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The term in Japanese religious terminology refers to a theory widely accepted until the
Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...
according to which Indian Buddhist deities choose to appear in Japan as native ''
kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...
'' to more easily convert and save the Japanese.Breen and Teeuwen (2000:95) The theory states that some ''kami'' (but not all) are local manifestations (the , literally, a "trace") of Buddhist deities (the , literally, "original ground").Satō Masato (2007) The two entities form an indivisible whole called '' gongen'' and in theory should have equal standing, but this was not always the case. In the early
Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the c ...
, for example, the ''honji'' was considered more important and only later did the two come to be regarded as equals.Basic Terms of Shinto During the late
Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle b ...
it was proposed that the ''kami'' were the original deities and the buddhas their manifestations (see the ''Inverted honji suijaku'' section below). The theory was never systematized but was nonetheless very pervasive and very influential. It is considered the keystone of the
shinbutsu-shūgō ''Shinbutsu-shūgō'' (, "syncretism of kami and buddhas"), also called Shinbutsu shū (, "god buddha school") Shinbutsu-konkō (, "jumbling up" or "contamination of kami and buddhas"), is the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism that was Japan's o ...
(harmonization of Buddhist deities and Japanese ''kami'') edifice.Satō Makoto ''Honji suijaku'' has often been seen as similar to '' interpretatio Romana'', a mode of comparison promoted in antiquity by scholars such as
Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...
who argued that "
barbarian A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by some to be less ...
" gods were just the foreign manifestations of Roman or Greek deities. The term ''honji suijaku'' itself is an example of the Japanese practice of '' Yojijukugo'', a four-character combination of phrases which can be read literally or idiomatically.


History

Early Buddhist monks did not doubt the existence of ''kami'' but saw them as inferior to their
buddhas In Buddhism, Buddha (; Pali, Sanskrit: 𑀩𑀼𑀤𑁆𑀥, बुद्ध), "awakened one", is a title for those who are awake, and have attained nirvana and Buddhahood through their own efforts and insight, without a teacher to point out ...
.Bernhard Scheid Hindu deities had had the same reception: They were thought of as non-illuminated and prisoners of
saṃsāra ''Saṃsāra'' (Devanagari: संसार) is a Pali/Sanskrit word that means "world". It is also the concept of rebirth and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence", a fundamental belief of most Indian religions. Popularly, it is the ...
. Buddhist claims of superiority, however, encountered resistance; monks tried to overcome it by deliberately integrating ''kami'' in their system. Japanese Buddhists themselves wanted to somehow give the ''kami'' equal status. Several strategies to do this were developed and employed, and one of them was the ''honji suijaku'' theory. The expression was originally developed in China and used by
Tendai , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese m ...
Buddhists to distinguish an absolute truth from its historical manifestation (for example, the eternal
Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...
from the historical Buddha, or the absolute
Dharma Dharma (; sa, धर्म, dharma, ; pi, dhamma, italic=yes) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others. Although there is no direct single-word translation for '' ...
from its historical forms, the first being the ''honji'', the second the ''suijaku''). The term makes its first appearance with this meaning in the ''Eizan Daishiden'', a text believed to have been written in 825. The ''honji suijaku'' theory proper later applied it to buddhas and ''kami'', with its first use within this context dated to 901, when the author of the ''Sandai Jitsuroku'' says that "mahasattvas (buddhas and
bodhisattvas In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...
) manifest themselves at times as kings and at times as ''kami''." The dichotomy was applied to deities only in Japan and not, for example, in China. A different but equivalent explanation, the idea that Buddhist deities choose not to show themselves as they are, but manifest themselves as ''kami'', was expressed in a poetic form with the expression , which meant that to assist sentient beings, deities "dimmed their radiance and became identical to the dust of the profane world." Their brightness would otherwise be such to destroy mere mortals. In the 10th and 11th centuries there are numerous examples of Buddhist deities and ''kami'' pairings: The deities are usually
Kannon Guanyin () is a Bodhisattva associated with compassion. She is the East Asian representation of Avalokiteśvara ( sa, अवलोकितेश्वर) and has been adopted by other Eastern religions, including Chinese folk religion. She w ...
, Yakushi, Amida or Shaka Nyorai. The association between them was usually made after a dream or revelation made to a famous monk, later recorded in a temple's or shrine's records. By then, ''kami'' in Japan were universally understood to be the form taken by buddhas to save human beings, that is, local manifestations of universal buddhas.Teeuwen, Rambelli (2002:6) Around the beginning of the
Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle b ...
the pairings had become solidly codified in large temples or shrines. The frequency of the practice is attested by the , or "hanging buddhas," found in many large shrines—metal mirrors that carry on the front the effigy of the shrine's ''kami'' and on the rear the relative Buddhist deity. The name shows that they are usually hung from a shrine's outer wall. As the theory gradually spread around the country, the concept of '' gongen'' ("provisional manifestation", defined as a Buddha that chooses to appear to the Japanese as a ''kami'') evolved. One of the first examples of ''gongen'' is Hie's famous . Under the influence of
Tendai Buddhism , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese m ...
and
Shugendō is a highly syncretic religion, a body of ascetic practices that originated in the Nara Period of Japan having evolved during the 7th century from an amalgamation of beliefs, philosophies, doctrines and ritual systems drawn from local ...
, the ''gongen'' concept was adapted, for example, to religious beliefs tied to
Mount Iwaki is a stratovolcano located in western Aomori Prefecture, Tohoku, Japan. It is also referred to as and less frequently, due to its similar shape to Mount Fuji. With a summit elevation of and a prominence of it is the highest mountain in ...
, a volcano, so that female ''kami'' Kuniyasutamahime became associated with Jūichimen Kannon Bosatsu (eleven-faced Kannon), ''kami''
Ōkuninushi Ōkuninushi ( historical orthography: ''Ohokuninushi''), also known as Ō(a)namuchi (''Oho(a)namuchi'') or Ō(a)namochi (''Oho(a)namochi'') among other variants, is a ''kami'' in Japanese mythology. He is one of the central deities in the cycle ...
with Yakushi Nyorai, and Kunitokotachi no Mikoto with
Amida Nyorai Amida can mean : Places and jurisdictions * Amida (Mesopotamia), now Diyarbakır, an ancient city in Asian Turkey; it is (nominal) seat of : ** The Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Amida ** The Latin titular Metropolitan see of Amida of the Roma ...
.Breen, Teeuwen (2000:194)


