. the dissemination of esoteric scriptures 665
This scarcity of scholarship on Nara-period esotericism is, not sur-
prisingly, mirrored in Western languages; the only serious exception
being Abé’s chapter “(No) Traces of Esoteric Buddhism” in his 1999
book The Weaving of Mantra. In this detailed section, he critiques
the distinction between zōmitsu and junmitsu, and shows how eso-
teric Buddhism during the Nara period was not clearly distinguishable
from exoteric Mahāyāna Buddhism. He demonstrates how the general
paradigm of the time was mainly an exoteric one, and how, as a con-
sequence, even rituals based on esoteric scriptures were most of the
time decontextualized and exotericised. Only after the introduction of
tantrism by Kūkai as a separate, independent category do we have a
focused interest on esoteric practices per se, and the rise of Japanese
esoteric Buddhism (Abé 1999, 159–84).^1
Texts and Academia
Tantric texts were not just available during the Nara period but were
also widely read and studied, as demonstrated by the letters of “endorse-
ment for novices” (ubasoku/ubai kōshinge / )^2
presented by Buddhist masters to the agency for Buddhist and foreign
affairs (genbaryō ). These documents record how long the novice
had been trained, which texts he or she had learned, and which dhāraṇīs
and parts of sūtras had been memorized for recitation. We not only
find mention of exoteric scriptures like the Lotus Sūtra (Saddharma-
puṇḍarīka sūtra, Hoke-kyō/Hokke-kyō T. 262, 263, 264, 265)
or the Sūtra of the Golden Light (Suvarṇaprabhāsa sūtra, Konkōmyō-
saishōō-kyō T. 663, 665), but also a great many eso-
teric texts, mainly dealing with dhāraṇīs, such as the Dhāraṇī of the
Jubilant Corona (Uṣṇīsavijayā-dhāraṇ ̣ī, Bucchō-sonshō-darani-kyō
T. 967) by Buddhapāli (second half of the
(^1) Without wishing to diminish the importance of the founder of Shingon, if we
were to neatly define the contours of tantrism in terms of Kūkai’s categorization, we
might lose out on some of the subtleties present in the Nara context. In China, after
all, esoteric Buddhism was not considered as a separate, independent category, and we
rarely find specifically esoteric temples, but this does not mean that esoteric teachings
did not circulate and that esoteric rituals were not performed. There were actually
various competing lineages, as demonstrated by Misaki 1988, 146–52. 2
The term ubasoku (upāsaka; fem. upāsikā, ubasoni) has three main meanings in
the Japanese context: novice, lay practitioner, and ascetic. In this case it is the first
definition, a novice disciple at a state temple who is in training to become an ordained
monk.