Kukai

From UoWiki

Kukai was a Japanese monk, scholar, and artist, founder of the Shingon or 'True Word' school of Buddhism. He is famous as a calligrapher, engineer and is said to have invented kana, the syllabary in which, in combination with Chinese characters (Kanji) the Japanese language is written. His religious writing, some 50 works, expound the esoteric Shingon doctrine, of which the major ones have been translated into English by Hakeda. Kukai is also said to have written the Iroha, one of the most famous poems in Japanese.

See Kukai and Shingon Buddhism