1 Introduction: Did the Silk Road(s) Reach Early or Medieval Japan?¹

Beyond the marvelous cache of textiles, manuscripts, and other ritual paraphernalia from China, Korea, and Central Asia that testify to the cosmopolitan eye-opening ceremony held in 752 for the large image of Mahāvairocana Buddha in Great East Temple (Jap. Tōdai ji 東大寺) that were preserved in the Shōsōin (正倉院) in Nara (奈良), Japan, does sufficient material culture from the Silk Road(s) exist in Japan to substantiate the claim that the easternmost terminus was either Nara or Kyoto (京都)? Copious, sometimes much later records document how, during the 9th century, Enchin (814–891, 円珍, Chishō daishi 智証大師), among eight other famous pilgrims and envoys from Japan, visited and studied at the Green Dragon Temple (Chin. Qinglong si 青龍寺) in Tang (618–907, 唐) Chang’an (長安, modern Xi’an 西安) and received from Chinese or Central Asian teachers Esoteric Buddhist (Chin. mijiao, Jap. mikkyō 密教) ritual manuals, certificates, statues, and other symbols of transmission. Enchin is the patriarch for the Jimon (Jap. Jimonha 寺門派) or Temple Gate Tendai tradition (Jap. Tendaishū 天台宗) based at the Onjō Temple (Jap. Onjō ji 園城寺), a.k.a. Mii Temple (Jap. Miidera 三井寺). With the discovery of the cache of documents and art sealed around the beginning of the 11th century in Mogao Cave 17 (Chin. Mogao ku 莫高窟), also-called the Library Cave (Chin. Cangjing dong 藏經洞), near the city of Dunhuang (敦煌), in Eastern Central Asia (present-day Gansu (甘肃) province), and other archaeological finds at sites such as Turfan, Kuča, Khotan, and others in Eastern Central Asia and in present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, the narrative of the decline of Buddhism—especially Esoteric—after the Huichang era (840–845, 會昌) in China and along the eastern Silk Road(s) has been subjected to considerable scrutiny by scholars from around the world. Manuscripts from Dunhuang in Sinitic,² Tibetan, and Uyghur from the 9th and 10th centuries also provide considerable evidence of a multilingual, cosmopolitan exchange of religion and culture in Central Asia that extended east to Mt. Wutai (Chin. Wutai shan 五臺山) and Chang’an and south to Hangzhou (杭州).

In this paper I take the two Tendai pilgrims to China who are central to the Jimon tradition of Mii Temple, Enchin, who remained in China from 853–858, and Jōjin, as bookends to address the question: did the Silk Road(s) extend to Japan through the Jimon Tendai tradition during the 9th–11th centuries? In the first section of the paper, I outline how the materials listed in travel diaries and catalogues (Jap. shōrai mokuroku 請来目録) of the books, statues, and ritual objects brought back by Enchin confirm that the Buddhism he imported from the continent can be connected to cosmopolitan ritual practices that flourished along the eastern Silk Road(s) even after the Huichang era persecution of foreign faiths. One of the earliest statues of an indigenous kami (神) produced in Japan at Matsuno’o Shrine (Jap. Matsuno’o taisha 松尾大社) in Kyoto (and still housed there) is a key product from Enchin’s experiences with cosmopolitan continental Buddhist rituals. In the next section, I investigate what Jōjin’s diary that covers the years 1072–1073 during his travels, Record of a Pilgrimage to Mt. Tiantai and Mt. Wutai, tells us about his encounter with Central Asian and Indian teachers not only on Mt. Wutai but also at the sūtra translation bureau known as the Institute for Transmitting the Dharma (Chin. Chuanfayuan 傳法院) on the grounds of the imperially sponsored Monastery for Promoting Great Peace for the State (Chin. Taiping xingguo si 太平興國寺) in the Song (960–1279, 宋) capital of Bianjing (汴京, modern Kaifeng 開封). Several of the rituals that Jōjin describes performing for Song Emperor Shenzong (r. 1067–1085, 神宗) correspond to ceremonies we know were performed at the Daiun Temple (Jap. Daiun ji 大雲寺) and Jissōin (実相院) (located in the Iwakura (岩倉) section of northern Kyoto) and at key shrines like Matsuno’o, Kamigamo (上賀茂) and Shimogamo (下鴨) in Kyoto, and Atsuta (熱田) in Nagoya (名古屋) during the 12th–16th centuries. Finally, I describe how Buddhist—and Indic or Central Asian—rituals which were exchanged along the eastern Silk Road(s) during the 9th–11th centuries were employed in Japan with material culture (like statues and ritual paraphernalia) to venerate the kami by Tendai Jimon monastics using unambiguously cosmopolitan language to preserve the narrative of transmission along the Silk Road(s).

In the 2006–2007 issue of Cahiers d’Extrême Asie, Iyanaga Nobumi published a fascinating paper arguing that, fundamentally, elements of the indigenous religion of Japan, which scholars variously call Shintō (神道, lit. path or way of the gods), kami worship, (Jap. jingi shinkō 神祇信仰), Jindō (an alternative pronunciation for Shintō), or veneration of the gods of heaven and earth (Jap. tenjin chigi sūhai 天神地祇崇拝), has significant elements of Hinduism in it.³ With (1) fire rituals (Skt. homa, Chin. humo, Jap. goma 護摩) performed inside—or outside—Shingon and Tendai Buddhist temples and by mountain ascetics (Jap. yamabushi 山伏; shugendō 修験道),⁴ (2) shrines dedicated to Sarasvatī (Jap. Benzaiten 弁才天), the so-called Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, wisdom, and learning, (3) the kami of foxes (Jap. Inari 稲荷; a.k.a. Dakiniten 荼枳尼天) as Indian jackals (Jap. yakan 野干, Skt. śṛgāla),⁵ (4) Sanskrit Siddhaṃ syllables written on grave markers, (5) and even dhāraṇīs inscribed on large and small stone pillars across Japan, it is little wonder that one way to approach the study of religion in Japan is to investigate the Indian aspects of worship in all manner of practices. Generally speaking, almost all traditions of Japanese Buddhism and most aspects of the practice of Shintō rest upon the notion of transmission (Jap. denbō 伝法) from the Asian continent of these so-called Indian—or ‘Hindu’—religious elements. Because ritual paraphernalia, let alone ritual manuals (Skt. kalpa or vidhi; Chin. yigui, Jap. giki 儀軌) or sūtras and commentaries translated from Sanskrit (or other Indic languages) into Sinitic came from the Asian continent and from interactions between human beings, we may wonder why so little research about the transmission of Indic religion across Central and East Asia considers the roles of person to person transmission? Furthermore, because Victor H. Mair, Peter Kornicki, and John Whitman, among others, have demonstrated that almost no Buddhist or Daoist or ‘Hindu’ or even ‘Shintō’ traveler in medieval times in Eastern Central Asia or Tang and Song China would have read texts or scriptures in the same vernacular language, we ought to wonder how communication was possible?⁶

If, as we know from Valerie Hansen’s research and to a lesser extent Peter Frankopen’s recent and popular new book, among others, that silk was probably among the least transported commodities across various trade routes that connected China with points west (or perhaps east), with precious gems, grains, glass, furs, ritual objects, and even slaves, not to mention books, ideas, and certainly languages, then one way to define the Silk Road(s) with far greater precision than Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen’s illusory terms ‘Seidenstraße’ and ‘Seidenstraßen’ (coined in 1877) is through the transmission of language. And not just any language, but Sanskrit and Indic prākṛtās (related vernaculars).⁷ First, let us consider the conundrum that is the Sinitic language in East Asia as defined by Peter Kornicki:

What makes vernacular reading possible is the fact that Sinitic is a logographic written language: characters represent words not sounds. The phonetic realization of those words was not fixed, and in fact varied from one regional type of spoken Chinese to another […] [C]haracters were open not only to a phonetic reading, that is, an approximation to the pronunciation in Chinese adapted to suit the phonology of the reader’s native language, but also a semantic reading using an equivalent word in that reader’s language.

An example of a semantic reading is the number 9 (Arabic numerals 1–9 are actually derived from Sanskrit), which can be read:

‘nine’, ‘nove’, ‘neuf’, ‘neun’[…] or the equivalent in any language, so the character (九), which represents the numeral 9, can be read in any East Asian language with the vernacular equivalent.⁸

Sanskrit—and Indic languages related to it—functions entirely differently. Saṃskṛta, which literally means ‘perfectly formed,’ is, of course, a language organised around phonetics—with numerous rules governing how to correctly pronounce not only words but syllables, including the rules of saṃdhi (lit. joining) to govern necessary sound changes. Before the introduction of Buddhism to China, Chinese characters were used phonographically. As Kornicki points out, the opening line of the Lunyu 論語 [Analects] (1:1) reads:

子曰: 「學而時習之, 不亦說乎？

The Master said, ‘To study and then repeatedly put into practice what you have learned—is that not what it means to have pleasure?’⁹

The character shuo (說) usually means ‘to say’ or ‘explain.’ As ancient commentaries written after the script reforms by Qin Shi Huangdi (r. 221–210 BCE, 秦始皇帝) had to inform readers then as now, shuo (說) and yue (悅) are homonyms (yue means ‘delight’).¹⁰ But after the introduction of Buddhism and the many technical terms in Sanskrit that required phonetic readings, e.g., Buddha (Chin. Fotuo 佛陀), bhikṣuṇī (Chin. biqiuni 比丘尼), yoga (Chin. yujia 瑜伽) and so forth, and especially after the introduction of Buddhist spells or incantations called dhāraṇī (Chin. tuoloni 陀羅尼), the problem became evident to most East Asians who wished to correctly pronounce these terms without any knowledge of Kharoṣṭhī- or Brāhmī-derived scripts for writing the sounds of Sanskrit, rather than reading (problematical) transliterations in Sinitic. Phonetics and the process of what Kornicki calls “vernacularization” in communities where Sinitic was primarily used was not only stimulated by the process of chanting Buddhist sūtras, but it may very well be among the most valuable things transmitted across the Silk Road(s).¹¹

