Abstract
Saichō 最澄 (767–822), one of the most prominent of Japanese Buddhist innovators, is the renowned ninth-century founder of the Tendai School (J. Tendaishū 天台宗), the first Japanese Buddhist sect with its own system of temples and monasteries, ordinations, practices and philosophy. It was in the goal of founding and maintaining an authentic Buddhist monastic institution that, for better or worse, influenced his thinking, and structured his philosophy. Although Saichō’s identity as founder is beyond dispute, this accomplishment was initially made possible through what we might call modes of self-displacement, essentially establishing his legitimacy as founder by tracing the origins of Tendai beyond himself to founders even more prominent in the minds of his contemporaries. It is through our participation in this initial displacement of Saichō that the meaning(s) of his contributions to Japanese Buddhism will begin to unfold.
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Notes
- 1.
The Shingon sect was founded by Kūkai 空海 (posthumously Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師), a contemporary of Saichō, who traveled to China on the same voyage in 804. Shingon is the only Japanese sect that is fully esoteric (tantric), and is based, according to tradition, on the preaching of a universal Buddha, Mahāvairocana (J. Dainichi Nyorai 大日如来), who encompasses all buddhas throughout the cosmos as the dharmakāya, or truth body.
- 2.
The Jōdo Shinshū, or True Pure Land school was founded by Shinran 親鸞 in the thirteenth century. Shinran began his career as a Tendai monk, spending a number of years training according to the rigors of monastic life, but he came to realize that he was too burdened by karmic debt to achieve liberation through his own powers. He left the Tendai school and devoted himself to a practice of true entrusting (J. shinjin 信心) in the mythic vow of a celestial Buddha, Amitābha, (J. Amida 阿弥陀), who promised to bring the faithful to his Western Paradise where awakening is certain for all who are reborn there.
- 3.
This devotional meaning was further supported by Saichō’s claim that the buddha of the Lotus Sūtra was not merely the historical Buddha, but the universal and primordial essence of buddhahood, including within itself all buddhas throughout space and time (Stone 1999: 26).
- 4.
The great majority of English works on Zhiyi and his school use the Wade-Giles system for transliteration of Chinese words. Tiantai is most commonly rendered as “T’ien-t’ai” and the founder of Tiantai is most commonly written in the Wade-Giles form as “Chih-i.” However, because the Pinyin system will be used throughout this chapter, the less recognizable forms of “Tiantai” and “Zhiyi” have been chosen for matters of consistency. In quoted materials, use of Wade-Giles terms will be substituted with Pinyin equivalents placed in brackets.
- 5.
The Tiantai 天台, or “heavenly platform” school, gets its name from the mountain where its founder, Zhiyi, originally settled in 576, thus establishing the future center of the Tiantai sect.
- 6.
Fundamental to this process was Zhiyi’s assumption that all of the Buddhist texts had to be of a piece and could not conflict with one another, since the Buddha would never contradict himself. If clear differences were found, it would have to be a matter of the Buddha’s wise use of “skillful means” (S. upāya), presenting different teachings according to the specific needs and capacities of different followers (Donner and Stevenson 1993: 14).
- 7.
Much of China’s authority came from the fact that it had imported Buddhism directly from India, often through the travels of Chinese pilgrims and Indian teachers during the centuries of the Sui and Tang dynasties. The Japanese pilgrims made their way to China and Korea but had no direct contact with India.
- 8.
Indeed, after the death of Saichō, the doctrinal education of Tendai monks has been, to this day, centered on the works of Zhiyi to a much greater extent than on the writings of the Japanese founder, Saichō (Groner 2000: xix–xx).
- 9.
During the sixth century, when the new foreign religion of Buddhism began catching the attention of powerful clans with close ties to the court, Shōtoku’s clan, the Sogas, chose to embrace it, while others like the Mononobe and Nakatomi clans resisted, attempting to protect the indigenous traditions of kami worship. The motivations underlying these religious differences were mainly a matter of maneuvering for political advantage (D. Matsunaga and A. Matsunaga 1974: 10).
