augustine, jonathan morris - buddhist hagiography in early japan - images of compassion in the gyoki...

iBUDDHIST HAGIOGRAPHY

IN EARLY JAPAN

Hagiography or idealized biographies which recount the lives of saints,bodhisattvas and other charismatic figures have been the meeting placefor myth and experience. In medieval Europe, the lives of saints wereread during liturgical celebrations and the texts themselves were treatedas sacred objects. In Japan, it was believed that those who read thebiographies of lofty monks would acquire merit. Since hagiography werewritten or compiled by believers, the line between legendary elementsand reality was often obscured. This study of the Bodhisattva Gykiillustrates how Japanese Buddhist hagiographers chose to regard a singlemonks charitable activities as a miraculous achievement that shaped thecourse of Japanese history.

Jonathan Morris Augustine is an Associate Professor of InternationalCommunication at the Kyoto Institute of Technology in Japan. Since 1973he has spent most of his life in Asia with the exception of a decade atPrinceton University where he obtained his BA, MA and PhD.

ii

ROUTLEDGECURZON STUDIES IN

ASIAN RELIGIONEditorial Advisory Board

Nick Allen, University of OxfordCatherine Despeux, INALCO, Paris

Chris Minkowski, Cornell UniversityFabio Rambelli, Sapporo University

Andrew Rippin, University of Victoria

RoutledgeCurzon publishes a series specifically devoted to Asian religion,considered from a variety of perspectives: those of theology, philosophy,anthropology, sociology, history, politics and literature. The primary objects ofstudy will be all the religious traditions of the Indian sub-continent, Tibet, China,Japan, South-East Asia, Central Asia, and the Near and Middle East.

The methodology used in the works published in the series is eithercomparative or one focused on (a feature of) a specific tradition. The level ofreadership ranges from undergraduates to specialist scholars. The type of bookvaries from the introductory textbook to the scholarly monograph.

TRADITION AND LIBERATIONThe Hindu tradition in the Indian womens movement

Catherine A. Robinson

SHINTO IN HISTORYWays of the Kami

Edited by John Breen and Mark Teeuwen

BEYOND PERSONAL IDENTITYDogen, Nishida and a phenomenology of no-self

Gereon Kopf

KRSNA: LORD OR AVATARA?The relationship between Krsna and Visnu

Freda Matchett

THE BIOGRAPHICAL TRADITION IN SUFISMThe Tabaqat genre from al Sulami to Jami

Jawid A. Mojadeddi

RELIGIOUS GIVING AND THE INVENTION OF KARMAIN THERAVADA BUDDHISM

James Egge

THE DIVINE AND THE DEMONICSupernatural affliction and its treatment in North India

Graham Dwyer

CHAN BUDDHISM IN RITUAL CONTEXTBernard Faure

BUDDHIST HAGIOGRAPHY IN EARLY JAPANImages of compassion in the Gyki tradition

Jonathan Morris Augustine

iii

BUDDHISTHAGIOGRAPHY IN

EARLY JAPAN

Images of compassion in the Gyki

tradition

Jonathan Morris Augustine

iv

First published 2005by RoutledgeCurzon

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RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

2005 Jonathan Morris Augustine

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vC O N T E N T S

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction: the bodhisattva Gyki in the broaderhagiographic context 1

The subject matter of Buddhist hagiography 5Popular veneration 6Primary sources 8Organization 10

1 The received biography of Gyki 13

Western scholarship 14Ancestral background 15Ordination 18Gykis education and mountain asceticism 21The Imperial edict against Gyki 22Gykis construction projects 25The Vairocana project and Gykis promotion 26

2 The bodhisattva tradition and the hagiographers craft 28

The bodhisattva tradition in Japan 29Gyki in hagiographic studies 32Gykis chronology 668749 33The earliest texts 35Medieval hagiography 38The Gyki nenpu and its reliability 44

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C O N T E N T S

3 Gyki and the Sniry: violations of early monasticregulations in Japan 47

The establishment of the Sniry 48Interpreting the Sniry 52Punishment in the Sniry 55The monastic power structure 57Avoiding monastic punishment 60

4 Gyki and the politics of the Nara court 63

Perspectives on the ritsury system 63The beginning of Gykis charitable activities 65From condemnation to toleration 68Emperor Shmus wanderings and Gykis activities 71The Vairocana project and Gykis final years 77

5 Gykis charitable projects 84

The question of influences 85The field of merit 87Charitable projects before Gyki 89Charitable projects after Gyki 92

6 Gyki and further developments in Buddhist hagiography 97

Gykis ancestry 97The fragmented accounts of the Nihon ryiki 101The proliferation of hagiography 105The longest biography 109Chik: the monk who condemned Gyki 110The rediscovery of Gykis grave 115

Conclusion 118

The implications of the bodhisattva title 119New directions 124

Appendix 125

Glossary of Japanese terms 142Notes 146Bibliography 159Index 166

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A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am most indebted to Martin Collcutt, who has been my generous advisorthroughout this project. His intellectual energy and imagination sustainedme over the years and helped me to see the significance of Gykisactivities beyond the realm of academics. I gratefully acknowledgeJacqueline Stone for saving me from making some serious blunders inthe interpretation of Nara Buddhism. Nakai Shinko and Miyagi Yoichiro,who have both written books on Gyki, have also been extremely kind inoffering their insights on the subject.

Im especially grateful to Yuan Naiying and Tang Haitao for theirhospitality, friendship, and encouragement throughout the years. Theirintriguing lectures on Chinese literature opened my eyes to the depths ofclassical literature and history. Stephen Teiser, Peter Brown, and YoritomiMotohiro have all been most kind in sharing their erudition with me.Several scholars, including Micah Auerbach and Michael Como, havealso been generous with their time and patience in reading through draftsand offering helpful insights.

I also thank my parents, Morris and Penelope Augustine, who tirelesslylistened to my complaints and helped me persevere. Without their support,I might have pursued an entirely different path. Finally, this project wouldnot even have begun without the unwavering support of my beloved wife,Machi. Her intuition and positive attitude are a constant source ofinspiration for me.

viii

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

1I N T R O D U C T I O N

INTRODUCTION

The bodhisattva Gyki in the broaderhagiographic context

The last few decades have seen a resurgence of works in English andother European languages that deal with hagiography or the idealizedbiographies of sacred religious figures. However, similar studies of ancientand medieval collections that narrate the lives of bodhisattvas andBuddhist monks and nuns have not received nearly as much attention inEast Asia. Why has this been the case? The first and foremost reason isbecause, to this very day, the Roman Catholic church uses a judicialprocess to determine whether a person should be canonized. John Paul IIcanonized more people than any previous papal authority.1 Consequently,many scholars have become interested in the formal procedures ofcanonization.

In Japan there were no parallel formal procedures for designating holymonks and Buddhist ascetics as bodhisattvas. During the Nara (710784) and Heian (7941191) periods, the imperial court posthumouslyawarded certain extraordinary monks the title of bodhisattva, but thepractice was sporadic, and the criteria for their selection were neverspecified. The lack of a canonization process in Japanese Buddhism hasallowed greater diversity within the bodhisattva tradition. Emperors whodevoted themselves to the welfare of the suffering masses, monks whoreceived the bodhisattva precepts, and ascetic monks and celestial deitieswho embodied wisdom and compassion were all venerated asbodhisattvas.

In their study, Sainthood: Its Manifestations in World Religions,Richard Kieckhefer and George Bond suggest a need for a morecomparative examination of sainthood across religious and academicboundaries.2 Although the religious ideals of Christian saints are oftenquite different from those of Buddhist monks who were revered asbodhisattvas in China and Japan, almost every holy person stirs up the


jealousy and suspicion of some religious order or powerful politicalclique.

The Japanese monk Gyki, who lived during the eighth century, wassurely no exception. Although he appears in more Buddhist hagiographiccollections than does almost any other holy person of his age, Gyki wasinitially treated as a renegade monk who violated the new religious lawscalled the Laws for Monks and Nuns (Sniry) that were promulgated bythe imperial court at the beginning of the eighth century. If the onlysources available were the imperial edicts issued by the Nara court, onemight perceive Gyki as a leader of a subversive cult who gathered peoplein the streets to cast strange spells and perform bizarre rituals.

However, the imperial history of the Nara period, Shoku nihongi (797),compiled some decades after Gykis death, also suggests that thisindependent-minded monk was responding to the dramatic increase inthe burdens with which the local peasants and laborers were trying tocope. Detailed descriptions that have survived indicate that during thefirst half of the eighth century, peasants starved alongside major roadsleading to the capital because they were required to submit their produceas taxes to distant locations, often without food to survive their arduousjourneys. The new tax codes contained in a body of laws known as theRitsury brought governmental regulations into the lives of people whopreviously had little to do with state authorities. The period in whichGyki lived was an age of political experimentation, but it was also fullof political upheavals, rebellions, and plagues that wiped out over one-third of the recorded population of Japan.

