Paper short abstract:

This paper traces the process of formation and change of the "images of the ten months in the womb" (tainai notsuki zu) and their links to medieval Japanese religious thought and embryological theories, found in esoteric Buddhist and Shinto texts from the Kumano and Goryū Shinto traditions.

Paper long abstract:

In medieval Japan, the theory of "five embryonic stages in the womb" (tainai goi), which envisioned the ritual perfection of a religious practitioner, was created by analogy with the processes of formation of the human body. Medieval Shinto theories took this tainai goi thought as foundational, but expanded and reconfigured it into the so-called "images of the ten months in the womb" (tainai totsuki no zu). These images aligned each stage of the embryo's formation with a certain Buddhist ritual implement, finally depicting the fetus descending from the womb and about to be born, as a buddha. This theory first emerged as a secret transmission called "hiding in the box" (hakogakushi) within the esoteric tradition of Goryū Shinto. In late medieval Japan, the "ten months in the womb" imagery, together with Buddhist ideas about salvation and the notion of the deficient, sinful female body as a primary cause of suffering, were spread by the religious preachers and performers, such as mountain ascetics and bikuni nuns, who proselytized the worship of the Kumano shrines through ritual pictures (etoki). Although the tainai totsuki zu imagery was a secret transmission in medieval Japan, during the early modern period it gradually came to be seen as an eccentric, entertaining theory. This, in turn, led to a creation of model dolls offered for public display, thus losing any semblance of sacrality and secrecy. In this paper, I trace the process of formation and change of the "images of the ten months in the womb" and their links to medieval Japanese religious thought and embryological theories.