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Mountain Mo untain Mandalas
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Bloomsbury Shinto Studies
Series editor: e ditor: Fabio Fabio Rambelli
Te Shinto tradition is an essential component o Japanese religious culture. In addition to indigenous elements, it contains aspects mediated rom Buddhism, Daoism, Conucianism, and, in more recent times, Western religious culture as well—plus, various orms o hybridization among all o these different traditions. Despite Despite its cultural c ultural and historical importance, Shinto Shinto studies have ailed to attract wide attention also because o the lingering effects o uses o aspects o Shinto or the ultranationalistic propaganda o Japan during WW II. II . Te Series makes available to a broad audience a number o important texts that help to dispel the widespread misconception that Shinto is intrinsically related to Japanese nationalism, and at the same time promote urther research and understanding o what is still sti ll an underdeveloped field.
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Mountain Mo untain Mandalas Shugendō in Kyushu Allan G. Grapard
Bloomsbury Academic An imprint o Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
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Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC 1B 3DP 3DP UK
1385 Broadway New York NY 1001 0018 8 USA
www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 201 2016 6 © Allan G. Grapard, 2016 2016 Allan G. Grapard has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Cataloguing- in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:: HB ISBN HB:: 978-1-4742-4900-3 ePDF PDF:: 978-1-4742-4901-0 ePub: 978-1-4742-4902-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Cataloging- in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Series: Bloomsbury Shinto Studies Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
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To Carolyn
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Contents Illustrations Preace Organization o the Book Acknowledgements Note on ranslation and ext
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Shugendō and the Production o Social Space Kyushu Island: an ignored world Te Hachiman cult’s nebulous origins Usa: rom prehistoric village to cultic city Oracular pronouncements as divine directives Te early Heian period: Iwashimizu Hachiman Te Kunisaki Peninsula and links to Usa Mount Hiko Geotyped and Chronotyped Social Spaces Hachiman’s traveling icons Mount Hiko: o swords, meteors, dragons, and goshawks Waiting or dawn on Mount Hiko: the geotype and chronotype o heterotopia Mount Hiko’s sacred perimeter: our corners and three dimensions Altitude and altered states o mind: creating a Dōjō Mandala templates: divine planning Geotyped and chronotyped, encoded, mandalized bodies Te visionary imperative Festivities and Processions: Spatialities o Power Mount Hiko as a socio-ritualized space Mount Hiko’s conflicts with Mount Hōman and the Shōgo-in monzeki Mount Hiko’s ritual calendar Te New Year’s shushō tsuina rite: expel and invite Te shushō goō rite: paper, pill, oath Te kissho shūgi rite: sanctioning power and rank
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Mountain sanctuaries awash in seawater: the shioitori rite For the birds: the Zōkei gokū rite Te Matsue and Ondasai ritual estivities Mineiri: the mandalized peregrinations Mandalized itineraries Practices in the mountains Te Daigyōji shrines and water Usa Hachiman’s oracular spatialities Kunisaki: a much-disturbed heterotopia Te geognostic realm o the lotus in Kunisaki Coursing through the peninsula
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Shattered Bodies, Statues, and the Entreaties o runcated Memory Mount Hiko’s quasi-destruction and all into irrelevance Kunisaki: one breath away rom the void o modernity Usa: Hachiman’s return in disguise
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178 180 190 194 201 206 208 216 223 231
235 239 243
Aferword: From Spatialities to Dislocation Rays o light
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Japanese Glossary Notes Bibliography Index
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Illustrations Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Plan o Usa Hachiman Shrine’s grounds Photograph o wooden model o Mount Hiko Computer image o same model Meanings o the word yamabushi Te male body as Stūpa Body positioned as seed-letter vam Process o meditation on Jōjin section o the Adamantine Mandala
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Maps 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
General map o Japan Kyushu Island North-east Kyushu Iwashimizu complex location Te Kunisaki Peninsula Te twenty-eight temples o Kunisaki Icons travel rom Usa to Iwashimizu and back Icons travel rom Usa to Komo, and Usa to Nada Shrine Landing sites o the five swords Location o known caves on Mount Hiko Te our zones o Mount Hiko Course during the Shiori rite Mount Hiko three mineiri 2010 Mineiri o the Kunisaki Peninsula
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Illustrations
ables 1 List o the twenty-eight temples in Kunisaki 2 List o Mount Hiko’s abbots 3 Te twenty-eight attendants to Senju Kannon
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Preace Te Sanskrit word man ․d ․ala means “circle” and originally reers to a circular space within which religious figures stood or sat in meditation. It has been known or quite some time in Europe, where the psychoanalyst Carl Jung used it in his work and in therapy, and is nowadays a common word because o general knowledge o Asian Buddhist ritual art in which mandalas are usually paintings drawn in two dimensions and associated with the symbols, attributes, and unctions o discrete Buddhas and/or Bodhisattvas. Tey may appear as regular arrangements o squares, rectangles, circles, and triangles, among other shapes. In the case o Japan the word mandara is also used to reer to painted representations o sites o cult; in this case they were used either or personal meditational support, spiritual travel, or or didactic purposes. In antric cultures (where “esoteric” orms o Buddhism are dominant) each geometrical orm can be filled with one or several anthropomorphic deities’ representations, theriomorphic emblems, graphic or phonetic symbols, or ritual implements. Color symbolism tends to be fixed, as are size and orientation; as such, they represent the apex o iconography used in rituals.1 Te purpose o mandalas is to serve as practical supports or the ritualized meditations that characterize the convoluted liturgies and rituals o the esoteric/tantric orms o Buddhism in India, ibet, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. A mandala is also a graphic design used by initiates in their process o mystical identification with a number o deities, in a determined order at the end o which they achieve spiritual realization or special powers. Mandalas are not art in the modern sense, but as Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi, 774–835) himsel wrote, artistic orms are the royal gate to correct insight, and they are not needed anymore once the insight in question is achieved. Some mandalas—such as colored-sand ibetan mandalas—are erased or thrown into water afer completion; in East Asia the texts stipulate that ritual platorms used during meditations and rituals must be dismantled or put away. According to esoteric Buddhist doctrine the cosmos is the true “bodymind” o a Buddha in which there is no more distinction between physical and metaphysical characteristics. Te cosmos itsel issues orth rom the Buddha’s meditation, which it engages in or its own pleasure; hence, the world is the very xi
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body o the Buddha in its state o awakening. Some mandalas represent landscapes and, in particular, mountains; when one speaks o a “Mount Hiko mandala,” or example, this reers to a specific type o mandala, with or without a painted representation o the mountain, that includes representations o various divine entities (Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, guardian deities, animals, and plants) that symbolize the mountain in question. As we will see in this study, however, in a deeper sense the three- dimensional structure o a given mountain or entire mountain ranges is thought to be “mandalic.” Tis notion seems to have been a basis or envisioning discrete regions o this world and mountains in particular as “mandalas on earth” and as ideal places or perorming the same ritualized meditations one would perorm in ront o a two-dimensional mandala, and or elaborating specific social rules corresponding to no-less specific metaphysical views. I call this elaborate process “mandalization,” which seems to have been particularly prevalent in Japan, the entirety o which eventually came to be considered as a twoold mandala .2 It should also be noted that mandalas served as planning devices in architecture, as one can see in Bagan (Myanmar), or in Angkor (Kampuchea) and Barabudur (in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia), not to mention East Asia. Te present study ocuses on Japan and offers a geo-historical approach to the cultural and cultic system o mandalization created by Shugendō (Japan’s mountain cults), and compares three adjacent regions located in the northeastern part o Kyushu Island: the cultic system o Mount Hiko; the cultic system o UsaHachiman; and the cultic system o the Kunisaki Peninsula. Distinct yet related, close but radically different, these regions and their multiarious cults prove that everything is local even when common underlying principles tend toward transcendence. Finally, Japanese mountain mandalas were deeply associated with preBuddhist local cults today subsumed under the name Shinto, and their combinations were anything but simple or superficial. As a matter o act, I consider these combinations to be a dominant aspect o Japanese spiritual history and practices.
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Organization o the Book Chapter one is primarily historical in character, with a heavy emphasis on the elaboration o the Hachiman cult. One o its main characteristics, oracles, is a central eature o this and other Japanese cults, and is briefly presented here and urther analyzed in chapter three. Te installation o Hachiman in Nara and the creation o the Iwashimizu complex located south o Kyoto are then discussed in the context o the rapport between Buddhism and “native” cults and suggests that Hachiman is a Buddhist creation. Te presentation then moves on to the Kunisaki Peninsula’s blurry past and to the sudden eruption o Mount Hiko in the cultic universe o Kyushu Island. Chapter two ocuses on the spatialities o the three sites o cult, starting with their elaboration and subsequent transormations: it presents the early Maitreya cult on Mount Hiko and Usa, and expands our understanding o the medieval Lotus Blossom Ritual, which undergirds the Four Zones o Mount Hiko orming a three dimensional mandala. Te social eatures o rites and o the communities o the region are subsequently approached with attention to the close connections between ritual practice and social practice. Tis is ollowed by a presentation o rites connected to mandalization and to practices concerning the bodymind, with a final discussion o visionary experiences. Chapter three offers detailed presentations o various rites and estivities on Mount Hiko and tries to enhance our understanding o mandalization in spiritual and material terms, always keeping a ocus on spatial and temporal characteristics. It discusses the oracular dimensions o the Hachiman cult and its eatures concerning time and space, and finally moves on to discuss the Kunisaki Peninsula’s Lotus symbolization and itinerant practices. Chapter our lays out the modern, sudden, and violent transormations o all ritual systems in the region in 1868, and mentions current efforts o reorganization.
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Acknowledgements A large number o colleagues and riends deserve my heartelt gratitude or supporting my work over a very long period o time. First and oremost, my wie Carolyn—to whom this book too is dedicated—or her sustained encouragement and angelic patience over the years: without her I would never have completed this exercise. I must also express my deep gratitude to my Japanese colleague and riend Marui Atsunao, Principal Scientist o Geo-resources and Head o the Groundwater Research Group o the Environment Institute o the Geological Survey o Japan, AIS, whom I bothered too many times with naïve questions but who remained placid and helped me navigate administrative diffi culties over many years. Everybody is now accustomed to getting ancy maps at the touch o a computer button, but this was not the case thirty-five years ago, when digitizing maps to create 3-D models o Japanese mountains looked and elt like some outlandish and very arduous obstacle course. Tree-dimensionality is one key to this study, and Marui Atsunao taught me a great deal and showered me with his generosity in the orm o countless detailed maps o Japan, computers and applications, wise counsel, and hospitality. In my view he is also one o the heroes who worked in Fukushima afer the great tsunami disaster o March 11, 2011. Were it not or Fabio Rambelli, a great riend and superb colleague, this book would not have been published. He managed to convince me to give him the manuscript I almost orgot afer retiring, and I owe him more than I can say. Scholars around the world have inspired me and/or assisted me with their critique and support; they are too numerous to be mentioned but I must list the names o a ew who have played an important role in my study o Japanese sites o cult: Kuroda oshio, Misaki Ryōshū, Murayama Shūichi, Nagano adashi, Nakano Hatayoshi, Sakakura Atsuyoshi (my mentor at Kyoto University between 1968 and 1975), Sakurai okutarō, Sugawara Shinkai, and many others. I am particularly indebted to Bernard Faure’s encouragements and wake-up calls through many years; to R.J. Zwi Werblowsky and Moshe Idel, as well as to Frits Staal, or their riendship and support. In Kyushu I received warm welcome and assistance rom everyone, but I will name just a ew: the Reverend akachiho Hideumi, Vice-Head Priest o the Mount Hiko Shrine; the Reverend Murakami xiv www.ebook3000.com
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Gyōei, Head o the Engakuin emple on Mount Hiei and resident o the Buzenbō-in’s engūji emple on Mount Hiko, and his ather, Murakami Gyōsei. I must also mention my ormer graduate students who are now established scholars: Inoue akami (proessor at Otani University in Kyoto), Endō Masaumi, James Robson (proessor at Harvard University), and Bruce Caron (Executive Director, New Media Research Institute in Santa Barbara , CA ), generous to a ault or many years. May all those scholars and students who have not been named above be assured o my deep appreciation. Parts o this book have been published beore in scholarly journals and books; I wish to thank the editors, and especially Kate Wildman Nakai, Editor o Monumenta Nipponica. Te maps in this book and on the website o this book were made on the basis o the offi cial digital and printed maps o the National Institute o Geography in sukuba, viewed on Kashmir 3-D sets o sofware and urther elaborated on Photoshop. I am grateul to all. Finally, I wish to thank Anna MacDiarmid, editor at Bloomsbury Press in London, or her assistance when time and space, again, mattered. At the Flying Frog Studio, Honomu. July 2015.
Note on ranslation and ext All translations are mine, unless otherwise stated. Naturally, all mistakes are also mine. Tis text contains a ew Japanese graphs that were absolutely necessary. ransliteration o Japanese ollows, in general, the Hepburn system, and diacritics are simple: a long “o” is marked as “ō”; a long “u” is marked as “ū”. With the exception o Japanese personal names (amily name always first), all Japanese words are italicized. ransliteration o Sanskrit terms uses the ollowing diacritical marks: ā, m . , h., . m, t. , d., s. , n., ś, and ī. Siddham . onts are also used; they were created by mysel and Fabio Rambelli on the Fontographer sofware, with a Summer Humanities Grant rom the University o Caliornia, Santa Barbara, more than twenty years ago. Due to obsolete computers and applications the onts were lost; I managed to restore a ew but not all. Siddham . (Japanese: shittan) is a pre-Sanskritic syllabary that was transmitted to China and used in esoteric Buddhisms to represent individual deities and sounds in ritualized meditations, and on mandalas. It was also used in incantations and spells. ransmitted to Japan by Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi, 774–835), it is still widely used there. Te current Shittan or Bonji boom, even beyond Japan, does not cease to impress me.
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Note on Translation and Text
Map 1 General map o Japan Courtesy o National Institute o Geography, sukuba. Reworked on Photoshop.
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Shugendō and the Production o Social Space Te term Shugendō may be translated as “Way to Supernatural Powers” and reers to an institutional and ritual system that was elaborated over a period o several centuries on the basis o various cults in the mountains o Japan.1 On the ritual level Shugendō evolved as a vehicle to realize Buddhahood by means o austerities and ascetic practices that were executed in mountains, and through the perormance o rituals that were drawn, or the most part, rom Esoteric Buddhism. Tese practices were sometimes related to Daoism as well, and Shugendō practitioners also created and maintained diverse cults dedicated to a multitude o native (Japanese) and oreign (Indian, Chinese, and Korean) entities. On the institutional level these mountain cults were managed by what is ofen reerred to as (Shinto) shrines and (Buddhist) temples, but it is imperative to point out that these shrines and temples were associated or most o their history and ormed vast cultic centers contemporary Japanese scholars call “shrine-temple complexes” ( jisha or, less commonly, shaji).2 Popularly known as yamabushi, Shugendō practitioners were ubiquitous in Japanese society or nearly one thousand years; they almost completely vanished rom the landscape in 1872, when the Japanese government issued a decree that abolished Shugendō and orced its members to abandon their institutions and return to lay lie. Tis decree was enorced until 1882 when the government allowed yamabushi to reorganize (along its rules), but the proound damage done by the 1868 events was irreversible. Te post-war constitution o 1945 guaranteed reedom o religion, and some Shugendō groups reconstituted themselves as best they could, and are quite active.3 Beore they were submitted to the political and social erasures characteristic o Japan’s modern reconfiguration o cultural discourses and reorganization o social, economic, and physical spaces, however, these yamabushi had produced a striking culture. Based on pan-Asian ritual practices issued rom Indian cults as well as Chinese Daoist practices, Korean mountain cults, and indigenous, local cults, this culture was also the result o combinations with the high theological and ritual traditions o Esoteric Buddhisms. In their 1
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Shingon (tōmitsu) and endai (taimitsu) orms, Japanese Esoteric Buddhisms long dominated Japanese ritual practices and soteriology, within institutional contexts that were ofen related to the imperial court’s outlook on power and legitimacy. Due to these multiarious combinations and to very diverse local conditions, the yamabushi produced social and cultic systems that are distinct rom (but sometimes related to) other mountain cults in Asia and this sets them apart in ways that must be reflected in the means devised to study them. Shugendō institutions were sponsored or controlled successively by emperors, courtiers, warlords, and commoners, and their adherents had an apparently unlimited ability to assimilate, retain, create, or transorm a variety o practices ranging rom sophisticated “technologies o the sel” to the most peculiar therapeutic devices and to sel-torturing mortifications, including dances as well as contests o physical and spiritual strength.4 Constituted through the combinations o elements o several Asian cultures and through interactions between diverse social groups as it was, Shugendō ormed a cornerstone o Japanese culture: it produced or refined elements o the philosophy and practice o space which characterize that culture, and it was instrumental in the ormation o the concept o Japan as a territorial entity suffused with a sublimed character.5 It was, thereore, ar more than a “olk religion,” the status to which it has been relegated by some Japanese scholars as well as by most Western scholars. Sustained academic attention to the world o Shugendō should contribute to a more provocative history o the relations between the physical and cultural landscapes o Japan, and may also lead to a reconsideration o the categories customarily used in the analysis o that country’s social, cultic, and political history. As a consequence o the eatures outlined above, and whenever possible, the term “religion” will be abandoned in this study and will be replaced with the term “cultic and cultural systems.” Japanese scholars almost invariably state that nature worship ( shizen sūhai) and mountain creeds (sangaku shinkō) represent some o the oldest traceable components o their country’s spiritual character. Basing himsel on the act that about 74 per cent o the Japanese archipelago’s landmass consists o mountains, Murayama Shūichi, or example, suggests that Japan’s history is really the history o its mountains.6 He adds that the yamabushi’s attire and institutional affiliations linked them to major Buddhist temples, but that the mountains where they practiced and to which they dedicated cults as though they were living sacred entities, were actually pre-Buddhist sites o worship, a worship he says never dwindled. Murayama goes on to list the sites o mountain shrines recorded in official documents o the tenth century, thereby giving the impression that
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Shugendō and the Production o Social Space
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Shugendō came to be practiced in mountains that had long been regarded as sacred, and that it evolved as a Shinto-Buddhist combinatory cultic and cultural system in which one can also identiy traces o “primitive magic,” Yin-Yang views and practices (onmyōdō), and mystical and therapeutic practices o various origins.7 Furthermore, Murayama points out that the study o Shugendō belongs to the domain o the ethnographer (because the yamabushi had a long history o complex interactions with commoners), but that it is also, though only collaterally, the domain o historians o religions and politics (because Shugendō was necessary to the aristocratic and military ruling classes, which used it or their own political and personal purposes.)8 Tis stance toward Shugendō is shared by leading authorities on the topic such as Miyake Hitoshi, Wakamori arō, Gorai Shigeru, and many others. Indeed, it is appropriate to reiterate here their view, according to which the world o the yamabushi has lef deep traces not only on many mountains, but also on literature, the perorming and visual arts, and concepts o legitimacy. All Japanese scholars agree on these points, and their research, which must be deemed o outstanding quality, is germane to some arguments this study will propose. A significant aspect o Shugendō is missing rom the majority o studies published heretoore, however, and it can be characterized in two words: spatial knowledge. Tat is, even though Shugendō occupied the majority o Japan’s mountainous areas, and even though its practitioners stressed spatial aspects in their soteriology as well as in their cosmography and rituals, virtually no scholar has attempted to reconstruct the spatial dimensions o a meticulously elaborated world. Surprisingly, human geography and cartography are absent rom the majority o studies o Shugendō that have been written in or out o Japan .9 A possible explanation is that Japanese scholars have taken mountain sites o cult or granted; indeed, their understanding that cultic and cultural systems are primarily grounded in specific sites is shared by most scholars o history, i not by the Japanese population at large. When this notion is not critically analysed, however, and when it is coupled with the equally shared premise that sacred mountains are extremely ancient and sel-evident phenomena, students o Shugendō are prevented rom problematizing space and rom explaining how and why sites o cult became the object o elaborate cults o sites, or the object o so many conflicts. In contradistinction to the position outlined above and espoused by the majority o interpreters o Shugendō, it may be argued that the generally accepted but unexamined claim that mountains were sacred to begin with is ideologically biased, in that it privileges supposedly native conceptions while positing an ontological argument to the effect that sacredness was “always already there.” 10
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Tis claim has no plausibility as an explanation or the phenomena investigated in the ollowing study, or it appears to be the grandchild o early- modern nativist views and o modern totalizing trends inormed by nationalistic ideology. Alternative attempts to define the sacred character o Japanese mountains by describing exotic practices or linking them to concepts o the otherworlds have equally ailed, in that they lack comprehensiveness or historical depth.11 In a similar vein, the classical or paradigmatic view o sacred space held in the past by many Western historians o religions has tended to obuscate the concept, in overloading it with metaphysical properties while emptying it o its historical and locale-specific eatures, and this academic trend may have been instrumental in preventing a detailed analysis o the ways in which some Japanese constructed, interpreted, and contested both the space o their existence and those apparently special cases o sites to which the term “sacred” has been affixed uncritically .12 Te ollowing study attempts to remedy this presumed inadequacy by positing “space,” and the yamabushi’s understanding and construction o it, as one o its central problems. In undertaking to illuminate both the temporal and spatial components o Shugendō’s world, it borrows rom both history and geography, looking or elements o a geohistorical synthesis that might yield more distinctive eatures o that world’s spatial and social character, and it must thereore be limited to a given region. o resist any totalizing wish, Shugendō will not be treated here as a single phenomenon thought to have remained the same throughout Japan’s history and space, but as a set o specific modalities o the relations o a given population to its geographical and historical conditions. Te region proposed or consideration is located in the northeastern part o Kyushu Island and consists o three major sites o cult discussed below in relation to each other: the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, Mount Hiko, and the Kunisaki Peninsula.13 Five reasons or this choice may be offered here. First, Mount Hiko’s summits and those o the Kunisaki Peninsula are separated by only fify kilometers and share proound ties with the original Hachiman site o cult that is nested between them in Usa. Geographical proximity notwithstanding, the inhabitants o these three neighboring regions elaborated remarkably different habits o thought and practice over time and, as we will see, the experience o space the yamabushi constructed in each case was related—only in part but specifically—to their perception and interpretation o the geographical and morphological eatures o their surroundings, and to the nature o their rituals. Second, the regions under consideration are ideally suited or the study o the historical appropriation, assimilation, and transormation o non-Buddhist cults by Buddhist systems o
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thought and practice: the Hachiman cult is Japan’s oremost and oldest combinatory cult, and neither Mount Hiko’s nor the Kunisaki Peninsula’s cults were ever independent rom it prior to 1868—when the great divide between Shinto and Buddhism was institutionalized. It may sound strange to mention in the same breath Shugendō and the Hachiman cult. However, they were tightly associated in Kyushu, in their origins as well as during their long history: all historical sources at our disposal mention them together, and this association needs elucidation. Tird, in the late sixteenth century Mount Hiko was home to Akyūbō Sokuden, a yamabushi whose works became the backbone o Shugendō’s unified doctrine and ritual procedures during the early modern period (1615– 1868). Fourth, the post-Meiji ate o these three closely related sites o cult was strikingly different, and the reasons or this difference need elucidation and have some bearing on the nature o this study. Finally, the Hachiman cult was an oracular and territorial cult sponsored by the imperial lineage, by courtiers o the Nara (710–84) and Heian (794–1185) periods, as well as by warlords o the Kamakura (1185–1333) and Muromachi (1333–1570) periods. Tis cult’s spatial and other properties will in some significant ways assist in outlining the parameters o concepts o territoriality that were operative during much o Japanese history, in the sense that they sustained the production o a number o ideological propositions, ritual practices, political decisions and acts, and conflicts. Te Hachiman cult, indeed, spread ar and wide: in 1992 the National Office o Shrines ( Jinja Honchō) listed 79,165 Shinto shrines; o these, about 46,000 are dedicated to Hachiman, while an untold number o Inari shrines still remains to be accounted or.14 I nearly hal o the Shinto shrines o Japan are dedicated to Hachiman, this deity’s cult needs serious attention. Tis study will have reached one o its goals i it enhances our understanding o the phenomenon while it does away with the common but erroneous and oversimplistic view that “Hachiman is the Shinto God o War.” Esoteric Buddhisms ormed the ritual and philosophical system undergirding much o Shugendō’s ormulation, but they were not merely a set o doctrinal statements and ritual practices avored by the yamabushi; they also included epistemological configurations that sustained a domain o representation through the agency o particular semiotic techniques and rules, as well as a large number o institutions. Parts o the ollowing discussion are attempts to identiy some o these rules, to suggest how they were applied to the construction and interpretation o social and other types o space, and to thereby posit some o the ways in which cultural identity and action were shaped on a local level. From a semiological perspective, it may already be advanced that mountains were
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treated by the yamabushi who resided there as signs to be deciphered and orming some sort o “natural text” rom which a type o wisdom deemed necessary to salvation might be extracted. Tese signs, however, were also inscribed within the slow rhetorical processes o emulation between Buddhist and non-Buddhist representations and practices, and within the economic context o relations between institutionalized sites o cult and ever- changing governmental policies. Mountains were thus covered, layer upon layer, by a number o texts, o which the yamabushi and others provided different readings. Conceived o as a set o signs, space became the locus or conflicts o interpretation. And because it was the object o appropriation (both subjective and objective), space also became the object o conflicts between the various institutions and people that laid claim to its interpretations and ownership.
Kyushu Island: an ignored world Japanese scholars emphasize time and again that Shugendō evolved in three geographical areas: first, the mountain ranges between Yoshino and Kumano in central Honshu (south o Kyoto and Nara, in the Kii Peninsula); second, Mount Hiko in Kyushu Island; and third, the mountains o Dewa (Haguro, Gassan, and Yudono) in northwest Honshu. Tird in size among Japan’s our main islands, Kyushu was said in the early modern period (1600–1868) to contain some 120 “sacred mountains” (reizan), the majority o which were objects o Shugendō cults. Mount Hiko was the second largest among those and, arguably, the most distinctive.15 One might be tempted to study this mountain alone, or its presence on the Japanese cultic and cultural landscape is indeed compelling. Should one do so, however, it would soon become evident that the world o Mount Hiko cannot be understood separately rom the Hachiman cult’s main shrines, which stand in the town o Usa, orty-two kilometers east o Mount Hiko’s summit. Usa itsel is located on a narrow alluvial plain extending between the towns o Nakatsu and Bungo-akada, along the northeastern coast o Kyushu acing the Suō Bay and the Inland Sea. Extensive archaeological investigations have evidenced the act that Usa was a regional center or very long, but came to be inhabited as early as the ourth century o the common era by a majority o immigrants rom Korea, and that it was also the site o cults that gained in size, wealth, and notoriety soon afer the recognition o Buddhism by the imperial court in the sixth century .16 A cult dedicated to the Buddha o the Future (the Bodhisattva Maitreya) was conducted not only in the Buddhist temples erected
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Shugendō and the Production o Social Space
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Map 2 Kyushu Island
in the eighth century on the compounds o the Usa sites o cult, but also on Mount Hiko, that came to be regarded as the site where Maitreya would maniest itsel in the world and institute a new golden age.17 Tis cultic similarity could not have evolved by chance, and although the creeds dedicated to the Buddha
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o the Future lost their centrality in both sites o cult around the thirteenth century, a cursory look at the representations advanced by Mount Hiko’s Shugendō practitioners and the Hachiman cult’s proponents makes it very plain that engaging in the study o either site o cult alone would lead one to misconstrue the reality o both sites as well as that o Shugendō and o Japan’s cultic history at large. Looking around rom the summit o Mount Omoto (Hachiman’s mountain cultic site, located directly south o the Usa Hachiman Shrine), Mount Hiko’s rounded silhouette dominates the western landmass, while the Kunisaki Peninsula’s ancient volcanic domes and deeply eroded valleys display their regular arrangement on the eastern horizon. Te Kunisaki Peninsula must also be taken into account, because its summits are located a mere twenty kilometers east o Usa, and because it ormed a central element o the Hachiman cult in Kyushu and developed tight contacts with the world o Mount Hiko, rom which it nonetheless differed in substantial ways—particularly in the symbolic structuring o its social spaces in relation to the perception o its physical morphology. Te Kunisaki Peninsula too was as i transubstantiated into a three-dimensional mandala. Having mentioned some o Mount Hiko’s connections with the Usa Hachiman cult and the Kunisaki Peninsula, an important caveat must be added: the term “Mount Hiko” is almost a misnomer because its constitution as a Shugendō cultic center involved at least two other radically different sites o cult, and because Hiko Shugendō, as it is sometimes called, included ritual peregrinations along two mountain ranges extending north rom Mount Hiko to Mount Fukuchi (south o Kokura), and northwest to Mount Hōman (east o Dazaiu), as well as doctrines and practices that were not native to the region.18 In other words, a ocus restricted to Mount Hiko, or any other sacred mountain or that matter, would prevent one rom apprehending regional aspects o Shugendō prior to 1868. As will be shown shortly the same is true o the Hachiman cult, the depth and complexity o which were grounded in the very multiplicity o its sites. Te institutions o Mount Hiko and Usa culled over time a large number o estates and organized numerous associations o lay ollowers, so that their combined influences reached ar, wide, and deep, and lef indelible traces on the social, economic, and political history o Kyushu Island and beyond. Accordingly, the terms “Mount Hiko,”“Hiko Shugendō,” “Hachiman cult,” and “Kunisaki Peninsula cults” will be used in this study to reer to broad geographical areas and to lengthy historical processes ofen separated by sharp breaks, as well as to distinct communities whose members engaged in noless varied ritual practices and expressed a medley o heterogeneous views while they were strongly aware o their neighbors. Te yamabushi used a predominantly
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Buddhist vocabulary to express their views. As we will see, however, it would be misleading to call them “Buddhist” simply because their epistemology and avored terminology were derived rom Esoteric Buddhisms. In a similar vein, they ofen behaved in a manner that today might qualiy as belonging to the world o “Shinto,” but it would also be wrong to use this qualification, and it would be even more misleading to call Hachiman a Shinto cult (even though that is what it is today).19 In an attempt to bypass the too-ofen discarded quandaries caused by modern categories that are the offspring o the Meiji Cultural Revolution (1868), one might be tempted to speak o syncretism or o a coalescence o Shinto, Buddhist, and other actors. But these terms too would be inappropriate, or they invite one to reiy the world o the communities under consideration and to imagine that, similar over time, that world achieved such closure that we might be entitled to give o it a singular, one-dimensional definition. On the level o historical documents the elements rom various narratives that were assimilated or produced at specific points in history by Hiko Shugendō, the Usa Hachiman cult, and the Kunisaki Peninsula cults, were neither static nor independent rom each other. Nor should they be separated rom the social milieu that produced, assimilated, and transormed them. Tey were combined with each other, but not just because they happened to be produced by neighbors. As will be shown in due coure, these elements were not unlike the mountain temples’ and shrines’ residents, who were engaged in an agonistic relation that has never been pointed out.20 While a reconstruction o the yamabushi’s conceptions and practices o space are the main agenda o this brie study, the conflicts that produced, animated, and finally tried to annihilate these conceptions and practices will also be taken into consideration, or the northern part o Kyushu Island witnessed conflicts substantially different rom those seen in other major Shugendō areas. Indeed, ew Japanese regions are richer in historical complexity than Kyushu Island, o which it is tempting to say that its geographical position and morphological as well as geological characteristics have dominated its history .21 Separated rom Korea by the narrow sushima Straits, Kyushu has long been Japan’s first point o contact with the rest o the world. Setting prehistory aside or the moment, in the time span that separates the eighth- century compilations o myths rom the recent destruction o Nagasaki by a nuclear bomb, Kyushu Island has been the locale o historical processes and events ranging rom natural and human-made disasters to natural wonders and human creativity. o mention but a ew conspicuous breaks in its history, one may recall that the centrally located imperial government o the Japanese isles viewed its own geographical
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origins in southern Kyushu: the myths contained in Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720) report that Mount akachiho is the site onto which Japan’s first ruler is said to have made landall. Te Chinese visited the island around 240 CE , leaving an enigmatic document that is the source o academic debates that have been raging or generations because they concern the geopolitical origins o imperial Japan. Te document in question, Wei-chih, mentions a country called Yamatö and headed by a emale ruler (Pimiha, Queen o the Wa), but it gives directions to it that are so murky that some scholars locate Yamato in Northern Kyushu, while others locate it in Yamato Province hundreds o kilometers away, or near the southernmost tip o Kyushu Island.22 Recent scholarship suggests that the northeastern Kyushu view may be the most adequate, and this should place Usa under a distinctive light.23 Buddhist proselytizers who ollowed the Silk Road passed through Kyushu Island on their way to Nara, and the majority o Japanese monks stopped there on their way to and rom China and Korea. Te Mongols attempted to invade Kyushu in the thirteenth century, while the first Zen temples were being built there. Te Portuguese landed in anegashima Island in 1543 and introduced guns there, and Francis Xavier landed in Kagoshima in 1549 and subsequently converted parts o Kyushu’s population, including parts o the Kunisaki Peninsula, to Christianity. Chinese merchants were in prolonged contact with Kyushu throughout the Edo period, while the Dutch traded at Deshima (in Nagasaki) and introduced much “Western Learning” (Rangaku). It may be advanced that such were some conditions or the appearance, in Kunisaki Peninsula, o the astoundingly abstruse philosophy o Miura Baien (1723–89), whose house can still be seen on the slopes o one o the valleys leading up to the twin summits o Kunisaki. O primary importance in the present context, however, is that the northern shores o Kyushu eventually harbored the Munakata, Sumiyoshi, and Hachiman cults, which were “borrowed” between the eighth and tenth centuries by the political centers o Nara and Kyoto and became essential components o Japan’s imperial mythology and cultic system.24 Tis cultic system seems to have evolved between the seventh and the tenth century, at which time it was ormally organized.25 It consisted o a number o sanctuaries dedicated to various tutelary and ancestral entities called kami, to which the imperial government made requests or rituals and granted offerings and other means o economic support. A list dated 966 contains sixteen o the twenty-two sites o cult that eventually ormed the core o this cultic system .26 All located in Kyoto and neighboring provinces (the Kansai area), these shrines were traditionally broken down into three groups to which different amounts
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o offerings were made, but it is possible to classiy them just on the basis o their geographical location, in which case three regions appear with undeniable clarity. First, the Yamato region, where several pre- eighth century “capitals” and the Chinese-style capital o Heijōkyō (Nara, 710–84) were located; second, the adjacent Kyoto area, site o the imperial capital between 794 and 1868; and finally, Kyushu Island, whose main shrines had been duplicated in this central region. Te duplication in Yamato and Kyoto o shrines originally located in Kyushu suggests the strategic importance o that island to the imperial government, and is an indicator o the close relation o these shrines to the mythology o the imperial house. Many o these shrines came to be associated with Buddhist temples erected in their proximity, however, and the system o combined shrines and temples went on to orm an intricate and powerul tool or the legitimacy o the imperial lineage and its satellite amilial power blocks. Viewed rom a historical/geographical/political perspective, this cultic system as a whole represents the ormative stages o a politically and ritually codified territorial claim on the part o the imperial court, at the same time it represents emerging relations between native and imported cultic sytems and institutions. Kyushu itsel is separated rom Honshu, the main island o the Japanese archipelago, by the narrow Strait o Shimonoseki, through which the mighty tides linking the Japan Sea to the Inland Sea and the Pacific Ocean move back and orth. Tis strait was difficult to pass because o sudden weather changes and fierce og conditions caused by tides and currents. Being the main maritime corridor granting access rom the west to the Yamato region, however, it was one o Japan’s most sensitive strategic locations, which may explain why the sites o the imperial government’s leading territorial and maritime cults were located on either side o it. Te Munakata cult was established on Kyushu’s northern shore acing the Korean Peninsula, and on islands between Kyushu and sushima (as well as on Mount Hiko); the Hakozaki and Sumiyoshi Hachiman cults were located in what is today Fukuoka on the same shore and in oyura on Honshu’s westernmost shore. Last but not least, the Hachiman cult’s original institutions were situated in Usa, near the Inland Sea but acing south. Te Sumiyoshi, Munakata, Hiko, Usa, and Kunisaki cults were closely associated under the umbrella o ritual protection o the imperial state’s claim to control the sea and the land, and it was under such conditions that the Hachiman cult eventually became a cultic phenomenon that every social group—emperors, courtiers, warlords, and commoners, Buddhist or not, sponsored or wished to control.
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Te Hachiman cult’s nebulous origins Te events surrounding the first mention o Buddhism in imperial documents provide a privileged access to a discussion o the Hachiman cult. It is reported in Nihon Shoki (compiled in 720), that in 552 the Korean Peninsula’s kingdom o Paekche presented a Buddhist statue and scriptures to the Yamato government that then ordered a member o the Soga house to carry out a private Buddhist cult in the Asuka region.27 Te choice o the Soga house is understandable, or its distant ancestral house (the Kazuraki) and its own members had been in contact with the continent or some time, and the Soga helped devise policies concerning trade and international relations. Other leading houses opposed these policies at the time; among those, the Nakatomi and Mononobe houses, specializing in ritual and military affairs, resisted Buddhism as a way o thwarting the rise o the Soga house to political power. Nihon Shoki says that in 587 Emperor Yōmei ell ill and subsequently expressed his desire to convert to Buddhism, a decision that would have greatly aggravated the courtiers Mononobe no Moriya (?–587) and Nakatomi no Katsumi (?–587). Soga no Umako (?–626), however, invited to court an unnamed “Buddhist master” rom Kyushu’s Usa region (less precisely, rom oyokuni, that is, Buzen Province), to minister to the dying emperor.28 At this point the Soga house’s opposition to the Nakatomi and Mononobe houses took on a military character, and the Soga, together with Imperial Prince Shōtoku (574–622), went on to deeat the actions opposing Buddhism. In 594 the government issued a decree stating that it would support the development o Buddhism, and the Soga house sponsored Korean immigrant artisans and in 596 built what is regarded as Japan’s oldest Buddhist temple: the Asukadera, in the southern part o the Yamato Basin. Afer the death o Shōtoku aishi in 622, however, the Soga house seems to have maniested ambitions to the imperial throne, and Imperial Prince Naka no Ōe (626–71), assisted by his advisor Nakatomi no Kamatari (614–69), annihilated the Soga house in 645 and promulgated the aika Reorm, which introduced a orm o government inspired by Chinese codes. Tis reorm signaled the imperial court’s suddenly conscious emulation o China, and it heralded many social changes. Nakatomi no Kamatari was one o its architects, and as a reward the emperor granted him the name “Fujiwara” in 669, a name under which his descendants went on to orm a powerul house that governed Japan in the name o the emperor or several centuries. As will be shown in time, the Fujiwara house evolved complex relations with the Hachiman cult and Kyushu Island.
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Te records o the time do not give Kyushu the deliberate consideration one might expect, but the island must have been o substantial significance i only because Buddhism was taken through it on its way to Yamato, because there were many immigrants in its northern regions at the time, and because the ancient inhabitants o the island included the immigrant Soga, Mononobe, Hata, and Nakatomi houses. One wishes, or example, that more details had been given in official records concerning the unnamed “Buddhist master” o the oyokuni region mentioned earlier, but this issue remains unsolved. For the time being let us simply undermine the historical allacy, evident in most histories o Japan, o privileging Yamato’s centrality while passing Kyushu Island in silence, thus relegating it to a peripheral status. However legendary the events briefly recounted above may have been, they were regarded in Kyushu as historical truth, and were reiterated in many documents or a good thousand years. Kyushu’s early though begrudged importance to the imperial government is made obvious by the act that the Yamato court established the city o Dazaiu there, which became the island’s political center and was later called “western capital” in counterpoint to Kyoto.29 Te term Dazai, which Aston translates as “viceroy,” appears in connection with sukushi (the old name or Kyushu) in Nihon Shoki in a record that is dated 609. 30 Te governor o Dazaiu in 649 was Hyūga no Omi (Soga no Himuka, also styled Musashi), a surviving member o the pro-Buddhist Soga house that had specialized in contacts with the “Tree Kingdoms” o the Korean Peninsula (Silla, Paekche, and Koguryŏ), and China. Te walled city o Dazaiu quickly became a military, diplomatic, and cultural center as contacts with the continent intensified during the eighth century. In accordance with ritual and geomantic principles stipulating that noxious influences threatened cities rom the northeastern direction, and that the construction o shrines or temples in that corner o residences or cities would be an appropriate palliative, a shrine was erected in 664 in the northeast corner o Dazaiu on Mount Mikasa, located on the slopes o Mount Hōman. Mount Mikasa was then renamed Kamado, and a Buddhist temple was erected on the grounds o the shrine: that is the Hōman “mountain temple” ( yamadera), about which more will be said later because o its close association with Mount Hiko. Furthermore, in 670 Emperor enji ordered that a government-sponsored Buddhist temple, the Kanzeonji, be erected in Dazaiu at the oot o Mount Hōman. Completed in 745 by the inamous Hossō monk Genbō (?–746), the Kanzeonji became a stopping point or oreign emissaries and or the majority o Japanese monks on their way to China or the Korean Peninsula .31 Dazaiu itsel was completed in 701, when the aihō Codes were promulgated and shortly afer
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Map 3 North-east North-east Kyushu
the names o some Kyushu provinces, such as Chikuzen and Buzen, appeared in offici cial al rec records ords.. In other words, the aika (645) and aihō (701) promulgations o Chineseinspired Codes marked the advent o a new political geography, which symbolized the Yamato imperial court’s will to control ever larger parts o the Japanese isles and submit their diverse populations to its rule, in the context o highly problematic relations with the continent. Te court’s will did not go unchallenged, however, particularly in Kyushu. Between 708 and 720, or instance, the government had to ace uprisings by the Kumaso and Hayato— people about whom almost nothing is known but who are presumed to have been early inhabitants o Kyushu. In 720 the Yamato government and various local agencies quelled these uprisings, using a long-remembered long- remembered violence that became the object objec t o the Usa Hachiman cult’ cult’ss atonement ritual, ritual , the “Assembly o Release o Living Beings” (hōjōhōjō-ee).32 Te government o Dazaiu alone may not have been able to quash these uprisings, and it may have enlisted the assistance o regional leaders o Usa, who would have supported the central government’s policies. Tis hypothetical rendition o assistance is not documented in Shoku Nihongi (797), the main historical source or the period, but it was invoked later by the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple Shrine-temple complex as a major claim to recognition by the court, and it was repeated time and again in the documents relating the history o the Hiko, Usa, and Kunisaki mountain cults. Be that as it may, in 761 the Kanzeonji Kanze onji emple emple o Dazai Dazaiuu became bec ame western Japan Japan’’s government-sponsored government- sponsored platorm o ordination or Buddhist monks and nuns, and the seventh and
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eighth centuries saw the erection o a airly large number o Buddhist temples in the northern part o Kyushu, predominantly so in the Usa area.
Usa: rom prehistoric village to cultic city Usa is unique in Kyushu Kyushu i only onl y because some o the island’s island’s oldest uneral une ral tumuli (koun) o the “key-hole” “key-hole” type are located there. Dating back to the third and ourth centuries CE, CE, these tumuli are said to have been erected over the tombs o the region’s kuni no miyatsuko, local chiefains some scholars do not hesitate to reer to by the name Usa. Tis name appears in Nihon Shoki in the narrative o the conquest o the Japanese archipelago by the Prince o Iware. In this narrative the prince is said to have lef Mount akachiho in the southern reaches o Kyushu, whence he would have engaged in the pacification o the western parts o the archipelago archipelago:: Proceed ing on their voyage, they arrived at Usa in the Land Proceeding L and o sukushi [Kyushu]. [Kyushu]. At this time there appeared the ancestors o the Kuni-tsu-ko Kuni-tsu-ko [local chiefains] o Usa, named Usa-tsu-hiko Usa-tsu-hiko and Usa-tsu-hime. Usa-tsu-hime. Tey built a palace raised on one pillar on the banks o the River Usa, and offered them a banquet. Ten, by imperial command, Usa-tsu-hime Usa-tsu-hime was given in marriage to the Emperor’s attendant minister Ama no tane no Mikoto. Now Ama no tane no Mikoto was the remote ancestor o the Nakatomi Uji. Uji.33
Nihon Shoki, the record o myths and historical chronicles rom which this passage is quoted, was compiled in 720, when Kyushu was o unequalled importance and concern to the court because o problematic relations between what we today call Japan, Korea, and China. Te event narrated above may thereore be no more than a mere reflection o that importance, although it may also reer to an actual memory o occurrences that may have have taken place several centuries earlier, which is impossible to prove. We must underline, however, the marriage o the woman named Usa-tsu-hime Usa- tsu-hime to Ama no tane no Mikoto, who is described as a distant ancestor o the Nakatomi house. By the eighth century, the Nakatomi were well established as one o the leading sacerdotal lineages o the emerging imperial cultic system in Yamato. Its members specialized in scapulimancy (a technique o divination using the shoulder blades o deer), and it is worth recalling that Kamatari, the human ancestor o the Fujiwara house, was born in the Nakatomi house—which is said to have opposed Buddhism Buddhis m at the time o its inception. For their part, part , the sacerdotal officiants o the Usa region specialized in oracular pronouncements, rom at least the eighth
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century onward.34 Te connection proposed by the compilers o Nihon Shoki between the Usa oracles and the Nakatomi diviners smacks o abrication and, in my view, reinorces the probability that the mention o an Usa house ( uji) in Nihon Shoki does not reer to Prince o Iware’s time, but to a local state o affairs that might have been contemporaneous with the compilation o the chronicle, or that might have existed shortly beore that time. Nagatomi Hisae has gone so ar as to suggest that the Prince o Iware started his conquest, not rom Mount akachiho in Hyūga Province, but rom the Usa region—a suggestion that would reinorce some views according to which northern Kyushu was the site o an ancient kingdom that has been completely orgotten, or the traces o which were erased by the emergence o Yamato power. 35 Usa’s uneral tumuli o the third and ourth century have yielded a number o artiacts among which are bronze bells, jade jewelry, and mirrors o Korean and Chinese manuacture, indicating that there were quite a ew inhabitants o Korean and Chinese origins in the region. Whoever the people living there may have been, they are believed to have engaged in cultic behavior with regard to megaliths and to the sea, and because such elements can still be seen in today’s cults o the region in one shape or another, scholars have assumed that they orm the original, native layer o the Hachiman cult. Little can be said with any certainty on the topic, however, because the oldest extant documents do not mention such cults. Te first mention o Hachiman in relation to litholatry occurs in a document dated 815 and it is only with time that litholatry became an increasingly central eature o the Usa Hachiman constellation o cults, although it had long been present in the Munakata cults and appears to have been imported rom the Korean Peninsula..36 In other words, the arther away rom the origins, the more details Peninsula are available and the less they should be relied upon, although some scholars do not hesitate to use them in an effort to retrieve primitive aspects o the Hachiman cult in Usa. Te two graphs that are today pronounced “Hachiman” appear in Shoku 74 9, the Nihongi in an entry or the year 737. 37 In a subsequent entry, or the year 749, same document suggests that these graphs were read “Yahata,” since they appear there as parts par ts o a longer l onger name that should shou ld probably be b e read “Hirohata no Yahata Yahata Ōkami.”38 Nihon Ryōiki (ca. 820) supports this reading, or it mentions a “ Yahata Daijin[gū]ji o Usa in Buzen Province,” which is no doubt a reerence to what became the Usa Hachiman shrine-temple shrine-temple complex. complex.39 Incidentally, the oldest extant document proposing the reading “Hachiman” is Iroha Jiruishō, dated 1144, and it thereore seems probable that during the Heian period the preerred reading o the two graphs meaning “eight banners” was Yahata or Yawata, and
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that it was changed to Hachiman toward the end o the Heian period, although the older readings “Yahata” and “Yawata” were not abandoned or some time therafer. As to the identity identit y and origins orig ins o the entity named nam ed Yahata Yahata or Hachiman, Hachi man, however, they are highly problematic and are still objects o impassioned scholarly attention. Nakano Hatayoshi, the main scholar o the Hachiman cult’s history, believes that when the centralizing and uniying power o the Yamato court became maniest in Kyushu around the middle o the seventh century, the local leaders o Usa had already lost their grip over the region’s maritime communities allied with earlier courts, and that they were replaced by Ōmiwa ritualistss who would have ritualist h ave come to Kyushu Kyushu rom Yamato Yamato in the late l ate sixth century centur y .40 Tese newcomers would have clashed with older local ritualists going by the name Karashima, who appear to have been Korean immigrants who ell under the governance o the Hata immigrants o northern Kyushu, and who would have dedicated a cult to several “ kami” enshrined on Mount Kawara (directly north o Mount Hiko). In 592, says Nakano, the competition between these two groups would have reached an impasse, but the Ōmiwa newcomers somehow established their dominance over the Karashima house. Tey then erected the akai Shrine in Usa to symbolize their dominance, and imposed onto the Karashima a cult they dedicated to King Homuda (the fifeenth ruler, “Emperor” Ōjin). Nakano argues that this event did take place in 592, even though the source he uses dates back to 815, and even though he ails to demonstrate how the Ōmiwa ritualists would have come to carry on a cult dedicated to King Homuda, or would have decided to go to Kyushu. Kyushu .41 Te surname Usa (re)suraces in 721 when Hōren, a Buddhist master o the region, achieved such renown that the central government gave his relatives the right to bear the surname, accompanied by the rank-title rank-title kimi.42 I it is reasonable to assume that the Usa house also specialized in cults in the region because o the presumed antiquity o its residence there, one has to wonder whether the Ōmiwa would have come into problematic contact with the Usa house as well; incidentally, the Usa and Karashima houses both held high titles ( kimi and suguri, respectively), while the Ōmiwa did not. Tere is nothing in the extant documents, however, that might indicate what relationship may have existed between these houses beore the eighth century, and this problem seems insurmountable in view o the act that subsequent documents, written to emphasize the prestige o the Ōga (Ōmiwa) house, claim that “Hachiman” originally maniested itsel to a certain Ōga no Higi (and not to a member o the Usa house). house) .43 Furthermore, the documents authored by members o the Usa house state that “Hachiman” maniested itsel to a certain Usa no Ikemori and to Ōga no Higi, but in Misumi,
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not Usa. As or the Karashima house, h ouse, it proposes that “Hachiman” “Hachiman” first maniested itsel to a woman named Karashima Karashima no suguri Otome.44 o reiterate in simplified simplifie d orm the position long deended d eended by Nakano, documents o the early ninth century have led him to speculate that Ōga no Higi, presumably a sixth-century sixth-century sacerdotal sa cerdotal officiant o the t he Ōmiwa Shrine Shrin e and hailing rom the Uda district o Yamato Province, was responsible or taking to Kyushu various myths and legends related to King Homuda. Tese myths would have been imposed then by this Ōga no Higi onto older local deities that, beore that time, had been the object o a cult conducted by the Karashima ritualists. One should remark at this stage, however, that the origins o the Hachiman cult have been the object o excessive speculation, in the sense that the extant documents do not provide incontrovertible proo or what has been advanced by scholars whose agenda was, or still is, to project an illusionary linearity li nearity over an imperial cult’ c ult’ss ractional ractiona l history, or to smooth over some o the disjunctions which the nascent imperial system and Buddhism may have inflicted upon regional cults in the eighth century. It is more appropriate to keep an eye open or breaks, and in this respect respec t we should underscore the possibility that, whatever the cults perormed in the Usa region “rom time immemorial” may have been, they received in the first hal o the eighth century radically radical ly new orms that were related to the Yamato Yamato court’s court’s territorial aspirations as well as to the Usa leaders’ political circumstances and needs. Tese needs appear to have been met through two interrelated processes: the acceptance and systematic development o Buddhist cults in the region, and the transormation (or creation) o the t he “Hachiman “Hachiman”” entities, their supporting myths, and their t heir cults. c ults. Te Yamato Yamato court needed to oster political alliances with the regional leaders o northern Kyushu in the context o increased and problematic contacts with the continent, and in the context o its application o Chinese-inspired Chinese- inspired legal codes in order to claim governance over the Japanese isles, a governance which the native Kumaso and Hayato “tribes” o Kyushu are said to have opposed in the first decades o the eighth century. On the other hand, the Usa region’s rulers may have realized that their survival in the ace ac e o the sweeping legal, political, and economic changes wrought by these codes depended on their ability to retain a strong regional identity while developing a coalition with the irresistible administrative, military, military, and economic economi c power o Yamato, Yamato, but in such manner that th at Usa might exercise some s ome control over this coalition. coalit ion. ogether ogether with the politics pol itics surrounding surroundi ng the development o court-sponsored court-sponsored Buddhism at the time, these actors appear to have dominated the sudden elaboration o the Hachiman cult and its equally sudden acceptance by the Yamato court in the eighth century. Te identity o “Hachiman” beore the beginning o the ninth century thus poses vexing problems or all historians who
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have attempted to deal with northern Kyushu, but this is not uncommon in local cults that were appropriated appropriated by the court, in that they were ofen radically changed to avoid their being at a variance with the newly compiled mythology or with the central cultic c ultic institutions i nstitutions that were created precisely at that th at time in Yamato. Yamato. Indeed, even though it is reasonably clear that there were sites o cult in the Usa region beore the eighth century, available sources say nothing that would enable us to say what these thes e cults were, and it is not beore the th e eighth century c entury that t hat official records mention the name Yahata. Moreover Moreover,, not a single document purporti pur porting ng to provide evidence concerning the origins o the Usa Sanctuary or the core identity o the deities enshrined therein appears beore the early ninth century. Te two graphs pronounced Yahata or Yawata during the Nara and Heian periods, and today pronounced Hachiman, are not ound in either Kojiki or Nihon Shoki; as we have seen a moment ago, they appear in Shoku Nihongi. Tis occurs in an entry or the year 737, ollowing the recording o divergent opinions concerning how the court should respond to a “break o customary protocol caused by [the Kingdom o Silla’s] disregard or an imperial messenger’s directions”: Charged with the mission to present offerings and to report Silla’s break o protocol, messengers were dispatched to the sanctuary [ jingū [ jingū]] o Ise, to the shrine [ yashir yashiroo] o Ōmiwa, to the shrine shri ne o Suminoe, Sumi noe, to the two shrines shrin es o Yahata Yahata in sukushi [Kyushu], and to the mausoleum [miya [miya]] o Kashii. Kashii.45
In other words, the court reported breaks o protocol in diplomacy to the two most important shrines shrine s o the Yamato Yamato imperial center (Ise ( Ise and Ōmiwa), and to the three most important sanctuaries o northern Kyushu (Suminoe (Sumiyoshi), Usa, and Kashii). Leaving aside or a moment the problem raised by the terms reerring to these different types o sanctuaries ( jin jingū gū, yas yashi hiro ro, and miya), it is necessary to underline the closeness o these sites o cult to the imperial establishment and the act that three o them are located in north Kyushu, which was at the oreront o international politics at the time. Te identity o the “Yahata” entity mentioned in the document quoted above, however, is completely unclear prior to the Heian period, when Yahata came to be identified with the spirit o King Homuda (“Emperor” Ōjin). Te oldest extant document proposing this identification is dated 815 (Kōnin 6); reerred to as Ōga no Kiyoma Kiyomaro ro Gejō, it is contained in a court decree dated 821 and known as Kōnin Kanpu. It reads as ollows: Te Great Bodhisattva Bodhi sattva is the august spirit o Emperor Homuda. It first maniested itsel under the reign [o Emperor Kinmei] on the summit o Mount Maki, situated in the Usa district o the land o oyosaki. At that time, Kinmei 29 [568], Ōga no Higi built the akaise Shrine, where he conducted a cult or many years.
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Tis passage states that Hachiman (“the Great Bodhisattva”) maniested itsel in Usa a ew years afer the introduction o Buddhism to the Japanese court, and, pointedly, as a conormation o the departed king Homuda. Te figure o King Homuda/Emperor Ōjin is o great consequence in the mythology compiled in Yamato, but it is enolded in a shroud o legends o various geographical origins to such extent that it defies clear historical identification, and the present discussion will be limited to actors that are relevant to the purpose at hand. Both Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720) offer so extensive a treatment o Homuda and his “mother” Okinaga arashihime (Jingū Kōgō) that one may speak o an Okinaga arashihime cycle and o a Homuda cycle in mythology, two cycles many Japanese scholars have treated at length and rom various perspectives. O interest here, however, is the narrative according to which Okinaga arashihime’s husband, arashi Nakatsuhiko (“Emperor” Chūai), is supposed to have received an oracle ordering him to conquer the Tree Kingdoms o the Korean Peninsula.47 arashi Nakatsuhiko did not accept the oracle as genuine and suddenly died, at which point his consort took it upon hersel to raise an army, and crossed the sushima Straits to the Korean peninsula, which she conquered swifly. As she was completing this conquest she would have elt a pressing need to give birth to the child she was carrying, and hastily returned to the Japanese isles. Landing in Kyushu she gave birth to a son, Homuda, who under the imperial name Ōjin would have gone eastward to paciy the western hal o the Japanese archipelago.48 Several scholars have suggested that the conquest o the Korean Peninsula by Okinaga arashihime never occurred. In act, they have proposed the opposite; namely, that Homuda was really a oreigner (a Puyŏ warrior o continental origins) who would have conquered the Korean Peninsula and western “Japan” in 369 CE.49 Should these scholars be right, Yahata (that is, Hachiman as Homuda’s spirit) would be the deified orm o a nonJapanese entity. It is tempting to subscribe to these views and thus throw a specific light on the cult, a light in which Hachiman would be carved out not only as the deified conormation o King Homuda, but also as the reversed image o historical events, an image that was then memorialized by a ruling group wishing to project a much longer history on Japanese ground than it actually had, or wishing to portray itsel as superior to the continent. Be that as it may, this identification o Yahata as the deified orm o Homuda suraces in a historical source dated 815, and one cannot rule out the possibility (not to say the probability) that the
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purpose o this identification may have been to promote a direct imperial connection between provincial Usa and the imperial capital. Recitals concerning Okinaga arashihime (Homuda’s “mother”), which were circulating at the time in the Kinai area, the Inland Sea, and Kyushu, were subsequently transormed and added to this new identity, and Okinaga arashihime became the object o a cult at Usa in 823.50 Nakano Hatayoshi and several other scholars make a distinction between Jingū Kōgō-related recitals, Okinaga arashihime-related recitals, Homuda-related recitals, and the third kami worshipped at Usa, a certain Himegami which Nakano views as an ancient Kyushu deity, perhaps ancestral to the Usa house. It seems reasonable at the present juncture to propose that these recitals were re-aligned and admixed to fit those ound in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, that an ensuing narrative coherence slowly emerged in Kyushu and the Kinai area, and that the 815 document was the earliest written maniestation o that coherence. Te identification o Yahata with the deified spirit o King Homuda may have occurred in Kyushu, but only afer the Korean Peninsula was unified in the eighth century by Silla, and at a time the relations between Silla and Yamato were extremely tense and when warare seemed inevitable. Te imperial territory may have been gained through warare, indeed, but it was maintained and legitimated by narratives such as the Okinaga arashihime and Homuda legends, which were subsequently “enshrined” in sites o cult that are all located in the western hal o the archipelago. Te recitals related to Okinaga arashihime apparently originated among members o the Okinaga house in which both Emperor Yomei (r. 629–41) and Empress Kōgyoku (r. 641– 50) were born, and they can thereore be regarded as ancestral narratives geared at enhancing the status o that house.51 Te Homuda cycle’s origins are much more diffi cult to pinpoint, except or the narrative concerning the comingo-age rite de passage o Prince Homuda-wake (later King Homuda, that is, “Emperor” Ōjin), which took place at the Kehi Shrine near sunoga (today called suruga). sunoga is located between the Ōmi region that ormed the power base o King Wohodo’s paternal line, and the Echizen region, which ormed the power base o the same emperor’s maternal line. A fifh- generation descendant o King Homuda’s, King Wohodo (“Emperor” Keitai) is said in Nihon Shoki to have ruled between 450 and 531. Te Okinaga arashihime recitals were then transmitted by seaaring people and sacerdotal groups to Lake Biwa and to the Inland Sea (Harima Province and its Kibi region in particular) and to northern Kyushu (Chikuzen Province in particular). Tese geographical origins are to be related to the development o territorial control on the part o the imperial
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house, or all the events described in these myths are said to have taken place along the major maritime routes o the western hal o the Japanese isles. Tese actors suggest that the association (or overlay) o the entities enshrined in Usa with the deified figures o Homuda and his “mother” meant that a territory was being established under imperial will, and that this association empowered the Usa area’s separate cults to coalesce and evolve into a single imperial cult, which continued nonetheless to carry some erstwhile, local elements. As a urther and perhaps unanticipated consequence o this association or overlay, the mythological records that had been gathered around the country and were compiled in Yamato in 712 and 720 gained a concrete appearance in the orm o shrines, which became monumental documents in the sense that their meaning was, and still is, calling or interpretation. It is necessary to remark that all past “explanations” o the origins o Hachiman privilege the centrality o Yamato, since they suggest that narratives were taken rom the Yamato area in a westerly way along the Inland Sea, to finally settle in Kyushu, whereas Okinaga arashihime is reported to have conquered the Tree Kingdoms o the Korean Peninsula with Kyushu as a starting place, and whereas her son Homuda pacified the western part o the Japanese isles, beginning in Kyushu (where he was born), and ending in Yamato (where he died).52 Should Gari Ledyard’s views on the matter be accepted, Okinaga arashihime was not King Homuda’s actual mother (she would have been assigned this role by the authors o Kojiki and Nihon Shoki), and the king in question would have been an invader who conquered parts o the Korean Peninsula beore boarding a fleet that took his army to Japan. We would then have to suggest that the identification o Yahata as Homuda’s spirit might have been due to a survival o pro-Homuda memories in northern Kyushu— combined with a total lack o memory o the act that Homuda was a oreigner. A short while afer the eighth-century compilations o the Kojiki record, the Nihon Shoki chronicle, the Shoku Nigongi chronicle, and the Fudoki local records, the imperial and courtly inhabitants o Heijōkyō (Nara) and Heiankyō (Kyoto) came to accept as true what these texts claimed was their history and, to borrow Paul Veyne’s elicitous turn o phrase, they thus went on to “believe in their myths.”53 It may be ventured, however, that anyone amiliar with the lay o the land at the time would have ound these myths difficult to believe, because absolutely nothing in them explains how or why the deified figure o King Homuda ended up, o all places, in Usa: Kojiki, Nihon Shoki, and Fudoki give many details about the Okinaga arashihime and Homuda cycles, but none o these texts mentions Usa as a site o cult, and no document o the time says that Homuda and his mother were given a cult there. Nothing in the myths and legends available
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today provides an indisputable geohistorical rationale or enshrining the deified figure o Homuda in Usa, while the ninth-century documents o the site o cult merely state that an entity named “Yahata” maniested itsel on the summit o Mount Maki, the mountain that was renamed Omoto by imperial decree some time later.54 antalizing though they may be, the question o why Usa was chosen over any o the geographical sites mentioned in the Okinaga arashihime and Homuda cycles o mythology, and the problem o why a cycle relating a putative conquest o Korea by a pregnant woman would have been taken to Kyushu to orm the basis o Japan’s most anti-Korean and xenophobic imperial cult, must be lef unresolved or the moment. Te Ōga sacerdotal house’s tradition maintains that Yahata maniested itsel on the summit o Mount Maki in Usa, to a swordsmith named Ōga no Higi who immediately erected a shrine he named akai (or akaise), o which he became the officiant. More ofen reerred to as Mount Omoto, Mount Maki is still today regarded as the Usa Hachiman cult’s sacred mountain; its summit is the seat o three megaliths the tradition views as supernatural conormations o goshawks, the original theriomorphic emblem o Hachiman, and it became a site visited by yamabushi on regular occasions.55 According to Nakano, this akai Shrine was moved in 716 rom Mount Maki’s summit to the Oyamada Shrine (west o the present-day site o the Usa Shrine), and was moved again in 725 rom Oyamada to Ogura Hill, which is the current site o the Usa Hachiman Shrine and a hill on which there would have been an older shrine (Hokuto- sha) dedicated to the Lord o the Polar Star, a eature which indicates the continental origins o some o the Usa cults. It is not clear what the new shrine was called, however, and the recipient o the oracle requesting the move is not identified either. Nakano writes that Ogura Hill appears to have been the stronghold o the Usa house at the time, and he suggests that the oracle may have been granted to a member o that house shortly afer the Hayato uprisings o 720, when the enigmatic Buddhist figure named Hōren was active.56 What role the Usa community played in these Hayato uprisings is not known, since only Hachiman’s supernatural benevolence is what is remembered most ofen. Hōren may have been called upon to heal the wounds inflicted in the course o these uprisings, or he may have ministered to a local population that was affl icted with epidemics at a time when the government ailed to provide the medical specialists the aihō Codes had called or.57 It is also known that many people died in the amines that ravaged north Kyushu in the eighth century, and it is possible that the
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construction o Buddhist temples in the region was geared at rendering assistance to a population that was over-burdened with taxes and corvées. A temple called Mirokuzen-in was erected around that time in Hiashi, right next to Ogura Hill; it was dedicated to Miroku bosatsu ( Maitreya, the Buddha o the Future), and Hōren is said to have been its first abbot. Hōren was to become a central figure in the evolution o the Hiko, Usa Hachiman, and Kunisaki cults, and his reputation or healing skills might be seen as a building block o the therapeutic activities o the yamabushi, who eventually saw in him one o their ounding patriarchs and an incarnation o Hachiman. Very little is known about him, however, apart rom what subsequent legends have to say; and next to nothing transpires about other monks who must have been active in the region at the time. In 732, this Mirokuzen-in emple (together, perhaps, with the Kokuzōji emple) was transerred rom Hiashi to the sprawling plain separating Ogura Hill rom the Usa River, on the basis o the ollowing oracle: “I hereby wish to be given a cult as the Buddha o the Future and as the Buddha o Medicine, in order to lead [to salvation] the peoples o uture ages.”58 Tis Mirokuzen-in was not the oldest Buddhist temple in the region, or archaeological investigations have revealed the existence o three late seventh century temples in the immediate vicinity o Usa. Among these, the Kokuzōji is apparently the oldest and excavations o what was a three-storied pagoda have yielded a terra-cotta plate engraved with the representation o a Buddha seated on a throne .59 While the layout o this temple is apparently similar to that o the Hōryūji emple built in 607 in Yamato Province, the terra-cotta plate (the only one o the kind ever ound in Kyushu) is said to be remarkably similar to that ound in the Minami Hokkeji emple (subosakadera) in the southern part o Nara Preecture, a find that seems to bespeak o direct contacts between the northeast region o Kyushu and Yamato Province in the late seventh or early eighth century. Local tradition has it that the Kokuzōji emple was created by Hōren, but this is impossible to veriy because neither the Kokuzōji nor the two ollowing temples appear in documents o the time. Te Hōkyōji emple and the Kyūzenji emple (also known as Oguranoike haiji) were erected later than the Kokuzōji, but both seem to be older than the Usa Shrine’s Mirokuji emple. Interestingly enough, while only seven Buddhist temples were erected beore the end o the ninth century in Chikuzen Province, where Dazaiu and Hakata (Fukuoka) are located, thirteen were built during the same time period in Buzen Province, where Usa and Mount Hiko are situated. Indeed, the second largest concentration o Buddhist temples (afer the Usa district) in Buzen Province at the time is ound in the Miyako and agawa districts situated near the northern oot o Mount Hiko; roofiles
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excavated in these sites were made in nine ovens ound in the region by archaeologists and they display definite Korean stylistic eatures. Tese finds indicate that Buddhism was developing at a ast pace along the Onga River basin and along the northeastern coastal region o Kyushu in the eighth century, and show the presence o a significant and wealthy population that was in sustained contact with the Korean Peninsula and Yamato, probably because much o that population was o Korean origins. It was under these conditions that the Usa site o cult came to be mentioned in official documents in the eighth century. Te first in the set o the three main shrines o Usa’s Ogura Hill was built, as we saw a ew moments ago, in 725. A second shrine was erected on Ogura Hill either in 733 or 734; it was dedicated to Himegami, the second most important kami o what was to become the Hachiman triad. Te identity o Himegami is even more mysterious than Hachiman’s, however, and it has been the object o speculation or centuries. Some scholars viewed it as an old local or oreign kami whose role and identity were eclipsed by Yahata as the deified orm o King Homuda; some saw it as the ancestral kami o the Karashima sacerdotal lineage o Usa; others identified it as either Homuda’s aunt or his deified consort, while yet others conceived o it as Homuda’s daughter, as the deified orm o the first oracular emale officiant Usa-tsu-hime, or as a unified conormation o the three emale kami o Munakata.60 An attempt to ollow the history o the identification o this kami in the various documents authored by sacerdotal houses and premodern as well as contemporary scholars is all that might be done to solve this important problem in the uture. In 738 a Lecture Hall ( kōdō) dedicated to the Buddha o the Future, and a “Golden Hall” (kondō) dedicated to the Buddha o Medicine were erected next to these two shrines, on the grounds o the Mirokuzen-in created in 732. Te temple was then renamed Mirokuji ( Maitreya emple),61 and it became the jingūji o the two Yahata shrines o Usa, which it immediately began to dominate. Te Mirokuji became over time an extensive institution on a par with the largest Buddhist-controlled shrine-temple complexes ever constructed in Japan.62 Te third o the three Usa Hachiman Shrines (hereafer reerred to in the singular as the Usa Hachiman Shrine) was dedicated in 823 to Okinaga arashihime. Tis late date does not seem to have perturbed any historian o the cult even though it is o major import, since Okinaga arashihime, in her identification as King Homuda’s mother, is the central figure in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki myths that underpin much o the Hachiman cult’s imperial dimension. It is impossible, however, to provide an explanation or this intriguing date, beyond what will be suggested below. Another set o three shrines was established between 810 and 824 to the west o Ogura Hill; called Lower
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Shrine (Gegū) and sometimes reerred to as Oiidono, a hall where ood offerings were ritually prepared, these three shrines are dedicated to the same entities enshrined in the Upper Shrine. Teir unction was different however, and it will be discussed in the ollowing chapter under the heading “traveling icons.” 63 In 824 a certain Sakai onushime, mother o the sacerdotal officiant Ōga no Umaro, was possessed and in an oracle revealed that demons that had used with the spirits o Hayato killed in the 720s were hiding west o Hishigata Pond at the oot o Ogura Hill and were causing disturbances, but that they would be pacified i appeasement rituals were perormed in ront o a shrine to be erected or this purpose. Te governor o Dazaiu at the time was Fujiwara no Katsunushi (n.d.); he participated in the initial rites o construction in 852 but was subsequently appointed Protector o Ōsumi Province and was then replaced in that ceremonial unction by Usa no oyokawa and Ōga no Umaro, who saw to the completion o the new shrine and called it Wakamiya.64 It seems that this Usa Wakamiya Shrine was originally dedicated to our entities, but it is only in later documents that we learn that they might have been our o Homuda’s children, to which a fifh was added later.65 Te identification o the our entities as angry spirits o some Hayato, as suggested by the contents o the oracle, is inconsistent with the later identification o these entities with Homuda’s children, and this inconsistency seems never to have been questioned or explained. Furthermore, even though the Wakamiya Shrine is dedicated to five entities, artistic representations o the medieval period treat the Wakamiya as a single entity and view it as a youthul maniestation o Hachiman. Te unction o Wakamiya shrines in early Japan is unclear; scholars are inclined to see these shrines as dedicated to dangerous entities meting out chastisements ( tatari) that ranged rom droughts to painul possessions o individuals. Te Usa Wakamiya Shrine is a amous case because it is regarded as the paradigmatic example o a phenomenon which became current during the late Heian period; its unction may have been slightly different, however, rom another and older Wakamiya Shrine mentioned in the eighthcentury Fudoki and also located in north Kyushu, in Mononobe Village. In this case the kami seems to have been an entity invoked at the time o initiation o young warriors into manhood, but it is unclear whether all Wakamiya shrines were related to initiation—even though Nakano says that the five kami o the Wakamiya o Usa are “warrior deities.”66 Tis Wakamiya Shrine o Usa is surrounded by a grove o camphor trees and also has a small bamboo grove which became a amed site or the perormance o plastromancy, a kind o divination using the shells o sea turtles; this seems to suggest that the Usa Wakamiya Shrine’s our original entities may have been related to crops or
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other tatari-related phenomena beore they were displaced by the imperial cult dedicated to the progeny o Homuda. At this point we have to cut through the dense og o legends concerning the origins o the Usa Shrine-temple complex and simply state the obvious. Te only thing the earliest documents suggest is that a shrine dedicated to an entity called Yahata may have been “transerred” rom the summit o Mount Omoto to Ogura Hill in 725; that a second shrine, dedicated to a emale entity called Himegami, was erected next to it in 734; that a Buddhist temple was transerred in 738 and erected on grounds adjacent to these two shrines; and that a third shrine, dedicated to Okinaga arashihime, was erected in 823. Although it is quite possible, i not probable, that there were in the region a number o cults predating 725, and that these cults and their associated narratives infiltrated the subsequent conception o history in Usa, nothing in the extant record suggests in what manner these cults were essential to the identification o Yahata as the deified orm o Homuda in the late eighth century, while everything points to the possibility that the Hachiman cult evolved in Usa under direct Buddhist influence and in specific political conditions. sukaguchi Yoshinobu, a leading interpreter o the cycle o mythology related to Okinaga arashihime, takes a slightly different view on these matters. While he subscribes to the notion that the conormation o Yahata as the deified orm o Homuda is a late eighth-century phenomenon, he affirms that the legends surrounding Okinaga arashihime are much older (which is true), and that they may have been narrated by people belonging to the maritime cultures o the Lake Biwa region, the Inland Sea, and Kyushu. He also suggests that the Kashii Shrine or mausoleum, established in 724 and apparently dedicated to the spirit o “Emperor” Chūai, was a central eature in the process o the transormation o these legends by the political center o Yamato, but he offers no suggestion concerning the role o Usa residents and cults, or concerning the relationship between Kashii and Usa afer 724. Moreover, and quite egregiously, sukaguchi makes no mention o Buddhism; this is probably because he wishes to retrieve the “olkish” origins o the legends he is dealing with.67 With regard to Nakano Hatayoshi’s notion that some belies surrounding Homuda were carried rom Yamato to Kyushu by members o the Ōmiwa sacerdotal house, it should be said that its rationale appears to be weak (the documents called upon by Nakano to buttress his argument are, in the main, o medieval manuacture), and that its effect is to keep the creation o the Hachiman cult within the circle o sacerdotal houses that specialized in cults which were gathered during the medieval period under the umbrella o the emerging, imperium-leaning set o cults in shrines (to which the name Shinto has been mistakenly attached). Some connection between
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Miwa and Kyushu appears in Nihon Shoki and in Fudoki, where it is said that Okinaga arashihime invoked the kami o Miwa beore engaging in her conquest o the Korean Peninsula, but the origins and purport o this connection are extremely difficult to assess.68 It is indeed true that many connections between Yamato and Kyushu were essential to the ormation o the Usa Hachiman cult in the eighth century, but they seem to have involved Buddhism and politics, and not the Miwa cult—which, in any case, may simply have been jostling or prominence at the time imperial records were compiled. Fujiwara no Hirotsugu (?–740) is a case in point. A smallpox epidemic had killed Fujiwara no Fuhito’s our sons in 737, but spared his daughter (Kōmyō, 701–60, who had become Emperor Shōmu’s consort in 731) as well as Hirotsugu (the son o Fujiwara no Umakai (694–737), who had been appointed vice-governor o Dazaiu in Kyushu. Te political vacuum lef by the sudden and unexpected death o these members o the fledgling Fujiwara house was immediately filled by the courtiers achibana no Moroe (684–737) and Kibi no Makibi (693–775), who were assisted by the powerul Hossō monk Genbō in their efforts to remove the Fujiwara house rom power. From his quasiexile position in Dazaiu, Hirotsugu requested that Kibi no Makibi and Genbō be removed rom their position, or he was araid (with good reason, it seems) that his amily’s uture was threatened. Receiving no satisaction to his request, Hirotsugu rebelled against the court and managed to raise an army said to have numbered 10,000 soldiers (a number that included about 5,000 Hayato), which he conscripted in the Kyushu provinces o Chikuzen and Bungo. At this point the Yamato government sent an even larger army under the direction o the amed commander Ōno no Azumando, and ordered the commander to dedicate a “supplication” (inori) to the “Yahata kami.” On enpyō 12 (740), tenth month, ninth day, Azumando submitted to court a detailed report o his battles with Hirotsugu, who, afer attempting to flee by boat to the kingdom o Silla in the Korean Peninsula, was orced by fierce winds to return to Kyushu, where he was captured and put to death. 69 Te ollowing year (enpyō thirteenth, first month, sixteenth day), the court condemned to death and executed twenty-six supporters o Hirotsugu’s rebellion, stripped five officials o their ranks and possessions, abolished their amilies, exiled another thirty- two people, and submitted 170 people to physical punishment.70 wo months later, on the intercalary third month, twenty-ourth day, the court granted “Yahata jingū” the ollowing gifs: one crown o gilded brocade, gold- painted versions o the Konkōmyō Saishōōgyō71 and o the Lotus Sutra, ten government-ordained monks, various subsidies, five horses, and unds or the construction o a three-
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storied pagoda, all as tokens o its “gratitude or the ulfillment o the [court’s] earnest wish.” It is clear that the court had the Mirokuji emple in mind as recipient o these gifs, but Shoku Nihongi reers to the site o cult by the term jingū, which was restricted to the Ise Shrine at the time .72 At about the same time, the court decreed the establishment o a countrywide network o provincial monasteries and nunneries (the kokubunji and kokubunniji), and a ew months later it announced the construction o the ōdaiji emple, which was supposed to head the network. Emperor Shōmu’s consort Kōmyō was instrumental in this respect, or she returned the private lands o her ather (Fujiwara no Fuhito) to the government and pledged them toward the construction o the network o provincial temples. She was also concerned with the survival o her own amily however, and she managed to have Fujiwara no Nakamaro (706–64) appointed Counselor in 743; the achibana house thus ound itsel suddenly deprived o its power, as a result o which the Hossō prelate Genbō lost his political backing. Genbō was then accused o having behaved in a manner that did not befit his ecclesiastical position, and he was exiled to Kyushu, where he became the abbot o the Kanzeonji emple in Dazaiu and died the ollowing year. In 747 Emperor Shōmu ell ill; in the hope that the ollowing measures would placate the source o his illness, the court promoted Yahata to the third rank, and granted the emerging Usa Shrine-temple complex the revenues generated by taxes imposed on our hundred households, as well as fifeen ordained monks and twenty chō o wet rice fields.73 wo years later, an oracle revealed Yahata’s wish to be enshrined in Heijōkyō (Nara) on the grounds o the ōdaiji, the imposing Buddhist temple which Emperor Shōmu and his consort Kōmyō were erecting in Heijōkyō and viewed as their ultimate political and cultural accomplishment. Te eighth-century installation o Yahata onto the stage o the most impressive imperial and Buddhist establishments o the Chinese- style capital o Heijōkyō has long puzzled scholars o early Japanese history, and it is best to address it through a discussion o some o the actors that led to the treatment o kami as Buddhist deities during the eighth and ninth centuries. As I have suggested elsewhere, Hossō monks were instrumental in this respect, but it is worth stressing the issue urther: the term “Hossō monks” reers here to some monks who were related in one way or another to the Kōukuji, the Fujiwara house’s Buddhist temple in Heijōkyō.74 Tese monks, many o whom had visited China or extended periods o time during the eighth century, erected jingūji, that is, Buddhist temples on or near the grounds o shrines dedicated to local and native kami; several o these monks were also extremely active in
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political affairs in the capital and in Kyushu. Gyōki, the monk most-ofen reerred to in records o the time, was involved in cults conducted in ront o kami, as is clear in Nihon Ryōiki, but it is best to stay away rom the image o him that was constructed afer his death, although his belated and rather political participation in the construction o the ōdaiji is important to keep in mind.75 Genbō (?–746), who has already been mentioned, spent sixteen years in China and was exiled to Kyushu afer the Fujiwara-dominated court became wary o his political intrigues. Mangan (n.d.) was a Hossō monk who established temples on the grounds o shrines in the eastern parts o Japan; there were others, like Kenkei (705–93) and okuitsu (n.d.), and probably several more about whom there is little or no inormation. It is not known whether Hōren had any contacts with Hossō monks, but it would not be ar-etched to imagine that he might have met them when they passed by Usa on their way to China. Shozan Engi, a document o the early medieval period, says that a Hossō monk o the Kōukuji, Jugen, was a customary resident o Mount Hiko in Emperor Shōmu’s time, and it is not impossible to conjecture that he and Hōren may have met. 76 In any case, these Hossō monks were instrumental in handling the first contacts between various local shrines and Buddhism, and the overall repercussions o their creation o jingūji (shrine-temples) have not been sufficiently highlighted in the past. It is necessary to bear in mind that the Fujiwara house, which had strong political aspirations since its creation in the late seventh century, had built the Kōukuji as its own private temple in the Outer Capital ( gekyō) situated to the east o Heijōkyō. Tis temple housed the Hossō school o Buddhism and was closely associated with—i not responsible or—the Fujiwara ancestral and tutelary shrine located on the temple’s eastern flank, the Kasuga Shrine. Furthermore, some Kōukuji monks later became active in Shugendō.77 In other words, Hossō monks were related to the Fujiwara house by design or context, and they cannot be discussed separately rom a dominant policy on the part o the Fujiwara house, which was to spread Buddhism around the country in order to consolidate its own political and cultural power. As one may surmise, the Fujiwara house was extremely keen on Kyushu; it managed to have one o its members (Muchimaro, whose biography was authored by the Hossō monk Kenkei mentioned above) nominated to the governorship o Kyushu at Dazaiu in 732; members o the Fujiwara house indubitably learned o the Usa region through such channels o inormation. Finally, it is necessary again to take into consideration the geography o the region and emphasize its maritime dimensions: the Inland Sea was the main route between Yamato and Kyushu, and thereore between the Kinai area and the continent; it was plied by
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ships transporting merchants and goods, monks, and government officials, and it is thought that in earlier times it had been controlled by sea people (Azumi, Kaiu) who allied themselves with the Yamato rulers and ormed part o their naval orces in pre-Nara times. Many o these sea people were rom the northern shores o Kyushu, which abound with their shrines, their legends, and their rites.78 Te main harbor on the Yamato side o the Inland Sea was Naniwa, while Usa (west o the Kunisaki Peninsula) and aketazu (on the northern shore o Kunisaki) were the main harbors on the Suō Bay; this enables us to understand why the Usa Hachiman cult is replete with traces o maritime culture, and why some monks visited Dazaiu, Mount Hōman, Mount Kawara, and Usa on their way to or back rom China. Te cultic sites o the Usa region thus achieved notoriety at court during the eighth century, first at the time o the “Hayato uprisings” during the years 708–20, second at the time o “diplomatic problems” with Silla in 737, and third, at the time o Fujiwara no Hirotsugu’s “rebellion” o 740. In all cases, Buddhism was involved. Te authors o Shoku Nihongi record these events, though they do not reer to Usa by name beore the imperial offerings that were made in 737. Te decisive actor in the rise to prominence o the Usa cult in Yamato, however, occurred in 749, when the two kami o the Usa shrines were invoked to become the tutelary kami o the ōdaiji emple, which was nearing completion. 79 Te circumstances surrounding this event are not quite clear, but it appears that the Usa region might have contributed unds or the construction o the statue o the Great Buddha at the ōdaiji emple. Indeed, an Usa tradition claims that when Emperor Shōmu learned that there was not enough gold available or melting the bronze statue o the great Buddha Roshana which was to be dedicated in that temple’s main hall, he sent an imperial envoy to China on a mission to acquire the precious metal. On his way to China on enpyō 21 (749) this envoy stopped by Usa, where he allegedly was apprised o the ollowing oracle: “Te gold you look or shall come orth rom this land. Do not send the envoy to China.”80 Although the incident mentioned above is not reported in it, Shoku Nihongi mentions that the governor o Mutsu Province at the time, Kudara-Ō Yoshitomi (o Korean ancestry), offered 900 ryō-worth o gold to the emperor. Tere is a possibility that Usa provided some financial assistance (or some metal) as well; in any case, the court granted Usa 120 ryō o that gold.81 On the nineteenth day o the eleventh month o 749 another oracle, this time stipulating the wish o the two entities enshrined in Usa (Yahata and Himegami) to proceed to the capital, was pronounced. Empress Kōken (718–70, a daughter o Emperor Shōmu and Kōmyō) ascended the throne the same year, just in time or the inauguration
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o the ōdaiji temple. Afer a remarkable display o pageantry, ritual purity precautions, and taboos against the taking o lie all along the route between Usa and Heijōkyō, the kami o Usa were installed in the newly-erected amukeyama Shrine on the grounds o the ōdaiji, on the eighteenth day o the twelfh month. Empress Kōken decreed at that time that the Ōmiwa sacerdotal offi ciants serving at that shrine be granted a title (they rose to the rank o ason, the second highest) and, Nakano says, should change the pronunciation o their name to Ōga. 82 Ōga Morime, who is identified in Shoku Nihongi as negini, that is, a emale medium dressed as a Buddhist nun, and Ōga amaro were thus put in charge o the cult; they visited the ōdaiji nine days thereafer, and participated later, in 752, in the grand ceremonies o the dedication o the ōdaiji.83 In 750 the court granted Usa the revenues o 1,400 households—more than the Ise Shrine itsel had ever received at once—and the Ōga shrine officiants were given ranks that surpassed those o the Ōnakatomi sacerdotal officiants o Ise (this title also means they received the revenue rom lands automatically granted with this rank and called iden, rank-fields).84 “Yahata” began to generate oracles, and these were used mostly or political purposes and to call or promotion to higher offices, notably on the part o members o the Fujiwara house. Tere is thus little doubt that these two “kami” o Usa were conceived o as protecting the court and the ōdaiji, and that more and more people tended to conceive o their character along Buddhist doctrinal lines. At the same time, the Ōga ritualists gained dominance over the Usa and Karashima houses, which led to troublesome competitions or social power and sacerdotal status between all concerned. Te Usa Shrines were the only cultic institution o the time governed by three different sacerdotal houses, and this act, coupled with the shrines’ early association with the temples and with an imperial court that was located hundreds o miles away, makes Usa an altogether intriguing eature o Japan’s early imperial cultic system. Emperor Shōmu died in 756 and his successor Empress Kōken abdicated in 758 in avor o Emperor Junnin (733–65), who lef Kōken a large amount o power which she increasingly shared with her personal counselor, the Hossō monk Dōkyō (?–772). Dōkyō was born in a sub-branch o the Yuge house in Kawachi Province, and it is said that the amed Hossō monk Gien trained him. Like many monks at the time, Dōkyō would have been deeply interested in esoteric practices, and he spent several years perorming austerities on the Katsuragi mountain range, perhaps one o the earliest seats o Shugendō. In 761 the retired empress ell ill, and Dōkyō was called on to perorm rites or her recovery. He would have engaged in “secret rites [dedicated to] heavenly constellations” (sukuyō hihō), about which there are no details, although they
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most probably were used in healing contexts. His ministrations were deemed successul and the retired empress soon came to regard Dōkyō as her personal healer (zenji; although this term may mean “master o meditation,” it was a title granted by the court to respected monks) as well as her spiritual advisor—and she increasingly relied on him or political direction. Rumors began to spread, however, that her relationship with Dōkyō was inappropriate. When during the ollowing month Emperor Junnin remonstrated her, it is said, the retired empress took umbrage and, even though she had backed Junnin over the years, her rapport with him deteriorated and she seems to have granted ever more support to Dōkyō at the same time as she began to plot to remove Junnin rom the throne. During the seventh month o 763 she appointed Dōkyō to the position o monacal vice-rector (shōsōzu), a decision that caused deep resentment on the part o the Chancelor at the time, Fujiwara no Nakamaro. He then attempted to place a personal avorite as the next in line to the throne but was thwarted by Dōkyō, who had him exiled, and he was assassinated in the ninth month o 764. Retired Empress Kōken immediately appointed Dōkyō to the new position o “Buddhist minister o state” ( daijin zenji), and managed to depose Junnin, who was exiled to Awaji Island and was assassinated the ollowing year as he attempted to flee. Some time during the tenth month o 763 the retired empress re-ascended the throne, this time under the name Shōtoku, and gave Dōkyō ever more power. During the intercalary tenth month o 765, or example, she appointed him to the highest office, named him “Buddhist Chancelor o State” (dajōdaijin zenji), and at some time in the tenth month o 766 she appointed him to a new position that must have ruffl ed many a eather: “Buddhist hegemon” (or “dharma king,” hōō). Te ollowing year, offices or this new position were created, and Dōkyō was granted military powers. In 768 he had several o his amily members promoted to high ranks in the aristocracy, and in the ollowing year court members were required to pay respects to him on the first day o the year, when—or the first time in history—the government perormed Buddhist rites o penance within the compounds o the imperial palace. During the ninth month o the same year, however, it was revealed that Yahata would have uttered an oracle in Usa, saying that Dōkyō should be the next emperor. Te relations between the court and Buddhism on the one hand and, on the other hand, between the Fujiwara house and the members o the Hossō Buddhist branch it promoted, were reaching a critical level. Indeed, shocked by this claim, courtiers sent to Usa one o their trusted members, Wake no Kiyomaro (733–99), with the mission to confirm the authenticity o the oracle, but Kiyomaro received there an oracle to the effect that Dōkyō was an impostor:
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Dōkyō was subsequently exiled to a distant site in the opposite direction o Kyushu, and he died there three years later, while Empress Shōtoku died in 770. Tis event—i it ever happened as reported—marks the rise o the entities enshrined in Usa to an even higher level in the emerging imperial cultic system, or the simple reason that the latter oracle legitimated imperial political power while denying Hossō monks the possibility o orming a Buddhist theocracy. Conversely, the oracle may have marked a low point, or the equally simple reason that some courtiers or competing sacerdotal officiants may have suggested that the Ōga sacerdotal officiants raudulently claimed to have received oracles o potent political consequences—a matter examined below.