If Gyki had complied with the regulations set up by the imperialcourt and obediently remained in his temple to pray for the well-being ofthe emperor, he would have neglected one of the most esteemed Buddhistprinciples: compassion for the sufferings of others. With the exceptionof his younger years, Gyki seems to have spent all his life buildingbridges, dikes, irrigation canals, orphanages, road-side shelters, andtemples, unlike other Buddhist monks who spent their time studying newdoctrines abroad or participating in memorial services and esoteric ritualsat court. What is most significant about Gykis charitable activities wasthat for decades he apparently undertook these large-scale constructionprojects by working with local peasants and powerful clans without theapproval or support of the imperial court.

One of the most puzzling activities that has been attributed to Gykiis his participation in the fund-raising campaign for the Vairocana Buddhastatue at the end of his life. The imperial history records that after spendingmost of his life directing charitable projects while more or less ignoringthe state, Gyki suddenly agreed to play a leading role in collecting funds


to build a giant bronze Buddha image that the emperor hoped to construct.Although the Nara court argued that this was a communal project thatwould bring merit to all who donated even a blade of grass or a handfulof soil, clear from the very beginning was that this would be a costlyimperial project. Some scholars have gone so far as to argue that Gykisinvolvement was a dramatic shift from his policy of noncooperation withthe imperial authorities. However, regardless of whether Gykis actualparticipation in this imperial project was significant, in 745 he wasawarded the highest rank of the Buddhist monastic establishment: seniorprimary prelate (daisj). Four years later, he passed away on Mt. Ikomasurrounded by his disciples who had also been involved in the constructionof bridges, orphanages, and practice halls.

This short summarized account is simply one interpretation of theactivities of this enigmatic figure. In the earliest hagiographic accounts,Gyki appears as a wandering shamanic figure who used his superhumanpowers (jinzriki) to instruct peasants and unlicensed monks (shidos).For Marxist scholars, such as Fukuoka Takeshi, Gyki is viewed as asavior of the people (minsh no kysaisha) because he is believed tohave spent his entire life trying to lessen the burdens of the sufferingmasses.3 The question that naturally follows is why did this Buddhistmonk, who did not leave behind any writings describing the content ofhis teachings, attract so many hagiographers. And why does he continueto inspire the general populace today even though religion seems to playa minor role in Japanese peoples lives?

To understand the agendas of Buddhist hagiographers in early Japanrequires a basic comprehension of the developments in JapaneseBuddhism during the Asuka and Nara periods (seventh and eighthcenturies). Of course, this in itself could take up an entire study, but afew basic points should provide the reader with the foundations necessaryfor understanding the chapters that follow.

First of all, one needs to recognize that the first powerful clans thatactively sponsored Buddhism in Japan during the reign of Empress Suiko(592628) did not simply promote this foreign religion for their spiritualwell-being. Prince Shtoku, Emperor Tenmu, Emperor Shmu, and otherimperial authorities of the seventh and eighth centuries understood thepotential importance of Buddhism as an exotic source of divine protectionfor the imperial court as well as a symbolic support for politicalcentralization. Although Confucianism was relied upon to define the legalrelationship between subjects and their sovereign, Buddhism wassupposed to establish the moral guidelines for Japanese officials.

In the last few decades, scholars of early Japanese Buddhism, such asFutaba Kenk, Sakuma Ry, Naobayashi Futai, and even scholars of


medieval Japanese Buddhism, such as Matsuo Kenji, have characterizedearly Buddhism as an exclusive state-sponsored religion that carefullymonitored the training and ordination of Buddhist monks.4 In theseauthors views, the construction of Asuka temple marked the beginningof centralization in Japanese Buddhism. By the beginning of the Naraperiod (early eighth century), official monks, or kans, were perceivedby the imperial court as state ritualists whose primary responsibility wasto pray and perform rituals for the emperor and well-being of the state.Most works written about Nara Buddhism in Japanese tend to provide anextremely detailed discussion of how Nara officials and high-rankingmonks borrowed Sui and Tang Buddhist monastic institutions to create acentralized temple system and a bureaucratic monastic network that helpedto govern monks and nuns throughout the provinces.

Although these scholars claim that the efficacious power of Buddhismin Japan was monopolized by the state from its earliest years, neither theChinese nor Korean courts had managed to suppress the diverse mani-festations of folk Buddhism. With large numbers of highly educatedKorean immigrants serving in the Japanese court as bureaucrats andadministrators, what seems highly improbable is that their clans had notalready begun spreading their Buddhist beliefs at the local level. Thelast decade or so has witnessed a growing interest in excavating and datingBuddhist statues existing in Japan before the so-called adoption ofBuddhism as a state religion to prove the prominence of Buddhismoutside the Asuka capital.

Although large temple complexes and monastic institutions, such asthe central monastic office (sg) and the three administrators(sang), were created at the end of the seventh century, their existencedoes not prove that these networks effectively monitored and controlledthe activities of the Buddhist monastic community during the Nara period.Although the primary responsibility of the central monastic office andthe three administrators was to make sure that the regulations of theSniry were being implemented in the capital and the provinces,numerous entries in the Nara imperial history (Shoku nihongi) indicatethat Gyki and other self-ordained monks continued to violate theregulations of the Sniry and still escaped monastic punishment.5 Asbecomes evident in later chapters, the number of these self-ordainedmonks had become so numerous by the middle of the Nara period thatthe imperial court had to grant full ordination to some of the older laymonks who cooperated with the state. This move suggests that the imperialcourts control over the monastic community was less than complete.

The earlier studies already mentioned have exaggerated and over-emphasized the stability and authority of the Nara court and its monastic


establishment. The various accounts of Gyki are important for modifyingthe present understanding of early Japanese Buddhism, because hisactivities show that neither the legal codes nor the newly establishedBuddhist institutions functioned smoothly. The earlier accounts thatportray Gykis life are important because they narrate the imperial courtsinability to keep monks and nuns subservient to the interests of the state.

The subject matter of Buddhist hagiography

A survey conducted by the Library of Congress back in the 1980s indicatesthat biography was the most popular category of nonfiction in the UnitedStates. Richard Hutch argues that regardless of the period and place, thestudy of lives is a religious or devotional act to some extent, becauseempathetic introspection gets the reader spiritually involved inbiographies. The Greek roots of the word, biography, are bios andgraphos, or life (biological life) and writing respectively. That the lifewritten about and read is truly an embodied one, grounded in humanbiological processes and mortality, is inescapable and must be takenseriously.6 Thus, contemporary biography and hagiography writtenbefore the advent of the scientific revolution are not entirely different intone and subject matter from our own modern biography.

The popularity of both the Japanese biography of lofty monks(ksden) and the Christian lives of saints (vitae sanctorum) from theearliest surviving texts to the medieval period lies in the fact that therewas a democratic distribution of saints from all walks of life. In Europe,saints came from all regions, and many of them were peasants, merchants,and women, whereas early Japanese hagiography included women andlay believers. The main element that unifies these texts is the conservativeethos of the genre and the rhetorical techniques that sometimesdownplayed their differences.

One of the important dicta that hagiographers emphasized is that thepursuit of charitable activities is more important than leading a quietmonastic life. The word charity is derived from the Latin caritas(literally love in the spiritual sense) and its thirteenth century Frenchequivalent charit. I call charity the motion of the soul toward theenjoyment of God for His own sake, and the enjoyment of ones self andof ones neighbor for the sake of God, St Augustine explains in his Dedoctrina Christiana. By the time St Thomas Aquinas wrote the SummaTheologia, charity signified almsgiving as well as converting those whowere spiritually dead.7 In Japan, the term fuse, which has its roots inthe Sanskrit dhna, was one of the six practices (pramits) that allBuddhist monks and nuns were supposed to perform to attain


enlightenment. More specifically, fuse referred to the act of giving foodor clothing to buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the poor. The road-side sheltersthat Gyki built were called fuseya or houses where one performed actsof fuse. Charity and fuse are derived from different historical traditionsand have acquired politically charged connotations, but the concepts arecertainly not at odds with each other.

A remarkable theological similarity exists between Christian saintsand bodhisattva monks motivations for participating in charitableactivities. Both Buddhist compassion (jihi) and Christian love(caritas) motivated acts of selfless service of others. Gyki hired destitutelaborers to work on construction projects, and Eison and Ninsh, whofrequently appear in medieval Buddhist hagiography, fed and shelteredoutcasts because they believed that the Bodhisattva Maju[r was presentamong the poor. Similarly, the New Testament introduced the idea thatthe poor were Gods chosen people. It was generally understood in Europethat God had humbled himself to become a poor laborer and wayfarer.As Gregory the Great claimed, the rich could atone for their sins bygiving alms to the poor.8

Thus, poverty did not always evoke ideas of vulgarity and socialdisturbance but could be seen as a sign of humility in both the Christianand Buddhist traditions. Many monks and nuns, who are highly regardedin hagiographic texts, are thought to have voluntarily taken the vow ofpoverty because they believed that it helped them to achieve a higherspiritual existence. Saints needed the poor as much as the poor neededsaints for spiritual and material comforts. As Lis and Soly have observed,the poor were nailed to a cross at the bottom of society. Since theybrought about the necessary mediation between this world and the other,their place on earth seemed indispensable.9

Popular veneration

One important question that has been informally introduced here is whythe hagiographic accounts of Gyki should interest us today. When onethinks of Japan today, poverty and inequality are probably notadjectives that immediately come to mind. Yet, when one walks downthe streets around the Dbutsuen mae station in Osaka, one cannotavoid bumping into hundreds of homeless people who survive on thecrackers and gruel that they receive from the Osaka municipal authoritiesevery day. This same area of Kamagasaki is where approximately one-seventh of Gykis facilities are believed to have been built. Even afterthe passage of 1,200 years, these marginal areas in Japan have remained.Although none of the temples, road-side shelters, and orphanages from


the eighth century stand today, the district retains its original name andis the largest ghetto district in Japan. In 1999, the number of homelesswas estimated to be more than 10,000 in the Kamagasaki, Nishinaridistrict. Most of them came to Osaka during the 1970s when the Osakamunicipal authorities recruited workers for large-scale constructionprojects.10 What is striking about the relief facilities in Kamagasaki isthat, with the exception of the local welfare center, the only privatefacilities that exist are run by Catholic priests and nuns. In recent decades,Gykis name is frequently mentioned at religious conferences in an effortto encourage the Buddhist community to take a more active role in socialwelfare.

