When the eyebrows between China and Japan are cold, there are many topics that can be used to shake off the face and throw cold arrows. When it comes to talking about wine, most of the people who can talk about friendship are only the topic of sending Tang Envoys, because it is thick enough. From the second year of Shu Ming (630) to the sixth year of Kuanping (894), wanli lianfan, which lasted for more than two hundred years, spread the culture of the Sheng Tang Dynasty to Haidong, bringing with it a mature feudal canon system and advanced Buddhist ideas, creating the nara and Heian periods of ancient Japan.
The so-called beacon of civilization is like the red sun rising, its way is great, the sky wears its cang, and the earth walks its yellow. It is always necessary for the eight barbarians to ignore the mountains and seas and sincerely come together to celebrate, and only then will it be the young China that has no borders in the country. Blindly relying on force or money, taking the old path followed by the old empire, will not work after all.
The envoys sent by Japan to the Tang Dynasty can be roughly divided into four periods. The first period was from Emperor Shuming to Empress Dowager Qiming, which lasted for about thirty years. It is characterized by a smaller scale and a small number of people, landing on the Shandong Peninsula along the north road and then going to Chang'an by land.
The second period, during the reign of Emperor Tenchi, was designed to repair the tense sino-Japanese antagonism following the Battle of Shiramura River.
The third period, from Emperor Wenwu to Emperor Xiaoqian, lasted about fifty years, with the purpose of learning the advanced cultural system of the Tang Dynasty and bathing in the light of civilization, which was the peak of the history of the Tang Dynasty. Due to the deterioration of relations between Japan and Silla at that time, during this period, Tang sent ships to take the southern route and directly reached Datang by sea.
The fourth period was the period from Emperor Mitsuhito to Emperor Inhito, about sixty years, and the main purpose was to exchange tribute trade for gifts from the Tang Dynasty and grab economic benefits. After that, due to the anshi rebellion and the influence of the division of the town, the lighthouse dimmed, and the Envoys sent to the Tang Dynasty did not pay for it.
Japan evaluates the two-hundred-year experience of sending Tang dynasty, and the only people who are named Tang Guo are the ministers and Chao Heng. The chancellor refers to the official Right Minister Jibei Zhenbei, who twice sent Tang, and during Yu Xiaoqian's reign, he quelled the rebellion of Hyemi Oshikatsu and was active. And Abe Zhongmalu, who was named Chao Heng, served in the Tang Dynasty for life, buried his bones in other places, and became the best model for witnessing the friendship between China and Japan.
Abe Nakamaru was born in the second year of Bunmu (698), and his father, Abe Shipho, served as the fifth chief minister. Zhongmalu was both a nobleman and a wise and studious person, and at the age of nineteen he was promoted to be a student of the Tang Dynasty, and in the first year of the yuanzheng empress dowager (717), he followed the Tang envoys from Nanbo and rushed to the Tang Dynasty.
The Tang mission accompanied by Abe Nakamaru had a total of four ships and a number of more than 550 people. In addition to the main and deputy ambassadors, captains, interpreters, monks, yin and yang masters, doctors, painters, sailors, etc., there were more than a dozen public students, and Abe Nakamaru was one of them. The students who arrived in Chang'an with him on the same boat were Yoshibei Makoto, Yamato Nagaoka, and Xuanfang, all of whom were heroes.
At this time, it was the fifth year of Xuanzong's new century, the country was prosperous, and the four seas were served. The sons of talent and learning all over the world gather in Chang'an, admiring the Tang Dynasty Yunshan Cangcang, the rivers and rivers, the country's virtue, and the mountains and rivers. Abe Nakamaru entered the Kokukoku prison, immersed himself in the two disciplines of the Ming Sutra and the Jinshi, although he had no learning companions, but had a scroll in his hand. After completing his studies, Abe took the imperial examination and passed the entrance examination in one fell swoop. This is like he entered the Qingbei to study with the status of a foreigner, there is nothing surprising, what is surprising is that after graduation, he took the national civil service examination and was also on the list of the national examination, which caused a sensation in Shilin.