There is considerable debate about when to date the invention of the katakana script for writing how to phonetically pronounce Japanese (and Sinitic characters). But we can be sure that what Gregory Schopen and others following him have called the ‘cult of the book’ (in the Mahāyāna) and the five practices of the preacher of the buddhadharma (Skr. dharmabhāṇaka)—preserving, reading, reciting, explaining, and copying sūtras or nonmeditational or meritorious acts (Skt. kuśalena karmaṇā)—has everything to do with it.¹² Along the Silk Road(s) to Dunhuang, Sui (581–618, 隋) and Tang Chang’an and Luoyang (洛陽), Mt. Wutai, and Mt. Tiantai (Chin. Tiantai shan 天臺山), Buddhist monastics had to learn how to pronounce the sūtras correctly. A lexicographer who assisted with Xuanzang’s (600/602–664, 玄奘) translation¹³ team named Xuanying (d. 661, 玄應) composed what looks like the first glossary of terminology used in Chinese Buddhist texts (those included in bibliographies of the canon as of 650),¹⁴ which provides fanqie (反切), a method in traditional Chinese lexicography to indicate the pronunciation of a monosyllabic character by using two other characters, one with the same initial consonant as the desired syllable and one with the same remainder of the syllable (the final) readings, ca. 649, called Yiqiejing yinyi 一切經音義 [Pronunciations and Meanings in the Complete Buddhist Canon] (Z 1185) in 25 rolls; Huilin (737–820, 慧琳) enlarged Xuanying’s text to 100 rolls in 807 (T. 2128.54.).¹⁵ When he catalogued the colophons to the Dunhuang manuscripts in the British Library collection, Lionel Giles observed that:

[…] for some reason with special frequency in copies of the Chin kuang ming tsui sheng wang ching (N. 126), is what I have ventured to call a phonetic glossary. This consists of just a few words selected from the preceding text, with their fan-ch’ieh (initial plus final) pronunciation.¹⁶

Zhang Yongquan and Li Lingling demonstrate that these glosses were on manuscripts of Yijing’s translation (in 703) of the Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra (Z 158, T. 665.16.) at Dunhuang by 854 (P. 2274: roll seven). Therefore, it seems almost certain that these transcription notes or Chinese phonetic reading glosses were mostly copied—or added—during the late 9th and early 10th centuries at Dunhuang.¹⁷ I have not found these phonetic reading glosses on any other Dunhuang texts.

In Japan, however, the situation is quite different. There are reading marks (Jap. kunten 訓点) of a sort on rolls of the Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra dated to 889 from Ishiyama Temple (Jap. Ishiyamadera 石山寺) which have received considerable attention.¹⁸ There are also marks to facilitate reading in Japanese on an 8th century Saishō’ōkyō 最勝王經 [Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra] sponsored by Kudara no Toyomushi (白濟豐虫) preserved at the Saidai Temple (Jap. Saidai ji 西大寺) in Nara.¹⁹ There is also a marvelous example of an even earlier Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra copied in gold ink on indigo paper (it looks red today) from Kokubun Temple (Jap. Kokubun ji 国分寺) in Hiroshima that can be dated to 742 and has been displayed at Nara National Museum (DO26284).²⁰ Roll 2 has corresponding fanqie (Jap. hansetsu) marks with the exemplars from Dunhuang and on the roll from Matsuno’o Shrine in Kyoto, which was copied either during the 3rd or 5th lunar month of 1115. The only other texts I have seen anywhere with these phonetic reading marks are Yijing’s translations of the Mūlasarvāstivādavinayavibhaṅga (Z 1010, T. 1442.23.), Mūlasarvāstivādavinayakṣudrakavastu (Z 1012, T. 1451.24.) and *Mūlasarvāstivādavinayasaṃgraha (Z 1053, T. 1458.24.) from the Shōgozō (聖語蔵), which dates to the first day of the fifth luni-solar month of the Tenpyō 天平 reign period (740), and means they were part of the manuscript canon copying project that Empress Kōmyō kōgō (701–760, 光明皇后) sponsored using the Buddhist canon (Skt. tripiṭaka) recently brought to Japan from Tang China in 736 by Genbō (d. 746, 玄昉).²¹

Do these phonetic reading marks demonstrate that either Nara during the 8th century or Kyoto during the 12th was the terminus of some node of the Silk Road(s) on the Eurasian continent? No, of course not. But these marks suggest much more tangible evidence of sustained influence from the linguistic culture that must have flourished along the Silk Road(s) during the 8th–12th centuries than can be gleaned from the magnificent treasures of Central Asian fabrics or ritual objects which were apparently gifts from guests who attended the opening ceremony for Tōdai Temple (752) from far-flung kingdoms that are preserved in the Shōsōin in Nara. Apart from the material culture of Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism on the so-called ‘periphery’ of the borders of the People’s Republic of China today, unlike in Japan, for example, there is scant, though nevertheless intriguing, evidence of the Indic elements of Buddhism in China.²² The same can be largely said for Korea. We know from medieval accounts written in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tibetan, Khotanese, Uyghur, Tangut, and certainly Japanese that travelers and pilgrims encountered Indians and Indic culture in China.²³ It is, therefore, often and with good reason that in order to investigate the medieval period of the Silk Road(s) in East Asia we look to Japan for proof not only that Japanese pilgrims imported the Indic religion, but also to discover who they learned it from. The documents concerning two particular pilgrims, Enchin and Jōjin, who visited Song China during the mid-9th and mid-11th centuries, respectively, are particularly revealing because they demonstrate not only that these pilgrims sought out Indian teachers and to visit sites where Indic practices were most likely to be found, but also because some of what these accounts discuss looks strikingly familiar to some of the evidence from Sanskrit manuscript fragments found in Eastern Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan that Gregory Schopen, Oskar von Hinüber, and the late, great Karashima Seishi have devoted their academic lives to exposing.²⁴ Furthermore, the type of Buddhism that Enchin and Jōjin sought in China is intimately connected to the transmission of phonetics to the extent that one of the documents I investigate in this paper has Sanskrit Siddhaṃ writing to dedicate the merit from copying a catalogue to the dharma and the Buddhist saṃgha.

Before I address the matter of Indic religion taken to and perhaps even knowingly transplanted in Japan from the Silk Road(s), let me tackle the obvious question: did the Silk Road(s) extend to early or medieval Japan? The short answer, in my opinion, is emphatically no. To begin with, putting aside the problematical spotlight on silk as a commodity which did, of course, reach Japan in significant quantities, just as it did points west in Central Asia from China, despite how uncomfortable I am with assigning value to terms like ‘centre’ and ‘periphery,’ especially when addressing the history of medieval East Asian Buddhism, it is nearly impossible to demonstrate bidirectional trade between China and Japan as can be deduced from archaeological, art historical, and textual analysis concerning the trade in all manner of goods and ideas between China and Persia or India and certainly Central Asia. During the medieval period Japan was, like Ireland in Europe, a small, ‘peripheral’ archipelago set quite apart from the broad trade networks that linked China with Eastern Central Asia. But, again like Ireland in terms of the preservation of medieval Christian manuscripts and religious regalia,²⁵ the fact that in Japan we have abundant material cultural evidence of the influence of Silk Road(s) culture, ideas, religion, and perhaps even—as Iyanaga postulates—a proclivity for the reception of Indic religious norms does not mean that the Japanese were part or perhaps even a terminus of the medieval Silk Road(s).

Yet, as I demonstrate in this paper, it is uniquely through first-hand Japanese sources that we find evidence of how intent two of the more famous medieval pilgrims to China were to encounter Indian teachers and the latest Indic religious culture and perhaps even Sanskrit there. The Silk Road(s) as viewed through the lens of manuscripts that reveal what Enchin and Jōjin did and sought out in Tang and Song China not only demonstrates that the route(s) seem to have flourished during the post-An Lushan (703–757, 安祿山) and Shi Siming (703–761, 史思明) rebellions, the rebellion of Huang Chao (835–884, 黃巢) and the Huichang era suppression of the faith, but at least on Mt. Wutai and in Bianjing, well into the late 11th century. I definitely cannot subscribe to Iyanaga’s (exaggerated) analysis of elements of the Shintō religion as Hinduism, but I will show that the practices these Mii Temple Tendai monastics brought back to Japan and seem to have been applied to the veneration of the indigenous kami at eight specific shrines can be fruitfully connected to the culture of the Silk Road(s).

2 Sacred Transmitted Documents and Calalogs of Items Brought Back from China Concerning Enchin in Tang China

The Japanese term shōgyō (聖教) is used to refer to religious, though not always, documents preserved in monastic libraries in medieval Japan that were catalogued locally. As in medieval Europe, xylographic printing technology, including the Buddhist canons in Sinitic (classical Chinese), was not widely adopted from the Eurasian continent, we have extensive documentation of the contents of several monastic libraries. The most extensive library from medieval Japan holds manuscript documents from the library of Mt. Kitano Shinpuku Temple Hōshōin (Jap. Kitanosan Shinpukuji Hōshōin 北野山真福寺宝生院), today known as Ōsu Kannon (大須観音) in Nagoya, which Abe Yasurō has shed more light upon than anyone else. There are now three book series of documents from Shinpuku Temple from Rinsen shoten (臨川書店).²⁶ Less than five per cent of more than 15,000 manuscripts from Shinpuku Temple have been published. In 2017, Bensei publishers (Jap. Bensei shuppan 勉誠 出版) released two series of shōgyō documents from Mt. Amano Kongō Temple (Jap. Amanosan Kongōji 天野山金剛寺) in Osaka under the title Amanosan Kongōji zenpon sōkan 天野山金剛寺善本叢刊 [Collected Works from the Meritorious Books kept at Amanosan Kongō Temple]. Ochiai Toshinori and his team at the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies (ICPBS) in Tokyo have brought considerable attention to the manuscript Buddhist canon from Kongō Temple, as well as from seven other sites, including most notably Nanatsu Temple (Jap. Nanatsu dera 七寺) in Nagoya.²⁷ But these shōgyō documents reflect aspects of the history of medieval Japan that do not seem to correspond with contemporary developments in China or Korea, including the roughly 40,000 mostly Buddhist manuscripts which were found at the turn of the 20th century in the so-called Library Cave near the city of Dunhuang.

