School of Cultural and Social Studies

Abe no Seimei（921-1005）and illness:
Physicians, Masters of the Way of the Yin and Yang,and Monks in ancient-medieval narratives（11th-13th centuries）
Hayek Matthias(The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, School of Cultural and Social Studies, Department of Japanese Studies)

The mid-Heian era (10-11th century), compared to former and later periods of Japanese History, was supposedly
calm and peaceful, without many natural disasters, epidemics, or social up heaval. This image, however, should
be revised a little, especially in regard to diseases. Phenomena such as the appearance of beliefs in vengefulspirits (goryō shinkō) that many believed were responsible for the spread of epidemics, or the expansion of rituals
like the tsuina for expelling illness-bringing demons, allow no doubt about the importance of sanitary problems,
both at the court and among the common people. As early as the end of the 11th century, setsuwa narratives also
reflect this reality.
Japanese medical historians have been studying Heian therapeutics for years, and various scholars havedescribed ancient Japanese medical conditions. According to these works, it seems that, aside from Chinese
medicine that centered on pharmaceutics and acupuncture, social actors of the Heian era who fell ill also reliedon two other types of specialist: Masters of the way of Yin and Yang, and Buddhist monks. This fact raises
questions about the division of roles among these three kinds of specialists and of the range of their activities.
One could ask how the setsuwa can be of help in such a matter. Indeed, this kind of narrative, sometimes created
two hundred years after the time it describes, should not be used as historical material. Nonetheless setsuwa are
not mere legends with a purely symbolic meaning. In their attempt to edify their readers, or exemplify Buddhist
doctrine, the narratives’ compilers did tend to exaggerate and deform stories already present in court nobles’
diaries, or even to create some anachronistic tales. Nonetheless, they still offer a “zoomed in” view of the society
at that time, and shed light on both the described period (the 10-11th centuries), and the era of compilation (the12-13th centuries). There is unfortunately no place to discuss further the characteristics of such a peculiar type ofliterature, or the problems related to its audience or the stance of its compilers. But, it should be noted that mostof the collections were assembled during troubled times and under the influence of the Buddhist conception of
the “End of the Law” (mappō)When trying to read these stories for elements that shed some light on the places of the various specialists facing
the diseases, one eventually encounters Abe no Seimei who actually lived as a doctor of astronomy of the Bureauof Yin and Yang Divination. Since this paper focuses rather on the picture of the famous diviner than on thedetails of his real life, I shall introduce him as the archetypal representation of a Yin and Yang master as shownin the setsuwa literature. The stories depict him in action against illness, sometimes in collaboration with othertypes of specialists.
Naturally, in order to take a full view of how these specialists are pictured, the study should not be bound solely

SOKENDAI Cultural and Social Studies 47

to the stories about Seimei. Therefore, I will present the results based on the analysis of not only several setsuwa
accounts of Abe no Seimei, but also of every tale of the Konjaku monogatari-shū (Tales of Times Now Past) andthe Kokon-chomon-jū (Anecdotes heard from writers ancient and modern) containing any of following terms:
kusushi(physician), onmyō (Yin Yang divination) onmyōji (Yin Yang master) kaji (prayer asking for Buddhas’
blessing). As to get maximal information from such a study, the synthesis of the representations given of thevarious specialists should be correlated to the so-called historical reality of both described time and thecompilation one.
Without going deeper into the details of these stories, I will nonetheless try to give kind of a synthetic overviewof them. In the Nihon-Ryōi-ki (Chronicle of Japan strange events) and the part of the Konjaku about Japan, atotal of ninety-five tales discuses diseases. Only twenty-three of them are about illnesses caused by infections,injuries etc (SHINMURA 1990). The other causes are as in Table 1, and the details on ways of “healing” are inTable 2.
Table 1

Table 2

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School of Cultural and Social Studies

