The Age of the Great Master

How did Kūkai encounter the teaching that would become Japanese Shingon Buddhism? Sakaki Ryōzaburō answers by turning to the world around him: Tang China’s monasteries, its foreign religious communities, its astronomers, and its scholars of Sanskrit.

The Age of the Great Master is a wide-ranging lecture on the intellectual setting of Kōbō Daishi’s journey to China and his return to Japan. Christian, Zoroastrian, and Manichaean traditions appear beside Indian calendars, Buddhist translation, imperial patronage, and stories of extraordinary monks. Sakaki argues for understanding esoteric Buddhism within the larger current of Indian thought, then examines Kūkai’s learning, responsibilities, and patient work at the Japanese court.

This complete English translation preserves the lecture’s quotations, spoken address, and distinctive historical arguments. Notes identify uncertain names, printed variants, and claims retained from the original. The recorded Japanese base edition was published in 1913.