The Common Root of Japanese and Tibetan Tantric Buddhism

Anders Bjonbäck

The Common Root of Japanese and Tibetan Tantric Buddhism

This thesis began as a research project aiming at finding evidence for the presence of the Yoginī-tantras in Japan in order to counteract what the writer felt to be nationalistic and sectarian narratives in Japanese and Tibetan Buddhism. Japanese and Tibetan sources often tout the uniqueness and purity of their lineage, claiming that they alone have the unadulterated and complete set of teachings of the Buddha. In particular, some authors have claimed that the Indian Buddhism that was transmitted to Tibet, that of the Yoginītantras, was corrupted by the outside influences of Tantric Śaivism and śakti worship. If one combines this notion with the claim that Shingon (真言) holds pure or “unmixed”

Tantric teachings, one would come to the mistaken notion that this is the primary difference between Japanese and Tibetan Tantra. In fact, though, Śaivite influence and śakti worship are actually among the points of commonality between the Tibetan and Japanese Buddhism. They actually share so much in common that one might even be tempted to think that the Yoginī-tantras influenced Japanese Buddhism. This thesis shows, however, that such influence is conspicuously absent from its Tantric practices, though Shingon and Tibetan traditions do share common ground as Buddhist Tantric lineages.

Since this is a study concerning elements in Tantra that form a common thread between cultures, it is important that it not be essentialized into something that remained the same as it spread. The history of the texts, practices and lineages surveyed counteracts this assumption, and some of the claims the traditions make about their history must be looked at with a critical eye. However, just because one might critique a source's

historical claims, that does not devalue it as a religious text, or as a source for how the tradition conceives of itself.

This thesis takes as its focus orthodox schools of Buddhist philosophy and practice. Although many have tried to counteract the last century of Protestant-based presuppositions about religion being based in faith and doctrines, I maintain that focusing on the doctrines and lineages of "high religion" is still valuable. Although it may result in some amount of negligence in researching how the religion was popularly practiced by the laity, focusing on "popular religion" would result in an entirely different sort of research project.

It is important to avoid Protestant presuppositions concerning this literature, as if texts and doctrines stated in them are "true" religion, and the presumption that what is written in the texts necessarily reflects how people actually practiced. It is also important not to fall into what might be called Catholic presuppositions, where the doctrinal lineage of the establishment is valued above all, and one becomes overly fascinated with ritual. One may also have post-modern or scientific materialist presuppositions, where one is

overly skeptical of anything an insider source says about its tradition. Some may also devalue the texts and doctrines studied by the elite and exclusively value the beliefs and practices of the everyday person. This study hopes to avoid these pitfalls, and to find a balance between emic or insider perspectives on the subject, and an outsider's etic perspective, and aims to do so through consulting both insider and outsider sources. Insider perspectives will be framed by the historical and textual studies of academics. When it comes to matters of doctrine, though, the insider's perspective takes precedence

because an outsider does not have the authority to speak for the tradition, and an insider authority is likely more learned in those matters.

These secondary sources, primarily concerned with cultural-historical, textual and doctrinal studies, also frame the comparative work in this paper. The premise of this paper is that it follows a principle of "mutual illumination within a tradition" (a phrase borrowed from Arvind Sharma)1 wherein two aspects of a tradition are being compared with each other in order to illuminate aspects of each that one would otherwise not see. This is in contrast to "mutual illumination between traditions" since Tibetan and Japanese Tantric lineages are both members of the larger tradition of Tantric Buddhism. Depending on the kind of argument one is making, one could in principle ignore historical context when comparing two religions or thinkers, though here, comparison is done in light of these contextual differences.

Still, the kind of results one receives from performing a comparison can change drastically depending on what one chooses to focus on, and here, the scope is limited to the question, "Considering the common source of Japanese and Tibetan Tantric Buddhisms, are there elements of Tantric practice based on the Yoginī-tantras in Japan?" The sources surveyed were academic works on Tantra, as well as sources that explained their philosophy and methods of practices from an insider perspective.

Charles Orzech also points out three different ways Tantra is discussed in the contemporary studies of Chinese Buddhism, which are a helpful reference for clarifying this present study. The most obvious use of the term applies to (1) series of practices and 1 Arvind Sharma, Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination (State University of New York Press, 2005).

rituals that are “clearly based on a South Asian template,”2 and (2) texts and practices that were imported from India are then adapted to a new cultural context, resulting in innovations to the received tradition. It also refers to (3) texts, ritual elements, etc. that were once part of Tantric traditions in South Asia, and were “disassembled in East Asia, and their elements incorporated into already established intellectual and ritual systems, predominantly those of the Huayan and Chan varieties, but also as far afield as in Daoism and folk traditions.”3 This present study is primarily concerned with the first two usages, since it is focused on systematized lineages of tantric practice that refer to themselves as Mantrayāna. The question of whether other Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools that

practice a tantric liturgy, or have practices that are heavily influenced by tantric techniques, should be referred to as tantric is too complicated to address here. Suffice to say, in this present study, any Buddhist text or practice that is primarily concerned with esoteric elements that that are based on to the Mahāvairocana Sūtra or subsequent tantras is referred to as "Tantric" since that text is among the first to describe Tantra as a coherent, self-contained system of practice.

Finally, one may ask why one would discuss Japanese Tantra alongside Tibetan Tantra if they did not interact with one another historically. The value of examining Japanese Buddhist Tantra in contrast to Tibetan Buddhist Tantra is that doing so demonstrates several important links between Tibetan and Japanese Buddhism, despite their lack of direct contact with each other. First of all, it becomes apparent that Japanese Buddhist Tantra and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra are both self-consciously Tantric traditions, 2 Charles D. Orzech, “The Trouble with Tantra in China: Reflections on Method and History,” in Transformations and Transfer of Tantra in Asia and Beyond. Istvan Keul, ed. (Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co., 2012), p. 309.

3 Orzech, “The Trouble with Tantra in China: Reflections on Method and History,” pp. 309-310.

rather than Mahāyāna with some magical or esoteric elements. Secondly, they share essential characteristics of Tantric Buddhism as it developed into its own distinct school, possibly under the influence of Śaivism, Thirdly, examination of descriptions of Japanese tantric practices show that Tibetans would classify their practices as Yoga Tantra, though they still have a lot of philosophical perspectives in common.

Part 1: What Tantra is According to Japanese and Tibetan Lineages This is first and foremost a paper on Buddhist Tantra, and the question of what Tantra is must be addressed, particularly because discussing Japanese and Tibetan Tantric Buddhism as if they were two types of the same thing could be counter-intuitive to some who study Japanese lineages. This is because, as Iyanaga Nobumi states,

When we say ‘Buddhist Tantra,’ we immediately think of Indian (and incidentally Tibetan) Buddhist Tantra, but when we say mikkyō 密教 in Japanese, we tend to think of a particular form of Japanese (or Chinese and Japanese) Buddhism, forgetting somehow its continuity from Indian origins.

He gives two reasons for this. One is that Shingon scholarship has traditionally emphasized the “purity” of Japanese mikkyō, which represents the highest point in the development of Indian Buddhism in their perspective. For them, “later Indian Buddhist Tantra would have been ‘polluted’ by the contamination of Hindu (non-Buddhist) popular or magic traditions.”5 The other reason he gives for why these two are rarely discussed together is that specialists in Indian and Japanese religions are usually 4 Iyanaga Nobumi, “Tantrism and Reactionary Ideologies in Eastern Asia: Some Hypothesis and Questions,” in Cashiers d’Extrême-Asie, vol. 13, 2002. (Moines, rois et marginaux. Études sur le boudhisme medieval japonais / Buddhist Prists, Kings and Marginals Studies on Medieval Buddhism), p. 13.

5 Iyanaga, “Tantrism and Reactionary Ideologies in Eastern Asia,” p. 13.

separated into different departments, and specialists in one are rarely interested in the other. 6 Surprisingly, because of this, if one states that medieval Japan “was replete with mikkyō thought, one seems to make an obvious statement, and nobody is surprised, while if one says that the same Japanese medieval religious thought was replete with tantric thought, it may sound as a very strange and audacious hypothesis.”7 This strange and audacious claim is central to this thesis.

Part of the issue is that the Shingon school uses the category of “esoteric teaching” (mikkyō) instead of “Tantra.” Since equating mikkyō with Tantra can be counterintuitive to its followers, one may wonder why it is referred to here as Tantric. The fact is, though, that it is an explicitly Tantric tradition—their main canonical sources, the Mahāvairocana Sūtra (also called the Mahāvairocana-abhisaṃbodhi Tantra) and Tattvasaṃgraha

(Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha, also called the Vajraśekhara), are explicitly Tantric texts, containing all the characteristics outlined above, and the name of their school means “true word,” a translation of the term mantra. This corresponds with the Tibetan usage of the terms “Mantrayāna” and “secret mantra” (gsang sngags) to refer to the practice of Tantra. Indeed, as Minoru Kyiota states of Shingon, “It is the Japanese version of Tantric Buddhism.”

Although Shingon uses the term mikkyō to refer to itself, the way it describes its origins is characteristic of Tantric Buddhism. Like several Tibetan Tantric lineages that originate in late Buddhist India, Shingon claims a dharmakāya buddha as the source of its

6 Iyanaga, “Tantrism and Reactionary Ideologies in Eastern Asia,” p. 13-14.

7 Iyanaga, Ibid., p. 14.

8 Minoru Kiyota, Shingon Buddhism: Theory and Practice (Tokyo and Los Angeles: Buddhist Books International, 1978), p. 27.

teachings, rather than a historical person. According to Kūkai, Śākyamuni was just one manifestation of Buddha Mahāvairocana, who is "timeless and eternally present in a state of bliss."9 Similarly, the Karma Kagyu (karma bka' brgyud) traces its lineage to their dharmakāya buddha, Vajradhara, and Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) lineages traces their teachings to the dharmakāya Samantabhadra or to the sambhogakyāya Vajrasattva. This accords with how many of the tantras, such as the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, and the later Guhyagarbha, Hevajra, etc. describe their origins.

It is important to note, however, that some Western scholars attack the notion of Tantra as a distinct genre of literature, thought and practice, arguing that it is an imputed category from colonialist thinking. Hugh Urban, for instance, argues “that Tantrism comes into being as an imagined category (like the category of Hinduism), a category produced in the dialectical encounter between Indians and Europeans… Indeed, many of the texts widely reckoned to be tantras, like the Mañjuśrīnāmasaṁgīti, do not even have the term in their titles.”10 This is also true for the Mahāvairocana Sūtra and Tattvasaṃgraha, the two most important esoteric texts for Shingon.

Others defend the use of “Tantra” as a category. For example, Orzech claims, “the term Tantra has been a part of premodern discourses in South Asia and Tibet and can be of use in situating specific texts and practices in a continental context, as for example, how Tibetans appropriated the STTS [Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha] as opposed to 9 Yoshito S. Hakeda, "Thought of Kūkai," in Kūkai and His Major Works (Columbia University Press, 1972), p.63.

10 Charles D. Orzech, “The Great Teaching of Yoga: The Chinese Appropriation of the Tantras and the Question of Esoteric Buddhism,” in Journal of Chinese Religions 34:1 (2006), p. 38.

how the Chinese appropriated it.”11 This paper continues that same common-sense position, where texts that are obviously part of the same genre are placed together, and schools that call themselves Mantrayāna or Vajrayāna are treated as such. As for what Buddhist Tantra actually is, David Gordon White provides a working definition of Tantra that he applies to all its varied traditions across Asia, though it requires some explanation to apply it to Buddhism:

Tantra is that Asian body of beliefs and practices which, working from the principle that the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine energy of the godhead that creates and maintains that universe, seeks to ritually appropriate and channel that energy, within the human microcosm, in creative and emancipatory ways.

What this definition means terms of Buddhist Tantra is that a dharmakāya representation of the Buddha, like Vairocana, is taken to represent the nature of all reality, which is in turn the innate nature of one's own mind, the buddha-nature or sugatagharbha. The world is an emanation or display of this innately pure nature of the mind. As per the above quote, Buddhist Tantra “ritually appropriates” that “divine energy of the godhead that creates… the universe,” though in the Buddhist case, the godhead is the dharmakāya, and the energy being harnessed is the mind’s capacity to imagine or create, or the dharmakāya’s production of emanations.

