Toji -
A Mystic Mandala

Many times I have been in the East Temple, Toji, to experience its mystic three-dimensional mandalas and enjoy its other wondrous statues. It is a temple of esoteric anger and benevolence at the same time, a temple as old as the city in which it stands. Unfortunately, it lies on the wrong side of the tracks, to the south of Kyoto station and the walk there is long and the neighborhood unattractive. Otherwise more people would have found out that this is one of the best temples in Kyoto.

Founded as one of two state temples to protect the capital, Toji changed in character when in 823 Emperor Saga gave it in stewardship to Kukai (Kobo Daishi), who had studied a new, magical type of Buddhism in China. 'Shingon' was the name of the new sect, 'True Words,' after the importance of incantations or mantra. It would become one of the two main streams in Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Based on Indian Tantric Buddhism, it was still new in China itself when Kukai met Master Huiguo and was initiated by him into the esoteric mysteries.

Kukai's teachings were attractive to the people of his time. In general, the Japanese have a preference for genze riyaku, "Profit in this World," in their religious endeavors, and that was exactly what Kukai offered. Rituals for recovery from illness, for prosperity, for timely rain and a good harvest, rituals for protection of the state. The official name of Toji is in line with this: Kyo-o-gokokuji, "Temple for the Protection of the Nation by the King of Doctrines." All was couched in an incomprehensible mystic of gestures, sounds, and strange implements. It looked so bizarre, that it had to be effective.

The Kodo or Lecture Hall

Glaring Statues
Toji's grounds are still the same in size as they were when the temple was founded. As the temple lies on the south side of the city, it has become customary to enter it from the north, as I do now, instead of through the South Gate that used to be the main entrance. On the north side are a subtemple, Kanchi-in, and a school. Here also stands the Treasure House, which is only open in spring and autumn. It houses statues, paintings, letters by Kukai and ritual implements. The grounds of the temple are a wide, sandy expanse, but a fenced-off area features a lush garden with a pond, beyond which Toji's proud pagoda rises into the sky. Dating from 1643, when it was rebuilt by the Tokugawa shogunate, this is the tallest pagoda in Japan. In this enclosure also stand Toji's main halls, the Lecture Hall and the Golden Hall, which form the kernel of the original temple.

In the Golden Hall, the largest of the two, a statue of Yakushi, the Healing Buddha, keeps vigil over the city since the days of its founding in the late 8th century. I wonder what harm he has kept away from Kyoto and what he has let slip by. The statue is large, but the hall itself is so huge that the Yakushi is almost dwarfed. The lower part of his throne has been decorated with the Twelve Generals, protectors of the Healing Buddha and symbols of the Twelve Vows he made to save mankind. In the era the temple was founded, Yakushi was not so much seen as a healer for personal ills, but rather as a general miracle-man, a Buddha who could give magic protection to the state and its people.

While the statue in the Golden Hall is representative of state temples and therefore forms the first "pre-Kukai" layer of the temple, the Lecture Hall is the purest expression of Kukai's own thought. Here stands a composite Shingon mandala consisting of 21 images: five Buddhas with the Cosmic Buddha in the center (symbolic of enlightenment), five Bosatsu (the gentle aspect) and five Myo-o, Kings of Bright Wisdom, bizarre, fierce-looking gods who destroy illusion. Their multiple arms and heads symbolize mystic powers. One of them even has six arms, legs and heads and rides on a bull. In the center stands Fudo Myo-o, the Unmovable, the first of a long line of such images sculpted in Japan. Fudo is utterly frightening, but he battles on the side of goodness, chasing away evil.

These statues were commissioned and devised by Kukai in 826 and finished in 839. A few of the Buddhas and Bosatsu are later replacements, but 16 of these statues are still the original ones. Painted mandalas of the Two Worlds also used to hang in this hall, but these are now stored away in the temple museum. It does not matter, because in fact, the whole Lecture Hall is one huge mandala in 3D format.