In Northern Song (960–1126, 北宋) China, xylographic and perhaps metal-type printing was sufficiently widespread by the late 11th century that one of the most famous poets and statesmen, Huang Tingjian (1045–1105, 黃庭堅), meant it when he said that he had over 10,000 books in his library.²⁸ Based upon the fact that during the 10th–12th centuries the Sinitic Buddhist Canon was printed by the Khitan (907–1125, in Chinese sources known as Liao 遼), the Qidan zang 契丹藏 [Khitan Canon] (printed ca. 1031–1064), Koryŏ Koreans (936–1392, 高麗國, printed ca. 1011–1087), and Jurchen Dynasty (1115–1234, in Chinese sources known as Jin 金), the Zhaocheng zang 趙城藏 [Zhaocheng Canon] (printed ca. 1149–1173), who primarily followed the Song xylographic edition entitled Shuban da zangjing 蜀版大藏經 [Shu (Sichuan) Canon] or Kaibao zang 開寶藏 [Kaibao Canon] (compiled 983), scholars have mostly presumed that Buddhist texts on the continent were, like secular works such as collections of poetry, encyclopedias like the Taiping guangji 太平廣記 [Extensive Records from the Taiping Era], and so forth, kept, read, and used for a variety of purposes in printed editions.²⁹ For Shingon documents, because we have caches of manuscript documents from libraries, which we do not from China or Korea earlier than the late Ming (1368–1644, 明)—from sources preserved in Japan—and Chosŏn (1392–1897, 朝鮮) Dynasties, the situation in medieval Japan—as in Europe—looks quite different.³⁰ But the situation is far more complex when investigating the history of the Tendai of Enryaku Temple (Jap. Enryaku ji 延暦寺) and Onjō Temple (alt. Miidera). The shōgyō documents from Shinpuku Temple and Kongō Temple reveal much, much more information. Although, because there are so many more Buddhist texts than there are books in the Vulgate, historians of Japanese religion, literature, and textual editions and language (Jap. bunkengaku 文献学) are just beginning to piece together conclusions like Eltjo Buringh and Jan Luiten van Zanden about European books, and even then about only the textual world of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism (Jap. tōmitsu 東密), as in the esoteric teachings of the Eastern Temple in Kyoto (Jap. Tō ji 東寺) in medieval Japan, contrasted with Tendai so-called taimitsu (台密, the esoteric teachings of the Tendai tradition), leaving aside for the moment other traditions including Zen (禅), Pure Land, and so forth.³¹

What I hope to eventually investigate by looking at shōgyō documents from Shinpuku Temple and Kongō Temple is what shōgyō documents may have once been within the library at Matsuno’o shrine–temple complex or multiplex (Jap. jingūji 神宮寺, alt. jinguji 神供寺 or miyadera 宮寺) in Kyoto during the 12th–16th centuries.³² My research into the manuscript canon kept there until the mid-19th century, which was sponsored and vowed by father and son shrine priests (Jap. kannushi 神主) Hata no Chikatō 秦親任 (Chief shrine proest or kannushi 神主 on 1076/2/20) and Hata no Yorichika 秦頼義 (kannushi on 1128/8/12) over 23 years (1115 to 1138), demonstrates that much of that manuscript canon was copied from the library of the Bonshaku Temple (Jap. Bonshaku ji 梵釈寺), a Tendai library-temple that was established between 783 and 792 by Emperor Kanmu (737–806, r. 781–806, 桓武) when he renamed the southern ridge Bonshaku Temple of what had been called Sūfuku Temple (Jap. Sūfuku ji 崇福寺). This temple was located just northwest of the city of Ōtsu (大津), on the lower ridges of Mt. Hiei (Jap. Hiei zan 比叡山).³³ It appears this temple once held a copy of the Kaiyuan-era Chinese Buddhist canon that Genbō returned from Tang China with and his disciple Segyō (d. 807, 施暁) may have copied it. These scriptures were augmented by scriptures brought back from China by Eichū (alt. Yōchū, 743–816, 永忠), a Buddhist monk who studied in China for nearly thirty years at Ximing Temple (Chin. Ximing si 西明寺) in the Tang capital of Chang’an, met Kūkai (774–835, 空海, Kōbō daishi 弘法大師, in China 804–806) there, and returned to Japan on the same ship as Saichō (767–822, 最澄, Dengyō daishi 傳教大師, in China 804–805); Eichū was made abbot of Bonshaku Temple by Emperor Kanmu sometime around 806.³⁴ The edition of Annen’s (841–915?, 安然) Shō ajari shingon mikkyō burui sōroku 諸阿闍梨真言密教部類惣録 [Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings of the [Eight] Ācāryas] (T. 2176.55., hereafter Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings) from Shinpuku Temple, as we will see, shows that this library was still a well-respected library when he compiled this catalogue. Based on colophons describing how scriptures were copied for Matsuno’o during the 12th century by Hata no Chikatō and Yorichika and also between 1159 and 1165, when Ryōkei (d.u., 良慶), the abbot of Myōhō Temple (Jap. Myōhō ji 妙法寺), one of two known temples in the southern valley (Jap. Minamidani 南谷) of the Matsuno’o Jingū Temple precincts, vowed and added scriptures, I believe that Matsuno’o was once a Tendai-linked centre, unlike either Shinpuku Temple or Kongō Temple which are clearly associated with the medieval Shingon temples like the Daigo Temple (Jap. Daigo ji 醍醐寺), the Eastern Temple, and other sites in the Kinki (近畿) region.³⁵ Investigating extant shōgyō documents related to particularly the Tendai tradition of Mii Temple runs through Enchin and the surprisingly prominent role he may have played even in so-called ‘rival’ Shingon communities.³⁶

Only one of the five extant catalogues written by Enchin specifically tallies books by a temple in the western Tang capital Chang’an and two cover temples named Kaiyuan Temple (Chin. Kaiyuan si 開元寺, common practice during the Tang after the Kaiyuan-era) in Fuzhou (福州), Wenzhou (溫州) and Taizhou (台州). Table 1.1 provides a list of these catalogues.

Although Ennin’s Nittō guhō junrei kōki [alt. gyōki] 入唐求法巡礼行記 [Record of a Pilgrimage to Tang China in Search of the Dharma] is well-known today, and we have a catalogue by the Shingon ‘patriarch’ Kūkai, [Go-] Shōrai mokuroku 御請来目録 [(Kūkai’s) Catalogue of Items Brought Back [to Japan]] (T. 2161.55), it looks like Enchin may have been the most attentive to the project of cataloguing the treasures he found in Tang China.³⁷

The situation looks different if we pay close attention to Annen’s Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings, and especially if we briefly examine the Shinpuku Temple edition. Compiled at roughly the same time as the eminent Japanese literatus Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki’s (847–918, 三善 清行) Enchin oshō den 円珍和尚伝 [Biography of Preceptor or Upādhyāya Enchin] (hereafter Biography of Enchin, ca. 902) but well after Enchin’s diary, Gyōrekishō 行歴抄 [Travel Notes], Annen’s Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings not surprisingly favors texts brought back to Japan by Ennin, whom he studied with before his ‘official’ teacher Henjō (816–890, 遍照). Like the Taishō edition, the Shinpuku Temple edition contains information attached to many texts listed in Annen’s catalogue which shows that the libraries of Shūei’s (809–884, 宗叡, in China 862–865) Engaku Temple

(Jap. Engakuji 円覚寺, todays Mizuoyama dera 水尾山寺, not to be confused with the Zen temple in Kamakura) and Bonshaku Temple were checked, along with the Zhenyuan xinding shijiao mulu 貞元新定釋教目錄 [Newly Revised Catalogue of Buddhist Scriptures Made during the Zhenyuan-Era, T. 2157], comp. 799 or 800 by Yuanzhao (d.u., 圓照). Using the CBETA online edition with its many errors of T. 2176.55,³⁸ there are roughly thirty texts attributed to Saichō in the first roll with 18 in the second. For Kūkai, there are approximately 150 in roll 1 and 81 in roll 2. The tabulation for Ennin, Jōgyō (d. 867, 常暁, in China 838–839), Engyō (799–852, 円行, in China 838–839), Eun (798–869, 恵運, in China 842–847), and Shūei is as follows, respectively: 280 in roll 1, 189 in roll 2; 10 in roll 1, 23 in roll 2; 90 in roll 1, 39 in roll 2; 89 in roll 1 and 73 in roll 2; 83 in roll 1 and 15 in roll 2. Annen lists 78 texts from Enchin in roll one and 51 in roll two. The Taishō edition also lists 154 texts in roll one and 37 in roll two checked against the library of Bonshaku Temple; 206 in roll one and 50 in roll two were checked (many against both editions) with the library of Engaku Temple.

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Enchin’s Catalogues of Books in Chinese Monastic Libraries^a

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There are nine extant editions of the Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings. The earliest dates to 965; the latest (T. 2176.55) is an Edo (1603–1868, 江戸) period reprint of a 10th century manuscript edition.³⁹ Despite the fact that Annen was a Tendai monk and it is often presumed that this catalogue favors Tendai monk-pilgrims and may reflect nascent sectarian tensions, these editions come from Shingon libraries, including Shinpuku Temple. This edition has a special colophon, which reflects not only how to read the notes about which texts Annen assigns to each traveler, but also how broad the scope of transmission was understood to be during the 10th century. As in the order I listed the number of texts assigned to each pilgrim above, Saichō is defined as Dengyō daishi from Mt. Hiei; Ennin and Enchin are listed in the same fashion. Kūkai is assigned to Mt. Kōya, Engyō to the Reigon Temple (Jap. Reigon ji 霊厳寺, in Yamashiro (山城), western Kyoto today), Eun to the Anshō Temple (Jap. Anshō ji 安祥寺), and Shūei, a.k.a. Engaku, is listed as a first rank official monk (Jap. sōjō 僧正). A scribe by the name of Kōkaku (fl. 12th c. 光覺) of the Jimyōbō (慈明房) checked this manuscript against two others (Engaku Temple and Bonshaku Temple);⁴⁰ the manuscript was copied on the 27th day of the 10th luni-solar month of 1126.⁴¹ Then, in Sanskrit Siddhaṃ letters we find the syllables for prakṣa dharma saṃgha ko or ka. Prakṣa is a mistake for prarakṣa, which makes the phrase mean: “[copied] to protect the dharma and the saṃgha.”⁴² Tomabechi Sei’ichi thinks the difficult to read letter must be ko because of the first character in Kōkaku’s name. But it could be ka, which is a syllable often written to refer to protector of the dharma monastics.⁴³

