Open AccessISLAND AMONG THE MOUNTAINS: KūKAI ON FUDARAKU PEAK IN JAPAN
Author(s) -
Nadezhda N. Trubnikova
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
religiovedenie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2712-7575
pISSN - 2072-8662
DOI - 10.22250/2072-8662.2018.2.30-42
Subject(s) - buddhism , asceticism , bodhisattva , mountaineering , hero , ancient history , history , theology , philosophy , art , archaeology , literature
The article precedes the translation of the Stone Inscription (Jp. Shamon Shōdō reki sansui ei genju hi ), No 11 of the Shōryōshū - a collection of works by Kūkai (774-835) written in Chinese and reflecting various aspects of Buddhism in Japan in the early 9th century. The verses in the Inscription contain the glorification of the sacred mountain; in the prosaic preface Kūkai describes how the monk-ascetic Shōdō wandered in the mountains in the eastern provinces of Japan and found there the sacred Potalaka (Jp. Fudaraku) - the mountain-island, the abode of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Jp. Kannon). Climbing the mountain is conceived here as a path of Buddhist asceticism, but it can not be fulfilled without the help of local kami deities. Passing this way together with his hero and the reader, Kūkai brings together the Taoist, Confucian and Buddhist approaches to understanding the mountains as a special landscape where a person can strengthen his capacies to be turned to benefit people...