Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions 9789004306523, 9789004300675, 2015031140

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures and Tables
Conventions and Abbreviations
List of Contributors
Introduction
Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions
Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu
1 Early Chinese Embryologies
2 Embryologies in Early Indian and Buddhist Materials
3 Buddhist Embryologies in China
4 Embryologies in Early and Medieval Japan
5 Overview of Chapters
Concluding Remarks: On Embryologies and Gender
part 1
China
∵
Chapter 1
Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Life Cycles
Grégoire Espesset
1 Impregnation
2 The Symbolism of Gestation
3 Prenatal Infancy
4 Birth and Beyond
5 Cyclical Logic and Time Cycles
6 Prenatal Infancy Regained
Concluding Remarks
Chapter 2
Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism
Christine Mollier
Introduction
1 The Sexual Rites Described in the Huangshu
2 Sex and Procreation in Early Celestial Masters Literature
3 The Shenzhou jing and the Ritual of the Huangshu
4 The Eschatological Background of the Notion of “Seed-People”
5 La Dolce Vita in the Messianic Kingdom
Concluding Remarks: Counting the Elect
Chapter 3
Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation
Dominic Steavu
Introducing the Problem: Literal and Symbolic Embryology
1 The Gods Within: Anthropomorphising the Cosmos
2 Correlating Models, Imbricating Discourses
3 Taiyi and Cosmogonic Reversion
4 Sanhuang, Embryology, and the Birth of Neidan
Conclusion
Chapter 4
Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts
Catherine Despeux
Introduction
1 Appearance and Development of the “Sagely Embryo” Allegory
2 The Formation of the Sagely Embryo
3 Symbolic Pregnancy in Men
4 Symbolic Pregnancy in Women
5 Sacred (Re)birth in Women and Men
Conclusion
Chapter 5
Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three)
Fabrizio Pregadio
1 General Principles
2 Creating the World
3 Generation and Periodic Regeneration: The Function of Kun
4 Conception and Birth of the Human Being
5 Compounding the Elixir
Conclusion: “Inverting the Course” and “Following the Course”
Chapter 6
On the Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas
Brigitte Baptandier
1 The Myth of the Lady of Linshui and Its Discourse on Maternity
2 The Nainiang zhuan, Biography of the Mother
3 The Context of the Nainiang zhuan
4 The Ritual Performance
5 The Secret Revealed
6 Ritual Sequences from Nainiang zhuan
7 Furen Guoguan, The Lady Crosses the Passes: A Ritual Painting
8 The Thirty-Six Consorts, Acolytes of Chen Jinggu
9 The Talisman of the Eight Trigrams for Pacifying the Womb and the Dipper Ritual for the Correction of Fortune
10 Conclusion: On Symbolic Efficacy
11 Conclusion: The Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic
part 2
Japan
∵
Chapter 7
The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources
Lucia Dolce
Introduction
1 The Embryological Charts
2 Indian Medicine and Abhidharma Interpretations
3 The Chinese Body: The Five Agents and Five Viscera System
4 The Tantric Body: Fluids, Visualisation Practices, and Initiatory Rituals
5 Before Gestation: Sexual Practices in Tantric Buddhism
6 The Performance of Gestation I: The Yoga Sutra Commentaries
7 The Performance of Gestation II: Kami Initiations
Concluding Remarks
Chapter 8
Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism
Bernard Faure
1 Embryological Symbolism
1.1 From Two to Five
1.2 Aizen, Fudō, and Foetal Gestation
1.3 The Five Stages in Medieval Shintō Rituals
1.4 The Five Stages in Shugendō
2 The Deification of the Placenta
2.1 The Placenta Deity
2.2 Aizen and Fudō as Placenta Deities
2.3 Ugajin
2.4 Shōten (Vināyaka)
2.5 Myōken, the Pole Star inside the Womb
Epilogue
Chapter 9
“Human Yellow” and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism and Culture
Nobumi Iyanaga 彌永信美
1 The Origin of “Human Yellow”: Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra
2 What Was “Human Yellow”?
3 Dakini-ten and “Human Yellow” in Japan, before the End of the Heian Period
4 “Human Yellow” in the Third Left Hand of Aizen Myōō
5 The “Abominable Skull Cult” for the Production of a Magical Life
6 Skull Ritual and “Human Yellow”
Conclusion
Appendices
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4
Chapter 10
“Lost in the Womb”: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men
Anna Andreeva
Introduction
1 Medieval Scholars and Holy Men on Enlightenment and Conception
2 Esoteric Theories on the Move
3 Ritualising Fathers and Mothers
4 Mandalising Women’s Bodies?
Conclusion
Chapter 11
Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism
Kigensan Licha
Introduction
1 Discourses on the Human Body in Early Modern Sōtō Zen
1.1 The Universal Principles of the Body
1.2 The Instantiation of Universal Principles in the Body
1.3 The Roots of the Body
2 Embryology in the Womb and the Grave: The Pagoda and the Thirteen Buddhas
2.1 The “Five Stages in the Womb” (tainai goi 胎内五位) and the Aun jigi 阿吽字義
2.2 Gestation and the Thirteen Buddhas
3 Practice in the Womb and Propagating the Buddha Seed
3.1 Meditation as Residing in the Womb
3.2 Embryological Metaphysics
3.3 Variant Embryologies
3.4 Propagating the Buddha Seed
Conclusion
Chapter 12
Foetal Buddahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo
Gaynor Sekimori
Introduction
1 Embryological Symbolism Associated with Attire and Accoutrements
2 Conception and Gestation in the Akinomine
2.1 The Womb
2.2 Intercourse and Conception
2.3 Stages of Gestation
2.4 Birth
3 Sexual Symbolism Associated with Places
Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

i



Transforming the Void

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306523_001

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ii

Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series



Edited by Dominik Wujastyk Paul U. Unschuld Charles Burnett Editorial Board Donald J. Harper Ch. Z. Minkowski, Guy Attewell Nikolaj Serikoff

VOLUME 16

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/was

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Transforming the Void

iii

Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions

Edited by

Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Cover illustration: “Daotai tu 道胎圖” (“Illustration of the Embryo of the Dao”) from Liu Huayang’s 柳華陽 (1735–1799) Huiming jing 慧命經 (Scripture on Wisdom and Vital Force), dated to 1794. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Transforming the void : embryological discourse and reproductive imagery in East Asian religions / edited by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu. pages cm. -- (Sir Henry Wellcome Asian series, ISSN 1570-1484 ; VOLUME 16) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-30067-5 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-30652-3 (e-book) 1. Sex--Religious aspects. 2. Embryology, Human--Religious aspects. 3. Human reproduction--Religious aspects. 4. China--Religion. 5. Japan--Religion. I. Andreeva, Anna, editor. BL65.S4T73 2015 202’.2--dc23 2015031140

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1570-1484 isbn 978-90-04-30067-5 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30652-3 (e-book) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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Contents Contents

v

Contents

Acknowledgements ix List of Figures and Tables xi Conventions and Abbreviations xiv List of Contributors xviii



Introduction: Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions 1 Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu

China

Part 1

1

Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Life Cycles 53 Grégoire Espesset

2

Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism 87 Christine Mollier

3

Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation 111 Dominic Steavu

4

Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts 147 Catherine Despeux

5

Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three) 186 Fabrizio Pregadio

6

On the Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas 212 Brigitte Baptandier

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Contents

Japan

Part 2

7

The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources 253 Lucia Dolce

8

Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism 311 Bernard Faure

9

“Human Yellow” and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism and Culture 344 Nobumi Iyanaga

10

“Lost in the Womb”: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men 420 Anna Andreeva

11

Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism 479 Kigensan Licha

12

Foetal Buddhahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo 522 Gaynor Sekimori

Index 578

559

Contents Contents v Contents v Acknowledgements ix Acknowledgements ix List of Figures and Tables xi List of Figures and Tables xi Figures xi Tables xiii Conventions and Abbreviations xiv Conventions and Abbreviations xiv List of Contributors xvi List of Contributors xvi Introduction 1 Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions 1 Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu Andreeva and Steavu 1 1 Early Chinese Embryologies 4 2 Embryologies in Early Indian and Buddhist Materials 9 3 Buddhist Embryologies in China 19 4 Embryologies in Early and Medieval Japan 27 5 Overview of Chapters 30 Concluding Remarks: On Embryologies and Gender 40 Primary Sources 43 Secondary Sources 44 part 1 51 China 51 ∵ 51 Chapter 1 53 Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Life Cycles 53 Grégoire Espesset 53 1 Impregnation 55 2 The Symbolism of Gestation 57 3 Prenatal Infancy 60 4 Birth and Beyond 63 5 Cyclical Logic and Time Cycles 67 6 Prenatal Infancy Regained 75 Concluding Remarks 81 Primary Sources 83 Secondary Sources 84 Chapter 2 87 Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism 87 Christine Mollier 87 Introduction 87 1 The Sexual Rites Described in the Huangshu 89 2 Sex and Procreation in Early Celestial Masters Literature 93 3 The Shenzhou jing and the Ritual of the Huangshu 96 4 The Eschatological Background of the Notion of “Seed-People” 99 5 La Dolce Vita in the Messianic Kingdom 105 Concluding Remarks: Counting the Elect 107 Primary Sources 108 Secondary Sources 109 Chapter 3 111 Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation 111 Dominic Steavu 111 Introducing the Problem: Literal and Symbolic Embryology 111 1 The Gods Within: Anthropomorphising the Cosmos 114 2 Correlating Models, Imbricating Discourses 118 3 Taiyi and Cosmogonic Reversion 123 4 Sanhuang, Embryology, and the Birth of Neidan 128 Conclusion 138 Primary Sources 141 Secondary Sources 142 Chapter 4 147 Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts 147 Catherine Despeux 147 Introduction 147 1 Appearance and Development of the “Sagely Embryo” Allegory 148 2 The Formation of the Sagely Embryo 153 3 Symbolic Pregnancy in Men 159 4 Symbolic Pregnancy in Women 169 5 Sacred (Re)birth in Women and Men 177 Conclusion 180 Primary Sources  182 Secondary Sources 184 Chapter 5 186 Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three) 186 Fabrizio Pregadio 186 1 General Principles 188 2 Creating the World 190 3 Generation and Periodic Regeneration: The Function of Kun 193 4 Conception and Birth of the Human Being 197 5 Compounding the Elixir 203 Conclusion: “Inverting the Course” and “Following the Course” 208 Primary Sources 210 Secondary Sources 211 Chapter 6 212 On the Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas 212 Brigitte Baptandier 212 1 The Myth of the Lady of Linshui and Its Discourse on Maternity 212 2 The Nainiang zhuan, Biography of the Mother 218 3 The Context of the Nainiang zhuan 219 4 The Ritual Performance 221 5 The Secret Revealed 222 6 Ritual Sequences from Nainiang zhuan 229 7 Furen Guoguan, The Lady Crosses the Passes: A Ritual Painting 230 8 The Thirty-Six Consorts, Acolytes of Chen Jinggu 234 9 The Talisman of the Eight Trigrams for Pacifying the Womb and the Dipper Ritual for the Correction of Fortune 10 Conclusion: On Symbolic Efficacy 239 11 Conclusion: The Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic 243 Primary Sources 246 Secondary Sources 246 part 2 251 Japan 251 ∵ 251 Chapter 7 253 The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources 253 Lucia Dolce 253 Introduction 253 1 The Embryological Charts 257 2 Indian Medicine and Abhidharma Interpretations 262 3 The Chinese Body: The Five Agents and Five Viscera System 270 4 The Tantric Body: Fluids, Visualisation Practices, and Initiatory Rituals 277 5 Before Gestation: Sexual Practices in Tantric Buddhism 280 6 The Performance of Gestation I: The Yoga Sutra Commentaries 293 7 The Performance of Gestation II: Kami Initiations 297 Concluding Remarks 299 Primary Sources 302 Secondary Sources 305 Chapter 8 311 Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism 311 Bernard Faure 311 1 Embryological Symbolism 311 1.1 From Two to Five 312 1.2 Aizen, Fudō, and Foetal Gestation 313 1.3 The Five Stages in Medieval Shintō Rituals 317 1.4 The Five Stages in Shugendō 318 2 The Deification of the Placenta 319 2.1 The Placenta Deity 322 2.2 Aizen and Fudō as Placenta Deities 328 2.3 Ugajin  329 2.4 Shōten (Vināyaka) 331 2.5 Myōken, the Pole Star inside the Womb 334 Epilogue 335 Primary Sources 338 Secondary Sources 339 Chapter 9 344 “Human Yellow” and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism and Culture 344 Nobumi Iyanaga 彌永信美 344 1 The Origin of “Human Yellow”: Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra 344 2 What Was “Human Yellow”? 347 3 Dakini-ten and “Human Yellow” in Japan, before the End of the Heian Period 349 4 “Human Yellow” in the Third Left Hand of Aizen Myōō 358 5 The “Abominable Skull Cult” for the Production of a Magical Life 362 6 Skull Ritual and “Human Yellow” 375 Conclusion 385 Appendices 388 Appendix 1 388 Appendix 2 390 Appendix 3 403 Appendix 4 404 Primary Sources 412 Secondary Sources 413 Chapter 10 420 “Lost in the Womb”: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men 420 Anna Andreeva 420 Introduction 420 1 Medieval Scholars and Holy Men on Enlightenment and Conception 422 2 Esoteric Theories on the Move 434 3 Ritualising Fathers and Mothers 444 4 Mandalising Women’s Bodies? 455 Conclusion 469 Abbreviations 470 Primary Sources 470 Secondary Sources 473 Chapter 11 479 Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism 479 Kigensan Licha 479 Introduction 479 1 Discourses on the Human Body in Early Modern Sōtō Zen 483 1.1 The Universal Principles of the Body 486 1.2 The Instantiation of Universal Principles in the Body 489 1.3 The Roots of the Body 494 2 Embryology in the Womb and the Grave: The Pagoda and the Thirteen Buddhas 495 2.1 The “Five Aun jigi 阿吽字義  497 2.2 Gestation and the Thirteen Buddhas  503 3 Practice in the Womb and Propagating the Buddha Seed 506 3.1 Meditation as Residing in the Womb 506 3.2 Embryological Metaphysics 507 3.3 Variant Embryologies 510 3.4 Propagating the Buddha Seed 512 Conclusion 514 Primary Sources 517 Secondary Sources 518 Chapter 12 522 Foetal Buddahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo 522 Gaynor Sekimori 522 Introduction 522 1 Embryological Symbolism Associated with Attire and Accoutrements 526 2 Conception and Gestation in the Akinomine 534 2.1 The Womb 534 2.2 Intercourse and Conception 535 2.3 Stages of Gestation 537 2.4 Birth 540 3 Sexual Symbolism Associated with Places 542 Conclusion 543 Primary Sources 555 Secondary Sources 555 Index 559 Index 559

237

Stages

in

the

Womb”

(tainai

goi

胎内五位)

and

the

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Contents

Participants in the international symposium on “Imagining the Feminine in East Asian Religions and Medicine,” held at the Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, RuprechtKarls-Universität Heidelberg, on November 5–7, 2010. Back row, left to right: Anna Andreeva, George Clonos, Melanie Trede, Grégoire Espesset, Joachim Kurtz, James Benn, Dominic Steavu, Fabrizio Pregadio, James Robson, Michael Como. Front row, left to right: Katja Triplett, Matsumoto Ikuyo, Charlotte Furth, Catherine Despeux, Brigitte Baptandier, Christine Mollier, Lucia Dolce, Gaynor Sekimori.

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Acknowledgements Acknowledgements

ix

Acknowledgements This volume of essays is the outcome of the international symposium “Imagining the Feminine in East Asian Religions and Medicine,” which was held at the Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, on November 5–7, 2010. The symposium was organized by the project C11 “Medicine and Religion in Premodern East Asia,” and coordinated by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu. We warmly thank the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context,” based at the Karl Jaspers Centre in Heidelberg, and the German Research Council (DFG) for making such a project feasible and providing all possible kinds of long-term assistance. The success of the symposium and the completion of the present volume would not have been possible without support of the Chair of Chinese Intellectual History, Professor Joachim Kurtz, and Chair of Cultural Economic History, Professor Harald Fuess. Our profound gratitude goes to all the speakers who participated in the 2010 symposium at Heidelberg, including Professors James Benn (McMaster), Michael Como (Columbia), George Clonos (Kyoto), our keynote speaker Charlotte Furth (USC), Matsumoto Ikuyo (Yokohama City University), James Robson (Harvard University), and Katja Triplett (Göttingen). This volume took a clearer shape as a result of the panel “Ritualising Gestation: Embryological Discourse in Medieval Chinese and Japanese Religions,” organised by Dominic Steavu for the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in San Diego in March 2013. We thank all participants, including Professors Bernard Faure (Columbia University) and Christine Mollier (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris), as well as Fabio Rambelli (University of California, Santa Barbara), who acted as our discussant. Our thanks also go to the anonymous peer review readers for providing constructive criticism and encouragement. We are also grateful to the Chair of Buddhist Studies at the University of Heidelberg, Professor Birgit Kellner, Professor Robert Kritzer (Kyoto Notre Dame University), Dr. Lucia Dolce, the Numata Reader in Buddhist Studies (SOAS), for their helpful suggestions and discussions regarding some of the Buddhist materials explored in this volume. Dr. Grégoire Espesset (CRCAO) and Dr. Fabrizio Pregadio (Erlangen) deserve special mention for having gone through substantial parts of the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb. All mistakes that remain are our own. Many warm thanks go to our editors at Brill, Albert Hoffstädt and especially Patricia Radder, for guiding us throughout the publication process. We are thankful to Brill for securing the permission to reproduce the image from The

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Acknowledgements

Illuminating Secret Commentary on the Five Chakras and the Nine Syllables by Kakuban (1095–1143), which originally appeared in Hendrik van der Veere’s Study into the Thought of Kōgyō Daishi Kakuban (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2000). In Japan, thanks are due to the Buddhist temples Ninnaji (Kyoto), Jindaiji (Tok­yo), Shōmyōji and the Kanazawa Bunko archive (Yokohama), Nihon Mingeikan (Tokyo), Jingū Bunko archive (Ise), Eikōji Temple (Ishikawa Prefecture), Sōtōshū bunkazai chōsa iinkai (The Cultural Properties Research Committee of the Sōtō Zen School), and Komazawa University library for kindly granting permissions to use their images and access to the historical materials in their archives. We are indebted to Professor Uchida Keiichi for allowing us to reproduce his photographs of Japanese manuscripts, and to Dr. Nobumi Iyanaga for his knowledgeable help on the issue of Sanskrit syllables. Last but not least, we would like to thank our colleagues at the Cluster and elsewhere, for their good cheer, moral support and camaraderie: Martin Hofmann (Heidelberg), David Mervart (Madrid), Martin Dusinberre (Zurich), and Ms. Shupin Lang (Heidelberg). We thank also Heddi Goodrich, Diamante Waters, and Shaun Scally for many rounds of meticulous proofreading and copy-editing, and Tai Sekimori for providing the illustrations for the title page and for several of the chapters on Japan.

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List of Figures and Tables List of Figures and Tables

xi

List of Figures and Tables

Figures

1.1 1.2

Illustration preceding the paragraph on “nothingness” in the Taiping jing 76 Illustration inserted between the paragraphs on “nothingness” and “noninterference” in the Taiping jing 77 The five steps of meditative gestation from the “Sanyi jing” 123 The ten-stage cosmogony from “Taiyi sheng shui” 127 The three phases of Neidan practice 137 Cosmogony and its reversal, to be completed in Neidan meditation 137 The “Anshen zuqiao tu” (“Illustration of the Pacification of the Spirit at the Ancestral Orifice”) 161 “Ying’er xianxing tu” (“Illustration of the Formation of the Infant”) 166 Zhao Bichen’s “embryology” 169 The “Yangshen chuxian tu” (“Illustration of the Appearance of the Yang Spirit”) from Xingming guizhi 178 “Kan ☵ and Li ☲ are the inner and outer walls” 198 “Sun and Moon make change” 198 Chart displaying auspicious positions and other directions for a birth occurring during the first and second months 225 Furen guoguan tu (The Lady Crosses the Passes), Mount Lü ritual painting 232 Furen guoguan tu, detail (a) 233 Furen guoguan tu, detail (b) 233 Consorts with children 235 Eight trigrams talisman for pacifying the womb 238 Adept treading on the seven stars of the Big Dipper as he enters the eight trigrams mandala 239 The fashi and his acolyte place the adept in the center of the eight trigrams mandala 239 The qilin, or “unicorn” 242 Outer title, the Gochizō hishō scroll. Ninnaji Archives 257 Diagram of the “five stages of gestation” (tainai goi), Gochizō hishō. Ninnaji Archives 258 Diagram of the “five stages of gestation” (tainai goi, recto), untitled manuscript. Jindaiji Archives 261 Diagram of the “five stages of gestation” (tainai goi, verso), untitled manuscript. Jindaiji Archives 261

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

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List Of Figures And Tables

7.5

Diagram of foetal development, Ise shoshō Nihongi ushiki honshō nin denki 268 The five-element stupa (gorintō), opening section of the Gochizō hishō. Ninnaji Archives 272 Mandala of generative duality, Gochizō hishō. Ninnaji Archives 283 Mandala, untitled manuscript. Jindaiji Archives 285 “Two bodhisattvas with open legs on an eight-petalled lotus,” untitled manuscript. Private collection 286 Five-color syllable A, Gochizō hishō. Ninnaji Archives 288 Five-colour syllable A inscribed with the five viscera deities, untitled manuscript. Private collection 290 Foetal syllable A, Aji kokubako, Hasedera Archives 291 Twin stupa, Gochizō hishō. Ninnaji Archives 292 Twin stupa, Jindaiji manuscript 293 Mudra sequence for five-stage gestation. From Yamamoto Hiroko 1997 296 Vināyaka/Shōten as placenta, Kanazawa Bunko Collection. Drawing by Tai Sekimori 333 Aizen Myōō, Besson zakki. Drawing by Tai Sekimori 356 Śiva. Drawing by Tai Sekimori 357 Ninnō or “human yellow,” Aijinichi, Kanazawa Bunko. Courtesy of Shōmyōji (Yokohama) 360 Gehō hashigo zori, Nihon Mingeikan (Tokyo). Courtesy of Nihon Mingeikan 374 Chūteki himissho 484 Chūteki himissho 485 Chūteki himissho 486 Kechimyaku zu narabi kechimyaku soden no manji 513 The oi, ayaigasa, katabako, and oitate. Shōzen’in, Hagurosan 543 The oi, ayaigasa, katabako, and oitate. Shōzen’in, Hagurosan (side view) 543 The altar during the Second Lodging of the Akinomine 544 Attire of a yamabushi, or shugenja. Haguro Shugendo 544 Tokin 545 Long tokin 545 Yuigesa, Hagurosan 545 Kōtakuji 546 Toko decoration, Second Lodging 546 Matsu no rei 547 Kogi aka osame 547 Bonden taoshi. Koganedō 548 Saitō goma 548

7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 8.1 9.1a 9.1b 9.2 9.3 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 12.1a 12.1b 12.1c 12.2 12.2a 12.2b 12.2c 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 12.7 12.8

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List of Figures and Tables 12.9 12.10 12.11 12.12 12.13a 12.13b 12.14 12.15a 12.15b 12.15c

Body as Five Chakra Stupa 549 Revering the Jizōdō from behind 549 Toko sanjō layout 550 Koshiba decoration 550 Parturition hut, exterior view. Drawing by Tai Sekimori 551 Parturition hut, interior view. Drawing by Tai Sekimori 551 Jumping over fire 552 Higashi Fudaraku 552 Ōhama ike 553 Tainai kuguri 553



Tables

11.1 11.2 11.3

The henshō goi, Chūteki himissho 488 Five stages and the mantric pagoda 488 The five syllables A, stages of practice, Buddhas and directions, Keiranshūyōshū 490 Cosmogonic stages and pagoda layers 490 The henshō goi, circles, cosmogonic stages and trigrams, by Ketsudō 493 Buddha’s deeds and layers of human pagoda 493 The five stages of gestation 498 The structure of modern Akinomine, Kōtakuji. Source: Sekimori 554 Five stages of gestation in Haguro texts. Source: Sekimori 554

11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 12.1 12.2

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Conventions And Abbreviations Conventions and Abbreviations

Conventions and Abbreviations Chinese and Japanese personal names are given in the traditional order, with the family name first and personal name second. Sanskrit terms and syllables are provided with diacritics; Chinese names and terms are given in pinyin, followed by Chinese traditional characters and Japanese in Hepburn romanization, where applicable. For Japanese dates before 1873, the era name and year are followed by the corresponding year in the Gregorian calendar in parenthesis; where applicable, the year is followed by month and day according to the lunar calendar. For example, Kōan 6 (1283).05.21 or Kōan 6 (1283), fifth month, 21st day. DZ

MDJ NKBT P. S. SS

ST

SZ

T

Zhengtong daozang 正統道藏 [Taoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era], dated to 1444–1445, under the Zhengtong 正統 reign era (1435–1449), 1120 fascicles. Shanghai: Hanfen lou 函芬樓 reprint, 1924–1926. Numerical figures following the abbreviation refer to the sequence from Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, eds., The Taoist Canon: a Historical Companion to the Daozang (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). Mikkyō daijiten 密教大辞典 [Dictionary of Esoteric Buddhism], 6 vols. Edited by Mikkyō jiten hensankai 密教辞典編纂会. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1969–1970. Nihon koten bungaku taikei 日本古典文學大系 [Collection of Japanese Historical Sources], 100 vols, and index 2 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1957–1967. Pelliot collection of Dunhuang manuscripts (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris). International Dunhuang Project (idp.afc.ryukoku.ac.jp). Stein collection of Dunhuang manuscripts (British Library, London). International Dunhuang Project (idp.afc.ryukoku.ac.jp). Shugendō shōso 修験道章疏 [Compendium of Shugendo]. Edited by Nihon Daizōkyō henshūkai 日本大蔵經編集會, 2 vols. Tokyo: Kokusho hakkōkai, 2000. Shintō taikei 神道大系 [Compendium of Shinto Sources], 120 vols. Edited by Shintō taikei hensankai 神道大系編纂會. Tokyo: Shintō taikei hensankai, 1977–1994. Shingonshū zensho 眞言宗全書 [Complete Works of the Shingon School], 44 vols. Edited by Shingonshū zensho kankōkai 眞言宗全書刊行會. Kōyasan: Shingonshū zensho kankōkai, 1933–1939. Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經 [Revised Tripiṭaka of the Taishō Era], 100 vols. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎, Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡 辺海旭, et al., Tokyo: Taishō issaikyō kankōkai, 1924–1932.

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Conventions and Abbreviations TZ

ZGR

ZSZ

ZTZ

xv

Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, zuzōbu 大正新修大藏經圖像部 [Revised Tripiṭaka of the Taishō Era, Images]. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō et al., 12 vols., Tokyo: Taishō issaikyō kankōkai, 1932–1934. Zoku gunsho ruijū 續群書類從 [Collection of Japanese Written Works, Continued]. Edited by Ōta Tōshirō 太田藤四郎, Hanawa Hokiichi 塙保己一 et al. Tokyo: Zoku gunsho ruijū kanseikai, 1957–1959. Zoku Shingonshū zensho 續眞言宗全書 [The Complete Works of the Shingon School, Continued], 42 vols. Edited by Zoku Shingonshū zensho kankōkai 眞 言宗全書刊行會. Kōyasan: Zoku Shingonshū zensho kankōkai, 1988. Zoku Tendaishū zenshō 續天台宗全書 [The Complete Works of the Tendai School, Continued], 15 vols. Edited by Tendai shūten hensanjo 天台宗典編纂 所. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1987–2000.

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List of Contributors

List Of Contributors

List of Contributors Anna Andreeva Research Fellow in Japanese Studies, the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context,” Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Brigitte Baptandier Director of Research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in the Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, Université Paris X, Nanterre Catherine Despeux Professor Emeritus, Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO), Paris Lucia Dolce Numata Reader in Japanese Buddhism, Department of the Study of Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Grégoire Espesset Associate Member, Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie orientale (CRCAO), Paris Bernard Faure Kao Professor of Japanese Religions, Departments of Religion and East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University Nobumi Iyanaga Independent researcher, Tokyo. Kigensan Licha Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies, Department of Indian and Buddhist Studies, University of Tokyo Christine Mollier Director of Research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris

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Fabrizio Pregadio Associate Researcher, International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Gaynor Sekimori Research Associate, Centre for the Study of Japanese Religions, School of  Oriental and African Studies, University of London Dominic Steavu Assistant Professor of Chinese Religions and Chinese Buddhism, University of California, Santa Barbara

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List Of Contributors

An ascetic in the state of meditation on the embryo. Artist’s impression. Drawing by Tai Sekimori (Cambridge, UK)

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Backdrops and Parallels

Introduction

Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu Andreeva and Steavu

Attaining the ultimate of vacuity, Guarding the utmost of quiescence. The ten thousand things spring forth. I contemplate their return. They mill about indistinctly, But each one returns to its own root. Laozi Daode jing 16.

…

Sentient beings conceived by wombs, eggs, moisture, and transformation all harbor the adorned dwelling space of inherent enlightenment [within them].

Kakugenshō, “On the Kuṇḍalinī mūdra and ritual offerings.”1

⸪ Typically, the embryo conjures images of what is yet incomplete. It represents an undeveloped potential that has yet to undergo the full process required for it to reach finitude. Debates persist about whether the embryo is to be considered a complete living being or whether it merely constitutes the building blocks or raw matter for the human body. In contrast, classical perspectives from China and Japan understood the embryo as wholeness. It is the very image of finalised completeness. From the moment of birth, the body degenerates and grows further removed from its embryonic state of original 1 Kakugenshō 覚源抄 (Extracts from Lectures by Kakukai and Yūgen), by Hōkyō Rendōbō 宝筐蓮道房, in Shingonshū zensho 真言宗全書, Takaoka Ryūshin 高岡隆心 et al., eds. (Kōyasan: Shingonshū zensho kankōkai, 1933–39), vol. 36, 385a.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306523_002

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pristineness, undergoing decay, illness, and ultimately death. Religious traditions underscore this perception: the embryo is the symbol for the culmination of self-cultivation. It is fullness embodied, but not only physically, as it also represents the “spiritual” perfection that adepts strive for. The embryo is the model that practitioners attempt to emulate in their quest for fulfillment and transcendence. Its developmental trajectory in utero – in other words, its embryology – becomes the template for the soteriological process that adepts embark on. These traditions of self-cultivation are firmly rooted in the religious thought and rituals of Taoism and Buddhism. Yet, even in their contemporary incarnations, they rely, at least in part, on the medical understanding of embryological development. Indeed, the boundary that demarcates medicine, physiology, and obstetrics, from religious discourse is blurred when it comes to the selfcultivation practices couched in embryological models.2 Numerous medical embryologies that furnished literal descriptions of the stages of development which an embryo undergoes during gestation were included in religious corpora. In addition, the Taoist and Buddhist canons contain hitherto little-studied references to a spectrum of medical texts covering topics from etiology and diagnosis to therapy and materia medica.3 In early and medieval China and Japan, medical specialists were often ordained Buddhists or Taoist priests.

2 This motif has already attracted some attention from the scholars of Asia. See, for example, Mathieu Boisvert, “Conception and Intrauterine Life in the Pāli Canon,” Studies in Religion/ Sciences Religieuses 29 (2000), Frances Garrett, Religion, Medicine, and the Human Embryo in Tibet (Abingdon, London and New York: Routledge, 2008), and Jane Marie Law and Vanessa Sasson, eds., Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 3 The Taoist canon (Daozang 道藏) consists of largely undated scriptures compiled and recorded between the beginning of the Common Era and the Ming dynasty. The extant version of this canon was compiled in the fifteenth century. The creation of the Chinese Buddhist canon (Ch. Dazangjing 大藏經, Jp. Daizōkyō) was a long and continuous process that began in the fourth century with the compilation of catalogues of Buddhist scriptures that had been brought to and translated in China at different times – the [Da Sui] zhongjing mulu 大隋眾 經目錄 (The Catalogue of the Sui, 594, T. 2146) and the Kaiyuan shijiao lu 開元釋教錄 (The Catalogue of the Kaiyuan Era, 713–742, T. 2154) being the representative but not singular examples. See Silvie Hureau, “Translations, Apochrypha, and the Emergence of the Buddhist Canon,” in Early Chinese Religions, Part Two: Period of Division (220–589 AD), John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 758–773. One of the most widely used versions of the East Asian Buddhist Canon nowadays is the Taishō Tripiṭaka, published in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century.

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Despite the fact that self-cultivation sources rhetorically enforce an ambiguity between their embryological models of practice and the strictly descriptive accounts of biological processes, the two categories of discourse are nonetheless distinguishable. For example, soteriologies expressed in embryological terms are often framed in terms of a return, or rebirth, in the sense that adepts typically experience or recreate their own gestation. Such terms are encountered in a variety of Taoist meditations or Buddhist funerary cults, particularly those focusing on attaining the state of being “unborn.” The process reaches its climax at the initial point in gestation, one that immediately follows conception or fertilisation. In contrast, purely medical embryologies culminate with the birth of the child. In other cases, embryonic growth is restaged and relived in a communal ritual context, which culminates in the emergence of new members of a religious group or a renewed sense of one’s religious identity. It is the diverse and culturally specific reformulations of these metaphors of conception and gestation, as well as reproductive imagery in a broad sense that the essays in this volume investigate. From the outset, we intend to spell out that the scope of this volume is squarely on the soteriological applications of such embryological and gestational discourses in East Asian religious traditions. By and large, we have elected to leave aside sources on literal procreation to focus on the more figurative interpretations. However, since the former are crucial in framing the latter, a sizeable portion of this introduction is devoted to providing a requisite overview of what can be termed “medical embryologies,” that is, the models of conception and gestation embedded in premodern discourses on childbirth and health. References to these also occur in some of the chapters. Although such premodern “medical embryologies” sometimes skirt on the theological, the cosmological, or the philosophical, their mandate remains more closely tied to obstetrics, procreation, and the maintaining of bodily health than to self-cultivation. Thus, they deserve a separate in-depth study. In this optic, and perhaps to the detriment of the accuracy of modern medical terminology, the contributions to this volume on the China side will use the word “embryo” to denote both the embryo (the term normally used until the eleventh week of gestational age, nine weeks after fertilisation) and the foetus (the term used after the eleventh week). This inclusive use of “embryo” to refer, in broad terms, to the unborn child, best reflects the original Chinese sources. In contrast, the articles dealing with Japanese materials will use both the “embryo” and “foetus”: following the precedent set by James H. Sanford in his groundbreaking

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research on “foetal Buddhahood” in Shingon.4 Primary sources employ the Sinitic term tai 胎 (which in Buddhist texts also acts as a translation of the Sanskrit term garbha) to refer uniformly to the infant in utero during all stages of development, as well as to the womb itself. Much of this introduction will thus be devoted to providing an overview of the Chinese, Indian, and Buddhist medical embryologies that are not discussed at length in individual articles but have nonetheless shaped embryological discourses and reproductive imagery in premodern East Asian religions. This will be followed by a synopsis of the individual essays of the volume. 1

Early Chinese Embryologies

In China, the earliest description of the gestational process is not found in a medical source but rather in the “Shuidi 水地” (“Water and Earth”) chapter from the Guanzi 管子 (fourth century BCE). Drawing parallels between the genesis of individual life and the genesis of the cosmos, the chapter in question is couched in a correlative idiom that firmly anchors the body in a broader cosmological framework. The text establishes that humans and Earth are composed of the same constitutive elements, chief among them, Water: Earth is the origin of the ten thousand things, the root of all life. […] As for Water, it is the blood and qi of Earth, like that which circulates in the vascular system [of the human body]. Thus it is said, Water is the prima materia. […] Humans are Water. When man and woman unite their essences and qi, Water takes shape [lit. “flows into form]. By the third month, [the embryo] has viscera [lit. “is as if flavoured”] […]. In the fifth month, it is complete. In the tenth month, it is born.5 地者，萬物之本原，諸生之根菀也。[…] 水者，地之血氣，如筋脈之 通流者也。故曰水具材也。[…] 人，水也。男女精氣合，而水流形。 三月如咀 […]。五月而成，十月而生。

The rest of the section describes how the Five Agents (wuxing 五行), in this case represented by the five flavours (wuwei 五味), are connected to each of the 4 James H. Sanford, “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas: Foetal Buddhahood in Shingon,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24.1 (1997): 1–38. 5 Guanzi 39; Guanzi jiaozhu 管子校注, 813–816. Unless otherwise noted, all translations into English are the authors’ own.

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five viscera (wuzang 五臟) of the human body. After they are complete, each of the viscera generates one of the five “tissues” (rou 肉), namely mucous membranes, bones, the brain, skin, and flesh.6 According to this early example, cosmology, the body, and its development are inextricable. The earliest recorded East Asian embryology in a medical source is found in the Taichan shu 胎產書 (Book on the Embryo and Childbirth) excavated from the Mawangdui 馬王堆 (188 BCE terminus ante quem) tombs of the Western Han (206–220 BCE) and studied by Donald Harper.7 This account, pertaining to what we may term “medical knowledge,” similarly inscribes its embryology within a broad correlative context replete with cosmological correspondences, although it does not go as far as juxtaposing its various stages with those of a process that could be understood as cosmogony.8 Early Chinese medical descriptions of the embryo’s development were based on a ten-month gestational model. This particular model proved especially influential in women’s medicine during the medieval and late medieval periods in China, and in

6 Guanzi 39, 815–816; embryonic development is described as follows: 咀者何？曰五 味。五味者何，曰五藏。酸主脾，鹹主肺，辛主腎，苦主肝，甘主心。五藏已 具 ， 而 後 生 肉 。 脾 生 隔 ， 肺 生 骨 ， 腎 生 腦 ， 肝 生 革 ， 心 生 肉 。 五 肉 已 具，而後發為九竅：脾發為鼻，肝發為目，腎發為耳，肺發為竅，五月而成，十 月而生. 7 The following is slightly modified from Donald Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1998), 379–380: “In the third month it [the embryo] first becomes suet, and has the appearance of a gourd. During this time it does not yet have a fixed configuration, and if exposed to things it transforms. For this reason lords, sires, and great men must not employ dwarves. Do not observe monkeys. […] In the sixth month Metal is bestowed on it, and muscle first forms. Exercise; go out to wander in the countryside; frequently observe running dogs and horses. You must eat without [these meats].” For more on the Taichan shu, see Harper 1998, 27–28 and 372–384; see also Li Jianmin 李建民, “Mawangdui Hanmu boshu ‘Yu zang mai bao tu’ jian zheng 馬王堆漢墓帛書「禹藏埋胞圖」箋證,” Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊 65.4 (1994): 725–832. The Huangdi neijing 黃 帝內經 (Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor), a foundational canon of Chinese medical knowledge, is surprisingly mute on the topic of gestation; see Huangdi neijing Suwen 素問 70 for a rare mention of the subject. 8 This also applies to other early medical sources on gestation and related topics; see, for instance, the Jingui yaolüe 金匱要略 (Essentials of the Golden Casket) by Zhang Ji 張機 (Zhang Zhongjing 張仲景) from the Easter Han (25–220 CE), which discusses gestation, albeit in less detail than the Taichan shu and with more focus on the mother than the embryo; see Sabine Wilms, “The Transmission of Medical Knowledge on ‘Nurturing the Fetus’ in Early China,” Asian Medicine 1.2 (2005): 276–314, for this and other sources on pregnancy in early China.

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medieval Japan.9 Even centuries later, reformulations of the ten-month model strayed little from the original wording of the Taichan shu, maintaining a more or less mechanistic or literalist tone with respect to the transformative processes that define life in utero.10 Conversely, the more speculative instances of embryological discourse, such as the one found in the earlier example from Guanzi, went beyond merely assigning cosmological value to reproduction. They stood out by infusing procreation with a pronounced cosmogonic dynamic, thereby, paving the way for soteriological interpretations. These were made possible by relating the human body (more precisely, its physiology) to the cosmos. From this viewpoint, gestation and parturition were considered cosmic events and the principles governing them could also be harnessed to actively extend one’s life or otherwise augment it. The embryology in the “Jingshen 精神” (“Essence and Spirit”) chapter of the Huainanzi 淮南子 (139 BCE) further develops the ties between cosmology and procreation first alluded to in the Guanzi. The text lays out the embryo’s developmental benchmarks during the ten months of gestation (in the fourth month the flesh forms; in the fifth, muscles form; in the sixth, bones form, 9

10

Although they do not specifically address embryology, the sources on women’s medicine discussed in the special issue of Nan Nü 7.2 (2005) on “Medicine for Women in Imperial China,” Angela K. Leung ed., are enlightening with respect to knowledge surrounding reproductive functions and their associated medical issues; see especially Robin D.S. Yates’ and Jen-Der Lee’s contributions, “Medicine for Women in Early China: A Preliminary Survey,” 2005, 127–181, and “Childbirth in Early Imperial China,” 2005, 216–286, respectively. Jen-Der Lee’s article, in particular, casts light on the process of transmission and further adaptation of Sui and Tang medical knowledge in Heian (905–1185) Japan, as witnessed in the Ishinpō 醫心方 (The Essentials of Medicine, c. 984), compiled by the court physician Tanba no Yasuyori 丹波康頼 (912–995). This source is discussed below. See, for instance, the parallels in the “Renzhen hou 妊娠候” (“Inquiries on Getting Pregnant”) chapter of the Zhubing yuanhou lun 諸病源候論 (Treatise on the Origins and Symptoms of Assorted Maladies) and the “Xu Zhicai zhuyue yangtai fang 徐之才逐月養 胎方” (“Xu Zhicai’s Monthly Recipes for Nourishing the Embryo”) section of the Qianjing yaofang 千金要方 (Essential Methods Worth A Thousand Ounces of Gold); see Harper 1998, 27–28, where he states that the embryology from the Book on the Embryo and Childbirth is “clearly the textual antecedent of the medieval accounts of gestation.” See also Mawangdui Han mu boshu 馬王堆漢墓帛書 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1985) 4.140– 141; another example of an embryology directly inherited from the Taichan shu is the Waitai miyaofang 外台秘要方 (Arcane Essentials Collected by a Regional Censor) compiled by Wang Tao 王燾 (670?–755); this source is briefly examined by Jessey J.C. Choo, in “That ‘Fatty Lump’: Discourses on the Fetus, Fetal Development, and Filial Piety in China before the Eleventh Century CE,” Nan Nü 14 (2012): 191–194; Choo 2012, 215–219, also provides a translation of the text’s embryology along with relevant prescriptions.

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etc.).11 The embryology is prefaced by the famous passage on the genesis of the cosmos from chapter 42 of the Laozi Daode jing 老子道德經 (Laozi’s Book of the Way and Virtue): “The One generates Two. The Two generate Three. The Three generate the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things carry Yin and hold Yang. Infused with qi 氣, they are in harmony.”12 The “Jingshen” chapter then explains that after the seventh month, when the embryo has achieved the full form of the human body, the five viscera (wuzang) have coalesced.13 They are correlated with the five “external organs” of the face (eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, and ears).14 These and other body parts are then explicitly connected to cosmological elements, which double as cosmogonic elements as well – ones that mark stages in the development of the world and the progressive appearance of its components. Thus, the embryo’s round head is fashioned in the shape of Heaven, its feet in that of Earth. Just as the cosmos has four seasons, Five Agents (wuxing), Nine Divisions (jiujie 九解), and 366 days, the human body has four limbs, five organs, nine orifices, and 366 joints. The ears and eyes are likened to sun and moon, blood and qi to wind and rain. Finally, the five viscera are correlated with cosmic/natural elements: the gallbladder is related to clouds, lungs to air, liver to wind, kidneys to rain, the spleen to thunder. Exceptionally, in this account of the five viscera, the heart is absent, seemingly replaced by the gallbladder (dan 膽). Nonetheless, the “heart” (xin 心) is mentioned in the very next line, where it is identified as the ruler (zhu 主), a figure that is resolutely as cosmological as 11

12 13 14

Huainanzi 7.2; Huainanzi jishi 淮南子集釋, 505–506: “Therefore, it is said: In the first month, there is suet; in the second month, there is a meaty lump; in the third month, there is an embryo; in the fourth month, there is flesh; in the fifth month, there are muscles; in the sixth month, there are bones; in the seventh month, it is complete; in the eighth month, it moves; in the ninth month, it is restless; in the tenth month, it is born.” 故 曰 一 月 而 膏，二 月 而 胅，三 月 而 胎，四月 而 肌，五 月而 筋，六 月 而 骨，七 月 而 成，八 月 而 動，九 月 而 躁，十 月 而 生. Cf. the translation by John Major et al., The Huainanzi: A guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China (New York: Columbia University Press., 2010), 241–242; see also Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665 (Berkeley: Unversity of California Press, 1999), n. 16, 101. 道生一。一生二。二生三。三生萬物。萬物負陰而抱陽，沖氣以為和; Laozi Daode jing 42; see also Huainanzi 7.2, 505. In the Guanzi embryology, the five vicsera are formed at the end of the fifth month. The Wenzi 文子 3; Wenzi shuyi 文子疏義, 115–116, reproduces the embryological lines from the Huainanzi. There are, however, a number of notable lacunae and some of the correspondences – for example, between “internal” five viscera and their “external” counterparts – do not agree with the earlier Huainanzi passage.

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he is “human” by virtue of constituting the extension of Heaven’s will or the incarnation of the principles of the Dao 道.15 This last image, of the heart as a ruler, is repeated throughout the “Essence and Spirit” chapter of the Huainanzi.16 Its basic message is one of self-cultivation, expounding that practitioners are to govern themselves according to cosmic principles just as the king governs the kingdom, and likewise, as the heart “governs” the body.17 Thus, the embryological passage serves to highlight the fact that the human body is a cosmic body from its earliest stage of development, and to stress the extent to which it can be ordered on the basis of cosmic norms from a central authority within the body itself.18 The emphasis here is on prolonging life by disciplining all extremes in behaviour, activity, and emotion so that the essence (jing 精) and spirit (shen 神) which give their name to the chapter, are preserved. Although the genesis of the cosmos/life is not directly tied to the self-cultivation practice that the Huainanzi describes, the fact that they cohabit in the same section of the text is suggestive enough, heralding future developments in China and Japan that are discussed in the chapters of this volume. 15 16 17

18

Huainanzi 7.2, 506–508. For example, in Huainanzi 7.6, 520: 故 心 者 ， 形 之 主 也 ； 而 神 者 ， 心 之 寶 也; or elsewhere, in chapter 8, for instance. The contemplative focus on the heart – a point of the body in which cosmic principles such as essence and spirit were said to manifest – in early self-cultivation practices is not unique to the Huainanzi; the Guanzi, for instance, in its chapter on the “Neiye 內業” (“Inner Work”), lengthily disserts on the virtues of achieving the Dao through regulating the heart; see Guanzi 49, 935: 修心靜音 [意]，道乃可得。 Again, equanimity or more literally “fixing the heart in its center” (ding xin zai zhong 定 心在中), is the aim of the “inner work”; once this is achieved, according to Guanzi 49, 937: “[T]he ears and eyes will perceive clearly, the four limbs will be firm, and one may become the abode of essence […]. When [this essence] flows between Heaven and Earth, it is called manes and gods, when it is stored in the center of your chest, it is called sage.” / “… 耳目聰明，四枝堅固，可以為精舍 […], 流於天地之間，謂之鬼神，藏於胸 中，謂之聖人。”In the same “Water and Earth” chapter, which addresses embryology, the Guanzi 39, 832, also hints at another contemplation practice. This contemplation relies on Water to rectify (zheng 正) the heart of the individuals and thereby transform or “change (yi 易) the hearts of the people: 故水一則人心正，水清則民心易，一則欲 不污，民心易則行無邪。是以聖人之治於世也.” This reflects the important cosmological and cosmogonic role that water played in early Chinese thought – a role notably confirmed in the “Taiyi shengshui 太一生水” (“Taiyi “Begets Water”) manuscript excavated from Guodian 郭店 (ca. 300 BCE); see Steavu, “Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation,” in the present volume, pp. 126–127.

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Embryologies in Early Indian and Buddhist Materials

Early Indian texts constitute yet another important group of sources on conception and embryological development that impacted the religious traditions of East Asia. The ideas described in a variety of Indian sources dating from the first centuries of the Common Era may have made their way to East Asia as part of a long-term exchange that took place between the Indian subcontinent, Southeast, Central Asia, and East Asia during the first millennium. Although selectively modified or adapted and often fragmentary in their transmissions or translations, these early ideas on the origins of life can also be seen as important precursors to a number of religious writings, imagery, and practices in both China and Japan. Recent studies have established that elaborate accounts of conception and gestation were already present in early Jain (c. 150 CE), Puranic (300–500 CE), and Āyurvedic sources.19 For example, Hara Minoru has analysed the Puranic descriptions of intrauterine life that exhibited notions similar to those encountered in the later Indian and Buddhist treatises discussed below. Such descriptions focused on the extreme discomfort experienced by the embryo in the womb, and provided terms for different stages of embryonic development such as kalala(ṃ) (embryo-initiation), budbuda/arbudaṃ (after 27 days), ghana (after 37 days), peśī (after 47 days) and praśakha (after 57 days, that is,

19

These sources were initially oral and were committed to writing considerably later. One of the notable examples in these early Indian texts is the Garbhopaniṣad (Upaniṣad of the Embryo; ca. 800–200 BCE). See, for example, Lakshmi Kapani, “Upaniṣad of the Embryo” and “Note on the Garbha upaniṣad,” in Fragments for a History of the Human Body, Part Three, Michel Feher, ed. (New York: Zone Books, 1989), 176–197. See also the comparative discussion of embryological development and death in the Mahābhārata (ca. 400 CE, esp. the Anugītā, MhB 14.17–18) and the medical compendia, the Caraka Saṃhitā and Suśruta Saṃhitā, in Frederick M. Smith, “Narrativity and Empiricism in Classical Indian Accounts of Birth and Death: The Mahābhārata and the Saṃhitās of Caraca and Suśruta,” Asian Medicine 3 (2007): 85–102. Some of these texts are discussed in Mitchell Weiss, “Caraka Saṃhitā on the Doctrine of Karma,” in Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, Wendy Doniger, ed. (Berkeley: University of California, 1980), 90–115; Robert Kritzer, “Life in the Womb: Conception and Gestation in Buddhist Scripture and Classical Indian Medical Literature,” in Law and Sasson 2009; also, Frances Garrett 2008. A useful overview can be found in Amy Paris Langenberg, “’Like Worms Falling from a Foul-Smelling Sore’: The Buddhist Rhetoric of Childbirth in an Early Mahāyāna Sūtra,” PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 2008, 41–45.

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when the external form and internal organs are complete). In the Puranic source analysed by Hara these terms appear to be not yet standardised.20 Āyurvedic texts like the Caraka Saṃhitā (Compendium of Charaka) and Suśruta Saṃhitā (Compendium of Sushruta) were largely based on the external observations of the female body by male physicians. However, according to Martha Ann Selby, they also acknowledged oral transmissions by “accomplished women,” that is, those who had given birth and were thus qualified to describe the internal sensations they had experienced during pregnancy.21 Furthermore, the Caraka Saṃhitā, in its section on the body (śārīra-sthāna) and in its chapter on birth sutras (jāti sūtrīyam), offers detailed instructions for a woman and a man “who have viable semen, blood, and womb.”22 In large part, the descriptions of the embryo’s growth in these medical texts were set within a prescriptive narrative that made recommendations on how to conceive and carry to term the desired offspring, namely “daughters and sons with good qualities.”23 Scholars of Sanskrit literature have noted that although the early Āyurvedic texts exhibited their familiarity with the notions of karma and dependent origination,24 such concepts remained distinct, except for brief references, from the topic of spiritual perfection and enlightenment. The precise dating of these early medical compendia remains uncertain. Some parts of the Caraka Saṃhitā may be traced back to the second century CE, while the earliest components of the Suśruta Saṃhitā date to a hundred years later; however, both were the subject of substantial further editions.25 20

21 22 23 24 25

Hara Minoru, “A Note on the Buddha’s Birth Story,” in Indianisme et Bouddhisme: mélanges offerts a Mgr. Étienne Lamotte (Louvain: Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 23, 1980), 148–149. Cited and discussed in Vanessa Sasson, “A Womb with a View: The Buddha’s Final Fetal Experience,” in Law and Sasson 2009, 64. Hara has noted that disparate terms for the different stages of embryonic development occur in Mārkaṇḍeya purāṇa, Garbhopaniṣad, Agni purāṇa and several other received texts. Hara Minoru 原実, “Buttan densetsu no haikei 仏誕伝説の背景,” Komazawa daigaku bukkyō gakubu ronshū 駒沢 大学仏教学部論集 26: 344–339 (opposite pagination). Some of these texts are also analysed in Kritzer 2009, 74–77. Martha Ann Selby, “Narratives of Conception, Gestation, and Labour in Sanskrit Āyurvedic Sources,” Asian Medicine 1.2: 256–257, and 270–273. Selby 2005: 259. Ibid., 257–259. Weiss 1980, 90–115; see also the discussion of the role of karma in the embryological accounts from the Mahābhārata (esp. the Anugītā, MhB 14.17–18) in Smith 2007, 91. Selby 2005: 254–255, citing Dominic Wujastyk, The Roots of Āyurveda (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 3–5, 63–64, and Kenneth Zysk, Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 13–17, and 21–23.

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Despite the uncertainty surrounding their dating and the itineraries of their circulation, a number of notions encountered in Āyurvedic and other early Indic sources are echoed in East Asian materials as well. Among these we may cite the understanding of conception as resulting from the merging of two sexual fluids, “red” and “white,” that of menstrual blood of women and the semen of men.26 The Caraka Saṃhitā explains that “sperm and blood come together and settle in the womb; the jīva (living entity) descends and, following conjunction with sattva (mental character), it produces the garbha (embryo).”27 Elsewhere, it noted that the embryo receives some of its constitutive elements and organs from the mother (namely, blood, flesh, fat, umbilicus, heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, bladder, and other gastrointestinal organs) and others from the father (namely, hair, beard, nails, teeth, bones, blood vessels, sinews, and semen).28 Indian Buddhist sources are also remarkably detailed on the topics of conception, embryological development, and labour because of how they fit in with their arguments concerning pain, the cycle or rebirth, and the generation of karmic indebtedness. Far from positing procreation and gestation as potential channels or models for salvation, early Buddhist materials rely on literal and vivid descriptions of biological processes – most of them reflecting medical Āyurvedic knowledge – to paint pregnancy and birth as a prime sources of suffering. In texts from the earliest Buddhist scriptural corpus, the Pāli canon, “embryo-initiation” or kalala(ṃ), the first of the five stages of intrauterine

26

27

28

A more detailed analysis of the issues in dating these texts can be found in Jan G. Meulenbeld, A History of Indian Medical Literature (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1999–2002); and Peter Rahul Das, The Origins of the Life of a Human Being: Conception and the Female According to Ancient Indian Medical and Sexological Literature (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2003). In early Indian thought, these colours were linked to the archetypal binary pair of agni (fire) and soma (cooling, watery substance). Das 2003, 487–495; Wujastyk 2003, 5–6, 347– 370; also, Selby 2005: 260–261. The Sanskrit term garbha could be interpreted both as “embryo” and “womb.” Such is the case with the embryological descriptions in the Pāli canon. See, for example, Mathieu Boisvert’s discussion of the Pāli term gabbha (an equivalent of the Sanskrit term garbha), which he interpreted both as a “living being that grows in the womb, and the receptacle where this being dwells.” However, in the Vinaya and other Pāli sources, the gabbha is seen as an independent entity; it does not belong to the mother, but rather has its own autonomy. Boisvert 2000, 302–303. Caraka Saṃhitā 4.3.2–3, Weiss 1980, 103–104.

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development according to Puranic and Āyurvedic sources, takes on a different meaning. There, the term kalala(ṃ), or “embryo,” seems to denote ovulation and thus heightened fertility in a woman and its physiological manifestation (an ovule?); in other instances, it describes that which is contained within the egg of a hen (aṇḍa).29 In the story of Nāgasena and King Milinda from the Milindapañha (Questions of Milinda), the two recount and discuss the story of a nun who became pregnant by placing the soiled robe of the monk into her genitals: [W]hen that nun was in season, when her kalala was established, when the motion of her blood was cut [her menses terminated], when her condition was laid down, she seized the semen and placed it in that kalala; because of this, she became pregnant.30 The Pāli sutta literature also classified the periods of gestation into five distinct stages. For example, Mathieu Boisvert notes that the Theravādin scriptures such as Yakkhasaṁyuttaṁ, Kathāvatthu, and Mahāniddesa all refer to the stages of kalala, budbuda, ghana, peśī, and praśakha.31 In these sources, the entire period of gestation is described as lasting approximately forty-two weeks; the first four stages have a duration of seven days each, whereas the fifth stage, in which the embryo takes on a distinct human form with its five extremities (head, two hands, and two feet), was considered to be thirty-eight weeks long. The early Buddhist rhetoric of childbirth and intrauterine development was far from positive; the very root of suffering was to be found in the descent of a being into the womb. In his discussion of the Theravāda sources, Boisvert cites a passage from the Visuddhimagga (The Path to Purification). The treatise is attributed to Buddhaghosa, the fifth-century Indian commentator and scholar, who translated a number of Sinhalese commentaries into Pāli.

29 30

31

Milindapañha, no. 49, cited in Boisvert 2000, 308. Milindapañha, no. 125, English translation by Thomas William Rhys Davids, Milinda’s Questions (London: Sacred Books of the East, 1982 [1890, 1894]), cited in Boisvert 2000, 307. Boisvert 2000, 307–308, citing the respective English translations of the first two aforementioned texts by T.W. Rhys Davids 1982, 263; and Shwe Hsang Aung and Caroline A.F. Rhys Davids, Points of Controversy (Kathāvatthu) (London: Pali Text Society, 1979 [1915]), 283–284.

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When this being is born, he is not born inside a blue, or red, or white lotus, but on the contrary, like a worm in rotting fish, rotting dough, cesspools, he is born in the belly […], which is very cramped, quite dark, pervaded by very fetid draughts redolent of various smells of ordure, and exceptionally loathsome. And on being reborn there, for ten months he undergoes excessive suffering, being cooked like a pudding in a bag by the heat produced by the mother’s womb, and steamed like a dumpling of dough, with no bending, stretching, and so on. So this, firstly, is the suffering rooted in the descent into the womb.32 Such passages from Pāli sources, some of which survived and were translated into Sanskrit as well as into Chinese and Tibetan, aimed primarily to convey the suffering of the embryo and the misery of being subjected to a painful birth and subsequent reincarnations: they did not focus on the theme of self-cultivation.33 Most of these descriptions underlined the defiled nature of the human body and the discomfort of the new sentient being conceived in the womb, emphasising the point that physical bodies are impediments to liberation.34 32 33

34

Modified from Boisvert 2000, 309. He is citing the English translation by Bhikku Ñaṇamoli, Path to Purification: Visuddhimagga (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1975), 569. A separate tradition of funerary cults ensuring a successful rebirth and based on the Theravādin traditions had developed in Cambodia, Laos, and northern Thailand. Justin McDaniel has noted that these funerary cults focus on the symbolic generation of the foetus destined for the next rebirth and has traced their evolution from the twelfth-century Abhidamma commentary and ritual manuals dating from the sixteenth century to modern times. Within this practice, the Pāli syllables are connected to the sense organs and parts of the body and mind, as explained in the Abhidamma teachings. In the 1970s, the French anthropologist François Bizot also observed and described a Cambodian ritual in which a cave is ritually constructed as a womb, and different parts of the body of the deceased are associated with different Pāli syllables. See Justin McDaniel, “Philosophical Embryology: Buddhist Texts and the Ritual Construction of a Fetus,” in Law and Sasson 2009, 97–101, citing François Bizot and François La­Girarde, La pureté par les mots (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1996), 44; for a detailed overview of the commentary concerning the generation of an embryo for soteriological purposes on the basis of the thirty-eight-week embryological model described in Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga, see François Bizot, Le figuier à cinq branches. Recherche sur le bouddhisme khmer (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1976), 111–142. Robert Kritzer, “Childbirth and the Mother’s Body in the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya and Related Texts,” in Indo tetsugaku bukkyō shisō ronshū: Mikogami Eshō kyōju shōju kinen ronshū インド哲学仏教思想論集：神子上恵生教授頌寿記念論集, Mikogami

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One of the earliest Buddhist scriptures to contain a comprehensive description of embryological development is the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra (Scripture on Entering the Womb), recently studied by Robert Kritzer. Most likely produced in the early centuries of the first millennium within the Sarvāstivāda and Yogācāra schools of northwest India, it was translated into Chinese in the late third to early fourth century.35 More attention will be devoted to this source in the subsequent section, but for now we may note that the text contains a detailed description of conception, gestation, birth, and death, discussing them from the perspective of the Buddhist teachings circulating in India at the time.36 Of particular interest are elaborations on the mechanism of re­­ birth, the notion of an “intermediate being” (antarābhava) that animates the em­bryo-to-be at the moment of its conception and during the subsequent thirty-eight-week gestation cycle, as well as the division of this cycle into five major stages of embryological development (referred to above).37

35

36 37

Eshō kyōju shōju kinen ronshū kankōkai 神子上恵生教授頌寿記念論集刊行會, eds. (Kyoto: Nagata bunshodō, 2004), 1095–96. On Tibetan sources, see Garrett 2008, especially 106–109. This perspective developed against the background of earlier attitudes toward birth. See Sasson 2009, 63–64 for a view of how these informed Buddhaghosa and Vasubandhu’s perspectives (mentioned below). Similarly, Robert Kritzer discusses the Indian background to the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra. See his Garbhāvakrānti sūtra (The Sūtra on Entry into the Womb), Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series XXXI (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2014), 4, 20–21, and 51–54. We warmly thank Robert Kritzer for sharing his translation of this scripture in August 2014. This text survives in Chinese recensions, the principal one being the Foshuo baotai jing (T. 317); some of these are examined below. A complete list of different Chinese translations can be found in Kritzer 2009: 77. Elsewhere, Kritzer notes that although the Sanskrit original of this sutra has not survived, it was evidently important enough to have been quoted in the early Sarvāstivāda Abhidamma texts. As demonstrated by Frances Garrett’s 2008 study, this sutra also proved a major template for medical embryological accounts in Tibet. Citing an unpublished conference paper by Yamabe Nobuyoshi 山辺能宜, “On the School Affiliation of An Shigao: Sarvāstivāda and Yogācāra,” (international workshop, “The Works of An Shigao,” Leiden, 19–20 Dec. 1996), Kritzer 2014, 3–4, has suggested that this sutra most likely predated many of the major philosophical Buddhist treatises and that it was already in circulation at least by the middle of the second century. The research by Yamabe and Kritzer posits that the Indian scholar Saṃgharakṣa may have relied on an earlier version of this scripture when compiling his philosophical treatise, the Yogacārābhūmi (ca. first half of the second century), which discussed the universal cosmologies, the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, and the origins of life. Kritzer 2009, 82–87, compares the accounts of gestation from the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra and Caraka Saṃhitā. The thirty-eight-week gestation and the five stages are described in section 18 of the sutra. Kritzer 2014, 51–54; the terms describing the five stages that the embryo undergoes are

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Much like the classical Chinese sources mentioned above, early Buddhist texts also had to address the critical issue of how the life of a human being springs forth. To this end, they employed several terms to indicate the different elements that could represent a vehicle for karma and descend into the womb, thus causing the embryo to congeal. One of them is the Sanskrit word vijñāna, which could be translated variously as “consciousness,” “mind,” or “life force.” This term had a complex philosophical history in India and was further entwined with major Buddhist doctrines, such as “dependent arising” (pratītyasamutpāda) and the notions of the “five aggregates” (skandhas), until it emerged as the term ālāyavijñāna (Ch. alaiye shi 阿賴耶識; Jp. arayashiki). In Chinese, this term was rendered as zangshi 蔵識 (Jp. zōshiki), or “storehouse consciousness,” referring to the container or storehouse of latent residues of the previous actions and mind processes (that is, the base or seed con­scious­ ness).38 The Yogacārabhūmi śāstra (Treatise on the Stages of Yoga), edited by Saṃgharakṣa, identifies this notion as the consciousness that manifests itself at the moment of conception.39 According to this treatise, such consciousness

38

39

mentioned again in section 31, ibid., 91 and 96. Kritzer has addressed the more complex aspects of this argument in his article “Garbhāvakrāntau (‘In the Garbhāvakrānti’): Quotations from the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra in the Abhidharma Literature and the Yogacārābhūmi,” in The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet, Ulrich Timme Kragh, ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 738–771. Yamabe Nobuyoshi has recently studied the embryological terms and descriptions occurring in different recensions of the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra, the Abhidharmic texts, the Yogacārābhūmi, and their respective Chinese translations; see his article “Parallel Passages between Manobhūmi and the Yogācārabhūmi of Saṃ­gharakṣa,” in the same volume, Kragh 2013, 596–737; especially the exhaustive comparative table of terms in the Appendix, 606–733. On this concept of ālāyavijñāna, see the classic study by Lambert Schmithausen, Ālāyavijñāna: On the Origin and Early Development of the Central Concept of Yogācāra Philosophy (Tokyo: the International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1987), 7. More recently, the complex history of this term and its interpretation has become once again highlighted in the aforementioned exhaustive volume on the Yogācārabhūmi edited by Ulrich Kragh. See, for instance, an essay by William S. Waldron, “Ālayavijñāna as Keystone Dharma: the Ālāya Treatise of the Yogacārābhūmi,” in Kragh 2013, 922–937. Scholars of early Indian philosophy and Buddhist Studies point out that the Yogacārābhūmi is a composite production and thus was unlikely to have been accomplished by one person; see, for example, Hartmut Buescher, “Distinguishing the Two Vasubandhus, the Bhāṣyakāra and the Kośakāra, as Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda Authors,” in The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners, Ulrich Timme Kragh, ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 368–397.

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animated the embryo and kept it growing. Along with life force and bodily heat, it also kept the body alive, withdrawing from it only at the moment of death.40 In this scripture, composed in India around 300–350 CE and brought to China in the seventh century by Xuanzang 玄奘 (602–664), ālāyavijñāna was understood as the consciousness that had the ability to penetrate the most minute coagulation of matter (in this case, the mixture of father’s semen and mother’s blood) and anchor itself within the arising mass of congealing embryo.41 Taken as the very basic constituent of the embryo that has arisen to be, it was also understood as “mind containing all seeds/bīja [of past actions],” which had the potential to act as a prerequisite for the embryonic state of the body and a vehicle ensuring some continuity of human personality: When in the parents [who have become more and more] impassioned [while making love] sexual passion reaches the [most] vehement state, finally… a drop of semen [in the father] and [a drop of] blood [in the mother]… get mixed in the mother’s womb and form a film, having become one single lump, just like boiled milk when cooling down [forms a film]. Into this [congealing mixture of blood and semen] merges that 40

41

Schmithausen points out that canonical Indian Buddhist sources, such as Dirgha Nikāya II: 63, state that if the mind (vijñāna) “did not enter the mother’s womb, the nāmarūpa [(lit. “mind and matter,”, i.e., the “animated matter,” embryo]) would not be able to coalesce, or the father’s semen and the mother’s blood would not be able to coalesce with the mind, so as to become the proto-embryo (kalala).” This statement is also repeated in the Yogācārabhūmi. Schmithausen 1987, 37, n. 238–239. Moreover, at death, this process, when the body is said to grow cold part by part, the vijñāna gradually withdraws, so this process of “gestation” happens in reverse. Schmithausen 1987, 39–40; see also the more recent analysis of this term and its links to the late Sarvastivāda treatise Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya by Vasubandu and the Yogacārābhūmi by Robert Kritzer, “The four ways of entering the womb (garbhāvakrānti),” Bukkyō Bunka 仏教文化 10 (2000): 1–41; and Waldron 2013. There are two Chinese translations for this text, namely the Xiuxing daodi jing 修行道地 經 (Sutra on Practicing the Grounds of the [Buddhist] Path; T. 606), translated by Dharmarakṣa (the translator of another canonical embryology; see below) in 284, and the Yujia shidi lun 瑜伽師地論 (Treatise on the Stages of Yoga; Sk. Yogacārabhūmi śāstra; Jp. Yoga shiji ron, T. 1579), translated by Xuanzang 玄奘 (602–664) around 647; compare Daodi jing (Sutra on the Grounds of the [Buddhist] Path; T. 607) 232a–235b to Xiuxing daodi jing 1.183c–189a; see also Paul Demiéville, “La Yogacārabhūmi de Saṇgharakṣa,” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 44.2 (1951); and the very useful translation of the embryology from the Xiuxing daodi jing 1.187a–187c in Choo 2012, 219–221; for more on the Chinese Yogacārabhūmi śāstra, see below.

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ālāyavijñāna Containing All Seeds…appropriating the basis [of personal existence]. … Together with that lump of semen and blood [which has formed a film], the [being of the] intermediate state…ceases to exist. Simultaneously with its cessation, there arises, by virtue of that same Mind Containing All Seeds, another lump of semen and blood, which is similar to the [preceding one but] is mixed with the gross elements of the subtle-sense faculties… (and is thus a living body). At this stage one speaks of mind being [re-]established [in a new basis-of-existence], and of Linking Up having taken place. This is the state of kalala. 42 This Yogācāra version of conception also posited that when the father and mother have sexual intercourse, and their reproductive fluids merge, their “intermediate beings” (antarābhava) destined for rebirth also merge to give rise to an embryo in its germinal stage of kalala. This and the other four primary stages of embryonic gestation referred to above were also described by Vasubandhu (ca. fourth-fifth century CE) in the “Lokanirdeśa,” the third chapter of his Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya.43 However, in this source, the “intermediate being” is described as having the dimensions of a child five or six years old, already fully developed.44 Robert Kritzer has noted that Vasubandhu may have also relied on an earlier version of the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra, briefly discussed 42

43

44

The Manobhūmi chapter of the “Basic Section” of Yogacārābhūmi. Translation is from Schmithausen, 1987: 127–28. Brackets appear in the original translation. The Tibetan Buddhist traditions also have comparable accounts. For a detailed investigation, see Frances Garrett, “Ordering Human Growth in Tibetan Medical and Religious Embryologies,” in Textual Healing: Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, Elizabeth Lane Furdel, ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2005) 31–52; Garrett’s 2008 monograph as well as her article, “Tibetan Buddhist narratives of the forces of creation,” in Law and Sasson 2009, 107–120. For example, Vasubandhu discussed the first embryonic stage of kalala in the section focusing on the basis for the arising of faculties of new sentient beings that are being conceived; see Gelong Lodrö Sangpo, Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya of Vasubhandhu: The Treasury of the Abhidharma and its Commentary, translated into French by Louis de La Vallée Poussin (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2012), vol. 2, Chapter 3, 971–972 and 977. Vasubandhu also dedicated much space to debating the various theoretical expositions regarding the state of intermediate existence (also termed antarābhava), which, according to the Sarvāstivādin’ position “began at the place where death takes place”; see ibid., 946, 957– 58. See Sangpo 2012, 965. From such accounts, some have fathomed a guess that such a being could have been conceptualised in similarity or in comparison to a homunculus as is outlined in non-Buddhist Indic sources; see Langenberg 2008, 71–74.

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above.45 His treatise, considered an explication of the principle tenets of Buddhist philosophy, was studied at major Buddhist institutions and thus may have been yet another important source of the embryological theories and metaphors that made an imprint on East Asian religious sources.46 The Sanskrit term for “intermediate being,” antarābhava, was rendered zhongyou 中有 (Jp. chūū) in the Chinese translation of the Yogacārabhūmi śāstra, thus denoting the intermediate (zhong 中) state in which one abides immediately after death and before re-entering existence (you 有), that is, being reincarnated into one’s next life.47 The concept of “intermediate being,” because of its close associations with the notion of being “unborn” (Ch. bu­sheng 不生, Jp. fushō), was critical to Buddhist understandings of conception, gestation, karmic imprint, and rebirth in East Asia. To be sure, the Chinese translations of the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra, the Abhi­ dharmakośa bhāṣya and the Yogacārabhūmi śāstra introduced Indian Buddhist views of conception and embryonic development to Chinese readers. These views may have had an impact on the Chinese medical traditions. However, these texts, although influential for their time, had by the Tang dynasty been overshadowed by indigenous Chinese Buddhist developments and come to be regarded as rather peripheral in the grand scheme of Buddhist teachings.48

45

46

47

48

This is particularly noticeable in the passage on the removal of a dead foetus in what Kritzer has identified as one of the surviving Sanskrit fragments in the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra. Kritzer 2013, 755–758, and Kritzer 2014, 21 and 73. This treatise reflects a tradition which emerged as an offshoot of the Indian Sarvāstivāda school; it is usually referred to simply as Jushe lun 俱舎論 in Chinese, or Kusharon in Japanese. There are two Chinese translations, both consisting of nine chapters. Apidamo jushe lun was translated between 563–567 by Paramārtha 眞諦 (T. 1559); another version entitled Apidamo jushe shilun 阿毘達磨倶舍釋論 was translated between 651 and 654 by Xuanzang 玄奘 (T. 1558). These translations will be again mentioned shortly. On the five stages of the embryo in Vasubandhu’s treatise, see Sangpo 2012, 977; briefly discussed in Hara 1996, 340–339, and Yamabe 2013, Appendix. See also the discussion of these sources in Lucia Dolce’s contribution, “The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body,” in the present volume. See, for example, Yujia shidi lun 瑜伽師地論, T. 1579, especially lines 282a16–b16. Yet another Chinese term, zhongyin 中陰, was used in the Chinese translation of the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya, T. 1559, line 198b28; see also, Andrea Bareau, “Chuu,” Hōbōgirin (Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 1927), 5.560. For more on the intermediate being, see also Kritzer 2014, 44–45. Some of the relevant historical developments have been highlighted by Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, “The Weishi School and the Buddha-Nature Debate in the Early Tang Dynasty,” in The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise

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Nonetheless, much of their embryological imagery acquired particular significance later, in the esoteric Buddhist discourses of medieval Japan.49 3

Buddhist Embryologies in China

A handful of Chinese Buddhist scriptures also furnish thorough expositions of embryological development. The majority of them are amended translations of Indian originals; only a few are apocryphal.50 But all of them very much accord with the tenor of their Pāli and Sanskrit counterparts: descriptions are literal and function as props for broaching broader theological questions related to suffering, rebirth, and karmic accretion. Embryologies in Chinese Buddhist sources are also deployed in arguments destined to underscore the importance of filial piety and gratitude that children should extend to their mothers for bearing them.51 They are generally embedded in a narrative that deplores the toll that carrying, giving birth to, and nursing a child takes on the mother, in addition to suffering the impurities of conception, gestation, and parturition. Given the context, descriptions of the processes that both mother

49

50

51

and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet, Ulrich Timme Kragh, ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 1234–53. Embryological motifs in Japanese Buddhist sources were first noted in Sanford 1997. Subsequently, these motifs, which also appeared in selected medieval Shintō texts were further analysed by Bernard Faure, “Japanese Tantra, the Tachikawa-ryū, and Ryōbu Shintō,” in Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 551–556; and Lucia Dolce, “Duality and the Kami: The Ritual Iconography and Visual Constructions of Medieval Shinto,” in the special issue on “Re-thinking Medieval Shintō,” Bernard Faure, Michael Como, and Iyanaga Nobumi, eds., Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie (2006–2007), 140–143. See also their respective essays in the present volume. Silvie Hureau 2009, 742–743, notes that the transmission and appropriation of Buddhist scriptures in China was not an entirely straightforward process, since the Chinese “accepted certain ideas and refused the others.” Chinese Buddhist masters who worked with foreign monks on translations from Sanskrit and from other languages validated scriptures according to their own culturally and historically contingent categories to distinguish between “authentic” and “spurious” scriptures. As highlighted in the next section, such processes of internal cultural signification continued in the context of early and medieval Japan. The topic of filial piety and the agency of parents in the context of pre-1100 Chinese and Indic Buddhist sources dealing with embryological development has recently been discussed in Choo 2012. Citing the previous studies by John Strong and Gregory Schopen, Choo also notes that the idea of filial piety was not entirely unique to Chinese Buddhism. Ibid., 201, n. 32.

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and embryo undergo are very detailed and, in some instances, graphic. The aim is to vividly depict these transformations with documentary accuracy. Although botanic or other similes are used to illustrate the phases of development, the embryologies are decisively literal in the sense that they reflect what at the time was cutting-edge medical knowledge. Below is a representative tenmonth embryology from the Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing 佛說父母恩重 難報經 (Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Profound Kindness of Parents Spoken by the Buddha):52 The mother’s womb harbours the child usually for ten months. It is extremely burdensome for her. During the first month in its mother’s womb, it is like [a drop] of dew atop grass, which, from dusk, may not last until dawn […]. In the second month that the mother harbours the embryo, it is exactly as congealed curd. In the third month that the mother harbours the embryo, it is like coagulated blood. In the fourth month that the mother harbours the embryo, it somewhat espouses a human shape. In the fifth month that the mother harbours the embryo, the infant inside the mother’s belly sprouts the five limbs.53 What are these five? The head is one limb, the two arms and two legs are another each.54 Altogether they make up the five limbs. In the sixth month that the mother harbours the embryo, the infant inside the mother’s belly 52

53 54

The Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing, allegedly translated by Kumārajīva (344–413) after 384 but settled in its present form around the thirteenth century, does not survive in the Sino-Japanese canon, nor is it listed in medieval Chinese bibliographic catalogues; the Chinese text has been reproduced in Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyoto: Kyōtō daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūjo, 1976), 55–60, on the basis of Chinese manuscript hezi 河字 12 from the Beijing Library, and Dunhuang manuscript P. 3919. Nonetheless, there are a number of canonical scriptures and commentaries that are closely connected such as the pre-sixth-century Fumu en nanbao jing 父母恩難報經 (Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Kindness of Parents; T. 684) and the “apocryphal” Fumu enzhong jing 父母恩重經 (Sutra on the Profound Kindness of Parents; T. 2887) as well as a number of manuscripts, from Dunhuang and elsewhere (P. 2285, S. 1049, S. 2084 and S. 1907 for the Fumu enzhong jing alone). However, only the Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing contains an elaborate embryology, translated above. The Fumu enzhong jing briefly mentions the ten months of gestation. Makita 1976 provides critical editions of the Fumu enzhong jing, 50–52, and of another, later but related text, the Fumu enzhong taigu jing 父 母恩重胎骨經 (Sutra on the Profound Kindness of Parents [in Generating One’s] Body), 52–55. These texts are briefly discussed in Choo 2012, 207, n. 45. Literally, “the five placenta” or “five cells” (wubao 五胞). Literally, the “two elbows and two knees” (liang zhou liang xi 兩肘兩膝).

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activates the six sensory organs.55 What are these six? The eyes are the first sensory organ, the ears are the second, the nose is the third, the mouth is the fourth, the tongue is the fifth, and the sixth is the mind. In the seventh month that the mother harbours the embryo, the infant inside the mother’s belly forms the 360 bones and joints along with the 84,000 follicles. In the eight month that the mother harbours the embryo, it develops the faculty of thought and the nine orifices. In the ninth month that the mother harbours the embryo, the infant inside the mother’s belly absorbs nourishment by extracting essentials from each [type of food] such as peaches, pears, garlic,56 and the five grains.57 母胎懷子，凡經十月，甚為辛苦。在母胎時，第一月中，如草上珠， 朝不保暮 […]。母懷胎時，第二月中，恰如凝酥。母懷胎時，第三月 中，猶如凝血。母懷胎時，第四月中，稍作人形。母懷胎時，第五月 中，兒在母腹，生有五胞。何者為五？頭為一胞，兩肘兩膝，各為一 胞，共成五胞。母懷胎時，第六月中，兒在母腹，六精齊開，何者為 六？眼為一精，耳為二精，鼻為三精，口為四精，舌為五精，意為六 精。母懷胎時，第七月中，兒在母腹，生成骨節，三百六十，及生毛 乳[孔]，八萬四千。母懷胎時，第八月中，生出意智，以及九竅。母 懷胎時，第九月中，兒在母腹，吸收食物，所出各質，桃梨蒜果，五 穀精華。

This embryology and others like it are fairly straightforward and unambiguously factual. Although these texts present clinical knowledge that is part of the complex of ideas known as “Buddhist medicine,” there is considerable stress on the “Buddhist” component of that typology.58 Buddhist doctrinal notions, chief among them suffering, frame the account, and karma especially acts as a motor and determinant of development, as in the following example, gleaned again from the Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing:

55 56 57

58

Also known as the “six perceptions” or “six sensations” (liu jing 六精). That is to say, the vegetables of the Allium genus, also known as “pungent roots.” Makita 1976, 56. We are indebted to Peter Romaskiewicz for his precious input and candid advice concerning the passages from the Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing. He has cotranslated a number of the sutras under discussion in this section; see Ven. Yifa and Peter Romaskiewicz, transl., Yulan Bowl Sutra and Collection of Filial Piety Sutras (Gaoxiong: Buddha’s Light Publishing, 2008). On Buddhist medicine in China, see Pierce Salguero, Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).

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In the tenth month that the mother harbours the embryo, every part of the infant’s entire body is complete, and it descends to be born. If the child is to be filial and obedient, it will be born peacefully, with arms raised and palms joined, without [further] injuring the mother or causing her any [additional] suffering. If the child is to commit the five trans­ gressions,59 it will rip its mother’s uterus, tear at her heart and liver, trampling her and mounting her bones, as if a thousand knives were swirling [in her body] or ten thousand blades stabbing her heart. Such is the heavy burden of birthing children.60 母懷胎時，第十月中，孩兒全體一一完成，方乃降生。若是決為孝順 之子，擎拳合掌，安詳出生，不損傷母，母無所苦。倘兒決為五逆之 子，破損母胎，扯母心肝，踏母跨骨，如千刀攪，又彷彿似萬刃攢 心。如斯重苦，出生此兒。

The text then lists the ten kindnesses (shi’en 十恩)61 of motherhood and parenthood before elaborating on each of them. The sutra concludes by stipulating that the only way to properly repay the ordeal of childbearing specifically, and the ten kindnesses more generally, is by copying out its text and dedicating it to one’s parents. Anything short of this would result in sons and daughters being deemed unfilial; upon their death they would be precipitated to the Avīci hell, the eighth of the eight hot hells, where they were to suffer fiery forms of torture without respite for eternity. In many ways, the scope of these Buddhist materials was to offer a way for children to repay the very important karmic debt incurred to their mothers and, to a lesser extent, to their fathers, in the quickest way possible. Buddhist embryologies, such as the one from the Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing, that are developed on the basis of ten-month gestation models often echo the earlier Chinese accounts highlighted in the first section of this 59

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Pañcānantarya; Ch. wuni 五逆 (also known as the wu wujian ye 五無間業, “the five karmas of the uninterrupted [hell]), namely, parricide, matricide, killing an arhat, shedding the blood of a Buddha, and destroying the harmony of the saṃgha.” Makita 1976, 56. The ten kindnesses are: harbouring the embryo and protecting it; anticipating childbirth and accepting its pain; giving life and forgetting its anxieties; keeping the bitter and giving the sweet; exchanging the dry for the wet (that is, giving up one’s dry spot for a wet one so that the child may be dry); breastfeeding and child-rearing; washing away the filth; missing a child who is far away; profound sympathy; utmost solicitude. See Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing in Makita 1976, 56; these ten kindnesses parallel the ten kindnesses, or more commonly the “ten graces” (shi’en 十恩) of the Buddha.

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introduction. The ten-month model already existed in India, as evidenced in the above quote from Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga for example; and the Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing is indeed based on Indic materials, but these are still considerably later than the embryologies from the Guanzi or Huainanzi, or that of Taichan shu (Book on the Embryo and Childbirth). It is not impossible that networks of knowledge circulation could have brought certain medical notions from China to India, to have them reintroduced into China via Buddhist scriptures sometime later.62 Such conjectures must remain merely hypothetical until sufficient tangible evidence is uncovered. The fact remains that the Chinese self-cultivation practices discussed in the present volume appear to have developed more or less directly out of earlier autochthonous understandings of embryology on one hand, and earlier indigenous meditation/ visualisation techniques on the other, bearing minimal influence from exogenous models, including those of Buddhism or Āyurvedic medicine. This last point will be addressed again in the “Overview of Chapters,” but for now it suffices to underline that, for Japan, the opposite is true. Non-native religious and medical knowledge from both China and India were key ingredients in shaping spiritual practices that relied on embryological imagery. Returning to China, a second embryological model, this time resting instead on a thirty-eight week developmental trajectory, is also featured in Chinese 62

Although the question of Indian influence on Chinese medicine has been relatively well documented by a number of Chinese scholars, chief among them Chen Ming 陳明 and Li Qinpu 李勤璞, the Chinese impact on Indian, especially Āyurvedic and Buddhist, medicines has remained unexplored. Li Qinpu, “‘Qipo wuzang lun’ yanjiu–yinzhong yixue guanxi de yi ge kaocha 「耆婆五藏論」研究－印中醫學關係的一個考察,” Wenshi 文史 45 (1998), and ibid., “‘Qipo wuzang lun’ renshen xueshuo de yuan­liu「耆婆五藏 論」妊娠學説的源流,” Zhonghua yishi zazhi 中華醫史雜誌 27.3 (1997), has notably argued that the Qipo wuzang lun 耆婆五臟論 (Jīvaka’s Treatise on the Five Viscera) introduced the ten-month gestational model into Chinese medicine. This extra-canonical medical treatise is tied to a variety of extant fragments or versions – the earliest of which date back to the Tang or slightly earlier. In his assessment of the impact of Indian embryologies on their Chinese counterparts, Chen Ming in his “‘Shiyue chengtai’ yu ‘qiri yibian’: Yindu taixiang xueshuo de fenlei ji qi dui woguo de yingxiang 「十月成胎」與「七日 一變」－ 印度胎相學說的分類及其對我國的影響,” Guoxue yanjiu 國學研究 13 (2004): 9–14, and 18, more cautiously argues that the Qipo wuzang lun “complemented” or “augmented” (fuyi 附益) Chinese medical theory; on the Dunhuang and Turfan manuscripts related to the Qipo wuzang lun, see the informative article by Donald Harper, “Précis de connaissance médicale. Le Shanghan lun 傷寒論 (Traité des atteintes par le froid) et le Wuzang lun 五藏論 (Traité des cinq viscères),” in Médecine, religion et société dans la Chine médiévale. Étude de manuscrits chinois de Dunhuang et de Turfan, Catherine Despeux, ed. (Paris: Collège de France/Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 2010).

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Buddhist texts. Both models, the thirty-eight week model and the ten-month model, are attested in Indic sources, but some scholars, such as Chen Ming, have argued that the ten-month format is more representative of Āyurvedic medicine, whereas the thirty-eight week gestational scheme is typical of Buddhist medical lore.63 This may explain why, in the context of China, the ten-month model is principally encountered in extra-canonical literature, while the thirty-eight week model disproportionately appears in canonical materials.64 One canonical locus classicus is the Daodi jing 道地經 (Sutra on the Grounds of the [Buddhist] Path; T. 607), a Chinese translation of Saṃ­ gharakṣa’s Yogacārabhūmi attributed to An Shigao 安世高 (fl. 148–ca. 170).65 Another is the aforementioned Garbhāvakrānti sūtra, known as the Foshuo baotai jing 佛說胞胎經 (Sutra Spoken by the Buddha On the Womb and Embryo; T. 317) in Chinese. It was translated by Dharmarakṣa 竺法護 (231–308) around the turn of the fourth century.66 As other Buddhist embryologies, including the ten-month ones, this scripture frames intrauterine development according to the familiar themes of suffering and karma. However, perhaps as a result of being comparatively exhaustive in the scope of their descriptions, the thirty-eight-week models are distinctly more clinical in character: In the third week that the embryo is in its mother’s belly, there is a wind called the “Gate of Sound” that rises and blows on the embryo, causing it to become firm from within. What kind of firmness is this? It is like that which one would feel when the finger comes to rest on a wound or spoiled 63

64 65 66

See, for example, Chen 2004; the author goes through a painstaking comparison of both embryological schemes and the relevant Chinese sources in an effort to determine the influence of Indic medical models on Chinese understandings of in utero development. For a list of both canonical and extra-canonical Buddhist embryologies in Chinese, see Chen 2004. See n. 41 above. On the differences and similarities between the Foshuo baotai jing T. 317 and the Daodi jing T. 607, see Choo 2012, 196–202. The Foshuo baotai jing, dated to the late third century, is the earliest extant Chinese translation of the Gharbhāvakrānti sūtra (On Entering the Womb), mentioned in the previous section. Predating Saṃgharakṣa’s Yogacārābhūmi (ca. first half of the second century), the text Gharbhāvakrānti sūtra contains one of the earliest iterations of a thirty-eight-week embryology. The earliest attested ten-month embryology in an Indic source is from chapter 4 of the Caraka Saṃhitā. Kenneth Zysk, cited in Kritzer, 2009, 73–90, dates its composition to around one or two centuries before or after the Common Era, still later than the earliest Chinese ten-month embryologies examined above. As previously mentioned, Kritzer’s chapter offers a point-by-point analytical comparison of the Gharbhāvakrānti sūtra’s and the Caraka Saṃhitā’s embryologies. See also n. 35 above.

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meat. Thus is the transformation of essence. It [the embryo] remains in the middle for a week, transforming and becoming hot. That which is firm in it is accordingly the Soil element. That which is soft and moist in it is accordingly the Water element. That which is warm in it is accordingly the Fire element. The spaces and gaps within it are accordingly the Wind element.67 […] In the fourth week that the embryo is in its mother’s abdomen, there is naturally a wind that is called “Passing Through the Narrow Gate.” It blows on the essence of the body, developing the 90,000 muscles: 22,500 in the front, 22,500 in the back, 22,500 on the left side, and 22,500 on the right side. […] In the thirteenth week that the embryo is in its mother’s abdomen, there arises naturally a wind that blows on the infant’s body and causes its hair to grow. In accordance with actions from previous lives, the wind will either cause the infant’s hair to be deep black and exquisite without measure, or it will make it grow in a blonder colour that is disliked by people.68 第三七日，其胎之內於母腹中，有風名聲門，而起吹之，令其胎裏轉 就凝堅。凝堅何類？如指著息瘡息肉壞，精變如是。住中七日轉化成 熟，彼其堅者則為地種，軟濕者則為水種，其熅燸者則為火種，間關 其內則為風種。

67

68

Foshuo baotai jing, T. 317, 887b. The Mahāratnakūṭa sūtra, or Dabao jijing 大寶積經 (Scripture of Great Accumulation of Tresures; T. 310), contains two other translations of the Foshuo baotai jing and its thirty-eight-week embryological model; see section 13, 55.322a–326a, Fo wei Anan shuo chutai hui 佛為阿難說處胎會 (Sutra on Abiding in the Womb Spoken by the Buddha to Ānanda; translated by Bodhiruci 菩提流志 [d. 727]); and section 14, 56.326b–330b and 57.331a–336c, Foshuo ru taizang hui 佛說入胎藏會 (Sutra on Entering the Womb Spoken by the Buddha; translated by Yijing 義淨 [635– 713]); the relevant embryologies are on 323a–325a and 329a–331a, respectively. Section 13 of the text (juan 55) is also found in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya under the title Rumu taijing 入母胎經 (Scripture of the Embryo Entering the Mother); see Genben shuo yiqie youbu pinaiye zashi 根本說一切有部毘奈耶雜事 (Various Matters of the Vinaya of the Mūla Sarvāstivāda School; T. 1451), 11–12. 251a–262a. Cf. Kritzer 2014, 18.3–5, 52–54. Foshuo baotai jing, T. 317, 887b–889b. Cf. Kritzer 2014, 18.13, 58.

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[…] 第十四七日。其胞裏內於母腹藏。自然有風名曰經縷門。吹其精 體生九萬筋。二萬二千五百在身前。二萬二千五百在背。二萬二千五 百在左脅。二萬二千五百在右脅。

[…] 第三十七日。在其胞裏於母腹藏。自然風起吹其兒體令生毛髮。 隨宿所行。或令其兒毛髮正黑妙好無量。或生髮黃人所不喜。

As in most Buddhist embryologies, correspondences are established between the various phases of development and cosmological elements – in this case, the Four Elements (Sk. mahābhūta; Ch. sida 四大) of Buddho-Indian cosmology. Yet, despite their pronounced cosmic symbolism, Buddhist embryologies stop short of broaching the subject of cosmogony – a crucial step in establishing parallels between gestation and spiritual programmes. It is no surprise that early Indian and Chinese Buddhist sources, which considered the earliest form of intrauterine life as an incarnation of suffering and karmic entanglement, would not choose embryonic development as a template for spiritual progress. Since this volume exclusively focuses on embryologies that are enlisted for the purpose of self-cultivation or soteriology, a sizable proportion of those that appear in the Sino-Japanese Buddhist canon are not considered. For the same reason, individual chapters do not address views on conception and gestation from the Taoist canon that are not part of a programme of spiritual attainment. In some cases, these “Taoist” embryologies are adapted from Buddhist scriptures. Thus, the early-Tang Taishang Laojun shuo bao fumu enzhong jing 太上老 君説報父母恩重經 (Scripture on Repaying the Profound Kindness of Parents Spoken By Lord Lao; DZ 662) is closely modelled on the aforementioned Fumu enzhong jing.69 Similarly, the thirteenth-century Sanyuan yanshou canzan shu 三元延壽參贊書 (Book of the Three Primes for Achieving Longevity Equal to Heaven and Earth; DZ 851) opens with an embryology that is highly redolent of the one encountered in Yijing’s 義淨 (635–713) translation of the Foshuo ru taizang hui 佛說入胎藏會 (Sutra on Entering the Womb Spoken by the Buddha).70 69 70

See Livia Kohn, “Immortal Parents and Universal Kin: Family Values in Medieval Daoism,” in Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History (London: Routledge Curzon, 2004). Compare Sanyuan yanshou canzan shu DZ 851, 1a–4a to Foshuo ru taizang hui 329a–331a; for the latter, see n. 67 above. Chapter 6 of the Benji jing 本際經 (Scripture of the Original Bound), preserved in a number of Dunhuang manuscripts, also expounds the thirty- eight-week gestational model; see Wan Yi 萬毅, “Dunhuang daojiao wenxian Benji jing luwen ji jieshuo 敦煌道教文獻 「本際經」錄文及解說,” Daojia wenhua yanjiu 道家 文化研究 13 (1998): 445–447.

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Embryologies in Early and Medieval Japan

Let us now turn to Japan. The ideas about physiological processes of conception, gestation, and birth were encountered in a variety of early Chinese and Indian texts. Buddhist scriptures may have arrived to Japan, via Sui and Tang China and Korea, as a part of the historical process of acculturation of Chinese traditions and the various strands of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Japan’s earliest medical compendium, Tanba no Yasuyori’s 丹波康頼 (912–995) Ishinpō 醫心方 (The Essentials of Medicine) suggests that some aspects of conception and pregnancy, based on the ten-month model of gestation known from the earlier Chinese sources, were familiar to the court physicians at least since the tenth century.71 For example, the twenty-second volume of Tanba’s compendium provides instructions for acupuncturists and cautionary prescriptions for women for each of the ten months of pregnancy.72 The nineteenth-century printed editions also reproduce ten rare illustrations said to be in Tanba’s original manuscript. Although these images are concerned with showing the vital meridians that ought to be avoided during acupuncture treatment, they also show a foetus in different stages of development depicted within an unclothed woman’s body. Tamba’s compendium is a unique source in that it used many Chinese medical writings that became subsequently lost in China; thus, some of them are only known through his quotations.73 The Chanjing 産經 (The Classic of Birth) by De Zhenchang 徳貞常 is one such case. A medical classic from Sui China, it was imported to Japan and existed in twelve volumes at least until the end of the tenth century. It appears in the Ishinpō’s opening section entitled “Charts of pregnant women’s pulse meridians and monthly 71

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From the viewpoint of medical history, see a recent discussion of this source in English by Katja Triplett, “For Mothers and Sisters: Care of the Reproductive Female Body in the Medico-Ritual World of Early and Medieval Japan,” in “Childbirth and Women’s Healthcare Across Cultures,” Anna Andreeva, Erica Couto-Ferreira, and Susanne Töpfer, eds., sp. is. of Dynamis 34/2 (2014): 337–356. Maki Sachiko 槙佐知子, Ishinpō: Maki Sachiko zen’yaku seikai 醫心方：槙佐知子全訳 精解 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1993), vol. 22, 5–45. Maki 1993, vol. 22, 3. The historians of Chinese medicine Jen-Der Lee and Sabine Wilms provide a detailed analysis of the Ishinpō in English. See footnotes 8 and 9 above for reference. Katja Triplett has recently argued that Tamba’s collection also cited a number of Buddhist scriptures. See her article “Magical Medicine? Japanese Buddhist Medical Knowledge and Ritual Instruction for Healing the Physical Body,” in “Religion and Healing in Japan,” Christoph Kleine and Katja Triplett, eds., sp. is. of Japanese Religions 37 (1 and 2, 2012): 62–90, especially, 70–73.

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prohibitions” (“Ninpu myakuzu gekkin hō” 任婦脉圖月禁法), which provides a simple scheme of conception and embryological development. The Classic of Birth says:74 The Yellow Emperor asked: “How are humans born?” To that, Qibo replied: “To be born, humans are first conceived in the mysterious depth [of the mother’s body]; that is where they first take form in the internal cavity. If such form takes place without disruption, then the human being is conceived. In the first month of pregnancy [it] is called “a pre-embryonic substance”, or “a spore” (also, “placenta”). The second month [it] is called “embryo” (also, “womb”).75 In the third month, [it develops] blood vessels, in the fourth month [it] procures bones, in the fifth month [it begins to] move, in the sixth month [it] takes [human] shape, in the seventh month [it] grows hair, in the eighth month [it acquires] vision, in the ninth month the grains enter [its] stomach. In the tenth month, the infant is delivered.”  In the “Grand Basis Classic,”76 it is as outlined above: “In the first month, there is an oil-like substance. In the second month, there are veins. In the third month, there is a placenta. In the fourth month, there is an embryo. In the fifth month, it has sinews. In the sixth month, it has bones. In the seventh month, it is [fully] formed. In the eighth month, it moves. In the ninth month, it makes a fuss. In the tenth month, it is born.”77 74 75

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On the use of this source in the Ishinpō, see Jen-Der Lee 2005, 226, n. 30, and 230–31; also Wilms 2005, 297–310. In modern Japanese, the character hai 胚 means “embryo,” while hō 胞 can be translated as “placenta.” However, the following character tai 胎 may also mean both “embryo” and “the womb.” Both terms here indicate generative growth. The modern editor of the Ishinpō Maki Sachiko points out that this text is most likely the Huangdi neijing taisu 黄帝内經太素 (The Grand Basis of the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon), by Yang Shangshan 楊上善. Maki 1993, vol. 22, 5–7. This classic work was copied by the Tanba, hereditary court physicians, in 1151–1158 and 1167–1168; at least one such manuscript copy was preserved at Ninnaji 仁和寺 Temple in the Heian capital. On the reception of this text in premodern Japan, see Paul Unschuld, Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), 26–27. Unschuld points out that the Huangdi neijing taisu was extant in China at least until the eleventh century and circulated in Japan during the period between the eighth and mid-fourteenth centuries. This phrase appears in chapter 30 of the aforementioned classic. However, we have been unable to locate this line in the facsimile edition of the surviving Ninnaji manuscript, as

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産經云 黄帝問人生何如以成。岐伯對曰人之始生冥乃始為形容無有擾乃為始 収。任身一月曰肧又曰胞二月曰胎三月曰血脉四月曰具骨五月曰動六 月曰形成七月曰毛髪生八月曰瞳子明九月曰穀入胃十月曰兒出生也。 今案大素經云一月膏二月脉三月胞四月胎五月筋六月骨七月成八月動 九月躁十月生.

Although it is not entirely clear how exactly Tanba’s treatise was used or whether his medical theories had been known outside the imperial court and aristocratic households, the ten-month gestation model grounded in the early Chinese sources played an important role in the discourse on childbirth in premodern Japan. For example, early modern woodblock print textbooks for women, such as Onna Chōhōki 女重宝記 (Treasure Records for Women) explained foetal development precisely in these terms.78 Buddhist theories on foetal gestation and the generation of organs deriving from earlier Indian sources and described in the section above similarly made an impact in Japan via Chinese Buddhism. The translations of important scriptures, attributed to Indian masters residing in China, such as Śubkhakarasiṃha (Ch. Shanwuwei 善無畏, Jp. Zenmui, 637–735) or Vajrabodhi (Ch. Jingangzhi 金剛智, Jp. Kongōchi, 671–741), may have been the early precursors to the medieval Japanese theories of the origins of life and Buddhist ritual practices related to the contemplation of internal organs, especially within esoteric Buddhist temples.79 Some of these theories, for instance, the thirty-eight-week

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it is heavily damaged. Huangdi neijing taisu: Ninnaji bon 黄帝内経太素：仁和寺本, Tōyō igaku kenkyūkai, eds. (Tokyo: Tōyō igaku kenkyūkai, 1981), vol. II, chapter 30, 385– 459. One example is the Kōka 弘化 4 [1847] woodblock printed edition of Eiri nichiyō onna chōhōki 絵入日用女重宝記 (Extremely Treasured Records for Women’s Everyday Life, Illustrated), which contains illustrations depicting the ten stages of foetal development. See, for example, Fabio Rambelli’s English translation of a late Tang-period ritual text attributed to Śubkhakarasiṃha, the “Ritual of the Secret Dharanis of the Three Siddhis for the Destruction of Hell, the Transformation of Karmic Hindrances, and the Liberation from the Three Conditioned Worlds.” Rambelli suggests that this text may have served as a certain template for Japanese Buddhist practitioners such as the early medieval Shingon reformer Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143), who advocated the meditation on the five viscera (gozōkan 五臓観). Fabio Rambelli, “Tantric Buddhism and Chinese Thought in East Asia,” in Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 377, and 379. The early discussion of Kakuban’s practices related to the embryological patterns appears in Kushida Ryōkō 櫛田良洪, Kakuban no kenkyū 覚鑁の 研究 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1975). See n. 89 for further elaboration, as well as Lucia Dolce’s contribution to this subject in the present volume.

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gestation model seen in the Chinese translations of the Yogacārabhūmi and Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya, were incorporated into medieval Japanese medical treatises on women’s health.80 One recently discovered example is the Sansei Ruijūshō 産生類従抄 (Encyclopaedia of Childbirth, ca. 1318), a two-volume collection containing the ritual and medical prescriptions for pregnant women.81 Composed by the Buddhist clergy for the use by monks performing rituals for safe pregnancy and childbirth, as well as physicians and midwives assisting during delivery, this collection explained foetal development according to notions from Indian and Chinese Buddhist treatises and medical sources available in medieval Japan. On the subject of the embryo’s internal development, it referred to one of the major Tiantai Buddhist works, Zhiyi’s 智顗 (538–597) Mohe zhiguan 摩訶止観 (Jp. Maka shikan, Stopping and Contemplating; T. 1911) and other less well-known Buddhist sources. 5

Overview of Chapters

The chapters in this volume are arranged chronologically in order to provide the reader with a progressive overview of how notions tied to reproduction and gestation gradually became more imbued with soteriological meaning in certain traditions. The arc that traces the changing understandings of these notions begins with the cosmologically laden early Chinese accounts of embryology discussed in this introduction, before extending to the earliest documented expressions of a spiritual path of self-cultivation grounded in the twin imageries of reproduction and gestation. These occur in late early China to early medieval China (ca. first century CE to third century CE), and so it is only fitting that this should be the starting point for the present volume.

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Shinmura Taku 新村拓, Shussan to seishokkan no rekishi 出産と生殖観の歴史 (Tokyo: Hōsei daigaku shuppankyoku, 1996), and Nihon iryōshi 日本医療史 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2006). The manuscript is currently preserved at Kanazawa Bunko 金沢文庫 archive, in Yokohama. This source has been acknowledged by Japanese scholars of Buddhism and medical history since 1950s but never studied at length. For the analysis of this text in Japanese, see Anna Andreeva, “Chūsei Nihon ni okeru osan to josei no kenkō – Sansei Ruijūshō no bukkyōteki, igakuteki chishiki o chūshin to shite 中世日本における御産と女性の健 康—『産生類従抄』の仏教的・医学的知識を中心として,” in Hikaku shisō kara mita Nihon bukkyō 比較思想から見た日本仏教, Sueki Fumihiko 末木文彦, ed. (Tokyo: Sankibō busshōrinkan, 2015, pp. 13–36).

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Grégoire Espesset’s “Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Life Cycles” surveys a cluster of early-period and earlymedieval textual passages from the Great Peace (Taiping 太平) corpus and a weft (wei 緯) companion to the Yijing 易經 (Classic of Changes), the Qian zuo du 乾鑿度 (Regulations Chiselled by Qian). The passages all deal with interconnected life-related topics – the stages of impregnation, gestation, intrauterine infancy, and birth – and connect them to the logic governing annual cycles. Analysing the momentum at the root of these cosmic processes and, more specifically, redefining them in relation to cosmogony set the stage for the visualisations that enjoin the practitioner to revert to a prenatal state of primordial unity. The chapter provides some insight into how cosmological speculations were translated into religious belief and community practice during the early imperial era. The materials examined by Espesset show how, in an initial stage, the notion of cosmogony, that is, the process of cosmic creation, is gradually woven into discourse concerning birth and pregnancy by means of cosmological symbolism. The next contribution underscores this early transition from static cosmology to a dynamic cosmogony. This shift is marked by an emphasis on the action of creation, literally, as illustrated by its application in early Taoist sexual rites. In “Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: ‘Seed-People’ and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism,” Christine Mollier considers the ideological background to these Celestial Master (Tianshi dao 天師道) rituals. These practices, like others examined in this volume, were undertaken with the purpose of conceiving an embryo of immortality. But they stand out in that their mode of conception was physiological: through a form of ritualised conventional intercourse, initiated adepts produced spiritually pure chosen individuals, or “seed-people” (zhongmin 種民), to repopulate the world after the impending apocalypse. Particular attention is devoted to how the notion of “seed-people” came to be exploited by Taoist sectarian movements for purposes of elitist self-demarcation and in support of eugenic ends. “Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation,” by Dominic Steavu, focuses on the early medieval roots of Neidan 內丹 (Internal Alchemy) discourse on the generation of the inner embryo. The chapter notably highlights the contribution of materials from the Sanhuang 三皇 (Three Sovereigns) corpus. In the process, it identifies a series of key features in the development of Neidan, namely the anthropomorphisation of cosmic principles within the body, the combination of multiple cosmological models, and the use of cosmogonic reversal as a template for practice. One meditation encountered in a Sanhuang source which takes Taiyi 太一, the Great Unity, as its cosmogonic and procreative starting point, is particularly eloquent in that it vividly

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illustrates those key features and also articulates the equivalence between Taiyi, the embryo and the Elixir. The next two chapters, authored by Catherine Despeux and Fabrizio Pregadio respectively, centre on a fully articulated Neidan system that has already internalised and developed many of the processes discussed in earlier chapters. Moreover, in its formation, Neidan also absorbed a number of critical concepts from Buddhism. The Buddhist embryologies highlighted above were no doubt influential, but not directly so, as their contributions were likely much more important in the realm of medical knowledge. As previously noted, early Buddhist embryologies, both the ten-month and thirty-eight-week incarnations that circulated in China, were understood to have no soteriological value whatsoever. However, certain Buddhist tropes were formative in later Chinese practices. Besides the notion of tathāgatagarbha, or Buddha nature (foxing 佛性), we may also cite the Chan 禪 topos of “before your father and mother engendered you” (fumu sheng qian 父母生前) or that of “without birth and death” (wusheng wusi 無生無死). To a large extent, these notions were part of the intellectual zeitgeist of medieval China, and thus a direct itinerary of their transit from Buddhist currents to Neidan is hard to trace – partly because Buddhism and Neidan were not clearly separate systems of thought and practice. They deserve, perhaps, their own separate full-length study. Nonetheless, some of the chapters, Catherine Despeux’s most notably, succeed in identifying key notions that made their way from Buddhism to Taoism. The notions in question are used in tropes that are chiefly figurative and rhetorical. They undoubtedly imply a self-cultivation that culminates in a return to a prenatal state, but they circumvent the cosmological/cosmogonic logic that is so typical of the development of Chinese soteriological embryologies. Their process is typically qualified as subitist, resting on a sudden realisation, in contrast to the slow drawn-out process of non-Buddhist autogestation. Because of this important distinction that excludes from soteriological programs (which are typically progressive), contributors to the present volume who deal with Chinese materials have broached these Buddhist tropes in passing only. Buddhism was one of the principle vectors through which self-cultivation systems, whether they were initially Buddhist or not, made their way across the Sea of Japan (in many instances, via the Korean Peninsula). Thus, in Japan, soteriologies grounded in embryological or reproductive imagery were on the whole more “Buddhist” and less gradualistic than in China. This cleavage is reflected in the basic structure of this volume, with the China part and Japan part being, broadly speaking, divided along the lines of Taoist and Buddhist traditions, and “gradual” and “sudden” methods.

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Nevertheless, these divisions should not be exaggerated and made into templates of analysis. Catherine Despeux’s chapter on “Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts,” is elaborated on the basis of medieval to early modern Taoist and Buddhist sources alike, demonstrating that Buddhism was integral to the development of certain practices that relied on reproductive or gestational imagery in China. Her study is an investigation of the crucial notion of the “sagely embryo” (shengtai 聖胎). More pointedly, her contribution elucidates how gender was a ubiquitous yet fluid force in defining the meditational experience of adepts. Through the practice of Neidan, it was not uncommon for men to experience physiological symptoms of their spiritual pregnancy, enough to convince some of them that they were actually pregnant. Nonetheless, the dominant discourse was that of a symbolic pregnancy in which men shed external sexual markers and became both embryo and mother at the same time. For women, this held true as well. In pursuit of the same androgyny, one that physically manifested in the form of a prepubescent body, women aspired to nullify their biological capacity to bear children. Yet despite the seemingly egalitarian nature of symbolic pregnancy, according to Despeux, it is a “masculinised” Yang body that remains the paragon of spiritual refinement in Neidan. Building upon the fundaments of Neidan discussed in Despeux’s chapter, Fabrizio Pregadio explores the use of analogy among Taoist views on the generation of the cosmos, the birth of the human being, and the compounding of the Elixir in “Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three).” The medieval Cantong qi 參同契 draws elaborate analogies linking the stages through which the Dao generates the cosmos to those through which a human being receives life. These stages are also reproduced in the alchemical process, with the key dif­ ference that the practice mirrors – and therefore reverses – the stages of cosmogony and gestation in order to collapse each stage onto the previous one. This feature is especially important in Neidan, where practitioners invest themselves with the task of “regenerating” the world and their own persons. Here, the maternal generative function that adepts perform with respect to the cosmos is paralleled by the corresponding inner process of conception, gestation, and delivery of an “embryo,” which is the Elixir itself. The last chapter in the China half of the volume shifts to the setting of contemporary Fujian, offering an illuminating instance of the layering of semantic registers in the formation of discourses on pregnancy and birth. In “On The Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas,” Brigitte Baptandier builds on her ethnological fieldwork to focus on the representation of women’s bodies through the figure of the goddess Lady of Linshui (Linshui furen 臨水夫

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人), otherwise known as Chen Jinggu 陳靖姑. A number of chapters consider

the interface between two levels of representation, the literal or physiological and the symbolic; in this contribution, Baptandier reflects on the commingling of three levels of representation of women’s bodies, namely, “the real,” the mythological, and the symbolic, each in their respective contexts of the patriline, the mythological ritual theatre, and the mandala. On a more general level of analysis, Baptandier frames the chapter by means of two seminal studies of structural anthropology: Jacques Lacan’s “Le symbolique, l’imaginaire et le réel”; and the work that inspired it, Claude Lévi-Strauss’ “L’éfficacité symbolique” (famously known in English as “The Effectiveness of Symbols”), which examines the therapeutic services offered by a Cuna shaman to a woman about to give birth. The Japan part offers an exposé of gestational discourse and reproductive imagery, as well as critical notions and circumstances that surrounded its production and further application in the Japanese ritual context. Previous work on this topic has been insightful but limited, and thus an in-depth investigation of the scope and impact of such ideas on the sphere of cultural production of premodern Japan is still ongoing.82 In this respect, the Japan part offers a detailed discussion of previously unstudied manuscripts and ritual practices. For some time, the scholars of Japanese Buddhism have not paid sufficient attention to the significance of embryological patterns and reproductive metaphors. In part, the reasons for such disregard could be sought in the historical construction of Buddhist Studies in Japan as a discipline during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the study of sexual discourse in Buddhist sources was considered taboo and beyond the scope of academic scholarship. Moreover, the presence of such discourse in Japanese Buddhist sources was attributed to the so-called Tachikawa lineage (Tachikawa-ryū 立川流), which itself was a subject of criticism in Buddhist circles since at least the thirteenth century.83 Yet more recently, as the study of Japanese Buddhism progresses 82

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For previous studies on the embryological themes, see Sanford 1997, Faure 2000, and Dolce 2006–07; see n. 49 above. A study of medieval Japanese Buddhist manuscripts with embryological references is carried out by a research group of Japanese and Western scholars, including Abe Yasurō, Itō Satoshi, Yoneda Mariko, and Lucia Dolce, and independently, by Ogawa Toyoo. Some of these studies will be addressed in greater detail in the following pages. This lineage was previously addressed by Kushida Ryōko 櫛田良洪 in his exhaustive volumes on the history of Shingon Buddhism, Shingon mikkyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū 真言 密教成立過程の研究 (Tokyo: Sankibō bussho­rinkan, 1979; new edition, 2004) and Zoku Shingon mikkyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū 続真言密教成立過程の研究 (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorinkan, 1979); see also Mizuhara Gyōei 水原堯榮, Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū no kenkyū

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both in Japan and in the West, the presence of embryological metaphors and sexual discourse, despite their previous categorisation as “heterodox” (Jp. jakyō 邪教), is becoming more acknowledged as a part of historical Buddhist paradigm as it developed in Japan.84 The embryological patterns appearing in Japanese Shingon Buddhism, such as the tainai goi 胎内五位 (“Five Stages of the Embryo in the Womb”), became the subject of a seminal article on foetal Buddahood by James Sanford.85 He briefly pointed out that some of the Japanese Buddhist ritual transmissions were structured around the five stages of gestation and were inspired by a particular part of an esoteric Buddhist scripture known in Chinese as the Yuqi jing 瑜祇経 (Jp. Yugikyō).86 That some of the Buddhist discourses on conception and procreation had made a profound impact on classical poetry treatises was soon noted by the scholar of Japanese literature, Susan Blakely Klein.87 This theme was further investigated in the study of esoteric Buddhism and

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邪教立川流の研究 (Kyoto: Dōhōsha, 1981); Moriyama Shōshin 守山聖真, Tachikawa jakyō to sono shakaiteki haikei no kenkyū 立川邪教と其の社会的背景の研究 (Tokyo: Rokuyaen, 1990 [1965]); Manabe Shunshō 真鍋俊照, Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū 邪教立川流 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1999). For instance, Iyanaga Nobumi has noted that the Tachikawa-ryū was a legitimate lineage of Shingon, and that the sexual imagery had been long present in ritual documents and writings of other major Shingon lineages. See Iyanaga, “Secrecy, Sex, and Apocrypha: Remarks on Some Paradoxical Phenomena,” in Bernhard Scheid and Mark Teeuwen, eds., The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion (London: Routledge, 2006), 204–228; and in Japanese, “Mikkyō girei to ‘nenzuru chikara’: Hōkyōshō no hihanteki kentō oyobi Juhōyōjinshū no ‘dokuro honzon girei’ wo chūshin ni shite 密教儀禮と「念ずる 力」—『寶鏡鈔』の批判的検討、および『受法用心集』の「髑髏本尊儀 禮」を中心にして,” in Girei no chikara: chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀禮の力 – 中世 宗教の実践世界, Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds. (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010), 127–158. Sanford 1997. Ibid., 3–5. The full Chinese title of this scripture is Jingangfeng louge yiqie yuqie yuqi jing 金剛峯樓閣一切瑜伽瑜祇經 (Jp. Kongōbu rōkaku issai yuga yugi kyō; the Sutra of All Yogas and Yogins of the Vajra Peak Pavillion, or the Yoga Sutra, T. 867). Although its compilation or Chinese translation is attributed to the Indian esoteric master Vajrabodhi, there seem to be no Sanskrit or Tibetan equivalents of this scripture. It is therefore plausible that it was composed in Tang China. Susan Blakely Klein, “Ise Monogatari Zuinō: An Annotated Translation,” Monumenta Nipponica 53.1 (1998): 13–43, and Allegories of Desire: Esoteric Commentaries in Medieval Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002). On the five stages of gestation in the context of medieval waka commentaries, such as Waka Kokin kanjō no maki 和歌古今灌 頂巻, see Klein 2002, 116–20 and 253–57. The said Ise Monogatari Zuinō, a medieval text replete with embryological metaphors, was first published in Japanese by Katagiri Yōichi

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medieval kami worship by the Western scholars of Japanese Buddhism, Bernard Faure,88 and most recently, Lucia Dolce, particularly in the context of shintairon 身体論 (theories of embodiment).89 Dolce has highlighted the significance of Japanese interpretations of esoteric Buddhist sources, including those advocated by the Shingon monk Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143), medieval commentaries to the Yugikyō, and the so-called “embryological charts,” inaugurating their detailed analysis.90 Four of the six chapters in the Japan part map out how embryological ideas – embedded in medical healing traditions, Buddhist doctrinal works, and Buddhist ritual compilations transported from the continent between the sixth and tenth centuries – were perceived, interpreted, and implemented in medieval Japan (1185–1600). Chapters 11 and 12 elucidate how medieval ideas about conception and foetal development were further integrated into the religious discourses and ritual practices of Sōtō Zen 曹洞禅 and the “mountain religion” Shugendō 修験道 during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868) and up to

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片桐洋一, in Ise Monogatari no kenkyū: Shiryōhen 伊勢物語の研究：資料編 (Tokyo: Meiji shoin, 1969). Bernard Faure, The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 125–129, and Faure 2000. Dolce 2006–2007, 138–44. She refers to the work by Itō Satoshi 伊藤聡, “Sanbōin-ryū no gisho: toku ni Sekishitsu wo megutte 三宝院流の偽書−特に『石室』を巡って,” in Gisho no seisei 偽書の生成, Nishiki Hitoshi 錦仁, Ogawa Toyoo 小川豊生, and Itō Satoshi, eds. (Tokyo: Rinwasha, 2003), 197–231. The previously overlooked significance of the medieval Japanese commentaries on the Yugikyō, particularly, its second chapter, is further analysed in Lucia Dolce, “Nigenteki genri no gireika – Fudō, Aizen to chikara no hizō 二元的原理の儀礼化—不動、愛染と力の秘像,” in Dolce and Matsumoto 2010, 159–208. Dolce discussed the shintairon theories in her conference paper, “Charting the Embryonic Generation of the Ritual Body: Visual Exegeses from Ninnaji Material,” at a panel entitled “The Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japan: A New Soteriology of the Human Body,” during the 13th meeting of the European Association of Japanese Studies, August 2011, in Tallinn, Estonia. We warmly thank her and Abe Yasurō, Itō Satoshi, and Yoneda Mariko, for sharing their views on the Buddhist manuscripts recently discovered at Japanese temples. See her discussion of embryological patterns and imagery in medieval Shinto initiations and writings of Jichiun 実運 (1106–1160), Enni Ben’en 円爾弁円 (1202–1280), and other important medieval monks. She has also noted link of Kakuban’s practices to the ritual visualisation of the body in five aspects (gosō jōjinkan 五相成身観) described in the Vajraśekhara sūtra (Kongōchōkyō 金剛頂經, The Sutra of Diamond Peak, T. 874); this particular Chinese translation was attributed to the Central Asian scholar Amoghavajra 不空 (705–774). Dolce 2006–2007, 136–144, and 2010, 169–171 and 186–195, respectively. On the possible precursors to Kakuban’s practices, see Rambelli 2000, and n. 79 above.

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modern times. From the overall scope of these six essays, it becomes clear that medieval Japan, with its Tantric/esoteric Buddhist milieu acting as a matrix of ritual and political power discourse and imagination, provided a resonant echo for Japanese religious practices and cultural production in later times. Lucia Dolce’s chapter “The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources” discusses the newly discovered medieval Buddhist manuscripts which position the process of conception and gestation of the human body within Tantric ritual practice. One of them, entitled Gochizō hishō 五智蔵秘抄 (Secret Treatise on the Repository of Quintuple Wisdom) from Ninnaji in Kyoto is an example, somewhat representative for the esoteric Buddhist milieu of medieval Japan. This text includes a diagram, perhaps the earliest of its kind in Japan, that draws from Indian medical knowledge, classical Chinese notions of Yin and Yang and the Five Agents, as well as esoteric Buddhist or Tantric ideas on conception, gestation, and birth. Such charts depicting the five stages of the embryo’s development in the womb aimed to guide the actions of Buddhist practitioners mapping their progress toward reaching the ultimate stage of enlightenment; they can be found in a number of other ritual documents, either as drawings or descriptive references. Dolce points out that the sexual overtones might have been one of the reasons why these sources have been neglected for so long or were regarded as marginal. Despite the lack of systematic research and study, the significance of such Tantric documents is multivalent and prompts further questions as to how the embryological ideas seen in medieval texts were conceptualised in the first place and how they further impacted on the fields of religious and cultural production of premodern Japan. Bernard Faure’s chapter in this volume, “Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism,” focuses on yet another cluster of ideas related to the embryo’s growth in the womb: that of divine protective forces which influence the life span, life quality, and further karmic imprint of the future human being – the cult of the placenta (ena 胞衣), and the placenta deity (enagami 胞衣神 or ena kōjin 胞衣荒神). The ambivalence of the placenta, at once the source of life and pollution, was rooted in its perception as being “the mysterious power that watches over the gestation process and protects it from malevolent forces.” But it could just as easily become a threat if it was not properly buried or ritually placated. After birth, the placenta deities, also called “childbirth deities” (ubugami 産生神), would be transformed into one’s “protective deities” (tatemashigami 立増神) dwelling above child’s head until the age of eight, after which the deity would become a “god protecting the house” (shutakujin 守宅神). Upon the death of the adult, as if mirroring the process of corporeal

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dissolution and “reverse gestation,” the said placenta deity would once again transform into “a spirit-demon” (reiki 靈鬼) that watches over one’s bones. After the skeleton and bones have disappeared, it becomes a god of the grave: it is the “clan deity” (ujigami 氏神) that protects one’s descendants. The potent idea of the human head as a locus of divine presence is taken up further in Iyanaga Nobumi’s contribution to this volume, discussing the mysterious substance called “human yellow” and the provenance of magical power in medieval Japan. Insofar as it relates to embryological discourse, this chapter elucidates the many intersections between medieval Tantric Buddhist ideas about conception, gestation, the issue of animation, the production of artificial (albeit divine) life, power discourse, and gender. The “sweet drops” (tenteki 甜滴) existing in the human head were equated with “vital essence” crucial for the beginning of human life, as discussed by the ninth-century Tendai thinker Annen 安然. This notion provided a powerful metaphor for those medieval monastic minds engaged in the elaboration of embryonic development and its potential for finding salvation, achieving enlightenment, and seeking to understand matters of life and death. Elucidated through links to esoteric deities Aizen and Dakini-ten, the Tachikawa skull ritual, and medieval Japanese commentaries on the aforementioned Yugikyō, “human yellow” emerges as the “seed” which makes up the “root of life” (myōkon 命根) of a human body and one of the impersonations of the esoteric notion of ālāyavijñāna, “the eighth consciousness” (daihachishiki 第八識). The gender agents involved in the act of conception, the “father” and “mother,” are typically represented in Japan’s medieval discourse on embryological growth as the two vital essences, the “two drops, red and white.” While this association of the male and female sexual fluids goes back to the early Indian sources, in medieval Japan during the thirteenth and fourteen centuries, as Tantric Buddhist imagery and ideas penetrated the very core of religion and politics, it became dispersed in a variety of ritual, religious, literary, and performative texts, and later, even some social practices. Anna Andreeva’s chapter, “‘Lost in the Womb’: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men” focuses on the religious ideas that circulated among the scholar-monks and semi-itinerant “holy men” (shōnin 上人, or hijiri 聖) and the impact of such ideas on the sphere of Shinto-Buddhist discourse on kami as well as notions of womanhood. The dissemination of secret commentaries on Tantric scriptures (including embryological discourse) at local Buddhist facilities resulted in a construction of new types of Buddhist abhiṣeka initiation, such as the “Abhiṣeka of Father and Mother” (Kazoiro kanjō 父母代灌頂). On the one hand, such rituals were firmly rooted in Japan’s own cosmogonic myths recorded in the Nihon shoki 日本書紀

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(The Annals of Japan) and, on the other hand, they were steeped in Tantric Buddhist culture, imagery, and metaphor. The Tantric discourses set in motion by medieval Buddhist clerics from Kōyasan 高野山 and Daigoji 醍醐寺 led to the deification of gendered agencies as primordial “father and mother,” deities Izanagi 伊弉諾 and Izanami 伊弉冉, within the discursive field of local Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. At the same time, the medieval discourse left limited space for a reconsideration of ideas on the female body. Albeit still embedded in the androcentric paradigm, esoteric Buddhist emphasis on the two principles brought forth an understanding that the female body could also be interpreted in sacralising terms and envisioned as manifestations of the Lotus, the Womb Realm (Taizōkai 胎蔵界), and the Pure Land. Kigensan Licha, in his “Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism,” focuses on how embryological charts, such as those discussed in Lucia Dolce’s contribution to this volume, were appropriated and further embedded in Sōtō Zen thought and ritual practice during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). He shows that, again, far from being a marginal footnote in the history of Japanese Buddhism, embryological ideas played a very significant role in Sōtō Zen discourse on both foetal and post-mortem enlightenment (the latter is seen through the prism of the Thirteen Buddhas cult). Zen kirigami absorbed a broad range of ideas from the mainstream of the post-medieval Buddhist thought and practice, including esoteric Buddhist teachings, popular practices, and cosmological speculation based on the Yijing – as well as possibly other notions rooted in Neo-Confucian thought that entered Japan as a part of the large transfer of culture and knowledge from the Southern Song (1127–1279) onward. The Sōtō Zen transmission texts, such as the Chūteki himissho 中的秘 密書 (The Secret Writing of Hitting the Mark), offer an overview of the complex conceptual framework underpinning early modern Sōtō Zen ideas about the sacralised body, which was “equally individual and universal, encoding within itself soteriological, cosmological, and metaphysical structures.” Based on extensive participant observation, Gaynor Sekimori’s contribution to this volume maps out the minute details of embryological theory as embedded within the annual Autumn Peak (Akinomine 秋の峯) ritual of Haguro 羽黒 Shugendō in Yamagata Prefecture, northern Japan. The embryological symbolism imbued in the ritual procedure there is customarily explained as the “death and rebirth in the womb of the mountain through the ten realms” of Buddhist cosmology. Although the trope of the embryo’s enlightenment is central to the ritual’s rationale, it rarely takes central stage in modern practice, where the motif of rebirth is emphasised instead. Sekimori shows that, when read through a variety of seventeenth-century transmission records outlining

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the earlier meanings of this practice, Haguro Akinomine fully emerges as a practice employing embryological imagery to bind together doctrinal theory and ritual performance in order to enforce practitioners’ realisation of nonduality as expressed in teachings of esoteric Buddhism. For example, the ascetics’ attire and accoutrements act as vessels for carrying the symbolism of sexual intercourse, conception, and gestation, necessitating the ascetics’ progress “within the womb of the mountain” (tainai shūgyō 胎内修行) and participating in their symbolic gestation from embryo to Buddhahood. Concluding Remarks: On Embryologies and Gender Some additional comments about the content of this volume are perhaps in order. Although some of the chapters touch upon gender issues, it is inaccurate to exclusively associate embryological discourse and reproductive imagery with notions of femininity. After all, the overwhelming majority of those who practised the rituals or meditations described in the pages that follow were men. With few exceptions, the contributions in this volume deal with ritual manuals, doctrinal commentaries, and practices that were compiled by men for men. The religious texts studied here are only partially based on the understanding of the “inner workings of the female body.” In many instances, these “inner workings” were purely imagined by the male ascetics involved in composing these texts or practising the rituals described in them. The symbolic male pregnancy, or the contemplation of the “five stages of the embryo” are essentially, as described by Catherine Despeux, the acts of “borrowing of the female power of pregnancy and gestation”; they may reveal a hint of “ascetic’s mysogyny,” as described by Alan Sponberg,91 or, perhaps, “ascetic’s envy.” Some old questions persist. One of them is whether or not the sexual acts were actually undertaken as a part of ascetic or initiatory rituals practices by Taoist adepts and esoteric Buddhists. In the case of Christine Mollier’s “seedpeople,” the answer is affirmative; in the case of medieval Japan, as described by Lucia Dolce, Nobumi Iyanaga, and Anna Andreeva, the evidence remains inconclusive. But rather than searching for the elusive signs of such doings in the historical sources, one soon understands that it is “the effectiveness of symbols,” so convincingly demonstrated by Brigitte Baptandier in her analysis 91

See his “Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism,” in Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender, José Cabezón, ed. (Albany: State of New York University Press, 1992), 18–24.

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of the theatrical re-enactment of the story of the Lady of Linshui, that perplexes and entices the male adepts, ritual practitioners, and ascetics. They “perform” the symbolic sexual act of father and mother, or of the esoteric Buddhist deity Kangiten, in the hope that the efficacy of engaging in the symbolic act of creation will shadow the effective act of reproduction – whether it concerns religious merit, transcendence, seed-people, or the Elixir. Another question pertains to how the ritual practices and doctrinal notions linked to embryological discourse and described collectively in this volume relate to or impact notions of gender. In this respect, medical texts may prove to be richer sources.92 And yet, as Catherine Despeux’s chapter shows, the gender constructs deployed in embryological and reproductive soteriologies affected and reflected the experience of gendered identities for both men and women in China. In late medieval and early modern Japan, such notions may well have impacted notions of feminine beauty and womanhood; the embryo, a subject of divinisation within medieval monastic ritual thought, increasingly came to be seen as separate and independent from the mother’s body.93 As a direct result of the complexity of some of these issues related to gender, we have consciously avoided reinforcing “positive” stereotypical depictions (for example, describing the Dao as feminine, or interpreting Buddhist traditions as gender-neutral, or egalitarian). More often than not, such stereotypes are distortions generated by the redemptive lens of Western scholarship – particularly the brand that seeks to find all antidotes to the ills of an oppressive, disenchanted, and masculinised modernity in the “maternal” and “ageless wisdom” of the Other. A handful of studies not dealing with the topic of procreation have accomplished the crucial task of shedding light on the role of women in East Asian religions without, to their credit, succumbing to essentialising, colonising, or orientalising definitions of womanhood.94 At the risk of disappointing the reader that may see in the embryological soteriologies of East Asia a more sympathetic and valorising view of women, it should be recalled that patriar92 93

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The aforementioned studies by Selby 2005, Harper 1998, and Furth 1999, among others, remain as definitive hallmarks in this respect. Hank Glassman, “At the Crossroads of Birth and Death: The Blood Pool Hell and Postmortem Fetal Extraction,” in Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), 192–195. See for instance, Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn, Women in Daoism (Cambridge MA: Three Pines Press, 2003); Wendy Adamek, “The Literary Lives of Nuns: Poems Inscribed on a Memorial Niche for the Tang Nun Benxing,” T’ang Studies 27 (2009): 40–65; and Lori Meeks, Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan (Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press, 2010).

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chal hegemony was, and is, a global product of many traditions, including Taoism and Buddhism. Despite the manifold ways in which in embryological and reproductive imageries are deployed and interpreted, there remain some commonalities. These provide the unifying thread that ties together the contributions of this volume, Transforming the Void, and gives it shape. Transformation (Ch. bian 變, Jp. hen; or Ch. hua 化, Jp. ke), especially in metaphysical contexts, is synonymous with generation or birth (Ch. sheng 生, Jp. shō, or sei).95 Yet, as “transformation,” birth does not occur ex nihilo. It is a passage from one state to another, a transition that is defined by change (Ch. yi 易, Jp. i), which is, in turn, what fuels and defines life. In this way, transformation, that is, the generation of life, is a process that simultaneously arises from and results in the void. Whether understood as the Dao, Buddha nature (Ch. foxing, Jp. busshō), Buddhahood (Ch. chengfo 成佛, Jp. jōbutsu), emptiness (Ch. kong 空, Jp. kū), or vacuity (Ch. xu 虛, Jp. kyo), this void is the motor of generation. In East Asia, it is not defined by an absolute absence or non-existence, as it was in earlier Indian traditions of thought, including Buddhism. Instead, this transformative and transformable void is pregnant with potential, with the promise of something new to arise from it – a birth or rebirth that, in each instantiation, amounts to nothing less than a return to the fundament and shared root of all things. Works Cited Primary Sources Chanjing 産經 [The Classic of Birth]. By De Zhenchang 徳貞常. Ca. Sui Dynasty. Daodi jing 道地經 [Sutra on the Grounds of the (Buddhist) Path]. Translated by An Shigao 安世高 (fl. 148–ca. 170). T. 607. Eiri nichiyō onna chōhōki 絵入日用女重宝記 [Extremely Treasured Records for Women’s Everyday Life, Illustrated]. Takai Ranzan 高井蘭山, Kōka 弘化 4 [1847]. Woodblockprinted book. Edo Jidai Josei Bunko 江戸時代女性文庫, vol. 58. Tokyo: Daikūsha, 1996. Foshuo baotai jing 佛說胞胎經 [Sutra Spoken by the Buddha On the Womb and Embryo]. Translated by Dharmarakṣa 竺法護 (231–308), 201 or 303. T. 317. Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing 佛說父母重難報經 [Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Profound Kindness of Parents Spoken by the Buddha], late 4th – early 95

See n. 24 in Pregadio, “Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three),” in this volume.

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5th centuries (?). Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, ed., Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 [Studies on Apocryphal Sutras], Kyoto: Kyōtō daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūjo, 1976. Foshuo ru taizang hui 佛說入胎藏會 [Sutra on Entering the Womb Spoken by the Buddha]. Translated by Yijing 義淨 (635–713). In Dabao ji jing 大寶積經 [Scripture Great Accumulation of Treasures; Sk. Mahāratnakūṭa sūtra; T. 310] j. 55; and, as Rumu taijing 入母胎經 [Scripture of the Embryo Entering the Mother], in Genben shuo yiqie youbu pinaiye zashi 根本説一切有部毘奈耶雜事 [Various Matters of the Vinaya of the Mūla Sarvāstivāda School; Sk. Mūlasarvāstivāda vinaya]. T. 1451.11–12. Fo wei Anan shuo chutai hui 佛為阿難說處胎會 [Sutra on Abiding in the Womb on Pregnancy Spoken by the Buddha to Ānanda]. Translated by Bodhiruci 菩提流志 (d. 727). In Dabao jijing 大寶積經 [Scripture Great Accumulation of Tresures; Sk. Mahāratnakūṭa sutra], T. 310.56–57. Guanzi jiaozhu 管子校注. Li Xiangfeng 黎翔鳳, ed. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004. Huainanzi jishi 淮南子集釋. He Ning 何寧, ed. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998. Huangdi neijing jijie 黃帝內經集解. Long Bojian 龍伯堅 and Long Shizhao 龍式昭 ed. Tianjin: Tianjin kexue jishu chubanshe, 2004. Huangdi neijing taisu: Ninnaji bon 黄帝内経太素：仁和寺本 [Huangdi neijing taisu: the Ninnaji Edition]. 2 vols. Tōyō igaku zenpon sōsho 東洋医学善本叢書. Tokyo: Tōyō igaku kenkyūkai, 1981. Sanyuan yanshou canzan shu 三元延壽參贊書 [Book of the Three Primes for Achieving Longevity Equal to Heaven and Earth]. Li Pengfei 李鵬飛, 1291. DZ 851. Sokushin jōbutsu gi 即身成仏儀 [On Attaining Buddhahood with this Very Body]. By Kūkai 空海 (774–835). T. 2428. Xiuxing daodi jing 修行道地經 [Sutra on Practicing the Grounds of the [Buddhist] Path]. Translated by Dharmarakṣa 竺法護 (231–308), 284. T. 606. Wenzi shuyi 文子疏義. Wang Liqi 王利器, ed., Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000. Secondary Sources Adamek, Wendy. 2009. “The Literary Lives of Nuns: Poems Inscribed on a Memorial Niche for the Tang Nun Benxing.” T’ang Studies 27: 40–65. Andreeva, Anna. 2015. “Chūsei Nihon ni okeru osan to josei no kenkō – Sansei Ruijūshō no bukkyōteki, igakuteki chishiki o chūshin to shite 中世日本における御産と女性 に健康 —『産生類従抄』の仏教的・医学的知識を中心として [Childbirth and Women’s Health in Medieval Japan – The Buddhist and Medical Knowledge in the Sansei Ruijūshō].” In Hikaku shisō kara mita Nihon bukkyō 比較思想から見た日本仏 教 [Japanese Buddhism Seen from a Viewpoint of Comparative Intellectual History], Sueki Fumihiko 末木文彦, ed. Tokyo: Sankibō busshorinkan, 13–36. Aung, Shwe Hsang, and Rhys Davids, Caroline A.F. 1979 (1915). Points of Controversy (Kathāvatthu). London: Pali Text Society.

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Bareau, Andrea. 1927. “Chuu.” Hōbōgirin fasc. 5, 560. Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient. Bizot, François. 1976. Le figuier à cinq branches. Recherche sur le bouddhisme khmer. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. Bizot, François and LaGirarde, François. 1996. La pureté par les mots. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. Bhikkhu Kandy Ñaṇamoli, transl. 1975. The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga. By Buddhaghosa (fl. 5th cent.). Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society. Boisvert, Mathieu. 2000. “Conception and Intrauterine Life in the Pāli Canon.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 29: 301–311. Buescher, Harmut. 2013. “Distinguishing the Two Vasubandhus, the Bhāṣyakāra and the Kośakāra, as Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda Authors.” In The Foundataion for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet, Ulrich Timme Kragh, ed., 368–397. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Chen Ming 陳明. 2004. “ ‘Shiyue chengtai’ yu ‘qiri yibian’: Yindu taixiang xueshuo de fenlei ji qi dui woguo de yingxiang「十月成胎」與「七日一變」－ 印度胎相學說 的分類及其對我國的影響 [The ‘Ten-Month Development of the Embryo’ and the ‘Weekly Changes’: [Two] Types of Indian Embryological Theories and their Influence on China].” Guoxue yanjiu 國學研究 13: 33–50. Choo, Jessey. 2012. “That ‘Fatty Lump’: Discourses on the Fetus, Fetal Development, and Filial Piety in China before the Eleventh Century CE.” Nan Nü 14: 177–221. Das, Peter Rahul. 2003. The Origin of the Life of a Human Being: Conception and the Female According to Ancient Indian Medical and Sexological Literature. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Demiéville, Paul. 1951. “La Yogacārabhūmi de Saṇgharakṣa.” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 44.2: 339–436. Despeux, Catherine and Livia Kohn. 2003. Women in Daoism. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press. Dolce, Lucia. 2010. “Nigenteki genri no gireika – Fudō, Aizen to chikara no hizō 二元的 原理の儀礼化 – 不動、愛染と力の秘像 [Ritualizing Duality: Fudō, Aizen, and the Secret Iconography of Empowerment].” In Girei no chikara – chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀礼の力—中世宗教の実践世界 [The Power of Ritual: The World of Religious Practice in Mediaeval Japan], Lucia Dolce ドルチェ・ルチア and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds., 159–208. Kyoto: Hōzōkan. ———. 2006–2007. “Duality and the Kami: The Ritual Iconography and Visual Constructions of Medieval Shinto,” in “Re-Thinking Medieval Shintō,” Michael Como, Bernard Faure, and Iyanaga Nobumi, eds., special issue of Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 16: 119–150. Doniger O’Flaherty, Wendy, ed. 1980. Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Faure, Bernard. 2000. “Japanese Tantra, the Tachikawa-ryū, and Ryōbu Shintō.” In Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed., 543–556. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 1998. The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Furth, Charlotte. 1999. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665. Berkeley: University of California Press. Garrett, Frances. 2009. “Tibetan Buddhist narratives of the forces of creation.” In Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture, Jane Marie Law and Vanessa Sasson, eds., 107–120. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2008. Religion, Medicine and the Human Embryo in Tibet. Abingdon, Oxford and New York: Routledge. ———. 2005. “Ordering Human Growth in Tibetan Medical and Religious Embryologies.” In Textual Healing: Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, Elizabeth Lane Furdel, ed., 31–52. Leiden: Brill. Giebel, Rolf W., transl. 2004. “The Meaning of Becoming a Buddha in This Very Body.” By Kūkai 空海 (774–835). BDK English Tripitaka, vol. 98, Shingon Texts, 63–82. Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research. Glassman, Hank. 2009. “At the Crossroads of Birth and Death: The Blood Pool Hell and Postmortem Fetal Extraction.” In Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds., 175–206. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Guenther, Herbert V. transl. 1971. Jewel Ornament of Liberation. Berkeley: Shambhala Publications. Hara Minoru 原実. 1996. “Buttan Densetsu no Haikei 仏誕伝説の背景 [The Back­ground of the Buddha’s Birth Legend].” Komazawa daigaku bukkyō gakubu ronshū 駒沢大学 仏教学部論集 26, 350–334 (opposite pagination). ———. 1980. “A Note on the Buddha’s Birth Story.” In Indianisme et Bouddhisme: mélanges offerts a Mgr. Étienne Lamotte, 143–157. Louvain: Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 23. Harper, Donald. 2010. “Précis de connaissance médicale. Le Shanghan lun 傷寒論 (Traité des atteintes par le froid) et le Wuzang lun 五藏論 (Traité des cinq viscères).” In Médecine, religion et société dans la Chine médiévale. Étude de manuscrits chinois de Dunhuang et de Turfan, 3 vols., vol.1, Catherine Despeux, ed., 65–106. Paris: Collège de France/Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises. ———. 1998. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts, London and New York: Kegan Paul International. Hureau, Silvie. 2009. “Translations, Apochrypha, and the Emergence of the Buddhist Canon.” In Early Chinese Religions, Part Two: Period of Division (220–589 AD), John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi, eds, vol. 2, 741–774. Leiden: Brill.

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Itō Satoshi 伊藤聡. 2003. “Sanbōin-ryū no gisho: toku ni Sekishitsu wo megutte 三宝院 流の偽書−特に『石室』を巡って [The ‘Forgeries’ of the Sanbōin Lineage: On Stone Chamber].” In Gisho no seisei 偽書の生成 [The Creation of “Forgeries”: Medieval Thinking and Its Expressions], Nishiki Hitoshi 錦仁, Ogawa Toyoo 小川豊生, and Itō Satoshi, eds., 197–231. Tokyo: Rinwasha. Iyanaga Nobumi 彌永信美. 2010. “Mikkyō girei to ‘nenzuru chikara’: Hōkyōshō no hihanteki kentō oyobi Juhōyōjinshū no ‘dokuro honzon girei’ wo chūshin ni shite 密教儀 禮と「念ずる力」 – 『寶鏡鈔』の批判的検討、および『受法用心集』の「髑髏 本尊儀禮」を中心にして [Esoteric Rituals and the Power of Wishing: A Critical Assessment of the Hōkyōshō and the Skull Liturgy of the Juhōyōjinshū].” In Girei no chikara: chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀禮の力 – 中世宗教の実践世界 [The Power of Ritual: The World of Religious Practice in Medieval Japan], Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds., 127–58. Kyoto: Hōzōkan. ———. 2006. “Secrecy, sex and apocrypha: Remarks on some paradoxical phenomena.” In The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion, Bernhard Scheid and Mark Teeuwen, eds., 204–228. London: Routledge. Katagiri Yōichi 片桐洋一, ed. 1969. Ise Monogatari no kenkyū: Shiryōhen 伊勢物語の研 究：資料編 [A Study of the Tales of Ise: The Sources]. Tokyo: Meiji shoin. Klein, Susan Blakely. 2002. Allegories of Desire: Esoteric Commentaries in Medieval Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1998. “Ise Monogatari Zuinō: An Annotated Translation.” Monumenta Nipponica 53/1: 13–43. Kohn, Livia. 2004. “Immortal Parents and Universal Kin: Family Values in Medieval Daoism.” In Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History, Alan K.L. Chan and Sor-hoon Tan, eds., 91–109. London: Routledge Curzon. Kragh, Ulrich Timme, ed. 2013. The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kritzer, Robert, transl. 2014. Garbhāvakrāntisūtra (The Sūtra on Entry into the Womb). With English translation and annotation. Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series XXXI. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies. ———. 2013. “Garbhāvakrāntau (‘In the Garbhāvakrānti’): Quotations from the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra in the Abhidharma Literature and the Yogacārābhūmi.” In The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet, Ulrich Timme Kragh, ed., 738–771. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2009. “Life in the Womb: Conception and Gestation in Buddhist Scripture and Classical Indian Medical Literature.” In Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture, Jane Marie Law and Vanessa R. Sasson, eds., 73–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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———. 2004. “Childbirth and the Mother’s Body in the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya and Related Texts.” In Indo tetsugaku bukkyō shisō ronshū: Mikogami Eshō kyōju shōju kinen ronshū インド哲学仏教思想論集：神子上恵生教授頌寿記念論集 [Indian Philosophy and Buddhist Thought: A Volume in Honour of Professor Mikogami Eshō], edited by Mikogami Eshō kyōju shōju kinen ronshū kankōkai 神子上恵生教 授頌寿記念論集刊行會, eds., 1085–1109. Kyoto: Nagata bunshodō. ———. 2000. “The four ways of entering the womb (garbhāvakrānti).” Bukkyō Bunka 仏教文化 10: 1–41. ———. 1998. “Semen, Blood, and the Intermediate Existence.” Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 46.2: 1031–1025 (inverted pagination). Kushida Ryōko 櫛田良洪. 2004. Shingon mikkyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū 真言密教成立 過程の研究 [A Study of the Formation of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism]. New edition. Tokyo: Sankibō busshorinkan. ———. 1979. Zoku Shingon mikkyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū 続真言密教成立過程の研究 [A Continued Study of the Formation of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism]. Tokyo: Sankibō busshorinkan. ———. 1975. Kakuban no kenkyū 覚鑁の研究 [A Study of Kakuban]. Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan. Lakshmi Kapani. 1989. “Upaniṣad of the Embryo” and “Note on the Garbha upaniṣad.” In Fragments for a History of the Human Body, Part Three, Michel Feher, ed., 176–197. New York: Zone Books. Langenberg, Amy Paris. 2008. “The Buddhist rhetoric of childbirth in early Mahāyāna Sūtra.” PhD dissertation, Columbia University. Leung, Angela K., ed. 2005. “Medicine for Women in Imperial China.” Special issue, Nan Nü 7.2. Li Jianmin 李建民. 1994. “Mawangdui Hanmu boshu ‘Yu zang mai bao tu’ jian zheng 馬王堆漢墓帛書「禹藏埋胞圖」箋證 [Textual Analysis of the ‘Yu Burial of the Placenta Chart’ Silk Manuscript of the Han-period Mawangdui tomb].” Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊 65.4: 725–832. Li Qinpu 李勤璞. 1998. “‘Qipo wuzang lun’ yanjiu–yinzhong yixue guanxi de yi ge kaocha「耆婆五藏論」研究－印中醫學關係的一個考察 [A Study of Jīvaka’s Treatise on the Five Viscera: an Investigation into the Connections Between Indian and Chinese Medicines].” Wenshi 文史 45: 85–94 ———. 1997. “‘Qipo wuzang lun’ renshen xueshuo de yuanliu「耆婆五藏論」妊娠學 説的源流 [Origins and Development of the Gestational Theory from Jīvaka’s Treatise on the Five Viscera].” Zhonghua yishi zazhi 中華醫史雜誌 27.3: 170–175. Major, John, et al., eds., and transl. 2010. The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China, New York: Columbia University Press.

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Maki Sachiko 槙佐知子. 1993. Ishinpō: Maki Sachiko zen’yaku seikai 醫心方：槙佐知子 全訳精解 [The Essentials of Medicine: Full Annotated Translation by Maki Sachiko], vol. 22. Tokyo: Chikuma shobō. Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮. 1976. Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 [Studies on Apocryphal Sutras]. Kyoto: Kyōtō Daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūjo. Manabe Shunshō 真鍋俊照. 1999. Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū 邪教立川流 [The Heretical Tachikawa Lineage]. Tokyo: Chikuma shobō. Mawangdui Han mu boshu 馬王堆漢墓帛書 [Silk Manuscripts of the Han-period Mawangdui tomb]. 1985. Mawangdui Han mu boshu zhengli xiaozu 馬王堆漢墓帛 書整理小組, vol. 4. Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe. McDaniel, Justin. 2009. “Philosophical Embryology: Buddhist Texts and the Ritual Construction of a Fetus.” In Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture, Jane Marie Law and Vanessa Sasson, eds., 91–106. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Meeks, Lori R. 2010. Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan. Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press. Meulenbeld, G. Jan. 1999–2002. A History of Indian Medical Literature, 5 vols. Groningen: Egbert Forsten. Mizuhara Gyōei 水原堯榮. 1981. Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū no kenkyū 邪教立川流の研究 [A Study of the Heretical Teachings of the Tachikawa Lineage]. Kyoto: Dōhōsha. Moriyama Shōshin 守山聖真. 1990 [1965]. Tachikawa jakyō to sono shakaiteki haikei no kenkyū 立川邪教とその社会的研究 [The Tachikawa Heretical Teachings and Their Social Context]. Tokyo: Rokuyaen. Rambelli, Fabio. 2000. “Tantric Buddhism and Chinese Thought in East Asia.” In Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed., 361–380. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rhys Davids, Thomas William. 1982 [1890, 1894]. Milinda’s Questions, vols. 1 and 2. London: Sacred Books of the East. Salguero, Pierce. 2014. Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sanford, James. 1997. “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas: Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24.1: 1–38. ———. 1991. “The abominable Tachikawa Skull Ritual.” Monumenta Nipponica 46.1 (Spring): 1–15. Sangpo, Gelong Lodrö. 2012. Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya of Vasubhandhu: The Treasury of the Abhidharma and its Commentary, Translated into French by Louis de La Vallée Poussin. 4 volumes. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Sasson, Vanessa. 2009. “A Womb with the View: The Buddha’s Final Fetal Experience”. In Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture, Jane Marie Law and Vanessa Sasson, eds., 55–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Schmithausen, Lambert. 1987. Ālāyavijñāna: On the Origin and Early Development of the Central Concept of Yogācāra Philosophy. Tokyo: the International Institute for Buddhist Studies. Selby, Martha Ann. 2005. “Narratives of Conception, Gestation and Labour in Sanskrit Āyurveda.” Asian Medicine 1.2: 254–75. Sharma, P.V., et al., transl. 2007 [1981–1994]. Caraka-Saṃhitā: Agniveśa’s Treatise Refined and Annotated by Caraka and Redacted by Dṛḍhabala, Vol. I: Sūtrasthāna to Indri­ yasthāna. Varanasi: Chaukhambha Orientalia. Shinmura Taku 新村拓 . 2006. Nihon iryōshi日本医療史 [The History of Japanese Medicine]. Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan. ———. 1996. Shussan to seishokkan no rekishi 出産と生殖観の歴史 [The History of Childbirth and Reproduction]. Tokyo: Hōsei daigaku shuppankyoku. Smith, Frederick M. 2007. “Narrativity and Empiricism in Classical Indian Accounts of Birth and Death: The Mahābhārata and the Saṃhitās of Caraca and Suśruta.” Asian Medicine 3: 85–102. Sponberg, Alan. 1992. “Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism.” In Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender, José Cabezón, ed., 18–24. Albany: State of New York University Press. Steblein, William. 1980. “The Medical Soteriology of Karma in the Buddhist Tantric Tradition.” In Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, Wendy Doniger, ed., 193–216. Berkeley: University of California Press. Triplett, Katja. 2014. “For Mothers and Sisters: Care of the Reproductive Female Body in the Medico-Ritual World of Early and Medieval Japan.” In “Childbirth and Women’s Healthcare Across Cultures,” Anna Andreeva, Erica Couto-Ferreira, and Susanne Töpfer, eds., special issue of Dynamis 34/2: 337–56. ———. 2012. “Magical Medicine? – Japanese Buddhist Medical Knowledge and Ritual Instruction for Healing the Physical Body.” In “Religion and Healing in Japan,” Christoph Kleine and Katja Triplett, eds., special issue of Japanese Religions 37 (1 and 2): 62–90. Unschuld, Paul U. 2003. Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Venerable Yifa and Peter Romaskiewicz, transl. 2008. Yulan Bowl Sutra and Collection of Filial Piety Sutras. Gaoxiong: Buddha’s Light Publishing. Waldron, William S. 2013. “Ālayavijñāna as Keystone Dharma: the Ālaya Treatise of the Yogacārābhūmi.” In The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet, Ulrich Timme Kragh, ed., 922–37. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wan Yi 萬毅. 1998. “Dunhuang daojiao wenxian Benji jing luwen ji jieshuo 敦煌道教文 獻「本際經」錄文及解說 [A Transcription of the Scripture of the Original Bound, a

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Andreeva And Steavu Taoist Text from Dunhuang, with an Explanatory Note].” Daojia wenhua yanjiu道家

文化研究 13: 367–484.

Weiss, Mitchell G. 1980. “Caraka Saṃhitā on the Doctrine of Karma.” In Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, Wendy Doniger, ed., 90–115. Berkeley: University of California. Wilms, Sabine. 2005. “The Transmission of Medical Knowledge on ‘Nurturing the Fetus’ in Early China.” Asian Medicine 1.2: 276–314. Wujastyk, Dominik. 2003. The Roots of Ayurveda. London: Penguin Books. Yamabe Nobuyoshi 山辺能宜. 2013. “Parallel Passages between Manobhūmi and the Yogācārabhūmi of Saṃgharakṣa.” In The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet, Ulrich Timme Kragh, ed., 596–737. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. 2013. “The Weishi School and the Buddha-Nature Debate in the Early Tang Dynasty.” In The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet, Ulrich Timme Kragh, ed., 1234–53. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Zysk, Kenneth. 1991. Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Prenatal Infancy Regained

Chapter 1

Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Life Cycles Grégoire Espesset

Great Peace (Taiping 太平) beliefs designate a set of ideas common to an unknown number of thinkers through a vaguely defined period of time – the first centuries of our era – which ultimately crystallised into a text, the Taiping jing 太平經 (Great Peace Scripture; DZ 1101), whose received version appears in the fifteenth-century Zhengtong Daozang 正統道藏 (Taoist Canon of the Zhengtong [Era]).1 My analysis of that version suggests that a common ideology pervading all its textual strata is what gives the Taiping jing its cohesion.2 On this assumption, the present study deals with the Taiping jing and related sources as a corpus of a satisfactory homogeneity, despite a problematic textual history and the material heterogeneity resulting from it.3 Somewhere between a theory of universal equilibrium and the praxis of its restoration, Great Peace ideology is not primarily focused on human physiology, procreation, and the physiological processes, but it nevertheless endeavours to deal with most of these themes, among many other topics, whenever the didactical need arises – personal harmony being as basic a requisite as cosmic order in the all-encompassing, multilayered Great Peace agenda. Therefore, although textual support is drawn from various thematically disconnected chapters and units of the scripture, the present chapter will

1 The Taoist Canon actually contains two versions, undated and anonymous: (a) the Tai­ping jing (DZ 1101, 35–119), which is incomplete and preceded by (b) an abridged rendition, the Great Peace Scripture Digest (Taiping jing chao 太平經鈔; DZ 1101, 1–10). Both were mistakenly numbered as a single text (DZ 1101) in Kristofer Schipper, ed., Concordance du Tao-tsang: Titres des ouvrages (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1975). The abbreviation DZ throughout the present study refers to this catalogue. 2 See Grégoire Espesset, “Cosmologie et trifonctionnalité dans l’idéologie du Livre de la Grande paix (Taiping jing)” (PhD dissertation, Université Paris Diderot–Paris 7, Paris, 2002c). 3 For a synthesis of the textual history of the Great Peace Scripture up to the Tang 唐 dynasty (618–907) and some of its problems, see Grégoire Espesset, “Le Livre de la Grande paix et son corpus: Histoire et structure littéraires, idéologie,” Annuaire de l’École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Section des sciences religieuses 117 (2008–2009).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306523_003

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attempt to outline a coherent Great Peace approach to gestation and some uses of its imagery. The first section below expounds quite peculiar views of human physiology and some of the practical advice given, using technical terminology, for successful impregnation. The next section relates gestation to the broader framework of ontology and cosmology. The third section examines the conceptions of prenatal infancy and emphasises the vulnerability of the unborn child to threats which modern rationality would hardly conceive of. The fourth section reviews evocations of the newborn in terms of both perfection and vulnerability, including evident references to the writings ascribed to Laozi 老子. The fifth section deconstructs the logic at work in a few instances of time cycles – inside and outside the Great Peace corpus (see below) – so as to shed light on the key point in their dynamics. Closing the teleological and heuristic sequence of the study, the last section shows how Great Peace ideologists imagined turning this dynamics to their own advantage in order to initiate a process of ontological reversion to the pristine condition of prenatal infancy – the ontological equivalent of chaos – and thus liberate themselves from the lethality of time. As a counterpoint to Great Peace materials, this study will also venture briefly into a scriptural corpus of comparable antiquity, namely the Weft (wei 緯) writings, also known, albeit improperly, as the “Confucian Apocrypha” in Western academia.4 Although the Weft supposedly supplemented the official, Confucian “classics” (jing 經), they reflect ideas which are less orthodox than those expressed in the jing and are, more often than not, not quite on the same wavelength. Therefore, the second assumption of this study is that both the Great Peace corpus and Weft remnants should be seen, and used, as sources of an alternative knowledge to “Confucian” orthodoxy. Even though the ideas expressed in both corpora are to be located on the margins of official ideology, they nevertheless share with it a cultural worldview. Their peculiarity would then rather lie in the way these corpora understand or interpret, and sometimes transform, elements from this common knowledge to articulate their own views. Thus Great Peace proponents adjusted the ‘classic’ heritage to which they were indebted in order to sus­tain their soteriological agenda. Through faith and strict observance – the 4 The most accessible introduction to the Weft sphere remains Jack L. Dull, “A Historical Introduction to the Apocryphal (Ch’an-wei) Texts of the Han Dynasty,” (PhD dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle, 1966). Weft textual references will be to the modern Japanese critical edition: Yasui Kōzan 安居香山 and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋八, eds., Chōshū Isho shūsei 重修緯書集成 (Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1971–1992).