What is clear however we read the Siddhaṃ letters is it must have been important for Kōkaku to have let readers know that there were eight Japanese monastics who brought Esoteric Buddhist ritual texts back to Japan with them during the 9th century. The world we now read about in most textbooks concerning the history of Esoteric Buddhism (Jap. mikkyō) in Japan with two putative founders, Kūkai and Saichō, if the latter is mentioned at all, was still far in the future when the Shinpuku Temple edition of Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings was copied. It should be noted that the Nanatsu Temple Canon contains another edition of Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings, copied on the seventh day of the 12th luni-solar month of 1178 by Ekaku (late 12th c., 榮覚) and checked or proofread by Eshun (late 12th c., 榮俊); there is a dedication or vow, which reads as follows: “presented for future worthies to together, at that time, attain the seed of Buddhahood.”⁴⁴

Almost as if Ekaku or Eshun’s vow was realised, in the catalogue of shōgyō documents from the Katsuo Temple (Jap. Katsuo ji 勝尾寺) in Osaka kept at Shinpuku Temple, Shōgyō mokuroku higashi Katsuojiryū mokuroku 聖教目録東勝尾寺流目録 [Catalogue of Sacred Transmitted Documents from the Lineage of the East Katsuo Temple], we find another interesting colophon: diagrams listing the transmission lineages of four, not eight, of the Tang monk-pilgrims listed in Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings. Here, Saichō comes first, followed by Kūkai, Ennin, and Enchin as follows:

Saichō:

Saichō

Kūkai:

Ennin:

Enchin:

The order seems to reflect historical chronology of these monastics’ journeys to China. But otherwise we find a list of transmission that favors full transmission of these two lineages back to putative Indian patriarchs. By the 13th day of the second luni-solar month of 1355, when Yūe (born 1321, 宥恵) copied this catalogue and declared himself to be a disciple of the Diamond Buddha Mahāvairocana as Kongō busshi (金剛佛子), it appears that which Indian teachers and Chinese disciples Saichō (Shunxiao in Yuezhou (越州) on his way home), Kūkai (Huiguo), Ennin (Yicao, Yizhen, and Yuanzheng), and Ennin (Faquan) were understood to have received transmission from had become central to the transmission of Esoteric Buddhist lineages and very likely shōgyō documents to study the ritual manuals with the ‘correct’ lineages’ teachers, three of whom were still understood to be Tendai, with Kūkai singled out.⁴⁵ How did these teachers in China come to receive such particular attention? And who was Faquan?

3 Kongō Temple Edition of Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki’s Biography of Enchin on Enchin in China

As an historical document, the edition we have of Enchin’s diary Travel Notes was kept at Ishiyama Temple (Jap. Ishiyama dera 石山寺) and was copied with some corrections made on the 17th day of the tenth luni-solar month of 1197 from a previous copy produced by Chikan (12th c., 智勧) in 1195 of a copy by one Raikaku (頼覚) in 1049 of the short diary that Enchin finished writing after he had returned to Japan on the 23rd day of the first luni-solar month of 859.⁴⁶ The edition we have in the Dai Nihon Bukkyō zensho 大日本佛教全書 [Complete Buddhist Works of Japan] has some commentary or notes added by Raikaku. What concerns me most from the Travel Notes is that it explains that Enchin received transmission of the teachings of the Diamond-realm and Womb-realm maṇḍalas at Qinglong Temple (Chin. Qinglong si 青龍寺) in Chang’an from Faquan (fl. 800–870, 法全), but it does not accord with what is recorded in Biography of Enchin. Travel Notes says that Enchin arrived in Chang’an on the 20th day of the fifth luni-solar month of 855 (July 7th) and met the Esoteric Dharma Master Faquan on the 28th day of the fift luni-solar month. On the 15th day of the seventh luni-solar month (August 31st, 855). Faquan gave him a consecration ritual for the Womb maṇḍala at Qinglong Temple. Faquan then gave him the consecration ritual for the Diamond maṇḍala on the third day of the tenth luni-solar month (November 16th). Finally, on the fifth day of the 11th luni-solar month, Enchin was given a conferral of transmission consecration by Faquan. Enchin ends this section of the diary during the first month of Dazhong (大中) 10 (856). The next entry begins during the second lunar month of 858 with his return to Dazaifu (太宰府) in Japan.⁴⁷

The biography of Enchin by Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki is a curious document with a revealing textual history of its own that lies beyond the scope of this paper. I hope it will suffice to say here, however, that it was written by a fascinating figure who was once a member of the Japanese equivalent of the famous Hanlin (翰林, Jap. Kanrin) Academy in China, and is tied to the curious figure of Sugawara no Michizane (845–903, 菅原道真) who was exiled and became Tenman Tenjin (天満天神).⁴⁸ I will add that the edition of Biography of Enchin in the Complete Buddhist Works of Japan is unreliable, though intriguing, because it contains large blocks of additional text, primarily concerned with portents by kami concerning key events in his life and oddly placed references to sectarian debates not mentioned in the manuscript I have consulted from Mt. Amano Kongō Temple. There are three other extant manuscript editions of the text: an edition kept at Ishiyama Temple dated to the 21st day of the fourth luni-solar month of 1108; a manuscript dated to the 25th day of the fourth luni-solar month of 1220 from the Manshuin (曼殊院) now at the Tokyo National Museum (no. B–1402 and reproduced in Dai Nihon Bukkyō zensho as discussed below); and one from the Kanchi’in (観智院) of Tō Temple dated 1185. The Kongō Temple manuscript is a copy completed on the 11th day of the 12th luni-solar month of 1230 at the Rengeō’in Sanjūsangendō (蓮華王院三十三間堂) of an edition copied on the 18th day of the first luni-solar month of 1182 from an edition copied on the 27th day of the tenth luni-solar month of 1140 at the Shanain (舎那院) Nagahama (長島), Shiga prefecture (Jap. Shiga ken 滋賀県).⁴⁹

In order to deepen our understanding of the history of the transmission of key texts in medieval East Asia and to provide further context about the sources that Chen Jinhua and I use to address the narrative of Enchin’s voyage to Tang China, it is important to note that in his biography of Enchin in Genkō shakusho 元亨釋書 [Buddhist History of the Genkō Era [1321–1324]], Kokan Shiren (1278–1346, 虎関師錬) follows Kiyoyuki’s biography conspicuously.⁵⁰

Enchin’s own diary records that he received Esoteric Buddhist transmission solely from Faquan and only in Chang’an. The narrative of lineage transmission between Faquan and Enchin in Chang’an is similar in the Biography of Enchin, but Kiyoyuki adds some key information that Enchin left out of the Travel Notes. Kiyoyuki records that the conferral of transmission consecration took place not on the fifth day of the 11th month, but instead on the fourth day and was followed by conferral of the title of ācārya (Chin. asheli 阿闍梨) after he received the samaya precepts (Chin. sanmeiye jie, Jap. sanmaya kai 三昧耶戒) and performed a ceremony honoring the sages (patriarchs). Then Enchin is said to have proceeded to the monastery of Da Xingshan Temple (Chin. Da Xingshan si 大興善寺), where he bowed and made ritual offerings to the relics of Amoghavajra (705–774, Chin. Bukong Jin’gang 不空金剛, Jap. Fukū kongō) and met with Amoghavajra’s third generation disciple, śramaṇācārya Huilun (d. 876, 惠輪). According to Biography of Enchin, Huilun transmitted to Enchin the secret meaning of the two division maṇḍalas and a new translation of his called the Chinian jingfa 持念經法 [Method for Reciting [Spells] from the Scriptures].⁵¹

In a recent article about this Zhihuilun (Jap. Chierin 智慧輪) and in his Crossfire book, Chen presents the narrative of the transmission from Zhihuilun to Enchin as a key component in his quest to recover lost traces of the Esoteric Buddhist masters from the post-An Lushan and Shi Siming rebellions, the rebellion of Huang Chao and the Huichang era suppression of the faith. Chen provides careful notes about the texts he read to conclude that Enchin must have met Zhihuilun. One of these is a letter that Enchin addressed to Zhihuilun on the 15th day of the seventh luni-solar month of 882 from Japan with a list of questions for his former teacher requesting additional books to be dispatched.⁵² Other letters examined by Chen from Enchin to Zhihuilun address the portraits of the three celebrated esoteric masters Amoghavajra, Śubhakarasiṃha (in China 719–735, Chin. Shanwuwei 善無畏) and Vajrabodhi (662–732, Chin. Jin’gangzhi, 金剛智) that Enchin saw when he was in China and speak to the matter of which lineage Zhihuilun may or may not have been assigned to when Enchin was in China. Chen also makes a convincing case that the biography of Zhihuilun in Zanning’s (919–1001, 贊寧) Song gaoseng zhuan宋高僧傳 [Biographies of the Eminent Monks of the Song] (T. 2061.50, 722c) mistakenly suggests that he was an Indian monk with the name *Prajñācakra, ‘Wheel of Wisdom’, transcribed into Chinese with the varying characters 般若斫迦 or 般若惹羯羅 or 般若斫羯羅, when his father was almost certainly Chinese—with the surname Ding (丁)—although his mother may have come from India or Central Asia.⁵³

If Chen is correct, and I suspect that he is, about the connection between Zhihuilun and Enchin, then I wonder why there is no mention of Zhihuilun in Travel Notes as we have the text today? There is another—possibly Indian or Central Asian—monk that Kiyoyuki’s Biography of Enchin connects Enchin to, not one he encountered in the capital, but when he was in Fuzhou. The Biography of Enchin records that when Enchin first arrived in China in 853 and went to the Kaiyuan Temple in Lianjian country (連江縣) in Lingnan circuit (嶺南到), he met a monk by the name of Boredaluo (般若怛羅, Jap. Hannyatara) from the monastery of Nālandā in Magadha in Central India from whom he received several texts. The first is Fanzi xiitan zhang 梵字悉曇章 [Chapter of (How to Study) Sanskrit Siddhaṃ (Letters)] or Bonji shittanshō, followed by the Diamond and Womb maṇḍalas, the Mahāvairocanasūtra, and at least two other Esoteric Buddhist ritual manuals in Sanskrit (Chin. fanqie, Jap. bonkyō 梵篋, Skt. pustaka or poṭhī).⁵⁴ The encounter with Boredaluo is not mentioned in the Travel Notes, where far clearer dates are provided concerning when he arrived in China (on the 15th day of the eighth luni-solar month of 853) and how quickly he proceeded to Mt. Tiantai and the Guoqing Temple (Chin. Guoqing si 國清寺).⁵⁵

