248 CHAPTER TENHonen, Shinran, and Nichiren-spent their early monastic careers at Mount
Hiei and were largely motivated in their efforts at reform by the corruption
they witnessed there; it is equally noteworthy that many of them explicitly re-
pudiated the Tendai view of women by asserting that women were spiritually
equal to men.
Shingon was the other new "One Vehicle" Buddhist school, and the only
Tantric sect to survive in east Asia. Shingon (in Chinese, Chen-yen) was
brought to Japan by Kukai (Kobo Daishi; 774-835), a remarkably erudite and
talented man. In addition to founding the Shingon sect, he devised a syllabary
that greatly simplified the reading and writing ofJapanese. He also opened the
first school in Kyoto for the poor. Like Saicho, he had gone to China in 804,
hoping to find order among the plethora ofBuddhist schools. Unlike Saicho,
he found the highest expression of the Buddha's teachings not in the Lotus
Sutra, but in Yoga Tantra. For him, Tantra was the direct teaching of the Dhar-
makaya, whereas the non-Tantric Sutras were simply the word of the nirmat:ta-
kaya, Sakyamuni. On returning from China, he founded the great monastic
center at Mount Koya-which, like Mount Hiei, remained closed to women
until very recently. He later founded a second center, the Toji, in the capital,
once he began developing a following in the imperial court. Writing volumi-
nously on Buddhist theory and practice, he drew up a map of the spiritual
Path consisting of ten stages of increasingly profound insight into the nature
of one's own body and mind. The first stage was the "goat level" of totally
undeveloped realization, whereas the remaining nine corresponded to various
Confucian, Brahmanical, and Buddhist schools. The tenth and uppermost re-
alization, perfecting those below it, was the realization of the "glorious mind,
most secret a!ld sacred," to be found only through the Tantric practice taught
in Shingon.
Like Chen-yen, Shingon was based on Tantras of the Yoga class (see Sec-
tion 6.3.2)-those that taught deva-yoga, the practice of imitating the body,
speech, and mind of the Buddha Mahavairocana (The Great Sun), so as to as-
sume the identity of that great being. However, Kukai worked out the theo-
retical side of Yoga Tantra in much more detail than had his Chinese
predecessors. Adopting a Hua-yen theory (see Section 8.5.2), he viewed
Mahavairocana as the entire cosmos itself, in both its physical and mental as-
pects. Developing this theory, he taught that Mahavairocana was, on an im-
personal level, all six great elements: earth, water, fire, wind, space, and
consciousness. On a personal level, he was expressed in terms of body, speech,
mind, and action. Mahavairocana's speech, for example, consisted of mantras
coupled with all the colors, forms, and sounds of the cosmos, as symbolically
interpreted by the Tantric initiate.
Kukai taught that each living being is a microcosm of the Dharmakaya,
and although the various aspects of Mahavairocana are all in perfect union and
harmony on the macrocosmic level, they are not in harmony in the micro-
cosm of the individual. The purpose of practice is to bring the microcosm
into harmony with the macrocosm and to realize the essential identity be-
tween the two. The first step is to observe the Vinaya precepts, so as to bring
one's actions into harmony with macrocosmic action. The next is to bring