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fundamental components of their new religious ideology – they transcended the knowledge they had inherited from the technicians of pre-imperial and early imperial China. 1

Impregnation

Somewhat bluntly titled “Yang is Venerable, Yin is Menial” (“Yang zun yin bei 陽尊隂卑”), unit 138 (chapter 93) of the Taiping jing includes an original view of reproductive organs and the process of impregnation.5 Basically, the binary assumption is that Yang (that is, all things male) “is full and has substance” while Yin (all things female) “is empty and has no substance.”6 The text first addresses male reproductive organs, referred to as “that whereby the mandate [of life] is conferred.”7 The upper part of the male organs (the penis), which corresponds to Great Yang (taiyang 太陽) and, as such, echoes the generative function (sheng 生) of Heaven, “is full and has a surplus.”8 This “surplus” constantly spreads downward; it is amassed in the left and right lower parts (the testicles), which correspond to Great Yin (taiyin 太陰) and whose “linear patterns” (wenli 文理) – meaning the inner structure of the testicles, or possibly the surface of the scrotum – echo the network of footpaths delineating fields on Earth. The descending “surplus” gives each testicle its own “substance” (shi 實), a word here to be understood also as “a nucleus” (he 核). The description is specific enough to add that the left “nucleus” corresponds to “humans” (ren 人) and the right one, to the “myriad beings” (wanwu 萬物). The conclusion is that the male reproductive organ is both “venerable and noble.”9 By contrast, the female organ is referred to as “the place where the mandate [of life] is received,” 5 The extant Taiping jing is organised into numbered chapters (juan 卷) without titles, divided into numbered units bearing titles (see also n. 20 below). Both numerical sequences have lacunae. In most cases, unit titles reflect closely the textual contents of units – but, interestingly, it is not always so, as we shall see; some titles possibly reflect later editorial alterations. The extant Taiping jing being certainly the conflation of the literary production of different persons from different eras, hence a heterogeneous source, it is preferable to refer to both the chapter and unit numberings, and to indicate unit titles precisely, rather than referring to the text en bloc (for instance, to the sole page numbering of a modern edition) as if it were a textually homogeneous source. 6 盈滿而有實 and 虛空而無實, respectively; Taiping jing DZ 1101, 93.4a–5a (unit 138). Unless otherwise noted, all translations to English are my own and remain tentative. 7 所以 (受) [授] 命者; ibid. 8 盈滿而有餘; ibid. 9 尊而貴; ibid.

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and is briefly described as “an opening both empty and void, without fullness, surplus nor substance,” hence “lowered and despised.”10 These prolegomena are followed by an explanation of the impregnation process. A disciple wonders how a woman may become pregnant since, as the master just stated, her reproductive organ is devoid of any “substance” (shi). To this, the master answers: Yin is fundamentally empty. Only once Yang has spread and transformed substance in the middle of Yin – which, being menial and despicable, fears Yang – does Yin obediently nourish it, not daring to reject [it] … Now the vulgar say that Yang generates and Yin develops, [yet] Yin only follows, nourishing and developing the Yang substance.11 隂本虛空, 但陽往施化實於隂中, 而隂卑賤畏陽, 順而養之, 不敢去也 … 今俗者, 言陽生隂成, 但隂隨而養成陽實也。

The master then resumes his lecture by applying the same binary logic to all life forms (the “myriad beings”) – first plants, then animals.12 Practical guidelines for impregnation, which could be taken straight out of a manual on the “arts of the bedchamber” (fangzhong shu 房中術), are expounded in a passage missing from the received scripture but cited extensively in a seventh-century source.13 The citation is in the form of a dialogue between a “real person” (zhenren 真人), here referring to a disciple, and his master. Asked why so few children are born, the master offers the following answer: It is only that impregnation is [attempted] thoughtlessly. In the event that one impregnates a person willing to conceive, one opens her jade door and spreads semen within – it is like sowing the earth in springtime; ten times out of ten, the response is harmonious and [plants] come up. Untimely impregnation is like sowing seeds during the tenth month [in 10 11 12 13

所受命處; 戶空而虛, 無盈餘又無實; and 見卑且賤, respectively; Taiping jing DZ 1101, 93.4a–5a (unit 138). Ibid., 93.5b–6a. Ibid., 93.6a–b. Namely, the 676 commentary to the official dynastic history of the Eastern Han 東漢 (25–220) composed by Li Xian 李賢 (651–684) and his scholarly entourage. Following his elder brother’s death, Li Xian became heir apparent (675–680) but was subsequently demoted to commoner status and soon forced to commit suicide. He was given the posthumous title Prince Zhanghuai 章懷太子 in 711.

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winter]; ten times out of ten, they perish to the last and certainly nothing sprouts forth.14 但施不得其意耳. 如令施其人欲生也, 開其玉戶, 施種於中, 比若春種於 地也, 十十相應和而生. 其施不以其時, 比若十月種物於地也, 十十盡死, 固無生者。

At the disciple’s request, the master adds: Suppose that a woman without children, even when [semen] is spread within her a hundred times a day, still conceives nothing. Not to reach the place where conception occurs is such as this. For this reason did the sages and the wise men of antiquity not recklessly sow a sterile earth. This is called wasting semen and exhausting pneuma15 without producing anything.16 今無子之女, 雖日百施其中, 猶無所生也. 不得其所生之處, 比若此矣. 是 故古者, 聖賢不妄施於不生之地也. 名爲亡種竭氣而無所生成。

According to the master, a successful impregnation would depend on two factors: first, the fertility of the female partner (the eventuality of male sterility is not alluded to); second, the timeliness of sexual intercourse. In both cases, remarkably, we note that the master almost instantly resorts to the imagery of agricultural production. 2

The Symbolism of Gestation

A triadic cosmology based on Yin, Yang, and Central Harmony (zhonghe 中和) pervades the Taiping jing,17 whose penultimate unit (unit 212) explains: 14 15

16 17

Hou Han shu 後漢書 (Book of the Later Han), by Fan Ye 范曄 (398–445), 30B.1081. In Chinese metaphysics, qi 氣, also rendered as “vapour,” “breath,” or “energy,” is the basic cosmic constituent of all things, as well as a particularised form of the macrocosmic materia prima (see n. 65 below). See the discussion by Ulrich Libbrecht, “Prāna – pneuma – ch’i?” in Thought and Law in Qin and Han China: Studies Dedicated to Anthony Hulsewé on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, Wilt L. Idema and Erik Zürcher, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 1990). Hou Han shu, 30B.1081. According to Dany-Robert Dufour, Les Mystères de la trinité (Paris: Gallimard, 1990), 143, any threefold grouping comes under the category of either “trichotomy” (a classification),

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Yin and Yang unite and conceive in the middle. Therefore, gestation generally takes place below the head and above the feet, in the central, abdominal [part of the mother’s body].18 陰陽合生於中央, 故凡懷妊者, 在頭下足上, 中腹而居。

In view of this statement, one would expect Central Harmony – a concept denoting at once the logical middle, the cosmic sphere between Heaven and Earth, and the human sphere – to symbolically preside over gestation, yet unit 134 informs us otherwise: this tasks lies with Yin. The text first explains that deaths from burns (Fire; Yang) are caused by Heaven (Yang), before turning to deaths by drowning (Water; Yin), which, we are told, are caused by Earth (Yin): Earth is the lowness of Yin. Water is the intensity of Yin and belongs to Earth. Yin presides over gestation. Generally, when beings are harmed while pregnant, there will be bleeding. Blood is in the category of Water. [Any living being] harmed while pregnant will be angry and displeased; furthermore, by bleeding, it will perpetrate pollution and harm [other] people. Watercourses, being the blood vessels of Earth, are the Yin of Earth. When angry, Yin, being menial, will attack and kill people by this personification.19 地者, 隂之卑. 水者, 隂之劇者也, 屬地. 隂者, 主懷姙. 凡物懷姙而傷者, 必 爲血. 血者, 水之類也. 懷姙而傷者, 必怒不悅, 更以其血行汙傷人. 水者, 乃地之血脉也, 地之隂也. 隂者, 卑, 怒必以其身行戰闘殺人。

Although the general Yin/Yang logic underlying the discourse is familiar from many other sources, this passage is novel in many regards. For the present purpose, it informs us that it is Yin, rather than Central Harmony (the middle) as one may have expected, that symbolically presides over gestation. It also hints at the polluting and damaging properties of blood, without elaborating on the

18 19

“triad” (a logic relation), “ternarity” (a diachronic succession), or “trinity” (a synchronic ensemble). Triplets always imply a logic relation between their components in Great Peace ideology, therefore I mostly use “triad” (and its adjectival form “triadic”) in my work – plus “ternarity” in a few specific instances, such as “upper, middle and lower ages” (shanggu zhonggu xiagu 上古中古下古). However, in Great Peace ideology, the triad permanently assumes multiple forms, somewhat as in Saint Augustine’s (354–430) theological concept of Trinity. Taiping jing DZ 1101, 119.2b (unit 212). Ibid., 92.7a (unit 134).

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topic. Furthermore, the passage documents how natural accidents (here death by drowning) were interpreted as the effect of some retaliation on the part of cosmic principles in a particularised form (here Yin particularised as watercourses). In addition, the passage is fully consistent with unit 61 of the Taiping jing, where Earth is compared to a mother’s body. Entitled “Soil Excavation and Issuing the [Master’s] Writings” (“Qitu chushu 起土出書”), the received version of unit 61 may well have inherited textual fragments from other units, today lost, of the Taiping jing.20 Since Earth and mother both belong to the Yin position in their respective triads, namely Heaven-Earth-Human (tian di ren 天 地人) and father-mother-child (fu mu zi 父母子), they naturally serve comparative purposes – Earth is the mother of mankind. As such, the cosmic principle of Earth should be respected in the same way as a pregnant woman,21 and her corporeal form, the earth, should be handled with the proper care and deference. Soil, rocks, ground water, and water are Earth’s flesh, bones, blood vessels, and blood, respectively. Thus, special measures are enforced for excavation projects related to building houses or sinking wells. As a general rule, the text proscribes digging deeper than three feet, and even less deep next to rivers or seashores, where the skin of Earth is assumed to be thinner. Ideally, according to the unit, people should solely dwell in natural caves – although houses built on shallow foundations are tolerated because they do not penetrate Earth’s surface too profoundly – and drink water from natural springs and watercourses.22 20

21 22

According to a table of contents preserved in a Dunhuang 敦煌 manuscript, the sixthcentury Great Peace Scripture was, in its fullest form, divided into 170 chapters (juan), which were organised into ten parts (bu 部) numbered according to the celestial stems; each part contained seventeen chapters and each chapter, a varying number of unit, for a grand total of 366 units. Chapter 154 from Part 10 (gui bu 癸部, a part entirely missing in the canonical version) comprised the following units: no. 319, “Jin fantu 禁犯土” (“Proscription on Offending the Soil”); no. 320, “Yongfang 壅防” (“Blockages”); no. 321, “Qu tu sanchi 取土三尺” (“Taking Three Feet of Soil”); no. 322, “Zhi tu bing ren 治土病人” (“Regulating Soil Causes Illness”); and no. 323, “Tu bu ke fu fan 土不可復犯” (“The Soil May Not Be Offended Anymore”); see [Taiping bu juan di er] 太平部卷第二 (Great Peace Part, chapter 2), MS Stein 4226, cols. 265–66. All of these themes strongly echo the contents of unit 61. However, it is not uncommon for different units in the Taiping jing to take up similar themes, so the possibility that textual transfers occurred from these lost units to the canonical unit 61 must remain hypothetical. 有胞中之子; Taiping jing DZ 1101, 45.1a–13a (unit 61). Ibid. The entire unit is translated in Barbara Hendrischke, The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping jing and the Beginnings of Daoism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 256–73.

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This interpretation of Earth as a mother, whom people must respect as such, brings us back to the Golden Age of pristine humanity – a recurring theme throughout the Taiping jing – when the material development of human civilisation was still limited. 3

Prenatal Infancy

Prenatal infancy may have been considered a realm of boundless potentiality in early imperial China as much as in the typical parental expectations of our time. In unit 182 of the Taiping jing, we read that as early as the uterine stage, the patronym and given name (xingming 姓名) of some people already appear on a “record of the non-dying” (busi zhi lu 不死之錄) kept by deities in Heaven. First, this early promise of immortality is to be fulfilled on condition of unfailing virtuous conduct throughout one’s lifetime – and, quite adequately, the unit focuses on two ontological categories embodying high morality, the benevolent (shan 善) and the humane (ren 仁). Only then, providing that a divine guarantor (baozhe 保者) recommends them, deserving individuals eventually enjoy the bliss of ascension to Heaven to serve in the divine bureaucracy.23 However, such idealistic and metaphorical representations of the child in the Taiping jing (some of which can also be found in other early Taoist works) are somewhat counterbalanced by other images commonly linked to prenatal infancy – although the use of these images seems to be, at least in some instances, mainly rhetorical. In unit 139, in order to warn disciples against the dangers of ignorance, the master draws an analogy with the mental condition of the unborn child and its total dependence on its mother: It is like an unknowing infant [who], still in the womb, goes around following its mother’s person. How could it know that the Heavenly Way is vast, far-reaching, and without confines?24 比若嬰兒蒙蒙, 未出胞中, 隨其母身而行, 安知天道廣遠而無方?

The child’s ignorance, of course, does not contain the seeds of peril, as adult ignorance does – the impossibility to obtain the Way and an increased likelihood to fall into perversity (xie 邪). Prenatal ignorance is part and parcel of a 23 24

Ibid., 111.9b (unit 182). Ibid., 93.17b (unit 139).

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pristine original human condition, whereas adult ignorance betrays a moral defect. Prenatal ignorance is but a temporary condition, and we shall see how it should be dealt with after birth. Another notion commonly linked to prenatal life is its frailty. Unit 212, which stresses that the domination of the generative power of Yang cannot accept any interference from the “lethal pneumata” (shaqi 殺氣) of Yin, calls up the notion of frailty, together with the child’s value as the guarantor of an unbroken family lineage: It is like a child in the womb. There can be not [even] minor damage, [otherwise the child will] inevitably be injured and die; once dead it would not revive, and, inevitably, a person will be lost. If such continuous injuring [of unborn children] does not cease, then [an entire lineage] becomes extinct and is deprived of later generations. A family without lineage is [thus] eradicated.25 比若胞中之子, 不可有小害, 輒傷死. 死不復生, 輒棄一人. 爲是連傷而不 止, 便絕滅無後世矣. 一家無統絕去矣。

Since the house of Han had to face succession crises due to emperors dying without heir, this image was probably intended for imperial consideration as well – if not primarily. This concern for the frailty of the unborn child is apparent in a passage from another unit (unit 41), where the master denounces female infanticide:26 Suppose that, in the realm, a single family kills one female [newborn]; how many hundreds of thousands of families [there are] in the realm! Sometimes a dozen females get killed in a single family; sometimes pregnant [women] are injured even before giving birth. Their pneuma, stricken by injustice, ascends and moves Heaven. How can there be such nonsense?27 今天下一家殺一女, 天下幾億家哉! 或有一家乃殺十數女者, 或有姙之未 生出反就傷之者, 其氣冤結上動天, 奈何無道理乎? 25 26

27

Ibid., 119.2a (unit 212). The Taiping jing would seem to be the earliest surviving source in Chinese to express such a concern, albeit on cosmological rather than humanistic grounds; see Hendrischke, 2006, 68–69. Taiping jing DZ 1101, 35.7b (unit 41). Compare Hendrischke, 2006, 75.

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Due to this frailty, prenatal infancy may not be safely considered a state of Edenic grace. Furthermore, even if a pregnant woman were carefully protected, her womb would still be threatened by the harmful consequences of ancestral mischief. Unit 185, which belongs to a minor textual stratum of the received version of the scripture, bears the title “Lusting for Riches and Sensuality [Provokes] Calamities Extending to [Unborn Descendants] in the Womb.”28 The title is fully developed in the following sentence, which bemoans the consequences of deceased ancestors’ misconduct: Those who lust for riches and sensuality disregard the resulting hardships – calamities extending to [unborn descendants] in the womb, [who] will never see the sun, moon and stars. What a painful grief!29 其貪財色, 不顧有患, 災及胞中, 不見日月星. 何惜痛乎!

The warning is closely related to the theme of “inherited burden” (chengfu 承負), an expression referring to the accumulation of all sorts of problems on various levels – cosmic, collective, familial, and individual – caused by the misconduct of past generations, and which the present generation, whether itself responsible for additional misdeeds or not, must face up to.30 This relationship between prenatal death and “inherited burden” is confirmed in a unit devoted to “Explaining (and Relieving) Inherited Burden” (“Jie chengfu” 解承負). Absent from the canonical version of the Taiping jing, this unit has survived in shortened form in the Taiping jing chao 太平經鈔 (Great Peace Scripture Digest; DZ 1101). Typical of Great Peace triadic logic, the passage first defines three orders of duration applying to the cumulative effects of “inherited burden” (30,000 years for the sovereign; 3,000 years for ministers; and 300 years for commoners), then three lengths of human lifespan (a superior longevity of 120 years corresponding to Heaven, an average longevity of 80 years corresponding to Earth, and an inferior longevity of 60 years corresponding to Central Harmony). The text then adds: If [one] incessantly practises benevolence and surpasses these [orders of] longevity, it is called “to pass through generations.” [Those who] incessantly practise malevolence do not reach [these] three [orders of] 28 29 30

貪財色災及胞中; Taiping jing DZ 1101, 112.1a (unit 185). Ibid., 112.2b. The standard reference in a Western language is Barbara Hendrischke, “The Concept of Inherited Evil in the Taiping Jing,” East Asian History 2 (1991).

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longevity – all die prematurely. Those who die an embryo in the womb as well as underage persons are called “innocents inheriting the burden of [their] forefathers’ transgressions.”31 如行善不止, 過此壽, 謂之度世. 行惡不止, 不及三壽, 皆夭也. 胞胎及未 成人而死者, 謂之無辜承負先人之過。

The importance of the passage, though belonging to a later (Tang or even Song) textual stratum of the Great Peace corpus, should not be underrated.32 Not only does it confirm, for our present purpose, the belief in prenatal death being caused by the after-effects of ancestral deeds, it also provides us with a – supposedly – early definition of the compound dushi 度世, frequently mis­ understood as “salvation” under the influence of Buddhist terminology.33 It also makes clear that individual lifespan is dependent on moral conduct.34 4

Birth and Beyond

Even if gestation is symbolically presided over by Yin rather than Central Harmony, as we have seen, the latter must still be logically correlated with the product of the union of all instantiations of Yin and Yang. Such is indeed the case in the human triads encountered throughout the Great Peace corpus: a child (zi 子) is brought forth by the union of a mother (mu 母) or wife (fu 婦), who are two equivalent Yin correlates, and a father (fu 父) or husband (fu 夫) – two equivalent Yang correlates. In a section of the Taiping jing chao bearing the pseudo-title “Harmonising the Three Pneumata and Promoting the Sovereign” (“He sanqi xing diwang 和

31 32

33

34

Taiping jing chao DZ 1101, 2.12a (yi bu 乙部). For the possible date of the source materials used to compile the Taiping jing chao, see Grégoire Espesset, “The Date, Authorship, and Literary Structure of the Great Peace Scripture Digest,” Journal of the American Oritental Society 133.2 (2013). Compare William E. Soothill and Lewis Hodous, eds., A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms: With Sanskrit and English Equivalents and a Sanskrit-Pali Index (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1937), 301: “To get through life; to pass safely through this life. Also, to save the world.” For all these matters, see Grégoire Espesset, “Criminalized Abnormality, Moral Etiology, and Redemptive Suffering in the Secondary Strata of the Taiping jing,” Asia Major 15.2 (2002a), especially 42, n. 221, for different sets of lifespan duration expressed in different parts of the Great Peace corpus.

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三氣興帝王”),35 Central Harmony corresponds to the “newborn child” (chizi 赤子). The passage goes on to state that children are born thanks to their father

and mother, but they specifically depend on their father for their life mandate (ming 命) while their mother is solely entrusted with their birth (sheng 生). Incidentally, in the same paragraph we learn that the union of the three pneumata (Yin, Yang, Central Harmony) in turn brings forth “Great Harmony” (taihe 太和), which eventually produces the “Pneuma of Great Peace” (taiping zhi qi 太平之氣), in other words, the very principle of universal equilibrium.36 In Chinese, “newborn child” literally reads “bright red (vermillion) child” – with red being, in the Five Agents correlative system, the colour of the Fire agent, the heart viscus, the south, summer, and so on. In the Taiping jing, though, the phrase does not appear to have a symbolic and semantic value comparable to that given it in early Taoist literature. For example, in the meditation practices of the manual known as the Laozi zhongjing 老子中經 (Laozi’s Central Scripture; DZ 1168), the expression “newborn child” refers to the embryo of immortality or “real person” (zhenren) that each practitioner must visualise within his or her own body in order to achieve transcendence.37 But the Taiping jing also correlates the colour red, the Fire agent and the south with the reigning emperor (Great Yang) – the east, the Wood agent, and Young Yang (shaoyang 少陽) being logically emblematic of the imperial heir – and, concomitantly and explicitly, gives the Fire agent predominance over the other four agents.38 The strongly political orientation of this ideology significantly departs from the rather neutral equilibrium of the original fivefold system, and yet does not otherwise distort its rationality. As we have seen in the case of pro-Yang and anti-Yin partiality, this aptly shows the way Great Peace ideologists used and adapted the common metaphysical rationale of their time to fit their own concerns. In Great Peace discourse, “vermillion child” could almost designate any

35

36 37

38

I call “pseudo-title” the opening phrase, in some sections of the Scripture Digest, which appears to derive from a former unit title deprived of its numbering and merged into the body of the text. The Scripture Digest does not use unit titles properly speaking – except on the first page of chapters 1, 4, and 7 (three occurrences in all); see Espesset 2013, 324. Taiping jing chao DZ 1101, 2.7b (pseudo-title) and 8b (text) (yi bu 乙部). Taishang Laojun zhongjing 太上老君中經 (Most High Old Lord’s Scripture of the Centre; DZ 1168), 1.6b–7a. For the date of this version, see John Lagerwey, “Deux écrits taoïstes anciens,” Cahiers d’Extrême Asie 14 (2004); Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, eds., The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 92–94. See Espesset 2002c, 436–37.

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newborn infant as much as the reigning son of Heaven himself; and even though the extant Taiping jing does not state it plainly, a section from the Taiping jing chao devoted to a longevity practice based on the visualisation of the heart viscus opens with the pseudo-title “There is a Son of Heaven Within Everyone’s Abdomen” (“Fanren fuzhong ge you tianzi 凡人腹中各有天子”).39 Back to unit 41 of the Taiping jing, we find the ideas of the perfection and completeness of the human body at birth expressed symbolically in terms of pneuma and Yin/Yang being “replete” (ju 具): Furthermore, at birth, all people contain Heavenly Pneuma, and come out when replete [with it]. The head, round, is Heaven; the feet, square, are Earth; the four limbs are the four seasons; the five viscera are the Five Agents; the ears, eyes, mouth and nose are the seven regulators [or] the three luminaries.40 It is impossible to give a complete account of this; only sage men know such things. At birth, all men are replete with Yin and Yang; when [the appropriate number of] days and months are fulfilled, they open up the womb and emerge from the opening; seeing Heaven and Earth, they resume growing. Together they will perpetuate their forefathers’ lineage, help Heaven bring forth beings and help Earth nourish the forms [i.e., physical bodies] [of these beings].41 又人生皆含懷天氣, 具迺出. 頭圓, 天也. 足方, 地也. 四支, 四時也. 五藏, 五行也. 耳目口鼻, 七政三光也. 此不可勝紀, 獨聖人知之耳. 人生皆具隂 陽, 日月滿乃開胞而出戶, 視天地當復長, 共傳其先人統, 助天生物也, 助 地養形也。

This idea that the innate perfection of the human body mirrors cosmic perfection is well documented in early Chinese texts.42 Here, however, this innate perfection is understood as the result of the body being “replete” with “Heavenly Pneuma” (tianqi 天氣). Then, only after the completion of an unspecified term (supposedly ten months), when their body is, similarly, “replete” with Yin and 39

40 41 42

Taiping jing chao DZ 1101, 8.5a–6a (xin bu 辛部). In the Dunhuang table of contents, the first half of the title of unit 218 (chapter 124) is almost identical (see MS Stein 4226, col. 214: 人腹各有天子文歸赤漢). In all likelihood, the abstracted rendition of the Taiping jing chao derives from the contents of this unit, which is missing in the Scripture proper. The seven regulators (qizheng) are the sun, the moon, and the five planets, or the seven stars of the Dipper; the three luminaries (sanguang) are the sun, moon, and stars. Taiping jing DZ 1101, 35. 8a–b (unit 41); compare Hendrischke 2006, 76. See Yang Jilin 楊寄林, ed., Taiping jing jinzhu jinyi 太平經今注今譯 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2002), 84, interlinear note (five references).

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Yang, do human beings come into the world. This view of the human body’s functional and symbolic completeness at birth matches the idea of the completion of the temporal process of gestation. Despite being granted a complete, perfect body, in which Heaven insufflates the breath of life, it does not follow that the newborn child is intellectually different from the prenatal infant. In unit 104 of the Taiping jing we witness the master dispensing an “Admonition to the Six Disciples” (“Jie liuzi” 戒六子) as the date of his departure approaches. Although innately endowed by Heaven with the “authentic Way” (zhendao 真道), all people need the guidance (dao 導) of masters to realise their potential, just like newborn children need guidance – and social immersion – to learn and develop: Therefore, their initiation, guidance, and tuition rest with masters – only then will it be possible to make it that there is nothing [they] do not know. He who does not open up his gate, even though he has received the authentic Way of Heaven, knows not a single thing; he is like an infant who, at birth, would be abandoned in a single room and not guided to study actively: there is nothing he might learn.43 故在師開之, 導之, 學之, 則可使無不知也. 不闓其門戶, 雖受天真道, 無 一知也. 比若嬰兒生, 投一室中, 不導學以事, 無可知也。

The Taiping jing chao preserves many fragmentary elements in dialogue style. In these parts, the master is sometimes called a “divine person” (shenren 神人), a feature pointing to a late stratum of the surviving corpus (in what is assumed to be the earliest stratum, he is called “heavenly master,” tianshi 天師).44 Such is the case in chapter 9, admittedly the rendition of Part 9 (ren bu 壬部), that is, of units 137–53 (whose corresponding sequence in the canonical version of the Taiping jing is missing). One such passage examines how the Heavenly Way “helps” (zhu 助) and “favours” or “blesses” (you 祐) the weak (ruo 弱) and the solitary (gua 寡) rather than the strong (qiang 強) and the multitude (zhong 43 44

Taiping jing DZ 1101, 68.1a (title) and 2a (text) (unit 104). Hendrischke has stated that the compiler of the Taiping jing chao “avoided” the formula “heavenly master” and used “divine person” instead; see Barbara Hendrischke, “The Dialogues Between Master and Disciples in the Scripture on Great Peace (Taiping jing),” in A Daoist Florilegium: A Festschrift Dedicated to Professor Liu Ts’un-yan on his Eighty-Fifth Birthday, Lee Cheuk Yin and Chan Man Sing, eds. (Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, 2002), 188; and Hendrischke 2006, 349. However, no less than fifteen occurrences of “heavenly master” in the Taiping jing chao disprove this assumption; see Espesset 2013, 332.

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眾) – a very Taoist concern indeed, and yet, here it is expressed in a rather

“monist” way, perhaps under the influence of mainstream Confucianism:45

For weakness is how the Way operates. Solitude is a requisite of the Way. Thus the Pole Star is solitary, and yet the multitude of stars follows [it]46 – its loneliness contains the multitude. The requisite of the Way is unity, and yet the Way assembles. This is the reason why the King is the paragon of solitude, and yet the realm helps [him] rule – the effect of [the multitude] helping the single. Fathers and mothers are of utmost strength, and yet they help infants – this is the effect of the strong helping the weak.47 夫弱者, 道之用也. 寡者, 道之要也. 故北極一星而眾星屬, 以寡而禦眾也. 道要一而道屬焉. 是故國王極寡, 而天下助而治, 助寡之効也. 父母極強, 反助嬰兒, 是強助弱之効也。

The paragraph quite evidently refers to loci classici from the Daode jing 道德經 (Book of the Way and Virtue), especially section 40, the first half of which is reproduced – a literary allusion rather than a citation, since the source is not named – in the same section of the Taiping jing chao (“for weakness is how the way operates”). Sections 76 (“the solid and strong remain below, the soft and weak dwell above”) and 78 (“weakness prevails over strength”) are also alluded to.48 Interestingly, Great Peace proponents willingly adopted the idea of weakness taking precedence over strength – as illustrated by the image of the child – but they added the very centralising and imperialist notion of multiplicity and periphery being ruled by unity and by the centre. 5

Cyclical Logic and Time Cycles

At birth, the child leaves a pristine environment devoid of differentiation and enters the Yin/Yang pulsating motion of cyclical time. Cycles constitute a wellknown feature of classic Chinese metaphysics. In La pensée chinoise, Marcel 45 46 47 48

The ruler is also likened to the Pole Star in the Lunyu 論語 (Analects), 2. 1; see James Legge, transl., The Chinese Classics, vol. 1, part II (London: Trübner, 1871), 9. Observed from the surface of Earth at night, the starry sky appears to rotate around the Pole Star. Taiping jing chao DZ 1101, 9.3b (ren bu 壬部). Compare Daode zhenjing 道德真經 (Authentic Scripture of the Way and Efficacy; DZ 664), 2.2a (section 40), 11b (section 76), and 12a (section 78); see James Legge, transl., The Texts of Taoism, vol. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1891), 83, 118, and 120.

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Granet (1884–1940) wrote that, for the Chinese, “Time seemed to have a cyclical nature,” and remarked that “the Chinese representation of Time” was also the representation “of a liturgical order”; he believed this “particular arrangement of Time” to coincide with a “particular arrangement of Space.”49 In the famous chapter from the same work devoted to the importance of numerology in Chinese thought, Granet stressed that the Chinese resort to numbers not merely to organise things, but “to express the qualities of certain groupings or to indicate a hierarchical order.”50 The metaphysics of Great Peace aptly illustrates this statement. Great Peace ideologists widely resorted to numerical symbolism and cycles to construct their worldview. Unit 167 of the Taiping jing, which bears the title “What the Number of Parts in the Scriptural Text Corresponds to” (“Jingwen bushu suo ying 經文部數所應”), uses a tenfold cycle to introduce an explanation of natural numbers from 1 to 10: Heaven is the beginning of numbers. Therefore, when Heaven and Earth are not yet separated, accumulated pneumata are all united as one, [then] divide into two, forming husband and wife. Heaven descends and impregnates Earth; gestation [takes place] in boreal obscurity [i.e., the north], [whose] characters are jiazi (S1/B1).51 [Plants] spread roots in the northeast, [whose characters are] chou (B2) and yin (B3); emerge in mao (B4) [i.e., the east]; complete sprouting in the southeast, [whose characters are] chen (B5) and si (B6); [let] branches hang in the south and grow in wu (B7); get old in the southwest, [whose characters are] wei (B8) and shen (B9); and [reach] completion in sector the west, [where] the sun sets, in you (B10). Storage is completed in the northwest, [whose characters are] xu (B11) and hai (B12).52 天, 數之始也. 是故天地未分之時, 積氣都合爲一. 分爲二, 成夫婦. 天下 施於地, 懷妊於玄冥, 字爲甲子, 布根東北, 丑與寅, 始見於卯, 畢生東南, 辰與 (己) [巳], 垂枝於南, 養於午, (尚) [向] 老西南, 未與申, 成西方, 日入, 酉, 畢藏西北, 戌與亥。

49 50 51 52

See Marcel Granet, La pensée chinoise (Paris: Albin Michel, 1968), 85–86; capitalization is Granet’s. Ibid., 128; Granet’s emphasis. The numbered abbreviations S and B refer to the sequence of the celestial stems and earthly branches respectively (for example, S1 means “first celestial stem”). Taiping jing DZ 1101, 102. 5a (unit 167).

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In this cycle, the first stage corresponds to the pristine phase of cosmogony, before the very formation of Heaven and Earth; the next stage marks the appearance of binary differentiation as, echoing the procreative potentiality of the couple “husband and wife,” Heaven fertilises Earth. The ensuing eight stages reflect mostly agricultural activities and concerns, closely following the phases of vegetal development, even though the term usually used to designate plants (as well as beings in general), wu 物, does not appear. Each phase is situated according to the eight directions and marked with the corresponding earthly branch (for cardinal directions) or pair of earthly branches (for ordinal directions). The third phase, in addition to the corresponding earthly branch, is marked with the first heavenly stem; both combine into the first couple of the sexagesimal cycle, jiazi 甲子 (S1/B1), a binomial known to symbolise cosmic renewal. As we have seen above, Yin is said to preside over gestation. The text is consistent with this idea when explaining that “gestation [takes place] in boreal obscurity,” that is, in the north, where Yang reappears within Yin at the peak of Yin’s development. According to this logic, procreation is naturally correlated with a specific moment in the cycle, at least symbolically. The mention of the couple “husband and wife” seems to imply that human reproduction is subject to this cycle, just as plant reproduction is. After all, we may recall that the citation from Li Xian’s commentary to the Hou Han shu made clear that sexual intercourse must be performed at the proper time, lest the process of impregnation fail. Let us now turn briefly to a cycle from a supplement to the Yijing 易經 (Classic of Changes) titled Yiwei Qian zuodu 易緯乾鑿度 (Weft of Changes: Regulations Chiselled by Qian), one of the longest extant Weft texts.53 This source is assumed to belong to the earliest group of Weft texts.54 It survived 53

54

The tentative English rendering of this title derives from Bent Nielsen’s translation (“Chiseling through to the regular system of hexagram Qian”) in “Calculating the Fall of a Dynasty: Divination Based on the Qian zuo du,” Zhouyi Studies 6.1 (2009–2010). According to Nielsen, the title “should probably be understood along the lines of ‘revealing the activities and intentions of heaven.’” I am grateful to Professor Nielsen for providing me with a copy of this paper. See Yasui Kōzan 安居香山, Isho to Chūgoku no shinpi shisō 緯書と中國の神秘思想 (Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha, 1988), 237. The assumption is that the earliest Weft texts must be those cited in the Baihu tongyi 白虎通義 (Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger [Hall]), a source, partly by Ban Gu 班固 (32–92), whose received edition may date back to the first half of the third century; see Michael Loewe, “Pai hu t’ung 白虎通,” in Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, ibid., ed. (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993).

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together with a commentary ascribed to Zheng Kangcheng 鄭康成, alias Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127–200).55 The text discusses the cosmological rationale behind the “changes” (yi 易) and the eight trigrams (bagua 八卦). One of the passages presented as the sayings of Confucius describes a cycle rather similar to the cycle in unit 167 of the Taiping jing: Confucius says: “Changes begin with the great pole. The great pole divides into two, thus giving birth to Heaven and Earth. Heaven and Earth are segmented into spring, autumn, winter and summer, thus giving birth to the four seasons. Each one of the four seasons is divided into Yin and Yang – the hard and the soft, thus giving birth to the eight trigrams. The eight trigrams are arranged, the Way of Heaven and Earth is established, and the images of thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain and lake are determined.56 They handle affairs separately. [Trigram] Zhen brings forth beings in the eastern sector; it is located in the second month. [Trigram] Xun disperses them in the southeast; it is located in the fourth month. [Trigram] Li makes them grow in the southern sector; it is located in the fifth month. [Trigram] Kun nourishes them in the southwestern sector; it is located in the sixth month. [Trigram] Dui harvests them in the western sector; it is located in the eighth month. [Trigram] Qian bales them in the northwestern sector; it is located in the tenth month. [Trigram] Kan stores them in the northern sector; it is located in the eleventh month. [Trigram] Gen [makes] them terminate and begin [again] in the northeastern sector; it is located in the twelfth month. As the pneumata of the eight trigrams terminate, the divisions into the four cardinal and four ordinal directions are [made] obvious; the Way of birth, growth, harvest, and storage is fulfilled; the substance of Yin and Yang is determined; the

55 56

Besides, the Qian zuo du is cited in a memorial submitted to the throne by Bian Shao 邊 韶 in 143, which Cai Yong 蔡邕 (133–192) included in his treatise on “Lüli 律曆” (“Pitch Pipes and the Calendar”), later appended to the Hou Han shu in the “Zhi 志” (“Treatises”) section; see Hou Han shu, 2.3035. For the authorship of this treatise, see B.J. Mansvelt Beck, The Treatises of Later Han: Their Author, Sources, Contents and Place in Chinese Historiography (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 61–63. Biography in Hou Han shu, 35.1207–13. The eight trigrams are correlated with the natural elements as follows: Qian/Heaven, Kun/Earth, Zhen/thunder (lei 雷), Xun/wind (feng 風), Kan/water (shui 水), Li/fire (huo 火), Gen/mountain (shan 山) and Dui/lake, or marsh (ze 澤). “Water” and “fire” should be distinguished here from the homographic agents in the fivefold system.

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efficacy of the gods is pervasive; and each of the myriad beings is accomplished according to its category.”57 孔子曰: 易始於太極. 太極分而爲二, 故生天地. 天地有春秋冬夏之節, 故 生四時. 四時各有陰陽剛柔之分, 故生八卦. 八卦成列, 天地之道立, 雷風 水火山澤之象定矣. 其布散用事也. 震生物於東方, 位在二月. 巽散之於 東南, 位在四月. 離長之於南方, 位在五月. 坤養之於西南方, 位在六月. 兌收之於西方, 位在八月. 乾制之於西北方, 位在十月. 坎藏之於北方, 位 在十一月. 艮終始之於東北方, 位在十二月. 八卦之氣終, 則四正四維之 分明, 生長收藏之道備, 陰陽之體定, 神明之德通, 而萬物各以其類成 矣。

This passage opens with a classic cosmogony, which in turn introduces an eightfold, annual cycle, whose spatial correlations follow the houtian 後天 (post-celestial) configuration.58 As the cycle unfolds, its agricultural import and focus on life becomes clearer. Though formally returning to cosmogony, the concluding sentences stress the importance of agricultural activities throughout the year and of their “fulfillment” as the cycle ends. Returning to the Taiping jing, unit 139 justifies the cyclical value of the number twelve by stressing the crucial moment when the annual cycle comes to an end and begins anew, on the last and first lunations, respectively: It is like the myriad beings, which end up dying in hai (B12). [Trigram] Qian, since it marks the commencement [of the cycle], establishes [its] position at the gate of Heaven.59 Solidification of semen begins in hai (B12), gestation [takes place] in ren (S9), and the shaping of perceptible form [i.e., physical body] [during] the initial novena in zi (B1),60 [as] the

57 58

59 60

Yasui and Nakamura 1971–1992, vol. 1.1 (Eki jō 易上), 21. Traditionally ascribed to King Wen 文王, it is distinct from the xiantian 先天 (pre-celestial) configuration, ascribed to the mythic ruler Fu Xi 伏羲, which distributes all eight trigrams among sectors differently: Qian/south, Kun/north, Zhen/northeast, Xun/southwest, Kan/west, Li/east, Gen/northwest and Dui/southeast; see Bent Nielsen, A Companion to Yi Jing Numerology and Cosmology: Chinese Studies of Images and Numbers from Han 漢 (202 BCE–220 CE) to Song 宋 (960–1279 CE) (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), 107–10 and 264–68. The northwest, location of trigram Qian in the post-celestial configuration. “Initial novena” (chujiu 初九) here designates the first of the six months of Yang growth. In the terminology of the Yijing and related texts, it is the name of the first line at the bottom of a hexagram, when the line is Yang (unbroken).

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sun begins to return.61 [At] the second novena in chou (B2), Yin and Yang are set in motion.62 [At] the third novena in yin (B3),63 Heaven, Earth, humans and the myriad beings, all wanting to turn their back to Yin and face Yang, peek in yin (B3). Therefore, the myriad beings begin to spread roots in the northeast and show their head in yin (B3). Among plants, the large ones take Wood as their chief [agent], therefore yin (B3) corresponds to Wood beginning its life – jia (S1) best corresponds to the commencement of Wood.64 Therefore, the myriad beings appear in jia (S1) and yin (B3), and they eventually die in gui (S10) and hai (B12). Therefore, Wood, when receiving the mandate [of life], is born of primordial pneuma,65 in the middle of Great Yin and Water, and it is therefore initiated by jiazi (S1/B1).66 比若萬物終死於亥. 乾因建初, 立位於天門. 始凝核於亥, 懷姙於壬, 成形 初九於子, 日始還, 九二於丑而隂陽運, 九三於寅, 天地人萬物俱欲背隂 向陽, 闚於寅. 故萬物始布根於東北, 見頭於寅. 物之大者, 以木爲長也, 故寅爲始生木, 甲最爲木之初也. 故萬物見於甲寅, 終死於癸亥. 故木也 乃受命, 生於元氣, 太隂水中, 故以甲子爲初始。

This layered discourse combines three consecutive celestial stems and four consecutive earthly branches, a trigram, three hexagram lines, the solar cycle, Yin and Yang, two of the Five Agents, an ordinal direction, cosmic entities, and stages in the development of plant life. Framed in a four-month period extending from the first lunation of winter to the first lunation of spring, all these 61 62 63

64

65 66

“The sun begins to return”: the duration of daytime begins to increase again, after the winter solstice. “Yin and Yang are set in motion”: Yin is declining and Yang is growing. “Second novena” and “third novena” here refer to the second and third months of Yang growth. In the terminology of the Yijing, the expressions designate the second and third lines of a hexagram – starting from the bottom line – when these lines are Yang (unbroken). In Xu Shen’s 許慎 Shuowen jiezi 説文解字 (Explanation of Graphs and Analysis of Characters), completed in 100 C.E., the character jia 甲 is defined as picturing the sprouting of plants in the east (see 308 in the 1963 Zhonghua shuju edition); for the date of this source, see William G. Boltz, “Shuo wen chieh tzu 説文解字” (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993), 429– 42. Yuanqi 元氣, the materia prima of the macrocosm, whence all particularised forms of pneumata proceed. Taiping jing DZ 1101, 93.8a–b (unit 139).

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elements serve to explain the process of renewal, that is, the very dynamic of the cosmic cycle. One of the differences between this cycle and those above is that, although all three share a strongly life-focused discourse, death (si 死) appears (twice) in the latter as the ineluctable end of the myriad beings – an end anchored in time. Even though the text deals with plants and the Wood agent, it is tempting, from this example of cyclical logic, to extrapolate the unavoidable nature of death for all living beings, including humans. Unit 130 of the Taiping jing, bearing the title “Meditation on the Eight Trigrams to Make Essence Return” (“Bagua huanjing nian 八卦還精念”), provides the reader with the means to benefit from the cyclical nature of time rather than passively submitting to it. Its purpose is to describe a fivefold meditation practice based on the Five Agents and their usual correlates (sectors, organs, colours, etc.), plus the Yin/Yang couple, the celestial stems, and the earthly branches. (Interestingly, despite its title, the unit does not mention any trigrams or hexagrams – one of the pieces of internal evidence showing that the received version of the Taiping jing must have gone through a complex editing history.) The literary form used throughout is discursive, as opposed to the dialogue form used in most parts of the Taiping jing. Here is a key passage in this unit, written in quadrisyllabic verse for the most part:67 Inner radiance of boreal light, Grand darkness, numerous pneumata, At the same position as the kidneys, Where ren (S9) and gui (S10) are located.68 Hai (B12) and zi (B1) are consubstantial And embrace one another within the cycle.69 Peaking Yin brings forth Yang – It is called the initial novena. Once they join up, they conceive beings. Yin comes to a stop and Yang rises. Impregnation [takes place] in hai (B12), Gestation [takes place] in ren (S9), 67

68 69

玄明内光 大幽多氣 與 (賢) [腎] 同位 壬癸之居 亥子共身 周流相抱 極隂生陽 名爲初九 一合生物 隂止陽起 受施於亥 懷姙於壬

The section also includes a few pentasyllables and heptasyllables, some of which appear to be rhymed. For the rhyme patterns of the final part of the section, see Yu Liming 兪理 明, ed., Taiping jing zhengdu 太平經正讀 (Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 2001), 282. Boreal light, grand darkness, the kidneys, and both celestial stems ren (S9) and gui (S10) all correspond to the north and the Water agent. The twelfth earthly branch and the first one, which follow one another as the duodecimal cycle ends and begins again, symbolise Yang appearing again within Yin.

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Proliferation [takes place] in zi (B1). Generation after generation, Yang, right in the middle of Yin, Is brought forth ceaselessly.70

(藩) [蕃?] 滋於子 子子孫孫 陽入隂中 其生無已

This poem also focuses on the pivotal moment of the cycle: the end and a new beginning. Technically, the first earthly branch immediately follows the twelfth one, as a dominating Yin reaches its peak and the first particle of Yang appears within it. Once again, this turning point is symbolically correlated with the Water agent and the north, whose darkness, liquid nature and potential fertility (infinite pneumata) echo the fetal milieu. Yet this cycle does not include death. On the contrary, as the unit unfolds, the adept is encouraged to meditate on the entire fivefold sequence and to visualise each of the Five Agents’ correlates (organ, coloured pneuma or essence, emblematic animal) in order to eventually suppress all disease, remain unaffected by death, harmonise hierarchical relations and ensure social order – individual and collective achievements ultimately leading to the advent of Great Peace.71 It should be noted that, in these cycles, the discourse resorts to graphic and phonetic puns. The characters he 核 (seed) and ren 姙 (gestation) each share a graphic component with hai 亥 (B12) and ren 壬 (S9), respectively, while zi 滋 (proliferation) and zi 子 (which occurs both as the first earthly branch and in the phrase zizi sunsun 子子孫孫) belonged to the same rhyme group “Zhi” 之 in Han times.72 Such wordplay is reminiscent of the semiotics of the Shuowen jiezi, the aforementioned first comprehensive work of Chinese graphology.73

70 71 72

73

Taiping jing DZ 1101, 89.1a (unit 130); the verse layout is mine. Ibid., 89.1a–2b. I rely here on Luo Changpei 羅常培 and Zhou Zumo 周祖謨, Han Wei Jin Nanbei chao yunbu yanbian yanjiu 漢魏晉南北朝韻部演變研究, vol. 1 (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1958), 125; for a reconstructed phonology, see William H. Baxter, A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992), 562–64, Table 10.125. See Rao Zongyi 饒宗頤, “Taiping jing yu Shuowen jiezi 太平經與説文解字,” Dalu zazhi 45.6 (1972); Jens Østergård Petersen, “The Taiping jing and the Shuowen jiezi,” In The Master Said: To Study and … To Søren Egerod on the Occasion of His Sixty-Seventh Birthday, Birthe Arendrup, Simon B. Heilesen and J.Ø. Petersen, eds. (Copenhagen: East Asian Institute, University of Copenhagen, 1990); Françoise Bottéro, “Revisiting the wén 文 and the zì 字: The Great Chinese Characters Hoax,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Östasiatiska Museet) 74 (2002).

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To the average person and the untrained scholar, these cosmic cycles would certainly seem too strong a natural force to oppose with any hope of success. Some religious adepts, however, believed cyclical time not to be an insurmountable obstacle, and they proposed to use its vital momentum instead. Other adepts, or perhaps more advanced ones in the same communities, advocated to re-enact, through a cluster of practices, the condition of their early life – that is, to regain their prenatal condition. A paragraph from the Taiping jing chao advises the audience to study (xue 學) as people did in antiquity. The first step of this study should be to take care of one’s “perceptible form” – one’s physical body: “First, to appease [one’s] perceptible form, start doing so by emulating an infant at play who does not use physical strength but only good intentions.”74 That one should “emulate an infant” (ru ying’er 如嬰兒) is, of course, reminiscent of section 10 of the Daode jing. Section 20 from the same work further contrasts a light-hearted state of perpetual “infancy” (ying’er) with the materialism, emotionalism, activities, and seriousness of the masses.75 The Taiping jing chao shows how Great Peace proponents conceptualised a model for individual practice on the basis of this antisocial attitude and respect for the natural condition of mankind. But the adept may revert further back still. The master, in his farewell “Admonition to the Six Disciples,” defines the “major requisites” (dayao 大要) of the Way by referring to the teachings of the “major sages of antiquity” (gu zhe dasheng 古者大聖): Therefore, the major sages of antiquity instructed people to deeply meditate and have far-reaching thoughts, to shut their nine [bodily] apertures, to rest their four limbs, to make themselves chaotic, like a circle without end, and to emulate a child in the womb, without attending affairs.76 故古者, 大聖教人深思遠慮, 閉其九戶, 休其四 (使) [肢], 使其渾沌, 比若 環無端, 如胞中之子而無職事也。

74 75 76

先以安形, 始爲之, 如嬰兒之遊. 不用筋力, 但用善意 ; Taiping jing chao DZ 1101, 5.13b (wu bu 戊部). Daode zhenjing DZ 664, 1.3a (section 10) and 5b (section 20); see Legge 1891, 53–54 and 62–63. Taiping jing, 68.1b (unit 104).

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Figure 1.1 Illustration preceding the paragraph on “nothingness.” The three concentric circles are marked with the words for the colours green, yellow, and red; from Taiping jing 太 平經 (Great Peace Scripture; DZ 1101), chapter 103, unit 168, 1a.

In this passage, the model to emulate is not the postnatal infant but the unborn child – a human being not yet plunged into the cyclical time of Yin and Yang. Unit 168, entitled “Illustrations of Nothingness, Non-Interference, and Spontaneity [to] Entirely Complete the Way” (“Xuwu wuwei ziran tu dao bicheng 虛无無爲自然圖道畢成”), includes three illustrations – a rare occurrence in the Taiping jing. Each illustration comes with a short text, partly rhymed, and composed in irregular heptameter verse. The entire unit is intended for the purpose of meditation and visualisation. The first paragraph is an exhortation to preserve pneuma (qi), divinity (shen 神), and essence (jing 精), which are one’s three vital principles. It includes the urge to “revert to one’s [former condition as] an embryo in the womb, dwelling with the Way” (see Fig. 1.1).77 The second paragraph shows the benefits of “non-interference” (wuwei 無為) and exhorts the adept to “keep to unity” (shouyi 守一), referring to a practice common to several traditions and texts, including the Great Peace corpus (Fig. 1.2).78

77 78

反其胞胎﹅與道居也; ibid., 103.1a (unit 168). See Grégoire Espesset, “Les Directives secrètes du Saint Seigneur du Livre de la Grande paix et la préservation de l’unité,” T’oung Pao 95.1–3 (2009).

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Figure 1.2 Illustration inserted between the paragraphs on “nothingness” and “non-interference.” The caption reads: “On the right (sic), chamber of nothingness”; from Taiping jing 太 平經 (Great Peace Scripture; DZ 1101), chapter 103, unit 168, 1b.

The same paragraph, in all likelihood borrowing its material from section 43 of the Daode jing, praises the unborn infant for its capacity to “penetrate [where] there is no interstice” (ru wujian ye 入無間也).79 Unit 63 of the Taiping jing entitled “Vassals, Children and Disciples of Superior Goodness Obtain Recipes of Immortality for [Their] Lord, Father and Master” (“Shangshan chen, zi, dizi wei jun, fu, shi de xianfang 上善臣子弟子為 君父師得仙方”), discusses the most commendable conduct of vassals vis-à-vis their lord, children with respect to their parents, and disciples toward their master. According to the author, once vassals and children adopt the right behaviour, the emperor’s rule will bring joy to the people and cosmic balance will be restored. Thereafter, a series of auspicious events will occur, one of which is described as “the eldest reverting to infancy, not knowing how to be malevolent anymore.”80 The notion of reverting to infancy is reminiscent, once again, of a line from section 28 of the Daode jing.81 However, to the pristine

79

80 81

Taiping jing DZ 1101, 103.1a, 1b, 2b (illustrations); 103.1a–b (text) (unit 168). For the chapter’s rhyme patterns, see Yu Liming 2001, 376–78. Compare Daode zhenjing DZ 664, 2.2b (section 43), particularly the sentence 無有入於無間; Legge 1891, 87. 上老到于嬰兒, 不知復爲惡; Taiping jing DZ 1101, 47.3a–b (unit 63). 復歸於嬰兒; Daode zhenjing DZ 664, 1.8a (section 28); see Legge 1891, 71.

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state of the newborn child before differentiation, Great Peace ideology has added the moral value of innate goodness. Owing perhaps to the personal interests of its unnamed compiler, if not to the contents of the version of the Taiping jing where its material comes from, the Taiping jiang chao has preserved several paragraphs dealing more or less explicitly with the notion and practice of reversion to infancy; for example, the following passage, which would seem to have been formerly composed in heptameter verse and is still rhymed: Value solely spontaneity – perceptible form and divinity keep to each other. These two mutually embrace one another. He who has singular thoughts is, on the contrary, at fault. Lose spontaneity and you cannot [achieve] longevity. The five essences82 of infancy return to preserve oneself.83 獨貴自然, 形神相守 此兩者, 同相抱 其有竒思反爲咎 子失自然不可壽也 嬰兒五精還自保也

This inversion of the aging process is summed up in another passage, also missing from the canonical Taiping jing but preserved in the Taiping jing chao. Rhymed and composed in heptameter verse like the passage cited above, these lines were likely intended for recitation:84 Eyes closed, look inward and come into contact with divinities. Numinous, not emitting words, on a par with the Way. Yin and Yang overturning one another is what Heaven has established. The art of long life can open eyes. Do not force back feelings, you should be harmonious and magnanimous. Heaven and Earth are harmonised, and as if they were blind and deaf. [You] want to know its meaning? The child in the womb, 82 83 84

The “five essences” are presumably those of the five viscera. Taiping jing chao DZ 1101, 6.3a (ji bu 己部); the verse layout is mine. For the rhyme pattern of the paragraph, see Yu Liming 2001, 275. For the rhyme pattern of the paragraph, see Yu Liming 2001, 163.

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Not eating [for] ten months and in contact with divinities, The Way of spontaneity, unsurpassed, Unseeing – and yet the dwelling of pneuma is twelvefold.85 Therefore, revert to infancy, and then there will be nothing ominous, Old age will return to youth, in contact with the Way. For this reason paint images twelve times.86 The righteous obtain goodness, the unworthy87 only the ominous. The heavenly Way is perennial; it cannot cease to be, In the manner of the four seasons, circling back to [its] native place, Old age reverts to the beginning, thus [attaining] long life.88 瞑目内視與神通 靈不出言與道同 隂陽相覆天所封 長生之術可開眸 子無強腸宜和弘 天地受和如暗聾 欲知其意胞中童 不食十月神相通 自然之道無有上 不視而氣宅十二重 故反嬰兒則無凶 老還反少與道通 是故畫像十二重

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87 88

According to recent Chinese commentaries, this would refer either to a twelvefold division of the body, or to the circulation of pneuma in accordance with the twelve months of a year; see Long Hui 龍晦 et al., eds., Taiping jing quanyi 太平經全譯 (Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe, 2000), 397, n. 9; and Yang Jilin, 2002, 452, interlinear note. Dunhuang manuscript Stein 4226 (col. 121) suggests that this passage is the abridged rendition of the now lost chapter 79, whose title was “Baotai yinyang tu 胞胎隂陽 (啚) [圖]”) (“Illustration of the Embryo in the Womb, Yin and Yang”) and which presumably consisted of both written and visual materials. Images or portraits (xiang 像) may be those of divinities or emblems corresponding to the twelve months or earthly branches, to be drawn by the adept during the practice, probably as support for visualisation. Buxiao 不肖, literally: [those] not following the moral standards of their parents and ancestors. Taiping jing chao DZ 1101, 4.1a–b (ding bu 丁部); the verse layout is mine. The present translation supersedes the former one (in French) I proposed in “À vau- l’eau, à rebours, ou l’ambivalence de la logique triadique dans l’idéologie du Taiping jing,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 14 (2004): 80.

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Espesset 正者得善不肖獨凶 天道常在不得喪亡 狀如四時周反鄉 終老反始故長生也

The poem insists on the pristine station of the embryo – its spontaneous contact with the Way and the divine – and makes “long life” (here understood as reversion to youth) fully compatible with the inextinguishable, self-regenerative nature of cyclical time, while stressing that moral qualities are essential for the practice to be successful. A seventh- or eighth-century anonymous Taoist encyclopedia, the Daodian lun 道典論 (Discussion of the Standard Works of Taoism; DZ 1130), cites several passages from the Taiping jing that are lacking in the received version.89 One such citation explains what the embryo, “not eating for ten months,” draws sustenance from, namely, qi 炁. But, here, the word refers certainly less to metaphysical pneuma than to the physiological act of breathing: ‘May I ask – how is it that the child, at the embryonic stage, does not eat but breathes?’ ‘[In] the heavenly Way, there is a “breathing of spontaneity,” and then there is a “breathing of elimination and intake.” Generally, the breathing achieved while in the womb is the breathing of spontaneity of the heavenly Way. After birth, breathing [consists of] exhaling and inhaling Yin and Yang; this is the breathing of elimination and intake. Those who, once adults, keep to the Way and strive to study, revert to the breathing of spontaneity, and live; those who keep to the breathing of elimination and intake, die. Therefore, those who achieve the authentic Way are able to breathe internally and not breathe externally. By means of this internal breathing, [they] nourish their nature and, subsequently, are able to revert to infancy and restore their [life] mandate. Thus [one] ought to practise internal breathing in order to nourish one’s corporeal form from the inside.’90 請問胎中之子, 不食而炁者, 何也?

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90

For the date of this canonical source, see Ren Jiyu 任繼愈 and Zhong Zhaopeng 鍾肇鵬, eds., Daozang tiyao 道藏提要 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2005), 538; Schipper and Verellen 2004, 445–46 (H.-H. Schmidt). Daodian lun DZ 1130, 4.8b. The dialogue layout is mine.

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天道廼有自然之炁, 廼有消息之炁. 凡在胞中且而得炁者, 是天道自然之 炁也. 及其已生, 嘘吸隂陽而炁者, 是消息之炁也. 人而守道力學, 反自然 之炁者, 生也. 守消息之炁者, 死矣. 故夫得真道者, 乃能内炁外不炁也. 以是内炁養其性, 然後能反嬰兒, 復其命也. 故當習内炁以内養其形體.

In the Daodian lun, the citation appears in a section on “embryonic breathing” (taixi 胎息), an exercise said to consist of emulating the breathing of the child in the womb – that is, breathing through the nose and not through the mouth, and amassing breath. This practice is quite well known from a number of sources.91 Also worth noting is the fact that the literary form of the 125-character-long citation is dialogue, while the rendition of the same passage in the Taiping jing chao is discursive and has only 57 characters in all (45.6 % of the citation in the Daodian lun).92 Concluding Remarks Great Peace triadic logic is the synthetic extension of the dialectics of Yin and Yang, and the theory of general threefold complementarity and cooperation (after the Heaven-Earth-Human model) is solidly embedded in a dualistic worldview. However, as I have shown elsewhere, Great Peace duality departs from the concept of a universal equilibrium between two ethically equivalent (neutral) forces by adding moral and hierarchical values on both sides of the scale: Yang now embodies good, superiority, and pre-eminence, while Yin typifies evil, inferiority and subordination.93 Great Peace views of procreation basically reflect the same logic when they exaggerate the importance of the masculine role, as far as the process of fertilisation is concerned. This ideology remarkably departs from Laozi’s emphasis on masculinity and femininity as balanced, complementary qualities to preserve jointly.94 91 92 93 94

See Fabrizio Pregadio, ed., The Encyclopedia of Taoism (London: Routledge, 2008), 953–54 (C. Despeux). Taiping jing chao DZ 1101, 8.19b–20a (xin bu 辛部). See Espesset 2004. Masculinity and femininity are explicitly balanced throughout the Daode jing. Later exegetes gave femininity pre-eminence over masculinity in some of their commentaries, whence the tendency of some modern scholars to fantasise, “without any hesitation,” that “the body of the Tao is a woman’s body,” and that “the masters, initiators in the art of Long Life, must cultivate a feminine personality”; citing Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), 129.

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As regards gestation, we find a comparable bias against Yin, depicted as a retaliatory force. And yet, the same material shows an acute understanding of the common nature of the metaphysical principles animating all forms of life. Indeed, Great Peace ideology often deals with humans, animals and plants on the same level. Unit 190 is a case in point. The master stresses that all living beings contain primordial pneuma (yuanqi 元氣), including all cereals, herbs and trees, animals – either crawling, walking, flying, or swimming – and the livestock used by men for sacrifices and sustenance. He urges his disciples “not to kill [those animals] that have an assigned use, neither young [animals]”95 nor “[female animals] gestating [their young] in [their] womb. [When a progeny] should be born but, on the contrary, dies, this entails the termination of a [life] mandate.”96 It is Heaven that is compassionate regarding all forms of suffering – including the terror felt by domestic animals about to be slaughtered; it is Heaven that “has implemented prohibitions, and offenders will be indicted.”97 This religious translation of a poignant awareness of life’s frailty denotes an attitude towards Yin which is less radical than one might expect after reading some of the passages cited above; as does the extreme, filial care that humans should have for their mother Earth, which is, after all, the cosmic embodiment of Yin par excellence. As the binary pattern expands to become a triadic one, neutrality, both moral and metaphysical, is regained, through the elaborate concept of Central Harmony (zhonghe). Generated by the “harmonious union” (hehe 和合) of Yin and Yang “in the middle,” hence the name, Central Harmony evens out the radical polarity of its dual progenitors. Likewise, the prenatal embryo is at the same time a harmonious product of Yin and Yang and, because it is still unaffected by the ultimately lethal Yin/Yang rhythm of postnatal life, an exemplar of primeval perfection. Central Harmony clearly occupies a conceptual space beyond the stage of Yin/Yang radical polarity, for better (as embodying unity regained) or for worse (as being a step further in sequences of decline from the undifferentiated Way).98 Cycles – either based on lunation, the seasons, agricultural activities, the Five Agents, Yin/Yang, or the eight trigrams – also follow a general, twofold 95 96 97 98

勿殺任用者, 少齒者; Taiping jing DZ 1101, 112. 20a (unit 190). 懷妊胞中, 當生反死, 此爲絕命; ibid., 112. 20a–b (unit 190). 爲施防禁, 犯者坐之; ibid., 112. 20b (unit 190). For examples of such sequences of decline, see Espesset 2004, 75–76; and my “Revelation Between Orality and Writing in Early Imperial China: The Epistemology of the Taiping jing,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Östasiatiska Museet) 74 (2002): 83 and 85.

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pattern of concurrent and alternate expansion and recession. All life forms, including human beings, must submit to this cyclical rhythm and conform their activities to each consecutive phase, or be prepared to incur a series of adverse consequences, as the master explains in unit 60 of the Taiping jing, on the occasion of his analysis of the “Punishment and Efficacy” (xing de 刑德) cycle.99 Despite such impositions, the enlightened and persevering adept may benefit from the intrinsic, vital momentum of cyclical time so as to transcend its deadly propensity. Transposed in terms of cosmogony, this means leaving the stage of Yin/Yang differentiation and returning to primordial Chaos; in terms of ontology, reverting to the state of an embryo. Works Cited Primary Sources Daode zhenjing 道德真經 [Authentic Scripture of the Way and Efficacy]. DZ 664. Hou Han shu 後漢書 [Book of the Later Han]. Fan Ye 范曄 (398–445). Beijing, Zhonghua shuju, 1987. Chōshū Isho shūsei 重修緯書集成 [Revised Collection of Weft Writings]. Yasui Kōzan 安居香山 and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋八, eds. Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1971–1992. Taiping jing quanyi 太平經全譯 [A Full Translation of the Great Peace Scripture]. Long Hui 龍晦, Xu Xiangling 徐湘靈, Wang Chunshu 王春淑 and Liao Yong 廖勇, eds. Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe, 2000. Shuowen jiezi 説文解字 [Explanation of Graphs and Analysis of Characters]. Xu Shen 許慎 (ca. 58–ca. 147). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963. Taiping bu juan di er 太平部卷第二 [Great Peace Part, Chapter 2]. Ms. Stein 4226, The British Library, London. Taiping jing 太平經 [Great Peace Scripture]. DZ 1101, 35–119. Taiping jing chao 太平經鈔 [Great Peace Scripture Digest]. DZ 1101, 1–10. Taishang Laojun zhongjing 太上老君中經 [Most High Old Lord’s Scripture of the Centre]. DZ 1168.

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See Yu Tao 于濤, “Taiping jing xingde tushi de yixue biaoxian ji qita 太平經刑德圖式的 易學表現及其他,” Zhouyi yanjiu 42.4 (1999). The xing/de cycle in the Great Peace Scripture should be distinguished from the mantic xing/de system of the pre- and early imperial eras discussed in Marc Kalinowski, “Astrologie calendaire et calcul de position dans la Chine ancienne. Les mutations de l’hémérologie sexagésimale entre le IVe et le IIe siècle avant notre ère,” Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 18 (1996).

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Taiping jing jinzhu jinyi 太平經今注今譯 [Modern Commentary and Translation of the Great Peace Scripture]. Yang Jilin 楊寄林, ed. Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2002. Taiping jing zhengdu 太平經正讀 [Corrected Reading of the Great Peace Scripture]. Yu Liming 兪理明, ed. Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 2001. Yiwei Qian zuodu 易緯乾鑿度 [Weft of Changes: Regulations Chiselled by Qian]. In Chōshū Isho shūsei, vol. 1.1 (Eki jō 易上). Yasui and Nakamura, eds. Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1981. Secondary Sources Baxter, William H. 1992. A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Boltz, William G. 1993. “Shuo wen chieh tzu 説文解字 .” In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, Michael Loewe, ed., 429–442. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California. Bottéro, Françoise. 2002. “Revisiting the wén 文 and the zì 字: The Great Chinese Characters Hoax.” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Östasiatiska Museet) 74: 14–33. Dufour, Dany-Robert. 1990. Les Mystères de la trinité. Paris: Gallimard. Dull, Jack L. 1966. “A Historical Introduction to the Apocryphal (Ch’an-wei) Texts of the Han Dynasty.” PhD dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle. Espesset, Grégoire. 2013. “The Date, Authorship, and Literary Structure of the Great Peace Scripture Digest.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.2: 321–351. ———. 2009. “Les Directives secrètes du Saint Seigneur du Livre de la Grande paix et la préservation de l’unité.” T’oung Pao 95.1–3: 1–50. ———. 2008–2009. “Le Livre de la Grande paix et son corpus: Histoire et structure littéraires, idéologie.” Annuaire de l’École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Section des sciences religieuses 117: 39–47. ———. 2004. “À vau-l’eau, à rebours, ou l’ambivalence de la logique triadique dans l’idéologie du Taiping jing.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 14: 61–94. ———. 2002a. “Criminalized Abnormality, Moral Etiology, and Redemptive Suffering in the Secondary Strata of the Taiping jing.” Asia Major 15.2: 1–50. ———. 2002b. “Revelation Between Orality and Writing in Early Imperial China: The Epistemology of the Taiping jing.” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Östasiatiska Museet) 74: 66–100. ———. 2002c.“Cosmologie et trifonctionnalité dans l’idéologie du Livre de la Grande paix (Taiping jing).” PhD dissertation, Université Paris Diderot–Paris 7, Paris. Granet, Marcel. 1968 (1934). La pensée chinoise. Paris: Albin Michel. Hendrischke, Barbara. 2006. The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping jing and the Beginnings of Daoism. Berkeley: The University of California Press.

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———. 2002. “The Dialogues Between Master and Disciples in the Scripture on Great Peace (Taiping jing).” In A Daoist Florilegium: A Festschrift Dedicated to Professor Liu Ts’un-yan on his Eighty-Fifth Birthday, Lee Cheuk Yin and Chan Man Sing, eds., 185– 234. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press. ———. 1991. “The Concept of Inherited Evil in the Taiping Jing.” East Asian History 2: 1–30. Kalinowski, Marc. 1996. “Astrologie calendaire et calcul de position dans la Chine an­ cienne. Les mutations de l’hémérologie sexagésimale entre le IVe et le IIe siècle avant notre ère.” Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 18: 71–113. Lagerwey, John. 2004. “Deux écrits taoïstes anciens.” Cahiers d’Extrême Asie 14: 139–71. Legge, James, transl. 1891. The Texts of Taoism, vol. 1. London: Oxford University Press. ———, transl. 1871. The Chinese Classics, vol. 1. London: Trübner. Libbrecht, Ulrich. 1990. “Prāna = pneuma = ch’i?” In Thought and Law in Qin and Han China: Studies Dedicated to Anthony Hulsewé on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, Wilt L. Idema and Erik Zürcher, eds., 42–62. Leiden: Brill. Loewe, Michael. 1993. “Pai hu t’ung 白虎通.” In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, Michael Loewe, ed., 347–356. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California. Luo Changpei 羅常培 and Zhou Zumo 周祖謨. 1958. Han Wei Jin Nanbei chao yunbu yanbian yanjiu 漢魏晉南北朝韻部演變研究 [A Study of the Evolution of Rhyme Groups in the Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties], vol. 1. Beijing: Kexue chubanshe. Mansvelt Beck, B.J. 1990. The Treatises of Later Han: Their Author, Sources, Contents and Place in Chinese Historiography. Leiden: Brill. Nielsen, Bent. 2009–2010. “Calculating the Fall of a Dynasty: Divination Based on the Qian zuo du.” Zhouyi Studies 6.1: 65–107. ———. 2003. A Companion to Yi Jing Numerology and Cosmology: Chinese Studies of Images and Numbers from Han 漢 (202 BCE–220 CE) to Song 宋 (960–1279 CE). London: Routledge Curzon. Petersen, Jens Østergård. 1990. “The Taiping jing and the Shuowen jiezi.” In The Master Said: To Study and … To Søren Egerod on the Occasion of His Sixty-Seventh Birthday, Birthe Arendrup, Simon B. Heilesen, and J.Ø. Petersen, eds., 139–149. Copenhagen: East Asian Institute, University of Copenhagen. Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. 2008. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London and New York: Routledge. Rao Zongyi 饒宗頤. 1972. “Taiping jing yu Shuowen jiezi 太平經與説文解字 [The Great Peace Scripture and Explanation of Graphs and Analysis of Characters].” Dalu zazhi 大陸雜誌 45.6: 39–41.

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Ren Jiyu 任繼愈 and Zhong Zhaopeng 鍾肇鵬, eds. 2005. Daozang tiyao 道藏提要 [A Conspectus of the Taoist Canon], third edition. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe. Schipper, Kristofer (Karen C. Duval, transl.). 1993. The Taoist Body. Berkeley: The University of California Press. Schipper, Kristofer, ed. 1975. Concordance du Tao-tsang: Titres des ouvrages. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. Schipper, Kristofer and Franciscus Verellen, eds. 2004. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Soothill, William E., and Lewis Hodous, eds. 1937. A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms: With Sanskrit and English Equivalents and a Sanskrit-Pali Index. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. Yasui Kōzan 安居香山. 1988. Isho to Chūgoku no shinpi shisō 緯書と中國の神秘思想 [Weft Writings and the Mystical Thought of China]. Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha. Yu Tao 于濤. 1999. “Taiping jing xingde tushi de yixue biaoxian ji qita 太平經刑德圖式 的易學表現及其他 [The Great Peace Scripture’s Punishment/Efficacy Pattern as Expressing the Scholarship of Changes, and Other].” Zhouyi yanjiu 周易研究 42.4: 43–48.

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Chapter 2

Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism Christine Mollier

Introduction In early medieval Taoism, there are two broad fields that are closely tied to embryology. The first pertains to techniques of self-perfection and Internal Alchemy (Neidan 內丹). Here, in brief, the generation of an embryo of immortality, the germ of a perfect being, develops within the practitioner’s body through a process of “autogestation” that can be labelled as an internal sexual alchemy. The second field where embryology plays a predominant role is, as one might expect, sexuality per se. In this case, the embryo is generated by heterosexual intercourse. As we know from the surviving sources, sexuality was a central concern for early Taoist organisations. Far from being left to mere improvisation, the sexual activities of initiates were highly ritualised and scrupulously supervised, as attested by the exceedingly technical sexual liturgy transmitted in the Taoist Canon. In general, associated rituals were known either as the “Way of Yin and Yang,” the “Union of Qi,” or the “Merging Pneumas” (heqi 和氣). Another way of referring to them was the “Way of Yellow and Red,” (huangchi zhi dao 黃赤之道) – yellow representing the female energies (associated with the moon) and red the male ones (associated with the sun).1 Codified during the second and third centuries by the Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshi dao 天師道), the first Taoist church, the Merging Pneumas ritual was among the cornerstones of their organisation. The Way of the Celestial Masters was hierarchically based on a system of initiation that conferred graded talismanic registers (lu 籙) on its members. These registers played an essential role, for they not only certified and established the position of the adept within the religious community but they also, thanks to the names and attributes of one or more divine “generals” contained within them, enabled their possessor to visualise and call upon their supernatural armies for healing or protection against demonic forces. Starting at age 1 See Michel Strickmann, “The Mao Shan Revelations; Taoism and the Aristocracy,” T’oung Pao 63 (1977): 60.

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seven, boys and girls could receive, at intervals of a few years and under the condition of a pledge, the protective registers of one, ten, and finally seventyfive generals together with the corresponding commandments and religious instructions. The bestowal of the last register, of seventy-five generals, usually marked the transition to adulthood. Adepts, male and female, could then be joined in matrimony, effectively “combining their registers” (helu 和籙) and, with the resulting register of one hundred fifty generals, gain access to the highest degree of initiation for laypersons, which ensured them a parish position.2 The ritual of “passage” or “crossing,” guodu 過度, which sealed their union, allowed them to practise the sexual rites.3 During the medieval period, these Merging Pneumas ceremonies were performed by Taoists of various currents, but they also became the target of much criticism. Declared morally scandalous and condemned by the Buddhist saṃgha, the “yellow and red” techniques were also subjected to invectives and even forcible reforms on the part of institutional Taoism. Conscious of the popularity of such practices, mainstream Taoist leaders worried about the vulgarisation and damage caused by their abuse. In South China, Taoists of the Shangqing 上清 (Highest Clarity), the “mystical” movement which gained remarkable success among the intelligentsia, denounced the serious threats to health posed by the excessive or improper practice of these rites.4 The Zhen’gao 真誥 (Declarations of the Perfected; DZ 1016) compiled by the Shangqing literatus Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456–536), for instance, raised serious doubts about the benefits conferred by the ritualised sexual practice, the origin of which it attributed to the charismatic Celestial Master Zhang Daoling 張道陵 (second century CE), purported founder of the Taoist religion: The Way of Yellow and Red, or art of merging the [male and female] pneumas, is just one of the methods taught by Zhang [Dao]ling in order to convert people and teach them to become “seed-people.” It is certainly not something for the Perfected. I have often seen people cut off their 2 Kristofer Schipper, “The Taoist Body,” History of Religions 17 (1978), especially 376–378; and, by the same author, “Taoist Ordination Ranks in the Tun–huang Manuscripts,” Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien (Festschrift für Hans Steiniger) (Königshausen: Neuman, 1985). 3 First studied by Henri Maspero in Le taoïsme, Mélanges posthumes sur les religions de la Chine (Paris: Musée Guimet, 1979 [1950]), red. Le taoïsme et les religions chinoises (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), 571–577; for the English translation, see Taoism and Chinese Religion, transl. Frank A. Kierman, Jr. (Amherst: University of Massachussetts Press, 1981), 536–41. 4 Michel Strickmann, Le taoïsme du Mao chan, Chronique d’une révélation (Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1980), 148–57.

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seed (zhong 種) by practising it, but I have never seen anyone obtain eternal life by sowing this seed.5 黃赤之道混氣之法，是張陵受教施化，為種子之一術耳，非真人之事 也。吾數見行此而絕種，未見種此而得生矣。

In northern China, the renowned fifth-century court Taoist reformer Kou Qianzhi 寇謙之 (365–448), himself a Celestial Master, insisted on the urgent necessity of demarcating the proper practice of the Merging Pneumas rites from the widespread “arts of the bedchamber” (fangzhong shu 房中術). The “reform of the Yellow and Red” that he proposed aimed to “reduce the 120 methods of the arts of the bedchamber to a single pure and orthodox method.”6 In what follows, my primary aim will not be to re-examine the general content and religious-historical background of these Taoist sexual rites, but rather, in a volume devoted to embryology, to focus on two major related questions: what was the nature of the “embryo of immortality” conceived by means of these rituals of the Yellow and Red, particularly in relation to the gender issues that they entailed? And what was the eschatological ideology underlying the key notion of a “seed-person” (zhongzi 種子)? 1

The Sexual Rites Described in the Huangshu

Let us first recall the basic trends of Taoist sexual liturgy. The Way of Yellow and Red has received sustained attention during the past decades, but, due mostly to its hermetic character and the scarcity of related materials, it is still only partially understood.7 The ritual procedures are principally known through two liturgical manuals preserved in the Taoist Canon, both ascribed to the first Heavenly Master, Zhang Daoling. One of these works, entitled Shangqing huangshu guodu yi 上清黃書過度儀 (Ritual of Passage of the Yellow 5 Zhen’gao DZ 1016, 2.1a; see Strickmann 1980, ibid. Unless otherwise noted, all translations to English are my own. 6 Laojun yinsong jiejing 老君音誦誡經 (Scripture of the Hymnal Rules of Lord Lao; DZ 785), 18a–19b; see Chen Guofu 陳國符, Daozang yuanliu kao 道臧源流考 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963 [1949]), 365–68. On Chinese sexual practices, see Douglas Wile, Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexology Classics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991). 7 See in particular Marc Kalinowski, “La transmission du dispositif des Neuf Palais sous des Six Dynasties,” in Tantric and Taoist Studies, vol. 3, Michel Strickmann, ed. (Bruxelles: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises), 1985; Gil Raz, “The Way of the Yellow and the Red: Re– examining the Sexual Initiaton Rite of Celestial Master Daoism,” Nan Nü 10 (2008).

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Book of the Highest Clarity ; DZ 1294), dated, in its extant version, to the second to fifth centuries CE, presents the entire sequence of the ritual. Most often referred to as the Huangshu (Yellow Book), its contents and terminology are based on cryptic and technical numerological or cosmological categories. Nonetheless, it is possible to reconstruct more or less precisely the ritual procedure that it develops.8 Far from the licentious orgies that were denounced by sixth- and seventhcentury Buddhist polemicists, the sexual performance described here appears to have been an austere and intricately choreographed exercise. It is not certain whether this sexual rite was to be performed by a single couple, or collectively by several couples of Taoist adepts. At any rate, it was conducted in an “oratory” (jing 竫 or jingshi 竫室), a ritual space oriented according to the Nine Palaces (jiugong 九宮) pattern and performed under the supervision of a Taoist Master. The male and female partners were compelled to follow a synchronised routine, lasting two or three hours in length and combining standing, sitting, and reclining postures, as well as specified steps. Visualisations, the summoning of deities within the body, and massages were performed by the two practitioners, who also had to undertake elaborate qi (pneuma) exercises such as the “Three Five Seven Nine Method” (sanwu qijiu fa 三五七九法). The salvific Merging Pneumas ritual was punctuated throughout with the recitation of incantations to conjoin the pneumas of the participants and strengthen the Five Spirits (wushen 五神) inhabiting their viscera. The ritual sequence ended with their sexual intercourse. What is of particular interest here is that the climax and ultimate goal of the ritual has been unanimously considered by those who have studied it to have been the production of an embryo of a perfect being, an homunculus named Taokang 桃康, or Peach Vigour. The identity and iconographic features of this perfect embryo are provided by the Huangshu, in order to enable the two partners to summon and visualise it during the ritual performance: He is styled Zidan (子丹). His clothes are of the five colours, and he wears a red turban and a large cap. On his couch of gold and jade, surrounded by five-coloured balustrades and curtains of pearl and jade, he resides right in the Gate of Destiny. Male spirits and Jade Maidens stand as 8 The hemerological framework of the ritual is detailed by Kalinowski 1985; for the Three Five Seven Nine Method (= twenty-four qi), which corresponds to the twenty-four deities inhabiting the body in the Celestial Master cosmology, see Christine Mollier, Une apocalypse du Ve siècle: le Livre des incantations divines des grottes abyssales (Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1990), 87, n. 79.

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servants on both sides. […] He controls and registers the multitude of spirits. Summoning them by name according to the Registers, he lets none of them escape. He is always in my body and together with me will become transcendent.9 號日子丹,衣服五色赤積大冠, 金牀玉榻,五色欄干, 珠玉斗帳, 正當命門, 神男玉女侍兩邊。[…] 領錄羣神, 案錄召名, 不得通亡, 長在我身與我俱 仙。

During the following centuries, we find further details of the development of the divine human embryo and the cosmic agents responsible for it. In an enlightening passage entitled “Shengshen pin 生神品” (“Birth of the Spirit”) found in the sixth- or beginning of the seventh-century Taishang dongxuan lingbao yebao yinyuan jing 太上洞玄靈寶業報因緣經 (Lingbao Scripture of Karmic Retribution; DZ 336), one learns that the “seven lads of the Big Dipper,” also called the “seven divine boys” (qi shentongzi 七神童子) are the initiators of prenatal life. During the seventh month of gestation, the essences (jing 精) of the seven stars of the Big Dipper take the form of seven divine boys. They descend into the womb, penetrate the fetus, and pierce it so as to open its corporal orifices and insufflate it with its seven celestial souls (hun 魂).10 Returning now to the ritual of the Huangshu, the generation of the homunculus Taokang in the “Gate of Destiny” (mingmen 命門) is viewed there as the fruit of the intermingling and coagulation of the three primordial pneumas (sanqi 三氣). A formula entitled “method of the jiayi spell” (jiayi zhoufa 甲乙咒 法), which the practitioners were required to intone together towards the end of the ritual, gives a brief but explicit explanation of the aim of the sexual performance: “The three pneumas together produced within our [male and female] bodies [fuse] into chaos and generate the One whose name is Peach Vigour.” 11 The ritual process of the creation of the embryo described here has nonetheless remained a matter of perplexity for some contemporary scholars of Taoism. In his insightful analysis of the ritual, Gil Raz discusses the actual process of production of the perfected homunculus, the Taokang embryo, questioning whether it was created prior to or after sexual intercourse and whether ejaculation occurred during the coupling.12 However, what seems to 9 10 11 12

Shangqing huangshu guodu yi; hereafter Huangshu DZ 1294, 14b–15a. Taishang dongxuan lingbao yebao yinyuan jing DZ 336, 8.7a–b. 三氣共生臣妾身混沌為一名曰桃康; Huangshu DZ 1294, 15a. See Raz 2008.

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be of greater significance in the present context is the ambiguity concerning the actual carrier of the embryo. First, we must acknowledge that the Huangshu leaves no doubt that both male (jia 甲) and female (yi 乙) initiates are equally involved in the ritual. The former, embodying Heaven, and the latter, embodying Earth, alternatively or simultaneously perform choreographed movements, massages, visualisations, and incantations, acting in synchronised and symmetrical concert. We must also underline that the incantation jointly pronounced at the end of the ritual seems to indicate equal rights for both practitioners in terms of the divine rewards. The text stresses: “Together, we uphold the Way and Virtue. We pray for long life, for lasting vision, and to become seed-people.”13 Therefore, both partners anticipate salvation, or more exactly, they expect to “become seed-people.” I shall return to this notion of “seed-people” below. In any event, this expectation is where parity and reciprocity between the couple end. There is no evidence in the text that the Taokang embryo – the production of which is the ultimate purpose of the ritualised intercourse – takes form within the bodies of both male and female initiates. As previously noted, Taokang is said to be the One, the result of the fusion of pneumas from the two practitioners. Nothing here fails to conform to the pattern of natural gestation resulting from heterosexual union. Still, a question remains concerning the gender of the bearer of the embryo that is created. Since there is no doubt that the couple’s intercourse yields only a single homunculus, which of the two partners carries it? So far as I know, the problem has not been previously considered, except by Gil Raz, who I think clouds the issue. At the end of his essay, he suggests that the perfected embryo was to have been produced within the male adept’s body, but “it is not quite clear,” he writes, “whether this was to occur within the body of the female initiate as well.”14 In the context of self-cultivation practices such as Internal Alchemy, the production of an embryo of immortality within a male body was not considered an incongruous phenomenon. Early Shangqing literature mentions the same Taokang, the divine embryo and germ of perfect life, which resides in the lower Cinnabar Field, the dantian 丹田 of the practitioner, male or female. Also named Peach Child (Taohai 桃孩) or Ruddy Infant, it is nourished through visualisation practices modelled on gestational processes.15 For the adepts of the Way of the Celestial Masters, however, the Union of Qi ritual aims similarly 13 14 15

共奉行道德乞長生久十視得為種民; ibid. Raz 2008, 120–21. For relevant Taoist literature, see Stephen Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997), 304.

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at immortality, but with the difference that its method involves two partners. Even if, as Raz puts it, one should see these sexual rituals as “symbolic,” as a means to “transcend the mundane realm,” or to “transcend sexuality,”16 they remain, irreducibly, acts of sexual intercourse. Would it not be paradoxical, then, for their adepts to have imagined that a male might be pregnant with an embryo conceived heterosexually? In order to clarify these issues, one must take account of the ideological background of the relevant practices as represented in additional documents derived from the Celestial Masters and other roughly contemporaneous Taoist sources. 2

Sex and Procreation in Early Celestial Masters Literature

Apart from the Huangshu, one of the earliest surviving writings of the Way of the Celestial Masters testifying to sexual rituals, their goal and moral framework, is the influential late second-century Xiang’er zhu 想爾注, the Xiang’er Commentary on the Laozi 老子.17 The text contains several passages in which sexual practices are vehemently discouraged due to their potential for causing injuries, in particular due to the depletion of “vital essence,” (jing 精) or male semen. For instance, one reads: “The Dao of Yin and Yang is similar to congealing the essences to produce life. At the age of fifty, having filled one’s [productive] role, one should stop.”18 Significantly, the Xiang’er does not forbid the Union of Qi rituals, but simply restricts them to the field of procreation. The commentary elaborates: The Dao places great emphasis on the continuation of ancestral sacrifice and the survival of the species. Desiring humanity to join their essences and so produce life, the Dao teaches the youthful to preserve their essences but not to cut them off. It does not teach humanity to labour [at intercourse]. The scheme of labouring [at intercourse] was thought up by the ignorant.19 道重繼祠, 種類不絕。欲令合精產生，故教之年少微省不絕，不教 之 勤力也。勤力之計，出愚人之心耳。

16 17 18 19

Raz 2008, 90, and 120. For a study and translation of this scripture, see Bokenkamp 1997, 30–148. Xiang’er, l.55, from Bokenkamp 1997, 84. Xiang’er, l.58–60, from ibid.

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Commenting on the above passage, Stephen Bokenkamp rightly states that “the joining of male (Yang) and female (Yin) in sexual intercourse is for the purpose of producing living beings in the same way that the ‘congealing of essence’ in the body produces internal spirits.”20 In other words, the Xiang’er passage stipulates that retention, coitus reservatus, and sexual abstinence are prescribed only to prevent abuse, as this leads to exhaustion of the vital essences of the body. The third-century Celestial Masters’ Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiaojie kejing 正一法文天師教戒科經 (Scripture of Commandments Taught by the Celestial Master from the One and Orthodox Canon; DZ 789) also insists on this matter, deploring excessive indulgence in erotic sex.21 The orgies denounced in Buddhist anti-Taoist polemics are nowhere to be found here; there is no question of carnal pleasure, or of orgasm as an end in itself. What seems to be at the core of the Celestial Masters sexual rituals is the perpetuation of the species, as we are reminded in another of the extant sources originating from the movement, the third-century Nüqing guilü 女青 鬼律 (Code of Nüqing for Controlling Demons; DZ 790). This source plainly states that the rites of Merging Pneumas were a prerequisite for anyone striving to become a “seed-person” (zhongzi), that is, one of the elect, the chosen people.22 Sexual activity also appears to have been restricted to conjugal partners. This was, at least, the view of Celestial Master Kou Qianzhi in delineating sexual orthopraxis for his Taoist followers. “The training of the Yellow and Red,” he writes in his fifth-century Laojun yinsong jiejing 老君音誦誡經 (Scripture of the Hymnal Rules of Lord Lao; DZ 785), “should be normally practised by husbands and wives.”23 Renunciation of intercourse and the sterility that this implies are seen here as going against nature and hence unsuitable. This principle perfectly reflects the traditional Chinese conviction that individuals have the responsibility to ensure the continuity of their lineage, and that ascendants and descendants belonging to a common clan are bound, for better or for worse, across the generations, by ties of blood and of name. The sociological implications of such convictions are sufficiently clear. What I would like to insist on in the present context is their moral and religious ramifications. In early Taoism, the intergenerational solidarity of the patrilineal chain operates even beyond the grave through a system of retribution entirely controlled by the agents of the divine 20 21 22 23

Bokenkamp 1997, note *, 84. Italics added for emphasis. Bokenkamp 1997, 179. Nüqing guilü DZ 790, 5.1a–2a. Laojun yinsong jiejing DZ 785, 18b.

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bureaucracy. This system functions not only on a personal, individual level but, above all, on a collective one. Retribution is a family affair. The moral patrimony transmitted from one generation to the next concretely affects the existence of each family member, as well as the entire genealogy: ascendants and descendants, living and deceased, all are unfailingly tied together down through the generations. Thus, the positive effects of merits and good deeds accumulated during one’s lifetime ineluctably rebound on the more recent members of one’s line to benefit them. But this principle of inheritance and intergenerational solidarity equally applies to negative deeds and religious transgressions. By virtue of being genetically transmissible, faults and sins can contaminate the fate of an entire family. Moral debts that are not fully repaid by the original sinners are added to the moral account of their children, grandchildren, and relatives. Such convictions were deeply grounded, and over the centuries Celestial Masters Taoism progressively elaborated scales of retribution conforming to an implacable, otherworldly justice. Thus, the infringements of one person might have disastrous consequences for an entire family. The more serious the faults, and the more numerous the penalties accumulated, the greater the compensatory damages for descendants. Among the problems afflicting a transgressor’s subsequent generations, the Celestial Masters’ manuals cite physical or mental defects and diseases, domestic conflicts, material hardships, disreputability, and premature or violent death. But the most horrible sentence, the ultimate penalty, even worse than untimely death or a fatal affliction, was the termination of the family, the extinction of one’s lineage.24 Within this complex of ideas concerning human destiny and its relationship to familial ties and moral inheritance, there is no doubt that procreation and, consequently, sexuality were accorded much importance, and that the ritual practices ensuring favourable conditions for their realisation were matters of exceptional gravity.25 Unmistakably, in such a context, the production of “perfect embryos” was placed in the service of eugenic ends, and the Merging Pneumas rituals served the interests of a soteriology grounded in the familial system and not solely the interests of the male Taoist practitioner.

24 25

See for example, juan 2 of the Chisongzi zhangli 赤松子章曆 (Almanac of Master Red Pine; DZ 615) and the third from the Nüqing guilü DZ 790. The terms for “seed families” (zhongxing 種姓) or “seed clans” (zhongzu 種族) found in the Celestial Masters Zhenyi fawen tianshi jiaojie jiejing正一法文天師教戒科經 (Scripture of Commandments Taught by the Celestial Master from the One and Orthodox Canon; DZ 789) appear also relevant in this respect; see also below.

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The Shenzhou jing and the Ritual of the Huangshu

For further information concerning the ideology underlying these sexual rites, one must leave the Celestial Masters and step into the related, but nevertheless distinct, contemporaneous Taoist milieu of a millenarian sect active during the fifth century in southern China (Jiangnan). Although this sect was considered dissident and developed on the margins of official, established Taoism, its basic theology, religious structures, and liturgy were modelled on those of the Celestial Masters. The apocalyptic narrative that it produced, the Dongyuan shenzhou jing 洞淵神咒經 (Scripture of Divine Incantations of the Abyssal Caverns; DZ 335), hereafter Shenzhou jing, provides some of the most substantial and concrete data pertaining to early Taoist sexual rites.26 The Shenzhou jing’s system of initiation – based, like that of the Celestial Masters, on the bestowal of the talismanic registers of protective generals and the sexual rituals of the Yellow Book – served as the driving force of the community. The Shenzhou jing indicates that at the age of thirteen, boys and girls in the sect were already entitled to receive the highest register, the “Huangshu qiling 黃書 契令” (“Contract and Regulations of the Yellow Book”). The transmission was marked by a ceremony known as the “jiashen passage” (jiashen guodu 甲申過 度) or, alternatively, the “three masters passage” (sanshi guodu 三師過度). It was celebrated with a banquet of eight persons and various offerings (zhixin 質 信) provided by the new initiates.27 It is likely that the sexual ritual of the Huangshu performed in this context was executed under the guidance of the three Masters supervising the “passage” or “crossing over.” The Shenzhou jing expressly stipulates that the sexual ritual was not to be restricted to this one exceptional, seemingly matrimonial initiation. Adepts were obliged to practise it on a regular basis and without failure. It was only under this sine qua non condition that they could expect, after a few years of faithful involvement in this happy activity, to become immortals. It is not specified whether their sexual training was to be publicly performed every time under the watchful eyes of a master, or if it could, like the “arts of the bedchamber” (fangzhong shu 房中術), be carried out privately. Given the considerable length of the complete Union of Qi ritual sequence, one can also imagine that if it were to be executed privately, there would exist an abridged version. It is plainly asserted, however, that the initiated couples had to observe a strict sexual agenda. In addition to the “auspicious days” (liangri 良日) – given as the 26 27

For an in-depth study of this text, see Mollier 1990. Dongyuan shenzhou jing ; hereafter Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 20.18a–20b; Mollier 1990, 76–77 and 149–150.

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jiazi 甲子, dingmao 丁卯, jimao 己卯, and gengshen 庚申 days of the sexagesimal calendar and corresponding for the most part to special religious dates – the couples must also perform the rites during the “six [days of] merging [pneumas] (liuhe 六合),” namely, the first, eighth, ninth, twelfth, eighteenth, and twenty-second days of the sexagesimal cycle.28 Significantly, the dates given here largely correspond to the agenda for ritualised intercourse found in the Celestial Masters’ Dongzhen huangshu 洞真黃書 (Yellow Book of the Dongzhen [Canon]; DZ 1343). This scripture, the second and less studied of the two Huangshu manuals that have survived in the Taoist Canon, contains the instructions, cosmological diagrams and calendar for the Merging Pneumas rituals.29 Considering the regularity of ritual intercourse that both this work and the Shenzhou jing advocate, it is, I think, plausible that the “six [days of] merging” or the “auspicious days” might have been somehow related to the female devotees’ menstrual cycles. Another important feature of the rituals highlighted in the Shenzhou jing is their obligatory nature. According to the scripture, the agenda was to be rigorously observed. In case of sexual abstinence, the couple and their entire family were threatened with deadly reprisals by the very same divinities contained in their protective registers of initiation. To illustrate the seriousness of the matter, the Shenzhou jing relates the cases of two couples who received the Huangshu. One of them honoured its engagement, demonstrating sexual assiduousness and consequently attaining immortality. The other couple, guilty of sexual abstinence, prematurely died within two years.30 Moreover, the Shenzhou jing insists on the fact that its members should practise these sexual rituals exclusively among themselves, that is, only with other members of their religious community. It is out of the question, the text insists, to have any promiscuous liaisons with any Taoists of the Yellow and Red (huangchi daoshi 黃赤道士), in other words, members of the Celestial Masters Church. Devotees from different communities should not intermingle, and their rituals, although the same, should be performed in separate denominational contexts: 28

29 30

The text specifies: “Those who desire to unite must choose the following auspicious days: gengshen, jiazi, dingmao, and jimao, besides the first, eighth, ninth, twelfth, eighteenth, and twenty-second, which are the ‘merging [pneumas]’ days.” 若欲同之，取求良日， 庚申、甲子、丁卯、己卯，八日、十二日、二十二日、九日、一日、十八 日，合日也 ; Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 10.8b; Mollier 1990, 82; the gengshen day is generally recognized in China as a fast day. The jiazi day, the first of the cycle, is subject to many interdictions and ritual prescriptions. Dongzhen huangshu 洞真黃書 (Yellow Book of the Dongzhen [Canon]; DZ 1343), 1a–1b. Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 20.18a; Mollier 1990, 76–77.

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Taoists who adhere to the Three Caverns should not travel together with Taoists of the Yellow and Red. The Taoists who honour the sacred scripture and the Masters of the Three Caverns should enter the mountains in order to escape from this wretched world. But if they stay within the world, they should establish separate parishes from the male and female Taoists of the Yellow and Red.31 道士悉奉三洞之人, 不得與黃赤之道士俱遊也。奉經道士, 三洞法師, 當 入山遠避濁世。若在人間, 男女黃赤道士自別立治舍。

To demarcate their sexual rites from those of the Celestial Masters, the Shenzhou jing claims to rely on a “heavenly,” and therefore superior, version of the Huangshu (tianshang Huangshu 天上黃書) – one that should not be confused with the mundane “worldly” Huangshu (shijian Huangshu 世間黃書).32 The heavenly version granted the adept the highest rank within the religious community, the title of “great daoshi” (da daoshi 大道士). With the transmission of the lesser, vulgar Yellow Book, one could at best only expect to become a “minor daoshi” (xiao daoshi 小道士). One should note in this respect that the sect of the Shenzhou jing was not the only Taoist organisation to draw a line between their community and the Celestial Masters institution. During the same period, the above-mentioned Shangqing Taoists disapproved of the ancient sexual customs of the early Celestial Masters. The contemporaneous Numinous Treasure (Lingbao 靈寶) Taoists, also active in southern China, went a step further and expressly forbade its followers to have any contact with Celestial Masters adherents: “One should no longer be in the presence of a Taoist or master of ritual [who practises] the Yellow and the Red. Nor should one lie, rest, sit or act [with them], nor cross sleeves [in conversation], nor eat and drink [with them].”33

31 32

33

Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 10.8a. Ibid., 20. 22b; Mollier 1990, 81–82; the text also says: “From today, the Contract and Regulations of the Heavenly Yellow Book and the sacred scripture are proclaimed as superior. The mundane Yellow and Red and Purple Palace is no longer acceptable.” 自今以去，天上黃 書契令，并經為上。不復受者，今世黃赤紫府也; Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 20.18a; Mollier 1990, 76–77. Stephen Bokenkamp, “The Early Lingbao Scriptures and the Origins of Daoist Monasticism,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 20 (2011): 119.

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The Eschatological Background of the Notion of “Seed-People”

As initiatory rituals, the Merging Pneumas ceremonies conferred status upon adepts within the Taoist communities and thereby consolidated the communities themselves. In this way, the preservation of the group was ensured and managed through careful oversight of the biological reproduction of the entire population of its initiates. This concern with cohesion is also manifest in organisational and institutional structures, particularly in the system of public records (ji 籍) established by the early Celestial Masters and perpetuated in some later Taoist currents. The name of each parish member was recorded, as were births and deaths, in such a way that these registers could be periodically updated for an accurate census of the community.34 Additionally, Taoist sexual rites had another tangible and pragmatic goal. Also labelled the “art of the seed-people” (zhongzi zhi shu 種子之術), ritual intercourse was intended to produce real and perfect embryos and thus to generate “seed-children” or “seed-people” – in other words, perfect human beings, the elect. This notion of perfect human beings was woven into a fully articulated messianic eschatology. Harking back to the emergence of the Way of the Celestial Masters, this conception remained at the core of subsequent medieval Taoist theologies and played a formative role in the dynamics of sectarian groups. The idea of producing perfect people was reinforced by apocalyptic anticipation. For example, in an influential catechism, the Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiaojie kejing 正一法文天師教戒科經 (Scripture of Commandments Taught by the Celestial Master from the One and Orthodox Canon; DZ 789), hereafter Jiaojie kejing allegedly pronounced by the third Celestial Master, Zhang Lu 張 魯 (mid-third century CE), the eschatological message is clearly emphasised. 35 Zhang Lu exhorts his followers to rectify their moral conduct and observe the rules of religious life based on the principle of cosmic harmony. He threatens the non-compliant with social disorder, wars, natural calamities, and epidemics that will wipe out humanity. By contrast, observant adepts of the Dao are promised hope and happiness: “Those who, from today on, practise good action will find that disaster and disease melt away from them, and they will 34 35

See Schipper 1985. For a study and translation of the Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiaojie kejing DZ 789, see Bokenkamp 1997, 147–185. The same kind of dualistic, elitist, and eschatological message is expressed in other Celestial Masters texts such as the above-mentioned third-century Nüqing guilü DZ 790, 1.8a; or the fifth-century Santian neijie jing 三天內解經 (Scripture of Explanations of the Essentials of the Three Heavens; DZ 1205), 1.6a.

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become seed-people of the later age.”36 The probity and religious uprightness of these seed-people render them invulnerable to the apocalyptic ordeal. The text asserts: “If you perform good deeds, practising humanity and duty, then all will be well with you. You will see the Great Peace. You will pass through the catastrophes unscathed and become the seed-people of the later age.”37 Yet this dualistic ideology goes even further. That religious righteousness is what determines a human being’s ontological state, genetic condition, and soteriological potential was thus emphasised by the adepts of the Way of the Celestial Masters. Convinced of the correlation between bodily and moral perfection, they maintained that external appearance and health were reflective of a person’s virtue and, consequently, of affinity with the Dao. In other words, one’s physical state mirrored aptitude for salvation. Illnesses and congenital deficiencies were considered the most obvious signs of sin, symptoms of the moral lapses of careless or wicked individuals. They were provoked by demonic entities infiltrating their bodies.38 It is significant that non-initiates were labelled “demonic forced labourers” (guizu 鬼卒). The same Jiaojie kejing makes it clear that, although the status of the seedpeople is difficult to achieve and “cannot be attained without help,”39 it is nonetheless accessible to anyone, male or female, old or young, novice or advanced. The terminology in the scripture also indicates that this status was not just individual, but was collectively realised by the members of an entire family. The text thus speaks of “seed-families” (zhongxing 種姓) or “seed-clans” (zhongzu 種族). 40 The term “seed-people” which, it should be noted, also occurs in medieval Chinese Buddhist literature,41 remained current in early medieval Taoist scriptures as a generic synonym for “good people” (liangmin 良民), “perfected 36 37 38

39 40 41

從今日之善行，災消無病，得為後世種民; Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiaojie kejing DZ 789, 18b; translation from Bokenkamp 1997, 181. 便能改心為善，行仁義，則善矣。可見太平，度脫厄難之中，為後世種民”; Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiaojie kejing DZ 789, 15a; translation from Bokenkamp 1997, 173. See Mollier, “Visions of Evil: Demonology and Orthodoxy in Early Taoism,” in Daoism in History, Essays in Honour of Liu Ts’un-yan, Benjamin Penny, ed. (London: Routledge, 2006). 種民難中亦當助其力; Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiaojie keji DZ 789, 17a; see the tranlation in Bokenkamp 1997, 177. Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiaojie keji DZ 789, 18b; see the tranlation in Bokenkamp 1997, 181. For the Tiantai 天台 school, zhong, which corresponds to the first of the three degrees that practitioners must achieve in order to attain nirvāṇa, signifies that they bear the seed (zhong) of buddha nature; see, for example, Paul Magnin, La vie et l’œuvre de Huisi (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1979), 59. The notion of zhongmin (seed-people) is also

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people” (zhenmin 真民), or “celestial people” (tianmin 天民), that is to say, the community of the faithful who were promised salvation or immortality.42 In the context of apocalyptic eschatology, the literal notion of “seed” remained prevalent. The seed-people were the elect, in other words those destined to escape from the cataclysms of the impending end of the world, to survive following its destruction and to be elevated as immortals. Genetically and morally programmed for salvation, these virtuous Taoists, deemed superhuman beings, were supposed to form the basic genetic stock from which a new, unblemished humanity would arise and repopulate a utopian, restored universe, with all traces of evil having been eradicated. This topic was a matter of particular concern for the early southern communities that gave birth to the main medieval Taoist currents, which promoted more or less radical messianic expectations. The Shangqing movement, for example, although more interested in selfcultivation and the individual pursuit of immortality than millenarian propaganda, was also concerned with apocalyptic eschatology. In spite of its marked reticence towards the Celestial Masters’ sexual rites, its adepts adhered to the concept of seed-people in relationship to a dualistic conception of the world. One of its major canonical scriptures, the Shangqing housheng daojun lieji 上清後聖道君列紀 (Chronicle of the Lord of the Dao, Sage of the Latter Age; DZ 442), hereafter Daojun lieji, sharply opposes the chosen or good people to the evil ones. The work, which belongs to the corpus of literature divinely revealed to the well-known visionary Yang Xi 楊羲 during the years 364–370, predicts the impending end of days and the advent of the messianic saviour Li Hong 李弘 (or Laojun 老君 [Lord Lao], the divinised Laozi 老子). While natural disasters, calamities, epidemics, and social disorders will annihilate the unfaithful in the course of a few cataclysmic years preceding his advent, the seed-people will find safety in the mountains. They will, of course, be the only ones to survive the chaos and enjoy the era of Great Peace (Taiping 太平) inaugurated by the messiah: The good will be planted as seed-people and the remaining mortals will be eradicated. Pestilence and flood will wash over them; weapons and

42

frequently used in the “precious volumes” (baojuan 寶卷) issued from sectarian movements from the Ming-Qing period (1368–1911). For a detailed study of this concept, see Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡儀豊, “Rikuchō dōkyō no shumin shisō 六朝道教の種民思想” (Tokyo: Kokushō kankakai, 1976); see also Christine Mollier, “Zhongmin,” in The Encyclopedia of Taoism, vol. 2, Fabrizio Pregadio, ed. (London: Routledge, 2008).

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fire will circle below them. All the evil will be eradicated at once, all the violent will be destroyed. Those who delight in the Dao will hide away in the land; the good people will ascend the mountains. The flowing filth will be shaken off, driven into the vast abyss. In this way all mortals will be divided, the good from the evil.43 種善人, 除殘民, 疫水交其上兵火繞其下, 惡惡並滅, 凶凶皆沒. 好道陸隱, 善人登山. 流濁奔蕩, 御之鯨淵都分別也。

For the Daojun lieji, these seed-persons are certainly not ordinary beings. Besides their outstanding moral and religious qualities, they also bear extraordinary physical characteristics. The text lists a range of distinctive marks (xiang 相), strange features, and physiological peculiarities that these exceptional creatures may have: azure teeth, white blood, square eyes, dragon mouths, fivecoloured pneumas issuing from their heads, fragrant breath, purple brains, brocade-patterned tongues, green viscera, scarlet marrow, and so on.44 The ideology of marginal Taoist movements, such as the sect of the Shenzhou jing was even more extreme. For its followers, the safeguard of religious purity and the advent of a new cosmic order depending on the generation of a class of elect, the seed-people, required a messianic mission verging on a theological crusade. Like many contemporaneous Taoist or Buddhist devotees, the followers of the Shenzhou jing were convinced that the end of the world was at hand, but the testimonies left by the text give the distinct impression that they were far more fanatical. The ominous scenarios it describes and the alarmist predictions that it ceaselessly reiterates, chapter after chapter, are indicative of a heightened level of anxiety. Adversity, disasters, and disorders, whether manifested at the individual, familial, social, political, or cosmic levels, were invariably interpreted as signs of planetary chaos. The majority of human beings were judged to be malevolent, comparable to “maggots in latrines” (ce zhong zhi chong 厠中之蟲).45 Depravity, avarice, lasciviousness, hypocrisy, slander and murder were considered to be on the rise. The absence of filial piety and ongoing vendettas were putting an end to the harmony of families: “Fathers and sons, elder and younger brothers foment plots against one another to the point of mutual slaughter.”46 43 44 45 46

Shangqing housheng daojun lieji DZ 442, 3b–4a; translation from Bokenkamp 1997, 345– 346. Ibid., 9b–11b; translation from Bokenkamp 1997, 355–59. Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 20.3b. 父子兄弟，更相圖謀，以致滅亡; Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 1.3b.

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The blood sacrifices practised at all levels of society were declared heterodox, as their perpetuation was seen as responsible for the proliferation of demonic, false deities, as well as for bringing disease, misfortune, and premature death. Equally symptomatic of this irreversible decline were political corruption and barbarian invasions. “The empire is governed by ‘walking corpses,’”47 proclaims the Shenzhou jing, decrying the oppression of the populace at the hands of officials and its subjection to imprisonment, punishment, and forced labour. To war, rebellion, and brigandry were added natural catastrophes: floods, fires, crop failures and loss of livestock, marauding packs of wild animals, together with other disasters. Famine, demonic possession and, above all, disease and epidemics, enforced a reign of terror: “Sobs are heard on the roads, cadavers pile up in the fields.”48 As the scripture explains, when men have lost their original spontaneity, they accumulate sins, disobey religious principles, turn their backs on longevity practices and, worse yet, refuse to hear the holy writ and its wise predictions, thus provoking an upsurge of deadly miasmas. The “celestial pneumas” (tianqi 天氣) that ensure that all things remain naturally harmonised gradually cede their place to demonic “spent pneumas” (guqi 故 氣), which, on reaching their apex, make the end of world inevitable. The ordeal of the apocalypse is teleologically necessary in order to eradicate evil. The destruction of the cosmos with its wicked rabble, mutually corrupted as it is, must be complete: “All will be killed,” “the whole universe will be annihilated and purified.” Such is the price for the advent of the new messianic age, one during which “humanity will be renewed, Heaven and Earth recreated.”49 Here, too, the charismatic Li Hong, medieval Taoism’s messiah par excellence, is awaited to inaugurate his perfect realm. For the Shenzhou jing, humanity is thus dramatically divided into two categories that are ontologically, genetically, and morally exclusive. On the one side were the Taoist adepts converted to the religion of the Three Caverns (sandong 三洞), the “true” teaching as preached by the holy book. On the other were the “foolish” (yuren 愚人), the “sinners” (zuiren 罪人), the “wicked” (e’ren 惡人), the “vulgar” (suren 俗人), and the “renegades” (wuyi wuni ren 武義五逆人), all of whom would disappear in the final holocaust. The defiled nature and moral depravity of these fallen creatures may also be read in their bodies and faces: just as the seed-persons of Shangqing Taoism bear the physical signs of their status, so too evil persons, according to the Shenzhou jing, may be recognised by their ugliness and infirmity. They may be handicapped, crippled, or 47 48 49

國土今日政有行尸; ibid., 2.1a. 哭聲盈路，死亡蓋野; ibid., 10.2a. Ibid., 9.2b.

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hunchbacked. Some have no feet or hands or are hare-lipped. Others have a “deer’s face” and are so hideous that just seeing them “makes one throw up.”50 Those without such conspicuous marks of their diabolical nature are no less afflicted: they may be mentally deficient, blind, deaf, or lacking olfaction. Their hidden monstrosity results in “their having human form, but no human feelings,” relegating them to the ranks of the demonic and the bestial.51 Illness, physical or mental flaws, even if only aesthetic, are indices of sin. But the list of pariahs does not end there. In addition to evildoers, miscreants, heretics, and the disgraced, foreigners and barbarians were also demonised and depicted as pathogenic or noxious. Burdened with the horrendous attributes usually reserved for the feared souls of the dead, they were castigated as “demons” (gui 鬼) or “walking corpses” (xingshi),52 who lacked the most basic prerequisites, genetic or otherwise, for salvation. The debased nature of these beings is explained by their familial ascent and their karma. The germ of evil that is rooted in them comes from faults accumulated during their own past lives or inherited from their deceased parents and ancestors. By contrast, the Shenzhou jing declares that all “good men” (shanren 善人), those who are among the elect, are of celestial origin. Thanks to the virtuous moral inheritance bequeathed by their familial forebears or the merits accumulated during their past lives, all initiates undoubtedly possess the bones of immortals and have an affinity with the holy scriptures and the Dao. This spiritual legacy, familial or karmic, determines not only the physical attributes of individuals, but also their abilities, moral worth, and social position. People whose ancestors have studied the Dao (or who have done so themselves in former lives) have their clothes and food arise spontaneously. […] They are predisposed to immortality […]. Wealthy people are the descendants of those who have gained merits and worshipped the Three Jewels.53 有先世習道來, 故中國衣食自然 […] 先世應仙 […] 大貴者建造功德禮拜 三寶中來。

50 51 52 53

Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 10.4b–5a. 有人形無人之情; Shenzhou jing DZ 335, ibid.; and Mollier 1990, 175–178. For the Shenzhou jing, the “walking corpes” are those who give themselves over to heterodox cults and scorn the practices for immortality; see Mollier 2006, 90–91. Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 9.6b–8b.

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Though emphatically elitist and xenophobic, the messianic discourse of the Shenzhou jing presents itself as democratic, even egalitarian. All are offered the prospect of salvation, without discrimination of sex, age, or social class, and of ascent to the rank of the elect under the sole condition of “entering the Dao.” All of you, men and women, whether kings, emperors, nobles, high functionaries, or even villains or slaves, if you obtain the sacred book [...], your names will be inscribed in the ranks of the immortals and you will not die violent deaths.54 子等男女之人, 若國王帝主方伯二千石,下至愚人不問奴婢, 能及此經 […] 名入仙品 終不枉死也。

All are thus given the hope of changing their inner nature, including those who are a priori excluded: the disinherited and the pariahs, the infirm and ill, tyrannical lords and functionaries, criminals and foreigners. It suffices that they be duly initiated and render a cult to the holy book. All adepts of the Three Caverns, that is, of the Shenzhou jing, thus possess celestial karma and the bones of immortals, and are therefore guaranteed membership among the elect. Consequently, all who are converted are potential seed-persons from the outset. 5

La Dolce Vita in the Messianic Kingdom

The ideal future promised to the seed-people in the messianic kingdom of Li Hong brings with it the rank of civil servant, that is, promotion to a social status forever admired in China. In other words, all the Taoist survivors of the apocalypse will become officials. As the Daojun lieji tells us, the names of the elect will be registered in the celestial bureaucracy and they will be granted official positions corresponding to their spiritual achievements and the sacred scriptures they have received. Modelled on the imperial administration, the hierarchy of officials in Lord Li Hong’s perfect kingdom will be rigorously hierarchical: All the good and benevolent will be preserved as seed-people. Those whose studies (of the Dao) have just begun will be Transcendent func54

Ibid., 1.3a–b; see Mollier 1990, 102.

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tionaries; those who have achieved the Dao will be Transcendent officers.55 存慈善已為種民, 學始者為仙使， 得道者為仙官。

Several hundred greater and lesser ranks are accorded to those who will become Transcendent. The Sage Lord will in each case class them as officials on the basis of their abilities, giving them rank that they might be lords over the seed-people.56 作仙之品第, 高下數百矣。聖君乃隨才署置，以為大小諸侯，各皆有 秩，以君種民也。

The Shenzhou jing also idealises officials. It ensures its adepts that all will assist the Perfect Lord and that all will become “grand ministers” (dachen 大臣).57 The renewed perfect world – where the stars will have been reignited and the earth covered with the seven jewels, where violence, evil, and death will have been definitively vanquished, and where “food and clothing will arise spontaneously”58 – will be a realm of uniformity and homogeneity. All will enjoy health, purity, success, longevity, abundance, and peace. And, once more, the status of the men and women of this new, spontaneous generation (ziran min 自然民), will be reflected in their impeccable physical features: People will not be the same size as today. Without being conscious of it, they will transform by themselves [and become] tall and beautiful. They will attain a height of thirteen feet […]. Their complexions will be smooth, their eyes shining. There will be no ugly people. One will tirelessly admire [these beautiful beings].59 人民長大亦不復是今之道士耳。不覺自異其形端正長大。 人長一丈三 尺 […] 面目光澤。人中無有姿醜。了了視之無厭矣。

This description of an equalised society inhabited by people without wrinkles, immortals who are all similarly tall and handsome, materially satisfied and 55 56 57 58 59

Shangqing housheng daojun lieji DZ 442, 4a; translation from Bokenkamp 1997, 346–47. Ibid., 5a–5b; translation from Bokenkamp 1997, 348–50. Mollier 1990, 186–187. 衣食自然; Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 9.2b. Ibid., 1.11a; Mollier 1990, 110–111.

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morally irreproachable, starkly contrasts with the pre-apocalyptic dystopia bemoaned in the Shenzhou jing. Concluding Remarks: Counting the Elect Given the dire circumstances preceding the end of the world, there was no longer time to fully orchestrate the production of the Taoist “model race” through the sexual rites of the “art of the seed-people” and the generation of the perfect embryos that this entailed. As we have seen, the initiates of the Shenzhou jing had an obligation to undertake these rituals on a regular basis, but it is obvious that the community of the elect was principally maintained through conversions, and that proselytism thus played a key role. The scripture stipulates that this was a mandatory activity for all initiated adepts.60 This evangelical impetus effectively made them “officers of the Dao” (nannü zhi guan 男女之官) some of whom, as itinerant masters, were called upon to cure the sick in their homes and to exorcise victims of demonic attacks. For these services, they were forbidden to be remunerated.61 Therapies and prophetic preaching in tandem served to attract adherents. Whether by means of ritual eugenics or proselytism, the formation and consolidation of the community of the elect was a main preoccupation for early Taoism, to the extent that several movements sought to quantify their results. If we are to believe the statistics that some scriptures provide, their estimations are strikingly pessimistic. According to the Shenzhou jing, the happy few did not exceed 390,000,62 a number that appears derisory in comparison to the thousands of millions of demonic and evil creatures proliferating in pre-apocalyptic times. Not surprisingly, the most fertile regions for producing members of the elect were the Central Plains, the kingdoms of Wu 吳 and Chu 楚 (south of the Yangzi River), and the area of Sichuan-Hanzhong 四川漢中 (the cradle of Celestial Masters Taoism), where the practice of the Dao is, says the text, particularly fervent. The further one gets from this Chinese heartland, the scarcer are “those who study immortality.”63 By the end of the sixth century, the adepts of the Lingbao movement seem to have become somewhat less ethnocentric regarding the prospect of salvation. Nevertheless, despite extending hope to the inhabitants of the empire’s 60 61 62 63

Mollier 1990, 83–84. Ibid. Shenzhou jing DZ 335, 20.1a. Mollier 1990, 68–70.

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peripheries, the numbers of seed-people declined dramatically. The Taishang lingbao Laozi huahu miaojing 太上靈寶老子化胡妙經 (Marvelous Scripture of the Supreme Lingbao on Laozi Converting the Barbarians; S.2081) offers a sort of regional census of men and women who have “obtained the Dao”: there are 800 in the south, 1,300 in the north, 350 in the far east and the north of what is today Sichuan, and 287 in the land of Jin 晉 and of Chang’an 長安. 64 In all, this amounts to 2737 people throughout China! Three hundred years earlier, the Celestial Masters expected a total of 18,000 seed-people, an estimate whose paucity is deplored by the Nüqing guilü: The Lords of the Three Offices will select the seed-people from among those who [practise] the Merging Pneumas rituals, to the total of eighteen thousand. From the past until today, only a few [have been selected]. The great quota is as yet unfulfilled, so you should exert yourself, change your heart, and transform your innards to become a Perfected of the Dao.65 三官主者擇種民。取合炁者萬八千.從來至今有幾人，大限未足. 子勤 身改心易腸道人。

However encouraging and inviting they may have sounded, the messianic messages found in medieval Taoist apocalyptic literature remained, it seems, unfulfilled. Works Cited Primary Sources Chisongzi zhangli 赤松子章曆 [Almanac of Master Red Pine]. DZ 615. Dongzhen huangshu 洞真黃書 [Yellow Book of the Dongzhen [Canon)]. DZ 1343. Laojun yinsong jiejing 老君音誦誡經 [Scripture of the Hymnal Rules of Lord Lao]. DZ 785. 64

65

Taishang lingbao Laozi huahu miaojing 太上靈寶老子化胡妙經 (Marvelous Scripture of the Supreme Lingbao on Laozi Converting the Barbarians; S. 2081) was discovered among the Dunhuang manuscripts; see Anna Seidel, “Le Sûtra merveilleux du Ling-pao suprême traitant de Lao tseu qui convertit les barbares, Contribution à l’étude du bouddho-taoïsme des Six Dynasties,” in Contributions aux études de Touen-houang, vol. 3, Michel Soymié, ed. (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1984). Nüqing guilü DZ 790, 5.1a; see also Terry Kleeman, The Great Perfection: Religion and Ethnicity in a Chinese Millennial Kingdom (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998), 74; and Raz 2008, 107.

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Laozi Xiang’er zhu 相爾注 [Xiang’er Commentary to the Laozi]. Manuscript Stein 6825. Nüqing guilü 女青鬼律 [Code of Nüqing for Controlling Demons]. DZ 790. Santian neijie jing 三天內解經 [Scripture of Explanations of the Essentials of the Three Heavens]. DZ 1205. Shangqing housheng daojun lieji 上清後聖道君列紀 [Chronicle of the Lord of the Dao, Sage of the Latter Age]. DZ 442. Shangqing huangshu guodu yi 上清黃書過度儀 [Ritual of Passage of the Yellow Book of the Highest Clarity]. DZ 1294. Taishang dongyuan shenzhou jing 太上洞淵神咒經 [Scripture of Divine Incantations of the Abyssal Caverns]. DZ 335. Taishang dongxuan lingbao yebao yinyuan jing 太上洞玄靈寶業報因緣經 [Lingbao Scripture of Karmic Retribution]. DZ 336. Taishang lingbao Laozi huahu miaojing 太上靈寶老子化胡妙經 [Marvelous Scripture of the Supreme Lingbao on Laozi Converting the Barbarians]. Manuscript Stein 2081. Zhen’gao 真誥 [Declarations of the Perfected]. DZ 1016. Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiaojie kejing 正一法文天師教戒科經 [Scripture of Com­mand­ ments Taught by the Celestial Master from the One and Orthodox Canon]. DZ 789. Secondary Sources Bokenkamp, Stephen. 2001. “The Early Lingbao Scriptures and the Origins of Taoist Monasticism.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 20: 95–124. ———. 1997. Early Daoist Scriptures. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Chen Guofu 陳國符. 1963 (1949). Daozang yuanliu kao 道臧源流考 [A study of the sources of the Taoist Canon]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Kalinowski, Marc. 1985. “La transmission du dispositif des Neuf Palais sous des Six Dynasties,” In Tantric and Taoist Studies, Michel Strickmann, ed., vol. 3, 773–811. Bruxelles: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises. Kleeman, Terry. 1998. The Great Perfection: Religion and Ethnicity in a Chinese Millennial Kingdom. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Magnin, Paul. 1979. La vie et l’œuvre de Huisi. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. Maspero, Henri. 1979 (1950). Le taoïsme, Mélanges posthumes sur les religions de la Chine, 2 vols. Paris: Musée Guimet; (1971) red. Le taoïsme et les religions chinoises, Paris: Gallimard; (1981) Taoism and Chinese Religion, transl. Frank A. Kierman, Jr. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Mollier, Christine. 2008. “Zhongmin.” In The Encyclopedia of Taoism, Fabrizio Pregadio, ed., vol. 2, 1285–1286. London: Routledge. ———. 2006.“ Visions of Evil: Demonology and Orthodoxy in Early Taoism.” In Daoism in History, Essays in Honour of Liu Ts’un-yan, Benjamin Penny, ed., 87–93. London: Routledge.

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———. 1990. Une apocalypse du Ve siècle: le Livre des incantations divines des grottes abyssales. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises. Raz, Gil. 2008. “The Way of the Yellow and the Red: Re-examining the Sexual Initiaton Rite of Celestial Master Daoism.” Nan Nü 10: 86–120. Seidel, Anna. 1984. “Le Sûtra merveilleux du Ling-pao suprême traitant de Lao tseu qui convertit les barbares, Contribution à l’étude du bouddho-taoïsme des Six Dynasties.” In Contributions aux études de Touen-houang, Michel Soymié, ed., vol. 3, 306–352. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. Schipper, Kristofer. 1978. “The Taoist Body.” History of Religions 17: 355–386. ———. 1985. “Taoist Ordination Ranks in the Tun-huang Manuscripts.” In Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien (Festschrift für Hans Steiniger), Gert Naudorf, Karl-Heinz Pohl and Hans-Herrman Schmidt, eds., 127–148. Königshausen: Neuman. Strickmann, Michel. 1977. “The Mao Shan Revelations: Taoism and Aristocracy.” T’oung Pao 63: 1–64. ———. 1980. Le taoïsme du Mao chan, Chronique d’une révélation. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises. Wile, Douglas. 1991. The Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexology Classics. Albany: State University of New York Press. Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡儀豊. 1976. “Rikuchō dōkyō no shumin shisō 六朝道教の種民 思 [The Notion of Seed-People in Six Dynasties Daoism].” In Dōkyō to Bukkyō 道教 と佛教 [Taoism and Buddhism], ibid., ed., vol. 3, 221–224. Tokyo: Kokushō kankakai.

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Chapter 3

Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation Dominic Steavu Of old, there were those who obtained the One Heaven obtained the One and so it was bright. Earth obtained the One and so it was firm. Spirit obtained the One and so it was numinous. Valley obtained the One and so it was replete. The myriad things obtained the One and so they were born. The lords and kings obtained the One and so the world was ordered. Laozi Daode jing 391

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Introducing the Problem: Literal and Symbolic Embryology This study originally stems from my attempts to answer a question that occurs to many upon first encountering Neidan 內丹 (Internal Alchemy) descriptions of the formation of the sagely embryo (shengtai 聖胎).2 A striking feature of some of these descriptions is that they map the development of this Internal Elixir (neidan 內丹) onto physiological processes. In drawing these parallels, the accuracy of biological details is so remarkable that one cannot help but wonder if the passages were literal. That is to say, perhaps Neidan expositions on “symbolic” embryological development were to be understood by readers as identical to and inseparable from accounts of actual in utero developmental 1 Unless otherwise stated, all translations to English are my own. 2 In Neidan, the term “sagely embryo” takes on a slightly different meaning; Fabrizio Pregadio, Awakening to Reality; The “Regulated Verses” of the Wuzhen pian, A Taoist Classic of Internal Alchemy (Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press, 2009), 82, n. 41, notes that Liu Yiming 劉一 明 (1734–1821) defines the terms as the “the embryo of a saint” (shengren zhi tai 聖人之胎) in his Xiangyan poyi 象言破疑 (Smashing Doubts on Metaphorical Language). On the reading of shengtai as “sagely embryo” versus “embryo of sagehood” or “sagehood,” see, in this volume, the essay by Catherine Despeux; I am deeply indebted to Fabrizio Pregadio and Grégoire Espesset for closely reading this chapter and offering numerous and valuable suggestions.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306523_005

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physiology rather than merely figurative instructions for generating a “metaphorical” or incorporeal embryo in the context of a meditation practice.3 The following passage from Awakening to Reality (Wuzhen pian 悟真篇) aptly illustrates the ambiguity between biological and soteriological registers: Three, Five, One – all is in these three words But truly rare are those who understand them in past and present times. East is 3, South is 2, together they make 5 North is 1, West is 4, they are the same. Wu and ji dwell on their own, their birth number is 5 When the three families see one another, the Infant coalesces. The Infant is the One holding True Breath In ten months the embryo is complete –  this is the foundation for entering sainthood.4 三五一都三個字, 古今明者實然稀。 東三南二同成五, 北一西方四共之。 戊己自居生數五, 三家相見結嬰兒。 嬰兒是一含真氣, 十月胎圓入聖基。

These lines simultaneously refer to a soteriological path (Internal Alchemy) and a physiological process (gestation). The two registers are imbricated. A third layer, this time cosmological, affords communication between the pre-

3 For the purposes of this paper, I use meditation, contemplation, and visualisation interchangeably. Because their contours are less defined in comparison to their early medieval and medieval equivalents, practices found in Han-era (206 BCE–220 CE) texts or before will generally be referred to as “self-cultivation.” 4 Translation from Pregadio 2009, 63; adding what is referred to either as their “birth numbers,” “generative numbers,” or “precelestial emblematic numbers” of Wood (3) and Fire (2), a total of 5 is obtained. It represents True Yin (zhenyin 真陰) (Mercury). Similarly, adding Metal (4) and Water (1) yields 5. In this case, the number represents True Yang (zhenyang 真陽) (Lead). Wu 戊 and ji 己 are stems associated with Soil, and thus the Centre, and the number 5, which here symbolises Intention, the driving force of the alchemical process. When these three fives, the “three families” of True Yin, True Yang, and Intention are brought together, the sagely embryo or “Infant” (Ying’er 嬰兒) takes shape; in other words, the Elixir (dan 丹) is produced and nourished. The mention of the embryo’s ten-month development here imparts the notion of a gradual process of refinement. For a full annotation of this poem, see Pregadio 2009, 64–65.

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vious two by likening the generation of the Internal Elixir and embryological development to cosmogony – the process by which the universe is produced.5 This study attempts to elucidate the means by which different ­constellations of knowledge, namely, the medical, the soteriological, and the cosmological, were brought together and eventually came to maturity in Neidan descriptions of the inner embryo. As it deals with the formative phases of this discourse, a large proportion of the following analysis is focused on prefiguring developments in Six Dynasties (220–581) meditation sources. A number of scholars have previously signalled the importance of early medieval meditation practices in the emergence of Neidan, especially those tied to the Shangqing 上清 (Highest Clarity) corpus.6 In so doing, their research has challenged the assumptions that Neidan evolved as a simple interiorisation of Waidan 外丹 (External Alchemy or laboratory alchemy) in combination with an esotericisation or encryption of earlier Taoist sexual rites. However, by analysing pre-Shangqing materials related to previously ignored Sanhuang 三皇 (Three Sovereigns) visualisations, the present chapter departs from earlier scholarship in establishing that some Shangqing meditations pertinent to the emergence of Neidan were in fact mere reformulations of earlier practices.7 5 As will be highlighted below, this is in fact the reversal of a generative process, but the parallel remains valid. 6 See Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1984), vol. 1, 176–80; and by the same author, “Original Contributions of Neidan to Taoism and Chinese Thought,” in Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques, Livia Kohn and Sakade Yoshinobu, eds. (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1989); see also Michel Strickmann, “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hungching,” in Facets of Taoism: Essays in Chinese Religion, Holmes Welch and Anna Seidel, eds. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 169–178; and Sakade Yoshinobu 坂出祥伸, “Zui-Tō jidai ni okeru fukutan to naikan to naitan 隋唐時代における服丹と内観と内丹,” in Chūgoku kodai yōjō shisō no sōgōteki kenkyū 中国古代養生思想の総合的研究, ibid., ed. (Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha, 1988). 7 Katō Chie 加藤千恵 Furō fushi no shintai: dōkyō to tai no shisō 不老不死の身体: 道教と胎 の思想 (Tokyo: Taishukan shoten, 2002) and Fabrizio Pregadio, “Early Daoist Meditation and the Origins of Inner Alchemy,” in Daoism in History, Essays in Honour of Liu Ts’un-yan, Benjamin Penny, ed. (London: Routledge, 2006), are among the few who have looked at pre-Shangqing texts for precursors to key notions of Neidan. The two most cited texts in this respect are the late second-century Laozi zhongjing 老子中經 (Laozi’s Central Scripture; DZ 1168) and the late third- to early fifth-century Taishang lingbao wufu xu 太上靈寶五符序 (Array of the Five Lingbao Talismans of the Most High; DZ 388). Both Katō Chie and Pregadio omit Sanhuang (Three Sovereigns) sources in their analysis, despite the fact that these also yield crucial clues to the puzzle of early medieval contemplation practices and the elaboration of Neidan. On the Laozi zhongjing, the Wufu xu, and their relationship to the Sanhuang corpus, see below.

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Many of these centre on the generative cosmic principle/deity Taiyi 太一, the Great Unity or Great One, whose transformative functions – both on the scale of the cosmos and within the confines of the body – are evocative of those of the One (yi 一) in Neidan. My aim is not to deny the importance of Shangqing in the emergence of Neidan – a fact that has been firmly established. Rather, I hope to demonstrate that Neidan had multiple progenitors. The research of Katō Chie and Fabrizio Pregadio has tended in this direction, showing that Neidan emerged not only from Waidan and Shangqing, but rather that it developed through the intermediary of variegated Six Dynasties visualisation practices involving the inner gods. In many ways, this article serves as a complement to their work, focusing however, on the hitherto overlooked Sanhuang corpus and the role of Taiyi. The proposed genealogical link uniting Neidan and Sanhuang becomes all the more clear when considering sources that focus on gestational imagery in particular. By concentrating on embryological discourse in what constitutes some of the earliest visualisation practices in China, we may identify three developments that led to the formulation of Neidan as a formalised system and, at the same time, constitute identifying features for the tradition: A) the anthropomorphisation of cosmic principles within the body; B) the combination of multiple cosmological models; and C) the use of cosmogonic reversion as a template for practice. As a corollary, the analysis of relevant materials will assist us in answering the initial question of how medieval and early medieval practitioners negotiated semantic drift from one style of reasoning to another, and, more pointedly, if any distinction was made between what, from certain vantage points, would appear as incompatible “symbolic” and “literal” discursive registers. 1

The Gods Within: Anthropomorphising the Cosmos

That conception and the subsequent formation of the embryo are explained in terms of cosmogony is not unique to Neidan. In fact, the association between the genesis of individual life and the genesis of the cosmos had been established since the earliest surviving descriptions of embryology. Two notable early embryologies occur in the “Shuidi 水地” (“Water and Earth”) chapter of the Guanzi 管子 (fourth century BCE) and the “Jingshen 精神” (“Essences and

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Spirit”) chapter of the Huainanzi 淮南子 (139 BCE).8 Both explicitly infuse procreation with a pronounced cosmogonic dimension, paving the way for later soteriological interpretations. By linking the body (more precisely, its physiology) to cosmology through a correlative idiom, gestation and parturition were considered cosmic events, and the principles governing them could be harnessed to actively extend one’s life or otherwise augment it. In the early medieval period however, embryologies that were cosmogonically framed underwent three significant changes – listed A, B, and C in three sections below – that contributed to bridging the conceptual chasm that originally separated them from Neidan. These transformations enabled embryological discourse to transition from an analogical trope in discussions of self-cultivation to a full-fledged path to spiritual cultivation in which literal and figurative semantic registers were superimposed. A) The first change concerns the increasingly anthropomorphic representation of the cosmological constituents of the body. This is observable in numerous sources that broadly deal with self-cultivation from the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) onward. In a nutshell, the cosmic constituents of the body that are described in the self-cultivation practices of earlier texts, such as the Huainanzi or Guanzi, transition from impersonal entities (essence, spirits, qi, the five viscera as microcosmic incarnations of the Five Agents) to anthropomorphic bodily gods. Inklings of a cosmology incorporating an inner pantheon of somatic deities are already discernible in the “Weft Text” (weishu 緯書) corpus of the Eastern Han (25–220 CE). The Longyu hetu 龍魚河圖 (River Chart of the Dragon Fish) for instance, provides the personal names of the deities of the Five Offices (wuguan 五官) – the five external organs corresponding to the Five Agents.9 A similar, somewhat longer list of inner gods and their appellations appears in the early medieval Taishang lingbao wufu xu 太上靈寶五符序 (Array of the Five Lingbao Talismans of the Most High; DZ 388, ca. fourth century; hereafter Wufu xu), the Laozi zhongjing 老子中經 (Laozi’s Central Scripture; DZ 1168, third century) and materials tied to the

8 See Guanzi 39, 813–816; and Huainanzi 7.2, 505–506, respectively; for an overview of these embryological sources, see the section on “Early Embryologies in East Asia” in the introduction to this volume. 9 Robinet 1984, vol. 1, 29 and 63; and Yasui Kōzan 安居香山 and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋 八, Isho shūsei 讖緯集成 (Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1971–1992), vol. 6, 93 and 97; see Pregadio 2006, 129, who suggests the Wufu xu may preserve the original passage from the Longyu hetu.

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Sanhuang wen 三皇文 (Writ of the Three Sovereigns).10 The significance of this concurrence and the role of the meditations relevant to these three texts will be highlighted in the last section, below. Around the second or third centuries, the Taishang huangting neijing yujing 太上黃庭內景玉經 (Jade Scripture of Inner Effulgences of the Yellow Court; DZ 331, hereafter Huangting neijing) supplies a full elaboration on the anthropomorphised cosmic principles of the body in its rich visualisation practices: The deity of the heart is Cinnabar Origin. His style is Preserving Numina. The deity of the lungs is Brilliant Flower. His style is Achieving the Void. The deity of the liver is Dragon Smoke. His style is Holding Light] […]. The deity of the kidneys is Dark Abyss. His style is Raising Children. The deity of the spleen is Constant Existence. His style is Resting Place of Spirit. The deity of the gallbladder is Dragon Resplendence. His style is Imposing Brightness. In the six receptacles and the five viscera, the spirits embody the essence. They all reside in the heart and spin Heaven’s warp. Preserving them night and day affords one long life.11 心神丹元字守靈，肺神皓華字虛成，肝神龍煙字含明， […] 腎神玄冥 字育嬰，脾神常在字魂停， 膽神龍曜字威明。六腑五臟神體精，皆在 心內運天經，晝夜存之自長生。

The text outlines a scheme in which, on the basis of the Five Agents, each viscus or “receptacle” is granted a divine identity. Anthropomorphisation was a critical process for making cosmic principles easier to visualise and to relate to. Moreover, once they were visualised as anthropomorphic “living” beings rather than purely abstract principles, the generative and procreative functions that resulted from their interactions could also be emphasised. The Five Agents supply an important part of the framework in the Huangting neijing, but these are complemented by new cosmological elements that partially shift the focal point below the five viscera. Indeed, the three Cinnabar 10

11

Compare Wufu xu DZ 388, 1.21ab to Wushang biyao 無上祕要 (Peerless Secret Essentials; DZ 1138), 5.12b–15b; the latter cites Sanhuang sources; also see Laozi zhongjing 22, 23, and 26. Taishang huangting neijing yujing DZ 331, 8 (3a); although the passage mentions the five viscera, six are actually listed as the gallbladder makes its appearance again. The gall­ bladder on its own sometimes represents all of the “six repositories” (liufu 六腑).

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Fields (dantian 丹田) introduce a new set of anthropomorphised bodily gods that share the inner landscape with those of the five viscera. In visualisations that rely on this structure, the focus is redirected onto areas of the body that traditionally correspond to where the process of gestation takes place. Featuring deities such as the Cinnabar Child (Zidan 子丹) or “the embryo” (tai 胎), the imagery in these sections of the Huangting neijing is resolutely reproductive.12 The three Cinnabar Fields are first mentioned in the Laozi ming 老子銘 (Inscription for Laozi; 165 CE) and the Wangzi Qiao bei 王子喬碑 (Stele to Wangzi Qiao; 165 CE), and then developed in the Baopuzi neipian 抱朴子內篇 (Inner Chapters of the Master Who Embraces Simplicity; 330 CE). Much like earlier cardiocentric self-cultivation practices from the Huainanzi or Guanzi, this model still preserves the heart, the Middle Cinnabar Field, or the so-called Crimson Palace (jianggong 絳宮), as an important locus of practice. Together with the Muddy Pellet (niwan 泥丸), the Upper Cinnabar Field located between the eyebrows, these sites constitute parallel structures to a new point of meditational interest, the Lower Cinnabar Field.13 Depending on the sources, it is located 1.3, 2, 2.4, 3, or 3.6 inches (cun 寸) behind and/or below the navel.14 It is sometimes known as the Gate of Destiny (mingmen 命門). During the Six Dynasties, the Lower Cinnabar Field appears as a new fulcrum of visualisation practices.15 Inhaling and exhaling the primordial qi in order to seek immortality, The Immortal Elder Prince is seemingly before one [’s eyes], The Vermillion Bird exhales and inhales the white stone source, Knotting the essence, nourishing the womb, one generates a body, Detaining the embryo, halting the essence, one achieves long life. The three qi swirl clockwise around the brightness of the Nine Ways, Correct Unity contains efflorescence, there is plenitude! 12

13

14 15

See Huangting neijing 17 and 35 for the Cinnabar Child and Huangting neijing 1, 15, and 20 for the embryo; on the notion of embryo in meditation practices in general, see Katō Chie 2002. See Baopuzi neipian 18.323; for the Wangzi Qiao Bei see Gil Raz’s treatment, The Emergence of Daoism: Creation of Tradition (London: Routledge, 2012), 80–86; for the Laozi ming see Raz, ibid., 86–87; and Anna Seidel, La divinisation de Lao tseu dans le taoïsme des Han (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient., 1969), 44, 58–59, and 129. Fabrizio Pregadio, “Dantian,” in The Encyclopedia of Taoism, ibid., ed. (London: Routledge, 2002), 302. See Michael Puett, “Becoming Laozi: Cultivating and Visualizing Spirits in Early-Medieval China,” Asia Major 23.1 (2010).

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Gazing afar, heart united, [the plenitude] is like a constellation, Below the Golden Chamber, it is possible not to decline,16 Postponing the whitening of my hair, and making me revert to an Infant!17 呼吸元氣以求仙，仙公公子似在前，朱烏吐縮白石源，結精育胞化生 身，留胎止精可長生。三氣右徊九道明，正一含華乃充盈，遙望一心 如羅星，金室之下可不傾，延我白首反孩嬰。

In this passage, practitioners concentrate on two locations: they harness qi that is purified in the heart and direct it below, to the Lower Cinnabar Field, in order to nourish the embryo. 2

Correlating Models, Imbricating Discourses

B) Precisely, it is the combination of multiple cosmological models as in the above passage which constitutes a second development of embryological discourse in the early medieval period. The integration of various models resulted in a denser web of correspondences. The Huangting jing is a good example of this; both the Five Agents and the three Cinnabar Fields inform its practices. The Laozi zhongjing is another example. In this text, the Five Agents and the associated metaphor of rulership are still omnipresent, but the focus appears to be more squarely on the Lower Cinnabar Field and its reproductive functions: The Lower Cinnabar Field is the root of the human. It is where essence and spirit are kept. It is the origin of the five qi. It is the residence of the Red Child. Men use it to store their semen. Women use it to store their menses.18 It regulates childbirth. It is the gateway to the union and harmonisation of Yin and Yang. It lies three inches below the navel, attached to the spine. It is the root of the two kidneys. The inside of the Lower Cinnabar Field is red in the centre, green on the left, yellow on the right. It is white above, black below. It is located within a space that is four 16 17 18

可不傾 can alternatively be read “it is possible not to slant,” that is, to keep to the centre during meditation. Huangting jing DZ 331, 20 (7a). A version of this passage cited in Liang Qiuzi’s 梁丘子 (fl. 722–729) Huangting neijing yujing zhu 黃庭內景玉經註 (Commentary on the Jade Scripture of the Inner Effulgences of the Yellow Court) preserved in the Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 (Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds; DZ 1032), 11.36a, reads instead: “it is where women store embryos” 女人以藏胎.

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inches in circumference; and therefore, as for that which lies three inches below the navel, it is said to be patterned after Heaven, Earth, and humanity. Heaven is one, Earth is two, humanity is three, and the seasons are four. Hence we speak of four inches. It is [also] patterned on the Five Agents, thus it has the five colours. […] Taiyi enters the Yellow Court [the spleen]. He fills the Great Granary [the stomach] and nourishes the Red Child. Then, again, he enters the Great Abyss [the navel]. If you suddenly do not know where he is, then meditate on him again. Do so until [his] qi returns to the Lower Cinnabar Field and stops. Constantly meditate on the Mother of the Dao of the Mysterious Radiance of the Great One, nourishing the perfected Cinnabar Child [who is] your own self and your own original name. Do not forget this.19 丹田者人之根也。精神之所藏也。五氣之元也。赤子之府。男子以藏 精。女子以藏月水。主生子，合和陰陽之門戶也。在臍下三寸，附著 脊膂，兩腎根也。丹田之中，中赤，左青，右黃，上白，下黑，方圓 四寸之中; 所以在臍下三寸者，言法天地人：天一，地二，人三，時 四。故曰四寸，法五行故有五色。[…] 太一入黃庭，滿太倉，養赤 子，復入太淵，忽忽不知所在。復念太一，氣還入丹田中止。常念太 一玄光道母養真人子丹，正吾身也，自兆名也，勿忘之。

Earlier sources largely depersonalised the meditative experience in favour of an eventual dilution of the self and individual consciousness in the Dao.20 Conversely, early medieval sources anthropomorphised cosmic principles and brought them “down” to practitioners, within their very bodies. Adepts strove to reproduce a perfected, primordial version of themselves; identification with the end result of the practice was wholesale and completely individualised. Successful practitioners no longer modelled themselves on a lofty ruler who merely emulated the Dao. With the help of nourishment provided by Taiyi (who takes on a parental role), adepts effectively recreated an “original self” that was identified as the “son of the Dao” (dao zhi zi 道之子).21 Likewise, other passages from the Laozi zhongjing refer to the Cinnabar Child either as the 19

20

21

Laozi zhongjing 17 in Yunji qiqian DZ 1032, 18.14ab; see Alexander Iliouchine’s “A Study of the Central Scripture of Laozi (Laozi zhongjing)” (MA Thesis, McGill University, Montreal, 2011), 44–45, for a partial translation of the passage; see also Katō Chie 加藤千恵 “Rōshi chūkyō to naitan shisō no genryū「老子中經」と内丹思想の源流,” Tōhō shūkyō 東方 宗教 87 (1996). See Romain Graziani “The subject and the sovereign: exploring the self in early Chinese self-cultivation,” in Early Chinese Religion, Part One: Shang through Han (1250 BC–220 AD), John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 479–485, and 497. See Laozi zhongjing 11. - 978-90-04-30652-3 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2023 11:35:41PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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small lad (xiao tongzi 小童子) or as the Red Child (Chizi 赤子), underscoring the procreative dimension to its visualisations.22 Kristofer Schipper has in fact suggested that the entire text is a thinly veiled account of gestation and embryological processes.23 The elaboration of new cosmological models congruous with previous ones, in conjunction with an emphasis on visualising perfected embryonic versions of the self, stimulated the expression of a soteriological potential that had remained unexploited in some of the earlier self-cultivation sources considered above. Associated with both viscera and Cinnabar Fields, the deity Taiyi proved compatible with multiple sets of cosmological symbols.24 In early medieval materials, Taiyi and its symbolic associations also appear to facilitate the interpenetration of medical and soteriological semantic registers. The “Sanhuang sanyi jing 三皇三一經” (Scripture of the Three Sovereigns [for Meditating on] the Three Ones), heareafter “Sanyi jing,” a short visualisation treatise from around the fourth century, illustrates the point most clearly.

22

23 24

For mentions of “the small lad” (xiao tongzi) see for example, Laozi zhongjing 35 and 37; for the Red Child (Chizi), see Laozi zhongjing 17 (translated above), 19, 21 and 30; for passages that refer to him as the Cinnabar Child, see Laozi zhongjing 5, 12, 15, 17 (translated above), 23, 30, 36, 37, 45. Chizi, the Red Child, may also be rendered as the Infant, although this translation omits any reference to the colour red, which, as that of the centre of the lower dantian, is of import here. As for the term Zidan, it is usually translated as Cinnabar Child. A more technically accurate rendering would be “Redlet” or “Little Red,” as the diminutive zi 子 (“small”; “little”) can also appear as a prefix in compounds. I am indebted to Fabrizio Pregadio for drawing this to my attention; for more on the Red Child in the Laozi zhongjing, see Maeda Shigeki 前田繁樹, “Rōshi chūkyō oboegaki「老子中經」覚 書,” in Sakade 1988, 488–490; the Red Child also appears in the Dongzhen taishang suling dongyuan dayou miaojing DZ 1314, 27a–28b, and 31b–32a, as the presiding deity of the Upper Cinnabar Field; he is also mentioned in the Wufu xu DZ 388, 1.13a, as the Cinnabar Child. Kristofer Schipper, “The Taoist Body,” History of Religions 17.3/4 (1978): 355–386, and 370– 371. There is a wealth of literature on Taiyi in multiple languages; among them see Li Ling’s 李 零 “‘Taiyi’ chongbai de kaogu yanjiu ‘太一’ 崇拜的考古研究,” in Zhongguo fangshu kao xu 中国方术续考, ibid., ed. (Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 2000). Donald Harper has translated the chapter into English; see Li Ling, “An Archaeological Study of Taiyi 太一 (Grand One) Worship,” Early Medieval China 2 (1996); see also Michel Teboul, “Sur quelques particularités de l’uranographie polaire chinoise,” T’oung Pao 71 (1985); and Qian Baocong 錢寶琮, “Taiyi kao 太一攷,” Yanjing xuebao 燕京學報 12 (1932).

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It opens with an exercise that enjoins adepts to move Taiyi from its abode in the Upper Cinnabar Field to the Middle Cinnabar Field, in the heart.25 Once the migration is completed, the deity, who appears as a “young lad” (Taiyi tongzi 太一童子) in crimson vestments, is kept in that locus through periodic visualisation exercises.26 In the second step to the technique, practitioners are told to visualise the Taiyi from “within the heart” (xinzhong 心中) in a new location, namely, inside or atop of the spleen.27 We may discern here a visualisation sequence that plots the trajectory of Taiyi along the three Cinnabar Fields, progressively moving him from the Upper Cinnabar Field to the Lower. Indeed, the exercise culminates in the visualisation of Taiyi below the navel, between the kidneys – a method that is reproduced almost verbatim in Laozi zhongjing. This section of the “Sanyi jing” benefits from a lengthy explanatory note to clarify the deity’s generative powers: Taiyi is the essence of the womb and of the embryo. It is the ruler of metamorphosis. The hun and po souls are generated from the spirit of the embryo; the life qi is generated from the womb matrix. They transform and merge with Dijun (the Imperial Lord). [All these elements] blend to form a human being. Therefore, the god Taiyi is the mother of life. The venerable Dijun is the father of life. [When] father and mother are originally joined, they are known as primordial qi. [When] they transform correspondingly into separate forms they are called “father” and “mother.” […] If you know these names and are cautious not to divulge them to others, and if you visualise [these gods] in your body, you will obtain long life and evade death. […] Your form will not enter the Earth. Jade lads and jade maidens will assist you in entering the Nine Heavens [...]. When [Dijun] and Taiyi merge, they are also called the Primordial Lord Taiyi. Neither male nor female, its brilliant radiance is the most marvelous. Sometimes it manifests as Lord Lao, sometimes as the Infant. Its responses are inexhaustible, its transformations boundless.28 太一者，胞胎之精，變化之主，魂魄生於胎神，命炁生於胞府, 變合 帝君, 混化為人 。故太一之神，生之母也。帝君之尊，生之父也。父 25 26

27 28

On Taiyi and cosmogony, see below. Dongshen badi miaojing jing jing 洞神八帝妙精經 (Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors of the Storehouse for Divinity; DZ 640) 2b–3a; that the Laozi zhongjing 25 contains essentially the same passage is indicative of the close ties between the meditation manuals of the Six Dynasties. Badi miaojing jing DZ 640, 3ab. Badi miaojing jing DZ 640, 4ab; cf. Laozi zhongjing 25.

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Steavu 母本合，號曰元炁，應化分形，號曰父母。 […] 知此名字，慎勿告 人，存之在身，長生不死 […] 形不入地，玉童玉女，侍入九天 […]。 [帝君] 與太一混合，亦號太一元君，非男非女，光明妙絕，或為老 君，或為嬰兒，應感無窮，變化無極也。

This part of the meditation exercise provides what appears to be a literal description of conception. It establishes Taiyi, a cosmogonic deity contained in individuals, as relevant to obstetric concerns. In particular, Taiyi is described as overseeing the intra-uterine creation of human life and subsequent development of the embryo. After a series of combinations and metamorphoses of various cosmic components, a “person” is generated in the area that corresponds to the Lower Cinnabar Field.29 Although the passage appears in a meditation manual, it is not entirely clear if it describes a cosmo-biological process that spontaneously occurs during conception or something that is to be merely visualised in the context of self-cultivation; most likely, it is both. In contrast to earlier sources, in which clinical or clinically inspired expositions of embryological development were used as arguments in demonstrating the various levels of correspondence between the human body and the cosmos, early medieval texts like the “Sanyi jing” make no effort to isolate theological discourse from its medical counterpart. The bonds between cosmos, body, and soteriology that were only implied in earlier meditation practices are, by the early medieval period, reinforced and affirmed. In the above example, the passage closes with an iteration that equates the physiological product of procreation – the “person,” or the Infant (ying’er 嬰兒) – with the hierogamic product of a spiritual meditation – Taiyi (see Fig. 3.1). Moreover, and quite significantly, the gestational meditation begins and ends with Taiyi. The process is one of reversion. The Infant that has been generated is not a new, distinct individual; it is the seed of a perfected self to which the practitioner has returned. In this sense, reversion is the antithesis of a conventional embryology, although both follow the same sequence: the developmental steps that the embryo undergoes culminate in a human being, whereas those same 29

In this passage, the word “embryo” tai 胎 is applied to an unfinished being of spirit (shen 神) and essence (jing 精) that has not yet received the essence (jing) and qi of the womb (bao 胞). In a nutshell, Taiyi provides essence for both the womb and the embryo; the womb combines this essence with its qi, derived from Dijun. The embryo joins its own essence with spirit, in the form of hun and po souls, components of Dijun. When both womb and embryo are united the resulting product is a [perfected] person, an “Infant,” who like the deified Laozi, is an embodiment of the primordial Taiyi.

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Figure 3.1

The five steps of gestation described in the “Sanyi jing” 三一經 (“Scripture on the Three Ones”) from the Dongshen badi miaojing jing 洞神八帝 妙精經 (Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors; DZ 640), 3ab. Author’s interpretation.

steps in reversion culminate in a pre-conceptive state of unity between the individual, the perfected self (Taiyi; the Infant), and cosmic unity (Taiyi). 3

Taiyi and Cosmogonic Reversion

C) The articulation of reversion as a fully developed soteriological avenue is the third important development that embryology underwent in the process of its transition to Neidan. Reversion appears in Warring States (475 BCE-221 BCE) materials, including the Laozi Daode jing 老子道德經 (Laozi’s Book of the Way and Virtue) and the Zhuangzi 莊子, in notions such as “reversion to the origin” (huanyan 還元), “returning to the root” (guigen 歸根; fanben 返本), or more generally, the idea of a “return” (fan 返; 反) to cosmic unity.30 But it is not until the late third or early fourth centuries that reversion takes the form of a mature soteriology, in combination with factors A) and B) discussed above, in 30

See for example, Laozi 16, 25, 40 and 48; and Zhuangzi 11; see Lu Yusan 卢育三, “‘Fan zhe dao zhi dong’ zhuyi”「反者道之动」刍议, Zhongguo zhexue shi yanjiu 中国哲学史研 究 (1987); and Isabelle Robinet, Les commentaires du Tao tö king jusqu’au VIIe siècle (Paris: Collège de France, 1977), 66–71; on the notion of “returning to the root” specifically, see Ch’ien C.S. [Qian Zhongshu], “The Return of the Native,” Philobiblon 4 (1947); Michael Puett, To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice and Self-Divinization in Early China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 220–224, provides a fascinating discussion on the theme of “reversion” in early self-cultivation practices.

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texts such as the “Sanyi jing,” the Huangting neijing, or the Laozi zhongjing.31 The latter notably provides a glimpse of regressive chronology in its discussions of the Cinnabar Child but also, more broadly, the text displays an awareness of both cyclical and linear time patterns with respect to the proliferation and resorption of cosmic phenomena.32 Indeed, the Laozi zhongjing derives its alternate title, the Changsheng yuli 長生玉曆 (Jade Calendar of Long Life) from its pronounced concern for the flow of time. As Kristofer Schipper reflects, “… the Jade Calendar enables adepts to know the times of the Earth, that of conception and gestation, of life and death. It thereby permits them to rediscover the fundamental rhythm of the universe and to achieve union with the Dao.”33 The rediscovery of the fundamental rythms or processes of the Dao in seeking to attain unity with it would later become a central pattern of Neidan practice, in the context of which it is often referred to as “inversion” (ni 逆) or “reversal” (diandao 顛倒). The common term for reversion or return, fan, also connotes the action of turning one’s gaze inwards as in the compound fanzhao 反照, literally to “turn back the light” of sight in order to illuminate the plethora of anthropomorphised cosmic elements that make up the inner pantheon. Similarly, the introduction of the Cinnabar Fields and their linear structure, facilitated the development of regressive spiritual programmes based on embryological development. In some of these programmes, and in Neidan especially, regression only concerns the initial focus on the embryo, a return to the earliest stages of human development. The subsequent stages in the practice, which progress “upward” along the three Cinnabar Fields from conception, to gestation, and finally birth, follow the usual embryological order – there is nothing regressive. The Five Agents offered a principally cyclical view of time favouring approaches that promoted a centripetal balance or harmony between cosmic principles. The favoured means of self-cultivation or even healing thus consisted of a “managerial” approach informed by governing metaphors (zhi 治). 31 32

33

The Huangting neijing DZ 331 offers a numbers of interesting passages in this respect; see, for instance, Huangting neijing 20, 25, and 30. The eight nodes (bajie 八節) repeatedly appear as temporal markers. So do longer measurements, including those of the coinciding Three Primes (sanyuan 三元) every 36 years, and the ominous “meetings of Heaven and Earth” (tiandi zhi hui 天地之會) every 45, 90, 180, 360, 1,000, 3,600, 8,000, and 36,000 years; see for instance Laozi zhongjing 52, in Yunji qiqian DZ 1032, 19.16a–17a. Translated from French in Kristofer Schipper, “Le calendrier de jade: note sur le Laozi zhongjing,” in Time and Space in Chinese Culture, Huang Junjie and Erik Zürcher, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 1979), 79.

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Conversely, the Cinnabar Fields proposed a model with a strong degree of chronological linearity, so that adepts can move with relative fluidity along the spectrum of creation. Taken as a whole, these three facets of early medieval self-cultivation, namely, A) the anthropomorphising and internalising of cosmic principles, B) the emergence of new cosmological models and their use in combination with previous ones, and C) the emphasis on trajectories of return, were decisive in articulating an embryological discourse that amalgamated medical, cosmological, and soteriological narratives in a way that would find its fullest expression in medieval Neidan.34 The positing of Taiyi as the point of departure and end goal of reversioninspired contemplations served as the cement holding these components together. It permitted the identification of the Infant or embryo with a state of cosmic unity. 35 Effectively, Taiyi’s integration into the inner pantheon (especially in Sanhuang sources where, under the guise of the “Three Ones” [sanyi 三一], its hypostases are equated with the “Three Sovereigns”) situated this state of cosmic unity within the body, along with the regressive cosmogonic process that leads to its attainment. Thus, this soteriological goal was within the grasp of every individual practitioner. The importance of Taiyi as a cosmic deity can be traced to Warring States, Qin (221 BCE–206 BCE), and Han Dynasty materials, in which it was first and foremost equated with a primordial unity.36 Second, Taiyi was also revered as 34 35

36

It should be stressed that in Neidan the inner gods disappear and revert to abstract cosmic principles. Thus, practitioners do not aim to return to the Dao itself, but rather they aim to attain oneness with the Dao by reaching this state of cosmic unity. Taiyi is not ontologically equivalent to the Dao, nor is it a “female” entity or an asexual one. Taiyi is hermaphroditic, uniting both male and female attributes and espousing them accordingly. The same is true of the Infant/embryo; it is a boy (“pure yang” in alchemical terms), but it can manifest as either male or female, in the adept’s image. See, for instance, Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 (Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals) 5.3 (“Dayue” 大樂); Sarah Allan, “The Great One, Water, and the Laozi: New Light from Guodian,” T’oung Pao 89 (2003); and Ge Zhaoguang 葛兆光 “Zhong miao zhi men – bei ji yu tai yi, dao, taiji 眾妙之門──北極與太一，道，太極,” Zhongguo wenhua 中國文化 3 (Dec.1990); some scholars insist that in early China, Taiyi is identical to the Dao rather than being its first cosmogonic product; Harold D. Roth, Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 114–118 and 148–150; Isabelle Robinet, “Lun Taiyi shengshui 論太一生水,” Daojia wenhua yanjiu 道家文化研究 17 (1999); and Qian Baocong 1932, 2449–2454, summarised in Li Ling 1996, 9, on which most later scholars relied. Qian’s argument, relying primarily on original passages from the Huainanzi and the Lüshi chunqiu and their commentaries, rests on estab-

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the deity of the Pole Star.37 As such, it embodied fixity and centrality in the firmament, an axial point around which all other stars, Heaven, and the entire cosmos revolved. It notably figured as the pivot on divination boards or “cosmographs” (shi 式), a figurative center of the cosmos and fountainhead of the celestial river from which Heaven, Earth, and all else is generated. However, although a fixed and central point, Taiyi was not considered static. As we have seen in the Sanhuang meditation, it could descend into ritual areas, including the body, where it would circulate.38 Third, as the nominal centre of Heaven, Taiyi was regarded as the unity from which the myriad things emerge. Indeed its generative and cosmogonic properties were celebrated from the late Warring States, and in some traditions its spirit was explicitly referred to as the “mother” (mu 母).39 The “Taiyi sheng shui 太一生水” (“Taiyi Begets Water” ) bamboo slips excavated from Guodian 郭店 tomb 1 (sealed ca. 300 BCE) in 1993 present a cosmogony that showcases the generative properties of reversion. Additionally, it is deployed in ten stages of development, much like the classical embryologies encountered above – microcosmic cosmogonies in and of themselves (see Fig. 3.2).40 Moreover, anticipating the embryological process highlighted

37

38

39

40

lishing an ontological equivalence between the Dao and Unity (“the One”); yet the Dao is generally understood to both prefigure and encompass Unity. It is notably described as a celestial deity in the Shiji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian), the Huainanzi, and a number of Weft Texts, such as the Chunqiu yuanmin bao 春秋 元命苞 (The Spring and Autumn Annals Bud of Original Destiny) and Chunqiu hecheng tu 春秋合誠圖 (The Spring and Autumn Annals Diagrams of Harmonizing Sincerity); see Yasui and Nakamura, 1971–1992, vol. 4.1, 87–88 and vol. 4.2, 14, 19–20, respectively; for more on Taiyi’s astral origins, see Michel Teboul 1985; and Li Ling 2000. In the Huandi neijing Lingshu 77 chapter on “Jiugong bafeng 九宮八風” (“The Nine Palaces and Eight Winds”), the movement of Taiyi throughout the celestial quadrants of the Nine Palaces is used to interpret and predict the occurrence of disease-causing winds from the eight directions. The fact that it is actually the Nine Palaces that move across Taiyi’s static position in the sky did not escape early Chinese astronomers and diviners; see Yamada Keiji 山田慶兒, “Kyūkū hachifū setsu to Shōshiha no tachiba 九宮八風説と 少師派の立場,” Tōhō gakuhō 東方學報 52 (1980). See Allan 2003, 263–264, 276, and 283–284 for a discussion of this question and a list of relevant sources; Allan sees Taiyi as a female principle and an equivalent term to the Dao, a perspective that I do not share; see note 35 above. Taiyi, despite its generative (or “motherly”) functions, represents the point of unity that precedes the division of Yin and Yang (and thus male and female) and succeeds the vacuity of the Dao. A facsimile of the slips is included in Donald Harper, “The Nature of Taiyi in the Guodian Manuscript Taiyi sheng shui. Abstract Cosmic Principle or Supreme Cosmic Deity?” Zhongguo tuchu ziliao yanjiu 中國土出資料研究 5 (2001): 21–22, along with a transcription and translation on 3–4; for a detailed analysis of the text and its relation to the Guodian Laozi, see Allan 2003, who also provides a translation on page 261.