Who was Boredaluo and is there any other evidence of an Indian monk by this name residing at a monastery in Fuzhou? Kūkai’s Catalogue of Items Brought Back (to Japan) (T. 2161.55, 1063c24) records that he brought back a copy of the Guide to Studying Sanskrit Siddhaṃ Letters in one roll, as does the Catalogue of Scriptures Found [in China] by the Japanese bhikṣu Enchin (T. 2172.55, 1098b20).⁵⁶ Prajñā is an Indian Esoteric master well-known to have been a teacher to Kūkai when he was in Chang’an studying Esoteric Buddhism during the beginning of the 9th century.⁵⁷ It seems highly unlikely, however, that the same individual would have moved to Kaiyuan Temple in Fuzhou by the 850s, unless we consider that he may have been one of the representatives of the ‘Chang’an Buddhist traditions’ Benjamin Brose posits;⁵⁸ yet I highly doubt this is the same monk. Because Enchin completed the Catalogue of Scriptures Found [in China] by the Japanese bhikṣu Enchin after he had returned to Japan, it is possible that he included a copy of the text that Kūkai brought back and records in (Kūkai’s) Catalogue of Items Brought Back (to Japan). It seems equally likely that Enchin acquired a copy of the Guide to Studying Sanskrit Siddhaṃ Letters when he arrived in Fuzhou, along with the Sanskrit texts alluded to in Biography of Enchin. Two Sanskrit manuscripts are recorded in the Kaigenji gūtoku kyōsho ki mokuroku 開元寺求得經疏記目錄 [Catalogue of Scriptures and Commentaries Collected from Kaiyuan Monastery [Fuzhou]] (T. 2169.55, 1092b15): (1) Sanskrit mantra(s) on a palm leaf manuscript from Nālandā in Central India⁵⁹ (2) and a Sanskrit text of the Great Compassion dhāraṇī⁶⁰ which is recorded as having been copied by a brāhmaṇa tripiṭaka ācārya named Liyemansuxidaluo (已上婆羅門三藏阿娑阿哩耶曼蘇悉怛羅捨授). Enchin records the same entry in Fūkushū Onshū Taishū gūtoku kyōritsuronsho ki gaishotō mokuroku 福州溫州台州求得經律論疏記外書等目錄 [Catalogue of Sūtras, Abhidharma, Śāstras, and Commentaries from [Kaiyuan Temples] in Fuzhou, Wenzhou, and Taizhou] (T. 2170.55, 1093b2). Catalogue of Scriptures Found [in China] by the Japanese bhikṣu Enchin is, moreover, the only one of Enchin’s extant catalogues which lists 22 Sanskrit texts that he brought back to Japan. Therefore, although it seems highly suspicious and improbable that Enchin may have met the same Prajñā that Kūkai did nearly fifty years earlier in Chang’an, it is probable that he found Sanskrit manuscripts in the Kaiyuan Temple in Fuzhou when he first arrived—and may have met a man from India who copied Buddhist texts for monastics. If Brose and others are correct that the effects of the Huichang era anti-Buddhist suppression were decreased far from the Tang capitals, then it seems reasonable to conclude that Indian monks or Brahmins who could write Sanskrit were active in the south as late as the mid-9th century.⁶¹

4 Statues and Kami Associated with Enchin and the Tendai Tradition

In 2004, the curatorial staff at Kyoto Nation Museum launched a special exhibition called “The Sacred World of Shinto Art in Kyoto.” Chief among the objects on display was a ‘seated male deity’ (Jap. danshin zazō 男神座像) from Matsuno’o (alt. Matsuo) Shrine. The statue is 99.6 cm high, was apparently carved from a single block of Hinoki (檜) cypress wood, and art historians have reached consensus that it can be dated to the mid-9th century.⁶² Details provided by the accompanying exhibit catalogue describe the statue as a Buddhist protector deity (Jap. gohōjin 護法神), and it is most likely an image of the male Ōyamakui no kami (大山咋神, alt. Ōyamagui), who was enshrined at Matsuno’o alongside his wife, Ichikishimahime no mikoto (市杵島姫命, alt. Okitsushima), no later than 866.⁶³ What makes this statue unique is its status as the oldest so-called ‘Shintō’ statue from Kyoto, and the fact that it is the primary—or larger—one in a triad of Shintō statues on display in a building called the Shinzōkan (神像館), on site at Matsuno’o Shrine in western Kyoto since 1975, when a major renovation of the shrine precincts was completed.

In a study published in 2011 of the ‘Shintō statues’ (Jap. shin’e or mikage 神影) of Matsuno’o Shrine that are on display within the Shinzōkan, Itō Shirō, an eminent art historian and current director of the Wakayama Prefectural Museum (Jap. Wakayama kenritsu hakubutsukan 和歌山県立博物館), agrees that the ‘seated male deity’ lent to Kyoto National Museum in 2004 is a statue of Ōyamakui. But he postulates that it may have been commissioned by Enchin before he departed for China in 853.⁶⁴ Or, perhaps, it is simply a statue of the revered true body (Jap. mishōtai 御正体) that was enshrined at Matsuno’o, following 8th century precedents in historical accounts that discuss offerings being made to statues at shrine-temple complexes in the provinces, such as at Iwasahiko jingan Temple (Jap. Iwasahiko jingan ji 若狭比古神願寺) in Obama city (小浜市), Fukui prefecture (福井県), during the Yōrō period (717–724, 養老) or Tado jingū Temple (Jap. Tado jingū ji 多度神宮寺) in Kuwana city (桑名市), Mie prefecture (三重県), in 763. Both of Itō’s hypotheses are tenable because Temple Gate Tendai Buddhist chronicles, contemporary diaries penned by eminent statesmen and scholars Fujiwara no Munetada (1062–1141, 藤原宗忠) and Minamoto no Morotoki (1077–1136, 源師時), and medieval historiographical records from the court and Matsuno’o Shrine confirm that Enchin—or his disciplines and associates who honored him—venerated Ōyamakui as the ancestral home of the same kami worshipped at the main shrine associated with Mt. Hiei: Hie—or Hiyoshi, as it is pronounced today—Shrine (Jap. Hiyoshi taisha 日吉大社), in Ōtsu city, Shiga prefecture.

I am not an Art Historian. So please forgive me for making a pronouncement about medieval Japanese guardian-cum-kami statues without the proper training to do so: If we compare the composition of the so-called ‘Shintō’ statues at Matsuno’o Shrine with perhaps the most famous guardian deity statue that is legendarily associated with Enchin, Shinra Myōjin (新羅明神), I am struck by how different these deities look. To begin with, the kami statues from Matsuno’o seem to resemble peaceful Buddhist deities—bodhisattvas or buddhas. Shinra Myōjin, on the other hand, seems idiosyncratically ‘alien’ and wild: the sort of deity who could ward off pestilence if, indeed, Shinra Myōjin is a manifestation in Japan as guardian deity of Mii Temple of the King of Mt. Song (Chin. Song shan 嵩山), Shaolin Temple (Chin. Shaolin si 少林寺), in China.⁶⁵ Shinra Myōjin’s name suggests a Korean orientation.⁶⁶ Like Gozu Tennō (牛頭天王), he is also associated with Susano’o (素戔嗚), the indigenous kami of storms and seas. Shinra Myōjin is understood to have been brought to Japan from China by Enchin when he returned from his productive time in the Jiangnan (江南) region and at Qinglong Temple in Chang’an. Christine M.E. Guth, whose research closely follows Itō’s scholarship, as I have done here, concludes that the famous image of Shinra Myōjin enshrined within the Shinra Zenshindō (新羅善神捨堂) of Mii Temple and is rarely on display probably dates from 1052. She examines several 11th century Temple- Gate tradition Tendai chronicles to show that Tendai monastics probably already associated Enchin with veneration of Shinra Myōjin as early as the 10th century.⁶⁷ In this section I examine several of these chronicles and come to a slightly different conclusion: it appears Enchin was definitely connected with worshipping several types and examples of kami at shrines within the precincts of Mii Temple—and Enryaku Temple—and at shrines in Kyoto and across Japan, including, but not necessarily limited to, Shinra Myōjin.

I will confine my discussion here of Enchin and veneration of kami statues at shrines to three Buddhist sources: (a) Biography of Enchin; (b) Onjōji denki 園城寺傳記 [Transmission Record of Onjōji], comp. 13th century; and (c) Jimon denki horoku 寺門傳記補録 [Supplemental Record of the Transmission Record of the Temple Gate Branch].⁶⁸ Because there is ample evidence for connections between Matsuno’o kami shrine-temple complex and Mii Temple, and Enchin, in particular, from the 12th through the 16th centuries as discussed above, let me work chronologically backwards through these texts. Rolls three, four, and five of the Supplemental Record of the Transmission Record of the Temple Gate Branch present information about the tutelary shrines (Jap. shibyō 祠廟) associated with Mii Temple. It may surprise experts in the study of Chinese religion to learn that the primary ancestral temples in China (Chin. cimiao 祠廟) at Onjō Temple are devoted to the two protectors of the Buddhist dharma: the aforementioned Shinra Myōjin and Kishimojin (鬼子母神, Skt. Hāritī). Hāritī is venerated within the Gohō zenshindō (護法善神堂, Hall of the Meritorious Guardian Deities who Protect the Dharma) every year on the sixteenth day of the fourth lunar month.⁶⁹ It is in roll five, however, that we find ample evidence to support my earlier claim of a medieval religious system whereby monastics from the Jimon branch of the Tendai order organised and maintained a network of offerings to deities at prominent, so-called ‘Shintō’ shrines in Kyoto, which was, in turn, integrated into the ritual calendar of Onjō Temple (Mii Temple) and its sub-temples.⁷⁰

