Paper short abstract:

This paper questions how kami acquired “flesh” (nikutaisei 肉体性) in the process of merging with Buddhist divinities in medieval Japan, by arguing that his process was closely related to the worship of “living bodies” (shōjin shinkō 生身信仰).

Paper long abstract:

This paper questions how kami acquired “flesh” (nikutaisei 肉体性) in the process of merging with Buddhist divinities in medieval Japan. In early Japan, kami were perceived as as spirits without a physical body. However, as the process of merging kami and buddhas advanced, local deities gradually came to be seen as “traces” or substitutes of buddhas in the physical world. This state of affairs is closely related to the worship of “living bodies” (shōjin shinkō 生身信仰), relating miracles of buddhas and bodhisattvas appearing as living beings. In fact, already in the Heian period the poet-scholar Ōe no Masafusa (1041–1111) in his account of Shin’en Shōnin in Zoku honchō ōjōden called the Hachiman deity, known as the “trace” of buddha Amida, a “living buddha” (shōjin no hotoke 生身の仏). This example shows that kami had acquired a certain state of embodiment by that time. Still, the idea that kami were invisible entities did not completely lose its currency in medieval Japan. As such, they did not acquire “fleshiness,” but rather, it was the manner of their manifestation that became refracted. The very topic of the “original buddhas” (honjibutsu 本地物) in medieval Japan, which praised the buddha born as a human who eventually became a divinity after his hardships and death, is a classic example of such refracted, symbolic “acquisition of fleshiness.” Also, the idea of a fetus living inside the mother’s body and coming out to be born also merged with the image of a buddha manifesting itself in the physical world as a kami. Moreover, the relics (essentially, buddha’s bones) and gems (crystallised buddha’s flesh) were also perceived as representations of kami. Such merging of the suijaku belief and worship of the “living bodies” reached its last stage in the medieval period, when the Yoshida Shintō priests proclaimed that the dead can be worshipped as kami. Using concrete primary sources, this paper will highlight key aspects representing how kami came to be seen as having the real, “fleshy” bodies in medieval Japan.