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- Convenor:
-
Mariko Yoneda
(Tottori University)
Send message to Convenor
- Stream:
- Religion and Religious Thought
- Location:
- Torre A, Piso 0, Sala 03
- Sessions:
- Thursday 31 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
An exploration of the impact of Esoteric Buddhist teachings (Shingon and Tendai) regarding the body-mind complex on discourses on sex and gender in early medieval Japan, with special emphasis on the role of sex in medicine (gynecology), salvation, and poetry hermeneutics.
Long Abstract:
Esoteric Buddhist teachings on the body-mind complex, based on an amalgam of Indian Tantric teachings and Chinese ideas about the constitutive elements of reality (articulated in series of five), played an extremely important role in all realms of medieval Japanese systems of knowledge. Particularly significant was the formulation of the body-mind by the Shingon monk Kakuban (1095-1143), involving eleboarate correlations among numerous five-element series, but other concepts and practices were also relevant. Medieval understandings of the body-mind complex attributed a central role to sex, not only as the source of creation and reproduction, but also as a metaphor for salvation, artistic creation, and as an aspect of a larger medical discourse. The papers in this panel deal with three central texts from the Heian and Kamakura periods, composed between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries, that develop Kakuban's work in original directions. The first paper focuses on the Gushi nintai sanshō himitsu hōshū, a work containing instructions on gynecology, apparently written for aristocratic women and attributed to Annen (841-889?), one of the patriarchs of Tendai Esoteric Buddhism. The second paper deals with the Ingoshū, a little-known work by Eisai, the Tendai monk credited with the introduction to Japan of Zen Buddhism and tea ceremony, that discusses salvation in terms of sexual union between man and woman, thus showing the importance of sexual imagery for medieval Japanese Buddhism. The third paper analyzes the Kokin kanjō, a representative waka treatise from the Kamura period and the consecration ceremonies based on it (known as waka kanjō), which combine elements form Kakuban's correlative vision of the body-mind complex and other Esoteric Buddhist ideas about the salvific nature of sex mediated from Yugikyō, an esoteric scripture that was very influential in the middle ages. These papers show that the three texts they address generated a set of teachings and practices that were very influential in their respective fields.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 31 August, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
Analysis of an influential work attributed to the Tendai monk Annen (841-889?) entitled Collection of Secret Rituals on Seeking Offspring, Conception, and Childbirth (Gushi nintai sanshō himitsu hōshū), which discusses operations of the female body, including fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth.
Paper long abstract:
For noblewomen in Heian and Kamakura Japan, the inner workings of the female body, including fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth, were most likely little discussed in public. These issues, however, were certainly important in private life and could have significant political repercussions for their families. Aristocratic daughters who married high-ranking courtiers or even became imperial consorts had to take special care of their health and well-being, particularly during pregnancy. But how could women know what exactly was happening inside their bodies? Was this process ever explained to them? And if so, how?
An undated collection attributed to the Tendai monk Annen (841-889?) may be one of the earliest Japanese Buddhist handbooks that brought together the knowledge of how women's bodies work. The Collection of Secret Rituals on Seeking the Offspring, Conception, and Childbirth (Jp. Gushi nintai sanshō himitsu hōshū) in five fascicles casts light on a variety of subjects dealing with women's reproductive health, materia medica, and esoteric rituals focusing on conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. This collection is remarkable in that it explains the bodily sensations and mental perceptions of both the expectant mother and the unborn child and underscores the necessity of upright moral conduct by both, thus implying that both the living and the unborn should correctly exercise their bodies and minds.
If Annen's authorship was indeed proven, this collection may have appeared more than a century before Japan's earliest medical compendium, Tanba Yasuyori's Ishinpō (Essentials of Medicine, ca. 984), which contains several fascicles on women's health, including explanations of embryological development. In addition, Gushi nintai sanshō himitsu hōshū can be treated as a precursor to the vast array of ritual strategies that became the cornerstones of esoteric rituals for safe pregnancy and childbirth practiced at court during the Heian and Kamakura periods, that is, long after Annen's time.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the characteristics of the ideas of the body-mind complex of Tendai/Zen priest Eisai (1141-1215) as described in Ingoshū (written in 1181, revised in 1190), in their relation to both Tendai and Shingon esoteric Buddhism; it further traces their influence in medieval Japan.
Paper long abstract:
The Tendai priest Eisai (1141-1215) was active between the end of the Insei Period and the early Kamakura period. In his late work entitled Kissa yōjōki (1211-1214), he explains the technique to harmonize the functions of the body through drinking tea, based on the Sonshō darani ha jigoku giki hishō and the Gozō mandara gikishō (in fascicle 1), and rituals to dispel evil spirits and heal diseases by employing mulberry, according to the Taigensui daishō giki hishō (fascicle 2). This text reflects Eisai's ultimate vision of the body-mind complex. This vision, which understands the functions of body and mind as closely interconnected, is succinctly expounded in the Ingoshū (written in 1181, revised in 1190 during Eisai's second visit to Song China). This text presents the unity of Vajra and diamond mandala realms and of principle (ri) and wisdom (chi) through the similitude of the union between man and woman.
This paper discusses the characteristics of Eisai's ideas of the body-mind complex, and places them within the two major lineages of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism (Tendai/Taimitsu and Shingon/Tōmitsu). Our discussion will present a picture of Eisai that is quite different from the received one as a Zen patriarch and one of the founders of tea ceremony. Such a difference is a consequence of historical developments in the understanding of Eisai's thought. In this paper, I will trace the influence of Eisai's thought on medieval Japanese conceptions of the body-mind complex.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the impact of Esoteric Buddhist elements, especially Shingon visualizations on the five organs, on medieval waka poetic treatises and relates consecration rituals (waka kanjo). Moreover, it addresses the role of sexual imagery based on the Yugikyo.
Paper long abstract:
Since the Heian period, waka poetry treatises have theorized the relationship between spirit (interpreted meaning) and word (the poetic expression). However, from the beginning of the 13th century, waka experts and practitioners came to be active in the provinces, and as a consequence, new poetry treatises appeared showing different understandings from those circulating at court. In particular, a secret text entitled Kokin kanjō, which explains the spirit and the letter of waka based on the doctrines of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism, is a waka treatise characteristic of the Kamakura period (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries). Because of limitations in the available sources, it was difficult until recently to analyze this text in depth beyond generic references to "esoteric elements"; however, a series of texts rediscovered in recent years, such as the Gochi gozōtō himitsushō (New York Public Library), the Gochizō hishō (Ninnaji), and the Gozō mandara waeshaku (Kanazawa bunko), all reinterpretations of Kakuban's thought, enable us to clarify concrete aspects of the influence of Esoteric Buddhism on waka theories and, at the same time, on the cultural activities of secular society.
In this paper, I will first present the influence of the above texts, and then discuss some specific examples of the relations between this type of waka theories and Esoteric Buddhist views of the body-mind complex. Furthermore, I would like to contribute to a better understanding of early medieval conceptualizations of the body-mind through a reading of recently rediscovered secret texts based on Yugikyō, which marks further developments of the Esoteric Buddhist body-mind discourse.