issn 0304-1042

Japanese Journalof Religious Studies
volume 50, no. 1

2023

articles1 On the Verge of Damnation and Buddhahood

Motherhood, Female Corporeality, and Koan Exegesis

Marta Sanvido
49 Japanese Buddhist War Support and the Kanchō System
Jeff Schroeder
79 Opening the Curtains on Popular Practice
Kaichō in the Meiji and Taisho Periods

Matthew Mitchell

reviews
105 Timothy O. Benedict, Spiritual Ends: Religion
and the Heart of Dying in Japan

Ioannis Gaitanidis

112 Paul Groner, Precepts, Ordinations, and Practices
in Medieval Japanese Tendai

Thomas Newhall

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1: 1–47
© 2023 Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture
dx.doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.50.1.2023.1-47
1-47

Marta Sanvido

On the Verge of Damnation and Buddhahood
Motherhood, Female Corporeality, and Koan Exegesis

Buddhist scriptures depict the female body according to two contrasting models. On the one hand, female flesh is the epitome of defilement that hinders
proper salvation. Yet, on the other hand, the gestational body is employed asa metaphor and a model to depict the highest spiritual perfection of the Buddhist clergy. By investigating these two seemingly incompatible approaches,
this article shows how these contrasting models coexisted within the same
doctrinal framework in early modern Sōtō Zen secret sources. In particular,
it explores a Sōtō Zen secret document from the early modern period entitled
Ise niji kirigami, which provides the doctrinal foundation for salvific rituals
directed to women who died during parturition. The peculiarity of this document is the combination of conceptualizations typically associated with female
pollution with a wide range of theorizations mainly derived from esotericdiscourse on the kami, the Lotus Sūtra, and Zen koan interpretations. Therefore, through the investigation of the affinities with koan exegesis, Buddhist
scriptures, and kami-related theories, this article aims to broaden our understanding of the tools used by early modern Zen monks to theorize the female
body and contribute to the ongoing debate on the representation of the female
spiritual and corporeal condition in Buddhist sources.

keywords: female salvation—koan—Lotus Sūtra—Sōtō Zen—Ise—kami

Marta Sanvido is Glorisun Postdoctoral Fellow in East Asian Buddhism at the Universityof Hamburg.

1

T

he image of the embryo dwelling inside the womb not yet tainted by
the dualism rooted in deluded reality was an ubiquitous metaphor
used to describe the experience of awakening across different religious
traditions (Ohnuma 2012; Andreeva and Steavu 2016; Langenberg 2017;
Buckelew 2018). The embryological model was also an apt image to depict thegenesis of both the cosmos and the human being, given that the micro and themacro cosmos were ultimately a reflection of each other. The case of Japanese
medieval Buddhism is emblematic of the generalized adoption of the gestational
notions to describe the monastic experience. As many scholars have discussed,a few scriptures elaborate on the motif of fetal development, and they enrich
this symbolism with cosmological theorizations that emerged in the context of
Buddhism-Shinto (Dolce 2006; Andreeva and Steavu 2016; Andreeva 2017).
The gestational model contributed to deepening the understanding of thehuman body and its biological functions, especially in relation to the problematic
event of death. In late medieval Zen traditions, Sōtō Zen secret documents known
as kirigami 切紙 (paper strips) were particularly eloquent about this theme, giventhat funeral rites were often explained by using the metaphor of the embryo in
the uterus (Licha 2016).1 The moment of death was thus going back to the stateof non-differentiation in the mother’s womb and corresponded to the ultimate
spiritual perfection. Although embryology was a widely accepted hermeneutical
tool among medieval religious groups, a question remains unresolved. How dothese notions influence the conceptualization of the female body?
In recent years, this query has partially found an answer in the study by Anna
Andreeva (2018), which has cast light on the intertwining of Buddhist discourse* The research for this article was made possible through the generous support of the JapanFoundation Doctoral Fellowship and the Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellowship in Japanese Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley.
1. Kirigami were used as certificates to attest to the transmission of secret teachings between
master and disciple. Likely originating within medieval esoteric Tendai (Stone 2003, 101), thesepeculiar documents contain different kinds of notions including ritual, doctrinal, and liturgicalinstructions. In the premodern Sōtō school, kirigami were the predominant form of communication and represented a fundamental aspect of how knowledge was shared and transmitted(Ishikawa 2002). I use “Sōtō school” to refer to the lineage that originated in Japan with Dōgen
道元 (1200–1253). However, during the medieval period and the first part of the early modern
period, the Sōtō school was composed of several lineages independent from each other andcharacterized by different factional identities (Bodiford 2008, 121–138). In this context, secrecy
became a tool to express these factional identities coexisting within the same school.

2

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 3

and the theme of female reproduction during the Heian period. Andreeva has
shown that Buddhist monks were actively involved in rituals and practices
directed to aristocratic women and developed manuals to tackle several aspects
of pregnancy, from infertility to changing the sex of the fetus in utero. Nevertheless, the medieval period represented a major turning point in the conceptualization of female biological functions as well as of women’s subjectivity (Ruch
2002; Meeks 2010; Pandey 2020). Indeed, these centuries presented the massive circulation of discourses about the fall into hell caused by the pollution of
the female body and depicted women as intrinsically impure (Moerman 2005;
Glassman 2008; Meeks 2020b). The wide acceptance of the apocryphal sutra
Foshuo dazang zhengjiao xuepenjing (hereafter Blood Bowl Sūtra), which championed this vision, led to the identification of childbirth and parturition blood
with defilement. Therefore, bodily images, albeit effective and explicative, appear
to be intrinsically irreconcilable with the idea of buddhahood, for they are reminiscent of blood and dirt. How can the parallelism of the maternal womb withthe attainment of buddhahood be reconciled with the impurity of the female
body? Can women’s flesh be at the same time the culmination of damnation andthe epitome of awakening? The resolution of these doubts might be found in thelarge body of works pertaining to the Sōtō Zen secret sources, which turned intoa discursive arena in which such concerns were expressed and shared.
For the sake of clarity, it must be noted that Sōtō Zen secret literature does
not offer substantial insights about women and female salvation before the late
sixteenth century. One of the few examples of how Sōtō Zen monks viewed
women’s roles in the monastic communities emerges from the biography andmiscellaneous works of Keizan Jōkin 瑩山紹瑾 (1268–1325), known for his deep
bond with his grandmother and mother. The fundamental role played by these
women in Keizan’s life might have influenced the establishment of the Entsūin
円通院, a convent dedicated to the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and the salvationof all women (Faure 1996, 34–43). The generations succeeding Keizan embraced
the endemic culture of secrecy (Scheid and Teeuwen 2015, 1–35). Hence, Sōtō
Zen kirigami showcase an adaptation to the medieval religious horizon resulting
in an interesting combination of texts and ideas transmitted within and outside
Buddhist lineages.
Although these secret insights have been erroneously understood as an obsolete legacy no longer reflecting the modern face of Sōtō Zen, the enormous textual body composed of secret manuals illustrates the social and religious changes
experienced by one of the most widespread Buddhist schools in premodern
Japan (Bodiford 2008, 107–134). In addition, kirigami are a unique repositoryof knowledge portraying how the premodern culture of secrecy was engenderedby means of mobility of notions and people either belonging to Buddhist or
non-Buddhist communities. Accordingly, the mobility endowed in secrecy is a

4 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
fundamental aspect to investigate how kirigami are built. Being the annotationsof oral instructions, the structure of these documents does not follow one single logic; instead, it is a patchwork of logic and ideas revealing that knowledge
acquisition was neither linear nor systematic, yet it epitomizes the exchanges
and networks created on the ground.
By the end of the sixteenth century, the administration of funerary practices
and ceremonies revolving around death shaped the contents of Sōtō Zen secretinsights. In addition to providing specific ritual instructions, these secret manuals also presented to the monastic audience how funerals and commemorating
ceremonies were part of their monastic practice to the extent of being an occasion to apply Zen teachings to the lived experience of monks. Hence, Zen monks
acted as mediators with the afterlife by developing a wide range of death coping strategies that made possible the achievement of enlightenment (Bodiford
1992; Williams 2009, 50–58). In this context, Sōtō Zen monks specialized in
specific rituals directed to save women who died during childbirth. The extensive transmission and use of such practices in Buddhist communities are of no
surprise given that death in childbirth was a common event carrying significant
implications such as women’s salvation, pollution, and eventually, their rebirthin hell.
This article focuses on the analysis of these discursive strategies and presents
a kirigami from the Sōtō Zen secret textual corpus entitled Ise niji kirigami transmitted during the early seventeenth century that revolves around the salvationof mothers who died before or during parturition. Unlike many secret sourcesof this genre that succinctly provide only the ritual passages to save womendeceased during pregnancy, the Ise niji kirigami is one of the few examples displaying the doctrinal and hermeneutical foundation to explain why Sōtō monks
were required to manage such ceremonies. This article analyzes how and why
the Ise niji kirigami drew from the medieval tradition of secrecy ranging fromesoteric kami-related theories to koan commentaries to argue that the conceptualization of women’s bodies was produced by the overlapping of multi-layered
theorizations on liminal bodies (that is, kami) and pristine bodies (that is, themonastic body and the buddha body). Indeed, the Ise niji kirigami discloses
the dynamics that participated in the religious construction of female salvation
directed to the clerical audience by adapting the concepts deriving from medieval secrecy. Although the Ise niji kirigami is not entirely representative of the
Sōtō school, it showcases a relevant example that offers a more dynamic interpretation about how the predominantly male clergy conceived women’s bodies
beyond and within gendered concepts traditionally entrenched in the impossibility of women to achieve awakening. The text also demonstrates how thisunderstanding was integrated within the monastic practice and seen ultimately
as a moment of learning and spiritual refinement.

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 5

Embodied Hell: Emplacing Damnation Within Female Flesh
The Ise niji kirigami provides the doctrinal foundation that allowed, and to someextent encouraged, the administration of salvific rites directed to women. The
soteriological framework of the documents combines Buddhist classics andmedieval religious scriptures into four motifs corresponding to each of thefour sections of this article. The four paragraphs reveal the historical and cultural factors underlying the formation of this document, thereby showing how
the monastic community conceptualized its relationship with the female bodyand, while facing the problem of parturition defilement, sidestepped the duality
intrinsic to women’s spiritual disposition and biological determinism throughthe expedient of koan exegesis.
[1] In the two graphs of I-Se 伊勢, I 伊 is the male, and Se 勢 is the female. The
Se originates the human being. It is the complete force.2 It is the inherently
immutable Mahāvairocana. Heaven is the realm of the vajra realm; earth is theworld of the womb: these two are the yin 陰 and yang 陽. The feminine is thebodhimaṇda of the three generations of buddhas, the authentic position (hon’i
本位) of the treasury of the true dharma-eye, and the exquisite mind of nirvana.
[2a] Therefore, the Devadatta chapter proclaims that the instant transformation of the [dragon] girl is the state of no-origin and the fundamental principle of non-duality. [The Lotus Sūtra] also maintains that upon attaining thestate of awakening, the dragon princess offered to the venerable one the precious jewel. She was then said to have transformed into a man.
[2b] The invaluable jewel donated in that moment is the rounded and milky
pearl, which [is akin to the stage] of the muddied ocean of the universe when
the fetus is not yet dwelling inside the mother’s womb. Thus, the [scriptures]say, “Through the reversed spear of heaven, Mt. Sumeru opened up and [hence]the entire world formed. This is called Awajishima 淡路島. This is also known
as the heavenly qi 気. The seven generations of heavenly gods still abide in thecloud and do not have an appearance yet.” It is the [condition] before entering
the womb. The father’s defilement is the bones, the mother’s defilement is theskin and flesh. From the union of the red and white fluids, the human [body]
is formed. The center of the mother’s chest corresponds to dwelling on a wetleaf. At that moment, there is no deluded mind. There is no form. Following
2. This expression derives from the formula hito tairaka ni umare maru chikara 人平生丸力,“the complete force from which all human beings are born.” This line is found in the Edo-period
secret manual Sangen icchi sho 三賢一致書 (alternatively Sangai isshin ki 三界一心記) known for
an interesting combination of kami-related concepts, esoteric Buddhism, and Zen. The words
hito and maru might be an allusion to the common name Hitomaru 人丸 used to refer to the legendary poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro 柿本人麻呂 (c. 690) and the medieval esoteric tradition
centered on the literary and poetic production about Ise (Sanford 1997, 29, n. 46).

6 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
this state, the form emerges, and the five parts of the body begin to manifest.
Within the tenth day, the body appears in its form, [yet] the six faculties are
not yet aware of the form. [This stage] is thus called the no-birth. During theact of birth, this is the principle of all things.
[3] Being up on a tree by hanging from a branch with one’s mouth designates the mother’s breast. Being under the tree is leaving the womb. Therefore,
we say that replying [to the question] when one is on the top of a tree is easy,
replying when one is under the tree is difficult. To indicate the state of abiding
inside the mother’s womb, we comment that the top of the tree is the womb,[while] the base of the tree is the [act of] leaving the womb and being exposedto the myriad of sufferings [of the dualism] of cold and hot. The bare pillar3
stands inside the womb, and it is the exact point at which the red and white
fluids merge. Since even [the merging of the red and white fluids] occurs in theabsence of any thoughts and [corresponds to] the attainment of one’s original
mind, it is also known as being covered in the red mantle (that is, the placenta).
[4] When indicating life, it is called death. For this reason, being born isdying at the sight of the many sufferings. Dying is being alive. At the time ofbirth, one crosses the River of the Three Destinies (sanzu 三途). Inside the[woman’s] chest, there is the River of the Three Destinies. Drain and let flow
the bloody fluid from the left side. From the right side, run out the polluted
water. The water is [then] drained out from the center. These are the Riverof the Three Destinies. Given that the buddhas of the three generations alikeknow all at once the principle of original non-duality, if [the woman] attains
awakening she [will be reborn] in the land of the buddhas of the ten directions. If she remains in the delusional state, she will go to the realm of the ten
hells, which is also known as the [pool] of women’s menstrual blood. Inside the[woman’s] chest there is a black snake. [Indeed,] the experience of the sufferance [originating from] the five signs of decay and the three distresses, flows
in the center [that is, the chest]. This then turns the monthly water into themenstruation flow.4(Ishikawa 1993b, 133)

The kirigami opens with the elaboration of the two graphs of I-Se, a widespread allegory depicting the formation of the universe that arises from sexual union. The second paragraph deals with the famous episode of the dragon
princess narrated in the Lotus Sūtra. The third theme introduces the conceptual
combination of the practices performed to save women and koan exegesis. The
3. The bare pillar (rochū 露柱) designates the pillars inside the monastery perimeter that are
entirely exposed. In Zen literature, the bare pillar symbolizes the state of the terse and unobstructed mind (Foguo Yuanwu chanshi biyan lu, t 2003, 48.208c29–209b20).
4. The document uses the terms “monthly water” ( gessui 月水) and “menstruation flow”(sawari 佐波利) interchangeably. In Chinese sources, given the association between moon andtides with yin in the yin-yang correlative system, menstruation was called monthly water ( yueshui 月水) (Chu 1980, 42). The Ise niji kirigami is also analyzed in Licha (2023, 257–261).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 7

koan mentioned here is from the Wumenguan and serves to revise female gestation as an allegory of awakening. Lastly, the closing motif explores the consequences of rebirth in hell inscribed within the biomarkers of women’s bodies,such as blood and impurity.
It must be noted that the investigation of the document in this article follows
a thematic criterion. However, the Ise niji kirigami, and this genre of documents
in general, resembles a collection of notes quickly taken during explanatory
encounters with one’s master. Therefore, the Ise niji kirigami does not follow a
logical progression and simply juxtaposes different reflections about the four
themes discussed in this article. Given the lack of a coherent structure, to guidethe reader through the underlying logic and complexities of this kind of source,
this article does not investigate the motifs according to the order in which thesewere originally placed in the document. Yet, the current study reshapes the main
topics of the kirigami into an argumentative framework to illuminate the intellectual process that led to the creation of these sources. Therefore, the motifs areinvestigated following the order corresponding to paragraphs 4, 2a and 2b, 1, and
3 of the Ise niji kirigami.
These four themes are conceptually distant and, to some extent, contradict
each other. In the following sections, the analysis of these motifs will reveal thecomposite and fragmented identity of the female corporeality, whose representation was not limited to horror and disgust. The conceptualization of the gestational body thus transcended these boundaries and existed within a semantic
realm of seeming contradiction that swung between salvation and damnation,holiness and monstrosity.
The most effective manner in which to investigate the document is by first
exploring the context in which it developed. The fourth paragraph introduces
the theological context that inspired the Ise niji kirigami. Two interrelated symbolic loci emerge from this section. The first entails the agency of monks tosave mothers who died during parturition, while the second deals with female
defilement and its late medieval conceptualizations. In other words, the Ise nijikirigami encodes different doctrinal manifestations that validate the salvificintentions of Zen monks performing rituals to save women, more specificallywomen who died during childbirth. The longstanding religious tradition of Buddhist monks saving mothers was not a Sōtō Zen invention, nor was it developedin Japan (Cole 1998; Ohnuma 2007). Indeed, the theme of priests rescuing theirmothers from a cruel destiny was a locus of tales about the life of eminent Buddhist figures (Ōsumi 1983). Several biographies contained in the Genkō shakusho
元亨釈書 by the Zen monk Kokan Shiren 虎関師錬 (1278–1347) illustrate themoral debt of monks to rescue their mothers from hell and, in some cases, retain
a moral message that encouraged women to become mothers of eminent monks
in order to be saved (Ebisawa 2007; Meeks 2010, 265–273; Sanvido 2023).

8 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
Although the Ise niji kirigami does not directly quote tales of monks and theirmothers, the employment of these stories in the earlier ritual setting of memorial services for mothers shows the attempt to provide a rationale underlying
the performance of such ceremonies, hence adding an important piece to thesemantic framework in which the Ise niji kirigami was composed.5 In addition,
medieval narratives of filial piety emerged in tandem with the concept of female
pollution, which is the central motif of the fourth paragraph. The most emblematic example of this sort is the Blood Bowl Sūtra. The legend of this sutra narrates
that Mulian 目連, driven by deep filial piety, exercised his extrasensory powers
to descend into hell and save his mother.6 Mulian discovers that the contrapasso
for all women is being immersed in an enormous lake of blood since their sin
had been the defilement of earth spirits through their uterine fluids. Therefore,
to save women and mothers from their eternal damnation, the Buddha preachedthis sutra, which ought to be copied to allow mothers of the past, present, andfuture to escape from their cruel destiny. In China, the sutra served specificallyto prevent the disgraceful fall into the abyss of hell, especially for women who
died during childbirth (Maekawa 2003; Meeks 2020a), which appears as anante litteram formulation of the soteriological approach similarly adopted inJapan, in particular during the Edo period (Williams 2009, 50–58).
Paragraph 4 embraces this symbolic universe and relies on the enduringassociation that sees parturition blood as well as women’s menstruation as polluted. By postulating the intrinsic uncleanness of female corporeality, this section provides the main reason why women in such circumstances necessitate
the intervention of a professional Buddhist figure. The rhetorical strategy of ourdocument is not limited to evoking the gruesome hell inscribed in the fate of
women. Yet, quite tellingly, it professes the existence of such a hell within female
flesh, which appears as a map of her damnation since inside her body resides
two markers of the infernal afterlife, the River of the Three Destinies in her belly
and the snake abiding in her chest associated with the impurity of blood.
The River of the Three Destinies is the place connecting this with the otherworld and is oft included in the medieval illustrations of the afterlife, such as the
5. As Michel Mohr (2013) discusses, the Japanese Rinzai Zen monk Tōrei Enji 東嶺円慈
(1721–1792) proposed a Zen-based interpretation of the Fumu en nanbao jing 父母恩難報経,a Chinese scripture developed between the fifth and the sixth century that praises filial piety.
Tōrei’s approach to this sutra resembles the same hermeneutical strategy of the Ise niji kirigami
and reveals the ability of Zen monks to readapt teachings from heterogeneous cultural backgrounds to their own experiences.
6. The sutra exists in many variants, and the story of Mulian visiting the afterlife differs
accordingly. Another scripture deeply linked to the Blood Bowl Sūtra, the Yulanpen jing 盂蘭盆経,
hinges on the salvation of Mulian’s mother from the realm of the hungry ghosts (Glassman
2008, 176). A historical discussion about the transmission of the Blood Bowl Sūtra in Japan canbe found in Meeks (2020b).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 9

figure 1. Detail from Saidaiji’s Kumano mandara 熊野
曼荼羅 (undated). Kṣitigarbha helps the couple to crossthe River of the Three Destinies. Courtesy of Saidaiji. ©
Saidaiji. All rights reserved.

Kumano kanshin jikkai mandara 熊野観心十界曼荼羅 (hereafter, Kumano mandara), employed during preaching via picture scrolls (etoki 絵解き) between thesixteenth and the seventeenth century. This mandala is organized into two sections, of which the upper one illustrates in a bridge-like structure the different
stages of human life from birth to death, while the rest of the painting is dedicated to the ten realms of rebirth. In the left-hand lower section, we see a couple
formed by a man and a woman crossing a bridge on the River of the Three Destinies together with the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha.
According to Michiyo Ogawa (2020, 272), the couple’s salvation depended
upon the successful childbirth accomplished during their lifetime. Accordingly,
becoming a mother supposedly prevented the woman from being drowned eternally in the blood pool.7 Following this explanation, it becomes clear why thekirigami implicitly suggests removing the uterine water by piercing three different parts of the belly, which are representative of the three branches forming theRiver of the Three Destinies.8 While this exhortation is unlikely to correspond to
the actual act of performing a surgical operation on the deceased female body,9 it
7. On the relationship between mother’s bodies and awakening, see Blair (2016).
8. The imagery of the River of the Three Destinies is probably inspired by an analogous Chinese locus, the Nai 奈 River as seen in the Shiwang jing 十王経 (Iwamoto 1979, 312–333). Moreover, starting with the Jizō Bosatsu hosshin in’en jūō kyō several sources suggest that each bridge
to cross the river corresponds to different stages of spiritual refinement (Teiser 1994, 33). In thecase of the Jizō Bosatsu hosshin in’en jūō kyō, the river can be crossed at the shallows of a mountain stream, at a deep river, or by a bridge (x 1: 20.404c11–13).
9. Several kirigami illustrate in detail how to separate the woman from the baby (mi futatsu
身二つ) (Ishikawa 1987; 1994). However, Sōtō monks would not perform surgical operations;rather, they were mainly responsible for the ritual function, while the procedure, if it occurred,
would have been conducted by a physician (Tsutsumi 1999, 133–152; Williams 2008, 224).

10 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
might be read as an indication to assist the woman while fording the river, hence
enabling the monk to play the same role as Kṣitigarbha in the Kumano mandara.10 Thus, our document alludes to the operation of metaphorically removing
the uterine water by opening the belly in three different parts. This indication is
the only aspect that suggests the presence of a ritual and is reminiscent of otherceremonies performed for deceased pregnant women that shall be discussed
later.
The second main element of the fourth paragraph states the primary reason
for women’s perennial castigation in hell. In other words, the five signs of decay
and the three distresses ( gosui sannetsu 五衰三熱) assume the form of a snakethat abides inside the female body and turns into menstruation blood throughout her life. The conceptual overlapping of female pollution, reptile nature,and blood became a central component of medieval narratives about women’s
inevitable fate in the afterlife. One of the most famous examples is again fromthe Kumano mandara, which translates in visual terms the representation ofthis fate, echoing the descriptions of hell in the Blood Bowl Sūtra (Moerman
2005, 222–224). In the lower right-hand portion of the Kumano mandara, we
see the hell of the blood pond (chi no ike jigoku 血の池地獄) that contains several
women with serpentine features, while pedestals in the shape of a lotus flower
and a lotus leaf emerge from the pond and host two women peacefully praying
in white garments.
A fundamental reference to deepen our understanding of this scene is a medieval Tendai commentary to the Blood Bowl Sūtra, the Ketsubonkyō dangishi, thefirst commentarial edition of this sutra. As Lori Meeks discusses in a forthcoming publication, this commentary plausibly became part of sermon-stories
preached by itinerant storytellers and of otogizōshi 御伽草子 (popular short stories) literature. In the Ketsubonkyō dangishi, we learn that all women without
exception are reborn as snakes:
All the women who fall into this hell are transformed into snakes. These womenare snakes 20 jō 丈 in length. Women with minor karmic ties become snakes of
8 jō in length. The reptile bodies are inflicted with afflictions. These are known
as the sufferings of the snake’s body. There are 84,000 scales. Underneath eachof these scales lie 84,000 insects that continually corrode their flesh.		
		 (Makino and Kodate 2000, 17; paraphrased in Meeks forthcoming)

The manual equates women to animals (chikushō 畜生) “since the present
pool of blood represents the ignorance of women, they have the same mind as
the animals on the blood path” (Makino and Kodate 2000, 21; Meeks forth10. The Jizō Bosatsu hosshin in’en jūō kyō comments that a woman can cross only when assistedby the man who first was fond of her (that is, her husband) (x 1: 20.404c14; Sanvido 2023).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 11

figure 2. Detail from Saidaiji’s Kumano mandara (undated).
Women in the blood pool. Picture
courtesy of Saidaiji. © Saidaiji. All
rights reserved.

coming).11 This interpretation proposes a dehumanization of the female body,whose biological characteristics are seen as a direct reflection of their spiritualcapacities. Although less explicitly, the last paragraph of the Ise niji kirigami
embraces the same vivid set of images found in the Tendai text that links sufferings to a specific marker within the body. We must avoid, however, reaching thepremature conclusion that the Blood Bowl Sūtra textual tradition represents the
only source of inspiration for the Ise niji kirigami.
Nevertheless, serpents were not exclusively symbolic of pollution and women’s biological characteristics. On the contrary, medieval Tendai theorizations
on kami point to the snake form as the manifestation (suijaku 垂迹) of deities
who, to save sentient beings, “dimmed their light and mingled with the dust of
the world” (wakō dōjin 和光同塵). For instance, the Tendai compendium Keiran
shūyōshū proclaims that humans and kami thoroughly incarnate the three poisons and, as such, encapsulate a reptile essence (t 2410, 76.517c17–19; translated
in Andreeva 2017, 228). Accordingly, the reptile essence endowed in both kami
and humans symbolizes the non-duality of ignorance and ultimate reality; therhetoric adopted in the Ise niji kirigami to describe the female condition is likely
reminiscent of the esoteric Buddhist discourse on kami.
Indeed, the ontological affinity between reptile creatures and women is statedclearly in the Ise niji kirigami, given that female sufferance is symbolized by thefive signs of decay and the three distresses. This concept was largely adopted in
11. As Meeks (forthcoming) points out, another important aspect of this text is the characterization of the menstrual blood as the origin of all sentient beings’ afflictions.

