2011_The Toji Lecture Hall Statue Mandala and the Choreography of Mikkyo Esoteric Buddhism

Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia Edited by

Charles D. Orzech (General Editor) Henrik H. SØrensen (Associate Editor) Richard K. Payne (Associate Editor)

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISSN 0169-9520 ISBN 978 90 04 18491 6 © Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

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79. THE TŌJI LECTURE HALL STATUE MAṆ Ḍ ALA AND THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF MIKKYŌ Cynthea J. Bogel The Lecture Hall (Kōdō 講堂) of Tōji 東寺, a monastery in modern Kyoto, houses a group of twenty-one statues unequaled in age and type among surviving esoteric icons in East Asia (figures 1–2). Once under the direction of the Japanese esoteric, or mikkyō 密教, master Kūkai (774–835), Tōji was the first urban center for his Shingon 真言 teachings. The present-day Lecture Hall dates to the late sixteenth century but it closely follows the original plan, with the raised altar located over the original altar.1 Six of the original statues were destroyed in a fire in 1486; the replacement statues (figure 3, circles in gray) were modeled after the lost works. Taken together, the interior space and statues, despite repairs and reconstructions, offer the modern viewer a rare experience of the visual relationships between a building and icon altar as designed and apprehended during the early Heian period (794–1185). The statues were completed around 839, five years after Kūkai’s death, under the direction of his disciple and successor at Tōji, Jichie (実恵, alt. Jitsue; 786–847). Only Kūkai had the esoteric knowledge to design the program of icons, recognized in contemporaneous records as a karma mandala (Jpn: katsuma mandara 羯磨曼荼羅) of statues, a three-dimensional representation of the perfect buddha realm described in key mikkyō texts and Kūkai’s essays. The only surviving sculptural project associated with Kūkai, these impressive statues were likely created by a workshop situated within the Tōji monastery from the 820s.2

1 The Lecture Hall was extensively damaged and repaired over the centuries. It burned down in 1486 and was subsequently rebuilt by 1598. The history of Tōji is well documented, especially in the Tōbōki, a work in eight scrolls compiled in 1352 by Gōhō (1306–1362); it contains all manner of historical documents relating to Tōji, some spurious. The Tōbōki is reproduced in the Zoku zoku gunsho ruijū (hereafter ZZG), Kokusho Kankōkai, ed. 1969–1978; and in Fujita Tsuneyo 1972–1976, vol. 2. 2 We know little about the Buddhist sculptural workshop that produced the Tōji Lecture Hall statues; it was certainly sponsored by the court. Heian ibun, vol. 31,

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79. the tōji lecture hall statue maṇ ḍ ala

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Figure 1. Altar view from the east, karma mandala of twenty-one statues. Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Heian period and later; Statues ca. 839–1834, Lecture Hall, ca. 1598.

There are three groups of five statues arranged across the altar: Five Wisdom Buddhas 五智如来 in the center (figure 4), Five Great

quoted in Tanaka Tsuguhito 1971, 17. We have as scant evidence a document dated 806 that records the temporary transfer of twelve craftsmen from the Office for Construction at Tōji (Zō-Tōji-shi) to Nara for repairs at Tōdaiji. See Tanaka Tsuguhito 1983, 181. Critical essays for study of the Tōji Lecture Hall altar, in chronological order, are: Minamoto 1930; Ono Genmyō 1934; Nishikawa Shinji 1957a, 1957b; Shigeyasu 1961; Shimizu 1964; Takata 1967; Maruo 1973–1997; Kuno 1974b; Hamada Takashi 1978; Matsuura 1983; Yamada and Miyaji 1988; Itō Shirō 1992; and Mizuno Keizaburō 1992. See also Akamatsu 1961; Sawa 1969a; and Yamagishi 1985a, especially 128–29.


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Figure 2. Altar view from the west, karma mandala of twenty-one statues. Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Heian period and later; Statues ca. 839–1834, Lecture Hall, ca. 1598.

Bodhisattvas (Godaibosatsu 五大菩薩) to the east (figure 5, color pl 11), and Five Great Myōō (Godaimyōō 五大明王, Skt. Vidyārājas, figure 6, color pl 12), and, Fudō Myōō 不動明王 (figure 7) to the west side of the altar. The tallest figures are at the center of each pentad. The central seated Dainichi Buddha figureure towers over the whole, creating a mountainlike landscape with a central pinnacle within the vast space.3 At the four corners are the Four Deva Kings (Shintennō 四天王) of the cardinal directions; such figureures were similarly disposed on

3 The Dainichi is jōroku size, which refers to the Japanese measure of sixteen shaku (approximately 480 centimeters or 16 feet). One jō equals ten shaku; roku means “six” in Japanese, thus jōroku is literally one jō and six shaku. A seated figureure is half that; nonetheless, an eight-foot seated buddha and a sixteen-foot standing buddha are both called jōroku.


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Figure 3. Plan of the karma mandala. White circles are ca. 839; gray circles indicate statues made later to replace lost originals. Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto.



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Figure 4. Five Wisdom Buddhas 五智如来 Gochi Nyorai. Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Late sixteenth century except Amida (nineteenth century and earlier parts). Wood (hinoki) with lacquer and gold leaf; Dainichi, H 284 cm; Hōshō, H 143.6 cm; Amida, H 138.8 cm; Fukūjōju, H 134.2 cm; Ashuku, H 139.4 cm.

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Figure 5. Five Great Bodhisattvas 五大菩薩 Godai Bosatsu. Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Central figure, sixteenth century, Muromachi period; four statues, Heian period, ca. 839. Wood (hinoki) with lacquer and gold leaf; central Kongō Haramitsu, H 197.2 cm; Kongōsatta, H 96.4 cm (see color plate 11); Kongōhō-A, H 93.4 cm; Kongōhō-B, H 95.8 cm; Kongōgō, H 94.6 cm.



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Figure 6. Five Great Myōō 五大明王. Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Heian period, ca. 839. Wood (hinoki) with lacquer and pigments; Fudō (seated), H 175.1 cm; standing figures: Gōzanze, H 178.7 cm; Gundari, H 203.1 cm; Dai’itoku, H 141 cm; Kongō Yasha, H 174.2 cm.

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Figure 7. Fudō Myōō 不動明王 (Acalānatha), central statue of Five Great Myō. Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Heian period, ca. 839. Wood (hinoki) with lacquer and pigments, H 175.1 cm.


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Color plate 11. Kongōsatta Bosatsu 金剛薩埵菩薩 (Vajrasattva Bodhisattva), one of the Five Great Bodhisattvas 五大菩薩 Godai Bosatsu. Heian period, ca. 839. Wood (hinoki) with lacquer and gold leaf. Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. H 96.4 cm.


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Color plate 12. Dai’itoku Myōō 大威徳明王, one of the Five Great Myōō 五大明王 detail. Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Heian period, ca. 839. Wood (hinoki) with lacquer and pigments. H 141 cm.


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Nara-period altars (shown as circles 18–21 in figure 3; Jikokuten 持国天 statue, figure 8). Additionally, single figures stand at the east and west sides of the altar, Taishakuten and Bonten, respectively (帝釈天, Skt. Indra; 梵天, Skt. Brahma, figure 9; see figure 3, circles 17 and 16). On Nara-period altars, these two devas were typically placed near the main icon. The modern viewer cannot visually take in the whole assembly when standing in the narrow aisle before the altar and one tends to be visually overwhelmed by this complex assembly. The icons require visual effort—and also mikkyō knowledge—in order to comprehend their relationships and meanings. Kūkai brought new Buddhist teachings to Japan following his two years of study in Chang’an, the capital of Tang-dynasty China. He returned to Japan in 806 and from 809 resided at Takaosanji 高雄山寺, a monastery in the hills northwest of the Heian capital (modernday Kyoto), until his relocation to Tōji in 823.4 At Takaosanji Kūkai initiated icon production and building projects, the most famous of which are a pair of mandala paintings that date to around 830, the Takao Mandara, based on paintings Kūkai brought back from China. The texts, icons, and ritual goods Kūkai imported were the basis for Shingon Buddhism; his disciples and subsequent adherents would promote Shingon as the only true form of mikkyō, with origins in India and China. Today there is no consensus about the use or meaning of the Tōji Lecture Hall sculptural program. Scholarship on the altar typically presents it as an iconographic program with sources in the textual works brought from China by Kūkai, with an emphasis on the stateprotecting function of those texts. Sources for icons are important; however, this pairing can be problematic in two ways: first, icons function in ways unique to images; and second, many of the texts central to Japanese esotericism, and in the Buddhist corpus promoted by the state, also emphasize state protection. Little attempt has been made to understand the relationship of the Tōji statues to mikkyō ritual or the foundations for Kūkai’s teachings in early Heian-period Japan. In this essay I set out to do this.