Oracular pronouncements as divine directives Te oracular pronouncements attributed to the Usa entities played a pivotal role in the constitution o the relations between policy-making unctions and sacerdotal unctions in the early stages o the imperial cultic system; these relations were, is it necessary to say, o a competitive nature. Much is known about the policy-making unctions, institutions, and history o eighth-century Japan, but a lot less is known about sacerdotal unctions in general, and oracular activity in particular. Ross Bender wrote that “unortunately, nothing is known o the details o the Usa medium’s trances and pronouncements, whether, like the Pythia at Delphi, she chewed laurel leaves or prophesied while seated on a tripod. It is apparent, however, that the Kanzukasa (in this case Ōmiwa [ sic] amaro) served as an interpreter o the words o the medium (Ōmiwa [ sic] Morime) and hence had a great power over these pronouncements.”86 It is important to attempt to gain some insights into this problem, which will be presented below as a question involving space and time, and beginning with the status o women in shrines. Tere is little inormation on women o the eighth century, and even less on women o areas so distant as Kyushu. Te role o empresses in succession disputes as well as the presence o an empress on the throne at the time notwithstanding, the realm o politics was becoming a predominantly male social space. In the geographical regions that were being established as “peripheral” with regard to the Yamato political center, however, some political decisions appear to have been
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the result o oracular activity on the part o women, a eature ofen recorded in historical documents.87 Te Usa cult, particularly in the late eighth or early ninth century stages o its elaboration o Yahata as the deified orm o King Homuda, is a case in point in that a particular configuration o the cult came to include Yahata’s mother, identified as Okinaga arashihime in the Kojiki, Nihon Shoki, and Fudoki records in which she is described as a shaman-like figure who spoke the will o kami. It is clear enough that neither Kojiki nor Nihon Shoki present reliable inormation about the ourth century (when the events related to the Homuda cycle might have happened); to some extent, though, they should be trusted concerning the view o sacerdotal women held at the time o these documents’ conception, in 712 and 720 respectively. Even though only Nihon Shoki treats her as an empress, in both documents Okinaga arashihime is described as being seized in a trance and pronouncing an oracle; typically, oracles were interpreted by a male interpreting officiant (saniwa), and Kojiki inorms us that the (legendary) “minister” akeshiuchi no Sukune played this role.88 Nihon Shoki does not record the name o the interpreter, but tells us that upon Chūai’s death his consort “discharged in person that unction.”89 By the time these chronicles were compiled by the imperial court in Yamato, it seems that emale shrine officiant/nuns o Usa uttered pronouncements, and that once the Usa site o cult came to the attention o the court, these oracles were recorded and sent to the government in Heijōkyō. Tis implies that women were regarded as able transmitters o the will o divine entities, and that their messages were heard as directives concerning the uture and as constitutive elements o a political realm that was expressed and legitimated in semiotic terms. In other words, sacerdotal women who were engaging in oracular activities occupied a social space characterized by a position recognized by the court (they were granted court ranks and were promoted when their pronouncements pleased the court), but they were also associated with a specific temporal orientation, the uture. On the other hand, while male scribes and historians were predominantly engaged in the construction o the past as a narrative whose unction was to legitimate the present, the male interpreters o oracles were directly concerned with a near uture about which silences rom the realm o the “unseen” were intolerable. Tese silences were broken by pronouncements issued at the outcome o possession, through a specific relation between divine entities and women, and they help reveal the source o a linguistically structured imperium. Although there is a strong likelihood that “historical” narratives were geared toward ormulating a prescription or the uture in the sense that they were made to support the legitimacy claims o the Yamato court, the will o kami representing
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large local or regional constituencies was held in awe, and direct access to that will gave some women a modicum o control over events—at least over those events that were submitted to oracular judgment. Te arrival o Yahata in Heijōkyō, however, signified that these women’s oracular practice was to become supremely political: in 754, two years afer the completion o the ōdaiji, the Ōga mediums mentioned above, who had offi ciated at the time o the installation o the Usa entities in the amukeyama Shrine o the ōdaiji, together with the Hossō monk Gyōshin were accused o engaging in “sorcery,” as a consequence o which they were stripped o their names and court ranks, and were exiled. Te position o Shrine Managing Official ( kanzukasa) was then taken away rom the Ōga house and was granted to the Usa house, which, it will be recalled, had been (re-)constituted by imperial decree in 721. In 755 another oracle issued in Usa revealed that Yahata did not wish to keep the lands and households granted earlier, because “raudulent oracles have been made in my name.” With the exception o permanent shrine lands the sacerdotal officiants o Usa returned these lands to the court. Tis event marked the rise (some say, the return to power) o the Usa sacerdotal house in Kyushu, and the exacerbation o a long-standing competition between the Usa and Ōga sacerdotal houses. According to the ninth-century Hachimangū Jōwa Engi, Yahata communicated in 755 an oracle inorming o his “wish to be enshrined at Uwa Peak in Iyo Province and o [his] desire never to return to Usa, because a pollution has occurred.”90 A new sanctuary was then ordered; it was completed in 766 at Ōoyama under the direction o Usa no Ikemori. According to Nakano, the pollution in question was the act that Ōga no Morime and amaro had been accused o sorcery, as a result o which Morime was exiled to Hyūga Province (in southeast Kyushu), while amaro was exiled to anegashima, south o Kyushu. amaro was pardoned in 766, but he did not return to Usa at the time. In 767, a certain Nakatomi no Asomaro was appointed vice-governor o Buzen Province. It is this Nakatomi no Asomaro, who had abandoned his political position in Buzen and taken a position o sacerdotal authority at Dazaiu, who would have reported to the Yamato court the Usa oracle recommending that Dōkyō be the Buddhist king.91 According to Nakano, this means that Dōkyō knew o the historical and geographical relations between the Nakatomi and Usa houses in Kyushu, and used that knowledge in a skillul manner. Te 769 oracle recommending that Dōkyō become an emperor would thus have been the event that visited disaster upon the Ōga house and marked the victory o the Usa house. When Empress Shōtoku died in 770, Emperor Kōnin ascended the throne and, as was mentioned above, he orthwith exiled Dōkyō to Shimotsuke Province, and
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exiled Nakatomi no Asomaro to anegashima. He then recalled Wake no Kiyomaro rom exile and appointed him Protector ( kami) o Buzen Province. Te ollowing year, Wake no Kiyomaro petitioned the governor o Dazaiu to send three inspectors and three Urabe diviners to Usa, so that they may investigate several “raudulent oracles” said to have been made by sacerdotal officiants o Usa and to have resulted in deamation o the court and in troubles in the country .92 Kiyomaro subsequently produced a report in which he indicated that five cases o raudulent oracles were checked (through the use o plastromancy) by Urabe diviners; two o these oracles were deemed to be raudulent, and three, to have been true oracular pronouncements. Usa no Ikemori claimed that the raudulent oracles had been made by a Karashima emale medium named Katsuyosome, but the government disagreed with that claim. Usa no Ikemori and Ōga no Katsuyosome were then relieved o their position, and a certain Ōga no Okihime (then twelve years old) was appointed to the position o negi, while a certain Karashima atsumaro (then orty-our years old) was appointed to the sacerdotal position called hauri. In a stunning reversal, the government then appointed as head officiant o the Usa Sanctuary the disgraced Ōga no amaro, who was fifytwo at the time. Afer these events, but beore Wake no Kiyomaro eventually returned to Yamato, Yahata caused five oracles to be recorded, all o which were about Buddhism and relie rom governmental duties. Nakano remarks that the Fujiwara house was behind this gruesome imbroglio between the sacerdotal houses, and that it would have induced Nakatomi no Asomaro to record the “raudulent” oracles and thus put Dōkyō to the helm o the state—only to see the Usa house turn around and cause Dōkyō’s all at the same time it accused the Ōga house o wrongdoing. Had it been the case, though, wouldn’t one expect some member o the Fujiwara house to have come into some kind o trouble or under some manner o suspicion? Nothing in the extant records suggests the Fujiwara house’s culpability. In any case, it is remarkable that a subsequent oracle remonstrates the sacerdotal houses o Usa, saying, “Henceorth, do not jostle or pre-eminence.” Needless to say, there was a lot more jostling in the ollowing Heian period. Oracular activity on the part o sacerdotal women in Usa ceased in 872,93 a date by which the Mirokuji emple came to dominate all affairs o the Usa Shrine-temple complex, and Buddhist monks claimed to directly receive oracles. Women were thus almost entirely removed rom the oracular political stage, although some o them (particularly as mates o yamabushi) continued their practice on what has been called the “popular” level. Many young boys also served as oracles, and this was true o the Hachiman cult as well, be it in Usa or elsewhere. Tere is no question, then, that the Nara and Heian periods saw a competition
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between the Fujiwara house and Hossō monks, between some court members and Buddhism, between males and emales and their respective social spaces, and that this competition was set within the context o an opposition between central and peripheral spaces, and between contending, gender-based sources o silence and speech, o absence and presence. Te social space o policy- makers and that o sacerdotal specialists were carved out through intense competitions regarding the right to make authoritative pronouncements.
Te early Heian period: Iwashimizu Hachiman Heijōkyō was abandoned by the court fifeen years afer the Dōkyō incident and whatever remained o the imperial city came to be known as Nara. Te court’s edict ordering the removal o the capital to Nagaoka in 784 stipulated that Buddhist temples were not included in the move; it has been maintained, as a consequence, that the move o the capital was a deliberate attempt to put an end to the political machinations o Buddhist prelates (particularly, those o Hossō affiliation), but it would be erroneous to see this as the only reason: epidemics, the quality and quantity o water, and other reasons o an economic character must have been equally weighty. Te new site or the capital (Nagaoka) proved to be inadequate or a number o reasons, however, and the capital was moved again a ew miles north in 794 and was then named Heiankyō, today known as Kyoto. Tis hiatus o about ten years between the end o the Nara period and the beginning o the Heian period, together with the court’s new emphases on conquering the northern parts o the Japanese isles and on dealing directly with ang China, and together with the sel-imposed “exile” o Yahata to Iyo Province, may explain why nothing concerning the identity o Hachiman is contained in offi cial documents prior to 821. Heiankyō (Kyoto) was conceived on a much larger scale than its three Chinese-style predecessors (Fujiwarakyō, Heijōkyō, and Nagaokakyō), and was surrounded by already existing and rather important shrines such as Inari and Kamo, which belonged to various people who were living there when the capital was built, and who were also associated with Buddhism. As a consequence, the court was soon conronted with the necessity o ormulating new policies concerning Buddhist and “native” cults, a necessity it conronted in the ollowing manner. First, it sent to China some o Japan’s most respected or promising Buddhist monks and allowed them, upon their return to Japan, to establish new orms o Buddhism under the condition that they ully support the court. wo
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o these monks, Saichō and Kūkai, are said to have passed by Usa on their way to or rom China. Saichō (posth. Dengyō Daishi, 767–822) subsequently established the Enryakuji emple on Mount Hiei in the northeastern corner o Kyoto. Mount Hiei’s Buddhist temples were later associated with the Hie Shrines located at its eastern oot; this shrine-temple complex evolved into one o Japan’s most powerul politico-religious institutions, and had a great impact on Mount Hiko, Usa Hachiman, and the Kunisaki Peninsula: Hiko Shugendō was ormed under endai esoteric doctrinal influences, the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex eventually ell under endai authority, and the Kunisaki temples were under the umbrella o Mount Hiei, the center o endai, or much o their history. Kūkai (posth. Kōbō Daishi, 774–835) spent several years at the Kanzeonji emple o Dazaiu upon his return rom China and subsequently spent a ew more years in Kyoto at the Jingoji emple said to have been created by Wake no Kiyomaro— the same Kiyomaro who had gone to Usa in 769 to check the authenticity o the oracle Dōkyō claimed to have received.94 Kūkai created the Kongōbuji Monastery on Mount Kōya in the mountains o the Kii Peninsula, south o Kyoto and Nara, and subsequently established Shingon Esoteric Buddhism in the ōji (Kyōōgokokuji) emple located at the southern entrance to Kyoto. Te orms o Esoteric Buddhism Kūkai brought back rom China swifly became the dominant ritual and philosophical system o Japan and soon pervaded endai and most other orms o Buddhism. In their endai and Shingon ormulations, Esoteric Buddhisms were essential to the constitution o Shugendō and o all Buddhist systems o appropriation o local cults, which they thoroughly dominated through their interpretive schemata and ancillary institutional power. Tese combinations o esoteric and exoteric doctrines, practices, and institutions, together with Buddhist control over the main shrines o the time, went on to orm major political and economic power blocks Kuroda oshio reerred to as kenmitsu taisei, the “exoteric/esoteric regime.” Accordingly, the Hachiman cult came under the sway o this regime; indeed, the tutelary sanctuaries (chinju) o the Jingoji and ōdaiji emples were dedicated to Hachiman, while the Otokunidera o Nagaoka, a temple where Kūkai spent some time, became the site o an intriguing cult dedicated to a figure whose head is that o Hachiman, and whose body is that o Kūkai. Many Buddhist temples that were sponsored by the imperial system subsequently enshrined Hachiman as their tutelary entity, in an unequivocal expression o their support o the imperial policies concerning the political and economic role o Buddhist temples. A second policy on the part o the early Heian court consisted in uniying the codes o ritual perormance in shrines related to the history o the imperial line
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and its satellite houses. Promulgated in 869 and 871 under the name Jōgan Gishiki (Ritual Procedures o the Jōgan Era), these rules had a substantive effect that had been careully calculated. ogether with the Procedures o the Engi Era (Engi Shiki) promulgated in 967, they ensured the consolidation o the imperial cultic system mentioned earlier in this chapter, but they also represented an attempt to establish boundaries between Buddhist and non-Buddhist cults in the imperial house, an issue that is best discussed in relation to the creation o the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex. Shortly beore the Jōgan ritual procedures were promulgated the Usa Hachiman kami/Bodhisattva was enshrined in 859 in a new and sumptuous
Map 4 Iwashimizu complex location
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shrine-temple complex called Iwashimizu, on the basis o an oracle that was revealed, not to a emale officiant but to a Buddhist monk. Tis shrine-temple complex was established south o Kyoto on Mount Otoko, overlooking a narrow corridor that provided the only access rom Heiankyō to the Inland Sea.95 Four rivers conjoin at the oot o Mount Otoko to orm the Yodo River, which winds its way through the corridor and flows into the Inland Sea at Osaka: the Katsura River rom the northwest, the Kamo River rom the north, the Uji River rom the northeast, and the Kizu River rom the east. Mount Otoko was clearly a strategic location rom which all river and road traffic could be observed, and it is there that the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex was built or the avowed purpose o protecting the court. Te person responsible or this development was Gyōgyō, a Shingon monk o the Daianji emple in Nara, who had studied in China and had invoked Yahata as the protector ( chinju) o his temple in 807, probably because he had spent a summer retreat ( ango) in Usa on his way to or rom China and had asked or the deity’s protection during his travels. Gyōgyō, however, enjoyed a close relationship with the grand minister Fujiwara no Yoshiusa (804–72). Yoshiusa’s dominance over the political institutions o his time marks the rise o the Northern Branch o the Fujiwara house to unmitigated political power during the early Heian period, a power which it gathered through a series o coups d’état known as hen and o which the first, called in historical records Jōwa no hen, occurred in 842. Until that time, it is ofen held, uture emperors had been chosen rom within the imperial lineage itsel by members o that lineage. It was soon understood, however, that a uture emperor had ew chances o reaching the throne alive unless he was backed by powerul courtiers, and the various coups that occurred between 842 (Jōwa) and 969 (Anna) established a rule according to which, in effect, an emperor-to-be would be selected exclusively among imperial princes who were born o a union between an emperor and a woman born in the Five Branches o the Fujiwara house, rom which regents were chosen. Tese coups corresponded to the rule o Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu, Yoshiusa, and Mototsune, to the creation o the office o “house chiefain” ( uji no kami) o the Fujiwara house and to the creation o the regency ( sekkan), which the Fujiwara house went on to dominate. In the 842 case ( Jōwa no hen), Yoshiusa arranged, afer Emperor Saga’s death and in agreement with the imperial consort achibana no Kachiko (786–850), to alsely accuse the heir apparent o treason, had him removed, and demoted his supporters, then put in his place his own grandson, who ascended the throne in 850 as Emperor Montoku. Montoku, however, died in 858, at which point the
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question o succession arose again. Yoshiusa then arranged or his nine- year-old grandson, Imperial Prince Korehito, to become heir apparent, but three other princes representing the interests o competing actions were in contention or the position. At that point Yoshiusa sent the monk Gyōgyō to Usa in order to request Yahata (Hachiman)’s support or his candidate. However, even beore Gyōgyō had time to leave the capital or Usa, Korehito ascended the throne on the seventh day o the eleventh month, 858, under the name Mizunoo (changed shortly thereafer to Seiwa), and Yoshiusa was thus empowered to rule in the name o the inant emperor. Wake no Hironori, a descendant o Kiyomaro’s, was sent to Usa on the third month o 859 to announce Korehito’s accession to the throne. Te enthronement o Korehito was a turning point in the history o nonBuddhist and Buddhist cults; many shrines related to the court were elevated in rank at the time, while the Fujiwara house erected on Kagura Hill in Kyoto a duplication o its Kasuga Shrine (the Yoshida Shrine). Te year 859 thus marks the beginning o the direct control by the Fujiwara house over sites o cult, and heralds that house’s ofen orgotten but undamental involvement in cultic matters. It is more than probable, hence, that the site o Mount Otoko was chosen by Gyōgyō in consultation with Fujiwara no Yoshiusa to underscore the legitimacy o Yoshiusa’s grandson’s enthronement and to provide Kyoto with ritual and military protection rom the south, and it may be worth opening a brie parenthesis at this juncture to elucidate the meaning o the term “ritual protection.” Te imperial lineage and the leading aristocratic houses o the time dedicated offerings and rites concurrently to Buddhist deities and to kami enshrined in specific sites, on occasions related either to personal events (such as rites o passage, promotion, disease, and death), or to conditions which were thought to affect the court at large (such as intrigues, rebellions, wars, droughts, epidemics, comets, fires, and the like). Both endai and Shingon branches o Esoteric Buddhism became the vehicles o choice or the perormance o rites held to be effective against all these threatening situations, and during the Heian period their thaumaturgists were on constant call in and out o the imperial palace. Tese thaumaturgists provided protection through the invocation o mystical entities believed to hold sway over the agents o the crises that beell an individual or the court, and they perormed a variety o rituals through which they reached mystic identification with, and control over, the entities in question. Te majority o these rituals tended to be perormed with the help o spatially arranged diagrams called mandalas, which were either drawn, inscribed with potent ormulas, or established in ritual enclosures with a number o ritual
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implements. Tese practices indicate that the human body was conceived o as a space needing protection, and that the territory claimed by the court was conceived o as having a spatial extension protected by the Buddhist entities represented in mandalas, and by the kami residing in the shrines to which the court made supplications. By the middle o the Heian period, many o the thaumaturgists offi ciating at court and in the private homes o courtiers were yamabushi who were believed to have gained supernatural powers in the course o their ascetic practices in mountainous areas. Sites such as the capital came to be regarded as symbolic realms guarded at various points and rom various directions by the shrines and temples that ormed together what Kuroda oshio called the exoteric/esoteric regime. Tis is what is meant by “ritual protection” and we can now return to the circumstances that surrounded the creation o the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex. Even though Yoshiusa’s grandson had been enthroned without problem, which might lead to the assumption that Gyōgyō did not need to leave on his original mission, the monk was ordered to depart or Usa on the fifh day o the third month o Jōgan 1 (859) to oversee the copying o Buddhist scriptures that Yoshiusa himsel had dedicated. Once in Usa, however, Gyōgyō received an oracle on the fifeenth day o the seventh month, in which Hachiman declared, “I wish that another site or this sanctuary be placed closer to the capital, so that I may better provide the court with my protection.”96 Tis revelation was a ormidable break with tradition in that, as we have seen, the oracles uttered by Hachiman had until then been received by women o the Ōga or Karashima sacerdotal lineages, and were interpreted by males belonging either to the Ōga or Usa sacerdotal lineages. Tis was apparently the first, but not the last time, that a Buddhist monk was directly granted a revelation rom Hachiman, and this event seems to indicate that the relatively strong position o women in oracular shrines related to the court was about to disappear, and that Buddhist monks were consolidating their superiority over a great many shrine officiants. Tese monks behaved as the authoritative revealers o an otherworldly presence, and saw that presence as the source o a speech powerul enough that it could structure sociopolitical reality—or at least their conception and representation o it. Gyōgyō immediately returned to Kyoto and spent some time secluded in the detached imperial residence o Yamazaki, across rom Mount Otoko on the west bank o the Yodo River. Tere he received another oracle, intimating that replicas o the “three shrines” o Usa, dedicated to Yahata (Hachiman), Hime-ō-kami (Himegami), and Okinaga arashihime (Jingū Kōgō), must be erected on Mount
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Otoko. He then spent three days and nights in seclusion on Mount Otoko, and reported the events to the court, which straightway ordered that work on the new sanctuary begin without delay. Te material icons symbolizing the divine entities were enshrined on Mount Otoko on the nineteenth day o the ninth month, 860.97 Te ollowing year, Gyōgyō was again sent to Usa to perorm devotions and ceremonially chant the Wisdom Sutra and other scriptures. In 861 the head sacerdotal officiant o Usa, Ōga no anakamaro, was promoted to the fifh rank, while the new shrine-temple complex o Iwashimizu was granted fifeen monks ordained under government authority. Gyōgyō then built a sutra repository at Iwashimizu and put one o his disciples at the head o the sutra- copying effort. Emperor Seiwa, then eleven years old, requested that rain-making rituals be perormed at Iwashimizu, and the first hōjō-e ritual o atonement was perormed in 863. Tere is little doubt that Yoshiusa was behind the entire episode, which had taken only our years to come to ruition. While it may appear that the entities enshrined at Iwashimizu were kami, since three shrines were built, it is essential to underscore the act that Hachiman was regarded at the time as a Bodhisattva, that is, as a Buddhist deity. Te oldest reerence to the subject is the aorementioned official decree ( kanpu) dated 821, which appointed members o the Ōga and Usa houses as head-officiants o the cult dedicated in Usa to the “Great Bodhisattva Hachiman” (Hachiman daibosatsu). In that decree it is recorded that Hachiman received the title/name (songō) “Gokoku Reigen Iriki Jinzū Daibosatsu” in 781, but that an oracle dated 783 would have expressed Hachiman’s wish to change this name to “Gokoku Reigen Iriki Jinzū Daijizaiō-bosatsu.” Tis title/name begs or some explanation. Te term gokoku means, literally, “ritual protection o the court.” Te term reigen reers to the “supernatural evidence” maniested by Hachiman’s providence in the orm o oracular pronouncements, but also made maniest in the course o history through the success o rituals drawn rom Esoteric Buddhism. Te term iriki means “awe-inspiring power” and reers to the effi cacy o these rituals. Te term jinzū was apparently borrowed by Esoteric Buddhism rom Daoism, in which context it reerred to powers sustaining the course o the natural world, and, subsequently, to such powers as may be gained through austerities by practitioners o Esoteric Buddhism. Te term daijizaiō means literally “king o great reedom,” but it is a veiled or oblique reerence to the Indian notion o “universal monarch” (daijizaiten, Skt., cakravartin) appropriated by Buddhism.98 Finally, the term daibosatsu means “Great Bodhisattva.” Hachiman’s new Bodhisattva name, then, expressed the divine entity’s status and unctions in the
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imperial cultic system, and Hachiman came to be represented in statues and paintings known in art history as sōgyō Hachiman, that is, Hachiman in its monk orm.99 Te Jōgan ritual codes were compiled and promulgated during the reign o the inant emperor under Yoshiusa’s rule, and indicate that the Fujiwara opted to play a defining role in regulating the imperial cultic system. Although only parts o the Jōgan Procedures are extant today, they reveal a undamental policy according to which all rites perormed in shrines related to the court would be unified in terms o offerings and ritual procedure, and according to which the originally private character o these shrines would be mitigated so that the cults carried out therein be replaced with an official, court-oriented cult. In other words, private houses were still allowed to dedicate rites to their ancestral and tutelary kami in those shrines, but they now were to do so in the name o the emperor. Furthermore, the Jōgan Procedures stipulated that rites dedicated to various kami by the emperor as part o his official sacerdotal unctions be perormed prior to and separately rom Buddhist rites, and that monks and nuns would not be allowed to participate or be present at such times anymore, especially on the occasion o the enthronement ceremonies (a stipulation which suggests that they had been present in the past). Tis “distancing” rom Buddhism, as it has been called by one Japanese scholar, should not be over-interpreted.100 It represented a rationalization o “official” rites perormed by the emperor and various sacerdotal lineages working within the imperial palace, and it was related to the emerging contention, on the part o some shrine ritualists, that imperial legitimacy should preerentially be grounded in cults dedicated to kami. Tis policy did symbolize an effort on the part o those sacerdotal officiants to exclude Buddhism rom imperial rites, but it did not succeed, because the emperor and the majority o aristocratic houses supported Buddhism on offi cial as well as personal levels. Moreover, the Fujiwara house began to appoint some o its ordained members to the hereditary abbacy o Buddhist temples controlling the shrines that came to be sponsored by the court in the earlier parts o the Heian period, and other houses ollowed suit in a development that had several major consequences. First, hereditary abbacy (monzeki) empowered aristocratic houses to control the ever-growing, tax-ree estates commended on various occasions by the court to their temples and shrines. Second, hereditary abbacy led to a thorough association o these shrines and temples, resulting in the ormation o shrinetemple complexes whose abbots controlled the administrative and ritual affairs o the sacerdotal houses responsible or the shrines. Such was the undamental
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reason or the production o various doctrines o association, whose object was to rationalize the situation by viewing the kami o the shrines as local maniestations o the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that were worshipped in the adjacent temples.101 Tird, this hereditary abbacy was responsible or the consolidation o a ormal understanding o the relations that were to obtain between these sites o cult and the court; this understanding was called ōbōbuppō, “imperial rule [depends on] Buddhist rule,” but it should be clear that the term “Buddhist rule” in act reerred to shrine-temple complexes that were governed by Buddhist prelates who worshipped the kami enshrined therein (since they were members o the houses that managed the shrines). 102 In other words, the shrine-temple institutions sponsored by the court were associated on ritual, administrative, economic, and ideological levels, and were ofen controlled by ordained members o the leading aristocratic houses and o the imperial lineage itsel. Te Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex was one such institution; headed by ordained members o the Ki house, which claimed to be descended rom akeshiuchi no Sukune (Okinaga arashihime’s interpreter o oracles), and in which Gyōgyō was born, it was transormed into a major court-related site o cult. Te government later requested that the Iwashimizu complex control the affairs o the Mirokuji, the Buddhist temple erected on the grounds o Kyushu Island’s Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex. Tese various developments make the intention o Fujiwara no Yoshiusa’s policies appear with crisp clarity: it was to put some leading shrine-temple complexes under an imperial court controlled by the Fujiwara house, and to bring the periphery under control o the center. Put another way, the object o these policies was to create a center that would be as political as it was ceremonial, a notion as well as a practice that were reinorced by the promulgation o the Procedures o the Engi Era ( Engi Shiki) in 967.103 Te institutional characteristics outlined above explain in part why Hachiman received the title o Bodhisattva, but they also indicate the limitations o the meaning o the term at the time. Indeed, ninety years earlier, this supposedly aboriginal entity had played a crucial role in removing the Buddhist monk Dōkyō rom the classical organon (i.e., the principle o imperial organization as a mirror image o the organization o the kami in the mythology) and had, consequently, destroyed any possibility or a Buddhist theocracy to be ormed in Japan. What did entitle Hachiman, then, to be called a Bodhisattva? Possible answers to this question are related to the ormulation o complex arrangements between imperial power and those Buddhist institutions that were attempting to assume control over “native” sites o cult. In these arrangements, imperial power was problematic
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because its legitimacy depended on mythological narratives directly related to originally non-Buddhist sites, but its maintenance and much o its social expression and representation came to depend on esoteric rituals perormed in Buddhist temples. Tis problematization o imperial relations with Buddhist and nonBuddhist sites o cult had suraced in 769 at the time o the Dōkyō incident; it became the ocus o the court’s attention at the beginning o the ninth century and it was “solved” by the compilation o the Jōgan Codes less than one century later, and by the Engi Procedures another century thereafer. Te term “solved” is in quotation marks because, while these procedures succeeded in giving precedence to cults dedicated by emperors to local kami over cults given to Buddhist deities, and while they succeeded in uniying ritual and protocol in shrines, they did not succeed in controlling or abetting the growing cultural, economic, and institutional power o Buddhist temples, either on the level o the state or on that o private houses, and obviously not in the case o Usa Hachiman, the Great Bodhisattva. In other words, the “exoteric/esoteric regime” was marred with structural inconsistencies rom its inception on. In concluding this necessarily sketchy discussion o the early Usa, amukeyama, and Iwashimizu cults dedicated to Yahata/Hachiman, a number o hypotheses concerning the character and unction o the Hachiman cult in the eighth and early ninth centuries can be proposed. Te events that connected Usa with Nara and Kyoto encompassed several territorial processes. First, the identification o Yahata with King Homuda (“Emperor” Ōjin) enabled a distant local shrine to claim direct imperial recognition, while it enabled the court to control a Kyushu cult and to embody its myths in actual institutions located in what it viewed as the periphery. Tis in turn brought Usa not only prestige, but economic power over adjacent territorial groups as well, in the orm o imperially denominated estates. Second, the erection o an imperially sponsored Buddhist temple (the Mirokuji) on the grounds o the Usa Shrines, and its subsequent subordination to the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex o Kyoto can be seen as indicating that Buddhist temples were taking control o local or “native” cults in the name o the court, and that the court was attempting to control these “Buddhist” cults. Hachiman came to be regarded not only as the conormation o an imperial spirit protecting the imperial lineage, but also as a Bodhisattva , and was given a cult accordingly, the first o the kind in Japanese history. Tird, these changes involved a competition between the Usa Shrine’s sacerdotal houses (Karashima, Usa, and Ōga), and they also entailed a struggle over the authority and the right to speak in the name o a Bodhisattva (and
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later, o a Buddha), which women shrine officiants gradually lost to male Buddhist prelates. Tese changes also suggest the origins, and one non-negligible dimension, o the agonistic rapports between sacerdotal houses and Buddhist prelates that were mentioned at the beginning o this chapter. And ourth, these changes point to the definition o Hachiman as one o the supernatural protectors o a territory under imperial hegemony, and as a puriying agent o the bloodrelated pollutions garnered in the course o territorial violence. Hachiman was believed to protect the court not only rom Korean invasions, but also rom pirates and any other external or internal threats, and to take responsibility or the violence which accompanied this protection—and was seen as a threat to the ritual purity o the imperial person. Tis last characteristic is illustrated in the ollowing oracle dated 769, though it is, evidently, spurious. With my right arm, I shall paciy the Great ang [China] and the Land o Silla [Korea]. With my lef arm, I shall protect the imperial lineage and the court (. . .) Looking at you [Wake no Kiyomaro] I know extreme sorrow. In order to align mysel with the imperial way I must cause many lives to be lost. As a consequence I am in much more pain and distress than you might be. Day afer day, tears o blood stream down my chest, how distressul! 104
Tere is little doubt that considerations such as those expressed in this oracle undergirded the atonement rituals or which the Hachiman cult became amous.
Te Kunisaki Peninsula and links to Usa Te Kunisaki Peninsula emerged rom the Inland Sea when volcanoes erupted during the early Pleistocene period about 600,000 years ago and caused its almost perectly circular shape to rise above sea level; urther volcanic activity occurred about 250,000 years ago and caused domes to appear, subsequent to which powerul orces o erosion caused deep valleys to radiate like the spokes o a wheel rom the peninsula’s twin summits, which now reach a mere 721m. Due to its marginal location and mountainous character the Kunisaki Peninsula was ignored by the network o roads established in Kyushu by the court in the late seventhth and eighth centuries, giving the impression that it was isolated, i not desolate. It had been inhabited or a long time, however, no doubt due to the act that its rugged coastline provided good harbors and fishing grounds, while its orest-covered slopes were home to wild boar, deer, monkeys, many species o birds, and quite a ew varieties o wild flowers. Residential sites dating back to
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the Jōmon and Yayoi periods have been ound along its rivers and coasts, and several groups o uneral tumuli are witnesses to the act that the peninsula’s valleys were under control o local notables in the fifh century. Kojiki reports that the land o Kibi (in Harima Province, on the southern coast o Honshu bordering the Inland Sea) was pacified by “Emperor” Kōrei, and that his son Hikosashikata Wake, born o a union with Ō-Yamato-kuni Arehime, was the ancestor o the omi (local ruler) o Kunisaki in oyokuni (Buzen Province). 105 As a consequence o this statement some scholars have ocused their attention on the relations between the Kunisaki Peninsula and Kibi, which shortly thereafer became the site o a major oracular shrine, and they have proposed that these relations had to do with control over maritime traffic in the Inland Sea at the time o various skirmishes with the Korean Peninsula, and that the leaders o the land o Kibi ofen visited northern Kyushu and used Kunisaki’s aketazu harbor as their landing site.106 Furthermore, it is intriguing to note that akeshiuchi no Sukune, Okinaga arashihime’s legendary interpreter o oracles, was a son o the ollowing “emperor,” Kōgen, and was regarded as the ancestor o the Hata, Soga, and Ki houses. We have mentioned the importance o the Soga house at the time o the introduction o Buddhism, as well as the act that the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex was governed by ordained members o the Ki house, but it is well to emphasize that the Hata house developed both in northern Kyushu and in Yamashiro (the ancient name o the province where Kyoto is located), and that the Hata o Kyushu are said to have controlled the Karashima diviners or oracular specialists, who originally resided in the Kawara region but extended their influence to the Usa region where they eventually settled. Nihon Shoki presents a different version, stating that one o Kōrei’s sons, Hiko-i-saseri-hiko, was also known as Kibitsu Hiko, and that akeshiuchi no Sukune was not Kōgen’s son, but great-grandson.107 Furthermore, Nihon Shoki reports that a Korean envoy visited the Japanese isles at the time o “Emperor” Suinin (third generation afer Kōgen), and that he attempted to pass the Shimonoseki Strait but was prevented rom doing so by the ruler o Anato Province. He then sailed along the northern coast o Honshu to sunoga (i.e., suruga, the harbor mentioned earlier in connection to the Homuda cycle), whence he proceeded to Naniwa and Yamato Province. He subsequently returned to the Korean Peninsula by way o the Inland Sea, passing by Kunisaki and its northern island, Himeshima. Te Nihon Shoki narrative also says that he was granted a concubine, who mysteriously disappeared but became the kami enshrined at the Himekoso Shrine o Naniwa, as well as at the shrine bearing the same name on Himeshima Island.108 Kojiki reports a slightly different version o
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the story under the rule o King Homuda, 109 while ragments o the Fudoki o Settsu Province state that the kami enshrined on Himeshima Island is o Korean origins.110 In other words, Kunisaki and its northern island, Himeshima, were written about in relation to maritime traffic and the Korean Peninsula. Kuni no Miyatsuko Hongi, a document now regarded as a moderately reliable source or the sixth century, mentions the existence in Kunisaki o a local leader named Unade.111 Tere is a possibility that the leaders o Kunisaki o the time were buried in the tumuli ound in the northern and eastern parts o the peninsula: one o these tumuli, Onizuka koun, dates back to the late sixth or early seventh century. Tis well-preserved tumulus is set atop a hill on the northern side o the peninsula; looking north rom its location, one commands views o Himeshima Island and the Inland Sea, across which the island o Honshu is visible in sharp detail (not a single ship could have passed undetected in clear weather). urning around and looking south through the entrance o the tumulus, one can observe several valleys and ridges leading to the volcanic summits o the peninsula. Inside the tumulus are engravings o a boat and its navigator, as well as o courting birds, and archaeologists say that the Onizuka tumulus, one o eleven located on this promontory, certainly was the tomb o Kunisaki leaders. 112 Regarded or centuries as an enchanting region blessed with a moderate climate and with the ruit o the sea ( umi no sachi) and o the mountains ( yama no sachi), the Kunisaki Peninsula has been the site o remarkable cultic practices, some o which can still be seen today, but it has also been visited by wars and devastation in the course o its long and yet poorly known history. Separated and naturally protected rom the rest o Kyushu by the ahara horst, the peninsula is visible rom the clusters o the ourth-century uneral tumuli adjacent to the Usa Shrine, and its history has long been associated with that site o cult.113 Indeed, the valleys, villages, and mountains o Kunisaki were the location o some o the oldest estates o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, and it is with them that the discussion o the region will begin. Te System o Codes (ritsuryō seido) that was instituted in the seventh century provided theretoore unknown measures dealing with land possession, measurement, and taxation. Among these measures was the assignment o fields to court officials on the basis o their titles (imperial princes and holders o the first rank), or their ranks (fifh rank and above), with a clause stipulating that women were entitled to only two-thirds the amount granted men (80 chō or imperial princes, and 8 chō or holders o the fifh rank). More precisely, these fields were known as iden (rankfields) and were part o a sub-system called yusoden, that is, fields on which a certain amount o land tax was imposed and then distributed to these officials,
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Map 5 Te Kunisaki Peninsula
and o another system called uko, estates rom which the courtiers withdrew their pensions. Originally, these rank-fields were supposed to revert to the court upon the death o their beneficiaries, but this rule was ofen neglected. Several Japanese historians see in this circumstance the roots o the subsequent demise o a system o unair taxation that over- burdened the majority o people tilling the land, and they see in the tendency to privatize these pieces o lands the beginnings o what later came to be called estates (the shō and shōen).114 A second type o system was set up or the court and or shrines and temples; in this case, rice land tax ( so) was not orwarded to the court, but was to be used or the maintenance o buildings and or the economic support o ritual officiants. Tese fields were known as uyusoden, that is, fields on which land tax was not imposed; with time the rank-fields themselves came to be considered as uyusoden. Earlier on, shrines had also been the recipients o what is known as kanbe or jinko ( kami household (levies)): the shrine keepers were entitled to
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use not only the tax that normally would have been levied on these fields, but rom the eighth century on they were allowed to withhold a certain number o levies in produce and handicraf (chō, yō) and corvées (zōeki) normally imposed by the court on those people to whom fields were rented. In that case the emphasis o the procedure was on human labor rather than just on land and tax, and it is perhaps possible to locate here the origins o social groups known as jinin (“kami-men”), which became directly associated with the shrine-part o shrine-temple complexes during the Heian period. Although there are precious ew documents on the system as it was originally applied to shrines and later to temples, most scholars agree that these fields ormed the basis o the estate system (shōen), which appeared during the second part o the Heian period across the country and provided the economic power o courtiers, shrine-temple complexes, and warlords.115 Over the course o the eighth century the Usa sites o cult were granted both types o revenues, that is, the right to levy taxes that normally would have gone to the court, as well as the right to obtain urther taxes, produce, various products, and corvées, which were calculated on the basis o the number o households and their members in any given area. Such grants were made or the first time in 701, when the Buddhist monk Hōren was given 40 chō o untilled fields in Buzen Province, and subsequently in 740 (at the time o Fujiwara no Hirotsugu’s rebellion), 746, 750, 755, and 769.116 Tere may have been others that do not appear in the available documents, because sources on the topic or the beginning o the early Heian period are especially scant. However, we know that by the twelfh century the shrines and temples o Usa had garnered a vast amount o lands in Kyushu, and that these lands were divided into three large groups about which we possess some inormation. It is important to emphasize at this point that the shrines and temples originally did not own land (unless they had purchased it), but that the officiants o sites o cult had the right to manage it in the name o the grantors, and to levy a certain amount o its products, thus holding a unction known as “office” or “commission” (shiki).117 By the tenth century it became clear that the court had not gained ull control o the country, and a number o shrine- temple complexes began to posture as though they owned the land they managed. Te first step taken in that direction by the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex was to secure unyūken (“right o non-entry”), that is, to prevent the governor o a province rom entering estates managed by shrines and temples in the name o divinities, and to prevent court officials rom assessing the value o cultivated tracts and corresponding tax.
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A second step was to invoke on each parcel o land the entities o Usa and install them in a sub-shrine usually called “Hachiman Shrine o so-and-so estate.” Tis sub-shrine was then said to provide ritual protection o the fields and their workers, and was taken care o by a number o quasi-officiants (the jinin in charge o rites, secondary management o the land, the transportation o proceeds to the main shrines and temples o Usa, or the production o offerings in kind that were used by the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex at the time o its own, highly onerous rites). In the majority o cases Buddhist temples were built either near these sub-shrines or on their grounds, and they vied with the sub-shrines or control over the land and population. A third step involved using proceeds rom these estates to buy more pieces o land. And a ourth step entailed convincing local land-owners around Kyushu to place their lands in the keep o the shrinetemple complex in return or various guarantees o a spiritual and material nature. By systematically engaging in the our steps outlined above, the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex became the largest estate-manager in Kyushu Island by the twelfh century, by which time it owned or managed 235 estates o variable size (by comparison, the second largest owner, the Anrakuji Shrinetemple complex o Dazaiu, owned 168), and it developed a rather undefined bureaucracy to manage these lands. Te Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex also consolidated its sacerdotal houses, established a tribunal to settle claims—a tribunal in which Hachiman sometimes unctioned as oracular judge—and produced a large number o oral and written narratives in which what it viewed as the etiological actors that had led to the creation o shrines and temples and their wealth were presented as the result o Hachiman’s supernatural providence. 118 As Inoue Satoshi has shown, land administration in Kyushu evolved in three stages: first, between the 1040s and the 1120s, the accumulation o land estates. Second, rom the 1120s to 1156, the appearance o estates called tsunemimyō, passed down by the imperial house and the court and supposedly under control o Dazaiu—but the Usa Hachiman complex managed to skirt that control. Te third stage began in 1156, when under protection o the aira house the Usa complex was able to claim these estates as its property .119 By the year 1185, the court owned only about one third o the land in the Japanese isles; the remaining two thirds were domains o shrine-temple complexes and warlords. In Kyushu as well as in other parts o the country, regional would-be theocracies and their supporting apparatus seem to have been in the making but were challenged and partly destroyed by a rising class o warlords whose allegiance to the court or to the complexes was less than evident.
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Compiled at the beginning o the thirteenth century, the Great Mirror o the Divine Estates o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple Complex (Hachiman Usagū Goshinryō Ōkagami) mentions only 115 o the 235 estates managed by the Usa Hachiman complex and scattered nearly all over Kyushu. Tese estates were grouped by the author o the document in our types corresponding to their origins.120 Te first group had its origins in imperial gifs o the Nara period; called jūgōsankashō, it consisted o thirteen estates ( shō) containing some 640 arming households, and located in ten districts ( jūgō) in the three provinces (sanka) o Buzen, Bungo, and Hyūga. Te second group was called motomishō jūhakkashō and consisted o eighteen estates granted or the most part during the Heian period as iden (rank-fields), or as fields whose revenue or produce was to ulfill the shrine-temple complex’s needs or regular offerings; these were scattered in the provinces o Buzen, Hizen, and Chikugo. 121 Teir origins and unctions varied. Te third group was called kuniguni sanzai tsunemimyōden and consisted o at least thirty-one and at most ninety small-scale estates that had been commended to the Usa Shrine’s head officiant by various notables rom all Kyushu provinces (with the exception o the southernmost Satsuma and Ōsumi provinces). According to Inoue Satoshi, again, afer 1185 (when the aira house disappeared and the Minamoto and Hōjō houses ruled rom Kamakura), the Usa Shrine-temple complex began to split these estates to let the officiants’ daughters inherit them (a practice known as bessōden shoryō), and this practice eventually led to the loss o unified control.122 o return to the Great Mirror, yet another fify estates (other sources mention the existence o 114) ell under the exclusive control o the Mirokuji emple, but fifeen o these were grouped separately under the name “Fifeen estates o Urabe” (Urabe jūgokashō) and were located in the western hal o the Kunisaki Peninsula (with the exception o three estates located outside o the peninsula proper, but next to the ahara horst). 123 Te ashibu estate belonging to the second group mentioned above, located on the western end o the Kunisaki Peninsula, was i not the oldest one o the earliest estates o the Usa Hachiman complex; it has been and continues to be the object o studies by historians and archaeologists.124 Situated directly east o the oot o the Saieizan Massi, it is one o Japan’s oldest shrine-temple estates that have been least disturbed by modernization, and traces o the spatial organization o its tracts ( jōri) are still clear even though recent urban development has taken its toll in places. Some o the peninsula’s oldest shrines and temples still stand in its midst (the Fukiji emple, a National reasure, the Makiōdō emple amous or its esoteric statues, and the huge Kumano Cliff
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engravings, all o the Heian period), and an unusually large number o documents (more than 700) provide glimpses o the development and unctioning o estates in the area. Early on in its history the ashibu estate was protected by the Hachiman Motomiya Shrine, still graced today by cliff engravings o amon ten, Kongara dōji, Fudō myōō, Seitaka dōji, Jikoku ten, and Jizō bosatsu. Upon receipt o an oracle in 1351, however, two more Hachiman shrines were erected on the estate: the Ninomiya and Sannomiya Shrines. Hachiman is reerred therein as suijin (water kami), and the shrines are located in the proximity o the Katsura and Osaki rivers, whose water was used or irrigating fields opened or cultivation in the ourteenth century. At the time o crop gathering a major ritual estivity (matsuri) was organized: it involved much drinking, dances, linked- verse (renga) composition, and the boisterous carrying o three portable shrines, all o which led to the characterization o the event as a “brawl estivity,” ( kenka matsuri).125 Te Fukiji emple was built in the middle o the twelfh century; because it is the only building o the Heian period remaining in Kyushu, it is one o the great reasons or local pride and is today a National reasure on the basis o its architectural grace and antiquity, its inner wall paintings represent the Pure Lands o the Buddha Amida, Yakushi (the Buddha o Medicine), Miroku (the Buddha o the uture), and Shakamuni (the historical Buddha). It must have been constructed on orders o the Usa Hachiman leading sacerdotal house, which granted the temple tax-exempt estates or its support in 1223. Te act that the leading sacerdotal officiant at the time, Usa no Kiminaka, was in close contact with the Fujiwara regency may explain the clear influence o Fujiwara iconography and style on the temple.126 Te ashibu estate belonged to the Usa Shrine, however, whereas the fifeen Urabe estates under consideration belonged to the Mirokuji and Nakatsuoji emples o the Usa Shrine-temple complex. Te Urabe estates covered nearly hal the peninsula and were all located in its northern valleys as well as on its western and southern parts, and seem to have been established around the middle o the Heian period. 127 Te easternmost part o the peninsula consisted o rice fields (kokugaryō) owned by the Bungo Province government, whose seat was located near present-day Ōita City, as well as o some Usa Hachiman shrine estates. 128 Each o the fifeen Urabe estates o Kunisaki was protected by a shrine (many o which can be seen today), and each was also the site o one or more Buddhist temples (some o which were destroyed between 1868 and 1875). It was, obviously, in conjunction with the establishment o these estates that the Kunisaki Peninsula evolved its exceptional culture during the Heian period,
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even i the right to management on the part o the Mirokuji emple was called into question several times during the twelfh century. It is said that the monk Saichō visited Usa in 803 on his way to China and again in 814 to lecture on the Lotus Sutra, and that his visits were what caused the Mirokuji and Nakatsuoji abbots o the Usa Shrine-temple complex to opt to affiliate themselves with the endai denomination. As it evolved afer Saichō’s death, the ritual, doctrinal, economic and political system commonly reerred to as endai consisted o at least three types o cultic trends. First, an emphasis on Esoteric Buddhism, already visible in Saichō’s time, but ever more pronounced thereafer; second, an emphasis on the Lotus Sutra and its commentaries, and third, a systematic development o the Sannō cult, a set o combinations proposed during the late Heian period to explain the relations between the various Buddhist deities installed in the main temples o Mount Hiei in Kyoto and the various kami enshrined in the Hie Shrines located on the western shore o Lake Biwa, at the oot o the mountain. 129 As a consequence o the Mirokuji emple’s affiliation with Mount Hiei’s establishments and with the Iwashimizu Shrine-temple complex, the cultic and cultural system o the Kunisaki Peninsula evolved under these three trends. However, the rather intense maritime traffic across the Inland Sea also caused the introduction o cultural elements that had originated in other parts o Japan, and the people o Kunisaki absorbed these various cultural influxes, especially in the realm o Shugendō. We must return to geography to better understand the developmental processes o Kunisaki as a cultic region. As stated earlier, the sacred mountain o the Usa Hachiman Shrine was Mount Omoto (Maki); the Kunisaki Peninsula itsel is separated rom Mount Omoto by a massi that came to be called Saieizan “Western Mount Hiei,” which is part o the ahara horst that marks the southwest limit o the peninsula. One might be tempted to think o Kunisaki as the peninsula proper, but the Saieizan Massi and the Kunisaki Peninsula ormed together a single cultural/cultic entity that was directly related to the Usa Hachiman cult and Mount Omoto, and to the various cultic trends mentioned above. It seems that leaders o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex erected eight Buddhist temples on and around this Saieizan Massi at about the beginning o the Heian period, subsequently another twenty temples were built on the peninsula proper, and that by the end o the Heian period these twenty-eight temples came to be conceived o as a single unit called Rokugō Manzan, “Conglomerate o the Six Districts,” an appellation in which Rokugō reers to the six administrative districts o the Kunisaki Peninsula. 130
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Map 6 Te twenty-eight temples o Kunisaki
Tese eatures, however, should not blind us to another aspect o northern Kyushu at the time: the Kunisaki Peninsula was not only a geographical region where land was developed to produce rice, millet, and vegetables; it was also developed by fishing and shipping industries and it would be quite wrong to view it solely as a land mass on which all relevant historical events took place. It is interesting, in this respect, that documents o the time make no distinction between armers and fishermen; this is an important eature o social and economic organization that was pointed out only recently by Amino Yoshihiko.131 Te earliest extant historical reerence to Rokugō as a unified system o shrines and temples is dated 1135.132 Nijūhachi Honzan Mokuroku (“Index o the wentyeight Main emples”) is dated 1168 and, i authentic, may have been authored by the head sacerdotal officiant o the Usa Hachiman Shrine at the time, Usa no Kimiusa; the document lists sixty-nine temples subdivided into three groups. 133 Te Kunisaki traditions, which are all based on etiological narratives that were
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able 1 List o the twenty-eight temples in Kunisaki
First: eight upper Kongōji Reikiji Hōonji Jingūji Suigetsuji Kōzanji Chionji Denjōji Second: ten central Futagoji ennenji Chōanji Michiwakidera Gokokuji Honshōbō Mudōji Ōrekiji Sentoji ōkōji Tird: ten lower ōkōji (not same as above) Jingūji Iwatoji Monjusenji Reisenji Hōmeiji Jōbutsuji Gyōnyūji Seijōkōji Seiganji Source: Nakano Hatayoshi, (ed.), Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū , 2 vols. Volume 2, pp. 716–7 (okyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1975).
produced much later, claim that the associated shrines and temples were created in the early eighth century by a reincarnation o Hachiman named Great Bodhisattva Ninmon (Ninmon daibosatsu), who would have been accompanied in his endeavors by our monks. Te same claim is ound in the etiological records (engi) o Mount Hiko and Usa. We now know, however, that this was not the case. Te Kunisaki sites o cult were established over a period o time that goes rom the early ninth to the late twelfh century, and their establishment was dependent on the ormation o the Urabe estates garnered by the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex (predominantly by its Buddhist temples), and it was also dependent on other commendations made by courtiers. Moreover, while it seems
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that many Kunisaki “temples” were originally mere hermitages erected at the entrances o caves in which a variety o anchorites engaged in austerities, we do not know whether these anchorites were permanent residents o the peninsula, or visitors rom Mount Hiko and other Shugendō centers. Beyond the late narratives that have survived to this day, no written source enables us to characterize these anchorites’ practices in detail. Japanese scholars have made several suggestions regarding the figure called “Great Bodhisattva Ninmon,” alleged ounding patriarch (kaizan) o the system. Nakano Hatayoshi views Ninmon as the usion o several scattered “historical” figures conjoined with the Buddhist apotheosis o Hime-ō-kami (i.e. Himegami, the kami enshrined in second position at Usa) and the deified spirit o King Homuda; I could not find any document providing the rationale Nakano might have been ollowing in making this assertion. 134 Murakami Shigeyoshi writes that Ninmon is the Buddhist conormation o Hachiman’s mother, but I have not ound any pre-modern source that backs this claim, or anything that might explain the sex change o the deity. 135 A more recent publication edited by the Usa Historical and Ethnographic Documentation Museum proposes a more attractive theory, to the effect that the name Ninmon reers to a usion o several mountain practitioners who might have been active in Kunisaki beore the unification o the peninsula’s temples in the twelfh century. 136 One reason why this suggestion is attractive is that, beore 1185, there was no overwhelming compulsion to establish “ounding patriarchs.” Such a compulsion appeared afer many cultic, political, and economic systems such as the Kunisaki Peninsula were disturbed by warlord invasions and destructions, and afer cohesive narratives grounded in specific conceptions o history and their attendant emphases on origins and ounders helped efforts to gather the unds necessary to rebuild those temples and shrines that had been destroyed or had gradually lost their economic base and thus deteriorated. Te same is true o Mount Hiko and o the majority o sites o cult around Japan. Historical reality may appear to be at a variance with the claims made in these narratives, but it is closely related to the spatial and territory-building processes which will be discussed in more detail later on, and it may be worth suggesting now that the “traditions” ound in these narratives do not simply present the modern reader with warped images o an idealized past. Tey seem to offer, rather, insights into local understandings that were generated once these processes had achieved completion or closure, at a time when cultic institutions and their economic base were threatened with total destruction by warlords who were about to radically change the estate system on which cultic sites such as the Rokugō Conglomerate o Kunisaki had been built.
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Tis does not mean that one cannot speculate on the presence and identity o mountain practitioners in Kunisaki during the Heian period, or the archaeological record, at least, provides clear proo that the peninsula was replete with sites o cult at the time. Furthermore, whatever sites o cult had evolved in Kunisaki during the Heian period were put under the administrative control o the Mudōji emple o Mount Hiei in 1123, so that the 1168 document mentioned above may be a reflection o that control. Kunisaki, thus, might have evolved slowly under various influences, first, rom “sel-ordained monks” (shidosō), whose presence in Buzen Province is attested to as early as 702, and second, rom practitioners o the nearby and closely interconnected mountain cults o Hiko, Hachimen (not to be conused with Hachiman), Kubote, and Omoto; and third, that o Kumano Shugendō. 137 Te Nara period had seen the appearance o a rather large number o sel-ordained monks, who ofen were individuals who had lef cities and the countryside’s fields to avoid military conscription or the census that inevitably would have resulted in higher taxes over the fields tilled by their amilies; they tended to live as recluses in mountains and to engage in practices that were inormed by early esoteric documents, by a more or less vague knowledge o Daoism and, some say, by early Japanese nature worship (about which there is little or no inormation). Indeed, En no Gyōja, whose name appears in official documents when, in 699, he was accused o plotting against the imperial throne, was one such figure in Yamato; he is described in Nihon Ryōiki (ca. 820) as a person engaging in Daoist practices and Buddhist esoteric rites. Centuries later, the practitioners o Shugendō at large, including those o Mount Hiko and Kunisaki, viewed him as their ounding patriarch. 138 Tere is little doubt that the mountains o Kyushu were inhabited by such figures, whose practices came to be subjected to the powerul influence o Esoteric Buddhism which undergirded the ormation o mountain cultic systems in the ninth century. Naturally, the participants in the Hiko, Usa, and Kunisaki sites o cult viewed Hōren as the quintessential eighth- century figure o the kind, and portrayed him as one o En no Gyōja’s disciples afer the cult dedicated to En no Gyōja came to be established in the region by Kumano mountain ascetics, that is, around the late twelfh century. Te inhabitants o the Kunisaki Peninsula, however, crafed their cult’s own ounder (the Great Bodhisattva Ninmon), and in this way distinguished themselves rom their neighbors in Usa and Hiko, even i it is true that they regarded Ninmon as an incarnation o Hachiman at the time. It is also possible to speculate that Japanese mountains had by the eighth century become ideal sites o practice or ascetic figures o mixed intellectual and social backgrounds, who viewed mountains with what appears to be a
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combination o awe, anxiety, and desire. Te moment they accepted Buddhism and its moral parameters as their main world o reerence, however, and the moment they became dependent on estates and agriculture or their survival, these figures were bound to come into problematic contact with the peninsula’s residents who had been active there beore the introduction o Buddhism, and who predominantly viewed mountains and seas in other economic terms: the fishermen who were guided by pyres lit at the summit o mountains, the slash-and-burn cultivators who lived on the lower slopes o the peninsula, and the hunters who roamed the orests and hills. State- sponsored Buddhist institutions, however, included in their territory-making strategies the Buddhist prohibition to kill animate beings. Tis prohibition was used to convert hunters and make them change their occupation, which may go a long way to explain the low social status o fishermen and hunters, and the almost ubiquitous presence o hunters in medieval legends narrating the origins o mountain sites o cult, across the country.139 Once this oppositional rapport was resolved or brought into a zone o acceptable social constraints based on the undamental opposition between purity and pollution, the conceptualization o mountainous regions was radically transormed. Mountains came to be seen as a source o spiritual lie, at the same time as they were regarded as producers o the water needed or wet paddy rice arming—the main objective o the new estate managers. As a consequence, mountains were conceived in a manner hitherto unknown: as peaks to be scaled, as providers o unlimited vistas and visions o the universe, and as ideal sites or seclusion and spiritual cultivation. Teir valleys were deorested by the new managers o temple-owned estates to make space or wet paddy fields. Te mountains nonetheless maintained their character as regenerative powers linked to clouds, rain, and ertility, although the Buddhist practitioners and rituals went on to dominate both the production o the mythology o ertility and the producers o ood and raw materials or the support o temples. Tis new conceptualization o a mystical world o mountains is best expressed in the earliest extant Japanese document providing details on the ascent o a mountain or spiritual purposes. Tis remarkable document was authored in 814 by Kūkai, the ounder o Shingon Esoteric Buddhism; it describes the ascent o Mount Futara (Mount Nantai in Nikkō) by the monk Shōdō, and provides a most eloquent model o (and model or) mountain ritual practices at the time and thereafer, so it is proper to read short parts o it. [In Shimotsuke Province there] is a mountain called Fudaraku, whose peaks soar into the Milky Way and whose snow-covered summit touches the emerald confines o the heavens. Bearing in its bosom the roaring thunder that marks the
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Mountain Mandalas cadence o passing hours, it is the abode o the Phoenix, twisted like the horn o a mountain goat. Rare is the presence o demons, and none the traces o human steps. [. . .] Te monk Shōdō moved across the flashing snows and trampled the young leaves shining like jewels [. . .] and finally came to see the summit. [. . .] Without needing the Divine Eye, Shōdō could see as ar as ten thousand leagues. [. . .] Te mirror-like surace o the lake, being selfless, could not but reflect the ten thousand phenomena, and this reflection o mountains and lakes was enough to leave Shōdō breathless. [. . .] Five-colored flowers mixed their hues on a single branch, and the birds chanting away the hours united their different voices into one single melody. White cranes danced on the shores, blue geese fluttered on the water. Te flapping o their wings echoed like chimes in the crisp air, their voices resounded like gems striking one another. Te breaths o Heaven used the pine trees as lutes, the rolling waves used the pebbles as drums. Tus the five keynotes played orth the Heavenly Harmony, and the Eight Qualities o the water were secured in its calmness. [. . .] In this supreme environment Shōdō decided to build a temple, to which he gave the name Jingūji. Tere he lived and practiced the Way during our years, at the end o which [788] the temple was moved to the northern shore o the lake, which had beautiul sands and whence the view to the our directions was ree o any obstacle. [. . .] In the second year o the Daidō era [807], there was a drought in the province: the Governor ordered Shōdō to perorm rainmaking rituals, and the Master carried them out on top o Mount Fudaraku. Space was immediately filled with the sweet nectar o rain, and the crops were abundant and rich. 140
Tis document points to a sensibility that was inormed by Chinese culture and by Buddhism, and Kūkai—a man who had spent parts o his youth engaging in austerities in the mountains o his native island o Shikoku and who had apparently been a sel-ordained monk or some time, and eventually became one o Japan’s most revered figures—provides us with the best example o the directions taken by mountain cults at the time: seclusion, visionary experience, and rainmaking. Te point, however, is that temples on or near the grounds o shrines ( jingūji), such as that mentioned in the text presented above, were built during the eighth century on mountains as ar north as Nikkō and sukuba, as close to the political center as Mounts Hiei and Kōyasan, and as ar west as Mount Hōman and around Usa—and that they were all built by Buddhist monks, and more ofen than not by Hossō monks.141 While it is probable indeed that some inhabitants o these regions at the time considered mountains to be the abodes o entities that needed pacification because o their usually fierce and rightening character, there is no evidence that these mountains were the objects o austere ascents or o seclusion on the part o anyone beore Daoism- inspired figures and
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Buddhist monks began to do so. It is quite clear, however, that such was the case by the middle o the Heian period, or two important documents o the time provide abundant proo to this effect: the Honchō Shinsenden gives evidence on Daoism-inspired ascetics, while the Dainihonkoku Hokekyō Kenki (also known as Hokkegenki) offers clear and detailed inormation on devotees o the Lotus Sutra ( jikyōsha) who chose mountains near and ar to engage in a variety o austerities. 142 Te Dainihonkoku Hokekyō Kenki is particularly interesting because it portrays many taimitsu thaumaturgists who searched or longevity in the mountains: some spent time in temporary seclusion, in the practice o esoteric rituals, or in study, in the hope that they might gain special powers; they ate nuts and herbs, drank rom rivers and sources, dressed in simple garb, and were served ruit and nuts by wild animals; or they engaged in long asts, while others lived as total recluses and even stopped eating altogether: others would find later their corpses, still chanting the Lotus Sutra. Tere is little question that many o these jikyōsha were sorts o early and independent yamabushi; in any case, their presence is attested rom southernmost Kyushu to the northern reaches o Honshu; some traveled extensively, spreading inormation about mountain cults. Tey tended to develop strong, mystically charged devotions to the Lotus Sutra as well as to individual members o the Buddhist pantheon, while they also addressed themselves ervently to a variety o kami. Indeed, they may have been among the strongest popularizers o combined cults during the Heian period, just like the Kōya hijiri, attached to Kōyasan, were in a later period. In the case o the Kunisaki Peninsula we have no inormation on the entities that might have been objects o cult—i there ever were any—beore the establishment o hermitages by such itinerant figures, but mountain asceticism there appears to have been a Buddhist project inormed by continental thought and practices, even though it tended to ocus on mountains that may have been the objects o pre-Buddhist cults—about which there is little or no detailed inormation. Moreover, the presence o these figures and the subsequent creation o Shugendō institutions on these mountains changed in a radical ashion whatever original character they may have displayed earlier. Some ancient inhabitants o Japan, or instance, may have considered mountains to be the abode o one or several kami, a act that is evidenced by the excavation o plates or offerings and o other cultic implements placed in the proximity o stone groupings on mountain summits, such as Mount Omoto and several in Kunisaki and Mount Hiko, or on islands, such as those associated with the Munakata cult. Once Buddhist itinerant figures penetrated these mountains, however, they created a new vocabulary, superimposed new “readings” on natural
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objects, sculpted megaliths and trees to represent Buddhist divinities, developed peregrinatory practices, and established permanent or semi-permanent sites o seclusion. In other words, they changed the landscape, by which is meant that they also radically changed the ways in which mountains were conceptualized and experienced, and their presence and activities might have erased memories and traces o pre-existing cults, only to re-invent them at a later date. Te Kunisaki Peninsula and Mount Hiko are prime examples o a phenomenon that, like the rest o Shugendō sites o cult, evolved slowly over the entirety o the Heian period, but the paucity o records concerning their early history is rustrating. Written sources on the history o Kunisaki are rare, and the oldest extant etiological narrative dates back to the eighteenth century. 143 Te reasons or the dearth o sources on the region range rom the destructions caused by warlords o the medieval period to the no-less consummate destructions caused by the government’s separation o kami and Buddha cults in 1868. One reason or the geographical dispersion and present location o these sources is that Kunisaki came under direct control o Mount Hiei in 1123, while the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex was controlled by the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, and while Mount Hiko was placed in quasi-entrustment to the Shōgo-in o Kyoto in 1181.144 Nakano Hatayoshi has suggested that the mountain cults o Kunisaki were created by ordained members o the Usa sacerdotal house around the middle o the ninth century, and most traditional narratives claim that the sites o cult were created at the beginning o the eighth century. 145 Te first shrine o Usa had its own jingūji, the Mirokuji emple, and the combined shrine-temple complex quickly became an immense institution which, by the year 852, included the Upper Shrines on Ogura Hill, the Lower Shrines, and the Wakamiya Shrine set immediately to the west o the Upper Shrines, a variety o smaller shrines, the residences o the sacerdotal houses, and the sprawling Mirokuji emple, which eventually included dozens o halls, pagodas, residential halls, reectories, and other buildings such as sutra repositories and bell-towers. Afer the second shrine, dedicated to Hime-ō-kami, was erected in 734, another jingūji, originally named Hime Jingūji but later renamed Nakatsuoji, was erected as its counterpart in Usa between 767 and 771 by Usa no Ikemori; not surprisingly, this jingūji was originally affiliated with the Hossō school o Buddhism, but an oracle granted to Jintai, the second abbot o the temple in the early ninth century, expressed the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman’s wish to see the affiliation o the temple changed to endai (the Nakatsuoji chose to be affi liated with Shingon in 972).146
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About a century later, says Nakano, a temple named Ryōzenji was erected near the summit o Mount Omoto, and another temple named Shōkakuji was built on the slopes o the mountain by a certain Gyōshū. Te Usa sacerdotal house then began to build temples at the oot and on the summits o the neighboring Saieizan Massi, projecting its influence in the easterly direction onto the Kunisaki Peninsula via its growing land holdings. Te source used most extensively by Nakano to discuss Kunisaki is the ourteenth-century Compendium o Hachiman Oracles mentioned earlier; according to this document a certain Nōgyō, who was an ordained member o the Usa house, secluded himsel in 825 on the western slopes o the Saieizan Massi at a site called suwado Mountain (present-day Suigetsuji emple) where in 855 he received rom Hachiman an oracle revealing to him the proper course to ollow in the ritual peregrination on the peninsula. 147 An earlier text, Ninmon Bosatsu Chōki, dated 1152, mentions only Hōren, Kyūmon, Kekin, ainō, and Kakuman, among whom only Hōren, ainō, and Kakuman are mentioned in the other sources.148 It is clear, however, that the suwado site o cult is ancient: an urn containing Buddhist scriptures, the oldest ound so ar in the region, was interred there in 1083; recently excavated, it bears an inscription stating that the author o the Buddhist vow or whom the urn was made was a member o the Usa Shrine’s sacerdotal lineage, Usa no Kimiai. 149 In 829 the Mirokuji emple was assigned or the first time in its history a “master o lectures” (kōshi), that is, a scholarly monk. As a consequence, Esoteric Buddhism began to spread in the region while monks were able to receive proper training as well as advanced education; this was a successul investment, or an ordained member o the Usa sacerdotal house, Gikai, became in 940 the abbot (zasu) o Mount Hiei in Kyoto, and it is probable that endai Esoteric Buddhism came to dominate Kyushu under his tenure, although we saw that Shingon Esoteric Buddhism was also present at the Nakatsuoji emple since 972. It is thereore possible, i not probable, that the eight Buddhist hermitages o the Saieizan Massi were erected in the course o the ninth and tenth centuries: the Kongōji dedicated to the Buddha o Medicine, Yakushi nyorai; the Reikiji dedicated to the Buddha o the Western Pure Land, Amida nyorai; the Hōonji dedicated to the Bodhisattva o Compassion, Shō-Kannon bosatsu; the Jingūji dedicated, it seems, to the Horse- headed Bodhisattva o Compassion, Batō Kannon; the Suigetsuji dedicated to the Bodhisattva o Compassion, Kanzeon bosatsu; the akayamadera dedicated to the Buddha o medicine, Yakushi nyorai; the Chionji, also dedicated to the Buddha o medicine; and the Denjōji dedicated to the Buddha Amida. Tese eight temples were reerred to by the term Motoyama (Primary emples) in the document dated 1168.
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A second phase began in the early eleventh century, when the economic base o Usa became more secure, and it led to the construction o ten temples in the three districts that cover the western hal o the peninsula. Tese are the Futagoji dedicated to the Tousand-handed Bodhisattva o Compassion, Senju Kannon; the ennenji dedicated to the Buddha o Medicine; the Chōanji dedicated to the Tousand-handed Bodhisattva o Compassion, Senju Kannon, or, alternatively, to the Bodhisattva o Wisdom, Samantabhadra (Fugen bosatsu); the Michiwakidera dedicated to the Bodhisattva o Compassion, Shō-Kannon; the Gokokuji dedicated, it seems, to the Bodhisattva o Compassion (Kannon); the Honshōbō (amonji) dedicated to the Horse-headed Bodhisattva o Compassion, Batō Kannon; the Mudōji dedicated to the Buddha o medicine; the Ōrekiji dedicated to the Tousand-handed Bodhisattva o Compassion; the Sentōji dedicated to the same Bodhisattva; and the ōkōji dedicated to the Buddha o Medicine. Tese ten temples were known as Nakayama (Intermediate emples). Finally, a third group including ten temples was established in the remaining three eastern districts o Kunisaki. Tese are the ōkōji (not the same as above) dedicated to the Buddha o the Western Pure Land, Amida nyorai; the Jingūji dedicated to the Buddha o Medicine; the Iwatoji, also dedicated to the Buddha o Medicine; the Monjusenji dedicated to the Bodhisattva o Wisdom (Monju bosatsu); the Reisenji dedicated to the Tousand-handed Bodhisattva o Compassion; the Hōmeiji dedicated to the Six Bodhisattvas o Compassion (Roku Kannon); the Jōbutsuji dedicated to the Buddha o the Western Pure Land; the Gyōnyūji dedicated to the King o Sapience Acala (Fudō myōō); the Seijōkōji dedicated to the Bodhisattva o Compassion Enhancing Longevity (Enmyō Kannon); and the Seiganji dedicated to the Buddha o Medicine. Tese ten temples were known as Sueyama (Last emples). Tese twenty-eight templehermitages and the orty-one sub-temples and sub-shrines they accrued over time were reerred to, during the medieval period, as Rokugō Manzan, “Te Conglomerate o the Six Districts.” We will return to them later.
Mount Hiko Te main river o northern Kyushu is the Onga, which takes its source northwest o Mount Hiko, and its main eeder is the Hiko River, which takes its source on the southern flank o Mount Hiko. Te Munakata Shrines are located near the mouth o the Onga River, and the Onga Basin, which stretches between the Munakata Shrines and the vicinity o Mount Hiko. Tese rivers ertilized
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the plains that came to be settled by people o continental origins, who probably worshipped Mount Hiko because o its water-generating powers. Mount Hiko itsel is 1,200m high, rather steep; consisting o a multitude o varied layers o volcanic materials, its massive shape dominates northern Kyushu, and its triple summit was the meeting point o three provincial boundaries (today, o two disputed preectural boundaries). While Mount Hiko may have been a site o cult rom early times on and or a number o centuries that is difficult to ascertain, its name appears only indirectly in historical documents in Engi Shiki (Procedures o the Engi Era), completed in 927 and promulgated in 967, in which the ollowing is noted: “agawa District: Karakuni-Okinaga-ohime-ōma-no-mikoto Shrine; Oshihone-no-mikoto Shrine; oyohime-no-mikoto Shrine.”150 Tis compendious statement is instructive, albeit in a diacritic manner, because it does not mention Mount Hiko by name and passes Buddhism under silence, even though Buddhist institutions were, as was indicated earlier, dominating the area at the time. Te first shrine mentioned in this record is located, not on Mount Hiko, but on Mount Kawara (north o Mount Hiko), and it is worth mentioning that the thirteenth-century etiological record Hikosan Ruki suggestively reports that oreign deities first attempted to take residence on Mount Kawara but were prevented rom doing so by its landlord kami ( jinushigami), against which they retaliated by cutting all the mountain’s trees, probably to use them to build temples on Mount Hiko, to which they then proceeded and where they took residence. Te kami o Mount Kawara is o oreign origin too, since its name is preceded by “Karakuni,” a term which may reer to Korea—although that is not always the case, or it may reer to southern Kyushu as well. Buzen no Kuni Fudoki Itsubun reports that a deity o the kingdom o Silla in the Korean Peninsula came o its own to Mount Kawara, that its name was Kawaru (meaning “iron village” in Korean), and that copper was ound there.151 Te area became a major site o mining or the ore used in making weapons, and it seems that the sacerdotal officiants o the Kawara sanctuary were the Karashima ritualists who eventually ended up in Usa. However, the inclusion o the name Okinaga, mentioned earlier in the discussion o Usa, must also be underlined; the personal name o Jingū Kōgō was Okinaga arashihimeno-mikoto, a compound in which arashi was a personal and rather common name, and in which Okinaga was the amily name. Furthermore, the recitals related to Okinaga arashihime and orming the basis o the Homuda cycle o myths were in all probability a part o oral traditions belonging to this Okinaga amily (whose territorial stronghold was located on the eastern shores o lake
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Biwa), itsel related to sea-people, and who gave birth to several empresses. Te second kami mentioned in the Procedures o the Engi Era is Oshihoneno-mikoto, one o the several kami produced during the course o the symbolic incest between Amaterasu and her brother, Susano-o.152 A later tradition o the Kawara Shrine, o uncertain date, speculates that only the “violent” spirit ( aramitama) o Oshihone-no-mikoto is enshrined on Mount Kawara—while its “peaceul” spirit (nigi-mitama) moved to the “southern mountain,” that is (so Nagano adashi argues), Mount Hiko.153 Te third kami mentioned in the Engi Procedures, oyohime-no-mikoto, is directly related to the Munakata Shrine; the three emale kami o this shrine were also an offspring o Amaterasu and Susanoo’s symbolic incest, and the ancient Munakata cult comprises three sanctuaries located on Kyushu Island’s northern shore and on two islands off-shore. Te Hiko cult evolved in an intriguing but rather obscure relation to the Munakata cults; the first sign o this intriguing aspect is that subsequent documents say that the Munakata kami lef Mount Hiko (where it is claimed they were originally enshrined) or the Munakata Shrines located near the mouth o the Onga River. wo o the three peaks o Mount Hiko were subsequently regarded as residences o Izanagi and Izanami, the kami described in imperial mythology as the progenitors o the Japanese archipelago. In other words, prior to the tenth century nothing is known about the identity o the kami that might have been objects o a cult on Mount Hiko; or, i it is true that Mount Hiko was a sanctuary dedicated to the Munakata kami, then we may propose that Buddhism displaced them (that is, displaced the communities worshipping them). Te document purported to be the oldest detailed reerence to Mount Hiko, Hikosanki, is attributed to achibana no Masamichi, although its authenticity is debatable;154 said to date back to the late tenth or early eleventh century (Masamichi was a government official visiting Dazaiu on his way to the Korean Peninsula), it mentions the presence o several kami on the mountain, and suggests that some o these kami were renamed:
1. North Peak was the residence o Ōnamuchi no mikoto and the three Munakata emale kami: agorihime, Nagitsuhime, and Ichi-Kishimahime. 2. A radiance said to have shot orth through the sky rom the western direction landed on South Peak and produced an eight-aceted, five-colored crystal, onto which a goshawk [ōtaka] descended. Tree kami named en-taishi [a Daoist name?], Hiko [a solar entity], and Mizuha-no-me no mikoto [an important water kami] then made their apppearance, at which point Ōnamuchi ceded North Peak to these kami.
