THE SOCIO-POLITICAL FUNCTIONS of JAPANESE “VENGEFUL SPIRIT” HANDSCROLLS, 1150-1230 by Sara Lorraine Sumpter Bachelor of Arts
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THE SOCIO-POLITICAL FUNCTIONS OF JAPANESE “VENGEFUL SPIRIT” HANDSCROLLS, 1150-1230 by Sara Lorraine Sumpter Bachelor of Arts, University of California, Davis, 2006 Master of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2009 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Sara L. Sumpter It was defended on March 21, 2016 and approved by Katheryn M. Linduff, UCIS Research Professor, History of Art and Architecture Josh Ellenbogen, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture Clark Chilson, Associate Professor, Religious Studies Dissertation Advisor: Karen M. Gerhart, Professor, History of Art and Architecture ii Copyright © by Sara L. Sumpter 2016 iii THE SOCIO-POLITICAL FUNCTIONS OF JAPANESE “VENGEFUL SPIRIT” HANDSCROLLS, 1150-1230 Sara Lorraine Sumpter, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 The second half of the twelfth century witnessed a curious boom at the Heian Court in Japan— the production of illustrated handscrolls whose narratives centered on a specific type of historical figure. Within a span of fifty years or less, three such handscroll sets were produced: the Kibi Daijin nittō emaki, the Ban Dainagon emaki, and the Kitano Tenjin engi emaki. In each story, the protagonist is an aristocrat who had lived three-to-four-hundred years previous to the production of the handscroll set. Each of the men in question had died in exile, and each was—at one point or another—believed to have become a vengeful spirit. Moreover, in each case, the narrative presented in the handscroll differs from, or elides, the historical record. The Kibi Daijin nittō emaki presents an entirely fictional tale based only loosely on the lives of its protagonists; the Ban Dainagon emaki records a highly embellished version of a well-documented political scandal; and the Kitano Tenjin engi emaki constructs a mythology from the details of the life and death of one of the period’s most accomplished bureaucrats. This dissertation explores the production of these three handscrolls—which I refer to as “vengeful spirit scrolls”—and focuses on the role of the re-imagining and redeployment of historical figures in these scrolls to processes of power consolidation in the late-twelfth and early-thirteenth centuries. Taking a thematic approach, I examine these handscrolls from the perspective of their role in early literary movements to reinvent historical figures, in contemporaneous perceptions of supernatural creatures, and in ritual practices such as spirit iv pacification rites. I also consider the scrolls from within the social context of the collapse of the traditional courtly power base at the end of the Heian period (794-1185) and beginning of the Kamakura period (1185-1333). In so doing, my project explores two main research questions: how handscrolls from this period reflect the sociopolitical changes that were ongoing during their production and how they might have been used by members of the courtier class to negotiate the intersection of temporal and non-temporal power. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... X LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... XI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... XII A NOTE ON THE TEXT .......................................................................................................... XV 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 THE KIBI DAIJIN NITTŌ EMAKI.................................................................... 2 1.2 THE BAN DAINAGON EMAKI ......................................................................... 5 1.3 THE KITANO TENJIN ENGI EMAKI .............................................................. 8 1.4 METHODOLOGY AND OBJECTIVES ........................................................ 10 1.5 CHAPTER OVERVIEW .................................................................................. 14 2.0 THE REINVENTION OF HISTORICAL FIGURES AS A LEGITIMATION OF POLITICAL AGENDAS ........................................................................................................... 17 2.1 ABE NO NAKAMARO AND THE KIBI DAIJIN NITTŌ EMAKI .............. 18 2.1.1 Abe no Nakamaro in Fact and Fiction......................................................... 19 2.1.2 Abe no Nakamaro in the Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki ....................................... 23 2.1.3 The Literary Reclamation of Abe no Nakamaro as a Reflection of Japanese Foreign Policy ............................................................................................ 25 2.2 TOMO NO YOSHIO AND THE BAN DAINAGON EMAKI ........................ 31 vi 2.2.1 Tomo no Yoshio in Fact and Fiction ............................................................ 32 2.2.2 Tomo no Yoshio in the Ban Dainagon Emaki ............................................. 37 2.2.3 The Reimagining of Tomo no Yoshio as an Emblem of Failed Political Dissent ......................................................................................................................... 43 2.3 SUGAWARA NO MICHIZANE AND THE KITANO TENJIN EMAKI ..... 48 2.3.1 Sugawara no Michizane in Fact and Fiction ............................................... 49 2.3.2 Sugawara no Michizane in the Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki......................... 55 2.3.3 The Reinvention of Sugawara no Michizane as a Patron of Northern Fujiwara Objectives ................................................................................................... 58 2.4 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 67 3.0 SUPERNATURAL SIGHT AS AN EMBLEM OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY 68 3.1 THE MAGIC COMPETITION MOTIF ......................................................... 69 3.1.1 The Magic Competition Motif in China ...................................................... 70 3.1.2 Transmission of the Magic Competition Motif from China to Japan ...... 72 3.1.3 The Magic Competition Motif in the Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki and the Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki .......................................................................................... 74 3.2 SUPERNATURAL CREATURES SEEN AND UNSEEN ............................ 78 3.2.1 The Origins and Development of Oni .......................................................... 79 3.2.2 The Iconography and Characteristics of Oni .............................................. 83 3.2.3 Supernatural Sight and the Construction of Political Power in Setsuwa . 87 3.3 SUPERNATURAL SIGHT AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF POLITICAL POWER IN EMAKI ........................................................................................................... 91 3.3.1 Confrontation and Vision in the Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki .......................... 91 vii 3.3.2 Confrontation and Vision in the Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki ...................... 95 3.4 LINEAGE DISPUTES IN THE KIBI DAIJIN NITTŌ EMAKI AND KITANO TENJIN ENGI EMAKI ...................................................................................... 98 3.4.1 The Role of Secrecy in the Representation of Supernatural Sight............ 98 3.4.2 Profiting from the Exposure of ‘Secret’ Knowledge via Handscrolls ..... 101 3.5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 111 4.0 ILLUSTRATED HANDSCROLLS AS TOOLS OF POLITICAL CONTROL 112 4.1 SPIRIT PACIFICATION, SOCIO-POLITICAL CONTROL, AND ILLUSTRATED HANDSCROLLS ................................................................................ 113 4.1.1 Spirit Pacification as a Tool of Political Control ...................................... 115 4.1.2 The Pacification of Sugawara no Michizane as a Tool of Political Control ...................................................................................................................... 123 4.1.3 The Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki as a Tool of Political Control .................. 126 4.2 SPIRIT PACIFICATION IN THE SIMULACRUM OF HANDSCROLL REPRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 134 4.2.1 The Spirit Pacification Theory as Applied to the Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki ....................................................................................................................... 135 4.2.2 The Simulacrum of Spirit Pacification in Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki ......... 138 4.2.3 The Simulacrum of Spirit Pacification in the Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki ....................................................................................................................... 141 4.3 SPIRIT PACIFICATION IN TRANSITION ............................................... 144 4.3.1 The Spirit Pacification Theory as Applied to the Ban Dainagon Emaki 145 viii 4.3.2 The Impact of Pure Land Buddhism on Late-Twelfth-Century Handscrolls ............................................................................................................... 149 4.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 152 5.0 EPILOGUE