Peak of gold
Subtitle: Trace, place and religion in Heian Japan
By: by Heather Elizabeth Blair
Published: 2008
Language: eng
Number of pages: 323
Description: This dissertation examines the history of the sacred mountain Kinpusen, the peak of gold, which stands about 60 kilometers southeast of Osaka. Based on analysis of contemporary Heian-period sources, it argues that in the 11 th and 12 th centuries the categories of place and text interpenetrated in the religious, textual, and political culture surrounding Kinpusen. This fusion was in large part mediated by the concept of traces ( ato, seki, or jaku ), and this place-text nexus is examined here in three areas of religious practice: (1) the emplacement of full copies of the Buddhist canon in private temples in the capital, and the later dispatches of the canon to the mountains; (2) the burial of sutras at Kinpusen; and (3) the composition of engi origin narratives about Kinpusen and the surrounding areas.

During the Heian period, not only were place and text intimately related, but religion and politics entwined as well. This project also comprises an argument that Kinpusen played a major role in the shift from the Fujiwara regency (c. 960-1100) to the insei (c. 1100-1221). At first, Kinpusen served as a signature pilgrimage destination for the regents' house, but with the rise of the insei under Retired Emperor Shirakawa in the 1110s, the attention of the court shifted southward to Kumano. At once political, ritual, and spatial, this shift can be attributed not only to Shirakawa's preference for Kumano, but also to his activities during his pilgrimage to Kinpusen in 1092. Promotions he made at the mountain aggravated tensions between Kofukuji and Kinpusen, which erupted into violent conflict in 1093. As a result, Kofukuji exerted dominion over Kinpusen: thus, the mountain entered the power-bloc system that Kuroda Toshio has identified as one of the structural hallmarks of medieval Japanese society. Kinpusen's partisans responded to this new political and economic context by producing engi narratives during the 12 th century. In these texts, they worked to fix ritual, develop lineages, and specify sites for practice within the mountains. These efforts at canonization laid the groundwork for the growth of shugendo and its sectarian development in the following centuries.
Notes: "May 2008."

Thesis (Ph.D., Dept. of Religion)--Harvard University, 2008.

Includes bibliographical references.