4 Aston (trans.), Nihongi,Charles E.Tuttle, 1993, vol.2, p. 135.
5 In Chapter Twelve "Devadetta", an eight-years old Dragon King's daughter is described as "wise and of keen faculties, well acquainted with the karma arising from the roots of action o f all creatures, -- and has deeply entered into meditations and penetrated into all laws." She presented a precious pearl to the Buddha, and he immediately accepted it, then "the dragon’s daughter suddenly transformed into a male,
kb (Lotus Lectures) for lay devotees, especially women with little knowledge of the
Chinese language, encouraged them to visit temples. The Hokke hakko (Eight Lectures on the Lotus Sutra), usually held in memory of deceased family members, was one of the most frequently performed Buddhist rituals attended by the imperial family or the aristocracy in the medieval period.6 The passage below from the Makura no soshi {the
Pillow Book) by Sei sho-nagon confirms how the Lotus Sutra lectures provided
meaningful occasions to visit temples for Heian women:
When I visited Bodai Temple to hear the Eight Lessons for Confirmation, I received this message from a friend: 'Please Come back soon. Things are very dreary here without you.' I wrote my reply on a lotus petal:
Though you bid me come,
How can I leave this dew-wet lotus leaves And return to a world so full of grief?
I had been truly moved by the ceremony and felt that I could Remain forever in the temple.7
The Lotus Sutra lectures were held not only in temples, but at shrines as well. The episode of Fujiwara no Moromichi in the Sanno reigenki, discussed in the previous chapter, mentioned that the Hokke-ko was sponsored by Moromichi's mother at the Hie Shrine to appease the kami. In the climate of shinbutsu shugo in which the essence of
kami was identified with Buddha, the reading of the Lotus Sutra at shrines was
considered quite appropriate.
The tradition o f the Lotus Sutra lectures is still observed at the Hie Shrine annually on the 26th May in the service of Sanno reihai-ko when the monks of the Enryaku-ji hold explications and debates on the contents of the sutra in the haiden of the Omiya Shrine
perfect on bodhisattva-deeds, who instantly went to the World Spotless in the southern quarter, where [she] sat on a precious lotus flower, attaining Perfect Enlightenment, with the thirty-two signs and the eighty kinds o f excellence, and universally proclaiming the Wonderful Law to all living creatures in the universe." The Lotus Sutra, Kosei Publishings1992, pp.212-3.
6 Willa J.Tanabe, Paintings o f the Lotus Sutra, p.39.
(fig. 37).8 The origin of the ritual goes back to the year 1025 when all the trees in the shrine complex died mysteriously. The kami of Omiya manifested himself to the old shrine priest Hafuribe Mareto, and he lamented the idleness of monks and the decline of Buddhist Law on MtHiei. In order to apologise to the kami, the monks were gathered from MtHiei to conduct the debates on the Lotus Sutra in front of the shrine. It is said that soon after the ritual, the trees revived their original green.9 Such an episode reflects the Heian view of Sanno Gongen whose magical power as the protector of Tendai Buddhsim was also closely associated with the land and nature.
The chanting of the Lotus Sutra for the Sanno kami can also be confirmed in the Muromachi period text, Shichisha ryakki, which describes the procedure of the Tozu seppo (Lectures at Tozu), the annual summer lecture series at the Tonan-ji in Sakamoto. The event is said to originate from the time of Saicho who came down from MtHiei once a year to lecture on the Lotus Sutra to the public, and the temple maintains the tradition to this day. On the first seven days of the event, the reading of one chapter from the Lotus Sutra was dedicated to individual kami of the Upper Seven Shrines of Hie. According to the Shichisha ryakki, the following chapters were read:
20th day of the sixth month, the sutra o f Innumerable Meanings for the Omiya. 21st day of the sixth month, Chapter 1, 'Introductory' for the Ni-no-miya. 22nd day of the sixth month, Chapter 2, 'Tactfulness' for the Shoshinshi. 23rd day of the sixth month, Chapter 3, 'A Parable' for the Hachioji.
24th day o f the sixth month, Chapter 4, 'Faith Discernment' for the Marodo. 25th day o f the sixth month, Chapter 5, 'The Parable of the Herbs' for the Juzenji.
8 Enryaku-ji shikkokyoku (ed.) Hieizan, 1993, pp. 147-9. 9 Murayama, Hieizanshi, Tokyo bijutsu, 1994, pp. 13-7.
26th day o f the sixth month, Chapter 6, 'Prediction' for the San-no-miya.10 The acknowledgement of the seven shrines by the temple reflects the respect towards the kami whose protective power ensured the successful rituals. Kageyama has
suggested that the images of Sanno, possibly mandara could have decorated the temple hall for the occasion.11 The text does not mention any image or does not describe how the hall was decorated, and it may be hazardous to make assumption, but the fact that many of the Hie-Sanno mandara were handed down and preserved in temples seems to confirm this theory that Shinto-Buddhist mandara were primarily created and
functioned in Buddhist ritual context.
