Paper short abstract:

Empress Jingū forms part of a composite deity at many shrines, but her elevation to and status as a kami is generally overlooked. Through examination of several medieval jisha engi, I explore the deification process of Jingū and her role in engineering her own standing as a deity.

Paper long abstract:

Legend asserts that Empress Jingū 神功皇后 (169-269), an empress consort and court shaman, conquered the Korean peninsula with the guidance and assistance of several kami. Originally appearing in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, this legend was reinterpreted in a multitude of texts and periods, especially in shrine-temple origin texts (jisha engi) of the Hachiman cult. While Jingū's relationship to the god Hachiman, identified as her son Ōjin, and to various other kami is well-known, little attention has been paid to her own status as a kami. Enshrined as part of the Hachiman triad and incorporated into many Sumiyoshi shrines and the Awashima cult as a subsidiary deity, Jingū appears often as a divine entity, lending the imperial and cultural capital of her story to enhance the power of a prominent kami. Yet, is it only in combination with other deities that Jingū can be seen as divine?

This paper explores Jingū's complicated status as a divine being as presented in jisha engi, an important and diverse genre that is receiving increasing scholarly notice. After looking at earlier engi, such as the eighth century Sumiyoshi taisha jindaiki, I present the Jingū narratives of several fourteenth century texts, including the Hachiman gotakusenshu, the Hachiman gudōkun and the Kada Awashima engi. I highlight how various texts explain her divinity and how we may potentially classify her as hitogami, ujigami, and bodhisattva. This diversity of divine labels reflects the multifaceted nature of deification in the medieval period, with honji suijaku (trace manifestations) theory underpinning but not sufficiently explaining the process of human deification. I argue that although Jingū is predominantly described as a composite deity, as the narratives concerning her life and deeds grew, she increasingly came to function both narratively and devotionally as a deity in her own right. Furthermore, the empress often plays a clear role in engineering her own deification through negotiation, omens and the miracle of motherhood.