`Buddhism',`Shinto' and the
Oracles of the Three Shrines.
Prof. Brian Bocking
Bath College of Higher Education
圓光佛學學報(1997.10)
圓光出版社發行
P. 121-142
.
P. 122
Brian Bocking is Professor and Head of the Study of
Religions Department at Bath Spa University College,
UK. He studied religion at the Universities of
Lancaster and Leeds and was formerly lecturer in
Japanese religions at the University of Stirling,
Scotland and the University of Tsukuba, Japan. He has
written widely in the area of Sino-Japanese
religions. His publications include Nagarjuna in
China: A Translation of the Middle Treatise (Edwin
Mellen Press, 1995) and A Popular Dictionary of
Shinto (Curzon Press, 1996)
Abstract
The `Oracles of the Three Shrines' (Japanese: sanja
takusen) is the name of a distinctive type of hanging
scroll which has been continuously produced in Japan
for almost 600 years. The scroll provides a useful
`window' through which to view the development of
Japanese religion from the medieval period to modern
times. In this paper, which is part of a larger
research project on the sanja takusen, I will attempt
a comparison of two different versions of the scroll.
My aim is to elucidate some changes and continuities
in Japanese religion, particularly around the time of
the `separation of kami and Buddhas' (shinbutsu bunri
or shinbutsu hanzen) of 1868.
P. 124
Introduction
The `Oracles of the Three Shrines' (in Japanese sanja
takusen) is the name given to a distinctive type of
hanging scroll (kakejiku) which has been continuously
produced in Japan for almost 600 years.(1) The common
factor linking all the different versions of the
sanja takusen scroll is the representation, by text
or picture, of the famous `three shrines' (sanja) of
Ise, Kasuga and Hachiman.(2) All versions of the
scroll contain one or more of the following elements:
• The names or titles of the three shrines
• One or more oracular texts (takusen)
• Images of the personified deities of the shrines.
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate two very different
versions of the sanja takusen, which will be
discussed in the present article. There are many
other variant forms of the scroll.
Figure 1 is an example of a `standard' sanja takusen
scroll, popular in Japan from at least the late 14th
century onwards. It comprises the titles of the
shrines or their deities (3) and three oracular texts
, one for each shrine. Figure 2 shows a `post-Meiji'
scroll. It has different shrine titles, different
oracle texts, and includes pictures of the deities.
In the booklet Basic Terms of Shinto published by
Kokugakuin University, the sanja takusen is described
as follows:
Oracles of the three deities Amaterasu omikami,
Hachiman Daibosatsu and Kasuga Daimyojin in.
According to legend, the oracles appeared on the
surface of the pond at Todaiji in Nara during the
Shoo era (1288-1292). The oracles came to form
the basis of moral teachings concerning pureness
of mind, honesty and benevolence, and also
contributed to the formulation and spread of
Shinto doctrine. (4)
This brief description refers to the oracles
themselves, rather than the scroll which became the
means of their popular dissemination. In the recently
published Shinto Jiten (Dictionary of Shinto) a more
comprehensive entry on the sanja takusen is
accompanied by an illustration of an
P. 125
early example of a sanja takusen scroll now held in
the library of Kokugakuin University.(5) This scroll
shows the names or titles of the three shrines (Ise
in the centre, Hachiman on the right, Kasuga on the
left). Below each shrine-name is the text of the
shrine's respective oracle; a brief utterance
attributed to each deity.
An English translation of the three oracles appeared
in 1985 in The World of Shinto, an anthology of
Shinto writings published by the Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai
(Buddhist Promoting Foundation).(6) The Bukkyo Dendo
Kyokai, founded by Mr Numata, Yehan, head of the
Mitsutoyo manufacturing company, is best known for
its publication The Teaching of the Buddha, copies
of which are left, like Gideon's Bibles, in hotel
rooms throughout East Asia. The translation of the
three oracles in The World of Shinto, corresponding
to the standard sanja takusen scroll shown in Fig.1,
runs as follows:
Hachiman Daibosatsu
Though one might attempt to eat a red-hot
ball of iron, one must never eat the food of
a person with an impure mind. Though one
might sit above a blazing fire hot enough to
melt copper, one must never go into the
place of a person of polluted mind. This is
for the sake of purity.
Tensho Kotai Jin gu
If you plot and connive to deceive men, you
may fool them for a while, and profit
thereby, but you will without fail be
visited by divine punishment. To be utterly
honest may have the appearance of
inflexibility and self-righteousness, but in
the end, such a person will receive the
blessings of sun and moon. Follow honesty
without fail.
Kasuga Daimyojin
Even though it be the home of someone who
has managed for long to avoid misfortune,
the gods will not enter into the place of a
person with perverse disposition. On the
other hand, even though a man be in mourning
for his father and mother, if he be a man of
compassion, the gods will enter in there.
Compassion is all important.
p.126
This, with minor variations, is the `standard' text
found in most examples of the sanja takusen scroll
and numerous commentarial works relating to it, from
the late fourteenth century up to the Meiji
Restoration of 1868.(7) The sanja takusen scroll was
extremely popular in the Tokugawa period (1600-1868)
and retained its influence well into the twentieth
century. According to one of my elderly informants
in central Japan, the moral teaching embodied in the
scroll represented ppanteki' (widespread, popular)
notions of religiosity during his own childhood in
the 1920's.
