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Mikkyō
is a Japanese term for the Vajrayana practices of Shingon Buddhism and the related practices that make up part of the Tendai and Kegon schools. There are also Shingon and Tendai influenced practices of Shugendō. Mikkyō is a "lineage tradition": meaning that, as well as instruction in the teachings and practices of the tradition, it involves and requires "''kanjo'' enablements" (initiatorial empowerment-transmissions) from a master of the Mikkyō disciplines. The collection of teachings and practices that eventually came to be known as ''Mikkyō'' had its early beginnings in the esoteric traditions of India and China. As early as the 6th century, there had begun a major importation of spiritual and cultural ideas into Japan from China. However, in the early 9th century the formative concepts which would become the core of "mainstream" Mikkyo—Shingon and Tendai—were brought to Japan, initially by the monks Kūkai (the founder of Shingon) and Saichō (the founder of Tendai), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saichō
was a Japanese Buddhist monk credited with founding the Tendai school of Buddhism based on the Chinese Tiantai school he was exposed to during his trip to Tang China beginning in 804. He founded the temple and headquarters of Tendai at Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei near Kyoto. He is also said to have been the first to bring tea to Japan. After his death, he was awarded the posthumous title of Dengyō Daishi (伝教大師). Life Early life Saichō was born in the year 767 in the city of Ōmi, in present Shiga Prefecture, with the given name of Hirono. According to family tradition, Saichō's ancestors were descendants of emperors of Eastern Han China; however, no positive evidence exists for this claim. The region where Saichō was born did have a large Chinese immigrant population, so Saichō likely did have Chinese ancestry. During Saichō's time, the Buddhist temples in Japan were officially organized into a national network known as the provincial temple system, and at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shingon Buddhism
Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Known in Chinese as the Tangmi (; the Esoteric School in Tang Dynasty of China), these esoteric teachings would later flourish in Japan under the auspices of a Buddhist monk named Kūkai (), who traveled to Tang China to acquire and request transmission of the esoteric teachings. For that reason, it is often called Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, or Orthodox Esoteric Buddhism. The word ''shingon'' is the Japanese reading of the Chinese word ('), which is the translation of the Sanskrit word ("mantra"). History Shingon Buddhist doctrine and teachings arose during the Heian period (794-1185) after a Buddhist monk named Kūkai traveled to China in 804 to study Esoteric Buddhist practices in the city of Xi'an (), then called Chang-an, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tendai
, also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese monk Saichō ( posthumously known as Dengyō Daishi). The Tendai school, which has been based on Mount Hiei since its inception, rose to prominence during the Heian period (794-1185). It gradually eclipsed the powerful ''Hossō'' school and competed with the rival Shingon school to become the most influential sect at the Imperial court. By the Kamakura period (1185-1333), Tendai had become one of the dominant forms of Japanese Buddhism, with numerous temples and vast landholdings. During the Kamakura period, various monks left Tendai (seeing it as corrupt) to establish their own "new" or " Kamakura" Buddhist schools such as Jōdo-shū, Nichiren-shū and Sōtō Zen. The destruction of the head temple of Enryaku-ji by Oda Nobunaga i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Godai (Japanese Philosophy)
Godai are the five elements in Japanese Buddhist thought of earth (''chi''), water (''sui''), fire (''ka''), wind (''fu''), and void (''ku''). The concept is related to Buddhist Mahābhūta and came over China from India. The Japanese Buddhist concept of '' gogyo,'' which stems from Chinese '' wuxing,'' is distinguishable from ''godai'' by the fact that the functional phases of wood and metal within ''gogyo'' are replaced by the formative elements of void and the wind (air) in ''godai''. ''Godai'' is attributed to esoteric Japanese Buddhism during the eleventh century CE in relation to the idea of ''gorin'' (the "five wheels" or the "five rings"). ''Godai'' and ''gorin'' are also seen within the practice of ''ninjutsu'', where these principles became an essential aspect of the esoteric ninja teachings (the '' ninpo-mikkyo''); whereas the theory of ''gogyo'' moved into the functional theory of traditional Japanese medicine and exoteric Buddhism. The elements The ''godai'' is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vajrayana
Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring to Buddhist traditions associated with Tantra and "Secret Mantra", which developed in the medieval Indian subcontinent and spread to Tibet, Nepal, other Himalayan states, East Asia, and Mongolia. Vajrayāna practices are connected to specific lineages in Buddhism, through the teachings of lineage holders. Others might generally refer to texts as the Buddhist Tantras. It includes practices that make use of mantras, dharanis, mudras, mandalas and the visualization of deities and Buddhas. Traditional Vajrayāna sources say that the tantras and the lineage of Vajrayāna were taught by Śākyamuni Buddha and other figures such as the bodhisattva Vajrapani and Padmasambhava. Contemporary historians of Buddhist studies meanwhile argue that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shugendō
