Tantric Ritual of Japan

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The Tantric Ritual of Japan--Feeding the Gods: The Shingon Fire

Ritual/Richard Karl Payne. 1991, 352 p., col. plates, 30 cm.,

 

Contents: Preface. I. Introduction. II. History of the Shingon

tradition: 1. Traditional history: lineage of the patriarchs. 2.

Origin and transmission of Buddhist tantra. 3. Indian origins. 4.

Transmission to China. 5. Transmission to Japan. 6. Shingon in

Japan. III. History of the Goma ritual: 1. Agni, The Vedic fire god.

2. Indo-European parallels to Agni. 3. Vedic fire rituals. 4.

Between Vedas and China. 5. The Goma in Japan. IV. Ritual use of

fire in Japan: 1. Japanese fire rituals. 2. The Shugendo Saito Goma.

3. Saito Gomas in Agon-shu. 4. Shinto fire rituals. 5. The howling

Goma. 6. The variety of Tantric Buddhist Gomas. V. Rituals of the

Shido Kegyo: 1. The two mandalas. 2. The four rituals. 3. Schedule

of training. 4. Function of the Goma in training. 5. The nature of

the practitioner. 6. The path along which the practitioner advances.

7. The relation of the practitioner to others. 8. The nature of the

world. 9. The nature of the goal. VI. Setting, implements and

materials. VII. Basic structure of the Shido Kegyo rituals. VIII.

Ritual directions for the Santika Homa. IX. Analytic description of

the Fudo Myoo Soku Sai Goma. X. Conclusions: 1. Hubert and mauss. 2.

Turner and douglas. 3. Ritual systems and social systems. 4. Staal.

5. Kirk and fontenrose. Appendix: 1. Descriptive structural analysis

of the Juhachi do ritual. 2. Descriptive structural analysis of the

Kongo Kai ritual. 3. Descriptive structural analysis of the Taizo

Kai ritual. 4. Descriptive structural analysis of the Fudo Myoo Soku

Sai Goma Ritual. 5. Sanskrit equivalents of the Mantras. 6. Siddham

script of the Bija Mantras and the Aksara Cakra diagram. 7.

Illustrations. Bibliography. Index.

 

"The first book to describe in details the fire rites of Japanese

Tantrism, called in Japanese goma, from Sanskrit homa. The Shingon

goma is a living contemporary ritual whose origins go back to Vedic

India and to Indo-European antiquity. In the introduction, the

author Dr. Richard Payne discusses ritual and religion, both in the

western and Asian contexts. A brief history of Shingon in Japan,

from its origins in India and transmission to China provide a

historic background to the goma rites. The role of Kukai in the

introduction and propagation of Shingon in the religious life of

Japan, as basic to Japanese culture, is discussed." (jacket)

 

[Richard K. Payne teaches at Institute of Buddhist Studies,

California.]No. 6866