AAR 1999 Panel Report

"Probing the Traces: Reevaluating the Relationship Between Buddhism and 'Shinto' in Premodern Japan" (A72)

By Brian Ruppert, University of Illinois

Chair: James Sanford (University of North Carolina)

Panelists: Mart Teeuwen (University of Oslo), Lisa Grumbach (Stanford

University), Brian D. Ruppert (University of Illinois), Ryuichi Abe (Columbia University), Fabio Rambelli (Williams College, Sapporo University) Respondent: Jacqueline I. Stone (Princeton University)

       Originally conceived of and organized by Brian Ruppert (with the generous help and suggestions of Fabio Rambelli States-side), this panel attempted to address the multi-faceted relationships between Buddhas and kami as envisioned by Japanese people in premodern eras. Scholars have generally based their analyses on notions of essence/trace-manifestation (honji suijaku) and of Buddha-kami assimilation (shinbutsu shuugou), but the character of the association of Buddhas and kami remains an interpretive--as well as historical--problem which has been adequately treated neither by Japanese nor Western scholars.
          The first paper was presented by Mark Teeuwen, entitled "The kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice," began by examining the amalgamation of kami cults and Buddhism by in terms of 3 historical stages: the appearance in the 8th century of "shrine-temples" (jinguuji); in the late 8th century of the identification of Hachiman as protector of the Buddhist Law and, somewhat later, as a bodhisattva; in the 9th century of the notion that some kami constitute the "skillful means" of Buddhas,Bodhisattvas and devas who "soften their light and mingle with the dust" (wakou doujin) to lead beings toward the Buddhist Way. However, between the 9th and 11th centuries, an increasing number of kami were viewed as local emanations of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which could be worshiped to gain benefits (riyaku). At the same time, another shift took place in esoteric Buddhist circles in the 12th and 13th centuries in which certain kami were promoted from "secondary" emanations (suijaku) of 'primary' Buddhist divinities (honji) to embodiments of Dainichi's universal enlightenment; morover, all of these kami were related to the Ise deity Amaterasu, becoming the honzon of elaborate esoteric rites, and the focus of esoteric Buddhist commentaries. It was this new form of "Buddhist kami thought" which lay at the basis of the first schools of "Shinto thought" (e.g., Watarai/Ise Shinto, Sannou Shinto, Miwa Shinto, Goryuu Shinto, Urabe/Yoshida Shinto). Teeuwen focuses, however, not only on the various discourses (associated especially with Tendai writings on Hie shrines) that were produced in the era, but also on ritual practice, selecting 3 instances of esoteric Buddhist kami discourse and their ritual contexts: esoteric purification as represented by _Nakatomi harae kunge_; esoteric shrine worship as represented by the Ise kanjou ("initiations," consecrations); kami and esoteric court ritual as represented by the Sokui kanjou (enthronement initiation). Teeuwen stresses that in such works and their rituals Amaterasu engages in actions that might seem "impure," such as transporting defilement to the netherworld, taking form as a snake embodying the 3 poisons, or as a "dragon-fox" (dakini); the ritual rationale is that based on a "paradoxical logic" in which so-called "real" (jitsurui) kami rather than "emanation" (suijaku etc.) kami are seen in their impurity as powerful. Esoteric lineages crossing sectarian boundaries tied esoteric associations of the former with the exoteric ones of the latter sort, maintaining all the while necessary secrecy. Meanwhile, shrine priests began to make such associations, and developed their own secret knowledge and initiations regarding kami. Ultimately, historically, it was via this discourse that shrine practice "embarked on the long road that would eventually result in the emergence of a non-Buddhist, self-sufficient religion named Shinto."
          Lisa Grumbach, in "Hunting for the Buddha: The Shinto-Buddhist Negotiation of Hunting Practices at Suwa Jinja," examined the issue of how, during the era in which Honji suijaku theory taught that kami are the local manifestations of Buddha/Bodhisattvas, the deity of Suwa shrine, known for its hunting rituals--and hence killing--could be conceived of as being ultimately a Buddhist figure. Grumbach went on to provide an account of how native Japanese texts, such as the early 9th c. Buddhist tale collection Nihon Ryoiki (III: Tale 6; III: 32), described killing as unproblematic so long as the believer was devoted to the Dharma. In the Kamakura era, a text such a Mujuu Ichien's Shasekishuu attempted an apology for the kami such as that at Suwa, claiming that as upaya (J. houben; skill-in-means) they take offerings of hunters and fishermen--having caused them to catch creatures that would have died soon anyway--and thus exonerate them of the sin as well as transfer merits to the dead animal, providing for a better rebirth. Thus as of the Kamakura era, kami worship came to be seen as just as efficacious as Buddhist salvation and the practice of serving the kami became the same as serving the Buddha; so arguments were increasingly made that animals are actually led to the Buddhist path when offered to the kami. Hunters at Suwa even developed a mantric "suwa-no-mon" prayer through which they believed they could guide the killed animals to the Buddhist path; in this case, the implication of the prayer was that through eating the animals--making them part of the human body--the animals also attained Buddhahood upon the eventual Buddhahood of that person.