The wide dissemination of the honji-suijaku theory encouraged the pairing of Buddhist deities and kami, and the twenty-one main kami of Hie were each assigned with their Buddhist counterpart, honji-butsu by the Kamakura period (Appendix 1). The pairing was a gradual process, and the combination of each kami with their honji-butsu was not based on any one theoretical scheme, but often based on legends or historical associations. Consequently, many principal Buddhist deities were recognised as the
honji of several kami of different locations, as for example Shaka was regarded as the honji of Omiya at Hie as well as that of Ichi-no-miya at Kasuga and Kanjo jugosho at
Kumano. Amida was the honji of the Shoshinshi Shrine at Hie as well as that o f Shojoden at Kumano and Hachiman of the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, while
Yakushi was the honji of the Ni-no-miya Shrine at Hie as well as that of Ni-no-miya at Kasuga. These overlaps were inevitable as the pairing of buddhas and kami developed independently at different locations, each incorporating local legends and traditions, indicating that the phenomenon of shinbutsu shugo was a fundamentally localized
movement supported by populace, rather than a systematic religious movement enforced from the centre. As Grapard points out:
The term for the phenomenon is shinbutsu shitgo, which means, literally, combinations (shugo) between kami {sin) and buddhas and bodhisattvas (butsu). Thus what we are confronting here is not syncretism between "Buddhism" and "Shinto", but specific relations between shrines and temples where those divinities were enshrined. It is, however, true that in most cases the combinations were grounded in a framework of interpretation issued either from the Tendai or Shingon philosophical systems; the Japanese themselves, during the medieval period, believed that most combinatory
rationales had been authored by Kukai and Saicho, the founders of Singon and Tendai schools.12
The disparate and gradual development of combinations resulted in many cases rather confusing overlaps and variations, and it was not until the late Kamakura period that the consistent systematization was established.
The combination of kami and buddhas at Hie accompanied the development of paintings of kami, both in their honji and suijaku forms in the Kamakura period when many of the Hie-Sanno mandara examined in this study were created. One of the
earliest textual references to the painting of the Sanno kami appears in the passage in the
Gyokuyo, the diary of the Regent Kujo Kanezane (1149 -1207). In the entry below
dated 1184, he mentions:
'Monk Sonchu brought a scroll of zue (painting) depicting the
mishotai (the sacred body) of the Hie Shrine, and asked for an
inscription, to which I immediately obliged. — ' 13
The description suggests that the painting depicted an image (or images?) of kami, but whether if it was in a honji or a suijaku form is not specified. The painting was brought
11 Kageyaraa Haruki, Shinto bijntsu, Yuzankaku, 1973, pp.96 - 7.
12 Allan Grapard, "Religious Practices" The Cambridge H istory o f Japan, vol..2, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p.565.
13 Kujo Kanezane, Gyokuyo (the Jewelled Leaves), Kokusho kankbkai, 1908, p.54.
by a Buddhist monk, and not by a shrine priest. The use of word'zue1 suggests that the term ’mandara1 was not used for images of kami at this stage.
This is confirmed by another almost contemporary textual reference in the
Meigetsuki, the diaiy of Fujiwara no Teika. In an entry from 1199, Teika wrote:
Fourth day, fine weather, light rain in the evening.
I left the capital around the time of evening bell for Hie. — After visiting the shrines, I joined to attend a service. The ritual space was made in the south-east comer of the prayer hall in front of the Juzenji Shrine by hanging shades and placing screens. The leading monk sat in the southern side while two monks responding sat in the north. — A mirror with the mishotai of ten shrines welded on, and a Buddhist hanging scroll with image of twelve mishotai, were hung, and copies of the Jfizo darani-kyo were placed on two temporary stands and an offering of flowers was placed as usual.14
Teika's description provides interesting and valuable information for the way the haiden was decorated for the occasion.
The mention o f ’a mirror with the mishotai of the ten shrine welded on' points to a bronze kakebotoke (literally 'suspending Buddha’) which might have looked similar to the rare dated example o f kakebotoke in the Nara National Museum (fig. 3 8). The gilt bronze disc, 30.5 cm. in diameter, has an incised inscription on the reverse which includes the date corresponding to 1218, and the name, Taira no Kagetoshi, but his identity is unknown. The ten figures of the Sanno kami, each separately made in shallow relief, are attached to the base with rivets.15 Four monks, three male kami, two female
kami, and a recumbent bull are identified by the inscription on the back as Omiya in the
centre with clockwise from the top right, Hachioji, Shoshinshi, Ni-no-miya, Daigyoji, Ushimiko, Hayao, Juzenji, Marodo, and San-no-miya. Such a Kakebotoke was
14 Fujiwara no Teika, M eigetsuki (the Record of the Bright Moon), Kobundo, 1911, p. 107
suspended under the eaves of shrine halls often in multiple numbers as an illustration of the Shoshinshi Shrine in the Honen Shonin eden (c.1307) indicates (fig.39).
The mention of'one scroll of mihotoke' (Buddhist deity) with twelve mishotai suggests that the painting was what is now called'mandara' with twelve images of
honji-butsu, but as in the case of the 'zue' (painting) in the Gyokuyo, the word mandara
was not used. The two textual references confirm that paintings of the kami of the Hie Shrine were made at least from the late twelfth century, but they were not called
'mandara' then. They also suggest that the paintings depicted honji-butsu, and they
functioned in the Buddhist context, as the ritual which Teika observed was performed by monks although it was held at the prayer hall in front of the Juzenji Shrine.
Images played essential roles in Buddhist rituals, especially in the Esoteric Buddhist tradition. An illustration in the Nenju gyoji emaki shows how the Shingon-in hall in the imperial palace was decorated with mandalas and paintings for the occasion of the ritual
goshichi-nichi mishiho (the Ritual of the latter seven days) (fig.40). Five hanging scrolls
with images of Godai Myoo (the Five Great Kings of Light) are hung in the central wall, and the Ryogai Mandala (Mandalas of the Two Worlds) are hung on the side walls of this ritual space. These images were not mere decoration, but they were understood to embody the spiritual property of deities. As Robert Sharf noted:
Japanese Buddhist images were frequently treated, by elite monastics and unschooled laypersons alike, as more than mere didactic symbols, representations, or commemorations of divine figures or saints. Japanese Buddhist icons were regarded, more often than not, as living presences with considerable apotropaic and salvific power.16