946 cynthea j. bogel
Nara-period altars (shown as circles 18–21 in figure 3; Jikokuten
statue, figure 8).
Additionally, single figures stand at the east and west sides of the
altar, Taishakuten and Bonten, respectively ( , Indra; ,
Brahma, figure 9; see figure 3, circles 17 and 16).
On Nara-period altars, these two devas were typically placed near
the main icon. The modern viewer cannot visually take in the whole
assembly when standing in the narrow aisle before the altar and one
tends to be visually overwhelmed by this complex assembly. The icons
require visual effort—and also mikkyō knowledge—in order to com-
prehend their relationships and meanings.
Kūkai brought new Buddhist teachings to Japan following his two
years of study in Chang’an, the capital of Tang-dynasty China. He
returned to Japan in 806 and from 809 resided at Takaosanji
, a monastery in the hills northwest of the Heian capital (modern-
day Kyoto), until his relocation to Tōji in 823.^4 At Takaosanji Kūkai
initiated icon production and building projects, the most famous of
which are a pair of mandala paintings that date to around 830, the
Takao Mandara, based on paintings Kūkai brought back from China.
The texts, icons, and ritual goods Kūkai imported were the basis for
Shingon Buddhism; his disciples and subsequent adherents would
promote Shingon as the only true form of mikkyō, with origins in
India and China.
Today there is no consensus about the use or meaning of the Tōji
Lecture Hall sculptural program. Scholarship on the altar typically
presents it as an iconographic program with sources in the textual
works brought from China by Kūkai, with an emphasis on the state-
protecting function of those texts. Sources for icons are important;
however, this pairing can be problematic in two ways: first, icons func-
tion in ways unique to images; and second, many of the texts central
to Japanese esotericism, and in the Buddhist corpus promoted by the
state, also emphasize state protection. Little attempt has been made to
understand the relationship of the Tōji statues to mikkyō ritual or the
foundations for Kūkai’s teachings in early Heian-period Japan. In this
essay I set out to do this.
(^4) Kōnin 14 (823).1.19, Goyuigo article 1, KZ (1970–1977) 2: 788. Also found in the
Taishi gyōjōshūki, Tōji chōshahōnin I; and the Tōdaiji yoroku, vol. 6.