Abstract
Buddhist maṇḍala that are made of colored sand or are painted on cloth have been well represented in Asian art circles in the West. Discussions of the role that they can play in stimulating religious contemplation or even as sacred icons charged with power have also appeared in English scholarship. The metaphorical meaning of the term maṇḍala, however, is less commonly referenced. This paper discusses how the founder of the Japanese school of Shingon Buddhism, the Buddhist monk Kūkai of the ninth century, uses this term in a metaphorical sense to convey the transformed nature of awareness that is the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice. Emphasis is also placed on the importance of metaphorical thinking to the religious path of transformation itself.
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Notes
In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context, ed. by Robert Sharf and Elizabeth Sharf, Stanford, 2002.
In addition to his argument against interpreting these ritual manuals as referencing the interiorization of maṇḍala images in Shingon contexts, Sharf argues elsewhere that the ‘rhetoric of meditative experience’ itself constitutes a problematic discourse for analyzing Buddhist practice. He points to the scanty references in classical Buddhist texts to actual states of mind experienced by practitioners, in spite of abundant theoretical constructs in such texts of ideal states and stages of consciousness. While this insight regarding a tendency to assume that people actually do what the texts say they can or ought to do stands as an important caution, it is still the case that innumerable classical Buddhist texts do, of course, discuss at length the incomparable value of transforming our minds through meditative experience. See Sharf’s ‘Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience.’ Numen 42 (1995):228–283.
Gregory Schopen, ‘Archaeology and the Protestant Presuppositions in the Study of Indian Buddhism,’ History of Religions 31 (1991):1–23.
Teihon Kōbōdaishi zenshū, Research Institute of Esoteric Buddhist Culture, Koyasan University, 1995. From this point,texts from this collection will be cited with their volume andpage number only.
‘Word, Polysemy, Metaphor: Creativity in Language’ In A Ricoeur Reader, ed. by Mario J. Valdes, University of Toronto Press, 1991, 76–85.
Jorge Luiz Borges: Selected Non-fictions, ed. by Eliot Weinberger, Penguin Books (2000), 252.
On basic Tibetan tantric visualization methods, among numerous texts now available, see Lama Yeshe’s Introduction to Tantra, Wisdom Publications (1987) and the Dalai Lama’s Tantra in Tibet, Snow Lion Publications (1987). David L. McMahan’s Empty Vision: Metaphor and Visionary Imagery in Mahāyāna Buddhism, Routledge Curzon (2002) also contains helpful analyses that overlap with my thinking here.
Togano Shogun, Shingon Dokuhon—kyōgihen, 13. Original in Taisho #1174, vol. 20: 713c28, Five Letter Dharani Verse 五字陀羅尼頌).
Jane Hirshfield, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, Harper Perennial. New York (1997), 84.
Ibid., 18.
Ibid., 84.
In a forthcoming book on Kūkai, I explore the somatic aspect of his understanding of maṇḍala.
Hirshfield, 84.
References
Borges, J. L. (2000). In Weinberger, E. (Eds.), Jorge Luiz Borges: Selected Non-fictions (p. 252), Penguin Books.
Hirshfield, J. (1997). Nine gates: Entering the mind of poetry. New York: Harper Perennial.
Lama, D. (1987). Tantra in Tibet. Snow Lion Publications.
McMahan, D. L. (2002). Empty vision: Metaphor and visionary imagery in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Routledge Curzon.
Ricoeur, P. (1991). Word, polysemy, metaphor: Creativity in language. In A Ricoeur Reader (Ed.) by Mario J. Valdes, University of Toronto Press, pp 76–85.
Schopen, G. (1991). Archaeology and the protestant presuppositions in the study of Indian Buddhism. History of Religions, 31, 1–23.
Sharf, R. (1995). Buddhist modernism and the rhetoric of meditative experience. Numen, 42, 228–283.
Sharf, R. (2002). In R. Sharf and E. Sharf (Eds.), Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context. Stanford.
Teihon Kōbōdaishi zenshū (1995). Research Institute of Esoteric Buddhist Culture. Koyasan University.
Togano, Shogun Shingon Dokuhon—kyōgihen.
Yeshe, L. (1987). Introduction to Tantra. Boston: Wisdom Publication.
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Gardiner, D. Metaphor and Maṇḍala in Shingon Buddhist Theology. SOPHIA 47, 43–55 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-008-0052-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-008-0052-9