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Managing Family, Status, and Territory in Early Modern Shugendō

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Managing Family, Status, and Territory in Early Modern Shugendō University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 Worldly Ascetics: Managing Family, Status, and Territory in Early Modern Shugendō Frank William Clements University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Asian History Commons, Asian Studies Commons, History of Religion Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Clements, Frank William, "Worldly Ascetics: Managing Family, Status, and Territory in Early Modern Shugendō" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1659. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1659 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1659 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Worldly Ascetics: Managing Family, Status, and Territory in Early Modern Shugendō Abstract Definitions of Japan’s Shugendō tradition often emphasize how its adherents, known as yamabushi or shugenja, took as their primary goal the acquisition of supernatural power and enlightenment via ascetic practice in the mountains. While mountain austerities were central to the tradition, settled, spouse- keeping yamabushi organized into households constituted the majority of its members in the late medieval and early modern periods; the study of their economic, political, and social activities have been neglected. The Shugendō organization headquartered at Mt. Haguro, one of the Dewa Sanzan triad of sacred mountains within present-day Yamagata prefecture, administered yamabushi and miko priestesses based in communities throughout northern Japan. Using the Sanada Shichirōzaemon and Sanada Shikibu households, elite yamabushi families based in Tōge at the foot of Mt. Haguro, this study investigates the lives and activities of spouse-keeping shugenja within the Shugendō tradition during Japan’s early modern period (1600-1867). Existing in a liminal space between the seeming dichotomies of worldly and ascetic, lay and monastic, and folk and elite, the Sanadas and their peers navigated a complicated web of relationships to preserve their positions and fortunes. Working with documents from the previously unread Sanada Gyokuzōbō archive, this study argues for the centrality of the household unit within Japanese religious traditions. The privileges and obligations of the Sanada households, as well as their relationships with superiors and subordinates, both at Mt. Haguro and in its parishes, were based on the household rather than the individual, and were passed on from house head to house head. As local elites, the Sanada households enjoyed a hereditary place of honor within Haguro’s social, ritual, and political hierarchies. Documentation was a necessary strategy to maintain their customary privileges and duties both at the organization’s headquarters at Mt. Haguro and within its parishes across northern Japan. Networks that linked the Sanada families with superiors on Haguro’s summit and subordinates in parishes, as well as their lay patrons, the Nanbu family of daimyo, were defined and defended by documents exchanged within these networks. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group East Asian Languages & Civilizations First Advisor Linda H. Chance Keywords asceticism, Dewa Sanzan, Haguro, household, Shugendō, yamabushi Subject Categories Asian History | Asian Studies | History of Religion | Religion This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1659 WORLDLY ASCETICS: MANAGING FAMILY, STATUS, AND TERRITORY IN EARLY MODERN SHUGENDŌ COPYRIGHT 2016 Frank William Clements iii ABSTRACT WORLDLY ASCETICS: MANAGING FAMILY, STATUS, AND TERRITORY IN EARLY MODERN SHUGENDŌ Frank W. Clements Linda H. Chance Definitions of Japan’s Shugendō tradition often emphasize how its adherents, known as yamabushi or shugenja, took as their primary goal the acquisition of supernatural power and enlightenment via ascetic practice in the mountains. While mountain austerities were central to the tradition, settled, spouse-keeping yamabushi organized into households constituted the majority of its members in the late medieval and early modern periods; the study of their economic, political, and social activities have been neglected. The Shugendō organization headquartered at Mt. Haguro, one of the Dewa Sanzan triad of sacred mountains within present-day Yamagata prefecture, administered yamabushi and miko priestesses based in communities throughout northern Japan. Using the Sanada Shichirōzaemon and Sanada Shikibu households, elite yamabushi families based in Tōge at the foot of Mt. Haguro, this study investigates the lives and activities of spouse-keeping shugenja within