Figure 2 shows a quite different version of the
`three shrines' scroll. This example, which I found
in an antiquarian shop in Kobe in 1982, features the
same three shrines of Ise, Hachiman and Kasuga. It
is a sanja takusen scroll, yet it departs
significantly in appearance and content from the
standard version as described in the Shinto Jiten or
The World of Shinto. For one thing, my Kobe scroll,
which probably dates from the late 19th century,
includes pictures of the three deities. For another,
the text of the oracles is completely different from
the standard wording given above. The text in the
Kobe scroll is in fact drawn from the Nihongi, the
8th-century `chronicle of Japan'. Three new passages
replace the standard oracle texts on purity,
sincerity and compassion with the following:
Amaterasu Sume Omikami commanded her August
Grandchild, saying:- `This Reed-plain-1500-
autumns-fair-rice-ear Land is the region
which my descendants shall be lords of. Do
thou, my August Grandchild, proceed thither
and govern it. Go! and may prosperity attend
thy dynasty, and may it, like Heaven and
Earth, endure for ever.'
Amaterasu Sume Omikami took in her hand the
precious mirror, and, giving it to Ame no
Oshi-ho- mimi no Mikoto, uttered a prayer,
saying: -'My child, when thou lookest upon
this mirror, let it be as if thou wert
looking on me. Let it be with thee on thy
couch and in thy hall, and let it be to thee
a holy mirror.
Taka-mi-musubi no Kami accordingly gave
command, saying:- `I will set up a Heavenly
divine fence and a Heavenly rock-boundary
wherein to practise religious abstinence on
behalf of my descendants. Do ye, Ame no
Koyane no Mikoto and Futo-dama no Mikoto,
take with you the Heavenly divine fence, and
go down to the Central Land of Reed-Plains.
Moreover, ye will there practise abstinence
on behalf of my descendants.(8)
p. 127
In what sense are both of these scrolls `oracles of
the three shrines', and what do their differences
tell us about the development of Japanese religion
and in particular the relationship between
`Buddhism' and Shinto' in Japan?
The three shrines
The three shrines featured together in the sanja
takusen are those of Ise, Kasuga and Hachiman. The
Iwashimizu shrine of the bodhisattva Hachiman,
situated on a mountain to the south-west of Kyoto,
was established in 859 by the monk Gyokyo. It was
greatly venerated by the imperial court, and later
by the Minamoto clan. The Kasuga shrine, now called
the Kasuga Taisha (Kasuga Grand Shrine), is located
in Nara. Until 1868 the shrine formed part of what
Grapard calls a `multiplex' - a combined
shrine-temple complex whose main elements comprised
the Kasuga shrine and the Kofukuji Buddhist temple.
(9) The deity of the entire sacred area was Kasuga
daimyojin (the great deity of Kasuga). Kasuga was,
amongst other things, the ancestral shrine of the
powerful Fujiwara clan, who dominated the imperial
court from the 10th -12th centuries. `The Ise
shrine' may, according to context, refer to one or
both of the Inner and Outer shrines (Naiku, Geku)
which constitute the imperial household shrine at
Ise. The Inner shrine houses Amaterasu omikami (also
read Tensho kotaijin), grandmother of Ninigi the
legendary unifier of Japan, and great-grandmother of
the legendary first Japanese emperor Jimmu.(10)
Under what the historian Kuroda, Toshio has called
the ‘ kenmitsu ’ (exoteric-esoteric) system, the
great shrine-temple complexes sanctified and thereby
legitimated their own power and that of other elite
groups such as the Fujiwara, the imperial court and
the bakufu through the rituals and doctrines of
esoteric Buddhism. Under the kenmitsu system the
meaning of each of these shrines was primarily
Buddhist; the shrine deities were part of the
Buddhist pantheon.(11) Hachiman's title of
Daibosatsu (Great Bodhisattva) is used in most
standard versions of the sanja takusen, and the
Iwashimizu Hachiman shrine is first and foremost the
shrine of a Great Bodhisattva. The usual title of
the deity of Kasuga in the sanja takusen is
Daimyojin (great illumined divinity), a term with
Buddhist connotations. The Kasuga divinity was also
known by the Buddhist name of Jihimangyo
Bosatsu.(12)
p.128
Ise seems to represent a slightly different case.
Buddhist rituals and even Buddhist terminology were
officially prohibited in the precincts of the
shrine, though pilgrimages to the shrine by Buddhist
priests were commonplace. However, the Tendai/Zen
monk Muju Ichien, in his work Shasekishu, tells how
during his pilgrimage to the Ise shrine in the Kocho
era (1261-64) a shrine official explained to him the
reason for the taboos on Buddhism:
In antiquity when this province did not
exist, the deity of the Great Shrine
[Amaterasu], guided by a seal of the Great
Sun Buddha [Dainichi Nyorai, Mahavairocana]
inscribed on the ocean floor, thrust down
her august spear. Brine from the spear
coagulated like drops of dew, and this was
seen from afar by Mara, the Evil One, in the
Sixth Heaven of Desire. `It appears that
these drops are forming into a land where
Buddhism will be propagated and people will
escape from the round of birth-and-death,'
he said, and came down to prevent it. Then
the deity of the Great Shrine met with the
demon king. `Ipromise not to utter the names
of the Three Treasures, nor will I permit
them near my person. Therefore, quickly
return back to the heavens.' When she had
thus mollified him, he withdrew. Not wishing
to violate that august promise, monks to
this day do not approach the sacred shrine,
and the sutras are not carried openly in its
precincts. Things associated with the Three
Treasures are referred to obliquely: Buddha
is called `The Cramp-Legged One
[tachisukumi]; the sutras, `coloured paper'
[somegami]; monks, `longhairs' [kaminaga];
and temples, `lncense burners' [koritaki],
etc..