Abe Zhongmalu appointed the official Prince Zuo Chunfang Toshi Bureau School Book, the official rank of Zheng Jiu pinxia, responsible for the revision of the history books, to assist the prince in reading. At the same time, Chu Guangxi, a jinshi, had a deep friendship with Abe, and wrote a poem entitled "Luozhong Yi Dynasty School Shuheng" to record this time of spring breeze.
Among the nations, the East Corner Road is the longest. My life is beautiful, high driving Shi Chunfang.
In and out of the PengShan, the water is at ease. Bo Luan traveled too much to learn, and looked at each other in the middle of the night.
The sunset hangs high in the temple, and the autumn wind enters the cave house. Repeatedly saying that they are far away, they do not feel that they are born towards the light.
Abe Zhongmaru was later promoted to the positions of Zuo Shiyi and Zuo Shuque, and became Xuanzong's attendant. Because of His erudition and excellent poetry, legend has it that Emperor Xuanzong Li Longji personally gave him the name Chao Heng (or Chao Heng). It is also said that Abe Nakamaru poured his heart into Chinese culture and changed his name.
In the twenty-second year of the new century (734), the Japanese sent a Tang mission back to China, and it was customary to bring back the previous batch of Tang students who had stayed in Tang, including Yoshibei Makoto, Yamato Nagaoka, Xuanfang and others. Chao Heng was also about to return with the ship, but Emperor Xuanzong loved his talents and forcibly retained him, so he had to continue to stay in the Tang Dynasty.
Abe Naka Maru Mingzhou Wangyue, selected from Katsushika Hokusai's painting "One Hundred People".
After that, Chao Heng served as The Friend of Yi and became the companion of Li Pu, the twelfth prince of Emperor Xuanzong, and also a teacher and friend. In the twelfth year of Tianbao (753), Chao Heng was promoted to Wei Weiqing (衛尉卿) and concurrently served as secretary and supervisor. When the Japanese delegation sent the Tang Dynasty to visit China again, the deputy envoy was Ji Bi Zhenbei. Chao Heng saw the deceased again, and his homesickness was difficult to suppress, so he proposed to Xuanzong to resign from his official post and return to China with the Tang mission. Tang Xuanzong was grateful that he had left home for thousands of miles and wandered in a foreign land, and could not bear to continue to stay, allowing him to return to China.
Chao Heng, who was fifty-six years old at the time, had been living in the Tang Dynasty for more than thirty years, and he had both the heart to return to his hometown and the reluctance to do so, so he wrote the verse "Returning the Work of the Nation with His Life".
He will resign from the country and will not be a servant. Heaven loves the Lord, and overseas remembers kindness.
Fu Song violated the Golden Que and went to Yujin. Penglai Township road is far away, Ruomu ancient garden.
Look west to Wynn Day, east to Gyan Yichen. A sword in life, left to make friends.
During Chao Heng's stay in the Tang Dynasty, because of his outstanding literary talent, he made friends with famous scholars, and had contacts with famous poets such as Li Bai, Wang Wei, and Chu Guangxi. Hearing that he was about to return to China, Wang Wei wrote "Sending The Secretary Chao Jian back to Japan" as a gift.
The water is not extreme, and the sea is unknown. Where Kyushu is far away, if you take the air.
Look at the sun to the country, return to the sail but the trade wind. The body of the fish reflects the darkness, and the fish's eyes shoot red.
Outside the township tree Fusang, the owner is in the isolated island. Don't leave the foreign land, if the message is passable.
Bidding farewell to friends, Chao Heng boarded a boat in Suzhou and left the Yangtze River. The night boat was lonely, looking at the moon like a mirror, he looked back at the old years, and suddenly left a song.
Looking up at the eastern sky, the gods gallop to the side of Nara.