4 Kōnin 14 (823).1.19, Goyuigo article 1, KZ 2: 788. Also found in the Taishi gyōjōshūki, Tōji chōshahōnin I; and the Tōdaiji yoroku, vol. 6.


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Figure 8. Jikokuten 持国天, one of Four (Deva) Guardian Kings (Shitennō). Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Heian period, ca. 839. Wood (hinoki) with lacquer and pigments, H 187.7 cm.


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Figure 9. Bonten 梵天 (Brahma) (west side of altar, detail). Lecture Hall, Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Heian period, ca. 839. Wood (hinoki) with lacquer and pigments, H 103.6 cm.

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Because the plan for the Lecture Hall had been approved by the court by the time Kūkai was appointed head of construction at Tōji, in 824, he may have decided to install a statue program similar to one he had seen in Chang’an, or he may have formulated a karma mandala based on a practice, text, or conceptual design to suit the existing plan for a “traditional” (eighth-century style) nine–by-four bay hall. Yet, with few exceptions, scholars have not looked to the practice of image making or the performance of mandala rites, to the mikkyō mandala and its embedded conceptual frameworks, or to possible Chang’an prototypes to understand the meanings of the Tōji Lecture Hall altar. I propose a holistic visual interpretation of the altar and its visual referentiality to ritual, in a setting in which visual culture is an active participant but where the performance of ritual does not necessarily occur. In this sense, the altar program is highly performative. To move beyond a simple analysis of the Lecture Hall assembly as an icon hall based on new mikkyō sutras or ritual texts, we must be willing to consider both representation and iconography as a performance of ritual, even as they may be substantiated by textual sources. As a karma mandala, and in other ways to be discussed in this essay, the Lecture Hall icons participate in ritual in a manner consistent with choreography. Simultaneously, the icons convey the visual significance of the mikkyō teachings through material form and effect. In what we might refer to as visual efficacy, the Tōji Lecture Hall program functions on a level of meaning that references Buddhist goals of state protection and the making of mandala in material, textual, and ritual dimensions. The Early History of Mikkyō Ritual Halls and the Tōji Lecture Hall Construction proceeded slowly at Tōji, despite the fact that it was one of only two state monasteries in the new Heian capital.5 The original temple plan (on a south-north axis) consisted of a South and Middle Gate, a Kondō 金堂, a nine–by-four bay Lecture Hall, northern dormitories for monks, and a North Gate. Only the main hall, or Kondō,

5

According to the authors of NCKSS-jys (1: 41a and no. 10), who cite Tōbōki 1, ZZG 12 (no page given), prior to Kōnin 1 (810) the halls of private temples were ordered to be dismantled and moved to Tōji and Saiji. On Saiji, see, NCKSS-jys 1:41– 42. During the early years of construction in the new Heian capital, the privately sponsored temples Kiyomizudera and Takaosanji were also being built or expanded. On the use of the Tōji Kondō, see Tōbōki 1, Buppō-jō, ZZG 12:8b–9b, cited in Ueno Katsuhisa 1994.


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was realized before Kūkai’s arrival. Completed around 810, its honzon 本尊, or main icon, was a seated statue of the Shichibutsu Yakushi (七仏薬師 Seven Masters of Medicine Buddha), flanked by Nikkō and Gakkō bodhisattva statues.6 The primary icon intended for the unrealized Lecture Hall was probably a Thousand-Armed Kannon statue, which was eventually installed in the Tōji Refectory in 877. Before the Heian period, lecture halls contained a raised altar with statues, and the large surrounding space was used for state rites in which sūtra recitation was the focus, such as the Shōman-e held at Hōryūji and the Yuima-e and Saishō-e held at Kōfukuji. In mikkyō monasteries created during the early Heian period, lecture halls continued these earlier functions but they were smaller. Significantly, they gradually came to supplant the main halls (Kondō or Hondō) as the primary hall for the worship of icons. Nine months after Kūkai arrived at Tōji, a decree from Emperor Junna (786–840) authorized fifty monks of the “Shingon sect” (Shingonshū 真言宗)—and no other sect—to reside at Tōji, giving public name and legitimacy to the new teachings.7 At least twelve of the fifty monks were from Tōdaiji, the head state monastery in the former Heijō 平城 capital (present-day Nara).8 Their presence among the monks who would populate Tōji was evidence of the affiliations that Kūkai had formed with Nara. Based in part on Kūkai’s observations in Tang China, Japanese mikkyō temples developed halls for mikkyō initiations, or abhiṣeka, which are of central importance to Shingon training and transmission. In 822, prior to his appointment at Tōji, Kūkai was permitted to establish the first state-approved mikkyō initiation site, or Abhiṣeka Hall (Kanjō’in 灌頂院) at Tōdaiji 東大寺 in Nara,9 but Tōdaiji itself did not become a Shingon center.

6 These icons were destroyed in the 1486 fire that destroyed several of the Lecture Hall statues. 7 For the decree, see Dajō kanpō jinbushō, dated Kōnin 14 (823).10.10, Tōbōki 7, Sōhō-jō, ZZG 12: 21; and KZ 5: 435. Quoted in NCKSS-jys 1: 59 (shiryō 4). See also Hakeda 1972, 55. 8 Sōgō chū Tōji bettō sangō of Jōwa 4 (836).4.5, in the Tōbōki 7, ZZG 12: 141b–142b and cited in Abé 1999, 60–61, 468, n. 165. Given the slow progress of construction at Tōji and at Saiji, the other state-sponsored temple, it is not surprising that so many of the priests assigned to Tōji were Nara clerics. 9 The name for Tōdaiji’s Abhiṣeka Hall has changed over the centuries.


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During his time at Takaosanji, Kūkai planned an Abhiṣeka Hall, which was completed during his period at Tōji, between 823 and 835.10 Unlike most Buddhist halls in Japan, which have an odd number of bays across to allow a ma, or space, at the center, the Abhiṣeka Hall at Takaosanji (renamed Jingoji 神護寺 in 824) was an even number of bays wide. This particular use of space and the absence of a sculptural altar in a major worship hall were unprecedented in Japan, and were due entirely to the character of mandalas and goma (護摩 fire) rituals. The dimensions of the earlier Tōdaiji Abhiṣeka Hall are not certain, but during the Heian period it had a five-bay chancel with four aisles (hisashi 廂), thus it was seven bays wide. It housed two huge nine– fuku 幅 mandalas.11 With Tōji designated as the first urban monastery for the training of Shingon priests, officially sanctioned sites for mikkyō rituals to protect the nation multiplied. New halls for honoring new mikkyō divinities such as the Five Wisdom Buddhas or Five Myōō were introduced by Kūkai; the Five Myōō were installed in a hall created for Takaosanji ( Jingoji). New pagoda shapes specific to esoteric symbology, and pagodas with painted interiors of mandalas or portraits of the patriarchs of Shingon were also created. These icons and structures were not wholly dependent

10 The Jingoji Konpon Shingondō (also called the Shingondō and Kanjōdō at different points in its history) was built under Kūkai’s direction and completed between 824 and 835. The completion date is in a record of the retired emperor Uda’s Dempokanjō (initiation), cited in Fujii Keisuke 1988, 125. The dimensions are given in the Jingoji jōhei jitsurokuchō, noted in Fujii Keisuke 1988, 118; 1998, 19. The hall is also described in the Jingoji ryakki; see Itō Shirō 1992, 102. In the Heian period, the hall was called the Konponshi shingondo (in the Jingoji jitsurokucho); see Fujii Keisuke 1988, 118. According to the Jingoji jōhei jitsurokuchō, this “Konponshingondo” hall was six bays wide with a hisashi on two sides (front and back) and two doors. The Jingōji ryakki documents the use of the raidō for conferring the samaya precepts (which were typically given as initiation before an adherent entered the inner hall for higher-level ordination practices). During the ninth century the Konpon Shingondō, without a forehall structure, was used for rituals. Other abhisheka dansho ritual spaces, however, are not six bays. Rather, according to convention, they have a ma at the center. At Mount Kōya the second and smaller of two Shingondō housed Dainichi and Shitenno statues but no paintings, so far as we know. A 904 record indicates that both a Kannon and Jizō Bosatsu statue were enshrined at the Tōdaiji Kanjō’in, suggesting that the hall was used until that time. The structure was lost in 1180 when the Taira torched the monastery. 11 A fuku is the width of a bolt of cloth. Ninth- and tenth-century (early Heian) paintings generally used raw silk made on looms, producing cloth about 1.80 shaku (54.5 cm) wide; by the late Heian period this changed to 1.61 (48.7 cm) and to 1.54 shaku (46.7 cm). The Shingon’in in the palace and the Tōji Abhiṣeka Hall also each had a five-bay chancel plan.