Roll five of the Supplemental Record of the Transmission Record of the Temple Gate Branch is devoted to shrines to protective kami (Jap. chinju shinshi 鎮守神祠). Beginning with the three kami (red, white, and black deities) of Mio shrine (三尾神社), the landlord clan deity shrine established at Onjōji Temple before the shrine to Shinra Myōjin, we learn that there is an interesting connection with the Hata clan (Jap. hata shi 秦氏) and kami venerated by Mii Temple monastics. It appears that Hata no Kawakatsu (秦河勝), the Hata clan member to whom the founding of the Kōryū Temple (Jap. Kōryū ji 廣隆寺) is attributed, and his sons are also associated with the veneration of Mio myōjin (三尾明, bright or powerful kami of Mio shrine) as a powerful, wild bright kami (Jap. Ōare myōjin 大荒明神).⁷¹ Next, we learn that there are eighteen tutelary deities of the monastic compound (Jap. garanjin 伽藍神, lit. gods of the saṃghārāma), conveyed in the apocryphal Matou luocha foming jing (Jap. Batōrasetsu butsumyōkyō) 馬頭羅刹仏名經 [Book of Buddha Names Recited by Horse-Head (Hayagrīva) Rākṣasa] (Z 1167, not included in the Taishō).⁷² Apparently when Shinra Myōjin was newly enshrined on site at Onjō Temple in 860 the Sannō Shrine (Jap. Sannō jinja 山王神社), as it was called in the 16th and 17th centuries when the Supplemental Record of the Transmission Record of the Temple Gate Branch was compiled, but was referred to as Hiei Shrine earlier (and today), was given a face lift. Ōyamakui is enshrined there. The Supplemental Record of the Transmission Record of the Temple Gate Branch reminds the [premodern] reader that Hiei Shrine was one of the twenty-two official shrines that received ‘oblations’ from the imperial lineage during the Heian (794–1185, 平安) period.⁷³ And then we learn that there were five separate sites in and around Mt. Hiei—including two different small palaces for the kami (Jap. miya 宮)—for veneration of Ōyamakui.⁷⁴

Almost everything I have discussed in the Supplemental Record of the Transmission Record of the Temple Gate Branch thus far is not included in the 13th century Transmission Record of Onjōji. We do find a much shorter enumeration of the eighteen tutelary deities from the Book of Buddha Names Recited by Horse-Head (Hayagrīva) Rākṣasa, but nearly the entire lengthy discussion of Shinra myōjin, Mio myōjin, and the five distinct shrines to Ōyamakui is absent from this text. What is essentially the same in both chronicles is the discussion of the eight myōjin worshipped at prominent Shintō shrines, mentioned in Procedures from the Engi Era. Transmission Record of Onjōji also has a helpful diagram which maps a maṇḍala of the spatial—or cosmographical—relationship between the inner garanjin (shrines) and the outer, kami shrines.⁷⁵ Both texts essentially present the same list of eight kami shrine-temple complexes:

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Eight Kami Shrines in the Transmission Record of Onjōji and the Supplemental Record of the Transmission Record of the Temple Gate Branch

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The Transmission Record of Onjōji provides little more than this list of shrines and the scriptures which are either recited on behalf of each shrine during ritual occasions, or, perhaps, the sort of exegetical expertise monastics might lecture about when they travel to these shrines to make offerings and perform rituals. The Supplemental Record of the Transmission Record of the Temple Gate Branch, on the other hand, provides the relevant historiographical data about each shrine and information about why there is a special connection to Mii Temple monastics.

It is difficult to imagine that any association between one of these kami shrine-temple complexes and Mii Temple could be more significant than the legendary connection between Enchin and the Ōyamakui statue of Matsuno’o Shrine. Not only does the Supplemental Record of the Transmission Record of the Temple Gate Branch contain the story of when Enchin visited Matsuno’o, which we know may have resulted in the commissioning of the larger Ōyamakui statue, but we also have Enchin’s biography, which was evidently completed less than ten years after Enchin’s death.⁷⁶ The substance of the story is as follows:

During the tenth month of 846, Enchin made a visit to Matsuno’o Shrine and made a vow that on the eighth day of the fifth and tenth lunar months, the head of Hiei Shrine would visit Matsuno’o and give lectures on the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra [Lotus sūtra], the Book of Buddha Names Recited by Horse-Head (Hayagrīva) rākṣasa, and various other Mahāyāna sūtras. Because he remembered this vow throughout his life, he went [to Matsuno’o] and gave a lecture to commence the lecture series. They celebrate this occasion at Matsuno’o during the 4th and 11th months on the 1st shin [(申)] day.⁷⁷

One of the copies of a document written by Enchin in 863 (Monday, 27 December, 863 (Jōgan 5.11.13)), Enchin kō denpō kugen wo kō sōshōan 円珍請伝法公験奏状案 [Legal Travel Document Submitted to the Throne for Enchin who Seeks the Dharma], seems to contain further evidence that because he had visited Matsuno’o on (Saturday, 4 December, 840 (Jōgan 7.11.7)) and made offerings to the deity enshrined at Hiei Shrine and had made a vow there, he was visited three times while in China by Ōyamakui.⁷⁸

In their diaries written a little more than a century after Enchin had returned from China, apparently motivated to visit Matsuno’o Shrine and deliver lectures there because he had been visited by Ōyamakui while looking for books and Esoteric Buddhist teachings on the continent, both scholar-nobles Fujiwara Munetada (1062–1141, 藤原致忠) and Minamoto no Morotoki (1077–1138, 源師時), in Chūyūki 中右記 [Diary while Minister of the Right] and Chōshūki 長秋記 [Diary during a Lengthy Autumn], respectively, mention strange happenings connected to the statue “commissioned by Chishō daishi” at Matsuno’o Shrine.⁷⁹ Whether or not these eminent statesmen’s musing can be viewed as proof that Enchin had had the statue of Ōyamakui commissioned upon his return from China and subsequent visit to follow through on his vow to lecture there is, of course, almost impossible to verify. On the one hand, the fact that the larger Ōyamakui statue is considerably older than other statues associated with Enchin (e.g., Shinra Myōjin and a possible image of Fudō Myō’ō (不動明王, Skt. Acalanātha)), coupled with the noticeably more sublime composition of the image, certainly seems to suggest the distinct possibility that we are looking at an image from an earlier stage in the development of Esoteric Buddhist-inspired Buddhist art in Japan. On the other hand, everything the Temple-Gate Tendai tradition has to say about what Enchin learned and obtained in China would indicate that the larger Ōyamakui image from Matsuno’o Shrine could not have been commissioned by an advocate or practitioner of Esoteric Buddhist rituals, which figure so significantly in the catalogues he is given credit for compiling in the monastic libraries of 9th century Tang China when his relative compatriot, Ennin, seems to have found this task quite challenging, only two decades earlier.

I discuss these statues from Matsuno’o and Hiei Shrine to show why the shōgyō documents of Mt. Amano Kongō Temple probably kept an edition of Biography of Enchin: Enchin was not only a key figure in the institutional and religious world of late Heian Japan because of the political religious power of Mii Temple and associated temples and shrines, like Matsuno’o and the other seven listed above, but he was also a Buddhist figure connected to the world of indigenous kami. If, as I suspect, Mt. Amano Kongō Temple also functioned as a shrine-temple complex in medieval Japan, then it stands to reason that like Kūkai, with texts attributed to him virtually filling the libraries of Shinpuku Temple and Kongō Temple, Enchin was a figure well worth reading about for a variety of reasons that were probably vital to the monastics at even a Shingon establishment. The category of shōgyō documents with documents like Kiyoyuki’s Biography of Enchin and Annen’s Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings may become a vital tool with which to think about and consider how we should approach manuscripts and other mostly Buddhist religious paraphernalia found in archaeological excavations across present-day Xinjiang (新疆) and into Afghanistan and Pakistan.⁸⁰

5 Jōjin in the Capital Lending Commentaries by Ennin and Enchin, and the Buddhist Canon

During the second day of his stay in Hangzhou when he visited the Xingjiao Temple (Chin. Xingjiao si 興教寺) on the 29th day of the luni-solar month of 1072, Jōjin’s Record of a Pilgrimage to Mount Tiantai and Wutai records that he met an eminent Chan master who was 74 years old by the name of Daguan (達觀). One might think that Jōjin met Daguan Tanying (985–1060, 達觀曇穎), author of the Wujia zhuan 五家傳 [Chronicles of the Five Houses].⁸¹ Either other records of his life are incorrect or Jōjin could have written this monk’s name down incorrectly. Or perhaps he saw some sort of tribute to him that day and made an honest mistake; Jōjin could not speak any vernacular Chinese. In any case, the rest of the entry records the lavish halls of the monastery, including a hall dedicated to the five hundred Arhats, another dedicated to Hārītī (Chin. Guizimu tang 鬼子母堂), a statue of Sarasvatī that captured his attention, and listened (?) to a lecture about roll 6 of Zhanran’s (711–782, 湛然) commentary to the Lotus Sūtra: Fahua xuanyi shiqian 法華玄義釋籤 [Explanation of the Profound Meanings of the Lotus Sūtra] (T. 1717.33).⁸² Nearly a year later when he was in the capital of Bianjing staying at the Institute for Transmitting the dharma at Taiping Xingguo Temple on the 15th day of the fourth luni-solar month of 1073, an obscure Chan monk named Desong (d.u., 德嵩) gave him a copy of the Damo Liuzu tan jing 達摩六祖壇經 [Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch] (T. 2008.48).⁸³ Based on the fact that he brought Chōnen’s (983–1016, 奝然) diary with him to China, the Zaitō ki 在唐記 [Diary in China] and perhaps his Nissō gūhō junrei ki 入宋求法巡礼記 [Record of a Pilgrimage to Song China in Search of the Dharma], and shared it with the translation team on his first day there, scholars have concluded that Jōjin sought to visit the newly translated texts from the Institute for Transmitting the dharma to acquire newly translated texts.⁸⁴

Chōnen returned to Japan in 986 with a copy of the newly printed Kaibao- era Buddhist canon and an additional forty rolls of newly translated texts (for a total of 5425 rolls he brought back to Japan), including an apparently incomplete copy of the Chan lamp or flame history, Jingde chuandeng lu 景德傳燈錄 (Jap. Keitoku dentō roku) [Jingde-era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp [or Flame]] (T. 2076.51, ca. 1004).⁸⁵ The esteemed statesman Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1028, 藤原道長) acquired this canon during the early 11th century, when he oversaw the construction of a lavish, private temple for his clan in Kyoto called Hōjō Temple (Jap. Hōjō ji 法成寺). We can only speculate whether or not the Jingde-era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp was kept at Hōjō Temple.