On the top of Mikasa Mountain, I want to see a full moon again.
Abe Nakamaru looks at the moon homesick, selected from Tsukioka Yoshinori's painting "Moon Hundred Postures"
The four Tang ships on the return trip, the other three arrived in Japan smoothly, including the Jian Zhen monk who made the sixth east crossing. However, the first ship on which the Tang ambassadors Fujiwara Kiyokawa and Chao Heng were riding encountered a storm in Ryukyu and drifted to Annam. The crew clashed with the natives and suffered casualties, but only more than a dozen people, including Fujiwara Kiyokawa and Chao Heng, survived.
The news spread back to Datang, and the people thought that Chao Heng had been killed and were saddened. Li Bai, who was in Suzhou at the time, wrote a poem "Crying Chao Qingheng" as a tribute.
Japan's Chao Qing resigned the imperial capital, and the sails were wrapped around the pot.
The bright moon does not return to the blue sea, and the white clouds are full of sorrow.
Chao Heng and Fujiwara Kiyokawa returned to Chang'an for six months, coinciding with the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, and Chao Heng followed Emperor Xuanzong to take refuge in Sichuan. When the war subsided, Chao Heng was appointed by his successor Emperor Suzong of Tang as Zuo Shan Riding Chang Shi, Annam Du Hu, Guanglu Dafu and Yushi Zhongcheng , and was given the founding duke of Beihai County, with 3,000 households. In the first year of Baogui (770), Chao Heng died of illness, and the imperial court posthumously appointed him as the governor of Erpinlu Prefecture. Emperor Mitsuhito of Japan posthumously awarded him the official position of Shojipin because of chao heng's exchange of deeds in the Tang Dynasty and buried his bones in other places.
In 1979, the Xi'an Municipal Government built the Abe Nakamaru Monument and Memorial Hall in Xingqinggong Park to commemorate this international friend who promoted Sino-Japanese friendship. In 2012, the monument was defaced by people between the two countries because of the conflict between the Diaoyu Islands, although it could not be restored after cleaning. If Chao Heng had a spirit, he must also be sorry and sad.
The monk Kanzen was a similar contemporary of Abe Nakamaru. Abe Nakamaru came to cast a thousand miles, only to be considerate of the light of civilization of the human lighthouse, and the Jian Zhen monk crossed the east six times, but it was to spread this beam of light to the thorny wilderness where the Dharma was not yet up to date. Human civilization has achieved mutual intermingling in such a drastic way that it has not regretted nine deaths.
Jian Zhen, whose common surname is Chun Yu, was born in Yangzhou in the fourth year (688) of Wu Zhou, was ordained at an early age, and then traveled to Luoyang and Chang'an to study buddhist precepts. In the first year of Xuanzong's reign (713), the twenty-six-year-old Jian Zhen returned to The Daming Temple in Yangzhou, set up an altar, held the precepts, and at the age of forty-five was already a well-known Vinaya master.
Buddhism was introduced to Japan, spread over the scriptures, and had a large number of followers, many of whom were privately shaved in order to escape labor. Over time, the Nara court deeply felt its drawbacks, and although the Dharma had been transmitted to the east, it only had its Dharma, but it had not been passed on to the Dharma. In the fifth year of the Japanese balance (733), the imperial court sent two learned monks, Rong Rui and Puzhao, to accompany the Tang envoys to the Tang Dynasty and invite the monk Dade, who was well versed in the precepts, to cross the country to Japan.
Rong Rui and Pu Zhao first came to Luoyang to invite the senior monk Dao Xuan. In the fourth year of the Japanese tianping katsuho (752), the great Buddha of Lushena opened his eyes and left China for Japan as a prayer teacher. Dao Xuan was a pioneer in the spread of the Vinaya in Japan, and was also closely related to the prosperity of the two major sects of Huayan and Tendai.