There are several concepts that must be covered in order for one to understand the basics of Buddhist Tantra: its expansion on Yogācāra doctrines and how that plays out in its ritual technology, the luminous nature of the mind, ritual initiation to realize that

11 Orzech, “The Great Teaching of Yoga,” p. 39.

12 David Gordon White, “Introduction. Tantra in Practice: Mapping a Tradition,” in Tantra in Practice. David Gordon White, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 9

luminous nature, and the blessings of divine beings that are expressions this nature that help the practitioner realize his or her oneness of identity with them. Buddhist Tantra elaborated on Yogācāra doctrines on the different "buddha families," which specialized in different types of gnosis (jñāna). As in Yogācāra, gnosis is taken as a transformation of one's ordinary consciousness, which links the state of buddhahood to that of ordinary beings.13 In Tantra, though, these types of gnosis and the buddha families are arranged in the structure of a maṇḍala, a geometric representation of the pure or sacred nature of reality. Ordinary reality is also an expression of this divine display, and the colors, elements, etc. that make it up are taken to be the manifestations of different buddha families.

The fundamental doctrine behind these kinds of ideas—that consciousness can transform into gnosis, and ordinary reality is a divine display of the buddha families—is that of buddha-nature. Buddhist Tantra took the doctrine of buddha-nature and asserted that not only are the qualities of buddhahood immanent, but there is a path that utilizes this fact to attain enlightenment very quickly, even in one's current life. They utilized mantras, mudrās (magical hand gestures) and visualization in order to realize the

nonduality of one's own body, speech and mind and that of the buddhas. It is said that one "practices the fruition" in Buddhist Tantra, which the 18th century Nyingma (rnying ma) scholar Ju Mipham (ju mi phams) explains as meaning that one uses "[[[ritual]]] means to carry out the deeds of the buddhas in the present moment. Thus, [[[tantric]]] methods are 13 Yoshito Hakeda, Kukai and His Major Works, p. 84: "Just as the theory of the Dharmakaya in Four Forms is a reworking of the Three Bodies (trikāya) of Mahayana, so the Fivefold Wisdom of Mahāvairocana is based on the Fourfold Wisdom taught by the Yogācāra school of Mahayana."

superior and more swiftly accomplished when compared to the path of sūtra."14 In other words, over the course of the ritual, one is carrying out a buddha's activities even before that state has been actualized, which is possible because one's true nature is that of a buddha.

The support for the notion that one can attain enlightenment quickly through Tantric practice comes not just come from the practice of identifying with the maṇḍala deity and so on, but also with the notion of the luminous nature of the mind: as Taduesz Skorupski states in a study of the homa ritual, "Briefly stated the Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna theories of mind are rooted in the assumption that the mind is naturally luminous."15 The meaning of “natural luminosity” here is that defilements such as anger and aggression are of an extrinsic nature to the mind, and its intrinsic nature is a pure, non-conceptual awareness that is always present but usually unnoticed. This essentially recasts the notion of buddha-nature “in phenomenological/epistemological terms...” and although earlier traces of it can be found, “it moved up to the front burner in the eighth century…”

This is a very important doctrine in the subsequent developments of Tantra after the Tattvasaṃgraha and in the siddha ("accomplished ones") traditions, and is especially emphasized in the Tibetan meditative traditions of Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) and 14 Jamgön Mipham, Luminous Essence: A Guide to the Guhyagarbha Tantra, translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee (Ithaca: Snow Lion, 2009), p. 20.

15 Taduesz Skorupski, "Permutations and Symbolism of Fire," in Homa Variations: The Study of Ritual Change across the Longue Durée, edited by Richard K. Payne and Michael Witzel (Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 111.

16 Robert Sharf, "Buddhist Veda and the Rise of Chan," in Homa Variations: The Study of Ritual Change across the Longue Durée, p.93.

Mahāmudrā. Maitrīpa, one of the sources of the Mahāmudrā lineage of the Marpa Kagyu (mar pa bka' brgyud), for instance, states: “Luminosity free from the four extremes, / Which has the character of the deity, / Is of the nature of nondual bliss, / Sheer dependent origination.”17 Maitrīpa was a Mādhyamika, so these four extremes should be taken to refer to the four types of wrong understandings of reality according to Madhyamaka, seeing things as existing, not existing, both or neither. This luminosity, at least in Maitrīpa's system, is the state one abides in when not clinging to any extreme, and is

what remains after one has purified the mind of its defilements; it is the basic, original nature of the mind. This nature is in turn understood to be the nature of the deity, the union of emptiness and appearance, or emptiness and bliss. He also equates it to dependent origination in his final line, reflecting the understanding that this nature is nondual with the appearances of everyday reality, since as it states in the Heart Sutra, “Form is none other than emptiness, and emptiness none other than form.”

One does not come to realize this luminous nature solely through one’s own effort, however—one must rely on the blessing of one’s guru and the deity. According to the Tibetan historian and master of the Jonang (jo nang) lineage, Tāranātha's Essence of the Path of Sūtra and Mantra:

Good and bad, entity and non-entity, conditioned

And unconditioned and so on, appearing and the explained--

However many names and conventions concerning these that one explains,

One does not realize the natural state of entities.

Because the mode of existence cannot be explained as it is,

It transcends the path of words, and is inexpressible.

It is to be experienced by mere reflexive awareness 17 Karl Brunnhölzl, In Praise to Dharmadhātu (Ithaca: S now Lion Publications, 2007), p.82.

By means of the blessings of a supreme guru.18

In Tantric traditions, the blessing through which one can come to realize this inconceivable nature through reflexive awareness is abhiṣeka or initiation. This is as seen in Sahajavajra's Sthitisamuccaya, which states that, in contrast with the analytical methods of Sūtra, one can meditate on emptiness without any analysis in Tantra. “This is because of the special experience of emptiness [obtained] from the guru. It is the great bliss of exalted knowledge and skillful means, which must be experienced through selfawareness.”

Abhiṣeka and the vows or samaya (Tib. dam tshig, Jap. sanmaya 三昧耶) one receives along with it, are an essential part of Japanese and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, for without it, one does not have access to the meditations taught in Mantrayāna. As Kūkai quotes the Tattvasaṃgraha as stating, “This doctrine of samadhi taught by

Mahāvairocana Buddha should not be explained, not even a single word, to those who have not received abhiṣeka.”20 He also states in Attaining Enlightenment in This Very Existence (Sokushin jōbutsu gi), “If [one] wishes to gain the perfection of religious discipline in his lifetime, he must select a certain method of meditation that suits his 18 Tāranātha, "Lta sgom spyod gsum gyi gdams pa mdo sngags lam gyi snying po/," in Rje btsun tāranātha'i zhal gdams mgur 'bum gyi skor bzhugs, in gsung 'bum/ tA ra nA tha/ dpe bsdur ma/, TBRC W1PD45495, vol 2 (pe cin: krung go'i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang, 2008), pp. 314-315:

/bzang ngan dngos po dngos med 'dus byas dang/ /'dus ma byas sogs snang zhing grags pa yi/ /ming dang tha snyad ji tsam brjod kyang rung/ /dgnos po'i gnas lugs rtogs par mi 'gyur zhing/ /sdod lugs ji bzhin brjod par mi nus pas/ /tshig gi lam las 'das shing brjod bral yin/ /dpal ldan bla ma mchog gi byin rlabs kyis/ /rang rig tsam gyis nyams su myong bya lags/

19 Klaus-Dieter Mathes, "Blending the Sūtras with the Tantras: The Influence of Maitrīpa and His Circle on the Formation of Sūtra Mahāmudrā in the Kagyu Schools," in Buddhist Literature and Praxis: Studies in its Formative Period 900-1400. Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the IATS, 2003, vol.4 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), p.222-223. It should be noted, though, that for Sahajavajra, and indeed for most Tibetans, this experience is given from the sequence of four abiṣeka or mudrā. 20 Kūkai, "The Precious Key to the Secret Treasury," in Kūkai and His Major Works, p.223.

inclination and concentrate on it. For this, he must receive instruction in mantra recitation from an authentic master.”21 Likewise, as the Tibetan Nyingma (rnying ma) master Jigme Lingpa ('jigs med gling pa, 1729/30-1798) states, “one should begin by studying closely with a vajra master... and serving him or her well in the three ways. The next step is to mature one's being thoroughly by receiving the entire range of empowerments... From that point on, the various pledges and samaya vows need to be maintained and one may engage in the deity practices....”22

To explain briefly, according to Orzech and Sørensen:

The abhiṣeka ritual itself reenacts the enlightenment of the Siddartha in the Akaniṣṭha palace at the summit of the universe as set out in the Mahāvairocanābhisaṃbodhi sūtra and the Sarvatathāgata-tattva-saṃgraha, with master and disciple taking the roles of Mahāvairocana and Vajrasattva (in the MVS) or Mahāvairocana and Vajradhātu (in the STTS).23

What Orzech and Sørensen miss in their explanation, though, is that the Tattvasaṃgraha relates this to the doctrine of the mind's luminous nature. This tantra's account of Śākyamuni's realization of this nature when he attained enlightenment is that he was given a series of ritual enthronements or initiations by other buddhas, which empowered him to realize his sameness of identity with them. In “Buddhist Veda and the Rise of Chan,” Robert Sharf points out the irony that the experience of the mind’s true nature, something usually described as without conceptual elaboration, is accompanied by 21 Kūkai, "Attaining Enlightenment in This Very Existence," in Kūkai and His Major Works, p.226.

22 Jigme Lingpa, "Ladder to Akaniṣṭha: Instructions on the Development Stage and Deity Yoga," in Deity, Mantra and Wisdom: Development Stage in Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee (Boulder: Snow Lion Publications, 2006), p.24. 23 Orzech and Sørensen, “Mudrā, Mantra, Mandala,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, edited by Charls D. Orzech, et. all (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), p.85-86.

complex narrative and imagery.24

Although Tantra is meant to lead one to a realization of the mind’s luminous nature, the way Tantric practice works is through the blessing provided by the deities one meditates upon (which, it should be noted, one has access to after one has received abhiṣeka). As Sasso relates in his description of a Tendai (天台, the other main Tantric school in Japan) homa ceremony, when one meditates on oneself as the deity, it is not done through one's own merit or power. Rather, “The light and saving grace of the absolute non-conditioned state is always shining on me, like the sun in the heavens... The seed of enlightenment, envisioned as the seed-word Ah is already planted there, waiting

to be watered and awakened.”25 As one can see in this description, there is a kind of connection between the potentiality that exists within oneself, and the power of the deity one supplicates. This explanation seems to be steeped in the Japanese Buddhist discourse concerning self-power and other-power, a distinction that does not figure prominently in Tibetan Buddhism, though they share these notions of blessing and buddha-nature. On a similar note, Kūkai uses the term kaji to signify a kind of blessing, a

protective power one is given by a buddha, as well as a state of mind of faith. “In short, kaji is that which is ‘Buddha-in-me, I-in-Buddha.’ The Tāntric [sic.] expression is yuganaddha (unification) and ahaṁkāra (identification) between I and Buddha.”26 The point here is that one attains a state recognition of one's union with the object one has 24 Robert Sharf, “Buddhist Veda and the Rise of Chan,” in Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, edited by Yael Bentor and Meir Shahar (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017), p. 97. 25 Michael Sasso, Tantric Art and Meditation: The Tendai Tradition (Honolulu: Tendai Educational Press, 1990), p. 32.

26 Shozui Makoto Toganoo, "The Symbol-System of Shingon Buddhism,"

(https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jeb1947/1972/99/1972_99_L80/_pdf), p.78.

faith in. The fact the term refers both to a kind of giving of benediction or protection, and a state of unity seems to suggest that it conceptually relates to how Śākyamuni was blessed to realize his unity with the buddhas who empowered him in the Tattvasaṃgraha. Tantra works in a way that is not dualistic, but not without devotion to somebody who helps us realize this lack of separation.

Though Tibetan and Japanese Tantra describe Tantra in the above ways, however, one must keep in mind that it is by no means monolithic, and Japan and Tibet received different types of Tantric literature. Tantric teachings were so diverse, in fact, that subsequent generations struggled to find ways to classify them coherently, and a number of different classificatory schemes of Tantric materials are still in use today. For sake of simplicity, the four-fold emic categories used by the Tibetan “later translation” (phyi ’gyur) schools will be used here.

The first two “Kriyā” and “Caryā,” are concerned with outer rituals, and for the most part, conceives of the deity one is propritiating as separate from oneself. The Mahāvairocana Sūtra is considered Caryā Tantra in Tibetan classificatory schemes, one of the reasons being that it has three Buddha families rather than five (as in the next type).

