Tantric Ritual of Japan

02-11-2004, 02:56 PM

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