Muju concludes, in typical kenmitsu style:
`Outwardly the deity is estranged from the
Dharma, but inwardly she profoundly supports
the Three Treasures. Thus, Japanese Buddhism
is under the special protection of the deity
of the Great Shrine'.(13)
Broadly speaking, these `top three' shrines
represented the major centres of spiritual- temporal
power in medieval Japan. It appears likely that the
motif of `the three shrines' predates the appearance
of the oracles of the three shrines. In other words,
these three shrines were understood to form a
quintessential grouping before the sanja takusen
oracle scroll emerged. A 14th century painting (14)
resembling a sanja takusen but without the oracle
texts, shows the resourceful emperor Go-Daigo
(1288-1339; r.1318-1339) seated as a Buddhist
priest. In each hand the emperor holds a vajra, the
symbol of esoteric Shingon Buddhism, while above him
like a canopy are the titles of the `three shrines'.
The image is evidently meant to portray Go-Daigo as
an emperor whose sacred authority derives from
Buddhism and whose rule is endorsed by the major
p.129
deities of the three most significant shrines. By
the time the sanja takusen appeared, probably in the
early part of the oei era (1394-1428), it appears
that the character and significance of the `three
shrines' motif was already established.
The Three Oracles
Oracles are brief, authoritative utterances by
deities, issued usually in response to a specific
request. Oracles occupy an important role in many
religious traditions including Buddhism, and
techniques for obtaining oracles vary widely.
Japanese history provides several significant
examples of Buddhist priests using specialised
techniques to seek oracular guidance from deities.
In 735 the emperor Shomu resolved to set up a great
statue of Roshana (Vairocana) at the Todaiji in
Nara. In 742, with the project still incomplete, the
Buddhist priest Gyogi travelled to Ise to seek
oracular reassurance that the erection of the statue
would not offend the native divinities.
Carrying a holy Buddhist relic, Gyogi
journeyed as an imperial envoy to the great
shrine of the Sun Goddess in Ise, to take
her opinion as to the erection and worship
of the great Buddha by the emperor... who
was according to the native creed her
descendant and her vice-regent upon earth.
Gyogi, then an aged man, after seven days
and seven nights spent in prayer at the
threshold of her shrine, received an oracle
from her divine lips. Using (if we may
believe the records) the astonishing medium
of Chinese verse, she proclaimed in a loud
voice that the sun of truth illumined the
long night of life and death and that the
moon of reality dispersed the clouds of sin
and ignorance; that the news of the
emperor's project was as welcome to her as a
boat at a ferry, and the offering of the
relic as grateful to her as a torch in the
darkness....the Oracle was duly interpreted
as favourable, and it was confirmed shortly
afterwards by a dream in which the Sun
Goddess appeared to the emperor as a radiant
disc, and proclaimed that the Sun and the
Buddha were the same.(15)
In 749, Emperor Shomu abdicated to become a novice
monk in favour of his daughter the empress Koken,
and a second oracle was reported, this time from a
kami called Hachiman whose distant shrine was at Usa
in Kyushu. Hachiman expressed a desire to travel to
the capital. His palanquin, the prototype of the
mikoshi, was met on the road by a retinue of high
officials, received at the capital and installed in
a special shrine. A high- born priestess of his
shrine (who was also a Buddhist nun) , then
worshipped in the Todaiji in a ceremony attended by
the whole
p.130
court including the retired Shomu, Empress Koken and
five thousand monks. Dances were performed and 'a
cap of the first grade was conferred upon the god'.
Subsequently extensive lands were granted to the
Todaiji.(16)
Empress Koken abdicated in her turn in 758, handing
over power to a young male relative, Emperor Junnin,
who was advised by a member of the powerful Fujiwara
family. Koken herself was counselled by a monk
called Dokyo who exercised a Rasputin-like influence
over her and, according to popular legend, shared a
good deal more than religious ideas with his
mistress, now herself a nun. Enmity between Dokyo
and the Fujiwaras ended in bloodshed and victory to
the Dokyo/Koken faction. The young emperor Junnin
was disgraced, banished to the island of Awaji and
strangled soon afterwards. In 764 Koken re-assumed
the throne under the name of Empress Shotoku and
appointed Dokyo as minister of state, from which
position, living in her palace, he rose to the
unprecedented rank of Ho-o (Dharma-king, Pope) by
769. Dokyo then went too far. Recalling Hachiman's
triumphal entry into Nara two decades earlier, he
announced that a further oracle had been issued by
Hachiman via a medium in a trance, this time to the
effect that if Dokyo were made emperor, the country
would enjoy perpetual tranquillity. The empress
however sent an envoy named Wake no Kiyomaro to
consult Hachiman on her behalf. The envoy returned
to say that Dokyo, not being of imperial blood,
could not succeed to the throne. A furious Dokyo had
Wake no Kiyomaro exiled, but when the empress died
the following year Dokyo fell from power.(17)
Such events confirmed the bodhisattva/deity Hachiman
to be a significant and authoritative source of
oracular utterances. According to legend, the
Oracles of the Three Shrines appeared miraculously
floating on the surface of a pond (18) at the
Todaiji during the Shoo era (1288-1293). However,
the earliest description of a sanja takusen proper
occurs over a century later in a work called the
Daigo Shiyosho produced around the end of the oei
period (1394-1428). Recent Japanese research on the
sanja takusen (19) suggests that the three oracles
now found together in the sanja takusen scroll
probably began life as separate Buddhist oracles
attributed to Hachiman. The current consensus is
that the sanja takusen was originally produced
within the context of `Ryobu Shinto' i.e. within the
kenmitsu exoteric-esoteric system of thought and
practice which interpreted the kami or other locally
enshrined deities as traces or manifestations of the
Buddhas
p.131
and Bodhisattvas. Mention of the oracles in the
Daigo Shiyosho suggests that the sanja takusen was
connected in some way with Buddhist priests of the
Southern Capital established by emperor Go-Daigo,
and specifically with the priestly lineage group of
the Daigoji temple.(20)
The sanja takusen and the meaning of shrines
Shrines and sacred places of many different kinds
are ubiquitous in Japan. There is little dispute
about where shrines are located, but the important
question is always `what does the shrine mean'? The
meaning of shrines, whether ancient or recently-
established, has been constantly redefined and
renegotiated throughout Japanese history. An
important function of the sanja takusen is to
establish the meaning of the three major shrines -
and by extension all shrines - within an overall
kenmitsu religious world-view. The `standard'
version of the sanja takusen shown in Fig.1 does
this by relating each of the three shrines to one of
three `inner' spiritual and behavioural qualities or
virtues already prominent in Buddhist canonical
thought. Hachiman enjoins purity(shojo), Ise honesty
(shojiki) and Kasuga compassion (jihi). In the
oracle of Kasuga, for example, it is made clear that
the `inner' Buddhist virtue of a compassionate mind
far outweighs the effect of any external evil, even
the pollution normally attaching to the death of
one's own parents.
