Womb World Mandala (TaizÅkai mandara) - Reflections of the Buddha

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Womb World Mandala (Taizōkai Mandala) 4 priestly robe, or kesa 袈裟 , now one of the celebrated treasures of Tō-ji 東寺 temple, Kyoto. 10 Assembled in a patchwork manner from many fragments of valuable cloth, these robes are a reminder of the mendicant ideal of the monastic order, and in the Shingon 真語 faith they became important documents of dharma transmission from master to disciple. Upon his return, Kūkai founded the Shingon sect of Buddhism and is still revered today as one of Japan’s most significant patriarchs. Understood according its Sino-Japanese characters, “Shingon” means the “true word” or mantra; together, the Shingon sect and the Tendai sect 天台宗 - which is named for Mt. Tiantai 天台山 , in China’s Fujian province, where the teachings were first promulgated - is also often referred to as mikkyō 密教 , or the “secret teaching”, in contradistinction to kengyō 顕教 , the “revealed teachings.” This kind of Buddhism is known as esoteric (or tantric) because it relies on the secret transmission of knowledge through mysterious and elaborate rituals that defy verbal expression. Secret teachings specifically refer to the doctrine of the “secret” Buddha Mahavairocana; revealed teachings, to the doctrine revealed by the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni 釈迦如来 (Japanese, Shaka nyorai). 11 Mandala are essential to the transmission of these teachings as visual representations of sacred truths that had no other vehicle: “Since the Esoteric Buddhist teachings are so profound as to defy expression in writing, they are revealed through the medium of painting to those who are yet to be enlightened. The various postures and mudras [shown in mandala] are products of the great compassion of the Buddha; the sight of them may well enable one to attain Buddhahood. The secrets of the sutras and commentaries are for the most part depicted in painting, and all the essentials of the esoteric Buddhist doctrines are, in reality, set forth therein. Neither masters nor students can dispense with them. They are indeed [the expressions of] the root and source of the oceanlike assembly”. 12 Kūkai The Italian scholar Giuseppe Tucci (1894-1984), who was one of the first Western scholars to focus his studies on Tibetan Buddhist art and on mandalas, describes mandala as a “means of reintegration;” 13 more specifically within the Shingon sect, mandala are pictorial attempts to show that all forms of 10 For a study of the importance of such robes, see Yamakawa Aki, “Intertwined Threads: The World of the Enshoji Altar Cloth”, in Patricia Fister et. al. Amamonzeki – A Hidden Heritage : Treasures of the Japanese Imperial Convents. Tokyo: Sankei Shinbun (1999). This robe was recently on display at the Tokyo National Museum exhibition Kūkai’s World: The Arts of Esoteric Buddhism (July 20th - September 25th 2011), cat. 17. 11 Minoru Kiyota, “Shingon Mikkyō Mandala”, in History of Religions, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Aug., 1968), p. 31. 12 Hakeda 1972, pp. 146 - 146. 13 Giuseppe Tucci, The Theory and Practice of the Mandala, trans. Alan Houghton Brodrick. London: Rider & Co., (1961) pp. 21-48. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts Reflections of the Buddha
Womb World Mandala (Taizōkai Mandala) 5 existence are interrelated and essentially one, that man’s nature is one with and a part of the Buddha Vairocana. Doctrinally, this ‘reintegration’ is manifest in the theory known as sokushin-jōbutsu 即身成仏 , propounded by both Kūkai and his contemporary Saichō 最澄 (767-822), whereby Buddhahood as the deity Vairocana is realized in each human body just as that body is, in this very existence. The human practitioner is able to attain Buddhahood in his current body by recognizing himself as participating in Mahavairocana’s Buddha nature just as Mahavairocana reciprocally participates in the practitioner’s body. Unity with the speech, body and mind of Mahavairocana is achieved though somatic practices such as breathing and chanting in ritually prescribed ways. These doctrines, expressed visually through the two worlds mandala, are illustrative of the more direct path to enlightenment provided by the esoteric practices introduced in the Heian period (794 - 1185). According to the teachings of the earlier Nara period (710 - 794) schools eons and the cycles of many existences were required in order to bring a practitioner to enlightenment, and as such it is easy to see why Shingon’s doctrines, allowing for the possibility of the enlightenment of the practitioner within their current lifetime, captured the imagination of the Heian period nobility. The oldest surviving Japanese mandalas are a pair known as the Takao Two Worlds mandala 高雄両界曼荼羅 in the possession of the Jingo-ji 神護寺 , Kyoto 14 (Takao is the name of the mountain where Jingo-ji is located.) Each image of the Takao pair is over four metres square, 15 and was commissioned by Kūkai to replace examples he had brought back from China that had degraded through ritual use. Although it is unclear to what extent the initiate was meant to use the mandala as a visualization aid in meditation, 16 we can at least say that these two mandala types, placed behind an altar holding various Buddhist implements and offerings of flowers and incense, created an appropriate ceremonial backdrop. Additionally, in esoteric initiation ceremonies, an acolyte would be blindfolded and instructed to cast a flower onto the mandala - a ceremony which established a personal relationship between the practitioner and the figure of the deity upon which the petal landed. 17 14 After Kūkai’s return, later monks, notably Ennin, brought back other esoteric mandala based on older Chinese models. 15 See the Tokyo National Museum exhibition catalog: Kūkai’s World: The Arts of Esoteric Buddhism. Tokyo: Tokyo National Museum Press (2011), cat. nos. 41 and 42. These mandala were copies of versions that Huiguo had commissioned for the Tang court. 16 See Robert H. Sharf, “Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience”, in Numen, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Oct., 1995), pp. 228-283; David Gardiner, “Mandala, Mandala on the Wall: Variations of Usage in the Shingon School”, in Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 19, 2 (1996), pp. 245 - 279. 17 Gardiner 1996, pp. 260 - 265. According to the Record of the Kanjō Initiation Rite 灌頂暦名 (Japanese, Kanjō rekimei) (Kūkai’s World, cat. 39), the first time anyone received initiations into both the Womb and Diamond World was in the eleventh and twelfth months of 809, when Kūkai conducted the ritual for Saichō. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts Reflections of the Buddha
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