The Tang Dynasty Complex in Japanese Culture——Jianzhen’s Journey to the East

Article | Yushi Xiying

Every holiday, a large number of Chinese people travel to Japan and buy back a lot of toilet seats and rice cookers. Some time ago, a WeChat video went viral, in which a brother from Hebei angrily cursed Chinese tourists in Japan. I dare not comment here. First of all, let me declare that I am the most patriotic!

Look at history and read it carefully. How come the people of China and Japan have been so close since ancient times?

In ancient times, China's advanced production technology and culture were continuously introduced to Japan. It can be said that the ancient Japanese people created the current characteristic Japanese culture through the absorption and integration of Chinese culture.

In the 8th century, before the Tang Dynasty in China, Japan did not have its own writing. The first writing that the Japanese saw was our country’s Chinese characters, that is, during the Western Jin Dynasty in China at the end of the 3rd century, a member of the Baekje Kingdom on the Korean Peninsula Wang Ren, a Han Confucian scholar, introduced the Chinese classics "The Analects of Confucius" and "The Thousand-Character Classic" to Japan.

After Japan was influenced by these Chinese characters, they began to use the radicals of Chinese characters to create the Japanese katakana style. Later, the Japanese Buddhist monk Kukai (774-835) came to the Tang Dynasty and imitated the Chinese cursive style of the Tang Dynasty in my country, and created the Japanese cursive style - Hiragana. Only then did Japan have a complete writing system, so Japanese literary works appeared relatively late.

Japan’s earliest history book is the official Kojiki, which was completed in 712, the year when Li Longji, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, ascended the throne. This book has three volumes, covering everything from the creation of the world to the Emperor Suigu.

In 720, Prince Toneri of Japan and others imitated the Chinese official history style and wrote 30 volumes of "Nihon Shoki" in Chinese. In that peaceful era, Japan successively compiled "Continued Nihon Chronicles", "Japan Later Chronicles", "Continued Nihon Chronicles", "Records of Wende" and so on.

Around the 5th to 6th centuries, from the Southern and Northern Dynasties of China to the Sui Dynasty, Buddhism began to be introduced to Japan from China.

In the middle of the 8th century, during the "Kaiyuan Heyday" of the prosperous Tang Dynasty in China, an eminent monk, Master Jianzhen, led his disciples to travel eastward to Japan. They not only brought Buddhist classics with them, but also brought them to the Tang Dynasty Books on art, sculpture, calligraphy, etc.

Japan is our neighbor with only a strip of water. During the most prosperous period of my country's Tang Dynasty, the prosperous scene made the little Japanese envious and intoxicated. They sent envoys, overseas students and foreign students to the Tang Dynasty many times. Monks and folk scholars came to Datang to study. In the Tang Dynasty, there were also monks who continued to travel eastward to Japan, thus communicating and continuing the cultural exchanges between the two countries. Among them, the monk who made the greatest contribution was the monk Jianzhen.

The great monk Jianzhen was born in 688 and died in 763. He was a native of Yangzhou, Jiangsu. He became a monk at the age of 14, studied in Luoyang at the age of 20, and later came to Chang'an. This great monk Jianzhen has a very deep research on the Vinaya sect. Vinaya is the precepts, and it is also the Buddhist rules and Dharma prescribed by Buddhism for the behavior of monks and nuns.

In 713, at the beginning of the Kaiyuan Dynasty, at the suggestion of Yao Chong, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, the activities of monks and nuns were controlled, and Jianzhen returned to his hometown of Yangzhou. In the next 30 years, he preached and lectured in the Jianghuai area, administered medicine to patients, and did many charity activities. He won great respect from monks and laymen, and became a famous Vinaya master at home and abroad.

At that time, the Emperor of Japan wanted to invite the great monk Jianzhen to travel eastward to Japan to give lectures, but the great monk Jianzhen agreed. From then on, he began his tragic journey to the east six times.

In 743, the 55-year-old Jianzhen was fully prepared and was about to set sail. Unexpectedly, someone unexpectedly accused him of being a traitor and having consorted with pirates. Later, the facts were finally clarified, and Jianzhen was found guilty for the first time. Dongdu was killed in this way.

