Paper short abstract:

This paper reconstructs a little-understood advanced initiation, known as yugi kanjo, which spread as suddenly as widely across esoteric lineages. Pointing out the links to continental yogic practices, it suggests to reconsider medieval developments beyond Japan within broader Tantric trends.

Paper long abstract:

This paper reconstructs a little-understood advanced initiation, mostly known as yugi kanjō, and its related practices, such as a so-called bodaishin kanjō, which were created anew in the medieval period as the ultimate consecration of a Tantric practitioner. Rather than being distinctive of a specific lineage, the yugi initiation spread as suddenly as widely across the esoteric world, attesting to a broad interest in the conceptual and performative connotation of the Tantric subject that the ritual conveyed. No longer performed or performed in a different format, the yugi kanjō poses several interpretative problems when reconsidered in the context of other advanced initiations documented in illustrated manuscripts that have come to light in recent years. The paper discusses these connections and the unexpected links that these practices appear to entertain with continental (Indo-Tibetan) yogic practices. While historical questions remain as to why the yugi kanjō and the textual exegesis that supported it developed exactly in the medieval period, the source material unveiled recently emphatically point to the need of reconsidering the history of medieval esoteric Buddhism beyond Japan, within the larger context of Asian Tantric Buddhism.