The third category, “Yoga Tantras” are considered to be more mature Tantric systems of practice, and one of the most famous among them is the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha. They differ from Caryā Tantra in having five Buddha families represented in their maṇḍalas instead of three.

Subsequent to this, texts later classified as *annutarayoga or "Highest Yoga" Tantra

(Tib. bla med rgyud) came about. They contain transgressive language and symbols, and advocate the consumption meat and alcohol in order to overcome duality. In particular, those called the Yoginī-tantras incorporated the extreme culture of the siddha cults and their devotion to the ḍākīṇis (also called yoginīs), cannibalistic faeries that live in charnel grounds. One of its distinguishing characteristics is extensive usage of sexual symbolism and devotion to the feminine divine (śakti27 worship). These texts diverge from the five or six buddha-family structure found in texts like the Mahāvairocana and

Tattvasaṃgraha, and often, the central figure is either in union with a female consort, or even a ḍākiṇī herself.28 They also teach complex systems of psycho-physiology and yogas, such as the caṇḍālī or inner heat, to utilize sexual energies in order to attain a state of unified bliss-emptiness.

One must keep in mind that although the emic categories of Kriyā, Caryā, Yoga and Highest Yoga are useful for discussing different types of Buddhist Tantric literature, the texts may not fit neatly into one category. In fact, according to Jake Dalton, blindly following these classifications can mask historical development in the literature. For instance, as Samuel and White argue, this four-fold schema does not imply historical evolution, and many of the tantras of the first two categories were composed around the same time as, or even later than the Yoga and Highest Yoga Tantras.29 Additionally,

27 June McDaniel, Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls: Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal (Oxford University Press, 2004), p.3: "The term shakti has a variety of meanings in India. According to the Saṃsad Bengali-English Dictionary, it means power, strength, might, force, capacity, energy, and potency (and it was a name for an ancient missile). Shakti also means the female principle taking part in creation, or the female deity."

28 Steven Neal Weinberger, The Significance of Yoga Tantra and the Compendium of Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha Tantra) within Tantric Buddhism in India and Tibet (PhD dissertation,

University of Virginia, 2003), p.39.

29 White, Introduction to Tantra in Practice, pp. 22-23.

although the Guhyagarbha and Guhyasamāja (classified as Highest Yoga Tantra) developed a lot of the sexual and wrathful practices latent in the Tattvasaṃgraha, they may have lacked some of the qualities of Highest Yoga Tantra. According to Steven Neal Weinberger, it most likely was not the case that “practices involving the subtle body and the manipulation of life-energies at internal psycho-physical centers... occurred with these tantras.”

Despite the problems inherent in using these categories, though, it is important to use them in order to discuss the differences between different stages in the development of Tantra, and the differences between Tibetan and Japanese Buddhist Tantra. Caryā Tantra, through the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, and Yoga Tantra, through the Tattvasaṃgraha and its associated cycle of texts, were transmitted to China; a few Highest Yoga Tantras, like the Hevajra Tantra were translated into Chinese from Sanskrit, but they were heavily edited because of their sexual content, did not become popular,31 and did not make their way to Japan.

While Yoga Tantra, the type practiced in Japan, was also important in Tibet to a certain extent during its initial conversion to Buddhism, its presence is miniscule compared to that of Highest Yoga Tantra. Highest Yoga Tantra was and is the main type of Tibetan Buddhist religious practice, even with the violent and sexual imagery present in many of its liturgies.

Still, that does not mean that Japanese and Tibetan Tantra are entirely disparate 30 Weinberger, The Significance of Yoga Tantra, p.37.

31 See: Ch. Willemen, The Chinese Hevajra Tantra (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers). https://archive.org/details/TheChineseHevajraTantraCh.Willemen

lineages. Amoghavajra (不空, 705-774), an important figure to the transmission of Tantric Buddhism to China, included one of the earliest Yoginī-tantras, the Sarvabuddhasamayoga, in his “summary of the Vajraśekhara Yoga cycle...”32 Another, slightly earlier Highest Yoga Tantra, the Guhyasamāja was also referenced in this collection. Because he knew of these tantras and included them in the same cycle as those that made it to China, it seems that the kind of Tantra that Japan eventually received came from the same textual milieu that made its way to Tibet.

Moreover, despite their differences in transmission, the next part of the thesis will show 1) that the royal symbolism of abhiṣeka was important to both Japan and Tibet, and 2) Japanese Buddhism has elements that Highest Yoga Tantra is known for (namely, Śaiva influence and śakti worship).

Part 2--Śaivite Elements in Japanese Tantra

When some Japanese scholarship on Tantra, some of its more sectarian authors have an obvious bias against Tibetan Buddhism. One need only look at Tajima’s introduction to the Mahāvairocana Sūtra to see how his bias is rooted in a sectarian narrative that is bound up in establishing Shingon’s authenticity. However, recent scholarship, particularly that of Iyanaga Nobumi, has shown that Japanese Buddhism has influence from Śaivism as well.

According to the traditional Shingon narrative, Kūkai received the last of the pure transmissions of Tantra before it was corrupted by Śaiva and other non-Buddhist

32 Weinberger, The Significance of Yoga Tantra, p.39.

influences. is known for having received Tantric literature with the most Śaiva influences, as can be seen in Taijima's introduction to and notes on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra. He states that Buddhism in India fell into decadence and Hindu influences after "the heights it had achieved in the eighth century"33 and was transmitted to China. He also implies that these later, decadent, Hindu-influenced developments were what were transmitted to Tibet, going so far as to say:

But it may be stated that the strange esotericism of Lamaism is in fact far removed from the teachings of the Buddha. It must not, therefore, be forgotten that there exists considerable difference between Chinese esotericism, to which Japanese Shingon in its entirety goes back, and the Tibetan esotericism.

Some followers of Shingon go to painstaking lengths to distinguish themselves from these later developments in tantra that they refer to as "mixed esoterism," and this tendency is reflected in Tajima as well when he claims off-handedly, "It is evident that it is completely different from esoterism known in India."35 However, although it is typically accepted that later developments in Tantra in India did not influence its development in Japan, Iyanaga suggests that there is a “mythical structure” of Tantric culture “consisting of mythical tales, cosmological visions, images, practices, and ways of thinking” 36 that was transmitted there, full of elements that influenced how Japan received the tradition. He claims:

…Buddhist Tantra and Śaiva religiosity had a common root, and …they grew up on a same, or at least on a very similar ground(s). Japanese Buddhists could, so to speak, find again, or “re-invent” on their own the Śaiva elements among Buddhist tantric mythological structure that they had received, because this structure had at its core 33 Ryujan Tajima, "Introduction: Antecedents of Esoteric Buddhism," in Book II of The Enlightenment of Vairocana, ed. and co-authored by Alex Wayman (India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992), p.216.

34 Tajima, "Introduction: Antecedents of Esoteric Buddhism," p.217.

35 Tajima, Ibid. p.217.

36 Iyanaga, "Tantrism and Reactionary Ideologies in East Asia," p. 14.

the seed, or the “virus” of that common ground or root.37 One should note that he is not claiming that Buddhist Tantra came in its entirety from Śaivism, but rather that they have a common ground of shared material, which is akin to how Taoism and Buddhism engaged in mutual borrowing in China.

This common ground, the "mythic structure" of South Asian Tantra, particularly the notions of abhiṣeka, maṇḍala, and śakti worship informed the way Buddhism was received in Japan, just as it did Tibetan Buddhism. This section of the paper will explore these influences: first, it will be shown that the Buddhist Tantric abhiṣeka and its associated royal imagery that (at least according to Sanserson) arose in response to similar Śaiva rituals had a role to play in India, Japan and Tibet. The second section will then explore the concept of the ḍākiṇī, whose worship is central to the development of the Yoginī-tantras, is present in Japan and plays most of the same roles as she does in Tibet and India.

2.1 Royal Imagery and Abhiṣeka

One of the developments in Indian Tantra that proved popular among the elite in Tibet and Japan is the royal symbolism involved in abhisẹ̣ ka. These elements are found in other Indian religions as well, for Buddhist Tantra was part of a wider movement as systems of Tantra developed in other Indian religions. According to Sanderson, within this environment, Buddhists adopted aspects of Śaiva rituals like their "maṇḍala

37 Iyanaga, Ibid., p.20.

initiation" in order to compete for royal patronage.38 An essential part of the development of Tantra, according to Sanderson, is the notion of the deity and his/her maṇḍala as related to the notion of a ruler and his/her domain. Essentially, Tantric initiation wherein one is blessed and receives permission to visualize oneself as the central deity of the maṇḍala resembles the enthronement rite of South Asian monarchs. 39 This helped relate Tantric initiation directly to sanctification of the monarch, and one may assume that the symbolism of anointing oneself as ruler was also appealing to the everyday person. One of the most important early texts that systematized these developments in Tantra was the Mahāvairocana Sūtra. It represents

a change in the status of the Dharmakaya from a formless and signless entity to an immanent cosmic repository of all possible forms and signs. According to this vision, the entire universe (the Dharmadhatu) as the "body" of Mahavirocana (Dharmadhatu-body or Dharmakaya) is an immense semiotic machine, a sort of pansemiotic cosmos, continuously and eternally preaching the Law to all beings and, ultimately, to itself for the sheer pleasure of listening to it.

This may sound a little strange, especially since Buddhism goes through pains to negate the idea of a creator god, as can be seen in various commentarial works on philosophy like the Bodhicaryāvatara and Madhyamakavātara. However, this attitude towards the ultimate truth is present in both Tibetan and Japanese forms of Tantra. As stated before, Kūkai claims that the Buddha Vairocana teaches for his own enjoyment, and this is where Shingon teachings originate. One can also find quotations in Tibetan texts with similar 38 Sanderson, "The Śaiva Age," in The Genesis and Development of Tantrism, edited by Shingo Einoo (University of Tokyo, Institute of Oriental Culture, 2009),, p.125.

39 Ronald M. Davidson, “Abhiṣeka,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia Stephen F. Teiser, Martin Kern, and Timothy Brook, ed. Handbook of Oriental Studies Vol. 24 (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2011), p.71.

40 Fabio Rambelli, "Tantric Buddhism and Chinese Thought in East Asia," in Tantra in Practice, edited by David Gordon White (Princeton University Press, 2000), p.365.

descriptions of an ultimate realm of teaching, which is only in the experience of the buddha, or of bodhisattvas of a certain level of attainment.41 Kūkai discusses this subject in his exegesis on the esoteric meaning Sanskrit syllable hūṃ: “how can his innumerable attributes… be outside the Body of this great Self, just as the functions of mind cannot be independent from our mind?” He follows the Mahāvairocana Sūtra and states:

According to a sutra the letter M has the meaning of “transformation.”

Mahāvairocana Tathagata for his own enjoyment, exhibiting supernatural power, transforms himself into immeasurable existences and creates limitless exquisite lands. The ultimate meaning of the letter M is this marvelous function and supernatural transformation [of Mahāvairocana].

This goes along with the theory that essentially, buddha fields or pure realms are the manifestation of the primary buddha residing there. The buddha field of Suhāvatī is the manifestation of the Buddha Amithaba. Accordingly, the deities present in a mandala that one visualizes are all different manifestations of the primary deity in the center.

Just as with many of its other themes, however, this concept of the buddhasovereign is not something newly created by Tantric literature, for it is central to earlier Mahāyāna cosmologies as well. As Orzech states, “Cosmologically speaking, kingship is 41 A Nyingma (rnying ma) commentary on the Guhyagarbha Tantra quotes the Hevajra Tantra as saying, for instance, "I am the one explaining, and I am the teaching; I am the listeners, as well as the gathering" (Lama Chonam Sangye Khandro, trans., The Guhyagarha Tantra: Secret Essence Definitive Nature Just As It Is, with Commentary by Longchen Rabjam (Ithaca: Snow Lion,

2011), p.142. On an interesting related note, Tibetan tantric commentaries also mention the time when their tantras were taught as the "wisdom of evenness of the fourth time,'... the invisible intrinsic nature of saṃsāra and enlightenment..." Additionally, some of these texts, though they mimic the style of sūtras, may not begin with the statement, "Thus I have heard at one time," because "in the pure land of the sambhogakāya, the way the dharma teaching unceasingly occurs transcends the recognition of saying 'thus at one time when I heard'" (Lama Chonam Sangye Khandro, Ibid., p.142)

42 Kūkai, "The Meanings of the Word Hūṃ (Ungi gi)," in Major Works of Kūkai, translated by Yoshito S. Hakeda, p. 257-258.

deployed in a continuous and totalistic fashion to assert that nirvana undergirds the structure of the world and that manifests in sovereignty.”43 In other words, realization of the nature of reality results in one's sovereignty over it, which is why the concept of the buddha as sovereign “played a central role”44 in Mahāyāna cosmology. Sanderson relates, for instance, that the tenth stage of a bodhisattva is known as the stage of coronation, and he or she is “consecrated through light coming from all the buddhas in the ten directions.”45 According to Orzech, “This ‘royal Buddhism’ was conceptualized in the Mahāyāna and put into practice in the tantras.”

