. the mandala as metropolis 741
It is interesting to note, however, that the emperor’s central line of
command through the office of prime minister seems to have been
left out of Shingon mikkyō (Tōmitsu ), which only sanctions
twin mandala illustrations of its two main sūtras. By contrast, Tendai
mikkyō (Taimistu )^14 recognizes and integrates a third mediating
sūtra, the Soshitsujikyō , which is understood to unify the
teachings of the Dainichikyō and the Kongōchōkyō. A full study of this
third middle term is too large to take on here, however. Given the
bilateral division of Sino-Japanese palace cities and the binary concep-
tual trope they exemplified, it is interesting to observe a similar double
palace spatial logic in the mandalas’ vision of a perfectly harmonized
sacred space.
- Conclusion
The symbiotic relationship between religious and political symbolism
demonstrated here helps us to see how these templates for esoteric
empowerment may have been modeled on ideal urban environments.
By focusing on the evocation of Chinese domestic space, palace design,
imperial city planning, and political structures in this famous pair
of ninth-century mandalas, we have noted uncanny similarities that
would have resonated with ninth-century mikkyō adepts in East Asia.
To be sure, the majority of these comparisons are visually and not
textually based, but this approach was required precisely because the
mikkyō texts remain silent regarding the overall layout and format
of two of mikkyō’s most famous images. In the Womb World Man-
dala palace we observed concentric squares and I-shaped gong-plans
invoked in its courtyard layout. We also suggested two architectural
readings for the top and bottom-most visual foci of the mandala. The
flaming triangle at the top center may not only symbolize the feminine
principle of birthing buddhahood in the Womb World of phenomena,
it may equally represent the shape of a popular roof finial that is pre-
served in Silk Road cave temple architecture. Likewise it was suggested
that the two large white/red and dark-green figures in the bottom of
the Womb World Mandala may evoke the common presence of plum
and pine trees so typical of Chinese landscape architecture.
(^14) “Tōmitsu” is a contraction of “Tōji mikkyō”; “Taimitsu” is a contraction of “Ten-
dai mikkyō.”