is a highly syncretic religion, a body of ascetic practices that originated in the Nara Period of Japan having evolved during the 7th century from an amalgamation of beliefs, philosophies, doctrines and ritual systems drawn from local folk-religious practices, Shinto mountain worship and Buddhism. The final purpose of ''Shugendō'' is for practitioners to find supernatural power and save themselves and the masses by conducting religious training while treading through steep mountain ranges. Practitioners are called or . The mountains where ''shugenja'' practiced were all over Japan, and include various mountains of the Ōmine mountain range such as Mount Hakkyō and Mount Ōmine. The ''Shugendō'' worldview includes a large pantheon of deities (which include Buddhist and Shinto figures). Some of the most important figures are the tantric Buddhist figures of Fudō Myōō and Dainichi Nyorai. Other key figures are , which are considered to be the manifestation of Bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu, Austroasiatic, Koreanic, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), there was a massive influx of Sino-Japanese vocabulary into the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords. The basis of the standard dialect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Esoteric Buddhism
Chinese Esoteric Buddhism refers to traditions of Tantra and Esoteric Buddhism that have flourished among the Chinese people. The Tantric masters Śubhakarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra, established the Esoteric Buddhist ''Zhenyan'' (, "true word", "mantra") tradition from 716 to 720 during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. It employed mandalas, mantras, mudras, abhiṣekas, and deity yoga. The Zhenyan tradition was transported to Japan as Shingon Buddhism by Kūkai as well as influencing Korean Buddhism. The Song dynasty (960–1279) saw a second diffusion of Esoteric texts. Esoteric Buddhist practices continued to have an influence into the late imperial period and Tibetan Buddhism was also influential during the Yuan dynasty period and beyond. In the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) through to the modern period, esoteric practices and teachings became absorbed and merged with the other Chinese Buddhist traditions to a large extent. In Chinese these traditions are also terme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majority regions surrounding the Himalayan areas of India (such as Ladakh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and a minority in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), in much of Central Asia, in the southern Siberian regions such as Tuva, and in Mongolia. Tibetan Buddhism evolved as a form of Mahāyāna Buddhism stemming from the latest stages of Indian Buddhism (which also included many Vajrayāna elements). It thus preserves many Indian Buddhist tantric practices of the post-Gupta early medieval period (500 to 1200 CE), along with numerous native Tibetan developments. In the pre-modern era, Tibetan Buddhism spread outside of Tibet primarily due to the influence of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), founded by Kublai Khan, which had ruled Chin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taoism
Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Tao'' (, 'Thoroughfare'); the ''Tao'' is generally defined as the source of everything and the ultimate principle underlying reality. The ''Tao Te Ching'', a book containing teachings attributed to Laozi (), together with the later writings of Zhuangzi, are both widely considered the keystone works of Taoism. Taoism teaches about the various disciplines for achieving perfection through self-cultivation. This can be done through the use of Taoist techniques and by becoming one with the unplanned rhythms of the all, called "the way" or "Tao". Taoist ethics vary depending on the particular school, but in general tend to emphasize '' wu wei'' (action without intention), naturalness, simplicity, spontaneity and the Three Treasures: , compassio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Onmyōdō
is a system of natural science, astronomy, almanac, divination and magic that developed independently in Japan based on the Chinese philosophies of yin and yang and wuxing (five elements). The philosophy of yin and yang and wu xing was introduced to Japan at the beginning of the 6th century, and, influenced by Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, evolved into the earliest system of ''Onmyōdō'' around the late 7th century. In 701, the Taiho Code established the departments and posts of '' onmyōji'' who practiced ''Onmyōdō'' in the Imperial Court, and ''Onmyōdō'' was institutionalized. From around the 9th century during the Heian period, ''Onmyōdō'' interacted with Shinto and in Japan, and developed into a system unique to Japan. Abe no Seimei, who was active during Heian period, is the most famous ''onmyōji'' (''Onmyōdō'' practitioner) in Japanese history and has appeared in various Japanese literature in later years. ''Onmyōdō'' was under the control of the imper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kūkai
Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835Kūkai was born in 774, the 5th year of the Hōki era; his exact date of birth was designated as the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, some 400 years later, by the Shingon sect (Hakeda, 1972 p. 14). Accordingly, Kūkai's birthday is commemorated on June 15 in modern times. This lunar date converts to 27 July 774 in the Julian calendar, and, being an anniversary date, is not affected by the switch to the Gregorian calendar in 1582. Similarly, the recorded date of death is the second year of the Jōwa era, on the 21st day of the third lunar month (Hakeda, 1972 p. 59), i.e. 22 April 835.), born Saeki no Mao (佐伯 眞魚), posthumously called , was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the esoteric Shingon school of Buddhism. He travelled to China, where he studied Tangmi (Chinese Vajrayana Buddhism) under the monk Huiguo. Upon returning to Japan, he founded Shingon—the Japanese bran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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