Royal imagery, and the notion that attaining buddhahood is like a kind of coronation, can be found in materials that preceded the tantras, indicating that its utilization in Tantra is not entirely alien to the tradition. In texts like the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, Bodhisattva-bhūmi, and Ratnagotravibhāga, the bodhisattva makes a gradual progression, “...and when the goal is reached the bodhisattva is anointed as sovereign of the triple world in the palace of the akaniṣṭha heaven.”47 Then, through the Buddha's power of self-multiplication (adhiṣṭhana), he creates Buddha fields and Buddhas. “One's place in the cosmos, one's body, and one's stage on the path are inextricably linked.”48 Additionally, quite similarly to how various manifestations of deities are presented in Tantric Buddhism, “The various salvific manifestations of the Buddha are all personal transformations or extensions of his nirmāṇas--manifest through his transformative 43 Charles D. Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p.62.

44 Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, p. 37.

45 Davidson, “Abiṣeka,” p.73.

46 Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, p. 37.

47 Ibid., p.43.

48 Ibid., p. 58.

power of adhiṣṭhāna.”

This resemblance abhiṣeka bore to royal coronation50 and how the and how this was used to help state rule is central to the development of Tantric Buddhism, is one of the key elements shared between Japanese and Tibetan history. According to the idea of the union of the two truths, ultimately, something can be one way, though it appears as another, so one can say that in a certain sense, the monarch is a manifestation of a buddha or bodhisattva even if he or she does not appear that way. There is also the idea of skillful means (upāya), and that not only does a bodhisattva come to a personal salvation, but has a field of activity or a buddhafield of which he or she is sovereign. Buddhist worldview concerns both transcendental and political realms. As Orzech relates,

Esoteric practice carried out in the space embraced by the twin mandala involved the ritual realization of the paradoxical identity and nonidentity of saṃsāra and nirvana and of the Two Truths. The Esoteric schools of Buddhism in China, Korea, and Japan were constituted in and through the ritual realization of this paradox, a realization that was simultaneously transcendent and political.51 This paradox played out in Asia as different rulers were held to be emanations of different buddhas and bodhisattvas. In China, the abhiṣeka was sometimes used politically, where an initiation was used to sanctify a ruler as a cakravartin (“universal monarch”), and the ruler in turn recognized the preceptor as a Tantric master.52 The Shinto coronation rite for the Japanese emperor also took on Tantric influences. In Tibet, 49 Ibid., p. 45.

50 Ronald M. Davidson, “Abhiṣeka,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, p.71: “The Buddhist abhiṣeka rite took its direct inspiration from classical and medieval coronation rites, although it also appropriated some of the dynamics of abhiṣeka as a purification visualization in Mahāyānist rituals as well.”

51 Charles D. Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, p.30-31.

52 See: Martin Lehnert, “Ritual Expertise and Imperial Sovereignty,” in Transformations and Transfer of Tantra in Asia and Beyond, edited by Istvan Keul (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH&Co., 2012).

King Songtsen Gampo (Srong btsan sgam po, 613/14-649/50) is commonly asserted to be an emanation of Avalokiteśvara despite his violent military activities.53 In fact, both Tibet and Japan had royal Vairocana cults based on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra around the same time period, and the associated imagery of their cults resembled one another. According to Kapstein's Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Under the Tibetan empire of the late eighth and early ninth centuries,

Mahāvairocana, the Dainichi-nyorai of Japanese Shingon Buddhism, appears to have become the central figure in a new state cult. Textual, archeological, and art historical evidence all tend to support the conclusion that the emperor himself was in some sense homologous with the cosmic Buddha, and the ordering of the empire was therefore effectively equivalent to the generation of the maṇḍala.. This conclusion is indirectly reinforced by evidence of Indian-influenced imperial cults in other parts of Asia during roughly the same period.

Moreover, the “Testament of Wa’s account of Tri Songdetsen’s funeral mentions that the Vajradhātu Maṇḍala was constructed as part of the funeral proceedings, which explicitly links the Compendium of Principles [[[Tattvasaṃgraha]]] with royal mortuary rites.”55 Samye (bsam yas), the first monastery in Tibet, was also “designed in a manner that gave special prominence to Vairocana…”56 In an interesting parallel to Buddhism in Japan, In the invocations at the beginning of the Authentic Proof of Scriptures, we find Śākyamuni… accompanied by the eight bodhisattvas and by the wrathful deities

of Trailokyavajaya and Acala. Both these…. deities are exclusively associated with Buddhist tantric materials, and, what is more, they appear elsewhere in strong association with the Vairocana cult, notably in the Japanese Shingon 53 Matthew Kapstein, "The Royal Way of Supreme Compassion," in Religions of Tibet in Practice, edited by Donald Lopez, Jr. (Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 69-70. Ngawang Zangpo also discusses this in Guru Rinpoche: His Life and Times (Boulder, CO: Snow Lion,

2002), p. 30, referencing the thought of the Tibetan historian, Tāranātha, who relates that if one looks at history from a mundane perspective, one will not find the profound events spoken of in Mahāyāna scriptures, since it "presents an inconceivable domain of experience."

54 Matthew Kaptstein, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory (Oxford University Press, 2000), p.60.

55 Steven Neal Weinberger, The Significance of Yoga Tantra and the Compendium of Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha Tantra) within T antric Buddhism in India and Tibet (University of Virginia PhD dissertation, 2003), p.144. 56 Kapstein, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism, p. 61.

tradition, where as Gōsanze-myōō and Fudō-myōō they are foremost among the fierce Knowledge-Kings (vidyārāja) protecting the maṇḍala.57 Kapstein also mentions that “The tantrism sanctioned by the Tibetan emperor may have to some extent resembled that of the roughly contemporaneous Heian court in Japan—if our dates are accurate, Kūkai (774-835) in fact was a toddler when Samye was built in 779…”

Finally, in a similar way to how the ruling elite in Tibet had a royal Vairicana cult, Japanese texts eventually held Japan to be the “Original Land of Dainichi”59 (Dainichi-hongoku), or the land of the buddha Mahāvairocana. According to the Keiran jūyōshū (1318-19) by Tendai Buddhist Kōshū (1276-1350)

the nine sections of the capital correspond to the nine assemblies of the Kongōkai mandala (representing Dainichi’s wisdom), the five provinces of the central region around the capital to the Taizōkai mandala (representing Dainichi’s compassion), and the seven circuts (dō) of Japan to the Soshitsuji mandala (representing the ultimate oneness of Dainichi’s wisdom and compassion). In this way, the whole of Japan becomes a representation of Dainichi’s Dharma realm.

2.2 Śaivite Influences in Japan: Śakti Worship

Perhaps most importantly, both Japanese and Tibetan Buddhism are influenced by the sexual symbolism seen in the yoginī and siddha cults of India—it is by no means unique to Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and the Yoginī-tantras—and one of the ways this

57 Kapstein, Ibid., p.61.

58 Kapstein, p. 62.

59 Dainichi is the Japanese word for Mahāvairocana.

60 Breen and Teeuwen, ed., Shinto in History (London: Curzon Press, 2000), p. 97.

manifested in Japan was the integration of the ḍākiṇī into Shinto and Buddhist syncretic pantheons. This is remarkable because the Yoginī-tantras supposedly did not have any official influence there, yet the term ḍākinī, so central to that genre, had an undeniable presence in Japan. Faure conveniently summaries the history of the ḍākinī in a short paragraph:

The Indian ḍākinīs, after converting to Buddhism and becoming protectors of the Dharma, were incorporated into the two great mandalas of Tantrism as manifestations of the five great buddhas. In Japan, they merged into a single deity called Dakiniten.

Moreover, one can find instances in Japan where the term is being applied in each of the ways it was used in India and Tibet: demoness, seductress, witch, goddess, wrathful source of power and wisdom, bodhisattva, and enlightened being.

To begin with, the usage of sexual energy on the path is connected to one of the distinguishing features of Tantric Buddhism starting with the Mahāvairocana Sūtra and Tattvasaṃgraha, which the identification of the afflictions (desire, anger and ignorance) with awakening. Although Tibetan Buddhism is more well-known for these kinds of principles, they are by no means alien to Tantric Buddhism in China and Japan. As Yixing's (一行, d.727) commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra states, "Ordinarily, Buddhism teaches you to treat animosity through kindness, attraction through nonattraction, false views through correct views. But now I teach [you] to expel animosity through grater animosity, to treat any attraction through greater attraction..."

61 Bernard Faure, Protectors and Predators: Gods of Medieval Japan, Vol. 2 (University of Hawai'i Press, 2015), p. 118.

62 Bernard Faure, Protectors and Predators, p. 48.

It is also important to mention, here, that a number of authors refer to Buddhist Tantra as the adoption non-Buddhist Indian religious elements, referring to it as the Brahmanization of Buddhism, or even as Buddhist Veda. This is true to a certain extent, as these Tantric texts go out of their way to justify their ritual borrowings. The Mahāvairocana Sūtra states:

O [[[Vajrapāni]],] Lord of the Yakṣas, in time to come there will arise people of inferior understanding and faith who will not believe this teaching. They will dissent and have many doubts. They will hear it but they will not take it to heart and they will refuse to put it into practice. Being themselves unworthy They will bring other to ruin. [For] they will say that this is not the teaching of the Buddhas but belongs to outsiders.

Additionally, the Indian scholar Buddhaguhya argues in his commentary on this passage “that what those who attack this Tantra for containing elements proper to the non- Buddhist Tantras fail to realize is that those Tantras too were taught by the omniscient Buddha.”64 Though this commentary was not translated into Chinese, so the Sino- Japanese Tantric traditions likely did not consult it, their tantras they referred to as "pure esotericism" because of their claim that they lack contamination from non-Buddhist sources actually contained non-Buddhist elements. In the Tattvasaṃgraha “we find the

beginning of a process of assimilation of Śākta Śaiva language, practices, iconography, and concepts…”65 so one finds Śaivite elements in Yoga Tantra as well, though these elements become much more pervasive in later developments of Tantric literature.66 The Tattvasaṃgraha was composed around the time that cults devoted to the siddhas ("accomplished ones," people who gained meditative accomplishments and

63 Sanderson, “The Śaiva Age,” in The Genesis and Development of Tantrism, p. 128.

64 Sanderson, “The Śaiva Age,” p. 131.

65 Sanderson, “The Śaiva Age,” p. 133.

66 Sanderson, Ibid., p. 141: “…and in the next wave of texts, the Yoginītantras, in which the influence of Śākta Śaiva tradition becomes much more intense and pervasive.”

joined divine ranks) became popular, though those movements had a greater influence on subsequent forms of Buddhist Tantric literature. According to White, siddha cults "go back to at least the beginning of the common era; they and their peers the Vidyādharas (wizards) are a standard fixture of Indian fantasy and adventure literature throughout the medieval period."67 The siddhas of the medieval period thought that ordinary people could join the ranks of semi-divine siddhas through "tantric, yogic, and alchemical practice."

White also relates the notion of rasa to these developments in Tantra. Rasa, the fluid element of the universe, was identified as the fount of life since the time of the Vedas, and all fluids—rain, blood, semen, plant resin, etc. were manifestations of rasa. Then, starting with early Tantra, male and female sexual fluids were conceived of as power substances to be used in the worship of (and identified with) the gods and goddesses whose creative energies were portrayed sexually. In the case of non-Buddhist Tantric sects:

The way to becoming a "second Śiva"... was, in early tantrism, realized through the conduit of a horde of wild goddesses (which the tāntrikas identified with their human consorts), generally known as yoginīs. These "bliss-starved" goddesses, attracted by offerings of mingled sexual fluids, would converge into the consciousness of the practitioner to transform him, through their limitless libido, into a god on earth.

