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.