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on texts and iconography but also on material precedents in China, nearly all of them lost, and conceptual innovations in Japan. Kūkai introduced distinct mikkyō elements into the Tōji layout ( garan 伽藍) and made plans for halls and icons reflecting mikkyō concepts and ritual requirements but few were realized during his lifetime. The initial plan for Tōji included eighth-century-style pagodas at the southeast and southwest corners, but Kūkai’s plan replaced the West Pagoda with an Abhiṣeka Hall (Kanjōdō 灌頂堂). Construction began on the pagoda and lecture hall at about the same time. Neither the Tōji Pagoda nor the Abhiṣeka Hall were completed until after Kūkai’s death.12 The Lecture Hall building (but not the statues) was completed by 835, ten years after construction began and two and a half months before Kūkai’s death.13 The earliest reference to the Lecture Hall statues describes their consecration in 839.6.15: “The nobles of the court gathered together at Tōji for the eye-opening [rite] of the various Buddhas [made] at imperial behest.”14 The statues are next mentioned in a document from the

12 A pagoda was begun for Tōji around the same time as construction of the Lecture Hall began (i.e., ca. 826). The original pagoda burned in Kanei 12 (1635) and was repaired in Kanei 21 (1645). Originally it is thought to have contained a central pillar (possibly painted) that represented Dainichi; on a raised altar around the central figureure were the four Nyorai Ashuku, Hōshō, Amida, Fukūjōju (making up the Five Buddhas of the Diamond World) and the Eight Great Bodhisattvas. Today there are divinities from the Kongōkai mandala painted on the corner pillars and front door, and there are eight patriarch portraits on the interior walls. It is possible that this decoration was the same as Kūkai’s original concept. The Tōji Abhiṣeka Hall (Kanjō’in) interior had the seven patriarchs, adding Kongōsatta Bodhisattva and Kūkai, for nine paintings on three of four walls of the inner space. For illustrations of the current pagoda interior, see Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji) Hōmotsukan, ed. 1997, 19, 20 (for the eight patriarchs), 71–72. 13 Tenchō 2 (835).4.24. Shoku Nihon kōki, KT 8:4, quoted in NCKSS-jys 1:61 (shiryō 9). This document is sometimes cited for the date of the Lecture Hall completion but in fact it states only that the hall was completed by that date. Nevertheless, construction does not appear to have progressed quickly. Tōbōki 1, ZZG 12:4. No records survive regarding the production of the Tōji statues. Stylistically, the works support a production date in the 830s. Kūkai died on Jōwa 2 (835).6.16. A document of 835.1.6 (Shoku Nihon kōki, KT 8:231) requests funds from the government for carrying out “training and lectures on the sūtras” and notes that some halls are completed. Although this is sometimes interpreted to mean that funds were requested for making statues, the document is inconclusive. NCKSS-jys 1:61 (shiryō 9). 14 Entry for Jōwa 6 in Shoku Nihon kōki, KT, 88. The kuyō (offerings) ceremony for the newly sculpted statues of the Lecture Hall at the Saiji temple was conducted on Tenchō 9 (832).5.7, earlier than that for Tōji (see the Nihongi entry for same date). The month and day of the consecration is the traditional anniversary of Kūkai’s birth; it is also the death date of Amoghavajra.


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Ministry of the Imperial Household dated 844.15 It gives the court’s resolution to a petition from Jichie requesting clothing and food for acolytes serving at a one hundred and six-day offerings service (kuyō 供養) at the Lecture Hall. In the document, the statues are referred to as the “imperially sanctioned Shingon statues newly constructed” and the hall as the “newly built Shingon hall.”16 They are described as “three groups in a row”: “at the altar center, Five Buddhas; to the left, Five Bosatsu; and to the right side, Five Angry Honorable [Ones] (Go fun’nu son 五忿怒尊).”17 The rest of the statues are not mentioned. The term used for the right-side group today, “Five Great Myōō,” was not yet in circulation. “Five Angry [Honorable] Ones” indicates familiarity with terminology in rituals of Amoghavajra’s “translation” of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra (Ninnōkyō 仁王經), newly imported by Kūkai. The sūtra uses the term inu (威怒, “terrible,” “fierce”); however, a ritual text for the sutra uses the term fun’nu 忿怒 (“honorable”), which is also used in the 844 document.18 The text is a ritual text for the

15 Document dated Jōwa 11 (844).6.16, Dajōkanpu kunaishō, Tōbōki 1, Buppō-jō, ZZG 12: 17b, quoted in NCKSS-jys 1: 64 (shiryō 14). 16 The wide chronological gaps between documents and statements, such as “newly constructed” statues or hall in 844, in reference to a hall that was finished before 835, suggests that governmental attention to the project was lacking, as do petitions for financial assistance. 17 There is some ambiguity as to the naming of the groups. “At the altar center, Five Buddhas” 中胎五佛 could be interpreted as, “at the center, Womb [mandala] Five Buddhas”; and “to the right side, Five Angry Ones” 右方五忿怒 could be interpreted as “to the right, Directional Five Angry Ones.” Dajōkanpu Kunaishō, Tōbōki 1, Buppō-jō, ZZG 12: 17b. 18 The full title is the Sūtra of Perfect Wisdom for Benevolent Kings Who Wish to Protect Their States (Renwang hu guo banrou boluomiduo, commonly abbreviated to Renwang jing; Jpn. Ninnōkyō or Ninnō hannyakyō). Amoghavajra’s translation, with extensive notations (by an unknown hand), is T. 246.8:834c–845a. An earlier recension of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra is T. 245, Kumārajīva, fifth century. For the English translation of the title, I use Benevolent Kings Sūtra, but recognize Charles Orzech’s considerable contributions to study of the sūtra and his translation, “Humane Kings.” See Orzech 1996c, 372–80 (portions of section 5 and all of section 8 of the sūtra), and a full translation in Orzech 1998. Ryūichi Abé uses “Virtuous Kings.” There are four ritual commentaries (Skt. vidhi, Ch. guei-i, Jpn. giki) on the sūtra, three of which are attributed to Amoghavajra (but were probably produced by his disciples). Of greatest importance in Japan is the Renwang niansong yigui, on the Recitation and Contemplation of the Benevolent Kings [Sūtra] (Jpn. Shinyaku ninnōgokoku hannya kyō darani nenju giki, commonly referred to as the Ninnō nenju giki), T. 994.19: 513–19, noted here. Others are T. 995.19: 519–22 (Methods for Chanting the Benevolent Kings Sūtra); T. 996.19:522–25 (Commentary of the Dharanī of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra); and one by Amoghavajra’s disciple Liangbi (discussed later in this chapter), T. 1709.33: 429–523 (Commentary on the Benevolent Kings Sūtra).


