The Other Mountain: The Mt. Kōya Temple Complex in the Heian Era By William Frank Londo A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in The University of Michigan 2004 Doctoral Committee: Prof. Hitomi Tonomura, Chair Prof. Luis Gómez Prof. Leslie Pincus Prof. Paolo Squatriti William Frank Londo © 2004 All Rights Reserved This dissertation is dedicated to Prof. Hinonishi Shinjō 日野西眞定, my sensei on Mt. Kōya. I am deeply grateful to him for his support and enthusiasm throughout this project. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As is always the case with projects of this kind, I owe a tremendous debt to the many people who helped me along the way. My thanks start and end with Prof. Hitomi Tonomura, who started me on this path when I took her course as a very green new graduate student in the M.A. program of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan. She gave me my first foundation in premodern Japanese history, patiently led me beyond simplistic ways of thinking, and continually urged me toward greater sophistication in my thinking about historical problems. I am grateful to her for taking a chance on me when I later moved to the history department to pursue my interest in premodern Japanese history in more depth, and though she must have often wondered if her confidence in me had been misplaced, she has always been there to help me move to the next stage. iii I am also deeply grateful to the late Jackson Bailey, who probably took an even more reckless chance on me. He recruited me to serve as a visiting assistant professor in History and Asian Studies at Earlham College for the 1990- 91 school year. He must have hired me for the potential he saw more than the experience I had, for I had almost none of the latter. That year was exceptionally important in helping me set my future direction. At Earlham I had my first opportunity to teach premodern Japanese history, an experience that raised questions for me that have defined my professional interests ever since. I regret that his death several years ago has prevented me from sharing more of my professional development with him. At the University of Michigan I have also enjoyed the longstanding support of Prof. Roger Hackett, now emeritus of Michigan’s history department. Besides teaching me the history of modern Japan, he also deserves a great deal of credit for seeing potential in me early in my career at Michigan and taking an active interest in my progress. Also at Michigan I have had the good fortune of learning iv the history of medieval Europe from two of the very best, Prof. Thomas Tentler, now emeritus, and Prof. Marvin Becker, sadly, very recently deceased. I have always loved the history of medieval Europe admired its historians. The rich history they exposed me to, and the elegance with which they have handled it has left me both envious and inspired. I have been equally fortunate to have had relationships with many wonderful scholars In Japan. I am first of all grateful to the NCC Center fot the Study of Japanese Religions, Kyoto and its director, Prof. Yuki Hideo, for providing me a “home base” as I pursued my research from 1997 to 2000 and helping me gain the contacts I needed to carry out this project. My closest colleague at the Study Center was Dr. Martin Repp, who brings seemingly boundless energy to the study of Japan’s religion and gave me immeasurably valuable advice and assistance. The Study Center also deserves credit for encouraging me contact Prof. Taira Masayuki; though I only met him once, the v conversation I had with him pointed me toward Mt. Kōya as a potential research subject. I am also indebted to the Itoh Foundation for providing me a grant in the summer of 1997. It enabled me to spend some time working on the problem of hijiri, which turned out to be extraordinarily valuable preparation for this project, though at that point I had not yet decided to study the history of the Mt. Kōya complex. When it came time to work at my “research site,” Mt. Kōya, I could not have hoped for a more congenial environment. Prof. Ian Astley, a scholar of Shingon Buddhism from the U. K., generously accompanied me on my first trip to Mt. Kōya, and almost immediately upon our arrival I found myself sitting in the office of Prof. Namai Chishō, director of the Koyasan University graduate school, along with several other of Mt. Kōya’s most important scholars. This was made possible by Shizuka Haruki, a longtime friend of Ian’s who was associated with one of the cloisters and was a graduate student at the time. Shizuka-san has vi always been a wonderful help. He often generously provides me with lodging when I am visiting for short stints on the mountain, and he helped me find longer term lodging when I came there to work in the summer of 1999. Before, during, and since that summer, I have benefited from knowledge of several scholars on the mountain, including Fujita Kōkan, Takeuchi Kōzen, Yamakage Kazuo, and most of all, my sensei, Prof. Hinonishi Shinjō. Prof. Fujita provided me with lodging at his cloister during some of my shorter visits, and though he is a scholar of Tantric Buddhism, he loves the history of Mt. Kōya and was always happy to talk about it. Prof. Yamakage generously gave of his time, helping me understand what resources were available and what I could hope to know about the early history of the complex. Prof. Takeuchi took time to talk to me and gave me offprints of some of his remarkable work. His knowledge, insights, and academic rigor distinguish him as a scholar of the highest order. But my deepest gratitude goes to Prof. Hinonishi. He accepted me immediately and began the task of helping me understand the history of the Mt. Kōya complex the very first vii time we met. He has been a generous mentor and friend throughout this project, and I am sure readers of this dissertation will clearly see the mark he has made on my work. I could not have done it without him. Finally, I must express my appreciation to the staff of the Kōyasan University library, who permitted me to use their collection and helped me find the things I needed during my stay on the mountain in 1999. I must also thank the great number of friends and colleagues who specialize in the literature, history, religion, anthropology and art history of Japan. Indeed, the number is so great that I am likely to forget some of them, but they include Mark Blum, Kevin Gray Carr, Clark Chilson, John Davis, Elizabeth Dorn, Sherry Fowler, Sarah Horton, Christoph Kleine, William LaFleur, Elizabeth Oyler, John LoBreglio, Morgan Pitelka, and Ronald Toby. Brian Ruppert of the University of Illinois deserves special thanks for his unwavering enthusiasm for my work, and also for helping me with any arcane aspect of Japanese Buddhism that left me stumped. Kenji Niki, the curator of the Japanese collection of the viii University of Michigan Asia Library tirelessly helped me track down resources and information and often treated me to his fantastic cooking as well. Hiromi Mizuno agreed to be my "writing buddy" at a critical stage when I was trying to finish up. She gave me much needed motivation, read everything I gave her, and never hesitated to tell me the hard truth when I needed to hear it. Terre Fisher brought her editing skills to bear on the introduction and provided assistance at a critical time. But as always must be said, the fault for any errors in this dissertation lies with me and no one else. I am very grateful to my dissertation committee for taking time out of their busy schedules to read and comment on this dissertation, and to participate in the defense. I am truly fortunate to have such a patient and congenial group of mentors. Finally, I must thank my wife Diane. This process was much harder on her than it was on me, and I am very grateful she never gave up, never stopped believing I could do it. ix PREFACE The research project presented in these pages indirectly owes its existence to a group of nine Earlham College students who studied premodern Japanese history with me in 1991. At the time, I was an inexperienced teacher who had been introduced to that history only two years earlier in a graduate course here at the University of Michigan. I based the course at Earlham on that course, and though I did reduce the amount of reading significantly, the students nevertheless bore a much heavier load than most undergraduate courses require. They were wonderful. They threw themselves into the material and did all I asked with very little complaint. They thought deeply about the history they read and asked insightful questions. Often they asked questions I could not answer, and in some cases these were questions that, as far as I could tell, no one had really tried to answer. x One question in particular became especially significant to me. Toward the midpoint of the semester, we read an article by Amino Yoshihiko entitled “Some Problems Concerning the History of Popular Life in Medieval Japan,” in which Amino deals with the realities of life for ordinary villagers and farmers of twelfth to fourteenth century Japan. He notes, for example, that though rice is the staple cereal of Japan today, at that time it was a luxury most Japanese could afford only rarely.