Practice

The ''honji suijaku'' paradigm remained a defining feature of Japanese religious life up to the end of the
Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...
. Its use was not confined to deities but was often extended even to such historical figures as
Kūkai Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835Kūkai was born in 774, the 5th year of the Hōki era; his exact date of birth was designated as the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, some 400 years later, by the Shingon se ...
and Shōtoku Taishi. It was claimed that these particular human beings were manifestations of ''kami'', which in turn were manifestations of buddhas. Sometimes the deity involved was not Buddhist. This could happen because the theory was never formalized and always consisted of separate events usually based on a temple or shrine's particular beliefs. Nothing was fixed: A deity could be identified both as a ''honji'' and a ''suijaku'' in different parts of the same shrine, and different identifications could be believed to be true at the same time and place. The religious situation during the Middle Ages was, therefore, confused and confusing. Historians have tried to concentrate on the reformers of that age with a clear philosophy and little interest in ''kami'' questions because they are easier to understand. The theory was ultimately beneficial to the ''kami'', which went from being considered unilluminated outsiders to actual forms assumed by important deities. The ultimate expression of this shift is Ryōbu Shintō, in which Buddhist deities and ''kami'' are indivisible and equivalent like the two sides of a coin. The use of the ''honji suijaku'' paradigm was not limited to religion—it had important consequences for society in general, culture, art and even economy.Teeuwen, Rambelli (2002:1-2) Buddhism, for example, proscribed fishing, hunting, and agriculture because they involved the killing of living beings (insects, moles and the like in the case of farming), but the ''honji suijaku'' concept permitted people to void the prohibition. If one fished for oneself, the reasoning went, you were guilty and should go to hell. However, if the catch was offered to a ''kami'' that was a known emanation of a buddha, the gesture had an obvious karmic value and was permissible.Breen and Teeuwen (2000:88-89) The idea allowed the forbidding of individual, and therefore uncontrolled, economic activity. Applied as it was to all major economic activities, this interpretation of ''honji suijaku'' allowed a thorough control of popular dissent. How important the concept was can be understood from how the idea that some local phenomenon may be somehow linked to an absolute and sacred object found extensive application in the medieval and early modern periods. It was often said that temple lands in Japan were local emanations of Buddhist paradises or that an artisan's work was one with the sacred actions of an Indian Buddha.