Ḍākinīs (also called yoginīs) were essentially witches, and often appeared in folklore to take the life force of unsuspecting men, they also came to be seen as a source of power 67 David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (The

University of Chicago Press, 1997), p.3.

68 White, The Alchemical Body, p.3.

69 White, The Alchemical Body, p.4.

for the Tantric practitioner, who would go to find them in charnel grounds, and either subdue them to his command, or join their ranks. The cult of the yoginīs continued to develop, and as Tantric practice became systematized,

the ritual production, offering, and consumption of sexual fluids were continued, but only within the restricted context of the 'secret practice' of an inner circle of initiates. Outwardly, however, ritual sexuality had undergone a paradigm shift. Sexual fluids were no longer the way to the godhead; rather, it was in the bliss of sexual orgasm that one realizes god-consciousness for oneself.

Part of the doctrines attached to these sects was the notion of the subtle body, with channels and life-force winds that travelled through them, cakras, etc. In time, for some sects, sexual yoga became completely internalized, "an affair between a female serpentine nexus of energy, generally called the kuṇḍalinī, and a male principle, identified with Śiva, both of which were located in the subtle body."71 White relates that "An intricate metaphysics of the subtle body--its relationship to the brute matter of the gross body as well as to the universal divine life force within, the bipolar dynamics of its male and female constituents, etc.--was developed in every tantric school."

In the case of Buddhist Tantra, these elements are found everywhere in Highest Yoga Tantra, and a number of texts describe abhiśeka and subsequent practice in their system as involving the consumption and retention of sexual fluids, and ritual sex. In the case of these tantras and their Indian commentaries, it is difficult to know what was symbolic and what was actually common practice. However, one cannot deny that it was thought that it is very important for a Tantric practitioner to have a sexual consort, and

70 White, Ibid, p.4.

71 White, Ibid., p.4-5.

72 White, The Alchemical Body., p.5.

some even claim that it is impossible to attain enlightenment in one lifetime without one. There is a fair amount of debate surrounding this is Tibetan Buddhism since its institutions are monastic for the most part, and that requires celibacy, yet everyone practices Highest Yoga Tantra.

Although Japan is supposed to have not received sexual practices, the cult of the ḍākinī and devotion to śakti had a wide-reaching influence there. The ḍākinī even shows up in the context of the imperial enthronement ritual. In this initiation, the regent shows the emperor a few mudrās and mantras that he will perform on the way to the throne. A similar ritual is practiced in Shingon and Tendai lineages, and the mantra recited is that of Dakini-ten (荼枳尼天). Mark Teeuwen is struck by this because “According to Shingon

lore, ḍākinī are flesh-eating demons who have the ability to foresee the death of a human being six months in advance, and who then proceed to eat out the victims’ hearts, without killing them.”73 Buddha Vairocana is said to have tamed them, so they must instruct their victims in the ways of Tantric Buddhism until their untimely deaths if they wish to eat their flesh. “The ḍākinī were included in the outer enclosure of the Taizōkai maṇdāla, and were believed to grant unlimited powers to those who successfully invoked them.

Moreover, dakini were in Japan associated with foxes (and, of course, with the kami of foxes, Inari [[[稲荷]]]), perhaps because they were traditionally accompanied by jackals (yakan).”

73 Mark Teeuwen, “The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice,” in Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami. Edited by John Breen and Mark Teeuwen (London: Curzon Press, 2000), p.105.

eeuwen, “The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice,” p.106.

Iyanaga describes the ḍākinī in a negative light. He states that the imperial enthronement ceremony “must be presided by Dakini-ten, the vilest of the gods, because the vilest is the only way through which the emperor in his highest and sacred glory may come into the light.”75 This description is unsurprising, since the equation between Dakini-ten and foxes (or fox spirits) is not a positive one. In Japanese literature, fox spirits are associated with magical trickery, and when they are introduced to the discourse, it is often to discredit a certain religious tradition (i.e., by saying that is just the trickery of fox spirits). They are also associated with the use of sorcery and Tantra for worldly aims:

As an illegitimate religious practice, the rituals of fox-using sorcery have often been associated with esoteric Buddhist rites for worldly success, especially those dedicated to the deity Dakiniten, a figure which.... often appears mounted on a fox. Like the practice of fox-using sorcery itself, the illegitimacy with which these rituals have been characterized appears to be due as much to its association with personal advancement at the expense of others as with the worldly nature of that advancement or the nature of the deities employed.

Dakini-ten was assimilated with the rice god Inari, who rides a fox and has fox messengers, but because of the way Dakini-ten has been popularly perceived, some Inari devotees have tried to distance themselves from her. They would claim that Dakini-ten is an “‘external’ phenomenon, an ‘Indian fox-god’ that has become intertwined with the indigenous cult...”77 Others, however, do not have a negative perception of Dakini-ten. The Sōtō Zen temple Myōgonji in Aichi, which had a long history of Inari worship, for

instance, was going to be forced by the new Meiji government to separate itself from Buddhism if they wanted to continue the worship of their main deity. The head priest was 75 Iyanaga, “Tantrism and Reactionary Ideologies in East Asia,” p. 25.

76 Michael Bathgate, The Fox's Craft in Japanese Religion and Culture: Shapeshifters, Transformations, and Duplicities (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), p.153-154.

77 Bathgate, The Fox's Cult, p.157.

able to retain his temple's Buddhist affiliations as well as its focus of worship by maintaining that the main deity of his temple was actually Dakini-ten.

This ambiguous relationship with Dakini-ten is fairly similar to how ḍākinīs are described in Indian works. As mentioned earlier, they are essentially cannibalistic witches that live in charnel grounds. They appear in earlier Buddhist scriptures, such as in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, “linking them to the nocturnal, flesh-eating rākṣasī of Indic folklore.”79 As the Yoginī-tantras developed, though, these witches started to be conceived of differently, though they still retained their wrathful nature: The compilers Hindu and Buddhist Tantras were doing more than simply

cataloguing witchcraft lore. Rather, they enshrined it at the heart of their practice. Here, we must recall the soteriological function that the tantric yoginīs played for the male tāntric practitioner. The Hindu Tantras frequently evoke the two alternatives faced by males with regard to these beings: while most are doomed to become “food for the yoginīs,” the courageous tantric initiate known as a Virile Hero (vīra) could instead become “darling of the yoginīs.”

Some texts even portray yoginīs as liberating their victims from their karmic burden through consuming their flesh, freeing them, and one finds similar ideas in Tibetan Buddhism, “in which the ravening bird- and animal-headed ḍākinīs play this precise role: by tearing his body apart, they cause the light of gnosis to dawn in the advanced practitioner’s consciousness.”

In Japan, the popular deity Aizen is also said to protect his followers from ḍākinīs, who steal the life force of men. Faure relates that in order to prevent this, Aizen is

78 Bathgate, Ibid., p.158-159.

79 Iyanaga, “Tantrism and Reactionary Ideologies in East Asia,” p.17.

80 David Gordon White, "Ḍākinī, Yoginī, Pairikā, Strik: Adventures in Comparative Demonology," in Southeast Review of Asian Studies Vol. 35 (2013), p.11-12.

81 Bernard Faure, “Japanese Tantra, the Tachikawa-ryū, and Ryōbu Shintō,” in Tantra in Practice, p.12.

pictured holding the "human yellow," a symbol for life. He also punishes those ḍākinīs who break their promise to Mahākāla to only consume the life force of men who are about to die.

In Tibet, the term also came to be applied to enlightened women and the consorts of lamas, though people also differentiate between “wisdom ḍākinī” (ye shes kyi mkha’ ‘gro ma) and “flesh-eating ḍākinī” (sha za mkha’ ’gro ma). The worldly or flesh-eating ḍākinī “closely resembles the ḍākinī in the early Indian tradition,”83 and the wisdom ḍākinī is essentially a female buddha, and either can appear in myriad ways. Sometimes seemingly ordinary women that a practitioner might encounter also thought to be ḍākinīs, and a fair amount of Tibetan Tantric literature is devoted to signs by which one can recognize whether a woman is a wisdom or flesh-eating ḍākinī.

This distinction plays out in the adept Kyungpo Naljor's (khyung po rnal ’byor, 10th/12th century) hagiography, where he leaves to India to meet his gurus, and goes in search of the ḍākinī Niguma in order to receive teachings from her. When he meets her in a charnel ground, she tells him that she is a flesh-eating ḍākinī and that he should run away before they eat him. He offers her a sack full of gold dust, which she throws away; this makes him think that she might actually be a cannibal. She then flies into the sky, manifests a maṇḍala, and gives him initiations. She shows him a giant golden mountain, and he wonders whether it is a real location or a magical emanation from the ḍākinīs. She replies,

When you realize that your many thoughts of anger and desire,

Bernard Faure, The Fluid Pantheon: Gods of Japan, Vol. 1 (University of Hawai'i Press, 2015), p. 194-195. Judith Simmer-Brown, Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism (Boston: Shambhala, 2002), p.63. udith Simmer-Brown, Dakini's Warm Breath, p.54.

Which churn the sea of existence,

Have no intrinsic nature,

Everything becomes a land of gold, my child.

When you meditate that magiclike phenomena Are like a magical illusion,

You will attain magiclike manifest enlightenment; This through the force of devotion!

This seems to play on the concept of śakti as it appears in South Asian religions, associating the divine feminine with illusion, trickery, and spiritual power, and inspires the reader to devotion.

It should be noted, however, that the Indo-Tibetan characterization of ḍākinīs as consorts differs greatly from the Japanese context since "In Japan, ḍākinīs did not, as a rule, become initiators and sexual consorts of Tantric practitioners. Even in Tachikawaryū... they do not seem to have become the main object (honzon) of sexual rites..."

While the way the ḍākinī is described in Japan is not identical to her Tibetan and South Asian contexts, it does seem like the Japanese deity Dakini-ten has both the roles of embodiment of spiritual power, and cannibalistic demoness. Her role as an enlightened source of blessing as can be seen in a PhD dissertation Sarah Fremerman wrote on Nyoirin Kannon (如意輪観音, Skt. Cittāmaṇicakra Avalokiteśvara), a female, Tantric form of Avalokiteśvara that is sometimes equated with Dakini-ten:

…eleventh-century esoteric Buddhist rituals identified Nyorin as the formerly demonic, flesh-eating goddess Dakiniten; later, by the fourteenth century, Dakiniten had become the central deity for the main Shingon imperial ordination ceremony, administerd by Ono monks, which revealed Nyorin to be a form of both Dakiniten and the kami Inari…, who was in turn understood as a 85 Ngawang Zangpo, trans. Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verses of the Shangpa Masters (Boulder: Snow Lion, 2003), p.72.

86 Bernard Faure, Protectors and Predators: Gods of Medieval Japan, Vol. 2 (University of Hawai’i Press, 2015), p. 119.

transformation body of the sun goddess Amaterasu…

One finds that this jewel-holding female deity pops up in a few places in Japanese religious history, often in monks’ dreams: Shinran (親鸞, 1173-1263), for instance, had a dream of a monk holding a jewel, who was implicitly understood to represent this form of Citāmaṇicakra-Avalokiteśvara. The monk “promises that if he, Shinran, must ‘violate women,’ the bodhisattva will take the form of the jewel woman, stay with him for a lifetime, and lead him to the Pure Land.”

As Fremerman relates, Japanese scholarship has long accepted that Shinran's dream connects to a larger, "preexisting tradition of the jewel woman consort,"89 and the Tendai monk Jien (慈円, 1155-1225) and Kegon/Shingon lineage holder Myōe Shōnin (明恵上人, 1173-1232) had dreams about her as well. Kūkai is also said to have carved a sculpture of Nyoirin in the image of a beautiful consort who he taught rites associated with Benzaiten (弁財天, Skt. Sarasvatī) and cittāmaṇi, and became a nun and stayed in mountain retreat. Two subsequent emperors are said to have gone to visit her, which some scholars relate to a popular trope where a "sovereign seeks power from a transgressive female figure."

It is also said that the monk-politician Dōkyō (道鏡, d.722) was able to get the empress Shōtoku (称徳, 718-784) to fall in love with him because he had practiced 87 Sarah Alizah Fremerman, Divine Impersonations: Nyoirin Kannon In Medieval Japan

(Stanford PhD Dissertation, 2008), p.7-8.

