities lived there (Yamamoto 1998: 87). Since the mudra is Mahavairocana's own seal, not only is the land sacred from the very beginning but they are searching for something already present, finding it rather than creating it. In Nihon shoki, the island, called Onogorojima, becomes itself the 'pillar of heaven', but in the early Heian text Sendai kujihongi the spear becomes the pillar, the centre of the world, and it is this version that becomes commonly used in the thirteenth century. By the time we reach the fourteenth century, the spear has become a vajra (kongosho ^Hlfr") dipping into a sea that is shaped like an eight-leaved lotus flower (Yamamoto 1998: 97). 16.5 The literal reading of metaphor As the graphic image of a spear dipping into the centre of the lotus lying at the heart of the Womb World mandala suggests, origins (or rebirths for the Buddhist) have to do with procreation and sex. In the orthodox tannic tradition it was taken for granted that the kind of language used in these contexts was by its very nature metaphorical, but it was also recognised that language was a slippery beast and that there was an ever-present danger that such phrases as 'passions are enlightenment' could easily be taken literally. It is about this time that we find the emergence of a heterodox tradition, now known as Tachikawa ryu fL)\\^l, that is supposed to have taken the message literally and equated sexual bliss with the achievement of buddhahood in this very body (sokushin jobutsu). The history of this tradition is obscure, partly because of the secrecy that surrounded it, and partly because in the 1470s it was proscribed and many of its texts destroyed. Most of our knowledge comes from two treatises which were written to counteract its influence and so should be treated with considerable caution: Shinjo's >h% On receiving the Dharma with circumspection (Juho ydjinshu ?8ffifl|jfj>SI) of 1272 and the later Jewelled mirror (Hokyosho fit) of 1375, written by Yukai Ht* 16 The emergence of Shinto 359 (1345-1416).4 In fact, very little is known about Tachikawa except that heterodox tantric practices certainly existed in Japan and that the texts that do survive show yet again a willingness to link tantric Buddhist explanations to Shinto myths of origin. There is a question as to the provenance of this tradition. Shinjo's work, in particular, contains a graphic and detailed explanation of a Skull Ritual involving necromancy and the use of sexual fluids of both male and female which is much more explicit than even the more advanced hido-Tibetan tantras, but the Hevajratantra, to give just one example, was translated into Chinese at a fairly late date (1054-55), and even then in a somewhat bowdlerised form. It is entirely possible that some of these works were sent back to Japan by Jojin in 1073, or perhaps came with other monks at a later stage, but there is no proof (Bowring 1992a). Perhaps these practices had been common at court throughout the late Heian period and had been kept so secret that there is no record of them. All that can really be said is that they seem to break surface in the thirteenth century. Muju Ichien, who has been quoted more than once in this chapter, was moved to complain about these 'strange aberrations' in 1280. The fact that this tradition received at least semi-public recognition at this juncture may well be related to the emergence of a discourse of origins that was both tantric and revolved around Ise. The first text to show clear influence of heterodox ideas is in fact a literary commentary. A substantial number of courtiers were both poets and Buddhist priests and a large of number of them had an intimate knowledge of tantrism. Since, it is in the very nature of tantric thought to discover connections hidden beneath the surface, it is perhaps not surprising that the culture of secrets and initiations would have held a particular attraction. The habit of collecting mysteries was not, of course, unconnected to economics; but that is not to say that everyone was doing this simply for financial gain. Two literary works, in particular, lay themselves open to this form of interpretation: the tenth-century Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari ^jK^Sj) and Collection ancient and modern (Kokinshu l^-^M), although it was probably the first of these that set the ball rolling. Tales of Ise had been a problematic text from at least the mid-Heian period. It consists of a series of discrete sections, each one involving a poem or set of poems with a prose context. There appears to be only a minimal attempt to link these sections together, but the need to discover a coherent principle in the text was present from quite early on. 4 For Juho ydjinshu see Sanford 1991a. Hokyosho is translated in Vanden Broucke 1992. Faure 1998: 126ff and 2000 deals mainly with later manifestations of this tradition. 360 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall Various strategies of reading were employed, the main one being to see the work as a poetic biography of the politically marginal but culturally central court figure of Ariwara no Narihira ^JEHT (825-80), a reading that was already common by the early eleventh century. A second, more troublesome, problem, however, was the title. Apart from the fact that one short section dealt with Narihira's illicit liaison with the priestess of the Ise shrines, it was not at all obvious to what the title referred. In the context of the kind of discourse described above, a tantric, explicitely sexual, interpretation was generated. Given that the two shrines at Ise were by now frrmly identified with the two main Shingon mandala, T f? was marked as the female principle and 'Se' # as the male principle, and the title was explained as an oblique reference to the union of sexual opposites. The subject matter of Tales of he was therefore the power of poetic language in the context of the erotic.5 A poetic treatise of the early thirteenth century, Waka chikenshu %UW H? lj!Jfe, explains it as follows: Narihira is the bodhisattva known as Bato Kannon JSHHeF , the bodhisattva of song and dance in paradise ... Seeing the plight of humanity in the world... he eventually brought comfort to 3,733 women. He kept records of his activities, writing down what had happened to him in order to proclaim the meaning of the erotic for later generations. The bird inquires: I am greatly puzzled by this explanation. The scriptures say that to approach a female is the ultimate karmic act, thus all Buddhas warn about this in particular, called it either 'fixing the mind on boundless kalpas' or 'one cause leading to five hundred births'. What kind of bodhisattva is it who tries to encourage escape from suffering by urging people to take the path of which others have made such dire warnings? This is strange indeed. The wind replies: If people are of one accord, the way to become a Buddha is indeed to practice the austerities of the six perfections, to offer up prayers, to honour and succor one's parents and superiors, and thus to achieve immediate rebirth in paradise; but people are by nature many and various and find it difficult to believe in Buddhist precepts to the exclusion of all else. Since they do not believe, they are fated to wander in the dark for generations. It is for this reason that the Buddhas have divided into myriad forms and encourage escape from suffering by adapting to human propensities. The bodhisattva in question is not, of course, insisting that we all cast aside the practice of austerities and enter instead upon this particular path; it is rather that, since we now live in degenerate times, in the Latter Days of the Dharma, humanity has become bored with good intentions and prefers evil ways - so all now enter upon this way to the exclusion of all else. The way is known as the 'Principle of Union between the Two Fluids, of Womb and Egg', and there are many who believe that it is an activity that, if one studies well. 5 For more on this subject see Bowring 1992b and Klein 1997, 1998 and 2002. 16 The emergence of Shinto 361 and achieves awareness, will eventually lead to a state of buddhahood in this existence. Because people are constantly warned that this path is neither austerity nor good practice but simply the karmic act of eternal rebirth, many are contused; so it is that this bodhisattva came into this world to show people, to impart to others (if only a little) the true, deep significance of the act. No phenomenon is divorced from the Union of the two Fluids, of Womb and Egg. If the male becomes heaven by carrying out the austerities of the womb, the female becomes earth by virtue of the diamond-hard body. Heaven and earth - the names differ but in fact it is the union of male and female. Though the earth holds the seeds of grasses and trees, not a single shoot will develop unless heaven bestows the blessing of rain and dew. Though the female holds the place of birth within her womb, there will be no humanity unless the male bestows the seeds of his essence. So the male should prepare to nurture rain and dew in the image of heaven and care for the female; and the female should, in the image of earth-woman, nurture the grass and trees and honour the heaven-male . . . this is why Narihira tried to encourage people towards enlightenment by treating this practice as the ultimate austerity (Bowring 1992b: 436-37). It was secrets like this that were imparted at poetry initiation ceremonies (waka kanjo ftlWMM) that became common at court in the thirteenth century and that are associated with the figure of Fujiwara no Tameaki SB (c.1230-c.1300), grandson of the famous scholar Teika. They represent an amalgam of literary secrets with the tantric connotations of the term/place 'Ise' and show that the myths of origin that we have described in the previous section were well known and well used at court. This is made absolutely clear in a slightly later text, Ise monogatari zuino it IS, that has been dated to about 1320. Here we find the sexual vocabulary of origins made even more explicit. An explanation of the pillow-word chihayaburu (usually written S5SJS), that was commonly found in early poetry attached to the word 'kami' but whose meaning was in fact unclear, shows how the interpretation of poetry was intimately linked to the new role that Shinto was beginning to claim. By dint of some imaginative use of characters and by equating the lotus with female genitalia, the secret meaning behind an obscure word could be related to Shinto metaphysics. The phrase chihayaburu I1;*! IS means 'emerging from the womb', it refers to the process by which the soul, having been conceived in human form, is born. The form of the five viscera and six entrails of the mother closely resemble petals of the lotus flower. Conceived in the lotus, when born in the tenth month, the child emerges by tearing IKS those thousand-petaled T"Ht membranes ... A person's tama is referred to as a 'kamV. The word 'kam'C does not refer to something awe-inspiring outside of ourselves. It is said that [the kami are] the karmic link of the Buddhist divinities dimming their splendour and mingling with the dust of this world (ffl^£ IhIH); when 362 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall [the kami] is in a state of no-aspect and no-mind (muso munen ^fflil^) and has no body or thought, it is a buddha. The kami is a buddha who mingles its light with the dust in order to guide people. Your psyche is called a buddha when it is in the midst of the sky-void because it had neither body or consciousness to acknowledge anything. It is called a kami when it becomes a human being in order to guide other people (Klein 1998: 29-30, adapted).6 This was not the only link between poetry and the religious tradition. At times they were almost treated as one and the same tiling. The 5-7-5-7-7 form of the waka was seen as something divinely inspired and it was known that the earliest example, which significantly had to do with producing sacred space and enclosing a loved one, was recorded in Kojiki as having been produced by the god of Izumo, Susano-o. Ki no Tsurayuki in his preface to Kokinshu of 905 had proclaimed that waka had the divine ability to calm the human spirit. Now, with the spread of tantric thought, there was much reference to waka being the dharani of Japan. The five phrases were related to the five-syllable mudra of Dainichi, A-bi-ra-un-ken, and arguments were found to prove that the act of producing a poem was tantamount to producing a buddha: a waka had thirty-one syllables plus the meaning, which corresponded to the thirty-two aspects of a Tathagata (Bowring 1992b: 439-46). 6 See Sanford 1997 for an important introduction to the more medical aspects of what he terms 'fetal Buddhahood in Shingon'. 17 Taking stock 17.1 Buddhist historiography The period from the second Mongol invasion of 1281 to the fall of the Kamakura Bakufu in 1333 was not a stable one at either Kamakura or Kyoto. Signs of lawlessness were everywhere and constant interference by Kamakura in matters of succession meant that the court was unable to settle down. Indeed, from the time of Go-Saga HEW (r. 1242-45) the succession had switched back and forward between the families of his two sons, giving rise to two rival groups, one known as the Daikakuji faction Affi^flS and the other, the Jimyoin faction W^^Wt. This situation lasted until the accession of Go-Daigo fjUfUHl in 1318. Taking advantage of a period of disunity in Kamakura, Go-Daigo made a move to restore full power to the sovereign's line. He failed, of course, and in the process opened the way for the rise of the next military family, the Ashikaga. His eventual flight to Yoshino in 1336 led to the setting up of two rival courts; sporadic fighting continued for the rest of the century. Monks at the main Tendai and Shingon centres - Enryakuji, Kofukuji, Todaiji, Toji - and the temples more closely tied to the sovereign such as Daigoji and Ninnaji, continued to be involved in matters political and indeed military. But if one can speak for Buddhism as an institution in general, it was a period of consolidation. No new tradition emerged from the continent and nothing radically new developed in Japan either. There was certainly a need to take stock, and it is at this juncture that we encounter the first histories in Japan to deal with matters from a largely religious perspective. These scholar-monks, however, were not interested in the role that Buddhism as a whole had played in Japanese history to date; their interests were more parochial. They were chiefly concerned with matters of lineage and genealogy. There was a recognition that the kind of Pure Land Buddhism that had developed within Japan and the various forms of Zen that had been newly imported from the continent were not going to go away; it was time to incorporate them into the general picture. 363 364 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall The problem was that the Buddhist historian is not particularly well equipped to deal with innovation and change. Since all expressions of legitimacy involve proof of a genealogy leading from Säkyamuni to the present, change can only be dealt with in terms of heuristic devices (höben): the explanation of a new doctrine has to be that different audiences of differing capabilities call for different kinds of message. This can be documented, of course, but to do this well one needs an interest in the social and political environment that generates the need for change, and this interest was conspicuous by its absence. There is also a natural tension between providing legitimation in the form of a clear line back to the beginnings and acknowledging the role of certain individuals in the continuation of this link. Does one extol the 'eminent monk' as a prime mover or should he be treated as little more than an empty vessel through which the tradition and the doctrine perpetuated itself? One notices at this time a tendency to go for the latter option, an inevitable consequence of placing such weight on transmission. It was possible to argue, for example, that neither Saichö nor Kükai was the first to introduce his respective doctrine, which would lead to a downgrading of their role. In the case of Kükai this even generated a story that Subhakarasimha himself had come to Japan to propagate Shingon. The outstanding scholar of his generation was the Todaiji. monk Gyönen MM (1240-1321), who achieved the unprecedented accolade of receiving the title 'national master' (kokushi SW) during his lifetime. Today he is best known for one of his earliest works, the short introduction to Japanese Buddhist teachings known as Essentials of the eight traditions (Hasshü köyö ASM?) of 1268, which is still used today; but he was a prolific writer and had a wide range. Given the bodhisattva precepts on Hieizan at the age of sixteen, he left soon afterwards and moved to Todaiji where we find him being ordained again as a novice in the newly restored Kaidan'in iftl^, taking the full 250 precepts in 1259. He then started a life of scholarship, which culminated with the abbotship of the Kaidan'in, a post that he held from 1277 until his death in 1321. Given this position, it is not surprising that he was closely involved in the renewal of interest in and scholarship of the vinaya, a concern that was shared by many of his contemporaries such as Eison. Although just one of many, the work that stands out in this context is the comprehensive Bonmö kaihon sho nichijushö JuffiÄ^SiL B (1318), an extensive subcommentary on Fazang's interpretation of the bodhisattva precepts. Fazang was in fact one of his permanent interests and formed the basis of another monument to scholarship, the Mirror revealing the meaning of the Dharrna world according to Kegon (Kegon hokkai gikyö iplSälr- 17 Taking stock 365 iltt) of 1295, which proved to be by far the most sophisticated treatment of Kegon doctrine to date.1 The Essentials of the eight traditions presents a short account of the development of Buddhism in India, China and Japan and then launches into a highly compressed exposition of Buddhist teaching, divided into what was generally accepted to be the eight major doctrinal traditions: Kusha, Jojitsu, Ritsu, Hossd, Sanron, Tendai, Kegon and Shingon. It is even-handed in that Gyonen refused to express a preference for one doctrine over another, but this was very much in the nature of scholarship at Todaiji. The temple and its precincts had by this time fully recovered from the disasters of 1180 and regained its reputation as an important centre for Buddhist scholarship where all subjects could be studied. As already pointed out, these eight traditions (AS?) were not so much schools or sects but academic subjects of study such as Hosso phenomenology or Kegon philosophy, and it was common for monks to remain 'non-denominational' for many years and to study a number of them at different institutions. These subjects all had their genealogies and were seen as complementary. Indeed, this was precisely the point Jokei had made much earlier when he attacked Honen for his tendency to exclusivism. By the same token, however, the number 'eight' had by this time become fixed in the institutional mind as the agreed number of acceptable traditions in Japan and any inflation of this figure was bound to cause dissent. When first Pure Land Buddhism and then Zen emerged, a challenge to their legitimacy was to be expected on these grounds alone. By Gyonen's time, however, it was impossible to deny their right to exist. In Essentials, he fudged the matter and simple added them somewhat perfunctorily at the end almost as an afterthought, but it was obvious that this was an unsatisfactory stopgap and he eventually produced something far more substantial, particularly as regards Pure Land beliefs. On the origin and development of Pure Land doctrine (Jodo homon genrusho ^i.W:f^W.WM) of 1311 was a sympathetic history of Pure Land's origin and development. It pins its colours to the mast right at the beginning: The Pure Land teachings originate in the distant past. It was at Rajagrha where a special meeting was held concerning the wondrous Pure Land [doctrine]. In the grove of Jetavana, the Buddhas expressed their approval by [extending] their tongues in affirmation. With the translation of the Jingtu-lun [knowledge of] the twenty- nine adornments [of the Pure Land] began to spread to China and the comment-arial tradition was then transmitted to Japan 0 1 For discussion of Gyonen's significance vis-a-vis Kegon see Guard 1990: 60-67. 366 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall The [doctrine of the ] Forty-eight Vows has been widely acclaimed. From its origin it has spread far and wide over long distances, its roots deep and its branches thick. Now I will give a summary, presenting its origin and development, here roughly and there minutely, describing the large and small branches. I will delineate names and meanings, illustrating themes and their conclusions (Blum 2002:145^16, adapted). GySnen starts by describing the various Pure Land surras and their Chinese versions. He then discusses the development of Pure Land ideas from India, through China and into Japan, the first part ending with the advent of Hdnen. His aim is clearly to provide scholarly justification for treating Pure Land as a legitimate tradition, and in this sense it can be seen as a long-distance response to Jdkei's concerns from the viewpoint of an impartial scholar. Honen, of course, had defended himself vigorously. Having placed Honen firmly in a doctrinal lineage, Gyonen then goes on to analyse the doctrinal disagreements that emerged among his followers. He was obviously fascinated by such differences, although he is again scrupulous in not voicing a preference. He structured his presentation on the major doctrinal positions: whether, for example, practice of the nenbutsu should be constant or whether a single correct instant was enough to secure rebirth in the Pure Land. It is in fact because of his account that we know as much as we do about the kind of arguments that developed in the century after Honen's death. There are some interesting lacunae, however. Neither Shinran nor Ippen is mentioned, for example, perhaps because their denial of the legitimacy of the sahgha was a step too far. Another one of Gyonen's many works is A history of the transmission of Buddhism through the three lands (Sangoku buppo denzu engi HHHSferWS SS) of 1311. Yet again, the picture concentrates on doctrine and lineage, and avoids almost all mention of social and political conflict. As the term 'three lands' suggests, he ignored all the spaces in between, such as Central Asia and Korea, and was mainly concerned to ratify the position of Japan as the equal of India and China. Not surprisingly, despite his intellectual interest in Pure Land teachings, the concept of mappo held no legitimacy for him. Providing a secure genealogy back through China to India was vital for each tradition, but the movement of Buddhism to the east had a purpose: Japan was now the home of these traditions and it was the duty of scholars such as himself to keep them all alive and in good health. There is a sense of confidence here that found the idea of mappo inconvenient and even a little distasteful. One possibly unintended consequence of concentrating on specific traditions was to encourage the process by which each 'approach' (§?) slowly 17 Taking stock 367 transformed itself into a distinct school, something that finally happened only in the Edo period. For this reason, it may indeed be a little nnsleading to entitle this section 'Buddhist historiography' because it suggests that 'Buddhism' was a recognisable concept at this time, which is open to doubt. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say that the way a scholar-historian such as Gyonen approached his subject tended to isolate traditions from one another and thereby caused the particular to loom much larger than the whole. This is a phenomenon that was recognised by the Zen monk Kokan Shiren (1278-1346), who tried to counteract it in his History of the Sakyamuni [tradition, written in] the Genko era (Genko shakusho), that appeared in 1332, the year after Gyonen's death. Genko shakusho is in three unequal parts: biographies (den fif), annals (hyo S) and miscellaneous accounts (shi M). The first two of these, at least, explore entirely different ways of presenting the past (Bielefeldt 1997). The annals give a chronological account of important events in the development of Buddhism in Japan from 538 to 1221, although not without some bias towards Zen near the end. The biographies follow the usual division into ten sections that one finds in the series of three Chinese 'biographies of eminent monks' to which Kokan Shiren would have had access: monks were listed in groups, which were named after their chief claim to fame. But Shiren's titles were idiosyncratic: 'fransnutting knowledge' (fill!?), 'wisdom in exegesis' (MM), 'purity in meditation' (fflffi), 'zeal in obtaining supernatural response' (&M), 'patience in observance' (Mfj), 'illtrmmating the corrmtandments of morality' (f!r3 5$, ), 'fostering charity' (filJS}), 'accommodations of skilfulness' {15 M), 'vigour in journeying' 0lW) and 'miscellanous vows' (1138) (Ury 1970: 130). Shiren was abbot of Tofukuji and a Zen scholar of major repute. The underlying message of this work - that the Zen tradition was in fact the oldest and should rank above all others - is clear from the very beginning, since he begins his account boldly with a biography of Bodhidharma. But he chose not to follow Gyonen down the road of emphasising the separateness of traditions by designing his work along quite different lines. By taking as his framework the Chinese example and so reverting to the biographical mode, he managed to suggest the possibility of rising above sectarian differences and treating Buddhism as an entity, even while continuing to extol the role of Zen in particular. The difference between this approach and Gyonen's obsession with doctrine could hardly be more striking. 