Paper short abstract:

As part of a reassessment of the role of "religious institutions" kyōdan 教団 in pre-Modern Japan, this presentation examines source materials indicating the extent to which Shingon, Tendai, Sōtō and Rinzai mokujiki 木食 groups existed as independent institutions and lineages during the Edo period.

Paper long abstract:

Mokujiki 木食 ("eating of wood") is a diet of uncooked tree based foods, always undertaken in conjunction with abstention from cereals, most often found within Shugendō and esoteric Buddhist traditions. Some practitioners were officially ordained monks, predominantly of the Shingon sect. Others took mokujiki vows and lived as itinerant monks with or without official ordination, often devoted to the Buddha Amida. Forms of mokujiki were practiced in Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern and Modern Japan, often within institutionally marginal Buddhist religious groups. The practice of mokujiki developed on Mt. Kōya became one of the distinctive institutions on the mountain. It offered a distinct identity, ascetic path, and social role to many who lacked the background or connections that would lead to an elite clerical post.

Though mokujiki typically had a Shingon or Tendai orientation, the institutional affiliations and religious goals of its practitioners varied considerably and cannot be properly explained either in terms of the head temple-branch temple honmatsu 本末 relationships or the representative doctrines of the sects. Mokujiki practice was distinctive in that it involved dietary asceticism outside the normal framework of Buddhist dietary restriction, and itinerancy that brought the practitioner closer to ordinary folk than settled incumbents of temples could generally hope to be.

As part of a reassessment of the role of "religious institutions" kyōdan 教団 in pre-Modern Japan, this presentation pays particular attention to the extent to which Shingon, Tendai, Sōtō and Rinzai mokujiki institutions existed as independent institutions and lineages. Examining a wide range of source materials indicating the extent to which mokujiki implied a distinct type of practice and affiliation, it concludes with analysis of the reasons for mokujiki's flourishing during the Edo period.