Gyki veneration is not something limited to early and medievalBuddhist hagiography. In the entrance to the Kintetsu lines Nara stationstands a statue of Gyki. In this busiest part of town, the Nara prefecturalofficials erected the statue and wrote a short account of Gyki to honorhis extraordinary achievements. The statues of Gyki of various shapesand sizes exist all over the Kansai region. Every year on October 6, thelocal farmers and residents of the Kishiwada district in Osaka hold theGyki festival (Gyki matsuri). Young and old men carry colorful floatsdown the main street until they reach Kumeta temple, located by LakeKumeta. The crowds offer prayers and incense to the statue of Gykithat sits in the main hall. Along the lake lie several graves of the highest-ranking courtiers during Gykis lifetime, such as Tachibana no Moroeand Empress Kmy. According to the Gyki Chronology (Gyki nenpu:1175), Gyki and his followers dug this lake back in 734 so that the landcould be cultivated.11 In fact, to this very day, the majority of farms dependon the water of Lake Kumeta for irrigating their rice fields.

The year 1999 marked the 1,250th-year anniversary of Gykis death,and symposiums and special exhibits were held throughout Japan to reflecton the monk who started the first major social welfare movement in Japan.Among the charts of bridges, orphanages, and road-side rests attributedto Gyki and displayed at the exhibit in the Sakai Museum was the stonefragment of the funeral urn discovered by Umehara Suesada in 1915 onan archeological expedition of the area. The inscription on this brokenstone fragment matches the oldest surviving copy of the GravestoneMemorial of the Senior Primary Prelate (Daisj sharibyki) that wascomposed in 749.12 Until this discovery, only textual evidence suggestedthat Gyki had been a real historical figure.

New archeological findings are changing the nature of researchconcerning Gykis charitable projects. The Sequel to the Chronicles ofJapan (Shoku nihongi: 797) stated that Gyki constructed more than fortypractice halls and road-side shelters in Settsu, Kawachi, Yamashiro, Izumi,


and Yamato provinces. During the last two decades, archeologists havediscovered the remains of at least seven of the forty-nine sites listed inthe Gyki nenpu and are learning more about the purpose and the structureof the sites attributed to Gyki. Thus, researchers are becoming adept atmaking more accurate speculations about the historicity of Gykisactivities rather than focusing exclusively on the representation of himas a sage in Buddhist hagiography.

Primary sources

When Japanese scholars discuss the hagiographic accounts of Gyki,they often categorize them as tales (setsuwa). The term was inventedin the Meiji period (18681912) to describe miscellaneous tales that donot belong to the three generic literary genres of courtly romance(monogatari), military epic (gunkimono), and court diaries (nikki).13 Oneshould avoid using this vague and overlapping category, as each one ofthe Gyki accounts have a specific context and purpose. The IllustratedText of the Bodhisattva Gyki (Gyki bosatsu engizu ekotoba, 1316?),for example, cannot be categorized as setsuwa, monogatari, or folktales(minwa). This fifteen-scroll biography was most likely composed to beused in a series of sermons to a group of monks or lay believers and wasaccompanied by three hanging scrolls that illustrated various scenes fromGykis life.14 The present study will leave questions of categorizationaside and concentrate on the function of the various Buddhist hagiographywith Gyki as the central focus.

In the first few chapters, we rely on the official history of the Naracourt, Shoku nihongi, the Sniry, and Gykis gravestone memorial(Daisj sharibyki) to determine how Gykis activities violated theregulations that the state had established for the Buddhist monasticcommunity. As monks were viewed as official state ritualists, they werestrictly forbidden to interact with the secular world. However, Gykiignored these new codes and wandered about begging and preaching tothe masses. The Shoku nihongi will provide clues as to why Gyki wasnot laicized and tried by secular law for his supposed crimes.

Many Japanese historians, such as Kitayama Shigeo, have viewed theShoku nihongi as the most reliable source for learning about Gykisrelationship with the Nara court. Although the Shoku nihongi is usefulfor assessing the official perspective on Gyki, it reflects the politicalbiases of Kanmus court (r. 781806). Furthermore, whether the imperialcourt actually had reliable information about Gykis activities isquestionable. We must consult temple records and a variety of fragmentary


texts contained in the Nara Remnants (Nara ibun) to make a fairassessment of Gykis attitude toward the imperial court.

Although numerous legends about Gyki seem to have been circulatingwithin a few decades after his death, none of the early Heian compilerssystematically organized and recorded them.15 Yoshishige no Yasutane(?1002) was one of the first monks to pay close attention to Gykisbackground. In his Accounts of Rebirth into the Pure Land (Nihon jgokurakuki, 985987?), Gyki is portrayed as a charismatic monk whocultivated good relations with the Nara court and was awarded the highestmonastic rank of the central monastic office at the end of his life. In thistext, we consider why Gyki is included among the hagiographic accountsof monks and holy persons who are thought to have achieved birth into

Shoku Nihongi (797)

Daisj Sharibyki (749)

Nihon Ryiki(822?)

Sanbe Kotoba(984)

Nihon j Gokurakuki

(985987?)

Dainihonkoku Hokkeengi(1044)

Gyki Bsatsuden(11th century)

Fusryakki (1094)

Konjaku Monogatari(early 12th century)

Gyki Nenpu(1175)

gish(10351144)

Koraifteish(1197)

Gyki Bosatsu Kshiki(late 13th century)

Shasekish(12831308)

Gyki Bosatsu Engizu Ekotaba(1316?)

Gyki Daibosatsu Gyjki(14th century)

Chart 0.1 The development of Gyki biographies

10

I N T R O D U C T I O N

the Amida Buddhas Pure Land. These hagiographic accounts, whichwere known as jden, showed the accessibility of Pure Land teachingsand served as evidence that people in the not-so-distant past had actuallybeen able to enter Amidas Western Paradise.

Although some compilers transformed Gyki into a Pure Land saintor a poet, other biographers were interested in actually locating thepractice halls that he had built and the exact spot where he was buried. Ahigh-ranking official of the Heian court during the twelfth century (calledIzumi Kochi) was disturbed by the miserable conditions of Gykistemples and road-side shelters, so he personally visited various templesand searched through Heian imperial archives to compile the Gyki nenpu.Why did it take until the twelfth century to compile such a text? This isthe only record that lists the locations and the exact dates of all of theconstruction sites attributed to Gyki. Because the record was compiledfour hundred years after Gykis death, we need to verify its historicalreliability. Recent archeological findings have confirmed that the locationsand dates of at least one-seventh of the sites listed in the Gyki nenpu areaccurate.

Organization

In terms of organization, the first part of this study addresses morehistorical questions, such as why Gyki escaped punishment forviolating the Sniry, how he was involved in the Vairocana project, andwhy he was accorded the title of bodhisattva. The later chapters makeuse of Gyki as a popular symbol to highlight the outstanding charac-teristics of Buddhist hagiography in early Japan. The general focus ofthese chapters will be on literary and ideological issues, such as howGyki was represented in early and medieval hagiography. These sets ofquestions are not unrelated, because historical issues of Nara and earlyHeian biographical accounts were still relevant to the medievalhagiographers. Modern academic distinctions between literary andhistorical materials do not readily apply to medieval texts, such as theGyki nenpu, because they contain a mixture of historical and legendarymaterial. The Gyki nenpu, for example, records the exact dates andlocations of where Gykis construction projects were believed to havetaken place, but it also describes how an eminent monk called Chik waspunished in hell for slandering Gyki. An important factor to keep inmind is that Gyki seems to have been already a legend during his ownlifetime, and even the officials who compiled the first official accountwere not able to disentangle the legendary elements from the more factualaccounts.

11


In Chapter 1, we examine how the received biography of Gyki thatappears in textbooks, encyclopedias, and full-length studies has beenconstructed over the centuries. The most current studies on Gyki haveadded new layers of dimension to the old myths and legends becausescholarly understanding of early Japanese Buddhism has been revised inrecent decades. In Chapter 2, we explore the existence of basically threekinds of texts that mention or discuss Gyki. They include official historiesfrom the Nara and Heian periods, the Buddhist hagiography of monksand nuns from the late Heian to the early Kamakura period, and latermedieval accounts that were often more detailed than the official historiesin recording the exact dates and locations of Gykis construction projects.

