◆ Qin Jingjing, Jiang Feng
In the early spring, we explored the temple in Kyoto, not only measured Kyoto's "three steps and one temple, seven steps and one shrine" with our footsteps, but also rushed to Kyoto's East Temple to go to a "flower meeting" appointment. It was March 31st, and it was the time of the 2024 Toji Night Cherry Blossom Lighting and the special night visit to the Golden Hall and Lecture Hall, so we hurried to see Toji Temple, a national temple built in 796 A.D. after Emperor Kanmu, the 50th emperor of Japan, moved his capital to Heiankyo.
Toji Temple, without exaggeration, is one of the symbols of Kyoto. The five-storied pagoda inside the temple is the tallest five-storied pagoda in the Japanese archipelago, which is more unique than the five-storied pagoda of Sensoji Temple in Tokyo, and is different from the novelist Koda Ryoban's "Five-Storied Pagoda".
Bustling with tourists. The blooming pieces of old trees and cherry blossoms in the East Temple make the Japanese lose that kind of self-discipline and reserve, or raise their mobile phones to click to take pictures, or sigh in their mouths to admire, or call friends to share and appreciate, or stand alone under a tree to enjoy a lonely flower. We stopped in front of the 120-year-old Fuji cherry blossom tree on the temple grounds, and it is said that it was planted on the 1,200th anniversary of Kukai's return to the Tang Dynasty to bring out the Buddhist philosophy of Fuji with cherry blossoms. Sure enough, the "Fuji Sakura" in the night light scorched the charming eyes of the cherry blossoms.
You must know that the 149th volume of the "Old Tang Book", which contains a huge volume of "Twenty-four History", clearly records: "In the twentieth year of Zhenyuan (804 AD), an envoy was sent to the court, and the foreign students were exempted from the situation, and the learned monk Kuhai. It is interesting to remember the distinction between "international students" and "scholarly monks" here.
It is said that Master Kukai left home at the age of 15 to go to Beijing, entered the university liao to specialize in the Ming classics, and systematically studied the Chinese classics "Zhou Yi", "Shangshu", "Zhou Li", "Book of Rites", "Spring and Autumn Zuochuan", "Book of Filial Piety", "Analects", etc., which laid a good foundation for the 18th batch of Tang envoys to study in the Tang Dynasty.
Today, there are many cultural relics in the Toji Treasure Museum, which have been designated as "national treasures" by Japan, one of which is the "Wind Hyacinth Sticker", a letter between Kukai and Shisumi. Kukai's calligraphy is modeled after the Chinese "sage of calligraphy" Wang Xizhi, and after the "returnee", he and Emperor Saga and the "foreign student" Tachibana Yisheng are called "Heian Sanbi", which shows the subtlety of his calligraphy.
I think that the Research Center for Foreign Sinology of Henan University of Science and Technology has a set of engraved ancient books - a collection of poems and essays compiled by Master Kukai "Wenjing Secret House". The earliest Chinese author of the "Treatise on the Secret Mansion of Wenjing" was Mr. Yang Shoujing, a Qing Dynasty catalogue editionist and who followed He Ruzhang, the first minister of the Qing Dynasty to Japan. During his tenure in Japan, he acquired a large number of classical Chinese culture books that had been lost in Japan, many of which were no longer unique books. In his "Chronicle of Visits to Japan", he discussed Kukai Daishi's "Treatise on the Secret Mansion of Bunjing". Today, many Chinese diplomats emphasize "diplomacy for the people", but Yang Shoujing has a unique style of "diplomacy for the people".
I remember that when Wang Yi was China's ambassador to Japan, he said the following when answering a reporter's question: The exchanges between China and Japan have lasted for more than 2,000 years, and cultural exchanges have continued among them. During the Sui and Tang dynasties of China for nearly 300 years, Japan sent a large number of Sui and Tang envoys to China. That period was a culmination for Japan to learn from Chinese culture. For example, the well-known Kobo master Kukai monk in Japan was a monk who studied abroad in the Tang Dynasty envoys, and later became the founder of Shingon Buddhism in Japan. I have been to the master sailing into the sea and west to the shores of China. Looking west from there, on the other side of the sea, is our land of God. I also went to Fukue Island in Nagasaki Prefecture, a small island in the western part of Japan, where Kukai returned from his studies and set foot on Japanese soil again. Later generations built a temple for him here, and there is a stone tablet in the temple written by Master Kukai, engraved with four characters: "Virtuality to the real return". That is, leave empty-handed and return with a full load. When he left, he was still a little-known young monk, and when he returned, he eventually became a generation of grandmasters. These four words not only reflect the true mentality of Kukai Daishi, but also a vivid portrayal of Sino-Japanese exchanges at that time.
This is what Kukai Daishi learned from returning to Japan from China, and "Returning to the Void" is what we want to do when we stand in front of Fujizakura when we enjoy the cherry blossoms at Toji Temple in Kyoto. (Written in Kyoto and Tokyo on April 7, 2024, the author is a professor at Henan University of Science and Technology in China and the chief writer of "Overseas Chinese Daily" in Japan)