- 10.
Recent scholarship has questioned Shōtoku’s actual existence. Both TSUDA Sōkichi and Kenneth Doo Young Lee, for example, doubt whether Shōtoku is more than pure legend, although Lee does not think this seriously compromises the importance and cultural impact of Shōtoku (Lee 2007: 35–36).
- 11.
Shinran, for example, recognized Shōtoku as the incarnation of the Japanese bodhisattva of compassion, Kannon 観音, whom he credits with bringing authentic Buddhism to Japan, a form of Buddhism revived by his teacher Hōnen and carried on in Shinran’s Jōdo Shinshū sect (Lee 2007: 124).
- 12.
What makes the claim even more dubious is that Shōtoku’s birth is recorded to have taken place in 574, and Huisi died 3 years later, in 577.
- 13.
The rise of the imperial Tennō 天王 clan occurred over approximately three centuries (fourth-sixth C.E.), as they began to take military control of the Yamato 大和 region of Honshū 本州. Further legitimacy was procured in mythologies tracing the genealogy of the imperial clan back to the sun goddess Amaterasu 天照らす. During the same period, powerful rival clans maneuvered to secure varying levels of political advantage through agreements and inter-marriage with the imperial clan.
- 14.
The ūrṇa––one of the 32 major physical marks attributed to a Buddha, originating from the Lakkhaṇa Sutta (“The Marks of a Great Man”) in the Pali Dīgha Nikāya or The Long Discourses of the Buddha (Walshe 1995: 442).
- 15.
It should be noted that in traditional accounts in both early Chinese Tiantai and medieval Japanese Tendai it was alleged that both Zhiyi and his teacher Huisi were both in attendance when Śākyamuni Buddha originally presented his Lotus teaching to this large assembly on Vulture Peak in India (Stone 1999: 102–103).
- 16.
According to Whalen Lai, the Lotus Sūtra should not be associated with the early Indian Mahāyāna texts known collectively as the Prajñāpāramitā, or Perfection of Wisdom literature but rather with a “kammatic” tradition of texts aimed mainly at the edification of the Buddha. Unlike the “dhammatic” genre of philosophical texts to which the Abhidharma and Perfection of Wisdom texts both belong, the Lotus Sūtra is clearly devotional, not philosophical, belonging to the tradition of the Buddha’s birth stories found in the Jātaka and Avadāna collections (Lai 1987: 86).
- 17.
The Kegonshū, Ritsushū and Hossōshū are among the six schools of Nara period Buddhism. The remaining Saicho’s include the Kushashū 倶舎宗 (S. Abhidharmakośa), the Jōjitsushū 成実宗 (Establishment of Truth School), and the Sanronshū 三論宗 (Three Treatises School centered on the teachings of Nāgārjuna’s Mādhyamaka or Middle Way School). Much of Saichō’s motivation for founding Tendai was to create a Buddhist institution that would function as an alternative to these schools, independent of their oversight.
- 18.
A number of theories have been offered. Groner provides some of the more prevalent ones in his book on Saichō – that the young monk was repeating the practices of both his teacher Gyōhyō, and Gyōhyō’s teacher, Daoxuan, of retreating to the mountains, or that he was fulfilling a vow his father had made to the kami 神 of Mount Hiei. Possibly, he was moved by the suffering he witnessed among poor farming families, or, as indicated by his composition of a vow (J. ganmon 願文) written at the time of his move, he was distancing himself from the corrupting influences of the capital in order to be more faithful to the precepts and focus his energies on meditative practices (Groner 2000: 27–28).
- 19.
Saichō often called his sect of Buddhism “The Lotus School,” in order to recognize its dependence upon a single text – the Lotus Sūtra.
- 20.
