Terrains of Myths and Devotion

Abstract

How do religious imaginings and practices reconstitute the environment and situate communities in the surrounding space? What can religious institutions tell us about the historical interplays among myths, societal formations, and terrains of the earth? This chapter inquires these questions with a case study from preindustrial Japan. The Buddhist monastery of Kôyasan in the mountains of Kii province in western Japan enjoyed historical prominence both on political and spiritual terms. In the late medieval era (14th to 16th centuries), it presided as a landholding overlord and ruled large estates in the plains below. As a site of popular devotion, it developed in the early modern era (or Tokugawa, ca. 1600-1867) a transregional network of worshippers who sought its ritual services that promised salvation in the afterlife. What, then, propelled Kôyasan to its historical prominence? By contextualizing clerical practices with the mythical landscape of the monastery, the chapter uncovers how Kôyasan's success was undergirded by the ritual reconstitution of the land and soil.