Mandala Hermeneutics and the Source-Trace Theory in Early Medieval Japanese Esoteric Buddhism

Abstract

The configurations of buddhas and deities in the Vajradhātu and Garbhadhātu Mandalas are traditionally thought to represent the contents of the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha and the Mahāvairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra, the primary sutras of the Japanese Shingon school of esoteric Buddhism. Although praised for their detailed iconography and noted for their ritual function in consecration rites, the mandala also played a role in a discourse among Tendai and Shingon scholiasts regarding the relationship between Vairocana and Śākyamuni. The structure of the Garbhadhātu Mandala, in particular, and the relative positioning of the buddhas in this mandala became a matter of debate in the Tendai school, who had long considered these to be the same buddha by different names.BR To resolve this doctrinal problem, they created an interpretative framework, or mandala hermeneutic, for explaining the network of the buddhas and deities in the mandala in which individual beings functioned as “source” and “trace” of the Buddha’s teachings. The theory of source and trace (honji suijaku) was the ideological basis for the assimilation of buddhas and local deities in Japan, constituting the core of medieval Japanese religion. In this article, I explore the development of the source-trace theory as it evolved from an exegetical paradigm in Chinese Buddhism to a hermeneutic in early medieval Japan for explaining the connections between the deities in the Garbhadhātu Mandala.