. kkai and the development of shingon buddhism 699
in Japan from its Indian and Chinese predecessors as well as from its
Tibetan cousin.
Kūkai’s Return to Japan and the Political Situation
Kūkai spent a total of thirty months in China, returning to Japan
before his three-year term in 806 with a collection of sutras, com-
mentaries, ritual implements, paintings, and other items, including
non-sacred texts.^10 One hundred and ninety-two of the two hundred
and sixteen texts he imported were esoteric. New to Japan were San-
skrit texts, ritual manuals, the five-pointed vajra, and the Diamond
and Womb World mandalas. Through Takashina no Tōnari, leader of
the return envoy, Kūkai submitted to the court of Emperor Heizei
(774–824; r. 806–809) a report with an inventory of these objects
and explanations of them, and an account of his studies entitled Cata-
logue of Imported Items (Go Shorai Mokuroku , hereafter
Catalogue), dated the twenty-second day of the tenth month of Daidō
1 (806) (KZ 1: 1–40; Hakeda 1972, 140–50).
In the Catalogue Kūkai emphasized, in particular, the prestige and
legitimacy of the lineage into which he had been received, the popu-
larity of the school at the Tang court, and the advantages its doctrine
offered in the process of attaining enlightenment. It represents an
appeal to the Japanese court and affords valuable insight into his phi-
losophy and aims at that time. However, it was three years before the
court granted him a response, and during this time Kūkai remained
a marginal figure based in Dazaifu, Kyushu. It is often supposed that
the period of waiting had been imposed for political reasons (Fujii
38; Inoue 1971, 109, 127): Kūkai’s uncle was tutor to Prince Iyo, who
was exiled in 807. This seems an unlikely reason for preventing Kūkai
from proceeding to the capital, however, because the incident hap-
pened after his return from China (Groner 1984b, 77; Takagi 1999,
107). A more likely explanation for the court’s disinterest in Kūkai was
Heizei’s attitude toward new forms of Buddhism.^11
(^10) Bogel 2008: 142–178 focuses on the objects listed in the Catalogue and exam-
ines, specifically, the visual culture that Kukai imported as part of his transmission
of 11 mikkyō to Japan.
The right to two annual ordinands (nenbundosha ) that had been
awarded during the previous reign to Saichō’s Tendai Lotus school was also with-
drawn during Heizei’s reign (Fujii 2008, 38). Heizei’s attitude may have been a result
of financial restrictions (Groner 2000, 72), but Fujii attributes it to temperament.