Kasuga Daimyojin
Even though it be the home of someone who
has managed for long to avoid misfortune,
the gods will not enter into the place of a
person with perverse disposition. On the
other hand, even though a man be in mourning
for his father and mother, if he be a man of
compassion, the gods will enter in there.
Compassion is all important.
The incorporation of the `three shrines' motif into
the kenmitsu Buddhist thought of the Daigoji lineage
was overshadowed in the late fifteenth century by a
further appropriation, this time of the sanja
takusen itself, by the entrepreneurial shrine priest
Yoshida, Kanetomo (1435-1511). Born into the 21st
generation of the Yoshida or Urabe family, Kanetomo
inherited responsibilities for the Yoshida shrine in
Kyoto at a time when the court nobility was
increasingly unable to support this shrine to the
ujigami (tutelary deity) of the Fujiwara clan.
Kanetomo
p.132
accordingly developed what amounted to a `new
religion' based at the shrine. He incorporated all
the major elements of the kenmitsu system, adapted
Shingon rituals and Chinese five-elements theory and
explained that the yaoyorozu no kami (myriads of
kami) formed a unity rather than an unconnected
pantheon and that this unity of gods should be
worshipped at his own shrine on Mt. Yoshida.(21) In
1489 Kanetomo attracted the vigorous hostility of
the Ise priesthood when he announced that the deity
of Ise had transferred its residence to the Yoshida
shrine. Kanetomo's understanding, heavily influenced
by Buddhism and Chinese thought and entirely
consistent with the import of the sanja takusen, was
that the kami (deities), rei (spirit) and kokoro
(human heart or mind) comprised a form of absolute
existence `prior to the creation of heaven and
earth'. The meaning of the shrines, according to
Yoshida teaching, was intimately bound up with the
inner spiritual state of the worshipper.(22)
Yoshida `shinto' was extremely successful. As a
result of Kanetomo' initiatives the Yoshida family
had by the end of the fifteenth century secured the
right to award ranks to all shrines and priests
throughout the country, outside the imperial
household. This privilege was retained until 1868
when shrine management passed to central government.
Because the sanja takusen text was used to spread
Yoshida Shinto, Yoshida Shinto was also extremely
influential in the dissemination and popularisation
of the sanja takusen text. From the fifteenth
century onwards knowledge of the scroll and its
contents spread from the imperial family to the
samurai classes and the common people, with the help
of waka verse renditions of the oracles (which were
in Chinese) and through simple explanatory books. So
completely did the sanja takusen become identified
with the teachings of Yoshida Shinto that the
eighteenth century scholar Ise, Sadatake (1717-84)
came to the conclusion that Kanetomo had forged the
sanja takusen for his own benefit in order to
propagate Yoshida Shinto.(23)
Despite such doubts cast upon the authenticity of
the sanja takusen, the scroll was widely regarded as
having a positive moral influence and the sanja
takusen continued to receive endorsement - even as a
pious forgery - from most religious quarters
throughout the Tokugawa period (1600-1868), because
of the encouragement it offered to popular piety and
the cultivation of virtue.(24) Up to the Meiji
restoration large quantities of commentarial works,
scroll pictures and prints related to the sanja
takusen were produced for the masses, devotional
rituals and services
p.133
(tsutsumi) were organised and votive lanterns were
dedicated to the `three shrines' in various areas.
Mori refers to a `sanja takusen faith' which deeply
permeated the whole country and had not declined up
to recent times.(25) This does, however, beg the
question of what the `sanja takusen faith' meant in
practice at different times for different people.
There is some evidence to suggest that during the
course of the Tokugawa period the sanja takusen
became more and more closely associated with the
cult of pilgrimage to Ise, a practice fostered by
the priests and pilgrim-masters (oshi) of the Ise
Outer Shrine (Geku). Pilgrimage to Ise depended on
interpretations of the meaning of the shrines
supplied by the Watarai priestly lineage at Ise,
interpretations which came to eclipse those of
Yoshida Shinto. According to Watarai teachings, the
deities of the Ise shrine, including Amaterasu, were
the source of `original enlightenment' or innate
purity (the Buddhist notion of hongaku) .