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Figure 3.2 The ten-stage cosmogony from the “Taiyi sheng shui” 太一生水 (“Taiyi Begets Water”) Guodian 郭店 slips (ca. 300 BCE). Author’s interpretation.

in the “Sanyi jing,” the cosmogony described in the “Taiyi sheng shui” is recursive “as water and heaven each fanbo 反薄 (rejoin) Taiyi until Heaven and Earth exist as the first couple and the conditions for gamogenesis [genesis through sexuated pairs] are present.”41 Taiyi was recognised since the end of the Warring States as an anthropomorphised deity that oversaw genesis and thus, transformation or change as well. As a result, it became a key feature of early medieval visualisation practices during the Han and Six Dynasties, forming a crucial lynchpin linking the inner pantheon, vertical/linear cosmological models, and the reversion of cosmogonic processes. The slew of Guarding the One (shouyi 守一; or baoyi 抱一, Embracing the One) visualisations disseminated during the late Han and early Six Dynasties support this point.42 A variation on these visualisations generally referred to as Three Ones (sanyi) meditations – as in the aforementioned Sanhuang example – entailed visualising three hypostases of Taiyi as they took up temporary residence in the three Cinnabar Fields of the body. In these, the focus on the Lower Cinnabar Field and its coinciding with the general area of the womb or the “space between the kidneys” facilitated the drawing of  41 42

Harper 2001, 5. On “Guarding the One,” see Xiao Dengfu 萧登福, “Daojiao ‘Shouyi’ xiuchifa zhi yuanqi ji qi yanbian” 道教 “守一” 修持法之源起及其演變, Zhongjiaoxue yanjiu 宗教学研究 1 (2006;) and Robinet 1984, vol. 1, 30–32, and 41–43; and Isabelle Robinet, Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 120–138.

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reproductive and gestational parallels.43 On the matter of the Three Ones in relation to the Sanhuang and Taiyi, some scholars have argued that in certain cultic contexts of the Qin and Han, the Three Ones, often listed as Taiyi and two hypostases, Tianyi 天一 and Diyi 地一, corresponded to the three sovereigns of the Sanhuang, namely, Tianhuang 天皇, Dihuang 地皇, and Renhuang 人皇.44 With Taiyi’s prominence in early medieval visualisations, the use of reproductive and gestational imageries in pursuit of a pre-cosmic unity became increasingly common. Taiyi and the association that stemmed from his late Warring States and early imperial cults encouraged the superimposition of biological (clinical, physiological, or “literal”) and soteriological (religious, spiritual, or “figurative”) embryological discourses. This blending of semantic layers set the stage for traditions that were elaborated around the parent notion of generative transformations – Neidan chief among them. 4

Sanhuang, Embryology, and the Birth of Neidan

The practice of Waidan is attested, in one form or another, since at least the second century BCE. The origins of Neidan, on the other hand, are conventionally dated to the eighth century CE, when the popularity and circulation of the Zhouyi Cantong qi 周易參同契 (Token for the Agreement of the Three According to the Book of Changes) effectively redefined Waidan and spawned Neidan. More concretely, the transition from Waidan to Neidan is typically explained as stemming from, on the one hand, increasing incidences of elixir poisoning and on the other hand, under the pronounced influence of ever more popular Buddhist contemplation methods, the internalisation of Waidan processes. It is also in this context, often associated with the esotericisation of 43

44

Baopuzi neipian, 18.323–25, opens with a reference to Zhuangzi 12 (通於一而萬事畢) and proceeds to detail the practice of “Guarding the One”; cf. Wufu xu DZ 388, 1.22b–23, for a similar line in a passage on guarding the Three Ones. The fact that both of these sources cite the shouyi or baoyi passages from the Laozi and Zhuangzi highlights the kinship between Warring States understandings of “Guarding the One” and their Six Dynasties counterparts. The latter “sovereign” is identified as Taihuang 泰皇 or Taihao 太昊 in early accounts. See Li Ling’s concise summary of Rao Zongyi and Qian Baocong’s opinions on the matter, along with a subsequent discussion in Allan 2003, 162–168; for the Sanhuang as the Three Ones and/or hypostases of Taiyi, see Shiji 6, and 28; and Isabele Robinet, Histoire du taoïsme des origines au XIVe siècle (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1991), 194.

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the “arts of the bedchamber” (房中術 fangzhong shu) or early Taoist rites of sexual union; the encryption of their explicit technical terms under a metaphorical veneer was a convenient way of preserving the practices after they had come to be considered unsavoury in polite society.45 While these, especially the first two, are non-negligible factors, recent scholars such as Fabrizio Pregadio have suggested a more complex narrative of transition: “…the main feature that distinguishes neidan from earlier traditions” is not the transposition of the Elixir and its generation onto an inner plane, but rather “the replacement of a codified system (the pantheon of inner gods) with another codified system (correlative cosmology) both to construe the relation of the human being to the Dao and to frame the stages of one’s practice.”46 This other codified system typifying Neidan expanded on the anthropomorphisation and internalisation of cosmic principles, but as Pregadio notes, again, “Reckoning that the elixir is to be found within, and in general, shifting the associated images to an inner plane, do not characterise neidan per se. Neidan reiterates and magnifies here the process of ‘interiorisation’ of earlier notions and [meditation] practices that had already distinguished Shangqing Daoism.”47 Thus, although it most definitely contributed to its development, point A) discussed above is not a Neidan innovation. Whether or not Shangqing had that much to do with it is a question we will revisit in greater detail below, but, as gleaned from our discussion of early medieval materials, interiorisation is a characteristic of older traditions of meditation. Returning to Pregadio’s findings, in his “Early Daoist Meditation and the Origins of Alchemy,” he posits that it is correlative cosmology and, more pointedly, the combination of various sets of cosmological symbols that exemplify Neidan. What the present study argues is that this too, as we have seen, is a development that was prefigured in earlier self-cultivation traditions, specifically with respect to Five Agents and Cinnabar Field models. To be clear, the combination of multiple models of cosmological symbols (such as the Five Agents and three Cinnabar Fields, of course, but also trigrams and hexagrams, heavenly stems and earthly branches, pitch pipes, lunar mansions, and, most importantly, the pre-celestial and post-celestial cosmogonic arrangements) in elaborate webs of correspondences is indeed an indisputable hallmark of

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On this, see the chapter “The Yellow and the Red: Controversies over sexual practice” in Raz 2012. Pregadio 2006, 149. Ibid.

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Neidan – but this fusion of symbols certainly predates Internal Alchemy.48 Lastly, we posited that cosmogonic reversion, as a soteriological process, was an additional defining feature of Neidan that was equally rooted in early visualisation practices. In conjunction, these three conditions paved the way for the adoption of embryological imagery and the intertwining of biological and soteriological semantic registers that many still mistakenly identify as an exclusive Neidan innovation. By tracing embryological discourse especially through a variety of self-cultivation currents, this study has attempted to show that Neidan is much heavily indebted to early medieval visualisation practices; it is genealogically much closer to Taoist meditations than it is to Waidan or the arts of the bed­chamber. There remains the question of which traditions of Taoist meditations were most directly responsible for the development of Neidan. Typically, the honour goes to Shangqing methods.49 However, the fact that Shangqing codifiers were very apt at absorbing notions and practices from earlier currents, only to reformulate them and present them as their own, should not be overlooked.50 Some of the most emblematic Shangqing passages concerning the generation of an inner embryo are inspired from early sources. The Dongzhen taiyi dijun taidan yinshu dongzhen xuanjing 洞真太一君太丹隱書洞真玄經 (Secret Scripture of the Great Elixir; DZ 1330, fourth-sixth century), for instance, contains a meditation that is almost identical to the one from the “Sanyi jing.”51 Although, in its current form, the Shangqing text is relatively disjointed and truncated in more than one place, it is reputedly composed of original revelations received by Yang Xi 楊羲 (330–386/388). The Sanhuang meditation, on the other hand, is attributed to the considerably earlier source identified as the Tian huang[ren] zhenyi zhi jing 天皇[人]真 一之經 (Scripture of the Celestial August [Person] on the True One), hereafter 48

49 50

51

On the synchronisation of multiple cosmological emblems in Neidan, see Pregadio’s introduction to his The Seal of the Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi, The Source of the Taoist Way of the Golden Elixir (Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press, 2011). See footnotes 6 and 7 above, and also Pregadio 2006, 142. For more on this process, see Raz 2012, 210–256; and Michel Strickmann, Le Taoïsme du Mao Chan: Chronique d’une révélation (Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1981); Pregadio 2006, 126, also refers to this phenomenon without further elaborating. Compare Badi miaojing jing jing DZ 640, 4ab, translated above, to Dongzhen taiyi dijun taidan yinshu dongzhen xuanjing DZ 1330, 26a–27b.

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Huangren jing. The text is mentioned by name in the Wufu xu’s discussion on Taiyi visualisations. A corresponding passage in the Baopuzi neipian also cites it, without, it should be conceded, explicitly naming it.52 These are the two earliest extant sources that describe meditations on an internal Taiyi. Since both refer to the Huangren jing on the topic of Taiyi meditations, it appears that this earlier source would constitute the urtext on that specific variety of self-cultivation practice.53 Both the Wufu xu and the Baopuzi neipian narrate how the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi 黃帝) received the coveted meditation manual from the Celestial Perfected August Person (Tianzhen Huangren 天真 皇人) on Emei shan 峨眉山.54 He obtained it, the story goes, immediately after receiving the Sanhuang wen. The latter is partially preserved in the Dongshen badi miaojing jing jing 洞神八帝妙精經 (Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors; DZ 640), the same text that houses the “Sanyi jing”.55 52

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Wufu xu DZ 388, 3.17a–18b; the complete passage, 3.17a–23b, forms a separate section, also independently preserved in the Taoist Canon under the title Taishang dongxuan lingbao sanyi wuqi zhenjing 太上洞玄靈寳三一五氣真經 (True Scripture on the Three Ones and the Five Pneumata; DZ 985). There has been some debate about which of the two texts is earliest. Kobayashi Masayoshi 小林正美, “Taijō reihō gofu jo no seisho katei no bunseki「太上靈寶五符序」の成 書過程の分析,” Tōhō shūkyō 東方宗教 71 (1988): 28–29, argues that the Baopuzi predates the Wufu xu’s treatment of the Taiyi meditation, and that it is in fact the source for the latter; Wang Ming 王明, Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi 抱朴子內篇校釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), 327, n. 6, on the other hand, suggests that the Wufu xu passage is earlier. The Wufu xu clearly names its source as the Tian huang[ren] zhenyi zhi jing (or the Taishang taiyi zhenyi zhi jing 太上太一真一之經 [Scripture on the Taiyi (Method) of the True One]), which is none other than the Huangren shouyi jing 皇人守一經 (Scripture of the August Person on Guarding the One) referred to in other sources. Baopuzi, 18.324; the Wufu xu simply refers to him as the “August Person” (Huangren 皇人). Emei shan is also the site where the first human transmission of the Sanhuang wen to Bo He 帛和 occurred; see Gil Raz, “Creation of Tradition: The Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure and the Formation of Early Daoism,” (Phd dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2004), 187–199, for an annotated comparison of the Wufu xu and Baopuzi versions of the passage. The same parable from the Wufu xu and the Baopuzi is related, with a few modifications, in a segment from Yunji qiqian DZ 1032, 33.11a–12a; it lists the name of the manual as the Huangren shouyi jing; a citation from this source also survives in the Wushang biyao DZ 1138, 5.6b–7a; it stresses that only after the retinue of gods, officials, and ministers that form the inner pantheon are governed, and that once the blood is fortified and the qi purified, can the adept successfully embark on Taiyi meditations; the same lines are more or less repeated in Baopuzi, 18.326 and Wufu xu DZ 388, 3.20ab; see also, Taishang dongxuan lingbao sanyi wuqi zhenjing DZ 985, 2a.

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Strongly suggesting parity between the “Sanyi jing” and the Huangren jing, the tenth-century Taiping yulan 太平御覧 (Imperial Digest of the Taiping Xingguo Reign Period) cites lines from the “Sanyi jing” that are elsewhere attributed to the Huangren jing.56 Thus, we may affirm that the common source for the Baopuzi and the Wufuxu on matters relating to guarding the One was a text belonging to the Sanhuang transmission lineage that circulated under the title Huangren jing or, very likely, that of Sanyi jing.57 This text, which survives in part in the “Sanyi jing,” was the principal reference on visualisation methods involving internalised manifestations of Taiyi and the corollary production of an inner embryo or Infant through cosmogonic reversion. It was also one of the earliest, predating the Wufu xu and the Baopuzi, as well as the Shangqing revelations. Other Shangqing methods that conjugate visualising Taiyi along three Cinnabar Fields and generating an inner embryo are inspired from the antecedent meditations, with which they share numerous ritual elements or sequences. The meditation on the Three Ones from the Dongzhen taishang suling dongyuan dayou miaojing 洞真太上素靈洞元大有妙經 (Scripture of the [Celestial Palace] of the Immaculate Numen; DZ 1314) is regularly cited as an exemplar of Shangqing meditations on the inner embryo. However, it contains numerous elements from the Sanhuang method and, to a lesser extent, from

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The Sanyi jing passage from Taiping yulan, 661.3a, corresponds to lines from a section that the Wufu xu DZ 388, 3.17b–18a, ascribes to the Tian huang[ren] zhenyi jing. Additional corroboration is supplied in the Shangqing dao leishi xiang上清道類事相 (True Appearances of the Categories of the Supreme Clarity Dao; DZ 1132), 1.3a; the seventh-century text reproduces a few lines from the Wufu xu’s DZ 388, 3.18a, treatment of Taiyi meditation, but it refers to a Huangren shou sanyi jing 皇人守三一經 (Scripture of the August Person on Guarding the Three Ones) as its source; see also Shangqing dao leishi xiang, 1.4b, in the same passage; it corresponds to Wufu xu DZ 388, 3.18a, but it cites the Wufu xu instead of the Huangren shou sanyi jing. Or variations thereof, including Huangren (shou) zhenyi jing or Huangren (shou) sanyi jing. See Robinet 1984, vol. 1, 27, 29–32; and Raz 2004, 175, and 177. The Daozang quejing mulu 道藏闕經目錄 (Catalogue of Missing Books in the Taoist Canon; DZ 1430) lists a Huangren shouyi jing, 2.3a; a Huangren sanyi tu jue 皇人三一圖訣 (Instructions on the Chart of August Person for [Guarding] the Three Ones), 2.5a; and a Huangren shou Huangdi sanyi shengxuan tujue 皇人守黄帝三一昇玄圖訣 (Instructions on the Chart for Ascent to the Mysterious through the August Person’s [Method] of Guarding the Yellow Emperor’s Three Ones), 2.14b), as lost; Robinet 1984, 28, n.1, believes these works to be fragments of, or elaborations on the Huangren jing.

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the Laozi zhongjing.58 Despite clear evidence of borrowing from earlier traditions, Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456–536) asserts that the Dongzhen taishang suling dongyuan dayou miaojing “is the original source on the method of Guarding the One.”59 The Shangqing corpus also contains a handful of embryologies. The meditations for untying embryonic knots (jiejie 結節), more ominously known as the “knots of death,” are one example.60 The knots naturally occur during gestation, serving the primary purpose of holding together the five viscera. At the same time, by gradually strangling the flow of vital essences and qi throughout the body, they are also eventually responsible for death. Depending on the text, practitioners either regenerate an embryonic version of themselves devoid of knots or, more commonly, they reverse their gestational development to untie them. These practices involve inner gods, the combination of multiple sets of cosmological symbols (usually the Five Agents and three Cinnabar Fields), as well as cosmogonic reversions through which adepts relive, or more accurately, re-actualise their own embryonic development. Yet, despite being touted as original Shangqing embryologies, preliminary analysis suggests that even the Shangqing embryologies that appear in the context of methods for untying these congenital knots may have some relation to the Sanhuang corpus. Typically, three texts are identified as stem sources on the topic of embryonic knots.61 One of them, the Ciyi wulao baojing 雌一五老寶經 (Precious Scripture on the Female One and the Five Elders; DZ 1313, seventh century), presents techniques only for destroying the knots: there is no mention of generating an embryo, so we need not concern ourselves with this text here.62 A second among the three, is the Taiyi dijun taidan yinshu xuanjing (Secret Scripture of

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59 60 61 62

Suling dongyuan dayou miaojing DZ 1314, 31b–32a; in an interesting conflation, the method relates that the Infant (Ying’er) resides in the Lower Cinnabar Field and the Red Child (Chizi) in the Upper Cinnabar Field. However, contrary to the Sanhuang and Laozi zhongjing precursors, the Shangqing meditation does not accord much importance to transformative and thus embryological processes; see also 27a–29b, in the section titled “Taishang dadong shouyi neijing fa 太上大洞守一內經法” (“Methods of the Great Canon’s Esoteric Scripture for Guarding the One”) for more overlap with the Sanhuang visualisation on the Three Ones; see also Robinet 1993, 120–138, and especially 124–137. 是守一之宗本矣; Dengzhen yinjue 登真隱訣 (Secret Instructions for the Ascent as a Perfected; DZ 421), 1.3a; see also 1.4b. See Robinet 1984, vol. 1, 141, and vol. 2, 158, 172–73, and 271; and Pregadio 2006, 142. Robinet 1984, vol.1, 141. Dongzhen gaoshang yudi dadong ciyi yujian wulao baojing DZ 1313, 47a–53b.

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the Great Elixir) mentioned above. We have already noted how its embryological section is almost identical to the Sanhuang meditation. The method for untying knots appears to be original, but its closing segment highlights Dijun and Taiyi as operative inner gods – a distinctive feature of the Sanhuang visualisation.63 Another section on Taiyi, Dijun, and the Three Sovereigns is also associated with the Sanhuang corpus, suggesting that this text is largely based on pre-Shangqing Jiangnan 江南 sources.64 The last text related to embryonic knots, the Shangqing jiudan shang hua taijing zhongji jing 上清九丹上化胎精中記 (Scripture of the Record of the Centre on Embryonic Essence of the Superior Transformations of the Shangqing Ninefold Elixir; DZ 1382, fourth century) contains methods for undoing them. Additionally, it presents a technique through which the adept autogestates by receiving the qi of the Nine Heavens over nine months, thereby generating a perfect embryo with knot-free viscera.65 This method is often cited as a Shangqing precursor to Neidan, but it notably differs in that the union of Yin and Yang principles (Xuanmu 玄母, the Mysterious Mother, and Yuanfu 元父, the Original Father) and their products, an Infant and a phoenix, manifest in the heart rather than in the Lower Cinnabar Field. This agrees with the general observation that embryologies of Shangqing design tend to be grounded in Five Agents symbolism and to be primarily spiritual in scope.66 At 63

64

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See Taidan yinshu DZ 1330, 38b–46b; the section on untying the congenital knots corresponds to the Taidan yinshu jie bao shi’er jiejie tujue 太丹隱書解胞十二結節圖訣 (Illustrated Instructions for Untying the Twelve Embryonic Knots according to the Concealed Writ of the Great Cinnabar [Palace]; DZ 1384). Taidan yinshu DZ 1330, 13b–14b; cf. Yunji qiqian DZ 1032, 44.6b–7b; this passage stands out in that it identifies the Three Sovereigns as Huangjun 皇君 (the Sovereign Lord), Tianhuang 天皇 (the Celestial Sovereign), and Huanglao 皇老 (the Sovereign Elder); see also the pre-Shangqing Dongzhen taiwei huangshu jiutian balu zhenwen 洞真太微黃書九天 八籙真文 (True Writs of the Eight Registers of the Nine Heavens from the Yellow Book of the Taiwei Heaven; DZ 257), 1a. Shangqing jiudan shang hua taijing zhongji jing DZ 1382, 16b–26b; the passage is described by Robinet 1993, 140–143; this text is also briefly discussed in Stephen Bokenkamp, “Simple Twists of Fate: The Daoist Body and Its Ming,” in The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture, Christopher Lupke, ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 160–162; cf. the Shangqing taishang dijun jiuzhen zhongjing上清太上帝君 九真中經 (Central Scripture of the Nine Perfected; DZ 1376); it presents a method for generating an embryo that is virtually identical to that contained in the aforementioned Shangqing jiudan shang hua taijing zhongji jing; the former has been studied by Robinet 1984, vol. 2, 67–76, and more recently, by Bokenkamp 2005, 157–160. See, for instance, the “Taishang Laojun neiguan 太上老君內觀” (“Lord Lao’s Inner Contemplation”) in Yunji qiqian DZ 1032, 17ab, in which the Five Agents, via the gods of the five

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any rate, the conceptual bridge uniting Shangqing and Neidan has been, in some studies, hastily erected. More pointedly, the exact relationship between the practices of untying congenital knots and their associated embryologies on one hand and earlier pre-Shangqing sources on the other remains to be fully elucidated. The visualisation practices documented in the first- or second-century Laozi Xiang’er zhu 老子想爾注 (Xiang’er Commentary to the Laozi) should also be addressed, albeit briefly.67 Their scheme, inspired from Five Agents cosmology and redolent of earlier self-cultivation practices, is primarily focused on the heart. Moreover, the theme of cosmogonic reversion is ambiguously present, at best.68 Similarly, contemplation methods from the Taiping jing 太平經 (Great Peace Scripture) give predominance to the heart and enlist the cosmological imagery of the Five Agents.69 Consequently, neither of these can be considered as precursors to Neidan techniques. Therefore, it is the “Sanyi jing,” the Laozi zhongjing, the Wufu xu, and the Huangting neijing that form the bedrock on which the edifice of Neidan embryological discourse was erected. The first three especially are closely interconnected products of the same environment.70 Isabelle Robinet asserts that the Laozi zhongjing forms a textual bridge between the Wufu xu and the

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viscera, are given precedence over other cosmological emblems. A sample of primarily “spiritual” embryologies from a handful or sources – Shangqing and other – can be consulted in Yunji qiqian DZ 1032, chapter (juan) 29, titled “Bing sheng shou ming 稟生受命” (“Obtaining Life and Receiving Fate”). On the Laozi Xiang’er zhu, see Stephen Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); and Rao Zongyi 饒宗頤, Laozi Xiang’er zhu jiaozheng「老子想爾注」校證 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991); my discussion omits the parallel topic of embryology with respect to the generation of “seed people” (zhongmin 種民) in Celestial Master and other forms of early medieval Taoism; the subject is thoroughly and insightfully discussed in Christine Mollier’s “Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: ‘Seed-People’ and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism,” in the present volume. The Xiang’er explicitly discounts meditations on a “One” that resides inside the body as spurious; see Rao Zongyi 1991, 12; the passage is translated in Bokenkamp 1997, 89 and discussed in Pregadio 2006, 128. See the article by Grégoire Espesset, “Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Life Cycles,” in the present volume. On the topic of the intellectual and social environment in which the Laozi zhonjing was compiled and its relation to some of the sources mentioned above, see Katō Chie 1996; Lagerwey, “Deux écrits taoïstes anciens,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 14 (2004); Pregadio 2006; Schipper 1995; and Schipper 1979; see also Schipper, The Taoist Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 100–112.

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Sanhuang wen – the chief scripture of the Sanhuang lineage.71 Less is known about the circumstances in which the Huangting neijing was compiled, but it likely emerged from the same southern esoteric milieu as its three sister texts during the same period, about 100 to 150 years before the Shangqing revelations of 364–370. Still, the materials tied to the Huangren (sanyi) jing are among the closest to Neidan. The meditation from the “Sanyi jing” translated above describes how Taiyi is to be visualised in three different contemplations as descending from its residence in the Upper Cinnabar Field, from whence it initially manifests or “enters” the body, moving down to the heart, and then further down to the Lower Cinnabar Field. The crucial visualisation process that would later typify Neidan practice is equally composed of the three steps that are, embryologically speaking, interchangeable with conception, gestation, and birth. These are: 1) uniting male and female principles usually in the Lower Cinnabar Field after identifying and activating them; 2) refining the product of their union – typically, in the heart; and finally 3) moving the refined product up to the head, from where it either “emerges” (egress of the spirit; chushen 出神) or suffuses the adept as a perfected version of the self. This scheme notably serves as the anchoring for Neidan’s three-step approach to self-cultivation (refining essence [jing] into qi, qi into spirit, and reverting spirit to vacuity; see Fig. 3.3).72 This is the same sequence, albeit in reverse order, that is described in the Sanhuang meditation. Another operative difference is that the Sanhuang meditation concentrates the embryological components in one locus – conception, gestation, and birth, which take place inside the body, all occur in the Lower Cinnabar Field. The focus is markedly on the dantian. In Neidan, although the centre of the Lower 71

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Robinet 1984, vol.1, 27–29; Wufu xu DZ 388, 1.18b–21b, and 26b, correspond to Yunji qiqian DZ 1032, 19.4b–5b; 19.8a; 18.10b–11a; 18.21b; 19.9a–10a; Lagerwey 2004, 7 and 11–12, n. 45, lists the passages that are shared by the Laozi zhongjing an the Wufu xu. Chapters 11 and 18 of the Baopuzi display a number of similarities with chapters 2 and 3 of the Wufu xu; see Robinet 1984, 27, n. 4, for specific references; and Schipper 1979, 75–76, for concordances between the Baopuzi and the Laozi zhongjing. “Refining essence and transforming it into qi” (lian jing hua qi 煉精化氣), consists of circulating essence through the renmai 任脈 and dumai 督脈 channels along the back and the front of the body, and moving it up to heart; 2) “Refining qi and transforming it into spirit” (lian qi hua shen 煉氣化神) involves nourishing qi in the Middle Cinnabar Field and moving it to the Upper Cinnabar Field, where it becomes spirit; 3) “Refining spirit and reverting it into vacuity” (lian shen huan xu 煉神還虛) concerns spreading spirit from the Upper Cinnabar Field so that it permeates the adept, who dissolves into the pre-cosmic, undifferentiated Dao.

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Figure 3.3 The three phases of Neidan practice for the generation of external medicine (waiyao 外藥) culminating in the “return to the void” (huanxu 還虛); from the Zhonghe ji 中和集 (Anthology of Central Harmony; DZ 246).

Figure 3.4 Cosmogony (1 to 3) and its inversion (3 to 5), to be completed in Neidan meditation. Author’s interpretation.

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Cinnabar Field is crucial in the conception and partial gestation of the Elixir, the focus is more diffuse. The second phase of gestation takes place in the heart, and the external birth is accomplished from the Upper Cinnabar Field, quite literally, with a perfected self breaking open the cranium and emerging from what is left of the sinciput.73 In Neidan, this threefold sequence can also be expressed in different, perhaps more technical terms that highlight the transformative process (see Fig. 3.4). Upon comparing Figures 3.1 and 3.4, it becomes apparent that this process is essentially identical to that of the Sanhuang method. Both Neidan and Sanhuang contemplations depart from an undifferentiated state – Taiyi or primordial qi (yuanqi 元氣) in one case and Pure Yang (chunyang 純陽) or unitary qi (yiqi 一氣) in the other. A division then occurs into two binary “female” and “male” constituent elements: Taiyi (mother) and Dijun 帝君 (father) for the Sanhuang visualisation and True Yin (zhenyin 真陰; Kun 坤 ☷) / true mercury (zhengong 真汞) and True Yang (zhenyang 真陽; Qian 乾 ☰) / true lead (zhenqian 真鉛) in the pre-celestial order (xiantian 先天) for Neidan. At this point in the Sanhuang practice, essence from the womb (Taiyi; female principle) is combined with essence from the embryo (Dijun; male principle) to complete the womb (Taiyi; female principle). Likewise, the hun 魂 and po 魄 souls, which are products of the spirit of the embryo (Dijun; male principle), are combined with qi from the womb (Taiyi; female principle) to form the embryo (Dijun; male principle). Thus, in order to reconstitute a true or perfected male or female principle, it is necessary to borrow an element from the opposite principle. The same operation is undertaken in Neidan: in the post-celestial order (houtian 後天), adepts extract the Yang from within Yin (yin zhong zhi yang 陰中之陽; kan 坎 ☵), that is, they extract the Yang from “black” or native lead (heiqian 黑鉛), to reconstitute True Yang. Yin is extracted from within Yang (yang zhong zhi yin 陽中之陰; li 離 ☲), in other words, from cinnabar (zhusha 朱沙), in order to reconstitute True Yin. In a final step, both the extracted True Yin and True Yang are recombined to return to the precelestial Pure Yang – the Elixir or the embryo – in a post-celestial order. In the Sanhuang meditation, this last stage of the sequence consists of combining the perfected womb (female principle or Yin) with the perfected embryo (male principle or Yang) to generate the Infant, who is none other than Lord Lao (Laojun 老君), the Primordial Lord Taiyi (Taiyi yuanjun). Through this twofold dynamic of division and (re)absorption, the origin and end of the cosmos, the 73

On chushen 出神 (“egress of the spirit”) see also Catherine Despeux, “Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts,” in this volume.

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solve et coagula as Robinet describes it, are re-enacted and actuated within the adept.74 Conclusion In Neidan, there are multiple ways of representing the Elixir. One of the images that recurs in numerous sources is that of the Infant or inner embryo. Accordingly, the process of generating, refining, and activating the Elixir can be vividly described in embryological terms. The following passage from the Zhouyi cantong qi, although well known, is worth reproducing: Similar in kind to a hen’s egg, The white [Yang] and the black [Yin] tallying with one another, One inch in size, Form is the beginning, The four limbs, the five viscera, The sinews and bones join it. When the ten months have elapsed, It leaves its womb, Its bones, weak and pliant Its flesh, smooth like lead.75 類如雞子，白黑相扶， 縱橫一寸，形為始初，四肢五臟， 筋骨乃俱， 彌歷十月，脫出其胞， 骨弱可捲，肉滑若鉛。

In a skilful intertwining of semantic registers, this verse weaves together the literal narrative of intra-uterine physiological development with the figurative narrative of an embryological soteriology. The interplay is so complete that the passage was and remains hotly debated: some commentators and scholars have seen in it a description of the genesis of the Elixir, whereas others insist that the lines were originally intended as a literal (cosmogonic) account of 74 75

Robinet 1993, 123. Zhouyi cantong qi DZ 999) verse 56, 2.18b–19b; slightly modified from Pregadio 2011, 101– 102. The line on weak bones is a partial quotation of section 55 from the Laozi; see Pregadio 2011, 195–196, for notes on the Cantong qi passage; Despeux’s “Symbolic Pregnancy,” in this volume, also discusses the passage; for other sections from the Cantong qi with pronounced embryological or reproductive imagery, see, among others, verse 23 and the “Song of the Tripod,” translated in Pregadio 2011, 79 and 120–121, respectively.

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gestation upon which an alchemical reading was later imposed.76 Nonetheless, by the time Neidan had grown into a fully articulated system of practice, the distinction didn’t matter at all to practitioners. Men, it was thought, could also literally be pregnant. And although they generated an embryo through methods of contemplation, the fruit of their efforts, they believed, was physically manifested and just as real as an actual embryo.77 Therefore, the question that was posed at the outset of this article – whether the production of the Elixir in Neidan was understood to entail the generation of an actual embryo – is, in retrospect, beside the point. Embryological discourse, by virtue of equating the body with the cosmos, was already inbuilt into the earliest self-cultivation traditions that were the genealogical precursors of Internal Alchemy. Neidan simply elaborated on those seed notions that were already there. Moreover, the evolution of embryology from rhetorical trope to blueprint for fully articulated soteriologies relied precisely on that ambiguity between literal and figurative registers. In early and medieval China, there was no contradiction between an actual pregnancy and a spiritual or symbolic pregnancy because both were made of the same cosmological stuff. Both belonged to the same, essentially correlative style of reasoning that framed understandings of the body cosmologically. Descriptive accounts of gestational processes were simultaneously cosmogonies and instructions on how to generate a perfected self. There was no distinction in early and medieval China between medical embryological discourse and its soteriological counterpart. Both were expressed in the exact same cosmological idiom.78 More specifically, as far as visualisation practices were concerned, the equivalence between embryological development and spiritual refinement was made possible and reinforced by three developments: A) the anthropomorphisation of cosmic principles within the body; B) the combination of 76 77

78

Pregadio 2011, 195–196. Catherine Despeux, “Symbolic Pregnancy”; on male uteruses and lactating men, see chapter 6 of Charlotte Furth’s A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 187–223; for a counterpoint to the view that the embryo in Neidan manifested physically, see Wang Mu’s 王沐 citation of Wu Shouyang 伍守陽 (1573–1644?) in his Foundations of Internal Alchemy: The Taoist Practice of Neidan (Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press, 2011), 107. Similarly, Nathan Sivin, “The Theoretical Background of Elixir Alchemy,” in Science and Civilization in China, vol. 5: Chemistry and Chemical Technology, part IV: Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Apparatus, Theories and Gifts, Joseph Needham, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 210–211, has argued that even in Waidan (External Alchemy), the intricate descriptions of chemical reactions and interactions could be used for the purpose of ecstatic contemplation just as for the compounding of actual elixirs.

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multiple cosmological models; and C) the use of cosmogonic reversion as a template for practice. By facilitating the interplay between literal and figurative semantic registers, it is these developments, and their coalescence in meditation practices, that laid the foundation upon which Neidan was erected. The closest and most direct predecessors to Internal Alchemy were not Waidan or sexual rites as is commonly held, nor were they Shangqing meditations on inner gods. Rather, the constellation of texts tied to the lost Huangren jing and the systematically overlooked Sanhuang lineage were the most conceptually immediate forebears of Neidan. More detailed future studies on the position of the Laozi zhongjing in the Sanhuang corpus, for instance, a scripture of crucial importance in the formation of Neidan doctrine, would undoubtedly help to bring these genealogical ties to light. Another potentially fruitful avenue of research concerns the parallels between the notion of the One in Neidan and that of Taiyi (the Great One) in Sanhuang, and even Shangqing meditations. For now, it suffices to underline that in all of three contexts, cosmogony begins with a unity that gives birth to multiplicity: the generative and transformative powers of Taiyi as an inner god correspond to the cosmic functions of the One in Neidan. Moreover, in all three contexts, the transformative processes that double as spiritual path culminate in a return to this singularity. Taiyi, the embryo, the Infant, and the Elixir all refer to an ontological state of unity that cosmogonically follows immediately after the Dao. Regardless of what specific terms are employed to denote this unity, it is that which adepts strive to attain in their practices – a communion with the very materia prima of the cosmos. Works Cited Primary Sources Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi 抱朴子內篇校釋 [Inner Chapters of the Master Who Embraces Simplicity, Critical Annotaded Edition], Wang Ming 王明 ed. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985. Daozang quejing mulu 道藏闕經目錄 [Catalogue of Missing Books in the Taoist Canon], DZ 1430. Dengzhen yinjue 登真隱訣 [Secret Instructions for the Ascent as a Perfected], DZ 421. Dongzhen gaoshang yudi dadong ciyi yujian wulao baojing 洞真高上玉帝大洞雌一玉檢 五老寶經 [Precious Scripture on the Female One and the Five Elders], DZ 1313. Dongzhen taishang suling dongyuan dayou miaojing 洞真太上素靈洞元大有妙經 [Scripture of the (Celestial Palace) of the Immaculate Numen], DZ 1314.

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Dongzhen taiyi dijun taidan yinshu dongzhen xuanjing 洞真太一君太丹隱書洞真玄經 [Secret Scripture of the Great Elixir], DZ 1330. Guanzi jiaozhu 管子校注 [The Guanzi, Critical Annotated Edition], Li Xiangfeng 黎翔 鳳 ed. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004. Huainanzi jishi 淮南子集釋 [The Huainanzi, Critical Edition], He Ning 何寧 ed. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998. Huangting neijing yujing zhu 黃庭內景玉經註 [Commentary on the Jade Scripture of the Inner Effulgences of the Yellow Court], in Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 [Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds], j.11, DZ 1032. Laozi Daode jing zhu jiaoshi 老子道德經注校釋 [Laozi’s Book of the Way and Virtue, A Critical Annotated Edition], Lou Yulie 樓宇烈 ed. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2008. Laozi zhongjing 老子中經 [Laozi’s Central Scripture]. 3rd century. DZ 1168; and in Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 [Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds] j.18–19, DZ 1032. Laozi Xiang’er zhu jiaozheng 老子想爾注校證 [The Xiang’er Commentary to the Laozi, Critical Edition], Rao Zongyi 饒宗頤, ed., Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991. Lüshi chunqiu ji shi 呂氏春秋集釋 [Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals, Critical Edition], Xu Weiyu 許維遹, ed., Shanghai: Shanghau shudian, 1996. Dongshen badi miaojing jing jing 洞神八帝妙精經 [Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors of the Storehouse for Divinity], DZ 640. Shiji 史記 [Records of the Historian]. Sima Qian 司馬遷 (ca. 145–86 BCE), ca. 91 BCE. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, ed., 1985. Shangqing dao leishi xiang 上清道類事相 [The True Appearances of the Categories (Pertaining to) the Dao of the Highest Purity], DZ 1132. Shangqing taishang dijun jiuzhen zhongjing 上清太上帝君九真中經 [Central Scripture of the Nine Perfected], DZ 1376. Taidan yinshu jie bao shi’er jiejie tujue 太丹隱書解胞十二結節圖訣 [Illustrated Instructions for Untying the Twelve Embryonic Knots according to the Concealed Writ of the Great Cinnabar (Palace)], DZ 1384. Taiping yulan 太平御覧 [Imperial Digest of the Taiping Xingguo Reign Period]. Facsimile repr. 1935 Shangwu yinshuguan printing. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1992. Taishang huangting neijing yujing 太上黃庭內景玉經 [Jade Scripture of Inner Effulgences of the Yellow Court], DZ 331. Taishang dongxuan lingbao sanyi wuqi zhenjing 太上洞玄靈寳三一五氣真經 [True Scripture on the Three Ones and the Five qi], DZ 985. “Taishang Laojun neiguan 太上老君內觀” [“Lord Lao’s Inner Contemplation”] in Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 [Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds], j.17, DZ 1032. Taishang lingbao wufu xu 太上靈寶五符序 [Array of the Five Lingbao Talismans of the Most High], DZ 388.

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Zhuangzi ji shi 莊子集釋 [The Zhuangzi, Critical Edition], Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩, ed., Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961. Wushang biyao 無上秘要 [Peerless Secret Essentials]. Late sixth century. Daozang, DZ 1138. Secondary Sources Allan, Sarah. 2003. “The Great One, Water, and the Laozi: New Light from Guodian.” T’oung Pao 89: 237–285. Bokenkamp, Stephen. 2005. “Simple Twists of Fate: The Daoist Body and Its Ming.” In The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture, Christopher Lupke, ed., 151–168. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. ———. 1997. Early Daoist Scriptures. Berkeley: University of California Press. Carré, Patrick. 1999. Le livre de la cour jaune, classique taoïste des IV e–V e siècles. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Ch’ien C.S. [Qian Zhongshu]. 1947. “The Return of the Native.” Philobiblon 4: 17–26. Furth, Charlotte. 1999. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ge Zhaoguang 葛兆光. 1990. “Zhong miao zhi men – bei ji yu tai yi, dao, taiji 眾妙之門 ──北極與太一，道，太極 [The Gate of All Marvels: The Northern Culmen and Taiyi, the Dao, and the Great Ultimate].” Zhongguo wenhua 中國文化 3 (Dec.): 46–63. Graziani, Romain. 2009. “The subject and the sovereign: exploring the self in early Chinese self-cultivation.” In Early Chinese Religion, Part One: Shang through Han (1250 BC–220 AD), John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski, eds., 459–518. Leiden: Brill. Harper, Donald. 2001. “The Nature of Taiyi in the Guodian Manuscript Taiyi sheng shui. Abstract Cosmic Principle of Supreme Cosmic Deity?” Zhongguo tuchu ziliao yanjiu 中國土出資料研究 5: 1–23. Iliouchine, Alexander. 2011. “A Study of the Central Scripture of Laozi (Laozi zhongjing).” MA Thesis, McGill University. Katō Chie 加藤千恵. 2002. Furō fushi no shintai: dōkyō to tai no shisō 不老不死の身体: 道教と胎の思想 [The immortal body: Daoism and embryological thought], Tokyo: Taishukan shoten. ———. 2000. “Tai no shisō 胎の思想 [The notion of embryo].” In Dōkyō no seimeikan to shintairon 道教の生命観と身体論 [Views of life and theories of the body in Taoism], Miura Kunio 三浦國雄, Horiike Nobuo 堀池信夫, and Ōgata Tōru 大形徹, eds., vol. 3, 100–119. Tokyo: Yūzankaku shuppansha. ———. 1996. “Rōshi chūkyō to naitan shisō no genryū 「老子中經」と内丹思想の源流 [The Laozi zhongjing and the origins of Neidan].” Tōhō shūkyō 東方宗教 [East Asian Religions] 87: 21–38.

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Kobayashi Masayoshi 小林正美. 1988. “Taijō reihō gofu jo no seisho katei no bunseki 「太上靈寶五符序」の成書過程の分析 [An analysis of the process by which Taishang lingbao wufu became a text].” Tōhō shūkyō 東方宗教 71: 20–43. Lagerwey, John. 2004. “Deux écrits taoïstes anciens.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 14: 139–171. Li Ling 李零. 2000. “‘Taiyi’ chongbai de kaogu yanjiu ‘太一’ 崇拜的考古研究 [An archaeological study of Taiyi].” In Zhongguo fangshu kao xu 中国方术考续, ibid., ed., 207–238. Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe. Li Ling (Donald Harper, transl.). 1996. “An Archaeological Study of Taiyi 太一 (Grand One) Worship.” Early Medieval China 2: 1–39. Lu Yusan 卢育三. 1987. “‘Fan zhe dao zhi dong’ chuyi「反者道之动」刍议, [An opinion on the ‘Reversion is the Motion of the Way’ (verse from Laozi 41)].” Zhongguo zhexueshi yanjiu 中国哲学史研究 1: 26–31. Maeda Shigeki 前田繁樹. 1988. “Rōshi chūkyō oboegaki 「老子中經」覚書 [Notes on the Laozi zhongjing].” In Chūgoku kodai yōjō shisō no sōgōteki kenkyū 中國古代養生 思想の総合的研究 [Comprehensive studies on Nourishing Life thought in Ancient China], Sakade Yoshinobu 坂出祥伸, ed., 491–497. Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha. Pregadio, Fabrizio. 2011. The Seal of the Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi, The Source of the Taoist Way of the Golden Elixir, vol. 1. Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press. ———. 2009. Awakening to Reality; The “Regulated Verses” of the Wuzhen pian, A Taoist Classic of Internal Aclhemy. Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press. ———. 2008. “Dantian.” In The Encyclopedia of Taoism, ibid., ed., 302–303. London: Routledge. ———. 2006. “Early Daoist Meditation and the Origins of Inner Alchemy.” In Daoism in History, Essays in Honour of Liu Ts’un-yan, Benjamin Penny, ed., 121–158. London: Routledge. Puett, Michael. 2010. “Becoming Laozi: Cultivating and Visualizing Spirits in EarlyMedieval China.” Asia Major 23.1: 223–252. ———. 2002. To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice and Self-Divinization in Early China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Qian Baocong 錢寶琮, 1932. “Taiyi kao 太一攷 [A study of Taiyi].” Yanjing xuebao 燕京 學報 12: 2449–2478. Raz, Gil. 2012. The Emergence of Daoism: Creation of Tradition. London: Routledge. ———. 2004. “Creation of Tradition: The Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure and the Formation of Early Daoism.” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University. Robinet, Isabelle. 1999. “Lun Taiyi shengshui 論太一生水 [A discussion of ‘Taiyi Begets Water’].” Daojia wenhua yanjiu 道家文化研究 17: 332–349.

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Xiao Dengfu 萧登福. 2006. “Daojiao ‘Shouyi’ xiuchifa zhi yuanqi ji qi yanbian 道教 “守 一”修持法之源起及其演變 [The origins and development of Taoist “Guarding the One” Meditations].” Zhongjiaoxue yanjiu 宗教学研究 1: 1–12. Yamada Keiji 山田慶兒. 1980. “Kyūkū hachifū setsu to Shōshiha no tachiba 九宮八風説 と少師派の立場 [The position of the Shaoshi lineage and the theory of the Nine Palaces and Eight Winds].” Tōhō gakuhō 東方學報 52: 199–242. Yasui Kōzan 安居香山 and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋八. 1971–1992. Isho shūsei 讖緯 集成 [A complete collection of the apocrypha], 6 (8) vols. Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha.

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Chapter 4

Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts Catherine Despeux

Introduction The majority of texts associated with Internal Alchemy (Neidan 內丹) describe the practitioner’s psycho-physiological experiences and transformations by means of metaphoric registers that derive their symbolism from three principal fields: cosmos, nature, and the human being. The language of Internal Alchemy speaks of cosmological changes and rhythms, mineral transmutations and the sprouting of the plant of immortality, or the human experiences of procreation and gestation. The adept’s figurative pregnancy is thus one among multiple discourses on the meditative experience of Internal Alchemy. Since the metaphor of Taoist pregnancy was constructed by men on the basis of men’s experiences, one naturally wonders about a few points: how did they come to formulate this metaphor, and on the basis of which gender constructs? How did they transcribe women’s experiences into this symbolic parturiency? In addressing these broad concerns, we will attempt to provide more specific answers to the following questions: 1) is Internal Alchemy’s symbolic “male pregnancy” merely a rhetorical device to speak of the formation of a spiritual body? 2) For practitioners, did this process effectively correspond to a feminisation; 3) or did it rather consist of acquiring the female power of gestation while preserving a male identity? 4) To which degree was the comparison to literal pregnancies sustained? 5) How are men and women understood to be different, physiologically and morphologically speaking, with respect to Internal Alchemy, and how are these differences expressed in terms of practice? The following study will attempt to provide some preliminary answers to these questions.

* Translated from French by Dominic Steavu (University of California, Santa Barbara).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306523_006

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Appearance and Development of the “Sagely Embryo” Allegory

The image of an embryo forming and growing within one’s body as a metaphor for the generation and transmutation of the internal Elixir first appears in the middle of the Tang (618–907 CE). One of the earliest occurrences is attributable to a fundamental text in Internal Alchemy, the Zhouyi cantong qi 周易參 同契 (Seal of the Unity of the Three in Accordance with the Book of Changes), in which we read: Similar in kind to a hen’s egg, the white [Yang] and the black [Yin] tally with one another. It is only one inch in size, but it is the beginning [of the sagely embryo]. Then, the four limbs, the five viscera, the sinews and bones join it. When the ten months have elapsed, it leaves its womb. Its bones are weak and pliant its flesh is smooth like lead.1 類如雞子，白黑相扶。 縱橫一寸，形為始初。 四肢五臟，筋骨乃俱。 彌歷十月，脫出其胞。 骨弱可捲，肉滑若鉛。

The symbolic discourse on procreation developed out of what were originally literal descriptions of physiological processes. The stages in the allegorical development of the embryo closely follow actual gestation. They are listed as follows: formation of the embryo (jie tai 結胎); nourishing the embryo (yang shengtai 養聖胎) for a duration of ten lunar months, corresponding to the 280 days of gestation as outlined in medical texts; delivery (tuotai 脫胎, lit. “liberation from the womb”); and, finally breastfeeding (rufu 乳哹) for three years. In theory, generating the “sagely embryo” (shengtai 聖胎) comprises the same

1 Zhouyi cantong qi DZ 999, 2.18b–19b; slightly modified from Fabrizio Pregadio, The Seal of the Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi (Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2011), 101–102. The line on weak bones is a partial quotation of section 55 from the Daode jing 道德經 (Book of the Way and Virtue); see Pregadio, ibid., 195–196 for notes on the Cantong qi passage. - 978-90-04-30652-3 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2023 11:35:41PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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phases for men and women; however, in female alchemy texts, the embryo’s formation and pregnancy are barely outlined.2 Under the Song (960–1271), the Taoists of the Southern School (Nanzong 南宗) of alchemy were most fond of embryological imagery in describing self-cultivation processes, although their Northern School (Beizong 北宗) counterparts also relied on the same symbolism, albeit more sparingly. Zhang Boduan 張伯端 (984?–1082), the foremost representative of the Southern School, was a scholar from the Celestial Terrace Mountains (Tiantai shan 天台 山) of Zhejiang Province. He was also probably a Buddhist monk; in Chan 禪 literature, a number of poems are notably attributed to him. Two generations after his death, he was recognised as the first patriarch of the Southern School of Taoist alchemy. To our knowledge, he is the first to have employed the expression “sagely embryo” or “embryo of sainthood” (shengtai) in the context of Internal Alchemy, and the first to have explicitly referred to a process of symbolic pregnancy.3 The notion of a sagely embryo became influential under the Ming (1368– 1644) and the Qing (1644–1912), as witnessed for instance in the Xingming guizhi 性命圭旨 (Principles of Joint Cultivation of Nature and Life; ca. 1600), or the Wu Liu xianzong quanji 伍柳仙宗全集 (Complete Summa of the Immortality School’s Writings by Wu [Chongxu] and Liu [Huayang]) attributed to Wu Chongxu 伍冲虛 (1552–1640) and Liu Huayang 柳華陽 (1735–1799).4 In the twentieth century too, the imagery of symbolic gestation persists in sources including the Xingming fajue mingzhi 性命法訣明指 (Illuminated Instructions on the Formulas and Methods of Nature and Life) and the Weisheng shengli­xue mingzhi 衛生生理學明指 (Illuminated Instructions on Hygiene and Phys­iology) by Zhao Bichen 趙避塵 (1860–1936). It is also paramount in texts on female alchemy such as the Nüdan hebian 女丹合編 (Compilation of Texts on Female Alchemy).5 2 Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn, Women in Daoism (Cambridge: Three Pines Press, 2003), 232–236. 3 See the Ziyang zhenren wuzhen pian sanzhu 紫陽真人悟真篇三註 (Three Commentaries to the Stanzas on the Awakening to Perfection by the Perfected of Purple Solarity; DZ 142), hereafter Wuzhen pian 1.15b ; 2.16a; and 4.12a. 4 For the former, see the German translation by Martina Darga, Das alchemistische Buch von innerem Wesen und Lebensenergie (München: Diederichs Gelbe Reihe, 1999). 5 The Xingming fajue mingzhi has been translated into English by Charles Luk (Lü Kuan-yu), Taoist Yoga, Alchemy and Immortality (London: Rider Company, 1970); there is a French translation of the Weisheng shenglixue mingzhi by Catherine Despeux, under the title Traité d’alchimie et de physiologie taoïste, de Zhao Bichen (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1979). Finally, one may find a partial translation of the Nüdan hebian in Catherine Despeux, Immortelles de la Chine ancienne (Puiseaux: Pardès, 1990); and Thomas F. Cleary, Immortal Sisters: Secret Teachings of Taoist Women (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1996). - 978-90-04-30652-3 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2023 11:35:41PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Although the gestational motif appears in Internal Alchemy texts around the middle of the Tang, it derives from earlier Taoist and Buddhist contexts.6 The image of the Infant (Chizi 赤子; Ying’er 嬰兒), which sometimes replaces that of the embryo in Internal Alchemy, refers to well-known passages from the Daode jing 道德經 (Book of the Way and Virtue) that are often cited to explain the processes and methods that practitioners undertake.7 The image of the embryo already appears in the Taiping jing 太平經 (Great Peace Scripture), whose earliest strata date back to the Eastern Han (25–220 CE). Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine if the fragments mentioning the embryo are among the earlier layers or the later ones, some of which date to the Tang.8 Conversely, the Huangting neijing yujing zhu 黃庭內景經註 (Commentary to the Scripture on the Inner Effulgences of the Yellow Court; DZ 402) is more easily datable, having been composed around the fourth or fifth century. It contains one of the earliest mentions of an allegorical embryo. The passage in question explains that “the embryo-immortal dances to the three couplets of the heart-lute.”9 During the Six Dynasties (220–589), in the meditation methods of the Zhengyi 正一 (Orthodox Unity, or Way of the Celestial Masters; Tianshi dao 天 師道), Lingbao 靈寶 (Numinous Treasure) and Shangqing 上清 (Highest Clarity) traditions, adepts were enjoined to reproduce gestational processes and generate divine bodies in ways that were highly similar to those of Internal Alchemy. These practices typically involved specific deities, such as Taiyi 太一 the Great One, as well as themes of regeneration or fusion.10 Thus, the practice of generating an embryo and experiencing anew the various phases of its development was not unknown to Taoism prior to the advent

6 7 8 9 10

For a Taoist example, see, for instance, Dominic Steavu, “Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation” in the present volume. Chapters 10 and 55. See, in this volume, Grégoire Espesset’s “Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Lifecycles.” 琴心三疊舞胎仙; Huangting neijing yujing zhu DZ 402, 1b. See Dominic Steavu, “Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation,” and Christine Mollier’s “Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: ‘Seed-People’ and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism,” in this volume. For a sample of methods from the Shangqing tradition, see Shangqing jiudan shang hua taijing zhong ji jing 上清九丹上化胎精中記經 (Scripture of the Central Record of Ninefold Elixir Transmuting into Embryonic Essence; DZ 1382); and Shangqing taiyi dijun taidan yinshu jie bao shier jiejie tu jue 上清太一帝君太丹隱書 解胞十二結節圖訣 (Illustrated Instructions for Untying the Twelve Embryonic Knots according to the Secret Writing of the Lord Emperor Taiyi on the Supreme Elixir; DZ 1384).

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of Internal Alchemy.11 Moreover, although Zhang Boduan was the first to use the expression “sagely embryo” (shengtai) in alchemical and Taoist contexts, the term occurs earlier in Buddhist sources. The oldest such source is an apocryphal text from around fifth century, the Renwang bore boluomi jing 仁王般若 波羅蜜經 (Scripture on the Virtues of Wisdom for Humane Kings; T. 245; hereafter, Scripture for Humane Kings). The term “sagely embryo” is used in relation to the first of the ten virtues of wisdom (shi boluomi 十波羅蜜), that is, the gift (bushi 布施). In order to achieve this virtue, one must cultivate the ten types of consciousness (shixin 十心) for converting other beings. “Buddhas and bodhisattvas,” readers are told, “cultivate and nourish the ten types of consciousness into a sagely embryo.”12 A Sui-dynasty (589–618 CE) commentary to the Scripture for Humane Kings adds: “The ten types of consciousness are the primary conditions. Buddhas and bodhisattvas are the secondary ones. When primary and secondary conditions are conjoined, the sagely embryo is accomplished. […] [Simply by] eliminating the first degree of ignorance, one can see the Buddha nature. Thus, the sagely embryo is achieved.”13 In the Buddhist context, the term shengtai, or “sagely embryo,” traditionally indicates the latent Buddha nature that lies dormant in all sentient beings; it refers to the notion of tathāgatagarbha (rulai zang 如來臧), “embryo/matrix of the thus-come one,” in other words, the potential to bring Buddhahood to fruition, to make manifest the Buddha nature that is latent within oneself. A commentary to the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra lists nine rhetorical allegories around this notion, one of them being that of a destitute young girl pregnant with a sagely embryo.14 Yet, in Buddhist sources, there is some ambiguity around whether the embryo is innate and requires only realisation to be activated, or whether it is something to be pursued, refined, worked upon and cultivated – an understanding that is closer to that of Taoist traditions and Internal Alchemy. This latter approach is emphasised in Buddhist sources that speak of “accomplishing” or “completing” the sagely embryo. In its discussion of the “ten trusts” (shi xin 十信), the Renwang huguo bore boluomi duo jing 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經 11 12 13

14

See in this volume Fabrizio Pregadio’s “Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three)”. 一切諸菩薩長養十心為聖胎也; Renwang huguo bore boluomi duo jing T. 245, 826b. Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Chinese are my own. 十心是因諸佛菩薩是緣因緣和合故成聖胎也[…]斷一品無明即能見佛性故成聖 胎也; Renwang huguo bore jing shu 仁王護國般若經疏 (Commentary to the Scripture on the Virtues of Wisdom for Humane Kings; T. 1705) 3.269c. Yanshou’s 延壽 Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄 (Mirror Records of Our School; T. 2016), 14.489a, quoting the Rulaizang jing 如來藏經 (Scripture on the Tathāgatagarbha).

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(Extended Scripture on the Virtues of Wisdom for Humane Kings to Protect their Kingdom; T. 246; hereafter Scripture for Humane Kings to Protect their Kingdom) explains: “If one sees these ten types of consciousness, it signals that one is able to convert crowds and transcend the Two Vehicles and all the excellent lands. [This is the mark] of a the bodhisattva who has begun to develop and nurture his mind into a sagely embryo.”15 Well into the Tang, the term continues to be prized in Chinese Buddhist discourse, especially within Tiantai 天台 and, more markedly, within the Chan school. The eighth-century Chan master Mazu 馬祖 (709–788), for instance, is recorded to have uttered the following words: “What the heart/mind produces is called form. When one realizes that form is empty, production becomes nonproduction. Having understood this, one can act according to circumstances, dressing, eating, developing and maintaining the sagely embryo (shengtai), and living in harmony with spontaneity.”16 Zongmi 宗密 (780–841), in his text on the origins of Chan, mentions “feeding the soul and making the sagely embryo grow.”17 This imagery of fostering an inner embryo becomes even more common in Song-dynasty Buddhist writings. It also surfaces in Japanese Zen: after formal kōan training, monks embark on the second stage of training to “make the sagely embryo grow for a long time” (Jap. shōtai chōyō; Ch. shengtai changyang 聖胎長養).18 There is no doubt that there is Buddhist imprint on Internal Alchemy with respect to embryological imagery. Ming and Qing Taoist texts notably draw a correspondence between the “sagely embryo” and the Buddhist notions of tathāgatagarbha, gotra (kingdom/clan) and dharmakāya (“body of the Law”).19 Thus, in Internal Alchemy, the “sagely embryo” appears as an amalgam 15 16

17 18

19

具此十心而能少分化諸眾生超過二乘一切善地是為菩薩初長養心為聖胎故; Renwang huguo bore boluomi duo jing T. 246, 1.836b. 心所生即名為色, 知色空故生即不生, 若了此意, 乃可隨時著衣喫飯, 長養聖胎; Jiangxi Mazu Daoyi chanshi yulu 江西馬祖道一禪師語錄 (Master Ma’s Recorded Sayings), 2; see the French translation by Catherine Despeux, Les entretiens de Mazu, maître Chan du viiie siècle (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1980), 42. 養神聖胎增長; Chanyuan zhu quan ji duxu 禪源諸全集都序 (Preface to a Collection of Texts on the Origins of Chan; T. 2015), 402c. This stage, also known as the post-awakening (wuhou 悟後) stage, mandates a period of seclusion, which can last for years. It is tied not only to the sagely embryo in Internal Alchemy but also to the Confucian ideal of the recluse (who must eventually emerge from isolation to assume public office); see Victor Sōgen Hori, Zen Sand : The Book of Capping Phrases for Kōan Practices (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003), 27–29. For instance, we find the following lines in Xingming guizhi 7.4: “When the fire regulation is sufficient, the embryo is completely achieved, the child is born. Buddhists call it the

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of early Taoist notions of access to immortality through reversion (fan 反; 返) to the cosmic matrix, in combination with Buddhist notions concerning the latent presence of spiritual qualities that are to be developed through a symbolic birth leading to awakening. Yet the writings of Internal Alchemy are distinct in the increasing corporeality that they attribute to the sagely embryo. While Song texts are allusive, those of the Ming, Qing, and Republican periods display progressively accurate physiological analogies. This follows a general principle in Internal Alchemy by which Buddhist concepts are reinterpreted by translating them into psychophysiological phenomena and assigning specific loci within the bodies of adepts. In this respect, we may cite the allegory of the three chariots from the Lotus Sutra, which, in Taoism, become the three stages of the rise of qi 氣 and light along the spine from the bottom of the body to the top.20 In other words, whereas Buddhism has put more emphasis on the expressly psychological and spiritual dimensions of the adept’s experience, Taoism, conversely, relies on a wealth of metaphors to relate the sensations that practitioners perceive as physical or psychophysiological: inner breathing, inner flows, inner heat, and so on. What is further particular to Taoism is that the bulk of the translation of the adept’s experiences relies on a grammar of sexual differentiation. Nonetheless, this corporeality is also dependent on the way that Taoists in general, and the individual practitioner in particular, invest their interior. Different sources describe the somatic landscape in different ways with respect to physiology, bodily reference points, or perception. However, judging from the early twentieth-century corpus of materials pertaining to female alchemy, it appears that this system of translating meditative experiences into the language of procreation and gestation is less elaborate when it comes to women practitioners. 2

The Formation of the Sagely Embryo

The experiential path that Taoist adepts take leads them alternately through phases of bodily oblivion and heightened corporeal perception, both inside and outside the body. Each recurrence of the phase in which the boundaries of

20

‘body of the Law’ [dharmakāya 法身].” Similar analogies are found in Zhao Bichen’s writings. See Catherine Despeux, “Métaphores et processus d’intégration : la symbolique du corps dans l’alchimie interne de la Chine des Song (Xe-XIIe siècles),” in Alchimies. OccidentOrient, Kappler Claire and Suzanne Thiolier-Méjean, eds. (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2006).

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the body are dissolved and spatio-temporal referents suspended is intended to generate modifications in sensory experiences, physiological mechanisms, and perceptions of self. In this way, the Taoist practitioner’s pregnancy may manifest in men as it does in women. The formation of the embryo and its development are associated at times with an effacement of bodily barriers and the distinction between internal and external; at others, these are anchored in specific sensations that are a product of the adept’s gendered body. Yet, even if the imagery of pregnancy is used for men as well as women, its expressions remain somewhat different, as explained below. Although Taoist texts dealing with meditations on the body often recall the various stages of the embryo’s literal development, they are nonetheless describing psychic or spiritual processes. In contrast to medical sources, which also insist on the formation of physiological features or elements, Taoist materials, generally speaking, stress the formation of the various souls that take shape within the body and the qualities of qi that they receive. For instance, the tenth-century “Yanluozi neiguan jing 煙蘿子內觀經” (“Master of the Smoke Curtain’s Scripture on Inner Contemplation”) describes the process as follows: In the first month, the placenta appears; in the second, the embryo; in the third, the visionary hun souls are complete; in the fourth, the vegetative po souls are achieved; in the fifth, the five viscera are formed; in the sixth, the six receptacles are formed; in the seventh, the seven orifices are open; in the eight, all souls are present; in the ninth, all essences are fixed; and in the tenth month, the qi is full.21 一月為胞，二月為胎，三月成魂，四月成魄，五月分臟，六月分腑， 七月開竅，八月神具，九月定精，十月氣足。

Other Taoist writings have similar descriptions.22 Thus, a number of texts seek to establish a precise correspondence between literal gestation and the development of the sagely embryo. 21 22

“Yanluozi neiguan jing in Xiuzhen shishu 修真十書” (Ten Books on the Cultivation of the Perfection; DZ 263), 18.5b-6a. See the study by Katō Chie 加藤千惠, “Tai no shisō 胎の思想” in Dōkyō no seimeikan to shintairon 道教の生命観と身体論, Miura Kunio 三浦國雄, et al. eds. (Tokyo: Yūzankaku shuppansha, 2000), 100–119, where the author chiefly relies on the Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 (Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds; DZ 1032), 29, the “Neiguan jing 內 觀經” (“Scripture on the Inner Contemplation”), the “Xiyue Dou xiansheng xiuzhen zhinan 西嶽竇先生修真指南” (“Indications on the Cultivation of the Perfection by Master

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That men could be pregnant, even if only symbolically, was surely not an obvious notion. Bai Yuchan 白玉蟾 (1194–?), the renowned Taoist master of the Southern School of alchemy writes: “It is a strange fact, often ridiculed, that a man can now, inside himself, shelter an embryo.”23 Outside of self-cultivation, in myths, fiction, or any other form of writing in China, a male pregnancy is seldom mentioned. However, we may note one anecdote from Journey to the West (Xiyou ji 西遊記) in which the monk Xuanzang 玄奘 and his companion, Zhu Bajie 豬八戒 become pregnant after drinking water from the Childbirth River (Zimu he 子母河) in the Country of Women. They subsequently terminate their pregnancies by drinking water from the Abortive Spring (Luotai quan 落胎泉).24 But this initiatory novel has been demonstrated to make liberal use of Taoist allegories including some tied to Internal Alchemy, and so it is very probable that the male pregnancy episode stems from that particular stratum of sources.25 Surprisingly, accounts of actual male pregnancies are not entirely absent from Chinese medical materials; Charlotte Furth has notably found three instances in late Ming texts. Depicted as aberrations, these cases are perceived as arising as a consequence of sodomy and must be considered, she explains, as “an enlargement, however risky, of male powers.”26 Yet, despite its exoticism, the notion of male pregnancy is not completely unthinkable in the sense that, even in the viewpoint of Chinese medicine, gender boundaries are never absolute. Men are never Pure Yang (chunyang 純陽), nor are women Pure Yin (chunyin 純陰). Just as Yin and Yang fluctuate, so too gender differentiation depends on the given balance of fluids relative to each gender at any moment in a dynamic relation.27 This is the reason why some medicinal recipes would have been efficient in changing the sex of the embryo during the first months of life in utero.28 The male Taoist who practises embry-

23 24 25

26 27 28

Dou of the Southern Peak”) from Xiuzhen shishu, 21. 3b, and the Taishang dongxuan lingbao wuliang duren shangpin miaojing zhu 太上洞玄靈寶無量度人上品妙經註 (Commentary on the Book of Salvation; DZ 91). 白玉蟾云怪事教人笑幾回男兒今也會懷胎; from Xingming guizhi 3.37a. Xiyouji 43.472. See Catherine Despeux, “Les lectures alchimiques du Hsi-yu-chi,” in Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien. Festschrift für Hans Steininger zum 65 Geburtstag, Gert Naundorf, KarlHeinz Pohl, and Hans-Hermann Schmidt, eds. (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1985), 61–72. Charlotte Furth, “Androgynous Males and Deficient Females: Biology and Gender Boundaries in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century China,” Late Imperial China 9.2 (1988): 13. Ibid., 4. See Chen Ming, “Zhuan nü wei nan, ‘Turning Female to Male’: an Indian Influence on Chinese Gynaecology?”. Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity 2 (2005).

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ological methods and experiences a figurative yet perceived pregnancy does not aim to become feminine. Quite to the contrary, he aims to transcend femininity in pursuit of his final goal, to generate in situ a Pure Yang body. However, to succeed, he must go through a symbolic maternity that will draw on the intrinsic female components of the male gender. According to sources, the mechanisms of inner procreation are imagined differently. There is no implied consistency in the complex of sensations and perceptions associated with it, or in the bodily transformations, internal or external, that the adept undergoes. Each tradition and each master of Internal Alchemy used embryological imagery differently in translating and transmitting the process of their own spiritual progress; some referred to biological characteristics or reproductive functions more than others. In general, procreation is explained as the union or copulation of two “physiological” or psychic elements: the Yin and the Yang contained within the body, the heart’s Fire and the kidneys’ Water, the liver’s Wood and lungs’ Metal, the visionary hun soul and the vegetative po soul, or shen 神 (spirit) and qi (breath). In more alchemically inclined sources, Qian 乾 (the trigram of the Pure Yang) and Kun 坤 (trigram of the Pure Yin), or even the dragon and the tiger, are the binary pairs of choice. The meaning of a same word or concept will vary in accordance with the tradition or even the particular phases in which alchemical elements unite and invert. For Zhang Boduan, a representative of the Southern School of alchemy, symbolic procreation occurs at the cosmological level on the basis of correlative correspondence between the universe and the human body: The nature of Wood is to be attracted by Metal and to be compliant and righteous. The feelings of Metal are inclined to love Wood and to be gentle and humane. They chew and they swallow each other, and yet they love each other.29 It is the beginning of the realisation that men are pregnant.30 木性愛金順義，金情戀木慈仁。 相吞相啖卻相親，始覺男兒有孕。

The line “men are pregnant” (nan’er you yun 男兒有孕) is alluded to in a poem by Ma Yu 馬鈺 (1123–1184; also known as Ma Danyang 馬丹陽), one the Seven 29 30

Compare to Cantong qi 64, l. 5–10 ; see Pregadio 2001, 106. Wuzhen pian DZ 142, 5. 9b.

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Perfected (qizhen 七真), founder the Quanzhen 全真 (Complete Perfection) School, and patriarch of the Northern School of alchemy. He writes in his Danyang shenguang can 丹陽神光燦 (Radiating Brilliance of the Spirit; DZ 1150): Who can believe in a man’s pregnancy? It is inconceivable! However the qi becomes knotted, the spirit concentrates, and the new destiny settles. Through production of the embryo-immortal, one transcends the Jiuyi Mountains.31 誰信男兒有孕，不可思議。 氣結神凝，命住。 產胎仙，超越九嶷。

Chen Pu 陳朴 (late eleventh century), another master of the Southern School, explicitly compares this symbolic procreation to a literal procreation that occurs through the merging of the father’s semen and the mother’s blood. Here too, the figurative process is expressed in biological terms, relying, like in Zhang Boduan’s discourse, on the notion of the body as a cosmos. Through contemplative exercises, adepts are enjoined to generate a pearl of dew or a small orb of light – an image that evokes the embryo as it is described in classical Chinese medicine, namely, as a little pellet of fat:32 With the first revolution, one obtains a precious pearl. The Perfected Water of the Heavenly One is stored in the gallbladder. Yin and Yang unite, descend, and form the Elixir. It appears like a pearl of dew. Mountains, rivers and the entire universe pierce the magical body. For the ordinary man, the father’s semen and the mother’s blood are exchanged, and through their union, a new life is formed; for the alchemist, thanks to the exchange of the heart’s Fire and the Water from the kidneys, the cinnabar descends and the qi [breaths] are united. When the cinnabar descends, the spirit treads beyond the cosmos, Yin and Yang are in Great Harmony to the extent that one forgets the body. Heaven, Earth, mountains, rivers, the ten thousand things of the six poles are inside my

31 32

Danyang shenguang can 丹陽神光燦 (Radiant Brilliance of the Spirit; DZ 1150), 10b. See Huainanzi 淮南子 7.99; “Jinshen xun 精神訓” (“Instructions on Essence and Spirit”): 一月而膏，二月而胅，三月而胎.”

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body; my body is beyond Heaven and Earth. Only a spot of light is perceivable, like the sun – descending cinnabar.33 一轉之功似寶珠。天一真水藏之於膽，陰陽和合降而為丹，狀如露珠 一顆。山河宇宙透靈軀。人因父精母血交媾而生身形交也。丹因心火 腎水交媾而丹降氣交也。丹降之時神遊方外，陰陽太和至忘其形，天 地山河六合萬物在我身之內，我身在天地之外。只覺此中一點光明如 日乃丹降也。

Bai Yuchan of the Southern School of alchemy remains the only master to explicitly draw the equivalence between the generation of an embryo from the union of the father’s essence (or “semen”; jing 精) and the mother’s blood during intercourse and the allegorical procreation of the sagely embryo. He writes: “[The sagely embryo is formed] by the union, in one’s body, of the marvellous spouses that are one’s own semen and one’s blood.”34 Effectively, practitioners join the male and female components of their own beings, components that are here identified with physiological substances representative of each sex. Zhang Boduan also expresses this same idea: “In black there is white; it is the mother of cinnabar. Inside the masculine, the feminine is concealed; it is the sagely embryo.”35 For Bai Yuchan, semen and blood are particularly prized for their symbolic potential. Yet, in Internal Alchemy, these substances are involved in a very real form of asceticism. In aspiring to “Taoist pregnancy,” women must retain their menstrual blood just as men have to refrain from ejaculating. In the latter case, it is the “return” of the semen inside the body that permits symbolic pregnancy. Real, actual semen that is able to produce “external” life carries with it an inceptive power that may also operate on the “inside.” Through embryological practices, the male adept renounces “external” procreation, which, in the case that it would yield a son, would guarantee continuity through integration into the ancestral lineage. He forfeits the possibility of becoming a real father to become a symbolic father and a symbolic mother, as well. It should be noted, however, that the prolonged and wilful retention of seminal fluids results in a state that is different from pre-pubescence in men (which can be defined as a complete absence of the production of semen). Semen is effectively produced, 33 34 35

Chen xiansheng neidan jue 陳先生內丹訣 (Master Chen’s Instructions on the Internal Elixir: DZ 1096), 1a. 自家精血自交媾，身裡夫妻是妙哉; Xingming guizhi, 3.37a. 黑中有白為丹母，雄裡藏雌是聖胎; Wuzhen pian DZ 1042, 4.12a.

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but it is used inwardly. Medical literature stipulates that the qi potential of an individual does not reach plenitude before the time of puberty, from the age of sixteen for boys and fourteen for girls.36 It is only after this moment then that the interiorisation can occur: once their qi potential is full, practitioners must preserve it inside themselves without letting even an iota flow out. Each author writing on the subject explains in his own way the generation of an embryo, a spiritually perfected duplicate of oneself within oneself, pushing the literalness of the physiological analogy more or less forcefully. 3

Symbolic Pregnancy in Men

In men, the signs of symbolic pregnancy are essentially manifested on the inside and are not visible, with the one exception – the retraction of genitals. The internal signs of this type of pregnancy are symbolically expressed, or course, but they also belong to the realm of changes that are actually perceived. If the allegory of pregnancy is efficient, it is because the male adept feels a mass developing in his abdomen, moving and growing, thus rendering his experience similar to, he imagines, that of a woman nurturing an embryo in her uterus. This mass that he carries and senses has several names depending on its function and on the source: “cinnabar” (dan 丹), “great medicine” (dayao 大 藥), or “mysterious pearl” (xuanzhu玄珠). According to a Zhang Boduan poem: At the centre, in its correct place, the mysterious pearl is produced. Fruits are born on branches, and ripen at the end of the season. This is like the embryo, growing in the matrix.37 中央正位產玄珠。 果生枝上終期熟。 子在胞中豈有殊。

36 37

See, for instance, Huangdi neijing Suwen 黃帝內經素問 (Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor: Basic Questions), 1.4b. Ziyang zhenren Wuzhen pian sanzhu DZ 1042, 1.15b.

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For Longmei Zi 龍眉子 (fl. early thirteenth century), the Dragon Eyebrow Master, “this ‘thing’ has the shape of a sparrow’s egg; it is round and luminous like a pearl.”38 For men, the sensation of carrying something inside can be localised in or associated with different parts of the body or none at all, precisely because the body and its boundaries have dissolved in the matrix of the Dao. When somatically situated, it is mainly perceived in the Cinnabar Field of the lower abdomen, in an area that corresponds to the uterus in women. The Taixi jing zhu 胎息經注 (Commentary to the Scripture on Embryonic Breathing; DZ 130) asserts that the embryo is formed three inches below the navel, where “soul” (or “spirit”; shen) and qi unite.39 Other sources situate the embryo less precisely, placing it vaguely in the “mysterious orifice” (xuanqiao 玄竅) or, according to the Xingming guizhi 性命 圭旨 (Principles of the Jade Tablet on Vital Force and Innate Nature), in the “ancestral orifice” (zuqiao 祖竅), or even in the “mysterious female” (xuanpin 玄牝). It is defined as the place where one is no longer prisoner of the four constitutive elements of the body (sida 四大; Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind).40 This orifice cannot be perceived; it is neither material nor immaterial, neither outside nor inside – it cannot be said if it even exists (see Fig. 4.1).41 Zhang Boduan notes that the cultivation of the Golden Elixir (or “gold cinnabar”; jindan 金丹) resides in the mysterious female. In his preface to the “Jindan sibai zi 金丹四百字” (“Four Hundred Characters on the Gold Cinnabar”), he writes: The orifice of the mysterious female is where one picks and obtains [the Golden Elixir], where unity and exchange take place, where one cooks and refines, where one washes, where one heats and nourishes. It is where the embryo is formed, where the release of the embryo and the divine transformations occur; everything is taking place there. Any prac-

38 39 40 41

猶如雀卵團團大間似隋珠顆顆圓; Jinye huandan yinzheng tu 金液還丹印證圖 (Illustrations Attesting to the Return of Liquified Gold to the Cinnabar Field; DZ 151), 13b. Taixi jing zhu DZ 130, 1a; or Yunji qiqian, 60.27a. Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind are the four elements forming body and matter in general, according to Buddhism. Xiuzhen biannan 修真辯難 (Debates on the Difficulties of the Cultivation of Perfection), in Daoshu shier zhong 道書十二種 (Twelve Kinds of Books on the Way), by Liu Yinming 劉一明 (1734–1821), 330.

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Figure 4.1 The “Anshen zuqiao tu 安神祖竅圖” (“Illustration of the Pacification of the Spirit at the Ancestral Orifice”) from the Xingming guizhi 性命 圭旨 (Principles of the Jade Tablet on Vital Force and Innate Nature).

titioner of alchemy that recognises this orifice will achieve the Way of the Golden Elixir.42 玄牝一竅而採取在此，交媾在此，烹煉在此，沐浴在此，溫養在此， 結胎在此。至於脫胎神化，無不在此。修煉之士誠能知此一竅則金丹 之道盡矣。 42

Xingming guizhi, 2.22a.

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It is readily apparent that for Zhang Boduan the site of the described transmutations has nothing to do with the ordinary body; his interpretation is closer to the Buddhist notion of the tathāgatagarbha. Indeed, he emphasises the loss of sensation of one’s body in the attainment of unity, the divine cosmic matrix. The body becomes an infinite, all-encompassing space of constant equanimity. It is no longer the confined site of symbolic pregnancy. The few examples above reveal the heterogeneity of imageries and contextualisations surrounding embryological practices that evoke the body and its functions to varying degrees. As Francesca Bray reminds us, “the phenomenological body is differently constituted and organized in different societies, and even within the same society, it will be understood and experienced differently by different people.”43 Taoist practitioners who generate an embryo are double, becoming both womb and embryo at the same time. The graph tai 胎 reflects this ambiguity – or it is more likely the source of it – since it is used to denote both the embryo or the womb. The following passage from a Song text elaborates: ‘Tai’ is the palace where one receives life. The anterior qi of respiration is contained in the primordial ocean, 1 cun and 3 fen [1.3 inches] below the mother’s navel, in a place that is called the Cinnabar Field. She receives the Perfected Semen, which produces a form that contains the qi of Heaven and Earth. In the first month, the embryo is like a pearl; in the second, like a drop of dew; in the third, like the pip of a prune or peach. At this point, one may speak of the simplicity of pure and harmonious qi. The child is in its mother’s womb; when the mother breathes out, it breathes out. When she breathes in, it breathes in. After ten months, the anterior qi of [the embryo] is complete; the six types of emotions manifest and provoke birth in the external [world]. How can one preserve inner respiration without turning one’s gaze to the primordial beginning? Thus, after birth follows death. The sage says: “I do not follow the Three Worms and the Six Emotions. I breathe constantly in the Cinnabar Field and safeguard it without regressing.”44

43 44

See Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender. Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 297. “Yuyun Zhang Guolao taixi jue 玉雲張果老胎息訣” (“Formulas on Embryonic Breathing by Zhang Guolao”) in Zhuzhen shengtai shenyong jue 諸真聖胎神用訣 (Instructions of the Perfected on the Divinely Efficacious Sagely Embryo; DZ 826), 8b.

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夫胎者，受生之宮也。息炁納於元海，在母臍下一寸三分名曰丹田。 受真精成形納天地之炁。一月如珠，二月如露，三月如桃李。此名淳 和之炁朴也。子在母胞胎之中，母呼則呼，母吸則吸，至於十月炁足 而生六情轉於外，豈於返視元初不守內息故有生死。故聖人云我不縱 三尸六情常息於丹田守而無退。

The double meaning of tai also extends to the term taixi 胎息, generally translated as “embryonic breathing” or “embryonic respiration.” This notion refers to a manner of respiration that does not involve the nose or the mouth but rather the pores of the skin. The adept is therefore said to “breathe like an embryo.” At the same time, this expression may also denote the sensation experienced by adepts of something expanding and contracting, or “breathing” somewhere inside their bodies. However, if the term tai is read as “womb” or “matrix,” then the expression taixi takes on the sense of “womb respiration.” In this case, the sensation of expansion and contraction attributed to the breathing embryo is firmly situated in the lower abdomen, where the womb is located. The ambiguity between different readings of the character tai surfaces in texts like the Gaoshang Yuhuang taixi jing 高上玉皇胎息經 (Scripture on Embryonic Breathing of the Jade Emperor On High; DZ 14). The title is typically translated as Scripture on Embryonic Breathing, but it can also be rendered Scripture on the Breathing of the Embryo or Scripture on the Respiration of the Womb, depending on how the expression taixi is understood: The Venerable Heavenly Jade Emperor said: “The embryo is produced from stored qi and the qi breathes inside the existing embryo. When the qi enters the body, it is called birth. When spirit leaves the body, it is called death. It is therefore spirit and qi that can bestow longevity. For this reason one should preserve emptiness in order to nourish the spirit and qi. When the spirit circulates, qi circulates; when the spirit is fixed, breath is fixed. If one wishes to live long, spirit and qi should retain one another; then, all mental activity stops, and they [spirit and breath] neither come nor go, neither enter nor depart. They are constantly just there of themselves. To diligently put this into practice is the true path.”45 玉皇天尊日：胎從伏氣中結，氣從有胎中息。氣入身來謂之生，神去 離形謂之死。知神氣可以長生，故守虛無以養神氣。神行即氣行，神 住即氣住。若欲長生，神氣相注。心不動念，無來無去，不出不入， 自然常在。勤而行之，是真道路。 45

Gaoshang Yuhuang taixi jing, 1a.

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In his commentary to the Gaoshang Yuhuang taixi jing, the Elder of Illusory Perfection, Huanzhen xiansheng 幻真先生 (fl. eighth or ninth century), clarifies the meaning of the opening lines from the previous passage: Three inches below the navel is the ocean of qi. It is also called the lower Cinnabar Field or the mysterious female […]. In fact, the “mysterious” is water and the “female” is the mother. People of this world mutually stimulate themselves by means of their Yin qi and Yang qi, which are knotted in the water and in the mother. After three months, the embryo is [fully] “knotted.” After ten months, its bodily form is complete and it can be born. Those who cultivate the Way should constantly store their qi below their navel and guard their spirit inside their body. In this way, spirit and qi join one another and generate the mysterious embryo. When it is completely “knotted,” then one has [effectively] generated a body. This is the inner cinnabar, the Way of immortality. […] Spirit is the child of qi, and qi is the mother of spirit. Spirit and qi are inseparable; they follow each other like form and shadow. When the mother, [meaning] the matrix, is formed, then the spirit, [which is] the child, will breathe on its own, and the primordial qi will not disperse.46 臍下三寸為氣海，亦為下丹田，亦為玄牝。[…] 蓋玄者水也，牝者母 也。世人以陰陽炁相感，結於水母，三月胎結，十月形體具而能生 人。修道者，常伏其炁於臍下，守其神於身內，神炁相合而生玄胎， 玄胎既結，乃自生身，即為內丹，不死之道也。[…] 神為炁子，炁為 神母，神炁相逐，如形與影。胎母既結，即神子自息，即元炁不散。

By the Song dynasty, the ambiguity between different understandings of embryonic breathing begins to subside as distinct readings emerge in Taoist literature: The qi of the One is embryonic breathing. The womb is the palace that contains the soul. Breathing is the departure point of the embryo’s transformation. Breathing produces breathing, and the spirit is the embryo; without breathing, the embryo cannot be accomplished; without spirit,

46

Taixi jing zhu 胎息經註 (Commentary to the Scripture on Embryonic Breathing), in Yunji qiqian DZ 1032, 60.1a.

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breathing has no ruler. Thus, spirit is the ruler of breath. Breath is the root of the embryo. The womb is where it resides.47 一氣者胎息也。胎乃藏神之府，息乃胎化元。因息生息，因神為胎。 胎不得息則不成，息不得神則無主。神乃息之主，息乃胎之根，胎乃 息之宅。

The distinction between embryonic breathing as something experienced by adepts in the entirety of their body, or, alternatively, as a sensation that is felt in the lower abdomen alone, becomes even more pronounced in later texts such as those of the Wu Liu 伍柳 School.48 Wu Chongxu’s 伍冲虛 (1574–1644) Treatise of Direct Indications (Zhilun 直論) devotes an entire section to the topic of taixi, in which the concept is unequivocally taken to mean the breathing of the embryo inside its mother’s womb alone.49 In all of these meditation exercises, the spirit (shen) constitutes the adept’s male component, that which becomes the Yang Spirit (yangshen 陽神). Qi is the feminine component, relating to spirit not as a wife to a husband but rather as mother to a son. During the meditative process, the adept transforms simultaneously into an embryo inside its mother’s body and a mother carrying a child (see Fig. 4.2). Via embryonic breathing in the great womb of the Dao, the male adept is re-acquainted with his feminine qualities – especially maternal femininity. Experiencing a fusion of self into emptiness, he no longer identifies with his carnal body, which dissolves into the great matrix. It is precisely this access to emptiness that allows the formation of the embryo in his male body. In meditation, he finds the possibility of becoming a matrix, conceiving the sagely embryo and immediately identifying with it when he himself breathes like a embryo. The male adept perceives himself as his actual self and as an embryo. This process of becoming an embryo is not understood as a regression in Internal Alchemy but rather as a creation. This important distinction is 47

48

49

Taishang jiuyao xinyin miaojing 太上九要心印妙經 (Marvellous Scripture of the Nine Essentials Heart Seal of the Most High; DZ 225), 7a–b. This text is attributed to Zhang Guo 張果 of the eighth century, but it is certainly a later apocryphal text. The Wu Liu School is tradionally associated with the Longmen 龍門 lineage of Taoist alchemy founded by Qiu Chuji 丘處機 (1148–1227), an offshoot of the Complete Perfection (Quanzhen 全真) School. Its teachings propound the Joint Cultivation of Nature and Life (xingming shuangxiu 性命雙修). The Wu Liu School incorporated numerous notions from Chan Buddhism, insisting on seated meditation and stillness of thought as crucial self-purification processes in the practice of Internal Alchemy. Zhilun in Wu Liu xianzong quanji 伍柳仙宗全集 (Complete Summa of the Immortality School’s Writings by Wu [Chongxu] and Liu [Huayang]), 9.213.

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Figure 4.2 “Ying’er xianxing tu 嬰兒現形圖” (“Illustration of the Formation of the Infant”) from the Xingming guizhi 性命圭旨 (Principles of the Jade Tablet on Vital Force and Innate Nature).

highlighted in the following passage from the Principles of Joint Cultivation of Nature and Life: In the double cultivation of innate nature (xing) and life force (ming), one must open the chaos anew, form a matrix once more in order to transform one’s nature and life and create them again. As innate nature and life force are created again, they are maintained in the nature and life of the father and the mother; this way, a small part of the nature and life is generated in the mother’s womb. They are my own innate nature and my own life force. Being my own innate nature and life force, these naturally make my self return to nothingness, and this self, then, becomes

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great emptiness. As the self becomes great emptiness, Qian and Kun spontaneously appear within it; these are my true nature and life force.50 若雙修性命者，必須重開混沌，再立胞胎而自造化此性命也。夫性命 既造化矣則於父母性命中而自然養出一點性命，如在母腹中而為我之 性命也。夫既為我之性命矣則又自然於我之性命中而還我於無而為我 之太虛也。夫既為我之太虛矣則又自然於我之虛空在造化乾坤而為我 之真性命也。

Through symbolic pregnancy, the male practitioner appropriates his own destiny, distancing himself from what he has inherited from his father and mother to recover his “true nature,” the zhen 真, the authentic, the perfect. In most of sources, the overlap of the symbolic embryo’s development with that of the real embryo remains unaddressed beyond what we have considered in the sources above. However, Stephen Eskildsen has identified a Song-period text, Chen xiansheng neidan jue 陳先生內丹訣 (Master Chen’s Formulas on the Internal Elixir ; DZ 1096) that chronicles how the sagely embryo progressively becomes the adept’s doppelganger, matching him or her in external appearance, but also internally, as an anatomically and psychically exact replica.51 Master Chen writes: When the numinous rotation occurs in the sagely embryo, the face of the immortal is produced. The commentary says: “At the third revolution [of the Elixir], Yang is nourished and the visionary hun soul arises in the sagely embryo. At the fourth revolution, Yin is nourished and the po soul arises. When the Elixir reaches this point, the hun and the po are complete; the embryo’s essence and spirit of the Five Peaks [its inner landscape] match with the appearance of one’s inner body. The egress of the spirit is [the emergence of] one’s true self.”52 聖胎靈運產仙顏，三轉養陽，聖胎生魂，四轉養陰，聖胎生魄。丹至 四轉之內，聖胎魂魄皆成就，其五嶽精神，與我內形貌一同，乃出神 真身。

50 51

52

Xingming guizhi, 3.41b. Chen xiansheng neidan jue DZ 1096, 14–15; cited in Stephen Eskildsen, “Neidan Methods for Opening the Gate of Heaven,” in Internal Alchemy, Livia Kohn and Robin Wang, eds. (Magdalena: Three Pines press, 2009), 92. Chen xiansheng neidan jue DZ 1096, 11a.

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As should be clear by now, the embryological imagery that flourished around symbolic reproduction and gestation vastly differs from text to text. Some authors insist on registers linked to motherhood, or on identifying with the sagely embryo, while others emphasise the similarity with the biological process of gestation, and still others point to generation of a replica of oneself. Zhao Bichen, a late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Taoist, advocates a strong identity between the embryo and the self. He accomplishes this by drawing an elaborate parallel between a six-stage development of the spermatozoon and that of the symbolic embryo (see Fig. 4.3). First, a “bubble of qi” (qipao 炁泡) arises amidst bodily secretions (jinye 津液); then, the red blood cells and white blood cells appear in the qi bubble. A blood relic (xue shelizi 血 舍利子) is formed in the “true cavity of qi” (zhen qixue 真炁穴). The Yin essence appears therein, and the Yang essence appears in the testes (gaowan gong 睾丸 宮). Finally, the spermatozoon (jingnang 精囊) is formed. As for the embryo, its constituent true qi is generated in the spine. After the subsequent generation of the qi of Anterior Heaven occurs, it coalesces into the śarira relic, the pearl of Śākyamuni, also referred to as an external golden light; when the pearl is fully formed, an inner golden light manifests within the adept. Both lights unite and generate “the embryo of the Way” (daotai 道胎).53 In a final step, the embryo of the Way becomes one’s own body.54 Decidedly, the maternal theme is completely absent from this description of the formation of the sagely embryo. Yet Zhao Bichen’s text is notable in that it attempts to integrate what at the time were the newest biological notions, while also accentuating the “spiritual” dimension of the meditation (the union of two lights) instead of its physiological dimension. The spiritualisation of reproductive processes is even more pronounced in Wu Chongxu’s Treatise of Direct Indications, where the embryo’s development is synchronised with the successive attainment of the four dhyāna or “concentrations” (chan 禪) that the Buddha experienced before his awakening. During the first stage, consciousness becomes fixed; in the second, breath becomes fixed; in the third, the pulse becomes fixed; and in the fourth, the adept enters great spiritual absorption. In its explanation of the process, the text adds that, during the fourth and fifth months of gestation, appetite diminishes. Between the sixth and seventh months, the need to sleep diminishes. In the ninth month, external breathing ceases, as does the circulation of inner breath 53 54

The expression “embryo of the Way” is a Taoist transposition of the notion of tathā­ga­ tagarbha, literally the “embryo of Tathāgata,” that is, the embryo of the Buddha. Xingming fajue mingzhi 性命法訣明指 (Illuminated Instructions on the Formulas and Methods of Nature and Life), 6.15a.

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through the meridians.55 As a result, the adept is endowed with the six supernatural powers (shentong 神通) of Buddhism.56



4

Figure 4.3 Zhao Bichen’s 趙避塵 (1860-1936) “embryology” from his Xingming fajue mingzhi 性命法訣明指 (Illuminated Instructions on the Formulas and Methods of Nature and Life).

Symbolic Pregnancy in Women

What about women? How does the Taoist understanding of symbolic pregnancy translate for practitioners that have an anatomic capacity for actual 55 56

Wu Liu xianzong quanji, 293. These are: 1) supernatural conscience (loujin tong 漏盡通; āsravakṣayajñāna); 2) divine vision (tianyan tong 天眼通; divyacakṣus); 3) divine ear (tian’ertong 天耳通; divyārotra); 4) knowledge of the thoughts of others (taxin tong 他心通; paracittajñāna); 5) knowledge of one’s previous existences (sumingtong 宿命通; pūrvanivāsānusmṛtijñāna); 6) ubiquity (shentong 神通; ṛddhisākṣātkrîyā).

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gestation? In female alchemy, physiological functions that are particular to the female body are suspended, most notably menses. The first stage of practice is known as “beheading the red dragon” (zhan chilong 斬赤龍), an expression that refers to the cessation of the menstrual cycle. This corresponds to semen retention in methods designed for men.57 Other traditions, in India for instance, also insist on the importance of halting menses in women: the power of a yogi’s tantric partner increases as she retains her monthly discharge.58 Such prescriptions are most likely a consequence of the menstrual cycle being considered a defining feature of femininity. In classical Chinese medicine, as early as the Han dynasty, the Huangdi neijing 黃帝內徑 (Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor) underlines how menstrual blood is an essential identity marker for women.59 This also applies to Taoism, as exemplified by Laozi zhongjing 老子中經 (Laozi’s Central Scripture; DZ 1168). The third- or fourthcentury meditation treatise equates the menses with semen: “In the lower Cinnabar Field […] men store their seminal essence and women their monthly water. [The Cinnabar Field] regulates the begetting of newborn children, it is the door of harmonising Yin and Yang.”60 Under the Song, menses became increasingly synonymous with femininity.61 In other cultural and historical contexts, however, menses have not always been closely identified with womanhood: as late as the eighteenth century, Western medical sources compared the blood flow from haemorrhoids in men to women’s menses.62 Although the image of “forming an embryo” (jie tai) is still used women’s practices, the analogy with biological reproductive processes is rarely evoked, as is the commingling of Yin and Yang energies inside their bodies. On occasion, it is asserted that men must create the “pearl” within themselves while it is already present in women – who must only transform and develop it – but

57

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59 60 61 62

On this subject, see Despeux 1990, 243–268; Despeux and Kohn, 2003, 223 sq.; and Elena Valussi, “Blood, Tigers, Dragons : The Physiology of Transcendence for Women,” 2009, 46–85. Richard Darmon, “Vajrolî mudrâ. La rétention séminale chez les yogis vâmâcâri,” in Véronique Bouillier et Gilles Tarabout, eds., Images du corps dans le monde hindou (Paris: éditions CNRS, 2002), 218. Huangdi neijing Suwen, 1.4–5. 丹田者，人之根也，精神之所藏也，五黑之元也，赤子之府，男子以藏精， 女子以藏月水。主生子，合和陰陽之門戶也; Laozi zhongjing DZ 1168, 1.13a. Furth, A Flourishing Yin. Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 58. Barbara Duden, The Woman beneath the Skin. A Doctor’s Patients in Eighteenth-Century Germany (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 116–117.

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there is little more to suggest procreation.63 Furthermore, texts on female alchemy generally do not refer to the perception of a hard mass in the lower abdomen. Instead, the womb, navel, and breasts are the focal points in the practice. According to Nügong zhengfa 女功正法 (The Correct Processes of the Skill [of Alchemy] in Women): Men rely on the lower, middle, and upper Cinnabar Fields as [alchemical] cauldrons, yet women take their uterus, the inside of the navel, and their milk rivulets as cauldrons. The uterus is 1.3 inches below the lower Cinnabar Field and 2.8 inches below the navel. It is above the pass and below the breasts.64 男以下田，中田，上田為鼎，女以子宮，臍內，乳溪為鼎。子宮離下 丹田一寸三分，離臍二寸八分。又在上關乳下。

There are a number of surviving testimonies from women who have succeeded in “beheading the red dragon.”65 Similar accounts exist from Christian nuns whose menses have stopped as a result of their ascetic lifestyle.66 In medical treatises, the absence of menstrual flow is considered normal during pregnancy and nursing, but also before the age of fourteen and after forty-nine, the putative age for the onset of menopause. Although considered pathological in women of childbearing age from a medical standpoint, in female alchemy, the cessation of the menses is desired, constituting tangible evidence of progress on the path towards immortality. Highlighting its positive character, sources define this “absence” in contradistinction to menopause: while the latter consists of an exhaustion or drying up of “bloody secretions” (xueye 血液), “beheading the red dragon” is a return to a subtler form of energy.67 Just as men practising seminal retention remain fecund, women that have stopped their cycle are still fertile. Both have merely given up the external signs of fecundity for the benefit of inner realisation. In Chinese medical literature, menstrual blood derives from the same constituent source as maternal milk: “Blood is the vital qi produced by the digestive 63 64 65 66 67

Despeux 1990, 251; Despeux and Kohn 2003, 227. Nügong zhengfa 女功正法, 5.93. Ho Wan-li, “Daoist Nuns in Taiwan. A Case Study of the Daode yuan,” Journal of Daoist Studies 2 (2009). Duden 1991; early modern European medical sources relate cases in which otherwise healthy women would not exhibit monthly discharge, sometimes for years. Despeux 1990, 243–259.

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process that harmonises the system of the five viscera (wuzang 五臟) and infuses the system of the six receptacles (liufu 六腑). In males, it makes [seminal] essence and in females, it makes breast milk and descends to create the Blood Sea.”68 However, by successfully “beheading the red dragon,” the reverse phenomenon takes effect: the menstrual blood retained within the body transforms into milk to enrich it. As the monthly discharge diminishes in quantity, it turns paler in colour. Once interrupted, it transforms into a white substance, “the milk of jade” (yuru 玉乳), which nourishes the body from the inside. Consequently, women’s breasts are also of primordial importance in the practice of Internal Alchemy. As storehouses of energy, they correspond to the lower abdomen in men: The “cave of qi” is in the centre [of the chest], 1.3 inches from [each] nipple. It is not the two breasts. In men, vital strength is found in the lower Cinnabar Field. This is why the lower Cinnabar Field is their cave of qi. In women, the vital strength is in the breasts, which is why breasts are considered their cave of qi. Having reached its peak, Yang transforms to Yin. In the cave of qi, it transforms into Yin blood, which then flows out [once a month]. This is why, in order to behead the red dragon, one must start from the point where Yin is born and practise with assiduity.69 炁穴即血元也，即乳房也.在中一寸三分非兩乳也。男命在丹田故以下 田為炁血，女命在乳房故以乳房為炁血。陽極變陰，從炁血化陰血而 流形於外。故斬赤龍須從陰生之處用功久久行持形自隱矣。

How is one to frame Taoist amenorrhea, the premature cessation of the menstrual cycle? One way of looking at it would be as a rejuvenation of sorts, a return to pre-pubescence. Several hagiographies stress how immortals, male or female, have the appearance of youths. Some alchemical texts even state that the sublimated bodies of adepts are those of lads or maidens.70 But despite this 68

69 70

血者水穀之精氣也。和調五臟，洒陳六腑。在男子，則化為精，在婦人，上 為乳汁，下為血海; Jiaozhu furen liangfang 校註婦人良方 (Annotated Excellent Prescriptions for Women); cited in Furth 199, 144. Nü jindan 女金丹 (The Golden Elixir for Women), 2. 21a. See Chongyang zhenren jinguan yusuo jue 重陽真人金關玉鎖訣 (The Perfected Chongyang’s Instructions on the Jade Lock and the Golden Gate; DZ 1156), 20a : “ […] during the realisation and the achievement of the fruit, men subliminate their bodies into that of young boy, and women into that of a young girl” 功成果滿，男子鍊形如童男，女子 鍊形如童女; and also Nüdan hebian, 21: “Once the red dragon is decapitated, her body becomes the body of a youth” 女子赤龍斬則變為童體; see Despeux 1990, 287.

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youthful appearance, women who “retain” their menses are still fertile, just as men who retain their semen. Female practitioners indeed insist on distinguishing between the stoppage of menses during pregnancy and the liberating physiological effects of “beheading the red dragon.” For them, the latter is tantamount to a somatic-spiritual purification that brings them on a plane comparable to that of men. In fact, rather than evoking the model of a prepubescent girl, most sources of female alchemy underscore the masculinisation of women. In the first step of the alchemical process, men look for femininity through a symbolic pregnancy. Conversely, women look for masculinity by stopping their menstrual cycle and reducing the size of their breasts until their chest is like that of a man: “When the red dragon is decapitated, breasts retract like a man’s and the True Yin breath has been transformed into True Yang.”71 In this way, the alchemical metamorphosis of women’s bodies not only occasions a return to a prepubescent purity but it also engenders morphological transformations that result in a masculinised body. It is through these transfigurations that women’s bodies, essentially Yin, can become Yang. As Liu Yiming 劉一明 (1734–1821) elaborates, in the first stage of practice, men must refine their qi (Yang), while women are enjoined to refine their bodies (Yin): Question: “What is the difference between a man and a woman at the beginning of the [alchemical] work?” Answer: “At the beginning, for men, practising the way consists of sublimating the qi. For women, it consists of sublimating the form [the body]. Sublimating the qi is to deeply conceal it in oneself; when the practice is complete, the breath returns [to its root]; when the qi returns [to its root], emptiness is at its pinnacle and quietude is at its zenith. The return to the root restores life. The white tiger [seminal emission] is tamed. Sublimating the form refers to concealing this form; when the practice is complete, the form disappears. When the form disappears, the four constitutive elements of matter according to Buddhism [Water, Earth, Fire, Wind] enter emptiness, reducing the body and limbs to shreds. The red vessel [of menses] is thus severed. When the white tiger is tamed in men, they regain the appearance of a young man. The seminal essence of the Posterior Heaven flows no longer. Thereafter, generating the Elixir and extending life become 71

Nannü yitong bian 男女功異同辯 (Discussions on Similarities and Differences in the Practice [of Alchemy] for Men and Women), in Nüdan hebian, 21a; cf. Qiaoyang jing nügong xiulian 樵陽經女工修煉, 6b, preserved in Nüdan hebian 2: “When the red dragon is beheaded, her body is like that of a man” 赤龍斬變成男體.

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possible. In women, when the red vessel is severed, they become like men, and the impure Yin blood no longer flows. Transcending death and entering the realm of the [long] living are possible. This is why, in men, self-cultivation is called ‘refining the qi of Great Yang.’ In women, it is called ‘refining the form of Great Yin.’”72 男女下手處分別如何？答曰 男子下手之着以煉氣為要，女子下手之着 以煉形為要。煉氣者，伏其氣也，伏氣務期其氣回，氣回則虛極靜 篤，歸根復命而白虎降。煉形者，隱其形也，隱形務期，其滅形。形 滅則四大入空，剝爛肢體而赤脈斬。男子白虎降，則變為童體，而後 天之精自不泄漏，可以結丹，可以延年。女子赤脈斬，則變為男體， 而陰濁之血自不行，可以出死，可以入生。故男子修煉曰太陽煉氣， 女子修煉曰太陰煉形。

For Liu Yiming, like for most male adepts, the frame of reference remains resolutely masculine. Yet, in the majority of female alchemy texts as well, women’s bodies are to be “refined,” “purified,” and mutated into that of a man.73 It is not inconceivable that the Buddhist discourse on self-cultivation, which stipulates that women who have achieved realisation transform into men, might have inspired the Taoist understanding of how alchemical processes affect women.74 In a dialogue between Liu Yiming and his disciple, the latter further presses the issue of how a woman can become a man. The answer definitively refutes the possibility of an anatomical sex change, formulating the transition in terms of a spiritual and social advancement: Question: “Is it true that, once the Golden Elixir is swallowed and absorbed, a woman becomes a man and an old man becomes an adolescent again?” Answer: “These words concern principle and do not concern the body. When a woman has accomplished the Way, she has totally 72 73 74

Xiuzhen biannan, 347. Xiwangmu nüxiu zhengtu shize 西王母女修正途十則 (Ten Rules on the Correct Path for the Pratice of Women by the Queen Mother of the West) 4a; see Despeux 1990, 287. See Zhuan nüshen jing 轉女身經 (Sūtra on the Transformation of Female Bodies [into Male Bodies]; T. 564), 918c: “When a woman has successfully accomplished the four processes, she abandons her woman’s body and quickly becomes a man” 復次女人成就四 法，得離女人速成南子. The four processes are listed as: “not being harmed [by one’s hatred of others]” (bu chi hai 不害); “not harboring grudges and resentment” (bu chen hen 不瞋恨); “not following one’s desires” (bu sui fannao 不隨煩惱); “the strength of persisting in forbearance when facing disgrace” (zhu renru li 住忍辱力).

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eliminated all Yin. She has transformed her body into Pure Yang. Her accomplishment is identical to a man’s. That is why it is said that she transforms herself into a man. When an old man has accomplished the Way, he returns to the Anterior Heaven and achieves a body of Pure Yang as full as that of an adolescent. This is why it is said that from his old age he returns to the state of adolescence. It is not that he [merely] transforms his image through artifice.”75 問曰 : 金丹成就，吞而服之，女轉成男，老變為童，此事有否？答曰 : 此言其理，非言其形。女子成道以後，剝盡群陰，變為純陽之體，與 男子成道相同，故曰女轉成男。老者成道以後，復還先天，成其純陽 之體，與童子圓滿相同，古曰 :老變為童，非言其變幻象也。

This dialogue highlights the fact that, for Liu Yiming, the visible physiological changes that women undergo when practising alchemy are secondary in comparison to their accession to a higher “social” status. Freed from the burden of pregnancy, purified from all Yin, women attain the same level of spiritual accomplishment as a man’s. After this initial stage of alchemical practice, if women already begin to shed the physiological and social markers of femininity, how do embryological imagery and symbolic pregnancy figure in their soteriological path? In actuality, pregnancy and gestation are hardly mentioned, except in reference to the length of practice – typically ten months. Some go as far as to state that “if for men the term embryo (tai) is used, it is not used for women; for them one speaks simply of breathing (xi 息), for fear that people could misunderstand what is meant by ‘embryo.’”76 This indicates that, concerning women, the ambiguity is such that some could have misconstrued alchemical practice as resulting in actual pregnancies. Visualising themselves as generating a sagely embryo would be of little interest for women, who could very well become pregnant through more conventional means. Instead, it was more interesting for them to “refine their form” and wholly transform themselves into Yang. In order to do so, female practitioners, who, by virtue of their Yin nature, are predominantly static, must awaken an inner dynamism. They must develop embryonic breathing – inner currents that facilitate the circulation of nourishing qi as expressed in the following lines:

75 76

Xiuzhen biannan, 347. 男子則以胎名，女子則不言胎而單以息名者，恐後世之人錯認胎字卒受誣名; Nannü yitong bian, 24a.

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[Women] invariably derive nourishment from the jade milk in their bodies [that circulates throughout their vessels]. […] Jade milk is the qi of the respiration from within the body. Inner breathing is born in the centre and is fixed in the centre. When the jade secretions return to the root, one uses this qi for coagulating it. Generally, in one month of practice, embryonic breathing is achieved. If embryonic breathing is achieved, women will have no difficulty attaining immortality.77 常用身中玉乳以養之[…]玉乳者是身中呼吸之氣也。呼吸由中而生亦 由中而定。倘得玉液歸根故用此氣以凝之 […]一般行持一月胎息已 成，胎息若成，女仙不難造就。

Women, like the earth, provide nourishment. They sustain themselves with jade milk in order to nourish themselves internally. However, what they are nourishing is their masculinity, with the ultimate goal of realising a Pure Yang body. Liu Yiming’s disciple persists in his inquiry of women’s practices, asking why it is that women need to store (fu 伏) their qi. The master’s answer is edifying: “As a woman’s nature is Yin, her qi is easy to store, but the red vessel is very harmful for the Way. This is the crux of the matter. When she practices [Internal Alchemy], a woman must concentrate all her strength in what is most important. As soon as the red vessel is stopped, the breath follows by itself and is tamed. It is not the same for men, whose nature is Yang and whose breath is difficult to store. Whereas a man must store his qi for three years, a woman need only do so for a year.”78 女子性陰其氣易伏 而 赤脈最能害道。其所重者在此。故下手，則在 著重處用力赤脈一斬氣自訓順非若男子性陽其氣難伏。如男子伏氣三 年女子一年可伏。

Texts sometimes mention the “sagely embryo” (shengtai) or the “infant” (ying’er), but they always do so with a certain ambiguity. For example, one reads in the Wuzhen pian zhushi 悟真篇註釋 (Annotated Commentary on the Stanzas on the Awakening to Perfection; DZ 145): “When the three families [essence (jing), qi, and soul (shen)] meet, the infant coalesces; the Infant is the 77 78

See rule 4 in “Hutian xingguo nüdan shize 壺天性果女丹十則” (“Hutian Xingguo’s Ten Rules of Female Alchemy”), from Nüdan hebian, 3.7b. Xiuzhen biannan, 347.

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One, holding true qi.” The passage continues: “After ten months, the embryo is complete; this is the foundation for entering sagehood.”79 Although the infant is mentioned here, the majority of alchemical sources refer to the embryo instead. 5

Sacred (Re)birth in Women and Men

After various transformations, practitioners of Internal Alchemy are reborn as perfected, luminous replicas of themselves. Men and women both refine their bodies into Pure Yang, eliminating all Yin to the extent that they no longer project even the slightest shadow. That which they generate within themselves is not strictly the ethereal body of an immortal – it is also visible to others. This point is established, for example, in the legend of Zhang Boduan’s contest with a rival Buddhist master. The latter’s Yin Spirit would leave his body during meditative trances, journeying to faraway lands and describing them upon return. Not to be outdone, Zhang’s Yang Spirit travels to the place the Buddhist has just been describing, plucking from it and bringing back an actual flower. The text explains: “In the great way of the Golden Elixir, life and nature are jointly cultivated. Thus, by accumulation, the body is accomplished, and by dispersion, qi is accomplished. In the place to which he travelled, Zhang’s perfected soul was manifested in a body. This is what is called the ‘Yang Spirit.’”80 This complete double of the self is the same even down to its sexual identity. Thus, in its germ, the replica has a hermaphroditic potential, expressing itself as male or female depending on the practitioner who generates it.81 Once adepts have mastered this type of metamorphosis, they may generate multiple duplicates of themselves. Some sources refer to as many as twenty or twentyfive doppelgangers.82 The birth of the completed embryo, the perfect double, occurs from the sinciput in a process called the “egress of the spirit” (chushen 出神) (see Fig. 4.4). 79

80

81 82

三家相見結嬰兒/嬰兒是一含真氣/十月胎圓入聖基” Wuzhen pian zhushi DZ 145, 24b–25a (verse 14); translation modified from Fabrizio Pregadio, Awakening to Reality: The “Regulated Verses” of the Wuzhen pian, a Taoist Classic of Internal Alchemy (Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press, 2009), 63. 我金丹大道性命兼修。是故聚則成形，散則成氣。所至之地真神見形謂之陽 神; Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian 歷世真仙體道通鑑 (Comprehensive Mirror of Immortals Who Embodied the Dao through the Ages; DZ 296), 49.8a. Furth 1999, 217 writes: “The sage’s cosmogonic body has the protean powers of the hermaphrodite – combining male and female to give birth to a being identical to itself.” See Xingming guizhi, 4.21b.

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Figure 4.4 The “Yangshen chuxian tu 陽神出現圖” (“Illustration of the Appearance of the Yang Spirit”) from Xingming guizhi 性命圭旨 (Principles of the Jade Tablet on Vital Force and Innate Nature).

It contrasts with conventional delivery, that is, through the vagina, which alchemical texts term the “orifice of life and death” (shengsi qiao 生死竅). Chen Niwan 陳泥丸 (fl. twelfth century) describes the process leading up to the culmination of alchemical practice: “I have put into practice the work of old for a full year, and the six vessels have already stopped, the breath has returned to its root, and in the [lower] Cinnabar Field there is an infant (ying’er). Its body and appearance are similar to mine.” Then comes the climax of the entire process: “As this infant grows, [there comes a point when it] cannot reside in this cavity [of the lower Cinnabar Field] any longer; so a fissure and then an orifice naturally appear, and it emerges through the top of the head. This is known as

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‘exiting and leaving the sea of sufferings.’”83 Stephen Eskildsen has examined the various methods of this “liberation from the womb” (tuotai). In his study, he quotes several works that underscore the appearance of an actual hole at the crown of the head, big enough, according to one of these, to fully insert an arm.84 Some sources, although they refer to it, do not insist much on the aperture, while others merely mention the softening of the fontanel under the scalp, opening once more as in early childhood. This way of framing sacred birth is reminiscent of certain elements of ancient Greek mythology, most notably Zeus’s pregnancy. While his first spouse, Metis, is close to giving birth, it is prophesised that the soon-to-arrive child could become so powerful as to rival Zeus. The supreme god then swallows Metis, who continues her pregnancy in her husband’s abdomen. Toward the end of the gestation, while strolling along Lake Triton, Zeus suddenly suffers an unspeakable pain in his head and screams out so loudly that he is heard across the universe. He relieves his headache by splitting open his cranium, from which Athena emerges in full armour. As in Internal Alchemy, a male pregnancy comes to term with a cranial delivery. Georges Devereux has noted that masculine gravidity, with respect to Zeus and Kronos, constitutes the ultimate evidence of an omnipotence that overflows their own boundaries of sex and gender to contend with women for what constitutes a pillar of their gender identity: “ […] Hera perceives Zeus’ cranial pregnancy a challenge, as an attempt to render women superfluous and obsolete in the arena of procreation.”85 In the purported physical transformational processes occasioned by the practice of Internal Alchemy, men experience a retraction of their reproductive apparatus in similar fashion to a prepubescent boy’s, while women see their breasts shrink until their chests are like those of man’s. Two concurrent discourses inform these changes: the first pertains to reversion and rejuvenation, the second, to the absence of sexual differentiation. Men and women still retain their gender identity after attaining realisation, but nonetheless, the sexual characteristics tied to fertility especially – sperm and menstrual blood – are completely internalised and effectively invisible.

83 84 85

Xingming guizhi, 4.10a. See Eskildsen 2009, 87–103. “Héra elle-même envisage la grossesse crânienne de Zeus comme une concurrence qu’il lui fait, comme une tentative de rendre la femme superflue et désuète dans le domaine de la procréation”; Georges Devereux, Femme et mythe (Paris: Flammarion, 1982), 273.

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Conclusion In examining the notion of “sagely embryo” (shengtai) in Chinese sources, it seems to be the case that Buddhist materials generally insist on the spiritual experience associated with its development, whereas Taoist texts equate its generation with the appropriation of the mechanisms of life that govern both the human body and the universe. In their practices, Taoists refer to essentially cosmogonic models and the related notion of an original undifferentiated and sexless chaos – one that nevertheless contains both the seeds that are identified as male and female principles in later stages. Allusions to the body and to the physiological specificities of both sexes remain important, but they are stressed to varying degrees by different textual sources. Identifying with the primordial chaos, Taoist adepts temporarily become androgynous beings capable of duplicating themselves. They are the matrix of the Dao, the Mother of the ten thousand things. It is this very passage through original emptiness of self and being that allows adepts to espouse the roles of mother and embryo at once. Men, in particular, gain the capacity for gestation, an ability that women enjoy by default. As for women, they attain masculinity through an erasure of the external signs of femininity. The body is thus a malleable space; only by suspending its boundaries and their identity with it can adepts begin to generate the sagely embryo. Experiencing this emptiness leads male practitioners to regain femininity through the addition of a womb and an embryo. The egress of the spirit (chushen) is an “opening up” of the self to cosmic infinity.86 Likening it to an incredibly painful fracture of the head was perhaps the only way for men to imagine the experience of labour; relating to parturition in that manner also afforded a way of appropriating its symbolic power. Female practitioners, on the other hand, become reacquainted with their masculinity through the subtraction of the physical marks of femininity, namely breasts and menses. Yet adepts remain unambiguously male or female, with no possibility of a debate as we have, for example, concerning the sex of angels in Christianity. Taoist paradises are positively inhabited by male and female immortals. Still, despite seemingly egalitarian or androgynous models of symbolic pregnancy, in the end, the discourse remains preferentially patriarchal since both men and women practitioners aim to produce an essentially “male” duplicate body of Pure Yang. This is no surprise given that in alchemical practice it was men that interpreted the gestational experiences of women. This distortive lens ensured that the normative model favoured male perspectives, even 86

Eskildsen 2009, 93.

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when applied to women. The few surviving testimonials from female meditators confirm that the male ideal was upheld. Yet, if male writings insist primarily on the corporeal dimensions of women’s transformations, women tend to emphasise their social aspect: their emancipation from the “pollution” of menses, pregnancies, and feminine pathologies would theoretically permit them to attain a higher station in Chinese society, one comparable to that of men. A high-ranking nun from a Taoist community in Gaoxiong 高雄 Taiwan explained that after “beheading the red dragon” she was allowed to perform rituals honouring the gods at any time she pleased, just like her male counterparts. She had been previously barred from performing them during her period. Additionally, since her transformation, she claimed to have more potency, being capable of more powerful rituals and benefitting from a more efficient communication with the gods.87 Behind the numerous uses of gestational imagery and symbolic pregnancy lie very different experiences and subjective interpretations. Internal Alchemy, far from advocating a fixed process, employs a coded language to transcribe, and at the same time reveal and hide, the subjectivity of each experience. As time progresses, one may notice a tendency towards an increasingly literal use of gestational imagery coinciding with a more corporeal conscience of the human body that developed out of improved anatomical knowledge; but, once more, this access to new knowledge reinforced the valorisation of male bodies over women’s. Extant sources are unfortunately insufficient to deduce a norm or comprehensive digest of common conceptions surrounding gestational imagery and embryological discourse in Internal Alchemy at a given period. Yet, in each and every document, maternal femininity and the nourishing capacity of women are core notions under negotiation. The chiefly, if not exclusively, maleauthored writings of Internal Alchemy, including female alchemy, do not in any way advance a positive image of women – but they present a very positive image of the capacity to give birth, and more pointedly, motherhood. Works Cited Primary Sources Chanyuan zhu quan ji duxu 禪源諸全集都序 [Preface to a Collection of Texts on the Origins of Chan]. Zongmi 宗密 (784–841). T. 2015, vol. 48.

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Chen xiansheng neidan jue 陳先生內丹訣 [Master Chen’s Instructions on the Internal Elixir]. Chen Pu 陳朴, after 1078. DZ 1096. Chongyang zhenren jinguan yusuo jue 重陽真人金關玉鎖訣 [The Perfected Chongyang’s Instructions on the Jade Lock and the Golden Gate]. Attributed to Wang Chongyang 王重陽 (1113–1170). DZ 1156. Danyang shenguang can 丹陽神光燦 [Radiant Brilliance of the Spirit]. Ma Danyang 馬 丹陽 (1123–1183). DZ 1150. Daoshu shier zhong 道書十二種 [Twelve Kinds of Books on the Way]. Liu Yiming 劉一 明 (1734–1821). Yuzhe 羽者, Qi Wei 祁威, and Yu Zhijian 于志堅 eds., Beijing, Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1996. Gaoshang Yuhuang taixi jing 高上玉皇胎息經 [Scripture on Embryonic Breathing of the Jade Emperor On High], DZ 14. Huangdi neijing Suwen 黃帝內經素問 [Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor: Basic Questions]. Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 ed. Shanghai: Shangwu chubanshe, 1933. Jinye huandan yinzheng tu 金液還丹印證圖 [Illustrations Attesting to the Return of Liquified Gold to the Cinnabar Field]. Longmeizi 龍眉子 (ca. 1222). DZ 151. Laojun zhongjing (Laozi’s Central Scripture). 3rd cent. DZ 1168. Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian 歷世真仙體道通鑑 [Comprehensive Mirror of Immortals Who Embodied the Dao through the Ages]. Zhao Daoyi 趙道一 (13th century). DZ 296. Nüdan hebian 女丹合編 [Compilation of Texts on Female Alchemy]. He Longxiang 賀 龍襄. Chengdu: 1st print distributed by Taoist temples (ge gongguan nei liutong 各宮 觀內流通) 1906. Nügong zhengfa 女功正法 [Correct Processes of the (Alchemical) Work in Women]. Bu tiansui, Nü jindan fayao hebian 補天髓女金丹法要合編 edition in Daozang jinghua 道藏精華, Xiao Tianshi 蕭天石, ed. Taipei: Ziyou chubanshe, 1998. Renwang huguo bore boluomiduo jing 仁王護國般若波羅蜜經 [Scripture on the Virtues of Wisdom for the Humane Kings]. Translation attributed to Kumārajīva. T. 245, vol. 8. Renwang huguo bore boluomiduo jing 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經 [Extended Scripture on the Virtues of Wisdom for the Humane Kings]. Translation attributed to Amoghavajra. T. 246, vol. 8. Renwang huguo bore jing shu 仁王護國般若經疏 [Commentary to the Scripture on the Virtues of Wisdom for the Humane Kings]. Zhiyi 智頤 (538–598) or Guanding 觀頂 (561–632). T. 1705, vol. 33. Shangqing jiudan shang hua taijing zhong ji jing 上清九丹上化胎精中記經 [Scripture of the Central Record of Ninefold Elixir Transmuting into Embryonic Essence], DZ 1382. Shangqing taiyi dijun taidan yinshu jie bao shier jiejie tu jue 上清太一帝君太丹隱書解胞 十二結節圖訣 [Illustrated Instructions for Unitying the Twelve Embryonic Knots

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according to the Secret Writing of the Lord Emperor Taiyi on the Supreme Elixir], DZ 1384. Taishang jiuyao xinyin miaojing 太上九要心印妙經 [Marvelous Scripture of the Nine Essentials Heart Seal of the Most High]. Subsequent to the Song (spuriously attributed to Zhang Guo 張果 [8th century]). DZ 225. Taixi jing zhu 胎息經註 [Commentary to the Scripture on Embryonic Breathing]. Commentary by Master Huanzhen 幻真先生 (late 9th century). DZ 130. Wu Liu xianzong quanji 伍柳仙宗全集 [Complete Summa of the Immortality School’s Writings by Wu (Chongxu) and Liu (Huayang)]. Attributed to Wu Shouyang 伍壽陽 (Chongxu 冲虛) (1552–1640) and Liu Huayang 柳華陽 (1735–1799). Modern edition, Taipei: Zhenshanmei chubanshe, 1978. Wuzhen pian zhushi 悟真篇註釋 [Annotated Commentary on the Stanzas on Awakening to Perfection]. Zhang Boduan 張伯端 (984–1082). Commentary by Weng Baoguang 翁葆光 (ca. 1173). DZ 145. Xingming fajue mingzhi 性命法訣明指 [Illuminated Instructions on the Formulas and Methods of Nature and Life]. Zhao Bichen 趙避塵 (1860–1942). Modern edition, Taipei: Zhenshanmei chubanshe, 1998. Xingming guizhi 性命圭旨 [Principles of the Jade Tablet on Vital Force and Innate Nature]. Preface dated to 1669. Beijing Baorentang 寶仁堂 edition. Xiuzhen shishu 修真十書 [Ten Books on the Cultivation of the Perfection], DZ 263. Xiwangmu nüxiu zhengtu shize 西王母女修正途十則 [Ten Rules on the Correct Path for the Pratice of Womens by the Queen Mother of the West]. Attributed to Lü Dongbin 呂洞賓, commentary by Min Yide 閔一得 (1758–1836) and collated by Shenyang zi 沈陽子 (1799). Daozang xubian 道藏續編, chuji 出集 19. Xiyouji 西遊記 [Journey to the West]. Wu Cheng’en 吳承恩 (ca. 1500–1582 or 1505–1580), late 16th cent. Hong Kong, Zhonghua shuju, 1972. Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 [Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds]. Zhang Junfang 張 君房 (ca. 1008–1025). DZ 1032. Zhouyi cantong qi 周易參同契 [Seal of the Unity of the Three in Accordance with the Book of Changes]. Mid-Tang. DZ 999. Zhuan nüshen jing 轉女身經 [Sūtra on the Transformation of Female Bodies (into Male Bodies)]. Translated by Dharmamitra 曇摩蜜多 (356–442). T. 564, vol. 14. Zhuzhen shengtai shenyong jue 諸真聖胎神用訣 [Insructions of the Perfected on the Divinely Efficacious Sagely Embryo]. Song. DZ 826. Ziyang zhenren Wuzhen pian sanzhu 紫陽真人悟真篇三註 [Three Commentaries to the Stanzas on the Awakening to Perfection by the Perfected of Purple Yang]. Commentaries by Chen Zhixu 陳致虛 (ca. 1331), Lu Shu 陸墅 (ca. 13th cent.) and Xue Daoguang 薛道光 (1169). DZ 142. Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄 [Mirror Records of Our School]. Yanshou 延壽 (904–976). T. 2016, vol. 48.

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Secondary Sources Bouillier, Véronique, and Gilles Tarabout, eds. 2002. Images du corps dans le monde hindou. Paris: éditions CNRS. Bray, Francesca. 1997. Technology and Gender. Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chen Ming. 2005. “Zhuan nü wei nan, ‘Turning Female to Male’: an Indian Influence on Chinese Gynaecology?” Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity 2: 315–334. Cleary, Thomas. 1996. Immortal Sisters; Secret Teachings of Taoist Women. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Darga, Martina. 1999. Das alchemistische Buch von innerem Wesen und Lebensenergie. München: Diederichs Gelbe Reihe. Darmon, Richard. 2002. “Vajrolî mudrâ. La rétention séminale chez les yogis vâmâcâri.” In Images du corps dans le monde hindou, Véronique Bouillier et Gilles Tarabout, eds., 213–240. Paris: éditions CNRS. Despeux, Catherine. 2006. “Métaphores et processus d’intégration : la symbolique du corps dans l’alchimie interne de la Chine des Song (Xe-XIIe siècles).” In Alchimies. Occident-Orient, Kappler Claire and Suzanne Thiolier-Méjean, eds., 291–314. Paris: l’Harmattan. ———. 1990. Immortelles de la Chine ancienne. Puiseaux: Pardès. ———. 1985. “Les lectures alchimiques du Hsi-yu-chi.” In Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien. Festschrift für Hans Steininger zum 65 Geburtstag, Gert Naundorf, KarlHeinz Pohl, and Hans-Hermann Schmidt, eds., 61–72. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann. Despeux, Catherine, transl. 1980. Les Entretiens de Mazu, maître Chan du viiie siècle. Paris: Les Deux Océans. ———, transl. 1979. Traité d’alchimie et de physiologie taoïste (Weisgeng shenglixue mingzhi), de Zhao Bichen. Paris, Les Deux Océans. Despeux, Catherine and Livia Kohn. 2003. Women in Daoism. Cambridge: Three Pines Press. Devereux, Georges. 1982. Femme et mythe. Paris: Flammarion. Duden, Barbara (Thomas Dunlap, transl). 1991. The Woman Beneath the Skin. A Doctor’s Patients in Eighteenth-Century Germany. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Eskildsen, Stephen. 2009. “Neidan Methods for Opening the Gate of Heaven.” In Internal Alchemy, Livia Kohn and Robin Wang eds., 87–103. Magdalena: Three Pines Press. Furth, Charlotte. 1999. A Flourishing Yin. Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 1988. “Androgynous Males and Deficient Females: Biology and Gender Boundaries in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century China.” Late Imperial China 9.2: 1–31.

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Ho Wan-li. 2009. “Daoist Nuns in Taiwan: A Case Study of the Daode yuan.” Journal of Daoist Studies 2: 137–164. Hori, Victor Sōgen. 2003. Zen Sand. The Book of Capping Phrases for Kōan Practices. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Katō Chie 加藤千惠. 2000. “Tai no shisō 胎の思想 [The notion of embryo].” In Dōkyō no seimeikan to shintairon 道教の生命観と身体論 [Views of life and theories of the body in Taoism], Miura Kunio 三浦國雄, Horiike Nobuo 堀池信夫, and Ōgata Tōru 大形徹, eds., vol. 3, 100–119. Tokyo: Yūzankaku shuppansha. Luk, Charles (Lü Kuan-yu, transl). 1970. Taoist Yoga, Alchemy and Immortality (Xingming fajue mingzhi). London: Rider Company. Pregadio, Fabrizio. 2011. The Seal of the Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi, the Source of the Taoist Way of the Golden Elixir, vol. 1. Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press. ———. 2009. Awakening to Reality: The “Regulated Verses” of the Wuzhen pian, a Taoist Classic of Internal Alchemy. Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press. Valussi, Elena. 2009. “Blood, Tigers, Dragons: The Physiology of Transcendence for Woman.” Asian Medicine 4: 46–85.

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Chapter 5

Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three) Fabrizio Pregadio Like other cosmological sciences that have been developed in different times and places, Taoist alchemy relies on a set of fundamental principles that define the relation between two domains, which can be designated as the ultimate principle and its manifestation, Unity and multiplicity, the Absolute and the relative, and in many other ways. Even though one might argue that this relation does not occur because nothing exists outside or other than the Absolute, those principles are used for two main purposes, both of which are significant in the perspective of the domain of relativity. The first is to explicate the bond between the Absolute and its manifestation; the second is to frame self-cultivation and ritual practices that intend to lead adepts from the latter to the former domain, or to enable a whole community to benefit from the connection between the two domains established, on their behalf, by ordained priests. Once a tradition – in our case, the Taoist tradition – formulates those principles, they may be applied to a variety of cosmological sciences, in ways and to extents that may remarkably differ from one another: within the same tradition we find instances in which a cosmological science opens a way to surpass the boundaries of the cosmic domain, but also instances in which the outlook remains restricted to that domain, or even to particular aspects of it (for example, the human body). With regard to alchemy – with ritual, the main cosmological science in Taoism – the most complete exposition of the fundamental principles and of their application is found in the Cantong qi 參同契, or Seal of the Unity of the Three. This work, traditionally attributed to Wei Boyang 魏伯陽 and generally dated to the second century CE, has provided the foundations for most forms and lineages of Taoist alchemy, which have placed it at the origins of their teachings and practices. Some of these forms and lineages pertain to Waidan 外丹, or External Alchemy, but the large majority pertain to Neidan 內丹, or Internal Alchemy.1 1 I will not discuss here issues of authorship and dating of the Cantong qi. On these matters, and on the relation of the text to Waidan and Neidan, see the Introduction in Fabrizio

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As its title indicates, the Cantong qi is concerned with three main subjects, and joins them to one another into a single body of doctrine and practice. The first subject is principles of metaphysics and cosmology, formulated mainly on the basis of the Yijing 易經, or Book of Changes. The second subject is the highest state of realisation, identified as the Taoist way of “non-doing” (wuwei 無為) in accordance with the principles of the Daode jing 道德經, or Book of the Way and Virtue. The third subject is alchemy, defined as the conjunction of True Yin and True Yang, which are represented by alchemical images (True Mercury and True Lead, respectively) and by several other emblems. Concerning the first two subjects, the Cantong qi gives a synopsis of the doctrinal principles; concerning the third one, it outlines the main features of its own cosmological science, namely alchemy.2 In this way, the Cantong qi proposes an integral description of doctrine and practice, including both the principles and their application. Within this framework, it uses – like Taoism in general – multiple sets of concepts and symbolic forms in order to explain how the absolute principle, or the Dao, manifests itself through a series of consecutive stages that lead from NonBeing to multiplicity, and in order to devise a practice that traces those stages in a reverse sequence. In this chapter, I present passages of the Cantong qi that are concerned with these subjects. In particular, these passages answer three main questions. First, how does the Dao, the absolute and unchangeable (chang 常, “constant”) principle, give birth to the world in which we live, which is ruled by relativity and change? Second, how is the human being generated? Finally, how does a cosmological science, namely alchemy, provide the means to accomplish the return from the relative to the absolute domain, and to

Pregadio, The Seal of the Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi (Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press, 2011), esp. 11–27 and 53–63. 2 The three subjects are reflected in the title of the Cantong qi and are mentioned in its verses. In section 84, the Cantong qi refers to the Yijing, the Taoist teachings on “non-doing,” and alchemy (“the work with the fire of the furnace”), and then adds: “These three Ways stem from one, / and together yield one path”; 三道由一、俱出徑路. Section 87 states: “I have tendered three twigs, / but their branches and stalks are bound to one another: / they come forth together but have different names, / as they all stem from one gate”; 羅列三條、枝莖相 連、同出異名、皆由一門. On the title of the Cantong qi, see Meng Naichang 孟乃昌, Zhouyi cantong qi kaobian 『周易参同契』考辩 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993), 62–65 and 97–98; and Pregadio 2011, 2–5. In addition to Lead and Mercury, emblems that represent the conjunction of Yin and Yang include Qian ☰ and Kun ☷ among the trigrams; the dyads Water/Fire and Wood/Metal among the Five Agents; wu 戊 and ji 己 among the celestial stems; and 5 as formed by 4+1 and by 3+2 among numbers.

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realize their fundamental identity? As we shall see, the views of the Cantong qi concerning the first question serve to answer the other two. 1

General Principles

The main points of the doctrine of the Cantong qi on the relation between the principle and its manifestation are stated in the initial verses of the text: “Qian ☰ and Kun ☷ are the door and the gate of change,” the father and the mother of all hexagrams. Kan ☵ and Li ☲ are the inner and the outer walls, they spin the hub and align the axle. Female and male, these four trigrams function as a bellows and its nozzles.3 乾坤者易之門戶、眾卦之父母、坎離匡郭、運轂正軸、牝牡四卦、以 為橐籥。

It should be noted, to begin with, that although their names belong to the vocabulary of the Yijing, it would not be possible to understand the functions that Qian, Kun, Kan, and Li perform in a work like the Cantong qi, and in Taoist alchemy in general, as long as they are seen merely as trigrams or hexagrams. In the perspective of the Cantong qi, Qian, Kun, Kan, and Li are formless principles that illustrate how the Dao generates the cosmos and manifests itself in it. The corresponding trigrams and hexagrams are images (xiang 象, symbolic forms) that represent those principles. In this view, Qian and Kun designate the two primary modes taken on by the Dao as it generates the relative domain and manifests itself in it. As we read in two famous statements of the Yijing: Great indeed is Qian, the Origin! The ten thousand things owe their 3 Cantong qi 1. Quotations of the Cantong qi in this chapter are drawn from my translation cited in note 1 above and follow its numbering of sections. The base text is the Jinling shufang 金陵 書房 (Nanjing Print Shop; 1484) edition of Chen Zhixu’s 陳致虛 (1290–ca. 1368) Zhouyi cantong qi zhujie 周易參同契注解 (Commentary and Explication of the Cantong qi), which is also available, under this or different titles, in the Siku quanshu 四庫全書 (Complete Texts of the Four Repositories), the Daozang jiyao 道藏輯要 (Essentials of the Taoist Canon), and in several other editions. The first verse of the present poem derives from the “Appended Sayings” (“Xici” 繫辭) of the Yijing, B.5.

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beginning to him. […] Perfect indeed is Kun, the Origin! The ten thousand things owe their birth to her.4 大哉乾元、萬物資始。[…] 至哉坤元、萬物資生。

Qian is the active (“creative”) principle, the essence, Yang, and Heaven. Kun is the passive (“receptive”) principle, the substance, Yin, and Earth. As they join to give birth to the cosmos, Qian entrusts his creative power to Kun, and Kun, impregnated by Qian, brings creation to accomplishment. In the symbolic representation by the corresponding trigrams, the Yang of Qian moves into Kun, and, in response, the Yin of Kun moves into Qian: Qian ☰ becomes Li ☲, and Kun ☷ becomes Kan ☵. The cosmos and all entities and phenomena within it are generated through the continuous enactment of this process. Therefore, as we read in the poem of the Cantong qi quoted above, Qian and Kun are “the door and the gate” through which manifestation, dominated by change, comes forth, and “the father and the mother” of all other emblems that represent change. Having been generated as a consequence of the conjunction of Qian and Kun, the other two main trigrams, namely Kan and Li, illustrate the operation of the two primary principles within the cosmic domain. Since Kan and Li embrace the essences of Qian and Kun, represented by the inner lines of the respective trigrams, they provide “inner and outer walls” to Qian and Kun: the Yin principle (Kan ☵) harbours the True Yang of Qian (its inner solid line), and the Yang principle (Li ☲) harbours the True Yin of Kun (its inner broken line). In the fourth verse, the same view is illustrated with another image that adds a further detail. If the two sets of walls, inner and outer, are shaped as joined semicircles, they form a wheel (see Fig. 5.1).5 The Emptiness from which existence comes forth is the central hub; Qian and Kun are the axle passing through the hub, which holds the wheel in position; and the wheel with its spokes represents the compass of space and the cycles of time governed by Kan and Li. The wheel, therefore, is the frame (ti 體) that enables Emptiness to 4 Yijing, “Commentary on the Judgement” (“Tuanzhuan” 彖傳) on the hexagrams Qian ䷀ and Kun ䷁. It seems impossible, in this and similar cases, to use the gender-neutral pronoun “it” to refer to Qian and Kun, as they are by no means “neutral.” —Unless otherwise stated, all the translations into English are my own. 5 This wheel is used in the Taiji tu 太極圖 (Chart of the Great Ultimate), where it represents the stage of the division of the One into the Two. It is also equivalent to – in fact, the precursor of – the well-known “fish-like” Yin-Yang emblem, where the black half contains a white dot (corresponding to the inner line of Kan ☵, “Yang within Yin”), and the white half contains a black dot (corresponding to the inner line of Li ☲, “Yin within Yang”).

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Figure 5.1 “Kan ☵ and Li ☲ are the inner and outer walls” from Cantong qi 參同契 (The Seal of the Unity of the Three), 1.

operate (or “function,” yong 用) throughout space and time. As several commentators have remarked, the Cantong qi here uses the same images found in the Daode jing: “Thirty spokes share one hub: wherein there is nothing lies the function of a carriage. […] .Therefore, in what is there lies the benefit; in what is not there lies the function.”6 Using another image, different in appearance but analogous in nature, the final two verses compare Qian, Kun, Kan, and Li to a bellows and its nozzles. The bellows (Qian and Kun) is empty, but sends forth its breath through the nozzles (Kan and Li). This image too alludes to a passage in the Daode jing which refers to the empty centre from which existence comes forth by saying, “The space between Heaven and Earth – is it not like a bellows? As empty, it is never exhausted; as it moves, it continues to pour.”7 2

Creating the World

The poem quoted above describes cosmogony as a continuous process through which the Dao generates the world by means of Qian and Kun, which are placed at the centre of creation, and operates throughout it by means of Kan and Li, which rule over space and time. In the Taoist doctrine, however, the creation of the world is also described as the final result of a sequence of stages. 6 三十幅共一轂,當其無, 有車之用。[…] 故有之以為利，無之以為用; Daode jing 11. The wheel and the carriage are two of the most recurrent images in the Cantong qi; see Pregadio 2011, 45–47. 7 天地之間, 其猶橐籥乎？ 虛而不屈，動而愈出; Daode jing 5.

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The Dao, the absolute principle, generates (sheng 生) these stages not out of “nothing,” but out of itself. Non-Being (wu 無) first determines itself as Being (you 有), whose primary property is Unity (yi 一). While this Unity is not manifested as such, it is at the origins of multiplicity: it contains within itself all of the possibilities of manifestation. Through the continuous conjunction of Qian and Kun, the male and the female principles, the “ten thousand things” (wanwu 萬物) are born.8 In the Chinese tradition, the main images of Qian and Kun are Heaven and Earth.9 Just like Heaven and Earth are immutably conjoined and never exchange their positions, so too Qian and Kun constantly embrace one another. As Qian gives and Kun receives, the Essence (jing 精) of Qian and the Breath (qi 氣) of Kun are distributed, and creatures and phenomena are generated.10 The Cantong qi refers to these points as follows: Qian ☰ the firm and Kun ☷ the yielding join and embrace one another;11 Yang endows, Yin receives, the masculine and the feminine attend one to the other. Attending, they create and transform, unfolding their Essence and Breath.12 8

9

10

11

12

This view is meaningful only from the perspective of the last stage, since space and time – which provide the conditions for any “stage” to occur – only emerge at the end of the sequence: “In the Dao there is no ‘after’ or ‘before’” 夫道無後先; “[In the Dao] there is no interval between ‘this’ and ‘that,’, or between ‘now’ and ‘the past’” 無彼此今昔之間; Xiyi zhimi lun 析疑指迷論 (Essay on Resolving Doubts and Pointing Out Delusions; DZ 276), 9b; and Daode zhenjing jiyi 道德真經集義 (Collected Explanations of the True Book of the Way and Virtue; DZ 724), 2.24b, respectively. And not vice versa, showing that Qian and Kun are pure principles and not merely trigrams or hexagrams. This view is also stated in the Cantong qi: “Heaven and Earth are the images of Qian and Kun” (sec. 4). See the “Appended Sayings” of the Yijing: “Essence and Breath become the creatures” 精 氣為物 (A.4). Essence pertains to Qian, and Breath to Kun. Spirit (shen 神), the third component of Being, is not included in this representation as it is the prior state of Unity in which Yin and Yang (or Qian and Kun) are still conjoined in indistinction. See “Appended Sayings”: “That in which Yin and Yang cannot be fathomed is called ‘Spirit’” 陰 陽不測之謂神 (A.5). See the “Appended Sayings”: “The firm [or Qian, the male principle] and the yielding [or Kun, the female principle] follow one another and generate change and transformation” 剛柔相推而生變化 (A.2); “The firm and the yielding follow one another, and therein occur the transformations” 剛柔相推、變在其中矣 (B.1). Cantong qi 43.

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Pregadio 乾剛坤柔、配合相包、陽稟陰受、雄雌相須、須以造化、精氣乃舒。

Kan and Li, as we have seen, are the counterparts of Qian and Kun within the manifested cosmos. Their main images are the Moon and the Sun, respectively, which – instead of being permanently motionless in their positions like Heaven and Earth – grow and decline in their cycles of ascent and descent. Through their alternation, Kan (Moon 月) and Li (Sun 日) nourish all beings with their light (明), which is actually the light of Qian and Kun that they contain within.13 This function of Kan and Li is “mysterious and obscure,” but the sages, says the Cantong qi, have provided a way to comprehend it: Kan ☵ and Li ☲ are at the fore:14 their radiance and glow come down and spread out. Mysterious and obscure, this can hardly be fathomed and cannot be pictured or charted. The sages gauged its depth; one with it, they set forth its foundation.15 坎離冠首、光耀垂敷、玄冥難測、不可畫圖、聖人揆度、參序元基。

For the Cantong qi, nevertheless, this configuration pertains to the relative domain in which we live: it is meaningful only within its boundaries, and its purpose is to explicate how the cosmos is tied to the Dao, or the relative to the Absolute. In fact, as we read in the verses that follow, Qian, Kun, Kan, and Li all fundamentally reside within the Dao, undifferentiated (“in indistinction”) from one another. The other emblems of the Yijing arrange themselves “like a chariot” (compare the image of the wheel and the Daode jing passage on the “function” of the carriage seen above) around this central and motionless prime mover, while representing its operation within space and time: These four, in indistinction, are right within Empty Non-Being.

13 14 15

The Cantong qi (sec. 7) and other texts refer to this light as the “essence of the Moon” (yuejing 月精) and the “radiance of the Sun” (riguang 日光). That is to say, they are at the forefront in the domain of the manifestation, where they have replaced Qian and Kun. Cantong qi 43.

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Sixty hexagrams revolve around them,16 outspread like a chariot. Harnessing a dragon and a mare,17 the bright noble man holds the reins of time.18 四者混沌、徑入虛無、六十卦周、張布為輿、龍馬就駕、明君御時。

Earth (Kun) brings the generative faculty of Heaven (Qian) to accomplishment; without the Earth, Heaven would not fulfil its power, and without Heaven, the Earth would be fruitless. The “bright noble man,” who is both the saintly person and the king, embodies and manifests the creative action of Heaven within the human world: the world for the saint, and the kingdom for the ruler, are what the Earth is for Heaven. 3

Generation and Periodic Regeneration: The Function of Kun

At all the stages, or the degrees, of its self-manifestation, the Dao possesses an active principle (Qian, Yang, movement) and a passive principle (Kun, Yin, quiescence): to use the image of the Daode jing, it is both the seed (or “essence,” jing 精) and the womb that harbours that seed.19 As mentioned above, NonBeing (wu) initially determines itself and gives birth to Being (you). From a state that, from our perspective, can only be characterised as Pure Yin (chunyin 純陰, quiescence) and be represented as Kun ☷, Non-Being in this way generates the state of Unity (yi), which in Taoist texts is often called Pure Yang (chunyang 純陽, movement) and is represented as Qian ☰. Since the “ten thou-

16

17 18 19

These are all the hexagrams except for Qian ䷀, Kun ䷁, Kan ䷜ and Li ䷝, which are not part of the cycle but determine it, being placed at the centre (in this symbolic function, the trigrams and the hexagrams Qian, Kun, Kan, and Li are equivalent). The sixty hexagrams mentioned in this poem represent, in particular, the thirty days of the lunar month. Two hexagrams rule on daytime and nighttime of one day, and their twelve lines are associated with the twelve “double hours” (shi 時) of that day. The 360 lines of the sixty hexagrams correspond to one month. The dragon and the mare are images of Qian and Kun, respectively; see Yijing, hexagrams no. 1 and no. 2. Cantong qi 43. “The Dao is something so indistinct, so vague. […] Vague and indistinct! Within there is something. Dim and obscure! Within there is an essence”; 道之為物惟恍惟惚。[…] 恍 兮惚兮其中有物。窈兮冥兮其中有精; Daode jing 21.

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sand things” are born from this Unity, the creation of the cosmos in the proper sense of the term – the shift from Unity to multiplicity – begins at this stage. We may understand, therefore, why Unity is designated as Pure Yang and as Qian: in the representation of a creative process – in fact, of the process of creation itself – this stage can only be Yang because there is the need of an “initial impulse,” a movement that is the very nature of Qian.20 To generate multiplicity, however, the state of Unity needs to determine the masculine and feminine functions that it already owns as the first self-determination of the Dao. The One “divides itself” (fen 分), and, through its own feminine function, it generates the Two, which are again Qian ☰ and Kun ☷, or Yin and Yang. The continuous conjunction of Qian and Kun – the father and the mother – leads to the birth of the “ten thousand things.” This sequence of stages, each of which gives birth to the next one, could not occur without the generative function fulfilled by Kun, the feminine principle. We may distinguish three “times” in which the feminine principle performs this function when cosmogony is represented as a sequence of stages: first, when Non-Being gives birth to Being, the state of Unity; then when the One gives birth to the Two; and finally when Kun gives birth to the “ten thousand things.” In all these instances, Kun responds to the “impulse” given by the masculine principle – the “seed,” Qian, the father – in order to perform its maternal function. The description of the lunar cycle in the Cantong qi, to which we shall now turn, illustrates the function of Kun in an event closely related to the generation of the cosmos: its periodic regeneration. The Cantong qi describes three main emblematic time cycles: the day, the month, and the year.21 The “One Breath of the Dao” (dao zhi yiqi 道之一氣) constantly rises and declines along each of these cycles and, through them, propagates itself all over the cosmos. Despite this and other analogies among the three cycles – each of which is an instance of the “wheel” seen above – the Cantong qi gives particular emphasis to the periodic regeneration of time in its description of the lunar cycle. It seems clear that this regeneration is most obviously represented by the 20

21

See Robinet, “Primus movens et création récurrente,” Taoist Resources 5.2 (1994): 37, where this generative aspect of the One – Unity as producer of multiplicity – is defined as the “activité efficace” of the Dao. See also her “Un, deux, trois: Les différentes modalités de l’Un et sa dynamique,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8 (1995): 181–87. For the cycle of the day, see Cantong qi 3 and 45; for the cycle of the month, 13 and 49; and for the cycle of the year, 51. Brief descriptions of these cycles are found in Xiao Hanming 萧汉明 and Guo Dongsheng 郭东升, Zhouyi cantong qi yanjiu 『周易參同契』研究 (Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 2001), 70–77, and Pregadio 2011, 41–43.

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monthly lunar cycle, due to its evident analogies with the functions of procreation. The description of the astronomic aspects of the lunar cycle in the Cantong qi is straightforward. Using a model inherited from classical Chinese cosmology, the lunar month is divided into six periods (hou 候) of five days: 1–5, 6–10, 11–15, 16–20, 21–25, and 26–30. Each of these periods is represented by a trigram and a celestial stem (tiangan 天干). The sequence of trigrams and stems is Zhen ☳ (geng 庚) → Dui ☱ (ding 丁) → Qian ☰ (jia 甲) → Xun ☴ (xin 辛) → Gen ☶ (bing 丙) → Kun ☷ (yi 乙). As shown by this sequence, the first half of the lunar cycle is governed by the Yang principle (represented by the solid line), which flourishes until it culminates in the middle of the month (☰). The second half is governed by the Yin principle (the broken line), which similarly grows until it overcomes the Yang principle at the end of the month (☷).22 The most significant aspect of this representation, which distinguishes it from a mere description of an astronomical phenomenon, is the symbolic event that occurs in the night between the end of a month and the beginning of the next month. During that night, the Sun, represented by Li ☲, and the Moon, represented by Kan ☵, meet at the centre of the cosmos and exchange their essences. Their conjunction replicates within space and time the unity of Qian ☰ and Kun ☷ in the precosmic domain, but this time results not in the generation, but in the regeneration, of the cosmos. The Cantong qi gives two descriptions of this event. In one of them, we read: Between the month’s last day and next month’s first, they [the Sun and the Moon] join their tallies and move to the Centre. In the inchoate boundlessness, female and male follow one another. Their nurturing fluids moisten and impregnate, their emanations and transformations flow and spread all through.23

22

23

This representation of the lunar cycle is known as yueti najia 月體納甲 (Matching the Stems to the Moon’s Body; jia 甲 in this name stands for all the celestial stems). The remaining two trigrams are associated with the Sun (Li ☲) and the Moon (Kan ☵), and we shall presently see their function in this representation. The formulation of this device is attributed to Yu Fan 虞翻 (164–233), a cosmologist and commentator of the Book of Changes, whose lineage almost certainly played a role in the early transmission of the Cantong qi (see Pregadio 2011, 14–17 and 24). On its application in the Cantong qi, see Xiao Hanming and Guo Dongsheng, 2001, 170–92. Cantong qi 48.

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Pregadio 晦朔之間、合符行中、混沌鴻濛、牝牡相從、滋液潤澤、施化流通。

By conjoining at the centre of the cosmos, Kan (the Moon) and Li (the Sun) fulfil the function of generating and sustaining life on behalf of Qian (Heaven) and Kun (Earth): “emanation” (shi 施, “giving forth”) is the function of Qian, “transformation” (hua 化, also meaning “bringing to life”) is the function of Kun.24 In the other description of the conjunction of the Moon and the Sun, the Cantong qi says: Between the month’s last day and dawn on next month’s first day, Zhen ☳ comes to receive the token. At that moment, Heaven and Earth merge their essences, and the Sun and the Moon reach out for one another and hold onto one another. The masculine Yang spreads his mysterious emanation, the feminine Yin transforms her yellow wrap. In indistinction they conjoin; at this incipient time, the root is planted. Steadily and orderly the seed is nourished; from the coagulation of Spirit the corporeal frame is formed. This is how living beings come forth: even the wriggling worms all proceed from this.25 晦至朔旦、震來受符、當斯之際、天地媾其精、日月相撢持、雄陽播 玄施、雌陰化黃包、混沌相交接、權輿樹根基、經營養鄞鄂、凝神以 成軀、穎夫蹈以出、蝡動莫不由。 24

25

Hua 化, commonly meaning “transformation,” is also attested in the sense of “generation.” An example is found in the Huangdi neijing suwen 黃帝內經素問 (Internal Classic of the Yellow Emperor: Basic Questions) 66: “When something is generated, this is what we call hua (transformation); when something culminates, this is what we call bian (change)”; 物 生謂之化、物極謂之變. According to this definition, while bian is only a change of state, hua designates a change that results in the birth of something new. The compound word zaohua 造化, which frequently recurs in Taoist texts, may therefore be understood not only in the sense of “creation and transformation,” but also of “creation and generation,” where creation (zao) is the function of Qian, and generation (hua) is the function of Kun. On the Chinese terms meaning “change,” see Sivin, “Change and Continuity in Early Cosmology: The Great Commentary to the Book of Changes,” in Yamada Keiji 山田慶兒 and Tanaka Tan 田中淡, eds., Chūgoku kodai kagakushi ron 中國古代科學史論 (Kyoto: Kyōto daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūjo, 1991). Cantong qi 10.

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As we read in this passage, when Kan and Li conjoin, the active and the passive principles return to the initial state of indistinction. Qian endows Kun with its essence (which is “mysterious,” xuan 玄, a word emblematic of Heaven), and the womb (“wrap”) of Kun (which is yellow, the colour emblematic of Earth) is impregnated. Spirit produces that essence through its own coagulation (ning 凝). Thus Kun receives the seed of Qian and brings it to fruition.26 The monthly conjunction of the Sun and the Moon regenerates light after the darkness of the month’s last night. It also regenerates change: yi 易 (“change”) is the other graph formed when the graphs for “sun” (日) and “moon” (月) are placed not next to one another, but one above the other (see Fig. 5.2; we shall return to this point below). This regeneration is entrusted to Kun. At the end of the month, Kun, which is Pure Yin (chunyin), stands for the complete obscuration of the Yang principle, and rules over the entire cosmos. A full time cycle has ended, and, for one instant, the cosmos returns to its initial quiescence. However, as the state of Unity is reconstituted through the joining of the Sun and the Moon, Kun once again performs her function: she gives birth to her first son, Zhen ☳, the initial trigram in the new lunar cycle, whose lower Yang line represents the rebirth of light. After an instant of suspension, time again begins to flow, and a new month begins. 4

Conception and Birth of the Human Being

In the view of the Cantong qi, the different forms and features of the manifested world owe their existence to the prime principle, the Dao, and to the four modes through which it manifests itself: Qian and Kun, Kan, and Li. Each form or phenomenon, therefore, “attests” to (xiao 效) and is a “sign” of (zheng 證) the principle by which it is generated and is, by analogy, an instance of that principle. The analogical function of forms and phenomena involves even the signs of the written language:

26

This “coagulation” is analogous to the spontaneous coagulation of the “essence” within the Dao itself (see note 19 above). It is also worthy of note that, in Internal Alchemy, ning 凝 is one of the terms used for the initial coagulation of the Elixir, or of the “embryo” within the practitioner’s metaphoric “womb”; this essence also is the True Yang of Qian. For the words xuan 玄 and huang 黃, see the “Commentary on the Words of the Text” (“Wenyan zhuan” 文言傳) on the hexagram Kun ䷁ in the Yijing, sec. 3: “‘Mysterious and yellow’ means the merging (za 雜) of Heaven and Earth: Heaven is mysterious, and the Earth is yellow” 夫玄黃者、天地之雜也、天玄而地黃.

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Figure 5.2 “Sun and Moon make change” The picture shows: on the right, a solid line (Yang) above the graph for “sun” (日); on the left, a broken line (Yin) above the graph for “moon” (月); at the center, stylised graphs for “sun” (above) and “moon” (below), together forming the graph for “change” (易). Zhouyi tu 周易圖 (Charts on the Book of Changes; DZ 157), 1.6a–b.

Drawing upon its evidence and seeing its attestations, the Numinous Light is reckoned. Graphs are joined by inferring the kinds; they serve as signs for going back to the principle.27 引驗見效、校度神明、推類結字、原理為證。

After a few more verses, the Cantong qi continues by saying, “Sun and Moon make change” (ri yue wei yi 日月為易) (section 7). This etymology of the graph for “change” (易), whose sense we have seen in the previous section, does not pertain to philology: it is, rather, an example of the function played by forms and phenomena as “signs” of the modes assumed by the Dao as it manifests itself. Chinese cosmology, one of whose pillars is the idea of “correlation,” is especially suitable to express the concept of analogy: the various sets of cosmological emblems – Yin and Yang, the Five Agents, trigrams and hexagrams, and so forth – illustrate the relations that occur among different components of the cosmic domain, by classifying them into categories represented by the individual emblems.28 The Taoist perspective adopts this view but adds – or emphasises – an important point: the cosmological emblems not only represent the features of the “ten thousand things” and the relations among them, but in the first place illustrate the process through which Unity generates mul27 28

Cantong qi 6. For example, within the Five Agents, the emblem Wood establishes an analogy with spring regarding time, with the east regarding space, with the functions tied to the liver regarding to the human body, with the sound jue 角 regarding acoustic phenomena, and so forth. As Wood represents the Yang principle in its nascent state, all associated entities and phenomena are related to one another and are instances of that principle.