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Benevolent Kings Sūtra, Amoghavajra’s Ninnō nenju giki (仁王念誦儀軌 Ritual Commentary [Sk: Vidhi] on the Recitation and Contemplation of the Benevolent Kings [Sūtra]).19 A document dated 845 from the Ministry of Public Affairs (Minbushō) responds to a request by Jichie, stating that the ministry acts on behalf of the “imperially sanctioned various precious statues of the Shingon sect. . . .”20 These ninth-century sources confirm that the Lecture Hall icons occupied a significant place in the ritual and visual economy of the capital and were associated with the esoteric Shingon teachings. Other clues to reception can be garnered from historical sources. An 847 record for a “dharma transmission rite” (伝法会 denpō-e) identifies the statue group for the first time as a karma mandala: They are the Five Buddhas, Five Great Bodhisattvas, Five Angry Ones (Gofun’nu), Bonten, Taishakuten, and the Four Deva [Guardian] Kings (Shitennō), etc., from within the Vajrayāna teachings. The katsuma (i.e., karma mandala) statues were respectfully constructed as a vow for the health of our sovereign when he was unwell. After the statues were completed, prayers for the nation were frequently recited and chanted before the statues, and the sūtras of the Secret Vehicle (i.e., mikkyō) were explicated and chanted. Although the honorable images were completed and the shogon 荘厳21 ceremony was carried out the year previous [846], due to a pressing matter22 the Denpō-e was not conducted at that time.23

19

Ninnō nenju giki, T. 994.19:513–19. The Minbushō responds to Jichie’s request to sell the Shugei’in (Shugeishuchi’in) school founded by Kūkai. Dated Jōwa 12 (845).9.10, Tōbōki 6, Hōbō-ge, ZZG 12: 121, quoted in NCKSS-jys 1: 64 (shiryō 15). This document specifies that the yield of the rice fields be donated to the Tōji temple, assuring that “the sūtras, vinayas, śāstras, and commentaries of the [texts of the] imperially sponsored Shingon sect may be propagated for eternity.” 21 The Japanese Buddhist term shōgon, comprising the characters for “majestic” or “to revere” and “adornment,” may be understood as “pious adornment” or “decorative manifestation of sacrality.” Shōgon derives from the Chinese zhuangyan, which encompasses two related but distinct concepts in ancient Indian philosophy, alamkāra and vyūhā. Alamkāra refers to the manifestation of the divine or sacred in the earthly, material world. Vyūhā, which means “array” or to “complete and make perfect,” often refers to sanctification. Both alamkāra and vyūhā are used throughout the sūtras. An array of glorious attributes, vyūhā, describes the bodhisattva Gadgadasvara (Fine Sound) in Chapter 24 of Kumārajīva’s version of the Lotus Sūtra. For a discussion of the term, see Mochizuki Shinkō, et al. 1974, 9: 673. 22 It is unclear to what the phrase “pressing matter” here refers. 23 The text is informally known as the Tōji denpō-e hyōhaku, in Tōbōki 6, Hōbō-ge, ZZG, 12: 122a and reproduced in NCKSS-jys 1: 65 (shiryō 16). 20


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The 847 ritual record provides other important details. It identifies the twenty-one sculptures by divinity group or name, important not only for iconographic identification but also because listing the names indicates that identities mattered. The earlier government records note only “Shingon statues” or the new mikkyō divinities; in the 844 temple record the karma mandala is the focus, so each divinity is mentioned. It tells us that upon their completion, sūtras were chanted before the statues. The Denpō-e, a Dharma transmission ceremony, was part of many Buddhist (sectarian) traditions; it has specific parameters in the mikkyō ritual corpus relating to the concept of sokushinjōbutsu 即身成仏, or “attaining enlightenment in this very body” (i.e, this lifetime)— a key concept in Kūkai’s teachings and one found in the Diamond Peak Sūtra. The rite involves sūtra recitation. Although the divinities were new, the rite continued earlier Buddhist praxis: there was continuity between “exoteric”24 and new mikkyō rites, icons, and goals. Although Kūkai wanted to initiate his disciples at Tōji and at a Shingon mountain training center at Kongōbuji on Mount Kōya 高野山 (present-day Wakayama prefecture), far south of the former Nara capital (map, figure 10), he was part of the state-sponsored clerical hierarchy still based in Nara;25 moreover, state support for the Abhiṣeka Hall at Tōdaiji in Nara continued. At the end of his life, Kūkai created a ritual site for lay initiations, the Shingon’in, within the imperial palace. The Abhiṣeka Hall Kūkai planned for Tōji was not completed until 843, under Jichie. Could Tōji have functioned as a primary site (konpon dōjō 根本道場) for mikkyō practice during Kūkai’s lifetime without an Abhiṣeka Hall? If Kūkai initiated priests in mikkyō mandala rituals at Tōji, the occurrences are unrecorded. I will return to this subject below.

24 The term “exoteric” ( Jpn. kengyō 顯教) is commonly used in the literature, following the influence of Shingon sectarian writings. 25 Kūkai was appointed to the chief ecclesiastical order, the Sōgō, in 824, only two years after he established the Tōdaiji Kanjō’in, with the title junior priest general, and is listed as Kūkai of the “Tōji Shingon school.” By 836, the year after Kūkai died, twenty-one jōgakusō (fixed appointment priests) were assigned to “Shingonshū Tōdaiji,” indicating the importance of the lineage there; the next year, twenty-one jōgakusō 定額僧 were appointed to Tōji (not the fifty originally promised to Kūkai), most of whom were from Tōdaiji.


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Figure 10. Map of the Kansai region and ancient capitals.


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Abhiṣeka, The Diamond Peak Sūtra, The Benevolent Kings Sūtra, and Rites for the Protection of the Nation In the 847 record, the Lecture Hall altar is called a karma mandala. As I have proposed elsewhere, the statues excavated at the Chang’an monastery, Anguosi 案國寺 (figure 11), are part of a karma mandala and demonstrate a relationship to esoteric aspects of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra.26 One may also note their simultaneous relationship to the divinities featured in Vajrasekhara Sūtra or Diamond Peak Sūtra (Kongōchōkyō 金剛頂経), for example, Ratnasambhava Buddha. Kūkai probably witnessed karma mandala assemblies in Tang China. His request to the Japanese court to enact protective rituals for the state in 810 at Takaosanji, in the wake of a coup attempt on the emperor, was surely one way to establish a national protection site outside the capital by means of abhiṣeka. To quote from his petition: Inside and outside the capital [Tang rulers and officials] built monasteries where mantras are recited to pacify the nation. . . . The imported sūtras consist of the Renwangjing (Benevolent Kings Sūtra), Shouhuguojiezhujing, Fomumingwangjing, among others.27

One month before construction on the Tōji Lecture Hall began in 825, Kūkai requested the court’s permission to conduct new lectures at Tōji on the Shugokokkaishu daranikyō (守護国界守陀羅尼経, NationProtecting Lord Dhāranī Sūtra) each year during the summer retreat (ango) for the protection of the nation, the elimination of calamities, and to benefit sentient beings who will prosper with the Dharma.28 In his petition, Kūkai noted that similar lectures to protect the nation

26 The iconography of several Anguosi statues can be linked to the Diamond World mandala/Diamond Peak Sūtra, and at least two others to the Womb mandala/ Mahāvairocana Sūtra, but I believe that the unifying theme derives from the mandala for the Benevolent Kings Sūtra. See Bogel 2009. At the same time, there are close relationships between the Diamond Peak Sūtra and the ritual texts for the Benevolent Kings Sutra, so that the Diamond Peak Sūtra and related Diamond world mandala iconography may be the most significant aspect of the group. 27 KZ 3: 435–36, dated 810.10.27. We do not know whether permission was granted or the ritual was performed. The sūtras are T. 19, nos. 994, 997, and 982. 28 The sūtra is T. 97. Kūkai’s petition is dated Tenchō 2 (825).3.10, titled “Angokō Kōdōgyō [shi],” as recorded in the Tōbōki 5, Hōbō-chū, ZZG 12: 104 and quoted in NCKSS-jys 1: 60 (shiryō 6). Kūkai’s request was granted early in the fourth month, and construction of the Lecture Hall commenced on the twenty-fourth day of the same month.


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Figure 11. Eight-armed, three-headed Hayagrīva Bodhisattva (Horse-Headed Avalokiteśvara), unearthed from Anguosi, Xi’an, China, in 1959. Beilin Museum, Xi’an, Shaanxi. Tang dynasty, ca. 775. White marble, H 78 cm.