Consequently, a pilgrimage to Ise or participation
in rituals associated with Ise organised by oshi
became a means of self-purification, progress
towards enlightenment and the uncovering of the
spiritual virtues of purity, honesty and compassion
enjoined by the deities in the sanja takusen. (26)
It may be that pre-Meiji illustrated examples of the
sanja takusen (i.e. scrolls with personified images
of the deities, as well as their titles and oracles)
first emerged in connection with the flourishing
pilgrimage trade to Ise, and that this led to more
emphasis on the central shrine of Ise and the figure
of Amaterasu and less concern with the content of
the oracles. However, this is a topic that requires
further investigation. (27)
The sanja takusen after the Meiji Restoration of
1868
The `post-Meiji' scroll shown in Figure 2 differs
from the standard sanja takusen of Figure 1 in all
three aspects (titles, texts and images) . It
reflects very clearly the `separation of kami and
Buddhas' (shinbutsu hanzen) formally promulgated a
few months after the Meiji restoration in 1868 and
consolidated throughout the Meiji period. Firstly,
the titles of the shrines/deities are changed.
Kasuga and Hachiman's titles of Daimyojin and
Daibosatsu become, like that of Amaterasu, Daijin
(also read okami) `Great Kami'. (28) Secondly, as
earlier indicated, three extracts from the Nihongi
take the place of the `purity, honesty and
compassion' oracles of the standard sanja takusen.
(29) Finally, modern pictures of the deities have
been added to the scroll.
p.134
The re-naming and re-titling of deities and shrines
was a major preoccupation of the new Shinto
administrators of the early Meiji period. Shrine
officials throughout the country were requested in
1868 to submit a history of their shrine and its
traditional Buddhist associations, so that the
process of `dissociating' the kami from Buddhism
could then take place. Thousands of shrines with
Buddhist names, or shrines which enshrined Buddhist
or other 'non-Japanese deities such as Myoken, were
renamed or their deities replaced. (30) In most
cases the new names were drawn from the ancient
chronicles and in particular the Kojiki (Record of
Ancient Matters, completed in 712). This text was
considered by scholars and champions of National
Learning (kokugaku) to be the most authentic
repository of pre-Buddhist Japanese culture. The
renaming of Kasuga and Hachiman in the post-Meiji
version of the sanja takusen reflects this process.
Kasuga Daimyojin, the deity of both the Kasuga
shrine and the Kofukuji temple, became the kami of
the Kasuga shrine, separate from Kofukji. (31)
Hachiman after 1868 was no longer a `Great
Bodhisattva' - instead, his identity became
essentially that of the deified emperor ojin, whose
mother, the legendary Empress Jingu, had invaded
Korea. (32)
The texts of the oracles in the post-Meiji sanja
takusen shown in Fig. 2 perform the same function as
the texts in the `standard' version; they establish
the meaning of shrines. However, the meaning of the
shrines has now changed. The layout of the three
oracle texts in the post-Meiji version of the sanja
takusen indicates that they are not expressly linked
to the three deities. In fact, all the texts are
related to Ise and its deity Amaterasu (now shorn of
all Buddhist associations). The first section of
text is implicitly concerned with the recent
`restoration' of the emperor to power. It deals with
the authority of the imperial line.
Amaterasu Sume Omikami commanded her August
Grandchild, saying: " This
Reed-plain-1500-autumns-fair-rice-ear Land
is the region which my descendants shall be
lords of. Do thou, my August Grandchild,
proceed thither and govern it. Go! and may
prosperity attend thy dynasty, and may it,
like Heaven and Earth, endure for ever."
The second section explains the sacred significance
of the Grand Shrine of Ise, where the sacred mirror,
one of the three imperial regalia of mirror, sword
and jewels, is enshrined. After the Meiji
restoration Ise became the apex of a
government-administered, nationwide system of
shrines. Ordinary people were defined as
parishioners (ujiko) of local shrines and
simultaneously as ujiko of the Ise shrine. (33)
p.135
Amaterasu Sume Omikami took in her hand the
precious mirror, and, giving it to Ame no
Oshi-ho-mimi no Mikoto, uttered a prayer,
saying: -'My child, when thou lookest upon
this mirror, let it be as if thou wert
looking on me. Let it be with thee on thy
couch and in thy hall, and let it be to thee
a holy mirror.
The final section describes the origin and purpose
of shrines (a sacred area defined by a fence or
boundary). Early in the Meiji period the ritual
calendar of local shrines was revised and newly
calibrated with the ritual cycle of the imperial
household shrines. This created a link between local
shrines, the `national' Ise shrine and the divinised
figure of the emperor. The meaning of local and
national shrine ritual is redefined in this new
version of the scroll as ritual on behalf of the
imperial line rather than ritual undertaken for the
benefit of the individual. (34)
Taka-mi-musubi no Kami accordingly gave
command, saying:- 'I will set up a Heavenly
divine fence and a Heavenly rock-boundary
wherein to practise religious abstinence on
behalf of my descendants. Do ye, Ame no
Koyane no Mikoto and Futo-dama no Mikoto,
take with you the Heavenly divine fence, and
go down to the Central Land of Reed-Plains.
Moreover, ye will there practise abstinence
on behalf of my descendants. (35)
Finally, the pictures of the three `Great Kami'
(oami, Daijin) epitomise the `separation of kami and
Buddhas' that occurred in the Meiji period.
