Shingon (Japanese, "True Word") Buddhism

Major Japanese school of esoteric Buddhism, and the most important esoteric school outside India and Tibet. Shingon arose in Japan's Heian period (794-1185) when the great monk Kukai went to China from 804 to 806 to study esoteric Buddhism. He developed his own synthesis of esoteric practice and doctrine, centred on the cosmic Buddha Vairocana.
Kukai expounded and systematized Shingon doctrine in some 50 treatises, most notably the Sokushin-jobutsugi (The Doctrine of Becoming a Buddha with One's Body During One's Earthly Existence). Subsequent Shingon thought seldom went beyond this initial canon. The sacred sutras of Shingon had supposedly been dictated directly by Vairocana and stored in an iron stupa until 800 years after the Buddha's death. The historical Buddha and his teachings were held to be merely one manifestation of Vairocana.

Kukai combined, for the first time, the cosmic Buddha Vairocana with the abstract entity of Dharmakaya, or Ultimate Reality, thus producing a composite figure embodying all being. This version of Vairocana was held to be within all things, and the goal of Shingon was the realization that one's nature was identical with Vairocana, achieved through contemplation and ritual practices. This realization depended on receiving the secret doctrine of Shingon, transmitted orally to initiates by the sect's masters. Body, speech, and mind all participated in the process: the body through devotional gestures (mudras) and the use of ritual instruments, speech through sacred formulae (mantras), and mind through meditation. Two sacred mandalas presenting diagramatically the two aspects of Vairocana, the Diamond World (kongo-kai) and Womb World (taizo-kai), were placed on Shingon altars as foci for meditation.

After Kukai returned to Japan, he became abbot of a Kyoto temple in 809, and began to promulgate his new creed. In 819 he founded a monastery on Mount Koya, south of Kyoto, which became a great Shingon centre. His personal prestige as an artist and intellectual helped the spread of the sect, especially among the cultivated Heian aristocracy. The beautiful mandalas, magnificent statuary, and elaborate ceremonial in Shingon temples made worship an enjoyable as well as edifying spectacle. Furthermore, simplified versions of Shingon mantras and mudras became folk charms for seeking fortune and averting evil.

Shingon became one of the principal Buddhist sects of the Heian period, supplanting earlier sects and enjoying more popular support than its great rival, Tendai Buddhism. It reached an accommodation with Shinto, the native Japanese religion, by promoting the system of Ryobu Shinto ("Dual Aspect Shinto"), whereby Vairocana was held to be identical with the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu. Shingon lost some of its popularity at the end of the Heian era as it grew rich and worldly, and evangelistic movements such as Pure Land Buddhism supplanted it in public affection, but it remains one of Japan's most important sects, at present numbering some 12 million adherents.