Form and Content in Kūkai's Shōjijissōgi *

Form and Content in Kūkai’s Shōjijissōgi 507

Form and Content in Kūkai’s Shōjijissōgi *

Paulus Kaufmann

Introduction

The Japanese monk Kūkai (774-835) is considered one of the most important figures in Japan’s intellectual history. He left behind a wide range of literary works, including poems, a novel, doctrinal treatises, commentaries, a diction- ary and poetological texts1. This variety of genres notwithstanding, Kūkai’s work clearly focuses on matters of Buddhist doctrine. If we were to single out one idea that is central in Kūkai’s Buddhist thought, we would find wide agree- ment that it is his claim that the dharmakāya Buddha preaches the dharma (hosshin seppō 法身説法) that is most characteristic of his doctrinal position.2 To appreciate the peculiarity of this position we have to know that the term dharmakāya traditionally referred to that ‘which characterises the Buddha as Buddha, that is, the collection (kāya) of pure elements (dharmas) possessed […] by the Buddha.’3 It also came to refer to the Buddha’s mental capacity to recognise true reality, to true reality itself, and later to the scriptures that reveal this reality.4 Kūkai, in contrast, identifies the dharmakāya with the cosmic Buddha Vairocana and thereby personalises this hitherto abstract idea.5 He

* Work on this paper was made possible by a generous grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Ian Astley, Elsa Legittimo and Robert Sharf read earlier drafts of this paper and made very helpful comments on it. Elena Louisa Lange and Raji C. Steineck, the editors of this volume, commented on critical passages and helped me to further improve the paper. I also had the chance to discuss some of the issues presented in this paper with Gregor Paul and although we did not achieve unanimity I profited from this intellectual exchange. 1 I am using here a terminology for text genres that is taken from the Western tradition. When such terms are applied to Kūkai’s texts they therefore have to be taken cum grano salis. Especially the term ‘novel’ might give rise to discussion, but it is used, for example, by Hakeda in his article ‘The Religious Novel of Kūkai’. 2 See, for example, Izutsu, ‘Imi bunsetsu riron to Kūkai’ ; Payne, ‘Awakening and Language’; and Krummel, ‘Japanese Philosophy: Kūkai’. 3 Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism, p. 175. 4 Ibid., pp. 172-186. 5 Abé, The Weaving of Mantra, pp. 213-235. That the idea of a personal dharmakāya can also be found in other Buddhist schools is mentioned by Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, p. 285, and argued for by Kūkai himself in his Benkenmitsunikyōron 辨顯密二教論 (T77.375a24-375b15).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004360112_018 508 Kaufmann tells us that the Buddha preaches in this dharma body and not only in his nirmānakāya and saṃbhogakāya manifestations. Kūkai asserts this view in spite of the fact that the dharmakāya had been seen to be entirely beyond language by many earlier traditions. The idea that the Buddha even preaches in his highest form of appearance can be seen as a ‘positive valuing of the role of language in the process of awakening’6. Moreover, it makes Kūkai’s view of language one of the central parts of his system of thought. Kūkai’s ideas on language are developed especially in a relatively short text called Shōjijissōgi 聲字實相義, i.e. Determining the meaning of sound, sign and reality. The German philosopher Gregor Paul has the merit of being one of the first Western authors to discuss this text in detail and to try to work out Kūkai’s central ideas about language.7 In his contribution to this volume Paul reformulates his assump- tions about Kūkai’s Shōjijissōgi and I consider his general ideas on the text to be a good starting point for reopening and advancing the discussion about Kūkai’s view of language. It will become clear, however, that I reject some important features of Paul’s interpretation of the text, and I will argue that Paul misses much of the content of the Shōjijissōgi because he misrepresents the text’s form. To put it more concretely: Paul begins his earlier paper on Kūkai’s philosophy of language by stating that the Shōjijissōgi is ‘highly systematic’8, has an ‘argumentative character’,9 and is ‘rational rather than irrational’.10 According to Paul, the text furthermore expresses a positive attitude towards language11 and is a ‘philosophical’ text.12 By characterising the Shōjijissōgi in this way, Paul pursues the further aim of undermining the picture of Japanese intellectual history as an irrational, language-averse enterprise incompatible with the Western philosophical tradition. Let me stress at the very beginning of my argument that I share Paul’s critique of a mystification of Japanese thinking in general and of Japanese Buddhism in particular. Furthermore, I will show that I can make sense of all the attributes that Paul attaches to the Shōjijissōgi. It is indeed, or so I will argue, a systematic, argumentative, rational and philosophical text that attributes an important role to language on the path of Buddhist awakening. What I want to emphasise, though, is that all these labels are

6 Payne, ‘Awakening and Language’, p. 79. 7 Paul, Zur Sprachphilosophie Kūkais. All translations from this work into English are mine. 8 Ibid., p. 179. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 180. 12 Ibid., p. 177.