88 Fremerman, Divine Impersonations, p.28.

89 Fremerman, Ibid., p.25.

90 Fremerman, Divine Impersonations, p.30.

Nyorin Kannon in a previous life.91 She is associated with child birth, fertility, gaining the love of women, protection from demons and natural disasters, as well as supramundane benefits like visions of deities, and birth in the pure land: By the end of the early years of the Kamakura period, she was in the right place at the right time to make a few wishes come true--wishes for protection from demons, wealth, power, fertility--and perhaps even a few monks' wishes for a beautiful woman who would lead them straight to the Pure Land.

Also of interest here is that Nyorin Kannon became important in the Shintō/Buddhist syncretic mountain ascetic sect of Shugendō (修験道) as well, through being linked with their main deity. 93 This sect took certain kami to be emanations of certain buddhas, and their associated holy sites became pure lands; pilgrimages to these holy sites became a kind of entry into the pure lands, and they incorporated esoteric Buddhist mantras and dhāraṇīs into their practices. Shugendo "emphasizes actual

asceticism in the mountains on the basis of the esoteric doctrine that all persons possess buddhahood and either may realize their identity with buddha or may 'in this very body become buddha.'"94 The themes associated with this sect seem somewhat akin to yogi ascetics in India who lived in charnel grounds (except in Japan it would be in the mountains), and like the yogis in Tibet who seek to do religious practice in sacred locations.

However, while the presence of enlightened, wrathful, female Tantric deities, devotion to the female, utilization of sex for enlightenment, and so on are all

91 Fremerman, Ibid., p.32-33.

92 Ibid., p.49.

93 Ibid., p.51.

94 Bryon Earhart, "Shugendō, En No Gyūja and Mikkyo Influence," in Tantric Buddhism in East Asia, edited by Richard K. Payne (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2006), p.194.

characteristics of Highest Yoga Tantra, they do not necessarily indicate the presence of the actual tantras themselves. Although the Yoginī-tantras are known for their sexual imagery, sexual imagery and ritual is present in earlier versions of Tantra as well, though it may not be as prevalent. “In many texts, such as the Amoghaparāja-sūtra…, there is a close relationship between sex and magic, almost as if the accomplishment of siddhi

hinges on it…”95 The Tattvasaṃgraha also “contains many elements not seen in earlier Buddhist tantras and also… several elements characteristic of later Buddhist tantras, such as practices involving violence and sex, …already found here in embryonic form.”96 In fact, the Tattvasaṃgraha actually “represents one of the earliest explicit descriptions of such rites involving sacramental sex.”97 One should also keep in mind, though, that this element of Tantric thought is not obviously apparent in Japanese religion, for the most part, because

it is not mentioned in the treatments of the principal Maṇḍalas taught in the text and it was therefore easily pushed out of view when this text was propagated in China and thence in Japan. It is present nonetheless as an esoteric teaching reiterated many times throughout the text in the form of passages teaching that the pleasure of sexual union and indeed other sensual delights are a means both of worshipping the Buddha and of attaining Siddhis when combined with meditation on one’s Buddha nature.

Additionally, even though these sexual elements were in the Tattvasaṃgraha, It is not until later tantric developments… that sexual rites are combined with practices involving the yogic body, such as the manipulation of subtle energies through the channels in which they flow, psychological yogic centers (cakras) visualized in the body’s interior, and so forth.

95 Henrik H. Sørensen, “Esoteric Buddhism and Magic in China,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, p.202.

96 Weinberger, The Significance of Yoga Tantra and the Compendium of Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha Tantra) within Tantic Buddhism in India and Tibet, p.4.

97 Weinberger, Ibid., p.199.

98 Orzech., p.140.

99 Weinberger, Ibid., p.200.

The key difference, then, between the Yoginī-tantra practices followed in Tibet, and the Yoga Tantra lineages of Japan, is the presence or absence of teachings concerning the yogic body, and practices concerning the cakras and so on, rather than the presence of sexual practices themselves.

This might also be complicated by the Daoist influence on esoteric Buddhism in East Asia since Daoism has its own system concerning the subtle body and inner alchemical exercises, and in The Alchemical Body, White claims that it may have influenced the development of Indian Tantric yogas.100 A few authors mention that the heretical Japanese sect of Tachikawa-ryū received some of its teachings through Daoism, and others remark on its similarities to Tibetan Buddhism. As Faure relates in The Red Thread:

The sexual elements play a central role in Tibetan Vajrayāna, whereas they have been marginalized in Chinese and Japanese Vajrayana. They did not disappear, however, and were even canonized, becoming an integral part, although often in symbolic guise, of Sino-Japanese Buddhism... In Japan, the sexual features resurfaced in the "heretical" teaching of Tachikawa-ryū, a branch of Shingon that became quite popular during the Kamakura period.

Systematic studies that analyze its doctrine in comparison to Tibetan Buddhism are few and far between, however, and it is said to have been eliminated in Japan.

100 White, The Alchemical Body, p. 63: A yogic technique of apparent Chinese origin, called huan-ching or "making the Yellow River flow backwards," identified with either the practice of urethral suction or that of internally raising semen along the spinal column, would first make its appearance in Indian Mahāyāna sources and later reappear as an erotico-yogic technique of the Nāth Siddhas [[[yogis]] devoted to Śiva]. Indeed, Indian tantra first appeared at points of contact with Taoist China... So it was that when Indian tantrism was first introduced into China in the eighth century by the Buddhist monks Śubhākarasiṁha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra, a certain number of its techniques were merely "returning" to their country of origin from which they had been exported a few centuries earlier.

101 Faure, The Red Thread, p.49.

What Teeuwen finds so striking about the aforementioned imperial enthronement ritual associated with Dakini-ten, and its sexual connotations, however, is that its mantra expresses "the union of the Kongōkai and Tazōkai mandalas..."102 Because this ritual essentially expresses the union between masculine and feminine principles, "this interpretation was not limited heterodox Tachikawa sect; it was very much part of mainstream esoteric thought in both Shingon and Tendai lineages."103 This is an important point to make because one might assume that since the Tachikawa sect was eliminated in Japan, teachings associated with the principle of the ḍākinī and her power, and the union of masculine and feminine principles did not become very widespread, but this shows that not to be the case.

Part 3: A Brief Comparison Between Japanese and Tibetan Tantric Philosophies and Practices

Given some of the similarities Japanese Tantric Buddhism bears to Tibetan Buddhism due to their mutual Śaivite influence in the form of śakti worship and the royal symbolism of abhiśeka, then, one may wonder whether the practices performed in Japanese Tantric institutions, and their associated philosophical perspectives, are similar to that of Tibetan Buddhism. This section of the paper will now show, however, that

Japan is (for the most part, at least) straightforwardly Yoga Tantra in its practices and outlook. One does not find any more Highest Yoga Tantra elements in mainstream Japanese exegesis than one does in the Yoga Tantras themselves. Moreover, there are

102 Teeuwen, "The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice," p.106.

103 Teeuwen, Ibid.,p.106.

also some differences in their perspectives that stem from the different contexts surrounding the development of East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophical schools. Despite these differences, though, if one looks back on the main points of Tantric philosophy as explained in Japan and Tibet, their core remains similar enough that their philosophies can be studied alongside each other, just as one can study commentaries from multiple Tibetan schools to understand their unique positions.

The description of a couple Shingon practices, as presented in Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, accords with the 14th Dalai Lama's description of deity yoga according to Yoga Tantra. The Dalai Lama relates that for the practice of a single deity in Yoga Tantra according to the Vajraśkhara Tantra, one prepares with four types of bathing: external, internal, secret and suchness. “Then, having performed self-protection again as well as place-protection, you invite the deity, who is the basis of accumulating merit, in front of yourself.”104 In Shingon, likewise, the practitioner purifies himself,

unites his body, speech and mind with the body, speech and mind of the deity, and then the practitioner blesses the offerings he or she will give to the deity, and “purifies the area surrounding his ‘house,’ and fixes the place where the honored guest is to be received. This, called the realm-establishing technique (kekkai-ho), marks off the boundaries of the place of meditation.”105 The practitioner also blesses and physically and mentally prepares the altar, for this type of practice is performed in front of a physical shrine. Then, the practitioner makes offerings and pays homage.

Then, the Dalai Lama instructs,

104 Weinberger, The Significance of Yoga Tantra, p. 35.

105 Taikō Yamasaki, Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, translated and adapted by Yasuyoshi Morimoto and David Kidd (Boston: Shambhala, 1988), p. 162.

You pay obeisance from each of the four directions, disclose ill-deeds, admire the merit of all beings, entreat the deity to turn the wheel of doctrine, supplicate the deity not to pass into nirvāṇa, make worship of the twenty types, dedicate the virtue of these practices to the welfare of all beings, generate an altruistic intention to become enlightened, take refuge, assume the Bodhisattva vows, and so forth.

Eventually, one is unified with the deity one is supplicating, and in Shingon, this is called, “self entering the Buddha and the Buddha entering the self.” “Various techniques are employed to bring about the experience of oneness with the deity in body, speech and mind. This section is the heart of the entire practice.”107 The Dalai Lama relates that at this stage in the practice, one begins by meditating on emptiness, and that this is

equivalent to a Highest Yoga Tantra practice called “bringing death to the path,” which involves recognition of the dharmakāya. Subsequent to meditating on emptiness, “you meditate on two moon discs [, the seed syllable, and generate the deity.] You cause the wisdom-being—the actual deity similar to whom you have imagined yourself—to enter the pledge-being, that is, yourself visualized as the deity.”108 Part of the point in doing this is to generate the deity as an empty appearance, real from the perspective of mere appearance, but unreal from the ultimate perspective.

Similarly, at another point, Shingon relates that Esoteric practice, based on the identity of the absolute (which is formless and ungraspable) with the phenomenal (which as form and is perceptible), reveals how the individual is at once an integral, functioning part of the universe and also void—that is, without permanent self-existence. Mikkyo seeks a spontaneous understanding of universal truth by using concrete phenomena to unlock the mind’s creative powers.”

106 Weinberger, The Significance of Yoga Tantra, p.35.

107 Yamasaki, Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, p.163.

108 Weinberger, The Significance of Yoga Tantra, p. 35-36.

109 Yamasaki, Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, p.110.

The way one does this through Shingon practices is through uniting oneself with the deity's body, speech, and mind, a nature which pervades all of reality. Myōe also relates in his instructions on the recitation of the “mantra of light” that one should do one's recitations without clinging to the four extremes of existence, nonexistence, both or neither.

According to Tsongkhapa (tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa, 1357-1419), There are frequent descriptions in Yoga Tantra of causing the wisdom being [that is, the actual deity] to enter into yourself generated as a deity and of sealimpression by way of the four seals. These are methods of attaining the four seals

of the fruit [[[state]] as a Buddha] through transforming the four—body, speech, mind, and activities—into divine body, speech mind, and activities, and thereby purifying ordinary body, speech, mind, and activities...111 This concept is present in the Highest Yoga Tantras as well. As stated in a commentary on the Sarvabuddhasaṃayoga Tantra:

The statement, “My identity is all buddhas, and I am all heroes” means that the identity of the mind's clarity is the identity of all buddhas and all heroic sattvas. The statement, “Therefore, by uniting the Self with a deity...” means that by uniting with the nature of a deity which is of one taste with illusion and the empty, one should unite with the nature of the Self-deity. For that reason, in this very life, the five aggregates will be accomplished as all buddhas, all heroic sattvas, and all saṃbhogakāya vajra holders.112

110 Mark Unno, Shingon Refractions: Myōe and the Mantra of Light (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004), p.78-79.

111 H.H. the Dalai Lama, Dzong-ka-ba, and Jeffrey Hopkins, Yoga Tantra: Paths to Magical Feats, edited by Kevin A. Vose and Steven N. Weinberger (Boulder: Snow Lion Publications, 2005), p.75.

112 Rab dga' rdo rje, "Sangs rgyas thams cad dang mnyam par sbyor ba mkha' 'gro ma sgyu ma bde mchog gi 'grel pa mnyam sbyor gyi rgyan," In Bstan 'gyur (dpe bsdur ma). TBRC W1PD95844 (Pe cin: krung go'i bod rig pa'i dpe skrun khang, 1994-2008), p.1881: bdag nyid sangs rgyas thams cad dang/ /dpa' bo thams cad bdag yin no/ /zhes pa sems 'od gsal gyi bdag nyid sangs rgyas thams cad dpa' bo sems dpa' thams cad kyi bdag nyid yin no/ /de bas bdag nyid lhar sbyor bas/ /zhes pas sgyu ma dang stong pa ro gcig pa'i lha'i rang bzhin du sbyor bas bdag nyid lha'i rang bzhin du sbyor bar bya'o/ /rgyu mtshan des na phung po lnga sangs rgyas thams cad dang dpa' bo rnams sems dpa' thams cad dang/ /longs sku rdo rje 'dzin pa thams cad du tshe 'di nyid la 'grub par 'gyur ro/

When one is visualizing oneself as a deity, then, one is uniting oneself with its nature of clarity-emptiness, which enables one to accomplish one's aggregates as all buddhas. This hearkens back to how abiṣeka is related to the luminous nature of mind in the Tattvasaṃgraha, as related in the first section of this paper—recognizing that luminous nature meant being empowered by myriad buddhas, and realizing one’s sameness of identity with them.