368 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall 17.2 Metropolitan Zen The previous discussion of Zen masters and their relationship with the Hojo regents in Kamakura (§14.3) led up to Wuxue Zuyuan (1226-86), who served Hojo Tokimune. Within two years of his arrival, the Mongols had launched their second attempt at invasion and a new temple had been created at Kamakura dedicated to the memory of those who had died in the fighting. This was Engakuji 11^, where Wuxue was installed as founder abbot in 1282. Documents dated 1283 record that there were already one hundred monks, one hundred assistants, twenty attendants with ceremonial duties, four laundry workers and six assistants at the abbot's headquarters, but numbers were to rise rapidly in the early fourteenth century (Akamatsu and Yampolsky 1977: 325). Clearly, if this level of staffing and organisation could be arranged from the beginning, Zen was now firmly established in Japan. But it was still very much the preserve of the elite and successive regents encouraged the study of more than just religious texts. To patronise Zen was to patronise Chinese learning in general, with all that meant in terms of prestige. Zen monasteries flourished as a result, but at the same time, they themselves had to submit to increasing supervision and strict regulation, for the Bakufu wished to avoid the growth of another Hieizan at all costs, a centre of spiritual and indeed military power that might one day come to threaten their own position of dominance. In 1303, for example, Hojo Sadatoki was sufficiently concerned about the possibility of this occurrence that he banned assistants at Engakuji from carrying swords, and in 1327 Hojo Takatoki (1303-33) created an office whose specific remit it was to handle disciplinary matters to do with monks and monasteries. The Ashikaga in their turn were to become equally concerned to control the power of the Zen monasteries they patronised. It was from about this time that the official system known as the 'live mountains' (gozan 2lUi) seems to have come into being, the first extant use of the word being in 1299, when the Jdchiji W^^f in Kamakura was given this rank. The Gozan system itself was not properly established, however, until fifty years later under the Ashikaga, and it is at that point that it will be described in more detail. By the beginriing of the fourteenth century, therefore, Zen was firmly established as a religious foundation under the patronage of the masters in Kamakura, and it had become a matter of status for an important political figure to have a Zen master at his beck and call. Hojo Sadatoki (1271-1311), for example, had Yishan Yining — Mj—5p (1247-1317), who seems to have arrived as a Mongol envoy in 1299. He was a trained scholar and, once 17 Taking stock 369 installed, began to encourage the serious study of Chinese literature and painting, habits that eventually led to the kind of culture we normally associate with Zen temples. One of the tasks he gave aspiring monks, for example, was a test of their ability to compose Chinese poetry. The increasing flow of Chinese masters provided Kamakura with the trappings of high culture, the study and practice of Chinese literature and painting. It was this aspect too that encouraged the higher strata of warriors in the provinces to patronise their own monasteries (usually by the simple procedure of converting an existing institution to Zen by fiat), although Pure Land Buddhism and the Lotus movement still held sway with most warriors and peasants. Zen as an institution proved to have strong enough roots to survive the fall of the Hojo. If it had been too closely and exclusively linked to them, it would have died with the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, but in fact it was just about to hit its stride. First Go-Daigo and then the Ashikaga shoguns were to patronise influential Zen monks and use them to full advantage. A key figure in this process was the monk Musd Soseki (1275-1351) (Collcutt 1997). History has not been kind to Muso. He has usually been portrayed as an opportunist who did not really understand Zen and who insisted on sullying it with tannic and other ritual. After much early wandering he was ordained at Todaiji in 1292 under the guidance of the vinaya master Jikan. He then turned to Zen, studied at Kenmnji, and began again the peripatetic lifestyle of a typical young Zen monk. He succeeded in passing the tests set all prospective students by Yishan Yining in Kamakura, but despite trying on two different occasions, failed to strike up the kind of relationship with this master that he felt was necessary, and he reverted to a life of wandering for ten years or more, becoming known for little more than his peripatetic and reclusive lifestyle. Eventually he came to the notice of Go-Daigo, who persuaded him to become abbot of Nanzenji in 1325. Like many Kyoto aristocrats, Go-Daigo's interest in Zen was closely linked to what it offered in terms of a window onto Chinese culture, and Muso's acknowledged expertise in this area may well have brought him to Go-Daigo's attention. But Muso's arrival in the capital caused a good deal of upset and he was subjected to withering criticism by the retired Hanazono and his protege Shuho Myocho mt$%>& (Daito Afi, 1282-1337). Two years later he was back in Kamakura, where he remained until the fall of the Hojo in 1333. This then propelled him back to Kyoto and Nanzenji. After Go-Daigo fled the city, Muso came under the protection of Ashikaga Takauji and his younger brother Tadayoshi, who had particular regard for him and for 370 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo 'sfall whom he wrote a guide to Zen for the warrior layman Dialogues in dreams (Muchu mondo W^W^S) in 1344. The rest of Muso's career was devoted to the building of Tenryuji ^ti^P to the west of Kyoto, a Zen temple devoted to Go-Daigo's memory. Economic support was provided not only through grants of land but also via a new source of funds, earmarking the profits from trading missions to Yuan China. All this was achieved in the teeth of opposition from Enryakuji. The first truly self-confident Japanese master, confident in the sense that he felt no need to go to China or indeed receive transmission from a Chinese master, Muso secured the future of Zen as a major national institution. Zen masters became important not only as cultural advisers but also in trade and finance, used by successive rulers in diplomacy and commerce. What they gained in prestige, however, they lost in freedom, subject as they were to increasing interference in every aspect of their administration. One Enryakuji and one Kofukuji was clearly enough for any country. And it should not be forgotten that the Tendai authorities were constantly on their guard during this period, sniping at Zen temples whenever possible, at times with brute force, and jealously trying (and failing) to keep their pre-eminent role. Muso's great rival was Daito, the founder abbot of Daitokuji ikM^f, who traced himself back through his teacher Nanpo Jomyo fSffllSW to a different Chinese Zen tradition known as the Songyuan lineage %&MM. If Muso has been treated rather badly by history, seen unfairly as a politician rather than a monk, it may simply be because Daito's lineage eventually became the dominant one in the Tokugawa period. Certainly Daitd has the reputation of having been the perfect monk, proof that it was no longer necessary to study in China to become a Zen master (Kraft 1992). His early study was with Koho Kennichi BilSS 3 in Kamakura, where (his chroniclers tell us) he showed a precocious ability to handle the special language of Zen encounters between master and student. In 1304 he went to study in Kyoto with Jomyo, who had studied in China for eight years. Working on several difficult koan under his guidance, he achieved enlightenment and then spent some ten years in relative obscurity, studying and meditating. This period of seclusion only served to enhance his reputation, so that by 1319 he had been persuaded to become the abbot of a newly planned temple in the north of the city. In 1323 he had the first of many meetings with Hanazono and was then helped to found Daitokuji by not only Hanazono but also Go-Daigo. The Dharma Hall was finished in 1326 and the temple was officially opened in the winter of that year. He remained as abbot of this temple until his death in 1337. Daito is known chiefly through his own writings and commentaries, and through 17 Taking stock 371 later hagiographies. It is clear from the former, however, that he was unusually proficient in classical Chinese and developed a form of commentary known as 'capping phrases' (agyd Tl§, jakugo ^tf§), a device whereby one showed one's understanding of a koan or an exchange by producing a line or phrase (often taken from Chinese poetry) that encapsulated an insight and sparked insight in others. This method of teaching, Daito made his own. It is worth noting here that the Mongol intrusion into the north of China, its attacks on Japan, and its eventual conquest of the Southern Song in 1279, did very little to stop the movement of monks back and forth between Japan and China. In fact the number of monks travelling to study under Chinese Zen monks peaked in the first two decades of the fourteenth century. This is an interesting phenomenon that has yet to be studied in any depth. North China had been under the control of the Jurchen since the fall of Kaifeng in 1127 and not many Japanese are known to have ventured into what was then known as Chin ^fe territory. Both Eisai and Dogen travelled in the south and after them most Japanese concentrated on the area around the Southern Song capital of Hangzhou. The arrival of the Mongols in the north (they occupied the Chin capital of Yanjing in 1265) did not change matters much, but one might have thought that when they occupied Hangzhou in 1276, such travel would have ceased, ft is hardly surprising that travel tailed off during the turbulent period in the 1270s, but once the threat of an invasion had subsided the number of monks moving between Japan and China increased. This speaks volumes for the degree to which Buddhism was actively supported in Yuan Dynasty China. At court and in the north, of course, it was Tibetan Buddhism that held sway, particularly under the Imperial Preceptor 'Phags-pa (1235-80), but Chan Buddhism was also allowed to flourish. Japanese monks concentrated on the area around Hangzhou, intent on studying under the two major figures of Yuan Chan, Kulin Qingmo rS'WrH^ (1261-1329) and Zhongfeng Mingben ^tW* (1263-1323) (Yii 1982). 17.3 Zen in the countryside So much for the kind of Zen Buddhism that was patronised by warrior rulers and courtiers alike, with its pronounced Chinese flavour and its close ties to the centres of power. Turn to the countryside and the provinces, however, where Dogen's Soto Zen monks had deliberately placed themselves to avoid such political interference, and we find the growing influence of an entirely 372 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo'sfall different kind of Zen, drawing its inspiration from Chinese example, of course, but developing rituals and beliefs that incorporated much from the medieval spiritual environment just described. The most influential figure in Soto Zen after Dogen was undoubtedly Keizan Jokin (1264-1325), who became abbot of Daijoji in 1298 (§14.2). It is not known why Keizan left Daijoji but he did so in 1317, founding a monastery called Yokoji ^Jb^ at Hakui on the western coast of the Noto peninsula MS:¥fb, where his ability to raise money and gain patronage soon created one of the most powerful monasteries of the whole group. He is also known for his writings, two in particular: A record of transmission of the flame (Denkoroku MJfc$tk) and A record from Tokoku [Tokokki Jf@f3). The first of these seems at first glance to be nothing more than a straightforward history of the transmission of enlightenment from Sakyamuni to Dogen and Ejo in fifty-three chapters, but it is more than this. Each chapter begins with an encounter dialogue that, in many but not all cases, led the monk in question to realise enlightenment. This is followed by a discussion of the significance of the particular event or the relationship between master and student, a discussion that is often not easy to grasp. Each chapter finishes with a verse in Chinese that is supposed to encapsulate the point made. We do not know for certain, but it would seem to be a set of extended koan that Keizan used for instruction (Geary 1990). A record from Tokoku is autobiographical and deals in essence with the founding of Yokoji. It is particularly valuable since it includes Keizan's dreams and has been used most effectively as the raw material for an investigation into the mental and spiritual life of a Zen monk of this time. What emerges from such a study is an extraordinarily rich picture, which . shows us that religion in practice was far more interesting and far less coherent than in theory. It is not surprising that Tokugawa Soto apologists, who were busy creating their own vision of a 'pure' Dogen-style Zen, accused Keizan of a betrayal of what Soto Zen was meant to be; but it was this rich mixture, of course, that allowed Soto Zen monasteries to prosper in the first place and reach out into all corners of the Japanese countryside. Chan/Zen takes as its position the rejection of all imagination. But the universe in which Keizan lived was no less impregnated with the marvellous, structured by the imaginary than that of his contemporary Dante Alighieri. This contradiction is only one surface sign, one manifestation of a deep tension that we shall meet again and again. Keizan's Zen is, as we might expect, aporetic and therefore paradoxical: it is at the same time elitist and popular, idealistic and realistic, sudden and gradual (or, if you like, immediate and mediate), unlocalized and localized, obsessed with the idea of unity and besotted with multiplicity (Faure 1996: 8). 17 Taking stock 373 A Zen master was by definition enlightened, therefore a buddha, and so blessed with supranormal powers that stemmed from his mastery of meditation. This explains the ease with which Keizan can discuss his own past lives in such matter of fact terms: As for me, it was in the past, at the time of the Buddha Vipašyin, that I realized the fruit of Arhatship. I was living on the Himalayas, to the north of Mount Sumeru. At that tune I was the deity of a Kuvala tree. With the head of a dog, the body of a kite, and the belly and tail of a serpent, I was a four-footed animal. Although I was only a humble tree deity, I nonetheless received the fruit [of Arhatship]. From that time on, I lived in the Himalayas, in the northern continent of Uttarakum, with Suvinda, the fourth Arhat. This is why 1 am now reincarnated here [in the north of Japan]. Owing to my karmic affinities with the [northern] regions, I managed to be reborn as an ujiko of Hakusan . . . Since achieving the fruit of Arhatship, 1 have been reincarnated through five hundred existences in order to spread the Dharma and bring profit to all beings (Faure 1996: 30). Since he is now a buddha, it is not surprising that his birth and life-course was patterned on that of Šäkyamuni. The following passage that describes a miraculous birth must be read as the record not of a megalomaniac but of a quietly confident believer. Moreover, when she was thirty-seven, my merciful mother dreamed that she was swallowing the warmth of the morning light, and when she woke up she found she was pregnant. She then addressed the following prayer to the Venerated [Kannon]: 'Let the child I am carrying become a holy man, or a spiritual guide. If he is to become a benefit to men and deva, give me an easy delivery. If not, O Kannon, use your great divine power to make the insides of my womb rot and wither away.' With this prayer on her lips, for seven months she prostrated herself 1333 times each day, and recited the Kannon sutra. At the end of this time, she had a natural, painless childbirth. Thus I was born in a property belonging to the Kannon temple of Tane, in Echizen Province. Later, all the events that marked my life were determined by maternal prayers to the Venerable [Kannon], I was able to reach adulthood without any problems, leave my family and study letters, cultivate the Way and produce wisdom, and finally inherit the Dharma and become an abbot and come to the aid of men and deva - all this due to the prayers to Kannon (Faure 1996: 35). We find Keizan building a funerary mound behind his new monastery, a mausoleum into which he placed five relics: a copy of Rujing's discourses, part of Dôgen's skeleton, a sutra that Ejô had copied in his own blood, Gikai's documents of succession (shisho) and some Mahäyäna scriptures in Keizan's own hand. This is an interesting mixture, which shows him intent on producing a distinct 'Sôtô' lineage as well as trying to increase die 3 74 From Todaiji's destruction to Go-Daigo's fall spirituality of the place. But alongside this strong statement and recognition of the continental roots of Zen, his rales for life in the monastery show a high degree of sensitivity to the native tradition. When Yokqji was consecrated, the invocation read as follows: The vast merits that have been accumulated, we offer them respectfully to Tensho Daijin, who created this country, to the seven generations of heavenly kami, to the five generations of earthly kami, to the ninety-six generations of human emperors, to the primordial star that governs the ultimate fate of the present monarch, to the seven luminaries, to the nine luminaries and twenty-eight mansions of the year in its round, to the various daimyojin who protect the capital, to the great and small divinities of the five home provinces and of the seven districts, to the great ridgepole of the Dharma, Hakusan Myoti Daigongen, to the past and future protectors of this district, to the great bodhisattvas of the two sanctuaries, the various shrines of this county and community, to the tutelary god of this mountain, to the dragon-king of this mountain ... to the god Katoku of the south, to the group of stars in the fire section, to the eighteen gods who protect this monastery, to the members of the category of the great Bodhisattva Kita of Ichinomiya in this province, to the members of the category of the great Bodhisattva Shoho Shichiro Daigenshuri, Tamonten, Karaten, the Acolyte with the Blue Face [Seimen doji] ... to the various celestial emissaries robed in white, to the ancient tutelary god Inari Daimyojin, and to the great Bodhisattva Hachiman who gave his protection [during the conquest of] Silla (Faure 1996: 110, adapted). Reading through this list it almost seems as though Keizan was simply making sure that no one was left out. The range is impressive and not just restricted to local deities, such as the god of Hakusan S lit, the main sacred mountain of the area. Hakusan was, however, extremely important, since this cult had already spread to many other parts of Japan (the deity was present at Hie, for example), a fact that was of considerable help to the spread of Soto monasteries. Japanese Zen monasteries in general inherited some rather surprising cults from Chinese Chan. There is, for example, the cult of the arhats (rakan M iH ). These figures, 'auditors' (Sk. srdvakas) who had achieved enlightenment by being direct disciples of the Buddha, were emblematic of Hinayana Buddhism and, one might have supposed, were looked down on by the Mahayana tradition. But in Soto Zen they were treated as honorary bodhisattvas. Perhaps they were considered important because they provided a definite link to the historical Buddha Sakyamuni, who stood, after all, right at the beginning of the Zen lineage. It has been suggested that the cult to arhats started in China with the figure of Pindola, who became the spirit of the monastery kitchen and bathrooms. The number of arhats in fact varies considerably. In Tendai Buddhism, 500 arhats were supposed to have their abode on the other side of a famous stone-bridge on / 7 Taking stock 375 Mt Tiantai; in Chan the number is usually sixteen. In 1200, for example, Eisai had performed a ceremony to open the eyes of sixteen images commissioned by Hqjo Masako (Faure 1996: 88-96). The example of Keizan therefore provides us with an extraordinarily complex series of interrelated cults and rituals designed to cover almost any eventuality, and belies the usual picture one has of Zen masters sitting in quiet contemplation, teaching students with severity, and ignoring what was happening in the outside world. One area that was common to all Zen monasteries, however, was the ritualisation of daily life. To a certain extent this can be seen as a reflection of the profoimd Mahayana belief in essential non-dualism, so that any act became an enlightened act; but it can also be seen heuristically as an important tool whereby the non-existence of the self could be inculcated on a moment-to-moment basis; but the other side of the coin is, of course, the danger that all may become simply thoughtless habit and nothing more. The secret of the success of Sot5 Zen in the provinces was undoubtedly its willingness to engage fully with local beliefs, encourage eclecticism and offer a source of spiritual power to a series of local elites. Drawing its patrons from middle-ranking landowners and local lords, it gradually became the main source of religious experience for large swathes of the provinces, and it is only really in this sense that we can call Zen a religion of the samurai class, if at all. These monasteries provided a whole series of services, ranging from the usual prayers for good weather, good harvests, good health and good fortune to the provision of funerals. Indeed, as we shall see, it could be argued that it was this last element, providing funerals for the layman, that became one of their principal roles as' they continued to spread throughout the countryside. Part IV From the fall of Go-Daigo to the death of Nobunaga (1330 1582) Plate 27 Reaching the Pure Land through the ten worlds. This seventeenth-century woodblock print explains the Kegon concept of ten worlds and then reconciles this with belief in the Pure Land. The devotee is supposed to fill in one small circle each time he or she has chanted the nenbutsu 10,000 (or preferably 100,000) times. When the whole process has been completed and all the circles filled in, deliverance into the Pure Land is all but guaranteed. -j & * *. { * k \ * &- ~ $r -k if, ^ 7 11J ■ ^ f S h it t n *L 4o IP 380 From Go-Daigo 's fall to the death ofNobunaga Chronology 1331 Go-Daigo fails in his attempt to win power. 1332 Watarai Ieyuki's Ruiju jingi hongen presented to court. 1332 Go-Daigo banished to Oki. 1333 Go-Daigo returns to Kyoto. 1336 Go-Daigo defeated by Ashikaga Takauji. Start of the Ashikaga shogunate. 1339 Go-Daigo dies. Kitabatake Chikafhsa starts work on Jinnö shötöki. 1351 Musö Soseki dies. 1368 Start of the Ming Dynasty in China. 1375 The Urabe family formally adopts the name Yoshida. 1390 Shakunyo founds Zuisenji in Etchü. 1392 Northern and Southern Courts reconciled. 1396 Meitokuki. 1400 Rise of No as art form. 1404 Official tally trade with Ming China begins. 1408 Ashikaga Yoshimitsu dies. 1441 Assassination of Ashikaga Yoshinori. 1457 Rermyo becomes abbot of Honganji. 1467 Start of the Önin war. Sesshü travels to China. 1474 Ikkyü becomes abbot of Daitokuji. 1475 The first ikkö ikki. 1477 Önin war ends. 1479 Rennyo starts building Honganji at Yamashina. 1482 Bukköji joins forces with Honganji. 1485 Taigenkyu built at Yoshida in Kyoto. 1488 Province of Kaga taken over by Shinsbü adherents; ikkö ikki. 1499 Rennyo dies. 1506 Sesshü dies. 1532 Rise of the Hokkeshu in Kyoto. Destruction of Yamashina Honganji. 1536 Hokke ikki destroyed by Hieizan forces. 1543 First Portuguese traders arrive 1549 Francis Xavier arrives in japan. 1560 Oda Nobunaga begins his rise. 1568 Nobunaga enters Kyoto. 1570 Cabral becomes Jesuit Mission Superior. 1571 Destruction of Hieizan by Nobunaga. 1579 Arrival in Japan of Valignano. 1580 Ishiyarna Honganji surrenders to Nobunaga. 1582 Death of Nobunaga. Valignano leaves Japan with a •diplomatic mission' of four youths. 