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tiplicity. For this reason, the same emblems that represent the unfolding of Unity into multiplicity can also serve to represent the reverse process of return to Unity, which is (or should be) the primary purpose of every cosmological science. To make an example that concerns the Five Agents, Soil – the central agent – is not only the symbolic point of origin of the four external agents (Water, Fire, Wood, and Metal), but also their point of convergence. Therefore, the series of the Five Agents can be used to represent both the sequence of creation and its inversion.29 The multiple relations established by Chinese cosmological thought form the structure of the macrocosm-microcosm theory, of which the human being is an integral part. As the Cantong qi follows this view, its description of the conception and birth of the individual is substantially identical – except for, as we shall see, one important detail – to its accounts of the generation of the cosmos. For the same reason, the birth of the individual is described as the result of the conjunction of Qian ☰ and Kun ☷, this time performed on their behalf not by the Sun and the Moon (Kan ☵ and Li ☲, as we have seen above), but by man and woman, or father and mother. The description of the process that creates life in the Cantong qi begins with this stanza, which quotes two sentences from the Yijing: “Qian is movement and is straight”: Breath spreads and Essence flows. “Kun is quiescence and is gathered”: it is the hut of the Dao.30 29

30

In Taoist alchemy, this inversion is often represented through the inversion of the “generation sequence” of the Five Agents (Wood → Fire → Soil → Metal → Water). The inversion focuses on two pairs of agents. While in the “generation sequence,” Wood generates Fire and Metal generates Water, in the alchemical process it is Fire (native cinnabar) that generates Wood (True Mercury), and Water (black lead) that generates Metal (True Lead). Through this inversion, Yang generates True Yin, and Yin generates True Yang. The Cantong qi refers to this pattern e.g., in section 23, to which we shall return below: “Metal is the mother of Water – [but] the mother is hidden in the embryo of her son” 金為水母、 母隱子胎. This “reverse generation” is one step towards the reintegration of multiplicity into Unity: from a state represented by the number 4 it leads to a state represented by the number 2, and finally to the state represented by the number 1. On this point see Cantong qi, sec. 72: “When the Wooden essence of cinnabar finds Metal, they pair with each other: Metal and Water dwell in conjunction, Wood and Fire are companions” 丹砂木精、得 金乃并、金水合處、木火為侶. Cantong qi 55. The first and the third verses of this stanza derive from the “Appended Sayings” (A.5) of the Yijing: “Qian is collected in a state of quiescence, and straight in a state of movement. […] Kun is gathered in a state of quiescence and open in a state of

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Pregadio 乾動而直、氣布精流、坤靜而翕、為道舍廬。

Complying with their natures and qualities – movement and quiescence, respectively – Qian thus entrusts the essence that generates life to Kun; Kun receives the essence of Qian and brings creation to achievement: The firm gives forth and then recedes, the yielding transmutes and thereby nurtures.31 剛施而退、柔化以滋。

The poem continues with one of the most enigmatic statements found in the Cantong qi: The 9 reverts, the 7 returns, the 8 goes back, the 6 remains.32 九還七返、八歸六居。

The symbolism of these two verses deserves attention, not only for its relevance to our present subject but also because this is one of the passages of the Cantong qi most frequently quoted in later alchemical texts. As described in this poem, the conjunction of male and female is first and foremost a return to the conjunction of Qian and Kun. The two verses above illustrate this process by means of images related to the Five Agents and their numerical values. This time, however, the conjunction of Qian and Kun does not result only in a return to the state of Unity: its purpose is the generation of a new life. Therefore, the agent representing the conjunction of Qian and Kun is not, as one might expect, Soil, which is placed at the centre of the Five Agents and represents their original unity, but Water, which is placed at the beginning of their “cosmogonic sequence.” Since Water is the first agent born from primal Unity, it

31 32

movement”; 夫乾、其靜也專、其動也直。[…] 夫坤、其靜也翕、其動也闢. The sexual connotations of these passages are obvious, but for those who might suppose that this or other passages of the Cantong qi describe “sexual practices,” it is sufficient to remind that the purpose of the conjunction of Qian and Kun is the biological function of procreation, which radically differs in both means and ends from the so-called “arts of the bedchamber.” “Transmutes” can also be rendered as “brings to life,” as we have seen in note 24 above. Cantong qi 55. Ibid.

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represents the initial stage of a process that awaits its unfolding – the conception and the birth of a human being.33 We may understand, therefore, why the return of the four external agents – Water, Fire, Wood, and Metal – to the state of Unity is described as “the 9 reverts, the 7 returns, the 8 goes back, the 6 remains.” These verses refer to the “generation numbers” and the “accomplishment numbers” (shengshu 生數 and chengshu 成數, respectively) of the agents, which are 1 and 6 for Water, 2 and 7 for Fire, 3 and 8 for Wood, and 4 and 9 for Metal. The state of Unity, to which the four external agents must return in order to generate life, is represented by the number 1, which in this configuration pertains to the first agent, Water. Hence, Metal (9) should “revert,” Fire (7) should “return,” and Wood (8) should “go back” to the 1 of Water. Unlike them, Water (6) already owns 1 as its “generation number”: not needing to perform any movement, it simply “remains.” These verses underline the virtue of Water – an instance of Kun, the feminine principle – as a symbol of that which gives origin to life. They also relate Water to the generative function of the One, seen not as the transcendent unity beyond multiplicity (1 as the origin of numbers, but itself not a number), but as the producer of multiplicity (1 as the first number).34 The rest of the poem continues along the same lines. In the next stanza, the masculine and feminine principles are represented by their essences (jing). Their colours, white and red, not only correspond to those of male semen and female blood but are also respectively associated with Metal and Fire in the system of the Five Agents. This leads to another symbolic account of the generative process, again expressed in an extremely concise way. This time, the description is based on the “conquest sequence” among the agents, but the process is concluded again with the return to the initial state emblematised by Water, “the first of the Five Agents.”35 First, Metal and Fire contend with one another; then, Fire conquers Metal; finally, Water conquers Fire: 33

34 35

The “cosmogonic sequence” is the order in which the Five Agents are generated from Unity as part of the cosmogonic process. The sequence is Water → Fire → Wood → Metal → Soil. The Cantong qi refers to this sequence, in particular, in section 22 (“Water is the axis of the Dao: its number is 1”; 水者道樞、其數名一) and in section 72 (“the son is at the origin of the Five Agents”; 子五行始, where Water is the first “child” of the One, or Unity). There are several other important points concerning the role of Water in alchemy, which I cannot address here. On some of them, see the notes in Pregadio 2011, sec. 22. On this aspect of Unity in Taoism see Robinet 1995, 177–81. The “conquest sequence” is the order in which the Five Agents overcome or displace one another after they are generated. The sequence is Water → Fire → Metal → Wood → Soil (to

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Man is white, woman is red; Metal and Fire seize one another. Water then stabilises Fire: it is the first of the Five Agents.36 男白女赤、金火相拘、則水定火、五行之初。

This poem ends as follows: “Superior goodness is like water”37 because it is flawless and clear. These are the forms and images of the Dao, but True Unity can hardly be charted: it alters itself and distributes by parting, and each part dwells alone, on its own.38 上善若水、清而無瑕、道之形象、真一難圖、變而分布、各自獨居。

Once again, Water here represents the return of Qian and Kun to the state of Unity, the very instant in which a new life is generated. Subsequently, this Unity “alters itself and distributes by parting”: duality and multiplicity emerge, and life begins its course. While the poem above describes the conception of the embryo, the next one is concerned with its gestation and birth: Similar in kind to a hen’s egg, the white and the black tally with one another. But one inch in size, yet it is the beginning: then the four limbs, the five viscera, the sinews and bones join it.

36 37

38

be read as “Water conquers Fire; Fire conquers Metal,” etc.; at the end of the cycle, Soil conquers Water). Cantong qi 55. This verse is quoted from the Daode jing 8: “Superior goodness is like water. Water is good at giving benefit to the ten thousand things without contending and dwells in places that all people dislike; therefore, it is close to the Dao”; 上善若水。水善利萬物而不爭，處 眾人之所惡，故幾於道。 Cantong qi 55.

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When ten months have elapsed, it exits the womb. “Its bones are weak” and are pliant,39 its flesh is as smooth as lead.40 類如雞子、白黑相符、縱橫一寸、以為始初、四肢五臟、筋骨乃俱、 彌歷十月、脫出其胞、骨弱可卷、肉滑若鉛。

The meaning of these verses is clear: the embryo, produced by the conjunction of Yin (the “black”) and Yang (the “white”), grows and finally comes to life. As in several other instances, with the two poems seen above the Cantong qi has provided a model that the later tradition has applied to alchemy: Neidan commentators and authors have read in these verses a description of the generation of the Internal Elixir, represented as an “embryo” with its three stages of conception, gestation, and birth.41 The Neidan interpretation of these passages is a clear example of the application of a doctrine (the birth of the human being as founded on the same principles that govern the creation of the cosmos) to a particular cosmological science (the birth of the “embryo” in alchemy). This view is made possible by the analogies that exist among the creation of the cosmos, the generation of the human being, and the alchemical process. In the next section, we shall look at how the Cantong qi utilises these analogies in one of its poems, which is, this time, explicitly concerned with the Elixir. 5

Compounding the Elixir

The Cantong qi upholds and describes two ways of realisation. Borrowing two sentences from the Daode jing, it calls the two ways “superior virtue” (shangde 上德) and “inferior virtue” (xiade 下德): 39

40

41

This verse is partly quoted from the Daode jing 55: “Holding the fullness of virtue is being similar to an infant. […] Its bones are weak, its sinews are yielding, but its grasp is tight”; 含德之厚比於赤子。[…] 骨弱筋柔而握固。 Cantong qi 56. In the last verse, the text of the Cantong qi at the basis of Yu Yan’s 俞琰 commentary (1284), as well as later works that follow Yu Yan’s text, has yi 飴 (“candy”) for qian 鉛 (“lead”); Zhouyi cantong qi fahui 周易參同契發揮 (An Elucidation of the Zhouyi cantong qi; DZ 1005), 6.13a. In replacing qian 鉛 with yi 飴, Yu Yan follows a suggestion given earlier by Zhu Xi 朱熹 in his commentary (1197); Zhouyi cantong qi [kaoyi] 周易參 同契〔考異〕 ([Investigation of Discrepancies in the] Zhouyi cantong qi; DZ 1001), 2.6a. On this view, see the article by Catherine Despeux, “Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts,” in the present volume.

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“Superior virtue has no doing”: it does not use examining and seeking. “Inferior virtue does”: its operation does not rest.42 上德無為、不以察求、下德為之、其用不休。

In the way of “superior virtue,” the identity of the principle and its manifestation, or of the Dao and the “ten thousand things,” is immediately realised: as nothing needs to be sought or investigated, one maintains the state of “nondoing” (wuwei 無為). “Inferior virtue,” instead, is the way of “doing” (youwei 有 為): seeking the hidden principle that gives birth to the cosmos, one uses the practice of alchemy as a support in order to attain that principle. This is the function of alchemy as a cosmological science.43 In the conclusion of this chapter, I will return on some implications of this perspective on the overall view of the alchemical process. Here we should note that while alchemy, in all of its forms, pertains to the way of “inferior virtue,” for the Cantong qi it is the only cosmological science that can provide access to the higher state of realisation, as long as it is practiced in accordance with its principles: that is, as long as “doing” (inferior virtue) in due time gives way to “non-doing” (superior virtue). Therefore, having rejected practices of different nature (respiratory, meditational, sexual, and ritual, in section 26), as well as forms of alchemy that do not conform to its principles (in section 36), the Cantong qi presents its own alchemical model, which is distinguished by two main features. First, since the alchemical work begins from the state of multiplicity to lead one back to the state of Unity, it should reproduce the stages of the generation of the cosmos, but in a reverse sequence and in a gradual way, in order to reintegrate each stage into the one that gives birth to it. Second, the Elixir should incorporate not only the stages of the unfolding of Unity into multiplicity, but also the principles that determine and represent those stages: Qian, Kun, Kan, and Li. As a consequence, according to the Cantong qi, the Elixir is compounded on the basis of two primary ingredients, which must be “of the same kind” (tonglei 42 43

Cantong qi 20. The first and the third verses of this stanza derive from Daode jing 38. In the Cantong qi, the way of “superior virtue” is described in Book 1, sec. 18–27, and Book 2, sec. 53–61. The way of “inferior virtue” is described in Book 1, sec. 28–42, and Book 2, sec. 62–74. On this subject, see Pregadio 2011, 47–53, and my article, “Superior Virtue, Inferior Virtue: A Doctrinal Theme in the Works of the Daoist Master Liu Yiming (1734–1821),” in T’oung Pao 100 (2014).

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同類) as Qian and Kun: if the primary ingredients are not in agreement with

Qian and Kun, “could they ever want to be joined in one body?”44 In the view of the Cantong qi, only True Lead (zhenqian 真鉛, Qian) and True Mercury (zhenhong 真汞, Kun) respond to this requirement and can represent and enact their conjunction. However, the starting point of the alchemical process cannot be provided by these ingredients, because no instance of Qian and Kun in their pure state is found within the cosmos: as we have seen, the essence of Qian ☰ is hidden within Kan ☵, and the essence of Kun ☷ is hidden within Li ☲. Accordingly, the two primary ingredients should be obtained from substances that in turn are “of the same kind” as Kan and Li. These two substances are “black lead” (native lead) and cinnabar, respectively. Therefore, the first stage of the alchemical process consists of extracting True Lead from black lead, and True Mercury from cinnabar. In their symbolic functions, these four substances are equivalent to the emblems that represent the modes of the Dao as it generates the cosmos (Qian, Kun, Kan, Li), and to the four agents that return to the state of unity when a human being is conceived (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire). The four agents, however, are configured in a different way compared to what we have seen in the previous section, and for a clear reason: while the conception of a human being reenacts cosmogony on a microcosmic scale, here the intent is the opposite, namely to revert to the state prior to the beginning of the cosmogonic process. In other words, the purpose now is not reproducing cosmogony, but reversing the effects of cosmogony. The typical correspondences among these sets of emblems are as follows: True Lead True Mercury black lead cinnabar

Qian Kun Kan Li

☰ ☷ ☵ ☲

True Yang True Yin Yin Yang

Metal Wood Water Fire

These correspondences imply, for example, that when cinnabar yields True Mercury, Li ☲ releases its Yin essence and enables Kun ☷ to be restored; and when black lead produces True Lead, Kan ☵ similarly releases its essence and enables Qian ☰ to be restored. Another example pertains to the inversion of the “generation sequence” of the agents: Wood, which had generated and given its essence to Fire, is now generated by Fire, allowing True Yin to be restored; and Metal, which had generated and given its essence to Water, is now gen­ erated by Water, allowing True Yang to be restored. All these different 44

Cantong qi 36.

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representations indicate the same idea: only after the two pure principles – Qian and Kun, True Yang and True Yin, Metal and Wood – are recovered can their conjunction take place.45 It is not the task of a work like the Cantong qi to provide a detailed description of the alchemical method per se: as said above, the Cantong qi deals with alchemy only in order to present is main principles, and not to describe its practices. One of its three passages that concern the compounding of the Elixir, which I will briefly discuss below, illustrates this point.46 In this poem, True Yin (Mercury) is called the Flowing Pearl of Great Yang (taiyang liuzhu 太陽流珠) because it derives from Yang (just like mercury derives from cinnabar), and True Yang (Lead) is called the Golden Flower (jinhua 金華).47 Only True Yang, or lead, through its firm nature can control the volatile qualities of True Yin (exemplified by the fact that mercury volatilises when heated) and enable the two principles to join with one another: The Flowing Pearl of Great Yang desires ever to leave you. When, at last, it finds the Golden Flower, it turns about, and the two rely upon each other.48 太陽流珠、常欲去人、卒得金華、轉而相因。

When the Golden Flower (Lead) is heated, it liquefies and can join with the Flowing Pearl (Mercury), which in turn will not escape and vanish. The two ingredients first take on a white colour (the colour of Metal, the agent corresponding to True Yang) and then coagulate into a dry amalgam, merging their natures (xing 性) and qualities (or dispositions, qing 情): They transform into a white liquid, 45

46

47 48

In addition to those shown here, other associations between the four emblematic substances and the four agents are possible, depending on the specific representation of the alchemical process or of its stages. In particular, the two main ingredients of the Elixir are often represented by Water and Fire. See, for instance, Cantong qi 32. The other two passages are found in poems 39–40 and 78, respectively. Several other poems of the Cantong qi concern principles at the basis of particular aspects of the alchemical work, such as the process of “inversion” (sec. 64 and 73) or the role of the Five Agents (sec. 32–33, 41, 63, 72, and 79). More precisely, Flower of Metal; but “golden flower” has become the standard translation of the term jinhua. Cantong qi 62.

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coagulate and are perfectly solid. The Golden Flower is the first to sing:49 in the space of an instant it dissolves into water – horse-tooth and langgan.50 The Yang is next to join it:51 qualities and natures are so of themselves.52 化為白液、凝而至堅、金華先唱、有頃之間、解化為水、馬齒琅玕、 陽乃往和、情性自然。

The amalgam is then pounded and placed in the tripod. Controlled and nurtured by fire, which should at first be as mild as a “loving mother” and then as vigorous as a “stern father,” the Flowing Pearl and the Golden Flower transmute themselves into the Golden Elixir: Approach it forthwith, seize it and store it within the Forbidden Gates.53 The loving mother will nurture and nourish it, and the filial child will reward her with love; the stern father will issue orders, to teach and admonish his children and grandsons.54 迫促時陰、拘畜禁門、慈母育養、孝子報恩、嚴父施令、教敕子孫。 49 50

51 52 53

54

Xianchang 先唱, literally translated as “is the first to sing,” means “to take the lead.” Langgan 琅玕 is a mythical gemstone, said to be found on Mount Kunlun at the centre of the world. In his commentary, Liu Yiming 劉一明 (1734–1821) explains that this verse of the Cantong qi describes the appearance of Metal: “Horse-tooth is a metaphor of its strength and whiteness, and langgan is a metaphor of its warmth and softness”; Cantong zhizhi 參同直指 (Straightforward Pointers on the Cantong qi), “Jingwen” 3.7a. Note, in addition, that the horse is associated with the dragon and thus represents the Yang principle (see note 17 above); and chi 齒 (“tooth”) is a synonym of ya 牙 and thus alludes to huangya 黃芽 (“yellow sprout”), another name for True Metal (True Yang). “Yang,” as previously noted, refers in this poem to the Flowing Pearl of Great Yang, or mercury, and thus actually designates Yin. Cantong qi 62. “Forbidden Gates” (jinmen 禁門) alludes to the king’s or the emperor’s palace. According to the Waidan or the Neidan reading, this term refers either to the tripod, where the Elixir coagulates, or to the lower Cinnabar Field (dantian 丹田), in the region of the abdomen, where the “embryo” is conceived. Cantong qi 62.

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The role performed by the male and the female principles in generating the Elixir reappears here under another shape: the “stern father” and the “loving mother” are Qian and Kun, respectively, which govern the alchemical work illustrated in the Cantong qi. Conclusion: “Inverting the Course” and “Following the Course” The cosmogonic stages distinguished by using space and time as metaphors occur in a spaceless place and a timeless instant. From this perspective, the relative domain, defined by space and time, does not even exist. From the perspective of the last of those stages, we can instead look backwards, or rather upwards, and distinguish several stages that occur in sequence. This perspective emphasises the feminine aspect of the Dao, in accordance with this statement from the Daode jing: “One can say that it is the mother of Heaven and Earth; I do not know its name, but call it Dao.”55 As the purpose of alchemy is inverting those stages in order to return to the state prior to their inception, one issue inevitably emerges: Does the intention to trace the stages of cosmogony in a backward sequence imply a rejection of the “generative” or “maternal” aspect of the Dao? The answer to this question involves considering the function of alchemy as a cosmological science. Inverting the process of cosmogony requires erasing, one after the other, the series of generative stages that lead from Non-Being to multiplicity. Yet, in the forms of External and Internal Alchemy based on the model of the Cantong qi, the alchemical process is represented not as the elimination, but as the inversion, of the generative sequence: modelling itself on the principles that enable the Dao to manifest itself, alchemy reproduces the stages of cosmogony so that each stage gives birth not to the next one, but to the previous one. This feature is especially emphasised in Internal Alchemy, where practitioners invest themselves with the task of “regenerating” their own persons and the world. The regressive process of inversion, therefore, is also a progressive process of creation: the conception, gestation, and birth of an “embryo,” which is the Elixir itself. Not only do the two processes run parallel to one another but they are also ultimately equivalent.56 55 56

可以為天地母。吾不知其名，字之曰道; Daode jing 25. Analogous simultaneous sequences also occur in different forms of Taoist ritual; see Schipper and Wang, “Progressive and Regressive Time Cycles in Taoist Ritual,” in J.T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, and F.C. Haber, eds., Time, Science, and Society in China and the West (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986).

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The same coexistence of creation and its inversion is also visible in another, more important respect. In Internal Alchemy, the backward movement of “inverting the course” (ni 逆) is, in fact, an upward movement that leads from the cosmos to the Dao; this movement intends to compensate for the downward movement of “going along the course” (shun 順), through which the Dao generates the cosmos.57 While the movement of inversion is indispensable, it is only one part of the path of realisation envisaged in the Cantong qi. In one of its best-known passages, the Cantong qi refers to this point by saying: Metal is the mother of Water – the mother is hidden in the embryo of her son. Water is the child of Metal – the child is stored in the womb of its mother.58 金為水母、母隱子胎、水為金子、子藏母胞。

The first two lines of this poem represent the return to the origin of the cosmos – which is the purpose of alchemy per se – as the inversion of the generative sequence of the Five Agents. When Metal (☰) generates Water (☵), its essence (True Yang) moves within Water: it is now the “embryo” found in Water. Thus, in order to liberate this essence, which is the seed of the Elixir, the son must give birth to his mother: the son (Water) becomes the mother, and the mother (Metal) becomes the son. In Internal Alchemy, this is what the practitioner does as he becomes the “mother” of his own embryo, which is conceived in the first stage of the practice by refining the True Yang essence and is, in fact, that essence. The next stages of the practice lead from conception to birth: the embryo is nourished until it is finally “delivered” as the Yang Spirit (yangshen 陽神, or Qian ☰). This is the culmination of the upward movement of “inverting the course.” Alchemy in the strict sense of the term deals only with this upward movement, which is the way of “inferior virtue.” Here, in fact, is where Internal Alchemy enjoins a practitioner to “know when to stop” (zhizhi 知止) or “know what is sufficient” (zhizu 知足),59 and to shift to “non-doing.” Complying with its boundaries as a cosmological science, alchemy acknowledges that its function 57 58 59

On the concepts of shun and ni in Internal Alchemy, see Ge Guolong 戈国龙, Daojiao neidanxue tanwei 道教内丹学探微 (Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 2004): 47–70. Cantong qi 23. These expressions also derive from the Daode jing 44 (“Know what is sufficient and you will not be disgraced; know when to stop and you will not be in danger”; 知足不辱、知

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is fulfilled: by working on the correspondences and the analogies between cosmos and human being, the practice of compounding the Elixir – or of giving birth to the “embryo” – has guided the practitioner along the upward way to the origins of the process through which the cosmos is generated. The alchemical work, however, is entirely accomplished only if the course is completed by performing the opposite movement of descent through “nondoing.” In the other two lines of the Cantong qi poem translated above, this new downward movement is represented by the ordinary generative sequence of the Five Agents: now Metal (the mother) once again generates Water (the son). After the first part of the alchemical work has been completed, and the alchemist has regenerated himself, he should redescend to the domain from which he had departed. The Pure Yang attained by the alchemical practice is now projected onto the Yin of the cosmos, which, at the same time, moderates and tempers its Yang nature. This movement, which is the way of “superior virtue,” realises the unity and identity of Dao and cosmos, Absolute and relative, Unity and multiplicity, constancy and change. Works Cited Primary Sources Cantong zhizhi 參同直指 [Straightforward Pointers on the Cantong qi]. Liu Yiming 劉 一明, 1799. In Daoshu shi’er zhong 道書十二種, Huguo an 護國庵 ed., 1819. Reprinted in Zangwai daoshu 藏外道書, vol. 8 (Chengdu: Ba-Shu shushe, 1992). Daode jing 道德經 [Book of the Way and Virtue]. Sibu beiyao 四部備要 edition. 1936. Daode zhenjing jiyi 道德真經集義 [Collected Explanations of the True Book of the Way and Virtue]. Cheng Taizhi 程泰之 (1123–95). DZ 724. Huangdi neijing suwen 黃帝內經素問 [Internal Classic of the Yellow Emperor: Basic Questions]. Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 edition. Origin. ca. 2nd century CE. Shanghai: Shangwu chubanshe, 1933. Xiyi zhimi lun 析疑指迷論 [Essay on Resolving Doubts and Pointing Out Delusions]. Niu Daochun 牛道淳 (fl. 1299). DZ 276. Yijing 易經 [Book of Changes]. Text in the Zhouyi yinde 周易引得 [A Concordance to Yi Ching]. Peking: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1935. Zhouyi cantong qi fahui 周易參同契發揮 [An Elucidation of the Zhouyi cantong qi]. Yu Yan 俞琰, 1284. DZ 1005.

止不殆), and 46 (“There is no calamity greater than not knowing what is sufficient”; 禍莫 大於不知足).

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Zhouyi cantong qi [kaoyi] 周易參同契〔考異〕 [(Investigation of Discrepancies in the) Zhouyi cantong qi]. Zhu Xi 朱熹, 1197. DZ 1001. Zhouyi cantong qi zhujie 周易參同契注解 [Commentary to and Explication of the Seal of the Unity of the Three]. Chen Zhixu 陳致虛 (1290-ca. 1368). Jinling shufang 金陵書 房 ed., 1484. (References are to sections numbers in Pregadio 2011.) Zhouyi tu 周易圖 [Charts on the Book of Changes]. Anonymous (Southern Song). DZ 157. Secondary Sources Ge Guolong 戈国龙. 2004. Daojiao neidanxue tanwei 道教内丹学探微 [Investigating the subtleties of Taoist Internal Alchemy]. Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe. Meng Naichang 孟乃昌. 1993. Zhouyi cantong qi kaobian 『周易参同契』考辩 [An inquiry into the Zhouyi cantong qi]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. Pregadio, Fabrizio. 2014. “Superior Virtue, Inferior Virtue: A Doctrinal Theme in the Works of the Daoist Master Liu Yiming (1734–1821).” T’oung Pao 100: 460–498. ———. 2011. The Seal of the Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi. Mountain View, CA: Golden Elixir Press. Robinet, Isabelle. 1995. “Un, deux, trois: Les différentes modalités de l’Un et sa dyna­ mique.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8: 175–220. ———. 1994. “Primus movens et création récurrente.” Taoist Resources 5.2: 29–70. Schipper, Kristofer M., and Wang Hsiu-huei. 1986. “Progressive and Regressive Time Cycles in Taoist Ritual.” In Time, Science, and Society in China and the West, J.T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, and F.C. Haber, eds., 185–205. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Sivin, Nathan. 1991. “Change and Continuity in Early Cosmology: The Great Commentary to the Book of Changes.” In Chūgoku kodai kagakushi ron 中國古代科學史論 [Studies on the history of ancient Chinese science], Yamada Keiji 山田慶兒 and Tanaka Tan 田中淡, eds., vol. 2, 3–43. Kyoto: Kyōto daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūjo. Xiao Hanming 萧汉明 and Guo Dongsheng 郭东升. 2001. Zhouyi cantong qi yanjiu 『周易參同契』研究 [A study of the Zhouyi cantong qi]. Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe.

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Chapter 6

On the Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas Brigitte Baptandier

1

The Myth of the Lady of Linshui and Its Discourse on Maternity

Maternity is a distinctly feminine potential. It is inscribed in the very bodies of women, who have the choice to realise this potential or consciously decline it. Maternity can also be undercut by an unexpected sterility whose unconscious reasons often remain unknown. It should be underlined that the liberty to choose – while leading a secular lifestyle – is a recent result of women’s struggle for their rights. However, in so-called “traditional” societies, women are expected to ensure the perpetuation of lineages and social groups through reproduction, which is perceived as a duty. Maternity, procreation, the intrauterine universe, the embryo, gestational time, birth – all of these notions imply very real situations, at sometimes paradoxical, at others downright dangerous, that women must manage within their bodies. These are the objects of discourse, imaginary representations as multiple as are cultures, whose myths describe landscapes and deities activated by ritual. What type of message do the different discourses on pregnancy deliver to women? How are they implemented? How are they received? In his famous interpretation of the ‟symbolic efficacy” of a Cuna shaman’s song, Lévi-Strauss refers to a matrix-universe through which the shaman travels to save his patient.1 This is the world of Muu, a female deity who resides in the “dark whirlpool,” that is, the uterus. In China, it is the Lady of Linshui (Linshui furen 臨水夫人), the goddess otherwise known as Chen Jinggu 陳靖 姑, who rules over the magic of birth, as described most notably in one of the ritual theatre performances devoted to her, the Nainiang zhuan, 奶娘傳, or * Translated from French by Dominic Steavu (University of California, Santa Barbara). I would like to express my thanks to the translator and co-editor of the volume. He raised many useful suggestions while carefully preserving the meaning of my text. Of course, I am solely responsible for any errors that remain. 1 Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 193–196; For our purposes, the most relevant part of Lévi-Strauss’ analysis is from the chapter on “The Effectiveness of Symbols,” to which the title of this study and much of its content refers to.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306523_008

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Biography of the Mother.2 The framing of the process of delivery also occurs in the imagery of Furen guoguan tu 夫人過關圖 (The Lady Crosses the Passes), a ritual painting used, as its name indicates, in rites pertaining to the untying of ‟knotted passes”, the embryonic knots of destiny one inherits from birth.3 This is essentially a rite of passage, one of rebirth, whereby children are guided along celestial realms through a shamanic voyage, tracing an itinerary that will lead them anew to a life they were in danger of losing because of the progressive tightening of those knots.4 Just as the Muu goddess of the Cuna people, the Lady of Linshui, the legendary woman by the name of Chen Jinggu, is a deity of maternity and gestation, a goddess of the embryo and of the uterine universe. Her realm is one depicted as the celestial region of the Bridge of a Hundred Flowers (Baihua qiao 百花 橋), where every woman is represented by a ‟flower” (hua 花), symbolising her capacity to give life, or to ‟transform” (hua 化) it.5 This bridge, which Chen 2 Wu Naiyu 吳乃宇, a master of the Orthodox Teaching of the Pear Tree Garden (Liyuan zhengjiao 梨園正教) tradition from the Wushan 烏山 section of Fuzhou 福州, copied the text of the play for Ye Mingsheng葉明生, who published an annotated critical version under the title: Fujian shouning siping kuileixi Nainiang zhuan 福建壽寧四平傀儡戲奶娘傳, Ye Mingsheng and Wu Naiyu, compil. (Taipei: Minsu Quyi congshu, 1997), hereafter Nainiang zhuan; references to the introduction to the primary sources will use the format Ye and Wu, 1997, followed by the relevant page number; see also Brigitte Baptandier, “La Biographie de la Mère, Nainiang Zhuan 奶娘傳. La tablette à écriture,” in Du corps au texte. Approches comparatives, Brigitte Baptandier and Giordana Charuty, eds. (Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie, 2008a). On the analysis of the myths and cults of Chen Jinggu, see Brigitte Berthier (Baptandier), La Dame du Bord de l’Eau (Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie, 1988); and the English translation, The Lady of Linshui: A Chinese Female Cult (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008b). 3 With respect to embryonic knots (jiejie 節結), see Isabelle Robinet, Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993): “Appearing during the time of pregnancy, these congenital knots are the ‘death-roots of the womb’ which, as Ta-tung ching advises us, should be cut off. In general, the Ta-tung ching deplores the existence of these ‘knots of the five viscera which generate all illness.’ In fact, the Ta-tung ching alludes several times to these ‘embryonic knots’ or ‘(deadly) seeds of the womb,’ as well as to the practices whereby the ‘hundred spirits untie the embryonic knots, open up, and undo the interior roots of the womb’.” 4 Brigitte Baptandier, “Le rituel d’ouverture des passes: un concept de l’enfance,” L’Homme 137.1 (1996b); see also the chapters on “Children and the Temple: the Passes (guan)” and “Rituals of the Flowers and Passes,” in Baptandier 2008b, 196–222 and 222–242, respectively. These provide a description and interpretation of the ritual to unbind these embryonic knots in the context of Linshui furen’s cult; see also A. Van Gennep, Les rites de passage (Paris: E. Nourry, 1909), 85. 5 As Rolf A. Stein, The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 295, n. 134, noted: “Tsao [造] (to

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Jinggu oversees, appears to be more than a liminal passageway to elsewhere: it is a destination in and of itself. The cult of Chen Jinggu constitutes a very important aspect of Chinese religions, but it is not a socially circumscribed phenomenon.6 As there are no exclusive dimensions to its practice, the cult functions a bit like an open intersection, with traffic flowing in and out from all directions. Chen Jinggu surfaces in innumerable legends, in mediumistic practices, in vernacular and classical rites.7 She appears as a Taoist figure and as a deity in popular Buddhism as well. However, she cannot claim a monopoly in her function as a protective deity for childbirth. She shares this responsibility with the great Guanyin 觀音, who, perhaps for this very reason, is often cited as the origin of Chen Jinggu in later myths, but also with the bureaucratic Lady Who Hastens Birth (Cuisheng niangniang 催生娘娘) or the Lady of Birth Registers (Zhusheng niangniang 註 生娘娘). In addition, the Seven Immortal Maidens, or the exquisite Original Princess of the Jasper Mist (Bixia yuanjun 壁霞元君), who will be briefly discussed below, are among the other deities who can play a protective role in childbirth.8 Indeed, Chen Jinggu is not a centralising figure: she is more repremake) and hua [化] (to transform) are equivalents to tzu-jan [自然] (spontaneous creation) or Tao [道]. In this we see the activity of Yin [陰] and Yang [陽], Heaven and Earth. In the sexual field, tsao is male, and hua female.”; see also Brigitte Baptandier, “Façonner la divinité en soi : à la recherche d’un lieu d’énonciation,” Ethnologies 25.1 (2003); and Brigitte Baptandier, “Le rhizome et la perle,” Penser/rêver 9 (2006). 6 Chen Jinggu historically lived during the Tang dynasty (618–907), but her legend takes place during the early Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms (907–979). She was canonised during the Song dynasty (960–1279). Her cult is still very active in contemporary Chinese societies, notably in Fujian and Taiwan, where it was transplanted following immigration patterns. 7 Chen Jinggu belongs to Lüshan ritual lineage (Lüshan pai 閭山派), also known as the lineage of the Three Ladies (Sannai pai 三奶派); see Fujian sheng Jianyang shi Lüshan pai keyi ben 福 建省建陽市閭山派科儀本. The legends pertaining to Chen Jinggu have been written down in the form of a “novel” (xiaoshuo 小說), the Qing-dynasty (1644–1911) Linshui pingyao zhuan 臨水平妖傳 (Chronicles of Linshui Exorcisms). Local variants also exist; see the Ruicheng shuju (Taipei) and Xiamenhui wentang (Xiamen) editions dated to the Ming dynasty, but more likely from the Qing. There is also a variety of undated modern editions, the Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe (Hangzhou) recension, known as the Chen Shisi qizhuan 陳十四奇傳 (Chronicles of Chen’s Fourteen Marvels), being a case in point. The legends are also included in a general collection of local myths from Min, the Mindu bieji 閩都別記 (Exceptional Records from the Min Capital). Textual traces can be found in local annals and records of mirabilia such as the Soushen ji 搜神記 (Records of Searching for Spirits; DZ 1476), 6.6b–7a: see Baptandier 2008b for more. 8 Originally, according to local gazetteers, Chen Jinggu was a shaman in Fujian; cf. Baptandier 2008b. On Guanyin, see Rolf A. Stein, “Avalokitesvara / Kouan-yin : un exemple de transforma-

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sentative of nodal networks of signification. Yet she is the only deity among those listed whose myths focus on the feminine universe, thus giving her cult and rites, as well as her symbols and operative structures, a crucial place in Chinese society. The myth of the Lady of Linshui, particularly as it appears in the (Linshui pingyao zhuan 臨水平妖傳 (Chronicles of Linshui Exorcisms), is itself a collection of fantastical episodes that give the impression of an extended dream sequence.9 Through a synthesis of various popular tales, the novel describes Chen Jinggu’s progressive obtention of magical powers that permit her to heal the disorders caused by qi-depleting demons. The account reaches its climax when the goddess acquires the topmost techniques, those that afford control over the processes of gestation and early infancy. Paradoxically, the Lady of Linshui gains her first powers as a result of her refusal to wed. She eventually does get married and becomes pregnant, acceding to the highest level of power only after extracting the pre-term embryo that she was carrying from her womb and dying from a haemorrhage. This event, here termed tuotai 脫胎 (alt. tuotaiwan 脫胎丸) – the release of the embryo – was a crucial sequence in her accomplishment of the rain ritual that saved the Kingdom of Min 閩 (presentday Fujian) from a devastating drought. In other words, Chen Jinggu acquires her powers from a double negation: first of matrimonial union, and second, of motherhood, the radical exteriorisation and projection into life that is the delivery of a ‟complete” human being. In her full empowerment, she remains autonomous and undivided, centred and homogeneous, all the while undergoing the transformations of an experienced magic rather than one that she truly acquired in her lifetime. In fact, during her apprenticeship in shamanism and martial arts on Lüshan 閭山, a sacred site overseen by the master of exorcism (Xu Jiulang 許九郎) and

tion d’un dieu en déesse,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 2 (1986); Chunfang Yü, Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); Glenn Dudbridge, The legend of Miao Shan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). On Bixia yuanjun, see Kenneth Pomeranz, “Power, Gender, and Pluralism in the Cult of the Goddess of Taishan,” in Culture and State in Chinese History. Conventions: Accommodations, and Critiques, Theodore Huters, R. Bin Wong and Pauline Yu, eds. (Stanford: Stanford, University Press, 1997); Susan Naquin,“The Peking Pilgrimage to Miao-feng Shan: Religious Organizations and Sacred Site,” in Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China, Susan Naquin and Chun-Fang Yü, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); and Liu Xun, “Visualizing Perfection: Daoist Paintings of Our Lady, Court Patronage, and Elite Female Piety in the Late Qing,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 64.1 (2004). 9 See the Qing-era Linshui pingyao zhuan.

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the Queen Mother (Wangmu niang 王母娘),10 Chen Jinggu refused to learn the arts of protecting pregnant women and embryos because she wished to avoid the pollution of parturition huts (huifang 穢房; literally “polluted chambers”). Initially declined, this magic of maternity was acquired differently. As discussed below, the specific means of acquisition are significant since the legend of Chen Jinggu is essentially the story of a woman who, horrified by the prospect of motherhood, must nonetheless learn to become a mother, even if it costs her her life. This legend constitutes a potential point of reference for anyone who is contemplating pregnancy or already pregnant and living in areas where the cult of Chen Jinggu is practised – in contemporary Fujian, Taiwan, or even southern Zhejiang. These women pray to the goddess to become pregnant, to give birth to a son, or to ensure a safe delivery. The Lady of Linshui is also solicited to care for young children and protect them from misfortune. Women in these regions are all familiar with the story of Chen Jinggu; they have the details of her legends in temple paintings or bas-reliefs; they have heard about her through ambulant storytellers, or by attending the ritual plays that depict her myth. Women interpret her message as a warning about the rules and dangers of maternity, but also as a canvas for the discourses pertaining to motherhood in their own culture. As with the Cuna of Central and South America, the entire panoply of ritual remedies aimed at avoiding the dangers of delivery are deployed in Chen Jinggu’s cult: talismans, divine interventions, shamanic journey through imaginary landscapes conjured magically. Very real risks are evoked together with their implicit natural equivalents – when Chen Jinggu gives birth and experiences a fatal haemorrhage at the same time that an auspicious rain falls on Min, assuring the kingdom continued fertility and life while she, as a woman, perishes. Performers act out the glacial shivers that took over the goddess’s body during delivery and the “drowning”; on this occasion, they also underscore the taboo on duck meat, which is specific to her cult. The fear of dying in labour is very present in these metaphors, a fear that takes root in the coexistence of life and death in a singular, liminal point. The maternal universe is situated at the intersection of the human, the animal, the natural, the wild, even the barbaric. The maternal womb is identified with the universal matrix, the Big Dipper, the pivot of the universe (or the “fortified realm of the Big Dipper”; luocheng gangjie 羅城罡界, as it is referred to in 10

Wangmu niang is one of the names of Xiwang mu 西王母, the Queen Mother of the West, with which she is sometimes identified; see, for instance, Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn, Women in Daoism (Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Editions, 2003), 45.

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theatrical representations).11 In the sacred geography delineated by the Nainiang zhuan, Chen Jinggu’s magical maternal universe is located within the bodhisattva Guanyin’s paradise on Putuoshan 普陀山. In all of her myths, Chen Jinggu is indeed associated with a snake, in some instances, the Southern Snake (Nanshe 南蛇), a baleful star whose demonic form is believed to devour children every spring and autumn. In other sources, the Chronicles of Linshui Exorcisms (Linshui Pingyao zhuan), for example, she is linked to a hair from the head of Guanyin, the White Snake (Baishe 白蛇).12 In this account, the White Snake may be considered Chen Jinggu’s kuṇḍalinī, her demonic double; as Chen Jinggu too is born of a drop of blood from the same bodhisattva, she is often associated with Guanyin and functions as her avatar.13 Similarly to the chanting of the Cuna shaman, the cult of the Lady of Linshui makes available a multiplicity of discourses from which every woman can find resonance in order to placate her fears about giving birth. In the event of a difficult delivery, Cuna women are assisted by the shaman, whose chant symbolically recreates the world of the goddess Muu and guides the mother to salvation by using a language that permits a positive symbolic transfer, as Lévi-Strauss explains it.14 Conversely, the ritual theatre of the Lüshan lineage fashi 法師 (ritual master) is not directly addressed to the 11

12 13 14

Luocheng gangjie is a secured stronghold within the Big Dipper that demons cannot penetrate. Consequently, Taoist officiants may tread the constellation (and thereby activate it) through ritual footwork from inside of it without fear of demonic interference; see Nainiang zhuan, 160. Chen Jinggu’s myth is a good example of the identification between the universal matrix and the female uterus. Nainiang zhuan, 212 sq.; on the struggle between Chen Jinggu and the White Snake, see also Mindu bieji, 131, 158–161, 343–348 and 417–420. See Linshui pingyao zhuan, chapter 1; and Mindu bieji, chapter 21, especially 131; see also Baptandier 2008b, 43. Indeed, Lévi-Strauss’s argument in “The Effectiveness of Symbols,” from his hallmark Structural Anthropology, rests on this point: “The shaman provides the sick woman with a language, by means of which unexpressed, and otherwise inexpressible, psychic states can be immediately expressed. And it is the transitions to this verbal expression – at the same time making it possible to undergo in an ordered and intelligible form a real experience that would otherwise be chaotic and inexpressible – which induces the release of the physiological process, that is, the reorganization, in a favorable direction, of the process to which the sick woman is subjected. In this respect, the shamanistic cure lies on the borderline between our contemporary physical medicine and such psychological therapies as psychoanalysis.” Lévi-Strauss pursues the comparison in the subsequent paragraph: “This vital experience is called abreaction in psychoanalysis. We know that its precondition is the unprovoked intervention of the analyst, who appears in the conflicts of the patient through a double transference mechanism, as a flesh-and-blood protago-

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woman in labour. In fact, she is not to be present during the performance since it reenacts the infelicitous death of the goddess Chen Jinggu during the delivery of her premature baby. Thus, the ritual play depicts the very source of women’s anxieties with respect to giving birth – but it also emphasises the remedies and celestial favours that lead to divinisation after death. Like a number of popular deities in China, Chen Jinggu becomes a goddess only after her tragic and untimely “bad death.”15 What can be said about the symbolic efficacy of this type of discourse on maternity? In order to answer this question, we will analyse the birth narrative from the Nainiang zhuan and, as a counterpoint, the same narrative as it is illustrated in the paintings used in the rebirth ritual sequence entitled ‟The Lady Crosses the Passes.” 2

The Nainiang zhuan, Biography of the Mother

According to Ye Mingsheng, the ritual theatrical play preserved in the Nainiang zhuan is performed today in honour of Chen Jinggu on the 16th of the first lunar month, the day of her votive celebration, and on the 16th of the seventh month, the anniversary of her death.16 Its characters are portrayed either by actors or puppets. The play is also enacted on the anniversaries of her sworn sisters and altar mates, Lady Lin 林夫人 and Lady Li 李夫人, on the 16th of the tenth lunar month and the 11th of the sixth month, respectively. Some adepts insist that the play is not to be staged in front of the temple on days of celebration because its outcome, the death of the main protagonist, is too harrowing. In some cases, it is performed as an apotropaic ritual at the outset of labour, but the mother cannot be present, as she would put herself in danger of giving birth to a child with “soft bones.”17 In other, rarer cases, the play is put on when

15

16 17

nist and in relation to whom the patient can restore and clarify an initial situation which has remained unexpressed or unformulated”; see Lévi Strauss 1963, 198. The French notion of malemort is typically rendered as “untimely death” or even “cruel death” but, in keeping with previous translations of my work in English, we have opted for “bad death.” On the topic of malemort see Brigitte Baptandier, éd., De la malemort : en quelques pays d’Asie (Paris: Karthala, 2001), especially the introduction, 7–22. Minxi shanghang gaoqiang kuilei yu furen xi 閩西上杭高腔傀儡與夫人戲, 121. This expression is borrowed from Jacques Pimpaneau, Des poupées à l’ombre. Le théâtre d’ombres et de poupées en Chine (Paris: Université Paris VII, Centre de Publication Asie Orientale, 1977), 24, in reference to suspended puppet theatre: “Pregnant women should refrain from viewing religious string puppet dancing as their children may consequently be born with soft bones.” Conversely, soft bones have a generally positive connotation in

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a woman solicits Chen Jinggu for a child. Ye Mingsheng adds that it can be shown on a variety of different occasions, from the inauguration of new heads of cultic associations to a series of temple events, including the “offering of incense” during pilgrimages (jinxiang 進香), making donations (shanggong 上 供), sutra readings (nianjing 念經), accomplishing wishes (huanyan 還願) or banquets (jucan 聚餐). Again, the story can be reenacted during exorcisms, rain rituals, or annual expulsion rites. An ambiguity is thus purposely established between the registers of maternity, fertility, birth, or women’s bodies on the one hand and, on the other hand – via the implicit connection to nature – cosmic fertility. The line between these two symbolic realms is consciously blurred. 3

The Context of the Nainiang zhuan

This play, especially when performed with puppets, is rooted in Taoist shamanic (wudao 巫道), exorcistic (qusha 驅煞), and healing (zhibing 治病) traditions. These theatrical rituals of what is commonly referred to as the “teaching of exorcistic masters,” or wangshi jiao 尫師教, are more often than not accomplished by specialists belonging to different Taoist sects within the Lüshan lineage (Lüshan pai 閭山派). The wangshi jiao, subdivided into six “caverns” (dong 洞), is also known as the “Divine Theatre of the Orthodox Teaching of the Pear Tree Garden” (“Liyuan zhengjiao shenxi” 梨園正教神 戲).18 Among its repertoire, its most often performed and best-received play is

18

Taoist contexts: see, for example, Laozi 55. Ye and Wu, Nainiang zhuan, 1987, 18–19 (citing Fujian xishi lu 福建戲史錄, 144), relate a similar anecdote: “In the Wanli era (1573–1620) of the Ming, the scholar-official Xie Zhaozhe 謝肇浙 jotted down in his Changxi suoyu 長 溪瑣語 [Trifling Words from the Long Valley] the following reflections concerning a performance of the Wuxian zhuan 五顯傳 [Hagiography of the Five Manifestations]: ‘In a place called Dajin, the Wuxian play was performed using puppets in the house of a woman who was about to give birth. A little demon appeared on stage. He had a blue face and teeth like a monkey’s. Atop his head were two horns. Upon seeing him, the woman in labour got a fright, and, in her chambers, she gave birth to a horrible-looking son, identical to the strange apparition that had manifested on stage. Defiantly, bouncing up and down, the child vociferated in a supernatural voice. The horrified woman called her mother-in-law, who beat the newborn with an iron mallet and killed it. In the other room, the demon-monkey lay dead on stage’”; see Brigitte Baptandier, 2008a, 131. Unless otherwise stated, all translations from the Chinese are my own. On this topic, see Ye and Wu, Nainiang zhuan, 1997, 17. These six subsections evoke the divisions the Taoist Canon (Daozang 道藏), which is made up of three “caverns” (dong).

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the Nainiang zhuan. This particular version recounts Chen Jinggu’s two principle civilising exploits – the capture of the Southern Snake and that of  its acolyte, Zhangkeng gui 長坑鬼, the demon of the Long Crevasse. Both episodes highlight the performative efficacy of exorcistic rituals. The performance of the full six tomes (ben 本) and thirty-five sequences (pai 拍) of the Nainiang zhuan requires three days and three nights. Each sequence, much like the basic unit of a chapter (hui 回) in novels, retells a full story in vernacular prose. The structure of the play presents a few singularities. For one, the length of the individual sequences is rather irregular. Some take hours to perform, or appear to correspond to independent plays, while others take but a few minutes to enact. Ye Mingsheng contends that this feature is attributable to an influence from “miscellaneous theatres” (zaxi 雜戲) and the storyteller narratives (huaben 話本) from the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1260– 1368). Wordplay and the absence of defined or pre-determined stylistic forms are in fact specific traits of the Nainiang zhuan. Different registers are conjugated, lending the text that plurilinguistic dimension typical of Sinitic languages. Characters of official station – such as the Lady of Linshui, the emperor, but also certain gods and immortals, including the master of exorcism, or Xu Jiulang, and the Queen Mother, Wangmu niang – use Mandarin dialect, despite the fact that it may be harder to understand for some members of the Fujianese audience. But it remains a regional variant of Mandarin, one that is peppered with local Shouning 壽寧 and Fu’an 福安 expressions and proverbs.19 In terms of the music accompanying the performance of the Nainiang zhuan, it is considered a subcategory of the gaoqiang 高腔 opera genre, to which other elements have been added: some of these include the ritual incantations of the Lüshan lineage, but also traditional popular songs (minge xiaotiao 民歌小調) from Mindong 閩東 in Eastern Fujian that are not transcribed in the libretti, as well as Buddhist chants. The ritual for rain carried out during the performance is also considered “Buddhist,” as is the accompanying melody. Thus, like the text, the musical component of the Nainiang zhuan is characterised by a multiplicity of registers. The orchestra, located to the right of the stage, is composed of three musicians, respectively playing the gong (luo 鑼), the drum (gu 鼓), and the flute (chui 吹). Under the Song, puppet masters and storytellers alike performed the play without musical accompaniment.20 Only the wooden fish (muyu 木魚), a type of gong typically employed in ritual chanting, set the cadence of the voice and the tempo of narration. It was the 19 20

Ye and Wu, Nainiang zhuan, 1997, 29–30. See Pimpaneau 1977, 14.

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rhythm of speech and the punctuation of movement – in other words, the body – the was the true actor of the ritual play. 4

The Ritual Performance

As noted above, the Nainiang zhuan constitutes one of the “caverns” of the Pear Tree Garden ritual tradition.21 Although classified as puppet theatre, this play is particular in that it brings to the stage communal rites, such as that of the offering (jiao 醮) or others, that are practised privately, in households. Before performing these rituals, the puppet master must don Taoist robes (alternatively a simple, black ritual garment) and “open” the ritual area (kaitan 開壇). The priest then sprinkles consecrated water to expel impurities; observing the proper ritual sequence, he “hides” his physical form (cangshen 藏身), invites deities to join him (qingshen 請神), exorcises demons (qusha 驅煞), and finally, appeases the spirits (anshen 安神). The most elaborate purification rite is undertaken before the play, in the context of requesting the presence of Marshal Tiangong (Tiangong yuanshuai 田公元帥), the god of theatre. The military figure then appears on stage and exorcises demons in order to protect the puppets, actors, and spectators. Such rites are to be performed meticulously as the play involves a number of potentially harmful spirits, including demonic miasmas (xiegui 邪鬼) or bewitching demons (yaomo 妖魔). If the ritual measures are neglected, the puppet master cannot perform with a still mind (anxin 安心). As a result, spectators will not abound and the play will not take place.22 In its theatrical version, Chen Jinggu’s myth is divided and incorporated into smaller ritual units that are performed in the morning, at noon, and in the evening – connected to specific times of the day much like Indian rāga. Yet, despite being attended by spectators, the entire play is itself a ritual addressed to the gods. In fact, each book in the Nainiang zhuan opens with an invocation to the protective deities of the stage and spells for the pacifying of puppets. If the scene includes the execution of a demon, paper money is burned as an offering in order to send him back (song xiegui 送邪鬼). In the episodes where Chen Jinggu receives an official title, or those in which she gets married, incense is burned or firecrackers are lit in front of the stage, as if the ceremonies were actually taking place. At the end of the performance, the goddess 21 22

See Ye and Wu 1997, 17; see also Jacques Pimpaneau, Promenade au Jardin des Poiriers. L’opéra Chinois classique (Paris: Musée Kwok On, 1983). Ye and Wu, Nainiang zhuan, 1997, 36.

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must be “invited to cross the passes” (qing poshen guoguan 請婆神過關) once more, upon which Chen Jinggu executes this ritual on stage for the protection of delivering mothers and young children. Among the most conspicuous ritual elements of the play is the use of talismans (fu 符), apotropaic instruments that are typically drawn on paper or simply traced in the air. The ritual master/puppet master also drafts official administrative documents, “petitions” (zhang 章) that are inscribed on oversized sheets of yellow paper and forwarded up the celestial hierarchy. The six theatrical books of Nainiang zhuan are replete with incantations, formulas, sutras, and hymns that star an entire pantheon of deities.23 Ritual melodies (faqu 法曲) such as the “Nainiang zan 奶娘讚” (“Hymn of the Mother”) are played during performances. In a similar fashion, performative religious functions are highlighted during the master’s “treading the mainstay and pacing of the Dipper” (xinggang budou 行罡步斗). This shamanic dance, executed on stage, sets into motion the transformative processes of the universe to the effect that the officiant can act upon one’s destiny.24 The chanting of the verses of the “Wangshi tiao 尪師調” (“Melody of the Master of Exorcism”) and the “Xinggang tiao 行罡調” (“Melody for Treading the Mainstay [of the Big Dipper]”) accompanies the performance of the dance. It should be underlined, again, that the Big Dipper is a common metaphor for the womb and its gestational functions. 5

The Secret Revealed

The central episode in the Nainiang zhuan projects the goddess’s body along multiple semantic registers.25 The Lady of Linshui “releases her embryo” (tuotaiwan) to complete a rain ritual, during which she “treads the mainstay” (xinggang) to activate the asterism. She does so by dancing on the stars of the

23 They contain, for example, incantations intended for the Lord of Thunder (Leigong zhou 雷公咒), the Lord of Lightning (Leiting zhou 雷霆咒), the Perfected Warrior (Zhenwu zhou 真武咒), the Heavenly Kings (Tianwang zhou 天王咒) or the Mother (Nainiang zhou 奶娘咒). There are also incantations for “pacifications and spreading joy” (anle xing zhou 安樂行咒), “secret formulas for seizing the hun and po souls” (shouhun anpo jue 收 魂安魄訣), the Heart Sutra (Xinjing 心經), and so on; see Ye and Wu, Nainiang zhuan, 1997, 37. 24 See Poul Andersen, “The practice of Bugang,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 5, 1989–90. 25 Nainiang zhuan (book 3, sequence 5) 157–161.

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constellation on a mat floating on the river Min 閩.26 Chen Jinggu knows that she cannot perform the strenuous ritual while pregnant; her master has advised her against it. Yet she cannot renounce the power that comes with being a shaman, and so in order to preserve it, she deliberately gives up her child by removing it from her womb. Her resolve is also strengthened by her desire to assist her “cousin” Chen Erlang 陳二郎, an ordained Zhengyi 正一 or Orthodox Unity priest who has been threatened with death if unable to provoke rain showers: “Enough empty words!” she tells him. “I will release my embryo and perform the rain ritual in your place.”27 This, she specifies, is an act of grace (gan’en 感恩) to benefit the kingdom and its people. The play recounts Chen Jinggu’s “release of the embryo” (tuotaiwan) an event that takes place at the home of her mother-in-law (popo 婆婆), in a site that she describes as a ritual area (tanjie 壇界). In order to create this sacred space, she first transforms the old woman into Guanyin and her home into Putuoshan, all the while intoning the air of the “Wangshi tiao” (“Melody of the Master of Exorcism”). The room in which the embryo is removed metamorphoses into an eight trigrams diagram, or mandala (bagua tu 八卦圖), and the entire house finally takes the appearance of a lotus-covered lake, symbols of mystical birth in Buddhism. Once this universe is created, Chen Jinggu sings the “Xinggang tiao” (“Melody for Treading the [Mainstay of the] Big Dipper”) and releases her embryo, reciting a formula to hasten delivery (cuisheng 催生): I beseech the ancestral master [Wangmu niang, master of Lüshan], hasten my delivery! Masters of Lüshan, hasten my delivery! Divine generals of the Six Jia, hasten my delivery! Divine Kings of the Six Ding, hasten my delivery! I expel the blade that draws blood!28 The veins that unite mother and child are in perfect symbiosis. I safely release the embryo without trouble. The unicorn responds to my request; it will offer an appropriate child.29

26 27 28 29

Nainiang zhuan (book 4, sequence 1) 165–171; this takes place on the river in Wulong 烏龍 just outside of Fuzhou. 閒話少說, 脫胎,替你祈雨; ibid., 150. A curse that causes haemorrhages in pregnant women. Nainiang zhuan, 158; the qilin 麒麟 is a mythical animal with a single horn. Its appearance, announcing a birth, is considered auspicious. This legendary creature sits at the head of the Bridge of a Hundred Flowers. It is represented in all temples devoted to Chen Jinggu; see Fig. 6.9 below.

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Baptandier 奉請祖師，師娘催吾胎，閭山師父催吾胎，六甲神將催吾胎，六丁神 將催吾胎，流霞血刃吾遣去，血脈調和母子全，安全脫胎無掛礙， 麒 麟獻瑞子藩璋。

The sacred space described in this passage – a veritable mandala – has the child at its centre. Of capital ritual importance, the baby, referred to as “a thousand ounces of gold” (qian jin 千斤), is deposited into a bassinet, which then transforms into a golden bell (jin zhong 金鐘) surrounded by the five dragons of the five directions. The symbiosis between mother and child must still be preserved: the time of the actual birth has not yet come. We may also discern in this double maternal image – that of the mother-in-law and her daughter-inlaw, an expecting mother – the fact that women weave the generations that make up their collective tapestry in order to “increase the descendance” (guangsi 廣嗣). The space created in Chen Jinggu’s house and entrusted to the care of her mother-in-law is the transformation of her pregnant body, reinscribed in a mantic universe. The locus of the birth is framed by the spatiotemporal markers of the earthly branches (dizhi 地支) and celestial stems (tiangan 天干).30 In many ways, this is evocative of the divinatory birth chart (chantu 產圖). Configured according to hemerological principles, and in relation to the month of delivery, such charts revealed precisely where the birth was to take place. Charlotte Furth describes them as follows: Twelve monthly graphs identified the auspicious and inauspicious directions, including the month-by-month position of the thirteen malevolent sky spirits (shisan shashen 十三殺神). The chart specific to the month of birth itself, guides the placement of couch, curtains and even the door of the room where a woman lies for labor and delivery, while the auspicious event of the burial of the placenta should be oriented in the opposite and complementary direction. In addition, a woman’s personal calendar, determined by the time of her own birth, would identify further highly inauspicious days of unfavorable months when she should take special care to observe every precaution. Using these calculations she was urged to make sure that the sight of her laboring orifices not offend the spirit 30

More pointedly, by counting on the joints of her fingers, Chen Jinggu transformed the room into a diagram representing the eight trigrams (bagua 八卦). The hand constitutes a diagram in and of itself, where the earthly branches and heavenly stems are represented. This variety of palmistry is typically employed in astrology to compute horoscopes or astral time.

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Figure 6.1 Chart displaying auspicious positions and other directions for a birth occurring during the first (above) and second (below) lunar months. From the Weishengjia bao chanke beiyao 衛生家寶 產科備要 (Essentials on Childbirth Preparedness from the Treasury of the House of Good Health).

world, and that the blood, feces and urine evacuated during postpartum recovery not defile the ground. 31 Thus, through the temporal and spatial markers, the mother comes to inhabit the universe whose deities, divinised forms of those same temporal and spatial markers, offer protection. In the Nainiang zhuan, this sequence is followed by a ritual unveiling by way of words, which verbally divulges the secret of the mantic technique.32 It 31 32

Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History 960–1665 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 108–109. “Putting her trust in a young child, she revealed her secret” 信嫩仔脫口失密; Nainiang zhuan (book 3, sequence 5), 158–161.

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reveals the mandala set up by Chen Jinggu as a substitute for herself in order to conceal the child that must now be born outside of her body. Yet the safeguards are only operational as long as silence is maintained. Zhangkeng Gui, the demon of the Long Crevasse, acting as the breaker of silence, gradually breaks the spell of the mandala, the divinatory mantic chart, and manages to extract words from the old woman who had been put in charge of guarding the embryo. Once brought to words, the old woman starts naming things that she herself, “a blind bat” (laoren jia mu hua le 老人家目花了) as the demon calls her, does not see. By naming them, she reveals that they are not as they seem and reveals the vain illusions of mantic prestige. The demon is thus able to introduce himself into the body of Chen Jinggu, through the virtual Putuoshan and the magical eight trigrams, until he reaches her uterus – the golden bell – where he steals away the child, “a thousand ounces of gold.” The role of Zhangkeng Gui is thus to indirectly produce names, or rather to make possible the production of language. This constitutes the mirror image of the tuotai, a reversal that plays on the connection between the terms tuotaiwan (“releasing the embryo”) and tuokou shimi 脫口失密 (literally “releasing,” or “revealing the secret”). The production of language marks the back and forth of transformation. Yet, even if the enunciation of words constitutes the core of the ritual, it alone cannot complete the act of denotation undertaken by naming. It does not make the birth come true. Quite to the contrary, at the moment when the old woman names each element of the magical stratagem, the truth is revealed and Chen Jinggu suffers a haemorrhage (beng 崩). The auspicious rain falls as she loses a large amount of blood, staining her shamanic dress with a deep red colour. This is the same red robe that the fashi of the Lüshan lineage wear during the ritual. The shaman and mother, Chen Jinggu, does not survive the ordeal, and she eventually drowns in the waters of the river. In the Nainiang zhuan, Wangmu niang, a Lüshan master in this version of the myth, allows the deceased mother-to-be to “recall her souls” (huanhun pai 還魂牌). This is achieved by means of a “numinous talisman to settle spirits” (dingxin lingfu 定心靈符) and an incantation, which Chen Jinggu, curiously, recites by herself according to Wangmu’s instructions. She intones as follows: “Alas my three hun souls, lost in the water, from whence shall they return? My seven po souls, scattered in this vast aquatic expanse!”33 Wangmu then instructs her how to “give birth” (sheng 生), shifting away from the metaphorical register of “releasing the embryo” to one that is informed by a literal understanding of reality. The instructions consist of placing a “numinous talisman to accelerate delivery” (cuisheng lingfu 催生靈符), not in a 33

三魂渺渺, 七魄茫茫, 三魂渺渺歸何處, 七魄茫茫散四方; see Nainiang zhuan, 168.

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virtual sacred space, but inside of her, in her vagina (renmen 人門). Chen Jinggu subsequently gives birth by ordering her child to emerge: “Whether you are a girl or a boy, you must join this world … one does not prevent a spring orchid from blooming.”34 But the child is premature; it has only completed seven months of gestation … will it survive? Yes it will, confirms Wangmu, as girls are viable from eight months (a Yin number) and boys, from seven (a Yang number) – and Chen Jinggu’s child is a boy. Her mother-in-law and Taoist cousin choose a name for the baby: he will be called Wang Cong 王聰 – Cong meaning “one who hears well,” a name that evokes that of Guanshiyin pusa 觀世音菩薩, or Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva “who observes the sounds of the world.”35 This last sequence in the tragic delivery vividly illustrates how a child, through its birth, reveals to both parents the horizon of its own death.36 The bestowal of a name records the loss of the umbilical bond, acting as a scar on the wound left by the rupture. It functions as a cleavage, prohibiting the return to a lost “paradise,” represented here by Putuoshan, and preventing an escape from the new symbolic world into which the child is introduced. If the name is not given, this first corporeal loss (that of the umbilical bond) reduces the child to no more than its pure physical reality. This is what happens when Zhangkeng Gui steals away the child.37 Giving the child a name puts it in relation to others, assigning it a position in society, in its community, in a genealogy, and at the heart of the symbolic systems that are inherent to these. This is apparent in the Nainiang zhuan when the reunited family proclaims that, despite the death of the mother, all is well.38 Although the tragedy that befalls Chen Jinggu is fatal, she is nonetheless divinised by the ruler of the underworld, Yanluo Wang 閻羅王. This is the outcome of an elaborate hearing in which her premature death is explained as a consequence of her deficient filial piety and her lacklustre observance of her ritual master’s prescriptions.39 She is found guilty of infringing the patrilineal laws of her society and, a greater fault perhaps, of apprehension towards 34

35 36 37

38 39

是男是女該出世,勿作春蘭花不開. Nainiang zhuan, 169; this sentence is spoken during the song “Qingshui ling 清水令” ( “Pure Water Commandment”). The orchid symbolises birth. Nainiang zhuan (book 4, sequence 1) 167–171. See Michèle Montrelay “À propos de l’amatride,” in Invention du féminin, Liliane Gherchanoc, ed. (Paris: Éditions Campagne Première, 2006), 47–48. On the topic of umbilical castration and the role of the name see Montrelay 2006, 45–48; Françoise Dolto, L’image inconsciente du corps (Paris : Éditions du Seuil, 1984); and Denis Vasse, L’ombilic et la voix (Paris : éditions du Seuil, 1974). Nainiang zhuan, 170. Nainiang zhuan (book 3, sequence 6), 161–164.

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maternity – an apprehension expressed by her refusal to learn its secrets. Yanluo Wang gives her ten years to carry out the two foundational exorcisms of her cult, namely, against Zhangkeng Gui and the Southern Snake. Chen Jinggu completes them and erects her temple atop the latter’s lair, in the so-called Village of the White Serpent. The temple is known as Linshui Palace (Linshui gong 臨水宮), or the “Palace on the Waterfront.” She presides over it as a numinous, canonised, deceased hero (yingling 英靈), celebrated under the titles of Sagely Mother (Shengmu 聖母), Empress (Huanghou 皇后), or Heroine Deity (Yingxiong shen 英雄神). In the Linshui pingyao zhuan, Chen Jinggu is granted a post-mortem destiny of a different kind. Although she effectively dies, “her souls do not disperse” and she remains “as if alive.”40 Her body is thereupon mummified and installed on her altar, processed for divinisation. It is thanks to her souls, this active “residue of life,” that she “refuses to forget” the circumstance of her death and that she persists in saving those in need.41 This includes her newborn child, for whom she accomplishes another ritual for recalling souls, the liandu 煉度, on the Bridge of a Hundred Flowers, so that he may live and “ensure his posterity.”42 Here as well, he is called Cong. After her death, Chen Jinggu is assisted by her ritual sister, Lin Jiuniang 林九 娘, who “causes births” or “breaks the womb” (potai 破胎), in eradicating Zhangkeng Gui and acquiring the Bridge of a Hundred Flowers, her sacred dominion. Just as Chen Jinggu embodies the maternal (through a drop of Guanyin’s blood), the snake demon represents sexual passion (the strand of Guanyin’s hair).43 In her temple, the goddess is said to sit atop the snake demon that she killed after her own death. 40 41

42

43

陳夫人雖死，尸解在龍王廟，甚是英靈，其心不昧， 如生前一般; Linshui pingyao zhuan, 16.108. Chen Jinggu “made a vow and, with heaven as her witness, she said, ‘Today I died in childbirth; I could not save myself. I swear to protect without fail every pregnant woman and every embryo in distress, to come to the assistance of children who are victims of a ‘demon of the passes’”: 今日自遭產死，不能自救， 情願與凡間或胎前產後難 症， 及祈求子息，幼產關煞，不論路之遠進，即是風天雨夜，有呼必應; Lin­ shui pingyao zhuan, 16.108. For a study of the liandu rite, see Judith Boltz, “Opening the Gates of Purgatory: A TwelfthCentury Taoist Meditation Technique for the Salvation of Lost Souls,” in Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R.A. Stein, Michel Strickmann, ed. (Brussels: Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1983); cf. Baptandier 2008b, 57, 87, 277 n. 35, 241, and especially, with respect to Boltz’ work, 495. This is evocative of certain avatars of Guanyin that are tied to similar themes: the wife of Mister Ma (Malang fu 馬郎婦) or Fish Basket Guanyin (Yulan Guanyin 魚藍觀音) are

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Ritual Sequences from Nainiang zhuan

These individual episodes, which constitute the core of the Nainiang zhuan performance, are punctuated by a number of ritual sequences that enjoy particular currency in local contexts. For instance, we have noted that Chen Jinggu performs two rituals for recalling souls, the huanhun pai and the liandu. Two other rituals deserve our attention as well, namely the gaiyun 改運, or “correction of fortune,” and the solicitation of the oracle. In the Nainiang zhuan, the Lüshan master of exorcism, Xu Jiulang, intervenes: he attempts to convince Yanluo Wang, the ruler of the underworld, to amend the fate of Chen Jinggu, who died of a haemorrhage during childbirth. A type of bargaining ensues, effectively setting the rhythm of the gaiyun ritual for the “correction of fortune.” Yanluo Wang insists on docking ten years from Chen Jinggu’s lifespan for having disobeyed her master’s exhortations to learn the arts of maternity, and another ten years for lack of filial piety in having failed to successfully deliver her child.44 In her defence, Jiulang underlines that Chen Jinggu, who is her own Taoist disciple born from a drop of Guanyin’s blood, would be of great service alive as she could contribute to eradicating the legions of demons that plague the world. Despite these pleas for clemency, the judgment echoes loudly: guilty. Nonetheless, Yanluo Wang is swayed by the gaiyun ritual and accords her leniency. Only ten years of life are to be docked instead of twenty. Moreover, he concedes to divinise her, but she must still die. During the remaining ten years that she has to live, she must fulfil her duties as a shaman-exorcist: “Will this do?” the king of the underworld asks rhetorically.45 As a woman who rejected motherhood, she finds herself inexorably entangled in her net of successive generations, compelled to play out the maternal roles of a divine protector of children and tutelary goddess of delivery. At another stage in the narrative, Chen Jinggu requests her mother-in-law to ask Wangmu niang about childbirth on her behalf. An indirect dialogue thus develops between Chen Jinggu and Wangmu niang, with her mother- in-law as a mediumistic intermediary. After having “said too much” in the aforementioned ritual revelation through words, her mother-in-law is now a mouthpiece for her daughter-in-law.46 During this exchange, Wangmu inquires

44 45 46

seductive incarnations of the bodhisattva that aim to the extinction of all desire, Nirvāṇa. 失 敬聖賢之罪, 減壽十年。忤逆爹娘不孝之罪,減壽十年; Nainiang zhuan, 162. 為陳靖姑榮十年，封為神道,可以嗎? Nainiang zhuan, 163. Nainiang zhuan (book 4, sequence 1), 165–171.

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if Chen Jinggu knows who killed her and who saved her. Intoning the “Qianhang 前航” (“Dharma Boat”) melody, the goddess answers: I noticed a violent wind that blew over my head. I felt a pain in my joints, and my head started spinning. All I could hear was the mud and sand spreading under my feet. The bleeding was such that it knocked me out. If you, master, had not come to save me, I would have lost consciousness and my life would not have been spared.47 只見狂風頭上吹 ,骨節疼痛頭腦暈，只聽泥砂腳下撤，血山崩倒不可 堂。若非師娘來搭救,精想性命難活成。

As with the Cuna counterpart, one of the principal aims of this ritual is to identify by name those responsible for the death and rescue that Chen Jinggu describes so vividly. She died because she failed to complete her exorcistic duties and had overstepped her boundaries. This is why the murderous demon was able to catch her. Thereupon, in a quasi-mediumistic séance, Wangmu niang reveals to Chen Jinggu the identity of her killer, Zhangkeng Gui, the breaker of silence. She also reveals the identity of her saviour, the god of the river Hebo 河伯, or the lord of waters Shuiguan 水官, in the heavenly bureaucracy to which she now belongs.48 In this way, by being able to name her assailant and her saviour, Chen Jinggu reappropriates her own destiny. Finally, as in all rituals of the Lüshan lineage, there remains the matter of promoting or demoting gods: for having saved the Kingdom of Min from drought, Chen Jinggu receives from the king the title Lady of Universal Salvation (Puji furen 普濟夫人), a moniker also associated with Guanyin. As is customary, her entire family is also promoted. 7

Furen Guoguan, The Lady Crosses the Passes: A Ritual Painting

The ritual painting known as Furen guoguan 夫人過關, or The Lady Crosses the Passes, depicts all of the aforementioned elements of Chen Jinggu’s myth in one image: the birth, the Bridge of a Hundred Flowers, her capture of 47 48

Nainiang zhuan, 169. Chen Jinggu joins the Heavenly Board of Healing (Tianyi yuan 天醫院). She also undertakes the divine functions of the The Lady Who Hastens Births (Cuisheng niangniang 催生娘娘).

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Zhangkeng Gui, the rain ritual and her rescue from drowning. We may also note that two “generations” are represented by two strata in the rendered pantheon. Wangmu niang and two of her assistants tower at the top of the depiction. Chen Jinggu and her two sisters, Li Sanniang 李三娘 and Lin Jiuniang, known collectively as the Three Ladies (Sannai 三奶), are pictured directly underneath.49 The painting is displayed in the ritual area when the fashi accomplishes the rite for “crossing the passes” (guoguan 過關) for the benefit of a specific child. It is a rite of rebirth enacted through a shamanic voyage that takes the child and the accompanying fashi through a cosmic landscape and across the Big Dipper. Arriving at the destination, they meet with the goddess, who returns the child’s dispersed souls.50 The song of the ten moons of gestation is notably sung during the rite, unequivocally describing the (re)birth. Furthermore, the song exhorts the child to steer clear of inauspicious destinies by not falling prey to the call of its previous lives or to seemingly attractive reincarnations in the wombs of other women. The child must remain in its patriline, where its destiny is fixed. In sum, this rebirth takes the child on a journey to the confines of the universe, to the limits of human existence, and back. At the top of the picture, below the two-tiered feminine pantheon presided by Wangmu niang and the Three Ladies (Sannai), the child can be seen passing through the arch of the golden bell before two other Ladies receive it in the delivery basin (xitong 喜桶). Another pair of Ladies watch over in the background – one, most likely Zhusheng niangniang, holding a register and a brush, and the other, a scroll. In the meantime, Lin Jiuniang, master of the Nine Palaces (jiugong 九宮) and the eight trigrams (bagua), awaits on the Bridge of a Hundred Flowers, where she will capture Zhangkeng Gui. In order to do so, she uses long strands of her hair, which make up the celestial net (tiangang 天網) from which nothing can escape. This particular sequence of the foundational myth represented in the ritual painting has been analysed elsewhere, so it should not detain us here. The scene also includes thirty-six figures, the Thirty-Six Consorts (Sanshiliu pojie 三十六婆姐) who assist in the birth

49 50

See footnote 7 above. See Baptandier 1996b, 135; and Baptandier 2008b, 222–241. The Big Dipper oversees human destiny. This ritual consists of having the child experience a symbolic rebirth by going through the constellation. As a result, it obtains a new destiny. In this particular ritual context, Chen Jinggu, the shaman of Lüshan, initiates the rebirth by activating the Big Dipper. The officiating fashi acts in her name.

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Figure 6.2 Furen guoguan tu 夫人過關圖 (The Lady Crosses the Passes), Mount Lü ritual painting. Museum für Völkerkunde, Munich.

or hold children in their arms. These are considered to be the gods of ges­tation.51 At the bottom of the painting, Chen Jinggu, fulfilling her role as a Lüshan lineage shaman, performs on a ritual mat a rite for conjuring rain. After her 51

Berthier (Baptandier) 1988, 131–136; and Baptandier 2008b, 97–104. Thirty-six is a number of symbolic significance for this group; the Thirty-Six Consorts correspond to the thirtysix stars that surround the Big Dipper and are responsible for activating the cosmic matrix. This structure echoes that of the eight trigrams diagram (bagua tu 八卦圖) in relation to the cyclical signs of the stems and branches; see Baptandier 2008b, 131.

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Figure 6.3 Furen guoguan tu 夫人過關圖 (The Lady Crosses the Passes), detail (a). Museum für Völkerkunde, Munich.

Figure 6.4 Furen guoguan tu 夫人過關圖 (The Lady Crosses the Passes), detail (b). Museum für Völkerkunde, Munich.

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“release of the embryo” (tuotaiwan) she is saved by Hebo, the god of the river, who dispatches three canes to hoist the ritual mat out of the waters of the Min River. It is on that mat that the Lady of Linshui dances along the stars of the Big Dipper, the symbol of the universal womb. The shaman is in full ritual garb, bearing magical weapons and accoutrements, flanked by the celestial soldiers of the “five camps” (wuying 五營), the five directions of space. The White Snake also appears in the bottom left-hand corner of the image. Chen Erlang, the Taoist cousin, holds a baby that has “crossed the passes” in lower part of the picture. 8

The Thirty-Six Consorts, Acolytes of Chen Jinggu

The Thirty-Six Consorts encountered in the ritual painting play a determining role in the cult of Chen Jinggu. They can also be seen in temples to the goddess of maternity, where they appear as nursemaids, holding or surrounded by children. When Chen Jinggu dies and is entrusted with overseeing the Bridge of a Hundred Flowers, the Thirty-Six Consorts assist her in this duty. It is on that occasion that the goddess vows to infallibly assist all children or women that invoke her; consequently, the Consorts become nursemaids, midwives, and “suppliers” of children, all at the same time. This last aspect of their function is revealed in the temple rituals that adherents undertake, relied upon to “transform life” (huasheng 化生) or “precipitate birth” (cuisheng). In the Chen Jinggu myth, these figures were formerly the King of Min’s consorts before being devoured by the White Snake. Their remains, nothing more than a heap of bleached bones, were reanimated by the goddess, who then made them her ritual disciples. As a result, they enjoy divine stations (wei 位) as regulatory entities in charge of “grafting flowers,”52 so as to render women capable of conception. Furthermore, they guide the embryo through the ten months of 52

See Baptandier 2006, 181: “There exists in Chinese myths the notion of a communal ‘maternal matter’ that still surfaces in certain rituals today, notably in Fujian province. Children can be produced from it, as one would produce a plant from a cutting. This is the basis for the ritual of ‘growing flowers’ zaihua [栽花]. Resembling gardening more than it does a religious practice, this ritual contravenes canonical order in proposing that sterile women can graft the ‘maternal matter’ from a fertile woman in order to make children. In this manner, a woman may ‘borrow’ a ‘flower bud,’ that is to say an embryo, from the heavenly ‘Flower’ of another woman in order to give birth to it and see it ‘blossom.’”; see also Baptandier 2008b, 183–195 and 222–241.

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Figure 6.5 Consorts with children. From Linshui Temple (Linshui gong 臨水宮) in Daqiao大橋 Gutian 古田 County, Fujian 福建. Photograph by A. Sounier.

gestation and assist it in crossing the “bridge” of delivery (duqiao 渡橋; guoqiao 過橋). This ritual role of the so-called Consort Officials (Pojie guan 婆姐官), who were tied to actual jurisdictions in the Kingdom of Min, superimposes a number of topographical planes. Firstly, there is the local topography, corresponding to present-day Fujian; Chen Jinggu travels the territory to “pacify its demons” (pingyao 平妖). Secondly, we may also cite the topography of women’s bodies. And finally, tied to the previous two, there is the symbolic topography, with its paradises and hells (including the Bridge of a Hundred Flowers, where all souls come to reincarnate) that the Consorts oversee. This overlap of body, geography, and cosmos through the symbolic dimension reiterates the classical notion of the body as a kingdom that is to be governed.53 In temples, the Consorts are the considered Chen Jinggu’s closest aides. After directly expressing their requests to the latter, adepts immediately turn to the Consorts in a ritual that cements their appeals. They fulfil numerous roles, among which is overseeing the reincarnation of souls. They also assist women in conceiving, a duty that is reflected in the title Lady of Birth Registers 53

Catherine Despeux, “Le corps, champ spatio-temporel, souche d’identité,” L’homme 137 (1996): 96.

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(Zhusheng niangniang): in this process, the Consorts ensure that the transmigration through “the gate of life” successfully takes place. In this respect, they take on an almost agrarian function of spreading the seeds and sowing them (fentai 分胎; fen 分 here being a technical word that is used for dibble planting rice). Once the amalgam of seedling souls is organised into an embryo, the Consorts watch over it until its delivery. But they must first “settle the embryo” until about five months, as this initial period is considered particularly precarious. Prior to the settling, they can also change the gender of the unborn child if the parents so desire it. Finally, on the one hand, they protect the embryo from harm during the most tenuous moments of gestation when the balance of Yin and Yang energies between mother and child requires most attention, and on the other, they also guard both mother and child from potential external threats. Once the embryo has reached maturity, they intervene during its delivery as well in order to avoid the Lake of Blood (Xuehu 血湖).54 Once the child is born, they take it under their care as well, carrying it in their arms, bathing it, and teaching it to laugh,55 speak, eat, sit, and walk. Additionally, the Consorts heal or otherwise protect children from illness, shielding them from the curses or influence of wandering ghosts. Generally speaking, in temples, the Thirty-Six Consorts are represented as in the figure 5, above. Their extended responsibilities include overseeing infants and toddlers into and throughout their childhood, defending them, for instance, from the “demonic qi of passes” (guansha 關煞) – just as the thirty-six stars surrounding the Big Dipper combat the “earthly demonic qi” (disha 地煞). They can be invoked collectively but also individually, in which case the solicited Consort 54

55

Women are generally thought to suffer this fate after passing away, especially those who die in labour. Nonetheless, they can be spared by specific redemption rituals; on this topic, see Anna Seidel, “Descente aux enfers et rédemption des femmes dans le bouddhisme populaire japonais. Le pèlerinage du mont Tateyama,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 9 (1996): 11; see also Gary Seaman, “The Sexual Politics of Karmic Retribution,” in The Anthropology of Chinese Society of Taiwan, Emily Ahern and Hill Gates, eds. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981). According to the Liji 禮記 (Book of Rites), transl. Couvreur 1950, 1.665–72, acquiring the capacity to smile or laugh is a pivotal step in a child’s development; in Marcel Granet, “Le dépôt de l’enfant sur le sol,” in ibid., Études sociologiques sur la Chine (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953), 185, the famed sinologist explains that during the third month, after the period in which the mother and baby are ritually secluded from the rest of the family, the father takes his child in his arms and makes it laugh, thereby insufflating his own soul into it; see Baptandier 2008b, 199–200. In the present day, the father must cause his child to laugh upon giving it its name during a ceremony at the end of the first “full month” (manyue 滿月). Similarly, in the “crossing the passes” rite, when the child crosses the Big Dipper and encounters Chen Jinggu, she restores its souls in a burst of laughter; see Baptandier 1996b, 135.

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will be selected in accordance with hemerological conventions and the birth characters (bazi 八字) of the child. As a rule, different childhood ages correspond to different Consorts, but, as time deities, they are associated with different temporal scales. For instance, each third of a month has its own presiding Consort, but through astrological computation it may be determined which of them is responsible for the child’s destiny at any given instant. These calculations are usually undertaken with a great deal of care: although chiefly benevolent, the deities can be very pernicious to the child if improperly summoned or called upon for the wrong reasons. What’s more, such reversals in valence can sometimes occur spontaneously. Collectively known under the name Consorts’ pass (pojie guan 婆姐關, one of the so-called “knotted passes” [jieguan 結關]), these types of unforeseeable fluctuations are rectified by means of the “correction of fortune” (gaiyun) ritual. In more symbolic terms, the Thirty-Six Consorts are, much like Chen Jinggu herself, the hostages of patriarchy, divine tesseras embodying a submissive earthly femininity but perennially poised to resurface under their untamed sexual aspects, if not properly handled. 9

The Talisman of the Eight Trigrams for Pacifying the Womb and the Dipper Ritual for the Correction of Fortune

In the hagiographic sequence describing the rain ritual and Chen Jinggu’s tuotai, the diagram or mandala of the eight trigrams (bagua tu), once activated by the Big Dipper, becomes a symbolic representation of the womb. It is otherwise termed the “Palace of Long Life” (Changsheng Gong 長生宮) or, more succinctly, the “granary” (ku 庫). Women supposedly have the diagram of the eight trigrams imprinted inside their wombs. This specific design is called “womb armour” (taijia 胎甲). It is used to precipitate delivery (cuisheng), to “pacify the womb” (antai 安胎), or to protect embryos, as is the case with the talisman reproduced below. Upon closer inspection, this image, one that fashi still use today, reproduces the structure of the The Lady Crosses the Passes painting: the three stars of the Santai 三台 constellation crown the composition, as do Wangmu and her two assistants in the ritual picture. The stars of the Big Dipper, represented here by the term “terrace” (tai 台), are flanked by the sun (ri 日) to the right and the moon (yue 月) to the left. Below, the name Jinggu 靖姑 is inscribed, along with a seal impression containing the breath of the fashi. He utters a formula (zhou 咒) that animates the entire image, which represents none other than the Pole Star, the Great One, the Sovereign of Heaven, the product of the union of Yin and Yang. The terms liuding 六丁 and liujia 六甲, which initiate the flow of

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Figure 6.6 Eight trigrams talisman for pacifying the womb (bagua antai lingfu 八卦安 胎靈符) from the ritual corpus of Ma Shouzhong 馬守中, fashi of the Lüshan lineage in Daqiao. Gutian County, Fujian. From the author’s collection.

time, appear on either side of a schematic portrait of Chen Jinggu. Her stylised arms cradle the five points of space. The mandala of the eight trigrams serves as her body, in the middle of which the characters for “womb armour” (taijia) and “long life” (changsheng 長生) are discernible. The terms bachang 八猖 and bakuang 八狂 figure on each side. Both can be rendered as the “Eight Furies” and refer here to the spirit envoys of the eight trigrams. At the very bottom, the esoteric name of the Big Dipper, “Gang” 罡, activates the talisman. In another “correction of fortune” (gaiyun) ritual also addressed to the Big Dipper, adepts enter the same mandala of the eight trigrams. They do so by stepping on seven tiles, representing the asterism, until they reach the centre of the diagram, which is marked with the characters taiji 太極, the Great Ultimate, the One and the Origin.56 After this abridged “pacing of the stars” (bugang 步罡), the adept, assisted by the medium (here, an elderly woman) in traversing the seven stars of the Big Dipper, eventually takes place at the centre of the womb-like eight trigrams mandala, just as an embryo during gestation. At this time, the fashi, also located in the mandala, exorcises the adept’s ill fate; together with the adept, he undertakes a voyage to the celestial realms and 56

See Brigitte Baptandier, “Le tableau talismanique de l’Empereur de Jade : construction d’un objet d’écriture,” L’Homme 129.1 (1994); the tradition of the Lüshan lineage preserves an exorcistic and therapeutic Big Dipper ritual derived from that of the Orthodox Way of the Celestial Heart (Tianxin zhengfa 天心正法) school of Taoism, in which patients step into a mandala of trigrams in order to transform their destinies, as through a rebirth.

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6.7

6.8 Figure 6.7–6.8 In the first image (left), the adept, accompanied by a female medium, treads on seven sheets of paper representing the stars of the Big Dipper as he enters the eight trigrams mandala, delineated by a yellow border. In the following picture (right), the fashi (identified by his read headdress) and his acolyte place the adept in the centre of the eight trigrams, atop of the characters for Taiji 太極, the Great Ultimate, inscribed on the ground. Photographs taken by the author at the Linshuima miao 臨水媽廟 in Tainan 台南 (1980).

thereby initiates the rebirth. After executing what is in effect a shamanic journey through the cosmic womb, adepts return to their daily lives. Yet their fate is adjusted, their fortune inscribed in divine registers, as was that of Chen Jinggu in Yanluo Wang’s ledger. Much like the ritual performed to rescue Chen Jinggu’s child in the Linshui pingyao zhuan, this ritual is considered to be of the liandu variety for pacifying and saving souls. 10

Conclusion

10.1 On Symbolic Efficacy Turning our attention to the mechanism of symbolic efficacy in this liturgical and theatrical performance, we may compare the metamorphoses of the fashi to those of the Cuna shaman, as Carlo Severi describes them.57 Both the rendi57

Carlo Severi, Le principe de la chimère. Une anthropologie de la mémoire (Paris: Aesthetica, Éditions rue d’Ulm, Presses de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, 2007).

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tion of the play and the uttering of shamanic songs generate “chimeric creatures.”58 Chen Jinggu transforms her body by inscribing it into multiple semantic virtual landscapes: the golden bell/womb is located in the trigram/ room of the Putuoshan/house, the paradise of the mother-in-law/Guanyin, which is in turn covered by the lake of lotuses. Each component is inscribed within another, and the lake envelops them all, hiding the elements that make up the whole. At the end of the play, Chen Jinggu/the Southern Snake (or White Snake) presides in her Linshui Palace, built atop the reptiles’s den, which is also the constellation or the hair of the boddhisattva Guanyin, herself a double of the deity. Chen Jinggu, moreover, is at once the Lüshan lineage fashi who brings about rain, the mother who delivers her child, and the shaman who saves the mother in labour, that is, herself. Yet the intersecting narrative arcs of the play create a number of paradoxes with respect to the chronological order of events: this is notably the case with the ritual for recalling souls, performed by Chen Jinggu for herself, despite having drowned and lost her souls the previous instant. Severi’s analysis proves insightful with respect to our material: “This first, resolutely elementary model of the process of constructing a complex enunciator represents neither an episodic detail nor an exception. Quite the opposite, this manner of ‘duplicating the presence’ of the incanting officiant through the appearance of a chronological paradox in the image that the chant projects merely illustrates one of the most direct ways of defining a plural complex and ritual utterance in shamanic literature.”59 Indeed, like the Cuna shaman, the fashi often describe themselves by chanting about how they are chanting the performance of such and such ritual action. An incongruous, habitually impossible situation arises in which, as Severi explains, “an individual is speaking about an individual who is speaking.”60 According to the Italian anthropologist, symbolic efficacy relies upon this very process: “We should not forget an essential detail: it is precisely at the moment when this description of the enunciator’s position takes place that ‘the particular mode of communication’ specific to the ritual chant intervenes. Once this part of the incantation is correctly uttered, the supernatural voyage may begin. Only then will the incantation become an efficacious thera58

59 60

Severi 2007, back cover, points out that “there exists a chimeric mode of representation through which non-Western memory arts invent themselves. Not in the slightest imitative, these ‘mnemonic supports’ solicit the gaze in an invitation to decryption. They are the visual proof of a series of mental exercises condensed in efficacious imagery, both intense and fragmentary at the same time.” Severi 2007, 215–216; see also Michael Houseman and Carlo Severi, Naven or the Other Self: A Relational Approach to Ritual Action (Leiden: Brill., 1998). Severi 2007, 215.

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peutic instrument.”61 In the same way, the numerous ritual actions undertaken in the theatrical enactment of Chen Jinggu’s myth – against various backdrops (the house, the river) and at different ritual times (recalling of the souls, postmortem actions) – buttress each other thanks to a choice of language that renders them performative. The Nainiang zhuan endeavours to multiply its registers through its choice of language as much as through its selection of accompanying melodies. As a fashi from Gutian County, Fujian, recently insisted, “Chen Jinggu’s play is the sum of all the rituals she is capable of accomplishing as a ritual master of the Lüshan lineage. It is impossible to attempt its performance if one wishes to bypass all the rites that are contained in it.”62 In other words, the entire theatrical rendition is considered an efficacious ritual. If that is the case, are spectators witnessing actors/fashi (or even puppets) that are playing the roles of Chen Jinggu, Wangmu, Xu Jiulang, and other divine characters performing rituals? Or are they rather watching actor-shamans ritually becoming gods, channelling them in such a way that it is no longer possible to distinguish one from the other on stage? For the aforementioned fashi from Gutian, the answer is unequivocal: clearly, the latter scenario is the accurate one. The actor who plays Chen Jinggu definitely becomes Chen Jinggu. Succinctly put, the fashi embodies another fashi, that is, Chen Jinggu, who intones chants describing the rituals she accomplishes on stage. Indeed, the secret formula that all fashi recite upon donning their ritual robes confirms this position: I respectfully pray that Taishang Laojun rapidly obey my order and take possession of the king of the celestial demons, and that he prevent the starving demons from harming me. Celestial soldiers help on my right; the seven ferocious celestial generals are before me; the eight fierce gods 61

62

Ibid. In other words, the interpretation of subconscious inscription, a fundamental caracteristic of memory, according to Freud, takes place in “différance”; Jacques Derrida, “Freud et la scène de l’écriture,” in his L’écriture et la différence (Paris, éditions du Seuil, 1967), 293–340. This exchange took place in 1993, in Gutian. It occurred on the occasion of the performance of a version of the play entitled Chen furen tuotai 陳夫人脫胎 (Lady Chen Releases Her Embryo). The play was presented for the first time in a number of years, but it took place not in a local temple, but at the county theatre – a place deemed unfit by fashi. The particular fashi with whom I conversed, a ritual specialist of the Lüshan lineage, had been forbidden to perform the play for quite some time on account of anti-superstition proscriptions. A day that should have been a chance to rehabilitate and validate his ritual knowledge, as he informed me, turned out to be a source of anger and disappointment; see Baptandier 2008a, 114–115.

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Figure 6.9 The qilin 騏鱗, or “unicorn.” This mythical creature has the body of a fawn, the tail of an ox, the hoofs of a horse, and the head of a dragon, crowned by a single horn. His manifestation in the world forecasts the coming of a sage. The qilin lends its name to the “head” of the Bridge of a Hundred Flowers, whence children are born. From Linshui Temple (Linshui gong 臨水 宮) in Daqiao 大橋 Gutian 古田 County, Fujian 福建. Photograph by A. Sounier.

protect me from behind. I wear the shoes of the Lady on my feet; the divine Generals of the six ding help on my left with the six jia on my right. The crown on my head is the headdress of the Lady. I wear the clothing of the Lady on my body. I invite my immortal Master and the Venerable of Transformations to metamorphose my body. My body does not belong to the ordinary world. It transforms itself and becomes the body of the Lady.63 Just as in the Cuna ritual that Severi describes, the paradoxical figure of the fashi provokes questions that cannot be answered: Does he truly become Chen 63

This invocation was pronounced by fashi Ma Shouzhong 馬守中, Gutian County, Fujian, in 1991; see Baptandier 1996a, 141, n. 13.

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Jinggu? Any reply, affirmative or negative, implies a certain doubt and uncertainty: Is the fashi actually Chen Jinggu, or is he only a fashi saying that he is the goddess (who is a fashi herself)? However, as Severi sustains, “linguistic communication is ritualised when a particular mode of elaboration concerning the complex image of an enunciator is constructed in such a way that it unlocks the specific tension between doubt and ritual that defines the effect of ritual action.”64 This is undoubtedly the reason why, once the Bureau of Culture (Wenhua ju 文化局) took over the play and staged it at the local theatre instead of the temple, the fashi rejected it as counterfeit: it was certain beyond a doubt that the actor on stage could not be Chen Jinggu and that the play, consequently, was not a ritual. 10.2 The Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic As underlined in a number of chapters in this volume, for Taoists the term tuotai, literally “release of the embryo” or “deliverance of the embryo,” refers to the physiological askesis through which they produce an embryo of immortality, the quintessence of Yang and of themselves. They do not give birth to “another” but to the “same,” their own divine body. In this process, Taoist adepts rely on women and the life-giving properties of their bodies as their models for gestation, effectively impregnating themselves. The tuotai method is a meditation on the transformative (bianhua 變化; or huasheng) power of the maternal body. The adept is both mother and embryo, united through embryonic breath (taixi 胎息). The embryo gradually develops and is born during the “egress of the spirit” (chushen 出神) through the sinciput at the top of the head. Despite its rich sexual imagery, or precisely because of it, this method requires practitioners to forfeit their capacity for actual procreation. Each adept, whether male or female, strives to repress and eventually erase any sexual features. For women, tuotai entails the cessation of menses and the diminishing of breasts, while for men it involves the withering of the penis.65 Only the characteristics reflective of sublimated Yin remain, for it generates the purest variety of Yang. In Buddhism as well, adepts endeavour to develop the “sagely embryo” (shengtai 聖胎).66 Here, as in the Taoist tuotai and its counterpart in the Chen Jinggu cultic context, the ritual practice brings into

64 65

66

Severi 2007, 228. See Catherine Despeux, Pratique des femmes taoïstes. Méditation et alchimie intérieure (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 2013), 85; and her contribution to the present volume, “Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts.” See Catherine Despeux, “Symbolic Pregnancy,” in this volume.

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play the three fundamental aspects of the human experience: the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real.67 It is undeniable that by borrowing the expression tuotai and describing an exteriorisation of the embryo outside the maternal body, the myths of the Lady of Linshui exploit the ambiguity between maternity and parturition, on the one hand, and the development of one’s divine nature or the pursuit of transcendence, on the other: the two pursuits are incompatible – to such an extent that Chen Jinggu dies from it. The Chen Jinggu myths and their theatrical reenactments confirm, along with Taoist and Buddhist self-cultivation practices, that, as Liliane Gherchanoc argues, it is only in the aftermath of a phallic separation that takes place with the disentanglement of the maternal and the feminine that it is even possible to speak of the feminine. Truly, she adds, in the “indispensable emancipation from the hold of the maternal body, it is the feminine that remains most problematic to conceive of or to invent, for men and women alike.”68 In the cult of the Lady of Linshui, it is indeed the maternal that is promoted. The feminine, in reptilian guise, either as the Southern Snake or the White Snake (Guanyin’s hair), is sacrificed and “expurgated”69 in the exorcisms that Chen Jinggu accomplishes in order to obtain a reprieve from death. Another deity, Bixia Yuanjun 碧霞元君, the Princess of the Jasper Mist, is representative of this type of ambivalence that defines the relationship between maternity and femininity. Upon completing a strenuous regimen of self-cultivation, the goddess, in contrast to Chen Jinggu, manages to successfully achieve tuotai – only that here, the term refers to a “release from the womb” (in which she is the primary benefactor) instead of a “release of the embryo” (in which the embryo would be the primary benefactor). Liu Xun has notably described her parousia and has published some wonderful images depicting the process.70 Kenneth Pomeranz showed how this goddess is closely associated with young women of marriageable age who come to pray for children.71 She protects them, especially when, on their return to their birth family after marriage, they are caught in the contradictory relations between the two 67 68 69 70 71

Jacques Lacan, “Le symbolique, l’imaginaire et le réel,” in Des Noms-du-Père, Jacques Alain Miller, ed. (Paris: Le Seuil, 2005). See Liliane Gherchanoc’s “Conclusion” in her Invention du féminin (Paris: Éditions Campagne Première, 2006), 243–244. I borrow the term from Monique Schneider, Le féminin expurgé: De l’exorcisme à la psychanalyse (Paris: éditions Retz, 1979). Liu Xun, “Visualizing Perfection: Daoist Paintings of Our Lady, Court Patronage, and Elite Female Piety in Late Qing,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 64.1 (2004). Pomeranz 1997.

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lineages to which they belong. Bixia Yuanjun illustrates the sexual aspect of women’s lives in a variety of ways. This thoroughly anthropomorphised goddess has in her temple a bedroom, where she reposes on her bed. This point, which Pomeranz reports, is verified in the Temple of the Eastern Peak (Dongyue miao 東嶽廟) in Fuzhou: behind a curtain of pearls, the goddess has a little room furnished with a bed, which is covered in brilliantly coloured sheets and blankets, and all the necessary toiletries women ordinarily use. Since Bixia yuanjun has bound feet, adepts offer her embroidered lotus slippers as an expression of gratitude, which Pomeranz contrasts with the austere wooden fish symbol that characterises mendicant monks. Her beauty and eroticism give her a demonic aura to the extent that her cult was always placed in the category of “licentious” (yin 淫) cults. Moreover, she is the patron of foxes, ambiguous shape-shifting animals capable of taking human form, and associated with the dangerous feminine or even death.72 We may underline here the equivocal nature of these goddesses, trapped, as all women, in this ambiguity between the maternal and the feminine. Normally benevolent and eager to aid women and children, these female deities can just as well turn against those that beseech them; they may even precipitate their death, as in the Cuna rite that has the Muu deity overstep its usual functions and seize the purba “soul” from the uterus of the mother-to-be for whom the service is performed.73 Muu appears as an entity that instigates disorder; more mischievous than malicious, she incites perversion. Chen Jinggu as well, bolstered by the Thirty-Six Consorts, is equally fearsome and ambivalent.

72

73

See Edouard Chavannes, Le T’ai chan : essai de monographie d’un culte chinois (Paris : Musée Guimet [Annales du Musée Guimet], 1910), 120: and Pomeranz, 1997; Naquin 1992; see also Jean Lévi, “Le renard, la morte et la courtisane dans la Chine classique,” Études mongoles et sibériennes 15 (1985). Lévi-Strauss 1963, 187, elaborates that difficult childbirth occurs precisely because Muu has overstepped her boundaries and captured the purba soul. The shaman’s task and the purpose of his chanting is to recapture the purba soul and restitute it to the future mother. This quest for the lost purba soul is a struggle not against the goddess Muu, who is indispensable to procreation, but against her transgression. He further explains, on pages 189–190, that the purba of the uterus is not regarded as a victim, but rather as responsible for pathological disorder. Difficult childbirth is explained as a highjacking, through the purba soul of the uterus, of all the other souls of the woman’s body.

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Works Cited Primary Sources Chen shisi qizhuan, 陳十四奇傳 [The Strange History of Chen Shisi]. Ye Zhongming 業 中鳴. Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanhe, 1983. Fujian sheng Jianyang shi Lüshan pai keyi ben 福建省建陽市閭山派科儀本 [Ritual manual of the Lüshan lineage from Jianyang, Fujian Province]. Ye Mingsheng 葉明生, compil. Taibei: Xinwenfeng chuban she, 2007. Fujian shouning siping kuileixi Nainiang zhuan 福建壽寧四平傀儡戲奶娘傳 [The “Biography of the Mother” in the Siping Puppet Theatre in the Shouning District of Fujian]. Ye Mingsheng 葉明生 and Wu Naiyu 吳乃宇, compil. Taipei: Minsu Quyi congshu, 1997. Fujian xishi lu 福建戲史錄 [A History of Fujian Theatre]. Lin Qingxi 林慶熙 et al., compil. Xiamen: Fujian renmin chuban she, 1983. Linshui pingyao zhuan 臨水平妖傳 [Chronicles of Linshui Exorcisms; alt. Linshui pingyao zhuan 臨水平妖傳]. Ming or Qing. Taizhong: Ruicheng shuju, 1917 reprint, and Xiamen: Xiamenhui wentang, 1921 reprint. Mindu bieji 閩都別記 [Exceptional Records from the Min Capital]. Qing dynasty. Zeng Changsen 曾昌森, Chen Xuesong 陳學松 and She Xianfeng 佘險峰 ed., 3 vols. Xiamen: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1987. Minxi shanghang gaoqiang kuilei yu furen xi 閩西上杭高腔傀儡與夫人戲 [The Gaoqiang Kuilei Theatre of Shanghang in Minxi, and the Furen Theatre]. Ye Mingsheng 葉明 生, comp. Taipei: Minsu Quyi congshu, 1995. Soushen ji 搜神記 [Records of Searching for Spirits]. 16th century. Xu Daozang CT 1476. Weishengjia bao chanke beiyao 衛生家寶產科備要 [Essentials on Childbirth Preparedness from the Treasury of the House of Good Health] by Zhu Duanzhang 朱端章, 1184. Tao Xinyuan 陶新元, comp., Shiwanjuan lou congshu, 1887 reprint. Secondary Sources Andersen, Poul. 1989–90. “The practice of Bugang.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 5: 15–53. Baptandier, Brigitte. 2016. “Les Mudrâ du Lüshan pai, Le Battement de la Vie.” In Empreintes du Tantrisme en Chine et en Asie Orientale, Vincent Durand-Dastès ed., 139–157. Bruxelles: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques. ———. 2008a. “La Biographie de la Mère. La tablette à écriture.” In Du corps au texte. Approches comparatives, Brigitte Baptandier and Giordana Charuty, eds., 111–149. Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie (Hors collection). ———. (Kristin I. Kryklund transl.). 2008b. The Lady of Linshui. A Chinese Female Cult. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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———. 2006. “Le rhizome et la perle.” Special issue on “La double vie des mères,” Michel Gribinsky, ed., Penser/rêver 9: 179–187. ———. 2003. “Façonner la divinité en soi : à la recherche d’un lieu d’énonciation.” Special issue on “Negotiating Transcendence/Négocier la transcendance,” Alison Marshall, ed., Ethnologies 25.1: 109–153. ———. 2002. “Lüshan Puppet Theatre in Fujian.” In Ethnography in China Today: A Critical Assessment of Methods and Results, Daniel L. Overmyer and Shin-yi Chao, eds., 243–256. Taipei: Yuan-Liu. ———, ed. 2001. De la malemort : en quelques pays d’Asie. Paris: Karthala. ———. 1996a. “Linshui Furen: How a Woman Became a Goddess. ” In Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China, Meir Shahar and Robert Weller, eds., 105–149. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i. ———. 1996b. “Le rituel d’ouverture des passes : un concept de l’enfance.” L’Homme 137.1: 119–142. ———. 1994. “Le tableau talismanique de l’Empereur de Jade : construction d’un objet d’écriture.” L’Homme 129.1: 59–92. Berthier [Baptandier], Brigitte. 1988. La Dame-du-bord-de-l’eau. Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie (coll. Recherches sur la Haute-Asie). Boltz, Judith. 1983. “Opening the Gates of Purgatory: A Twelfth-Century Taoist Meditation Technique for the Salvation of Lost Souls.” In Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R.A. Stein, Michel Strickmann, vol. 1, 487–511. Brussels: Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises. Chavannes, Edouard. 1910. Le T’ai chan : essai de monographie d’un culte chinois. Paris : Musée Guimet (Annales du Musée Guimet). Couvreur, Séraphin transl. 1950. Mémoires sur les bienséances et les cérémonies [Liji 禮 記]. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Derrida, Jacques. 1967. L’écriture et la différence. Paris, éditions du Seuil. Despeux, Catherine. 2013. Pratique des femmes taoïstes. Méditation et alchimie intérieure. Paris: Les Deux Océans. ———. 2003. “Bien débuter dans la vie: l’éducation prénatale en Chine.” In Education et instruction en Chine, Catherine Despeux and Christine Nguyen, eds., 61–98. Paris– Louvain: C.E.C. Éditions Peeters. ———. 1996. “Le corps, champ spatio-temporel, souche d’identité.” L’homme 137: 87–118. Despeux, Catherine and Livia Kohn. 2003. Women in Daoism. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Editions. Dolto, Françoise. 1984. L’image inconsciente du corps. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Dudbridge, Glenn. 1978. The legend of Miao Shan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Furth, Charlotte. 1999. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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———. 1987. “Concepts of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Infancy in Qing Dynasty China.” Journal of Asian Studies 46.1: 7–35. Gherchanoc, Liliane. 2006 (2002). Invention du féminin. Paris: Éditions Campagne Première. Granet, Marcel. 1953. “Le dépôt de l’enfant sur le sol.” In Études sociologiques sur la Chine, ibid., ed., 157–202. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Houseman, Michael and Carlo Severi. 1998. Naven or the Other Self: A Relational Approach to Ritual Action. Leiden: Brill. Lacan, Jacques. 2005 (1953). “Le symbolique, l’imaginaire et le réel.” In Des Noms-du-Père, Jacques Alain Miller, ed., 1–28. Paris: Le Seuil. Lévi, Jean. 1985. “Le renard, la morte et la courtisane dans la Chine classique.” Études mongoles et sibériennes 15: 111–139. Lévi-Strauss, Claude (Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf, transl.). 1963 (1958). “The Effectiveness of Symbols,” in ibid., Structural Anthropology, 186–205. New York: Basic Books. Liu Xun. 2004. “Visualizing Perfection: Daoist Paintings of Our Lady, Court Patronage, and Elite Female Piety in Late Qing.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 64.1: 57–115. Montrelay, Michèle. 2006 (2002). “À propos de l’amatride.” In Invention du féminin, Liliane Gherchanoc, ed., 43–67. Paris: Éditions Campagne Première. Naquin, Susan. 1992. “The Peking Pilgrimage to Miao-feng Shan: Religious Organizations and Sacred Site.” In Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China, Susan Naquin and Chun-Fang Yü, eds., 333–377. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pimpaneau, Jacques. 1977. Des poupées à l’ombre : le théâtre d’ombres et de poupées en Chine. Paris: Université Paris VII, Centre de Publication Asie Orientale. Pimpaneau, Jacques. 1983. Promenade au Jardin des Poiriers. L’opéra Chinois classique. Paris: Musée Kwok On. Pomeranz, Kenneth. 1997. “Power, Gender, and Pluralism in the Cult of the Goddess of Taishan.” In Culture and State in Chinese History. Conventions: Accommodations, and Critiques, Theodore Huters, R. Bin Wong and Pauline Yu, eds., 182–204. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Robinet, Isabelle (Julien Pas and Norman Girardot, transl.). 1993. Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity. Albany: State University of New York Press. Schneider, Monique. 1979. Le feminin expurgé : De l’exorcisme à la psychanalyse. Paris: éditions Retz. Seaman, Gary. 1981. “The Sexual Politics of Karmic Retribution.” In The Anthropology of Chinese Society of Taiwan, Emily Ahern and Hill Gates, eds., 381–397. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Seidel, Anna. 1996. “Descente aux enfers et rédemption des femmes dans le bouddhisme populaire japonais. Le pèlerinage du mont Tateyama.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 9: 1–14.

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Severi, Carlo. 2007 (2004). Le principe de la chimère. Une anthropologie de la mémoire. Paris: Aesthetica, Éditions rue d’Ulm, Presses de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure. Stein, Rolf A. (Phyllis Brooks, transl.) 1990. The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 1986. “Avalokitesvara/Kouan-yin : un exemple de transformation d’un dieu en déesse.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 2: 17–80. Van Gennep, Arnold. 1909. Les rites de passage. Paris: E. Nourry. Vasse, Denis. 1974. L’ombilic et la voix. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Yü Chunfang. 2001. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara. New York: Columbia University Press.

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part 2 Japan

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Chapter 7

The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources Lucia Dolce

Buddhism, as well as other Asian traditions, developed distinct theories on the process of the generation of the human body. These theories constitute the rubric of Buddhist embryology. The Indian and Tibetan context of such discourse has received considerable scholarly attention.1 In contrast, the discursive and ritual practices of Japanese Buddhism have remained little explored. The main reason why such an analysis has not been pursued is to be sought in the perception of Japanese modern scholarship that these theories represented heretical interpretations of Buddhism. Embryological practices in Japanese Buddhism have so far been connected to the infamous Tachikawa-ryū 立川流, a Tantric lineage that has been characterised as a heterodox school.2 This perception * This paper is part of a larger research project on Buddhist embryology in Japan. I am grateful to the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust for a grant that has allowed me to carry out archival research in Japan; to Abe Yasurō for providing access to primary documents; and to Itō Satoshi for sharing his findings with me. Preliminary versions of this study have been presented at the universities of Nagoya, Tsukuba, and Waseda, and have greatly benefited from the comments and questions put forward there. 1 Among more recent works, see, for instance, Robert Kritzer, “Life in the Womb: Conception and Gestation in Buddhist Scripture and Classical Indian Medical Literature,” in Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture, Jane Marie Law and Vanessa R. Sasson, eds. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 73–90; Robert Kritzer, Garbhāvakrānti sūtra (The Sūtra on Entry into the Womb) (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2014); Amy Paris Langenberg, “Like Worms Falling from a Foul-smelling Sore” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2008); Frances Garrett, Religion, Medicine, and the Human Embryo in Tibet (Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2008). 2 Much has been written on the Tachikawa-ryū heterodoxy. See, for instance, Mizuhara Gyōei 水原堯榮, Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū no kenkyū 邪教立川流の研究 (Kyoto: Shinbundō, [1923, 1931], 1968); Moriyama Shōshin 守山聖真, Tachikawa jakyō to sono shakaiteki haikei no kenkyū 立川邪教とその社会的研究 (Tokyo: Rokuyaen, 1965); and Manabe Shunshō 真鍋俊照, Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū 邪教・立川流 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, [1999], 2002). In recent years Iyanaga Nobumi has revisited this portrayal, arguing that the historical Tachikawa-ryū was a small but legitimate Tōmitsu lineage. For a summary of his argument in English, see his “Tachikawa-ryū,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, Charles Orzech, Henrik

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has also filtered through the only study in English that addresses these notions.3 Recent investigations in Japanese temple archives, such as Ninnaji 仁和寺 in Kyoto and the Ōsu Bunko 大須文庫 at Shinpukuji 真福寺 in Nagoya, have changed this perspective. Researchers have brought to light new material from the mediaeval period, which presents the process of gestation of the human body within a discussion of Tantric ritual practice. Many of these documents include diagrams that, drawing from Indian medical knowledge and from classical Chinese notions of Yin-Yang 陰陽 and wuxing 五行, refer to the actions of the Buddhist practitioner as the growth of an embryo. The documents emphasise the moment of sexual intercourse that starts the reproductive process, and these sexual overtones might have been one of the reasons why these sources have been neglected and have often been regarded as marginal. Yet a crossexamination of newly unveiled material and sources already known from other mediaeval archives attests to the circulation of these notions across Tantric lineages, demonstrating that embryogenesis represented a major soteriological model in mediaeval Japan. To the extent that Tantric patterns were central to the articulation of the mediaeval perception of the world and of ritual action, the production and gestation of a foetus became a hermeneutical trope in other Buddhist as well as literary practices. A close reading of the Japanese “embryological material” suggests that its compilers were concerned with a fundamental issue in the Tantric tradition: how to actualise the condition of non-duality, which may be considered the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice, in a physical body. This was an orthodox question. Kūkai 空海 (774–835), the putative father of Japanese Tantric Buddhism, had conceptualised the possibility of such realisation in one of his most famous writings, Sokushin jōbutsu gi 即身成仏義 (The Meaning of Attaining Buddhahood with One’s Own Body). Tantric practitioners were instructed to imitate the body of the Buddha with their own bodily actions, for Buddhahood was understood as a cognitive process that passes through the body. What is interesting is that around the thirteenth century these notions became a pervasive discourse in Japanese monastic circles and produced Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds., Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 4, China 24 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 803–15. 3 James Sanford, “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas: Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24/1–2 (1997): 1–38. This excellent study is based on fragments of texts quoted in Japanese monographs on Shingon. See Kushida Ryōkō 櫛田良洪, Shingon mikkyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū 真言密教成立過程の研究 (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorinkan, 1979); and Mizuhara 1968.

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visual interpretations that centred on the materiality of the body (as opposed, for instance, to the more abstract idea of a mandala). The embryogenetic discourse, which firmly situated the seeds of transformation in the origin of the human body, was part of such a broader movement.4 In the ritual context in which Tantric thinkers operated, the process of growth of a physical embryo became the paradigm for the construction of the perfect dharma-body that a practitioner ought to realise. This study explores a specific pattern of foetal gestation, which became the most pronounced characteristic of mediaeval embryological thinking in Japan: the so-called “five stages in the womb” (tainai goi 胎内五位). This pattern appears in a variety of sources of different provenance and textual lineage. The present analysis uses as a key source an unpublished manuscript recently discovered in the archives of Ninnaji, titled Gochizō hishō 五智蔵秘抄 (Secret Treatise on the Repository of Quintuple Wisdom).5 It is a relatively short document in one scroll, dated 1261 (Kōchō 弘長 1), consisting of a sequence of diagrams and quotations from classical works. Despite not being a discursive treatise, Gochizō hishō is emblematic of the reconceptualisation of the body that took place in the mediaeval period, as well as of the criticism that these notions were later exposed to. In this sense, Gochizō hishō is an exceptionally useful document to identify the complex web of textual, semiotic, and performative connections in which gestation theories were understood. First of all, it contains an early (perhaps the earliest dated) example of a chart of the five stages of gestation. Secondly, it connects gestation to the idea of an “organic body,” presenting multiple body-mandalas informed by the notion of the five viscera (gozō mandara 五臓曼荼羅). Thirdly, it highlights the ritual context in which these notions were deployed, by drawing on Tantric visualisation practices, in particular the meditation on the syllable A and other normative types of meditation on the body. Finally, it explicitly links gestation to sexual intercourse, thus re-proposing the question of the heterodox nature of such practices. One peculiar feature of the manuscript is that it bears the signs of the criticism that would eventually marginalise the embryological discourse in the mainstream narratives of Japanese Buddhism. The scroll is marked as 4 I have discussed this focus on the body in Dolce, “Nigenteki genri no gireika: Fudō, Aizen to chikara no hizō 二元的原理の儀礼化 – 不動・愛染と力の秘像,” in Girei no Chikara: Chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀礼の力 – 中世宗教の実践世界, Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds. (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010), 159–208. 5 Gochizō hishō, archives of Ninnaji, stupa depository. Reproduced with permission. I am indebted to Abe Yasurō 阿部泰郎 for introducing me to this text and facilitating obtaining the photographs, and to Yoneda Mariko 米田真理子 for sharing her transcription of the text with me.

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heterodox, to be kept in a “box of heterodox material” (jagibako 邪義箱) (Fig. 7.1). Furthermore, the characters jagi 邪義 are written in bold ink on the verso of the manuscript at the spots where there are dualistic images, namely, a mandala inscribing two figures in sexual intercourse and a twin stupa inscribing a man and a woman (see below, Figs 7.7 and 7.13). An annotation at the end of the scroll doubts the authenticity of the document, describing the images as “instructions on the wrong path” (jaro no shinan 邪路之指南) and concluding that the document belongs to the “box of apocryphal writings” (gishobako 偽書 箱). Calligraphic analysis shows that the characters jagi and the annotation were added later. This suggests that the dualistic imagery became “heterodox” at a later point in history but was not considered so when it was produced. Despite such connotations, the manuscript was preserved. It can also be suggested that its content circulated: I have recently discovered a Meiji-period copy of an untitled manuscript, nearly identical to Gochizō hishō, in the archives of Jindaiji 深大寺, a Tendai 天台 temple in the Tokyo region.6 An apparently similar manuscript, untitled and undated, has recently been brought to public attention as a “Tachikawa-ryū” document.7 I would thus argue that we are confronted with erudite exegeses of the embryological process, which do not depart greatly from mainstream Tantric doctrines (as may 6 Untitled manuscript, Jindaiji, Chōfu 調布. I am grateful to Chōdō Kōshō 張堂興昭, of Taishō University, for alerting me to the existence of this manuscript, and to Chōdō Kanshun 完俊, jūshoku 住職 of Jindaiji, for graciously allowing me to photograph the document and use the images. Jindaiji dates from the eighth century and it was an important temple of the Musashino province in mediaeval times. It is considered the first Taimitsu centre in Eastern Japan. 7 Untitled manuscript, private collection. In Uchida Keiichi 内田啓一, “Shinshutsu no Tachikawa-ryū shōgyō ni tsuite – honkoku to kaidai 新出の立川流聖教についてー翻刻 と解題,” Mikkyō zuzō 密教図像 31 (2012): 1–18. Uchida, drawing on the texts that the manuscript cites, suggests that this manuscript was compiled within an Ono 小野 lineage, possibly the Sanbōin-ryū 三寶院流. This manuscript contains ten images, most of which are similar to the drawings of Gochizō hishō (albeit coloured and of better execution). A gestation chart is included, but only the first four stages are depicted. (It may be possible, however, that the manuscript is incomplete). Two, quite extraordinary, images stand out: a single-pronged vajra with moon and sun at the two extremities; and a three-pronged vajra with Fudō and Aizen at the two poles, each prong transformed into the head and the arms of the deities. These images attest to a close link between the ritual visualisation of the embryological process and the visualisation of duality centred on Fudō and Aizen, which I have discussed in Lucia Dolce, “Duality and the Kami: The Ritual Iconography and Visual Constructions of Medieval Shinto,” in “Re-Thinking Medieval Shintō,” Michael Como, Bernard Faure, and Nobumi Iyanaga, eds., special issue of Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 16 (2006–2007): 119–50; and Dolce 2010. I am very grateful to Uchida Keiichi for allowing me to peruse the manuscript and for kindly providing highresolution photographs of the images included in this chapter.

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Figure 7.1 Outer title, the Gochizō hishō 五智蔵秘抄 scroll. Ninnaji Archives.

occur in heretical writings), but which creatively reinterpret accepted notions under the influence of different streams of continental thought. 1

The Embryological Charts

An intriguing feature of the mediaeval discourse on foetal gestation is the mapping out of the five-stage process of gestation in what I have called “embryological charts.” These consist of a set of five geometric shapes or figures: a circle; a two-pointed form; a three-pointed form; a five-element stupa; and the figure of a man sitting cross-legged and forming a mudra (Fig. 7.2). In Gochizō hishō, the explicatory glosses that accompany these diagrams state that these forms represent five seven-day periods, identified by using Indic terms: kalala (Jp. kararan 羯剌藍), arbuda (abudon 頞部曇), peśī (heishi 閉尸), ghana (kennan 鍵南), and praśākha (harashakya 鉢羅奢佉). Each figure is also made to correspond to one of the five sounds of the syllable A (a, ā, aṃ, aḥ, āṃḥ), the so-called rotation of the syllable A (aji goten 阿字五転).

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Figure 7.2 Diagram of the “five stages of gestation” (tainai goi 胎内五位), Gochizō hishō 五智蔵秘抄. Ninnaji Archives.

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Furthermore, the first three forms are associated to three stages in the path to enlightenment: resolve (i 意), practice (shugyō 修行), and awakening (bodai 菩提).8 The Gochizō hishō explains: [Round shape. Two A syllables face each other in a mirror-like shape. The words “red” and “white” are written in Chinese characters inside the circle.]  This is the character of kararan. When desire and passions start and father and mother have intercourse, the two fluids, white and red, merge together and take this shape. The syllable A in red is the mother’s semen.9 It becomes the flesh of living beings. The syllable A in white is the father’s semen. It becomes the bones of living beings. These twin syllables A in two colours, red and white, are the karmic [and yet] constantly abiding seed (inga jōjū shu 因果常住種) of Dainichi 大日, the tathāgata of the two mandalas, Womb (taizōkai 胎蔵界) and Diamond (kongōkai 金剛界). Hence Dainichi in his double mandalic form, together with the five hundred and the seven hundred venerable [Buddhas], for the first time descend and abide in the body of all sentient beings. When one attains enlightenment in this way, one realises [Buddhahood] in one’s very body.10  [Two-pointed shape.] This [stage] is called abudon. Such becomes the body in the so-called second seven-day [period]. It is called “the two8 9

10

These are the first three of the so-called “four gates” to enlightenment, the fourth being extinction (nehan 涅槃). The text uses the same character to indicate both mother’s and father’s “sexual fluids.” This is common to texts that describe the embryological process. According to Das, however, in ancient Indian accounts of the reproductive process the female sexual fluids were most often understood as the same as menstrual blood. Rahul Peter Das, The Origin of the Life of a Human Being: Conception and the Female According to Ancient Indian Medical and Sexological Literature (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003), 487–90. The meaning of these sexual fluids is similar to the Chinese notion of jing 精, the essential reproductive fluid produced by both man and woman. See Chen Ming 陳明, “Zhuan Nü Wei Nan, Turning Female to Male: An Indian Influence on Chinese Gynaecology?,” Asian Medicine 1/2 (2005): 315–34. 是羯頼藍性也。貪愛煩悩始メ、父母交会時、赤白二渧相和合セル形也。赤色A 字ハ母婬也。衆生ノ肉ト成。白色A字ハ父婬也。是ハ衆生ノ骨ト成ル也。此赤白 二色 ノ 二A字 ハ 、胎金両部 ノ 大日如来 ノ 因果常住種也。故、一切衆生 ノ 身内 ニ、両部ノ大日始シテ五百余尊七百余尊トコシナヘニ住シ給ト云ナリ。カヤウニ 悟ル時ハ、即身成スル也。Unless otherwise noted, all translations into English are my own.

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pointed [object].” The left and right rises are the two seed syllables of Dainichi in his two mandalic forms. The red- and white-coloured letters A have become the left and right shoulders of the body.11  [Three-pointed shape.] This is called heishi. It is the shape the body takes in the third seven-day period. The three-pointed shape shows that the bones have gradually hardened to reveal the left and right shoulders and the head. The three-pointed shape embodies the three secrets (sanmitsu 三密) and three activities (sangō 三業) of the three true enlightened Buddha-bodies (bodai sanshin 菩提三身).12  [Stupa. Starting from the bottom, the characters for “yellow,” “white,” “red,” “black” and “green” are written on the five geometric forms that constitute the stupa.] This [stage] is called kennan. It shows how the body becomes in the fourth seven-day period. This is the shape taken by the Buddha-wisdom [manifested] in the five sections [of the mandala], which [embodies] the spontaneous self-awakening pertaining to the originally enlightened tathāgata (hongaku no nyorai no hōnen jigaku 本 覚ノ如来ノ法然自覚).13  [Human shape.] In the fifth seven-day period the body takes this form. This stage is called harashakya. This is the shape of accomplished perfection resulting from practice (bukka enman 佛果円満). Accordingly, the shape is complete and in the mother’s womb [the foetus] becomes the Buddha who has perfected the five types of wisdom and abides in the stage of non-activity, contemplating one’s quest for enlightenment (jōgu bodai 上求菩提). Yet, because of the vow to save sentient beings (ge ke shūjō 下化衆生), it emerges out of the mother’s womb and carries out its function of benefiting sentient beings according to conditions.14

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是ハ頞部曇云也。二七日云ニハカヤウノ体也。是ハ二胡云。此左右高ハ、両部 ノ大日種子也。赤白二色ノA字左右肩成体也。

是閉戸ト云也。三七日ト云ニ成体也。三胡形ト成骨漸クニカタマリ左右肩頭ヲ 顕ス也。三胡形即三密、菩提三身三業トナル也。The three activities are the mental, verbal, and bodily acts that the Tantric Buddha performs to express his being. These are denoted as “secret” for they are the mysterious threefold movement of the Buddha. 是ハ錐南ト云也。此ハ四七日ト云成体也。ステニ此形ハ、本覚ノ如来ノ法然自 覚ノ五部ノ仏智ヲ成スル形也。 是五七日ニハ、此ノ形ニ成也。是ヲ鉢羅奢佉ト名。是ハ佛果円満ノ形也。如此 等ノ形畢、母ノ胎内ニシテ五智円満ノ佛ト成テ、上求菩提ノ観念ヲコラシテ、无 所作位ニ住セシムル也。雖然モ、下化衆生願ノ為ニ、母ノ胎内出、随縁利生ノ 用ヲ施ス也。This passage is phrased slightly differently in the Jindaiji manuscript.

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Figure 7.3 Diagram of the “five stages of gestation” (tainai goi 胎内五位, recto), untitled manuscript. Jindaiji Archives.

Figure 7.4 Diagram of the “five stages of gestation” (tainai goi 胎内五位, verso), untitled manuscript. Jindaiji Archives.

The same diagram and explanation are given in the Jindaiji manuscript, with only slight changes (Fig. 7.3). In this manuscript the first four forms are glossed with further associations drawn from the world of Tantric Buddhism: the four directions (east, south, west, north) with the corresponding Buddhas (Akṣobhya 阿閦, Ratnasaṃbhava 寳生, Amitābha, here called Muryōju 無量 寿, and Śākyamuni 釈迦); four types of wisdom;15 and the four gates that 15

The text here presents a variation on the set of the five wisdom Buddhas (gochi nyorai 五智如来) of the Womb mandala, where usually the Buddha is Amoghasiddhi (Fukūjōju 不空成就) rather than Śākyamuni. Each of these Buddhas embodies a different type of

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describe the process of awakening (resolve [to attain enlightenment], practice, awakening, and extinction). The five sounds of the syllable A are written on the verso of the manuscript (Fig. 7.4).16 I should note that an example of the five-stage diagram was first published in Mizuhara Gyōei’s 1931 study of the Tachikawa-ryū. There, the diagram is given the title Ningen seiri hatsuiku jō 人間生理発育状 (The Physiological Development of Human Beings).17 Unfortunately, Mizuhara did not provide any information on the manuscripts on which he based his drawings. Yet Mizuhara’s affiliation to a major Shingon sub-temple on Mount Kōya 高野山 suggests that documents containing the diagram must have existed in the archives of his or another of the Mount Kōya temples – another indication that, notwithstanding the link that Mizuhara foregrounded between embryological notions and the Tachikawa heretodoxy, this kind of material circulated in major Tantric establishments.18 2

Indian Medicine and Abhidharma Interpretations

What understanding of the human body and of the relation between foetal and spiritual development are the diagrams of gestation meant to convey? The explanation that Japanese manuscripts provide for each stage is replete with references to Tantric orthopraxis. To grasp the meaning of these charts, however, it is first necessary to trace the origins of the Sanskrit terminology that defines each stage and its conceptual background.

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cognition, in the order: “great mirror cognition,” “cognition of the equality in nature of all things,” “subtle observing cognition,” and “cognition with unrestricted activity.” The fifth Buddha is Mahāvairocana, who corresponds to the centre and stands for the “cognition of the embodied nature” of the dharmadhātu. Some of the characters in the explanatory passages are different. (The text of the Jindaiji manuscript seems to me more accurate.) This suggests that the two manuscripts drew on a shared source but were not one the copy of the other. Mizuhara 1968, illustration inserted between pages 22 and 23. Mizuhara seems to have taken the five seven-day periods to correspond to thirty-seven days and wondered whether modern embryology could conceive of the birth of a foetus after such a short time. Mizuhara (1890–1965), eminent scholar of Shingon Buddhism as well as head of the Shingon school, received his training at Shinnōin 親王院, one of most important Kōyasan sub-temples, and it is assumed that in his writings he used material from this temple repository. Unfortunately, the archives of this temple have not yet been made fully accessible.

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The terms kalala, arbuda, peśī, ghana, and praśākha embody the epigenetic model of foetal development presented in Indian medical and Buddhist literature, according to which the embryo develops gradually from an undifferentiated cell. Ancient India’s embryological knowledge was a comprehensive system that came to be shared by Buddhist and medical traditions. Yet the terminology used to indicate the stages of growth was diverse and often inconsistent.19 Kalala, arbuda, peśī, and ghana were old established terms in non-medical literature, but the sequence in which they were arranged varied, and they might not have been accompanied by clear indications of how long each corresponding period of time lasted.20 Sources agree on the designation of kalala as the first stage of the process, and on the fact that the four oldest terms were part of a series that covered the development of the foetus during the first month, that is, up to the formation of the head, feet, and hands. Each of the periods indicated by these terms was generally understood to last a varying number of days rather than one week each; for instance, kalala lasted one day, peśī seven days, and arbuda fourteen days. On the other hand, praśākha as a specific stage of foetal growth is not mentioned in medical texts. It appears in early Buddhist narratives, such as the Saṃyutta nikāya, but here the fifth week marks only the beginning of the period in which the foetus is formed, a period that continues for months.21 Thus, the five terms did not necessarily cover the entire process of foetal growth. The exact connotation of the five terms is also unclear. Scholars note that kalala conveys the image of a jelly-like formation, while peśī 19

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Medical texts are not clearly datable. Zysk suggests that the earliest extant codification of medical doctrines is to be found in monastic literature. Medical texts were later compilations of earlier material, comprising more detailed information than the Buddhist texts. Kenneth Zysk, Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998), 84. A survey of the medical literature concerning conception and gestation, with a comparison with Buddhist sources is in Kritzer 2014, 10–20, and Kritzer 2009. An exploration of other non-Buddhist Indic literature on embryology is also in Langenberg 2008, Chapter One, 14–50. Carl Suneson, “Remarks on Some Interrelated Terms in the Ancient Indian Embryology,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens und Archiv für Indische Philosophie 35 (1991): 108–21. Bhikkhu Bodhi, transl., The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of Saṃyutta nikāya, Chapter One (Yakkasaṃyutta) (Boston: Pali Text Society and Wisdom Publications, 2000), 305. According to a note, head hairs, body hairs and nails are not produced until the forty-second week; ibid., 474, footnote 560. Later Mahayana traditions place the development of limbs in the seventh or eleventh week. See Giulio Agostini, “Indian Views of the Buddhist Laity: Precepts and Upasaka Status” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2002), 138–44, and a useful comparative chart on p. 149.

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indicates muscles or flesh.22 In medical literature, a fundamental distinction is made between the first stage and a subsequent stage, called ghana (often recorded as occurring in the second month), when the embryo acquires solidity.23 Indian medical texts also make a distinction between softer and harder parts of the body and considered the first inherited from the mother and the latter from the father. Buddhist interpretations followed these notions by assuming that during gestation the semen becomes the bones, and the blood becomes the flesh of the foetus. Several early Buddhist sources address the development of the physical body from conception through gestation and birth. The representative and most influential text is probably the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra (Sutra on Entry into the Womb), which has survived in different editions in the Chinese canon.24 22 23 24

The meaning of these terms in Indian sources is discussed in Das 2003, 535–6 and 562–3. Suneson 1991, 114. No Indian language manuscript has survived. The earliest version of the sutra is Foshuo baotai jing 佛説胞胎経 (Sutra on Dwelling in the Womb Spoken by the Buddha), translated by Dharmarakṣa 竺法護 (230?–316) in 281 or 303 (T. 317.11). Another translation, titled Fo wei Anan shuo chutai hui 佛為阿難説處胎會 (Sutra on Abiding in the Womb Spoken to Ananda), was made by Bodhiruci 菩提流志 (672?–727) in 703–713 (T. 310.13); while Foshuo ru taizang hui 佛説入胎蔵會 (Sutra on Entering the Womb Spoken by the Buddha) was translated by Yijing 義淨 (635–713) in 710 (T. 310.14). There also are two Tibetan translations. A recension of Foshuo ru taizang hui has been translated in English by Langenberg in her “Like Worms Falling from a Foul-Smelling Sore.” One more version of the sutra, known as Ru mutai jing 入母胎經 (Sutra on Entering the Mother’s Womb), is included in a section of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, also translated by Yijing (T. 1451: 251a–262a) and has been translated in English by Kritzer from a Tibetan recension; see Kritzer 2014. For a comparison of these recensions, see Kritzer 1998a, “Garbhāvakrānti sūtra: A Comparison of the Contents of Two Versions,” Kyōto notoru damu joshi daigaku kirisutokyō bunka kenkyūjo kiyō 京都ノトルダム女子大学キリスト教文化研究所 紀要 3: 6; and (on the Chinese translations) Kritzer 2014, 111–38. I am grateful to Robert Kritzer for making his research available to me and for taking time to discuss this material with me. The Garbhāvakrānti sūtra also was a major source for Tibetan medical accounts of embryology and was influential in the development of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and practice. See Garrett 2008. Manuscripts of this sutra have also been found in Japanese temple archives. An interesting example is the Tainaikyōchū jōgekan hiki 胎内經注上下 巻秘記 (Secret Records on the Annotated Sutra of Dwelling in the Womb in Two Fascicles), which includes the Tainaikyōchū kuden 胎内經注口伝 (Oral Transmissions on the Annotated Sutra of Dwelling in the Womb) proper and a Himitsu gorinshū 秘密五輪集 (Collection on the Secret Five Elements), attributed to Śubhakarasiṃha (Shanwuwei 善無畏, 637–735); Kōyasan University Library Archives, L00161564. The latter explains the five stages of foetal development in detail, describing the five forms that these take, although it does not contain any drawing of the chart.

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The sutra contains an extensive and detailed description of rebirth. It speaks of gestation in thirty-eight weeks. The first four weeks correspond to the four terms in medical literature; a fifth stage called praśākha is not mentioned. In the section in verses these first four stages are encapsulated in two stanzas: First, [the semen and blood] change into the kalala. Then it changes into the arbuda. From the arbuda, it changes into the peśī. From the peśī, it changes into the ghana. From the ghana, the limbs, Four (of them), as well as the head, are produced indeed. From the cause that is karma, The various groups of bones will arise.25 Here, therefore, the stages of foetal formation are measured in weeks, i.e., in segments of the same length, and this seems a characteristic of Buddhist sources. The earliest states of the embryo are given specific names, but the discussion of what happens after the fourth stage merges into the account of gestation in “thirty-eight weeks,” as occurs in other Buddhist sources.26 Another authoritative source on the development of the embryo was the Abhidharma. Several passages of Vasubhandu’s Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya (Treatise on the Abhidharma Storehouse) mention the process.27 In both the scripture and the Abhidharma, it is made clear that the elements essential to 25 26

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Kritzer 2014, Chapter 41, 105. For the passages in prose describing the first five weeks of the embryo, see Chapter 18.1–5, 51–54. Boisvert, however, working on Pāli literature, suggests that a new phase starts with the fifth week, which marks the difference between the embryo (the first four stages) and the foetus (the fifth week, praśākha, when a distinct human form arises). The fifth stage would thus be qualitatively different from the others. Mathieu Boisvert, “Conception and Intrauterine Life in the Pāli Canon,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 29 (2000): 301–11. According to Boisvert, the fivefold pattern of gestation was broadly accepted in Pāli scriptures. Apidamo jushe lun 阿毘達磨倶舍論 (abbreviated as Jushe lun 倶舍論), translated between 563 and 567 by Paramārtha 眞諦 (499–569) (T. 1559.29.161–310, in twenty-two fascicles, titled Apidamo jushe shilun 阿毘達磨倶舍釋論) and between 651 and 654 by Xuanzang 玄奘 (T. 1558.29.1–160, in thirty fascicles). Both Chinese versions consist of nine chapters. The Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya is largely devoted to theoretical matters, but there is a connection with meditative practices, which is reflected in the embryological discussions.

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conception are a fertile mother, a sexual act, and the presence of a being awaiting reincarnation; karmic action brings these elements together at the opportune moment. Conception consists of the congealing of the father’s semen and the mother’s blood. The kalala, which more than a status seems to indicate the material object that is created by the encounter between the father’s semen and the mother’s blood, is said to be neither the same nor different from them, for it requires the cooperation of various causes and conditions to arise. These causes and conditions are not specified, but the implication is that it is consciousness that activates the purely material semen and blood and allows the karmic legacy of the past life to be transferred to the new being. This was not a strictly Buddhist notion. Indian medical texts, such as the Carakasaṃhita and Suśruta saṃhita, insisted on the fact that the embryo was not constituted by merely semen and blood, but by a combination of semen, blood, and jīva or ātman in the womb.28 Early Buddhist sources speak of gestation in the context of the theories of interdependent origination. Their fundamental concern is the state in which beings abide between rebirths, namely, the moment of death in one life and conception in the next, known as “intermediate existence” (Sk. antarābhava, Ch. zhong yin 中陰 or zhong you 中有). Abhidharma exegetes explained that the being in this state observes the location of its future birth, where its future parents are having intercourse. It merges with the mixture of semen and blood of the parents in the impurity of the womb. At this point, its skandhas congeal and the antarābhava being ceases to exist, to arise again as the embryo.29 In discussing the transition between the intermediate state and the embryo, the Indian scholastic tradition addressed the question of how material and spiritual faculties are carried over from one life to another. The result of this enquiry into the origin of human life, however, emphasised the negativity of being born. The aim of these narratives in Indian as well as Tibetan sources is to convey the suffering of the foetus and the miserable experience of being born. The

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Kritzer 2014, 11 and 14. Robert Kritzer 1998b, “Semen, Blood, and the Intermediate Existence,” Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 46/2: 1031–25 (opposite pagination). On other aspects of the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya treatment, see Kritzer, “Childbirth and the Mother’s Body in the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya and Related Texts,” in Indo tetsugaku bukkyō shisō ronshū: Mikogami Eshō kyōju shōju kinen ronshū インド哲学仏教思想論集：神子上恵生教 授頌寿記念論集, Mikogami Eshō kyōju shōju kinen ronshū kankōkai 神子上恵生教 授頌寿記念論集刊行會, eds. (Kyoto: Nagata bunshodō, 2004), 1085–1109. The term anta­rābhava denotes both the intermediate existence and the sentient being in that state.

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descriptions of the body are disgusting and aim at realising that all physical bodies are obstructions to liberation.30 This samsaric view of birth and embodiment contrasts sharply with the non-dualistic view of Tantric Buddhism. Japanese sources generally do not elaborate on the matter of an intermediate existence. Nonetheless, the image of a seed of consciousness “implanted” in the place where the two fluids meet is found in a variety of mediaeval documents.31 Some renditions of the embryological charts also offer a compelling representation of the antarābhava descending on the place where conception takes place (Fig. 7.5).32 However, as it is clear from the description in Gochizō hishō, the place of conception, where the two fluids combine, is not considered filthy. Rather, it is the site where the foetus gradually acquires the features of a Buddha, and thus where the nonduality between permanent being and samsaric being, between matter and consciousness, can be apprehended.33 As we shall see, these ideas are reiterated in a variety of other documents. Japanese interpretations thus affirm the life-generating process of rebirth and transform it into a template for the process of generation of an enlightened being. It is not clear how the stages loosely described in early Indian texts were transformed into the fixed quintuple scheme one finds in Japanese mediaeval material. Indic sources do not include a diagrammatic exegesis of the five stages, and scholars of Indian Buddhism doubt that this pattern could have been relevant in early Buddhism. However, the Abhidharma sources included 30

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Robert Kritzer notes that these negative descriptions are not found in the medical literature. He suggests that they draw on the Buddhist meditation on the impure (aśu­bha­ bhāvanā) and the meditation on the body (kāyagatā sati). See Kritzer 2014, 3; and Kritzer 2004, 1095–96. The detailed description of the month-by-month growth of the foetus resembles the minute description of the components of the body in the meditation on the body and on decomposing corpses. On Tibetan sources see, for instance, Garrett 2008, 106–9. See, for instance, Jishin jōbutsu oku fukatoku gi 自身成仏奥不可得義 (The Profound Unfathomable Meaning of Attaining Buddhahood in One’s Own Body), a one-folio secret transmission on the title of the Yuqi jing 瑜祇經 (The Yoga sūtra, T. 867.18), which glosses the title of the sutra in a bipolar, colour-coded manner. The gloss says: “White fluid, wisdom; red fluid, principle; the union of the two fluids is the seed of consciousness that is entrusted inside. This is the meaning of ‘the human body is the Buddha’s body,’ the nonduality of principle and wisdom.” I have discussed this document in Dolce 2010, 193–95. Ise shoshō Nihongi ushiki honshō nin denki 伊勢所生日本記有識本性仁傳記 (Transmitted Records of Nihongi, Consciousness, Original Nature, and Humanity, Produced by Ise), in Shingon shintō, vol. 2, 559–60. See below for a discussion of this passage. In some documents, this place is identified with the practitioner’s mind, an interpretation that necessitates further analysis.

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Figure 7.5 Diagram of foetal development, Ise shoshō Nihongi ushiki honshō nin denki 伊勢 所生日本記有識本性仁傳記.

in the Chinese canon do repeatedly mention a five-stage paradigm of foetal growth. The seventh fascicle of the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya, for instance, on the one hand gives a general description of the early stages of development without numbering them, hinting at the continuation of the process in further weeks. At the same time, it also crystallises this process into five stages: The first is called kalala; from it the arbuda arises; from this arises the peśī; the peśī gives rise to ghana, and the ghana to the [pra]śākha; next the hair, body hair, nails, and so on, and the material organs; then gradually the body parts are formed. These five steps take place inside the womb. That is, kalala, arbuda, peśī, ghana, and praśākha.34 Moreover, this fivefold pattern of growth is made to correspond to a postnatal development of the human being in five phases, called “five stages outside the womb” (Sk. pañca jātāvasthā, Ch. taiwai wuwei 胎外五位): from infant (bāla, yinghai 嬰児) to child (kumāra, tongzi 童子), adolescent (yuvan, shaonian 少 年), adult (madhya, zhongnian 中年), and old age (vṛddha, laonian 老年).35 34

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Apidamo jushe lun, T. 1558.29.0047c19–24: 最初羯剌藍　次生頞部曇/　從此生閉尸 　閉尸生鍵南　/次鉢羅奢佉　後髮毛爪等　/及色根形相　漸次而轉増 /謂母 腹中分位有五。一羯剌藍位。二頞部曇位。三閉尸位。四鍵南位。五鉢羅奢 佉位。I cite here Xuanzang’s translation, as this was more referred to in Japan. For a French translation, see Louis de La Valle-Poussin, L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu (Paris: Geunther, 1923–31), vol. 2, 58. Paramārtha’s translation does not differ substantially. Cf. Apidamo jushe shilun, T. 1559.29.0204c11–16: 初名柯羅邏 次生頞浮陀 / 從此生俾尸 俾尸生伽那 / 伽那生捨佉 及髮毛爪等 / 并有色諸根 次第生身分 / 此五位皆在胎 内。謂柯羅邏。頞浮陀。俾尸。伽訶那。波羅捨佉。 Apidamo jushe lun, T. 1558.29.0082a25–27: 謂中有位及處胎中。出胎以後各有五 位。胎中五者。一羯剌藍。二頞部曇。三閉尸。四鍵南。五鉢羅奢佉。胎外

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A later Abhidharma commentary, Puguang’s 普光 (645?–664) Jushe lun ji 俱舎 論記, identifies these two sets of five stages as the ten phases of the human body,36 suggesting that such transformations of the body were a comprehensive metaphor for the unfolding of life. The quintuple schema, and the correspondence between five inner and five outer phases, became a recurrent trope in mediaeval Japanese material, and one may argue that the transmission of Abhidharma texts, which were part of the general scholastic curriculum of monastics, influenced these formulations directly. The Indian sources discussed above are also quoted in important Chinese works that would have an even greater impact in Japan. Da zhidu lun 大智度論 (Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom), the treatise attributed to Nāgārjuna, and Zhiyi’s Sijao yi 四教義 (The Doctrine of the Four Teachings), for instance, speak of five weekly stages of human formation.37 These works do not always give textual references, suggesting that the image of five stages was familiar to contemporary readers. Exploring the Tiantai lineage further, one finds that Zhanran 湛然 (711–782) in his Fahua wenju ji 法華文句記 (Notes on the “Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra”) refers explicitly to both the thirty-eight-week gestation of the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra and the five stages of the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya, and cites the latter verbatim.38 The context of these quotations is yet to be studied and may reveal significant connections. Preliminary findings suggest that the five-stage notion was incorporated into Chinese Buddhist works to encapsulate the process of gestation, despite the fact that, as a set, the five stages did not have a significant impact on Chinese culture at large, nor did a pentadic model of spiritual progress develop in Chinese Buddhism that is comparable to the one that circulated in mediaeval Japan. The evolution of the idea of foetal development and its graphic representation into the pattern that we know from Japanese material was a further step. This evolution was, I argue,

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五者。一嬰孩。二童子。三少年。四中年。五老年. See La Valle-Poussin’s translation: “L’embryon passe par cinq états, kalala, arbuda, peśī, ghana, praśākha. L’homme passe par cinq états, enfant, adolescent, homme fait, homme mùr, vieillard.” La VallePoussin 1923–31, vol. 3, 119. Cf. Apidamo jushe shilun, T. 1559.29.238b15–17: 此云何。胎位 有五。謂柯羅邏。頞浮陀。俾尸。伽訶那。波羅捨佉。已生位有五。謂嬰兒 童子少壯中老。 T. 1821.41.118b6–9: 謂胎内有五。一羯剌藍。二阿部曇。三閉尸。四掲南。五鉢 羅奢佉胎外有五。一嬰孩。二童子。三少年。四盛年。五老年現身十位後皆 除前。Jushe lun ji is a commentary on Xuanzang’s translation of the Kośa. Da zhidu lun, T. 1509.25.0090a9–12; Sijao yi, T. 1929.46.745c18–21. Sijao yi, in twelve fascicles, is a systematic exposition of the Tiantai doctrine of the four types of teaching. Fahua wenju ji 法華文句記, T. 1719.34.243b15–18. This is a commentary on Fahua wenju, a major exegetical work on the Lotus Sutra by Zhiyi 智顗 (538–597).

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mediated by another paradigm, a cosmological paradigm of Chinese origins. The Chinese conceptualisation of the body was in fact instrumental in transforming the pentadic schema of gestation into a preeminent analytical and ritual model. 3

The Chinese Body: The Five Agents and Five Viscera System

Chinese medical traditions as well as Taoist religious literature discuss pregnancy and foetal growth in elaborate ways. Both traditions follow a ten-month process, drawing on biological evidence. Their practices are well documented and have been explored in depth by historians of medicine and religious studies scholars. Received scholarship has not demonstrated the same interest in the relation between the medical knowledge brought by Buddhism and the development of embryological discourse in China. Scholars have by and large tended to minimise the influence that Buddhism had on Chinese secular medical notions, despite acknowledging similarities in the two therapeutic systems.39 Recent research, however, is calling for revisiting such a position and considering a more inclusive model of medicine, in which Indian medical knowledge was adopted and adapted, also thanks to the degree of convergence of the Buddhist and Chinese systems.40 With regard to the embryogenetic question, new hypotheses have been put forward which may help recover the background of the Japanese reformulation of the five stages of gestation. Scholars have pointed out that the detailed, week-by-week descriptions of the foetus in Chinese treatises were informed by Indian theories, and by Buddhist sources in particular, which were translated into Chinese.41 The notion of a disgusting body which emerges from these 39

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Paul Unschuld stresses the continuity in China of the “medicine of systematic correspondence,” which existed before the introduction of Indian medicine. However, he also notes similarities: the Chinese system, based on the theory of Yin-Yang and the five agents, offered therapeutic applications according to a perception of the human organism as embedded in a network of relations; Buddhist therapeutics also combined a “primary non normative science, in particular the doctrine of the four elements (earth, water, fire, and wind), with ideas derived from the normative moral system of Buddhism.” Paul Unschuld, “The Chinese Reception of Indian Medicine,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 53/3 (1979), 335. Cf. Pierce Salguero, “Buddhist Medicine in Mediaeval China: Disease, Healing, and the Body in Cross-cultural Translation (Second to Eighth Centuries C.E.)” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2010). Chen Ming 2005, 323.

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sources, however, contrasted with the Chinese view of the body as a harmonious and healthy organism that mirrored the macrocosm.42 Furthermore, attention has been drawn to early descriptions of the month-by-month development of the foetus, such as those contained in the second-century manuscripts from Mawangdui 馬王堆 (in Hunan Province), which link it to elements of Chinese cosmology. Noteworthy is the correlation between gestation months, the five agents, and the five internal viscera, according to the theory of systematic correspondences.43 The formation of the human body is thus connected to cosmic dynamics of generation. These correlations would become part of the emerging medical theories. Interestingly, this material was later incorporated in the tenth-century Japanese compendium of medical knowledge, the Ishinpō 醫心方 (ca. 984). It is thus possible that secular medical literature was another channel through which a specific articulation of the embryological discourse reached Japanese Buddhists. Whatever the case may be, the Japanese documents analysed here belong to a Buddhist tradition that had already incorporated the Chinese system of knowledge. Although our understanding of how Tantric practitioners in China performed their ritual is still patchy, we know that Tantric practices translated and exported from China subsumed the fivefold correlative system. This helped expand the conceptual possibilities of the embryogenetic model. Gochizō hishō offers strong evidence of the links that were made in mediaeval Japan between embryology and correlative cosmology. The document starts with a number of drawings of the five-element stupa (gorintō 五輪塔) (Fig. 7.6). In Tantric doctrine, the stupa is regarded as one of the forms of Dainichi (Sk. Mahāvairocana), usually Dainichi of the Womb mandala.44 The five-element stupa evolved from this idea and became an important image in Japanese Tantric Buddhism, for it crystallises the five material constituents of reality (earth, water, fire, wind, and ether) into geometric forms. Gochizō hishō presents this stupa as produced during Tantric practice through the transfor42

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Salguero notes that the Chinese religious and medical repertoire had few metaphors that could capture the Indian notion of a disgusting and self-conflicted body. Salguero 2010, 181–83. Jessey Choo, however, has recently argued that Buddhist sources, in particular non-canonical texts, contributed to the negative perception of the foetus and the process of childbirth that comes to the fore in Chinese sources. See Jessey J.C. Choo, “That ‘Fatty Lump’: Discourses on the Fetus, Fetal Development, and Filial Piety in China before the Eleventh Century CE,” Nan Nü 14 (2012): 177–221. Sabine Wilms, “The Transmission of Medical Knowledge on ‘Nurturing the Fetus’ in Early China,” Asian Medicine 1/2 (2005): 276–314. See also Choo 2012. See Adrian Snodgrass, The Matrix and Diamond World Mandalas in Shingon Buddhism, Śata-Pitaka Series (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1988), vol. 2, 736.

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Figure 7.6 The five-element stupa (gorintō 五輪塔), opening section of the Gochizō hishō 五智蔵秘抄. Ninnaji Archives.

mation of two seed-syllables, VAṂ, which instantiates the world of the Diamond mandala, and A, representing the Womb mandala. When combined, these seed-syllables produce the seed-syllables of the five elements, a va ra haṃ khaṃ. The dynamics of these interactions are visualised in a double stupa (the first image in the drawing), as well as in a “stupa-body.” The latter is particularly relevant here. It consists of the image of a practitioner, sitting in meditative posture, projected onto the five geometric forms of the stupa: his legs correspond to the earth element, his face and head to the wind and ether elements, while his arms are duplicated on the two central elements, water and fire, so that his hands can form the two mudras of the two aspects of Dainichi, respectively – the meditation-mudra of Dainichi in the Womb mandala on the round form that embodies the water element, and the wisdom-fist of Dainichi in the Diamond mandala on the triangular form that embodies the fire element. A gloss adds that this image encapsulates a twofold and yet non-dual reality (ryōbu funi mandara 両部不二曼荼羅) expressed through the karmic actions of the Buddha (katsuma mandara 羯磨曼荼羅). Thus, the opening passage of

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Gochizō hishō focuses on a body-mandala, where the crucial feature of the ultimate reality as envisaged in Tantric scriptures, the differentiated Dainichi, is combined with the constituents of the material world, namely, the five elements, and the activity of the Buddha’s dharma-body is instantiated in ritual gestures. In other words, Gochizō hishō begins its treatment of embryogenetic topics with a cosmological statement, which is further articulated through an inventory of fivefold correlations in diagrammatic form: the five colours (green, black, yellow, red, and white); the five syllables (hūṃ, aḥ, vaṃ, trāḥ, and hrīḥ); the five sense organs (eyes, ears, tongue, mouth, and nose); the five directional animals (Green Dragon, Black Snake-Turtle, Yellow Dragon, Red Sparrow, and White Tiger); the five planets; the five types of voices, and so on. These were all well-established pentadic sets in Chinese cosmology, which had been incorporated into Chinese Buddhism, with specific sets, such as the five syllables, created by Tantric exegetes. Their non-discursive exposition occupies almost half of the length of Gochizō hishō. In this way, embryogenetic practices are firmly situated within a web of relations in which the entire reality is subsumed. This is not an original elaboration by the compiler of Gochizō hishō, though. Similar ideas are found in other mediaeval writings. In fact, the opening section of Gochizō hishō is entirely lifted from Gorin kujimyō himitsushaku 五輪九 字明秘密釋 (A Secret Interpretation of the Five Chakras and Nine Syllables), the major work of a leading figure of early mediaeval Tantric Buddhism, Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143).45 In this work, Kakuban explained that the body received from one’s parents becomes an enlightened body by “practising” the five syllables a va ra haṃ khaṃ, and he did so by advocating the correspondence between the five great elements that constitute the universe and the five viscera (Ch. wuzang 五臟 [or 藏], Jp. gozō), which are the essential, vital constituents of the human body.46 The closeness of the diagrammatic narrative of 45 46

Cf. Gorin kuji myō himitsushaku, T. 2514.79.12c–13a. The variations in the text of Gochizō hishō are irrelevant. In turn, Kakuban drew many of these correlations from three siddhi texts, known as the Sanzhong xidi podiyu 三種悉地破地獄 (The Three Siddhi for the Destruction of Hell), attributed to Śubhakarasiṃha (see in particular T. 905.18). On Kakuban’s use of the fiveorgan practices, see Kuriyama Shūjun 栗山秀純, “Gorin kujimyō himitsushaku ni okeru gozō sanmajikan 『五輪九字明秘密釋』における五臓三摩地観,” Buzan gakuhō 豊 山学報 13 (1967): 57–68, and “Kōgyō daishi no Gorin kujimyō himitsushaku to chūsei Nihon bunka ni okeru gozōkan shisō 興教大師の『五輪九字明秘密釋』と中世日 本文化における五臓観思想,” in Kōsōden no kenkyū: Kushida hakase shōju kinen 高僧 伝の研究：櫛田博士頌寿記念, Kushida Ryōkō hakase shōju kinenkai 櫛田良洪博 士頌寿記念會, eds. (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorin, 1973), 241–52. The three siddhi texts are

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Gochizō hishō to Kakuban’s theorisation of sokushin jōbutsu (attaining Buddhahood with one’s own body) may be justifiable historically, given Kakuban’s connections to the Ninnaji lineage.47 Gochizō hishō, however, also draws on canonical texts of Tiantai lineage. The initial drawings of the stupabody are followed by a long quotation from the Shichan boluomi cidi famen 釋 禪波羅蜜次第法門 (Exposition on the Gradual Gateway to the Perfection of Meditation), one of Zhiyi’s 智顗 (538–597) major texts on meditative theory and practice. It may not be surprising to find it cited in Gochizō hishō, for Zhiyi incorporated several of the fivefold correlations in his explanations of causal relations and of illness. The passage from Shichan boluomi cidi famen is particularly significant because it recounts the moment of conception – with the antarābhava, the sexual fluids of father and mother, and the seed of consciousness being planted – and then the transformation of the embryo into a body through the development of the five viscera and the five types of consciousness that arise in connection to the five sense organs (Ch. wushi 五識). Zhiyi describes the five viscera and the deities that rule them, and presents them as different names for the five types of consciousness.48 Thus, not only does the opening section of Gochizō hishō introduce the cosmological framework of Tantric practices, it also lays out a specific notion of the body, which I shall call the “organic body,” and it establishes a clear link between this and the epigenetic process. The image of the five-element stupa played a crucial role in the mediaeval visions of the body, as I have discussed elsewhere.49 The mapping out of the human body as a five-viscera mandalic system (gozō mandara 五臓曼荼羅),

47

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49

discussed at length in Chen Jinhua, Legend and Legitimation: The Formation of Tendai Esoteric Buddhism in Japan, Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques 30 (Leeuven: Peeters, 2009), Chapters Three and Four, 113–88. An English translation of T. 905.18 is included in Fabio Rambelli, “Tantric Buddhism and Chinese Thought in East Asia,” in Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 361–80. The final passage of Gochizō hishō, too, recalls Kakuban’s exegesis. It associates the recitation of the name of Amida with the actualisation of enlightenment in one’s own body, and states the possibility of being reborn with one’s present body. Kakuban’s commentary also advocated reaching enlightenment with the body represented by the five chakras by chanting the nine syllables of Amida’s mantra Oṃ a mṛ ta te je ha ra hūṃ. T. 1916.46.532a4–20. Gochizō hishō cites this work with its abbreviated title, Cidi chanmen 次第禪門, by which it was more popularly known. The depiction of the seed of consciousness being planted in the place where the white and red fluids come together recurs also in Mohe zhiguan 摩訶止観 (The Great Calming and Contemplation), T. 1911.46.93b10– 11. Once again the context of this use needs to be explored in detail. Dolce 2010, 185–92.

