Vermilion World 1
Did Kukai Found the Shikoku Pilgrimage?
The 1,400-kilometer pilgrimage known as the Shikoku Pilgrimage has drawn Buddhist devotees since ancient times and continues to captivate people to this day. The figure traditionally credited with founding this pilgrimage is Kukai (774–835), the monk who established the Shingon school of Buddhism in Japan. Yet the actual reasons and historical circumstances behind Kukai’s creation of the pilgrimage have never been conclusively determined. In other words, while the pilgrimage is strongly associated with Kukai, the reality remains unclear.
Most people are naturally drawn to the visible fact that eighty-eight temples were established across the whole of Shikoku. But I want to shift the question.
What if Kukai was not walking the length of Shikoku to build sacred sites of devotion?
What if at the origin of the pilgrimage lies the possibility that Kukai was searching for something on someone else’s behalf?
This line of inquiry has in fact been pursued by certain researchers before, though nothing definitive has emerged from their work either. The honest conclusion is that the true reason Kukai founded the pilgrimage remains unknown. The one thing we can say with certainty is that the young Kukai was an obscure, unnamed monk, and for that reason most of what he did during that period of his life is simply lost to us. And precisely because so little can be known, later generations were able to attach layer upon layer of legend to his name, constructing the image of Kukai that exists today. What this means is that the Kukai we think we understand may need to be examined far more carefully than we assume.
Today especially, Kukai is bound up with the grandeur of Koyasan and the striking imagery of becoming a Buddha in one’s own body. The result is a heavily mythologized figure. But very little is actually known about his early life, and no one has satisfactorily explained the background to his sudden rise to historical prominence.
Given all of this, it might seem as though there is nothing meaningful we can say about Kukai. But there is one crucial fact we must not overlook. Kukai lived during a transitional era, the period of upheaval surrounding the move to Heian-kyo. In Japan’s history, the relocation of the capital was never a simple matter of moving house. It almost always entailed a sweeping dismantlement and reformation of the existing power structure, because the purpose of relocating was, among other things, to strip the old ruling class of its entrenched privileges.