914 karen j. mack
original configuration (figure 4).^7 According to this diagram, the altar
configuration represents the Benevolent Kings Mandala in sculptural
form.
As seen previously, the five mantra kings are related to the Benevo-
lent Kings Sūtra through the Benevolent Kings Ritual Manual. Four of
the bodhisattvas are the same as those that appear in Amoghavajra s
version of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra.^8 The five wisdom buddhas are
associated with the five great mantra kings through two commentar-
ies, the Secret Storehouse Records (Hizōki, , TZ vol. 1, no. 1)
and the Embracing without Hindrance Discourse (Shōmuge kyō,
, T. 1067). These texts are thought to transmit the oral teachings
Kūkai received in China, though the dating and authorship of both is
problematic.
However, the configuration of sculptures on the altar at the Tōji Lec-
ture Hall is not simply a rendition of the Benevolent Kings Mandala
but is also conflated with the Diamond Mandala through the dual iden-
tities of the bodhisattvas in the rear right and left quadrants: Kongōri
and Kongōga as Kongōhō and Kongōgō
, respectively. The Fukanreitōki records the dual identities of
these two bodhisattvas, and when Unkei (d. 1223) repaired these sculp-
tures in 1197, he found notations in Sanskrit characters inside the two
sculptures confirming their alternate identities. Hence, the five wis-
dom buddhas and the five cakra bodhisattvas on the altar at Tōji are
the same as the main deities of the central quadrant of the Diamond
Mandala and represent both the Diamond Mandala and the Benevo-
lent Kings Mandala simultaneously (for a more detailed discussion of
the Tōji Lecture Hall altar configuration, see Mack 2006, chap. 2).
The configuration of the altar is generally accepted as having been
designed by Kūkai. Although the eye-opening ceremony for the Tōji
Lecture Hall was held in 839, after Kūkai’s death in 835, he was put in
charge of Tōji in 823, his plan for the Lecture Hall was approved in
825, and the construction of the sculptures was begun in 833 (MDJ 4:
(^7) This diagram can be accepted as the original configuration because the ritual
manual Ryakuō gonen ninnōkyōbō zakki ( , Miscellaneous
Notes on the Benevolent Kings Ritual of the Fifth Year of the Ryakuō Era), substanti-
ates that the arrangement was consistent with the 8 Fukanreitōki as late as 1342.
Extant in two later copies, one at Tōji and one at the Sanbōin at Daigoji, although
the dating of these copies is problematic, with estimates at roughly the fourteenth to
fifteenth centuries and the late twelfth century, respectively. See Nakano in FMZ 29
and 1981, Gazō Fudō Myōō 198, among others.