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too, was widespread in mediaeval Japan. Several independent documents presenting a similar perspective in diagrammatic form are extant, and some have been uncovered recently. A Gozō mandara wae shaku 五臓曼荼羅和會釋 (A Collated Commentary on the Five Viscera Mandala), dated 1297, is in the holdings of the Kanazawa Bunko Archives;50 two other manuscripts, one dated 1162, have been found in the Ōsu Bunko;51 and a further manuscript is listed among the holdings of the Kissui 吉水 Archive of Shōrenin 青蓮院, in Kyoto.52 In addition, a certain Gozō mandara gikishō 五臓曼荼羅儀軌鈔 (Manual of the Five Viscera Mandala) is mentioned by Yōsai 栄西 (1141–1215) in his Kiccha yōjōki 喫茶養生記 (On Drinking Tea and Nourishing Life), dated 1211.53 All these texts explain the correlations between the agents that constitute the universe and the human body – including colours, directions, geometric forms, and planets – and extend the system to elements of the esoteric world, such as the seed-syllables. For instance, Gozō mandara wae shaku explains: East corresponds to wood. In the five-element stupa it corresponds to the ether sphere. This has the shape of a drop (rendan 蓮團) and is projected on the top of the head [of the practitioner]. South is fire. In the five-element stupa it corresponds to the fire sphere. This has a triangular shape and is [located] on his chest. West corresponds to metal. In the five-element stupa it corresponds to the water sphere. It has a round form and is placed on his abdomen. North corresponds to water. In the five-element stupa it corresponds to the wind sphere. It has a half-moon shape and is 50

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Gozō mandara wae shaku, in Kanazawa bunko shiryō zensho 金沢文庫史料全書, vol. 6, Shingon hen 真言編, no. 1982, 216–49. For a study of this text and its content, see Fukuda Ryōsei 福田亮成, “Gozō mandara wae shaku kō『五臓曼荼羅和會釋』攷,” in Bukkyō bunka no kichō to tenkai – Ishigami Zennō kyōju koki kinen ronbunshū 仏教文化と基調 と展開 – 石上善応教授古稀記念論文集, Ishigami Zennō kyōju koki kinen ronbunshū kankōkai 石上善応教授古稀記念論文集刊行會, eds. (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorin, 2001), 551–74; and Kuriyama Shūjun, “Gozō mandara wae shaku to gozōkan shisō 『五臓 曼荼羅和會釋』と五臓観思想,” Indogaku bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度学仏教学研究 29 (1966): 170–71. Gozō mandara wae shaku, Ōsu Bunko, 53–47, one fascicle, dated 1162. Gozō mandara, Ōsu Bunko 74–47, one fascicle. The two manuscripts may be parts of a single text. See Shōren’in monzeki Kissuizō shōgyō mokuroku 青蓮院門跡吉水蔵聖教目録 (Catalogue of Sacred Texts from the Kissui Archives, Shōren’in Imperial Temple), box 16, 72–3. Dated 1118, it was copied from a manuscript compiled in 1079. This text has not yet been identified. Cf. Shinya Mano, “Yōsai and the Transformation of Buddhist Precepts in Pre-modern Japan” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 2013); and Edward Drott, “Gods, Buddhas, and Organs: Buddhist Physicians and Theories of Longevity in Early Mediaeval Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37/2 (2010): 247–73.

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placed on the face. The middle is the earth. In the five-wheel stupa it corresponds to the earth sphere. It has a square form and is on the legs. Earth, water, fire, wind, and ether are the five great elements. In the body of sentient beings, the shape of these five elements is originally inherent (hongu 本具). One’s body as it is is the dharma body (jishin soku hosshin 自身即法身). The dharma body is one’s own body.54 The five-viscera body is defined here as the total body of the dharmakāya, the core of the three mysteries of yoga, and the direct path to enter Buddhahood. These writings thus emphasise the cosmic composition of the human body, indispensable to transform the human body into the perfected, cosmic body of the Buddha. At the same time, the focus on the material components of this body places the materiality of the process of conception and the physical nature of the foetal body at the centre of this vision. A comparison between the Gozō mandara manuscripts and Gochizō hishō demonstrates that this notion of a body made of correspondences was the foundation of embryological discourse in Japan.55 Wuxing (five agents) and wuzang (five viscera) were pre-Buddhist cate­ gories, one cosmological, the other ontological. The wuxing notion was appropriated by the major traditions of Chinese Buddhism. In the above-mentioned Mohe zhiguan, Zhiyi reinterpreted the Indian notion of the “five great elements” (earth, water, fire, wind, and space), combining it with the wuxing theory.56 This cosmological model was also connected to the Taoist medita­tion on the five viscera, and Buddhist meditative manuals, such as the Mohe zhiguan, appropriated this too. Because the five viscera corresponded to the five agents, they became the element that connected microcosm and macrocosm. The five viscera were the human dimension of cosmic forces. Ruled by five spirits, they were thought to contain the power of man. Meditation was

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Gozō mandara wae shaku, Ōsu Bunko, 53–47. It should be noted that in the early Indian literature, too, the great elements played a role in forming the embryo. For instance, the Garbhāvakrānti sūtra says that the earth element manifests itself by creating hardness, the water element by creating wetness, the fire element by creating warmth, and the wind element by creating lightness and movement. All the elements are caused by past actions and give rise to consciousness. See Langenberg 2008, 93, for a translation of the relevant passage. See, for instance, T. 1911.46.110b3–12. For a study of the wuxing system in Chinese Buddhism, see Chen Jinhua 2009, 263–68. Chen notes that Zhiyi substituted space, the fifth of the “five elements,” with wood, the second of the “five agents.” The five agents are metal (jin 金), wood (mu 木), water (shui 水), fire (huo 火), and earth (di 地).

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meant to keep the energy that they generated inside the body.57 The connections with the wuxing/wuzang system that emerge from mediaeval Japanese Buddhist writings have lead scholars to speak of an influence of Taoism and “Taoist medicine” on mediaeval writers such as Kakuban. The extent to which these connections can be labelled “Taoist” is, however, doubtful. What we are dealing with is not an appropriation of “Taoist” medicine, but rather a supply of shared knowledge from Chinese sources, including Buddhist sources, which was sustained by and implemented in ritual practice. 4

The Tantric Body: Fluids, Visualisation Practices, and Initiatory Rituals

Let us go back to Tantric ritual practice, for it was in a ritual context that the idea of a five-stage gestation was given new meaning in Japan. Kakuban is credited with being the first in Japan to mention a quintuple model of foetal growth and associate it to components of Tantric ritual practices. An entry dated 1139 in a compilation of his lectures on Kūkai’s Jūjūshinron 十住心論, known as Uchigikishū 打聞集 (Collection of Impressive Teachings I Heard), describes the five stages of gestation.58 In fact, the text gives details only of the first stage, which, in line with the material analysed so far, is described as the coming together of red and white fluids and is represented by a round shape. Kakuban’s concerns remained with the modes of combination of these two fluids and the correspondence of the two colours to other components of the 57

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Isabelle Robinet, Taoist Meditation (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993), especially, 60–74. Robinet discusses the visualisation of the viscera in different Taoist sources, as well as the meditative practices used to create embryos of perfection within the body. Uchigikishū, Kōgyō daishi chosaku zenshū 興教大師著作全集 (Tokyo: Shingonshū Buzanha shūmusho Kōgyō daishi happyaku gojūnen goonki kinen jigyō iinkai, 1992–94) vol. 2, 504. (Cf. the edition included in the Taishō canon, T. 2443.77.679b–c, which however contains several mistakes.) The entry is dated 1139, fifth month, 7th day. Uchigikishū consists of notes which Kakuban’s disciple Shōō took during his lectures, and which were supposed to be destroyed after his death. Jūjūshinron, T. 2425.77, full title: Himitsu mandara jūjūshinron 祕密曼荼羅十住心論 (Ten Abiding Stages of Mind According to Secret Mandalas), is one of Kūkai’s major works. The motif of the five stages of gestation is also present in Jishinkan 自身観 (Visualising One’s Own Body), a poem where Kakuban identifies the foetus with the tathāgatagarbha. See Kōgyō Daishi senjutsushū 興教大師撰述 集 (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorin, 1977), 129–30. It should be noted that the Sanskrit word garbha means both “womb” and “foetus.”

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Tantric worlds. Most importantly, he explicitly linked “red” and “white” to the meditation on the sun and moon presented in Putixin lun 菩提心論 (Treatise on the Mind of Realization), an association that would carry much weight in later articulations of the discourse on the body, as I have discussed elsewhere.59 Kakuban asserted that a new body takes shape gradually. The foetus is born at the end of a fivefold process of transformation, when it takes a samaya form, namely, the five-element stupa. This stupa then assumes an “adorned form” (shōgon 荘厳), namely, the features of the Buddha. Kakuban likened the five stages of gestation to the five phases of life after birth, as well as to the fivefold rotation of the syllable A and the five Buddhas. Moreover, he posited that pure Buddha-nature is present inside the deluded body of a human being (gubakushin 具縛身) in the form of Dainichi’s seed letters. Thus, Kakuban used the embryogenetic process to affirm reality qua “original perfected existence” (honnu 本有). One finds similar ideas in other contemporary interpretations. An exegesis of the sokushin jōbutsu theory attributed to another eminent Tōmitsu monk, Seizon 成尊 (1012–1074), on whose work Kakuban might have drawn, argues that the process of gestation crystallises the overcoming of dualistic discrimination between matter (shiki 色) and mind (shin 心).60 It pronounces the first stage in the womb to be the originally existent awakened mind (honnu bodaishin 本有菩提心) and the source of dharma-nature (hosshō gentei 法性源底). Furthermore, it identifies the mental factors with consciousness and the material factors with “the seed of the white and red [fluids]” (shakubyaku no shū 赤白の種).61 The white and red fluids express differentiation, like the Dainichi of the two mandalas, or the moon and the sun; consciousness is like the Buddha of the non-duality of the two mandalas. Producing a foetus necessarily means bringing together sexual fluids and consciousness. Significantly, the act of being born (shuttai 出胎) is presented as 59

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See Dolce 2006–07, and Dolce 2010. The Putixin lun (full title: Jingangding yugazhong fa anouduoluo sanmiao sanputixin lun 金剛頂瑜伽中發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心論, Trea­tise on the Realized Mind of the Adamantine Peak Yoga, T. 1665), is considered the most important treatise of the Tantric tradition in Japan. See Saigo kanjō jōgyōshinyō hō 最後灌頂常行心要法 (Method for the Last Abhiṣeka and the Incessant Practice of the Essence of the Mind), copy dated 1574 (Tenshō天正 2), Ōsu Bunko archive. However, another copy in the archives of Zentsūji 善通寺 attributes this work to the founder of the Sanbōin lineage, Shōkaku 勝覚 (1057–1129). See the digitalized text on the website of National Institute of Japanese Literature, accessed September 19, 2014 . The passage discussed above is on folios 13ff. With a typical Yogācāra imprint, the text speaks of “eight consciousnesses” (hasshiki 八識).

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the final accomplishment, ritually expressed in the ultimate secret consecration (abhiṣeka). In these exegeses, thus, the body created by “entering into the womb” and experienced as a result of karma is sublimated into its equivalence with the dharma-body and with the absolute reality of the Buddha – an equivalence which is not merely theoretical but is actualised in a ritual context. This is in striking contrast with the tone of Indic Buddhist literature on conception, which, taking to the extreme the basic idea that all conditioned existence is suffering, depicts the womb as a polluted place where the foetus suffers at every stage of its growth. On the contrary, similarities surface with IndoTibetan Tantric practices: for instance, those that characterised the development of the Yoga Tantras, and those described in the Cakrasaṃvara tantra.62 Here one finds rituals of consecration that direct the adept to engage in sexual union with a consort in order to produce sexual fluids (which would in turn empower the adept); and a process of self-consecration, whereby the adept visualises his body as being permeated by the wheels of a mandala and in so doing achieves the form of the dharmakāya. While the early Buddhist meditation on the body (kāyagatā sati), such as the meditation on the impure (aśubhabhāvanā), was intended to undermine any attractiveness of the human body, the Tantric techniques of meditation transformed the body from a filthy vessel into a sanctified abode. These similarities with the formulations of Japanese exegetes need to be taken into account when attempting to contextualise the Tantric views of the body in Japan. I have suggested that without Kūkai’s notion of sokushin jōbutsu the Japanese interpretations of the embryonic process may have not been possible. It is crucial, however, to be mindful of the performative framework in which such a notion was articulated. Tantric canonical texts advocated two specific visualisation practices for achieving the enlightened body-mind of Vairocana. One is the “visualisation to attain the perfect body in five stages” (gosō jōshinkan 五相 成身観), a practice described in Putixin lun and in other ritual manuals belonging to the Jingangding jing 金剛頂經 textual tradition. It begins with awakening the bodhicitta and, at the last stage, depicts the attainment of the perfected Buddha-body (busshin enman 仏身円満). This is said to mark the identity of

62

See Jacob Dalton, “The Development of Perfection: The Interiorization of Buddhist Ritual in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 32 (2004): 1–30. Dalton calls this movement in the evolution of the tantras a “physical interiorization of ritual.” Cf. also David Gray, The Cakrasaṃvara tantra: A Study and Annotated Translation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).

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the body of Dainichi and the body of the practitioner.63 The second practice is the “visualisation of five syllables on the practitioner’s body” (goji gonshin kan 五字厳身観), a practice first described in the Commentary on the Dari jing 大日 經.64 It aimed at transforming the practitioner’s body into the adorned body of the Buddha by visualising the five chakras and their five seed-syllables a (earth), va (water), ra (fire), ka (wind), and kya (ether) on five parts of the practitioner’s body (this visualisation is also called gorinkan 五輪観). It was through these ritual techniques that the body of flesh could be turned into a Womb mandala, and the Tantric practitioner into the “stupa of the dharma world,” that is, Dainichi. These visualisations were important steps in rituals of consecration, and thus, as in the case of the advanced Yoga Tantras, implied a close interaction between the master and the disciple (which might take on sexual overtones). These visualisation practices seem to have acquired even more significance in the mediaeval period, and one finds different representations of the imprinting of syllabic and mandalic sets of letter in mediaeval doc­u­ments.65 The flow of the narrative presented by the succession of diagrams in Gochizō hishō provides further evidence demonstrating a connection between meditative practices and the application of embryogenetic growth. Space constrictions do not allow me to explore these connections in detail here, but I would like to mention two of such practices, which are illustrated by exceptional images. 5

Before Gestation: Sexual Practices in Tantric Buddhism

In Gochizō hishō the embryological chart follows two other illustrations that draw on practices of visualisation of the syllable A. The one that directly precedes the mapping of gestation is a peculiar mandalic representation, consisting of an eight-petalled mandala with two figures wearing a crown characteristic of the Buddha Dainichi and intertwined in a sexual act (Fig. 7.7). It is 63

64

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See T. 1665.32.574b17–26. For a detailed analysis of these practices in English, see Mano 2013, Chapter Three. The two scriptures Jingangding jing and Dari jing (mentioned below), together with the śāstra Putixin lun, are regarded as the basic canonical texts of all Tantric lineages in Japan. Dari jing yishi 大日經義釋, by Śubhakarasiṃha (Shanwuwei 善無畏) and Yixing 一行, rearranged by Zhiyan 智儼 and Wengu 温古 (full title: Piluzhenachengfo shentong jiachi jing yishi 毘盧遮那成仏神変加持経義釈), ZTZ, Mikkyō 1.499a–b. Kanazawa Bunko holds a few mediaeval drawings representing the results of these visualisations. See, for instance, the catalogue Kamakura jidai no mikkyō gishiki 鎌倉時代の 密教儀式 (Yokohama: Kanazawa Bunko, 1983), exhibits nos. 37 and 39.

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not immediately clear whether the figures are a man and a woman, for one figure lies supine and the other face down.66 A gloss explains that their bodies are one white-coloured (left) and the other yellow-coloured (right). At the centre of the mandala, corresponding with their sexual organs, two A syllables are written facing each other in a mirror-like fashion. These are glossed with the characters for “white” and “red,” to indicate the two sexual fluids that come together during intercourse. The eight limbs of the two figures, plus the two poles created by the two heads, are made to correspond to the ten realms of rebirth, with the heads symbolising the Buddha-realm and hell, and glossed with other bipolar terms drawn from Tantric orthopraxis and the natural world: wisdom and principle, Diamond mandala and Womb mandala, and man and woman. On the edges of the lotus petals, the syllable A is written repeatedly, making eight groups of five syllables each. In total, it appears fortytwo times (five times by eight, plus the two A syllables inscribed in the middle of the mandala). One may note that forty-two is the number of Sanskrit syllables that, according to some canonical scriptures, constituted a distinct Sanskrit alphabet. This set of letters was the object of elaborate theorisation in Chinese Buddhism. The Tiantai school, in particular, considered the forty-two syllables to be root syllables, and the first, the syllable A, to exemplify the non-originated and all-encompassing nature of letters.67 Exegeses of the fortytwo syllables also appear in Tantric texts.68 When considered against this 66

67

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One might consider the possibility that the two figures stand for two men, perhaps reflecting homosexual relations that occurred in Japanese monasteries. That on both the sexual organs is inscribed a syllable A may support such a hypothesis. These two syllables A, however, are glossed with the characters for “white” and “red,” to indicate a bipolarity which is best rendered with the distinct biological realities of man and woman. Kumarājiva’s translation of Mahāprajñāpāramitā sūtra and Buddhabhadra’s translation of Avataṃsaka sūtra are the earlier sources that mention an alphabet (in siddham) of forty-two syllables. The set starts with A and ends with da, following the so-called arapacana order. Da zhidu lun (Commentary on the Great Perfection of Wisdom), the important compendium of Indian Buddhism, posited these forty-two syllables to be the foundation of all letters and attributed a specific meaning to each of them. Cf. T. 1509.25.684b–687c. The Tiantai tradition drew on these sources to discuss the “gate of the forty-two syllables” (sishier zi men 四十二字門, also called “letter-dhāraṇī,” sishier zi tuoluoni men 四十二字 陀羅尼門). See, for example, Zhiyi’s Mohe zhiguan, T. 1911.46.59b20. In the Tiantai interpretation the forty-two syllables were associated with the forty-two stages of the bodhisattva path. As in the forty-two stages one stage was seen as encompassing all stages, each letter of the set of forty-two was regarded endowed with all other letters. Satō Tetsuei 佐藤哲英, “Nangaku Eshi’s Yonjūnijimon ni tsuite 南岳慧思の「四十二字門」につ いて,” Indogaku bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度学仏教学研究 16/2 (1967–68): 514–21 [40–47]. See, for instance, Da fangguang fo huayan jing ru fajie pin sishier zi guanmen 大方廣佛華 嚴經入法界品四十二字觀門 (On the Visualization of the Fourty-Two Syllables in the

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background, the mandala of Gochizō hishō offers a graphic expression of the generative power of letters, in particular the syllable A. The text added to the drawing explains: When the two mandalas, Womb and Diamond, are united, the dharma world becomes the great ground of the dharma world (hokkai daiji 法界 大地). This is the source from where all phenomena are generated. It is the eight-petalled lotus. It is the gate of the forty-two syllables. Furthermore, it is the castle of originally enlightened suchness (hongaku shinnyo 本覚真如), the tathātagarbha principle (nyoraizō ri 如来蔵理). Both material and mental factors are originated from this. Thus the sutra says: “The nature of [the syllable] A is such that a single dharma is all forms, a single [grain of] dust is all mudras, a single vehicle is all grains [of dust].” To say “All phenomena are this Buddha-body” [means that] the form that is originated from the place where meditation and wisdom come together and the single truth of suchness [abides] becomes the shape of wisdom [which is embodied] in the seed syllables of the five elements. Equally, the syllable A, nectar of the three secrets, vibrates in each sound. The movements of all sentient beings are nothing but wisdom-seals (chiin 智印) of true reality. Language that is generated is not separate from the sound of the syllable A. The sutra says that what is created, the origin of the body (mi 身) of all beings, is the subtle practice of all Buddhas attaining enlightenment. It explains that tongue and language are all mantras; the movements of the body are all secret mudras. Therefore, when we are born, we are born from the great ground of the original, non-produced syllable A (aji honpushō 阿字本不生) [inscribed on] the eight-petalled mind-lotus. With the syllable A, [the first] of the forty-two syllables, at the time of death we return to the great ground of the originally enlightened suchness and awake to the principle that the syllable A is originally unborn. Accordingly, just to be on the adorned platform and realise the subtle body of [Vairo]cana becomes the essential meaning of this teaching.69

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“Entering the Dharma-World” Chapter of the Avataṃsaka sūtra), T. 1019.19.707c–9a, the translation of which is attributed to Amoghavajra. 此ハ胎金両部和シテ法界成法界大地ト一。是万法出生源也。八葉蓮華也。四 十二字ノ門也。又、本覚真如之城也。如来蔵理也。色心之二法、自此不生無 云事、故経ニハA性一法一切色、一塵一切印、一乗一切塵ト云リ。森羅万像皆 是佛身也ト云ハ、此定恵和合スル真如一実都ヨリ出生スル形ニ、五輪種字智之形 チ同シ響々非、三密醍醐ノA字ヲ囀ル。凡、一切有情ノ動作スル実相ノ智印ニ非ス ト云事ナシ。所生言語ハA音声ヲ離タル事ナシ。経ハ一切衆生身源所作、諸佛成道 微妙修行ト云、舌相言語皆是真言、身相挙動皆是密印ト説ク。此故、我等生

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Figure 7.7 Mandala of generative duality, Gochizō hishō 五智蔵秘抄. Ninnaji Archives.

This explanation is articulated in the technical language of the canonical esoteric tradition – a close analysis reveals that expressions are borrowed from major Tantric Buddhist scriptures as cited in Japanese scholastic works.70 When read together with the image of the dualistic mandala, the passage appears to stress the differentiation that is at the origin of a generative process and make it clear that polar oppositions are necessary to produce a new being. The image certainly draws on the crucial role that sexual intercourse played in embryological sources as the beginning of the rebirth process, and in fact it シ時モ八葉ノ心蓮ノA字本不生ノ大地ヨリ生スル。四十二字ノA字ヲ以遊ヒ、死シ時

モ又本覚真如 ノ大地 ニ帰 シテA字本不生 ノ理 ヲ証 スヘシ。是依、密厳華台 ニ遊 ヒ、

70

遮那ノ妙体ヲ証セム事、タヽ此教ノ心ニ成ヘシ。The Jindaiji manuscript includes a slightly different version of this passage, which uses more concrete terms (for instance, “body” instead of “shape”). To give just one example, the sentence “tongue and language are all mantras; the movements of the body are all secret mudras” appears in Annen’s 安然 (841–889?) major works, Shingonshū kyōjigi 眞言宗教時義 (On the Meaning of Teachings and Times in Esoteric Buddhism) and Bodaishingishō 菩提心義抄 (Discussion on the Meaning of the Mind of Realization), quoted from Dari jing. See T. 2396.75.387b and T. 2397.75.508–509.

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could be seen just as a more elaborate illustration of the first of the five stages of gestation examined above – and for this reason placed just before the embryogenetic chart. At the same time, its mandalic rendition seems to sublimate duality by creating a cosmic stage where the interaction between opposites produces a ritual overcoming of duality. In this sense, the two figures engaged in sexual intercourse, a paradigmatic image of duality, are transformed into the image of ultimate non-duality, that is, a non-duality which produces the seeds of differentiation and thus constantly needs to activate its generative power ritually in order to achieve its goal. The Tantric notion of the syllable A as the original, non-born origin of all things (aji honpushō) played a fundamental part in this articulation of the generative process, and this explain its pervasive presence in embryological imagery. Such a “mandala of generative duality” raises the question of whether an actual enactment of sexual intercourse was part of the ritualisation of the embryogenetic discourse in Japan. Gochizō hishō does not include ritual instructions, nor has historical material that attests to the performance of sexual practices hitherto been uncovered. It is possible, thus, that the mandala was to be produced within practices of visualisation. Gochizō hishō is not the only mediaeval document that contains such an image. The Jindaiji manuscript I have mentioned above, which is a Meiji copy of a mediaeval original, also includes the mandala, more simply drawn: the two figures are naked and differently coloured, one in white and the other in purple, their legs intersecting like scissors (Fig. 7.8). A similar manuscript, which has recently been published as a “Tachikawa-ryū document,” contains this mandala, too (Fig. 7.9).71 Here the seed-syllables of the five elements, a va ra haṃ khaṃ, are drawn on the bodies of the two practitioners to create a double five-element stupa similar to the one that opens Gochizō hishō, with a single syllable A (earth) corresponding to the sexual organs of the two practitioners. The two poles created by the two heads are denoted as “the world of the Buddha” and “the world of sentient beings.” In other words, these different manuscripts all give similar details, with insignificant variations. Mizuhara’s study on the Tachikawa-ryū, which I have mentioned above, included an example of such a mandala, without however providing information on the origins or dating of the image. The image is described as a shiki 敷 mandala, that is, a mandala to spread on the performance area usually for the practitio-

71

Uchida 2012, figures 1–2, captioned “two bodhisattvas with open legs on an eight-petalled lotus.” On the manuscript, see n. 7.

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Figure 7.8 Mandala, untitled manuscript. Jindaiji Archives.

ner to sit on.72 Mizuhara associated this image with the “heretical” lineage of Tachikawa, and other sources have reiterated the heterodox connotation of the image.73 The possibility that it was used as a shiki mandala could

72 73

Mizuhara 1968, photograph between pages 130 and 131. Sasama Yoshihiko and Manabe Shunshō include the image of a similar mandala in their work on Tachikawa-ryū, and define it a shiki mandala. Sasama Yoshihiko 笹間良彦, Sei no shūkyō: Shingon Tachikawaryū towa nanika 性の宗教 – 立川流とは何か (Tokyo: Daiichi shobō, 1988), 93: and Manabe 2002, 69. (The image in Sasama seems to be a line drawing of the one reproduced in Manabe). Virtually identical to that of the Gochizō hishō, it is said to be from a richly coloured Muromachi-period manuscript in two fascicles, titled Tachikawa-ryū daidō onmyō konpon 立川流大等陰陽根本 (Foundations of the Excellent Yin and Yang of the Tachikawa Lineage), first brought to the attention of the public in an issue of Rekishi kōron 歴史公論 (tsūkan 52) in 1980. Both images inscribe this passage: “Returning to the ten grounds, experience the awakening of the originally

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Figure 7.9 “Two bodhisattvas with open legs on an eight-petalled lotus,” untitled manuscript. Private collection. non-born A. To play accordingly on the adorned lotus platform and realise the subtle body of [Vairo]cana is the heart of this teaching.” Sasama 1988, 94; and Manabe 2002, 77. A different version of this mandala was also included in Sangen itchi sho 三賢一致書 (The Book of the Three Teachings in One), a work that combined Tantric Buddhism and Yijing-inspired interpretations. Originally perhaps compiled at the end of the Kamakura period (the colophon of a woodblock print of 1649 gives the date of 1317), it was printed several times in the Tokugawa period. In this version of the mandala, the two figures clearly have the somatic characteristic of a man (with the beard) and a woman, are both lying on their backs and holding hands. The syllable A has disappeared, leaving space for trigrams from the Yijing: the eight trigrams are drawn in the outer layers of the mandala corresponding to each lotus petal, while the twelve zodiac signs are written inside the eight petals. The bipolarity of the image is however maintained, in that the heads of the two figures are made to correspond to the Womb and Diamond mandalas. See Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬, Sangai isshinki 三界一心記 (Notes on the Three Worlds in One Mind), in Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘争史料 (Tokyo: Tōhō shoen, 1930), 503–40. This image is also reproduced in James Sanford, “The Abominable Tachikawa Skull Ritual,” Monumenta Nipponica 46 (1991): 1–20, 13.

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imply that two practitioners enacted the postures and gestures of the two figures depicted in the mandala. Yet the explanatory notes that accompany it in Gochizō hishō and in the other manuscripts point to the mainstream discourse of Tantric Buddhism. How then should the “heretical” features be understood? I would like to put forward an alternative perspective that shifts the discussion away from the question of heterodoxy. Firstly, this mandala should be reconsidered in the context of new (non-canonical)74 representations of the double, which one finds in a variety of mediaeval texts. As I have argued in a previous study, these diverse representations repositioned the human body at the centre of the discussion on duality and its ritual overcoming. The creation of such images should be seen firstly as an epistemological effort that reasserts the potentiality of human beings and of their performative acts – a movement that the embryogenetic discourse epitomises and amplifies.75 Secondly, the explicit sexual representations linked to the generative process (as well as those conveyed in other illustrations of the double) connect the practices of Japanese Tantric Buddhism to those of continental Tantras. It is difficult to establish a precise historical transmission of the Yoga Tantras to Japan, although recent finding on the thirteenth-century interest in Hevajra tantra in China may help fill in the gaps in the near future.76 In any case, this is an important factor which has not been adequately discussed yet and which should not be marginalised by attributing heterodox connotations to this imagery.77 A last point that needs to be addressed is the relevance of the syllable A in the generative mandala of Gochizō hishō. The visualisation of the syllable A, usually inscribed in a moon disk, occupied a significant place in Japanese Tantric Buddhism throughout its history (and still does). In Gochizō hishō and the other documents mentioned above, this practice seems to be closely linked 74

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77

Here I characterise as “canonical” the Tantric corpus imported in the early Heian period and the writings of early Japanese Tantric exegetes such as Kūkai. This rubric by and large corresponds to the understanding of “canonical” in modern Tantric institutions in Japan. Dolce 2006–07, and Dolce 2010. See Shen Weirong, “Tibetan Buddhism in Mongol-Yuan China (1206–1368),” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, Charles Orzech, Henrik Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds., Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 4, China 24 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 539– 49. More explicitly sexual images of a Tantric couple have appeared in recent publications, but have not been analysed in any depth. A striking drawing, entitled “shiki mandara of the originally existent and produced by cultivation (honnu shushō 本有修性), from the En no Gyōja Hall at Mount Katsuragi,” depicts a woman and a man tied in an embrace, with their hands making mudras. Included in Sasama 1988, 87.

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Figure 7.10

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Five-color syllable A, Gochizō hishō 五智蔵秘抄. Ninnaji Archives.

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to the mandalic representation of duality. In the documents I have perused, in fact, the mandala is preceded by a distinct depiction of the syllable A. Drawn in five strokes of five different colours, it is inscribed in a moon disk supported by a lotus, on a pedestal made of three vajra coloured in yellow. These consist of a three-pronged and a five-pronged vajra placed horizontally, and a singlepronged vajra that unites them (Fig. 7.10). The six prongs of the first horizontal vajra are meant to stand for the six organs (five sensorial organs, namely, the ears, eyes, nose, body and tongue, and the mind), the six types of offerings, and the six Buddhas and bodhisattvas. From each set of five prongs of the second horizontal vajra emanate twenty-one A syllables, making once again forty-two A syllables. In addition, the five strokes that constitute the syllable A inscribed in the moon disk epitomise the five Buddhas. Mizuhara considered this representation of the syllable A to be the “Tachikawa-ryū’s main object of worship (honzon 本尊).” A sexual interpretation of this object is possible if one takes into account that the combination of vajra and lotus in Indo-Tibetan tantras embodies the male and female sexual organs. Other ritual referents of a more Japanese provenance may also be cited, such as the meditative practices focused on the wish-fulfilling jewel (mitsukan hōju 密観宝珠), which became popular in the late mediaeval period, and whose imagery shares many similarities with this representation of the syllable A.78 Let me focus on the syllable A itself. In Gochizō hishō the five strokes that constitute the syllable are to be painted in the five colours corresponding to the five elements. Other manuscripts add details to this representation and connect the syllable A even more closely to the fivefold correlative system. The “Tachikawa-ryū document” mentioned above, for instance, depicts five Chinese-looking figures inside the five strokes, which in turn are glossed as the five viscera (Fig. 7.11). These five figures thus stand for the five spirits who rule the five viscera in the Taoist articulation of the correlative system – which, as we have seen above, was also used in Tiantai treatises on meditation. The explanation that introduces this image identifies the syllable A with the Buddha-mind (busshin 仏心) and suggests that the syllable transforms itself, becoming the Buddha Dainichi in order to benefit all sentient beings.79 The syllable A is thus a body of sound made of the five elements and the five viscera, which during its visualisation produces a Buddha-body. In turn, this perfected body is born to benefit human beings. Therefore, the image reiter78 79

See Dolce 2010, 185–7. Uchida 2012, image 1–2 (beginning of volume) and p. 14, line 68. Here, too, the fivepronged vajra produces forty-two A syllables (one each from the central prongs and five from each of the surrounding prongs). These are in turn associated to the ten suchnesses.

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Figure 7.11

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Five-colour syllable A inscribed with the five viscera deities, untitled manuscript. Private collection.

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Figure 7.12

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Foetal syllable A, Aji kokubako. Hasedera Archives.

ates the notions expressed in the embryological charts. I have found another source where the syllable A explicitly produces a foetus: in a manuscript entitled Aji kokubako 阿字黒箱 (Black Box of Syllable A), the syllable A and the moon-circle which contains it are posited as the two elements necessary to initiate the generative process, at the end of which a foetus is drawn inside the syllable itself (Fig. 7.12).80 This material needs further analysis, but the images are indeed suggestive of the meditative practices articulated in mediaeval Japan, whereby the visualisation of the syllable A became a mental embryogenetic process. The final image in the diagrammatic narrative of Gochizō hishō is again a double figure: one five-element stupa contains the figure of a practitioner 80

Manuscript in the Hasedera Archives; reproduced in Kitao Ryūshin 北尾隆心, “Hase bunkozō Akan saigoku hiyō (Aji kokubako) ni tsuite 1 長谷文庫蔵『A觀最極秘要(阿字 黒箱)』について(一),” Shuchiin daigaku mikkyō shiryō kenkyūjo kiyō 種智院大学密教 資料研究所紀要, vol. 8, Kenkyūhen 研究篇, Hase bunko no chōsa hōkoku 1 「長谷文 庫」の調査報告 1 (2006): 258–93.

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Figure 7.13

Twin stupa, Gochizō hishō 五智蔵秘抄. Ninnaji Archives.

wearing the crown of Dainichi; the other stupa contains a female figure. A subtle red line unites their mouths, and two mirror-like A syllables are depicted floating out of their mouths, as if they were being uttered and exchanged by the two figures (Fig. 7.13).81 The sexual differentiation of the two figures once again seems to make an explicit reference to sexual relations. However, interestingly, in the Jindaiji rendition of this image, the two figures become a Buddha and a monastic (male) practitioner, thus perhaps representing the interaction between master and disciple at the moment of the consecration of a new adept (Fig. 7.14). So far in this essay, I have surveyed some of the images included in Gochizō hishō by following an exegetical logic rather than the order in which they appear in the manuscript. When one reconsiders their sequential arrangement, however, it becomes clear that the representation of the embryogenetic process is only one segment of a more complex discourse on liberation through bodily practices. The formation of an enlightened body, realised through meditative performance, needs to be grounded in the understanding of the nature of this body (the cosmological dimension given by the wuxing system), in the knowledge of the dynamics of conception (the interaction between 81

A similar image is reproduced, in colour, in Mizuhara 1968, opening illustration.

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Figure 7.14

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Twin stupa, the Jindaiji manuscript.

differentiated entities represented in the mandala), and an understanding of the gestation process. The perfect body, produced during gestation, at the time of birth once again takes the shape of a material body made of flesh. 6

The Performance of Gestation I: The Yoga Sutra Commentaries

The discussion of the Japanese embryological charts cannot be concluded without mentioning two other genres of mediaeval writings that make use of such charts. The first is the exegetical tradition of Yuqi jing (Jp. Yugikyō 瑜祇經, Yoga Sutra).82 Yuqi jing is a Chinese apocryphal sutra that became particularly popular in mediaeval Japan. It was the canonical source for the iconography of the deity Aizen Myōō 愛染明王 and, as I have discussed elsewhere, it was instrumental in the articulation of the Buddhist discourse on the body. Several mediaeval commentaries on Yuqi jing include a chart of the fivefold stages of gestation like the one we have seen in Gochizō hishō. Among the earliest writings, two short exegeses are noteworthy: Yugikyō hiketsu 瑜祇經祕決 (Secret Decisions on the Yuqi jing), attributed to Jichiun 實運 (1106–1160), and certainly compiled within the Daigoji lineages; and Yugikyō kenmon 瑜祇經見聞 (Observations on the Yuqi jing), a record of lectures on Yuqi jing given by the Taimitsu scholiast Enni Bennen 円爾弁円 (1202–1280). Both are available in printed form and have been included in major collections of the writings of the two schools of Tantric Buddhism that their authors represent, Shingon and 82

T. 867.75. Full title: Jingangefeng louge yiqie yuqie yuqi jing 金剛峯樓閣一切瑜伽瑜祇 經, Jp. Kongōbu rōkaku issai yuga yugikyō, The Sutra of All Yogas and Yogis of the Adamantine Peak Pavillion. The Chinese translation of this scripture is attributed to Vajrabodhi (Jingangzhi 金剛智, 671–741), but no Indic original or Tibetan version exists, and scholars agree it was compiled in China.

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Tendai.83 Other commentaries do not include the drawings of the five stages but explain them in detail. Worth noting is Yugikyō kuketsu 瑜祇經口決 (Oral Decisions on the Yuqi jing) by the Kōyasan monk Dōhan 道範 (1178–1252), according to its colophon recorded in 1241,84 and Yugikyō chōmonshō 瑜祇經聴 聞抄 (Verbatim Account of the Yuqi jing), by the Taimitsu Anō-ryū monk Chōgō 澄豪 (1259–1350).85 Similar manuscripts produced by Shingon lineages are preserved in the Kanazawa Bunko archives.86 This is a wealth of material, both published and unpublished, produced by different “orthodox” lineages of the Tantric world, which has strangely remained unnoticed but the existence of which clearly calls for a reconsideration of the criticism of the embryological model of religious practice as “heretical.” The commentaries on Yuqi jing demonstrate that the embryogenetic model was maintained throughout the Tantric lineages as an epistemological and ritual approach to liberation. While early findings suggested that it might have been distinctive of one Tōmitsu sublineage, Daigoji, in particular the Sanbōin branch,87 in fact it can be found in documents of competing lineages 83

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Yugikyō hiketsu, SZ 5, 14–5; Yugikyō kenmon, ZTZ, Mikkyō 2, 214–5. If Yugikyō hiketsu is indeed authored by Jichiun, as the traditional attribution suggests, this would be the earliest text that includes the diagram. If it is not a text by Jichiun, then the earliest commentary with a gestation chart would be Enni’s exegesis, which was compiled in 1274. However, the Gochizō hishō manuscript, dated 1261, is still earlier than this sutra exegesis. SZ 5, 109–10. Interestingly, this text identifies the two fluids with the syllable VAṂ. The exegesis recorded by Dōhan was transmitted to the head of Daigoji, Jitsuken 実賢. The texts presents the five-stage chart as “the chart of the stupa of dharma nature” (hosshō tōbazu 法性塔婆図) drawn by Kūkai (daishi no onzu 大師のおん図). This chart thus might have existed before Enni’s time, although the attribution to Kūkai is certainly unfounded. See Mizukami Fumiyoshi 水上文義, “Taimitsu ni okeru tainai goisetsu no kentō 台密における胎内五位説の検討,” in Buppōsō ronshū 佛法僧論集, Fukuhara Ryūzen sensei koki kinen ronshū 福原隆善先生古稀記念論集 (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorinkan, 2013), 777–94. ZTZ, Mikkyō 2, 302. See also Yamamoto Hiroko 山本ひろ子, “Chūsei ni okeru Aizen Myōōhō – sono poriticusu to erosu 中世における愛染明王法—そのポリチックス とエロス,” in Aizen Myōō zō 愛染明王像, Nedachi Kensuke 根立研介, ed., special issue, Nihon no bijutsu 日本の美術 376 (1997): 86–98. See, for instance, Yugi kaishinshō 瑜祇開心鈔 (Notes on Opening The Mind to Yoga) and Yugikyō doku jaku hishō shi 瑜祇經読惹秘抄私 (Personal Notes on Secret Compendium on Reading the Yoga Sūtra), in Aizen Myōō 愛染明王, exhibition catalogue (Yokohama: Kanazawa Bunko, 2011), 48. Itō Satoshi 伊藤聰, “Sanbōin-ryū no gisho: toku ni Sekishitsu wo megutte 三寶院流の偽 書 – 特に『石室』を巡って,” in Gisho no seisei: chūseiteki shikō to hyōgen 「僞書」の 生成 – 中世的思考と表現, Nishiki Hitoshi 錦仁 et al., eds. (Tokyo: Shinwasha, 2003), 197–231.

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and competing schools. It is remarkable that one finds it even in Asabashō 阿娑縛抄, the encyclopaedic collection of Taimitsu rituals, under the rubric of “yoga consecration” (yugi kanjō 瑜祇灌頂),88 as well as in the Taimitsu Yōjō 葉上 lineage, initiated by Yōsai and continued at Tōfukuji 東福寺 by Enni Bennen.89 Space constrictions do not allow us here to analyse each of these exegeses in any depth, but one compelling aspect of the use of the embryogenetic model that these texts share should be highlighted: the performance of the five stages of gestation through hand gestures. One example comes from Yugikyō chōmonshō. This commentary does not include drawings of the embryological stages, but it does describe in detail the five hand gestures that compose the sequence of the “five-pronged mudra” and presents these as the five stages of gestation. The first stage corresponds to the fists tied together (“the outer bound fist” mudra, Jp. gebaku kenin 外縛拳印); then the two middle fingers extended and the two fingers next to them progressively form the shape of  a human being, until the hands open up to indicate the birth of the foetus (Fig. 15).90 Chōgō explains that the half-mudra made with the left hand stands for the deity Zen’ai 染愛 and reproduces the shape of a woman (nyogyō 女形); the half-mudra made with the right hand stands for Aizen and embodies the male shape (nangyō 男形). By joining his hands, the practitioner produces the “five-pronged vajra” mudra, thereby “uniting principle and wisdom into the body of a non-dual single reality” (funi ichijitsu no tai 不二一実ノ体). This fivepronged vajra mudra is also called “mudra of the human form.”91 The practitioner is instructed first to repeat the syllable HŪṂ to empower the two (male and female) half-mudras formed by each hand; then, while joining the two hands to symbolise sexual intercourse, the practitioner is to utter a double HŪṂ. The short sound of the single HŪṂ is explained as the cry of love and happiness of the two individuals, the double HŪṂ as the sound of their inter88 89

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Taishō Zuzō 9.857a–b. Cf. Mizukami 2013, 786–90. The compilation of Asabashō is attributed to Shōchō 承澄 (1205–1282). Taimitsukei gushō 胎密契愚抄 (A Fool’s Account of the Secret Seals of the Taizōkai), a long commentary on Yuqi jing compiled in the Sanmai 三昧 lineage of Taimitsu and transmitted in the Tōfukuji lineage, also includes the embryological chart. In Mizukami Fumiyoshi, Taimitsu shisō keisei no kenkyū 台密思想形成の研究 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2008), 666–67, and Dolce 2006–07, 143. See also Mizukami, “Taimitsukei gushō ni tsuite 『胎密契愚抄』について,” Tendai gakuhō 天台学報 32 (2006): 53–60. ZTZ, Mikkyō 2, 302. See also Yamamoto Hiroko 1997. Yamamoto includes drawings of the five mudras (see Fig. 7.15), but the manuscripts of Yugikyō chōmonshō that I have consulted at Eizan Bunko do not contain these drawings. On the “five-pronged vajra,” see Dolce 2010.

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Figure 7.15 Mudra sequence for five-stage gestation. From Yamamoto Hiroko 1997.

course (wagō no koe 和合の聲). Drawings of the position of the fingers in the mudras that the practitioner is instructed to make recur, at times together with the seed-syllables of the five elements, in late mediaeval commentaries on the Yuqi jing.92 Some of these texts also explicitly state that these mudras and mantras were transmitted by the Buddha while he was in the meditative state that is central to the sutra, the so-called “meditation on the hidden organ of the horse” (meonzō zanmai 馬陰蔵三昧).93 Thus, in the interpretations of Yuqi jing, the generative process that starts with sexual union is performed by making specific mudras and pronouncing specific syllables. In other words, gestation is ritually actualised by the practitioner in his own body by executing the three modes of action that inform Tantric “secret” practices (sanmitsu): gestures, sounds, and visualisations. Scholars have not paid sufficient attention to the Yuqi jing textual tradition, 92

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See, for instance Yūgi’s 祐宣 (1536–1612) Yugikyō hidenshō 瑜祇經秘伝抄 (Secret Transmissions of the Yoga Sūtra), ZSZ 7, 173–4. This is a line-by-line commentary to the Yuqi jing in three fascicles. Yūgi was the second abbot of Chishakuin 智積院 and received transmission of secret manuals at Daigoji, Onjōji 園城寺, and Enryakuji 延暦寺. He also authored texts on Aizen and Fudō, the two deities often paired in mediaeval Esoteric practices: Aizenhō hidenshō 愛染法秘伝抄 (Secret Transmissions of the Aizen Ritual) and Fudohō hidenshō 不動法秘伝抄 (Secret Transmissions of the Fudō Ritual). See Mikkyō daijiten 密教大辞典, Mikkyō jiten hensankai 密教辞典編纂會, eds. (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1969–70), vol. 5, 2191b–c. On this meditation, see Dolce 2010.

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and therefore no attempt has been made to explain why the embryological charts are included in the mediaeval commentaries to Yuqi jing. If, however, one considers the contemporary interpretations of this scripture, a reason for the presence of the charts may be suggested. In mediaeval Japan, Aizen, the deity that is the focus of Yuqi jing, was the subject of an articulated discourse on duality that drew from iconographic, cosmological, and biological correlations to convey the dynamics of the attainment of the condition of non-duality. The sutra, in fact, presented not only Aizen, but also his double, the deity Zen’ai, whose name is composed by inverting the characters for “Aizen.” The nature and identity of Zen’ai was the object of elaborate exegeses. In Yugikyō chōmonshō, cited above, the deity is described as having a female body, and this is matched with Aizen appearing in a male body. In other exegeses, Aizen was paired with another wisdom king, Fudō 不動, producing a peculiar (and non-canonical) imagery of combination.94 It is due to this background, I argue, that the model of foetal growth came to be used in the interpretation of Yuqi jing. A closer analysis of the commentaries cited above reveals that the fivestage diagrams and five mudra segments appear in the exegesis of Chapter Two of Yuqi jing, the chapter where the existence of Aizen’s double is explained. This was considered the most secret section of the sutra, and all interpretative lineages used it to elaborate on the ritual meaning of the sexual metaphor. 7

The Performance of Gestation II: Kami Initiations

The second genre of documents that contains the embryological charts are mediaeval Shinto texts that record the esoteric initiations focused on the kami world (jingi kanjō 神祇灌頂). This material offers another consistent example of the use of the five-stage gestation scheme, and one that explicitly highlights the ritual significance of the gestation process. Gestation in these texts is enacted through the procedures of an abhiṣeka ritual, which according to some sources is to be performed in one night. The result is, again, the quick attainment of liberation within one’s own body, a physical body that was born of a mother and father. As I have discussed this material elsewhere, I shall only give one example, from a text titled Ise shoshō Nihongi ushiki honshō nin denki 伊勢所生日本記有 識本性仁傳記 (Transmitted Records of Nihongi, Consciousness, Original Nature, and Humanity, Produced by Ise).95 This document is of interest here in 94 95

On this point, see Dolce 2006–07, and Dolce 2010. Dolce 2006–07, especially, 138–42.

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that it includes a sequence of illustrations that resemble the most important one in Gochizō hishō, albeit in a different line-up: an eight-petalled mandala representing the original non-produced syllable A; the chart of five-stages gestation; a diagram of various fivefold associations of the syllable A; a wishfulfilling jewel on a three-vajra pedestal; and a pair consisting of a monastic and a deity exchanging the syllable A, which is presented as the realisation of the identity of Buddha and man. (The text contains headings for each section, facilitating the identification of the images.) The transmission concerns the exegesis of the name of Ise 伊勢, the shrine devoted to the royal ancestral kami of Japanese mythology, Amaterasu 天照. The two characters “I-Se” that compound the shrine’s name are interpreted as the binary man/woman, while the name in full is posited as the result of their union. The text explains the diagram of foetal development along the lines of the material presented above and makes each figure correspond to one seven-day period (Fig. 7.5). The first figure, the circle, contains two identical A syllables and the ideograms for “white” and “red,” which are said to stand for the fluids united during sexual intercourse. This is likened to the coming together of Heaven and Earth, which produces energy and virtues. The two-pointed figure inscribes the syllables A and VAṂ, thereby representing the diversification that takes place during the second stage of gestation. The third stage is epitomized by a three-pointed figure that encloses a syllabic triad, consisting of the syllables A and VAṂ at the sides, and the syllable HŪṂ in the centre. This suggests the conception of a new being, with the three points representing the head and the shoulders. The fourth figure, the stupa, inscribes the seed-syllables of the five elements and is said to correspond to a formed body. Finally, the bodily figure that concludes the set is depicted as emerging from two A syllables, once again equated to red and white. This “Shinto” transmission thus emphasises that the newly born is a human body made of flesh and bones and yet, since it inhabits a non-differentiated reality (the double seed-syllable A), it is at the same time the perfect body of the Buddha. The union of the two fluids, of the father and mother, is presented not only as the essence of the twofold Dainichi, who is present in the body of sentient beings, but also as the deity of Ise attaining Buddhahood in her own body. The newly born body is said to be the original nature of Ise.96

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Ise shoshō Nihongi ushiki honshō nin denki, 559–60.

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Concluding Remarks Roy Porter, the late British historian of medicine, speaking of the European Renaissance tradition of thinking the world through the body, argued that the body was of paramount importance because the body was all that people really knew, experienced, and controlled. Thus, everything could be explained by analogy with the body, including society and the cosmos.97 The significance of the body as an analytical category is clear in the articulation of the embryological discourse that the Japanese Buddhist texts examined above display. Here, however, the body is more than a term of analogy. It is the site of practice, of a religious practice that aims at generating a new, awakened being. With this understanding, and as it occurs in other Tantric traditions, embryology becomes a ritual “technique of spiritual growth.”98 Mediaeval Japanese exegetes conceived of the human body not as a purely material entity, but as a growing organism made of matter and spirit (shikishin 色心), which is able to produce positive effects. Accordingly, for them the path towards ultimate liberation, symbolically and in practice, was through the body. The sources that I have surveyed are not medical or sexological treatises, but they appropriated the knowledge about foetal growth derived from Indian and Chinese systems, applied it to Buddhist practice, and transformed the embryogenetic discourse into a soteriological model. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the specific charting of the gestation process in five stages was an original creation of mediaeval Japanese practitioners and needs to be seen in the context of other ritual practices that were particularly popular in the mediaeval period. However, Indian notions informed the formulation of the embryogenetic pattern, and the Chinese correlative system that had been fully incorporated into Tantric Buddhism was indispensable in articulating this model. As with other praxiological texts that discussed embryological questions both in India and in China, although they are dealing with the growth of an embryo in the mother’s womb, it is clear that the female body is not their centre of attention. If anything, the body of a male practitioner is the vessel in which to obtain a universal, perfected body. Scholars have pointed out that 97 98

Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003). Garrett highlights this dimension of Tantric embryology in Tibetan Buddhism, vis-à-vis other Buddhist sources. Frances Garrett, “Embryology and Embodiment in Tibetan Literature,” in Soundings in Tibetan Medicine: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, Mona Schrempf, ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 415.

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interest in the female body was also limited in medical literature. For instance, early Chinese texts on nurturing the foetus, which include specific information on each month and prescriptions for the well-being of the mother, reveal a “theoretical understanding of gestation,” whereby the changes that the foetus undergoes are significant only insofar as they are a model for cosmic processes of transformation.99 Japanese mediaeval texts demonstrate that the cosmological model that posits the origin of things (and of man) in the interaction of two opposite principles remains the blueprint for understanding sexual differentiation and sexual intercourse as well as the generation of the foetus. That is, the biological body is a source of knowledge insofar as it reflects the mechanisms of cosmic life. In this sense, the embryological narratives of mediaeval texts create a conceptual body, which can be realised and manifests itself only in ritual practice. The exploration of the sources of religious embryology has raised historical questions that pertain more strictly to the development of Tantric Buddhism in Japan. Existing scholarship has underlined the heterodox provenance of the notions and diagrammatic representations of gestation. The presumed connection with Tachikawa-ryū has also led to emphasise the interest that a single Tōmitsu lineage, the Daigoji lineage (to which Tachikawa-ryū was linked), had in these ideas. Yet the Ninnaji provenance of Gochizō hishō demonstrates that these ideas also circulated in the other major Tōmitsu lineage, the Hirosawaryū 広沢流 (Omuro 御室).100 Furthermore, the manuscript I have discovered and the commentarial material on the Yuqi jing leave no doubt that the conceptual and visual articulation of the process of gestation was shared by Tendai lineages. Space has not allowed for discussing interpretations by Yōsai and other monks of the Yōjō lineage, who also produced extremely compelling visualisations of the embryogenetic process.101 The embryological pattern 99 100

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Sabine Wilms suggests this with regard to early Chinese medical texts from Mawangdui. See Wilms 2005, 311. Uchida Keiichi also notes that the five-stage gestation diagram is included in Sangoshū 參語集 (Collection of Conversations), a writing by Gyōhen 行遍 (1181–1264), a high-ranking monk of Ninnaji Bodaiin 仁和寺菩提院, who was also abbot of Tōji. Uchida seems surprised by the presence of such ideas in the Omuro lineage. Uchida 2012, 8. A passage of Sangoshū, entitled “Tainai goi no koto,” deserves more attention for it reiterates the Indian narrative on the formation of the foetus, presenting more details than I have found in other Japanese Buddhist treatises. One example is a recently unveiled manuscript by Daiei 大慧 (1229–1312), entitled Tōji injin nado kuketsu 東寺印信等口訣 (Verbal Decisions on the Seals of Transmission and other matters of the Tōji [lineage]). It contains the five stages of gestation, preceded by a drawing of two figures, clearly a man and a woman, depicted first sitting, as embodiments

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spread beyond the strictly esoteric context, as demonstrated by Sōtō Zen 曹洞 禅 interpretations and by references to it in the Nichiren 日蓮 corpus,102 and beyond the Buddhist context into literary practices.103 Even when the tenmonth model of embryogenesis was used more broadly, the pentadic Tantric pattern remained meaningful in imagining (and empowering) embryological growth. In popular visual representations of the ten-month gestation, such as those included in the printed versions of the Kumano no honji 熊野の本地 (The Original Ground of the Kumano Deities) that were produced in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the first five months of pregnancy are represented by Buddhist ritual tools, most often a staff, a single-pronged vajra, a three-pronged vajra, a five-pronged vajra and, in the fifth month, a human figure. This patter clearly draws on Tantric interpretations of the process of gestation, with further references from mediaeval interpretations added.104

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of the syllable A and VAṂ, and then embraced in sexual intercourse. The five stages are associated with the five directions. I am grateful to Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士 for introducing me to this text, and to Takayanagi Satsuki 高柳さつき for providing the opportunity to peruse the manuscript. On Zen material, see the chapter by Kigensan Licha in this volume. On the use of the fivestage gestation model in Nichiren’s writings see Jūni innen gosho 十二因縁御書 (Letter on the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination), Shōwa teihon Nichiren shōnin ibun 昭和定本日蓮聖人遺文, Risshō daigaku Nichiren kyōgaku kenkyūjo 立正大学日蓮 教学研究所, eds. (Minobu: Minobusan Kuonji, 1989), vol. 3, 2016–21. See, for instance, Ise monogatari zuinō 伊勢物語随能 (The Essence of The Tales of Ise), discussed by Susan Klein in her Allegories of Desire: Esoteric Commentaries in Medieval Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Asia Center, 2002). Such is Kumano no gongenki Gosuiden 熊野之権現記ごすいでん (Records of the Manifestation of the Kumano Deities – Gosuiden), printed in 1658, and Kumano no gohonji 熊野之御本地 (The August Original Ground of the Kumano Deities), printed in the Hōei 宝永 years (1704–11). A Gosuiden printed in the Genroku 元禄 years (1688–1704) associates the first four months to a single-pronged vajra, a three-pronged vajra, a vajra bell, and a staff. The latter five months are represented by human figures at various stages of growth of the body, with the last figure often depicted upside down to indicate birth, i.e., the foetus exiting the mother’s womb head first. On the upper row of the composition, these prints also depict a protective Buddha or bodhisattva for each month of pregnancy. See Itō Satoshi, “Tainai tōtsukizu setsu no chūseiteki tenkai 胎内十月図説の中世的展開,” in Itō Satoshi, Chūsei shintō to mikkyō no itan shisō no kankei ni kansuru kenkyū 中世神道 と密教の異端思想の関係に関する研究, report by the Research Group of Itō Satoshi, 2007, 4–22, especially, 4–5. The association with different types of vajras recalls drawings in mediaeval documents on the esoteric interpretations of the kami, such as a Shintō daiji 神道大事 (Essentials of Shintō) in the collection of Kyoto University library and a section of Tenka kōtaijin hon’en 天下皇太神本縁 (True Karmic Links of the Imperial Deity) entitled “The Original Pledge of the Single-pronged Vajra (dokko honzei 独鈷本誓).”

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Finally, it may be curious to note that the fivefold pattern of gestation was applied back to medical context, in particular to veterinary knowledge. We find it in extraordinary illustrated manuscripts concerning the gestation and cure of horses.105 This is not the place to address the possible heretical nature of embryological ideas, for this implies a historical reconsideration of the meaning of heterodoxy in Japanese Tantric Buddhism. The dissemination and the re-adaptation of embryological ideas throughout the mediaeval and early modern periods suggest that the standards of orthopraxis differed according to historical periods, and that the demarcation between what was considered orthodox and what was not remained very weak in Japanese Buddhism. Thus, when Buddhist embryology is presented as a pernicious teaching (jakyō), it is necessary to ask “for whom” and “with what agendas” it is so. On the other hand, this material opens up the possibility of reassessing Japanese interpretations vis-àvis (orthodox) continental Tantric Buddhism. These links have been dismissed in the intellectualised accounts of the development of Japanese Tantric Buddhism, but they emerge cogently from the sources analysed above and become more significant if the perspective focuses on ritual performance. Works Cited Primary Sources Aji kokubako 阿字黒箱 [Black Box of Syllable A]. (Alt., Akan saigoku hiyō A 觀最極秘要, Utmost Mystery of the Contemplation of the Syllable A), manuscript. Hase Bunko Archives. Reproduced in Kitao Ryūshin 2006, 268–93.

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These documents present a metaphorical ten-month progression and may be seen as precursors of the later representations of foetal gestation. I have briefly discussed these documents in Dolce 2006–07, 136–37 and 141. Esoteric implements also appear, albeit in a different order, in Sangen itchi sho 三賢一致書, which is often considered emblematic of the ten-stage gestation. See Itō 2007, and, in English, Sanford 1997, 25–31. See, for instance, Anzairyū ba’i emaki 安西流馬医絵巻 (Illustrated Scroll of the Anzai Lineage Equine Veterinary). Website of Azabu University Centre for Information Services, accessed September 23, 2014 . The scroll includes a five-stage chart where the last image is a horse inscribed in a stupa. I am grateful to Katja Triplett for sharing this material with me. A short analysis of this text in English is in her report, “Hippiatry and Ritual Healing,” CSJR Newsletter 26–27 (2013–14), 21–23, also available at the Website of the Centre for the Study of Japanese Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, accessed September 20, 2014. https://www.soas.ac.uk/csjr/newsletter/file93868.pdf.

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Chapter 8

Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism Bernard Faure

1

Embryological Symbolism

In spite of its importance, the embryological discourse of medieval Japanese Buddhism has until recently been neglected.1 Embryology found its metaphysical expression in the esoteric Buddhist notion of the “Womb mandala” (taizōkai 胎藏界). Awakening was conceived as a birth, and the process leading to it as an incubation or gestation. The same idea is expressed in the esoteric teachings of Zen. Zen kirigami 切紙 reveal that the nine years that the first Chan patriarch Bodhidharma is said to have spent in meditation in a cave on Mount Song symbolise the nine months of the gestation of the foetus in the womb, and that the red robe that covers him in Zen iconography is none other than the placenta.2 Likewise, the retreat of the sun goddess Amaterasu into the Heavenly Cave is only a metaphorical description of the descent of consciousness (Sk. vijñāna), or the “intermediary being” (Sk. antarabhāva), into the maternal bosom. The metaphor of enlightenment as conception is also found in the “esoteric Theravāda” of Southeast Asian Buddhism.3 Although we are dealing in this case with a rather different tradition, it is also one strongly influenced by Tantrism. It is therefore worthwhile to consider briefly both its resemblances and its striking differences with Japanese mikkyō 密教.4 I will attempt to show 1 A significant exception is James Sanford’s essay on “fetal buddhahood” in Shingon. See James Sanford, “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24/1–2 (1997): 1–38. 2 See Suzuki Daisetsu 鈴木大拙, Suzuki Daisetsu zenshū 鈴木大拙全集, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1968), 292. [Editor’s note: for other examples of embryological discourses in Sōtō Zen, see Kigensan Licha’s “Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism” in this volume.] 3 See François Bizot, Le Chemin de Laṅka, Textes bouddhiques du Cambodge (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1992). 4 In a Cambodian text entitled The Road to Lanka, for instance, meditation is presented as a process of ritual rebirth, in which the altar, the ritual objects, and the Yogāvacara (i.e., the “spirit” of the meditator) are to be seen as the mother, the embryo, and the “intermediary

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here that this form of Buddhist discourse – and the currents influenced by it, that is, medieval Shintō, and Shugendō – had a strong embryological component. 1.1 From Two to Five In esoteric Buddhism, the basic non-duality of Mahāyāna is often expressed in terms of a sexual metaphor, the union of male and female. This basic conjunction of opposites, also expressed in terms of Yin and Yang, was supplemented by a developmental model expressed in terms of the five stages of gestation, also known as the “five stages within the womb” (tainai goi 胎内五位). The traditional process of gestation consists of five stages of seven days each: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

 Kalala: the embryo in the first week after conception.  Arbuda: the foetus in its second week (a variant of this is 27 days, an apparent misreading of 2x7 days).  Peśī: the foetus in the third week (or 37 days).  Ghana: the foetus in the fourth week (or 47 days). In this stage, the foetus is a viscid mass or lump (ghana means “lump”).  Praśākha: the foetus in the fifth week (or 57 days), when its form (including limbs and organs) is complete.5 At that stage, the foetus is able to experience pain. The placenta protects and nourishes it through the umbilical cord, shielding it from the cold, the heat, and the noxious vapours emanating from the mother’s body.

Needless to say, this embryology is purely symbolic, as the process described hardly bears any resemblance to the actual gestation of a foetus in being.” The contemplation (Sk. bhāvanā) of alphabet letters produces an embryo whose three parts (head, trunk, and legs) are associated with the Vinaya-, Sūtra-, and Abhidharma-piṭakas. This embryo is also associated with the Buddha on the seat of awakening (Sk. bodhimaṇḍa). This being, which the Yogāvacara comes to inhabit, is the “crystal globe,” the key to Nibbana. The other shore is the Lanka island, a symbol of the maternal womb, while Mount Meru symbolises the foetus and the renewed body of the adept. Thus, Nibbana means rebirth in a pure womb. The parallelism of the embryological metaphors that describe meditation is rather striking in both traditions. See Bizot 1992, 30. 5 Another schema exists, which adds three unnamed seven-day stages, as follows: (6) The period in which hair, teeth, and nails are formed; (7) The period in which the organs of sense are formed; and (8) Complete formation: the foetus is now a miniature human being. Although this model seems more obvious because it fits with the length of a human pregnancy in months, it is usually derived from or combined with the pentadic model.

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the mother’s womb. The sequence of the five stages is directly borrowed from traditional Indian medicine.6 Yet it resonated perfectly with the fivefold classificatory conceptions of esoteric Buddhism and of Chinese cosmology, and East Asian Buddhists were quick to see the advantages of this classificatory system. The “five stages” of Buddhist embryology were thus soon identified with the “five agents” (Ch. wuxing 五行) of Chinese cosmology: in this way, the first four stages correspond to wood, fire, metal, and water, while the praśākha stage corresponds to the earth at the centre. These five stages are also associated with the five buddhas, the five wisdoms, etc.7 1.2 Aizen, Fudō, and Foetal Gestation Let us begin with a ritual centred on a typically esoteric deity, Aizen Myōō 愛染明王. This ritual played an important part in the elaboration of a Buddhist “spiritual embryology” focusing on the notion of the five stages of gestation.8 Aizen, the “god of lust,” is usually interpreted in terms of his sexual symbolism. Nowhere is this symbolism more apparent than in the dual Aizen (Ryōzu Aizen 両頭愛染, the “two-headed Aizen”), which is seen as the combination, or rather the sexual union, of Aizen and Zen’ai 染愛 in some cases, or Aizen and Fudō 不動 in others. Fudō and Aizen played a crucial role in certain rituals associated (perhaps mistakenly) with the Tachikawa-ryū 立川流. However, in this case as in others, the sexual reading, obvious as it may seem, tends to overshadow the embryological symbolism. It is therefore the latter that I wish to emphasise here. We should keep in mind, nevertheless, that the two codes – sexual and embryological – are inseparable.

6 This theory can be traced back to Indian medical discourse (and maybe beyond, since a discussion of the red and white can be found in Pahlavi texts and even in Greek medical literature). In medieval Japan, this symbolism spread beyond Buddhism – to Shintō and the zassho 雑書 (“miscellaneous books” of the Edo period) – concurrently with other theories regarding the nine or ten months of gestation. [Editor’s note: For a discussion of Indian medical works, see also Lucia Dolce, “Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources,” in the present volume.] 7 On the “five stages” theory, see also Itō Satoshi 伊藤聡, “Zassho no sekai 雑書の世界,” Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kyōzai no kenkyū 国文学解釈と教材の研究 46/10 (2001): 42–43. According to this author, the theory appears in a work of Shōkaku 正覺, the founder of the Sanbōin-ryū 三寳院流, and in a work by the elder brother of Ninkan 仁寛 (1057–1123), the alleged founder of Tachikawa-ryū 立川流. [Editor’s note: More on these issues in Lucia Dolce’s and Iyanaga Nobumi’s contributions to this volume.] 8 See Yamamoto Hiroko 山本ひろこ, Henjō fu: Chūsei shinbutsu shūgō no sekai 変成譜ー中 世神仏習合の世界 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1993a), 320; and Sanford 1997.

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Much of the embryological discourse of esoteric Buddhism revolves around the notion that the two “drops” – red and white – symbolising female blood and male semen merge to produce the initial stage or entity called kalala, in which “consciousness” appears or is produced. In medieval commentaries on the Yuqi jing 瑜祇經 (Jp. Yugikyō, T. 867), this “consciousness” corresponds to the “non-dual golden wheel of red and white.”9 It is none other than the storehouse consciousness (Sk. ālaya-vijñāna), which is itself equated with Aizen.10 Aizen’s mudra, called the “five-pronged seal” (goko-in 五鈷印), involves a sequence of five gestures, which symbolise the five stages of gestation.11 The first gesture also symbolises the wish-fulfilling jewel (Sk. cintāmaṇi, Jp. nyoi hōju 如意宝珠) as the source of all fecundity, while the last one represents Aizen coming out of the womb. Here, it is Aizen himself who is identified with the human foetus.12 An important Shugendō text, Jindaikan hiketsu 神代巻秘 決 (Secret Transmission of the Scroll from the Age of Gods) explains that “at the fifth stage, [the foetus] receives the placenta. This is why one compares it to the “five-finger-width” (goshiryō 五指量) Aizen in the Yugikyō.”13 This expres9

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The abbreviated title of Jingangfeng louge yiqie yujia yuqi jing 金剛峯楼閣一切瑜伽瑜 祇經 (The Sutra of All Yogas and Yogis of the Adamantine Peak Pavillion). See Ogawa Toyoo 小川豊生, “Aizen Myōō to hoshi no shingaku: Yugikyō kaishakugaku o kiten to suru chūsei Nihon no hoshi to shintai 愛染明王と星の神学 ー『瑜祇經』解釈学を 基点とする中世日本の星と身体,” in Setsuwa ronshū 説話論集, Setsuwa to setsuwa bungaku no kai 説話と説話文学の會, eds., vol. 16, Setsuwa no naka no zen’aku shojin 説話の中の善悪諸神 (Tokyo: Seibundō, 2007), 19. See Keiranshūyōshū 渓嵐拾葉集, T. 2410, 579b24–28. Similar notions were found in Zen, as shown by the record of the oral teachings of Chikotsu Daie 痴兀大慧 (Buttsū Zenji 佛 通禪師, 1229–1312), a disciple of Enni Ben’en 圓爾辨圓 (1202–1280); see Ogawa 2007, 25. The same embryological conception is symbolised by one of Aizen’s ritual attributes, the five-pronged vajra (also known as the “vajra of human form,” ningyōshō 人形杵). For a description, see Roger Goepper, Aizen-Myōō: The Esoteric King of Lust: An Iconological Study, Artibus Asiae (Zurich: Museum Rietberg, 1993), 115–118; and Sanford 1997. A good example of this symbolism is found in an ordination certificate transmitted by the priest Jakuen 寂圓 to his disciple Gonkaku 嚴覺 (1056–1121). This document has been studied by James Sanford. Ibid., 4–8. See also Yamamoto 1993a, 321. A similar point is made in the Yugikyō kenmon 瑜祇經見聞 (Observations on the Yugikyō) by Shōichi Kokushi 聖一国 師 (Enni Ben’en 圓爾辨圓, 1202–1280). See Zoku Tendaishū zensho 続天台宗全書, Mikkyō 2, 237a. See Aizen Myōō: Ai to ikari no hotoke 愛染明王ー愛と怒りの仏, Kanagawa Kenritsu Kanazawa Bunko 神奈川県立金沢文庫, eds. (Kanagawa: Kanazawa Bunko, 2011), 48. See Yugikyō chōmonshō, op. cit., 302; and Yamamoto 1993a, 321. Jindaikan hiketsu, in Zoku Shintō Taikei 続神道大系, Ronsetsu-hen: Shūgō shintō 論説編: 習合神道, 96.

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sion refers to an image of Aizen whose height is said to be five times the width of the middle finger (about 10 cm) – a statuette that pregnant women keep as an amulet in their sash.14 The “five finger-widths” represent the five stages of foetal gestation, while the fact of hiding the image in one’s sash symbolises the lodging of the embryo inside the womb.15 The colour of Aizen’s body is interpreted as follows in the Yugikyō chōmonshō 瑜祇經聴聞抄 (Verbatim Account of the Yuqi jing) by the Tendai priest Chōgō 澄豪 (1259–1350): “Aizen is the form of the Worthy inside the womb. The red colour is the colour inside the womb, it symbolizes the foetus.”16 The white sandalwood of the goshiryō Aizen is also said to be a symbol of the mother’s milk.17 Aizen’s size is roughly equal to that of the “three-inch (sansun 三寸) Fudō.” These two esoteric deities played a prominent role in the so-called “joint ritual of the Three Worthies” (sanzon gōgyō-hō) 三尊合行法 – the third Worthy being Nyoirin Kannon 如意輪観音.18 There is a word play on the terms sanzon (“Three Worthies”) and sansun (“three-inch”). Three inches is said to be the size of the practitioner’s body 14

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For a discussion of that measure, see Aizen Myōō, 2011, 48. On the meaning and measure of goshiryō, see Keiranshūyōshū, T. 2410, 568a17–21; Goepper 1993, 40–43; and Aizen Myōō, 2011, 48. Incidentally, the Shingon master Kūkai 空海 (774–835), who is sometimes credited with carving the first goshiryō Aizen, is also said to have carried it on him constantly – thereby becoming ritually pregnant. See Yamamoto 1993a, 32; and Jindaikan hiketsu, 95. For more on these Buddhist ideas of conception and gestation, see Bernard Faure, “Quand l’habit fait le moine: The symbolism of the kaṣāya in Sōtō Zen,” in Chan Buddhism in Ritual Context, Bernard Faure, ed. (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003 [1995]), 211–49. See Ogawa 2007, 14. Yugikyō chōmonshō, ZTZ, Mikkyō 2, 300b. See Ogawa 2007, 14. See also Jindaikan hiketsu, in ZST, Ronsetsu-hen: Shūgō shintō, 93–98; and Abe Yasurō 阿部泰郎, “Monkan chosaku shōgyō no saihakken: Sanzon gōgyō no tekusuto fuchi to sono isō 文観著作聖教の再発見 – 三尊合行法のテクスト布置と その位相,” in Chūsei shūkyō tekusuto taikei no fukugenteki kenkyū: Shinpukuji shōgyō tenseki no saikōchiku 中世宗教テクスト体系の復元的研究ー真福寺聖教典籍の 再構築, Abe Yasurō, ed. (Nagoya: Nagoya daigaku daigakuin bungaku kenkyūka, 2010), 121–44; Lucia Dolce, “Nigen-teki genri no gireika: Fudō, Aizen to chikara no hizō 二元的 原理の儀礼化ー不動、愛染と力の秘像,” in Girei no chikara: chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀礼の力ー中世宗教の実践世界, Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本 郁代, eds. (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010), 159–206; Gaetan Rappo, “Sanzon gōgyō hiketsu kaidai, hankoku 『三尊合行秘決』解題 · 翻刻,” in Chūsei shūkyō tekusuto taikei no fukugenteki kenkyū: Shinpukuji shōgyō tenseki no saikōchiku, Abe Yasurō, ed. (Nagoya: Nagoya daigaku daigakuin bungaku kenkyūkai, 2010), 174–93; and Bernard Faure, Gods of Medieval Japan (Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press, 2015, forthcoming).

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(seen as a foetus in the womb), whereas the Three Worthies represent the three phases of conception: the red and the white (that is, blood and semen, woman and man, female love and male anger, Aizen and Fudō) coming together to produce the “golden jewel” (i.e., the child, Nyoirin). Fudō’s three inches also symbolise the three sections of the Taizōkai mandala, while Aizen’s five fingerwidths express the five sections of the Kongōkai 金剛界 mandala. Thus, the sanzon gōgyō ritual denotes the fusion of the Womb (Taizō) and Vajra (Kongō) Realms, Principle (Aizen) and Knowledge (Fudō), Yin and Yang.19 In the Fudōson gushō 不動尊愚鈔 (Personal Commentary on Worthy Fudō), a text related to the Tachikawa branch of Shingon, it is Fudō alone who represents the two “drops” of consciousness as they merge in sexual union.20 The same colour code is at work in the case of Fudō’s main acolytes, the white Kongara 矜羯羅 and the red Seitaka 制多迦. The Fudōson gushō interprets two other acolytes of Fudō, Ekō Dōji 惠光童子 and Eki Dōji 惠喜童子, as symbols of the first two stages of foetal gestation, kalala and arbuda.21 Aizen and Fudō are said to control the beginning and the end of the gestation process. For the fourteenth-century Tendai encyclopedia Keiranshūyōshū 渓嵐拾葉集 (Collection of Leaves Gathered in Stormy Ravines, T. 2410), Fudō is the god who controls foetal gestation.22 In addition, according to a Sōtō Zen kirigami, he controls more specifically the first phase of the gestation process, the period during which “the liver, hands, and feet of the foetus all emerge.”23 This conception is reflected in Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s 近松門左衛門 (1653–1724) Noh play Semimaru 蝉丸, in a passage on the “ten months of pregnancy”: “In the first month a spirit takes form within the body. Its shape is just like a hen’s egg. Originally this was one drop of seed. As regards its shape, the chaos has not yet been divided…. It is the responsibility of Fudō Myōō.”24 19

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The same embryological symbolism is applied here to the Shaka triad formed of Monju, Fugen, and Shaka. In the Keiranshūyōshū, it is extended to all Buddhist triads, included those formed by eminent monks and their spirit-protectors. T. 2410, 783a10–13. Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002 [1996]), 287. See Fudōson gushō, in Kinsei bukkyo shūsetsu 近世佛教集説, Hirotani Yutarō 廣谷雄太朗, ed. (Tokyo: Hirotani kokusho kankōkai, 1925), 222–34, esp. 229. Keiranshūyōshū, T. 2410, 762c10–14. 入胎出生者、不動赤血白水ト合会、肝ヲマルメテ両手両脚出始 […]. “Tainai Sagashi no Kirigami” 体内サガシノ切リカミ, in Ishikawa Rikizan 石川力山, “Chūsei Sōtōshū kirigami no bunrui shiron (8) 中世曹洞宗切紙の分類試論(八),” Komazawa daigaku bukkyō gakubu ronshū 駒沢大学仏教学部論集 17 (1986): 201–202. Unless stated otherwise, all translations into English are my own. Translation adapted from Susan Matisoff, The Legend of Semimaru, Blind Musician of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 268–71. The months in-between are

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1.3 The Five Stages in Medieval Shintō Rituals A similar embryological interpretation is applied to medieval Shintō myths and rituals, due to the strong influence of esoteric Buddhism on the Ise tradition and the latter’s wholesale adoption of the “unction” (Sk. abhiṣeka, Jp. kanjō 灌頂) ritual.25 We thus find a type of ritual known as “unctions of the gods” (jingi kanjō 神祇灌頂). Now, however, it is the sun goddess Amaterasu who presides over the five stages of gestation. Nonetheless, we should note that the embryological symbolism in such Shintō rituals – as well as in the Aizen ritual mentioned above – was used in contexts related essentially to the acquisition of symbolic capital and political power, in particular, in the context of enthronement ceremonies (sokui kanjō 即位灌頂). Only later did Amaterasu truly become a “placenta deity.” One of the earliest such rituals, the Ise kanjō 伊勢灌頂, involves a sequence of mudras, one of which symbolises the opening of an eight-petal lotus, and another the “closing of the stupa,” thus representing foetal gestation.26 The latter is followed by the “external five-pronged vajra,” a mudra that also stands for the five stages (and birth). With the lotus mudra, the officiating priest utters the seed-syllable HŪṂ, with the vajra mudra, the seed-syllable VAṂ.27 Then comes a sacred verse (in so-called man’yōgana script), which adds a Shintō flavor to the process, but the kami is interpreted in typical esoteric Buddhist terms as the “fundamentally existing, great bright deity” (honnu daimyōjin 本有大明神). Another such ritual was the Ōsa kanjō 奧沙灌頂. The link between this embryological symbolism and Amaterasu is found in the myth of the Heavenly Cave. The withdrawal of the sun goddess in this cave signifies conception (“entering the womb,” nittai 入胎), while her coming out symbolises childbirth (“leaving the womb,” shuttai 出胎). This was therefore a ritual through which

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controlled by buddhas and bodhisattvas such as Yakushi 薬師 (Sk. Baiṣajyaguru), Monju 文殊 (Mañjuśrī), Fugen 普賢 (Samantabhadra), Jizō 地蔵 (Kṣitigarbha), Kannon 観音 (Avalokiteśvara), Miroku 弥勒 (Maitreya), Ashuku 阿閦 (Akṣobhya), and Seishi 勢至 (Mahāsthāmaprāpta). The topic has been studied by Yamamoto Hiroko and, more recently, by Lucia Dolce. Yamamoto 1993a; and Yamamoto Hiroko, Daikōjin shō 大荒神頌 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1993b). Lucia Dolce, “Duality and the Kami: The Ritual Iconography and Visual Constructions of Medieval Shintō,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 16 (2006–2007): 119–50; and Dolce 2010. See Tenchi kanjōki 天地灌頂記 (Record of the Unction of Heaven and Earth), a manuscript preserved in the Eizan Bunko 叡山文庫 Collection; quoted in Yamamoto 1993a, 325. Tenchi kanjōki, Eizan Bunko Collection.

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the officiating priest, while symbolically regressing to the foetal stage, identified himself with Amaterasu. This motif was further developed in the Ama no iwato kanjō 天岩戸灌頂, in which Amaterasu’s withdrawal into the cave represents the state of things “before the separation of chaos,” that is, a time when there were no “things” yet. This is expressed by the seed-syllable HŪṂ. We recall that this syllable, which is also that of Aizen, symbolises the moment of conception. The fact that Amaterasu, by hiding herself, plunges the world into darkness indicates the mother’s womb prior to conception, black as lacquer. Then, when the red and white, or blood and semen, merge, a movement is produced by the “breath and wind” of the mother and father, and the foetus comes into being. “The nine months spent in the womb are [the seed-syllable] VAṂ.” This seed-syllable, said to transcend all words, symbolises gestation and corresponds to the mythical episode during which the goddess Uzume dances to lure Amaterasu out of the cave. Finally the cave opens, and Amaterasu emerges from it. This moment is represented by the seed-syllable A, the first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet and the source of all words and things. Thus, by perceiving the Heavenly Cave as the matrix of the universe, the priest experiences the stages of an imaginary birth, symbolically recapitulating phylogenesis and ontogenesis. The five stages of gestation have been reinterpreted into three stages symbolised by the seed-syllables A–VAṂ–HŪṂ (Jp. a ban un), which correspond to the Three Truths of Tendai metaphysics. The influence of mikkyō culminates in the identity between Amaterasu and Kūkai 空海: in this way, Kūkai’s entering samādhi in a cave on Mount Kōya 高野山 is interpreted as equivalent to Amaterasu’s withdrawing into the Heavenly Rock Cave. Later on, in the Zen tradition, the same interpretation will be given of Bodhidharma’s nine-year reclusion in a cave on Mount Song. 1.4 The Five Stages in Shugendō Embryological symbolism developed particularly in Shugendō 修験道 – a mountain cult whose rituals were centred on the notion of spiritual rebirth. In the cosmological model that is widespread today, the practitioner, during his mountain practice, transmigrates through the ten realms of rebirth before finally reaching Amida’s Pure Land. This model, however, seems less relevant for pre-modern Shugendō than the model of foetal buddhahood.28 The medieval practitioner was symbolically perceived as a foetus that, at the moment of 28

[Editor’s note: On this subject, see also Gaynor Sekimori, “Foetal Buddhahood: from Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo,” in the present volume.]

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birth, reached awakening. The ritual of “entering the mountain” (mine-iri 峯入, nyūbu 入峯) was perceived as an initiatory rebirth and represented foetal gestation. Thus, the aforementioned Jindaikan hiketsu, in a section explaining the Kumano pilgrimage as a process of gestation and rebirth, explains that the practitioner’s attire reflects the fifth gestational stage (Sk. praśākha). In particular, his circular hat (ayaigasa 綾藺笠) symbolises the placenta. 2

The Deification of the Placenta

Importantly, the theory of the “five stages within the womb” (tainai goi) was linked to the placenta (ena 胞衣), and it gave rise to a particular cult of the placenta deity (enagami 胞衣神, or ena kōjin 胞衣荒神). In this section, I want to focus on that cult. Before that, however, a few considerations on the placenta itself and the way it was perceived in pre-modern Japan are necessary. During foetal gestation, the placenta provides both nourishment and protection, acting as a kind of filter and mediator between the mother’s and the child’s bodies. Yet at the time of birth it has to be discarded – sacrificed, as it were, so that the child can live. The articulation between the five stages and the placenta is described in a Shugendō text entitled Hangai kuketsu 班蓋口訣 (Oral Transmissions Concerning the Hangai): The placenta exists throughout the “five stages within the womb” – from the stage of kalala down to that of praśākha. Located above the [foetus’] head, it covers [the latter] and protects him from the heat and cold and from all the poisoned breaths [of the mother’s body]. Owing to it, the five stages are completed and [the child] comes out of the womb. During the period in the womb, it is called “placenta deity.”29 衣那ト者胎内ノ五位羯賴藍ヨリ始メ、鉢羅奢佉ニ終至テ、 我等頂上 ニ蓋、胎内ノ寒熱諸ノ毒氣ヲ防グ。故ニ五位圓満ノ速ニ出胎ス。 胎 内ニ於衣那號ス。

The placenta was perceived not merely as a nameless corporeal residue, the afterbirth (atomono 後物), but also as a spiritual or even divine entity, which continued to affect the destiny of the child and his family. The notion that the placenta is the double or twin of the child, and therefore its protecting spirit, is 29

Shugen seiten 修験聖典, Shugen seiten hensankai 修験聖典編纂會, eds. (Kyoto: Sanmitsudō shoten, 1968 [1927]), 761b.

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found in a number of cultures, and it explains the ritual precautions with which the placenta was disposed of.30 In medieval Japan, the placenta was buried relatively far from the house, preferably in a mountainous area. Later on, the tendency seems to have been to bury the placenta inside the house, under the floor, or nearby, in the yard. These changes probably reflect the ambivalent nature of the placenta – perceived as both a source of energy that could be tapped in times of necessity and as a spiritual entity that may be safer to keep at a distance. These different behaviours were motivated by a more or less acute awareness of the potential benefits and dangers of the placenta, in particular, the fear that, if it were damaged (for instance, neglected and eaten by animals), nefarious consequences could ensue for the child and his family. Although the ena kōjin is said to protect the foetus throughout the gestation period, its ambivalence comes to light with the popular custom of burying the placenta. We have mentioned the belief that, when the placenta was left to be eaten by birds and dogs, it became a god of obstacles (shōgeshin 障碍神).31 According to another conception, the placenta is intrinsically malevolent; it is actually the inherent ignorance of beings that manifests itself as the god of obstacles, Kōjin 荒神.32 Usually, however, the placenta was perceived as fundamentally ambivalent – sacred as a source of life, yet at the same time taboo as a source of defilement. Consequently, the placenta god that represents it is a Janus-faced deity that can cause obstacles as well as eliminate them, and bring misfortune or happiness. The placenta was often compared to or identified with the monastic robe (Sk. kaṣāya, Jp. kesa 袈裟). In its discussion of the monastic robe, the Shugendō compendium Shuren hiyōgi 修練秘要義 (Secret Essentials of Shugendō Prac­ tice) states that “the monastic robe is Kōjin. The latter is the placenta. When one dies, it becomes the heavenly canopy (tengai 天蓋).”33 The placenta is also compared to the cocoon of silkworms, “which protects them from heat and cold.” A Sōtō Zen kirigami entitled Ihatsu kechimyaku denju sahō 衣鉢血脈伝 授作法 (Ritual of Transmission of the Robe, Bowl, and Lineage Chart) compares foetal gestation with monastic ordination:

30 31 32 33

See also C.G. Seligman, “The Placenta as Twin and Guardian Spirit in Java,” Man 38 (1938): 20–21. See Yamamoto 1993b, 206. Ibid., 204–206. 袈裟者荒神也。荒神者即衣那也。死トキハ則成天蓋ト矣。Shugen seiten, 1968, 700a.

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After spending ninety days in my father’s body, I spent nine months in my mother’s womb. The sequence of practice during that time is called “ritual of reception of the robe.” In short, the robe symbolises the placenta.34 受衣トハ、我レ父の体中ニ宿スル九十日、其日数ヲ過テ母ノ胎中ニ 宿スル㕝九月也、其間ノ修行ノ次第ヲ受衣作法ト云、畢竟衣ハ衣那 ヲ表スル也。

Likewise, according to the Suwa jinja engi 諏訪神社縁起 (Karmic Origins of the Suwa Shrine), “one compares the mother’s placenta to the monastic robe. If mothers had no placenta, there would be no sentient beings. If there were no beings, there would be neither buddhas nor kami. [...] This is why the gods too wear a monastic robe, and why the placenta is the seed of the buddhas.”35 The identity between the monastic robe and the god Kōjin is described in the following passage from the aforementioned Shugendō compendium Shuren hiyōgi: “This robe is Kōjin, and Kōjin is the placenta. At the time of death, it becomes a heavenly canopy (tengai 天蓋). One name for it is “undefiled robe,” another “robe of forbearance.”36 The “heavenly canopy” was in medieval Japan, particularly in Shugendō, the symbol of the placenta (and its protecting deity). The Sannō yurai 山王由来 (The Origins of the Sannō [Deity]) links the sun goddess Amaterasu (and the god of Miwa) with the heavenly canopy of Buddhist ritual and with the placenta: “Amaterasu [and Miwa Myōjin]…are the heavenly canopy of the buddhas, the heavenly canopy of the gods; they [symbolise] the placenta in humans, the gestation inside the womb.”37 34

35 36

37

Ishikawa Rikizan 石川力山, “Chūsei Sōtōshū kirigami no bunrui shiron (6) 中世曹洞宗 切紙の分類試論(六),” Komazawa daigaku bukkyō gakubu ronshū 駒沢大学仏教学部 論集 16 (1985): 109. Monastic ordination and the transmission of the robe from master to disciple at the time of Dharma transmission were also seen in Zen as a gestation process. We find several legends of Chan patriarchs or masters being born with a monastic robe as placenta. See Faure 2003. In Southeast Asia, the kaṣāya was associated with the shroud in which the stillborn foetus is wrapped. I owe this information to Liz Wilson. See Suwa shiryō sōsho 諏訪史料叢書, vol. 4, 59. 彼袈裟ト者荒神也。荒神者即衣那也。死トキハ則天蓋ト成る。矣一ニ無垢 衣ト名す、二忍辱鎧ト名す。 Shugen seiten, 1968, 699–700. On the “robe of forbearance,” see also Noel Pinnington, “Invented Origins: Muromachi Interpretations of Okina Sarugaku,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61/3 (1998): 510. 天照太神[…] 三輪明神[…] 仏ノ天蓋也、神ノ天蓋也、人ノ胞衣、胎内有様也. ST, Tendai shintō 天台神道, vol. 2, Sannō yurai, 606.

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2.1 The Placenta Deity As various sources point out, the placenta is the placenta deity (ena kōjin); in other words, this deity is a deification of the placenta – one could conversely say that the placenta is the embodiment of the god. The placenta deity is the mysterious power that watches over the gestation process and protects it from malevolent forces, although it can itself become one of them when not properly treated. The womb and its precious content were viewed as potential targets by demonic powers, against which they needed protection. The figure of the placenta deity represents the strange case of a deity in utero. Actually, its function extends beyond the womb, for it protects the individual not only during foetal development but also after birth, during infancy, and well beyond – until and after the individual’s death, when he or she returns to another womb; and further again, from one rebirth to the next, until the final deliverance. The placenta deity thus assumes different identities over the lifetime of the individual it protects. In esoteric Buddhism and in Shugendō, it is usually identified with an individual male deity called Sanbō Kōjin 三寳荒神. While this Kōjin is rarely represented in anthropomorphic fashion or enshrined as a principle deity, honzon 本尊, there are several temples dedicated to it in Kyoto: for instance, the Yuna (read: Ena) Kōjin ゆな荒神 at Raigō-in 来迎院 Temple near Sennyūji 泉涌寺, and the Kiyoshi Kōjin 清荒神 (“Pure” Kōjin) Temple on the eastern side of the imperial palace (gosho 御所); both temples seem to have served as protectors of the imperial family. Significantly, in the courtyard of the Kiyoshi Kōjin Temple is a tumulus that marks the spot where the placenta of Emperor Kōkaku 光格天皇 (1771–1840) was buried. Whether as an individual or collective entity, Kōjin inherits features of the ancient “wild gods” (araburu kami 荒神) and of esoteric Buddhist deities such as Zaō Gongen 蔵王権現 and Fudō. The cult is also prominent in Shintō, Shugendō, and Onmyōdō; his network is exceedingly complex and cannot be done justice here. I will therefore focus only on its embryological aspects.38 As noted above and elsewhere in this volume, embryology was particularly important in Shugendō, and so was the cult of Kōjin as god of the placenta. We recall that the practitioner’s attire symbolises the fifth stage of gestation (Sk. praśākha), the phase during which the embryo is supposedly covered by the 38

See my forthcoming book, Gods of Medieval Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015, forthcoming). See also Takahashi Yūsuke 高橋悠介, “Kōjin no engi to saishi 荒神の 縁起と祭祀,” Junreiki kenkyū 巡礼記研究 3 (2006): 1–22; Suzuki Masataka 鈴木正崇, Kami to hotoke no minzoku 神と仏の民俗 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2001); and Simone Mauclaire, “L’être, l’illusion et le pouvoir. Le complexe kojin/misaki selon un rituel de l’École d’Izanagi, Tosa, Japon,” Journal Asiatique 280/3–4 (1992): 308–400.

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placenta.39 A number of Shugendō sources emphasise the divine nature of the placenta. In the Shugen sanshō ryūgi kyō 修験三正流義教 (Teachings on the Meaning of the Three Correct Currents of Shugen) for instance, we read: When it dwells on the top of the [foetus’] head, it is called “placenta deity.” When [the child] comes out of the womb, [the god] is called ubugami 産神. When it dwells in the cemetery near the po 魄 and shen 神 [spirits of the dead], it is called tatemashigami 立増神. When one worships it, all good things arrive quickly. When one turns one’s back to it, all evil things arise suddenly. You should know that the wondrous essence of Kōjin never leaves beings, even for one single moment.40 The same description of the ena kōjin is repeated, with some variants, in a number of sources. Thus, in the Shugendō shūyō hiketsu shū 修験道宗要秘訣 集 (A Collection of Secret Teachings on the Essential Principles of Shugen[dō]), we read that: Dwelling on the top of the head, it is called ubugami. After [the child] leaves the womb, it is called tatemashigami. It protects beings, like the shadow follows the body. It is a transformation of the Tathāgata Dainichi (Sk. Mahāvairocana, Jp. Dainichi nyorai 大日如来), the function of response of the Kōjin of the three periods.41 Usually the placenta deity is mentioned in the context of the mountain practitioner’s attire, as in the following text: “The higasa 被蓋 is the placenta deity. In the womb, it covers the egg when it is formed at the kalala [stage], and it protects [the foetus] till birth.”42 Further on: “The higasa is the placenta in the womb. One calls it the ‘raging deity of the placenta’ (ena kōjin). More specifically, the term ‘deity’ refers to its wondrous numinous virtue. Now one expresses this with the term higasa, because it can eliminate all evil obstacles.”43 39 40

41 42 43

It is also said to symbolise the “Three Devas” (Shōten, Dakiniten, and Benzaiten), one of which at least – Shōten 聖天 – is explicitly identified as a placenta deity. [Editor’s note: For further discussion of po and shen, see Iyanaga Nobumi, “‘Human Yellow’ and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism and Culture,” in the present volume.] Quoted in Yamamoto 1993b, 210. 被蓋者衣那神。於胎内蓋覆伽羅卵圓満之上。至生下所以令守護也。Shugen shinganshō 修験心鑑鈔 (Notes on Shugen), in Shugen seiten, 1968, 552b. 被蓋者胎内之衣那也。名之謂衣那荒神方名靈妙之徳謂之神。今此表以為被 蓋復名之天蓋。斯除一切之悪障。Ibid., 572a.

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Again, in a document entitled Mikasa-yama oroshi 三笠山降ろし (Coming Down from Mount Mikasa)44 this idea is explained in a way that echoes with the two aforementioned texts, Shugen sanshō ryūgi kyō and Shugen shuyō hi­ketsu shū: After we receive the essences of heaven and earth, from the Yin and the Yang, when our hun and po spirits dwell in the womb, it is located at the top of our head and is called ubugami after we leave the womb, it is called tatemashigami (or ryūzōjin) and it protects us. 我等は忝なくも乾坤陰陽の精氣を受けてより、魂魄宿胎の時は、頂 に在りては産生神と名け、出胎して後は立増神衆生を守護す。

The same idea is expressed in more detail in a document entitled Ubugami 宇浮神 (The Childbirth Deity): When one expectantly receives the breaths of Heaven and Earth, and our hun and po spirits dwell in the womb, above one’s head is a canopy (gai 蓋) called “childbirth deity” (ubugami). After birth, and until one reaches the age of seven, it becomes a tatemashigami and dwells above one’s head. Day and night it protects that person as if he were the apple of its eye. After one reaches the age of eight, it becomes a god protecting the house (shutakujin 守宅神) and raising and nurturing the person day and night. After death, it becomes a spirit-demon (reiki 靈鬼) and watches over one’s bones. After the skeleton and bones have disappeared, it becomes a god of the grave; it is the clan deity (ujigami 氏神) that protects descendants. Thus, from the moment one enters the womb, the deity’s compassion envelops that person even better than the nurturing of one’s father and mother – just like the shadow that follows the body. One must worship it and have faith in it.45 忝けなくも乾坤の氣を受け、魂魄を胎に宿す時、頂上に蓋有り。宇 浮神と名づく。出胎巳後七歳以前、立増神、居増神と成りて頂上に 住す。昼夜衛護すること眼精を護るがごとし。八歳以後は守宅神と 成りて朝夕、養育の計を成し、没後には靈鬼と成りて死骸を守り、 骸骨朽損の後は、塚神と成りて子孫を守る氏神是なり。かくの如 44 45

Mount Mikasa, whose name can be written with the graphs 三笠 or 御蓋, is located in the close vicinity of Kasuga Shrine, Nara Prefecture. Quoted in Yamamoto 1993b, 210–11.

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Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism 325 く、入胎の始めより影の形隨ふ如く、慈悲の覆援を成すこと、なお 父母の養育に過ぎたり。尤も信ずべし。

As tatemashigami, it is the placenta deity that nurtures the child. When the latter turns eight, it becomes the god of the house; then, after the individual’s death, it becomes a spirit-demon (reiki); finally, it becomes the god of the grave. The metonymic logic at work is well reflected in the various guises of the god: first, as placenta deity proper; then, as childbirth deity (tatemashigami), and finally, clan deity (ujigami). The term tatemashigami is intriguing, and it points in the direction of Suwa Shrine, located in modern Nagano Prefecture. The word tatemashi 立増 (and perhaps the deity it qualifies) appears in a ritual from the Suwa tradition called Ōmitatemashi 大御立増. It is centred on a rather elusive oracular deity (or type of deities) called mishaguji (御左口神 or 御社宮司), who delivers its oracles through child-mediums.46 In order to induce the possession, the medium covers his head with a winnowing fan, thus turning symbolically into a foetus covered by his placenta. The mishaguji, represented or embodied by the medium, is therefore perceived as a child-god still protected by his placenta. The term mishaguji also designates cylindrical stones (sekibō 石棒), some of which, dating from the Jōmon period, have been found in archaeological excavations – attesting to the ancient roots of that cult. A ritual manual by the Suwa priest Moriya Mitsuzane, entitled Suwa Daimyōjin shinpi gohonji daiji 諏訪大明神神秘御本地大事 (Secret Honji of the Great Bright Suwa Deity), explicitly compares the size of these stones to that of the human foetus in the mother’s womb.47 In other words, the mishaguji is none other than the foetus, and the wooden structure in which the erected stones were enclosed, the womb-like shōjin-ya 精進屋 (“purification house”), comported at its back a reed-fence that seems “logically” to correspond to the placenta.48 As expressed in a ritual text attributed to the famous warlord from Kai Province, Takeda Shingen 武田信玄 (1521–73): “In the shōjin-ya, the divine emissary performs a thirty-day purification (shōjin 精進). The erection of the mishaguji symbolises the ‘divine child’ (lit. ‘prince,’ ōji 王子) in the womb.”49 46 47

48 49

On child-mediums, see Strickmann 2002, 218–27. See Yamamoto Hiroko, “Torawareta no seidō-tachi: Suwa-sai seitai no ohōri to shinshi o megutte 囚われたの聖童たちー諏訪祭政体の大祝と神使をめぐって,” in Haijo no jikū o koete, 排除の時空を超えて, Akasaka Norio 赤坂憲雄 et al., eds. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2003), 57. See Nakazawa Shin’ichi 中沢新一, Seirei no ō 精霊の王 (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2003), 64. See Suwa no kami shinomiya saishi saikō shidai 諏訪神四宮祭祀最高次第 (The Highest Ritual in the Festival of the Four Shrines of the Suwa Deity), quoted in Nakazawa 2003, 67.

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This symbolism also characterises a ritual, no longer extant, performed at the Upper Suwa Shrine – that of the so-called mimuro 御室 (“august chamber”), a three-month incubation ritual in which the Suwa god was reborn in the person of the child-priest it came to possess. I have discussed this matter elsewhere.50 Suffice it to note that one of the deities involved in it is a snake deity identified with Ugajin 宇賀神 and Aizen, two deities about which I will have more to say shortly. At any rate, it should be clear that embryological symbolism was at the heart of the rituals of Suwa Shrine, which seem to have resulted from a convergence and fusion of archaic beliefs and practices regarding fecundity and esoteric Buddhist conceptions. A similar symbolism is also found in a small shrine known as Shizume Daimyōjin 鎮大明神 (“Placating Deity”), located near Suwa Lake in Inadani 伊那谷 (Ina Valley, a name that strangely resonates with ena, placenta). Apart from a few mishaguji deities enshrined in two oratories, the votive offerings at this shrine are noteworthy: they are cotton simulacra of a placenta placed under an opened folding fan (an object that also symbolises the placenta).51 Thus, the placenta deity assumes different identities over the lifetime of the individual it protects. As mentioned before, in esoteric Buddhism and in the Shugendō tradition, it is usually identified with the individual male deity called Sanbō Kōjin. As Kōjin became increasingly esoteric, it was identified with the cosmic buddha Dainichi, in a form known as Nyorai Kōjin 如来荒神 (or Tathāgata Kōjin): At the moment of birth it is called “childbirth deity” (ubugami). It protects beings because it is a “response” of the Kōjin of the Three Periods, a transformation of Dainichi Nyorai. When one respects it, good things occur rapidly; when one turns away from it, evil suddenly arises. […] The wondrous essence of Kōjin never leaves beings, not even for one single moment.52

50 51

52

Bernard Faure, “The Mimuro Ritual of Suwa Shrine,” a paper delivered at the conference on Shinto, Venice, 2007. See Nakazawa 2003; and Yamamoto, 1993a, b. I am indebted to Tanaka Motoi for introducing me to this place. The Shizume Daimyōjin Shrine was founded during the Hōryaku 宝暦 era (1751–64). Hangai kuketsu 斑蓋口決, in Shugen seiten, 1968, 761b. A similar description of the ena kōjin as manifestation of the Kōjin of the Three Periods and avatar of Dainichi is given by the Shugendō shuyō hiketsu shū, in Shugendō sōshō, vol. 2, 368a.

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Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism 327 出胎ノ時ハ宇浮神ト名テ、衆生ヲ守護ス。即チ是大日如来ノ變化三 世荒神應作也。之ヲ敬ス時ハ諸善速来ル、之ニ背ク時ハ衆悪忽チ起 ル。[…] 荒神妙體全衆生ノ一念ヲ出ず。

Kōjin came to be represented under three main forms: as a wrathful demon (Funnu Kōjin 忿怒荒神), as a buddha (Nyorai Kōjin), and as a god dressed as a Chinese official and known as Kojima Kōjin 小島荒神. The latter is traced back to a vision of a monk from Kojimadera 小島寺 named Shinkō 真興 (935–1004). He is often represented seated on a rock emerging in the midst of the sea, his body and head surrounded by a double halo; he has four arms and holds a wheel and a jewel in his two upper hands, and a five-pronged vajra and vajrabell – two ritual implements typical of Aizen – in his lower hands. He wears a triple-pointed diadem or crown, with jewels at each tip, and an official dress. Kojima Kōjin also appears among the retinue of Benzaiten 弁才天 in several mandalas dedicated to that goddess. While he is frequently represented in paintings, the contrary is true as regards his statuary. A significant exception is the wooden statue of the aforementioned Yuna Kōjin at Raigō-in, a branch temple of Sennyūji in Kyoto. The name Yuna is clearly a reference to the placenta (ena), and it is the only example of a Kojima Kōjin-style representation being explicitly described as a placenta deity. This beautiful statue, dated to the Kamakura period, is also unique in style. Although its origins are obscure, it is said to be the oldest Sanbō Kōjin of Japan. The god is dressed in a lavish Chinese robe adorned with floral motifs, and he holds the usual ritual implements in his four hands. On the wooden plate that covers his belly two half-naked youths are painted amidst vines, one of whom is playing the flute, while the other seems to be drawing a bow. I have found no clue as to their meaning, but perhaps they could be a reference to the twin devas (Jp. kushōjin), two spirits often associated with the placenta deity.53 In his Meishuku shū 明宿集 (Writings to Clarify Okina), the playwright Zenchiku 禪竹 (1405–ca. 1470) describes the semi-legendary founder of Noh, the statesman Hata no Kawakatsu 秦川勝 (variant: Kōkatsu, a contemporary of Shōtoku Taishi 聖徳太子), as both a “great kōjin” and a placenta deity. He identifies him with the old man Okina 翁, and with the fundamental Tathāgata, adding: “When he is angry, he is Sanbō Kōjin; when he is quiet, he is the fundamentally existing Tathāgata.” The ambivalence of Kōjin is the same as that of the placenta, with its impurity and its vital force. In Noh representations of Okina as a cosmic man, the performer’s costume is said to represent the physi53

The temple description also mentions that he had five Dharma-protectors (gohōjin 護法神) as acolytes, but they are no longer in the hall where he is enshrined.

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ology of birth: the undressed silk of the robe denotes the mother’s womb, and the bunched sleeves, the placenta.54 While Kojima Kōjin represents the paradigmatic placenta deity, other medieval deities included the protection of the foetus among their multifarious functions, and as such can be placed into the same category. In the rest of this section, I briefly examine a few of them, beginning with Aizen and Fudō, whom we have already encountered as the principal image (honzon) of embryological rituals. 2.2 Aizen and Fudō as Placenta Deities Among the main deities closely associated (or even identified) with Kōjin, we find Aizen and Fudō (and the couple they form in the so-called “two-headed Aizen”), as well as the snake deity Ugajin, the god of the pole star, Myōken 妙見, and the elephant-headed Shōten 聖天 (also represented as “dual-bodied deity of bliss,” sōshin Kangiten 雙身歓喜天). We recall that Aizen and Fudō played a crucial role in the development of embryological conceptions of esoteric Buddhism (for instance, in the so-called sanzon gōgyō ritual, mentioned before). The identity between Fudō and Kōjin is suggested by the fact that both are worshipped on the same day of each month (the 28th), but there are many other symbolic or ritual clues. As mentioned before, the Shugendō text Jindaikan hiketsu compared the foetus to the so-called “five-finger-width” (goshiryō) Aizen,55 and small images of Aizen were actually worn by pregnant women in their sash.56 We recall that Aizen was also at the centre of an embryological ritual, whose mudras represent the five stages of gestation. The resemblance between Kōjin and Aizen stems from the fact that both were perceived as manifestations or deities iconographically derived from the esoteric figure of Vajrasattva (Kongōsatta 金剛薩埵).57 The Kōjin engi 荒神縁起 (Karmic Origins of Kōjin) explains that Kōjin’s acolytes are Fudō and Aizen, who form with him a triad very similar to the one they form with Nyoirin Kannon in the sanzon gōgyō hō, a ritual centred on the relics of the Buddha and/or the wish-fulfilling jewel (cintāmaṇi). There are sev54 55 56 57

See Pinnington 1998, 510. A similar point is made in the Yugikyō kenmon (Observations on the Yugikyō) by Shōichi Kokushi 聖一国師 (Ennin Ben’en, 1202–1280). ZTZ, Mikkyō 2, 237a. See Aizen Myōō, 2011, 48. See also n. 13 and 14 in this chapter. [Editor’s note: This figure is usually understood either as a manifestation of Samantabhadra, one of the patriarchs of esoteric Buddhism who received his teachings directly from Mahāvairocana, or as a vajra-bodhisattva appearing in the moon disc in the eastern part of the Diamond Realm mandala.]

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eral extant representations of the triad formed by Kōjin, Aizen, and Fudō.58 Although we do not know enough about the ritual context of such images, it is clear that Kōjin’s association with Aizen and Fudō reinforces the embryological interpretation of the latter.59 Indeed, Kōjin’s acolytes are none other than the “five-finger-width” Aizen and the “three-inch” Fudō. Furthermore, the text explains the identity between Kōjin and the relics. On　the other hand, the acolytes of Nyorai Kōjin look strikingly similar to Aizen. The influence of Aizen’s image is also visible in the jewel vase on which this form of Kōjin is seated. 2.3 Ugajin In certain oral traditions, for instance at the aforementioned Suwa Shrine, Aizen appears in the form of a snake – and in this form he is sometimes identified with Ugajin, a god who is represented as a serpent with the head of an old man and is often paired with the deity Benzaiten. In Yamamoto Hiroko’s view, “in the powerful magnetic field of embryology, Aizen has come closer to Benzaiten, through the intermediary of the wish-fulfilling jewel, and has himself taken the form of a snake.”60 In the Tendai tradition, Ugajin was also linked with Jūzenji 十禪師, the god of one of the seven upper shrines of Hie Taisha 日吉大社. Jūzenji is usually represented as a youth, and he tends to possess children. Although a discussion of this god is beyond the scope of this essay, I want to emphasise that, in spite of their differences, both he and Ugajin were worshipped as placenta deities.61 According to an oral tradition traced back to the Tendai priest Kōgei 皇慶 (also known as Tani ajari 谷阿闍梨, 977–1049): 58

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The triad image from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is a classical representation of Nyorai Kōjin with the two myōō (wisdom kings). Another example, the Sanbō Kōjin mandala of Tokurakuji in Mie Prefecture (Muromachi period), shows Nyorai Kōjin in the form of Kongōsatta (Vajrasattva), with Aizen and Fudō and twelve attendants. See Aizen Myōō, 2011, Fig. 72. If the five-wheel stupa and the jewel it contains symbolise the foetus, then Aizen and Fudō, as its protectors, become a kind of placenta deities. The same is true of the two dragons that protect the cintāmaṇi, which can be traced back to the two nagas that poured water on the future Buddha Śākyamuni at the time of his birth. Yamamoto Hiroko, “Chūsei ni okeru Aizen Myōō-hō: sono poritikusu to erosu 中世に おける愛染明王法 – そのポリティクスとエロス,” Nihon no bijutsu 日本の美術 376 (1997): 86–98; and 1998a, 418–19. For more on Jūzenji, see Yamamoto Hiroko, “Chūsei Hie-sha no Jūzenji shinkō to ninaite shudan: Eizan, reidō, fugeki no sansō kōzō o megutte 中世日吉社の十禪師信仰と 担い手集団—叡山･霊童･巫覡の三層構造をめぐって,” Terakoya gogaku bunka

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Jūzenji Daimyōjin is also called Ugajin. He is the placenta of all beings. He is a god of longevity and fortune. From the beginning to the end – that is, from the five stages [of the embryo] in the womb till the single thought at the time of death – at all times this god protects us.62 十禪師大明神者。又名宇賀神。是則一切衆生之胞衣。壽福神也。自 胎内五轉之元初至命終一念之最後。莫不彼神加護。

In the Jingi kan’yo 神祇鑒輿 (Deities’ Mirror-Shrine), a text attributed to the Tendai monk Ennin 圓仁 (ca. 793–864) and quoted in the Edo-period Chintaku reifu engi shūsetsu 鎮宅霊符縁起集説 (Collection of Karmic Origins of the Chintaku Reifu [Deity]), Ugajin is also identified with the bodhisattva Myōken, the deity of the polar star. He is defined in formulaic fashion: “From the five stages in the womb onward, he becomes the ‘spirit(s) born at the same time [as the individual]’ (kushōjin 倶生神). He never leaves our body, till the last thought at the end of life, and constantly keeps us under his protection.”63 But his ambivalent nature is also underscored: the Chintaku reifu engi shūsetsu, centred on Myōken as a talismanic deity, notes that, if one reveres Myōken, “he becomes Ugajin; if one turns away from him, he becomes Kōjin […] and inflicts calamities.”64 The affinities between the deities Ugajin and Kōjin are revealed by the resemblances in title and content between two apocryphal scriptures, entitled the Bussetsu Uga jinnō fukutoku enman darani kyō 佛説宇賀神王福徳圓満陀 羅尼經 and the Bussetsu Dai kōjin seyo fukutoku enman darani kyō 佛説大荒神

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kenkyūjo ronsō 寺子屋語学文化研究所論叢 (1984); and Bernard Faure, “Jūzenji myōjin kara mita Sannō shintō 十禪師明神から見た山王神道,” a paper delivered at the International Shinto Foundation conference, Tokyo, 2006b. Kōgei shiki Jūzenji den mon 皇慶私記十禪師伝聞 (Kōgei’s Personal Notes on the Jūzenji Tradition), in ZTZ, Shintō 1, 255. See also Shichisha ryakki 七社略記 (Abbreviated Records of Seven [Hie] Shrines), “On the fact that Jūzenji is called Kōjin.” However, the oral tradition quoted here differs slightly: “One calls Kōjin the master of the turbulent deities (soranshin 麁亂神). Jūzenji Daimyōjin is called Ugajin. He is the god of longevity and happiness, the placenta [deity] of all beings” 荒神名麁亂神主。十禪師大明神者 名宇賀神。是則一切衆生之胞衣壽福神也。See Tendaishū zensho 12, 229; and ST, Jinja-hen: Hie 神社編ー日吉, 132. In Shinkō sōsho 信仰叢書, Hayakawa Junzaburō 早川純三郎, ed. (Tokyo: Hachiman shoten, 2000 [1916]), 335–64. Ibid., 335–64. See also Yamagishi Kenjun 山岸乾順, ed., Chintaku reifujin: kannō himitsu shuhōshū 鎮宅霊符神ー感応秘密修法集 (Tokyo: Hachiman shoten, 2001 [1929]), 40–41.

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Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism 331 施与福徳圓満陀羅尼經.65 In both, Ugajin appears as a female immortal (Benzaiten) who presents the Buddha with a secret formula to subdue three evil kōjin named Greed, Obstacle, and Starvation. The demon-kings also appear and vow to protect the Dharma. In the latter text, Bussetsu Dai kōjin seyo fukutoku enman darani kyō, the Buddha himself declares that these kōjin are his provisional bodies. Indeed, these three demons, who embody the Three Poisons (greed, anger, and ignorance), are also manifestations of Dainichi (Mahāvairocana), Monjushiri (Mañjuśrī), and Fudō Myōō. Furthermore, this text states that “when their mind is wild, they are Sanbō Kōjin; when it is peaceful, they are none other than the primordial Tathāgata (honnu nyorai 本有 如來).”66 The three demon-kings, after bowing to the Buddha, offer him a formula (dhāraṇī) that will bring protection and happiness to sentient beings and eliminate all obstacles. In the apocryphal scripture on Ugajin, Kōjin and Ugajin are paired as symbols of fundamental ignorance and ultimate reality (Sk. dharmatā). In the method of contemplation described by that text, the practitioner must perceive his own body, which symbolises ignorance, as being identical with Kōjin, but he must at the same time realise that this very body, which fills the entire space, is identical with the dharmadhātu (hōkai, or hokkai 法界) and therefore with the cosmic deity Ugajin. This is an expression of the hongaku 本覚 theory, according to which ignorance is none other than ultimate reality or, to put it in mythological terms, Kōjin is in essence identical with Ugajin (or Benzaiten).

2.4 Shōten (Vināyaka) Iyanaga Nobumi has pointed out the resemblance between the dual-headed Aizen and the dual-body Shōten (Kangiten) and emphasised their sexual reading.67 I would like to add that, in both cases, an embryological reading is also possible. Let us start from a quotation from a text attributed to the ninth-century Tendai thinker Annen 安然, the Shibu Binayaka hō 四分毘那夜迦法 (Vināyaka Ritual in Four Parts): “Just like the shadow never leaves the body,

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In Yamamoto Hiroko, Ijin: Chūsei Nihon no hikyōteki sekai 異神ー中世日本の秘教的世 界 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1998a); and in Shugen seiten, 1968, 51–53, respectively. [Editor’s note: Both titles are somewhat similar and can be translated as the “Dhāraṇī Sūtra of Divine King Uga’s (or, in the latter case, Great Kōjin Who Grants) Prosperity and Fulfilment, as Told by the Buddha.”] Shugen seiten, 1968, 51–53. Iyanaga Nobumi 彌永信美, Daikokuten hensō: bukkyō shinwagaku 1 大黒天変相 ー仏教 神話学 I (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2002), 593–600; also personal communication.

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there exists a deity called Kōjin, which causes obstacles. It is Vināyaka.”68 Apart from the identifying Vināyaka with Kōjin, this passage defines Vināyaka as a demon who constantly follows beings, like their shadow. The same topos reappears in the definition of the placenta deity and of the twin devas, “born at the same time” (kushōjin). In the Kōjin saimon 荒神祭文 (A Prayer to Kōjin), when the Buddha (or his disciple Śariputra) asks the identity of the demon that is obstructing the construction of Jetavana Monastery, the latter answers that his name is Vināyaka, or Kōjin. He adds, not too surprisingly, that it is the childbirth deity (ubugami) in the womb, the placenta deity (ena) at the time of birth, the earth deity after birth, and above all, the buddha anterior to the three periods of human life.69 The same description reappears in several texts that present Shōten as a demon that “follows beings like the shadow follows the body.”70 For instance, a commentary on the Dōjikyō 童子經 (The Children Sutra) states that: When [the foetus] dwells in the womb, Shōten becomes the placenta. When [the child comes] out of the womb, it is the hood (kasa 蓋). When [the individual] becomes a buddha, it is the heavenly canopy [over one’s head]. From the moment of conception to that of buddhahood, [the individual] is never apart from Shōten.71 聖天胎内之時為衣那。胎外之時笠也。成佛之時天蓋也。自凡身至佛 果不離聖天。

A significant illustration – and an embryological reinterpretation – of this motif is found in a work from the Shōmyōji 稱名寺 collection preserved at the Kanazawa Bunko library, the Shinkō musōki 真興夢想記, a record of dreams and visions by the Shingon priest Shinkō 真興 (other name Kojima sōzu 小島 僧都, 934–1004), mentioned in sub-section 2.1. Significantly, this Shinkō is also the priest who had a vision of the form of Kōjin that came to be called Kojima Kōjin 小島荒神 after him. The Shinkō musōki contains several illustrations, one of which shows two Vināyakas reduced to their simplest expression: their ele-

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凡人身如影不離。作障礙。神名荒神。是則毘那夜迦也。Quoted in Kakuzenshō 覺禪鈔, TZ, vol. 5, 3022, 452a. See Miyake Hitoshi 宮家準, Shugendō girei no kenkyū 修験道儀礼の研究 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1971), 233. See, for instance, Kakuzenshō, TZ, vol. 5, 3022, 452a. Byakuhō kushō, TZ, vol. 7, 174a.

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Figure 8.1 Vināyaka/Shōten as placenta. From Shinkō musōki narabini shogenkeizō 真興夢想記并所現形像, by Shinkō 真興 (934–1004). Kanazawa Bunko Collection. Drawing by Tai Sekimori.

phant heads and skins, covering a foetus represented symbolically by a five-wheel stupa (Fig. 8.1). Significantly, the body of the elephant is reduced to its skin, which forms like a placenta (or amniotic bag) around the five-wheel stupa that symbolises the foetus. This representation of the human body as a stupa was important in Japanese esoteric Buddhism. This document amply demonstrates that Shōten was perceived as a kind of placenta deity (ena kōjin).72

72

The full title is Shinkō musōki narabini shogenkeizō 真興夢想記并所現形像 (Record of Dreams and Images, by Shinkō). This work is known by two recensions. The first one (recension A) was found on Mount Kōya, the second one (recension B) at Kanazawa Bunko. Recension B is autographed by Kenna 釼阿 (1261–1338), the second abbot of Shōmyōji at Kanazawa. On this question, see Manabe Shunshō 真鍋俊照, “Shingon mikkyō to jakyō Tachikawa-ryū 真言密教と邪教立川流,” Kokubungaku 国文学 45/12 (2000): 110–17.

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2.5 Myōken, the Pole Star inside the Womb The fluid nature of Kōjin appears in the notion that the birth star (honmyōshō 本命星) of the individual becomes Kōjin when not worshipped properly, and Ugajin when worshipped properly. Thus, the fundamental ambivalence of the god is reactivated by the ritual. In that sense, Kōjin, Ugajin, and Myōken, qua placenta deities, are all transformations of the birth star. While Myōken’s cosmological function is obvious, less apparent but just as important is his embryological function. The first thing to notice is the symbolism of the “red and white,” reflected in the solar and lunar discs that dominate Myōken’s iconography. As we recall, these two colours denote female blood and male semen, respectively, which fuse to form an embryo during sexual union. Another clue is Myōken’s identification with Amaterasu through the logic of womb symbolism. This is evident, for instance, in the figure of Iwato Myōken (Myōken of the Rock Cave), the main deity of Myōken Hall (Myōken-dō 妙見堂, also known as Iwato Myōken-gū 岩戸妙見宮) at Enjōji 圓成寺, on the northern outskirts of Kyōto.73 The Shiragi-san Myōken daibosatsu engi 新羅山妙見大菩薩縁起 (Karmic Origins of the Great Bodhisattva Myōken at Mount Shiragi) elaborates on Myōken’s nature and on the benefits he brings to beings. More important for our purpose, it provides a detailed description of Myōken as a “placenta deity,” although the expression itself is not used. All the topoi are in place: Myōken is said to dwell at the top of the foetus’ head and becomes the childbirth deity (ubugami); then, after the child’s birth, a tatemashigami, and eventually a clan deity.74 Another aspect linked to Myōken’s embryological function is his panoptical nature. Because of his “subtle vision” (myōken), he is one of these deities who govern human destiny. This is why he is often represented holding a brush and a register on which he notes all the actions of humans, good and evil. The same 73

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According to Hayashi On, Myōken is also linked to Uhō Dōji 宇寳童子, a Buddhist version of Amaterasu. Amaterasu was also identified with Hokushin 北辰 (the Northern Chronogram, a name that designates at times Myōken, at others the Northern Dipper). See Hayashi On 林温, “Myōken Bosatsu to hoshi mandara 妙見菩薩と星曼荼羅,” Nihon no Bijutsu 377 (1997): 47. Shiragi-san Myōken Daibosatsu engi, ST, Jinja-hen 神社編 45, Hizen, Higo, Hyūga, Satsu­ma, Ōsumi no kuni 肥前・肥後・日向・薩摩・大隅國, 444; see also “Shiragi Myōken,” in Kuma-gun jinja ki 球磨郡神社記, ibid., 303. Already in China, Taiyi 太一 (the Taoist prototype of Myōken) was believed to provide the essence of both the womb and the embryo, and to be the “mother of birth.” See Dongshen badi miaojing jing 洞神 八帝妙精經 (Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors of the Storehouse of Divinity, CT 640), 4ab. I am indebted to Dominic Steavu for this reference.

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is true of his two acolytes, who are patterned after the twin devas (kushōjin), two spirits born at the same time as the individual. In this role, the triad is associated with the ruler of the underworld, King Yama, and his acolytes. The sources also insist on Myōken’s ambivalence, namely, the fact that he can bring good fortune or calamities depending on whether he is worshipped appropriately or not. This kind of spiritual blackmail is, again, characteristic of Kōjin as “god of obstacles.” Epilogue I have here only lifted one corner of the veil (or should I say placenta?) that covers the embryological discourse of medieval Japanese Buddhism, an exceedingly complex discourse that cannot be dealt within the framework of an article (or even a book). One should in particular follow other strands such as the notion of a god that watches over individuals and the homology between the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels of the cosmos, the house, the body, and the womb. The analogy between microcosm and macrocosm allows us to move back and forth between the intrauterine register (with its placenta deity), the subterranean register (with the ruler and officials of the underworld), and the stellar register, that is, the heavenly canopy (with its astral deities). Indeed, in Sino-Japanese ideology, the controller of destiny par excellence is the Northern Dipper, or the deity that symbolises it (Myōken Bosatsu). The fact that Kōjin is also a fire god points to another dimension of the gestation process – as a form of cooking. Without elaborating on Lévi-Strauss’ anthropological model of the raw and the cooked, we recall that already in India ascetic practices were perceived as both gestation and cooking.75 It would be interesting to follow the development of that symbolic strand in Buddhism, and in particular the fusion of Kōjin with the stove god (kamadogami 竃神).76 As Stein and Sloterdijk have shown, there are analogies between the universe, human dwellings, and the human body – or again, between the 75 76

See, for instance, Charles Malamoud, Cooking the World: Ritual and Thought in Ancient India, trans. David G. White (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996 [1998]), 23–53. See on that point the rich study by Rolf A. Stein, “La légende du foyer dans le monde chinois,” in Echanges et communications: Mélanges offerts à Claude Lévi-Strauss à l’occasion de son 60ème anniversaire, Jean Pouillon and Pierre Maranda, eds. (Paris: Mouton, 1970), 1280–1305. The function of cooking as purification is taken over in esoteric Buddhism by the wisdom king Ucchuṣma (Ususama 烏枢沙摩), on which see Yang Zhaohua, “The Cult of Ucchuṣma in China,” PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, 2012.

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stove and the womb.77 Certain texts state that the stove god is also the placenta deity.78 He is also a god that controls human destiny, and in China he was identified with Siming 司命 (a prototype of Myōken).79 The latter bifurcates into two deities ruling over the human life span, Siming and Silu 司禄, who are functionally similar to the twin devas (kushōjin), the acolytes of King Yama. As god of destiny, the placenta deity is a god that both watches and judges the acts of humans. The notion of the placenta deity (and the related notion of the kushōjin) strangely resonates with the philosophical (spherological) speculations of Peter Sloterdijk. In a recent book entitled Bubbles, Sloterdijk emphasises that the child in utero spends his first months with his placenta double in the microsphere of the womb. It is this dyadic structure inside that microsphere that the individual will attempt to reproduce in his/her relationships with others – beginning with his or her mother.80 That structure is also reproduced on the inside, taking the form of moral conscience, or that of tutelary deities like the Roman god Genius, who bears an uncanny resemblance to such placenta deities. According to the Roman author Censorinus (fl. early third century CE), Genius was the god under whose protection (tutela) everyone lives during foetal gestation and after birth.81 However, according to Sloterdijk, these later companions are merely the “successors to and substitutes for an archaic ano77

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See Rolf A. Stein, The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought, transl. Phyllis Brooks (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990); and Peter Sloterdijk, Bubbles: Spheres; Volume I: Microspherology, transl. Wieland Hoban (New York: Semiotext(e), 2011). See Iijima Yoshiharu 飯島吉晴, Kamadogami to kawayagami: ikai to konoyo no kagami 竈 神と厠神: 異界と此の世の鏡 (Kyoto: Jinbun shoin, 1986), and “Ena no fōkuroa: Ena no kyōkaisei 胞衣のフオークロアー胞衣の境界性,” in Shin’i to shinkō no minzoku 心意 と信仰の民俗, Tsukuba daigaku minzokugaku kenkyūshitsu 筑波大学民俗学研究 室, eds. (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2001), 240–65. Also, Kano Toshitsugu 狩野敏次, “Kamado to hi to josei 竃と火と女性,” Rekishi minzokugaku 歴史民俗学 7 (1997a): 296–321, and “Kamado to kyōkai: kudo, hodo, hoto o chūshin ni 竃と境界—クド･ホ ト･ホトを中心に,” Rekishi minzokugaku 8 (1997b): 308–45. Stein 1970, 1285. Sloterdijk 2011. Censorinus, De die natali (238 CE). The ena kōjin is in the true sense(s) a genius, a term defined by Censorinus as having three main meanings, designating an entity 1) “responsible for our birth” (ut genamus curat), or 2) “born at the same time as us” (una genitur nobiscum), or 3) “who greets us and protects us after our birth” (nos genitus suscipit ac tutatur). The emphasis is usually on the first meaning, and thus the genius is originally a deification of genesic power, but it is also a companion that directs our destiny, like a birth star (natale astrum). See Roman and European Mythologies, Yves Bonnefoy and

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nym, figurations of the placental double.”82 Sloterdijk’s analysis strikingly resonates with Japanese notions of the placenta deity and Buddhist notions of the twin devas. Yet it fundamentally differs from them, not only because of their different contexts but also because Sloterdijk’s psychogenetic description denies any ontological reality to the placenta god and other such invisible protectors. One last point: the evolution of the placenta deity has revealed a major shift, namely, the moralisation of the ancient double, which has become in esoteric Buddhism a kind of moral witness, a conscience that constantly judges the individual. Through the notion of “fundamental destiny,” the conception of the placenta deity came to be articulated through that of the kushōjin. One point needs to be underscored. As the notion developed, the kushōjin became ever more biased and intrusive. They turned into a kind of moral witness, playing the role of a moral conscience that constantly judges the individual. This is precisely, according to Sloterdijk, what religions do. From that standpoint, “what we call religions are essentially symbolic systems whose purpose is to transform the intimate ally of individuals into innate supervisors.”83 The initial ambivalence toward the placenta became an ambivalence toward the placenta deity. That ambivalence was eventually displaced toward (or sublimated into) the moral ambivalence of the god Kōjin, who appears as either a serene buddha or a demon, depending on the person. The cult of the placenta deity seems to have gradually faded away in the Edo period, except perhaps in Shugendō, precisely at a time when the figure of the bodhisattva Jizō 地蔵 as a child protector became predominant. Although Jizō’s function clearly derives from that of the placenta deity, he seems to belong to another ideological configuration and to have lost the ambivalence of the latter. Thus, although recent works have looked into the origins of the flourishing practice of the so-called “offerings to stillborn children” (mizuko kuyō 水子供養), they have failed to pick the red thread of the placenta deity and to see Jizō as a resurgence of these ancient embryological gods that controlled human destiny.

82 83

Wendy Doniger, eds. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992), 127–128; and Sloterdijk 2011, 416. Sloterdijk 2011, 437. Ibid., 401.

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Chapter 9

“Human Yellow” and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism and Culture Nobumi Iyanaga 彌永信美

1

The Origin of “Human Yellow”: Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra

What is “human yellow”? It is a non-existent substance. Nonetheless, people in medieval Japan believed in its existence and were fascinated by the magical power that they attributed to it. It is the story of this belief and this fascination that I will try to recount here.1 The word that I translate here as “human yellow,” (Ch. renhuang 人黄, Jp. ninnō)2 occurs, at least as far as I know, only once in the whole Chinese Buddhist Canon – in a passage of the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra (Ch. Darijing shu 大日經疏, Jp. Dainichikyō sho) by the Chinese monk Yixing 一行. The Mahāvairocana Sūtra (Ch. Dari jing 大日經, Jp. Dainichi kyō) had been translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, probably in 724, by the Indian ācārya Śubhakarasiṃha in collaboration with Yixing. The Commentary was written directly in Chinese by Yixing but is largely based on the teaching of Śubhakarasiṃha. The Sūtra describes an important mandala called taizōkai mandara 胎藏界曼荼羅 in Japan, or the Womb Mandala, and the rituals which were to be performed with it. The Commentary elaborates on the Sūtra’s mention here of a so-called “ḍākinī mantra,” and the word “human yellow” occurs precisely in this context. It is worthwhile here to give a full translation of the passage in which the term appears:3 1 The present chapter is a small part of a larger project, provisionally titled “On the Origin of Life: European Tradition and Japanese Medieval Mysticism.” The first part is already published in Japanese in the volume Hito to hyōshō 人と表象, Takachio Hitoshi 高知尾仁, ed. (Tokyo: Yūshokan, 2011), as a chapter entitled “Seimei no kongen ni tsuite: Yōroppa dentō ni oite 生 命の根源について—ヨーロッパ伝統において,” 63–113. The latter part, on Japanese traditions, will be published in two or more separate articles. 2 Chinese technical terms are transliterated in their Japanese pronunciation and sometimes in kanbun; Chinese proper nouns are transliterated in Chinese and Japanese pronunciations at the first occurrence, but only the Japanese for subsequent instances. 3 Unless otherwise stated, all translations into English are my own.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306523_011

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Next, on the ḍākinī mantra. In the world there are people who perform this magical rite and who are masters in the art of magic spells (jujutsu 呪術). These [female demons, named ḍākinīs, are said to] know by a divinatory art of people who are going to die within six months. Knowing of them, they perform this magical rite, take their heart, and eat it. This is because there is a yellow [substance] in the human body called “human yellow,” just like there is a [precious medicine named] “ox yellow” (goō 牛黄) in the ox’s body; and if one can eat this [human yellow], one can attain the greatest accomplishment (siddhi). [Thus, ḍākinīs] can travel across four regions in a day and obtain anything they want. They are also able to dominate people [as they wish]. If there are some who dislike them, [ḍākinīs] can make them suffer extreme pain from illness. But with this magical rite, they cannot kill. Having foreseen humans who are going to die within six months, they take their heart by magic, but with another magic they replace it with something else [which will function as the heart in the interim]. This way, the men [from whom the heart is removed] will not die at that moment, but when the time of the death comes, they are destroyed suddenly. These ḍākinīs are generally yakṣas [or yakṣiṇīs] and have an immense [magical] power. People in the world say that they are the supreme beings. They are attendants of the deity Mahākāla (Makakara 摩訶迦羅), the Great Black One (Daikokujin 大黒神).  Once, the Buddha Vairocana, [residing] in the Rubric of the Law of the Subjugation of the Three Worlds (gōbuku sanze hōmon 降伏三世法門), wanted to eliminate the harm of these [ḍākinīs]; he transformed himself into the Great Black One, smearing himself with ashes, and manifested a miraculous body which infinitely surpassed [the ḍākinīs’ appearance]. In the wilderness, he convoked by magic all the ḍākinīs who [were able to] perform every kind of magic – fly in the sky and walk on the water – and reprimanded them: “I will eat you all, because you always eat humans,” and he swallowed them but did not kill them. Having subjugated them, he released them, and ordered them to no longer eat any meat. They said: “How would we then be able to sustain our life since we only eat meat?” The Buddha said: “I will allow you to eat the hearts of the dead.” Then they said: “When the great yakṣas come to know people who are dying, they fight with each other to eat them; how could we get our share?” The Buddha said: “Then I will teach you a [special] mantra and a [special] mudra by which you will be able to know who is going to die within six months; you will protect these people until their death by magic so that other [beings] will not injure them, and when their life has reached its end, you will be able to eat [their heart right away].” This is how the

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Buddha could at last lead them on the [right] path. This is why there is this mantra: HRĪḤ HAḤ. It eliminates the pollution of their abominable art.4 次荼吉尼眞言。此是世間有造此法術者。亦自在呪術。能知人欲命終 者。六月即知之。知已即作法。取其心食之。所以爾者。人身中有 黄。所謂人黄猶牛有黄也。若得食者。能得極大成就。一日周遊四 域。隨意所爲皆得。亦能種種治人。有嫌者以術治之。極令病苦。然 彼法不得殺人。要依自計方術。人欲死者去六月即知之。知已以術取 其心。雖取其心。然有法術。要以餘物代之。此人命亦不終。至合死 時方壞也。大都是夜叉大自在。於世人所説大極。屬摩訶迦羅。所謂 大黒神也。毘盧遮那以降伏三世法門。欲除彼故化作大黒神。過於彼 無量示現。以灰塗身。在曠野中。以術悉召一切法成就乘空履水皆無 礙諸荼吉尼。而訶責之。猶汝常噉人故。我今亦當食汝。即呑噉之。 然不令死彼。伏已放之。悉令斷肉。彼白佛言。我今悉食肉得存。今 如何自濟。佛言聽汝食死人心。彼言人欲死時。諸大夜叉等知彼命 盡。爭來欲食。我云何得之。佛言。爲汝説眞言法及印。六月未死即 能知之。知已以法加護。勿令他畏得損。至命盡時。聽汝取食也。如 是稍引令得入道。故有此眞言訶唎（二合）（訶定行唎垢）訶（行） 除彼邪術之垢也。

As can be seen, this story is not very consistent: for example, it is said at the beginning that ḍākinīs are able to recognise humans who will die within six months, yet at the end the Buddha says that he will teach them a special mantra and mudra which will enable them to do just that. I think this inconsistency is due simply to the fact that this Commentary was not very well edited – it was a posthumous work of Yixing, who could not revise it before his death (in 727). At any rate, this is the only mention of “human yellow” in the entire Chinese Buddhist Canon. However, as this Commentary was imported to Japan, where 4 Ch. Darijing shu 大日經疏, Jp. Dainichikyō sho (Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra); T. XXXIX 1796] by Śubhakarasiṃha and Yixing / Ichigyō 一行: T. 1796 x 687b18–c11 (ad Dari jing / Dainichi kyō 大日經 (Mahāvairocana Sūtra), T. XVIII 848 iii 17a18–19). See also the reworked version of the same Commentary by Zhiyan / Chigon 智儼 (or 智嚴) and Wengu / Onko 溫古, Darijing yishi / Dainichi kyō gishaku 大日經義釋 (Commentary on the Meaning of the Mahāvairocana Sūtra), vii, Z. XXXVI 378 ver° b11–379 rec° a10; its sub-commentary by Jueyuan / Kakuen 覺苑, Ch. Darijing yishi yanmi chao 大日經義釋演密鈔, Jp. Dainichi kyō gishaku enmitsu shō (Secret Compendium on the Commentary of the Meaning of the Mahāvairocana Sūtra), vii, Z. XXXVII 91 rec° a16–b1; by Gōhō 杲寶, Dainichi kyō ennō shō 大日經疏演奥鈔 (Compendium Developing the Deep [Meanings] of the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra), T. LIX 2216 xxxv 371b17–26.

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it was studied extensively,5 and also certainly because this passage was very impressive in itself, the “human yellow” and ḍākinīs became the subject of many captivating theories, images, and developments in Japan. 2

What was “Human Yellow”?

But what is “human yellow”? This word does not appear to be a translation from Sanskrit. As far as I know, there is no exact equivalent of the idea of “human yellow” in Indian material. However, “ox yellow” (Ch. niuhuang 牛黄), which is compared to “human yellow” in the quoted passage, does exist in India, something called go-rocanā in Sanskrit. According to the SanskritEnglish Dictionary of Monier-Williams, go-rocanā is “a bright yellow orpiment prepared from the bile of cattle (employed in painting, dyeing, and in marking the Tilaka of the forehead; in medicine, used as a sedative, tonic, and anthelmintic remedy).”6 Go- in Sanskrit means “ox,” “cow,” or “cattle” in general, and the adjective rocana (nominalised as rocanā) has the meaning of “bright, shining, radiant, pleasant, charming,” etc. (the same rocana as in the name of the Buddha “Vairocana,” meaning “Shining Everywhere,” “Pervasive Light”). The Chinese word niuhuang is not only well known in Chinese Buddhist texts, but also seems to be a genuine Chinese term, used already in a work written in the first half of the fifth century.7 In Chinese pharmacopeia, the niuhuang is a very precious substance that is said to be found in the gallbladder or bile duct of only one in a thousand oxen.8 The word huang, “yellow,” is used in Chinese laboratory alchemy or “external alchemy” (Ch. waidan 外丹) to designate the “Three Yellows” (Ch. sanhuang 三黄), namely, realgar or “male yellow,” xionghuang 雄黄 (a common arsenic sulfide mineral); orpiment or “female yellow,” cihuang 雌黄 (another common arsenic sulfide mineral, the same substance as niuhuang); and sulfur, liuhuang 硫黄. These “Three Yellows,” along 5 There are 144 commentaries and sub-commentaries on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra and on the Commentary itself listed in the Taishō Canon. See Hōbō sōmokuroku 法寶總目録 (General Catalogue of the Treasure of the Law), vol. I, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新修大藏經, bekkan 別卷 (Tokyo: Taishō sinshū daizōkyō kankōkai, 1979), 305c–307a. 6 Sir Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1956), 366b–c. 7 Ch. Huo Han shu 後漢書, Jp. Go Kan jo (History of the Latter Han Dynasty); cf. Morohashi, VII, 612b, 19922: 54; it is listed as a superior medicine (shangpin 上品) in the oldest Chinese pharmacopeia, the Shennon bencao jing 神農本草經 (Book of Pharmacopeia by Shennong, ca. 500, by Tao Hongjing 陶弘景). 8 “Goō towa” 牛黄とは .

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with the “Four Spirits” (Ch. sishen 四神) – that is, cinnabar (Ch. zhusha 朱砂 or dan 丹), mercury (Ch. shuiyin 水銀), lead (Ch. qian 鉛), and saltpeter (Ch. xiaoshi 硝石) – were mixed and ingested as medicines of immortality.9 In actual fact, these substances were toxic, and people may have died as a result of ingesting them. Even though any exact equivalent of “human yellow” does not immediately surface in Indian sources, it would seem that the original idea was genuinely Indian. In this regard, it is worth noting that in a later Indian tantra, the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra (a famous tantra of the late eighth century belonging to the category of yoginī tantra), one finds a passage which is particularly close to the above-quoted text. David Gray, who has pointed out the relationship between these two texts, translates the passage as follows: Now above all I will speak of the power that the adept should attain, through which there is rapid engagement in power by means of eating only. The person who goes perspiring a pleasant fragrance, speaking the truth, blinks after a long time, is not angry, and who has fragrant breath in his mouth, is one who is born as a man for seven lives.10 Splitting him there is the concretion in his heart. Taking this makes a drop with one hundred repetitions of Śrī Heruka’s Essence Mantra.11 One will fly up and travel tens of millions of leagues. Just through eating [it] one will become one who has knowledge of the three worlds. One will travel five hundred million [leagues] in a day and a night, and will have a divine body. Whoever knows Śrī Heruka’s Essence will be given whatever things he desires.12 9

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See “Shōshūten” 小周天 ; also Ziyang zhenren Wuzhen pien jiangyi 紫陽眞人悟眞篇講義 (Explanations on the Meaning of The Perfected of Purple Yang’s Folios on Awakening to Reality, DZ 146), juan 1, Zhonghua Daozang 中華道藏, XIX, 459c. The Perfected of Purple Yang is the author of the Wuzhen pian, Zhang Boduan 張伯端 (987?–1082). The Explanations on the Meaning is a commentary by Xia Yuanding 夏元鼎 (fl. 1225–27). I warmly thank Dominic Steavu for providing the English translation of this text’s title and further clarifications regarding its authorship. A modern Japanese translation of the same text suggests that such a person must have the characteristics of “making seven shadows, walking as a bull, and [being] endowed with the correct compassion.” Shizuka Haruki 静春樹, Gana chakura no kenkyū: Indo kōki mikkyō ga hiraita chihei ガナチャクラの研究—インド後期密教が開いた地平 (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorin, 2007), 172 and n. 4. This mantra is “Oṃ hrīḥ ha ha hūṃ hūṃ phaṭ.” David B. Gray, The Cakrasamvara Tantra (The Discourse of Śrī Heruka): A Study and Annotated Translation (New York: The American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia

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The word that Gray translates as “concretion” corresponds to the Sanskrit word rocanā; the mantra of Śrī Heruka contains the same element “hrīḥ ha” as the ḍākinī mantra of the Mahāvairocana Sūtra. The so-called “Rubric of the Law of the Subjugation of the Three Worlds,” which is mentioned by Yixing in his Commentary, very probably refers to the second chapter of the Sarvatathāgata tattva saṃgraha (Compendium of the Truths of All Tathāgatas), in which there is indeed a passage on the subjugation of ḍākinīs.13 This chapter was not translated into Chinese until the Song period, but one must presume that Śubhakarasiṃha more or less knew the contents of it and,14 in this particular passage, was probably referring to some Indian commentary on it, to give an account of this myth. It is also possible that the author of the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra had access to the same kind of commentary and composed his own version based on it. At any rate, these elements are sufficient to let us think that this “human concretion” referred to by the Indian tantra was believed to be a magical substance, enabling those who ate it to obtain unlimited magical power. It is easy to conceive that it was also considered a vital substance that gave people their very life. 3

Dakini-ten and “Human Yellow” in Japan, before the End of the Heian Period

Yixing’s Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra was first imported to Japan as early as 735 by Genbō 玄昉 (d. 746), and then by Kūkai 空海 (774–835) in 806.

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University, 2007), 206–208; and David Gray, “Eating the Heart of the Brahmin: Representations of Alterity and the Formation of Identity in Tantric Buddhist Discourse,” History of Religions 45/1 (2005): 54–55. Ch. Yiqie rulai zhenshi she dasheng xianzheng sanmei dajiao wang jing 一切如來眞實攝 大乘現證三昧大教王經 (Compendium of the Truths of All Tathāgatas), T. XVIII 882 x 374c16–375a19; and Kuo Liying, “Dakini 荼吉尼,” in Hōbōgirin 法寶義林, vol. VIII (Tokyo, Paris: Maison Franco-Japonaise, Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 2003), 1095–1106, especially, 1100b. This is clear from the section of the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, in which we find a detailed account of the myth of the subjugation of Maheśvara, which is the central myth of the second chapter of the Sarvatathāgata tattva saṃgraha. See Iyanaga Nobumi, “Mythe de la soumission de Maheśvara par Trailokyavijaya: d’après les sources chinoises et japonaises,” in Tantric and Taoist Studies in honour of R.A. Stein, vol. III, Michel Strickmann, ed., Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques XXII (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 1985), 724–27.

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After Kūkai, it became the object of intense studies. Accordingly, it seems that people may have been interested this early on in ḍākinīs and the “human yellow.” As I have already covered in a detailed article the cult of ḍākinīs (or Dakini-ten, the Deity Dakini) in medieval Japan and their assimilation with the Japanese deity Inari 稲荷 and the fox,15 I will not repeat here these developments. However, I should call attention to the fact that the nature of the ḍākinī has somehow changed in Japan: in Yixing’s Commentary, ḍākinīs were described as a group of female demons,16 devourers of “human yellow,” whereas in Japan, once they came to be associated with Inari and the fox, the ḍākinī morphed into an individual god (or rather goddess) named Dakini-ten 吒枳尼天／荼吉尼天, certainly dangerous, but also attractive and fascinating, because of erotic features which had been added to its image. Since writing the previous article, another document has come to my attention that may be interesting in this regard. It is the first Japanese text which mentions people who have possibly practised some kind of the ḍākinī ritual. In the Montoku jitsuroku 文徳實録 (True Records of the Reign of Emperor Montoku) it is said that as early as the spring of 827 (even before the death of Kūkai, in 835), a group of “perverse shamans” (yōfu 妖巫) in a district of Mino region 美濃國 (the southern part of modern Gifu Prefecture) were performing a ritual whereby their souls could detach from their bodies and go to secretly eat other people’s hearts (sono rei tengyō shite an ni shin wo kurau 其靈轉行暗 噉心). To stop the crimes, an aristocrat named Fujiwara no Takafusa 藤原高房 (795–851) alone captured and punished all of these “shamans.”17 Thus, insofar as this account can be related to a ritual of ḍākinīs, we can presume that at that time these beings were imagined merely as frightful ogresses. This text can be 15

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See my “Ḍākinī et l’Empereur: Mystique bouddhique de la royauté dans le Japon médiéval,” special issue, VS (Versus – Quaderni di studi semiotici) 83/84 (1999): 41–111. See also its online version, “Ḍākinī et l’Empereur” , last accessed on April 18, 2012. In fact, their gender was not clearly defined in the text itself, but it should have been easy to guess because of the final character, -ni 尼, a well-known postfix for feminine nouns. Montoku jitsuroku 文徳實録 (True Records of the Reign of Emperor Montoku), edited in Shintei zōho Kokushi taikei 新訂増補國史大系, vol. III (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1964), 38 (the entry for the year of Ninju 仁壽 2, 2nd month, mizunoe inu 壬戌); see also Matsumae Takeshi 松前健, “Inari myōjin to kitsune 稲荷明神とキツネ,” in Inari myōjin: Shō-ichi-i no jitsuzō 稲荷明神—正一位の實像, Matsumae Takeshi, ed. (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1988), 83–84; Gorai Shigeru 五來重, “Inari shinkō to bukkyō 稲荷信仰 と佛教,” in Inari shinkō no kenkyū 稲荷信仰の研究, Gorai Shigeru, ed. (Okayama: San’yō shinbunsha, 1985), 134; Anne-Marie Bouchy, “Inari shinkō to fugeki 稲荷信仰と 巫覡,” in ibid., 262.

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compared to a text of prayer dedicated to Dakini (Dakini saimon 荼吉尼祭文) of the twelfth century, which is actually a prayer for success in love.18 We can suppose that the erotic element had been added to ḍākinī/Dakini-ten beliefs between these two dates; and this was very probably a by-product of the association with the fox. The fox had indeed a rich erotic symbolism in Chinese literature; Japanese literati of the Heian period were very fond of such of legends and continued to create new ones for themselves.19 During the mid- and later Heian period (794–1185), many interesting and important developments relating to the notion of “human yellow” occurred; because of lack of space, I will merely summarise them here. First of all, I must note that for some reason which is yet to be explained, there are very few mentions of “human yellow” associated with ḍākinīs or Dakini-ten in Japanese esoteric sources. Moreover, Dakini-ten herself is rarely mentioned in the important medieval ritual compilations such as the Kakuzenshō 覺禪鈔 (Compendium of Kakuzen) or Asabashō 阿娑縛抄 (Compendium of A SA VA). The only medieval compilation containing a chapter specially dedicated to Dakini-ten is the fourteenth-century Tendai collection Keiranshūyōshū 溪嵐 拾葉集 (Collection of Leaves Picked Up by Wind in a Valley).20 This might be due to the fact that Dakini-ten rituals were conceived as too efficacious and thus too dangerous to be overtly discussed. On the other hand, her close association with the animal fox might have caused a feeling that her rituals did not really belong to the “orthodox Buddhist rituals.” In fact, the use of terms such as “orthodox” and “heterodox” in relation to Japanese Buddhism – at least for the period before the fourteenth century – cannot go without some reservation: it seems that Buddhist monks distinguished rituals which were properly Buddhist from those which belonged to other religious traditions such as Onmyōdō 陰陽道. From the Buddhist point of view, these rituals were not necessarily deprecated but rather thought of as “other” (as will be noted shortly in this chapter). The opposition was not really between the “right Law” and “incorrect (or perverse) Law” but instead between the “inner Law” 18

See Kōzanji kotenseki sanshū 高山寺古典籍纂集, Kōzanji shiryō sōsho 高山寺資料叢 書, vol. XVII (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1988), 652a–655a; see also 707–709. See also Abe Yasurō 阿部泰郎, Yuya no kōgō: Chūsei no sei to sei-naru mono 湯屋の皇后 – 中世の性と聖なるもの (Nagoya: Nagoya daigaku shuppankai, 1998), 299–302 and 380, n. 17. 19 See my Daikokuten hensō: Bukkyō shinwagaku I 大黒天變相—佛教神話學 I (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2002), 573–82, 602–605, 610. 20 Keiranshūyōshū 溪嵐拾葉集 (Collection of Leaves Picked Up by Wind in a Valley), T. LXXVI 2410 xxxix 631c4–633c23.

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(naihō 内法) and the “external Law” (gehō 外法).21 In fact, from at least the end of the Heian period onward, some Buddhist monks could be practitioners or officiants of such “other” rituals as well. Since the characteristic attribute of Dakini-ten was often the wish-fulfilling jewel (nyoi hōju 如意寶珠),22 one can presume that it was used as a substitute for “human yellow.” There is indeed a text entitled the Shinzoku tekkinki 眞俗擲 金記 (Golden Notes on Exchanges between Monks and Lay People), attributed to Prince Shūkaku 守覺 (1150–1202), in which “human yellow” is explicitly identified with this jewel.23 Another text by Shūkaku, the Hishō 祕鈔 (Secret

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There did exist the notion of a “perverse Law” (or “perverse ritual”), jahō 邪法, which was strongly deprecated (see below in this chapter); another opposition was between the “correct Law” (shōbō 正法) and the “heterodox path” (gedō 外道). In Indian Buddhism, gedō, or Sk. tīrthika, meant a doctrine which was non-Buddhist (meaning the teachings of Brahmanism/Hinduism or Jainism), but in Japan, at least before the Edo period, there existed no concrete body of doctrine explicitly denying Buddhism. In these conditions, the Japanese term gedō seems to have had a clear deprecative nuance. The Nihon kokugo daijiten 日本國語大辭典 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, first edition, 1974, vol. VII, s.v. gedō 外道, 232a), mentions the following meanings (other than strictly Buddhist ones) for gedō: “opinions that are contrary to the truth,” or “a person who advocates such opinions”; “demons or deities who cause calamities”; “a mask or disguise of a demon or a monster”; “a word of abuse”; “an immoral doing,” or “a person who commits such doings.” One particularly interesting example can be found in a passage of the Keiranshūyōshū, in which Dakini-ten, in the form of a fox, is associated with Tenshō Daijin 天照太神 (Amaterasu Ōmikami) when she is hidden in the Heavenly Cavern (T. LXXVI 2410 vi 520c21– 521a6): there, Dakini-ten is identified with Avalokiteśvara of [Wish-Fulfilling] Jewel and Wheel (Nyoirin Kannon 如意輪觀音), and therefore her attribute is said to be the jewel. Shinzoku tekkinki 眞俗擲金記 (Golden Notes on Exchanges between Monks and Lay People), II (otsu-satsu 乙冊), manuscript preserved at the Sonkeikaku Library 尊經閣文 庫 (dated 1451, copy of a manuscript from 1265), folio 4, verso: “In my personal opinion, human yellow is the divine jewel [representing] the non-duality of the two myōō 明王 [i.e., Aizen Myōō 愛染明王 and Fudō Myōō 不動明王]” 私云、人黄ト者二明王不二 ノ神珠也. – The authorship of this work is not clear: see Yamazaki Makoto 山崎誠, Chūsei gakumonshi no kitei to tenkai 中世學問史の基底と展開 (Ōsaka: Izumi shoin, 1993), 513–55. Presumably, this record was written after the death of Prince Shūkaku, probably around the mid-thirteenth century. See Horikawa Takashi 堀川貴司, “Shinzoku tekkinki shōkō 『眞俗擲金記』少考,” Setsurin 説林 45 (March 1997): 1–12; Gomi Fumihiko 五味文彦, Shomotsu no chūsei shi 書物の中世史 (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō, 2003) 207–208. (I owe the latter reference to Michael Jamentz, to whom I am deeply grateful). Shūkaku was a Dharma-prince (hosshinnō 法親王) and the second son of Emperor GoShirakawa 後白河天皇 (1127–1192, r. 1155–1158).

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Compendium), identifies “human yellow” with the Buddha’s relic.24 The wishfulfilling jewel and the relic were two of the most important esoteric symbols in medieval Japan – symbols closely related to each other and identified with supreme political power and religious sacredness, related to the sun, life, and the imperial lineage.25 Based on these associations, “human yellow” had acquired a very important potential symbolic meaning, associated with power. As will become clear from a passage in Kakuzenshō, by the late Heian period, due to its reading in Japanese (ninnō), the “human yellow” came to be closely associated with the notion of royal power, literally, the “human kings” (ninnō 人王).26 There was yet another development important for the comprehension of the later images of “human yellow.” A commentary by the ninth-century Tendai thinker Annen 安然 described it as a kind of “sweet drops” (tenteki 甜滴) existing in the human head, which was equated with “vital essence” crucial for human life. In one of his major doctrinal works, the Taizō kongō bodaishin gi ryaku mondō shō 胎藏金剛菩提心義略問答抄 (Abbreviated Questions and Answers on the Meaning of the Mind of Enlightenment in the Womb and Diamond Realms),27 Annen quotes a short passage from the Dainichikyō gishaku 大日經義釋 (Commentary on the Meaning of the Mahāvairocana Sūtra) on the myth of ḍākinīs and their “human yellow,”28 and then writes: There is a text which states that, at the top of a human head, there are seven sweet drops (shichi tenteki 七甜滴). When one [of them] is exhausted, the person becomes ill. When all seven [drops] are exhausted, 24

25

26 27 28

Hishō 祕鈔, T. LXXVIII 2489 xiii 563b25, where it is said that Chōgen 重源 (1121–1206) buried a “human yellow” belonging to Śākyamuni [that is, one of his relics] at Shingon’in 眞言院 at Tōdaiji 東大寺. On this passage, see the well-documented study by Shibata Kenryū 柴田賢龍, “Tōdaiji Shingon’in to nyoi hōju 東大寺眞言院と如意寶珠,” accessed February 7, 2012 . My thanks go again to Michael Jamentz, who informed me about this work. The best works on these key symbols remain Abe Yasurō 阿部泰郎, “Hōju to ōken: Chūsei ōken to mikkyō girei 寶珠と王權 – 中世王權と密教儀禮,” in Nihon shisō no shinsō 日 本思想の深層, Iwanami kōza “Tōyō shisō” 岩波講座「東洋思想」, vol. 16, “Nihon shisō II” 日本思想 II (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1989), 115–69; and Brian Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000). See Appendix 2 [On the Heart of the King], p. 398, especially, n. 139. T. LXXV 2397. A revised version of the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra quoted above, n. 4. See Dainichikyō gishaku 大日經義釋, vii, Z. XXXVI 378 ver° b11–379 rec° a10.

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the person dies (according to the meaning of [shui mon 取意文] a text by Jizang / Kichizō 吉藏 [549–623]).29 有云。人頂有七甜滴。一盡即病。七盡即死（吉藏。取意文）

The referred work by Jizang is his commentary on the Lotus Sūtra. Although Annen specifies that this quotation is not literal (“according to the meaning”), it is in fact a rather faithful citation. The context can be found in one of the last chapters of the Lotus Sūtra, entitled “Chapter of Dhāraṇīs,” where it is told that ten ogresses (Sk. rākṣāsī) with their head, Hārītī, come and pronounce their dhāraṇīs and declare that those who believe in this sūtra and pronounce these dhāraṇīs would be protected by them from any calamity. The last of these ogresses is named “Stealer of the Vital Energy of All Sentient Beings” (Ch. Duo yiqie zhongsheng jingqi gui 奪一切衆生精氣鬼, Jp. Datsu issai shujō shōki ki; Sk. Sarvasattvojahārī).30 The last element of the aforementioned ogress’s name in Sanskrit can be interpreted in two ways: either as ojas-hārī (“[female] stealer of vital energy”) or as ojas-āhārī (“[female] devourer of vital energy”). Jizang took it in the former sense (following Kumārajīva’s translation) and gave an original account of this category of demons: [The ogress named] Stealer of the Vital Energy of All Sentient Beings. In a sentient being’s heart, there are seven drops of sweet water (Ch. qi digua shui 七滴聒水).31 If one or two drops are taken, the person will have a headache. [If] three drops [are taken], his heart will faint in agony. If there are four or five [taken], then the person will die.32 奪一切衆生精氣。衆生心中有七滴聒水。取一滴二滴令人頭痛。三滴 令人心悶。四滴五滴已下則死。 29

30 31 32

Taizō kongō bodaishin gi ryaku mondō shō 胎藏金剛菩提心義略問答抄, T. LXXV 2397 i 457c12–19. 問。大佛頂云末摩。（注云心）大日經義釋云。佛勅荼吉尼許食應 死人之心。其心名人黄。如牛有黄。是何心耶。答。倶舍論云。末摩是水。 有云。人頂有七甜滴。一盡即病。七盡即死（吉藏。取意文）然大佛頂云。 末摩輪藍（注云。心病）是今世心痛之病。非頂病也（更問。私會恐是頂滴 盡故、心痛病生）又人黄者恐是肉團心藏（更問）上來釋心字竟. The Lotus Sūtra, T. IX 262 vii 59a25 (Chinese translation by Kumārajīva). The character gua 聒 means “noisy, loud.” This does not make sense in this context. I suppose that this is a scribal error for tian 甜 (or its variant 甛), which means “sweet.” Ch. Fahua yi shu 法華義疏, Jp. Hokke gisho (Commentary on the Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra), T. XXXIV 1721 xii 630b14–16.