18 Two rival courts 18.1 Class as a factor Periodisation is a necessary evil for the historian: necessary because it provides essential structure; evil because the structure quickly becomes too imperious in its demands and can hide as much as it reveals. The long period of some 250 years between the fall of Go-Daigo and the death of Oda Nobunaga in 1582 is particularly awkward in this respect. Not that one has any problem in deciding about the beginning or the end, which both form reasonably sharp junctures. It starts with the failure of the sovereign to win back power and prestige, and it ends with the wholesale destruction of the temples on Hieizan in 1571 and of the Jodo Shinshu stronghold of Ishiyarna Honganji soon after, events that changed forever the relationship between religious institutions and the state. In between, however, there is a sense of dislocation and upheaval, which makes it difficult to find one's bearings. Initially there is a period of fifty-six years (1336-92), during which two rival courts coexisted with anything but equanimity. In the years that followed, there remained the constant threat of instability that had as many socio-economic as political causes and eventually led to die destruction of a large part of Kyoto in the Onin wars of 1467-77. The same can be said of most of the sixteenth century, when all pretence of centralised control was lost and, in the midst of the turmoil, the first Catholic missionaries arrived, adding their startling presence to the complications. But, on the other hand, this whole period saw Japanese culture reach new heights, at first under the generally benign guidance of the early Aslhkaga shoguns, and later under the patronage of the many daimyo. As if to compensate for the regular bouts of destruction in Kyoto itself, a number of provincial capitals emerged, each intent on making itself a 'little Kyoto', and some of the most important artists and poets of this period actually lived most of their lives in the provinces. Amid all the unrest there emerged art forms such as the No theatre, some of the most exquisite painting and architecture Japan has ever produced, and a revival of interest in Chinese culture and scholarship centred on the great Zen 381 382 From Go-Daigo 'sfall to the death of Nobunaga 18 Two rival courts 383 monasteries. Even at the height of the troubles, there seems to have been hardly any let-up in the production of art and artefacts for pleasure, relaxation and everyday use. In the latter half of the period, the merchants (particularly of Kyoto and Sakai) had a much greater say in what was imported, and they imprinted their own tastes on what was produced. Looked at from this angle, it seems at times that the constant emphasis of the historian on destruction and dislocation may be somewhat misjudged. The pattern of change in religious institutions is also difficult to see clearly; partly, no doubt, because much from this period remains to be investigated in depth. The older established institutions and temples such as Enryakuji, Onjoji and Kofukuji spent much of their time trying to adjust to a new environment in which their traditional status as guardians and protectors of the state had been all but usurped by Zen temples and abbots, who were intentionally used as a counterweight by the Ashikaga shogunate. Given the habit historians have of spending time on the new at the expense of the old, perhaps it is not surprising that these older institutions have not in fact figured as prominently as they might in the history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They remained powerful landowners, but they lost the ability to hold on to far-away estates that were simply expropriated by local interests over which the centre could exert less and less control as time went by. Buddhist scholarship certainly continued, but there were no major doctrinal innovations. The internecine strife that had been so common between Enryakuji and Kofukuji died away, but this was chiefly because they had discovered a common foe. But all these negatives hide a considerable presence and, to some extent, it is precisely because they continued as a normal part of the landscape that they find so little mention. The loss of control over land was compensated for as their administrators moved into newer areas of commerce. Enryakuji, for example, had some 80 per cent of the sake-brewers and money-lenders in the capital on its books and controlled many of the trades and guilds that began to make Kyoto a major financial centre. It continued to draw substantial revenues from land to the east and operated a series of tolls on the main routes. The toll at Katada M EE], for instance, was particularly lucrative, since all goods passing via Lake Biwa into the capital had to pass this point (Gay 2001: 66). Looking at Kyoto today, it is easy to forget that for much of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was the powerhouse of Japan's mercantile economy, Kofukuji suffered some loss of control over the southern part of the province of Yamato, but it retained its title as governor of this vital central region. The Ashikaga never found it possible simply to ride roughshod over its demands and Enryakuji, in particular, was still a powerful enough presence at the end of the sixteenth century to present Oda Nobunaga with a major headache (Adolphson 2000: 288-345). The popular movements that had emerged in the Kamakura period slowly increased their influence until by the end of the sixteenth century they had become major political entities in their own right. In absolute numbers, temples continued to increase and the percentage of the population that participated directly in religious activities of one sort or another also grew. In this context, it is very tempting to describe the situation in terms of class distinctions, although one must also be aware that regional differences played an important role and the identification of class and sect might well differ depending on what part of Japan one is discussing. It is also true that class becomes less useful as a guide from the mid-fifteenth century on. As a very rough guide, the upper class was represented on the one hand by the new phenomenon of metropolitan Zen, very much in the control of the Ashikaga shoguns and looking at times like an arm of government, and on the other hand by the older established institutions such as Enryakuji, Onjoji and Kofukuji, whose traditionally close relationship with the aristocracy continued, but who suffered a drop in status and power, exacerbated by the loss of traditional sources of economic support. There were also temples such as Ninnaji, Daigoji and Todaiji, closely connected to the figure of the sovereign; their fortunes fluctuated but they survived. Koyasan, Toji and Negoroji each maintained strong power bases in their respective localities. The lower class was represented by various Pure Land groups such as Jodo Shinshu, which was active among the peasants and lower echelons of the warriors, especially in the more agriculturally advanced areas such as the home provinces and the Kanto, and also by the Jishu, who took it upon themselves to minister directly to men hi the field of battle, but at times had a considerable following in Kyoto itself. This leaves us in the middle with two very different types of institution: in the rural areas further away from the centres of power, Soto Zen temples continued to expand throughout Japan, providing services to a wide variety of different social groups; and among the merchants and the artisans in cities such as Kyoto, we have the Lotus sects (Hokkesbu S^Etk) that traced themselves back to the teachings of Nichiren and who were known for their strident anti-authoritarianism. 384 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death ofNobunaga 18 Two rival courts 385 18.2 Go-Daigo's legacy Go-Daigo (1288-1339) came to power at the age of thirty in 1318. Taking advantage of considerable disarray in Kamakura and understandably annoyed at the way that the Bakufu continued to interfere in matters of succession to the throne, he set out to restore the fortunes of Ms own lineage. In 1331 a short attempt to bring Kamakura to its knees by military means failed rather badly and he was banished to the island of Oki M.t& off the Japan Sea coast. His son, Prince Morinaga, managed to revive anti-Bakufu sentiment two years later. Go-Daigo himself escaped from exile, and for a time it seemed as though he might succeed in his aim of restoring the monarchy to full power. Ashikaga Takauji SfU®&, sent by Kamakura to quell the uprising, turned against his masters, Nirta Yoshisada moved against Kamakura in the Kant5, and the Bakufu fell. But it was not long before the relationship between Go-Daigo and Takauji soured, due in good measure to an unwillingness on Go-Daigo's part to recognise the role that the warriors had played in his success. By 1336, Takauji was in control of the home provinces and Go-Daigo had been forced to retire south to the hills and mountains of Yoshino, where he established what became known as the Southern Court. Takauji set up a puppet replacement in Kyoto, the Northern Court. Go-Daigo himself died in 1339, but the north-south split survived until reconcilation came in 1392. Go-Daigo's failed attempt to restore the power and authority of the sovereign that had been lost centuries before had interesting consequences. Almost by accident, the centre of gravity switched back to Kyoto, as the Ashikaga rulers abandoned Kamakura and transferred their operations back to the centre. The Zen temples in Kyoto regained the status they had temporarily lost to those in Kamakura, and the Ashikaga soon found themselves absorbed into the ways of the aristocracy, becoming themselves the arbiters of taste and fashion, and ruling like kings. In a geographical sense, then, two power centres, one cultural and one military, had become one. But almost in the same breath the court itself broke into two rival camps that became physically separated north and south. This led to two sorts of confusion. To the outsider, particularly China under the Yuan (and, after 1338, under the Ming) and Korea in the form of the Koryo Dynasty, the Ashikaga shogunate were obviously the authority with whom they had to negotiate, although in religious and cultural circles within Japan, the duality of the structure was still clearly marked. To the insider, matters were further confused because one side of the pair had become doubled. It is hardly surprising that during this period matters of genealogy and lineage became close to an obsession, mirroring the concern with origins that we have previously identified as being a marked characteristic of Shinto discourse at this time. The genealogy entitled Bloodlines of the noble and the base (Sonpi bunmyaku M # ~XM), which dealt with the complex interrelationships between aristocratic and military families, is a product of these years, as is A record of the correct lineage of gods and sovereigns (Jinno shotoki tE^IB), written by Kitabatake Chikafusa imMB (1293-1354) in 1339 and revised in 1343. Chikafusa's early life is not entirely clear, but it is known that he had already taken initial Buddhist vows before he was drawn into public life in 1318, when he was appointed tutor to Go-Daigo's son. He retired again in 1330 when the boy died, went north with his own son, who had been appointed governor of Mutsu, visited Ise in 1336, lived from 1338 to 1341 in Hitachi, where he wrote the first draft of the Correct lineage, and ended up as the chief administrator of the Southern Court in Yoshino from 1344 until his death in 1354. Since Chikafusa's Correct lineage deals with matters of succession and since it was written at a difficult time when two courts were in existence, it became a key text for state Shinto in the early twentieth century, when the concept of 'divine sovereigns' was fundamental to the new ideology. It therefore needs to be treated with some care. It has, for example, been read as a specific defence of the Southern Court. It is true that Chikafusa was concerned to identify the correct line of descent and clearly felt that the Southern Court had legitimacy, but he was not an uncritical adrnirer of Go-Daigo's policies. Indeed, he clearly felt that individual sovereigns should be held responsible for their decisions and actions, and he was quite willing to castigate a ruler for his mistakes. Yozei BjJsE, for example, is described as being 'of bad disposition and unfitting to be a ruler' (ttM~ V -r A3£ / 9 7 X) and Kazan til is diagnosed as 'unbalanced' (WM%T y) (Iwasa et al. 1965: 122, 136). It is in this context that the title itself is of some interest. Shoto means 'correct lineage', but what about the term finnd'l Bohner's German version of 1935 has 'wahren Gott-Kaiser-Herrschafts-Linie' and Tsunoda's English version of 1958 translates it as 'Legitimate succession of the divine sovereigns' (Bolmer 1935; Tsunoda et al. 1958: 267). Both of these interpretations are very much products of their time. Chikafusa himself made a clear distinction between the deities of heaven, the deities of earth, and the human sovereigns beginning with Jinmu, and there is no sign that he believed that Japanese sovereigns were in and of themselves divine. Indeed, in many cases they proved themselves to be only too human. Numerous cases of unusual succession are recorded and then explained in terms of the system 386 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death ofNobunaga correcting itself in the long run thanks to the benevolence of the gods, but the rulers themselves are never referred to as being divine. 'Gods and sovereigns' would seem to be the best answer (Varley 1980). A slightly different problem arises with the famous first sentence, which reads % B ^##81 til. This is a good example of the kind of difficulties to which the Japanese writing system can sometimes give rise. We do not know how Chikafusa intended this to be read. The most commonly used edition today reads 'Oyamato wa kami no kuni narr (Iwasa et al. 1965: 41), which would give either 'Japan is the land of the gods', or possibly 'Japan is a land of the gods', and suggests a land under the protection of the kami. But if it were read in Sino-Japanese fashion as 'Dainihon wa shinkoku nari\ the effect would be quite different. This encourages us to interpret the compound WHI as a concept and so suggests 'divine land', which is in fact how most translators take it.' But did Chikafusa mean to go this far? This is a contentious issue. The term #B| first appears in that section of Nihon shoki that treats of Empress Jingu's putative exploits in Korea and can be found in regular use in Heian records and diaries, where there is no sign that it was used in any other sense than simply 'a land under the protection of the gods'. But it is precisely because of his use of this term in this sentence that Chikafusa is often quoted as being a key figure in the process by which a fairly straightforward descriptive phrase turned into the concept of 'a divine land ruled by god-sovereigns', with all that means in terms of exclusivism and latent nationalism. As we do not know how # H was read, there is always a danger of producing a circular argument. Starting his work by describing Japan baldly as 'the land of the gods', Chikafusa goes on to try and define the nature and character of the country by investigating the series of different names by which it has been known in the early chronicles, but none of them really provides the answer as to what makes Japan special. He then shifts to describe Japan's geographical position vis-a-vis India and China. Recognising that each country has its own myth of origin, despite the fact that the world must have been created at the same time everywhere, he launches into a substantial description of the Indian account of the genesis of heaven and earth; the Chinese equivalent is then nonchalantly dismissed as being derivative. Before going on to start the section on Japan by retelling the creation myths as presented in the medieval version of Nihon shoki touched on earlier, he describes what it is that gives Japan its ' Bonner translates 'Japan ist Gottheits-Reich', Tsunoda, 'the divine country', and Varley, 'the divine land'. 'A divine land' would also be possible. 18 Two rival courts 387 unique quality in the world. Unlike the situation in India or China, where the norm was unspeakable discord and where the position of king or emperor had constantly changed hands, Japan had managed to maintain an uninterrupted line of succession from the very beginning. It was this that gave Japan its uniqueness, its special quality. What is more, this rale from a single 'seed' had been guaranteed by Tensho Daijin to continue for ever, for as long as the regalia remained in Japan. Chikafusa was only too aware that the succession had not always been smooth and on occasions had gone collaterally instead of directly, but he believed that thanks to the benevolence of the gods it had always eventually returned to the 'correct' path, the shoto IE Mi, that he was about to describe for posterity. Whether such a position justifies a translation of Iff H as 'the divine land' or not is a matter of debate, but it is entirely in keeping with the essentially political nature of jingi worship as it had existed since the Nara period: namely, that it is the sovereign's lineage that defines Japan as Japan, setting it apart and distinct from all other lands. Given Japan's position as a small island, 'no larger than a millet seed', apparently lying at the eastern extremity of a clear line of cultural influence, a fact of which Chikafusa was only too aware, perhaps this was the only way that he could give his country a preeminent role. Culture, in the form of Confucianism, Buddhism and writing itself, may not have arisen in Japan, but it had made its home in Japan because only here would it be able to survive in difficult times. The influence of these two intellectual and spiritual systems had only become necessary because there had been a falling off everywhere from the purity and straightforwardness that had characterised original rule; the object was to return to an uprightness, a purity within the polity. In direct contrast to the concept of mappo, and so in contrast to the thought that underlay Jien's Gukansho, for example, Chikafusa's view of history was fundamentally optimistic: since the gods had founded Japan and the rulers could still trace a link back to those gods, rule in Japan would always be fundamentally good. There would be vicissitudes and wrong turnings as there had been in the past, and occasionally it might seem as though one were indeed in an age of decline (he uses the term masse ^tti rather than mappo 3rJ?£), but Tensho Daijin's promise guaranteed that Japan would always return to the right path in the end. Japan was a land of the gods and would remain so forever. Rule by a heavenly ordained sovereign line was, by definition, eternal. There were obvious parallels with a Confucian-style Rule of Heaven, but in comparison to the violence of dynastic change in China the Japanese case was far more benign and pure. 388 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death ofNobunaga There are plenty of signs in the Correct lineage that Chikafusa saw absolutely no contradiction in remaining a Buddhist monk while at the same time absorbing much of the newly emerging Shinto 'doctrine'. He knew the priest Watarai Ieyuki and went to Ise in late 1336, staying there for two years. It was there that he wrote his Treating the origin as the origin, a compilation (Gengenshu ŤÚ7ÍM). This turns out to be a patchwork of quotations from Ieyuki's own compendium The origins of the gods, a classification (Ruiju jingi hongen M W, If ffi M), written in 1320 and presented to the court in 1332. The strange title Treating the origin as the origin comes directly from the oracular statement in Yamatohime no mikoto seiki quoted in §16.4. Chikafusa clearly found the new vocabulary of Shinto congenial and fitting for his task. It appears again prominently in the section of the Correct lineage that deals with the reign of Ojin Tenno MPčXŠl. And so if you wish to know what lies at the heart of the two ancestral shrines [Ise and Iwashimizu Hachiman], it is first and foremost rectitude, nothing more. All men between heaven and earth have received the spirits of Yin and Yang, but unless they have probity they cannot survive. Particularly in this land, a land of the gods, whoever deviates from the way of the gods will never enjoy for even a day [the light of] the sun or moon. Yamatohime no mikoto gave her oracle as follows: 'Reject the blackness of heart, be pure and obey the taboos with a [clear] heart of cinnabar. Serve the great deity by not moving to the right that which is to the left, or to the left that which is to the right. Let left be left and right be right. Be correct in all things, whether turning to the left or turning to the right, because the origin is the origin, and the base is the base ŤiŤň.fe&tfcl' V .' Indeed. Remember! This is [the correct way] to serve your lord, serve the gods, rule the land and teach the people ... To deal with all eventualities by casting off one's desires and thinking of how you may benefit others; to be clear and undeluded like a reflecting mirror; is this not the true way IE it? There is no need to despise ourselves 'in an age of decline'. The principle should be: 'the beginning of heaven and earth is this very day' / 0 7 ÍÉÍ f 7. ?l>mt') (Iwasa et al. 1965: 82- 83; Bohner 1935, vol. I: 233-34; Varley 1980: 108-10). The argument here begins with an exhortation to rectitude and uprightness that has by this time become the definition of what best characterised the fundamental doctrines of Shinto; it then develops in the direction of the rectification of names, whereby probity is defined as keeping things in their appointed place and not going counter to 'nature'; and it ends with a quotation from the Chinese classic Xunzi líí. The Xunzi reference is to the chapter entitled 'Nothing indecorous': 'Accordingly, the essential nature of 1,000 or 10,000 men is in that of a single man. The beghrriings of Heaven and Earth are still present today. And the way of all True Kings is in that of 18 Two rival courts 389 the Later Kings.'2 Note, however, that the meaning has been transformed from one of scepticism to something much more enigmatic. This difference in interpretation may have come about because Chikafusa had probably not read the whole Xunzi text but relied on the series of long extracts contained in the thirty-eighth chapter of the Tang anthology of philosophical writings entitled Junshu zhiyao ftPU'^nH. The object of the whole Japanese passage here is to exalt the principle of purity and sincerity that will help us return to the unadulterated origin, and in the process it expresses a Utopian optimism that comes from a belief that we can also negate the workings of time. How did this close relationship between Chikafusa, the Southern Court and Watarai Ieyuki affect matters at Ise itself? Ieyuki provided considerable practical support during the long period of strife, allowing the Southern Court access to the port of Ominato which was not far from the Outer Shrine. But there was also considerable disagreement within the Watarai clan as to which court to support, with the result that the whole province was subject to constant depredation, which had a severe effect on the economic situation of both shrines. What changed things radically and loosened the ties between Ise and the sovereign even further was the beginning of pilgrimages on a large scale. The shogun Yoshimitsu started visiting almost every year, although in his case it clearly served a double purpose, since he made sure he was always accompanied by large numbers of troops to give an impression of majesty. At roughly the same time we see the appearance of the first Ise-ko #S?Hi, local groups who raised funds among themselves to organise pilgrimages, which became popular even among farmers and villagers by the early years of the fifteenth century. The attraction of the Ise shrines was obviously connected to what they stood for, but at the same time this drastic shift in patronage changed the nature of the shrines and of ritual practice. The sixteenth century saw the rise of onshi MM. These were Ise priests who not only helped to arrange and guide these organisations but were themselves itinerant and, as part of an attempt to proselytise in the Buddhist manner, took to rural areas talismans and other small ritual objects which they would then distribute with prayers and incantations. The widening of patronage that came in the wake of these developments brought with it other unforeseen consequences. On the one hand merchant families in the two towns of Yamada and Uji began to take control of the economics of the whole region away from the Watarai and Arakida, and on 2 fS^AHA^tt, -A^ttSta. ^.mm^. ^H*-ffi0 &IJgf&0 trans. Knobtock 1988: 179. 