12 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
medieval Japan to explain the ontological condition of female kami. Otogizōshi
literature, for instance, offers several narrative examples in which female deities
would beg for monastic intervention to achieve salvation, which was hinderedby the five signs of decay and the three distresses. These tales frequently featuredragon deities such as Benzaiten 弁才天 and stage a common literary trope thatis the bestowal of the robe and the creation of a unique connection with the Buddhist clergy, often represented by a Zen monk (Yamamoto 1993, 122–124; Itō2012, 181–184). Therefore, the representation of female salvation as depicted in latemedieval sources existed inseparably from theories about kami ontology, given
the physical and spiritual affinity between women and kami (Itō 2012, 184).12
By the Edo period, the ontological affinity between women and kami cameto be a stable component of funerary rhetoric. For instance, a seventeenthcentury manual conceptually linked to the Ise niji kirigami, the Tainai goi mandara, adopts the embryological scheme of the five phases inside the womb toillustrate the changes occurring between death and the subsequent rebirth.13
This text equates the maternal womb to the shrine of the kami, and thus the
fetus dwelling inside the womb is the kami. Although this commentary does
not embrace the serpentine symbolism, it adopts kami-related knowledge todescribe the gestation in the womb, hence applying such interpretative tools tofemale corporeality (Nakahara, Yoneda, and Gōto 2018, 476).
Hence, the Ise niji kirigami appears to be embedded in the dense cluster ofreferences that flourished during the medieval period, when the snake symbolism was assimilated in the Buddhist discourse on the kami and resulted in innumerable ritual formulations, theoretical elaborations, and vivid iconographies(Andreeva 2017, 306–307; Itō 1997, 67–68). In other words, the representationof the woman’s afflictions as a snake inside her breast is the result of a theoretical cluster that derives from both the visual illustrations and the commentarial
tradition of the Blood Bowl Sūtra, and the theory of the reptile essence inherited
12. Itō (2012) notes that this discourse was intertwined with another crucial issue represented
by the gender of Amaterasu and their role in the imperial genealogy. Being the primary ancestor of imperial lore, in Buddhist-Shinto sources Amaterasu was frequently considered a malebeing in order to avoid the problem of pollution and the inability to achieve awakening linked tofemale deities.
13. The Tainai goi mandara was transmitted among the monks at the Shingon temple Kongōji
金剛寺 (Shiga Prefecture). This manual records verbatim quotations from the Ise niji kirigami,
thus suggesting a connection between these two sources. Other Zen-esoteric texts, such as theSangen icchi sho, adapt kami-related concepts to the process of gestations (see Sanford 1997;
Hirose 2012; 2013). These concepts became so common during the Edo period to the extent
of being reshaped in educational manuals such as the Onna chōhōki, which explains the development occurring during the ten months spent inside the womb (Nagatomo 1993, 86–108). A
Sōtō kirigami from the early modern period, the Taijū sagashi no kirigami 体中サガシノ切カミ,
displays a similar elaboration (Ishikawa 2001, 454; Licha 2016, 503–506).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 13

in humans and deities. It is noteworthy that, as Yamamoto Hiroko (1993, 251)
suggests, the medieval conceptualizations on the serpent-kami—especially in
the Keiran shūyōshū—echoed the episode of the dragon princess in the Lotus
Sūtra and inspired the creation of an intricate network of theories. The Keiran
shūyōshū explains that the dragon princess appeared in front of the Buddha on
Vulture Peak as a snake sixteen jō in length, thus the original state of all sentient
beings is a serpent. By awakening this original state, the princess achieved buddhahood (t 2410, 76.517c24–28; Teeuwen 2000, 104). Although the serpentine
nature of kami and dragon-women is reminiscent of negative and malevolent
characteristics, in the Buddhist-Shinto reading of the Lotus Sūtra it conveys theinherent enlightenment of these liminal creatures by virtue of the principle ofbuddhahood in this very body (sokushin jōbutsu 即身成仏) (Teeuwen 2000,
104).
In exploring the common serpentine nature of deities and the human being,these conceptualizations reverberate several characteristics considered to be representative of women. Thus, it is not by chance that the Ise niji kirigami reports
the episode of the dragon princess, thereby establishing this implicit connection.
In other words, women—like kami and dragons—are potentially suitable for salvation, yet they require Buddhist monastic intervention to achieve awakening.
The next section explores how the Buddhist-kami medieval écriture about the
dragon princess exerted their influence on the ontological conceptualization of
female dragons in Sōtō Zen’s foundational tales (engi 縁起), thereby contributing to the hermeneutical principles adopted to explain the relationship between
Sōtō monks and female creatures who were to be saved.
Woman, Dragon, Deity: The Female Being as Antagonist, Donor, and Protector of
the Dharma
Paragraphs 2a and 2b of the Ise niji kirigami refer to the dragon princess parable to introduce the theme of female salvation. This famous tale appears in thechapter on Devadatta in the Lotus Sūtra (chapter 12 in Kumārajīva’s translation),in which Mañjuśrī praises the story of the princess as the epitome of the perfect awakening quickly attained (Watson 1993, 182–190). The story is emblematic for illustrating the spiritual perfection achieved by a nonhuman, young, andfemale being and served the purpose of narrating female enlightenment, which
was nonetheless possible upon certain conditions. The Ise niji kirigami mentions
one of these conditions, which is among the most debated components of thestory: the bodily transformation from the female to the male form. Stephanie
Balkwill (2018) has read this element of the story as a skillful means used by
the princess to prove her worth to the skeptical male arhats and disciples in frontof her. Thus, her sex change does not represent a precondition for her spiritual

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progression.14 In our document, the sex-change theme is tied to another motif:
the donation of the jewel. The Ise niji kirigami explicitly mentions the excerpt
from the Lotus Sūtra in which the dragon girl offers the wish-fulfilling jewel tothe Buddha. Sōtō Zen tales and records combine these two themes to narrate
the role of the dragon princess as a giver and a protector of the dharma. In otherwords, while the dragon princess undergoes a transformation, it does not exclusively concern her gender but also her spiritual disposition towards the dharma.
Such an interpretation better illuminates why the Ise niji kirigami incorporates
this tale. The vicissitudes of the princess mentioned in the documents represent
a locus classicus when narrating female enlightenment, yet it also indirectly suggests the soteriological path that the woman must follow to obtain salvation.
Can reptile dragon-women mediate with divinity and embody the innermost
meaning of the dharma? This is the pivotal matter that guided numerous medieval Buddhist exegetes in their mythological construction of the dragon princess as the donor, transmitter, and guard of the Buddha’s teachings. The Lotus
Sūtra episode of the dragon princess inspired the depiction of women as givers,
thereby establishing a new narrative pattern that weaved together women, thedragon princess, and the jewel (Ruppert 2000, 193–230; Meeks 2010, 141–155).
In addition, medieval commentaries produced within the Buddhist-Shinto lineages expanded this motif and carved a new role for the princess within thetransmission of secret insights (Faure 2015, 235–271). A poignant example isthat of the Reikiki, one of the fundamental scriptures of Ryōbu Shintō 両部神道,
which illustrates the legend of the origination of the kami initiation ( jingi kanjō
神祇灌頂) (Rambelli 2002). The text mentions a succinct description about how
this manual was first conceived, claiming that an unnamed emperor entered thesecret consecration platform (himitsu kanjō dan 秘密灌頂壇) to receive the profound teachings about the way of the kami from the dragon deity (st 88: 42).
Medieval scholar-monks strove to fill the genealogical gap of the Reikiki byadding essential details about the identity of both the unnamed emperor andthe dragon deity. Eventually, the two mysterious figures were identified with
Emperor Daigo 醍醐 (885–930) and the dragon-woman abiding in the pond of
Shinsen’en 神泉苑 garden of the Imperial Palace precincts (Reiki kikigaki in st
88: 213; translated in Rambelli 2002, 280). As Fabio Rambelli (2002) notes, thesecret text given by the dragon woman to the sovereign recalls the episode of the
Lotus Sūtra and the donation of the jewel, thus suggesting that the dragon deity
was the princess from the scripture.
14. Balkwill (2021) investigates several Chinese examples in which the transformation of
the female body is challenged by young, female, and non-monastic women who reject the spiritual supremacy of men. On the idea of bodily transformation as skillful means, see Sunim (1999).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 15

Another secret manual, the Jindaikan shikenbun handed down within thesame textual lineage, identifies the dragon woman with an emissary of Amaterasu who appeared in front of Emperor Daigo to guide him through theobtainment of the most recondite meaning inherent in the imperial regalia (st90: 563; Rambelli 2002, 280). This version of the story reveals the attempt by
medieval exegetes to forge and cement the bond between the dragon princess,buddha-kami kinship, and the imperial genealogy. The textual corpus inspiredby the Reikiki is of particular interest to grasp the medieval construction of thearchetypal feminine and introduces two themes embroidered in the Ise niji kirigami. The first is the dragon girl depicted as the donor of both material (manuals or texts) and intangible gifts (secret insights) concerning Buddhist-Shinto
cosmology. The second relevant aspect is the bond with Amaterasu and, indirectly, the female deities’ kinship. In other words, the rewritings of the dragon
princess’s story add another interpretative layer to her persona. While symbolizing women’s enlightenment, this nonhuman female creature embodies different aspects of the supernatural female agency exerted within the androcentric
Buddhist world.
Sōtō Zen foundational narratives and hagiographies expand the motif of thegift exchange with dragon creatures by combining it with components emerging from the intercultural mingling with other traditions and local beliefs. The
Getsuan Ryōen Zenji gyōjō, a historical record about the Sōtō master Getsuan
Ryōen 月庵良円 (1348–1425), epitomizes the classic trope of the encounter
between Zen monks and dragons. This text narrates that during a sermon Getsuan’s attention was captured by a woman. She introduces herself as a deity from
China who has been protecting the community surrounding Getsuan’s temple, Sōkōji 總光寺 (Yamagata Prefecture). Despite her supernatural powers, thewoman confessed her afflictions represented by the five signs of decay and thethree distresses—a physical and spiritual condition common to women, dragons, and female deities—and asked Getsuan to liberate her. After a few days,
Getsuan bestowed her with the bodhisattva precepts along with the Sōtō Zen
blood lineage chart. The dialogue that follows this scene illuminates the conceptual framework to which such a narrative belonged:
In the remote past, during the Lotus Sūtra assembly on Vulture Peak, a dragon
girl donated to the Buddha the single luminous pearl. At this very moment,in the dharma-transmission room, I bestow the master [Getsuan] with theseobjects. Accept [my offer] without any hesitation, so that past and present may(zssz 10: 558–559)
become one (ittetsu 一轍).

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Getsuan welcomed the woman’s gift and proclaimed that the transmissionthat occurred in the room must remain a secret to posterity.15 This short episodeis packed with references that pertain to the same symbolic world that originated in the Ise niji kirigami. Although the record does not explicitly recognize
the enigmatic woman as a dragon, several components reveal her serpentine
nature. In particular, the woman establishes a clear connection with the dragon
princess from the Lotus Sūtra by interpreting her gift of the three objects as areenactment of the episode from the scripture. In erasing any temporal and spatial distance, she proclaims herself to be a manifestation of the dragon princess
and ties an analogous symbolic knot with Getsuan as the one sealed between theprincess and Śākyamuni.
A variation of this tale hinging on the donation of immaterial gifts appears in
the record narrating the dharma succession of Tsūgen Jakurei 通幻寂霊 (1322–
1391) at Eitakuji 永沢寺 (Hyogo Prefecture). The story recounts a mysterious
creature that identified as “a dragon bearing deluded karma” whose presence
caused uncontrolled meteorological disasters. Upon the bestowal of the precepts by Tsūgen, the creature instantly dissolved into the clouds and transformed
herself into the protecting guardian of the mountain and its temple (Nihon tōjō
rentō roku in ssz 16: 276). In the case of Tsūgen’s legend, the attainment of buddhahood and inclusion into the Buddhist lineage are rewarded through therestoration of the social order and cessation of uncontrolled meteorological phenomena. Converted into an ally of the dharma, the dragon woman thus manifests her eternal commitment to protect the temple and its community.
How does the logic of the gift in these tales apply to our kirigami? We mustrecall that the Ise niji kirigami deals with the dramatic event of premature death
during childbirth. By the beginning of the Edo period, such a theme had cometo be a common narrative strand in literary and religious sources, which variously depicted the so-called ubume 産女, a woman who died during parturition(Shimazaki 2011). As Hank Glassman (2008, 191–195) points out, not only do
the ubume stories disclose the physical consequences but also the deep psychological ramifications of childbirth. In some cases, the ubume was associated withmythological creatures such as foxes and identified as an indomitable spirit capable of subverting the social order with her liminal presence. Moreover, since theubume resides near water streams or rivers, Edo-period sources have identified
this place with the aforementioned River of the Three Destinies that separates
this world from the afterlife. The ubume was also linked to aquatic creatures like
reptiles, thereby sharing a kindred nature with dragons (Yasui 2020).
15. The dragon woman donated to Getsuan a coin, a small bell, and a plate to mix and dilutethe black ink to paint the teeth. On the elaboration of the dragon princess episode in engi literature, see Abé (2015).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 17

The textual body of Sōtō kirigami includes the Ubume kirigami, which prescribes the recitation of phrases that infuse in the woman a benevolent spiritual
disposition and guide her to show signs of repentance induced by the power of
the three dharma-treasures (Ishikawa 1987, 188; Sanvido 2023). These instructions suggest that these women were perceived as agents of social destruction,and only the power of the dharma could placate them. This ritual takes placein several passages including the purification of the body, the tonsure of thewoman, the explanation and bestowal of the precepts, and the practice of writing
Sanskrit syllables on the woman’s face and body along with the name of the ten
buddhas. The monk would also transmit the precepts of Zhongfeng Mingben
中峰明本 (1263–1323)—a practice not mentioned in Zhongfeng’s set of regulations for purity, the Huanzhu jiaxun 幻住家訓—and consisting of a prayer
directed to the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha to achieve awakening (Ishikawa 1987,
175).16 The ceremony culminated with the inscription on the woman’s chest of anencircled character for mind (shin 心).
The practices described in the Ubume kirigami had the function of purifying both the body and the mind of the woman, for her gender, along with her
death in childbirth, represented two major forms of defilement. The development of such ritual strategies remedies the general belief that women who diedduring parturition would have returned to cast their curse on the living, given
their tormented souls that hindered salvation. Consequently, these supernatural manifestations, while being narrative expedients, were nonetheless an integral part of lived reality, thereby inspiring the creation of ritual responses that
could cope with the social and spiritual fear experienced by both the family andthe woman herself. To some extent, the gruesome transformation of the ubume
echoes similar characteristics of nonhuman beings such as dragons that threatened communities and temples. Therefore, the kirigami on female salvation, as
well as Sōtō tales, have in common an analogous conceptual framework directed
to strengthen the transforming power of the precepts and rituals, which wereable to turn even dangerous creatures into protectors of the dharma. In otherwords, the allusion to the gender transformation mentioned in the Ise niji kirigami can be interpreted in terms of spiritual change following the embrace ofthe dharma and culminating in the tacit vow to become a guardian of the temple
community.
The performance of such rituals was embedded in the relationship of mutual
obligation between the monk and the creature to pacify—being a dragon or a
16. The creation of such practices was linked to the widespread faith in Kṣitigarbha, which
was also connected to the cult of the ten kings, and the belief in the thirteen buddhas (Ishikawa
1985, 486–487). In Edo-period Sōtō temples, the propagation of the Blood Bowl Sūtra occurred intandem with the faith in the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha, who was frequently invoked and prayed toduring funerals for laywomen (Williams 2009, 50–51).

18 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
woman—since the acceptance of the precepts corresponds to the tacit promiseof not haunting the living. Therefore, the reciprocity at the foundation of thisact is reminiscent of the dragon princess’s donation of the jewel and bears kindred symbolic implications. Whereas the depiction of the female body in paragraph 4 of the Ise niji kirigami accorded to an aesthetic of repulsion by evoking
disgust-inspiring representations, the motif of the donation of the jewel invests
the feminine self with a certain degree of agency (Wilson 1996, 77–111; Langenberg 2017, 75–94, 153–179). This depiction was by no means an attempt toremedy deeply ingrained gender imbalances. However, the capacity of changing the world with the agency endowed in their supernatural powers, as well as
becoming vessels and protectors of the dharma, resembles other creatures witha similar nature, such as kami, and evokes an ideal kinship between women andnonhuman beings.
As previously mentioned, Buddhist commentaries on the kami such as the
Jindaikan shikenbun established a direct connection between the dragon princess and the kami pantheon, emphasizing the kinship bond between Amaterasu
and the princess. Of particular importance for the present argument is a widely
known commentarial edition of the Lotus Sūtra by the Tendai monk Eishin
栄心 (d. 1546), the Hokekyō jikidan shō, which narrates the reincarnation of the
dragon princess and her sisters in Japan. Here, we discover that Seiryō Gongen
清滝権現, the protecting deity of Daigoji 醍醐寺, is the second daughter of the
Dragon King Sāgara and manifested in the archipelago as Princess Tamayori
玉依 . The elder daughter of the dragon king, that is, the dragon princess fromthe Lotus Sūtra, is Princess Toyotama 豊玉 and corresponds to the illuminating deity (myōjin 明神) of Buzen 豊前 Province and its surrounding mountains.
Lastly, the younger dragon daughter is the illuminating deity of Itsukushima
厳島 (Hokekyō jikidan shō, fasc. 7: 28b–29a).
The Hokekyō jikidan shō is only one among the many examples illustrating
the divine kinship existing between female deities (Tanaka 1993, 13–47). For
instance, the Jingi keizu, a genealogy of gods by the Tendai priest Ryōhen 良遍(d.u.), further enriches the tale in the Hokekyō jikidan shō. This chart presents
Princess Toyotama and her sister Princess Tamayori (also glossed in the text as
Seiryū Gongen) as the daughters of Izanami and Izanagi. Accordingly, Amaterasu
and the two princesses share the same ancestors, thus making Amaterasu a direct
descendant of the dragons (st 90: 604). The textual strands developing the reincarnation of the dragon daughters in Japan, regardless of minor discrepancies,
display related ontological characteristics shared among these female creatures,such as their connection with water and, in turn, with fertility; the linkage withpregnancy; and the inclusion in the imperial genealogy. Of particular interest forthis study is the role of the dragon princess in the process of cosmological gestation that created the universe and the divine kinship crowned by Amaterasu.

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 19

The Buddhist-Shinto elaborations on the relation between Amaterasu andthe dragon princess were echoed and further expanded by other traditions suchas Shugendo groups. To understand this linkage, we must recall that the passage from the Hokekyō jikidan shō cited earlier argues that the worldly manifestation of the eight-year dragon princess in Japan is the illuminating deity ofthe mountains located in Buzen (Fukuoka Prefecture). Buzen is the cradle of
the Shugendo tradition based at the sacred mountain of Kubote 求菩提. Fromthe Heian to the Edo period, Mt. Kubote hosted the Tendai temple Gokokuji
護国寺, serving as a center for Shugendo ascetics. The proximity to Gokokuji,
along with the influence of Tendai practices, culminated in the centrality of the
Lotus Sūtra within many beliefs and rituals performed in this area. The Tenjin
shichidai Chijin godai, an undated document related to this tradition, explains
the process of the creation of Japan and its deities by adapting the dragon princess parable. Here, the dragon princess is conceived not so much for her ability to achieve awakening, yet she is endowed with gestational characteristics
derived from her role in the generation of the cosmos. The text cements theconnection between the princess and fertility by establishing the association
with Kaya no hime no kami 鹿屋野比売神, the protector of fields and meadows
who represents abundance and fecundity. In the Tenjin shichidai Chijin godai,
the dragon princess’s role in the cosmological gestation hinges on the transmission of the wish-granting jewel. The text states that the dragon girl received
the jewel from the dragon palace, traveled to India to visit the Buddha, anddonated the pearl to him. The jewel then became the drop that originatedthe universe. The Buddha and the dragon princess thus double the heavenly
couple of Izanagi and Izanami, the Buddha being the former and the dragon
princess the latter. Being the body of the dragon princess, the receptacle that
encloses the “primeval white brine,” which is the precious jewel, Amaterasu
and the dragon princess are one and the same since they are formed by thesame substance (Shigematsu 1969, 107).
In the Tenjin shichidai Chijin godai, the drop of brine that originates the firstisland dwells inside the dragon princess’s body, which is composed of the substance that created the entire universe and is the same as Amaterasu. Likewise,
the Ise niji kirigami collocates the dragon princess’s “milky pearl” within the generation of the cosmos, as it is “akin to the stage of the muddied ocean of the universe when the fetus is not yet dwelling inside the mother’s womb.” This readingof the jewel adds another hermeneutical layer to the parable of the dragon princess, resulting in a twofold symbolism endowed in the jewel. On the one hand,as mentioned earlier, in paragraph 2a, the pearl establishes a mutual obligation
between the monk and the woman. Therefore, the object is representative of theindividual experience of the woman and expresses the bond with the monk who
is responsible for her salvation. Yet, paragraph 2b presents another analysis that

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associates the jewel with the cosmological arising. In addition, the pearl is also
evocative of a non-subjective experience that manifests through the metaphor of
cosmological gestation. In other words, the gift of the pearl is paired with cosmological and gestational theories to convey the state of non-differentiation thatprecedes the moment of birth.
Birth at “I-Se”: Gestational Metaphors and Imperial Symbology
The third thematic thread of our document presented in the opening paragraphof the Ise niji kirigami concerns the hermeneutical elaborations rooted in themultiple semantic ramifications of the term “I-Se.” The conceptualizations of
I-Se introduce two fundamental aspects that illuminate the context of production in which the Ise niji kirigami originated. First, the Ise niji kirigami reveals
how medieval notions revolving around Buddhist embryology—as in the caseof the I-Se paradigm—were readapted and applied to interpret conception andbirth. Far from being just a metaphor for the highest spiritual achievement of the
Buddhist clergy, the gestational model expressed by the union of the two graphsof I-Se was indeed an apt theory to describe the female experience of parturition.
Second, the context that inspired the Ise niji kirigami is ascribable to the relation
between Zen and Ise as “divine capital” (Breen and Teeuwen 2017), intended
here in the broader sense of the intellectual, literary, and religious products thatderived from the Ise complex and its central deity Amaterasu.
The polysemy endowed in the characters I-Se unravels the dense entanglement of discourses circulating among different fields of knowledge and textual
traditions in medieval Japan. The common ground of these fields was the intrinsic secret nature of their transmission. The semantic elaboration of the word
“I-Se” initially developed within the framework of poetic commentaries clearlyreflects the impact of Buddhist doctrinal speculations produced within the context of Shingon and Tendai groups, as well as the mixture of kami cults and yinyang divination (onmyōdō 陰陽道) practices (Klein 2003).
In the Jingi kanjo kegyō sahō 神祇灌頂加行作法, ritual instructions on the jingikanjō in Goryū Shintō 御流神道 , we read the same line that opens the Ise nijikirigami: “As for the two graphs of I-Se, I is the male, and Se is the female. The
two graphs of I-Se are the force that originates the human being” (Itō 2011, 485;
Faure 2000). This interpretation derives from the association of I-Se with themasculine (I) and the feminine (Se), whose union is symbolized by the merging
of the white fluid (semen) and the red fluid (blood) (literally, the merging of
the two drops [niteki wagō 二滴和合]). The sexual union is thus the epitome ofa single and unified entity and expresses the understanding of reality from thestandpoint of the enlightened ones (Klein 1998).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 21

While esoteric manuals extensively applied the pervasive imagery of I-Se to
add a more nuanced understanding of awakening (Itō 2011, 482–483), the Ise nijikirigami reshapes this concept on the actual event of childbirth. In this way, gestation-derived notions are not merely narrative expedients to illustrate the maleexperience of spiritual progression, but they also provide an apt theorization toilluminate the interrelated biological and soteriological processes of the female
body. What is striking about the hermeneutical framework of the Ise niji kirigami is that it employs the allegory of the female corporeality to explain the condition of the woman’s body entrapped in an eternal gestation, thereby resolving
the ontological impasse of childbirth death, which becomes a form of liberation
rather than unavoidable damnation.
Yet the Ise niji kirigami is not an isolated example displaying the readaptation of the I-Se theories to the event of childbirth. Other early modern Sōtō
kirigami describe how to create amulets inspired by the concept of I-Se to protect women during delivery.17 Among these, the Nansan fu kirigami illustrates
how to craft the amulets for difficult births. During such occasions, the monk
divided a soybean (shiromame 白豆, also referred to as daizu 大豆) into twoparts. On one half, the ritual performer was required to write the character “I,”
while on the other half “Se.” The kirigami also instructs where to collocate thetwo halves of the bean. During labor, the first half was momentarily placed on
the woman’s mouth, and the second half on the birth opening (sanmon 産門).
This ceremony was then followed by the chanting of the dhāraṇī of Vairocana
Tathāgata (kōmyō shingon 光明真言), which had the function of eliminating any
trace of evil karma that might have hindered a prosperous birth and concluded
by offering hot purifying water to the woman. Another untitled variant of thisdocument, while reporting identical directions, also depicts the graphic shapeof the talisman. The instructions prescribe to write a ritual formula on a pieceof paper four sun 寸 (roughly twelve centimeters) in length. At the center ofthe paper rectangle in larger characters there is an homage to the bodhisattva
Avalokiteśvara (Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu 南無観世音菩薩). On the upper section,
annotated in similar writing, we read the inscription “Ise,” while on the lower
part, in smaller ideograms, the amulet blesses the woman for a “safe and serenedelivery and a virtuous child” (anrakusan fukushi 安楽産福子) (Ishikawa 1993a,
111–112).
One may wonder about the degree to which these practices were representative of the knowledge about pregnancy and the female body in the late medieval and early modern periods. Although these kirigami, as well as the Ise nijikirigami, were certainly directed to a monastic audience, the healing power of
17. Duncan Williams (2009, 52–55) has extensively discussed the distribution of talismans
directed to women and promoted by Sōtō Zen temples.

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I-Se in the context of parturition also became widely known among women. The
Onna chōhōki, a famous early modern educational guidebook for women, suggests writing the word I-Se on a piece of paper to use it as a talisman during
difficult childbirths. This guide proclaims that the rationale underlying the
I-Se talismans derives from the expression “the complete force from which all
human beings are born” (hito tairaka ni umare maru chikara 人平生丸力), thesame words evoked at the beginning of the Ise niji kirigami. The woman who
contemplates the two characters of I-Se and reads in there the aforementioned
expression would give birth by means of extraordinary powers ( jinriki 神力)(Nagatomo 1993, 108). Accordingly, at least during the seventeenth century,
women were knowledgeable about the protecting function of I-Se, which is presented here as a powerful spell capable of generating a supernatural force thatenters the woman’s body to help her during parturition. Therefore, the creationof talismans rooted in the parading of I-Se suggests that this theoretical framework served as the conceptual blueprint to describe the moment of birth as wellas the spiritual and biological implications of parturition. Indeed, the Ise niji kirigami translates in doctrinal terms the logic underlying the practices described,
for instance, in the Nansan fu kirigami and the Onna chōhōki. In addition, theIse niji kirigami reveals that gestational notions initially developed in the context
of Buddhism-Shinto to explain the principle of non-duality between the opposite pairs of male-female and human-kami were applied to the actual moment ofchildbirth and the female condition.
Nevertheless, the adoption of the I-Se paradigm was one of the consequencesof a much broader cultural evolution that involved the interest of Zen monks
towards Ise and its related matters. Indeed, the readaptation of the I-Se semantic
framework in Sōtō Zen kirigami pertains to the Buddhist gaze on Ise and its central kami Amaterasu that likely stemmed from the crisis of the Ise Shrines during
the fifteenth century.18 One of the aspects that emerged from this exchange is thearising of a new genre of secret insights aimed at transmitting the Buddhist interpretation of the three sacred treasures (sanshu no jingi 三種神器): the mirror, thebead strand, and the sword (Hirose 2012). Such kirigami dedicated particularattention to the transmission of the sword, as seen in a series of kirigami known
18. The systematic production of knowledge centered on Ise in Sōtō Zen kirigami derived fromthe weakening of the shrines in the late fifteenth century. During this time, the Ise shrines experienced a decline, accelerated by the burning of the outer shrine in 1486, followed by another fire in
1489. Several actors took advantage of this situation to claim their agency over Ise and its divine
capital (Breen and Teeuwen 2017, 116–120). Although Yoshida Kanetomo 吉田兼倶 (1435–1511) was
the most successful, Sōtō monks’ theorizations of Ise were linked to the Ise shrines, revealing anattempt to inscribe their authority on the real and symbolic space of Ise. Nevertheless, Sōtō Zen
kirigami in Ise and the imperial symbology also drew on the historical precedents depicting the
devotion of Zen monks toward Amaterasu. I am indebted to William Bodiford for pointing this out.

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 23

as Ipponken kirigami. The Ipponken kirigami opens with the inscription “secretoral instructions about the two graphs of I-Se,” which is topped by another gloss
reporting that the heaven corresponds to yang, while the earth is the yin. Following these two glosses, we find three different illustrations depicting the three
regalia and explained through the gestational metaphor derived from the twographs of I-Se. The first one illustrates the case containing the divine jewel (shinji神爾), accompanied by the comment, “The state preceding the separation ofheaven and earth is the case [containing the jewel] kept with the lid [closed].
[Again], it is the seven generations of heavenly kami” (see figure 3).
The second chart depicts the sword paired with two inscriptions on each side.
On the right, the explanation reads, “Jeweled Sword, Izanagi no mikoto.” On theleft side, the inscription reports, “the cutting instrument: thus the facing part of
the grass, trees, and leaves are the same as the sword” (see figure 4).
Lastly, we have a circle representing the mirror. The stylized mirror is connected through lines with four glosses that, from right to left, recite,
Izanami no mikoto as the hidden deity; the sacred mirror; the myriad of phenomena, [such as] grass and trees reflect in the mirror. Being the manifold
phenomena reflected as such, their forms are conceived; the circular form [ofthe mirror] is the shape of the sea. It is the internal verification of the empty
circle. It is the body of the full moon (see figure 5).