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Annen’s quotation is only slightly incorrect in that it specifies the head as the abode of the “seven sweet drops” instead of the heart (this is probably due to the fact that according to Jizang, when “one or two drops are taken, the person will have headache”). However, Annen’s exegesis on the image of “human yellow” had a deep influence on the subsequent Japanese mythical thought about this imaginary substance. The important point was the fact that Annen connected it with the favourite food of the category of demons such as Sarvasattvojahārī. Mentioned in the famous Lotus Sūtra, this ogress was well known, and there were already exegetical traditions dedicated to her; moreover, she represented a kind of demon widely feared in Indian mythical thought in general. Their favourite food, the ojas, translated in Chinese Buddhist texts as jing 精, jingqi 精氣, shen 神 or wei 威,33 meant vital energy, the essence of life, which could be robbed or sucked from humans. Buddhist narrative literature has many mentions of such demons;34 and Hārītī, the head of the group of ten rākṣāsīs from the Lotus Sūtra and the most renowned of all the female demons in Buddhist literature, is described also as “sucking the vital energy of men” in the Vinaya of the Mūlasarvāstivādin.35 Thus, Annen’s text had the first consequence that ḍākinīs, who were rather obscure demons appearing mainly in the Mahāvairocana Sūtra and the commentaries on it, were associated with the more widely known demons who robbed and ate human vital energy (and from a mythological viewpoint, this association seems well justified). Secondly, “human yellow,” which was only described as a magical substance similar to the “ox yellow,” came to be imagined as similar to, or identical with, these “sweet drops,” which were conceived as the essence of life. Annen’s interpretation had mistakes from a philological

33 34

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Kan’yaku taishō bonwa daijiten 漢訳対照梵和大辭典 (Tokyo: Kan’yaku taishō bonwa daijiten hensan kankōkai, 1940–43), s.v. ojas, 303a. The article on shi jingqi gui 食精氣鬼 (demons eating the vital essence) by Ryan Overbey in the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism mentions many translations and transliterations of the names of this category of demons , accessed February 7, 2012. Searching in the SAT database for these names, one can record more than one hundred references in the Taishō Canon. Ch. Genben Shuo yiqieyou bu pinaiye zashi 根本説一切有部毘奈耶雑事, Jp. Konpon issai ubu binaya zōji (Miscellaneous Matters of Monastery Precepts of Mūlasarvāstivādin). T. XXIV 1451 xxxi 362c7–8: “Hārītī has given birth to five hundred children; she sucked men’s vital energy (kyū nin shōki 吸人精氣) and ate boys and girls born from people of Rājagṛha.”

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Figure 9.1a Aizen Myōō 愛染明王. From Besson zakki 別尊雜記, TZ. vol. 3, 3007, xxxv 238, fig. 277 (late 12th century). Drawing by Tai Sekimori.

standpoint, but it contained convincing arguments in terms of mythological thought. Finally, the third element of importance for the later development of ­imagery related to “human yellow” is its association with the deity Airan Mingwang / Aizen Myōō 愛染明王, the vidyārāja of Lust. Aizen Myōō is a peculiar esoteric deity, known only from a unique Chinese apocryphal sūtra of the later Tang, the Jingangfeng louge yiqie yuqie yuqi jing (Jp. Kongōhō rōkaku issai yuga yugi kyō 金剛峯樓閣一切瑜伽瑜祇經, Sūtra of the Pavilion of Vajra Peak and All its Yogas and Yogins, T. XVIII 867; hereafter Yugikyō). Although there is no trace of this deity in Indian or Tibetan sources, it has some clearly Indian features, especially his iconography with an arc and arrow (one of his forms, with the arrow pointed to the sky, recalls very much the form of Śiva destroying the three aerial cities of Asura, the tripurāntaka (Figs 9.1a, 9.1b). From his various names in the Yugikyō and corresponding names in Chinese versions of the Sarvatathāgata tattva saṃgraha (Compendium of the Truths of

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Figure 9.1b Śiva, Destroyer of the Three Cities of the Demons (Tripurāntakamūrti). Early Western Chalukya Dynasty Pattadakal, Karnataka. Mid-eighth century. Red sandstone. Height 59” (149.8 cm). From Stella Kramrisch, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Manifestations of Shiva (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1981), 47, fig. 40. Drawing by Tai Sekimori.

All Tathāgatas, T. XVIII 865, 866 and 882), we can assume that Aizen Myōō was a special form of Vajrarāga (Diamond Lust), one of the bodhisattvas attending and surrounding the Buddha Akṣobhya in the eastern circle of the Vajradhātu maṇḍala (the Diamond Realm). In the Sarvatathāgata tattva saṃgraha, this bodhisattva is said to have appeared from Vajrasattva, who entered the samādhi of the bodhisattva Māra. There are other elements in the figure of Aizen Myōō which show that this deity appears to have been formed from composite elements of different Indian divinities, but his principle feature seems to have originated from a special sublimated form of Māra, the enemy par excellence of Buddhism, and the god governing sexual love and death.36 To understand how “human yellow” could be associated with Aizen Myōō, we must first have 36

I will try to demonstrate all these points with references in a later article. See also Ogawa Toyoo 小川豐生, Chūsei Nihon no shinwa, moji, shintai 中世日本の神話・文字・身体 (Tokyo: Shinwasha, 2014), 36–73.

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a look at his iconography. The Yugikyō describes Aizen Myōō in a passage in verses, among which two are of particular importance here (see a translation of the full passage in Appendix 1): In his lower left hand he holds “that,” And in his [lower] right, a lotus in the attitude of striking it [i.e., “that” thing held in his left hand)]. All Beings [possessing] bad thoughts Will rapidly be extinguished, without any doubt.37 From these verses, we know all the attributes that Aizen Myōō holds in his five hands: a vajra bell in his first left hand, a five-pronged vajra in his first right hand; a vajra bow and vajra arrow in his second pair of hands (like Śiva in his form of destroyer of the Three Cities of Asura, and also like the Indian Kāma, Greek Eros, or Roman Cupid, who is closely connected with the Buddhist Māra); and a lotus in his lower right hand. But in relation to the object held by his lower left hand, the text says only “that,” without specifying it; and the nature of “that [thing]” is not explained anywhere in the sūtra. This is an anomaly that was certainly intended by the author(s) of this apocryphal sūtra, who wanted to give a particular flexibility to this attribute, and also probably to represent it as an especially mysterious object. 4

“Human Yellow” in the Third Left Hand of Aizen Myōō

Learned Japanese monks discussed at length the problem of “that thing” held in the last left hand of Aizen Myōō. Scattered information and opinions can be found throughout a number of ritual manuals and commentaries. However, the most complete and detailed account is the one given in the chapter on Aizen Myōō in the medieval ritual compilation, the Kakuzenshō (Compendium of Kakuzen, compiled between 1143–ca. 1218). All in all, the dominant opinion was that it was none other than “human yellow.” I translate and annotate this passage in Appendix 2 (although it remains difficult to reach a satisfying understanding for some of the sentences) as a model representing the complex mythical and doctrinal speculations that medieval esoteric Buddhist authors were capable of. Here are some excerpts from this text:

37

Yugikyō 瑜祇經, T. XVIII 867 i 256c14–15.

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On the attributes of the third pair of hands.38 In the deeply secret sense (jinpi 深祕), ḍākinīs rob humans of vital energy; to exorcise this calamity, [the deity’s hand] holds human yellow, that is to say, the root of life (myōkon 命根, Sk. jīvitêndriya). It is also said that the Buddha gave orders to ḍākinīs, permitting them to eat [only] the hearts of dead persons. That is called “human yellow” (the Atsuzōshi 敦造紙 has the same [commentary]). […]  ([The “thing” held by the lower left hand might also be] a red circle [shakuen 赤圓]:) A certain tradition says that [“that” thing] is the inner heart-liver (nai shinkan 内心肝). This would [represent?] the Principle of Thusness (shinnyo ri 眞如理), which resembles the red circle of the sun. That is the heart of sentient beings (the hṛdaya heart [i.e., the physical heart]). [See Fig. 2.] That is the Principle of the Nature of the Dharma of the Eighth Consciousness (daihasshiki no hosshō no ri 第八識法性理), [which is] the heart-lotus of Original Enlightenment (hongaku shin ren 本覺心蓮). […]  [Note in small characters:] Or, it is said that Original Ignorance (ganpon mumyō 元品無明) is the deity Maheśvara (Daijizaiten 大自在天). Or, it is also said that the Substance of Ignorance is like the [fruit of the] pomegranate (zakuro 柘榴). [End of sub-section.] […]  [Note in small characters:] There are [also] two traditions [according to which “that” thing held in the lower left hand is a human head]: one says that the human head is Radical Ignorance (konpon mumyō 根本無 明). The Ritual of Wish-Fulfilling Wheel Avalokiteśvara (Nyoirin ki 如意輪 軌) says: “Now, you must form the mudra for the summoning of sins. Visualise in your mind that you are summoning the sins; their form is that of a black naked [body or head?] with thick hairs.” The second [tradition says] that the human head is human yellow.  (About the amount of human yellow:) According to one master, at the top [of the skull, where there is] the cross-shaped [seam] (chō jūji 頂十 字), there are six drops of human yellow, guarded by the Five Dragons. The King of Wisdom [Aizen] subjugates them [i.e., these dragons?] (Ninnō rikuryū ari, goryū kore wo mamoru. Myōō kore wo shōbuku su 有人 黄六粒。五龍守之。明王攝伏之). Or, there are ten drops. It is said also that at the top of men[’s heads], there are seven drops [to be] licked (shi-

38

Although the text mentions “two hands,” all the passage deals with is the attribute of the lower left hand. That of the right hand is mentioned only en passant.

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Figure 9.2 Ninnō or “human yellow.” From Aijinichi 愛持日 (1238), Shōmyōji 稱名寺, Kanazawa Bunko 金澤文庫 Archives (box 329, no. 8). Courtesy of Shōmyōji, Yokohama.

chi jiteki 七舐滴);39 if one [of them] is exhausted, the person becomes ill, and if [all] seven are exhausted, then the person dies. This text shows how complicated and variegated were the imaginations and speculations about the various attributes that the lower left hand of Aizen Myōō could hold (see Appendix 2). This is the result of work done by several generations of esoteric Buddhist masters, who performed rituals for this deity or compiled documents of different transmissions related to it. We can note the mingling of many abstract notions (such as “original ignorance” and “original enlightenment,” etc.) and strangely concrete images (like the pomegranate fruit, or the “black naked [body or head?] with thick hairs,” etc.). One would need many pages to explain all these symbols; I take here only one element mentioned in this passage. It is the “eighth consciousness,” which may seem rather unexpected in this context. In fact, this is related to the idea of biological reproduction. As it is widely known, Buddhism is founded on the premise that there is no permanent self (Sk. ātman). But another fundamental premise of Buddhism is that karma is attached to individuals, so that each individual receives the retribution (or “fruit”) of his karma in this lifetime or in following existences. This means that there must be some – if not really permanent, at 39

See below, Appendix 2, p. 401, n. 150.

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least very long-lasting – entity, or subject, which endures this and the next lives. The notion of subtle consciousness of which the (yet non-existent) subject is unconscious and in which the residue of karma (or the seeds, bīja) is stored, could appear as a convenient conceptual tool to resolve this fundamental aporia. The consciousness, or more technically the ālayavijñāna, the “eighth consciousness,” is what traverses across time, and across existences.40 One passage from the glossary of Buddhist terminology, the Fanyi mingyi ji 翻譯名義集 (Jp. Hon’yaku myōgi shū, Collection of Famous Doctrines in Translation, T. LIV 2131), which analyses the meaning of ādāna, a function of the “eighth consciousness,” very clearly explains this: Ādāna (Jp. adana 阿陀那). Translating literally, this means to “take and keep together” (shūji 執持).41 It allows the continuous series of lives by taking and keeping [or maintaining] together the seeds (Jp. shūji 種子, Sk. bīja) and the entirety of organs. There are three [functions of] “taking and keeping together.” […] The third [function] is that of taking and keeping together the continuity at the moment of binding life (Jp. kesshō 結生, Sk. pratisaṃdhi).42 [Suppose that] a sentient being is in the intermediary existence (Jp. chūu 中有, Sk. antarābhava), almost at its end; the eighth consciousness, right after the [new] life is conceived, maintains the continuity of the binding of life (kesshō). To bind (ketsu 結) [part of the word kesshō] means “to fasten to, and tie up.” This is because as soon as one is in the mother’s womb and receives life, one is bound up in it (Ch. xishu bi 繋屬彼, Jp. ka ni keishoku su).43 It is also like a magnetic stone that attracts steel particles. [In this metaphor,] the steel is like the two elements of the father’s vital spirit [semen] and the mother’s [uterine] blood (Jp. bumo shōketsu 父母精血, Sk. śukra-śoṇita); and the eighth consciousness is like the magnetic stone, which, in an instant, seizes particles of steel and makes them stick [to it]. At that very moment, the seeds of the sense organs and their objects are produced from this very 40

41 42 43

See Nakamura Teiri 中村禎里, Chūgoku ni okeru ninshin, tai hasseiron no rekishi 中國に おける妊娠・胎発生論の歴史 (Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 2006), 183–218, in which one finds a very complete historical account of this doctrine. In Sanskrit, ādāna means “taking, seizing” or “binding on or to.” See Monier-Williams 1956, 136c. The word kesshō 結生 is a translation of the Sanskrit pratisaṃdhi, which means “reunion, re-entering (into the womb), rebirth.” Monier-Williams 1956, 672b. The final complement “it” is ambiguous. It may imply “his own body” or “her” (the mother’s womb). I think the correct interpretation is “his own body.”

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consciousness and are actualised. This is called “to take and keep together the binding of lives” (shūji kesshō 執持結生).44 阿陀那。義翻執持。能執持種子根身生相續義。執持有三。一執持根 身。令不爛壞。二執持種子。令不散失。三執取結生相續義。即有情 於中有身臨末位。第八識初一念受生時。有執取結生相續義。結者繋 也屬也。於母腹中。一念受生。便繋屬彼故。亦如礠毛石吸鐵。鐵如 父母精血二點。第八識如礠毛石。一刹那間。便攬而住。同時根塵等 種。從自識中亦生現行名爲執取結生。

Thus, “human yellow,” which was imagined as a magical substance found inside the heart, is now located in the head and is also conceived as something that is transmitted in the process of human reproduction, the “root of life” (myōkon). It is at the same time Ignorance without beginning, and the syllable A, the absolute origin from which all things are generated (on this point, see below). With this understanding, we can now turn to our final topic, that of the “abominable skull cult,”45 often linked to the so-called “Tachikawa-ryū” 立川 流. 5

The “Abominable Skull Cult” for the Production of a Magical Life

In 1267 (Bun’ei 文永 4), a strange and macabre incident occurred in Kyoto. According to a record in the Minkeiki 民經記 (Journal of Tsune[mitsu], [Lord of] Civil [Affairs]), a journal by the aristocrat Fujiwara no Tsunemitsu 藤原經 光 (1212–1274), the Great Minister of the Council of State (Dajō daijin 太政大 臣) Saionji Kinsuke 西園寺公相 (1223–1267) died on the twelfth day of the tenth month of that year. On the day of his funeral ceremonies, his head was cut off and stolen, creating a bloody scene. A rumour spread among the people that the minister’s head had been taken by a criminal monk, who used it for the ritual of the skull – a ritual which was said to be popular at that time. There 44

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T. LIV 2131 vi 1155b17–24; see Frédéric Girard, Vocabulaire du bouddhisme japonais (Geneva: Droz, 2008), vol.1, 5. The whole passage is a quotation from the Zongjing lu / Sugyōroku 宗 鏡録 (Record of the Mirror of the Doctrines) by the Chan master Yongming Yanshou / Eimyō Enju 永明延壽 compiled in 961. T. XLVIII 2016 l 711b17–26. This is the expression used in the title of an article by James Sanford, who translated some important passages from the Juhōyōjinshū 受法用心集 (Notes on Precautions to Take When Receiving the [Shingon] Teaching) that will be quoted in the following pages. James H. Sanford, “The Abominable Tachikawa Skull Ritual,” Monumenta Nipponica, 46/1 (1991): 1–20.

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are other pieces of evidence which confirm that a ritual using a skull was well known from the first half of the thirteenth century until its end.46 Another document – from 1268 and written by Dōgen 道玄 (1237–1304), a son of Nijō Yoshizane 二条義實 (1216–1271), who was one of the most influential politicians of the period – was even entitled Dokurohō jashō ki 髑髏法邪正記 (Note to Rectify the Perverse Ritual of the Skull).47 The year 1268 was also the year in which a unique document detailing the skull ritual entitled the Juhōyōjinshū 受法用心集 (Notes on Precautions to Take When Receiving the [Shingon] Teaching) was written by a provincial monk from Echizen 越前, named Shinjō 心定 (b. 1215). During his later days, Shinjō resided at Toyohara Temple 豐原寺,48 in the current town of Sakai 坂 井 in the prefecture of Fukui 福井. The Juhōyōjinshū, which is the only work known by Shinjō, is preserved in several recensions: the oldest manuscript, dated from 1313 and preserved at Kōzanji 高山寺 in Kyoto, is itself a copy of a manuscript from 1281.49 After the end of the text proper, this manuscript of 46

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This incident is also mentioned in the Masukagami 増鏡 (A New Mirror [of History]), according to which the stolen head had a special form, with the lower half particularly short. Other scattered records on this kind of ritual are found in different journals by aristocrats dating between 1235 to 1293. See a thorough study by Momo Hiroyuki 桃裕行, Rekihō no kenkyū 暦法の研究, ge 下 (vol. 2), Momo Hiroyuki chosaku shū 桃裕行著作 集, vol. VII (Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1990), 163–73. I owe this reference to Tanaka Takako 田中貴子, to whom I am deeply grateful. See Momo 1990, 166–67. Dōgen, twice nominated as the abbot of Hieizan 比叡山 (Tendai Zasu 天台座主), played an important role in the creation of the enthronement unction ritual first performed by Emperor Fushimi 伏見天皇 in 1287. See Mark Teeuwen, “Knowing vs. Owning a Secret: Secrecy in Medieval Japan, as Seen through the Sokui Kanjō Enthronement Unction,” in The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion, Bernhard Scheid and Mark Teeuwen, eds. (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 172–203. During the medieval period, this was an important temple complex, with many “soldier monks” (sōhei 僧兵). Nowadays, only some remains of the temple exist (due to the suppression at the beginning of Meiji 明治 period); the former temple site also has a historical museum. See the webpage of Toyohara sanzenbō shiryōkan 豐原三千坊史料館 (Historical Museum of the Toyohara Temple). The Echizen region is not far from Kyoto and central Japan , accessed March 16, 2012. This manuscript was transcribed and edited by Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士, “Kōzanjibon Juhōyōjinshū ni tsuite 高山寺本『受法用心集』について,” in Heisei jūhachi nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū 平成十八年度高山寺 典籍文書綜合調査團研究報告論集 (Tokyo, 2007), Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyōsha Tsukishima Hiroshi) 高山寺典籍文書綜合調査團（代表者築 島裕), eds., 5a–11b; Sueki Fumihiko, “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku kenkyū I 高 山寺本『受法用心集』の翻刻研究（一),” in Heisei jūkyū nendo Kōzanji tenseki

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Juhōyōjinshū contains an appendix which was added by Ekai 惠海, the scribe of the 1281 copy. Another recension is a manuscript dated from 1472 kept at Kongō Sanmai-in 金剛三昧院 at Kōyasan 高野山;50 it contains an anonymous preface which may have been written by Kakuzei 覺濟 (1227–1302), who became the abbot of Tōji.51 The existence of this manuscript is not verified, but it is very probably a copy (dated 1500) of it which was transcribed and edited by Moriyama Shōshin 守山聖眞 in the 1960s.52 Finally, there is a manuscript, most likely dating from the Edo period, at Zentsūji 善通寺 in Shikoku (Kagawa-ken 香川縣); a microfilm of this manuscript can be found at Kokubungaku kenkyū shiryō kan 國文學研究資料館.53

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monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū, Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyō Tsukishima Hiroshi), eds. (Tokyo, 2008), 80a–87a; Sueki Fumihiko, “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku kenkyū II 高山寺本『受法用心集』の翻刻研究 (二),” in Heisei nijū nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū, Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyō Tsukishima Hiroshi), eds. (Tokyo, 2009), 46a–75b; Sueki Fumihiko, “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku kenkyū III 高山寺本『受法用 心集』の翻刻研究（三),” in Heisei nijūichi nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū, Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyō Tsukishima Hiroshi), eds. (Tokyo, 2010), 41a–50b; Sueki Fumihiko, “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku kenkyū IV 高山寺本『受法用心集』の翻刻研究（四),” in Heisei nijūni nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū, Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyō Tsukishima Hiroshi), eds. (Tokyo, 2011), 29a–45b. Below, we will refer to this edition as “Sueki I [2008], II [2009], III [2010], and IV [2011].” See also Sueki Fumihiko, “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku teisei 高山寺本『受法用心集』の翻刻訂正,” in Heisei nijūni nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū, Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyōsha daikō Ishizuka Harumichi 代表者代行石塚 春通), eds. (Tokyo, 2012), 29a–35a. See the webpage of Kokubungaku kenkyū shiryōkan 國文學研究資料館, Nihon kotenseki sōgō mokuroku dētabēsu 日本古典籍總合目録データベース . See Itō Satoshi 伊藤聰, Chūsei Tenshō daijin shinkō no kenkyū 中世天照大神信仰の 研究 (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2011), 466–68. Moriyama Shōshin 守山聖眞, Tachikawa jakyō to sono shakaiteki haikei no kenkyū 立川 邪教とその社会的背景の研究 (Tokyo: Rokuyaen, 1965), 530–71. This edition may contain modifications from the original manuscript; in particular, it seems that Moriyama has changed the katakana of the original into hiragana. See my “Tachikawa-ryū to Shinjō Juhōyōjinshū wo megutte 立川流と心定『受法用心集』をめぐって,” Nihon bukkyō sōgō kenkyū 日本佛教綜合研究 2 (2003): 13–31, and 16b–17a. See Nihon kotenseki sōgō mokuroku dētabēsu, work ID 2944265, manuscript ID 100183129. This manuscript has never been edited nor studied. I obtained a copy of it but use it here only for comparison with the other two texts. On different manuscripts of the Juhōyōjinshū,

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The first two of these manuscripts, each of which may represent others of the same nature, are so different from each other that they are certainly not copies of a single original text but must rather be considered as two different recensions. Both are written in medieval Japanese, which was rarely used in thirteenth-century Buddhist works normally written in kanbun (this certainly indicates that the text was aimed at novice students of Shingon). Although the contents are roughly the same, the wording is often different and even the order of narration is sometimes divergent. Comparing these two recensions, it appears that the Kōzanji manuscript represents the first draft, while the text edited by Moriyama was a revised edition of it. Some portions of the text are almost identical in both recensions (especially the passages which seem to be quotations from earlier original texts). These identical portions can be considered as the “core” of the whole text on which the two further recensions were based (our quotations below are taken from these passages).54 The Kōzanji manuscript was certainly known by other people in medieval times.55 The last manuscript, that of Zentsūji, seems to have been copied around the early eighteenth century; it is a version belonging to the same recension as the Moriyama edition, although with many variations in wording. It shows that Shinjō’s work continued to arouse interest in the Edo period. Hereafter, I take the Moriyama edition as the basis of my account, noting significant differences from the Kōzanji and Zentsūji manuscripts. The first part of this document is an autobiographical account of its author’s monastic education.56 Shinjō began his studies in 1233 at the age of eighteen, probably in Echizen, and continued to learn different Shingon rituals and doctrines in various places, including Kōyasan and Kyoto, until 1262. Therefore, his period of learning lasted for almost thirty years. After this introductory passage, the author recounts his encounter with a monk belonging to a special teaching that he does not name – but Shinjō consistently calls it “this teaching”

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see Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士, “Shinjō Juhōyōjinshū no shohon ni tsuite 心定『受法 用心集』の諸本について,” Bukkyō bunko ronshū 佛教文化論集 11 (2014): 3–25. A detailed comparison of these manuscripts remains to be done. This represents only my personal first impression. See my “Mikkyō girei to ‘nenzuru chikara’: Hōkyōshō no hihanteki kentō oyobi Juhō-yōjin shū no ‘dokuro honzon girei’ wo chūshin ni shite 密教儀禮と「念ずる力」 – 『寶鏡 鈔』の批判的検討、および『受法用心集』の「髑髏本尊儀禮」を中心にし て,” in Girei no chikara: chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀禮の力 – 中世宗教の実践世界, Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds. (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010), 136–37. The order of narration differs here between the Moriyama edition and the Kōzanji manuscript. In the latter, the autobiographical account comes later in the text. The order of narration in the Moriyama edition would seem more natural.

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or “that teaching” (ko no hō 此の法, ka no hō 彼の法 – the word hō may mean dharma, teaching, [magical or ritual] method, etc.) and also uses the term “perverse teaching” (jahō 邪法 or jakyō 邪教). Shinjō learned this teaching and received from this monk its rituals and canonical texts, the titles of which he lists. Then he develops a series of critiques against this teaching, in which we can find details about some of its traditions related to its origins and transmission lineages. There is also a very interesting passage in which Shinjō expounds his opinion about how such a teaching could have developed (see below). The first scroll ends with a long discussion on the attitude that one should assume when one wants to learn the Shingon teaching in general (this justifies the title of the work, Note on Precautions to Take when Receiving the [Shingon] Teaching). The second scroll seems to have been written some time after the first one. It begins by relating that some people who have read the first scroll criticised the author for having failed to describe the concrete features of the ritual prescribed by “that teaching”; they questioned whether the author even really knew the ritual (of the skull), or perhaps he simply wanted to keep it a secret. In response to such criticism,57 the second scroll supplies a full description of the ritual in question, very probably quoting long passages from some original writings that the author had received earlier. The first half of the second scroll is entirely dedicated to that description, to which I will soon return. After this description, the author expounds his own opinion of the ritual (namely, that it is not at all a Buddhist ritual, but a demonic ritual; even if it has some effect, the practitioner will eventually lapse into utter confusion and madness, etc.). Finally, the author provides some doctrinal reasons as to why “that teaching” cannot be a Buddhist teaching. The Juhōyōjinshū was later used as an important source for the criticism against the “heretical sect” of Tachikawa-ryū. The main actor in this trend of criticism was the Shingon monk Yūkai 宥快 (1345–1416), a very influential figure from Kōyasan in a period of crucial changes in Japanese history (from the later fourteenth century to the early fifteenth century). As I have already written articles to critically assess Yūkai’s account of the Tachikawa-ryū,58 here I 57

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The beginning of the second scroll is entirely different in the Kōzanji manuscript, where it is said in substance that the author wants to clearly show the difference between the perverse teaching (jahō) and the correct teaching (shōbō 正法), and thus gives a detailed account of the former. Similar statements as the Moriyama edition can be found much later in the same scroll, Sueki IV [2011], 36b–37a. See mainly Iyanaga 2010; see also my “Secrecy, Sex and Apocrypha: Remarks on some paradoxical phenomena,” in The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion, Bernhard Scheid and Mark Teeuwen, eds. (London, New York: Routledge, 2006), 204–28, and

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shall simply present my main conclusions. Reading the Juhōyōjinshū without having in mind what later authors tried to add to it – beginning with the short text appended to the original Kōzanji manuscript by Ekai in 1281, who quotes a work entitled Haja kenshō shū 破邪顯正集 (Collection Revealing the Correct and Eliminating the Perverse) without naming its author59 – it appears that Shinjō did receive himself a transmission of the Tachikawa-ryū lineage rituals and thus was certainly not in a position to criticise it. He never explicitly identifies “that teaching” with the Tachikawa-ryū. In fact, the Tachikawa-ryū was a minor orthodox lineage of the Shingon school (a branch of the Sanbōin-ryū 三 寶院流 lineage), of which some ritual texts survive to the present day; and they reveal nothing unusual as Shingon ritual texts of their period.60

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“Ta­chi­kawa-ryū,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, Charles D. Orzech, Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds. (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2011), 803–14. See Sueki 2007, 6a–b and 7a–9b; Sueki IV [2011], 43b–45a. Kanazawa Bunko 金澤文庫, Kanazawa Bunko komonjo, IX, Butsuji-hen, ge 金澤文庫古 文書・九・佛事篇・下 (Yokohama: Kanazawa Bunko, 1956, 20–32, no. 6226–6246; 34–36, no. 6249–6251; 37–38, no. 6254–6255; 46–55, no. 6267–6281; 74–82, no. 6315–6331; 132–34, no. 6428–6431. Some other texts at Kanazawa Bunko, Kōyasan, or Tōji 東寺 remain unpublished. They were studied by Kushida Ryōkō 櫛田良洪, Shingon mikkyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū 眞言密教成立過程の研究 (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorin, 1964), 329–62; Kōda Yūun 甲田宥吽, “Dōhan ajari no jagi sōden ni tsuite 道範阿闍梨の邪義 相傳について,” Mikkyōgaku kaihō 密教學會報 19–20 (1981): 36–47; and Shibata Kenryū, “Kanazawa Bunko zō Shingon Tachikawa-ryū shōgyō no wayaku shōkai 金澤文庫藏眞 言立川流聖教の和譯紹介” ; Shibata, “Kanazawa Bunko zō Shingon Tachikawa-ryū shōgyō no wayaku shōkai (ketsugo) 金澤文庫藏眞言 立川流聖教の和譯紹介（結語” ; Shibata, “Zoku Kanazawa Bunko zō Shingon Tachikawa-ryū shōgyō no wayaku shōkai, ketsugo 續・金澤文庫藏眞言立川流聖教の和譯紹介” ; Shibata, “Shingon Tachikawa-ryū no sōdensha Jōgetsu shōnin no shiryō shōkai to kaisetsu 眞言立川流の相傳者浄月上人の史料紹介と解 説” ; Shibata, “Hōkyō shōnin sōden no Isshin kanjō injin ni tsuite 寶篋上人相傳の「一心灌頂印信」について” ; Shibata, “Yugi yuga ri kanjō ni tsuite 瑜伽瑜祇理灌頂について” ; Shibata, “‘Richi myōgō’ kanjō inmyō no koto「理智冥合」灌頂 印明の事” ; Shibata, “Gendaigo-yaku Ajari-i in kuden (shi) 現代語譯『阿闍梨位印口傳〔私〕』” ; Shibata, “Shamon bōsaku no Shinjō-sen Juhōyōjinshū jo ni tsuite 沙門某作の「心定撰『受法 用心集』序」に付いて” . All these web pages by Shibata are linked from his homepage, “Shibata

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It is true that, for some reason,61 the Tachikawa-ryū was regarded as suspicious or even “heretical” by various authors since the thirteenth century. Yūkai, who certainly had some political agenda (within the Shingon school, and perhaps more broadly in the society of his time), based this on the accusation found in the appended text in the Kōzanji manuscript, and wanted to gather all his enemies in the category of “sexual heresy” described in the Juhōyōjinshū, identifying it as “Tachikawa-ryū.” His strategy, by which he attempted to monopolize the “orthodoxy” of Shingon teaching, was so successful that even today many specialists confuse the Tachikawa-ryū with “that teaching” of the Juhōyōjinshū. This had however a paradoxical result that, while the main proponents and practitioners of “that teaching” probably did not belong to the official schools of Shingon or Tendai – rather, the majority of these people appear to have been “para-religious” people such as itinerant yamabushi 山伏 and miko 巫女 (female mediums or shamans) – because Yūkai intentionally mixed them up with those of the orthodox Shingon lineage of the Tachikawaryū, the Shingon school itself turned out to have the infamous reputation of having among its lineages this “heretical” trend practising the “abominable skull ritual.” The so-called “Tachikawa-ryū” thus became the label of a kind of ghostly and undefined “heretical” trend that would have been ubiquitous in medieval Shingon teaching. I would say that this was the price paid for Yūkai’s “plot.” What, then, was the content of “that teaching”? It is most concisely expressed in the introductory “question” of the Juhōyōjinshū. Here are some excerpts from this text (see Appendix 3 for a complete translation with references): Question: Recently, felicitous sūtras called the “Three Inner Sūtras” (nai­ sanbukyō 内三部經) have spread throughout the world. In earlier times, these sūtras used to be transmitted only among the abbots of [the Shingon centre of] Tōji and the Tendai school, but these days, they have spread so widely that everyone trifles with them in the capital as well as in the countryside. I heard that in these sūtras it is said that intercourse with women is the most crucial thing in the Shingon teaching, and that it

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Kenryū mikkyō bunko 柴田賢龍密教文庫” / with other interesting studies; last accessed on May 20th, 2012. It is difficult to understand these reasons. The only plausible ones that I can think of are: (1) the fact that the founder of this lineage was (very probably) Ninkan 仁寛 (d. 1114?), who was exiled because of a crime of lèse majesté; (2) the fact that it was founded in a site within the province of Musashi 武藏, which was considered a rustic region remote from central Japan.

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is the highest among the [practices for] attaining buddhahood within the one’s own [physical] body (sokushin jōbutsu 即身成佛). […]  I heard also that if one performs the ritual as taught in these sūtras, the principal deity (honzon 本尊)62 will suddenly appear and teach the practitioner all things of the Three Worlds [of the past, present, and future], give him felicity and knowledge, and confer high ranks on him, so much so that this practitioner would seem as if he had obtained magical powers within his actual body (genshin 現身). […] It is said that great masters of olden times, who had such great efficacy [in their magical powers] that they could make flying birds fall, reverse the stream of water, resuscitate dead people, make poor people rich – these great masters uniquely relied on the efficacy of this teaching [or method] (kono hō 此の法). What should I think of all this? Although Shinjō mentions the idea that the practice of the teaching of the “Three Inner Sūtras” is the best path to attain buddhahood within the present body, in the remainder of the work, this supramundane dimension is almost totally absent: instead, the main focus of the said honzon ritual is mundane benefit (genze riyaku 現世利益). What was this ritual then? In the first section of the second scroll, it is described in detail, very probably quoting the original writings from “that teaching.” Here are some excerpts from this long account (see the whole passage translated in Appendix 4): Here is what is said in the secret oral traditions of that teaching (ka no hō no hikuden ni iwaku 彼の法の祕口傳に云く):  Those who want to practice this secret ritual (hihō 祕法) and attain the great siddhis (daishijji 大悉地) must construct the honzon (honzon wo konryū subeshi 本尊を建立すべし). I do not refer here to the auspicious aspect of the woman. The misogi 御衣木 [i.e., material support] [of the honzon] is a skull…  To this skull, one adds a chin, puts in a tongue and teeth, and covers the bone with a paste of lacquer mixed with wheat flour (mugi urushi nite kokuso wo kaite ムキ漆にてこくそをかいて) so that it looks just like unblemished flesh of a living person (shōjin 生身). One applies again and again good lacquer on it and places it in a box. One then has sexual intercourse with a beautiful and willing woman, and repeatedly smears the 62

Honzon means the principal deity of a ritual. But in the Juhōyōjinshū, it has a very special meaning which will be explicated in later developments. Hereafter, I will use honzon to describe the actual object.

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skull with the liquids produced from the union (wagōsui 和合水) until it reaches 120 layers. Each night at the Hours of the Rat and the Ox (ne ushi no toki 子丑の時 [from 11 at night until 3 at morning]), he must burn “soul-returning incense” (hangon kō 反魂香), pass the skull through the fragrant smoke, and chant a soul-returning mantra (hangon no shingon 反魂の眞言) fully one thousand times… Once this preparation has been meticulously completed, one covers the skull with three layers of gold and silver leaf. Over these, the mandala must be inscribed, and then more gold and silver leaf applied, then another mandala applied over that, just as before. Thus, the layers of foils and writing are built up – the abbreviated form must have five or six layers, the middle form, thirteen layers, and the complete form must have one hundred and twenty layers. The ink for these mandalas should be the twin drops of the mysterious union of man and woman (nannyo myōgō no nitai 男女冥合の二渧)…  There they must happily and ceaselessly disport themselves as if celebrating the first three days of the New Year. Words and acts must not stop. Once the honzon is finished, it is installed on the altar. Offerings of rare things – fish, fowl, hare, and venison, from the mountains to the sea – should be made … With the arrival of the Hour of the Hare [i.e., dawn], the honzon is placed in a bag made of seven layers of brocade. Once this bag has been closed, it must not be reopened. At night the bag is held close to the practitioner’s body to keep it warm; during the day it is placed on the altar, where delicacies must be gathered and offered for its nourishment. Day and night, one must take care of it and not think of other things.  For seven years, one must continue this practice. When the eighth year comes, he will obtain great accomplishment (siddhi). For those who reach the highest grade of success, the honzon will speak aloud. It will inform him of all the events of the Three Worlds [of past, present, and future]; if one listens to it and acts accordingly, he becomes as someone who had acquired supernatural powers (jinzū 神通). For practitioners of the middling rank, the honzon will tell them such things in their dreams. It will not speak to those who attain only the lowest levels, but all their desires will come to be realised in accordance with their wishes.63

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Moriyama 1965, 555–58; Sueki III [2010], 42a–44b; Zentsūji manuscript, ge 下, folio 3 verso-5 recto. (The Kōzanji manuscript does not have the last sentence.) I am deeply indebted to the translation made by James Sanford. Sanford 1991, 10, 12, 13–14. I used this translation as far as possible.

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What is extraordinary in the description of this ritual is its two main elements: the use of a human skull and of sexual fluids, and also the combination of these two. It is important, for the analysis, to distinguish the two elements. First, the ritual use of human (or other animal) skulls for oracular purposes seems common in the history of religions. To quote James Sanford in this regard:64 The Skull Ritual is also reminiscent of the use of animal skulls as oracles commonly noted in Siberian and East Asian shamanism. A classic example is cited by Mircea Eliade. “… all the Yukagir tribes trace their origin to a shaman. Until the last century the skulls of dead shamans were still venerated; each was set in a wooden figurine which was kept in a box. Nothing was undertaken without recourse to divination by these skulls.”65 The parallel, perhaps historically connected, oracular use of animal heads by the Ainu survived at least into the 1930s. These skulls “ornamented with fetish shavings – resembling Shinto gohei 御幣 [paper strips] – are kept in the treasure place by the east window and worshipped.”66 This practice seems in turn connected to a Japanese form of dog sorcery, often confused with fox sorcery, in which an oracle is made by starving a dog to death, after which its head is placed in a vessel and worshipped.67 The Shinto miko’s oi 笈, a box in which an object imbued with sacred powers – often an animal’s skull – was kept, seems another related item.68 This box, which could symbolically represent the mother’s womb,69 was called more specifically (since at the latest the latter half of the Edo period) gehō bako

64 65 66 67 68 69

Ibid., 11. Sanford quotes Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (New York: Pantheon, 1964), 245. Sanford quotes D.C. Buchanan, Inari: Its origin, Development, and Nature (Tokyo: Asiatic Society of Japan, 1935), 55. Sanford quotes M.W. De Visser, The Fox and Badger in Japanese Folklore (Yokohama: The Fukuin Printing, 1909), 138–39. Sanford quotes Carmen Blacker, The Catalpa Bow (London: Allen & Unwin, 1975), 151. See ibid., 218, 220.

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外法箱 (“box for external ritual”);70 the magical object contained in it was kept

so secret that it is practically impossible to identify it with certainty. Most of the itinerant miko who carried the gehō bako were from the village called Netsu 禰津 in the district of Agata 縣郡 (or Chiisagata 小縣郡) in the province of Shinano 信濃 (currently Nagano-ken Tōmi-shi Netsu 長野県東御市根津, between Komoro 小諸 and Ueda 上田). They were active since the Edo period and were usually called nonō ノノウ. When they were asked for oracles by a client, they used to place this box on a low table in the client’s house; on this box, they placed a cup full of water that they stirred with a leaf. Then, with their chin resting on their hands, they entered a state of possession and delivered oracles.71 On the contents of the box, scholars of different periods proposed various hypotheses. Nakayama Tarō 中山太郎 (1876–1947), an ethnologist who wrote a lengthy book on various aspects of miko lore, classified the gehō bako objects into six categories: (1) an ordinary hina 雛 (a figurine or effigy); (2) a figurine made of straw; (3) an effigy of the divinity of scarecrow, Kuebiko 久延毘古; (4) a pair of male and female figurines in sexual union like Kangiten 歡喜天 (Sk. Gaṇeśa); (5) a skull of a dog or cat; (6) according to strange rumours, there could also be a human skull of a person who had a special form of head (a long head, or a head with a broad forehead) called gehō atama [or gehō gashira] 外 法頭.72 Nakayama says that he saw himself an effigy of the divinity of the scarecrow; and Suzuki Shōei reproduces a photo of two figurines that he found in a gehō box.73 As for the dog or cat skull, an Edo-period source, the Kiyū shōran 嬉遊笑覧 (Panorama of Comical Entertainment) by Kitamura Nobuyo 喜多村信節 (1783–1856), reports the eyewitness account of a person who opened a gehō box of a miko and found a dried up lump which resembled a cat skull, along 70

71

72 73

The term oi rather designates a box that yamabushi carry on their backs. [Editor’s note: on this issue, see also Gaynor Sekimori’s essay, “Foetal Buddahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo,” in this volume.] Suzuki Shōei 鈴木昭英, Reizan mandara to shugen fuzoku: Shugendō rekishi minzoku ronshū 靈山曼荼羅と修驗巫俗——修驗道歴史民俗論集 (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2004), 354–56. These miko activities were current at least until the beginning of the Shōwa 昭和 era (the 1930’s). Nakayama Tarō 中山太郎, Nihon fujoshi 日本巫女史 (Tokyo: Ōokayama shuppan, 1930; reprint Tokyo: Patorususha, 1984), 302. Ibid., 302 and Suzuki 2004, 360. This is in fact a pair of two figurines with undetermined sex, put side-by-side and united with two bamboo pegs. It seems to have almost no sexual implication.

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with a small Buddha statue.74 Much earlier than that, the fourteenth-century Tendai encyclopeadia Keiranshūyōshū reported that there were certain Onmyōdō priests or miko who worshipped as their honzon a fox’s skull or a wooden figurine representing a fox’s skull or white dog’s skull, or the skull of a tanuki 狸 (the Japanese raccoon dog).75 Finally, I must note that there is no clear evidence, as far as I know, of a human skull in a gehō box; nevertheless, there are some indications that may suggest that such content in the gehō box was possible in certain rare cases. The first, and the most important, is the records of the Minkeiki and Masukagami on the theft of the head of Saionji Kinsuke at the moment of his funeral ceremonies, which I mentioned at the beginning of this section. Other sources from the same period (late thirteenth to early fourteenth century) report incidents of stolen heads or the religious use of a human skull.76 In the Edo period, the Kiyū shōran, which I just mentioned, quotes a text entitled Ryūgūsen 龍宮 船 (Boat of the Dragon Palace) of 1754, where it is said that an itinerant miko confessed the following account. The Buddha statue that she had in her gehō box was made from clay mixed with some mud which an ancestor of hers had found stuck to a skull that he had buried one year before; beforehand, he had recognised a person with a special form [of head] fit for this magical practice (kono hō ni mochiiru isō no hito 此法に用ゐる異相の人) and had concluded a pact with him. Just before that person was going to die, he had cut off his head and buried it in a place where many people would pass; after one year, he had unearthed the skull and used the mud that was stuck to it to fabricate the statue. The miko who had this statue with the cat’s skull in her gehō box said that such a practice could not be done in a peaceful period; the statue that she had was an heirloom going back six generations. Finally, the very existence of the term gehō atama (attested at the latest in the sixteenth century)77 may be an indication suggesting the use of a human skull as the magical object contained in the gehō box. The word was so well-known that a pattern of Ōtsu-e 大 津繪 (caricatural images of Ōtsu) was created, in which Fukurokuju 福禄壽, 74

75 76

77

Kitamura Nobuyo 喜多村信節 (1783–1856), Kiyū shōran 嬉遊笑覧 (Panorama of Comical Entertainment), viii, ca 1830 (Kitamura himself quotes a work entitled Ryūgūsen 龍宮 船 (Boat of the Dragon Palace) of 1754), quoted by Nakayama [1930] 1984, 638–39. T. LXXVI 2410 lxvii 732b17–21, 732c7–19. I owe this reference to Tanaka Takako, to whom I am deeply grateful. Geki nikki 外記日記 (Kōan 弘安 10 (1287), fifth month, 22nd day); Sanemi kyōki 実躬卿 記 (Einin 永仁 1 (1293), fourth month, 12th day) and Mujū’s 無住 Zōtanshū 雑談集 (1305), vi, quoted in Momo 1990, ge, 165 and 168. See also Tanaka Takako 田中貴子, Gehō to aihō no chūsei 外法と愛法の中世 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2006), 283. See Nihon kokugo daijiten, 1st ed., vol. VII, s.v. gehō atama and gehō gashira 外法頭, 246b.

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Figure 9.3 Gehō hashigo zori 外法梯子剃 (gehō being shaved [by Daikoku, Mahākāla], climbed up a ladder). Ōtsu-e 大津絵, 18th-19th century. Preserved at Nihon Mingeikan 日本民藝館 (Tokyo). Courtesy of Nihon Mingeikan.

one of the seven deities of fortune, with a long, deformed, shaved head, is sitting; a small personage in the form of Daikoku 大黒 is on the top of a ladder leaned against Fukurokuju’s head, and is shaving it with a razor. The huge head of gehō in this comical pattern, commonly named “Gehō Daikoku hashigo zori 外法大黒梯子剃り” (Daikoku shaving [the head of] Gehō [on the top of] a ladder), certainly contains some phallic allusion (Fig. 9.3).

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Thus, the use of a human skull for oracular practice seems to be easily understandable when situated against this background of archaic and/or folkloric religion.78 In regard to the sexual, or rather reproductive, aspect of the ritual described by the Juhōyōjinshū, as is clearly explained in the questions and answers quoted in the text translated as Appendix 4 (see especially its last part), the conceptual framework was that of the classical Chinese ideas, such as the theory of Yin and Yang and three hun 魂 souls and seven po 魄 souls. Another important idea was that of the “living body” (shōjin) of the divinity in (apparently) non-animated objects of worship. The principal point of this entire ritual was to make an artificial life from a dead object, simulating the biological process of procreation. It was probably thought that the constructed honzon would have all the more mighty magical power, because it was created through an unnatural, artificial method. The honzon of “that teaching” was thus a kind of philosopher’s stone. 6

Skull Ritual and “Human Yellow”

How is all this related to “human yellow”? In the first scroll of the Juhōyōjinshū, Shinjō gives a very interesting hypothesis on the conceptual background against which such a set of rituals and imagery could be developed. Although this is a long passage, it is key to our argument: Question: If79 there is nothing at all similar to this [ritual] in Shingon rituals, were all these uniquely forgeries made up from scratch by foolish and bewildered people (kyōwaku no hito no sora ni tsukuri daseru 狂惑の人の そらにつくり出せる)?  Answer: I asked wise men of the main temples (honji no chijin tachi 本 寺の智人達) about this; one of them replied, saying (aru hito iwaku 或人 云く): “In regard of the ritual of Dakini, there is the following ritual among the magical arts in the tradition transmitted from the Governor of Sanuki Kōdaifu (Sanuki no kami Kōdaifu 讃岐守高太夫). It is said in a writing of his [that of Kōdaifu? or a writing of this tradition?] (ka no ki ni 78

79

It must be noted that even if it is convenient to distinguish between “folkloric religion” and “institutionalised religion” (such as Buddhist esotericism) for the purpose of analysis, it would be methodologically wrong to suppose that these two were formally separated and had no relation between each other. On the contrary, we must suppose that they both developed in complicated interactions. The Kōzanji manuscript inserts here “this is truly all lies, and...”

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iwaku 彼記に云く) that Dakini is a little yakṣa deity attendant of Yama deva. She eats the meat of all beings; but she is particularly fond of a special food. On the top of the human body, at the place where there is the cross-shaped suture, there are six drops of dew (amatsubi あまつひ, literally “raindrops”).80 These are named “human yellow” (ninnō). This human yellow is the hun and po souls (konpaku 魂魄) of beings. Either it becomes the breath that one breathes in and out (shutsunyū no iki 出入の息) and sustain one’s life, or it goes down [in the body to become] the seed of human impregnation (kainin no tane 懐妊の種), which makes the human body. This is the most favourite food of Dakini. King Yama, inspecting the longevity of beings of the World under Four Heavens (ichi shi tenka no shujō no jumyō 一四天下の衆生の壽命), sends this messenger [i.e., Dakini] to those who will die because of their determined acts (hisshi jōgō 必死定業). Then Dakini sticks to [or possesses: tsukite 付きて] the person [who is to die] and, beginning from the top [of his head], licks him down to his soles (anaura あなうら) during the six months. When she comes to finish her licking, she finally swallows his breath and drinks his blood, so that she robs him of his life.  If one wants to reverse (ten 轉) the determined acts and extend his longevity, one should perform the ritual of Acala (Fudō 不動). This deity, having made the vow of subjugation of evil Māra [or demons] (akuma 惡魔), can subjugate this little yakṣa deity and extend longevity. This is called the ritual of Acala for the Prolongation of [Longevity] by Six Months (Fudō no nōen rokugatsu no hō 不動の能延六月の法).  This is why the officiant of the ritual of Dakini must continuously offer to her things that this deity likes, such as the meat of fishes or birds, or the “yellow swallow” (ōen 黄燕)81 of the human body; then, this deity, receiving these things, will be pleased and will quickly grant his desires. Moreover, if one installs a human head [i.e., skull] or a fox’s head on the altar and offers these various things to her, she will reside in this skull 80

81

On the “six drops” of “human yellow,” see below, Appendix 2, p. 402, n. 151. In the Juhōyōjinshū, from the explanation that follows, it seems that the number six is related with the six months during which Dakini licks the “human yellow” of a person, who will die at the end of the sixth month. This is perhaps the reason for the fluctuation between the number seven and the number six in the earlier texts too. I could not find the meaning of this word; I suppose provisionally that it is the same thing as the “human yellow.” In the Kōzanji manuscript, the corresponding word is written ōyō 黄葉 (Sueki II [2009], 51b), the meaning of which could not be elucidated (literally, “yellow leaves”); the Zentsūji manuscript writes ōyaku 黄藥 (jō, folio 16 recto), literally, “yellow medicine.” This would give the best understanding.

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and, using the three hun souls and seven po souls (sankon shichihaku 三 魂七魄) [probably of the being of whom the skull is installed] as her messengers, will manifest various miracles and will perform innumerable magical actions (hōjutsu 法術).82 The practitioners who want to perform this ritual and receive various miraculous deeds must not wear monk’s clothes, ring the bells (dō or kane 銅) or expose their [shaved] head. The monk’s clothes must be hidden with a cloth of five shaku 尺 [roughly 150 cm]; instead of the bell, he must ring the kei 磬 (Ch. qing) of stone;83 and on the head, he must wear an eboshi ゑぼし.84 If the monk’s clothes and monk’s head are exposed and if one rings the bell, all the buddhas and bodhisattvas will come and appear, gathering divinities of heavens and spirits of earth (tenshu chirui 天衆地類), so that the little yakṣa will quickly run away and will not come to the chamber. Moreover, the gathered heavenly deities who come in the impure place of practice will reprimand the offence of polluting the field of merits (fukuden wo kegasu 福田をけがす). This is why the honzon will not grant the [ritual] success (shijji) [to the practitioner], and the mysterious beings (myōshū 冥衆) [heavenly and earthly deities] will get angry.” Thus is it said (to ieri と云へ り).  If this is the case, then this is an entirely external ritual (gehō 外法) and not at all an internal ritual (naihō 内法).85 […] The skulls [used in this ritual] are simple white bones without any attractive additions, on which no colours are painted. How much more then [can be blamed on] the ritual, of which the main points are sexual intercourse and meat-eating (nyobon nikujiki 女犯肉食) and practices of filth and impurity (oe fujō 汚穢不淨)? There existed indeed no original teaching [of such rituals] neither in inner rituals nor in external rituals (naihō nimo gehō nimo honzetsu naki koto nari 内法にも外法にも本説なき事なり). It is true that, people’s wishes being different, if one does not care about growing 82 83

84 85

In the Kōzanji manuscript, we read, instead of hōjutsu, the word fukutoku 福徳. We would translate “... she will grant innumerable felicities.” The kei 磬 (Ch. qing) is a percussion instrument used in ancient China, and also in Japan. Two images of kei can be found on the webpage of Ōita kenritsu bijutsukan 大分県立美 術館 (Ōita Prefectural Art Museum), “Kujaku mon kei” 孔雀文磬 ; accessed on March 28th, 2012. The eboshi is a hat that Japanese aristocrats used to wear. From this place to the end of the translated passage, the texts of the Kōzanji manuscript and the Moriyama edition are very different (the Zentsūji manuscript is almost the same as the Moriyama edition). We will indicate the common sentences in the two recensions in bold style.

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weak afterwards, one can believe in the efficacy of the external ritual of Dakini-ten and sincerely perform this ritual by faithfully following Kōdaifu’s instructions and not sullying Buddhist Law; then a temporary success is certainly assured. However, not only does this ritual (kono sahō 此の作法) deeply transgress the principle of Buddhist Law, but also there is no trace of such perverse practices even in Kōdaifu’s transmission. Its fundamental sūtras are plagiarised from the Yugi[kyō] 瑜祇[經] and Rishu[kyō] 理趣[經],86 but the meaning drawn from them is greatly different [from that of these authentic sūtras]. It is [truly] neither of internal ritual, nor of external ritual.87 This is the retribution of infernal acts (nari no gōhō 奈利の業報). We must take pity [on such people].88 問　此の事眞言法の中に都て無き事、一向に狂惑の人のそらにつく り出せる事歟、如何。   答　此の由本寺の智人達に尋ね侍りしが、或人云く、吒枳尼の法 に付て、讚岐守高太夫が傳の中に一の術法として此の作法あり。彼 記に云く、吒枳尼は閻魔天の眷屬の中の小夜叉神なり。一切の生類 の肉をもて食とせり。其の中に殊に愛する食あり。人身の頂の十字 の所に六粒のあまつひあり。是れを人黄と名く。此の人黄は是れ衆 生の魂魄なり。或は出入の息と成て人の命をたもち、或は懷妊の種 とくだりて人身をつくる。是れを以て吒枳尼最上の美食とせり。閻 魔大王一四天下の衆生の壽命を明むるに必死定業に及ぶ衆生の身に は此の使者を放ち給へり。吒枳尼彼の人の身に付て頂上より始てあ なうらに至るまで六月の間ねぶる。舐りきはむる時に至つてついに 息をのみ、血をすいて其の命を奪ひとる。   若し人定業を轉じて命をのべんと思はば不動の法を行ずるなり。 此の本尊惡魔降伏の誓願をはします故に、彼の小夜叉神を降伏しの けて壽命をのべ給へり。是を不動の能延六月の法となづく。   此の故に吒天の行者は此の天等の好む處の魚鳥の肉類、人身の黄 燕を以て常に供養すれば此の本尊歡喜納受して行者の所望を成就す ること速なり。又人頭狐頭等を壇上に置て此の種々の供物を備て行 ずれば吒枳尼天此の頭骨の中に入住して彼の三魂七魄を使者として

86

See in the Juhōyōjinshū, i, Moriyama 1965, 545–46; Kōzanji manuscript, Sueki II [2009], 70b–71b; Zentsūji manuscript, jō, folio 17 verso-18 recto; see also Iyanaga 2006, 210–11. 87 The last two sentences are not found in the Kōzanji manuscript; but four pages further (Sueki II [2009], 54a), we find the same sentence “Naihō nimo arazu gehō nimo arazu” 内法ニモアラス外法ニモアラス (“it is neither of inner ritual nor of external ritual”). 88 Moriyama 1965, 544–45; Sueki II [2009], 51b–53a; Zentsūji manuscript, jō, folio 16 recto– 17 verso.

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種々の神變を現じ、無數の法術をほどこす。此の法を成就して如此 種々の神驗を施さんと思はん行者は袈裟をかけ、銅をならし、比丘 形の頭をあらはすべからず。袈裟には五尺の巾をむすびてかくべ し。金には石磬をうつベし。頭にゑぼしをかうぶるべし。袈裟をか け、比丘の頭をあらはにし、金をならせば諸佛菩薩影向し、天衆地 類あつまり給ふが故に小夜叉神速くにげ去て室内に來らず。又諸天 善神不淨の道場に來集して福田をけがす過をいましめ給ふ。故に本 尊悉地をさづけず、冥衆いかりをなし給ふと云へり。   此の記の如くば一向外法にして全く内法にはあらず。… 此れ等は 只風情なき髑髏形の白骨なり。全く種々の彩色等を加へず。況や又 女犯肉食を本とし、汚穢不淨を行ずる事、曾て内法にも外法にも本 説なき事なり。但し人の所求不同なれば後の衰弊をばかへりみず、 一且の福報なりとも感得せんと思はば吒枳尼天の外法を信じ、高太 夫等が先達の傳をあやまらず、佛法をけがす事なく、正直に是れを 行せば一旦の小悉地は疑なかるべし。而るに此の作法を見るに深く 佛法の理に背くのみならず、高太夫が傳にだにも是等の邪行はな し。其の本經は悉く瑜祇理趣の文をぬすみて是れを引のせたりとい へども其の義理の落着く所は大に乖隔せり。内法にも非ず、外法に も非ず。只徒に奈利の業報なり。尤も是れをあはれむべし。

I divided the “answer” in the above citation into four paragraphs dealing with four particular subjects: I will explain these one by one. In the first paragraph, Shinjō reports the opinion of “a wise man from a main temple,” according to which there was “a tradition transmitted from a certain Kōdaifu, governor of Sanuki,” in which one could find a ritual of Dakini; that person (or Shinjō himself?) suggested that it was from this ritual that “that teaching” (ka no hō) would have developed. This Dakini ritual related to someone called “Kōdaifu” really existed: in two documents of the Dakini ritual’s blood lineage (kechimyaku 血脈) preserved in Kanazawa Bunko (Shōmyōji 稱名寺), the name “Sanuki no kami Takamuko no Kimisuke” 讃岐守高向公輔 is mentioned.89 This is a very odd lineage (the two documents are somehow different, but their nature is the same), which begins with familiar names such as Fukū (Amoghavajra) and Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師 (Kūkai), but continues with people such as Takamuko no Kimisuke, Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki (Kiyotsura) 三善清行 (847–919), his son (or younger brother) 89

Nishioka Yoshifumi 西岡芳文, ed., Onmyōdō kakeru Mikkyō 陰陽道×密教, catalogue of the special exhibition of the same title held at Kanazawa Bunko from August 9 to September 30, 2007, 66c and 69c (both catalogue and the exhibition were prepared by Nishioka Yoshifumi).

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Nichizō of Mount Yoshino 吉野山日藏 (905?–985?) – that is to say, lay and/or legendary people whose names never appear in the usual temple lineage documents of esoteric rituals. Among them, Takamuko no Kimisuke (817–880) was a son of the aristocrat Takamuko no Kimio 高向公雄; still young, he ascended Mount Hiei to become a novice and had the monk name of Tankei 湛慶. As a talented esoteric Buddhist monk, he became the protector monk of the prince Korehito 惟仁親 王 (who later ascended the throne as Emperor Seiwa 清和天皇 [850–881, r. 858–876]), but one day his illicit relations with a nurse of the imperial house were exposed. Because of this, Tankei returned to secular life and became a high-ranked aristocrat (in 877, he was appointed lower junior fourth rank [ju shii ge 從四位下] and deputy governor of Sanuki [Sanuki no gon no kami 讃岐 權守]).90 Moreover, he is the main character of a tale from the Konjaku monogatarishū 今昔物語集 (Anthology of Tales from the Past).91 There, it is told that when Kimisuke (or Kinsuke) was still a young monk named Tankei, he had a dream in which Fudō Myōō predicted that in the future he would fall in love with a certain woman, transgress his monastic vows, and marry her. To prevent such an event, Kimisuke went to find this woman, who was still a young girl of ten years old; he slit her throat to kill her in secret. Afterwards, he returned to the temple and became a famous monk. One day, however, he was invited to the palace to cure the illness of Fujiwara no Yoshifusa 藤原良房 (804–872), one of the most powerful aristocrats of the time. He encountered there a beautiful woman, with whom he fell in love. His illicit relation with this woman was discovered, and Kimisuke-Tankei returned to secular life. He discovered at the woman’s neck a large scar and asked her the reason she had it. He learned that the woman he loved was the girl whom he had tried to kill but who had survived. Understanding that his encounter with the woman was karma predicted by Fudō Myōō, he confessed his crime to her, and the two married. The motif of this story is taken from a tale in the Chinese tale collection Taiping guangji 太平廣記 (Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, juan 159, 90

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See Japanese Wikipedia, “Takamuko no Kimisuke” 高向公輔, accessed April 4, 2012 , which is based on the Nihon sandai jitsuroku 日本三代實錄, xxxviii, edited in Shintei zōho Kokushi taikei, vol. IV (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1964), 36, 482. NKBT, XXVI, Konjaku monogatarishū, kan 31, tale 3, 250–53: “Tankei ajari genzoku shite Takamuko no kinsuke to nareru koto 湛慶阿闍梨、還俗爲高向公輔語.” See also Bernard Faure, The Red Thread: Buddhist Approach to Sexuality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 164 and n. 70.

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“Dinghundian” 定婚店),92 and in the medieval period, other variants were created.93 The Dakini rituals that were attributed to the lineage in which the name of Takamuko no Kimisuke is mentioned, discovered in the Kanazawa Bunko library, are the shipan (Jp. shikiban 式盤, divination table) rituals for worldly benefits, especially the sokui kanjō 即位灌頂 (enthronement abhiṣeka) rituals.94 The content of what is said in the aforementioned passage of the Juhōyōjinshū does not fit exactly with these rituals, but one can suppose that Shinjō was referring to some variants of the same kind of rituals. The following sentences in the paragraphs translated above seem to be a quotation from some text belonging to this ritual tradition (“ka no ki ni iwaku”); this quotation would end at the end of the third paragraph (“... to ieri”). But from the context, it appears likely that the second paragraph is an insertion based on a different source, or Shinjō’s own words. The remainder of the first paragraph is of the greatest interest for us. It is one of the rare passages in Japanese medieval Buddhist literature where “human yellow” is mentioned in direct relation with Dakini (or ḍākinīs). Most of its contents can be explained from earlier speculations on “human yellow” such as those accounted in the Kakuzenshō: “human yellow” as “six drops in the head”; its identification with “the hun souls and po souls of beings”; the “six months” during which Dakini (or ḍākinīs) “lick(s)” these drops. The assertion according to which Dakini (or ḍākinīs) is/are “attendant of Yama deva” seems new, but it is easily understandable if we think of the fact that Dakini (or ḍākinīs) is/are closely associated with longevity or death, which is within the competence of Yama.

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Taiping guangji 太平廣記 (Extensive Records of the Taiping Era), full title Jiaobuben Taiping guiangji 校補本　太平廣記 (Edited and Supplemented Version of the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era) (Kyoto: Chūbun shuppansha, 1972), shang 上, 663a–b. This story is the source of the famous theme of the “red string” tying two future lovers from their birth. There are other variants of the same plot in the Taiping guangji, juan 160, “Guanyuan yingnü 灌園嬰女” (“Young Girl of the Water Garden”) (same ed., shang, 667b–668a) and juan 328, “Yangeng 閻庚” (ibid., xia 下, 1342a–b). See Anonymous, “Teikonten 定婚店” (Translation into Japanese and Commentary on the tale “Dinghundian”) ; accessed on the April 5th, 2012. See Faure 1998; Abe Yasurō, “Chūsei shūkyō shisō bunken no kenkyū, III: Kazō Rinnō kanjō kuden hon’in to kaidai 中世宗教思想文獻の研究〔三〕架藏『輪王灌頂口傳』翻 印と解題,” Nagoya daigaku bungakubu kenkyū ronshū 名古屋大學文學部研究論集 (Bungaku 文學 55) 163 (2009): 97–113, 101a. See Nishioka 2007; also, Nishioka Yoshifumi, “Aspects of Shikiban-Based Mikkyō Rituals,” Cahiers d’Extrıeme-Asie 21 (2012): 137–62.

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However, the most important feature of this passage is that, in an attempt at interpretation, “human yellow” is identified with the “breath that one breathes in and out” and “the seed of human impregnation, which makes the human body.” These identifications could be induced from earlier traditions such as those stating that it was “the root of the life (myōkon)” and “the eighth consciousness” (see above). However, it must be noted that, while “the root of life” or “the eighth consciousness” were basically functions, here they are clearly conceived as concrete things: “human yellow” is directly identified with the breath and the (male and female) sexual seed/semen. The image of “human yellow” moving in the human body from the head to genital organs (or “below”) is also new – although it can be understood if we think of the esoteric meditation of worthies’ “seed mantra” which circulates in the practitioner’s body from one organ to another (the metaphor of the seed mantra as the practitioner’s breath is explained in Yixing’s Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra;95 this kind of bodily imagery connected to esoteric meditation practice was widely developed by Kakuban 覺鑁 (1095–1143) in his work Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku 五輪九字輪明祕密釋 (The Secret Interpretation of the Five Cakras and Nine Syllables).96 At any rate, this is the very element which can explain the use of sexual liquids in the skull ritual; in other words, “human yellow,” containing the hun and po souls, was conceived as being concentrated in the “liquids of union” that were smeared layer after layer on the dead skull, to give it magical life. The second paragraph from the Juhōyōjinshū quoted above (which I earlier suggested as Shinjō’s own interpolation) deals with another ritual called Fudō nōen rokugatsu hō (Ritual of Acala for the Prolongation of [Longevity] by Six Months). The expression nōen rokugatsu is found in a ritual of Acala translated in the eighth century by Amoghavajra, but there it is not related to the myth of the subjugation of Dakini/ḍākinīs. After (at least) Kakuzen (1143–ca. 1218), authors belonging to the Daigoji lineages, such as Kenjin 憲深 (1192–1263) or Raiyu 頼瑜 (1226–1304), or Tendai lineages such as Shōchō 承澄 (1205–1281) or Chōgō 澄豪 (1259–1350), quote the myth of the subjugation of ḍākinīs described in Yixing’s Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, to explain the ritual of 95 96

T. 1796 x 689a28–b10 and sq. We find in this passage (689b9) the expression myōkon shutsunyū soku 命根出入息 (“the root of life as the breath that one breathes in and out”). T. LXXIX 2514, Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku 五輪九字明祕密釋. See especially Kameyama Takahiko 龜山隆彦, “Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku ni okeru gozō rikai: Kakuban no jōbutsu-ron no tokushitsu toshite 『五輪九字明祕密釋』における五臓理解 ——覺鑁の成佛論の特質として,” Ryūkoku daigaku daigakuin bungaku kenkyūka kiyō 龍谷大學大學院文學研究科紀要 33 (2011): 31a–46b.

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Acala for the Prolongation of Six Months.97 While the ritual of the transmission of Kōdaifu invokes Dakini’s power for worldly benefit, this one is a ritual of subjugation of ḍākinīs by the power of Acala. As this is one of the rare contexts in which the name Dakini is mentioned along with “human yellow” (at least in the Kakuzenshō and Asabashō), we can understand easily that Shinjō remembered it by association of ideas in regard to Kōdaifu’s ritual. The third paragraph from the Juhōyōjinshū describes the Kōdaifu ritual itself. It appears to be a simple ritual of offering “favourite foods” to Dakini. However, the use of a human or fox’s skull on the altar is a very odd element that closely recalls the skull ritual of “that teaching.” The instruction that the practitioner must hide his Buddhist accoutrement is very interesting. The use of bones in shikiban (divination table) rituals is mentioned in one Kanazawa Bunko document.98 There, the shikiban itself is the object of worship and is imagined as both macrocosm (with Mount Sumeru at its centre) and microcosm (as a human body); the text indicates that one should put a “skull cup” (kōhara hai 刧ハラ坏, Sk. kapāla) in the Sky (top) part of the shikiban, and bones of arms and legs in the Earth (bottom) part of it. It is clear that this ritual tries to make the honzon an animated object – thus, the idea seems very close to the skull ritual of “that teaching.” On the other hand, there are several contemporary literary sources, such as the Konkon chomonjū 古今著聞集 (A Collection of Notable Tales Old and New) (1254) or the Heike monogatari 平 家物語 (The Tale of the Heike), which report the performance of a Dakini ritual or an “external ritual” (gehō); we can believe that the actual contents of these rituals were similar to the one described here.99 It is interesting to note that the 97

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See Jingangshou guangming guanding jing zuisheng liyin sheng Wudong-zun daweinuwang niansong yigui fapin/Kongōshu kōmyō kanjō gyō saishō ryūin shō Mudō son dai inu ō nenju giki hō hon 金剛手光明灌頂經最勝立印聖無動尊大威怒王念誦儀軌法品 (Chapter of Ritual of Recitation of the Great Wrathful King Acala on the Establishment of the Unsurpassable Mudra, Extracted from the Sūtra of Illuminating Abhiṣeka of Vajrapāṇi), T. XXI 1199 6b22; Kakuzenshō, TZ. 3022 lxxix 211b25–c3; Kenjin’s Kōshinshō 幸心鈔 (Compendium of Kōshin), T. LXXVIII 2498 ii 724b20–25; Raiyu, Usuzōshi kuketsu 薄草子口決 (Oral Transmission on the Thin [Compendium of Rituals]), T. LXXIX 2535 viii 222c29– 223a6; ibid. T. 2535 xiii 251b24–252a5; Shōchō’s Asabashō, TZ. IX 3190 cxvi 320b19–c26; Chōgō, Sōjishō 總持抄 (Compendium of Dhāraṇīs), T. LXXVII 2412 ix 76a3–21. See Nishioka 2007, 57b–c: Ban konryū saigoku hi hi chū sho (betsuden) 盤建立最極祕々 中書（別傳）. Konkon chomonjū 古今著聞集 (A Collection of Notable Tales Old and New), NKBT, vol. LXXXIV 214–15; Heike monogatari 平家物語 (The Tale of the Heike), NKBT, vol. XXXII, 122. In the Kōzanji manuscript of the Juhōyōjinshū (Sueki II [2009], 53b), the names of Dōkyō 道鏡 (?–772; the famous éminence grise of Empress Shōtoku 稱徳天皇), Taira no Kiyomori 平清盛 (1118–1181) and Gyōbu sōjō 刑部僧正 (i.e., Chōgen 長嚴 [1152–1228]) are

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prohibition for a monk to show his shaved head or monk’s robes when performing the Kōdaifu ritual recalls that of the use of incense in the ritual of “making a man” in a tale found in the thirteenth-century Senjūshō 撰集抄 (Compendium of Selected Tales).100 Finally, in the fourth paragraph from the Juhōyōjinshū, Shinjō states that the Kōdaifu ritual is “entirely an external ritual”; in his opinion, one can perform this ritual without transgressing Buddhist Law and expect certain efficacious results from it, but this will be a temporary result. On the contrary, according to Shinjō, the ritual of “that teaching” is “neither of internal ritual, nor of external ritual” because it expressly teaches one to practice “sexual intercourse and meat-eating” and “filth and impurity.” Another point that he makes is that “that teaching” claims to base itself on a falsified Buddhist doctrine (“their fundamental sūtras are plagiarised from the Yugikyō and Rishukyō”), while the “external ritual” had no such claims. Moreover, we can note that while the

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mentioned as those who obtained their high positions thanks to Kōdaifu’s Dakini ritual. See also Nakamura Teiri 中村禎里, Kitsune no Nihonshi: Kodai Chūsei hen 狐の日本史 ——古代・中世篇 (Tokyo: Nihon editā sukūru shuppanbu, 2001), 104–106. The use of human bones to construct a kind of artificial living man appears in a collection of tales entitled Senjūshō 撰集抄 (Compendium of Selected Tales), ascribed to the poetmonk Saigyō 西行 (1118–1190), but which is actually an anonymous work of the later thirteenth century. The story is the fifteenth of the fifth fascicle and is entitled “Story of Saigyō Who Made a Man in the Depths of Mount Kōya” (Saigyō Kōya no oku ni oite hito wo tsukuru koto 西行於二テ高野ノ奥一ニ造レル人ヲ事). It tells how Saigyō, feeling lonely in the depths of Mount Kōya, tried to construct an artificial man from a gathering of bones. He had heard from some trustworthy person how demons create men with a number of bones, and he attempted to imitate them. The result was a failure: the man had a bad colour, and his voice was not good. In a quandary as to how to deal with his product, he finally threw it away in the depths of Mount Kōya where nobody would come. After these events, he went to the capital and asked Minamoto no Moronaka 源師仲 (1116–1172), who presumably knew better about the “secret art of spirit-returning” (hangon no hijutsu 反魂 の祕術), the reason why he failed to make a real man. Moronaka replied that he should not have burnt the incense, because the incense has the virtue of attracting saintly spirits and repelling demons. He declared that he had received the transmission of the lineage of Fujiwara no Kintō 藤原公任 (966–1041) and made a man himself, who had now become a minister; but he would never reveal his identity, because if he had done so, the man and his maker would both dissolve. See Senjūshō 撰集抄, Nishio Kōichi 西尾光一, ed. (Tokyo: Iwanami bunko, 1970), 157–59. I owe this information to Itō Satoshi 伊藤聰 and Watanabe Mariko 渡辺麻里子, to whom I am deeply grateful. See also on this tale Jan Noeru Robēru [Jean-Noël Robert], “Kotoba no Chikara: chūsei shakkyō-ka no imi-ron 言葉の力——中世釋教歌の意味論,” in Seinaru koe: Waka ni hisomu chikara 聖なる 聲 ——和歌にひそむ力, Abe Yasurō and Nishiki Hitoshi 錦仁, eds. (Tōkyō: Miyai shoten, 2011), 21–24.

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“external rituals” could be accepted as long as their goals were limited to worldly benefits, “that teaching” had claimed that it was the only path to attain the “buddhahood in the present body.” This was certainly one important reason why the “external rituals” were admissible for him, but “that teaching” was not. Conclusion We now come to the end – at least a provisional end – of our journey. Although the skull ritual of “that teaching” (ka no hō) is certainly a very aberrant variant of esoteric rituals, I think I could demonstrate that it can be situated at the fringe of the normative medieval Japanese esoteric thought, which incorporated in itself the elements of classical Chinese Yin-Yang thought and folkloric elements of shamanic religion. James Sanford, who has also studied this topic, has mentioned many interesting parallels that he could find in later forms of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist esoteric sources, or Indian Śaiva literature. I do not deny the interest of these kinds of comparisons.101 However, insofar as it seems impossible to historically trace back influences from these later forms of Tantrism onto medieval Japanese Buddhism, the only other way to explain this set of rituals and images is to investigate the possibility of the formation, step by step, of such ideas within the development of Japanese religious thought itself. This is what I have attempted to do in the present chapter. I think the evidence is convincing enough to demonstrate that, at the same time and starting from a common array of doctrinal and mythical ideas, two traditions, one Indo-Tibetan and the other Sino-Japanese, separated at an earlier stage (early eighth century for the Mahāvairocana Sūtra and its Commentary), can, independently from each other, reach similar later forms, even if the meanings and the contents are notably different.102 We must recognise, indeed, that although 101

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We can now add to these data those analysed by David Gordon White in his Kiss of the Yoginī: “Tantric Sex” in its South Asian Contexts (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003). This can be taken as an example illustrating the hypothesis that I have called “DNA or virus model” of development of mythical thought. Here is how I have formulated it in my paper “Buddhist Mythology and Japanese Medieval Mythology: Some Theoretical Issues,” in Buddhist Narrative in Asia and Beyond, Peter Skilling and Justin McDaniel, eds. (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, 2012), vol. 1, 97–109, 99–100: “Buddhist, and especially Tantric culture was massively imported from the (sub)continent to Japan from the Nara period up to at least the end of the eleventh century, carrying with it a whole ‘mythical structure,’ consisting of mythical tales, cosmological visions, images, practices, and ways

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the atmosphere of eros and the macabre can be found in both the Japanese skull ritual and certain Śaiva, or later Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Tantric rituals – what we could call the “syndrome of eros and thanatos” – it seems that in the Japanese ritual the gathering of the two elements of eros and thanatos was rather coincidental. The sexual element, the aim of which was more reproductive than one of “sexual pleasure,” was probably developed from metaphorical images of esoteric Buddhism, while the use of the skull for divinatory and/or shamanistic practice was rather of a folkloric stem (even though these two religious contexts may have been actively interacting with each other). On the other hand, we cannot help but raise a question as to what extent the ritual described by Shinjō in his Juhōyōjinshū could really be performed. There is obviously no definitive answer to this question. Yet it is possible to attempt to provide some elements of a provisional answer. One fact is certain: if it were in our contemporary society that such a ritual were to be performed, this could not be done without infringing civil law, if only because it is illegal to remove a skull in any way from a dead body (if one is not specially qualified for such an act). However, in the earlier half of the medieval period in Japan, where human corpses were discarded or exposed in certain places without any regard,103 it was very possible to obtain skulls from graves. Even if the mention of “a thousand skulls” in the Juhōyōjinshū (see below, Appendix 4, p. 406) is an exaggeration, there was indeed easy access to dead bodies in those times. On the other hand, it is also well known that during the medieval period many Buddhist monks – perhaps even most of them – were married. We do not know the concrete social reality in Buddhist temples of the period in question, but we can assume that even though monks’ marriages were unlikely to have been a socially and openly admitted fact at great temples of main cities or mountains, the situation would have been different elsewhere. In fact, for semi-official

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of thinking. It seems to me that, more than clear and articulated ideas, this kind of pervasive mythical structure works like some viruses or DNA structures; it ‘impregnates’ the ‘host body’ of the culture into which it is imported and lives, and changes from the inside this host body into its own image. Thus, the whole unconscious ‘symbolic function’ of the host culture is transformed, so that it produces, as if it were by its own, new images and myths which duplicate in some way the original mythical structure which had been imported.” Katsuda Itaru 勝田至 in his Shishatachi no chūsei 死者たちの中世 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2003) explains that before 1220s, there were many corpses simply exposed in the streets and fields of the capital. After then, a number of important graveyards were formed in the suburbs; but despite the fact that this meant fewer bodies in such public places, graveyard corpses were still either exposed or put in simple coffins and left out, as there were very few cremations and burials.

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or “para-religious monks” of provincial origin (inaka shingonshi 田舎眞言師, “rustic Shingon masters,” as the Juhōyōjinshū calls them)104 – for example itinerant yamabushi – marriage (with female mediums, for instance) would have been considered perfectly normal. This is one of the reasons why I tend to think that the core practitioners of “that teaching” mentioned by Shinjō were not among the official monks residing in main temples. The sexual practices described in the Juhōyōjinshū are truly astonishing (at least for us, living in our contemporary world), but if these were carried out in the secrecy of a “couple’s bedroom,” they would not be inconceivable, especially if we consider that sexual behaviour and social consensus thereof are extremely variable depending on historical environments. The detailed instructions and the persisting repetitions of certain acts prescribed in Shinjō’s record are certainly very difficult to realise in literal form, but it is possible that such a practice could really be performed in a more simplified fashion. The mention of a complicated procedure of constructing the honzon, and especially the use of gold and silver foils, makes one think that if these instructions were literally followed, the practitioners could not have been poor people. On the other hand, certain passages in the Juhōyōjinshū suggest that those who authored the core texts of “that teaching” had access to some of the most important knowledge of the mainstream esoteric schools.105 We can suppose that those who were the most active initiators of such a movement were at least of a high intellectual level. But as I have already pointed out, the records that may imply a ritual use of skulls are limited to the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries (see above, p. 363, n. 46 and p. 373, n. 76); and most of external pieces of evidence which recall sexual practices of the kind described in the Juhōyōjinshū – two passages of the Shasekishū 沙石集 (Sand and Pebbles) by Mujū and a passage of the Entonkai kikigaki 圓頓戒聞書 (Oral Teachings about the Perfect and Sudden Precepts) by the Tendai monk Echin 惠尋106 – are from the thirteenth century, too. Perhaps the last (and the only) work, other than the Juhōyōjinshū, directly mentioning the title of the “Three 104

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Moriyama 1965, 555: “While no one of the correct lineages of the main temples ever mentions it [i.e., ”that teaching”], among the rustic shingonshi of remote regions of provinces (hendo inaka no shingonshi 邊土田舎の眞言師), nine out of ten people believe that it is the most important core of esoteric Buddhism (mikkyō).” See also Zentsūji manuscript, ge, folio 2 recto. They knew at least the Rishukyō and Yugikyō (which they plagiarised; see above, p. 378, n. 86); they knew some of the lineages of the Shingon school (see the Moriyama edition 1965, 541–42; Sueki II [2009], 48a–49b; Zentsūji manuscript, jō, folio 12 verso–14 recto), etc. Not described here. For references, see Iyanaga 2003, 28b–29a, n. 24.

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Inner Sūtras” (naisanbukyō) is the Ise monogatari zuinō 伊勢物語髄脳 (The Essentials on the Tales of Ise), probably dating from around 1320–1340.107 The sexual practices of different kinds continued, either (most often) metaphorically or (perhaps very rarely) in reality, but they were no longer associated with the skull. Except the Ise monogatari zuinō, practically all other works alluding to the sexual (and/or skull) ritual condemn it. On the other hand, the passage in the early fourteenth-century Keiranshūyōshū mentioning certain Onmyōdō priests or miko who venerated animal skulls (see above, p. 373, n. 75) seems to refer to rather rustic people. We can suppose that the practice of this kind of ritual had a brief moment of popularity in the thirteenth century, perhaps even in the capital (Kyoto), but was criticised by mainstream Buddhist ideology, and lasted only until around the beginning of the fourteenth century. Originally, the “human yellow” was nothing but an imaginary substance that was mentioned in a mythical tale of Indian origin, in a commentary of a Tantric sūtra written in China. Introduced to Japan, this mythical substance came to be associated with various ideas and turned out to be imagined as an almighty magical substance assimilated to the “essence of life.” In the skull ritual described in the Juhōyōjinshū, it is clearly conceived as the sexual fluids containing the hun souls and the po souls that would be the seed of sexual reproduction, able to give new, magical life to a dead skull. Eight years of gestation is said to be necessary, a time corresponding to the age of the Dragon Girl from the Lotus Sūtra who manifested a miraculous body of enlightenment (see below, p. 411). At any rate, I believe that we have in this ritual, of the reproduction of magical life from a skull and sexual fluids, an example of one of the extreme fringes of religious thought that humankind could ever have developed.

Appendices

Appendix 1 Translation of the iconographical verses on Aizen Myōō in the Yugikyō: 於白月鬼宿　取淨白素㲲

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See Itō Satoshi 伊藤聰 and Ogawa Toyoo 小川豊生, eds. and ann., Ise monogatari zuinō 伊勢物語髄脳, Nihon koten gisho sōkan 日本古典僞書叢刊, vol. I (Tokyo: Gendai Shichōsha, 2005), 141. The editors, in their note 20 on page 141, identify the “three sūtras” with the Dainichikyō (T. XVIII 848), Jingangding jing / Kongōchōkyō 金剛頂經 (T. XVIII 874) and Suxidi jing / Soshitsujikyō 蘇悉地經 (T. XVIII 893), but this is certainly a mistake.

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畫愛染金剛　身色如日暉 住於熾盛輪　三目威怒視 首髻師子冠　利毛忿怒形 又安五鈷鉤　在於師子頂 五色華髻垂　天帶覆於耳 左手持金鈴　右執五峯杵 儀形如薩埵　安立衆生界 次左金剛弓　右執金剛箭 如射衆星光　能成大染法 左下手持彼　右蓮如打勢 一切惡心衆　速滅無有疑 以諸華鬘索　絞結以嚴身 作結跏趺坐　住於赤色蓮 蓮下有寶瓶　兩畔吐諸寶

In the clear half of the month (Jp. byakugatsu 白月, Sk. śuklapakṣa) under [the reign [of the lunar mansion] Puṣya (kishuku 鬼宿) Wearing a pure, white, fine cloth, The practitioner paints the Rāgavajra (Aizen Kongō 愛染金剛). [One] makes his body colour like the rays of the sun; He resides in a blazing circle (Ch. chishenglin 熾盛輪, Jp. shijōrin, i.e., the sun) And his three eyes gaze in a majestic rage. On the topknot of his head he has a lion crown, His sharply standing hair gives him a wrathful appearance. A five-pronged vajra (goko ku 五鈷鉤) is installed on the top of his lion crown. Garlands of flowers in five colours hang down [from his head] And heavenly bands cover his ears. In his left hand he holds a vajra bell,108 And in his right hand a five-pronged vajra (gobu sho 五峯杵). His demeanour is like that of [Vajra]sattva. And he stands in the realm of the Beings in a peaceful [state] (anryū shujōkai 安立衆生界).109 His next left hand [has] a vajra bow, And in his right he holds a vajra arrow, As if he were shooting at the light of all the stars, [In order to] be able to realise the Rite of [Great Attraction] (daizen-hō 大染法). 108 Konrin 金鈴 is an abbreviated form of kongōrin 金剛鈴, used because of the limited number of characters allowed in the verse. 109 In the earlier 1993 translation by Goepper (see the next footnote), this verse is omitted.

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Iyanaga In his lower left hand he holds “that” (sageshu ni kare wo motsu 左下手持彼), And in his [lower] right, a lotus in the attitude of [striking [it] (i.e., “that” thing held in his left hand)]. All Beings [possessing] bad thoughts Will rapidly be extinguished, without any doubt. With lassos of flower garlands His body is bound and decorated. He is sitting in the lotus posture [i.e., tightly bound crossed legs] (kekka fu-za 結 跏趺坐), And he resides on a lotus of red colour. Underneath this lotus there is a precious vase Which brims over with jewels on both sides.110

Appendix 2 Translation of the passage on “human yellow” in the Kakuzenshō (compiled between 1143–ca. 1218). Here are some excerpts from this text:111 第三二手（或云。持者加持義也。云〻。經文略之） 先師云。持彼者、持所求事也。隨所欲、可持五種三形 深秘ニハ荼吉尼奪人生氣。爲拂此難、持人黄。即命根也。又佛勅荼吉尼、許應 食死人之心。其名人黄（敦造紙同之） (人黄）疏云（荼吉尼眞言）欲命終者。六月即知之。知已即作法。取其心。所 以人〔＝爾〕者。人身中有黄。所謂人黄猶牛有黄也。若得食者。能得極大成就。 一日周遊四域。隨意所爲皆得。（云〻） 義釋云。凡人身或有黄藥。如牛之類。若彼偶而食之。使得最上成就（文）(此 尊傳習祕事、頗多。持彼殊勝。雖師説多、古説以爲正説。已上） (赤圓）内心肝也。眞如理歟。似日赤圓也。即衆生心也（HṚDA 心也）。第八識 法性理也。本覺心蓮也 疏十云。一切衆生斷彼令盡無有餘。即是殺也。知彼者衆生命根（云〻）

110

111

Yugikyō 瑜祇經, T. XVIII 867 i 256c4–18. This sūtra was translated into Flemish by Pol Vanden Boucke, “Yugikyō, De schriftuur van alle Yoga’s en Yogi’s van het paviljoen met vajra-top (T. XVIII no. 867, 253–69),” PhD dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Gent, 1989–90. This passage was earlier translated into English by Roger Goepper, Aizen-Myōō: The Esoteric King of Lust, an Iconological Study (Zurich: Artibus Asiae, 1993), 13–14; see also Hōbōgirin, I, 16b. The sentences in parentheses in the quoted text are notes in small characters in the original. For the identification of some of the mentioned names of monks, I have been helped by Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代. I would like to express my deep gratitude to her.

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(無明）先師一説。彼字 ハ本覺無明相對論彼此。或云。根本無明持 ハ廣澤傳也 (云〻）。持彼者、持無明也。本覺無明不相離、知本覺有歟。本覺者心也。心者 人黄也。無明名彼。可見二教論也 （或云。元品無明大自在天也。或云。無明體如柘榴。已上） 一師云。彼ハ惡人稱。又煩惱怨敵也。菩提云自。煩惱云他。故彼煩惱歟。立印 軌云。若一夜護摩。使者下〔＝不〕出現。彼即決定死（云〻）。安鎮軌云。書彼 人形。及書彼姓名（云〻　已上） 又説。本覺無名〔＝明〕相對論彼此。彼ハ人黄也。此ハ無明也。經文此障速除 滅不得小親近（云〻）（私云。此障自性所生障。根本無明也） 已下雜〻口傳也（用否隨人。已上） （A 字）一師云。持餘物事。更不違人黄。一切煩惱恒沙惑障。皆自根本無明起 故也。又持 A 字。是命字也。普賢延命口決云。八葉上有命字。A 字也。疏十一 云。長聲阿。此是阿第一命根也（云〻）。故人ノ神體。A 字是人黄體。未斷惑 時。肉色 A 字。斷惑時白色 A 字（肉色根本煩惱。染義也。白色斷惑證果。心也。 在纏時。心是元品無明故明王持此。心蓮華三昧相應。斷迷顯覺）。煩惱即菩提義 也。或持月輪。此菩提心體歟 (月輪）仁海云。明王持人黄給。有何由哉。師云。此有二義。若出世云之者。 一切衆生本有障。本有倶本輪體也。以本性清淨之蓮打之。故頓斷無明即證佛果。 若世間云之者。人之精霊。行者之精神。隱在明王手中。諸惡鬼全不得便（云〻） (國王心）一師云。人黄ハ國王心也。擧勝攝劣。實一切衆生人王也。就中官位 福禄求時。可觀國王心。世間所求依國王心故也 經云。一切有情類。及諸刹利王。攝伏如奴僕（云〻）。若觀出世。三界唯一 心。〻外無別法。心佛及衆生。是三無差別（云〻） 大御室説。明黄人黄之明淨。是云明黄歟 或説云。入道二品親王。仁海僧正令奉問御事（云〻）。人黄ハ行者内心肝也。 即八部肉團也。有牛珠名牛王。甚深微細也。鹿有珠名鹿王。此牛精鹿精也。人有 珠名人黄。人精也。王黄二字相通耳。（或云。魂魄也。或云。人心藏也。赤肉色 故。肝者非説青色故。云〻。或云。爲男女人黄。爲女男人黄。可觀。云〻） 羅誐法云。古像多執人頭。（三井寺主。此ハ死。生ハ彼也。青色或肉色。具諸 相。此有二傳。一者人頭。即根本無明也。如意輪軌云。今以召罪印。心想召諸 罪。想彼衆罪状。槇髮腂黒形。云〻。二人頭即人黄也） (人黄数）一師云。頂十字有人黄六粒。五龍守之。明王攝伏之。或十粒。又 云。人頂有七舐滴。一盡即病。七盡即死（云〻） (日輪八頭）日輪 ハ 息災時用之。（或人云。敬愛義。云〻。又智慧用之。云 〻。仁海御本尊持日輪。口云。日輪假相也。即人黄習也。護壽命尊故持彼。延命 第一佛也。云〻。御抄云。理趣房傳。持彼者。或握日輪。或凹握首。并權實義 也。一切衆生類有首。切首執着也。是實義也。日權義也。又云。日光衆星隠弊。 一切衆生被成衆星。〻〻不現。光成大日也）

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Iyanaga

師傳云。彼手拳印。口無物。隨法觀種〻物。如千手四十之所求（云〻）彼手 云成就手也。彼手掌書所求事。其上觀有人黄。伏除無始惑障。一切悉地成就（云 〻）（中御室説）

 On [the attributes of] the third two hands.112 (Note in small characters: Certain people say that the character “to hold” (ji 持) has the meaning of “empowerment” (kaji 加持, Sk. adhiṣṭhāna), and the sūtra uses it as an abbreviated form.) The precedent master (senshi 先師)113 says that “holding that” means that [the deity’s lower left hand] holds any object of desire (shogu-ji 所求事). According to what is desired, [the deity’s hand] can hold any of the five kinds of symbolic attributes (goshu sangyō 五種三形).114 In the deeply secret sense (jinpi 深祕), ḍākinīs rob human vital energy (shōki 生氣); to exorcise this calamity, [the deity’s hand] holds human yellow, that is to say, the root of the life (myōkon 命根, Sk. jīvitêndriya). It is also said that the Buddha gave orders to ḍākinīs, permitting them to eat [only] the hearts of dead persons. That is called “human yellow” (the Atsuzōshi 敦造紙 [Thick Compendium on Esoteric Rituals] has the same [commentary]).115 ([The “thing” held by the lower left hand might be also] human yellow:) The Commentary [on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra] (Sho 疏) says (in the passage on the ḍākinī mantra): “[These beings named ḍākinīs know of people who] are going to die within 112 113 114

115

Although the text mentions “two hands,” the entire passage is only about the attribute of the lower left hand. That of the right hand is mentioned only en passant. This indicates some master of Kakuzen’s lineage. This might be either Kanjin 寛信 (1084– 1153) or Kōzen 興然 (1120–1203). The “five kinds” are the five kinds of the homa rituals, different depending on the ritual’s aim. According to Raiyu’s 頼瑜 (1226–1304) Hishō mondō 祕鈔問答 (Questions and Answers on the Secret Compendium), T. LXXIX 2536 xii.2 501a6–8, one uses the wheel for sokusai 息災 (appeasement), the jewel for zōyaku 増益 (increasing of fortune), the single-pronged vajra for jōbuku 調伏 (subjugation), a lotus flower for kyōai 敬愛 (sorcery in love affair), a hook for kōchō 鉤召 (attracting and bewitching the target of one’s love) and armour for emmyō 延命 (prolonging longevity). We find the same quotation in the Atsuzōshi 厚造紙 (Thick Compendium of Esoteric Rituals) by Genkai 元海 (1093–1156), T. LXXVIII 2483 271c4–6. There are several works entitled Atsuzōshi (厚造紙 or 敦造紙), one by Jōkai 定海 (1074– 1149), another by Genkai (T. 2483), and yet another by Ningai 仁海 (951–1046) (see Mikkyō daijiten 密教大辭典, 29a–30a, and Bussho kaisetu daijiten 佛書解説大辭典, vol. I, 66b– c); the only printed one seems to be that of Genkai. In this work, the passage referred to here cannot be found exactly, but a section on Aizen Myōō (T. LXXIII 2483 270c03–272c28) contains a note on “human yellow,” written there with the characters ninnō 人王, “human king” (T. LXXIII 2483 271c6–c18). This passage might have been the one referred to by Kakuzen.

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six months. Knowing of them, they perform this magical rite, take their hearts, [and eat it]. This is because there is a yellow [substance] in the human body called “human yellow,” just like there is a [precious medicine named] “ox yellow” in the ox’s body; and if one can eat this [human yellow], one can attain the greatest accomplishment (siddhi). [Thus, ḍākinīs] can travel across four regions in a day and obtain anything they want.”116 The Commentary on the Meaning (Gishaku 義釋) says: “In general, in human bodies, there is a yellow medicine, just like the ox’s. If they [i.e., these beings, named ḍākinīs] happen to eat it, right away they obtain supreme magical powers.”117 (Literal quotation. Note in small characters: There are many secret traditions related to this Worthy (son 尊) [i.e., Aizen Myōō], especially regarding [the sentence: “he] holds that.” Although there are many masters’ opinions, the correct one is the oldest one. [End of sub-section [ijō 已上].) ([The “thing” held by the lower left hand might be also] a red circle [shakuen 赤 圓]:118) A certain tradition says that [“that” thing held] is the inner heart-liver (naishinkan 内心肝).119 That would [represent?] the Principle of Thusness (shinnyo ri 眞如理), which resembles the red circle of the sun. That is the heart of sentient beings (the hṛdaya heart [i.e., the physical heart]). That is the Principle of the Nature of the Dharma of the Eighth Consciousness (daihasshiki no hosshō no ri 第八識法性理),120 [which is] the heart-lotus of Original Enlightenment (hongaku shinren 本覺心蓮).121 116 117 118

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Literal quotation from the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra translated above; see above p. 346, n. 4 (T. 1796 x 687b18–22). Dainichikyō gishaku, vii, Z. XXXVI 378 ver° b13–15; see above, p. 346, n. 4. According to the Keiranshūyōshū, T. LXXVI 2410 xxi 567c29–568a1, the statue of Aizen Myōō, the principal deity of Emperor Go-Sanjō 後三条天皇 (1034–1073, r. 1068–1072), that was created by his protector monk Seison 成尊 (1012–1074) had something like a “red circle” in his lower left hand. This identification is found in two previous works: Denjushū 傳授集 (Collection of Transmissions) by Kanjin: T. LXXVIII 2482 iv 256c12: “That human yellow [written here with the characters ninnō 人王, meaning “human king”] is the inner heart-liver. It is probably the Principle of Thusness. It resembles a white-red [thing]” and Shoson yōshū 諸尊要抄 (Essential Compendium on Various Worthies) by Jitsuun 實運 (1105–1160): T. LXXVIII 2484 v 299c3: “Human yellow (ninnō 人王) is the inner heart-liver.” See also supra, Fig. 9.2. Here, Kakuzen quotes his master, Kōzen, who writes in his Shikan 四卷 (Compendium in Four Fascicles): T. LXXVIII 2500 i 774a4–6: “That thing held [in the lower left hand of Aizen Myōō] might be the Principle of Thusness of dharma-nature (shinnyo hosshō no ri 眞如 法性理). This is to say that [that hand] holds the mind [or heart]. The mind [or heart] is the Principle of the Nature of the dharma of the Eighth Consciousness.” This is an allusion to the first gāthā of the apocryphal verses (known as the “Verses in Praise of the Original Enlightenment” or Hongakusan 本覺讚) allegedly extracted from a non-existent sūtra named Renge sanmai kyō 蓮花三昧經 (Sūtra of Lotus Samādhi),

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The tenth [kan 卷] of the Commentary [on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra] says:122 “Cutting ‘that’ off [in] every sentient being without any remain. This means to kill (issai shujō no ‘ka’ wo danji, tsukushite amari arukoto naku seshimu. Sunawachi kore setsu nari 一切衆生斷彼令盡無有餘。即是殺也).”123 Thus, we know that “that” means the “root of life.” ([The “thing” held by the lower left hand might be also] Ignorance [mumyō 無明]:) According to one opinion of the precedent master (senshi), the character “that” is here to indicate the opposition between Original Enlightenment (hongaku 本覺) and Ignorance by “that” and “this” (hi-shi 彼此). Or [according to another opinion,] the tradition of the Hirosawa lineage 廣澤 [says that the lower left hand of Aizen Myōō] holds Radical Ignorance (konpon mumyō 根本無明). “Holds that” (ji-hi / ka wo motsu 持 彼) means that [the deity’s hand] holds Ignorance. As Original Enlightenment and Ignorance are not separated from each other, we should probably understand [by this] the existence of Original Enlightenment (Hongaku to mumyō ha aihanarezu. Hongaku no u wo shiru ka 本覺無明不相離。知本覺有歟). Original Enlightenment is the heart (shin 心), and the heart is human yellow. It is Ignorance which is called “that” [here]. We must refer to the Treatise of the Two Teachings (Nikyōron 二教論).124

122

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probably created by Annen. See, for example, Annen’s Taizō kongō bodaishin gi ryaku mondō shō, T. 2397 i 470c5–8: “We take refuge in the dharma-body of the Mind of Original Enlightenment, which permanently resides on the Lotus dais of Marvelous Law” (Kimyō hongakushin hosshin, Jōjū myōhō shin rendai 歸命本覺心法身　常住妙法心蓮台). The verses of the Hongakusan had an enormous influence on Japanese medieval esotericism. On the Hongakusan and the Renge sanmai kyō, see Mizukami Fumiyoshi 水上文義, Taimitsu shisō keisei no kenkyū 台密思想形成の研究 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2008), 197–359. Kakuzen quotes this sentence especially because of the use of the demonstrative pronoun “that” (kare 彼). The referred passage is the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, T. 1796 x 684b11–12, in which “that” indicates the “root of life” (myōkon). It is in the context dealing with the mantra of the King of Wisdom Yama (Enra Myōō 閻羅明王). It is stated just before, in a note in small characters, 684b10–11: “The original meaning of [this mantra] is: ‘I want to cut off the root of the life (myōkon) of all sentient beings.’ This [i.e., the ‘root of life’] is Ignorance without beginning, all the defilements” (sunawachi kore mushi mumyō, sho bonnō nari 即是無始無明、諸煩惱也). The text of the Commentary continues in the following way (684b12–14): “With this vidyā [myō 明, i.e., the mantra of the King of Wisdom Yama], one gains mastery in the Rubric of the Law of Death. He [the King of Wisdom Yama] is a metamorphosed form of the Buddha. This does not mean that [the King of Wisdom] really kills all sentient beings.” This is probably an allusion to Kūkai’s Ben kenmitsu nikyōron 辯顯密二教論 (Treatise of Comparison between Exoteric and Esoteric Discourse), T. LXXVII 2427 i 375b22–c22, which is itself a long quotation from the Shi Moheyan lun 釋摩訶衍論, Jp. Shaku Makaen ron (Commentary on the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith), T. XXXII 1668 v 637b23–c22: “It is a question of the relationship between Original Enlightenment that all beings have had since [a time] without beginning (issai shujō mushi irai, kai u hongaku 一切衆生從無始 来、皆有本覺) and fundamental Ignorance.” On this passage, see the translation in

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(Note in small characters: Or, it is said that Original Ignorance [ganpon mumyō 元品 無明] is the deity Maheśvara [Daijizaiten 大自在天].125 Or, it is said also that the Substance of Ignorance is like the [fruit of the] pomegranate [zakuro 柘榴].126 [End of

sub-section.]) According to one master, “that” means an evil person (akunin 惡人). Or it may also mean defilements as one’s enemy. It is Enlightenment which is “this” (ji 自) and defilement which is “that” (hi 彼). This is why “that” would mean defilement. It is said in the Ritual of the Establishment of the Mudrā (Ryūinki 立印軌): “If after a [ritual of] homa lasting one night, the messenger does not appear, he (hi 彼 [i.e., “that”]) will necessarily die.”127 And the Ritual of the Quiet Peace (Anchinki 安鎮軌) says: “Draw his (hi 彼 [i.e., “that”]) [i.e. the enemy’s] image and write his (hi 彼 [i.e., “that”]) full name...”128 [End of sub-section.]

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modern Japanese by Yoritomi Motohiro 頼富本宏, in Kūkai korekushon 空海コレクシ ョン, vol. I, Miyasaka Yūshō 宮坂宥勝, ed. (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 2004), 284–91. See Iyanaga 1985, 741 and n. 32. This assertion may seem very unexpected. However, it can be understood if one considers the following series of associations of mythical images. According to the Vinaya­ kṣudrakavastu (Various Issues of Discipline) of Mūlasarvāstivādin (T. XXIV 1451 xxxi 362c21 and sq.), the ogress Hārītī is associated with the fruit of āmra, or mango; the mango being unknown in Japan, some authors changed it to the pomegranate (see, for example, the Yōson dōjōkan 要尊道場觀 (Visualisation Rituals of Main Worthies) by Shunnyū 淳 祐 [890–953], T. LXXVIII 2468 ii 57a9–16). According to some popular traditions, it is said that Hārītī came to like the pomegranate after her conversion because it “smells” like human flesh, her favourite food when she used to eat human children (see Iyanaga 2002, 110 and n. 6). On the other hand, we can demonstrate that ḍākinīs and Hārītī were closely associated in the Buddhist mythical thought. See ibid., 113–20. Thus, the pomegranate can recall the favourite food of the ḍākinīs, that is, “human yellow.” Ch. Jingangshou guangming guanding jing zuisheng liyin sheng Wudong zun daweinu wang niansong yigui fa pin 金剛手光明灌頂經最勝立印聖無動尊大威怒王念誦儀 軌法品, Jp. Kongōshu kōmyō kanjō gyō saishō ryūin shō Mudō-son dai inu ō nenju giki hō bon, T. XXI 1199 7a10–11: “nyaku ichiya goma, shisha fu shutsugen, hi soku ketsujō shi 若一 夜護摩、使者不 [the text of the Kakuzenshō has the character ge 下, but it is certainly a copy error for fu 不] 出現、彼即決定死.” This is a ritual of the King of Wisdom Acala; the text threatens that if the messenger of Acala does not appear to obey the practitioner’s will after a ritual of homa performed during one night, he will certainly die. Kakuzen quotes this and other following texts only for the value of the character 彼, “that” (or “he,” “his”), which could designate anything depending on the context. We should however recall that in the Yugikyō, the object held in Aizen Myōō’s lower left hand was being struck by the lotus held in the corresponding right hand. Thus, the attribute in the lower left hand could be an object that must be “subjugated” by the lotus flower, symbolising the Mind of Enlightenment, held in the right hand. This is another famous ritual manual of the King of Wisdom Acala. The text of the Sheng Budong zun anzhen jiaguo deng fa 聖不動尊安鎭家國等法, Jp. Shō Fudō-son anchin

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It is also said: in the opposition between Original Enlightenment and Ignorance [indicated] by “that” and “this” (hi-shi 彼此), “that” is human yellow, while “this” is Ignorance. The Sūtra says: [If the master of mantras (shingonshi 眞言師) keeps up (goji 護持) the fundamental one-character heart-charm of King Aizen (Aizen-ō konpon ichiji shin 愛染王根本一字心),129 then] this (shi 此) obstacle will be rapidly eliminated and will be unable to approach him in any way (kono shō sumiyakani jometsu shi, sukoshimo shingon surukoto wo ezu 此障速除滅、不得少親近).130 (Note in small characters: I would say personally [watakushi ni iwaku 私云]: This obstacle is the obstacle produced from the proper-nature [of beings] [jishō sho shō no shō 自性所生障];131 this is Radical Ignorance [konpon mumyō 根本無明].) The following are diverse oral traditions (zōzō kuden 雑々口傳). (To use them or not is left up to [the will of each] person.) [End of sub-section.] ([The “thing” held by the lower left hand might be also] the letter A:) According to one master, [Aizen Myōō] does not hold anything other than human yellow. All the defilements and [all] the obstructions due to delusion (wakushō 惑障, Sk. kleśaāvaraṇa), which are as many as the sands of the Ganges, all is produced from Radical Ignorance. On the other hand, he holds the syllable A. This is the letter [meaning] “life” (kore myō no ji nari 是命字也). The Oral Tradition on [the Ritual of ] the Prolongation of Longevity of the [Bodhisattva] Samanthabhadra (Fugen enmei kuketsu 普賢延命口決) says: “On the eight petals [of the lotus-seat], there is the letter of life, that is, to say the letter A (hachiyō no ue ni myō ji ari. A-ji nari 八葉上有命字。A 字也).132 According to the eleventh kan of the Commentary [on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra], “the long vowel Ā kakokutōhō (Various Methods for the Pacification of the State by the Saintly Worthy Acala), T. XXI 1203 31a5–7 relates: “ Make a stone statue of the King of Wisdom Acala twelve fingers in height, draw his [i.e., the enemy’s] image and write his full name on this stone statue, and perform a ritual of exorcism; before long, he [i.e., the enemy] will disappear by himself.” (作一石不動尊明王像、高十二指。畫彼人形。及書彼姓名。 以此石像當上。厭之。如是不久自當消滅矣). 129 I.e., the siddhaṃ character HHŪṂ. 130 See Yugikyō, T. 867 i 258a15–19. The context is that of the sudden manifestation of the “originally existing obstruction of all the sentient beings” (issai shujō honnu shō 一切衆 生本有障). See also below, Appendices n. 136. This implies that the attribute held by the third left hand of Aizen Myōō (that is, “human yellow”) is associated with the “originally existing obstruction.” 131 This expression is found in the Yugikyō: T. 867 i 258a27; see below, Appendix 2, p. 397, n. 136. 132 In the chapter on the Fugen enmei ritual of the Kakuzenshō, TZ. V 3022 lxx 111b7, we find the same sentence. The quoted text is called Kongōchi kuketsu 金剛智口決 (Oral Transmission by Vajrabodhi) according to a note by Kakuzen, TZ. 3022 lxx 111a26. We could not identify the source of this text. But the Enmei bosatsu dōjōkan 延命菩薩道場觀 (Visualisation Ritual of the Bodhisattva of Prolongation of Longevity) of the Yōson dōjōkan by

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is the first root of life [of every other letter].”133 Thus, this is the substance of the spirit of human beings (hito no shin tai 人神體); the letter A is the substance of human yellow (ninnō no tai 人黄體). When delusion has not yet been eradicated, it is the letter A the colour of the flesh (nikujiki 肉色); when it is eradicated, it is the letter A that is white. (Note in small characters: The colour of the flesh is [the colour of] Radical Defilement (konpon bonnō 根本煩惱) [because] it means “staining” (sen gi 染義). The colour white is [the colour of] the destruction of delusion, [that of] the realisation of the fruit [of buddhahood] (shōka 證果). It is the [physical] heart. When [the heart] is covered (ten 纏) [by defilement], then the heart is Original Ignorance (ganpon mumyō), and this is why the King of Wisdom holds it. [When the heart] corresponds to the Concentration of the Heart as Lotus Flower (shin renge zanmai sōō 心蓮花三昧相 應),134 then delusion is eradicated and Enlightenment appears. [End of note.]) [This reveals] the doctrine of the identity of defilement with Enlightenment (bonnō soku bodai no gi nari 煩惱即菩提義也). Or, [it is also said that the King of Wisdom] holds the Moon Wheel (gachirin 月輪). [This is] probably the meaning of the Mind of Enlightenment (bodai shin no gi ka 菩提心義歟). ([The “thing” held by the lower left hand might be also] the Moon Wheel:) Ningai 仁 海 (951–1046)135 says: “Why does the King of Wisdom hold human yellow? The master answers: There are two meanings. According to the supramundane [meaning], all beings have the originally existing obstacle (honnu-shō 本有障). The originally existing [thing] is endowed with the substance of the Original Wheel (honrin tai 本輪體).136

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Shunnyū already mentions the following sentence: “On the altar, there is the letter A, which transforms itself into a lotus seat of eight petals...” (T. LXXVIII 2468 i 47c20). T. 1796 xi 701c28–29: “The long vowel Ā is the first root of life. Because it activates all the letters that it is said ‘life.’” (Chōshō no A, kore wa kore daiichi no myōkon nari. Motte yoku shoji wo ikasu yue-ni myō to iu nari” 長聲之阿。此是阿第一命根也。以能活諸字故 言命也). The “heart as lotus flower” is an image found in the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra: see below, Appendix 2, p. 400, n. 144. Ningai was the founder of the Ono-ryū 小野流 of the Shingon school. This is an allusion to the following passage of the Yugikyō, T. 867 i 258a3–12: “At that moment, in the assembly, an obstruction suddenly appeared, produced not from emptiness. It did not come from another region nor did it appear from the earth; but it suddenly manifested itself. All the bodhisattvas were as though drunk and did not know whence [this obstruction] came. At that moment, the Bhagavat’s face had a smile; he announced to [Bodhisattva] Vajrapāṇi and the other bodhisattvas: ‘Where did this obstruction come from? It came from the originally existent obstruction (honnushō) of all the sentient beings, from the middle of their non-enlightenment without beginning. It is the obstruction produced at the same time as the original substance (honnu kushō 本有倶生), produced by oneself (jiga 自我, Sk. svâtman). It has no beginning, nor origination limit. It is a wheel consubstantial with the original substance (honnu ku honrin 本有倶本輪).’

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[the King of Wisdom] strikes it with the lotus of original nature of purity (honshō shōjō no ren 本性清淨之蓮),137 thus instantly cutting Ignorance and realising the fruit of buddhahood. In the mundane [sense, on the other hand], that [i.e., human yellow] is the spiritual soul (shōryō 精靈) of a human being; hidden in the King of Wisdom’s hand, no evil demon will be able to grasp it at all.” ([The “thing” held by the lower left hand might be also] the heart of the king:) According to one master, human yellow is the heart [or the thought or will] of the king (kokuō no shin 國王心). Whether brought up to achieve excellence or stuck in an interior rank, all beings [depend] indeed [on] the human king’s (ninnō 人王)138 [will]. Especially, if one wishes the [upper] grade in the official rank, fortune and prosperity, one will have to look at the heart [or thought or will] of the king. It is because [all] the desire in the world [depends] on the heart of the king. The Sūtra says: “[If one makes a statue of the Vajra King of Lust of the height of five fingers (go shi wo ryō to nashi tō 五指爲量等) and carries it always on one’s body, then] all the sentient beings and all the kṣatrya kings, [everybody] will be subjugated just like slaves.”139 If one contemplates in the supramundane [way], all the Three Worlds are only one thought; beyond the thought, there is no other dharma [at all]; between the thought, the Buddha and the beings, in these three, there is no distinction (sangai yuiisshin, shin gai mu beppō, shin Butsu oyobi shujō, kono san mushabetsu nari 三界唯一 心、心外無別法、心佛及衆生、是三無差別).140

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At that time, the obstruction suddenly manifested its body, which had the form of Vajrasattva. He manifested a vajra wheel on the summit of his head, a vajra wheel below his feet, and each hand held a vajra wheel. He also manifested a vajra wheel on his heart. His whole body was shinning, his light radiating onto the great bodhisattvas of the assembly...” The “lotus of original nature of purity” is the name of a samādhi taught in the Shobutsukyōgai shō shinjitsu kyō 諸佛境界攝眞實經 (Sūtra of the Compendium of Truth of the Attained Realm of All the Buddhas), T. XVIII 868 i 270c7. Note that, in many ritual manuals, “human yellow” is written with these two characters, meaning “human king,” pronounced ninnō just like 人黄, “human yellow” (see an example in the above, Appendix 2, p. 393, n. 119; a simple SAT search for the term 人王 results in fifty-four occurrences in the Buddhist texts from T. LXXVIII 2482 to T. LXXIX 2536, all Japanese Shingon works). Yugikyō, T. 867 i 257a5–8: “Take a piece of fragrant white sandalwood, and sculpt the king Vajra of Lust (Kongō Aizen-ō 金剛愛染王) to a height of five fingers; and carry it always with your body. All the sentient beings, as well as the kṣatrya kings, [everybody] will be subjugated just like slaves.” This is a well-known adage in Japanese Buddhism; in the Japanese section of the Taishō Canon, we find forty occurrences of this motif in complete or abbreviated forms. It is traditionally said that it is a quotation from the Avataṃsaka sūtra (Jp. Kegonkyō 華厳経), but in fact, there is no exact equivalent of these verses in that work. However, there are

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According to the opinion of Ōomuro 大御室,141 [if one says] “bright yellow,” [it is] the bright purity of human yellow; this is probably [the reason why one] says “bright yellow” (Myōō wa ninnō no myōjō nari. Kore myōō wo iu ka 明黄人黄之明淨。是云明黄 歟).142

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two passages from two different versions of the sūtra where one can find sources of the adage. One is in the Daśabhūmika section in the version by Śikṣānanda, T. X 279 xxxvii 194a14: “All existences in the Three Worlds are a single mind” (sanjie suoyou wei shi yixin 三界所有唯是一心); the other is in the section of the gāthā taught by the Bodhisattva in the Yama palace (Yama tengū bosatsu setsuge bon 夜摩天宮菩薩説偈品) of the version by Buddhabhadra, T. IX 278 x 465c29: “Between the thought, the Buddha and the beings, between these three, there is no distinction” (xin fo ji zhongsheng, shi san wu chabie 心佛及衆生、是三無差別). The expression shin gai mu beppō 心外無別法 (“beyond the thought, there is no other dharma”) seems to occur only in works of Chinese authors: we find it in Huiyuan’s 慧遠 (334–416) Dasheng yizhang 大乘義章, Jp. Daijō gishō (Essay on the Doctrine of Mahāyāna), T. XLIV 1851 xvii.2 810c14; Jizang’s 吉蔵 Dasheng xuanlun 大乘玄論, Jp. Daijō genron (Treatise on the Mysteries of Mahāyāna), T. XLV 1853 iii 40c12; Dashang Ji’s 大乘基 (632–682) Cheng weishi lun shuji 成唯識論述記, Jp. Jō yuishikiron jikki (Commentary on the Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi śāstra), T. XLIII 1830 iii.1 320c13; and Yixing’s Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, T. 1796 xii 705c7. On the other hand, we find in Zhiyi’s 智顗 Mohe zhiguan 摩訶止観, Jp. Maka shikan (The Great Cessation and Contemplation), expressions such as sanjie wu biefa, wei shi yixin zuo 三界 無別法、唯是一心作, and xin fo ji zhongsheng, shi san wu chabie 心佛及衆生、是三 無差別 (T. XLVI 1911 i.2 8b23, 9a6–7). In Japan, it seems that it is Saichō 最澄 (767–822) who was the first author to give the complete form of the adage (for instance, in his Hokke chōkō e shiki 法華長講會式 (Ceremony of Long Lectures on the Lotus Sūtra), T. LXXIV 2362 i 247b2–3); then Annen attributed it to the Avataṃsaka sūtra: Taizō kongō bodaishin gi ryaku mondō shō, T. 2397 ii 487b5–9. One can consider this adage as one of the most representative expressions of the “mind only” thought of Buddhism (yuishin shisō 唯心 思想 – to be distinguished from the “consciousness only” thought, yuishiki shisō 唯識思 想, which is a more specifically technical thought), as well as one of the most important sources of the “Original Enlightenment” thought of medieval Japanese Buddhism. See Oda Tokunō 織田得能, Bukkyō daijiten 佛教大辭典, 609b–c; Mochizuki Bukkyō daijiten 望月佛教大辭典, vol. II, 1471a–1472a. See also Iyanaga 2010, 152 and 158, n. 38. Probably Ōomuro Shōshin shinnō 大御室性信親王 (1005–1085); see Shingonshū zensho 眞言宗全書, Kaidai 解題, 285 where we find the equivalence 大御室 = 大御室性信親 王. Matsumoto Ikuyo, personal communication, April 2012. This sentence is difficult to understand. Perhaps this is an allusion to some canonical text, where it would refer to the colour “bright yellow” or a light of some kind; I have been unable to identify that text. Note however that the “colour of vajra” that is mentioned in the text of the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra quoted below, p. 400, n. 144 is glossed to mean the “colour yellow” in another text written by Yixing, Dapiluzhena foyan xiuxing yigui 大毘盧遮那佛眼修行儀軌, Jp. Daibirushana butugen shugyō giki (Ritual of Practice of Buddha’s Eyes of the Buddha Mahāvairocana), T. XIX 981 413c17.

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According to a certain opinion (aru setsu ni iwaku 或説云), [it is said that] Nyūdō nihon shinnō 入道二品親王143 once asked the director of monks Ningai (Ningai sōjō 仁海僧正) [and Ningai replied]: “Human yellow is the inner heart-liver of the practitioner (gyōja no naishinkan nari 行者内心肝也); it is the heart of flesh in eight parts (hachibun nikudan 八分肉團).144 There is a jewel (ju 珠) in oxen, which is named ‘the king of oxen’ (goju ari goō to nazuku 有牛珠名牛王) and is extremely subtle. There is a jewel in deer, which is named ‘the king of deer.’ These are the oxen’s spirit and deer’s spirit (goshō rokushō 牛精鹿精). Man has also a jewel, named ‘human yellow,’ [and] this is the human spirit (ninshō 人精). The two characters ‘king’ and ‘yellow’ correspond to each other (ō ō no niji aitzūzuru nomi 王黄二字相通耳).”145 (Note in small characters: Certain [persons] say (aruiwa iwaku 或云): these are the hun and the po souls [konpaku, Ch. hunpo 魂魄]. Certain [other persons] say: this is the heart. It has the red colour of the flesh. It is not the liver, since [the liver has] a blue colour (aka wa nikujiki no yue ni. Kan towa tokazu, shōjiki no yue ni 赤肉色故。肝者非説青色故). Certain [other persons] say: human yellow is the man for women and the woman for men (otoko no tameniwa onna wo ninnō to shi, onna no tameniwa otoko wo ninnō to su 爲男女人黄、爲女男人黄). We must contemplate [this matter] (kanzu beshi 可觀)). According to the Raga-hō 羅誐法 (Rāgā ritual),146 many old images had [the lower left hand] holding a human head. (Note in small characters: [According to?] the abbot 143

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Perhaps Ōomuro Shōshin shinnō or rather Dōjo shinnō 道助親王 (1195–1249); see Shingonshū zensho, Kaidai, 292a, where the following two equivalences are given: 禪定二 品親王＝大御室性信親王 or 道助親王. Matsumoto Ikuyo, personal communication, April 2012. This expression comes from the following passage in the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra (T. 1796 iv 623a6–11): “The heart (utsurida-shin 汚栗駄心, Sk. hṛdaya) in ordinary men has the form of a lotus flower which has not yet bloomed. It has muscles and vessels and is made up of eight parts (hachibun 八分). The male’s heart is upward and the female’s one is downward. First, visualise that this lotus flower is coming into bloom. It is a white lotus flower seat of eight petals. On the head of the practitioner, visualise the letter A, in the colour of a vajra (kongō-jiki 金剛色). At its top, place the king of pervading light of one hundred lights (hyakkō henjō-ō 百光遍照王). Visualise this with the purest of eyes. Empower yourself with this, and then you will realise right away the body of Vairocana.” Annen paraphrased the beginning of this passage as follows (T. 2397 i 454b27): “In the chest of all sentient beings, there is a mass of flesh whose form is constituted of eight parts” (issai shujō no kyōkan ni nikudan sono katachi hachibun ari 一切衆生 胸間肉團其形八分). On this text, see my “Le cœur (en forme) de lotus. Une métaphore dans le Mahāvairocana-sūtra et sa tradition,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie (forthcoming). This means that the two characters, ō 黄, “yellow,” and ō 王, “king,” have the same pronunciation. It seems that there are several works having in their titles the word “羅誐” or “Ra Ga” (Sk. rāga or raga): see the webpage of Nihon kotenseki sōgō mokuroku dētabēsu 日本古典籍

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of Miidera [Miidera shu 三井寺主],147 “this” is death, and “that” is life. Its colour is blue, or the colour of flesh, and it has various aspects. There are [also] two traditions [regarding the human head]: one says that the human head is Radical Ignorance. The Ritual of Wish-Fulfilling Wheel Avalokiteśvara (Nyoirin ki 如意輪軌) says: “Now, you must form the mudra for the summoning of sins. Visualise in your mind that you are summoning the sins; their form is that of a black naked [body or head?] with thick hairs.”148 The second [tradition says] that the human head is human yellow.) (About the amount of human yellow:) According to one master, at the top [of the skull, where there is] the cross-shaped [seam] (chō jūji 頂十字), there are six drops of human yellow, guarded by the Five Dragons. The King of Wisdom subjugates them [i.e., these dragons?] (Ninnō rikuryū ari, goryū kore wo mamoru. Myōō kore wo shōbuku su 有人黄六粒。五龍守之。明王攝伏之).149 Or, there are ten drops. It is said also that at the top of men[’s heads], there are seven drops [to be] licked (shichi jiteki 七舐滴);150 if one [of them] is exhausted, one becomes ill, and if [all] seven are exhausted, then one dies.

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總合目録データベース of the Kokubungaku kenkū shiryō kan 國文學研究資料館 for the works of the following IDs: 4039047; 4215025; 4215036; 4215047; 4215058; 4215069; 4215070; 4215081; 4215081. I was unable to consult these works in manuscript form. On the other hand, there is a work entitled Raga kuketsu Ra Ga 口決 of which the manuscript (of the Kamakura period) is (partially?) reproduced in the catalogue of the exhibition of Kanazawa Bunko 金澤文庫, Aizen Myōō: Ai to ikari no hotoke 愛染明王 – 愛と怒りの 佛 [Aizen Myōō: a Buddha of Love and Anger (October to December 2011)] (Yokohama: Kanazawa Bunko, 2011), no. 35 (pages 37 and 80a) – this exhibition, as well as its catalogue, was principally a work by Takahashi Yūsuke 高橋悠介. But as far as I could decipher from the reproduced image of the manuscript, I could not find any mention of a human head. This might indicate one of the Miidera (Onjōji 園城寺) abbots of the time of Kakuzen: Hōkyō 實慶－Jōe 定惠－Jōe 靜惠 (d. 1203)－Shin’en 眞圓－Jitsukei 實慶－Kōin 公胤 (d. 1216) are possible candidates. See Mikkyō daijiten, 197a. See Kanjizai bosatsu nyoirin yuga 觀自在菩薩如意輪瑜伽 (Ritual of Wish-Fulfilling Wheel Avalokiteśvara), T. XX 1086 207c15–18. The final sentence reads: “想彼衆罪状植髮 裸黒形”; Kakuzen-shō uses the character 槇 instead of 植. Quoted from the Denjushū by Kanjin, T. 2482 ii 233b22. Although the meaning is not clear, the mention of the Five Dragons in this context is very interesting. Several other texts mention the “six drops of human yellow at the top of cross-shaped [seam]”: the Atsuzōshi by Genkai (T. LXXVIII 2483 271c7); the Hizō kinpōshō 祕藏金寶鈔 (Compendium of Golden Jewel in the Secret Store) by Jitsuun (T. 2485 iv 355b14); Genpishō 玄祕抄 (Compendium of Secret Mysteries) by the same Jitsuun (T. 2486 ii 389a29–b1); the Jikkishō 實 歸鈔 (Compendium of the True Return) by Seiken 成賢 (T. 2497 706c11); the Shikan by Kōzen (T. 2500 i 777a2): the Usuzōshi kuketsu by Raiyu (T. LXXXIX 2535 xv 267b14) and the Hishō mondō (T. 2536 xii.2 501a9). See also above, p. 376, n. 80. The second character, ji 舐, means “to lick”; it is certainly a scribal mistake for ten 甜, “sweet.” However, as “to lick” can also make sense, I have left it here.

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([The “thing” held by the lower left hand might be also] the eight [horses pulling] the Sun Wheel:151) One uses the Sun Wheel in a ritual for appeasement (sokusai 息災, Sk. śāntika). (Notes in small characters: According to one person (aru hito iwaku 或人 云), it has the meaning of sorcery in love affairs (kyōai gi 敬愛義, Sk. vaśīkaraṇa). Or, [it is said also that] it is used for Wisdom (mata chie ni kore wo mochiu 又智慧用之). Ningai’s principal object of worship (Ningai gohonzon 仁海御本尊) [i.e., the statue of Aizen Myōō used by the monk Ningai in his personal rituals] holds the Sun Wheel [in his lower left hand]. The oral tradition says that the Sun Wheel is a provisional aspect (ke sō 假相) [of Aizen Myōō?]; it is to be understood that this is nothing but human yellow (sunawachi ninnō to narau nari 即人黄習也). As it is a deity protecting longevity, he has it [i.e., human yellow, or the Sun Wheel?] (jumyō wo mamoru son naru ga yue ni ka wo motsu 護壽命尊故持彼); he is the best Buddha for the prolongation of life (enmei daiichi no butsu nari 延命第一佛也). The August Compendium (Goshō 御抄)152 says that, according to the tradition of Rishubō 理趣房傳,153 the [phrase] “holds that” means that the deity holds either the Sun Wheel or the [human] head in the hollow [of his hand] (aruiwa kubomi ni kubi wo nigiru 或凹握首).154 The former is provisional, and the latter is real. All sentient beings have a head; [if it is] cut off, [they will die]. [This is why, they are all] attached to their head. This is the real [reason]; the sun is a provisional meaning.155 It is also said that the sun’s light eclipses the stars’ light. All sentient beings are stars, [whose light] does not appear. [When] the light is realised, it is Mahāvairocana.156

151

152 153 154 155 156

These are the eight horses pulling the chariot of Sūrya, the sun god in Indian mythology (horses are associated with the Greek Apollo, too). Although the Yugikyō does not mention any horses directly related to Aizen Myōō, it is said that his alter ego, Zen’ai Myōō 染 愛明王 appeared from the Bhagavat’s samādhi called “the samādhi of the retractable horse penis” (meonzō samaji 馬陰藏三摩地): T. 867 i 255c12–21 and sq. On the other hand, as it is said that Aizen Myōō shines “like the rays of the sun” and “resides in a blazing circle” (T. 867 i 256c5–6): he was closely associated with the sun, and hence with horses, too (see Yamamoto Hiroko 山本ひろ子, Henjō fu: chūsei shinbutsu shūgō no sekai 變成 譜 – 中世神佛習合の世界 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1993), 310–11 and sq.). This is probably a reference to the Denjushū 傳授集 by Kanjin, one of Kakuzen’s teachers. See also above, p. 393, n. 119. Probably Jakuen 寂圓 (d. 1065). See Mikkyō daijiten, 1046a. This sentence, as well as next several sentences in this paragraph, are difficult to understand, and the meaning can be only guessed. Quoted from the Denjushū by Kanjin, T. 2482 ii 233b17–18. Quoted from the same work, T. 2482 ii 233b19–20. Remember that in the iconography of Aizen Myōō according to the Yugikyō, it is said that he holds a bow and an arrow, in the attitude of shooting toward the stars.

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The master’s tradition157 says that that hand [the lower left hand of Aizen Myōō] forms the fist mudra (ken’in 拳印), and the mouth [perhaps the mouth of the lion crown on his head?] has nothing [in it]. Depending on the various kinds of rituals, one visualises different things. It is like the desired things [held in] the forty hands of OneThousand-Armed [Avalokiteśvara]. “That” hand (hi-shu / ka no te 彼手 [the lower left hand of Aizen Myōō]) is said to be the “hand of success” (jōju shu 成就手). One makes this hand hold a piece of paper on which is written the desired result, then one visualises human yellow on it [in this hand?]. One eliminates [thus] the obstructions due to delusion without beginning. All the siddhi will be successful. (This is the opinion of Naka-Omuro 中御室 [i.e., Kakugyō 覺行 (1075–1104)]).158 Appendix 3 The introductory “question” of the Juhōyōjinshū: 問、近來世間に内の三部經となづけて目出たき經ひろまれり。此の經、昔は 東寺の長者、天台の座主より外に傳へざりけるを、近比流布して京にも田舍にも 人ごとにもてあそべり。此經の文には女犯は眞言一宗の肝心、即身成佛の至極な り。若し女犯をへだつる念をなさば成佛みちとをかるべし。肉食は諸佛菩薩の内 證、利生方便の玄底なり。若し肉食をきらふ心あらば生死を出る門にまよふべ し。されば淨不淨をきらふべからず。女犯肉食をもえらぶべからず。一切の法皆 清淨にして速に即身成佛すべき旨を説くとかや。又此の經に教ふる所の法を行は ば本尊急にたちどころにあらはれ、明かに三世の事を示して行者にきかしめ、福 智をあたへ、官爵をさづけ給ふ故に、此の法の行者現身に神通をえたるが如し。 智弁共にそなはり、福徳自在也。されば昔の大師先徳の驗徳世にすぐれてとぶ鳥 をも落し、流るる水をもかへし、死するものを生け、貧者をとましめし事ひとへ に此の法の驗徳なりと申しあへり。此の事いかやうなるべきぞや。

Question: Recently, felicitous sūtras called the “Three Inner Sūtras” (uchi no san­ bukyō 内の三部經) have spread throughout the world. In earlier times, these sūtras used to be transmitted only among the abbots of [the Shingon centre of] Tōji and the Tendai school, but these days they have spread so widely that everyone trifles with them in the capital as well as in the countryside. I have heard that in these sūtras it is said that intercourse with women is the most crucial thing in the Shingon teaching, and that it is the highest among the [practices for] attaining buddhahood within the

157 158

This might indicate a tradition of Kōzen’s. Matsumoto Ikuyo, personal communication, April 2012. Kakuzenshō, TZ. 3022 lxxxi 252a15–253a1.

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present body (sokushin jōbutsu 即身成佛). If one avoids it, then159 the path to the realisation of buddhahood is said to be distant. Meat-eating is the inner realisation (naishō 内證) of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, the mysterious depths (gentei 玄底) of the skilful means [employed] for one’s benefit. If one dislikes meat-eating, one will be lost in [choosing the right] door to get out from the realm of birth and death. This is why you must not discriminate between the pure and the impure. You must not [not] choose intercourse with women and meat-eating. All the dharmas are pure, and thus one will rapidly attain buddhahood within the present body: this is how it is taught in these sūtras, as I have heard. I have also heard that if one performs the ritual as taught in them, the principal deity (honzon 本尊) will suddenly appear and teach the practitioner all things of the Three Worlds [of the past, present, and future], give him felicity and knowledge, and confer high ranks on him, so much so that this practitioner seems as if he had obtained magical powers within his actual body (genshin 現身). He will be endowed with wisdom and eloquence and will be almighty in felicity. It is said that great masters of olden times, who had such great efficacy [in their magical powers] that they could make flying birds fall, reverse the stream of water, resuscitate dead people, make poor people rich – these great masters uniquely relied on the efficacy of this teaching [or method] (kono hō 此の法). What should I think of all this?160 Appendix 4 The description of the “skull ritual” at the beginning of the second scroll of the Juhōyōjinshū: 　今此の邪法修行の威儀、竝に祕藏の口傳等大概注しあらはさんと思ふ。其 の故には小僧全く是れを祕藏せざる由深く思ひとれる旨をあらはさんと思ひ侍る によりてなり。 　先づ此の邪法修行の作法とは彼の法の祕口傳に云く、此の祕法を修行して 大悉地を得んと思はば本尊を建立すべし。女人の吉相の事は今注するにあたは ず。其の御衣木と云は髑髏なり。此の髑髏を取るに十種の不同あり。一には智 者、二には行者、三には國王、四には將軍、五には大臣、六には長者、七には 父、八には母、九には千頂、十には法界髑なり。此の十種の中に八種は知り易 し。千頂とは千人の髑髏の頂上を取り集めてこまかに末してまろめて本尊を作る なり。法界髑とは重陽（五節也）の日、死陀林にいたりて數多の髑髏を集め於 （オキ）て、日々に行して吒枳尼の神呪を誦して加持すれば、下におけるが常に 上にあがりて見ゆるを取るべし。或は霜の朝に行て見るに霜の置かざるを取るべ

159 160

The Zentsūji manuscript inserts here “one would infringe on the principle of non-duality” (funi no ri ni somuki 背二キ不二ノ理一ニ). Moriyama 1965, 530–31; Sueki I [2008], 80b–81a; Zentsūji manuscript, jō 上, folio 2 verso–3 recto.

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し。或は其の中に頭のぬいめなき髑髏を取る最上なり。是れ等十種の頭の中に何 れにても撰得て本尊を建立すべし。是れを建立するに三種の不同あり。一に大 頭、二には小頭、三には月輪形なり。大頭とは本髑髏をはたらかさずしておとが いをつくり、舌をつくり、齒をつけて、骨の上にムキ漆にてこくそをかいて、生 身の肉の樣によく見にくき所なくしたためつくり定むべし。其の上をよき漆にて 能々ぬりて箱の中に納めおきて、かたらいおける好相の女人と交會して其の和合 水を此の髑髏にぬる事百二十度ぬりかさぬべし。毎夜子丑の時には反魂香を燒て 其の薫をあつべし。反魂の眞言を誦せん事千返に滿つべし。是の如くして數日み なをはりなば髑髏の中に種々相應物竝に祕密の符を書て納むべし。是れ等の支度 よくよく定らば頭の上に銀薄金薄を各三重におすべし。其の上に曼荼羅をかくべ し。曼荼羅の上に金銀薄をおすべし。如前、其の上に又曼荼羅をかくべし。如 是、押しかさね書き重ぬる事、略分は五重六重、中分は十三重、廣分は百二十重 なり。曼荼羅を書く事、皆男女冥合の二渧を以てすべし。舌脣には朱をさし、齒 には銀薄を押し、眼には繪の具にてわこわことうつくしく彩色すべし。或は玉を 以て入れ眼にす。面貌白きものを塗り、べにをつけてみめよき美女の形の如し。 或は童子の形の如し。貧相なく、ゑめる顏にして嗔る形なくすべし。如是つくり たつる間に人の通はぬ道場をかまへて種々の美物美酒をととのへおき、細工と行 人と女人との外は人を入れず、愁心なくして樂しみ遊びて正月三ケ日の如くいは いて、言をも振舞をもたやすべからず。已に作り立てつれば壇上に据えて山海の 珍物魚鳥兔鹿の供具を備へて反魂香を燒き、種々にまつり行ずる事、子丑寅の三 時なり。卯の時に臨まば、錦の袋七重の中に裏みこむべし。寵めて後はたやすく 開くことなく、其の後は夜、行者のはだにあたため、晝は壇に据えて美物をあつ めて養い行ずべし。晝夜に心にかけて餘念なかるべし。如レ是いとなむこと七年 に至るべし。八年になりぬれば行者に悉地を與ふべし。上品に成就する者は、此 の本尊、言を出して物語す。三世の事を告げさとす故に是れを聞きて振舞へば事 神通を得たるが如し。中品に成就する者は、夢の中に一切を告ぐ。下品に成就す る者は夢うつつの告はなけれども一切の所望、心の如く成就すべし。二に小頭と は大頭は持ちにくき故に、大頭の頂上を八分にきりて、其の骨を面像として靈木 を以て頭を作り具して薄を押し、曼荼羅を書き、和合水をぬり、相應物祕符を寵 め、面貌をかざる事前の如し。晝夜頸にかけて養い供養する事も前の如し。三に 月輪形とは大頭の頂上若は眉間等を前の如く取りて大頭の中なる腦の袋をよく干 しあらひて月輪形のうらにムキ漆にてふせて、其の中に種々の相應物祕符をこむ る事、又薄を押し曼荼羅を書き、和合水をぬる事皆前の如し。月輪の面に行者持 念の本尊を繪の具にて書くべし。裏には朱をさすべし。已にしたてなば女人の月 水に染めたる絹にて九帖の袈裟を作て裏むべし。九重の桶の中に入れて七重の錦 の袋に入れて頸にかけて持念する事前の如し。凡そ始め髑髏を取る作法より、終 り建立し極むるに至るまで種々の異論、種々の故實口傳あり。今注する所、纔に 百分が一分の大體許りなり。是れ則、彼の邪法の行者の行儀作法大概是の如し。

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I want to make now a rough account of the rituals (igi 威儀) practised in this perverse teaching (jahō shugyō 邪法修業) and its secretly stored oral traditions.161 The reason why I am doing this is that I want people to deeply understand that I have no intention of storing [all these rituals] in secret [for myself]. First, about the rituals (sahō 作法)162 of this perverse teaching, here is what is said in their secret oral traditions (ka no hō no hikuden ni iwaku 彼の法の祕口傳に云く): Those who want to practice this secret ritual (hihō 祕法) and attain the great siddhis (daishijji 大悉地) must construct the honzon (honzon wo konryū subeshi 本尊を建立す べし).163 I do not refer here to the auspicious aspect of the woman. The misogi 御衣木 [i.e., material support] [of the honzon] is a skull. There are ten different ways to obtain this skull. The first is [to take that of] a wise man; the second, [that of] a practitioner; the third, [that of] a king; the fourth, [that of] a general; the fifth, [that of] a minister; the sixth, [that of] a wealthy man; the seventh, [that of one’s] father; the eight, [that of one’s] mother; the ninth, [that of] a “thousand summits” (senchō 千頂); and the tenth, the “skull of dharmadhātu” (hokkairo 法界髏). Among these ten kinds, the [first] eight are easy to understand. The “thousand summits” means that one takes and gathers the skulls of a thousand men, reduces them into fine flour, and moulds [the paste] into a honzon. As for the “skull of dharmadhātu,” one goes to a graveyard on the chōyō 重陽 day [the ninth day of the ninth month]164 and piles up a large number of skulls; then he chants the spell of Dakini and applies magical power to the pile day after day. He takes the one that, when placed at the bottom of the pile, repeatedly rises to the top; or else he goes out on a frosty morning and selects the one on which no frost has gathered. Or, best of all, he selects a skull that is completely free of suture lines. There are three different ways to construct the honzon. The first is “the whole head” (daitō 大頭), the second “the small head” (shōtō 小頭), and the third “the [head in the] shape of a Moon Wheel” (gachiringyō 月輪形). “The whole head” [is constructed in the 161

162 163 164

The introductory sentences in the second scroll in the two manuscripts (Moriyama 1965 and the Kōzanji manuscript) are very different. However, the description of the ritual itself (after “here is what is said in their secret oral traditions”) are very similar (only some wordings are different). This can be an indication corroborating the hypothesis that this is a quotation from an original text. Siddhi (shijji 悉地) in the Kōzanji manuscript. The Kōzanji manuscript inserts here: “Those who want to construct the honzon must get its support (misogi ミソキ) and a woman of auspicious aspect.” Nine is the “extreme of Yang” (the greatest odd number before ten). The ninth day of the ninth month is the day of “double extreme Yang”: it is the day of the Chrysanthemum Festival (kiku no sekku 菊の節句). The Moriyama edition of 1965 and the Kōzanji manuscript add a note: furikana “gosetsu 五節,” meaning “one of the five seasonal festivals”; the Zentsūji manuscript adds a note in small characters: “kusetsu hi nari 九節日ナリ”; however, 九 is certainly a copy mistake for 五.

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following way:] The practitioner uses the original skull without modification. To this, he adds a chin, puts in a tongue and teeth, and covers the bone with a paste of lacquer mixed with wheat flour (mugi urushi nite kokuso wo kaite ムキ漆にてこくそをかいて) so that it looks just like the unblemished flesh of a living person (shōjin 生身). He applies again and again good lacquer on it and places it in a box. He then has sexual intercourse with a beautiful and willing woman, and repeatedly smears the skull with the liquids produced from the union (wagōsui 和合水) until it reaches one hundred and twenty layers. Each night at the Hours of the Rat and the Ox (ne ushi no toki 子丑 の時),165 he must burn “soul-returning incense” (hangon kō 反魂香), pass the skull through the fragrant smoke, and chant a soul-returning mantra (hangon no shingon 反 魂の眞言) fully one thousand times. After carrying out the above procedure for a number of days, he places appropriate things [?] (sōō motsu 相應物) and secret talismans inside the skull. Once this preparation has been meticulously completed, he covers the skull with three layers of gold and silver leaf. Over these, the mandala must be inscribed, and then more gold and silver leaf applied, then another mandala applied over that, just as before. Thus the layers of foils and writing are built up – the abbreviated form must have five or six layers, the middle form, thirteen layers, and the complete form must have one hundred and twenty layers.166 The ink for these mandalas should be the twin drops of the mysterious union of man and woman (nannyo myōgō no nitai 男女冥 合の二渧). Cinnabar is rubbed into the tongue and lips, the teeth are set with silver leaf, and the eyes167 are painted thin (wako wako to わこわこと) [as if the honzon were smiling], in comely fashion, or alternatively jade may be used for the eyes. The face is painted white and rouge patted in to create the appearance of a beautiful woman. It can also be made to resemble a young boy (dōji 童子).168 The image must look prosperous and have a face that smiles without the slightest hint of reproach. During the entire process, the practitioner must construct a building for practice (dōjō 道場) in a place where no one ever goes, and various delicacies and fine wines must be prepared. No one must enter there but the craftsman, the practitioner, and the woman. There they must happily and ceaselessly disport themselves as if celebrating the first three days of the New Year. Words and acts must not stop. Once the honzon is finished, it is installed on the altar. Offerings of rare things – fish, fowl, hare, and venison, from the mountains to the sea – [must] be made; “spirit-returning” incense is burned; and the various observances are carried out at the Hours of the Rat, the Ox, 165 From eleven at night until three in the morning. 166 The Kōzanji manuscript adds here: “You must apply (shaku 釋, which is probably an error for osu 押) leaves.” 167 The Kōzanji manuscript adds here “and eyebrows.” 168 The Kōzanji manuscript and the Zentsūji manuscript add here: “Since the good or poor result depends on how beautiful the face is, it must be without the slightest trace of ugliness, with a suggestion of good fortune, without any ungainliness.”

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and the Tiger (ne ushi tora no sanji 子丑寅の三時).169 With the arrival of the Hour of the Hare [i.e., dawn], the honzon is placed in a bag made of seven layers of brocade. Once this bag has been closed, it must not be easily reopened. At night the bag is held close to the practitioner’s body to keep it warm; during the day it is placed on the altar, where delicacies must be gathered and offered for its nourishment. Day and night, he must take care of it and not think of other things. For seven years, he must continue this practice. When the eighth year comes, he will obtain siddhi. For those who reach the highest grade of success, the honzon will speak aloud. It will inform him of all the events of the Three Worlds [of past, present, and future]; if he listens to it and acts accordingly, he becomes as someone who had acquired supernatural powers (jinzū 神通). For practitioners of the middling rank, the honzon will tell them such things in their dreams. It will not speak to those who attain only the lowest levels, but all their desires will come to be realised in accordance with their wishes. The second method, the “small head” method, exists because of the difficulty of carrying a whole-head skull170 about. The top of one whole head must be cut off at the eighth part and the bone used as a face; [adding to that face?] the practitioner makes a head with a piece of wood of a sacred tree. Again, one applies foils [of gold and silver?], and sketches in the mandala, daubs the honzon with the liquids of union, inserts the appropriate things [?] and secret amulets, and decorates the face just as before. The “small head” is then hung about the neck and nourished in the same way as before. In the case of the third, “the [head in the] shape of a Moon Wheel” method, the top of a whole-head cranium is cut off at the level of the eyebrows, the brain pan is carefully dried and cleaned, and the Moon Wheel-shaped inner cavity coated with lacquer mixed with wheat flour. Various appropriate things [?] and secret amulets are placed in it; foils [of gold and silver?] are applied, the mandala is laid out, and the liquids of union smeared over, all as before. On the surface of the Moon Wheel, the practitioner must paint the honzon of his worship (gyōja jinen no honzon 行者持念の本尊). Cinnabar is packed on the reverse side [?] (ura niha shu wo sasu beshi 裏には朱をさす べし). When all is ready, the practitioner should wrap the skull in a nine-layered monk’s habit made from silk stained with menstrual blood. He then places it in a ninelayered bucket wrapped in seven layers of brocaded silk, hangs this from his neck, and devoutly worships it as before. On the whole, from the method of taking the skull until the end of the construction of the honzon, there are many divergent opinions and different kinds of oral traditions

169 170

From eleven at night to five in the morning. The Zentsūji manuscript omits the “whole-head skull.”

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and ancient practices. What I wrote here is only a hundredth of all of them. These are the general lines of the ritual practices of the practitioners of that perverse teaching.171 [N.B. The description of the ritual of the construction of honzon stops here, but it seems that the quotation from some original text(s) of “that teaching” (“a secret oral tradition of that teaching”) still continues, even though Shinjō seems to insert words of his own in it. I translate below the text until the citation would come to an end.] 問　此の本尊に必ず髑髏を用ふる事何心ぞや。 答　衆生の身中には三魂七魄とて十種の神心あり。衆生死すれば三魂は去て 六道に生をうけ、七魄は裟婆に留まつて本骸をまもる鬼神となる。夢に見え、物 に托する事、皆此の七魄のなす所なり。人此の髑髏を取りて能く能く養いまつれ ば其の七魄喜び行者の所望に隨つて有漏の福徳を與ふるなり。曼荼羅を書き、祕 符を籠めつれば、曼荼羅と祕符との威力に依りて通力自在なり。此の故に種々に 建立するなり。 問　和合水を塗る事何の故ぞや。 答　衆生の生益する事は二渧を種として生ずる故に此の二渧を髑髏にぬりて 髑髏にこもれる七魄を生ぜしむるなり。喩へば水にあひて諸の種の生ずるが如 し。抑々人身の三魂七魄は本より二渧の中に備はり、二渧の母の胎内にしてやう やうかたまりて肉となり、乃至人の體となるに隨つて魂魄同じく生長して智惠賢 き人とも生ひたてり。然らば今二渧を髑髏にぬれば二渧の三魂と髑髏の七魄とよ り合て生身の本尊となるべし。魂を「をたましい」と云ひ、魄を「めたましい」 といふ。陰陽相應せざれば生身となり難し。陰陽を相應して生身となさむためな り。此の故に和合水をぬる間に女人を懷妊せさせじとするなり。若し百二十度ぬ る間に懷妊せずば其の後は數を定めず、懷妊を期としてぬるべし。則正しく子種 の和合水をぬりて三魂を髑髏の七魄に相應せしめんためなり。建立し經つて後は 常に行者の肌にそへてあたたかなる氣分を入てひやす事なし。鳥の卵をあたため て生長するが如きなり。七年を限りてあたため養ひまつる事は、此の本尊本より 吒枳尼の祕術なり。吒天は文殊の化身なり。龍女は應跡吒天と同體なり。彼の龍 女は八歳にして正覺を成ぜしかば此の本尊も龍女の本儀によりて八歳より効驗を ほどこすべし。故に八歳を待つべし。 問　此の法成就の後本尊生身と成て行者と物語する時はいかなる相好にて現 ずるぞや。 答　地躰は只建立の髑髏の體をあらためず。能々修行すれば七魄即ち七鬼の 女形に現じて見ゆる時もあり。或は七野干の形を現ずる時もあり。吒天の法を七

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Moriyama 1965, 555–58; Sueki III [2010], 42a–44b; Zentsūji manuscript, ge 下, folio 3 verso–5 recto. (The Kōzanji manuscript does not have the last sentence.) Sanford 1991, 10, 12, 13–14.

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野干の法と申すは此の故なり。或は又七佛の形像を現じて光明をはなち説法する 事もあり。機に隨て現ずといへり。

Question: Why is a skull always used for the honzon? Answer: The bodies of living beings contain ten spiritual essences (jisshu no jinshin 十種の神心) – three hun souls (sankon 三魂) and seven po souls (shichihaku 七魄). When a person dies, the three hun souls go and receive rebirth in the Six Paths [of transmigration] (rokudō 六道), while the seven po souls linger about their old body as [guardian] demonic spirits in this Saha world. The spirits that appear in dreams and deliver oracles (mono ni takusuru 物に托する)172 are all [manifestations of] the seven po souls. When the practitioner takes a skull and carries out the rite of carefully nourishing it, the seven po souls are happy to grant him the worldly fortune (urō no fukutoku 有漏の福徳 [literally, “stained felicity”]) he seeks. If he draws the mandalas and inserts the secret talismans, he will attain mastery of magical powers by the mighty powers of talismans and mandalas. This is why there are different rituals for the construction [of the honzon]. Question: Why are the liquids of [sexual] union painted on? Answer: The vitality of living beings (shujō no shōyaku suru koto 衆生の生益する 事)173 has the twin drops (nitai 二渧) as its seed. When the skull is daubed with these two drops, the seven po souls that linger in the skull are revived. It is like adding water to sprout seeds. Just so, the three hun and seven po souls of the human body were originally contained in the twin drops, which gradually coagulate in the mother’s womb to become flesh.174 As the human body is formed, the hun and po souls grow up and become even wise men.175 This being the case, by smearing the skull with the twin drops, the three hun souls of the twin drops combine with (yori aite より合て [literally, “are twinned with”]) the seven po souls of the skull, and a living honzon (shōjin no honzon 生身の本尊) is produced. Hun souls are called male souls (otamashii をたましい), and po souls are called female souls (metamashii めたましい). If Yin and Yang are not in correspondence, a living body (shōjin 生身) is not likely to develop. This is in order to make Yin and Yang in correspondence and produce a living body. For this reason, while the liquids of [sexual] union are being used for smearing, the practitioner makes every effort for a [normal] conception not to take place. If the conception has not 172 173 174

175

In the Kōzanji and Zentsūji manuscripts, “who put curses on people (mono no tataru モ ノノタゝル).” Shōyaku seems to mean “to be born and grow up.” The Kōzanji manuscript adds here “The three hun souls and seven po souls gradually grow up and become a [human] baby; he leaves the mother’s womb, sticks close to his father’s body (hadae ni tsukite ハタヘニ付キテ), and grows up, to become a wise child.” The Kōzanji manuscript adds: “When he dies, his hun souls go away, and only the po souls will remain with the corpse.”

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occurred by the end of applying the one hundred and twenty layers, then one no longer counts [the layers] and simply keeps adding on the liquids until conception does happen. This is to make the three hun souls of the liquids of union [that are the] childseed (kodane no wagōsui 子種の和合水) correspond with the seven po souls of the skull.176 After the skull has been prepared, the practitioner must always warm it against his bare skin, never letting it cool off, just like a bird warming its eggs to give them life. Taking care that the skull is kept warm and nourished for seven years is based on the fact that the construction of this honzon is originally a secret ritual of Dakini. Dakiniten is a transformation body of Mañjuśrī, and the Daughter of Nāga [King] (Ryūnyo 龍 女) is a corresponding trace (ōjaku 應跡) [of Mañjuśrī]177 [so that] she is of the same substance as Dakini-ten. Since that Nāga King’s Daughter attained the correct enlightenment at the age of eight years, the honzon of this [ritual] must become efficacious from the age of eight. That is why one has to wait eight years [for its efficacious powers]. Question: After this ritual is completed and the honzon comes alive (shōjin to narite 生身となりて) to talk with the practitioner, in what guise will it appear before him?178 Answer: The earthly form (jitai 地躰) simply remains the form of the skull.179 If one practices assiduously, at times it happens that the seven po souls appear in the form of seven demons of female form;180 at other times they will appear as seven jackals (yakan 野干). This is why the Dakini-ten rite is also called the Seven-Jackal Rite (shichi yakan

176 177

178

179 180

The Kōzanji manuscript adds “in order to produce the living body.” The Kōzanji manuscript writes “龍女ハ文殊ノ應迩” (where 迩 is certainly an error for 迹). The Zentsūji manuscript and the Moriyama 1965 edition omit 文殊の (of Mañjuśrī), which makes this sentence difficult to understand. In the Lotus Sūtra, T. IX 0262 iv 35b12– c26, Mañjuśrī goes to the ocean to preach the Lotus Sūtra, and the Nāga King’s Daughter achieves her buddhahood. Dakini is often related to Mañjuśrī in medieval esoteric texts. See, for example, Keiranshūyōshū, T. 2410 xxxix 632a19–20: “This deva [Dakini-ten] is the transformed manifestation of the Great Saintly Mañjuśrī” (此天 [i.e., 吒枳尼天] 大聖文 殊化現也). On the Nāga King’s Daughter and her attainment of buddhahood in medieval Japan, see Yamamoto Hiroko 山本ひろ子, “Jōbutsu no radikalizumu: Hokekyō Ryūnyo jōbutsu no chūsei teki tenkai 成佛のラディカリズム — 『法華經』龍女成佛の中 世的展開,” in Nihon shisō no shinsō 日本思想の深層, (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1989), 171–218. In the Zentsūji manuscript, this is not presented as a new “question and answer” (it omits the words mon 問, “Question,” and tō 答, “Answer,” and the phrase “in what guise will it appear before him?”). The Zentsūji manuscript omits this sentence. The Zentsūji manuscript writes: “Or at times, the spirits of the seven po souls included in the skull can appear in the form of seven po soul women.”

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no hō 七野干の法).181 At other times, they appear in the form of seven buddhas, shining radiance and preaching. They manifest themselves in the guise most fitting to the circumstances.182 Thus is it said (to ieri といへり).183 [N.B.: Shinjō’s quotation, which began with the account of the skull ritual, introducing it (“here is what is said in their secret oral traditions...”) seems to end here with “Thus is it said.” The pair “... ni iwaku” に云く and “to ieri” と云へり indicates the beginning and the end of quotations (we must recognise, though, that the contents of the final two paragraphs are rather different in the Zentsūji manuscript; this can raise some doubt about the faithfulness of the quotation of these paragraphs).]

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There is a short quotation from a text entitled Shichi yakanhō attributed to Memyō bosatsu 馬鳴菩薩 (Sk. Aśvaghoṣa) in the Keiranshūyōshū, T. LXXVI 2410 lxvii 732a17–22. It is not clear whether this is related to the text mentioned here. The Zentsūji manuscript writes instead of this sentence: “It also happens that [these po souls] manifest themselves in various miraculous forms which please the practitioner; they are almighty in following the desires of the faculties [of the practitioner].” Moriyama 1965, 558–559; Sueki III [2010], 45a–46b; Zentsūji manuscript, ge, folio 5 verso-7 recto. Instead of to ieri (which is the standard formula closing a quotation), the Zentsūji manuscript writes: “This is the gist of what is written” (mune wo kaki arawashi-tari 旨ヲ書 顯シタリ).

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Lachaud, François. 2003. “Dans la fumée des morts. Avatars japonais d’une anecdote chinoise,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient, vol. 90–91: 145–72. Matsumae Takeshi 松前健. 1988. “Inari myōjin to kitsune 稲荷明神とキツネ [Inari Deity and the Fox].” In Inari myōjin: Shōichi-i no jitsuzō 稲荷明神 – 正一位の實像 [Inari Myōjin: The True Image of [a Deity of] the Senior First Rank], Matsumae Takeshi, ed., 73–90. Tōkyō: Chikuma shobō. Mizukami Fumiyoshi 水上文義. 2008. Taimitsu shisō keisei no kenkyū 台密思想形成の 研究 [Studies on the Formation of Tendai Esoteric Thought]. Tokyo: Shunjūsha. Momo Hiroyuki 桃裕行. 1990. Rekihō no kenkyū 暦法の研究 [Study of Calendrical Methods], ge 下. In Momo Hiroyuki chosaku shū 桃裕行著作集 [Works of Momo Hiroyuki], vol. VII. Kyōto: Shibunkaku shuppan. Moriyama Shōshin 守山聖眞. 1965. Tachikawa jakyō to sono shakaiteki haikei no kenkyū 立川邪教とその社会的背景の研究 [Study on the Perverse Teaching of Tachikawa and its Social Background]. Tokyo: Rokuyaen. Nakamura Teiri 中村禎里. 2006. Chūgoku ni okeru ninshin, tai hassei-ron no rekishi 中國 における妊娠・胎発生論の歴史 [History of Thought on Pregnancy and Embryology in China]. Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan. ———. 2001. Kitsune no Nihonshi: Kodai Chūsei hen 狐の日本史 —古代・中世篇 [History of Fox in Japan: Antiquity and Middle Ages]. Tokyo: Nihon editā sukūru shuppanbu. Nakayama Tarō 中山太郎. [1930] 1984. Nihon fujoshi 日本巫女史 [History of Japanese Female Shamans]. Tokyo: Ōokayama shuppan; reprint Tokyo: Patorususha. Nishioka Yoshifumi 西岡芳文. 2012. “Aspects of Shikiban-Based Mikkyō Rituals,” Cahiers d’Extrıeme-Asie 21: 137–62. ———, ed. 2007. Onmyōdō kakeru Mikkyō 陰陽道×密教 [Onmyōdō Combined with Buddhist Esotericism]. Catalogue of the Special Exhibition. Yokohama: Kanazawa Bunko. Ogawa Toyoo 小川豐生. 2014. Chūsei Nihon no shinwa, moji, shintai 中世日本の神話・ 文字・身体 [Myths, Letters, and the Body in medieval Japan]. Tokyo: Shinwasha. Robert, Jean-Noël ジャン=ノエル・ロベール. 2011. “Kotoba no Chikara: chūsei shakkyōka no imi-ron 言葉の力—中世釋教歌の意味論 [The Power of Word: Semantics of Medieval Buddhist Poems].” In Seinaru koe: Waka ni hisomu chikara 聖なる聲— 和歌にひそむ力 [Saintly Voice: the Power Hidden in Japanese Poems], Abe Yasurō 阿部泰郎 and Nishiki Hitoshi 錦仁, eds., 3–28. Tokyo: Miyai shoten. Ruppert, Brian. 2000. Jewel in the ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center. Shibata Kenryū 柴田賢龍, web page a. “Tōdaiji Shingon-in to nyoi hōju 東大寺眞言院 と如意寶珠 [The Shingon’in at Tōdaiji and the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel]” . Accessed on February 7th, 2012.

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———, web page b. “Kanazawa bunko zō Shingon Tachikawa-ryū shōgyō no wayaku shōkai 金澤文庫藏眞言立川流聖教の和譯紹介 [Introduction and Translation into Modern Japanese of the Sacred Documents of the Tachikawa-ryū of the Shingon School Preserved in Kanazawa Bunko]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012. ———, web page c. “Kanazawa bunko zō Shingon Tachikawa-ryū shōgyō no wayaku shōkai, ketsugo 金 澤 文 庫 藏 眞 言 立 川 流 聖 教 の 和 譯 紹 介 （ 結 語 ） [Ibid., Conclusion]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012. ———, web page d. “Zoku Kanazawa bunko zō Shingon Tachikawa-ryū shōgyō no wa­ yaku shōkai, ketsugo 續・金澤文庫藏眞言立川流聖教の和譯紹介 [Sequel to ibid.]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012. ———, web page e. “Shingon Tachikawa-ryū no sōdensha Jōgetsu shōnin no shiryō shōkai to kaisetsu 眞言立川流の相傳者浄月上人の史料紹介と解説 [Introduction to and Explanation on the Historical Documents about the Holy Man Jōgetsu, a Transmitter of the Tachikawa-ryū of the Shingon School]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012. ———, web page f. “Hōkyō shōnin sōden no Isshin kanjō injin ni tsuite 寶篋上人相傳 の「一心灌頂印信」について [On the “Document of Transmission of the Abhiṣeka of the Single Mind Transmitted by the Holy Man Hōkyō]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012. ———, web page g. “Yugi yuga ri kanjō ni tsuite 瑜伽瑜祇理灌頂について [On the Abhiṣeka of the Principle of Yoga]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012. ———, web page h. “‘Richi myōgō’ kanjō inmyō no koto「理智冥合」灌頂印明の事 [On the Mudra and Mantra of the Abhiṣeka of the ‘Mysterious Union of Principle and Wisdom’]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012. ———, web page i. “Gendaigo-yaku ‘Ajari-i in kuden (shi)’ 現代語譯『阿闍梨位印口傳 〔私〕』 [Translation into Modern Japanese of ‘(Private Note on) the Oral Transmission of the Mudra of the Rank of Ācārya’]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012. ———, web page j. “Shamon bō-saku no Shinjō-sen “Juhō yōjin-shū” jo ni tsuite 沙門某 作の「心定撰『受法用心集』序」に付いて [On the Anonymous Preface to the Juhōyōjinshū by Shinjō]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012. ———, web page k. “Shibata Kenryū mikkyō bunko 柴田賢龍密教文庫 [Shibata Kenryū’s Esoteric Library]” . Accessed on May 20th, 2012.

