30 EXPEDITION Volume 58 Number 2 JAPAN • ASIA The BUDDHAS of Sacred Self-Mummification in Northern Japan MOUNT YUDONO by frank w. clements with captions and photography by shayne dahl skeletal figure draped in brightly colored robes the government criminalized the practice in the late is not what one usually pictures when asked to 19th century, his body was not actually exhumed and A describe a Buddha, but the inhabitants of the enshrined until after World War II. villages surrounding Mt. Yudono in Yamagata Prefec- ture, Japan, would disagree. Several temples in the west- Mt. Yudono, Shugendo, and Shingon Buddhism ern half of the north part of Japan’s main island enshrine The self-mummified Buddhas of Northern Japan are all such emaciated, ostensibly grotesque figures as their prin- associated with the mountain ascetic religious tradition cipal object of worship and veneration. They are called centered on Mt. Yudono, which is grouped together with sokushinbutsu, or “Buddhas in Their Very Body,” and two nearby mountains, Mt. Haguro and Mt. Gassan, are often referred to as self-mummified Buddhas. Tradi- as the Dewa Sanzan, or the Three Mountains of Dewa. tionally they were understood to have entered a state of Dewa is the traditional name for the northwestern deep meditation rather than having died and were still province of Japan’s main island. Although the monks capable of granting the prayers of their worshippers. The of Haguro persistently claimed dominance over all temple abbots do not see the sokushinbutsu as mummies three mountains, Yudono’s temples maintained their in a traditional sense, as they are not preserved through own unique traditions. The ascetics, embalming. These “embodied Buddhas” have preserved called yamabushi or shugenja, resided their spirits within their bodies by achieving enlightened at these mountains and belonged consciousness and so are not completely dead. to a tradition known as Shugendō, Twenty-one of these unique mummies still survive roughly translated as the Way in Northern Japan, and nine more are known from his- of Ascetic Power. Shugendō torical records. The earliest surviving sokushinbutsu dates synthesized elements of back to 1683, while the latest was buried to complete Daoism—the worship the mummification process in 1903. However, since of indigenous Japanese RIGHT: Shinnyōkai Shōnin (1688–1784) is a sokushinbutsu or self-mummified Buddha. Dainichibō Temple, Ōami, Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture. OPPOSITE: Monks from around the region join the abbot of Dainichibō for a redressing ceremony of Shinnyōkai Shōnin every six years (twice a zodiac cycle). Dainichibō Temple, Ōami, Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture. EXPEDITION Fall 2016 31 Descending Mount Gassan towards Mount Yudono. Mount Gassan, Yamagata Prefecture. LEFT: DainichibōōTemple. Ōami, Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture. deities—and esoteric Buddhism into a pronounced “kai” in Japanese, in honor sophisticated and cohesive whole. Its ad- of Kūkai, the founder of the Shingon epts performed demanding austerities in the tradition in Japan, and according to local mountains, such as fasting, sutra recitation under legend, the monk who inaugurated Yudono as a ice-cold waterfalls, and other harsh activities in order to site of ascetic practice. Kūkai’s concept of attaining Bud- achieve personal enlightenment and supernatural powers dhahood in one’s very own body, or sokushin jōbutsu, as that they could use to serve their patrons throughout opposed to in a future incarnation, is one of the founda- Japan. To this day, the Dewa Sanzan region is home to tional concepts behind the process, and Kūkai himself many ascetics associated with this tradition, and large is said to still be in eternal meditation at Mt. Kōya, numbers of pilgrims visit the mountains every year, stay- headquarters of the Shingon School. Yudono’s sokush- ing at special pilgrim lodges at the foot of Mt. Haguro. inbutsu can be seen as following in his footsteps. Both In contrast to Mt. Haguro, which came to be affili- Kūkai and Yudono’s self-mummified Buddhas are said to ated with the Tendai School in the 17th century, the four be remaining in this world in a state of deep meditation temples of Yudono tradition—Chūrenji, Dainichibō, until Maitreya, the Future Buddha, descends from Tusita Hondōji, and Dainichiji—were associated with the Heaven in the distant future. Shingon School of Buddhism. Consequently, Shingon Daoist ideas of self-perfection through thought was one of the major ideological influences be- a special dietary regime and prolonged hind the sokushinbutsu ideal. The Buddhist names given confinement in the deep mountains to all sokushinbutsu end with the Chinese were another crucial influence on character for ocean, the tradition of self-mummified Buddhas at Yudono. These practices and concepts spread LEFT: Protective amulets crafted RIGHT: A Dainichi Nyorai (Cosmic out of the former Buddha) statue on display in robes of sokushin- Nangakuji Temple, which houses butsu mummies. a mummy named Tetsuryōkai Shōnin (1816–1878). Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture. 32 EXPEDITION Volume 58 Number 2 THE BUDDHAS OF MOUNT YUDONO to Japan from the Asian mainland early in Japanese history, shaping the development of the Shugendō tradi- tion. Many monks retreated to the mountains, hoping to become a sennin, or immortal hermit endowed with supernatural abilities, including the legendary founder of Shugendō, En-no-gyōja. Eating Wood and Staying on the Mountain Aspirants to sokushinbutsu status were required to dedi- cate themselves to two kinds of austerities, mokujiki-gyō, or “wood-eating austerities,” and sanrō, or mountain confinement. The ideal location for these practices was a region of Mt. Yudono called Sennin-zawa, or the Swamp of the Wizards. In addition to the more general monastic ABOVE: A pilgrim pays his respects to Shinnyōkai Shōnin. Dainichibō Temple, Ōami, Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture. prohibitions on meat-eating and alcohol consumption, aspirants were supposed to adhere to a strict dietary regime. This demanded abstention from a group of grains commonly referred to as the “Five Cereals,” consisting LEFT: Buddhist monks of rice, wheat, soybeans, adzuki beans, and black sesame ate tree bark and seeds. To this was added a set of five more plants: barn- forest nuts as a part yard grass, millet, foxtail millet, buckwheat, and corn, of their prolonged diet prior to self-entomb- making for a total of “Ten Cereals” forbidden to these ment. Photographs ascetics. Instead, their diet consisted of nuts, roots, and by Nik Merkulov, Miwa pine bark. This dietary regime served the dual purpose in Oz, and Anna Breit. of both enervating one’s worldly passions and depleting the ascetic’s body fat, preventing decomposition and facilitating easy mummification at the end of the process. The second form of austerities required of sokushin- butsu was sanrō, or confinement within the mountain. Ascetics would seclude themselves upon Mt. Yudono for LEFT: Drawing depicting thousand-day intervals, some continuing for up to 4,000 the entombment of a monk attempting self- days at a time. While residing in a designated lodge at mummification. Note Sennin-zawa, they would thrice daily perform cold water the bamboo tube that ablutions, then travel to the Yudono Shrine while reciting allowed the monk to breathe. Sakata City, the Mahāvairocana Sutra. Enduring the cold winters at Yamagata Prefecture. Sennin-zawa would have been extremely grueling, yet if they fell ill, they were not allowed to receive medical treatment or shirk their daily pilgrimages. Understand- ably, several would-be sokushinbutsu passed away during Once the prospective sokushinbutsu had completed the process and were honored with stone monuments both their “wood-eating” and mountain confinement commemorating their efforts. Several sokushinbutsu did austerities, they were placed in a wooden coffin and not immediately begin the mummification process after buried in the ground, with only a bamboo tube to allow completing their confinement at Yudono, but they were them to breathe. Within this underground coffin, the still expected to follow the mokujiki-gyō dietary restric- ascetic would seem to pass away from starvation, but tions after leaving the mountain. would actually achieve the state of dochū nyūjō, or EXPEDITION Fall 2016 33 THE BUDDHAS OF MOUNT YUDONO Sacred Redressing Shinnyōkai Shōnin, disrobed for a redressing ceremony that takes place once every six years (twice a zodiac cycle). Dainichibō Temple, Ōami, Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture. “entering deep meditation within the earth.” After three refuge at the temple Chūrenji, eventually becoming a years and three months, followers would exhume the monk and working to become a sokushinbutsu. Tetsu- ascetic, dress him in clerical robes, and enshrine him monkai is credited with many meritorious acts. Once, within a temple as its central object of veneration. while visiting the shogun’s capitol of Edo (now Tokyo), he saw that a terrible epidemic was afflicting its inhabit- The Men Who Would Be Buddhas: The Lives ants, so he tore out his own eye as an offering to the of Sokushinbutsu deities of Yudono in order to persuade them to heal the Men (women were not permitted) embarked upon the plague’s victims. sokushinbutsu path for a variety of reasons. Shinnyokai Sokushinbutsu were said to possess both great motiva- shōnin, enshrined at the temple Dainichibō, for example, tion and great ability to help save people from various supposedly was a local farmer who accidentally spilled afflictions. The farmers of the Shōnai Plains region of “night soil” (human feces collected at night and used for Japan, where many of these sokushinbutsu originated, fertilizer) on a passing samurai. The farmer killed the suffered from poor harvests, famines, and severe taxes samurai in the ensuing fight, and then sought sanctuary throughout the Tokugawa Period (1600–1868), and at Dainichibō, where he became a monk. Later, in an ef- the sokushinbutsu endured heavy privations in order to fort to alleviate the suf- ameliorate the difficulties of their followers.