Kūkai’s philosophy, as recorded in his Meaning of Hūṃ, accords with this: Mahāvairocana Buddha is the sole great Self of selfless existences. While the Tathagata of the King of Mind exists as such, how can his innumerable attributes [[[existences]]] be outside of the Body of this great Self, just as the functions of our mind cannot be independent of our mind? Such is the ultimate meaning of the letter M in terms of affirmation of [the great Self].

The logic he attaches to this reflects his background in the Kegon (Hua Yen, 華嚴) tradition, where he mentions the concept of the interpenetration of one and many: ...Among all sentient and nonsentient beings, there is none outside of what the letter stands for. Indeed, the great Self is one, yet can be many. It is small, yet contains that which is large. Thus, interpretation of many in one and one in many is the ultimate meaning of the letter M.

This, for the most part, reflects how many Tibetan commentaries would treat the issue of the language of Self in the tantras, though unlike him, they do not base any of their views on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra or the Huayen school. The letter stands of the Self, which is the fundamental identity of everything, which is Mahāvairocana (or whichever deity one is meditating on), and which is buddha-nature or the nature of one’s mind. Dolpopa (dol po pa, 1292-1361), in his Mountain Doctrine (ris chos), quotes the

113 Kūkai, "The Meaning of the Word Hūṃ," in Major Works of Kūkai, p. 257.

114 Kūkai, "The Meaning of the Word Hūṃ," p. 258.

Mahāparinirvāṇa-sutra as saying, “‘Self’ means the matrix-of-one-gone-thus.”

Seeming to echo the aforementioned concept from the Tattvasaṃgraha where Śākyamuni attained enlightenment through being empowered by a series of buddhas in order to realize his oneness of nature with him, the Anāvilatantrarāja states: “The self that is the composite of all buddhas / You will quickly be blessed into magnificence. / The self that is the composite of all buddhas, / The self containing all buddhas.”

Kūkai's view is actually similar to some Tibetan authors, particularly Kagyu, Nyingma and Jonang scholars of the zhentong (gzhan stong, extrinsic emptiness) persuasion. Kūkai states:

The raging flames of negation of the Mādhyamika of Mahayana may reduce to ashes, with nothing remaining, the dust of attachment to the belief in a permanent ego in man and in permanent existence in things; but the Three Mysteries [the body, speech and mind of sentient beings and buddhas being undifferentiated] are not thereby decreased. They are like a fabric made from the fur of a certain rat that lives in fire—they become pure as they burn, just as the fabric is cleansed of its dirt as it burns. Such is the ultimate meaning of the letter Ū.

This is startlingly similar to the perspective contained in Nāgārjuna’s Praise to Dharmadhātu, often cited by those who hold the third dharmacakra’s teachings on buddha-nature to be definitive, as opposed to the second dharmacakra’s teachings on emptiness:

115 Dol-Bo-Ba Shay-Rap-Gyel-Tsen, Mountain Doctrine: Tibet's Fundamental Treatise on Other- Emptiness and the Buddha-Matrix, translated and introduced by Jeffrey Hopkins (Boulder: Snow Lion Publications, 2006) p.53.

116 Dol-Bo-Ba Shay-Rap-Gyel-Tsen, Ibid., p.126.

117 Klaus-Dieter Mathes, A Direct Path to the Buddha Within: Go Lotsawa's Mahamudra Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008), p. 45: "The Jonang tradition of zhentong Madhyamaka asserts a truly existing ultimate that is endowed with all buddha qualities and thus not 'empty of an own-being' (rang stong), but 'empty of other' (gzhan stong) nonexisting adventitious stains. The validity of the common Madhyamaka assertion that 'all phenomena are empty of an own-being' is thus restricted to the level of apparent truth." 118 Kūkai, “The Meaning of the Letter Ū,” in Kūkai and His Major Works, translated by Yoshito

S. Hakeda (Columbia University Press, 1972), p. 251.

A garment that was purged by fire

May be soiled by various stains.

When it's put into a blaze again,

The stains are burned, the garment not.

Likewise, mind that is so luminous

Is soiled by stains of craving and so forth.

The afflictions burn in wisdom's fire,

But its luminosity does not.

The meaning of these two verses is that the afflictions (Skt. kleśa) and stains (Tib. sgrib) that arise due to incorrect mental activity (Tib. tshul bzhin ma yin pa'i rnam rtog) are burned away by the wisdom that recognizes selflessness (bdag med rtogs pa'i shes rab). However, the basic nature of the mind, it's underlying lucidity, is unaffected by this. As

Nāgārjuna120 goes onto say,
The sūtras that teach emptiness,
However many spoken by the victors,
They all remove afflictions,
But never ruin this dhātu.121
Similarly, Kūkai states:

The Nature of Suchness equally pervades all beings.
For those whose ways of thinking are narrower and inferior,
A provisional teaching, a guide for beginners has been set.
Yet those deluded students of [Mādyamika] do not know this.
By swinging the sharp halberd of negation of provisional means,
They are about to destroy that true Buddhahood.

We may call this a loss and decline,

Yet the eternally omnipresent original Buddha
Is not thereby to be lost or to wane.

Thus should be known the ultimate meaning of the letter Ū.122

119 Karl Brunnhölzl, In Praise of Dharmadhatu, p. 231.

120 The author of the Praise to Dharmadhātu and a set of other praises, is said to be Nāgārjuna, as
is some commentaries on tantra. According to tradition, he attained immortality due to his skill in
alchemy, which is why he could write treatises over nearly a millennium.

121 Brunnhölzl, In Praise of Dharmadhatu, p. 232.

122 Kūkai, "The meaning of HŪṂ," p. 255.

Here, he explicitly relegates Madhyamaka to “provisional” teachings for beginners, for they try to negate buddhahood, though they are not actually able to affect the originally present Buddha. This sentiment is shared by a number of Tibetan authors who hold the third dharmacakra to be definitive in meaning. The Seventh Karmapa, Chodrag Gyatso (chos grags rgya mtsho, 1478-1523), for instance, claims that if buddha-nature (lit., minditself, sems nyid) was something posited by the conceptual mind (blo), it could be affected by Madhyamaka arguments like “not being one or many.” However, it is not,123 and since nothing can destroy it, it is called the vajra of mind.

Other parallels can be seen between some of Kūkai's positions and those found in Tibet, as can be seen in another passage from “The Meaning of HŪṂ:”

Resulting from the correct causes of aeons’ discipline

Are the Sambhogakaya Buddhas enjoying bliss,

Adorned with myriads of excellent virtues,

Whose Fourfold Wisdom is perfectly realized.

Yet they continue to be subject of the law of causality,

For indeed they are not immutable.

123 Karma pa bdun pa Chos grags rgya mtsho, “Mngon sum gyi le'u,” p. 355: gzung ’dzin gnyis kyi stong gzhir gyur pa’i sems nyid ’di ni blos bzhag pa’i chos ma yin pas/ gcig du bral la sogs pa’i gtan tshigs rnams kyis mi phyed cing gzhig par mi nus pa yin te/ gang gi phyir blos bzhag pa’i chos shig yin na ni gtan tshigs la sogs pa’i rigs pas gzhig par nus pa yin gyi/ ’di blos bzhag pa ma yin pa/ thog pa med pa/ rgyar ma chad pa/ phyogs su ma lhung ba dper bya ba kun las ’das pa rang bzhin gyi lhun gyis grub par gnas pa’i don yin pa’i phyir/

Burchardi, “The Role of Rang Rig in the Pramāṇa-Based Gzhan Stong of the Seventh Karma pa,” p. 335: “...mind being the ground empty of the duality of perceived and perceiver is not a phenomenon that can be intellectually established. It cannot be divided or destroyed by the syllogisms of being free from one or many, etc., because, if it was a phenomenon that could be intellectually established, it would be possible to destroy it through the logic of syllogisms, etc. But it is not intellectually established; it is beginningless, uninterrupted, and it does not fall into any extreme, because it is a naturally spontaneous actuality which transcends examples.”

124 Karma pa bdun pa Chos grags rgya mtsho, “Mngon sum gyi le’u,” p. 355: gang gis kyang gzhig par mi nus pas ’di nyid la sems kyi rdo rje zhes kyang bya/

It is the iron law preached by the Buddha, That what is produced by causes has its end in time. The sword of imperfect knowledge [of Yogācāra] May kill or injure [the original Buddhahood]. Be that as it may, the intrinsic Three Mysteries in us Are like the sun which shines gloriously in the sky. The Fourfold Wisdom in us, boundless like space, Is like gold buried under the ground. A violent wind blowing the clouds away cannot create the sun, Nor can a sharp hoe produce gold if it is not there. Thus should be known the ultimate meaning of Ū.

As stated in the above passage, the qualities of the sambhogakāya or enjoyment body are produced by the bodhisattva’s eons of accumulations of merit before he or she becomes a buddha. Numerous Madhyamaka and Yogācāra texts hold this position, and it is present in the Ratnagotavibhaga and Tibetan commentaries. Dolpopa holds a similar position when he writes Sūtrayāna commentaries. From the perspective of Tantra, though, he writes that there is a real set of the three kāyas that should be differentiated from the three that seem to appear due to causes and conditions and are thus unreal.125 This may be analogous to the above statement that the three mysteries and four-fold wisdom are within us primordially, and are unaffected by conditions.

The Third Karmapa, Ranjung Dorje (rang byung rdo rje, 1284-1339) also holds that although the form kāyas (the sambhogakāya and nirmāṇakāya) seem to be produced by the accumulation of merit, they only seem to be so from the perspective of purification of what obscured them. The qualities of buddhahood naturally unfold once those obscurations were purified due to the two accumulations of merit and wisdom.126 The way they exist primordially in the body/mind of sentient beings is as the “vajra body” and

125 Mathes, A Direct Path to the Buddha Within, p. 78.

126 Mathes, Ibid., p. 52.

“vajra speech,” known as nāḍīs and prāṇa of the subtle body taught in treatises on yogic techniques.

Kūkai’s position, then, can be discussed alongside Tibetan concerns about the subtle nature of the body, speech and mind of sentient beings, how they are not different from the buddha, and whether the qualities of the sambhogakāya are spontaneously present or are they the result of causes and conditions. According to Kūkai, though the saṃbhogakāya is produced, nevertheless, the three secrets (i.e., the body, speech and mind of Buddha Mahāvairocana) pervade the nature of our own body, speech and mind. This seems roughly analogous to the Third Karmapa's position. He is also of course

similar to Dolpopa, or indeed any thinker who emphasizes the third dharmachakra. He compares the fourfold gnosis (wisdom) of the buddhas, which exists within all beings, to space, gold buried under the ground, and the sun. These are all common analogies of buddha-nature found in nearly any Indo-Tibetan text on the subject.

Similarly to Dolpopa, who takes the fourfold qualities of eternity, bliss, self and permanence to be literally true, Kūkai takes the qualities of buddha-nature to be untouched by conditioned reality:

All existences in samsara are characterized by the following six states of being: 1) subject to sorrow, empty, transient, and without a permanent self; 2) undergoing foufold change; 3) lacking freedom; 4) not abiding in their nature; 5) arising in dependence; 6) relative. They are therefore spoken of as being in the state of wanting (ūna). The ultimate meaning of the letter Ū, however, have nothing to do with these six states… Eternity, Bliss, the Self, and Purity are the ultimate meaning of the letter Ū, for it stands for that which knows no decrease [the Dharmakaya Mahāvairocana]; immutability in oneness of Suchness is the ultimate meaning of Ū…128

127 Ibid., p. 72.

128 Kūkai, "The meaning of HŪṂ," p. 252.

What makes this similar to Dolpopa's philosophy is that samsaric existence is relative, and characterized by those changeable, suffering states, while ultimate reality is presented as being beyond that--eternity, bliss, the self, and purity.129 One reason for their common perspective may be that they claim that Tantra has a higher philosophy than Sūtra. In that respect, he is similar to many scholars of the Nyingma school, though many of them take exception to the qualities of eternity, self, bliss and purity.