Hachiman, riding a horse, carries no hint of his
Bodhisattva past; he may even be thought to bear
some resemblance to the Emperor Meiji. (36) Kasuga,
mounted on a deer, is similarly devoid of any
Buddhist imagery. (37) In this example he is similar
in appearance to the Chinese god of longevity Shou
Lao (J: Jurojin). The central figure, Amaterasu, is
outlined by the rays of the rising sun and displays
the hree imperial regalia' of jewels, mirror and
sword. By contrast, pre-Meiji images of Amaterasu
(including those in examples of the sanja takusen
not illustrated here) show her as a Buddhist figure
with a kohai (Buddhist halo) carrying a hoju or
wish- fulfilling gem. Amaterasu even appears as a
male figure in some pre-Meiji contexts. Many
questions about the provenance and significance of
modern personified, feminine images of Amaterasu
remain to be addressed, particularly in light of the
widespread view that Shinto is `aniconic'. However,
consideration of this topic must wait for another
occasion. (38)
p.136
The sanja takusen today
The sanja takusen scroll is sufficiently important
and well-known to be mentioned in most contemporary
Japanese encyclopaedias and historical reference
works, but my own experience suggests that few
people in Japan today are familiar wth the sanja
takusen motif. As we have seen, the scroll was very
popular in Japan before and especially during the
Tokugawa period. In its post-Meiji form it was
widely distributed up to 1945. In fact, the
post-Meiji version of the scroll is still produced
and sold in scroll shops in Japan today, though even
Shinto officials seem largely unaware of this. At
Ise in November 1996 I was able to purchase a large
modern colour-printed version of the scroll almost
identical to that shown in Fig.2. (39) Few people
today, however, would be able to identify such a
scroll as `assanja takusen'. As we might expect from
the recent history of Shinto, most Japanese people
inevitably see the scroll simply as a representation
of Amaterasu, the deity of Ise, with two attendants.
The sanja takusen is shown in retailers' scroll
catalogues alongside scrolls of Amaterasu alone, or
of Amaterasu and Toyouke, the deities respectively
of the inner and outer shrines of Ise. (40) Neither
the post-Meiji nor the standard version of the
scroll is currently available at the Kasuga Taisha
in Nara or at the Iwashimizu Hachimangu in Kyoto,
the two shrines featured in the sanja takusen along
with Ise.
Conclusions
The extent of the differences between the pre- and
post-Meiji versions of the `same' scroll raises a
number of questions about the development of
Japanese religion, in particular the relationship
between `Buddhism' and `shinto' before and after
1868, the first year of the Meiji government. In
recent years a good deal has been written about the
transformation in Japanese religiosity which took
place around the time of the Meiji Restoration. (41)
Studies of individual shrines and temples have
revealed radical discontinuities, mostly dating from
the time of shinbutsu bunri or shinbutsu hanzen, the
`separation of kami and Buddhas' carried out by
government decree as one of the first acts of the
new Meiji regime. (42) This `separation' was
designed above all to undermine the powerful
position previously enjoyed by Buddhist institutions
under the Tokugawa shogunate. It took the form of
attacks on Buddhist temples, the desecration of
traditional Buddhist iconography and the violent
destruction of any Buddhist artefacts found in
shrines. Government support of Buddhism was
withdrawn and thousands of Buddhist clergy left the
priesthood or reverted to the role of shrine priest,
in shrines newly `cleansed' of Buddhist influences.
(43)
p.137
In the following decades a new state-sponsored form
of Shinto developed out of the `taikyo senpu undo'
or `Great Promulgation' campaign of 1870-1884. (44)
The new Shinto took as its focus the figure of the
divine emperor Meiji, and it extolled Confucian
virtues of loyalty and respect for superiors. In the
first half of the twentieth century these new Shinto
teachings developed into the official and ostensibly
`non-religious' nation- building, imperialist
ideological structure known restrospectively as
state Shinto. After 1945, government support and
sponsorship of Shinto was removed, but the
post-Meiji understanding of Shinto as a national
religion focusing on the Ise shrine where the sun-
goddess Amaterasu, the emperor's ancestor, is
enshrined, largely remains. Shinto today is often
portrayed as an ancient pre-Buddhist Japanese
tradition. In fact, the origins of modern Shinto lie
largely in the 19th century. The `separation of kami
and Buddhas' in 1868 marked a radical break with a
Japanese religious past in which `shinto', insofar
as it existed at all, was understood to be part of
Buddhism.
The degree of discontinuity that exists between pre-
and post-Meiji Japanese religion calls into question
the very categories of `Buddhism' and 'shinto used
by modern writers and scholars. Such conceptual
categories, it can be argued, themselves developed
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as part of
the modernisation process in Japan. The separation
of kami and Buddhas required that the Buddhist past
of both the emperor and the shrines be forgotten.
Since the late 19th century Buddhists and Shintoists
in Japan have found that it serves their own
interests to emphasise their institutional
independence from each other, despite the fact that
Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples are, as ever,
attended by the same worshippers. Modern Western
scholars and students of Buddhism, too, have been
willing to `orientalise' Buddhism, regarding it as
somehow untouched by its social and religious
context. This tendency often manifests in a
scholarly focus on the study of canonical texts
rather than on Buddhism in practice.(45)
In turn, the term `shinto' has acquired an
undeserved aura of concreteness and solidity among
foreign observers, one which it does not enjoy in
Japan. Shinto has become Buddhism `other',
especially among outside observers of Japanese
religion; whatever Buddhism is, Shinto is not.
Sometimes, for example, the impression is given that
it was Shinto alone, not Buddhism or other religions
in Japan, which fostered militarism and imperialism
in the pre-war period. It is commonly said in
accounts of Japanese religion that Shinto has to do
with life while Buddhism
p.138
deals with death; that Buddhism is rich in
iconography while Shinto is aniconic, that Buddhism
is doctrinal while Shinto is inherently vague in
matters of belief, and so on. Such simplistic
oppositions are easily contradicted by observation
of the complexities of religious life in Japan. Yet
the idea, successfully promulgated by the
modernising Meiji government, that `Buddhism' and
`shinto' are - and therefore always have been -
separate entities, is now well-entrenched. This
affects the way in which we study Japanese religions
before the Meiji period, for how can we even talk
about the history of Japanese religion without first
agreeing the meaning of such terms as `Buddhism' and
`shinto'? The sanja takusen offers one solution to
this problem. The scroll proclaims itself neither
`Buddhist' nor `shinto', though it undoubtedly
attracts these labels at different times. It simply
offers us a window through which to observe Japanese
religiosity, at different times and in different
circumstances.
