The Elderly Nun, the Rain-Treasure Child, and the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel: Visualizing Buddhist Networks at the Grand Shrine of Ise

Abstract

The nunnery Keikōin was a powerful Buddhist institution, famous in late-medieval Japanese history for its vigorous and successful fundraising campaigns on behalf of the Grand Shrine of Ise. Much is known about the nuns’ fundraising activities, but very little is known about their religious practice. A recently discovered painting, I believe, sheds some light on this long-standing question. It depicts an elderly nun invoking the deity Uhō Dōji in the form enshrined at Kongōshōji, a temple situated at the top of Asama Mountain, to the east of Ise’s Inner Shrine. Based on several of the iconographic elements, I argue the nun portrayed in the painting is from Keikōin and that she is shown engaging in esoteric Buddhist practices related to those carried out at Kongōshōji. Comparative analysis with other paintings and the historical record has, moreover, led me to propose that the Keikōin nuns performed these esoteric practices at Ise’s Kora no tachi, the hall where young shrine maidens prepared the daily food offerings for Ise’s deities.