Buddhism in East Asia (arts of Japan cycle)

Chinese figurine of Buddha,
northern Wei dynasty,
 Shanghai Museum

 

An Shigao was a son of a Shah of the Arascid dynasty. This dynasty ruled Iran in the second century of our era; but An Shigao didn’t want to get involved in politics, became a Buddhist monk and on the Silk Road travelled to China. There he is revered as the first translator of sutras from Sanskrit into Chinese. He only translated a few texts, but he started a stream that in time became a river. At the end of the fourth century Chinese monks already travelled to India with a specific purpose to find more sutras. The most famous of them was Faxian, who in A.D.399 went to the west across the deserts, travelled in Kashmir, the plains of Ganges and Ceylon, finally went back to China via Indonesia; later he wrote a book of his travels. Another one was Zhiyen, who met in India a master named Buddhabhadra and persuaded him to travel to China. Buddhabhadra went there and in the imperial capital met another long-nosed foreigner, a native of Central Asia who had been persuaded by Chinese envoys to come to China translate sutras. The foreigner was Kumarajiva, who after studies in Kashmir and North India returned to his native oasis on the Silk Road and had a reputation of a great sage. He arrived in China two years after Faxian’s departure and living in luxury at the imperial court made one translation after another. He translated the sutras which later had a huge influence on the Far Eastern Buddhism: “The Thread Leading to the Other Side” (Prajña Paramita Sutra), “Lotus of the Good Law” (Saddharma Pundarika Sutra), “Description of the Pure Land” (Sukhavati Vyuha). He also translated the “Treaty of the Middle Way” (Madhyamaka Sastra) written by Nagarjuna. He didn't respect the monastic rule and lived in a palace, but nobody questioned his competence, Buddhabhadra led philosophical discussions with him. Buddhabhadra also translated sutras, for example the very influential “Flower Wreath Thread” (Avatamsaka Sutra), but he never accepted imperial honours. He lived according to the monastic rule and begged every day for food. For a period of time he lived in a distant monastery on Mount Lushan, where at that time the White Lotus Society was being formed.

ELEPHANT

Two centuries later, AD 629, a young monk named Xuanzang fled without imperial permission towards the western deserts. Along the Silk Road and through Kashmir he reached the Ganges plain, where he studied at the great Buddhist University of Nalanda under master Silabhadra. He was a bright participant in discussions, led of course in Sanskrit, he gained respect and support of King Harsha who – when Xuanzang after a number of years decided to return to his own country – wanted to give him four elephants to transport all those sutras. Xuanzang thought it would be against the rule of poverty and accepted only one elephant, which drowned anyway when crossing the Indus River and our pilgrim had to use just a caravan of mules. When the caravan reached China, the Emperor himself received the penniless pilgrim of years ago with honours. The Emperor asked the famous traveller about the political situation in the countries beyond deserts and mountains and for his use Xuanzang wrote his famous “Description of the Western Kingdoms”, but for him it was only a marginal work: the rest of his life Xuanzang spent on translating sutras. He translated an incredible number of them, one fifth of the present Chinese Buddhist Canon are his translations. He is also considered an excellent translator. He had a large team of helpers, whose job was to make sure the translations are faithful and in clear Chinese. The great translator made also compilations for the use for beginners. One of those compilations, based on writings of Vasubandhu, became even a main object of studies of a separate Chinese school, called Faxiang.

PATRIARCH

Loughing Buddha, characteristic Chinese figure. 
Lingyin temple near Hangzhou, Song times

This was a time of formation for the Chinese Buddhist schools, which didn’t fight one another, but used different texts as their main subjects of study. The Sanlun (or Three Treaties) school studied mainly three books, of which the most important was Madhyamaka Sastra of Nagarjuna. The Zushe School studied Abhidharmakosa written by Vasubandhu. In the seventh century a monk named Du Fashun created a Huayen (or Flower Wreath) school, whose studies concentrated on Avatamsaka Sutra. At the same time a monk named Daoxuan, considering that in those schools there was too much stress on intellectual studies, started a school called Lu in Chinese. The main worry of monks of this school was purity of the monastic rule and ritual. There were other non-intellectual schools. In the far south of China, near Canton, lived the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, illiterate peasant named Huineng, who passed his transcendental wisdom by smacking his disciples with a bamboo stick. At the beginning of the eighth century came from India to China a monk named Vajrabodhi bringing with him the secret teachings of Tantrism.

