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Caleb Carter on Assembling Shinto: Buddhist Approaches to Kami Worship in Medieval Japan

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Caleb Carter on Assembling Shinto: Buddhist Approaches to Kami Worship in Medieval Japan Anna Andreeva. Assembling Shinto: Buddhist Approaches to Kami Worship in Medieval Japan. Harvard East Asian Monographs Series. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2017. xxi + 397 pp. $49.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-674-97057-1. Reviewed by Caleb Carter Published on H-Japan (April, 2019) Commissioned by Jessica Starling (Lewis & Clark College) Anna Andreeva’s frst monograph Assembling ly weaves together a complex tapestry of practi‐ Shinto examines Buddhist interventions in the tioners, patrons, rituals, and places. Through the worship of kami (local deities) from the late careful examination of medieval Shinto-Buddhist twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. It arrives along‐ relations, her contribution joins a growing body side several recent publications critically assess‐ of research that challenges the “twentieth-century ing the historical formation of Shinto at the local master narrative of Shinto as an unbroken, mono‐ and regional levels.[1] The book centers on the lithic tradition” (p. 7).[4] For a work that opens case of Miwa-ryū Shintō, a lineage based at Mount and closes with an overarching critique of this Miwa (located south of Nara in the Yamato basin) narrative (laid out in the introduction and conclu‐ that formed within the broader sphere of the sion), there is surprisingly little on Shinto or kami Shingon-based Ryōbu Shintō.[2] This focus aligns worship until the latter half of the book. While with a growing body of scholarship dedicated to somewhat disorienting, this is not necessarily a single sites in Japanese religions, though Andree‐ weakness. Chapters 1–4 cover early history va readily departs from Miwa in order to contex‐ through mid-thirteenth-century Buddhist devel‐ tualize institutional and ritual developments at opments, which not only alerts readers to the la‐ powerful nearby sites, such as Kōfukuji, Saidaiji, tency of Shinto but also builds a historical context Kōya, and Ise.[3] Incorporating assemblage theo‐ through which to understand the emergence of ry, as advanced by Bruno Latour, she analyzes the Buddhist kami worship at Miwa and within the “assembling” of esoteric Buddhist and kami-relat‐ surrounding region. ed matters with attention to ritual practices. This As iterated in the introduction, the book takes approach successfully builds on previous inter‐ four intersecting lines of inquiry: Miwa and its pretative models (for example, Allan Grapard’s connections with other sites, the agency of local use of the term “combinatory”) and has been ap‐ Buddhist practitioners in the region, the assem‐ plied to similar effect in Bernard Faure’s recent bling of complex rituals and doctrines into me‐ two-volume compendium on medieval deities in dieval temple lineages at Miwa, and the incorpo‐ Japan, Gods of Medieval Japan (2015). ration of esoteric Buddhist concepts and practices Despite the book’s ambitious scope (both tem‐ into kami worship in the fourteenth century. porally and geographically), Andreeva successful‐ These issues are explored in seven body chapters, H-Net Reviews organized into three parts: “Mt. Miwa and the Miwa established as the founder of their lineage. Yamato Landscape,” “Temple Networks and Bud‐ As the thirteenth century unfolds, esoteric initia‐ dhist Monks at Miwa,” and “Assembling Shinto.” tory rituals aimed at “enlightenment with this Beginning the frst section, chapter 1 discuss‐ very body” (sokushin jōbutsu 即身成佛) dissemi‐ es the ancient cultic roots of Mount Miwa through nated from the Shingon center of Mount Kōya. evidence ranging from third-century kofun to While esoteric in principle, Andreeva convincing‐ myths from the early eighth-century Kojiki, Nihon ly argues through evidence of lower-ranking fg‐ shoki, and relevant fudoki (provincial gazetteers). ures in the region, this ritual knowledge traveled Andreeva maps out Miwa’s proximity to the Heijō well beyond the bounds of the elite Buddhist cler‐ and Heian capitals, Osaka Bay, and religious gy. mountain centers to the east and south, demon‐ If chapter 3 lays testimony to the influence of strating its geographical significance for regional lower-ranking practitioners at Miwa, chapter 4 travel and trade. This position contributed to the demonstrates the impact of a single fgure in re‐ site’s inclusion in the state-sponsored system of shaping the site. As Andreeva details, Saidaiji’s fa‐ twenty-two shrines that fourished in the mid- mous abbot and Vinaya revivalist Eizon (1209–90) Heian period. As a result, its tutelary deity (mythi‐ initiated major construction projects, a revised cal ancestor to the Ōmiwa clan) was propitiated version of Miwa’s origins that gave Saidaiji a cen‐ by the court for a variety of apotropaic concerns tral historical role, worship of the esoteric Bud‐ (state protection, prevention of epidemics and dhist deity Aizen Myōō (returned to later in natural disasters, etc.) under the oversight of a depth), and outreach toward the