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Embracing Death and the Afterlife: Sculptures of Enma and His Entourage at Rokuharamitsuji

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Embracing Death and the Afterlife: Sculptures of Enma and His Entourage at Rokuharamitsuji Embracing Death and the Afterlife: Sculptures of Enma and His Entourage at Rokuharamitsuji By Ó 2018 Ye-Gee Kwon Submitted to the graduate degree program in Art History and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ___________________________ Chair: Sherry D. Fowler ___________________________ Amy E. McNair ___________________________ Maya Stiller ___________________________ Maki Kaneko ___________________________ Kyoim Yun Date Defended: 5 October 2018 The dissertation committee for Ye-Gee Kwon certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Embracing Death and the Afterlife: Sculptures of Enma and His Entourage at Rokuharamitsuji ___________________________ Chair: Sherry D. Fowler Date Approved: 5 October 2018 ii Abstract This dissertation investigates a sculptural group of Enma and his entourage that was once enshrined in an Enma hall located within the Kyoto temple Rokuharamitsuji precinct, and hopes to highlight the role that significant yet understudied sculptures played in the development of the cult of Enma and the Ten Kings in premodern Japan. Rokuharamitsuji is of great importance to study the cult of Enma and the Ten Kings not only for its rare early sculptures of Enma and his two assistants created in the thirteenth century when the cult began to flourish in Japan, but also for the later addition of a seventeenth-century Datsueba sculpture, which reveals the evolution of the cult through its incorporation of Japanese popular belief. This study examines how the Rokuharamitsuji sculptural group presented images of hell within a designated space and conveyed messages of salvation to their beholders, responding to the environs of the salvation- oriented temple. It demonstrates that historical, geographical, and cultural attributes of the temple’s surrounding area, namely Rokuhara (a field of skulls), strengthened the belief in Enma and the Ten Kings and contextualized the cult in combination with another belief in Datsueba. iii Acknowledgments This work would not have been possible without the endless support and guidance that I received from many people. I would first like to extend my sincere gratitude to my adviser, Sherry Fowler, for her unfailing encouragement and for the tremendous support that she provided throughout my doctoral studies. Her invaluable guidance also helped me in all my research and in the writing of this dissertation. In addition to my advisor, I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Amy McNair, Maki Kaneko, Maya Stiller, and Kyoim Yun, who offered constructive comments and encouragement. My gratitude is also extended to the faculty and staff in the Art History Department at the University of Kansas. In particular, Marsha Haufler provided insightful suggestions for my dissertation proposal. Karen Brichoux, Lisa Cloar, Lauren Chaney, and the late Maud Humphrey kindly assisted me with the logistics of the Ph.D. program. I am also very grateful to all the colleagues and friends I met in Lawrence. I especially thank Andi Back, Yen-yi Chan, Janet Chen, Jennifer Friess, Jiyeon Kim, Annie Kroshus, Sopheap Ky, Sangnam Lee, Samantha Lyons, Sooa Im McCormick, Laura Minton, Eunyoung Park, Ellen Raimond, Rachel Voorhies, Myeonghee Son, Weitian Yan, and Pinyan Zhu. They nurtured my academic and personal life in Lawrence, providing me with love and support. My heartfelt appreciation goes to my friends and former bosses, Kris Ercums and Mark Olson, who gave me valuable input and endless support. Finally, I am indebted to my loving family and friends in Korea. Most of all, my deep gratitude goes to my parents, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. They have inspired and encouraged me to move forward with my dreams. Mom and Dad, thank you so much for your unconditional love! iv Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter One Building a Legacy of Ten Kings……………………………………………………………12 Chapter Two Embracing Death and Afterlife in Rokuhara………………………………………………..41 Chapter Three Activating the Rokuharamitsuji Sculptural Program of Enma, Shimei, and Shiroku………76 Chapter Four The Power of Datsueba at Rokuharamitsuji………………………………………………..115 Epilogue…………………………………………………………………………………….151 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………...156 v Introduction In East Asian Buddhism fate is determined after death by Enma 閻魔1 (Skt. Yama; Ch. Yanluo; Kr. Yeomla), commonly known as the ruler of hell, and nine other kings. Collectively, they are known as the Ten Kings of Hell.2 In the dark region beyond death, the deceased travels through a succession of ten courts, each presided over by one of the kings. The cult of the Ten Kings was introduced to Japan from China in the tenth century. By the thirteenth century, the Ten Kings cult had become so firmly associated with the imaginations of hell that the cult turned into