The importance of these works of Zhiyi for the Japanese Tendai sect have far outweighed the works of Saichō. The Tendai examination system, possibly originating from Saichō himself, was based mainly on Zhiyi’s three major works, and monks were expected to demonstrate their own mastery of the material through a series of debates and tests (Groner 1995: 55).
- 21.
This argument contrasts with other contemporary scholars who have claimed that the Lotus Sūtra was always the central text of Tiantai. For example, Daigan and Alicia Matsunaga state that Chinese Tiantai was initially called the Lotus School “due to its complete reliance upon the Lotus Sūtra” (D. Matsunaga and A. Matsunaga 1974: 151). Jacqueline Stone does not seem to see any significant differences between Tendai and Tiantai in the sectarian importance of the Lotus Sūtra, indicating they can be seen as a single tradition in regards to the text, stating, “The Lotus Sūtra is central to the T’ien-t’ai/Tendai tradition…” (Stone 1999: 12).
- 22.
As in Bernard Faure’s interpretation of the life and work of the medieval Sōtō patriarch KEIZAN Jōkin 瑩山紹瑾, we can recognize the imaginaire operative in Saichō’s reading of the Lotus Sūtra, in which the imagistic power of the text structures its impact and idiosyncratic meaning (Faure 1996: 10–13). This, however, does not somehow diminish the validity of Saichō’s appropriation of the text – he joined in the cultural fascination for the imagery provided there and offered new possibilities of meaning and an alternative system of Buddhist praxis for his contemporaries by actively participating in the imaginaire.
- 23.
Universal attainment should not be confused with Original Enlightenment (C. benjue, J. hongaku 本覚), a philosophy associated with the Tendai School. Original Enlightenment is not, in any way, developed in Saicho’s thought and only becomes a central idea in Tendai during the centuries after his death. See Jacqueline I. Stone’s Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Buddhism (1999) for the authoritative study on this subject.
- 24.
The argument is based on Kūkai’s understanding of the “three buddha bodies” (S. trikāya, J. sanjin 三身), a teaching originating from the Indian Yogācāra school. He asserts that the esoteric teaching of the Mahāvairocana Sūtra is the preaching of the dharmakāya, (J. hosshin 法身) or universal truth body, while the exoteric teaching of the Lotus Sūtra is the preaching of the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni, a nirmānakāya buddha (J. ōjin 応身). As a historical Buddha, Śākyamuni’s teaching is provisional, limited to the historical period of his life, while the teaching of Mahāvairocana Buddha is not limited to a historical period and is, therefore, universal. Saichō claimed that the Śākyamuni of the Lotus Sūtra was, in fact, a universal dharmakāya buddha, and his teaching was therefore equivalent to Mahāvairocana. Kūkai never accepted this claim.
- 25.
Little is known about either of these teachers or their works. Saichō refers to Daosui in his own writings mainly to claim he had received transmission from China. Xingman receives even less attention in Japan, as later Tendai monks associated Xingman with an inferior teaching, at odds with the growing emphasis on original enlightenment thought after Saicho’s death (Groner 2000: 43–45). Later esoteric schools within medieval Tendai traced their origins back to Saichō’s Chinese teachers, arguing that he received doctrinal teachings from Xingman and meditative insight from Daosui. There is, however, a lack of substantial evidence to suggest these two distinct transmissions originating from Saichō’s Tiantai teachers (Stone 1999: 104–105).
- 26.
The claims made by Saichō and subsequent Tendai leaders about the initiations and transmissions he received while in China have come under critical scrutiny by modern Japanese scholars. Some have questioned the actual transmission of Chinese Chan Buddhism, arguing that Saichō included this transmission in order to authenticate the Chan transmission he received in Japan from his original teacher Gyōhyō (Groner 2000: 253).
- 27.
According to Paul Groner, Zhanran’s works helped Saichō to better understand the differences between Tiantai and Huayan, and provided proof for the superiority of the Lotus Sūtra over the sūtra of the Huayan school, the Avataṃsakasūtra, or Flower Garland Sūtra (C. Huayanjing 華嚴經, J. Kegonkyō 華厳経) (Groner 2000: 249)
- 28.
