Strictly esoteric

 

"Oh, Master, please tell us everything
about the zodiac! Are we included?"
But the Tathagata remained silent...

My odyssey through hard-to-understand scholarly essays on the ins and outs of esoteric Buddhist astrology continues. This time with a 2022 article in the journal “Religions”, written by Jeffrey Kotyk. The title of the piece is “Astronomy and Calendrical Science in Early Mikkyo in Japan: Challenges and Adaptations”. Mikkyo is the Japanese term for esoteric or Tantric Buddhism, here also called Mantrayana. The time period in question is the Early Middle Ages (by our quasi-calendrical reckoning).

Buddhism originated in India and astrology was part of its canonical lore. For instance, monastic meetings were to be scheduled on astrologically auspicious days. In China, this system was “translated” according to Chinese astrology, but many other aspects of the Indian system were never implemented. They were treated as canonical lore, but with no practical application. The planets were not believed to impede enlightenment or have any influence on the bodhisattva path. This changed when Mantrayana was introduced in China and Japan. Suddenly, a detailed knowledge of astrology became absolutely necessary. The goal of Mantrayana was to reach bodhisattvahood in the present lifetime, and for this to take place, various complex esoteric rituals had to be carried out according to Indian calendric calculations. Even in China, information on Indian astronomy and astrology was difficult to come by, and in Japan it was almost impossible. Yet, a knowledge of astrology was absolutely central to the Tantric path. Mandalas had to be created at exactly the right dates. The mandala was itself astrological in character, with the planets, zodiacal signs and lunar mansions aiding the process to reach “bodhi”.

As already mentioned, the article is quite hard to follow, but my understanding is that – strictly speaking – the Mikkyo practitioners *didn´t* find a satisfactory solution to their problems. They simply devised a new “abstract” system not based on astronomical observations and calculations to find the “right” dates for their rituals. The main Chinese sources used by the Japanese were moreover very eclectic and hence already some steps removed from the “Vedic” original. Mikkyo Astrology did use a seven-day week (the Shingon founder Kukai is credited with introducing it to Japan), but that was the only “Indian” trait used. It was not really used for advanced time-keeping, but to place religious festivals on auspicious days.

That being said, the Chinese and Japanese sources are nevertheless very interesting. Some illustrations in them seem to show jinn, when Indian sources show Hindu gods instead. (In other works, the author has argued that Chinese astrologers had access to Iranian sources independent of the Indian ones, containing Hellenistic star lore.) Also, there is no understanding of what star constellations the signs of the zodiac refer to. Somewhat ironically, the icons illustrating the zodiacal signs are fairly “correct”. For instance, one of the icons is a satyr-like bowman, obviously a reference to Sagittarius. In Indian astrology, exact astronomical knowledge of the zodiac and its signs was a necessary part of casting horoscopes, but in Mikkyo, this knowledge was lost. It wasn´t until a few centuries later, with the introduction of Sukuyodo (a more “regular” form of astrology), that this was remedied, but that´s another story.

Not sure who is even interested in stuff like this outside my little zodiac on the web, but I suppose it does raise one question for true believers in Tantrism: did any Shingon or Tendai practitioner ever become a bodhisattva during this lifetime, if this requires a detailed knowledge of Indian astrology and even astronomy? And why on earth (pun intended) would that be necessary for a true spiritual super-man in the first place?

With that, I close this little discussion.