Kami as Yakushi--Yakushi as Kami
Samuel C. Morse
Professor
Department of Fine Arts
Society for the Study of Japanese
Religions
AAS Annual Meeting,
Buddhist sculpture in
Numerous
statues of the Healing Buddha can found at temples in regions where Buddhism
had not been a particularly influential presence in the
With no textual or canonical sources to explain the form that the relationship between the indigenous kami and the newly arrived deities of Buddhism should take, the Japanese of the eighth and the ninth centuries were compelled to invent ways to relate the two traditions. One was the creation of a new type of religious sanctuary, known as jingûji or “shrine temple,” a Buddhist institution closely affiliated with an existing shrine. Fourteen temples referred to in contemporary documents as jingûji jingûji were established in the eighth century in association with some of the most ancient shrines in Japan--Kehi in Echizen, Kashima in Hitachi, Ômiwa in Yamato, and the Great Shrine at Ise. This practice continued throughout the ninth century with the construction of jingûji at an increasingly greater number of shrines, including Keta in Echizen and Kamo and Iwashimizu in Yamashiro. Other temples also maintained similarly close relationships with shrines and functioned as jingûji although they were designated by more traditional names.
The main object of worship at a large proportion of these jingûji was an image of the Healing Buddha. For example, fourteen of the twenty-one early jingûji where works of sculpture dating to the Early Heian period remain today house images of Yakushi.1 Some are well known to art historians such as the statue from the jingûji of Kumano Nyakuôji Shrine in Kyoto, now in the collection of the Nara National Museum, but others have been little studied including the works originally at Kannabi Shrine in southern Kyoto Prefecture and Handô Shrine and Tsubaki Shrine, both in Kôka-gun in Shiga Prefecture. It is these less well-known statues that are of particular interest to the art historian for they document the religious lives of the majority of the Japanese as Buddhist teachings were being made available to an increasing percentage of the populace.
Unfortunately,
the specific circumstances surrounding the creation of most these statues is
not known. Such is not the case,
however, for a statue now housed at Ôshima Okitsushima Shrine in Ômi Hachiman,
Despite my spirit as a kami I have yet to escape from the fetters of this world. I wish, through the power of the Buddha, to increase my authority in order to provide protection for the state and to ensure safety for villages and towns 2
(While not the subject of my presentation this evening, it is also worth noting that this is just one of a number of occasions during the ninth century when the kami of a shrine associated with a jingûji, attempted to become a Buddhist deity.3) Kenwa sought and was granted permission to fulfill the vow of the deity by constructing a jingûji adjacent to the shrine. While the text does not mention an image, Ôshima Okitsushima Shrine which is the successor to Okitsushima Shrine houses a Buddhist image dating to the ninth century that was most certainly associated with the original shrine.4
Heavily restored with a new head and new hands, at present the image is given the designation of Jizô (but also referred to as Hachiman by the shrine), but as I have argued elsewhere, stylistically the statue is closely related to works such as the standing images of the Healing Buddha at Gangô-ji and Murô-ji, suggesting the possibility that the Okitsushima image was originally a Yakushi. Sasaki Susumu, the first person to write about the statue, believes that the placement of the arms of the statue also suggests that it was a Healing Buddha.5 Of equal interest is the fact that the block of wood used for the image was not in pristine condition at the time the statue was first carved, but contained a large cavity on the interior. This choice by the sculptor to use imperfect materials implies that the huge Japanese cypress from which the Healing Buddha was fashioned in all probability possessed sacred status.
While it is impossible to ascertain how the surface of the image at Ôshima Okitsushima Shrine was originally finished, a devotee would have been immediately conscious of the fact that both the statue originally at Handô Shrine and an image of a standing Healing Buddha from Ichibe Shrine in Yokkaichi, Shiga Prefecture, were carved of wood, for both were left unpainted except for the details of the facial features and the grain of the wood is readily apparent. In contrast with the statue from Handô Shrine in which the artist has worked with two blocks of wood and in which the proportions are well balanced, the form of the statue originally at Tsubaki Shrine, carved from a single monumental block of kaya (torreya nucifera) and now covered with contemporary gilding, seems somewhat constrained by the piece of wood from which it was fashioned. While this awkwardness might be attributable to a lack of skill on the part of the sculptor, an equally plausible explanation is that the sculptor was working with an irregular block because of the original shape of the tree from which it was taken. The distinctive use of wood in all three images permits the conclusion that the material from which they were carved probably had some special religious significance. A complete discussion of the use of sacred wood for Buddhist imagery and the practice of leaving statues unpainted is outside of the scope of this paper. Yet, it is worth noting that ichii, a variety of yew used for the scepters of Shinto priests, was employed for Buddhist sculpture on a number of occasions during the ninth and tenth centuries.6
The choice of the Healing Buddha as the main image of jingûji during the eighth and ninth centuries was certainly not an arbitrary one. Yakushi was worshiped throughout the period to provide immunity from physical ills as well as to provide protection from all manner of curses and calamities. Representative of such rituals is one described in the Shoku nihon kôki in an entry for the sixth month of 837 (Jôwa 4). At this time practitioners from the Five Home Provinces and the Provinces Along the Seven Highways were instructed to recite the Kongô Hannya-kyô (Skt. Vajracchedik Prajñāpāramitā Sûtra) during the day and perform a rite of repentance dedicated to the Healing Buddha at night for three-days at all the kokubunji in order to quell an outbreak of small pox.7 This ritual was just one of a number of occasions when the Healing Buddha was invoked at the kokubunji, and one result of its popularity as an object of worship was that statues of the Healing Buddha often replaced images of the Historical Buddha at kokubunji during the ninth century. In fact, eventually statues of the Healing Buddha were installed in the majority of kokubunji across Japan.8
While each
of these statues at a syncretic sanctuary mentioned
above portrays the Healing Buddha in its standard iconography–wearing a monk’s
robe and holding a medicine pot--other Early Heian works that are designated Yakushi show the deity in the guise of a bodhisattva or a deva. Included in
this group are the “Yakushi Bosatsu”
now housed at Jônen-ji in Tanabe-chô, but originally enshrined at the jingûji of Hosono Shrine
in southern Kyoto Prefecture; the “Yakushi Buddha”
now kept at Yakuon-ji in Yawata-shi
which was made for the jingûji of Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine; and
an image of Yakushi that today is the main image at Kôryû-ji. The Kôryû-ji statue, which stylistically is datable to the very
beginning of the Heian period, is of
particular importance because the legends associated with it describe its
creation in considerable detail.9
The statue was first carved for Otokuni Shrine
located at the foot of the mountains to the west of
The Buddhist image at Otokuni Shrine
in the
Later histories of Kôryû-ji make the story much more elaborate. In the Kôryûji raiyûki of 1499, the same event is related in the following manner:
In the county of Otokuni in the Province of Yamashiro there was a shrine called Otokuni Shrine (Mukô Myôjin). In the past a person went into the mountains west of the capital to gather firewood and rested for a brief time at this spot. In front of the shrine was a single sacred tree which over the years had aged and appeared more like a stump, but from time to time it gave off miraculous light and gave good omens. This person quickly made a Buddhist image from it and chanted “I take refuge in the Healing Buddha,” enshrined the image at the shrine, and proceeded to disappear. It came to be known that this image was made by Mukô Myôjin who temporarily became the woodcutter. This miraculous image attracted the worship of many people.11
This account goes on to relate that the monk Dôshô (798-875) moved the statue to Kôryû-ji in 864 and that it continued to perform miracles. Itô Shirô of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs who has done extensive research on this statue, concludes that it was made the main image of the temple after a disastrous fire in 1150 destroyed the original main image of the sanctuary.
Particularly intriguing in these tales is the fact that the wood from which the image was fashioned possessed miraculous powers even before it was transformed into a Buddha. Indeed, the legend suggests that agency lay as much, if not more, with the material from which the statue was fashioned, the sacred wood itself, as it did with the sculptor. This phenomenon evokes the comments of the English philosopher of art, Adrian Stokes (1906-1972), who writes about how an artist often reveals forms already present in his material, rather than simply imposing his will on a block of stone or wood.12 It also may provide an additional explanation as to why Buddhist sculptors of the period on occasion left their statues unpainted since a natural-grain surface would directly communicate the fact that a Buddhist image was fashioned from a tree that once possessed miraculous powers.
Of equal interest is the fact that the kami in the guise of the woodcutter did not sculpt an image of the deity of Otokuni Shrine in the form of a courtier or a monk as was more common practice at the time (for example the statues at Tô-ji and Matsuo Shrine), but rather chose to make an image of the Healing Buddha, and install it as an object of worship. Neither the anonymous people who moved this image of the Healing Buddha first to Tagen-ji, nor Dôshô seem to have had any hesitation about placing an image thought to have been made by a kami in a Buddhist sanctuary. And if Itô’s account is to believed (which I am certain it is), the monks in charge of Kôryû-ji in the twelfth century thought it eminently reasonable to make such a syncretic image the main object of worship at their temple as well.
It is still necessary to consider why Yakushi was chosen as the Buddhist deity to represent the kami of Otokuni Shrine and what it was about the cult of the Healing Buddha that made it a particularly potent site for accommodation between indigenous and imported religious practices during the ninth century. In order to propose an answer to these questions, let us now look at an event dating from the mid-ninth century involving another unorthodox image of the Healing Buddha.
The legend from Kôryû-ji is not the only instance of a kami being referred to as a “Yakushi Bosatsu” during the early Heian period. The Nihon Montoku Tennô Jitsuroku, the fifth of the six national histories of Japan, records a series of unprecedented events that occurred between 856 and 858 in the province of Hitachi in eastern Japan describing the appearance of two new kami. From the text we learn that towards the end of 856 it was reported that bright lights appeared on the ocean near Ôarai Isozaki in the Kashima district to people boiling water for salt, and on the following day two strange stones were found on the beach. A day later more than twenty smaller stones of unusual colors were discovered laid out in a regular pattern surrounding the original two. Upon closer examination it was then noted that the two larger stones resembled the heads of monks although they were lacking eyes and ears. Subsequently the kami announced, “We are Ônamuchi no Mikoto and Sukunabikona no Mikoto. In the past we made this land but then we left it to live in the Tôkai region. We have now returned to provide for the people.”13 In the following year imperial permission was sought and granted to designate these kami “Yakushi Bosatsu Myôjin.” Ônamuchi no Mikoto was enshrined at a shrine called Ôarai Isozaki Jinja in the district of Kashima and Sukunabikona no Mikoto was enshrined at a shrine called Sakaretsu Isozaki Jinja in the neighboring district of Naka.
There is much that is exotic about this tale, but for the purposes of the present study, what is of particular note is the decision to call these kami bodhisattvas and to associate them with the Healing Buddha. The belief that a kami could take the form of a stone is a particularly ancient one, and the descriptions of the ishigami on Kannabiyama in the Tatenui district of the province of Izumo, recorded in the Izumo fudoki are representative of this phenomenon.14 The event recorded in the Sandai jitsuroku, however, is the only instance in which an ishigami took the form of a monk (albeit one without nose and ears). Clearly it was important for the authorities in the Kashima district to associate these new kami with the Buddhist faith and since the kami appeared as rocks the most compelling visual association would most certainly have been the head of a monk.