Visiting Daoxuan, the two Japanese learned monks continued to stay in the Tang Dynasty to search for senior monks. In the first year of Tianbao (742), Rong Rui and Puzhao came to the Daming Temple in Yangzhou and pleaded with Jian Zhen to go to Japan to teach the precepts. Jian Zhen understood that Japan was the country where Buddhism flourished, so he asked his disciples if there was anyone they wished to go. There were thousands of disciples, and none of them were willing to give up their lives to go to danger. Jian Zhen expressed his stance with indignation: For the sake of the fa, why spare your life, if you don't go, I will go to your ears. He took the lead in this way, and twenty-one disciples, including Xiang Yan, Dao Xing, and Dao Hang, also explicitly followed.
At that time, although The Tang Dynasty was a powerful and powerful country, it welcomed barbarians from all over the world to come to pay tribute, but it strictly forbade its own military and civilians to leave the country without authorization. The famous sutra-taking monk Tang Xuanzang was actually smuggled first, breaking the law and traveling westward. Rong Rui and Pu Zhao had a hard time saying that the monastic group led by Jian Zhen had agreed to dongdu, and could not wait to ask Chang'an for permission, and asked Li Linfu's brother Li Linzong to prepare a ship that would be released from Ningbo into the sea.
However, there was a conflict between the local monks of the Tang Dynasty and the Silla monks in the sangha, and the Silla monks ran to the official palace to secretly inform, claiming that the Yangzhou monastic order colluded with pirates and built ships to go to sea. After a storm, the ship was confiscated by the government, and Jian Zhen was forced to return to Daming Temple.
Jian Zhen Liu Fan Dong Du
Rong Rui and Pu Zhao soon came to Jian Zhen again to persuade him to try again. Jian Zhen bought a military ship from his own pocket and hired eighteen sailors, plus more than ten disciples, painters and craftsmen, a total of 185 people in December of the second year of Tianbao (743) along the Yangtze River into the sea. As a result, just near Chongming Island, the sea ship was overturned by wind and waves, and everyone fell into the water. When the ship was repaired and set off again, it encountered strong winds and drifted to a desert island off the coast of Zhoushan, where the water was exhausted and it took many days to be rescued. Returning to Tang Tu, Jian Zhen and others settled in Ningbo Ashoka Temple, and then the monasteries in various places invited to give lectures on the Fa, and the second time they crossed the east to nai nai.
After finishing the lecture, Jian Zhen returned to Ningbo and prepared to continue the east crossing. In order to retain the truth, the monks of Shaoxing complained to the government that the Japanese monks had deceived The Tang Dynasty Kochi and had bad intentions. Rong Rui was arrested, and the third eastward crossing was fruitless.
In the third year of Tianbao (744), Jian Zhen led more than thirty people to leave Ashoka Temple, intending to buy ships from Fuzhou to go to sea. Lingyou, the disciple who remained in Yangzhou, could not bear the burden of the waves, and asked Huainan to interview the envoy to intercept him halfway. Jian Zhen was escorted back to the Daming Temple in Yangzhou by the officers and soldiers, and he was greatly dissatisfied with Lingyou, who stood in the middle of the night and lasted for two months before getting the master's forgiveness.
In the seventh year of Tianbao (748), RongRui and Puzhao arrived in Yangzhou again and discussed with Jian Zhen a fifth eastward crossing to Japan. In June of that year, the monastic community set out from Chongfu Temple in Yangzhou, stayed in Zhoushan for several months, and then went to sea. The wind and waves are fierce, the water is as black as ink", and the sea ship is bumpy and fluttering, lasting fourteen days without seeing the day. It was not until the ship docked that it realized that it had drifted to Hainan Island. Jian Zhen stayed in Hainan for a year, and then returned north through Guangxi and Guangdong. On the way, Rong Rui died of illness in Zhaoqing, Guangdong, his disciple Xiang Yan died in Ji'an, Jiangxi, thirty-six members of the Dongdu monastic order died in the Middle Way, and Jian Zhen himself was blinded by illness. In the tenth year of Tianbao (751), Jian Zhen returned to Yangzhou and made a grand wish: if he did not go to Japan, his wish would not be fulfilled.
