In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

8 d ryūIChI abé Scholasticism, Exegesis, and Ritual Practice On Renovation in the History of Buddhist Writing in the Early Heian Period T here was an epistemic shift in the production of Japanese Buddhist texts in the early Heian period, a shift that enabled Buddhists to incorporate the elements of meditation, ritual, and religious practice in general within the science of scriptural exegesis. Until the early ninth century, the exegetic texts written by Japanese Buddhist scholars were concerned entirely with doctrinal issues. By contrast, by the mid-tenth century, the great majority of Buddhist commentarial texts had their focus on ritual practices, especially on the rituals of esoteric Buddhism, the ritual practices that became integral within the management of the Heian court and the courtiers’ lives. To appraise the significance of this change, this essay will examine Buddhist writing against the broader background of early Heian textual production and then compare as case studies two commentarial texts on the Prajñā-pāramitā Heart Sūtra, which is popularly known in Japan as Hannya shingyō, or simply, Shingyō. One of the commentarial texts was written by Sanron master Chikō (709–781), the other by Shingon master Kūkai (774–835). By the late Nara period Chikō’s text established itself as a classic, setting the standard for the early Heian Buddhist scholarpriests to exercise their exegeses. It represented the exemplary mode of textual production under a regime whose ruling ideology was dominantly Confucian. In contrast, Kūkai’s text can be understood as a challenge to the established method of interpretation, a challenge aimed at creating a distinctly Buddhist method for interpreting Buddhist texts. By comparing these two texts, I hope to illustrate a seminal change in the history of Buddhist textual production in which ritual language, the element that had been peripheral in Buddhist intellectual discourse until the early Heian period, began to assume the central role not only in shaping Buddhist thinkers’ ideas but in engendering texture in their writings. It was such a change that in turn enabled the Buddhists of the mid- and late Heian periods to make their religious practices integral with and even pivotal for the management of the court and the state. 180 | ryūIChI abé Authority of Kangaku: The Beginning of the End of the Ritsuryō Age The early Heian period was marked by a great surge of scholastic activities grounded in kangaku, the study of Chinese texts (kanseki). Confucian studies, especially the study of its ideology of kingly rule, was avidly promoted by Emperor Kanmu and the succession of the early Heian emperors.1 Kanmu’s adoption in 784 of the Gongyang and Guliang Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals as official texts for statecraft signaled the emperor’s effort to centralize the state, foreshadowing the move of court and capital from Nara to Kyoto in 794.2 In his 806 decree, Emperor Heizei, who succeeded Kanmu, made it mandatory that all imperial princes and sons of the aristocrats of the fifth rank or above enter the State Academy (Daigakuryō) and study Confucian classics there.3 In addition to the discipline of Confucianism (meikyōdō), its central curriculum, the State Academy was important in promoting the study of law, history, and writing. Sons of prominent aristocratic families entered the State Academy to learn the basics of Confucianism, then moved to kidendō, the curriculum on history and literature, in which they learned matters immediately relevant to administrative procedures of the court.4 Others moved on to the discipline of law (meihōdō). Legal experts of the court worked hard to improve the implementation of the ritsuryō rules, the body of laws reflecting Confucian political and social ideals, adapted originally from the Tang penal and administrative codes. The compilation of comprehensive collections of kyaku—amendments to the ritsuryō rules—and shiki—its bylaws—began as a state project under Heizei’s rule and was completed during the reign of Emperor Saga (r. 809–823). The resulting Kōnin kyaku and Kōnin shiki provide coverage of all the amendments and bylaws issued between 701 and 819.5 In 833, a team of legal scholars led by Minister of the Right (udaijin) Kiyohara no Natsuno (782–837) concluded the compilation of the Ryō no gige, the official exegesis of the Ritsuryō.6 Near the end of the ninth century, Professor of Law (meihō hakase) Koremune Naomoto (fl. 889–898, ?–907) compiled Ryō no shūge in fifty volumes , another exhaustive commentary on the...

Share