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3. Ten appeared “yin and yang kami,” later identified as Izanami [enshrined on Central Peak] and Izanagi [enshrined on South Peak]. 4. Under a rock Kikurihime [o Mount Hakusan], and Musubi-tama-nomikoto appeared. 5. Ōnamuchi then lef Mount Hiko and moved to its oot, where it ounded a agori-sha [oyohime Shrine], which was moved later to the Kobi Shrine o Mount Konomi near Munakata. Hikosanki is a questionable document, however, because it does not mention the Buddhist cults that must have existed on the mountain by the time it was supposedly compiled, and the only conclusion lef is that the identity o Mount Hiko’s “native” kami (i there were any beore the introduction o Buddhism) is a matter o total conjecture prior to the twelfh century. Incidentally, this presumed incongruity may help explain why Izanami and Izanagi, who have little connection to Kyushu, are identified as two o Mount Hiko’s three kami.155 It has been suggested, however, that Buddhism was present on Mount Hiko since ancient times because an inscribed urn, dated 1516 and excavated in October 1982 on North Peak, contained a Korean bronze statue o the Buddha dating back to the period o the unification o Silla in the eighth century. 156 Tis statue has been identified as representing a nyorai ( tathāgata), and the inscription on the urn was signed by a certain Keishun o Echigo Province, who resided at sūzōbō Hall on Mount Hiko at the time. Tis inscription merely states that the statue miraculously “suraced” on North Peak, and that Keishun reinterred it in the hope that his vows might be ulfilled during this lietime and his next lie. Unless uture archaeological finds prove otherwise, all that can be said at the present point is that it is not known when Mount Hiko was made into a Buddhist stronghold, even though the oldest Buddhist cult there was dedicated to the Buddha o the Future, a phenomenon typical o Silla Buddhism in the eighthcentury and also visible at the Mirokuji emple o Usa. Indeed, one scholar proposed that the Buddhist cult on Mount Hiko was under the direct influence o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex.157 Te oldest extant etiological record o Mount Hiko ( Hikosan Ruki) is said to date back to 1213. 158 It states that the first ascent o Mount Hiko was accomplished by a hunter named Fujiwara Kōyū (or suneo) about whom it gives ew details, and presents the mountain in the ollowing manner. Te pines hanging over the cliffs o this mountain are dense and flourishing, and the wind resonates through their branches, clear as the strumming on a zither; thick creeping plants are scattered all over, polished by radiant dew while the
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Mountain Mandalas roos o the temples are stroked by clouds. Te large bells’ ample resonance can be heard rom a great distance while small bells calling monks to meditation ring out six times a day, intimating that invocations and rites are to be perormed diligently day and night, and that everyone on this mountain must observe monastic discipline. Recitations o the sextuple invocations trickle down the mountain’s valleys so that they may save the multitude o living beings who are bound by attachments that cause suffering. Te rites perormed during the three divisions o the day protect lay devotees in all directions: even though these people might not be reborn in the osotsu heaven [where the Buddha o the Futur resides], may they at the time o their rebirth hear voices chanting the need to destroy [. . .] alse views. Mount Hiko’s Upper Sanctuary is located about thirty-six chō rom the residents’ houses and temples. Te River o Purification, Harai no Kawa, issues in the proximity o Nyotai Peak. Pilgrims high and low who cleanse themselves therein wash away all sins and pollutions encountered in transmigration, and thus get closer to the treasured pagoda o awakening; its source is reerred to as the awe-inspiring pond o eight virtues. Close to it is a torii [shrine gate]; a distance o six chō separates it rom Ōminami Cave, which marks the boundaries o a zone o twenty chō chosen by divination and in which it is prohibited to produce excrements o any sort, or to spit or blow one’s nose. [. . .] Forty-nine precious caves are located all around this mountain. Te tiled roos o temples are pressed against each other, and more than two hundred halls or meditation are as though scattered about: one may here envision the splendor o the Pure Lands o various Buddhas, where bejeweled pavilions are as numerous as the stars. Te Tree Avatars are enshrined in these orty-nine caves, together with the multitude o Adamantine Youths attending them. In Kōnin 10 [819] under the reign o Emperor Saga, the third abbot o Mount Hiko, Hōren kashō, stated that these peaks are similar in shape to the triple truth’s rounded perection, and that they symbolize non- verticality and non-horizontality. He also said that the mountain’s back is in the east, while its ront aces west. [. . .] Above all, thinking o the moons and seasons that have passed or more than seven hundred and thirty years, and investigating Fujiwara Kōyū’s lie, it is evident that his birthdate corresponds to that o iantai Daishi in Si-ming, rom which we iner that this mountain is the site where the Buddha’s teachings first appeared in our land. 159
Te subsequent etiological record is Chinzei Hikosan Engi, dated 1572; it claims that Mount Hiko’s Buddhist establishment was created by a Chinese monk in the course o the sixth century, that it was the oldest Buddhist monastery in Japan, and it gives a wealth o detail concerning the hunter named Fujiwara Kōyū, also known as Ninniku biku, who cannot be the first man to have scaled Mount Hiko’s peaks or the simple reason that he would have been preceded there by
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the Chinese monk in question. In 1986 Miyake Hitoshi advanced that the graphs read Kōyū in Japanese may be an allusion to the Korean deity named Hwan’ung, who is regarded as one o the three mythical ounders o that country; Miyake thus advanced the notion that Mount Hiko was a cultic site established under direct Korean influences.160 Tis issue was taken up at two Japanese-Korean conerences, the latter o which was published in 1996; in this publication several Korean and Japanese scholars discuss the relationship between Korean mythology contained in the Samguk Yusa and Mount Hiko’s oundational narratives, and we must spend a ew moments analyzing the debate. 161 Te creation myth o what is viewed by some as the “Korean race” appears in the thirteenth-century document,162 Samguk Yusa (ales o the Tree Kingdoms) written by the Korean Buddhist monk Iryŏn (1206–89), which proposes that the Heaven deity Hwanin’s son, Hwan’ung, descended onto White Mountain (’aebaeksan) to rule the world. Near his residence there lived a bear and a tiger that always yearned to become humans; Hwan’ung gave them a stalk o wormwood and twenty pieces o garlic, saying, “I you eat these and avoid sunlight or a hundred days, you will turn into human beings.” Te animals withdrew to a cave; afer twenty-one days the bear turned into a human emale, but the tiger was unable to remain out o the sunlight as long as stipulated and thereore remained in its animal condition. Subsequently, Hwan’ung married the bear-woman, and she gave birth to the deity called an’gun, who went on to ound the state named Chosŏn (Korea). 163 Te name Hwan’ung is written with the graphs 桓雄, while the name Kōyū (that o the first man who, in Hikosan Ruki, would have ascended Mount Hiko) is written with the graphs 恒雄; that is, one stroke in the lef element o the first graph o both names differs by so little indeed that one may advance it is a copyist error. Nonetheless, this graphic resemblance has caused Japanese and Korean scholars to look or connections between the myths. In my view, however, these scholars have gone much too ar, i only because they claim that, in a medieval painting representing the Chinese “ounder” o Mount Hiko and Fujiwara Kōyū, the Chinese monk is in act the Korean ounder an’gun, simply because he has a beard and wears a garment made o leaves, similar to that worn in much later representations o an’gun. Te point o comparison, then, has dramatically shifed away rom Hwan’ung, or no apparent reason; the identities, not just o deities but also o mountains, have been switched, and modern Korean nationalistic ideology seems to go unchallenged. o begin with, since there are no known mentions o either Hwan’ung or an’gun prior to the late thirteenth century, one does not see how Mount Hiko’s Fujiwara Kōyū, first mentioned in a
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text said to date rom 1213, could in act be Hwan’ung. Furthermore, even i a later copyist inserted the horizontal brushstroke that is ound in the Chinzei Hikosan Engi, it is difficult to imagine a rationale or the copyist’s intentions. Finally, i the garment o leaves worn by the Buddhist monk as represented in later times is enough to make one believe that we are in act looking at an’gun, then what are we to do o so many other representations o a variety o deities in China and Japan, all the way down to representations o the late nineteenthcentury Kumano ascetic Jitsukaga, in which the same type o garment, and the same type o beard, appear? Tis type o antasy simply cannot serve as scholarly demonstration. Te an’gun myth does not shed any light on Mount Hiko’s origins, just as it does not shed any light on Korea’s past. In any case, both records mentioned above (the 1213 Hikosan Ruki and the 1572 Chinzei Hikosan Engi) agree that the (really historical figure) Hōren played an important i not pivotal role in the mountain’s early history, which is not unthinkable but is indicative o the influence Usa may have had either on the overall direction Mount Hiko’s early cults took, or on the ormation o the area’s medieval narratives. Shozan Engi, a document o Kumano Shugendō dating back to the thirteenth century, reports that a Hossō monk o the Kōukuji in Nara, a certain Jugen, was a resident o Mount Hiko.164 Tis statement, however, does not surace in the medieval narratives o Mount Hiko, and appears to have been ignored by Hiko authorities up to the bitter conflicts opposing Mount Hiko’s Shugendō community to the Shōgo-in (the endai Shugendō center in Kyoto) in the seventeenth century, when the Hiko authorities used it to prove that Mount Hiko was not, originally, a Shōgo-in/Kumano dependence. Still and all, Shozan Engi is an important Shugendō document and some trust can be placed in it; it is regrettable that it does not give more details on Jugen but we should underscore the presence, again, o Hossō monks (or, later, o Kōukuji-based yamabushi) in the region. Tere is no reason to doubt the authenticity o the statement concerning Jugen, even though the mention o his name and possible dates are only shreds o evidence in what is, to begin with, a meager set o available historical sources. Tere may have existed more detailed sources, but they would have been burnt at the time o the destruction o Mount Hiko’s institutions by Ōtomo warlords in 1581. All that is available, then, are a ew medieval period narratives, scattered reerences in historical records o dubious origins, and too many conjectures. It has been proposed, thus, that Mount Hiko became a site o cult or Buddhist itinerant monks (hijiri and jikyōsha) some time during the Nara period; that it was under strong cultural influences emanating rom the Korean Peninsula and
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rom the Usa cultic center, and that it developed to a rather large extent in the tenth century, precisely at the time the ritual procedures o the Jōgan and Engi eras were compiled in Kyoto. Indeed, Gorai Shigeru, the most orceul proponent o this theory, has suggested that a certain Zōkei, who died in 1006, resigned his Kumano abbacy in 965 and moved his residence to Mount Hiko where he would have spent the rest o his lie and created a number o important ritual estivities. 165 Given the extent o Buddhist presence in northern Kyushu rom at least as ar back as the seventh century, however, it is intriguing that Mount Hiko’s Buddhist establishment does not appear in historical records beore the eleventh century, at which time it is presented as a ully-fledged institution that must have had quite some history behind it. We are now, though, in a much better position to understand parts o the context within which the name o Mount Hiko appears in documents, and this, in the journal o the Minister o the Right Fujiwara no Munetada (the Chūyūki covering the years 1087–1138), and in Honchōseiki, a historical record rom the end o the twelfh century.166 Tese documents mention that the shuto (Buddhist militia members) o the communities o “Mirokuji Mount Hiko” gathered several times in 1094 in Dazaiu and engaged in skirmishes with the shuto o the Anrakuji Shrine-temple complex o that city. 167 Tese incidents caused the vice-governor o Dazaiu, Fujiwara no Nagausa, to abruptly resign his position and to flee back to Kyoto, only to earn him ridicule and the sobriquet, “hal-time vice-governor.” Te skirmishes in question occurred on the fifh and twenty-fifh o the fifh month, on the fifh o the sixth month, on the thirtieth o the tenth month o 1094, as well as on the twenty- fifh o the third month o the ollowing year, but records give no reason or what may have caused them. Kishima Jinkyū suggests that the conflicts were related to estates because the abdicated sovereigns who ruled during the Insei period (1086–1185) changed many laws concerning land holdings. Tese changes, Kishima argues, caused the shuto o the Kōukuji to engage in armed protest in 1093, also caused Mount Hiei’s shuto to clash with Minamoto no Yoshitsuna in 1095—and thereore caused the actions o Mount Hiko’s shuto in 1094.168 However, more recent scholarship suggests that Mount Hiko’s protests may have been caused by the act that the abbacy o the Daisenji, the Buddhist temple located on Mount Hōman next to Dazaiu, was entrusted to a certain Raijō, who was assistant abbot o the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex; this event would have heralded the dominance o a Kyoto institution over the region.169 On the other hand, a certain Jōen—who was appointed master o lectures (kōshi) o the Mirokuji emple as well as managing official (tsukasa) o the Kita-in temple o Usa in 1087, and who later was appointed to the abbacy
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o the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex in 1101—is the object o an entry in Chūyūki dated 1096 which says that this Jōen was lef out o an invitation to receive official recognition at the time because the conflicts o 1094 had taken place during his tenure at the Mirokuji emple. Tis entry leads Hirowatari Masatoshi to propose that it is a direct indication o the act that Mount Hiko’s Buddhist institutions may have been controlled by the Mirokuji emple at the time.170 Tis opinion makes sense, up to a point, when one considers the ollowing points. Te Iwashimizu Shrine-temple complex came to control the Usa, Kashii, and Hakozaki sites o Hachiman cults in northern Kyushu, and gradually came to symbolize the political and economic control o the center over the periphery during the eleventh century; Usa could do little but accept the situation and attempt to benefit rom it. However, at the time Mount Hōman’s abbacy was granted to Raijō, the political situation o many shrine-temple complexes had remarkably changed throughout Japan. By the beginning o the Insei period the System o Codes was in shambles and the country’s political and economic power was divided among various competing social and institutional blocks among which the shrine-temple complexes were major orces that began to flex their political and military muscle in order to deend their economic privileges, though not in any unified or concerted manner. As a matter o act, the shrinetemple complexes were unable or unwilling to avoid intense competition with each other and ofen impinged on each other’s territorial boundaries, a situation that led to gruesome armed encounters the court bemoaned and criticized but could not bring to a halt.171 It was estate tax management issues, or example, that made the Usa Hachiman complex conront Mount Hiei’s claim to control the affairs o Mount Hōman’s Daisenji emple.172 Unable to muster the military, political, and economic authority it needed to control the shrine-temple complexes and other conditions in the country, the court saw its political and economic powers disappear (something it could do little to prevent), but it was also seeing its ritual apparatus slowly disintegrate, and it did everything in its power to prevent that threat rom becoming reality. Tere is thus little or no doubt that Mount Hiko was the site o a major establishment by the end o the eleventh century, even though we do not know how, by whom, or on what economic basis it was created and maintained, or how it came to orm the type o rapport it obviously had with Mount Hōman’s Daisenji, the Anrakuji o Dazaiu, and the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex. Nonetheless, Mount Hiko had by that time evolved to such degree that it had at least one community called shuto (at Mount Hiko, “shito”), a term then used in
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mountain and urban sites o cult to reer to sometimes ordained but more ofen lay Buddhist figures who played a central role in the ormation o the political and military power o shrine-temple complexes around Japan. Tis community must thereore have evolved over the course o the first hal o the Heian period, which suggests that Mount Hiko’s Buddhist institutions were created beore, or at the beginning o, the Heian period. Te Anrakuji, whose shuto also participated in the protests o 1094, was a powerul shrine-temple complex located in Dazaiu, and was dedicated to the angry spirit ( onryō) o Sugawara no Michizane, who had been exiled to Dazaiu by his Fujiwara competitors and died there in 903. 173 Even though it is still not clear what caused the shuto communities o Mount Hiko and those o the Anrakuji and Mirokuji Shrine-temple complexes to engage in violence in 1094, the riot may have been aimed, either directly or indirectly, at the Fujiwara house’s policies and attempts to control Kyushu. Raijō was assistant abbot o the Iwashimizu Shrine-temple complex created by Fujiwara no Yoshiusa or his grandson Emperor Seiwa and there is no doubt that Iwashimizu symbolized Fujiwara control over cultic institutions and over northen Kyushu cults as well. Te Anrakuji, however, was a monument dedicated to someone who had been removed rom court by Fujiwara politicians, and thereore was a symbol o resistance against the Fujiwara house in Kyushu. 174 What may have caused Mount Hiko’s community to eel enmity against the Fujiwara house is not evident either, but it is possible that its relation to Mount Hōman’s Daisenji temple was such that when it was decided that a Fujiwara-dominated abbot would be appointed in the latter, Mount Hiko’s community saw its own power threatened. Whatever the real reasons were, one thing is not in doubt: the 1094 incident and the flight o the vice-governor marked a loss o power over Kyushu on the part o the Fujiwara house, and symbolized the coming o age o the shrine- temple complexes’ political and military might in the distant island o Kyushu. Less than 100 years afer these events, the Kyoto court established a new and ominous relationship with Mount Hiko. In the eleventh century members o the imperial and Fujiwara houses engaged in repeated and costly pilgrimages to Kumano, an area in which Shugendō was evolving within both taimitsu and tōmitsu orms o esoteric doctrinal and ritual parameters. Te three Kumano Shrines had been recognized early on by the Heian court, which had granted two o them the upper fifh rank in 859 (Jōgan 1)—when the inant emperor Seiwa was placed on the throne by his grandather Fujiwara no Yoshiusa. Te first imperial pilgrimage to Kumano was perormed by Retired Emperor Uda in 907, at which point the two shrines in question again saw their ranks (and economic base) elevated. An imperial visit on the part o Retired Emperor Kazan took
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place in 987, and Fujiwara no ameusa visited in 1081, an occasion or which he wrote details o his travel in his diary. 175 Retired Emperor Shirakawa’s first visit to Kumano occurred in 1090, our years beore Mount Hiko’s name was to surace in a courtier’s diary; his spiritual mentor and actual guide ( sendatsu) at the time was a certain Zōyo (1022–1116) o the Onjōji (Miidera) emple, who was subsequently appointed Supervisor ( kengyō) o Kumano and o the Shōgoin emple in Kyoto, a major institution established or the express purpose o protecting the body o the imperium as symbolized by the body o the emperor, and later became the headquarters o taimitsu Shugendō.176 Te retired emperor Go-Shirakawa had a particular predilection or Kumano (he went there thirtyour times); he invoked the Kumano kami in Kyoto in 1160, where he built the Ima-Kumano Shrine to enshrine them as protectors ( chinju) o the Shōgo-in itsel. He then established the economic support o that shrine by granting it some revenues to be withdrawn rom twenty-eight estates scattered all over western Japan. Te last name in his list o estates, dated 1181, is Mount Hiko. 177 It is on that occasion, presumably, that Mount Hiko was granted recognition as a measured space ( shiishi) contained within ritually established boundaries (kekkai), which government officials were not allowed to penetrate to make enquiries concerning taxation or to investigate criminal matters. Te decision to connect Mount Hiko to the Ima-Kumano/Shōgo- in Shrinetemple complex bore consequences o a ritual, practical, institutional, political, and economic character. First, Mount Hiko came to enjoy and, at the same time, symbolize a particular relationship to the imperial court—a eature that had been absent rom its oundation. Second, its economic ate became related to the welare o the imperial system at a time when it was threatened by administrative incompetence and by the growing power o warlords. Mount Hiko’s authorities were encouraging warlord support at the very same time (it is said that Minamoto no Yoriyoshi would have rebuilt the mountain’s Hōheiden Sanctuary in 1062 upon his deeat o Abe no Sadatō; Yoriyoshi would have prayed there to the deities o Mount Hiko and, Nakano Hatayoshi says, o Iwashimizu Hachiman as well).178 Finally, Mount Hiko (and Kyushu Shugendō in general) came to be influenced by Kumano Shugendō especially afer the Usa Hachiman Shrinetemple’s influence waned and afer it came to be dominated by Kyoto temples too, just as the Hōmanzan and Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complexes, as well as the Kunisaki Peninsula’s Rokugōzan Conglomerate itsel, eventually came to be dominated by the Iwashimizu or Mount Hiei Shrine-temple complexes. Te subsequent history o Mount Hiko is linked, in part, to its efforts to liberate itsel rom a position that could be interpreted as being subservient to the Shōgo-
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in, while attempting to extract all possible benefits rom imperial recognition and to create its own identity and economic and political independence. Many o the military engagements, economic conditions, and political leanings the mountain community displayed over the centuries can be traced back to the 1181 allotment on the part o Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa. I we are to believe the Hikosan Ruki etiological record dated 1213, Mount Hiko was regarded early on as the site where Maitreya (Miroku bosatsu) the Buddha o the Future, would institute a new cosmic age: Tis is an unequalled sacred space under Heaven, the greatest site o miracles in the our directions. Te first ascent o the mountain was completed by a certain Fujiwara Kōyū during the Kyōtō era [531–6]. Tinking o the merits they might earn in converting past, present, and uture generations, the Tree Avatars decided at this juncture to protect the Buddha’s teachings and acted as generals, marshaling the myriads Adamantine Youths. Tey disclosed that the sacred peaks contained petrified construction beams. Ordering to gather these beams they then instructed the Adamantine Youths to store them on the south side o Southern Peak, stipulating that they should be used in erecting the Great Lecture Hall in which Miroku would give his sermon upon becoming Buddha. Te same type o beams is ound at two sites on the mountain; the beams are similar in style and orm to materials used in the common world, but this phenomenon is so exceptional that it is impossible to find anything alike in the sixty or more provinces o this country. Tey are protected by a maniestation o Miroku.179
Te same document, however, says that the mountain also became the site o belies and practices related to the widespread notion o the decadence o the Buddha’s teachings and o the universe at large ( mappō), a belie reinorced by the tumultuous conditions o the time during which the record would have been written: urns containing scriptures related to a hope or rebirth in a better world were interred near Mount Hiko’s summits in 1113 and 1145; these urns, excavated in 1951, are also mentioned in Hikosan Ruki. As will be shown in detail later on, however, the constitution o the sacredness o Mount Hiko during the Heian and Kamakura periods was a complex matter involving much more than these belies. Dominated by the imperial court as it may have been, the Heian period ended in 1185 in a final maritime battle that pitted the aira and Minamoto warlords against each other at Dan-no-ura, a bay bordering Mount Hiko’s northern sub-ranges, and Japan came to be governed by the military warlord ( shōgun) Minamoto no Yoritomo. Te Minamoto house, however, was very much a political creation, like the Fujiwara house; it had been established when descendants o Emperor Seiwa (the grandson o Fujiwara no Yoshiusa, who had
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created the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex) were granted this name on the condition that they not lay claim to the throne. Tus sharing imperial and Fujiwara blood, the Minamoto house never orgot its origins in Emperor Seiwa, and thereore carried out a cult to Hachiman. Indeed, only one century afer Emperor Seiwa’s death, Minamoto no Yorinobu (968–1048) regarded Hachiman as the ancestral spirit o his house, and various members o the Minamoto house built shrines and temples dedicated to Hachiman on the sites o their battlefields and estates. Minamoto no Yoriyoshi (988– 1075), mentioned earlier, erected a major Hachiman Shrine-temple complex in Yuigahama in 1063 (without securing, apparently, an authorization rom the Iwashimizu complex—although his son Yoshiie had perormed his coming-oage rites there in 1048). Tis Yuigahama Shrine-temple complex was subsequently transerred to Kamakura in 1180; that is the amed surugaoka Hachimangū o Kamakura in the Kantō region, which evolved into yet another major shrinetemple complex; as a consequence, the character o the Hachiman cult changed in order to accommodate the emerging warrior ethos. 180 We are thus able to understand one reason why the Minamoto house was interested in the Usa region and why it threw its support behind Mount Hiko, which was so closely related to the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex. Tis set o circumstances, however, was complicated by the act that a number o cultic institutions in northern Kyushu, none the least o which was the Usa Shrine-temple complex, had taken sides with the aira warlords and not, as one might have expected, with the Minamoto: the Usa Hachiman complex was reduced to ashes at the time by Minamoto-related warlords—those very same warlords who considered Hachiman to be their ancestor/protector. In 1185 Minamoto no Yoritomo, the Kamakura shogun, began to set up land stewards ( jitō) in each province o the country, and Ōtomo Yoshinao (1172–1223), a warlord who had assisted Yoritomo in his battles, became the first protector (shugo) o Buzen Province around 1206. 181 A ew years earlier, in 1197, this Ōtomo Yoshinao had offered an embossed representation o Amida, which he reerred to as gongen mishōtai (“material support” o the Avatar), on Mount Hiko. Hikosan Ruki, the oldest extant narrative concerning the mountain, was compiled shortly thereafer. Narrative selrepresentations such as those presented in Hikosan Ruki were produced by the immense majority o sites o cult on the occasion o political and social change, and it is worth underlining the act that these narratives provide us with the best clues evidencing the conflicts o interpretation that rocked these sites o cult at the time, or the authors’ political leanings and alliances surace in these
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documents—i only through their telling silences. One is also provided with a glimpse o the relations between various Buddhist discourses and practices that were in competition at the time, as well as with some insight into the relations between these practices and what or lack o a better term at the present might be reerred to as nascent medieval Shinto discourses. Tese documents suggest that there was a powerul competition between the various social groups that specialized in either o these discourses. Tus, even though Hikosan Ruki may have been produced right afer the establishment o the Kamakura shogunate (kōgi), it says nothing about the establishment o warlord power at the time, but its silence speaks volumes—since we know, or example, that the Ōtomo warlords garnered the well-deserved scorn o the region’s population. Tis text does, however, provide us with some inormation concerning two aspects o the social space o Mount Hiko: first, the psychological aspects o the perception o space and its concomitant inscriptions on the mountain itsel, and the ensuing deployment o spatial practices on the part o the yamabushi (described in the ollowing chapter); second, concerning the act that the “Buddha-siders” o the community were superior to the “ kami-siders” in all respects rom rank to ideas, but that this superiority was being questioned, at least in a covert manner (an issue discussed in the third chapter). Hikosan Ruki was also a political document in the sense that it emphasized Mount Hiko’s independence rom Kyoto while attempting to maintain the advantages o being an Ima-Kumano quasi-entrustment, that is, by keeping claim to its tax-ree status while emphasizing the interdiction against political control on the part o local and central governments. Te mountain sanctuary thus became a political institution. It is said in Hikosan Ruki that the Ryōsenji, Mount Hiko’s main temple, consisted in the early thirteenth century o more than 200 meditation halls inhabited by 110 kōshū (resident monks) and 205 sendatsu (literally, “guide,” a term reerring to the upper echelons o yamabushi as separate rom the scholarly monks and rom “Buddha-siders” as well as “ kami-siders”), and that Mount Hiko’s sacred realm consisted o orty-nine “caves” (kutsu), located both within and beyond the perimeter that had been established in 1181, and where yamabushi engaged in ascetic practices; it also presents short narratives about several o these caves, such as the ollowing. One: Wisdom Cave (also called Jewel Cave [amaya]). Te Tree Avatars brought rom the country o Magadha [India] a precious jewel and deposited it in this mountain’s Wisdom Cave so that it may benefit
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Hikosan Ruki also notes that more than 300 residents o the mountain participated in a large number o ritual assemblies, among which were the Dengyō Daishi goe on the ourth day o the sixth month (dedicated to Saichō, the patriarch o the endai Buddhist school); the Neugyōe during the eighth month (dedicated to ritual copying o the Lotus Sutra, the main scripture o endai Buddhism); and the Kaizan’e during the eleventh month (perormed in Mount Hiko’s Jewel Cave in honor o the fictional ounder o the site o cult, a Chinese monk named Chan-zheng . By the ourteenth century Mount Hiko had indeed become a prominent site o cult and it went on developing to such an extent that it came to require major governance: in 1333 Utsunomiya Nobukatsu, the jitō (steward) o the Shiroi district o Buzen Province, invited Imperial Prince Annin, the sixth son o Emperor Go-Fushimi (r. 1298–1301), to become abbot o Mount Hiko, a position he assumed under the name Joyū. 182 Te position o abbot was passed thereafer rom ather to son, and Mount Hiko became a monzeki, that is, a vast institution ruled hereditarily by abbots o imperial origins. 183 Joyū was married and thereore unable to reside in the Ryōsenji emple itsel, which was off-limits to women, and he established his offices in the Kurokawa-in temple in Kurokawa, on the south side o the mountain, like the princely abbots o Mount Hiei who resided in Sakamoto at the oot o the mountain on Lake Biwa’s western shore. 184 Mount Hiko thus came to be directly related to both warlord and imperial cultures during the medieval period. As a consequence o the hereditary transmission o the abbacy among members o aristocratic lineages and o warlord patronage, Mount Hiko’s power and influence reached their apex in the Muromachi period (1336–1573), and it was then that shrines dedicated to Daigyōji (a combinatory entity symbolizing all the deities worshipped on the mountain) were erected on the growing number o estates Mount Hiko’s abbots came to control in northern Kyushu.185 Tese circumstances provide us with a glimpse o the ormal and institutional differences that caused the cultic sites o Usa, Mount Hiko, and Kunisaki to develop separately even as they were geographical neighbors: afer 1181 and up to the ourteenth century, Mount Hiko was administered locally but ell under the influence o prelates o the Shōgo-in (and o the Onjōji as well), and it thereore evolved as a Shugendō center dominated by endai esotericism (taimitsu). Te Usa Hachiman
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able 2 List o Mount Hiko’s abbots
A. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Te “Six Superior Men” (Roku shōnin) Zenshō 善正 (?–582) Hōren 法蓮 (?–829) Raun 羅運 (?–835) Mokuren 木練 (?–934) Shinkei 真慶 (?–979) Zōkei 増慶 (?–1006)
B. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
Muromachi and Sengoku periods Joyū 助有 (?–1349); first monzeki abbot Jōyū 浄有 (?–1396) Yūchū 有忠 (?–1413) Yūshun 有俊 (?–1433) Yūi 有依 (?–1440) Yūgon 有厳 (?–1461) Raiyū 頼有 (?–1484) Gyōyū 堯有 (?–1499) Kōyū 興有 (?–1507) Yūin 有胤 (?–1530) Yūshin 有信 (?–1552) Rennyū 連有 (?–1567) Renchū 連忠 (?–1569) Shunnyū 舜有 (?–1587)
C. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
Edo period Chūyū 忠有 (?–1662) Yūshō 有清 (?–1653) Ryōyū 亮有 (1629–1674) Kōyū 広有 (1652–1679) Shōyū 相有 (1654–1714) Hoyū 保有 (1685–1743) Yūyo 有誉 (1687–1765) Kōyū 孝有 (?–1772) Shōyū 韶有 (1755–73) Myōyū 妙有 (1759–1811) Yūsen 有宣 (1781–1829) Kyōyū 教有 (1825–1872; took the name akachiho Noriari afer 1868).
Based on Hikosan kiroku, reproduced in Kawazoe Shōji and Hirowatari Masatoshi, Hikosan Hennen Shiryō (kodai, chūsei-hen) (okyo: Bunken shuppan, 1986), pp. 494–6.
Shrine-temple complex was placed under the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrinetemple complex at that time, and it thereore produced a system related to that institution’s imperial character and its taimitsu sphere o ritual influence. Te Kunisaki Peninsula’s “Conglomerate” was entrusted to Mount Hiei’s Mudōji emple and thereby ell under the influence o the Sannō ( taimitsu) cult, and its Shugendō aspects were influenced by Kumano Shugendō controlled by the Onjōji emple located on Mount Hiei’s southeastern flank. Tis orm o
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Shugendō had a great impact on Mount Hiko too, as a result o which Kumano Shugendō’s putative ounder, En no Gyōja, eventually came to be regarded as the ounder o Hiko Shugendō’s practices, and o some practices ound in the Kunisaki Peninsula as well. Te Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex and Mount Omoto also came to be deeply marked by this orm o Shugendō.
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2
Geotyped and Chronotyped Social Spaces
Te ormal distinction between the “ideal space” o mental (logico-mathematical) categories and the “real space” o social practice established by Henri Leèbvre is relevant to the present investigation in the sense that Usa, Hiko, and Kunisaki were oremost social spaces as well as the objects o a series o practices and narratives—although it is not clear whether language and its accompanying epistemological categories conditioned the apprehension o social space or simply ormulated or re-presented it. Nor is it clear at first whether narratives, as a particular instance o language use, were undamentally involved in the production o the space and time categories that are presented below. What is clear, however, is that i one were to posit the existence o Usa, Hiko, and Kunisaki separately rom their constitution as social spaces and separately rom the various narratives that were attached to them, one would have to consider their geographical reality as a mere variable or as an arbitrarily existing, neutral container. One would have to empty them o their temporal character and thereby remove rom consideration all human agents, their experience o space, and their production o that experience through schemes that enabled them to postulate a culture o place, best defined as a set o metaphors underlying strategies o domination and metaphysical notions all at once. In a nutshell, history would have to be ignored. Yet, historical time is that o the people who produced these sites o cult, occupied them, ought over their definition, argued or hegemony over interpretations and classificatory schemes, shed blood over the issue o who should rule them, and competed in developing and ormalizing spatial and social practices that lef traces over human-made landscapes as well as over body-minds. As Henri Leèbvre wrote, “producing space sounds bizarre, so great is the sway still held by the idea that empty space is prior to whatever ends up filling it.”1 As or time, it was conceived differently by the communities that engaged in the Usa, Hiko, and Kunisaki cults in the sense that—in the case o Mount Hiko, or example—the various social groups living on the mountain 83
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established perspectives on time and space that were different rom those that were held by people living away rom the mountain. Space and time were thus lived , not merely lived in, differently by these mountain communities—but they were also perceived, conceived and represented differently, and it may be advanced that a good part o the history o the sites o cult o Usa, Hiko, and Kunisaki is the history o those experiences, perceptions, conceptualizations, and representations. Space and time were objects o thought or to the very least something good to think with, and they were firmly tied to specific social practices; that is, space and time were objects o thought to such a degree that the models that were constructed o them were used to contain a significant number o philosophical and religious notions originally external to them, and they involved social practices to such a degree that they were used to codiy existential experience and social lie. Tis chapter examines how cosmological and cosmographic notions were projected onto discrete geographical regions with the result that these regions came to be conceived o as the natural, physical models o principles said to have been retrieved through specific mentalphysical practices, and it will be suggested that these practices were directly related to the constitution o social subjects. Te projection and retrieval o these principles through practices that structurally fit specific categories o space and time will be called, in the ollowing, “modeling o existential space,” while the various orms these categories took will be called “geotypes” in the case o space, and “chronotypes” in the case o time. John Bender and David Wellbery coined the term “chronotype” on the basis o Mikhail Bakhtin’s use o the term “chronotope” (itsel borrowed rom Einstein’s physics) in order to “designate the usion o temporal/spatial structures and to define characteristic time/space ormations.”2 Tese authors defined chronotypes as “models or patterns through which time assumes practical or conceptual significance” and they emphasized that these models are constructed, made and remade at multiple individual, social, and cultural levels. While it is not the purpose o the present discussion to address the thematic horizon outlined in their study, it is useul to ocus the analysis on two questions these authors have asked. First, “What unctions do chronotypes serve? How do they contribute to the ormation o social, cultural, and individual identity? In what ways do they constrict or expand the field o experience?” Secondly, “What is the relation between temporal construction and empowerment? Are chronotypes involved in processes o domination? ”3 Tere are two reasons or my choice o these authors’ two questions: the first is that they can be used to discuss the social construction o experience, and the second is that they acilitate an elaboration o both space and time in relation to social
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and cultural orms, in a way that these authors have not done. Tat is, even though Bender and Wellbery have underlined the act that time and space cannot be separated, they have actually emphasized the construction o time alone, and have by and large let the analysis o space all by the wayside.
Hachiman’s traveling icons4 Several intriguing temporal, spatial, and social eatures o the Hachiman cult in northeast Kyushu are ound in the Stately Progress Ritual Assembly ( Gyōkōe), a ritual procession that originated at a time that cannot be ascertained but is said to have reached stability at the beginning o the ninth century, only to be abandoned during the Edo period (1600–1868). Tis Stately Progress set o rituals entailed the production, every six years, o new “icons” ( mishirushi) symbolizing the Hachiman triad, their presentation to eight shrines in Buzen Province, and their ormal installation in the Usa Shrine-temple complex. Te old icons were then withdrawn rom Usa and were displayed in ront o our shrines in Bungo Province beore they were released into the sea at Nada, in the southeastern corner o the Kunisaki Peninsula. Concurrently, the regalia ( jinpō) o the Usa Shrine were taken and paraded in ront o two shrines in Buzen Province. Documents o the Heian period (794–1185) say that the Stately Progress was inaugurated in 749 (the date o Hachiman’s installation at the ōdaiji) or 765, and that it was perormed once every our years up to 811, when it was decided that the rite would be perormed once every six years, in the year o the hare and in that o the rooster.5 Long regarded as one ritual o the Usa Hachiman cult equal in importance to the Release o Living Beings Ritual Assembly, but now extinct even though an attempt to revive it was made in 1971, the Stately Progress is representative o a “spatial choreography” and “temporal rhythm” worthy o special notice. It also includes a number o iconographic elements that strongly suggest how the effigies o the Hachiman cult were conceived o during the medieval period. Every major (Shinto) shrine in Japan consists o a hall ( shinden) containing a number o cultic objects that are usually hidden rom public view, sometimes kept secret but withdrawn rom the shrine in special containers on the occasion o the ritual observances and estivities known as matsuri, when they are placed into portable palanquins ( mikoshi) and paraded in the communities that dedicate a cult to them. Tese cultic objects are divided into several categories, the most important o which is called “body o the kami” (shintai, goshintai or mishōtai).
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Te term “body” reers to a physical substance to which a kami adheres, or which a kami is said to maniest; it may consist o a variety o natural or man- made objects ranging rom stones to Buddhist statues and include mirrors, masks, or weapons. Te second category o objects ound in shrines is the regalia ( jinpō or kandakara) that are placed within the shrine itsel or are kept in an adjacent storehouse. Tese objects usually have a long history and are displayed in ront o a shrine at the time o ritual observances; they range over a vast material variety, rom banners to swords. 6 More rarely ound, the third category is called mishirushi, a term I propose to translate as “icon” or the ollowing reasons. Te word mi is a mark o respect reerring to the kami, and the word shirushi, which may mean proo, mark, or indication, is written with a Chinese graph meaning evidence or clue; the word thus reers to objects whose unction is to reveal, indicate, or evidence the presence o a kami. Tey are symbols, but the term icon is preerable because o its twoold meaning, first as a reerence to ormal modes o representation, and second, as a reerence to the metaphorical unction o language as defined by Charles S. Peirce and Umberto Eco. Contrary to the shintai, icons tended to be replaced on a regular basis, or reasons that are unclear— although it is known that some shintai were regularly replaced in some shrines. Tere are no indications concerning when icons came to be placed in the Usa Shrines prior to the Heian period, by which time it is clear that they were wooden statues—Hachiman being represented, in general, as a Buddhist monk—and that these statues were painted, dressed with brocade garments, and placed near or on pillows (makura). Tese pillows were filled with water-oat (makomo: Zizania aquatica , sometimes called Indian or Canadian rice). Ceremonially taken rom the Komo Shrine’s three-pronged piece o water in Ōsada, these pillows were wrapped in brocade casings embroidered with representations o ritual implements o esoteric Buddhism, among which the six- pronged ritual trident (dokko, Skt., vajra) figured prominently as an emblem o esoteric Buddhism. Te brocade garments or the statues were also adorned with embroidered representations o ritual implements. Tese pillows and clothed statues were then placed in the shrine on ornate seats and were surrounded by regalia that, in the case o Usa, were weapons or the most part but included mirrors to which special attention was given at the time o the Rite o Release o Living Beings. Hachiman is the first major Japanese cultic system in which the objects o the cult were subjected to anthropomorphic representations placed in shrines; as was suggested in the first chapter, there is little doubt that Buddhism was responsible or this eature. Indeed, the immense majority o “native” cults in which painted or sculpted anthropomorphic representations are ound were
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governed by Buddhist temples, or evolved in shrines created by Buddhist monks—as was the case o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex. Furthermore, the entities enshrined in Usa had been “real” humans beore their death, so that we are looking at a cult o deification o human agents by Buddhism, and not at what one author has termed an ancestral cult.7 Te isochronal replacement o the statues, garments and pillows, and their strictly ordered movements through space were a grand and expensive affair comparable to the reconstruction o the Ise or Kasuga Shrines that are said to have taken place every twenty years, although these periodic reconstructions did not ulfill quite the same unction as the rite under discussion (the Usa Hachiman Shrine itsel was to be reconstructed every thirty-three years, although—as in the case o Kasuga and Ise—political, economic, and military conditions prevented the observation o a strict isochrony). Te Stately Progress under consideration entailed the participation o many commoners, sacerdotal officiants, Buddhist prelates and aristocrats and, later on, warlords. It required lengthy preparations, or it entailed sending to Kyoto boats that were loaded with items to pay or the brocade garments and casings or the pillows. Tese were usually made by artists o the court’s workshops o sculpture and weaving, or by artisans affiliated with the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex. Te elements just outlined above, and discussed more extensively below, indicate that the clothing o the statues was an all-important aspect o iconography. Te origins o this Stately Progress are not clear. It seems that only the garments and brocade casings or the pillows were replaced at first, but that the statues themselves came to be replaced (or, more probably, introduced) at the beginning o the Heian period. Collectively called lordly raiments, these garments and casings were offered by members o the court early on in the rite’s history. Afer the beginning o the medieval period, raw materials were requested rom communities living on specific Kyushu estates that were managed by the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, but the manuacture o the raiments was always completed in Kyoto. Local preparations or the Stately Progress engaged many people in the Buzen, Bungo, and Hyūga provinces; special taxes were levied or the occasion on the shrines’ estates, and the overall procedure took about two years. Te lordly raiments were requested directly rom the artisanal offices o the court at least until the middle o the Kamakura period (1185– 1336), although it appears that or much o the Heian period members o leading aristocratic houses personally ordered the garments rom the Oribe ateliers they sponsored. Te Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex levied primary materials
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or these garments rom its estates in Hyūga Province, and sent them to Kyoto on especially chartered boats called “brocade boats o the stately progress” (Gyōkō-e aya miune). One boat per shrine was provided, and a document dated 1176 stipulated that each should be manned by thirty-three hands commandeered by as many as twenty district offices located in three provinces. Meanwhile, the estate o Himeshima Island, which belonged to the Mirokuji emple, was asked to provide ten sheaves ( soku) o arrowroot ( kuzu), while the population o that small island was required to provide thirty-three gallons o sea salt, three gallons o millet (awasa), and twenty sheaves o arrowroot.8 All in all, however, during the 1176 preparation or the ritual progress that took place the ollowing year, authorities o the Usa Shrine-temple complex requested materials including cotton, silk, cloth, hemp cloth, white cloth, leather, as well as ingredients or the colors purple, indigo, dyer’s saffron, and azure, or the rather consequent sum o 523 gold coins ( ryō) and 160 copper coins. Te 1177 progress appears to have been the last perormed during the Heian period, or the raging battles o the ollowing decade probably prevented boats rom moving reely across the Inland Sea, which had become a central staging area or the conflict between the aira (Heike) and Minamoto (Genji) warlords. Once the Kamakura shogunate (kōgi) was established in 1186, however, the management o estates owned by shrine-temple complexes across the country drastically changed, and the Usa sacerdotal authorities stopped sending primary materials, preerring instead to send rice and to request that officials o the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex exchange it there or materials to be purchased in Kyoto. Several documents suggest that the Stately Progress o 1285, conducted our years afer the Mongol invasions, was particularly impressive; indeed, the institutions o Mount Hiko, o the Usa Hachiman Shrinetemple complex, and especially those o Kunisaki had been asked by the government to perorm esoteric rituals with a view to “protect the territory and repel the barbarians,” and it was deemed that their combined powers led to the 1281 typhoon (kamikaze) that caused the deeat o the Mongols on Kyushu’s northern shores. As a consequence, five weavers working in three different ateliers in Kyoto were hired to produce the lordly raiments, and three boats, each o which was directed by two helmsmen and manned by twenty-our hands, carrying various materials and copper coins, were chartered by the Usa Shrine- temple complex and crossed the Inland Sea in six days. Documents requesting various Iwashimizu officials to expeditiously barter rice against raw materials were signed by ourteen officiants o the Usa and Ōga sacerdotal houses; several other documents duly
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Map 7 Icons travel rom Usa to Iwashimizu and back
prepared by various scribes requested permission to cross province boundaries and dock in harbors along the route. It appears that this Stately Progress was perormed only intermittently during the Muromachi period (1336–1570) because o difficult economic conditions and o the many armed encounters marking the late medieval period in Kyushu, and that it was abandoned altogether during the Edo period (1615–1868) or a variety o reasons that are not explicitly stated but must have been related to the okugawa shoguns’ policies and their emphasis on their own sel- deification at the ōshōgū shrine-temple complex in Nikkō as well as in every province. It might be added that the deification o the okugawa shoguns bears close resemblance to the Hachiman cult’s central eatures. Tis should not come as a surprise, or endai prelates were responsible or the Hachiman cult in Kyushu, and created the doctrinal and ritual lines o the combinatory Sannō cult or the okugawa deification rituals that evolved at the ōshōgū complex in Nikkō.9
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Figure 1 Plan o Usa Hachiman Shrine’s grounds
Once these raiments arrived in Usa they were placed inside the Lower Sanctuary, on the west side o Ogura Hill where the Upper Sanctuary is situated. 10 A group o sacerdotal officiants led by an inspector (always a member o the sacerdotal lineage managing the Oyamada Shrine) and his retainers then prepared palanquins in ront o the Upper Sanctuary and departed on the first day o the horse o the seventh month or the Komo Shrine o Ōsada, which is dedicated to a kami whose “physical substance” was the Misumi Pond, a piece o water generated by three sources and in which water-oat grew. Tere the sacerdotal officiants ceremonially cut the water-oat that would be used to fill the pillows and took it to Usa, where they displayed it in the corridor surrounding the first shrine o the Lower Sanctuary, and let it dry or several days. Tey then erected to the west o the Lower Sanctuary a temporary building called “Cormorant Feathers Hall” (On’ubaneya), within which the inspector spent one hundred days in seclusion, a period during which he asted a total o seven (seventeen?) days, and at the conclusion o which he produced or all to see the encased pillows, each 30cm in length and 3cm in thickness, and the newly dressed statues.11 Tese objects were then taken to the Upper Sanctuary through its eastern gate, while the old icons were removed through the western gate and taken to the Lower Sanctuary. On the first day o the horse o the eleventh month,
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leading sacerdotal officiants o the Upper Sanctuary’s three shrines placed the new icons into palanquins and departed or ceremonial visits to eight shrines.12 It should be noted that these palanquins were elaborately decorated and that their inner walls, never shown in public, were painted with scenes based on sections o the Lotus Sutra. According to the ourteenth-century Compendium o Hachiman Oracles, the first painting in the first palanquin was based on the ollowing verses o the second chapter o the sutra, “Expedient Devices”: Tere are even children who in play Gather sand and make it into Buddha-stupas. Persons like these Have all achieved the Buddha Path.13
Te second painting was based on the ollowing verses o the sixteenth chapter, “Te Lie-span o the Tus Come One”: Ever am I on the Mount o the Numinous Eagle And in my other dwelling places. When the beings see the kalpa ending And being consumed by a great fire, Tis land o mine is perectly sae, Ever ull o gods and men; In it are gardens and groves, halls and towers, Variously adorned with gems.14
Te third painting was based on the ollowing lines o the twelfh chapter, “Devadatta” : For Dharma’s sake, I abandoned realm and title, leaving the government to my heir, and to the beat o a drum I announced to the our quarters that I was seeking Dharma. “Whoever can preach the Great Vehicle to me, or him I will render service and run errands or the rest o my lie!” At that time there was a seer who came and reported to the king, saying, “I have a great vehicle; its name is the Scripture o the Lotus Blossom o the Fine Dharma. I you can obey me, I will set it orth or you.” When the king heard the seer’s words, he danced or joy, then straightway ollowed the seer, tending to whatever he required: picking his ruit, drawing his water, gathering his firewood, preparing his ood, even making a couch o his own body; eeling no impatience, whether in body or mind. He rendered him service or a thousand years, bending all efforts to menial labor or Dharma’s sake and seeing to it that he lacked nothing. 15
Te paintings o the second palanquin were based on the ollowing verses o the third chapter, “Parable”:
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Te paintings in the third palanquin were based on the ollowing segment o the twenty-seventh chapter, “Te Former Affairs o the King Fine Adornment”: Tereupon the two sons, taking thought or their ather, danced in empty space at a height equal to that o seven tala-trees and displayed a variety o magical eats in empty space: walking, remaining still, sitting, lying down, emitting water rom the upper part o their bodies, emitting water rom the lower part o their bodies, emitting fire rom the upper part o their bodies, emitting fire rom the lower part o their bodies, or else displaying a body large enough to fill empty space, then displaying a small one and then displaying a large one, vanishing in empty space and then suddenly appearing on the ground, sinking into the earth
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as i it were water, treading on the water as i it were earth. Displaying such a variety o magical eats as these, they caused the king their ather to believe and understand with a pure heart.16
An interesting study published in the Bulletin o the Oita Preectural Museum o History in 2011 and authored by Ishikawa Yūsei, Hirao Yoshimitsu and Yamada akushin shows that the paintings were completed on silk and glued to the mikoshi inner panels; they were saved rom assured destruction in 1868, removed rom the panels, mounted on scrolls, and kept in various museums. Tese scientists subjected the paintings to X-ray and chemical composition analysis, and determined that, o the ten paintings recovered, eight had been made between 1306–8, and two between 1394–1428. Tese paintings represent the space/time o the events presented in the Lotus Sutra quoted above, and are o high quality. Te study also suggests that the paintings must have been done in Kyoto because the pigments used were typical o the imperial painting ateliers at the time. 17 Tus adorned, the procession lef or the abue Shrine located at the western entrance to the Kunisaki Peninsula, and then went to the akaise (Komoise) Shrine, where its members spent one night. Te ollowing day, the procession proceeded to the Kōrise Shrine, the Sakai Izumi Shrine, the Otohime Shrine, and the Ōnegawa Shrine. At that point an assistant sacerdotal head removed the sacred halberds (regalia) rom the Usa Shrines and proceeded to the Komo Shrine, where he had them displayed. It is said that beore the Heian period an imperial messenger participated in the Stately Progress up to this point but was replaced later by a provincial government official. In any case, the procession then retraced its steps to the Kōrise Shrine, and the ollowing day journeyed to the sumagaki Shrine, in the proximity o which another night was spent in temporary buildings. Te next day, the assistant head-officiant took the regalia to the Karakawa Shrine, and upon his return to Kōrise the procession visited the sumagaki Shrine on the hour o the rooster. Afer yet another night the procession journeyed to the Oyamada Shrine, and then retraced its steps to the Upper Sanctuary o Usa on Ogura Hill, where the sacerdotal officiants entered through the western gate and finally deposited the various icons and regalia inside the three shrines. Starting some time during the late Kamakura period, it seems, the old icons were removed rom the Lower Sanctuary and were taken across the Kunisaki Peninsula to the Nada Hachiman Shrine by several sacerdotal officiants o that shrine. Te procession first went to the Wakamiya Shrine o Kunawa District and spent the night there; it then visited the Ichinomiya Shrine o the ashibu estate
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Map 8 Icons travel rom Usa to Komo, and Usa to Nada Shrine
or another night, visited the Shirakami Shrine o ahara and spent one night there, and finally proceeded to the Nada Hachiman Shrine, although it appears that the subaki Hachiman Shrine o the district o Musashi was also visited on some occasions. Te icons were then ceremonially displayed at the Nada Shrine, and the old raiments and brocade casings were placed in a dugout and released into the Hayasui Strait that separates Kyushu rom Shikoku. At some point in the history o the Stately Progress, however, it seems that oracles revealed that the three deities themselves wished to be sent to the palace o the dragon on the ocean floor, or that they wished to visit Hachiman shrines located on the westernmost shores o Shikoku Island; the statues were then added to the objects placed in the dugouts—which explains why Hachiman statues sharing the style ound in Nada are ound in those shrines as well. Some Japanese scholars say that a change o the statues every six years is unthinkable; however, they cannot explain why the Nada and Yano Shrines have a considerable
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number o Hachiman statues in their possession, and it is possible to suggest that the statues were replaced a number o times, even though the extant documents provide little or no inormation on the subject. It is not clear whether statues or their raiments were renewed at all during the Edo period, as a consequence o which it is probably adequate to view the Stately Progress as a phenomenon that spanned the time between the eighth and eigtheenth centuries. Several issues may be raised with regard to the nature o this ritual progress, which was a major and airly unusual undertaking in the realm o shrines, even in sites o cult sponsored by the court. Tese issues will be discussed below in two steps: first, the rite’s spatial dimensions, and second, its iconographic characteristics. Tis Usa Shrine-temple ritual differed substantially in these respects rom that o the Suwa complex, whose sacred poles were taken to the shrine in a straight line across rivers, plains, and hills, and were elled in orests set aside or this purpose ( soma); and it differed rom the Ise Shrines’ isochronal rebuilding ritual, in which case the materials needed or the new shrines were taken rom estates scattered around the country and were brought to Ise in sometimes spectacular a manner. More research on Usa is needed beore a final conclusion can be reached, but it seems that the eight shrines in ront o which the lordly raiments and pillows were paraded not only enjoyed a close relation to the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex but were somehow related to its origins, and that their participation in the ritual was not gratuitous, in that it involved claims to territorial dominance on Usa’s part. Tis matter will be examined on the basis o a presentation o what is known about these shrines, and the route o the last leg o the progress rom Usa to Nada will then be compared to the estates o the Kunisaki Peninsula and to the course taken by its mountain ascetics in their peregrinations. Te Komo Shrine was a large site o cult, as is evidenced by several painted representations o the medieval period. Te Compendium o Hachiman Oracles o the ourteenth century claims that water-oat was taken there as early as 719 but that claim may be rejected in view o the act that the Yahata Shrine was erected only in 725, and the Usa and Komo Shrines were located in different administrative districts anyway, which should have precluded such practices at the time. Furthermore, according to Iwashimizu documents the Komo Shrine came under authority o the Usa sacerdotal house only at the end o the Nara period, at which point a member o the Usa house took the name Ikemori (Pond Guardian), thereby establishing a new sacerdotal house. 18 Tere was originally no shrine at Komo, it is said, or Misumi Pond itsel was (the residence or
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substance o) the kami, and rites were perormed by a boulder situated at the edge o the pond. Nevertheless, a shrine was erected during the Jōwa period (834–48) and a rather impressive jingūji, o which some elements are visible today, was built in 1109 and evolved into a major regional site o cult. Te history o the Komo Shrine-temple complex is almost impossible to retrace, or sources were burnt in the successive disasters that were wrought on that site o cult by the Ōtomo warlords during the medieval period. It was reported at the end o the Edo period that the Komo Shrine had a “secluded site o cult” (oku no in) located on Mount Hachimen (not to be conused with Hachiman), a Shugendō site o cult located directly south o it. It is also said that five Hachiman sub-shrines (the Chōnodate, Chōsan, Naritsune, Hiwarabi, and Wakamiya Shrines) were under its control, and that it managed a temporary shrine (tongū) at Wamahama, where its officiants perormed a variety o rites related to the Usa Hachiman Rite o Release o Living Beings. Te sumagaki Shrine was said to be dedicated to Himegami, the kami enshrined at Usa in the second shrine, and about which many opinions concerning its identity or origins have been expressed over time. Tis shrine was located next to a horse relay that connected the district offices o the Buzen and Bungo provinces in the eighth century; this may be a reason or its importance and the variety o opinions concerning its status. It had a jingūji called Fugenji or Fugendō, which was placed under the authority o the Nakatsuoji, the Buddhist temple associated with the second o the three shrines o Usa. Tis jingūji gradually ell into disrepair during the Edo period, no doubt because the Stately Progress had been abolished by then. Ofen conused in documents o the medieval period with the Komoi Shrine (itsel not to be conused with the Komo Shrine), the Kōrise Shrine appears to be very old and to have been governed by the Hita house, a branch o the Karashima sacerdotal house. Archaeological excavations in its immediate vicinity have unearthed a Korean bronze bell that is the oldest ound in Japan so ar, as well as a number o buildings that may have been part o the district offi ces during the Yamato and Nara periods, and may have led to the name o the shrine, “District stream” (Kōrise). Te Sakai Izumi Shrine, sometimes called more succinctly Sakai or Izumi, is also located near a pond and a spring used or lustration rites. Tis site o cult appears briefly in a number o documents; it remained under the sacerdotal authority o the Karashima sacerdotal house up to 1868. It is reported in a number o legends that Hachiman, assisted by a emale kami called akashi-tsuhime and identified as the ancestor o the Karashima sacerdotal house, underwent rites o purification at this shrine. It is not clear whether the shrine itsel had a
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jingūji, but a member o the Karashima house, a certain Raigen, was an ordained Buddhist monk who restored the institutions o Mount Kubote, an important Shugendō site o cult located on the eastern edge o Mount Hiko, about fifeen kilometers away rom this Komo Shrine. Te Otohime Shrine is also the site o a spring said to have been dug by one o the first members o the Karashima house, a certain Otome, and its compounds include a uneral tumulus o the sixth century. Te Ōnegawa Shrine does not appear in ninth-century documents, and it is not clear when it was included in the ritual progress; it ell, nonetheless, under direct authority o the Usa sacerdotal house. Te Oyamada Shrine has a long history; it was reported in the early ninth century that the original shrine erected by Ōga no Higi and dedicated to “Yawata” on the summit o Mount Maki (Omoto) was transerred to Oyamada in 716, and in 725 was moved to its present location on Ogura Hill. It is in this Oyamada Shrine, apparently, that rites were perormed at the time o the Hayato uprisings in the second decade o the eighth century, and it is believed that “Hachiman” requested a pillow filled with water-oat when he was in residence at this shrine, and that the very first Rite o Release o Living Beings was perormed there as well. Te Oyamada sacerdotal house claimed descent rom Ōga no Higi; it governed this shrine, and one o its members was traditionally appointed Inspector o the Lordly Raiments at Usa at the time o the Stately Progress. Despite its early importance, this shrine is today o low status in the overall ranking o shrines, and looks abandoned. Te abue Shrine was located on the boundary between Buzen and Bungo provinces and was the first shrine visited at the time o the Stately Progress, although it may have been an ancient and important site o cult, and a document o the medieval period states that there was no shrine building, only a sacred pine tree. It is today a desolate site containing a small shrine in disrepair. In light o the importance and scope o the Stately Progress or several centuries, the paucity o historical records concerning these shrines is rustrating. Te earliest mention o the majority o the shrines involved in the Stately Progress occurs in the early ninth century, by which time historical acts must already have become the object o truncated or selective memorialization such as one finds in the narratives that sustained the ormation o the Hachiman cult. Indeed, the kami o these shrines are presented in the available documents as having helped various journeys undertaken by the Great Bodhisattva Ninmon (putative ounder o the Kunisaki Peninsula’s system o twenty- eight temples and regarded as a reincarnation o Hachiman); this assistance consisted in providing him with water, rice-brew (miki), or local ood delicacies. While these
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documents provide bits and pieces o a narrative that is not without interest, they cannot be viewed as reliable historical records, however, and only conjectures are lef. It may be that these shrines were located on the oldest estates o the Usa Shrine-temple complex (it is said, or example, that Misumi Pond was the result o a dam built by the Buddhist monk Hōren, on land commended to him by the emperor in the eighth century), or that they were sites o cult to which ancient communities had been attached beore they ell under Usa’s control in the early eighth century. It may also be the case that they were related to the history o the infiltration o the region by the Karashima house, or to that o the Usa or Ōga houses. Still and all, these shrines were all located near sources o water used to develop rice fields, and they remained closely associated in the context o the Stately Progress: the progress along the paths linking these shrines appears to be one o the longest such courses ever evidenced in the history o ancient shrines in Japan. As or the ritual display o icons, it may have originated in a memory o the multi-cultural roots o separate communities in the region, and may also have served as a reminder o the powerul uniying orce o the court- sponsored Hachiman cult. Te second leg o the progress, during which the old icons were transported to the Nada Hachiman Shrine located on the southeast side o the Kunisaki Peninsula, also contains noteworthy ritual aspects. Leaving aside the Wakamiya, Ichinomiya, and Shirakami Shrines (which were only sites o rest), attention must be paid to the end o the progress, the Nada Hachiman Shrine. Te course o the procession ollowed the northern oot o the ahara horst and made a short inroad into the Kunisaki Peninsula through the hamlet o Ōtamura. Tis inroad appears to be related to the course o the peregrination that evolved in Kunisaki because i one compares the course o the ritual progress with that o the peregrination, one sees that a triangular zone corresponding to the hamlet o Ōtamura was ignored by participants in the peregrination, and that there was no Buddhist temple in it. Tis suggests that the second leg o the Stately Progress had territorial overtones related to a distinction between shrine and temple estates, and that the Kunisaki Peninsula was clearly separated rom the rest o the region. Tis is especially intriguing—in light o the act that the narratives concerning the Stately Progress associate the course with the quest or nirvān.a on the part o the Great Bodhisattva Ninmon, who was a central object o cult in the Kunisaki Peninsula and was regarded as the creator o its peregrination. Ninmon, however, is a highly elusive figure. Facing the Inland Sea and situated at the oot o hills on whose summits fires were tended to guide maritime traffic, the Nada Hachiman Shrine may well
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orm, together with the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex and the Imi Betsugū-Hachiman Shrine on the northern coast o the peninsula, an important triad o sites o cult in northeast Kyushu, but it is not quite clear why the old icons, lordly raiments and pillows were taken to so distant a site. It is not clear either when the practice o releasing these objects into the sea came into effect, what it exactly meant and when it was abandoned, or what the nature o the contacts between Nada and the other Hachiman sites o cult located on the western coast o Shikoku Island was. Te release o various cultic objects into ponds, rivers, or the sea is seen throughout South and East Asia, but it seems that the present case is slightly different, in that medieval documents explicitly associate the release o the icons into the sea with the entrance o Ninmon into nirvān.a. Tis rite may well have its origins in a common practice among seapeople in northern Kyushu that was borrowed by the Usa Hachiman cult, but there is no evidence to that effect; it is ar more probable that Daoist rituals o purification introduced to Japan by Buddhism either were at the origins o the practice, or at least became its dominant eature, but this issue must be lef unresolved at the present juncture because o the complexity and variety o rites o purification in Asia. A second eature, already noted above, is that the progress ollowed a course placed exclusively on estates managed by the shrines o Usa and avoided those belonging to the temples associated with these shrines, a act which suggests that the people o the area drew a clear distinction between the two types o estates, and that this may have defined the character o the traveling icons accordingly. Tis is all the more interesting in light o the act that the other main rite o Usa, the Release o Living Beings, also involved releasing objects into the sea, but was essentially a Buddhist rite in which monks were in a central position, whereas sacerdotal houses occupied a peripheral position. Te conounding ambiguities o these characteristics are suggestive o the competition or interpretive dominance between shrine and temple prelates, a competition that is typical o the main rites o shrine-temple complexes during the medieval and early modern periods. Tus, the ritual release o the icons into the sea seems to have included elements that were perhaps pre-Buddhist or Daoist, either in origins or as accretions but very ancient in any case, and it involved a number o shrines directly related to estates to which their sacerdotal managers claimed the right to tax, and to localities they claimed to control. Tere is little doubt that the Komo Shrine and its water-oat represent agricultural practices predating wetland rice cultivation. It is also probable that the eight shrines involved in the Stately Progress carried on ancient traditions related to ood offerings, and it is possible that some o these traditions contained traces o
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pre-Hachiman cults in the region. Still, there is little or no doubt that these shrines came to be dominated by the Usa Hachiman cult, that their sacerdotal officiants and communities ully participated in, or attempted to control, the cultural domain carved out by the Hachiman cult, and that the Stately Progress reinorced local hierarchies and land-related alliances or patterns o dominance. Finally, it might be suggested that the Stately Progress was inscribed within the larger context o the Hachiman cult’s territorial eatures, a prominent metaphor or which was travel. As was stated in the preceding chapter, the narratives o the Ōjin mythological cycle contained in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki were predominantly travel and conquest narratives related to the sea routes connecting Japan to the Korean Peninsula and passing through the Inland Sea, ollowed the Pacific coast all the way to Kashima in the Kantō area. Another route ollowed the Japan Sea coast o western Japan rom south to north, while yet another route crossed rom the western to the eastern coast, a course along which one sees rituals and various sites o cult connected to the Azumi sea people. Furthermore, the amuke Hachiman Shrine o the ōdaiji emple as well as the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex were related to the protection o the court; many o the thousands o Hachiman sub-shrines ound in Japan were erected in conditions usually related to the spread o these narratives or to the memorialization o people who died in subsequent battles. Hachiman was, essentially, tutelary and territorial an entity; its protection was beseeched around a country crisscrossed by roads, surrounded by sea routes and as i pockmarked by historical happenings in relation to which the sites o cult unctioned as mnemotechnic devices and as local anchors or narratives. Tis territorial eature might explain why the lordly raiments were made in Kyoto and shipped across the Inland Sea, why the icons were made to travel rom Komo to Nada, and why they were taken by boat to the Hachiman Shrines o Yawatahama and Uwajima in Shikoku, directly across rom Nada. It would be wrong, then, to think o Kyushu and Kyoto simplistically in terms o “center” and “periphery,” or while there may have been several peripheral areas, there were obviously several centers at that time in Japan, and it is only through a complex system o give-and-take between the court and other centers, through a ritual economy so to speak, that the court attempted to set itsel up as “the center” (but never succeeded). Te Hachiman cult thus undergirded the polycentric character o the court’s territoriality, and the various ritualized journeys (routines) that were replicated through the centuries ormed one o that territoriality’s geotypical aspects, while memorial rites and the very regularity o their perormance ormed one o its chronotypical aspects. Tese geotypical and chronotypical
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aspects were equally the object o narratives, or they had to do with the temporal and spatial aspects o “central” and “local” powers. Furthermore, each o these rites was inscribed within a certain modality o historical consciousness that is evident in the overall emphases on purification, renewal, atonement, and penance, with which they were shot through. Tey also served to characterize and enhance the otherworldly nature o imperial figures as well as the imperial nature o Hachiman, a eature best analyzed in relation to the raiments in which the icons representing this unique entity were dressed. Te term lordly raiments ( goshōzoku) is ound in other cults as well as in court rituals where they hold a prominent place and indicates that some statues placed in temples or shrines were covered with garments rom the Nara period on to the late nineteenth century, when the practice was abandoned. Te best known such case is that o the amed statue o Kannon in the Yumedono Hall o the Hōryūji emple. Surprisingly enough, there is no scholarly analysis o the clothing o statues in the Japanese cultic context, and none in a book dedicated to Hachiman imagery; this lacuna in the treatment o iconography may have been caused by the systematic reduction o statues and the like to objets d’art , a reduction that may have been inevitable in the problematic institution o museums but that should not have been inevitable in the realm o art history. Te first critic o this reduction, perhaps, was Nietzsche, who condemned Kant when he wrote, “All I wish to underline is that, like all philosophers, instead o visualizing the aesthetic problem rom the point o view o the experiences o the artist (the creator), Kant reflected on art and the beautiul only rom the point o the view o the “spectator” and in doing so unconsciously introduced the “spectator” himsel into the concept “beautiul.” 19 In other words, best put by Pierre Bourdieu, “the inadequacy o scholarly discourse derives rom its ignorance o all that its theory owes to its theoretical relation to the object.” 20 In a study published in 1928 and entitled Le Bouddha Paré (“Te Adorned Buddha”), however, Paul Mus has conclusively shown that the iconographic representation o ornate raiments on statues o the Buddha was directly related to doctrinal issues concerning the body o the Buddha, in that they symbolized his role as a universal ruler (cakravartin), that is, as a political figure. 21 Tis study invites one to ask whether Hachiman might have been conceived o along similar lines; urthermore, the issue o clothing and political symbolism was central in ancient Japan, as is abundantly clear in the imperial unerary rituals, in the Shingon and endai rituals o protection o the imperial body via the ritual use o a set o the emperor’s ceremonial clothes, and in the entire system o clothing in relation to court rank and status. reating Hachiman imagery as though the emperor had
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no clothes bars access to the complex Shinto-Buddhist character o Hachiman and to its politico-religious dimension. Te Hachiman cult was ormalized under direct Buddhist influences, first under the impact o the Maitreya cult imported rom Korea and subsequently managed by Hossō authorities; second, under the pervasive influence o the Lotus Sutra in Kyushu; and third, under the influence o Pure Land devotion. It also evolved as a cult o protection o the territory claimed by the court, however, and in this connection received variegated accretions rom non-Buddhist practices and ideas o Chinese, Korean, or “native” manuacture. Te ritual assembly o Release o Living Beings, or example, was a rite o atonement intended to do away with the ritual pollution garnered by the court’s political decisions to kill human beings in the process o territory building; while this ritual assembly appears to have Buddhist origins, its perormance in Kyushu was contextualized by the non-Buddhist parameters o the opposition between purity and pollution, and by oracular pronouncements.22 Furthermore, the image o the human body was undamental to politicoreligious representations in Heian Japan: the court’s realm was conceived o in a relationship o non-duality with the body o the emperor, while the emperor’s physical body was subjected to a plethora o rituals o both Buddhist and nonBuddhist character. Te punishment o offenses against the court was primarily meted out on the body. Movements o the body through space were subjected to the complex rules o directional taboos. 23 Every single aspect o bodily behavior was the object o etiquette, ritual, and protocol, rom the emperor’s hairdo to the shaving o a monk’s head. So was clothing, which indicated status and rank, and it is in this realm that pertinent questions concerning the clothing o entities such as Hachiman may be asked. Following the study on the Ornate Buddha mentioned earlier, it can be advanced that Hachiman was treated both as a stand-in or the imperial figure (since Hachiman was the deified orm o “Emperor” Ōjin), and as a Buddha in his “body o retribution” (sambhoga-kāya). Tat is, Hachiman was not conceived o as either a mere kami or only as the local maniestation o a Buddha ( suijaku). Nor was he thought to be a maniestation equivalent to the body o transormation or metamorphosis (nirmān.a-kāya), and most definitely not a body o essence (dharma-kāya) o the Buddha. Instead, it can be proposed, Hachiman was regarded as the equivalent o a sambhoga-kāya, which is why he was given the title o Bodhisattva and explains why it was thought that his “sermon” took the orm o oracles deemed important to the imperial realm and to the sacerdotal lineages o the shrine-temple complexes o amuke in Nara, o Iwashimizu near
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Kyoto, and o Usa—and to the Buddhist prelates who attempted to control the cult.24 As was suggested in the preceding chapter, these prelates succeeded in that endeavor when they denounced emale mediums, accusing them o not having a male body and o never having been entitled to speak in the name o the Buddha in any scripture, and when they usurped their role as mouth-pieces o Hachiman and began to receive oracles without emale mediation.25 Tus conceived along the lines o a Bodhisattva’s sambhoga-kāya characteristics, the body o Hachiman represented the ritualized, symbolic body o the court in relation to territory and violence, and took on the polluting aspects o imperial rule. Tis explains why it was thrown to the sea in the manner o the rituals o purification practiced in aristocratic circles at the time.26 It is not that time impoverished the presence o the divine entity in the statue representing it, but that the cycles o violence generated by the court induced a state o pollution needing cleansing. In this context then, the lordly raiments changed every six years at the time o the Stately Progress were a central iconographic and spatial eature o the entire Hachiman cult.
Mount Hiko: o swords, meteors, dragons, and goshawks It is said in Hikosan Ruki that the Ryōsenji, Mount Hiko’s main temple, consisted in the early thirteenth century o more than 200 meditation halls inhabited by 110 resident monks (kōshū) and 205 sendatsu (literally, “guides,” a term reerring to the upper echelons o yamabushi as separate rom the scholarly monks), and that Mount Hiko’s sacred realm consisted o orty-nine caves (kutsu) located both within and beyond the perimeter that had been established in 1181 and where yamabushi engaged in ascetic practices; it also presents short narratives about several o these caves, such as the ollowing. One: Wisdom Cave (also called Jewel Cave (amaya)) Te Tree Avatars brought rom the country o Magadha (India) a precious jewel and deposited it in this mountain’s Wisdom Cave so that it may benefit Japan’s population. Hearing o the jewel, the anchorite named Hōren lived in seclusion in this cave or twelve years and recited the Diamond Sutra with an undisturbed and unified mind, strictly according to prescription. Within that time he managed to retain only the first book o the scripture in his mind. As he was thus dedicating this service to the Tree Avatars while addressing a pledge to the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman, a gray-haired elder joined him and devoutly attended to his needs. Te
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anchorite Hōren asked the elder, “Where are you rom?” Te elder responded, “From the vicinity o this mountain.” Te anchorite Hōren then said, “Your mind o devotion is superb, and the bond we are now orming shall last not a mere one or two lietimes, but many lietimes over ages to come. When my ascetic exercises enable me to acquire a precious jewel, I will grant it to you.” Te elder was thrilled upon hearing these words and lef. Tereafer, in accordance with Hōren’s vow, pure water started flowing rom the cave and a Kurikara dragon emanated rom it and disgorged the jewel. Te anchorite’s ecstasy pervaded his heart-mind and body, while tears o elation streamed down his cheeks; he joined his hands to orm the mystic hand configuration o concentration and wisdom, and, spreading out his lef sleeve, deposited the priceless jewel on his vestment. He then paid visits o gratitude, first to the mountain’s Upper Shrine, and then to Usa Hachimangū.27 [. . .] Called Wisdom Cave afer the discovery o the sword, the cave was then renamed “Jewel Cave” upon the appearance o the jewel. One drop rom the dragon source whence the jewel issued can heal a myriad ills, delay aging and enhance the beauty o women, and or these reasons monks and laymen rom the entire country pay their devotions to it, and men and women come rom the eight directions to worship it. Te sacred water neither increases nor decreases, rain does not add to it, nor does heat evaporate any o it. Tis excellent dragon water o no increase/no decrease is a marvelous medicine o supernatural potency and is not dry, even at this very moment.28
Hikosan Ruki also notes that the three hundred male residents o the mountain participate in a large number o ritual assemblies, among which are the Dengyō Daishi Goe on the ourth day o the sixth month (dedicated to Saichō, patriarch o the endai Buddhist school); the Neugyōe (as it is pronounced in Kyushu) during the eighth month (dedicated to ritual copying o the Lotus Sutra, the main scripture o endai Buddhism); and the Kaizan’e during the eleventh month (perormed in Mount Hiko’s most important and amous cave, Jewel Cave, in honor o the fictional ounder o the site o cult, a Chinese monk named Chan-zheng. By the ourteenth century Mount Hiko had indeed become a prominent site o cult and it went on developing to such an extent that it came to require major governance: in 1333 Utsunomiya Nobukatsu, the steward ( jitō) o the Shiroi district o Buzen Province, invited Imperial Prince Annin, the sixth son o Emperor Go-Fushimi (r. 1298–1301), to become abbot o Mount Hiko, a position he assumed under the name Joyū. 29 Te position o abbot was passed thereafer rom ather to son, and Mount Hiko became a monzeki, a vast institution ruled hereditarily by abbots o imperial origins. 30 Joyū was married and thereore unable to reside in the Ryōsenji emple itsel, which was off-limits to women, and he established his offices in the Kurokawa-in temple in Kurokawa, south o the mountain, like the princely abbots o Mount Hiei who resided in Sakamoto www.ebook3000.com
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at the oot o the mountain on Lake Biwa’s western shore, or the princely abbots o Nikkō, who resided in Edo.31 Mount Hiko thus came to be directly related to both warlord and imperial cultures during the medieval period. As a consequence o the hereditary transmission o the abbacy among members o aristocratic lineages and o warlord patronage, Mount Hiko’s power and influence reached their apex in the Muromachi period (1336–1573), and it was then that shrines dedicated to Daigyōji (a combinatory entity symbolizing all the deities worshipped on the mountain) were constructed on the growing number o estates Mount Hiko’s abbots came to control in northern Kyushu. 32 Tese circumstances provide us with a glimpse o the ormal and institutional differences that caused the cultic sites o Usa, Mount Hiko, and Kunisaki to develop separately even as they were geographical neighbors: afer 1181 and up to the ourteenth century, Mount Hiko was administered locally but ell under the influence o prelates o the Shōgo-in o Kyoto (and o the Onjōji as well), and it thereore evolved as a Shugendō center dominated by endai esotericism (taimitsu). Te Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex was placed under the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex at that time, and it thereore produced a system related to that institution’s imperial character and its taimitsu sphere o influence. Te Kunisaki Peninsula’s “Conglomerate” was entrusted to Mount Hiei’s Mudōji emple and thereby ell under the influence o the Sannō (taimitsu) cult, and its Shugendō aspects were urther influenced by Kumano Shugendō, controlled by the Onjōji emple located on Mount Hiei’s southeastern flank. Tis orm o Shugendō had a great impact on Mount Hiko, as a result o which Kumano Shugendō’s putative ounder, En no Gyōja, eventually came to be regarded as the ounder o Hiko Shugendō’s practices, and also o some practices ound in the Kunisaki Peninsula. Te Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex and Mount Omoto also came to be deeply marked by this orm o Shugendō. Te necessity to treat Mount Hiko’s sacred character in terms o time/space (chronotypes and geotypes) may by now be obvious enough, although it is not ofen realized that this sacred character may also be analyzed in terms o what might be called its nocturnal architecture, or nights were the domain o a specific knowledge that served as the ground or the inscription o a number o rituals through the perormance o which Mount Hiko’s anchorites oriented themselves in relation to time, space, and salvation. wo salient elements o this architecture will be discussed in the ollowing paragraphs, or its nocturnal dimension was the first characteristic o sacredness mentioned in Mount Hiko’s medieval narratives. According to these, the original maniestation o Mount Hiko’s sacred entities was a cataclysmic event o cosmic
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proportions, in that the three avatars ( gongen) maniested themselves in Japan afer they hurled five swords into the sky, rom as ar west as India. Tese swords traveled eastwards through the atmosphere, made a stop at Mount iantai (endai in Japanese) in eastern China, and eventually plunged deep into Japan’s mountainous ranges. Te first sword careened through the night and was thrust into one o Mount Hiko’s rocky recesses, where it was transormed into an eightaceted crystal and caused a source o water to appear. Te remaining swords landed, respectively, on Mount Ishizuchi on Shikoku Island, Mount Yuzuruha on Awaji Island, Mounts Kiribe and Kannokura in Kii Province—these last two mountains being part o the Kumano area. 33 Hikosan Ruki reads as ollows: Afer they had hurled five double-edged swords eastwards into the sky rom the country o Magadha [India], the Tree Avatars lef the traces o Wang-tzu Jin on Mount iantai in China on the year kinoe tora [534 CE] and, charily sailing the waves abutting the western land, reached the mists and clouds o this eastern region. [. . .] Te primal maniestation o the Tree Avatars assumed the shape o an eight-aceted crystal rock, three shaku and six sun in size.34 Te first sword the Tree Avatars had thrown rom India was discovered atop Wisdom Cave. At that time the substance o the Tree Avatars separated itsel among orty-nine caves. [. . .] Tereafer, eighty-two years passed; the Tree Avatars recovered the second sword on Mount Ishizuchi in Iyo Province in the year tsuchinoe ushi [658], and returned to Mount Hiko with it. Six years later [664], the third sword was recovered on Mount Yuzuruha in the province o Awaji, and was moved back to Mount Hiko. Afer yet another six years [670], on the twenty- third day o the third month, the ourth sword was searched or in Kii Province, District o Muro, and was ound on Mount Kiribe above amanaki Gorge, and it was brought back to Mount Hiko as well. Ten, afer sixty-one years passed [730] the fifh sword was ound on the twenty-third day o the second month, south o Kumano Shingū on Mount Kannokura, and it was also removed. Afer yet another sixtyone years elapsed [790], its spirit was invoked east o Shingū in the valley o Yabuchi, north o the Suga Shrine, where it became the object o devotions.
Map 9 Landing sites o the five swords
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Chinzei Hikosan Engi (1572) offers a somewhat similar report but gives much earlier dates, varying with those o Hikosan Ruki by as many as ourteen cycles o sixty years, and by as ew as ten cycles: In ancient times the Buddha, as a great king o compassion who ruled the land o Magadha in India, wished to benefit living beings in this eastern region [Japan]. He launched five swords into the sky while uttering this oath: “May they land in an auspicious space.” In the year [247 BCE] he ordered the first sword’s brilliance to come to a halt on Hiko Peak, while he placed a wish- ulfilling gem inside Wisdom Cave in order to realize his vow to convert multitudes in the uture. [. . .] Afer 655 years passed [183 CE] the second sword brilliance appeared on Ishizuchi Peak in the province o Iyo. Seven years later [177] the third sword brilliance rested on Yuzuruha Peak in the province o Awaji. Afer seven more years [171], the ourth sword’s flash o light reached the amanaki gorge o Mount Kiribe in the district o Muro, Kii Province. Afer sixty-one years [111] the fifh sword brilliance landed on Kannokura Peak, south o Kumano Shingū. In the second year o the Sūjin reign period [96 BCE] it returned to this mountain in the orm o an eight-aceted, three oot-six inch-tall crystal.35
One may be tempted to see in these accounts a common theme concerning the origins o mountains that are sacred to the various orms o Esoteric Buddhism and Shugendō. Such was the case o Kōyasan, or example: on a pine-tree growing there, Kūkai would have ound the vajra ritual implement he had thrown east into the sky while he was still in China, vowing that the adamantine thunderbolt should land on an auspicious mountain site where—should he find it—he would establish Shingon Esoteric Buddhism. Te five “gleaming swords” that landed on several Japanese mountains sacred to Shugendō, however, may have been comets streaking through nocturnal skies, dropping meteorites along the way, and the documents quoted above may be closer to the original understanding o the phenomenon than appears in Japan in the Chūkan Kanmon and Shozan Engi etiological narratives o Kumano in which the same story is reported—with the significant difference that instead o swords, mountains or parts thereo, said to have been dislocated rom India in some major cosmic upheaval, would have “flown” to Japan. On their way they made a stop in China, where one can see on the grounds o the Lingyin-ssu (in Hangzhou) parts o the flying mountain (called, in India, “Vulture’s Peak”), next to seventy-two caves containing 338 statues, the most important o which represents the Buddha o the Future, Maitreya.36 Te gate to the temple bears the name “Flying Mountain.”
