77. LANDMARKS OF ESOTERIC ART IN JAPAN
Karen J. MackNara Period (710–794)
The earliest esoteric art in Japan had already begun to appear in the
Nara period (710–794). The Buddhist imagery naturally reflects the
state of Buddhism at the time. During the Nara period, separate
denominations had not yet appeared, and any of the “six schools of
Nara Buddhism could be studied at an individual temple.^1 In addition,
proto-esoteric texts such as the Golden Light Sūtra and the
Benevolent Kings Sūtra were already being introduced, which
would become full-fledged esoteric texts in their later versions in the
Chinese Tang dynasty (618–907). Also, some texts, generally consid-
ered to be exoteric, contained esoteric elements, such as the appear-
ance of the cosmic Buddha Vairocana in the Garland Sūtra.
The Great Buddha of Nara is an image of Vairocana that is consid-
ered to be informed by the Brahma’s Net Sūtra and the older
version of the Garland Sūtra; in both of these texts this buddha’s name
is transcribed as Rocana (Rushana). Rocana is described in
the Buddhabhadra (ca. fifth century) version of the Garland Sūtra as
“emanating great radiant light illuminating the ten directions and each
hair follicle emitting clouds of transformation bodies (T. 278.9:405c9).
The Brahma’s Net Sūtra describes Rocana in the Lotus Storehouse
realm seated on a lotus flower dais, each petal of which contains a
world with another thousand realms within it, which again manifest
another thousand realms, and so on almost into infinity. Each realm,
with its own Śākyamuni, is described according to Indian cosmology
as having a Mt. Sumeru, a sun and moon, and the four deva kings
(T. 1484.24:997c6–c14).
(^1) The six schools are: Sanron (Mādhyamika, “Three Treatises”), Hossō
(Yogācāra, “Consciousness-Only”), Kegon (Avatam ̣saka, Garland Sūtra), Ritsu
(Vinaya, “Discipline”), Jōjitsu (Sautrāntika), and Kusha ( Abhidharma-
kośa). For example, at Tōdaiji all six schools were present, with the Tendai and Shin-
gon schools added in the Heian period.