In any case, as one can see, there are a number of elements in common between Japanese and Tibetan Tantric philosophers. However, mainstream Shingon practice does not contain the distinguishing characteristics of the daily practices of Highest Yoga Tantra. As Tsonghkapa describes them,

Cultivation of deity yoga in the pattern of stages of production of [a life] in cyclic existence [mimicking the process of death, intermediate state, and rebirth]--the thoroughly afflicted class [of phenomena]--is not set forth in any reliable text of the three lower tantra sets; consequently, such is a distinguishing feature of Highest Yoga Tantra.

These steps are briefly explained in a text on the view of mantra by Jamgön Kongtrül (byams mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha' yas, 1813-1899/1900): the initial recollection of emptiness purifies the intermediate state between death and rebirth, and meditating on the “seed syllable” (the syllable that becomes the deity) and the lotus, sun and moon that the deity will sit on purifies the occasion when the consciousness enters a new life. “The transformation into implements and again the meditation on the seed syllables purifies the 129 Dolpopa, "Mountain Doctrine: Tibet's Fundamental Treatise on Other-Emptiness and the Buddha Matrix," translation by Jeffrey Hopkins (Ithaca and Boulder: Snow Lion, 2006), p.34: "thusness--the pervasive, omnipresent, partless, pristine wisdom free from singular and plural moments--is posited as permanent, stable, everlasting, eternal, and immutable, and all phenomena that are not beyond momentariness are posited as having the attributes of impermanence, instability, non-everlastingness, and mutability."

130 Weinberger, The Significance of Yoga Tantra, p.76. 51 fetal stages of round, oval, oblong and so on...”131 Still, although the practices of Yoga Tantra performed in Japan are not explained in this fashion, one can see many of these same steps: one recollects the illusory nature of reality, mediates on the seed syllable, the lotus disc, the implements that represent the deity, and so on, so one may wonder whether they may thought to be causally efficacious

in this same fashion. Additionally, a commentary by the Shingon/Kegon patriarch Myōe describes these four types of birth and states, “[One attains] the realm of buddhas and bodhisattvas by abandoning this [temporary abode] and manifesting the original nature of mind. One leaves behind the four types of birth, and with this as the causal stage, one attains wisdom and awakening.”132 What is perhaps most alarming for a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, though, is that none of the Shingon practices represented in Shingon Refractions, or Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism have a clear "completion stage" (rdzogs rim) where one dissolves the deity into emptiness and rests in an uncontrived state of natural awareness or meditation on emptiness towards the end of the practice. Instead, one simply sends the deities back where they came from and dedicates the merit. The completion stage is ubiquitous to nearly all Tibetan Tantric practices. Jamgon Kongtrul's ('jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha' yas, 1813–1899) Creation and Completion, explains the necessity of both stages: “One meditates on the development stage in order to counteract impure, 131 Jamgon Kongtrul, Creation and Completion: Essential Points of Tantric Meditation, translated by Sarah Harding (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2002), p.45.

132 Unno, Shingon Refractions, p.175.

ordinary confused appearances. Completion stage is important for counteracting attachment and clinging to the reality of the sublime deity in that very creation stage.”133 Not only are the physical and breathing yogas, the channels and cakras of the subtle body, and ways in which one counteracts the four types of birth, etc. not as clearly delineated or systematized in Japanese Tantric Buddhism, then, but the stage of

dissolving the visualization and resting in emptiness at the end of the practice (perhaps the most commonly practiced aspect of the “completion stage”) is absent as well. What one can understand from this, then, is that all aspects of the completion stage, from its most secret yogas concerning the subtle body to the dissolution stage contained in nearly all daily practices, are what are unique to Highest Yoga Tantra.

Even a surviving description of ritual of the heretical Tachikawa sect does not actually seem to contain essential Highest Yoga Tantra elements, though the practice does involve the use of a skull, and they equate sexual bliss with Kūkai's doctrine of buddhahood in this body (sokushin jōbutsu 即⾝成仏).134 Granted, this account does not contain any liturgy, and it was written by someone who thought it evil, so one has to take it with a grain of salt.

Still, interesting comparative work can be pursued in how they differ with regards to the core concepts they hold in common. Implications were drawn from the allpervading nature of Buddha Vairocana in East Asian Buddhist philosophy that would 133 Sdom bu pa pad+ma rnam rgyal, Bskyed rdzogs gnad bsdus 'grel ba nor bu'i snang ba, (Pullahari Monastery: Rigpe Dorje Publications, 2008), pp. 75-76 ma dag pa tha mal gyi 'khrul snang bzlog pa la bskyed rim sgom pa ste/ bskyed rim de nyid la gya nom lhar 'dzin bden zhen bzlog pa la rdzogs rim gtso che'o/

134 James H. Staford, “The Abominable Skull Ritual,” in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol.46, No.1 (Spring, 1991), p. 3.

never be accepted in Tibetan Buddhism, for instance. An already present idea that plants can become buddhas135 in East Asia was “strengthened by esoteric ideas on the all pervasiveness of the Buddha Mahāvairocana...”136 Later, “Tantric conceptions of the inanimates exercised an enormous influence in Japan...”137 Shingon and Tendai “both agree that nonsentients (nature, the environment, and inanimate objects) are endowed with buddha-nature. They either become buddhas or are already in a buddha-like state,

and as such, they can exert a salvific influence over sentient beings.”138 The logic behind this is that the dharmakāya, for Shingon, “is constituted by the six elements that compose the universe: earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness.”139 Material objects are not just things... but “a full-fledged mandala--that is, as the Buddha-body in one of its manifold occurrences.”140 As Kūkai states, “In Exoteric Buddhist teachings, the four great elements [[[earth]], water, fire, and wind] are considered to be nonsentient beings, but in Esoteric Buddhist teaching they are regarded as the samaya-body of the Tathagata.”141 Although no Tibetan scholar would assert that plants have consciousness or

buddha-nature since it is so widely held to be a doctrinally unsupported position in their traditions,142 a correlation to the perspective above can be seen in Ju Mipham's ('ju mi pham, 1846-1912) commentary on the Guhyagarbha-tantra:

135 This is as seen, for instance, in the position of Huiyuan (523-592), who claimed that nonsentient things have buddha-nature, even though they do not have a mind, and Jizang (549- 623) argued that if trees can preach the Dharma as taught in the Lotus Sūtra, then surely they have buddha-nature (Fabio Rambelli, Buddhist Materiality: A Cultural History of Objects in Japanese Buddhism (Stanford University Press, 2007), p.15).

136 Rambelli, Buddhist Materiality, p. 12.

137 Rabelli, Ibid., p. 17.

138 Ibid., p.18.

139 Ibid., p.19.

140 Rambelli, Buddhist Materiality, p.20.

141 Kūkai, “Attaining Enlightenment in This Very Existence,” in Major Works of Kūkai, p.229. 142 In Tibet, they follow the Indian Buddhist commentarial tradition in holding that plants having consciousness is a Jain perspective that is to be refuted.

...since all phenomena are of the same character within the expanse of the equality of appearance and emptiness, they are pure in being the essence of the main deity within the maṇḍala of the one with the body of vajra wisdom. Alternatively, since body, speech, and mind are the three vajras in nature, they are pure in being the three buddha families, while the five aggregates are pure as the five buddha families....

Reality is nothing whatsoever, yet from it, anything can rise. Due to this key point, its self-display manifests impartially and without limitation as the display of the magical net.

However, Tibetan literature does not speak, as Shingon texts do, of the sound of the wind as being a secret teaching, or of the idea that when a cherry blossom tree is moved by the wind, it is performing a mudrā.144 What one comes across instead is the understanding that all appearances share the same nature as the deity meditated upon, and all sounds are the mantra, which is something one meditates upon in order to extend one's practice session into everyday life. This is as seen in a short commentary on an Avalokiteśvara practice:

When one arises out of meditative equipoise..., all things that are the appearances of duality are the pure body of the Noble One, all voices and sounds of animate and inanimate things are the pure speech of the Noble One, the melody of the six syllables, and all thoughts are the pure mind of the Noble One, [which is the] settling into equipoise in the innate, natural state of empty awareness.

Another interesting future study of comparative Japanese and Tibetan philosophy could also concern a comparison of the Tibetans' use of the Ratnagotravibhāga, and Shingon use of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. Kūkai explains the stage of Hua-yen in terms of exoteric and esoteric teachings, and it straddles the divide between sutra/tantra or exoteric/esoteric in his system. This may be analogous to how the Ratnagotravibhāga is 143 Jamgon Mipham, Luminous Essence: A Guide to the Guhyagarbha Tantra. Translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee (New York: Snow Lion, 2009), p. 53.

144 Descriptions like this are seen in Rambelli's Buddhist Materiality. 145 Sangs rgyas nyen pa, 'Gro don mkha' khyab ma'i zin bri nyung bsdus 'phags pa'i byin 'bebs. (Karma Lekshe Ling Institute,

http://www.dharmadownload.net/pages/english/Texts/texts_0009.htm)

said to be the bridge between Sūtra and Mantra (i.e., Tantra) by Tibetan authors of the Kagyu school, such as Jamgon Kongtrul.

What one can see from all of this is that Japanese and Tibetan Tantra are both Tantric systems, and that they have a common ground or root of general Tantric philosophical theory, and a culture of śakti worship that influenced Japanese as well as Tibetan Buddhism. Part 1 of this thesis showed that despite the fact that Japanese Buddhists refer to their Tantric teachings as “mikkyō” rather than “Tantra,” there is no fault in using that word to describe them. They are self-consciously practitioners of the Mantrayāna, a superior vehicle to mainstream (i.e., exoteric) practice, and Japanese and Tibetan Tantric lineages agree with each other on some of the basic notions concerning what Tantra is.

In Part 2, it was shown that Tibet and Japan also share the importance of royal imagery and the symbolism of Tantric practice as it is used by the state. It was then shown that, although some sectarian Shingon scholars assert otherwise, Japanese Buddhism was influenced by Śaivism and śakti worship just as Tibet was. In particular, the worship of the ḍākiṇī was of central importance to the development of the Yoginītantras in India, and Japan has all the main variations of the concept of the ḍākiṇī that Tibet does: that of a cannibalistic demoness, protector deity, wise bodhisattva that is a source of blessing and inspiration, and buddha. This seems to suggest a possibility that one might find some kind of practice esoteric practice based on the Yoginī-tantras in Japan.

In Part 3, however, one finds out that Japanese Tantra is straightforwardly Yoga Tantra, a type of practice that is “lower” from the perspective of Highest Yoga Tantra

because one does not dissolve the deity at the end of the practice session; it also does not contain detailed teachings on the yogic body. Even Japan’s most risqué practice, the “skull ritual” of Tachikawa-ryū that some authors point to as an influence from Highest Yoga Tantra, does not actually contain these essential elements of Highest Yoga Tantric practice.

Still, Yoga Tantra and Highest Yoga Tantra are not so different from each other that Tibetan Tantric Buddhism and Japanese Tantric Buddhism must be considered entirely different religious traditions. They are closely related enough that comparing them illuminates interesting differences regarding their philosophy, intellectual history, what texts they value from the exoteric traditions, and so on. Like several Tibetan thinkers, Kūkai considers the third dharmacakra’s teaching on buddha-nature to be

definitive in meaning, and he also considers Tantra to have a higher view than Sūtra. Kūkai draws on the philosophy of Huayen, however, which undoubtedly leads differences between his philosophical perspective and those in Tibet. The notion that plants can have buddha-nature also had a large impact in East Asia, and in particular, both Shingon and Tendai accepted it. In Tibet, however, such an idea would be completely unacceptable even though in East Asia, it is the all-pervasive nature of Mahāvairocana (something Tibetan philosophers would accept) that allows for this kind

of interpretation. There are also countless other differences between Japanese and Tibetan Tantra that were unexplored here, undoubtedly waiting just below the surface, since they developed over the course of a millennia in isolation from each other, in different cultures. What should be apparent from this thesis, though, is that these differences can be studied, and they may even lead to new insights about each tradition since they are

members of the same family tree of Tantric texts and practices—they may be different from each other as branches, but they have the same trunk and roots of general Tantric theory and śakti worship.

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[[Category:]Vajrayana]