region’s outcaste Buddhist temple. (hinin) groups. As elsewhere, her meticulous fore‐ Chapter 2 examines developments in the lat‐ grounding of the relevant places and players ter half of the Heian period, as the jingūji (temple- (Saidaiji, Eizon, and Aizen) situates Eizon’s managed shrine) of Ōmiwa declined alongside its restoration of Miwa into a regional arena of con‐ main patron, the court. Here Andreeva situates temporaneous religious and social developments. Miwa within the broader region of powerful reli‐ Spanning outward from Miwa, chapter 5 gious centers, such as the ascendant temple of Kō‐ turns to Buddhist developments at the Ise Shrines fukuji (thanks to its Fujiwara patronage), (it opens with Eizon’s engagement there, provid‐ Hasedera, Mount Murō, and Yoshino-Kinpusen. ing a smooth transition between chapters). While She then turns to the movement and practices of not explicitly stated by the author, I would suggest semi-itinerant practitioners (hijiri, shugen as‐ this is where we receive the frst glimpse of Bud‐ cetics, and low-ranking monks), many of whom dhist-kami interactions in a way that reflects the took residence at Miwa before pursuing austeri‐ book’s expressed aim. Covering developments in ties in the mountains to the south. the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, An‐ Continuing this avenue of investigation in dreeva examines the existence of temples at Ise, part 2 (“Temple Networks and Buddhist Monks at Buddhist appeasement of the Ise kami (initially Miwa”), chapter 3 considers the lineages and petitioning protection against the Mongol inva‐ practices of low-ranking monks (dōshū) who sions), doctrines connecting Aizen Myōō with resided on the fanks of Miwa amid the site’s grad‐ these kami, and the interpretation of the site’s two ual subjugation by the complex of Kōfukuji and main shrines as geographical representations of Kasuga in the twelfth century. Andreeva intro‐ the Diamond and Womb Realm mandalas. duces hagiographical evidence on the fgure Part 3, appropriately titled after the book Kyōen (1143?–1223), whom later generations at (“Assembling Shinto”), serves as the culmination 2 H-Net Reviews to Andreeva’s primary target of investigation. to avoid the many historical connotations of the Taking the kami of Ise, Aizen Myōō at Miwa, and more readily known term ‘Shinto’” (p. 2). She the worship of divine serpents in medieval Japan, carefully qualifies that kami were “perceived as chapter 6 analyzes the ritual culture of medieval local deities” (p. 304, my emphasis), even though esoteric Buddhism and its contact with local they often originated on the continent—an issue deities. The content centers on Ryōbu Shintō, that such scholars as Michael Como and Gina though Andreeva also touches on the Tendai eso‐ Barnes have taken up in recent years.[5] This defi‐ teric tradition (Taimitsu). Her treatment of the ac‐ nition of “kami” takes a historically emic ap‐ tors involved in this worship illustrates a key ar‐ proach by allowing for a broad application of the gument she makes throughout the book: “secret term “kami” (even when the glyph 神 is not used). Buddhist texts, icons, and rituals featuring kami” In this way, Andreeva avoids the modern, often circulated and took new forms among non- anachronistic binary of foreign/native with the elite practitioners at local temples before being more historically situated juxtaposition of local “eventually re-absorbed by the major esoteric (kami) versus translocal (esoteric Buddhist temples” (p. 239). This evidence counters the pre‐ deities). sumed top-down dissemination of ideas and prac‐ Modes of assembling kami with esoteric Bud‐ tices that has been commonly held among schol‐ dhist deities were realized through the theories of ars of East Asian religions. nonduality (funi 不二) and origin-trace relations Chapter 7 explores the systematization of eso‐ (honji suijaku 本地垂迹). Andreeva zeroes in on teric Buddhist rituals that invoked kami at Miwa, the case of Aizen Myōō to illustrate this process. Ise, and elsewhere in the late medieval period. At times, her analysis of Aizen seems to overshad‐ Andreeva investigates these developments ow the role and identity of the accompanying through scattered sources that describe esoteric kami. Given that Buddhist worship of the kami is initiation rituals (jingi kanjō 神祇灌頂, or “Kami the book’s explicit object of investigation, this left Abhiṣeka”) aimed at such objects as the three im‐ me expecting more coverage of the kami. The case perial regalia or cosmogenic deities (for example, is well made for the cosmogenic deities at Ise; in Izanagi and Izanami), the latter of whom were vi‐ contrast, there is minimal treatment of the Ōmiwa sualized as (Buddhist) wrathful deities and divine deity, though this may reflect the nature or dearth serpents. Although not treated in depth, we learn of the sources (many were lost to a fre in the of the emergent conceptualization of “Shinto” at 1460s). Miwa, initially designated by Urabe no Kanekuni Ultimately, Assembling Shinto adds fascinat‐ (n.d.) in the late ffteenth century (p. 260). A fnal ing evidence to the ongoing reevaluation of me‐ section on Edo-period developments hints at dieval Shinto.
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