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Shizuka Haruki 静春樹. 2007. Gana chakura no kenkyū: Indo kōki mikkyō ga hiraita chihei ガナチャクラの研究 – インド後期密教が開いた地平 [A Study on Gaṇacakra: Horizon Opened by the Later Indian Esotericism]. Tokyo: Sankibō bus­shorin. “Shōshūten” 小周天 . Accessed on January 3, 2012. Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士. 2014. “Shinjō Juhōyōjinshū no shohon ni tsuite 心定『受 法用心集』の諸本について [On Different Manuscripts of Shinjō’s Juhō­yō­jinshū],” Bukkyō bunko ronshū 佛教文化論集 [Collection of Essays on Buddhist Culture] 11: 3–25. ———. 2012. “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku teisei 高山寺本『受法用心集』 の翻刻訂正 [Corrections of the Transcription of the Kōzanji Manuscript of the Juhōyōjinshū].” In Heisei nijūni nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū [Ibid.], Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyōsha daikō Ishizuka Harumichi 代表者代行石塚春通), eds., 29a–35a. Tokyo. ——— [Sueki IV]. 2011. “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku kenkyū IV 高山寺本 『受法用心集』の翻刻研究（四) [Ibid., IV].” In Heisei nijūni nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū [Ibid. of the Twenty-second Year of Heisei Era], Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyō Tsukishima Hiroshi), eds., 29a– 45b. Tokyo. ——— [Sueki III]. 2010. “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku kenkyū III 高山寺本 『受法用心集』の翻刻研究（三) [Ibid., III].” In Heisei nijūichi nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū [Ibid. of the Twenty-first Year of Heisei Era], Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyō Tsukishima Hiroshi), eds., 41a– 50b. Tokyo. ——— [Sueki II]. 2009. “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku kenkyū II 高山寺本 『受法用心集』の翻刻研究（二) [Ibid., II].” In Heisei nijū nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū [Ibid. of the Twentieth Year of Heisei Era],” Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyō Tsukishima Hiroshi), eds., 46a– 75b. Tokyo. ———. [Sueki I]. 2008. “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū no honkoku kenkyū I 高山寺本『受 法用心集』の翻刻研究（一) [Transcription and Study of the Kōzanji Manuscript of the Juhōyōjinshū I].” In Heisei jūkyū nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū (Ibid. of the Nineteenth Year of Heisei Era], Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan (Daihyō Tsukishima Hiroshi), eds., 80a–87a. Tokyo. ———. 2007. “Kōzanji-bon Juhōyōjinshū ni tsuite 高山寺本『受法用心集』について [On the Kōzanji Manuscript of the Juhōyōjinshū].” In Heisei jūhachi nendo Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan kenkyū hōkoku ronshū 平成十八年度高山寺典籍文書 綜合調査團研究報告論集 [Reports of the General Study Team of Manuscipts of Kōzanji of the Eighteenth Year of Heisei Era], Kōzanji tenseki monjo sōgō chōsadan

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(Daihyōsha Tsukishima Hiroshi) 高山寺典籍文書綜合調査團（代表者築島裕), eds., 5a–11b. Tokyo. Suzuki Shōei 鈴木昭英. 2004. Reizan mandara to shugen fuzoku: Shugendō rekishi minzoku ronshū 靈山曼荼羅と修驗巫俗 —修驗道歴史民俗論集 [Sacred Mountain Mandalas and Shamanic Customs of Yamabushi: Studies of Historical Folklore of Shugendō]. Kyoto: Hōzōkan. Takahashi Yūsuke 高橋悠介, ed. 2011. Aizen Myōō: Ai to ikari no hotoke 愛染明王—愛と 怒りの佛 [Aizen Myōō: a Buddha of Love and Anger]. Catalogue of the Special Exhibition. Yokohama: Kanazawa Bunko. Tanaka Takako 田中貴子. 2006. Gehō to aihō no chūsei 外法と愛法の中世 [Middle Ages of External Recipes and Love Recipes]. Tokyo: Heibonsha. Teeuwen, Mark. 2006. “Knowing vs. Owning a Secret: Secrecy in Medieval Japan, as Seen through the Sokui Kanjō Enthronement Unction.” In The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion, Bernhard Scheid, Mark Teeuwen, eds., 172–203. London and New York: Routledge. Toyohara sanzenbō shiryō kan 豐原三千坊史料館 [Historical Museum of the Toyohara Temple] . Accessed on March 16th, 2012. Vanden Boucke, Pol. 1989–90. “Yugikyō, De schriftuur van alle Yoga’s en Yogi’s van het paviljoen met vajra-top (T. XVIII no. 867, 253–69).” PhD Dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Gent. White, David Gordon. 2003. Kiss of the Yoginī : “Tantric Sex” in its South Asian Contexts. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Yamamoto Hiroko 山本ひろ子. 1993. Henjō fu: chūsei shinbutsu shūgō no sekai 變成譜 ——中世神佛習合の世界 [Records of Metamorphosis: the World of Medieval Syncretism of Buddhas and Kami]. Tokyo: Shunjūsha. ———. 1989. “Jōbutsu no radikalizumu: Hokekyō Ryūnyo jōbutsu no chūsei teki tenkai 成佛のラディカリズム—『法華經』龍女成佛の中世的展開 [The Radicalism of the Realisation of Buddhahood: Medieval Developments of the Lotus Sūtra’s Tale of the Realisation of the Buddhahood of the Nāga’s Daughter].” In Nihon shisō no shinsō 日本思想の深層 [The Depth of Japanese Thought], 171–218. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Yamazaki Makoto 山崎誠. 1993. Chūsei gakumonshi no kitei to tenkai 中世學問史の基 底と展開 [The Basis and Development of the History of Scholarship in Middle Ages]. Osaka: Izumi shoin. Yoritomi Motohiro 頼富本宏. 2004. Ben kenmitsu nikyōron 辯顯密二教論 [Treatise of Comparison between Exoteric and Esoteric Discourse], by Kūkai. Modern Japanese translation. In Kūkai korekushon 空海コレクション [Works of Kūkai], vol. I, Miyasaka Yūshō 宮坂宥勝 et al., eds. Tokyo: Chikuma shobō.

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Chapter 10

“Lost in the Womb”: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men Anna Andreeva Introduction Japan’s esoteric Buddhist milieu had fostered predominantly male scholarship. Thus, the “state of great awakening” (or “enlightenment with this very body,” sokushin jōbutsu 即身成仏) and the theories describing how to achieve it were available mostly to male practitioners. Inherent in the canonical Buddhist sources was the idea that women, due to the nature of their bodies, were unable to achieve enlightenment, unless they could first be transformed into males.1 However, although the monastic bodies, particularly those “to be awakened,” were male and supposedly celibate, the unshakable truth was that they were still physically conceived by laymen and laywomen, as a result of a sexual act of procreation. In Buddhist terms, this realisation led to the understanding that it was not only the conception and development of a human embryo that could be interpreted as a progress toward awakening (even before birth), and thus be ritualised and sanctified, but also the medium of two biological parents and the wombs of mothers that could theoretically be considered in terms of their esoteric Buddhist agency and soteriological potential. Such ideas came to be reflected in a variety of commentaries and responses to scriptures, ritu-

1 For example, the “Devadatta Chapter” in the Lotus Sutra, which was arguably one of the most influential Buddhist scriptures in East Asia. Medieval vernacular texts and sermons addressed to women, including Mujū Ichien’s 無住一圓 (1226–1312) Tsuma Kagami 妻鏡 (The Mirror for Women, ca. early fourteenth century), described in detail the obstacles and impediments that women faced in daily life. However, such admonitions also explained the possibilities for women’s enlightenment and their service to Buddhism by citing the stories of Queen Vaidehi, the Dragon King’s Daughter, or in some cases, the Sutra of Queen Srīmāla. See, for example, Tsuma Kagami, in Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 日本古典文学大系, vol. 83, Kana hōgoshū 仮 名法語集, Miyasaka Yūshō 宮坂有勝, ed. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1964), 176–78; for an annotated English translation, see Robert E. Morrell, “Mirror for Women: Mujū Ichien’s Tsuma Kagami,” Monumenta Nipponica 35/1 (1980): 67–68.

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als, and earlier scholarship that were produced by esoteric Buddhist, Shinto, and other practitioners during the medieval and early modern periods. This chapter considers the selected reproductive imagery related to conception and the agency of parents (in some cases, specifically, women) that are found in the ritual documents and writings attributed to different kinds of medieval Buddhist scholars and practitioners. One kind can be best described as the Shingon scholar-monks who were based at established monastic centres of esoteric learning, such as Kōyasan 高野山 and Daigoji 醍醐寺, and who were involved in constructing new interpretations of esoteric Buddhist scriptures and mapping out the ritual implications of their ideas. The others were far less known mikkyō 密教 priests who resided at local temples and study halls (bessho 別所) situated in the countryside. Based often at a considerable distance from large temples and major monastic centres, such priests were not in any sense elite or privileged. Nevertheless, they were actively involved in the study and practice of esoteric Buddhism and spread of its teachings, and were keenly attuned to the new secret discourses radiating from the leading centres of ritual study and worship. Some of these practitioners founded their own local study groups and ritual lineages that became prominent during the later periods, due to their specialisation in the worship of indigenous deities (kami 神) and other popular forms of practice. The writings and rituals that, literally, “grew out” of knowledge acquired by the so-called “countryside” priests through their links to scholars at established esoteric temples indicate that many of the ideas developed by the medieval scholarly Buddhist milieu were not only available to the court elite (as will be shown below) but also transported by such semi-itinerant priests further afield, to other localities and strata of society. It is precisely this kind of social and religious mobility that had a profound impact on the spheres of religious and cultural production in medieval and early modern Japan. To cast light on the involvement of these priests, in addition to primary Buddhist scriptures and commentaries, this chapter will refer to the ritual documents and transmissions attributed to the so-called Miwa-ryū 三輪流 and Goryū 御流 Shinto lineages which were based at local Buddhist temples and operated in social contexts not directly connected to court or aristocratic households. The byproducts of esoteric Buddhist framework that dominated the world of medieval Japan, these two traditions were developed and transmitted mostly by nonelite Buddhist practitioners; they had their roots in the paradigms of shinbutsu shūgō 神仏習合 (the thought and practice merging the local deities, kami, and divinities of Buddhism) and were constitutive parts of the phenomenon now known as “medieval Shinto” (chūsei Shintō 中世神道). Both the Miwa-ryū and

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Goryū ritual transmissions were rather eclectic and appear to have been more systematised only in the late medieval and early modern periods. 1

Medieval Scholars and Holy Men on Enlightenment and Conception

The emphasis on the male monastic body as a site for achieving the ultimate goal of awakening and esoteric enlightenment was constantly reiterated in Buddhist commentaries and theological compendiums. These texts were recorded, transmitted and copied by the medieval clerics, scholar-monks (gakusō 学僧), and holy men (shōnin 上人) based at major Buddhist complexes, for instance Kōyasan or Daigoji, and local Buddhist facilities (bessho) in the countryside. One good example of such commentarial tradition is a collection called Kakugenshō 覚源抄 (Extracts from Lectures by Kakukai and Yūgen),2 recorded by a man called Miwa Shōnin 三輪上人, or more precisely, Hōkyō Rendōbō 宝筐蓮道房 (act. 1210–1270?). Although the exact date is unclear, this text may have been drafted in the first half of the thirteenth century and revised later. As its title suggests, Kakugenshō was based on the oral instructions by two prominent figures from Kōyasan: Kakukai 覚海 (1142–1223), a scholar-monk who at different times also resided at Daigoji, Zuishin’in 随心院, and Ishiyamadera 石山寺 in Kyoto;3 and Yūgen 融源 (1169–?), a scholar from Daidenbōin 大伝法院 who studied under the famous master Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143).4 The author of Kakugenshō, Rendōbō, was himself educated and trained under esoteric master Jitsugen 実賢 (or, Jikken, 1176–1249), at Kongōōin 金剛王院, one of the sub-temples of Daigoji, in the Fushimi district of Kyoto. Along with other mendicant scholars and holy men, congregating at a bessho near Mount Miwa not far from Nara in southeastern Yamato, Rendōbō 2 Kakugenshō 覚源抄 (Extracts from Lectures by Kakukai and Yūgen), by Hōkyō Rendōbō 宝筐蓮道房, in Shingonshū zensho 真言宗全書, Takaoka Ryūshin 高岡隆心 et al., eds. (Kōyasan: Shingonshū zensho kankōkai, 1933–1939), vol. 36, 325–91. The surviving manuscript copies of this collection are preserved at Kōyasan and date back from Eiroku 6 (1564) and Enpō 5 (1678). 3 Mikkyō daijiten 密教大辞典 (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, [1970] 2007; hereafter, MDJ), 215. Originally from Tanba Province, Kakukai studied under the Shingon monk Jōkai 定海 at Sanbōin of Daigoji, before moving to Kōyasan, where he opened the temple Rengeōin 蓮華王院 and subsequently rose to the position of head administrator (kengō 検校) of Kongōbuji in 1217. Much like other residents at Kōyasan temples, Kakukai was interested in esoteric teachings on Pure Land (mitsugon jōdo 密厳浄土). 4 MDJ, 2194.

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played a crucial role in collecting commentaries and secret transmissions of esoteric Buddhist teachings from the main and sub-lineages at elite Buddhist temples.5 These were later consolidated by his followers, who collectively became known in the late fifteenth century as the Miwa-ryū, one of the four esoteric Buddhist lineages that, among other things, famously specialised in kami worship.6 The three parts of Kakugenshō reveal the preoccupation with esoteric teachings transmitted at Kōyasan that Rendōbō deemed obviously very important. Based on the lectures by the two prominent monks, Rendōbō’s records relate closely to the traditions of study and explanation of major esoteric Buddhist scriptures, such as the Mahāvairocana Sūtra (Ch. Dari jing 大日經, Jp. Dainichi kyō, T. 848), or the Yoga Sutra (Ch. Yuqie yuqi jing 瑜伽瑜祇經, Jp. Yuga yugi kyō, T. 867; hereafter Yugikyō),7 as well as Faxiang 法相 (Jp. Hossō) and Abhidharma (Jp. Kusharon 俱舎論) treatises in the scholarly context at medieval temples. The contents, however, must be understood as Rendōbō’s own renditions of what he had heard from his masters, possibly recorded or revised some years after their intellectual exchange took place; some of his ideas famously became an object of criticism in the fourteenth century.8 From this perspective, 5

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Rendōbō could have been an almost perfect example of the so-called medieval “countrybumpkin priest” (denbu sō 田夫僧), who had personal connections with the scholarmonks at elite esoteric temple complexes, and yet was himself based in the countryside, at a small local facility, free to pursue his doctrinal and ritual learning and practice. Rendōbō is briefly mentioned in the context of Miwa-ryū in Anna Andreeva, “The Origins of the Miwa Lineage,” special issue “Re-thinking Medieval Shintō,” Bernard Faure, Michael Como, and Iyanaga Nobumi, eds., Cahiers d’Extrême–Asie 16 (2006–2007): 71–90. Also in Anna Andreeva, Assembling Shinto: Buddhist Approaches to Kami Worship in Medieval Japan, esp. Chapter 3, “Miwa bessho” and Chapter 6, “Enlightenment for Country Bumpkins,” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Asia Center, 2016, forthcoming). The full Chinese title is Jingangfeng louge yiqie yuqie yuqi jing 金剛峯樓閣一切瑜伽瑜 祇經 (Jp. Kongōhō rōkaku issai yuga yugi kyō, Sutra of All Yogas and Yogins of the Vajra Peak Pavilion, T. 867). Kakugenshō is one of the very few texts left by Rendōbō, in addition to his own commentaries on the Yugikyō, which survive as damaged manuscript copies by his associate Kōban 弘鑁 and a later Shingon scholar Kiin 煕允. Kanazawa Bunko 金沢文庫 archive, Yuga yugi kuden Kōban ryakuchū 瑜儀経口伝弘鑁略注 (Transmissions on the Yugikyō, with Short Commentary by Kōban, undated), and Yuga dainana Yuga Jōjūbon kuketsu [Rendō] 瑜伽第七瑜伽成就品口訣 [蓮道] (Rendō’s Transmissions on the Seventh Chapter of the Yugikyō, colophon of 1328). According to Manabe, the fourteenth-century copyist Kiin noted that Rendōbō and Kōban completely misinterpret several crucial esoteric concepts. Manabe Shunshō 真鍋俊照, Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū 邪教・立川流 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, [1999] 2002), 40. In the latter half of the fourteenth century, Rendōbō

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Kakugenshō provides a rare glimpse into almost uncharted territory – the intellectual world of Japan’s medieval Buddhist scholars and semi-itinerant holy men. Reflecting their religious concerns as well as larger challenges faced by the esoteric Buddhist milieu at the time, this collection can be read as an important precursor and foundation of the ritual activities of the medieval Miwa-ryū. It is also a collection of notes casting additional light on the ideas brought forward by earlier esoteric thinkers, such as Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143) and Jitsuun 實運 (1105–1160),9 and by Rendōbō’s rough contemporary, Dōhan 道範 (1178–1252).10 In Kakugenshō, one finds an extensive catalogue of ritual techniques and theories that were thought to provide shortcuts for “enlightenment with this very body,” transforming physical bodies into divine and explaining the nature of transmigration and rebirth in esoteric terms. The first part begins with the notes on the importance of Sanskrit syllable A in esoteric teachings, the soteriological potentials of the Womb Realm mandala (Taizōkai 胎蔵界) and its central deity, the cosmic buddha Mahāvairocana (Taizōkai Dainichi 胎蔵界

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was accused by the Kōyasan monk Yūkai 宥快 (1345–1416) of being implicated in the activities and transmissions of the so-called “heretical” Tachikawa lineage 立川流. These associations persisted in the twentieth-century Japanese scholarship; see, for example, Manabe 2002, 35–40. Rendōbō may have indeed received initiations in the teachings of the historical Tachikawa lineage, a legitimate sub-branch of Sanbōin 三寳院 at Daigoji. However, for the sake of better clarity, it should be distinguished from the lineage of the same name that was founded in the Kantō region by the monk Ninkan 仁寛 (ca. early twelfth century). On the problems of the “Tachikawa-ryū” as a historical category and “countryside” priests, see Iyanaga Nobumi, “Tachikawa-ryū,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, Charles D. Orzech, Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 803–14. Kakuban came to be known as a medieval reformer of the Shingon teachings, who was first based at Daidenbōin on Kōyasan, before his lineage moved to new quarters at the temple Negoroji. Jitsuun was the younger brother of the monk Shōkaku 勝覚 (1057–1129), the founder of Sanbōin at Daigoji. Jitsuun studied with Shōkaku at Daigoji, and at Kajūji 勧修寺, before becoming the Daigoji zasu 座主 in 1156. Among Shōkaku’s other followers was also the aforementioned monk Ninkan, credited with the foundation of the Tachikawa lineage in Kantō. Kakuban and Jitsuun are discussed in Lucia Dolce’s contribution, “The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body,” in the present volume. Dōhan is significant here because, similarly to Miwa Shōnin Rendōbō, he studied with Jitsugen at Kongōōin 金剛王院 at Daigoji; both Dōhan’s and Rendōbō’s understanding of esoteric teachings, including the Yugikyō, may have stemmed from Jitsugen. The previously overlooked importance of the such commentaries was first pointed out by Lucia Dolce in her “Duality and the Kami: the Ritual Iconography and Visual Constructions of Medieval Shinto,” in special issue, “Re-thinking Medieval Shintō,” Bernard Faure, Michael Como, and Nobumi Iyanaga, eds., Cahiers d’Extreme-Asie 16 (2006–2007): 119–50.

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大日), and the four types of conception and birth (shishō 四生, or tairan shikke 胎卵濕化) by which sentient beings are brought into the phenomenal world.

In Buddhist cosmological thinking, these include being born from eggs (birds, reptiles, fish, insects), from wombs (all mammals), from moisture (insects and all other smaller forms of life), and through transformation according to their prior karma (celestial or hell beings).11 The scholars whose lectures Rendōbō recorded in Kakugenshō used these notions to explain and argue about the origins and nature of attachments (bonnō 煩悩), the phenomenal reality represented by the Womb mandala, and its relation to the state of “being not yet born” (fushō 不生), which itself was thought to be akin to nirvana, or the coveted state of perfect enlightenment. In the background of these speculations was the belief that “sentient beings conceived by wombs, eggs, moisture, and transformation all harbour the adorned dwelling space of inherent enlightenment [within them],”12 and the concept of the so-called “mother of awakening” (kakumo 覚母) or “mother of buddhas” (butsumo 佛母), impersonated by different deities, most notably bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (Monjushiri bosatsu 文殊 11

12

Muller et al., Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, accessed February 2013, www.buddhismdict.net. On this issue, see Robert Kritzer, “The four ways of entering the womb (garbhā­ vakrānti),” Bukkyō Bunka 仏教文化 10 (2000): 1–41. Tairan shikke mina hongaku shōgon no jusho nari 胎卵濕化悉本覚荘厳ノ住處也. Kakugenshō, 385a, “On the Kuṇḍalini mudra and ritual offerings.” Italics added; all translations into English are mine unless otherwise stated. The predecessor of Rendōbō and his teachers from Kōyasan, the Shingon monk Kakuban in his Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku 五輪九字明秘密釋 (to be discussed further shortly), expressed similar ideas, albeit in two separate passages. T. 2514: 18a14 (rokudō shishō no sho shūjō wa honrai mujintoku wo gusoku su 六道四生諸衆生本來具足無盡徳), and T. 2514: 21c08 (tokoro ni iwaku, issai shūjō wa honnu satta nari 所謂一切衆生本有薩埵). Dale A. Todaro translates these two sentences as “all living beings of the four modes of birth and six destinies [paths of transmigration] originally possess innumerable virtues,” and “all living beings are innately enlightened [Sk. sattva],” respectively. Dale E. Todaro, transl., The Illuminating Secret on the Five Cakras and the Nine Syllables, in Shingon Texts, vol. 98, BDK English Tripitaka (Tokyo: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2004), 261–328, especially, 297 and 321. These accounts may offer an insight into the history of the theory of Buddhanature (Sk. tathāgatagarbha, Jp. nyoraizō 如来蔵; lit. the tathāgata-womb-store) as expressed in esoteric Buddhism in medieval Japan. On the Indian notions of the Buddhanature see a detailed study by Michael Zimmermann, A Buddha within: Tathāgatagarbha sūtra, the earliest exposition of the Buddha-nature teaching in India (Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2002). On the development of the “original enlightenment” (hongaku shisō 本覚思想) theories in Chinese and Japanese contexts, see Jacqueline Stone, Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999).

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師利菩薩, or Monju 文殊).13 The latter concept was most likely understood by

Rendōbō and his contemporaries in the context of the following explanation, which was shared by scholar-monks based outside Kōyasan (for example, at Nara temples and Ninnaji in Kyoto) during the late Heian and early Kamakura period. Notable here is the metaphor of conception, as a simile for initiating the aspiration for awakening. This Mañjuśrī is the wisdom of “inner realisation” (naishō 内證). Meta­ phorically speaking, when father and mother beget a child, the separate bodies of two parents initially conceive the child’s body [foetus]. It must be known that this bodhisattva is the true body of the Mother of Awakening, a part of the thirty levels of spiritual attainment preceding the bodhisattva ground, called the “divine womb” (seitai 聖胎). Because it manifests the Dharma-Body (hosshin 法身), if one has shown an initial aspiration for [achieving] enlightenment, one already dwells in the womb of Mañjuśrī of Great Wisdom (hannya Monju tainai 般若文殊胎 内). [His] mercy and enveloping protection are akin to the thoughts of a pregnant mother in the mundane world.14 又是文殊師利内證智慧。譬如父母生子之時分二親身始爲子體。菩薩 可知覚母實體一分地前三十心名聖胎。法身顯故。若發心人已住般若 文殊胎内。慈悲覆護不異世間母懐孕想。

As if in response to this theological argument put forward earlier by Jōkei 貞慶 (1155–1213), a learned Kōfukuji monk, Rendōbō presents various methods expounded by his Kōyasan mentors by which the process of awakening and enlightenment can be staged and accomplished. In the opening sections of Kakugenshō he explains that “the Womb mandala of great compassion 13

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Mañjuśrī was thought to engender the bodhicitta (Jp. bodaishin 菩提心), the mind aspiring for enlightenment. In medieval Japan Mañjuśrī was an object of a prominent cult linked to the notion of “merciful mother” (jibo 慈母), notably by the Kōfukuji 興福寺 monk Jōkei 貞慶 (1155–1213) and the Saidaiji 西大寺 lineage operating in the vicinity of Nara. David Quinter, “Invoking the Mother of Awakening: An Investigation of Jōkei’s and Eison’s Monju Kōshiki,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 38/2 (2011): 263–302. Jōkei, The Essentials of the Hossō Doctrine (Hossō shinyōshō 法相心要鈔, T. 2311, 61a25– 61b01), chapter 8, “On the Mother of Awakening.” Rendōbō was undoubtedly aware of Jōkei’s ideas and writings; his own mentor Miwa Shōnin Kyōen 慶円 (1145–1223) was personally acquainted with Jōkei, and Jōkei’s writings were preserved at the Miwa bessho where Rendōbō was based in the early decades of the thirteenth century. For another passage from Hossō shinyōshō, see Quinter 2011, 287.

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[represents] an image-tool of inner realisation of all sentient beings,”15 and its central deity, Taizōkai Dainichi, is perceived to be a kind of a seed, the “adorned buddha-body of inherent enlightenment of us, sentient beings.”16 Therefore, in esoteric practice the priority must be placed on invoking this buddha in a single thought (ichinen 一念, much like in chanting of Amida’s name, nenbutsu 念 仏), through repeating syllable A which expresses the true aspect of sentient beings’ form and mind (shūjō no shikishin jissō nari 衆生ノ色心實相也). The aforementioned action should activate the instant realisation that one’s physical and spiritual being is actually a manifestation of the Dharma-World (Sk. Dharmadhātu, Jp. hokkai 法界), full of endless “wombs” (taizō 胎蔵), the perfect embodiment of enlightenment.17 Among esoteric practitioners, Rendōbō was certainly not alone in his interest in these speculations on the sites and mechanisms of awakening. The preoccupation with how to set forth the state of enlightenment inherent in all beings ran as a central motif in other medieval Buddhist texts of esoteric persuasion, including the earlier writings of the aforementioned Kakuban, Jitsuun, and another Kōyasan scholar-monk, Dōhan. The approaches and theories that these scholars employed sometimes overlapped, but they also differed, indicating a number of conceptual possibilities regarding the states of awakening and enlightenment that co-existed and possibly competed within the esoteric Buddhist milieu of medieval Japan. Late-Heian Shingon reformer Kakuban, in his Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku 五輪九字明秘密釈 (The Secret Interpretation of Five Chakras and Nine Syllables, T. 2514), composed around 1142, suggested that syllable A should be understood as “the principle dharmakāya of the Tathāgata Mahāvairocana … the realm of the originally unborn and incomprehensible emptiness (śūnyatā) … the seed syllable of the earth cakra of great compassion.”18 Significantly for Shingon exegetic discourse, Kakuban was proposing a development of the state of enlightenment (sokushin jōbutsu) via the contemplation on the five organs (gozō 五臓).19 He described in detail how such contemplation ought to 15

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Daihi taizō mandara wa issai shūjō no naishō shogu no zuzō 大悲胎蔵曼荼羅一切衆生 内証所具図像. Rendōbō, Kakugenshō, 326a, “On the Unmarked Syllable A of Taizōkai Dainichi.” Warera shūjō honkaku shōgon no hotoke 我等衆生本覚荘厳ノ佛體. Rendōbō, ibid., 326b, “On the Mudra of Taizōkai Dainichi.” Rendōbō, Kakugenshō, 326b and 327a, ibid. Todaro 2004, 279. On Kakuban, see Henny van der Veere, Study into the Thought of Kōgyō Daishi Kakuban (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2000); a more recent discussion in Lucia Dolce, “Nigenteki genri no gireika – Fudō, Aizen to chikara no hizō 二元的原理の儀礼化—不動・愛染

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be done and what it was set to achieve in esoteric terms. For example, in his description of syllable A in his Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku he put forward a preamble to a discussion that would be further developed by other Shingon practitioners: If the seed syllables of water, space, and consciousness descend and dwell in the womb, they all become the five faculties (skandhas) [of a sentient being]. Because the consciousness skandha of the mind among the five skandhas is developed, it is called “earth” [of which syllable A is the seedsyllable; it represents the liver].20 In this treatise Kakuban did not specifically focus on the soteriological possibilities of conception, its exact mechanism, or the space where it occurs.21 Rather, he was concerned with how the internal organs appear and how the ritual process of “growing the divine texture” within one’s own viscera through contemplation (Ch. guan 観, Jp. kan) could affect the possibilities for “enlightenment with this very body.”22 However, toward the late twelfth century, the esoteric Buddhist milieu came to an idea that the process of obtaining buddhahood could be also achieved by other ritual means.23 It was discovered that

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と力の秘像,” in Girei no chikara –chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀礼の力 – 中世宗教の 実践世界, Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds. (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010), 159–208. Kakuban, ibid; Todaro 2004, 279 (supplementary notes in parenthesis are mine). For a more detailed discussion, see Kameyama Takahiko 亀山隆彦, “Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku ni okeru gozō rikai: Kakuban no jōbutsu ron no tokushitsu to shite,” Ryūkoku daigaku daigakuin bungaku kenkyūka kiyō ronshū 龍谷大学院文学研究科紀要論集 33 (2011): 31–46. Kakuban discussed this issue extensively in his other writings. See Dolce’s analysis of the Uchigikishū 打聞集 (Collection of the Impressive Teachings I Heard), in her contribution, “The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body,” in the present volume. Chinese Buddhist texts from the late Tang period may have served as an inspiration for Kakuban’s methods of contemplation of the five viscera. See the Ritual of the Secret Dharanis of the Three Siddhis for the Destruction of Hell, the Transformation of Karmic Hindrances, and the Liberation from the Three Conditioned Worlds (Ch. Sanzhong xidi podiyu zhuan yezhang chu sanjie mimi tuoluonifa 三種悉地破地獄轉業障出三界祕密陀羅 尼法), attr. to Śubhakarasiṃha (Ch. Shanwuwei 善無畏, Jp. Zenmui, 637–735); T. 905, late Tang. Fabio Rambelli, “Tantric Buddhism and Chinese Thought in East Asia,” in Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 361–80. On the late-Heian esoteric Buddhist culture, see Brian Rupert, Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000).

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theoretically, the process of awakening could also start at the moment of conception, when the incipient embryo forms from the mixture of two drops of the mother’s “red” and the father’s “white” and is emplaced in the mother’s womb (or practitioner’s mind, if it is a matter of internal visualisation), immersed in the state of Buddhist samadhi. For example, there appeared some secret commentaries (hiketsu 秘決) focusing on esoteric sutras, such as the Yugikyō, an apochryphal scripture composed in Tang China that rose to prominence in medieval Japan. One of such commentaries, entitled Yuga yugi hiketsu 瑜伽瑜祇秘決 (Secret Transmissions on the Yugikyō), was attributed to Kakuban’s rough contemporary, the Daigoji monk Jitsuun,24 although we do not know for sure whether Jitsuun was indeed the author of these transmissions. Elaborating on the theories regarding the “enlightenment with this very body” and, more specifically, its “conception,” the commentary explained that the second chapter of the Yugikyō discussed a certain “inner mandala” (uchi mandara 内曼荼羅) that was used as a tool in the “contemplation of one’s own nature” ( jishōe 自性會).25 According to the Yuga yugi hiketsu, it was a “ritual of all sentient beings, when they are first born (shosei 初生), and the mandala expounding the ways of attaining buddhahood in this life.” Here, the commentary puts forward an early example of what Lucia Dolce has called the “embryological charts,” or the “mandala of five transformations [of embryo] in the womb” (tainai goten no mandara 胎内五轉 24

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Yuga yugi hiketsu 瑜伽瑜祇秘決 (Secret Transmissions on the Yugikyō), attr. to Jitsuun, in Shingonshū zensho 真言宗全書, Takaoka Ryūshin 高岡隆心 et al., eds. (Kōyasan: Shingonshū zensho kankōkai, 1933–39), vol. 5, 1–27. Copied by the monk Kakuyū at Kōyasan in Tenbun 18 (1549). This copy, originally a property of the Seiyūji 正祐寺 Temple in Osaka, is currently on loan at Kōyasan University library. Although part of the text’s title is written with Sanskrit syllables, the colophon states that “these transmissions are the essential part of the Yogic practice (yugi zuinō 瑜祇髄脳) and therefore is the direct path to buddhahood”. Ibid., 27. For an earlier treatment of this figure, see Lucia Dolce 2006–2007: 142–43, and also her contribution, “The Embryonic Growth of the Perfect Body,” in the present volume. Lucia Dolce posits that it is the second chapter of the Yugikyō that prompted a production of esoteric theories known as the “five stages of embryo in the womb” (tainai goi 胎内五 位). This chapter focuses on the mirror aspect of the esoteric divinity Aizen Myōō, the deity Sen’ai 染愛 (Tainted Love). Together with Aizen Myōō, discussed in the fifth chapter of the sutra, this deity represents the two gender principles, male and female. The chapter also refers to a specific type of a meditative state, meonzō samadhi (Horse-Penis-Store Meditation), experienced by the Buddha, and proclaims the knowledge of a superior mantra that would allow practitioners to achieve such a state. See the discussion in Dolce 2006–2007, 138–45, and Dolce 2010, 168–71; also personal communication.

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之曼荼羅).26 Although the commentary’s discussion and Dolce’s groundbreak-

ing analysis of it concern all five stages of ritual embryological growth, the quotation below focuses only on the first stage of conception that will interest us. This is [as follows:] the seed-syllable HŪṂ of the intermediate being (Sk. antarābhava, Jp. chūu 中有) is entrusted [emplaced] in the two drops, the red and white of syllables A and VAṂ, and forms the body and mind of Tainted by Love [aizen 愛染]. For this reason, the sutra explains, in the deepest and darkest quietness, [there is] a flaming and luminous, fearless letter of the Raging One.27 […] Its [i.e., the embryo’s] mistaken emotions are deposited in the place where the two [substances], red and white, merge; they provoke the two thoughts of attachment and aversion.28 It is the body of the two forms of empowerment (Jp. kaji 加持, Sk. adhiṣṭhāna), active and passive.29 此ハ是中有ノ吽字浄き阿鑁赤白二滴ノ中ニ詫、身心愛染ト成す故 に、経ニ説く幽陰玄深寂静熾然光明勇猛字忿怒峻ト也 […] 中有の妄 情、赤白和合處ニ於け、愛恚之念ヲ起こす。是能加持所加持之體 也。

Note here how Yuga yugi hiketsu describes the space in which the intermediate being in its pre-embryonic stage is deposited, borrowing the expressions 26 27

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Yuga yugi hiketsu, SZ 5, 14–15. If the last character can be read as taki 多岐, it could be a homophone for the Japanese rendition of the deity’s name Ṭakki rāja, one of the possible Indian precursors of Aizen Myōō. On the Indic and Tibetan deities parallel to Aizen, see Roger Goepper, Aizen Myōō: The Esoteric King of Lust, an Iconographic Study, Artibus Asiae (Museum Rietberg: Zurich, 1993), 58–62. According to one of the early Buddhist texts describing conception and gestation, the Garbhāvakrānti Sūtra (The Sutra on Entry into the Womb, T. 317), the intermediate being experiences misguided thoughts of lust toward the parent of the opposite sex, and hatred or aversion toward the parent of the same sex. Robert Kritzer, “Life in the Womb: Conception and gestation in Buddhist scripture and classical Indian medical literature,” in Imagining the Fetus: the Unborn in Myth, Religion and Culture, Vanessa R. Sasson and Jane Marie Law, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 73–89, especially, 81; see also the Chinese translation of the Garbhāvakrānti Sūtra, T. 1451: 253b28–29. He maintains that despite these allusions, the sutra itself was of little importance in Japan (personal communication, EAJS, Ljubljana, August 2014). I warmly thank Professor Kritzer for kindly sharing his English translation of this text with me. Yuga yugi hiketsu, SZ 5, 14.

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directly from the Yugikyō.30 Reminiscent of the descriptions of conception in early Indian Buddhist texts,31 it is portrayed as the darkest, deepest, most intimately hidden and soundless space, in which the two essences vital for conceiving the embryo merge, and where the embryo, emplaced, as described in this commentary, in the form of a flaming syllable HŪṂ, subsequently experiences a range of emotions that would further define its future karmic imprint. Describing the physical body of Aizen (and the mandala of its step-by-step gestation, ichi ichi shibunshō no manda[ra] 一々支分生之曼荼) elsewhere in the same treatise, the author of Yuga yugi hiketsu mentions that the first stage is that of conception, kalala (kararan 羯羅籃), and that it occurs on the “eightpetalled white lotus” (hachiyō 八葉)32 and is followed by the other four stages of siddhi. Moreover, he suggests that this stage of kalala represents the key state leading to enlightenment (Sk. bodhicitta, Jp. bodaishin 菩提心) and is essential for an enlightened being (Sk. sattva, Jp. satta 薩埵) such as the deity Aizen.33 That stage is what constitutes the basis for the “inner mandala.” In other instances, he indicates that the merging of the two fluids, red and white, produces the dependent, provisional bodies of all sentient beings (issai shujō no yorimi wo tsukuru 作一切衆生之依身), and that is how they receive life (seimei wo uketoru 攝受生命); the space where the perfect non-dual merging of the two fluids occurs is obscured by “mist” (kiri 霧).34 30

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32 33 34

See, for example, T. 867, 0255c12–13, which describes the Buddha’s aforementioned meditative state of meonzō samadhi. “All tathāgatas [retreated] in deep mystery and silence. Burning in stillness and luminous vigour [was] the luminous and ferocious Raging One 一切如来幽隠。玄深寂静。熾然光明勇猛忿怒威峻.” For example, the aforementioned Garbhāvakrānti Sūtra and Vasubandhu’s fourth-century Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya (Jp. Kusharon 倶舎論), which contain detailed accounts of conception and embryological growth. The former survives in several Chinese and Tibetan translations (by Dharmarakṣa, dated 281 or 303, T. 317; by Bodhiruci, dated 703– 713, T. 310, no. 13; and by Yixing, dated 710, in T. 310, no. 14 and T. 1451). See the discussion of its Chinese and Tibetan versions in Robert Kritzer, Garbhāvakrānti sūtra (The Sutra on Entry into the Womb), Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series XXXI (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2014), 9–10. Kritzer notes that this sutra preceded Vasubandhu’s treatise. One could argue that medieval Japanese Buddhists retrieved the knowledge about conception and embryological growth through Vasubandhu’s treatise and other Kusharon texts, which were taught as a part of Buddhist study curriculum at major Buddhist temples, such as Kōfukuji and Tōdaiji 東大寺 in Nara. On the description of conception, see Kritzer 2009, 77 and 81. Here, an allusion to the central part of the Womb mandala in the form of the eight-petal lotus. Yuga yugi hiketsu, 16. Ibid., 19. For a comparable example describing a similar stage, see the Sutra on the Entry into the Womb, which says that those who will be reborn as animals “have colour like that

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The Kōyasan scholar Dōhan, who studied under one of the Kakugenshō contributors, the monk Kakukai, and Miwa Shōnin Rendōbō’s own teacher Jitsugen of Daigoji, also left a lengthy and detailed collection of oral transmissions (kuketsu 口決) on the Yugikyō, recorded around 1241.35 The scope of this paper does not allow any elaborate analysis of his work, but suffice it to say that many of his discussions touch upon the subjects such as the “human yellow,” embryological discourse, nenbutsu, Shingon and Tendai exegetical traditions on sokushin jōbutsu, and inherent enlightenment. In his adopted interpretation of the Yugikyō, Dōhan tries to explain the nature and meaning of the male and female principles. As befits a Kōyasan scholar-monk advanced in his studies, he described these concepts in terms deeply embedded in esoteric Buddhist discourse, iconography, and rituals; but in order to do so, he followed the principle that metaphysical and phenomenal worlds were inseparable, and thus often resorted to the examples of gender relations observed in present-day mundane life. For instance, following the exegetical traditions established earlier by Kakuban and Jichihan 實範 (?–1144), Dōhan posited that Buddhist practitioners, despite being steeped in mistaken illusions, could “enter the lotus-womb and be reborn in the Pure Land of Amida” (rentai ni hairi, jōdo ni ōjō su 蓮胎二 入リ浄土二往生ス). Elsewhere he explained that, according to the fourth volume of Mohe zhiguan 摩訶止観 (Jp. Maka shikan, Stopping and Contemplating, T. 1911), the Chinese Tiantai treatise on meditation, the “mist” during conception and the first stage of kalala, when the intermediate being has just been deposited in the womb, is a residue of the physical bodies of mother and father,

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of a smoke.” Amy Paris Langenberg, “Like Worms Falling from the Foul-Smelling Sore: The Buddhist Rhetoric of Childbirth in Early Mahāyāna Sutra,” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2008), 218; and Kritzer 2014, 40. Dōhan, Yuga yugi kuketsu 瑜伽瑜祇口決 (Oral Transmissions of the Yugikyō), five fascicles, in Shingonshū zensho 真言宗全書, Takaoka Ryūshin 高岡隆心 et al., eds. (Kōyasan: Shingonshū zensho kankōkai, 1933–39), vol. 5, 27–137. This text was copied at Kōyasan at least twice, in 1282 and 1285. The commentary attributed to Jitsuun and that by Dōhan made extensive references to the earlier works by the Tendai monk Annen 安然 (841– 889?), including his commentary on the rituals based on this sutra, Yugi gyōhō ki 瑜祇行 法記 (Records of Yoga Practice) (see attr. Jitsuun, Yugi yuga hiketsu, SZ 5, 16, 18, 25; and Dōhan, Yugi yuga kuketsu, SZ 5, 32). For a detailed treatment of Annen, see Lucia Dolce and Shinya Mano, “Godai’in Annen,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, Charles D. Orzech, Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 768–75.

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i.e., their two essential fluids, the red and white.36 Moreover, in the explanation of the four female bodhisattvas surrounding Mahāvairocana in the central part of the Diamond Realm mandala (Kongōkai 金剛界),37 he further noted that the two gendered agencies play specific roles in the generation of the embryo, laying the foundation for the generation of organs and ritually accomplished divinised bodies: The four haramitta bodhisattvas constitute the [external divine] marks [of the Buddha]. The four samadhi are female. In the mundane world, it is called the female charm. Through women, one can argue about the physical aspects [of things]. Fathers and mothers conceive children. The mother completes the external [aspects], that is flesh and blood. The father completes the internal [aspects] – bones and marrow. The mother’s skin and flesh remains outside, adorning the physical body. For this reason, the [external] marks are abundant in women. The meaning of the external marks of the four samadhi lies in the condition of the five roots [that is, the five senses of perception: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.]38 四波羅蜜を以て相好と爲る。四定とは女也。世間に女色と云う。女 を於け、色相を論ず、父母は子を成す、母を外戚と爲る。是血肉等 也。父を内戚と爲る。是骨髓等也。母の皮肉等外に在り、身體を荘 厳す。故に相好は女に屬也。此四定相好の義は五根の相貌に通也。

It has to be mentioned that Dōhan may have received his teachings on the Yugikyō from Rendōbō’s teacher Jitsugen (or exchanged them with him at a

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Dōhan, Yuga yugi kuketsu, SZ 5, 58 and 71. The latter quote refers to the interim notes explaining the Buddhist notions related to conception, the “five stages of embryo in the womb” (tainai goi) and notions of animation and life span that appear in texts such as Mohe zhiguan and Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya, treatises known to medieval Shingon scholars. These may have been the study notes, since they had been recorded on the back of the main manuscript. (Elsewhere, the text contains the methods and astral techniques for prognosticating the life span by the date of conception, nyūtai no hi 入胎之日; Dōhan, ibid., 61–62). The four female divinities surrounding the cosmic deity Mahāvairocana (Dainichi 大日) in the central part of the Diamond mandala are regarded as mothers giving birth to the bodhisattvas Ashuku, Hōshō, Amida, and Shaka, the four of the five esoteric wisdom deities (gochi nyorai 五智如来) of the Kongōkai. Dōhan, Yuga yugi kuketsu, SZ 5, 117.

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later stage in his life);39 this demonstrates once again the fluidity of routes by which such secret theories “travelled.” Passed down from teacher to disciple in the form of secret transmissions, these commentaries were written by monks wishing to understand the hidden meaning of esoteric scriptures and to get a better grasp of the advanced theories of achieving “enlightenment with this very body.” These scholarly discussions and lectures, an intrinsic part of esoteric temple education, were deeply entrenched in the conceptual language of Buddhist scriptures as well as visual and soteriological complexity of the mandalas of esoteric Buddhism. However, the imagination of Japan’s medieval Buddhist scholars and practitioners was also propelled by their own religious goals and aspirations, in terms vital to their local places and times. 2

Esoteric Theories on the Move

During the latter half of the twelfth century, the scholarly theories of enlightenment, including those described above, were taught secretly as part of theological traditions focusing on the interpretation of esoteric scriptures at Kōyasan, Daigoji, and elsewhere. Toward the turn of the thirteenth century, due to a steadily intensifying process of fragmentation of temple lineages and the subsequent dispersal of esoteric teachings among a wider circle of Buddhist practitioners, such theories began to “travel” to other destinations beyond the confines of the long-established esoteric temples, both in the geographical and the social sense. To demonstrate this, let us return again to the very beginning of Kakugenshō, recorded by the Miwa Shōnin Rendōbō in the first half of the thirteenth century. In a passage entitled “Taizō Butsumo sankakukei no koto 胎蔵仏母三角 形事 (On the Triangle Form of the Buddha-Mother of the Womb Realm)”, the divinity that was given a prominent description in the Yugikyō as the original mother of all enlightened buddhas,40 Rendōbō recorded the earlier Kōyasan 39 40

See n. 10 above. The deity Butsumo 佛母 (sometimes also referred to as Butsugen Butsumo 佛眼佛母, “Buddha-Eye, Buddha-Mother,” Sk. Buddhalocanā) is a divinity residing in the Henchiin section of the Womb mandala. Similarly to the aforementioned kakumo (the Mother of Awakening), Butsumo was thought to invoke enlightenment in all other buddhas and was thus central to the discourse on the Yugikyō and major parts of medieval soteriology at esoteric Buddhist temples at Mount Hiei, Saidaiji, Miwa, Ise shrines, etc. See the ninth chapter of the Yugikyō, “On the Great Achievement of Kongō Kichijō (Kongō Kichijō Daijōjū bon 金剛吉祥大成就品),” T. 867, 259c26–260a16. There, it is described as the luminous, faintly smiling divinity that dwells in the white lotus and emerges through the

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expositions of the process of conception framed in esoteric Buddhist terms, combining them with the transmissions by Kakuban; in his explanation of the topic, he employed the familiar similes as observed (and imagined) in the world around him: All sentient beings yet to come, when they enter the mother’s womb, always enter it following the [recitation of] syllable A [during sexual congress]. When they are born, they come out again with the syllable A [the cry of a newborn]. When they enter, they assume [the first stage of the embryo] kalala, and are emplaced on the Lotus-Dais of the Eight-Petal Heart-Mind [of the Womb mandala]. There are various transmissions regarding the stage of kalala. Again, the triangle form [of the Buddha Mother; the mother of all buddhas] must mean the samadhi of the essential nature of one’s own body.41 一切来生ノ母胎に入る時、必ずア字に従い入る。出る時に亦阿字に 従い出る也。入るとは、八葉心蓮台の上にかららんと住所を爲る是 也。かららんに数の口伝有り。又、彼の三角形は自性身ノ三昧耶と 意を得るベシ。

In principle, following Buddhist logic, at the moment of conception, sentient beings momentarily forget their previous karma. Yūgen, one of the Kakugenshō contributors, reminded us that, technically speaking, this was the state of fundamental ignorance (mumyō 無明), ultimately locking all sentient beings into the endless cycle of samsara. However, this argument was then surpassed by his further remark that, according to the teachings of esoteric Buddhism, the state of fundamental ignorance was simply another name for the enlightened mind and that the practitioner’s physical body was actually that of Vajrasattva

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navel (hozo 臍). T. 867, 260a07–08. On the aspects of Butsumo worship, see Abè Ryūichi, Weaving the Mantra (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 353–55; and Allan Grapard, “Of Emperors and Foxy Ladies,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 13 (2002–2003): 127–49. The cult of this deity also became reflected in medieval worship of kami. See Anna Andreeva, “The Karmic Origins of the Great Bright Miwa Deity: a Transformation of the Sacred Mountain in Pre-modern Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 65/2 (2010): 11, 19–20, n. 43 and 67. Rendōbō, Kakugenshō, SZ 36, 327a. Reflecting the views of Kakuban’s disciple Kakukai, the passage further continues to describe Butsumo as an esoteric manifestation of the deity Eight-Syllable Mañjuśrī (hachiji Monju 八字文殊), citing the commentaries and teachings of Kakuban and his legitimate position vis-à-vis Kūkai. See n. 13 above.

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(Jp. Kongōsatta 金剛薩埵).42 This general idea was once more expressed in other words: that ignorance was equal to the seeds of the Dharma (mumyō hosshō ichinyo 無明法性一如), therefore implying that all sentient beings or physical bodies in the state of mumyō contained within themselves the potential to become enlightened. Clearly making a stance for the legitimacy of Shingon scholastic heritage, Kakugenshō then further mentions that precursors to such theories had already been known from the Faxiang (Hossō) teachings and the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya (Ch. Jushe lun 俱舎論, Jp. Kusharon, T. 1558, 1559) by Vasubandhu (ca. fourth century), which were translated into Chinese by Paramārtha 眞諦 (499–569) and Xuanzang 玄弉 (ca. 602–664), and that comparable reasoning, although to a lesser degree, also existed in other Buddhist traditions such as Tiantai 天台 (in Japan, Tendai) and Huayan 華厳 (Kegon).43 According to this statement alone, the discussions regarding conception and enlightenment had a considerable pedigree in India, China, and Japan; however, Kakugenshō does not make it clear what particular reasons brought these ideas to the stage during the medieval period in Japan. As Dolce has noted, all these discussions were aimed at one and only one goal – the “correct” and perfect enlightenment (shōgaku 正覚); in esoteric scholastic thinking, the ritual conception of deities and the state of the developing embryo must have been perceived as an ideal medium for such a process and something that could be adopted into the practice of ritual meditation.44 However, the question then arises: could this soteriological goal be practically achieved if it were not linked to the mundane world? Did lay men and women fit in this esoteric Buddhist quest, and, if so, how? Moreover, could the gender relations necessary for conception be explained in suitable esoteric terms? Here, the contributors to Kakugenshō, in what again appears to be an edited interpretation of a certain part of the Yugikyō,45 offer a detailed argument, 42

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Medieval Buddhist practitioners aspired to achieve this state as the key stage of their enlightenment. The esoteric sutras, such as the Yugikyō and the Rishukyō (to be mentioned shortly), as well as the Japanese medieval commentaries on them discussed in this paper certainly advocate the status of Kongōsatta as the highest level of accomplishment for an esoteric master. Rendōbō, Kakugenshō, SZ 36, 327. The Tendai links may be traced to Miidera, which Kakugenshō mentions in relation to a transmission regarding the Two-Headed Aizen (Ryōzu Aizen 両頭愛染), and “the five stages [of the embryo]” (tainai goi); ibid., 344. Although the text does not identify any particular imagery on this occasion, their general appearance can be fathomed from the materials analysed in Lucia Dolce 2006–2007, especially Fig. 7.9a, and her contribution to the present volume. Dolce 2006–2007, 138–45. Specifically, a brief description of the Buddha’s meditative state, meonzō samadhi, mentioned at the beginning of the second chapter of the Yugikyō. Rendōbō’s exposition here

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which was clearly intended to provide the connections between esoteric Buddhist concepts and deities on the one hand, and genders and sexual relations on the other. Moreover, the Shingon scholars (or perhaps only Rendōbō, on whose compendium we must rely?) tried to make this reasoning relevant for the secular audience, most likely, potential patrons. This passage sets out the crucial categories for discussing the issues of procreation and gender, and merits quoting in full: However, when secular men and women have intercourse, men do not understand the mind of women. Women do not understand the mind of men. Therefore, [they do not] mutually comprehend the right and wrong of [this] great joy. Instead, in the world of buddhas, men and women do understand each other and comprehend that samadhi [meditation] (zenjō 禅定) and wisdom (chie 知恵) are always one and the same. When explaining this to people [of the mundane world], one must demonstrate that the Dharma-Gate of the non-duality of meditation and wisdom through the ever-perpetuating form [is reflected] in the [vajra of] five limbs (goko 五股) [that itself demonstrates] oneness of the deities Kongōsatta and Aizen Myōō [embraced in sexual act].46 When speaking of sexual congress between secular men and women, people do not know this. [They] do not know that the Dharma-Gate of renunciation and union between esoteric meditation and wisdom is [a path of] the most advanced bodhisattva who is ready to obtain perfect enlightenment. Therefore, one says it is “mysterious and deep.”  Again, Kongōsatta is all sentient beings and secular folks [who dwell within] the six paths of transmigration. So is Aizen Myōō. When one explains that women have an internal mind like that of a yakṣa,47 this means female humans and celestial beings [devas]. Men and women locked in the [endless cycles of] samsara and six paths of transmigration firmly cling to the paths of greed within the ever-perpetuating cycle of birth and death, and [fail] to rid themselves of even the smallest of

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is perhaps one of the lengthiest and most explicit. He further notes that the topic of the highest state of meditation also appeared in another important esoteric scripture, Amoghavajra’s translation of the Commentary to the Sutra of Guiding Principle (Ch. Liqu shi 理趣釋, Jp. Rishushaku, T. 1003) and Kūkai’s instructions on the eighteen rituals (juhachie 十八會). Rendōbō, Kakugenshō, SZ 36, 342–43, “On meonzō samadhi.” For a discussion in Japanese, see Dolce 2010, 166–71. Spirits of the dead who devour human flesh; here, possibly a reference to the deity Dakiniten 荼枳尼天. See also Iyanaga Nobumi’s essay, “‘Human Yellow’ and Magic Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism and Culture,” in the present volume.

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delusions. To emphacise that point, one should proceed straight to Buddhist matters and [introduce the topic of] Shingon. In other words, call all men Kongōsatta and women Aizen-ō. The five elements, produced by men and women, [result in the appearance of a] conflicted mind attached to unstoppable cycles of birth and death. With no obstruction among the six elements, one understands [the meaning of perfect] equality.48  If one understands this principle, it [washes over] like a wave of water. It is non-dual [literally, “not two”], and furthermore, there is no division between men and women. In other words, “worldly passions and enlightenment are one.” Before the [stage of] awakening [and progress toward] the fundamental and “yet unborn” enlightenment described in various rituals, one passes through the ten stages of mind. Secular and holy are one and not two; [both] bear the same adamantine quality. Although the mudra of the human-shaped five-pronged vajra resembles two gendered physical human bodies [that are subject to worldly passions, kushō 倶 生]49 in sexual congress, it represents a far more audacious joy than any sexual congress by ordinary men and women: it is like a lion’s roar delivered in five tones. Therefore, when observing the world of ordinary men and women, [one must see it] like that. As they are moved by a deluded mind, one must direct [them] to instantly enter the Buddhist path. One must not say “do this [have sex]” because you like the sexual congress between men and women. It is because the image of Two-Headed Aizen (ryōzu Aizen 両頭愛染) demonstrates the Dharma-gate of non-duality between the mundane world and what lies quietly beneath the surface. That is why the explanation of this scripture [Yugikyō] is so deep and mysterious.50 但し、世間男女互いに交会すれば、男は女の意を知らず。女は男の 意を知らず。故に、互いに喜悦の善悪を知らず。而るに、仏境界の 前には男女互いに知りて、定慧必ず一體冥会すと。此の事を人に示 48

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I.e., both parties are equal. The text here subtly refers to the idea that since all sentient beings possess the Dharma-seeds in them, theoretically all of them are equally capable of achieving the state of buddhahood. This idea is reiterated in the next passage, hinting at the equal theoretical possibilities of enlightenment for men and women. A similar term is used for one type of placenta deities, kushōjin 倶生神. See a detailed study by Bernard Faure’s contribution, “Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism,” in the present volume. Rendōbō, Kakugenshō, SZ 36, 342–43, “On meonzō samadhi.” For an alternative and more extended earlier English translation of this section, see Goepper 1993, 103–105.

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す時、金剛薩埵愛染明王只一の五股に轉形の定慧不二の法門を人に 示す也。世間男女の交会をば、人之知らず。出世定慧和合の法門は 等覚已還の菩薩、之知らず。故に、幽陰玄深と云う也。又、金剛薩 埵は六道凡夫の一切衆生也。愛染明王も亦爾也。女人を内心如夜叉 と説くは。人天等の女人の事也。六道輪廻の男女。流転生死門の貪 欲道に堅著め。一毫の惑をも断未だ。其を押て直に仏事と云はば。 只此れ真言の所立也。謂う所、男は金剛薩埵と名て。女おば、愛染 王と云う。男女所成の五大。無始生死の著心。全く六大無碍にしめ 平等平等なり。此理を思解すれば、全く水波の性の如く。無二なる が。更に男女の隔て無し。又煩悩菩提是一也。現覚諸法本初不生の 悟りの前には。十住心形を並ぶ。凡聖不二一體にしめ、金剛の一性 也 。然れば、人形五股杵の印は二形倶生の人の交会の如しするが、 彼は普通の人の交会より喜悦の音囂がまびすし故、獅子吼等の五種 の声を出す也。仍て、男女の境界を観するに此の如く。妄心に蕩 き、速やかに仏道に入ると示す也。爾か云て男女交会の事を好きて 行せよと云うには非ず。一體両頭の像義は冥会一體の法門を表せん が為也。其の説所は幽陰玄深の文是也。

Dwelling on interpretations of the Yugikyō in its descriptions of esoteric deities and ritual implements, the latter part of the quoted Kakugenshō passage appears to positively promote the idea of Tantric sex as a pathway to buddhahood, or rather, it reframes a biological sexual act as esoteric Buddhist concepts in action. Notable here are the remarks about the equalised nature of the two genders within such a practice. The passage from Kakugenshō resonates closely with the ideas deriving from another group of esoteric scriptures, well-known within the esoteric scholastic milieu, namely the Sutra of Guiding Principle (Ch. Liqu jing 理趣經, Jp. Rishukyō) and Amoghavajra’s Commentary on it (Ch. Liqu shi 理趣釋, Jp. Rishushaku).51 The aforementioned scriptures explained the states of Vajrasattva achieving enlightenment by using the metaphors of sexual desire such as the “great bliss” (dairaku 大楽) and “the merging of two roots” (nikon kyōe 二根交會); the latter was understood as the means of “trans51

Full Chinese title of Liqu shi is Dale jingang bukong zhenshi sanmoye jing banruo boluo miduo liqushi 大樂金剛不空眞實三摩耶經般若波羅蜜多理趣釋, Jp. Daigaku kongō fukū shinjitsu sanmaya kyō hannya haramitta rishushaku, the Commentary on the Guiding Principle of Prajñāpāramitā [Transcedental Wisdom], the Sutra of True Samadhi [of Vajrasattva], by Amoghavajra of Grear Bliss, T. 1003. Often referred to as Bore liqu jing 般 若理趣經, or Hannya Rishukyō in Japanese, the Sutra of Guiding Principle explains the state and insights of esoteric practitioner reaching the ultimate state of enlightenment. For its English translation, see Ian Astley-Kristensen, The Rishukyō, Buddhica Brittannica Series Continua III (Tring, UK: Institute of the Buddhist Studies, 1991).

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forming the five kinds of dust into the Great Activity of the Buddha” (gojin daibutsuji 五塵大佛事) and was discussed in a variety of Japanese esoteric writings.52 Thus, the religious thinkers educated within the esoteric Buddhist temples of medieval Japan were exposed to numerous canonical sources and earlier commentaries by prominent esoteric masters that contained theological reasoning inviting allusions to sexual relations between secular men and women.53 Although cautious about not causing confusion as to what kind of sexual congress can be defined as correct and proper for achieving enlightenment, any monastic interpreting the doctrines recorded in major esoteric scriptures faced a difficult task of balancing out the elevated notions of esoteric discourse on enlightenment with the necessarily obvious facts of social procreation. Within the monastic establishment of medieval Kōyasan or Daigoji most of these discussions remained secret and theoretical, and involved a high degree of complicated Buddhist imagery and metaphor. However, the religious practitioners such as Miwa Shōnin Rendōbō, who carried the ideas of their scholastic teachers while travelling further afield, may have been left to their own devices as to how to interpret the complex truths of esoteric Buddhist teachings. These theories were proclaimed secret and transmitted only by male adepts, but the religious institutions (and, one would imagine, the scholar-monks) had to develop their teachings so as to remain relevant to the lay practitioners (both men and women), especially those who sponsored esoteric rituals or donated temple estates, and to whom temple priests were requested to deliver sermons or esoteric initiations. The proselytising activities and involvement of esoteric temple lineages with the wider social fabric of Japanese medieval society are still poorly understood. However, evidence shows that by the early fourteenth century similar ideas were circulating also among the educated members of the aristocracy, many of whom supported Shingon and Tendai temple lineages, sponsored esoteric Buddhist rituals in daily life, interacted 52

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See, for example, Hishō kuketsu 祕鈔口訣 (Oral Transmissions on the Secret Compendium), a sizable collection of esoteric theories circulating within the Ono lineage of Shingon and recorded by the monk Kyōjun 教舜 in the 1268–1269 and revised in 1283. Chapter 23 of this compendium, entitled “Oral Transmissions on the Ritual of King Aizen” (Aizen’ō hō kudenshō 愛染王法口傅鈔) describes the ritual procedure of merging between the esoteric image and practitioner (nyūga ganyū 入我我入) and the so-called “Henchiin oral transmission,” using the metaphors of “merging two roots” and other explicit sexual imagery involving the women’s bodies. SZ 28, 378–80. See, for example, the seventeen epithets explaining Vajrasattva’s enlightenment through the metaphors of sexual desire in the Rishukyō. Astley-Kristensen 1991, 81–95, esp. 87.

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with the temple clergy, and were often related to esoteric Buddhist monastics by blood. By that time, courtiers and literati referred to such esoteric Buddhist notions in their writings and poetic commentaries.54 For example, an early fourteenth-century poetic treatise, Ise monogatari zuinō 伊勢物語随能 (Essence of the Tales of Ise), attributed either to Fujiwara Tameaki 藤原為顕 (ca. 1230–1295) or Nijō Tameakira 二条為明 (1295–1364) and studied earlier by Susan Blakely Klein,55 included ample descriptions of gender relations and sexual matters. As if inspired by the esoteric teachings described in the the Yugikyō and the Rishukyō, this poetic treatise posited that sexual intercourse between a man and a woman can be seen as a path toward the Buddhist soteriological goal and that the seed of enlightenment “is sexual desire (in 淫), which is the direct cause (in 因) of the creation of a Buddha body.”56 Although this poetic treatise does not explicitly cite any embryological theories that were secretly transmitted in the late twelfth and thirteenth century at Kōyasan, Daigoji, Miwa or elsewhere, it mentions the act of conception and the stage of kalala, the first of the “five stages of the embryo in the womb.”57 The courtier Kitabatake Chikafusa 北畠親房 (1294–1354), who was employed at the Southern Court of Emperor Godaigo 後醍醐天皇 (1288–1339), referred to conception theories in his theological treatise, entitled Shingon naishōgi 54

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Broadly speaking, similar ideas are seen in many fourteenth- and fifteenth-century commentaries, particularly those focusing on the transmissions of the Age of Gods from Nihongi and other medieval Shinto treatises by Kitabatake Chikafusa, Ichijō Kanera 一条 兼良 (1402–1481), Yoshida Kanetomo 吉田兼倶 (1435–1511), and the Confucian scholar Kiyohara Nobukata 清原宣賢 (1475–1550), to name a few. Some Japanese scholars linked this treatise to Fujiwara no Tameaki. Susan Blakely Klein argues that it is far more plausible that one of Tameaki’s disciples, or descendants of the Nijō poetic house, for example, Nijō Tameakira, was involved in the production of this text. For a detailed argument, see Susan Blakely Klein, “Allegories of Desire: Poetry and Eroticism in Ise monogatari zuinō,” Monumenta Nipponica 52/4 (1997): 441–56, on the authorship, 460–61. Translation abbreviated from Susan Blakeley Klein, “Ise Monogatari Zuinō: An Annotated Translation,” Monumenta Nipponica 53/1 (1998): 21–23. She has noted that although the surviving manuscripts of this poetic commentary date to the Muromachi period, one of them contains a colophon of Kōan 弘安 5 (1282). Ibid., 13. For a broader study of esoteric commentaries in Japanese literature and Noh plays, see also her monograph, Allegories of Desire: Esoteric Literary Commentaries of Medieval Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002), and “Esotericism in Noh Commentaries and Plays: Konparu Zenchiku’s Meishuku shū and Kakitsubata,” in The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religions, Bernhard Scheid and Mark Teeuwen, eds. (London: Routledge, 2006), 227–54. Klein 1998, 38. The relevant passage will be discussed shortly.

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真言内証義 (The Meaning of Inner Realisation in Shingon) as an integral part of esoteric Buddhist teachings, most likely transmitted to him by a priestly figure close to Godaigo’s court.58 He framed the idea of conception in slightly different and more neutral terms, explaining it instead through the example of Japan’s primordial deities and focusing on the notion of the origins of life and physical bodies. Nevertheless, his record clearly echoed the Shingon scholarly discourses discussed above.

Next, to know the origins of life of our very bodies is essential and most important for any practitioner. These [two] deities [Izanagi and Izanami] merged their Yin and Yang and exchanged their vital fluids; these are the two winds of wisdom. The intermediate being’s (Sk. antarābhava) divine consciousness is deposited in this place. Its form resembles wind. Merging, it forms one water wheel. It brings together the fundamental root of non-duality of form and mind, and sun, moon, and lunar mansions. (There is an oral transmission). From there, [one] passes the Five Stages [of the embryo], changing form all the while and, after five weeks, [becomes] the body of five wheels. (There is an oral transmission). From that moment, having passed through thirty-four transformations, this body is born and has to be nourished. One could say it is due to the effects of the Five Elements (godai 五大) and Five Agents (gogyō 五行). The Five Elements each have their own wisdom; these are called the Five Wisdoms. The Five Elements are Five Esoteric Wisdoms, and vice versa. The Dharma body is inseparable, but the methods of its explanation are different. (Oral transmission). In any case, from the moment of leaving the womb, the person sustains and continues his thoughts and breath and is able to carry the root of life (myōkon 命根).59 次我身の生の起を知る、是則行者最上の用心也。其神陰陽和合して 精氣交通せし、是則知恵の二風なり。中有の神識此所に依託す。其 形又風の如し。和合して一水輪の形を成す。色心不二の根元日月合 宿の際會也。口訣在るべし。其より五位を経歴し、次第に其形を變 58

59

Chikafusa took the tonsure in 1329. Like his other famous treatises, this particular work may have been written toward the end of his life, in Michinoku Castle in northeastern Japan. The priestly figure may have been the controversial monk Monkan Gushin 文観弘 真 (1278–1357), who performed esoteric services for Go-Daigo and was also linked to the teachings of the Tachikawa lineage. See Iyanaga 2011, 812. Kitabatake Chikafusa, Shingon naishōgi, in Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei Taikei 日本古典 文学大系, vol. 83, Kana hōgoshū 仮名法語集, Miyasaka Yūshō 宮坂有勝, ed. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1964), 234.

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易する事、五七日に至ては五輪の體也。口訣在るべし。是より三十 四転して、此身を生成養育せん。五大五行の功用に非ずと云事な し。五大に各々智有り、是を五智と云ふ。五大則五智、五智則五 大、法體は分かれずして義門は別也。口訣。かくて胎内を出しより 以来た、念々息風相続して命根を持する事を得たり。

The esoteric Buddhist rhetoric used to describe the crucial gender agencies of men and women in sexual act and conception implied that it was not only male monastic bodies that could be an object of mandalisation but also, to a limited degree, lay and female bodies. As the agency of the father was equated by Shingon scholars with the agency and visual scheme of the Diamond Realm (Kongōkai) – or, as in the earlier example from Kakugenshō, with those of the esoteric deity Kongōsatta – the mother’s agency was equated with that of the Womb Realm (Taizōkai) or Aizen Myōō and its manifestations. At the same time, the myths about the Age of Gods and new esoteric theories regarding the worship of native deities (kami 神) were also spreading throughout the country. Reflecting such trends, in the more vernacular forms of discourse these agencies were often represented by the figures of Izanagi and Izanami, the two primordial deities who were believed to have created the isles of Japan. In general Buddhist terms, women’s bodies were still perceived as unenlightened and inherently polluted by childbirth and menstruation, but the aforementioned emphasis on non-duality, a crucial concept in Japanese medieval Buddhist thinking, necessitated a production of theories which attempted to describe women’s physical bodies also in esoteric Buddhist terms. Needless to say, such theories were initially a part of the culture of secret transmissions among the Buddhist lineages, but inevitably their traces could also be found in secular and more popular discourses and practices. The many similes encountered in the late twelfth- to fourteenth-century religious commentaries and secret transmissions radiating from esoteric Buddhist temples became dispersed in a variety of late medieval and early modern texts, including secular records, and, as Susan Blakely Klein has demonstrated, poems, literary treatises and Noh plays.60 Such a state of affairs was engendered in two conceptually parallel developments, which will be now discussed as two separate cases. The first case will demonstrate how the agencies of fathers and mothers were ritualised and incorporated into the esoteric Buddhist-Shinto discourse of late medieval 60

On the latter, see, for example, Susan Blakely Klein, “When the Moon Strikes the Bell: desire and enlightenment in the Noh play Dōjōji,” Journal of Japanese Studies 17/2 (1991): 291–332.

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Japan. The second will hint at the evidence that, while still embedded in the androcentric notions and correlative logic of non-duality, female bodies also became conceptualised in certain esoteric circles as manifestations of the deity Butsumo, the Lotus, the Womb mandala, and even (although in a very limited number of texts) as a Pure Land. 3

Ritualising Fathers and Mothers

Recent research has shown that, in India, Buddhist sources described procreation and the beginning of life as sources of endless pain and repugnant visceral matters. The Buddhist theories dealing with origination and transmigration of consciousness were thus employed to stress the uncertainty of the bonds between parents and children.61 Early Mahayanic scriptures – such as the Sutra on the Entry into the Womb, composed most likely around the third century CE in northwestern India, and Vasubandhu’s fourth-century Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya – had graphic descriptions of an embryo’s suffering during gestation and birth and of the oppressive nature of the mother’s body. For example, the womb where conception occurs was described as a “filthy, putrid, blazing bog,”62 with a “foul stench of a latrine, … a vomit-flavoured swamp pit inhabited by thousands of types of worms, dripping with impure fluids, full of semen, blood, and fumes.”63 By contrast, in medieval Japan such rhetoric somewhat deviated from the above-mentioned concepts. Although it may have been inspired by the teachings produced in India, of which some were translated and further interpreted in China, the adepts of esoteric Buddhist traditions in medieval Japan (particularly those linked to the Shingon, Tendai, and kami worship) applied the reproductive metaphors, including the mandalic lotus-womb imagery, in their own search for new ritual techniques – particularly in their pursuit of “enlightenment with this very body” (sokushin jōbutsu). Moreover, in the late medieval and early modern periods, these accounts began to bear yet further meaning: in one case, instead of propagating monastic values and Shingon ideology, the embryological metaphors were employed to valorise social procreation in esoteric Buddhist and so-called Shinto terms and promote vaguely Confucian values of filial piety and veneration of one’s

61 62 63

Kritzer 2014, 20–24; Langenberg 2008, 1–9 and 74. Kritzer 2014, 4. Langenberg 2008, 232.

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father and mother, again, within the context of ritual initiations (Sk. abhiṣeka, Jp. kanjō 灌頂) between the teacher and disciple. Goryū Shintō 御流神道, a late medieval tradition of esoteric kami worship, offers an interesting example. The “August Lineage” (Go-Ryū 御流), established by the princely abbot Shukaku Hoshinnō 守覚法親王 (1150–1202) at Ninnaji,64 was one of the Hirosawa lineages of Shingon; another Goryū lineage existed at Sanbōin, either of Kōyasan or Daigoji. The so-called Goryū Shintō, on the other hand, was a side-lineage specialised in the esoteric worship of kami; it is not entirely clear how it was related to the two temple lineages mentioned above.65 Similarly to the aforementioned Miwa-ryū, shaped to a great degree by Hōkyō Rendōbō, it was famous for its Buddhist initiations into kami secrets (jingi kanjō 神祇灌頂).66 The rituals of the Goryū Shintō tradition, most likely formed by the late Muromachi period (1336–1573), included key ritual segments focusing, on the one hand, on the transfer of three divine regalia (a standard part of jingi kanjō). On the other hand, it was designed to valorise the creation myth of Japan and to affirm the sexual union between the primordial deities Izanagi and Izanami, which resulted in them producing other deities and, ultimately, the population of Japan. Quite tellingly, this kind of ritual initiation was called Kazoiro (or Oyashiro) Kanjō 父母代灌頂 (Abhiṣeka of Father and Mother).

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The second son of Go-Shirakawa 後白河 (1127–1192), Prince Shukaku (also known as Hokuin Mimuro 北院御室), was installed as the sixth abbot of Ninnaji, where he performed esoteric Buddhist rituals for the imperial family. Also known as a distinguished poet. Given the abundance of the Goryū transmissions preserved in the Ise and Tōhoki regions, it could perhaps be related to a certain Kantō-gata Goryū Sanbōin-ryū 関東方御流三寳 院流, which was also criticised by the fourteenth-century Kōyasan monk Yūkai in his compendium Hōkyōshō (1375) for spreading the “perverse teachings” (jagi 邪義 or jagyō 邪教). “Again, the Kantō branch is called Goryū of Sanbōin. It has many scriptures and oral transmissions, [which] incorporate the leftovers of Ono and Hirosawa [of Shingon]. They start with the Sutra of Guiding Principle and line up [famous] masters and disciples. 又關東方號御流三寶院。書籍口決多之。野澤餘挿。理趣經切出師資並座等.” T. 2456, 849a23–24; in passim, Iyanaga 2011, 812. Kubota Osamu’s earlier reconstruction of the Goryū Shintō lineage traces its beginnings to the Ritsu monk Enkai 円海 or a side lineage of Shuhan 秀範. Kubota Osamu 久保田 収, Chūsei shintō no kenkyū 中世神道の研究 (Ise: Kōgakkan daigaku, 1959), 330–35. However, Itō Satoshi points out that the majority of the Goryū Shintō rituals, including the Goryū-type kami abhiṣeka (jingi kanjō) would have fully formed only by the late medieval period. Itō Satoshi, Chūsei Tenshō Daijin shinkō no kenkyū 中世天照大神信仰の研 究 (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2011), 481.

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Some rituals of this kind were transmitted within the corpus of the aforementioned Miwa-ryū tradition in the late medieval and early modern periods; many of the Goryū Shintō ritual texts are currently preserved at Jingū Bunko 神宮文庫 archives at Ise, Kōyasan University in Wakayama Prefecture, and Kano Bunko 狩野文庫 of Tōhoku University library in Sendai.67 Below is the abbreviated description of this ritual, based on the Miwa-ryū ritual documents preserved at Hasedera 長谷寺 (present-day Nara Prefecture), Jingū Bunko, and Kōyasan, and on the aforementioned Goryū Shintō collections. The latter documents were previously investigated by Itō Satoshi in 1998; others were assessed independently in 2012 and 2013. The Kazoiro Kanjō ritual demonstrates how the medieval esoteric Buddhist discourse on gender and conception and the lore about the Age of Gods, now known as “medieval Nihongi” (chūsei Nihongi 中世日本記), was embedded in the ritual and soteriological context of Buddhist-Shinto abhiṣeka initiations.68 After the standard offerings and rituals performed in front of the mandala, the initiated person proceeds to “pour the water for the Age of Father and Mother, and to throw the flower” (kazoiroyo ni mizu wo sosogi 父母代濯水, hana wo togeru 投華).69 This moment represents the preamble to the process of creation manifested in the meeting of the two primordial agencies (or more specifically, deities Izanagi and Izanami) and their sexual intercourse. In a manner that is somewhat reminiscent of the explanation on the origins of life by Kitabatake Chikafusa, cited above, this scene is explained in theosophic terms and similes of Heaven and Earth, Yin and Yang, the five elements and the Buddhist notion of Dharma-nature:

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I accessed the selected Goryū Shintō documents at Jingū Bunko and Kōyasan University library in February, April, and May 2013. See a detailed study of such initiations in Fabio Rambelli, “The ritual world of Buddhist “Shinto”: The Reikiki and initiations on kami-related matters (jingi kanjō) in late medieval and early modern Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 29 3/4 (2002): 265–97. Lucia Dolce has discussed the similar notions of duality and selected embryological imagery appearing in the late Edo-period Miwa-ryū jingi kanjō documents in Dolce 2006–2007, 138–45. The following description is based on the study of Goryū Shintō ritual documents from Kano Bunko in the 1998 article by Itō Satoshi, combined with the descriptions found in the ritual documents transmitted by both Miwa-ryū and Goryū. Itō Satoshi 伊藤聡, “Chūsei kōki Goryū Shintō kanjō dōjō ni okeru dangi ni tsuite 中世後期御流神道灌頂 道場における談義について,” Kokugakuin Daigaku Nihon bunka kenkūjo kiyō 国学院 大学日本文化研究所紀要 81/3 (1998): 17–38.

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Heaven and Earth merge, Yin and Yang join in perfect harmony. [The five elements of] Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Emptiness [are] The primordial unproduced Dharma-nature. Perfectly still heart quietly [reaches] complete emptiness [nirvana]. 天地和合陰陽相合円満地水火風空本来本有法性寂然心閑空寂

The sendatsu 先達 (mountain ascetic, also called here ajari 阿闍梨) takes the vessel containing water and intones the mantra (vaṃ, hūṃ, trah, hrih, āh). Since this very moment represents the ritual act of creation preceding the intermediate being’s descent into the womb (the first stage of the embryo’s conception and its subsequent animation), the initiating ascetic must intone the mantra for prolonging life (enmyō 延命) and the following secret verse: Dwelling in the middle-lodge between Heaven and Earth, [you] now experience the sexual union between husband and wife. [Variant translation:] The intermediate being, residing in between Heaven and Earth, be received now, at this moment of merging between husband and wife [Father and Mother]. 天地の中宿りする中宿に今ぞ授る夫婦の媾合

The initiated disciple then receives the pouring of water (kanjō 灌頂) from ajari. Some ritual texts describe the two ajari, meaning probably the teacher and disciple, who participate in this act and perform the subsequent ritual of Reiki Kanjō 霊気灌頂 (Abhiṣeka of Divine Spirits).70 Other versions of Kazoiro Kanjō, found in the early nineteenth-century ritual compendiums from the Miwa-ryū tradition, specify that it is the union between the teacher and the disciple (shishi wagō 師子和合) that is intended to symbolically reproduce the union of Kangiten 歓喜天 (Sk. Nandikeśvara). In Buddhist iconography, this 70

Shintō Miwa genryū shintō kuketsu 神道三輪源流神道口決 (Oral Transmissions of the Original Lineage of Miwa Shintō, colophons of 1798, 1810, 1820); the original manuscript is preserved at Kōyasan, printed version in OJS, vol. 6, 119–93; for Kazoiro Kanjō, see pages 189–190. See also Miwa Shintō kanjō shobu 三輪神道灌頂諸部 (Various Abhiṣeka Parts of Miwa Shintō, nineteenth century), preserved at Hasedera; printed version in OJS, vol. 5, 323–34; for Kazoiro Kanjō, see 326–28.

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figure is often represented by two esoteric deities with elephantine heads (usually understood to be Gaṇeśa and a manifestation of Avalokiteśvara) embracing each other.71 The ritual segments below follow the version with two ajari. Representing the agency of the “father,” the ajari on the left binds the “outer five-pronged” mudra (soto gokoin 外五古印), symbolising the union of Yin and Yang, and intones the secret formula. Transliterated in Japanese, it may have meant something like this: Father is this: the high mountain of the Diamond Realm (Kongōkai), [his] compassion virtues mount high, Such retribution is difficult to repay. 父は是金剛界の高山、恩徳の高事、報いて而も報い難

After this, he retreats, binding the Amida-samādhi mudra (amida jōin 阿弥陀 定印) and pronounces the following: Father is this: The Yang [sun] deity of the upper world, [he] thrusts down as [the rough deity] Kōjin and bestows the five shapes [of the embryo] [Kongōkai mantra] love and respect, love and respect. 父は是上界陽神、荒神に成下て、五形授く、唵見聚々々敬愛々々娑 婆呵

Next, the ajari delivers the initiation and intones the Sanskrit syllables symbolising the five elements (in the following order: wood, fire, earth, metal, water), the orifices (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue), the faculties (body, mind, matter, voice), and the five shapes and five tastes. These actions symbolise calling forward the conditions necessary for the successful conception of the embryo and ensuing long life of the to-be-born individual. Five shapes [of embryo], five tastes are all yet to be achieved. 71

Kazoiro Kanjō chūdan 父母代灌頂中壇 (Middle Altar for Abhiṣeka of Father and Mother), in Shintō Miwa genryū shintō kuketsu, preserved at Kōyasan, OJS, vol. 6, 190. For the image of Kangiten, see the illustration of this deity in Bernard Faure’s contribution, “Buddhism Ab Ovo,” in the present volume.

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Long life, peace, and tranquillity in all four seasons. A VAṂ HŪṂ 五形五味皆未成就延命安穏四季四節

Representing the agency of the “mother,” the second ajari (possibly the disciple) on the right also binds the “outer five-pronged” mudra and pronounces the following: Mother is this: The deep sea of the Womb Realm (Taizōkai) [her] compassion runs deep, Even though [one] thanks her apologetically, It is difficult to [repay such kindness]. A VI RA HŪṂ KHĀṂ 母は是胎蔵界の滄海、恩徳の深事、謝りしても謝り難

He binds the Amida-samādhi mudra, pronounces the following verse and performs exactly the same actions as the ajari on the left: Mother is this: The Ying [shadow] deity of the world below, [She] thrusts up as child-birthing deity, and bestows human flesh [to the embryo]. 母は是下界陰神、上成生神、聚肉を与ふ

After that, as the two ajari intone the mantra symbolising the union of Kongōkai and Taizōkai (ryōbu gōgyō shingon 両部合行真言), they bind the eight-petal lotus mudra (hachiyō-in 八葉印), which acts here as a symbolic representation of the womb. The teacher then delivers the “ten precepts of the generation of the father and mother” (kazoiroyo jikkai 父母代十戒) to the initiated disciple: Precept of indebtedness bestowed by Heaven and Earth, Precept of indebtedness bestowed by the sun and the moon, Precept of indebtedness bestowed by buddhas and kami, Precept of indebtedness bestowed by the holy scriptures, Precept of indebtedness bestowed by teachers and elders,

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Precept of indebtedness bestowed by father and mother, Precept of indebtedness bestowed by water and fire, Precept of indebtedness bestowed by grasses and trees, Precept of indebtedness bestowed by wind and rain, Precept of indebtedness bestowed by the five grains. 天地送恩戒　日月送恩戒　仏神送恩戒　聖教送恩戒　師長送恩戒　 父母送恩戒　水火送恩戒　草木送恩戒　風雨送恩戒　五穀送恩戒

Next, the two ajari intone “Heaven” three times (ten ten ten 天々々), which Itō Satoshi takes to mean “Heaven is Tenshō Daijin/Amaterasu,”72 and the following recitation: All sins of sentient beings Burn and perish in emptiness. [When] the two [deities] summon the burning sun One shows and proclaims indebtedness. Sins, along with fog and snow, Will all melt away, [facing] toward the Sun, illuminating the sky [Amaterasu] Circumambulating our [mundane] world. 衆生罪科皆　虚空焼失滅　二人召す日火　一人示申恩 罪科も霜雪共に消えにけり我が世を廻る天照す日仁

Based on the above description, the Kazoiro Kanjō ritual is structured along the lines of the Buddhist abhiṣeka initiation focusing on the Age of Gods and various secrets of the kami (jingi kanjō).73 Although it does not state so explicitly, 72 73

Itō 1998, 21. Another possible contender for suggested similarities is the so-called “Golden Turtle Consecration” (konki kanjō 金亀灌頂) also known as “Chaos Consecration” (konton kanjō 混 沌灌頂), which existed in the medieval Hirosawa branch of Shingon and also featured ritualisation of sexual intercourse performed by the two ajari as “father” and “mother.” The exact dating of this ritual is uncertain; it may have developed in parallel to Kazoiro Kanjō. Discussed in Mizuhara Gyōei 水原堯栄, Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū no kenkyū 邪教立 川流の研究 (Kyoto: Shinbundō, 1931), 47–49; and James Sanford, “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas: Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24/1 (1997), 8–17. Sanford links the metaphors appearing in this ritual to the “internal sea” and the turtle of Shangqing 上清 Taoist cultivation. Sanford, ibid., 13, n. 17; citing Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 106.

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in the context of the several so-called “kami abhiṣeka” performed in sequence, its title most likely refers to the deities Izanagi and Izanami (that is, the “father” and “mother” of Japan). In fact, it is best understood when read alongside with the fourteenth-century poetic treatise Ise monogatari zuinō.74 The chapter “On the Two Letters of Ise” (Ise niji gi no koto 伊勢二字義のこと) in this treatise provides a description that resembles significantly the premise and procedure for what emerged as the ritual of Kazoiro Kanjō found among the late medieval Goryū Shintō documents and described above. This chapter of the treatise, translated earlier by Susan Blakely Klein, refers to the creation of Japan by Izanagi and Izanami: On the relationship between the deities, August Father and Mother. […] When the five agents of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water merge, although it has no form, the spirit (tamashii たましい) does not die and emerges inside. This spirit fills the vast sky to the brim and becomes human soul. […] The form of “that” is called “closed.” It resembles a spear thrusting downward through the sky. The “sea-plain” (unahara うな原) has an “opened” form (kai かい) [like that of a sea shell, or a flower]. Thrusting downward refers to the bridal matters. The [shell] opens up, and because it is filled with water, it is called the “sea-plain” (unahara 海 原). Since it gives birth to children, it [can also be called the “sea-womb”]. […] The “island” refers to when the two seeds [tane 胤] merge and [the embryo] hardens inside the flower-shell [womb of the mother]; this means it hardened in the sea-plain and was called “an island” [lit., “soil”]. The phrase “the two kami, residing on this island, became husband and wife” means it is [the two spirits of] “father and mother,” and their desire to have sexual relations.75

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According to Susan Blakely Klein, in its description of Izanagi and Izanami’s union and Japanese creation myth, Ise monogatari zuinō quotes another medieval source, called Yotsugi 世継ぎ (Storyteller). Klein 1997, 230. In her earlier English translation of this text, Susan Blakely Klein used the three manuscript versions of this text: the Tesshinsai Bunko 鉄心斎文庫 version with the colophon of 1282, the second version originally held by the Hayashizaki Bunko 林崎文庫, and the third preserved in Kariya Shiritsu Toshikan 刈谷市立図書館 (Aichi Prefecture). The latter two versions are now kept at Jingū Bunko at Ise, Mie Prefecture. Here, I will follow the transcription of the Kariya manuscript, annotated in modern Japanese. The quote above correspondes to Iitsuka Erito 飯塚恵理人, Ebie Yuki 蛯江ゆき, and Yoneda Mari 米田真理, “Kariya Shiritsu Toshikan Murakami Bunko zō Ise monogatari zuinō 刈谷市 立図書館村上文庫蔵「伊勢物語随納」,” Sugiyama jogakuen daigaku kenkyū

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Andreeva 御父母のかミの御事 […]　此木火土金水の五行、和合せねは、すか たなけれとも、たましいハうせすして中にあり、このたましいハ空 にみちわれて人のたましいなり […] 是等のすかたへいの名なり、ほ この、そらにさしいたしたるににたり、うな原とハ、かいのすかた なり、さしおろすとハ、嫁の事なり、かいハすかたひらけて、なか にミつあるゆえに、うな原といふ、子をうむゆへに[…] 一つの嶋と いふハ、うなはらのなかにかたまりてあれハ、嶋ちいふなり、二胤 和合して、かいのなかにかたまるを嶋といふなり、二神この嶋に居 て夫婦となるといふハ、二つのふうほの霊なり、ふうほのくなきて よしとおもふ霊なり。

Important here is the fact that the contents of the Kazoiro Kanjō ritual focus on the act of creating and animating the embryo by the male and female agencies and, subsequently, emphasise the obligatory gratitude and indebtedness to one’s mother and father (the primordial Japanese kami). The symbolic embryo is, on the one hand, the newly initiated disciple; on the other hand, it is the deity Amaterasu and the whole of Japan.76 Therefore, the title of this ritual appears in all collections as the “Abhiṣeka of Father and Mother,” while the symbolic meanings of this ritual may reside on the intersection of at least several traditions: Buddhist, Shinto, and vaguely Confucian notions of filial piety, which we find present also in early and medieval Chinese Buddhist apocrypha. The various sutras positing one’s indebtedness to parents, such as Fumu enzhong nanbao jing 父母恩重難報經 (Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Profound Kindness of Parents), were known in pre-Tang China,77 and some of

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ronshū 椙山女学園大学研究論集 26 (1995), 116. The earlier English translation of this passage appears in Klein 1998, 40. The “Rock-Cave Abhiṣeka” (Ama no Iwato kanjō 天岩戸灌頂) discussed earlier in Dolce 2006–07, 138–45, contains a very similar motif. On a variety of scriptures of this kind, see the opening essay by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu in the present volume, n. 52. The Fumu enzhong nanbao jing was translated into Chinese after 384 and survives as a Dunhuang manuscript P. 3919; this version is not listed in the Japanese Buddhist canon. A number of related scriptures include the Fumu en nanbao jing 父母恩難報經 (Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Kindness of Parents; T. 684), Fumu en zhong jing 父母恩重經 (Sutra on the Profound Kindness of Parents; T. 2887) and Foshuo fumu enzhong taigu jing 父母恩重胎骨經 (Sutra on the Profound Kindness of Parents [in Generating One’s] Body), most likely composed in China before the sixth century. A painting from the tenth century discovered at Dunhuang which depicts the scene described in Fumu en zhong jing is preserved in the Stein

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them were reportedly brought to Japan during the Nara period.78 For example, this particular scripture lists the ten kinds of kindnesses or filial obligations (Ch. shi’en 十恩, Jp. jūon) and stipulates that those who transgress the obligations of filial piety and do not repay their karmic debts to their parents would inevitably fall into Avīci Hell and be destined to eternal suffering there.79 One senses the similarities between the categories invoked by this particular cluster of early Chinese Buddhist scriptures and the symbolic implications of late medieval Kazoiro Kanjō, although there is no doubt that the temporal gap between them is simply too great. One could speculate, however, that while certain segments of the Kazoiro Kanjō (namely, its Buddhist abhiṣeka format and its evident roots in “medieval Nihongi” lore) were shaped by the medieval discourses on embryology and kami worship, this Japanese ritual most likely emerged beginning from the late Muromachi period and was practised during the Edo period, when the interest to Neo-Confucian modes of thinking, including filial piety, was gaining currency.80 The following segment of the Kazoiro Kanjō ritual, namely, throwing the flower, was also a standard part of the abhiṣeka initiation. Although this part is actually missing from the particular records discussed by Itō Satoshi, else-

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Collection at the British Museum, SP. 67–68. The two of these scriptures (T. 684 and T. 2887) do not contain references to the “ten kindnesses.” The Tendai monk Ennin 圓仁 (ca. 794–864) supposedly brought with him a commentary to Fumu en nanbao jing by a monk from Ximingsi 西明寺 (Jp. Saimyōji) Monastery in Chang’an, the capital of the Tang dynasty, located near the eastern terminus of the Silk Road. However, Ennin’s catalogue of the Buddhist scriptures imported from China, Nihonkoku Shōwa gonen nyūtō kyūhō mokuroku日本國承和五年入唐求法目録 (Catalogue of the Dharma Sought upon Entering the Tang [Kingdom and Brought to] the Country of Japan in the Fifth Year of Shōwa (838), T. 2165) does not contain any references to it. Other editions of similar scriptures are preserved at Shōsōin 正倉院 Repository in Nara. It is not clear whether any of these texts were directly consulted at any stage of the Kazoiro Kanjō ritual composition. See the discussion and annotated partial translations in Jessey J.C. Choo, “That ‘Fatty’ Lump: Discourses on the Fetus, Fetal Development, and Filial Piety in China before the Eleventh Century CE,” Nan Nü 14 (2012): 207–11, especially n. 48 on the “ten [types of] kindness of a caring mother” in the Dunhuang manuscripts. Also, n. 61 in the opening essay by Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu in the present volume. For example, the Edo-period Buddhist sermon collections explaining the filial piety cited Fumu en zhong jing (Sutra on the Profound Kindness of Parents) as their source. See, for example, Mōanjō 盲安杖 (A Cane Safely Leading the Blind, 1619), composed by the Zen priest Suzuki Shōsan 鈴木正三 (1579–1655). Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei日本古典文学 大系, vol. 83, Kana hōgoshū 仮名法語集, Miyasaka Yūshō 宮坂有勝, ed. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1964), 247–48.

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where in the rituals of Goryū Jingi Kanjō (Kami Abhiṣeka, Goryū-Style) and Reiki Kanjō (Abhiṣeka of Divine Spirits), the records suggest that in the case of Kazoiro Kanjō, the initiated disciple had to throw a flower onto a mandala spread on the floor. At the moment when the symbolic embryo has been “conceived,” the disciple intoned the following spell and threw the flower: Hail life-returning august deity Tenshō Daijin [Amaterasu Ōmikami]. In the country of Japan, the princes accept the mercy of various deities Whom they uphold and protect. May the recipient [of this initiation] be granted the achievement of siddhi.81 南無帰命頂礼天照大神日本国中王子諸神哀愍納受護持。 受者悉地成就せしめ給へ

Itō Satoshi has noted that a document entitled Goryū Shintō naidōjō gi 御流神 道内道場儀 (On the Internal Practice Hall in Goryū Shintō) suggests that a variant incantation that followed the above part could be: “Hail the Amaterasu Deity’s Shrine in Ise.”82After the two ajari (teacher and disciple) had ritually “conceived” the embryo (the disciple), its further destiny is prognosticated by throwing the flower onto the mandala representing the ten realms of Buddhist transmigration. In the case of standard Buddhist initiations within the Shingon school, such as dharma-transmission (denbō kanjō 伝法灌頂) or “binding the karmic bonds” with one’s school (kechien kanjō 結縁灌頂), the disciple throws the flower onto the two mandalas, the Taizōkai (Womb Realm) and the Kongōkai (Diamond Realm). The Goryū Shintō ritual, however, was focused on the so-called TenRealm mandala (jikkai mandara 十界曼荼羅). The prime example of such mandalas were the “Mind-Contemplation Ten-Realm” mandalas (kanjin jikkai mandara 観心十界曼荼羅), used widely in the late medieval and early modern period by Kumano bikuni 比丘尼 nuns to proselytise Buddhism among laymen and laywomen.83 81 82 83

Goryū Shintō kanjō naidō gishiki 御流神道灌頂内堂儀式 (Ritual Procedure Inside the Practice Hall of Goryū Shintō Kanjō), discussed in Itō 1998. Namu Ise Tenshō Daijingū 南無伊勢天照太神宮. Ibid., 21. Known also as Kumano kanjin jikkaizu 熊野勧進十界圖 (Images of Ten Realms, Raising the Funds for Kumano Shrines), these images have already been well studied both in Japan and the West. See D. Max Moerman, Localising Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005); and Gaynor Sekimori’s contribution, “Foetal Buddahood: From Theory to Practice

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The notes to the Kazoiro Kanjō rituals explain that those with a heavy burden of karma will have their flower fall onto the realms of hell (jigoku 地獄), residence of hungry ghosts (gaki 餓鬼), animals (chikushō 畜生), and asuras; thus, in their future reincarnations they will fall into the abysses of the Avīci Hell of Eight Obstacles and Three Abundances. In contrast, those with good karma roots and a heart of compassion will have their flower fall onto the Lotus-Dais of Nine Parts (central part of the Taizōkai/jikkai mandala, which often has the large graph “mind-heart” 心 painted in gold) and, as a result, will be reborn into the higher existence of divinities and enlightened beings. These motifs, again, vaguely echo the notions described in the earlier Chinese Buddhist scriptures, namely, the aforementioned Fumu enzhong nanbao jing (Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Profound Kindness of Parents), although this does not seem to have survived in Japan. The meaning of the Goryū Jingi Kanjō rituals as a whole (and among these, the Kazoiro) is that even those with heavy karma will be able to achieve enlightenment by the means of karmic bonds (kechien) provided by the kami abhiṣeka and by invoking and contemplating the imperial deity Amaterasu in a single thought (ichinen). The embryological discourse in the form of ritual union between “father and mother” and their “conceiving of an embryo” was placed within a ritual context of kami worship. 4

Mandalising Women’s Bodies?

Another important companion of medieval Buddhist embryological discourses was the idea (although still necessarily embedded in the androcentric paradigm) that women’s bodies, capable of conception, could potentially be understood as manifestations of the Womb mandala (Taizōkai), the Lotus, or, according to more radical interpretations, even as the Pure Land. The exact provenance and development of such ideas is still under investigation. However, on the basis of textual sources discussed in the previous sections, it is evident that during the late twelfth to early thirteenth century, the esoteric Buddhist scholarly milieu, especially the monks residing or trained at Kōyasan and Daigoji, were extremely interested in advanced interpretations of esoteric scriptures, including the Yugikyō and the Rishukyō, and produced a number of theories focusing on conception and gestation. During the very same period, high-ranking clerics from Daigoji, Kajūji, Tōji, and Ninnaji were active at court, – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo,” in the present volume.

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performing esoteric rituals for pregnant royal consorts. One could speculate that esoteric Buddhist theories referring to noble women’s bodies as manifestations of the Womb mandala hailed forth from the same esoteric milieu as the Yugikyō transmissions and discourses on embryology, and that they were developed in conjunction with performances of esoteric Buddhist rituals providing protection during the pregnancy and labour of the royal consorts between the late Heian and Kamakura periods. Such rituals, including those featuring Aizen Myōō, were introduced and promoted by the Tendai and Shingon clergy from the early eleventh century,84 and performed for the members of the royal family (at least by Miidera and Enryakuji; oftentimes, with considerable intermissions) up until modern times. Much simpler ritual techniques providing protection to commoner women during pregnancy and childbirth, also reflecting Taizōkai imagery, circulated among wider strata of Japan’s society throughout the Edo period, and possibly until the Meiji Restoration. These phenomena, however limited was their application, create considerable tensions with the well-entrenched ideas about the inherent impurity of women’s bodies that were adopted into the Buddhist mainstream position from Vedic culture from the time of Buddhism’s inception in India.85 Such were the notions of the “five obstructions” and “three obligations,” and with them the idea that a woman had to first be reborn as a male in order to achieve enlightenment.86 In medieval Buddhist texts, women were sometimes equated to serpents, owing to the proposition that the latter represented the notions of the “three poisons” (sandoku 三毒) and fundamental ignorance (mumyō). Buddhist scriptures and commentaries routinely contained references to male and female “roots” (dankon 男根 and nyokon 女根, respectively); these 84

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Anna Andreeva, “Childbirth in Aristocratic Households of Heian Japan,” in sp. is. “Childbirth and Women’s Health Across Cultures,” Anna Andreeva, Erica Couto-Ferreira, and Susanne Töpfer, eds., Dynamis 34/2 (2014), 357–76. See the previous discussions in Alan Sponberg, “Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism,” in Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, José Ignacio Cabezón, ed. (Albany: State University of New York, 1992), 3–36; Robert Kritzer, “Childbirth and the Mother’s Body in the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya and Related Texts,” in Indo tetsugaku bukkyō shisō ronshū: Mikogami Eshō kyōju shōju kinen ronshū インド哲学仏教思想論 集：神子上恵生教授頌寿記念論集, Mikogami Eshō kyōju shōju kinen ronshū kan­ kōkai 神子上恵生教授頌寿記念論集刊行會, eds. (Kyoto: Nagata bunshodō, 2004), 1085–1109; also n. 62 and 63 above. Yoshida Kazuhiko, “The Enlightenment of the Dragon King’s Daughter in the Lotus Sutra,” transl. and adapted by Margaret Childs, in Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan, Barbara Ruch, ed. (Center for Japanese Studies, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 297–324. See also n. 1 above.

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terms were not avoided but rather used to indicate the gender agencies.87 The term nyokon often occurs in the context of describing the organics of the human body (both male and female together), “transforming the female roots [into male],” or as a subject of precautionary tales about impure bodily matters and desire caused by women, and the many prohibitions for monks and nuns set out within the Vinaya rules. Sometime in the late twelfth century, perhaps in relation to the promotion of the Yugikyō and increasing interest in new ritual forms of enlightenment, the esoteric Buddhist milieu, aware of the theories of conception and gestation, arrived at the idea that at least noblewomen’s bodies could be understood as mandalic realms, in particular, the Lotus-Dais of the Taizōkai mandala, and as a manifestation of the deity Butsumo 佛母 (Sk. Buddha-locanā), the ultimate mother of all enlightened beings, mentioned before in section one. It may have even been the other way around: the necessity and the desire of the Shingon and Tendai lineages to be successfully represented at court, through the performance of efficacious esoteric rituals for safe childbirth, might have spurned or reinforced the interest in conception and embryological ideas appearing in the Yugikyō. To understand these developments, let us first return to the early thirteenth century. Suggestive of one such development is the 1203 record of a dream by the Tendai cleric Jien 慈円 (1155–1225). In it, he discussed the agency of the emperor and imperial consort as representations of esoteric Buddhist deities Ichiji Kinrin 一字金輪 (Sk. Ekākṣara-Uṣṇīṣacakra, One-Syllable Golden Disc) and Butsugen Butsumo (Sk. Buddha-locanā, Buddha-Eye Buddha-Mother), both featuring in the Yugikyō and other important esoteric scriptures.88 The records of the procedures during royal childbirth preserved by the imperial court between 1119 and 1338 also indicate that the performance of the Butsugen Butsumo ritual was an intrinsic part of court protocol, which consisted of many rites. The high-ranking Tendai clerics (zasu 座主), beginning with Jien in 1195, performed this ritual for the royal consorts until it was taken over by the princely Shingon clerics of Tōji and Daigoji for the last half of the thirteenth century.89 The court childbirth rituals, established during that time into a very 87

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A quick search on the SAT Taishō Daizōkyō database reveals 448 examples of citation for the term nyokon and 418 examples for the term dankon; they often occur together in descriptions of the human body from Abhidharmakośa bhaṣya quotations in other Buddhist texts: , accessed February 2014. T. 867, lines 0260a10–12. See the English translation of Jien’s dream record in Abè Ryūichi 1999, 363–64; and Grapard 2002–2003, 137–38, n. 40 above. Osan oinori no mokuroku 御産祈目録 (List of Prayers for Noble Births) and Osan buruiki 御産部類記 (Records of Noble Births), ZGR, jūkan 997, zatsu-bu 147, 472–505; jūkan 998,

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elaborate ritual protocol, also prominently featured the deity Aizen Myōō.90 This divinity, whose iconography derived from the Yugikyō, was the focus of several rites of which the Ninnaji and Tōji lineage seem to have been particularly protective at court. In 1247, the Daigoji Kongōōin monk Jitsugen, the teacher of Miwa Shōnin Rendōbō, also linked to Kōyasan’s Dōhan and already mentioned in section one, presided over one such Aizen ritual during the labour of Saonji Kitsuko 西園寺きつ子 (1225–1292), the consort of emperor Go-Saga 後嵯峨 (1220–1272) and mother of emperors Go-Fukakusa 後深草 (r. 1246–1260) and Kameyama 亀山 (1245–1305, r. 1260–1274). Jitsugen was versed in both Shingon and Yogācāra (Ch. Faxiang, Jp. Hossō) teachings; in 1236–1238 he was appointed both as Daigoji zasu and the head of Tōji (Tōji chōja 東寺長者) and was also employed at court as a personal attendant priest to the emperor.91 Jitsugen, therefore, could have been one of the key figures involved both in constructing the interpretations of the Yugikyō and promoting the Aizen rituals and Yugikyō teachings by the Shingon factions at court. No doubt, there were multiple other figures, all with their distinct political and religious agenda. The Yugikyō theories may have been shared by Jitsugen with Dōhan and Rendōbō, who were both fascinated by the imagery of the Taizōkai and theories of conception, gestation, and enlightened bodies emerging through the knowledge of Buddhist treatises and esoteric scriptures. One can recall the previously mentioned Dōhan’s statement that, despite being within the mundane world, one can “enter the lotus-womb and be reborn in the Pure Land.”92

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zatsu-bu 148–9, 506–49. Additional manuscripts are preserved at Eizan Bunko, accessed in May 2013. The English translation of these texts is currently in progress and will be addressed in a larger study. Of special significance here may be the initiation certificate dated to 1310 and said to have been originally received by the Kajūji 勧修寺 monk Genkaku 厳覚 (1056–1121) from one Rishūbō Jakuen 理趣房寂円, which repeats the tropes seen in the chapter on meonzō samadhi in the Yugikyō. Cited in Kushida Ryōkō 櫛田良洪, Shingon mikkyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū 真言密教成立過程の研究 (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorinkan, 1979), 383; and discussed at length in Sanford 1997, 4–6. I was not able to consult the original record. Genkaku was a prolific scholar of esoteric scriptures and rituals. Most importantly, in 1119 he presided over one of the important esoteric rituals held at court during the labour of the royal consort Taikenmon’in 待賢門院 (1101–1145) and birth of future emperor Sutoku 崇徳 (1119–1164). Osan oinori no mokuroku, 472. Genkaku’s commentaries and transmissions are often cited by other medieval Shingon scholar-monks. He might be another figure who helped to shape the early medieval preambles to the later discourse on the Yugikyō and the Rishukyō. MDJ, 983. Dōhan, Yuga yugi kuketsu, SZ 5, 58.

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As for the ultimate conception deity Butsumo, in his oral transmissions on the Yugikyō Dōhan described it thus: “Blazing-fire female roots (kaen nyokon 火焔 女根). [Butsugen Butsumo location is] Henchiin triangle 遍智院三角 [of the Taizōkai].”93 Jitsugen’s former student Rendōbō, in his compendium Kakugenshō, has a passage discussing the example of Prince Shōtoku’s previous incarnation as Queen Srimālā and describes his original form as having “female roots” (nyokon 女根). Although the discussion is inevitably drawn to the topic of transforming the female body into a male one, Rendōbō seems to accept the idea that the fecund body of a noblewoman could essentially work toward propagating Buddhism by giving birth to children.94 In his compendium, Rendōbō repeatedly mentioned that Tendai lineages were also interested in the same subjects linked to the problem of conception and generation of bodies, and in fact some of the earlier theories to that effect could be attributed to the ninth-century monk Annen, who made many contributions to the study of esoteric Buddhism in Heian Japan. One should underline here that the medieval esoteric discourses mentioned above necessarily remained highly theoretical; they focused on the conceptualisation of the feminine principle in esoteric Buddhist cosmology and iconography and thus fell short of explicitly outlining the possibilities for esoteric Buddhist enlightenment for women, even though sometimes the imagery they employed teetered on the verge of doing so. Noblewomen’s bodies were perceived by such Buddhist scholars as a kind of sacred receptacle, divinised by its mysterious mandalic content, but whether or not these ideas 93

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Ibid., 110. Note also Rendōbō’s mention of Butsumo in the opening section of his Kakugenshō, SZ 36, 327, English translation cited previously in section three, “Esoteric Theories on the Move.” Kakugenshō, SZ 36, Chapter 16, “On the Tennōji stupa,” 358. Queen Śrīmālā (Jp. Shōman fujin 勝鬘夫人) is the main protagonist of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanāda sūtra (Shōmangyō 勝鬘經, T. 353). This sutra, translated into Chinese in 435, was an early Mahāyāna scripture teaching that enlightenment was inherent in all sentient beings in the form of tathāgatagarbhā (nyoraizō 如来蔵), the “womb of tathāgata.” On the tathāgatagarbhā teachings in India, see Zimmermann 2002. For the two English translations of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanāda sūtra, see Alex Wayman and Hideko Wayman, transl., The Lion’s Roar of Queen Śrīmālā (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974); and Diana Y. Paul, The Sutra of Queen Śrīmālā of the Lion’s Roar (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2004). A commentary on this sutra, Shōmangyō gisho 勝鬘經義疏 (T. 2185), is attributed to Shōtoku Taishi 聖徳太子 (574–622), although this is debated. The commentary survives only in a Kamakura-period copy dated to 1247; it is the scripture to which the medieval Kakugenshō alludes.

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were translated into an actual ritual practice for women remains open to investigation. Nevertheless, these ideas became known to lay Buddhist practitioners, perhaps as a part of ritual exchanges between esoteric scholarly clergy and members of the court. The lotus imagery, visually linked with the Taizōkai mandala and iconography of both Aizen and Butsumo/Buddha-Mother, was also connected to the concept of the “great womb of compassion” (daihi taizō 大悲胎蔵).95 Overall, it was an important Buddhist metaphor for salvation. As notes Fabio Rambelli, “the fact that the lotus has its roots in the mud of putrid ponds but develops into a beautiful and pure white flower was mainly used to represent the process of enlightenment.”96 It seems that at least some portions of the scholarly Buddhist metaphors crossed over the boundaries of purely scholastic discussions taking place at esoteric temples. By the early fourteenth century, non-clerical writings by court literati, such as the already mentioned Ise monogatari zuinō by anonymous author (most likely Fujiwara Tameaki), included descriptions of “woman’s genitals akin to the open lotus-flower” and described childbirth as a fall from the “nirvanic purity of the womb” into the mundane world.97 For example, the eleventh chapter of this treatise, entitled “On the Matter of Chihayaburu,” described the viscerality of a female body thus: The expression chihayaburu ちはやぶる means: when the five parts of a human (hito no gotai人の五躰) had been concieved within [the woman’s body], during childbirth one “emerges from the womb.” The appearance of mother’s five viscera and six hollow organs (gozō rokufu 五蔵六腑) resembles petals of a lotus flower. Conceived in the lotus, when born in ten months’ time, one emerges by tearing (yaburu やぶる) those thousand-petalled (sen’yō or chiha 千葉) blood capillaries and viscera (ketsumyakuwata 血脈腸). For this reason, it is written chihayaburu, but is read as “tearing the thousand leaves” [chihayaburu 千葉破る]. […]  Consequently, there is not a single human who has not spent time within the mother’s womb. All things, including grasses and trees, are like that. […] The “thousand-petal-tearing kami” (chihayaburu kami) is the human soul.98 95 96 97 98

See the Yugikyō, T. 867, line 263b04. Rambelli 2000, 363. Sanford 1997, 29–30, citing Susan Blakely Klein 1998, 13–43. The Japanese transcription follows Iitsuka et al 1995, 103–105, for an earlier English translation of this passage, see Klein 1998, 30–31.

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ちはやぶるといふこと、人の五躰の内にはらまれて、生まれる時、 腹のうちに生れいつるをいふ、母の五臓六腑の姿蓮葉に似たり、蓮 にはらまれて、十月になりて生まる々時、そのせんようのけつミや く腸を破りて出るなり、されハちはやふるとかきて、ちハやふると よむ。 […]   されハ、いかなる人も母の腹の内にしハしやとらぬハなきなり、 一切の物、草木まても、かくのことくなり、 […] 千早振神ハ人の霊 なり. […]

Moreover, one of the following sections explaining the meaning of the two characters for Ise (Ise nimon 伊勢二門, The Two Gates of Ise), also known in medieval Japan as Ise niji gi no koto 伊勢二字義のこと, described the gendered aspects of both male and female bodies.99 Although, as mentioned previously, the author of Ise monogatari zuinō does not exactly cast light on his sources, his treatise was clearly inspired by the earlier esoteric Buddhist teachings and commentaries on the Yugikyō and the Rishukyō as well as by thirteenth-century embryological theories – perhaps by those radiating from Sanbōin of Daigoji, where figures such as Jitsugen resided, practiced, and taught.100 This time, however, the embryological discourse regarding the intermediate state and the first stage of kalala was merged with the medieval discourse on Shinto, namely, the theories about the nature of kami. In it, once again, one encounters the lotus imagery employed to describe the female body: As for the term kaikō 開闔, “open” and “closed,” the letter kō is read tsubomu (“to close like a flower bud”). The man’s “naked” [organ] is thus “closed.” The letter kai is read hiraku (“to open up like a flower”). The woman’s “shell” is thus “open.” The man is a “closed lotus flower,” and the woman is an “open lotus flower.”101 They are also called the Diamond 99

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Itō Satoshi has recently studied the exchange between the literary, esoteric, and Shinto lineages, focusing on the Ise niji gi and the Agone Bay transmission and the chihayaburu poems, via the rituals of waka kanjō 和歌灌頂 (Abhiṣeka of Waka Poems). The Agone Bay transmission and the chihayaburu poems were linked to the transmissions of the aforementioned Tachikawa lineage, started by the younger brother of Daigoji’s founder Shōkaku (1057–1129), the monk Ninkan (?–1114). Itō 2011, 452–532. Following the Japanese scholar of premodern literature Katagiri Yōichi 片桐洋一, Susan Klein suggested that such transmissions could be linked to Go-Daigo’s favourite, the monk Monkan. Klein 1997, 461. Itō 2011, 469–72. This sentence repeats the simile about the hearts of men and women “facing downward” or “upward” found in the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, or the transmissions attributed to the

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(Kongōkai) and Womb (Taizōkai) Realms. […] When the father and mother merge in a union, this spirit102 congeals into a hard form, enters the mother’s womb, becomes human and is born.103 かいかうのきをたてなかすに、かうといふ字をハ、つほむとよむ、 男の裎のつぼミたれハなり、かいの字をひらくとよむ、おんなのか いはひらけたれハなり、おとこをかうのれんけ、おんなをかいの蓮 花といふ、これもこんかい・胎蔵かいといふなり。[…]　この霊、 ちちとははと和合する時、かたまりあふてははの胎内にいりて、人 と成て生るるなり

The motif of mandalising female bodies – albeit set within the androcentric Buddhist framework and at times explicitly shunned – continued to exist within the wider strata of the esoteric Buddhist and Shugendō environment. It even appeared in a more popular discourse during the late Muromachi and early Edo period, when the local esoteric Buddhist lineages recorded collections of rituals for commoner women and many esoteric texts continued to circulate, often in printed format. For example, the fifteenth-century Shugendō ascetics from Mount Hiko transmitted a group of kirigami that eventually became known under the title of Hikosan shugendō hiketsu kanjō kan 英彦山修験道秘訣灌頂巻 (The Abhiṣeka Scroll of Secret Shugendō Transmissions from Mount Hiko, ca. 1482). Allegedly, these transmissions led to the fourteenth-century Kōyasan scholar Yūkai 宥快 (1345–1416), who was otherwise noted for his criticism of certain Shingon writings, including those by Miwa Shōnin Rendōbō.104 Despite Yūkai’s somewhat militant stand, similar notions were abound in a variety of Ryōbu

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Shingon monks Ningai and Seizon. On the former see Nobumi Iyanaga’s translation of the original sutra passage in this volume; on the latter, Goepper 1993, 150. An explicit discussion of the male and female organs as opened or closed lotuses appears in the thirteenthcentury collection of ritual transmissions by the Ono lineage, Hishō kuketsu. SZ 28, 378–80; see n. 52. Susan Klein’s translation here adds: “[which “dwells in the midst of the sky-void” and exists in an intermediate state (chūu 中有, Sk. antarābhava)].” Klein 1998, 38. Iitsuka et al 1995, 112–13; English translation modified from Klein 1998, 37–38. Miwa Shōnin Rendōbō was famously chastised by Yūkai in his treatise Hōkyōshō 寳鏡抄 (Compendium of Treasure Mirror, ca. 1375). Yūkai’s critique was aimed at those allegedly involved with the Tachikawa lineage who, in his opinion, went too far in their theorising of the “merging of two fluids” (niteki wagō 二滴和合). Many of the Tachikawa-ryū books were burnt in the fifteenth century; medieval Miwa-ryū ritual texts also perished in a fire at Byōdōji Temple, the successor of the Miwa bessho, during an internal clash in the 1460s.

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Shintō texts, many of which were transmitted by the followers of Rendōbō at Miwa and possibly even Yūkai himself.105 Below is the translation from the Hikosan shugendō hiketsu kanjō kan. The two drops, red and white, of father and mother, who give us life, merge and reside in the womb of compassionate mother. [They] take shape passing through the five stages [of the embryo]. [These two agencies] comprise the two parts of the Dharmadhātu, the Diamond and Womb mandalas, and Heaven and Earth. The form of this merging is the origins of life of the ten-thousand dharma. In other words, it is the eightpetal lotus flower.106 我等聖衆ノ父母の赤白二滴和合シテ悲母ノ胎内ニ宿シテ、五位ヲ経 テ形也。胎金両部法界天地ト成ス。此和合ノ形ハ萬法出生ノ源也。 則八葉蓮華也。

There were even more daring formulations of these tropes that survived (or were fabricated) in publications from the late Edo period; these artefacts suggest that these more explicit ideas about women’s bodies were put forward by one of the more obscure and allegedly controversial esoteric lineages such as the Tachikawa-ryū 立川流. James Sanford’s previous study of the Tachikawa lineage teachings cites at least two such texts: the Konkushō 根孔抄 (The Compendium of Root and Cavity, attributed to 1554) and the Sangen icchi no sho 三賢一致書 (Three Wise [Teachings] in a Single Record, 1649). He noted that the former text, copied and re-edited in the late Tokugawa period, linked the imagery of the Womb mandala with the pregnant female body.107 The latter, also known under the title Sangai isshinki 三界一心記 (Three Worlds in a 105

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See, for example, Ise shōsho Nihongi yushiki honshō nin denki (Transmitted Record of the Nihongi, of the Consciousness, Fundamental Nature, and Humanity, produced by I Se; colophon of 1537). Bernard Faure, “Japanese Tantra, the Tachikawa-ryū and Ryōbu Shinto,” in Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), especially, 546, 548, 550–51. See also a more recent discussion in Dolce 2006–2007 and her contribution to the present volume. In Shugendō shōsho 修験道章疏, vol. 1, in Nihon Daizōkyō 日本大蔵經, vol. 46 (Tōkyō : Kokusho kankōkai, 2000). Cited in Yamashita Takumi 山下琢巳, “Shugendō ‘Gotai honnu honrai busshin’ setsu – sono kyōri to shite no ‘tainai goi’ to sono tenkai 修験道「五體本 有本来佛身」—その教理としての「胎内五位」とその展開,” Tōkyō seitoku tanki daigaku kiyō 東京成徳短期大学紀要 38 (2005), 23. I thank Kigensan Licha for bringing this source to my attention. Sanford 1997, 21.

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Single Mind), is another late text often linked to the Tachikawa teachings, which were repeatedly criticised from at least the fourteenth century. Earlier Japanese studies of this text mentioned that the majority of its surviving print copies bear a colophon of Bunpo 文保 1 (1317), suggesting that at least some of the contents historically relates to the medieval Shingon discourses.108 And indeed, on many of its pages the Sangen icchi no sho repeatedly likens the womb to different kinds of paradisiac realms often invoked in esoteric Buddhist ritual and iconography: According to the highest state of Shingon [teachings], the womb of the mother is called the Flower-Store Realm, Secretly Adorned Pure Land, and also the Inner Chamber of Tosotsu Heaven. The infant inside the mother’s womb is called the Dharmakāya Mahāvairocana (Jp. Hosshin Dainichi).109 真言ノ極位ニハ母ノ胎ヲ華蔵世界ト名ヅケ密厳浄土ト号ス又都率内 院（とそつないいん）トモ云フ。母ノ胎ノ子ヲバ法身（ほっしん） 大日トモ号ス。

This late text also described the womb where conception takes places as “a crystal pond (ruri 瑠璃) that contains a dose of medicine preventing illness; on the seventy-seventh day of pregnancy, Yakushi is the principle deity (honzon 本尊).”110 In other passages of the Sangen icchi no sho, echoing somewhat the 108

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Nakamura Kazuki 中村一基, “Tainai tōtsuki no zu no shisōshiteki tenkai「胎内十月の 図」の思想史的展開,” Iwate daigaku kyōiku gakubu kenkyū nenpō 岩手大學教育學 部研究年報 50/1 (1990): 23–36. Sanford 1997, 28. The fully digitised edition of the original woodblock print edition of Sangen icchi no sho is preserved at Keiō University 慶応大学, Tokyo, and is available in public domain via the Hathi Trust homepage. The quotation cited here appears on page 55, opposite pagination. Similar stances appear on pages 29 and 27 , accessed in September 2014. Sangen icchi no sho, Keio University, Tokyo, manuscript page 29. The Hathi Trust home­ page, accessed in September 2014 . The illustrations in the Edo-period Eiri nichiyō onna chōhōki, to be mentioned shortly, show Buddha Yakushi as presiding over the seventh month of gestation. Eiri nichiyō onna chōhōki by Takai Ranzan 高井蘭山, 弘化 4 [1847], woodblock print, facsimile edition, in Edo jidai josei bunko 江戸時代女性文庫, vol. 58 (Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1996), 203. A similar manuscript of the same name (the aforementioned images appear in scroll three, page 17) can be viewed online at the homepage of the Nara Women’s University library (Nara joshi daigaku 奈良女子大学) Accessed in September 2014 .

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fourteenth-century Ise monogatari zuinō, the act of childbirth is recast in Shinto terms: the mother’s womb is the Ise shrine, the child appearing from it during birth is a kami, and the birth canal has the “appearance of a flower” 華 表, a term glossed in vernacular Japanese as torii (“Shinto shrine gate”).111 The provenance of these texts is mostly of the Tokugawa period, and their exact links to the Shingon discourses, let alone the historical Tachikawa-ryū, are difficult to ascertain. However, if seen in line with the aforementioned medieval commentaries and writings by the likes of Dōhan, Miwa Shōnin Rendōbō, and even possibly Yūkai, one can discern the parallels in logic of the similes used in these late publications. While the reasons for ostracising the medieval Tachikawa lineage for their allegedly excessive experimentation with sexual imagery remain complex and fall beyond the scope of this paper, the emerging evidence suggests that, in the medieval period, a considerable part of the esoteric Buddhist milieu (including certain sub-temples at Kōyasan and Daigoji) was captivated by the ideas of embryonic growth as a template for mandalising the human body and as a potent ritual strategy for achieving the state of sudden enlightenment (sokushin jōbutsu) as outlined by Kūkai and Kakuban. These trends also embraced the application of esoteric notions that described noblewomen’s bodies as divine receptacles and promoted esoteric rituals, scriptures, and ideologies at court. Although the discourses on women’s bodies as lotus-wombs were supposed to have been transmitted secretly, there is evidence that in the early modern period such ideas had gradually filtered through and finally reached commoner women. Local esoteric lineages, such as the aforementioned Miwa-ryū and Goryū, also transmitted rituals for easy or difficult childbirth or for stopping menstruation, as well as other prescriptions for protecting or maintaining a healthy female body, although their versions were much simpler than the ones performed in the late Heian and Kamakura periods at court. The ritual compendiums left by these lineages as well as other Shingon collections at Kōyasan and elsewhere contain a considerable number of such prescriptions, 111

Sanford 1997, 29. Sangen icchi no sho, Keio University, manuscript page 27. The Hathi Trust homepage, accessed in September 2014 . The ideas equated the abode of the Shinto shrine to the mother’s womb, and references to the torii gate as the mother’s vulva are abound in Ryōbu Shintō texts. See, for example, Nihongi Miwa-ryū 日本紀三輪流 (Nihongi Transmissions, Miwa-style, ca. 1548), Shinpukuji manuscript, Ōsu Bunko, Nagoya (page 13 front and back, and 14 front and back), in Shinpukuji zenpon sōkan 真福寺善本叢刊, Abe Yasurō 阿部 康郎 and Yamazaki Makoto 山崎誠, eds., vol. 7, Chūsei Nihongishū 中世日本紀集 (Kokubungaku kenkyū shiryōkan, Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1999).

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at least in copies dating from the Edo period; they appear either dispersed, or loosely grouped into a separate category called josei tebako 女性手箱 (“women’s hand case”).112 The Miwa-ryū ritual prescriptions advised that, if providing ritual assistance during the complicated labour, the ascetics (genja 験者)113 were to write two special amulets (reifu 霊符) in black and red ink, one of which should be burnt and the ashes swallowed, and the other hung on the neck of the labouring woman.114 Notably, to speed up the delivery, the ascetics were to make the special mudras with their hands, including that of the “eight-petal lotus” (hachiyōin 八葉印). Such ritual action was aimed at helping to “open up the womb” like a lotus. During the Edo period, woodblock print books for women, including textbooks on proper conduct in daily life, embraced esoteric Buddhist ideas on pregnancy and childbirth, including some forms of embryological discourse. For example, well-known books such as Kumano no gohonji 熊野之御本地 (Original Buddhist Divinity of the Kumano Shrines) and manuals for women, such as Eiri nichiyō onna chōhōki 絵入日用女重宝記 (Extremely Treasured Records for Women’s Everyday Life, Illustrated) described the processes of

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See, for instance, Miwa genryū shintō kuketsu 三輪源流神道口訣 (Shinto Transmissions by the Original Lineage of Miwa), last copied in 1820 (OJS, vol. 6, 158–64), and in another collection, produced by the Daigorinji 大御輪時 lineage at Miwa (OJS, vol. 6, 272–77) in 1773 and last copied in 1821. Some of these documents were briefly discussed in Fabio Rambelli, “Honji Suijaku at Work: Religion, Economics, and Ideology in Pre-modern Japan,” in Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku as a Combinatory Paradigm, Mark Teeuwen and Fabio Rambelli, eds. (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), 274–75. The documents preserved at Eizan Bunko, Ise Jingū Bunko, Kanazawa Bunko, and Kōyasan and relevant to this project were accessed in March 2012 and April–May 2013. In noble homes, childbirths were attended and supervised by midwives, wet nurses, physicians, Buddhist clerics, Ying-Yang diviners (onmyōji 陰陽師), miko 巫女 mediums and ascetics famous for their healing powers. Andreeva 2014; see also the art historical analysis of childbirth scenes in medieval Japanese hand-painted emaki scrolls in Yui Suzuki, “Twanging Bows and Throwing Rice: Warding Off Evil in Medieval Japanese Birth Scenes,” in sp. is., “Daring Japanese Art History: Studies in Japanese and Korean Art History in Honour of Donald Frederick McCalum, 1939–2013,” Sherry Fowler, Chari Pradel, and Yui Suzuki, eds. (Zurich: Museum Rietberg), Artibus Asiae 74/1 (2014): 17–41. Such amulets were also used by the court and temple physicians; the examples are recorded in the Heian and Kamakura medical collections, namely, Tanba Yasuyori’s Ishinpō (vol. 23), and Kajiwara Shōzen’s Man’anpō 万安方 (Myriad of Relief Prescriptions, 1327; esp. vol. 34). Miwa genryū shintō kuketsu, in OJS, vol. 6, 162.

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gestation as “ten months in the womb” (tainai totsuki 胎内十月).115 By displaying different esoteric divinities presiding over each month of gestation, such manuals propagated the inherited idea that the womb was a kind of sacred receptacle where such acts of divine manifestation took place. The “ten months in the womb” even became an object of humorous treatment and popular entertainment in gesaku 戯作 literature, appearing in a publication that featured a pregnant man.116 With the arrival of printed books, the ideas on conception and gestation that were initially rooted in medieval esoteric Buddhist commentaries and secret ritual transmissions reached a broad audience, including women, albeit in a more unspecified or “filtered down” form. The notions inherent in postmedieval Buddhist ideology thus must have subtly affected the concepts of pregnancy, the female body, female beauty, as well as femininity as a whole. Notably, as is the case with popular woodblock-printed books for women, the Buddhist milieu sought to impose its ideas on the matters of everyday life. For example, one of the aforementioned ritual transmissions, Goryū Shintō sho injin 御流神道諸印信 (Various Ritual Certificates of Goryū Shintō) preserved at Kano Bunko 狩野文庫 at Tōhoku University library, has a passage explaining the meaning of the “three divine treasures of women” (nyobō sanshu jingi 女房 三種神器). Such transmissions were often used in temple sermons. This particular piece was clearly aimed at women, as it seeks to impose the esoteric Buddhist and Shinto meanings seen earlier in the medieval discourses on embryology and “Abhiṣeka of Father and Mother” on the mundane objects used by women in their beauty routine in everyday life: Of the “three divine treasures of women,” the three treasures are rouge, a mirror, and lacquered paper [tatōgami 畳紙; used for binding hair or garments together]. The rouge (benitsuki ベニツキ) is Katori [Myōjin], the lacquered paper is Kashima [Myōjin], and the mirror is the deep secret enlightenment of Ise [the deity Amaterasu].117 The two deities, Kashima 115

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These sources were discussed in Nakamura 1990; see also Lucia Dolce’s contribution, “The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body,” in the present volume. The ten-month gestation model was known in China since early times. See the discussion in Choo 2012, 177– 221. Sakusha totsuki tainai no zu 作者十月胎内図 (Author’s Images of the Ten Months in the Womb), by Santō Kyōden 山東京伝 (1761–1816), 3 vols., dated by Kyōwa 享和 4 (1804); Waseda Bunko 6–984. Katori Myōjin and Kashima Myōjin are the two main kami of the Kasuga shrine, part of the Kasuga-Kōfukuji shrine-temple complex founded and patronised by the Fujiwara family. For the classic studies of these shrine and temple, see Allan Grapard, The Protocol

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and Katori, essentially reside in the father and mother who give us life. Applying rouge on the face [therefore] means being enlightened by those two deities. [However,] if one puts rouge and white powder on the face so as to be liked by people of the mundane world, then that person’s understanding of the kami’s mind and of the buddhas is shallow, and she will not achieve [anything] in this or the next life. [Applying makeup] for such reasons brings calamities. That one will transgress and fall into hell is absolutely certain. [But] if one binds her karmic bond with this Shinto practice, then afterwards applies rouge and white powder, one will [be blessed with] enlightenment of the two deities, Kashima and Katori, and, upon seeing her father and mother, she will revere them [as deities]; when applying white powder, she will be blessed with the protection of the kami and the benevolence of the buddhas and will achieve great accomplishments in both this life and the next. The reason for this is that, for us to be born, first [our] father and mother develop love and attraction, merge the two drops, red and white, and conceive the fivefold bodily parts [the human foetus]; therefore, following this logic, one must know that the [red] rouge and white powder represent the form of father and mother and must be revered to the utmost. For this reason, to pay homage to the two deities, [a woman] must pay homage when applying rouge and white powder; if done so, she will be granted an understanding of the kami secret.118 一、女房三種ノ神器三ノ宝ト者、ベニツキ鏡タトウカミ是也。ベニ ツキト者香取、タトウカミト者鹿島、鏡者伊勢ノ御内証也。鹿島・ 香取ノ両神ハ本来我等衆生ノ父母二テ座ス也。顔にベニヲ付キタル 事ハ、彼ノ両御内証也。彼ノベニシロイモノヲツケテモ、世間ノ人 二吉クオモワレナント、思テハ、神慮仏陀ノ思二ウスク、現当二世 二叶ワズ。其故有事也。来世ニテハ地獄二堕罪スへキ事、是必定 也。此神道々場ヲ結縁ノ故二、此已後ハベニ白物ヲ付テハ鹿島・香 取両神御内証、我等父母ノ形見ヲ残置頂申ト思テ、白物ヲ付ハ神 冥・仏陀ノ恵二叶ヒ、現当二世成就スヘシ。其ノ故ハ、我等モ生始 ハ父母愛念着シテ赤白二滴和合シテ五体身分ト成ル故二、此道理ヲ 以テベニ白物ヲハ父ノ形ト見、母ノ形見ヲ見ト礼シ頂ト心得ヘシ。 此故二神へ参詣申ニハ、ヘニ白物ヲ能クケワイシテ参詣セハ、神ノ 御内証二叶ヘキ也。

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of the Gods: A Study of the Kasuga Cult in Japanese History (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992). Cited in Itō 2011, 496, n. 78. Italics mine.

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Fabio Rambelli in his remarks on the “sacralization of everyday practices,” gives a similar example from an entry entitled the “women’s beauty case” (josei tebako 女性手箱), transmitted within the Miwa-ryū Shintō tradition and preserved at Hasedera. There, the mirror represents Amaterasu, the beauty case is Kasuga Daimyōjin, the comb box is Aizen Myōō, the golden plate is Katori Daimyōjin, and the golden writing brush is Sannō suijaku.119 The Edo-period ritual transmissions found at Kōyasan also contain similar items.120 The diverse examples cited above suggest that throughout the medieval period the esoteric Buddhist milieu, mainly male celibate monastics, tentatively approached the problem posed by the position of women within Buddhist cosmology. However cautious and balanced these discourses had to be, the idea that female reproductive bodies could be understood as the manifestations of the Lotus and the the Womb mandala, was certainly considered and discussed in medieval Japan, even if mostly by male clerics, semi-itinerant ritual practitioners (shōnin), and elite literati. These ideas found their way into popular discourses for commoner women during early modern times. Conclusion This essay has surveyed a range of ideas related to conception, gendered agencies, and women’s bodies and their interpretation in esoteric Buddhist terms as seen in Japanese medieval religious commentaries, ritual texts, and literary productions. The aforementioned examples, although they may appear as somewhat loosely linked in contemporaneous sources, were of critical importance to the esoteric Buddhist milieu in medieval and early modern Japan. The visual vocabulary of Buddhist mandalas and conceptual imaginaire inspired by Tantric scriptures propagated the discourse of non-duality and ritual empowerment for male ascetics. This discourse contained an amplitude of notions that, upon need, suitably lent themselves to explaining the process of conception, inception of life, and gender relations, especially at times when the dissemination of Shingon ideology was deemed necessary. The medieval commentaries on the Yugikyō, Rishukyō, and other esoteric treatises, produced by the scholar-monks from elite esoteric temples, suggest that the knowledge 119

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Miwa shintō genryū shū shimin inshitsu kowarawa 三輪神道源流集四民陰室小童 (Collection of the Original Lineage of Miwa Shinto: Transmissions for Four Social Groups, Women, and Children), in OJS, vol. 5, 391–92. Rambelli 2003, 274, n. 78; on rouge and white powder represented by esoteric syllables, see ibid., n. 79. The relevant Kōyasan texts were accessed in April and May 2013.

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regarding conception and gestation had been composed by Japanese Buddhists (whether for the purpose of promoting its ideology at court or any other number of reasons) from an array of earlier Indian and Chinese Buddhist sources. Such knowledge was once deemed subject only to secret transmissions and interpretations within the context of education at esoteric temples in medieval Japan. However, during the thirteenth and fourteenth century these theosophical theories and writings were copied and commented upon further by the followers of elite temples’ scholars based at local Buddhist facilities, as well as within the circles of literati at court. The discourse on conception (and to some degree, childbirth) set within the framework of practices aimed at achieving “enlightenment with this very body” thus gradually reached wider strata of lay Buddhist practitioners. Moreover, such esoteric ideas about the divine embryo’s growth in the mother’s womb necessitated a certain reconsideration of the terms used to represent the gender agencies of “father” and “mother,” the physical bodies of lay practitioners, and – in a limited but nevertheless significant way – women’s bodies. Works Cited Abbreviations OJS Ōmiwa Jinja Shiryō 大神神社史料 [Historical Sources of the Ōmiwa Shrine]. Ōmiwa jinja shiryō henshū iinkai 大神神社史料編集委員會, eds. 10 vols., with Index and Chronology. Sakurai: Ōmiwa jinja shiryō henshū iinkai, 1968–1991. Primary Sources Abhidharmakośa bhaṣya, Ch. Jushe lun 俱舎論, Jp. Kusharon. T. 1558, 1559. Eiri nichiyō onna chōhōki 絵入日用女重宝記 [Extremely Treasured Records for Women’s Everyday Life, Illustrated]. Takai Ranzan 高井蘭山, 弘化 Kōka 4 [1847]. Woodblockprinted book, facsimile edition. In Edo jidai josei bunko 江戸時代女性文庫 [The Archive of the Edo-period Sources on Women], vol. 58. Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1996. Foshuo fumu enzhong taigu jing 父母恩重胎骨經 [Sutra on the Profound Kindness of Parents [in Generating One’s] Body]. Fumu en nanbao jing 父母恩難報經 [Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Kindness of Parents], T. 684. Fumu en zhong jing 父母恩重經 [Sutra on the Profound Kindness of Parents], T. 2887. Fumu enzhong nanbao jing 父母恩重難報經 [Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Profound Kindness of Parents]. Dunhuang manuscript P. 3919. Garbhāvakrānti Sūtra. [Sutra on Entering the Womb]. T. 1451.

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Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku 五輪九字明秘密釈 [Secret Interpretation of Five Chakras and Nine Syllables, ca. 1142]. By Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143). T. 2514. English translation in Dale A. Todaro, The Illuminating Secret on the Five Chakras and the Nine Syllables 2004, BDK English Tripitaka, vol. 98, 258–328. Tokyo: Numata Centre for Buddhist Studies, 2004. Goryū Shintō sho injin 御流神道諸印信 [Various Ritual Certificates of Goryū Shintō]. Kano Bunko 狩野文庫, Tōhoku University library. Goryū Shintō nai dōjō gi 御流神道内道場儀 [On the Internal Practice Hall in Goryū Shintō]. Hikosan shugendō hiketsu kanjō kan 英彦山修験道秘訣灌頂巻 [The Abhiṣeka Scroll of Secret Shugendō Transmissions from Mount Hiko, ca. 1482]. In Shugendō shōsho 修 験道章疏 [Compendium of Shugendo], vol. 1, in Nihon Daizōkyō 日本大蔵經 [Japanese Buddhist Canon], vol. 46. Tōkyō : Kokusho kankōkai, 2000. Hishō kuketsu 祕鈔口訣 [Oral Transmissions on the Secret Compendium, ca. 1268–69, revised in 1283]. By Kyōjun 教舜. SZ 28. Hōkyōshō 寳鏡抄 [Compendium of Treasure Mirror, ca. 1375]. By Yūkai 宥快 (1345–1416). T. 2456. Ise monogatari zuinō 伊勢物語随能 [Essence of the Tales of Ise, ca. 1320s]. Attr. to Fujiwara no Tameaki 藤原為顕 (ca. 1240–1295). Manuscript of the Kariya Shiritsu Toshokan 刈谷市立図書館 [Kariya City Library]. Ise shōsho Nihongi yushiki honshō nin denki 伊勢生所日本紀有識本性人伝記 [Transmitted Record of the Nihongi, of the Consciousness, Fundamental Nature, and Humanity, produced by Ise; colophon of 1537]. Shintō Taikei 神道体系 [Anthology of Shinto], Ronsetsu hen 論説編, vol. 2, “Shingon Shintō,” part 2, 555–77. Tokyo: Shintō taikei hensankai, 1992. Ishinpō 醫心方 [The Essentials of Medicine, ca. 984]. By Tanba no Yasuyori 丹波康頼 (911–995). Kakugenshō 覚源抄 [Extracts from Lectures by Kakukai and Yūgen], by Hōkyō Rendōbō 宝筐蓮道房 (ca. 13th cent.). In Shingonshū zensho 真言宗全書 [The Collection of Writings of the Shingon School], Takaoka Ryūshin 高岡隆心 et al., eds., vol. 36, 325– 91. Kōyasan: Shingonshū zensho kankōkai, 1933–39. The surviving manuscript copies are preserved at Kōyasan and date back from Eiroku 6 (1564) and Enpō 5 (1678). Kazoiro Kanjō chūdan 父母代灌頂中壇 [Middle Altar for Abhiṣeka of Father and Mother], in Shintō Miwa Genryū Shintō kuketsu 神道三輪源流神道口決 [Shinto Transmissions by the Original Lineage of Miwa], original manuscript preserved at Kōyasan. Printed version in Ōmiwa Jinja Shiryō 大神神社史料 [Historical Sources of the Ōmiwa Shrine], vol. 6, 190. Konkushō 根孔抄 [Compendium of Root and Cavity, ca. 1554], Tokugawa-period woodblock-print copy. In Kinsei Bukkyō Shūsetsu 近世仏教集説 [Collection of Early

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Modern Buddhist Texts], Hayakawa Junzaburō 早川順三郎, ed., 235–50. Tokyo: Kokusho kanjōkai, 1926. Kumano no gohonji 熊野之御本地 [Original Buddhist Deities of Kumano]. By an unknown author, An’ei 安永 6 [1777]. Original print is preserved at Kyoto University Library. Mahāvairocana Sūtra, Ch. Dari jing 大日經, Jp. Dainichi kyō. T. 848. Man’anpō 万安方 [Myriad of Relief Prescriptions, 1327]. By Kajiwara Shōzen 梶原性全 (1265–1337). Tokyo: Kagaku shoin, Kasumigaseki shuppan, 1986. Miwa genryū shintō kuketsu 三輪源流神道口決 [Shinto Transmissions by the Original Lineage of Miwa], colophons of 1798, 1810, 1820. Original manuscript preserved at Kōyasan. Printed version in Ōmiwa Jinja Shiryō 大神神社史料 [Historical Sources of the Ōmiwa Shrine], vol. 6, 119–93. Variant of the same title, colophons 1773 and 1821, in ibid., vol. 6, 272–77. Miwa shintō genryū shū shimin inshitsu kowarawa 三輪神道源流集四民陰室小童 [Collection of the Original Lineage of Miwa Shinto: Transmissions for Four Social Groups, Women, and Children]. In Ōmiwa Jinja Shiryō, vol. 5, 391–92. Miwa shintō kanjō shobu 三輪神道灌頂諸部 [Miscellaneous Abhiṣeka of Miwa Shinto, 19th cent.]. Hasedera 長谷寺, Nara Prefecture. Printed version in Ōmiwa Jinja Shiryō, vol. 5, 323–34. Mōanjō 盲安杖 [A Cane Safely Leading the Blind, 1619]. By Suzuki Shōsan 鈴木正三 (1579–1655). Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 日本古典文学大系 [Anthology of Japanese Classical Literature], vol. 83, Kana hōgoshū 仮名法語集 [Collection of Buddhist Sermons], Miyasaka Yūshō 宮坂有勝, ed., 241–61. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1964. Mohe zhiguan 摩訶止観, Jp. Maka shikan. [Stopping and Contemplating]. By Zhiyi智 顗. T. 1911. Nihongi Miwa-ryū 日本紀三輪流 [Nihongi Transmissions, Miwa-style, ca. 1548], Shinpukuji manuscript, Ōsu Bunko, Nagoya. In Shinpukuji zenpon sōkan 真福寺善本 叢刊 [The Facsimile Anthology of Sources Preserved at Shinpukuji], Abe Yasurō 阿 部康郎 and Yamazaki Makoto 山崎誠, eds., vol. 7, Chūsei Nihongishū 中世日本紀集 [Collection of Medieval Nihon Shoki Transmissions]. Kokubungaku kenkyū shiryōkan, Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1999. Nihonkoku Shōwa gonen nyūtō kyūhō mokuroku日本國承和五年入唐求法目 [Catalogue of the Dharma Sought upon Entering the Tang [Kingdom and Brought to] the Country of Japan in the Fifth Year of Shōwa (838)]. By Ennin 圓仁 (ca. 794–864), T. 2165. Ninsha no obi no kaji 妊者帯加持 [Prayer to Purify the Obi Sash for Pregnant Women]. Kanazawa Bunko, Yokohama. MS 310–113. Osan buruiki 御産部類記 [Records of Noble Births]. Kunaichō Shōryōbu 宮内庁書陵部 (Imperial Household Agency), Meiji shoin, 1982–1983. Also, in Zoku gunsho ruijū 続 群書類従, jūkan 997, zatsu-bu 雑部 (Miscellaneous Records) 147, 472–505.

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Osan oinori no mokuroku 御産祈目録 [List of Prayers for Noble Births]. Zoku gunsho ruijū 続群書類従, jūkan 998, zatsu-bu 148–9, 506–49. Putilin xing 菩提心論, Jp. Bodaishinron. [On Acquiring the Bodhicitta].Translated by Amoghavajra (Ch. Bukong 不空, Jp. Fukū, ca. 705–744). T. 1664. Sakusha totsuki tainai no zu 作者十月胎内図 [Author’s Map of the Ten Months in the Womb]. Kyōwa 享和 4 (1804). By Santō Kyōden 山東京伝 (1761–1816), 3 vols. Waseda Bunko 6–984. Sangai isshinki 三界一心記 [Three Worlds in Single Mind]. In Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘諍資料 [Sources Regarding Disputes in Japanese Thought], Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬, ed., vol. 5, 503–40. Tokyo: Tōhō shoen, 1930. Sangen icchi no sho 三賢一致書 [Three Wisdoms in One Writing]. Edited by Dairyū 大 龍. Colophon of Bunpo 1 (1317). Woodblock print. Keiō University Library. Digital copy of available via the Hathi Trust. Sanpishō 産秘抄 [Secret Compendium on Childbirth, colophon of 1224]. Kanazawa Bunko, Yokohama. MS 255–11. Sansei ruijūshō 産生類従抄 [Encyclopaedia of Childbirth, ca. 1304]. Kanazawa Bunko, Yokohama. MS 5–3–1, 5–3–2. Shingon naishōgi 真言内証義 [The Meaning of Inner Authentication in Shingon]. By Kitabatake Chikafusa 北畠親房 (1294–1354). Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 日本古典 文学大系 [Anthology of Japanese Classical Literature], vol. 83, Kana hōgoshū 仮名 法語集 [Collection of Buddhist Sermons], Miyasaka Yūshō 宮坂有勝, ed., 226–40. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1964. Tsuma Kagami 妻鏡 (Mirror for Women, ca. early 14th century). By Mujū Ichien 無住一 圓 (1226–1312). Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 日本古典文学大系 [Anthology of Japanese Classical Literature], vol. 83, Kana hōgoshū 仮名法語集 [Collection of Vernacular Buddhist Sermons], Miyasaka Yūshō 宮坂有勝 , ed., 158–84. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1964. Yugikyō. Full title Jingangfeng louge yiqie yuqie yuqi jing 金剛峯樓閣一切瑜伽瑜祇經, Jp. Kongōhō rōkaku issai yuga yugi kyō. [Sūtra of All Yogas and Yogins of the Vajra Peak Pavilion]. T. 867. Yuga yugi hiketsu 瑜伽瑜祇祕決 [Secret Transmissions on the Yugikyō]. Attributed to Jitsuun 實運 (1105–1160). In Shingonshū Zensho, vol. 5, 11–26. Yuga Yugi kuketsu 瑜伽瑜祇口決 [Oral Transmissions of the Yugikyō]. By Dōhan 道範 (1178–1252), five fascicles. In Shingonshū Zensho, vol. 5, 27–136. Secondary Sources Abè Ryūichi. 1999. Weaving the Mantra. New York: Columbia University Press. Abe Yasurō 阿部康郎 and Yamazaki Makoto 山崎誠, eds. 1999. Shinpukuji zenpon sōkan 真福寺善本叢刊 [The Anthology of Sources Preserved at Shinpukuji], vol. 7, Chūsei

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Paradigm, Mark Teeuwen and Fabio Rambelli, eds., 255–86. London: Routledge Curzon. ———. 2002. “The Ritual World of Buddhist “Shinto”: The Reikiki and Initiations on Kami-related Matters (jingi kanjō) in Late Medieval and Early Modern Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 29 3/4: 265–97. ———. 2000. “Tantric Buddhism and Chinese Thought in East Asia.” In Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed., 361–80. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rupert, Brian. 2000. Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center. Sanford, James. 1997. “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas: Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24/1: 1–38. ———. 1991. “The Abominable Tachikawa Skull Ritual.” Monumenta Nipponica 46/1: 1–15. Schipper, Kristofer. 1993. The Taoist Body. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stone, Jacqueline. 1999. Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. A Kuroda Institute Book. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Sponberg, Alan. 1992. “Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism.” In Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, José Ignacio Cabezón, ed., 3–36. Albany: State University of New York. Suzuki, Yui. 2014. “Twanging Bows and Throwing Rice: Warding Off Evil in Medieval Japanese Birth Scenes.” In sp. is., “Daring Japanese Art History: Studies in Japanese and Korean Art History in Honour of Donald Frederick McCalum, 1939–2013,” Sherry Fowler, Chari Pradel, and Yui Suzuki, eds. Zurich: Museum Rietberg. Artibus Asiae 74/1: 17–41. Van der Veere, Henny. 2000. Study into the Thought of Kōgyō Daishi Kakuban. Leiden: Hotei Publishing. Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬. 1930. Sangai isshinki 三界一心記 [Records on the Three Worlds in One Mind]. In Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘争史料 [Sources Regarding Disputes in Japanese Thought], vol. 5, 503–40. Tokyo: Tōhō shoen. Wayman, Alex, and Wayman, Hideko, transl. 1974. The Lion’s Roar of Queen Śrīmālā. New York: Columbia University Press. Yamashita Takumi 山下琢巳. 2005. “Shugendō ‘Gotai honnu honrai busshin’ setsu – sono kyōri to shite no ‘tainai goi’ to sono tenkai 修験道「五體本有本来佛身」—その教 理としての「胎内五位」とその展開 [The ‘Fivefold Fundamentally Existing Original Buddha-Body’ in Shugendō – The ‘Five Stages in the Womb’ as Its Doctrinal Foundation and Its Development].” Tōkyō seitoku tanki daigaku kiyō 東京成徳短期 大学紀要 [Bulletin of Tokyo Seitoku College] 38: 21–32. Yoshida Kazuhiko. 2002. “The Enlightenment of the Dragon King’s Daughter in the Lotus Sutra,” transl. and adapted by Margaret Childs. In Engendering Faith: Women and

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Buddhism in Premodern Japan, Barbara Ruch, ed., 297–324. Center for Japanese Studies, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Zimmermann, Michael. 2002. A Buddha within: Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, the Earliest Exposition of the Buddha-Nature Teaching in India. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University.

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Chapter 11

Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism Kigensan Licha Introduction This essay was conceived with three aims in mind. The first is to introduce a complex of ideas in early modern Sōtō Zen which might best be described as “embryology.”1 The second aim is to show that this complex of ideas was not, as might be expected, marginal to Sōtō Zen discourse but integral to its thought and practice. The third aim is to make it clear that embryology and the sexual symbolism upon which it is based were not “heretical” by-products of Japanese religion but part of its early modern mainstream. Although the presence of embryological discourses in medieval Japanese esoteric traditions has been widely acknowledged, their importance in the Zen schools has yet to be charted. In this sense, merely alerting readers to the fact that early modern Zen monks, too, were deeply involved with embryological and gestational discourses would already fulfil the first aim described above. In order to accomplish it, this essay will draw on materials known as kirigami 切 紙, secret documents transmitted from master to disciple in an initiatory manner. Most remaining kirigami date to the late medieval and early modern period, although they might, and in some cases clearly do, reflect earlier traditions.2 These earlier traditions reflected in the kirigami are not necessarily 1 For the purposes of this chapter, I will use the terms “embryology” and “embryo” to cover the entire period of gestation from conception until birth. 2 Given the initiatory nature of kirigami documents, most, if not all, bear the transmitter’s and recipient’s name and/or seal. Furthermore, most are dated. The dating of kirigami material as texts is thus comparatively easy. However, a major difficulty arises when considering the contents of these texts. Many documents self-attribute their origin to the “founding heroes” of Zen in Japan. These include Dōgen 道元 (1200–1253), the founder of Japanese Sōtō Zen, Keizan 瑩山 (1268–1325), his reformist and third-generation heir, and even important figures from other traditions, such as the Rinzai Zen/Tendai master Eisai 栄西 (1141–1215). These attributions are clearly spurious, yet it cannot be denied that some kirigami materials record traditions which might date back to the early Muromachi period (1337–1573). Yet, the oldest remaining documents date to the early fifteenth century, and the bulk to the sixteenth and seventeenth century. This leaves a significant gap in the history of these documents and makes ascertaining their origins almost impossible. Kigensan Stephan Licha, “The Imperfectible

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restricted to what is commonly thought of as “Zen.” Rather, the kirigami absorbed and adopted what might be considered the broad, intersectarian medieval Buddhist mainstream, including esoteric teachings, popular practices, and cosmological speculation based on the Yijing 易経 (Book of Changes).3 Embryological materials recorded in the kirigami might be broadly divided into three categories. Firstly, there are materials that deal with the precautions to be taken when a woman dies in childbirth. This includes kirigami describing the funerary protocol to be applied, which sometimes involved the physical or ritualised extraction of the embryo from the womb.4 Secondly, we can see materials discussing the process of ontogenesis, which might be thought of as “embryology” in a strict sense.5 Thirdly and finally, there are kirigami which use embryological and reproductive symbolism to understand the nature of religious practice. These might be considered “embryological” in a wider sense. The present chapter will focus on materials from the second and third group. Although the first group, too, could be included under the banner of Body – Esoteric Transmissions in Medieval Sōtō Zen Buddhism” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 2011), 56–63. 3 That esoteric Buddhism continued to provide one of the basic institutional and doctrinal pillars of Japanese Buddhism into the middle ages has been convincingly demonstrated by Kuroda Toshio. See Kuroda Toshio, “The Development of the Kenmitsu System as Japan’s Medieval Orthodoxy,” trans. James C. Dobbins, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23/3–4 (1996): 233–69. Cosmological speculation based on the Yijing was inspired by the introduction of Neo-Confucianism to Japan. In China, Neo-Confucianism as a coherent system was formulated by Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073) and given what would become its orthodox form by Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200). The movement reached Japan as part and parcel of the large-scale transfer of culture and knowledge that began during the Southern Song period (1127–1279). From the Kamakura period (1185–1333) onwards, this exchange was carried out mostly by Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen monks. For a summary of scholarly theories regarding the transmission of Neo-Confucianism to Japan, see Haga Kōshiro 芳賀幸四郎, Chūse zenrin no gakumon oyobi bungaku ni kan suru kenkyū 中世禅林の学問及び文学に関する研究 (Tokyo: Nihon gakujutsu shinkōkai, 1956), 51–57. For examples of how Zen monks used the Yijing to express Zen teachings, see ibid., 83. 4 Ishikawa Rikizan 石川力山, Zenshū sōden shiryō no kenkyū 禅宗相伝史料の研究 (Tokyo: Hōzōkan, 2001), 482–501. On the handling of childbirth and extraction of the embryo, though not in a Sōtō context, see Hank Glassman, “At the Crossroads of Birth and Death,” in Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, eds. Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), 175–206. 5 Ishikawa, in his classification of Sōtō Zen kirigami material, groups these with texts relating to funerals and memorial services. As we shall see in the following section, this is a shrewd insight. For the purposes of the present chapter, these texts are classed separately for heuristic reasons, giving more weight to their embryological aspects. See Ishikawa 2001, 454–58.

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embryology, it deals with an exceptional situation. In contrast, the second and third group represent the normative case and for this reason they have been placed at the core of this chapter’s discussion. The first of the three aims outlined above, the introduction of the embryological discourses in the Sōtō Zen tradition, is most clearly related to the second group of kirigami, those that deal with ontogenesis. This chapter will introduce two kirigami which discuss the development of the embryo from two points of view, firstly as the progressive completion of a five-storied pagoda and, secondly, as receiving its body from the memorial Thirteen Buddhas.6 It will discuss the medieval background of these notions and the link they had with other religious traditions of the Tokugawa (1603–1868) period, on both the clerical and the popular level. In this context, the discussion will suggest that the changing social situation of Sōtō Zen monks was the catalyst for the creative adoption of medieval materials. The second aim, namely to demonstrate that Sōtō Zen monks did not consider embryological discourse as an inconsequential addendum aimed at increasing the popular appeal of their teachings and practices, is connected to the third group of kirigami materials. These texts use embryological imagery to conceptualise spiritual practice. Taking three kirigami focused on the theme of spiritual cultivation as connected to embryology as guides, the essay will again outline the broader context and implications for the modes of religiosity in early modern Japan. The third and final aim of this essay is to demonstrate that the embryological discourses seen in the secret transmissions of Sōtō Zen monks were not “heretical” teachings but that they were firmly established as an integral part of early modern mainstream Buddhist practice. Up until recently, scholars have tended to associate sexual and embryological symbolism with a single lineage of the Shingon 真言 school, the infamous “Tachikawa-ryū” 立川流.7 Recently, this trend came under increased scrutiny. Iyanaga Nobumi has suggested that 6 The cult of the Thirteen Buddhas originated in medieval Japan from the veneration of the Chinese Ten Kings of Hell and the cult of the Bodhisattva Jizō. By the Tokugawa period, the Thirteen Buddhas provided the basis for most Buddhist funeral rituals, including those performed in Sōtō Zen temples. During each of the thirteen memorial services to be held after a person’s death, one of these deities is invoked. See Duncan Ryūken Williams, The Other Side of Zen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009a), 230f. 7 For three recent examples, see James H. Sanford, “The Abominable Tachikawa Skull Ritual,” Monumenta Nipponica 46/1 (1991): 1–20, and “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas: Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon,” Japanese Journal for Religious Studies 21/1–2 (1997): 1–38; also Manabe Shunshō 真鍋俊照, Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū 邪教立川流 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 2002).