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had been sponsored by previous emperors at the Nara temples; he cited imperial sponsorship of lectures on the Benevolent Kings Sūtra in Enryaku 25 (809, the year Kūkai was called to Takaosanji).29 In his petition, Kūkai invoked the historical continuity of ritual. I similarly propose that in the Lecture Hall sculpture program, visual and ritual continuity worked together to secure acceptance for Kūkai’s new teachings. Despite the continued prominence of the temples in the former Heijō capital during the early Heian period, the political, symbolic, and rhetorical significance of Tōji—one of only two state temples in the new capital—as a mikkyō monastery ensured that the monastery and Kūkai’s activities became part of the new sacred ritual economy and visual cosmology of Heian-period Japan. The Tōji Lecture Hall altar was a key visual expression of this cosmology. In order to choreograph continuity at Tōji, the “Shingonshū” temple in the new capital, Kūkai seems to have instituted and continued rites for nation protection, especially those featuring the Benevolent Kings Sūtra. He is thought to have imported several versions of the mandala described in the sūtra, which illustrate the primary divinities in their respective directions. There are several recensions of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra. The Ninnō-e and Ninnōkyō-hō rituals are based on two different “translations” of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra, but only the latter used mandalas as the basis for its efficacy. Yet one version is not “exoteric” in the early mikkyō context, even if the two sūtra translations and their contents— and their goals—are distinguished. Both are part of mikkyō praxis and Buddhist goals for state protection. The Lecture Hall altar is strongly linked to the mandala imagery for the mikkyō rites of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra.30 The Benevolent Kings Sūtra and its rituals are concerned with “the hierarchy of cosmic authority as founded on a single underlying continuity and expressed in ‘geographic’ terms,” with numerous plays on conventional “exterior” and “interior” kings or rulers of the mind or 29

The title Ninnōgokoku hannyaharamitsukyō is used, a variant name for the Amoghavajra “translation” of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra imported by Kūkai. 30 In addition to Ninnō-e (non-esoteric) rites performed there, the Tōji Lecture Hall was described by the monk Kakugyō, which he had witnessed in his youth (late twelfth century) as having painted pillars with one hundred buddhas, one hundred bosatsu, and the one hundred arhats, a combination seen only in the “non-esoteric” Ninnōkyō.


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self.31 The location of Tōji inside the capital, and Takaosanji/Jingoji just outside, was significant. As at Anguosi, there is no evidence that the Tōji Lecture Hall was a site for esoteric abhiṣeka. Mandala divinities and concepts are the only likely source for the Lecture Hall altar arrangement. As early as the 1930s, scholars considered the Lecture Hall to be based on texts associated with the esoteric translation of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra and the Vajraśekhara Sūtra or Diamond Peak Sūtra.32 Drawings and paintings imported by Kūkai provide visual and conceptual sources for the Lecture Hall assembly—and not only for its iconography. Rather, the making of the ritual mandala for the Rite of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra (Ninnōkyo-hō) and the concepts that underlie it, specifically that of the Diamond World mandala 金剛界曼荼羅 deriving from the Diamond Peak Sūtra, are performed in a choreography of liturgical and representational elements, in both indirect and specific ways, by the Tōji Lecture Hall karma mandala statues themselves. The difficulty lies in sorting out the relationships among the visual means, contexts, and ritual texts or activities. Rather than argue for iconographic sources, it is important to understand the over-arching significance of the mandala concept. For the Tōji Lecture Hall, the iconography of the Diamond World mandala seems particularly strong, even if the vehicle for that iconography is in part found within ritual text(s), in particular, the Ninnō nenju giki, the ritual text for the Benevolent Kings Sūtra noted above. In turn, it derives from the Diamond Peak Sūtra. An emphasis of either the Diamond or Womb mandala in the visual culture for a hall is consistent in the earliest Shingon esoteric halls, including those on Mt. Kōya, Takaosanji, and Kanshinji. The concept of the karma or sculptural mandala is one of four types of mandala given in the Diamond Peak Sōtra. The building plan for the Lecture Hall at Tōji was created in 825; that same year Kūkai opened the Benevolent Kings lecture (Ninnōkō 仁王講) at the palace and in various provinces.33 The lecture was

31

Orzech 1996c, 375. See Minamoto 1930, 99–114; and Ono Genmyō 1934, 47–58. Recently, Matsuura Masaaki has linked the altar program only to the Benevolent Kings Sūtra. See Matsuura 1983. Otherwise, all scholars suggest a combination of texts. The first scholar to suggest two textual sources for the altar was Takata 1967. Since then, all scholars except Matsuura have concurred on two or more. 33 The Tōbōki and Fusōryakkishō, among other records, indicate 825 as the starting date. “Kōdō,” Tōbōki 1, Buppō-jō, ZZG 12: 9a–10a, quoted in NCKSS-jys 1: 60–61 (shiryō 7). One date given is Tenchō 2 (825).4.24; an alternate date is 825.4.20. 32


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probably based on the version of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra known during the Nara period. In the next year Kūkai organized the Benevolent Kings service, Ninnō-e 仁王会, at Mount Kōya (Tenchō 3.1.11). Kūkai performed the mikkyō rite of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra, the Ninnōkyō-hō 仁王経法, for the first time in the ninth month of 812 at an unknown location. The Record of the Ninnōkyō-hō cites a second occurrence in 822, at either Tōji or Takaosanji, “for the protection of the nation,”34 but no details of the ritual performance are known. This was in the same year that Kūkai gave abhiṣeka to the retired emperor Heizei, possibly at the new Abhiṣeka Hall at Tōdaiji in Nara.35 In 824, Kūkai performed an esoteric abhiṣeka for Saga.36 Kūkai performed abhiṣeka outside and within the capital, but the sites are not always recorded. Jichie’s letter to the priests at Qinglongsi 清流寺, where Kūkai studied in Chang’an, states that the lay and ordained men and women who received abhiṣeka from the master numbered in the tens of thousands, but the actual number will likely never be known.37 All of these activities were conducted for state benefit. Kūkai’s magnum opus of 830, The Ten Abiding Stages of the Secret Mind of the Mandala, was completed when the statues in the Tōji Lecture Hall were underway. It repeatedly notes that “erecting a mandala altar, receiving abhiṣeka there, and having the clergy perform homa (goma 護摩) and other esoteric rituals to benefit his nation constitute the most meritorious acts for a king.”38 Abhiṣeka rites and rites related to the Benevolent Kings Sūtra were distinct, but both deployed mandala altars, both called out the divinities of the mandala universe, and both concerned the same goals—including protection of the state. The Ninnō-e rite associated with the Benevolent Kings Sūtra widely conducted during the Nara period continued to be popular long after Kūkai imported the “new translation” by Amoghavajra. One of many performances of the Ninnō-e took place in 839, the year the Tōji

34 For the 812 occurrence, see BD 5:4104c (Kōnin 3, ninth month), which cites the Ninnōkyō-hō kinrei. This date also corresponds with the ordinations given by Kūkai to Saichō and others at Takaosanji. For the 822 occurrence, see the Ninnōkyō-hō nikki. 35 Kūkai’s text for recitation of the ordination is the Heizei tennō kanjōmon, KZ 2: 157-172. 36 The text is informally known as the Tōji denpō-e hyōhaku, in Tōbōki 6, Hōbō-ge, ZZG, 12: 122a and reproduced in NCKSS-jys 1: 65 (shiryō 16). 37 Tsuikai bunsō 5, KZ 5: 391–92; translation from Abé 1999, 42. 38 Abé 1999, 332, which cites KZ 1: 200, 206. The essay was a response to Emperor Junna’s request for an explanation of the mikkyō teachings.


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Lecture Hall statues were completed, when Emperor Ninmyō (r. 833– 850) had the Benevolent Kings Sūtra read for seven days in “the fifteen great Buddhist” temples, which included Tōji and Saiji 西寺, the only two state-sponsored monasteries in the Heian capital.39 The so-called esoteric translation of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra is defined by its addition of ritual texts to the sūtra and emphasis of the protective role played by twenty deities—many of them new, “esoteric” types. The mikkyō rite based on the “new translation,” the Ninnōkyō-hō, shares these goals, but the means are very different: the mikkyō ritual summons divine intervention in worldly affairs. In the two sūtras, despite a common role as divine defense for the benevolent king, their representation shifts from benign to ferocious, indeed terrifying, under the influence of mikkyō and ritual imagery (eg. see color pl 12). Although initially the shift in representation parallels the specific gods named in each sūtra, after the protective forces in the newly introduced Amoghavajra translation are represented as ferocious, the whole visual economy of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra ritual world also shifts: the formerly benign “Five Power Bodhisattvas” (五大力菩薩, color pl 12) come to be depicted as terribilita, like their Japanese mikkyō cousins, the Five Great Myōō. With Kūkai at the helm of Tōji, newly introduced esoteric rites could be conducted in the capital itself with greater ease. The “exterior” and “interior” concepts of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra and its rituals were applied to the performance of rites inside the palace, inside the capital (Tōji), and outside the capital. The ritual text for the Benevolent Kings Sūtra gives the details for the making of mandalas, adorning the altar, contemplations, mudrās, and mantras. In the Shingon esoteric tradition, the rite follows the prescriptions presented in ritual commentaries brought to Japan by Kūkai, especially Amoghavajra’s Ninnō nenju giki, Ritual Commentary on the Recitation and Contemplation of the Benevolent Kings, and also the Shōmugekyō (摂無礙経 To Embrace without Hindrance Sūtra), and Hizōki (秘蔵記 Notes on the Secret Treasury), said to be notes by Kūkai on Huiguo’s teachings.40 At the same time, aspects

