It is with one of these that the story of the Japanese temple begins.
The
TEMPLES
KYOTO
| Enryaku-ji |
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On the heights of Mount Hiei, northeast of Kyoto, sits the ecclesiastical city of Enryaku-ji, headquarters of the Tendai sect and a center for religious meditation, political indoctrination, and warfare since the Heian period (784-1185). Most of the founders of the major Buddhist sects rising during the following several centuries studied there: Honen of the Jodo sect; Shinran of thejodo Shin sect; Eisai who introduced the Rinzai Zen sect to Japan; Dogen, who did the same for the Soto sect; Ippen of the Ji sect of Jodo; Kuya of his own Tendai sect; and Nichiren, who founded Nichiren Buddhism—all were trained there.
Enryaku-ji grew as enormous as it was important. Though less than a twentieth of its former size, the temple is still one of the largest in Japan. It now faces Lake Biwa and not Kyoto, the old capital, but is still so big that only a third is readily visitable—in winter the roads to the two other main sections are closed and no buses run.
Originally, however, it was but a collection of mountain huts. These followed only the irregularity of their terrain. In such sites as this the formal Chinese layout was impossible—so was any sustained balance or symmetry. Thus in their very appearance the temples of the new religion constituted a rebuke to the luxurious compounds down on the plain. This is something which the Tendai founder, Saicho (later known as Dengyo Daishi) reinforced in his deathbed message. He advised a "cheerful poverty" on his followers, and thus implied a criticism of those soft and luxurious Buddhists down below.
Saicho had early built his hut in the snows and forests of Mt. Hiei and in the silence and the cold observed his austerities. Said to have been but a youth of eighteen, he had climbed the mountain and sought the way, relying on what he had learned while in Nara.
One day he came across a fallen tree at the very summit of the mountain. From it he carved an image of the Yakushi Nyorai, that manifestation known as the Buddha of Healing (Bhaisajyaguru Tathagata). This figure—788 is the date given—he then set up in his hut. The house became home to the image and turned into a temple.
This was beginning of Enryaku-ji, and the little dwelling itself was eventually to be transformed into the mighty Komponchu-do where, it is said, dus same image still stands outlined in the shadows by the "inextinguishable Dharma Light" that Saicho himself lit and which, says the temple, has been burning for over twelve hundred years.
It was in 804, after this impressive beginning, that Saicho traveled to China, returned with the precepts of what became the Tendai sect in Japan, and consolidated his mountain temple.
Tendai was broadly Mahayana and its basic scripture was the so-called Lotus Sutra. This purportedly contains the Buddha's final sermon, in which he revealed the potential buddhability of everyone. At the same time, it bolstered this with ecclesiastical authority, and was itself much concerned with doctrine, attempting a grand synthesis of all religious knowledge.
By 823 the place was so powerful that the emperor Saga was prevailed upon to confer it with the name of Enryaku-ji—after the year of its founding—and to announce its official role of protecting the new capital and his imperial highness from the malevolent forces of evil inhabiting the northeast.
Beside protecting the city, the purpose was also to promote this new Buddhism which would combat the narrow Hinayana influence of the Nara temples. Saicho called his monastery Ichiji Shikan-in, a name which refers to the possibility of attaining Buddhahood inherent in everyone, one of the tenets of Tendai. This was in pronounced contradistinction to Nara Buddhism which insisted upon the concept of Sanji, interpreted as the inherent inequality of people and the consequent acceptance of a hierarchical society.
It was here, in the nearby Kaidan-in, a smallish red-lacquered building, that a year earlier in 822 Mahayana Buddhism (to which Tenryu belonged) officially declared its independence from the Hinayana Buddhism of Nara. The ecclesiastical threat had passed—the new Buddhism was benevolent.
Its duties also included prosylatization. Saicho, on his deathbed, ordered his disciples: "Do not make images nor copy sutras for me. Rather transmit what I have taught you. Spread my teachings so they will be useful to all."
Enryaku-ji had other roles to play as well—these largely political. As this liturgical capital grew ever larger it began to exercise an influence upon the imperial government and consequently upon the country at large. This was apparently one of Saicho's intentions.
In a manual for Tendai monks (the Tendai Hokkeshu Nembun Gakusei Shikt) he wrote that students should strive to become kokushi (national teachers) for "as students of the teachings of our Enryaku-ji Tendai lineage, even if we are beggars on the street, we can still become the emperor's teacher."As a kokushi, one was to travel throughout the provinces and instruct both officials and citizens. In this way religion, in particular the Tendai religion, could became the basis of the Japanese state. "Repay your indebtedness to the country by spreading the word" was the slogan oft repeated.
Enryaku-ji was quite strong enough to enforce these teachings. Eventually it extended twenty miles east and west, and twenty miles north and south, occupied the entire top of this large mountain and had a circumference of two hundred forty-four miles. In this enormous area there were more than three thousand buildings and it was said that the number of the priests and monks and servants was uncountable.
Its position was in several senses unassailable, a fact voiced by a later poet, Ji'en, who wrote:
Many are the mountains
But when we say 'mountain'
We mean Mount Hiei.
On different levels, there are seemingly endless staircases, and vast distances between the various parts of the compound. In addition the training was so rigorous that those who did not leave or die became exceptionally strong.
And it is always cold. Mount Hiei is over two thousand five hundred feet high, not really great as mountains go, but quite lofty enough to ensure snow through three seasons. There are also frequent winds. Those who lived and studied on Mount Hiei had to be strong soldiers for Buddha.
The main political tool of this enormous ecclesiastical citadel was an army of militant warrior-monks. Originally Buddhism had had no military arm. Nara Buddhism was a strictly aristocratic affair and the court limited those few members who did not belong to the aristocracy. With the move to Kyoto, however, such rules were relaxed and the large outlying temples began hiring an increasing number of-peasants who were to serve as private armies—initially for protection, later for aggression and gain.
These warriors were called akuso (rowdy monks) and so they were. Whatever northeast evils the emperor Kammu had wished to avoid, they could not have been more troublesome than the monks themselves.
From 969 on the cenabitic army frequently threatened the court with