696 elizabeth tinsley
Tōdaiji, the headquarters of Nara Buddhism, shortly before departure,
and Emperor Kanmu granted him a period of twenty years to study
in China. The circumstances surrounding his selection as part of the
envoy are obscure; nothing certain about it is known but a recommen-
dation by a court contact must have been made. It has been speculated
that Ato no Otari or another monk recommended him to imperial
contacts, that he was favored by ambassador Fujiwara no Kadono-
maro, or that he was chosen by Kanmu himself (Hakeda 1972, 28).
It does seem probable that he was a replacement—monks who were
part of a previous, unsuccessful voyage had been prohibited from this
voyage. The failure of the journey and the fatalities involved cast sus-
picion on the purity of the monks, suggesting insufficient observance
of precepts. Part of the same envoy (traveling on a different ship) was
the better-known priest Saichō (767–822, see below).
As a student, Kūkai was of lower status, but due to changes in Chi-
nese language education for bureaucrats and monks that had been
instated just prior to his period of education, his skills in contempo-
rary conversational and written Chinese would have been useful (Fujii
2008, 24), and no doubt distinguished him from older fellow travelers.
Indeed, Kūkai was entrusted by the Japanese ambassador, Fujiwara no
Kadonomaro (d. 818), with handling correspondence
with the Chinese authorities during the stay.
Contact with Esotericism in China
Kūkai’s ship set sail from Kyushu on the sixth day of the seventh month
of Enryaku 23 (804). After some complications regarding the proce-
dure for landing in Fuzhou (Fukien ) province, and an imposed
waiting period of some months, a select entourage was permitted to
proceed to Chang’an , the capital. Kūkai was not among those
initially chosen, but was able to secure special permission from the
magistrate of the province to accompany the group. The envoy was
housed in a residence provided by the Tang court where they stayed
until they left for Japan early the following year. After their depar-
ture, Kūkai was permitted by the court to reside Ximing monastery
( ) northwest of the city.
Chang’an, with its many Buddhist and Daoist temples and its Mus-
lim and Nestorian Christian presence, was a lively, cosmopolitan cen-
ter and the newly imported esoteric Shingon Buddhism was popular
at court. Ximing had hosted a number of foreign monks, including the
Japanese Sanron school monk Eichu (d. 816), and was a center of