1032 thierry robouamof pilgrimage in Japan, and found the courage to deconstruct the offi-
cial narratives about Kūkai. He depicts a very humane Kūkai, admi-
rable not so much for his superhuman powers but for his responses
to change and to the unknown. Takeuchi’s unorthodox interpretation
of Kūkai’s texts paved the way for a renewal of studies about the great
master, even among those who were charged with maintaining what
Abé called the “sectarian teachings.”
Faculty members of Kōyasan University, the most important uni-
versity of the Shingon tradition, have recently published studies on
Kūkai that also depart from the usual sectarian teachings. The philoso-
pher Murakami Yasutoshi , a Descartes specialist, ordained
as Grand Master of the Dharma Transmission in the Shingon Lineage
, has published a set of studies of Kūkai’s major works
from a philosophical perspective (1996, 2003). Murakami has focused
on key concepts such as wisdom (chi ) and logos (kotoba ).
He is the first Japanese Shingon scholar to consciously offer in-depth
explanations of Kūkai’s teachings for an audience that is not destined
to embark on the ascetic path of Shingon practices (gyō ), and for
lay readers. He avoids the style and specialized vocabulary of tradi-
tional scholarly sectarian presentations of Kūkai’s teachings and, at the
same time, departs from the autobiographical and condescending style
used by Shingon or Tendai priests when writing introductory works
on Shingon, Tendai, Kūkai, or Saichō for the laity.
Murakami’s studies are based on at least two important premises.
For him, Kūkai’s concept of wisdom is not limited to a rational con-
struction but is fundamentally a form of grace received after a long
period of ascetic practices. Wisdom is unworldly, fully genuine, and
gives a sense of familiarity to all aspects of nature. The second premise
is related to the characteristics of wisdom, because embodying wisdom
transforms the way one understands language. Kūkai needed to go
beyond teachings about wisdom in order to find a way to be the word
of wisdom. Thus, Kūkai reflected on the wisdom-logos ( ) and
showed that it could not be reduced to human language. This wisdom
is heard, felt, and thought; it is present in all things without being
reduced to one thing, cosmic without being the cosmos. Kūkai had to
create a new philosophy of language or, more precisely, a new poetics,
as a propaedeutic to his understanding of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Another scholar of Kōyasan University, also a Shingon priest and
historian, Takeuchi Kōzen published in 2006 a massive
study on Kūkai called Kōbō Daishi Kūkai no Kenkyū. This study is