Kawaguchi ekai

Kawaguuchi Sadakiro (his name before leaving for the monastery) was the eldest son in the family of a merchant in Sakai city in Osaka Prefecture. He decided to follow the spiritual path at an early age, after, as is his custom, he fell to bring the torch to his uncle's funeral pyre. His father was going to leave Sadakiro his business, but died before the age of majority of his son, not having had time to learn about his decision to become a monk. ^[2]

Sadakiro, now known by the Buddhist spiritual name Ekai, began his monastic education in the Obuku Zen temple, San Mampuku-ji, in the Kyoto suburb.

His aspirations were influenced by the active Renovationist movement among Japanese Buddhists . Originated as a result of the Meiji Revolution and especially active at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries, this movement assumed that Japanese Buddhism was very far from the original teachings of the Buddha, and efforts should be made to restore the “true understanding” of the teachings. Prior to this, the Japanese were based on ancient translations of canonical Buddhist texts from India into Chinese . The renovation movement promoted the study of canonical texts that preceded Chinese translations, as well as the study of canon translations into other languages.

To master the original texts, Ekay Kawaguchi studied with Nanjo Bunyu , the founder of the Japanese School of Sanskritology . ^[3] Ekay Kawaguchi also studied Japanese traditional and western medicine, which further helped him in his travels.

Until March 1891, Ekay Kawaguchi served as rector in the famous Zen monastery of the Gohyaku-Rakan ( Jap. 五百 羅漢寺 ) in Tokyo, then spent three years in seclusion in Kyoto , studying Buddhist texts. He decided to learn the Tibetan language and visit Tibet. He planned to find there original Sanskrit texts of Buddhist books. .

Travel to Tibet

He left for Tibet in June 1897 and returned in May 1903. According to the testimony of Sarat Chandra Dasa , he taught Tibetan and English for several years, dressing as a Japanese monk, in the Bhütiya High School, opened by S. Ch. Das in Darjeeling , before going to Tibet. The journey to Lhasa through India and Nepal took almost 4 years, during which Ekay Kawaguchi stayed at many monasteries and made a detour around Mount Kailas . For a considerable time, Ekay Kawaguchi lived at Sir Monastery. ^[4] He arrived in Lhasa in the spring of 1901 . ^[five]

He traveled under the guise of a Chinese monk and gained a reputation as a great doctor. This reputation led to his audience with Dalai Lama XIII (1876-1933). ^[6] He found the face of his mentor, Agvan Dorzhiev , particularly close to the Dalai Lama, whose influence he was extremely dissatisfied with, calling Dorzhiev a “Russian spy”. It is known that during Kawaguchi’s stay in Lhasa, Japanese intelligence officer Narita Yasutera visited Lhasa. ^{[7] [8]}

Incognito Ekay Kawaguchi in Tibet was discovered, and he had to flee the country. Some of the Tibetans who patronized him were imprisoned, tortured and mutilated. He stayed in Nepal to help them. At his request, the Nepalese Prime Minister Chandra Shamsher Rana raised this issue in 1903. As a result of his appeal to the Tibetan administration, the Tibetan friends Ekai Kawaguchi were released .

Second trip to Nepal and Tibet

He again set out from Japan on a tour of India and Nepal in October 1904 to study Sanskrit and search for new manuscripts. ^[9]

Nepal replaced him inaccessible Tibet. Ekai Kawaguchi made efforts to supply Nepal with modern equipment and organized the first trips of Nepalese students to Japan for a Japanese scholarship.

Ekay Kawaguchi was a friend of the President of the Theosophical Society Annie Besant , and she insisted that he make the English edition of his book Three Years in Tibet.

In 1912, Ekay Kawaguchi came to Nepal again as a pilgrim to visit the newly discovered Ashoka post in the Lumbini Garden ^[10] . From Nepal, he went to Lhasa, which became more accessible in 1914, this time becoming one of the four Japanese in Lhasa. The rest were two more Japanese monks: Aoki Bunkyo and Tada Tokan , as well as military instructor Yajima Yasujiro ^[11] .