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Edward Schaer has conclusively demonstrated the antiquity and importance o the association o swords with comets and meteors in Chinese literature, poetry, and astronomy, and he has detailed the role played by that association in Daoist cosmology and cosmography.37 Much o what Schaer wrote is applicable to Japan in general and to Mount Hiko in particular, because shrine-temple complexes were repositories o Indian and Chinese astronomical knowledge and astrology. Schaer indicates that meteoric iron ound in siderites was used to make weapons as early as the Chou dynasty, and that, “since the Chinese believed that meteors were star messengers, each with its unique message and that usually o war, the natural destiny o a meteor was to take the shape o a sword o power.” 38 It is quite probable that the symbolism outlined above was known to Buddhist and Daoist circles in Japan prior to the eighth century, and that it was maintained and underscored by the medieval authors o the Mount Hiko narratives. A olktale originating in the valleys along the Hiko River basin may support this possibility, or it relates the origins o the village name Hoshii in the ollowing manner: a band o robbers was attacking the said village, when a light emanating rom the western horizon lit up the sky, and a red ball o fire leaving a gleaming tail behind it ell to the ground, rightening the robbers into dropping their weapons, and causing a vast hole to appear in the ground. Tat hole filled up with red water, hence the name o the site, “star- well” (Hoshii).39 Schaer writes that some meteors were “bolides that careened through the upper air [. . .] and plunged into the earth, either ragmenting or preserving their unity,” and that they were conused with polished stone tools o the Neolithic era, which were “regarded as the ormer weapons o the thunder-gods, hurled maliciously at the earth.”40 Furthermore, the Chinese not only viewed “a nicely tapered comet as a glittering blade in the sky,” they recognized several asterisms as an entire sword and routinely engraved astrological texts or figures o asterisms, especially o the Great Dipper, on the blades o treasure swords.41 Tis tradition was carried over to Japan where, or example, the imperial palace was protected in the our directions by treasure swords inscribed with asterisms and affi xed to specific pillars.42 Schaer also underscores the act that some o these antique swords can be seen today, and that “most stunning o these is a sword in the Shōsō- in [emple] in Nara—very possibly a royal Chinese gif to the pious Buddhist court o Japan. Te blade displays several constellations interspersed with the figures o clouds and other magical vapors.43 Te constellations consist o stylized patterns o small circles connected by straight lines. Some are difficult to identiy, but a prominent one plainly represents the seven stars o the northern dipper.” 44
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Esoteric Buddhisms in general and Shugendō in particular had a predilection or swords connected to the northern dipper, whose stellar ormation can be seen as jewel incrustations or as incised inscriptions on many blades kept in various temples and museums. Indeed, many Japanese sword smiths were yamabushi. All incisions o seven stars did not necessarily represent the northern dipper, however, or some were simply representations o the five visible planets, to which the sun and moon were added; this might explain the number five ound in the documents o Mount Hiko, although there is no local reerence anywhere to any specific pentadic asterism, or any cross- reerence to actual observations o meteorites in court documents. It is probable, in any case, that the five swords hurled into the sky by the Tree Avatars were meteors, and it is possible that the eight-aceted crystal ound atop Wisdom Cave was a meteorite incrusted with diamonds that originated somewhere in the southwest (where India was thought to be) because most meteorites were seen passing in the direction o the northeast, between the Dipper and Ox: “Tree eet o gemlike crystal—shot at Dipper and Ox!”45 Schaer writes o these meteorites that quantities o tektites “have been ound in beach sands o Hainan Island and in ertiary and Pleistocene deposits on the Lei-chou Peninsula, and that in the last-named region they are known as ‘stones o the Tunder Lords,’ and are so named because they are ofen exposed by erosion in the wake o passing thunderstorms.” It is interesting to note that an article published on the Web on March 25, 2009 described “a meteorite scientists could match with a specific asteroid that became a fireball plunging through the sky [. . .] the dark rocks were ull o surprises and minuscule diamonds.” 46 It is thus not unthinkable that the “crystal” ound above Wisdom Cave o Mount Hiko may have been a tektite shining with diamonds. Indeed, should doubts remain concerning the identification o Mount Hiko’s five swords with meteors and meteorites, it would be difficult to explain some significant associations that are ound in the documents between meteors and goshawks on the one hand, and, on the other hand, between the “eightaceted crystal” and dragons issuing rom springs o water. Tese associations are clearly present in Chinese and Japanese lore and hold a prominent place in Mount Hiko’s literature. Says Hikosan Ruki, About these Goshawk Nest Caves: the Tree Avatars were in the past imperial figures in China, and are now numinous divine entities in this solar land. Leaving the clouds o Magadha and acing toward the moon o this land, they first removed their imperial dress, decorated themselves with goshawk eathers and,
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flying more than ten thousand leagues over mountains and seas, came to rest onto this high mountain where they transormed themselves into stone goshawks, hence the name o these caves and the act that goshawks are regarded as their hypostases. [. . .] Beore twelve years elapsed, a divine snake [dragon] grasping a jewel emerged rom the rock and presented it to Hōren. Te monk then spread his sleeves with his two hands and, deliberate and sel-composed, took possession o it. Te name amaya [Jewel Cave] is derived rom that event. A clear spring o water gushes orth rom the spot where the dragon appeared. No amount o rain can cause it to overflow, and no drought can cause it to dry up. In summer it remains extremely cold; and in winter [it remains] quite tepid. Sprinkling its water on one’s body can eliminate disease; drinking it enables one to extend one’s longevity. Should the world be about to suffer unusual changes, this water becomes turbid.47
Alluding to images commonly ound in ’ang poetry, Schaer mentions recurrent associations ound “in a linguistic atmosphere o secular conflict mixed with supernatural energies—weird vapors, eagles and goshawks, signal beacons and magic swords;”48 and he underlines a notion according to which “star-swords were metallized dragons, most amous among which was a pair whose spiritual source and eternal habitation was the Dipper and Ox lunar stations located on the ecliptic between our Capricornus and Sagittarius, which together make up the twelfh zodiacal constellation ‘Star Chronicler.’ Te numinous essence o these swords appeared as a purple vapor in the sky between these lunar stations, and became a theme on which poets have rung up virtually all possible changes.”49 Te Dipper-Ox lunar station is one o twenty-eight—a highly symbolic number to which we will return later on in this chapter—and corresponded to the northeast and to the winter solstice. Te second association, that between swords and dragons, is also a wellattested and ancient notion according to which the spirits o swords were transormed into dragons, “their soul-beref metal remaining hidden in the sediment o the pool,” or to the effect that swords lost in a ord “down under the waves, resumed their dragon aspect.” Hu seng, or example, wrote a quatrain in which the ollowing verses are ound: Yesterday night seven stars were seen at the bottom o the tarn, Distinct and clear—divine swords were transormed into dragons.50
Tis Chinese meteor/sword/meteorite/dragon nebula o symbols was powerul, always connected to emperors, and such was the case in Japan as well: indeed, the jewel yielded to Hōren by the dragon residing in the pool o Mount Hiko’s
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Jewel Cave was granted to Hachiman (the “elder”) to protect the imperial line, and the appearance o the water o the spring associated with this crystal was said to orewarn o disasters threatening the court. Tese sword, dragon, and stellar images orm a central eature o the symbolism that is ound in the Hiko, Usa, and Kunisaki sites o cult, and they pervaded Shugendō as well. A shrine dedicated to the northern dipper, called Hokuto-sha (“Northern Dipper Shrine”) is located within the compounds o the Upper Sanctuary o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, and legend says that the Lord o the Polar Star asked the sword smith Ōga no Higi to remove this shrine rom its original location on the summit o Mount Omoto (also called Maki) and to rebuild it in akai, located in Ueda on the right bank o Yakkan River—whence it was moved again to its present location on Mount Ogura, right next to the three Hachiman shrines. Te same Lord o the Northern Dipper would have instructed Hōren to go look or the wish-ulfilling gem on Mount Hiko. As was stated earlier, documents o the late Heian period report that Hachiman first maniested itsel in 571 to the sword smith Ōga no Higi in the orm o a three-year-old child standing on bamboo leaves, and the Compendium o Hachiman Oracles inorms us that Ōga no Higi saw a golden goshawk take the orm o a three- year-old child standing on a bamboo lea .51 Te northeastern region o Kyushu was thus pervaded by narratives and belies in which the northern dipper, goshawks, dragons, swords, sword smiths, comets, thunder, jewels, and sacred springs were associated, very much along the lines o the Chinese symbolism evidenced by Schaer and others. A type o sword ofen ound in Shugendō and known as Kurikara Sword is either inscribed or adorned with a dragon, and several extant blades carry incisions o the northern dipper asterisms, but this is not where the congruence o symbols stops. 52 Indeed, the nocturnal observations o the yamabushi and the centrality o the narrative describing Hōren’s acquisition o the wish- ulfilling jewel rom a dragon’s mouth suggest the overall coherence o several representations long held dear by Mount Hiko’s anchorites. Countless medieval documents reveal the extent to which the “wish-ulfilling gem” (nyoi hōju; Skt. cintāman.i) pervaded the Japanese imaginaire , but one origin o the multiaceted, even multi-religious value o this symbol seems to have been orgotten even though pointers are literally strewn all over the place. Many such pointers have been alluded to in the ew pages above, but their origins are to be ound in early Chinese astronomy, and they concern the symbolism attached to the beginning o the solar year.
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Waiting or dawn on Mount Hiko: the geotype and chronotype o heterotopia Whether Mount Hiko was a site or object o cult beore the introduction o Buddhism in the sixth century is impossible to determine, or the archaeological record is mute on the topic, and the oldest ritual implements ound so ar on the mountain date back to the ninth or tenth century; these implements are ragments o dishes ound on Central and Northern Peaks, while glass beads b eads as well as sutra containers made o bronze ( kyōzutsu) were ound on Southern Peak, the highest o the three. three .53 W Wee have seen s een in i n the preceding chapter, however however,, that a Buddhist community must have been active on the mountain during the Heian period (no Heian period rooroo-tiles tiles have been ound oun d so ar, but all buildings build ings may have been thatched or covered with bark). Tere is no indication o how this Buddhist community may have conceived conceive d o Mount Hiko at the earliest stages o its history but, to all outward appearances, the first model that was used to conceptualize and represent the mountain was an understanding according to which Mount Hiko was the palatial residence o Maitreya, the Buddha o the Future. It is probable that this understanding dates back to the late Nara or early Heian period, when Maitreya cults developed in several parts o Japan. Japan .54 Yoshino’s Kinpusen Peak, or instance, was thought to be a site where Maitreya would become a Buddha and institute a new age, and or this reason became the goal o pilgrimage by aristocrats and others; the same is true o Moun Mountt Kasagi as well. Te Hiko geotypical model now presented and allowing a space to be transormed transo rmed into place is unmistakably related related to the history o the Maitreya cult itsel. It is well known that this cult was important in Nara and in Kyushu, and particularly so in Usa during the eighth-century eighth-century activities o Hōr Hōren en and various Hossō monks. What is not known is when the Maitreya cult was given roots, so to speak, in such manner that a number o locales in Ja Japan pan came to be viewed as the actual sites o residence, or o maniestation, o Maitreya. I have argued thirty-nine thirtynine years ago in an unpublished unpubli shed paper presented presente d in oronto oronto that Fujiwara no Michinaga went to Yoshino’s Mount Kinpu to inter sutras and probably thought he was Maitreya as well. Buddhist scriptures describe Maitreya’s residence as consisting o two realms: an outer realm ( ge ge-in in) extending down to this world, and an inner palatial residence (nainai-in in) located in a transcendental space. Tese Tese scriptures also state that the inner palatial residence o the Buddha o the Future consists o orty-nine orty- nine chambers, and it is this architectural detail that was used as the first template or Mount Hiko’s transormation rom
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a simple mountain into the physical embodiment o Buddhist cosmographic principles and texts. Beore describing this model, however, it is appropriate to underscore the remarkable importance o the Maitreya cult throughout Asia at the time by comparing the cosmographic basis o Mount Hiko with the elaborate architectural monument o Borobudur in Java, and with the establishment o the ōdaiji in Nara. Borobudur was probably built during the first hal o the ninth century in central Java upon an order issued issued by a Śailendra king; it has been the object o many studies, dominated by the 1932 work o Paul Mus..55 Jan Fontein published an elaborate analysis o the structure o the Mus monument in relation to a undamental scripture o Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Gann.d Ga ․avyūha, and saw the correlation between the structure o the monument and that o the narrative o Sudhana’s pilgrimage represented in the relies o the monument; as a matter o act, Fontein deemed this correlation essential and dominant. dominant.56 More recently scholars have attempted to rethink the grand architectural design o Borobudur through its possible connection to the part o the Gann.d Ga ․avyūha that describes Sudhana’s arrival in Maitreya’s Inner Residence, and in this description o “Maitreya’s supernatural abode they perceived the vision materialized in the Javanese monument [. . .] as a conceptual ramework o the monument’ss design, monument’ d esign,”” and suggested that “Borobudur as a whole should represent in plastic orm the cosmic panorama depicted” in the scripture. scripture .57 Perhaps araid that such a theor theoryy is incomplete incomplet e and difficult to prove, Luis Gomez wrote w rote that it nonetheless might contribute to a better understanding o the monument, and that one might “conceive o the Borobudur as a combination o elements [. . .] harmonized in the concept o the abode o Maitreya: itit could simultaneously be a stūpa, a cosmic mountain, and perhaps, a type o ma n. d․ala (as a map o the correlation o the unmaniest absolute and man’s ascent to it with the maniest mundane sphere and the Bodhisattva’s descent rom the absolute to reveal its presence in the world).”58 Te issue raised above does not need to be settled here; what counts is the general notion that some Mahāyāna scriptures contain visions that are at the basis o monumental buildings in Asia, rom Buddhist (and non-Buddhist) temples in India and an d Southeast S outheast Asia, Java, China and Japan Japan’’s ōdaiji. ōdaiji. As a matter o act, ac t, Vajrabodh ajrabodhii taught esotericism esoterici sm in Java and met Amoghavajra there in 716; both went to China, and Amoghavajra taught taug ht Huiguo (Kukai’s master in China) China).. Tis provides a good clue to the effect that some monks in Japan knew o Java. It is timely to recall that the Great Buddha o the ōdaiji in Nara is related to the Avata A vatam m Kegon-kyō kyō), and that this large temple was protected by saka Sūtra (Kegon-
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Hachiman: the Kyushu visitors to Nara in the second hal o the eighth century must have brought some o these notions back to the Usa area. What was Mount Hiko’s relation to the eatures presented heretoore? At some point during the Heian period (794–1185), orty-nine orty-nine caves located on or near Mount Hiko, connected by paths and used either or temporary seclusion or permanent residence, were associated with the orty- nine chambers o the Inner Residence o the Bodhisattva Maitreya in the u․sita Heaven, where he was said to be awaiting the dawn on which he would become Buddha and initiate a new cosmic era. Te earliest written trace o the association o Mount Hiko with that palace is ound in Hikosan Ruki, in which it is said that the ollowing event occurred during the first part o the seventh century: Without a thought or the merits they might earn in converting past, present, and uture generations, the Tree Avatars decided to protect the Buddha’s teachings and acted as generals, marshaling a myriad Adamantine Youths. Disclosing that the sacred mountain contained gold, they ordered the Adamantine Youths to mine that gold and gather building materials, and had them stored on the southern side o South Peak, stipulating that these materials should be used to erect a Great Lecture Hall in which Maitreya would give his sermon upon becoming the next Buddha. Ideal materials were ound on the two other peaks as well. Te architectural style and the substance o the materials used or that hall are radically different rom those seen in the common world, so unique in act, that it would be diffi di fficult to find anything alike in the sixty si xty or more provinces o this country. Tese materials are Maitreya’s metamorphic body, whose unction it is to protect the Buddha’s teachings.
Te passage immediately ollowing these lines is evidently about a somewhat later moment in history, but it must be included at the present point: An anchorite who resided in [a temple o] the West Compound o Mount Hiei went daily to the Sannō Shrines to pay his respects, and also spent his nights in the vicinity o the shrines. Having expressed a wish to contemplate the corporeal orm o Maitreya, he was engaged in ardent meditative exercises without producing thoughts on any other matter, when he was granted the ollowing oracle: “Stone materials or building have been ound on the peaks o Mount Hiko in Chinzei Chi nzei [Kyushu] and are Maitreya’s Maitreya’s actual metamorphic body. Go there and make offerings.” At this juncture, without even waiting or the sun to set he made arrangements or a periple to Kyushu. He scaled the mountain, and as he lay his eyes on those materials extreme happiness overcame him to the point he was unable to hold back tears o ecstasy. He spent seven days in seclusion by the sanctuary, whereupon he addressed the Avatars o the Tree Sites: “Having
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received an oracle rom the Sannō Avatars, I wish to be granted one piece o this material so that I may take it back with me and build atop Mount Hiei a temple where the relic embodying Maitreya will be enshrined.” He was granted a piece o it and took it back to the West Compound o Mount Hiei whence, rom the Maitreya Hall he then erected, the relic worked wonders o unparalleled quality or the benefit o all living beings. beings .59
Mount Hiko’s orty-nine orty-nine caves were given names and are listed in Hikosan Ruki, which also narrates stories and legends associated with these sites, as well as the names o the main deities and their guardians enshrined therein. Tese caves were situated on a rather vast expanse; not all o them have been identified today, however however,, or some have been be en abandoned aband oned in the course cours e o history. amaya, amaya, or “Jewel Cave”, has always been mentioned first; it may have been the site o Mount Hiko’s oldest hermitage and, in any case, remained the most revered o the caves that were used by the anchorites or their austerities. Te constitution o Mount Hiko as the site o residence o the Buddha o the Future beore his apotheosis was structurally related to a chronotype Japan had not known beore the introduction o Buddhism: the notion o cosmic renewal and o political and economic utopia. It was not beore the eleventh century, however, that political figures understood the notion and associated themselves with this cult c ult although Japan did not orm radical political cults such as are ound in China in relation to the Buddha o the Future. It is important to note here that the number ortynine is also the number o stations where yamabushi rested during their vast mandalized peregrinations discussed in the third chapter.
Mount Hiko’s sacred perimeter: our corners and three dimension dimensionss As was indicated in the preceding chapter chapter the perimeter ( kekkai) o Mount Hiko was granted by Emperor Go-Shirakawa in 1181, when warlords were vying or power and when the court was losing political contro controll over institutions institutions and the land. I translate as a s “sacred perimete perimeter” r” the term kekkai ( (literall literallyy, “bounde “boundedd realm”), which reers to two practices originating in India where its equivalent signified the demarcation o an area in which deities were invoked, and by extension, the establishment o a consecrated zone or the arrangement o mandalas and or the construction construc tion o temples. In Japan Japan this term reerred to these two phenomena, phenomen a, but it was also used at least since the ninth century to reer to entire geographical geographical areas set aside and commended exclusively exclusively to Shrine-temple Shrine- temple institutions, which
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meant that the government waved some rights to control, inspect, and draw taxes and corvées rom the land it granted to these institutions, although once again it is necessary to emphasize that these institutions did not have actual ownership o the estates until the medieval period, when they began to claim such ownership and thereore caused conflicts with imperial and warrior laws. Such was the case o Mount Hiko in 1181, and the geographical aspects o the perimeter will be presented beore the more arcane interpretations and social dimensions o the term are assessed. A kekkai area typically aces west (like mandalas), and and in the overwhelming majority o cases the documents doc uments mentioning mentioning the boundaries o sacred sites mention the east corner first; this was also the case o Mount Hiko, and Mount Hiko’s perimeter was a seven- ri square area acing west,60 and large enough to include all sources o the main rivers o northeast Kyushu, which suggests that the early Heian period mountain dwellers might have controlled controlled irrigation through their managemen managementt o water shrines known as “water-share “watershare shrines” (mikumari jinja). Little is known about the actual ways in which this management was conducted, but the phenomenon appears to have been so widespread that it must have been an effective and essential orm o control. In other words, the inhabitants o all underlying agricultural areas depending on the rivers that originated on Mount Hiko’s slopes thought that the key to their survival, water, was generated by the powerul mountain entities to which the yamabushi dedicated cults. Te yamabushi o Mount Hiko also used to ollow, since at least the medieval mediev al period, period , the Ima River rom its source to the sea, and the Harai River rom the sea back up to its source, carrying sea-water sea- water used to puriy the grounds o the Main Sanctuaries beore the perormance o agrarian rituals and their cyclical mountain treks; in the course o this travel they stopped by several villages where they slept and exchanged various various offerings, a act which suggests how the yamabushi systematically developed close ties with inhabitants o the villages situated situated along these and other rivers, rivers, and why they participated in (and ormulated) rituals related to ertility. 61 Indeed, various Shugendō authors established systematic symbolic correlations correlations between Buddhist doctrine and the agrarian rituals the yamabushi participated in, to the point that mountain ascetics became a ubiquitous presence in the rural landscape o pre- modern Japan. Te involvement o the yamabushi with water and agrarian rituals seems to have been a eature o Shugendō all over Japan, and it needs to be critically analyzedd in the context o the analyze t he origins and evolution evoluti on o “native “native”” agrarian rituals ritu als as much as it needs to be b e tested by means o systema systematic tic geographic and hydrological analyses in relation to ritual cycles.
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According to Hikosan Ruki the perimeter granted in 1181 was marked by our corners, which it identified with the our directions and with sites the document identifies as ollows: East: Buzen Province, Kōge district, Unzen, Kuninakatsu River (Ōite entrance) South: Bungo Bu ngo Province, Provinc e, Yagata Kawakabeno, Hita distric d istrict,t, Yasu Yasu (Ōzato) ( Ōzato) West: Chikuzen Province, Kannokura district, Mt Uchiwaki (Nishijima hamlet) Shimokura district: Shirikake Rock. North: Buzen province, agawa district, Gansekiji, Hottai Peak o Mount Kuramote..62 Kuramote Te boundaries o this perimeter were retraced on a regular basis by various cultic groups o Mount Hiko who engaged in ritual circumambulation o the mountain. Considered the oldest extant “map” o Mount Hiko, a diagram dated 1383 and kept today in Mount Hiko’s Shugendō Museum consists o seventyseventy-two two black dots surrounding three red dots marking the three summits, all disposed to orm a quasi-oval quasi- oval shape. On the outer rim o this oval design the name o each site is written, and the names o the deities enshrined in these sites are inscribed on a yet larger rim. Claiming Claiming to be the copy o an older document, this diagram represents graphically a ritualized peregrination known as “greater circumambulation circumambul ation”” (daie- gyō, also pronounced ōmeguri- gyō gyō), which was actually twoold: a circumambulation perormed every night around the summit o the mountain and called koshubi (short course), and a longer one perormed only once during periods o asceticism. Called ōshubi (long course), this second course apparently ollowed, with more or less accuracy, the perimeter granted in 1181 and was marked by orty-two orty- two stops at sites o devotion. Te daie- gyō devotional circumambulations circumambulations o the mountain were were engaged in by members o the mountain community known as sōgata, a group o yamabushi-like yamabushi- like figures who were directly dire ctly affiliated with the shrines sh rines o Mount Hiko’s ShrineShrin e-temple temple complex, and distinct rom the “ull-time” “ull- time” yamabushi known as gyōjagat gyōjagataa, who were directly related to the temples. It is likely that these men ollowed the monthly courses to perpetuate a particular aspect o the sacred character o Mount Hiko as well as to protect the mountain against robbers o wood and plants, and and against military invasion invasions. s. When military threats finally ceased in the seventeenth century the greater circumambulation was abandoned, and its exact course is now lost; the short course discussed below was abandoned in the late nineteenth century. Te deities placed on the outer part o the diagram dated 1383 consist o two discrete groupings o pairs, each pair itsel consisting o a main entity associated with its guardian deities ( gohōji gohōjinn); all were represented in
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statuary orm and installed in the seventy-two sites and three peaks ound along the course o circumambulation. Te first grouping consists o the twenty- eight attendants to the Bodhisattva o Compassion (Kannon nijūhachibushū ) and their guardians.63 Te second grouping consists o the twelve attendants to the Buddha o Medicine (Yakushi jūni jinshō) to which were added the Bodhisattvas Nikkō (Sūryaprabha) and Gakkō (Candraprabha ), who symbolize the sun and the moon and usually flank this Buddha, all associated with their own guardian deities. In actual geographical terms the grouping o the twelve attendants to the Buddha o Medicine and his two Bodhisattvas was positioned on the eastern (back) side o the upper part o Mount Hiko, starting to the north and ending at Central Peak, while the grouping o twenty-eight attendants to the Bodhisattva o Compassion was positioned on the western (ront) part o the mountain, starting at Central Peak and ending at North Peak. Te exact location o many sites visited during both the short and the long circumambulatory courses around Mount Hiko is, however, an enigma. Te short course was, rom all evidence, a circumambulation around (and including) the three peaks; its starting point was the second torii situated on the path leading to the Lower Sanctuary ( Gegū), which marked the separation between the residential areas and the upper zones o the mountain. Since a circumambulation revolves clockwise to ollow the apparent course o the sun and thus keep the object o worship to one’s right side, the sōgata practitioners moved away rom the torii in a northerly direction; they stopped at Buzen Cave (celebrated or its tengu) to the northeast, then moved urther east to reach the akanosu Caves; they then shifed south-west and up to visit North Peak, Central Peak, and South Peak. From there they moved down and south to Ōminami Cave, west to Jewel Cave, and finally walked in a northwesterly direction to return to their starting point. Te major division in the 1383 diagram appears to have been Central Peak (placed in the center o the upper part o the diagram), while the major division in the course itsel appears to have been Jewel Cave, considered most sacred by the majority o the yamabushi; this cave’s location, however, did not make it a convenient starting or ending point or sōgata personnel, whose social status, cultic affi liations, and mythology, were different rom those o the gyōjagata yamabushi. Te first grouping on the 1383 diagram or map is called Kannon nijūhachibushū ; it is a grouping o twenty-eight attendants to the thousand-handed and thousandeyed Bodhisattva o Compassion, Senju Kannon ( Sahasrabhuja sahasranetra Avalokiteśvara). Tis deity became an object o cult early in Japanese history and was particularly important in endai esoteric circles as one o a group o six
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Map 10 Location o known caves on Mount Hiko
Bodhisattvas o Compassion associated with the six destinations (rebirth levels). Te thousand-handed Kannon was placed at the head o this group: Senju Kannon (Sahasra-bhuja): hells Shō Kannon ( Āryāvalokiteśvara): hungry ghosts Batō Kannon (Hayagrīva): animals Jūichimen Kannon (Ekadaśamukha): asuras Juntei Kannon (Cundī): human beings Nyoirin Kannon (Cintāman.icakra): devas Senju Kannon was sometimes represented with 1,000 arms and hands, and with an eye located in the palm o each hand, as in the case o the amed statue kept in Sanjūsangendō emple in Kyoto. It was sometimes represented with orty-two arms, and in some cases its head was crowned with twenty-seven smaller heads, the twenty-eight heads symbolizing its twenty-eight attendants (kenzoku). Te seventh-century sutra dedicated to Senju Kannon is the Senju sengen Kanzeon bosatsu kōdai enman muge daihishin darani-kyō;64 it mentions many attendants, but the first list o twenty-eight appears in a manual dated slightly later, the Senju Kannon zō shidai hō- giki said to have been translated by Śubhakarasim ha (637–735).65 Te names o the twenty-eight attendants listed therein are as shown in able no. 3.66
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able 3 Te twenty-eight attendants to Senju Kannon
1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14)
Misshaku kongōshi Usū kunda ōkushi Makei narada Kombira dakabira Basō baruna Manzenshahachi shindara Satsusha mawara Rarantanda hangira Hippakara ō Ōtokubita satsuwara Bomma sambachira Gobujō kyo emmara Shakuō sanjūsan Daiben kudoku badatsuna
15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20) 21) 22) 23) 24) 25) 26) 27) 28)
Deizuraida ō Jimmo nyotō dairikishū Birurokusha ō Birubakusha ō Bishamon tennō Konjiki kujaku ō Nijūhachibu daisenshū Manidattara Sanshidatsu nanda Nandadatsu nanda Shura Suika raiden shin Rabanda ō Bishasha
Source: Nihon no bijutsu No. 379 (okyo: Shibundō, December 1997), p. 36–37.
As mentioned above, the iconography and rituals dedicated to these twentyeight attendants are first described in Senju Kannon zō shidai hō- giki, and urther esoteric details concerning the iconography and rituals were consigned by Jōjin (mentioned later in this chapter as the author o one o three interpretations o Hokke-hō, the Lotus Blossom Ritual) in his Senju Kannon nijūhachibushū gyōzō myōgō hishaku.67 Te names o the attendants differ in several respects in these two documents, but it is clear that the list ound on the 1383 diagram o Mount Hiko aithully ollows the Senju Kannon zō shidai hō- giki’s.68 I we take into consideration the legend ound in Hikosan Ruki, according to which the king o hells did not dare oppose the Avatars o Mount Hiko and thereore released rom his grip people who died in the course o their pilgrimage to this mountain, it is clear that the thousand-handed maniestation o Kannon was associated, in the context o Mount Hiko’s geotypical and chronotypical structure, with the protection o those who were or would be reborn in the various Buddhist hells, and that it was the object o a cult characterized by the twenty- eight attendants surrounding it in the ten directions. Each accompanied by a retinue o five hundred acolytes, these twenty-eight figures were ofen called sen (“hermits,” also associated with the peacock-king Kujaku-ō, Mayūri-rāja), and iconographic directions ound in ritual manuals stipulate that they should be arranged
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spatially in eight groupings in the ollowing manner: our in each o the our directions, our to the zenith, our to the nadir, and one in each o the our corners associated with the central pivot o the universe ( shi-i). Te second grouping o deities to which a cult was dedicated in the context o the circumambulation was that o the twelve attendants to the Buddha o Medicine. Tese were routinely represented in a circle at the center o which that Buddha and his two attending Bodhisattvas symbolizing the sun and the moon were situated, and were associated with a specific direction and a specific time o the day. Kubira (Skt. Kumbhīra) corresponded to the hour o the rat (midnight) and to the north; Basara ( Vajra) corresponded to the hour o the bull (2:00 a.m.); Mekira ( Mihira) corresponded to the hour o the tiger (4:00 a.m.); A n.tera ( And ․ira) corresponded to the hour o the hare (6:00 a.m.) and to the east; Manira ( Majira) corresponded to the hour o the dragon (8:00 a.m.); Santera ( Śan.d ․ira) corresponded to the hour o the snake (10:00 a.m.); Indara (Indra) corresponded to the hour o the horse (noon) and to the south; Haira ( Pajra) corresponded to the hour o the ram (2:00 p.m.); Makora ( Mahoraga) corresponded to the hour o the monkey (4:00 p.m.); Shindara ( Sindūra) corresponded to the hour o the rooster (6:00 p.m.) and to the west; Shōtora ( Catura) corresponded to the hour o the dog (8:00 p.m.), and Bikara (Vikarāla) to the hour o the boar (10:00 p.m.). Te spatial arrangements (geotypes) defined and represented above entailed chronotypes differing rom that discussed earlier in relation to the Buddha o the Future, in that these twelve figures, associated as they were with the twelve double hours o the day and with the six wild and six domesticated animals o the Chinese zodiac, were conceived o in relation to a desire or longevity, and in that the grouping o the twenty-eight attendants was related to the six Kannon associated with the six destinations o rebirth, and with the twenty- eight lunar mansions as well. As usual in the Indo-Chinese world o chronotypes, every temporal segment was associated with a specific spatial orientation, and this indicates that space was not conceived separately rom time: Mount Hiko’s nocturnal architecture served to demarcate and orient, but it also served to express the basic notion that time might be expressed in spatial terms, and that space might be gauged in temporal terms. Tese specific arrangements and sets o associations point to undamental understandings concerning the very conception o time and space, as pointed out by Leèbvre in his mention o the zodiac: “Initially—and undamentally— absolute space has a relative aspect. Relative spaces, or their part, secrete the absolute.”69 Trough their ritual practices around the summits o Mount Hiko the yamabushi transormed a natural mountain in such a way that it appeared as
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transcendent and sacred, and the mountain accordingly became a reerence point or larger understandings about the nature o the world, inasmuch as it became a symbol or relations o order, which is what a mandala is; this last eature will be discussed later on. Te ritual circumambulation perormed every night by the sōgata practitioners entailed specific spatial and temporal dimensions connected to esoteric rituals involving language, the body, specific meditations, as well as astronomy and astrology. Furthermore, the sites visited by the sōgata, the simple wooden architecture inside or in ront o the caves, the temples and shrines dotting the mountain, and the multiple divinities to which complex cults were rendered were always qualified in such a way that they served to posit Mount Hiko as the center o space and thereore as the center o time as well, and these qualities were always resting on a single, ultimate oundation, that o nature, “though nature is hard to define in this role as the absolute within—and at the root o—the relative.”70 o use the terminology proposed by Cornelius Castoriadis, the yamabushi “leaned on” nature in a oundational gesture whose consequence was to legitimate their difference vis-à- vis the rest o society and to establish their world as the world. 71 Te act that the seventy-two sites were visited during a nocturnal circumambulation may be explained by reerence to the knowledge o astronomy that must have been available to the mountain community by the beginning o the medieval period. Indeed, several cultic sites in Asia had their sacredness validated by relation to the numbers twenty- eight and seventy-two. In an article on Borobudur, Alex Wayman has proposed that the different galleries o that monument correspond to a metaphorical day, to twilight, and to night; Wayman has argued that the seventy-two stūpas on the upper terrace o Borobudur should be understood to correspond to the system o thirty- six decanates, in which the number seventy-two corresponds to thirty-six star groups north and thirty-six star groups south o the ecliptic. One might counter that this is mere coincidence, but it becomes more difficult to make such an argument when realizing that in China and Japan the solar year was divided into seventy-two periods in the ollowing manner. Te solar year was divided into our seasons ( kisetsu) made up o three parts: early ( sho), middle (chū), and late (ban), each containing a “month” divided into two parts o approximately fifeen days. Te first hal o a given month was called “node” ( sekki), and the second hal was called “center” ( chūki). A year thus consisted o “twenty-our nodes and centers” (nijūyon sekki), which became the main markers o the passage o time and thus provided anchors or the perormance o rituals, or astronomical
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observation (and divination), and or a plethora o symbols and understandings, such as those prominently ound in the ea ceremony. Furthermore, each o these twenty-our periods was divided into three sections o five days known as “score” ( kō), and a eature o the observed natural world was attached to each o these seventy-two sections as well. It is even more diffi cult to make a counter-argument when noting that in Daoism the sacred geography o China consisted o seventy-two blissul realms, and that residents o the amed Chinese sacred mountain Nanyue (which contained our such realms) insisted on their claim that the mountain consisted o seventy-two peaks, and that the Nanyue emple at the base o the mountain had seventy- two columns, each purported to be seventy-two eet high.72 In Japan alone one can see the importance o the number in, or example, the seventy- two pillars o the oyokawa Inari Shrine, and other places as well. Te number seventy-two, then, may have had greater significance than appears at first glance. In my opinion, the schema o seventy-two Buddhas seated atop Borobudur’s superimposed square platorms is difficult to separate rom the 1383 schema o Mount Hiko representing seventy-two entities installed near the summit o a mountain that was itsel divided into the our superimposed layers presented below.
Altitude and altered states o mind: creating a Dōjō Te boundaries within which Mount Hiko rose were not ormed exclusively by an enclosure, a perimeter defined by imperial law in the twelfh century and retraced time and again by peregrinations on the part o the sōgata personnel. A ar more elaborate type o modeling o spatial experience consisted in treating Mount Hiko as the geotypical and chronotypical model o the endai doctrine known as “the Four Lands Boundaries” ( shido kekkai) and in considering the mountain, within the perimeter established in 1181, as consisting o our superimposed strata separated by shrine gates ( torii) and in which lie was subjected to constraints growing in severity as one reached higher altitudes through each o these gates. Tis model o spatial, cultic, and social experience may have been established in the late twelfh or early thirteenth century, perhaps even earlier. Te model’s origins and purpose warrant a detailed presentation because it was the result o the concrete application o ritualized meditations connected to the endai Esoteric ritual known as “Lotus Blossom Ritual” ( Hokkehō), and its analysis demonstrates that it was the very site where “subjective” and “objective” spaces intersected in Hiko Shugendō. Included in the scriptures
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brought back rom China by Kūkai (774–835), o which only a list copied by Saichō (767–822) remains, is a document entitled Jōjū myōhō renge-kyō ō yuga kanchi giki said to have been translated—but more probably authored—by Amoghavajra (705–74, the monk who went twice to Java). 73 It served as the basis or the perormance o the Shingon esoteric Lotus rituals perormed by Kūkai, and immediately drew the attention o Saichō who, by intermediary o his disciple aihan, asked to borrow it and then sent his disciple Kōjō to study its practicum under Kūkai in 813. Tis remarkable document is a manual o instructions or a ritual o visualization known in Japanese as Hokke-hō (Lotus Blossom Ritual) and is linked to the Lotus Sutra (the main scripture o the endai school o Buddhism and o Hiko Shugendō), and to the Mahāvairocana Sūtra (the main scripture o Shingon Esoteric Buddhism and one o the three main scriptures o endai Esoteric Buddhism). It has been the object o various interpretations on the part o scholarly monks during the Heian and Kamakura periods, and has served as the basis or coded meditational practices prescribed in a significant number o manuals, three o which should be mentioned at this juncture. Te first manual, Hokke shiki, was authored by the Fujiwara-born ecclesiast Jōjin (Zen’e Daishi, 1011–81, o the Miidera (Onjōji) emple), the monk mentioned earlier as the author o the ritual and iconographic text concerning the Tousand-handed Kannon. Tis, parenthetically, invites one to suggest that this particular work may have been known earlier by Mount Hiko’s scholarly monks. Te manual in question is now lost but sections o it are ound in the Shingon manual bearing the title Kakuzenshō and dated ca. 1182, and it seems to have had much influence on Jichin, the author o the third manual discussed below, who criticized its contents. Te second, Gyōrinshō, was authored by Jakunen (dates unknown) in the middle o the twelfh century; a major manual or the perormance o endai esoteric rituals, the Gyōrinshō was widely used and must have been known in Shugendō circles as well. Tis manual will be discussed in some detail below. 74 Te third manual, which will be discussed thereafer, is Hokke becchō-shi and was written by Jichin (Jien, ?–1225), the amed prelate who authored in 1220 what is ofen, though inaccurately, characterized as the first “Buddhist” history o Japan, Gukanshō. Te term “Lotus Blossom Ritual” designates one o our undamental endai esoteric rituals (endai shiko no daihō), as is suggested by its reerence to the primary floral symbol o Buddhism and to the Lotus Sutra, undamental scripture o the endai establishment. As it was perormed in Japan, the Lotus Blossom Ritual was a set o ritualized meditations leading to the subjective
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recovery o participation in the Buddha Śākyamuni’s preaching o the Lotus Sutra. It emphasized the eleventh chapter o the scripture in which another Buddha, called Prabhūtaratna (J. ahō butsu, also known as Hōshō nyorai, lord o the eastern Realm Hōjō sekai) praises Śākyamuni and validates the contents o the Lotus Sutra by making a jeweled stūpa-shaped reliquary emerge rom the ground and stay up in the air, and invites Śākyamuni to share his seat therein: At that time, Śākyamunibuddha, seeing that the Buddhas who were emanations o his body had all arrived, and seeing how each, seated on a lion throne, was hearing that the Buddhas together wished to open the jeweled stūpa, straightway rose rom his seat and rested in mid-air. All the our assemblies, rising with palms joined, single-mindedly beheld the Buddha. Tereupon with his right finger Śākyamunibuddha opened the door o the seven- jeweled stūpa, which made a great sound as o a bar being pushed aside to open the gate o a walled city. At that very moment all the assembled multitude saw the Tus Come One Many Jewels [Prabhūtaratna] in the jeweled stūpa, seated on a lion throne, his body whole and undecayed, as i [he were] entered into dhyāna-concentration. Tey also heard his words: “Excellent! Excellent, O Śākyamunibuddha! Happily have you preached this Scripture o the Dharma Blossom. It is to listen to this scripture that I have come here.” At that time, the our assemblies, seeing a Buddha passed into extinction or incalculable thousands o myriads o millions o kalpas speaking such words as these, sighed in admiration at something that had never been seen beore, and scattered clusters o divine jeweled flowers over the Buddha Many Jewels and Śākyamunibuddha. Te Buddha Many Jewels, in his jeweled stūpa, then gave hal his seat to Śākyamunibuddha, speaking these words: “O Śākyamunibuddha, will you take this seat?” At that very moment Śākyamunibuddha, entering that stūpa, sat on hal that seat, his legs crossed. At that time the great multitude, seeing the two Tus Come Ones in the seven- jeweled stūpa on the lion throne, seated with legs crossed, all thought: “Te Buddhas sit high up and ar off. We wish that the Tus Come One, with his powers o supernatural penetration, would enable the lots o us together to dwell in open space.” At that very moment Śākyamunibuddha, with his powers o supernatural penetration, touched the great multitudes, so that they were all in open space.75
Te object o the Lotus Blossom Ritual was, primarily, a re- enactment o the vision outlined above and its emphasis was on the vision o the two Buddhas and on the subsequent vision o the multitudinous assembly levitating in open space. Apart rom Amoghavajra’s manual, the oldest extant, complete prescriptions or its perormance are contained in Gyōrinshō, compiled between 1141 and 1154.
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Tese prescriptions detail the nature and amount o offerings, the order o perormance, the setup and decoration o various ritual platorms and mandalas, the texts and ormulas to be recited and meditated upon, and contain the author’s musings about the meaning o technical terms and his considerations regarding variations in perormance o the ritual by miscellaneous endai or Shingon lineages. As described in this manual, the ritual itsel required seven days o preparation and took place over a period o either one, three, or seven weeks, or o three months. Its ceremonial undertaking entailed the participation o at least twenty figures whose ranks included the top and bottom o ecclesiastical hierarchy, and required a significant economic outlay consisting o paintings and sculptures, painted mandalas, ornate boxes containing the Lotus Sutra, seats and side tables, lamp stands, music instruments, cloth and drapes, oils, honey, various types o rare incense, precious stones o five kinds, five kinds o medicinal herbs, five cereals and various ood and flower offerings, and a dais decorated with twenty-our hanging streamers and surrounded by our large banners. Participants in the ritual were required to bathe our times a day and to wear clean garments o white and yellow color. Superfluous though the details o the perormance o this ritual may seem, some are listed below or it will become clear, in the course o the discussion, that the encoded space/time o the perormance o this ritual was central to the definition o a spatially encoded (and space-encoding) social and cultic experience on Mount Hiko. Te first step to be taken in the preparations o the Lotus Blossom ritual involved setting up and decorating the all-important “site o practice” ( dōjō), which was a square platorm acing east (that is, opening to the west—like Mount Hiko), surrounded by our banners and lamp stands, surmounted by an emeraldcolored dais decorated with nine eight-leaed lotus blossoms and flanked by twenty-our streamers, six hanging rom each side (red or east, yellow or south, green or west, and black or north). A number o offerings placed in gold and silver containers were rigorously arranged on the platorm, the center o which was occupied by a white lotus ornament on which the scripture was placed in an intricately decorated container. Te term “site o practice” should be underscored, or it reers not only to the organized space within which the platorm was built, but also to the mental/physical space achieved by the ritualists through means o mystic hand gestures, chants, meditations, and visions. Tis mental/physical space is said to be the recovery o the subjective “pace” o the Buddha at the time o his awakening as well as at the time o his exposition o the Lotus Sutra, and it was symbolized by the real, objective space o the Bo-tree under which the historical Buddha is said to have had his ultimate experience.76
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It was urther symbolized by the Peak o the Numinous Eagle on which the Buddha would have expounded the Lotus Sutra, and by the “open space” in which the Buddhas Prabhūtaratna and Śākyamuni are levitating. Is it no wonder, then, that the preparation o the dōjō was considered central to the ritual. It may even be advanced with confidence that dōjō, the site o practice here defined as the meeting point o subjective and objective spaces, o the Buddha and his disciples, and o past and present time categories, is all the Lotus Blossom Ritual was about. Indeed, the paragraphs o the Gyōrinshō detailing the meanings o the term and the contemplative exercises needed or its envisioning are unequivocal in that respect: Meditation: [Rising] above the ritually defined space [o perormance o the ritual] and within its diamond enclosure, [envision] a jewel mountain, the Peak o the Numinous Eagle. It is the place where the Buddha Śākyamuni preaches the Wonderul Scripture o the Blossom o the Law [the Lotus Sutra]. [Envision] on top o that mountain a stūpa adorned with seven kinds o jewels; within the highest tower is a room decorated in all corners with a large number o streamers, banners, and pendants, and in its midst is the lion’s throne o the Awakened One. Everywhere in prousion are divine colors, divine incense ragrances, divine garments, and divine as well as delicate oods and beverages. Te floor is made o “shiny shale” [hari] and covered with all kinds o wonderul flowers. Bejeweled trees stand in rows; on their branches exquisite jewel flowers are open, while wonderul divine garments hang rom their branches. Delicate and sof breezes [passing through the branches] produce naturally wonderul harmonies. Envision the bejeweled and richly adorned reliquary stūpa o the WorldHonored Prabhūtaratna Buddha. [Ten envision] the athāgata Śākyamuni and the Buddha Prabhūtaratna seated side by side and sharing the same seat within that stūpa. [Ten envision] an innumerable assembly o śrāvaka- and pratyeka Buddhas, devas and nāgas, and various sage and wise men, all listening to the teachings. In the eight directions all around [envision] the various Buddhas maniested by the athāgata Śākyamuni, each seated under the bejeweled trees and thus adorning the lion’s throne. [Further envision] various Buddhas, in number incalculable as specks o dust, each bringing orward to the ront o the bejeweled stūpa vases filled with consecrated water endowed with the eight qualities. Exquisitely decorated incense burners let delicate and priceless ragrances waf around. Wish-granting gems serve as lamp stands. Lotus petals float down over and onto the various Buddhas and the assembled gods and deities. [. . .] Te assembled Bodhisattvas chant the true merits o the athāgata. Envision yoursel in your own body participating in this devotional activity. Ten envision yoursel making offerings to each and everyone o the assembled
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Buddhas in the eight directions. [Finally] envision yoursel standing in ront o the athāgata Śākyamuni, listening to Him as He preaches the superior meanings o the Lotus Sūtra o the Greater vehicle. [. . .] Next envision the mandala. Form the rindan mystic hand seal. You now must envision a three-tiered platorm within the jewel stūpa; on that platorm [envision] an eight-leaed lotus blossom on which is located a bejeweled stūpa whose gate opens to the west. Inside that stūpa is a golden couch on which the siddham graphs [ ] (bhah.) and [ ] (ah.) stand. A variegated radiance emanating rom the contours o these graphs illuminates the three-tiered platorm rom all directions and urther emit “seed syllables” (shuji) in all directions. Te graph [ ] then transorms itsel into the cranial protuberance o the Buddha. Te graph [ ] becomes the begging bowl o the Buddha. Te various seed syllables produced by the radiance issuing rom the two graphs then assume their convention orms. Te cranial protuberance then evolves to become the World-Honored Prabhūtaratna, while the begging bowl becomes the Buddha Śākyamuni. Ten intone the ollowing verses: Empty [space] is the site o cultic practice [dōjō], [because] Awakening is marked by emptiness. Furthermore, the unequalled awakened One [Is called] Tus Come [tathāgata] because o suchness [tathatā].77
Jichin, the author o the Hokke becchō-shi, was o course aware o the Gyōrinshō manual presented above, but he had problems with its lack o detailed interpretive ramework in relation to the work believed to have been translated by Amoghavajra, particularly concerning the term dōjō and the enigmatic our verses just quoted; Jichin chose to expand their meaning in light o Chih-I’s interpretations o the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa Sūtra. Jichin’s somewhat unusual understanding and management o the meditations and visions that are at the core o the ritual were set in the context o his lie-long devotion to the Sannō Avatars o Mount Hiei (Jichin wondered whether his views concerning the ritual may please the kami), and it involved the production o two main visions. First, that o the bejeweled Peak o the Numinous Eagle (also known as Vulture’s Peak) on which the Buddha was said to have preached the Lotus Sutra. And second, that o the two Buddhas seated side by side in the hovering stūpa. Both visions have been the object o painted representations, although representations o the first ar outnumber those o the second, and much more esoteric vision, o which the best surviving example is the Hokke mandala kept in the Daisanji emple in Hyōgo Preecture.78 Although these visions were the object o a good number o interpretations based on a variety o scriptural sources, and o private understandings transmitted
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between masters and disciples, Jichin wrote that detailed prescriptions or the concrete procedures o perormance o the Lotus Blossom Ritual were to be ound nowhere; that he could find no master to answer his queries concerning passages about which he harbored doubts, and that it was only afer much painstaking work that he succeeded in reconstructing the “proper ritual process” (shūshō sahō) that would empower one to realize the visionary experience. Tis attainment, he avowed, caused him to eel much elation. Various mystic hand gestures, chants o spells, and recitations o relevant segments o scripture were perormed as preliminary steps leading to the core o the ritual, which entailed a “visualization o the site o practice/space o awakening” (dōjō-kan), ollowed by a “visualization o the three types o mandalas” ( kan sanshu-mandara) leading to mystic attainment. Jichin treats the two types o vision as something to be practiced at times separately and at other times concomitantly. Te key term in his discussion, however, and or our purpose, is dōjō, Japanese or the Sanskrit bodhi-man.d ․a and rendered here as “site o cultic practice” and, alternatively, as “space o awakening,” or reasons explained below. Te term dōjō originally designated the tree under which the Buddha achieved awakening, but came to indicate any natural or constructed area set aside or cultic practice. It then came to indicate, in esoteric practice circles and in the context o doctrinal ormulations relating to the mystery o the mind (and not to those o the body and speech), the mental space wherein that practice took place (or which the practice induced), and it was interpreted along the lines o the concept o “suchness” (J. shinnyo; Skt. tathatā), a technical term Buddhist philosophers used to suggest the ultimately unqualified character o the Buddha’s awakening. In other words, a undamental adequation was established between the actual enclosure within which the rite took place, and the mental state o mind to be achieved within that context. Jichin’s document was produced over a period o twenty years between 1186 and 1205, at the end o which he engaged in a grand perormance o the ritual in the newly built Daisenpō-in emple on the eighth day o the twelfh month, supposedly in order to deeat the newly established military government.79 Te document, which has been recently studied by Misaki Ryōshū upon discovery o several o its sections not included in the version contained in the aishō Buddhist Canon, bears the title Hokke becchō-shi (Private Notes on the Lotus Blossom (Ritual)) and consists o several parts, the first o which presents a discussion o the proper order o procedures to be ollowed to achieve the mystical and highly prescribed visions related to the physical setting in which the Lotus Sutra was thought to have been preached. Jichin begins his discussion o the “site o practice/space o awakening” with the ollowing stipulation:
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Next, the practitioner produces a visualization [kan] o the bodhi-man.d ․a [dōjō] in terms o the essentiality o suchness. . . . Should [the practitioner] recite the ollowing verses and meditate on their unsurpassed meaning, he will be able to identiy his mind with the essence o truth: Empty [space] is the site o cultic practice [dōjō]. Awakening is marked by emptiness. Furthermore, the unequalled awakened One [Is called] Tus Come [athāgata] because o suchness [tathatā].
As we saw earlier, these our verses are offered in Amoghavajra’s manual, and are also ound in Gyōrinshō, but without a single comment. Jichin, however, interprets these our verses, one by one, on the basis o the “Four Lands” doctrine said to have been expounded by Chih-I, the Chinese ounder o iantai Buddhism, in his Commentary on the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa Sūtra.80 Te reasons why he did this are unclear, but it was probably to buttress his argument (which a reerence to the text by Amoghavajra alone would not have permitted) and thereby establish the orthodoxy o his position, which was that the ecstatic trance (samādhi) that is the mark o completion o the ritual is induced in our steps by contemplation o the “site o cultic practice/ space o awakening” and o the three types o mandala within the heart-mind o the practitioner. Jichin’s interpretation o the stanza quoted above is a set o our paragraphs, each beginning with one o its our verses, and each associated with one o the Four Lands proposed by Chih-I; this interpretation is translated below even though the text is obscure and may be corrupt in places.81 [Te verse] “Empty [space] is the site o cultic practice [dōjō]” reers to the “Land o Co-habitation.” Conceive o the [Lotus Sutra’s] open space assembly as the Land o Expedient Means [Skt.: upāya; J.: hōben]. When outside o the Land o Co-habitation, provisional distinctions arise. [Tat is,] while the practitioner may be absorbed within emptiness, he is still residing [at the present stage] in the site o cultic practice. Te “divided bodies” [namely, the bodies emanated rom the Buddha] under the tree may also be visualized. Although the term “empty space” is used, the ritual o visualization o the site o cultic practice is perormed completely, and that space is thereore considered as “Cohabitation.” And although the site o cultic practice is identified with the Land o Co-habitation, the practitioner nonetheless proceeds toward the realm o awareness. [Te verse] “Awakening is marked by emptiness” reers to the Land o Expedient Means. [We conceive] o emptiness as the aspect o true reality. It is the true
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Land o Expedient Means. On the basis o that awareness the five disciples cut off their illusions and the Buddha enabled them to be reborn in that land. Tese [disciples] were the sel-enlightened Buddhas o the our ruits. [Te verse] “Furthermore, the unequalled awakened One” reers to the Land o rue Retribution. With respect to the awakening o practitioners, the negative term [un-] must be used. Mahāvairocana, the awakened One rom whom the thirtyseven deities o the Adamantine Realm emanate, enjoys the sel-directed bliss o the dharma without interruption. According to this interpretation, a negative term is used. Although the term is negative, it still reers to a modality o being that is the basis o the Land o rue Retribution. For urther details see below. [Te verse] “[Te Buddha is called] Tus Come because o suchness” reers to the Land o Quiescent Radiance. “Tus Come because o suchness” means that because he has realized emptiness, he is [entitled to be] called Buddha. [Te term] Buddha [reers to] the Lord o the eachings, the Great Master Śākyamuni athāgata. Consider the Buddha in his three bodies (which are actually one) as the main object o worship [in this ritual]. Visualize those our lands as constituting the site o cultic practice [dōjō] and consider the secret mudrā [“seal,” i.e. mystic hand ormations] and vīdya [spells] o the three bodies, and the threeold siddhi [perection], as one undamental mudrā. Recite the verses o scripture indicated in this ritual, practice the attainment o Mahāvairocana’s body in the Adamantine Realm by means o the five-old meditation, and engage in the visualization o the internal fire ritual (homa) o the five rings. Tis is indeed the attainment o Buddhahood in this very body. It is the supreme awakening gained in this very existence. How excellent! How auspicious! rust these words! Engage in devotion! Do not doubt this!
Jichin’s prescription or the perormance o the Lotus Blossom Ritual thus entailed a complex meditation on the term dōjō and consisted in visualizing it (and the meditational process) as consisting o “Four Lands”, each representing a different modality o space/being, the experience o which would gradually lead not only to the mystic attainment achieved when envisioning the two seated Buddhas in the stūpa, but to awakening itsel. According to Chih-I the first two o the our lands (Land o Co-habitation and Pure Land o Expedient Means) belonged to “this world,” while the next two (Pure Land o rue Retribution and Land o Quiescent Radiance) were “other-worldly.” O the first land he wrote that it is characterized by the act that common people are unable to cut alse views and personal attachments, while anchorites have cut alse views but have not yet been able to attain true liberation; these two groups o people, thereore, live together. Furthermore, inhabitants o that land do believe that there is a undamental opposition between the lower world and the transcendental world
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o the Pure Land, and believe that the Pure Land is ree o the our negative destinations (shi-akushu). O the second land he said that it was a residence common to arhats (J.: rakan) and pratyekabuddhas (J.: engaku), and he characterized it with a number o qualities that are discussed in doctrinal specificity but need not be outlined here. O the third land Chih-I wrote that although ignorance is not obvious in it, it is not yet ully annihilated. O the ourth land Chih-I said that it is the space o the marvelous awakening as defined in endai doctrine, and that ignorance is thoroughly cut off and has no possibility o ever recurring.82 Furthermore, Jichin indicates that the first two “lands” are this-worldly in the sense that they are characterized by space and by an activity o converting others ( ta), while the last two lands are other-worldly in the sense that they are characterized by reedom rom what might be termed here, or the sake o expediency, the orce o gravity, and are urther characterized by cultic activity or one’s own sake ( ji). Te interpretations outlined above served as the doctrinal and ritual anchor or the particular and radical orm o sacralization qua mandalization o Mount Hiko’s space known as the “Four Lands Perimeter” i only because Jichin, abbot o the Enryakuji on Mount Hiei at the time, had been promoted to a high position in the nascent Shugendō system o Kumano, which influenced the development o Hiko Shugendō at the end o the Heian period. 83 Furthermore, Jichin himsel transerred “entitlement” ( honke-shiki) o the estates o the Kunisaki Peninsula to Imperial Prince Asabito in 1210, a act implying that he knew o the sites o cult in northern Kyushu, and indicating that whereas in the past the emperor had commended estates to temples and shrines in order to gain merit, ecclesiastic authorities were now returning some o these estates to the court, perhaps in order to gain (imperial) political merit immediately afer the establishment o military rule in Kamakura.84 Tree years later, the oldest extant etiological record o Mount Hiko, Hikosan Ruki, was compiled, and it is in that document that we hear or the first time o the our zones or “Lands,” o Mount Hiko. Tus, the estate commendation o Mount Hiko to the Shōgo-in monzeki and the establishment o its perimeter in 1181, the transer o the Kunisaki estates to an imperial prince in 1210, the compilation o Hikosan Ruki in 1213, and the document written between 1186 and 1205 by Jichin on the Four Lands dimension o the Lotus Blossom Ritual must be viewed as belonging to a single series o related events. Te names o the Four Lands mentioned above were applied, probably by yamabushi who had consulted with Jichin or had been initiated by him in ritual practices he considered most esoteric, to our superimposed layers encompassing
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the height o the mountain as it emerged rom within the perimeter established in 1181. Tese our “lands” or zones were then subjected to separate regulations determining types o experience and modalities o social lie that were expected at a given altitude in each zone. Jichin’s ramework or the Lotus Blossom Ritual must thus have become a template or this new geotype o Mount Hiko, serving both as the model or a space o representation, and as a sophisticated tool or conceptualizing and giving a concrete orm to Mount Hiko as an ideal space or the practice o endai-based Shugendō. Mount Hiko was not merely visualized as though it were a dōjō in some kind o simplistic, abstract way, however. It was transormed into one, which means that it was lived, not just as a miniature version or “concrete metaphor” or Buddhist cosmographic and cosmological views implied in the doctrine established by Chih-I and in the rituals prescribed by Amoghavajra and commented upon by Jichin: the mountain was treated, not as the very space o awakening itsel (which, when reerred to in that way, might invite reification), but as a space that could be enacted (produced) only by means o ritual practices increasing in difficulty. Consequently, the earlier view o Mount Hiko as a concrete metaphor whose template had been the palatial residence o Maitreya lost some importance, though it did not vanish. Te boundaries o the Four Lands o Mount Hiko were marked by some o the orty-nine caves discussed earlier on in this chapter and by various shrines, inscribed stones and the like; these boundaries were urther marked by shrine gates (torii) set at various elevations to be reached, not just through the physical effort o ascent, but through meditative exercises, the completion o specific rites o penance and their associated vision-inducing mystic attainments, and the observance o a number o purificatory practices. Lie was strictly controlled in each o the our zones until the 1850s, and was subjected to taboos and various legal restraints briefly outlined below. Each zone, naturally, bore the names o the our lands described by Chih-I and commented upon by Jichin in regard to the Lotus Blossom Ritual. In that way, natural space came to be organized in terms o a transcendent order—which ultimately ormed the legitimacy o the social order Mount Hiko’s residents were expected to observe. Te lowest zone was called “Land o Co-habitation o Anchorites and Commoners” (Bonshō dōgodo) and included the hamlets o Kita-Sakamoto, Karagatani, and Minami-Sakamoto, located within the limits o the perimeter established in 1181. It was prohibited to cultivate the five grains or kill any orm o lie in this zone; the cultivation o tea and vegetables was allowed, however, as were several houses specialized in midwifing, since giving birth was outlawed in the upper zones. Hikosan Ruki states that this zone’s inhabitants “have no fields
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Fourth zone Wooden torii
Third zone
Stone torii Yamabushi village Kita Sakamoto
Second zone
Bronze torii
Garatani
First zone
North Minami Sakamoto Fukigai Pass Bessho kōchi
Map 11 Te our zones o Mount Hiko
and survive on a diet o dew and herbs.” Rice cultivation in this zone was legalized or the first time in 1858. Te entrance to the second zone, Pure Land o Expedient Means ( Hōben Jōdo) or Land o Expedient Means Characterized by Remaining Worldly Attachments (Hōben Uyodo), is marked by a shrine gate ( torii) made o bronze and situated at 500m altitude, and its upper limit is marked by a torii made o stone and located at 700m; the our yamabushi hamlets orming the cultic community o Mount Hiko were located in this zone. Te bronze torii is today located lower than it used to be; it was moved down during the Edo period when the main hamlet grew in size partly as a result o the okugawa shogunate policies lifing travel restrictions to encourage trade, and permitted pilgrimages. Te yamabushi were then allowed to transorm their temple-like residences (bō) into inns, where they lodged and educated a growing number o travelers and pilgrims on whose generosity they increasingly came to depend, since they were losing direct economic access to estates they once controlled. Grain cultivation was also orbidden in this zone; so was the delivery o children, at which time women were required to move down to one o the villages situated below the bronze torii. Furthermore, at the time o their menses women were not allowed to cross the main road along which the temple-residences were built; they also had to separate themselves rom their inhabitations and cook their own ood
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separately rom the main fire (a practice known as bekka); some lived then in a separate hut, or under the eaves o their homes. Te third zone, Adorned Land o rue Retribution ( Jippō Gondo or Jippō Mushōgedo, Adorned Land o rue Retribution and Devoid o Obstacles) extended rom the stone torii located in ront o the Main Sanctuary to the wooden torii located in ront o the Gyōja Hall o the Upper Sanctuary. Since this area consists mainly o steep rocky escarpments that are not easy to reach, there are no residential halls, but it is the zone where most o the caves in which the yamabushi used to practice their austerities in total seclusion are ound; it was regarded as a realm inhabited by Bodhisattvas, and thereore as an ideal place or the perormance o visualizations and meditation. In the Hōben Jōdo zone there were many residential halls and paths used or the storage and transportation o oodstuff by bulls; in this zone, however, no horses or bulls were allowed. All possible precautions against pollution, particularly concerning death, were taken. Preservation efforts have continued to this day to keep the flora and auna intact. Te ourth and uppermost zone, Land o Permanent Quiescent Radiance ( Jōjakkōdo), extended upwards rom the wooden gate to the three summits o Mount Hiko, which were regarded by the yamabushi as the actual embodiment o combined Shinto and Buddhist deities, the “Avatars o the Tree Sites.” All and any release o blood, sperm, excrements, urine, saliva, phlegm, or mucous rom the nose and ears were prohibited in this zone. Te area was regarded as an ideal space to be lef untouched, where the pure land o the Buddhas and the world o humans were marked by the absence o difference. Te term “quiescent radiance” is probably o Daoist origins, but it was used in Buddhist circles to reer to nirvān.a. Te mountain thus became a three-dimensional mandala. A chronotype was associated with the geotype just presented, suggesting that time passed at a different speed at different altitudes. Tis chronotype was more undamentally related to desire than any other category evidenced so ar. Tat is, the lowest zone entailed the smallest number o taboos and restraints on the body/mind; it was also a zone o somewhat restricted economic production and exchanges related to the seasonal cycle o production, and all orms o transportation were allowed. ime was conceived differently in the second zone, since neither birth nor death were allowed to pollute space or enter its representation in terms o human liespan. Te third zone, marked though it was by the regular sounds o drums and bells calling the yamabushi to perorm all sorts o meditations and rites, was dotted with all the caves in which the conception o time was marked by the dominant expectation or ultimate
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apotheosis or or the possibility to disengage onesel rom transmigration, that is, rom causality and time. Te uppermost zone was one in which the body’s natural unctions were as though inexistent, and in which all time we must qualiy as “man-made” ceased to carry special significance. Looking at the phenomenon rom another perspective, the undamental opposition between purity and pollution transcoded an opposition between nature and culture, and was inscribed in the material used in the gates, which was graded according to the amount o human work (culture) that was necessitated to make them: melted bronze or the lowest gate, sculpted stone or the middle gate, and roughly hewn wood or the upper gate. Tis distinction between culture at the bottom and nature at the top in terms o the complexity o manuacture o the materials or the gates was explicitly stated, and its import resides in the quasi-immanentist character o its purpose: on Mount Hiko, nature or wilderness was the mark o transcendence. At the same time, however, the our Buddhist lands or zones unctioned to reinorce an older pre-Buddhist social prescription in the sense that they represented the embodiment o a mental map o social hierarchy, itsel grounded in a long-established opposition between purity and pollution. In this oppositional schema, pollution was at the bottom and purity at the top, and purity came to be associated with the highest domains o mystical experience accompanied by restraints on behavior, while pollution was associated with the realms conceived o as “external paths” ( gedō) and “lower worlds” ( gekai). Tis opposition indicates that Mount Hiko’s space is not to be interpreted solely along Buddhist doctrinal or ritual lines, in that it was also the site o maniestation o kami to which cults were given in various shrines; thereore, “native” views ( habitus) concerning purity and pollution were also in effect, and various notions and practices related to dirt, blood, disease, and biological unctions came to be combined with the Buddhist order o things. ranscendence was quiescent and radiant, and was marked by immobility and the total absence o work; the lower and urther away one went rom it, however, the more “busy” one became, the closer one got to the world o work and to the dark and smelly realm o gutters and o reuse flowing downstream. Te yamabushi thus mapped out onto the mountain’s topography a social topography in which they established strict correlations between altitude, cleanliness, morality and desire, and salvation. It would be wrong, as a consequence, to regard them as marginal groups in the overall Japanese medieval representation o social order, or they were at the very core o that representation: while some scholars have considered them to have been marginal figures in Japanese history, the yamabushi were actually playing a crucial role in maintaining vertical
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hierarchies at opposite ends o which the emperor and the outcaste were situated. Te yamabushi gained access to transcendence through the royal avenue o visions and restraints on behavior, while they gained access to what is, afer all, an idealized view o nature, through demanding physical and mental austerities. Even though the ollowing proposition may seem paradoxical, they gained access to nature through ritualization o their body-minds. For them, ritual (culture) was the road leading back to nature. What appears to have been a restraining code inscribed on the body was regarded by the yamabushi as an emancipating liestyle and as a set o technologies o the sel yielding, ultimately, reedom rom “crass” time through immersion into regulated time, and reedom rom “crass” space through spatial movements considered equivalent to the appropriation o truth or metaphysical principles. Tis paradox will be discussed, first, in the case o the projection o mandala ritual processes over mountainous ranges, and second, in the case o the ritualization o the body.
Mandala templates: divine planning First represented on the basis o the template o Maitreya’s Pure Land, then conceived o on the basis o the template o the endai Four Lands system and Lotus Blossom Ritual and its associated mandalas, and urther conceived o in relation to chronotypes associated with specific deities o the Buddhist pantheon and experienced in nocturnal circumambulations, Mount Hiko came to be subjected to a ourth and even more elaborate template, used to organize the ritualized peregrinations. Tis geotypical construction o Mount Hiko consisted in practices that also belong to the hermeneutic codes I call “mandalization,” and entailed rituals perormed during ascetic peregrinations through several mountain ranges in spring, summer and all. Esoteric doctrine stipulated that Buddhahood could be realized in this physical body and during one’s lietime, but this stipulation entailed, among others, two specific conditions. First, that a radically new conceptualization o the body be accepted; and second, that specific practices o a ritual character be applied with a view to transmute the body- mind o a practitioner into that o the Buddha. Tese conditions were met through the postulation o the riple Mystery (o body, speech, and mind), which orms the backbone o concepts and practices concerning the body in the Shingon and endai branches o Esoteric Buddhism and Shugendō. Te “transmutation” o the human body into that o the Buddha was deemed possible on the basis o
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three interrelated notions: first, that the physical world was the actual substance o the Buddha in its diversified body o essence; second, that this substance and the natural sounds produced by it were the actual sermon o the Buddha uttered in its body o essence; and third, that the mind o awakening o the Buddha in its body o essence pervaded the substance o the physical world, its sounds, and its consciousness. In other words, the world was regarded as being the substance, speech, and mind o the cosmic Buddha, Mahāvairocana. In this representational schema, human beings were considered to be a part o that Buddha, but to have somehow become separated rom it, to have become dea to it, and to have become unaware o it. Tis representation served as anchor or three types o ritual practices devised to bridge the gap between relative and absolute substance, between relative and absolute speech, and between relative and absolute consciousness. Te first type entailed a regimen o physical exercises, yogic practices, dietary practices and the like. Te second type entailed chanting and meditating on sounds. And the third type entailed a series o meditations, contemplations, and visions aiming at the transormation o consciousness. Graphic mandalas were devised to bolster these practices, and in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism two main mandalas were used: the matrix realm mandala, symbolically representing the world o the Buddha as an object o knowledge, and the adamantine realm mandala, symbolically representing the characteristics and attributes o the knowing agency. Tese mandalas were ritually prepared in either painted or written orm, and were used to guide practitioners in their perormance o the various practices related to the riple Mystery, at the end o which the distinctions between the two mandalas, between the Buddha and the practitioners, and between objects o knowledge and knowing subject, imploded and vanished. Te yamabushi, however, pushed this reasoning to its logical conclusion: since mandalas were representations o the underlying structure o the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind, and since the world was semiotically treated as the actual substance, speech, and mind o the Buddha, then the world itsel could be viewed in mandalic terms, that is, as being based on an original mandala template that could be “recovered” through ritualized, rule-governed practices. Te reversal o the metaphorical relation between the actual world and mandala graphic symbolization was achieved, on a conceptual level, through the establishment o taxonomic tables in which systematic correlations between substances, colors, shapes, sounds, and qualities were posited. Te yamabushi then devised peregrination courses through mountainous massis they viewed as natural mandalas, and ollowed these courses while perorming rituals related to those
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perormed in ront o painted mandalas in temples. Tey regarded various geographical accidents such as massive boulders, wateralls, peaks and gorges as natural sites o residence o the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas represented in painted mandalas and symbolizing various aspects o the Buddha in its body o essence, and they engaged in ritual practices enabling them to reach mystical identification with those deities, while they associated the natural elements orming their own body/minds with the elementary substance/quality o the Buddha. Te yamabushi o Mount Hiko produced three mandalized courses they ollowed during the spring, summer, and all seasons. Te spring course, called “recto” ( Jun), took them rom Mount Hiko to Mount Hōman (next to Dazaiu), and back to Mount Hiko. Tis course was a projection o the ritual process associated with the Matrix realm mandala ( taizōkai mandara) as well as with the Adamantine mandala (kongōkai mandara) and was characterized in two ways. First, it was stipulated that the course embodied the logical ormula o understanding a potential effect through the investigation o the nature o its cause. And second, it was to be perormed in terms o an emphasis on the achievement o the mind o awakening; that is, it ocused on the decisions that may ultimately lead to the emancipation o a practitioner. Tis course was also reerred to, thereore, as “sel” ( Ji). Te all course, called “verso” ( Gyaku), took the yamabushi rom Mount Hiko to Mount Fukuchi (south o Kokura), and back to Mount Hiko. Tis course was a projection o the ritual processes associated with the Adamantine realm mandala ( kongōkai mandara), and was characterized in the ollowing ashion. First, it emphasized the ormula o determining a cause on the basis o understanding the nature o its necessary effects. And second, it entailed turning away rom one’s personal pursuit o awakening, encouraging instead the conversion o people met in the various villages situated along the course. Tis course was also reerred to, thereore, as “others” ( a). Both spring and all courses passed through orty-eight “lodges,” the first lodge location being the object o secret, oral transmission. Finally, the summer course—regarded on Mount Hiko as the most venerable—was called “neither recto nor verso” ( jungyaku uni); it took the yamabushi around various peaks in the immediate vicinity o Mount Hiko beore duplicating the spring course to Mount Hōman and back. Tis course was also called “flower offering” ( hanaku) and was based on the Susiddhikara sūtra; it was characterized as being neither cause nor effect, and emphasized the achievement o a lack o distinction between onesel and others. Te course was posited as a situation in which the differences between
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the adamantine and matrix mandalas were abolished, and it “peaked” at a lodge called “Proundity” ( Jinzen or Shinzen), where the lack o differentiation may be experienced; as such, it symbolized the space o awakening, here qualified as the disappearance o oppositions between subject and object in the fields o knowledge and social practice. It was also known, thereore, as “sel and others are not two” ( Jita Funi). It would be a mistake, however, to stop with defining mandalization at the ritual level only, or that would give too neat a picture o what was, in the historical actuality o its development and consolidation processes, a historically unstable and geographically uneven process.85 wo queries may be raised at this point concerning this specific type o mandalization. First is the question o what the yamabushi thought when they devised specific courses: the reasons or their existential and geographical choices should be understood, and not only in philosophical terms. Second is the question o the actual overlay o geographical areas with mandala templates, o how this considerable visionary project was organized and carried out in concrete and practical manner, in quite a ew regions o Japan. In the first case a possible explanation to the effect that the yamabushi simply pushed philosophical tenets (“awakening and transmigration are two-but-not-two,” “orm and emptiness are two-but-not-two,” and “passions and awakening are two-but-nottwo”) to their logical conclusion is not quite satisactory because it ails to justiy what exactly made this conclusion possible or even plausible; nor does it explicate the “gap” between conceptualization and actual practice, or between conceptual models and specific instances o mandalization. In the second case, and once the first set o problems is dealt with in a more or less satisactory manner commensurate with the availability o sources, maps o the discrete mandalized areas should be produced, and the courses—or the most part now lost—ollowed by the yamabushi should be proposed. Tis will be attempted briefly in the next chapter. o return to the first case it may be proposed as primary working hypothesis that the meditations and visionary practices o the yamabushi entailed depth-perception and a three-dimensional consciousness o space, and that all mandalas are, undamentally, three-dimensional realms. In other words, that the mandalization process was undergirded by three-dimensional perception. It may be objected that mandalas, which are ofen painted, involved only two-dimensional representations and were linked to early Indian geometry or, to the least, to an aesthetic categorization o basic geometrical orms; however, one enters the realm o three-dimensionality the moment architecture, or any construction (such as the nest o a bird) is involved, and it is clear that most mandalas were originally three-dimensional constructs devised to produce a
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space in which to perorm rituals, and that those rituals were in India connected to mathematical computation and geometric rendering. More ascinating, perhaps, but loaded with difficult theoretical issues, is the act that the visionary experiences outlined up to this point involve the specificity o the experience o light, and it may very well be the case that depth-perception and the experience o visionary light are inextricably connected. Tis working hypothesis alone warrants the decision to produce computer-generated, threedimensional models o mandalized mountainous ranges, but it is urther validated by the act that Mount Hiko’s yamabushi themselves created in 1616 what is, despite some vertical exaggeration, an astonishingly accurate threedimensional model o their mountain.86 It is obvious that the wooden model’s relie is amplified; in order to produce a more or less equal computer model I had to augment elevation by about 30 per cent, and then the views fit almost together. Tus, Mount Hiko’s yamabushi produced over time specific models o their experience o space, and encoded vast regions with complex signs—many o which yet remain to be ully deciphered; they then produced physical models o these constructs, and presented their codification o experience to themselves and to others in a direct, graphic manner.
Figure 2 Photograph o wooden model o Mount Hiko
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Figure 3 Computer image o same model
A second working hypothesis is that representational processes alone might have had actual, material causes and consequences; in this case it is necessary to analyze what enabled the yamabushi to choose specific regions and invest them with their practices and representations, and to analyse the material consequences that the setting aside o vast geographical areas had or their inhabitants. Mandalized areas were not just sacred zones in the traditionally sanctioned but uncritically accepted sense, they were also political and economic in character; Mount Hiko was like a palimpsest, overlaid with successive codifications o experience that must have been related to actual political conditions at different moments o history. A history-based and society-oriented analysis o the various processes and practices mentioned above, then, might provide a better understanding o how the yamabushi used mountains and mandalas to constitute their reality and thereby enhance or radically change the conditions o their existence. Te act that mandalized zones were established over much o Japan requires that Shugendō not be treated as a “olksy” or quixotic phenomenon, but as a central element in the cultural/cultic history o Japan and in the constitution o its social spaces, its epistemological orientations, and its practical choices. It is near impossible to trace with precision the paths the yamabushi created or originally ollowed, however, because they changed over time, depending mostly on political conditions, and because the majority o mandalized courses were abandoned afer the Japanese government abolished Shugendō in 1872, as a result o which these courses disappeared under vegetation—while the
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onslaught o unplanned urban development afer World War wo destroyed many possibilities o retrieval. Extant documents give little or no geographical inormation on the exact trails the yamabushi might have ollowed, because the transmission o knowledge concerning the location o lodges where the yamabushi stopped was secret and only orally transmitted. Finally, many temples and statues were destroyed in the late nineteenth century, thereby making it difficult to retrieve the original positions o deities and thus, the actual geographical location o the spatial and temporal order o mystical identification the yamabushi might have devised in relation to the position o deities within discrete mandalas. I have also dreamed o satellite inrared images and solid GPS analyses; I managed to get a heavy-duty, bulky GPS rom the Army when these machines were still barely known, but the start o the Iraq war orced me to return the apparatus just beore I lef or another serious trip. What will be offered in Chapter three, thereore, can only be schematic in character.
Geotyped and chronotyped, encoded, mandalized bodies As is now clear, hopeully, everything in Shugendō was a matter o experience and embodiment, and the conceptualization and treatment o the body were thereore essential issues in doctrine as well as in practice. During his fify years o residence at Mount Hiko in the sixteenth century, Akyūbō Sokuden, the greatest architect o Shugendō doctrine, wrote a number o tracts that were then circulated among the highest ranked anchorites and were taught in ascending levels o secrecy to (male) initiates who had undergone grueling tests o endurance in Mount Hiko’s temples and in the mountainous ranges o northeastern Kyushu. One o those didactic tracts, “Secret Directives Concerning the Essentials o Practice in Shugendō” ( Shugendō Shūyō Hiketsu), has much to say on the body-mind as the very seat o all possible embodiments. Te tract begins its discussion o the moti through a dissection and breakdown o the spatial components o the graphs with which the term yamabushi is written, because written Chinese graphs may be regarded as architectural constructs. Te breakdown makes it clear that the yamabushi body could be as much o a curse as it might be the greatest glory o godhead, in the sense that it was a body through which the worst levels o bottomless hells could be lived—as well as a body in which the achievement o Buddhahood in this body/space-and-time might mature and finally reach completion. Shugendō Shūyō Hiketsu consists o three parts, each subdivided into seven “directives,” and each part is organized
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along ascending levels o secrecy. Te second part is entitled “seven directives in secrecy” and begins with the ollowing directive: “About the two graphs yama and bushi [orming the term yamabushi, 山伏]:” A written transmission states: In the term yamabushi the component [read] yama (山, “mountain”) is written with three vertical strokes and one horizontal stroke; the three vertical strokes correspond to the three bodies [o the Buddha]: the body o essence, the body o retribution, and the body o metamorphosis, as well as to the riple ruth [expounded in endai Buddhist doctrine]: the truth o emptiness, the truth o temporary reality, and the middle truth. Te horizontal stroke signifies that the three bodies [o the Buddha] are one, and that the three truths [o endai doctrine] are singular and [contained within] a single [moment o] thought. Te component bushi (伏)is a [single] graph [that can be thought o as being] made up o two graphs acing each other: [to the lef] the graph [meaning] human being (人, simplified as:イ), and [to the right] the graph [meaning] dog (犬). [Te graph meaning] “human being” reers to [humanity’s] essential [awakened] nature [while the graph meaning] “dog” reers to ignorance. Essential nature and ignorance are two-but-not-two, separate yet not distinct: they are o one substance even though they bear different names. Te above is represented in the ollowing schema: Te Hachiyō-kyō states, “the lef stroke [o the graph 人 meaning ‘human’] symbolizes rectitude; the right stroke symbolizes aithulness. It is because o continuously perormed correct aithulness that the term ‘human’ obtains this meaning.” A Secret Record states, “[Te graph yama [山 ‘mountain’] implies that the [Buddha’s] riple Body is One, and points to the riple ruth in One [Moment o] Tought. [Te graph bushi 伏] stands or the principle o single substance and or the non-duality o ignorance/nature o essence. Te riple Body and the riple ruth [together reer to] an inner realization without production o causes on the part o the undamental essence [honji].” Tis trinity in turn reers to the non-duality o orm and mind. Te nature o essence is like the ocean, immobile and shifless. Ignorance is like waves, caused by discrete karmic actors on the surace o the ocean. Tus, the water o the ocean and that o the waves are not one; yet, they are not different. Tat is why it is stipulated that ignorance is like the nature o essence, that the nature o essence is at once ignorance, and that is why it is also said that the three bodies [o the Buddha] are one, and that the one body is triple. Such is the meaning o the term yamabushi. Tis original meaning encompasses ten thousand phenomena in the two single graphs [with which that term is written]. Ultimately, the ten realms are encompassed within the single body o the practitioner. Walking,
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Figure 4 Meanings o the word yamabushi
Standing, Seated, and Reclining [meditative] attitudes [o the body] are the marvelous unctions o the [undamentally] inactive riple Body. Te karmic activities caused by specious words and stupid speech are in and o themselves the broad sermon o the Buddha. Letting the three activities [o body, speech, and mind] ollow their natural course, the our meanings are attributed to awakening. Tis is why one achieves Buddhahood without even attempting to become a Buddha, and why one attests to the level o awakening without ever changing one’s natural body .87
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Te texts authored by the yamabushi and speaking o the body always use spatial metaphors, or a body perorming rituals had to be “oriented.” In the context o the regular peregrinations o the yamabushi, the body was primarily conceived in terms o its extension in space and needed proper positioning in order to be ritualized and thereby reach thewaist stated goals o its ordered movements through space. Furthermore, the body was encoded so that each o its parts became associated with a constitutive element, a shape, a color, a sound, a quality, and the body itsel came to be treated as though it were a mandala. Tese characteristics are clearly stated in Akyūbō Sokuden’s definition o the ritual practice known as “solidiying the body position” ( tokogatame)—a definition in which he includes vocabulary and notions encountered earlier on in the discussion o the “site o practice” and o the “our lands” doctrine or theory: Concerning tokogatame while coursing through the mountains. Te term toko [literally, “seat”] reers to the mandalas associated with the adamantine and matrix courses. It is the dōjō [“site o practice”] o the Land o Co-habitation. Te term katame [literally, “solidification”] reers to the [diamond-like] solidity o the five elements [orming] the Body o Essence [o the Buddha]. Tis [terminology implies that] one’s body is that o the Buddha. Our Revered Patriarch, the athāgata Mahāvairocana [Dainichi Nyorai], is endowed with the inner realization o the realm o essence, is permanent, and pervades the triple world. His [Its] essential corporality knows neither beginning nor end, and is perect and endowed with a myriad qualities; it consists o the five elements o earth, water, fire, wind, and ether, each symbolically maniest in the ollowing representations: square [cube], circle [sphere], triangle [pyramid], crescent [halmoon], and drop [teardrop]. Tese representations symbolize the ollowing aspects: firmness, humidity, dissipation [like smoke], movement, and absence o obstacle. Furthermore, they are symbolized by five colors: yellow, white, red, black, and blue, and by the five “seed letters” [Skt.: bīja; J.: shuji] a-bi-ra-un-ken [a-vi-ra-hūm-kham ․ ]. Te five elements pervade the ten realms o both sentient and non-sentient beings; they are thereore called “elemental” [literally, “expansive”]. Tese five elements are the basis on which the bodies o Buddhas and those o common beings are constituted. [. . .] Tat is why Shugendō holds the view that one’s physical body is the Buddha itsel. [. . .] Recite the ollowing meditation verse: Tis very body is a-bi-ra-un-ken: Legs and waist, navel, heart, neck, and summit o the cranium: Below the waist, [a] reers to original non-production/ Yellow color, cubic shape, ground o the Buddha’s heart-mind. In the wheel o the navel, [bi] reers to the sermon beyond language/
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Figure 5 Te male body as stūpa
White, spherical shape, water o great compassion. Set on the heart, [ra] reers to the absence o pollution. Red, pyramidal shape, the fire o great wisdom. Below the chin, [hūm˙] reers to separation rom cause and effect relations/ Black, crescent shape, the power o great wind. Above the orehead, [ken] reers to absolute spatial emptiness/, Blue, tear-drop shape, the swivel [cylinder] o the great sky [ether].”