At the end of this year, the determined monk Jianzhen just wanted to show off and show his face abroad, so he started his second eastward journey, accompanied by his disciples and There are more than 100 craftsmen and painters. Unexpectedly, the ship was destroyed by the waves whipped up by the storm as soon as it set sail. Everyone on the ship fell into the water. It was the middle of winter and the pain of the people who fell into the water could be imagined. After the ship was repaired and set sail, it hit a rock again and the ship disintegrated. Fortunately, people were rescued in time and did not die in the belly of the fish.

Monk Jianzhen did not lose heart after the two failed eastward journeys. He also made three and four eastward journeys, all of which ended in failure. However, the tenacious Jianzhen was not intimidated by the failure and embarked on his fifth eastward journey.

In 748, Jianzhen made his fifth eastward voyage. Not long after sailing, he suddenly encountered a typhoon heading south. Overnight, the ship was blown seven to eight hundred miles away, and the Zhejiang sea surface blew from the Yangtze River estuary. Wandered into a terrible current. During the desperate struggle with the sea, the fresh water on the boat ran out, and he was unbearably hungry and thirsty. He chewed rice to satisfy his hunger. In this way, day after day passed, and the days were like years, with life and death uncertain. Everyone gradually became a little desperate in the fierce waves.

Encouraged by the great monk Jianzhen, they used tenacity and perseverance to survive 14 days and nights, and finally saw a glimmer of hope. They saw the land between the sea and the sky not far away. They thought they had arrived in Japan, but God played a trick on them again. It was still the territory of the Tang Dynasty, which is now Hainan Island.

The failure of the fifth eastward journey made Monk Jianzhen devastated. He soon suffered from eye disease and became blind at the age of 63.

Jianzhen went north from Hainan Island. After three years of wandering and experiencing numerous hardships, he returned to Longxing Temple in Yangzhou in the spring of 751.

One day two years later, Fujiwara Qinghe, the Japanese envoy to the Tang Dynasty, suddenly came to Longxing Temple, paid a visit to the great monk Jianzhen, and politely invited him to travel eastward. Jianzhen agreed without hesitation, regardless of his age, frailty and blindness.

On November 16, 753, Jianzhen boarded the Japanese envoy ship to the Tang Dynasty from Huangsipu, Suzhou. This is his sixth trip eastward.

On December 20 of this year, Jianzhen, who was 66 years old and blind, finally got his wish and landed in Japan.

On February 4, 754, Nara warmly welcomed the arrival of the great monk Jianzhen. In April, Jianzhen ordained Emperor Shengwu, Queen Mother Guangming, Queen Xiaoqian, and more than 400 monks. In this way, the great monk Jianzhen became the founder of the Japanese Vinaya sect.

Master Jianzhen not only introduced the Tang Dynasty’s Vinaya to Japan, but also introduced the Tang Dynasty’s Buddhist temple architecture, painting, sculpture and other arts to Japan. The current Toshodai Temple in Japan was founded by Jianzhen and his disciples at that time. It has an important and far-reaching influence on Japanese architectural art and style.

In addition, Master Jianzhen is also a doctor with excellent medical skills. He treated people in Japan and became the most famous doctor in Japan. The "Qixiao Pill" and "Fengxin Pill" he created are still used by Todaiji Temple and Saidaiji Temple in Japan.

On May 6, 763, the 76-year-old monk Jianzhen died in Japan. He was cremated after his death and his ashes were buried in Nara.

Later, Japanese envoys came to Yangzhou to convey the bad news. The monks, nuns and Buddhists in Yangzhou temples were so sad that they had to face the sea and mourn eastward for three days.

Jianzhen devoted his life to Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges. For many years after his death, he has been regarded by the people of China and Japan as a symbol of Sino-Japanese friendship.

After writing this article, I suddenly remembered a sentence: "There will be no China after the Song Dynasty, and there will be no China after the Ming Dynasty." I forgot which professor and master said this sentence.

For hundreds of years before and after the Tang Dynasty, China had been Little Japan's teacher. Since Yashan in the Southern Song Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty hanged himself on Meishan, and China fell into the hands of the Tartars twice, Little Japan no longer admired its master, especially At the end of the Qing Dynasty, when the Western powers were plundering and carving up China, little Japan appeared to bully its teachers and destroy its ancestors...