Recent years

In Japan, he returned to the Gohyaku-Rakan, where he studied the Buddhist sutras of Japan with those brought from Tibet, teaching, and public lectures. He became known as a Zen master, having tantric transmissions from Tibet. Around 1916, he was visited by the French traveler Alexander David-Neel , who tried to penetrate into Tibet and was expelled from Sikkim . His stories about traveling in Tibet under the guise of a local resident inspired David-Neel’s decision to make new attempts to penetrate Tibet again (which she succeeded in 1924, initiating her popular books on Europe about Tibet).

In 1921, Ekay Kawaguchi left the monastic life, and in 1926 published Buddhism Upasaki or Householder Buddhism. He became a professor at Taisho University , where he contributed to the study of Tibetan language.

Ekay Kawaguchi died of cerebral palsy in extreme old age during treatment at a spa resort prescribed by doctors in the village of Kawauti, Aomori Prefecture (now in the city of Mutsu ). Before his death, he was engaged in compiling the Tibetan-Japanese dictionary.

In 2004, his previously unknown travel manuscript, Journey to the Yak (ヤ に に 乗 っ て 移動 移動 し た) was discovered in the house of relatives of Kawaguchi Ekai.

Ekai Kawaguchi’s book on Tibet is valuable as evidence of a critical eyewitness, despite Ekai Kawaguchi’s excessive negative reaction to many aspects of Tibet’s life. In the book, he is horrified by the insanity conditions and sexual "depravity" of Tibetans, sharply opposed to some practices that he considers "perversion" of Buddhism by popular beliefs. At the same time, he highly appreciates the many Tibetan Buddhist figures he has encountered.

Some researchers single out his role in supplying data on Tibet ^[12] (including infidels) to British intelligence, in particular, Sarath Chandra Das, who worked for the British. While this was not documented, his tendentious assessment of the presence of Agvan Dorzhiev at the Tibetan court as a “Russian spy” is considered one of the likely factors that provoked the British campaign against Lhasa .

In Nepal, in 2002, Ekai Kawaguchi’s activities in introducing modern technologies, etc., were marked by a brand with his portrait ^[13] . Places associated with his name in Kathmandu are marked with memorial plaques: in 1997, a memorial plaque was installed on the facade of the Buddha Bajra Lama's house, where he stayed in 1899 and 1905.

In Japan, Ekai Kawaguchi is revered as a pioneer traveler ^[10] . After his first and second travels, he became a national celebrity. In Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, in 1983, he was installed a statue. His collections of Buddhist manuscripts and woodcuts, collected in Tibet, Nepal and India, a collection of Buddhist art (see Archives ), Tibetan monastic robes, Tibetan flora and others are often used in Japan as a scientific resource for both established researchers and students. Scientists from all over the world come to the collection of texts. His book about his journey was reprinted several times.

The most authoritative in Japan, which has survived several editions, the biography of Ekai Kawaguchi is written by his nephew and heir named Kawaguchi Akira (1918-1962).

There are also two monographs in English on Ekay Kawaguchi, his travels and Tibet of his time, the authors are the American biographer Scott Berry (1990) and the Nepalese scholar and poet Abhi Subedi (1999) (see Literature ).

Sarat Chandra Das, who made friends in Darjeeling with Kawaguchi, at that time had already made two reconnaissance-cartographic expeditions to Tibet: in 1879 and 1881 .

Simultaneously with Ekai, Kawaguchi, another Japanese monk, also a student of Nanjo Bunyu, named Nomi Kan, tried to penetrate into Tibet independently of Kawaguchi. All three of his attempts to penetrate Tibet ended in failure. In the first failed attempt in 1899, he was accompanied by Narita Yasuteru and Teramoto Enga . While Narita Yasuteru did not leave a noticeable trace in further history, Teramoto Enga not only visited Tibet in 1905, but also traveled with the Dalai Lama in China after the British occupation of Lhasa. ^[3]

In 1900, a group of Buryat and Kalmyk Buddhist pilgrims from Russia arrived in Tibet, who traditionally penetrated into Tibet as "Mongols", that is, allies of the Dalai Lamas throne. The group included European-trained researchers Gombozhab Tsybikov and Ovshe Norzunov . They conducted the first photographs of Tibet, which included Lhasa ^{[14] [15] [16]} .