These divisions into a “mountain school” (C. shanjia 山家) and “off-mountain school” (C. shanwai 山外) were based on contrasting positions concerning whether or not the mind was originally pure and independent of phenomenal experience (Stone 1999: 9–10).
- 29.
Although Saichō received esoteric initiations in China and studied a number of esoteric texts, including those available to him before he left for China, both those he copied himself during his visit and those he borrowed from Kūkai, his knowledge and experience in esotericism (J. mikkyō 密教) was noticeably limited in comparison to Kūkai. Consequently, he found himself at a great disadvantage as he attempted to promote himself as an esoteric master and to compete with the Shingon School by offering “Tendai esoteric training” (J. Taimitsu 台密). This resulted ultimately in a number of well-documented setbacks and disappointments. It really was not until one of his successors, Ennin 円仁 (794–864) left to train in China in 838 and returned to Japan with a higher level of credibility, that Tendai esotericism began to gain prominence in Japan (D. Matsunaga and A. Matsunaga 1974: 163–164).
- 30.
The Tendai monk Annen 安然 (ninth century) promoted a new attitude towards the precepts, arguing that actual adherence to the rules did not matter as much as one’s attitude towards them (Groner 1987: 133).
- 31.
As stated in an earlier footnote, although Tendai Buddhism and original enlightenment thought are commonly associated, Saichō had little, if anything, to do with it. The earliest examples have been traced to Tendai oral transmissions during the eleventh century.
- 32.
The two truths were defined in Indian Buddhist thought as “conventional truth” (S. saṃvṛtisatya, C. sudi, J. zokutai 俗諦) and “ultimate truth” (S. paramārthasatya, C. zhendi, J. shintai 真諦). The conventional truth is associated with phenomena that are dependently arisen, or linguistic designations of phenomena, or the mistaken understanding of phenomena as they truly are. The ultimate truth is associated with emptiness, or direct, non-linguistic experience of phenomena, or the recognition that all truth is ultimately conventional.
- 33.
According to Tiantai biographies of the tradition’s recognized founder Huiwen, it is said that he attained a great awakening when he first came across this verse in his readings.
- 34.
In Paul L. Swanson’s examination of Zhiyi’s interpretation of the two truths, he indicates that Zhiyi’s use of Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation of the original Sanskrit may have influenced his conclusion that a third truth was indicated in verse eighteen (Swanson 1989: 3).
- 35.
The Sanlun 三論, or Three Treatises School was a scholastic institution in Chinese Buddhism concerned mainly with Indian Mādhyamaka philosophy. This school was transplanted to Japan as the Sanron school, one of the six Nara sects of Japanese Buddhism.
- 36.
Paul Groner has suggested that after suffering a number of defections of his early followers to other rival sects, it is possible Saichō required the 12 year seclusion in order to ensure his trainees would remain with him (Groner 2000: 124).
- 37.
The required 12 years of seclusion was based on Saichō’s own self-imposed isolation for the same length of time following his ordination as a young man of 19 years. However, it proved too difficult for Saichō to find novice monks with the same kind of idealism and discipline, and the requirement was not continued after Saichō’s death (Groner 2000: xix).
- 38.
This fourth dimension of the dharmadhātu is visualized in the image of “Indra’s Net”, where the entire phenomenal universe is imagined as a lattice of diamonds, each diamond reflecting all the other diamonds within itself, and itself reflected in every other diamond.
- 39.
According to Paul Groner, Saichō was, in fact, first introduced to Tiantai Buddhism through the writings of Fazang, where he praised the meditation practices of both Zhiyi and Huisi (Groner 2000: 30).
- 40.
The Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna does take on greater significance with later Tiantai practitioners – first with Zhanran who used the text in order to argue against Huayan notions of original purity (Stone 1999: 9). Second, during the Sung dynasty the off-mountain thinkers of Tiantai, began adopting more of its premises (Donner and Stevenson 1993: 86).
