Anthology of Japanese Literature by Donald Keene Read Free Book Online

Korean envoy
Mountain windows scan the deep valley;
Groves of pine line the evening streams.
We have asked to our feast the distant envoy;
At this table of parting we try the pleasures of poetry.
The crickets are hushed, the cold night wind blows;
Geese fly beneath the clear autumn moon.
We offer this flower-spiced wine in hopes
To beguile the cares of your long return.
    Abe no Hironiwa (Early Eighth Century)
    TRANSLATED BY BURTON WATSON
Footnote
    1 Conventional term for the sun.

HEIAN
PERIOD

    794-1185

K Ō KAI AND HIS MASTER

    [ from Sh ō rai Mokuroku ]
    The outstanding religious leader of the Heian Period was K Å« kai (774-835), who is also known by his title of K ō b ō Daishi. He was enormously gifted in almost every art and science of his day, and was in particular distinguished as perhaps the first Japanese who could write literary Chinese which was not only accurate but elegant. He thus claims a place as a literary as well as a religious figure.
    K Å« kai sailed to China in 804 for study, returning in 806. The Buddhism which he learned and brought back to Japan was known as the True Words (Shingon in Japanese). In Shingon Buddhism the mysteries of the faith are transmitted orally and not written down in books. The relationship between master and disciple is thus of the greatest importance. Often a master would divulge all of his knowledge of the secret teachings to only one pupil. This was the case with Hui-kuo (764-805), whose chosen disciple K Å« kai became.
    In the text there is mention of the two Mandolas, representations of the indestructible potential aspect of the cosmos (the Diamond Mandala) and its dynamic aspect (the Womb Mandala). One important Shingon ritual requires the acolyte to throw a flower on both of the Mandalas. The Buddha on which his flower alights is the one he is particularly bound to worship and emulate. K ō kai's flower fell, in both cases, on Vairocana Buddha, the central and supreme Buddha.
    During the sixth moon of 804 I sailed for China aboard the Number One Ship, in the party of Lord Fujiwara, ambassador to the Tang court. We reached the coast of Fukien by the eighth moon, and four months later arrived at Ch'ang-an, the capital, where we were lodged in the official guest residence. The ambassadorial delegation started home for Japan on the fifteenth of March, 805, but in obedience to an Imperial edict I alone remained behind in the Hsi-ming Temple.
    One day, in the course of my calls on eminent Buddhist teachers of the capital, I happened by chance to meet the abbot of the East Pagoda Hall of the Green Dragon Temple. This great priest, whose Buddhist name was Hui-kuo, was the chosen disciple of the Indian master Amoghavajra. His virtue aroused the reverence of his age; his teachings were lofty enough to guide emperors. Three sovereigns revered him as their master and were ordained by him. The four classes of believers looked up to him for instruction in the esoteric teachings.
    I called on the abbot in the company of five or six monks from the Hsi-ming Temple. As soon as he saw me he smiled with pleasure, and he joyfully said, "I knew that you would come! I have been waiting for such a long time. What pleasure it gives me to look on you today at last! My life is drawing to an end, and until you came there was no one to whom I could transmit the teachings. Go without delay to the ordination altar with incense and a flower." I returned to the temple where I had" been staying and got the things which were necessary for the ceremony. It was early in the sixth moon, then, that I entered the ordination chamber. I stood in front of the Womb Mandala and cast my flower in the prescribed manner. By chance it fell on the body of the Buddha Vairo-cana in the center. The master exclaimed in delight, "How amazing! How perfectly amazing!" He repeated this three or four times in joy and wonder. I was then given the fivefold baptism and received the instruction in the Three