6 - (Spi)ritual Warfare in 13th-Century Asia? International Relations, the Balance of Powers, and the Tantric Buddhism of Kṛtanagara and Khubilai Khan

Summary

FOLLOWING UP ON MOENS’ (1924) remark that Kṛtanagara's Buddhism was similar to the Tantric Buddhism of Khubilai, C.C. Berg argued in a series of publications during the 1950s and 1960s that Kṛtanagara of Siṇhasāri adopted the particular form of Buddhism that he knew to be practised by Khubilai, great Khan of the Mongols, in order to acquire spiritual powers to aid him in an expected military engagement with the latter. Many others have argued that Khubilai adopted that particular form of Buddhism as an instrument of rule in order to justify his military conquest and reign over Tibet.

Is religion a mask for the will to power and its justification? Do the political–military situations of Kṛtanagara and Khubilai explain their adoption of Tantric Buddhism? Or are the relationships between religious and political practices not so simple and unidirectional? In this chapter I examine the connections between and proposed explanations for the Tantric Buddhism and political actions of Kṛtanagara and Khubilai in light of Rosenstock-Huessy's theory of religion as life in the service of what one loves. If religion is understood thus, then both the religious and political practices of these two kings can be explained as following from their devotion to power: instead of politics explaining their (and our) religions, the gods they served explain their religion and their politics.

KṚTANAGARA VERSUS KHUBILAI

Moens (1924: 544) argued that the Buddhism ascribed to Kṛtanagara in the Deśavarṇana (formerly called Nāgarakṛtāgama) belonged to a kālacakra tradition of Tantric Buddhism, and that Kṛtana- gara's initiation into this form of Buddhism was much like Khubilai's consecration as Hevajra. As a result of his consecration Khubilai would have become Mahāmitābha, which Moens regarded as the same as Mahākṣobhya, with which Kṛtanagara was associated by a statue in his image. In a series of publications throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Berg took Moens' association with Khubilai and went further with what he described in his last paper on the topic as a ‘guess’:

Since Kĕrtanagara introduced a similar form of Buddhism in Java, we may guess that he followed Kubilai's example in order to acquire the same degree of power so as to be able to protect his country against Kubilai's raiders… (Berg 1965: 99)