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.