Any work that examines the historicity of Gyki must confront theissue of how Gyki violated the Sniry and why he escaped punishment,because these questions have received the most attention in the officialhistories. However, this is more complicated than it seems, because onlythe Nara imperial history, Commentary on the Civil Regulations (Ry noshge), and a few other fragmentary texts state that Gyki deceived themasses through his preaching and displayed suspicious behavior. Theextent to which Gykis experience with the imperial court and the centralmonastic office was representative of Buddhist monks who committedsimilar crimes during the Nara period should also be assessed.

Another important question to consider is whether Gykis movementcan be considered an effort to relieve the suffering caused by the statesefforts to implement a systematic tribute and corve labor system.Fujiwara Fuhito (659720), who ordered the construction of the Heijcapital in 708, had spent his entire life compiling a set of legal codes,known as the Ritsury. The new capital was meant to be the testing groundfor these laws. However, within a decade after the implementation ofthis new legal system, a huge pestilence struck the country, and thepeasants experienced extreme difficulty in having to drag their grain andregional produce to the capital, as the road conditions were stillinadequate. The Shoku nihongi account of Gyki states that he personallyled his disciples to treacherous spots and built bridges and dikes (Shokunihongi: 02/749). The political implications of Gykis constructionprojects must be discussed further.

One of the activities that almost every study mentions is Gykisinvolvement in the fund-raising campaign for the huge bronze VairocanaBuddha image that Emperor Shmu had proposed to build in 743. Wemust examine why this issue has received so much attention, consideringthat very seldom do early and medieval hagiographic accounts actuallymention it. Most sources suggest that Gykis relationship with theimperial court involved far more than raising funds to build the enormous

12


Buddha image. As Chiyoda Izuru claims, Gyki was most active in hischaritable projects when the Nara court was trying to cope with a seriesof political disasters, such as rebellions and great epidemics.16 Thus,Chapter 4 also focuses on Gykis response to the various calamities thatEmperor Shmu faced toward the middle of the eighth century.

Some scholars of Buddhist hagiography, such as Miyagi Yichir,have portrayed Gyki as an historical anomaly, as no leaders or historicaland legendary figures in Japanese Buddhist hagiography managed tomobilize people from so many provinces to work on temples, orphanages,bridges, dikes, and other irrigation projects. Admittedly, Gykis projectsseem to have been carried out on an unprecedented scale, but he was notthe first Buddhist monk in Japan to teach the merit of charitable works.Chapter 5 investigates which monks or texts might have inspired Gykiinto devoting his life to charitable projects. The investigation is not limitedto Gykis Hoss mentors, such as Dsh, who were also involved in anumber of construction projects. We will also examine religious commen-taries and continental figures from the seventh and eighth centuries whoadvocated that every monk should take part in charitable activities.

Chapter 6 relies on the largest and most diverse body of texts, becausewe will examine the development of Gyki biographies from the Heianthrough the medieval periods. The Miraculous Tales of Ancient Japan(Nihon ryiki), which was compiled by a monk named Kykai in theearly ninth century, depicts Gyki in seven separate tales as an asceticmonk with magical powers. Tada Isshin has pointed out that Gyki appearsin more tales than any other monk or emperor in the Nihon ryiki. Inmost of the tales, Gyki is referred to as a living bodhisattva (bosatsu) oran incarnation of the Bodhisattva Maju[r (Monju bosatsu). How weremonks designated as bodhisattvas during the Nara and early Heianperiods, and how did Gykis reputation as a bodhisattva evolve?

Oddly enough, in one period Gyki seems to have been ignored bythe entire monastic community. Although Gyki appears in some talesin the Nihon ryiki and Saich briefly mentions Gykis forty-nineconstruction sites in his Kenkairon (820),17 generally speaking, littleattention was devoted to Gykis achievements during the first twohundred years after his death. However, from the late Heian period,numerous monks began compiling the account of his life, and a risinginterest centered on identifying the bridges, temples, and shelters that hebuilt back in the eighth century. The factors that might have contributedto the medieval revival of Gyki biographies are also examined in thefinal chapter. This study focuses on the representations or the imagesof Gyki over the ages rather than focusing exclusively on reconstructingthe actual historical figure of the eighth century.

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T H E R E C E I V E D B I O G R A P H Y O F G Y K I

1

THE RECEIVED BIOGRAPHYOF GYKI

In the last three decades, several studies have focused on Gyki and theearly Buddhist monastic establishment. However, until Inoue Kaorusstudy entitled Gyki appeared in 1959, no scholarly works narratedGykis life.1 Inoues classic addressed some of the fundamental questionsthat would be considered in subsequent studies, such as the scale ofGykis charitable projects and why the imperial court seemed to havealtered its confrontational policy toward this rebellious monk in the middleof the eighth century. Although more recent studies have dealt with theseissues, they are by no means fully resolved.

Gykis initial attraction for the earliest compilers may have been theenormous number of temples, orphanages, road-side shelters, bridges,and irrigation canals that were attributed to him. Even the courtiers ofthe new Heian capital would have been aware of Gykis reputation, ashe was one of the six monks whose biography was included in the Naraofficial history (Shoku nihongi). A comparison of Gyki to the accountsby Dsh (629700), Dji (?744), Genb (?746), Ganjin (687763),and Dky (?772) makes clear that Gyki alone spent most of his activeyears without either the interference or support from the Nara court andthe Buddhist monastic establishment. Another factor that distinguishesGyki from the rest of these eminent monks is that until he was appointedto the senior primary prelate (daisj), he did not have any official rankor title. In fact, some medieval hagiography even questions whether hewas fully ordained.

The received biography of Gyki that appears in encyclopedias, text-books, and biographical studies is made up of several key elements. Theyinclude (1) Gykis Korean ancestral background, (2) his ordination andprecarious status as a partially ordained monk (shami), (3) his mountainasceticism and violation of the laws established by the imperial court forBuddhist monks and nuns, (4) his participation in charitable activities,including the Vairocana fund-raising campaign, and (5) his receipt of thehighest title in the Buddhist monastic establishment. Interestingly enough,

14


most of these elements were discussed in far more detail in medievalBuddhist hagiography than in the earliest accounts on Gyki. Why wasthis the case? By tracing the legendary and historical events of Gykislife side by side, we can get a glimpse into how modern scholars haveprojected their own values onto this historical figure.

During the last three or four decades, scholars have viewed Gyki asa renegade monk who was immensely popular among self-ordained monksand lay believers. Nomura Tadao has argued that Gykis popular move-ment threatened the foundations of the newly established Buddhistinstitutions, as he blatantly ignored regulations of the Laws for Monksand Nuns (Sniry) and yet escaped punishment.2 Other historians, suchas Miyagi Yichir, claim that Gyki was defying the Ritsury state,because the imperial court had enforced many oppressive land reforms.3

Yet, the only primary text that suggests the states opposition to Gykismovement is the Sequel to the Chronicles of Japan (Shoku nihongi), whichis not always consistent with regard to its policies toward Gyki. Anexamination of early Heian commentaries, such as the Commentaries onthe Civil Statutes (Ry no shge), and of the official histories will clarifythe imperial courts ambivalence toward Gyki.

Yoshida Yasuo, in Gyki to ritsury kokka, took a new approach byinvestigating Chinese Buddhist figures and texts that might have inspiredGyki in his charitable activities.4 Nakai Shink addressed the same topic inGyki to kodai bukky. He traced Gykis inspiration for charitable projectsto popular sutras that were brought over to Japan at the beginning of theeighth century.5 In some of his works, Nakai even considered the activitiesof Gykis most famous disciples and examined how monks who lived severaldecades after Gykis death perceived and imitated his projects.6 Nakaisresearch has increased scholars critical awareness of the hagiographicaccounts by pointing out the difference in perspective between the officialhistories, miraculous tales, and the shorter biographies on Gyki that werecompiled by Buddhist monks during the medieval period.