39

Shoku Nihon kōki 2:141, entry for Jōwa 6 (839).4.17. See an earlier note on commentaries on the Ninnō nenju giki, T. 994; Shōmugekyō, also known as the Fudara Kūkaieki, T. 1067; and Hizōki, TZ 1 no. 1. The latter two texts have been variously attributed to Amoghavajra, Huiguo, and Kūkai. In the case of the Hizōki, Ryūichi Abé explains that within the Shingon tradition the work is 40


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Color plate 13. One of three extant Five Power Bodhisattva 五大力菩薩 (Godairiki Bosatsu), Ryūōku 龍王吼 (alt. Muryōriki-ku 無量力吼). Yūshi Hachiman Kō Jūhakka-in, Mount Kōya, Wakayama. Heian period, tenth– eleventh century. Hanging scroll, color on silk, L 304.8 cm, W 179.5 cm.


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of the latter two texts are linked to texts that feature the divinities of the Diamond World mandala, deriving from the Diamond Peak Sūtra. The iconography of ritual texts for the Benevolent Kings Sūtra and the Diamond World mandala are precisely the two texts that scholars concur are the textual basis for the Tōji statue program. More emphasis should, however, be given to the Diamond Peak Sūtra, for many of the divinities on the altar can also be linked to this text. The Lecture Hall Altar: Interpretations and Possibilities In ancient times, the Lecture Hall altar would surely have induced a sense of awe, as it does today. Order and meaning are achieved by understanding the relationships among the divinities of this karma mandala (katsuma mandara 羯磨曼荼羅); recall that the 847 record sorts them by name, and by directly addressing “the ocean assembly”— that is, the mandala world—in concept and form. Hamada Takashi and other scholars see the frontal deployment of the statues across the altar as “exoteric,” not esoteric.41 This characterization, however, is true only in a very narrow, albeit widely accepted, definition of mikkyō spaces as something necessarily different from those found in pre-mikkyō Nara temples. Scholars universally conclude that “whether [based on] just the installation program or [on the] statues themselves, the icons’ character was that of exoteric, ritual images rather than [that of] icons for esoteric services.”42 Yet knowledge of representational norms for Nara-period Buddhist altars would not aid a meaningful apprehension of the Tōji Lecture Hall program. The icons’ “character” is not exoteric. The 844 document quoted above specifically notes the three groups of images: “at the altar center, Five Buddhas; to the left, Five Bosatsu; to the right side, Five Angry Ones. In a row, three groups.” Surely if this were an “exoteric” layout there would be little motivation to label the groups by name and number, as is done in several documents. Such detail goes beyond usual identifications. The six “familiar” icons on the altar are not named in the 847 document; moreover, the “katsuma-mandara” is mentioned. either regarded as Amoghavajra’s instructions to his pupil Huiguo, or as Kūkai’s handwritten record of the oral instruction he received from Huiguo; there are also other opinions. See Abé 1999, 124–25, 489, n. 60; and Katsumata 1981, 182–210. See also BD 9: 104c–105a. 41 Hamada Takeshi 1980, 72. 42 Yamada Kōji and Miyaji Akira 1988, 73.


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To someone familiar with esoteric iconography, the complex disposition of the statues on the Tōji Lecture Hall altar convey and/or suggest groupings, replications, and referents to a mandala through size, placement (pentads, four corners), mudrās and hand-held implements, coloration and gilding, pedestals and mandorlas, and artistic style of the statues, among other cues and forms. The four types of mandalas are the great mandala, mahā mandala (daimandara 大曼陀羅), which represents the divinities in their anthropomorphic form and is usually painted; the symbolic-form mandala, samaya mandala (sanmaya mandara 三昧耶曼荼羅), which represents the divinities with symbols such as their attributes; the seed-syllable form mandala, the dharma mandala (hōmandara 法曼陀羅) or bīja mandala, which represents the divinities in their Siddham (Sanskrit) seed syllables (bījas); and the three-dimensional mandala, karma mandala, which represents the universal activity of Mahāvairocana. The karma mandala further instantiates ritual with three-dimensional anthropomorphic forms. An undated, circa fourteenth-century drawing, the Tojikenzaiyō (figure 12) (hereafter “Contemporaneous Plan”)43 of the Tōji Lecture Hall altar shows the four circumscribing buddhas of the central pentad and the two deva statues to the sides, Bonten and Taishakuten, turned to face inward toward the large central Dainichi Buddha. This may have been the original arrangement. An inward-facing position is rare on Japanese statue altars and may connote illusionism, as in some Tang Chinese relief stele of pentads (figure 13). If the drawing represents the original layout, then the “exoteric” disposition assumed by scholars is doubly erroneous, as inward-facing divinities would be extremely unusual before the ninth century. Inwardly facing Bonten and Taishakuten on the Tōji altar would leave the Four Deva (Guardian) King statues in their traditional (Nara-period) place and orientation at the four corners (i.e., rotated 45 degrees) and facing forward (south); but they would, in a mikkyō mandala conceptual structure, “frame” the altar assembly as a group by directing the gaze (metaphorical or real) from the edges to the center. Painted mandalas use this form.

43 Tojikenzaiyō 当時見在様. Tōbōki 1, Buppō-jō, ZZG 12: 11a, reproduced in NCKSS-jys 1: 83 (shiryō 51). Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Shin Tōbōki, 113, compares three drawings of the altar. See also Matsuura 1983, 83ff; and NCKSS-jys 1:81.


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Figure 12. Tojikenzaiyō (Contemporaneous Plan), drawing of Tōji Lecture Hall altar. Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Ca. fourteenth century. Ink on paper.

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Figure 13. Five Wisdom Buddhas stele. Aichi Prefectural Ceramics Research Institute. Tang dynasty. Stone.

Such an arrangement may also explain the presence of Bonten and Taishakuten: Bonten is not paired with Taishakuten in any of the textual sources for the altar, a fact that has perplexed scholars. Takata Osamu explains the presence of Bonten as an addition that mimics the “exoteric” arrangement of the two on Nara-period altars; he and others note that it creates a symmetrical visual pairing, one on each side of the altar.44 One possibility is that the pair, with the Four Guardians, form a border around the edge, in the manner of a mandala. There is excellent visual evidence for Kūkai’s newly imported Benevolent Kings Sūtra. Kamakura-period drawings (zuzō) in ink on paper

44

Takata 1967, 29.


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include the Ninnōkyō gohō shoson zu (“Illustrations of Various Divinities of the Five Directions from the Benevolent Kings Sūtra”; hereafter, “Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations”). Two sets of very large scrolls, one version at Daigoji (figures 14, 15) and one at Tōji (figures 16,17), are in turn copies of lost zuzō by the monk Kakuzen (1143–ca. 1219), a priest in the Shingon Ono lineage, noted for his vast compilation of ritual diagrams, guides, and iconography, the Kakuzenshō 覚禅鈔, completed in 1219.45 Each of the five sheets shows a “directional” bodhisattva (Gohō bosatsu 五方菩薩), a vidyārāja. The statues of the Five Great Myōō on the Tōji Lecture Hall altar are so close to the same deities’ depiction in extant “Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations” drawings that they undoubtedly share the same source: drawings or paintings imported by Kūkai. The drawings illustrate a rite for the Benevolent Kings Sutra; it is important to note once again, however, that this does not preclude a consideration of Diamond world iconography from the Vajraśekhara Sūtra, on which the iconography of the ritual text is in part based. The Lecture Hall statues occasionally reveal contradictory conceptions of two- and three-dimensional rendering; for example, the Fudō Myōō statue has an awkward left-arm pose that would appear to mimic the foreshortening in two-dimensional drawings; one sees the same gesture in the ca. 830 painted mandala, the Takao Mandara depiction of Fudō Myōō (figure 18), the central divinity of the vidyārājas. Finally, although the point has been overlooked in scholarship to date, Taishaku’s appearance on the altar (although not texually substantiated) may be explained by the zuzō mandala images: in one sheet of each set of the “Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations,” Taishakuten appears with the Four Guardian Kings as a distinct group

45 Kakuzenshō 覚禅鈔, “Ninnō kyō 1,” Bussho Kankōkai, ed. 1912–22, henceforth DBZ, vol. 46: 228 (i.e., Kakuzenshō 2: 716). The Kakuzenshō is a compilation of iconographic drawings by Kakuzen completed in 1219. The seven volumes of the Kakuzenshō are in DBZ, vols. 45–51. See also T. 2469.78:66a. The T. zuzō (hereafter TZ) manuscript is based on that preserved at Kajūji and housed in the Nara National Museum, with four hundred and sixty-four illustrations in one hundred and thirty-six fascicles; the manuscript illustrated in DBZ has three hundred and sixty-nine illustrations in one hundred and forty-one fascicles and is based primarily on a manuscript preserved at Zōjōji. See Kakuzen shō kenkyū kai, ed. 2004. Inscriptions on the back of four of the Tōji works note Kakuzen’s versions.