390 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death of Nobunaga the other hand friction between the two shrines showed little sign of decreasing. Although money poured into the area, there was an increasing reluctance to spend it on the shrines themselves, with the result that when the Outer Shrine burned to the ground in 1486 and the Inner Shrine collapsed soon after, very little was done to rebuild either structure for over 120 years. Clearly the situation at Ise was not at all stable and was susceptible to sudden changes in fortune (Teeuwen 1996: 133-77). '* One other legacy of Go-Daigo's attempted restoration was the emergence into the limelight of a cult based at Miwa. Mt Miwa HftSlif was an ancient sacred site situated at the south of the Yamato basin just at the point where the southern road to Ise plunges east into the valley created by the River Hase Not only was this a vital transport node but the mountain dominated the eastern skyline of the old capital at Asuka. The god of Miwa, known variously as Okuninushi, Omononushi or Onamuchi was conspicuous in Nikon shoki as a major Izumo deity, eventually pacified by Yamato, As part of the process of healing, it was agreed that he would be for ever honoured with a shrine at Miwa. Unusually, the sacred object (shintai WW) in this case was not an object within the shrine but the mountain itself. Little is known of Miwa during the Heian and Kamakura periods and it is only about this time that it re-emerges. The main contemporary text is entitled Miwa daimydjin engi Hit A93 ilfi which has a colophon dated 1318, the year of Go-Daigo's accession to the throne, although like many such dates it is open to doubt. This tale of Miwa's origins makes a series of large claims regarding its deity, arguing that it was at least the equal of Tensho Daijin and one with Sann5. The study of this cult is still in its infancy but we do know that it was generated by Buddhist monks and priests who were part of the Saidaiji order. We do not know, however, quite why it emerged into the limelight at this time or why it felt strong enough to challenge Ise as being the heart of Japan. It would seem likely that there is a connection to questions of the legitimacy of the Southern Court, but further research is needed before anything definite can be said. Some scholars argue for Eison as the author of the engi. There were certainly close links between Saidaiji and the Miwa shrine, which are well documented, and the presence at Miwa of large numbers of outcasts (hiniri) would also suggest a connection. In the Edo period the Miwa cult became associated with initiation rites for a series of artisan groups, and Onamuchi became the god of doctors, but the links back to this Miwa cult of the fourteenth century are not at all clear. 18 Two rival courts 391 18.3 Saving the souls of warriors What of the life and beliefs of the ordinary fighting man, whose services were constantly in such demand? It is doubtful whether he would have had much knowledge of Zen meditation, or much interest in the subtleties of the sovereign's correct lineage; his main concern was that his allotted role in this life was almost guaranteed to damn him to an extremely uncomfortable time in the next. The need for encouragement and comfort was obvious and was partly met by the wandering priests of the Jishu order, who traced themselves back to Ippen but who had been first organised into a legitimate group by Ta'amidabutsu Shinkyo (§15.2). Not long after the death of the third head of the order, Donkai, in 1327, the north-south wars broke out and the order found itself being drawn into the conflict, acting as chaplains on the battlefield, ministering to dying warriors with their own particular message of salvation. This tradition is celebrated in such works as Taiheiki ^C^FSB (c. 1375), Meitokuki iJtHIB (1396) and the YuU senjo monogatari (post-1451) (Thornton 1988: 102ff), although the earliest reference we have to these activities is 1333, when two hundred of them were reported working with the Hojo armies beseiging the castles of Akasaka and Chihaya. When Kamakura itself fell that same year, the Fujisawa Shonin Jir/is_hA of the time (1279-1337) described the scene in his temple grounds as follows: Although Kamakura was in great uproar, it was particularly quiet at the temple, because all the men who had come in swarms had departed for the battlefield; the place having been deserted except for the monks, nothing untoward happened. Even in the thick of the fighting, the men were all chanting the nenbutsu, the attacking force and the defenders. In the aftermath, men were executed for fighting against their own side; our priests went to the beach, all led nenbutsu believers in the chanting of the nenbutsu and caused them to achieve deliverance. Since the battle, having witnessed what we did, people have been increasing their faith in the nenbutsu. I hope I live [long enough] to write to you again (Thornton 1999: 101). Despite the taboo on holding arms, there were many occasions when the absolute dependence of these men on their patrons put considerable strains on their role in the order. A letter known as the 'Nagano gosho' of 1353, written to a constable in Ise Province by the seventh head, Takuga itM, in defence of his men who had been bringing solace to the constable's enemies after a siege, clearly refers to the need for the order to maintain independence of action, difficult though that might be (Thornton 1999: 182-83). Indeed, there are signs that their activities on the battlefield declined during the early years 392 From Go-Daigo 'sfall to the death of Nobunaga of the fifteenth century precisely because the headship of the order discovered it was no longer possible to guarantee neutrality. But warriors continued to make use of the order's meeting places as places to rest and prepare for death or suicide if they had been wounded in battle. The tradition of Jishu saving the souls not only of warriors but of angry spirits (goryo) became a staple of their tradition, given artistic expression in such No plays as 'Sanemori' fl, 'Seiganji' Iff II ^ and 'Yugyo yanagi' ®tf ». The process by which famous warriors of the past (including Yoshitsune, Benkei and the Soga brothers) found their way into Jishu death registers by appearing to the head of the order as ghosts to be pacified and given guarantees of salvation reached its height with Sonne MM (1364-1429), who used this technique to increase substantially the power of his order to minister to warriors. To say as much, however, would be to ignore other elements. Although the outward propaganda produced the image of semi-martial control wielded by a head of the order who was called the chishiki £H§1 or 'good friend', who saw himself as the representative of Amitabha in this world, guaranteeing rebirth for those of his followers who kept to the precepts and recited the nenbutsu, in practice it was not possible to impose such iron discipline. It should not be forgotten that Ippen's original group had appeared as a rabble of eccentrics and this element was difficult to erase entirely. If Takuga's admonition to the members of his order of 1342 entitled Tozai sayosho KiSfpffl 0> is anything to go by, the habits of the average member left a good deal to be desired. He complained about: wearing outdoors clogs in the corridors, entering the temple by banging the shoulder against the sliding doors, going to the bathroom with the door open, during services chanting too loudly, leaning against the pillars and walls and gossiping, pushing and shoving to get the first rows and looking every which way but front; rumpled clothing, fancy clothing, fancy fans, sloppy posture; ogling the nuns and other women, visiting nuns alone; running around with parishioners, favoring the talented and high-bom among them, getting involved in their Fights; talking about the time before becoming a jishu; rudeness to the elderly; telling naughty stories about monks and nuns in front of the Chishiki, improper posture before the Chishiki, insufficient attendance on the Chishiki, insufficient gratitude to the Chishiki, and insufficient zeal and alacrity on obeying the orders of the Chishiki (Thornton 1999: 81). It was during the tenure of the fourth, fifth and sixth Ashikaga shoguns, Yoshimochi, Yoshikazu and Yoshinori (all of whom had themselves entered in the death registers), that the Yugy5ha subgroup of the order finally managed to establish itself as a major force. In 1400 they were recognised as a Buddhist school in their own right and despite considerable internal 18 Two rival courts 393 dissension, maintained Bakufu patronage both in Kyoto and Kamakura, where the Betsuganji It # became the official family temple of the Ashikaga deputies (kubo 4> 5). As a result, of course, the fortunes of the order tended to fluctuate with those of the Ashikaga, especially in the latter part of the fifteenth century. This kind of patronage was particularly important for them if they were to continue their traditional itineracy, for which permission was necessary. In times of war and dislocation a shogunal directive allowing free passage was of inestimable value. Of all the Pure Land groups, the Jishu order was by far the closest to the authorities, if only because it catered for the warriors so well. Not having extensive land-holdings, they relied on support from the kechienshu but also on patronage from the shogunate. This was given partly because of the special links with the warrior class, but it must have also been helpful that the activities of the missions were never seriously subversive; handing out amulets and saving souls was conducive to maintenance of the status quo and was no threat whatsoever to the authorities, whoever they might be. It is also the case that a number of priests became important in various ctiltural spheres such as poetry and the tea ceremony. The renga poet Ton'a M.H, for example, was from the meeting house at Shijo. It also became common for No actors, physicians and other artistic companions of the Muromachi elite to append the typical Jishvi suffix -ami to their names, but this may be misleading and we cannot simply assume that men like Kan'ami and Zeami were members of the order; it may well have been little more than a fashion among a particular group, or it may have been used as a way to give a certain standing to artists and performers, the majority of whom were of very low rank. It will be recalled that there was a clear distinction between the active Jishu mendicants on the one hand and the kechienshu supporters on the other. The numbers of the latter could be infinitely expanded through the distribution of amulets. It is therefore extremely difficult to gauge the number of people involved in this order, since a lay supporter could quite easily be a member of another sect at the same time. Numbers are in this sense of little significance. There can be no doubt, however, that this sect and the Jddo shinshu were aiming for roughly the same constituency, so that numbers tended to drop in one sect as they rose in the other. This may help to explain why the Jishu found itself attracting back members it had lost when Honganji was finally brought to its knees by Nobunaga. 394 From Go-Daigo 'sfall to the death ofNobunaga 18.4 The growth of Pure Land congregations What of the other Pure Land groups, which appealed to quite a different constituency and did not particularly endear themselves to anyone in authority? When Shinran died in 1262 the majority of his followers (known as monto fjffi) were in the Kanto, the most influential of them being the group based at Takada Mffl in the province of Shrmotsuke TSf. Shinran'left no instructions as to the future organisation of the groups he left behind. Since he had always denied the need for a priestly rank and believed passionately in equality before Amitabha, he must have decided that it was simply their collegiate responsibility to make their own decisions and to elect their own leader (otona). As had been the case with Ippen and his order, it was Shinran's followers who fashioned an institution, raising the founder to a semi-divine status and designating his teachings as sacred texts. One inevitable consequence of this was a sharp rise in factionalism and a betrayal of his doctrine of pure faith. One might indeed be tempted to characterise Jodo Shinshu S±M^, as it became known, as a social organisation of the lower classes first, and as a religious group only secondarily. Operating among the poorest and least educated of people, it grew into a power of considerable potential. Hardly surprising, then, that in the late sixteenth century it attracted the attentions of Nobunaga, who saw this sect as one of his most awkward adversaries. The process towards institutionalisation was slow but sure. It began in 1272 with the building of a tomb for Shinran's cremated remains at Otani (just east of what is now Higashioji-Gojo) on land owned by the second husband of Shinran's daughter Kakushinni SH/eL At her husband's death she inherited title, and when she died in 1277 she willed ownership of the site to the whole monto community on condition that her descendants be granted custodial rights {rusu-shiki f? tF St) (Weinstein 1977: 337). There then followed a period of unseemly strife within the family as to who was to have the honour of holding the site, and it was not until 1309 that Kakunyo (1270-1351), Kakushinni's grandson, managed to gain custody. Even so, he had to sign a draconian agreement with the leaders of the Kanto monto that restricted him to a purely nominal role (Solomon 1972: 72-74). There is some evidence to suggest that Kakunyo made far too much of his aristocratic heritage, which rankled with the Kanto groups, who were far from aristocratic themselves and had a particular interest in maintaining Shinran's principle of egalitarianism; but they were also worried that the heredity principle was about to be put into effect. They were right to be concerned, for 18 Two rival courts 395 this is exactly what transpired. Kakunyo eventually succeeded in gaming full control over Otani and turning it into a full-fledged temple that at some stage prior to 1321 became known as Honganji ^SI^f. In 1334 he finally won legal independence. Kakunyo it was who wrote a biography of Shinran and transformed Otani into a mausoleum devoted to the cult of the founder. It was under his leadership that Honganji evolved for the first time in Japan a system whereby temple leadership was inherited by tradition from father to son, a move only made possible, of course, because Shinran himself had completely rejected his vows of celibacy. It would be a mistake, however, to stress the importance of Honganji at this early stage in the proceedings. It was to be over a hundred years before it became the hub of a state within a state, for the good reason that Shinran had specifically rejected the whole idea of institutional controls over what he preferred to see as a community of believers. Admittedly, it always had the advantage of being Shinran's resting place, but there were a number of rival institutions that were equally, if not more, powerful. Bukkoji W it #, for example, founded by Ryogen 7W. (1295-1335) at Shibutani further up in the hills east of Otani and south of Kiyomizu, was a major rival in Kyoto itself, and in fact entirely overshadowed Honganji until the fifteenth century. This establishment won the majority of converts because it borrowed a number of key elements from Jishu practice, including the use of salvation registers (myocho ^Bit) and portrait lineages (e-keizu Jt^EO) of important priests; this signified a revival of the reality of priest as arbiter of salvation, something that ran counter to Shinran's teachings. Quite rightly, these practices were branded as heresies by those at Honganji, and it was to stop such developments that Kakunyo wrote his Notes rectifying heresy (Gaijasho r& Jf|S t^'). As well as using to the full his blood relationship to Shinran, Kakunyo also invented a tradition of a secret transmission in a work entitled Kudensho □##>, in 1331. This represented another betrayal of Shinran's ideals, of course, but was in line with normal Japanese practice. Successive custodians at Honganji used this semi-mythical tie as a major weapon in the battle to claim exclusive rights over what was and what was not orthodox. Although one must naturally be sceptical about such claims, since heresy can often simply be defined as the beliefs and practices of those who lose the battle for supremacy, there seems to be no doubt that Honganji did try to keep as close as it could to the purity of Shinran's ideals, while inevitably betraying them in the very act of creating and maintaining an institution. Zonkaku # H (1290-1373), Kakunyo's eldest son, was not chosen as his successor, partly because of his friendship with Ryogen. It is ironic that 396 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death of'Nobunaga having established the principle of hereditary rule, Kakunyo should disagree so violently with his son Zonkaku as to disinherit him twice as a heretic, once in 1322 and again in 1342. This kind of factionalism was an inevitable consequence of having a series of loosely knit organisations with different figureheads vying for the attention of a common pool of believers. Zonkaku's main heresy was his imwillingness to accept the purity of Shinran's thought; he was far more in the mainstream of Pure Land belief, demanding practice and intention as well as faith, and in contradistinction to his father's Notes rectifying heresy, his own polemic, entitled Notes assailing heresy and revealing truth (Haja kenseisho MMMS.f^\ was a more general defence of Pure Land Buddhism per se rather than a discussion of orthodoxy and heresy within the Shinran tradition itself. The period from 1351 to 1457, namely between the death of Kakunyo and Rennyo's installation as abbot (hossu SzE), was characterised by a gradual increase in Honganji's influence, not least via the policy of establishing branch temples in Hokuriku to the north. One oddity of Honganji that had to be addressed if it was to play a major role as a temple was that it lacked a honzon M or central image. Shinran had preferred the written sign as symbol rather than the human image, and it was left to Kakunyo's grandson Zennyo ffjO to install an image of Amitabha. His son Shakunyo did much travelling as part of his tenure at Honganji and founded Zuisenji JkoIK,^ at Inami in Etchu in 1390, so encroaching on Takada affiliated territory. Choshqji MHf# was founded in Echizen during the tenure of Gyonyo Sftl, and his son Zonnyo who was rusu-shiki from 1436 to 1457, began the process by which Honganji cemented relations with its outlying temples and meeting houses by the systematic distribution of the sacred inscription. It was also about this time that two of Shinran's works were given the status of sacred scriptures: Sanjo wasan =L\\&ft t§t, a collection of short poems or 'hymns' explaining doctrine in a simple format designed for chanting, and Shoshinge JEimH, a distillation of the sect's central tenets. It should not be thought that Jodo Shinshu. had a monopoly; Honen's Pure Land sect, for example, continued to exist. And there were others. Although the history of the various sects is often presented in terms of schools and their subdivisions, it makes better sense to picture multiple congregational centres, be they temples or the far more numerous meeting houses, all claiming devotion to Amitabha but owing allegiance to one or other lineage. These groups were in competition with each other for the affections and support of large swathes of the Japanese peasant population. As usual, it is impossible to disentangle the religious from the social and die economic. Since they were 18 Two rival courts 397 fighting over essentially the same constituency, disagreement could be acrimonious. When Honen died in 1212 his tomb at Higashiyama Otani became a sacred place. After the attack by monks from Hieizan in 1227, the decision was made to cremate the body and distribute the ashes among his principal followers. A large number of factions emerged from this process and a major element in their strategies for survival was whether or not they had custody of these relics. Each faction also tended to have its own understanding of what constituted the nenbutsu, whether it had to be recited only once or repeatedly, and what the role of faith in practice should be. This factionalisation along essentially personal lines was an inevitable consequence of the reliance on the individual master. Within the structure of a temple or a monastery, be it Tendai, Shingon or Zen, such tendencies were usually kept in check, but in the context of large lay congregations and in a sect that at root denied the need for the sahgha at all, it was unavoidable. Continual branching became the rule, and it was only when one group had a particularly active leader that it started to gain adherents at the expense of the others; it could then lose them just as easily in the next generation. The long-term future of the Chinzeiha SHM subdivision of the Pure Land sect, for example, was secured by Shogei SfSJ (1341-1420), who from his base in Kamakura turned his back on traditional Pure Land exclusionism and instead accepted kami as manifestations of Amitabha. They stressed practice of the nenbutsu over faith and presented themselves as being the closest to Honen's original teachings. This put them in direct conflict with Shinran, although it would be a mistake to put down the growth of factions to pure disagreement over doctrine. Personalities had at least as large a part to play. 18.5 The Lotus sects As Pure Land Buddhism took firm root among the farmers and peasants of provincial Japan during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Lotus sects (Hokkeshu jfeWm) were developing among a rather different social group, the low- to mid-ranking warriors and (as time went on) the burgeoning merchant class in KySto. It would be an exaggeration to say simply that Jodo Shinshii was rural and the Lotus urban, but an element of this had certainly developed by the sixteenth century. Nichiren's first follower was a Tendai priest called Joben (Nissho H Hg), who came to join him in the winter of 1254. He was closely followed by his twelve-year-old nephew (NichirS 019). Nichiren had taken it upon himself 398 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death ofNobunaga 18 Two rival courts 399 to ordain his followers himself, which shows the degree of his self-confidence and his disdain for other systems. His followers were divided into those few disciples who were actively to spread the message and those lay believers who gave financial support and who established small temples in their own homes, where recitation of the daimoku could be accomplished in a communal setting. During the 1270s the number of lay converts increased rapidly and came under increasing pressure because of their intransigent behaviour, Mt Minobu became the centre of this sect and by 1278 there were between forty and sixty disciples resident. It was here that they built a tomb for Nichiren (it was to become Kuonji ^XtS^), and when he died, his six leading followers agreed to look after it in turn. The history of the Lotus sects (or what is also termed in general Nichirenism) from that point on was one of internal disagreements, intolerance towards others, and persecution. The six split up and went their separate ways, each founding his own lineage, each certain of his correctness. Disputes ranged from how to deal with Shinto deities to doctrinal questions as to which sections of the Lotus sutra were primary and which secondary. What emerged was not a cohesive institution but rather a series of groups tied together by little more than their belief in the power of the Lotus, their veneration for the founder, and their religious practice, which consisted of repeating the daimoku, meditating in front of Nichiren's 'mandala', and spreading the faith in militant fashion by adopting the method known as 'breaking and subduing' {shakubuku), which involved rigorous doctrinal argument and explicit rejection of the views and beliefs of others. It meant that the true follower of Nichirenism had to be prepared to preach, debate and fearlessly submit memorials to government authorities (kokka kangyd MM whenever necessary. Although a number of sects in the Kamakura period had made claims for being exclusive, Nichiren was unique in his integration of confrontation into the very structure of his thought (Stone 1994: 233). It became a test of orthodoxy. As we have seen in §15.3, he believed that the persecution he received as a result of his intransigence was proof of the righteousness of his cause, a kind of self-fulfilling argument for conflict that had far-reaching consequences. His followers often found it extremely difficult to maintain such purity of motive in practice. For example, the only way in which Nichizo H IS (1269-1342), who arrived in Kyoto in 1294 to begin converting people in the capital, could make much leeway was to ingratiate himself with Go-Daigo. Even so, it took until 1321 to found his first temple, Mydkenji His relationship with Go-Daigo was crucial to the success of the mission and yet it was seen by many of his peers, those who owed allegiance to Nikko B M (1246-1333) for example, as a compromising betrayal. The number of Hokkeshu priests who courted imprisonment and torture by repeated memorialising of the authorities throughout the Muromachi is extraordinary. It became a badge of honour. Many of these priests entered the annals of Hokkeshu lore, such as Nisshin B H (1407-88), who became known to posterity as Nabekanmuri shSnin MM *) _hA because he had a red-hot iron kettle jammed over his head to stop him reciting the daimoku (Stone 1994: 239). The wonder is that the movement survived at all. 19 Muromachi Zen 401 19 Muromachi Zen 19.1 The five mountains By the time Daitfj died in 1337, and Muso Soseki in 1351, a substantial number of large and powerful Zen temples had become established and the link between these institutions and the new rulers of Japan was secure. Kogon ihM. of the Northern Court was the first sovereign to be given a formal Zen funeral in 1336. As the centre of gravity shifted back to Kyoto, patronage moved with it, with the result that although the temples in Kamakura remained influential, those in Kyoto came to dominate. Given the special relationship that had existed between both Ashikaga Takauji and Tadayoshi Btt and a number of Zen masters, in particular Muso, it was only natural that their successors would follow suit. Zen temples and their abbots became to the Ashikaga what Enryakuji and Kofukuji had been to the court and the sovereign, a guarantee of their prestige and legitimacy. Although it is doubtful whether any shogun ever spent all his time in meditation or trying to solve koan, they certainly sponsored literary and artistic events, and used the temples as a door to the wider world of Song-Ming culture, including Neo-Confucianism. Zen was for them a mixture of education and entertainment. But this was by no means all. Zen monks were extremely useful to the sho-gunate when it came to matters of diplomacy and commerce; they had a good command of written Chinese, and often had direct experience of dealing with Chinese officialdom. They were also willing to become involved in finance, often becoming an important source of funds for the Bakufu. Experience showed that if religious institutions were allowed too much unfettered power they became a threat. Tadayoshi took some care to exercise control over the temples, setting up an office of commissioners (Zenritsugata and as early as 1338 an attempt was made to establish a nationwide network, to be known as ankokuji SH#, which was intended to symbolise the establishment of a new peace and help to pacify the spirits of those who had died in battle in the previous decade. In most cases, of course, this simply involved the official re-registering of an already existing Zen temple. In addition, an order went out for the construction of a series of pagodas or rishoto flj 4 i§ to be built in the precincts of major Tendai and Shingon temples, as a sign that they too were to be brought within the general remit of the new Ashikaga power structure. The political intent behind these moves is clear: it was another way of extending authority over the military governors (shugo ^91), who formed the backbone of provincial government and who, by their very nature, tended to be independent of both mind and action. As it happens, these rishoto did not survive the death of Takauji in 1358, and the ankokuji were simply absorbed into the larger system that became known as the gozan Sill or 'five mountains'. Of the new temples that were built at this time, perhaps none is more important than Tertryuji When Go-Daigo died in 1339, Muso per- suaded Takauji that it would be wise to ensure that the spirit of the disappointed sovereign was properly pacified; the potential for trouble was too great. Kogon agreed to donate a detached palace in the Arashiyama district northwest of Kyoto, but not enough funds were allocated at the outset, with the result that work had to be stopped well before completion. Eventually it was decided to send two ships to China on a trading mission, the proceeds of which would go to building this memorial for Go-Daigo. The mission, the first of what became known as Tenryujibune 5£fll#J8&, left in 1342 and returned having made a handsome profit, allowing the temple to be completed in 1344. What is more, another important precedent was set when Enryakuji complained about the lavish ceremonies that were planned in honour of Go-Daigo at its opening. For the first time, the Bakufu simply rejected their protestations out of hand and threatened to confiscate whatever they might bring into the streets of the capital. Recent research has questioned whether there was a system of 'five major temples' in Southern Song China, but, whatever its historical validity, this is certainly where the term was thought to have originated. In Japan the number 'five' came to denote not the number of temples but five ranks in a hierarchical system that was brought into full operation under Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1368-94). The system changed quite rapidly. In 1334 the order was: 1 Nanzenji f$P# {Kyoto) 2 Tofukuji HCfi# (Kyoto) 3 Kenninji Stt# (Kyoto) 4 Kenchoji JtJt# (Kamakura) 5 Engakuji IBB^ (Kamakura). 