the Shugendō tradition during Japan’s early modern period (1600-1867). Existing in a liminal space between the seeming dichotomies of worldly and ascetic, lay and monastic, and folk and elite, the Sanadas and their peers navigated a complicated web of relationships to preserve their positions and fortunes. Working with iv documents from the previously unread Sanada Gyokuzōbō archive, this study argues for the centrality of the household unit within Japanese religious traditions. The privileges and obligations of the Sanada households, as well as their relationships with superiors and subordinates, both at Mt. Haguro and in its parishes, were based on the household rather than the individual, and were passed on from house head to house head. As local elites, the Sanada households enjoyed a hereditary place of honor within Haguro’s social, ritual, and political hierarchies. Documentation was a necessary strategy to maintain their customary privileges and duties both at the organization’s headquarters at Mt. Haguro and within its parishes across northern Japan. Networks that linked the Sanada families with superiors on Haguro’s summit and subordinates in parishes, as well as their lay patrons, the Nanbu family of daimyo, were defined and defended by documents exchanged within these networks. v Table of Contents Abstract iii. Table of Contents v. Introduction Down Off the Mountain: 1 Complicating the Image of the Early Modern yamabushi Chapter One Yamabushi Elites: 34 The Sanadas in Local Status Hierarchies Chapter Two Managing Mountain Monks: 90 The Sanadas as Central Administrators Chapter Three An Ascetic For All Seasons: 121 The Sanadas in Haguro’s Ritual Calendar Chapter Four Lords and Ascetics: 163 The Sanada Families and the Nanbu Daimyo vi Chapter Five Certifying shugenja: 215 Sanada Administration of Subordinate yamabushi and miko Conclusion Between Headquarters and Parish: 262 The Sanada Families Within and Without Character List 270 Bibliography 283 Index 295 1 Introduction Down Off the Mountain: Complicating the Image of the Early Modern yamabushi A Shugendō Ghost Story In the second month of 1620, at the castle town of Sannohe, then the capital of the northern Japanese domain of Nanbu and seat of its lord Nanbu Toshinao (1576-1632), a mountain ascetic, or yamabushi, committed suicide without warning, leaving both his traveling companions and the castle’s retainers baffled. The yamabushi was Seikyō, head of the elite Sanada Shikibu household, which was based at the sacred mountain of Mt. Haguro, located to the southwest of Nanbu domain. Mt. Haguro, one of the Dewa Sanzan triad of holy mountains, was the headquarters of a powerful regional organization within the religious tradition of Shugendō, whose members, called shugenja or yamabushi, engaged in ascetic practice within mountains to obtain supernormal power and enlightenment. One of Seikyō’s ancestors had supposedly used his supernatural abilities, derived from his connection to the sacred mountain, to help a former Nanbu lord break the siege of a castle held by a rebellious vassal, establishing a patronage relationship between the two families that had survived across subsequent generations. The rationale for Seikyō’s suicide remained unknown despite inquiries to the other Haguro yamabushi who had accompanied him, but Nanbu Toshinao’s retainers sent a letter to Seikyō’s 2 surviving sons explaining the situation, and guaranteeing that they would properly inherit the household’s parish territory, which lay within the borders of Nanbu domain.1 The Ushū Haguro-san chūkō oboegaki (Memorandum on the restorers of Mt. Haguro in Ushū), a major historical chronicle compiled in the late seventeenth century by the Haguro yamabushi Kyōdōin Seikai (? – 1724), himself a relative of Seikyō, elaborates on the consequences of this suicide in far more detail. Seikai’s account claims that following Seikyō’s suicide, the apparitions of fifty to sixty white-clad yamabushi appeared within the castle, causing it to shake. He cites this as the reason why the Nanbu lords moved their domainal seat from Sannohe, haunted by Seikyō’s specter, to their new capital of Morioka. In order to pacify the wrathful spirit, they enshrined Seikyō as an ‘angry deity,’ or aragami, a technique with an established precedent in Japanese history.2 Surviving letters show that the Nanbu family also confirmed the household’s parish holdings within the domain to Seikyō’s sons and the Memorandum claims that Nanbu Toshinao also began to make yearly donations of gold and horses to Mt. Haguro, as well as commissioning proxy pilgrimages.3 Though not all details of this story match the historical record (the transfer of the family seat from Sannohe to Morioka was already underway at the time
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