The tales describing diseases of “natural” causes depict more than a number of amazing physicians, such as
Tanba no Masatada who was the head of the Office of remedies. Their medical knowledge allows them to curetheir patients, but not to overcome the flaw of destiny (thus, a young girl raped by a snake was cured once, onlyto eventually pass away after meeting her fate a second time [note 1]). The monks pray and perform rites calledkaji, meaning that they put all their faith in asking the Buddhas to intercede, or read sutras said to be efficient,which is why they are sometime called genja (efficient persons) or jikyōsha (holders of sutras). Even if they havesome kind of medicinal lore, this is not what their “patients” are demanding [note 2]. Finally, masters of the wayof Yin and Yang are mainly asked to perform divinations in order to determine the cause of the illness.
We can distinguish two case types here: the cause is solvable directly, and thus the practitioner may suggest an
appropriate solution; or the cause is deep: karma, fate, divine wrath, or even all at once. In such cases, Seimei
still offers a solution by performing a ceremony of substitution, the Taizanfukunsai (ceremony to the Head
Administrator of Mt. Taishan) [note 3], which consists of replacing the ill individual with someone willing to besubstitute for him in the registry of the deity who resides on Mt. Taishan in China. This figure is frequently_depicted as Enma-O, the prosecutor of hell. It should also be noted that in several cases of resolution by Seimei
or any other onmyōji, medical treatments and/or prayers had been tried without any success. The same goes forthe cases of cures by the “sutra holding” monks who succeed when medicines or rites by other genja failed. At
least in the Konjaku, physicians are never called for a diagnostic after the intervention of either Yin Yang masters
or monks. Of course, it also happens that a disease cannot be cured no matter what, and that the sick person
meets an ineluctable end. Finally, I should stress that physicians often declare they are unable to cure a patient,and recommend having a monk read a sutra.
One peculiar tale is worth detailing, which may not directly be related to illness, but it nevertheless clearly
illustrates the division of roles between the specialists. The Senjūsho, attributed to Saigyō, presents this tale with
two other about Gyōson, the superior monk of Byōdō-in. Melons are brought to the imperial palace from theYamato district. Tanba no Masatada, who is visiting the place, looks at them and declares them poisonous.
Seimei is called to perform a divination and declares the presence of an evil spirit. Gyōson is then called toexorcise the melons, and he finally reveals a huge dead snake [note 4]. This story shows us some from of synergy
between the various actors. On the other hand, the Kokon-chomon-jū, compiled in 1254, almost a hundred years
after the Konjaku, gives a quite different picture of the responses to illness. As it can be seen in Tables 3 and 4,
demons and evil spirits do not appear as frequently as a cause of disease, nor do the ceremonies of the onmyōdō
offer a solution, and depression is given as a cause. Moreover, the Kokon-chomon-jū offers a new version of themelon tale: Seimei alone remains among the former protagonists; there is a bigger role for the physician, who isturned into an acupuncturist; the addition of a warrior from the Minamoto family to deliver the last blow to thesnake. To put it briefly, we can say that the patterns appearing in older compilations seem to be totally revised inthis newer one. Either way, setsuwa, in their exaggerated manner, picture a separation of the roles between thevarious specialists fighting the diseases. These distinctions are in response to the causes of said diseases, but theyalso offer some kind of hierarchy of treatments based on the specific nature and the objective of the practices
performed by each specialist.

SOKENDAI Cultural and Social Studies 49

Table 3

Table 4

What were the historical realities of the medical practices at the described time? Based on the available
documents about this subject, and studies by historians of medicine, it is clear that even if Chinese medicine wasindeed in use at the Court, esoteric monks’ kaji or, divinations to determine the causes of diseases by members of
the Bureau of Yin and Yang, were also well attended. Still, should the monks and onmyōji be considered as being
part of the “healing staff” during the Heian era? A rather dry approach would be to firmly deny them such aposition, judging these practices inefficient and non-rational, which would be nothing but a subjective stance of ahistorian who tries to balance modern science and beliefs from the past
We rather should try to consider the expectations of the actors at that time toward these practices. Such anapproach would spread light on a quite interesting reality. If the Chinese therapeutic is the first and most obvious
solution when ill, its failure leads to the conclusion (spontaneously or after a divination by an onmyōji) that theorigin of the disease overlaps with the degree of competence of the physician. Monks known for their efficient
liturgical and/or theurgical abilities should then be called to perform rites, (kaji), or a Yin and Yang master may
be asked to do a ceremony (sai). Therefore, theses practices seem to be sometimes understood as healing ones.
What-is-more, one could ask for both kaji and sai while taking medicines so as to guarantee their efficacy. Insuch a context, the role and importance of these practitioners in cases of illness can clearly not be denied.
In the Kamakura era, during which many of these setsuwa narratives were written, the situation seems to havebeen a bit different. According to sources like the Azuma kagami (Mirror of the East), while conditions at thefirst half of the era do not differ that much from before in terms of the role of physicians, monks, and onmyōjiagainst diseases, due the implosion of the bureaucratic state and the rise of the warriors, physicians wereincreasingly forced to look for patrons, and to increase their role in health matters (MORITA 2003). On the other
hand, some monks with Buddhist (Indian) medical knowledge who had left monastic life in response to the50 SOKENDAI Cultural and Social Studies