400 402 From Go-Daigo 's fall to the death of Nobunaga 19 Muromachi Zen 403 By 1341 this had changed to: 1 Kenchöji (Kamakura); Nanzenji (Kyoto) 2 Engakuji (Kamakura); Tenryüji (Kyoto) 3 Jufukuji (Kamakura) 4 Kenninji (Kyoto) 5 Jöchiji W^^f (Kamakura); Tötukuji (Kyoto). Under Go-Daigo in 1334, Kyoto clearly outranked Kamakura, but the first Ashikaga order in 1341 was more evenly balanced. Yoshimitsu changed it yet again when he founded Shökokuji fflSf^f as the Ashikaga family temple in Kyoto, and by 1386 the following balance had been achieved, with Nanzenji at the apex. Nanzenji Kyoto 1 Tenryüji 2 Shökokuji 3 Kenninji 4 Töfukuji 5 Manjuji SÜP^f Kamakura Kenchöji Engakuji Jufukuji Jöchiji Jömyöji W&=- Below the top level of gozan were the 'ten temples' (jissatsu of which there was at least one per province by the mid-fifteenth century; and under these was a large group of miscellaneous temples (shozan ftf ill), smaller provincial temples, often simply redesignated as Zen from some other affiliation such as Tendai or Jodo, and associated with major local families, the majority of which were of the military governor class, provincial agents of the Ashikaga Bakufu (Collcutt 1990: 600-10). It was along the route provided by these connections that the practice of Zen and contact with Kyoto culture spread throughout Japan, although one should keep in mind that its influence was limited to a relatively small group, and it was always going to be seen as the domain of an elite class. From the point of view of the Bakufu the gozan system made sense both in terms of overall control and in terms of economics, since temples had to pay substantially for the privilege of being included. From the point of view of the provinces, it brought prestige and encouraged patronage of high culture within what became provincial capitals of considerable wealth and sophistication. Zen monks were in great demand throughout the country, since by installing a monk as abbot into one's own converted ujidera, one might gain much in terms of influence and contacts. By the mid-fifteenth century there were 300 main temples listed within the system and a much larger number of affiliates (Collcutt 1981: 115-16). This rapid growth was fuelled partly by the habit of allowing abbots to retire to their own sub-temples, known as tatchu ISIS, which proliferated in the grounds of larger temples and which often became important cultural centres in their own right, and partly by the habit of warrior families sending their sons to be educated in temples. The authorities were constantly worried about such matters as size and discipline. The notional limit of 500 monks per establishment was exceeded on a regular basis, but the Bakufu did not always help the situation by selling abbacies as often as possible to the highest bidder to fill their own coffers. Where they do seem to have succeeded was in keeping Zen institutions from becoming a source of armed threat. Discipline was also of importance, especially because the gozan temples were the one Buddhist institution over which they had real control. The legal codes known as Kenmu shikimoku HiK^ E! (1352) contain a number of regulations aimed specifically at Zen temples. Article 141 of the supplementary legislation, for example, reads: Both elders and ordinary monks must be carefully checked for [attendance at] the three daily services. [If they are absent] they must be removed from the temple rolls, and elders must not be promoted. In the Zen sect, advancement comes with the practice of Zen discipline (zazen), and those who have been repeatedly negligent shall be expelled from the temple (Collcutt 1990: 607). It is usually argued that Zen meditation and koan practice suffered increasingly as we progress through the fifteenth century. Whether or not this growth did in fact lead to a decline in practice and meditation is difficult to gauge, but what is true is that gozan temples became known more for their contributions to culture in general, painting, architecture and Chinese poetry, than for a rigorous training in meditation. This should come as no surprise, given that such emphasis was placed on the ability to understand classical Chinese references when dealing with koan and the commentarial tradition. Muso Soseki, for example, was even drawn to criticise monks whose knowledge of Chinese was less than adequate for devoting too much of their time to meditation (Bodiford 1993: 147). In 1379 direct control over the gozan temples was delegated back to the monks in die form of the Registrary General for the Sahgha (Soroku ff$&), the first monk to be appointed to run this office being the Tenryuji abbot, Shun'oku Mydha #M#3e (1311-88). From 1383 his offices were based in a subtemple of Shokokuji called the Rokuon'in H^hI^;, which also served as a drafting office for much of the official diplomatic correspondence exchanged 404 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death ofNobunaga with the Korean and Chinese authorities. A number of highly influential monks were to hold this post of Registrar, including Zekkai Chushin $fe$l tf# (1336-1405), Zuikei Shuho iSSjlffl, (1391-1473) and Keijo Shurin Sft.lHK (1440-1518). Although individual gozan temples continued to retain a good deal of autonomy, it was through this office that abbots were appointed and regulations enforced. In principle the system required abbacies to be open to all (jipposatsu 0), but in practice Japanese habit prevailed and by and large abbots were chosen from within the lineage established by the founder, in which case they were known as tsuchien $.!$$c. Tenryuji and Shokokuji, for example, only installed abbots who could trace their learning back to Muso Soseki. Although this close relationship between gozan monks and the Bakufu administration worked to the advantage of both parties, it had the disadvantage of tying their fates together and ensured that as the central authority itself weakened over the years, the prestige and effectiveness of those temples in the gozan system would decline as well. 19.2 'Those below the grove' By no means every Zen temple became part of the gozan system. The generic term for those who were either excluded or stayed outside on purpose was 'those below the grove' (rinka # T), to distinguish them from the gozan temples which were known collectively as 'the grove' (sorin H#). This might give the impression that they were situated well away from urban areas, which is true of many S5t6 temples, but there were many others, including two large urban foundations in KySto itself, Daitokuji AJI^r" and Myoshinji PP^^f, that stayed fiercely independent and accepted no patronage or support from the shogunafe. Nevertheless, they formed a crucial element in the life and culture of metropolitan Zen. Their patrons came from the court, lesser provincial families and wealthy townspeople in Kyoto and Sakai ^. Daitokuji had been founded by Shuho Myocho, who was Muso's rival in many ways, and this may have been one of the many reasons why successive Daitokuji abbots kept aloof from the gozan system, preferring to keep a certain distance between them and the Ashikaga. They saw themselves as having special ties to the sovereign and indeed were the only group of abbots to be allowed to wear purple robes. Although Daitokuji itself was burned down in 1453 and then again in the Onin wars, it was revived thanks to the fund-raising efforts of Ydso Soi (1376-1458). An unashamed populariser, he even went as far as granting certificates of 19 Muromachi Zen 405 enlightenment to lay people who attended mass meditation sessions at which koan were 'solved' by transmission of the secret correct answer rather than through rigorous meditative exercise (Collcutt 1990: 614). Somewhat bizarrely, the infamous Ikkyu Sojun -^§1 (1394-1481), who became abbot in 1474, also managed to attract financial support, especially from merchants in the port city of Sakai. But the real period of prosperity for Daitokuji came later, in the sixteenth century, when it attracted a number of former gozan temples that at best found themselves marooned and at worst completely gutted in the widespread destruction of the mid-fifteenth century. It became a major centre of cultural activity for painters, renga poets and especially masters of the tea ceremony. Both the renga poets Saiokuken Socho ^MtfSft (1448-1532) and Yamazaki Sokan Oltfg?S (1465-1553) were connected to Daitokuji, as was the famous tea master Sen no Rikyu ^fD'ffc (1522-91). It was to survive and prosper in the sixteenth century, counting as many as two hundred branch temples throughout the country hy the 1580s. Myostrinji was founded by Kanzan Egen MlUMS. (1277-1360) at the request of Hanazono. Like his mentor Shuh5 Myocho, Kanzan made a name for himself as an uncompromising monk with rigorous standards for Zen practice and little interest in preferment. Closed down in 1399 because Ashikaga Yoshimitsu believed that the abbot had offered help to the rebel Ouchi Yoshihiro, Myoshinji was re-established about forty years later by Nippo Soshun H J#f?S (1408-86) and it too eventually grew to be one of the largest Zen establishments in the country. The period of its real growth was later, in the sixteenth century, when it outgrew even Daitokuji and took over some fifty defunct jissatsu and shozan temples. It is important to note that present-day Rinzai Zen traces itself back not to the gozan temples, which faded out as the Ashikaga lost power and prestige, but to this Myoshinji line via the monk Hakuin Ekaku Sill (1685-1768). One other group deserves a mention at this point, the lineage that became known as Genjuha named after Zhongfeng Mingben's hermitage, the Huanju'an £}QzM. This included a number of monks, such as Onkei Soyu SMSMIS (1286-1344), Kosen Ingen *TfcEPTU (1295-1374) and Muin Genkai ^MtuM (d. 1358), who had all studied with the reclusive Zhongfeng. This group saw itself as forming an entirely separate lineage and shared with Soto Zen a dislike of secular authority in general. And what of Soto temples in the tradition that had been started by Dogen and owed its institutionalisation to Keizan J5kin (1268-1325)? They kept themselves aloof from the gozan and grew rapidly in more rural 406 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death of Nobunaga environments. Having founded YokqjL Keizan moved on again and near the end of his life, in 1324, founded yet another centre, a temple some sixty kilometres north of Hakui called Sojiji This was eventually to rival Eiheiji itself, forming the core of a very large organisation of sub-temples numbered in the thousands. Gasan JSseki K ill IB H (1275-1366) was installed as its first abbot. Sojiji had originally been a Shingon temple and from the beginning of its new incarnation Soto abbots showed a willingness to incorporate both tantric and Pure Land rituals into their belief and practice; partly, of course, to fit in with their patron's wishes. As we have already mentioned, later sectarian scholarship has often castigated these men for diluting Zen 'proper', but the secret of the success of Soto Zen as an institution lay precisely in its willingness to engage fully with local beliefs, encourage eclecticism, and offer a source of spiritual power and sustenance to a series of local elites. Drawing its patrons from middle-ranking landowners and local samurai lords, it became the main source of religious experience for this class in the countryside. The presence of Gasan at Sojiji and his ability to attract benefactions meant that this temple prospered throughout the late fourteenth century such that by the end of the century it challenged Yokqji in both size and significance. Rivalry between the two erupted in a major conflict in the 1370s, although the actual reasons for dispute remain obscure because of the highly tendentious nature of the sources that remain. The nub of the problem was the question of status: which temple had priority and what procedures should be followed for the appointment of abbots at both institutions. Much time was spent adjudicating between different factions, factions that grew out of the usual obsession that Zen had with master-student lineages (Bodiford 1993: 101-07). Sojiji learned its lesson from these disagreements, however, and eventually managed to control a large number of potential factions by making sure that the abbotships of temples rotated through various sub-lineages. It was in the main Gasan's students who started the expansion of Soto Zen from the main base in Kaga and Noto, spreading throughout Japan, setting up small temples wherever they could and so ensuring that by 1400 their tentacles had spread to no fewer than seventeen provinces. The growth continued. It has been estimated that in the two hundred years between 1450 and 1650 on average more than forty-three Soto Zen temples appeared each year: a phenomenal rate of growth (Bodiford 1993: 110). In part this can be explained by the habit of re-assignment, whereby a temple that had originally been linked to a Shingon or Tendai main temple had somehow lost that tie (in 19 Muromachi Zen 407 many cases because of the loss of power and influence at the centre); Soto monks simply filled the gap. None of this would have happened, of course, if the monks themselves had not been willing to travel far and wide, taking over local, often derelict, temples in the remote areas they visited. But to do this they needed to obtain the permission and sponsorship of local leaders, who were the only ones wealthy enough to fund temple building and interested enough to use them as centres of power and authority. Their persuasive powers must have been considerable. In contrast to the monks of the gozan temples, who impressed through their learning, Soto Zen monks had much more in common with traditional mountain ascetics and the order as a whole was associated with two sacred mountains in particular, Hakusan in Kaga and Sekidozan in Noto. Mountain pilgrimage is a standard motif in many Soto biographies and temple histories. The founding of Zuisenji by Tenshin Yuieki (1341-1413), illustrates how Soto monks appropriated the cultic power of sacred mountains. Tenshin had been living in seclusion in Kinsei Village (Chikusen Province) when the local residents first asked him to found a new temple. But he could not accept their request without a divine sign. Tenshin journeyed to the nearby Mt Hiko to practice austerities. Later, when Tenshin returned to Kinsei Village, a rock fell out of the sleeve of his robe. Just as the rock hit the ground a three-foot-tall man suddenly appeared - the spirit of the mountain. This apparition was the proper sign, and construction of the new temple began (Bodiford 1993: 113). So in many ways Soto Zen monks became the equivalent of parish priests, offering sermons and whatever services the community wished. After all, it was not as if Chan had been devoid of prayers and rituals for prosperity and good luck in this world. Far from keeping to themselves in temples and cultivating increasingly effective meditational techniques, the monks saw it as their role to take the message out into the villages. They transformed, for example, the rite of ordination into something approaching baptism for all. Although Dogen himself had shown no hesitation in ignoring the old institutional controls over the ordination process, claiming for himself and his followers the right to ordain their own, he had in fact been somewhat equivocal about which precepts Sotd monks should use and placed far more emphasis on a close observance of the monastic codes (Bodiford 1993: 170— 72). This weakening of the tie between ordination and the status of monk allowed ordination to shift its ground, and it came to be seen as something that could be conferred on lay people in much the same way that tantric practice used the initial kechien kanjo initiation for the layman. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Soto Zen was the degree to which the lay 408 From Go-Daigo 'sfall to the death of Nobunaga coirimunity was actively encouraged to partake in various ceremonies. They were invited, for example, to join in the monthly recitation of the precepts, for which a fee was charged. The monks also arranged group ordinations for their lay supporters (jukai 'e which seem to have become common in the sixteenth century. The participants shared in the work of the monks for a few days, after which they were given a certificate in the form of a lineage-chart (kechimyaku-zu). This not only gave the layperson an insight into the life of the temple but also created a link from him or her to the Buddha himself through the chart and the person of the abbot. Records show that all sections of society were encouraged to attend these events, so deepening the link between Zen monks and the rural population (Bodiford 1993: 179-84). Another important aspect of Soto Zen proselytisation was in the matter of funerals, for which they became particularly well known. Buddhist funerals for laypersons were the exclusive preserve of the nobility until about the thirteenth century. We do not know enough about funeral practices among the rest of the population at this stage, although it is clear that in many cases corpses, particularly those of young children and those whose family members had also died, were simply interred or otherwise left to decay. One important gift that Soto Zen monks brought to the rural areas in which they settied was the opportunity for families at all levels of society to bury their dead in such a fashion as to secure their future salvation. The Pure Land and Nichiren groups had their own ceremonies, but most other Buddhist orders were to adopt Zen funeral services as the norm. The rites as they were prescribed in the Sung Chan codes were restricted to ordained monks and were informed by Chinese practice; laypeople could be offered memorial services but not funerals. But once Soto became firmly established in Japan it was not long before funeral rites were being offered to lay patrons. At a later stage this service was extended to all laypersons of no matter what status, although the scale of the ceremony was naturally reduced, depending on the resources available. This shift whereby rites originally due to a monk were given to laypersons was justified by the device of posthumous ordination. Once that had been achieved, and it was usually done in a simple initiation ceremony, the person could be treated as if he or she were a monk or a nun. From the point of view of the layman the only difference between a Zen monk and a Tendai or Shingon monk was that the former was thought to draw his spiritual strength from meditation rather than knowledge of esoteric ritual. It is probably true to say that standards of practice and meditation were far higher in Soto temples than in metropolitan ones, which had become 19 Muromachi Zen 409 centres of cultural rather than spiritual excellence. Story after story is told of the strictness of S5to abbots, both for themselves and for others. Observance of the rules that governed every tiny aspect of a monk's life was an essential part of training the mind and counteracting the belief in a self. The use of koan was also central, although in this case, given the background of most Soto monks and the difficulty of the koan texts themselves, the kind of systematisation and rote learning that we have described in relation to gozan practice must have been the norm and must have set in much earlier. One of the main reasons a monk might prefer to be at a rinka rather than a gozan temple was precisely the realisation that the possibility of reaching enlightenment should not be tied so closely to one's ability to handle classical Chinese. There was much memorisation of set responses according to a fixed curriculum and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that for the majority of monks the study of koan had been reduced to an exercise in familiarising oneself with Zen lore. When the correct answers had been learned, and these answers might be non-verbal in nature, one passed on to the next koan, and in the end one 'graduated'. This sounds somewhat dismissive, but in its own way this kind of study could impart the necessary message. Take, for example, this record of an exchange in which the abbot takes the student on a mental tour of the temple. The abbot performs both sides of the exchange and the student just listens (hence the term 'substitute'), but, even so, much is imparted in the process: Teacher: 'First, the abbot's building?' Substitute: 'Prior to the Great Ultimate [there is] the abbot's building.' Teacher: 'Nothing exists prior to the Great Ultimate. How can [you] say that the abbot's building exists?' Substitute: 'This answer means that the master dwells in the place of non-being.' Teacher: 'Averse?' Substitute: 'No bright brightness; in the dark, darkness.' Teacher: 'Next, the storehouse? ... ' (Bodiford 1993: 156). 19.3 Three men of Zen Perhaps the best way to illustrate some of the main facets of Zen culture during the Muromachi is to take three figures who are representative of three different aspects: Daito (1282-1337) for his teaching and his use of koan, Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481) for his behaviour, and SesshC Toyo IS ft (1420-1506) for his mastery of the brush. 