Tus aiming at visualizing the human body as though it were a stūpa conceived not only as the original site o cultic practice but also as the body o the Buddha, this ritual meditation was usually perormed on the first day o coursing through mountain mandalas; the act that some statues o amous monks represent the five-ring pagoda placed in their hands should be emphasized: this kind o representation is known as “Waiting or Maitreya.” Te visualization was then ollowed by the perormance o the rite called “firming the body position” (tokosadame), defined in the same text as ollows: • • • •
First, orm the tokogatame in space (first, diamond; second, matrix). Next, orm the ōkyōgo hand configuration; recite the corresponding spell. Next, orm the ryūkyōgo hand configuration; recite the corresponding spell. Next, [the practitioner should] lie [on the ground] on the right side, and bend the right arm to orm the crescent o wind. [He should] then extend
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Figure 6 Body positioned as seed-letter vam ∙
the lef arm, place it on the hip, and remain fixed (sadame) in this position (toko). Tis configuration is called “horizontal vam ․ spell”: • In the case o the tokogatame ritual, the same configuration is called “vertical vam ․ spell: .
Tis particular positioning o the body in the orm o a siddham ․ graph was related to a symbolic death viewed as liberation rom transmigration, or the author o the text goes on to explicitly associate it with the bodily position o the Buddha at the time o his entrance into mahā- parinirvān.a, that is, lying on his side. In other words, the body was treated as being both iconic (in the semiotic sense) and iconographic, and it was increasingly marked by temporal and spatial conditionings. Much more needs to be said concerning concepts o the body in Shugendō, particularly on the topic o its relation to ood, since Akyūbō Sokuden states that the relics o the Buddha have become rice grains, and that practitioners should both “abandon [attachment to] the body” ( sutemi) by participating in sumō competitions, all the while gaining supranatural powers the yamabushi then transerred to the rice ears in the fields which they visited during their mandalized peregrinations.
Te visionary imperative Mandalized courses were programmed, in part, by a undamental emphasis on visionary experiences that are prescribed in a number o scriptures and
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commentaries, and served as a means to undergo intensely physical and mystical experiences. Vision, space, and ritual together produced the contents (and limits) o the yamabushi’s experience. Being, in part, a philosophical system that originally chose man as its object o knowledge (rather than deities and rituals, as had been the case in the Vedic world), Buddhism developed what might be loosely called a phenomenology o perception, or some Buddhist philosophers took the position that the world exists only as it is perceived and thought. Early discussions o perception address the five senses, but soon enough the ocus o attention turned to vision and hearing as the leading and in many ways competing senses, around which an epistemology was constructed and technologies o cultic practice were constituted. Tere is no space to discuss the earliest ideas concerning vision now, but the major texts on the topic have been translated and analysed and are easy to find. It is o interest, however, to note that the philosophical discourse on vision and light paralleled concerns in the medical field o Buddhist knowledge.88 Te point is that exercises in visualizing the Buddha (his body), Buddha-lands, and attempts to realize in onesel the “Buddha-eye” became a central eature o meditative practice and soteriology. In the our centuries beore St Augustine’s time, Buddhist thinkers had made distinctions between, not two, but five eyes. Witness to this assertion is the authoritative “reatise o the Great Virtue o Wisdom” attributed to Nāgārjuna, the second-century Indian philosopher and champion o the Mahāyāna establishment. In this document’s fifieth chapter Nāgārjuna writes o the acquisition o Five Eyes: the physical eye, the divine eye, the wisdom eye, the eye o the law, and the Buddha eye:
1. Te physical eye (nām ․ acaks․us) sees what is near, but does not see what is ar; it sees what is in ront, but does not see what is in the back; it sees what is outside, but does not see what is inside; it sees during daylight, but does not see in the night’s darkness; it sees what is above, but does not see what is below. 2. Because o these screens, the Bodhisattva searches or the divine eye (divyacaks․us). Having gained the divine eye, he sees what is ar and what is near, what is in ront and what is in the back, what is inside and what is outside; he sees during day and during night; he sees what is above and what is below, or there is no more screen. Tis divine eye sees the designation objects issued rom combined causes and conditions, but it does not see the rue characteristic, namely, vacuity, the absence o characterization, the not-considering, the not-producing, the non-destructing.
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3. And so it goes as above: in order to see this rue characteristic, the Bodhisattva looks or the wisdom eye ( prajñācaks․us). Having gained this wisdom eye, he does not see beings anymore, he suppresses entirely the aspects o identity and diversity, he rejects any adhesion and does not admit o any dharma whatsoever. Te auto-destruction o wisdom, such is the eye o wisdom. 4. Yet, the eye o wisdom cannot save beings. Why? Because it does not distinguish them anymore; that is why the Bodhisattva produces the eye o the law (dharmacaks․us). With this eye o the law he knows that so- and-so has gained such ruit as a result o this or that practice; he knows all the means that fit each particular being in order or it to realize Bodhi. 5. But the eye o the law (dharmacaks․us) cannot know everywhere all appropriate means to save beings; that is why a Bodhisattva searches or the Buddha eye (Buddhacaks․us). Tere is nothing that cannot be known by this Buddha eye; there is no enigma, no matter how secret, that it cannot discover. Tat which is ar or humans is proximate or the Buddha; that which is doubtul to humans is evident to the Buddha; that which is subtle or humans is gross or the Buddha; that which is deep or humans is shallow or the Buddha. Trough this Buddha eye there is nothing that is not heard, not seen, not known, not elt. Free rom reflection, the Buddha eye is always clear on all dharma.89 Tese five “eyes” were gained in order to realize a visualization o past, present, and uture Buddhas. Visualization was termed a representation whereby an ascetic made these Buddhas visible to himsel, and was thereore not relegated to the low status o apparitions connected to delusions or deective perceptions. As a matter o act, the “Buddha-Eye” was given a deified orm under the “), the eminine personification o that special aculty o the Buddha, and it became the object o complex esoteric rituals and mandalas. Te cult to this deity was most actively given during the medieval period, when it was connected to Buddhist aspects o the imperial enthronement rituals as well as to personal and sometimes intense devotion.90 Tere were rather interesting controversies concerning the differences between vision, mental vision, and visionary experience, and their status vis-à- vis knowledge and liberation. Étienne Lamotte states that early on in their history, Buddhist thinkers opposed rationalists to mystics: the rationalists preerred logic over mysticism, wisdom over yogic exercises and attainments, and discrimination (vipaśyanā) over appeasement o mental processes (․samathā). Te oldest position seems to have been that it was preerable to discern the
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correct doctrine over engaging in visualizing the Buddha. But this opposition was mitigated by the Buddha’s amous statement to the effect that “Whoever sees the dharma sees me.” As a result, the rationalists did not completely reject the mystic exercises leading to visionary experiences, even i they held these experiences to be mere imaginations. Tere is no question that the yamabushi belong to the second group, which preerred mysticism, yogic exercises, and appeasement o mental processes. Tese visions were sometimes related to the exhilarating but also lie threatening “high” o transgression. Te ollowing is an example o vision, ollowed by an example o transgression, drawn rom Hikosan Ruki: During his mountain austerities in Kyushu, the anchorite [Gaken] scaled Mount Aso in Higo Province. Te mountain orms a body in which the seven treasures have produced high-rising peaks rom whose summits the view is unimpeded in all directions. At its center, water blessed with the eight qualities o excellence has ormed a lake that produces olding waves o five hues. Te crashing sound o those waves reveals the doctrine o the our perections and three emancipations. Te shades o the southern slopes and the western sun’s radiance all display outstanding colors. Silver sands cover the golden island’s beaches, while bejeweled trees display flowers o all hues and colors to the extent that they rival the splendor o the Pure Land, a scene common mortals cannot hope to behold. Te anchorite produced a wish to behold the lord o the jewel lake and, with great firmness o confidence in his heart-mind, offered a recitation o [the scripture o] wisdom; as he had barely dedicated three volumes o the scripture, a goshawk appeared to him. Te anchorite stated, “Goshawk, you may be the king o birds, but you are not the lord o the jewel lake.” As he repeatedly recited esoteric ormulas, a layman appeared. Te ascetic then said, “A layman’s body may be such as is seen in the world, but is definitely not that o the lord o the jewel lake.” As he then recited the Lotus Sutra, a monk appeared. [Gaken] then said, “Tough this may be the Lord o Buddhism, this cannot be the lord o the jewel lake. Tese are all delusions.” Ten appeared a small dragon, but the anchorite still would not acknowledge it as the lord o the jewel lake. Ten Ekadasa-mukha [the eleven-headed Bodhisattva o compassion] appeared in resplendent radiance, but he still would not acknowledge it and said, “I will not leave so long as I do not visualize the true body o the lord o the jewel lake.” He then exhorted his heart-mind, recited noble sentences rom both esoteric and exoteric scriptures, and thus renewed his efforts to chant the dharma. For hal a month he did not dare look at any object. At that point a voice emanated rom within the lake and said, “You are unable to visualize the true body o the lord o the jewel lake because your sins are too heavy.” [. . .] He then engaged in reciting
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the central passages o sutras and commentaries, chanted secret mantras and sacred ormulas, and settled in the meditation on suchness and the rectification o heretical thoughts. As he was practicing rituals related to the double truth, the mountains moved and the earth shook, and darkness spread in all directions as though it were night. A great dragon with nine heads and eight aces surged orth, its height larger than mountain peaks, its length longer than mountain ranges, one ace dotted with three eyes brilliant as the sun in spring, nine heads endowed with three eyes resplendent as the morning star. Its mouth was spitting fire just as the flames produced by [the mythic bird] Garuda, and its body filled space. Its breath was like a typhoon. Te anchorite opened his eyes but did not dare look twice, or he elt lame and conused. Araid he might soon be swallowed he produced a powerul concentration, took his [ritual implement called] vajra, and plunged it into the eye o the dragon’s rontal ace. Instantly, and as though in a dream, the firmament became bright, and the anchorite finally beheld the lord o the jewel lake.
Mount Aso is amed today or being one o the world’s largest active volcanic calderas; it is located south o Mount Hiko (rom which it can be seen) and was another important Shugendō center. Its eruptions must have caused awe in the minds o the anchorites who lived on its slopes, and served as a model or the powerul experiences o place and time that mark Shugendō’s vision o its sacred sites. However, and not unexpectedly, space is urther defined in Hikosan Ruki in terms o the basic opposition between purity and pollution, an opposition it expressed along the social lines o gender distinction. Te anchorites regarded themselves as “leaving the world” (shukke) (and their concubines) when engaging in their austerities and entering the mountains. Tis implied that they regarded themselves as inhabiting both the grades o purity on the purity/pollution scale, and “nature,” itsel connected to a verticality scale along which it was sometimes set at the summit, and sometimes at the bottom. As suggested earlier, when “naturalness” was set at the top o the scale, the immersion in the natural world was conducive to the realization o an immanentist program. However, when “naturalness” was codified along the constraints o social hierarchies, it was set at the bottom o the scale, and we are then dealing with a patriarchal system, in the sense that it was meant to exclude women by defining them as ull participants in the realm o physical, “natural” pollution and, thereore, as unable to reach the realm o purity. In this regard, the ollowing excerpt—which immediately ollows the translation presented above—is significant: Having realized his wish [Gaken] was quickly descending rom the mountain when a flashflood [caused by the volcanic eruption] broke out, causing rivers to
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swell and become impassable. Near the path on the mountain was a small hut. As the anchorite approached to look at it, a young woman o delicate beauty gently invited him in and prepared a banquet or him; since nobody else was around, the anchorite removed his clothes to dry them, and as he was seated naked by the fire, the young woman looked at him, removed her own clothes and handed them over, saying, “Since my body is pure my clothes cannot be unclean.” However, seeing the expression on the ace o the anchorite, she continued, “I have heard that because His compassion is equal the Buddha does not make distinctions between purity and pollution. Since your clothes are wet, please put mine on. I have no wish but to orm a karmic bond with you, thereore please do so.” Te anchorite, nonetheless, reused. At that point, however, he conceived the ollowing thought and said, “I have never known sexual relations; I desire that experience now.” Te woman firmly reused, replying, “Should you reject my clothes, then sexual relations do not appeal to me.” Te anchorite became violent and pushed her, thinking o violating her, but the woman still reused. Te ascetic became vocierous. As though relenting, the woman said, “You must first suck my breath, then.” Te anchorite said, “Tough my body be that o a sinner and is impure, my mouth chants secret ormulas day and night; but you are a woman: your mouth is most impure, and I do not dare kiss it.” At that point the woman started speaking, but beore finishing she sucked the anchorite’s mouth and, without applying any strength, bit his tongue off, which ell to the ground. She then maniested hersel in the orm o a great dragon and surged up to the sky while emitting claps o thunder. Te anchorite ainted. When he came back to, he sighed and looked about, but the woman, the hut, and his tongue were nowhere to be seen. He then remained alone on the mountain, meditating and repenting to Fudō Myōō [. . .] He immersed himsel in meditating on the doctrine according to which “passions are the true nature o awakening”, and chanted more esoteric ormulas. As he was settling in the main elements o practice, a male youth o ourteen or fifeen years o age appeared and stroked his head, at which point his tongue returned to its original state and his body ound peace. Shortly thereafer a voice was heard resounding in the air and said, “Due to the marvelous power o your recitations I have maniested mysel to you in different orms. My true perect body is called, in the Pure Land, Amida; it is called, in the universe o people subject to transmigration, Jūichimen Kannon. Tose who scale this mountain worship my true body.”
Tis document suggests that visionary experience was linked to exercises o penitence, the goal o which was to puriy the sense organs and thus open the possibility to see the world “as it truly is.” Tis explains the insistence on transgression, defilement o the sense organs, and penitence.
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Te Chinzei Hikosan Engi etiological record is dated 1572 also offers a wealth o material concerning the constitution o spatial experience by means o representations linked to visionary experience: [En no Ozunu] ollowed the bank o the stream until he reached the oot o a cliff. Looking up at the precipitous cliff, he saw three large wateralls. Te top all, named Male Bird Fall, was over three meters high [. . .]. Te second all is the Jade Necklace Fall. It flows and rushes down night and day, constantly streaming down like strung pearls. [. . .] Te third all is the Female Bird Fall, about fify meters high. Tere, water rolls over a rounded cliff, draping it like a sheet. Above it is ound a dragon cave o immeasurable depth, and one can also see another impressive all about ten meters high. Te motion o its water creates opaque clouds that rush down like a rainstorm and hit the orehead, making it diffi cult to climb. At that time En no Ozunu sincerely devoted himsel to ascetic cultivation and made offerings every day or a month. On the seventeenth day o the ourth month o that year he had a dream connected to his desire to know the bottom o the dragon cave. In that dream, carrying a sword bound by a rope around his waist, he sank to the bottom o the pool and swam or about one league when he set eyes upon a large city rom which he was separated by a stone door that was tightly shut. He heard sounds o music coming rom inside the door—the pitch was very clear and high. En no Ozunu elt queasy, so he knelt down by the door and recited incantations or a while. A voice coming rom within the door enquired, “Who is there, reciting incantations?” He answered, “I am En no Ozunu, rom Japan. Who wants to know?” Te answer was, “I am okuzen-ō.”91 At once, okuzen-ō opened the door or En no Ozunu and took his hands to lead him up to the hall. En no Ozunu could never have imagined what he was now beholding. Looking around and up and down, he saw nothing but golden mansions, silver pavilions, jade halls, precious jade stairs, treasurable ponds, as well as fine jade trees. In ront o each hall there stood a three meterlong pilgrim staff. When the time came, these staffs would strike the hours by themselves. On both sides o the hall three meter-high drums and bells were hanging. When the time came they rang every quarter o hour by themselves. Elegantly decorated banners were strung about, there were ragrant lamps and candles all around, and ood offerings were displayed about, while offered flowers were spread in riotous prousion. On the ront seat, Nāgārjuna and Sarasvatī sat next to each other in solemn ashion, guarded to their lef and right by the Kami o Uga and his fifeen youthul attendants. Te scene was reminiscent o the imperial palace back on earth. At this point okuzen-ō took ragrant water rom the altar, poured it over En no Ozunu’s orehead and stretched his hands to stroke the top o his head. He then told him, “Tis is a Secret Unction. You shall return to your place o residence and do your best to transmit what you have
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learned.” En no Ozunu was moved with gratitude, and bowed to pay homage to the deities. Upon awaking rom that dream, he elt enlightened and clear in his mind.92
It would be a mistake to think that, in the midst o this plethora o rites, Hachiman disappeared rom the consciousness o the yamabushi. As the single largest landholder in Kyushu, Hachiman was everywhere, and this entity was part and parcel o the notions and practices concerning territoriality, not to mention purity concerns; Hikosan Ruki even mentions that Hachiman lef the Usa Shrines every night to reach the Mount Hiko Peaks in order to pay his respects, riding his dragon-horse. Second, the Kunisaki Peninsula cults involve Hachiman as well and will be discussed in the next chapter. Last but not least, the chronotypical and geotypical aspects o Mount Hiko allow one to envision a set o highly sophisticated constructs concerning the cosmos, mountain ranges, and the body. As a result, Shugendō rituals take a rather different appearance, as does the earth, and as does the body too. Tese rituals appear to be eminently personal, but one should not orget the equation established by the ormulas “two/not- two,” and “sel/others.” In other words, sel-realization implies giving to others. As will be shown in the third chapter, these ormulas and propositions appear with crispness as communal rituals and other mandalization processes are discussed.
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Festivities and Processions: Spatialities o Power Mount Hiko as socio-ritualized space A list o ritual assemblies o the Hiko shrine-temple complex dated 1445 provides some inormation on the social stratification o the mountain community .1 Tis organization originated during the thirteenth century i not earlier, and was established with respect to three socio-cultic groups whose members specialized in the preparation and perormance o separate ritual unctions. Te first group was called “shitogata” and emphasized Buddhist rites: the Nirvān a ritual assembly (Nehan-e), the Birth o the Buddha ritual assembly ( anjō-e), and the Lotus Sutra Copying ritual assembly (Neu-e). In the Edo period (1615–1868), however, a urther distinction was made between sedonagatoko individuals who had a high rank, bore rituals duties or our years, and were responsible or a number o rites— and the neugyō individuals who were responsible or high-level Buddhist rites, also or our years. Te second group “ gyōjagata” consisted o the yamabushi who organized the mandalized courses o spring, summer, and all; this group tended to be combinatory in doctrinal orientation and paid equal attention to Buddhist and non-Buddhist parameters. Te third group, “ sōgata,” emphasized rites dedicated to local kami; it consisted o two sub-groups, the iroshi (yin) and the katanashi (yang), who played a non-negligible role in the perormance o the major ritual estivities called Matsue and Ondasai and also possessed a high rank. Te sōgata were also responsible or the ritual circumambulations discussed earlier, as well as or the purification o sanctuaries at the beginning o the New Year. Tese three socio-cultic groups, who participated in all, but whose role was different in each, perormed the three most important ritual activities on Mount Hiko. Tese social groups were distinct (though related) at all levels o their existence, in that the social status o the shitogata was deemed superior to that o the gyōjagata and the sōgata. Tis distinction was given doctrinal legitimacy 157
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because it was expressed in terms o the honji-suijaku “theory” which, more than a theory based on Buddhism was actually a ramework or the inscription o both doctrinal and social power. It would be better, then, to qualiy honji-suijaku as a cultic and social practice, rather than as a theory. According to this practice, which gained wide acceptance during the Heian period, the term honji (“essence”) was used to denote Buddhas and Bodhisattvas while the term suijaku (“hypostasis”) reerred to the indigenous kami under whose guise various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas maniested themselves to guide local populations to their lofy teachings. In other words, Buddhism presented itsel to the Japanese o the time not only as a desirable alternative to pre-existing schemata sustaining the interpretation o reality, but as a ramework o interpretation that included native kami while reducing them to the lower status o local and minor orms o transcendental Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Buddhism succeeded in positioning itsel as the dominant—i not domineering—epistemological and cultic ramework through the use and implementation o such interpretive schemes and rituals. Accordingly, on Mount Hiko’s social level the term honji was applied to the shitogata who associated predominantly with Buddhist temples—while the term suijaku was used to reer to the sōgata who associated predominantly with the shrines in which kami were installed. In other words, the members o the community who specialized in Buddhist doctrine and rites claimed a social status higher than that o those who predominantly worshipped the kami; their claim was legitimated by appeal to the more complex metaphysics o Buddhism, but it maniested itsel on yet another social level: only members o the ormer group were allowed to marry into the abbot’s amily, and were then known as intercessors ( atsukaibō). In the Edo period, however, the abbots o Mount Hiko stipulated that the mountain community “specialized in postulating the undamental equality o honji and suijaku,” by which we must understand that the social status o the “Shinto”-leaning members was judged to be equal to that o the Buddhist prelates, scholarly monks and their associates, by the yamabushi themselves. Tis shif in social valuation was the result o two actors. On the local level it was due to the systematic involvement o the sōgata in the economic and ritual lives o the communities in which they sought economic support, and or whose members they organized pilgrimages and lodging, and established specific doctrines o merit. On a trans-local level, however, the emerging Nativist Studies movement (Kokugaku) resulted in the prolieration o a new discourse on the kami and produced anti-Buddhist representations that had actual, material and social consequences as it influenced many cultic communities, including Mount Hiko’s.
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Indeed, by the end o the nineteenth century the sōgata claimed to have a status superior to that o the Buddhist members o their community, and their rituals came to be perormed first (and not last, as had been the case until then), and with greater pomp. Te only ritual estivities perormed today on Mount Hiko belong to this last category and only the slightest trace o Buddhist coloration can be ound in them (except or a new kind o highly simplified Shugendō). Tere is no inormation on the material conditions that led the early shito to claim a social status superior to that o the other members o the community; an answer to this question might be reached by means o investigating the pre- shito status o those people, or there is reason to believe that they tended to be low- to mid-level land managers who had put their lands under protection o Buddhist institutions recognized by the government, or that they were managerial employees who had become caretakers o estates originally controlled by Buddhist institutions. Mount Hiko’s sōgata, on the other hand, might have been related to people called in other sites o cult jinin (“kami-men”), whose social status was so low it sometimes included outcastes; but they also might have been “armers/fishermen” (hyakushō) beore becoming religious figures. Finally, it should be remembered that Mount Hiko is situated next to the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, so large that it exerted a strong “pull,” and many o Mount Hiko’s yamabushi, shito and sōgata, may have come rom territories originally controlled by the Hachiman cult. It must be noted, urthermore, that while the majority o Kyushu Island’s sacred mountains were situated on estates managed by the Hachiman cult, Mounts Hiko and Aso were glaring exceptions. A need to consolidate the political and social organization o the community living on the mountain emerged during the Edo period or at least two reasons. First, a growing number o lay patrons came to visit the mountain at the time o ritual perormances connected to the development o wetland rice agriculture, which implied a sudden population impact on the mountain and, thereore, a need to protect the area. Second, and partly as a consequence o the first reason, the organization o the mountain community came to ace the socio-economic realities o the new political order o the times. Tis consolidation was achieved along two lines: a re-organization o the mountain community proper, and the promulgation o regulations to be observed by all visitors and residents alike. Although there was some relaxation o these regulations by the very end o the Edo period, the demarcation between the two types o population and activities remained strong enough to be observed at the turn o the twentieth century. Te organization o the mountain community during the Edo period was as ollows.
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Te zasu (an abbot o imperial blood) supervised two administrative directors (shittō) and our directors o kami-related ritual duties (shin-eki bugyō). O these, one received the title nenban (“yearly duty”) and specialized in the ormulation and control o ritual perormances while taking notes on all aspects o Mount Hiko’s social lie.2 Immediately below these seven cadres were two “mountain overseers” ( yama bugyō), one specializing in the protection o the flora, the other in its management, and two maintenance officers ( saji bugyō) who specialized in the upkeep o shrines and temples. Finally, there was a “town director” whose duty was to oversee both the town o the yamabushi and the visitors, and inns as well. Tese administrative officers received a our-year-long duty and were chosen among the mountain ascetics. Te yama bugyō and saji bugyō, our in all, represented what we might call today ecologically-minded olk, or their responsibility was to maintain the mountainous area in as much a pristine state as possible. Furthermore, they acted as environmental designers whose goal it was to ensure harmonization between nature and architecture in accordance with the Edo shogunate’s policies o reorestation and rivermanagement. Te community o Mount Hiko was ormed by the year-round residents o the mountain, but it can be argued that the lay patrons who visited the mountain on a regular basis in ever-growing numbers as the cult became popular (some 350,000 patrons were recorded in 1875) should be included in it. Tese lay patrons made the donations necessary or the economic welare o the mountain community and the proper handling o pilgrims who came rom all parts o Japan. It is easy to imagine why certain regulations were needed, and a legal document to this effect signed by thirteen administrative monks and consisting o thirty-six points, was issued in 1624 by the abbot and was circulated widely; its salient points are listed below: ●
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Anybody caught removing wood rom the designated sacred perimeter, even in as little amount as is needed to make a simple an, will be condemned to orced labor. No dry wood or dead branches or fire shall be removed rom the mountain. People who need firewood will have to go as ar as Karagatani to the south and Reisui to the north. It is orbidden to cut wood within the mountain’s perimeter, even on one’s own property, to make urniture. It is prohibited to cultivate tea gardens outside o one’s residence or to till fields next to the caves where anchorites reside in permanence. Tose who break this rule will be reported to the authorities.
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Whoever attaches or releases horses on the access roads to the Lecture Hall will be fined three hundred mon (300 copper coins—a consequent amount). It is prohibited to scatter horse excrements along the village roads or on any o the mountain’s paths. Responsibility or cleaning the access paths will rotate among the town’s residents and shall be perormed every ourteenth day and every last day o the month.3
In other words, sacred space was a thoroughly managed social space. It became the object o all kinds o strict observances regarding pollutions caused by menses, births, and deaths, and o apparently benign but serious observation as well. Te communities o Mount Hiko, Usa Hachiman, and Kunisaki developed a highly ritualized mode o lie, the main eature o which was an intense emphasis on various spatial and temporal constructs here reerred to as geotypes and chronotypes. Te ollowing analysis will continue a presentation o these eatures through a ocus on ritual activities, with a view to compare Mount Hiko’s types with those o the Kunisaki Peninsula’s sites o cult during the early modern period (1600–1868). Te goal is to demonstrate that the composition o all the rituals perormed in these sites o cult was predominantly spatially oriented and orienting (that is, “geotypical”), and revealed socio-political arrangements. When it comes to the temporal (‘chronotypical’) orientation o rituals, however, matters are complicated by disparate structures: a cyclical character o ritual calendars can be detected easily because it points to a regularity o repetition and to the role o extra-ordinary rituals used in the case o perceived anomalies that need to be fixed. One can also recognize in various isolated rites an emphasis on the uture as the gate to emancipation, or an emphasis on the past (which is maniest in atonement and penance rituals that serve to manipulate the law o cause and effect, and thereby “cancel” past negative deeds in order to positively affect one’s uture). Finally, one can see yet another emphasis, this time on the present as the very moment o spiritual emancipation. Tese eatures alone cannot account or the purpose o these communities’ elaborate ritual lives. Indeed, just as the geotypical and chronotypical eatures o rituals were social constructs, these rituals also served to maintain social hierarchies, since they marked the movement o individuals through these hierarchies’ varied levels: ritual occasions were sites o choice or the display o power and its integration in the social order. Te sheer number o rites perormed by these communities makes an exhaustive analysis
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impossible, but an emphasis on space, time, and power will serve to elaborate a provisional theoretical proposition to the effect that the perormance o rites was a orm o labor whose goal was to produce new social transormations o space, time, and o social positions within communities, and such an emphasis will acilitate the comparative task as well. In all cases the analysis supports the view that space is a social product as defined by Henri Leèbvre but urther elaborated by Edward Soja in the ollowing way: Te dominance o a physicalist view o space has so permeated the analysis o human spatiality that it tends to distort our vocabulary. Tus, while such adjectives as “social,” “political,” “economic,” and even “historical” generally suggest, unless otherwise specified, a link to human action and motivation, the term “spatial” typically evokes a physical or geometrical image, something external to the social context and to social action, a part o the “environment,” a part o the setting or society—its naively given container—rather than a ormative structure created by society. We really do not have a widely used and accepted expression in English to convey the inherently social quality o organized space, especially since the terms “social space” and “human geography” have become so murky with multiple and ofen incompatible meanings. For these and other reasons, I have chosen the term “spatiality” to speciy this socially-produced space.4
Shugendō exhibits all these eatures and it may be characterized as a cultic and cultural system o space and time, and as the matrix o complex spatialities in the sense offered above. Te early modern period, however, saw many shifs and breaks in the understanding, management, and uses o space, to which Shugendō and other cultic systems could not but all victims because o their political alliances and vested economic interests: their place in the overall organization o political and economic and, thereore, spiritual spheres, was radically altered in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and went on to gradually dematerialize thereafer. In the late sixteenth century, Oda Nobunaga and oyotomi Hideyoshi brought down the power o Buddhist temples and radically altered the nature o the relationship between Buddhisms and the “state” through their military and land policies.5 Te Shinchōkō-ki grimly describes the destruction o Mount Hiei in 1571, the many killings that took place on that occasion at the hand o Nobunaga, as well as the 1581 manslaughter o 1,383 Shingon monks and Kōya hijiri on the banks o the Kamo River in Kyoto. Nobunaga swore he would bring down Mount Kōya (the mountain center o Shingon) as well, but he was assassinated in 1582. His successor, oyotomi Hideyoshi, pursued some o the same policies and in 1585 razed the Negoroji, a Shingon city o temples and shrines that is said to have
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raised a orce o some 20,000 men. Hideyoshi’s orces set fire to 3,700 temples and residences at Negoro. Te same year, Hideyoshi warned Mount Kōya authorities that he was going to do the same, but the Kōya authorities, who had direct knowledge o what happened to Negoroji, surrendered to Hideyoshi’s will and thus avoided destruction. Afer okugawa Ieyasu won the Sekigahara battle in 1600 and established himsel as the head o the country (Hideyoshi died in 1598), one o his first concerns was to control and diminish the power o sites o cult, something he did by issuing a series o Regulations (hatto) aimed at temples first, and second, at shrines. Tese ar-reaching regulations resulted in a new “place” or cultic institutions and or all people connected to them, throughout the land. Shrines also ell under strict regulations in the late seventeenth century. According to Yamamoto Hideo, the world o shrines was controlled by the Edo government in about the same way as temples had been, starting with the promulgation o Regulations issued in 1665 or all Shrines and Sacerdotal Officiants (shosha negi kannushi hatto).6 Several complex changes were occurring in the realm o shrines, which already by the end o the Muromachi period were exhibiting quite a ew transormations. Indeed, the documents (etiological records and the like) written over the course o the medieval period by monks and concerning the origins o shrines and temples in the specific context o orchestrated relationships between kami and Buddhist entities gradually led to a systematically ocused interest concerning the nature o those kami, and the early modern period saw the production o many “Shintō treatises” rom which Buddhist doctrine gradually disappeared, and to which Neo-Conucian elements were added. Tis lengthy cultural process cannot be critically assessed separately rom the government policies concerning temples and shrines, rom economic issues, rom ritual definition issues, rom the Neo-Conucian movement, or rom the varied intellectual trends one finds in movements such as the Shingaku or the Nativist Studies (Kokugaku) movements. Te early Edo period government’s policies concerning shrines might be sketched in the ollowing way: they encouraged intellectual activity concerning the investigation o the history o shrines, with an emphasis on the study o classical records and documents (this led to the creation o new Shintō theories and to a highly conservative outlook the government presumed to be supportive o its rule). Tey also attempted to recover and systematically institutionalize classical rituals ( saishi gishiki); they ostered local estivities and established ritual calendars or commoners ( minkan nenjūgyōji), a phenomenon that cannot be analysed separately rom the social organization o village-based cultic associations ( kō and miyaza). Furthermore,
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the regulations strictly controlled economic activities on the part o shrines and their economic guilds and provided a stable economic base in the orm o duly taxed land estates. It is worth noting at this point that the government issued a large number o shogunal land grants (shuinjō), to the tune o 182 to shrines that had not yet received anything by 1648, and o 1,000 land grants to shrines that had been recipients in the past, and the government continued to do so until the system was stabilized by these late seventeenth century regulations. Te Ise Shrines received at the time 6,198 koku, while the Nikkō Mausoleum, dedicated to the deified spirit o okugawa Ieyasu, received a whopping 10,000. 7 Te total granted by that time to as many as 985 shrines was 151,924 koku (in shuin estates, which exclude the kokuin estates, usually ruled by various daimyō). Te implication is evident: a stable economic revenue or sacerdotal lineages meant a measure o peace (or pacification)—since beore that time they used to be dependent, or the most part, on the Buddhist temples they had been associated with. Tis was, however, another way in which temples were hurt: many shrines that had been under their management in the past could now claim a modicum o independence rom the temples. Te new policies regulated the social status o sacerdotal communities, although the government, in contradistinction to its actions regarding the varied Buddhist monastic communities played no role in the appointment or promotion o sacerdotal members, or in the ormulation o rituals (this would eventually be lef or the Meiji government to deal with). Tese policies, then, attempted to separate sacerdotal rom political and economic power to prevent resistance to the government—although they did not completely succeed in doing so. In any case, as a result o these policies the world o shrines and o the populace directly related to it were brought under partial authority o the government. Tis eature reveals that the Edo government’s benign support o shrines was an elaborate move to buttress its legitimacy, by enabling Shinto shrines to “recover” their historical roots in a way that was not directly in conflict with the government’s emerging ideology. Shugendō suffered the same ate. We can now return to Kyushu. In the late sixteenth century, the island was divided into three amilial power bases: the Ryūzōji, Ōtomo, and Shimazu warlord houses. One way in which these houses hoped to legitimate their local hegemonies was to attempt to place one o their own members into Mount Hiko’s leadership by getting them to marry into the abbot’s house. Te competition was so fierce that when it could not succeed in its plans, the Ryūzōji house burnt Mount Hiko’s temples in 1568, and the Ōtomo house sent a orce o 4,000 soldiers to attack the mountain in 1581, or the same reason. In the course
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o these disasters that beell Mount Hiko, many valuable documents and records were lost orever, but an important etiological record dated 1572, Chinzei Hikosan Engi, survived. Tis document suggests that the community o the mountain was undergoing major cultic, social, economic, and political changes at the time. Apparently as a result o the fights or influence and succession that caused these changes, a woman was named abbess o the mountain, which she governed between 1587 and 1601. Shun’yū, the abbot at the time, had no son, but he had a daughter whom he had ordered to marry Akizuki anenaga, and this couple’s daughter, Masachiyohime, was then appointed to the abbacy. Tis abbess was not what some may have expected, though: she abandoned Kurokawa, the traditional residence o Mount Hiko’s monzeki abbots, which was located some distance south o Mount Hiko but had been destroyed. She instead moved the abbacy’s office and residence to Mount Hiko itsel, thus bringing an end to taboos against married women and, particularly, against menstruation. A document dated 1762 ( Jinkoshū, “Materials Collected in a Jar o Ashes”) says that women should eel no shame or their menses, and that they were allowed to go as ar as the main Hall o Veneration at the boundary between the second and third zones.8 Tis abbess was eventually dislodged rom her position by the warlord Mori Hisahachirō (in 1587, upon Hideyoshi’s conquest o Kyushu, the entire northeastern part o Kyushu had been given over to Mori Katsunobu), who wished to appoint his own son to the abbacy. Mount Hiko’s community, however, considered the Mori house to be a complete outsider and lodged a complaint against Hisahachirō directly to Fushimi Castle, the seat o the government in Kyoto. In 1600, the case was brought to trial and there was a ruling to the effect that while retaining its right o no-entry on the part o governmental authority, Mount Hiko was to turn all its land estates over to government control. As a result, Mount Hiko lost its traditional estate-based economic power and had to turn to its lay ollowers or economic support: this was the beginning o lay patron sponsorship o Mount Hiko, a weighty sociopolitical and economic phenomenon during the Edo period. Nonetheless, strong in their certitude that Mount Hiko was a separate entity ree rom government control, its members created their own money to be used solely within the confines o the mountain’s sacred perimeter: visitors had to exchange their cash or this money, which they used to purchase lodging, ood, medicine, amulets, and to pay ees to climb the higher reaches o the mountain. Soon thereafer Hosokawa adaoki (a Kumamoto warlord who had become the representative o the okugawa government in Kyushu) granted his support
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to Mount Hiko: adaoki rebuilt several o its temples, offered the massive bronze torii visible today as marker between the first and second zones, and gave the mountain the ace it displayed throughout the premodern period; he then had his son (adopted, but born in the aristocratic Hino house) adopted by the abbess, and that son became the ollowing abbot under the name Chūyū. Te Great Lecture Hall o Mount Hiko was rebuilt and dedicated in 1616, and the mountain community was thoroughly reorganized, as is indicated by a legal document signed in 1624 by thirteen administrative monks and consisting o 36 regulations aimed at Mount Hiko’s yamabushi community.
Mount Hiko’s conflicts with Mount Hōman and the Shōgo-in monzeki As a reflection o the government’s regulations the authorities o Mount Hiko began to compile lists o what they considered their sub-temples, as ordered. Te oldest such document is dated 1685. It appears to be incomplete, or its last line states that “many other sub-temples are not mentioned herein.” In any case, this document lists temples located in the provinces o Buzen, Chikuzen, and Hizen, as well as temples located in sushima and Iki Islands; it also lists a number o temples affi liated with the first ones. 9 Another document, Hikosan Massan Chō, probably o the eighteenth century, lists eight temples in Buzen, nine in Bungo, ten in Chikuzen, 106 in Hizen, three in the Gotō fie o Hizen, our in sushima, two in Iki, and one in Chikugo, or a total o 183 sub-temples.10 It is not difficult to imagine how such lists caused problems, in that they represented claims o superiority as well as claims to some orm o control over the named institutions, some o which may have been happy to be deended by Mount Hiko against various hardships (even i this required a degree o submission), while others may have objected and attempted to liberate themselves rom what they perceived as a challenge to their integrity and independence. Tere are examples o both cases. We will examine one case in which a temple group (Mount Hōman) attempted to liberate itsel rom Mount Hiko’s domination, and one case in which Mount Hiko itsel attempted to void a claim to control on the part o a major Kyoto temple, the Shugendō taimitsu powerhouse named Shōgo-in. In 1657 the Fukuoka uregashira charged with supervising Shugendō in Kyushu was the abbot o the Myōgon-in emple, which was affiliated with the ōzan (Shingon) branch o Shugendō. Assuming that this sectarian affiliation was an indirect challenge to their presumed independence, two o the twenty-
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five Shugendō temples o Mount Hōman—which were originally affiliated with the Honzan (endai) branch o Shugendō—requested rom Mount Hiko, itsel supposedly a Honzan institution, that they be recognized as Hiko sub-temples, so that they may avoid potential submission to the ōzan branch o Shugendō. Mount Hiko agreed to this, but thenceorth treated Mount Hōman as one o its dependencies. Other Hōman temple authorities, however, did not appreciate this, or they considered it as a ait accompli without their approval. Indeed, in the hope that their relationship to the Shōgo-in monzeki o Kyoto may bring relie to material hardships they suffered at the time, a number o Mount Hōman’s temple authorities expressed their wish to be recognized as sub- temples o the Shōgo-in, which in 1613 had been put by the okugawa government at the head o all endai-affiliated Shugendō institutions in the land. In 1662, and again in 1678, the abbot o Mount Hōman visited Kyoto to discuss the matter with Shōgo-in authorities. As a result o these discussions the Shōgoin’s abbot invited sixteen Mount Hōman luminaries to participate in its own mandalized peregrination (Yoshino-Kumano) o 1685—the very same year that the first list o Mount Hiko’s sub-temples was written. Mount Hiko’s authorities judged that this invitation masked darker intentions, and claimed that both Mount Hōman and Mount Hiko had been—rom day one—independent rom the Shōgo-in, and that neither had been under the authority o that institution’s doctrinal tradition. Mount Hiko authorities argued that even though Mount Hōman’s yamabushi had been invited, they should not participate in the Shōgoin’s ritual activities. Mount Hiko authorities then submitted their case to the shrine-temple overseer ( jisha bugyō) office in Fukuoka, which ollowed the official line and ruled that, since both mountain communities had been placed by the okugawa government under authority o the Shōgo-in temple back in 1613, the 1657 request rom Mount Hōman’s two temples was null and void. Te same Fukuoka authorities banished the two temple heads in 1686.11 Over the course o the ollowing twelve years, more than ten envoys journeyed rom Mount Hiko to Mount Hōman and to Fukuoka to contest this ruling. Te issue o the relationship between Mount Hiko’s temples and the Shōgo- in arose, in part, because o the Mount Hōman problem outlined above. According to documents filed by Mount Hiko authorities in 1694, it was stated that the Shōgo-in authority over Mount Hōman caused conusion regarding the mandalized peregrinations, in which Mount Hiko was viewed as the Matrix Realm mandala, and in which both Mount Hōman and Mount Fukuchi were regarded as the Adamantine Realm mandala. o use the Yoshino-Kumano model proposed by the Shōgo-in, the argument went, would disrupt these local
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arrangements because it did not fit the geography o the region and would bring the tradition to an end. Te ollowing year, 1695, Mount Hiko’s abbot filed a complaint with the office o the shrine-temples overseer, wherein he claimed that the mountain had always enjoyed an independent status and thereore should not have been placed under authority o the Shōgo- in to begin with. Te government in Edo agreed with this claim in 1696, and granted Mount Hiko the title o “main temple with autarchic status” (bekkaku honzan).12 With regard to Mount Hōman, an accord was reached some orty years afer the onset o these difficulties. According to this accord, the documents written in 1657 were regarded as individuals’ misrepresentations and thereore lacking any validity concerning the past. Tis, the accord maintained, should allow Mount Hiko’s yamabushi to start anew their mandalized peregrinations to Mount Hōman—in concert with Mount Hōman’s yamabushi—as had been the case since a distant past. A truce was thus brokered, opting or historically local relations over a center/periphery model.13 Afer a break o more than ten years, the mandalized courses between Mount Hiko and Mount Hōman were restored in 1699, and a ragile peace that lasted or about 150 years finally settled in. It is in these conditions that Mount Hiko’s early modern ritual calendar was established.
Mount Hiko’s ritual calendar Te dominant eatures o the yearlong ritual calendar at Mount Hiko were as social as they were spatial and temporal. Tey were social in two basic senses. First, in that they evidence an interplay between members o highly stratified communities o ritual specialists; that is to say, Mount Hiko’s yamabushi ormed various sacerdotal communities, each having specific duties; and second, in that they show an interplay between these communities and various populations o non-specialists, an interplay that can be located either at Mount Hiko itsel, or at the sites o residence o devotees living outside the mountain. Tese eatures are clearly present in the ollowing discussion o Mount Hiko’s elaborate New Year rites, and o its even more elaborate mandalized peregrinations in the spring and all seasons. Tis ritual calendar’s eatures were spatial in the sense that all rites involved specific courses over airly long distances, and that all involved a toand-ro movement or both outsiders and insiders, with specific geographical as well as social sites o contact. Tey were temporal in the sense that they occurred at careully specified times that marked different modes o lie or all concerned, rom movements through social hierarchy to movements away rom, and back
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to labor.It is the combination o these eatures that characterizes the establishment o these sites o cult’s spatial and temporal characteristics as anchors or social order and representations, that is, their spatiality. Te pre-modern ritual calendar is clear in this respect. 14 It was filled with events that all into the ollowing categories: e, “ritual assembly;” sai, “ritual estivity” or “celebration,” a term also pronounced matsuri; the term gyō, probably short or gyōji, “ritual observance,” included all kinds o ritual practices and training; za, literally, “seating,” is a term that reerred to collective, hierarchybased meetings in which decisions concerning the perormance o rituals and, especially, the preparation o ritual repasts and offerings were made; the term kō, which means both “lecture” and “conraternity,” reerred to varied ritual activities in which related social groups engaged; finally, a number o other events were called by specific names pointing to their social unction. Coming first in the ritual calendar were the New Year celebrations, which consisted o all types o activities or which specific sacerdotal groups were responsible—sometimes exclusively, and at other times inclusively, that is, requiring or welcoming participation on the part o other groups. Such participation was generally based on whether the promotion to a certain rank was a unction or result o the event, and depended on whether these groups emphasized rites dedicated to kami (the sōgata composed o the iroshi and katanashi groups also called jinjiryōrin- gumi), or to gongen (the yamabushi, that is, gyōjagata, sometimes called sedo nagatoko gumi), or to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (the shitogata also reerred to as neugyōkumi). It is obvious that the first two months o the lunar year were burdened with a plethora o rites, whose purpose it was to guarantee that the community may start a new cycle on the right oot, so to speak. It is also obvious that the last month o the year was supposed to bring closure to multiple activities and concerns. Tose months that saw little ritual activity on the mountain itsel were not empty or consisting o leisure time, however, since the mandalized peregrinations took place then. Furthermore, during the early modern period the yamabushi traveled intensively to neighboring province to distribute amulets and medicines, to cultivate ties with lay ollowers, and to encourage pilgrimage and donations. Te best way to qualiy these types o activities is the traditional one: some activities were geared to one’s own salvation ( ji), while others were geared to other people’s emancipation rom transmigration, and to their material benefit (ta). In both cases personal sacrifice and effort were equally needed, which is why the ormula o non-differentiation between onesel and others ( jita uni) was as common as it was appealing, i not outright convincing. Tis ormula was also, in part, an economic proposition: the armers tilled the land while the
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yamabushi tilled the fields o elicity, and they traded each other’s merits; the yamabushi visited the armers to transer their accumulated spiritual merits onto them, and the armers visited the mountain to transer their surplus material goods to the yamabushi. o put in a less blunt manner, this economic proposition may be seen as having included a more sophisticated philosophical engagement on the part o all concerned, which may be expressed in the ollowing words: symbolic goods and material goods are exchangeable, and the rate is negotiable (depending on the available surplus). In an even less blunt manner, the ormula given above can be replaced with the ollowing: it takes several communities to orm a village (most villages are ormed o two moieties). Bluntly or not so bluntly characterized, these relationships were based on understandings concerning who would open one’s home to whom, or what purpose and at what time, and hospitality seems to have ruled the nature o the encounters as long as everybody agreed that symbolic goods were necessary to the production o material goods, and vice versa. Finally, it must be emphasized that the communities were never “completed,” since they were always in the making by way o advancement based on merit, which was something the participants believed in and hoped or.
Te New Year’s shushō tsuina rite: expel and invite Tis rite was perormed on the night o the second day o the first month. Te term shushō means “engaging in rituals o the first month [o the solilunar calendar],” and the term tsuina reers to rites o expulsion o pestilence deities perormed at court since 706, and at various shrines around the country on the basis o ritual steps outlined in the Engi Era Ritual Procedures, as well as at many other temples temples, such as the Kōukuji in Nara. In Kunisaki, several amous rites, still perormed today, are called shushō oni-e (also pronounced shujō oni-e), “New Year demon [expulsion] assembly.” In some Buddhist cases these expulsion rites are held on the first day o the second month, in which case they are called shuni-e (ritual assembly o the second month); perhaps the most amous such rite in Japan is that held at the Nigatsudō emple in Nara and popularly known as Omizutori.15 At Mount Hiko as in ancient times at the imperial court, peach tree or willow branches (uzue), which were held to have exorcistic value, were offered; this offering took place at the Jewel Cave Sanctuary, and classical Chinese- style dances (bugaku) were perormed; at the end o these, peach tree wooden amulets
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protecting against pestilence were distributed to pilgrims. At court, a bow made o peach tree was used to shoot arrows made o reeds in the cardinal directions to ward off pestilence, and it is obvious that the distribution o wooden amulets at Mount Hiko has its origins in this rite. 16 Te Jinkoshū (1762) reports that the rite’s unction at Jewel Cave was to exorcise the “demons” (oni) composed o the rākśasa and yakśa cohorts that accompany Bishamonten (Vais ravan a), one o the our heavenly kings and widely regarded as protecting against dangers coming rom the northern direction; the same document associates Mount Hiko’s rite with Mount Kurama’s amed rite in northern Kyoto known or its Bishamonten cult, and with local lore as well.
Te shūshō goō rite: paper, pill, oath Tis rite took place on the fifh day o the first month, evidently or a purpose related to that o the tsuina rite. It involved distributing to regional residents paper prints o Mount Hiko’s all-important goō amulet, wedged in a vertically split branch called umoku.17 Mount Hiko’s goō amulet consists o a paper print representing three goshawks perched atop stylized graphs reading goō hōin, meaning “precious charm o the bull-king.” Te term goō itsel (牛王) is related to epidemic-causing entities that have long been the object o exorcism on the part o thaumaturgists in a large number o shrine-temple complexes, and the current sinographs used to write it may be a distortion, either o the term reerring to the “bull ointment” taken rom bull livers (also pronounced goō but written with different graphs, 牛黄) to fight epidemics, or o two graphs that are normally read ubusuna (生土), in which the bottom horizontal stroke o the first graph would have been shifed to become the top horizontal stroke o the second graph (生土⇒牛王). Yet another view reported in aishanshō proposes that the term goō is an abbreviation o the name o the deity Gozu tennō, which was the object o the epidemic-deity cult given at the Gion Shrine-temple complex in Kyoto.18 Furthermore, this latter deity was associated with that site o cult’s goō prints, in which the term goō was written with yet a different second graph ( 牛玉). Whatever the obscure and varied origins o the goō cults may be, there is little doubt that they were related to the thaumaturgic prevention o epidemics, oremost among which was smallpox—itsel associated in Japanese lore with the bull. Among the shrine-temple complexes distributing this kind o amulets in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods were Mount Hiko, the Kumano Shrine-temple
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complex o the Kii Peninsula (whose amulets were widely distributed by the emale religious figures called Kumano bikuni and by the yamabushi with whom they were associated), Mount Haguro in northern Japan, the Gion complex in Kyoto, Mount Haruna in the Kantō area, Mount Daisen in western Japan, and many other Shugendō sites o cult. Te goō amulets o Mount Hiko, however, seem to be the first to have been printed in history and, even though they did not reach the almost countrywide distribution o the Kumano amulets, they were distributed throughout Kyushu Island, mainly to the most dominant warlord amilies as well as to the leading land stewards ( jitō) o Kyushu provinces. Once the medieval period ended, the amulets were distributed in other ways: to armers linked to Mount Hiko in various provinces, by itinerant yamabushi, and to pilgrims visiting Mount Hiko at the time o ritual estivities. Tere was more to these amulets than the promise o protection against epidemics: indeed, during the medieval period the verso o these paper prints was used to write oaths and complaints (the oldest extant example o such an inscription is a Mount Hiko amulet dated 1336). During the early modern period some o these prints were used to write oaths certiying that one was not a Christian. Used as “pills” to cure disease, these prints were also used to prove one’s guilt or innocence, as is clearly described by Engelbert Kaemper, who stayed in Japan between September 1690 and October 1692 : Tey [the yamabushi] treat a sick person as ollows. Te sick person tells the mountain priest the story o his illness, afer which the priest notes down the details o the suffering with characters on a piece o paper. He puts the piece o paper in ront o the idol and perorms his ceremonies, the power o which then enters the letter. He turns the piece o paper into pills, o which the patient has to take one every morning, swallowing it with water; this has to be drawn rom this or the other direction, according to the orders o the priest. Tese distinctive pills are called goō. But this hellish treatment is used only or the most dangerous o illnesses, when there is practically no hope. Every illness has a different kind o treatment. Guilt and innocence are determined not only by the power o certain words but also by the presence o the idol Fudō sitting in red flames. Tis is not done in court [. . .] but in secret among the servants, either only by way o incantation, or by trial by fire, or by drinking Kumano no goō. I the first method is unsuccessul, trial by fire is used: a fire o coals the length o a athom is kindled, through which the suspect must walk three times without being harmed in order to be recognized as innocent. People are made to coness by being orced to drink Kumano no goō. Goō is a letter with characters written on it, and decorated with some black birds, such as ravens, which has been certified by the seal o a yamabushi. It is stuck to the pillars o the house to ward off evil spirits
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and is used or many other superstitions. It is made by yamabushi everywhere, but the strongest comes rom Kumano. A piece is torn off and given to the accused to drink, which makes him so rightened that he conesses his guilt.19
In other words, the goō “charms” or “amulets” had, rom the beginning o their history, legal and politico-religious aspects. Indeed, these amulets were used to write, on the reverse, a variety o oaths taken with the understanding that breaking them would result in all kinds o divine punishments; these written oaths are known as kishōmon and survive in large quantities. During the Meiji period, the design o Mount Hiko’s goō prints was altered (the wish-ulfilling gem part o the central graphic element was eliminated)— which goes to show that political symbolic expression was a constant eature o the phenomenon. Hartmut Rotermund identified the problem when he wrote that there may have been a direct correlation between the belie in epidemiccausing deities and the belie that epidemics were caused by corrupt politics on the part o the rulers. 20 Similarly, Neil McMullin wrote an article detailing the connections between religious and political aspects o the Gion cult, which was related to the bull figure.21 As I have suggested elsewhere, the notion that disease and calamities were believed to originate in “cosmic” ailures on the part o rulers was a notion originally held in China, but it was eventually taken to Japan, where it had a very long history ,22 an issue also discussed by Kuroda oshio.23 Rotermund notes that the deity beseeched or placating smallpox was closely related to the deity o the New Year ( toshi no kami), and it is thereore understandable that the goō rite took place on the fifh day o the first month.24 Once these exorcistic procedures came to a close on Mount Hiko, bugaku dances were perormed under light cast by pine torches.
Te kissho shūgi rite: sanctioning power and rank Depending on whether the fifh or sixth day o the first month was deemed auspicious, a rite called kissho shūgi was organized on that day. O Chinese origins, the term kissho (“auspicious writing”) originally reerred to an imperial rite at which the year’s first document naming officials or promotions was written and proclaimed. Perormed at the Japanese court either on the New Year or on the occasion o an imperial enthronement, or on that o era name changes, the kissho rite went on to be used by aristocrats and, later on, by warlord houses. One reason or such continuous use is that this rite unctioned as a means o
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control by proclaiming and emphasizing the social position o those people who were recognized as being close to power. 25 At Mount Hiko the term shūgi reerred to a meeting o those who were promoted yearly or our years in a row to participate in ritual organization and perormance. By the end o the Muromachi period this rite played a role in convening the high rungs o the sōgata double hierarchy (the iroshi and katanashi) o the mountain community, and it served to name who would become responsible or the upcoming year’s rites. Afer the choices were agreed upon, the names were entered in writing and the list was uttered in ront o the divine entities. At Mount Hiko as well as at any other major cultic centers comprising a large social body marked by vertical hierarchy, the ritual writing and utterance o positions and roles played a steadying role. Not surprisingly, this particular meeting was held behind closed doors. Upon its completion it was customary to convene a ritual repast at which an emblem o auspiciousness and renewal was distributed to each participant: called hirome, it consisted o a bunch o konbu kelp taken rom Wakasa Bay, located by the Sea o Japan in the central part o the country, and it signified the hope that the ritual calendar may be completed without mishap and in good health or all those concerned.26
Mountain sanctuaries awash in seawater: the shioitori rite Still perormed today, albeit with major changes, this rite entailed walking down rom Mount Hiko northwards to the Inland Sea coast, scooping seawater into bamboo poles, and taking it back up to the mountain to puriy the main sanctuaries beore the perormance o the Onda ritual estivity. 27 Beore 1868 it used to be a week-long activity ranging rom the twenty-sixth o the first month to the second day o the second month; today, it is carried out more summarily because the road is traveled by car, on February 28 (or 29) and March first. 28 Te iroshi (yin) and katanashi (yang) men, that is, the two groups orming the sōgata community directly connected to the shrines, were responsible or this rite. Tese men were dressed in white garments covered by a Buddhist robe, sported rosaries and pilgrim staffs, and wore straw sandals and headbands as well as ans and small swords ( aikuchi). Leading ten horses loaded with implements, they gathered in ront o the Shichidaidōji Shrine in Kita-Sakamoto, where they made an offering o a large wooden amulet-record ( uda), and walked northward to Motomiya. Tey then ollowed the course o the Ima River down through the
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Map 12 Course during the Shiori rite
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hamlets o suno, Akamura, Jizōnoki, oyotsu, Imai, and proceeded to Kutsuno- o and to a grove by the seaside called “ Uba ga utokoro.” On the twenty-seventh day they collected seawater there in several bamboo containers, near a stone grouping going by the name “Seven Stars,” a reerence to Ursa Major. Tey then returned to Mount Hiko, ollowing the Harai River (“River o Purification”) up until they reached its source, where they turned west and arrived at Mount Hiko’s main sanctuary.29 Tis was no ordinary rite. It was marked by a number o secrets transmitted orally (o which nothing remains), by pre-arranged visits to houses and villages where emblems o the passage o the group were lef in temples and sanctuaries afer ceremonial repasts were taken, and by strict rules ranging rom decorum to ood. Its conduct was bipolar: first, the scooping o seawater in complete obscurity, at the distant oot o the mountain; second, the nocturnal offering o seawater at the mountaintop sanctuaries, which was ollowed at dawn by the purification o the sanctuaries.30 Te marking o a different type o “spatiality” was enacted by visits to villages along the two rivers flowing down rom Mount Hiko, and was symbolized by exchanges o amulets or ood and lodging, and by rules concerning ritual purity. All in all, fifeen villages prepared ood and rice-brew offerings or the procession, the passage o which was considered an opportunity to ensure bountiul crops. A village called Kitara was the site o the most elaborate offerings on the part o its inhabitants. For the night spent at the Imai lodging houses, urther down the Ima valley, the procession split into its two parts (yin and yang); the ollowing day, three “treasures” symbolizing the union o yin and yang were exchanged between the two houses, at a spot equidistant rom them: this was called irechigai , “crossing paths.” Te members o the procession’s yamabushi then offered to both houses gifs consisting o dried abalone strips ( noshi), congratulatory gifs (shūgi), congratulatory ans (suehiro), charcoal (mokutan, in this case called kirugi), wooden amulets, paper amulets ( goō hōin), and paper sheets. At that point, all, with the exception o women, would share in a ritual repast ( naorai). At the end o the day the members o the procession gathered at the oyohime Shrine, located a short distance rom the seashore, where they perormed the “Mirror Stone Rite”, during which they chanted secret ormulas. Tey then entered the rigid sea to puriy themselves, and scooped seawater. On their return to the mountain, the members o the procession stopped at a village called Kaneya, where they received gifs o ricecakes ( mochi), clams (hamaguri), and clams called shioukigai but reerred to as shioitama (tide-well jewels). Tese shiotama clams were subsequently distributed at Mount Hiko among the
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yamabushi household members, while the hamaguri clams became part o the ritual repast that closed the Onda ritual estivity, and were also offered in various shrines on the mountain. Te procession thus returned to Mount Hiko, walking uphill along the snowy banks o the Harai River and making offerings o chopped seaweed (kirikonbu) at various shrines along the way, and completed the last leg to the mountain in total darkness—an of-noticed eature o purification rites preceding major estivities. Once they reached Mount Hiko the sōgata poured the seawater around the lower, middle, and upper shrines, as well as by the three torii marking the entrance to the upper zones o the mountain. Tey then purified the tabidono Sanctuary as well as the offerings hall. Furthermore, they renewed the straw bindings o all shrines, affixing them to their gates or eaves, and set up reshly cut branches o sakaki trees by all o them. From this point on, the mountain was closed to all outsiders to maintain the purity o the site, which was guaranteed by the ritually gathered salt ( shio) o the tide (also pronounced shio, but written with a different graph). On the twenty-nineth day the sōgata went to the Upper Sanctuary, near which they put up large curtains around a temporary sacred space erected or the occasion. Entering this space, they transmitted to the new men in charge the secrets surrounding their upcoming perormance activities, and completed this part o the preparations with a ritual repast. As mentioned above, this rite immediately preceded the perormance o the Onda ritual estivity, when the mountain was visited by tens o thousands o pilgrims, and at the close o which the spring mandalized peregrination was engaged in. It can thereore be characterized as a hinge on which different spatial and temporal modes o social and ritual activity revolved or the specialized religious communities o Mount Hiko as well as or their lay ollowers. From that point on, all those who had been named to their duties posted a sign on the outside o their residences inorming that ritual observances were being enacted, and initiated a period o purity and various observances, including a taboo on yearly uneral commemorations. Outside the mountain’s sacred perimeter, common olk were then let ree to engage in pilgrimage to the sanctuaries. On the third day o the second month the iroshi treated the yamabushi elite to a ritual repast where they discussed ritual procedures and the transmission o Shugendō doctrine took place. Te ollowing day was marked by several meetings or urther education and or the preparation o the ollowing visits and offerings to the amed Zōkei Sanctuary.
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For the birds: the Zōkei gokū rite Located slightly above the main sanctuary, the Zōkei Sanctuary is dedicated to the abbot o the same name, who beore his stay at Mount Hiko may have been an important figure o Kumano Shugendō. Gorai Shigeru quotes the Hōshōzenmeiroku written in 1746 by the monk Mitsuun, which states that Zōkei was born in 917 at Karakuni Village at the oot o Mount Hiko and that he trained under the abbot Shinkei and that afer restoring Mount Hiko’s buildings he would have become the eleventh abbot. Te same document states that Zōkei would have lef a testament stipulating that i ood were offered once a year on a certain date, sacred goshawks would appear and eat it .31 Different types o birds have been mentioned over the course o time. Te last lines o Chinzei Hikosan engi, dated 1572, read: Tere subsequently appeared a certain Zōkei, in the eleventh generation afer Ozunu and one o Hōren’s talented three thousand disciples. A shrine called Zōkei Sanctuary stands on the mountain, and rom this we may iner that Zōkei was no common man. Furthermore, it is said that this mountain’s most important estivity, Matsue, originated with him. Every year in the midst o spring, rom the eleventh to the ourteenth day, ood is offered at this Zōkei Sanctuary. At such time, a sacred bird flies overhead. One o its wings is white like snow. I the country is at peace, it pecks the ood; otherwise, it flies away at once. Tis omen has been proved to be true.32
Te Hōshōzenmeiroku mentions a goshawk (the earliest sacred bird o Mount Hiko), and the Jinkoshū (dated 1762) mentions a crow, while Meiji ideologues mentioned the Yata crow o Nihon Shoki ame that would have led the first emperor rom Kumano to Yamato and was assimilated to the three- legged crow said in Chinese mythology to reside in the sun. Gorai Shigeru opts or a crow because o its Kumano symbolism, which he considers to be ormative o Mount Hiko’s Shugendō tradition, and his reasons are as ollows: at several shrines in the western part o Japan rice—either raw or cooked and ashioned into balls—is placed at a short distance rom the main sanctuary, and officiants wait to see i birds, usually crows, will eat it. Should they eat it, the main ritual estivity may then proceed; should they ignore it, this is treated as an ominous sign and the ritual estivity is scratched. (Tis is true o the sushima Shrine in Aichi, o the aga Shrine in Wakasa, o the Miyajima Shrine near Hiroshima, o Mount Hiko, and quite a ew other shrines.) Still according to Gorai, the crow is usually a sacred bird that represents the spirit o departed luminaries without whose
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blessing no ritual may proceed; and since an urn holding bones was ound on the occasion o an archaeological excavation under the Zōkei Sanctuary, it is possible to reason that the building was erected over Zōkei’s bones. Furthermore, the argument goes, this Zōkei may very well have been one and the same with the amous abbot o Kumano, since their dates are very close, and it is possible that afer resigning his position Zōkei would have gone to Mount Hiko to “transmit Shugendō orthodoxy to outlying areas.” Gorai’s views, however, may stretch the historical record: he goes so ar as writing that a number o Mount Hiko rites, such as raising a pillar at the time o the Onda ritual estivity, perorming various types o dances, and offering ood to birds, originated in Kumano—even though there is no evidence to this effect anywhere (that I could find), and even though none o these rites survive in Kumano but can still be seen in northeast Kyushu. Mount Hiko’s “orthodoxy,” he concludes, is no more than a sign o its Kumano origins. Te lens through which Gorai looks at these and other matters betrays his Kyoto vantage point, where he had a long and distinguished career; to look at Japanese local cults rom Kyoto is to unwittingly pass a judgment concerning purity, elite traditions, and to be influenced by the large and exceedingly powerul sites o cult that dot the ancient capital. Not the least o those sites o cult is, o course, the Shōgo- in monzeki— rom whose influence Mount Hiko ought to liberate itsel. It is true, however, that crows were regarded as sacred birds throughout Japan, and that they were (and still are) offered a variety o oods, usually around the New Year, and usually in a divinatory context; one also recalls the description o the rite offered by Sei Shōnagon in her Makura no Sōshi.33 Whatever the adequacy o Gorai’s orthodoxy argument may be, the offering o ood to birds at the Zōkei Sanctuary was a noteworthy matter at Mount Hiko, since Zōkei was regarded as the ounder o the Matsue ritual estivity. Indeed, over a period o our days (rom the eleventh to the ourteenth o the second month), each day and according to rank, unction, and affi liation, the leading members o the various groups orming Mount Hiko’s community (those who had been named a ew weeks earlier to their duties) stood vigil by the sanctuary all night long, eagerly awaiting dawn and signs o the flight o birds and their pecking at the offered ood. On the first and second day, as soon as the ood was nibbled on, a messenger put on his own straw sandals rather than having someone put them on or him, and was dispatched to report to the abbot. I the report was positive, the ritual estivity would take place; i it was negative, rituals o exorcism were conducted. Nothing happened on the third day, it seems. Afer the ourth and final day, i everything had gone according to plan, the Matsue assembly would be convened; i not, the spring mineiri
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(mandalized peregrination) was canceled. It does not seem too ar-etched to propose that Mount Hiko’s yamabushi saw their ritual peregrinations as matters resting in the hands o powers-that-be, symbolized here by birds as finicky as the main agents o political and military upheavals o the time. Te main reason or suggesting this is that the oldest document concerning this ood offering rite, the Chinzei Hikosan Engi (1572), does not say that the rite’s unction was to allow the mineiri to proceed or not—only that the successul rite portended peace in the realm (a necessary condition or the perormance o the mandalized peregrination). A secondary reason is that ritual peregrinations were ofen canceled because o political or military disruptions due to internecine conflicts or to the countrywide upheavals that marked the breaks between the medieval and early modern periods. Te reliance on rituals such as that discussed here seems to say little more than uncertainty or extreme anxiety is the mother o divination—and that the conundrum aced by Mount Hiko’s community was perceived to be located in the highly arbitrary and desultory space o uncontrollable political leaders, who were derided in Kyushu songs as crows. Te rites discussed above initialized the start o the year and served as a prelude to the Matsue and Onda ritual estivities, which together ormed the most important ritual occasion or Mount Hiko’s community. On the ourteenth day o the second month, a “ull seating” (seiza) o the Matsue ritual participants was convened. o understand what these terms meant it is best to turn our attention to highly detailed painted scrolls dating back to the early eighteenth century.
Te Matsue and Ondasai ritual estivities wo versions o two painted scrolls commonly reerred to as “Painted Scrolls o Mount Hiko Shugendō” have survived to this day. Te version kept today at Mount Hiko consists o paintings only and, as we shall see, may have been created between 1712 and 1719. A copy o these scrolls that is kept in Hirado City’s Matsuura Museum o Historical Documents consists o paintings accompanied by brie annotations, and is dated 1792. As discussed earlier, the 1613 regulations concerning Shugendō arbitrarily placed Mount Hiko under the supervision o Kyoto’s Shōgo-in monzeki, to which the okugawa government conerred authority over all endai- based Shugendō institutions. Mount Hiko’s abbot at the time, Shōyū (1645–1714), went to Edo in 1694, where he successully pleaded his case, as a result o which Mount Hiko
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was granted autarchic status in 1696. It is thereore possible that the early eighteenth-century scrolls were made shortly thereafer to mark Mount Hiko’s renewed sense o social identity and political independence, as well as to concretize a series o achievements on Shōyū’s part. Further evidence or this dating o the Shrine’s scrolls is based on the act that they were shown on the seventh day o the third month o 1719 to a roving inspector and, seventeen days later, to Ogasawara adao, head o the Kokura fie .34 Furthermore, on the twenty-fifh day o the third month o 1728 the abbot Yūyo (1687–1756) lef Mount Hiko or Kyoto where, on the occasion o his reception at the imperial palace, he showed an etiological record (probably the Hikosan Gongen Reigenki dated 1709) as well as the painted scrolls in question to Emperor Nakamikadō and Retired Emperor Reigen. Yūyo having been appointed to the abbacy in 1711, it makes sense to suggest that the scrolls were made during his tenure and prior to 1719.35 Te ollowing year (1729), Retired Emperor Reigen granted Mount Hiko a change in the writing o its name, using the two graphs 英彦 (“Valiant Hiko”), instead o the single graph 彦 that had been used beore— which explains why today some people (mis)-pronounce the name o the mountain “Ehiko.” It is highly probable that these two scrolls and their 1792 copies were subsequently used to maintain the order and orm o Mount Hiko’s main ritual estivity’s procedures over time. Te first scroll depicts the Matsue and Ondasai ritual estivities, while the second scroll depicts the Matsue ritual procession, a common and apparently necessary eature o many ritual estivities during the Edo period. An analysis o these paintings provides detailed inormation on the organization o the mountain community and its main ritual processes in the early modern period. Mount Hiko’s New Year observances, as described above, served as preliminaries to this main ritual estivity o the second month, at the end o which the yamabushi lef or their spring mandalized peregrination. Tis means that the Matsue and Ondasai ritual estivities cannot be understood outside a ramework consisting o relationships between the Mount Hiko/lay ollowers community on the one hand, and, on the other hand, o the Mount Hiko/yamabushi proessional community itsel. Te painted scrolls shed a sharp light on this ramework. Te thirteenth day o the second month marked the real beginning o the Matsue “Pine tree ritual assembly,” which began with matsu okoshi, the hoisting o a tall pine tree trunk along which thinner trunks were affixed with vines, in the middle o the main courtyard in ront o the Lecture Hall. Tis was done early in the morning under the aegis o our supervisors o kami-oriented ritual duties called shin’eki bugyō and o our “advance yamabushi”
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(sakiyamabushi) who had participated in the seawater scooping rites and preceded the arrival o the yearly-appointed yamabushi. Te first painting o the scrolls depicts the scene, showing a pine tree trunk set at the base o a large stone against which five retaining poles and five purification wands (heisoku), have been driven into the ground—while thirtyour strongmen are using orked branches to hoist the trunk into its final vertical position, as they are chanting “ Yōsa! Yōsa! ” to synchronize their efforts. Raising tree trunks at the time o ritual estivities is a ubiquitous eature o mountainrelated cults and is known under different names, such as taimatsu (in which case, usually, fire is eventually set at the top o the trunk), or Kami no mihashira, in which case the trunk is the embodiment o the deities. Once the trunk has been set up, it is held in place by five propped-up orked branches; two thick ropes extend rom its summit and are attached to surrounding trees; these ropes symbolize the two Great Dragon Kings that encircle Mount Sumeru in Buddhist cosmography and are responsible or rain. Indeed, these two ropes are then entreated with the chanted ormula, “Grant us the rains” ( uruoi wo ataetamae), which urther indicates the rite’s relation to ertility. Finally, two purification wands are affi xed to the top o the trunk; made o light-green and white paper strips, they are called “spring and autumn wands” and represent offerings ( nie) made in the hope o abundant crops. Te Shugendō interpretation o this trunk is that it represents the “convention orm” (sanmaya- gyō) o the Buddha Mahāvairocana; the usual symbol o Mahāvairocana in the convention mandalas is the five-pronged vajra ( gokosho), which is why the pine trunk is held in place by five orked branches. Tis means, then, that the courtyard where the rite is taking place is meant to be the site o practice (dōjō) where the kami and the five Buddhas o Wisdom, as well as the five Kings o Sapience, will be invoked and reside. Tis site is then consecrated by the our “advance” yamabushi as they chant the ourteenth chapter o the Lotus Sutra, “Comortable Conduct” (anrakugyō-bon), widely regarded as one o the our most important chapters o the scripture. At the same time as the trunk is hoisted, other yamabushi erect a temporary meeting site near the Lower Sanctuary (Shimo no Miya, located next to the bronze torii). Called Lower Buddha Hall (Shimo Butsuden), it consists o a bamboo enclosure on which curtains decorated with the graph pronounced iro on the lef side o the entrance and the graph pronounced katana on the right o the entrance have been affixed. Te space within the enclosure is divided into two equal parts, one or each hal o the sōgata community, by a bamboo ence against which each group’s emblems are set up near a lacquered signboard ( gyōban): two axes or the katanashi,
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symbolizing yang, and two lion-dance masks or the iroshi, symbolizing yin. It is there that those people who had been nominated three years earlier, and had perormed their solemn ritual duties during the preceding year, meet. Beore entering this enclosure, these men, accompanied by relatives, orm a procession starting rom their respective residence halls; the katanashi carry their emblems up to the Lower Shrine (Gegū, located right above and to the lef o the stone torii), while the iroshi take their emblems up to Kitayama Hall, located slightly below the Lower Shrine, across the path. Beore the main procession, three portable palanquins (mikoshi) are set up in the Lower Sanctuary; they are adorned with other emblems: looking at the shrine, on the right side, three ceremonial ans and two masks, set at the end o long carrying sticks, have been affixed to pillars. Te red mask is called “Fire King” ( hi no ō), while the blue mask is called “Water King” (mizu no ō).36 On the lef side o the sanctuary, three ceremonial ans and three ceremonial umbrellas have been affixed to another pillar. On the ourteenth day, the secret emblems o Mount Hiko’s Tree Peaks’ avatars, Izanami no mikoto (Senju Kannon); Ame no Oshihone no mikoto (Amida nyorai); and Izanagi no mikoto (Shaka nyorai), are transerred to the three mikoshi, and two axes are installed in their stead in ront o the shrines. A emale sacerdotal figure (miko) reerred to as Hiko Ichi-no-gobō then perorms a dance in ront o the mikoshi: dressed in red and white, she shakes her bell-holder to the accompaniment o a drum played by a yamabushi; it is said that each o her revolutions is ollowed by a meditation. Meanwhile, the abbot, helped by sacerdotal officiants, completes final preparations; the abbot then engages in the procession down to the Lower Sanctuary and pays his respects to the mikoshi. Tis procession is the object o the second painted scroll, the Matsue Gyōretsu Emaki, which shows the entire community advancing, ritual officers o each group holding positions according to rank and duties, and preceding the three mikoshi, each carried by sixteen yamabushi. Following the mikoshi, various high-ranked members o the Buddhist community precede the abbot, who is carried in a portable palanquin by twelve officiants (yamabushi and men dressed in white clothing). Tis group is itsel preceding other officials and lay people, probably patrons. Pierre Bourdieu was correct when he observed that “the specific orce o official representations is that they institute the principles o a practical relation to the natural and social worlds in words, objects, practices and especially in collective, public events, such as the major rituals, deputations, and solemn processions (the Greeks called them theories . . .).”37 At the Lower Sanctuary (by the bronze torii), lion dances are perormed, ollowed by stylized bouts o halberd and ax fights. Te fifeenth day consists o
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a large number o ritual activities, which start with the procession climbing the long slope that extends rom the Lower Sanctuary up to the large court ronting the Lecture Hall (by the stone torii); the court is called, or the occasion, mikoshi resting place. Te iroshi, katanashi, and the onda tōeki (those responsible or the perormance o the Onda rites), then enter the temporary Upper Buddha Hall: in the painted scrolls, the iroshi are represented seated within the right partition o the hall, the katanashi in the center, and the onda tōeki on the lef; each group’s leader is seated on a tatami mat beore a olded painted screen, and is engaging in a meditation (tanza meimoku). On each side o the leader, makeshif structures house the seated group members, as well as lay patrons. aisai Kenjō Ryakkō, a document thought to have been written between 1716 and 1736, says that the makeshif structures symbolize the Buddha’s matrix, while the gates symbolize the vulva o the Mother o Compassion; this suggests one aspect o the symbolic death/symbolic rebirth rites that will take place that day. Te members o the three groups are then served a ceremonial repast contained in paulownia boxes; while they thus express their gratitude to the lay patrons who have paid or many o the expenses, they also underscore the symbolic meaning o the sharing: the three groups are said to stand or Heaven, Earth, and Humanity, and the ood stands or the production o lie generated by the interaction o yin and yang. At the same time, a solemn gathering o the authorities o Mount Hiko takes place within the Lecture Hall. Te painted scrolls illustrate clearly the importance o this gathering, which it depicts in the ollowing way. Like any outsiders at the time, contemporary viewers o the painting are made to ace north to take in the entire outer sanctuary ( gejin) o the main hall, with the inner sanctuary ( naijin) partially visible. Te painting is divided into three levels: the upper third level consists o a representation o the division between the inner and outer sanctuaries, divided into three vertical parts: two parts representing doors, between which is an equally wide part representing the inner sanctuary where, flanked by two youthul attendants holding a long sword, the abbot is seated on a decorated straw mat (tatami), dressed in regal attire. One can glimpse elaborately painted olding screens placed behind him. Te abbot’s head is not visible, hidden by hanging screens. In ront o the abbot rests a tray that contains one o several courses o a ritual repast called or the occasion ozasshō, “assorted delicacies.”38 Te two sōgata in charge o the Onda ritual estivity share with the abbot some hirome kelp, miki (sake-brew), manjū (steamed sweet buns), more miki, sweets, and one last cup o miki. Tey then utter words o respect and ask or the completion o the upcoming events, and each offers an elaborate landscape tray (suhamadai , also reerred to as shimadai, usually representing the Island o the
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Daoist Immortals, Peng-lai, J., Hōrai) beore retiring. Te meeting then continues with the elite gathered in the outer sanctuary, on each side o the abbot. On the scroll painting representing the scenes outlined above, one observes our rows o religious figures seated to the lef o the abbot: to the outside, and beginning with those closest to the inner sanctuary, the first row consists o two administrators (shittō), the main scholarly yamabushi ( gakutō), the main ordained monk (seisō), and our overseers o the village’s residences ( gubu). Te second row consists o our apprentices to the abbot, dressed in lay attire. Te third row consists o five yamabushi prelates ( gakudō). In ront o them, closest to the abbot, two intercessors ( atsukaibō) are seated. In the main space between the groups o rows are the two sōgata representatives, who are being offered a cup o miki by a servant, and the two elaborate landscape trays. o the right o the abbot, the first row (inside) consists o six yamabushi prelates ( gakudō), and the second and last row (outside) consists o our general overseers ( sōeki). All except the abbot wear swords and have a an either in their hands or on the floor, in ront o their knees. Tirteen participants wear Buddhist clothing, while twelve wear yamabushi garments; the remaining nine are dressed in lay attire. On that occasion the abbot calls by name all those who had been chosen at the kissho rite a ew weeks earlier, and reiterates the nature o their duties. Once this is completed, all concerned share hirome kelp cut into strips, the New Year broth called ozōni, and miki as well as other delicacies. While these unctions are perormed within the Lecture Hall itsel between nine and eleven in the morning, the Onda (“August paddyfield”) ritual estivity is about to begin. Te events are opened by another kagura dance on the part o Hiko Ichi-no-gobō, afer which members o the group responsible or the Neugyō ritual assembly initiate the rite known as yabusame: riding horses back and orth, men shoot arrows at targets propped by assistants at three “demon gates” through which noxious orces are thought to invade purified space. As its name indicates, the Onda ritual estivity is, at first glance, a ertility rite perormed by the mountain community or the benefit o the armers residing in the valleys below Mount Hiko’s summits. It is that indeed, but much more as well. On the surace, the Onda ritual estivity involves a mock ox- drawn hoe (maguwa) to till the earth in ront o the Lecture Hall, which symbolizes all fields belonging to the ormer and current estates o Mount Hiko. Tis hoe, a rake- like implement, is said to have been granted by Ōnamuchi no mikoto, the land-owning Kami o the Kitayama Sanctuary; it is pressed into the ground by an elder wearing a white upper dress over red pants, and attached to a rice bale covered with a black cloth symbolizing a bull, that is pulled by an assistant. Once the land has been
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tilled in such manner, the elder, assisted by seven aides, plows the ground with hand-held mattocks under the watchul gaze o two supervisors protected by an umbrella that is held by an officiant dressed in black. Te eight “armers” work as they sing, “As the wild lands o the country are transormed into paddy fields, may the dewy tips o the mattocks cause the gem- like rice grains to germinate.” Once this rite is completed, the elder, assisted by a number o acolytes, stands on the outer edge o the Lecture Hall and throws rice grains over a crowd o armers who jostle to capture them in their upturned straw hats; this is regarded as the equivalent to sowing ( tane maki), and representatives o arming communities rom all over Kyushu Island vie with one another to catch as many grains as they can, so they can distribute them among their own communities in the belie that these seeds, inhabited by the spirit o Ame-no-oshihomimi no mikoto, the oldest kami o Mount Hiko as well as an important rice-ertility kami, will grant a bountiul harvest. Te painted scrolls vividly represent the scene: as the elder throws the rice, armers jostle, a child holding a red pinwheel is seated on his ather’s shoulder, local olks are selling rosaries and other implements; officiants restrain the crowd, and arriving armers are paying their respects by kneeling on the ground and bowing their heads. Tereafer, the officiants perorm a symbolic rice-transplanting rite: accompanied by songs perormed on the side o the “field,” and led by the elder in their task, they mimic planting rice, holding bunches o sweet flag (an iris-like plant). Once this is completed, the elder makes offerings: walking in ront, he holds a wooden tray on which a bowl filled with cooked rice has been placed; behind him walk two assistants disguised as pregnant women. One balances a tray holding two bowls filled with rice on their head; the other balances a bucket filled with clear broth ( shiru) on their head. Mimicked pregnancy at the time o ood offerings is still visible at many mountain rites o ertility, rom Mount Aso in Kyushu to Mount Iwaki in northern Honshu. In many other places, as in Shizuhara in the hills north o Kyoto, or example, pre-menarche girls balance the trays laden with ood on their heads. Tere is thus a direct correlation between ood production and reproduction hopes. At 1 p.m., the three mikoshi are taken back up to the Lower Shrine ( gegū). Tree groups o sixteen yamabushi are represented seating in ront o the palanquins, which they will hoist on their shoulders once a sign is given by a metal drum and cymbals. When this is completed, yet more rites are perormed in the main court: a lion dance in which two lions, composed o two people each, dance wildly and sometimes ollow the palanquins up the stairs leading to the Lower Shrine, in a mark o sorrow over the departure o the divinities; this dance is known as “heavyhearted renzy” (nagori no kurui). Afer
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members o the iroshi group leave the court and descend the slope, where they welcome the arriving yamabushi who will soon leave or their mandalized peregrination, stylized martial arts perormances take place. Te first involves the use o long halberds ( naginata) by our katanashi officiants, accompanied by music perormed on flute and drum. Te second involves a stylized combat between two katanashi officiants wielding long axes (masakari). Te third involves both iroshi and katanashi officiants; it is a “dance” in which a strongman wields a metal lance weighing some orty-three kilos and mimics the churning o the ocean by the demiurges Izanami and Izanagi. Te lance’s handle is wrapped with five-colored bands that hold a branch o sakaki and symbolize the five active aspects o nature engaged in the production o the universe. Tis is ollowed by dengaku perormances: limited to seven iroshi musician-dancers, this dance o medieval origins is perormed while three dancers play drums and our dancers play the binzasara, a cord to which small wooden sticks have been attached at fixed intervals; the cord is held by the two hands while being moved up an down to cause the sticks to clash, producing a pleasant, castanet-like sound. Te painted scroll then provides three scenes o the perormance o the ennen no mai, “longevity enhancing dance.” In the first scene, a yamabushi who had been picked rom fify iroshi and katanashi competitors in dance and song on the eighth day o the second month, and was thereby made responsible or chanting the “opening verse” ( kaiku), is shown standing in ront o the main hall, singing the verse in question: “Te body o our mountain, three soaring peaks, sacred ground or three sanctuaries protected by resh divine pine trees. May it grant a thousand-year longevity, and may the good demons appear and support these yamabushi as they offer up the nectar o the Dharma.” Chanted in the manner o Nō drama, this kaiku exaltation reers to verses o blessing that were chanted only at court, at the akigi-nō perormance at the Kōukuji emple in Nara, at the residence o shoguns, and at Mount Hiko. It is also sometimes reerred to as kaikō (“mouth-opening”), a term that originally reerred to the chant opening the perormance o the Okina play in Nō drama.39 Te second o the three scenes represents jige ūryū elegant dances and songs on the part o the low-ranked members o Mount Hiko’s community; these perormers are observed and evaluated, and the best will be appointed to chant, later, the exaltation just described. Teir song praises the yamabushi walking along the mountain peaks, pure water running down rock aces, the winds blowing over the expanse o space, and it finishes with an entreaty or continued activity o the kami’s fireplaces and o the peoples’ cauldrons.
