Paper short abstract:

Focusing on Zen, Shinto and esoteric texts, I analyse embryological imagery, such as "images of the ten months in the womb" (tainai totsuki zu) and "five stages of embryo" (tainai goi). In this paper, I trace the emergence of such theories to the ideas of the Tendai monk Yōsai (1141-1215).

Paper long abstract:

The "images of the ten months in the womb" (tainai totsuki zu) depicting human embryological growth from conception to birth were known from early modern printed books, such as Shōge mibun no wa (Tales of Bodies Descending for Birth) and Sanken icchisho (Manuscript Combining the Three Wisdoms). At its core, these books employed the esoteric Buddhist theory of "enlightenment with this very body" (sokushin jōbutsu), but they also invoked Zen and Shinto ideas to explain human birth and death. For example, Sanken icchisho mixed esoteric and Zen elements. The recently discovered "Mandala of the Five Embryonic Stages in the Womb" (tainai goi mandara) from Kongōji temple in Osaka Prefecture included Zen-themed questions and answers (mondō); Sōtō Zen kirikami referred to the ten-month gestation in the womb as controlled by thirteen esoteric buddhas (jūsanbutsu).

I trace the emergence and development of such theories, focusing on the ideas of the Tendai monk Yōsai (1141-1215). Yōsai, who went to study in China twice, authored a little-studied compendium, the Ingoshū (Collection of Hidden Words), in which a ritual merging of two esoteric mandalas was explained through the metaphor of sexual congress between men and women. This text also includes theories that built upon early medieval Tendai concepts of embodiment, such as those seen in ritual meditation on the "Five Viscera Mandala" (gozō mandara). Shinto texts from the late Kamakura period (1185-1333) and late medieval Zen kirikami documents also incorporated embodiment theories attributed to Yōsai. In this presentation, I focus on the rise of embryological knowledge as seen in the "images of ten months in the womb" (tainai totsuki zu) and the "five embryonic stages in the womb" (tainai goi) and investigate the role of Yōsai in their transmission in medieval Japan.