410 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death of Nobunaga The central place that study of koan still has in Zen is in large measure a result of the example of Daito, the founder of Daitokuji. He came to be seen as the paradigmatic Zen master and his 'final admonitions' are still chanted in Rinzai temples to this day, but it is as well to be aware that this reputation is largely the result of historical accident. As has just been pointed out, present-day Rinzai Zen traces itself back to him via the Tokugawa monk Hakuin, and it is for this reason that he looms so large. Much of what we are told of his early life is the usual hagiography with the quirky touches that were an intrinsic part of the role that a Zen master was supposed to play. All we really know is that after having gained his first experience of enlightenment studying with Koho Kennichi (1241-1316), he lived in a small temple called Ungoan from 1309 to 1319 and then in 1319 became the founding abbot of Daitokuji, where (unusually) he remained for the rest of his life. A commonly accepted embellishment is that he lived as a beggar for many years before finally coming to the notice of the sovereign Hanazono. This gives him the proper flavour of a Zen master while also providing proof of the perspicacity of the sovereign. It is said that he really spent [these years] living among the beggars under the Gojo Bridge in Kyoto, quite indistinguishable from his ragged associates. Eventually, so the story has it, Hanazono heard of him, and wished to invite him to preach at his palace. Having also heard that this unusual beggar was fond of a certain melon known as makuwa-uri, he went to the Gojo Bridge in disguise carrying a large basket of the fruit. There he handed the melons to the beggars one by one, carefully scanning each face as he did so. Noticing one with unusually bright eyes, he said, as he offered the melon, 'Take this without using your hands.' The immediate response was, 'Give it to me without using your hands' (Kraft 1992: 42, adapted). Hanazono was not the only admirer. Go-Daigo was also enamoured of his intelligence and his sheer presence, as we can tell from an inscription written by Go-Daigo on one of Daito's portraits: conventional though it undoubtedly is, the fact remains that Daito was seen as a charismatic teacher by two sovereigns from rival camps. Swifter than a flash of lightning, he brandishes his stick as he pleases. Faster than ever before, he forges buddhas and patriarchs on his anvil. When he deals with his monks, there is no place for them to seize hold. He was a teacher to two sovereigns, yet never once revealed his face to them. His severe and awe-inspiring manner made it impossible for anyone to approach him. A single point of spiritual radiance - who presumes to see it? (Kraft 1992: 126). Daito's teaching involved both meditation (zazen) and use of koan, although it is his use of the latter for which he is best known. Of zazen, he said: 19 Muromachi Zen 411 'Sweep away all thoughts!' means one must do zazen. Once thoughts are quieted, the Original Face appears. Thoughts can be compared to clouds - when clouds vanish, the moon appears. The moon of suchness is the Original Face. Thoughts are also like the fogging of a mirror - when you wipe away all condensation, a mirror reflects clearly. Quiet your thoughts and behold your Original Face before you were bom (Kraft 1992: 117). But in line with the strictures voiced most strongly by Dahui Zonggao, Daito was also concerned lest this be interpreted as simply an attempt to become mindless. Enlightenment, he argued, would not be gained by simply sitting still and cutting off thought altogether. Zazen would not in and of itself guarantee enlightenment, since that might well come out of the blue at any time. It was in an attempt to counteract this impression that he paid great attention to the use of koan and especially the use of 'capping phrases'. It may be remembered that Dahui had advocated concenfrating on a single phrase (kanna If IS) in order to fight the tendency to slide back into intellectualisation. Daito's trick was similar. Keeping to the spirit of a work like the Emerald Cliff record, he offered comments not in the form of a sentence or two of normal language, which would have been a betrayal of the whole enterprise, but in the form of a 'capping phrase'. These were designed not as discursive explanations but as interlinear comments, as pointers to an understanding; it was then the job of the student to work on his own in the gap between koan and phrase, and meditation might well involve battling with a koan and its capping phrase for many months (Kraft 1992). What is not clear is how Daito or his students actually used these phrases. Modern Rinzai practice, stemming from Hakuin, involves the student in a good deal of research. He is given the koan to consider and is supposed to go away and find a jakugo that he feels captures its essence. He does this by combing through a series of handbooks and collections of phrases for something that fits. There is, of course, no one right answer and he might have to return many times before the master judges that he has grasped and internalised the import of the koan. It is the master's role to take the student through a series of these koan much as a teacher might guide a student through a set curriculmn. Gradually the student will memorise the contents of the collections and become proficient at what is, in essence, an exercise and a training. In the process, the spontaneity and cut and thrust of an actual encounter dialogue that is still the ideal of Zen training tends to be lost, and in many cases the young monk simply learns a series of fitting, correct responses by rote. This method might have its own rationale in terms of a kind of training of the mind, but it probably began as a rather mundane 412 From Go-Daigo's fall to the death of Nobunaga attempt to deal with rather more practical problems, problems of a linguistic rather than religious nature. All the literary material involved is in Chinese and the fact that some of the language is colloquial Chinese of the Song period makes matters doubly difficult. Even if the Chinese is verbalised in the Japanese manner, it is still difficult to understand unless seen at least once and memorised. Were matters any different in Daito's time? It is difficult to tell. Reliable sources are limited to his goroku, which were first published somewhere between 1426 and 1467 and which record his talks and discussions, and to the collections of capping phrases that he left, perhaps the most important being the commentary on the Emerald Cliff record, from which he stripped out both layers of prior annotation, replacing them with his own phrases. So despite Daito's reputation as a master who managed to inspire students in much the same spirit as the Tang masters envisioned for us in Song texts, intent on fighting language with language, we have no information on how this performance might have worked. Here again, the catch is linguistic. How would the following set of koan plus capping phrases (in italics) have been used? Wuzu [Fa]yan said, 'An ox passes through a window. His head, horns, and four legs all go through. But why can't the tail pass too?' One game, two victories. Under a peony, a kitten naps. Someone else would not have been able to trace the footprints (Kraft 1992: 193). This is all in Chinese. How much of it could have been oral? Did the master write the phrases down and show them to the student, asking him to go away and mull them over? In which case the written has priority and to use the term 'dialogue' (mondo M^t) of such a procedure is to stretch it to breaking point. And what happened when the student felt as though he had the answer? Was he supposed to return and superimpose his own, new capping phrase? The language of everyday discussion must have been Japanese but perhaps the koan and phrases were read in what passed for Chinese pronunciation. If so, they must have been learned and could hardly have been spontaneous. The nature of the whole exercise meant that the pressure to base the performance on a written text must have been irresistible, and we should err on the side of supposing that formalisation set in at an early stage. It is extremely difficult to give an account of the activities of Zen monks in the Muromachi period that is not coloured to a large extent by the hagiographic writings of their students. This is certainly true of a man like Ikkyu Sqjun (1394—1481), whose present reputation as a free spirit (everyone 19 Muromachi Zen 413 Plate 28 A portrait of Ikkyu by Bokusai. knows Ikkyu-san, who can always be relied upon to turn the tables with a witty or sometimes cheeky remark) is based on a series of stories that were developed around his persona during the Tokugawa period. But there seems to have been plenty of fertile ground from which such an image managed to sprout. He was known during his lifetime as a monk of highly unconventional views and behaviour, the reincarnation of the kind of wild Zen master of the Tang prototypes, the embodiment of integrity. We have three main sources: his own writings, mostly in the form of a collection of Chinese poetry entitled Kyounshu Slft;a biography by the painter Bokusai If, who knew him well; and a famous sketch from life by the same man, which is one of the most revealing of all pre-modern Japanese portraits [plate 28]. The biography suggests that Ikkyu. was in fact the unacknowledged offspring of the sovereign Gokomatsu. He was sent to work in a temple at the age of five and proved to be extremely quick. For his training he chose to study under a man called Ken'o Soi H ft m M, who was known for his uncompromising attitude to meditation and monastic life and whose allegiance was to the Daitolaiji-Myoshinji lineage rather than the gozan 414 From Go-Daigo 's fall to the death of Nobunaga system, so it is clear from the beginning that Ikkyii was not interested in establishing himself within the Buddhist hierarchy. When Ken'o died in 1414, Ikkyu moved on to train with Kaso Sodon HHS?lt (1352-1428), another demanding master who lived and worked at Katada, on the western shores of Lake Biwa. He is said to have had his first experience of enlightenment sitting on a boat in the lake in 1420. In 1432 we find him in the port city of Sakai, where it would seem he gave free rein to his bohemian habits, becoming famous as a monk who drank with gusto and made frequent visits to the brothels along the waterfront. He endeared himself to the merchants of the town, who were growing wealthy from trade with China and were willing to support those Zen temples that were outside official Ashikaga control. This stood him in good stead later, when, somewhat surprisingly, he rebuilt broken fences with his own lineage and was eventually chosen to become abbot of Daitokuji, just in time to rebuild it after the destruction of the Onin wars. Two stories will show us the character of the man. The first is from Bokusai's biography and refers to a Chinese Zen story about rebirth and the possibility of coming back as a cow: One day Ikkyii entered the home of a parishioner and found an old cow in the courtyard. As a joke he hung a poem from the tip of its horn: Well and fine, to be a beast. Potential depends on State, and State depends on Potential. Born anew, I forget my former path, And forget my monkly name of former years. That evening the cow died. The next day its owner came and teased the master by claiming that he had eulogized the animal to death. Ikkyu just smiled (Sanford 1981: 36). The second story, which comes from a later collection, tells how Ikkyu paraded around the capital on New Year's Day carrying a human skull on the end of a long pole wishing everyone best wishes for the coming year. This hinges on a word play: 'best wishes' in Japanese is omedeto ffl @ ifJS 1 , which can also be read to mean 'eyes popped out'. Clearly the gruesome sight had a very serious intent. Indeed a seriousness of purpose seems to have underlain his constant drive to break the boundaries of normal behaviour, to break taboos. It came from a rare singlemindedness that is always unsettling and yet draws admiration. Unlike most of his fellow men, he was serious in living out the difficult and dangerous belief that this world was indeed identical to nirvana and that all distinctions were in the ultimate analysis untenable. / 9 Muromachi Zen 415 It should not surprise us to find that Ikkyu was full of contradictions. He was at home with intellectuals and was known to many of the major cultural figures of his day: the No master Konparu Zenchiku ###)t, the renga master lio Sogi tMflt (1421-1502), and the tea master Murata Shuko tJHJfcTu (1422-1502). His poetry is difficult and full of allusions to Chinese culture, but hidden there are also passionate love poems written when he was in his seventies to a woman in her forties, together with many blunt expressions of lust. He impresses by the sheer honesty with which he faced his own desires. He loved and hated with equal intensity. And yet he is also a symbol of the transformation of Zen Buddhism into a popular religious form (Sanford 1981: 36-37). His antinomian behaviour and his refusal to dissimulate mark him as one of the first home-grown Japanese Zen-monk heroes, a sign that Zen had by this time become something of interest to a much wider audience than just those who ruled. Ikkyu is a classic example of the truth that all our heroes are taboo breakers of some kind or other. Since Zen masters had achieved enlightenment and deepened that experience over many years, they were seen as being buddhas in their own right. It is partly for this reason that the Zen canon placed more emphasis on the records of their dialogues and sermons than on surras. It is therefore not surprising that one of the major forms of art in gozan temples was portraits and images of these revered masters. The portraits, known as chinzo IBffi,1 were done both as paintings and sculptures, although the former predominated, because although every temple of any size had within it an atelier, sculptors were peripatetic. The object of such portraits being to preserve the likeness of the master in remembrance and reverence, the Kamakura interest in realistic images continued and every effort was made to represent these characters warts and all. Indeed, it was common to insert the person's ashes or fingernails inside a carving as a sign that the image was in a certain sense alive, retaining the capacity for compassion and guidance that had existed in life. This kind of art, if the word 'art' is even appropriate in such a devotional context, is not what would normally be thought of as 'Zen art'. What is usually signified by this term is painting that is seen to express in some form or other the essence of Zen teachings. It may or may not be produced by Zen monks, although in the period we are discussing it almost always was. The reason why painting became such an important medium among gozan Zen ' This word originally signifies the protuberance on Buddha's head {usnisa), in which case it is normally read choso. 416 Prom Go-Daigo's fall to the death of Nobunaga 19 Muromachi Zen 417 monks and their patrons was twofold. Firstly, this kind of painting had a long and distinguished Chinese heritage and the practice of this art was seen as a prestigious cultural pursuit in its own right. Secondly, painting offered a medium through which a message could be expressed in non-verbal terms, and as such it was a perfect vehicle. Kukai had said as much and Shingon used diagrams and sounds that were divorced from an immediate transparent meaning. Zen, on the other hand, preferred to use pictorial representations of the natural world in such a way as to make the teaching immediately apprehensible; it was a perfect medium, in fact, for presenting the world as both phenomena and mind. There were limitless ways in which this kind of effect could be achieved. One might present a picture of Buddha or Bodhidharma in a few simple strokes, thereby making reference to the all-important Zen lineage while at the same time proving the illusory nature of all reality; an image conjured up by a few strokes on paper. One might illustrate a famous incident in the tradition or the behaviour of a Zen master, such as the painting in plate 29, 5' which was probably painted in the thirteenth century but in the style of the Chinese artist Strike E'h§, who flourished in the tenth century. Despite an inscription that describes the figure in the painting as one of two patriarchs, it is in fact the legendary eccentric Fenggan, who had a tiger as an inseparable companion. Here there is both humour and depth, portrayed with the kind of brushwork that could be equally employed depicting a rock formation. Or one might produce a landscape in which the ideals of Buddhism were expressed not via a devotional image, nor with a complex abstract mandala, but in the way that man and nature are presented and seen in the artist's imagination: as in plate 30 [p. 418], for example, perhaps the most famous painting by the master Sesshu Toyo. This is one of what was probably a set of four paintings depicting the four seasons, only two of which remain: autumn and winter. It clearly owes much to Chinese prototypes, but is stamped just as clearly with the personality and vision of Sesshu. Sesshu was a young Zen monk at Shokokuji, where he studied under the painter Tensho Sfmbun JlM^X (fl. 1420-60). Sometime in the mid-1460s he left Kyoto and established himself in Yamaguchi under the patronage of the Ouchi family, who controlled the province of Suo. The Ouchi also controlled most of the China trade and had ploughed their profits into creating a mini-Kyoto at Yamaguchi. In 1467 he travelled with a trade mission to China, where he came into contact with a whole range of Chinese styles that were new to him, many of which he copied. The brushwork that we see in this late work is remarkable for its roughness. Sharp, uncompromising angles, thick strokes and branches like thorns seem to threaten the lone figure on all sides. Falling snow is represented by randomly placed blobs of black ink. But what is most striking is the way in which the perspective developed at the bottom of the painting disappears into a flattened geometrical pattern at the top. An extraordinary dark gash down the middle marks a cliff face that has no visible means of support but simply hangs from a dull, grey sky. No soft mists or slowly receding series of lakes and mountains here. We are faced with the prospect of the whole rock pulling down the sky on both man and his dwellings. A winter scene indeed, where the soul of a painter who saw nothing but foreboding seems to have triumphed over the soul of a monk. Plate 29 The eccentric Fenggan, after Shike. 418 From Go-Daigo 'sfall to the death ofNobunaga ■■ -it Plate 30 A winter scene, Sesshu Toyo. I 20 The end of the medieval 20.1 Yoshida Shinto The process by which a self-conscious Shinto discourse continued to develop after the emergence of Watarai Shinto in the thirteenth century was given added impetus by the activities of Yoshida Kanetomo jSEBSMI (1434-1511). It was under the guidance of this man that the ideal hierarchical system for which the JingiJkan had originally been created began to look feasible for the first time at a practical level. It is indicative of the degree to which the authority of the court was no longer taken seriously that such a move was made not by the sovereign or the court, but by one of the priestly families themselves. So this new attempt to create a system to incorporate all shrines in the country occurred under essentially private auspices. This was, after all, a time when central authority had collapsed and the court's finances were so stretched that even simple enthronement ceremonies could not be afforded. When Hosokawa Masamoto Ml^\W.7t, who was in control of the central provinces from 1493 until his assassination in 1507, was asked by the court for financial support, he is said to have refused, saying: 'Even if the enthronement ceremony is held, the common people will not know the sovereign is sovereign; and even if it is not held, I will know the sovereign is sovereign' (Berry 1994: 62, adapted). The Urabe family, from which the Yoshida had emerged, was one of two sacerdotal lineages (the other being the Nakatomi) who were in charge of divination. They occupied certain positions in the Jingikan and were responsible for a number of important shrines in the vicinity of Heian-kyo, in particular the Yoshida shrine in the northeast of the capital, which had been built by Fujiwara no Yamakage UUU in 859 to represent the interests of the Kasuga shrine, and was listed in 1081 as one of the twenty-two major shrines to received court sponsorship (Grapard 1992b: 33). In the thirteenth century the Urabe began to play a major role in the study of the earliest chronicles, Urabe Kanefumi M~$C writing the earliest known commentary on Kojiki, Kojiki uragaM rfVIBSff, in 1273 and his son Kanekata Mid producing the 419 420 From Go-Daigo 'sfall to the death of Nobunaga influential Shaku Nihongi p But perhaps the most famous member of the Yoshida branch is Urabe Kenko MFF \ p®o) p@q) X\ p®o i DESCENT INTO _THE THREE KB ALMS p@q 6©q @ 0) X /"X p®o i DESCENT INTO THE _ THREE REALMS (SAMAVA) EAST Identification of buddhas within each large disc. 1 Mahavairocana 2 Amitabha 3 Amoghasiddhi 4 Aksobhya 5 Ratnasambhava Plate 32 Diamond World mandala (diagrammatic outline). 440 Appendices: Reading Shingon's two mandala The assemblies on top are different. The Four Mudra (shiinne 0l4l#), top left, is a simpler design, the moon disc at the centre having been expanded to fill the whole assembly and only Mahavairocana and four bodhisattvas are present. It is an abbreviated digest of the preceding four assemblies and might have been used as a way of consolidating the practice attained so far, showing that the four were indivisible. Top centre we find the Assembly of the Single Mudra (ichiinne ~ fP#), which is further truncated, containing only one deity, Mahavairocana himself, although in some versions the deity is Vajrasattva. Perhaps at this point it was important to be reminded of the source of all things. Top right is the Assembly of the Guiding Principle (rishu-e IStJ), where we are faced with nine squares, with Vajrasattva in the very centre surrounded by lust (yoku fflC), physical sensation (shoku M), sexual intercourse (ai 91) and satiation (man fit), with the corresponding feminine forms occupying the four corners. Mahavairocana is not present. We are getting closer to the world as we know it. This section is a graphic representation of the principle that 'delusion and enlightenment are identical'; normal human energy and desire is also what drives us to seek enlightenment and buddhahood; sexual intercourse is one with our desire for union with Mahavairocana. We then proceed to the final two assemblies, the Descent into the Three Realms (gozanze-e P$Httt#') and its samaya version. We are now in the world of human beings, full of passion, desire and anger, Gozanze (Trailokyavijaya) being the wrathful manifestation of Vajrasattva, who is, in his turn, a manifestation of Mahavairocana. The deities here can be seen both as representing our own passions and, perhaps, as Mahavairocana's fierce opposition to the evils he finds here. To follow the spiral the other way is to travel from the human state to ultimate union with Mahavairocana at the centre. The sentient being, sunk in passion and ignorance in the first two assemblies, awakens to the idea of original enlightenment and begins to resist, to cut through delusion. When he reaches the Assembly of True Meaning, he understands that human desires are also the energies that generate enlightenment. This is the classic Maha-yana formulation: desires are themselves enlightenment. At the Assembly of the Single Mudra the individual realises that he must take refuge in the eternal buddha and he begins to practise various visualisations and then travels on towards an understanding of bodily motion, sound and physical objects, finally reaching the ultimate wisdom at the centre. The Womb World mandala 441 The Womb World mandala The Womb World mandala represents compassion [plates 33-34]. It uses the same combination of circles and squares, but is a very different shape and can perhaps best be seen as a two-dimensional representation of a huge three-dimensional stepped altar or Indian stupa. At its cenfre/summit Mahavairocana sits in a bright disc, which forms the central bud of an open, red, eight-petalled lotus set in a square. This is the Hall of the Central Dais with Eight Petals (chiitai hachiyoin 'I' vE'V'Mn;). Red is the colour of the human heart and the lotus here is a representation of the heart, forming the primary symbol of the whole mandala. Mahavairocana is dressed not like a buddha but like a bodhisattva with jewels across his body, golden armbands and an elaborate crown. His mudra shows him deep in meditation. He is surrounded at the cardinal points by four more buddhas, identifiable as such by their simple robes and bare heads; they have emanated from the centre. Reading from the top in clockwise fashion with the top being east, they are: to the east, 'Jewelled Banner' (Hodo SS), who is red, has the mudra of 'fulfilling of the vow' (segan-in SfeHEP), and stands for the initial arousal of bodhicitta; to the south, 'King of the Spreading Lotus' (Kaifuke-6 PSIfc-^Hi), who is yellow, with the mudra of 'granting the absence of fear' (semui-in SfiliSBl), and stands for practice; to the west, 'Eternal Life' (Muryqju (PittiS), who is blue-green, with the mudra 'concentration' (jd-in SEEP), and is Amitabha in his Pure Land signifying the achievement of enlightment; and to the north, 'Drumming in the Heavens' (Tenkuraion ^Sf t), who is black, with the mudra of 'touching the ground' (sokuchi-in Siffl), and stands for the achievement of nirvana. Between these four buddhas sit four bodhisattvas: Samantabhadra (Fugen), Manjusri (Monju), Avalokitesvara (Kanjizai), Maitreya (Miroku), each holding a symbolic object. In the four corners of the square stand four treasure vases, which symbolise the four virtues of Dainichi Nyorai: enlightened mind, wisdom, compassion and useful techniques. Eight three-pointed vajras are revealed at the point at which each petal overlaps its neighbour. These symbolise wisdom. Although the centre might again seem to be static, it is interpreted as being in motion. The inner eight-petalled design shows in clockwise fashion how the mind becomes a buddha in five transformations (goten SW). Starting at the top, one arouses the desire for enlightenment; one then undergoes practice; one then comes to a realisation of enlightenment, finding it within one's grasp; one then achieves enlightenment or nirvana; and then one finally arrives at the centre, where one puts one's achievement into practice; full 442 Appendices: Reading Shingon's two mandala The Womb World mandala 443 Plate 33 Womb World mandala, Toji. Heian period. 