FUNERALS

When Faxian travelled to the west in the search of sutras, people from countries lying farther east came to China for the very same purpose. One of those countries was called Realm of the Fresh Morning, or Korea. Korea was then divided into three kingdoms; two of them – Koguryo and Paekche – accepted Buddhism already in the fourth century. Intellectual life of Korea since antiquity reflected that of its big neighbour. When Buddhism spread in the Middle Kingdom, Korean monks studied sutras in Chinese monasteries, some even travelled to India as well. One of those travellers was Hyech’o, who during the Tang dynasty went to India with a group of Chinese monks and wrote a book of his travels after his return. The Chinese schools of Buddhism had their counterparts in Korea. Of course the Korean kings were Buddhists only in a very wide meaning of the word, they didn’t stop wars, but at least the most savage practices were eliminated. Buddhism had a tempering influence on customs and perhaps for this reason monks tried to influence kings, though they never succeeded in completely converting them to non-violence. Syong-myong, the King of Peakche, sent in the year 545 AD an envoy to Japanese Emperor Kimmei with some gifts, among which there were some sutras and a bronze figure of Buddha as well as an explanation that this is the greatest teaching known to the world. The Japanese were a savage people at that time, they practised human sacrifices at funerals of important people; at the funerals of emperors traditionally the whole government, and court and harem were buried alive. Song-myong mostly wanted Kimmei’s support in his war against the third Korean kingdom, named Silla, but the fact is that the following year Kimmei issued a decree forbidding human sacrifices at funerals.

CANAL

Teaching coming from a distant country, not even China, but farther away, started by a prince who preferred to be a beggar but thanks to this teaching gained knowledge about the whole universe and now even kings bow to the ground before his image – for the Japanese these were the news really widening their horizons. This teaching appeared to be attractive for some members of the Japanese elite. The Soga family, the most influential at the imperial court, supported the new teaching and built monasteries for monks coming from Korea and temples for sculptures brought from there. As it often happens, the “foreign influences” were controversial; the Mononobe and Nakatomi families, rivals of the Soga, talked about “loosing the national identity, dangers to independence and true Japanese religion”. At that time the national discourse was not led on paper, but in deed: monasteries and temples were burned, bodily harm was done to monks and nuns, bronze figures were thrown to canals. These were only small battles lost, not the war, because the Soga run the official policy of the country, they put emperors on the throne and if any emperor tried to oppose them, he was not taken down from the throne, but his head was severed from his body. This support for Buddhism gained momentum when Soga-no Umako became the head of the family. In the year 592 AD the Emperor Sujun lost his head (literally) as a result of his unwise anti-Soga policy and the next ruler was the Empress Suiko, a daughter of Kimmei and a sister of Umako. A prince of the imperial family, named Shotoku Taishi, became the Regent in her name.

PRINCE

Todai-ji in Nara

Shotoku Taishi was an unusual person in the history of Japan. He was unquestionably a skilful politician, acted in harmony with Umako, but if Umako’s job was to cut off heads, Prince Shotoku’s job was to temper the customs. There are stories about him similar to those of St. Martin: it is said that he – an imperial prince – fed and clothed a beggar dying by a roadside. A death by a roadside was not an unusual sight in Japan of that time; according to the Shintô religion a contact with death, and so with the dying, caused a ritual impurity, therefore people didn’t help those who were dying by the roadside. Helping a dying beggar prince Shotoku consciously broke old religious conditioning. He was, however, not only good-hearted, he was also a highly educated Buddhist, his teacher was a Korean monk named Hyecha (Eji in Japanese). The prince spoke Chinese fluently and not only copied sutras in beautiful calligraphy, but also wrote commentaries to them. One such commentary written in prince’s own hand is kept today in imperial collection. There is no doubt that the prince supported the spread of Buddhism in order to temper customs; his “Edict of Seventeen Points” certainly had this purpose. During the prince Shotoku’s rule, in 607 AD, the oldest existing monastery was build. In the year 621, when the prince died, there were already 46 monasteries, over 800 monks and more than 500 nuns in the country.

METROPOLIS

During the next century the controversies over the Buddhist religion calmed down. As a result of a skilful policy of Nakatomi-no Katamari, the arrogant Sogas lost their heads, literally. As a reward for his services Katamari received from the Emperor a new surname – Fujiwara – and became a founder of a new powerful family. He became a Prime Minister and as such he rendered great services for the empire. He continued the reforms of prince Shotoku and supported Buddhism, which after the elimination of the Sogas ceased to be a controversial issue. In 653 AD a monk named Dôshô was sent to China, where he studied under Xuanzang himself. When Dôshô returned to Japan after many years, he brought with him the Faxiang school, which in Japanese was called Hossô. This school owns the oldest monasteries in Japan, like Hôryûji, as well as founded by the Fujiwaras and standing today in Nara Kôfuku-ji. During the Nara period - that is in the eighth century - teachers of other schools came to Japan, too. There was in Nara a branch of Zhushe School, called Kusha in Japanese, which studied the writings of Vasubandhu. There was Three Treaties school, called Sanron in Japanese, which studied the writings if Nagarjuna. In 736 AD came to Japan a monk named Dôsen, who brought with him a school of Flower Wreath, or Kegon in Japanese. On the same ship as Dôsen another two travellers arrived: Bodhisena, a Brahmin from South India, who in Japan taught Sanskrit, and Kibi-no Makibi, who had also learned Sanskrit and probably was the creator of the Japanese alphabet called katakana. Another foreigner living in Nara at the time was Fat-triet, a monk from Cambodia, who taught the Japanese the ritual dances based on Indian mythology; those dances are even today performed occasionally in Hôryûji. And finally in 747 AD the Emperor Shômu decided to build in his capital the biggest bronze Buddha figure in the world.