Art

The ''honji suijaku'' paradigm found wide application in religious art with the or .Songyō Mandara The (see image above) shows Buddhist deities with their ''kami'' counterparts, while the show only Buddhist deities, and the show only ''kami''. The , or "Hachiman in priestly attire", is one of the most popular syncretic deities.Sōgyō Hachiman The ''kami'' is shown dressed as a Buddhist priest and is considered the protector of people in general and warriors in particular. From the 8th century on, Hachiman was called ''Hachiman Daibosatsu'', or Great
Bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...
Hachiman. That he is dressed like a Buddhist priest is probably meant to indicate the sincerity of his conversion to Buddhism. By the 13th century, other ''kami'' would also be portrayed in Buddhist robes.


Shintōshū

The Shintōshū is a book in ten volumes believed to date from the
Nanboku-chō period The Nanboku-chō period (南北朝時代, ''Nanboku-chō jidai'', "North and South court period", also known as the Northern and Southern Courts period), spanning from 1336 to 1392, was a period that occurred during the formative years of the Mur ...
(1336–1392).Iwanami Japanese dictionary, 6th edition (2008), DVD version It illustrates with tales about shrines the ''honji suijaku'' theory. The common point of the tales is that, before reincarnating as tutelary ''kami'' of an area, a soul has first to be born and suffer there as a human being. The suffering is mostly caused by relationships with relatives, especially wives or husbands. The book had great influence over literature and the arts.


Inversion

The dominant interpretation of the buddha-''kami'' relationship came to be questioned by what modern scholars call the or paradigm, a theology that reversed the original theory and gave the most importance to the ''kami''.Teeuwen, Rambelli (2002: 35-36) Supporters of the theory believed that, while those who have achieved buddhahood have acquired enlightenment, a ''kami'' shines of his own light. The doctrine was first developed by Tendai monks, and its first full formulation is attributed to Jihen, a monk tied to the great
Ise Ise may refer to: Places *Ise, Mie, a city in Japan ** Ise Grand Shrine, a Shinto shrine located in Ise, Mie * Ise Ekiti, a city in Nigeria * Ise, Norway, a village in Norway * Ise Province, an ancient province of Japan * River Ise, a tributary of ...
shrine who was most active around 1340. In the first fascicle of the ''Kuji hongi gengi'' he argued that, in the beginning, Japan had only ''kami'' and that only later did buddhas take over. He believed that for this reason there had been a decadence in the country's morals and that a world where ''kami'' dominated would soon reappear.Shirayama Yoshitarō In the fifth fascicle of the same work, he compared Japan to a seed, China to a branch and India to a flower or fruit. Just like flowers that fall and return to the roots, India had come back to its roots, the ''kami'' were the ''honji'' and the buddhas their manifestations. Yoshida Kanetomo was influenced by these ideas and brought them further, making a clean break with the past, becoming the creator of Yoshida Shintō and bringing inverted ''honji suijaku'' to maturation. While it is usually claimed that inverted ''honji suijaku'' was a reaction of native cults to the dominance of Buddhism, it also came out of Buddhist intellectualism. The theory is not ''per se'' anti-Buddhist and does not question the existence of buddhas but simply seeks to invert the established order of importance between ''kami'' and buddhas.Breen and Teeuwen (2000:119) Why Buddhists should develop such a theory to the detriment of their own divinities is unclear, but it is possible that it was developed by shrine monks, or '' shasō'', who took care of the shrine part of temple-shrine complexes to enhance their status.


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * * *Encyclopedia of Shinto, ''Basic Terms of Shinto''
Honji Suijaku Setsu
accessed on November 2, 2008

{{Authority control Japanese historical terms Shinto terminology Shinbutsu shūgō Gongen Buddhism in the Heian period Buddhism in the Kamakura period Religious interpretation