|
| The Indian religion Buddhism, founded in the sixth century BC, is one of the common features of Asian civilization, and Buddhist institutions and believers are found all over East, South, and Southeast Asia. While Buddhism is now just a minority belief in the country of its founding, it remains a significant religious and cultural force in Japan today. This page examines the chronological development of Buddhism in Japan until the end of the twelfth century; the story will be continued in pages that are still under construction. |
According to the eighth-century chronicle Nihon shoki, Buddhism was introduced to Japan in 584, when the king of the Korean kingdom of Paekche sent Buddhist images and texts to the emperor's court. Two images were given to the powerful minister Soga no Umako (d. 626). Umako built a chapel at his home to house them, and delegated their care to three women he designated as nuns. When Umako fell ill the next year, the oracle he consulted declared that the disease was a curse sent by the Buddha. At the monarch's suggestion, Umako prayed to the image, asking it to lift the curse and to prolong his life--a petition that was evidently granted.
| Fanciful creatures such as this often decorate the roofs of temples. This example, made of tile in the mid-seventeenth century, was found in the town of Hongo in the Aizu region. |
Despite the faith of Umako and others in the miracle-working powers of the Buddha, not everyone in Japan was pleased with the new religion. Clans that had based their power on their role in native ritual were particularly distressed. Accused of offending the kami (native deities), the Buddhist converts were blamed for a plague that was spreading through Japan. Soldiers stormed into Umako's house, burned the chapel there, and hurled the remains of the statues into a nearby canal. But opponents of Buddhism were unable to hold out for long against the new religion's advocates, who found it useful to promote the monarch--already considered a descendant of the highest-ranked kami--as a delegate of the Buddha.
| Yakushi, the healing Buddha, was widely revered in early Japanese Buddhism. The Yakushi cult attracted many followers in later ages as well, and was particularly popular in the Aizu region in the Heian and Kamakura periods. This wooden image of Yakushi dates from the early Kamakura period, and can be found at Chūzenji in Kitakata. (Photograph courtesy of Mr. Tabe Yoshio.) |
While we cannot take this traditional account at face value, it suggests that by the sixth century the ruling elite at Yamato (the present Nara region) had adopted Buddhism over considerable opposition. Elements of Buddhism had probably filtered into Japan for some centuries, brought by Korean immigrants and traders. By the time it reached Japan, the austere Indian philosophy--that blamed desire for suffering and therefore recommended that one overcome all desire-- had been transformed into a devotional religion. Transmitted through China and Korea, Buddhism had also absorbed cultural values that shored up the family and state. In Japan, Buddhism underwent further changes that made even ritualists for the kami lose reason for protest: native beliefs were accomodated, and the kami were seen as friendly to Buddhism rather than offended by it.
In the sixth and seventh centuries, Yamato aristocrats constructed many Buddhist temples. For example, traditional accounts claim that Horyūji was built in the late sixth century by the order of Prince Shōtoku, who is also credited--probably incorrectly--with founding many other temples and introducing important Buddhist texts into Japan. Other temples were built in provincial locations by local notables. When a capital city was constructed at present-day Nara in the eighth century, moreoever, a healthy portion of its buildings were Buddhist temples. The Emperor Shōmu, who recognized Buddhism's political potential as a symbolic support for political centralization, sponsored the construction of Tōdaiji in Nara and subsidiary temples in each province. Strong ties between Buddhism and the government developed: the ordination of monks and nuns was controlled by the court, and temples were supported by taxes, by labor from designated households, and by lands donated by the government along with special tax considerations.
| Deer roam freely along the path leading to Tōdaiji in Nara. |
The temples at Nara are often characterized as scholarly institutions that housed the study of abstruse texts and philosophical doctrines. But it is not clear how much scholarship was actually undertaken in a society in which basic literacy was still quite limited, even among the ruling elite. The emphasis of Nara Buddhism was, rather, on rituals to ensure the prosperity of the state and the health and welfare of its rulers. Many small images from this period, inscribed with prayers for the cure of a noble's illness, attest to this emphasis.
There were, however, alternatives to the formal, ceremonial, often worldly Buddhism of the capital. One was a popular movement centered around renegade religious figures such as Gyōki, who traveled around the countryside seeking converts among the common people. This was regarded as hazardous by the court, as the following selection from the eighth-century Shoku Nihongi suggests:
These days the worthless monk Gyōki and his disciples swarm along the public thoroughfares, recklessly explaining ill omens, forming factions, burning their fingers [to use them as torches] and stripping skin from their elbows [on which to copy passages from the sutras]. They go from door to door spreading false teachings and extorting donations. Claiming to be saints, they deceive the householders. Lay believers and clergy are confused, and all classes of people abandon their labor. (Aoki et al., Shoku Nihongi, Vol. 2, pp. 26-27. Translated by Janet Goodwin, Alms and Vagabonds, pp. 23-24.)When attempts to forbid Gyōki from preaching and to force his return to lay life ended in failure, however, the court decided to ask his cooperation instead, and he was invited to help collect contributions for Shōmu's construction of the giant image of Roshana Buddha to be housed at Tōdaiji.
