doctrine, whose philosophic basis is such as to make it
capable of including the two extremes, of ascetic self-torture and the worship
of physical rapture.
This movement was first represented in China by Vajrabodhi and his nephew Amoghavajra, of Southern India, the latter having gone back to India in quest of such ideas in 741 A.D. This may be considered as the point at which
Buddhism merges itself in the larger influx of Hinduism, so that Indian
influence at the period is overwhelming, in art as in religion.
The origin of the school in India itself is obscure. There
are apparent traces of its existence even in very early days, but its systematisation
seems only to be completed in the seventh and eighth centuries, when a need
arose for combining the Brahminical and Buddhist doctrines. This was the moment
at which the Ramayana received its final form, as a protest against the
over-monasticising of life. In
[paragraph continues] Japan the new philosophical standpoint was an advance upon the
Hosso and Kegon schools which had taught the union of mind and matter, and the
realisation of the Supreme Spirit, in concrete forms, for these thinkers went
further than their predecessors, in the effort to demonstrate the idea in
practice, claiming their own descent from direct communion with Vairochana, the
Supreme Godhead, of which the Sakya-Buddha was only one manifestation. They
aimed at finding truth in all religions and all teachings, each of them being
its own method of attaining to the highest.
The union of mind, body, and word in meditation was
considered essential, though any one of the three, by itself, carried to its
utmost possibility, was productive of the highest results. Thus they made the
Word, or the pronouncing of sacred charms, which they considered as lying on
the borderland between mind and body, the most important way of
attaining the result, so that this sect was sometimes
called the True Word, or Shingon.
Art and Nature were now regarded in a new light, for in
every object alike was contained Vairochana, the Impersonal-Universal, a
supreme realisation of which was to be the quest of the believer. Crime, from
this point of view of transcendent one-ness, becomes as sacred as
self-sacrifice, the lowest demon as naturally the centre of the pantheon as the
highest god. The minutest details must be guarded and conserved, the object
being to see the whole of life as an embodiment of Godhead. And mythology comes
to be treated as a shimmering iridescence, of which any point may at any moment
be made the centre, throwing all others into relative subordination.
The idea is one of many possible issues of the great Indian
aspiration towards Same-Sightedness (Samadarsana). At the same time, curiously
enough, in spite of
the profoundly intellectual analysis inherent in Buddhism,
the scientific ideas of this period are expressed as magic, or the study of the
supernatural. This was perhaps because the philosophy which divided the
Existent into five elements - earth, air, fire, water, and ether understood as
Mind, declaring that without the last, no one of the other four could be, and
that into it all were alike resolvable - was too subtle for the understanding
of the untrained masses. Under this school of thought every act of life became
loaded with ritual, like Indian architecture, as regulated by Varahamihira in
his Vrihat Samhita, and sculpture in the Manasara. In erecting a temple, for
instance, the acharya, or master, would lay out the ground with a cosmic
design, in which every stone had its place, and even the rubbish found within
the outline represented the imperfections and shortcomings of his own
development. Architecture, sculpture, and the whole arrangement of
the temple, were all made expressive of this idea of the
universe.
It was under this influence that Buddhism acquired its
great masses of gods and goddesses, alien to the faith itself, but made
possible by the new teaching as manifestations of the supreme original
Divinity. We find now a systematised pantheon, grouped around the idea of
Vairochana, in four main subdivisions - first Fudo, second Hosho, third Amida,
and fourth Sakya, as representations (1) of Power, which is knowledge; (2) of
Wealth, which is creative force; (3) of Mercy, which is Divine intelligence
descending upon man; and (4) of Work, or Karma, the realisation of the first
three in actual life on earth, that is, Sakya-Muni.
Such is the abstract significance of the symbols. On their
concrete side, Fudo, the immovable, the God of Samadhi, stands for the terrible
form of Siva, the grand vision of the eternal blue, rising
out of fire. Corresponding to the Indian idea of the
period, he has the gleaming third eye, the trident sword, and the lasso of
snakes. In another form, as Kojin, the Fierce God (Rudra?), or Makeisura
(Maha-Iswara), he wears a garland of skulls, armlets of snakes, and the
tiger-skin of meditation.