• Three Years in Tibet. By Kawaguchi Ekai. - the online publication of the English translation of Ekai Kawaguchi’s book “Three Years in Tibet”.
• A picture of Kawaguchi in 1903 in Japan as a national celebrity from the portfolio of New York photographer Zaida Ben Yusuf
• Kawaguchi Ekai (1866–1945) on the Sakai city website (SAKAI CITY Homepage> Notable historic figures> Kawaguchi Ekai) are among the 6 most famous residents of the city.
• Gallery "Centennial anniversary of learning Nepalese in Japan" on the website of the Japanese Embassy in Nepal with photos of Ekay Kawaguchi and Chandra Shamsher Rana.

• 『西藏 旅行 記』 1904 年
• "Three Years in Tibet" (English translation of an earlier publication 『西藏 旅行 記』), Madras, 1909. Reprints:
  • Book Faith India, Delhi, 1995. ISBN 81-7303-036-7 .
  • Bibliotheca Himalayica, Series 1, Volume 22, EMR Publishing House, Kathmandu, Nepal, 1995.
  • Orchid Press , Thailand, 2003. ISBN 974-524-014-1 .
• 西藏 旅行 記 』改 定 版 1941 年
• 記 チ ベ ッ ト 旅行 記 （1） - （5） 庫 講 談 社 学術 文庫 1978 ( Chibetto ryokōki. Tkyō : Kōdansha, Shōwa 53 [1978]) ISBN 4-06-158263-1
• 第二 回 チ ベ ッ ト 旅行 旅行 記 』講 講 談 社 庫 文庫 談 談ISBN 4-06-158317-4 1981 ( Dainikai Chibetto ryokōki . Tōkyō: Kōdansha, 1981.)
• 『日本 の 元 気』 1889 年
• 『生死 自在』 1904 年
• 『仏 教 和 讃』 1921 年
• 『仏 教 に 現 れ た る 長生不老 法 22 1922 年
• 22 西 蔵 伝 印度 仏 仏 教 歴 史 』1922 OCLC 42190796 (1999) ( Chibetto den Indo Bukkyō rekishi. Tōkyō: Kaiba Shoin, Taishō 11 [1922])
• 在 在家 仏 教 』1926 年 OCLC 33780106 ( Upāsaka Bukkyō. Tōkyō: Sekai Bunko Kankōkai, Taishō 15 [1926])
• 記 チ ベ ッ ト 旅行 記 記 (上) ryokōki. Tōkyō: Hakusuisha, 2004.)
• 河口 慧海 日記 ヒ マ マ ラ ヤ ・ チ ベ ベ ッ ト の 旅 』奥 奥 直 司 (編 集) B 談 社 庫 庫 庫B -1 ō ō ō ō ō ans ō庫 , 2007.)

• Kawaguchi Collection - manuscripts and prints brought by Kawaguchi from Tibet and Nepal and received by the Toyo Bunkyo library. (inaccessible link)
• 詳解 ・ se se se se se se se se se se se se se K K se se se K se se se Shohan edition ISBN 4-333-01487-5 ISBN 978-4-333-01487-3 is a catalog of Buddhist art from the Ekai Kawaguchi collection.
• Tibetan Tripitaka (some Tibetan sutras) at Tohoku University Library:

• 正 『河口 慧海 日本 日本 日本 の チ ベ ベ ッ ト 入 国 者者9784393137192
• Subedi, Abhi. Ekai Kawaguchi: the trespassing insider . Mandala Book Point, Nepal, 1999. Total pages: 175.
• Berry, Scott. A stranger in Tibet: the adventures of a wandering Zen monk. Kodansha International, 1989. Total pages: 314. ISBN 0-87011-891-9

Sasamori Gisuke