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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Producing Place, Tradition and the Gods: Mt. Togakushi, Thirteenth through Mid-Nineteenth Centuries Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/90w6w5wz Author Carter, Caleb Swift Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Producing Place, Tradition and the Gods: Mt. Togakushi, Thirteenth through Mid-Nineteenth Centuries A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Languages and Cultures by Caleb Swift Carter 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Producing Place, Tradition and the Gods: Mt. Togakushi, Thirteenth through Mid-Nineteenth Centuries by Caleb Swift Carter Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Languages and Cultures University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor William M. Bodiford, Chair This dissertation considers two intersecting aspects of premodern Japanese religions: the development of mountain-based religious systems and the formation of numinous sites. The first aspect focuses in particular on the historical emergence of a mountain religious school in Japan known as Shugendō. While previous scholarship often categorizes Shugendō as a form of folk religion, this designation tends to situate the school in overly broad terms that neglect its historical and regional stages of formation. In contrast, this project examines Shugendō through the investigation of a single site. Through a close reading of textual, epigraphical, and visual sources from Mt. Togakushi (in present-day Nagano Ken), I trace the development of Shugendō and other religious trends from roughly the thirteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries. This study further differs from previous research insofar as it analyzes Shugendō as a concrete system of practices, doctrines, members, institutions, and identities. By identifying a constituency of i these elements, we can determine the historical and regional contexts in which Shugendō became a self-conscious school. This approach, furthermore, clarifies the interests—religious, social, economic and institutional—that guided the school’s formation. The second objective of this project concerns the role of place in the formation of Shugendō and other religious systems. It addresses the processes through which ritual, thought and religious identity are transmitted and adapted to specific places. To this end, I consider two other significant entities that overlapped with Shugendō at the site: Togakushi’s central deity, Kuzuryū (literally, the “nine-headed dragon”), as well as the administrative and ideological contributions of the eighteenth-century cleric, Jōin. The chapter on Kuzuryū explores how an abstract deity from esoteric rituals and Lotus Sūtra narratives in Tang China comes to reside at Togakushi. Through an investigation of its development over time, I consider how its presence adds to the identity and numinous power of the mountain. The final two chapters analyze Jōin’s treatment of Shugendō as well as his attempt to construct a new religious school that coalesced around the mountain’s practices, history, and identity. Investigation of these concomitant developments at Togakushi reveals a twofold process. As rituals, doctrines and deities gained regional traction, religious participants rewrote the site’s historical narratives, developed new identities, and situated divine elements into the landscape. I suggest that these modes of importation and domestication over time guide the construction of numinous places like Togakushi. On a broader scale, we might understand this continual adaptation of translocal trends to a specific locale as a defining element in the formation of overarching religious systems in premodern Japan. ii The dissertation of Caleb Swift Carter is approved. Herman Ooms Torquil Duthie Natasha Heller Robert E. Buswell William M. Bodiford, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iii Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Reconsidering Shugendō ............................................................................................................ 6 Producing place ......................................................................................................................... 10 A mid-nineteenth century visit to Togakushisan ...................................................................... 12 Overview of the chapters .......................................................................................................... 17 1 Establishing a Bedrock: Narrative, Gods, and Practice in the Fifteenth Century ........... 27 Sources ...................................................................................................................................... 27 Divinities and doctrines ............................................................................................................ 29 Continental influences .............................................................................................................. 31 Combinatory without kami? ..................................................................................................... 33 Nebulous female boundaries ..................................................................................................... 36 Mountain practices and gods .................................................................................................... 43 2 A Nine-headed Dragon Takes Residence ............................................................................. 56 Dragons in Asia......................................................................................................................... 59 Appearances of nine-headed dragons in Tang China ............................................................... 62 From a nine-headed dragon to Kuzuryū ................................................................................... 65 Layered narratives and proliferating benefits ........................................................................... 74 3 A Mountain School Emerges: Shugendō in the Sixteenth Century ................................... 83 Systematizing Shugendō ........................................................................................................... 84 Buddhist influences ................................................................................................................... 88 Robed as a buddha .................................................................................................................... 90 Establishing a founder............................................................................................................... 92 Placing “this mountain” ............................................................................................................ 95 Shugendō enters Togakushi ...................................................................................................... 96 Attaining buddhahood in the mountains ................................................................................. 100 4 Embedding Shugendō into the Landscape ......................................................................... 114 Embattlement to restoration .................................................................................................... 115 Early modern Shugendō .......................................................................................................... 117 iv Togakushi joins the Tendai institution .................................................................................... 119 Historicizing Shugendō at Togakushi ..................................................................................... 121 Instituting Togakushi Shugendō ............................................................................................. 124 Opening the mountains ........................................................................................................... 128 Integrating Shugendō into the ritual calendar ......................................................................... 133 5 Uplift and Fault Lines in the Formation of Shugendō ...................................................... 145 Jōin’s life, writings, and time at Togakushisan ....................................................................... 146 Previous scholarship ............................................................................................................... 149 Inventing a mythic past ........................................................................................................... 152 Projecting Shugendō back to ancient China ........................................................................... 157 Contested visions .................................................................................................................... 160 Upsetting Tendai order ........................................................................................................... 165 6 Cross-bedding a Lineage, Fracturing the Shogun’s Shintō .............................................. 175 Situating Jōin’s project within the Tōshō cult ........................................................................ 176 Constructing a lineage ............................................................................................................