GODDESS

One of the Buddhas in Todai-ji

To start with it was decided that the oracles of goddess Amaterasu have to be asked for advice where the best place would be. The times when Buddhism was considered a threat to the native religion were gone. Buddhism, as always, did not preach doctrines and did not fight doctrines. Gyôgi Bosatsu, a monk of the Hossô School, was known as the one who preached most often that there was no opposition between Buddhism and Shintô. According to some sources he was a Korean who came to Japan in 685 AD as a layman, according to others he was a Japanese form the western Izumi province; whatever was the case he was ordained in Yakushiji monastery in Nara, studied in the Hossô School and later travelled widely around Japan spreading the new religion. In 742 he was sent to the sanctuary of the Sun goddess in Ise to ask her oracles what the goddess thinks about the plans of erecting the temple of Buddha Greatsun in Nara. The answer was not very clear, but it was interpreted as positive. It meant, of course, that the goddess is also the protector of the Buddhist order, as the Thunder god Indra was in India.

MERITS

In 747 the work began. The Emperor Shômu decided that it is to be the undertaking of the whole nation, each one of his subjects was to be given a chance to earn merit for his afterlife. The Emperor didn’t want to take all the credit for himself. Someone then and there realised that the Path Towards Awakening is not an individual effort to look after one’s own bottom, but an effort of the whole society in the same direction. From the perspective we can see that then and there an important event was taking place, an event in which all nation participated. The person charged with gathering funds all over the country was the monk Gyôgi, who rightly was called Bosatsu, which means Bodhisattva or the Awakening Warrior.

EYES

The person to oversee the works on the spot was Rôben, a monk of the Kegon School. The Tôdaiji monastery, where the figure was being built, belonged to that school and the figure was to be an image of Buddha Greatsun, the central character from the Flower Wreath Sutra. It was a huge undertaking: a slope of a hill was levelled and the casting of the parts of the figure took two years. When in 749 AD the whole was put together, in one of the provinces gold was discovered (the participants in the undertaking would claim that it was no coincidence). The same year the emperor issued a thanksgiving edict, in which he – considered to be a god by his subjects – calls himself a “Servant of Three Jewels”. Three years later the great building covering the figure was finished and the ceremony of the Opening of the Eyes was performed.

STATUS

One of the guardians of Todai-ji

Clearly the emperor Shômu wanted to give all his subject a chance to enter the Path Towards Awakening. As a young man he was vain, he even wanted to build himself a new capital that would be more magnificent than Nara, but he underwent a change similar to the Indian Emperor Asoka after he witnessed an epidemic killing almost half the population of his country. Then even the emperor started to think about the next life; not only his own, but that of his subjects as well. Even before the building of the Great Buddha in Nara began, the Emperor ordered the building in each province at least one monastery where the Flower Wreath Sutra would be kept and a temple where a five metres high figure of Buddha Greatsun was to be housed. The eighteen metres high figure in the capital was not only the highest in the country, but also (although the Emperor probably didn’t know that) the biggest bronze figure in the world. In 749 AD, when the figure was ready, the Emperor Shômu apparently thought that his role is finished and decided to give up the status of god and accept the status of a monk: he abdicated and himself entered the Path Towards Awakening.

BLIND

There was a great enthusiasm for the new teaching, there were various schools, but there was no certainty whether the Japanese order was started according to right rites. Just to have this certainty it was decided that a master of a Lu school, or Ritsu in Japanese, has to be invited to Japan. This school specialised in preserving the purity of ritual and monastic discipline. The invited master was named Jianzhen, or – according to the Japanese pronunciation – Kanjin. He accepted the invitation and several times tried to depart from China, but each time he encountered unforeseen obstacles: the Chinese bureaucracy, shipwreck, pirates. In one of his unfinished journeys he even lost his sight. He was, however, persistent and in 753 AD he reached Nara as a sixty years old blind man. According to his directions a kaidan – or a proper platform for the initiation rites – was built and one beautiful day a few hundred people had their heads properly shaved.

FUTURE

This was the beginning of the true Buddhist order in the insular empire of the Eastern Ocean. The future looked bright. As bright as the rising Buddha Greatsun.

The Great Budhha of Nara

If you want to know more on the subject, there is a book: