Embodied Objects: Chūjōhime’s Hair Embroideries and the Transformation of the Female Body in Premodern Japan

Carolyn Wargula

doi:10.3390/rel12090773

Abstract

The female body in medieval Japanese Buddhist texts was characterized as unenlightened and inherently polluted. While previous scholarship has shown that female devotees did not simply accept and internalize this exclusionary ideology, we do not fully understand the many creative ways in which women sidestepped the constraints of this discourse. One such method Japanese women used to expand their presence and exhibit their agency was through the creation of hair-embroidered Buddhist images. Women bundled together and stitched their hair into the most sacred parts of the image—the deity’s hair or robes and Sanskrit seed-syllables—as a means to accrue merit for themselves or for a loved one. This paper focuses on a set of embroidered Japanese Buddhist images said to incorporate the hair of Chūjōhime (753?CE–781?CE), a legendary aristocratic woman credited with attaining rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land. Chūjōhime’s hair embroideries served to show that women’s bodies could be transformed into miraculous materiality through corporeal devotional practices and served as evidence that women were capable of achieving enlightenment. This paper emphasizes materiality over iconography and practice over doctrine to explore new insights into Buddhist gendered ritual practices and draws together critical themes of materiality and agency in ways that resonate across cultures and time periods.

Highlights

Buddhist discourse in premodern Japan long harbored misogynistic views of the female body
Buddhist gendered ritual practices and draws together critical themes of materiality and agency in ways that resonate across cultures and time periods
The Devadatta chapter of the Lotus Sutra was interpreted as evidence that women can only attain buddhahood after their bodies undergo a sexual transformation into a male body (Yoshida 2002; Abé 2015)

Summary

Introduction

Buddhist discourse in premodern Japan long harbored misogynistic views of the female body. When applying Mahmood and Burke’s notion of female agency to the study of Buddhist hair embroidery, this embodied practice can be interpreted not as a break from societal norms of premodern Japan but rather an alternative adaption to dominant modes of thought and practice. To investigate this entangled relationship between image making and female agency, hair embroideries thought to be created by Chūjōhime 中将姫 (753?CE–781?CE) will be the focus of this article. Chūjōhime’s hair embroideries were likely displayed to female audiences as visual and material indicators of women’s ability to achieve rebirth in the female body and functioned as social agents establishing female corporeal presence in male-dominated spaces

Women’s Bodies and the Problems of Salvation

The Emergence of Hair Embroidery

The Legends of Chūjōhime

25 Tim Ingold has taken seriously

The Afterlives of Hair Embroidered Images

Conclusions