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Figure 14. Ninnōkyō gohō shoson zu 仁王経五方諸尊図 (Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations), central assembly. Daigoji, Kyoto. Heian–Kamakura period, twelfth–thirteenth century. One of five hanging scrolls, ink on paper, H 154.3 cm, W 105.5 cm.


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Figure 15. Ninnōkyō gohō shoson zu (Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations), west assembly. Daigoji, Kyoto. Heian–Kamakura period, twelfth– thirteenth century. One of five hanging scrolls, ink on paper, H 154.3 cm, W 105.5 cm.


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Figure 16. Ninnōkyō gohō shoson zu 仁王経五方諸尊図 (Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations), central assembly. Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Probably Kamakura period, twelfth–thirteenth century. One of five hanging scrolls, ink on paper, H 151.8 cm, W 96.7 cm.


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Figure 17. Ninnōkyō gohō shoson zu 仁王経五方諸尊図 (Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations), south assembly. Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Probably Nanbokuchō-Muromachi period, fourteenth–fifteenth century. One of five hanging scrolls, ink on paper, H 150.6 cm, W 96.7 cm.


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Figure 18. Fudō Myōō (Acalānatha), Takao mandara, Womb mandala, detail. Jingoji, Kyoto. Heian period, 829–33. Hanging scroll, gold and silver pigments on shikon (murasaki root) dyed damask silk; full scroll: H 446.4 cm, W 406.3 cm.


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of five. Bonten stands to the rear, as part of Taishakuten’s entourage, next to Fudō Myōō.46 Representing the Altar: Iconography, Drawings, and Taxonomies The iconography of the altar is complex and cannot be adequately discussed in a brief essay. The honzon or primary divinity for the Benevolent Kings ritual (Ninnōkyō-hō) varies depending on lineage and ritualist, and is not specified in the texts and drawings. Examples of the painted mandala type described in the Benevolent Kings Sūtra ritual manual survive at Daigoji and Kumedera. The Kumedera painting shows Fudō Myōō at the center surrounded by ritual implements. Since the ritual text, the Ninnō nenju giki, depends significantly on the Diamond Peak Sutra and in turn to the Diamond world Mandala, the Diamond World iconography can be seen as a unifying factor. Among the three central groups of five statues, the Five Wisdom Buddhas correspond to Diamond World mandala imagery, as do four of the Five Great Bodhisattvas. The central figure, Kongōsatta 金剛薩埵 (Vajrasattva), is typically said to correspond to the Ninnō nenju giki, along with the Five Vidyārājas (Godai Myōō). The central bodhisattva Kongosatta, and the five Myōō, however, have correspondences in the Diamond World iconography. Although Takata and others have stressed a blending of the two ideologies or iconographies, few have noted the closer relationship of the Benevolent Kings ritual texts and the Vajraśekhara Sūtra, and the corresponding Diamond World iconography; thus the alleged lack of iconographic unity on the altar may be a problem of relying on specific texts without understanding their scriptural sources. The oldest dated extant plan of the altar is a diagram dating to 922, created by the monk Shinjaku (886–927) 真寂, and found in the Fukanreitōki (figure 19 shows the original at left and a transcription at right), titled Tōji Kōdō gobutsu tō zu (“Tōji Lecture Hall Five Buddhas and Other Icons Drawing,” hereafter, Fukanreitōki drawing).47

46

Later works copy this arrangement, such as a drawing in the Cleveland Museum probably from Daigoji. It depicts the Five Great Myōō and the Four Heavenly Kings with Taishakuten, but the eight bodhisattvas (fierce and benevolent) have been reduced to one, Hannya Bosatsu. See Cunningham and Cleveland Museum of Art 1998, 82, plate 51. 47 Fukanreitōki 不灌鈴等記, NCKSS-jys 1: 81 (shiryō 49). The Fukanreitōki was executed by the monk Shinjaku (886–927). For a color reproduction, see Tōji Hōbutsukan


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Figure 19. Tōji Kōdō gobutsu nado zu (Tōji Lecture Hall Five Buddhas and Other Icons Drawing), diagram of Tōji Lecture Hall altar, from the Fukanreitōki with transcription. Tōji (Kyōōgokokuji), Kyoto. Ca. 922. Ink on paper.



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Imported drawings or paintings likely served as a basis for not only the appearance of the Lecture Hall statues but also for the creation of a ritual mandala. In effect, the nature of the importation (“Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations” iconographic drawings, few if any paintings of the relevant mandalas, no statue groups), and the fact that Kūkai was transmitting the rites of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra, the Vajrasekhara Sūtra, among others, to priests at Tōji, means that the Tōji Lecture Hall altar had a strong visual, conceptual, and performative parallel, at least for the practitioner, to the practice of the rituals associated with the divinities on the altar, even if the altar or the Lecture Hall itself was not used for the ritual. It is also important to remember that the priests studied the drawings and received oral instruction about them. The 922 Fukanreitōki drawing is a simple diagram, providing names for the divinities, sometimes in shorthand. Today’s altar plan differs from the 922 drawing in several ways. The pentads of the Five Wisdom Buddhas and Five Great Bodhisattvas are rotated one position, or 45 degrees, counterclockwise. These and other differences are difficult to explain, but the 922 drawing is logical in that the placement of each divinity in each pentad is in a corresponding and correct (rotated) directional position (e.g., the deities of the south all appear in the southwest position. etc.), so it is most likely the original arrangement for the altar of statues. At the top of the 922 diagram (figure 19), below the character for “north,” is written “Benevolent Kings Sūtra mandala” (Ninnōkyō mandara 仁王経曼荼羅). This label is probably contemporaneous with the diagram, but it is possible that it is a later interpretation. If a contemporaneous notation, it suggests that the altar of statues was considered to represent such a mandala. It also strongly suggests that monks at the time the notation was made “interpreted” the site. The making of the mandala—setting up the platform, painting a picture of the deities, then adorning it with vases, implements, and canopies—is the first activity of a complex sequence of prescriptions for the rite provided in Amoghavajra’s commentary, the Ninnō nenju giki. Below each of the three pentads shown in the 922 Fukanreitōki diagram (see figure 19)

1996. Shinjaku 真寂 was the third prince born to Emperor Uda (r. 887–897), and his title was Imperial Prince of the Law (Hōsan no miya). “Kōdōzuyō,” Tōbōki 1, ZZG 12: 11a. The Fukanreitōki diagram is also included in the Kakuzenshō.