Western scholarship

Despite Gykis popularity in Japan, no Western scholar has dedicatedan article or a full work to examining the significance of this enigmaticfigure. This is partly due to a shortage of works that introduce earlyJapanese Buddhism to the Western audience. In recent years, Joan Piggottis probably the only scholar who has written full-length works on earlyJapanese Buddhism. Her doctoral dissertation, Tdaiji and NaraImperium provided the first English translation of the Sniry. Her mostrecent book, titled The Emergence of Japanese Kingship, contains a

15


detailed analysis of how the Nara court intended the regulations to be acontrol mechanism over the monastic community. For those who areinterested in early Buddhism in Japan, her work is of considerableimportance because it introduces the manner in which new Buddhistinstitutions, such as provincial monasteries and nunneries (kokubunji andkokubunniji, respectively) and the five lineages (sh), were establishedby the imperial court. Her impressive final chapter, which explains thatthe expanded ritual program of Emperor Shmu was an attempt toestablish the transcendental primacy of the Japanese emperor, has been auseful reference for examining Gykis relation to the Nara court.7

Abe Ryichis The Weaving of Mantra includes a brief section onGykis association with shidos or monks who proclaimed themselvesto be ordained Buddhist priests without having undergone the officialordination process.8 His earlier chapters, which explain that the Asukaand Nara courts promoted Confucianism as a ruling ideology to legitimizethe emperors rule, are useful for understanding the complex dynamicsof Nara Buddhism. Abe views the high-ranking bureaucrats of the lateseventh and eighth centuries as literati-officials because many of themwere trained in the Confucianism curriculum. These officials treatedthe Buddhist clergy as if it were a government bureaucracy subordinateto their own, in accordance with a division of the ritsyury, termed theSniry, or Rules for Priests and Nuns.9

A review of the limited Western scholarship on the subject rendersevident that too much emphasis has been placed on the newly createdBuddhist institutions of the Asuka and Nara period and not enoughattention has been devoted to whether the centralized monastic establish-ment and the imperial court were actually able to enforce the new monasticregulations. Gykis movement provides a useful lens through which tolook into many of the problems that the highest-ranking authorities dealtwith. As for the Japanese scholarship, although most incidents associatedwith Gyki have been brought up, a tendency remains to mix the officialhistories and fragmentary records with medieval hagiography to createtheir own legendary narratives of Gykis life. As each text has distinctand separate agendas, chronologically examining how the images ofGyki were gradually transformed over time would be more appropriate.

Ancestral background

The Gravestone Memorial of the Senior Primary Prelate (Daisjsharibyki), which was composed by Gykis disciple, Shinsei, is a goodstarting point for our discussion, because it records the oldest and mostconcise account of Gykis life.

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Daisj sharibyki:

Gykis ordained name was Hgy, but he was better known asGyki before he became associated with Yakushi temple.10 Hisfamily name before ordination was Koshi. His father, Saichi,was descended from the Paekche prince Wani. His mother wasthe eldest daughter of Hachida no Torami, who resided in toridistrict, Kawachi province, and was also known as Konihime.11

Gyki was born in tori district in the seventh year of EmperorTenjis reign (668).12 In the eleventh year of Tenmus reign (682),he took vows and entered the Buddhist path. He engaged inascetic activities such as fasting, but never failed to instructpeople. As a result, people praised him for his mercy and calledhim bodhisattva. All people from the highest ranks to com-moners gathered to worship him, so wherever he went, it seemedlike a market place. Eventually the imperial court recognizedGykis greatness and allowed monks to be converted.13 In theyear 745, the court specially granted Gyki the rank of seniorprimary prelate (daisj) and awarded him one hundred k ofland. At that time, the central monastic office (sg) had alreadybeen established. Gykis position was higher than any of theeminent monks, but he did not put on airs and continued to devotehimself to his work. Finally, at the age of eighty-two during thesecond day of the second month in 749, he suddenly passed awayat Sugawara temple while laying on his right side chanting sutrasas usual.14 On the eighth day of the second month, his body wascremated in accordance with his will on the eastern hill of Mt.Ikoma in Heguri district, Yamato Province. His disciple, Keisei,cried out loud and looked toward the sky, but there was no sign[of his master.] All that remained was his scattered bones andsome ashes. So the disciples put [the bones] inside a box andpaid their respects. Then they climbed to the top of [Mt. Ikoma]and buried his remains.

03/23/749: Shamon Shinsei15

When one examines this earliest account of Gyki, which is rather dryand difficult to render into English, how many events that scholarscommonly associate with Gyki today are missing or perhaps deliberatelyomitted becomes evident. The brevity of the account may puzzle readerswho are aware of Gykis significance in the history of early JapaneseBuddhism. Dedicating a third of a memorial to ancestral lineage iscertainly against modern sensibility. Perhaps, some may even simply

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consider the Daisj sharibyki to be a genealogical text. Nevertheless,in an age when Buddhism was still very much a religion dominated bythe imperial court, establishing that Gykis ancestors came from a noblelineage was important. Inoue Kaoru has confirmed that both Gykisparents listed in the Daisj sharibyki were descended from Koreanimmigrant families, who played some important roles at court a centurybefore Gykis birth. His fathers side of the family had worked closelywith the Soga clan, who later became instrumental in persuading theemperor to adopt Buddhism as a state-sponsored religion. A more distantbranch of the family, known as Fumi, was related to Gykis Buddhistmaster, Dsh, who brought back numerous sutras from China. Dshsancestors were believed to have built a clan temple, called Yachji.Chiyoda Izuru claims that, on the basis of old maps and archeologicalevidence, this temple was located no more than twelve kilometers east ofGykis birthplace.16 A major road called Tajihimichi, which still existstoday (Takeuchi Kaid), passed by Gykis birthplace and a cluster ofBuddhist temples. The most politically active role that the Fumi familyplayed during Gykis childhood was participating in a succession disputeknown as the Jinshin War (672). Fortunately, Fumi no Obito and Fumino Atai fought for Prince ama, who won the war and declared himselfemperor in 672, so the Fumi family and their relatives were able tomaintain a middle-rank status in the new emperors court.17

The Daisj sharibyki also states that Gyki was born on his mothersestate, which was not an unusual family practice during the Asuka period.Chiyoda explains that several Korean immigrant families were living inthis valley, which was located near Emperor Nintokus mausoleum. Thus,not surprisingly, Gykis disciple Shinsei, who composed Gykisgravestone memorial, states that Gyki was descended from the famousKorean Paekche prince Wani. The Chronicles of Japan (Nihon shoki)first mentions Wani in the fifteenth year of Emperor jins reign (earlyfifth century) when the emperor received a series of gifts from the Paekcheking. When jin asked one of the envoys whether any exceptional scholarsof classical Chinese were living in Paekche, a Korean official who wascalled Achiki in the Yamato court mentioned Wani. So a year later, jinsent Yamato envoys to Paekche to invite Wani. Consequently, Wani wassaid to have traveled to Yamato and agreed to become the personal tutorto the emperors son. In return for those services, Emperor jin grantedWani many honors and the surname Fumi. The Records of Ancient Matters(Kojiki) also claims that Wani was the first person to introduce ConfuciousAnalects (Lunyu) to the Yamato court.

However, regardless of whether Gykis distant ancestors were actuallydescended from this prestigious Paekche scholar, his parents official

18


background gave him special opportunities to receive an education in aBuddhist temple. Commoners and officials residing outside the capitaland its neighboring provinces could not be ordained or even becomenovices.18 Toward the end of the eighth century, the imperial court was inthe process of establishing a more efficient state-regulated Buddhistmonastic network. In the tenth month of 679, Emperor Tenmu issued animperial edict in which he ordered all Buddhist monks and nuns to stayin their temples to protect the three treasures. Two years later, in thesecond month of 681, a committee of officials began compiling new rulesand regulations for the Kiyomigahara codes, which would place themonastic community under increased surveillance (Nihon shoki: 02/681).19 Under such conditions, ordained monks certainly attracted con-siderable attention from the imperial court.

Ordination

If a person desired to become a monk or a nun during the latter half ofthe seventh century, he or she would first have to obtain permission fromthe highest temple authorities. In Gykis case, his proximity to severalBuddhist temples and his clans ties to the official Buddhist networkprobably gave him the opportunity to receive preliminary vows. Manyof the well-known monks of the Asuka-Nara periods were also descendedfrom middle-rank Korean immigrant families, such as Jikun (Fumi clan,691773), Giin (Ichiki clan, ?728), Dji (Nukada clan, ?744), Rben(Kudara clan, 689773), and Dsh (Fumi clan, 629700). As InoueKaoru suggests, becoming a monk provided much more than an oppor-tunity to engage in study and quiet contemplation.20 One could get achance to study in China and Korea, as many of the monks mentionedearlier did, and in some cases one could even get to know high-rankingcourtiers.

According to the Daisj sharibyki, when Gyki took his vows atage fifteen (682),21 the Asuka court was in the process of establishing asystem that would limit the number of candidates for full ordination. AsJoan Piggott has pointed out, The Capital Office (Kyshiki) andprovincial governors kept records of monks names, their scholarlyspecialties, and dates of entrance into the monastic order.22 This wasdone primarily because the court wanted to prevent people from takingvows simply to avoid their tax and corve labor duties. For a person tobecome a monk or a nun, he or she first had to take the preliminary vowsof the novice (tokudo). At the end of the Asuka period, the court sporadic-ally allowed large groups of aspirants to be ordained. The Nihon shokirecords numerous instances in which aspirants received their preliminary

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vows at major temples after the death of a high-ranking courtier or whenspecial ceremonies were performed at court.

11/12/680: 100 aspirants were ordained when Empress Jit becameill.

11/26/680: 100 aspirants were ordained when Emperor Tenmubecame ill.

08/29/682: 140 aspirants were ordained at major temples due toPrincess Hidakas illness.

Summer/682: 30 aspirants, who were performing rituals inside theimperial palace during rainy season, were ordained.

03/06/686: 3 men were chosen to be ordained when Mata no Mahitobecame ill.

07/28/686: 30 practitioners were ordained during a fasting ritual.

08/01/686: 80 aspirants were ordained during the emperors illness.

08/02/686: 100 men and women were ordained.