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Te third scene represents twelve high-ranked iroshi and katanashi dancing in a circle around three musicians engaged in drumming, playing the flute, and singing. Once the music ceases, the twelve perormers sing the Nō drama “Queen Mother o the West” (Seiōbo), a Daoist divinity o longevity. Te aisai Kenjō Ryakkō states that yin and yang, overseeing the production and destruction o the five active aspects o nature, produce the universe through sexual interaction, and that music and song are the natural activity o the universe and are offered to paciy the divinities and civilize humans. Te painted scroll then depicts other martial arts competitions: the haya gusoku, in which officiants run afer competing in snapping away armors rom the mats on which they were placed. It seems that the ensuing scene has been partly lost; it shows two officiants acing off with swords, and it is said that there was yet another scene depicting bouts o sumō wrestling, an activity the yamabushi have long engaged in while peregrinating. In any case, these bouts are immediately ollowed by the gyōjagata yamabushi’s perormance o their main rite o departure into the mountains, the object o the next our scenes. Te first scene depicts two long-haired, bearded yamabushi as they hoist a giant purification wand ( gohei (bonten?)) next to a vertical cylinder that is being hammered into the ground, just inside o the stone torii which separates the two lower zones rom the two upper zones o Mount Hiko. Te cylinder is going to be used as a resting site or a highly adorned ceremonial creel ( oi), and is called “creel rest” (oiyasume). Te creel in question is decorated with a deerskin and contains rhododendrons, Mount Hiko’s sacred flowers. It is carried by the preceding year’s highest-ranking yamabushi, rom the Lecture Hall down to the sacred plum tree growing inside a wooden ence near the center o the main courtyard. On the northern side o this ence the yamabushi entrusted with the current year’s duties (tōeki yamabushi) are seated, while on the southern side the “intermediaries” (uketoribō) are seated. Afer the metal cylinder has been driven into the ground one uketoribō stands up, picks up the creel, sets it onto his back, walks up to center-court and bows to the combined divine entities o the mountain, to the abbot, and to the daisendatsu (the high-ranked yamabushi who have completed nine mandalized peregrinations). Te second scene depicts this uketoribō as he carries the creel toward the cylinder where it will be put to rest, and bows. At Mount Hiko this creel is held to be either En no Gyōja’s own, or to symbolize En no Gyōja himsel. Te third scene shows the plum tree and its surrounding ence (which existed up to the 1920s but have vanished since), as well as two yamabushi seated in ront o three young inductees who are going to perorm their first pregrination in the hope that they too will become ull-fledged yamabushi. Behind them, two
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yamabushi are seated; they will act as assistants to the peregrinating group. One is represented putting his hand on a conch-shell he will blow in order to transmit orders to the group. Te ourth scene depicts the rite called tokin oroshi, “head cover removal.” Seated on a mat set in ront o twelve yamabushi who have just undergone the rite in question, and o three others who are going to engage in it, a yamabushi holds on to his head cover while an initiated yamabushi undoes the ties that bind tassels together over the inductee’s head cover, and lets them drop on each side o the head. Te initiate’s abdomen is covered with a hat-like decorated implement called hangai (banners and canopy) and sometimes hōkan (precious crown, o the kind born by empresses at the time o major court rites). Tis implement symbolizes the womb and the placenta. Extending rom the initiate’s waist onto the ground behind him, a long red sash represents the umbilical cord o the soon-to-be-born yamabushi. Represented in the last scene o the painted scroll, members o the iroshi and katanashi groups, surrounded by onlookers, get ready to take down the sacred pillar they had set up a ew days earlier. Beore they do so, however, a yamabushi quickly climbs up the vines wrapped around the pillar until he reaches the summit where he positions himsel. While the other yamabushi chant penitence scriptures, he sets the puriying paper wands on fire and cuts their base with one swing o his sword. Te wands all down onto the ground, the yamabushi descends, and the pillar is taken down, thereby signiying that all spring rites preceding the mandalized peregrination have been completed. Once the rite o symbolic birth is completed, the yamabushi pass through the stone torii and scale Mount Hiko, whose summits they will leave a ew days later so they may engage in the spring mandalized peregrination to Mount Hōman and back. For the villagers and armers who visited Mount Hiko at the time o these rites, the Matsue and Ondasai perormances were significant i not necessary aspects o their own agricultural timetable; and or the yamabushi o Mount Hiko, the same rites were absolutely necessary to establish and mark their steps through their own social order’s hierarchy. In other words, the armers’ hopes or a good “natural” yield were thought to come true i they were matched by the yamabushi’s own “social growth” process. And this social process was understood, in yamabushi circles, to lean on nature and thus appear to be natural and, thereore, unquestionably correct. Such as it was, this equation was evident to all as long as the germination o cereal grains stood as a clear metaphor or a social progress through rites o passage, while the same progress was held to be valid in so ar as it was a “copy” o the process o agricultural growth. Indeed, the main
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creel (oi) carried by the leading yamabushi originally contained relics (shari), to which were added, during the medieval period, grains o the five cereals. Tis makes sense i one recalls that the Buddha would have bequeathed one eighth o his physical substance as ood or the world, and the relics bits ( shari no tsubu) were thus equated with the cereal grains ( gokoku no tsubu). Te maturation o the grains during the mandalized peregrination, the throwing o grains at the peak o the ritual estivity, the offerings o rice on the part o pregnant- looking men, the tilling o the symbolic land, and the rebirth rites o the yamabushi all stood together in a coherent world o symbols o growth and production. It must be added that, at the time o the ritual estivity, the yamabushi sold or granted clay bells painted in white, red and blue. Known as Hikogara these bells were taken by armers back to their fields, where they placed the bells into the main irrigating ditches; as water passed through the bell, a clay ball contained within clattered against the bell’s inner walls, making the sound garagara (gurglegurgle)—an onomatopoeia armers used to reer to “yamabushi lingo.” Tis system o symbols was widely shared in Shugendō circles around the country, although with some seasonal or local variants: at Mount Haguro in northern Japan, or example, rice grains were kept in a small hut-like structure while the yamabushi perormed their peregrination, and germinated as the ascetics cultivated the fields o elicity ( ukuden). Tis hut-like structure, covered with thatch, is known as kōya hijiri, “the ascetic promoting growth in the fields”.40 And so everybody’s labor came to ruition: the fields yielded rice as Buddha-body relics (just as Buddha-relics were supposed to produce ood), while the ascetics transormed their bodies into that o the Buddha. Ritual practice was work, just as work in the fields was a cultic activity, and it is little surprising that, during the Edo period, many Nativists, especially those working in what has been aptly called “grassroot nativism,” called or equating work with sacred activity .41 Many parts o these ritual estivities have been abandoned at Mount Hiko since 1872, but very much the same can be seen today in various shrines o the region, which copied these elaborate rites that are still considered important in rural communities.
Mineiri: the mandalized peregrinations Te oldest extant document mentioning mountain practices at Mount Hiko is the Hikosan Ruki dated 1213; dominating these practices were austerities conducted in the orty-nine caves symbolizing the residence o the Buddha o
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the Future, Maitreya. Tere is no doubt that mountain ascetics at the time also went on pilgrimage to sacred mountains near and ar: the text mentions a monk rom Kyoto’s Mount Hiei, who traveled to Mount Hiko to acquire a piece o “stone tree” (basaltic “pillar”) representing Maitreya’s body. It also mentions the deeds o several Hiko ascetics, one o whom spent time at Mount Aso in central Kyushu; and it mentions pilgrimage rom outlying areas toward Mount Hiko. Finally, Hikosan Ruki mentions the ollowing: ●
●
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Summer Ninety-day Constant Flower Offering ( Ichige kujun udan hanaku). Constant Flower Offering, yearlong at the Upper Shrine. Furthermore, during the summer, Flower Offerings at eight (other) sites .42
Tis may mean that the Hiko yamabushi were not yet perorming ully matured mandalized peregrinations, and that, very much like the Kōukuji emple’s yamabushi o Nara, they emphasized the search or flowers to make offerings to Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and kami.43 Te term mineiri reers to highly structured peregrinations through mountain ranges; it suraces in the Hikosan Shojin’eki Shidai dated 1445—which does not mean, o course, that it was not used long beore this date. Te mention o mandalas serving as templates or courses through the Hiko mountain ranges appears in Akyūbō Sokuden’s Sanpō Sōshō Hōsoku Mikki, dated between the years 1521–6. Sokuden (n.d.) was a scholarly yamabushi trained in Nikkō, itsel a vital center o Shugendō. He traveled to many sacred mountains and around 1505 settled in the Kezō-in temple o Mount Hiko’s south valley, where or more than fify years he wrote what would become the most detailed teachings and practices in the history o Shugendō, which were subsequently transmitted orally around the country. His works are contained in Shugendō Shōso, consisting o the majority o Shugendō’s doctrinal and practical teachings; a systematic presentation and explanation o these texts was made by a team directed by Miyake Hitoshi in an epochal publication, Shugendō Shōso Kaidai.44 Te date o Sokuden’s document, however, does not imply that mandalization originated then: even though mandalized peregrinations appear to have been firmed during the early Muromachi period, it is diffi cult to imagine that mandalized courses over long distances appeared suddenly, i only because o the need to enlist either the participation or the support o long- established religious sites such as those o Mount Hōman or Mount Fukuchi, and because this development must have taken quite some time and much organization. endaibased Kumano Shugendō had begun to make its mark in Kunisaki and at Mount Hiko—probably through Usa Hachiman’s influential endai powerbase—early in
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the thirteenth century. Te oldest Japanese document implying that Esoteric Buddhism’s two main mandalas’ ritual processes were used as a structuring device or mountain peregrinations is the Shozan Engi, also o the Kamakura period, which details the Kii Peninsula-based rites.45 Te ollowing shows that the best evidence to the effect that the mandalization o the range between Mount Hiko and Mount Hōman is a Kamakura period phenomenon is incontrovertible. One recalls that Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa had created the Ima-Kumano Shrine in Kyoto in 1160, and that in 1181 he registered a number o sites o cult among which Mount Hiko was recorded as responsible or certain types o offerings. Furthermore, the 1213 Hikosan Ruki mentions the ollowing: [Cave number] eight: Ima-Kumano Cave Structure [hōden] o eight ken. Te avatars o the welve Sites o Kumano and all the Nyaku-ōji are the objects o the cult dedicated therein. Te honji and suijaku are as noted in Hongū Nikki. In ront o Worship Hall there is a large boulder o which it is said that a hermit is practicing therein, and that one can aintly hear bell sounds issuing rom it. In a side cave there is Senju Kannon, near which statues o Amida and his two attendants have been carved on the rock surace. Also carved on the rock are moonshapes in which shittan [siddham ] graphs symbolizing Shakamuni, Amida, and Dainichi are engraved. Tis area is also called Kayoi Cave.46
Tis text implies that the shittan engravings o the cave named Ima-Kumano were made between 1181 and 1213, during the events that marked the break between the Heian and Kamakura periods. Northern Kyushu was deeply marked by these events, as is indicated by the destruction o the Usa Hachiman complex in 1184 by Ogata warlords, and the annihilation o the aira armies at Dan- noura by the Minamoto warlords in 1185. Should one climb up the steep cliffs giving access to that cave and look around, the view to the northwest is impressive: overlooking the mountain ranges that lead all the way to Mount Hōman and beyond, one can also see the location o Dazaiu, and it is o no little significance that an urn recently uncovered near this cave yielded the name o a Chinese man, Chinese porcelain, and a Korean bronze statue. Te three shittan graphs engraved above the cave are the esoteric emblems o Shakamuni nyorai ( ), Amida nyorai ( ), and Dainichi nyorai ( ), thereby suggesting the overwhelming influence o esotericism at the time. Further proo is offered by the massive sculptures o Dainichi nyorai, o Fudō myōō and his two acolytes, and o parts o the two mandalas engraved on the
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high cliffs located on the southern part o the Kunisaki Peninsula: they are called the “Kumano” cliff engravings, and their location currently serves as the starting point or the peregrination around the peninsula (the day afer the participants have paid their respects to the three sacred stones o Hachiman near the summit o Mount Omoto). According to Watanabe Fumio the Dainichi sculpture may date back to the mid-Heian period, while the Fudō sculpture and mandala engravings must have been completed beore 1228.47 In other words, the extent o esotericism in relation to mountain cults at Mount Hiko as well as around the Kunisaki Peninsula can be accurately dated to the late Heian and early Kamakura periods: the world o mandalas was beginning to be an essential aspect o practices and understandings linked to mountain cults, and it is thereore quite possible that mandalized peregrinations were in ormative stages at the time. As Sasaki etsuya points out, an Edo period document mentions that as ar back as 1256 Mount Hiko’s authorities asked Mount Hōman’s authorities to grant nine yamabushi the sendatsu rank which suggests that the two mountains were already connected by peregrinations at the time (the sendatsu rank was granted to yamabushi who had completed our peregrinations, and the daisendatsu rank to those who had completed nine courses). Tis date gathers weight, Sasaki argues, i one looks at an inscription on Mount Hōman dated 1318: above the inscription are engravings o the seed-letters (shuji) o Dainichi nyorai o the Adamantine and Matrix mandalas, and below the inscription is a statement concerning the sixteenth mineiri completion on the part o a daisendatsu named Kōyō, in 1256.48 In other words, the mandalization o the course between Mount Hiko and Mount Hōman must have been established prior to that date. Located at some point between these two mountains is a site called Koishiwara Shinzen shuku (lodge), which was regarded as the site o the non-differentiation between the Adamantine and Matrix mandalas; the course between Mount Hōman and this spot was regarded as the “verso” course (autumn mineiri) symbolized by the Adamantine mandala’s thirty-seven deities enshrined in as many sites ( shuku), while the course between this spot and Mount Hiko was regarded as the “recto” course (spring mineiri) symbolized by the Matrix mandala’s nine deities seated in the eight-petalled lotus blossom that orms the central court o this mandala. Te obviously older summer “flower offering” course ( hanaku) was joined to these two courses, and the mandalized course was then reerred to as consisting o “three peaks” (sanpō), that is, the three mineiri ascetic peregrinations that became the hallmark o Mount Hiko’s Shugendō and were copied around the country. By the mid-fifeenth century the system had evolved to a great degree: the 1445 Hikosan Shojin’eki Shidai mentions our mountain peregrinations, two o
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which overlapped in the spring: one mineiri starting on the fifeenth o the second month, and another starting on the twenty-ninth o the same month; third, the flower offering course starting on the tenth day o the third month, and ourth, the all mineiri starting on the last day o the seventh month. Even though this document does not mention details on what courses may have been ollowed, it is an important source because it is the first to mention social distinctions that directly bear on the issue o hierarchy in relation to peregrination, and to other ritual as well as social matters. Indeed, i one compares the types o rituals listed in the 1213 Hikosan Ruki with those listed in the 1445 Hikosan Shojin’eki Shidai, it is obvious that a number o social changes had occurred in the mountain’s community over the course o some 230 years, and that these changes were reflected in the types o rituals it perormed as well as in the types o relationships among its members. Te direct cause o the social relationships’ changes, it is sae to surmise, was the appointment o an aristocracy-born abbot in 1333, and the ensuing transormation o Mount Hiko’s institutions into a monzeki, that is, a shrinetemple complex headed by tonsured aristocrats who nonetheless married and then transmitted their position to one o their sons (or adopted sons i they were not married). At Mount Hiko, however, not all could hope to enter the abbot’s line either by marriage or adoption, and only the ullfledged yamabushi and shitogata could do so; they would then be known as atsukaibō (intercessors), while the sōgata (iroshi and katanashi) were not given the same privilege. One seed o the long-lasting and gradually intensiying disparities that were eventually reinorced in the Edo period by the cultural world o Nativist Studies at large can be identified in this social distinction: those people who could enter the abbot’s line or the purpose o producing a male heir were predominantly “Buddhist,” while the sōgata were predominantly occupied with kami matters. Tis means that cultic affi liations were marked by social inequality, and although these distinctions may originally have been based on birth, it is clear that by the middle o the Edo period they came to generate rather uneasy eelings.
Mandalized itineraries Te two mandalized courses, that between Mount Hiko and Mount Hōman, and the other between Mount Hiko and Mount Fukuchi, are roughly known. Tey were marked by orty-eight stops called shuku (lodges), the location o which, in some cases, has been identified. Tough they are known by name, the lodges whose location has not yet been identified may never be known, or they have www.ebook3000.com
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been overgrown with vegetation or have disappeared over the course o the past 100 years because o the radical and swif changes in land use Kyushu was subjected to. Indeed, the best research on the topic has been perormed by archaeologists and local historians. Te same is true o the orty-nine caves o earlier times, o which only thirty-one have been identified so ar. Each mandalized course consisted o orty-eight lodges, the first one always remaining secret. Te names o the spring and autumn courses’ respective lodges are listed below; the maps show only a very rough outline o the courses. Pronunciation is ofen uncertain. Spring course:
1. Within Mount Hiko’s inner perimeter, between the fifeenth and twentieth o the second month: Gyōja-dō; Ōminami Cave; Ushi Cave; Komorimizu Cave; Fukkoshi Cave; Kosasa Cave; Neko dōji 2. From Ōminami Cave to Dainichi-ga-take: Minami lodge; Onotōge tsuteuda; Fukakura lodge; amaki lodge; Shaka-ga-take kochō uda 3. From Dainichi-ga-take to Koishiwara Jinzen lodge: Aigyō seto; Fue Iwaya lodge; Jinzen lodge 4. Kyōdai-ga-take Hanadate uda 5. From Koishiwara to Mount Hōman: Kongōzaka Gongen Mitsubanadate uda; Kamatōge uda; Mami-ga-take uda; Oku-no-in kochō uda, Hakusan Honkin tsuteuda; Gogakuyama lodge, Itsutsuyama kochō uda; Nete lodge; Mount Hōman 6. From Mount Hōman to Mount Hiko: Haseyama ninogohō uda; suetachi uda. Autumn course: By the early sisteenth century peregrination courses and doctrinal interpretations were set by Akyūbō Sokuden in his Sanpō Sōshō Hōsoku Mikki (written between 1521 and 1526), which states the ollowing: West: Mount Kamado [Hōman]. Adamantine realm. Judging the effect, one looks or the cause. Verso course.49 Autumn: converting living beings at the oot o mountains. Center: Shinzen [Jinzen?]. Union o the Matrix and Adamantine realms. Neither cause nor effect. Summer: course without distinction o recto or verso. Sel and others are one. East: Mount Hiko. Matrix realm. Pursuant to the cause, one reaches the effect. Recto course. Spring: searching or one’s own awakening in the mountains.50
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I choose to translate the technical term jun as “recto” and gyaku as “verse”’ or the ollowing reasons. Historically, the term jun was used by the Kumano-based yamabushi to reer to their route rom Kumano to Yoshino, and the term gyaku was later used to denote the reverse course rom Yoshino to Kumano. Te two terms, however, have had varied meanings in China, where they typically reer to good or bad luck as well as to normal eatures o the course o nature as opposed to abnormalities, and so on. In technical manuals o esoteric meditation on graphic symbols, however, the term jun is used to denote a movement rom the center toward the periphery o a single shittan graph, or o a group o graphs arranged in circles; this movement is known as junsenden. Tere is little question, then, that the terms jun and gyaku in Shudendō practice reer to a movement away rom the base ( jun), and o return to that base ( gyaku). Another ground or this terminology is the act that in the ritualized meditation on the Jōjin-e court o the Adamantine mandala, the term recto indicates a movement rom the periphery to the center o the court, while the term verso reers to a movement rom the center to the periphery o the court. Major Shugendō centers such as Kumano, Haguro, and Katsuragi use the same terms with slight interpretive and temporal variations, although it seems that jun always reers to spring, and gyaku to all, that is, according to the “normal” course o things. Other possible translations o these two terms might be: orth and back, advance and retreat, progress and regress, but they seem impractical and misleading, even i only slightly more so, than recto and verso. As noted earlier, the oldest mandalized course joined Mount Hiko and Mount Hōman, while the flower offering course—which, so ar as I know, was not mandalized—may have had an even longer history. As or the Fukuchi course, it is thought that it was created some time during the Muromachi period by Mount Hiko’s yamabushi, who regarded Mount Fukuchi as the Adamantine Realm mandala, just as they had, prior to that time, regarded Mount Hōman, and this requires some explanation. As Sasaki etsuya has shown, a document authored by Mount Hiko’s katanashi reports that the yamabushi who were engaged in the all course in 1583 could not return to their mountain because most residences and temples o Mount Hiko had been destroyed by warare, and that they temporarily took reuge at a lodge located somewhere along the Hiko-Fukuchi course. Te creation o the Fukuchi course must have been caused by the act that Mount Hōman’s yamabushi did not engage in their own peregrinations between 1557 and 1593, that is, during the military and political upheavals o the Sengoku period. Indeed, akahashi Akitane, a warlord related by blood to the Ōtomo, built a ortification on Mount Hōman’s ridges in 1552, and the castle stood until its
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Figure 7 Process o meditation on Jōjin section o the Adamantine Mandala
kiriiku (hrīh.): Amida nyorai (the tathāgata Amitābha), west taraaku (trāh.): Hōshō nyorai (the tathāgata Ratnasam.bhava), south baanku (vām.h.): Dainichi nyorai (the tathāgata Mahāvairocana), center aku (ah.): Fukūjōju nyorai (the tathāgata Amoghasiddhi), north un (hum.): Ashuku nyorai (the tathāgata Aks. obhya), east.
destruction in 1586. Mount Hiko itsel sustained sieges and attacks on the part o Ōtomo warlords between 1581 and 1587, as a result o which mandalized peregrinations were subjected to disruptions. Te yamabushi nonetheless attempted to maintain their space-based practices, even as those warlords who caused these conflicts attempted to curb the mandalized peregrinations, activities they deemed “not merely religious” in character and saw as potential threats to their military and political position.51 It is then that Akyūbō Sokuden played a crucial local role, or he assisted in providing a doctrinal and practical backbone
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or new mandala-based understandings that would rationalize continued use o the Hiko-Fukuchi course. Tis he did in his Rokurokutsū Injin, in which he proposed new mandala configurations and localizations. Tus, in the case o the spring course’s meditative practices he identified the entire space between Mount Hiko’s South Peak and Mount Hōman’s Sanctuary as the “Ground o the Matrix Realm Mandala” and wrote: Te central point o practice is that the region between Mount Hiko’s Southern Peak and the Shinzen lodge corresponds to the site o practice o incipient Buddhas (zaiden manda). Matrix Realm. Te region between the Shinzen lodge and Mount Hōman’s Sanctuary corresponds to the itinerary ollowed by the already awakened ones (shutsuden manda) in the Adamantine realm. Te Shinzen [lodge] is the site o non-differentiation o the Matrix and Adamantine [realms]. It is [symbolized by] the Adamantine Youth Kōshō, whose essence is Bishamonten. Te Hōman Sanctuary is the Diamond within the Matrix, [symbolized by] Jūichimen Kannon. [Tis Bodhisattva] holds a vase [containing the] water o wisdom symbolized by the shittan graph [vam ∙ ] in the Adamantine [realm]. Te term ‘vase’ suggests the overall meaning o Matrix. It is [symbolized by] the shittan graph [àh ] in the Matrix realm. [. . .] Te component hō [in Hōman] symbolizes the wisdom o suchness in the Adamantine realm (hosshōchi), while the component man symbolizes the Matrix filled with all principles [that are necessary or attaining awakening (rigu enman)].
In the case o the autumn course meditative practices, Sokuden wrote: Te course between Mount Fukuchi and Mount Hiko’s North Peak is the Adamantine realm mandala. Mount Fukuchi’s avatar’s essence is the Bodhisattva Kokuzō, as well as Mahāvairocana o the Adamantine realm. [. . .] Te course between Mount Hiko’s South Peak and Mount Hōman’s Sanctuary corresponds to the Matrix realm mandala. Te course between Mount Hiko’s North Peak and Mount Fukuchi corresponds to the Adamantine realm mandala.52
Slightly conusing as it may be, this text became the basis or the Edo period courses that included both Mount Hōman (to the northwest but starting rom Mount Hiko’s South Peak) and Mount Fukuchi (to the north, and starting rom Mount Hiko’s North Peak). Te topography o Mount Hiko, consisting as it does o three peaks, was again put to use or a spiritual/practical purpose. Te names o known lodges located between Mount Hiko and Mount Hōman during the medieval period are listed below. As o this writing, only twenty-nine o orty-eight have been located. In most cases these locations are the same as
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Map 13 Mount Hiko three mineiri
during the Edo period, but there are enough discrepancies to avoid thinking that the medieval and early modern courses were strictly identical. Question marks indicate a conjectural reading. Sōji-in lodge; Kashiki gohō lodge; Kōji gohō lodge; Ichi-no-gohō lodge; Masuda Jingū uda; Amida lodge (Noda Amida uda); Ōtō-chō (Benki); Agano-gū; Eimanji Yakushi uda; No name. May have been close to the Hie Shrine o Nōgata City; onno-gū uda; Shaku-ga-take lodge; Fukuchi lodge; Ryōkai lodge; Kibe lodge; Saidō-sho; Ryū-ga-hana lodge; Kinpusen kochō uda (Yanamizu lodge); Ajibu lodge (oshiro lodge); Uchida-gū uda; Aigyō lodge; Ganjaku lodge (Soeda lodge); Hatakeyama lodge (Nishibatake lodge); Hedate (?) lodge; Watauchi lodge; Hōgabaru lodge; Midarebashi lodge; anuki Iwaya lodge; ogiba lodge.
Te forty-eight lodges during the early modern period (A) Recto course (Spring: rom Mount Hiko to Mount Hōman and back). Te mineiri started on the fifeenth day o the second month, and was completed on the tenth day o the ourth month. In parentheses are the names o the Eight Great Adamantine Youths (Hachi dai kongō dōji), protectors o the yamabushi who peregrinated through the seventy-five “stations” (nabiki) that were established between Kumano and Yoshino in the Kii Peninsula, and were worshipped during the medieval period along the Hiko-Hōman course. Question marks indicate a conjectural reading.
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Gegū; Chūgū; Sonae lodge; Ōshino lodge; Komorimizu (Gose); Hosshin; Fukikoshi; Satozaka; Byōbu; Ōtawa [?]; Mizunomi (Jihi); Asebi [?]; Fukakura; Kūtai; amaki (Koshō); Jikyōsha; enpōrin; Koya; Shō no Iwaya (Aikō); Uchi; Jinzen; aiko; Fudō (Akujo); Chie; Shitchūji [?]; Heichi [?] Miei (Kenkō); Kosaka; akahase [?]; Sōzu; Kikō [?]; Noguchi; Shirakawa; Gogakuyama [?]; Yoko’o [?]; Nete (Kokū); Waki; Funaishi; suya; Kamado; Hokke; Shishi; ō-in; Chū-in; Sai-in; Ōta; Yanagi. [Te first cave name is revealed by oral transmission only].
(B) Summer: the Flower offering ( hanaku) course started on the last day o the second month, and was completed on the tenth day o the ourth month. During the Edo period the summer course was the same as the spring course, that is, rom Mount Hiko to Mount Hōman and back. (C) Verso course (Autumn: rom Mount Hiko to Mount Fukuchi and back). Tis course started on the last day o the seventh month and was completed on the sixth day o the eighth month, and rom that day to the ourth day o the ninth month. In parentheses are the names o the Seven Great Adamantine Youths (Shichidaikongō dōji) who protected yamabushi peregrinating through the twenty-eight caves o the Katsuragi Range in the Kansai area, and who were worshipped by Mount Hiko yamabushi during the medieval period. Te Eight Great Adamantine Youths o the Ōmine range and the Seven Great Adamantine Youths o the Katsuragi range are said to have revealed themselves to En no Gyōja when Zaō gongen appeared to him. At Mount Hiko their listing represents the influence o Katsuragi and Kumano Shugendō during the medieval period, but their names disappear rom lodge lists rom the mid-seventeenth century on. Question marks indicate a conjectural reading. Sōji-in; Kashiki; Kōji gohō; Ichi-no-gohō; Amida; Shika’o; Ogura; arawara; Shirakusakura [?]; Kenkō akami [?]; Sakurata’o; Aimakoe [?]; Sugawara; Ishigoza [?]; Shaku-dake (Kokūgo); Fukuchi (Kokūku); Ryōkai; Kibe; Ryū-gahana (Kongō); Yanamizu [?] (Hōzō); Komiya; Ajibu; Kamakoe; atsu [?]; I-notake; Ōsakayama [?]; ogishiro; Aigyō; Ganjaku (Zōgo); Soeda; Hatakeyama; Nishibatake; Hedate [?]; Watauchi; Hōgabaru [?] (Jumyō); Midarebashi; anukino-iwaya; ogiba; Ike-no-o [?] (Hōgo); Oku-no-in; Oto [?]; Ishi gohō; Hottai ta’o [?]; Sonae; Chūgū; Ichi-no-take; Gegū; [Te first cave’s name by oral transmission only].
Among the amounts o work that need to be done in the uture, priority should be the connection between all these lodges to the deities ound in the two main mandalas o Shingon/endai esotericisms. I have proposed a long time ago such connections or the Matrix mandala in the Kumano range, which indicates that
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only a choice o deities therein could be evidenced, and it must have been the case here as well. 53 Detailed and precise GPS-based maps o the lodges’ location are also a priority.
Practices in the mountains Mandalized peregrinations represented a great deal o work, required much mental as well as physical concentration, and ofen led to exhaustion. Tey were rigidly organized, and each group o participants (separated by experience and ensuing rank) was given a set o specific duties and regulations to be observed at all times. All were sworn to secrecy; should they break their oath they were threatened with punishment by the Buddhas and the kami. Tese punishments ranged rom terrible illnesses to being thrown into bottomless hells. Te regulations were posted at lodges where nights were spent, and were read aloud twice every evening. Te oath o secrecy was known as the estamentary Admonition o the Founding Patriarch, or as the Golden Nail estamentary Admonition, and was uttered in ront o the leader and to the beat o a metal drum. Te 1826 version o the oath reads as ollows: Te mountain ranges [extending rom] Mount Hiko are the sacred spaces o the mandalas o the two realms [Matrix and Diamond], as our high patriarch, En no Ubasoku [En no Gyōja], ollowing esoteric rites and exerting himsel through ascetic practices in mountains and orests, located the various divinities [o the two mandalas] on high peaks and dusky vales. Tis Way is exceedingly proound and beyond conceptualization; consisting o secret rites, it is an esoteric practice causing those who have not yet studied to let the mind o awakening arise in themselves. It is orbidden to discuss the contents o rites with first-time practitioners prior to initiation into those rites, even though masters and disciples may be wise men and virtuous ones. All the more, then, is it orbidden to discuss these with lay olk. Apprised o these matters I swear that, should I ever reveal the contents o these rites to non-initiates, I shall be punished by Brahma (Bonten) and Indra (aishakuten) as well as by all kami o this country composed o more than sixty provinces; I shall be struck with black leprosy, white leprosy and other atal diseases, and shall all headlong to the bottomless hells. Such are the estamentary Admonitions o the Founding Patriarch.54
Te regulations or the various groups indicate the irresistible character o mountain cultic practices: an emphasis on hierarchy, attention to excruciating detail concerning the minutest bodily movement and the techniques o teaching
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and initiation. Discipline was at the core o these concerns, or it governed all activities o the body-mind, which it marked in the process o germination o Buddhahood. Tis process was reerred to as “practices o the ten realms,” which consisted o behavior that corresponded to the six destinations o transmigration and the our realms said to transcend those. Each o the ten realms was actually a domain o existential destiny caused by behavior, and was experienced symbolically by undergoing certain practices while in the mountains. Te first was the lowest destiny, the realm o hells; it was experienced symbolically by engaging in atoning practices ( gōhyō). Te second was the realm o hungry ghosts, which was experienced by way o asting. Te third was the realm o animals, experienced by way o abstaining rom drinking. Te ourth was the realm o the orever fighting ashura, experienced through sumō wrestling. Te fifh was the realm o humanity, symbolized by engaging in penitence rites. Te sixth was the realm o heavenly divinities, experienced through the perormance o longevity-enhancing dances (ennen). Te first o the our realms transcending transmigration was the vehicle o the Auditors (śrāvaka), and was symbolized by mountain ascetics wearing bikhu clothing, as well as by understanding the our noble truths. Te second was the pratyekaBuddha vehicle (sel-enlightened Buddhas), symbolized by mountains ascetics wearing the tokin implement on their oreheads, and by understanding the twelve causal actors. Te third was the Bodhisattva vehicle, symbolized by selmortification in the name o others, and by understanding the six perections. And the last o the our was the Buddha vehicle, symbolized by engaging in the rite o tokogatame body positioning and receiving the Complete Initiatory Unction (shōkanjō). Overarching as it may seem, however, this program was set within a large number o ritual precautions and activities, and could not occur without attention to daily needs, oremost among which was water. Food or offerings and or sustenance was carried to the ascetics by the shitogata, who were also responsible or carrying implements and texts, but the wood branches (kogi) used or the goma fire rituals had to be picked up everyday by the new inductees. Much was transmitted orally and never consigned in writing, so that our knowledge is quite limited; the ew texts written by yamabushi leaders offer good insights into timing and a host o practices, but always mention that there are secret oral transmissions concerning this or that rite, so that we are lef in the dark, more ofen than not. In any case, these endeavors were not or the aint o heart; sleeping time was strictly limited and was ofen disrupted or mid-night instructions or initiations, or to cause ear and thus enable shifs in consciousness;
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ood intake was scarce, but at times was more considerable and accompanied by miki—so that initiates might all into a deep sleep, only to be rudely awakened in the middle o the night by elder yamabushi banging the walls rom outside. Te duration o asting days varied over time, between three and seven days; and water was not allowed or three days, so that exhaustion quickly stepped in and some inductees ell ill—in which case they were put to death by stoning in order to remove the impurity inflicted on the group and its activities. Seven sanctuaries known as yamabushizuka (yamabushi unerary mounds), consisting o a pile o stones surrounding a large stone set vertically at the center, are dedicated to these yamabushi and are visible today on the peregrination paths between Mount Hiko, Mount Hōman and Mount Fukuchi. Stoning to death (ishikozume, called at Mount Hiko ishikozumi) was a gruesome but highly ritualized undertaking, and even a superficial look indicates its spatial character. In his book on the Shugendō o osa Province in Shikoku, Hiroe Kiyoshi states that there are only two extant written records o a yamabushi’s death by stoning, but this is clearly wrong i one sees these stone mounts in Kyushu. 55. Tis practice must be related to the topic o the late medieval Nō play anikō (Te Valley Rite), which ocused on a youth who ell ill during the Yoshino-Kumano course. Apparently, only inductees in mandalized peregrinations were submitted to this ate. Many o the lodges where the yamabushi spent their nights consisted o wooden structures, some small, some large. Tese lodges were approached and entered ritually, seating therein was oriented, and the lodges were lef ritually afer complete cleansing inside and outside. Initiations took place therein, as well as a number o rituals ranging rom flower offering to scripture chanting. During the mandalized peregrinations o Mount Hiko every yamabushi had to perorm a list o ritual activities known as sanji kingyō (triple duty). Te first had to be completed between seven and nine in the evening, and consisted in chanting the Heart Sutra in three ascicles; in reciting 100 times each the spells o the Adamantine and Matrix Realms; in reciting 100 times the second o Fudō myōō’s three spells ( jikuju: namaku samanta basaratan senda makaroshana sa hataya un tarata kanman (Skt., Namah samanta-vajrān ām can d a mahāros an a sphat aya hūm trāt ham mām ) in reciting 100 times the title-names o the Sacred Youths protecting the practitioners; in the sanjō shakujō rite, which consisted o shaking one’s staff while reciting the first three o the nine paragraphs o the Kujō shakujō text; in reciting once the text o the ritual association o the body with the five elements; and in reciting once the eight- verse stanza o the Renge zanmai kyō.56
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Te second set o daily duties, to be perormed between 3 and 5 a.m., consisted in Kujō shakujō, in reciting the Heart Sutra in three ascicles, in chanting 100 times each the spells o the Adamantine and Matrix Realms, in chanting 100 times Fudō myōō’s spell, in reciting 100 times the title-names o the Sacred Youths protecting the practitioners; in reciting once the text o the ritual association o the body with the five elements; and in reciting once the eight verse stanza o the Renge zanmai kyō. Te third set o daily duties, finally, was to be perormed between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., and consisted in chanting the entire Kujō shakujō text; in chanting the Heart Sutra in three ascicles; in reciting 100 times each the spells o the Adamantine and Matrix Realms; in reciting 100 times Fudō myōō’s spell; in reciting 100 times the title-names o the Sacred Youths protecting the practitioners; in chanting once the kogi stanza (usually chanted afer making a triple offering o wooden slats used in the goma fire ritual); in reciting once the text o the ritual association o the body with the five elements; and in reciting once the eight- verse stanza o the Renge zanmai kyō. Tis list evidences an emphasis on recitation, ritual implements, ritual protection, and on the body-mind as a “space” on which work needed to be done because it was the site o the realization o Buddhahood. In terms o ritual implements, the yamabushi were taught intricate meanings o every single aspect o the implements they carried or were dressed in. Te most important o these was the creel (oi), o which there were several kinds. Te creel carried by the leader o the group was held to be that o Shugendō’s patriarch En no Ozunu, or to at least embody him; as such, it was the object o many rituals, and o the ollowing interpretation reported by Akyūbō Sokuden in the sixteenth century: Te creel used in Shugendō embodies both the principle and the susbstance o the seed-letter [a], and its meaning encompasses all phenomena o the ten realms. Te act that it holds grains o the five cereals indicates that it symbolizes the germination process o Buddha Nature. Its height (one shaku and eight sun) symbolizes the eighteen realms.57 Its width (one shaku and two sun) symbolizes the twelve causal actors. Its two legs (five sun in length) symbolize the act that they are replete with the various phenomena that make up the ten realms or lay olk. Te creel’s upper plate is the ritual platorm o the seed-letter [a] o the Matrix Realm. Its height (one shaku and three sun) symbolizes the thirteen great [courts o the Matrix mandala]. Its width (nine sun) symbolizes the nine deities o the lotus blossom’s central court and its eight petals. Tose yamabushi who reflect on this will not ail to realize that every single thought o theirs contains all phenomena o the ten realms. Is this not sublime?58
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Tis creel, then, symbolized the Matrix Realm mandala. Te mountain ascetics set on top o their creel a rectangular box called katabako in which they kept ritual documents and such necessary tools as ink, paper, and inkstone (the katabako is abandoned in contemporary practices). Tis box was also the object o semiotic overlay: Te “shoulder-box” (katabako) is the secret container o Shugendō doctrine. Its shape symbolizes the seed-letter o the Adamantine Realm mandala. It contains secret documents that outline the rites perormed during the mandalized peregrinations. Its height (one shaku and eight sun) stands or the eighteen realms. Its width (six sun) stands or the six elements [that make up the body-mind and the universe]. Its depth (five sun) symbolizes the five wisdoms. Tose who carry it will earn incalculable merits even though they may not understand all doctrinal points. Such is the reason why our high patriarch set up rules or making ritual implements. 59
Tis katabako box, then, symbolized the Adamantine Realm mandala. Te symbolism o what the creel and the box contain is in perect harmony with what the two mandalas are said to represent. In the case o the Matrix Realm mandala, the grains o the five cereals stood or the process o production o the universe qua awakening. And in the case o the Adamantine Realm mandala, the texts represented the principle o the universe and o the knowledge that acquires it. Reborn through rituals concerning conception, growth, and birth; mystically identified with Fudō myōō (the wrathul orm o the Buddha Mahāvairocana); protected by Heavenly Youths as they trekked through vast mountain ranges and labored through numerous and astidious rites; awash in agricultural symbolism, the yamabushi produced their own territory, which they conceived o as a space in which nothing differentiated mere living rom ideal being. Teirs was a spatiality bounded in a myriad ways ranging rom orientation to gates, paths, and lodges; rom body-mind concepts to notions concerning the nature o the universe; rom social hierarchy lines to historical (i only imagined) lineages inscription; and rom relations between specialists o ritual and beneactors thereo. However, even i rom today’s perspective they may be characterized as having been caught in their webs o interrelated signs and endlessly mirroring meanings, they nonetheless called or complete emancipation rom all and any limitations and limits, because they thought that their rules and interpretations were what traced the royal avenue leading to emancipation and opening up onto endless space (emptiness). As we look today at the landscape o the ranges they crossed and overlaid with multiple arcane meanings, we can only hope to earn a mere glimpse o their
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mindscape through the study o their practices, o their texts, and o their mapping o immanence onto local topography. As the first “geographers” o Japan, they insisted that space did not truly exist unless it was suffused with a liberating meaning to be produced through perception (direct physiopsychological experience), practice (directed physio-psychological experience), and interpretive schemata (directing modalities o experience). One is here again struck by Pierre Bourdieu’s superior understanding o the logic o practice: “All the symbolic manipulations o body experience, starting with displacements within a symbolically structured space, tend to impose the integration o body space with cosmic space and social space.” 60
Te Daigyōji shrines and water radition has it that orty-eight shrines bearing the name Daigyōji, a term that might be translated as “great official,” were built on land domains controlled by Mount Hiko perhaps as early as the Heian period and later, over the course o the late Kamakura and early Muromachi periods. Tese shrines’ history is poorly known, but it ollowed the ups and downs o Mount Hiko’s economic power, and the Meiji cultural revolution inflicted on them long-lasting damage and major structural changes or, in some cases, total destruction, so that little can be said with any certainty. Te most comprehensive list o these shrines was established by Ōga Shinshō, who names orty sites o cult he classifies in the ollowing manner: five were located within the sacred perimeter; six were located along the “Six Ranges” o Mount Hiko; seven were located in villages at the oot o Mount Hiko (o these, only five locations are known today); and twenty-two were located in villages extending to the outer limits o Mount Hiko’s land estates.61 Te unction o these shrines is said to have been the protection o both Mount Hiko and the population associated with the shrines at the times o ritual; those Daigyōji Shrines that were located on land estates symbolized Mount Hiko’s control as well. Seven such shrines were located at the strategic points o the “Four Gates” and “Tree Entrances” on the roads leading to the mountain and the limits o the sacred perimeter. A urther unction was spiritual: many o these shrines belong to the triple-shrine set o sanctuaries ofen associated with Shugendō. Tat is, the triple set consists o a lower shrine, a middle shrine, and an upper shrine (which can very distant rom each other), and are dedicated to mountain kami. Last but not least, nearly all shrines display a eature that should not be ignored: they ace the rivers that take their sources on the slopes o Mount
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Hiko, and their officiants must have played a role in maintaining the purity o water or ritual and agricultural purposes, and may even have overseen watersharing rights, or intervened when conflicts over those occurred. Some o these shrines are rather large, and one can still see on their grounds traces o residences or monks who may have controlled the working population on the estates, and who must have engaged in a variety o rites by now abandoned. Tere is no question that the majority o rivers that irrigate northern Kyushu are related to Mount Hiko, whose shrines and temples symbolized its claims to produce and maintain the ertility o fields, and to guarantee water purity and flow as well as rain in a timely ashion. Indeed, an analysis o the river system o the area does bear out this notion, and a search or water-related rituals confirms the cultic character o ood production as well as the social issues connected to water sharing. Te picture o a vast cultic system thus emerges rom an analysis o water systems connected to ritual eatures, and o lengthy peregrinations whose participants went rom Mount Hiko along ridges near sources o water, and returned along water-filled paddy fields located at the base o those ranges. Mount Hiko’s spatialities, then, were characterized by cultic, economic, and social eatures that were all interrelated, and i anything more can be said o the yamabushi without ear o hyperbole, they covered the ground and knew water sources and their economic uses, but lost control over both. I hope that in the uture we will see detailed studies o these sanctuaries in relation to land estates, in the spirit o those detailed studies that have been conducted with regard to the estates o the Kunisaki Peninsula. And I hope that more research will be conducted on the topic o water-share shrines (mikumari jinja) in relation to mountains and water divides ( bunsui rei). Indeed, a recent book on the topic o Japan’s water divides shows that the majority o mountain ranges that orm several water divides across the country are, in act, those ranges and peaks which Shugendō held to be sacred. 62 It is also absolutely clear that sources o water and many wells were considered sacred: all texts mention them in the case o Mount Hōman, o Mount Hiko, o Mount Kubote, o Mount Fukuchi, and o many peaks in the Kunisaki Peninsula as well as in the Usa region. For centuries, Japan’s mountain ascetics were called on to perorm rain-making rituals, to divine the location o sources o water, to call on the divinities o lakes; and their sacred mountains are always related to water sources, wells, and lakes, near which they erected sanctuaries and perormed rituals or agrarian ertility. Tey purified themselves in rivers and under wateralls, many o which they loaded with extensive symbolism. And they perormed daily rites to consecrate water in
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the course o their mandalized peregrinations, water they would offer to the deities or would use or their own needs. Finally, it must be underlined that hal o each o their mandalized courses exactly ollowed the water divides o northeast Kyushu. Mount Hiko’s Daigyōji Shrines may best be viewed in this light, although one must also pay attention to the slow decadence o these institutions over the course o the Edo period. Tis decadence was due to the act that Mount Hiko lost control over its estates, and had to increasingly rely on lay patrons or survival. As the yamabushi traveled around Kyushu and western Honshu to garner support, and as they gained economic support rom people in cities and towns close and ar, their local role in water systems aded away.
Usa Hachiman’s oracular spatialities63 Te early ourteenth-century document entitled Hachiman Usa- gū Gotakusenshū, “Compendium o Oracles Proffered by Hachiman at the Usa Sanctuary” is quite a remarkable text and the very structure o its organization compels one to see in time and space the key settings or the production and interpretation o oracular speech.64 Te author o this document was Jin’un (1231–1314), who was born in the Ōga sacerdotal house. He did not become a sacerdotal officiant o the Usa Hachiman Shrine, however. Instead, he became a Buddhist monk and eventually rose to the position o leading scholarly monk o the Mirokuji, the set o temples that governed Usa’s Shrine-temple complex but had been burnt to the ground in 1184; in contemporary Japanese scholarly works he is usually reerred to as having been a shasō, “shrine-monk.” It will be recalled that beore their deeat at Dan-no-ura in 1185, the aira had stayed in the Usa area and that the Usa sacerdotal house allowed them to “borrow” the Usa Shrine- temple complex as an imperial residence or the inant emperor Antoku. On the sixth day o the seventh month o 1184, however, the warlord Ogata Koreyoshi and his brother Koretaka levied an army and attacked the site o cult, reducing it to ashes and causing as much widespread consternation and lament as when, our years earlier, the aira had reduced the ōdaiji emple o Nara to cinders. Te destruction o the Usa Hachiman complex was apparently so complete that Nakano Hatayoshi went so ar as to write that the history o Usa afer 1184 is little more than that o its slow reconstruction. Jin’un planned to play a central part in this process with his compilation o the Compendium, or he realized that mytho-history was the symbolic key to gathering the material goods that
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would be necessary to both the reconstruction o the site o cult and the recovery and maintenance o its landholdings. Furthermore, the first Mongol invasion, in 1274, stirred many a eeling in Kyushu and elsewhere, but it certainly caused strong i not virulent reactions in the leading centers o the Hachiman cult. It is indeed in documents o this cult that one encounters the strongest xenophobic statements o the medieval period, and many Hachiman sites o cult claimed that their divine entity was the cause o the kamikaze (divine wind), which ultimately destroyed the Mongol fleet. 65 Tere is no doubt that the Mongol invasions caused Jin’un to reconsider the direction o history and the nature o the relations between Hachiman, the imperial state, and the warlords’ power. Indeed, the last two o the sixteen scrolls o the Compendium are dedicated to the role o Hachiman as supernatural protector o Japan’s territory. A great many historical records and documents disappeared in the 1184 destructions, and Jin’un decided to gather all available documents rom various Hachiman sites o cult in Kyushu and elsewhere, in order to organize them and reconstruct the “history” o Usa. In his introduction to the Compendium he notes that he spent two decades gathering these documents, and that he began writing on the second day o the tenth month o 1290, at the age o fify-nine. He laid his brush down around the eighth month o 1313, and passed away the ollowing year, on the twentieth day o the fifh month, at the age o eighty-two. Tus, the Compendium is the result o almost a hal-century o research and writing. Jin’un does not claim to be the author o the Usa Hachiman cultic site’s history, or the source o the Compendium is ostensibly and ostentatiously a series o oracular pronouncements that would have been made by the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman itsel. Jin’un acts as though he viewed his own role as no more than that o a human and rail commentator: in the Compendium, the text (that is, the oracles) is made to appear as divine, and the commentary (Jin’un’s interpretation), merely human. Or should one posit, or the sake o discussion, the opposite? Namely, that the commentary’s own relativity was politely posited as a subteruge meant to hide the act that it used its idolization o oracular speech only to guarantee the authenticity o its own interpretive outlook? Te issue, then, is how Jin’un viewed “oracles,” “truth,” “interpretation,” and “history.” Jin’un’s understanding o Hachiman’s identity was clearly colored by two different sources o existential concern: on the one hand, he was a major Buddhist prelate to whose mind Hachiman was a Great Kami qua Great Bodhisattva who could speak no lie; on the other hand, Jin’un was a descendant o Ōga no Higi, the elderly sword smith to whom Hachiman would have maniested itsel as a young
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boy standing on a bamboo branch. In other words, Jin’un had to present Hachiman as a bicephalic entity: as champion o the Mahāyāna truth system, and as guarantor o the Ōga sacerdotal house’s claim to legitimacy in the Usa Shrine-temple complex (and urthermore, though not inconsequentially, o Jin’un’s own claim to legitimate interpretation o Hachiman’s oracles and history, these last two terms orming, in Jin’un’s mind, an inseparable tandem). 66 Jin’un exposes his view o Hachiman’s oracular speech in his introduction to the Compendium in the ollowing way: Te Great Bodhisattva Hachiman is the sacred figurehead o the sixteenth generation o human sovereigns [“Emperor” Ōjin]. When [the emperor’s] precious age reached one hundred eleven years, he passed away. Upon completing supernatural journeys to India and China he broadly dispensed his virtue o compassion and, maniesting himsel in various orms, he perormed multiarious miracles: shadow o a past emperor, but [to us] a divine radiance, he sheds light depending on the occasion, and thus universally illuminates the world. Distinct rom trees and plants though they are, separate rom animals though they may be, humans are endowed with sapience, but they are prone to erring. What measure can be established, then, o [the error o] a ool? During the august reign o Emperor Kinmei there was a certain Ōga no Higi, who was no common man. Living as a mountain recluse, he concealed his whereabouts while revealing his appearance on the pathway o salvation. Subject to neither production nor destruction, he reached more than five hundred years o age. [. . .] [Hachiman] made a vow to protect the imperial line and show compassion or the people, he swore to give peace to this court and to paciy oreign lands. What do the words “protect the imperial line and show compassion or the people” mean? Only this: to progressively reveal [the nature o the Buddha’s] awakening. What do the words “give peace to this court and paciy oreign lands” mean? Only this: to dispel errors one by one. Were it not so, what else could it be? Te honji are obscure and proound and reveal themselves this or that way, but the Buddha is just that: the Buddha. Te body o essence is pervasive and maniests itsel as all phenomena, but a kami spirit is just that: a spirit. [Tereore] one [must] surrender to the Buddha and to the kami, and, choosing a single path, pray or the present and the uture. Walking on the ground o mystic realization, one expresses gratitude. [. . .] On the Buddhist level preaching takes the orm called sutra; on the Shintō level it is called oracle. 67 A Buddha shows his orm while teaching, but a kami remains without ormal aspect while speaking. [. . .] Jin’un was born in the twenty-first generation afer Higi, and studied under the twenty-eighth generation o the Buddha’s disciples.68
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As this passage indicates, or Jin’un the relation between a Buddha (as honji, that is, essence) and a kami (as that Buddha’s suijaku, that is, hypostasis) determined the relation between a sutra and an oracle, and was characterized by the site o issuance o speech: the visible world in the case o the Buddha, the invisible world in the case o the kami. In terms o authority, an oracle (the true word o a kami) was equivalent to a sutra (the true word o a Buddha), although there was a significant distinction: one could not question the veracity o a sutra but could question it in the case o an oracle, and this had to do with political authority. Whereas the emperor did not question the contents o a sutra, he could (and did) question an oracle’s truth and decide to doubt it (Chūai—Ōjin’s ather—did so but died as a result), or he could decide to countercheck, in which case what was doubted was not the oracle, but its interpreter. Te authors o Kojiki had philosophized that beyond this world o appearances, that is, o things visible, there was a realm o concealed source o thought and action, not visible to the eyes and to be accessed via aural perception rather than visual perception. Needless to add, this realm was—unlike the visible world governed by rulers—the ken o sacerdotal specialists, whose unction it was to cross the threshold and receive knowledge rom a realm that can only be called hyperrealistic. Tereore, the uture was thought o as something issuing rom speech: either (in the political order) as a decree, or (in the sacerdotal order) as an oracle, and (in the Buddhist order), as a sutra .69 Tis alone should cause one to pause and consider the problem o absence and presence, or the question is, What caused speech to erupt as a complex set o relationships between the tongue, palate, vocal cords and so on? Was it the result o a desire yet unulfilled— to transorm a perceived absence into a satisying presence? Was it the result o the perceived presence and comorting certainty, deep in onesel, o a divine murmur? Was it a dream?70 Was it a violent and sudden irruption, an invasion on the part a kami or a Bodhisattva? 71 Was it consciously caused through the use o certain techniques?72 Why so many women and children as mouthpieces? 73 And why so ofen in the context o inner or outer conflicts and contests, or o existential anxiety and dread?74 Te Compendium alone does not provide the answers, but it helps clear some o the ground. Te Hachiman Usa- gū Gotakusenshū consists o sixteen scrolls. Each scroll bears on its outer decoration the complete title o the Compendium, preceded by a single graph; when the scrolls are put side by side the top sixteen graphs read, rom right to lef, Hachiman’s Bodhisattva name: Go-koku-rei- gen-i-riki-jin-zūdai-ji-zai-ō-dai-bosatsu, preceded by the two graphs meaning “My Name [is].” Te locutionary quality o the work is thus prominently displayed, both vertically
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and horizontally .75 Interestingly enough, spatial eatures dominate the entire organization o a work dedicated to speech and time: all scrolls ocus on space, as becomes evident in the ollowing list: Scroll 1: On the August Origins and Rank Scroll 2: On the Tree Countries [India, China, Japan] Scroll 3: On the August Peregrinations around Japan Scroll 4: On the Tree Sanctuaries and Others Scroll 5: On the Sites Surrounding Hishigata Pond Scroll 6: On the Ogura Hill Sanctuary (part one) Scroll 7: On the Ogura Hill Sanctuary (part two) Scroll 8: On the Ōo Sanctuary (part one) Scroll 9: On the Ōo Sanctuary (part two) Scroll 10: On the Ōo Sanctuary (part three) Scroll 11: More on the Ogura Hill Sanctuary (part one) Scroll 12: More on the Ogura Hill Sanctuary (part two) Scroll 13: On the Wakamiya Sanctuary Scroll 14: On Peak Maki (also called “On Mount Omoto”) Scroll 15: On Subjugating Foreign Lands (part one) Scroll 16: On Subjugating Foreign Lands (part two). In other words, the production (and reproduction) o speech is organized on the bases o the place where, or about which, oracular speech occurred, and o Jin’un’s aithul ocus on the history o the Usa sites o cult. Be it oracular or interpretive, this speech concerns territoriality over time: its sacred origins, its maintenance, and its envisioned uture, on the level o India, China and Japan; Japan in particular, on the level o the various sacred sites making up Usa; and on the related levels o imperial control, warlord intrusions, and cultic integrity. Te presence o the chatty deity maniested itsel on the visible ground, where shrines dedicated to commemoration were placed—as many sites o cult as there were commemorative narratives. Te “origins” o Hachiman are treated differently in the first three scrolls: in the first scroll, they are treated on the basis o Nihon Shoki and Fusō Ryakki, as a matter o genealogy; in the second scroll, Hachiman’s origins are treated on the basis o international considerations, as a matter o status; and in the third scroll, they are treated on the basis o geographical origins, as a matter o territorial influence. Te oracles begin in the third scroll, and they all concern place, as in the ollowing opening lines: One. First, Utsu no akashima in Karakuni.76 In the thirty-second year o the reign o the Emperor Amatsukuni Oshihiraki Hironiwa, while there was a
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supernatural occurrence on the Ōo Hill o Hishigata in the Usa district o Buzen Province, and as Ōga no Higi was uttering words o supplication, Yahata [Hachiman] maniested itsel as a heavenly youth and spake: “As eight banners came down rom Heaven onto Karakuni-no-shiro, I maniested mysel as a Kami in Japan. I will take all living beings under my care. I am a metamorphic body o Shaka-bosatsu.” [note by Jin’un: rest abridged]. Te first human emperor, Kamu-Yamato Iwarehiko-no-mikoto, ascended to the Palace o Indra at the age o ourteen and took hold o the Seal and Key, and subsequently returned to Karakuni-no-shiro in Japan. Tis palace is called So’o-no-mine, [which is] another name or Mount Kirishima. [. . .] Personal note: Karakuni-no-shiro, located in Ōsumi Province, is the original site o maniestation o Emperor Ōjin’s spirit. Tis is known because o an imperial proclamation. Ōsumi Hachiman is Hachiman in its maniestation as the son o the Ch’en Emperor Wu’s daughter.77 Tus we know that Hachiman maniests itsel in separate suijaku orms. [. . .] Next, Mount Ibuki in Yamato Province.78 Next, Nakusa Beach in Kii Province. Next, Kashima near Kibi-no-miya. Next, Saba Yurado in Suō Province. Tese our sites are listed in ancient documents. No oracular pronouncements yet. Next, Uwa District in Iyo Province. Next, a large stone by Nada Beach, located in the Aki District o the Kunisaki administrative villages ( gō) in Bungo Province. Oracle, dated eighth day o the intercalary tenth month o the first year o the enpyō-Jingo era: “In the distant past, as I proceeded rom Uwa District in Iyo Province, there was a large stone offshore o Nada, in the Kunisaki administrative villages in Bungo Province, to which I pushed on in order to rest. Tis stone is thereore named the August Armrest Stone.”79
And so the text walks the reader through the landscape it creates, and calls or a mental map. Much o the symbolic world o the Hachiman cult rests on oracles related to travel narratives, bespeaking o territorial conquest and control, be it in the case o the amed travel rom Usa to the ōdaiji emple’s amuke Hachiman Shrine in 749, o the regular set o double travel in the Gyokō-e ritual, in the present case o Hachiman’s geographical discovery and control, or in the subsequent warlord cults that were dedicated on battle-fields. Te cult was, first and oremost, mapped onto the land. Here one recognizes a salient pattern already evident in the conquest narratives ound in Kojiki, Nihon Shoki, Fudoki,
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Yamatohime no mikoto seiki and other texts, a pattern one might call with apology to Caesar: “I came, I saw, and I named.” Whether this privilege given to place was related to land estates, or to the union or gaps between actual administrative division and perceived union o land estates, is an issue that cannot be resolved at the present time, though it may be o some import .80 It is pertinent at this point to recall Kuroda oshio’s brilliant analysis o Mount Hiei’s kike (the chroniclers o Mount Hiei’s institutions’ relation to the court), o whom he wrote that their thinking was grounded in a spatiality symbolized by the predominant organizational scheme o their existential reality, the mandala.81 Tis mode o thinking, Kuroda argued, can be expressed as ollows: Antithetic characteristics o these two trends (a group o writings concerning the sacred area o Mount Hiei, and a group o writings describing the origins and the history o Mount Hiei) can be noted; one could say that the texts belonging to the first trend are doctrinal and tend toward secrecy and mysticism, whereas those o the second tend toward fiction and historicism. Moreover, the first originate in kimon and end up in secret oral transmissions, are made up o poetry and ormulas expressing the sacred and secret character o a mystical world, while the second originate in historical events (koji) and end in prosodic and episodic antasies expressing the proane world and its legends and miraculous events. [. . .] Generally speaking, the first trend indicates a logic that develops spatially, symbolically, and as a mandala. It is doctrinal, mystical and secretive while tending to indicate the “essence” [honji]. Te second trend evidences a logic that develops temporally, is descriptive and partakes o the etiological records (engi) while tending to indicate the “hypostasis” [suijaku].82
One is thus dealing with a specific orm o what Gaston Bachelard in 1958 named topophilia.83 Tis term was introduced into human geography three years later by Yi-Fu uan, and was urther refined by him in his 1974 book o the same name. We are also dealing with the related concept o geopiety, a term first used by the geographer John Kirkland Wright in 1966, subsequently refined by Yi-Fu uan, and used or misused by mysel some twenty years later.84 Innumerable are the place names related to Hachiman’s cult, either in the Compendium or other medieval etiological records ( engi); what dominates all reerences to these sites o cult, however, is a deep sense o place, a specific sense o territoriality couched in prooundly mystical terms, and “a poetic reverie stimulated by affective ties to the elemental world and to emotionally charged places.”85 One can also detect a aint nostalgia or past claims to land estate possessions, most o which had been overtaken by warlords at the time Jin’un was writing. Te oracular cult dedicated to Hachiman concerned, first and oremost, territoriality,
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and this may be why oracular speech emphasized space and time. One might add that territoriality was also, although only marginally, perhaps, a matter o social space, since it was related to control over land and people on the part o the rulers.86 Many issues raised by a cursory reading o this document remain to be discussed in much more detail, but one will suffi ce. It is the notion that society is an imaginary institution, and that this imagination turns into reality via speech, and especially so via divinatory and oracular speech, urther reinorced (re-enorced?), or balanced, by political proclamations. In premodern Japan these two orms o speech coexisted and needed each other, just as the institutions o the Office o the Kami o Heaven and Earth ( Jingikan) and the Office o Political Matters (Dajōkan) had been supposed to orm the wings fluttering on each side o the court’s backbone. Cornelius Castoriadis offers the ollowing view on the issue: Te social imaginary or instituting society exists in and through the positingcreating o social imaginary significations and o the institution; o the institution as the “presentification” o these significations, and o these significations as instituted.87
It is perhaps not too surprising that another proponent o this notion is the philosopher o language John Searle. In Mind, Language and Society , Searle suggests that “We cannot create a state o affairs by thinking it, but [. . .] we can see how it is possible to create institutional reality by way o the perormative utterance. We can create a state o affairs by representing it as having been created.”88 I I may be so bold as to borrow and paraphrase these words, oracles are typical perormative utterances that are ar more superior to thinking since they can create the institutional reality that will back their legitimacy (or establish their raudulence). It remains to be seen whether Searle’s reliance on Austin’s linguistics may help determine exactly which o his “illocutionary points” resembles most the intentionality o an oracle. According to Searle, these (five) points are as ollows. First, the assertive illocutionary point, which is to commit the hearer to the truth o the proposition: it is to present the proposition as representing a state o affairs in the world. Some examples are statements, descriptions, classifications, and explanations. Second, the directive illocutionary point, which is to try to get the hearer to behave in such a way as to make his behavior match the propositional content o the directive. Tird, the commissive illocutionary point, which is a commitment by the speaker to undertake the course o action represented in the propositional content. Fourth, the expressive illocutionary point, which is simply
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to express the sincerity condition o the speech act. Fifh and last, the declaration illocutionary point, which is to bring about a change in the world by representing it as having changed.”89
Tese five points are widely used in the oracles. At this point it is proper to return to Castoriadis: Society is, thereore, always the sel-institution o the social-historical. But this sel-institution generally is not known as such (which has led people to believe that it cannot be known as such). Te alienation o heteronomy o society is selalienation; the concealment o the being o society as sel-institution in its own eyes, covering over its essential temporality. Tis sel-alienation—sustained by the responses that have been supplied by history up to now to the requirements o psychical unctioning, by the tendency proper to the institution, and by the practically incoercible domination o identitary logic-ontology—is maniested in the social representation (itsel instituted in each case) o an extra- social origin o the institution o society (an origin ascribed to supernatural beings, God, nature, reason, necessity, the laws o history or the being- thus o Being ).90
Te italicized parts o this quotation fit not only a “modern” interpretation o oracular speech but seem to fit the misrecognition that would have made understandings current in Jin’un’s time possible at all. Tese understandings concern the widely shared notion, among aristocrats as well as commoners, o divine origins, divine speech, sacred grounds, and revealed ( ken) and esoteric (mitsu) meanings, all o which served as institutional pillars o society and history. In conclusion, then, one may say that oracular speech depended either on presence or on absence—or on both, and that it could not be understood separately rom specific chronotypes or geotypes. Furthermore, it appears that oracular speech may have been be treated by some authorities at the time as plain treachery—and by other authorities, as divine and thereore unassailable, depending on whose political power and intentionality were expressed—with due apologies to Friedrich Nietzsche—as: “Tus Spake Hachiman”.
Kunisaki: a much disturbed heterotopia A brie presentation o the region’s early medieval history ollowed by a discussion o the Lotus Sutra and its institutional ramework in the peninsula help understand the nature o this system. Te final battle that pitted the Minamoto against the aira warlords took place in 1185 at Dan-no-ura, a small
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bay on the southern side o Hiko Island, itsel located at the western entrance o the Kanmon Straits that separate Kyushu rom Honshu. Te victory o the Minamoto there, as well as their subsequent establishment o the military government in Kamakura, had dramatic consequences or Kyushu, many parts o which had been pro-aira strongholds. Although the annihilation o the aira house heralded entirely new political, military, and economic arrangements or much o Japan, none o those arrangements took place peaceully or swifly: they brought about much destruction in northern Kyushu, and they negatively affected lie in the Kunisaki peninsula. Little is known about the actual institutions in the peninsula during the Heian period, and it is not beore the twelfh century that records offering glimpses o their character come to the surace. Te second part o the Heian period, however, was obviously a time o glorious achievements: the system o twenty-eight temples mentioned in the first chapter was established by the twelfh century, and the peninsula’s more elegant temples and statues all date back to the late eleventh and early twelfh centuries, witnesses to sustained economic support. Indeed, even today—afer centuries o neglect, destructions, and pillage—visitors to the region cannot but be impressed by the numerous remaining examples o refined architecture. Stone as well as wood sculptures, by the thousands, let one imagine a glorious past: the Fukiji and Maki Ōdō temples, the peninsula’s Kumano carvings o Fudō myōō next to Dainichi nyorai as well as the other stone carvings o the Heian period that dot the peninsula, including the stone statues o Usuki not ar south, all indicate the depth, magnitude, and complexity o the combinatory cults that evolved in the region. Te twelfh century ended in an altogether different manner: the warlords o the Ogata house, loyal to the aira house at first but subsequently shifing allegiance to the Minamoto house, invaded the peninsula and, under the guise o taking cultic responsibility, took over estates that had been under management o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, which was then so powerul an institution that the aira house had appointed Usa no Kinmichi, head-priest o the complex, to the position o provincial governor. Kinmichi transormed the Usa Shrine-temple complex into an imperial palace o sorts when the inant emperor Antoku resided there or a while. In 1184, however, the Ogata warlords attacked Usa, set the grand shrine-temple complex on fire and entirely destroyed it, causing much consternation across the country .91 Tis momentous event requires some explanation. We saw earlier on that about two-thirds o the arable land available in the provinces o Buzen and Bungo were estates commended to shrine-temple complexes. At the time, the word
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kishin (commendation) simply meant that a title/claim to management was transerred rom an individual to a shrine-temple complex or to a member o the court. o translate the word as “grant” or “donation” would be misleading, or it was through the symbolic act o transer that the notion o ownership became a act at the very same time as ownership itsel was split between the donor and the grantee. In Kyushu, typically, wealthy “land-owners” were tax managers or local notables who managed estates that originally belonged, ully or in part, to the court, or which they had developed on their own. In order to gain legitimacy or their ownership claim, these tax managers requently transerred the entitlement o such estates to various shrine-temple complexes, thereby acquiring symbolic capital at the same time as they came to be recognized by these complexes as “donors” o the land. Tey would not leave these estates, however, and remained wealthy as they became estate administrators in the name o the shrine-temple complexes; that is, they continued to oversee the development o the land, withdrew part o the yearly charges and taxes or themselves, and maintained law and order. In the best case o local autonomy they developed local administrative systems, which varied a great deal depending on the regions or on the size o the estates. In the worst case o local instability, either they or the shrine- temple complexes transerred the “office/commission” ( shiki) to courtiers, who then delegated administrative powers to the shrine-temple complexes (such was the case o Kunisaki in 1210, when Jichin transerred entitlement to Imperial Prince Asabito). More ofen than not, then, an “entitlement” to estates was no more than a symbolic gesture or claim, which requently came to rest at the highest levels o Japanese society among members o the court—in which case these members were reerred to as honke-shiki and had the right to withhold some revenue. Te originators o the transer were known as lords ( ryōke-shiki), while the administrators o the estates were known as custodians ( azukaridokoro-shiki). As can be surmised, this multi-tiered system o entitlement claims and transers o responsibilities was unwieldy, complex, sometimes corrupt, and weak because o its chronic instability and built-in legal deficiencies. In the case o aristocrats such as the Fujiwara house, or example, who sometimes claimed both honkeshiki and ryōke-shiki status vis-à- vis some o their estates, the imperial house never claimed honke-shiki status to estates o which the Fujiwara were ryōkeshiki title-holders. In other words, ownership was in the early medieval period a uzzy notion, and internecine competition or the right to manage and extract revenue rom estates was the rule more than the exception. Tis set o complex conditions explains in part why there were so many transers o entitlement (kishin) rom individuals to shrine-temple complexes,
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rom shrine-temple complexes to aristocrats or members o the imperial house, and rom aristocrats and members o the imperial house to shrine- temple complexes. Moreover, once they had transerred an estate entitlement to shrinetemple complexes, the local notables-turned administrators o such estate did everything in their power to maintain economic and political control over it. Teir first move was to arm themselves, and this seems to have been part o the process whereby many o those houses slowly ormed a social class o warlords with highly local, competing interests. One exemplary case made amous by the ale o the Heike ( Heike Monogatari) is that o the Ogata warlords o Bungo Province, and it will shed light on the matter. It will be recalled that the Usa Hachiman Shrine was run, originally, by three main sacerdotal lines, the Ōga, Usa, and Karashima houses; the leading members o these lines vied or control over ritual and administrative matters in the shrine-temple complex, which the Usa house gained by the middle o the Heian period. Te Usa house then began to transmit its hereditary title to the head sacerdotal officiant position ( daigūji) among its members, and the ōga house was orced into a secondary, submissive position. Tis situation drove some members o the Ōga house to abandon the Usa area as early as the beginning o the ninth century, and relocate in the southern region o Bungo Province, which they quickly dominated and in which they oversaw the development o a high culture symbolized by the Hachiman cult and by the large stone engravings and sculptures that have made northern Kyushu an unparalleled storehouse o Buddhist stone sculpture in Japan. Tese members o the Ōga house then became local officials, and subsequently crafed legends enabling them to ormulate an identity that distinguished them rom the ōga sacerdotal house o Usa. Over time they split into various branches that took different names, such as the Anan, Wasada, Ono, Usuki, Saga, and Kaku houses; each o these in turn branched off into new houses, whose heads eventually became land owners (myōshu) and, subsequently, stewarts ( jitō). Among those, members o the Usuki house came to control estates in the name o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, such as the Usuki, Ogata, Saga, Betsuki, and Kaku estates, and each head o a branch house then took the name o an estate under its control. By the end o the twelfh century this extended Ōga house had spread over much o the southern part o Bungo Province and became a military power best represented, perhaps, by the warlord Ogata Koreyoshi (?–1191?). Koreyoshi was administrator (shōshi) o the Ogata estate, and because o the extensive presence o the aira house in western Japan he had become a vassal ( kenin) o aira Shigemori. For reasons not presented here because they involve conjectures that
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would require extensive discussion, he suddenly turned against the aira and, thereore, against the Usa sacerdotal house, which in any case had been extremely unhappy with him or several years because he had ailed to deliver to the shrinetemple complex the fixed amounts o rice that the estate he administered was responsible or. Te head sacerdotal officiant o Usa in 1183, Usa Kinmichi, was a powerul figure exempliying the Japanese tendency to merge sacerdotal and political unctions: named vice-governor o Dazaiu in 1166, protector o sushima in 1175 as well as protector o Buzen Province in 1183, he was appointed grand sacerdotal head (daigūji) o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex seven times between 1144 and his death in 1193. He lef a large cultural legacy: he probably supervised the artisan Ki no Shigenaga’s carving o the Lotus Sutra on bronze plates that were offered to Mount Hiko, must have been a dominant orce behind the creation o the elegant Fukiji emple in Kunisaki, and he sponsored many other projects that can still be seen today in the region.92 He was instrumental in configuring the character o the Bodhisattva Ninmon who came to be regarded as the ounder o the Kunisaki Peninsula’s system o twenty-eight temples, since he authored Ninmon Bosatsu Chōki, a text in which he described Ninmon as an incarnation o Hachiman. He also authored the 1168 list o Kunisaki temples mentioned in the first chapter, Rokugōzan Jiin Mokuroku. Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa visited Usa some time between 1175 and 1177, and Kinmichi was held in high regard by aira Kiyomori, who made a (second) grand appearance in Usa in 1183 and borrowed his sumptuous residence to lodge the inant emperor Antoku. It is around that time that Ogata Koreyoshi turned against the aira and, encouraged by Fujiwara Yorisuke, demanded that they leave Kyushu. Te aira reused and entrenched themselves in Dazaiu, but they were deeated and withdrew their orces by way o the Inland Sea to Yashima in Shikoku. On the sixth day o the seventh month, 1184, Ogata Koreyoshi and his troupes marched to Usa and reduced its sprawling sites o cult to ashes. According to one source, Koreyoshi was then exiled to the Numata estate in eastern Japan, but was pardoned shortly thereafer. In Yashima, meanwhile, the aira orces were attacked by the main Minamoto armies which, with the help o eighty-two boats said to have been loaned by Ogata Koreyoshi himsel, pushed them straight back across the Inland Sea to Nagato, where they finally deeated the aira who took the inant emperor Antoku with them in a drowning death that has become the climax o many a literary and dramatic piece, in 1185. According to another source, Ogata Koreyoshi was not a hero or long: when Minamoto Yoritomo was pursuing his younger brother
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Yoshitsune, Koreyoshi was asked by Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa to protect Yoshitsune, only to incur Yoritomo’s wrath and be exiled. Yoritomo then established his military government (kōgi) in Kamakura, and he appointed his vassals as stewards ( jitō) and protectors (shugo) o many districts and provinces across the country. Tis was how a certain Ōtomo Yoshinao was appointed “protector” o Bungo Province as Kamakura gokenin (warlord loyal to the Minamoto kōgi), but the house he led engaged in a behavior reminiscent o Ogata Koreyoshi’s. Originally rom Kansai, the Ōtomo warlord house, as it evolved in Kyushu, deeply affected the history o northern Kyushu in general and that o the Kunisaki Peninsula in particular. Its ounder, Yoshinao (1172–1223), was appointed administrator o Kyushu (Chinzei bugyō) as well as protector o the Buzen and Bungo provinces in either 1196 or 1206; he is said to have been welcomed there by Ogata Koreyoshi himsel, although sources are conflicting and unclear in this respect. Some historians say that it was not Yoshinao, but his adoptive ather Nakahara Chikayoshi, who was named administrator o Kyushu and protector o Buzen and Bungo in 1196 or 99—and that it was he who transmitted his duties to his adopted son in 1206.93 Around the 1220s, Ōtomo Yoshinao began to usurp land estates rom the temples and appropriated the abbacy (inzu) o several Kunisaki temples through his contacts with powerul land stewards. In this way members o the Furushō house, which will be discussed in a ew moments, usurped the abbacy o temples in Kunisaki one by one; the Usa Shrine-temple complex tried to resist such attempts by the warlords, but ailed. Yoshinao athered twelve sons and three daughters, and soon there arose problems concerning succession and, more specifically, concerning the right to bear the ōtomo name, that is, to head the house and lay claim to land estates that had been either commended, or bought, or acquired through warare. In an attempt to solve this problem, the Ōtomo house ollowed a long- established system o main house and sub-branches, but it enacted a number o changes in the overall system. raditionally, the main house was known as sōryōke, “heir house,” whose head—typically chosen among sons on the basis o their abilities, but possibly also among cousins or nephews—was allowed to bear the amily name and manage the land “properties” o the entire house. Apparently, the first two generations o the Ōtomo main house lived in Kyoto rather than in Kyushu, and it is only at the time o the 1274 Mongol invasion that the Kamakura government demanded that its appointees reside in the provinces they were supposed to govern. As a result, the head o the third generation, Ōtomo Yoriyasu (1222–1300), moved to Kyushu and settled in what is today Ōita City.