          Brian Ruppert's "Pearl in the Shrine: A Genealogy of the Buddhist Jewel of the Japanese Sovereign" examined the relationship between the imperial regalia--particularly, the jewel and mirror--and Buddhism by analyzing representation of the wish-fulfilling jewel in the medieval era. The Bodhisattva Kannon was often associated with possession of a wish-fulfilling jewel (nyoi houju) in early medieval Japan; diaries of aristocrats and emperors of the 10th to 13th c. indicate that esoteric Buddhist monks were regularly made imperial guardians (gojisou) to pray before an image of the bodhisattva Kannon installed in the palace. From perhaps the early 11th c. (though clearly by the early 12th c.), Kannon was sometimes associated with the kami Amaterasu of Ise shrine. At the same time, the worship of Nyoirin Kannon was common in Shingon practice, and Shingon monks performed monthly veneration to Kannon in the Shingon'in of the greater palace. Literary accounts as well as archaeological findings associated the deity of Ise with the granting of wish-fulfilling jewels, and by the mid-13th century the writings of Shingon monks made explicit connections between the deity of Ise, jewels, Buddha relics, and esoteric figures such as Aizen. Authors such as the Daigoji monk Tsuukai ultimately made identifications of Amaterasu with Kannon as well as the wish-fulfilling jewel that constituted the honzon at imperial Shingon rites such as go-shichinichi mishiho; even the entire lineage of Shingon was described as having been conferred dharma-transmission by Amaterasu, the trace of Dainichi: "The mirror of the imperial family and the [wish-fulfilling] jewel (houju) of the secret [Shingon] treasure are the single Path of Harmonious Light." By the fourteenth century, a milieu had developed in the aristocracy which assumed that the tennou's possession of the three regalia was the most essential of marks of his sovereignty; this view, Ruppert argues, was produced primarily within and through the theories and practices of esoteric Buddhism--epitomized by statements such as that of the Tendai monk Jihen (fl. 14th c.), who wrote in his Kuji hongi gengi that the yasakani no magatama jewel, in its Yang aspect, is a transformation of the relics of Buddhas of old, and in its Yin aspect, is a "sea jewel" possessed by dragon kings. The wish-fulfilling jewel, in his view, unites Yin and Yang and is thus identical with the one mind of heaven and earth and, uniting the powers of the inner and outer shrines of Ise, is only passed down to the descendants of the imperial line.
          Ryuichi Abe's "Pollution, kami, and the Feminine: On the Salvational Strategies of Myoue and Eizon" emphasized the uniqueness of the fact that Myoue frequently characterized himself as a hinin, or outcast. Indeed, in his order, monks seem to have used the word hinin to refer to themselves as more than a reference to their seclusive lifestyle--pointing to a novel religious quality shared by the members as well as to their new religious practices. In particular, Abe focuses on the connection between Myoue's self-address as hinin and his method of providing salvation to the sick, dying, and dead. He suggests that there is an organic interconnection between the discourse of hinin as used by Myoue as well as Eizon, practices of using mantra as sacred technology, and efforts to find effective means to implement the precepts. Although these two figures, as part of the Kenmitsu Buddhism establishment, received the medieval Buddhicized notion of kegare--native notions of kegare derived from transgressions or death/illness joined together by Buddhist karmic theory--they chose to perform kiyome on the ill, dead, and discriminated rather than employ guilds toward that end. They both emphasized the importance of strict observance of the precepts and of the power of mantra-chanting: when the precepts protected the believer's thought of enlightenment, the mantra regained its original force as prajna ("queen of wisdom"), the dynamic and feminine aspect of the Dharma-body. It was precisely this force that destroyed past karma and so eradicated the roots of impurity. Indeed, the success of each in establishing a vibrant order of females provides proof that their positive reinterpretation of feminity made it possible for their disciples to overcome kegare and succeed along the Buddhist path.
          Fabio Rambelli's "Honji Suijaku and Everyday Practices: Religion, Economics, and Social Ideology" starts with the assumption that we cannot understand medieval Japanese culture without attending to the doctrines and practices collectively referred to as honji suijaku (original forms and their traces). Rambelli, in particular, focuses on the symbolic and structural roles of honji suijaku as a basic root metaphor in the fields of ideology, social practices and economics. In fact, he stresses, the larger combination of Buddhist and other religious elements is the "main paradigm" of Japanese Buddhism and religion more generally. Rambelli draws attention to the ritual instructions of the Miwa branch of the Shingon school given to the common people in the 16th and 17th centuries, which systematically sacralized their actions and the objects they used in daily life. These rituals presented the activities of the people as instantiations of the esoteric Buddhist cosmology and soteriology--requiring actions such as the chanting of mantras and the performance of mudras as well as the singing of secret songs to kami (and oral instructions); however, special emphasis was made on the tools used in professions (e.g., the honji of the carpenter's tool-box is Shaakyamuni etc.). In larger terms, religious institutions, through applying honji-suijaku discourse, tried to sacralize everyday practices in order to control--at least symbolically--everyday activities (especially productive activities). These strategies and processes of sacralization of everyday life and activity, produced by Buddhist and Shinto institutions on the basis of honji suijaku, was extremely influential, forming the basis for later, analogous, efforts--especially, proponents of Kokugaku in the 18th and 19th c (e.g., figures such as Hirata Atsutane).
          Jacqueline Stone was a wonderful respondent, succinctly summing up the main points of each paper yet drawing attention to the coherence of them as a set. She emphasized that the papers were marked by the common themes of: the central role of esoteric Buddhism; gendered/sexual imagery; associative and analogical thinking (isomorphism etc.). Stone noted the parallel character of the development of secret teachings (including those of honji suijaku) with the Kenmon power system in medieval Japan. She also pointedly raised questions concerning or suggested the necessity to problematize some of the issues in the papers, e.g., matters such as the question of the validity of distinctions Grumbach drew between Buddhism and local practitioners; of Ruppert's mention of connections of jewel/Amaterasu discourse with Tachikawa-ryu practices; or of Abe's claim that the prominence of feminine principles resulted in a strong female community in Shingon-Ritsu.