- 41.
There is a clear contrast between Fazang’s systematization of foundational Buddhist texts and Zhiyi’s, which reveals the fundamental differences in their respective visions of the Dharma and its accessibility. Although Zhiyi recognizes the Flower Garland Sūtra as the Buddha’s direct teaching of ultimate reality, revealing a sudden method for the most advanced bodhisattvas, he sees it as a “distinct” teaching as well. According to Liu Ming-Wood, “…in the case of the ‘distinct teaching,’ the ‘truth of the middle’…is conceived apart from the ‘truth of emptiness’…and the ‘truth of the provisional’ and the sphere of the Buddha is regarded as detached from the sphere of common experience….The Lotus, on the other hand, transcends even the last remnant of differentiation in taking under its wing all sentient beings” (Liu 1988: 62–63). However, for Fazang, “…the fact that the Garland is beyond the comprehension of the less intelligent is a consequence of its ‘profundity and broadness’ and so a proof of its preeminence” (Liu 1988: 75).
- 42.
Early Indian texts include the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra and the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra.
- 43.
Attacks on tathāgatagarbha thought in the 1980s originated mainly from the Critical Buddhism movement in Japan, initiated through the work of HAKAMAYA Noriaki 袴谷憲昭 and MATSUMOTO Shirō 松本史郎, of the Sōtō Zen Komazawa University. They argued that the focus on tathāgatagarbha thought in East Asian Buddhism led to Japanese notions of hongaku 本覚 (original enlightenment) and wa 和, or harmony. Both of these influential Japanese ideals have been the main cause, according to Hakamaya and Matsumoto, of a number of social injustices in twentieth century Japan. In response, they claim that tathāgatagarbha thought is heretical to foundational Buddhist teachings and should therefore be refuted.
- 44.
This does not mean that no distinctions are being made here between good and evil in terms of their karmic effects on the quality of life. The main thrust of Zhiyi’s argument is to exclude all exclusions. Ultimately, this assertion has a moral structure.
- 45.
Here, the traditional Mahāyāna practice of the six perfections is understood as one of the major categories of good thoughts formulated by Zhiyi. Because the six perfections are associated mainly with the bodhisattvic path of the monastic renunciant, laypersons are understood as having limited, if any, access to their actual practice.
- 46.
In Stone’s examination of medieval hongaku thought, she points out that this interpretation of Fazang is only found in the work of Saichō and not borrowed from Zhanran or from any Huayan philosopher, claiming, “This represents a crucial step toward the profound valorization of empirical reality found in medieval Tendai original enlightenment thought (Stone 1999: 14).”
- 47.
According to the Pali discourses of the Buddha, calming meditation could be practiced through a number of possible techniques, all concerned with focusing the mind on a single object or thought. When the mind achieves a high enough level of calm, it will naturally reach a series of concentrations or dhyānas (P. jhānas). While centered in these deep stages of concentration, insight or vipaśyanā can be applied to such an extent that the causal nexus of birth and death is discerned, bringing about the extinction of the defilements (S. kleśa, P. kilesa) and the realization of liberation as nirvāna.
- 48.
According to Donner and Stevenson, Zhiyi consulted a number of textual sources to support the theoretical basis of his threefold system of practice, including Nāgārjuna’s commentary on the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra, the Śrīmālā Sūtra, as well as Chinese apocrypha (Donner and Stevenson 1993: 9–10).
- 49.
As we have seen with the teachings of Zhiyi thus far, his main concern here is in gaining insight into phenomenal experience from the standpoint of the middle. The particulars of these tripartite elements of Zhiyi’s system are not of great significance for this study, so they will not be included here. They are only mentioned in order to show how the threefold truth functioned as the foundational principle for Zhiyi’s vision of Buddhist practice.
- 50.