Because his father was a member of the Fujiwara clan (Jap. Fujiwara shi 藤原氏), most likely the son of Sanekata (d. 998, 実方), a distinguished man of letters in his own right, Jōjin must have been aware of Chōnen’s copy of the Kaibao Canon at Hōjō Temple. His family background provides further perspective when we consider the entry in the Record of a Pilgrimage to Mt. Tiantai and Mt. Wutai for the 25th day of the tenth luni-solar month of 1072, just twelve days after he arrived in at the Institute for Transmitting the dharma on the grounds of Taiping Xingguo Temple. It took him 65 days to reach the capital from Guoqing Monastery on Mt. Tiantai. According to Jōjin’s diary, two monks from India—Richeng (1017–1073, 日稱, Skt. either Sūryayaśas or Sūryakīrti?) and Tianjixiang (d.u., 天吉祥, Skt. Devaśrī?)—supervised a translation team of nineteen.⁸⁶ In the morning of the 25th day of the tenth luni-solar month, Sanskrit scholar Huizuo (fl. 11th c., 惠琢) sent Jōjin some soup and he was invited to have tea with scribe Dingzhao (fl. 11th c., 定照). During the afternoon, Jōjin and assistant translator Huixun (fl. 11th c., 惠詢), also known as Fancai sanzang (梵才三藏), master of the canon (Skt. tripiṭaka) who is talented with the Sanskrit script, and later joined by textual appraiser Zhipu (d.u., 智普, a.k.a. Wenhui dashi 文惠大師), looked at seven other books that Jōjin had brought from Japan. These include three commentaries by Enchin to the Mahāvairocanasūtra (T. 848.18) (Jap. Dainichikyō gishaku 大日經義釈) and Vasubandhu’s (ca. 4th–5th c.) commentary to the Lotus Sūtras (*Saddharmapuṇdarīkasūtropadeśa; Jap. Hokke ronki 法華論記) in 20 rolls, and a glossed commentary to Yijing’s translation of the Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra in ten rolls (Jap. Saishō’ōkyō monku 最勝王經文句).⁸⁷ They also examined Ennin’s commentaries to the Vajraśekhara (Jap. Kongōchōkyō sho 金剛頂經疏, T. 2223.61), and Susiddhikara (Jap. Soshitchikyō sho 蘇悉地經疏, T. 2227.61), sūtras, both in seven rolls, and Genshin’s (942–1017, 源信) Ōjōyōshū 往生要集 [Essentials of Rebirth in the Pure Land] (T. 2682.84).⁸⁸

These commentaries written by Ennin and especially Enchin demonstrate why, following Kuroda Toshio, we refer to Esoteric Buddhism—and especially Tendai Esoteric Buddhism or Taimitsu as opposed to Shingon Esoteric Buddhism or Tōmitsu as in Tō Temple—as Kenmitsu Buddhism (Jap. kenmitsu taisei 顕密体制): Exoteric and Esoteric Buddhism.⁸⁹ Esoteric Buddhist masters who assumed the distinction of ācāryas were lineage holders who had received transmission through consecrations or initiations (Chin. guanding/Jap. kanjō 灌頂, Skt. abhiṣeka) to perform the rituals prescribed in manuals outlining performances in ritual spaces (Chin. daochang, Jap. dōjō 道場, Skt. bodhimaṇḍa) according to specific diagrams (Chin. mantuluo/Jap. mandara 曼荼羅, Skt. maṇḍala) and were concomitant experts in the study of Buddhist sūtra and commentarial treaties, and the contents and arrangement of the (Kaiyuan-era manuscript) Buddhist canon. Just as Heian-era Esoteric Buddhist teachers in Japan received transmission of the maṇḍalas of the two worlds (Jap. ryōbu mandara 両部曼荼羅) or two divisions of the garbhadhātu (Chin. taizang jie/Jap. taizōkai 胎藏界) and vajradhātu (Chin. jin’gang jie/Jap. kongōkai 金剛界) or womb and diamond realms, even within the context of their study of exoteric Buddhist literature (Jap. kengyō 顕經 or Jap. 顕教), ācāryas viewed exoteric sūtras and teachings as advantageous ritual tools for the protection of the state and aristocratic clans (Jap. Chingo kokka 鎭護國家).⁹⁰ Clearly based upon models of practice Japanese monks witnessed in Chang’an and Luoyang during the early Tang or even the Sui Dynasty, specific temples in Japan performed state protection rituals with special attention to ritualised readings—either chanting (Jap. dokuju 読誦) or revolve-reading (Jap. tendoku 転読)—of three scriptures: (1) Xuanzang’s colossal translation of the Da bore boluomiduo jing 大般若波羅蜜多經 [*Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra], i.e. the Daihannyaharamittakyō (Z 1, T. 220), (2) the Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra (specifically Yijing’s edition), and (3) the Scripture on the Humane Kings (Z 21 T. 245.8 and Z 22, T. 246.8): Shin’yaku ninnōkyō 新訳仁王經 [New Translation of the Scripture on the Humane Kings]⁹¹—usually on behalf of the kami (Jap. shinzen dokyō 神前読經) to avert natural disasters and calamities and protect the state and powerful clans.

We have scant sources with which to investigate the tools used and mechanisms by which Buddhist monastics performed state protection rituals that Japanese pilgrims such as Kūkai, Ennin, Enchin, Shūei and others reported they received from Esoteric Buddhist teachers in specific monasteries in Tang Chang’an and Luoyang, which explains Brose’s Chang’an Buddhist Traditions. After the An Lushan, Shi Siming, and Huang Chao rebellions and the Huichang-era anti-Buddhist suppression, as Chen has expertly demonstrated in his Crossfire: Shingon-Tendai Strife as Seen in Two Twelfth-century Polemics, with Special References to Their Background in Tang China, how nearly our entire understanding of what Tang Esoteric Buddhism may have looked like comes from the perspective of the Tendai and Shingon Esoteric Buddhist traditions.

What Jōjin’s diary has to tell us about the world of 11th century state protection and/or Esoteric Buddhism in the capital of Bianjing at the Institute for Transmitting the dharma is problematical to unpack. We know from his background in Japan and certain Lotus Sūtra-orientated rituals (Jap. Hokkehō 法華法) he mentions again and again beginning on the first day of his diary, as well as recitation of the Budong zunzhou/Fudō sonju 不動尊咒 [The Venerable Spell of Acalanātha], how he arrived in China with a highly developed understanding of Esoteric Buddhist discourse, practice, and knowledge of how these practices were integrated with the Lotus Sūtra in Temple Branch Exoteric-Esoteric Buddhist (Jap. kenmitsu 顕密) practice and study.⁹² Just as he loaned out copies of Ennin’s and Enchin’s commentaries to sūtras and commentaries, on the twenty-sixth day of the first lunar month of 1073, he loaned out copies of four Tang translations of ritual texts he had brought with him from Japan. One of these was Amoghavajra’s translation of the Chengju Miaofa lianhua jingwang yuqie guanzhi yigui/Jōju myōhō rengekyō ō yuga kanchi giki 成就妙法蓮華經王瑜伽觀智儀軌 [Manual to Achieve [Skt. siddhi] Visualisation and Knowledge of the King of the Lotus Sūtra through Yoga] (T. 1000.19) with perhaps Ennin’s commentary Hokke shidai 法華次第 [Ritual Procedures of the Lotus Sūtra] to it, and Enchin’s commentary to the Daihannyakyō kaidai 大般若經開題 [Questions about the Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra] that Kūkai brought back to Japan and Enchin appended in one roll.⁹³ Jōjin also appears to have let Huixun borrow his copy of a maṇḍala diagram (Jap. bonjizu mandara 梵字圖曼荼羅).

Jōjin also found newly translated texts in China. At the Institute for Transmitting the dharma on the 28th day of the second luni-solar month1073, for example, we learn that he was able to see a range of rare commentaries that are otherwise primarily catalogued in Ŭich’on’s (1055–1101, 義天) catalogue to the supplement to the First Koryŏ (918–1392, 高麗) printed canon (ca. 991–1101) called Sinp’yŏn chejong kyojang ch’ongnok 新編諸宗總錄 [New Catalogue of the Teachings of All the Schools].⁹⁴ On the twenty-ninth day, he was shown a newly compiled primer for learning the origins of the Sanskrit alphabet and Sanskrit words called Jingyou Tianzhu ziyuan 景祐天竺字源 [Jingyou-era (1034–1038) Book on the Source of Indian [Writing]] and copied down in the Record of a Pilgrimage to Mt. Tiantai and Mt. Wutai two imperial prefaces written to commemorate the translation of it by Dharmapāla (963–1058, Chin. Fahu 法護) and Weijing (d. ca. 1051–1052, 惟淨). The scribe Dingzhao showed him more than 400 rolls of texts previously translated at the Institute, including *Dharmabhadra’s (d. 1000, Chin. Faxian 法賢) translation of the Ratnaguṇasaṃcaya (Chin. Fomu baodezang bore boluomi jing 佛母寶德藏般若波羅蜜經 [Perfection of Wisdom Treasured and Virtuous Storehouse of the Mother of All buddhas], T. 229.8) with imperials prefaces (written in Chinese).⁹⁵ The entry for the ninth day of the fourth luni-solar month of 1073 when he was still in the capital at the Institute explains that he was given a copy of newly translated Esoteric Buddhist text. He records the title as Dajiaowang jing 大教王經 [(perhaps the) Māyājālamahātantra or sūtra of Regal Great Teachings] in thirty rolls, which means it could have been *Dānapāla’s (Chin. Shihu, d. 1017, 施護) retranslation of the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgrahasūtra (alt. Vajraśekharasūtra, Chin. Yiqie rulai zhen shishe dasheng xianzheng sanmei dajiao wang jing 一切如來真實攝大乘現證三昧大教王經 [Mahāyāna Sūtra of Regal Great Teachings about the Genuine, Evident, Verified Samādhi of All the Thus Come Ones], T. 882.18).⁹⁶