In other words, the three imperial objects correspond to different components of the cosmology inspired by medieval mythology. Thus, the jewel is theunity of heaven and earth, while being reminiscent of the pearl donated by the
dragon princess. On the other hand, the sword and the mirror represent respectively Izanagi (the masculine and the yang) and Izanami (the feminine and theyin).
The three diagrams are paired with a type of koan commentary known as
daigo 代語 (literally, substituting words), in which the master and his disciple discuss the symbolism of the three jewels, with particular emphasis on thesword. In this dialogue, the sword is said to be reminiscent of the blade extractedby Susanoo from the serpent’s tail. The kirigami refers here to the legend of Susanoo and the Yamata no orochi, the eight-headed and eight-tailed legendary serpent-dragon narrated in the Kojiki 古事記 and the Nihon shoki 日本書紀. In thestory, Susanoo, amid the battle against the beast, discovered a sword hidden in
one of its tails. Upon successfully defeating the monster, Susanoo donated theobject to Amaterasu, hoping to receive her forgiveness for his disruptive behavior (Borgen and Ury 1990, 79–81).
The Ise niji kirigami is, in all likelihood, the product of these intellectual ramifications. In fact, in the case of Sōtō, the description of the women’s corporeality
and their biological functions did not necessarily derive from the textual corpus

figure 3. The case containing the divine
jewel. Line art by the author based on the
Ipponken kirigami from Sōrinji (1585). ©
Marta Sanvido. All rights reserved.

figure 4. The sword. Line art by the author
based on the Ipponken kirigami from
Sōrinji (1585). © Marta Sanvido. All rights
reserved.

figure 5. The mirror. Line art by
the author based on the Ipponken
kirigami from Sōrinji (1585). ©
Marta Sanvido. All rights reserved.

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 25

dealing with female salvation. On the contrary, the Ipponken kirigami shows thatthe gestational theories about I-Se were initially integrated within Sōtō’s doctrines to forge a connection between the imperial imaginary and Zen teachings.
It thus seems evident that Zen monks were keen to nurture their relationshipwith the imperial symbolism, yet they were also determined to provide theirown interpretation of these matters.
Stable relations between Zen monks and the Ise complex were establishedwell before the creation of the Ipponken kirigami, extending the influence of thisconnection over the following centuries. During the thirteenth century, the lineage of the Shōichi monk Chikotsu Daie 痴兀大慧 (d. 1312) founded one of its
major temples, An’yōji 安養寺, at Ise. Chikotsu became an ardent advocate of
the so-called union of Zen and esoteric Buddhism (Zen mitsu kenshū 禅密兼修),
given his attempt to combine the Zen and esoteric teachings into a unified doctrinal framework. An’yōji was thus one of the most prominent religious centersof the amalgamation of Zen and esoteric teachings at the time and a pioneering
example of the relation between Zen and shrines such as Ise (Takagi 2000; Itō
2018, 674).19
The devotion towards the Ise shrines predominantly manifested in the formof pilgrimages made by Zen monks to honor the Ise main deity, Amaterasu.
The fourteenth-century short account Tenshō daijin sōden kesa ki narrates how
a famous monk pertaining to another Zen faction, Muhon Kakushin 無本覚心(1207–1298), the founder of the Gozan 五山 lineage Hōttō 法燈, donated the Zenrobe to Amaterasu. Muhon is said to have been bestowed with the kāṣāya madefrom lily-root fiber (kesa 袈裟) on Mt. Tiantai 天台 in China. During his pilgrimage to Ise, soon after returning from China, Muhon would have offered the robe
to Amaterasu. Later, this same robe was donated from Amaterasu to a monkfrom the Shōichi group, Beppō Daishu 別峰大殊 (1321–1402) (dnk, 309–312;
paraphrased in Faure 1996, 107). The short story illustrating the circulation of
Muhon’s robe reveals crucial details that developed within the Buddhist network
established at Ise. Beppō, while being a Shōichi priest, spent part of his educational years with a leading figure of the Hōttō group, Kohō Kakumyō 孤峰覚明
(1271–1361). Kohō cultivated the connection established by his master Kyōō
Unryō 恭翁運良 (1267–1341) with Keizan’s disciple Gasan Jōseki 峨山韶碩 (1275–
1366) and the communities at two of the Sōtō main temples of the time, Yōkōji
永光寺 and Sōjiji 総持寺 (Bodiford 2008, 51–65). The Hōttō group thus represents a fundamental component in the assimilation of esoteric knowledge—
19. After Chikotsu’s death, An’yōji lost the initial combinatorial approach adopted by its
founder, and supposedly, also the linkage with Ise Shrine. According to the Biyō zakki 尾陽
雑記, the Shingon and Shinto scriptures at An’yōji were later donated to the Watarai 度会 family
or transferred to nearby Shinpukuji 真福寺 (Itō 2018).

26 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
intended here in the broader sense to include esoteric Buddhist theories on
the kami—among medieval Sōtō monks. Harada Masatoshi (1998, 221) has
pointed out that the crucial component of the Tenshō daijin sōden kesa ki is thegift and the countergift of the robe, which corresponds to proof of dharma transmission. In the powerful symbolic act of paying tribute to Amaterasu with therobe emerges the attempt of Zen priests to cement their connection with theworld of the kami and, more specifically, with its most powerful one, Amaterasu.
Most importantly, the theme of the gift and the transferring of objects, whether
material or symbolic, constitutes a fundamental component of such narratives,
as well as in the case of the Ise niji kirigami, in which the gift trope is expressed in
the donation of the dragon princess’s jewel.
As in the case of the aforementioned Ipponken kirigami, Sōtō monks contributed to the enrichment of the Zen-Ise narrative by expanding its boundaries toinclude the transfer of the three objects, a combination very likely inspired by
the three imperial regalia. As a result, the juncture between Zen transmission of
the precepts and the bestowal of the three divine regalia was embroidered in thefoundational narratives of Sōtō temples.
Often cited in this regard is the foundational tale of Jōganji 浄眼寺 and its
founder, the Sōtō monk Daikū Genko 大空玄虎 (1428–1505). Jōganji was built inthe vicinity of the Ise precincts upon the bestowal of the three treasures to Daikūfrom none other than Amaterasu. The Shinmei sanmotsu ki narrates that Daikū
was visited by a mysterious presence in the middle of the night, who revealed
itself as Amaterasu. Daikū granted the Mahāyāna precepts and, in turn, received
from Amaterasu the three treasures, represented by the lily-root fiber kesa, therosary of white pearls, and the red lacquered censer. This engi tale retained anenormous symbolic significance to the extent of being considered among thetreasures of the temple (Tatsuya 2010, 76; Tsutsumi 1998). While this narrative pattern resembles the tale of the robe donated to Amaterasu in the Tenshōdaijin sōden kesa ki, it also epitomizes a typical Sōtō discursive formation thatdeveloped in tandem with their local development. As noted by several scholars(Hirose 1988, 418–420; Bodiford 1993; Faure 1996, 83–113), Sōtō monks created a system of ordination for local spirits, which is indicative of the intricate
and multilayered relationships between Sōtō temples and site-specific cults. In
addition to favoring exponential regional growth, the inclusion of local deities
was thus instrumental in attracting the financial support of wealthy local families.20
Therefore, the Ise niji kirigami developed at the intersection of different mythological strands influenced by the Ise complex and the figure of Amaterasu, as
20. Daikū seems to have received the support of the Kitabatake 北畠 clan, in virtue of his connection with Amaterasu (Tada 2008, 173–180).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 27

well as the narratives about the divine kinship established between Amaterasu
and other female deities, which contributed to the creation of the archetypal
feminine. By linking together various conceptualizations of femininity, this textual subgenre was an essential cultural reference in the making of our document,
which developed from the interactions among actors from different traditions.
The A-Gendered Awakening: Koan Hermeneutics and the Female Body
A man hangs from a tree only with his mouth. His arms and feet reach no bough.
Beneath the tree, a person asks him the meaning of coming from the West. If theman replies, he falls into the void and dies. Yet, by not answering, he admits
the incapacity to grasp the innermost meaning of Zen (t 2005, 48.293c1–11).21
This is the tale narrated in the fifth case from the koan collection Wumenguan
and is the story that opens the third paragraph of the Ise niji kirigami. What isthe connection between a woman who died in childbirth and the innermost
meaning of Zen? Paragraph 3 elaborates on this question and provides the hermeneutical principle to explain the condition of the woman’s body from a Zenstandpoint. The last section constitutes the doctrinal hallmark of the document,
for it reshapes the esoteric and kami-related notions displayed in the previous
paragraphs by using koan hermeneutics.
The third paragraph of the Ise niji kirigami adopts the fifth case from the
Wumenguan to map the female body. While in the fourth paragraph the woman’s
flesh embodied the geography of hell symbolized by the markers of her infernal
fate and afflictions, in paragraph 3 this dualistic perspective is abandoned. In
fact, the woman’s body is no longer a micro-cosmic hell, yet it becomes a tool
for reading the salient components of the koan. In fact, paragraph 3 displays theassociation between the woman’s breast with the man up in a tree hanging, while
the man trying to climb down from the tree corresponds to the moment of birth.
Although the woman’s body is chained to childbirth pollution, the document
suggests that motherhood can offer an apt image to describe the transformation
brought by the attainment of buddhahood.
The Ise niji kirigami borrows these concepts from another secret documentthat was exchanged among Sōtō monks, the Jujō no kirigami. This kirigami isentirely dedicated to the fifth case, suggesting that this koan had been transmitted
as an independent secret teaching given its relevance in the monastic curriculum. At this point, one may question how these two documents are interrelated
and how such a reading of the fifth case became widely accepted and transmitted
among Sōtō monks to explain the dynamics of human gestation. The diagram
and the inscription displayed in the Jujō no kirigami provide valuable insights
21. For a complete analysis of this koan, as well as other related koan, see Sharf (2021).

28 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)

figure 6. The diagram in the Jujōno kirigami from the collectionof kirigami titled Butsubutsu soso
sōden himitsu shōbōgenzō 仏仏祖祖
相伝秘密正法眼蔵 , vol. 1 (mid-Edo
period), 36a. Picture taken by theauthor. Courtesy of the Komazawa
University Library. © Marta Sanvido. All rights reserved.

about the conceptual proximity of the two documents and unravel the intellectual trajectory that gave rise to the construction of the feminine body inside the
Sōtō monastic community.
As prescribed by the commentary, the diagram must be read from the top
down. The similarity with the Neo-Confucian scheme of the supreme polarity
is evident since the scheme is topped with the non-polar (mukyoku 無極) circle,
which symbolizes the stage preceding birth, being representative of the embryo
inside the womb. The description adds that,
The non-polar is what precedes the [stage] before being born (mishō izen 未生已前). In the upper circle, the outer part is the mother’s womb. The inner circle

is the child. It is the correct form of being in the womb. The person up in a tree
is said to be the [condition of] not-yet-separated that anticipates being born.

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 29
Suckling from the tree bough is [suckling from] the mother’s breast (chibusa
乳房; literally, the maternal milk)….
The li hexagram ( jūri 重離) is the simultaneous union [of awakening anddelusion]. It is the aspect (sō 相) that embraces each of the five circles [of thefive positions].
(Iizuka 2012, 152–153)

In other words, the circle at the top is the non-polar, which symbolizes thematernal uterus, while the stylized form depicted inside it is the embryo. The
mother’s womb is then connected to the li hexagram ☲☲, which, according to
the theory associating the five positions of delusion and awakening (henshō goi
偏正五位) with tri-hexagrams, is the symbol of the ultimate union of the fivepositions (that is, of awakening and delusion) beyond duality.
The following section is composed of two trigrams, which are qian ☰ on theleft side of the scheme and kun ☷ on the right. In the “Shuogua zhuan” 説卦伝
section of the Yijing, qian is said to be the heaven and the father, while kun is theearth and the mother (skt 63: 1753). Thus, kun and qian are the two seeds thatgenerate the remaining six trigrams composing the eight fundamental trigrams.
Qian and kun, the gloss reads, bring the roots of life and death, good and evil,
cold and heat, and thus union is achieved in the li hexagram depicted in theupper part. In other words, qian and kun symbolize the two opposites of awakening and delusion in the five-position system.
What follows are the five positions of awakening and delusion, which are
represented by white-and-black circles where the white (light) symbolizes theawakening, while the black (darkness) is the delusional state. The five positions
show here the interplay of awakening and delusion in the practitioner’s mind
and how the relation between these two forces change and evolve over time.22
The inscription adds that the five positions represent the five faculties, the fivecharacteristics, and the five colors.
The diagram then places another circle, which is connected through a vermilion line to the upper one. The description explains that this circle is,
22. The usage of charts in Sōtō Zen secret sources should not be surprising. These elaborategraphics, mainly inspired by Neo-Confucian cosmological diagrams, were often employed as
visual aids during the master’s lectures directed to a small group of acolytes and considered as
secret teachings.
In the diagram featured in figure 6, from right to left, the five positions are illustrated as follows:
delusion within awakening (shōchūhen 正中偏); awakening within delusion (henchūshō 偏中正);approaching awakening (shōchūrai 正中来); reaching togetherness from within (kenchūshi 兼中至);
and attained union of awakening and delusion (kenchūtō 兼中到). The prolegomenon to the relation between koan and the five-position cosmological theory is developed in a pivotal manualthat constitutes the conceptual milestone of Sōtō Zen secret transmission, the San’un kaigetsu
zu 山雲海月図 by Gasan Jōseki (Iizuka 1998; Sanvido 2017). For a detailed explanation of thetheorization between tri-hexagrams and five positions, see Ziporyn (2012).

30 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)[T]he life infused in the robe-placenta sack (etai 衣袋).23 Śākyamuni, [whendwelling] inside the womb as a child, is the thusness inside the darkness [of thewomb]. This the Śākyamuni of the remote origin.
(Iizuka 2012, 152–153)

Lastly, the diagram terminates with five Chan idiomatic expressions that echo
the gestational metaphor and are representative of the state of awakening. Fromright to left, the myriad of activities (manki 万機), which are, paraphrasing theinscription, thoroughly illuminated in the moment of birth; the great death (daishi 大死) is the liberation from the birth itself; 24 casting off the body (dattai 脱躰)
is “experiencing the wind of the dharma realm and uttering the verse of sufferance”; casting off (datsuraku 脱落) is liberating from the outward form (gyōgai
形骸); and the moment of liberation (kakki 活機) from the mundane world
towards autonomy of liberation (kakki jizai 活機自在).
This kirigami is noteworthy for including explicit references inspired by biological functions connected to gestation and birth. In other words, by relying
upon the assemblage of embryogenic theories and cosmological models, the Jujōno kirigami depicts the state of the practitioner and their spiritual development.
In addition, the diagrammatic representation conveys the experience within themonastery illustrating the internal transformation of the practitioner from the
bestowal of the robe to the moment of awakening. The spiritual growth of thepractitioner is suggested by two expressions that evoke the female body and gestation. First, the man holding the bough with his teeth is reminiscent of the childsuckling the milk from his mother’s breast. Second, the “robe sack,” which is theplacenta, is representative of Śākyamuni’s robe, and in general, the Buddhist kesa.
While the inclusion of gestational theories and symbolism within Zen teachings
occurred already during the first part of the medieval period, being particularly
evident in the textual body produced by the Shōichi monks (Takayanagi 2004;
Dolce 2006; Kameyama 2020), the application of such conceptualizations tochildbirth death remains unexplored. To illuminate the historical process andsociocultural dynamics that produced such hermeneutical outcomes, we must
explore kindred secret documents exchanged among other Zen groups since thecase of Sōtō Zen represents by no means an isolated example.
23. The word etai usually indicates the monastic robe, yet here is glossed as inafukuro. Uponcomparison with other kirigami pertaining to the same genre, the gloss appears to have been
miswritten given that the correct reading is enafukuru, in which ena 胞衣 is the placenta (Kyōgenjujō no kirigami).
24. The term “great death” appears to have been inspired by the sixth case of the Foguo
Yuanwu chanshi biyan lu (t 2003, 48.146c8–10). The other four expressions from this pentadic
formula appear in several Chan sources, including the Foguo Yuanwu chanshi biyan lu, yet considering that these are words commonly found in many texts, it is not possible to determine a
univocal philological match.

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 31

Late medieval Sōtō Zen shared several doctrinal affinities with the Rinzaibranch Genjū 幻住. Established by Enkei Soyū 遠渓祖雄 (1286–1344) after his
period of study in China with Zhongfeng Mingben from the Zen branch Yangqi
楊岐, the Genjū faction developed at the intersection of the Rinzai branch of the
Daitokuji 大徳寺 community and Sōtō groups, reflecting the doctrinal tendencies that emerged in these two factions at the time (Andō 2011, 167–176).
Despite having been long overlooked by scholars, the close relation between
Sōtō and Genjū monks is especially evident when comparing the secret documents and the koan manuals transmitted by the two factions. Particularly relevant for this study is a Genjū secret manual of koan, the Ganzō roku by Kohan
Shūshin 古帆周信 (1570–1641), which contains the commented versions ofeighty-five koan from different collections.25 Among these, a case entitled Ise no
hon’i 伊勢之本意 is almost identical to the Ise niji kirigami (Ganzō roku, 39b–40b;
Suzuki 1987, 295). Unlike the Zen kirigami, the Ise no hon’i does not allude to any
postmortem fetal extraction. Thus, in the context of the Genjū lineage, we can
suppose that this teaching was not directly connected to a specific ritual setting,yet it was simply treated as a koan. This aspect is particularly intriguing since
it reveals that Zen monks expanded the boundaries of the koan corpus, which
differed from the conventional classic Chan collections.
As seen in the Ise niji kirigami, the Ise no hon’i reports a formula inspired by
the fifth case of the Wumenguan, “being up on the tree is tasting the flavor ofmilk within the womb. Being under the tree is leaving the womb” (Ganzō roku,
40a; Suzuki 1987, 295). Again, this quote implicitly advises us to read this commentary alongside the exegesis of the fifth case, which is presented in anotherkoan manual, the Zōroku, by the same author. Indeed, in the Zōroku, the fifthkoan stands alone and is treated as a separate case, which is commented in thefollowing manner,
The master asked: what is this tree [in the koan]?
Elucidation: the tree is the mother’s body.
Comment: the rock [grows] a rootless tree.
[Asking]: “Being up in a tree,” what is that?
Elucidation: it is the embryo dwelling inside the mother’s womb.
Hanging with your mouth… and the feet, what is that?
Elucidation: Hanging with the mouth from the tree is being inside thewomb. It is being nurtured from the root of milk. The hands not grasping thebranch [to climb the tree] corresponds to [placing] the hands on one’s chest.
25. The manual does not report any date of compilation. Andō Yoshinori (2011, 198) suggests that based on other manuals transmitted by Genjū monks and preserved at the Matsugaoka archives, the copy is probably datable to 1714.

32 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
The feet not reaching [a bough] are the feet bending towards the mother [while
being inside the womb].
Comment: Nine years spent [sitting in meditation] in front of the wall insilence. Again, nine years facing the wall without the wind passing through.
The blooming of the five-petaled flower, in a spring outside kalpas.
The lecture proclaims: The nine years in front of the wall correspond to
the nine months in the womb. This is also known as putting on the placenta.
The red robe covering Bodhidharma while facing the wall is the placenta.
Bodhidharma contemplated [being] inside the womb and taught it to the multitude of people.
(Zōroku, 34b–36a)26

This excerpt displays several concepts already explored in the Jujō no kirigami.
Likewise, the Genjū exegesis of the fifth case revolves around the adaptation ofconcepts related to the female body and its biological functions like breastfeeding or the placenta. Indeed, the affinity in koan interpretation shared among
these two factions is a crucial component to shed new light on the dynamics
underlying the inclusion of a koan in the explanation of the female corporeality and contributes to unveiling the historical apparatus that participated in thedevelopment of such an interpretative framework.
The act of “suckling from the milk root” derives from a passage in a late
Mahāyāna sutra, the Dasheng bensheng xindi guan jing, a scripture that elaborates on the four fundamental objects of debt (sien 四恩). The section devoted
to the explanation of one of the four debts, the moral obligation towards motherand father, acknowledges the pain and suffering of pregnancy. Difficult childbirth, the sutra explains, might be as painful as being plunged by hundreds ofknives. Moreover, the text continues, the mother’s dedication to nurture her
child with “the sweet nectar of milk coming from her breast makes her meritincalculable” (t 159, 3.297b3). Eventually, the debt of a child towards his motherwill never be repaid since, while in the womb,
Male and female suckle with their mouth the root of milk and are nurtured
with their mother’s blood. When one is born, before turning into a child [capable of eating solid foods], one consumes 180 vessels of maternal milk. Whenthe mother attains the superb taste (shangmei 上味), she provides it directly to
her child. This is like offering the marvelous monastic robe.		
		(t 159, 3.297b16–b19)
26. Although a similar version of this commentary is reported in Suzuki (1987, 291–292),
here I use my transcription since Suzuki omits the details of the documents he is referring to.
As Andō (2011, 176–180) notes, Suzuki’s transcription seems a combination of different manuals(call no. Kuha 1240, Kuha 883–3) that include the commentary used here. Another translation ofthis commentary based on Suzuki’s transcription can be found in Faure (1995, 362–363).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 33

Despite the lack of any precise mention of the four forms of indebtedness,the usage of the evocative image of “suckling from the milk root” confirms that,besides possessing a general knowledge of the textual corpus exploring gestationand the female body, Zen monks adopted these notions to theorize salvation andenlightenment from a nondualistic standpoint.
The second crucial component of the Genjū commentary is the embryonic
metaphor applied to the iconic image of Bodhidharma facing the wall in meditation. Thus, the cave is the womb, the red robe is the placenta, and the nine
years absorbed in contemplation correspond to the time spent in the womb. We
must recall that in Sōtō’s Jujō no kirigami, the monastic robe is identified withthe placenta. Likewise, in the Ise niji kirigami, the merging of the white and red
fluids is the “attainment of one’s original mind, and it is also known as being
wrapped in the red cover,” in which the red cover is very likely the vermilionrobe of Bodhidharma.
The metaphor of the placenta to illustrate the network of meanings that areconceptually linked to the Buddhist robe is commonly used in kirigami about
the transmission of the kesa (Faure 1995). The Kesa no kirigami adds a morenuanced explanation of the placenta, which better illuminates the intellectual
process that led to the acceptance of this metaphor. This document reports thatthe amalgamation of the five colors (that is, blue, yellow, red, black, and white)
creates the purple robe, which is the superior one. The purple robe is describedas the buddha Mahāvairocana and symbolizes the union of both realms (thevajra and womb realm), as well as the syllable A. The document also adds that“in the Shinto [tradition], [the robe] is the placenta; it is the chihaya [千葉屋]”(Iizuka 2008, 262).
The term chihaya derives from the expression chihayaburu 千葉破る that
opens the poem intonated during the Ise abhiṣeka (Ise kanjō 伊勢灌頂) (Teeuwen 2000, 103; Andreeva 2017, 246–255). These verses were utilized to convey
the inherited enlightened and kindred nature of the practitioner and the kami,
whose body already contained the seeds of awakening. Chihaya indicates tearing
one thousand petals inside the womb and serves as a metaphor for the placenta
shredding apart during childbirth. Being conceptually adjacent to Buddhist
embryogenic theories, the theorization of chihaya developed in the same context
of the two graphs of I-Se (Klein 1998, 29–33), as well as theories of the kindred
nature of kami and humans displayed in the Ise niji kirigami.
In addition, the fragmentary collection Meishuku shū 明宿集 by the Noh
playwright Konparu Zenchiku 金春禅竹 (1405–1468) reveals that the semantic
overlapping of the placenta and the robe was echoed by the multiple meanings
embedded in the term chihaya, which can indicate both the ceremonial white
garment (chihaya 襅) and the tearing of the placenta. Indeed, the Meishuku shū
proclaims that “the placenta [that protects] the child in the womb symbolizes the34 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
sleeves of the white vest” (quoted in Takahashi 2014, 146).27 The medieval commentarial tradition of literary works, such as the Kokinwaka shū 古今和歌集 and
the Ise monogatari 伊勢物語, adds another semantic layer to the term chihayathat reverberates in the Meishuku shū. In this case, chihaya evokes the myth ofAmaterasu inside the cave. In such a network of associations, chihaya metonymically indicates the sleeves twirled during the dance of the gods to celebrate theopening of the cave and the appearance of Amaterasu (Takahashi 2014, 147).
The image of the cave-womb pertains to the same semantic framework of theplacenta-robe, for it developed in the context of Buddhist-Shinto mythology toconvey the innermost meaning of the scene depicting Amaterasu withdrawing
into the heavenly cave (Itō 2011, 498–499). A section entitled “Ama no iwato
kanjō” 天岩戸灌頂 from a Ryōbu Shintō manual, the Tenchi kanjō ki 天地灌頂記,
states very clearly that “the cave is the maternal womb.... We [human beings]
arise from the union of the red and white fluids in the mother’s womb” (quoted in
Yamamoto 1993, 331; Faure 2016, 317–318). In other words, the placenta evokes
the cosmic gestation along with the bestowal of the robe, which was interpreted
as a form of rebirth inside the monastic womb. Accordingly, the locus classicus of the cave contained in both narratives created a semantic resonance thatinspired the rewriting of Bodhidharma’s legend through the gestational lens.
Nevertheless, the grotto scene from Amaterasu’s myth confirms that these
metaphors turned into a set of tools to read the female body. Indeed, the application of the cave-womb allegory was included also in ritual contexts foreign
to either koan or abhiṣeka and related instead to pregnancy and funerals. This
association served to explicate the purification rituals performed by the Shinto
priests of Ise shrines to grant safe childbirth. In such a context, the moment ofbirth is described as “the disclosure of the birth opening at the bottom of thechest,” which symbolizes the opening of the heavenly cave (Daigūji kikigaki in
Miyachi 1981, 180; Yamamoto 1993, 332). Zen monks thus were not the only
actors involved in the ritual administration concerning childbirth. On the contrary, Shinto priests successfully managed childbirth-related ceremonies andembraced the symbolism of the womb-cave to explain these ritual settings.
Likewise, the Shingon-Zen funeral manual Tainai goi mandara adheres tothis hermeneutical vogue and claims that Amaterasu retiring into the heavenly
grotto is the same as the fetus dwelling inside the womb (Nakahara, Yoneda,
27. In an esoteric collection of rituals, the Sōji shō compiled by the Tendai priest Chōgō

澄豪 (1259–1350), the candid garment of the white-robed Avalokiteśvara (Byakue Kannon 白衣観音) is an allegory for the placenta, which protects the human being from adverse conditions.

Besides, in another section of the same text, the white vest of Avalokiteśvara is said to be the epitome of purity (t 2412, 77.72a4), thereby suggesting that the placenta was not stigmatized becauseof its connection with childbirth and pollution. On the conceptualization of the placenta in relation to the concepts of purity and pollution, see Faure (2016).