In East Asia, the most important and influential set of Mahāyāna precepts of the period were taken from the Chinese Fanwangjing 梵網經, or Brahma’s Net Sūtra, which contained a list of 10 major and 48 secondary precepts.
- 51.
The standard vinaya precepts, or sifenlu 四分律, were the orthodox set of precepts given during both Chinese and Japanese ordinations of the time.
- 52.
Although this is the case, Saichō did find precedence in the works of Zhiyi to support his view of the precepts, namely, in the latter’s sudden path of the bodhisattva (the fourth and highest path), and in his use of the term “perfect precepts” in his writings. Saichō associated both with the necessity for the exclusive practice of the Mahāyāna precepts (Groner 2000: 227).
- 53.
Saichō arrived at this view of the precepts over a period of time, well after returning from his training in China. He began to officially reject the Hinayāna precepts through a series of written statements and petitions beginning in 1818. His language concerning these interests was initially vague, and his ultimate views about precept ordinations evolved over subsequent years based on the lack of success of his initial petitions. Although he certainly based his argument for the use of the Mahāyāna precepts on a valid understanding of the perfect teaching and desired to create a system that would facilitate the attainment of liberation for the Japanese people, he was also motivated by his sectarian interests in distinguishing the Tendai sect from other Japanese schools of Buddhism, as well as achieving greater independence from governmental oversight (Groner 2000: 114–137).
- 54.
These include “generosity” (S. dāna), “morality” (S. śīla), “patience” (S. kṣānti), “energy” (S. vīrya), “meditation” (S. dhyāna), “wisdom” (S. prajñā), “skillful means” (S. upāya), “vow” (S. praṇidhāna), “powers” (S. bala), and “knowledge” (S. jñāna).
- 55.
These ideas are taken from Chandrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra (The Entry into the Middle Way).
- 56.
According to SHIRATO Waka, Saichō’s insistence on the exclusive practice of the bodhisattva precepts indicated his own recognition of original enlightenment, thus identifying the founder of the Tendai school with a later development in Tendai philosophy. His rationale for this position is that the exclusive practice of the bodhisattva precepts recognizes the Buddha-nature of the practitioner. “This nature is what assures fulfillment of the purpose of keeping the precepts, namely the attainment of enlightenment or Buddhahood. This is practically the same as interpreting the precepts in terms of inherent enlightenment (hongaku)…” (Shirato 1987: 123).
- 57.
Even in this case, Saichō only saw the Hinayāna precepts as provisional and were mainly administered in order to resolve possible disputes with other schools concerning orthodox monastic discipline and seniority (Groner 2000: 193).
- 58.
Saichō went as so far as to argue that the Office of Monastic Affairs (J. sōgō 僧綱), which had functioned as an institutional governing body for all Japanese ordinations since the seventh century, should be abolished in favor of lay administrators (Groner 2000: 177).
- 59.
Claims of sudden enlightenment are found in Zhiyi’s primary work on Tiantai practice, the Mohezhiguan. Claims of sudden enlightenment are also found in section nine of Fazang’s Huayan work written for empress Wu, The Treatise of the Golden Lion (C. Jinshizizhang 金獅子章) (Chan 1963: 413).
- 60.
Traditionally, the works of the school originate not only from Vasubandhu, but also from his brother Asaṅga, including five treatises, which were said to have been received from the future Buddha, Maitreya.
- 61.
In Japan, the icchantika doctrine has been used to support the discrimination of the Burakumin 部落民 community, persons associated with unclean professions, mainly related to the dead. These kinds of essentialist arguments in East Asian Buddhism have come under recent attack in Japan, mainly by the founders of the Critical Buddhism (J. hihan bukkyō 批判仏教) movement, HAKAMAYA Noriaki 袴谷憲昭 and MATSUMOTO Shirō 松本史朗.
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Forte, V. (2019). Saichō: Founding Patriarch of Japanese Buddhism. In: Kopf, G. (eds) The Dao Companion to Japanese Buddhist Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2924-9_11
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