1.83 x 1.64m. 444 Appendices: Reading Shingon's two mandala emightenment is not an absence but rather an activity whereby one partakes in the process by which ail beings are saved. It is compassion in action. In other words, having reached the centre, compassion radiates out again. This central 'stupa' is surrounded by a series of cloisters (in 1^), which contain a galaxy of bodhisattvas and deities, like the groundplan of a temple. The cloisters are arranged in layers, three on each side and four at the top and bottom. Beneath the centre square is the Cloister of the Mantra Holders (Jimyo-in SfBJil^). In the three-dimensional version this is where the initiate would stand. In the painting this position is occupied by the six-armed bodhisattva Prajfia (Hannya) with the mudra of appeasement (an 'i-in ^StHP), accompanied by four wrathful deities, Acala (Fudo ^fWj), Trailokyavijaya (Gozanze HHiS), Yamantaka (Daiitoku ^Mti) and Trailokyavijaya in another form (Shozanze PHtS). It is here that error and delusion is burned in fire and frightened into submission. Above the centre square is the Cloister of Universal Knowledge (Henchiin M ft 1%). Two protective bodhisattvas on the right and two fecund female deities on the left surround a swastika within a flaming triangle surrounded by another circle of fire, above which hover two small figures. This is a homa (goma KK) altar and the two figures are two of the three Kasyapa brothers whom ^akyamirni converted by quenching their fires of desire with his own fire. The goma rite is one of the most important of all Buddhist rituals. To the right of the centre lies the Cloister of Vajrapani (Kongoshu-in ifePI^Ki), who is supported by twenty-one large deities and twelve smaller ones. It is here that one is given the knowledge to fight for enlightenment. To the left is the Lotus Division (Rengebuin M^rftWn) with Avalokitesvara as the central deity. Here one is promised compassion to help in the struggle. The next layer out also consists of four halls, dedicated to similar activities to those at the first level but a stage closer to phenomenal reality. At the top is the Cloister of Sakyamuni (Shaka-in WM£$), with the manifestation of the eternal Buddha in human form at a specific time in history. He sits under a ceremonial gate and is accompanied by thirty-eight deities including his most important disciples, Ananda and Kasyapa, together with deities that symbolise parts of his body. To the right is the Cloister of Removing Obstacles (Jogaisho-in V&MB^u), to the left the Cloister of Ksitigarbha (Jizo-in KfeHK), dedicated to the bodhisattva who saves those suffering in hell. At the bottom lies the Cloister of Akasagarbha (Kokuz5-in SSIK), whose name means 'holding emptiness within'. The third layer consists of only two spaces, which may have been simply designed to give the mandala visual balance. At the top is the Cloister of Mandala in use 445 Manjusri (Monju-in 3CM.$m), where sits the bodhisattva of wisdom on a blue lotus, surrounded by many attendants. At the bottom is the Cloister of Unsurpassed Attainment (Soshitchi-in ffiUftlK) with eight bodhisattvas but no central figure. The whole is then enclosed by another uniform layer, the Cloister of the Outer Vajras (Gekongobuin Vr^MM^). Depicted here are 202 deities, kings and mythical creatures, many of them from Indie mythology. It is here, for example, that we find the god Ganesa.2 The job of these deities, the closest of all to the world of sentient beings, is to defend the whole edifice, while finding refuge in the Buddhist Dharma. Each side of the mandala has a large gateway.3 These cloisters are also involved in activity and motion. On the one hand a constant series of waves radiate out from the centre to show how Maha-vairocana gives rise to the whole universe or mind and matter. The essence at the core spontaneously gives rise to compassion, which gives rise to activity, which moves towards the periphery becoming more and more concrete and phenomenal. On the other hand there is a corresponding flow coming inwards from layer to layer showing how the individual being at the periphery can proceed through stages eventually to arrive at the origin. Enlightenment is the discovery of the essential purity of Buddha Nature that exists at the heart. Mandala in use How were these diagrams actually used in the ninth century? Although the linking of both mandala as a pair was attributed to Huiguo (§6.1), the concept that they represent the dual aspect of the Dharmakaya, the Diamond World expressing the workings of the Dharma Body of Knowledge H1 M and the Womb World expressing the workings of the Dharma Body of Principle MM, seems to have been a Shingon invention, as was the habit of hanging them on either side of an altar. There is no sign that they were originally created to be a set and it is preferable to deal with them as separate entities. The path that we took through the Diamond World, starting at the centre, dropping east and then moving clockwise, exiting bottom right, comes from a description in a tenth-century Japanese commentary by Gengo TtlS (914-95) called Kongokai ku'e mikki ^H^A^gf IB (T. 2471), on the basis of which 2 For a discussion of Ganesa in Japan see Sanford 1991b: 287—335. 3 Note that the Sanskrit for these gateways is torana, which is thought by some to be the origin of the Japanese word lorii, a Shinto gate. 446 Appendices: Reading Shingon s two mandala later Shingon exegetes developed an elaborate description of the mental journey that this spiral of energy involved (Sharf 2001). On reaching each assembly, the practitioner was expected to perform a rite, involving a mudra, a prayer or spell and a contemplation. One presumes that the painting was thought of as representing a three-dimensional layout and that the practitioner performed the rites while facing it. When Gengo's description is analysed, it turns out that in most cases the rite and the assembly do not always correspond, the ritual manual only partially fitting the image it is meant to explicate. This, in turn, mirrors another oddity: the normal expectation is that a mandala has a 'mother' text, which it is in some way illustrating. In the case of the Diamond World, this is the large Assembled reality of all the tathdgatas; but it has always been known that this is not an exact fit either, since it deals with only six of the main nine deities. There are in fact a large number of variant mandala designs, which suggests that they were not always related to a specific text but may often have been designed by different tannic masters for ad hoc purposes. Certainly, the mandala that Kukai brought back with him included layers of Chinese elements not reflected in the Sanskrit text. The distinctive pattern of nine assemblies in the Diamond World, for example, has convincingly been traced to the nine palaces of Daoist rather than Indie origin (Orzech 1998: 171—74). A similar situation arises in the case of the Womb World mandala, whose mother text is assumed to be the Mahdvairocanatantra; in fact it contains numerous extraneous elements, which come from a variety of other sources. As we know from Kukai's own account, the primary initiation was little more that the casting of a flower or sprig of anise onto a flat mandala to create a link between the self and a particular deity. Subsequent ceremonies led the practitioner further into a complex series of rites, full control over which was a prerequisite for certification as a tannic master. The mandala, with its insistent, abstract geometry offset by a bewildering riot of body forms, each with its own implement or identifying sign (samaya), its own mudra, and its own sound or seed syllable (bija), was not only a graphic demonstration of how the unity at the centre manifests itself in a vast array of discriminations, it was itself sacred space into which the practitioner was supposed to enter. Each rite was built around the scenario of entertaining a guest (the deity). Careful preparations are made and the practitioner (as host) cleanses himself physically and mentally. The area is secured and made sacred, the deity's presence requested and offerings made. The heart of the rite is when the practitioner identifies himself with the deity, performing each of the three mysteries. While a mantra is intoned, for example, one imagines Mandala in use 447 the syllables circulating through the body of the deity, out of its mouth and into one's head and then within one's own body. The rite is closed with a rehirn of the space to its normal mode. The relationship between ritual and image is therefore not as straightforward as one would suppose. There were no doubt occasions when a practitioner gazed upon the single image of a deity in order to meditate on what lay behind, or to activate some latent power, but tannic ritual tended to the formulaic and often involved imagining a series of transformations. Take, for example, the following directions from the 'contemplation of the sanctuary' (dojokan MMW*), part of a Shingon ritual involving Nyoirin Kannon ^UfiSMW: Assume the 'tathagata fist' mudra . . . Contemplate as follows: in front of me is the syllable ah. The syllable changes into a palatial hall of jewels. Inside is an altar with stepped walkways on all four sides. Arrayed in rows are jewelled trees with embroidered silk pennants suspended from each. On the altar is the syllable hrih, which changes and become a crimson lotus blossom terrace. 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Index 463 Index 'a', visualisation of 232 abbot 5 abdication 37 Abhidharmakosa 199 abhisekaxv, 137-38, 140 Abutsuni 324 Acalanatha 225, 283-84 Advertimentos e avisos acerca dos costumes e catangues de Jappao 432 Afghanistan 71, 73 'Age of the Gods' 48,281 agyo 371 Aizen rayoo 157, 233, 327 Aizen-o koshiki 233 Ajatasatru 200 Ajikan 233 Akasagarbha 135 akitsukami 46 dlaya vijhdna 101 ama5, 80, 169 amagoi 188 Amaterasu omikami 45; birth 49; fights with Susanoo 51; see also Tensho Daijin Amateru omikami 45 amatsushirushi 283 ame no sakahoko 358 Amenokoyane 180,273 Amenominakanushi 48, 35 Amida, see Amitabha Amida hishaku 233 Amida kyo 198 Amidabutsu byakugokan 205 Amitabha: in Assembly of the Perfected Body 203,232; early Pure Land Buddhism 200-12; at Hongu 224; as honzon 396; object of devotion 196-97; object of visualisation 125; Pure Land Buddhism 246-53, 262-66; as Reward Body 143; vows 198-99 Amitabha: a secret interpretation 233 Amitäyus 198 Amoghapäsa 182 Amoghavajra: Rishushaku 231; as tantric master 137-39; as translator 172 anätman 100 animals, realm of 123 ankohiji 400 Anlushan rebellion 114, 140 Anne 157 Annen 164-68 Anthology of the Patriarch Hall 296 Antoku Tennö 285 Arakida 191, 389 Arakida Shigenaga 271 Arashiyama401 arhats 374 Ariwara no Narihira 360 Asabashö 342 ashikabiiSl Ashikaga shöguns 363,368,381, 384 Ashikaga Tadayoshi 369, 400 Ashikaga Takauji 369, 400 Ashikaga Yoshikazu 392 Ashikaga Yoshimasa 420 Ashikaga Yoshimitsu 389,405 Ashikaga Yoshimochi 392 Ashikaga Yoshinori 392 Ashikaga Yoshiteru 432 asomi/ason 37 Assembled reality of all the tathägatas 139, 149 Assembly of the Perfected Body 437; Amitabha in 203,232 Asukadera 19, 61,64,69, 88 Atsuta shrine 185,282 Avalokitesvara (Kannon) 23,125, 203, 224 Awakening of faith in Mahdydna 165 Baisajyagururaja: ; at Hongu 224; and Saicho 116; in sutra 73; worship of 149, 173; at Yakushiji 68, 70 Baisajyagururdjasutra 61,71 Baizhang Huaihai 299 banishment, see exile Banzhou sanmeijing 200 Barime no miya, see Dragon King's daughter Bate Kannon 360 'Beetle-wing cabinet' 25 bekku 191 Ben kenmitsu nikyo ron 151 'Bendoh6'310 'Bendowa' 309 Bengyo 260 bessho 231,245 besson mandara 145, 342 Betsuganji 393 betto 6 Biennial Discourses on the Lotus sutra 182 biguan 293 byaxv, 102 bikuni 324 Biographies of eminent monks 200, 352 Biographies of eminent monks, continued 288 Bishamon, see Vaisravana Biwa, Lake 115, 382,414,423 Biyanlu, see Emerald Cliff record Bizen, province of 270 Bloodlines of the noble and the base 385 bodhicitta xv, 125 Bodhidharma 288 bodhisattvaxv, 126 'bodhisattva precepts' 87 bodhisattvas, realm of 123 Bodhisena 84 Bokusai 413 Bonmo kaihon sho nichijusho 364 Bonmo kyo, see Sutra of Brahma's net bonno soku bodai 145 Bonten, see Brahma bosatsukai 87, 322 Brahma 93, 357 breathing as nenbutsu 233 buddha xv Buddha Nature 105,293,303,307 Buddhalocana 255 buddhas, realm of 123 Buddhist canon 182, 227,228 'Buddhist Church' 2 Bugong, see Amoghavajra Bukkqji 395, 423 bukkokan 260 bundanshin 166 Bungo, province of329, 431 buppo 281,352 btisshari 285 bussho 105 Busshosho 131 butsuden 320 'Butsudo' 311 Butsugen Butsumo 255 Byochu shugyoki 231 Cabral, Francisco 432 cakravartin 81, 139 Candraprabha 71 Caodong (Chan) 302-03; Rujing 308 Caoshan Benji 302 Caoxi dashi biezhuan 291,304 'capping phrases' 371,411 Catechismus 434 Chajang 114 Chan Buddhism 287-303 Chang'an 118; Kukai in 130, 136 Chanlinsi 118 Chanmen guishi 298 Chanyuan qinggui 298 462 464 Index charitable works by Saidaiji order 324-25 Chen Heqing 269 Chi,Mt 154 chihayaburu 361 Chinhung 17 chinjusha 184 Chinkonsai 42, 44 Chinzeiha397 chinzo 415 Chitoku331 Choan Deguang 306 Chodang chip 296 Chogen 269 choja 6 chokushiden 220 Chonen 227 Choosing the nenbutsu as the fundamental vow: a collection of quotations 246 chori 5 Choshoji 396, 423 Christianity, arrival of 430-35 Chu hokekyo 341 Chuan fabao ji 288 Chuguji 76, 324 'church', as translated term 2 Chitron 100 Cien 131 'clergy', as translated term 3 Collection ancient and modern 171, 359 Collection of sand and pebbles 348 confession of sins 79 Confucius 135 Consecrated Princess (Ise) 191 Consecrated Princess (Kamo) 192 Contemplating the disc of the moon 233 Contemplation of Samantabhadra 129 Council for Affairs of the Deities of Heaven and Earth 3, 38 Council of State 38 Cromwell, Thomas 429 DahuiZonggao 301, 306,310 DaiButcfioho 112 Dai Nihonkoku 346 'daiuso' 431 Daianji 24,69, 80,185 Daibosatsu 92 Daidenpo'in232 Daigensuiho 172 Daigo Tenno 152 Daigoji 152, 228,229,321,363 Daihannya kyo 270 Daijiji 315, 316 Daijd kishin ran 165 Daijoin 183 Daijoji316, 317 Daijokan 38 Daijosai44, 96 Daikakuji faction 363 Daikan Daiji 22, 61, 64, 88 daimoku 340 Dainichi kyo 136 Dainichi Nonin 306 Daishogun 175 Daito 369,409-12 Daitokuji 370, 404,429 Daizong, Emperor 114,140 Dannoura 270,285 Daochuo201,254 Daoism: in the Tang 120; term to be avoided 171 Daoist vocabulary 422 Daosui 118 Daoxin 288 Daoxuan87, 115,288 Daruma tradition (Zen) 306, 315 Dasabhumika 103 Dasheng xuanlun 166 Dayunsi 289 Dazaifu 344 death registers (Jishu) 330 'deer mandala' 276 deer, sacred 180,275 deification 40 Deliverance into Supreme Bliss: stories from Japan 204, 214 demi-gods, realm of 123 dengaku 277 dengyó kanjo 138 Denkoroku 372 denpoe 232 dependent origination 100 'Deus' 431 'Devadatta' chapter of Lotus sutra 35, 128, 134,162 Dezong, Emperor 114,136,140 dhararď 96-97,141-42,149 DháraniHall 156 dharma xv, 101 Dharma xv Dharma Body 104, 143 Dharma King 95 dharma realm 100 dharmakaya 104, 143,236 Dharmaraksa 125, 128 Dhftarastra 66 Dialogues in dreams 370 Diamond sutra 61, 291 Diamond tip 139 Diamond World mandala 283, 436^10; Amitabha in 203, 231; Ise Outer shrine as 349; Yoshino-Kinpusen as 226 Diary of a waning moon 324 Divination, Bureau of 171 Divination sutra 88 'divine wind' 345 diviners 171 dochó 88 Doctrines of Tendai on which others rely 111 D5gen 301, 308-15 Doji 65, 80, 149 ddjishú 330 dojo 4,263, 331 Dokyo 95 Dongshan, community of 288 Dongshan Liangjie 302 Donkai332,391 Dosho 59 dosha 161 double burial 53 Index 465 Dragon King's daughter 128, 162,165, 174 Dream diary 257 dreams 257-59,280-83 Dufei 288 Dunhuang 29, 290 Dushun 104 Eastern Pagoda 156 Echigo, province of 262 Echizen, province of 186, 310,396, 423 Ehyd Tendaigishu 131 Eiga monogatari 196 Eight-syllable rite for Mafijusri 156 Eihei Code 310 Eihei Dogen, see Dogen Eiheiji 310, 316 Eisai301,304 Eison32l,390 Ejo 308,310 Ekan310,316 e-keizu 395 ekijin 173 Emerald Cliff record 301, 313, 411 emptiness 121, 127 En no gyoja 90 Enchin 152,157 Encho 146, 153-54 'encounter dialogues' 296 Engakuji 368, 401-02 engi 100 engimono 268 Engishiki 43, 185, 224,272,283,353 Engyo 152 Enjo 322 enkai 133 enki 162 Enni Ben'en 317 Ennin; in China 152,154-58; diary 115; jogyo zamnai 202; meeting Chan monks 304 Ennya 174 Enryakuji: conflict with Kofukuji 218; conflict wim Onjoji 218; destruction 466 Index Index 467 Enryakuji (contd.) of428-49; as financial broker 382; Go-Shirakawa and 245; link to Hie shrines 217; naming 153 Ensai 156 Enshu 154 Enshuji 220 Erru sixing lun 293 Eshinryu 205 Essentials of deliverance 205, 212-16, 231,245 Essentials of the eight traditions 364 Essentials of the name and doctrine of the One and Only Shinto 421 Etchu, province of 396,423 Eun 152 examination system, Tendai 160-61 exile: of Go-Daigo 384; of Honen 251; ofNichiren 336; of Shinran 262 Extended commentary on universal ordination with the bodhisattva precepts 167 Eye of the true Dharma 312 Eye of the true Dharma: three hundred precedents 312 Fahu 229 Fahua wenju 116 Fahua wenju ji 162 Fahua xuanyi 116 Fahua xuanzan 131 Fahuayuan 154 Faquan 156,163 Fanwangjing, me Sutra of Brahma's net Faxiang (Hosso) 102,119-20, 131 Faxiu 299 FazangS4, 104,364 Fazhao 203 five aggregates (skundhd) 100 'five mountains' 368,400, 434 Flower garland sutra 84, 103, 119,260 flowering fortunes, A tale of'197 forty-eight vows 199 Four Heavenly Kings 23 Four Wisdom Kings 141 'friar' 6 fuda 329 fudan nenbutsu 203 Fudaraku 224 fudaraku tokai 224 Fudo myoo, see Acalanatha fuhai hiji 424 fuhd insho 153 Fujisawa shonin 332, 391 Fujiwara family 179; founding of 77 Fujiwara no Fuhito 77 Fujiwara no Kamatari, see Nakatomi no Kamatari Fujiwara no Kanemichi 159 Fujiwara no Michinaga: burying sutra cylinders 196; diary 175; and Hachiman 182; and Hojoji 228; pilgrimage to Koyasan 152,229; visit to Kinpusen 177 Fujiwara no Morosuke 159,175 Fujiwara no Mototsune 174 Fujiwara no Muchimaro 94 Fujiwara no Tadahira 159 Fujiwara no Tameaki 361 Fujiwara no Teika 256,361 Fujiwara no Yamakage 419 Fujiwara no Yoshifusa 164,184 Fujiwara no Yoshisuke 118 Fujiwara no Yoshitsune 283 Fukan zazengi 309 Fukiikenjaku 182, 275 fukushi 85 Funai 432 funerals 325,408 fudjd 331 jusan 329 Fusho 87 Fuso ryakki 64 Fusumi 224 Futama 281 Futamigaura271 Futsu jubosatsukai koshaku 167 Futsunushi 180 Fuzhou 136, 301 Gaijashö 395 gakuhö kanjö 138 gakuryo 316 Gandavyüha 103 Gandhära71,228 Gangöji 64 Gangöji garan engl 16 Gangyöji 164 Ganjin 87 Gaosengzhuan 200 Gaozong, Emperor 81 Gasan Jöseki 406 Gathering of leaves from the valley mists 346 gebon geshö 200 Gedatsubö, see Jökei Gekko71 Gekü 191 Genbö 78, 85, 136, 149 Genealogical record of the Dharma jewel 290 Gengenshü 388 Genjö köan 314 Genjüha 405 Genkö shakusho 306 Genmei Tennö 37 genpon sögen shintö 421 Genshin: biography 210-12, covenanting 204; Essentials of deliverance 205, 231 245; letters to Zhili 228 Gensho Tennö 37, 85 Genso kedöki 334 genzeriyaku 141 Giin315 Gikai315 Gion 174, 189,190 Gishin 116, 121, 154 Gishin-Enchin lineage 158 Gleanings from ancient stories 188 Go daimyöö 159 Goals of the three teachings 135 Gochinza denkt 353 Gochinza hongi 353 Gochinza shidaiki 353 Go-Daigo Tenno 363; and Daito 370, 410; exile 384; Tenryüji 401 Godanhö 159 Gaden dodai 334 gods, realm of 123 goganji 162,220 gohö zenjin 93 Go-Ichijö Tennö 173 gojibutsu 327 go;wo 281 Gokokuji 185,190 Gokurakuji 309 goma fire 274 gomitsu 235 Gomyö 132 gonenju 267 gong'an 301 gongen 185 gon-güji 4 gon-negi 4 Gorin kuji myö himitsu shaku 233 gorinto 237 goroku 296 goryo 392 goryoe 174 Go-Saga Tennö 363 Go-Sanjö Tennö 220 Go shichinichi mishihö 148, 156 Go-Shirakawa Tennö 220,221, 245; rebuilding Tödaiji 268, 270 goshö gomen 425 goshö kakubetsu setsu 131 göso 218 Go-Toba Tennö 222,283 gozcm 368,400,434 Gozu, see Ox Head tradition Gozu Ten'ö 173 Great Deity of Miwa 52 Great Paekche Temple 22 Guanding 120 Guangxiu 154,156 Guanxin lun 288 guchüreki 175 Gufukuji 64 Guhyasamäjatantra 229 468 Index Index 469 güp4, 191,271 Gk*ö7WÄö251,280,387 Gunabhadra 288 Guoqingsi 118, 119 güsö 94 gusokukai (full precepts) 88,255, 322 guze 301 Guze Kannon23 Gyöhyö 115,288 gyöjö 257 Gyöki 61, 79 Gyokuyö 221, 277 Gyökyö 185 Gyönen 364 Gyönyo 396 Hachlman: as bodhisattva 182,184; and Tödaiji 91-94; Tsurugaoka H. 268 Hachiöji 174 Hachiokadera 76 hafuribe 186 Hailongwang jing 3 5 Haja kenseishö 396 Hajigoku giki 236 Hakui 372 Hakufn Ekaku 405 Hakusan (Mt) 374,407 Hanazono Tennö 283, 369, 410 Handbook of ceremonial at the imperial shrine 191 Handbook of ceremonial at the Toyouke shrine 191 Hangzhou 119,228,300,371 Hanju sanmai kyo 200 hanka shiyui-zo 76 Hannyaji 326 Hanyu 115 Harima, province of 270 Harivarman 100 Hase, River 390 Hasedera 176, 182 Hasshü köyö 364 Hata 194 Hata no Kawakatsu 76 Hatano Yoshishige 310 Hayatama 224 Heart sutra 111 'heavenly seals' 283 Heian-kyo 116,146 heihaku 186 Heijo-kyo 77 HeizeiTenno 147,152 Hekiganroku, see Emerald Cliff record hell, realm of 123 Henjo 164 hen'yakushin 166 Hevajratantra 229, 359 Hie shrines 189, 190,217, 278 HieTaisha278 Hieizan 115,130, 153,278,346 Hiji, Mt353 hijiri 230,269 Himegami 180 Himitsu mandara jujushinron 149 himitsu nenbutsu 213 HTnaydna xv, 126,141 hinin 326, 390 Hino Tomiko 420 Hiraizumi221 Hirano shrine 189 Hiraoka261 Hirose shrine 189 Hirota shrine 189 History of the Gangoji monastery 16 History of the Sdkyamuni [tradition, written] in the Genko era 306, 367 History of the transmission of Buddhism through the three lands 366 Hitachi, province of 262 hitsudan 319 ho (dharmas) 100 hoben 121,364 Hojo Masako 305, 375 Hojo Sadatoki 368 Hojo Takatoki 368 Hojo Tokimune 319,330, 368 Hojo Tokiyori318,335 Hojoe 268 Hojoji 196,219,228 Hokekyo 20 Hokekyo hishaku 233 Hokekyo shaku 142 Hold hongi 353 hokkai 100 Hokke gengi 116, 341 Hokke mongu 116 Hokke shuku 162 hokke zanmai 202 Hokkedo 322 hokkehd 342 Hokkeji 80,323 Hokkeshu 336, 397,427-30 hokuto 175 Hokyoji 316 Hokyoki'iW Hokyosho 358 Honen 245-53, 365 hongaku 165,347,355 hongakuron 341 Honganji 395,423 Hongren287, 288,292 Hongu 222,224 Hongzhi Zhengjue 302 honji suijaku 185, 224; reversed 421 honjishin 151 honmon 128, 342 honmyosho 175 Honpukuji 423 Hon-Yakushiji 69 Hoo 95 Horinji 322 Horyuji 20, 23, 73 hoshin 143 Hoshinno 220 Hosokawa Masamoto 419 hosshin 104, 143 hosshin seppo 151 Hosshinwakashit 195 Hosshoji 158,220 Hosso tradition: described 101-03; and Kofukuji 78, 182; nenbun dosha 130; Saicho attacked 131 Hotoin 321 How to practise while ill 231 Huanju'an405 huatou 302 Huayan, see Kegon tradition Huayanjing 84 Huichang suppression 154,295; and Ennin 115, 300; and Faxiang 120 Huiguo 137,138, 156 Huijiao 200 Huike 288 Huilang 138 Huineng 289,292 Huiyuan 200 hungry ghosts, realm of 123 Huqiu Shaolong 317 Hwaom 85 hwarang 76 hyakuo 281 Hyech'ong 19 Hyeja20 icchantika 103,160 ichigo taiyo himitsu shu 233 Ichijo shikan'in 116, 153 Ichijoin 183 ichinen sanzen 342 ichinengi 266 IioSogi415 Dtarugadera 23 Iken junikajd 158 Iki 186 Ikkeshij 425 ikko ikki 424 Ikkyu Sojun 405, 409, 412-15 Inada 262 Inari shrine 189, 192 Inbe 188 Inbe no Hironari 188, 283 'incorrigibles', see icchantika India: and Myoe 261,274 Indra 32, 33 inheritance certificate 300 initiation 58 inke 183 Innumerable meanings 129 insei 220, 224 470 Index Index 471 Institute for the translation of Buddhist jikidö 133, 162 Jöchiji 368, 402 152,231 Scriptures 114-15 jikkai 123 Jödo hömon genrushö 365 Kakugyö 220 Ippen 328 jikkai gogu 123 Jödo shinshü 394,423-27 Kakujö 322 Ippen shonin ekotobaden 332 jikkö hiji 424 Jögaku 255 Kakunyo 394, 395 . Ise, province of 186,423 Jimyöin faction 363 jögakuji 162 Kakushinni 394 Ise jinguji 97 Jinbei lun 166 Jögan gishiki 44, 180 Kakuzenshö 342 Ise monogatari 359 jindai no maki 48 Jögyöl52,172 Kamakura 320, 334, 344 Ise monogatari zuino 361 /Wö 184, 355 jögyö zanmai 202, 328 kami 39 Ise no kuni Tado jinguji garan engi 352 Jin'ganzhi 139 J5jin228, 359 kami no kuni 386 Ise shrines 191-92; and Chogen 270- Jingde chuandeng lu 296,298 jöjinne 203 kamikaze 345 74; Dainichi 346; after Dokyo 97; Jingdesi 308 Jöjitsu tradition 100 Kamimusubi48 inner shrine 348,352; Jito Tenno 37, Jingguangming jing 65 Jökakuji271 Kamo shrines 189, 192 45; losing royal ties 190; outer shrine Jingguangming zuishengwang jing 16, Jökei 250,274, 365 kamunagara 46 348, 352; and Todaiji 268; Yoshida 65 Jömyöji271,402 Kan muryöju kyö 198 connection 421 /i«gicults3, 179,225,351 Jötö shögakuron 307 kana 137 Ise-ko 389 Jingifuden zuki 353 jöza zanmai 304 Kan'ami 393 Ishiyama Honganji 426, 430 Jingi hishö 358 Jufukuji 305, 402 kanbe 43, 191,271 Ishiyamadera 176 jingihaku 43 Juhö yöjinshü 358 Kanegamori 