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are characters for a Buddhist doctrinal theory, the Sanrinshin 三輪身 (alt. Sanrinjin) or Three Cakra Bodies. The Three Cakra Bodies theory (but not the systematic term “Sanrinshin”) is part of the conceptual structure of a ritual contemplation text of the Diamond Peak Sūtra, the Diamond Peak Samādhi (Realization) Sūtra.48 The term “Sanrinshin” was not used until the twelfth century. The Three Cakra Bodies concept is also found in the ritual commentaries of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra (both the Ninnō nenju giki and the Ninnōkyōsho), but these works use different terms for the concept than the sūtra does.49 Of the early drawings of the Lecture Hall altar of statues, only the earliest, the 922 Fukanreitōki diagram, labels the statue program with the Three Cakra Wheels tags. It may be a later addition to the drawing or it may be part of Kūkai’s thinking at the time, although it was not a systematized doctrinal theory. By the twelfth century, the Three Cakra Bodies theory was named and in wide circulation. The Sanrinjin doctrine, according to the based on the Diamond Peak yoga sutra (Kongōchō yugakyō) asserts that the so-called original nature (compassion) of the Buddha, as represented by the Five Buddhas, has two fundamental “emanations,” benevolence and ferocity.50 Thus, an enlightened being can express itself in three forms—in a universal, transcendent, or socalled transformation body. In Tenchō 2 (825), at Junna’s behest, Kūkai officiated at the Rite of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra in the palace.51 The Tōbōki asserts that the esoteric ritual was held at Tōji from the time the Lecture Hall plan was approved in 825 and continuously thereafter, but this cannot be further documented.52 If Kūkai intended the Tōji Lecture Hall to be the site for rites based on the Benevolent Kings Sūtra ritual texts he

48 On the history of the Sanrinshin doctrine and its status during Kūkai’s time, see Inoue (Shimomatsu) 1987.The Diamond Peak Sūtra (Kongōchōyugakyō; the full title is Kongōchōyuga rishūhannyakyō), is T. 241.8:778–81. 49 The latter term is used in one text that espouses the idea, the Mahāyāna samgraha ( J: Shōdai jōron) (attributed to Asanga), T. 1592 and 1593. See Inoue (Shimomatsu) Tōru, “Tōji Kōdō no shoson to sanrinshinsetsu,” Mikkyō bunka 157 (1987): 50–66. 50 BD 547, based on the Diamond Peak yoga Sutra, or Kongōchō yugakyō (the full title is Kongōchō yuga rishū hannyakyō), T. 241. This title can refer to several different texts. 51 Ninnōhannyakyō-hō, in Kūkai, Seireishū, KZ 3: 514. As the Seireishū contains later additions, however, the date is not without question. 52 MD 4: 1764, which cites the Kinrei Tōbōki, fascicle 5. Continuous occurrences at Tōji are unsubstantiated.


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imported, his intention is not recorded. Here we suggest that evidence strongly demonstrates that the hall was closely tied to the Diamond World mandala in terms of both visual intentionality, as a sculptural mandala for the Benevolent Kings conceptual and ritual tradition; and visual effect, as a site for national protection. Understanding the relationship between ritual practice, representation, effect, referentiality, visuality, and history are key to understanding the Lecture Hall altar as both form and performance. I am interested in the “original setting” not because of an overarching validity but as a way of conceiving the relationship of Kūkai’s plan to the advent of mikkyō visuality in Japan. Based on the commentary in the historical record, we see that the chief priests of Tōji also sought to recreate the original plan. If the Ninnōkyō-hō rite was not performed there during the ninth century, then the Lecture Hall visually resonates with—indeed, choreographs—the rite and mandala iconography. This can be supported not only by the reasons summarized thus far but also by the fact that in later centuries the rite was actually performed on the statue altar; I take up this point below. Ritual Place Only one study of the Tōji Lecture Hall altar, to my knowledge, speculates about the actual performance of rites at the Lecture Hall during the ninth century. Yamada Kōji argues that the hall and its statues were made as commemorative works intended to promote national peace and protection, but that the Benevolent Kings rituals could not have occurred in the Tōji Lecture Hall because there is insufficient space for an actual performance of the Ninnōkyō-hō.53 This conclusion, based on the actual space, overlooks the conceptual and performative nature of visuality and material form. The earliest illustrated description of the rite may be that given by Kakuzen, who gives the 922 Fukanreitōki drawing in his ca. 1219 Kakuzenshō as the definitive guide for the rite, and reproduces it at the end of the text. He also illustrates and discusses a Gohō mandara, or Five Directions Mandala, based largely on the Ninnō nenju giki.54 He gives illustrations of the canopy and the ritual platform and drawings like those said to

53

Yamada Kōji and Miyaji Akira 1988, 129–30. DBZ 46: 191–204 (Ninnōkyō-jō, Kakuzenshō 2: 677–92). For the opening of the mandara section, see DBZ 46: 191 (Ninnōkyō-jō, Kakuzenshō 2: 679); see DBZ 46: 54


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be based on Kūkai’s works, such as the Daigoji and Tōji “Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations.” The four ritual platforms prescribed by the Ninnō nenju giki and shown in the Kakuzenshō are illustrated in another source that illustrates the performance of the rite within the Tōji Lecture Hall itself. The Ryakuōgonen ninnōkyōbō zakki 暦応五年仁王経法雑記, a Momoyama-period copy of a record for a performance of the Rite of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra in the Lecture Hall in 1342 (color pl 13), shows the Lecture Hall karma mandala of statues in a manner consistent with the 922 Fukanreitōki diagram; there are four ritual dan 壇 (platforms), two large and two small, deployed across the altar for the rite.55 This is the earliest representation known of the Rite of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra associated with Amoghavajra’s translation performed within the Tōji Lecture Hall. It is possible that this tradition developed late in the history of Tōji; we have also noted that the markings on the 922 drawing may be later additions. One fascinating clue to the possibility of an earlier performance in the hall, which would substantiate the traditional assertions that the rite was performed at Tōji from 825, is found in unpublished reports from recent excavations. When the central five buddhas were moved for repairs begun in 2001, charred remains typical of a goma platform were found at the Heian-period levels of packed earth in the altar below the Dainichi statue at the center.56 There is no record of a goma ritual enacted before the altar was completed and the statues emplaced, but it appears that goma rites were conducted at the center of the hall. I do not believe that goma rites occurred only once, likely first at the consecration of the hall, but that the Lecture Hall served as a ritual focus for the whole of Tōji until the Kanjōin was completed around 843 under Jichie. The Lecture Hall sits at the exact center of the plan of the early Heian-period monastery. The intention of the altar, thus interpreted, is a karma mandala (form/activity) that addresses particular levels of understanding gained by its multiple audiences and their expectations.

200 (Ninnōkyō-jō, Kakuzenshō 2: 688) for the opening of the Shiki mandara. For the Fukanreitōki drawing, see DBZ 46: 228 (Ninnōkyō-jō, Kakuzenshō 2: 716). 55 Mitsukoshi honten. Daigoji ten: Hideyoshi, Daigo no, hanami 400-nen; Inori to bi no denshō 1998, 120, figure. 93; 189–90. 56 Discussion with Mr. Ono of the Office for Cultural Affairs, Tokyo, December 5, 2001, London. Findings as yet unpublished.


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Color plate 14 (Bogel 79). Illustration from the Ryakuōgonen ninnōkyōbō zakki 暦応五年仁王経法雑記 (1342 Rite of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra). Daigoji collection. Momoyama period. Ink and colors on paper. Handscroll (one scroll), H 28.5 cm, L 723.7 cm.

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I do not suggest specific “plans” or “models” for interpreting the Lecture Hall in these discussions of several visual and spatial parallels to practice and practitioners, but rather a loosely knit body of references and signifiers—spatial, visual, somatic, and conceptual—that would have informed the activities of the makers and users of the hall. As for the dense program of statues and in a traditional space— seemingly at odds—a comparison of the designs of the ritual practice area in any early Abhiṣeka hall with the Lecture Hall altar reveals an interesting similarity. The three primary groups of five statues on the Lecture Hall altar may be seen as both locative and symbolic parallels to the disposition of space and icon function in a ritual hall. That is, each of the altar’s three statue groups—the fierce Myōō Bosatsu, the comparatively benign Godai Bosatsu, and the central Five Wisdom Buddhas—correspond, respectively, to the Diamond and Womb mandalas with platforms, and the central space, often used for goma rites. (That goma remains are beneath the center of the altar deepen our interest.) Thus, the Lecture Hall altar imitates—re-enacts—a mandala abhiṣeka space. The intention of the altar, thus interpreted, is mandala activity that addresses particular levels of understanding gained by its multiple audiences, and their expectations. In keeping with the goals of ritual practice, and arising from the specific metaphorical schema and visual constituents of the Shingon mikkyō Buddhist tradition in Japan, the forms, representations, and ideas of the esoteric worship hall and icons may each be understood to exist as ontological equals of a dynamic nexus that includes the universe of divinities, the practitioner, ritual, and image. The Tōji Lecture Hall participates in such a nexus, one that draws upon the representational, performative, and imaginary spaces called mandalas.


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2011_The Toji Lecture Hall Statue Mandala and the Choreography of Mikkyo Esoteric Buddhism

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