From the Golden Hall looking towards the Lecture Hall

Mandala
A mandala is a symbolic diagram, meant to help the adept in his meditation or in the performance of rites. It is so to speak a travel guide through the world of the unseen. The central mandala of Shingon is the Ryokai mandala, the mandala of the two worlds. These worlds are the Kongokai or "Diamond World" and the Taizokai or "Womb World." The Diamond World represents the world of enlightenment, as hard and clear as a crystal, the Womb World symbolizes the compassionate aspects of the Buddha. These are two aspects of the Buddha, which are ultimately the same.

These wondrous statues, the spiritual center of Toji, form an original mandala, a fusion of enlightenment, compassion and anger at evil. In the dark hall, they glare at the beholder. Fudo seems to utter a terrible shout. On the four sides of the large dais, that almost fills the hall, growl four protector deities, while at the ends also Bonten (Brahma) and Taishakuten (Indra) stand guard. Taishaku rides an elephant and Bonten sits on a lotus supported by four geese. It is a fantastic world indeed.

Shingon was the Buddhism of Japan's aristocratic middle-ages. Practicing it required long study with a master, its doctrine was incomprehensible to ordinary folk. The halls I am visiting now were until recently off-limit, except for a handful of priests and practitioners. The mandala stood most of the time in darkness. Toji might have suffered oblivion and ruin, especially after simpler and more popular forms of devotional Buddhism arose in the 12th century. It survived, with its statues intact, thanks to the fact that the people of Kyoto discovered Kukai himself as an object of reverence.

Kukai (774 - 835) is one of the greatest men Japan ever knew and his life forms the stuff of legends. He hailed from an aristocratic family on Shikoku and was meant for high office. But while studying at the prestigious Academy in Heiankyo, he started seeking the truth of life in Buddhism. His was not the scholastic creed of the Nara schools, but he joined austere practitioners for meditation in the mountains south of Nara and on Shikoku. His perambulations of the island later gave rise to the famous Shikoku Pilgrimage of Eighty-Eight temples associated with him. Kukai spoke to the imagination in other places of Japan as well: countless are the wells he discovered, the temples he founded, at least according to the legends.

In the Middle Ages gradually the idea grew that Kukai was a saint, an incarnation of the Buddha. A hall was established in Toji for the worship of Kukai, at the spot where presumably his residence once stood. This is the Miedo, which is the oldest building in the grounds: it dates from 1380. It houses a statue of Kukai as well as a Fudo Myo-o statue that Kukai used in his personal devotions. Both statues are not normally shown to the public, they are too sacred. The ordinary people of Kyoto came to pray to Kukai at this hall, especially on the memorial day of his death, the 21st of April. A temple market grew up on that day, and later was repeated monthly. Toji's Flea Market today is still the largest in Japan, and the wide temple grounds simply seem to overflow with not only antiques but also articles of daily use, sold cheaply. Kukai now firmly belongs to the people of Kyoto.

Toji's pagoda is the tallest in Japan

A Shout of Anger
Also before Kukai, there had already been many esoteric elements in Japanese Buddhism, from spells to certain rituals. After all, Buddhism was initially seen as a magic technology to protect the state. There was, however, no systematic way of organizing all these diverse elements. With Shingon, Kukai introduced a superstructure that provided such an organization and more than that, a clear explanation of so far obtuse rituals. He did not fight the Nara schools as did his contemporary Saicho, but presented Shingon as a complementary (though superior) system. Therefore many Nara Buddhists studied Shingon and a Shingon Hall was built for esoteric initiations in front of the main hall of Todaiji in Nara. Inside the Imperial Palace, too, a Shingon hall was established, for the annual Goshichinichi Mishiho ritual, a prayer to protect the State and the Emperor. This rite has been performed until Meiji times and it seems that even today the Emperor's clothes are sent to Toji for symbolic blessing at the beginning of the year.

I return to the Fudo statues, the most marvelous ones in the temple. These statues fill me with a great sense of energy. Introduced by Kukai, Fudo would become one of the most popular Buddhist deities in Japan. It is anger at evil that he represents, and when I see him in the dark hall, I wish he would come out also into the present world. Anger at evil is exactly what we need in our too lax and uninvolved times. Fudo does not allow us not to care: he rages from indignity. The other Buddhas represent wisdom and compassion, two other useful ingredients for modern life.

Though in a symbolic rather than religious way, I find that Kukai's mandala still has relevance for today.

The Golden Hall seen from the South Gate