Clerical Demographics in the Edo-Meiji Transition: Shingon and Tōzanha Shugendō in Western Sagami

Abstract

Clerical Demographics in the Edo-Meiji Transition:Shingon and Tōzanha Shugendō in Western Sagami Barbara Ambros (bio) During the early modern period, Hakone-yama Tōfukuji was a major Kogi Shingon center in southwestern Sagami province. In the early seventeenth century, it had been awarded 200 koku by shogunal decree (goshuin) for administering the shrine (sharyō) dedicated to Hakone Gongen , the divinity of Mt. Hakone. The complex was also designated as one of thirty-four Kogi Shingon academies (dangisho) in the Kantō region. Kongōōin , one of seven cloisters (tatchū) at the site, served as the intendant (bettō) of Hakone Gongen. Six ritual clerics (gusō) staffed the other six cloisters located just below the Hakone Gongen shrine. Also associated with the complex was a contingent of six shrine priests (shanin) and fifteen Honzanha and Tōzanha Shugenja —three residing in the town and twelve others in nearby villages.1 During the early Meiji campaign to disassociate kami and buddhas (shinbutsu bunri), a combinative site of such complexity became a major target for restructuring. Along with the other clerics, the Hakone intendant laicized, took the name Hakone Tarō, and became the head shrine priest of the Shinto institution newly established at the site in the early Meiji period. The former temple precincts and temple buildings were turned over to him as private holdings, but he eventually sold both off to other laymen.2 Two Tōzanha Shugenja laicized; the other joined the Shingon school as a cleric in 1872.3 Honzanha Shugenja had similar options: [End Page 83] laicize or join the Tendai school as Buddhist clerics. What happened to the Edo-period shrine priests is unclear. The transition from the Edo to the Meiji period was a time of great political and ideological flux. The strongest crosscurrent challenging the fundamental confluences of premodern Japanese religions was shinbutsu bunri. The disassociation led to the development of two distinct entities, Shinto and Buddhism, which at that moment were channeled into two different streams.4 Combinative religious institutions were forcibly disentangled into Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. The complex universe of religious specialists was whittled down to shrine priests and Buddhist clerics, and what it meant to be one or the other was completely redefined. The disassociation from their management of Shinto shrines weakened Buddhist schools such as Shingon that had once wielded much power in Japan's combinative premodern universe. Combinative religious traditions such as Shugendō were decimated. To understand the implications of these developments and to get a better idea of the factors contributing to them, we need to have a more concrete grasp of the actual grassroots circumstances of Edo religious life. To this end, this article will explore a specific case study, the situation of Shingon and Tōzanha in western Sagami, making use of a particularly rich source, a temple register compiled in 1872 (with a few further entries added in 1876) by a Kogi Shingon cleric named Chikan .5 After placing Shingon Buddhism and Tōzanha Shugendō in the history of the early modern period and introducing the background and scope of Chikan's register, I will analyze what it tells us, first, about the demographics and career patterns of Shingon clerics and Tōzanha Shugenja, and, second, the impact of the Edo-Meiji transition on the Shingon school and Tōzanha Shugendō. The register forces us to rethink our assumptions about sectarian divisions and relationships and about the training and demographics of the Buddhist clergy during the Edo period, while allowing us to gain a nuanced understanding of the impact of the early Meiji policies on Buddhist and Shugendō institutions. We may think that sectarian boundaries became clearly demarcated during the early modern period, but the boundaries between the branches of Shingon Buddhism—Kogi, Shingi , and Ritsu —were by no means airtight, and they became even more permeable during the Meiji transition. In contrast, even though Tōzanha Shugenja nominally were under the administration of Sanbōin at Daigoji , a famous Shingon temple in Kyoto, early modern Shugenja had their own training networks that were completely independent of the Shingon school. Full integration into the Shingon school occurred only in the early Meiji period. The...