Shotoku Taishi ~f,!t*T (572-622) and his role m the transmission of Buddhism
The literature on ShOtoku Taishi on every level of discourse in Japanese society, from comics to dissertations, is vast, and without doubt he ranks among the most important figures in Japanese history. A rarity among them, his fame is unambiguously positive: he has managed to enter historiography as a great statesman without the villainous deeds that usually go along with such a career.
The Crown Prince who laid the foundation for the strong central administration that, in varying forms, the Japanese nation enjoys until today is credited with the introduction of every Chinese custom that existed before the year 1000, including the use of chopsticks. He was literate himself, an exception among the rulers in those days, and keen to promote learning, support the growth of Buddhism and pioneer political reform along the lines of Chinese political thought.
The two most important political measures that are ascribed to him are the introduction of the twelve-cap ranks and the drafting of a constitution. The cap ranks are a hierarchical system for court officials, allowing promotion and demotion independently of a person's kabane. The "17 Article Constitution,,38 is a
synthesis of Confucian and Buddhist values. Drafted around AD 604 and until this century thought to be ShOtoku 's own work, it set the standard for the discourse on Buddhism and the state for the following hundred years. While the first article starts with a quote from Confucius, the second article grants a prominent role to Buddhism:
May the three treasures be sincerely revered! The three treasures are: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. They are the final refuge for all four forms of birth39, the utmost meaning of the countless phenomena. What age, what man would fail to adore this teaching? Few men are utterly bad. They can be taught to follow it. If they don't take their refuge in the three treasures, how should their crookedness be straightened out?4O Sh6toku was, until recently, believed to be the author of three sutra
38 For an analysis in English of the 'Constitution' under the aspect of intellectual history see William de Bary: East Asian Civilazations. London: 1988. Another accessible translation can be found in Tsunoda Ryusaku (Ed.): Sources of Japanese Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964, p.47-51. 39 The four forms of birth are: egg-born (e.g. birds), womb-born (e.g.mammals), water-birth (e.g. fish), metamorphic (e.g. moths). The expression here means all living beings.
commentaries, together known under the title Sangyogisho =* H~~i61t. 41 The commentaries have drawn a lot of attention from Japanese scholars and many a volume has been published42 on them. It seems that a consensus is emerging to the effect that the commentaries are not the work of ShOtoku himself, but were finished in his time and with his involvement. 43 For the writing of the Shomangisho the author used a now lost work authored by one of 'The three great teachers of the Liang-Dynasty' (~=7d;Mffi) Sengmin {t~ (467-527)44.
For the little community of Korean-Japanese monks around Shotoku, 'Sobin' was therefore the name of an important authority. One among them would assume this name and be among the first known student-monks.
That the Prince was involved in the study of Buddhism is further shown by the fact that he gave several lectures45 on the Srfmala-sutra to the Suiko empress (592-628). One can imagine that this Sutra was especially appropriate for the empress, since it denies the theory prevailing at that time that women cannot reach the higher stages on the way to Buddhahood. The main character, next to the Buddha, is the half fictional Queen Srfmala who is directly addressed by the Buddha. The Buddha grants her eloquence to preach the Dharma and ends their conversation with the words: "Queen, the worship of a hundred thousand Buddhas is less a marvel than your explanation of the meaning". The same egalitarian trait is, to a lesser extent, found in the Vimalakfrti-sutra , where the layman Vimalakfrti is portrayed as superior to even the most distinguished disciples of the Buddha.
In another politically and culturally important move involving Buddhism, Shotoku Taishi restarted the official relations with China. As we will see in the 41 These are: the Hokkegisho (a commentary on the Lotussutra), the ShOmangisho (a commentary on the Srfmtiltisimhantida-sutra), and the Yuimagisho *t_~iffrE (a commentary on the Vimalakfrti-sutra). 42 A comprehensive, if somewhat outdated, overview of what has been done can be found in Nihon Bukkyo Gakkai B Shotoku Taishi kenkyu
Tokyo: 1964. 43 Next to text-hermeneutic reasons, one of the arguments that seems most convincing to me, is forwarded by Inoue Mitsusada who shows that the belief in the authorship of Shotoku originated somewhen between 720, when the NG was completed, and 747 when an inventory of the Horyuji 11.:; ~ ~, lists the commentaries as written by ShOtoku. It is very unlikely that the compilers of the NG, who were ardent admirers of Shotoku, would have omitted the fact that he himself produced the well-written commentaries on three of the most popular scriptures. 44 Inoue (1971), p.20. 45 The NG records a three-day lecture in AD 606.7. 46 Wayman (1974), p.35.
next chapter, he dispatched the Embassies to Sui China in 607, 608 and 614 sending student-monks to China for the first time. There is no doubt that the travels of the student-monks were a crucial ingredient in the learning process that took place when the Japanese rulers imported and adopted Chinese culture wholesale during the seventh and the eight century. To understand the reason for this, it is important to remember that the conception of 'empire', at least as far as the Chinese model is concerned, has always been interwoven with, and legitimised by, a holistic, cosmological paradigm. In contrast to the modem concept of 'nation', the structure of 'empire' was considered to be the likeness of the cosmos as a whole
The microcosmic and the macrocosmic level were thought to be reigned by the same principles and to influence each other. In this paradigm the emperor is on speaking terms with heaven. In China he was legitimised by the concept of the 'mandate of heaven' (tianming 7(1fPt in Japan by being a direct descendant of the sun-goddess.
When the Japanese emulated the Chinese in the seventh and eighth centuries - learning empire- in their view, the social, political, textual and religious categories in which we have learned to differentiate today the workings of a society did not exist. For them Buddhism must have been but one facet of the glory of the Tang, not tainted by the stigma of foreigness, as it appeared to the more conservative Chinese scholars. Those considered Buddhism that was introduced from India in the second century CE as a barbarian teaching. This attitude is clearly expressed in the words of Gu Huan IfmfO: (390-453): Buddhism originated in the land of the barbarians; is that not because the customs of the barbarians were originally evil? The Tao originated in China; is that not because the habits of the Chinese were originally good?
Among the Japanese, Buddhism met with much less resistance. It promised magical protection for the country, offered a more comprehensive world-view than Shinto, and was free from the strong sino-centrism of Confucianism a weltanschauung in which all people outside China proper were barbarians living marginal lives at a periphery. Nevertheless, when Buddhism was introduced to Japan it was certainly accompanied by the "teachings of Confucius and the Duke of Zhou,,49, and although Confucianism was at first not the predominant
47 Cf. Nathan Sivin: "State, Cosmos, and Body in the last three centuries B.C." HJAS 55 (1995). 48 Cited after Kenneth Ch'en: "Anti-Buddhist Propaganda during the Nan-Ch'ao". HJAS IS (1952), p.l72. 49 The 'teachings of Confucius and the Duke of Zhou' are what the student-monk Sh6an imparted on his student Nakatomi no Kamatari, according to the NO (XXIV,
ideology in Japan, it had a considerably impact via the legal system, the rituals of governance and its language and literature, all of which the Japanese emulated during the seventh and eighth century. This tendency to synthesise Buddhism and Confucianism, or more exactly to utilise Buddhism to attain Confucian ideals, can be traced to the earliest texts concerning statehood in Japan. One of the reasons why ShOtoku Taishi gained such a uniquely important place in the early view of Japanese history is that he embodied the spirit with which later rulers were 'learning empire'.
