716 ian astley
introduced his revisions and innovations at the beginning of the ninth
century. This reflects the prevailing role of esoteric materials, against
which Kūkai eventually came to set his esoteric system—namely, that
they were regarded as a part of the technology required to come to
terms with forces and needs with which more prosaic forms of tech-
nology were not capable of dealing or were unable to satisfy. Being
part and parcel of a wide-ranging set of requirements for the conduct
of the business of state and the satisfaction of individual needs, they
did not require separate treatment in the contemporary taxonomy
until Kūkai’s introduction of esoteric Buddhism as a coherent religio-
political system. His Shōrai mokuroku is historical evidence of this
crucial development.
Kūkai’s inclusion of extended passages, at once rhetorical and dis-
cursive, on the religio-political significance and the potential of his
esoteric pitakạ is a significant development that reveals the neces-
sity of submitting an inventory of materials collected in response to
the imperially decreed task of researching the Buddhist teachings.
Saichō’s catalogues constitute more or less simple accounts of his
activities; Kūkai’s Catalogue harks back to the elaborate rhetoric of
the Kaiyuan catalogues but presents a more tightly focused program of
religio-political intent. A superficial reading is unspectacular, but
closer analysis reveals that both in its structure and in Kūkai’s addenda,
the Catalogue is in fact a manifesto for a new religio-political founda-
tion for the nation-state.
The Travels of Tendai and Shingon Monks in Late-Tang China
The ninth century C.E. saw telling changes in the religio-political sit-
uation in Japan as well as in China. Serious political instability was
beginning to tarnish the glories of Tang rule, which in turn led to
Japan’s suspension of official relations with China. Notably, the first
five of the eight nittō guhō monks (who all had crucial interests in
China’s esoteric traditions) to make the voyage to Tang were part of
official embassies (kentōshi ),^25 while the final three (beginning
with Eun in 842) traveled with merchant missions.^26 Inasmuch as
(^25) Ishida Hisatoyo 2004 deals with Ennin and Enchin in chapters 7 and 8, respec-
tively. The last of these embassies returned in 839, as the instabilities of Wuzong’s
suppressions rumbled in the distance.
(^26) See Iwanami Nihon shi jiten, s.v. nittō hakke. The prime Western-
language source is von Verschuer 1985, but see also Borgen 1982.