one of the most popular beliefs in Japan. From the thirteenth century on many images of Enma and the other kings were created in Japan in both painted and sculpted form. Numerous sculptures of Enma and his associates were installed in halls explicitly designated as Enmadō 閻 魔堂 (Hall of Enma) or Jūōdō 十王堂 (Hall of Ten Kings) inside temple precincts or in proximity to temples in order to be worshiped as the emblems of the underworld in a defined space. Such popularity and familiarity of Enma and Ten Kings imageries attest how deeply their worship was integrated into the spiritual lives of the Japanese populace. Nevertheless, I find that their sculptures have received rather little scholarly attention in the field of East Asian art history. Those produced after the fourteenth century, in particular, have been ignored by scholars presumably because they became ubiquitous. As an attempt to fill this void, the present study will reclaim the significant roles of Enma and his entourage sculptures in the history of the Ten Kings cult and within the wider context of East Asian Buddhist art by using the sculptures of 1 Enma is also written as Enra 閻羅 or Enmadaiō 閻魔大王. 2 Most English sources commonly but inaccurately call Enma and the nine kings the Kings of Hell. In fact, the Chinese names of Enma 閻魔 and Ten Kings 十王 do not literally refer to hell 地獄, which denotes underground prisons, purgatory, the underworld, or the afterlife. Moreover, the exact whereabouts of Enma’s court is ambiguous. In this dissertation, I will refer them as the Ten Kings of the underworld. 1 Enma and his associates once enshrined in an Enma hall located within the Kyoto temple Rokuharamitsuji 六波羅蜜寺 precinct as a case study. This dissertation specifically investigates how those sculptures were venerated in premodern Japan and how they contributed to enriching the long-lasting Buddhist tradition of focusing on death and the afterlife that catered to the temple and the area. I argue that the sculptural configuration of the Rokuharamitsuji group formed over the late thirteenth and early seventeenth centuries attests to the evolution and localization in Japan of the once foreign faith in Enma and Ten Kings. Why Rokuharamitsuji? Rokuharamitsuji was salvation-oriented from its beginning and became a highly significant temple in Japanese Buddhist art history. It was founded by Kūya 空也 (903–972), a major proponent of Pure Land Buddhism 浄土仏教 (jōdo bukkyō), one of the most widely practiced traditions of Buddhism in Japan. Pure Land Buddhism focuses on the attainment of salvation and the entry into the Pure Land of Amida Buddha after death. Kūya was famous for spreading this faith in Amida Buddha among the common people by repeatedly chanting the six- syllable prayer nenbutsu 念仏 (南無阿弥陀仏, na-mu-a-mi-da-butsu) to Amida Buddha while dancing and beating a gong as he roamed the streets of Kyoto. In the year 951, a terrible plague occurred in Kyoto, and Kūya requested imperial permission to found a temple in the district called Rokuhara 六波羅 (a field of skulls) in order to pray for the souls who died in the plague. Since the eighth century when the capital (Kyoto) was built on the western side of the Kamo River, Rokuhara on the east side has been known as “the land of the dead” due to its proximity to a graveyard called Toribeno 鳥辺野. 2 Rokuharamitsuji is of great importance in the study of the cult of Enma and the Ten Kings in Japan not only for its outstanding sculptures of Enma and his associates, but also for its set of paintings depicting the Ten Kings. The Rokuharamitsuji sculptural group, composed of a large Enma and his two smaller scale assistant officials, Shiroku 司禄 (Officer of Records) and Shimei 司命 (Officer of Life Spans), is a rare early example from the thirteenth century, the time when the cult of Enma and the Ten Kings began to flourish in Japan.3 In 2008, a set of ten purportedly thirteenth-century hanging scrolls showing each of the Ten Kings judging the dead and bearing a signature of the renowned Chinese Buddhist painter Lu Xinzhong 陸信忠 (late twelfth–early thirteenth century) was discovered in the temple storehouse.4 Few temples in Japan have sculptures of Enma and his associates as well as Chinese paintings of the Ten Kings. The sculptural group at Rokuharamitsuji also reveals the development of the Enma and the Ten Kings cult through the incorporation of Japanese popular belief. In 1629, the Enma triad was expanded with the addition of a sculpture of Datsueba 奪衣婆, an old hag who snatches away the clothes of the dead, by the well-respected Buddhist sculptor Kōyū 康猶 (active 1602– 31), who made the sculpture in memory of his deceased daughter.5 The later addition of Datsueba, who was popular in Japanese folklore, transformed the cultural landscape of Rokuharamitsuji by conflating the existing cult of Enma with the cult of Datsueba, who became a protector of women and children. Although all these sculptures are currently placed in the Treasure Hall of the temple, they were formerly enshrined in an Enma hall that was destroyed and rebuilt.
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