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Kūkai or Kobo-Daishi, 774835 CE: Japanese monk, scholar, and artist,
founder of the Shingon or True Word school of Buddhism.
Kūkai's family were aristocratic, and being a gifted child he was sent to
university were he studied the Chinese_classics, became acquainted with
Tantric_Buddhism. In particular he had discovered the Dainichikyo, or Maha
Vairochana Sutra. However he was unable to a suitable teacher to explain it
to him. In 804 he travelled managed to be included in a diplomatic mission
to China, perhaps with the help of the Emperor Kanmu. In Ch'ang-an he
studied Sanskrit and met his teacher Hui-kuo who gave him tantric initiation
and taught him the esoteric doctrines contained in the Dainichikyo. Hui-Kuo
decided to make Kūkai his successor, but asked him to return to Japan and
teach the esoteric doctrines there for the benefit of the Japanese people.
He returned to Japan with many scriptures and art objects.
Kūkai returned to a new emperor, Heizei, who showed little interest in
Kūkai or his new teachings. The Tendai School run by Saicho was very popular
and for a while eclipsed Kukai. Later however they assimilated many Shingon
doctrines, and Saicho even approached Kukai to borrow scriptures that he had
obtained in China.
Kūkai's main contribution to Buddhist thought was in synthesising all the
existing teachings into a coherent whole. Over more than 1000 years Buddhist
teachings had multiplied enormously, and many seemingly contradictory
teachings were available. Kūkai created a hierachical approach to spiritual
practice which included Confucianism and Daoism as lower stages on the path
- this was published in 830 as Jujushinron (Ten Stages of Mind Development)
. He placed the Mahavairocana Sutra (actually an early Tantric text) at the
pinnacle of teachings. Shingon is stronly influenced by the Tathāgatagarbha
Doctrine, also known as 'Buddha Nature' which says that all beings are
inherently pure from the very beginning. The highest attainment according to
Shingon is the union of the individual's mind and body with the mind and
body of the Dharmakaya Buddha, Mahavairochana.
Kūkai is famous as a calligrapher, engineer and is said to have invented
(on the model of Sanskrit) kana, the syllabary in which, in combination with
Chinese characters (Kanji) the Japanese language is written. His religious
writing, some 50 works, expound the esoteric Shingon doctrine, of which the
major ones have been translated into English by Hakeda (see below). Kūkai is
also said to have written the iroha, one of the most famous poems in
Japanese.
In 816CE he founded the Kongobuji monastery on Mount_Koya which has been
at the center of Shingon Buddhism ever since. Mount Koya is still a center
of pilgrimage, and there is a folk belief that Kūkai, who is buried there,
is not dead but in deep meditation and will one day rise again. The title
Kobo Daishi, 'Propagator of Dharma', was granted posthumously.
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