SEEING CHEN-YEN BUDDHISMtion, but one must do some theoretical acrobatics to justify such interpretations.
There are sixfold versions of the mmp;lala, and Subhakarasimha's Wu-pu shin-
kuan presents one such arrangement.^67 The innovation is usually ascribed to
Hui-kuo (the "one moment" of Chinese Vajrayana) and to Kukai and left at that.
Indeed, one gets the distinct impression from the literature on the topic that the
ninefold arrangement was a natural outgrowth of Vajrayana principles and
Japanese genius. With the exception of the fleeting influence of Hui-kuo, the
entire topic of Chinese influence is quietly tabled. But if it was Hui-kuo, what
could have inspired him to produce the ninefold Vajradhiitu mm:u;lala?
Let us put aside the orthodox history of Chen-yen given us by the Shingon
tradition and ask, Is there any Chinese conception, model, or idea which could
have led to this ninefold mm:u;lala? There is indeed. It is the "!a-shu" of
Taoism-the magic square of nine-and the imperial Taoist cult ofT' ai-i which
flourished at precisely the same time as did the Chen-yen iiciiryas.
First, it is important to understand that the Chen-yen iiciiryas may be said to
have continued and improved upon the centuries-old technique of "matching
meanings" (ko-i).^68 Established as a technique of translation in the early Six
Dynasties, ko-i brought together indigenous Chinese terms and notions in the
service of communicating Indian Buddhist ideas. Though ko-i effectively ended
as a rigid means of translating with the advent of Kumarajiva, it remained a
hermeneutic reality on a number of levels. The Chen-yen iiciiryas, and particu-
larly the sinofied Amoghavajra and his immediate Chinese disciples, raised this
technique to an art not only in using particular terms from the Chinese milieu
but also in the adaptation of general principles.
Foremost among the principles which Amoghavajra made use of was the
notion of the trans formative virtue of the ideal Confucian sage-king. The notion
of transformative virtue is widespread in Amoghavajra's rites and correspon-
dence, and in that of his disciples. The iiciiryas used traditional Chinese mythol-
ogy, speculation, and ritual practice surrounding the sage-king. They could not
have missed the significance of the cult of T'ai-i and related cosmological dia-
grams which have come to be associated with the Lo-shu and the Ho-t'u.^69
During the Han (B.C.E. 206-20) and Six Dynasties (220-589) numerological,
prognosticatory, and cosmological speculation coalesced to form the structural
principles for a wide-ranging cosmological system based on the five activities
(wu hsing) and their disposition in nine "palaces" or "courts" (chiu kung). In
these speculations the universe is envisioned as a square of three-by-three or
nine "palaces," the central palace representing the emperor while the outer
palaces represent the nine provinces of the empire. The lord of the central palace
is T'ai-i, the "Great Monad" or "unity." Through numerological speculation and
the use of homology one could divine the orderly processes and transformations
of the natural world, the alternation of yin and yang, and the cyclic transforma-
tions of the five "activities" and the five seasons.
By the time of Han Wu-Ti (B.C.E. 140-87), T'ai-i had been homologized to
the sovereign in the palace of the pole star who ruled the eight other sectors of