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Tracing the Itinerant Path: Jishū Nuns of Medieval Japan

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Tracing the Itinerant Path: Jishū Nuns of Medieval Japan Tracing the Itinerant Path: Jish ū Nuns of Medieval Japan by Caitilin J Griffiths A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Caitilin J Griffiths 2010 Tracing the Itinerant Path: Jish ū Nuns of Medieval Japan Caitilin J Griffiths Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto 2010 Abstract Medieval Japan was a fluid society in which many wanderers, including religious preachers, traveled the roads. One popular band of itinerant proselytizers was the jish ū from the Yugy ō school, a gender inclusive Amida Pure Land Buddhist group. This dissertation details the particular circumstances of the jish ū nuns through the evolving history of the Yugy ō school. The aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the gender relations and the changing roles women played in this itinerant religious order. Based on the dominant Buddhist view of the status of women in terms of enlightenment, one would have expected the Buddhist schools to have provided only minimal opportunities for women. While the large institutionalized monasteries of the time do reflect this perspective, schools founded by hijiri practitioners, such as the early Yugy ō school, contradict these expectations. This study has revealed that during the formation of the Yugy ō school in the fourteenth century, jish ū nuns held multiple and strong roles, including leadership of mix-gendered practice halls. Over time, as the Yugy ō school became increasingly institutionalized, both in their itinerant practices and in their practice halls, there was a corresponding marginalization of the nuns. This thesis attempts to identify the causes of this change and argues that the conversion to a fixed lifestyle and the adoption of mainstream Buddhist doctrine discouraged the co-participation of women in their order. ii Acknowledgments During the long years of research and writing I had the good fortune to work and study with many wonderful people. My research in Japan was made possible through the doctoral fellowship from the Japan Foundation. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Professor Sonja Arntzen, her inspiration, optimism and devotion to scholarship helped me through the trials and tribulations of the Ph.D. program. I am grateful to Professor Thomas Keirstead for seeing through the completion of my thesis and helping transform it into a readable text. I wish to thank Professor Sybil Thornton for her guidance in jish ū studies, for Professor Sueki Fumihiko for arranging me to conduct research at the University of Tokyo Historiographical Institute. A warm thank you to Professor Hayashi Yuzuru for his patience in helping me read medieval jish ū texts while at the Historiographical Institute. I also would like to acknowledge the advice and feedback from my committee members, Professor Atsuko Sakaki and Professor Juhn Ahn. I am indebted to Professor Hitomi Tonomura, as my external examiner, for her vigilant comments and valuable suggestions. All errors and shortcomings are my responsibility. It is with the utmost gratitude that I thank my family and friends who struggled along with me through the years. They have helped me in so many ways, by reading my drafts, by babysitting and by being companions during my moments of escape. Without their encouragement, confidence and love, this journey could not have been completed. A very special thank you goes to my daughter, whose smiles gave me strength, and to my husband, whose unconditional love, patience and humor gave me the courage to pursue this journey. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv Table of Images vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Rise of the Yugy ō School 17 Ippen and His Itinerant Journey 19 Shinky ō: Finding Stability in Itinerant Practices 30 Establishing a Religious Sect 38 Shinky ō's Successors: Chitoku, Donkai and Takuga 45 Other Jish ū Groups: Ikk ō Shunsh ō and J ō'amidabutsu 54 Conclusion 59 Chapter 2: Jish ū and Battlefields 61 Healing the Injured 66 Jish ū, Kins ōi, and Childbirth 71 Conclusion 75 Chapter 3: Life of Yugy ō 77 Framing the Yugy ō School's Itinerant Practice: An Outline 77 The Female Itinerants: Sh ōichib ō, My ōichib ō, and Genichib ō 83 The Formalizing of Itinerancy: The Yugy ō School's Summer of 1430 91 Relationship among the Jish ū and the Yugy ō Hijiri 96 Conclusion 100 Chapter 4: Women, Tonsure, and Travel 102 Taking the Tonsure 107 Keibutsub ō: Jish ū Nun from Rokuj ō D ōjō 111 Travel: Poetic Expression, a Means of Survival or a Way of Life 113 Kumano Bikuni Etoki 122 Conclusion 127 iv Chapter 5: Division of Gender by Space and Rules 129 Medieval Jish ū D ōjō, Saig