Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses local development of Bugaku in northern Japan. Analyzing the pre-modern documents on the Bugaku performed for rain-making rituals and its canonical sources, it explores the creative processes that transformed Buddhist scriptures to give them a special religious performativity.

Paper long abstract:

The so-called "Bugaku of the Hayashi Family" (Hayashi-ke bugaku) handed down in Sagae (Yamagata Prefecture) is one of the most interesting examples of local adaptation of Bugaku music and dance. Legends report that musicians from the Hayashi Family (traditionally associated with the Gagaku orchestra of Shitennōji temple in Osaka) traveled to remote northeastern Japan following the famous Tendai priest Ennin (a.k.a. Jikaku Daishi, 794-864) and settled down there, around the area of the Jionji temple, for centuries one of the most important Buddhist institutions in Tohoku.

An interesting aspect of this Bugaku transmission legend is its strong relations to rain-making rituals as one of the most crucial practices throughout the Japanese religious traditions. The Bugaku kiroku, a document handed down by the Hayashi Family reports that they performed their own form of Bugaku at Jionji and at Risshakuji, throughout the Tokugawa period in order to pray for rain. At Jionji, rain making was carried out in relation to esoteric rituals dedicated for the future Buddha Miroku and for the Water God (Suiten, Skt. Varuna). One of the scriptures about Miroku, the Miroku jōshōgyō, describes goddesses performing music and dance in Maitreya's Tuṣita Heaven (Tosotsu-ten); however, how did that performing arts scene develop into a rain-making ceremony? This paper is an investigation on the creative processes that took place in that particular locale and transformed Buddhist scriptures to give them a special religious performativity; as a result, the scriptures' power to affect reality came to be based on their enactment in ritual performances involving music and dance.

In this paper, after an analysis of the three scriptures at the basis of the cult to Miroku (especially the Miroku jōshōgyō) and visual representations and rituals based on them, I will explore the theoretical reasons connecting Miroku to music/dance and rain-making rituals. Finally, I will discuss the dynamics that made this particular combination of doctrines, performing arts, and ritual effective in the religious world of a regional society.