Kukai part 3

This is my final post on the life of Kukai based on Hakeda and Wikipedia.

Part 1

Part 2

This is a continuation of a summary of the life of Kukai derived from Hakeda. This is the end part of his life, the last 11 years.

In 824 Kukai was granted a big temple near the emperor's quarters with 50 monks, and they were all to be trained in the Shingon tradition Kukai created. It's now the head of Kegon or Huayan Buddhism, based on the Flower Garland Sutra. Of the 21 carvings present today, there are 14 from Kukai's time when he chose what the carvings were going to be. 3,500 workers were mobilized to bring wood to the temple. It still wasn't completed in Kukai's lifetime. 

Esoteric means likely to only be understood by a few. Exoteric means understood by many. To call Shingon esoteric means it won't likely be understood by many. 

Saicho died in 822. 

I wonder what it was like to oversee the construction of temples and not see them completed. He got more and more busy, being promoted to junior director to senior director. He declined the positions but the court insisted. He opened a school of arts and sciences. It was the beginning of universal education in Japan. Universal education means everyone can be educated, not just the rich. Providing free meals was a means for including the poor. Teachers and students ate for free. (Here in America there is a weird kind of retreat from that ideal in 2023.) They think Kukai created a children's dictionary during this time. 

He continued to articulate his doctrines in writing, in 830 he wrote Treatise on The Ten Stages of the Development of Mind. 

He would go back to Mount Koya in 832 in failing health. He was given 3 monks support for his Koya monastery. He refused food at the end of his life. He was suffering from a carbuncle. He was buried on the Eastern Peak, age 62. The legends imagine he did not really die, and there's shrines to him where they continue to feed him. He died in 835.

Last edited 9/19/2023.