In the twelfth year of Tianbao (753), the Japanese tang envoys Fujiwara Kiyokawa, Yoshibei Zhenbei and others paid homage to Tang Xuanzong and formally proposed to hire Jian Zhen to go to Japan to ordain. Emperor Xuanzong believed in Taoism and demanded that the Tang envoys be sent to carry Daoist monks at the same time, but the two sides did not negotiate and had to give up. On their way back to Japan with Abe Nakamaru (晁衡), the delegation made a special trip to Yangzhou to ask for help. Jian Zhen led more than twenty of his disciples to secretly board the mission ship and sneaked across Japan for the sixth time. During this eastward crossing, Kanjin's ship reached Satsuma via Ryukyu and finally arrived in Japan. Instead, Abe Nakamaru and Fujiwara Kiyokawa encountered a storm and stayed in Datang.
Jian Zhen's sixth east crossing map
From the first wish to go to the east in 743, until the success of the sixth east crossing in 753, it lasted eleven years, persevered, did not change his original intention, and was a sixty-five-year-old man when he set foot on the territory of Japan.
Kanjin stopped briefly in Dazaifu, Kyushu, took the waterway to Namba, and then arrived in Nara and stayed at Todaiji Temple. The Tang Dynasty monk Dao xuan who had gone to Japan earlier, the monk Zheng Bodhi Xianna from India, and the hundred officials and important ministers led by Fujiwara Nakamaru all came to visit. Empress Xiaoqian sent an emissary, Ji Bi Zhenbei, to proclaim condolences, "From now on, I will grant ordination and transmission of the law, and I will be a great master." The female emperor conferred on Jian Zhen the honorific title of "Great Master of Transmission of Lights", and asked Jian Zhen to set up an altar of ordination at Dongda Temple, and conferred The Mahayana Bodhisattva ordination to the royal family and more than 400 people in Shami. Since then, Japanese Buddhists have to ascend to the altar to be ordained in order to be eligible to become monks, and Master Jian Zhen has become the founding master of the Japanese Vinaya.
In the ninth year of Tenpyeong Katsuho (757), Emperor Hyohide gave kanzen the residence of Prince Nittabe in Nara Castle, where he built the famous Tang Zhaoti Temple. Zhao Ti Temple is a hall system that is completely imitating the Tang style wooden structure, and everywhere emphasizes symmetry, just like a neat Go board. The eight large columns of the main hall of the Golden Hall are lined up face to face, and the seated statue of Lushena placed in the center of the Golden Hall is shaped by the dry lacquer method transmitted by Jian Zhen, which is the most stylish statue art of the Tianping Era.
Toshodaiji Kondo
After the completion of the Tang Zhaoti Temple, Master Jian Zhen moved to it to concentrate on teaching the precepts. In the seventh year of Tianping Baozi (763), Jian Zhen sat down in the Zen Hall facing the West, at the age of seventy-six. The disciple made a seated statue of the mage in dry lacquer, which looked serene, his eyes were closed, and his face was smiling, and he came to life.
Kanjin Monk True Statue, the earliest portrait carving in Japan, is located at Nara Tang Choti Temple.
In the first year of the Yuan Lu (1688), Matsuo Basho visited Tang Zhaoti Temple, and wrote in the "Small Text of Qi":
When the monk Jian Zhen of Zhao Ti Monastery came to the court, he was repeatedly destroyed in the ship for more than seventy degrees, and the salt wind entered his eyes, and eventually he became blind. The royal statue is in front of it, and it is fearful to worship it, and may the new green be used to brush away the haze in the eyes.
To this day, the haze in the eyes is easy to go, and the new green that wipes the haze of the two countries does not exist...
(End of Section 7)