His feminine counterpart appears as Aizen, of the mighty
bow, lion-crowned and awful, the God of Love - but love in its strong form,
whose fire of purity is death, who slays the beloved that he may attain the
highest. Vairochana becomes a trinity with Fudo and Aizen, by means of the
symbol of the Chintamani jewel, whose mystic form is that of a circle striving
to make itself a triangle - for life, it is said, never completes itself, but
is for ever breaking through perfection, in its struggle upwards to the higher
rounds of realisation.
The Indian idea of Kali is also represented by Kariteimo,
the Mother-Queen
of Heaven, to whom is made offering daily of the
pomegranate, under a strange interpretation that points to the transformation
of an ancient sacrifice of blood into this form under Buddhistic influences.
Saraswati, as Benten, with her vina, which quells the waves; Kompira, or the
Gandharva, the Eagle-headed, sacred to mariners; Kichijoten, or Lakshmi, who
confers fortune and love; Taigensui, the Commander-in-chief (Kartikeya), who
bestows the banner of victory; Shoden, the elephant - headed Ganesh, Breaker of
the Path, to whom the first salutations are offered in all village-worship, and
whose dread power is held in check by the counsels of the eleven-headed Kwannon,
now attaining the female form, in expression of the Indian thought of
motherhood - all these suggest the direct adoption of Hindu deities.
This new conception of the divinities is different from the
distant attitude of
earlier Buddhists, inasmuch as they are now real, concrete,
and actual in the forms represented.
The artistic works of the period are full of this intense
fervour and nearness to the gods, such as is unknown in any other era. We have
seen that the introduction of the Mikkio doctrine into China dates from Vajrabodhi, who came to that land in 719, translated a sûtra on the Yoga, and was
followed by Amoghavajra, bringing further knowledge on his return from India in 746. Its introduction into Japan dates similarly from Kukai, who was taught by
Keika, the disciple of Amoghavajra. These teachers were considered to have
magical powers, and were held in great reverence, and Kukai, one of the
greatest figures in Japanese Buddhism, is supposed to be still sitting in
meditation on Mount Koya, where he entered into Samadhi in 833, as a yogi.
Kukai's works are numerous, "The Seven Patriarchs of the
[paragraph continues] Sect of the True Word," painted by him, are now handed down in
the Toji temple of Kyoto, amongst its priceless treasures, and are deeply
suggestive of the great virility and grandeur of this master-mind. His
immediate disciples, Jitte, Jikaku, and Chisho, all of whom studied the
doctrine in China, carried the movement still further. The creed and temples of
the early Nara period succumbed in the main to this new influence, inasmuch as
its comprehensive view engendered no conflict with any earlier tenets.
One of the best specimens of the sculpture of this period
is the Yakshi Buddha, the Great Healer, carved under the orders of Kukai, now
extant in the Zhingoji temple near Kyoto. Another, the eleven-headed Kwannon of
Toganji in Omi, is attributed to Saicho, Kukai's great rival. We may also
mention the Nioirin Kwannon of Kansinji, and the graceful Kwannon of Hokkiji in
Nara.
NOTES
Fudo. - The Immovable. One of the Indian names
of Siva, similarly, is Achala, the Unmoving.
The Twelve Devas. - The twelve devas are: Bonten
(Brahma), attended by the white bird Ha Kuga, or Swan; Khaten
(Agni); Ishanna; Thaishak (Indra); Futen; Vishamon,
whose consort is Kichjoten (Goddess of Fortune); Em-ma (Yama), riding on
a buffalo, and bearing the great staff of death, surmounted by two heads; Nitten,
the Sun-God; Getten, the Moon-God; Suiten, the God of Waters on a
tortoise; and Shoden (Ganesh).
At the time of a monk's initiation
the acharya, or master, represented Vairochana; the postulant, the potential
Vairochana; pictures of the twelve devas were hung about the hall as guardian
witnesses, and at the back was placed the screen, bearing the representation of
mountains and waters, behind which the secret text was spoken in the ear.
Samadhi, or realisation through concentration. In Japan we distinguish three stages, beginning with the trance of super-consciousness,
produced by meditation, and culminating in a perfect union with the Absolute,
which is compatible with work in the world, and is the same as Buddhahood. This
last phase is that known in India as jivan-mukti.