Paper short abstract:

This paper identifies common elements in the early modern development of Shugendō and Shinto. Through the case of Mount Togakushi (Nagano ken), it takes a comparative approach that challenges past misconceptions of either tradition while highlighting intersecting lines of growth in the Edo period.

Paper long abstract:

Scholars today generally agree that Shinto is not simply an ancient tradition that predates Japanese Buddhism, just as Shugendō did not originate in the Nara period as a folk religion, despite the currency of such ideas throughout most of the twentieth century. Indeed, recent advances in the historical study of Japanese religions have posited later time periods of emergence for both through approaches that emphasize regional over national (and anachronistic) modes of formation. By doing so, scholars have begun dismantling longstanding ideologies (e.g., Shinto as Japan's timeless form of nature worship or Shugendō as an ancient folk religion) that have tended to obscure, rather than clarify, their historical stages of development. That said, disagreement continues over the timing of emergence in either case, the various stages of their respective development, and the criteria for determining them as established religious systems.

This paper aims to advance the discussion by taking a comparative approach to the study of early modern Shugendō and Shinto through the case of Mount Togakushi. Both systems were incorporated into the site's religious culture by its practitioners and administrators through similar modes of transmission and historical narrative. Shugendō entered the region in the early sixteenth century, whereas mythological kami and a new Shintō lineage (Reisō Shintō) arrived in the late seventeenth century. In order to domesticate each new system of thought, ritual, and lineage, pracititioners rewrote the history of their mountain, giving each tradition a central place in its origins. They also painted, sculpted, and showcased new icons to accomodate the increasing pantheon of gods and founders. Apparent in recorded events, origin accounts (engi), and iconography, these elements reveal similar trajectories in the gradual incorporation of either system into the site's religious culture. Through this evidence, I will remark on two points: first, the overlooked historical growth of Shugendō and Shinto in the Edo period; and second, while weighed down by differing forms of ideological abstractions in modern discourse, the two traditions share more in common historically than is often apparent in their modern manefestations.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the transmission of the "Three Mountains" (sanzan) paradigm from Kumano Sanzan in Kii peninsula to Dewa Sanzan in Tōhoku region during the medieval period. This analysis sheds light on the peculiarities of Shugendō formative mechanisms and devotional networks.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the religious activities performed by the associations of Kumano leaders (Kumano sendatsu shū) to transmit the cult of the Three Mountains of Kumano (Kumano Sanzan) from the Kii peninsula to the Tōhoku region starting from the end of the twelfth century. Thanks to this analysis it is possible to problematize the concepts of Shugendō and shugenja in their early stages of formation. Kumano sendatsu shū were self-administered groups of spurious shugen practitioners who developed horizontal networks of alliances in various domains and were linked together by shared devotional discourses, which were centered on the veneration of three sacred sites (Hongū, Shingū, Nachi) at Kumano. None of these Kumano leaders can be considered as institutionalized Shugendō practitioners although most of them derived their religious authority from the performance of ascetic practices, which took place on mountains and were dedicated to the veneration of mountains as geophysical manifestations of Buddhas. These Kumano leaders created the devotional and conceptual background, which paved the way for the future development of Shugendō institutions in the Tōhoku area starting from the Muromachi period. They ritually transferred and enshrined (kanjō) the original Buddhas (honjibutsu) and provisional traces (suijakujin) of the Kumano Sanzan pantheon into the sacred landscape of the Dewa domain. The Three Mountains of Dewa (Dewa Sanzan) worked as virtual manifestations or authentic copies of the Three Mountains of Kumano, which were supposed to be simultaneously present in the Kii peninsula as well as in the Tōhoku area. The kanjō rituals made by the Kumano sendatsu were based on what Jonathan Z. Smith defined as the logic of "transposition" according which a ritual element can, at the same time, signify one thing as well as a different one. Adopting Smith's notion of transposition to interpret the transmission mechanisms of Shugendō discourses from central Japan to the northeastern regions I aim to clarify the ritual and devotional phenomena, which led to the formation of the Shugendō institutions, parishioners (dannaba), and religious confraternities of lay devotees (kō) in the Tōhoku area, in general, and at Dewa Sanzan in particular.

Paper short abstract:

This paper considers moments in the partiarchalization of En no Gyōja, from the latter half of the thirteenth century into the early twentieth century, as a means of exploring how the creation of a founder contributed to Shugendō's historical formation.

Paper long abstract:

Shugendō emerged as an independent religious movement towards the end of the thirteenth century. By then, En no Gyōja had gained recognition as the "ancestor of all yamabushi", in whose steps one walked when ascending Shugendō mountains, in particular those of the Ōmine range in central Japan. This paper examines the mechanisms through which En no Gyōja, whose historicity is questionable, was used to create a place and a space for Shugendō as a distinct tradition. Because so little was known about him, En no Gyōja made an ideally malleable figure. In medieval sources already, he was made into a precursor of Kūkai, described as receiving initiation from Nagarjuna in person and thus placing Shugendō at the very source of esoteric traditions. Alternatively, he was inserted into the Indian genealogy of the Kumano pantheon, or linked with Shōtoku taishi. In the Edo period, En no Gyōja's hagiography stabilized along with Shugendō. This process culminated in the bestowal by emperor Kōtoku of the title of Jinben daibosatsu, "Great bodhisattva of divine manifestations", upon him, thus granting imperial recognition to a figure whose initial reputation was based on an attempt at insurrection. The first decades after the Meiji restoration, when Shugendō was prohibited, witnessed various attempts not only to save Shugendō documents from being destroyed or lost, but also to give a new theoretical framework to the tradition. This led to the writing of several new hagiographies of En no Gyōja, which served as a basis to rethink the role of Shugendō in modern Japan, often assigning it the ambitious role of symbolizing the quintessence of Japan.

This paper will show how, over time, Shugendō made use of the image of En no Gyōja as its founder in order to place itself at the apex of the Japanese religious landscape. By examining a diachronical selection of documents, starting with texts written prior to the institutionalization of Shugendō branches and ending with a survey of the early years of the journal Shugen (published by the Honzan branch of Shugendō), this contribution will cast light on the ongoing patriarchalization process of En no Gyōja.