보살의 여러 얼굴 중국과 일본에서의 변모

Abstract

Buddhist scholasticism has endlessly discussed the merits, powers, and qualities of the bodhisattva. All this extensive doctrinal material remains rather abstract. When one turns instead toward East Asian popular religiosity, one cannot be struck by the fact that the personalities of the eminent monks who have been perceived as bodhisattvas often do not fit the traditional, doctrinal image of the bodhisattva. If some of them were officially given the title of “bodhisattva” because of their social, altruistic activities, others were simply perceived, for somewhat obscure reasons, as manifestations of divine or metaphysical bodhisattvas. The distinction between these two types of “human” bodhisattvas, however, is not a clear-cut one, and actual cases often crossed the line between the two. Cases in point are, for instance, those of the Indian monks Nāgārjuna, Aśvaghosa, and Bodhidharma, of the Chinese monk Baozhi, and of the Japanese monk Gyōki. I will focus on the latter, the first Japanese priest to receive the official title “bodhisattva” in 749. The classical view of Gyōki, a priest of Korean ancestry, is that of a compassionate "bodhisattva," who dedicated his life to proselytism and social welfare activities -- one of the first representative of those whom one would call today “engaged Buddhism.” Gyōki is usually presented as a kind of social activist, who built bridges, dams, roads, canals, ponds, temples. Gyoki’s social activities occupy a significant part of his biography, and have been read as an expression of his bodhisattva compassion. However, behind this apparent importance of worldly activities, or Gyoki’s “historicity”, other less conspicuous elements play a role that is no less essential. I will therefore depart from the mainstream view of Gyōki as a social activist, in order to retrieve a latent and more complex image of him. While compassion played a role in the emergence of the bodhisattva cult, it may not always be the most significant element. The bodhisattva is above all a mediating figure, moving freely and connecting the invisible and visible worlds, and in so doing he becomes imbued with mystery, with the powers of secrecy. Thus, why the altruistic behavior of a person has sometimes led to the belief that he or she may be a bodhisattva, it is usually not among these Buddhist “Mother-Theresa” types that the majority of bodhisattvas are found. Indeed, it is sometimes the perception of an individual’s dark, uncanny, and quasi-threatening powers that has led to his/her recognition as a bodhisattva. By contrast with the textbook definition of the bodhisattva as wise and compassionate (as reflected even today in the figure of the Dalai Lama), it is above all their qualities as wonder-workers, tapping the very source of life and reflecting life's mystery in their strange behavior, that often define "human" bodhisattvas. Even in the apparently non-problematic case of Gyōki, a priest renowned for his social activities, we have seen that the development of certain aspects of his legend suggested a rather different interpretation — in particular his supranormal powers as emanation of the “metaphysical” or divine bodhisattva Mañjuśrī.