Kūkai

Kūkai (774–835). Known posthumously as Kōbō Daishi, the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism in Japan. In 804 Kūkai travelled to the Chinese capital of Ch'ang-an and sought out its foremost esoteric master, Hui-kuo (746–805). Under him Kūkai received instruction in the two fundamental esoteric scriptures and underwent initiation (Jap., kanjō; Skt., abhiṣeka) into the two related maṇḍalas—the Womb Maṇḍala (Jap., taizōkai) and the Diamond Maṇḍala (Jap., kongōkai). After Hui-kuo's untimely death in 805, Kūkai decided to return to Japan and to establish esoteric Buddhism there. He arrived back in 806 with over 200 religious objects from China, including scriptures, ritual implements, icons, and maṇḍala.

Kūkai gradually emerged as one of two eminent Buddhist masters in Japan. The other was Saichō (767–822), the founder of the Tendai school. Kūkai's greatest benefactor was Emperor Saga (786–842) who, like Kūkai, was a master calligrapher. In 816 Saga granted Kūkai Mount Kōya as a mountain retreat for the exclusive practice of esoteric Buddhism, and in 823 gave him jurisdiction over Tōji, an imperial temple in Kyōto. These became the centres of the Shingon school. By the time of Kūkai's death, in 835, Shingon was a fully recognized school of Buddhism, and esoteric ritual pervaded Japan's religious establishment.