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 35

and Gōto 2018, 476). Hence, the discourse that revolved around the motif of thecave-womb, albeit initially applied to a different ceremonial setting, turned into
a prominent component in the transmission of practices dedicated to childbirth.
The cultural process that led Genjū, as well as Sōtō monks, to apply the gestational metaphor to koan interpretation, however, is also the historical product ofa much more intricate development that occurred in the medieval field of koan
exegesis. Indeed, as previously mentioned, Genjū’s approach to koan practice
emerged from the amalgamation of various traditions, encompassing the influential lineage of the Rinzai school centered at Daitokuji.
Yōsō Sōi 養叟宗頤 (1376–1458), the twenty-sixth abbot of Daitokuji, who likeIkkyū Sōjun 一休宗純 (1394–1481) studied under the guidance of Kasō Sōdon 華叟
宗曇 (1352–1428), trained several Genjū monks such as Ikka Sekiyu 一華碩由(1447–1507), thus having a visible impact on their interpretative style (Harada
1995). Yet, despite being the dharma heirs of the same master, Ikkyū and Yōsō
could not be more different. Indeed, Yōsō and his methodology became the main
target of Ikkyū, who in the miscellaneous Jikai shū made abundantly clear his disdain towards his dharma brother for having initiated the creation of corrupted
and unorthodox Zen practices. According to Ikkyū, Yōsō would teach exemplified versions of koan to nuns and merchants and then certify their achievementof awakening. In particular, Yōsō used images and metaphors related to hell to
educate laypeople (Iizuka 2001, 298). These words reflect the general tendencyof adapting koan interpretation to the audience by including notions that did
not strictly pertain to Zen doctrine. This passage is noteworthy since it mentions
that the community at Daitokuji used the imaginary of hell to make more accessible the explanation of koan. Indeed, it corroborates the hypothesis that Zen
monks were familiar with the symbolism endowed in the representations of theafterlife to the extent of including it in their own teachings.
The teachings that Ikkyū refers to are contained in several secret manuals that were transmitted by the monks of Daitokuji. For instance, in the
Hyaku gojū soku, the “insights about hell” mentioned by Ikkyū indicate thetale of Zhaozhou Congshen 趙州從諗 (778–897) in hell, contained in the
Zhaozhou Zhenji chanshi yulu (x 68: 1315.82b8–10). This story reports a dialogue about whether people of great virtue (that is, masters who achieved
buddhahood) fall into hell. Zhaozhou replies that if people like him would
not have been reborn in hell, they could not save anyone (Iizuka 2002,
251). Another secret koan commentary, the Kosoku kōan, enriches the
explanation of the tale of Zhaozhou in hell with an embryological metaphor that is reminiscent of the lines that open paragraph 4 of the Ise nijikirigami, “being born is dying at the sight of the many sufferings. Dying isbeing alive.” Indeed, birth was a direct antecedent of suffering that begins
with the act of leaving the womb. Everyday life is thus entrenched in pain,

36 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
and it is the true hell (Iizuka 2002, 306).28 Given the extreme popularity ofhell tales, it is very likely that such interpretations arose to provide a more
understandable and ready-to-use reading of Chan cases to present to laypeople. 29 It is thus evident that the intertwining of hell images and embryology
constitutes one of the doctrinal hallmarks of the Daitokuji commentaries. As aresult, the impact of this interpretative style emerges in the secret manuals fromthe Genjū lineage and Sōtō kirigami.
By adapting koan exegesis to the ritual setting of female salvation, the Ise nijikirigami represents the summa of the doctrinal evolution of koan interpretation.
In other words, the highly speculative embryological theories adopted to express
the most recondite meaning of enlightenment were reshaped to explain the biological process of birth and thus applied to the female body. Therefore, the doctrinal dilemma of whether an impure being could ultimately achieve buddhahood
is reconciled through koan hermeneutics. Indeed, the nurture (“suckling the milkroot”) from and protection (the robe-placenta) of the mother’s body are the ultimate state of realization. When understood from a non-dualistic standpoint, thematernal corporeality, although initially depicted as monstrous and repulsive,
embodies the most exquisite form of spiritual perfection.
Conclusion
It is hoped that this article has contributed to the discussion about how women
were depicted in religious material, by showing that such representations weremuch more nuanced and did not fit a priori into the clearcut categorizations of
misogyny and sexism. The Ise niji kirigami, on the contrary, embraces opposite
portrayals of women and their bodies, which were nonetheless coexisting within
the same semantic space. It is precisely within this space, which could be defined
as “heterotopic,”30 that women were perceived as impure creatures, mothers to
be saved, donors, deities, dragons, agents of social instability, and ultimately corporeality of enlightenment. It must be noted, however, that the Ise niji kirigami
28. Birth seen as a subcategory of suffering was already a central component of the birth metaphor in Indian Buddhist sources (Langenberg 2017, 28–42).
29. The aforementioned Shingon-Zen funeral manual Tainai goi mandara uses the same taleof Zhaozhou in hell to equate the moment of birth with suffering. In other words, this manualexplains that the woman’s birth opening is the mountain of death and is the place where theimpure blood of menstruation flows (Nakahara, Yoneda, and Gōto 2018, 485–487).
30. Foucault (1986) has elaborated on this concept to explain liminal spaces such as thecemetery or the asylum. Franklin-Brown (2012) has proposed to apply this notion to textual
spaces such as encyclopedias, which retain several characteristics emblematic of Foucault’s heterotopia. In the analysis of kirigami and secret sources, especially in the case of the Ise niji kirigami, heterotopia might illuminate the dynamics that partook in the construction of the secret
space, which appears as a juxtaposition of concepts apparently in contrast with each other.

sanvido: damnation and buddhahood | 37

remains a portrayal of the female body as it was perceived and understood by
the male-dominated institutional environment. In the assemblage of its doctrinal discourses, the Ise niji kirigami, like the vast majority of Zen secret sources,
leaves the female voice silent. While this is surely a limit of this study, the secretsources examined here offer a valuable perspective on how Zen monks lived andconceptualized the topic of female salvation in relation to their religious practice. Although our document likely served as an echo chamber for widespreadmedieval narratives, it also demonstrates the agency of Zen monks in the creation of new perspectives that could deepen the conceptualization of women’s
spiritual capacities and biological functions.
In the introduction, I posed two relevant questions. How can the maternal
womb depicted as impure be reconciled with the metaphor of buddhahood
understood as a regression into the uterine status? How do embryologicalnotions influence the conceptualization of the female body? Through the Ise nijikirigami, the present study has demonstrated how the theorization of awakening
in gestational terms indeed had a visible impact on the negotiation of malenessand femaleness, which were by no means fixed categories. The Ise niji kirigami
upholds classic doctrinal compounds ingrained in the representations of defiled
female bodies, yet at the same time, this document also displays the methodology used to subvert gender dualism, thereby rebuilding a new conceptualizationof motherhood and femininity. Ultimately, the biological processes embodied in
the female body are taken as the norm to illustrate awakening itself. Accordingly,
women could not be denied salvation, for their ontological selves were alreadythe epitome of enlightenment.
As displayed in the Ise niji kirigami, kirigami documents encompass a wide
variety of notions and forms of knowledge whose relation appears often inconsistent and contradictory. Although secret instructions such as the Ise nijikirigami are descriptive of the intellectual logic set in place inside the temple,
they represent an invaluable repository of knowledge whose investigation may
uncover the historical developments that favored the circulation of certain ideas
and concepts. In this case, this textual corpus enabled us to shed new light on the
categories of femininity and childbirth, showing that such motifs were not exclusive to a gendered domain of knowledge. Rather, characteristics emblematic offemale ontology were to some degree considered representative of nonhumanbeings, such as dragons and kami. In conclusion, we can affirm that this innerdynamism and mobility of ideas reflect on the hermeneutical fluidity that characterizes the exploration of the feminine self, which is generated through discursive practices that transcend the rigid ontological classifications.

38 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)

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dnk

skt
ssz
st
t

x

zssz

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Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1: 49–77© 2023 Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture
dx.doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.50.1.2023.49-77

Jeff Schroeder

Japanese Buddhist War Support and the Kanchō System

When Jōdo Shin Buddhist leaders gathered for a conference in early 1941 toformulate their sect’s wartime response, they did so at the bidding of their sect’s
kanchō, or administrative head. To explain organizational dynamics that contributed to patterns of war support by Japanese Buddhists, this article details
the state’s imposition of a kanchō system of governance on Buddhist organizations from 1884 to 1945. While Buddhist organizations had leeway in determining the selection process, term length, and specific powers of their kanchō,in all cases extraordinary authority was concentrated in a single individual.
This article details how the kanchō system was implemented in major Zen,
Jōdo Shin, Jōdo, Shingon, Nichiren, and Tendai organizations; examines the
pro-war activities of kanchō prior to and during the Fifteen Years’ War period(1931–1945); and uses the case of the 1941 Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference toillustrate how the autocratic kanchō organizational structure amplified a sect’s
most pro-war voices.

keywords: modern Buddhism—Japanese imperialism—religion and war—religiousorganizations—religious law

Jeff Schroeder is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the
University of Oregon.

49

On 13 February 1941, twenty-six leading officials, scholars, and preachers belonging to the Ōtani denomination of the Jōdo Shin sect weregathered at Higashi Honganji 東本願寺 in Kyoto to discuss Buddhism,nationalism, and the escalating war situation. The conference was convened andmoderated by sect official Ōtani Eijun 大谷瑩潤 (1890–1973). Eijun’s opening
address clarified the purpose of the conference:
Considering the intensifying national circumstances before us and reflecting
upon the desires of the Superior Foremost One (kami goichinin 上御一人 [thatis, the emperor]), we people of religion cannot continue with the same thinking as in the past. Even regarding our sect’s doctrines, we must deeply reflect
upon whether to go on expressing them just the same as we have in the past.
If we go on as we have in the past, we will be neglecting our duties as national
citizens. Even in the scriptures, there is expressed the idea that [wars] related
to the prospering or perishing of a people are holy wars (seisen 聖戦). In certain
scriptures, killing is thought of as evil, but in present-day circumstances, howshould we look upon that way of thinking?... Seeking the way as a human being
and carrying out one’s duties as a national citizen must always be in accord.
Recently, the content of religious preaching has come under investigation, andrestrictions have been placed upon certain doctrines.... There have been various critiques from the public. If our sect in particular has a deep relationship with the Imperial House, then it is essential for us to formulate doctrinal
expressions befitting the age and expressive of loyalty.		
		(Shinshū kyōgaku kondankai, 3)

Following this call for new doctrinal expressions clarifying their sect’s loyalty
to the emperor and support for the war effort, Eijun added a final word of warning: “Producing unified doctrinal expressions with which to instruct the sect isyour duty. If you now fail to unify, we will have to trouble the honorable Dharma
Master” (Shinshū kyōgaku kondankai, 3).
“Dharma Master” (hossu 法主) was a title conferred upon the chief priests of
Jōdo Shin denominations’ head temples that signified their leadership in doctrinal matters. In the modern era, these figures also functioned as the kanchō 管長,
or administrative heads of denominations. As stipulated in the Ōtani denomination’s 1929 constitution, the Ōtani kanchō possessed ultimate authority to interpret sect doctrine, appoint or dismiss resident temple priests and instructors,
appoint or dismiss sect administration employees, confer awards on or administer punishments to sect members, and issue executive orders (Shinshū Ōtaniha

50schroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 51

shūken). The final word on the Ōtani denomination’s wartime orthodoxy indisputably lay with its kanchō, Ōtani Kōchō 大谷光暢 (1903–1993), an adamant supporter of the war effort. At the time of the February 1941 conference, he wastouring military outposts in the South Pacific with his wife, Ōtani Satoko 大谷
智子 (1906–1989), a sister of the empress. Judging by Kōchō’s repeated appeals
to sect members to contribute all they could to the war, as well as the remarks of
Eijun (Kōchō’s uncle) quoted above, it is clear that sect leaders assembled at theconference were expected to unify around revised doctrinal expressions maximally aligned with state ideology and war policies.
The same organizational dynamic of kanchō governance was present in all
Japanese Buddhist organizations. According to Cabinet Instruction No. 19
issued in 1884, every Buddhist and Sect Shinto organization was required toappoint a kanchō, whose confirmation was subject to the approval of the Minister for Home Affairs (Haseyama 1956, 92; Umeda 1971, 122–125; Abe 1970,
280).1 Kanchō of Buddhist organizations would be in charge of regulating sect
and temple law, determining positions and titles for priests and instructors,
and appointing, promoting, and dismissing priests and instructors. The same
kanchō requirements persisted under the 1940 Religious Organizations Law thatsuperseded the 1884 ordinance. Buddhist and Sect Shinto organizations had leeway in determining the process for selecting their kanchō, their kanchō’s term
length, and the specific powers invested in the position. In line with democratizing trends, many Buddhist organizations instituted elections to determine theirkanchō. Yet even in the most democratic of Buddhist organizations, the result
was a tremendous concentration of power in a single individual.
Previous scholarship on modern Japanese Buddhism has tended to highlightdemocratizing reforms: independent, non-sectarian movements; increased lay
involvement and authority; demands for unrestricted study of Buddhist teachings; and incorporation of democratic processes into sect administrations. Yetalongside such reforms, it is important to note a contradictory development: theestablishment of centralized, autocratic rule within Buddhist organizations to adegree perhaps unprecedented in Japanese history. As documented below, administrative control over more than sixty thousand Japanese Buddhist temples andtheir more than ten million members came to rest in the hands of just ten kanchō.
This centralization of power had major implications for the kind of thought
and practice that could flourish within mainstream Buddhist communities.
Investigating this centralization of power, this article asks: Who were these
Buddhist kanchō? How were they selected? What powers did they possess? How
1. Sect Shinto organizations such as Kurozumikyō 黒住教 or Izumo Taishakyō 出雲大社教
were distinct from the Shinto practiced at the vast majority of Japan’s shrines, which were managed by the state and deemed “nonreligious” (Hardacre 2017).

52 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
did they exercise those powers? And ultimately, how did the kanchō system shapepossibilities for war support or war resistance among members of major Buddhist
organizations? The article first explains the need for a new approach to the studyof Buddhism and war that focuses on organizational dynamics. It then places theJapanese government’s establishment of the kanchō system in historical context;
surveys how that system was implemented in major Zen, Jōdo Shin, Jōdo, Shingon, Nichiren, and Tendai organizations; and gives an overview of the wartime
activities of individual kanchō and kanchō-led organizations prior to and during
the Fifteen Years’ War (1931–1945). The final section of the article returns to thecase of the Ōtani denomination’s 1941 conference to demonstrate how organizational pressures stemming from the kanchō and his appointees functioned toamplify the most nationalistic, pro-war voices while marginalizing less pro-war
ones. This research aims both to enrich our understanding of the causes of modern Buddhist war support and to point more broadly to the importance of organizational dynamics in shaping Buddhist doctrine and ethics.
Buddhism, War, and Organizational Dynamics
In scholarship on modern Buddhism and war, the works of Brian Victoria loom
large, and for good reason. Zen at War, published in 1997, was the first workin English to document the deep nationalism, emperor worship, and pro-war
attitudes characteristic of many Japanese Buddhist leaders during the modern
period. Although Victoria’s focus was on Zen, his book abounds with nationalist, pro-war quotations from prominent members of many Japanese Buddhist sects. Victoria also showed that such pro-war rhetoric was followed up
with action, including prayer services for victory in battle; memorial services
for fallen soldiers; chaplaincy on the battlefield; zazen instruction for military
officers, soldiers, and factory workers; and donation of war planes. Victoria did
an impressive job documenting the phenomenon of modern Japanese Buddhist
nationalism and war support. However, in Zen at War and a follow-up work
titled Zen War Stories, Victoria offered only limited analysis of the underlying
causes of that phenomenon.2
In the decades since the publication of Zen at War, the literature on modern
Japanese Buddhism and war has grown considerably. Many studies have examined cases of specific Buddhist individuals and groups: revolutionary activists
who rebelled against the state (Shields 2017; Rambelli and Uchiyama 2013),
2. Acknowledging that lack, Victoria inserted a new chapter titled “Was It Buddhism?” tothe end of the revised edition of Zen at War (2006). There, he narrates the long history of Buddhism-state alliances from ancient India to Japan, explaining such alliances with reference topolitical pragmatism, incorporation of Daoist and Confucian ideals, misuse of the doctrine ofupāya, and connections with the samurai class.

schroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 53

ultra-rightwing thinkers and military officers (Ōtani 2012; Godart 2015), a soldier (Terasawa 2018), and a variety of scholars and intellectuals (Klautau 2017;
Ishii, Kondō, and Nawa 2020). There has also been much scholarship on D.
T. Suzuki’s views on war (Kirita 1995; Satō 2008; Sueki 2009; Victoria 2010;2013). All of these detailed studies of individuals are fascinating and instructivein various ways. However, without a better understanding of Buddhist organizational dynamics, it can be difficult to know how representative or influential
such individuals were. Suzuki, for example, was a lay scholar affiliated with the
Rinzai Zen sect but employed by a Jōdo Shin university. As such, he did notpossess official doctrinal authority within any sectarian organizations, and there
is little evidence that his scholarship had a major impact during the war. Thus,
it is unclear what, if anything, Suzuki’s case tells us about broader patterns of
Buddhist support for or resistance to nationalism and war. The same is true ofrightwing Nichirenists like Ishiwara Kanji 石原莞爾 (1889–1949) and revolutionaries like Senoo Girō 妹尾義郎 (1889–1961), who each led relatively small,independent movements outside the bounds of mainstream sectarian Buddhist
organizations.
Christopher Ives (2009) points the way toward a more robust study of thefactors behind modern Japanese Buddhist nationalism and war support. He
approaches his topic through an extensive review of the scholarship of Sōtō Zen
scholar-priest Ichikawa Hakugen. Ichikawa (1970) launched the study of modern Japanese Buddhist war support. As Ives details, Ichikawa’s works examinedthe conservative political implications of Zen’s emphasis on non-discrimination,affirmation by negation (sokuhi 即非) logic, direct experience, and cultivation ofpeace of mind in the present moment. Seeking to go beyond such doctrinal analysis, Ives (2009, 107) argues for closer examination of the symbiotic relationship between Buddhist organizations and political rulers. The opening chapterof his book documents the Japanese state’s persecution of Buddhist organizations in the early Meiji period, its crackdown on political dissent following the1911 High Treason Incident (Taigyaku Jiken 大逆事件), its “thought guidance”(shisō zendō 思想善導) campaigns in the 1920s, and its demands for ideological unity in the 1930s and 1940s. It also highlights the convergence of interests
between Buddhist organizations and the government in confronting what wereperceived to be common enemies: Christians, socialists, and the “new religions.”
The result of these pressures, according to Ives, was a pattern of Japanese Buddhist leaders working to construct a “useful Buddhism” that would contributeto nation-building and societal development (Ives 2009, 23).3 Ives’s macro-level
3. LoBreglio (2017) calls attention to another important historical factor behind modern
Japanese Buddhist nationalism: disillusionment over the League of Nations’ rejection of the
racial equality proposal and harsh treatment of Germany.

54 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
discussion of sociopolitical pressures helps contextualize Victoria and others’
micro-level observations about cases of war support and resistance among Buddhist individuals. Yet the intermediary level of organizational dynamics—how
individual Buddhists fit into Buddhist organizations, how those organizations
were structured and governed, how broader social and political pressures on
individuals were mediated by those organizations, and so on—remains unaccounted for.
As highlighted in the long quotation at the outset of this article, there existed
a tension between Buddhist teachings of non-killing and public pressure on
Buddhists to support the war. Within a Shin Buddhist context, further tensions
existed between state demands for kami reverence and Shin teachings against
kami reverence, and between state teachings on Japan as a divine land (shinkoku神国) and Buddhist teachings on seeking rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land. Individual Shin Buddhists had good reasons to oppose the war and the pro-war, imperialist reframing of Shin teachings. Shin layman Hirose Akira 廣瀬 明 (1919–1947)
is a case in point. As a student at Ōtani University from 1939–1942, Hirose waspressured by sect leaders and military training officials to affirm that his faith inAmida supported his devotion to the emperor. Hirose’s diary records his Buddhism-inspired reluctance to do so, as well as his misgivings about worshiping
kami, glorifying this world rather than the Pure Land, and subordinating his
individual will to the state (Terasawa 2018, 2–3). After being forced to graduate
early and enlist in the army, Hirose’s disapproval of Shin sect leaders persisted.
According to Terasawa’s analysis, Hirose “saw that, instead of taking responsibility for issues of faith and society, the Shinshū leadership was focused on institutional survival, opportunistically allying themselves with the ultranationalists.
Hirose insisted that each Shinshū believer must reject denominational pride andbecome independent” (Terasawa 2018, 5). Why were Hirose and others unable
to effectively “reject denominational pride and become independent”? Why did
Buddhist leaders’ militarist agenda win out on the whole?
To understand what drove Japanese Buddhist war support writ large, we needmore studies of Buddhist organizational dynamics. In his study of religious violence, Bruce Lincoln (2006) argues that there are four main interlocking features of any religion, all of which must be taken into account: a discourse, a setof practices, a community, and an institution. Regarding religious institutions,
Lincoln writes:
Coherence over space and continuity over time [of a religion] are secured byformal or semiformal structures staffed by officials, experts, and functionaries
authorized to speak and act not only on behalf of the community, but also on
behalf of the tradition or religion itself. Such structures vary tremendously intheir size, power, rigidity, elite status, funding, degree of centralization, degreeof hierarchy, and style of operation. But in whatever form they take, they houseschroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 55
the leaders who assume responsibility for preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of the group’s defining discourse; supervision of its rituals; adjudication and enforcement of its ethics; nurturance, defense, and advancement of
the community. Sometimes they derive considerable wealth from such service,and they are regularly caught up in serious contradictions. The most important of these is the contradiction between their own corporate self-interests andthose of the community, and that between the need to accommodate change
while preserving claims to eternal truth.
(Lincoln 2006, 7)

In regard to modern Japanese Buddhism, scholarship to date has provided
valuable insights on the corporate self-interests of Buddhist leaders, the diverse
interests and beliefs of rank-and-file Buddhists, and the contradictions between
them. What remains to be clarified is how Buddhist organizations were structured and governed and thus how contradictions between Buddhist leaders andcommunity members were resolved. Japanese-language scholarship has beensomewhat better in addressing issues of Buddhist organizational dynamics.4
Drawing upon that scholarship and my own analysis of government and sect
documents, the remainder of this article will explore the structures and dynamics of Buddhist organizations prior to and during the Fifteen Years’ War.
Establishment of the Kanchō System
The groundwork for centralized, autocratic rule within modern Japanese Buddhist organizations was laid in the Tokugawa period. To establish administrative
oversight over Buddhist organizations and to enlist their help in monitoring the
populace, the shogunate issued laws requiring all Buddhist temples to incorporate themselves into head-branch relationships with other temples. Mirroring the feudal power relations of the era, Buddhist sects were organized into
an elaborate system of head temples (honzan 本山), intermediate head temples(chūhonji 中本寺), minor head temples (kohonji 小本寺), direct branch temples( jiki matsuji 直末寺), and descendant branch temples (mago matsuji 孫末寺). In
the case of the Jōdo Shin Honganji denomination, records show instances ofeight levels of head-branch relationships, such that a decision to appoint a newresident priest at the lowest-ranking temple would require successive approval
from seven higher-ranking temples (Akamatsu and Kasahara 1963, 338).
4. Haseyama (1956) and Umeda (1971) provide thorough accounts of religious law and organizational structures in modern Japan. Takeuchi (1971) and Kashiwahara (1986) are examples
of detailed studies of organizational development within particular Buddhist sects or denominations. Regarding war specifically, a number of Japanese- and English-language works haveinvestigated the impact of the 1940 Religious Organizations Law (Garon 1986; Krämer 2011;
Niino 2014). For a brief review of Japanese scholarship on modern Japanese Buddhism and war,see Ōtani (2015).

56 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
Although a sect’s head temple theoretically governed over the entire sect, inpractice, regional head temples directly administered their branch temples on
many matters, held considerable landholdings, and were sometimes headed by
the nobility; as such, they possessed considerable independence and authority.
Each sect was also required to establish one or more administrative head temples (  furegashira jiin 触頭寺院) in the vicinity of the capital of Edo. These temples
served as liaisons between the government and the sects. Although technicallybranch temples under the authority of a head temple, these administrative head
temples were frequently in a position to oversee and overrule their head temple(Tamamuro 2006).
In the modern era, this complex balancing of authority was eliminated, as the
new Meiji state mandated that authority be centralized in a single individual ata sect’s head temple. The origins of this mandate lie in the Great Promulgation
Campaign (Taikyō Senpu Undō 大教宣布運動). In 1869, the state had mobilized
Shinto priests to instruct the populace about their new government and its Shinto-based imperial ideology. This program faltered, in part due to Shinto priests’lack of facility in public preaching. To address this failing, the state launched theGreat Promulgation Campaign in 1872, this time enlisting Buddhist priests towork alongside Shinto priests and others. For this purpose, each Buddhist sect
was required to appoint a kanchō.5 Initially, only seven Buddhist sects were recognized; but in 1874, the state relaxed its restrictions, permitting denominations
within sects to appoint their own administrative heads. Kanchō were charged
with overseeing the cultivation of “doctrinal instructors” (kyōdōshoku 教導職)
who could convey state-authorized teachings to the populace. All Buddhist
priests were required to pass state-administered examinations to obtain doctrinal instructor status in order to continue working as priests.6
This campaign also broke down, mainly due to Buddhist opposition to therequirement that instructors preach Shinto-based content. In 1884, Cabinet
Instruction No. 19 announced the end of the campaign and its doctrinal instructor system and the start of the kanchō system. For some, this signified the endof unwanted government influence in religious affairs. Imakita Kōsen 今北洪川
(1816–1892), kanchō of the Rinzai Zen Engakuji 円覚寺 denomination, issued anannouncement to sect members:
5. Regarding the initiation of the kanchō system, see Kashiwahara (1990, 51–52) and Ikeda(1998).
6. Doctrinal instructors were required to teach the three principles of “reverence for thekami and love of the country,” “clarifying the principles of heaven and the way of humanity,”and “revering and assisting the emperor and obeying the will of the court”; see Ketelaar (1990,
87–135) and Hardacre (2017, 376–380). For an example of a lecture given by a Jōdo Shin priest,
see Krämer (2021).

schroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 57
Now, through the announcement of Cabinet Instruction No. 19, the doctrinal
instructor position has been abolished. This ends all interference of the government and makes religion independent. From now on, the rise or fall of religions will be purely entrusted to the responsibility of each religious person.		
		(Tamamura and Inoue 1964, 671).

Imakita’s proclamation exaggerated the independence that would be enjoyed
by Buddhist organizations. The 1884 Cabinet Instruction retained the former
system’s requirement of appointing a kanchō and specified the powers that were
to be invested in the position. Moreover, a kanchō’s appointment, rules for selection, and exercise of his authority would all be subject to the approval of theHome Ministry. Thus, although the end of the Great Promulgation Campaign
marked the state’s retreat from active management of Buddhist affairs, the state
still retained considerable authority to influence Buddhist affairs through theoversight of kanchō (Umeda 1971, 124). A subsequent cabinet instruction in thesame year specified that Buddhist and Shinto kanchō must be treated as having the rank of “imperial appointees” (chokuninkan 勅任官) (Haseyama 1956,
95; Tsujioka 2017, 12). This was a rank conferred by the emperor upon militarygenerals, prefectural governors, presidents of imperial universities, and others.
This ordinance thus conferred high social status on kanchō while highlighting
the ongoing close relationship between them and the imperial government. In
political scientist Maruyama Masao’s (1963, 1–24) terms, these cabinet instructions can be understood as efforts to bring Buddhist leaders into close proximitywith the emperor and incorporate them into the nation’s political hierarchy andemperor-centered structure of values.
Implementation of the Kanchō System
The Buddhist organizational landscape was in considerable flux for much of themodern period, as Buddhist sects broke apart into independent denominations,joined together into new sects or confederations, or adopted new sect laws.7
Thus, the number of Buddhist organizations headed by kanchō, the powers thosekanchō held, and the process by which they were selected shifted over the years.
In the early 1920s, Japan’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs published a series of reportson the nation’s religious organizations. The first of those reports, published in
1921, summarized how each Buddhist and Shinto organization had implemented the kanchō system (ssc 1). In what follows, I rely on that government
7. Umeda (1971, 132–140) details the formation of thirteen sects and fifty-six denominations
by 1925 and their amalgamation into twenty-eight denominations in response to the 1940 Religious Organizations Law.

58 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
document to report on the state of Buddhist organizations at that time, while
drawing on relevant sect law documents to provide further details.8
According to the 1921 report, Japan had thirteen Shinto organizations andfifty-one Buddhist organizations headed by kanchō. The Buddhist organizations
were affiliated with the Jōdo Shin (10), Sōtō (1), Shingon (4), Jōdo (4), Rinzai(14), Nichiren (9), Tendai (3), Ōbaku (1), Ji (1), Yūzū Nenbutsu (1), Hossō (1),Ritsu (1), and Kegon (1) sects. Some of the organizations were “sects” (shū 宗)
while others were “denominations” (ha 派) of sects; in many instances, the distinction is moot since denominations had become entirely independent. The
organizations varied greatly in terms of size, as judged by the number of temples:ten out of fifty-one organizations oversaw 87.4 percent of all temples in Japan(see table 1). That means that administrative control over more than sixty thousand Buddhist temples and their more than ten million members was overseen
by ten individuals.
A kanchō’s official job was to administer his sect (or denomination) in accordance with his sect’s teachings and constitution. The sect constitutions (shūken宗憲) of most Buddhist organizations specified that the kanchō had the authority
to appoint or dismiss priests; confer ranks on priests and instructors; appoint
or dismiss all sect administration employees; confer awards and punishmentson sect members; convene and adjourn the sect’s legislative assembly; veto laws
passed by that legislative assembly; and, in urgent situations, bypass the sect’s
legislative process and issue executive orders. A few sect constitutions (for example, Tendai and Shingon) granted a role to kanchō in levying sect fees and overseeing sect finances, but for the most part, kanchō did not have direct oversightover their organization’s budgets. Naturally, a kanchō did not perform all theseduties single-handedly. In most organizations, much of this work was delegatedto an administrative director appointed by the kanchō and known by various
titles depending on the sect and time period (for example, shūmu sōchō 宗務総長,
jimu sōchō 寺務総長, shūmuin sōmu 宗務院総務, kantoku 監督, shikkō 執行).
Although no such requirement was demanded by the 1884 Cabinet Instruction, most sect constitutions—including Sōtō, Honganji, Ōtani, Shingon, Tendai, and Jōdo—granted kanchō ultimate authority over doctrinal judgments.
For example, the Sōtō sect constitution states, “The kanchō judges arguments
concerning sect teachings” (Sōtōshū shūken, 19); the Ōtani constitution states,“The kanchō judges what is correct or false regarding sect principles” (ShinshūŌtaniha shūken, 7); and the Kogi Shingon sect constitution states, “Concerning
8. I consulted the following sect constitutions: Jōdo shūsei (1928; most recently revised in
1923), Kogi Shingonshū shūken (1931; issued in 1926 and revised thereafter), Nichirenshū hōki
(1935), Shinshū Ōtaniha shūken (1937; issued in 1929 and revised thereafter), Sōtōshū shūken(1927; issued in 1922), and Tendaishū kenshō (1924; issued in 1915 and revised thereafter).

schroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 59

table 1. Buddhist organizations by number of temples

The number of temples is based on 1922 data compiled in ssc (18: 13–27). That report indicates a total of 68,812 Buddhist temples, 7,176,208 Buddhist households, and 12,408,870
Buddhist followers (ssc 18: 3). The population of Japan in the same year was approximately
fifty-six million. Estimates of Buddhist followers vary greatly depending upon method of
calculation. A decade and a half later, the Buddhist Federation reported 41.8 million Buddhist followers—at a time when Japan’s population was approximately seventy-two million.
Shingonshū Rengō 真言宗連合 (Shingon Sect Confederation) refers to a confederation of eight Shingon denominations belonging to the “old doctrine” (kogi 古義) faction
headquartered at Mt. Kōya 高野. Technically, they constituted eight separate organizations.
However, the director of the confederation functioned as kanchō for all eight organizations,so I treat them as a single organization in table 1. The Kogi Shingon sect would be formed
in 1925 by three denominations from the Shingonshū Rengō.
The “other” category includes 2,378 temples belonging to the other thirteen Rinzai
denominations; 1,420 temples belonging to the other eight Jōdo Shin denominations; 1,280
temples belonging to three Jōdo denominations; 1,156 temples belonging to two Tendai
denominations; 1,015 temples belonging to the other eight Nichiren sects; and 1,417 temples
belonging to other miscellaneous sects.