Another alternative to orthodox Nara Buddhism was MOUNTAIN BUDDHISM, which emphasized kinship with nature and the kami over the study of Buddhist scriptures, and ascetic practice to obtain Buddhahood--and adeptness at magic--over rites to benefit the court. During the Nara period the mountains lured both ordained monks on retreat and unlicensed religious practitioners trying to escape the state's prohibition against unauthorized Buddhist activity. In the early Heian age, in fact, Buddhism's center of gravity shifted from the city to the mountains. The Tendai and Shingon schools, two new versions of Buddhism introduced from China, both established their most important monasteries in the mountains, and mountain temples soon became quite common. Ideally, if rarely in reality, mountain Buddhism was free of the worldly attachments that hampered its urban counterpart.
| Mt. Fuji. |
Tendai and Shingon were founded by two scholarly monks who were friends at times, and whose careers contain many parallels. Both were dispatched by the court to China to bring back new doctrines; both established mountain temples that became great monasteries; and neither was completely successful in his lifetime in obtaining his school independence of the powerful Nara temples.
The Japanese founder of the Tendai school was Saichō. Not long after he was ordained, he retreated to a small hermitage at Mt. Hiei northeast of present-day Kyoto. His scholarship and skill at lecturing attracted the emperor's attention, and he was selected to join an official mission that departed for China in 804. Having studied Tendai scriptures at Hiei, Saichō proceeded to the head temple of the Chinese Tendai (T'ien Tai) school. He studied there for nine months or so, then returned to Japan with many volumes of Buddhist scriptures. His attempts to establish an autonomous Tendai school--one that did not have to have its monks ordained at Tōdaiji-- succeeded shortly after his death.
The founder of Japanese Shingon was Kūkai, who began his Buddhist career by retreating to the mountains for religious practice. He was sent to China on the same mission as was Saichō. There became the disciple of the Tantric master Hui- kuo, and when he returned to Japan he tried to establish an independent Shingon ordination platform. Like Saichō, Kūkai was unable to accomplish this goal in his lifetime. However, he was permitted to establish a monastery at Mt. Kōya, well to the south of Kyoto and Nara and remote enough--or so it seemed--to be free of venal influence and political control. This was not to be the case, however, and throughout the Heian period, Tendai and Shingon temples competed with each other and with the Nara temples for court favor and donations.
| The gate of the Shingon complex at Mt. Kōya. |
Kūkai captured the folk imagination, and the stories told about him may be more interesting than his actual life. He is said to have traveled widely, establishing temples and carving images wherever he went. Some legends credit him, for example, with founding Enichiji in Aizu. According to some stories, he could make water spring from the ground by just touching it with his staff. But the most fantastic story of all concerns his death. According to this story, Kūkai did not actually die; instead, he remains in meditation, his body preserved in a mausoleum in the graveyard at Mt. Kōya. There, he awaits the descent to earth of the next buddha, which is scheduled to occur some five billion years in the future. Over the centuries Kōya monks entered the mausoleum to trim his hair and fingernails, and the faithful carried the ashes of their dead loved ones to Kōya for burial--there to await the buddha's coming.
During the Heian period, Tendai and Shingon developed into the most powerful schools of Japanese Buddhism. The eclectic Tendai school housed a variety of teachings, some of which developed into popular movements. Tendai doctrine is based on the Lotus sutra, which holds that all men and women partake of the Buddha-nature, and thus are capable of enlightenment. Though a major function of early Heian Tendai was the performance of rituals to ensure the welfare of the state, the Lotus sutra's teaching aroused concerns with the salvation of the individual, that drew increased attention from the tenth century on. Tendai teachings urged believers to seek paradise by relying on the compassion of saviour buddhas and bodhisattvas. Many Tendai practices, moreover, were eventually simplified so that they appealed to even uneducated people. For example, devotion to the Lotus sutra made the scripture into a talisman, and people believed that if its verses were recited to even a beast, the creature could be reborn in a better life. The chanting of Amida's name began as an aid to contemplation, but turned first into a magic charm, then into a simple sign of faith in the Buddha's compassion.
Esoteric (Tantric) teachings, central to the Tendai and Shingon schools, also contributed to Buddhism's eventual broad acceptance. These teachings, termed "esoteric" because they were transmitted orally and in secret from master to qualified disciple, were designed to lead a practitioner to Buddhahood in his present life. In this sense esotericism was highly elitist, but it was also laced with folk elements, such as techniques of healing and magic, that enhanced the appeal of Buddhism to simple people. Aristocrats and commoners alike were also attracted by the expressions of esoteric Buddhism--Sanskrit syllables uttered as charms, splendid and colorful rites, and images of the buddhas carved on mountain cliffs.