I will restrict my discussion here of Jōjin’s background knowledge of Esoteric Buddhism from Japan to the example of the ‘copying the Lotus Sūtra according to the prescribed method’ (Jap. nyohōkyō 如法經) and invoking the thirty kami (Jap. sanjūbanjin 三十番神) who protect the Lotus Sūtra (Jap. Hokekyō shugo no kami 法華經守護の神 or shotenzenjin 諸天善神 or nyohōgyō zenjin 如法經善神) during the ‘end times’ (Jap. mappō 末法).⁹⁷ In his Nyohōgyō genshūsahō 如法經現修作法 [Procedures for Presently Copying [the Lotus] Sūtra According to the Prescribed Method], comp. ca. 1236 (T. 2730.84), ritual sūtra-chanting expert (Jap. shōmyō 声明) Shūkai (d.u., 宗快) lists the invocation of the thirty kami starting with Amaterasu Ōmikami (天照大神), deity of Ise Shrine (Jap. Ise jingū 伊勢神宮), Mie prefecture, on the tenth lunar day, Atsuta Shrine (Jap. Atsuta jingū 熱田神宮) in Nagoya on the first day of the next lunar month, concluding with Kifune (貴船, of Kibune near Kyoto) on the 9th lunar day.⁹⁸ In a mountain branch Tendai Esoteric Buddhism manual in which “the core of cultic practice and thought on Mt. Hiei consisted primarily of Shintō-Buddhist combinations” compiled by ritual expert Kōshū (alt. Kōsō, 1276–1350, 光宗), Keiranshūyōshū 渓嵐拾葉集 [A Collection of Leaves Gathered in Stormy Streams], the thirty kami are similarly evoked as guardians of the Lotus Sūtra tied to a practice initiated by Ennin.⁹⁹ Enchin is the putative founder of the Tendai temple branch; Ennin is assigned the same role for the mountain branch of the Tendai tradition. But Kōshū offers a new twist about one of the shrine-temple complexes or multiplexes that seems to have been of particular significance for the Tendai tradition: Atsuta Shrine is not recorded as the shrine to ‘the imperial sword’ (Jap. Kusanagi no tsurugi 草薙剣 or Yatsurugi 八剱), the name of a kami, but is instead the site where Tang Emperor Xuanzong’s (r. 713–755, 玄宗) favorite consort Yang Guifei (719–756, 楊貴妃)—depicted at Sennyū Temple (Jap. Sennyū ji 泉涌寺) in Kyoto as Yōhiki Kannon (楊貴妃観音)—descended to as part of the cultivation of the vajradhātu or diamondrealm maṇḍala from the Vajraśekharasūtra.¹⁰⁰ Daiun Temple, where Jōjin was abbot before he left for China, played an important role in temple branch Tendai rituals to the kami. And the connection between devotion to local gods, Esoteric Buddhist rituals and the Tendai tradition runs not through pilgrims’ experiences in the Tang capitals, but with Mt. Tiantai in Taizhou (台州) near Hangzhou, where the Mountain King tutelary deity is said to have been brought from to Mt. Hiei by Saichō—or more likely Enchin.¹⁰¹

6 Conclusion: Transmission along the Silk Road(s) in Japan in Practice

As I mentioned at the outset, apart from the so-called Library Cave where the Dunhuang cache of documents were discovered at the turn of the 20th century, we do not have libraries like Shinpuku Temple or Mt. Amano Kongō Temple in China—or anywhere else in East Asian for that matter. With the Biography of Enchin, Comprehensive Catalogue of the Shingon Esoteric Teachings, various travel diaries and catalogues, and Record of a Pilgrimage to Mount Tiantai and Wutai, we can reconstruct the means by which the transmission of Esoteric Buddhist rituals made their way from Tang (and Song) China to Japan and specifically to Matsuno’o, Hiei, and other shrines in the region. Colophons on scriptures from the Matsuno’o and Nanatsu Temple manuscript Buddhist canons reflect how lay people and monastics used these scriptures to achieve not only soteriological ends, but perhaps more significantly, to protect themselves from all manner of misfortune and calamity. And because “colophons containing more or less the same information can be found everywhere,” and the word and concept “colophon” has existed since classical antiquity around the globe, colophons not only mark the “victorious achievement of the scribe,” but they also provide perhaps the only first-hand window we have into what the people actually did with particular books.¹⁰² Or, in our case, with books and statues and texts to be read in as perfect Sanskrit as may have been possible in medieval Japan. The phonetic reading marks I briefly mentioned on rolls of the Yijing’s translation of the Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra from Matsuno’o Shrine and from Dunhuang affirm as much. It seems to me that these colophons are not that far removed from the manuscript fragments that von Hinüber and Karashima studied on the other end of the Silk Road(s). Von Hinüber states:

[…] particularly in very rich and sometimes even voluminous colophons a lot of cultural knowledge is hidden. For, much of the common cultural background of scribes and donors at the period when the copy was prepared is also unintentionally preserved in these texts […]. [C]olophons gradually gained importance as invaluable sources of information on cultural history otherwise lost.¹⁰³

Von Hinüber has found what he calls “the beginning of a long tradition” of inserting a colophon to the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka in Sanskrit which says:

And the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka has come to an end, the discourse on the Dharma, the Sūtrānta, the great extensive one, the instruction of the bodhisattvas, […] the secret of all buddhas, the mystery of all buddhas, the elucidation bringing the highest goal within reach. If a son of a good family falls into a pit of burning coals or lies down on a bed of razors, he should go to a place where this sūtra is.¹⁰⁴

Putting aside the risk of repeating something from a paper I delivered at a conference with Henrik Sørensen two years ago in Beijing, falling into a pit of burning coals or stretching out on a bed of razors seems to be a peculiarly Indic or perhaps even Central Asian fear, because I have yet to see such grisly—though perhaps tangible—concerns expressed in colophons to Buddhist manuscripts in Sinitic. But it goes without saying that the Lotus Sūtra is as associated with deliverance from unwelcome circumstances in East Asia as it apparently was in medieval India. Moreover, although the Lotus Sūtra probably deserves the title ‘King of Sūtras’ in medieval East Asia and certainly in 9th–10th century China and Heian Japan, where it is noticeably missing from the Matsuno’o Shrine canon, despite the fact that this canon owes its survival to a Lotus Sūtra orientated temple (Jap. Myōren ji 妙蓮寺 of the Hokkeshū 法華宗), a host of other scriptures—particularly those with propitious dhāraṇī—promise similar this worldly benefits. The aforementioned Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra is one of these with special attention to goddesses, and Sarasvatī in particular. In several guises she was as well-known across the Indian subcontinent and among Iranian speaking peoples prior to the introduction of Islam as the goddess of composition, learning, music (she plays the vīṇā) and poetry, and she preaches on behalf of the Buddha and offers several of her own dhāraṇī to coincide with a ritual bath (reconstructed from Khotanese-Sanskrit).¹⁰⁵ In Emmerick’s translation Sarasvatī continues:

At the act of bathing, for the sake of the monk who preaches the Law [dharmabhāṇaka], for the sake of those who listen to the Law and to those who write it down, I myself will go there. Together with the multitude of gods, I will cause the removal of every disease in that village, city, district, or dwelling.¹⁰⁶

The brāhmaṇa Kauṇḍinya then praises Sarasvatī, beseeching her to utter another dhāraṇī (following Emmerick):

May my insight be unobstructed. May my knowledge prosper in such textbooks, verses, magic books, doctrinal books, poems. So be it: mahāprabhāve hili hili, mili mili. May it go forth for me by the power of the blessed goddess Sarasvatī. karaṭe keyūre, keyūrebati, hili mili, hili mili, hili hili. I invoke the great goddess by the truth of the Buddha, by the truth of the Indra, by the truth of Varuṇa […]¹⁰⁷

Sarasvatī is not the only goddess who offers a dhāraṇī in the Suvarṇaprabhāsottama; Śrī Mahādevī (Jap. Kichijōten 吉祥天) offers her own spell to provide treasures and spawn a bumper harvest.¹⁰⁸ Dṛḍhā, an earth goddess, also provides her spell,¹⁰⁹ which was also almost certainly particularly relevant to Hata clan members at Matsuno’o Shrine who followed the ritual procedures introduced by Enchin and later Jōjin’s disciples. It is easy to imagine why a community whose primary focus was to venerate the kami of Matsuno’o, a mountain deity, Ōyamagui, and a female kami ‘goddess’, Ichikishima, who protected the Kadono River (Jap. Kadonogawa 葛野川, today called Katsuragawa 桂川), might find spells to expel pollution via a ritual bath, boost the rice harvest, or to cure diseases caused by epidemics useful.

That female kami or goddesses played such a prominent role in this aspect of kami worship by means of Buddhist rituals may explain why Hata no Chikatō had another scripture vowed on the 19th day of the seventh luni-solar month of 1117, the Dvādaśadaṇḍakanāmāṣṭaśatavimalīkaraṇāsūtra (Z 623, T. 1253.21).¹¹⁰ Karashima is “95.4” per cent certain that these Sanskrit folios can be dated to 679–770 and because of their script (“Gilgit-Bamiyan type I”), they probably hail from either the Gilgit region or Haḍḍa.¹¹¹ This rather short scripture in Sanskrit closely matched Dvādaśadaṇḍakanāmāṣṭaśatavimalīkaraṇāsūtra, and presents the Buddha in an assembly with Avalokiteśvara, Mahāsthāmprāpta, Sarvanīvarṇaviṣkaṃbhin bodhisattvas revealing how recitation of these hymns of praise (Skt. stotra) of the names of Śrī Mahādevī “in one’s mind, would prosper without any danger from robbers, demons, and others.”¹¹² Śrī Mahādevī then explains that, because she recited the names of the tathāgatas, she was able to generate sufficient merit to bring the six perfections (Skt. pāramitā) to fruition. After the last name, Dharmarājaśrī, there is a dhāraṇī, which the Buddha states the myriad benefits of performing. Not only is this another scripture from the list Hata no Chikatō had vowed and copied for Matsuno’o that explicitly celebrates Śrī Mahādevī and receiving benefits from reciting another dhāraṇī, but it also establishes another widespread practice associated with Hinduism that I think must have been especially appreciated by lay shrine priests: reciting the name of deities to generate merit or this-worldly benefits.¹¹³ The recitation of dhāraṇīs to female and male kami and goddesses, bodhisattvas, and buddhas in Japan can be connected to the material and intellectual world of the medieval Silk Road(s). That culture is not necessarily one focused upon silk or fine textiles from Persia or India or even China. Instead, this was the transmission of Indic sounds, phonetics, rituals, and religion.