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table 2. Buddhist kanchō systems

electors

candidates

term

Jōdo Shinshū
Honganjihanone

son of kanchōno limit

Jōdo ShinshūŌtanihanone

son of kanchōno limit

Tendaishūnonetandai appointed
by kanchōno limit

Sōtōshūresident
priests of atleast “dharma
ground” rank

resident priests of“service ground”
rank; 35 years ofmonkhood; 50
years of age

no limit (rotatesannually between
Eiheiji and Sōjiji
abbots)Rinzaishū
Myōshinjiha

resident priests
of at least sixth
dharma rank

5 individuals
nominated by former kanchō

5 years

Jōdoshūall resident
priests andteaching center
directors in foreign districts

abbots of 3 head
temples (who were no limit
also elected)

Shingonshū
Rengō

all resident
priests

abbots of 6 head
templesno limit (from1925: 7 years)

Nichirenshū

all resident
priests (as of
1924)

abbots of 44 head
temples

3 yearsschroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 61

understandings of sect tenets held by priests, parishioners, and adherents, thekanchō judges what is correct and what is false” (Kogi Shingonshū shūken, 7).
In different language, the Tendai and Jōdo sect constitutions also affirm theirkanchō’s ultimate doctrinal authority: “The Tendai zasu 座主 [prelate, that is, thekanchō] carries on the great model of the lineage of patriarchs and holds total
doctrinal authority within the sect” (Tendaishū kenshō, 5), and “The [Jōdo sect]kanchō carries on the great model of the lineage of patriarchs and purifies andcorrects doctrinal propagation” (Jōdo shūsei, 2).
The kanchō selection process varied widely by sect (see table 2). The Jōdo
Shin and Tendai sects were the least democratic. In Jōdo Shin organizations, thekanchō was a hereditary position passed down from father to son along with thetitle of Dharma Master and the position of head temple abbot (honzan jūshoku
本山住職). This tradition of hereditary succession was possible because sect
founder Shinran had married and fathered children, declaring himself “neithermonk nor layman.” Within the Honganji and Ōtani organizations, leadershippassed down through Shinran’s bloodline to the kanchō of the modern era. In
the Tendai sect, the kanchō position was assigned to the traditional head of thesect, known as the zasu. The zasu appointed one or more priests to the positionof tandai, or judge. At the time of a zasu’s death or resignation, the most seniortandai rose to the position of zasu.
All other major Buddhist sects and denominations selected their kanchō
through a voting process. The election of sect leaders was not an entirely new
phenomenon of the modern period. During the preceding Tokugawa period, themost common practice was for head temple abbots to select their own successors, who then had to be approved by the shogunate. However, Jōdo and Shingon sects had held elections by ballot (irefuda 入札) to select certain head temple
abbots and sect leaders. In other cases, the selection of head temple abbots had
been achieved through mutual consensus (for example, in the Nichiren Minobu
denomination) or through systems in which headship rotated regularly amongpriests of different lineages (as in the Zen sects).9
Participation in the modern election of a kanchō—either as a candidate oras a voter—was generally restricted to male resident temple priests (  jūshoku住職).10 Participation was further restricted on the basis of temple or priestly
ranking systems. In the Sōtō sect, where the kanchō position rotated annually between the abbots of the sect’s two head temples, Eiheiji 永平寺 and Sōjiji
總持寺, the election of the abbots was based on a temple ranking system. Temples
9. Information on early modern temple priest selection processes is compiled and discussed
in ssc (5: 14, 48–49, 60).
10. Most Rinzai Zen constitutions (including that of the Myōshinji 妙心寺 denomination)
and all Jōdo constitutions specified that voting was restricted to “male priests” (ssc 1: 25, 30–42);
other sect constitutions did not specify a gender.

62 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
belonged to three categories: high-ranking “service ground” (echi 会地) temples
where important dharma services and retreats could be held, medium-ranking “dharma ground” (hōchi 法地) temples, and low-ranking “ordinary monk
ground” (heisōchi 平僧地) temples. In the election of a new abbot of Eiheiji or
Sōjiji, all resident priests of temples of “dharma ground” rank or above in goodstanding with the sect could vote. Candidates had to be resident priests of “service ground” temples and have a monastic age of at least thirty-five and a birth
age of at least fifty.
In the most restrictive elections, candidates for kanchō or head temple abbot
positions were directly nominated by the former kanchō or head temple abbots.
Thus, in the Rinzai Myōshinji denomination, a departing kanchō nominated fivecandidates in consultation with an advisory committee. In the Sōtō sect, prior
to their deaths or resignations, abbots of Eiheiji and Sōjiji made lists nominating ten candidates, but qualified individuals not appearing on that list could still
run for election. In the Shingon sect, where eight denominations were joined
together in a confederation, the kanchō and abbot of the “general head temple”(sōhonzan 総本山, that is, Kongōbuji 金剛峯寺 on Mt. Kōya) was elected fromamong the abbots of the sect’s six “great head temples” (daihonzan 大本山). For
the election of a great head temple’s abbot, that temple (presumably its former
abbot) nominated five qualified candidates of the third priestly rank or higher,
who then had to be approved by the abbots of the other great head temples.
The Nichiren sect provides an example of a kanchō election process being
democratized over time. The sect had three types of head temples: one general head temple (Kuonji 久遠寺 on Mt. Minobu 身延), four great head temples(Hokekyōji 法華経寺, Honmonji 本門寺, Myōkenji 妙顕寺, and Honkokuji 本圀寺),
and thirty-nine head temples. Beginning in the 1890s, an election was held every
three years, with the abbots of all forty-four head temples voting to select oneof their members to serve as kanchō. In 1914, candidates for the kanchō position were restricted to the abbots of the general head temple and four great head
temples. However, in 1923, candidacy was opened again to abbots of any of theforty-four head temples, and voting rights were granted to all resident priests ofbranch temples of the fifth rank and above. Finally, in 1924, voting rights wereextended to all resident temple priests regardless of rank.11 The Jōdo and Shingon sects also granted voting rights to all resident temple priests regardless ofrank, both in elections of kanchō and of head temple abbots.
11. See the entry for “kanchō” in Nichirenshū Jiten Kankō Iinkai (1981). The sect’s fortyfour head temple priests were also elected. When resigning or transferring to a new position,a head temple priest nominated three candidates, who were required to be of a certain priestly
rank. Resident priests of branch temples under the oversight of that head temple, along with theabbots of the sect’s other head temples, could vote in the election (Nichirenshū hōki, 66–67).

schroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 63

Term length for the kanchō position varied by sect (see table 2). In the Jōdo
Shin, Tendai, Sōtō, and Jōdo sects, it was a lifetime position. In these sects, elections could be quite infrequent. For example, Yamashita Gen’yū 山下現有 (1832–1934) served as the Jōdo sect’s kanchō from 1902–1934. The Nichiren sect adopted
a three-year term. The Rinzai Myōshinji denomination adopted a five-year
term. Within the Shingon sect confederation, the kanchō position was a lifetime
appointment, but when that confederation broke apart in 1925 and denominations associated with Mt. Kōya, Ninnaji 仁和寺, and Daikakuji 大覚寺 temples
founded the Kogi Shingon sect, they adopted a seven-year term for their kanchō.
The power possessed by kanchō was held in check somewhat by the legislative and budgetary powers of sects’ legislative assemblies (gikai 議会, shūkai
宗会). These assemblies were also a new feature of Buddhist organizations in themodern period. In some cases, all members of an assembly were elected; in othercases, a portion were appointed by the kanchō.12 As with elections of kanchō,participation in elections was frequently restricted based on temple or priestly
rankings (for details, see ssc 4). Only in the postwar period would participation be extended to laypeople. It is beyond the scope of this article to review thenature of these assemblies and the extent of their powers vis-à-vis the kanchōand sect administrations. Here it is sufficient to note that kanchō generally had
the authority to convene or adjourn the meetings of those legislative assemblies,veto decisions reached by those assemblies, and issue executive orders separate
from those assemblies’ legislative processes.
Political Activities of Kanchō
Kanchō not only had extensive authority within their sectarian organizations;they also served as representatives of their sects in dealings with the state andother outside groups.13 When state leaders sought Buddhist assistance in moral
reform campaigns, anti-Communism initiatives, or spiritual mobilization forwar, they approached the kanchō with their requests or demands. By and large,
Buddhist kanchō cooperated with those requests. In exchange, they lobbied thestate in regard to proposals for a national religious organizations law, compensation for temple lands that had been confiscated by the state, and legislation
allowing religious professionals to hold public office.
12. The proportion of appointed to elected members shifted over time. For example, in theŌtani organization, a legislative assembly composed entirely of appointed members was formedin 1895. In response to a protest movement demanding reform, that assembly was expanded in1897 to include some elected members. Democratizing reforms continued, such that by 1925, allassembly members were elected, and all resident temple priests could run for or vote in an election (Kashiwahara 1986, 116–121).
13. A kanchō’s authority to represent his sect in making agreements with other Buddhist organizations was formalized in the Shingon and Tendai sect constitutions.

64 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
When proposals for a national religion law were being debated in the
National Diet in the late 1890s, some Buddhist kanchō collaborated in lobbying
government officials to reform the bill; others joined forces to oppose the bill on
the grounds that it failed to grant Buddhism a higher status than Christianity(Abe 1970; Kashiwahara 1990, 145).14 The bill was voted down in the Houseof Peers in 1900. A similar dynamic played out in 1912 when the Home Ministry requested Buddhist kanchō attend a “Conference of the Three Religions”
aimed at enlisting Buddhist, Sect Shinto, and Christian organizations in a moral
instruction campaign. A meeting of Buddhist kanchō and other Buddhist leaders was convened to coordinate a response. Again, many expressed resistance on
the grounds that the state’s plans would place Buddhism and Christianity on thesame level. Yet the kanchō of most Buddhist organizations agreed to participate
in exchange for political favors (Dohi 1967).
At a meeting of Buddhist kanchō in 1912, it was decided to establish an organization for kanchō and other top Buddhist officials to cooperate on issues of common concern. In 1915, that organization was renamed the Buddhist Federation(Bukkyō Rengōkai 仏教連合会). It was governed by twelve directors appointed
by their respective sects or denominations.15 This federation financed pansectarian initiatives ranging from political lobbying and international Buddhist
exchange to disaster relief and war preparedness training. Through distributionof pamphlets and a monthly journal (Seikyō shinron 政教新論), it also served asa conduit of information from the state to Buddhist temples and organizations
across the country. For example, after a 1924 meeting with the prime minister,
Buddhist kanchō and administrators used the Buddhist Federation to distributeinstructions to temples regarding how to support the state’s “thought guidance”
campaign (Kashiwahara 1990, 203–205). Similarly, following the 1937 China
Incident that led to Japan’s declaration of war against China, Buddhist kanchō
traveled en masse to Tokyo to pay their respects to the imperial kami at Meiji
14. Only from 1889 was Christianity officially permitted in Japan through constitutional guarantees of religious freedom, and even then, it was not incorporated into the kanchō system. From
1899, Christianity came to be regulated by Home Ministry Order No. 41, which specified requirements regarding preaching activities and construction of religious facilities. The more detailed
and stringent regulations that applied only to Buddhist and Sect Shinto organizations (especiallythe 1884 Cabinet Instruction pertaining to kanchō governance) marked those religions as having
higher social status than Christianity; see Dohi (1967, 95) and Umeda (1971, 130–131).
15. Originally named the Bukkyō Kakushū Konwakai 仏教各宗懇話会, the Buddhist Federation’s twelve directors represented Tendai, Shingon, Shingi Shingon Chisanha, Shingi Shingon
Buzanha, Rinzai (including Ōbaku), Jōdo Shin Honganjiha, Jōdo Shin Ōtaniha, eight other
Jōdo Shin denominations, Sōtō, Jōdo, Nichiren, and miscellaneous denominations (Jōdo Seizan denominations, Ji, Yūzū Nenbutsu, Shingon Risshū, Hossō, Kegon, and Ritsu). Each year, anelection was held to select one or more of those directors to serve as executive director (Nihon
Bukkyō yōran, 215–218; Kashiwahara 1990, 188; Ōsawa 2015a).

schroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 65

and Yasukuni shrines and to visit the emperor at the Imperial Palace (Anderson
1956, 48).16 The Buddhist Federation then distributed pamphlets explaining thenature of the war; held conferences promoting spiritual mobilization; promoted
religious services of gratitude for the imperial army and “alms begging to repay
the country” (hōkoku takuhatsu 報国托鉢); led efforts to provide support andcare for soldiers; and coordinated receptions and gifts for visiting leaders of state(Nihon bunka dantai nenkan, 224–229).
In 1940, the Buddhist Federation was reestablished with the more patriotic
name of Great Japan Buddhist Society (Dai Nihon Bukkyōkai 大日本仏教会) andwith a new mission of “assisting the heavenly work [of the emperor]” (tengyō oyokusan suru 天業を翼賛する). It was headed by Jōdo Shin Kibe denomination
kanchō Kibe Kōji 木辺孝慈 (1881–1969) from 1940–1941, Nichiren kanchō Sakai
Nisshin 酒井日慎 (1855–1944) from 1942–1943, and Jōdo kanchō Ikuhō Zuien
郁芳随円 (1967–1945) from 1944–1945.17 It coordinated Buddhist missionary
activities throughout Japan’s empire, collected temple bells and other metals for
donation, fostered friendly relations with Thai Buddhist leaders, and dispatchedpriests to the warfront in Burma to carry out pacification efforts (Ōsawa 2015a,
31–35, 40–43).
Separate from these collective efforts, individual kanchō shaped their sects’
responses to war through speeches, rituals, and administrative actions. For
example, during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, Honganji denomination
kanchō Ōtani Kōson 大谷光尊 (1850–1903) traveled the country encouraging sectmembers to purchase government bonds. Ōtani denomination kanchō Ōtani
Kōei 大谷光瑩 (1852–1923) awarded honorific posthumous names to sect members who died in battle. And Jōdo sect kanchō Hino Reizui 日野霊瑞 (1818–1896)
urged sect members to contribute money to relief funds for soldiers and theirfamilies. All three also visited military sites to offer comfort and inspiration to
Japanese soldiers (Ogawara 2010, 109–113).
During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, this pattern of kanchō-led
Buddhist war support only grew. Honganji denomination kanchō Ōtani Kōzui
gave a lecture promoting military service that was published as a pamphlet andused as the basis for military chaplains’ sermons. Kōzui’s extraordinary fundrais16. Another meeting of Buddhist kanchō with the emperor and the minister for culturalaffairs took place in November 1942 (Ōsawa 2015b, 32).
17. Kibe Kōji, who was a younger brother of former Honganji denomination kanchō Ōtani
Kōzui 大谷光瑞 (1876–1948), had also served as president of the Myōwakai 明和会, an intersectarian Buddhist organization that functioned as a liaison between the Japanese army and Japanese Buddhists. In 1937, the Myōwakai exchanged statements with Chinese Buddhists regarding
the ethics of the Sino-Japanese War, characterizing Japanese aggression in terms of “the benevolent forcefulness of ‘killing one in order that many may live’” (Victoria 2006, 87; Niino 2014,214).

66 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
ing, chaplaincy, and morale-boosting efforts later won him an imperial rescriptof appreciation (Ogawara 2010, 164–169). Nichiren sect kanchō Kubota Nichiki
久保田日亀 (1841–1911) declared his loyalty to the war effort, founded a patrioticorganization, and collected donations for soldiers (Ogawara 2010, 170–171).
And Shaku Sōen 釈 宗演 (1860–1919), kanchō of both the Rinzai Engakuji and
Kenchōji 建長寺 denominations, served as a military chaplain in Manchuria,
preaching to soldiers about the righteousness of their cause and the importanceof cultivating mental fortitude; he then published a book and multiple articles
about his experiences (Auerback 2012).
At the start of the Fifteen Years’ War, Jōdo sect kanchō Yamashita Gen’yū
spoke out in approval of Japan’s military takeover of Manchuria and establishment of a new nominally independent nation there (Jōdoshū 2018). Likewise,Ōtani denomination kanchō Ōtani Kōchō sent a telegram to the League of
Nations declaring the legitimacy of Japan’s actions in Manchuria (Fukushima
1995, 166). Then in a speech to Ōtani members, Kōchō urged remembrance of
Buddhists’ debt to their emperor and service to their country in accordance withthe doctrine of the “mutual dependence of the two truths” (nitai sōe 二諦相依)(Shinshū 363: 1).18
The pro-war efforts of Umetani Kōei 梅谷孝永 (1863–1945), kanchō of theTendai sect from 1927–1940, are detailed in Tendai zasu ki records publishedby Enryakuji. His addresses to the Tendai community during the Fifteen Years’War regularly highlighted the debt the sect owed to Emperor Kanmu, who had
granted permission to sect founder Saichō to establish an independent sect on
Mt. Hiei. In August 1937, Umetani joined other Buddhist kanchō in traveling toTokyo to visit the emperor and empress, palace officials, and government officials to express his wishes for “enhancement of the emperor’s majesty and perpetuation of the army’s good fortune” and to present gifts of sacred talismans(Tendai zasu ki, 61). Back on Mt. Hiei, Umetani instructed his sect about theneed to contribute support to the “holy war” that would bring peace to East Asia
(Tendai zasu ki, 64). Umetani also participated in or oversaw memorial services
for deceased emperors, memorial services for the war dead, condolence visitsand donations to military hospitals, and the dispatching of priests to serve as
military chaplains. Some of those donations and funds came directly from the
Umetani Shōtoku Foundation (Tendai zasu ki, 63).
The nationalist, pro-war statements of Sōtō Zen sect kanchō Hata Eshō 秦 慧昭(1862–1944; kanchō from 1934–1935 and 1941–1944) have been well-documented
by scholars. For example, in a January 1942 journal article, Hata defined the
18. Within modern Jōdo Shin communities, the Buddhist doctrine of “absolute truth” (shintai真諦) and “conventional truth” (zokutai 俗諦) was interpreted to refer to Buddhist teachings andsecular law respectively (Rogers and Rogers 1991).

schroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 67

Buddhist doctrine of “right intention” as a matter of “vanquishing the self andserving the public,” explaining that such an attitude would be fundamental tothe establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Takeuchi
1971, 246). And in a December 1942 article, Hata echoed others’ observations
about the coincidence of the dates of Śākyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment andof the emperor’s declaration of war against the United States and Great Britain,
remarking that the latter event signified “the enlightenment of East Asia” (Victoria 2006, 131).
In terms of active war support during the Fifteen Years’ War, no Buddhist
kanchō outdid the efforts of Ōtani Kōshō 大谷光照 (1911–2002) of the Jōdo
Shin Honganji denomination. Like his counterpart in the Ōtani denomination,
Kōshō enjoyed the noble rank of “count” (hakushaku 伯爵), granted to the headof his household by the Imperial Household Agency in 1896 (Tsujioka 2021).
Noble rank was a unique feature of Jōdo Shin kanchō, who belonged to eminent
families descending from the sect founder Shinran; other Buddhist sects, traditionally committed to monastic rules of celibacy, were not led by households
that could inherit and pass down noble rank. In practice, noble rank conferred
the right to visit the inner precincts of the Imperial Palace, attend Gakushūin
学習院 (Peers School), serve in Japan’s House of Peers, and marry other membersof the nobility.19 Kōshō’s predecessor Ōtani Kōzui had married the sister of theformer empress. In a match arranged by prince and soon-to-be Prime Minister
Konoe Fumimaro 近衞文麿 (1891–1945), Kōshō also married a princess (Anderson 1956, 132).
Kōshō was unique among Buddhist kanchō in enlisting in the military. He
served in 1936 and again from 1939 to 1941, rising from the rank of private tolieutenant (Anderson 1956, 132–134). His military service was loudly promotedin Honganji publications as a model for sect members to follow. When notengaged in armed service, Kōshō made multiple tours of the warfront to console
and motivate troops in Manchuria and China. On one such tour in late 1937,
Kōshō visited Nanjing the day after it fell to Japanese troops. During his fourday visit, he participated in a ceremonial march into Nanjing and officiated at
a memorial service for the war dead. Kōshō’s visit coincided with the start of
the well-documented Nanjing Massacre. An adamant supporter of Japan’s army,
Kōshō reported that during his four days in and around the city, he observed
only a peaceful environment with no indications of any massacre (Ara 2002,
311). Back in Japan, Kōshō visited the Imperial Palace, Meiji Shrine, and Ise
Grand Shrines to pay his respects to the emperor and the imperial kami. He also
19. Honganji kanchō Ōtani Kōzui had attended Gakushūin; Kōzui’s brother Ōtani Sonyu 大谷
尊由 (1886–1939) served in the House of Peers from 1928 and was appointed Minister of Colonial

Affairs from 1937–1938.

68 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
traveled the country giving patriotic sermons and served as an official in theImperial Rule Assistance Association (iraa), the fascist political party createdin 1940 by Prime Minister Konoe (Anderson 1956, 134–138). During the Allied
occupation, Kōshō would be purged from all public offices due to his involvement in the iraa (Woodard 1972, 187, 203).
Ōtani Kōchō, kanchō of the Ōtani denomination, promoted the war throughsermons, a national radio address, visits to the warfront, kikyōshiki 帰敬式
initiation rites for soldiers shipping off to war, and funeral services for the war
dead.20 Following the Pearl Harbor attack, Kōchō declared to the Ōtani community that the emperor’s goal of uniting “the eight corners of the world under
one roof ” (hakkō ichiu 八紘一宇) was rooted in a desire for shared peace andprosperity among East Asian nations, and that faithful Buddhists ought to exert
themselves to repay the “unfathomable imperial blessings” they had received(Shinshū 484: 3). Kōchō’s wife, Satoko, also contributed to the war effort by preparing care packages for soldiers, making condolence hospital visits to woundedsoldiers, composing jingoistic poems and hymns, and accompanying her husband on trips to the warfront.21
Such are examples of how some prominent Buddhist kanchō used their influence to promote war support among Buddhist communities. Future scholarship
might investigate the wartime actions of other prominent kanchō or the underlying reasons for the kanchō’s uniform support for the state and its wars.22 In thenext section, I will examine more closely the impact of the kanchō organizational
structure on the dynamics of war support among Buddhist scholars.
Organizational Dynamics of Buddhist War Support
The February 1941 Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference (Shinshū Kyōgaku Kondankai 真宗教学懇談会) was organized and moderated by Ōtani Eijun, uncle ofkanchō Ōtani Kōchō. Within the Ōtani denomination, members of the Ōtani
family were treated like royalty. Like the kanchō, they enjoyed noble status andwere distinguished from commoners by honorific titles. Two months after the
February 1941 Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, Eijun would be appointed
20. Carried out specifically for soldiers shipping off for war, kikyōshiki initiation rites took on
connotations of preparing soldiers for death. Having been initiated into the Jōdo Shin community,
it was thought that death in battle would lead to rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land (Niino 2014, 63).
21. For details on Kōchō and Satoko’s wartime activities, see Schroeder (2022, 154–157).
22. During the Fifteen Years’ War, such kanchō included Mochizuki Nikken 望月日謙
(Nichiren kanchō, 1936–1941), Sakai Nisshin (Nichiren kanchō, 1941–1944), Suzuki Tenzan 鈴木
天山 (Sōtō kanchō, 1935–1940), Tōkai Tōtatsu 東海東達 (Rinzai Myōshinjiha kanchō, 1932–1937),
Mineo Daikyū 峰尾大休 (Rinzai Myōshinjiha kanchō, 1937–1941), Iwai Chikai 岩井智海 (Jōdokanchō, 1934–1937), Ikuhō Zuien (Jōdo kanchō, 1937–1945), and Takaoka Ryūshin 高岡隆心
(Shingon kanchō, 1934–1939).

schroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 69

head of sect affairs. Eijun’s convening of the Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference,
appointment as head of sect affairs, and subsequent restructuring of the Ōtani
organization all seem to have been responses to the 1940 Religious Organizations Law. As Eijun’s opening remarks at the conference allude (quoted above),the state was increasingly scrutinizing and censoring religious teachings. Prime
Minister Hiranuma Kiichirō’s 平沼騏一郎 (1867–1952) remarks in a 1939 speech to
the Imperial Diet regarding the Religious Organizations Law exemplify the state’s
hard line on religious teachings: “In our country, the instructions of the ancestralkami, which is to say the way of the kami, is the absolute way, and the people ofour country all must respectfully follow it. Teachings which differ from or conflict with it are not permitted to exist” (Dai nanajū yon kai Teikoku Gikai, 320).
To understand the dynamics of the Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, it isnecessary first to note who was in attendance. Alongside members of the Ōtani
family, top-ranking sect officials, and top-ranking sect scholars, two individuals
stand out: Soga Ryōjin 曽我量深 (1875–1971) and Kaneko Daiei 金子大栄 (1881–
1976). Their presence was surprising because they essentially had been excommunicated from the sect for a decade. In 1928, owing to unorthodox doctrinal
studies methods and viewpoints (for example, describing Amida’s Pure Land as
an “idea” rather than a “substance”), Kaneko was accused of heresy and pressured to resign from his professorship at Otani University and to relinquish his
status as a priest (Schroeder 2014; Murayama 2021). Two years later, Kaneko’s
mentor and colleague Soga was also accused of heresy and pressured to resignfrom his professorship. Throughout the 1930s, neither scholar played any significant role in Ōtani sect affairs. However, both independently gave lecturesand published writings on Shin Buddhism’s connections to the Imperial Houseand State Shinto ideology. Kaneko additionally joined a Ministry of Education
research association devoted to promoting “national spirit,” gave lectures at government-sponsored conferences, and published books through affiliates of the
Ministry of Education (Ishii 2012; Schroeder 2022, 161–170). In a time of escalating political pressures, sect administrators like Ōtani Eijun turned for help to
Soga and Kaneko.
At the conference, Kaneko and Soga outlined their unorthodox interpretations of Amida Buddha, Amida’s Pure Land, and their relationship to Japan,
the emperor, and the imperial kami. For example, Kaneko remarked, “It’s notincorrect to say that the Buddha Land is the land of the kami. The land of ourancestors [that is, the ancestral kami] is the Pure Land. The Pure Land scriptures
are the nation’s scriptures. The Pure Land nenbutsu [chanting the name of the
Buddha], just as it is, is reverence toward the land of the kami” (Shinshū kyōgaku
kondankai, 20). Similarly, Soga drew connections between Amida Buddha andthe imperial sun kami Amaterasu, arguing that both are “ancestors” who are different from “religious gods,” and that Amaterasu can be viewed as a manifestation