Although not all these entries are clear about the exact circumstancessurrounding each of the ordinations, in about one-half of the cases, theimperial court seems to have ordained monks in hopes of curing illnessesof dying courtiers. Thus, aspirants who hoped to be ordained during theAsuka period had to reside near the capital and enjoy close ties with theimperial court.

In 12/01/691, the Asuka court finally established the precedent ofordaining every year ten aspirants who had engaged in ascetic activities.This practice eventually developed into the yearly ordinand system thatthe Heian court adopted in the ninth century.23 The tasks that theseaspirants were required to perform were reading and explaining parts ofthe Golden Light Sutra (Jinguangmin jing) during the twelfth month ofthe year. The Daisj sharibyki states that Gyki took his preliminaryvows in 682, so he may have been one of the 140 monks ordained whenPrincess Hidaka became ill.24

When Gyki was ordained, the practice of calling aspirants who hadreceived preliminary vows shami and honoring monks who had completedtheir training with the gusokukai was not yet firmly established. 25 At theend of the sixth century, several Japanese monks were sent to Paekche toreceive the equivalent of the gusokukai precepts, because nobody inYamato was qualified to administer them (Nihon shoki: 587). Very few

20


entries in the Nihon shoki during first half of the seventh century mentionthe names of fully ordained monks, even though numerous accounts oftokudo exist. Shami were supposed to spend several years studying andengaging in ascetic activities before they could receive their final vowsat Asuka or Yakushi temple. Although Gykis gravestone memorial isnot clear about whether he received his final vows or not, medievalbiographers state that he received his full vows a decade or two after histokudo.26

Gyki does not easily fit the image of an official monk, because hewas ordained before the monastic certification (kugen) system had beenfirmly established. The Sniry and the Shoku nihongi explain that thecouncil of state began issuing certifications to Buddhist aspirants whohoped eventually to receive their final vows.27 Kugen divided monks intothree categories: those who had taken preliminary vows (shodo), thosewho received the final vows (jukai), and teachers authorized to administervows and instruct novices (shii). However, as seen in Chapter 3, thissystem did not always prevent monks from selling their kugen or makingcounterfeits. If one of the purposes for creating these certificates was toidentify the self-ordained monks (shidos), then what happened to monkssuch as Gyki, who received their preliminary vows before the kugensystem was created?

Conceivably, these older monks might have been falsely identified asself-ordained monks if they did not reside in one of the major officialtemples when kugen were issued.28 Both the Biography of the BodhisattvaGyki (Gyki bosatsuden) and the Chronological Record of Gyki (Gykinenpu) explain that Gyki spent many years performing various asceticactivities, but the earliest Sharibyki only makes a vague reference tofasting during this period. The eleventh-century Gyki bosatsuden statesthat Gyki resided in the mountains for a decade and received his finalvows at Takayama temple from a Buddhist master (zenshi) calledTokuk.29 Takayama temple was located within the Katsuragi mountains,where the famous En no gyja was thought to have performed variousausterities. No precedents existed during this period for holding jukaiordinations outside the most important temples, such as Asuka templeand Yakushi temple, so the Gyki bosatsuden account may beanachronistic.

The Gyki nenpu also discusses Gykis mountain asceticism andexplains that he remained in the vicinity of Ikoma mountains until hewas forty.30 This suggests that Gyki may have received his final vowswhile he was training in the mountains, but the Nara court did notrecognize his ordination, because he did not receive his final vows in oneof the major temples. After all, even the earliest tale collections, such as

21


the Miraculous Tales of Ancient Japan (Nihon ryiki), refer to him as ashami rather than a biku, so possibly Gykis full ordination took placein a more remote temple.

In a decade or two after Gyki took his vows, the Nara court starteddefining specific requirements for those seeking ordination. The councilof state issued an edict recorded in the Shoku nihongi, which explainsthat all aspirants who desire to receive the preliminary vows must atleast have engaged in three years of ascetic training and be able to reciteand explain several passages from the Lotus Sutra and the Golden Sutraof the Triumphant King (Zuishangwang jing).31 The very limited textsthat recorded the qualifications of monks and nuns prior to their ordinationshow that those who were older than twenty years had engaged in severalyears of ascetic training prior to receiving their final vows. For example,a text called the Records of the Laymens Offerings (Ubasoku kshinbun)recorded the backgrounds and abilities of individual monks, so thatmonastic authorities could determine whether they were qualified enoughto receive their preliminary vows. The entries dating between 732 and748 show that more than one-half of the aspirants were men who residedoutside the capital and in nearby provinces (keiki).32 The Nara courtprobably had to evaluate these provincial aspirants on an individual basis,as they were not supervised by Buddhist authorities from the majortemples. Among the ninety-five monks listed in the Ubasoku kshinbun,almost every one had spent at least four years engaged in ascetic training,and some had spent even more than twenty years before receivingpreliminary vows. However, with regard to the names of the sutras thatthese aspirants could recite, many of them listed nothing.

Gykis education and mountain asceticism

The various hagiographic accounts have left many unanswered questionsand issues about what Gyki did between his ordination at age fifteenand the beginning of his construction projects in his early forties. Gykisbiography in the Shoku nihongi states that he studied the consciousness-only doctrine of the Yogcra school in his younger years and thoroughlyunderstood their teachings (Shoku nihongi: 02/749). These were textsessential for all Hoss monks who wanted to investigate the nature andphenomenal manifestation of all existence.

Gyki is frequently associated with Dsh because Dsh was thehead of the Hoss school when Gyki studied these doctrines. Dshwas one of the first monks in the six national histories (rikkokushi) whoseparticipation in the construction of bridges and ports is recorded. He hadtraveled to China in 653 to study with the eminent monk, Xuanzang

22


(602664). After living and studying with the great master until 661, hereturned to Japan and set up a meditation hall at the eastern corner ofAsuka temple, where he instructed monks and nuns for the rest of hislife.33 Dsh received the highest monastic rank of daiszu around thesame time Gyki supposedly received his final vows, so the extent towhich the two interacted is not clear. The Gyki bosatsuden casts furtherdoubt onto their relation by stating that Gyki spent most of his timeafter receiving his vows performing austerities in the mountains.

Although when Gyki was ordained the Nara court had not yetpromulgated the edict requiring every ordained monk to belong to aBuddhist school, Emperor Tenmus edict of 679 made clear that monkswere not permitted to abandon their study and roam around alone in themountains. The medieval Gyki bosatsuden and the Gyki nenpudeveloped earlier narratives of Gykis austerities by adding that he movedhis sick mother to a quiet hut in the Ikoma mountains and took care ofher until she passed away. Scholars such as Yoshida Yasuo have interpretedGykis dedication to his mother in the mountains as a contemplativeperiod in his life in which he developed values that separated himselffrom the official monastic establishment.34 Yoshida Yasuo even goes sofar as to argue that Gykis mothers death triggered him to abandon hisscholarly life as a Hoss monk and pursue the path of charity. However,the detailed accounts of the Gyki nenpu explain that Gyki wassimultaneously involved in rebuilding his parents former residence intoa Buddhist temple (Ebara temple), constructing a temple not far from theIkoma hills, and traveling around the provinces. Although Yoshidas theoryis interesting, one cannot point to a single incident in hopes of explainingGykis gradual separation from the mainstream monastic community.As we see in later chapters, Gyki certainly was not the only one whowas involved in ascetic activities that might have led him to abandon hismonastic life.

The Imperial edict against Gyki

Although the beginning of Gykis preaching and construction projectsmay have been less dramatic than previous scholars have argued, it certainlyinvolved enough people to draw the imperial courts attention. Gykisdescent from the Ikoma mountains could be understood as a major transitionfrom an eremitic lifestyle to a more urban movement involving many monksand lay people. The imperial warning of 717 certainly gives the impressionthat Gyki was causing a commotion in urban areas. The Shoku nihongiedict accused Gyki of forming unruly cliques in the streets and incitingcommoners to participate in bizarre rituals.

23


This sudden appearance of Gyki in the Nara courts official historyshould make one aware how much information is missing in the earliestGyki narratives regarding his activities after leaving the Ikoma mountainarea. The edict of 717 leaves us with numerous questions that are difficultto answer. When did Gyki acquire a group of followers? Where didGyki conduct these reprehensible activities? If we follow ChiyodaIzurus analysis, after his mothers death, Gyki descended into the newHeij capital that was still under construction. Although the courtiershad moved into the Heij capital in 708, the construction was far fromover, and laborers from the most distant provinces were forced toparticipate. The sixty-day corve labor duty (zy) was required of everymale in a household between the ages of twenty-one to sixty. However,because the construction of the Heij capital dragged on for many years,laborers may have been forced to work for many more months.

By 711, peasants were beginning to abandon their forced labor. TheShoku nihongi entry describes how laborers from various provincesbecame fatigued and ran away despite the states efforts to force them tostay until the construction of the capital was complete. The new Ritsurycodes stipulated that deserters would be severely punished if they werecaught.