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In contradistinction, the branches created by other sons and nephews were called “secondary houses” (shōke) and it had become customary or them to continue bearing the name o the house, but the Ōtomo house did away with the practice and orbade its secondary houses to bear the name, orced them to settle in Kyushu, and requested that some o them take the name o the estate they were granted when being let go o by the main house. Tis system o hereditary transmission had to be abandoned when the size o estates became too small or the practice to make any economic or social sense. Indeed, during the course o the first six generations o the main Ōtomo house eight secondary houses were created by the first generation, six by the second, three by the ourth, and one by the sixth generation. Te first generation thus consisted o nine houses: the main house bearing the name Ōtomo and controlling ( in absentia) the majority o the land, and eight secondary houses: akuma, atewaki, Motoyoshi, Ichimanda, akao, Shiga, anaka (Ono), and awara. O these, three flourished over time and came to be known as the “Tree Ōtomo Houses:” akuma, Shiga, and awara. Te “secondary houses”created by the second generation o the Ōtomo were the Betsuki (sometimes known as Hetsugi), Notsuhara, Hazama, Notsu (renamed Yoshioka during the Muromachi period), Kitsuki, and agita houses. Te ourth generation had the Dewa and Nitta houses as offshoots, while the sixth generation produced only the achibana house. Finally, Yoshinao’s younger brother was regarded as the ancestor o two more secondary houses, the Furushō and Kodawara houses. It is this Furushō house that took control o the land estates o many Kunisaki temples, as a result o which the shrine-temple system slipped into decadence. As can be gathered rom the list o houses mentioned above, such a system o land distribution could not survive orever, and at the time o Ōtomo Sadamune (?–1333, the head o the sixth generation), those who in the past would have been allowed to start a new secondary house simply could not do so anymore, and were orced to either take the direction o the house o an elder brother who had no heir, or to be adopted by other amilies, or, or better or worse, to take the tonsure and pretend to renounce all worldly affairs. Te economic ate o these “secondary houses” made them miserable and unstable; they attempted to rebel against the main house and the system, but were violently brought back to order, and the history o the Ōtomo house in Kyushu during the medieval period is one o inner strie and external hostilities. It is in these conditions that various branches o the Ōtomo house usurped titles to estates, orcibly took over their management, and settled as tonsured petty rulers in Kunisaki temples and other places. Teir activities in the region spanned seven centuries, and are still remembered locally with a tangible dose o dismay mixed with orbearance.94
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It was in this increasingly turbulent context that the Kunisaki Peninsula’s practitioners amplified the already complex nature o their cultic lie, only to see it crumble over time. Although the economic power o the temples gradually declined during the Kamakura period, the cults did not all apart as easily. Since the cults were connected with the notion o ritual protection o the imperial system, the Kamakura government could neglect neither the Usa Hachiman complex, nor the Kunisaki temples, o course. In 1228, or example, the Kamakura government requested that the Kunisaki temples engage in rituals aimed at providing peace in the country. When a plague devastated livestock in Kyushu in 1264, the Kamakura government again requested that rites o pacification be conducted: eight hundred and thirty monks and yamabushi gathered at Mount Yayama (site o the Chōanji emple), and perormed rituals on the basis o the Daihannyakyō and Ninnōgyō sutras. Tis indicates that the Saiei-zan massi had lost its power by that time, and that the Chōanji emple had become the main cultic center o the Kunisaki Peninsula, a role it claimed or the ollowing couple o hundred years. Tis is easily understood i one recalls that the Saiei-zan temple was directly dependent on the Mirokuji emple o Usa, which had been destroyed in 1184, whereas the Chōanji emple was supported by its ogō estate—which eventually came to be managed by the Yoshihiro house, itsel a branch o the awara house, that is, one o the Tree Ōtomo houses mentioned a ew moments ago.95 At the time o the Mongol invasions o 1274 and 1281 the Kunisaki temples engaged in many rituals o pacification aimed at causing the destruction o the invaders, and the Kunisaki Peninsula’s narratives claim that it was the rituals perormed there that caused the kamikaze typhoon to destroy the Mongol fleets and save the country rom disaster. Tis claim notwithstanding, the Rokugō conglomerate o temples and shrines soon lost its integrity: by 1284 only twelve o the twenty-eight temples were active; what is more, several temples began shifing their affi liation rom endai to the Kamakura period’s new schools o Buddhism, Jōdo-Shin in particular, and ritual perormances greatly declined in number and scope. Te same was true or Mount Hiko, where the decision to install an abbot o imperial birth in 1333 changed the course o things.
Te geognostic realm o the lotus in Kunisaki Te Kunisaki Peninsula’s inhabitants’ production o their spatialities differed rom Mount Hiko’s and Usa’s or two major reasons. First, as we saw in the first chapter, the peninsula’s greater part consisted o estates belonging to the Usa
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Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, and was submitted to the combined influences o the Hachiman cult and o endai doctrines and practices or much o the Heian period, and its proximity to Mount Hiko was such that it could not escape the direct influence o Hiko Shugendō during the medieval period. Nor could it escape the influence o Kumano Shugendō and, o course, o its own neighboring Kubote, Hachimen, Hōman, and Seburi Shugendō centers. A second and equally important reason is that the peninsula was a sel- contained entity quite separate rom the rest o Kyushu, and its geological eatures and unique topography led its inhabitants to imagine constructs and devise practices that are specific to it. In other words, the undamentally spatial characteristic o Kunisaki’s cultic world cannot be appreciated separately rom the inhabitants’ perception o their environment, or rom their systematic elaboration o a culture o place that is intricately related to the region’s topography. Te Kunisaki anchorites, it may be advanced, put it in the ollowing manner: “salvation is not distinct rom spatial and visual practice.” At some point the Kunisaki Peninsula’s stunning resemblance to an up- turned dried lotus pod as well as to the ritual implement called vajra became clear to some mountain ascetics, who interpreted this resemblance in light o the symbolism that was associated with the Lotus Sutra and its commentaries, and who used it to create a system that was unique in Japan and as ar as I know, unique to Japan. Te Edo period’s Rokugō Kaizan Ninmon Daibosatsu Hongi, dated 1752, put it in such direct and simple manner that it is best to read it: Te district o Kunisaki in the provinces o Buzen and Bungo consists o six counties [Rokugō]. Tere, the companions took the twenty-eight chapters o the Lotus Sutra as a model in establishing twenty-eight temples. Such was the origin o the oundation o the wenty-Eight emples o Rokugō. In accordance with the three sections o the sutra, the temples were divided into three groups: the head, the center, and the base. Tere are eight base temples, ten center temples, and ten head temples. (Altogether twenty-eight temples.) Te sub-temples o these head temples number more than one hundred, and the total number o representations o the buddhas is based on the number o words in the Lotus Sutra: having conceived the wish to enshrine these 69,380 august representations in the sacred space o the twenty-eight temples, ninety-nine sacred caves, and more than one hundred sub-temples, Hachiman and his three companions made their spirits as one and ounded these temples one by one. When a day and a direction had been determined by divination, carpenters, stonemasons, stonecarvers, and painters joined them and created statues o the buddhas. Upon the cliffs Hachiman and his three companions portrayed the seed letters and the
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mantras. Tat is, they themselves carved the sacred statues o the Buddhas o the wo Mandalas and etched the graphic Siddham symbols representing the buddhas. Te light o the Buddha radiated ully at that time and like grass in the wind their will conormed to it.
Tis description is ollowed by the text o an oracle: I have come to you to reveal the course o the peregrination around the high peaks o Rokugō. In order to correctly perorm the austerities in these mountains, you must envision them as a sacred space composed o three realms: Upper, Middle, and Lower. Tese realms, each with three subdivisions again, correspond to the Nine Realms o the Pure Land and to the Nine Sections o the Adamantine Mandala. Te overall structure o the Rokugō mountains is that o a natural maniestation o the double three-pronged vajra [ritual implement]. Te ascetics who perorm austerities in these mountains thereore penetrate the Adamantine Mandala. Tere are two courses or the peregrination, symbolizing the Adamantine Mandala and the Matrix Mandala. One course begins at the Cave on Mount Ushino and ends at Mount Yokogi. Tis course passes alongside the sea. In days past, this is where I practiced. Te three districts in the east, Yasuki, Musashi, and Kisaki, represent the lef part o the vajra. Te three districts in the west, Yamako, ashibu, and Kunawa, represent the right part o the vajra. Merging harmoniously, they orm the six counties. You should await the coming o the Buddha o the Future in this place, ceaselessly chanting scriptures and absolutely prohibiting killing. Tose monks who aspire to leave their ootprints here should protect these mountains and perorm austerities by making peregrinations to the various sacred sites. I am Hachiman, and my Buddhist name is Ninmon Daibosatsu. radition has it that Mount Rokugō represents the Nine Realms o the Pure Land. Its eight valleys are an eight-petalled lotus blossom representing the Nine Sections o the Adamantine Mandala as well as the eight-petalled lotus at the center o the Matrix Mandala. Te purpose o building temples by dividing these eight valleys into twenty-eight precincts is to represent the heart-mind o the Wondrous Law o the Lotus Sutra, which consists o twenty-eight chapters in two divisions, and urthermore to represent the Pure World o Dainichi Nyorai, whose symbol and image are the lotus blossom.96
It has been argued by the skeptic philosopher Michael Shermer that the airly common propensity to find orderly images in a totally conusing set o figures (“to find meaningul patterns in meaningless noise”) might be called “patternicity” and has to be debunked as a lower orm o imagination not worthy o rational thought.97 Te association o the Kunisaki Peninsula’s topography with the shape
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o a lotus flower, a dried lotus pod, and a ritual implement, however, is a not a mere patternicity due to an overactive, esthetically bent imagination. It is due to a questioning perception o the natural world that was mediated by a sacred text such as the Lotus Sutra, and is the direct result o the esoteric proposition that any orm hides a deeper meaning, what I have termed “geognosis.” According to Nakano Hatayoshi, each organizational division o the Rokugō conglomerate (upper, middle and lower) included one or several main temples, various sub-temples, sub-residences (matsubō), and various halls ( dō) and hermitages (an). Each temple consisted o a compound where the temple ( ji or in) was built, as well an external compound, sometimes airly distant rom the temple, where hermitages were erected. Each temple held one or several small estates, usually located in its vicinity; an administrative abbot ( inzu) was responsible or the management o the main temple. Administrative or jurisdictional matters were solved in a hierarchical order, in which the Upper temples held the highest authority. Tese matters were controlled by monks who held the title o administrative officer ( sōdōtatsu), a position that was held by the abbots o the Chionji, Hōkyōji, and Kokuzōji temples, themselves chosen among administrative officers o the Mirokuji emple o Usa. Te Kunisaki temples that had an abbot and/or an administrative officer were regarded as sub-temples o the Mirokuji o Usa, and participation in the ritual perormances o the Mirokuji emple, such as the hōjō-e rite o release o living beings, were mandatory or these administrative figures. A text kept in the Hie Shrine o Mount Nagaono indicates that a Sannō Shrine was established in Kunisaki as early as 819, which seems improbable. Another source indicates that this shrine was assigned an abbot in 1130, and it may well be that this date is when the shrine was erected. Tis abbot held an office called Dairiki-bō, which came to be inherited by members o the Ki house, in which Gyōgyō, who had ounded the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine-temple complex in 859, was born. Tis act shows that many members o the Ki house migrated to Kunisaki because o the close relationship between Usa’s Mirokuji and Kyoto’s Iwashimizu Shrine-temple complex. It also suggests how the Kunisaki Peninsula’s institutions were becoming less dependent on the Mirokuji emple o Usa, and how Mount Hiei was projecting its influence on the 28 temples and other sites o cult across the country .98 Dominant as it may have been a symbol o Buddhism at large, and o endai Buddhism in particular, the lotus blossom perhaps never saw as much success as in its application to topography in relation to cultic practices in Kunisaki. It is well known that the lotus blossom’s eight petals were associated with eight peaks surrounding Mount Kōya, the center o the Shingon school. Its sexual symbolism
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is also known; it ranged rom the symbolism o the central court o the Matrix Realm mandala to the sexual symbolism which courses through Edo erotic literature and arts. Less widely known are the interpretations o which the entire lotus plant was the object in Chinese Buddhist circles, in which it was seen as the natural embodiment o the philosophy o emptiness, the core notion o all Buddhist schools o the Greater Vehicle. Simply put, this notion stipulates that, should one do away with passions by cutting off their roots in onesel, then the bud o awakening would never be able to rise through the mud and bloom in pure air and light. In other words, what was needed was a different way o relating to one’s passions and ignorance, a relation that was put orward in esoteric circles in the ollowing way: “passions are, in and o themselves, awakening” ( bonnō soku bodai). Tis notion had many oreseeable as well as unoreseen consequences, but it only added up to the mysticism surrounding this emblem. For example, the Katsuragi mountain range o the Kansai area came to be viewed by Shugendō practitioners in light o the Lotus Sutra’s twenty-eight chapters, which were associated with twenty-eight “caves” ound along the range’s peaks. In each cave, it is said, an urn containing one o the chapters was buried. Tis relation between the Katsuragi mountain range and the Lotus Sutra is already mentioned in the early Kamakura period Shozan Engi. Te same symbolism was responsible or the association o the twenty-eight chapters o the Lotus Sutra with as many temples in the Kunisaki Peninsula.99 Kunisaki’s topography, however, is undamentally different rom that o the Katsuragi range, which extends along the course o the Ki River, rom omo-ga-shima Island (the first o the twentyeight caves), and then on eastward to the Nara Basin, close to Gojō City. From this point on the range extends on the north-south axis and ends near Yamato River, where the twenty-eighth cave is located. As mentioned earlier, however, the Kunisaki peninsula is an almost completely circular entity, and its twenty-eight temples are located, not in a single row, but in three adjacent zones: the Saieizan Massi, site o the eight oldest temples located in the ahara horst, west o the peninsula; the second group o ten temples was etablished in the western part o the peninsula; and the last group o ten temples was established in the eastern part o the peninsula. Both cultic regions are deeply permeated by endai, although taimitsu esotericism is more prevalent in Kunisaki; and both regions have strong connections to Pure Land temples, although there is much more Shingon presence in the Katsuragi range. Katsuragi is the site o birth o En no Gyōja in the early seventh century; in the late Heian period Kunisaki came to be pervaded by En no Gyōja’s lore, and it is evident that everybody knew o the Katsuragi range and o the nature o that
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mountain’s cult. Te same was true, o course, o Mount Hiko’s residents, as can be seen vividly in the 1572 Chinzei Hikosan Engi’s hagiographic account o En no Gyōja’s lie.100 Tis, however, is where the similarities between Katsuragi and Kunisaki end. Indeed, there was a second three-tiered organization, already mentioned but needing a repeat mention: the temples o the peninsula were held to correspond to the tripartite interpretative structure o the Lotus Sutra: “Te Introduction,” “Te Exposition,” and “Te means o Dissemination;” the group o temples located in low regions by the sea were assimilated to the part called “dissemination;” the temples located in the valleys mid-way to the summits were assimilated to the part called “exposition;” and the temples located near the summits o the peninsula were assimilated to the part o the Lotus Sutra called “introduction.” In other words, the mandalic structure o the peninsula was double: historical in the case o the east to west areas, and geotypical in this case o three-tiered levels corresponding to different types o activities: asceticism at the top, scholarship at the middle, and proselytization at the bottom. It is also important to underscore the extraordinary claim that, on the paths linking these twenty-eght temples, some 69,300 stone statues were placed, each stone standing or one graph in the Chinese text o the Lotus Sutra. As I have suggested elsewhere, walking was equivalent to reading, although in this case it might be better to say “reading into” or “reading off o.” 101 Another characteristic o Kunisaki is the combination o the Hachiman cult with the cults dedicated to the Lotus Sutra, and this combination is symbolized by the cult to Ninmon bosatsu and by that dedicated to arō tendō and his two attendants, represented in statues that were carved in 1130 and placed in the Chōanji emple. It is said that these statues were originally placed in the Shrine o the Six Avatars o the Chōanji emple (each symbolizing one o the peninsula’s six administrative districts). Tis shrine epitomizes the Ninmon cult, or it is dedicated to Ninmon bosatsu, Jingū Kōgō, and the our deified children o “Emperor” Ōjin, and there were more than one hundred sponsors o the arō endō statue in the Chōanji emple, including members o the Fujiwara, Usa, Kaminoge, Ki, Hata, Ōga, Sakai, and Abeno houses. It is probable that arō endō has a lot more connection to Hachiman than may appear at first sight. Most o the signatories were government officials o Dazaiu or members o the sacerdotal houses o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, thus indicating the Usa Shrine’s sacerdotal officiants’ devotion to mountain asceticism. A ew years later (1141), a monk o the Iwashimizu Hachiman complex presented a copy o the Lotus Sutra engraved on copper plates; these copper plates too can be seen at the Chōan- ji today. Te ollowing year, a monk o the Usa Hachiman complex also
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offered a copper plate engraved with a chapter o the Lotus Sutra at Mount Kubote (next to Mount Hiko); the names o several emale lay devotees are among the signatories on the offering. Te Chōanji emple hosted Mount Hiko’s yamabushi during the Kamakura period, and it is thereore quite thinkable that it was these yamabushi who mapped mandalas and rituals onto the valleys and peaks o Kunisaki, as they had done on the ranges extending northward o Mount Hiko. It is also clear that Mount Hiko’s yamabushi were active on Mount Omoto, Usa Hachiman’s sacred mountain; indeed, the Compendium o Usa Hachiman Oracles, dated 1313, contains a drawing o Mount Omoto’s summit that shows temples and shrines near the three sacred stones o Mount Omoto. It is obvious that a major Shugendō “territorial line” extended at the time rom Mount Hōman and Mount Fukuchi to Mount Hiko, and thence to Mounts Kubote and Hachimen and urther east to Mount Omoto and to the temples o the Kunisaki Peninsula. I one takes into account the aimitsu-based Shugendō sites o cult o the Seuri mountain range, which extends westwards across rom Dazaiu, it becomes clear that aimitsu Shugendō attempted to control rom on high the quasi- entirety o the northern part o Kyushu Island; that one o its roles during the medieval period was to protect rom invasions rom the Korean Peninsula; and that such control as there may have existed during the Heian and early medieval periods was related to the aristocracy that supported aimitsu institutions in northern Kyushu. In other words, mandalization is a phenomenon that is difficult to think o separately rom geopolitical considerations. It is in this light, indeed, that one might consider the medieval warlord houses’ efforts to either take over whatever power these Shugendō shrine-temple complexes may have had, or to enlist their support. During the late medieval period the Kunisaki Peninsula was the object o destructions and economic collapses, not unlike many other mountain sites o cult around the country. As a result, much time passed without the perormance o mandalized peregrinations, so that the exact course o these peregrinations that had been transmitted orally or had been perormed by individuals rather than groups, was eventually orgotten or lost under the thick growth o bushes and trees. As the old twenty-eight temple system lost its power, the Kamakura schools o Buddhism penetrated the peninsula, beginning with the Rinzai and Sōtō schools o Zen, and ollowed by the Jōdo and Jōdo Shin powerblock’s aggressive takeover o temples. Christianity spread during the second part o the sixteenth century, and the Heian and Kamakura’s periods’ spatialities, such as they may have been, began to disappear. By the Edo period, however, a renewed interest in
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local history as well as the development o travel encouraged many to engage in pilgrimages they thought would enable them to restore past practices. In 1607 the ninety-year-old head o the Chōanji emple in Kunisaki wrote a historical record, Rokugō Manzan Nendaiki, because he was araid that nobody would remember the peninsula’s history. Tis document is ar rom being all- inclusive but indicates the widespread destructions that took place over the course o the medieval period, and indicates that a number o temple and government authorities slowly started rebuilding. In 1620 the Chōanji emple o Mount Yayama—which during the medieval period had been the administrative head o the system o twenty-eight temples as well as a Shugendō powerhouse—was replaced by the Futagoji emple, which played a major role in the peninsula thereafer. Familiar as they were with the 1228 document mentioned earlier, which said that “the neophytes o the Six Districts learned rom the Bodhisattva Ninmon’s practices and engaged in peregrinations to more than one hundred caves,” various temple authorities began to rediscover these caves, and created a course o ritualized peregrination to be undertaken by the temples’ inhabitants. As a result, the Kunisaki Peninsula became a popular site o pilgrimage on the part o monks and lay people, and a pilgrimage course was finalized a ew years later, in1749.102 Obviously, many o the sites that were visited then may coincide with those that marked the mandalized peregrinations o the medieval period, but it is also clear that the practice o pilgrimage by lay people was different rom the proessional practitioners’ own style, ritual activities, clothing, and austerities. In 1755 a document listed 183 sites located on what was probably very close to the peregrination route ollowed by yamabushi. Although a document o the Ōrekiji emple mentions several individuals’ ritualized peregrinations ( mineiri) in 1697, the first attempt to ollow a course around the peninsula by an organized group o temple residents took place in 1701, and subsequently in 1706, 1749, 1759, 1779, 1799, 1817, 1837, and 1853—afer which the peregrination was abandoned or slightly more than a century. At the beginning o the 1749 peregrination’s itinerary, about ten practitioners gathered near the Chionji emple located in Kanae, Bungo akada City. Tey then ormed a procession and visited the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex, whereupon they scaled Mount Omoto, where they ormulated their solemn vow to engage in the peregrination, in ront o the three sacred megaliths; they then ollowed a course that took them through the three western districts (Kunawa, ashibu, and Imi) and, subsequently, the three eastern districts (Kunisaki, Musashi, and Aki). Tree weeks later, they completed their course at the Futagoji emple, which is located at the center o
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the peninsula. Although their exact course is not known, orty-nine sites are indicated in a variety o documents. It is probable, however, that their route was closely related to the document dated 1755, analyzed below.
Coursing through the peninsula Te course that was ollowed in 1959—when the peregrination was resurrected in the post-World War II era—was based on the document entitled “Record o the 183 Sacred Sites o the Six Districts o Buzen and Bungo Provinces” ( Buzen Bungo Rokugōzan Hyakuhachijūsansho Reijōki), compiled in 1755.103 Tis document was instrumental to the survival o Kunisaki culture and cultic lie, and provides much inormation about the objects o cult at the time; it subsequently served as the basis or the text entitled “races Lef by the Great Bodhisattva Ninmon In Buzen and Bungo Provinces: Te One Hundred EightyTree Sacred Sites o the Rokugō Conglomerate,” a slightly revised version o the original list o the sacred sites o the Kunisaki Peninsula dated 1755 .104 A copy o this document was made in 1912 by Aoyama Eidō, and another copy, the translation o which is on this book’s website, was made by Ichijōbō Kōshō in 1948. It is obvious that the first copyist made several additions to the original: he uses shrine categories such as kensha, sōsha, and gōsha, which were established by law in 1872 and were abolished in 1946. Tis alone suggests Eidō’s hand .105 Te author establishes two groups o sites o worship: one o sixty- two sites, and one o 121 sites. Among these, only twenty-two Shinto shrines are mentioned; orty-one sites, however, bear the name iwaya (cave). I assume that the number o Shinto shrines and that o the caves were added by the author to reach the number sixty-two. Te remaining cultic site names ( ji or tera: seventy-one sites; dō: thirty-five sites; in: seventeen sites; and bō: two sites) seem to correspond to the author’s second category. By my reckoning, these numbers add to sixty-three and 125 sites respectively, but some sites bear more than one name, which accounts or the discrepancy. It is reasonably clear that the author wished to make a distinction between ull-fledged Buddhist institutions (tera, dō, in, and bō), and shrines (various names), as well as caves ( iwaya), but the reason he would have made these distinctions is not absolutely clear, even i one takes into account the presence or lack o caretakers—unless one fits the Meiji era’s cultural revolution into the equation. In the case o shrines one finds the ollowing distinctions: five sites bear the name sonsha, “township shrine.” Five bear the name gū, “sanctuary,” but
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two o those are gōsha, “district shrines.” Seven shrine names are ollowed by the term daimyōjin, “great radiant kami,” but five o those are sonsha. Tree shrines are kensha, “preectural shrines;” and one shrine name is ollowed by the term myōjin, one step below daimyōjin. Finally, six sites bear the status name sha, “shrine.” In the case o Buddhist temples o which the sectarian affi liation is given, one notes that twenty-three temples were affiliated with the endai sect, and that there were twenty-two Zen temples (o these, only one is urther identified as Sōtō, and one as Rinzai, but most must have been run by Sōtō monks). One temple was affi liated with Shingon, and one with Jōdo. Te remaining sites o cult that are predominantly Buddhist in character did not have caretakers, and their affiliation is thereore not given. No Jōdo-Shin temple is mentioned, which may indicate that part o this document’s purpose was to reflect the opposition to that powerblock’s spread in the peninsula during the Edo period. Tis document, then, mentions the name and location o 183 sites in a given order, to which is added the distance between each site. It also mentions the identity o the main objects o cult, sometimes with very brie notes concerning these, and thus provides a direct insight into the cultic character o Kunisaki at the time: the dominant cult appears to have been dedicated to the Buddha o Medicine (Yakushi nyorai, thirty-eight sites), and it is closely ollowed by cults to the Bodhisattva o compassion (Kannon bosatsu: thirty sites, but nineteen sites were dedicated to other configurations o Kannon). Among these, Senju Kannon bosatsu dominates with eleven sites, and this means that Kannon cults eventually outnumbered those dedicated to Yakushi nyorai, the original cult in the area. Equally important were those cults dedicated to the Buddha o the Western Pure Land (Amida nyorai, thirty sites), a sure sign o the spread o Pure Land devotion in the region. Other important cults were dedicated to Fudō myōō (thirteen sites), Jizō bosatsu (twelve sites), and Shakamuni nyorai (eleven sites). Te rest is o local, though not negligible significance: Myōken bosatsu (three), Miroku bosatsu (three), Rokusho gongen (two), Bishamon ten (two), Batō Kannon bosatsu (two), Jūichimen Kannon bosatsu (two), Fugen bosatsu (two), Dainichi nyorai (two), Roku Kannon bosatsu (two), arō tendō (two), Monju bosatsu (one), Shō-Kannon bosatsu (one), Nyoirin Kannon bosatsu (one), Ganzan daishi (one), Gozu tennō (one), Kisshō Daishi (one), Nii-sanmyō (one), Daiitoku myōō (one), Jūō (one), Atago gongen (one), Kōbō Daishi (one), Jingū Kōgō (one), Shichi Fukujin (one), Kokuzō bosatsu (one), Sanjūbutsu (one), and Shishi tendō (one). In other words, the Kunisaki Peninsula’s cults were diverse though interrelated, and stood as witnesses o northern Kyushu’s overall cultic trends over time.
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I one considers the development o pilrimage in Kunisaki during the early modern period as based on this document, and then notes that during the same period at least three etiological narratives were authored (the Rokugō Kaizan Ninmon Daibosatsu Hongi, the oldest extant copy o which is dated 1752; 106 the Rokugōzan Ninmon Hongi dated 1711, o which only a copy dated 1800 remains; and the Rokugōzan Futagoji Daiengi written in 1817 by akizawa Bakin107, then it becomes quite clear that the Kunisaki Peninsula’s cultic lie during the Edo period was quite different rom that o the preceding historical eras. Te quasi-peace enorced by the okugawa regime allowed pilgrimage, and thereore saw a nationwide development o many pilgrimage routes that, in the case o Kunisaki, signifies that lay visitors rom the area and rom distant regions ar outnumbered local specialists. As a consequence, the spiritual character o the peninsula was undamentally altered and came to reflect new understandings, and the mandalization o the entire peninsula began to waste away. Remarkably, though, many rites were perormed on a regular cycle—probably because o the government’s emphases on local estivities and ritual calendars or burgeoning cities—and quite a ew o these estive rites are still perormed today, on the basis o oral transmissions that were written down or the first time in the second hal o the twentieth century, and are listed in the national list o Intangible Cultural Properties. 108
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Shattered Bodies, Statues, and the Entreaties o runcated Memory Mount Hiko’s quasi-destruction and all into irrelevance Mount Hiko’s complex community never ully escaped the social, economic, and political changes that occurred in the world below the mountain’s summits, sometimes to its advantage, but most o the time to its utter detriment. Over the course o the Edo period, as we have seen earlier, it had to develop strategies to survive the regulations o the Edo government, and at a great price succeeded in garnering autarchic status. However, as various Shintō movements and the Nativist Studies schools spread through the country at large, and as anti-Buddhist sentiment grew as a result o fiercely critical tracts and critiques on the part NeoConucian individuals, there were calls or a higher status on the part o the kami-oriented members o the mountain community. Furthermore, as the yamabushi spent more and more time away rom the mountain to cultivate their lay patrons, they became embroiled in trans-regional politics, as a result o which deep and severe ault lines appeared and ripped the community apart, pitting supporters o the Kokura fie’s pro-okugawa stance up against supporters o the return to power o the emperor and the overthrow o the okugawa government. Tis split is best understood within the context o western Japan’s economic and political conditions in the nineteenth century, when severe amines and over-taxation took their toll. Te most politically active fies during that time were Satsuma (southern Kyushu) and Chōshū (westernmost Honshu), whose powerul warlords and intellectuals resisted the orders rom the okugawa government and insisted on the emperor’s return to power and the expulsion o oreigners (sonnō- jōi). Some yamabushi o Mount Hiko who were busy cultivating lay patrons in the Chōshū fie (whose stronghold was the city o Hagi), embraced the cause and were eventually recruited to become part o that fie’s army. Apparently due to a traitor, word o this development reached the 235
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Kokura authorities in 1863, and an army o about 500 soldiers armed with rifles pulled two large canons and lay siege to Mount Hiko, on the eleventh day o the eighth month o that year. Eventually, this army took the abbot and some twenty yamabushi prisoners and returned to Kokura, but not beore confiscating their personal possessions and sealing their residences’ doors shut. Te abbot was released soon thereafer and was allowed to return to Mount Hiko, which was then put under Kokura authorities administration. Between 1864 and 1866, most o the imprisoned yamabushi died o illness or were executed. Meanwhile, during the first month o 1866, the Satsuma and Chōshū fies ormed a secret agreement to fight the okugawa government. Tey eventually prevailed in 1868, and many o these fies’ authorities went on to assist in the ormation o the new imperial government in okyo, a government in which they played outstanding roles. Te same government, however, issued in 1868 the imperial decree that prohibited urther worship o combined Buddhas (and Bodhisattvas) and kami; as we shall see below, this decree dealt Mount Hiko’s “community” a severe blow rom which it has yet to recover, some 140 years later. Late in 1868 it was proposed that the yamabushi who had died in prison in Kokura should be regarded as heroes loyal to the imperial cause, that they were “martyrs,” and that their spirits should be properly taken care o. Tis was accomplished in 1870, when tombstones were erected on the grounds that in the past had served to house the temporary Buddha halls built on the occasion o the Matsue ritual estivity. Te grounds were renamed Shōkon Shrine, a torii gate was erected at their entrance, and memorial rites are still perormed there today. Te details o these events were then consigned in “Mount Hiko’s Righteous Monks,” a book published in late 1896.1 Te events o the last five years o the okugawa government indicate that Mount Hiko’s institutions were in great danger o alling apart, and that there was discord in the community. Te Kokura authorities in 1866 had prohibited und-raising travel on the part o the yamabushi, a decision that threw the “community” into almost instant poverty: Nagano adashi wrote that in 1710 Mount Hiko’s community consisted o 637 priestly residences and a permanent population o 3,015, and that on the eve o 1868 it consisted o only 252 residences, divided as ollows: 144 sōgata residences (iroshi: 90, and katanashi, 54); 51 residences o gyōjagata, and 57 residences o shitogata. Tese 252 residences claimed a grand total o 346,209 patrons, divided as ollows: 7,610 in Iki and sushima Islands; 82,579 in Hizen Province; 65,317 in Higo Province; 28,548 in Satsuma Province; 26,382 in Chikuzen Province; 37,387 in Chikugo Province; 26,246 in Buzen Province; 38,470 in Bungo Province; 28,370 in the
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provinces o Hyūga and Ōsumi; and 5,300 in the provinces o Suō and Nagato. One easily imagines the massive economic impact o the prohibition, and the urther strain it put on social relations on the mountain. On the seventeenth day o the third month, 1868, the Meiji government decreed that, nationwide, all shrine-monks (shasō) must return to lay status; eleven days later, the government decreed that all Buddhist ritual implements and statues must be removed rom shrines; and on the nineteenth day o the ourth month, it decreed that all shrine sacerdotal officiants, including members o their amilies, must be buried according to Shintō unerary rites. Tese three decrees are together known as the dissociation o Buddhas and kami (shinbutsu-bunri) and amounted to a nationwide reorganization (or, better put, manipulation) o countless local cults, not to mention an equally radical redistribution o wealth: the temples lost all lands they used to manage. Mount Hiko’s abbot lef the Buddhist orders on the sixteenth day o the ninth month, 1868, and a mere three days later returned as the head o Mount Hiko, but as a shrine sacerdotal officiant: the temples were transormed into a single Shintō shrine. Te term gongen that had long been used to reer to the combined Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and kami was discarded, and the peaks were to be conceived o exclusively as the residence o kami. Mount Hiko was then placed under authority o the Jingikan (Office o Kami o Heaven and Earth) in okyo. As in the rest o Japan these decrees were ollowed by tumultuous attacks on Buddhist temples and symbols; collectively known as “abolish the Buddhas and do away with [the Buddha] Śākyamuni” (haibutsu kishaku), these riots resulted in the destruction o perhaps as many as sixty per cent o Japan’s Buddhist temples. At Mount Hiko, about 120 young inhabitants dubbing themselves “Kami Soldiers” (shinpei) organized on the basis o a code o conduct they swore to uphold on January 6, 1869; the first line o this code reads: “We will cleanse old habits and [ensure that everyone] revere the emperor and the Kami o Heaven and Earth.” At the end o the same day they began destroying Buddhist emblems and structures on the mountain. In the process o their “cleansing” they murdered mothers o monks, ordered all temples to slam their gates shut, destroyed the majority o buildings o Mount Hiko, and lef only a ew structures that were subsequently transormed into Shinto shrines; they also removed and destroyed Buddhist statues and ritual implements. In 1872 the okyo government issued a decree abolishing Shugendō. Soon thereafer the main rites o the mountain “community” were abandoned and the majority o the yamabushi lef Mount Hiko, either to become members o the emerging modern Japanese society, or to start small-scale new religious groups
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ocusing on healing. One hundred and eleven residences were abandoned over a mere ten years. Some yamabushi remained on and near the mountain and engaged in their practices in secret; apparently, they were encouraged by the act that the new Shintō master officiant did not avor complete destruction o the site o cult. Indeed, this officiant’s adopted son even acted to quell the activities o the shinpei in 1873. Interestingly enough, the lay believers o the surrounding areas did not reject their belies in the same abrupt manner, or they continued to provide some economic support or the perormance o “Shintōfied” peregrinations and o the main ritual estivity—rom which all Buddhist elements were stripped away. It is known, or example, that the Shōen- bō temple-residence gave lodging to sixty-nine pilgrims in 1866, to 232 pilgrims in 1870, and to 213 pilgrims in 1871. Furthermore, a number o lay patrons received permission to take care o various Buddhist statues and give them a proper cult in their own homes, thus precluding the disappearance o longstanding objects o cult and enhancing the potential or later material maniestation o ideological resistance. Finally, it is known that some o the new Shinto officiants o Mount Hiko placed screens and other devices in ront o objects o cult, thus removing them rom direct sight and protecting them rom what would have been assured destruction. Te stunning three-dimensional model o the mountain was hidden under a roo; it was discovered a ew years ago and is now on view at the Hiko Shugendō Museum. In 1874, however, the destruction started anew, ollowing the appointment o an official o the Kokura fie to the position o head Shinto officiant, who declared that the order to destroy the Buddhas had come rom the very top o the nation and thereore could not be defied. Whatever bells, statues, paintings and documents remained in plain sight on Mount Hiko were gathered and smashed to pieces. An order was subsequently issued to garner all o the objects o cult that were placed in the caves and lodges adorning the various courses o peregrination. Most were smitten to bits; large boulders that bore engravings o Buddhist deities were toppled, ace down. Several such boulders have been discovered recently and have been restored to their erstwhile positions by archaeological missions. In 1985, only 109 houses and a population o 328 were recorded in the local census o Mount Hiko; two years later, sixteen priestly residences, ninety-nine lay houses, and a total population o 385 people were recorded in another census. ourism has taken over, a toilet and drink- vending machine have been installed at the top o the mountain, and a unicular goes rom the base o the mountain up to the stone torii and main shrine office. Nobody mentions the Lotus Sutra.
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Kunisaki: one breath away rom the void o modernity Beore the Dawn ( Yoakemae) is the title o Shimazaki ōson’s amous historical novel which describes the tumultuous events surrounding the 1868 Meiji “Restoration.”2 Te moments beore dawn are the darkest and stand as a symbol o the all o the okugawa government and the instoration o the Meiji period, during which an “enlightened rule” (Meiji) was to dispel the obscurity o the past and “restore” native culture and thereby bring civilization to its apex. Exactly one century beore ōson’s writing, the author akizawa Bakin received multiple and serious requests on the part o Gōen, abbot o the Futagoji emple, and, even though he was turning blind, he dictated in 1831 the most recent etiological record o that temple, which by then had become the head o the Conglomerate o mountain temples o the Kunisaki Peninsula. It is well worth reading this document, or it evidences one o the undamental traits o etiological records: a conservative outlook by and large blind to historical reality. Indeed, while listing of-repeated statements concerning the origins o the Kunisaki temples as well as a generally accepted view o the Hachiman cult, this document makes a strong case or the equality o Shinto and Buddhism—which flies in the ace o the then dominant trends that eventually led, fify-seven years later, to the separation o Buddhist cults rom Shinto deities, and vice- versa. As mentioned earlier, the earliest instance o the “enlightened” rule established in 1868 took the orm o the imperial edict that abolished all associations and combinations between “native” kami and “oreign” Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but many people who witnessed the ensuing destructions o temples and their contents, the massive return o priests and monks to lay lie, and the extraordinary damage done to Buddhism, did not revel in the ecstasy o the light in question, or they aced the sudden disappearance o their culture and did not care much or the “rationalization” o cultic sites and belies imposed by the state. Hachiman, the oldest and perhaps most amous combinatory deity, was instantly reconstructed as a native kami put to the service o Japan’s nascent, modern nationalism. It is in light o retrospective consciousness, then, that one might wish to read Bakin’s record: it is obvious that he is respectul o Kunisaki culture as it was presented to him by the abbot, but that he also had a certain consciousness o history, or he injected here and there his own views in order to correct the record. Bakin was ill at the time, and, sadly, he may not have had the time or energy to use the same critical acumen throughout the document.3
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A airly extensive investigation o temples and their “Cultural Properties” (the contemporary euphemism or objects o art predating 1868) o Usa City and the Kunisaki Peninsula was conducted between 1987 and 1990 by the Historical and Ethnographic Museum o Usa, and its results were published in 1990.4 Tis publication describes some 4,000 artiacts, identifies statues, paintings, various records, and ritual implements that are deemed o historical significance because they survived the Meiji destructions; it also mentions manuacturing techniques, dates when they are known, height, and any relevant inormation whenever it is available. More than hal o this volume is dedicated to the Kunisaki Peninsula, which clearly shows the importance and complexity o the region: it covers 350 o the 450 Buddhist temples that are located in the entirety o the peninsula and Usa City today. Te investigation is ar rom exhaustive, however, because time and money ran out beore all surviving temples could be researched, and only one Shinto shrine is mentioned. Te 175 photographs at the end o the book offer a direct insight concerning the quality o these artiacts, and one gathers rom this publication the impression that the area’s cultural legacy is remarkably rich. Such an impression is misleading, however, or the Kunisaki Peninsula was devastated during the Meiji cultural revolution. o take an example, in the peninsula’s Hayami district alone, 19 per cent o all Buddhist temples disappeared between 1868 and 1908, and the priestly population o these temples ell 61 per cent during the same time. Tere is no way to calculate the amount o destruction that took place. oday, one can see Kunisaki stupas in museums in the United States, and perhaps also some statues that were sold or almost nothing at the time: much has been displaced, and nothing has been replaced. Tis unmitigated disaster still has ripple effects, in the sense that not enough is done to continue to protect whatever has survived; should one visit the peninsula today, it is imperative to “visit” a cave-temple, the Oku-no-in o the enpukuji emple, hard to reach but impressive: it is filled with burned, scorched statues o Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Te book mentioned above states that the investigation was undertaken because o the “severity o the general lack o care on the part o private and governmental agencies.” Tis means that cultural preservation, in whatever orm it can take, is viewed as an economic proposition beore it is considered a cultural right or a duty to transorm the past into something else than a dusty residue or an object or sale. Nonetheless, many residents o the Kunisaki Peninsula are still prooundly attached to the space o their existence. Te peregrination was restored in 1959; local rites and estivities, however changed they may be, abound in shrines and temples, and tourism has become an important industry.
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I had occasion to join the peregrination and or its duration had ample opportunity to observe its members and their activities, and to build a close rapport with some o them. For the first time in modern history these members included youths (the youngest one, the son o the headpriest o the Monjusenji emple, was eleven), and women (one o them the granddaughter o the head o the Futagoji emple). On the first day we scaled Mount Omoto, where the participants observed a Shinto rite prior to chanting sutras in ront o the three sacred stones. Upon sharing rice brew ( miki) that was offered by a Shinto officiant who joined the peregrination or two days, the group descended to Usa and chanted the Heart Sutra in ront o the Hachiman Shrines. Te next day the group o practitioners began the grueling peregrination (an average o thirty or more kilometers a day), which became a media event: Ōita Broadcasting sent a team o television cameramen and interviewers, who trekked through rain and mud, climbed the mountains, chased the group through the valleys, and produced an hour-long documentary that ocused on the challenges met by the young boy o the Monjusenji emple, against a background o New Age religious music. Te participants, however, were serious in their purpose, and were dressed in the traditional gear o Kunisaki anchorites, best described by Ōdake Junkō:5 Ritual garments [hō-e]: a pure solid white robe tailored rom nine pieces, without mon [emblem o temple identity]. A cord is passed through the end o the sleeves, to truss the sleeves up on the shoulders in order to acilitate movement; the color o this cord is red or the daisendatsu (leader o the group), purple or the daiokke (second in command and last in the group), and white or all others. Under this outer white garment, a solid white hakama is worn.6 Te hakama displays six pleats in the ront and two in the back. Near the lower openings, a cord is passed through to tie the leggings. Te nine pieces o cloth o the outer garment symbolize the nine realms o the Adamantine Realm Mandala, while the eight pleats o the hakama symbolize the eight lotus leaves o the Matrix Realm Mandala’s central court. Head gear [tokin]: here it is called either “dharma crown”[hōkan] or “practitioner’s hood” [ gyōja tokin].7 Originally all practitioners wore the same, but in contemporary peregrinations the daisendatsu is set apart and is the only one to wear this traditional hood. Like Dainichi nyorai’s hairdo,8 it rises high atop the head and is held together by a headband about five centimeters wide, which is twisted around the head and then tied like the knot on a helmet. Te two ends o the headband then hang over both sides o the orehead, droop down over both cheeks, and all over the chest. Tis head gear thus resembles what one sees on Bodhisattva paintings or statues, but the term “crown” is used because it reers to
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the iconography o the “crown o the five sapiences” worn by Dainichi nyorai, and it symbolizes the compassion which Fudō myōō uses to convert living beings. Te other practitioners wear a white hood, with an overhead that is pleated in imitation o the eight leaves o a lotus blossom. In the peregrination o the spring o 1959, the daisendatsu wore a ritual head gear that is normally used by the practitioners o the peregrination taking place at Mount Hiei [kaihōgyō]. Swords [riken]: corresponding to the saitō worn by yamabushi, these swords stand or those used by Fudō myōō to subjugate demons. One long and one short wooden swords, lacquered but without sheath, are worn on the waist. Beyond these, the daisendatsu carries his own “real” sword [magatana or goma gatana], which he uses during the fire ritual [saitō goma] to release packets o wood sticks [nyūmoku], which he throws onto the fire to eed it. Te two swords were probably real ones (o metal) originally, but wooden swords were used at the time o the peregrination o Ka’ei 6 [1853]. Sword carrying is probably a distinctive eature o the Rokugō Conglomerate. Staff :9 an ornament set at the top o a long stick, it is used at the time o sutra chanting, or to give signals and maintain rhythm. It is also used or exorcism and is thereore treated as an important ritual implement. Bag [zudabukuro]: ordinarily, two bags are carried (one on each side o the waist). One holds paraphernalia such as a brush and ink stone, ritual implements and sutras, while the other is used to store ood and other daily necessities. Other items include rosaries, conch shells, and cypress ans. Straw sandals are sometimes worn, as well as a garment called Peony Blossom.10 Tese paraphernalia symbolize the belie in “non-twoness” (that o Fudō myōō and the practitioners); in comparison to the sixteen implements carried by yamabushi, they are both ew and light, and are devised to allow optimal perormance on the mountains.
Te author does not mention the straw sandals, held in place by a rope passing through eight eyelets symbolizing, again, the lotus blossom. At the end o the peregrination some practitioners offer theirs to lay participants. In many places in Japan one can see the same type o ootwear displayed prominently at the gates o temples. Te leader o the peregrination in 1989 was the abbot o the Chōanji emple. Although he opined that this would be the last peregrination, two more took place since, the last one in 2012, which suggests that more may ollow and that the Kunisaki Peninsula’s spatialities are not yet ully erased, in that they have not yet run out o time.11
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Usa: Hachiman’s return in disguise Badly destroyed as Mount Hiko and the Kunisaki Peninsula may have been in the late nineteenth century, they cannot compare to the utter devastation the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple complex was subjected to. Medieval drawings indicate the vast size o the Mirokuji emple located next to the Hachiman Shrine, and a recently constructed model o the entire site o cult (visible at the Ethnographic Museum o Usa) shows the stunning amplitude and scope o the temples that crowded the vast expanse located at the oot o Ogura Hill. O course, the shrines atop Ogura Hill were not touched in 1868. In the case o the Buddhist temples, however, putting it bluntly and briefly may be the best way: none o these pagodas, temples, halls, belries, reectories, libraries, and residences crowding the plain at the oot o the shrines—none—remains. Te erstwhile grounds o the Mirokuji emple are now filled with parks, ponds, a baseball diamond, the
Map 14 2010 Mineiri o the Kunisaki Peninsula
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museum, and the sprawling offices o the Usa Hachiman Shrine. Te erstwhile presence o the Buddha o the Future (Miroku) is completely obliterated. In 1868 the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman, as it was known or more than 1,000 years, was transormed overnight into a kami that was put to the service o ultra-nationalism, the epitome o which was the use o the medieval term kamikaze to reer to the youthul pilots who directed their planes onto US Navy ships at the end o World War II, in a desperate echo o the typhoon that thwarted the thirteenth century Mongol invasions o the territory. One o these Zero fighter planes (many o which were built in Saeki, just south o Ōita) can be seen today on the grounds o the Nada Hachiman Shrine located on the southeast corner o the Kunisaki Peninsula; the sign placed long ago over the main gate o this shrine reads, “Destroy the Tree Kingdoms” ( sankan seibatsu), that is, Korea. And as in the myriad Hachiman shrines located all over the country, doves and pigeons flutter around and coo peaceully .12 It is instructive, however, that the Kunisaki peregrination starts at the Usa Hachiman Shrine: temple priests and shrine officiants stand side by side, sutras and mantras are chanted within the inner compounds o the main shrine, and all share miki cups in ront o the three sacred stones at the summit o Mount Omoto. Indeed, none o the participants with whom I spoke with at the end o days o arduous walk ound anything strange or surprising about that; the contrary was true. But the Great Bodhisattva represented or centuries as an entity dressed in monk robes has evaporated: it is today an invisible kami, period.
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Aferword: From Spatialities to Dislocation A great amount o work remains to be accomplished beore anyone can claim a proper understanding o the intertwined history and geography o the areas I have just written a ew words about. Te cultic sites o Mount Hiko, Usa Hachiman, and the Kunisaki Peninsula have been disrupted and dislocated many times; they seem today out o place and as though drowning under the contemporary calls or state-sponsored material uses (the mantra o so- called “public works” one hears almost every day, and the renewed military thirst). In writing this, I do not wish to sound like those who claim that nostalgia is not what it used to be, but merely hope to strike a word o caution concerning abstract categories ofen used in the study o the immensely rich world o Japan’s cultic/cultural systems; these categories do not help reveal past practices or understandings, in that they ofen ignore historical breaks and merely hint at modern classificatory schemes that do not take space or place into deep-enough consideration, and thereore cannot bring to light some material conditions o (and or) being; nor do they account or the new place that has been given to cultic practices and history in the twentieth century. In my view, many o the disruptions suffered by these sites o cult were spatial (territorial) in character: it is clear that the entire country’s space and history schoolbooks have been taken prisoners by the cold hands o the modern nation-state, and that new places have been assigned to everybody. As or the temporal character, well, time will tell. It must be noted, however, that the Meiji period caused major “disconnects” between the traditional lunisolar year dates or rituals and the Gregorian calendar adopted in early 1873. o give but a ew examples o a massive set o temporal glitches, the New Year is officially on January 1, but the lunar date varies each year; some shrines and temples observe their rites on either, or both, calendars’ dates. Another important rite is the anabata observed all over Japan, but most amous in Sendai: it should occur on the seventh day o the seventh lunar month, but now it is observed on July 7: this discrepancy voids the main reason or the lunar date, on which the constellations o the Weaver and Herdsman, separated all year by the Milky Way, 245
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meet to consume their love or each other. On July 7, their actual position in the sky is completely different. Tese two brie examples typiy the non-sequiturs ound almost everywhere today, seemingly echoing Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities in his chapter on Perinthia. In these cases, time does not tell the proper story anymore: time too has been dislocated and impoverished.
Rays o light In 1882 the government relented in its aggressive condemnation o Shugendō and allowed yamabushi to perorm some ritualized peregrinations, but damage had already changed practices and outlooks. Both Shingon-related and endairelated Shugendō surviving groups slowly re-organized; indeed, the government had orced the yamabushi to belong to either the endai or the Shingon sect, and placed them at the lowest possible, humiliating rank. Tis treatment eventually led to resentment and resistance, and the yamabushi began to perorm their main rituals as they had in the past. Te leaders o Shingon yamabushi based at the Sanbō-in temple in Kyoto re-organized during the first years o the new century and in 1909 started the publication o a magazine called “Jinben”, in which calls or organization as well as scholarly articles on Shugendō were published. Te three volumes o the Shugendō Shōso remarkable doctrinal and practice-oriented documents were published rom 1916 to 1919. It is also necessary to underscore an important theater event o 1917: subouchi Shōyō, one o the great literary figures o the Meiji period, and the translator o Shakespeare, wrote a play that was immediately perormed as a grand piece o the emerging “Shingeki” (New Teater) movement: the name o the play is En no Gyōja. It was such a success that it was translated into French to be perormed in Paris in 1920, but this did not happen or a reason I do not know, and I never was able to put my hands on that translation, said to be the first oreign translation o a Japanese play in any Western language.1 It is an enticing play based on the lie o En no Gyōja, the putative ounder o Shugendō, his relationship to his mother, and his resistance to the sexual entreaties o a bewitching maiden, and the play ends in a cataclysm. It was even the object o an opera o the same name, composed by Kan Ishii in 1965. subouchi also wrote an etiological record o the lie o En no Gyōja, so he was obviously ascinated by Shugendō. His legacy is kept alive in many universities around the globe and by the eponymous Museum o Teater located at Waseda University in okyo, where he taught.
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Te endai-based yamabushi, or their part, started publication o their own magazine, “Shugen,” in 1923. It is not beore 1946, however, that the endai-based yamabushi groups splintered rom the endai sect and ormed an independent school called Shugenshū. As one may suspect, the wars with Russia, China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the United States lef little or no room or peregrinations or about our decades, and Shugendō suffered even more. It reemerged in the 1950s and 1960s, and is now quite popular. Tere is a trendy movement to use Shugendō in “Anime” and “Manga,” but it is superficial when compared to the vast amount o solid scholarship Japan has produced, although it may provide a solid thirst or knowledge on the part o ans around the world. It is imperative that the works o Akyūbō Sokuden be translated and analysed, that GPS-based three-dimensional maps be accomplished or all Shugendō sites, so that a much clearer picture o this remarkable cultural and cultic phenomenon may emerge. Japanese scholars o great distinction have amassed countless documents and artiacts and superb studies, and this may make the effort a lot more attractive and deeply satisying.
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Japanese Glossary A Akame 赤目 Akimoto, Kichirō 秋本吉郎 Akyūbō Sokuden 阿吸房即伝 Amibetsu 網別 Amida Nyorai 阿弥陀如来 ango 安居 Anna 安和 Anrakuji 安楽寺 Aoki, Kazuo 青木和夫 aramitama 荒魂 Asuka 飛鳥 B Batō Kannon 馬頭観音 Bungo akada 豊後高田 C Chūai 仲哀 Chūyūki 忠右記 chinju 鎮守 Chinzei Hikosan engi 鎮西彦山縁起 Chionji 智恩寺 chō 町 chō 丁 chō 調 Chōanji 長安寺 Chōgen 重源 D Daianji 大安寺 daijizaiten 大自在天 Dazaiu 太宰府 Dengyō Daishi 伝教大師 Denjōji 伝乗寺 Dewa 出羽
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Dōkyō 道鏡 Dōshō 道昭 E Egami, Namio 江上波夫 En no Gyōja 役の行者 Endō, Yoshimoto 遠藤嘉基 engi 縁起 Engi shiki 延喜式 Enmyō Kannon Bosatsu 延命観音菩薩 Enryakuji 延暦寺 F Fudoki 風土記 Fugen bosatsu 普賢菩薩 Fujio 藤尾 Fujita, Seiichi 藤田晴一 Fujiwara 藤原 Fujiwara no Fuhito 藤原不比等 Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu 藤原冬嗣 Fujiwara no Hirotsugu 藤原広嗣 Fujiwara no Katsunushi 藤原勝主 Fujiwara no Mototsune 藤原基経 Fujiwara no Muchimaro 藤原武智麻呂 Fujiwara no Munetada 藤原宗忠 Fujiwara no Nagausa 藤原長房 Fujiwara no Nakamaro 藤原仲麻呂 Fujiwara no Umakai 藤原宇合 Fujiwara no Yoshiusa 藤原良房 uko 封戸 Fukuchisan 福智山 unyūken 不入権 Furuta, akehiko 古田武彦 Futagoji 両子寺 uyusoden 不輸租田 G Gassan 月山 gegū 外宮 gekyō 外京 Genbō 玄昉 Gikai 義海
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Japanese Glossary Gokoku Reigen Iriki Jinzū Daibosatsu 護国霊験威力神通大菩薩 Gokoku Reigen Iriki Jinzū Daijizai-ō-Bosatsu 護国霊験威力神通大自在王菩薩 Gokokuji 護国寺 Gorai, Shigeru 五来重 goshōzoku 御装束 Gyōgyō 行教 Gyōki 行基 gyōkōe 行幸会 Gyōnyūji 行入寺 Gyōshū 行秀 H Hachiman Daibosatsu 八幡大菩薩 Hachiman 八幡 Hachiman Usagū goshinryō ōkagami 八幡宇佐宮御神領大鏡 Hachiman Usagū gotakusenshū 八幡宇佐宮御託宣集 Hachimenzan 八面山 Hagiwara, atsuo 萩原龍夫 Haguro 羽黒 Hayabusawake 隼総別 Hayato 隼人 Heijōkyō 平城京 hen 変 Hiashi 日足 Hie 日吉 Hieizan 比叡山 Hikosan 英彦山 Hikosan 彦山 Hikosanki 彦山記 Hime Jingūji 比売神宮寺 Himegami 比売神 Himekoso jinja 姫来語神社 Himekoso jinja 姫来曽神社 Himeshima 姫島 Hinode 日出 Hirano, Kunio 平野邦夫 Hōjō 北条 hōjōe 放生会 Hokke 北家 Hokke-hō 法華法 Hokke mandara 法華曼荼羅 Hōkyōji 法鏡寺
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Hōmanzan 宝満山 Hōmeiji 宝命寺 Homuda-wake no mikoto 誉田別尊 Honchōseiki 本朝世紀 Honshōbō 本松房 Hōonji 報恩寺 Hōren 法蓮 Hōryūji 法隆寺 Hoshino, Riichirō 星野理一郎 Hossō 法相 Hyūga no Omi 日向臣 [= Soga no Himuka 蘇我日向] I iden 位田 Iida, Hisao 飯田久雄 Imi 伊美 Imi Betsugū Hachiman 伊美別宮八幡 Inaoka, Kōji 稲岡耕二 Inari 稲荷 Ise 伊勢 Ishigaki 石垣 Itōzu 倒津 Iwashimizu 石清水 Iwatoji 岩戸寺 Izumo 出雲 J jūgōsankashō 十郷三箇荘 Jinmu 神武 jinpō 神宝 jingū 神宮 Jingū Kōgō 神宮皇后 jingūji 神宮寺 Jingoji 神護寺 jinin 神人 Jintai 神台 Jin’un 神吽 jisha 寺社 Jōbutsuji 成仏寺 Jōen 清円 Jōgan gishiki 貞観儀式 jōri 条理
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Japanese Glossary Jōwa no hen 承和の変 Junnin 淳仁 jushoku kanjō 受職潅頂 K Kagawa, Mitsuo 賀川光夫 Kaguraoka 神楽岡 Kaiu 海部 kaizan 開山 Kakachi 香々地 kanbe 神戸 [also: jinko] kami 神 Kamo 加茂 Kamogawa 鴨川 Kanzeon 観世音 [Kannon] bosatsu Kanzeonji 観世音寺 kanzukasa 主神 Karashima 辛島 Karashima no Suguri Otome 辛島勝乙目 Kashii 香椎 Kashiwara 橿原 Kasuga 春日 Kasuga, Kazuo 春日和男 Katsuragawa 桂川 Kawara 香春 Kūkai 空海 kekkai 結界 kengyō 検校 Kenkei 賢憬 Ki 紀 Ki no Shigenaga 紀重永 kiba minzoku 騎馬民族 Kibe 岐部 Kibi no Makibi 吉備真備 Kishima, Jinkyū 木島甚久 Kizugawa 木津川 Kobae 小葉枝 Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師 kōdō 講堂 Kōukuji 興福寺 koun 古墳 Kojiki 古事記
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Kōken 孝謙 kokke 国家 [also: kokka] kokubunji 国分寺 kokubunniji 国分尼寺 Kokura 小倉 Kokuzōji 虚空蔵寺 Kōmyō 光明皇后 kondō 金堂 Kongōbuji 金剛峰寺 Kongōji 金剛寺 kongōsho 金剛杵 Kōnin kampu 弘仁官符 Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō 金光明最勝王経 Korehito 惟仁 kōshi 講師 Koya 小家 Kōyasan 高野山 Kubo, Noritada 窪徳忠 Kubotesan 求菩提山 Kudara-O Yoshitomi 百済王敬福 Kūkai 空海 Kumano 熊野 Kumaso 熊曽 kuni no miyatsuko 国造 Kuni no miyatsuko hongi 国造本紀 kuniguni sanzai tsunemi myōden 国々散在常見名田 Kunisaki 国東 Kuroda, oshio 黒田俊雄 Kusachi 草地 Kyūzenji 久全寺 Kyōōgokokuji 教王護国寺 M Magarikane 勾金 Maki 馬城 makomo 真薦 makura 枕 Mangan 万巻 Mano, Kazuo 真野和夫 mappō 末法 Matama 真玉 Meta 米多
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Japanese Glossary Metori 雌鳥 Michiwakidera 道脇寺 Mikasayama 三笠山 mikoshi 御輿 Minami-Hokkeji 南法華寺 Minamoto no Yoritomo 源頼朝 Minamoto no Yoshitsuna 源義綱 Miroku bosatsu 弥勒菩薩 Mirokuji 弥勒寺 Mirokuzen’in 弥勒禅院 Misaki, Ryōshū 三崎良周 mishirushi 御験 miya 宮 Miyako 京都 Miyamoto, Kesao 宮本袈裟雄 Miyasaka, Yūshō 宮坂宥勝 Miyata, Noboru 宮田登 Mizukami, Satsuma 水上薩摩 Mizunoo 水尾 Monju bosatsu 文殊菩薩 Monjusenji 文殊仙寺 Mononobe 物部 Mononobe no Moriya 物部守屋 Montoku 文徳 Moribe 守部 motomishō jūhakkasho 本御荘十八箇所 Motoyama 本山 Mudōji 無動寺 Munakata 宗像 Munakata 宗像 Murakami, Shigeyoshi 村上重良 N Nagano, adashi 長野正 Nagatomi, Hisae 永留久恵 Naka no Ōe 中大兄 Nakano, Hatayoshi 中野幡能 Nakatomi 中臣 Nakatomi no Kamatari 中臣鎌足 Nakatomi no Katsumi 中臣勝海 Nakatsu 中津 Nakatsuoji 中津尾寺
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Japanese Glossary
Nakayama 中山 Naniwa 難波 Nantaizan 男体山 negi 禰宜 nigimitama 和魂 Nihon ryōiki 日本霊異記 Nihongi 日本紀 Nihon Shoki 日本書紀 Niiaki 新開 Nijūhachihonzan mokuroku 二十八本山目録 Nikkō 日光 Ninmon Bosatsu chōki 仁聞菩薩朝記 Ninmon Daibosatsu 仁聞大菩薩 Nishibiyū, Motohi 西別府元日 Nishimoto, Yutaka 西本泰 Nishitakatsuji, Nobusada 西高辻信貞 Nōgyō 能行 Nuki 貫 O Ōbae 大葉枝 ōbō-buppō 王法仏法 Ōga 大神 Ōga no Higi 大神比義 Ōga no Kiyomaro gejō 大神清麻呂解状 Ōga no Umaro 大神薀麻呂 Ogawa 小河 Oguranoike haiji 小倉池廃寺 Ogurayama 小椋山 Oidono 御炊殿 Ōita 大分 Ōjin 応神 Okinaga 息長 Okinaga arashi-hime-no-mikoto 息長帯比売命 Okinoshima 沖ノ島 Ōmachi 大町 Omi 御深 Ōmiwa 大神 Ōmiwa 大三輪 Omotosan 御許山 Ōnakatomi 大中臣 Onizuka koun 鬼塚古墳
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Japanese Glossary Onjōji 園城寺 onmyōdō 陰陽道 Ono no Azumando 大野東人 onryō 怨霊 Ōrekiji 応暦寺 Ōsasagi no mikoto 大鶺領命 Ōsumi 大隅 Otokoyama 男山 Otokunidera 乙国寺 Oyamadasha 小山田社 Ōyanagi 大楊 R Reikiji 霊亀寺 Reisenji 霊仙寺 reizan 霊山 Rikuoku 陸奥 ritsuryō seido 律令制度 Roku Kannon Bosatsu 六観音菩薩 Rokugō manzan 六郷満山 ryō 両 Ryōzenji 霊山寺 S Saichō 最澄 Sakai onushime 酒井門主女 Sakurai, okutarō 桜井徳太郎 saniwa 審神者 Sasayama, Haruo 笹山晴生 Satō, Makoto 佐藤真人 Satsuma 薩摩 Seiganji 清岩寺 Seijōkōji 清浄光寺 Seiwa 清和 sekkan 摂関 sendatsu 先達 Senju Kannon bosatsu 千手観音菩薩 senmyō 宣命 Sentōji 千燈寺 shidosō 私度僧 Shigematsu, Akihisa 重松明久 shikimi 樒
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Japanese Glossary
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shintai 身体 Shintō 神道 Shirauji, Noriyuki 白藤禮幸 Shō-Kannon Bosatsu 正観音菩薩 Shōdō shōnin 勝道上人 shōen 荘園 Shōkakuji 正覚寺 Shoku Nihongi 続日本紀 Shōmu 聖武 Shōtoku 称徳 Shōtoku taishi 聖徳太子 Shozan engi 諸山縁起 Shugendō 修験道 shuto 衆徒 so 租 Soga 蘇我 Soga no Umako 蘇我馬子 songō 尊号 Sueyama 末山 Sugawara no Michizane 菅原道実 Suigetsuji 水月寺 Suminoe 住江 Sumiyoshi 住吉 Sumiyoshi taisha 住吉大社 Suō nada 周防灘 achibana no Kachiko 橘嘉智子 achibana no Moroe 橘諸兄 agawa 田川 aika kaishin 大化改新 akachihosan 高千穂山 akaisesha 鷹居瀬社 akao 高雄 akayamadera 高山寺 akeshiuchi no Sukune 武内宿祢 aketazu 竹田津 amamuro, Fumio 圭室文雄 amukeyamasha 手向山社 ashibu 田染 tatari 祟 ennenji 天念寺
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Japanese Glossary ōdaiji 東大寺 ogawa, Yasuaki 戸川安章 ogō 都甲 ōji 東寺 tokko 独鈷 tokkosho 独鈷杵 ōkōji 東光寺 okuitsu 徳一 oyura 豊浦 subaki 椿 subosakadera 壺坂寺 suguma 津隈 sukaguchi, Yoshinobu 塚口義信 sukuba 筑波 sunoda 角田 sunoga 敦賀 [also: suruga] suwadosan 津波戸山 U Ueda, Masaaki 上田正昭 uji 氏 uji no kami 氏上 Ujigawa 宇治川 Umeda, Yoshihiko 梅田義彦 umi no sachi 海の幸 Uno, Enkū 宇野円空 Urabe jūgokashō 浦部十五ケ荘 Usa 宇佐 Usa no Ikemori 宇佐池守 Usa no Kimiai 宇佐公相 Usa no Kimiusa 宇佐公房 Usa no oyokawa 宇佐豊川 Usagū Hachiman Gotakusen-shū 宇佐宮八幡御託宣集 Ushikubo, Hiroyoshi 牛窪弘善 Usuno 臼野 W Wakamiya 若宮 Wake no Hironori 和気広範 Wake no Kiyomaro 和気清麻呂 Watanabe, Shōkō 渡辺照宏
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Y Yakushi nyorai 薬師如来 yama no sachi 山の幸 yamabushi 山伏 yamadera 山寺 Yamaga 山香 Yamatai 邪馬台 Yamazaki, Yasuji 山崎安治 Yasaka 八坂 yashiro 社 Yasumaru, Yoshio 安丸良夫 yō 庸 Yodogawa 淀川 Yōmei 用明 Yoshino 吉野 Yudono 湯殿 Yuu 由布 yusoden 輸租田 Z zasu 座主 zōeki 雑役 Zōkei 増慶 Zōyo 増誉
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Notes Preace 1 Te aishō version o the Buddhist Canon contains an appendix composed o twelve volumes called (Zuzōbu) and dedicated to iconography, which was a major object o study/practice, and knowledge o which was essential to correct representation, historical, and practical knowledge. It is regrettable that this part o Buddhist cults and culture has remained—until recently—the domain o art history, because it is much more than that. See (Murakami, akakusu and Watanabe 1912–25). From here on the Canon will be reerred to as , ollowed by the document number. 2 One scholar o Chinese religious history told me that there were Chinese mountains also subjected to mandalization, but I have not been able to veriy the validity o the assertion, and thereore cannot compare.
1 Shugendō and the Production o Social Space 1 According to (Wakamori 1972) the word shugen appears in Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku (901 CE), although the words shu and gen appear separately but in the same sentence in Nihon Ryōiki (ca. 820)—and the term Shugendō appears in an entry dated 1367 in Kōgumaiki, which is somewhat puzzling because many o Shugendō’s central eatures were in place at the time. 2 See (Kuroda 1981). Te term jisha should properly be translated “temples and shrines,” but this would be too vague because it may not necessarily reer to interconnected units, as was the case. I thereore opt or the term “shrine- temple” to which I add “complex.” Te term I used in earlier works, “multiplex,” was abandoned because it indicates in the United States conglomerates o movie theaters. 3 See (Murakami, suji and Washio, Meiji Ishin Shinbutsu Bunri Shiryō 1970); (amamuro 1979); (Yasumaru 1979). In English see (Grapard 1984); (Collcutt 1986); (Hardacre 1989); (Ketelaar 1990). 4 I borrow the term “technologies o the sel” rom Michel Foucault, who writes that these technologies “permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help o others a certain number o operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way o being, so as to transorm themselves in order to attain a state o
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happiness, purity, wisdom, perection, or immortality.” In (Foucault, echnologies o the Sel 1988), p.18 5 On the concept o Japan as a sacred land see (Kuroda, Te Discourse on the ’Land o Kami’ (Shinkoku) in Medieval Japan: National Consciousness and International Awareness, 1996). See also (Sasaki 1987) and (Grapard, Flying Mountains and Walkers o Emptiness: oward a Definition o Sacred Space in Japanese Religions 1982). 6 (Murayama 1970). See also two more recent works by the same author: ( Murayama, Shugen no Sekai 1992) and (Murayama, Shugen Onmyōdō to Shaji Shiryō 1997). 7 Little has come down to us about the medical knowledge o the yamabushi; or some inormation on a ew o their therapeutic devices see (Rotermund 1991). 8 (Murayama, Yamabushi no Rekishi 1970), pp. 16–21. 9 (Nagano 1987) is the only recent exception to this rule. 10 A pointed philosophical critique o that position is given in (Castoriadis 1987) pp. 167–220. 11 Examples o this trend are (Hori 1966) and (Blacker 1975). 12 I have in mind the type o sacred space advanced by Mircea Eliade in many o his works. 13 See Map no. 1. 14 (Kiyosuke 1995) p. 26, ootnote no. 4. 15 (Nakano 1977) pp. 2–32. But see also his map p. 582, and Nakano’s listing o 135 mountains, pp. 583–8. Wakamori lists 354 sacred or all o Japan in ( Wakamori, Yamabushi 1964), while (Miyake 1986) lists only 351 mountains but lists 532 temples and shrines currently associated with Shugendō, pp. 438–63. 16 (Kagawa 1976). 17 (S. a. Hardacre 1988). See also (Hayama 1971). 18 See Map no. 2. 19 (Kuroda, Shinto in the History o Japanese Religion 1981). 20 I use the term agonistic to reer to two distinct, though related processes. As in Ancient Greece, where agons were perormed at the time o ritual in the orm o chariot and horse races or human combat, the ancient Japanese always engaged in some kind o physical competition at the time o ritual estivity. In the case o Shugendō, more specifically, sumō wrestling was an essential component o religious practice, and some o the oldest puppets used in Hachiman- related shrines in Kyushu represent sumō wrestlers. Te term agonistic is also used in this study to suggest the nature o the relations between two groups that ormed the religious community o shrine-temple complexes: the group whose members specialized in the worship o Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and the group whose members predominantly engaged in rites dedicated to kami. 21 See Map no. 3.
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22 Among others see (Furuta 1977); (Nakano, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1975); (Higashi Ajia Kodai Bunka 1982); (Yamataikoku 1982). 23 (Farris 1998): p. 51. 24 (Daisanji Gakujutsu Chōsatai 1979). See also (Okada 1985). On the Sumiyoshi cult, see (Nishimoto 1977). 25 (Nijūnisha Kenkyūkai 1987). (Grapard, Institution, Ritual, and Ideology: Te wenty-two Shrine-emple Multiplexes o Heian Japan 1987). 26 See (Grapard, Institution, Ritual, and Ideology: Te wenty-two Shrine-emple Multiplexes o Heian Japan 1987). See also (Grapard, Shrines registered in imperial law: Shinto or not? 2002). 27 Nihongi: Chronicles o Japan (Aston 1972) (Nishitakatsuji 1980). Kojiki remains silent on these matters. From here on Nihongi will be replaced with Nihon Shoki, the proper name o the document. 28 Nihon Shoki, Book 2, p. 110. Mount Hiko’s late-sixteenth century etiological narrative, Chinzei Hikosan Engi , claims that this “oyokuni Master” was in act a certain Ninniku biku, then regarded as the second patriarch o Hiko Shugendō. 29 (Nishitakatsuji 1980). 30 Nihon Shoki, Book 2, p. 139. 31 On Genbō, see below, p. 37. 32 See (Kanda 1985). 33 Nihon Shoki, Book 1, p. 112, and Kojiki, Book 2, p. 163. 34 Tere is no possibility o ascertaining the history o oracular practice in Usa prior to the eighth century. Ninth-century records mention oracles said to date back to the late sixth century, but they are quite unreliable. 35 (Nagatomi 1984) pp. 109–15. See also (Furuta, Ushinawareta Kyūshū Ōchō 1979). 36 In (Ledyard 1975), however, Gari Ledyard builds a strong case or the “Rocklings,” people whose legends are systematically related to stones, and who may have been related to the Homuda and Okinaga arashi myths which orm one basis o the Hachiman cult. 37 (Aoki, et al. 1989), Vol. 2, p. 312. 38 Shoku Nihongi , Vol. 3, p. 97. 39 (Endō and Kasuga 1967) Book III, 19, p. 369. Tis document provides three graphs to be read solely or their phonetic value, and thereore makes authority. Note that the narrative mentions a “ kami-man” ( jinjin, but see note no. 29, p. 306, in which the editors explain jinjin as a man o superior abilities) who comes down rom heaven and pierces the chest o two Usa shrine- temple monks who had shown no respect or a sacerdotal woman born without genitalia (I intercalate gū in daijinji per the editors’ additional endnote no. 35, p. 500). 40 Nakano Hatayoshi discusses these issues in detail in (Nakano, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1975) Vol. 1, pp. 134–50.
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41 Nakano, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū , Vol. 1, p. 141. Note that Nakano simply claims that “it is clear that there was a special connection between the Ōmiwa ritualists and the Jingū/Ōjin myths” (p. 135). But see below, note no. 88. 42 Nakano Hatayoshi, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū , Vol. 1, p. 113. 43 Te name Ōga would have originated with the Ōgami house o Yamato Province, which served the Ōmiwa Shrine (Nakano Hatayoshi, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū, Vol. 2, p. 944). Te Shoku Nihongi (Aoki, Inaoka, et al. 1989), Vol. 3, p. 93, however, simply says that Ōmiwa (or should the graphs be read Ōga, or Ōgami?) Morime and amaro were granted in 749 a title-name (kabane), which does not imply a pronunciation change. Nakano’s claim that the Ōmiwa went rom Yamato to Kyushu in the sixth century is not corroborated by the sources; neither is the claim that the Ōmiwa changed the pronunciation o their name to Ōga. Had it been the case, it would be clear in Shoku Nihongi that the sacerdotal officiants Morime and amaro were Kyushu residents, but this does not appear to have been the case. Te only thing that is clear is that Morime and amaro were exiled in 755, the ormer to Hyūga Province in Kyushu, and the latter to anegashima (south o Kyushu), and that amaro would have been pardoned and appointed to the chie sacerdotal position o Usa in 766 ( Shoku Nihongi Vol. 4: p. 135). Contemporary editors o Shoku Nihongi say that the origins o the Ōga are not clear, and that they may have been ancient residents o Kyushu to begin with (Shoku Nihongi, Vol. 3, additional endnote no. 30, p. 469). In a more recent publication Nakano admits that he had been mistaken in identiying the Ōga no Higi mentioned in Usa legends with a certain Ōmiwa no Higi o Uda in Yamato Province, and he drastically alters his dating o Ōga no Higi o Usa, now making him a contemporary o Hōren in the early eighth century—as opposed to the late sixth century. See (Kabushikikaisha Ōita Hōsō, Ōita Rekishi Jiten Kankōhonbu 1990): 186. 44 Nakano Hatayoshi, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū , Vol. 1, p. 15 and p. 137. 45 Shoku Nihongi, Vol. 2, pp. 310–12. I ollow sukaguchi’s reading, which has the term “two shrines” reer to Usa alone, and not to “Suminoe and Usa,” as other commentators would have it. See (sukaguchi 1982): 23. 46 (Nakano, Hachiman Shinkō 1985): 24. 47 (Philippi 1968): 222. 48 Te Hakozaki Hachiman Shrine o Fukuoka is said to have been erected on King Homuda’s birthplace in 961, but two sources say differently: Chikuzen no Kuni Fudoki proposes Kaya County, while Umi Hachiman- gū Engi proposes Kada County. See (Kiyosuke 1995), p. 26, endnote n. 7. Te spirit o “Emperor” Chūai was given a cult at Kashii, the mausoleum mentioned a ew moments ago. 49 Gari Ledyard, “Galloping Along with the Horseriders,” pp. 250–4. 50 “Mother” is in quotation marks because it may very well have been the case that nobody knew who King Homuda’s mother was, and that the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki compilers used their creative imagination and came up with Okinaga arashihime.
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Tis suggestion gains weight rom the act that only one o these two documents views Homuda’s mother as an empress. 51 (sukaguchi 1982): 8. 52 Needless to say, the mythological narratives that have been the object o the most numerous studies by Japanese scholars are the three myths relating the conquests o the archipelago by the Prince o Iware (“Emperor” Jinmu), King Homuda (“Emperor” Ōjin), and the legendary Prince Yamato akeru, because they are directly related to the origins o the claim to an imperial territory located in the Japanese isles. Tese conquests originated in the west o the archipelago and moved in an easterly direction, and it is important to note that all three show great use o maritime routes. 53 (Veyne 1988): 84. 54 Tis lack o clarity, incidentally, may be the reason why Nakano insisted on the actuality o the late sixth-century “conquest” o the Karashima ritualists by the Ōga (or Ōgami, Ōmiwa) ritualists. 55 Tat is, beore the medieval period, when Hachiman came to be symbolized by the dove; but the Kamakura Hachiman Shrine/emple complex emblem was the crane. Goshawks were also emblematic o Mount Hiko, and were also worshipped in the Kunisaki Peninsula. 56 (Nakano, Hachiman Shinkō 1985): 102–3. 57 Several reliable documents mention Hōren, whose medical skills earned him recognition by the court in 702. As was mentioned earlier, an imperial decree granted his relatives the surname and title Usa no kimi in 721, a date by which the Heijōkyō court was beginning to pay significant attention to the Usa region. 58 (Shigematsu 1986): 194. 59 (Ōita Kenritsu Usa Fudoki no Oka Rekishiminzoku Shiryōkan 1986 ): 41–48. 60 Nakano Hatayoshi, Hachiman Shinkō , pp. 17–24. 61 (Nakano, Usagū 1985): 77. 62 (Ōita Kenritsu Usa Fudoki no Oka Rekishiminzoku Shiryōkan 5-1988 ): 1–19. 63 See below, chapter 2, p. xxx. 64 (Shigematsu 1986), (Akimoto 1958): 387–8. 65 Tese are the “imperial princes” Hayabusawake, ōbae, Kobae, and the “princess” Metori. It should be noted, however, that the medieval Compendium o Oracles (Hachiman Usagū Gotakusenshū) proposes our different lists o entities enshrined there; or details see Nakano Hatayoshi, Usagū, p. 37. Te fifh entity o the Lower Shrine today is Ōsasagi no mikoto, whose name appears in the third list mentioned in the Compendium. 66 (Akimoto 1958), “Hizen no Kuni Fudoki” (okyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1958): 387. See also (Nakano, Usagū 1985): 37–8. 67 (sukaguchi 1982): 151. 68 (Aoki, Inaoka, et al. 1989) Nihon Shoki, Book 1, p. 228, and (Akimoto 1958), “Chikuzen no kuni itsubun”: 505.
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69 (Aoki, Inaoka, et al. 1989) Shoku Nihongi, Vol. 2, pp. 370 and ollowing. 70 Shoku Nihongi, Vol. 2, p. 385. 71 . 16: 335–457. 72 It is apparent that the identification o sanctuaries as either miya, yashiro, jingū, or byō (mitamaya) was a problem at the time, and that these terms were redefined over the course o the Nara and Heian periods. In this case, however, is it not thinkable that the scribe omitted the third graph that would have qualified the site as “ jingūji” (shrine-temple), used at the time to reer to Buddhist temples erected on the compounds o local shrines? 73 One chō equals approximately 5580 m2. 74 (Grapard, Te Protocol o the Gods: A Study o the Kasuga Cult in Japanese History 1992): 64–8. 75 (Endō and Kasuga 1967): 264–8. 76 (Sakurai, Hagiwara and Miyata 1975): 103. Te author o Shozan Engi only suggests that Jugen may have been a contemporary o Emperor Shōmu’s. 77 (yler 1989) Royall yler, “Kōuku- ji and Shugendō”: 143–80. 78 See the legends relating Azumi no Isora and Jingū Kōgō in (Grapard, Lotus in Mountain, Mountain in Lotus 1986): 21–50. 79 (Bender 1979): 125–53. 80 (Shigematsu 1986): 198. 81 (Nakano, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1975) Vol 1, 156, and (Umeda 1964). 82 (Kiyosuke 1995) Kiyosuke Michio (in Yahata Ōgami no Shintaku ): p. 11 views the Ōga as Korean immigrants who had settled either in Yamato, Chikuzen, or Ōmi. It is quite possible, thereore, that by the eighth century Korean shamanistic trance, possession, and oracular practices on the part o emales dressed as nuns had become a central eature o the Yahata cult in Usa and Nara. Tis eature dovetails nicely with the role given Usa in dealings with the Korean peninsula, especially i one associates it with the cult given the Buddha o the Future in the Mirokuji emple. 83 (Aoki, Inaoka, et al. 1989) Shoku Nihongi, 749, twenty-fifh day o the twelfh month. Tis mention o the term negini, incidentally, long predates the mention o the corresponding term or men, shasō (shrine monk). Obviously, more research needs to be done on cultic hierarchy nomenclatures. In the present case it should be underlined that, in the case o women, an admixture o Japanese language ( negi) and SinoJapanese (ni) was used, while in the case o men a Sino-Japanese reading was used. Although I do not wish to take the case too ar at this point, it must also be pointed out that the term negi reers to a rank or position in the world o shrines, while the term sha simply reers to shrines themselves, perhaps because the tandem negi-sō would have seemed too unnatural in linguistic terms. In any case, the act remains that the oldest extant index o combined duties in the history o shrine-temple complexes was applied to emale sacerdotal officiants, and it deserves attention.