In this brief paper have attempted to show that the
motif of the three shrines and their oracles has a
long and significant history in Japan. Moreover, a
study of the sanja takusen provides a fresh
perspective on the radical and far-reaching changes
that occurred in Japanese religion in the latter
part of the 19th century. These changes have,
amongst other things, profoundly conditioned our
own, modern, understanding of the relationship
between `shinto' and `Buddhism' in Japanese history.
Notes
1 first became aware of the sanja takusen while
undertaking research for A Popular Dictionary of
Shinto (London, Curzon Press, 1996) . During a
research visit to Japan in Autumn 1996 funded by The
British Academy I was able to collect more than 20
different examples of the sanja takusen. These will
form the basis of a fuller study of the history of
the scroll, to be published by Curzon Press in 1999.
Comments or further information on this topic are
welcomed by the author. Please contact Prof. Brian
Bocking, Study of Religions Dept., Bath Spa
University College, Bath BA2 9BN, UK.
2 In some examples of the sanja takusen the Kamo
shrine occurs instead of Kasuga. In this paper `the
three shrines' refers to the shrines, or precursors
of the shrines, currently referred to as Ise
Daijingu (Ise), Iwashimizu Hachiman (Kyoto) and
Kasuga Taisha (Nara)
3 It is impossible to make any general statement
about the relationship between a `deity' and a
`shrine' in
p.139
Japan, since the identity, name and conception of
the enshrined deity (or as Ashkenazi prefers, `moot
entity' - see M Ashkenazi Matsuri, Honolulu, U. Of
Hawaii Press, 1993) and its relationship with the
divinised shrine varies enormously from shrine to
shrine and in different periods of history.
4 Kokugakuin University, Institute for Japanese
Culture and Classics (eds.) Basic Terms of Shinto
Tokyo, Rev. Edn 1985 (1958).p.49. This definition
focuses on the oracles rather than their medium of
dissemination (the scroll). Both are referred to as
sanja takusen.
5 Inoue, Nobutaka (ed.) Shinto Jiten Tokyo, Kobundo,
1994, p.299. Kokugakuin Daigaku in Tokyo is one of
the two major Shinto universities in Japan, the
other being Kogakkan University, Ise.
6 Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (eds.),Tokyo, 1985, pp.40,
118. The English translation by Norman Havens was
based on modern Japanese translations by Prof.
Kamata, Jun 'ichi prepared for the Japanese version
of the The World of Shinto (See p.v-vi).
7 Some early examples of the sanja takusen contain
completely different texts; for example, in the late
Kamakura period some Pure Land Buddhist sects (Shin
and Ji-shu) incorporated the `three shrines' motif
into their teachings. Details of a number of such
versions of the sanja takusen, whose study falls
outside the scope of this paper, are given in
Nishida, Nagao `sanja takusen no seisaku ' (The
production of the sanja takusen) in Nishida's
collected Nihon Shintoshi Kenkyu (4).
8 The translations here follow Aston W.G. (tr.) The
Nihongi Tokyo, Tuttle, 1972
9 Allan G Grapard, The Protocol of the Gods: A Study
of the Kasuga Cult in Japanese History. Berkeley, U.
Of California Press, 1992
10 Under the influence of Watarai Shinto the `Ise'
deity was successfully identified with the Outer
Shrine, the pilgrimage destination which was under
Watarai control. See below.
11 See Kuroda, Toshio `The Development of the
Kenmitsu system as Japan's Medieval Orthodoxy' in
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23:3-4 (1996)
pp.233-270. All the articles in this issue of JJRS
are devoted to Kuroda's work.
12`Bodhisattva rounded practice of compassion'. See
Grapard The Protocol of the Gods pp.79-80.
13 Robert E Morrell `Muju Ichiens Buddhist-Shinto
Syncretism: Shasekishu, Book 1' Monumenta Nipponica
XXVIII, 4 (1973) p.457
14 Go-Daigo Tenno gazo (portrait of Emperor
Go-Daigo). Nambokucho period (1337-92). Property of
Shojoko-ji, Shinagawa-ken.
15 Sansom, G B Japan: A Short Cultural History, Rev.
Edn. Tokyo, Tuttle 1973, p.133. The imagery, as
Sansom notes, is purely Buddhistic.
16 Sansom op.cit. p.183
p.140
17 Sansom op. cit. p.184
18 A `Pond of the three shrines' has recently been
excavated and attractively rebuilt in the precincts
of the Todaiji. Why the oracle should appear in a
pond is not explained. There are many legends in
Japan of treasures entering this world from the
underwater realm. See Carmen Blacker The Catalpa
Bow, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1975, pp.75-78. I
am not aware of another example of a scroll or text
appearing in this way, although buried or otherwise
concealed scriptures are common in Mahayana
Buddhism.
19 Japanese published research on the sanja takusen
mostly dates from before 1945. The following
discussion draws on the sanja takusen entry by Mori
in Shinto Jiten p.299-300 and a recent article by
Nagashima, Fukutaro `sanja takusen no genryu' (The
origin of the sanja takusen) in Nihon Rekishi,
January 1991 pp.49-52. It updates an article of the
same title by the same author published in
Kokugakuin Zasshi 46:8 (1940).
