Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the ritual embryology developed in the Suwa-ryū Shinto, a reinterpretation of kami worship of Suwa Shrine that adopted the thought and practice of esoteric Buddhism in medieval times. The study provides a unique case for the dissemination of ritual embryology in medieval Japan.

Paper long abstract:

The Suwa Shrine, famous for its Great Pillar Festival, is often understood as symbolizing the ancient nature worship characteristic of native Shinto thought. A historical analysis, however, shows that it developed a unique Buddhist-Shinto syncretization in medieval times.

The Shrine historically consisted in a dual system of the ōhōri (大祝) and the jinchō (神長), who together reigned over the Suwa religious community. The ōhōri, generally a young child, was regarded as a kami in human form (arahitogami), descended from the clan kami to govern the Suwa county. With this ōhōri resided another religious leader called the jinchō, the shaman who alone was believed to have an ability to communicate with the kami of Suwa with his esoteric technique. Traditionally, the role of jinchō was inherited by members of the Moriya family, the native inhabitants, while that of ōhōri was held in succession by the Kanazashi family, who migrated to Suwa around the 6th century.

It is Moriya Mitsusane, the jinchō in the 15th century, that contributed to developing what he called the Suwa-ryū Shinto, a radical reinterpretation of the kami worship of Suwa that actively adopted the thought and practice of esoteric Buddhism. He adopted the esoteric initiations focused on the kami world (jingi kanjō) for the initiation rituals of the ōhōri. In the text called Suwa daimyōjin shinpi gohonji daiji (諏訪大明神深秘御本事大事), Mitsusane describes the “Suwa method of initiations” in detail by providing various mudras and mantras for the initiate. What should be emphasized is that, in the Suwa method of initiations, the ultimate kami, with which one should attain union, was not Dainichi, but Mishaguji – the kami of Suwa worshipped by the jinchō Moriya family since the ancient time. It is in this initiation rituals that we can find various embryological ideas connected with the kami of Suwa, Mishaguji.

The paper analyzes this text written by Moriya Mitsusane, explores how the embryological ideas were developed in the Suwa-ryū Shinto, and thus provides a unique case for the dissemination of ritual embryology in medieval Japan.

Paper short abstract:

The paper unravels the dual religious framework of the Kinpusen Himitsuden, composed by Monkan Kōshin in 1337. It argues that by bringing together the natural/cultic environments of Kinpusen and the Buddhist imperial ritual stage, the text creates a multilayered politically charged sacred landscape.

Paper long abstract:

The Kinpusen Himitsuden was composed by Monkan Kōshin, a guardian monk of emperor Go-Daigo, in 1337 on Kinpusen. Included in the Nihon Daizōkyō volume on Shugendō and concerning the natural/cultic environments of Kinpusen, the text had been traditionally affiliated to a group of engi narratives pertaining to the mountain. Previous studies thus emphasized its local dimension. However, a recently uncovered corpus of esoteric Buddhist texts on the Sanzon Gōgyō rite, similarly compiled by Monkan, necessitated a reconsideration of the text in another religious setting. The Sanzon Gōgyō rite was a technique of Buddhist realization first inaugurated by Shingon monks at the court in the 12th and 13th centuries as part of a system of legitimation. In the 14th century, it was systematized by Monkan and adapted to the cultic reality in particular geopolitical circumstances.

The presentation examines the transformations of the legend of 'Zaō and the Three Buddhas' within the text, and the adaptation of its natural/cultic settings to an esoteric Buddhist ritual framework. The first version, the only one acknowledged by scholars, closely follows Kamakura period narratives. A second version, however, is set in a twilight zone between legend and ritual and provides the core of a multi-layered ritual stage envisioned as a maṇḍala. A third version is embedded in a series of visualizations. The investigation of the three versions reveals the intertwinement of distinct ritual and narrative traditions within the text and of the cultic and universal Buddhist layers.

The presentation argues that through the text the imperial ritual stage, dominated by esoteric Buddhist notions, was transposed to the mythically constructed landscape of Kinpusen, thereby transforming a mountain temple into an imperial court, a local god into a Buddha, and an emperor on the run into a Buddhist king. At the same time, it shows that the text enhances the locality of this Buddhist framework, bringing to the fore distinct features of the natural environment, rocks, mountains, rivers and their related myths. This powerful landscape, the stronghold of the southern court, is then embedded in the text in the discourse on Japan as a sacred land.

Paper short abstract:

The spectacular practice of being suspended over a cliff is one of the most evocative images of extreme ascetic ritual and danger, often associated with the figure of the yamabushi. Tracing the history of this ritual, this paper aims to open discussion on its role in the contemporary context.

Paper long abstract:

The practice of being suspended over a cliff, nishi no nozoki (Western Nozoki) is probably one of the best known and photographed yamabushi rituals. Associated with the idea of danger and extreme ascetic practices, which Shugendō often evokes, it has contributed to the formation of the aura of myth and charisma which yamabushi present to the public and to some extent to academic circles as well. The notoriety of nishi no nozoki is not just a recent phenomenon caused by the post 1970s resurgence of interest in Shugendō, or by the inclusion of the Kumano kodō in the Unesco world heritage list, with the consequent flourishing of more or less spiritual trekking tours and one-day yamabushi experiences.

In spite of its supposed secrecy, accounts of this practice had appeared already at the end of the sixteenth century in José de Acosta's Historia natural y moral de las Indias and in Luis de Guzmán's Historia de las misiones, both based on a letter of the Jesuit Luís Fróis. At the beginning of the last century, the historian of religion Raffaele Pettazzoni included the practice of being hung over a cliff in his monumental work on the confessions of sins.

The contemporary nishi no nozoki is heir to the practice called "weighing karma" (gōbyō), a ritual belonging to the ten practices partly associated with the "ascent of the ten realms" (jikkai shugyō), a cycle of rituals fundamental to medieval yamabushi training.

What was the cultural and visual context of the creation of this ritual and what was its role, and that of the ten practices and of the ascent of ten realms, in the Muromachi process of constructing Shugendo doctrinal discourse?

To what extent we can see contemporary practices as a continuity of medieval ones? Or, in a completely changed cultural and social context, is it more appropriate to consider them to be phenomena of reinterpretation and reinvention?