Inoue Kaorus classic interpretation of Gykis activities, which hasbeen taken up by numerous scholars, is that he witnessed at first hand thesufferings that the imperial construction projects were causing and beganpreaching to the disillusioned laborers.35 Once his preaching startedgaining momentum, the Nara authorities could no longer ignore him,because his activities violated some of the fundamental responsibilitiesfor monks and nuns that the state was trying to impose on the monasticcommunity. What is particularly interesting about the foregoing Shokunihongi edict is that it is composed of terms and phrases taken from theSniry. Not coincidentally are the crimes listed in article five of theSniry used as a basis for the imperial courts accusations. Monks andnuns who reside outside of temples, build practice halls (dj), gatherand teach the masses, those who falsely claim that there is profit in crimeand individuals who harass their monastic superiors shall all be laicized.36

As a monk who had received his formal education in the Asuka temple,Gyki was probably familiar with the twenty-seven articles of the Sniry,which were first presented and explained to a group of monks at Daiantemple in 701. These regulations made it clear to monks and nuns thatthey would lose their privileged status as state ritualists if they becameinvolved in secular matters.

Such scholars as Nemoto Seiji and Nakai Shink, who have examinedthe punishments for all the violations of the Sniry that Gyki and his

24


followers committed, conclude that penalties for each of the crimes thatthey committed range from one hundred days of monastic labor to trialby secular law in addition to laicization.37 However, only one medievaltext actually explains that Gyki was punished for his violations.

Did Gyki and his followers stop deceiving the masses after theyreceived a warning from the imperial court? The question is still verymuch up for debate. Nakai Shink argued that the 717 edict was not justdirected against Gyki and his small group of followers. The Nara courtcertainly had enough strength and authority to lock up or laicize anymonk they desired. However, numerous other entries in the Shoku nihongishow that the imperial court continued to warn monks and nuns againstcasting spells, preaching, and gathering the masses to pray for the spiritsof the deceased (Shoku nihongi: 07/10/722; 04/03/729; 09/29/730). Sowe can safely assume that the Nara court was coping with the problemon a much larger scale. Nakai argued that the imperial court hoped towarn rebellious monks by targeting Gyki, who was apparently well-known by 717.38 However, their efforts seem to have been largelyunsuccessful because renegade monks continued to disturb the courtduring the following decades.

Yoshida Yasuo, nevertheless, argues that the courts edict against Gykihad a real effect, because it changed the nature of his activities frompreaching to building relief facilities that could physically benefit peasantswho had to drag their produce to the capital and provincial headquarters.39

However, one must be cautious with theories that suggest any kind ofsudden or dramatic change in Gykis activities, because neither theimperial histories nor the earliest hagiography suggest it. In the twelfthcentury, the Gyki nenpu added a new dimension to earlier hagiographyby explaining that Gyki had already begun constructing practice hallsbefore the Nara court issued its warning. According to Izumi Kochisview, the Nara court had already been aware that Gyki was buildingpractice halls, but they objected more to his preaching and interactingwith the masses.

An examination of the locations of the first few facilities that Gykibuilt renders evident that they were mostly located in mountainous areasnot far from Mt Ikoma, where he supposedly took care of his dyingmother. Therefore it certainly is conceivable that Gyki and his groupof followers built practice halls in the Heguri and Soeshimo districtswhere they would be close enough to the capital to preach to thepeasants, but far away enough to escape to the mountains to engage inasceticism. Yoshida Yasuo points out that according to Gyki nenpu,the Ryfuku-in was built in 718 in the Soeshimo district, Tomi village.This was right near an important mountain path known today as

25


Kuragarigoe tge, which used to be a major road connecting the city ofNaniwa to the new Heij capital.40 Also certainly possible is that Gykiand his followers used practice halls, such as Ryfuku-in, as a conve-nient base for preaching to the laborers and peasants who went backand forth between the old and new capitals.

Gykis construction projects

Generalizing about Gykis construction projects is extremely difficultbecause the hagiographic accounts provide little information except forthe Gyki nenpu. The imperial histories generally agree that Gykisinvolvement in various construction projects coincided with the dramaticincrease in the number of peasants who were being forced to submittheir taxes to the capital and participate in heavy corve labor. Gykiseems to have temporarily moved away from Yamato province, wherethe Heij capital was located, owing to the Nara courts condemnation.However, during the next three decades or so, he expanded his constructionprojects to include bridges, ports, dams, reservoirs, and orphanages. Theeight fuseya or road-side shelters that are listed in the Records from theThirteenth Year of the Tempy Era (Tempy jsanneki: mid-eighth century)might have been Gykis response to the states failure to provide suitablelodges and inns for weary laborers and peasants.41

Gykis persistence in building facilities that actually helped the statesinfrastructure made the highest-ranking officials eventually change theirpolicy. In 731, the Nara court issued an edict granting laymen (ubasoku)older than sixty-one and laywomen (ubai) older than fifty-five, who hadworked together with Gyki, permission to receive ordination (Shokunihongi: 08/731). The full implications of this edict are discussed inChapter 4, but allowing the oldest members of Gykis disciples to becomefully ordained was the states way of partially recognizing the legitimacyof Gykis charitable movement. The 731 edict actually showed somerespect toward Gyki by referring to him as dharma master (hshi),even though the Nara court had ridiculed him in 717 as a small monk(kos). One might think that the imperial courts change in policy towardGyki may have occurred because Gyki heeded the warnings containedin the imperial edict of 717 and eventually reformed the nature of hisactivities. However, the Tempy jsannenki and the official history ofthe Nara period suggest that Gyki continued his construction projectsinto the later years of his life. Even the earliest accounts of Gykicontained in the Nihon ryiki, which tend to ignore the historical contextof his activities, depict him preaching to large crowds at Gang templeand Naniwa.42

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While Gyki continued to work with powerful clans and peasants tobuild facilities that alleviated the burdens of the local populace, the Naracourt faced a series of unexpected disasters. A terrible epidemic that wasreported in Kyushu rapidly spread north and wiped out a large proportionof the population in the Heij capital in 735. In a matter of months, manyof the highest-ranking members of the council of state passed away, sothe Nara court could not conduct its official business. Emperor Shmu,who somehow managed to survive the pestilence, exempted the localpeasants from their tax and corve labor duties and ordered all officialmonks throughout the provinces to copy sutras and pray to the variousBuddhist deities.

During the next decade, the imperial court seems to have changed itspolicy from passively allowing Gyki to carry on with his projects tobeing an active sponsor. The Gyki nenpu and the Gyki bosatsuden bothcontain short anecdotes about Emperor Shmu visiting Gyki. Numerousmedieval biographies seem to have exaggerated Gykis ties to theimperial court at the beginning of the 740s. In Chapter 4 the implicationsof Gyokis sudden participation in a large-scale imperial project will beconsidered.

The Vairocana project and Gykis promotion

The number of large-scale construction projects that the imperial courtundertook during Emperor Shmus reign is quite startling. More thanprevious emperors, Emperor Shmu was concerned with displaying thesymbolic power of the emperor as the chief sponsor of Buddhism. In743, Shmu made clear that the construction of the monumental Vairocanastatue should be different from other Buddhist projects that the imperialcourt had previously sponsored. Shmus edict states, If there is anybodywho can donate even a blade of grass or a handful of soil in order to helpbuild the statue, their donation will be welcome (Shoku nihongi: 10/15/743). From the Nara courts perspective, Gyki was one of the figuresmost suited to lead this project, because he had not only been educatedin the official monastic establishment but had worked closely with laybelievers and the local clan leaders. However, despite all the attentionthat Gyki has received among the academic community regarding hisparticipation in the Vairocana campaign, none of his biographies,including Gykis gravestone memorial, mention it. We must focus lateron why Gyki was chosen to represent this imperial project.

The final event that always receives attention in secondary literatureis Gykis ironic promotion to the rank of senior primary prelate (daisj).In the first month of 743, Emperor Shmu took the unprecedented step

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of appointing Gyki to the post of daisj, which was higher than that ofeven the most important monks of the central monastic office (Shokunihongi: 01/21/743). As mentioned earlier, Gykis status as a fullyordained monk is mentioned only in the Gyki bosatsuden, which wascompiled during the eleventh century. Thus, quite possibly the Nara courtappointed to the highest monastic rank in the country a monk who hadnot been properly ordained. Unclear is whether Gyki was promoted tothis rank for his services in the Vairocana campaign, but this promotionseems to have meant very little to him in his late seventies. None of thetexts states that he ever exercised his authority as a member of the sg,and his gravestone memorial explains that he even received one hundredko of land but did not show interest in these honors.

In summary, the earliest accounts of Gyki, such as his gravestonememorial and his biography contained in the imperial history, indicatethat his life cannot easily fit the subservient image of the official monk.Although earliest texts agree that he had only received his preliminaryvows in 682, such medieval texts as the Gyki Bosatsuden added newaccounts of his full ordination (jukkai) to legitimize Gykis authority.The most blatant defiance that Gyki displayed in the accounts discussedin this chapter was his violations of the Sniry set up by the secularauthorities. The tone of the 717 edict against Gyki, which is listed inthe Shoku nihongi and the Ry no shge, suggests that Gyki may havebeen conspiring to form a Buddhist faction or clique by preaching to themasses, extorting donations, and organizing gatherings. However, theseincidents seem to have been consciously omitted by medieval hagio-graphers. The j gokurakuki and the Gyki bosatsuden, for example,glorify his ascetic activities and preaching without discussing hisviolations of the Sniry. In fact, most medieval accounts highlightGykis willingness to work with Emperor Shmu and other high-rankingofficials of the Nara court. If one reads only hagiographic accounts,Gykis appointment to the highest monastic rank in the Buddhistestablishment would seem far less puzzling. Now that we have a generaloverview of most events and activities attributed to Gyki, we considerhis life in the hagiographic context.