ōji (Onomichi D ōjō) 133 Manpukuji (Masuda D ōjō) 139 Jish ū D ōjō 141 Medieval D ōjō 143 Regulations for Mixed Gendered D ōjō 146 Bohish ō by Kai'amidabutsu 154 Tōzai say ō sh ō and Jōjō gy ōgi h ōsoku by Takuga 157 The Naming Convention 163 Conclusion 165 Chapter 6: Adapting to the D ōjō 168 Kakoch ō: Death Registries 170 Shinky ō's Letters to Jish ū Nuns 176 Takuga's Letters 188 Female Leadership 190 Conclusion 197 Conclusion 198 Appendix: Direct Translations of Selected Texts 203 1. Reply towards Dai’ichib ō of Nakaj ō 203 2. Letter by the Third Yugy ō Sh ōnin Chitoku 205 3. Selections from Bōhish ō 208 4. Introduction of Jōjō gy ōgi h ōsoku 213 5. First forty-four entries from Tōzai say ō sh ō 216 6. A sample selection from the Jish ū kakoch ō 220 7. Entries one to twelve from Shinsh ū y ōhō ki 221 8. List of Jish ū Schools and the Names of their Leaders 227 Glossary of Selected Japanese Names, Titles and Terms 229 Works Cited 233 v Table of Images 1. Map of Ippen's route ............................................................................... 21 2. A scene of a marketplace in Ippen hijiri e ............................................... 23 3. Map of Shinky ō's destinations ................................................................. 35 4. Scene of the Nembutsu dance.................................................................. 41 5. Scene of Ippen and his fellowship ........................................................... 77 6. Jik ū's letter to the yugy ō mission ............................................................ 84 7. Kumano kanshin jikkai mandara ............................................................. 123 8. Nachi sanm ō mandara ............................................................................ 125 9. D ōjō scene from Yugy ō shōnin engi-e ....................................................133 10. Onomichi d ōjō .........................................................................................135 11. Diagram of the structural layout of Onomichi d ōjō ..............................137 12. Masuda d ōjō.............................................................................................139 13. Diagram of the structural layout of Masuda d ōjō .................................. 140 14. Image of Kontaiji kakoch ō.......................................................................172 15. Image of Jish ū kakoch ō ...........................................................................174 vi Introduction The year 1344 was another year of travel for the itinerant holy-man. He and his fellowship of monks and nuns were on their customary spiritual mission. Traveling from province to province, they distributed talismans, chanted the name Amida Buddha, and performed the ritualized dance for audiences far and wide. This itinerant holy-man, the Yugy ō hijiri , was considered to be the Buddha incarnate, and his fellowship, the jish ū, were the bodhisattvas. On this trip it was their visit to Iyo province, current Ehime prefecture that was especially memorable. The Yugy ō hijiri, Takuga Ta'amidabutsu (1280-1354), encountered and formed a karmic bond with the nun Chin'ichib ō (?-1344), the leader of Okunotani dōjō, a jish ū practice hall.1 Their spiritual interaction and respect were so great that Chin'ichib ō requested that upon her death her disciples, the monks and nuns training at Okunotani d ōjō, would serve under the Yugy ō hijiri's guidance. 2 A woman leader of a mixed gendered d ōjō offers a fascinating perspective on the dynamics of medieval Japanese religiosity. Chin'ichib ō, as stated by Takuga in Jōjō gy ōgi hōsoku 3 (Articles of the Rule of Deportment), was a disciple of the monk Sen’a, the founder of Okunotani d ōjō, and was his chosen successor. At the same time that Chin'ichib ō was forming a karmic bond with Takuga, jish ū nuns were busy performing various religious ceremonies and functions (particularly 1 Within the jish ū practice their space of training were called dōjō, practice hall. However, by the seventeenth century the use of tera/ji (temple) became the standard practice and is applied to the Ji-sect temples today. 2 This encounter and exchange is recorded in Takuga, Jōjō gyōgi hōsoku , in Teihon Jishū shūten , vol. 1, ed. Jishū shūten hensan i'inkai (Fujisawa: Jishū Shūmusho, 1979). Details of this will be discussed in chapter six. A translation of this encounter is provided in the appendix. 3 Takuga, Jōjō gyōgi hōsoku , 250. 1 2 memorial services). They performed these alongside their fellow male monks in jish ū practice halls in Kyoto and in another hundred or so locations. Jish ū groups of the medieval period were generally mixed-gendered communities.4 Both the male and female religious members lived, practiced, traveled, and preached together
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