70 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
of Amida (Shinshū kyōgaku kondankai, 8). In discussing the relationship between
loyalty to the emperor and faith in Amida Buddha, Soga argued that “Amida’s
Primal Vow and the emperor’s primal vow are in accord” (Shinshū kyōgaku kondankai, 15). “Primal Vow” (hongan 本願) refers to Amida Buddha’s vow to saveall sentient beings; by speaking of “the emperor’s primal vow” and claiming it to
be in accord with Amida’s Primal Vow, Soga seems to attribute salvific power toJapan’s emperor.
Traditionalist scholars at the conference resisted Soga and Kaneko’s identification of the Pure Land with Japan and of Amida Buddha with Amaterasu andthe emperor. They continued to frame Shin Buddhists’ loyalty to the emperor inmore modest terms, for example, as a matter of repaying historical debts owed to
the Imperial House for supporting Buddhist institutions. Essentially, they sought
to support the state and its wars without sacralizing them. At times, this resistance to a fuller embrace of State Shinto ideology led them to criticize state policies. For example, Kōno Hōun noted contradictions between the content of State
Shinto rituals and the state’s explanation of those rituals as “nonreligious” dutiesof all loyal citizens. Accepting the premise that Shinto rituals were to be nonreligious, Kōno criticized the state as “mistaken” in promoting norito 祝詞 prayers,
harae 祓 ritual purification ceremonies, and prayers at home altars (kamidana神棚), all of which he judged to be “religious” (Shinshū kyōgaku kondankai, 5–6).23
Following the conference, Ōtani Eijun’s new administration conferred highscholarly ranks on Soga and Kaneko, restored them to professorships at Otani
University, appointed them to a committee in charge of settling doctrinal disputes, invited them to give prestigious lectures, and appointed them to head two
of four departments in a new research institute. These actions were obviously afulfillment of Eijun’s stated intention to cultivate personnel more skilled at combating negative public perceptions of Shin Buddhism as unpatriotic (Shinshū
479: 2). Soga and Kaneko thus became central voices in Ōtani doctrinal affairs
during the remaining war years, proclaiming to sect members and the public atlarge the convergence between Shin Buddhist teachings and State Shinto ideology and the reasons why Shin Buddhists ought to sacrifice themselves for the
war effort (Schroeder 2022, 184–186).
There is every reason to suspect that similar dynamics played out within other
Buddhist organizations. Kanchō and the administrators they appointed had thepower to make crucial personnel decisions to determine who would lead their
23. In 1936, Kōno had faced backlash for publishing an article describing kami such as Amaterasu and Hachiman as “sentient beings within the deluded realm of karmic transmigration”(rinne no kahō meikai no ujō 輪廻の果報迷界の有情) (Shūso shōnin no jingikan, 15). At that time,
sect administrators pressured him to resign his position as president of Otani University. Otherwise, he does not seem to have been disciplined for any of his other politically controversial
remarks.

schroeder: buddhist war support and the kanchō system | 71

organizations during the war years. Organizational pressures stemming fromabove helped shape an environment where the most nationalist, pro-war voices
became prominent and resistant voices were marginalized. In a rare case like thatof Takenaka Shōgen 竹中彰元 (1867–1945), a temple priest in a small town in Gifu
Prefecture who had dared in 1937 to speak out loudly against the war with China,Ōtani sect administrators responded with denouncements and punishmentsthat effectively silenced him (Ōtani 2012, 145–147). The Shin Doctrinal Studies
Conference shows that even among Buddhist leaders, there existed a variety ofpolitical viewpoints toward the state ranging from sacred devotion to pragmatic
loyalty to outright criticism. Organizational pressures from the kanchō system
help explain why, within major Buddhist organizations, any resistance to stateideology or initiatives failed to congeal into collective action. In Maruyama’s(1963, 60) terms, the kanchō system effectively created “petty emperors” whoenforced acceptance of state ideology within their communities. The only potential for coordinated resistance existed outside those organizations among small,independent Buddhist movements, the clearest example being socialist Nichiren
Buddhist Senoo Girō’s Youth Buddhist Alliance (Shields 2017, 203–225).
Conclusion
It is sometimes remarked that Buddhism is a religion “without any pope.” It istrue that no single figure possesses doctrinal or administrative authority overall Buddhists. The Dalai Lama is not the “Buddhist pope.” However, if the term
“pope” is used in a looser sense to indicate an individual with ultimate authority over doctrinal and administrative affairs within a religious organization, one
might say that modern Japanese Buddhist organizations were governed by popes.
The reality of modern Japanese Buddhism governed by pope-like figures
grates against prevailing modernist depictions of Buddhism as an individualist path where each practitioner is permitted—or even expected—to question
authority and investigate the teachings directly through personal study andexperience. Approaching the study of Buddhism from such a perspective, one
may be surprised to discover millions of Buddhists joining together in declaring their total loyalty to an emperor and dedication to imperialist wars. But inpractice, Buddhism has rarely functioned as an individualist endeavor. Most
Japanese Buddhists in the modern period belonged to hierarchical sectarian organizations governed by kanchō, and those kanchō and their appointees
exerted powerful pressure on sect members to adapt Buddhist teachings andpractices to wartime demands. Investigating such organizational dynamics is
critical for gaining a better understanding of what accounted for modern Buddhist war support and of what practical steps might be taken by Buddhists intent
on ensuring their tradition’s independence from the state in the future.

72 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
In documenting the background, implementation, and effects of the kanchōorganizational system, this article has only scratched the surface of modern Japanese Buddhist organizational dynamics. Viewing Buddhist organizations as“corporations” that share much in common with for-profit businesses and othercollective enterprises (McLaughlin, Rots, Thomas, and Watanabe 2020),
one might ask: What management strategies were adopted by Buddhist kanchōand their appointees in mitigating conflicts and achieving organizational objectives? How were the demands of various shareholders and stakeholders within
and outside Buddhist communities balanced? How did Buddhist organizations
foster self-sacrificing attitudes among their members? How were the decisions of
Buddhist leaders shaped by economic interests? And how were Buddhist organizations modeled after or otherwise influenced by non-Buddhist organizations,such as Shinto or Christian organizations, zaibatsu business conglomerates, or
the Imperial House? To get to the root of why individual Buddhists engaged with
war and other issues as they did, it is essential to learn more about the organizations that they gave shape to and by which they were in turn shaped.

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ssc

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to kange 江戸時代曹洞宗總持寺の再建勧化について— 文化三年の大火と勧化. Meiji Daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūsho kiyō 58: 53–79.
Terasawa, Kunihiko2018 The case of Hirose Akira: The ethical predicament of a Japanese Buddhist youth during World War II. Religions 9 (no. 185): 1–8.		
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Tsujioka Takeshi 辻岡健志
2017 Kōshitsu no shinbutsu bunri to sono go no Bukkyō: Kunaishō no taiōo chūshin ni 皇室の神仏分離とその後の仏教— 宮内省の対応を中心に .
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kōchiki ni kan suru ichi kōsatsu 僧侶華族としての東西本願寺—皇室と仏教の関係構築に関する一考察. Kindai Bukkyō 28: 66–92.

Umeda Yoshihiko 梅田義彦
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Zōho 改訂増補. Tōsen Shuppan.
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2006 Zen at War. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
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1972 The Allied Occupation of Japan 1945–1952 and Japanese Religions. Brill.

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1: 79–104© 2023 Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture
dx.doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.50.1.2023.79-104

Matthew Mitchell

Opening the Curtains on Popular Practice
Kaichō in the Meiji and Taisho Periods

In this article I discuss the continuity and changes of displays of temple andshrine treasures (kaichō) in the Meiji and Taisho periods. I estimate the number and features of kaichō in these periods primarily using articles in the Yomiuri shinbun and Shinano mainichi shinbun newspapers. I discuss the ways thatthese displays intersected with aspects of the Meiji period, including changing
laws and the expansion of a convenient transportation network. The newspaper articles are also an excellent source of information regarding the practiceof these displays, including the functions of confraternities, continued attraction of sideshows (misemono), and use of these displays to pray for victory inJapan’s modern wars and the repose of its war dead.

keywords: kaichō—newspapers—trains—confraternities—law

Matthew Mitchell is Visiting Assistant Professor, Religion and Philosophy Department,
High Point University.

79

On the evening of 19 June 1885, several members of the Tokyo police onpatrol in Fukagawa 深川 Park approached a woman they thought wastrying to kill herself. They asked her name, but she would only mumble, “Even Fudōsama can’t hear [me]” or “I can’t even hear Fudōsama.” After
repeated questioning, the police managed to discover that she had come fromher home in Mie Prefecture with a request for the Fudō Myōō 不動明王 from
Shinshōji 新勝寺 in Narita, which had been on display in the park. When she
arrived, however, she found that the display had ended on 13 June and became
distraught. Thinking it best not to leave her alone, the police temporarily placed
the woman in a local hospital (ys 21 June 1885, 2).1
This woman’s story highlights several issues that this article examines. The
first is that displays of regularly hidden images (kaichō 開帳) still had the power
to draw people from all over Japan even into the modern period, despite thedearth of scholarship on the display of temple and shrine treasures in thisperiod. Perhaps this lacuna is understandable: for some scholars, the early modern period was the heyday of kaichō, and accordingly their work remains firmly
focused on this period (Hiruma 1980). Even scholars who discuss hidden buddhas and their displays in the medieval and modern periods skip much of what
happened in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Horton 2007).
One might incorrectly assume from research that ignores this period that kaichō and practices associated with them remained relatively unchanged from theearly modern period to the present day. As I will demonstrate below, although
the early modern period was the golden age of kaichō in terms of numbers anddisplay size, the displays that are held at temples today have undergone small but
significant changes since then late nineteenth century.
The woman’s story highlights another important issue: how kaichō practices
intersected with and were changed by the various aspects of Japan’s transformations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The most obvious inthis case is the newspaper: the story of how she missed the display of Fudō wascovered in the Yomiuri shinbun (ys). In the first section of this article, I discuss
newspaper coverage of kaichō in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Articles about kaichō varied and included announcements of upcoming* I would like to thank Richard Jaffe, Stephen Covell and attendees of the Fourteenth AsianStudies Conference, and Maya Stiller and members of her Buddhist art seminar for commentson drafts of this paper.
1. Unless noted, all quotations from the Yomiuri shinbun are from the morning edition.

80

mitchell: kaichō in the meiji and taisho periods | 81

displays, opinion pieces, the promulgation of laws, highlights about travel todisplays, and discussions of events at and around kaichō. The two newspapers
I discuss below had major differences as well. The Shinano mainichi shinbun(sms) focused on displays held in Nagano or by Zenkōji 善光寺, and during those
displays the paper ran multiple, lengthy articles on many days discussing activities and participation. The content in the ys was more varied yet shorter. It also
shifted throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with morediverse articles and legal promulgations appearing in the 1880s and 1890s and lesscomplex announcements about and advertisements for kaichō in the 1900s. I also
estimate the number and frequency of displays from the articles that appearedin the papers. These numbers show that there were some continuities over thecourse of the Meiji period; the trends of which temples displayed their images
and which ones hosted displays remained similar to those seen in the early modern period. There were some changes as well: religious sites seem to have slowly
decreased the number of displays of treasures outside of their home temple or
shrine (degaichō 出開帳), while continuing to display their treasures in their own
temples or shrines (igaichō 居開帳), a trend that began in the late Edo period(Ambros 2004).2
The woman’s encounter with the police brings up yet another aspect of modern Japan that I discuss here: the police and changing legal codes. In the second
section of this article, I examine how temples and shrines navigated the changes
enacted by the nascent Meiji state by looking at how laws and changes in the
penal system affected kaichō, especially degaichō, in the 1870s and 1880s. Finally,
one aspect of Japan’s nineteenth- and twentieth-century transformations evident from the woman’s story is perhaps less obvious: that a woman from Mie
Prefecture traveled to Tokyo for a display of Narita’s Fudō image. While travel
over such a distance was not unusual for the early modern period, transportation changed rapidly in the Meiji period. Thus, I also discuss how infrastructuralchanges, especially quick and convenient train travel, affected the practice of kaichō in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Other scholars writing about kaichō have focused on the absent or hidden
image, questioning its ontological or semiotic status (Rambelli 2002; Hur2009). Rather than ask, “What happens at kaichō?” they ask, “What does it mean
to hide an image?” or “What does this signify?” Here I focus on what happens
when that image is shown. To this end, in the final section of the article I consider
three examples of practice associated with kaichō. The first is the role of confraternities (kō 講) in kaichō and how those roles changed in the late nineteenth and2. There are several types of degaichō, from the single stop, just called degaichō, to the tourof the provinces, called kaikoku kaichō 回国開帳 . Because it is unclear from the news coverage
under discussion, I use the broader classification of degaichō.

82 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
early twentieth centuries. Second, I examine the sideshows (misemono 見世物)
popular during the early modern period to show how they continued with novel
attractions into the modern period. Finally, I discuss two cases of kaichō usedduring the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) to pray for victory, the wellbeingof soldiers, and the repose of the war dead. Though these examples may be too
few or selective to make a larger argument about modern kaichō, I include themto demonstrate the range of activities, both old and new, that occurred at andaround kaichō. Perhaps they will inspire others to examine these practices inmore depth.
An examination of modern kaichō is particularly useful for several reasons.
First, it provides an excellent opportunity to study popular practices in these
periods. These practices are often overlooked in order to study the reformationof Buddhism, how government policy affected religious traditions, or the growthof new religions. Second, by examining modern kaichō, we may see continuity and change across time. As I mentioned above, kaichō and practices associated with them did not suddenly cease, change drastically, or simply continue
unchanged after the Meiji Restoration. Rather, there was a gradual process oftransformation from early modern kaichō to those of postwar and contemporary
Japan, such as displays in department stores (Reader 2014, 1–27). Finally, anexamination of kaichō in these periods demonstrates how the intersections of
popular practice with governmental regulations and modern innovations led tochanges in the practice of kaichō.
Before moving on, it might be useful to briefly discuss kaichō. As mentioned
above, kaichō refers to the display of a temple or shrine’s treasures either in thehome institution or at an outside institution. The characters for kaichō literally
mean “opening the curtain.” Although the objects displayed were most often hidden statues or images (hibutsu 秘仏), they could also be scrolls or even relics ofthe Buddha or a saint. Other nonreligious treasures could also be displayed, suchas the display at Sengakuji 泉岳寺 that includes the weapons and armor associated with the forty-seven samurai of Chūshingura 忠臣蔵 fame. Public displaysof temple treasures have their roots in ninth-century China, there is mentionof hidden images in the Konjaku monogatari 今昔物語, and there are records oftemples in Japan displaying their treasures from the Kamakura period (Horton
2007, 157; Ambros 2004, 2–3).3 Temples and shrines perform kaichō for various
reasons. One reason is to allow petitioners to create a karmic connection withthe deity. Deities are also thought to respond to face-to-face requests for benefits
3. Horton examines a number of reasons given to hide images: influences from esoteric Buddhism and Shinto, practical concerns (hiding the damage to images or controlling the viewingof images for fundraising purposes), that concealment is an element of Japanese society, and thathiding an image is similar to the way that our illusions obscure our buddha-nature (Horton
2007, 166–173).

mitchell: kaichō in the meiji and taisho periods | 83

(Ambros 2004, 3; MacWilliams 1997, 398–403). In some instances, temple legends mention how their images had to be hidden and only occasionally unveiled
to protect casual viewers from their power. Some images were considered so
powerful or precious that copies were made at the temple for ritual or display
purposes while the originals were hidden from view. The Maedachi Honzon 前立
本尊 (literally, “the image that stands before”) at Shinano 信濃 Zenkōji is perhaps
the most famous example of such a copy of an image. In Zenkōji’s case, its main
image has remained hidden for many years (referred to as a completely hidden
buddha [zettai hibutsu 絶対秘仏]) and its Maedachi Honzon, which is a nationaltreasure in its own right, is what is shown to the public during kaichō.
Kaichō are also important economically for the temple or shrine and its local
area because of the large number of pilgrims who come to see the image. Thus,
kaichō are often used as fundraisers for the institutions, for instance when theyneed to repair a hall. Additionally, in the Edo period, the Tokugawa government
benefited because it did not need to give money to temples and shrines if they
could raise it on their own (Ambros 2004, 3; Hiruma 1980, 202–203). Finally,kaichō and degaichō were effective means of advertising a temple in the hopes ofencouraging potential pilgrims to visit it (Reader 2014, 4).
Displays in the NewsIn the early modern period, kaichō were advertised through signposts in the
crossroads and outside of the hosting temples and by showy processions as theobjects to be displayed were paraded into or through the town (Ambros 2004).
In the Meiji period, another form of advertisement was added: the newspaper.
Displays were, and still are, considered newsworthy events. Additionally, kaichōorganizers purchased ad space to make their upcoming displays known.
In this article, I examine articles published in the ys during the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Although the ys is now a nationwide newspaperwith offices in major cities, in the Meiji and Taisho periods the paper focused on
Tokyo. It began publishing on 11 November 1874, and by 1875 it had the highest
readership of any paper in Tokyo. By 1885, it had the second largest readershipof any paper in Japan. Subscription numbers fluctuated around fifteen thousand
for its first twenty-five years, increased from twenty to thirty thousand from
1900–1910, and jumped to seventy thousand in 1915 (Huffman 1997, 87–89, 142,
386–387). It was popular for a number of reasons: it was published with furigana
reading aids, written in a popular style, and it printed topics of interest for a massaudience (Huffman 1997, 89–93). Although it only briefly touched on politics
for the first decades of its publication, it published the laws and announcementsof the local and national governments, which is useful for this study (Huffman
1997, 89, 129).

84 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
The history of the newspaper shapes the information that we are able to glean
from it. For instance, since the paper was founded six years after the Meiji Restoration it cannot be used to track the immediate effects of the “separation of buddhas and kami” (shinbutsu bunri rei 神仏分離令, announced 17 and 28 March 1868)or “Destroy the buddhas, eliminate Śākyamuni” (haibutsu kishaku 廃仏毀釈,
1868–1871) movements on kaichō. Nor can we determine what effects, if any,
the Great Promulgation Campaign (1870–1884) and the laicization of Buddhist
priests had on kaichō.
Because the ys focused on Tokyo during this period, much of its coverage concerns temples and shrines in the Kanto region that were displaying their images,
hosting images, or sending their images to other temples. Though the reports
remained centered on Kanto, the paper occasionally did report on displays of
famous icons that were further afield, such as displays in Nara, Kyoto, and on
the Saigoku 西国 pilgrimage route (ys 23 March 1877, 1; 12 May 1877, 2; 12 March
1893, 2; 13 September 1910, 3). The displays at Shinano Zenkōji, whether degaichōin Tokyo or igaichō in Nagano, were almost always noted, perhaps because of thetemple’s popularity nationwide and its relative proximity to Tokyo.
The extensive reporting of kaichō in the ys is perhaps a result of the paper’s
focus on a general readership in its first decades. Its editors may have seen thatkaichō were popular, and therefore they reported on them. Despite this coverage, many of the articles—like other articles in the ys during this period—wereremarkably short. Though a few took a third or a fifth of a page, most were justa few lines long. This severely limits the amount of information that can begleaned from these articles individually. However, the articles can be used collectively to determine a great deal about kaichō as they were practiced and as theychanged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For more in-depth
information about individual kaichō, however, one would have to turn to othersources, such as temple and shrine archives, local histories, or local newspapers.
For this reason, I have supplemented the ys reporting with that from the sms,
a regional newspaper in what is now Nagano Prefecture. The sms began publishing as the Nagano shinpō 長野新報 in 1873 and became the Shinano mainichi
shinbun in 1881. The sms’s focus on news in Nagano Prefecture provides detailed
information on the displays of Shinano Zenkōji, a temple with a long history of
both at-home and traveling displays of the copy of its main image, as we will see
below.
In addition to the concerns of balancing news from Tokyo with regional
news, I also chose the ys and sms because I was able to easily access them. The
ys digital newspaper database, Yomidas Rekishikan, has been readily available
in Japan and abroad for many years. The sms has also been digitized and madeavailable via the Shinano mainichi shinbun database. Though it is currently available online through tiered paid plans, at the time of my research in 2013, I couldmitchell: kaichō in the meiji and taisho periods | 85

only access the sms database at the Nagano Prefectural Library in Nagano City,
where it is still accessible for free. Additionally, the historical coverage for bothnewspapers is comparable and covers the period in question in this study: theYomidas Rekishikan includes all issues of the ys since 1874, and the sms databaseincludes issues from 1873 on.
Including other regional newspapers, or perhaps even the Chūgai nippō 中外
日報 religious newspaper (available in microfiche in a few libraries in the UnitedStates), would provide breadth and depth to the material presented here. However, doing so presents its own set of problems. Many of these newspapers havenot been digitized, and for some the articles have not been indexed. In cases
where the articles have been digitized, the databases are often only available inlocal or prefectural libraries or behind paywalls. Additionally, the sheer number of articles would soon become overwhelming. Tracking down and accessing
other newspaper archives or databases, combing through their pages, reading
thousands of articles, and recording the information would surely provide more
depth and breadth to what I provide here, but searching in multiple newspaperarchives would likely result in diminishing returns past a certain point.4 So, due
to time and financial constraints, I have limited myself to these two newspaper
databases. These two provide a balance of national and regional news, and I wasable to access them freely while doing research.
Searching for the term “kaichō” in these databases also returned a few articles
that used synonyms for kaichō, such as kaihi 開扉 and keigan 啓龕. The search in
the ys database resulted in 543 articles for the Meiji period, fifty-seven for Taisho,seventy-six for prewar Showa, twenty-nine for the war period (1937–1945), forty-three for post-World War ii, and ninety-two for the 1960s, but I focus on thefirst two periods here.5 The results included a number of false positives that had
to be removed. These included many articles on organized gambling, called
tobaku kaichō 賭博開帳 or bakuchi kaichō 博打開帳, among other names. Other
false positives included the use of the word kaichō as a metaphor for the unveiling of things normally hidden, such as the story of two women from Yoshiwara
who were crying because their rickshaw overturned and “like the [statue of the]founder of Ikegami, [Nichiren 日蓮], their hidden areas were displayed outside[degaichō]” (ys 27 April 1880, 2).
4. Newspark, the Japanese Newspaper Museum in Yokohama, has access to the databases of
sixty-three newspapers in Japan, but it only has one terminal from which to access these databases and it does not allow printouts, which would severely limit the ability to reliably read,record, and review the articles on temple and shrine displays.
5. Although there is some overlap in the coverage of the Meiji and Taisho and the Taisho andShowa prewar databases, this only resulted in an overlap in one article, which I have deductedfrom the above total.

86 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
table 1: Articles on temple/shrine kaichō in the Yomiuri
meijitaishoigaichō221

29

degaichō126

3general200unknown

14

0

total

381

32

After the false positives were removed, I found 381 articles on kaichō published in the ys in the Meiji period and thirty-two in the Taisho period.6 I placedthese into four categories: igaichō, degaichō, general articles on kaichō (includinglaws and opinion), and unknown—kaichō articles that I was unable to place in aprevious category (table 1).7
In the Meiji and Taisho periods, the ys frequently published a number of articles on individual temple displays. Typically, the first notice of a kaichō came one
to six months in advance. This happened most often with large kaichō, such as
those by Asakusa Kannon 浅草観音 (Sensōji 浅草寺) or Narita’s Fudō (Shinshōji).
The number of articles on kaichō per year are shown in figure 1.
The number of kaichō per year is shown in figure 2.8 In total, the ys reported
on 117 igaichō and fifty-one degaichō in the thirty-eight years of reporting for the
Meiji period; it reported on eighteen igaichō and three degaichō for the roughly
fourteen years of the Taisho period. During the fifty-three years in question, theimages most frequently displayed at their home institutions were the Asakusa
Kannon (eight times), Narita’s Fudō (six times plus one degaichō at Fukagawa),
the statue of Yūten Shōnin 祐天上人 (1637–1718), the founder of Yūtenji 祐天寺,
(six times), and the image of Kōbō Daishi at Kawasaki Daishi 川崎大師 (alsoknown as Heikenji 平間寺) (six times). The images most frequently displayed inTokyo for degaichō were the image of Nichiren from Mt. Minobu 身延 (Kuonji
久遠寺) (five times), Maedachi Honzon of Shinano Zenkōji’s Amida triad (fourtimes), and the Shakamuni statue at Seiryōji 清涼寺 (three times). The most
6. In later periods there appear to be more articles on gambling and fewer on the display of
temple and shrine images in these periods.
7. Although in some cases the articles amounted to one-third or one-fifth of a page, theyusually presented little more information than the article “title” did. In fact, most articles did nothave what we would call a headline or a title, rather, they were set off by bullet points and the firstline of the article functioned as its title.
8. I determined this by recording the first mention of the display of an image or at a temple or
shrine. This may have resulted in a slight skewing of the year in which kaichō were held in someinstances.

figure 1. Yomiuri articles per year.

figure 2. Displays per year.

88 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
frequented host institutions for traveling displays were Ekōin 回向院 (eleventimes, 20 percent of the degaichō) and Jōshinji 浄心寺 (six times, 11 percent).
This information is not surprising because it is a continuation of early modern trends. Asakusa Kannon was the image most frequently displayed during
igaichō in Edo. It was shown thirty-six times from 1654 to 1850.9 During the earlymodern period, the four most frequently displayed images for degaichō—nicknamed the “Four Heavenly Kings” (Shitennō 四天王)—came to Edo from Narita (twelve degaichō in Edo), Mt. Minobu (ten), Zenkōji (six), and Seiryōji (ten)(Ambros 2004, 1; Hiruma 1980, 55, 152; Kitamura 1989, 37).10 Ekōin was also
the most frequented host temple in Edo, hosting 166 out of 741 degaichō between
1654 and 1867 (Ambros 2004, 6). Continuing a trend from the early modern period, Nichiren temples always held degaichō in other Nichiren temples.
Jōshinji, a Nichiren temple that hosted six degaichō in the Meiji and Taisho periods, hosted twenty-two in the early modern period, the most for any Nichiren
temple (Kitamura 1989, 48, 52).
Returning to the information presented in figures 1 and 2, we can see one
major change over the course of the fifty-three years covered. There is a gradualdecrease in individual kaichō mentioned in the ys, beginning from around theturn of the twentieth century. Specifically, between 1874 and 1900 the average
number of igaichō reported in the ys per year was 3.48 and degaichō was 1.74 peryear (2.11 per year from 1882–1900).11 From 1901 to 1926, however, the averages
were much smaller: 1.58 per year for igaichō and 0.26 for degaichō.
Although a decrease in reports on igaichō could be the result of an overall
decrease in kaichō, this is not necessarily the case. The decrease could be due
to a change in the focus of the ys. Though it started as a paper for the masses,
it began to print more fiction in the 1890s and thus focused more on literary
readers (Huffman 1997, 268). This could have combined with the introductionof other more specialized newspapers, such as the Chūgai nippō mentioned earlier, which would cover religious events. These could have resulted in the reporting of only large kaichō within the Kanto region. Cross-referencing these datawith other sources could indicate whether the number of kaichō decreased or
the ys’s coverage of them did. Additionally, while there is a gradual decrease in
9. The other most frequently displayed igachō images in the early modern period were theEnoshima Benzaiten 江島弁財天 (16), Gokokuji 護国寺 Kannon (15), Kameido Tenjin 亀戸天神
(13), Susaki Benzaiten 洲崎弁才天 (12), Mita Jōkanji Amida 三田浄閑寺 (10), Kinegawa Jōkōji
木下川浄光寺 Yakushi 薬師 (10), and Eitaiji 永代寺 Kangiten 歓喜天 (10) (Hiruma 1980, 97–98).
10. For more on Zenkōji’s Edo degaichō and kaikoku kaichō (kaichō around the provinces),see McCallum (1994, 169–173).
11. I have included this number because there was a law, to be discussed in the next section,
which banned the transportation of Buddhist images to different jurisdictions. This was in effectfrom 16 June 1876 to 21 March 1884.

mitchell: kaichō in the meiji and taisho periods | 89

the frequency of articles on displays overall, there are several fluctuations of articles on degaichō specifically. The first is from 1876 to 1884 when, aside from a
few isolated displays, they drop to zero for reasons I discuss in the next section.
Between 1884 and 1900 they jump to an average of 2.11 per year, with a high ofseven. Following 1900, however, reporting on degaichō decreased significantly. I
should note again that these numbers are most likely not the absolute number ofdisplays held during these periods. For reasons mentioned above, this discussion
should be taken as a rough indication of the trends in temple and shrine displays
as indicated in the ys.
Laws and KaichōLike many things connected with religion in the early years of the Meiji period,
kaichō were subject to a number of frequently changing laws and regulations. The
most drastic of these, the Ministry of Doctrine (Kyōbushō 教部省) Proclamation
Number Four, came on 14 June 1876. The proclamation stated: “The transportation and display of Buddhist images by every temple to other jurisdictions mustcease immediately. This is to be promulgated to the temples” (ys 16 June 1876, 1).
The order was signed by the Vice Minister of Doctrine (Kyōbutaifu 教部大輔),
Shishido Tamaki 宍戸璣 (1829–1901).12 Though only banning the transport anddisplay of Buddhist images outside their home jurisdictions, this proclamation
effectively ended degaichō for the eight-year period from 1876 to 1884 (figure 2).
Although I have not been able to determine the context surrounding the ministry’s ban on degaichō, or its focus on only Buddhist degaichō, the ban is not
surprising for a number of reasons. In the two years leading up to it, there had
been a number of articles in the ys concerning troubles associated with kaichō;
Proclamation Four could be interpreted as a response to these issues. In one
case, there had been rumors about confraternities misappropriating the donations collected during a kaichō and using them to visit sex workers in Yoshiwara(ys 22 May 1875, 1; 3 June 1875a, 2). Other people complained of the noise generated by kaichō, particularly by confraternities drumming in the early morning
to welcome the visiting image (ys 29 March 1875, 1), but this practice was curtailed by a general order on 7 April 1876, which stated that “drumming whenothers are sleeping and other unusual customs are strictly prohibited” (ys 7 April
1876, 1). Local schools worried that the gathering crowds surrounding degaichōwould distract students (ys 19 April 1876, 3). One writer complained that sinceTokyo was to set an example of civilization and enlightenment for the rest of thenation, people should spend time at school or working rather than waste timeand energy at kaichō (ys 3 June 1875b, 2).
12. Shishido is perhaps more famous for his involvement in the annexation of the Ryūkyūs byJapan (Kerr and Sakihara 2000, 390–391).