The designation Yakushi Bosatsu Myôjin is a bit easier to explain. At least one scholar has drawn a connection between the paradise of the Healing Buddha, located in the east in Buddhist cosmologies, and the location of the province of Hitachi in easternmost Japan.15 Of equal importance is the fact that the two kami that appear in the tale, some of the most ancient kami in Japan, both originally associated with the Izumo region, are noted for their powers to heal; therefore their association the Healing Buddha is not surprising.16 It is also possible to conjecture that because both deities remained kami and did not seek to change their status as did the deity of Ôshima Okitsuhima Shrine, they would have been designated as “bosatsu” and not as fully enlightened beings. As for Otokuni Myôjin, one of its most important attributes is its ability to cause rain, and prayers were frequently made at the shrine in times of drought throughout the early Heian period.17 Similarly, among the many talents of the Healing Buddha is the ability to ensure that “the winds and rains will occur at their proper seasons, and the crops will ripen.”18
A number of important conclusions can be drawn from the historical and artistic evidence cited above. Certainly protection from disease, both physical and spiritual was of particular importance to the early Japanese. They sought protection through their indigenous gods and when the new gods of Buddhism arrived it was only natural that they would have gravitated toward the Buddha of Healing. In fact, as Nakano Genzô has pointed out, certain ritual practices described in the Yakushi sutras closely resemble those of the indigenous tradition.19 Equally important to the early Japanese were guarantees of a good harvest and Healing Buddha promised such benefits as did the indigenous kami. It is not surprising therefore that the Healing Buddha came to be associated with kami with abilities to heal and also with kami with abilities to ensure good harvests.
As the Japanese attempted to explain the connection between their indigenous tradition and the imported Buddhist faith during the eighth and ninth centuries they resorted to a number of unprecedented solutions in which the Healing Buddha played a central role. They invented of a novel kind of sacred place, jingûji, where the relationship between the native kami and the foreign Buddhas could be clearly articulated. These were places where monks chanted Buddhist texts on behalf of the kami and many of the statues enshrined at these locales were images of the Healing Buddha. The Buddhist images produced from this syncretic matrix were often fashioned from wood, a material sacred to the indigenous religious tradition. No sculptor would intentionally choose a damaged or misshapen log for a statue, unless that piece of wood itself possessed some special meaning. The Japanese of the early Heian period also devised unprecedented iconographic types, such as images of the Healing Buddha in the guise of a deva, which blurred the canonical distinction between Buddha and kami. As the tale of the founding of the main image of Kôryû-ji indicates, iconographic correctness mattered less than devising a form of the sacred which conformed to the religious realities of the age. Finally they reformulated ishigami, some of the most ancient images of the indigenous tradition, in Buddhist terms. Buddhist ideas rapidly transformed Japan in the ninth century and the relationship between the indigenous gods and the imported deities at the time was one of constant accommodation which was frequently mediated through religious imagery.
NOTES
1. See Appendix A
2. Sandai jitsuroku entry for Jôgan 7.4.2. Sandai jitsuroku, (Tokyo: Keizai zasshisha, 1918), p. 153.
3. Samuel C. Morse,“‘I Don’t Want to Be a Kami’--Jingûji
and the Religious Culture of Early Japan,” delivered at the symposium–New Perspectives
in the Study of Shinto.
4. The statue was first studied by Sasaki Susumu, “Ômi Hachiman shi Shima-machi Jizô-dô no Jizô bosatsu ryûzô,” Hakubutsukan gaku nempô, no. 16 (1984), pp. 65-72; and more recently by Nagasaki Ichirô, “Heian shoki ni okeru Nantô shoshû no chihô jiin keiei to mokuchô no seisaku--Gangô-ji Hossô shû no baai o rei toshite, Bukkyô geijutsu, no. 206 (Jan., 1993), pp. 30-42.
5. Sasaki Susumu comes to a similar conclusion, based not only on the style of the work, but also on the fact that the position of the arms follows the standard iconography of the Healing Buddha rather than of statues of Hachiman or of Jizô. Sasaki, “Ômi Hachiman shi,” p.70.
6. The best
known example is the seated image of Eleven-headed Kannon, the main image of Rakuya-ji in Kôka-gun,
7. Shoku Nihon kôki, entry for Jôwa 4.6.21. Shoku Nihon kôki, Shintei zôho kokushi taikei, Kuroita Katsumi, ed., (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kôbunkan, 1929-1966), p. 265.
