The Shingon sect or Shingonshu of Japanese Mahāyāna (See Mahāyāna Buddhism) Buddhism (See Japanese Buddhism) is the only sect today that keeps alive the esoteric or Mikkyō tradition centered on Dainichi Nyorai (See Dainichi), or the Buddha Mahāvairocana, the cosmic illuminator, who, as the perfect expression of the ultimate truth of pure “emptiness,” is the creator. The Mikkyō tradition is opposed to the Kengyō tradition based on the understandings of Sākyamuni Buddha (See Gautama Buddha). Shingon comes via the Chinese Zhenyan, meaning “true saying” from the Sanskrit term, mantra (See Mantra). Zhenyan was a form of Tantric Buddhism (See Tantrism, Vajrayāna). The monk Kūkai (774–835) founded the Shingon sect during the Heian period. He had been introduced to the esoteric rituals and texts of Zhenyan by the Chinese monk Huiguo. At the center of Shingon are two Tantric sūtras (See Sūtras), the Mahāvairocana and the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha. An essential aspect of these sūtras and of Shingon is the idea that the illumination of the Dainichi Nyorai exists in everyone. All beings are, therefore, capable of Enlightenment, not just a perfect few (See Bodhisattva). The union of the illuminator and the illumined is expressed in two complicated diagrams or sacred maṇḍalas (See Maṇḍala) taught to Kūkai.