90 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
Furthermore, Proclamation Four came in a line of other laws that affected religion in the early Meiji period. After the Ministry of Rites was replaced with the
Ministry of Doctrine in the fourth month of 1872, the new ministry set up a seriesof laws restricting or redefining Buddhism and Shinto. These included the creationof doctrinal instructors (1872–1884); the abolishment of anti-meat-consumption
and marriage laws (fourth month of 1872); the required adoption of surnames bypriests; and the ban on cremation in 1873 (Bernstein 2006, 68; Jaffe 2001, 72;
Ketelaar 1990, 99). Taking these laws as context, it might not be surprising that
the Ministry of Doctrine would ban degaichō in 1876 when faced with a series ofcomplaints about it.
Changing ideas about cultural artifacts and their preservation may also havebeen a factor in the development of Proclamation Four. The nascent Meiji government began developing a policy for cultural and historical preservation in the1870s (McDermott 2006). Inspired by international museums and participationin cultural exhibitions around the world, government officials “realized that preservation of the nation’s cultural property was fundamental to defining and maintaining its historical identity and demonstrating its long cultural heritage to therest of the world” (McDermott 2006, 343). As part of this, temples were required
to submit lists of their treasures to the government in 1871 and allow inspectionsof those treasures. There was a great deal of overlap between the treasures on theselists and items that had been displayed during early modern kaichō. For example, in the case of Hōryūji 法隆寺, the items on the list submitted to the government and surveyed by officials were items from the temple’s degaichō in 1692 and1842 (McDermott 2006, 348). Furthermore, plans for national museums beganaround this time, and officials’ inspection visits to temples were one step towards
that. However, the basic principle of preservation put forward by the Grand Council in 1872 was to house treasures at their temples whenever possible and only
seek to house multiples or copies of objects in museums. Additionally, in 1873,
the Grand Council issued a directive stipulating that priests were required to seek
permission from the Ministry of Religion before selling items—foreign collectors
were purchasing temple treasures, and selling items helped temples balance lossesof land and stipends—in case the government wanted to purchase them for museums.13 Seen through this lens, the Ministry of Doctrine may have promulgatedProclamation Four, which put a stop to degaichō, as part of a larger move to protect important cultural and historical artifacts in the 1870s. At the same time, local
and national governments in Japan pushed for exhibitions (hakurankai 博覧会)
of items of historical and artistic significance. A number of these occurred in the1870s and 1880s, and many of them, especially in the Kansai region, included tem13. For example, Ernest Fenollosa amassed a large collection of Buddhist art during thisperiod (Horton 2007, 159–160).

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ple treasures (McDermott 2006). Perhaps the move by the Ministry of Doctrine
was meant to curtail degaichō and promote participation in these exhibitions.
Whatever the reason, Proclamation Four effectively brought an end to degaichō between 1876 and 1884. However, some temples and shrines still managed
to take their images on the road—there were three degaichō during this period.
The majority were able to do so due to technicalities. The first case was the display of a scroll depicting Genkai’s 源海 body from Yuinenji 唯念寺 in Nagano to
Taisōji 泰宗寺 in Tokyo on 17 June 1876.14 Genkai was a nenbutsu ascetic who had
become a “mummy” (sokushin jōbutsu 即身成仏); however, his body had been
washed out of its tomb/mound in the Kawanakajima 川中島 area of what is now
Nagano City during the flooding of the Sai 犀 River following the Zenkōji earthquake of 1847 (ys 17 June 1876, 2). The priest at Yuinenji saw what he thought tobe a person in the river, swam out to save it, and then realized that it was Genkai’s mummified remains. He had a painting of Genkai’s remains made before
reburying the body on Yuinenji’s grounds. The temple was able to carry out thistraveling display most likely because they had begun moving the scroll before
the order was put into effect. The second degaichō held was between two templesin Tokyo and therefore was allowed because it was between temples in the same
jurisdiction (ys 2 October 1880, 2). The third was from the Suitengū 水天宮 inKurume 久留米 City, Fukuoka Prefecture, to one of its branch shrines in Tokyo:
this was the degaichō of a Shinto image, and so perhaps it was allowed because it
was not a Buddhist image (ys 5 September 1882, 2).
After several years with no traveling displays by Buddhist temples, the ys published a rumor in May 1881 that the proclamation would soon be repealed and thatthe government would set aside a plot of land in Ueno specifically for degaichō (ys
6 May 1881, 2). It is unclear if this plot of land for displays was an actual proposal
or simply a rumor, but either way it did not come to fruition, and it would be
another three years before the measure would be repealed. Proclamation Four was
repealed on 21 March 1884 by the Ministry of Interior Secondary [Proclamation]
Number Sixteen (Naimushō Otsu Dai Jūrokugō 内務省乙第十六号), which simply
stated that the Ministry of Doctrine’s 1876 Proclamation concerning degaichō was
repealed (ys 21 March 1884, 1). Less than a month after the repeal, the ys began
reporting on pending degaichō. The first was a request that Seiryōji be allowed tobring its famed Shakamuni image to Tokyo (ys 13 April 1884, 2). In the year following the repeal, degaichō came back bigger than before: there were six in Tokyo,
more than any year in the Meiji period prior to the ban.
14. Though the newspaper article is unclear whether it was his body or an image of his body(they use the phrase “Genkai’s desiccated…”), it was most likely an image because the priest at
Yuinenji had buried Genkai’s body in 1848. A special thanks to Wada Yoshitaka 和田良尊, headpriest at Yuinenji, for his quick response to my query regarding the display of the Genkai scroll.

92 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
The ys articles do not contain any information regarding the reasons for the
repeal of Proclamation Four. This and any possible complaints by priests when
the ban first started are topics that warrant further investigation. The repeal didcome from the Ministry of the Interior at a time when the central government
was backing away from involvement in sectarian and religious matters (Jaffe
2001, 70–71). For example, the ban on cremation was lifted in 1875, the Ministryof Doctrine dissolved into the Bureau of Shrines and Temples under the Ministry of the Interior in 1877, and the Doctrinal Instructor system was abolished in1884 (Bernstein 2006, 85; Jaffe 2001, 70–71).
Though now officially sanctioned, degaichō were not arranged haphazardly.
The sixty-fourth article of Proclamation Sixteen stated that when taking an image
to another prefecture for display, one “must receive approval by submitting to theprimary and secondary area offices documents signed by the resident priest andparishioners, with a postscript signature by the sect’s kanchō” (Genkō jiin reiki,30). Four months later, the Tokyo prefectural government issued a more specific proclamation that temples were to request permission before loaning theirhalls to another temple for degaichō (ys 5 August 1884, 1).15 Furthermore, Tokyo’s
proclamation states, treasures (hōmotsu 宝物) were not to be taken out of Tokyo(ys 5 August 1884, 1).16 These laws were much simpler than those of the earlymodern period, which required approval from local businesses, domain offices,administrative head temples (furegashira 触頭), and the Magistrate of Temples
and Shrines, in addition to consensus among the temple’s priests, parishioners,
and hosting institutions (Ambros 2004, 8–10; Kitamura 1994).
Another concern for temples and shrines was security. In the early modern
period, temples would often hire local people for security, and the town magistrate (in Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto) would send their subordinates to patrol thegrounds during displays. In the Meiji period, however, temples began to workwith and rely on the local police force. During displays, police would keep an
eye out for lost children and suspicious people (sms 7 April 1894). It is unclear
15. This proclamation was called Tertiary [Proclamation] Number 121 (Hei Dai Hyaku
Nijūichigō 丙第百二十一号). It states: “Concerning the repeal of the Kyōbushō’s Proclamation
Number Four from Meiji 9, from now, when transporting and displaying images from templesin Tokyo’s jurisdiction to other jurisdictions, as well as loaning halls for the display of images oftemples from inside and outside the jurisdiction, [one] should take to the appropriate office adocument with the joint signatures of the said temple’s resident priest, parishioner representative(for temples without parishioners, a representative believer), the head temple (honji 本寺), anda postscript by the temple’s headquarters. Circulate this proclamation. [One] should understandthat treasures are not to be taken out.”
16. It is not clear whether this meant officially designated cultural treasures or temple treasures. Additionally, it is not clear what it meant by “taking out,” that is, whether travel out ofTokyo or simply out of the temple was banned.

mitchell: kaichō in the meiji and taisho periods | 93

whether they would have patrolled inside of the temple building to secure theimages displayed there.
One kaichō in particular demonstrates the transition from early modern
policing and punishment to that of the Meiji period. From the 1610s to 1876,
Kodenmachō 小伝馬町 Prison in Edo held suspects and prisoners, some ofwhom were tortured and executed there. In the transitional years following the
Meiji Restoration, however, the former shogunal penal system was transformed.
This included the construction of a modern, Western-influenced prison near
the metropolitan police headquarters in Kajibashi. This prison was completed
in 1874, and Kodenmachō was decommissioned in 1876 (Botsman 2004, 171).
It was apparently difficult to convince people to purchase and develop thisland where the former prison had stood, so some of it was turned into a city park.
Another portion was purchased by Mt. Minobu to build a Tokyo Betsuin, which
was completed in 1883. As they neared completion in September and Octoberof 1883, a fourteenth-century Nichiren statue (Ganman Nichiren 願満日蓮) was
sent from Mt. Minobu to Tokyo. Although traveling displays were still technically illegal under Proclamation Four at this time, this Nichiren statue was transported from Mt. Minobu, marched through Tokyo, and displayed in Jōshinji
before being enshrined at the Tokyo Betsuin Founder’s Hall (Soshidō 祖師堂)
(ys 16 September 1883, 3; 7 October 1883, 3; 19 October 1883, 3). A four-day kaichō
was then held at the Betsuin. This occurred seven months before Proclamation
Number Four was repealed, and although it had the elements of a traveling display, it would have perhaps been allowed since the image was displayed in theprocess of being transferred to a new, permanent home.
Meiji Japan also saw the development of modern ideas of public health andsanitation, along with the introduction of a variety of infectious diseases fromabroad. A major concern from the 1850s on was cholera. In 1854 in Scotland,
John Snow discovered that cholera spread through ingesting contaminatedwater, and that information had reached Japan by the Meiji period. Japanesemethods of prevention in the 1870s included isolation of infected individuals
as well as disinfecting toilets and sewage pipes. Despite these preventative measures, the disease remained a threat throughout the Meiji period, and there weremajor outbreaks. The ys blamed an outbreak of cholera for the low attendance
at kaichō in the Chiba region in 1877 (ys 31 October 1877, 2). However, when oneof the largest outbreaks occurred in 1879, which killed more than one hundred
thousand people, Kyoto City government attempted to check the spread of thedisease by curtailing public gatherings. These included kaichō, temple and shrine
festivals (sairei 祭礼), and preaching (sekkyō 説教), as well as mutual financing
meetings (tanomoshikō 頼母子講). The ys reported that “all gatherings of various people have been stopped, so the level of economic depression in the city
was almost miserable” (1 July 1879, 3). This mirrors contemporary restrictions

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and rescheduling of events due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where, for instance,
Shinano Zenkōji’s gokaichō 御開帳 ceremony scheduled for 2021 was postponed
until 2022.
Viewing Hidden Images as Art
One aspect that is difficult to ascertain from newspaper articles on kaichō ishow changing conceptions of Buddhist and Shinto images may have affected thepractice of and participation in displays of temple and shrine treasures. Interpretations and ways of viewing objects change with time. Recognizing this,Fabio Rambelli (2002) has identified phases of modern thought about hidden
images in Japan, which can also be applied to Japanese religious images in general. During the separation of buddhas and kami, objects were destroyed in an
attempt to desacralize them. One result was that collectors acquired large numbers of Buddhist images. In the 1880s, scholars and government agencies began
analyzing images in terms of Western aesthetic values. From the turn of the century, priests began seeking recognition for objects in their temples as important cultural properties (  jūyō bunkazai 重要文化財) or national treasures (kokuhō
国宝); Rambelli (2002, 278–279) traces this to a desire on the part of Buddhists
to forge connections with the government.
Other scholars have also discussed the effects of Western aesthetics and burgeoning Japanese nationalism on Buddhist images. Sarah Horton (2007, 161)
discusses the oft critiqued roles of Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Kakuzō 岡倉
覚三 in “turning buddhas into art rather than objects of devotion.” Fenollosa
played a number of roles in Japan, including as Imperial Commissioner of Fine
Arts and a position at the Tokyo Fine Arts Academy, and in the U.S., such ashead of the Oriental department at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In these
positions he pushed for recognition of Japanese art. As part of his quest, in 1884,
against the protests of the Japanese priests at Hōryūji, Fenollosa and Okakura
uncovered the Kannon image in the Yumedono 夢殿 that had been hidden for
more than eight hundred years (Horton 2007, 159–160).
Japanese governments also had a role in this transformation. The 1897 law
for the protection of temple and shrine artifacts, which created the categoriesof important cultural properties and national treasures, “hastened their transformation into aestheticized relics of a bygone age” (Shaji shūkyō hōki zenshū,
235–253; Graham 2007, 209). One way this may have affected kaichō was thatit allowed temples and shrines with important cultural artifacts to petition the
Minister of the Interior for money for their repair. This would mean that the
temples and shrines would have more money to spend on other things andwould not need to raise funds for the repair of certain items.

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While the recognition of the aesthetics of Buddhist images may have influenced how people viewed images, it did not necessarily mean that all people
viewed religious images as simply objects of art or pieces of history. Objects canbe accorded many meanings by those who view or use them, and even a single viewer can have multiple interpretations of a single image. Additionally, ittakes time for ideas such as the artistic value of objects to diffuse. Thus, years
after Fenollosa and Okakura promoted the aesthetic quality of Japanese religious images, people were going to Narita and Nagano in droves to petition theirefficacious cultic deities, and others like the young woman from Mie who wasfound by the police were drawn to displays so they could “hear” the image or
be heard by them. Even today, visitors to kaichō may go to access the perceived
cultic power of the image, see its beauty, or enjoy it for its history. In fact, if anything, the interpretation of images as art or historical objects may have drawn
people to a kaichō, rather than chased them away.
Boats, Trains, and Rickshaws: Changes in Infrastructure and Transit
While it is difficult to determine what effect, if any, changing views of religious
objects had on igaichō and degaichō, the effects of more convenient transportation are much easier to trace. In the Meiji period, many travel restrictions fromthe early modern period were lifted. These included the requirement to haveapproval before long-distance travel within the country, checkpoints on majorroads, and limitations on who could utilize certain modes of transportation.
Additionally, although river transportation, roads, and maritime travel were all
relatively well developed in the early modern period, they became more stable
and convenient in the Meiji period. In 1906, for example, the sms reported thatthe city had put in “new roads” so visitors to Nagano did not have to “traverse
country roads” (inakamichi 田舎道) to reach Zenkōji as they had during previous displays (sms 31 March 1906, 3). From the 1870s on, railroads were a major
component of these infrastructure improvements that vastly accelerated travel.
Together, these changes to travel put kaichō within the reach of more people.
From the newspaper accounts, train travel had a greater impact on kaichō forboth the organizers and participants, so I will focus on that below.
Although slow to start due to the high cost and a desire to pay off foreign loans,the amount of rails in Japan increased almost exponentially from 1872 to 1907
(table 2) (Ericson 1996, 9–10). At the beginning, there were only eighteen milesof track running from Shinbashi to Yokohama and from Osaka to Kobe, whichwere the ends of a longer line planned between Shinbashi and Osaka. While therail significantly reduced the amount of time it took to travel between Shinbashi
and Yokohama, the ticket prices were quite high: a third-class ticket cost 37.5 sen 銭(approximately 3,500 yen 円 in current Japanese currency), which was more than96 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
table 2: Railroad in Meiji Japanyear

miles of track

1872

18

1876

65

1880

98

1884

263

1888

912

1892

1871

1896

2507

1900

3855

1904

4693

1907

4899

the steamboat between the two cities; second-class was 75 sen (approximately
7,000 yen), or 13 sen more than taking a rickshaw; and first-class was 1 yen 12.5
sen (approximately 10,000 yen). This was at a time when 1.8 liters of rice cost 4 sen(Ericson 1996, 66).
The first record in the ys of a kaichō benefiting from the railroad (and viceversa) is in an article from 4 April 1884. The article announced that from that day
until the kaichō at Kawasaki Daishi ended on May 4 there would be special service between Shinbashi Station and Kawasaki. For the length of the kaichō, there
were two express trains between the stations each day: one at ten in the morning,and one at four forty-five in the afternoon. Because Kawasaki was a stop on theinitial Shinbashi-Yokohama line, and there was at least one kaichō between the
opening of this line and the 1884 kaichō there (in 1876), it is highly likely thatsome visitors to the temple took advantage of the train before this, but there is
no record of it in the ys.
On 15 May 1884, more than a month after the first article, the ys publishedthat in the forty days of the kaichō (it seems to have been extended, as manykaichō often were) 29,543 people rode third class, 771 rode second class, and 29
rode first class on the special kaichō express service. The article provides evenmore detail: of the third-class passengers, 975 were children; of the second-class,
60 were children; and there were no children in first-class. In all, this special service had earned the Japanese national railroad 4,358 yen 32 sen and 5 rin 厘 fromthird-class passengers, 222 yen 30 sen from second class, and 4 yen 95 sen fromfirst class (ys 15 May 1884, 3).
Although there are only eight articles on kaichō in the ys that mention transit after the Kawasaki Daishi display in 1884, we can gather some information

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about kaichō and transit from those that are mentioned. For example, the second
mention of transit, with reference to Ikegami Honmonji 池上本門寺 for its 1887
kaichō, only mentions express travel and a special stop, like Kawasaki Daishi’s kaichō three years earlier (ys 21 June 1887, 2). From the 1890s, however, a numberof rail companies, led by Nippon Railway (Nippon Tetsudō 日本鉄道, a privatecompany not to be confused with the National Railroad Office, Tetsudōkyoku
鉄道局), began offering discounted group and commuter tickets, particularly to
special events (Ericson 1996, 82). So, in 1894, when Zenkōji hosted its igaichō,
the Nippon Railway company offered a 40 percent discount on tickets to Nagano(ys 7 February 1894, 3).17 Other companies followed suit, offering discounts on
three-, four-, and five-day roundtrip tickets to Nagano (ys 4 April 1894, 3). The
ys announced that because of these discounts more than five thousand people
crowded Zenkōji in one day and confraternities showed up with more than two
hundred members; the hotels were booked, and the local shops did brisk business(ys 15 April 1894, supplemental ed., 1; also mentioned in sms 24 April 1894, 2).
And “although Nagano residents take care in their preparations for kaichō,” thesms reported, “even they were taken by surprise” by the number of people arriving for this display (sms 25 April 1894, 2). This happened one year after Zenkōji
had held a degaichō in Tokyo. Zenkōji, once known as one of Edo’s Four Heavenly Kings of degaichō, held one more degaichō in 1898 at Ekōin, but after thata Zenkōji degaichō does not appear in newspaper records until the twenty-first
century.18
Narita’s Shinshōji, the second of the Heavenly Kings, shows a similar pattern.
It held two degaichō: one at Shitennōji 四天王寺 in Osaka in 1875 and another at
Fukagawa Park in 1885 mentioned at the start of this article. From 1885 onwards,
there are only newspaper records of it holding igaichō in Narita. The Narita Railway completed a line in 1897 with the express purpose of transporting people
from Tokyo to Narita’s temple.19 Furthermore, it began offering discounted tickets to Shinshōji’s igaichō in 1902 (ys 16 March 1902, 6). Before the train line wascompleted—and even for a time after—petitioners walked or rode in carts to thetemple (ys 30 May 1898, 3).
Travelers to kaichō also visited places near their destinations and farther
afield. During an 1882 display at Shinano Zenkōji, nearby temples Saikōji 西光寺(Karukayasan かるかや山) and Seisuiji 清水寺 (in Nagano City) held displaysof their treasures concurrently, hoping to draw in visitors in town for Zenkōji’s
17. Nippon Tetsudō was a private rail company that the government supported in order todevelop its rail network (Ericson 1996, 20).
18. Zenkōji held a degaichō at Ekōin in April and May of 2013 to collect donations for therebuilding of the Tohoku region in the wake of the triple disaster on 11 March 2011.
19. Likewise, Sanuki 讃岐 railway, which opened in 1889, was built to take people from Marugame 丸亀 to Kotohira 金刀比羅 Shrine (Aoki, Imashiro, Kato, and Wakuda 2000, 92–93).

98 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
display (sms 13 April 1882). Twelve years later, the sms reported that many people
traveling to Nagano City for Zenkōji’s display were also visiting Moto Zenkōji
元善光寺 in present-day Iida City, Nagano Prefecture, located roughly one hundred fifty kilometers to the south of Zenkōji (sms 15 April 1894, 2). Almost seventy kilometers to the north, in Naoetsu, travelers had to transfer between train
and steam ship, and so businesses and inns there were crowded during Zenkōji’s
1894 display (sms 5 May 1894, 1). Visiting other sites and stopping along the way
was, of course, a part of travel in the early modern period, so these results are notsurprising. However, as direct routes increased in later years, businesses at theseformer transfer points lost customers.
The opening of railroads had a great effect on the performance and practice of
kaichō. In the early modern period, degaichō were expensive affairs that included
the transport of many items, not simply the main image, from the temple(Ambros 2004, 1–2, 9–13, 18–21). Occasionally the temple lost money (McCallum 1994, 169–172). Additionally, the town around the temple languished while
the main image was being displayed elsewhere (Ambros 2004, 8). As the case of
the 1884 Kawasaki Daishi display demonstrated, even the local railroad stood toprofit from kaichō. And, in some cases, like that of Narita Railroad (figure 3),
the rail companies took an active role in promoting igaichō, even listing times
of express trains in their advertisements. For these reasons, if a nearby train station existed, it would be more profitable for the temple or shrine, its town, andthe railroad company if the petitioners came to the temple or shrine rather thantransport the main image to Tokyo.
However, some temples continued to perform degaichō. One possible reason is that there was no convenient transportation. Two temples that performed
degaichō after 1901 were Mt. Minobu (in 1913) and Okuyama Hōkōji 奥山方広寺(Shizuoka, in 1907).20 There was no convenient rail access to these temples
until the Taisho period or later. Three others were from western Japan—Kyoto(Honkokuji 本圀寺, 1901), Nara (Tsubosakadera 壷坂寺, otherwise known as
Minamihokkeji 南法華寺, 1913), and Nachi (Seigantoji 那智青岸渡寺, 1913). These
temples, while famous, were perhaps too far afield for petitioners from Tokyo
to reach quickly. However, access to train lines and distance from Tokyo may
not have been the only factors behind organizing a degaichō. Ikegami Honmonji
held a degaichō in 1909, traveling from its location on the outskirts of Tokyo toanother Nichiren temple in central Tokyo (ys 17 April 1909).
While travel had been made easier and faster, it was not necessarily safer.
For example, in March of 1877, the ys reported on how travel to the display of
the typically hidden icon of Kegonji 華厳寺 in Gifu Prefecture would be easier
because “the peaks had been reduced” by roughly 27 meters (89 shaku 尺) at a20. Okuyama displayed its Hansōbō 半僧坊 statue.

mitchell: kaichō in the meiji and taisho periods | 99

figure 3. An advertisement
by Narita Railway for Shinshōji’s 1915 kaichō (ys 26
March 1915, 1), used with permission of Yomiuri shinbun.

cost of four thousand yen (ys 23 March 1877, 1). However, less than two months
later, about ten people drowned when a ferry carrying pilgrims to that same kaichō overturned in the river (ys 12 May 1877, 2). Even as travel became easier,death was always a possibility.
Less life-threatening issues also arose. Names of stations did not always match
what people expected, especially when the names of municipalities had changedin the Meiji period. This apparently caused some to miss the stop closest to thetemple they planned to visit. This reportedly happened in Nagano City where“the station employees called out ‘Nagano! Nagano!’ but people did not exit thetrain because they did not know that ‘Nagano’ was ‘Zenkōji’” (sms 1 April 1894,2). The author of the article suggested adding a placard with the name “Zenkōji”
on it or having the station employees call out “Zenkōji! Zenkōji!” in addition to“Nagano.” It is unclear, however, how many people missed their stop because ofnames, or if it happened in other locations.
As roads improved and cars and busses became more prevalent in the 1930s,
and especially in the postwar period, travel to temples around Japan changed.
This affected pilgrimage sites in rural areas. As Reader (2005, 152–158) points
out, and as we see here, pilgrimage sites and transportation companies worked
together to promote travel to temples and shrines. More research could be done
to discuss how this affected travel to distant displays in the postwar period.
Meiji and Taisho Kaichō Practices
Many practices associated with kaichō during the early modern period continued after the Meiji Restoration, while others changed or were forced to stop

100 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
and new ones added. In this section I will discuss several of these practices thatappear in the ys and sms, including the involvement of confraternities, exhibitions or misemono sideshows, and the performance of kaichō practices for victory in or remembrance of the Russo-Japanese War.
In the early modern period, confraternities of the visiting temple prepared
the area around the host temple, and this practice continued into the Meiji andTaisho periods with some modifications. For example, when Zenkōji’s icon
was to be displayed at Seiganji 誓願寺 in Tokyo in late April and May of 1893,“Confraternity members and believers alike” were said to be “preparing to meetthe icon” almost a month in advance (ys 5 April 1893, 3).21 Some preparations
included placing lanterns and flags announcing the kaichō on the surrounding
streets (Kitamura 1989, 136–140). However, the Road Management Law of 1882
regulated this activity. It stated that approval was required from the police before
placing lanterns or placards on the streets to advertise kaichō.22 Confraternity
members also drummed and chanted to welcome the image (Kitamura 1989,
136–140), but as noted above, drumming early in the morning was banned in
April of 1876 (ys 7 April 1876, 1).
Another change in confraternity practices came with the railroad and group
discounts. In the early modern period, it may have only been possible to send a
few members of a confraternity to a distant igaichō (Thal 2005, 113). Those lucky
members traveled to the temple or shrine with the group’s offerings and petitions and returned to the confraternity with amulets to distribute. With travel
discounts, especially group ones, whole confraternities could travel to igaichō.
One place where this happened was at the 1894 igaichō at Zenkōji, where the ys
and sms reported that a number of confraternities arrived by train with two hundred to three hundred members each (ys 15 April 1894, supplementary ed., 1; sms
15 April 1894, 2). Confraternities continued to present offerings, including music
and food, to the displayed deities (ys 3 March 1887, 2; 28 April 1888, 2). An additional practice was naked pilgrimage. This practice, which seems to have ended
in the Meiji period, may or may not have been connected with confraternities.
The ys reported that in one night in May of 1885, fifty-six naked people who were
petitioning Narita’s Fudō or Mt. Minobu’s Nichiren images in Fukagawa Park
were discovered by the police (ys 15 April 1885, 2).
Misemono were unaffiliated displays or exhibits that were held outside of themain kaichō. The performers at the misemono of the early modern period displayed unusual or vulgar things, performed dances, sold goods, or challenged
21. Though Seiganji was in Asakusa’s Tajimachō 田島町, following the Kanto earthquake in
1923 it moved to Momijigaoka 紅葉丘 in Fuchu City.
22. This was the Central Police Office’s Law Primary Number Eight. The sections concerned
are three and five. See ys 24 October 1882, 1.

mitchell: kaichō in the meiji and taisho periods | 101

passersby to games of skill, all for a fee (Markus 1985). According to the reports
in the ys, misemono continued near kaichō into the Meiji period.23 While the ys
does not list most items displayed at Meiji misemono, it does mention a few. Like
their early modern predecessors, many of these items were novel to many Japanese; indeed, that is why they were mentioned in the paper. The first mention isof an elephant that was to be moved from the misemono area in Asakusa Park fora kaichō (ys 2 April 1890, 2). A few years later, an entertainer attempted to gather
customers by advertising months in advance that he was giving away rollerskates as the grand prize at his booth (ys 12 December 1892, 2). Other people
became (unintentionally?) misemono through their actions: several people racing bicycles drew a crowd from the nearby kaichō of Shinobazu Benzaiten 不忍
弁才天 (ys 17 April 1899, 1). In Nagano during the 1882 and 1888 igaichō displaysof Shinano Zenkōji’s Amida Triad Icon, building stalls on the temple’s grounds
was banned. This pushed the misemono to an empty lot nearby. On display weremoving mechanized dolls, the life of Shinran (ichidaiki 一代記) divided into fifteen parts, and a variety of performances (sms 13 April 1882; 14 April 1888). In
1882, the town was covered in lanterns so “night is like bright day, it is very beautiful” (sms 13 April 1882). That misemono were discussed in such detail in newspaper articles on kaichō demonstrates that they were considered to be a part of
the general atmosphere of displays into the Meiji period, even though they were
not a formal part of the temple and shrine displays.
Finally, two kaichō were connected with the Russo-Japanese War. The first
was Kawasaki Daishi’s 1904 kaichō. A ys article announced that the kaichō was“to pray for the complete victory of the imperial army and the well-being of thesoldiers at land and on the sea, from tomorrow the eleventh [of April] until thetwentieth of May we are displaying our main image of Kōbō Daishi” (ys 10 April
1904, 3). That Kawasaki Daishi would use a kaichō to pray for the victory andhealth of the armed forces is not surprising. Other temples and shrines offeredprayers and gave amulets to the armed forces during the Russo-Japanese War(Thal 2005, 266).
Following the end of the conflict, which claimed 10 percent of the Japanesesoldiers mobilized, the ys published an article about an igaichō held by Shinano
Zenkōji in April 1906. This kaichō was one of Zenkōji’s regularly scheduled displays, which have been held every six years.24 In addition to this kaichō, the article continued, there was also to be a memorial service for those who had died in
the war (ys 5 April 1906, 3). The use of displays to pray for victory and the repose
23. I have been unable to find information about misemono into the Taisho period.
24. Modern-day gokaichō at Zenkōji have been performed in the Year of the Ox and Year of
the Sheep. One major exception was the gokaichō scheduled for 2021, which was postponed by
one year due to the covid-19 pandemic.