8. By 879 (Genkyô 5) the main image of the kokubunji
for the
9. A number of these have been confirmed by Itô Shirô. Itô suggests that the statue might have been made around 783 (Enryaku 3.11) when, on the occasion of the move of the capital to Nagaoka, the two Kamo Shrines, as well as Matsuo Shrine and Otokuni Shrine were all given promotions in rank and repairs were carried out. Itô Shirô, “Kôryû-ji honzon Yakushi zô kô–shimbutsu shûgô to sonzô no fukugô,” Gakusô, vol. 18 (Mar., 1996), pp. 13-25.
10. Nihon kirayku entry for 794 (Enryaku 13) 12.11 as quoted in Itô, “Kôryû-ji honzon,” p. 14.
11. Yamashiro no Kuni Kadono-gun Kaedeno Oi no Go Kôryû-ji raiyûki in Dai Nihon bukkyô zensho, vol. 83 (Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation, 1972), p. 242.
12. See his comment, “Carving creates a face for the stone, as agriculture for the earth, as man for woman. Modeling is more purely plastic creation: it makes things; it does not disclose, as a face the significance of what already exists. The painter of a modeling proclivity manifestly recharges a landscape with shape, with patent flourish. The painter of a carving proclivity is manifestly at pains to show that the forms there have each a face which he discloses.” Adrian Stokes, The Image in Form, Selected Writings of Adrian Stokes, Richard Wollheim, ed. (New York: Icon Editions, 1972), pp. 46-47.
13. These are
the kami at Ôarai Isozaki
and at Sakatsura Isozaki. See the entry for Saikô
The original text reads:
New kami appeared from the heavens at Ôarai Isozaki in Kashima-gun. From early times there were many people from the district who boiled water to get salt. [On this occasion] when they looked out at the ocean in the middle of the night light was reaching up to the sky. On the next day two strange rocks were discovered near the shoreline. They were both about one shaku in diameter. Their forms had been made by the kami; they had not been made by humans. The old salt-makers who secretly [looked at the stones] were frightened by them and fled. A day later more than twenty smaller rocks had appeared. They were arrayed to the left and the right of the other rocks in a [regular pattern] like a dias. Their color was not usual. The two stones looked like monks without either eyes or ears. In time the kami spoke to the people saying, “We are Ônamuchi no Mikoto and Sukunashikona no Mikoto. In the past we made this land but then we left it to live in the Tôkai region. We have now returned to provide for the people.”
14. Michiko Y. Aoki, trans., Records of Wind and Fire (Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies, 1997), p. 118-119.
15. Noguchi
Tsuyoshi, “Ôarai Sakaretsu
Isozaki Yakushi bosatsu myôjinja no seiritsu,” Inoue Tatsuo, ed. Kodai
tôkoku to
16. Ônamushi no Mikoto is an
alternate name for Ôkuninushi no kami, the Great Land
Possessor who is said to be either the child or grandchild of Susanoo no mikoto. Sukunabikona no Mikoto plays an important role in the Izumo
myths. For Ônamushi
no Mikoto see:
http://www.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/bts/bts_o.html#okuninushi_no_kami. For Sukunabikona no
Mikoto, see Ôshima Tatehiko et al, eds., Nihon no shimbutsu
jiten (
17. For example in 838 (Jôwa 5) 8.28 prayers for rain were directed to the kami (referred to as Myôjin in the text) of Matsuo, Otokuni, Tarumi, and Sumiyoshi. Shoku Nihon kôki (Tokyo: Keizai zasshisha, 1917), p. 278. Similar prayers were offered in 872 (Jôgan 15) 5.20 to the kami of Kamo, Matsuo Otokuni Inari, Kibune and Niukawa Kaminokami, Sandai jitsuroku, p. 422.
18. Xuan Zang, Yaoshi liuliguang benyuan gongde jing, T 450.
19. Nakano Genzô, Keka no geijutsu, pp. 33-62.