Talk:Kūkai

diacritics
I've been thinking about diacritics for this article. I've included them sometimes - usually the first time, but not consistently. I started thinking it would be better to use them as it is more 'correct', but then I realised that any search engine looking at the page would not index kukai, but only k&#363.kai which isn't going to help anyone find this page.

If anyone has any thought's on this let me know...


 * Mahaabaala, please remember to sign after you write a comment here. The diacritics are correct. Since the article name is simply ʻʻKukaiʻʻ I have no doubts that anyone will have difficulty finding this article on a search engine. Especially now with the size of Wikipedia and its presence on the internet, such a move would not be necessary. Sudachi 12:35, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I have moved the page to Kūkai. A redirect for Kukai->Kūkai exists so there should not be any problem finding the page. I also updated all of the Wikipedia links to point to Kūkai. Bendono 12:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Other aspects of Kukai
According to popular tradition, Kukai is the legendary patron of love between men, having introduced what was held to be a Chinese tradition at the same time as the Shingon teachings. Mount Koya has been a by-word for same-sex relations, in particular for the shudo tradition for hundreds of years. I am surprised this information has been deleted from this article. Haiduc 14:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I would be open to some mention of the sex stuff as long as it's made clear when and where the traditional association came about and that it cited some sources. After a detailed study of Kukai's works I feel confident in concluding that he would not have sanctioned such a thing - and made no mention of it in his most significant works. Perhaps a separate article explaining the popular (but certainly apocryphal) attribution of introduction of the practice to Kukai, and a note here explaining that there is no evidence what so ever to link Kukai with this practice. He insisted on the vinaya (in fact made his priests study two versions of it!) and that says: no sex with women, no masturbation, no sex with men, with animals, with trees or inanimate objects! mahaabaala 15:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Homosexuality and Kukai
Some sources say that kukai is considered by japanese folklore for being introducted homosexual relations in buddhist monasteries. But the sources concerning that seem to be all written by westerners. This info must be either fully debunked or fully confirmed based on japanese sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.9.174.122 (talk) 10:08, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Friendship with Miyamoto Musashi
was this the monk who was friends with Musashi and hence of influence on the philosphy of Go-rin-no-sho? 07:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC) Noserider (talk)


 * No. That was benkei or someone like that.  Check the dates on when Kukai lived and Musashi lived.  They do not coincide.  Thanks!


 * No. Takuan Sōhō is the person you are thinking of. --Nio-guardian (talk) 11:31, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Article is too wordy, not enough summarization
I've read this article a number of times, and I can't get around the fact that it is just too wordy. It seems that the bulk of the contributions are made by people who are almost quoting verbatim source texts. There's no concerted attempt at summarization and citing references, instead of just writing them out. There's plenty of places in the text that could contain one-line statements, and cite longer references below.

The history section for example contains too much background information regarding Emperor Kammu's moving of the capital. That whole section could be removed and just point readers to the Kammu and Heian-period articles instead.

Can't we trim this down? If we want to introduce people to Kukai, then the article needs to be a lot more concise.

The final section on Kukai's contributions is pretty subjective too and either needs to cite more, or just be outright removed.

Ph0kin 05:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough - it was mostly written in the early days before citations were much used, and before Wikipedia got to it's present level of sophistication. I have heavily used Hakeda and Abe in writing it, although I have now found many more sources for Kukai in journal articles. The contributions section is a summary of Abe. I don't have the time or inclination to shorten it - I no longer believe that spending many hours on Wikipedia is a good use of my time. I hope one day to publish the much expanded essay on which this article was based as part of a longer work on Kukai (and keep the copyright and any profits!). Anyway feel free to summarize! mahaabaala 15:17, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Mahaabaala for the background information. Your efforts certainly are appreciated.  :)  Ph0kin 19:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Better late than never, but I've consolidated some information, moved other information to related articles (Saicho, Hui-guo, Ximing temple) and interspersed citations as well as applied the 'nihongo' template here, there. --Ph0kin (talk) 15:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Early Years
The article currently contains this sentence: "The family fortunes had fallen by 791 when Kūkai journeyed to Nara, the capital at the time". This is incorrect. The capital was moved from Nara to Nagaoka in 784. (See both the articles on Nara and Nagaoka.) --Westwind273 (talk) 08:48, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Feeding of Kūkai (caption of last image)
Hello, the caption of the last image says: Can you please provide more detail and references for that? Thanks, -- Emdee (talk) 16:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Jūjūshinron (十住心論)
There is in fact a translation of the second part (Chapters 5-10) of the Jūjūshinron (十住心論). It was submitted as dissertation to Kōyasan University by Sanja Jurković Schmidt in March 2009. It is not published as a book, but can be accessed through the libary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.8.92.97 (talk) 13:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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More modern art
I'm new to Wikipedia so sorry if my etiquette is poor, or if this has been litigated before, but I was wondering why newer artwork for a figure such as Kūkai isn't used here. Plenty of higher quality (in terms of legibility at least) artwork exists such as this one from Daishin art, which I feel could give readers a better sense of his appearance. I've noticed this as a trend among a lot of Buddhist pages on here (for example Ākāśagarbha, the Thirteen Buddhas, the Diamond Realm mandala, etc.) of using older or more weathered art as opposed to more intact modern works. I admittedly don't know what maybe the copyright side of things would look like for using compemporary religious art, but I feel like some updates along these lines could be helpful. - Jwalaw (talk) 00:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)


 * In general, we try to use illustrations that are either representative of the period the person was from, or failing that representative of their historical legacy. Copyright is also an issue, almost all works created after 1927 are unavailable to us. Remsense  诉  00:26, 5 April 2024 (UTC)