Legend and Legitimation: The Formation of Tendai Esoteric Buddhism in Japan (review)

Students of Japanese religion are generally familiar with the traditional accounts of Saichō's (767-822) travels to China, his transmission of the Tendai (Ch. Tiantai) tradition to Japan, and his later falling out with Kūkai (774-835), transmitter of the Shingon lineage from China. As the story goes, Saichō traveled to China to obtain the authentic Tendai dharma lineage for his homeland. In the last month of his rather brief stay, he visited a remote temple in Yuezhou to obtain an additional collection of primarily esoteric texts and even receive an esoteric ritual transmission from a master by the name of Shunxiao (?-805+), who he met by chance. Upon returning to Japan, Saichō successfully established the Tendai lineage on Mt. Hiei. Subsequent to Kūkai's return from China, where he had obtained extensive esoteric training and a large collection of tantric texts, Saichō befriended Kūkai and, for several years, borrowed many of those treasured writings. At some point, Kūkai refused to lend Saichō certain requested texts, resulting in an end to their relationship and the beginning of tensions between Tendai and Shingon for centuries to come. As esotericism became the ideological heart of Japanese Buddhism, Saichō's Tendai successors increasingly proclaimed his transmission superior to that received by Kūkai from Huiguo (746-806).

In this groundbreaking study, Jinhua Chen critically examines this narrative and the documents that underlie the traditional Tendai account of Saichō's esoteric transmission lineage. His analysis centers on two sets of documents. The first includes two dharma transmission certificates (fuhōmon) allegedly composed by Shunxiao, the esoteric master who Saichō met in the final month of his stay in China. Dated two days apart (May 20 and 21, 805), the first, designated a National Treasure, is held at Enryakuji; the second was discovered only recently, in 1965, in the archives of Shitennōji. According to these certificates, Shunxiao initiated Saichō into a distinctive set of esoteric teachings, the core of which consisted in correlating three five-syllable dhāraṇīs with three ranks of siddhi ("perfection" or "attainment"). The second set of documents includes three siddhi texts that, within the Tendai tradition, bear the weight of Saichō's threefold dhāraṇī-siddhi correlation. While the threefold classification of siddhi is found in a number of esoteric texts, the correlation of these with the three five-syllable dhāraṇīs is unprecedented. Indeed, the three siddhi texts, translated by Śubhākarasiṃha (Ch. Shanwuwei, 637-735), are the only known scriptural basis for this correlation. Chen examines the provenance of both sets of documents, concluding that both were in fact composed in Japan by Saichō's Tendai successors.

The book is divided into three parts. The first, including two chapters, addresses the social, historical, and sectarian context within which the transmission certificates were composed in Japan. The first chapter provides the familiar story of Saichō's journey to China, his return to Japan, and the establishment of the Tendai esoteric lineage during his lifetime. The second chapter focuses on the efforts of Saichō's disciples to establish and legitimate his esoteric lineage, particularly in the context of highly polemicized debates with Kūkai's Shingon heirs.

Part 2, consisting of three chapters, provides a detailed study of the three siddhi texts (T905, T906, T907). Siddhi is actually a term for magical powers such as ritual techniques used to conquer enemies, induce rain, secure a wishing jewel, and so forth. These siddhi texts detail the correlations between dhāraṇī, bodies, syllables, phases, and so forth, which constitute the essence, as noted above, of Saichō's received transmission. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the provenance and content of the three texts, and chapter 5 explores the conceptual framework—specifically, the five-phase theory (wuxing)—that imbues them. Finally, part 3 includes five appendices that constitute the basis for Chen's sure-to-be-controversial conclusions about the origin...