. kkai and the development of shingon buddhism 707
In 824, Kūkai was made administrator of Tōji in Kyoto and
given complete control of it by Emperor Junna (r. 823–33). Other titles
were to follow: in the same year he was made Lesser Sangha Admin-
istrator (shōsōzu ) in the Sōgō and in 827 was promoted to the
rank of Sangha Administrator (daisōzu ), though both titles
he seems to have accepted with some reluctance, citing poor health.
Having completed construction of an abhiṣeka hall at Todaiji in 822,
he also conferred abhisekạ on many, including, it is said, the retired
Emperor Heizei. Recent research has, however, raised doubts about the
authenticity of the Heizei tennō kanjō mon document which purports
to be a record of this abhiṣeka which in turn prompts questions about
the construction of the abhiṣeka hall (Fujii 2008: 44). These prestigious
posts represent Kūkai’s full acceptance by the Nara Buddhist com-
munity and the imperial court, while the practice of abhiṣeka helped
him to popularize Shingon and establish it as a school; the practice
of abhiṣeka was absent from Nara Buddhism and was critical to the
acceptance of mikkyō in Japan as it produced the genealogy that could
validate it. In 835 he instituted the Mishuhō ( ; “the Imperial
Rite”, also known as Goshichinichi Mishuhō ; “The Lat-
ter Seven-Day Rite”), an esoteric Buddhist ritual for protection of the
nation that accompanied the Misaie rite (lectures and recitation of the
Golden Light sūtra, Konkyōmyō saishōkyō , Jinguang-
ming zuishengwang jing; Suvarṇaprabhāsa sūtra; T. 665.16:427b–430b)
held at the imperial palace as a New Year rite. The Shingon-in, an
esoteric hall, was constructed in the imperial palace the following year
and was the first permanent structure ever built for esoteric rituals in
the palace. This was a clear indication that official approval of Shingon
had been attained. He died at Mount Kōya in 835 having achieved
the integration of his school within the religio-political world of early
Heian Buddhism.
The legend and cultural icon that Kūkai posthumously became
tend to obfuscate both the historical conditions into which Shingon
was introduced and disseminated as well as the significance of its
development in Japan. But while both the course of his career and
the development of his philosophy were inextricably bound up with
the cultural climate and changes in the religio-political world, he also
actively influenced that world in ways that were to reverberate up to
the present day. The abhisekạ he introduced and employed provided
the model for a variety of secret initiations used beyond the world