. esoteric buddhism, material culture, and catalogues 713
starting point, and the esoteric rituals associated with this scripture are
treated as an integral part of the corpus.
Japan: The Transition to Esoteric Buddhism
The important documents in the crucial phase of the introduction
of esoteric Buddhism into Japan, i.e., the early ninth century, are the
catalogues composed by Saichō and Kūkai. A distinguishing element
of Kūkai’s Shōrai mokuroku is its integration of material objects into
the ambit of what is to be accounted for, clearly showing that they are
to be seen as an integral part of the tradition’s corpus. Significantly,
Kūkai held back a number of items, undoubtedly as a kind of insur-
ance policy should his petitions to the court not bear fruit.^16 It should
be remembered that the death of Emperor Kanmu, who supported
Kūkai’s inclusion in the embassy of 804, brought about a change of
atmosphere at court.
Saichō’s catalogues are quite different documents. They were osten-
sibly composed as inventories, presumably exhaustive, presented to
the Chinese authorities, recording what he was exporting and the req-
uisite permission granted by Chinese customs officers. His record of
his sojourn in Yuezhou^17 shows a clear understanding of the relative
importance of the items—he lists sūtras and major ritual texts before
miscellaneous dhāraṇīs, non-esoteric materials, and paraphernalia—
but it does not have (and was never intended to have) the same sig-
nificance as Kūkai’s catalogue, which was composed with one eye very
much on the religio-political situation of the early Heian court. Indeed,
Saichō regarded this form of the tradition as simply incantatory, calling
what Kūkai would later label esoteric the nenju hōmon , with
(^16) See Ishida 1988b, the chapter on mikkyō art (193–232), esp. his remarks on the
Sanjūjō sakushi, e.g. 228f. His comparative tables, 197–207 (Chinese catalogues and
those of nittō sō; Kūkai’s and Saichō’s catalogues) are also extremely useful. Bogel
2009 deals with this in the context of an extended treatment of the content of Kūkai’s
Catalogue, see esp. Ch. 5, 112–38. Note also that Kūkai did not include the materials
which eventually went into his compendium of Tang poetics, Bunkyō hifu ron
, Teihon, Vol. 6. This is a further indication of the religio-political intent in
Kūkai’s catalogue. 17
Known as the Dengyō Daishi shōrai Esshū roku , T. 2160;
this supplements his core inventory, the Dengyō Daishi shōrai mokuroku
, T. 2159. For essential supplementary information on Saichō’s encounter with
the esoteric materials in China, see also his Kenkairon engi (Dengyō Daishi zenshū
1), of which there is a modern, annotated Japanese edition in Andō and Sonoda, ed.
1974, 163–92.