The Monk Ennin and his Travels to China

Peter Job recalls an ancient tale of the Monk Ennin and his travels to China.

In the Footsteps of the Monk Ennin

This venerable man first came to my attention by chance in Hiraizumi when I saw a notice at a small shrine dedicated to him in the Buddhist complex there. It said that Ennin had travelled to China in the year 838. This was unusual and, following up on the internet, I discovered that he had written a diary about the trip. This is likely the first known diary written by a foreigner visiting China.

The diary has been translated by a Harvard professor and tells how Ennin accompanied a leading member of the Fujiwara clan on a diplomatic mission to China. As the diary recalls, this was then a hazardous journey across shallow and difficult seas.

It seems that Ennin was well received in China at first. Officials were often Buddhist and once he had learned the language he was able to converse with people in characters. He had to wait a while until the mission was permitted to approach the capital, Chang An, as Japan stood rather low in China’s list of what it regarded as its tributary nations. He passed the time familiarising himself with Buddhist sects in China and collecting sutras and painted scrolls.

After Ennin reached the capital he recorded events without making comments or drawing conclusions. He recounts how the new Tang Emperor Wuzong holds a ceremony to celebrate the building of a tall tower designed to bring him closer to heaven. Wuzong is a devoted Taoist. He turns to his priests and asks them why, since they take so many elixirs, they are not immortal already (the Emperor died young, no doubt from taking such stuff).

Ennin recalls how the Emperor addresses the capital’s Commander of the East and Commander of the West, suggesting that they surrender their commissions to honour this special day. The Commander of the East accepts, but the Commander of the West counters that the occasion is so special that it should be marked with a big military parade through the streets of the capital. The Emperor’s idea, it seems, went no further.

Troubled time times were coming as Wuzong launched a campaign of repression against Buddhism, prompted mainly by his Taoist beliefs though no doubt also by the growing economic power of the monasteries. Ennin is forced to retire to the coast, where trade is predominantly run by Koreans. The trader with whom he left a collection of Budddhist treasures has burned them all for fear of persecution (although Ennin still had some others to take back to Japan).

Two years after reading this chronicle I was travelling with friends in the rather remote North-East corner of Aomori. We came across an extensive Buddhist complex, beneath Mount Osore. Much of it was discussed, but the monks onsen was still available and we enjoyed a bath there. Hot water was fed from a boiling volcanic area a few hundred metres over the hill. I learned from a reception office leaflet that Ennin had searched far and wide in Japan for the place to found a temple. Tradition has it that he chose this spot because he thought its mountains were heavenly and the boiling mud reminded him of hell.

Well, Ennin died nearly 1200 years ago so I do not know how accurate this traditional story is. But I would like to believe it.