A CRITICAL TANTRISMgious ideal of the Vairocaniibhismnbodhi-siitra, which in its essential part rests
on the plane of Mahayana Buddhism having as its goal the remote attainment of
enlightenment through the accumulation of the two kinds of necessary merits
over the unimaginably long period of the three great uncountable aeons
(=:x!liiJ1i1'-11;M), had come to be regarded as too remote and too sluggish for the
people of the time. Such people, being urged by vague but impending feeling of
the crisis of their own civilization, were looking impatiently for a method and
theory of quick attainment of enlightenment (@P~nlt11 ). In order to discover the
logic of quick attainment of enlightenment, it was necessary for them to cross
over to the slope of Tantrism by overcoming the Mahayanic aspect of the theo-
retical system of the Vairocaniibhisambodhi-siitra.
Conversely, in the Tattvasamgraha-tantra, the rationalistic wall of Mahayana
Buddhism having been overcome, "the truth of all the tathiigatas", or the secret
of the universe, was revealed to all people, and the method of quick attainment
of enlightenment, as far as the Tantric mode of thinking goes, was presented to
them in completeness. However, this was made possible only by destroying the
Mahayanic framework of the theory and discarding the lofty ideal of the Vairo-
caniibhisambodhi -siitra.
On the slope of Tantrism, one is necessarily a solitary yogin confronting the
ultimate reality by himself. For him the outer world or the existence of others is
of no meaning. For him capabilities, ethical or religious efforts and even the
friendliness and mercy toward others (~1!:1;), the essential virtue of Mahayana
Buddhism, are not necessary.
Such logical extremism, however, causes a basic feeling of uncertainty as to
the efficacy of the very logic of yoga in those who are still not free from the
Mahayana Buddhistic consciousness, not allowing them to rest easily on the
plane of Tantrism.
We may safely say that the Vairocaniibhisambodhi-siitra, essentially being
Mahayanic, was not yet complete as a system of Tantrism, and that the
Tattvasamgraha-tantra as a completed Tantric system ceased to be Mahayanic.
ii. Kiikai, the herald of the 'critical' or precarious character of the
Tantric Buddhism
In the Japanese world of the Shingon sect(~~*, it has been assumed tradition-
ally that these two systems, viz. the system of the Vairocaniibhisambodhi-siitra
and that of the Tattvasamgraha-tantra, together constituting the authentic eso-
teric Buddhism (Mifflli:i~) are not different in their ability to bring about
enlightenment quickly, and that they bring people to one and the same truth. In
reality, however, the Mahayanic logic of accumulating merits found in the
Vairocaniibhisambodhi-siitra and the mystical, Upanisadic logic of yoga advoc-
ated in the Tattvasamgraha-tantra are completley antithetical and can not be
synthesized. In my opinion, the only figure who has noticed the 'critical' or pre-
carious character of Tantric Buddhism is Kukai (~$), posthumously named