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Notes 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94
95 96 97 98 99 100
101 102 103
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(Nakano, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1940), Vol. 1: 113. (A. Shigematsu 1986) Hachiman Usagū Gotakusenshū : 264. (Bender, Te Hachiman Cult and the Dōkyō Incident 1979): 136. (Umeda 1964): 339–42. Kojiki: 257. Nihon Shoki, Book 1: 225. Te ollowing is based on (Nakano, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1975), Vol. 1: 176–83. (Aoki, Inaoka, et al. 1989) Shoku Nihongi 32, Jingo Keiun 3, ourth month, seventh day. Nakano Hatayoshi, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū , p. 178, and Shigematsu Akihisa, Hachiman Usagū gotakusenshū , pp. 325–39. Nakano Hatayoshi, personal communication. More precisely, Wake no Kiyomaro created the Jinganji emple in Kawachi Province between 782 and 806 to show gratitude to Yahata (Hachiman), but it was Kiyomaro’s son Matsuna (783–846) who petitioned the court to relocate it in akao in 824, under the name Jingoji—where Kūkai resided or several years. See Map no. 6. (Shintō aikei Hensankai 1977–2007) Vol. 7: 4. For details o the transportation o these emblems rom Usa to Iwashimizu, see (Ōita Kenritsu Usa Fudoki no Oka Rekishiminzoku Shiryōkan 1986): 56. (Iyanaga 1983) See Iyanaga Nobumi, “Daijizaiten,” pp. 713–65. See below, chapter two p. 125 or a detailed discussion o the Buddhist clothing o Hachiman statues and its meanings. (Satō 1987) Satō Masato, “ Heian jidai kyūtei no shinbutsu kakuri ” in (Nijūnisha Kenkyūkai 1987) Heian jidai no Jinja to Saishi (okyo: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1987): 249–300. During the late Heian period as well as in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, it was customary or emperors to perorm major Esoteric Buddhist rituals at the time o their enthronement. See (Grapard, O Emperors and Foxy Ladies 2002–2003): 127–49. One o the best works on the topic is (Murayama, Honji Suijaku 1974). (Kuroda, Ōbō to Buppō 1983). Iwashimizu is not listed in the Procedures o the Engi Era. Te document entitled Gūji Enjishō, a voluminous collection o records related to the Iwashimizu shrine-temple complex, contains two medieval explanations o this pretermission: Urabe Kaneyori suggested that the sanctuary had not been the object o imperial offerings (kanpei) or provincial government offerings (kokuhei) beore the compilation o the Engi Procedures, and Urabe Kaneshige suggested that another reason may be ound in the act that Iwashimizu, like the Gion and Kitano shrine-temple complexes, did not offer fish (because the institutions were run by
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104 105
106
107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115
Notes Buddhist prelates). Nakano Hatayoshi discusses this important and unresolved issue in his introduction to (Shintō aikei Hensankai 1977–2007) (Jinja Hen), Vol. 7, pp. 19–21 o the main text, and in the same volume, pp. 53–6. Iwashimizu, o course, was eventually added to the list o the wenty-two shrine-temple complexes sponsored by the court. Te omission o the Iwashimizu, Kitano, and Gion sites o cult in the Procedures, however, cannot be the result o a simple oversight. (Shigematsu 1986) Hachiman Usagū Gotakusenshū : 273. Kojiki: 194. Indeed, Kōrei’s third son’s spirit was enshrined as the main kami o the amed Kibitsu Shrine-temple complex, under the name Hiko-Saserihiko-nomikoto, which was changed later to Ōkibitsu-Hiko-no-mikoto. (Nishibiyū 1983) Nishibiyū Motohi, “Kunisaki no omi ni kansuru ichikōsatsu,” in Ōita Daigaku Kyōikugakubu (ed.), Kunisaki: Shizen, Shakai, Kyōiku (Ōita, 1983): 235–44. Tis notion is urther supported by narratives ound in Harima Fudoki , and by the Himekoso legends. Himekoso is a name shared by one shrine located on Himeshima Island, which is located off the Kunisaki Peninsula’s north coast, and by one shrine located in Osaka. Himekoso is, originally, the name o a “princess” whose legend is told in Nihon Shoki, Book 1: 166–8, but see also the Himekoso shrine legend in “Hizen no Kuni Fudoki” in Akimoto Kichirō (ed.), Fudoki: 383–5. Tis is o some importance because the Nihon Shoki narrative is set within the context o animosities between Yamato and Silla. Nihon Shoki, Book 1: 148. Nihon Shoki, Book 1: 168. Te Himekoso (not Himegoso, as Aston has it) shrine o Himeshima is written with different graphs: 姫語曽. Kojiki, pp. 264–86. (Akimoto 1958) Fudoki: 425. (Nishibiyū, Kunisaki no Omi 1990): 196. (Mano 1990) Ōita Rekishi Jiten: 74. See Map no. 4. (akeuchi, Nagahara and Amino 1878) “Shōen no jittai wo motomete” in Rekishi Kōron 5 (May 1978): 22–39. (Abe 1978) “Shoki shōen no seiritsu” in Rekishi Kōron 5 (May 1978): 44–50; (K. Satō 1978) Satō Kazuhiko, “Shōensei to ryōshusei” in Rekishi Kōron 5 (May 1978): 66–77. For domains o courtiers see (Yoshie 1978) “Kuge ryō shōen no kōzō to hensen” in Rekishi Kōron 5 (May 1978): 108–14. See also (Yasuda 1993) Yasuda Motohisa, (ed.), Shōen (okyo: ōkyōdō, 1993). For the best discussions in English language see (Morris 1999), “Land and Society,” as well as ( Kiley 1999), “Provincial Administration and Land enure in Early Heian,” in Donald Shively and William McCullough (eds), Te Cambridge History o Japan , Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), respectively, pp. 183–235, and pp. 236–340. See also
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119 120 121
122 123 124
125 126
127
128
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(Kenkyūkai 1991) Shōen Ezu Kenkyūkai (ed.), Ebiki Shōen Ezu (okyo: ōkyōdō, 1991). (Nakano, Usagū 1985): 104–5. (Haga 1978) Haga Norihiko, “Shiki wo meguru shomondai,” in Rekishi Kōron 5 (May 1978): 80–6. Hachiman as oracular judge is mentioned in (Shiryōkan 1981) Ōita Kenritsu Usa Fudoki no Oka Rekishiminzoku Shiryōkan (ed.), Usa, Kunisaki no Rekishi to Bunka (Ōita: Saeki, 1981): 79. (Inoue 1996) “Usa Jingū ni okeru chūseiteki shihaisei no seiritsu,” in Shigaku Zasshi 105:4 (1996): 463–502. (Hachiman Usagū Goshinryō Ōkagami 1988) “Hachiman Usagū Goshinryō Ōkagami,” in Shintō aikei (okyo: Seikōsha, 1988), Vol. 47: 832-418. Tese are the domains o Niiaki, sunoda, suguma, Nuki, Itōzu, and Magarikane in Buzen Province; ashibu and Ishigaki in Bungo Province; Amibetsu and subaki in Chikuzen Province; Meta, Akame, Ōyanagi, and Ōmachi in Hizen Province; and Koya, Moribe, Ogawa, and Mijimi (conjectural reading) in Chikugo Province. (S. Inoue 1996): 488 and ollowing. (Nakano, Usagū 1985): 104–117. For an example see (Gotō 1980) Gotō Shigemi, “ashibu mizukagami ni tsuite ,” in Beppu Daigaku Shigakuronsō 11 (February 1980): 7592; and (Ō. K. Shiryōkan 1980) Ōita Kenritsu Usa Fudoki no Oka Rekishiminzoku Shiryōkan (ed.), Bungo no kuni ashibu-shō, 5 vols. (Usa: Matsubara, 1981–6). (Ishii 995) Ishii Susumu, “Usa Kunisaki no Mura wo tazuneru,” in Asaki Hyakka Bessatsu—Rekishi wo Yominaosu , 9, 1995: 6. (Nakano and Shiraichi, Fukiji 1981). See Nakano Hatayoshi and Shiraishi Ichirō, (eds), Fukiji (Koji Junrei–Saikoku vol. 5) (Kyoto: ankōsha, 1981). But see also, or more detail, (oyota, et al. 1997) oyota Kanzō, Gotō Munetoshi, Iinuma Kenji, Suehiro Kazuto (eds), Ōita-ken no Rekishi (okyo: Yamagawa Shuppan, 1997): 75–80. Tese Urabe domains are respectively called Yasaka, Ōga, Hinode, Yuu, Yamaga, Fujio, Imi, Kibe, Usuno, Kakachi, aketazu, Matama, Himeshima, ogō, and Kusachi. In a recent publication (Nakano, Hachiman Shinkō to Shugendō 1998) Nakano Hatayoshi suggests that the system was established beore 1106. For detailed archaeological and historical studies o the ogō estate see (Ō. K. Shiryōkan 1988–1993) Ōita Kenritsu Usa Fudoki no Oka Rekishi Minzoku Shiryōkan (ed.), Bungo no Kuni ogō shō , 5 vols (Usa: 1988–93). See (Watanabe 1963), “Bungo ni okeru kokuga kankei no jinja” in (Kokura 1963) Kokura oyoumi (ed.), Chiiki Shakai to Shūkyō no Shiteki Kenkyū (Kyoto: Yanagihara Shoten, 1963): 57–71. (Grapard, Linguistic Cubism—a Singularity o Pluralism in the Sanno Cult 1987)
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130 See Map no. 5 and able no. 1. 131 Amino Yoshihiko remarks that contemporary Japanese schoolbooks commit a tremendous error when they stipulate that during the Edo period about 80 per cent o the population o the Akita fie consisted o “armers.” Indeed, the original term used by the researchers who came up with that number did not mention “armers,” but the term hyakushō, which simply reers to those people who were not courtiers or warriors. Te term hyakushō, however, not only included armers but fishermen, diving women, and salt-makers as well. See (Kawazoe and Amino 1994) Chūsei no Ama to Higashi Ajia (Fukuoka: Kaichōsha, 1994): 44–73. In another work, Amino urther remarks on the important act that women were more than non-negligible entities when it came to industrial production, particularly so in the realm o weaving: see (Amino and Noboru 1999) Amino Yoshihiko and Miyata Noboru (eds), Kami to Shihon to Josei (okyo: Shinshokan, 1999), especially pp. 32 and ollowing. 132 Nakano Hatayoshi, Usagū: 93. 133 Nakano Hatayoshi, Usagū: 100. 134 (Nakano, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1940), Vol. 2: 689–714. See also (Umehara 1974) Umehara Haruo, Kunisaki Hantō no Rekishi to Minzoku (Ōita: Saeki, 1974): 40–8. 135 (S. Murakami 1978) Nihon Shūkyō Jiten (okyo: Kōdansha, 1978): 100–2. 136 (Ō. K. Shiryōkan, Usa, Kunisaki no Rekishi to Bunka 1981) Usa, Kunisaki no Rekishi to Bunka : 89. 137 Te Hachimen and Kubote mountains were also centers o Shugendō. Closely related to Hiko Shugendō and the Usa Hachiman cult though they may have been, however, they were quite distinct. On Mount Kubote see (Y. Shigematsu 1986) Shigematsu oshimi, Yamabushi Mandara—Kubotesan Shugendō Iseki ni Miru (okyo: Nihon Hōsō Shuppan, 1986); see also ( Murayama, Shugen no Sekai 1992); (Kyoto: Jinbun Shoin, 1992): 249–83. On the topic o Mount Hachimen see (Nakano, Hachimenzan Shinkō to Shugen Jiin 1977). 138 (Y. a. Endō 1977) Nihon Ryōiki: 134–8. 139 (Nagamatsu 1993). See Nagamatsu Atsushi, Shuryō Minzoku to Shugendō (okyo: Hakusuisha, 1993). 140 (Grapard, Kūkai: Stone-Inscription or the Monk Shōdō, who Crossed Mountains and Streams in His Search or Awakening 1978 ), in Michael obias and Harold Drasdo (eds), Te Mountain Spirit (New York: Overlook Press, 1978): 51–9. 141 Some researchers think that Shōdō did not exist or had views that differ rom Kūkai’s perspective. See (Hoshino 1954) Hoshino Riichirō, Shōdō Shōnin (okyo: Waguna-, 1954). 142 (Inoue and Ōsone 1974) Ōjōden Hokke Genki. English translation: (Kurata Dystra 1983) Miraculous ales o the Lotus Sutra rom Ancient Japan, the Dainihonkoku Hokekyō Kenki o Priest Chingen (okyo: Sanseidō, 1983).
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143 Te earliest extant complete engi o Kunisaki, or example, is dated 1711. It suraced in the Mount Hiei Library in 1991, when I asked to see Kunisaki-related documents; no scholar o Kyushu history, except Nakano Hatayoshi (who mentions only its name, without location), knew o its existence. 144 It should also be pointed out that a vast number o “local” cults’ historical documents, orceully taken to okyo in the late nineteenth century, disappeared in the fires caused by the Great Kantō Earthquake o 1923 and in the (Y. Shigematsu 1986) firebombings o okyo by the United States near the end o World War II. 145 Nakano Hatayoshi, Usagū: 92–102. 146 Nakano, Usagū: 87. 147 Shigematsu Akihisa, Hachiman Usagū Gotakusenshū : 358–9. 148 (Ninmon Bosatsu Chōki 1988). In Shintō aikei Hensankai(ed.), Shintō aikei (okyo: Seikōsha, 1988), Jinja Hen Vol. 7: 129–30. 149 Nakano, Usagū: 96. 150 (Bock 1970–72) Engi shiki, Procedures o the Engi Era , English translation by Felicia Bock, 2 vols. (okyo: Sophia University, Monumenta Nipponica Monographs, Vol. 2: 169. 151 (Akimoto 1958) Fudoki: 511–12. 152 Kojiki: 77. Nihon Shoki, Book 1: 37. 153 (Nagano 1987) Hikosan no Rekishichirigakuteki Kenkyū : 40. 154 (Nagano 1987) Hikosan no Rekishichirigakuteki Kenkyū : 40. 155 Nagano adashi recently wrote that the origins o Mount Hiko are threeold: “Shintō,” on the basis o this Hikosan-K i; “Buddhist,” on the basis o the 1213 Hikosan Ruki ; and “Shugendō,” on the basis o the 1570 Chinzei Hikosan Engi . See details o the argument in (Miyake, Shugendō Shūgyō aikei 1994) Shugendō Shūgyō aikei: 390–408. 156 (Iinkai 1987) Hikosan Shugendōkan enjishiryō (Fukuoka: Bunrindō, 1987): 32. See also (Honsha 1983) Hikosan Hakkutsu (Fukuoka: Ashi Shobō, 1983). 157 (Hirowatari and Kawazoe 1986) Hirowatari Masatoshi and Kawazoe Shōji (eds), Hikosan Hennen Shiryō Kodai Chūsei Hen (okyo: Bunken Shuppan, 1986): 516. 158 (Hikosan Ruki 1975–84) in Gorai Shigeru (ed.), Sangaku Shūkyoshi Kenkyū Sōsho , Vol. 18: 463–74. 159 My translation; see the complete document on the website or this book. 160 (Miyake, Shugendō Jiten 1986): 327. 161 (Nagano and Pak, Kankoku Dankun Shinwa to Hiko Kaizan Denshō no Nazo 1996) Fukuoka: Kaichōsha, 1996. 162 Pak Sonsu writes that the Samguk yusa was written in the first hal o the ourteenth century, whereas Hyun Il Pai (see endnote no. 166, below) writes that it was written in the thirteenth century.
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163 Nagano adashi and Pak Sonsu (eds), Kankoku Dankun Shinwa to Hiko Kaizan Denshō no Nazo : 14–15. See also an English translation o the relevant parts and a systematic deconstruction o the myth in (Hyung Il 2000), Constructing “Korean” Origins: A critical Review o Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State- ormation Teories (Cambridge: Harvard University Asian Center, 2000): 57–77. For a detailed analysis o Korean mythology see ( Grayson 2001) Myths and Legends rom Korea: An Annotated Compendium o Ancient and Modern Materials (Richmond: Curzon, 2001). 164 See above, note no. 82. 165 In Nakano Hatayoshi, “Hikosan to Kyūshū no Shugendō,” in Sangaku Shūkyōshi Kenkyū Sōsho Vol. 13: 120. 166 Te relevant passages o Chūyūki and Honchō Seiki are reproduced in Hirowatari Masatoshi and Kawazoe Shōji (eds), Hikosan Hennen Shiryō Kodai-Chūsei Hen : 39–43. 167 Whether the words “Mirokuji Hikosan” should be interpreted to mean “Mirokuji’s Mount Hiko” or “the Mirokuji emple and Mount Hiko” is an open question and the answers that have been proposed so ar have hinge on their authors’ ideological leanings. 168 (Kishima 1978), “Hikosan no Rekishi,” in agawa Kyōdo Kenkyūkai (ed.), Hikosan (Fukuoka: Ashi Shobō, 1978): 1–11. Te particulars mentioned here are on pp. 49–51. 169 Nakano Hatayoshi, (ed.), Hikosan to Kyūshū no Shugendō : 11. 170 (Hirowatari and Kawazoe, Hikosan Hennen Shiryō Kodai-Chūsei Hen 1986): 40. And (Hirowatari, Hikosan Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1994) (okyo: Bunken Shuppan, 1994): 24. 171 See (Renondeau 1963) Les Moines Guerriers du Japon (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1963). 172 (Nakano, Chikuzen no Kuni Hōmanzan Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1980) Chikuzen no Kuni Hōmanzan Shinkōshi no Kenkyū (okyo: Meicho Shuppan, 1980): 44–8. 173 When it was revealed in oracles that sudden deaths and various disasters occurring in Kyoto had been caused by Michizane’s posthumous wrath, a cult was given to his spirit with a view to paciy it, both in Kyoto (at the Kitano Shrine- temple complex) and in Dazaiu (at the Anrakuji, which came to be headed by Michizane’s descendants). See (Borgen 1986) Sugawara no Michizane and the Early Heian Court (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, distributed by Harvard University Press, 1986). In Japanese see (Hensankai, Dazaiu 1974) Shintō aikei Hensankai (ed.), “Dazaiu” ( Shintō taikei, Vol. 48); (Kasai 1973) enjin Engi no Rekishi (okyo: Yūzankaku, 1973); (Y. Sakurai 1976) Kamigami no Henbō (okyo: okyo University Press, 1976): 61–102. 174 See Kuroda oshio, English translation by Allan Grapard, (Kuroda, Te World o Spirit Pacification: Issues in State and Religion 1996) Japanese Journal o Religious Studies 23: 3–4 (Fall 1996): 321–51.
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175 ameusa Kyōki ; see (Murayama, Yamabushi no Rekishi 1970): 119–20. 176 Hence the name o the temple, Shōtaigoji-in, “emple or the Protection o the Sacred Body,” abbreviated Shōgo-in. 177 (Hirowatari and Kawazoe, Hikosan Hennen Shiryō Kodai Chūsei Hen 1986 ) (okyo: Bunken Shuppan, 1986): 68–70. 178 Nakano Hatayoshi, Hikosan to Kyūshū no Shugendō : 10. 179 Hikosan ruki ; see above, endnote 162. Te beams in question are basaltic ormations, looking very much like pillars set side by side; they still are an object o cult today. 180 See (Bender, Metamorphosis o a Deity: the Image o Hachiman in Yumi Yawata 78) in Monumenta Nipponica 33: 2 (Summer 1978): 165–78. 181 Some sources say that Ōtomo Yoshinao was an illegitimate child o Minamoto no Yoritomo, but this seems to be a late legend made possible by the act that Yoritomo lef no heir. Other sources, including a recently discovered lineage chart dating rom the end o the Kamakura period, say that he was born in the Furushō (Kondō) house, a sub-branch o the Fujiwara house, and that he was adopted by Nakahara Chikayoshi (1143–1208), a warlord loyal to the Minamoto house who had been protector o Kyoto beore becoming administrator o Kyushu (Chinzei bugyō). In any case, it was not beore 1338 that the Ōtomo warlords began to use the name Minamoto. See (Watanabe, Ōtomo Yoshinao 1990) in Ōita Rekishi Jiten: 116. 182 Annin took the name Joyū Hōshinnō (dharma prince) afer his ordination at the Nyohōji in Buzen Province, and all subsequents abbots o Mount Hiko kept the graph pronounced yū in their names. 183 When abbots did not ather children they adopted sons rom aristocratic amilies. 184 (Kawasaki 1980) Hieizan Monzenchō Sakamoto (Ōtsu: Ōmi Bunkasha, 1980). 185 Tese shrines are discussed in chapter three.
2 Geotyped and Chronotyped Social Spaces 1 Henri Leèbvre, English translation by Donald Nicholson-Smith, Te Production o Space (Oxord: Blackwell, 1991). p. 15. 2 (Bender and Wellbery 1991) p. 3. 3 (Bender and Wellbery 1991) p. 4. 4 Tis is a revised version o (Grapard 1994). 5 (Heian Ibun 1963) No. 665. 6 (Kageyama 1973) pp. 491–512. 7 (Guth Kanda 1985). 8 Tree ryō and three masu; one ryō is approximately 9.4 gallons, and one masu is approximately 0.94 gallon.
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9 On these issues see (Sugawara 1992) pp. 197–238, and (Sonehara 1996) pp. 179–255. 10 See Illustration no. 1. 11 Note that parturition huts are called ubuya, and that the On’ubaneya sends one to the Kojiki narrative in which the parturition hut is covered with cormorant ( u) eathers. (Kojiki, Book 1, pp. 150–64). See a discussion o this eature in (Grapard, Visions o Excess and Excesses o Vision 1991). One shaku is approximately 30cm, and one sun is approximately 3cm. 12 See Map no. 7. 13 (Hurvitz 1976) pp. 38–9. 14 Scripture o the Lotus Blossom o the Fine Dharma , p. 243. 15 Scripture o the Lotus Blossom o the Fine Dharma , p. 195. 16 (Hurvitz 1976) Scripture o the Lotus Blossom o the Fine Dharma , p. 326. 17 Tis study is available at //repo.beppu.ac.jp/modules/xoonips/download.php/ gk01303.pd?file_id=5379 18 (Nakano 1985) p. 47. 19 (Nietzsche 1969) pp. 103–4. 20 (Bourdieu 1990) p. 34. 21 (Mus 1928). I am indebted to Bernard Faure or drawing my attention to this study. 22 (Nakano, Usa Hachimangū Hōjōe to Hōren 1998). See also (Law 1994) 325–57. Tis important ritual will not be discussed in the present study or lack o space. 23 On this topic see (Frank 1958), but see also the various authors discussing the same topic in (Murayama, et al. 1991). 24 (Shigematsu 1986) 114–15. 25 A amous exception is that o the medieval Shinto-Buddhist figure Myōe shōnin. 26 I am reerring here to the Nanase no harai ritual, which originated in 963 under Onmyō (dō) influences. It entailed making paper sheets cut in anthropomorphic shapes, onto which the emperor blew his breath, and which he subsequently stroked his vestments with. Tese figurines were then flowed down seven different rivers. Tis rite was picked up on the popular level, as in the case o the Nagashibina and Ningyō okuri rites commonly seen today. Combined with endai esotericism, this rite evolved into the Rokuji karin-hō. 27 Te Elder turns out to be Hachiman, and the jewel is said to have been subsequently transerred to the Mirokuji emple o Usa. 28 (Hikosan Ruki 1984). See the translation o the complete document on the website o this book. 29 Annin took the name Joyū hōshinnō (dharma prince) afer his ordination at the Nyohōji in Buzen Province, and all subsequent abbots o Mount Hiko kept the graph pronounced yū in their names. 30 When abbots did not ather children they adopted sons rom aristocratic amilies. 31 (Kawasaki 1980).
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32 Tese shrines are discussed below, chapter three. 33 See Map no. 8. 34 One shaku is approximately 30 cm, and one sun is approximately 3 cm. 35 See the translation o the entire document on the website o this book. 36 (Shozan Engi 1975). (Chōkan (Chōkan Kanmon 1977). For For an analysis o texts describing des cribing these “flying mountains” events, see (Ikegami 1999). See also (Grapard, ( Grapard, Flying Mountains and Walkers o Emptiness: oward a Definition o Sacred Space in Japanese Jap anese Religions 1982 1982). ). I have visited both Mount iantai and the Lingyin-ssu Lingyin- ssu in China and must say that the flying mountains cultural phenomenon is remarkably coherent across cultures. It must also be mentioned that the number 72 as well as the mention o Maitreya are exceedingly important, as will soon s oon be explained. A PhD dissertation recently completed completed by Carina Roth Al Eid in Lausanne offers a depthinterpretation and complete translation o the Shozan Engi. 37 (Schaer 1977). 38 (Schaer 1977). 39 (Ueki 1989). 40 (Schaer 1977, 103). 41 (Schaer 1977, 148). 42 (Grapar (Grapard, d, Religious Practices in the Heian Period 1999). 1999 ). 43 Reproductions o this sword can be seen in (Hayashi 1997). 44 (Schaer 1977, 159). 45 (Schaer 1977, 152). 46 (Schaer 1977, 103). Indeed, the five swords thrown rom India/China would have passed right through the Dipper and Ox, that is, in a northwesterly direction. Te website link appears to be broken; the study was originally published in Nature. 47 (Hikosan (Hikosan Ruki 1984). 1984). 48 (Schaer 1977, 148). 49 (Schaer 1977, 150). 50 (Schaer 1977, 151). 51 (Shigematsu (Shigematsu 1986, 1986, 164). 52 See good examp examples les o the Kurikara dragon swords swords in (Shimizu 1997). For the asterisms see (Hayashi, Myōken Bosatsu to Hoshi Mandara 1997). 53 (Honsha (Honsha 1983). 1983). 54 See (Hayami (Hayami 1971). 1971). 55 (Mus, Esquisse d’une Histoire Histoire du Bouddhisme B ouddhisme Fondée sur la Critique Archéologique des extes 1932). 56 (Fontein 1967). 57 (Observations on the Role o the Gandavyūha in the Design o Barabudur 1981). 58 (1981: 186). 59 (Hikosan (Hikosan Ruki 1984). 1984).
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60 One ri is the equivalent o about 3.9 m. 61 See Chapter 3 or a detailed discussion o this rite. 62 (Hikosan (Hikosan Ruki 1984). 1984). 63 A detailed analysis o the twenty-eight twenty-eight attendants is ound in (Itō 1997). 64 . 1060. 65 . 1068. 66 See able no. 3. 67 . 2243. 68 Te list is proposed by (Sawa 1962), where where the author identifies the twenty-eight twenty- eight attendants’ sculptures ound in the Sanjūsangendō temple o Kyoto. As Sawa notes, discrepancies in several texts indicate that the identification fluctuated over time, but it may simply be the case that the variants are related to different esoteric transmissions or lineages. 69 (Leėbvre 1991, 233). 70 (Leėbvre 1991, 231). 71 (Castoriadis 1975). 72 I am indebted to James Robson or providing me with urther details on the topic, and highly recommend his recent book: (Robson 2009). 73 . 19, 1000a. 74 . 76, 2409, asc. 15. 75 (Hurvitz 1976, 187–88). 76 On the importance o this term see (Lamotte 1962). Lamotte Lamotte translates dōjō as “Area “Area o enlightenment,” in the sense that it indicates the Diamond Seat where a thousand Buddhas have attained or will attain the Concentratio Concentration n that is similar to the diamond and immediately precedes Enlightenment. In a figurative sense, Lamotte continues, the term simply signifies the spiritual presence o the Buddhist law. 77 . 76, 2409, Gyōrinshō, p. 129 b & c. 78 For reproductions reproductions o this mandala see (Hakubutsukan (Hakubutsukan 1979); or the shuji mandara, see (Hakubutsukan (Hakubutsukan 1979, 164). A good quality color reproduction can be seen in Asahigura Asah igurau u 3308 (okyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 3–25, 1986) p. 56. 79 (Misaki 1994). 80 Yuimagyō gensho: 38, 1777. 81 Indeed, later commentators have wondered about these lines, as one can surmise Asabashō hō rom the secret transmissions concerning this ritual and consigned in the Asabas that was compiled rom 1242 to 1281. See . Zuzōbu 9, pp. 109–24. 82 See (Chappell 1983). In (Donner and Stevenson 1993), Chih-I, however, writes that the our lands can be brought into correspondence correspondence vertically with the our noble truths as well, and can also be matched horizontally with these our truths. Te authors o the study suggest (p. 162, note no. 113) that the fit is not a good one. Tey also say (p. 161, note no. 108) that the our types o land or realm correspond to the
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three bodies o the Buddha and to our levels o spiritual development development in the ollowing manner: “Te Co-dwelling Co- dwelling Land, where ordinary people and sages may both be ound; the Land o Expedients, where imperectly realized Hīnayānistic Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas dwell; the Land o Real Recompense, where the Bodhisattvas are; and the Land o Eternal Quiescence and Illumination, the the domain o the Buddhas as they are in and o themselves. O the three bodies bo dies o the Buddha, the body o enjoymen enjoymentt or recompense and dharma-body dharma- body correspond respectively to the third and ourth o these lands, while two bodies o maniesta maniestation tion or response—one superior, the other inerior—are distinguished in accordance with the first and second o the Four Lands.” 83 (Murayama, (Murayama, Yamabushi no Rekishi 1970). 1970). 84 Prince Asabito was the sixth child o Retired Emperor Go-oba, who long took Jien under his protection and placed Asabito as his disciple under the name Dōkaku Jien took great care o this disciple and in 1210 issued a series o documents do cuments Shinnō. Jien to guarantee Dōkaku’s economic and spiritual support. Tis was probably intended to prevent the newly created kōgi (the common word is Kamakura Bakuu (Shogunal government), but it was not yet used at the time) rom usurping the estates in question. See (aga 1959). 85 See a more detailed analysis o the mandalization processes in Chapter three, below. 86 See Photograph no. 1 given to me by akachiho Hideumi, Assistant Headpriest o Hiko Shrine, and compare with the computer-generated computer- generated three-dimensional three-dimensional model o Mount Hiko, Illustration no. 2. 87 (Shugen Shūyō Shūyō HiketsuHiketsu-shū shū 1968). 88 Witn Witness ess the ollowing discussion o cataracts in (Demiéville 1986): “Opacities “Opacities that disturb eyesight, more precisely, cataracts that were operated upon in India by means o a metallic lancet, is a classical term o comparison. Someone stricken by it is assimilated to the ignoramus whom the Buddha heals. His His warped vision is assimilated, in scholastic philosophy, to the differentiating imagination that causes relative characteristics, etc., to appear—like optical illusions, spots, hairs or the like.” And urther in the same text, “Ophthalmology, and in particular the operation upon cataracts with a metallic needle, is the object o constant allusions in Buddhist texts. A ritual o symbolic operation upon cataracts with the salaka is described in Sanskrit in a antric text preserved, along with a commentary, in Old Javanese. In antrism, one o the symbolic rites that accompany the ceremony o initiation or the initiatory unction is inspired by the operation. Te master holds beore the initiate a wand or metal (or more precisely o gold) called in Japanese konbei, addressing to him a stanza that the Vairocana sūtra cites in Chinese transla translation tion and its commentary gives in Sanskri” ( vaidya rāja), clears away his “membrane” “membrane” o patāla la; this word designates ignorance (ajñāna). Te Sanskrit term or “membrane” is patā the our wrappers or transparent membranes surrounding the eye, o which the
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ourth is the seat o opacities that constitute the cataract proper. Te same terms are Mahāpari āparinirvā nirvān a-sūtra sūtra. Te Vairocana sūtra ound in a simile made in the Mah n acommentary describes the surgical wand as a small vajra about 4 to 5 inches long, thin around the middle, with two rounded and smoothed points that physicians smear with medicaments and insert into each o the two eyes (two wands with single points are also employed, one or each eye). Another antric ext, the attvasam attvasa m graha, specifies that in the symbolic ritual the master uses it to rub the eyes o the initiate. A Chinese author o the Ch’an School alludes to these instruments in giving the title Vajra Wand to a brie but renowned treatise on the nature o awakening in inanimate beings.” (Demiéville 1986, 90–91). 89 (Lamotte, Le raité raité de la Grande Vertu Vertu de Sagesse, S agesse, de Nāgārjuna 1980). 198 0). My translation. 90 (Grapard, O Emperors and Foxy Ladies 2002–2003). 91 okuzen-ō is the name o Emperor enmu prior to his ascension to the throne. I am indebted to Robert Rober t Duquenne or helping identity this elusive figure. 92 (Chinzei Hikosan Engi 1987). See my translation o the complete document on the website or this book.
3 Festivitie Festivitiess and Processions: Spatialitie Spatialitiess o Power Power 1 (Hikosan Shojin’eki Shidai 1987). 1987). 2 Many details about about these yearly-appoin yearly-appointees tees can be ound in the various diaries contained in (Hikosan (Hikosan Nenban Nenban Nikki 1994 1994). ). 3 (Nagano 1989, 1989, 40). 4 (Soja 1989, 1989, 80), endnote 3. 5 (McMullin, Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth Century Japan 1985). 1985 ). 6 (Shūkyōshi 1964). 1964). 7 One koku is approximately 95 liters. Jinkosh koshūū, published in (Kōen 8 Kōen, a monk o the Zuien’in, wrote the Jin ( Kōen 1975). 1975). 9 Tis document is reproduced reproduced in (Hirowatari, (Hirowatari, Hikosan Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1994). 1994 ). 10 (Hirowatari, (Hirowatari, Hikosan Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1994, 1994 , 212–14). 11 Tis date date is given in (Hirowatari, (Hirowatari, Hikosan Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1994, 1994 , 216) but Nakano Hatayoshi gives the date 1688 in (H. ( H. Nakano, Hōmanzan Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1980). 1980). 12 Details o the process can be ound in a diary kept at the time o abbot Shōyū’s Shōyū’s visit to Kyoto and Edo. See (Hirowatari (Hirowatari and Kai, Hikosan Nenban Nikki 1994). 1994 ). 13 Matters were actually more complicated, or they involved rights to visit each other’s mountains during mandalized peregrinations, and there were conflicts over water sources located along the peregrination routes: the ill will o Mount Hiko’s
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community was brought to the surace when it was claimed that one or several community se veral o its members had covered an important water spring with earth, to prevent it rom being used by Mount Hōman’s yamabushi. For details see ( H. Nakano, Hōmanzan Shinkōshi no Kenkyū 1980, 1980, 120–145). 14 See able no. 2. Source: (Kenkyūkai 1978). Tis table is an attempt to reconstruct the pre-1868 ritual calendar on the basis o a variety o early modern documents, mostly journals kept kept by yearly-appoin yearly-appointed ted supervisors supervis ors (nenban). For the yearly-appointed yearly-appointed supervisors’ diaries see (Hikosan Nenban Nikki 1994). 1994). 15 Tis, because it was believed that the Chinese lunar calendar’s second month corresponded to the first month o the Indian year. See ( Nishitsunoi, Nenjū Gyōji Jiten 1958). 1958). 16 (Kenkyūkai 1978, 256). 17 Te term umoku i iss written w ritten with the graphs meaning me aning “rabbit” and and “tree.” “Rabbit” reers to the ourth animal o the Chinese zodiac, and symbolizes the second month o the lunar calendar; it itsel is symbolized by wood, one the five active agents ound in nature. Tis indicates the Chinese origins o the rite. 18 See (Miyake, (Miyake, Shugendō to Nihon Shūkyō 1996). 1996). 19 (Kaemp (Kaemper er 1999). 1999 ). 20 (Rotermund (Rotermund 1991). 1991). 21 (McMullin, (McMullin, On Placatings the Gods and Paciying the Popula Populace ce 1988). 1988 ). 22 (Grapar (Grapard, d, Religious Practices in the Heian Period 1999). 1999 ). 23 (Kuroda, (Kuroda, Te World o Spirit Pacification—Issues o State and Religion 1996). 1996 ). 24 (Rotermund (Rotermund 1991, 1991, 43). 25 For ascinating and revealing details on the history, nature and sociopolitical unction o this rite see (Y ( Y. Nakano 1988 1 988). ). 26 Hirome is the ancient name o the prized seaweed; it was replaced by the term konbu some time during the Muromachi period, but but remained in use in some culinary circles as well as among ritualists. 27 Te word shioitori is written in this case with graphs meaning “tide“tide-well-gathering” well-gathering” 汐井採り, but the term shioi is ofen written with the graphs 潮斎, in which [i] reers to ritual abstinence. Tis term shioi is ofen used us ed in western and central Japan to indicate seawater or a combination o seawater, sand, and pebbles that are taken rom the coast and sprinkled in sanctuaries to puriy them beore b eore spring and autumn observances. Whether this is a coincidence or not, this type o rite is perormed at many shrines dedicated to Hachiman, though not exclusively. See, or example, a similar ritual perormed at the Mitsuke enjin “naked” ritual estivity, dedicated to the deified spirit o Sugawa Sugawara ra no Michizane and to that o the sacred dog (reiken) Hayatarō. 28 Tis rite may have have taken its present orm in the mid-to-late-Muromachi mid- to-late-Muromachi period, since it does not appear in a 1445 document listing Mount Hiko’s ritual calendar.
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Te same document, however, does mention sub-rites sub- rites that are now part o the shioitori ritual, such as the renewal o straw ropes affixed to shrine sh rine gates or eaves. Tis rite is also studied by Anne Bouchy, but I have not seen it. Her study should appear in an issue o the t he Cahiers d’Extreme-Asie d’Extreme-Asie (EFEO ( EFEO Kyoto). 29 See Map no. 12. 30 It was said that whoever peeked at the yamabushi yamabushi while they gathered water would become blind, and it was common or people to stay indoors at the time. A recent report blamed news cameramen or natural disasters that occurred afer they used flashlights to record the event, and the prohibition against artificial light was subsequently made more stringent: see (Fukushima, ( Fukushima, Hikosan no Matsuri to Hōmanzan Hōma nzan no Mineiri 1984 1984). ). 31 (Gorai, (Gorai, Hikosan no Kaiso to Kumano Shinkō 1977). 1977 ). 32 See the translation o o the whole text on the website o this book. 33 See (Nishitsunoi, (Nishitsunoi, Nenjūgyōji Jiten 1958), 1958), where these rituals are detailed. junkenshi enshi) was created in 1633; these inspectors were 34 Te office o roving rovi ng inspector inspec tor ( junk dispatched dispatch ed shortly afer the appointment appointment o every new shogun. Tere were two types: inspectors sent by the shogunate to daimyō domains, and those sent to shogunal domains. Starting in 1681, it became customary to divide the country into i nto eight parts and to send to each a team o three roving inspectors who were charged with different duties. 35 (Murakam (Murakamii 1995 19 95). ). 36 Murakami atsuo atsuo writes that th at these “kings” are related to the kami Saruta Saruta-biko, biko, guide o the descent o “Emperor” Jinmu onto Mount akachiho, but I cannot find any reerence to these entities, either in Kojiki or Nihon Shoki. In (akami (akami 1995), 1995), however, akami Kenji discusses many closely resembling masks ound in Kyushu, also known (some through inscriptions on the inside o the masks), as “Water King” and “Fire King.” Just as the masks displayed at Mount Hiko, one has an opened mouth, while the other’s mouth is closed. Te author discusses these masks in relation to rituals that are still perormed; the ritual closest to that under discussion in this chapter is, not surprisingly, the fire ritual o Mount Aso, which bears the same name as a s that th at o Mount Hiko: “Ondasai” or “Onda “Onda Matsuri.” 37 (Bourdieu (Bourdieu 1990). 1990). 38 Te graph pronounced shō in the compound means “viands,” and serves in a number o contexts ranging rom army approvisions to snacks; when the same graph is pronounced kareii it reers to dried oodstuff used when traveling or to ood that is offered to someone highplaced. I choose to translate the term here as ‘delicacies’ because o the style o offering, and and o types o ood that range rom miki kept in special casks to elaborate sweets. It is important to note, in this context, that two tray landscapes were also offered as ‘delicacies;’ they were the object o great admiration. See (Murakami (Murakami 1995, 1995, 19).
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39 See (Pinnington 1998). 40 (Miyake, Yama no Matsuri to Geinō 1984). 41 In (Harootunian 1988) the author gives a detailed discussion o work as sacred activity. See also (Robertson 2000). 42 (Hikosan Ruki 1984) p. 15. 43 (yler 1989). 44 (Miyake, Shugendō Shōso Kaidai 2000). 45 (Grapard, Flying Mountains and Walkers o Emptiness: oward a Definition o Sacred Space in Japanese Religions 1982). 46 (Hikosan Ruki 1984). 47 (Hōsō and Honbu 1990). 48 (Sasaki 1977). 49 I choose to translate the technical term jun as “recto” and gyaku as “verso” or the ollowing reasons. Historically, the term jun was used by the Kumano-based yamabushi to reer to their route rom Kumano to Yoshino, and the term gyaku was later used to denote the reverse course rom Yoshino to Kumano. Te two terms, however, have had varied meanings in China, where they typically reer to good or bad luck as well as to normal eatures o the course o nature as opposed to abnormalities, and so on. In technical manuals o esoteric meditation on graphic symbols, however, the term jun is used to denote a movement rom the center toward the periphery o a single shittan graph, or o a group o graphs arranged in circles; the movement is known as junsenden. Tere is little question, then, that the terms jun and gyaku in Shudendō doctrine reer to a movement away rom the base ( jun), and o return to that base ( gyaku). Major Shugendō centers such as Kumano, Haguro, and Katsuragi use the same terms with slight interpretive and temporal variations, although it seems that jun always reers to spring, and gyaku to all, that is, according to the “normal” course o things. Other possible translations o these two terms might be: orth and back, advance and retreat, progress and regress, but they seem impractical and misleading, even i only slightly more so, than recto and verso (one advantage o which is that they make one think o rectitude and adversity). 50 (Sanpō Sōsho Hōsoku Mikki 1919). See also Figures no. 2 and 3 in the book, which represent the two-dimensional structure o the Adamantine and Matrix mandalas. 51 I am aware that this is modern vocabulary; however, I hold the view that late sixteenth-century Japanese warlords ostered totally new epistemological (and practical) understandings concerning the superiority o “political” institutions over “religious” ones, and that they considered their military superiority to be proo o the validity o these understandings. It is not by chance that okugawa Ieyasu, a ew years later, sucessully issued regulations concerning all aspects o Buddhist and Shintō institutions in the land. 52 (Sasaki 1977, 57).
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53 In Flying Mountains and Walkers o Emptiness . 54 (Miyake, Shugendō Shūgyō aikei 1995). 55 (Hiroe 1978). It has come to my attention that Byron Earhart wrote an article on the topic, so I shorten my discussion o the topic. 56 Tis stanza is known as hongaku-san, “In praise o innate awakening,” and is regarded as absolutely necessary in endai Shugendō. It is the opening stanza o the Myōhōrenge-kyō sanmai himitsu sanmaya-kyō, said to have been translated by Amoghāvajra and brought back to Japan by Enchin. Te sutra in question is not included in the aishō Canon, but in the Manji Zōkyō published in Kyoto between 1904 and 1906. It is said that by chanting this stanza the yamabushi unite in themselves the Adamantine and Matrix Realms, and thereby confirm their achievement o Buddhahood. 57 One shaku is approximately 30 cm, and one sun is approximately 3 cm. 58 (Hikosan Shugen Saihi Injin Kuketsushū 2000). 59 (Hikosan Shugen Saihi Injin Kuketsushū 2000). 60 (Bourdieu 1990, 77). (Grapard, Te source o oracular speech: absence? presence? or plain treachery? 2003) 61 (Hikosan to Kyūshū no Shugendō 1977). 62 (Hori 2000). Especially chapter 7, “Te great water divide o northern Kyushu ollows sacred mountains.” 63 Tis is a revised version o Grapard, “Te Source o Oracular Speech: Absence? Presence? Or Plain reachery”? 64 Te version used here is (Shigematsu 1986). 65 Te most important documents are the two versions o the Hachiman Gudōkin dated, respectively, between 1308 and 1317 and between 1301 and 1304, but there are many others. 66 By this I mean to suggest that oracles (speech utterances on the part o Another) were regarded as constitutive (or perormative) elements o a ‘uture’ reality, subsequently confirmed by Jin’un’s own narrative o the “past.” 67 Te term used is takusen, but Jin’un sometimes uses the more restrictive term, Shintō no kyōmei, “Shinto directive.” 68 (Shigematsu 1986, 114–15). 69 Tis too was an old position in some Buddhist circles. 70 Dreams ormed an important part o the phenomena subsumed under the single term takusen (oracle), and several are mentioned in the Compendium. Tey were also submitted to oneiromancy ( yume uranai). Michel Foucault writes in his analysis o Artemidoris’ Te Key to Dreams that “Later, Synesios would represent a quite traditional viewpoint when he reminded [his audience] that our dreams constitute an oracle that ‘lives with us’, accompanies us ‘in our travels, in war, in public unctions, in agricultural labor, and in our commercial undertakings.’ One must then consider a dream as ‘an everready prophet, an indeatigable and silent
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giver o advice.”’ (Foucault 1984). Dreams do not appear in the Shindaihen (“Generations o the kami”) o either Kojiki or Nihon Shoki, but they are important in the subsequent records o the reigns o “Emperors” Jimmu, Sujin, and Suinin. Tey occupy a prominent place in Manyōshū, and continued to be a eature o literary and religious works until the end o the Edo period. Interesting oneiro-critical treatises o the Edo period include Muboku Shūyūshinan, and quite a ew others. It is necessary to pay attention to the “reading” in all o the above, or, as Foucault pointed out in Te Order o Tings , diviners are “readers o the obscure.” 71 Te cases o possession called kamigakari or hyōi. 72 In contemporary Japan the yorimashi o Mount Ontake and Mount Hayama, or example, are spectacularly possessed at preset places and times. 73 On this issue see my discussion and bibliography in (Grapard, Visions o Excess and Excesses o Vision: Women and ransgression in Japanese Mythology 1991). 74 Nakayama Miki, who ounded enrikyō, is a case studied in ( Hardacre 1994). More recently, cases o possession leading to the ormation o new religious groups have been studied in Okinawa by the Norwegian anthropologist Solrun Hoaas (in documentaries on Okinawa), and in other parts o Japan by ( Kawamura 1997). 75 Afer all, Jin’un was a endai prelate who knew the Makashikan (Mohoshihkuan), and the Sannō cult was widespread in northern Kyushu at the time. On horizontality and verticality with regard to both, see (Grapard, Linguistic Cubism: A Singularity o Pluralism in the Sannō Cult 1987). Examples o these games o verticality and horizontality abound between Kyushu (in the case o Mount Hiko as well as o Usa) and, as ar as I can ascertain as o today, Nikkō in the Kantō area. I would not be surprised i there are many other instances. 76 Tis is where Hachiman would have maniested itsel or the first time. Karakuni here does not reer to Korea or China, as it ofen does, but to the Kirishima region o Ōsumi Province in southern Kyushu. 77 On this see (Grapard, Lotus in the Mountain, Mountain in the Lotus—Rokugō Kaizan Ninmon Daibosatsu Hongi 1986); see also (Grapard, Te extualized Mountain—Enmounted ext: Te Lotus Sutra in Kunisaki 1989). Both documents are available on this book’s website. 78 Tis may be an error and actually reer to the amed Mount Ibuki o Ōmi Province. 79 (Shigematsu 1986, 119–20). 80 I mention this problem because during the medieval period Hachiman was made to preside as oracular judge over court cases concerning land domain contestation issues. See (Zuroku—Usa, Kunisaki no Rekishi to Bunka 1981). 81 (Kuroda, Historical Consciousness and Hon-Jaku Philosophy in the Medieval Period on Mount Hiei 1989). Tere is no doubt that Jin’un knew o Mount Hiei’s “Chroniclers” existence. See also (Grapard, Keiranshūyōshū: A Different Perspective on Mt. Hiei in the Medieval Period 1998).
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82 (Kuroda, Historical Consciousness and Hon-Jaku Philosophy in the Medieval Period on Mount Hiei 1989, 154). 83 (Bachelard 1964). 84 (Grapard, Geosophia, Geognosis, and Geopiety: Orders o Significance in Japanese Representations o Space 1994). 85 (Johnston, Gregory and Smith 1994). 86 On the act that human territoriality is different rom animal territoriality and has some o its roots in religious control over land, see (Sack 1986). 87 (Castoriadis 1987). 88 (Searle 1998). 89 (Searle 1998, 148–50). 90 (Castoriadis 1987, 372). Italics are mine. 91 Te aira set the ōdaiji o Nara on fire in 1180. One would not have expected the Minamoto to not remain indifferent to the Ogata destruction o Usa, since Hachiman was the tutelary Bodhisattva o the Seiwa Genji (Minamoto) house. 92 (Nakano and Shiraishi, Fukiji 1981). 93 (Watanabe 1971). 94 Indeed, one Ōtomo is remembered as a hero who deended Kyushu against oreign invasions, while another, who shilly-shallyed between Zen Buddhism and Christianity is still the object o debate among Japanese historians. 95 (Shiryōkan, Bungo no Kuni ogō-shō 1988–93). Te ogō land estate was managed by the Chōanji emple. 96 Rokugō Kaizan Ninmon Daibosatsu Hongi, (Grapard, Lotus in the Mountain, Lotus in the Mountain: Rokugo Kaizan Ninmon Daiboatsu Hongi 1986). 97 (Shermer 2008). 98 Nakano Hatayoshi, Hachiman Shinkōshi no Kenkyū , pp. 720–76. 99 See Map no. 6. 100 See my translation o this document on the website o this book. 101 (Grapard, Geosophia, Geognosis, and Geopiety: Orders o Significance in Japanese Representations o Space 1994); (Grapard, Lotus in the Mountain, Lotus in the Mountain: Rokugo Kaizan Ninmon Daiboatsu Hongi 1986). And (Grapard, Te extualized Mountain—Enmounted ext: Te Lotus Sutra in Kunisaki 1989). 102 (Iinuma, Chū-kinsei Rokugōzan Jiin to Mineiri 2000). See also (Mineiri no Michi 1981). 103 See a ull translation o this document on this book’s web page. 104 In (Rokugō Manzan Kankei Bunkazai Chōsa Gaiyō n.d. ) Ōita-ken Bunkazai Chōsa Hōkokusho 38 (1977), Rokugō Manzan Kankei Bunkazai Sōgō Chōsa Gaiyō 2, pp. 160–3. 105 I have been unable to see the original or the 1912 copy.
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106 My translation o this document is published by Monumenta Nipponica, Nipponica, and analyzed in (Grapard, (Grapard, Te extualized Mountain—Enmounted ext: Te Lotus Sutra in Kunisaki 1989). 1989). 107 See my translation o Bakin Baki n’s text, “Te Great Etiological Etiologi cal Record o Futagoji emple emple o the Rokugō emples Conglomerate” on this book’s website. 108 Several examples examples are are given in (erada (erada 1987). 1987). See also [Iinuma, [Iinuma, Shūshō Onie to Kun Kunisaki isaki Rokugō Manzan 1991]. 1991 ]. See also (Fukushima, ( Fukushima, Kunisaki no Oni-ee 1984). Oni1984).
4 Shattered Bodies, Bodies , Statues, and the Entreaties o runcated Memory 1 Hikosan gisō den. I am grateul to Helen Hardacre Hardacre who invited me to peruse the Maruzen Meiji Microfilm Collection at Harvard University, where I ound this document. 2 ( (ōson ōson 1987). Shimazaki ōson ōson was born in 1872 and died in 1943. Yoakemae was serially published between 1929 and 1935. Te novel’s main protagonist belonged to the radical Nativist Shintō school o Hirata Atsutane, which had a major negative impact on the Ina Valley, a short distance rom the writer’s hometown o Nakatsugawa, Giy Preecture (which is slated to be a station or the Shinkansen’s new maglev trains). 3 See my transla translation tion o this document on the website website or this book. 4 (Usa Kunisaki no Jiin to Bunkazai 1990). 1990 ). 5 (Ōdake 1984). 1984). 6 Te hakama is a trouser-like trouser-like piece o clothing, such as can be seen in Aikidō and Kendō uniorms. 7 Te tokin is the typical orehead cover o the yamabushi. 8 Te athāgata Mahāvairocana , central Buddha o Esoteric Buddhism, o which the King o Sapience Fudō myōō ( Acal Acalaa) is a wrathul maniestation. 9 Shakujō. gesa, “Peony Robe”; the term botan (or bōtan, hōtan) was the name given to a 10 Botan- gesa draped, pleated vestment worn by male and emale youth in the Heian period as well as during the medieval period. peri od. It It is a distinctive style I have seen only in Kunisaki peregrinations. 11 See Map no. 14, which shows the route ollowed in 1989. 12 It should come as no surprise sur prise that the theriomorphi th eriomorphicc emblem o okyo’s Yasukuni Yasukuni shrine, which is dedicated to the spirits o all those who died die d in the service ser vice o the state ever since 1868, is a dove, quite ar rom Hachiman’s original emblem, the goshawk.
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Aferword: From Spatialities to Dislocation 1 o satisy a requirem requirement ent in Japanese Japanese Studies at the National National School o Oriental Languages and Civilizations Civilizations in 1968 in Paris, I also wrote a French translation translation o the play, not knowing I would later, much later, be interested in his persona again. It is perhaps time or scholars to write a ull- fledged historical study o En no Gyōja.
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Bibliography shōen no seiritsu”, in Rekishi Kōron Kōron 5 (May 1978): 44–50. Abe, akeshi, akesh i, “Shoki shōen Akimoto, Kichirō (ed.), Fudoki (okyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1958). Aoki, Kazuo; Inaoka, Kō ji; Kō ji; Sasayama, Sasayama, Haruo Haruo,, and Shirauji, Shirauji, Noriyuki (eds), Shoku Nihongi, 5 vols (okyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1989). Asahi Shinbun Saibu Honsha, Hikosan Hakkutsu (Fukuoka: Ashi Shobō, Shobō, 1983). Aston,, W. Aston W. G. (trans.) (tr ans.),, Nihongi: Chronicles o Japan rom the Earliest imes to A.D. 697 (Rutland, V, and okyo: uttle, 1972). Averbuch, Irit, Te Gods Come Dancing (Ithaca, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995). Bender, Bende r, John, John, and Wellber Wellberyy, David E. (eds), Chronotypes (Palo Alto, CA: Stanord University Press, 1991). Bender, Ross, “Metamorphosis o a Deity: Te Image o Hachiman in Yumi Yawata ”, Monumen Mon umenta ta Nippon Nipponica ica 33(2) (Summer 1978): 165–78. Dō kyō Incident ”, Mon Monumen umenta ta Nippon Nipponica ica 34(2) Bender, Bende r, Ross, “Te Hachiman Cult and the Dōkyō (Summer 1979): 125–53. Blacker, Carmen, Te Catalpa Bow: A Study o Shamanistic Practices in Japan (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1975). Bock, Felicia (trans.), Engi-Shiki, Procedures o the Engi Era , 2 vols (okyo: Sophia University, Monumenta Nipponica Monographs, 1970–72). Borgen, Robert, Sugawara no Michizane and the Early Heian Court (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, distributed by Harvard University Press, 1986). Bourdieu, Pierre (English translation by Richard Nice), Te Logic o Practice (Stanord, CA: Stanord University Press, 1990). Mitteilun eilungen gen der Deutschen Deutschen Gesellscha Gesellschaf f ür Natu Naturr und Casals, U. A., “Die Yamabushi”, Mitt Völkerkunde Völk erkunde Ostasiens O stasiens 46 (1965). Castoriadis, Cornelius (English translation by Kathleen Blamey), Te Imaginary Institution o Society (Cambridge, (Cambridge, MA: MI Press, 1987). Daisanji Gakujutsu Chōsatai Chōsatai (ed.), Mun Munaka akata ta Okinosh Okinoshima ima (okyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, Kō bunkan, 1979). Healing g (Lanham, Demiéville, Paul (English translation by Mark atz), Buddhism and Healin (Lanham, MD, New York and London: University Press o America, 1986). Religious Study Study o the Moun Mountt Haguro Haguro Sect o Shugendō Shugendō ( Earhart, Byron, A Religious (okyo: okyo: Sophia S ophia University Press, 1970). Ryōiki (okyo: Iwanami shoten, Endō,, Yoshimoto, Endō Yoshimoto, and Kasuga, Kazuo (eds), Nihon Ryōiki 1967).
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Farris, William Wayne, Sacred exts and Buried reasures—Issues in the Historical Archaeo Ar chaeology logy o Ancient Ancient Japa Japann (Honolulu: University o Hawaii Press, 1998). Faure, Bernard (ed.), Cahiers d’Extrême Asie 1 13: 3: 127–49 (Kyoto: École Française d’Extrême d’Extr ême Orient, 2002–2003). Fontein, Jan, Te Pilgrimage o Sudhana (Te Hague: Mouton & Co., 1967). Frank, Bernard, “Kata-imi et Kata-tagae: Étude sur les interdits de direction à l’époque Heian”, Bulletin de la Maison Franco–Japonaise , Nouvelle Série, 5: 2–4 (okyo and Paris, 1958). Kyūshū Ōchō Ōchō (okyo: Kadokawa Bunko, 1979). Furuta, akehiko, Ushinawareta Kyūshū 1979) . Furuta, akehiko, Yamataikoku wa nakatta (okyo: Kadokawa Bunko, 1977). Gomez, Luis, Lui s, “Observations on the Role o the Gandavyūha Gandavyū ha in the Design o Barabudur ”, in Barabudur: History and Significance o a Buddhist Monument (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Buddhist Studies No 2, 1981), pp. 173–94. Shūkyōshi shi Kenkyū Sōsho Sōsho, 18 vols ( Gorai, Shigeru (ed.), Sangaku Shūkyō (okyo: okyo: Meicho Shuppan, 1977). Gotō,, Shigemi, “ashibu mizukagami ni tsuite ”, Beppu Daigaku Shigaku Ronsō 11 Gotō (February 1980): 75–92. Grapard, Allan, Te Protocol o the Gods: A Study o the Kasuga Cult in Japanese History (Berkeley, CA: University o Caliornia Press, 1992). Grapard, Allan, “Flying Mountains and Walkers o Emptiness: oward a Definition o Sacred Space in Japanese Religions”, History o Religions 21(3) (February 1982): 195–221. Grapard, Allan, “Institution, Ritual, and Ideology: Te wenty-two Shrine-temple Multiplexes o Heian Japan”, History o Religions 27(2) (November 1987): 246–69. Grapard, Allan, “Japan’s Ignored Cultural Revolution: Te Separation o Shinto and Buddhist Divinities (shimbutsu bunri) in Meiji and a Case Study: ōnomine”, ō nomine”, History o Religions 23(3) (February 1984): 240–65. Grapard, Allan, “Kūkai: “Kūkai: Stone-Inscription or the Monk Shōdō Shō dō,, Who Crossed Mountains and Streams in his Search or Awakening”, in Michael obias and Harold Drasdo (eds), Te Mountain Spirit (New York: York: Overlook Ove rlook Press, 1978), 1978) , pp. 51–9. Grapard, Allan, “Religious Practices in the Heian Period”, in Donald H. Shively and William H. McCullough (eds), Te Cambridge History o Japan, Volume Volume 2: Heian Japann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 517–75. Japa Grapard, Allan, “Te State Remains, Remai ns, but Mountains and Rivers are Destroyed” Dest royed”,, in Karen Gaul and Jackie Hiltz (eds), Landscapes and Communities on the Pacific Rim (Armonk, NY, NY, 2000), pp. 108–29. 108–2 9. Grapard, Allan, “Geotyping Sacred Space: Te Case o Mount Hiko in Japan” Japan”, in Space— Shrine, City, Land Benjamin Kedar and Zwi Werbloski (eds), Sacred Space—Shrine, (London: MacMillan, and Te Israel Academy o Sciences and Humanities, 1998), pp. 215–49. Grapard, Grapar d, Allan,“Te Source o Oracular Speech: Absence? Presence? Or Plain reachery? Te Case o Hachiman Usa-gū gotakusenshū”, gotakusenshū ”, in Mark eeuwen and
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Index A Buddha shows his orm while teaching, but a kami remains without ormal aspect while speaking 210 a central element in the cultural/cultic history o Japan 142 a woman was named abbess o the mountain 165 access to nature through ritualization 137 actual overlay o geographical areas with mandala templates 140 adamantine realm mandala 138, 139, 167, 196, 198, 205, 241 administrative directors ( shittō) 160 Adorned Land o rue Retribution ( Jippō Gondo) 135 Akyūbō Sokuden 5, 143, 146, 148, 191, 195, 197, 204, 247 already awakened ones (shutsuden manda) 198 Ame no Oshihone no mikoto 183 Amida 55, 65, 66, 78, 153, 183, 192, 197, 199, 200, 232 Amoghavajra 113, 124, 125, 128, 130, 133, 203 n.56 Anrakuji 53, 73, 74, 75, 75 n.173 Anrakuji Shrine-temple complex 53, 73 anti-Buddhist sentiment 235 As the single largest landholder in Kyushu, Hachiman was everywhere 155 atsukaibō 158, 185, 194 autarchic status 168, 181, 235 Bishamonten 171, 198 Borobudur 113, 122, 123 Brahma (Bonten) 201 Buddha o Medicine 24, 25, 55, 65, 66, 118, 121, 232 Buddha o the Future 6, 24, 25, 32 n.82, 55, 69, 77, 107, 112, 115, 121, 225, 244 Buddha-eye 149, 150 Buzen Bungo Rokugōzan Hyakuhachijūsansho Reijōki 231
cereal grains stood as a clear metaphor or a social progress through rites o passage 189 Chan-zheng 80, 104 Chih-I 128, 130, 131, 132, 132 n.82, 133 Chinzei Hikosan Engi 12 n.28, 69 n.155, 70, 72, 107, 154, 155 n.92, 165, 178, 180, 228 chronotype 84, 105, 112, 115, 121, 135, 137, 143, 161, 216 chronotypical 100, 120. 123, 155, 161 Chūkan Kanmon 107 Chūyūki 73, 73 n.166, 74 combinatory cult 3, 5, 217 Compendium o Hachiman Oracles 65, 91, 95, 111 computer-generated, three- dimensional models o mandalized mountainous ranges 141 conceptualization o mountainous regions 61 conusion regarding the mandalized peregrinations 167 correlations between altitude, cleanliness, morality and desire, and salvation 136 creel (oi) 188, 190, 204 cultic and cultural systems 2, 3 cultural and cultic system xii Daigyōji shrines and water 206 Dainichi 146, 192, 193, 195, 197, 217, 225, 232, 241, 242 daisendatsu 188, 193, 241, 242 Dazaiu 8, 13, 14, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 36, 37, 39, 53, 68, 73, 74, 75, 75 n.173, 139, 192, 220, 228, 229 death by stoning 203 directors o kami-related ritual duties (shin-eki bugyō) 160 dōjō (site o practice) 123, 126, 126 n.76, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 146, 182
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296 Dōkyō 32, 33, 34, 34 n.86, 36, 37, 38, 39, 46, 47
Ekadasa-mukha 151 “Emperor” Ōjin 17, 19, 21, 22 n.52, 47, 102, 210, 228 En no Gyōja 60, 82, 105, 188, 200, 201, 227, 228, 246, 246 n.1 En no Ozunu 154, 155, 204 estates 8, 45, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 58, 61, 73, 76, 78, 80, 87, 88, 95, 98, 99, 105, 116, 132, 132 n.84, 134, 159, 164, 165, 185, 206, 207, 208, 214, 217, 218, 219, 221, 222, 223, 226 five swords 106, 107, 109, 109 n.46 orty-nine caves 70, 103, 106, 114, 115, 133, 190, 195 Four Lands Boundaries 123 Four Lands Perimeter 132 Fudō myōō 55, 66, 153, 192, 203, 204, 205, 217, 232, 241 n.8, 242 Fujiwara 12, 15, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37, 38, 41, 42, 45, 46, 52, 55, 69, 70, 71, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 78 n.181, 112, 124, 218, 220, 228 Fukiji emple 54, 55, 220 Fusō Ryakki 212 Futagoji emple 230, 233 n.107, 239, 241 Genbō 13, 13 n.31, 28, 29, 30 geognostic realm o the lotus 223 Geotyped and chronotyped, encoded, mandalized bodies 143 geotypical 100, 112, 120, 123, 137, 155, 161, 228 Golden Nail estamentary Admonition 201 goō amulet 171, 172 Gorai Shigeru 3, 69 n.158, 73, 178. 178 n.31, 179, goshawk(s) 23, 23 n.55, 68, 103, 109, 110, 111, 151, 171, 178, 244 n.12 “Grant us the rains” (uruoi wo ataetamae) 182 Great Bodhisattva Hachiman 44, 64, 103, 209, 210, 244 Great Dipper 108
Great Mirror o the Divine Estates o the Usa Hachiman Shrine-temple Complex 54 Gukanshō 124 Gyōgyō 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 226 gyōjagata 117, 118, 157, 169, 188, 236 Gyōkōe 85 Gyōrinshō 124, 125, 127, 128, 128 n.77, 130 Hachimen 60, 60 n.137, 96, 224, 229 Hayato 14, 18, 23, 26, 28, 31, 97 hereditary abbacy (monzeki) 45 Hikogara 190 Hikosan Gongen Reigenki 181 Hikosan Massan Cho 166 Hikosan Ruki 67, 69, 69 n.155, 69 n.158, 71, 72, 77, 77 n.179, 78, 79, 80, 103, 104, 104 n.28, 106, 107, 109, 110 n.47, 114, 115, 115 n.59, 117, 117 n.62, 120, 132, 133, 151, 152, 155, 190, 191, 191 n.42, 192, 192 n.46, 194 Hikosan Shojin’eki Shidai 157 n.1, 191, 193, 194 Hikosanki 68, 69 Himegami 21, 25, 27, 31, 43, 59, 96 Himekoso Shrine 49, 49 n.106 Himeshima Island 49, 49 n.106, 50, 88 Hirowatari Masatoshi 69 n.157, 73 n.166, 74, 74 n.170, 76 n.177, 166 n.9, 166 n.10, 167 n.11, 168 n.12 Hokke becchō-shi 124, 128, 129 Hokke mandala 128 Hokkegenki 63 Hokke-hō 120, 123, 124 Hokuto-sha 23, 111 Honchō Shinsenden 63 Honchō seiki 73 n.166 honji (“essence”) 158 honji-suijaku as a cultic and social practice 158 Hōren 17, 17 n.43, 23, 23 n.57, 24, 30, 52, 60, 65, 70, 72, 80, 81, 98, 102 n.22, 103, 104, 110, 111, 112, 178 Hōryūji emple 24, 101 Hosokawa, adaoki 165 Hossō monks 29, 30, 34, 38, 62, 72, 112 Huiguo 113 Ima-Kumano 76, 79, 192
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Index immanentist program 152 incipient Buddhas (zaiden manda) 198 Indra (aishakuten) 201 inscription o both doctrinal and social power 158 intercessors (atsukaibō) 158, 185 Intermediate emples 66 iroshi (yin) 157, 174 Iwashimizu Hachiman 38, 40, 41, 43, 46, 47, 49, 64, 73, 74, 76, 78, 81, 87, 88, 100, 105, 226, 228 Izanagi no mikoto 183 Jichin 124, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 218 Jin’un 208, 209, 210, 210 n.66, 210 n.67, 211, 212, 212 n.75 213, 214, 214 n.81, 216 Jinben 246 Jingoji 39, 39 n.94 Jingū Kōgō 20, 21, 31 n.78, 43, 67, 228, 232 jingūji 25, 29, 29 n.72, 30, 62, 64, 65, 66, 96, 97 jinin (“kami-men”) 52, 159 Jinkoshū,“Materials Collected in a Jar o Ashes” 165 Jūichimen Kannon 119, 153, 198, 232 jun as “recto” and gyaku as “verso” 195 n.49
Kami o Uga 154 “Kami Soldiers” (shinpei) 237 kamikaze 88, 209, 223, 244 Karashima 17, 18, 23 n.54, 25, 32, 37, 43, 47, 49, 67, 96, 97, 98, 219 katabako 205 katanashi (yang) 157, 174 kekkai 76, 115, 116, 123 kishōmon 173 kissho shūgi 173 Kōbō Daishi, (774–835) xi, xvi, 39, 232 Kōukuji emple 187, 191 kōgi 32 n.84, 79, 88, 202, 204, 221 Kojiki 10, 12 n.27, 15 n.33, 19, 20, 21, 21 n.50, 22, 25, 35, 35 n.88, 49, 49 n.105, 50 n.109, 68 n.152, 90 n.11, 100, 107 n.36, 122 n.70, 211, 213 Komo Shrine 86, 90, 93, 95, 96, 97, 99 Kōyasan 107 Kubote 60, 60 n.137, 97, 207, 224, 229 Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi) xi, xvi, 39, 39 n.94, 61, 62, 62 n.140, 62 n.141, 107, 113, 124
297
Kumano 6, 54, 60, 72, 73, 75, 76, 79, 81, 82, 105, 106, 107, 132, 167, 171, 172, 173, 178, 178 n.34, 179, 191, 192, 193, 195 n.49, 196, 199, 200, 203, 217, 224 Kunisaki xii, xiii, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 23 n.55, 24, 31, 39, 48, 49, 49 n.106, 50,50 n.111, 51, 53 n.118, 54, 55, 55 n.125, 56, 57, 58, 59, 59 n.134, 59 n.136, 60, 63, 64, 64 n.143, 65, 66, 76, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 93, 95, 97, 98, 105, 111, 132, 155, 161, 170, 191, 193, 207, 213, 213 n.77, 214 n.80, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 228 n.101, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 233 n.106, 233 n.108, 239, 240, 240 n.4, 241, 242, 242 n.10, 243, 244, 245 Kuroda oshio xiv, 1 n.2, 2 n.5, 9 n.19, 39, 43, 46 n.102, 75 n.174, 173, 173 n.23, 214, 214 n.81, 214 n.82 Land o Permanent Quiescent Radiance ( Jōjakkōdo) 135 Land o Co-habitation o Anchorites and Commoners (Bonshō dōgodo) 133 Last emples 66 lay patron sponsorship o Mount Hiko 165 lay patrons 159, 160, 184, 208, 235, 238 Lingyin-ssu 107, 107 n.36 located the various divinities [o the two mandalas] on high peaks and dusky vales 201 lordly raiments 87, 88, 95, 97, 99, 100, 101, 103 Lotus Blossom Ritual xiii, 120, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 132, 133, 137 Lotus Sutra 28, 56, 63, 63 n.142, 80, 91, 93, 102, 104, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 151, 157, 182, 213 n.77, 216, 220, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 233 n.106, 238
Mahāvairocana 124, 131, 138, 146, 182, 197, 198, 205, 241 n.8 main temple with autarchic status” (bekkaku honzan) 168 maintenance offi cers ( saji bugyō) 160 Maitreya xiii, 6, 7, 24, 25, 77, 102, 107, 107 n.36, 112, 113, 114, 115, 133, 137, 147, 191
Index
298
mandalization xii, xii n.2, xiii, 132, 137, 140, 140 n.85, 155, 191, 192, 193, 229, 233 mandalized courses exactly ollowed the water divides o northeast Kyushu 208 matrix realm mandala 138, 139, 167, 198, 205, 227, 241 Matsue 157, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 189, 236 Mimicked pregnancy at the time o ood offerings 186 Minamoto 32 n.181, 54, 73, 76, 77, 78, 88, 192, 216, 217, 217 n.91, 220, 221 mineiri 176 n.30, 179, 180, 190, 191, 193, 194, 199, 230, 230 n.102 Mineiri: the mandalized peregrinations 190 Mirokuji emple 24, 29, 32 n.82, 37, 54, 56, 64, 65, 69, 73, 73 n.167, 74, 88, 104 n.27, 223, 226, 243 Misaki Ryōshū xiv, 129 mishirushi 85, 86 Miura Baien 10 Miyake Hitoshi 3, 71, 191 Mongol invasions o 1274 and 1281 223 monzeki 45, 80, 104, 132, 165, 166, 167, 179, 180, 194 Mori 165 Mount Aso 151, 152, 183 n.36, 186, 191 Mount Fukuchi 8, 139, 167, 191, 194, 196, 198, 200, 203, 207, 229 Mount Hiko as socio-ritualized space 157 Mount Hiko’s quasi-destruction 235 Mount Hōman 8, 13, 31, 62, 73, 74, 75, 139, 166, 167, 168, 168 n.13, 189, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 198, 199, 200, 203, 207, 229 Mount Kawara 17, 31, 67, 68 Mount Omoto 8, 23, 27, 56, 63, 65, 82, 105, 111, 193, 212, 229, 230, 241, 244 Mount iantai 106, 107 n.36 Mount Yayama (site o the Chōanji emple) 223 “mountain overseers” ( yama bugyō) 160 Munakata 10, 11, 16, 25, 63, 66, 68, 69 Murayama Shūichi xiv, 2 Museum o Teater located at Waseda University in okyo 246 Nada Hachiman Shrine 93, 94, 98, 244
Nagano adashi xiv, 68, 69 n.155, 71 n.163, 236 Nāgārjuna 149, 150 n.89, 154 Nagatomi Hisae 16 Nakano Hatayoshi xiv, 17, 17 n.40, 17 n.42, 17 n.43, 18 n.44, 21, 25 n.60, 26 n.65, 27, 37 n.92, 37 n.93, 46 n.103, 55 n.126, 55 n.127, 57 n.132, 57 n.133, 59, 64, 64 n.143, 64 n.145, 73 n.165, 73 n.169, 76, 76 n.178, 167 n.11, 208, 226, 226 n.98 Nakatomi 12, 13, 15, 16, 36, 37 Nativist Studies movement ( Kokugaku) 158 neugyō 80, 104, 157, 169, 185 “neither recto nor verso” ( jungyaku uni) 139 nenban (“yearly duty”) 160 Nihon Ryōiki 1 n.1, 16, 30, 60, 60 n.138 Nihon Shoki 10, 12, 12 n.27, 12 n.28, 13, 13 n.30, 15, 15 n.33, 16, 19, 20, 21, 21 n.50, 22, 25, 28, 28 n.68, 35, 35 n.89, 49, 49 n.106, 49 n.107, 49 n.108, 68 n.152, 100, 178, 183 n.36, 211 n.70, 212, 213 Nikkō 61, 62, 89, 105, 118, 164, 191, 211 n.75 Ninmon 58, 59, 60, 65, 65 n.148, 97, 98, 99, 213 n.77, 220, 224, 225, 225 n.96, 228, 228 n.101, 230, 231, 233 nocturnal architecture 105, 121 non-differentiation between onesel and others ( jita uni) 169 Oda Nobunaga 162 Ōdake Junkō 241 Ōga 17, 17 n.43, 18, 19, 23, 23 n.54, 26, 32, 32 n.82, 34, 36, 37, 43, 44, 47, 55 n.127, 88, 98, 206, 208, 210, 219, 228 Ōga no Higi 17, 17 n.43, 18, 23, 97, 111, 209, 210, 213 Ogata Koreyoshi 208, 219, 220, 221 Ogata warlords 192, 217, 219 Ōmiwa 17, 17 n.41, 17 n.43, 18, 19, 23 n.54, 27, 32, 34 Onda 174, 177, 179, 180, 183 n.36, 184, 185 Ondasai 157, 180, 181, 183 n.36, 189 Onizuka koun 50 Onjōji emple 81, 105, 124
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Index Oracular pronouncements as divine directives 34 oracular spatialities 208 Oshihone-no-mikoto 67, 68 Ōtomo 72, 78 n.181, 79, 96, 164, 196, 197, 221, 222, 222 n.94, 223 Ōtomo Yoshinao 78, 78 n.181, 221 Painted Scrolls o Mount Hiko Shugendō 180 perspectives on time and space 84 Pierre Bourdieu’s superior understanding o the logic o practice 206 plastromancy 26, 37 pollution 36, 61, 102, 103, 135, 136, 147, 152, 153 Practices in the mountains 201 present as the very moment o spiritual emancipation 161 Primary emples 65 Pure Land o Expedient Means (Hōben Uyodo) 131, 134 Regulations (hatto) 163 regulations determining types o experience and modalities o social lie 133 relative and absolute consciousness 138 relative and absolute speech 138 relative and absolute substance 138 Renge zanmai kyō 203, 204 reversal o the metaphorical relation between the actual world and 138 rhododendrons, Mount Hiko’s sacred flowers 188 ritual calendar(s) 161, 163, 168, 169, 169 n.14, 174, 174 n.28, 233 ritual circumambulation 117, 122, 157 ritual protection 11, 42, 43, 44, 53, 204, 223 rituals also served to maintain social hierarchies 161 rituals perormed in these sites o cult was predominantly spatially oriented and orienting 161 Rokugō 56, 57, 59, 66, 213 n.77, 223, 224, 225, 225 n.96, 226, 228 n.101, 230, 231, 231 n.104, 233, 233 n.107, 233 n.108, 242 Rokurokutsū Injin 198
299
Ryōsenji 79, 80, 103, 104 Ryōzenji 65 Ryūzōji 164 sacred space was a thoroughly managed social space 161 Saichō 39, 56, 80, 104, 124 Saiei-zan massi 223 Samguk Yusa 71, 71 n.162 sanctioning power and rank 173 sanji kingyō (triple duty) 203 sanjō shakujō rite 203 Sanpō Sōshō Hōsoku Mikki 191, 195, 196 n.50 Sarasvatī 154 Schaer, Edward 108, 108 n.37, 108 n.38, 108 n.40, 108 n.41, 108 n.44, 109, 109 n.45, 109 n.46, 110, 110 n.48, 110 n.49, 110 n.50, 111 scholarly yamabushi ( gakutō) 185 sedonagatoko 157 Seiōbo, “Queen Mother o the West” 188 “sel and others are not two” ( Jita Funi) 140 sendatsu rank 193 Senju Kannon 66, 118, 119, 120, 183, 192, 232 separate sacerdotal rom political and economic power 164 seventy-two 107, 117, 118, 122, 123 shiishi 76 Shimazaki ōson 239, 239 n.2 Shimazu 164 shin’eki bugyō 181 Shingon 2, 39, 41, 42, 61, 64, 65, 101, 107, 124, 126, 137, 162, 166, 200, 226, 227, 232, 246 shioitori rite 174 shitogata 157, 158, 169, 194, 202, 236 shittan xvi, 192, 195 n.49, 196, 198 Shōgo-in 64, 72, 76, 76 n.176, 80, 105, 132, 166, 167, 168, 179, 180 Shoku Nihongi 14, 16, 16 n.38, 17 n.43, 19, 19 n.45, 28 n.69, 28 n.70, 29, 31, 32, 32 n.83, 36 n.91 Shozan Engi 30, 30 n.76, 72, 107, 107 n.36, 192, 227 shrine-temple complexes 1, 9 n.20, 25, 32 n.83, 45, 46, 46 n.103, 52, 53, 74, 75, 76, 88, 99, 102, 108, 171, 217, 218, 219, 229
300
Index
shrine-temple overseer ( jisha bugyō) 167 Shugen 1 n.1, 2 n.6, 60 n.137, 145 n.87, 204 n.58, 205 n.59, 247 Shugendō Shōso 191, 246 Shugendō Shōso Kaidai 191, 191 n.44 Shugendō Shūyō Hiketsu 143 Shugenshū 247 Shūshō goō 171 shushō tsuina 170 shuto 73, 74, 75 site o non-differentiation o the Matrix and Adamantine [realms] 198 sōgata 117, 118, 122, 123, 157, 158, 159, 169, 174, 177, 182, 184, 185, 194, 236 space and time categories 83 spatial choreography. See also temporal rhythm 85 spatial knowledge 3 spatialities xiii spatiality 162, 169, 176, 205, 214 status o women in shrines 34 Sugawara no Michizane 75, 75 n.173, 174 n.27 suijaku (“hypostasis”) 158 Sumiyoshi 10, 10 n.24, 11, 19 symbolic birth 189 symbolic goods were necessary to the production o material goods ff 170 systematic symbolic correlations between Buddhist doctrine and the 116
taimitsu 2, 63, 75, 76, 80, 81, 105, 166, 227, 229 aira 53, 54, 77, 78, 88, 192, 208, 216, 217, 217 n.91, 219, 220 akeshiuchi no Sukune 35, 46, 49 akizawa Bakin 233, 239 ale o the Heike (Heike Monogatari) 219 amaya 29 n.72, 79, 103, 110, 115 amukeyama Shrine 32, 36 arō tendō 228, 232 ashibu estate 54, 55, 93 temporal rhythm 85 endai 2, 39, 42, 56, 64, 65, 72, 80, 89, 101, 103 n.26, 104, 105, 106, 113 n.56, 118, 123, 124, 125 n.75, 126, 132, 133, 137, 144, 167, 180, 191, 200, 223, 224, 226, 227, 232, 246, 247
territoriality 5, 100, 155, 212, 214, 215, 215 n.86 territory 21, 22, 22 n.52, 43, 48, 59, 61, 88, 102, 103, 205, 209, 244 estamentary Admonition o the Founding Patriarch 201 the Diamond within the Matrix 198 Te mountain ranges [extending rom] Mount Hiko are the sacred spaces o the mandalas o the two realms [Matrix and Diamond] 201 the order to destroy the Buddhas had come rom the very top o the nation and thereore could not be defied 238 three dimensional mandala xiii three mineiri ascetic peregrinations that became the hallmark o Mount Hiko’s Shugendō and were copied around the country 193 three-dimensional mandala 8, 135 three-dimensional model o the mountain 238 ōdaiji 29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 39, 85, 100, 113, 208, 213, 217 n.91 tokogatame 146, 147, 148, 202 tokosadame 147 okuzen-ō 154, 154 n.91 tōmitsu, 2, 75 oyotomi Hideyoshi 162 subouchi Shōyō 246 sukaguchi Yoshinobu 27 surugaoka Hachimangū 78 twenty-eight 26 n.63, 28 n.68, 56, 57, 66, 76, 97, 110, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 200, 210, 217, 220, 223, 224, 225, 227, 229, 230 Usa xii, xiii, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 16 n.34, 16 n.39, 17, 17 n.43, 18, 19, 19 n.45, 20, 21, 22, 23, 23 n.57, 24, 24 n.59, 25, 25 n.62, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 32 n.82, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 44 n.97, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 53 n.118, 53 n.119, 54, 54 n.124, 55, 55 n.125, 55 n.127, 56, 57, 58, 59, 59 n.136, 60, 60 n.137, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 72, 73, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90,
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Index 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102 n.22, 103, 104, 104 n.27, 105, 111, 112, 114, 125 n.75, 130 n.80, 154 n.91, 155, 159, 161, 191, 192, 207, 208, 209, 210, 212, 213, 217, 219, 220, 221, 223, 226, 228, 229, 230, 240, 240 n.4, 241, 243, 244, 245
vajra 86, 107, 121, 149 n.88, 152, 182, 224, 225 Vajrabodhi 113 Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa Sūtra 128, 130 violence 14, 48, 75, 103 Vision, space, and ritual together produced the contents (and limits) o the yamabushi’s experience 149
301
Waiting or dawn on Mount Hiko 112 Wakamiya Shrine 26, 64, 93, 96 Wake no Kiyomaro 33, 37, 39, 39 n.94, 48 Wang-tzu Jin 106 warlords o the Ogata house 217 water divides (bunsui rei) 207 water-share shrines (mikumari jinja) 116, 207 Yahata 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 32 n.82, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 n.94, 41, 42, 43, 47, 95, 213 Zaō gongen 200 zasu 65, 160 Zōkei 73, 177, 178, 179