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T H E H A G I O G R A P H E R S C R A F T

2

THE BODHISATTVATRADITION AND THE

HAGIOGRAPHERS CRAFT

Hagiographic accounts have been read aloud as sermons, collected bycourtiers and illustrated by renowned artists throughout history. Eachcollection narrates how exceptional individuals carried out the lofty idealsof their religion. Because the accounts are often fantastic and quite simple,some scholars may feel that they are not worth examining. However,these texts are excellent sources for learning about the intellectual andreligious climate of the times.

The Buddhist hagiography that narrated Gykis life were written inan age when acquiring even the most basic information about the subject(e.g. birthplace and family background) was quite difficult. Essential tounderstanding the significance of Gykis charitable activities is havinga general comprehension of Buddhist hagiography in Japan.

Much of the early Buddhist hagiography that has survived to this dayfocused on miracles and spiritual ordeals of eminent monks rather thanretelling the subjects entire life. Modern readers expect a good biography,regardless of whether it portrays the life of a religious figure, to describethe subjects biases and character flaws as well as their extraordinaryachievements.1 However, identifying with the Buddhist monks we areexamining is difficult because they were so far removed from the rest ofsociety.

Examining hagiography of any culture requires an extremely delicatebalance. As Kenneth Woodward rightly observes, if one becomes obsessedwith finding the historical individual behind the representations of aparticular monk, saint, or holy person, he or she will become stuck onformulaic biographical information that the compiler has established foreach saint. Because the very existence of many of the Christian saintsand Buddhist monks is not historically verifiable, It is hardly anexaggeration to say that the saints are their stories. On this view, makingsaints is a process whereby a life is transformed into a text.2

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Conversely, if one completely ignores questions of historicity, whyshould one bother to examine these saints in their cultural contexts atall? In recent decades, the trend is to simplify and universalize thecharacteristics of eminent monks, bodhisattvas, and other holy personsthroughout the world to devise a typology of saintliness. Although thisprocess may be useful for creating a series of archetypes for the study ofworld mythology, one cannot learn about the intended audience anddoctrinal constraints that were so important for the people who pains-takingly compiled hagiography. Thus, we will not have to examine thelives of bodhisattvas in a vacuum.

A systematic examination of the Buddhist hagiography of Japan revealsthat compilers often explicitly state their ideological concerns, unliketheir Christian counterparts. In Europe, hagiographers were often merelyscribes. They simply assembled what they heard, leaving no trace oftheir intellectual taste. Pamela Gehrke, who is an expert on Christianhagiography of medieval Europe, argues that canonization committeespreferred these kinds of sacred biographies, as they did not have to worryabout whether they were ideologically correct.3 In Japan, such notablehagiographers as e no Masafusa and Chingen copied many passagesword for word from earlier manuscripts, but they always added theirown responses and interpretations. For these men, the importance didnot lie in recording the lives of monks and holy men who had performedmiracles during their lifetime. They were more interested in assemblinga collection of spiritual biographies that dated back to ancient times andcould justify the validity of their sectarian beliefs.

The bodhisattva tradition in Japan

Defining sainthood in the Roman Catholic tradition is easier thandefining Japanese Buddhism, because the criteria for sanctity wererigorously defined by the church. In Nara and Heian Japan, a wide rangeof Buddhist monks and even lay believers were honored with thebodhisattva title, but this phenomenon was rather short-lived. The mostcomprehensive hagiographic text in Japan was compiled by a monk calledKokan Shiren early in the fourteenth century. The Buddhist Records fromthe Genk Era (Genk shakusho) was the first of its kind in that it includedmore than four hundred accounts of eminent monks since the reign ofEmpress Suiko (r. 592628). In the preface, Kokan Shiren states that hemodeled the structure of his text after Chinese hagiography of Buddhistmonks from the Liang, Tang, and Song dynasties.4 Interestingly enough,only four monks were honored with the title bodhisattva in this collection.

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Aside from Eison, all these monks were active during the eighth andninth centuries, which suggests that the custom of calling the most eminentmonks bodhisattva had more or less disappeared by the medieval period.Kokan Shiren may have simply addressed eminent monks as bodhisattva,because earlier texts had done so. The Pure Land thinkers of the Kamakuraperiod, such as Hnen and Nichiren, emphasized the inability of sentientbeings to rely on their own abilities to achieve enlightenment, so possiblythis pessimistic worldview discouraged people from exalting virtuousmonks.

Holy persons whose lives exemplify one or more aspects of thebodhisattva path described in various sutras were regarded as bodhisattvamonks (bosatsus) in ancient Japan. This term is somewhat confusing,because not every holy person who set out on the bodhisattva path was afully ordained monk. In Japan, bodhisattva monks were active in theirvillages as lay monks. Early Buddhist hagiographic texts seem to havefavored the Mahayanist notion of the bodhisattva. As Donald Lopez Jr.suggested, the Hinayanist tradition viewed the bodhisattva as an extremelyrare individual who sets out on the path to buddhahood for the sake ofothers. Because the bodhisattvas postponed their own enlightenment, theywould require eons before they could finally achieve their goal. However,the Mahayana tradition rendered the concept of the bodhisattva moreaccessible to ordinary people by reducing the qualifications. Mahayanasutras, such as the

Ugrapariprcch, opened the bodhisattva path to bothmonks and lay persons.5

In discussing the concept of the bodhisattva in Japan, dividing theminto celestial bodhisattvas and bodhisattva monks is useful. The celestialbodhisattvas are not historical personalities but physical manifesta-tions of various qualities, such as wisdom and compassion. Celestialbodhisattvas, such as Maju[r, Avalokite[vara, and , developed their owncults dedicated to the salvation of lay believers and monks. Like Christiansaints, these celestial bodhisattvas were often depicted as intercessorsfor the people who prayed to them. However, because celestialbodhisattvas were not historical figures, depicting them as fully developedpersonalities probably was difficult. In most Mahayana sutras, the celestialbodhisattvas were simply depicted as attendants of the Buddha.6

The Mahayanists also emphasized that the bodhisattva did not performreligious austerities for enhancing his own spiritual development.Although the bodhisattva was capable of entering Nirvana, he remainedin the turmoil of worldly life so that he could save the rest of the masseswho were caught in the endless cycle of rebirth. The bodhisattva alsohoped to transfer to all sentient beings the merit that he had accumulatedover several life-times.

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In the Japanese Mahayanist tradition, those who wished to embark onthe bodhisattva path were supposed to make a series of vows that wereknown as bosatsu no daigan in Japanese. Monks were supposed to makethese vows so that they would not change their minds when they encoun-tered various temptations and hardships. The Ashuku bosatsu (

Aksobhyabodhisattva) made eleven vows, and Hz bosatsu (Dharmkarabodhisattva) made twenty-five vows. Although the number of requiredvows varied according to tradition, they included promises to travel aroundthe world, preach to the masses, and distribute to everybody the meritthey accumulated during their countless lives.

As the bodhisattva progressed through the various stages of asceticism,he was believed to be able to acquire miraculous powers. He was believedto ascend from heaven to heaven, but unlike the Christian saint, he didnot remain in the celestial realm forever. After reaching the eighth ground,he was thought to be completely free from rebirth, but he chose to descendinto the world to save sentient beings.7 In addition to the ten stages,bodhisattvas were associated with the pramits (virtuous practices) theyperformed. Most sutras list either six or ten pramits. According to theAvata+saka sutra (Huayan jing), they are (1) charity, (2) observing theprecepts, (3) patience, (4) perseverance, (5) meditation, (6) intelligence,(7) expedient means, (8) willingness, (9) strength and (10) knowledge.8

How relevant were these theoretical structures to the actual historicalmonks who were honored by the community as bodhisattvas in Japan?The Japanese monks could not possibly carry out all the pramits, butmost of the bodhisattva monks were identified with one or more of thepramits, such as charity. Unfortunately, the opinions of the bodhisattvamonks in Japan cannot be surmised, as many were obscure or low-rankingmonks who certainly did not leave behind any writings.

However, one thing that seems fairly certain is that in early Japan thebodhisattva monk emerged in popular tales and hagiography as an asceticwho preferred to conduct his charitable activities outside the mainstreammonastic establishment. During the eighth and ninth centuries, the termbosatsu did not always refer to fully ordained Buddhist monks. Some ofthe bosatsu who appear in the biographies of lofty monks (ksden)were married shamanic figures living in local villages. The Nihon ryiki(822?) reveals that monks who were called bosatsu during the Nara perioddid not usually belong to any particular temple. They may have takenvows at a particular temple when they were young

augustine, jonathan morris - buddhist hagiography in early japan - images of compassion in the gyoki...

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