Japanese Buddhist School of the True Word. Established in Japan by Kōbō Daishi, c. A.D. 806. He was a great harmonizer, seeing every religion as an expression of definite stages in the pilgrimage of humanity to the self-realization of Buddhahood.
He divided these stages into ten, from the lowest state of the man absorbed in material things, in whom the Buddha-nature had hardly begun to function, to the highest state of Shingon mysticism. The ‘Hīnayāna’ stage comes fourth in his scheme. The Shingon doctrine, derived from the Hindu Tantras (q.v.), is a pantheistic mysticism which sees the universe as an expression of ultimate reality, its goal the fruition of the Buddha-nature in the heart of man. It relies largely on ritual, such as the use of invocations (mantras) and hand poses (mudrās) (q.v.). The Supreme Reality is personified in Vairocana Buddha, the Buddha Sakyamuni being viewed as a partial manifestation of Vairocana (q.v.). The chief scriptures are Mahāvairocana Sūtra and Vajrasekhara Sūtra. (SeeJapan,Kōbō Daishi, Kōyasan.)
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