102 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)of the war dead may have come at a time when Japanese Buddhists sought ways
to be relevant to the government and therefore tied old practices with the concerns of the nation-state and its citizens.
Conclusion
Much like the woman from Mie who had traveled to Tokyo looking for Fudō
Myōō, we have searched for traces of kaichō in the Meiji and Taisho periods.
Unlike the poor woman who was so far from Fudō that even he could not hear
her pleas, we can still see a faint silhouette of the kaichō of these periods. Thisoutline, gathered from articles from the pages of the ys and sms newspapers,
demonstrated that kaichō and practices surrounding them continued throughthe Restoration into the Meiji period, but they were buffeted in the first twenty
years of that period by changing government policies. For a time, regulations
severely restricted the movement of temple images. Temples and shrines continued to display their images, though either these displays decreased or the reportson them decreased at around the start of the twentieth century. People’s practices and temples’ performances of kaichō were also altered by the convenienceof train travel, which benefited petitioners, temples, and train companies. The
articles of the ys and sms also allowed us to briefly glimpse some of the practices
that occurred with kaichō, and how those changed in the Meiji period. Practices
that were deemed disruptive—drumming at night, posting signs in the streets,and petitioning deities while naked—were banned or policed. Other activities
adjusted to fit new developments: train travel allowed confraternities to travelen masse; temples gained new commercial partners such as newspapers andtrain companies; sideshows showcased new items; and displays were tied to war
efforts. However, as mentioned above, these articles have only provided us witha sketch of kaichō in this period; more work must be done, using other sources
such as temple and shrine archives and municipal histories, to fill in the detailsof this sketch.

references
abbreviations
sms
ys

Shinano mainichi shinbun 信濃毎日新聞. Shinano mainichi shinbun database. https://db.shinmai.co.jp/tdb/service/.
Yomiuri shinbun 読売新聞. Yomidas Rekishikan.			
https://database.yomiuri.co.jp/about/en/.

mitchell: kaichō in the meiji and taisho periods | 103

primary sources
Genkō jiin reiki 現行寺院例規. Ed. Abe Sadatoshi 阿部貞利. Yōmankaku, 1893.
Shaji shūkyō hōki zenshū 社寺宗教法規全集. Ed. Chūō Hōritsu Gakkan 中央法律学館. Chūō Hōritsu Gakkan, 1910.

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2000 A History of Japanese Railways, 1872–1999. East Japan Railway Culture
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2006 Modern Passings: Death Rites, Politics, and Social Change in Imperial
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Botsman, Daniel
2004 Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan. Princeton University Press.
Ericson, Steven J.
1996 The Sound of the Whistle: Railroads and the State in Meiji Japan. Harvard
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Graham, Patricia Jane2007 Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art, 1600–2005. University of Hawai‘i
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Hiruma Hisashi 比留間尚1980 Edo no kaichō 江戶の開帳. Yoshikawa Kōbunkan.
Horton, Sarah J.
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Huffman, James L.
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doi.org/bfws
Jaffe, Richard M.
2001 Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Buddhism. Princeton University Press.

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Kerr, George H., and Mitsugu Sakihara
2000 Okinawa: The History of an Island People. Tuttle Publishing.
Ketelaar, James Edward
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Kitamura Gyōon 北村行遠
1989 Kinsei kaichō no kenkyū 近世開帳の研究. Meicho Shuppan.
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手続きについて. Risshō Daigaku Bungakubu ronsō 100: 259–269.
MacWilliams, Mark W.
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Markus, Andrew L.
1985 The carnival of Edo: Misemono spectacles from contemporary accounts.
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45: 499–541. doi.org/10.2307/2718971
McCallum, Donald F.
1994 Zenkōji and Its Icon: A Study in Medieval Japanese Religious Art. Princeton
University Press.
McDermott, Hiroko T.
2006 The Hōryūji treasures and early Meiji cultural policy. Monumenta Nipponica 61: 339–374.
Rambelli, Fabio
2002 Secret buddhas: The limits of Buddhist representation. Monumenta Nipponica 57: 271–307.
Reader, Ian
2005 Making Pilgrimages: Meaning and Practice in Shikoku. University of
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2014 Pilgrimage in the Marketplace. Routledge.
Thal, Sarah
2005 Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods: The Politics of a Pilgrimage Site inJapan, 1573–1912. University of Chicago Press.

reviews

Timothy O. Benedict, Spiritual Ends: Religion and the Heartof Dying in Japan
University of California Press, 2022. 208 pages. Paperback,$34.95. isbn 978-0-520-38866-6. doi.org/10.1525/luminos.136

There is one sentence in chapter 1 of Timothy O. Benedict’s book that strucka chord and that was decisive in further convincing me to keep reading to theend: “[W]hen scholars of religion reproduce the characterizations of spirituality
through the language of spiritual seekers themselves, their research is in constant danger of confusing scholarly classification with judgment” (12). Although
this may sound like an obvious methodological observation to many of thisjournal’s readers, as Benedict notes, the uncritical usage of the term “spirituality” in religious studies, medical anthropology, and other fields with which thisbook engages is not uncommon. Defining spirituality according to how those westudy explain it to us, especially in terms of its alleged contrasts to religion, does
not shield us from the risk of sounding like we take for granted and essentialize spirituality. This issue is particularly conspicuous in the field of hospice care,which has been instrumental in the Japanese context in framing scholarly usageof spirituality in general.
The foremost scholar of supirichuariti (spirituality), Shimazono Susumu,
has frequently relied on the definitions of spirituality and its distinction from“religion” as provided by “spiritual care” pioneer Kubotera Toshiyuki. Indeed,as Benedict explains in chapter 5 (95–97), Kubotera, a Christian minister andformer chaplain at Yodogawa Christian Hospital (the cradle of the hospicecare movement in Japan), provided the first meaningful distinction between
religious and spiritual care by associating spirituality with healing (iyashi 癒し)and religion with salvation (sukui 救い). As I have recently discussed in my105

106 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
monograph about spirituality in Japan (Gaitanidis 2022), such conceptual
distinctions have been instrumental in constructing an idea of spirituality as
what comes after religion. I have done this, however, without touching on therich and complex history and current conditions of spiritual care. My work
was, in this sense, incomplete, but thanks to Benedict’s book we now have in
our hands the definitive account of spiritual care in Japan to recommend to
students, colleagues, and all those interested in the topic.
Benedict, a former chaplain himself and currently an Associate Professor
in Sociology at Kwansei Gakuin University, spent approximately one year anda half conducting participant observation and informal conversations withpatients and staff at twelve hospices in Japan, as well as recording interviews
with twenty chaplains, eleven doctors, twenty-five nurses, and nine hospicepatients (13–14). The extent of his expertise in the field is palpable throughout the book and especially in chapters 2, 3, and 4, where the ethnographic
accounts from his fieldwork consistently point to the reality that spiritual care,however defined, fails to capture the complex entanglement of care that isoffered to patients at the end of their lives and which often does not distinguishbetween the patients’ beliefs, their emotional sensibilities, and their physicalneeds. This is why Benedict has chosen to focus his attention on the concept ofkokoro 心 (the Chinese character which adorns the cover of the book) because,
he argues, it refers to the faculty of both thinking and feeling and hence encapsulates the interaction between the cognitive and affective dimensions thatthe notion of spiritual care does not necessarily convey. The spiritual care that
Benedict witnessed was not just about helping patients work through existential questions or offering religious truths that might provide solace in the faceof death, but it also included “a wide range of mundane activities and interactions between hospice workers and patients that help the patient constantly
feel their worth by letting them ‘be themselves’” (30). Kokoro care is, therefore,
a better description of spiritual care in Japan, argues Benedict.
I am not convinced that finding a more “suitable” expression for the practiceof spiritual care—based on the romanization of a Japanese word—is beneficial tothis book’s otherwise extensive and fascinating deconstruction of this field’s theories and practice in Japan. I think that Benedict does a perfect job of problematizing spiritual care without providing an alternative. In fact, the ethnographic
material of the first three chapters illustrates perfectly the context that the author
sets off to unravel and the problems associated with the adjective “spiritual.”
The description in chapter 2 of the daily rhythms of hospice care alreadyintroduces the contradictions arising from dividing spiritual care and othertypes of care. For example, one of the cases analyzed in this chapter is that of
Fukuda-san (22–23), a woman in her mid-seventies, who, during her final days,
had asked for her sedation levels to be raised, even though the amount givenreviews | 107

to her was appropriate for her pain. We are told that chaplains would usuallyadvise against anything that would prevent the patient or the patient’s entourage from communicating at the end of life, but an exception was made in thiscase at the request of Fukuda-san’s daughter. Her mother, she explained, was thetype of person who liked to be in command of a situation, and the adjustmentof her medication was one of the ways she could exert control like she always
had. Refusing that would prevent her from dying in a manner that “was herself.”
Benedict explains that hospice workers committed to spiritual care believe thatanything that prevents the patient from addressing a potential spiritual pain thatmight be the actual cause of her misery should be avoided, but “being oneself ”
was, in this case, prioritized and integrated into the way Fukuda-san’s end-of-lifecare was later remembered. The adjective “spiritual” clearly does not cover thecomplexity of Fukuda-san’s care.
To unravel this issue of what exactly spiritual care is about, Benedict, in chapter 3, explains that spiritual care is less about what is being done and more about
how it is conducted. In fact, we learn that “religious care”—that is, activities andinteractions with patients that are openly framed in the language of particularreligious traditions (34)—is rarely practiced or asked for by patients. There areseveral reasons for this, not necessarily related to the Japanese patients having apoor image of religious professionals, as many other scholarly studies of contemporary religion in Japan have already shown. Benedict notes that we also needto take into account that, for example, due to improvements in drugs given topatients at the end of life, many patients choose to stay at a hospice for shorter
periods, and only after they have exhausted all their medical options to alleviate
pain at home (35).
Religious workers in medical settings have also intentionally transformed
the religious elements of their tradition and made it more accessible to a secularaudience to continue attracting new members and maintaining their position
in society (36). These observations by the author are very important because
they undermine and complicate a common trope heard in the media that themain reason Japanese are said to prefer spiritual care is because of their alleged“non-religiousness.” In the second half of the chapter, Benedict creates three categories that help the reader to better grasp the notion of spiritual care. Theseare “vocal care,” in which caregivers converse and listen to patients, “resonating
care,” in which emphasis is put on simply being with the patient, and “supportive
care,” which refers to “creating an environment that helps the patient affirm theirvalue amid the dying process” (41) and that often aims at disguising imagery or
things that may remind the patient or their families that they are in a medicalcare facility. Taken together, none of these categories of care can be said to be
exclusive to the domain of practitioners with a religious background, and Benedict notes that chaplains are aware of this. Yet, they are usually quick to explain

108 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
that their religious training is important because what they do is different fromthe work of clinical psychologists; psychologists treat patients with counselingtherapies that are part of mainstream medicine, while chaplains are simply listening, empathizing, and even crying with the patient (47).
On reading chapter 3, one may wonder if the profession of spiritual careis the result of boundary-work between (at least) two professional communities. However, chapter 4 introduces another argument: chaplains are uniquely
trained to deal with “spiritual pain.” Yet, Benedict already warns us at the startof the chapter that a core tension lies at the heart of the concept of spiritualpain.
On the one side, I suggest that for most Japanese patients, spiritual pain is only
rarely articulated in terms of a search for meaning, belief, or transcendence. In
fact, many of the patients who come to “accept” their death claim to do so byletting go of the need to transcend their condition altogether…. On the otherside of this tension is the fact that hospice workers who are committed to providing spiritual care ultimately do suggest that a “search for meaning” can belatent, repressed, or sometimes just poorly articulated by Japanese patients. In
their view, spiritual pain is like a submarine at sea. Even when you cannot see
it, it might be lurking below.
(51)

Through many detailed examples, Benedict helps us navigate what seems to be a
struggle to generalize very specific cases and the constant work of interpretationthat is required from hospice workers to identify what constitutes spiritual painin the case of this or that patient. Does, for example, the fear of being a burden
to one’s family count as spiritual pain? Physicians and nurses in Japan seem tothink so, but in other countries, despite the presence of the same anxieties, categorizations are different.
The same can be said about the absence of a strong anxiety regarding deathamong Japanese patients, which is not conditioned by some “samurai-likespirit” that makes the Japanese oblivious to the fear of death (62). It is also
observed in other countries. So, what are the reasons for the apparent contradiction between the low number of Japanese hospice patients who openly raise“spiritual” questions and the conviction of many hospice workers and nearly
all chaplains that most patients are in need of spiritual care? Benedict offers
two ways to answer this question (67). One confirms suspicions of boundary-work, that is, that despite the arbitrariness of labels like “spiritual pain” thelegitimization of such pain as a clinical symptom legitimizes the existence ofreligious chaplains. A second “more charitable” (67) way to answer the question also consists of one of Benedict’s key arguments in this monograph: theterm “spiritual” functions in Japanese hospice care as a floating signifier thatis available to professionals committed to spiritual care and who draw on it toreviews | 109

make sense and respond to mundane or deep existential concerns expressedby patients. It is a label used by caregivers who, in the first place, believe thatpatients experience but will not easily express a particular kind of pain that
becomes expressible once the adjective “spiritual” is attached to it.
This argument leads us to chapter 5, aptly titled “The Invention of Japanese
Spirituality.” Starting with an examination of D. T. Suzuki’s definition of spirituality, where Benedict finds the first attempt at describing “something that isdifferent from religion, resides deep in every person, and becomes ‘awakened’”(80), the chapter traces the global conversations about spirituality from Cicely
Saunders, the mother of modern hospice care, and the World Health Organization’s nuanced use of the term as an alternative to “holism,” to later developments in which spiritual care became a technology of care necessitating
professional certificates and quantifiable assessments. We learn, therefore, thateven before examining the case of spiritual care in Japan, delineating a spiritual dimension in patients, which could serve as the locus of spiritual pain, attimes undermines the original meaning of this type of care, which was more
about treating patients as a whole person (89). Nevertheless, as the rest of thechapter illustrates, many commentators tried to define precisely what spiritual pain is about. Some attempted to locate the locus of spiritual pain in thespirit (tamashii 魂) of the person, while others tried to explain how spiritual
pain felt, by introducing an understanding of spirituality as focused on feelings, reasons, and the self-identity of the patient. By doing this, philosophers,
hospice care practitioners, and priests emphasized spirituality as the integrating or core element of personhood, thus entirely distinct from “religion.”
The more “medicalized” spirituality became, the less it was allowed to reminisce about anything religious, even if all chaplains continue to believe that
religious beliefs invariably inform their work (104). By the end of the chapter,
one cannot help feeling that in the majority of cases, the French suggestion of
replacing the adjective “spiritual” with “existential” would solve many of thedefinitional issues, but this is exactly where the value of Benedict’s effort islocated. He shows that conceptual conversations about spirituality and medical care happened within global conversations that the pioneers of spiritualcare in Japan conducted with British, German, and American colleagues, all
the while they were developing their own frameworks, which they considered
to be better suited to their contexts.
And it is to this local context that Benedict turns in chapter 6 where heavoids a simple diffusionist idea of spiritual care, having come from abroad toflourish in Japan during the last thirty years. Indeed, as the author illustrates,
the institutionalized forms of social welfare provided by Buddhist and Christian hospitals during the early twentieth century later became key sites forpurveying the philosophy of hospice and spiritual care in Japan (109). In other110 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
words, this was not a sudden phenomenon: “care for the kokoro of patients wason the minds of religious groups well before the notion of spiritual care” (115).
Benedict notes that modern Buddhist intellectuals, such as Inoue Enryō, hadalready argued that social engagement was necessary to reform Buddhism,
inspiring the foundation of medical charities and pushing the number of Buddhist medical institutions beyond that of their Christian counterparts during
the first few decades of the twentieth century (116). Later, however, financial
struggles contributed to a reduction in the number of Buddhist-associated hospitals (today, only a handful remain), whereas, on the contrary, Christian missions benefited from increased donations. “In 2017, approximately thirty-three
Christian hospitals in Japan provided some form of hospice care, and all but
nine of these hospices were founded before 1960” (119). By the time Elizabeth
Kübler-Ross’s bestselling book On Death and Dying (1969) was translated into
Japanese in 1971, religion-affiliated medical institutions had several decades ofpractice under the belt to start framing their work as spiritual care. Kashiwagi
Tetsuo, a psychiatrist at the Yodogawa Christian Hospital, traveled to the UK
and US from 1979 to 1981 to receive training directly from figures like Cicely
Saunders. In 1985, Tamiya Masashi used the Sanskrit term “Vihāra” (Bihāra)to refer to Buddhist hospice care, spearheading a movement whose activities
have sometimes gone well beyond spiritual care to include all kinds of welfare support. After the Kobe earthquake and the Aum sarin gas attack in 1995,
Benedict notes that kokoro care went mainstream, and “religious workers in
hospice care started to rely on the label of ‘spiritual care’ to distinguish theirwork from a broader type of psychological care” (127). The triple disaster of 11
March 2011 further changed the situation, highlighting even more clearly how
the history of medical welfare and hospice care in Japan shows “how religious
groups in Japan looked to such engagement, both to show their own healthyrole in society and to live out their religious commitments” (130).
In the short concluding chapter, chapter 7, Benedict reiterates his key argument: “spirituality” is a strategic label that serves to negotiate the flexible
boundaries between the religious and the secular to legitimize and valorize
the role Japanese religious workers play in the hospice (137). And, he restatesthat the notion of kokoro as the seat of feelings and its importance in the practice of spiritual care in Japan “demonstrates the need for more analysis of therole that feelings play in the forming of Japanese religious and nonreligious
identities” (136). There is no argument against this observation. With some
exceptions (see footnote 9 of chapter 7 and Baffelli (2023) for a more recent
example), emotions are still an underdeveloped analytical dimension of religion in Japan. But, and this is my main criticism of Benedict’s argument, do
we need to keep Japanese terms, such as kokoro, to talk about such aspects ofreligion in English?

reviews | 111

I have no doubt that Benedict’s aim is not to emphasize an alleged uniqueness of Japanese culture. Throughout the book and until the end, where herefers to Jungian psychologist Kawai Hayao, but warns against Kawai’s tendency to overstate the Japanese psyche’s specificities, Benedict makes sure that
we understand that he is not writing another Kokoro, The Japanese Art of…
book. Still, keeping the romanized word and referring to kokoro care reminded
me of debates surrounding, for example, the use of Kami or kami in studies
of religion in Japan published in English (or other alphabet-based languages).
Are these words untranslatable? Or is keeping them in romanized script a matter of convenience so that the author does not need to keep reminding readers that, in this case for example, kokoro does not just mean “mind/heart”? I
understand that readers are not naïve and that most would think that I provided the answer to my concern already in my second question. As long as
we are careful in avoiding essentialized accounts of our concepts like Benedict
does brilliantly with spirituality, our audiences will understand our intentions
in keeping some words untranslated. But part of the problem remains. How
many readers will remember that, as in the case of “spirituality” or “kami”(Sato 2016), kokoro also has a particular history, nonetheless transnational,
during which its meaning became entangled at the end of the nineteenth century between psychologists, hypnotists, and Buddhist intellectuals (Ichiyanagi 2014)? Except for this minor comment, I thoroughly enjoyed Benedict’sbook and highly recommend it to anyone interested in hospice care, spiritualcare, or end-of-life care in, but not limited to, Japan.

references
Baffelli, Erica
2023 Fear and the construction of minority religions in Japan. Religion, Stateand Society 51: 223–237. doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2212579
Gaitanidis, Ioannis
2022 Alternativity and Spirituality in Contemporary Japan: Beyond Religion?
Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies. Bloomsbury.
Ichiyanagi Hirotaka 一柳廣孝
2014 Muishiki to iu monogatari: Kindai Nihon to “kokoro” no yukue 無意識という物語—近代日本と「心」の行方. Nagoya Daigaku Shuppankai.
Sato Hiroo
2016 How Like a God: Deification in Japanese Religion. Trans. David Noble.
International House of Japan.
Ioannis Gaitanidis
Chiba University

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Paul Groner, Precepts, Ordinations, and Practice inMedieval Japanese Tendai
University of Hawai‘i Press, 2022. 400 pages. Hardback, $68.00.
isbn 9780824892746. Paperback, $20.00. isbn 9780824893286.

Paul Groner’s newest book from the Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism
series published with the University of Hawai‘i Press collects, organizes, andrevises twelve articles previously published by the author from 1978 onward.
As a whole, these chapters provide a detailed and comprehensive illustration of
the discourse on the Buddhist precepts in the Japanese Tendai school in a way
no work in English has done before and few studies in Japanese even begin tobroach. Building on Groner’s previous monographs on Saichō (1984) and Ryōgen (2002), this book seeks to understand the discourse on the precepts in theTendai school and its development throughout the medieval period.
The book consists of a “series of portraits of Tendai views, often based on aparticular person, text, or ritual” (302). Although Groner does not offer an overarching narrative for this complex discourse, he nevertheless highlights several
major themes in medieval Tendai doctrine and practice. The chapters of thebook progress from a general discussion of the place of precepts in the historyof Tendai scholasticism to studies of particular individuals, texts, lineages, anddoctrinal matters. Within this overall progression, each chapter combines social,intellectual, textual, and institutional history in a way that illuminates the effectiveness and necessity of this sort of multifaceted approach to the study of religion in premodern East Asia.
A foreword by Jacqueline Stone emphasizes what is at stake in this book. By
contextualizing the apparent contradiction between the loose observation ofmonastic precepts and a deep concern with moral and behavioral norms in Japanese Buddhism, the volume challenges assumptions that Japanese Buddhists
were dismissive of the fundamental tenets of monastic life. The introduction
and conclusion, in particular, address this issue by summarizing the themes discussed in more detail throughout the book: laxity vs. strictness, ordination, thetension between ideals and lived practice, and the complex discourse linking theprecepts to other aspects of Buddhist doctrine and practice.
Individual chapters go into detail on a number of important individuals,
themes, and concepts related to the Buddhist precepts. The bodhisattva precepts and the Brahma’s Net Sūtra is a central topic, as is the Lotus Sūtra and theworks of well-known Tendai scholiasts such as Annen. The book also includes

reviews | 113

chapters about lesser-known figures such as Kōen and Ninkū of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, and several influential, though obscure, types of ordination within the Tendai tradition. The difference between “universal ordination” ( futsūju 普通授, or simply tsūju 通授)—a ceremony in which precepts are
bestowed upon both lay believers and monastics—and “distinct ordination”(betsuju 別授)—when ceremonies for laity and monastics are conducted separately—forms one locus of this discussion. The “consecrated ordination”(kaikanjō 戒潅頂), a type of precepts ceremony that married esoteric rituals withprecept conferral ceremonies, forms another. In addition to these topics, studies
on the role of confession in Japanese Tendai, debates as a component of training
on Mt. Hiei, and the “perfect-sudden precepts” (endonkai 円頓戒)—an idea thatlinks the precepts to the Lotus Sūtra—form a network of concepts linking theprecepts and monastic law to the philosophy of the Tendai school.
What becomes apparent through these chapters is that the precepts werea perennial concern in the history of Tendai in Japan. At the same time, thesources and individuals mentioned represent a high degree of diversity within
what we might otherwise assume to be a unified vision. Tendai, as Groner writes,“was not a monolithic entity” (301), and the debate surrounding the precepts was“ongoing” and “multifaceted”(7).
What was the debate about the precepts, and why were they so important in
the Tendai tradition? On the one hand, the scholars in the Tendai school consistently argued for a more rigorous application and stricter adherence to theprecepts by connecting ordination and precept practice to various doctrines of
the Lotus Sūtra or to esoteric Buddhist thought. On the other hand, their constant refrain lamenting the laxity of their fellow monastics and urging stricter
regulation of monastic life may indicate that maintaining order was not easy andthat “laxity” was more common than we often imagine. By Groner’s account,
this “laxity” was partly a product of rules that were “vague” or “ambiguous,” particularly the precepts of the Brahma’s Net Sūtra. Despite its centrality, this text
was “ill-suited as a basis of monastic Buddhism” (303), and, coupled with thefact that many of the monks on Mt. Hiei were sons of wealthy aristocrats whojoined the order more out of obligation than religious conviction, the slide into
negligence was inevitable. By working to understand Buddhist conceptions ofmorality, Groner argues that the Tendai scholiasts aimed to reinforce “strictness”
and adherence to the Vinaya, particularly in regard to the ordination ceremony.
By collecting decades of research in a single volume, Groner’s book represents
the most comprehensive study of the role of the precepts in Japanese Buddhism
to date, one not likely to be superseded any time soon. As such, the book is not
only the culmination of a single research project but of a career studying andresearching Japanese Buddhism. The book concludes with a short essay by a former student, Charles Jones, describing Groner’s role as a mentor and remind-

114 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 50/1 (2023)
ing us that, although we may study obscure topics such as medieval Japanesemonastic law, what we do as academics matters to our students and the future
generations of Buddhist studies scholars (330). While opportunities to directly
study with Paul Groner may be fewer now that he has retired, with this newvolume the chance to learn from Groner through his writings will be with us foryears to come.

references
Groner, Paul1984 Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School. University of
Hawai‘i Press.
2002 Ryōgen and Mount Hiei: Japanese Tendai in the Tenth Century. Universityof Hawai‘i Press.
Thomas Newhall

University of California, Los Angeles

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
editorMatthew D. McMullen

associate editor
Kaitlyn Ugoretz

advisory board
Barbara Ambros, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Clark Chilson, University of Pittsburgh
Lucia Dolce, soas, University of London
Helen Hardacre, Harvard University
Hayashi Makoto, Aichi Gakuin University
Kawahashi Noriko, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture
Keller Kimbrough, University of Colorado at Boulder
Lori Meeks, University of Southern California
Minowa Kenryō, University of Tokyo
Okuyama Michiaki, Toyo Eiwa University
Ian Reader, University of Manchester, Emeritus
Brian Ruppert, Kanagawa University
Jacqueline I. Stone, Princeton University, Emeriti
Paul L. Swanson, jjrs Editor Emeritus
Duncan Ryūken Williams, University of Southern California
Yamanaka Hiroshi, University of Tsukuba

editorial consultants(2023–2027)

Anna Andreeva, Ghent University
Erica Baffelli, University of Manchester
Heather Blair, Indiana University
Hoshino Seiji, Kokugakuin University
Orion Klautau, Tohoku University
Levi McLaughlin, North Carolina State University
Aike P. Rots, University of Oslo
Jolyon B. Thomas, University of Pennsylvania

internal advisors
Enrico Fongaro Moriya Tomoe

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