Buddhism also broadened its appeal by continuing to absorb native beliefs. The Tendai and Shingon schools were especially willing to incorporate non-Buddhist deities into their pantheons. A syncretic system had begun to take shape in the Nara period, when the kami were first seen as beings in need of enlightenment and as powerful deities who could protect Buddhism, and temples and shrines were built on one another's precincts.
The system was further enhanced by the doctrine that certain kami were the manifestations of particular buddhas and bodhisattvas, and that doctrine occupied an important place in esoteric teachings. For example, the kami of the important Kumano shrine in Kii province (Wakayama prefecture) were seen as manifestations of the buddhas Amida and Yakushi, and of the Eleven-faced and the Thousand-armed Kannon. Although the veneration of kami is often termed "Shinto," several recent scholars have argued that it is impossible to talk about "Buddhism" and "Shinto" as if they were two separate religions. By the Heian period, "Buddhist" temples and "Shinto" shrines often shared the same precincts, and the functions and characteristics of buddhas and kami often became confused.
| Nanzenji, a powerful temple in Kyoto.
|
The popular Buddhism that spoke to people's everyday needs was only one facet of a conceptual structure that embraced all aspects of religious concern, from theoretical considerations of the nature of the universe to pious devotionalism. Buddhist institutions, moreover, were important players in the game of power distribution and land allocation that occupied the attention of the ruling elite throughout much of Japan's pre-modern history.
Temples faced a dilemma similar to that of the great medieval monasteries in Europe: how could they maintain themselves--support ceremonies, acquire scriptures and images, reconstruct damaged buildings--without a store of wealth? Financial needs were best meant by control of agricultural land. The landholding structure that supported temples--and everyone else in Heian Japan--was the complex shōen system, which provided income to nobles, religious institutions, local notables, and cultivators, but gave no single individual or institution clear title to the land. The crucial factor in landholding was exemption from taxes, a privilege that swelled holders' coffers and inspired them to compete with one another.
Thus Buddhist leaders found it necessary to maintain ties with the court, which dispensed land rights, even when such ties compromised a temple's religious functions. Moreover, even though they sheltered scholarly and devout monks, monasteries also shared in the corruption and hypocrisy of lay society. Abbots were regularly chosen for their family connections and political acumen, not for the sincerity of their religious calling. Despite precepts that enjoined monks to live in poverty and to shun the taking of life, monasteries accumulated land and wealth, lived off peasant labor, and formed private armies to defend their prerogatives.
Impelled in part by distaste for this situation, in part by the need to practice ascetic rigors in a lonely and severe environment, a few monks escaped to mountain hermitages. There they were joined by others--would-be magicians or peasants inspired by religious vision. Using the practices and rituals of esoteric Buddhism, these people sought to develop special powers within themselves as a method to attain immediate Buddhahood. Such Heian-period religious adepts were known as hijiri. Though apparently few in number in comparison to ordinary monks, hijiri took significant part in preparing the way for the broad acceptance of Buddhism in later ages. Their ascetic rigors gripped the public imagination, and they left their traces in legends, in folk religious practices, and in sculpture on mountain cliffs. Part shaman, part evangelist, hijiri collected donations for temples, preached simple forms of Buddhism to the common people, and chanted prayers for rain or the cure of illness.
| Nanzenji.
|
Earlier schools of thought had held that salvation depended upon the believer's own goodness or rigorous religious practice. But by the late Heian period, many thinkers deemed such things impossible for people unfortunate enough to be born in the "degenerate" age predicted by the scriptures. People were urged to seek simple, easy ways to salvation. The method most often recommended was to rely on the saving grace of Amida, obtained simply by chanting his name. Other thinkers held that salvation could result from insignificant good deeds, such as the donation of small amounts for the repair of temples or the making of sacred images. This meant that the Buddhist believer need not be wise enough to understand the scriptures, or rich enough to donate large sums to monasteries. Even the poor became targets for conversion.
But salvation was more than just an individual concern. The conditions that impelled people to hope for paradise also seemed to threaten human society itself. This made it imperative to preserve the Buddhist law on which humanity's salvation was thought to depend. If Buddhism's institutions and symbols--its images, scriptures and monasteries--could weather the difficulties of the times, then perhaps they could last until the upturn of the cycle, the millennia of gradual improvement that would culminate in the coming of the new Buddha. By working to preserve these things, people could participate in the future golden age.
In the Kamakura period, several new Buddhist schools developed to answer some of these problems and demands, and older schools also carried out extensive reforms. Click HERE to continue with the story.
| Stone Buddhist images at Shakuzōji in Kyoto. One, an image of Amida, was carved in 1225. |
For SOURCES on the history of Japanese Buddhism, click here.
For the story of the Emerald Buddha of Thailand and its temple, with some splendid photographs, click here.
For further information on aspects of Buddhism, click here.
| A room in Ginkakuji in Kyoto. |