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troubled social climate of the period were more expected to heal by using therapeutics rather than by performing
rites (HATTORI 1964).
What are the results from the comparison between the representations of physicians, monks, and Yin and Yangmasters, and the historical realities behind the events depicted in 10-11th centuries, and the lives of the 12-13thcentury compilers? There are more correlations than one might suppose. Concerning the cures/causes
correlation, a direct relation between the origin of the illness and the type of the cure is clear. Thus, diseases
caused by evil spirits or demons (mono no ke, kijin) are mainly cured by kaji rites and sutra reading, whileillnesses of divine origin, either from deities’ ire or divine spirit (tatari, kami no ke) are resolved through onmyōjiintervention (SHIGETA 2004). The weight given to the causes of diseases, and the relation between the causes
and the solutions they require, makes the role of Yin and Yang masters to appear essential. As a matter of fact, by
his divinatory science, he is able to determine the cause, and therefore the appropriate “cure”. Hence, while thehistorical facts give only a fuzzy picture of the correlation of certain cures with specific causes, ancient-medieval
narratives that stress the origins of diseases reveal a separation of the tasks as having an optimal efficiency. On
one hand, the physician, with a technical if not scientific knowledge applies a clinical analysis to an alreadyknown pathology to offer an appropriate remedy, and in doing so gives a rather “human” solution to a problem of
the same order. On the other hand, the monk, facing a problem caused by an extra-human source responds with asolution based on faith in efficacious extra-human “powers”. What about the Yin and Yang master, Abe noSeimei? He is facing no more natural causes than the monk. However, like the physician, he gives an answer notbased on faith, belief, or an almost magical efficiency [note 5], but rather on a system of knowledge, originatingin China, which, besides its fundamental postulates, is organized in some kind of mathematical way [note 6]. It isa coherent human knowledge, constituted in order to explain, understand and foresee phenomena beyond thevisible. This might well be what was expected of him in regards to diseases: a middle solution appropriate to apeculiar kind of problem exceeding medicine’s area of competency, but which could neither be taken in charge
by esoteric monks.

Notes:
1
2

Konjaku monogatari-shū, book 24, n︒9.
Konjaku monogatari shū, book 12, n︒35: a jikyōsha asked tocure a disease takes time to explain the usual medicine before

3

accepting to read a sutra.
Konjaku monogatari sh¯u, book 19, n︒24, Shiju hyakuinnen sh¯u (A︒

Selected Bibliography:
HATTORI Toshirō. Kamakura jidai igakushi no kenkyû [Study aboutthe medical history of the Kamakura era]. Tokyo, Yoshikawakōbunkan, 1964, 88.
HAYEK Matthias, Chūsei setsuwa ni okeru yamai no gen.in to
onmyōji no yakuwari [Causes of diseases in ancient-medieval

4

hundred deep causalities methodically compiled), book 9, n 25.
Senjūshō (Selected narratives), book 8, n︒29.

5

In the narratives, onmyōji are not directly bearing an efficacy.

narratives and role of the masters of the way of Yin and Yang], in Ajiayūgaku [Intriguing Asia] 79, 2005.

More over, rather than a special power, it is always their greatcompetency in the Way that is stressed out.

GRAS, Alexandre. Quand le poursuivant devient le poursuivi :l′evolution du hôsôshi pendant I e′poque de Heian , in Cipango 11,

The organisation of the Canon of Mutations (Yi jing), resultingof a succession of combinatory calculations would make a good

2004: 99-133

6example of this systemic coherency.

KIBA Akeshi. Sō to onmyōji [Monks and masters of the way ofYin and Yang] In Indogaku bukkyôgaku[Indian studies, Buddhiststudies] 26-2, 1978: 246-249.

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MACE Mieko.

SHINMURA Taku. Nihon iryō shakaishi no kenkyū [Study on the′par la synthesesocial history of Japanese therapeutics]. Tokyo, Hōseidaigaku
shuppankyoku, 1990 (1985).

′′
Evolutionde la me′decine japonaise face au modele
chinois. Des origines jusqu au milieu du XVIIIe ′siecle, I autonomie
In Cipango 1, 1992: 111-161.

MORITA Shōko, Kamakura iryō jijō no ikkōsatsu [A inquiry intothe medical situation during the Kamakura era], in Tōkyō kasei gakuin

SHINMURA Taku. Kodai iryō kanjinsei no kenkyû [Study of medicaladministration during the Antiquity].Tokyo, Hōseidaigaku

chū/kōtōgakkō kiyō bara [Tokyo Kasei campus middle/highschools review bara ] n︒41, Tokyo, 2003.

shuppankyoku, 1983.
TANIGUCHI Miki.

SHIGETA Shin.ichi. Onmyōji to kizokushakai [Masters of the way of[Cures and identifications of the diseases during the Heian era] In

the Yin and Yang and court society]. Tokyo, Yoshikawa kōbunkan,2004.

Nihonshi kenkyû, [Researches in Japanese History], 364, 1992: 58-84.

52 総研大文化科学研究

Heian jidai no shippeininshiki to chiryō-hō