423 Isonokami shrine 189 Jingikan3,38,41, 171, 191 jüji 6 Kan'ensho 150 issendai, see icchantika Jingiryö 41 —4 3, 54 Juji kyö 103 Kanfugen kyö 129 itsukinomiya 45, 191 Jingjue 288 jukai59, 86 Kangaku-e 204 Iwashimizu 185, 189, 190 Jingoji 255 jukai'e 408 Kangakuin 219 Izanagi 49, 51 Jingshan308, 317 Junna Terrnö 149 Kangen 152 Izanami 49, 224 jinguji 94, 97, 184, 189,352 Junnin Tennö 95 Kangiten233 hayoinikki 324 jininA, 219 Junshu zhiyao 389 kanhua 302 Izu, province of 186 jinja 3 jüzenji 116 kanjin 269, 325 Izu gongen 267 jinji2S5 juzokukan 233 Kanjin gakushöki 326 Izumo 51 Jinkqji 420 kanjin hijiri328 Izumo, province of 186 Jinmu Tenno 224, 281 Kaga, province of 424 kanjö 129, 138,149 Izumo fudoki 52 jinmyöchö 186 Kagerö nikki 176 Kanjö 232 Jinnö shötöki 385 kaichö 153 Kanjö sömoku jöbutsu shiki 167 jakugo 371 jinpö 283 kaidan 87 Kankeiji 174,190 Jakushin 204 Jfnshin no ran 22 Kaidan'in 364 Kanmu Tennö: moving capital 97-98; Jakusho 228 Jinzen 159-60 Kaifeng 227, 300 and Saichö 116, 129 jdtaka xv jippösatsu 404 kairitsu 133 fc/«na302,411 Jesuits 430-35 jiriki 264 Kairyüö kyö 35 kannazen 312 Jetavana 174 jisei jukai 322 Kaiiyüöji 78, 322 Kannon, see Avalokitesvara Jewelled mirror 358 Jishü330,391 Kaitai sokushin jöbutsu gi 342 Kannonku281 jewels in regalia 283 Jishü kakochö 330 : kaji 137 Kannonji 190 Jianzhen 87,116, 322 jissatsu 402 kajish'm 151 kannushi 4 jiaowai biezhuan 299 jisshi 22 Kakinomoto no Hitomaro 45 kanpeisha 186 Jichihan 231 JitöTennö37,191 kakochö 330 Kanzan Egen 405 Jien251,280 jiyuan wenda 296 Kakuban 232-33; compared with Kanzeon kyö 62 Jihen 420 Jizang 166 Honen 252; on dharmakäya Kanzeonji 88 Jijuden 285 Jizö (Ksitigarbha) 203 'preaching' 151; reviver of Shingon karma 89-90 472 Index Index 473 Kasagidera 250 Kashima 180 Kashima monto 263 Kasö Södon414 Kasuga Daimyöjin 183; and Myöe 256, 261,274; sacred deer 275 Kasuga gongen genki 274 Kasuga mandala 276-77 Kasuga shrine 179-83, 189,190, 217 Katada 382,423 kataimi 175 katatagae 176 Katori 180 Katsura River 185 Kawachi, province of 186 Kawaradera61, 64 Kazan Tennö 222, 385 kechien 329 kechien kanjö 138, 146 kechienshü 330 kechimyaku-zu 408 Kegon engi emaki 261 Kegon hokkai gikyö 364 Kegon kyö 84, 103,119, 260 Kegon tradition: described 103-05, 120; and Myöe 260; and Todaiji 85 Keijo Shürin 404 Keiran shüyöshü 346 Keishun 270 Keizan Jökin 316, 345, 372,405 keka79 Ken jödo shinjitsu kyögyöshö monrui 264 Kenchöji318, 401-02 kengyö 149,232 Kenmu shikimoku 403 Kenne 154 Kenninji 305, 369, 401-02 Kemiyo 430 Ken'ö Söi 413 Kenshöji 423 Kenzeiki 308 Ketsumiko 224 Khubilai Khan 336,344 Ki no Tsurayuki 362 Kibune shrine 189 Kikai 257 Kinpusen 177, 230 Kissa ydjdki 305 Kitabatake Chikafusa 385, 388 Kitano shrine 189,190 kitdshiTTi, 350 Kiyomihara Code 37 Kiyomizudera 176, 219 Kiyosumidera 334 Kizu River 185 ko 263,426 koan 400; in Chan 301; Daito's use of 410-12; practice 403; in Soto Zen 409 KSbo Daishi, see Kukai kodaijin 354 Kofukuji: conflict with Enryakuji 218; controlling Yamato 382; and Kasuga 180, 217; Komyo's patronage 78; use for ordination 88; Vimalakirti Assembly 154, 160, 161 Kofukuji sojo 250 kofun 40 Kogo shut US, 283 Kogon Tenno 400 Kogoruiyoshu 420 Koguryo 17 Kogyo Daishi, see Kakuban Koho Kennichi 370 koji 85 Kojiki 37,45, 47, 351 Kojiki uragaki 419 Kojo 146, 154, 166 Kokan Shiren 306, 367 Koken Tenno 82, 95 Kokinshu 171,359 kokka kangyd 398 Kokon chomonju 357 Kokubunji 79 Kokubunniji 79 kokugaryo 270 kokuheisha 186 kokushi 364 Kokuzo gumonji ho 135 Kömyö 77, 80 kömyö shingon 208, 260 Kongo zaö 177 Kongöbuji 147,231 Kongöchö 139 kongöshö 358 Könin Tennö 97 Konjaku monogatarishü 356 Konjin 175 Konkömyökyö 65 Konkömyö saishöö kyö 16,65 Konkömyö shiten'ö gokokuji 80 Konparu Zenchiku 415 Köryüji 77,176 Kosen Ingen 405 Koshaki 180 köshin 175 Köshö (sculptor) 240 Köshö, Bodhisattva 326 Köshöji310 Köshü 346 kösöden 113 Kösöden 200 kosoku 301 Kötaijingü gishikichö 191 Koun Ejö, see Ejö Köya hijiri 269 Köyasan: clash with Töji 151, 229; and Kükai 147; and Michinaga 196; and Nobunaga430 Közanji 256 Közen gokokuron 305 Ksitigarbha203 kubö 393 Kudara Kannon 23 Kudara Ödera 22 Kudenshö 395 kuhon 200, 237 Kujakukyö hö 172 kujö 255 Kujö Kanezane 221,246,274, 277, 280 KujöMichiie317 Kujö Yoritsune 280 Kujö-dono no goyuikai 17 Kükai 113,119, 130, 172, 364; in China 135^11 Kuhn Qingmo 371 Kumano sanzan kengyö 224 Kumano shrines 185, 222, 329 Kurnärajlva78, 126, 128, 198 Kuni79 Kunitokotachi 49, 421 kuniyuzuri 52 Künyo 324 Kuonji 398 Kusha tradition 99 Kusunagi no tsurugi 283 Küya203, 240 'Küya-mi' 204 Kwallük21 kyöge betsuden 299 Kyögyöshinshö 264 kyöhan 123, 149, 164, 229 Kyökai 90 Kyoto 382, 404,426 Kyöunshü 413 'land of the gods' 386 Lankävatärasutra 288 Lanqi Daolong 318 Laoan 288 Larger SukhävatTvyüha 198 Latter Days of the Dhanna 201, see also mappö Lengqie shiziji 288 lepers 324 'lettered Chan' 299 LiTungxuan 261 Lidaifabao ji 290 Linji in 297 Linji Yixuan 296 Lion 's roar of Queen Srimälä 20 Liuzu tanjing 291 Longmen 81 Lotus sütra: described 125-29; 'Devadatta' chapter 35,128,134, 162; honji suijaku 185; Kangaku-e 204; kokubunji 79; and Michinaga 177; and Nichiren 332-43, 398; Poems on the awakening of faith 196; 474 Index Index 475 Lotus siitra (contd.) and Saicho 146, 162; Shotoku's commentary 20; study of 86; and Tiantai 121-25; use by kijiri 230; Zbiyi's commentaries 116, 121 Luoyang 288 Mahakyasapa 296 Mahasthamaprapta 203 Mahavairocana 142, 143^14, 283, 352 Mahavairocanatantra: Annen 167; Genbo 149; Kakuban 236; Kukai 136, 139; Tendai study of 130; Yfxing 288 Mahdydnaxv, 126, 141 Mahayana calming and contemplation 116, 125, 130 mahito 37 maikyo 177, 196 Maitreya76,126, 177,230 Makashikan 116 mandala 145,149, 163, 436-47 'mandalisation' of Japan 346 Manjuji 402 ManjusrT: Eight-syllable rite 156; Eison and hinin 326; joza sanmai 125; in Lotus sutra 126; Wutaishan 154 mantra 142 Mantras of the five spheres and nine syllables: a tantric interpretation 233 Manual for services and offerings when visualising Amitabha 231 Manual for the destruction of hells 236 Man 'yoshu 45 Manzan Dohaku 314 mappo 17,221,246, 264,281,337, 366,387 masse 387 Master Xuetou's verses on a hundred old cases 301 Matsuno'o shrine 189, 192 Mazu Daoyi 296 Meaning of 'teachings' and 'periods' in theShingon tradition 164 Medicine King, see Baisajyagururaja meeting house 4 Meitokuki 391 men, realm of 123 menstruation, while reading sutras 337 Menzan Zuih6 308, 312 metropolitan Zen 368-71 miare 194 Mikasa, Mt 82,179 mike 353 mikkyo 149, 232 miko 4 mikoshi 345, see also palanquin Minamoto no Tamenori 168, 203, 214 Minamoto no Yoritomo 245, 267, 269, 273 Mingji Chuzhun319 Mingzhou 118, 136, 209, 300 'minister', as translated term 6 Mino, province of 350 Minobu, Mt 336, 398 Miracles of the Kasuga Deity 21A Mrran 71 Miroku, see Maitreya Mirokuji 92, 94 mirror, in regalia 192, 282-83 Mirror revealing the meaning of the Dharma world according to Kegon 364 Misaie 148, 154 missionaries 381, 430-35 Mitsugon'in 232 Miwa, Great Deity of 52 Miwa, Mt 390 Miwa daimyojin engi 39 miyadera 185 Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki 158, 188 Mizugaki 270 mogari no miya 53 Mohe zhiguan 116 Moheyan 288 'monastery*, as translated term 4 Mongaku 255 Mongol invasions 336, 338, 344,363 Mongols in China 371 Monju hachiji ho 156 Monjushiri hatsunehangyd 326 'monk', as translated term 4 monkeys: on Hieizan 280; three monkeys 175 monks 98 Monmu Tenno 37 monoimi 174 Mononobe 19 Mononobeno Okoshi 15 monto 262, 394 monzeki 183 mortuary rites 325 mozhao 302 Muchimaro den 94 Muchu mondo 370 Mudoji218 mudra 351, 358,362 Muin Genkai 405 Muju Ichien 348, 359 mukai 335 Mukan Gengo 318 Mukydsho 257 Mulamadhyamakakarika 100, 122 Murasaki Shikibu 159, 173, 196, 203 MurataShuko415 Muroji 154 Muryogi kyo 129 Murydju kyo 198 Muryoju nyorai kangyo kuyo giki 231 Muryokoji 331 tnushin shomyd 424 Muso Soseki 369,401,403 Mutsu, province of 186, 221 Myoan Eisai, see Eisai myocho 395 Myoe 253-62 Myde shonin denki 257 myogo honzon 263 myojin 186 Myokenji 398 Myoku 160 Myoshinji 404 Myozen 308 Nabekanmuri shonin 399 Nachi 222,224 Nagaoka 179 Nägärjuna 103,122, 203 Nagasaki 435 naigubu 116 Naikü45,191 Naka no Öe 22 Nakatomi 19, 39, 179,186, 271 Nakutomi harae kunge 272, 350 Nakatomi no Kamako 15 Nakatomi no Kamatari 22,40,77, 159 Nanpo Jömyö 370 Nanzenji 318,369, 401-02 Nara77, 183 Narrative scroll of the origins of Hwaöm261 narratives of origin 225, see engimono national ceremonies 188 nationalism 337 negiA, 191 Negoro 233,430 nenbun dosha 62, 98,130 nenbutsu: constant or instant 366,397; exclusive practice of 245; Genshin 215; hijiri 230; Ippen 328; Kakuban 233; secret 231; Shinran 263 nenbutsu odori 329 nenge mishö 296 Neo-Confhcianism 400 Nibunokawakami shrine 189 Nichidö 334 Nichiren 306, 334-43; and Pure Land 341; and tantrism 341,397 Nichirenism, see Hokkeshü Nichirö 397 Nichizö 398 niga byakudo 201 'Nihon' 47 Nihon öjö gokuraku ki 204 Nihon ryöiki 89,169,177 Nihon shoki: Buddhism 15, 21; Jitö 37; lectures on 355; medieval version of 386; nature of 47; quotations from 15, 21,61-62, 63-64, 65; reference to Pure Land sütras 201; regalia 283; term 'shintö' 351 476 Index Index All niinamesai 172 niki no gohakko 182 Nikko (bodhisattva) 71 Nikko (Hokkeshu) 399 Ninigi 52 Ninnaji 152, 161,220,229, 363 Ninno kyo 67 Nirmo-e 67,268 Ninsho 324 Nippo Soshun 405 nirmanakaya 143 nirvana xv Nirvana sutra 32 Nisshin 399 Nissho 397 Nitcho 334 Nitta Yoshisada 384 Nitto guhd junrei gydki 154 Niutou, see Ox Head tradition No plays 277, 392 Nonomiya 192 non-self 100 norito 272 Northern Court 384 Northern Tradition (Chan) 290 Northern Wei 25 Notes assailing heresy and revealing truth 396 Notes lamenting deviations 265 Notes rectifying heresy 395 Notes on [Zhiyi's] 'Words and phrases in the Lotus sutra' 162 nottoshi 350 novice 58 novice certificates 88 'nun'59 nunneries 59, 169 nuns 80,169 nyoihdju 281-85 Nyoirin Kannon 285 nyoraizo 105 nyubu 226 Nyiihokkaibon 103 Oami monto 263 dbd 281 Oda Nobunaga 429, 435 ofumi 423 Ohara231 oharae no kotoba 272 Oharano shrine 189 Ohirumenomuchi 45 oji 222 djin 143 Ojin Terino 388 Ojoydshu 205,212-16 Oki 384 Okuninushi 52, 390 O-matsuri 183 Omi, province of 186, 423 Ominato 389 Omiwa shrine 189 Omononushi 390 'On the attainment of bodhisattva awakening' 307 On Buddha Nature 131 On contemplating mindly 'On discriminating between revealed and secret teachings' 150 'On the essentials of cultivating mind' 294 On establishing the true Dharma to bring peace to the nation 335 On the meaning of 'becoming a buddha in this body' 149 On the origin and development of Pure Land doctrine 365 On protecting the nation through the encouragement of Zen 305 On receiving the Dharma with circumspection 358 On the ten Stages of mind according to the secret mandala 149 'On the two entrances and four practices' 293 On visualising Amitabha 's Ttrna 205 Onakatomi no Kiyomaro 97 Onamuchi 390 One-Vehicle Calming and Contemplation Hall 116 Onin wars 381, 404, 426 Onjoji 157-58,217; conflict with Enryakuji 218, 423 Onkei Soyu 405 Onmyoryo 171, 172 Onogoro 49,50 onryo 174 onshi 389 ordination 59, 87-88, 153 ordination certificates 153 ordination platform 88, 153 original enlightenment 165 Origins of the gods, a classification 388 Oso 175 Otani 252,394 Otokoyama 185 Otomo 430 Otomo Sadamune 319 Otomo Sorin Yoshishige 431 otona 263 Otsu 157 Ouchi 416,430 Ouchi Yoshihiro 405 Ouchi Yoshitaka 431 Owa Debates 160 Owari, province of 186, 350,429 Ox Head tradition (Chan) 118, 293, 304 PoanZuxian 317 Poems on the awakening of faith 195, 196 Pole Star 175 pollution 39 PopMng 17, 19 Potalaka 224 Prabhutaratna 127, 342 prajna 99 pratyekabuddha 126 pratyekabuddhas, realm of 123 Pratyutpannasamadhisutra 200 prayers for rain 188 preceptor, as translated term 5 'priest', as translated term 6 printing, of dharanl 97 Procedures oj theEngi era 43, 185, 353; listing Hongu and Shingu 224; oharae no kotoba 212; regalia 283 Profound meaning of the Lotus sutra 11 Fuji 288 Pure Land Buddhism 196,231; suppression of 252 Pusoksa 85, 261 qinggui 298 Qrnglongsi 137 Paekche 15-17,19 Paekch'on River 22 pagodas 19-20, 69 Palace of the Dragon King 32-33 palanquin, sacred 219 panjiao 123 Paramartha 65, 99, 102, 132 paramitd 169 Parhae 114, 171 'pastor', as translated term 6 'Phags-pa371 pilgrimages: Ippen 328; Ise 272, 349; Kumano 222 Pindola374 Plain of High Heaven 48 Platform sutra of the Sixth Patriarch 291 rakan 374 Reading and explanation of the Nakatomi purification formula 272 Recordfrom the Baoqing era 308 Record of the correct lineage of gods and sovereigns 385 Record of the masters and students of the Lankavatara [tradition] 288 Record of a shining heaven 278 Record of strange happenings in Japan 89 Recordfrom Tokoku 372 Record of transmission of the Dharma jewel^288 Record of transmission of the flame 372 regalia 283 Regulations in four parts 86 478 Index Index 479 Regulations for members of the saňgha Saäcbo-Ermin lineage 158 Sangoku buppo denzu engi 366 'Sesshin sessho' 312 55-58 Saidaiji95,321 Sanji sanborai shaku 260 Sesshu Toyo 409,416-18 Reishi 194 Saidaiji order 321-27 Sanjo wasan 396 Settsu, province of 308 Reizei Tennö 159 saigü 191 sanmitsu 142 'Seven injunctions' 248 relics 30-31, 69 Saigyö 182, 230 Sanno219,278 'Seventeen articles' 20-21 Rennyo 423 salin 192 'Sanno no koto' 278 ShakuNihongi 356, 420 Renwang jing 67 Saimei Tennö 67 Sanron tradition 100,130 shakubuku 340,398 Response Body 143 saimon 181 sansha takusen 277 shahtmon 128 Reward Body 143 Saiokuken Söchö 405 Sanskrit 137, 140,228 Shakunyo 396 richifii 'ni 151 Saishö-e 154 Sansom, George 219 shakyojo 80 rinka 404 saishu 91 santai ichijitsu 219 shami 58 rishötö 401 Saitö 159 Sariputra 126 Shanago 130 Rishukyö 285 Saiun 221 saru 175 Shandao 200,201, 246, 254 Rishushaku 231 Sakai382,404,4I4 Sarvatathdgatatattvasamgraha 139 Shandong peninsula 154 risshi 5 sakaki tree 180, 183,219,276, 345 Satyasiddhi sastra 100 Shanmiao 261 Risshö ankokuron 335 Sakamoto 204 Scripture of the guiding principle 231 Shanwang 278 Rite of the Buddha's Pate 118 Sakra 93 Secrets of the crucial moment of death Shanwuwei 139 Rite of the Peacock King Sutra 172 Säkyarnuni: in Baisajyagururäjasütra 233 Shasekishu 348, 350 Ritsu tradition 88, 99, 130 73; in Chan lineages 288; hokke 'Seiganji' 392 shashoku 354 Ritual of abundant light 156,159 mandara 342; in Lotus sütra 127; Seiryoji228, 327 shaso 94 ritual seclusion 174 Myöe 257; offering the flower 296; Seishi, see Mahasfhamaprapta Shenhui289 Ritual with five altars 159 preaching 123; as Response Body SeiwaTenno 164, 185 Shenxiu 288,292 Roben 84 143; Saidaiji 327; sandalwood image Seizanha 328 Shiba Tori 25 rokudö 90 228 Sekidozan 407 shibunritsu 86 Rokuharamitsudera 204 samädhi xv sekiten 135 shichikqjo seikai 248 rokuji karinpö 274 Samädhi of direct encounter with the Sekizan myojin 156 shido 61 Rokuon'in 403 buddhas of the present 200 Selected passages revealing the true shifang juchi yuan 299 Ruiju jingi hangen 388 Samantabhadra 125 teaching, practice and attainment of Shigaraki 79 Rujing308, 311 samaya precepts 167-68 the Pure Land 264 Shihu 229 Ryöbu Shintö 349 sambhogakäya 143 Selections from the brush ofa fool 251, Shijoha331 Ryögen 158-61,169,203 samsära xv 280 Shijoko ho 156 Ryögen (Bukköji) 395 San Tendai Godaisan ki 228 self-initiation 61 shikan taza 308 Ryögon'in 207 Sanböekotoba 168, 170, 203 Sen no Rikyfi 405 Shikango 130 Ryöhen 355 Sanböji 308 Senchaku hongan nenbutsushu 246 Shikanron 131 Rytiju, see Nägärjuna 'Sanemori' 392 Sendai kujihongi 283, 358 Shike416 Sanetomo 305 Sendai kujihongi gengi 420 shikinaisha 186 Sacred scripture of the eternal life of Sangatsudö 221 Sengcan 288 Shimazu 430 the original spirit of the Pole Star 422 sangha xv senju nenbutsu 246 shin no mihashira 192 Saddharmapundartkasütra 20, see sahgha, validity questioned 247, 323 Senjuji 423 shinboku 219,274 Lotus sütra sahgha administrator 5 Senkan214 Shinfukatoku 313 Sado 336 Sangha Office 5, 21, 58, 132, 133, 147, senmyd 46 Shingachirin hishaku 233 Saga Tennö 133, 146,194 153 Senmyoreki 171 shingi 298 Sagami, province of 331 sahgha prefect 5 Sennyuji 322, 325 Shingon gakuto 157 Saichö 113,115-19, 129,131, 146, sangö 58, 153 Senshi 195, 196 Shingon tradition 148-51, 164 162,291,304,364 Sangö shiiki 135 Senzatsu kyo 88 Shingonshu 147 480 Index Index 481 Shingonsku kyoji gi 164 Shingonshú miketsumon 131, 150 Shingu 222, 224 shingun 271 shinjin datsuraku 309 Shinjó 358 Shinkan 331 Shinko 332 shinkoku 386 Shinkyo, Ta'amidabutsu 329, 391 Shinnen 151 shinnyo 165 Shinnyo (nun) 324 Shinnyo, Prince 152 Shinramyojin 109, 157 Shinran 262-66, 394 Shinsen-en 174 shintai 93, 390,421 'Shinto': in relation to jindo 335; term problematised 3, 97; Watarai 351; Yoshida421 'Shinto theory' 354 shinza 44 Shinzei 152 Shirakami 255 Shirakawa Tennó 182, 220, 230 Shiten'o 23 Shiten'oji 66, 176 ShitouXiqian 296 shittan 142 Shobo 177 Shobo genzo 312 Shobd genzo sanbyakusoku 312 Shogei 397 Shoichi hogo 317 Shojokoji 332 Shokokuji 402,416 Shoku 328 Shoku Nihongi: lacking mention of Outer Shrine 352; quotations from 46, 59-60, 62, 63, 79, 82, 86, 91-92, 96-97 Shokyd yoshu 91 Shomangyd 20 Shomu Tenno 77,78,169 Shorai mokuroku 146 Shosaiin 191 Shosan engi 226 Shoshi 170 Shoshinge 396 Shosoin 27,221 Shotoku, Prince 20, 6 Shotoku Teraio 80, 95 shouxin 294 shozan 402 Shuei 152 Shugendo 225 shugo 401 Shuho Myochci, see Daito shuji 102 Shunjfj 322 Shun'oku Myoha 403 Shunzong, Emperor 136 Shuryogon'in 207 shuten 4 shuto 219 siddham 142,236, 342 siddhi 141 sifenlu 86 Sijiaoyi 169 Siksananda 84 sila 100 Silla 17, 22, 85,114,172 Simsang 85 sishu 300 six courses 90 six perfections 169 'Sixth Patriarch' 289 skandha 100 Smaller SukhdvatTvyuha 198 smallpox epidemics 78, 173 so (monk) 4 sobyo 354 social welfare 324 sodo 305, 320 Sogano Iname 15 Soga no Umako 19 sogo, see Sahgha Office sdji 142 Sqjiin 156 Sójiji 406 sójo 5 Sokei daishi betsuden 291 soku 165 sokui kanjo 286 sokui no gi 44 sokushin jobutsu 133, 162,165, 358 Sokushin jobutsu gi 149 Sokushin jobutsu gishiki 166 somoku jobutsu 166 sómura 425 Song, Mt 293 Song biographies of eminent monks 261,296 Song gaosengzhuan 296 Songmyong 15, 16 Songy uan Chingyue 317 soniryó 55-58 Sonne 392 Sonpi bunmyaku 385 Sonshi 168-69 Sonshóin 255 sorin 404 Soroku 403 Soshitchikara kyo 118 Sosurim 17 Soto Zen 302,372,375; expansion 405-09 Sotozan 267 Southern Court 384,385, 389 sozu 5 šrávaka xv, 126, 141, 374 sravaka, realm of 123 Srlmáladevisimhanádasútra 20 Star of Destiny 175 Stein, Aurel 71 Store Consciousness 101-02 Šubhakarasirnha 139, 149,236, 342, 364 Sudatta 174 Suiko tenno 17, 19 sukune 37 Sukuyó kyó 172 Sumario de las cosas de Japon 432 Sumeru, Mt 36 Sumiyoshi shrine 189 sunyata 127 Suo, province of270,416 Suryaprabha 71 Susano-o 49,51, 53, 224, 362 Susiddhikaratantra 118 sutehijiri 329 sutra cylinders 177,198 Sutra for humane kings: described 67; Michinaga 177; Nichiren 335; version by Amoghavajra 140 Sutra of Brahma's net: iconography for Vairocana 85; Mahayana precepts 87, 133,167 Sutra of constellations and planets 172 Sutra of golden radiant wisdom: 'Beetle-wing' cabinet 27, 31; described 65-67; kokubunji 79; Kukai 148; readings performed 62; recitation of 154; Sanbo ekotoba 169; Todaiji 81, 92; used in Nihon shoki 16 Sutra of the Dragon King of the Sea 35 Sutra on visualising the Buddha of Immeasurable Life 198 surras 65-68 sutra scriptorium 80 Suvarnabhasottamasutra 65 Suvarnaprabhdsottamasutra 16, 65 sword, as regalia 283 taboos 350 Tachibana no Moroe 91 Tachibana no Narisue 357 Tachikawa ryu 358 Taigenkyu saijosho 420 Taihaku 175 Taihan 146 Taiheiki 391 Taiho Code 22, 37 Taiichi 175 Taika Reforms 22 Taimadera 145 Taiping xingguosi 227 Taira no Kiyomori 221,245 Taira no Shigemori 221 482 Index Index 483 Taishakuten 93 Taishang yuanling beidou benming yansheng miaojing 422 Taizong, Emperor 227 Taizu, Emperor 227 Tajima, province of 186 Takada monto 263, 394, 423 Takamanohara 48, 51 Takamimusubi 48 Takaosan 255 Takaosanji 116, 129, 146 Takemikatsuchi 180, 275 Takuga391,392 Tales of Ise 359 tama 41 tamafuri 41 Tamamushfzushi 25 Tanabe 222 Tanba, province of 353 Tanegashima 430 Tankei 164 Tanluan 201 Tanninshö 265 Tanoura 118 Tantra of wondrous attainments 118, 163 tannic Buddhism 119-20, 138-46, 162 tariki 264 tatchü 403 Tathägata xvi tathägatagarbha 105 tathatä 165 Tatsuta shrine 189 'temple', as translated term 4 temple, complementary with shrine 182 Temple of the Vajra Peak 147 ten realms 123 Tenchijingi chin yoki 420 Tendai hokkeshü gishü 121 Tendai tradition 129-34 Tenji Tennö 22 tenjin chigi 38 Tenjindö 174 Tenjukoku tapestry 23 Tenkakuji271 TenmuTennö22,36,41 tennö 3 Tenryüji 370,401-02 Tenryüjibune401 Tenshö Daijin: in Chögen's dream 270; in Jinnö shötöki, 387; as Mahavairocana 346, 352; in Nihon shoki 45; in relation to Outer Shrine 353;inFote«jb279 Tenshö Shübun 416 teraA Text to illustrations of the Three Jewels 168,203,214 'those below the grove' 404 Three Deans 58 three monkeys 175 thusness 165 Tiansheng guangdeng lu 296, 297 Tiantai, Mt 118, 154,278,300 Tiantai tradition 116, 119 Tiantong, Mt 308 Tiantong Rujing, see Rujing To Daioshö Töseiden 87 Toba Tennö 222,232 Todaiji: creation of 78-85; destruction of 221; Eison 322; and Ise 268-70; Kükai ordained 136; Myöe 255; scholarship 365 Tödaiji shuto sankei Ise Daijingü ki 270 Tödö 156, 159 Töfukuji 312, 317, 367, 401-02 Toganoo 256 Togashi Masachika 424 Töji: clash with Koyasan 151,229; Kükai 147; revival oidenpöe232 Tökchök21 Töketsu 156, 167 Tökokki 372-73 tokudo 58 Tokuitsu 131, 132, 150 tomb mounds 39,40 Ton'a 393 tonkyö 134 Tönomine218 ToriBusshi 19, 25 Toshigoi festival 186 Toshigoi liturgy 44^t5 Toshödaiji 88 Toyoashihara shinpü waki 420 Toyotomi Hideyoshi 435 Toyoukel91,352 Toyouke no miya gishikichö 191, 353 Tözai sayöshö 392 Treating the origin as origin, a compilation 388 tsuchien 404 tsvkai 323 Tsükai 349, 353 Tsukiyomi49, 51 Tsurezuregusa 420 Tsurugaoka Hachiman guji 268 Tsushima 186 Tusita heaven 230 twenty-two shrines 189 Uchiko 194 Uda Tennö 152,222 Udäyana, King 228 Ugon 322 Uisang85, 114,261 uji 39 Uji (Ise) 389 Uji River 185 ujidera 182, 402 Uka no tnitama 353 Umashiashikagihikoji 49 Umenomiya shrine 189 Ungoan410 Universal promotion of the principles of seated meditation 309 Unkei 240 Unmeiden 283 upäsaka 192 upäya 121 Urabe Kanefiraii 356, 419 Urabe Kanehiro 420 Urabe Kanekata 356, 419 Urabe Kenkö 420 ümä 205,215, 260 Usa92 usnisa 282, 415 Usuki 432 VaidehT200 VairocanaSl, 84,221,269 Vaisravana 66, 172 vajra xvi, 150, 346^17, 358 Vajrabodhi 139 Vajrasekhara 139 Vajrayana 149 Valignano, Alessandro 432 Vasubandhu 99 Venus, deities manifesting 175 Vilela, Caspar 423 Vimalakuti, Ritual Assembly of 78, 154,159,160, 220 Vimalakirti sütra 20 Vimalakirtinirdesasütra 20,160 vinaya xvi, 58, 87, 167, 321 Virüdhaka 66 VirOpäksa 66 Visnu 357 Visualising the syllable A 233 Waka chikenshü 360 waka kanjö 361 Wakamiya 183 Wake no Kiyomaro 95 'wall contemplation' 293 Wan'niansi 305 wasan 214, 263 Watarai 191,389 Wataraileyuki388 Watarai Mitsutada 271 Watarai Shinto 351-54 watö 313 Wenzong, Emperor 115 Western Pagoda 159 Wkeel to crush heresy 253 White Lotos Society 200 Womb World mandala: 441-45; Amitabha in 231; Ise Inner Shrine as 349; in Jien's dream 283; Kumano as 226; Lotus Hall in 342 484 Index Index 485 women, banned 169, 323 Wonchuk 114 Wonhyo 85,114, 261 Words and phrases in the Lotus sutra 116 Wu, Emperor of the Liang 81, 289 Wu Zetian, Empress 81, 95, 114, 120, 288 Wuan Puning 318 Wuji Liaopai 308 Wutaishan 147, 154,228 Wuxue Zuyuan 319, 368 Wuzhun Shifan317 Wuzong, Emperor 115, 154 Xavier, Francis 431 Xianzong, Emperor 115 Xirningsi 136, 156 Xiuran 304 Xiuxin yaolun 294 Xu gaosengzhuan 288 Xu'an Huaichang 305 Xuanming Calendar 171 Xuanzang 59, 99, 102-3, 120 Xuanze 288 Xuanzong, Emperor 156 Xuanzong, Emperor 114,120, 140 Xuetou heshang baize song'gu 301 Xunzi 388-89 Yajtr6 431 yaksa 71 Yakushi, see Baisajyagururaja Yakushiji61,64, 89 Yakushiji (Shimosa) 88 yamabushi 225 Yamada389 Yamagucbi 416, 431 YamashinaHonganji 425, 428 Yamashinadera 77 Yamashiro, province of 186 Yamato, province of 186, 218 Yamato katsuragi hozanki 357 Yamatohime no mikoto sella 353, 354, 388 Yamazaki Ansai 353 Yamazaki Sdkan 405 Yangzhou 87,154 Yasakani no magatama 283 yashiro 3, 39 Yata no kagami 283 yearly ordinance, see nenbun dosha Yifu 288 Yijing 16, 65, 149 Yin-Yang theory 171 yinke 2%9 Yishan Yining 368, 369 Yixingll9,139, 288 Yoei 87 Yogacara 102 Yokawa157 Yokawa no mukaeko 211 Yokoan 316 Yokoji 372, 374 Yokosone monto 263 Yominokuni 49 Yoro Code 37, 41,54 Yoshida Kanekata 45 Yoshida Kanetomo 419 Yoshida Shinto 419-20 Yoshida shrine 185, 189,419 Yoshino 177,363,384 Yoshishige no Yasutane 204, 214 Yoshizaki 423 Yoso Soi 404 Yotenki 278, 279, 345 Yozei Tenno 385 Yuantong Chanshi 299 Yuanwu Keqin 301 Yuanzhao 140 Yuezhou 118 Yugyo shonin 332 'Yugyo yanagi' 392 Yugyoha 392 Yuienbo 265 Yuiitsu Shinto myobo yoshu 421 Yuima-e, see Vimalakffti, Ritual Assembly of Yuimagyo 20 Yukai 358 Yuki senjo monogatari 391 yulu 296 Yuquansi 119 Zaijarin 253 Zarining 296 Zaö gongen 177 Zaödo 177 zasu 5, 153 Zeami 393 Zekkai Chüshin 404 'Zen art' 415 Zen Buddhism 287,304-20 Zenköji 7, 329 Zenmyöji 261 Zennyo 396 Zenran 263 Zenritsugata 400 zensö 304 Zliancha jing 88 Zhanran 118,120, 121, 162, 166 Zhenxie Qingliao 302 Zhenzong, Emperor 228 Zhili 209, 228, 300 Zhiyan84,104 Zhiyi: founder of Tiantai 116,119, 120-23; Mahäyäna calming and contemplation 125; samädhi 169; Sijiaoyi 202; at third level of identity 165 Zhongfeng Mingben 371, 405 Zhujing yaoji 91 Z5 Todaijishi 84 zöaku muge 266 zodiac, Indian 172 Zöhiyu kyö 357 zoku bettö 154 zokujishü 330 Zongmil04,290 Zongying 166 Zongze 298 Zonkaku 395 Zonnyo 396, 423 Zuikei Shühö 404 Zuimonki 310 Zuisenji 396,423 Zunshi 209, 300 Zutangji 296