20 Shinto Jiten p.299 Daigoji, head temple of the
Daigo branch of Shingon Buddhism, is located in
Fushimi ward, Kyoto. Daigo (ghee) refers to the
fifth and most clarified period of the Buddha's
teachings (literally, the quintessential teachings).
The temple, established in 874-6 was visited by
emperor Daigo in 907 and maintained links with the
imperial court thereafter. The `Southern' court and
capital was established in Yoshino by Emperor
Go-'Daigo (i.e. Daigo II) in 1336, while Ashikaga
Takauji set up the competing emperor Komyo in Kyoto,
following the end of the Hojo regency and the
destruction of Kamakura in 1333. Sansom op. cit.
p.349
21 For this reason Yoshida Shinto is also known as
`Yui-itsu Shinto' (unique, peerless or unitarian
Shinto)
22 Kanetomo also established a link between the
sanja takusen and the origin of the Yoshida shrine,
and associated the Yoshida shrine with the imperial
family by conducting memorial services for the
imperial family using a sanja takusen scroll
personally inscribed by the emperor. These and other
matters are explained in Kanetomo's work Kagura
Korokki also known as the Sansha takusen honroku.
(Shinto Jiten p.299).
23 Ibid. p.299-300.
24 According to Mori (Shintyo Jiten p.299-300)
dissemination of the scroll was supported by popular
Shintoists, Ishimon Shingaku-ists and others
connected with Buddhism who supported the `unity of
the Three Teachings' (of Buddhism, Shinto and
Confucianism). Zen priests made copies of the sanja
takusen, among them Hakuin (1686-1789) whose boldly
inscribed version of the sanja takusen shrine titles
is preserved in the Jingo Chokokan museum in Ise.
The scroll shown in fig. 2, photographed by courtesy
of Mr Maezawa, Eiichi of Seikan-do Maezawa Co.,
Kyoto, is by the Zen monk Kokan (Edo period).
25 Shinto Jiten p300.
p.141
26 The Watarai clan were responsible for the Outer
Shrine (Geku) at Ise, which until the Meiji
restoration eclipsed the Inner Shrine as a focus of
religious devotion. For a recent account of the
development of Watarai Shinto see Mark Teeuwen
Watarai Shinto: An Intellectual History of the Outer
Shrine in Ise CNWS Publications vol.52. Leiden:
Research School CNWS, 1996.
27 A number of late Tokugawa (i.e. mid-19th century)
examples of the sanja takusen show the titles of the
shrines and (Buddhist-style) images of the three
deities, without the oracle texts. This may be
because the ideas expressed in the oracles had
become unfashionable or, more prosaically, that the
medieval Chinese text could no longer be understood
by those buying the scroll.
28 The title of Hachiman daijin is also found in
some earlier examples of the scroll. However, after
the Meiji restoration the more usual title of `Great
Bodhisattva' (daibosatsu) was prohibited.
29 The three texts selected from different parts of
the Nihongi are known as the sanchoku (three
imperial decrees) and are well known in `State
Shinto' contexts.
30 Myoken (`wondrous seeing'), originally an Indian
deity, is the divinised form of the Pole Star or
Great Bear constellation and was believed to protect
the country, avert disaster, lengthen the life span
and (because of the name) avert eye diseases. In
most cases Myoken was replaced by the
officially-favoured zoka no kami or `kami of
creation', three deities from the age of the gods
referred to in the Kojiki.
31 See Grapard The Protocol of the Gods p.249ff. for
an account of the day in 1868 on which kami and
Buddhas were `separated' at Kasuga and the monks of
the Kofukuji became Shinto priests.
32 The Bodhisattva Hachiman comprised Emperor ojin,
his wife Himegami and his mother, the warlike
Empress Jingu. In the sanja takusen in Fig. 2 he is
depicted as yumiya Hachiman `bow and arrow
Hachiman', the god of archery and war.
33 On the promotion of Ise as a national shrine
after 1868 see Helen Hardacre Shinto and the State,
1868-1988, Princeton, Princeton UP, 1989, p.83ff.
34 Hardacre op.cit. Ch.5
35 The translations here follow Aston W.G. (tr.) The
Nihongi
36 I am grateful to Carmen Blacker for this
intriguing suggestion.
37 The association of the deer (actual and symbolic)
at Kasuga with the deer park at Benares where the
Buddha taught his first sermon was displaced in
Post-Meiji times by the legend of the kami
Takemikatsuchi's arrival on a deer from Kashima.
38 An important article by Toba, Shigehiro on the
iconography of Amaterasu has recently appeared in
the Bulletin of the Shinto Institute, Kogakkan
University (Shinto Kenkyusho Kiyo) Vol.13, March
1997 pp.119-180. Attention is currently focused on
the figure of the Ise deity Uho Doji as the
precursor of
p.142
modern images of Amaterasu. I am grateful to Profs.
H Sakurai and M Motozawa of Kogakkan University for
drawing this article to my attention.
39 Amaterasu's expression is less solemn in the 1996
version.
40 Most scrolls in these catalogues are of Buddhist
subjects.I have found no example of the `standard'
sanja takusen in retailers' catalogues. I was told
that it is no longer printed, although
hand-inscribed versions are occasionally made to
order.
41 For example Kuroda, Grapard, Hardacre, op. cit.
42 There were two decrees, the first on March 28 and
the second in April, 1868.
43 Before the Meiji period it was normal for
Buddhist priests to be qualified to perform rituals
at shrines to the kami as part of their priestly
duties.
44 See Hardacre, Ch.2.
45 Widely-read student textbooks on Buddhism still
tend to focus on canonical literature, the role of
`founders' and idealised characterisations of
Buddhist history and belief. A notable recent
exception is Donald Lopez Buddhism in Practice
Princeton, Princeton UP, 1996.