The Establishment of Buddhism as the State Religion (Nara Period)

Owing to Korean and Chinese influence, during the Nara period (eighth century) Japan was transformed from a clan society with an emperor as primus inter pares to a centralised state headed by an emperor in the capital city.

Local conflicts between indigenous beliefs and Buddhist worship contin­ued, however. They erupted mostly when Buddhists planned to build sanc­tuaries at certain sites; since the kami dwelled and reigned everywhere in Japan, spiritual and physical fights arose. The legendary (setsuwa) literature preserved stories of such conflicts. The Sanbo-e transmits a foundation story of what later became Daian-ji, a famous Nara temple: ‘The officials in charge of its construction cut many trees from the shrine of the local deity and used them for building. The deity was enraged and spat out flames that burned the temple.'^[710] Trees growing on sacred ground are called ‘divine trees' (shinboku); they belong to the kami and were not to be freely disposed of.

A story of the Hokke genki tells that a pious layman built a pagoda on a mountain in the Nagano area. However, ‘thunder rolled and lightning struck and shattered the building'.^[711] The man rebuilt it, but the same damage occurred again. After a third futile attempt, a Buddhist priest came and promised to protect the pagoda by the ‘power' of the Lotus Sutra. He recited the sutra with a loud voice, and again thunder began and lightning flashed.

The state-temple Todai-ji, as well as the clan-temples of the court nobility in Nara, such as Kofuku-ji of the powerful Fujiwara, were at the same time monasteries housing monks and nuns.¹¹ Here different Buddhist doctrinal schools emerged and sectarianism began in Japan. At the end of the eighth century, these temple-complexes competed in such a way for patronage that their quarrels threatened public peace. In 802, in order to control these conflicts, Emperor Kammu (737-806) ordered the sects to participate in annual doctrinal debates attended also by an imperial supervisor.^{[712] [713]} Depending on the success in such debates, the schools received novices and economic support. The transformation of these sectarian quarrels into peace­ful forms of communication seems to have functioned only for a short while.