In Her Likeness: Female Divinity and Leadership at Medieval Chūgūji

Abstract

This study takes as its focus the medieval deification of Prince Shotoku's mother, Anahobe no Hashihito. Long associated with the Nara nunnery Chuguji, Empress Hashihito was resurrected as patron goddess of the nunnery in the medieval period, when Chuguji was restored and expanded by the nun Shinnyo (1211-?). Images of Empress Hashihito and the Nun Shinnyo take center stage in the literature and art associated with Chuguji. This article argues that medieval Chuguji narratives effectively ignore androcentric Buddhist teachings in favor of popular legends that present Empress Hashihito as a female deity and Shinnyo as a female Buddhist exemplar. That Chuguji materials offer these seemingly positive images of Buddhist women challenges the commonly held scholarly assumption that medieval Japanese women fully internalized the disparaging views of the female body disseminated in Buddhist doctrinal texts. KEYWORDS: Taishi shinko - Prince Shotoku - Anahobe no Hashihito - Chuguji - Shinnyo - Eison - nuns - bikuni - women's salvation (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) By the early years of the Nara period, practices expressing devotion to the mythical Prince Shotoku (Prince Umayado, 573?-622?) had gained broad popularity. Shotoku's cult grew even stronger with time; by the Heian period, Taishi shinko ... (devotion to the Prince) was a staple of religious activity at court. Among aristocrats, pilgrimage to Shitennoji ..., one of the numerous temples said to have been established by Shotoku, came into vogue, and many made the journey there in order to participate in relics ceremonies and to venerate the Prince. It was also during the Heian period that the hagiographies of the Prince proliferated and grew increasingly elaborate. Taishi shinko remained extremely influential during the years of the Kamakura period. The cult of the Prince was so pervasive, in fact, that most of the leaders of Kamakura reform movements invoked the Prince in one way or another. None, it would seem, could afford to ignore him. Shinran (1173-1262) received his famous revelation at Rokkakudo from the Prince and later wrote wasan (hymns) in honor of him. Eison (1201-1290), too, was known as a devotee of the Prince and performed numerous rituals in his honor. Linking oneself to the Prince was not merely a matter of personal devotion, however; Kamakura-period priests were well aware of the worldly power and influence that could be gained through association with the Prince. Leaders of institutions and movements struggling for support knew that prosperity could be achieved if only they could establish a compelling connection with the Prince. And thus, as Oishio Chihiro has demonstrated (2006, 271), when Eison's Saidaiji-branch ... Ritsu ... (Vinaya) revival movement made an effort to expand into Kyoto, the group focused first and foremost on reviving temples that had some association with Taishi shinko. Within the broader history of Taishi shinko is the fascinating side narrative of how Prince Umayado's mother, Anahobe no Hashihito ... (?-621), came to be recognized as Amida Buddha and worshiped as the patron saint of the nunnery Chuguji .... Empress Hashihito's growing importance in the cult of the Prince is suggested by her prominence in the 1254 Shoko mandarazu ..., a large (over twenty square feet) color-on-silk painting produced at Horyuji ... through the collaboration of the priest Kenshin ... and the painter Gyoson ... (Oishio 2006, 256-58; Ogino 1936, 467-72). The Shoko mandarazu appropriates the stylistic conventions of Buddhist mandalas to portray a group of Japanese court figures as cosmic deities. In doing so, it implicitly invokes the theory of honji suijaku ..., or original ground and subsidiary manifestations, which holds that Japanese kami are the manifestations of buddhas and bodhisattvas.1 Legendary figures from Japan's imperial past (who were, after all, often identified as kami), the image asserts, should also be recognized as Buddhist deities. …