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the historical Tachikawa-ryū might have been made the scapegoat of medieval Buddhist heresiology and its name used as a convenient shorthand for practices a given author wished to condemn, regardless of the actual provenance of these practices.8, 9 If Iyanaga casts doubt on the association between the Tachikawa-ryū and sexual practices, Dolce has shown that medieval Japanese Buddhists exhibited great ingenuity in producing new, non-canonical images and rituals, many of which drew on sexual or embryological ideas.10 Dolce emphasises the hermeneutical continuities between these new iconographies and practices and accepted principles of “orthodox” esoteric discourse. She argues that these trends cannot be dismissed as “heretic” developments but represent a mainstream form of medieval Japanese Buddhism. In order to achieve its third aim, this essay will present texts which have been understood as representing the views of the so-called “Tachikawa-ryū” and point to the similarities between those and the Sōtō Zen materials. It will also discuss two examples of popular ballads recounting similar ideas. Taken together with the scholarship cited above, this will demonstrate that embryological discourses were never the hallmark of any single heretical teaching and that by the early modern period they had become widely disseminated to all levels of society. The essay is structured into three main parts. The first part (“Discourses on the Human Body in Early Modern Sōtō Zen”) will introduce basic categories used to discuss and represent the human body in early modern Sōtō Zen. The second part (“Embryology in the Womb and the Grave: The Pagoda and the 8

9

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Iyanaga Nobumi 彌永信美, “Tachikawa-ryū to Shinjō Juhō yōjin shū wo megutte 立川流 と心定『受法用心集』をめぐって,” Nihon bukkyō sōgō kenkyū 日本仏教総合研究 2 (2003): 13–31; and “Mikkyō girei to ‘nenzuru chikara’: Hōkyōshō no hihanteki kentō oyobi Juhōyōjinshū no ‘dokuro honzon girei’ wo chūshin ni shite 密教儀禮と「念ずる力」 —『寶鏡鈔』の批判的検討、および『受法用心集』の「髑髏本尊儀禮」を 中心にして,” in Girei no chikara: chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀禮の力 – 中世宗教の 実践世界, Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds. (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010), 127–58. I will speak of the so-called “Tachikawa-ryū” or simply the “Tachikawa-ryū” in quotes when referring to this name used as a generic label for heretic and specifically sexual teachings. I will speak of the historical Tachikawa-ryū or simply the Tachikawa-ryū without quotes when referring to the actual lineage that bore this name. Lucia Dolce, “Duality and the Kami: Reconfiguring Buddhist Notions and Ritual Patterns,” special issue “Rethinking Medieval Shintō,” Michael Como, Bernard Faure, and Iyanaga Nobumi, eds., Cahiers d’Extreme-Asie 16 (2006–2007): 119–50; also, “Nigenteki genri no gireika: Fudō, Aizen to chikara no hizō 二元的原理の儀礼化―不動・愛染と力の秘 像,” in Girei no chikara 儀礼の力, Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds. (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010), 159–206.

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Thirteen Buddhas”) will show how these categories were used in discourses of human ontogenesis and will point to the background these discourses have in changing funerary practices in the early modern period. The third part (“Practice in the Womb and Propagating the Buddha Seed”) will investigate embryological discourses related to spiritual cultivation, especially the notion of a return into the womb in meditative practices and the application of reproductive concepts to lineage and transmission rituals. 1

Discourses on the Human Body in Early Modern Sōtō Zen

Embryology is essentially a discourse on the human body. Before we can address the issue of reproductive conceptions in early modern Sōtō Zen, we have to understand how Sōtō Zen monks conceptualised the human body. As will become obvious shortly, Sōtō Zen monks envisioned the human body at the centre of a web of correlations, including deities, stars, texts, and an almost unlimited number of further associations. Central to this system was the unification of three spheres of discourse – namely, cosmology, metaphysics, and soteriology. In other words, the human body was conceived as mirroring the structure of the cosmos, the metaphysical laws governing it, and the liberative means necessary to overcome it. A convenient introduction to such a universalised body is given in the Chūteki himissho 中的秘密書 (The Secret Writing of Hitting the Mark), a seventeenth-century text composed by the otherwise obscure monk Shōun 昌運 (n.d.) to introduce beginners to the essentials of Zen practice.11 The Chūteki himissho offers a diagrammatic representation of the human body in five parts (Figs. 11.1, 11.2, and 11.3). The central metaphor used in these diagrams is that of the body as pagoda. This “pagodic body” is a common motif in East Asian, and especially esoteric, Buddhism.12 The pagoda is composed of five geometrical shapes, one on top of the other: square, circle, trigram, half-moon, and a drop11

12

Chūteki himissho, by Shōun, in Sōtōshū Zensho 曹洞宗全書, Sōtōshū zensho kankōkai 曹 洞宗全書刊行會, eds. (Tokyo: Sōtōshū shūmuchō, 1970–73), Chūkai 5, 329–58. Chūteki is a technical term of the Zen school, meaning “to attain deep understanding of a principle.” See Shinpan zengaku daijiten 新版禅学大辞典, Zengaku daijiten hensanjo 禅学大辞典 編纂所, eds. (Tokyo: Taishukan shoten, 1993), 855c. In Japan, for instance, this theory was developed by the reformer of Shingon practice, monk Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143), in his work Gorin kuji himitsu shaku 五輪九字秘密釋 (A Secret Interpretation of the Five Cakras and Nine Syllables). See Fig. 12.9 in Gaynor Sekimori, “Foetal Buddhahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo” in the present volume.

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Figure 11.1 Chūteki himissho 中的秘 密書, by Shōun 昌運 (n.d.). From Sōtōshū Zensho 曹洞宗全書. Courtesy of Komazawa University Library.

like shape. Each shape is ascribed a plethora of symbolic meanings, but the most important are the six Tantric elements and the five Sanskrit seed syllables “a vi ra hūṃ khāṃ,”13 which are the root mantra of Dainichi Nyōrai

13

Earth (square), water (circle), fire (trigram), wind (half-moon), and space (drop). The sixth element, consciousness, is said to penetrate the other five and is not represented separately. This system was already known in Chinese Tantric circles. The Chinese esoteric scholar-monk Yixing 一行 (683–727) mentions it in his monumental commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, the Da piluzhena chengfo jing shu 大毘盧遮那成佛經疏. See for example T. 1796, 727c. See also Fabio Rambelli, “Tantric Buddhism and Chinese Thought in East Asia,” in Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 361–80. These six elements appear to be based on Indian Abhidharmic traditions. For example, they are listed in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya (Ch. Jushe lun 俱舎論, Jp. Kusha ron) under the term “six realms” (Sk. Ṣaḍ-dhātūni, Ch. liujie 六界, Jp. rokkai). See T. 1559, 166c.

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Figure 11.2 Chūteki himissho 中的秘 密書, by Shōun 昌運 (n.d.). From Sōtōshū Zensho 曹洞 宗全書. Courtesy of Komazawa University Library.

(Sk. Mahāvairocana), the Buddha central to East Asian esoteric thought.14 The pagoda represents the body of this universal Buddha, which itself is the material cosmos composed of the six elements.15 In Tantric practice, the practitioner ritually and meditatively transforms his own body into that of Dainichi.16 This pagodic body offers the pillar around which Shōun would weave his correlative web, the cosmological level of which draws on Chinese sources, especially cosmogonic speculation based on the Yijing. To these are added the Chan and Zen teachings of the henshō goi 偏正五位 (Ch. zhengpian wuwei, the 14

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In esoteric circles, Sanskrit seed syllables (Sk. bīja, Jp. shuji 種子, alt. 種字) are considered the sonic manifestation of the universal Buddha. In esoteric practice, they are employed to identify the practitioner with the deity associated with a specific letter on the level of language, one of the Three Mysteries (sanmitsu 三密) on which esoteric meditation is based. The other two are the levels of body and mind. Rambelli 2000, 364. Ibid., 364f.

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Figure 11.3 Chūteki himissho中的秘密書, by Shōun 昌運 (n.d.). From Sōtōshū Zensho 曹洞宗全書. Courtesy of Komazawa University Library.

Five Positions of the Crooked and the Straight) to provide the metaphysical level, and an appropriation of a basic esoteric soteriological model. The next two sections will outline these correlations in detail. 1.1 The Universal Principles of the Body The rightmost part of the diagram appearing in the Chūteki himissho (Fig. 11.1) shows a pagoda inscribed with the five syllables of Dainichi’s mantra. I will call this the “mantric pagoda.” The cosmological part of the diagram is represented by the characters “pure” (Jp. sei, alt. shō 清) and yang (Jp. yō 陽), at the top of the pagoda, and the characters “turbid” (Jp. daku 濁) and yin (Jp. in 陰) at the bottom. These pairs refer to the Chinese cosmological idea that originally unitary qi 氣 (Jp. ki) divides into Yin and Yang at the beginning of the cosmogonic process. Pure Yang rises and forms the heavens, turbid Yin settles and forms the earth. The rest of this part of the diagram gives an extensive list of concepts in groups of five elements each. Each element out of such a group is associated

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with one level of the mantric pagoda. For the present purpose, the two most important groups are the henshō goi, which represent the metaphysical level, and the five stages of practice, which represent soteriology. The henshō goi were originally formulated by the Chinese monks Dongshan Liangjie 洞山良价 (807–869), the founder of the Caodong 曹洞 school, and his disciple Caoshan Benji 曹山本寂 (840–901).17 They are a metaphysical system showing the relationship between phenomena, called the “Crooked” (Ch. 偏 pian, Jp. hen), and true reality or emptiness, called “Straight” (Ch. 正 zheng, Jp. shō), in five constellations.18 Each of these constellations is referred to as a “position” (Ch. wei 位, Jp. i), or point of view from which the relationship of Crooked and Straight can be viewed. Table 11.1 shows these henshō goi and the respective layer of the pagoda they are associated with in the Chūteki himis­ sho.19 Included as well are the circles with which the henshō goi are often represented graphically. These will be of importance once we discuss the goi in 17

18

19

Dongshan is considered the founder of the Caodong “house” or faction of the Chinese Chan school, which was transmitted to Japan under the name “Sōtō” by the Japanese monk Dōgen 道元 (1200–1253). Dongshan is known as the author of the Baojing sanmei ge 寶鏡三昧歌 (Song of the Precious Mirror Contemplation), an enigmatic poem on the meaning of Chan, which is also seen as one of the source texts of the Five Position teachings. He had two major disciples, Caoshan Benji and Yunju Daoying 雲居道膺 (830–902). Of these, Caoshan is traditionally considered the systematizer of his master’s teachings, while Yunju is claimed to be the transmitter of the lineage that Dōgen would eventually bring to Japan. Modern scholarship has thrown doubt on all these claims, yet no new consensus has been reached among scholars on any of these issues, in part due to discrepancies in premodern sources. The present essay will sidestep this debate and present the traditional narrative, which is still referred to in standard reference works, including the Zengaku daijiten. For the henshō goi, see Zengaku daijiten, 1115b. For Dongshan, see Zengaku daijiten, 1281d. For Caoshan, see Zengaku daijiten, 728c. For a thorough discussion of the problematic attribution of Song period Caodong teachings, especially those expressed in the Baojing sanmei ge, to Dongshang, see Morten Schlütter, How Zen Became Zen (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008), 78–103 and 156–60. For a basic discussion of the goi, see Whalen W. Lai, “Sinitic Mandalas: The Wu-Wei-t’u of Ts’ao-shan,” in Early Ch’an in China and Tibet, Lewis Lancaster and Whalen Lai, eds. (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1983), 229–59. For the identification of “Crooked” and “Straight” with phenomena and emptiness, see Fuzhou caoshan yuanzheng chanshi yulu 撫州曹山元證禪師語録 (Recorded Sayings of Caoshan), T. 1987A, 527a. The goi were one of the pillars of medieval Sōtō Zen teaching. Although Dōgen mentioned them critically several times in his writings, for example in Shōbōgenzō bukkyō 正 法眼蔵仏教 (Eye and Treasure of the True Dharma – The Buddha’s Teaching; T. 2582, 196a), already Giun 義雲 (1253–1333), a disciple of Dōgen’s student Jakuen 寂円 (1207– 1299) positively comments on them in his recorded sayings. See Giun oshō goroku 義雲和 尚語録 (Recorded Sayings of Venerable Giun), T. 2591, 463a. They become ubiquitous

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Table 11.1 The henshō goi, their position in the mantric pagoda of the Chūteki himissho and their respective circles Goi

Position in the mantric pagoda

Circle

1. “Straight within Crooked” (Jp. shōchūhen 正中偏) 2. “Crooked within Straight” (Jp. henchūshō 偏中正) 3. “Coming from Straight” (Jp. shōchūrai 正中来) 4. “Approaching Togetherness” (Jp. kenchūshi 兼中至) 5. “Togetherness Attained” (Jp. kenchūtō 兼中到)

Fifth layer; space element; drop

◓

Third layer; fire element; triangle

◒

First layer; earth element; square

◉

Fourth layer; wind element; half-moon ◯ Second layer; water element; circle

●

Table 11.2 Five stages of Buddhist practice and the corresponding layer of the mantric pagoda Level of practice

Layer of pagoda

Fundamental Nature (Jp. honrai shō 本来性) Gate of Extinction (Jp. nehan mon 涅槃門) Gate of Practice (Jp. shūgyō mon 修行門) Gate of Wisdom (Jp. bodai mon 菩提門) Gate of Arousing the Mind (Jp. hosshin mon 発心門)

First layer Second layer Third layer Fourth layer Fifth layer

the context of embryology. Through these associations, the abstract metaphysical positions of the goi become equated with concrete parts of the pagodic body. In the diagram of the Chūteki himissho we can find a second, soteriological line of association which identifies the levels of the mantric pagoda directly with five stages of Buddhist practice, as shown in Table 11.2. Thus, the whole career of the ideal Buddhist practitioner, from first aspiration to the final achievement of liberation, is inscribed in his “pagodic” body. This system of five levels of practice seems to be an adaptation of a similar system developed in medieval esoteric circles. The fourteenth-century Tendai from the fourteenth century onwards and form an important doctrinal resource for the traditions represented in kirigami materials.

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encyclopaedia Keiranshūyōshū 渓嵐拾葉集 (Collection of Leaves Gathered in Stormy Ravines) by Kōshū 光宗 (1276–1350), describes a system of five stages of Buddhist practice based on variations of the syllable A (goshu aji 五種阿字). This syllable represents the originally unborn nature of all phenomena (Sk. ādyanutpāda, Jp. honpushō 本不生). In the Keiranshūyōshū, each variation of the syllable, produced by adding diacritic elements to the original syllable written in Indic Siddham script, is further identified with a direction and a Buddha, as shown in Table 11.3.20 While in the Keiranshūyōshū, “Skilful Means” is the final level, in the Chūteki himissho it is changed to “Fundamental Nature” and placed first. Furthermore, the Chūteki himissho considers the pagodic body to grow from the “seed” of the syllable A, as explained below. The first part of the Chūteki himissho diagram offers a glimpse of the interpretative strategies Sōtō Zen monks used to appropriate different discourses. The system of correlations between sets of five enabled them both to incorporate the Zen doctrine of the henshō goi into a basic Tantric model of the pagodic body as well as to augment this basic model with the five stages of practice based on the syllable A. This process not only enriches the original model of the pagodic body but transforms the incorporated elements as well. Therefore, the original henshō goi were a metaphysical scheme. In the context of the pagodic model, however, they acquire an almost physiological quality through association with specific parts of the body. This theme will return once we consider gestational discourses used as models of spiritual cultivation in the third part of this chapter. As for the fivefold syllable A, in the Keiranshūyōshū it was not associated with a pagoda but with visualisation of this syllable. The five syllables did not correspond to the five levels of the pagoda but rather were related to the central lotus flower of an esoteric mandala. Thus, the correlative system of the Chūteki himissho draws on various religious discourses, recombining them to create new meanings. 1.2 The Instantiation of Universal Principles in the Body The second part of the Chūteki himissho diagram (Fig. 11.2) represents the realisation of the principles shown in the first part on the level of concrete phenomena. The seed syllables are replaced here by a stylised human body. The legs are inscribed into the earth square, the belly into the water circle, the torso and arms into the fire triangle, and finally the head into the 20

T. 2410, 774b. The identification of the syllable A with the five stages of practice can also be found in Chinese esoteric Buddhism, for example, in Yixing’s Da piluzhena chengfo jing shu (Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra), T. 1796, 723b.

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Table 11.3 The five syllables A, stages of practice, Buddhas and directions from the Keiranshūyōshū Syllable

Stage of practice

Buddha

Direction

a ā aṃ aḥ aṃḥ

Arousing the Mind Practice Wisdom Extinction Skilful Means (hōben 方便)

Ashuku 阿閦 Hōshō 寶生 Amida 阿弥陀 Shaka 釈迦 Dainichi 大日

east south west north centre

Table 11.4 Cosmogonic stages and pagoda layers Pagoda layer

Cosmogonic stage

Earth – square Water – circle Fire – triangle

One Change (ichieki 一易) Unsurpassed Ultimate (mukyoku 無極) Two Principles (nigi 二儀), Four Images (shishō 四象) Great Ultimate (taikyoku 太極) Eight Trigrams (hakke 八卦), Four Images

Wind – half-moon Space – drop

wind half-moon. The space drop is left empty. The abstract Yin and Yang of the mantric pagoda are replaced by their phenomenal counterparts, Earth at the bottom and Heaven at the top, respectively. This second pagoda will be referred to as the “human pagoda.” Among its numerous associations, two are of specific relevance, as they correspond to the henshō goi and the soteriological stages outlined above. These are cosmogonic stages and five of the historical Buddha’s great deeds.21 The five cosmogonic stages of the human pagoda are the phenomenal opposites of the mantric pagoda’s henshō goi. The five cosmogonic stages and their relationship to the layers of the human pagoda are shown in Table 11.4. 21

Traditionally, the Buddha is said to have accomplished twelve great deeds: (1) descending from Tuṣita Heaven; (2) entering the womb; (3) being born; (4) studying mundane arts; (5) marriage and procreation; (6) renunciation; (7) ascetic practice; (8) meditating under the bodhi tree; (9) overcoming temptation; (10) attaining enlightenment; (11) preaching the Dharma; (12) entering nirvāṇa.

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These five, or six if counted individually, cosmogonic stages stem from a tradition of cosmological speculation based on the Chinese divinatory classic, the Yijing 易経. They are based on the following passage of the Xici zhuan 繫辭 傳, one of the Ten Wings, a group of early commentaries on the Yijing: Therefore, the Yi[jing] has the Great Ultimate. This gives birth to the Two Principles. The Two Principles give birth to the Four Images. The Four Images give birth to the Eight Trigrams. 是故易有太極。是生両儀。両儀生四象。四象生八卦。22

This passage explains cosmogony on the basis of the formation of the primary eight trigrams of the Yijing. In the beginning is the Great Ultimate, the completely undifferentiated primal condition of the cosmos. Out of this primal state arise the Two Principles of active, male Yang and passive, female Yin. In the notation of the trigrams, they are represented with an unbroken ( ) and a broken line ( ), respectively. The combination of these two produces the Four Images by adding a second line above the first. Thus the system arrives at old ( ) and small ( ) Yin and old ( ) and small ( ) Yang. By adding a third line, we arrive at the final Eight Trigrams, which represent the myriad phenomena of the cosmos (☷☶☵☴☳☲☱☰).23 Over the years, cosmologists of different traditions have added to this basic scheme. The remaining two cosmogonic stages referred to in the Chūteki himissho are the Unsurpassed Ultimate and the One Change. The Unsurpassed Ultimate has been adduced by the founding Neo-Confucian Zhou Dunyi in order to stress the ultimate character of the Great Ultimate.24 The inclusion of the One Change is a distinctive feature of Sōtō Zen cosmogonic Yijing studies. This stage was introduced by Ketsudō Nōshō 傑堂能勝 (1355–1422), a pioneer of Yijing speculation in Sōtō Zen, in order to explain the transition from Great Ultimate to Two Principles.25 The cosmogonic stages of the Chūteki himissho 22 23 24

25

Takada Shinji 高田真治 and Gotō Motomi 後藤基巳, transl., Ekikyō 易経 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1969), vol. 2, 241. See Anne D. Birdwhistell, Transition to Neo-Confucianism: Shao Yung on Knowledge and Symbols of Reality (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 237. Satō Hidoshi 佐藤仁, “Shūshi to shoshi 朱子と諸子,” in Shūshi gaku nyūmon 朱子学入 門, Morohashi Tetsuji 諸橋轍次 and Yasuoka Masahiro 安岡正篤, eds. (Tokyo: Meitoku, 1974), 441. See Genketsu kōun chū shugetsu kunsekikō 顕訣耕雲註種月攈摭藁 (Straw Gathered by Shogetsu from Kōun’s Commentary on the Xianjue), by Ketsudō Nōshō and Nan’ei Kenshū

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thus incorporate material dating back to the Yijing and stemming from the Neo-Confucian and Zen traditions of China and Japan. In Sōtō Zen Yijing speculation it was customary to identify the five cosmogonic stages derived from the Yijing with the goi. This was possible because the henshō goi were often represented in various trigrams and hexagrams of the Yijing since their inception.26 The first Japanese Sōtō Zen monk to systematise the relationship between cosmogonic stages and goi was again Ketsudō. He identified each position of the goi with one cosmogonic stage, a circle and a trigram, as can be seen in Table 11.5.27 Ketsudō refers to the henshō goi and cosmogonic stages as the “supramundane law” (shusse hō 出世法) and the “mundane law” (seken hō 世間法), respectively.28 These two laws are understood to reflect a single process from two different points of view. From the cosmogonic point of view, the five cosmogonic stages clarify how manifold phenomena are born from the unity of the Great Ultimate. From the metaphysical point of view, the henshō goi show the same process as the interplay of emptiness and phenomena, which in meditative experience becomes emancipation from the world. Universal genesis and individual salvation thus mirror each other. This is the central meaning of the association graphically made in the Chūteki himissho between the henshō goi and cosmogonic stages. It is also a central trope of early modern Sōtō Zen embryology. The second set of associations concerns five of the Buddha’s great deeds. The five deeds and the level of the human pagoda with which they are identified are shown in Table 11.6. Just as the cosmogonic stages reflected on the phenomenal level the metaphysical principles of the henshō goi, these five deeds exemplify the concrete, individual attainment of the abstract five stages of Buddhist practice outlined above in Table 11.2. Hence, for the Buddha to “leave the house,” a euphemism for beginning the spiritual quest, is the practical expression of “arousing the mind” to seek liberation. To undergo the various practices of asceticism is the concrete implementation of the Gate of Practice. To attain liberation and “become the Way” in turn is based on realising one’s “fundamental nature” to

26 27

28

南英兼宗 (1387–1460), in Sōtōshū Zensho 曹洞宗全書, Sōtōshū zensho kankōkai 曹洞 宗全書刊行會, eds. (Tokyo: Sōtōshū shūmuchō, 1970–73), Chūkai 5, 180. The source of this association is the Recorded Sayings of Caoshan. See Fuzhou caoshan yuanzheng chanshi yulu, T. 1987A, 533. See Tōjō ungetsu roku 洞上雲月録 (Record of Clouds and Moon Floating Atop the Cavern), by Ketsudō Nōshō and Nan’ei Kenshū, in Sōtōshū Zensho, 1979–1973, Chūkai 5, 97. “Tōjō” refers to the lineage derived from Dongshan. Ibid., 52.

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Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism Table 11.5 The henshō goi, circles, cosmogonic stages and trigrams as devised by Ketsudō Henshō goi

Circles

Cosmogonic stages

Trigrams

“Straight in Crooked” “Crooked in Straight” “Coming from Straight” “Approaching Togetherness” “Togetherness Attained”

◓ ◒ ◉

Eight Trigrams Four Shapes Two Principles

☳ ☴ ☲

◯

One Change Great Ultimate

☰ ☷

●

Table 11.6 Buddha’s deeds and layers of human pagoda Buddha’s deeds

Level of human pagoda

Leaving the house at 19 (shukke 出家) Preaching the Law for 49 yrs. (seppō 説法) Ascetic practice for 6 yrs. (kugyō 苦行) Entering extinction at 79 (nyūmetsu 入滅) Attaining the Way (jōdō 成道)

Space – drop Wind – half-moon Fire – triangle Water – circle Earth – square

be identical with Buddhahood.29 The Gate of Wisdom opened by liberation finds application in “preaching the Law” to sentient beings. And finally, the Gate of Extinction opens onto the final goal, “entering extinction,” which is nirvāṇa. The mantric and human pagodas (Figs 11.1 and 11.2) represent abstract principles and their concrete instantiation, respectively. The human body as a pagoda is the centre of an extensive network of associations in which cosmogonic, metaphysical, and soteriological categories become identified with each other. In this sense, the body as understood by early modern Sōtō Zen monks can be called a “microcosm” derived from esoteric, Chinese cosmological, as well as Chan and Zen traditions.

29

Jōdō 成道 literally means to “become or complete the way,” as translated above. As a Buddhist technical term, however, it indicates attaining perfect awakening.

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1.3 The Roots of the Body The final, leftmost part of the Chūteki himissho diagram (Fig. 11.3) explains the origin of this microcosmic body, which is the seed syllable A. The syllable itself is split into five parts according to the brush strokes required to draw it. Characters inside each part indicate the colour in which it is to be drawn – white, yellow, black, red, and blue – following the stroke sequence. Furthermore, from each part a line emerges which connects the parts of the seed syllable with the layers of the pagoda of the same colour. The diagram seems to imply that the formation of the pagoda is an “unfolding” of the syllable. In the esoteric Buddhist tradition, A is said to be the single sound from which all other mantras originate. It represents in visual and sonic form the original unborn nature and root of all phenomena. In addition, it is the seed syllable of Dainichi Nyorai.30 The syllable A written in five colours as recorded in the Chūteki himissho is also prominent in texts that many scholars have understood as associated with the so-called “Tachikawa-ryū.” Needless to say, in light of the recent scholarship by Iyanaga on the Tachikawa-ryū cited above, this attribution is questionable, and perhaps the syllable A written in five colours should be considered a mainstream esoteric teaching. Nevertheless, in the context of these texts, be they “Tachikawa-ryū” or not, the syllable acquires a sexual and embryological meaning.31 The Chūteki himissho adapts the full range of this esoteric understanding of the syllable and its relationship to the pagoda. As the text explains: The syllable A is the first shape of humans entering the womb. The syllable A is the story of Joshū’s 趙州 dog. The syllable A is the character mu ( 無). [...]  The syllable A is the first shape of humans. The single character mu is the shape of the perfection of the five shapes. […] Mu is “Togetherness Attained.” Again, it is the Unsurpassed Ultimate […]. It is the mother’s womb. […] Therefore, it is called the fundamental mu (honmu 本無). 阿字則人間胎入初形也。阿字趙州狗話焉也。阿字則無之字。[...] 阿 字則人間初形也。無之一字。則五形円満之形也。[...] 無者兼中到。 又無極也。[...] 母胎也。[...] 然故本無云也。32 30 31 32

Yamazaki Taikō, Shingon, Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, trans. Richard and Cynthia Petersen (Boston and London: Shambala, 1988), 192f. See Mizuhara Gyōei 水原堯榮, Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū no kenkyū 邪教立川流の研究 (Kyoto: Fusanbō Shoten, 1968), 131f; and Manabe 2002, 127–34. Sōtōshū zensho, Chūkai 5, 357f. Unless otherwise is stated, all translations into English are mine.

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This passage gives the esoteric syllable A a “Zen twist” by associating it with the famous gong’an 公案 (Jp. kōan), “Zhaozhou’s dog.”33 In the Chūteki himissho, mu is related to the highest level of the henshō goi, “Togetherness Attained,” as well as to the highest cosmological principle, “Unsurpassed Ultimate.” In other words, mu is the origin of metaphysical structures, cosmogonic development and meditative attainment. Finally, mu, or A, is “the first shape of humans in the womb,” the starting point of human ontogenesis. The three-part diagram of the Chūteki himissho is a graphic overview of the conceptual network underpinning early modern Sōtō Zen thought and practice. It presents us with a body which is equally individual and universal, encoding within itself soteriological, cosmological, and metaphysical structures. These structures are rooted in the syllable A, itself equated with the Zen teaching on mu, as the non-dual seed of both humans and cosmos. The discussion will now turn to the embryological applications of these concepts, focusing on two main elements of the chart: firstly, the pagoda itself and, secondly, its relationship to Buddhist practice. 2

Embryology in the Womb and the Grave: The Pagoda and the Thirteen Buddhas

The Tokugawa-period Nyūtai shussei kirigami 入胎出生切紙 (On Entering the Womb and Birth), a Sōtō kirigami text belonging to the second of the three groups of embryological kirigami posed in this essay’s introduction, discusses the ontogenesis of human beings. In doing so, it develops in great clarity the model of the human body as a pagoda.34 It portrays the gestation of the embryo as the successive completion of the pagoda. I will first give a summary of the text. Human beings, the text asserts, grow from the intercourse (wagō 和合) of male and female fluid. Male fluid is white, forms the bones of the body, and corresponds to the Kongōkai 金剛界 (Diamond Realm) mandala, one of the 33

34

The Wumen guan 無門関 (Gateless Barrier, alt. Barrier of Wumen) by Wumen Huikai 無門慧開 (1183–1260), perhaps the most famous collection of Chan gong’an, records this story as follows: “Priest Zhaozhou was asked by a monk: ‘Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?’ Zhaozhou answered: ‘No (Ch. wu 無, Jp. mu).’” See T. 2005, 292c. This story came to be regarded as the most fundamental gong’an, and Zhaozhou’s answer as symbolising the non-dual essence of Chan. This interpretation was popular in Song-period Chan and had a profound effect on Japanese approaches to kōan study. See Yanagida Seizan 柳田 聖山, Zen to Nihon bunka 禅と日本文化 (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1985), 157. Ishikawa 2001, 456f.

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two fundamental mandalas of Japanese esoteric Buddhism. Female fluid is red, forms the flesh, and corresponds to the Taizōkai 胎蔵界 (Womb Realm), the second fundamental mandala. These two fluids unify over a period of three days. The text calls this stage abuton gararan.35 When male and female fluids mingle, they become the wisdom fluid of the Dainichi of the two mandalas. This is the seed of a human being, which enters the womb. After thirty-two days in the womb, it forms the “body of earth” (jitai 地体), that is, the square at the bottom of the pagoda. After a further thirty-two days, the “water body” is born. This corresponds to the circle on top of the square. After the “water body,” the fire (triangle), wind (half-moon), and space (drop shape) bodies each are formed in a thirty-two-day cycle. Thus, the embryo grows into a five-storied pagoda. The kirigami goes on to describe how two legs emerge from the earth-square and two arms from the fire-triangle. Finally, the syllable A circulates through the half-moon shaped wind circle and becomes breath, which is equated with wisdom (chie 智慧). The text explains that when the “form body of wisdom” (chie shikitai 智慧色体; i.e., the syllable A as breath) is added to the fivefold pagoda, it is called the “sixfold body” (rikutai, alt. rokutai 六体). The kirigami continues to relate how, in the ancient past, Dainichi received this sixfold body and it became the body of a Buddha. Since then, when human beings attain liberation and their body takes the shape of a Buddha, it is called the “Dainichi of the essential form of the conditioned sixfold body.”36 This is the essential form of human beings. When this teaching is understood, the text asserts, the human heart is contemplated as Dainichi himself and Heaven, Earth and human beings are one. Furthermore, as all Buddhas are but transformations of Dainichi, they exist within the human body. The kirigami specifically stresses that the Thirteen Buddhas (jūsanbutsu 十三仏) associated with rebirth are fully present within the body.37 Finally, the Nyūtai shussei kirigami admonishes that if humans, once born, fall into wicked ways, they will be lost in the circle of rebirth forever. The Nyūtai shussei kirigami takes the pagoda-like body as the main structure to organise the process of gestation. It is because humans are provided in the womb with the perfected fivefold pagoda that they can become a “Dainichi 35 36 37

Katakana in the original. Suien rikutai no shusō no dainichi 水縁六体ノ主相ノ大日. I read suien 水縁 as zuien 随縁, and the term shusō literally as the “main,” “principal” or “essential” form. The Thirteen Buddhas preside over the process of rebirth and, according to some texts, ontogenesis. See further discussion in the next sub-section, “Gestation and the Thirteen Buddhas.”

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born according to [karmic] conditions.”38 This perfected body is a microcosm, one “with Heaven and Earth.”39 Finally, although the syllable A here is not the “seed” from which the body grows, it nonetheless completes the “sixfold body” with breath. I would now like to turn to two topics brought up by this kirigami, namely, the symbolisms of the embryonic pagoda and the Thirteen Buddhas. The “Five Stages in the Womb” (tainai goi 胎内五位) and the Aun jigi 阿吽字義 The Nyūtai shussei kirigami calls the initial stage of embryonic gestation abuton gararan. Abuton 頞部曇 and kararan 羯剌藍 are the first two of five stages of gestation as presented in Indian Abhidharmic sources.40 According to Puguang’s 普光 (645–664) Jushe lunji 倶舍論記 – a Chinese commentary on the Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya, an encyclopaedic systematisation of Abhidharma lore written by the fourth-century Indian scholar Vasubandhu – these stages, known collectively as the “five stages in the womb” (Ch. tainei wuwei 胎内五位, Jp. tainai goi) are as shown in Table 11.7.41 In medieval Japan, Tantric masters began to use these five stages of gestation in the context of expounding the Yujia yuqi jing 瑜伽瑜祇経 (Jp. Yuga yugikyō, T. 867),42 a Chinese apocryphal text with strongly sexual overtones brought to Japan by the founder of the Shingon tradition, Kūkai 空海 (774– 835). This exegetical tradition was probably begun by the Shingon reformer Kakuban 覺鑁 (1095–1143).43 The tainai goi came to be associated with stages of Buddhist practice, and a more or less standardised iconography to represent them was established.44 Dolce and Yamashita have separately shown that in the Tantric and Shugen traditions the stages of gestation were adopted to form a five-step pattern of ritual initiation, from which the neophyte would emerge reborn as a Buddha.45 2.1

38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45

En ni yorite shōjitaru dainichi 縁ニヨリテ生ジタル大日. Ishikawa 2001, 457. Tenchi to ningen toha dōittai 天地ト人間トハ同一体. Ibid. [Editor’s note: The Indian sources usually list the Sanskrit term kalala (kararan) as the first stage of gestation, and arbuda (abudon) as the second.] T. 1821, 164a, esp. lines 01–12. Puguang was a leading figure in the study of the Abhidharma in Tang China. He was a disciple of the famous translator Xuanzang 玄奘 (602–664). Full title is Jingangefeng louge yiqie yuqie yuqi jing 金剛峯樓閣一切瑜伽瑜祇經, Jp. Kongōbu rōkaku issai yuga yugikyō (The Sutra of All Yogas and Yogis of the Adamantine Peak Pavillion; or the Yoga Sutra). Dolce 2006–07, 142. Mizuhara 1968, 32–35. Dolce 2006–07, passim; and Yamashita Takumi 山下琢巳, “Shugendō ‘Gotai honnu honrai busshin’ setsu – sono kyōri to shite no ‘tainai goi’ to sono tenkai 修験道「五體本有 本来佛身」−−その教理としての「胎内五位」とその展開,” Tōkyō seitoku tanki

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Table 11.7 The five stages of gestation Sanskrit

Japanese

Duration

Embryonic development

kalala

kararan 羯剌藍

1st week after conception

arbuda

2nd week

peśī ghana

abudon 頞部曇 (alt. 阿部曇) heishi 閉尸 kennan 健南

unification of the male and female fluids, mixing of defilements embryo forms into pustule (pao 皰) flesh and blood begin to form embryo begins to become firm

praśākha

harashakya 鉢羅奢佉

5th to 36th week

3rd week 4th week

joints, hair, and nails form and the physical base of the sense organs (Sk. indriyāṇi-rūpīṇi, Ch. segen 色根) are completed1

1 Sometimes this stage is further divided to arrive at a total of eight stages. Sanford 1997, 3.

The tainai goi were thus a well-known motif in the Buddhist circles of medieval Japan. The early modern Nyūtai shussei kirigami departs from the medieval tradition in that the embryo develops directly as a pagoda. Medieval iconographic representations of the tainai goi do include the pagoda as symbolising the fourth stage, kennan 鍵南.46 Yet the first, second, and third stages are shown as a circle, a ship-like or half-moon shape, and a half-circle with three spikes, respectively. The fifth and final stage is represented by a human body.47 These shapes were correlated with the mudra and ceremonial implements used during the initiation which ritually enacted the gestational process.48 Reducing gestation to a simple pagoda-based model appears forced in the light of this ritual use of the tainai goi and seems to indicate that the tainai goi as presented in the Nyūtai shussei kirigami might have to be considered in a different context.

46 47 48

daigaku kiyō 東京成徳短期大学紀要 38 (2005): 21–32, passim. [Editor’s note: See also Gaynor Sekimori, “Foetal Buddhahood,” in the present volume.] Corresponds to the Sanskrit term for the fourth stage of gestation, ghana. Mizuhara 1968, 34f. Dolce 2006–07, 138–44; Yamashita 2005, 22; Sanford 1997, 4–8.

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The Aun jigi 阿吽字義 (On the Meaning of the Letters A and HŪṂ), a Tokugawa-period text sometimes associated with the so-called “Tachikawaryū,” records an ontogenetic process similar to the one discussed in the Sōtō Zen kirigami described above.49 It affords a hint as to the context in which simplified representations of the tainai goi arose: [The syllable] A – The stage (i 位) of dwelling in the womb for the first seven days is like liquid gold. Here [it] comes from the red and white of the mother and father, [and] solidifies. [It] becomes the earth circle of the East. The Buddha [of this stage] is Ashuku.  [The syllable] VI - The second seven days, the water circle, this is the abdomen (hara 腹). The Buddha is Shaka.  [The syllable] RA – The third seven days are the fire circle. This is the chest. The Buddha is Hōshō Nyorai.  [The syllable] HŪṂ – The fourth seven days are the wind circle. This is the neck. The Buddha is Amida.  [The syllable] KHĀṂ – The sixth seven days are the space circle. This is the head. The Buddha is Dainichi Nyorai. […]  In the womb the two essences (tai 體), red and white, unify, and on the thirty-fifth day when they are [depiction of a small pagoda] a five-circle [pagoda] they are the five elements of earth, water, fire, wind and space. […]  Thus, the time of five times seven [that is] thirty-five days is considered the culmination of the Buddhadharma. Also, as for erecting a [memorial] pagoda thirty-five days after a person dies, if in the thirty-five days of coming to life the wonderful shape of the samaya form of Dainichi Nyorai [i.e., the pagoda] appears, now at the time of death as well [one] takes the shape of the beginning of life [i.e., the pagoda shape]. If [one] erects this pagoda at thirty-five days, this is surely to be called beneficial worship (inori 禱リ) in this life and the next. A [in Siddham script in the original text] 胎内ニヤドル初七日ノ位ハ水 金ノ如シ、父母ノ赤白ニ出テカタマル處ナリ、地輪東ナリ、佛阿閦 佛ナリ、VI [Siddham] 二七日水輪是れ腹ナリ、佛ハ釈迦如来ナ リ、RA [Siddham] 三七日火輪ナリ是レ胸ナリ、佛ハ寶性如来ナ リ、HŪṂ [Siddham] 四七日風輪ナリ、是レ頸ナリ、佛ハ阿弥陀ナ リ、KHĀṂ [Siddham] 五七日空輪ナリ、是レ頭ナリ、佛ハ大日如来 ナリ、[…] 胎内ニテ赤白二體和合シテ三十五日ニアタルトキ [picture

49

Sanford 1997, 21. The Aun jigi is partly cited in Mizuhara 1968, 33f.

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of a pagoda] 五輪トナリタル時ハ土水火風空ノ五大ナリ、[...] サレバ 五七、三十五日ノ時を以テ仏法ノ究トせり、サレパ人ノ死シテ後チ 三十五日ニ(カタカナ)率都婆ヲ立ツル事モ、生レ来ル時ノ三十五日 ニハ大日如来三昧耶形トテ目出度キスガタナレバ、今ハ死スル時モ 生スル始ヲ形トリテ、三十五日ニ此ノ率都婆ヲ立ツレバ必ズ今生後 生ノ禱リト成ル謂ナリ云云。50

The Aun jigi relates the five-stage ontogenetic framework not only to the pagoda in general but specifically to the memorial pagoda erected after death. It appears that in the early Tokugawa period the motif of the pagoda, at least in some cases, was used to relate embryological speculation to death and commemoration. The question arises as to which circumstances fostered such a development. It could be suggested that this reinterpretation of the tainai goi might be related to changing funerary patterns in the Tokugawa period. The provision of funerals to lay people was an important factor in the spread of Sōtō Zen since at least the fifteenth century. However, it was in the Tokugawa period that Zen funerals reached all levels of society. Consequently, the provision of funerary rites became one of the primary functions of Zen priests.51 Yet, even after Buddhist funerals had become the norm, their meaning and the form in which the dead where commemorated remained fluid. Japanese ethnologist Shintani Takanori has conducted an in-depth analysis of the gravestones found in the graveyard of Niiza in present-day Saitama Prefecture in eastern Japan. According to his research, the custom of establishing family graves for the communal commemoration of a household’s ancestors did not become the norm until the late Tokugawa (1603–1868) to early Meiji period (1868–1912). From the early- to mid-Tokugawa period, gravesites were mostly established for individuals or married couples. Consequently, only the Buddhist memorial names (kaimyō 戒名) were carved onto the headstone. Furthermore, whereas early headstones carry various Buddhist motifs, later ones bear the household’s crest.52 Shintani interprets this to signify the changing function of memorial sites. While earlier memorials, he argues, were dedicated to secure the salvation of the dead in the next world, later ones served as a focus for 50 51 52

Mizuhara 1968, 33f. For an alternative translation, which I have consulted, see Sanford 1997, 19f. See William M. Bodiford, Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1993), 207, 214; and Williams 2009a, 154f. Shintani Takanori 新谷尚紀, Ryōbosei to takaikan 両墓制と他界観 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1991), 155–58.

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ancestor worship. Finally, the change from the individual to the household grave and from personal salvation to communal veneration was accompanied by a change in the shape of the headstone itself. Early- to mid-Tokugawa-period headstones were produced predominantly in the five-storied pagoda shape, whereas later ones are in the obelisk shape still common today.53 Various Sōtō Zen sources roughly contemporary with the Nyūtai shussei kirigami and the Aun jigi relate the pagoda with the post-mortem salvation of the dead. For example, the Kōyō no kirigami 紅葉之切紙 (Red Leaves Kirigami), a funerary kirigami transmitted in 1636, explains that the pagoda is the origin and original shape of all Buddhas. Guiding the dead towards liberation is explained in this kirigami as founded on the principle of the pagoda.54 Another text, the Rangyō zu 卵形図 (Egg-Shaped Image), a funerary kirigami transmitted in 1631 and housed in Yōkōji Temple on Noto Peninsula in what nowadays is Ishikawa Prefecture, also relates the pagoda to a circle and graphically interprets it as a shape beyond dualities, specifically beyond the duality of life and death.55 The centrality of the image of the pagoda to Zen monk’s efforts on behalf of the dead should not come as a surprise. As Brian Rupert has shown, pagodas, and the cult of the relics that they housed, had from early on been associated with mortuary rituals aimed at benefiting the dead.56 By the Heian period (794–1185), the worship of relics became linked with the desire for post-mortem liberation, often imagined as rebirth in a Pure Land.57 Over time, the conception of what constituted a proper relic broadened, until it came to include not only (supposed) relics of the Buddha but also the remains of sainted monks and even secular rulers such as shoguns.58 The development of 53 54

55 56

57 58

Ibid. For the Kōyō kirigami, see Ishikawa Rikizan 石川力山, “Chūsei sōtōshū kirigami no bunrui shiki ron (jūichi) 中世曹洞宗切紙の分類試論 (十一),” Komazawa daigaku bukkyō gakubu ronshū 駒澤大学佛教学集 19 (1988): 143f. As Ishikawa remarks, the title of this kirigami is obscure, yet it is worth mentioning that the Danna 檀那 faction of the Tendai school transmitted an oral initiation document known as Kōyō ko hiketsu 紅葉筥秘決 (Secret Transmission Concerning the Red Leaf Box), which also utilises the image of a pagoda. See Zoku tendai zenshu 続天台全書, Tendai shūten hensansho 天台集典編纂 所, eds. (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2011), Kuketsu 2 – Danna ryū 1 口決 2 – 檀那流 1, 372. Ishikawa 1988, 142. Brian O. Rupert, “Beyond Death and the Afterlife,” in Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), 102–36. Ibid., 108. Ibid., 107.

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Zen funerals propelled this development and changed the nature of both the relics and the post-mortem liberation their worship was meant to guarantee.59 The first shift was that Zen Buddhists came to regard the remains of Zen masters as relics.60 Secondly, as Duncan Williams argues, Zen funerals were now performed to propel the deceased not to some Pure Land, as earlier mortuary rites had been, but to post-mortem enlightenment.61 Zen monks also pioneered the practice of post-mortem ordinations, turning lay deceased into members of the monastic community. Thus, ordained and enlightened, the remains of anybody who underwent a Zen funeral became potential “relics,” fit to be housed in a pagoda. At the same time, the understanding of what exactly it meant to be a Zen master came to be reconsidered. The process and state of awakening were understood in increasingly sexual and reproductive terms, focused on the production of a perfected body just as the one described in pagodic terms in the Chūteki himissho.62 When crafting this conception of awakening onto funerary practices and the post-mortem liberation they promised, for Zen monks the pagoda, as headstone, reliquary, and body became the topos which allowed them to unify these different discourses, in turn producing new embryological concepts such as the one presented in the Nyūtai shussei kirigami. This sample of sources and Shintani’s survey are too limited to establish definite conclusions, but the following suggestion might be voiced. As funerals came to be of increasing importance to Buddhist priests in the early Tokugawa period, they utilised the resources of the Buddhist tradition to formulate the conceptual schemes explaining the rituals and symbolism of commemoration. In this context, embryological notions were transposed into a funerary context, thus effectively giving rise to the image of the dead growing into a perfect body within the womb of the grave. This facilitated the “streamlining” of embryological material, such as the simplified iconography of the tainai goi as

59

60 61

62

For an overview of the development of Buddhist funerals, see Mariko Namba Walter, “The Structure of Japanese Funerals,” in Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), 247–92. Ibid., 122f. Duncan Ryūken Williams, “Funerary Zen,” in Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009b), 207–46. On embryological conceptions of enlightenment and soteriology, see the next section, “Practice in the Womb and Propagating the Buddha Seed,” and Licha 2011, 207–13.

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single pagoda in the Nyūtai shussei kirigami.63 That this text was presenting embryology with funerals in mind is also suggested by the insistence that the human body as a pagoda includes the Thirteen Buddhas, a motif which will now be discussed. 2.2 Gestation and the Thirteen Buddhas The Tainai sagashi no kirigami 胎内サガシノ切紙 (Inquiring into the Womb) is an early modern Sōtō Zen text from Yōkōji Temple describing the process of gestation.64 In the second of its three parts, each stage of embryonic development is associated with a Buddhist deity and a specific part of the embryo’s body. This process of growth is then identified with the opposite process of decomposition after death: In the first seven days, the liver and the two arms and two legs of Fudō

不動 (Sk. Acala) appear. In the second seven days, the backbone of Shaka 釈迦 (Sk. Śākyamuni) appears. In the third seven days, the two sets of ribs of Monju 文殊 (Sk. Mañjuśrī) appear. In the fourth seven days, the Fugen 普賢 (Sk. Samantabhadra) shoulders appear. In the fifth seven days, the abdomen and hips of Jizō 地蔵 (Sk. Kṣitigarbha) appear. In the sixth seven days, the face and head of Miroku 弥勒 (Sk. Maitreya) appear. In the seventh seven days, the neck of Yakushi 藥師 (Sk. Bhaiṣajyaguru)

uniting and separating is received. When the fifty-first day comes, the whole body is covered in skin. On the hundredth day, the mouth appears for the first time. In the fourth month, the in- and out-breath of Kannon 観音 (Sk. Avalokiteśvara) is received. In the fifth month, all the sinews of Seishi 勢至 (Sk. Mahāsthāmaprāpta) appear. In the sixth month, the thinking of Amida 阿弥陀 (Sk. Amitābha; amida no sōshite 阿弥陀ノ想 シテ) unites the three hundred and sixty joints. In the ninth month, receiving Kokūzō 虚空蔵 (Sk. Ākāśagarbha) [the embryo] is drawn out into the world (gense 現世), and the time of birth occurs.  For this reason, if [a person] dies, [one] venerates the various deities (honzon 本尊) from the first seven days onwards until in the thirty-third 63

64

It should be noted, however, that this “streamlined” pagoda model of gestation is not limited to the funerary context. See, for example, the Manbō jinjin saijō busshin hōyō 万法甚 深最頂仏心法要 (Summary of the Teachings of the Exceedingly Subtle and Highest Buddha-Mind of the Ten Thousand Dharma), often and most likely spuriously attributed to the Tendai prelate Genshin 源信 (942–1017), which also identifies the tainai goi as a pagoda. In Nihon bukkyō zensho 日本仏教全書, Bussho kankōkai 仏書刊行會, eds. (Tokyo: Meicho fūkyūkai, 1978), vol. 33, 10. Ishikawa 2001, 454f.

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year these borrowed things [i.e., the bodily parts received from the deities] are returned. […] This is what is called “finding in the body, returning into the body.” 初七日ニハ不動肝モ両手両脚ヲ出スナリ、二七日ニハ釈迦ノ後ウシロノ 骨ヲ出スナリ、三七日ニハ文殊ノ両方ノ脇ノ骨ヲ出スナリ、四七日ニハ 普賢肩ヲ出 スナリ、五七日ニハ地蔵ノ腋ハラトシリヲ出スナリ、六 七日ニハ、弥勒ノ頭面ヲ出スナリ、七ゝ日ニハ薬師ノ都合シ分テ請取 リ給ナリ、五十一日 ト云時 キ、総体ノ肢身ニカゝルナリ、百ケ日ニ ナリテ先ツ口出ルナリ、四月目ニ観音ノ出息入息ヲ出ル始ナリ、五月 目ニナリテ、勢至ノ総ノ筋ヲ出スナリ(カタカナ)、六月目ニ阿弥陀ノ 想シテ三百六十ノ骨節ヲ合スルナリ、九月目ニ虚空蔵受ケ取トリテ現世 へ引出 シ、御誕生 ノ時ヲ出スナリ。是以死スレバ、初七日ヨリソレ ソレニ本尊ヲ拝シテ三十三年迠デ此ノカリ物ヲカエサテ […] 是ヲ体 内サガシ、体内吸ヱシト云ナリ。65

In this passage, the growth of the embryo is envisioned as a continual “borrowing” of body parts from Buddhist deities. Death and commemoration are conceived as the reverse process, each part of the body returning to its divine donor. The underlying framework is the cult of the Thirteen Buddhas (jūsanbutsu 十三仏), which preside over the ritual process of commemoration. It is this set of deities which the aforementioned Nyūtai shussei kirigami insisted on including. The notion that gestation mirrors the process of death in the constellation of Thirteen Buddhas seems to have become widespread by the mid-Tokugawa period at the latest. It can be found not only in Buddhist sources but also in contemporary popular ballads (uta zaimon 歌祭文).66 One such ballad, entitled “Kaitai totsuki – tainai sagashi 懐胎十月 胎内さがし (Ten-Month Pregnancy – Inquiring into the Womb)” describes how the embryo is protected by Fudō in the first month of pregnancy, by Yakushi in the second, Monju in the third, Fugen in the fourth, Jizō in the fifth, Kannon in the in the sixth, Miroku in the seventh, Ashuku in the eighth, Seishi in the ninth, and finally Aizen 愛染 in the tenth.67 This list is largely identical with the Thirteen 65 66

67

I read “肢” as “皮,” “迠” as “迄,” and “吸” as “返.” Ibid., 454f. On the nature and context of these popular ballads, which are rooted in yamabushi activities but soon acquired the character of ballads reporting on daily events, see Takano Tatsuyuki 高野辰之, “Kaisetsu” in Nihon kayō shūsei日本歌謡集成, Takano Tatsuyuki 高 野辰之 et al., eds. (Tokyo: Tōkyōdo, 1942), vol. 8, 1f. Ibid., 78.

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Buddhas, with the single exception of Aizen. Another ballad, the “Gorin zai gotai no zu 五輪碎五体の圖 (Image of the Five Bodies Smashing Five Wheels),” of the same region and era as the “Kaitai totsuki,” treats the deities responsible for the various parts of the embryonic body.68 Therefore, the left leg is produced by Fudō, the right leg by the deity Bishamonten, the left arm by Kannon, the right arm by Seishi, and so forth. With the exception of Bishamonten, all the deities protecting the embryo’s body are included in the Thirteen Buddhas set. Common to both ballads is the understanding of the human body as a pagoda. Taken together, these two ballads record material virtually identical with the Tainai sagashi no kirigami. The presence of these motifs in popular sources underlines that by the late Tokugawa period embryological models based on the pagoda and the association of the gestational and death processes had spread to the populace at large. To summarise briefly, this section has shown that Tokugawa-period Sōtō monks accepted basic esoteric assumptions concerning the origin of the human body. These included the idea that the human body incorporates a fivestoried pagoda grown from the syllable A, as demonstrated by the Chūteki himissho. They were also aware of the tainai goi, the gestational model of Indian origin reflected in medieval Buddhist sources and associated with initiation. However, they adapted both discourses into a commemorative paradigm, reflecting the contemporary spread of Zen funerals. Consequently, they reduced the medieval iconography of the tainai goi to the pagoda and associated the latter specifically with its memorial use. Death thus became the bodily regeneration of the deceased into a Buddha. Furthermore, they used the funerary cult of the Thirteen Buddhas as a model for embryonic development both pre- and post-mortem, depicting these deities as presiding over the gestation of the unborn child as they did over the journey of the dead towards rebirth. As the Aun jigi and the two popular ballads cited above indicate, both these developments were not exclusive to Sōtō Zen but seem to reflect broader trends in Tokugawa religion. The basic assumption underlying both trends is still the same as it was in the medieval period, namely that the embryo, in the grave or in the womb, grew towards spiritual awakening. Let us now turn to the question of how this notion was expressed in Sōtō Zen.

68

Ibid., 77f. The title of this ballad is clearly corrupted. Judging from the text’s content, zai 碎 might be a misspelling/misreading of narabi 並.

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Practice in the Womb and Propagating the Buddha Seed

3.1 Meditation as Residing in the Womb I will now turn to a second feature of Sōtō Zen embryological discourse, namely its association with spiritual practice. I have already mentioned the models of practice inscribed in the two pagoda of the Chūteki himissho. Now I shall discuss their implementation in the context of embryology. An anonymous Sōtō Zen kirigami called Seson tanza kirigami 世尊端座切紙 (On the Buddha Sitting Properly), kept at Yōkōji 永光寺 Temple in Ishikawa Prefecture, presents the theme of dwelling in the womb as meditative practice. The text purports to have been transmitted by Dōgen, but most likely dates to the early seventeenth century, as do the majority of kirigami at Yōkōji. It gives a graphical explanation of the Buddha’s meditation and Bodhidharma’s wallgazing.69 The text explains that these two ascetic feats are “the wellspring (hongen 本源) of all Buddhas, the life-root (myōkon 命根) of sentient beings.”70 First, the text presents a black circle. On the left of this circle, the words “the World-honoured One perfecting Buddhahood” (seson jōbutsu 世尊成佛) are written. On the right are the words “Bodhidharma gazing at the wall” (daruma menpeki 達磨面壁). Underneath the circle, we see the words “no position” (mui 無位) and “fundamental root” (konpon 根本). Beneath the black circle, we see a red one. On the left is the inscription “sentient and insentient beings at the same time attain perfect enlightenment” (ujō hijō dōji jō tōshōkaku 有情非 情同時成等正覺), on the right “directly pointing at the human mind, seeing nature, and becoming Buddha” ( jikishi ninshin kenshō jōbutsu 直指人心見性 成佛). Beneath this red circle we can see the two phrases, “not crossing into” (fushō 不渉) and “the two extremes” (ryōhen 両邊). On the lowest level beneath the red circle there is a dotted circle resembling the one used to represent the third position of the goi. On the left and right, the phrases “the World-honoured One sitting” and “Bodhidharma gazing at the wall” appear. Underneath this circle we see the two phrases, “sitting” (zazai 座在) and “in the womb” (tainai 胎内). This kirigami associates archetypical meditative practice with dwelling in the womb. Furthermore, it seems to assert that the principles leading to spiritual liberation (the “origin of all Buddhas”) and the procreative process (the “life-root of sentient beings”) are intimately related. The following discussion will briefly elaborate on these two themes. 69 70

Bodhidharma, the legendary first patriarch of Chan and Zen, is said to have engaged in nine years of unmoving meditation staring at a wall at Shaolin Monastery. Shobutsu hongen shujō meikon nari 諸仏本源衆生命根也.

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3.2 Embryological Metaphysics The Zenmon tainai no goi 禅門胎内之五位 (Five Stages [of the Embryo] in the Womb in Zen) is an extremely dense text from 1631 kept at Seimyōji in presentday Aichi Prefecture.71 This text presents unique embryological material largely absent from kirigami found elsewhere. It gives a Zen-style interpretation of embryonic development by basing itself loosely on an identification of the henshō goi and tainai goi, discussed earlier (Tables 11.5 and 11.7, respectively). The Zenmon tainai no goi describes a lake, four sun wide, which is located in the mother’s womb.72 Within this lake there is one drop of fluid, called the “pure fluid” (seijōsui 清浄水). The text identifies the father as Heaven, Yang, the Crooked, and a white circle (○), the mother as Earth, Yin, the Straight, and a black circle (●). The origin of humans is then said to be the two shapes 〳and 〵; the first represents Yin, the second Yang. Yin and Yang have intercourse and fall into the lake in the womb. However, in the first seven days they do not mix and are symbolised by a vertically divided circle (◐). This circle represents all kinds of dualities (Straight/Crooked, Lord/Vassal, Heaven/Earth, and so forth). In the second period of seven days, the male and female elements mix and become an empty circle. In the Zen context (zenmon 禅門), this stage is said to be called “Togetherness Attained,” represented by a black circle (●). It is also the “Unsurpassed Ultimate,” “before primordial chaos” (konton izen 混沌以前) and “before the opening of Heaven and Earth” (tenchi kaibyaku izen 天地開闢 以前). The third seven days are represented by a white circle and are called the “development of the egg shape” (rangyō no okoru tokoro tomo ifu nari 卵形ノ発 処共云也). 73 In some kirigami, this “egg shape” is a euphemism for the headstone of a grave and the pagoda.74 They are also abudon garan (アブドン伽藍), which is an alternative spelling of abudon gararan, discussed earlier in subsection 2.1. This is the place where a single condition has not yet arisen (ikki mihatsu no tokoro nari 一機未発ノ処也).75 71 72 73 74 75

Ishikawa 2001, 508f. Four sun corresponds to about 12 cm. The text misspells ran 卵 (“egg”) with the gyō 仰 (“to look up”). See, for example, Ishikawa 1988, 142. The phrase ikki mihatsu refers to a stage of cosmogony before conditional causality appears out of primal unity, especially in the context of Yijing speculation. The Tokugawa-period scholar monk Tenkei Denson 天桂傳尊 (1648–1735), for example, speaks of “when original chaos is not yet separated, a single condition not yet arisen” (konton mibun ikki mihatsu no toki 混沌未分一機未発時). See Hōon hen 報恩編 (On Reward of Karmic Debts), T. 2600, 634c28.

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The fourth seven days are represented by a diamond shape (♦). Of this stage the text says that “among the followers of Tō [san, i.e., Dongshan; i.e., among Sōtō monks] this is called the one point of coming,” symbolised by a dotted circle (◉).76 This is the point were conditions first appear in subtle form (ikki no hassho tomo ifu nari 一機ノ発処トモ云也). The fifth seven days again are represented by a white circle. This stage is said to correspond to the “three dots of the character heart” (kokoro no santen 心ノ 三点). The sixth seven days are symbolised by an oblong shape from which five “bubbles,” three above and two below, emerge. The central oblong is bifurcated by a line which represents the emerging spine. A second image shows the five protrusions as the head and the four limbs. This is the final shape of the embryo until birth. The text presents a fascinating exegesis of this sixth stage when the fully formed embryo dwells in the womb, based on the phrase “The head is crowned by the moon of the fifth night, the legs step on the land of yellow gold” (atama ni goya no tsuki wo itadaki ashi kōkin no chi wo fumu 頭五夜月頂足踏黄金地). The “moon” is said to be the mother’s viscera. The “yellow gold” is to “reside stepping on the lotus seat in the womb of the mother.”77 After another seven days, this resembles an empty circle. This is said to be true zazen (zazen shōtō 坐禅正当), or seated meditation. Another seven days later, the embryo dons a robe (koromo wo kabutte wiru nari 衣ヲカブツテ居也).78 This is the same as putting on the Zen monk’s robe. The text draws this analogy between zazen and gestation by stating that “on the futon [meditation mat] as well one learns to dwell standing on the fundamental lotus seat of the mother’s womb.”79 At the same time, the embryo develops flesh and skin and is provided with eyes, ears, a nose, and a tongue. With this, the development of the embryo is essentially complete, and after nine months it is born. Finally, the text identifies the fully formed embryo while it is not yet born with “Straight in Crooked” and the newborn child with “Crooked in Straight.” In the Zen school, this newborn child is known as “the bloodline not cut, the hexagram qian ( ) not exhausted.” This sentence refers to the successful propagation of the Zen teachings through the generations. From now onwards, 76 77 78 79

Koko wo motte tōjō de ha rai no itten tomo nari. 爰ヲ以テ洞上デハ来ノ一点共也。 Haha no tainai de rengeza wo funde wita nari. 母ノ胎内デ蓮花座ヲ踏ンデ居タ 也。Ishikawa 2001, 508. [Editor’s note: In this context, the character for “robe” could also be understood as “placenta.” See Bernard Faure, “Buddhism Ab Ovo” in this volume.] 蒲団フトンモ母胎本蓮華座ヲ踏ンデ居ルヲマナブナリ。Ishikawa 2001, 508.

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one exhausts twenty or thirty years’ worth of Buddhist practice. When one at last reaches the rank of “former abbot” (tōdō 東堂), one of the highest positions in the Zen monastic community, that is called “Approaching Togetherness,” the fourth position of the henshō goi (Table 11.5). The Zenmon tainai no goi thus presents the process of gestation in a tertiary framework. The first layer is cosmogony. Mother and father are identified with the cosmogonic forces of Yin and Yang. Embryonic development begins with the unification of male and female fluids (i.e., Yin and Yang) in the womb. The product of this unification is described in terms already familiar from the discussion of cosmology based on the Yijing. It is identified with the “Unsurpassed Ultimate” and primordial chaos. In the third week it is compared to the point of potential, but as-of-yet not actualised, conditionality. In the fourth week, conditionality appears. The second layer in the interpretive framework are the stages of the henshō goi. The initial polarity of mother and father is identified with the “Crooked” and the “Straight.” Their unification in the second week corresponds to “Togetherness Attained” and the black circle. The fourth week is identified with the dotted circle and the “one point of coming,” which likely indicates the third position of the goi, “Coming from Straight,” equally symbolised by the dotted circle. Next, “Straight within Crooked” and “Crooked within Straight” are identified with the fully formed but yet unborn embryo and the newborn infant, respectively. Finally, “Approaching Togetherness” is the position attained after a lifetime’s practice of Zen. In this way, the metaphysics of the goi is superimposed on ontogenesis. The embryo descends the goi hierarchy from “Togetherness Attained” until it reaches the lowest two levels of “Straight within Crooked” and “Crooked within Straight.” From there, as a newborn practitioner caught in the tangles of samsaric duality, it begins its ascent towards “Approaching Togetherness.” Human life is thus understood as a circle of descent from and ascent towards liberation. The third layer used in this conceptualisation of gestation is spiritual practice. Especially the sixth week, when the embryo is fully formed in the womb, is conceptualised in terms of meditation. To sit in meditation is to literally sit in the womb. In its concreteness, invoking the physiological position of maternal viscera and womb with respect to the embryo, this image far exceeds the much more metaphorical treatment given in the Seson tanza kirigami discussed above. In brief, gestation in Sōtō Zen kirigami was not exclusively conceptualised in a funerary framework but carried rich metaphysical, cosmological, and soteriological connotations.

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3.3 Variant Embryologies In order to illustrate just how diverse the adaptations and variations of embryological discourses were in the Tokugawa period, I would like to raise one final example. The seventeenth-century text entitled Sangai isshin ki 三界一心記 (Three Worlds in a Single Heart; alt. Sanken itchi sho 三賢一致書, Confluence of the Three Sage Teachings) is said to have been edited into its present form by the monk Dairyū 大龍 (n.d.) from the Rinzai Zen monastery Daitokuji.80 The text advocates the unity of the three teachings of Buddhism, Shinto, and Confucianism, the latter of which is defined as cosmological speculation based on the Yijing (ekidō 易道). The Sangai isshin ki seems to have arisen at least in part from a background similar to the Zenmon tainai no goi discussed above. For instance, the Zenmon tainai no goi explains that Yin and Yang are represented by the two shapes 〳 and 〵. Exactly the same association is made by the Sangai isshin ki. This text analyses the first character of the term “eight trigrams” (hakke 八卦) by splitting the character “eight” (hachi 八) in two (〳+〵) and identifying the left stroke with Yin, the right with Yang. This expresses the idea that the eight primary trigrams develop from the interaction of Yin and Yang.81 Both texts thus appear to refer to a shared background in Yijing interpretation. The Sangai isshin ki also shares with the Zenmon tainai no goi the understanding that the fully formed embryo engages in Buddhist practice. Yet, whereas the Sōtō Zen text conceives of this practice in terms of zazen, the Sangai isshin ki retains a more esoteric interpretation. It uses an embryological model based on ten months.82 In the seventh month, the mother’s womb is 80

81 82

The text can be found in Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘諍史料, Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬, ed. (Tokyo: Tōhō shoen, 1930), vol. 5, 505–39. For the authorship of this text, see Sanford 1997, 25. For a critical appraisal of the traditional attribution and characterisation of this text as a “Zen text,” see Hirose Ryōmon 広瀬良文, “Kinsei zenki no zenshū to ‘Sanken itchi sho’ 近世前期の禅宗と『三賢一致書』,” Indogaku bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度学仏教学研究 61/2 (2013): 556–59. Washio 1930, 522. On the origin and development of the month-based model of embryonic growth, see Nakamura Kazuki 中村一基, “‘Tainai jūgatsu no zu’ no shisōshi teki na tenkai「胎内十 月の図」の思想史的展開,” Iwate daigaku kyōikugaku bu kenkyū nenpō 岩手大学教 育学部研究年報 50/1 (1990): 23–36. In addition to Nakamura’s discussion, I think it is worth considering that the Sangai isshin ki extensively uses calendrical speculation (rekidō 暦道). This coincides with a spiking interest in almanacs and calendars in Tokugawa Japan. John Breen, although referring to a later period, has argued that these did not simply serve to keep track of time but also helped to orient individual religious practice and needs in the temporal and spatial arrangements of astral deities. It could be suggested that the ten-month model of the Sangai isshin ki represents less a budding

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identified with Dainichi’s Pure Land of Secret Splendour (mitsugon jōdo 密厳 浄土).83 In the eighth month, the embryo itself is said to be Dainichi.84 In the ninth month, the embryo is fully formed and awaits birth: [The embryo] makes mudras with its hands. With its mouth, it intones the two syllables A and HŪṂ. This is the living body of the Buddha. […] It is said as well that in the mother’s womb [the embryo] wears the unsullied robe and makes mudras with his hands. 両手において印明をむすぶ。口には阿吽の二字をふくみ、是生身の 佛體なり。[...] 又いはく、母胎にして無垢の袈裟を着して、両手に て印をむすぶなり。85

Although long considered a text of Zen association and close to the Sōtō Zenmon tainai no goi in some regards, the embryonic practice described in the Sangai isshin ki is of esoteric Buddhist provenance. The three texts we have just discussed, the two Sōtō Zen kirigami Seson tanza kirigami and Zenmon tainai no goi, as well as the Sangai isshin ki, all make the same point: Buddhist practice occurs in the womb. Yet they differ significantly on how they conceive of this connection. In the Seson tanza kirigami it remains on an almost abstract level, yet is closely linked to Zen meditation through two archetypical instances, the Buddha’s and Bodhidharma’s meditation. The Zenmon tainai no goi also has the embryo engaging in zazen, but in a much more concrete and quasi-physiological framework. This framework includes not only the womb as lotus but the internal organs of the mother as well. Additionally, it stresses the theme of the robe, presumably the placenta covering the embryo.86 The Sangai isshin ki shares both the physiological framework and the motive of the robe, yet casts the practice of the embryo in esoteric

83 84 85 86

naturalistic tendency concerning the body, as partly suggested by Nakamura, but rather the re-contextualization of the human body, and specifically the pregnant female body, in a different ritual and religious context. See John Breen, “Inside Tokugawa Religion: Stars, Planets and the Calendar-as-method,” in The Worship of Stars in Japanese Religious Practice, Lucia Dolce, ed., special issue of Culture and Cosmos 10/1–2 (2007): 63–78. Washio 1930, 529. Ibid., 529f. Ibid., 530. On the robe in the womb, and the robe as placenta, see Bernard Faure, “Quand l’habit fait le moine: The Symbolism of the kāsāya in Sōtō Zen,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8/8 (1995): 335–69.

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terms. These three texts testify to the popularity and complexity that Buddhist practice modelled on the process of gestation enjoyed in the Tokugawa period. 3.4 Propagating the Buddha Seed The final aspect of this connection between practice and gestation to be discussed is the notion that propagation of one’s monastic lineage, too, could be thought of in procreative and gestational terms. If practice is understood as a symbolic returning to and dwelling in the womb, then completion of practice can be understood as birth. Furthermore, given the cosmological links that both reproduction and practice carry, this process is not restricted to the individual but rather is a universal act, the rebirth of both practitioner and cosmos. I will now present a Sōtō adoption of this idea. The Kechimyaku zu narabi kechimyaku soden no manji 血脈図並血脈祖伝之 万事 (Ten Thousand Matters of the Blood Vein Chart and the Ancestral Transmission of the Blood Vein) is a Sōtō Zen kirigami from 1617 explaining the meaning of the “blood vein” (kechimyaku 血脈) in exactly such reproductive language.87 The “blood vein” is the lineage through which Zen practitioners trace their descent back to Śākyamuni Buddha. It is also the name of a document received during a precept ordination that lists the generations of this lineage. Precept ordinations existed both for monastics, for whom the occasion meant official entry into the monastic community, and lay followers. Furthermore, a kechimyaku was also given during ceremonies of Dharma transmission, during which a Zen master would certify a student’s awakening. The kechimyaku document proves that the recipient of the precepts is now a member of the metaphorical “family” of the Buddha or, to put it differently, a “child of the Buddha.” This appears to have been an occasion for embryological interpretation too tempting to resist. The Kechimyaku zu narabi kechimyaku soden no manji is headed by a diagram of four circles connected with a red line (Fig. 11.4). The uppermost circle is black. To its left, the words “life-root of sentient beings” (shujō no meikon 衆 生之命根) are written. To the right is placed the phrase “lifeline of all Buddhas” (shobutsu no meimyaku 諸佛之命脈). Underneath this circle, two more circles are placed, a white one to the left and a red one to the right. Under these circles we can see the words “Heaven” and “Earth” on the left and right, respectively. From the lower circumference of the uppermost black circle, a red line emerges running downwards. On this line are the words “the place of practice, the 87

Ishikawa, Rikizan 石川力山, “Chūsei Sōtōshū kirigami no bunrui shikiron (jūyon) 中世 曹洞宗切紙の分類試論 (十四),” Komazawa daigaku bukkyō gakubu ronshū 駒沢大学 仏教学部論集 20 (1989): 108–34, esp. 130. Fig. 11.4 shows an alternative version of this text.

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Figure 11.4 From Kechimyaku zu narabi kechimyaku soden no manji 血脈図並血脈祖伝之万事. Sōtō Zen kirigami. Courtesy of Yōkōji Temple, Ishikawa Prefecture.

dwelling place of all Buddhas of the three worlds” (sanze shobutsu anchi dōjō 三世諸佛安土道場). The line then runs into a circle composed of five concentric circles, each of which is divided into a red and a white half in alternating fashion. The outermost white half-circle on the left is identified by the character “father” (fu 父), the outermost red half on the right by “mother” (bo, alt. mo 母). Under the word “father” we can see another inscription reading “the direct road of perfecting Buddhahood of all sentient beings” (sho shujō jōbutsu jikidō 諸衆生成佛直道). Under the word “mother,” there is the inscription “the practice place of appearing in the world of the Buddhas of the three worlds” (sanze shobutsu shusse dōjō 三世諸佛出世道場). Underneath the red line re-emerges, bearing the word “blood vein” (kechimyaku). It then turns upwards and enters the uppermost black circle from above. The text accompanying this diagram states: “Blood” is one circle. It is primordial chaos not yet divided (konton mibun 混沌未分). “Vein” is black and white not yet divided. This, because from these two positions of “blood” and “vein” comes protecting life, is called

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the fundamental origin of all Buddhas, the root of all sentient beings. […] The blood vein (kechimyaku) is the life root of all Buddhas, the life vein of sentient beings, […] the seed of the fundamental root of sentient and insentient beings. […] The intercourse (wagō 和合) of Yin and Yang is called the blood vein. Yang qi (yōki 陽気) of Heaven is born (shussei 出 生), producing Yin essence (insei 陰精) of Earth; their mixing is called the blood vein. When the time comes, men and women produce sexual desire (inki 婬気) in each other, [and so] the seed (shushi 種子) of all Buddhas, sentient beings, and the ten thousand phenomena is issued, manifesting (tsukuriarahashite 作露) the world (sekai 世界) and making it constant (fudan 不断): that is called the “blood vein.” The succession between master and disciple is [like] this. 血トイツハ者一円也、混沌未分なり、脈トイツハ者黒白未分也、是コレ茲 コノ 自 ヨリ血脈 ノ二位 獲 ヱ 命来 ル故 ユヘニ 、諸仏 ノ本源、衆生 ノ根本 ㆑ ニ 一 也、[...] 血脈トイツハ者諸仏ノ命根、衆生ノ命脈、[...] 有情非情根本ノ 種子シュシ也、[...] 陰陽和合ナルヲ以テ云イ二血脈ト一、天ノ陽気出生シ、 地ノ陰性セイ生ヲコツテ交会ケウクワイスルヲ云フ二血脈ト一、到テ㆑時キ男女 互イニ淫気生ヲコツテ、諸仏衆生万バン象ゾウノ下クダシニ種子ジヲ一、世界ヲ 作 ツクリ 露 アラハシテ 不断 ナルヲ 云 フ 二 血脈 ト 一 也、師資相承 ショウモ 此 カク 也。

The Kechimyaku zu narabi kechimyaku soden no manji uses a conceptual framework similar to the one employed in the Zenmon tainai no goi to interpret the Zen school’s “blood vein.” The “blood vein” is read through the threefold frame of cosmology (Yin/Yang, primordial chaos), sexual intercourse (mother/father, seed), and Buddhist practice (passing on the Dharma from master to disciple). Although the text does not expressly mention the embryo, it nonetheless understands the propagation of the Buddhist lineage in a reproductive context. Passing on the “blood vein” during precept ceremonies becomes a universal “fertility ritual,” linked not only to sexual congress on the human level but also to cosmic genesis from the fundamental Yin-Yang polarity. Conclusion The first aim of this paper was to demonstrate the existence of embryological discourses in early modern Sōtō Zen thought and practice. It has first presented the Chūteki himissho, a seventeenth-century text in which the mantric and human pagoda grow out of the seed syllable A and are perceived as abstract

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principle and concrete instantiation. This syllable was defined as the “first shape of humans in the womb.” This text has served to introduce the early modern understanding of the body in Sōtō Zen. In the subsequent part, we have discussed two alternative embryological models. The seventeenth-century Nyūtai shussei kirigami was introduced to present an embryological model which depicts ontogenesis as the progressive completion of a pagoda. The discussion has explored how the medieval initiatory understanding of the tainai goi was adopted into a funerary context, reflecting the importance to Zen monks of performing mortuary rites as their main source of income. The roughly contemporary Tainai sagashi no kirigami portrayed an alternative model of gestation, namely, the development of the embryo as a “borrowing” of body parts from the Thirteen Buddhas, further clarifying the mirror-like relationship between gestation and death. This intimate relationship gave rise to notions such as the dead being reborn into a new, perfect, pagoda/body within the womb of the grave. In short, we can definitely affirm the existence of embryological discourse in Sōtō Zen. The second aim was to show that this embryological discourse was no simple veneer but an integral part of the school’s thought and practice. In the last part of this chapter, we have discussed the Seson tanza kirigami, which claims to originate with Dōgen but in fact is most likely a seventeenth-century production. This text linked meditation to symbolic dwelling in the womb in an abstract manner. The Zenmon tainai no goi from 1631 presented a much more concrete, physiological image of embryonic practice and embedded it in the threefold framework of cosmogony, metaphysics, and soteriology. Finally, the Kechimyaku zu narabi kechimyaku soden no manji, although not an embryological text in the strict sense, referred to a procreative and cosmogonic network in explaining the meaning of the Zen “blood vein.” It thus seems obvious that embryological and reproductive discourses indeed served Sōtō Zen monks in understanding spiritual practice and its propagation and had a central place in the school’s doctrinal system. The final aim was to show that these features were neither heretical byproducts nor the characteristics of one specific lineage but rather part of the normative early Tokugawa religiosity. To this end, this chapter has cited the Aun jigi and the Sangai isshin ki, two texts sometimes understood to represent so-called “Tachikawa-ryū” ideas, and pointed to their close resemblance to Sōtō embryological notions. It has further indicated more popular sources such as ballads which testify to the importance of gestational discourses in early modern Japan. Consequently, it can be assumed that there was a common discourse on embryology in the Tokugawa period which was firmly positioned in the intellectual mainstream.

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Much work still needs to be done on the exploration of this early modern embryological discourse. By way of conclusion, I would like to suggest three vectors for further investigation only briefly touched on in this essay. Firstly, as seen in the discussion of the tainai goi, originally the stages of abuton and gararan were understood as two consecutive periods. Yet both the Nyūtai shussei kirigami and, less clearly, the Zenmon tainai no goi appear to portray them as occurring simultaneously and connected to the unification of female and male fluids. The Aun jigi furthermore identifies these two stages of embryonic development with the two syllables A and HŪṂ, which represent female and male essence or seed, respectively.88 In short, the terminology used to discuss the process of gestation over time seems to have undergone a transformation which still needs to be mapped. Secondly, the role of breath in both embryological discourse and, more broadly, in the context of religious cultivation needs to be further clarified. As seen previously, the Nyūtai shussei kirigami associates the syllable A with the wind circle and breath, completing ontogenesis. The Aun jigi as well defines the two basic syllables A (female) and HŪṂ (male) as inhalations and exhalations. It appears to suggest that the voice of the newborn infant is nothing but the unification of these two parental breaths.89 Finally, the Sangai isshin ki, a text traditionally attributed to a Rinzai school author, has a long on the importance of breath (iki 息), the character for which is analysed into its constituent parts, “self” (ji 自) and “heart/mind” (shin 心), awarding the respiratory process a central role in religious cultivation.90 I would thus like to suggest that an investigation into the role of breath in early modern embryological, and more broadly, religious discourse might be fruitful, particularly taking into consideration changing images of the body in Tokugawa Japan. Finally, scholars have to consider how the example of embryology affects the way in which we think about Sōtō Zen. As researchers have struggled to make sense of a popular tradition which nonetheless claimed elite access to truth, recent studies of Zen often seem to have raised the charge that Zen monks used an elite “rhetoric of immediacy” in order to cover up an unashamedly popular “other side of Zen,” to quote the titles of two major works on Chan and Zen Buddhism.91 This bifurcation appears somewhat problematic in the light of what we have learned about early modern Sōtō embryology. As we have 88 89 90 91

See Mizuhara 1968, 17. Ibid., 17f. Washio 1930, 535. Bernard Faure, The Rhetoric of Immediacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); and Williams 2009a.

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seen, the discourses imposing the process of gestation onto a ritual context were widespread and, in this sense, popular. At the same time, they were integral to the understanding of the methods of elite spiritual cultivation. In other words, Zen monks renegotiated the terms of their own teaching and practice in conversation with the intellectual concerns of the society they were a part of. To understand this conversation in terms of “orthodox” and “heterodox” teachings or “elite” and “popular” practices might well tell us more about contemporary scholarly preoccupations than it does about early modern Zen Buddhism. Works Cited Primary Sources Aun jigi 阿吽字義 [On the Meaning of the Letters A and HŪṂ]. By Anonymous. Tokugawa period. Chūteki himissho 中的秘密書 [The Secret Writing of Hitting the Mark]. By Shōun 昌運 (n.d.). In Sōtōshū Zensho 曹洞宗全書 [The Complete Works of the Sōtō School], Sōtōshū zensho kankōkai 曹洞宗全書刊行會, eds., 18 volumes, Chūkai 5, 329–58. Tokyo: Sōtōshū shūmuchō, 1970–73. Da piluzhena chengfo jing shu 大毘盧遮那成佛經疏 (Jp. Daibirushana jōbutsu kyō sho) [Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra]. By Yi Xing一行 (683–727). T. 1796. Fuzhou caoshan yuanzheng chanshi yulu 撫州曹山元證禪師語録 [Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Yuanzheng Caoshan of Fuzhou]. By Caoshan Benji 曹山本寂 (840–901). T. 1987A. Giun oshō goroku 義雲和尚語録 [Recorded Sayings of Venerable Giun]. By Giun 義雲 (1253–1333). T. 2591. Genketsu kōun chū shugetsu kunsekikō 顕訣耕雲註種月攈摭藁 [Straw Gathered by Shogetsu from Kōun’s Commentary on the Xianjue]. By Ketsudō Nōshō 傑堂能勝 (1355–1422) and Nan’ei Kenshū 南英兼宗 (1387–1460). In Sōtōshū Zensho 曹洞宗全 書 [The Complete Works of the Sōtō School], Sōtōshū zensho kankōkai 曹洞宗全書 刊行會, eds. 18 volumes, Chūkai 5. Tokyo: Sōtōshū shūmuchō, 1970–73. Gorin kuji himitsu shaku 五輪九字秘密釈 [A Secret Interpretation of the Five Chakras and Nine Syllables]. By Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143). T. 2514. Jushe lunji 倶舍論記 [Notes on Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya]. By Puguang 普光 (645–664). T. 1821. Kechimyaku zu narabi kechimyaku soden no manji 血脈図並血脈祖伝之万事 [Ten Thousand Matters of the Blood Vein Chart and the Ancestral Transmission of the Blood Vein, 1617]. Sōtō Zen kirigami. In Ishikawa Rikizan 石川力山, “Chūsei Sōtōshū

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kirigami no bunrui shikiron (jūyon) 中世曹洞宗切紙の分類試論 (十四),” Komazawa daigaku bukkyō gakubu kenkyū kiyō 駒沢大学仏教学部研究紀要 48 (1989). Keiranshūyōshū 渓嵐拾葉集 [Collection of Leaves Gathered in Stormy Ravines]. By Kōshū 光宗 (1276–1350). T. 2410. Kōyō ko hiketsu 紅葉筥秘決 [Secret Transmission Concerning the Red Leaf Box]. By Anonymous. In Zoku tendai zensho 続天台全書 [Continued Complete Works of the Tendai School], Tendai shūten hensansho 天台集典編纂所, eds. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2011. Kuketsu 2 – Danna ryū 1 口決2 – 檀那流1. Manbō jinjin saijō busshin hōyō 万法甚深最頂仏心法要 [Summary of the Teachings of the Exceedingly Subtle and Highest Buddha-mind of the Ten Thousand Dharma]. Attributed to Genshin 源信 (942–1017). In Nihon bukkyō zensho 日本仏教全書 [Complete Works of Japanese Buddhism], Bussho kankōkai 仏書刊行會, eds., vol. 33. Tokyo: Meicho fūkyūkai, 1978. Nyūtai shussei kirigami 入胎出生切紙 [On Entering the Womb and Birth]. Sōtō Zen kirigami. Rangyō zu 卵形図 [Egg-Shaped Image]. Sōtō Zen kirigami, 1631. Yōkōji 永光寺 Temple, Ishikawa Prefecture. Sangai isshin ki 三界一心記 [Three Worlds in a Single Heart; alt. Sanken itchi sho 三賢 一致書, Confluence of the Three Sage Teachings]. Dairyū 大龍, ed. (n.d.). In Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘諍史料 [Sources Regarding Disputes in Japanese Thought], Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬, ed., vol. 5, 505–39. Tokyo: Tōhō shoin, 1930. Seson tanza kirigami 世尊端座切紙 [On the Buddha Sitting Properly]. Sōtō Zen kirigami. Yōkōji Temple, Ishikawa Prefecture. Tainai sagashi no kirigami 胎内サガシノ切紙 [Inquiring into the Womb]. Sōtō Zen kirigami. Yōkōji Temple, Ishikawa Prefecture. Tōjō ungetsu roku 洞上雲月録 [Record of Cloud and Moon Atop the Cavern]. By Ketsudō Nōshō 傑堂能勝 (1355–1422) and Nan’ei Kenshū 南英兼宗 (1387–1460). In Sōtōshū Zensho 曹洞宗全書, Sōtōshū zensho kankōkai 曹洞宗全書刊行會, eds., 18 vols. Chūkai 5. Tokyo: Sōtōshū shūmuchō, 1970–1973. Yujia yuqi jing 瑜伽瑜祇経. (Jp. Yugikyō) [The Yoga Sutra]. T. 867. Zenmon tainai no goi 禅門胎内之五位 [Five Stages [of Embryo] in the Womb in Zen]. By Anonymous, ca. 1631. Seimyōji Temple, Aichi Prefecture. Secondary Sources Birdwhistell, Anne D. 1989. Transition to Neo-Confucianism: Shao Yung on Knowledge and Symbols of Reality. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bodiford, William M. 1993. Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

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Breen, John. 2007. “Inside Tokugawa Religion: Stars, Planets, and the Calendar-asmethod.” In The Worship of Stars in Japanese Religious Practice, Lucia Dolce, ed. Special issue of Culture and Cosmos 10/1–2: 63–78. Dolce, Lucia. 2010. “Nigenteki genri no gireika: Fudō, Aizen to chikara no hizō 二元的 原理の儀礼化―不動・愛染と力の秘像 [Ritualizing Duality: Fudō, Aizen, and the Secret Iconography of Empowerment].” In Girei no chikara: chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀禮の力 ——中世宗教の実践世界 [The Power of Ritual: The World of Religious Practice in Medieval Japan], Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds., 159–206. Kyoto: Hōzōkan. ———. 2006–07. “Duality and the kami: Reconfiguring Buddhist Notions and Ritual Patterns,” special issue “Rethinking Medieval Shintō,” Michael Como, Bernard Faure, and Iyanaga Nobumi, eds. Cahiers d’Extreme-Asie 16: 119–50. Faure, Bernard. 1995. “Quand l’habit fait le moine: The Symbolism of the kāsāya in Sōtō Zen,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8/8: 335–69. ———. 1994. The Rhetoric of Immediacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Glassman, Hank. 2009. “At the Crossroads of Birth and Death: The Blood Pool Hell and Postmortem Fetal Extraction.” In Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds., 175–206. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Haga Kōshiro 芳賀幸四郎. 1956. Chūsei zenrin no gakumon oyobi bungaku ni kan suru kenkyū 中世禅林の学問および文学に関する研究 [A Study of the Scholarship and Literature of the Medieval Zen Groups]. Tokyo: Nihon gakujutsu shinkōkai. Hirose Ryōmon 広瀬良文. 2013. “Kinsei zenki no zenshū to ‘Sanken itchi sho’ 近世前期 の禅宗と『三賢一致書』[The Early Modern Zen School and the Sanken itchi sho],” Indogaku bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度学仏教学研究 [Studies in Indology and Buddhism] 61/2: 556–59. Ishikawa Rikizan 石川力山. 2001. Zenshū sōden shiryō no kenkyū 禅宗相伝資料の研究 [A Study of Transmission Documents of the Zen School]. Tokyo: Hōzōkan. ———. 1989. “Chūsei Sōtōshū kirigami no bunrui shikiron (jūyon) 中世曹洞宗切紙の 分類試論 (十四) [A Tentative Classification of Medieval Sōtō Zen Kirigami (14)],” Komazawa daigaku bukkyō gakubu ronshū 駒沢大学仏教学部研究紀要 [Essays by the Faculty of Buddhist Studies of Komazawa University] 20: 108–34. ———. 1988. “Chūsei sōtōshū kirigami no bunrui shiki ron (jūichi) 中世曹洞宗切紙の 分類試論(十一) [A Tentative Classification of Medieval Sōtō Zen Kirigami (11)],” Komazawa daigaku bukkyō gakubu ronshū 駒澤大学佛教学集 [Essays by the Faculty of Buddhist Studies of Komazawa University] 19: 128–55. Iyanaga Nobumi 彌永信美. 2010. “Mikkyō girei to ‘nenzuru chikara’: Hōkyōshō no hihanteki kentō oyobi Juhōyōjinshū no ‘dokuro honzon girei’ wo chūshin ni shite 密教儀 禮と「念ずる力」—『寶鏡鈔』の批判的検討、および『受法用心集』の「髑髏 本尊儀禮」を中心にして [Esoteric Rituals and the Power of Wishing: A Critical

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Assessment of the Hōkyōshō and the Skull Liturgy of the Juhōyōjinshū].” In Girei no chikara: chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀禮の力——中世宗教の実践世界 [The Power of Ritual: The World of Religious Practice in Medieval Japan], Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds., 127–58. Kyoto: Hōzōkan. ———. 2003. “Tachikawa-ryū to Shinjō Juhōyōjinshū wo megutte 立川流と心定『受法 用心集』をめぐって [On the Tachikawa Lineage and Shinjō’s Juhōyōjinshū],” Nihon bukkyō sōgō kenkyū 日本仏教総合研究 [General Studies in Japanese Buddhism] 2: 13–31. Kuroda Toshio. 1996. “The Development of the Kenmitsu System as Japan’s Medieval Orthodoxy,” transl. by James C. Dobbins, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23/3–4: 233–69. Lai, Whalen W. 1983. “Sinitic Mandalas: The Wu-Wei-t’u of Ts’ao-shan.” In Early Ch’an in China and Tibet, Lewis Lancaster and Whalen W. Lai, eds., 229–59. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press. Licha, Kigensan Stephan. 2011. “The Imperfectible Body – Esoteric Transmissions in Medieval Sōtō Zen Buddhism.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of London. Manabe Shunshō 真鍋俊照. 2002. Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū 邪教立川流 [Heretical Teachings: The Tachikawa Lineage]. Tokyo: Chikuma shobō. Mizuhara Gyōei 水原堯榮. 1968. Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū no kenkyū 邪教立川流の研究 [A Study of the Heretical Teachings of the Tachikawa Lineage]. Kyoto: Fusanbō shoten. Nakamura Kazuki 中村一基. 1990. “‘Tainai jūgatsu no zu’ no shisōshi teki na tenkai 「胎内十月の図」の思想史的展開 [The ‘Images of the Ten Months in the Womb’ and Their Intellectual History],” Iwate daigaku kyōikugaku bu kenkyū nenpō 岩手大 学教育学部研究年報 [Bulletin of the Faculty of Education of the Iwate University] 50/1: 23–36. Namba Walter, Mariko. 2009. “The Structure of Japanese Funerals.” In Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds., 247–92. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Rambelli, Fabio. 2000. “Tantric Buddhism and Chinese Thought in East Asia.” In Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, eds., 361–80. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rupert, Brian O. 2009. “Beyond Death and the Afterlife.” In Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds., 102–36. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Sanford, James H. 1997. “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas: Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon,” Japanese Journal for Religious Studies 21/1–2: 1–38. ———. 1991. “The Abominable Tachikawa Skull Ritual,” Monumenta Nipponica 46/1: 1–20. Satō Hidoshi 佐藤仁. 1974. “Shūshi to shoshi” 朱子と諸子 [On Zhu Xi (1130–1200) and (his relation to) Other (thinkers)]. In Shūshi gaku nyūmon 朱子学入門 [Introduction

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to Zhu Xi Studies], Morohashi Tetsuji 諸橋轍次 and Yasuoka Masahiro 安岡正篤, eds. Tokyo: Meitoku. Schlütter, Morten. 2008. How Zen Became Zen. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Shintani Takanori 新谷尚紀. 1991. Ryōbosei to takaikan 両墓制と他界観 [The Two Grave System and the View of the Other World]. Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan. Takada Shinji 高田真治, Gotō Motomi 後藤基巳, trans. 1969. Ekikyō 易経 [Book of Changes]. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Takano Tatsuyuki 高野辰之 et al. 1942. Nihon kayō shūsei 日本歌謡集成 [The Complete Collection of Japanese Folk Ballads]. Tokyo: Tōkyōdo. Williams, Duncan Ryūken. 2009a. The Other Side of Zen. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2009b. “Funerary Zen.” In Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds., 207–46. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Yamazaki Taikō. 1988. Shingon, Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, transl. Richard and Cynthia Petersen. Boston and London: Shambala. Yamashita Takumi 山下琢巳. 2005. “Shugendō ‘Gotai honnu honrai busshin’ setsu – sono kyōri to shite no ‘tainai goi’ to sono tenkai 修験道「五體本有本来佛身」−−その教 理としての「胎内五位」とその展開 [The ‘Fivefold Fundamentally Existing Original Buddha-Body’ in Shugendō – The ‘Five Stages in the Womb’ as Its Doctrinal Foundation and Its Development].” Tōkyō seitoku tanki daigaku kiyō 東京成徳短期 大学紀要 [Bulletin of Tokyo Seitoku College] 38: 21–32. Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山. 1985. Zen to Nihon bunka 禅と日本文化 [Zen and Japanese Culture]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. Zengaku daijiten hensanjo 禅学大辞典編纂所, eds. 1993. Shinpan zengaku daijiten 新 版禅学大辞典 [Newly Edited Great Dictionary of Zen Studies, New Edition]. Tokyo: Taishukan shoten.

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Chapter 12

Foetal Buddhahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo Gaynor Sekimori Introduction Leaders of the annual Autumn Peak (Akinomine 秋の峯), the identifying mountain-entry practice of Haguro Shugendo (Mount Haguro, Yamagata Prefecture, northern Japan) both past and present, customarily explain the symbolism imbued in the ritual procedure as “death and rebirth in the womb of the mountain through the ten realms.” Though the trope of foetal enlightenment, where the practitioner attains the stage of a buddha within the womb of the mountain, is central to the rationale, it is severely underplayed in the modern practice, where the theme of the ten realms of rebirth is emphasised instead. This tendency has become even more attenuated following the filming of the practice in 2005 and its stress on the rituals associated with the ten realms through the use of the imagery of the Kumano kanjin jikkai mandara 熊野観心十界曼荼羅.1 This paper studies the embryological and sexual symbolism of the Autumn Peak analysing the written sources and ritual procedures, both historical and contemporary. The oldest extant sources at Haguro date only from 1649, but a 1 The Kumano kanjin jikkai mandara (Kumano mandala for visualising the ten realms) is a pictorial representation of human life, death, and rebirth within the ten realms. At the top is an arc showing a man and a woman progressing through the stages of human life, from birth to old age and death. Upon death the person appears before the court of Enma, at the foot of the arc on the left. The bottom half of the scroll depicts the torments of the hells in great detail, together with hungry spirits, with distended stomachs, animals and asura (depicted as warriors). Beneath the arc in the upper half are human and heavenly beings, together with the realms of enlightenment: śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, and the Buddha. In the middle of the space beneath the arc is the character for “heart/mind” 心 (shin). The trope of traversing the ten realms towards enlightenment is one element in the symbolic interpretation of the Akinomine. [Editor’s note: on other ritual uses of the jikkai mandara, see, for instance, Anna Andreeva’s essay, “‘Lost in the Womb’: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men,” in the present volume.]

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comparison with the early- to mid-sixteenth century compilations of Shugendo kirigami 切紙 (ritual memoranda) made at Hikosan 英彦山 in Kyushu show sufficient similarities to suggest that the Haguro writings reflect a middle to late medieval understanding at the very least.2 I have compiled every reference to sexual intercourse and foetal development in the relevant set of Haguro texts, which I will outline below, and applied them to the ritual as it is performed today. The description of the modern ritual is based on my own participant observation over fifteen years and on access to direct information from the head of Haguro Shugendo, and further amplified by information from procedural texts (tebumi 手文) dating from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. In doing so, I have attempted a thorough and autonomous analysis of the Akinomine in terms of the trope of conception, gestation, and birth. My objective is not purely analytical and descriptive, for I want to suggest that medieval Shugendo (and by extension its modern descendent) was part of a broad swathe of Buddhist lineages and sects that consciously employed sexual imagery and symbolism in their doctrines and rituals. It remains an open debate whether or not actual sexual intercourse occurred among them (this accusation has been levelled at the so-called Tachikawa-ryū 立川流) but it was certainly implied as imaginaire.3 I would like to propose that Shugendo deliberately ritualised this sexual, and particularly embryological, symbolism, in what Richard Bowring calls “the literal reading of metaphor.”4 This ritualisation succeeded in positioning the Haguro Akinomine not only as an example of the medieval penchant for employing sexual and embryological imagery and symbolism to doctrine and ritual, but also as a “performance” that links 2 The most important for comparative purposes are Shugen sanjūsan tsūki 修通記 (An Account of Shugendo in Thirty-Three Sections), compiled by Renkaku and Chikō of Hikosan, in Shugendō shōso 修験道章疏, Nihon Daizōkyō henshūkai 日本大蔵經編集會, eds., vol. 2 (Tokyo: Kokusho hakkōkai, 2000), 409–30; and Shugen shūyō hiketsushū 修験修要秘決集 (A Collection of the Secrets of Practice and Doctrine of Shugendo; SS 2, 365–408) compiled by Akyūbō Sokuden 阿吸坊即伝 (ca. 1509–1558?), a Nikko shugenja active at Hikosan. Also useful in its details of practice procedures is Sanbu sōshō hōsoku mikki 三峰相承法則密記 (Secret Record of the Laws and Regulations Transmitted Within the Three Peaks; SS 2, 453–97) by Sokuden. The Kinpusen himitsuden 金峰山秘密伝 (Secret Account of the Golden Peak; SS 1, 435–70) attributed to Monkan 文観 (1278–1357) is an early example of linking the mountain to the eight-petalled lotus and the three-pronged vajra, both of which gave rise to interpretations based on sexual imagery. 3 For a groundbreaking study in this context, see James H. Sanford, “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas – Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24/1–2 (1997): 2–38. 4 Richard Bowring, The Religious Traditions of Japan, 500–1600 (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 358.

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the doctrinal theories of priestly scholarship with a new discourse and vocabulary that was, by at least around the late fifteenth century, penetrating culture at a more popular level. The sexual and embryological symbolism in Haguro Shugendo is closely related to a wider discourse in medieval religiosity that took form in rituals to bring practitioners to a realisation of the non-duality of the Womb and Diamond realms as expressed in the teachings of esoteric Buddhism.5 It was not a great step to then conceive of the two realms representing the female and male, respectively, and texts such as the Hōkyōshō 寳鏡 鈔 (The Compendium of the Precious Mirror, by Yūkai 宥快, 1375) contain long lists of dualities (for example, syllable A 阿, female, Womb Realm, red, Aizen 愛染, earth, mother, west; contrasting with syllable HŪṂ (Jp. Un 吽), male, Diamond Realm, white, Fudō 不動, heaven, father, east). Such pairings appear extensively in the Haguro texts. My analysis is based on a set of ritual texts that are the oldest extant documents concerning mountain entry practices at Hagurosan. They are essentially seven compendia of kirigami collected in the period 1649–1669;6 of these, the first six have names assigned by their modern redactor, Togawa Anshō. In date order they are: Fūrōshū 風露集 (Collection of Wind and Dew, 1649), Shusanshō 手山鈔 (Brief Notes on the Mountain, 1649), Ryūushō 隆雨鈔 (Brief Notes on the Falling Rain, 1649), Kuhonmaki 九品巻 (The Nine Chapters Scroll, 1649), Hōgushū 法具集 (Collection of Ritual Implements, 1649), Hōgushū shi 法具集 私 (Collection of Ritual Implements, Private Transmissions, 1649), Buchū shūritsu 峰中就立 (On Spiritual Attainment in the Mountains, 1653), and Shūkaishū 拾塊集 (Collection of Gathering the Pieces, 1669). The compilation 5 “Shugendo, and particularly the Haguro branch, have many elements resembling the doctrine of the Shingon Tachikawa-ryū. However, at the present stage, even if there was some kind of communication between them, there is absolutely no way of knowing how this occurred, or when, or by whom it was mediated.” Togawa Anshō 戸川安章, “Shugendō ni okeru shi to saisei no girei 修験道に於ける死と再生の儀礼,” (article originally published in 1966), in Shugendō to minzoku shūkyō 修験道と民族修行 (Tokyo: Iwata shoin, 2005), 73. However, Dainichibō, a Shingon temple on the Yudonosan side of Dewa Sanzan, allegedly has a woodblock depicting an image of a male and female conjoined in intercourse, with their limbs corresponding to the eight petals of the lotus. Shōkai Koshikidake, personal communication, August 2012. This design is closely associated with the Tachikawa-ryū and is known as the shiki mandara 敷曼荼羅 (spread mandala); it is dated to the Muromachi period. See for example Manabe Shunshō 真鍋俊照, Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū 邪教立川流 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, [1999] 2002), 95; and Lucia Dolce’s essay, “The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources,” in the present volume. 6 Published in Shintō Taikei 神道大系, Jinja-hen 神社編, “Dewa Sanzan” 出羽三山, ST 32, 26–40 and 71–124. See also Togawa’s introduction, ibid. [1966] 2005, 16.

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of these texts was related to massive institutional changes that took place at the Haguro shrine-temple complex (Jakkōji 寂光寺) in the middle years of the seventeenth century, when the multiple sectarian affiliations present there were brought, for political reasons, under the aegis of the Tendai sect through Tōeizan Kan’eiji 東叡山寛永寺 in Edo. Their compilation was connected too with structural changes to the Akinomine that occurred during the same period as a result of ongoing shortening of the ritual time.7 The main texts analysed here were written on the basis that the practice lasted thirty days. During that time, shugenja moved between three lodgings (called shuku 宿), and this tripartite structure had, and continues to have, ritual meaning. The first part was spent in the temple of one of the four daisendatsu 大先達 (the highest ranking temple priests), who took it in turns to lead the ritual; the second part in the Buchūdō 峯中堂, a hall used exclusively for mountain-entry rituals, located at Fukigoshi, about one kilometre from the central hall of Jakkōji; and the third part at the Kokūzō Hall (Kokūzōdō 虚空蔵堂) at Daiman 大満, en route to the sacred site of Sangozawa, on the slopes of Gassan. (Today, because of the changes to the infrastructure of the shrine-temple complex that occurred after 1873, the practice takes place physically at a single site, the temple Kōtakuji 荒沢寺 [the former Inner Precinct of Jakkōji] at Arasawa 荒沢 – though the tripartite ritual structure of the first, second, and third lodgings remains – and the period has been further shortened to nine days). Its content followed the parallel themes of death and rebirth in the mountain, and the passage through the ten realms of rebirth towards buddhahood; as far as the sources reveal, the two existed in tandem. However, since these sources are essentially kirigami and therefore not in the public domain, they put a far greater stress on the theme of rebirth, which contains explicit embryological and sexual interpretations. Space does not permit a detailed description of the Akinomine, but its essential structure today is laid out in Table 12.1. Each of the three lodgings is associated with a number of the realms of rebirth, as shown, and specific ritual acts symbolise the first six: the hells are recreated by nanban ibushi 南蛮いぶ し, that is, smoking the hall with chilli-infused smoke; the hungry spirits with a fast throughout the first lodging; the animals by eschewing the use of water for washing during the whole period; asuras with tenguzumō 天狗相撲 (sumo wrestling); human beings by reciting the verses of repentance; and the 7 Around 1532, the Akinomine was reduced to thirty days (from a conjectured seventy-five), and to fifteen in 1669. See Hagurosanden 羽黒山伝 (Legendary History of Hagurosan), ST 32, 19; Shūkaishū, ST 32, 26; Hagurosan shiki no mine shidai 羽黒山四季峰次第 (Ritual Procedures of the Four Seasonal Peaks of Hagurosan), ST 32, 193–94.

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heavenly beings (ten 天) by the performance of ennen 延年 (song and dance). The modern practice refers specifically to the death and rebirth theme in the following rituals (the details of which will be given below): the throwing of a long pole called a bonden 梵天 up the steps of the Koganedō in a rite of conception (Bonden taoshi 梵天倒し, Day 2); passing through the five stages of gestation at five points along the path into the mountain (Day 2); a service behind the Jizō Hall (Jizōdō 地蔵堂) at Arasawa that visualises the interior of the womb (Day 3); the decorations of the altar area during the second lodging which suggest the same; and the birth cry and first bath (Day 8).8 In addition, a number of ritual articles are explained in terms of organs associated with reproduction: the oi 笈 (portable altar) is identified as the womb, the ayaigasa 班蓋 (hat) as the placenta, the katabako 形筥, 肩箱 (oblong box) as the male principle that signifies intercourse when placed on top of the oi, and the oitate 笈立 (altar stand) as the vagina (Fig. 12.1). However, my present investigation has uncovered a far greater amount of ritual and sexual symbolism that is never mentioned to the ordinary practitioner and has never been fully covered in modern studies. 1

Embryological Symbolism Associated with Attire and Accoutrements

Shugendo doctrinal texts at large focus strongly on the symbolic meaning of the clothing worn and implements used by shugenja. Traditionally six­teen items are listed.9 They are interpreted chiefly in terms of the ultimate 8

9

These will be treated in detail below. For a full description of the Akinomine and its historical development, see Gaynor Sekimori, “The Akinomine of Haguro Shugendo: A Historical Perspective,” Transactions of the International Conference of Eastern Studies, no. 40 (Tokyo: The Institute of Eastern Culture, 1995), 163–86; Gaynor Sekimori, “Akinomine no rekishi o ayumu 秋の峰歴史を歩む,” in Sennen no Shugen, Haguro yamabushi no sekai 千年の修験 – 羽黒山伏の世界, Kitamura Minao 北村皆雄 and Shimazu Kōkai 島津 広海, eds. (Tokyo: Shinjuku shobō, 2005), 88–127; and Gaynor Sekimori, “The Akinomine of Haguro Shugendo: A Historical Perspective,” (revised and expanded), in Japanese Religions, vol. 4, Lucia Dolce, ed. (London: Sage, 2011). The Shugen sanjūsan tsūki, a text explaining the essentials of Shugendo practice, lists twelve: tokin, suzukake, yuigesa, horagai, kainoo, irataka nenju, shakujo, katabako, oi, kongōzue, hisshiki, kyahan (SS 2, 410–17). Four additional items appear in standard lists today: ayaigasa, hiogi, shibauchi, yatsume waraji. See Miyake Hitoshi, The Mandala of the Mountain, Edited and with an Introduction by Gaynor Sekimori (Tokyo: Keio University Press, 2005), 97–100; Shugendō shūgyō taikei 修験道修行大系, Shugendō shūgyō taikei

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non-duality of the Womb and Diamond mandalas (employing extensive sexual imagery) and of Buddhist doctrinal elements. The Haguro documents are no exception. The following descriptions are based in the main on the kirigami collected in the Hōgushū, which lists twelve items, similar to those in the Shugen sanjūsan tsūki 修験三十三通記 (An Account of Shugendo in ThirtyThree Sections) except for the substitution of ayaigasa for hiōgi 檜扇 (cypress fan). (1) Katabako 形筥, 肩箱 (see Figs. 12.1a, 12.1b): This is the oblong box placed on top of the portable altar that contains prayers and other documents needed during the Akinomine. Its symbolism is somewhat mixed; in relation to the portable altar (oi), it clearly represents the male principle, but of itself, womb imagery is strong. The description in the Hōgushū generally parallels that in the Shugen sanjūsan tsūki, describing its shape like the seed character VAṂ (Jp. Ban 鑁), which, according to the Hōgushū, is shaped like a round stupa, “within which all seeds (dharmas) are contained, and from which all emerges, without fault.”10 (By contrast, the Shugen sanjūsan tsūki compares the katabako to the hands held in the gasshō 合唱 [prayer] position, where there is a small space between the palms.) While VAṂ is the seed character of Dainichi of the Diamond Realm, a “male” form, its rounded shape is very suggestive of the womb; nevertheless, the katabako essentially represents the Diamond Realm, in contrast to the oi, which represents the Womb Realm. “Together they are the father and mother and are to be respected.” This seems to be a condensed version of the Shugen sanjūsan tsūki, which says, “It is said that the katabako is the Diamond Realm and the oi is the Womb Realm. Because the Diamond Realm is the wisdom mandala, the Shugen teachings are stored inside the katabako. Because the Womb Realm is the mandala of cause, in the oi are stored the five grains.”11 However, the katabako alone also represents “the non-duality of the two realms” in terms of its components: its lid is the Diamond Realm and its box the Womb Realm, and this union is the “mind store, comprising all dharmas.”12 The male and female unite, and through their union all things come into existence. During the Akinomine, the katabako remains constantly on top of the oi, symbolising the sexual union and the fertilisation of the seeds within the oi that become the foetuses of the practising shugenja.

10 11 12

hensan iinkai 編纂委員會, eds. (Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1994), 95–102 (Honzan-ha), 214–18 (Tōzan-ha), and 291–99 (Kinpusen Shugen Honshū). ST 32, 94. Unless otherwise stated, all translations into English are my own. SS 2, 414–15. ST 32, 104.

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A further dimension to the symbolism of the katabako is given by the existence in the Hagurosan area of a number of places called “Katabako” which at times have been venerated during the Akinomine. In all cases they symbolise the female form. For example, during the modern Akinomine held under the auspices of Dewa Sanzan Jinja, on the final day of practice, participants go down the valley behind the Buchūdō, where their practice is centred, to venerate a low, indented stone. There is no special service: people clap and bow in the prescribed fashion and soon return. (2) Oi 笈 (see Figs. 12.1a, 12.1b): The portable altar is carried on the back of various shugenja according to ritual occasion, and when not in use is venerated as the principal object of veneration (honzon 本尊) of the Akinomine practice as the womb within which the foetuses of the practitioners dwell (Fig. 12.1c). It was used to transport small statues and liturgical items, and the kirigami all relate that it also contained five grains (or seeds). The kirigami emphasise the centrality of the oi to the Akinomine: while being a box to carry writings in, it is also the “totality of the great emptiness” (Ch. taixu 太虚)13 and “the main object of veneration for shugenja.”14 Its primary identification is as a womb: it is the “noumenal form of the Womb Realm and the seed character A” and “the womb of the compassionate mother,” and here the Haguro kirigami echo texts such as the Shugen sanjūsan tsūki. The writings placed inside the oi are the “milk of the compassionate mother,” and the hide with which it is covered symbolises her 84,000 hairs. The eight corners are the “lump of flesh in eight segments.”15 Shimazu Dendō, who did much to preserve Haguro traditions, says, apparently based on the Shugen sanjūsan tsūki,16 that the oi represents the three components of the body: the skin (the hide covering the frame), the flesh (the five grains contained inside), and the bones (the frame), while the red cords on the back (Fig. 12.1b) symbolise the veins and arteries.17 Thus, the oi is both the womb and the foetus (or embryo) inside it. 13 14 15

16 17

Shūkaishū, ST 32, 38. Shusanshō, ST 32, 76. Hōgushū, ST 32, 104. The Konkusho 根孔抄 (Compendium of the Primal Cavity, 1554) describes the embryo as a lump of flesh in eight segments, equating it with the eightpetalled central court (Chūdai) of the Womb mandala. See James H. Sanford, “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas: Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24/1–2 (1997): 2–38, especially 21–22. SS 2, 415. Shimazu Dendō 島津伝道, Haguro-ha Shugendō teiyō 羽黒派修験道提要 (Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, [1937] 1985), 155.

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There is further elaboration of the above description in the Shugen sanjūsan tsūki. It compares the shape of the frame to the seed character A, its length of 1.3 shaku to the thirteen halls,18 its width of 8 sun to the eight-petalled lotus, and the eight angles of its top to the “lump of flesh in eight segments.” These represent the “mind lotus of unproduced original enlightenment” and the “eight petals of the original state of self-nature.” The five grains contained inside are the fruit of the perfection of the five wisdoms and the seeds which will allow buddha-nature to bloom.19 This association of the womb and the lotus (particularly as the central section of the Womb Mandala) is an important consideration when interpreting esoteric texts. It is possible to explain this symbolism as the positive and practical expression of the Yogācāra idea of the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), which contains the “seeds” (bīja) leading to a new existence through rebirth, and of tathāgatagarbha thought, which postulates the fundamental purity of an inherent buddha-nature. (3) Ayaigasa (hangai) 班蓋 (see Figs. 12.1a, 12.1b): A ritual item only, the ayaigasa is made of cut white paper petals stuck onto a round woven straw hat. It is renewed every year before the Akinomine starts by pasting more “petals” onto the layers already there (see Fig. 12.1b). According to the Hōgushū, it ­represents the “heavenly canopy.” In the womb, it is the placenta (ena 衣那) deity, and out of the womb it is called the ubu[suna] (or tutelary) deity (ubu[suna] no kami 宇浮神).20 Just as the ubu deity sits on the crown of our head to protect us, so does the ayaigasa. In the womb, the placenta protects the foetus from heat and cold, and from poisonous vapours, just as in the outside world the ayaigasa protects the wearer from heat and cold, wind and rain. By wearing it constantly, we remember the obligation we owe our mother. Furthermore, the colours of the ties are red and white.21 These colours recur often in esoteric texts to refer to (maternal) blood/fluid and (paternal) semen: tying the two cords together is an explicit reference to conception, the merging of the red and white during intercourse. Some texts also suggest that the base of the hat is red (with similar connotations to the above), but this is not the case at Hagurosan today. 18

19 20 21

Jūsan’in 十三院. All the deities of the Womb Realm. See Brian Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2000), 120. SS 2, 415. [Editor’s note: On the placenta and ubusuna deities, see Bernard Faure, “Buddhism Ab Ovo,” in the present volume.] ST 32, 106.

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On the crown of the ayaigasa, eight petals are arranged in the pattern of a lotus flower; according to Shimazu, this represents the “lump of flesh in eight segments” (that is, the embryo).22 The petals are, he says, sewn together with red thread (though this does not occur today) to represent the five stages of embryological development (see below). During the Akinomine, whether the ayaigasa is worn (and by whom) or whether or not it is placed on top of the katabako and oi has great ritual significance. The description of the ayaigasa in the Haguro documents does not differ significantly from those in earlier Shugendo documents. For example, the Shugen sanjūsan tsūki tells us that the ayaigasa (which it transcribes as hangai) symbolises the compassion of the Buddha and is the canopy that adorns the Buddha Realm (tengai 天蓋). It is the placenta which covers all living beings when they are in the womb, protecting them throughout their five stages of development (goi 五位). Within the womb it is the placenta deity, out of it the tutelary deity; it is Dainichi Nyorai transformed into the deity Kōjin over the three time periods. Moreover, the text explains – as a secret transmission – that the circumference of the hat, 5 shaku, symbolises the completion of the five embryological stages, and that the eight petals on the crown of the ayaigasa are the “lump of flesh in eight segments,”23 as Shimazu described. This particular kirigami is found in almost identical form in the Shugen shūyō hiketsu shū 修験修要秘訣集 [A Collection of the Secrets of Practice and Doctrine of Shugendo]. (4) Tokin 頭巾 (see Fig. 12.2a): The tokin is a small cap traditionally made of thick lacquered paper. It is worn on the forehead, generally over a headband. It is considered a protective device when walking in the mountains, as it prevents sweat from getting into the eyes and can be used as a cup for drinking. Traditionally it is described as the “jewelled crown of the five wisdoms,” whose twelve pleats represent the twelve-linked chain of causation, and whose colour, black, signifies ignorance. The Hōgushū presents this description and then goes on to say that wearing it makes the daisendatsu (the ritual leader of the Akinomine) a manifestation of Dainichi Nyorai. It also suggests that the pleats represent, besides the chain of causation, the eight-petalled lotus.24 Hagurosan also has a form of tokin called the eight-shaku tokin 八尺頭巾 or the long tokin (nagatokin 長頭巾) (Fig. 12.2b). A long piece of white cotton cloth is tied around the top of the head with two loops pulled through the tie at the top. The remaining material is left to hang loosely. According to the 22 23 24

Shimazu [1937] 1985, 153. SS 2, 410. ST 32, 106.

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Hōgushū, being 8 shaku long, it represents the embryo (a lump of flesh in eight segments) in the womb. It explains this lump of flesh as the “eight-petalled mind-lotus,” which signifies the identity of the self and the deity of the central section (Chūdai hachiyōin 中台八葉院, “central eight-petal court”) of the Womb Mandala.25 The tie in front is done in the shape of the curl, one of the thirty-two signs of a buddha and a sign of one’s search for enlightenment. The tie at the back is in the form of the seed character MAN, which is the eightpetalled lotus on which Fudō Myōō sits, and symbolises bringing others to enlightenment. (5) Suzukake 鈴懸 (see Fig. 12.2). During the Akinomine, Haguro shugenja wear an indigo-checked surcoat (suzukake, but called suri 摺 at Haguro) over a white hakama. The five sendatsu who are the chief ritual figures wear red, purple, green, brown, and white suri. Modern Honzan and Tōzan groups, to which most shugenja belong, wear a surcoat and hakama which are a light yellow ochre (“persimmon”) in colour, which is interpreted as the colour of either an egg or amniotic fluid. The Hōgushū says that “persimmon-coloured robes are the true clothes of shugen practitioners,”26 suggesting that the present style at Haguro is a later adaptation. The Shugen sanjūsan tsūki, explaining the fact that shugen robes are persimmon in colour, says that the colour inside the womb is red, and that the unrevealed buddha-nature is like a foetus in the womb, or a hidden jewel. The placenta too is red, but after it is born and dries out, it becomes a persimmon colour; hence, the robes worn by shugenja are this colour because they function to protect the practitioner in the mountains as the placenta protects the foetus in the womb.27 The Hōgushū says the suzu 鈴 (=suri, written with the character for “bell” ) is an expression of the five great elements, and so wearing it for practice “in the womb of the mountain” is an expression of the unrevealed buddha-nature that lies there like a foetus. Furthermore, it symbolises the foetus in the fifth week (or fifty-seven days) in the womb, when the limbs and organs are complete.28 This corresponds to the interpretation of its homonym suzu as the “bell with the five-pronged handle,” which is the sanmaya 三昧耶 form of Dainichi Nyorai.29 In the gestational illustrations known as the Tainai totsuki no zu 胎 内十月の図 (A Chart of the Ten Months inside the Womb) this type of bell 25 26 27 28 29

ST 32, 96 and 107. ST 32, 108. SS 2, 411. ST 32, 109–110. Shugendō shūgyō taikei, 1994, 96.

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denotes the shape of the foetus in the womb in the fifth month.30 Thus, in a manner similar to the ayaigasa (as placenta), the suzu protects the foetus from heat and cold, as well as from poisonous humours and other forms of harm, and is worn outside the womb for similar reasons. The Hōgushū goes on to say that the left sleeve of the surcoat represents Aizen (Myōō) and the right sleeve Fudō (Myōō).31 The esoteric significance of this dyad is rich and complicated, and in some Shingon lineages the two were regarded as being conjugally enjoined (in terms of a “feminised version” of Aizen), their orgasmic cries being described as a “lion’s roar.”32 Thus the surcoat symbolism incorporates both intercourse (and conception) as well as the foetus itself. (6) Yuigesa 結袈裟 (see Fig. 12.2c). The yuigesa at Hagurosan is a narrow surplice made of folded white and purple figured brocade with six white pompoms attached to the front. It is considered the equivalent of the “large” surplice of nine strips worn by Buddhist priests: it has been folded (yui) for ease of movement in the mountains. Most of the symbolism is described in standard Buddhist terms: for example, the six pompoms represent the six perfections or the six great elements. According to the Hōgushū, in itself it is the Mandala of Nine Assemblies (i.e., the Diamond Mandala) as well as the eight divinities of the Central Dais (Chūdai) of the Womb Mandala, plus the A syllable, and it symbolises the blood and sinews of the father and mother, as well as their non-duality.33 Haguro tradition says that its shape, similar to a threepronged vajra, denotes the five stages of gestation. 30

31 32 33

For the development of these types of illustrations, see Nakamura Kazuki 中村一基, “’Tainai totsuki no zu’ no shisōshiteki tenkai『胎内十月の図』の思想的展開,” Iwate daigaku kyōiku gakubu kenkyū nenpō 岩手大學教育學部研究年報 50/1 (1990): 23–36. An example of a chart showing the bell in the fifth month is found in illustrated versions of the Kumano no gohonji 熊野の御本地 (The Original Ground of Kumano, 1658), a popular tale about of a woman called Gosuiden that contains an explanation of the stages of pregnancy. The chart appears as Figure 3 in Ibid., 34. For Kumano no gohonji and pregnancy, see Hank Glassman, “At the Crossroads of Birth and Death: The Blood Pool Hell and Postmortem Fetal Extraction,” in Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), 188–91. Glassman suggests that this imagery is drawn from the late sixteenth-century Sangai isshinki 三界一心記 (Three Worlds in a Single Mind) which correlates embryological stages and the stage of becoming a buddha. For Sangai isshinki, see Sanford 1997, 25–31. Both of these texts seem to draw on the same imaginaire as the kirigami. ST 32, 110. See Sanford 1997, 4–8. ST 32, 107–108.

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(9) Kainoo 貝ノ緒, also hachinawa 走縄 (Fig. 12.2). The kainoo, literally “shell cord” is a rope belt that was used originally to attach the conch shell (horagai 法螺貝); thus, its symbolism is closely related to the conch. Today in Haguro Shugendo it refers exclusively to the belt wound around the suri. It is made up of two pieces of red plaited cord (red being associated with the Womb Realm), with white paper coverings at various places. Besides being a belt or cord, it could function as a rope to rescue a fallen shugenja on treacherous mountain paths. The Hōgushū describes it as being used to bind wood (kogi 小木), to use as an aid to climbing in difficult or dangerous places, and to wrap around the waist.34 Shimazu identifies the two parts of the belt with the seed syllables A and VAṂ (denoting the Womb and Diamond Dainichi, respectively) and says it divides what is below the waist (the Womb Realm) and what is above (the Diamond Realm) but at the same time unites them. Thus it expresses the nonduality of the two realms.35 In addition, some non-Haguro commentaries say it is the umbilical cord. The Hōgushū differentiates the kainoo from the hachinawa. The former is identified with principle (ri 理), the mother, and the latter with wisdom (chi 智), the father. Wisdom forms a person’s nature, and the physical body is formed through the harmonious unity of principle and wisdom, mother and father.36 The text mentions various belt colours that are used at specific mountain entry retreats or by shugenja of particular ranks or functions, although this does not apply today. The only indication of rank division in the present-day practice is that first-timers are not permitted to wear the kainoo at all, but simply tuck the suri inside the hakama. (10) Shakujō 錫杖 (Fig. 12.2). The shakujō is a staff finial with six rings. It is carried in the belt and used to mark the rhythm when chanting sutras and verses in the mountains. There are two inner prongs, above the rings, which represent the father and mother.37 (11) Horagai 法螺貝 (Fig. 12.2). The conch shell is primarily used to transmit announcements through sound; it is likened to a lion’s roar (which in some esoteric texts is code for an orgasmic cry). (12) Other items listed that are more generally described through traditional doctrinal terms include kyahan 脚絆 (leggings), kongōzue 金剛杖 (staff), ōgi 扇 (fan), shibauchi 柴打 (sword), and waraji 草鞋 (straw sandals). However,

34 35 36 37

ST 32, 116. Shimazu [1937] 1985, 156. ST 32, 111–12. Hōgushū, ST 32, 111.

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their descriptions contain nothing special in the way of embryological or sexual symbolism, so they will not be treated any further here. 2

Conception and Gestation in the Akinomine

2.1 The Womb Womb imagery has its main doctrinal base in the Womb Mandala. Over and over again the Akinomine is identified as being “practice within the womb” (tainai shugyō 胎内修行), by means of which the shugenja grow to buddhahood. For example, “the purpose of a shugenja is to become one with Dainichi Nyorai through his own five elements, and this is practice within the womb.”38 Or again: “Practice on the peak (mine shugyō 峯修行) is to be in the womb, to enter the womb. The body does not move, act, eat, or sleep.”39 This womb is identified variously. It may be: (a) the mountain itself (i.e., Hagurosan). (b) the shuku (lodging) and the toko 床 (altar area). This today is the temple of Kōtakuji, the former Inner Precinct of the shrine-temple complex of Jakkōji (Fig. 12.3). The lodging is “the meeting place of the two mandalas,” the site of the “harmonious union” (wagō 和合) between the “father” and “mother,” and the toko is “the meeting place of the two mandalas, where [the foetus] passes through the five stages.”40 During the second lodging, the toko visually becomes the womb (Fig. 12.4). It is decorated with cut paper images that form a kekkai 結界, or sacred boundary, surrounding a hemp rope that hangs down from the ceiling, emerging from an arrangement of three fans. The hemp rope is considered the bones of the foetus, the red and white lengths of cloth entwined with it are the arteries and the veins, respectively, and the three fans represent the placenta. The wooden rafters of the ceiling are the bones of the mother’s back. This decoration has strong similarities with the style of the parturition hut (see below). (c) the oi (portable altar). The womb of the compassionate mother, it is the crucible of the growing foetus that is the shugenja. (d) the sendatsu himself. The Shusanshō states that “the daisendatsu should be visualised as the Womb Realm Dainichi, and the first lodging as being inside the womb of the sendatsu.”41 Before the changes brought about by Meiji religious policy, the first lodging was the temple of the priest acting as daisendatsu, 38 39 40 41

Shusanshō, ST 32, 76. Hōgushū, ST 32, 91. Shusanshō, ST 32, 76. ST 32, 77.

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the ritual leader for that year. Here is a conflation of the person of the ritual leader and the space where the ritual takes place. 2.2 Intercourse and Conception Intercourse has no purpose other than conception. The act of intercourse is usually coded as the “harmonious unity” (wagō 和合) or “two thoughts” (ninen 二念) of the father and mother. It is symbolised by placing the katabako on top of the oi. Thus, according to the Hōgushū, “together they are the father and the mother.” Symbolic intercourse is also suggested in the description in the Fūrōshū of a ceremony called Matsu no rei 松の礼 (Pine Tree Ritual) (Fig. 12.5), which marks the formal beginning of the Akinomine: “The temple superintendent (bettō) faces east [a direction associated with the male principle], the tōbu daisendatsu [the presiding head of the Akinomine] faces west [associated with the female principle]. The bettō is the Diamond Realm, and the sendatsu is the Womb Realm: together [they are] the two thoughts [i.e., intercourse] of the Womb and Diamond.”42 The Shūkaishū describes conception as the coming together of the black (misprint for red?) and the white to lodge in the womb for 150 days.43 The red is the mother’s fluid (not menstrual blood) and the white is the father’s semen. The merging of fluids in the act of intercourse is perhaps most clearly enacted in the rite called Kogi Aka Osame 小木閼伽おさめ (Offering of Firewood and Water), performed at the end of each service throughout the first lodging (Fig. 12.6). The Kogi and Aka sendatsu, ritualists in charge of wood and water, respectively, sit behind a low table, on which are placed bundles of sticks and two pails of water. Shugenja pick up the wood and offer it; then they scoop up water in a ladle and transfer it from one pail to the other. This symbolises the red and white fluids that merge to create life. The sexual act itself is enacted at the very beginning of the Akinomine, as shugenja set out from the village of Tōge at the foot of Hagurosan to climb to the first lodging. This is the ritual of Bonden taoshi, which takes place at a temple hall called the Koganedō (Fig. 12.7). It is no accident that the primordial deities Izanagi and Izanami are enshrined here.44 The bonden, a long pole with a head of white paper fronds, is a phallic symbol, like a vajra, representing 42 43 44

Fūrōshū, ST 32, 73–74. Shūkaishū, ST 32, 26. Originally the ritual was performed in the neighbouring Oriigū, which enshrined Izanagi and Izanami. The deities were transferred to the Koganedō when the Oriigū was abolished in the early twentieth century.

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“the father.” The “mother” is the oi. Its stand, the oitate, placed in front of it, represents the open vulva. The Fūrōshū says that shugenja should regard the bonden as the spear that Izanami and Izanagi used to create the land of Japan out of the brine, and that they should visualise the drop of water falling from the pole [as the fluid that creates life].45 The daisendatsu, wearing the ayaigasa on his head and carrying the oi on his back, turns the bonden left and right three times, before throwing it up the steps of the temple hall, shouting A-Un, said to be an orgasmic cry. At that moment, the two drops of the red and white of the mother and father are said to harmonise in the womb, marking the first stage of gestation. Since the placenta has yet to form, the ayaigasa is not placed on the oi but rather worn on the head of the dōshi, one of the four officials, until the procession of shugenja reaches the nearby Yakushi Jinja, where the placenta is considered to have firmed (the second stage of gestation). This is the first of only two times the ayaigasa is worn; at all other times it remains on top of the oi. Intercourse is also suggested at the other two liminal moments of the Akinomine that are bound by fire: between the first and second lodging in a rite known as Chigaigaki 順逆垣; and between the second and third lodging, during the Saitō goma 斎燈護摩. The Chigakigaki (literally, “staggered fence”) ritual is performed at a certain point along the path leading to the Buchūdō (the original second lodging). Facing in the direction of the new lodging, two of the sendatsu take up flaming torches, touch them together, and then twirl them around. As Carmen Blacker rightly noted, the “torches [suggest] some kind of sexual coupling.”46 When they have finished, the shugenja, in rank order, progress through the “staggered fence,” consisting of three bundles of sticks – about two feet long and bound together with camellia sprigs – placed in staggered parallel across the path. According to the Fūrōshū, by crossing the “fence,” shugenja enter this world, in which Dainichi shows the way to enlightenment.47 Birth into this world again entails intercourse (the flaming torches) and descent from the womb. Hence the staggered bundles of wood, which the shugenja must weave around, represent the birth canal. The daisendatsu (who is considered to represent Dainichi) and the second-highest ranking officer, the dōshi, follow each other into the chigaigaki, and stop after the first turn. Here, the daisendatsu, who has been wearing the ayaigasa and carrying the oi, removes both and hands them to the dōshi, who dons them. In the realm of 45 46 47

ST 32, 73. Carmen Blacker, The Catalpa Bow (London: George Allen & Unwin, [1975], revised edition, 1999), 228. ST 32, 74.

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human beings that the second lodging represents (as opposed to the Buddha Realm of the first), the dōshi becomes Dainichi who reveals himself to teach realisation to all living beings. He leads the way out of the chigaigaki, or as the Fūrōshū says, “emerges from the womb” to the sound of a blast on the conch shell. The sound of the conch “opens the door” (of the womb) and is likened to the birth cry. A further explanation offered by current leaders is that winding one’s way through the chigaigaki is the foetus turning in the womb. Passage between the second and third lodgings is marked by an outdoor fire ritual called Saitō goma 柴燈護摩. Essentially, this is a purification through fire, a pre-mortem cremation of the polluted karma attached to the new body and spirit of the shugenja. The idea of new life is emphasised by a ritual of flaming torches similar to that performed before the chigaigaki (Fig. 12.8). 2.3 Stages of Gestation An important element in Haguro embryological discourse is the idea of the five stages of gestation, whose imagery is closely based on the schema that appears in the ninth fascicle of the Abhidharmakośa (Jp. Kusharon 俱舎論) and describes gestation advancing in five seven-day stages:48 Stage 1: kalala (Jp. kararan 羯剌藍), the embryo in the first week. The Indian medical text Caraka-saṃhitā notes that this is the earliest stage, formed by the coming together of blood and semen. Stage 2: arbuda (Jp. abudon 頞部曇), the embryo in the second week. Stage 3: peśi (Jp. heishi 閉尸), the embryo in the third week. Stage 4: ghana (Jp. kennan 鍵南), “lump” or congealed mass; the embryo in the fourth week. Stage 5: praśākha (Jp. harashakya 鉢羅奢佉), limbs and organs complete; the foetus in the fifth week. The first two stages, conception and the formation of the placenta, have been mentioned already. The next three stages too are accomplished in the course of the entry from the village of Tōge into the mountain: at the Hakusan Shrine, at the beginning of the path leading to the summit of Hagurosan, the foetus acquires blood and flesh; at the pagoda, a little further on, its bones form, and on the summit, the limbs develop (Table 12.2). In the Shukaishū, the form of the foetus, which we have already seen described as a five-pronged bell (suzu), is said to be that of the five-chakra stupa (gorintō 五輪塔): “on reaching the fifth month, [the foetus] receives the form of the five chakras (the five parts of the 48

The actual length of time is vague and open to interpretation.

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body: arms, legs, and head).”49 This imagery is found in the writings of Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143), who equated the five-chakra stupa to the human body (Fig. 12.9). At the beginning of each service in the toko, a ritual called Tokogatame 床固 め (literally, to “make fast the toko”) is performed in which two sendatsu, using a magical, Taoist-derived style of movement called henbai 反閇, clack small round logs over the head of each person, “fixing” (katame) them to their places. Today the ritual is explained variously as a rite to make the shugenja stay in their places without moving during the long sutra recitations to follow, or as a consecration (the water symbol is painted on each end of the logs), or as the foetus’s heartbeat. However, I believe that the original meaning and importance of the tokogatame have been lost. The Shukaishū states specifically that the toko is where the five stages of gestation take place inside the womb.50 The life that has arisen out of the “two illusory thoughts” (nimōnen 二妄念) of father and mother has to be prevented from miscarrying and so must be made firm. The deeper significance of this rite is suggested from a passage in the sixteenth-century Eikyūji-lineage text, Buchū kanjō hongi 峰中灌頂本軌, [True Record of Transmissions During Practice in the Mountains] where tokogatame is described as an initiatory rite conducted on the first night, when shugenja visualise themselves as being Dainichi and receive a series of five mudras corresponding to the five stages of gestation:51 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

 Naibaku 内縛, hands clasped with fingers interlocked and fingertips inside the palms (corresponding to Stage 1, kararan, the coagulation of the red and white fluids of the mother and father). Then the two middle fingers are raised (Stage 2, abudon, the singlepronged vajra). Then the index fingers are raised (Stage 3, heishi, the three-pronged vajra). Then the index fingers are brought together (Stage 4, kennan, the coming together of earth, water, fire, and wind). Finally, the two little fingers are raised (Stage 5, harashakya, the fivepronged vajra).

Passing through the five stages, a person becomes a five-chakra stupa, one with the cosmic Buddha Dainichi. Thus by performing the five mudras, the shugenja 49 50 51

ST 32, 26. Ibid. SS 1, 385–433.

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grasp that they innately possess the buddha-nature that confirms their inherent enlightenment. Today, at the beginning of the first service of the first night, the tōbu daisendatsu stands in front of the assembled shugenja and purifies them with the threefold empowerment hand gesture called kaji 加持. He makes three circles with the index and middle fingers of the right hand, to the right, to the left and to the right again. He then hides his hands within the sleeves of his robes and makes a number of mudras. It is tempting to think that they might be the very mudras described above, but their identity remains a secret. Another ritual affirmation of the accomplishment of the five stages of gestation takes place on August 26, the day after the shugenja enter the first lodging, when they visit a sacred site called Chūdai. Before they leave Kōtakuji, they venerate the Jizōdō, a hall dedicated to the Bodhisattva Jizō in the grounds of that temple (Fig. 12.10). According to the Shukaishū, it must be venerated from behind, for as foetuses, the shugenja, being male (females were only allowed to take part in the Akinomine after World War II), lie in the womb facing the mother’s spine. In the first stage of gestation, kararan, when the mother and father unite and conception results from their (passionate) love, the embryo has a moment of feeling for its mother. This makes it male (the opposite is true of a female), and it lodges in the womb on the left side of the mother’s belly, facing towards the spine. That is why, the Shukaishū continues, the hall is venerated from behind, because its latticed rear resembles the mother’s back. Furthermore, it says, the boy-child in the womb is himself Jizō, the deity venerated in the hall. The text mentions there is a secret teaching regarding the Jizōdō; according to the present daisendatsu, it is that “in essence there is no front and no back, no essential difference between male and female.” Now renewed in their vision of themselves as foetuses in the womb, the shugenja descend (as through the birth canal) to Chūdai, located on the banks of a river at the bottom of the mountain. Chūdai hachiyōin, the “central eightpetalled court,” is the central and most important hall of the Womb Mandala, where Dainichi sits surrounded by four buddhas and four bodhisattvas seated on eight petals of the lotus flower.52 We recall that the Shugen sanjūsan tsūki describes Chūdai as representing the “lump of flesh in eight segments,” in other words, the embryo.53 Thus, to physically go to Chūdai is to travel to meet oneself in a potentially perfected form, that is, in more orthodox terms, to realise 52 53

Hōgushū, ST 32, 107. This imagery is extended in the Konkushō 根孔抄 (1554), which links the foetus/embryo as a lump of flesh of eight segments, Chūdai, the eight consciousnesses/stages of gestation etc. in great detail. See Sanford 1997, 21–24.

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the ultimate non-duality of the world of enlightenment of the Buddha Realm and the state of material existence. To understand this is to be reborn in a realm where there is no distinction between the two. However, there was also a more sexually explicit interpretation of the lotus flower in Muromachiperiod texts associated with the so-called Tachikawa-ryū, where the eight limbs of a couple in coitus (symbolising the unity of the Womb and Diamond realms), occupy each of the eight petals.54 Such a direct interpretation (as opposed to symbolic or metaphysical) of non-duality is not explicit in any Haguro text, though the metaphor of coitus is, as we have seen, prevalent. A further ritual related to the stages of gestation, whose meaning is not explained today, is the Toko sanjō 床散杖. It is performed during services in the second lodging by two sendatsu seated behind a table called toko no ita 床の板, which, according to the Shusanshō, represents the mother (Fig. 12.11).55 On it are placed a number of objects representing the stages of gestation: a short round of wood (tokko 独鈷), denoting Stages 1 and 2, the first two weeks of gestation (Fig. 12.11, right, below the three rounds of wood); three rounds of wood leaning together (sanko 三鈷), symbolising Stage 3, or the third week (Fig. 12.11, top right); a five-pronged vajra (goko 五鈷), not used now, but originally placed to the right of the three rounds of wood and representing the fourth week; and a bell (suzu), not used now, but originally placed to the left of the three rounds of wood to stand for the final stage of gestation, Stage 5. It is at this point, the Shusanshō says, that the conscious mind arises and the six great elements come into being. The long sticks (sanjō 散杖) lying on the table are said to extinguish the defilements. The sendatsu performing the rite first makes a waving movement with his hands and then picks up the sanjō, letting them fall five times to make a double tap on the table. This is considered to be the heartbeat of the foetus. He then makes three circles, to the left, to the right and then left again, three times with the sanjō (in an action of kaji purification, as described above). This movement is said to represent the flow of the amniotic fluid. He then taps the sanjō rapidly on the table ten times to beat away all obstructions and afflictions from the child in the womb. The Shusanshō says this action makes for easy childbirth. 2.4 Birth We have seen that the lodging (shuku) is considered the womb, but it has a parallel imagery as the place where symbolic birth takes place. This is explicit 54 55

Manabe 2002, 95; also mentioned in Lucia Dolce, “The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body,” in the present volume. See n. 5 for a possible local connection. ST 32, 76–77.

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in a passage in the Shusanshō, discussing a ritual decoration called koshiba 小 柴,56 an arrangement of six sticks in a lattice shape with the ends crossed over in the shape of a well, which is still placed on the saplings supporting the shimenawa 注連縄 (rope with white zigzag paper hangings attached) erected at the entrance to Kōtakuji during the Akinomine as a sacred boundary (Fig. 12.12). The koshiba is said to represent the two kings who give protection from evil forces. When a woman is about to give birth, the text says, it is usual for a birthing room (ubuya 産室) to be newly constructed, and she goes to stay there to protect her from all things inauspicious. A placard is placed at the door of the birthing room to prevent evil things from entering, and this is how the koshiba should be visualised. Therefore, by implication, the lodging is now a parturition hut. This comparison is made even clearer when the toko decoration we saw above is compared with the interior of a surviving parturition hut. The ubuya in Ōbara, Kyoto, has been described by Takatori Masao and Tonomura Hitomi57 (figs. 12.13a, 12.13b). It is thatched with a gable roof that reaches down to the ground. The interior is about three mats in size, mud floored, and covered with sand that has been sieved. An old sickle is hung at the entrance to deter evil spirits. Birthing was from a seated position; a thick rope hangs from the roof, to aid the woman when in labour. Despite modern associations of separate birthing rooms with pollution, the Shusanshō refers to the ubuya as a sacred space protected from whatever may harm the birth. The “placard” it refers to is represented by the sickle, to which the koshiba is equated. We have already mentioned birth imagery during the Chigaigaki ritual. Immediately after that ritual is completed, shugenja in the past proceeded to the Founder’s Hall that was adjacent to the Buchūdō for a service (today it is held at the Jizōdō in the grounds of Kōtakuji, since the Founder’s Hall is no longer in Buddhist hands). The oi (symbolising the womb) and the oitate (symbolising the vagina, open vulva) are placed in front at the altar. At the conclusion of the service, the daisendatsu cries out, “Namu jippōbutsu!” (“Hail the buddhas of the ten directions!”) in reference to the words legend says the baby Sakyamuni uttered shortly after his birth. Again, the conch is sounded as the birth cry of A-Un. Shugenja have now been reborn into the realm of the second lodging, a step further along their road to final rebirth as enlightened beings.

56 57

ST 32, 78. Takatori Masao 高取正男, Shintō no seiritsu 神道の成立 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1993), 29–33; Tonomura Hitomi, “Birth-Giving and Avoidance Taboo: Women’s Body versus the Historiography of Ubuya,” Japan Review 19 (2007): 2–45.

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At the end of the Akinomine, following the final veneration of the shrines on the Haguro summit, shugenja let out a loud yell (the birth cry of A-Un, according to the Fūrōshū), and run at full pelt down the mountain path (sandō 山道 a homophone of “birth canal” 産道). In the traditional, pre-Meiji practice, this cry was probably uttered as shugenja burst forth out of the Buchūdō following the formal announcement of the end of the practice. Shrine shugenja, who have use of the Buchūdō’s successor, do something similar after they have received their certificates of participation. Having regrouped at the bottom of the mountain, shugenja process to their final destination, the Koganedō, where they jump over a small fire said to be the first bath (ubuyu 産湯) that the newborn receives (Fig. 12.14). 3

Sexual Symbolism Associated with Places

Sexual and embryological symbolism in Haguro Shugendo is also topographical. We have mentioned already the place name Katabako, with its connotations of the vagina, and Chūdai, a place name associated with the inner part of the eight-petalled lotus flower and specifically with the Central Dais of the Womb Mandala. Sexual symbolism associated with a geographical landmark is clearest at a place called Higashi Fudaraku 東補陀落, on the lower slopes of Gassan (Fig. 12.15a). Higashi Fudaraku is marked by a towering pinnacle of rock, which is clearly of phallic shape. Included among the medieval esoteric associations mentioned above, “east” is related to the male. On the other side of Gassan, at a now inaccessible site, there used to be a place called Nishi Fudaraku, and it appears to have had female associations in the shape of its rocks. Here too, then, west and east are linked to the coming together of male and female. At Higashi Fudaraku there is also another male/female coupling in a pond called Ohamaike 御浜池 just below the pinnacle (Fig. 12.15b). The coital relationship between phallus and vagina is much more apparent when the two sites are viewed from a ridge overlooking them both; the pinnacle seems to overhang the pond. Also to be found at Higashi Fudaraku, just behind the towering rock, there is a cleft in the cliffs called tainai kuguri 胎内くぐり, literally “passing through the womb” (Fig. 12.15c). Shugenja crawl through a narrow passage, emerging from it into a tiny cavern, where a statue of Kannon is placed. Another narrow way leads out on the other side of the cliff face.

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Conclusion It is important to remember that the sexual and embryological imagery described here grew out of the Buddhist doctrine of “buddhahood in this very body” (sokushin jōbutsu 即身成仏). The body itself was valorised; it could be “reborn” realising its original buddha-nature. This went hand in hand with esoteric Buddhist ideas that by employing the three secrets of body, voice, and mind, one could become one with the cosmic buddha or his infinite manifes­ tations. In Japan, too, under the influence of Shugendo, the landscape was mandala-ised – sacred space was regarded in terms of the Womb and Diamond mandalas, whose unity represented enlightenment. This made a fertile field for a very physical imaginaire to grow. That it did not remain within the pages of esoteric texts but was adapted to symbolic action within a rich ritual tapestry is borne out by this study of Haguro Shugendo’s Autumn Peak ritual through an analysis of ritual texts, actual practice, and landscape configuration.

a

Figure 12.1

a) The oi, ayaigasa, katabako, and oitate. Shōzen’in, Hagurosan.The hat with white paper decorations (ayaigasa) sits on top of the oblong katabako (covered in red brocade), which is placed on top of the oi. The oitate, which looks like the wooden gateway found on goma altars, is placed in front. August 2007. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori); b) The oi, ayaigasa, katabako, and oitate. Shōzen’in, Hagurosan (side view). The red cords for carrying can be seen on the back. August 2007. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

b

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Figure 12.1c The altar during the Second Lodging of the Akinomine. The oi, with katabako and ayaigasa, is on the left of the altar. August 2012. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).



Figure 12.2 Attire of a yamabushi, or shugenja. Haguro Shugendo. Tokin (black cap on forehead), hōragai (conch), yuigesa (surplice with pompoms), kainoo (belt), shakujo (staff-top rings, tucked in belt), suzukake (checked surcoat and white hakama), kongōzue (staff ), kyahan (leggings), waraji (straw sandals). August 2010. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

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Figure 12.2a Tokin. Twelve pleats, with one indentation. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

b

c Figure 12.2

b) Long tokin (nagatokin or hasshaku tokin). (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori); c) Yuigesa (Hagurosan). (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

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Figure 12.3

Sekimori

Kōtakuji. A sacred boundary is marked by a rope suspended between two saplings. The koshiba is affixed to the sapling. August 1994. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).



Figure 12.4 Toko decoration, Second Lodging. Hemp rope, red and white streamers falling from fan circle. August 2004. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

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Figure 12.5

Matsu no rei. Today the announcement passes from the daisendatsu (wearing ayaigasa, on left), to the Dōshi (in purple), to the Kogi no sendatsu (in green), and to the other officials and the yamabushi. August 1994. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

Figure 12.6

Kogi aka osame. Left: Transferring water before Aka no sendatsu. Right: Offering sticks before Kogi no sendatsu. August 1994. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

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Figure 12.8

Figure 12.7 Bonden taoshi. Koganedō. The tōbu daisendatsu, wearing the ayaigasa and the oi, holds the bonden prior to throwing it up the steps of the Koganedō. August 1994. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

Saitō goma. Flaming torches circle one another and are then conjoined. August 2005. (Photo: Mitsuru Hayashi).

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Figure 12.9 Body as Five Chakra Stupa. From base: Earth = lower limbs; Water = abdomen; Fire = heart; Face = wind; Crown of head = space. From The Illuminating Secret Commentary on the Five Chakras and the Nine Syllables (Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku 五輪九字明秘密釈, T. 2514), by Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095-1143). Courtesy of Brill.

Figure 12.10 Revering the Jizōdō from behind. August 2012. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

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Figure 12.11

Sekimori

Toko sanjō layout. August 2012. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

Figure 12.12 Koshiba decoration. The rounds of wood have the water symbol painted on each end. August 2012. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

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a



b

Figure 12.13 a) Parturition hut (ubuya). Exterior view. Note sickle at front. Drawing by Tai Sekimori; b) Parturition hut (ubuya). Interior view. Note hanging rope. Drawing by Tai Sekimori.

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Figure 12.14 Jumping over fire (ubuyu). (Photo: H. Ōto).

Figure 12.15a Higashi Fudaraku. August 2010. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

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Figure 12.15b Ohama ike. August 2010. (Photo: Gaynor Sekimori).

Figure 12.15c Tainai kuguri. August 2004. (Photo: Kitamura Minao).

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Table 12.1 The structure of modern Akinomine, Kōtakuji Day 1

Aug. 24

Day 2 First Lodging: Hells, Hungry spirits, Animals

Aug. 25

Day 3

Aug. 26

Day 4

Aug. 27

Day 5 Second Lodging: Ashuras, Human beings, Heavenly beings

Aug. 28

Day 6 Third Lodging: sravakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, buddhas Day 7

Aug. 29

Day 8

Aug. 31

Day 9

Sep. 1

Aug. 30

Arrive at Shōzen’in. 6 pm - oikaragaki (death, funeral); Celebratory meal 1 pm – Procession to Kōtakuji: Bonden taoshi at Koganedō; Climb to summit of Hagurosan, venerating selected sacred sites on route; entry to the first lodging. Gongyō ca 9 pm (tokoshirabe, kouchigi, nanban ibushi, kogi aka osame). With senkan shingyō. Gongyō ca 2 am (as above). Raihai. Erecting saitō goma altar. Daihannya practice. Service behind Jizōdō preceding Chūdai pilgrimage. Flower offerings on return. Gongyō ca 10 pm (as above). Gongyō ca 2 am (as above). Raihai. Daihannya service, followed by segaki service. Later afternoon, chigaigaki, entry into Second Lodging. Gongyō at Jizōdō. Gongyō ca. 1 am. (tokoshirabe, kouchigi, hibachi ritual, toko sanjō). Confession and repentance. Nenkō sanpai. Danbiraki (first formal meal). Tenguzumo. Gongyō (as above). Receiving kuji goshinpō. Saitō goma. Ennen 4–5 am. Journey to Sangozawa. Gongyō (Service for the Deities of the Three Mountains), with senkan shingyō. Gongyō. Gassan pilgrimage (not traditional). Gongyō (as above), with prayer requests. Gongyō. Departure: shrine circuit, service at Main Shrine, pledge of secrecy, procession through Tōge. Service at Koganedō. Receiving certificates. Celebratory meal. Short service, breakfast, return home am.

Source: Sekimori. Table 12.2 Five stages of gestation in Haguro texts Jap. term

Site

Physical growth

kararan abudon heishi kennan harashakya

Oriido (Koganedo) Mine no Yakushi Hakusansha Pagoda (shari) Circuit of halls on Hagurosan

conception lump of flesh, placenta formed blood and flesh bones limbs

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Works Cited Primary Sources Buchū kanjō hongi 峰中灌頂本軌 [Main Ritual for the Abhiṣeka Initiation in the Mountains]. SS 1, 385–433. Buchū shūritsu 峰中就立 [On Spiritual Attainment in the Mountains], 1653. ST 32, 117–28. Fūrōshū 風露集 [Collection of Wind and Dew], 1649. ST 32, 71–75. Hagurosanden 羽黒山伝 [Legendary History of Hagurosan], mid 17th century?. ST 32, 14–19. Hagurosan shiki no mine shidai 羽黒山四季峰次第 [Ritual Procedures of the Four Seasonal Peaks of Hagurosan], 1679. ST 32, 192–94. Hōgushū 法具集 [Collection of Ritual Implements], 1649. ST 32, 90–103. Hōgushū (shi) 法具集私 [Collection of Ritual Implements, Private Transmissions], 1649. ST 32, 104–17. Kinpusen himitsuden 金峰山秘密伝 [Secret Account of the Golden Peak]. SS 1, 435–70. Kuhonmaki 九品巻 [The Nine Chapters Scroll], 1649. ST 32, 84–90. Ryūushō 隆雨鈔 [Brief Notes on the Falling Rain], 1649. ST 32, 80–83. Sanbu sōshō hōsoku mikki 三峰相承法則密記 [Secret Record of the Laws and Regulations Transmitted Within the Three Peaks]. SS 2, 453–97. Shugen sanjūsan tsūki 修験三十三通記 [An Account of Shugendo in Thirty-Three Sections]. SS 2, 409–30. Shugen shūyō hiketsushū 修験修要秘訣集 [A Collection of the Secrets of Practice and Doctrine of Shugendo]. SS 2, 365–408. Shūkaishū 拾塊集 [Collection of Gathering the Pieces], 1669. ST 32, 20–40. Shusanshō 手山鈔 [Brief Notes on the Mountains], 1649. ST 32, 76–80. SS 1 and 2. Shugendō shōso 修験道章疏 [Compendium of Shugendo]. Vols. 1 and 2. Nihon Daizōkyō henshūkai 日本大蔵經編集會, eds. Tokyo: Kokusho hakkōkai, 2000. ST 32. Shintō taikei 神道体系 [Anthology of Shinto], Jinja-hen 神社編 [Shrines], vol. 32, Dewa Sanzan 出羽三山 [The Three Mountains of Dewa]. Togawa Anshō 戸川安章, ed. Tokyo: Shintō taikei hensankai, 1982. Secondary Sources Asada, Masahiro 浅田正博. 2000. Bukkyō kara mita Shugen no sekai: Shugendō kyōgi nyūmon Shugen sanjūsan tsūki o yomu 仏教からみた修験の世界—修験道教義入 門『修験三十三通記』を読む [The World of Shugendo seen from Buddhism: An Introduction to Shugendo Doctrine, Reading “An Account of Shugendo in ThirtyThree Sections”]. Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai.

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Blacker, Carmen. [1975], revised edition, 1999. The Catalpa Bow. London: George Allen & Unwin. Bowring, Richard John. 2005. The Religious Traditions of Japan, 500–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dolce, Lucia. 2010. “Nigenteki genri no gireika: Fudo/Aizen to chikara no hizō 二元的 原理の儀礼化—不動・愛染と力の秘像 [Ritualizing Duality: Fudō, Aizen and the Secret Iconography of Empowerment].” In Girei no chikara –chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀礼の力—中世宗教の実践世界 [The Power of Ritual: The World of Religious Practice in Medieval Japan], Lucia Dolce and Matsumoto Ikuyo 松本郁代, eds., 159–206. Kyoto: Hōzōkan. Faure, Bernard. 2000. “Japanese Tantra, the Tachikawa-ryū, and Ryōbu Shintō.” In Tantra in Practice, David Gordon White, ed., 543–56. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Glassman, Hank. 2009. “At the Crossroads of Birth and Death: The Blood Pool Hell and Postmortem Fetal Extraction.” In Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, eds., 175–206. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Garrett, Frances. 2008. Religion, Medicine, and the Human Embryo in Tibet. Chapter 5, “Gestation and the Religious Path,” 85–126. Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism. Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge. Iyanaga, Nobumi 彌永信美. 2011. “Tachikawa-ryū.” In Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, Charles D. Orzech, Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds., 803–14. Leiden and Boston: Brill. ———. 2006–07. “Medieval Shintō as a Form of ‘Japanese Hinduism’: An Attempt at Understanding Early Medieval Shintō,” special issue “Re-thinking Medieval Shintō,” Michael Como, Bernard Faure, and Iyanaga Nobumi, eds. Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 16: 263–304. ———. 2006. “Secrecy, Sex and Apocrypha: Remarks on Some Paradoxical Phenomena.” In The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion, Bernhard Scheid and Mark Teeuwen, eds., 204–28. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Kritzer, Robert. 2009. “Life in the Womb: Conception and Gestation in Buddhist Scripture and Classical Indian Medical Literature.” In Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture, Vanessa R. Sasson and Jane Marie Law, eds., 73–90. New York: Oxford University Press. Lindsey, William R. 2007. Fertility and Pleasure: Ritual and Sexual Values in Tokugawa Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Manabe, Shunshō 真鍋俊照. [1999] 2002. Jakyō Tachikawa-ryū 邪教立川流 [Heretical Teachings: The Tachikawa Lineage]. Tokyo: Chikuma shobō. Miyake, Hitoshi. 2005. The Mandala of the Mountain. Edited and with an Introduction by Gaynor Sekimori. Tokyo: Keio University Press.

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Nakamura, Kazuki 中村一基. 1990. “’Tainai totsuki no zu’ no shisōshiteki tenkai 『胎内 十月の図』の思想的展開,” [The ‘Images of the Ten Months in the Womb’ and Their Intellectual History].” Iwate daigaku kyōiku gakubu kenkyū nenpō 岩手大學教育學 部研究年報 [Research Bulletin of the Faculty of Education of the Iwate University] 50/1: 23–36. Ruppert, Brian. 2000. Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Sanford, James H. 1997. “Wind, Waters, Stupas, Mandalas – Fetal Buddhahood in Shingon.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24/1–2: 2–38. Sekimori, Gaynor. 2011. “The Akinomine of Haguro Shugendo: A Historical Perspective,” (revised and expanded). In Japanese Religions, vol. 4, Lucia Dolce, ed. London: Sage. ———. 2005. “Akinomine no rekishi wo aruku 秋の峰歴史を歩く [Treading the History of Akinomine].” In Sennen no Shugen, Haguro yamabushi no sekai 千年の修験 – 羽 黒山伏の世界 [A Thousand Years of Shugendo – The World of the Haguro Yamabushi], Kitamura Minao 北村皆雄 and Shimazu Kōkai 島津広海, eds. Tokyo: Shinjuku shobō. ———. 1995. “The Akinomine of Haguro Shugendō: A historical perspective”. Transactions of the International Conference of Eastern Studies, no. 40. Tokyo: The Institute of Eastern Culture. Shimazu, Dendō 島津伝道. [1937] 1985. Haguro-ha Shugendō teiyō 羽黒派修験道提要 [An Outline of the Haguro Lineage of Shugendo]. Tokyo: Meicho shuppan. Shugendō shūgyō taikei hensan iinkai 修験道修行大系編纂委員會, eds. 1994. Shugendō shūgyō taikei 修験道修行大系 [An Anthology of Shugendo Practice]. Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai. Takatori, Masao 高取正男. 1993. Shintō no seiritsu 神道の成立 [The Formation of Shinto]. Tokyo: Heibonsha. Togawa, Anshō 戸川安章. 2005. “Shugendō ni okeru shi to saisei no girei 修験道に於け る死と再生の儀礼 [Rituals of Death and Rebirth in Shugendo].” (Article originally published in 1966). In Shugendō to minzoku shūkyō 修験道と民族修行 [Shugendo and Folk Religious Practices]. Tokyo: Iwata shoin. Tonomura, Hitomi. 2007. “Birth-giving and Avoidance Taboo: Women’s Body versus the Historiography of Ubuya.” Japan Review 19: 2–45. Yamasaki, Taikō. 1988. Shingon, Japanese Esoteric Buddhism. Boston & London: Shambala. Yamashita, Takumi 山下琢巳. 2005. “Shugendō ‘gotai hon’u honrai busshin’ setsu, sono kyōri toshite no ‘tainai goi’ to sono tenkai 修験道「五體本有本来佛身」説、その 教理として胎内五位とその展開 [The ‘Fivefold Fundamentally Existing Original Buddha-Body’ in Shugendō – The ‘Five Stages in the Womb’ as Its Doctrinal Foundation and Its Development].” Tōkyō seitoku tanki daigaku kiyō 東京成徳短期 大学紀要 [Bulletin of Tokyo Seitoku College] 38: 21–32.

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Index Index

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Index A (syllable), see under Seed syllable Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya (Ch. Jushe lun 俱舎 論, Jp. Kusharon) 16n40, 18n46, 17, 18, 30, 265, 268, 269, 423, 436, 444, 484n13, 496, 497 See also Vasubandhu Abhiṣeka 279, 297, 317–318, 381, 445–455, 467 See also Kami initiations (jingi kanjō 神祇 灌頂) See also Yoga consecration (yugi kanjō 瑜祇灌頂) Abhiṣeka of Father and Mother (Kazoiro kanjō 父母代灌頂) 445–455, 467 See also Izanagi 伊弉諾 and Izanami 伊弉冉 Acupuncture 27–28 Aizen Myōō 愛染明王 293, 298, 313–316, 326, 356–360, 388–390, 396, 430, 436–438, 456, 469, 524, 532 See also Zen’ai 染愛 See also Fudō Myōō 不動明王 Aji kokubako 阿字黒箱 (Black Box of Syllable A) 291 Akinomine 秋の峯 See under Autumn Peak See also Haguro 羽黒 Ālāyavijñāna (Storehouse consciousness), see under Consciousness Alchemy, see Neidan 內丹, see Nüdan 女丹, see Waidan 外丹 Amaterasu 天照 298, 317–318, 321, 352n22, 450, 454, 467 Amoghavajra (Ch. Bukong 不空, Jp. Fukū, 705–774) 36n90, 282n68, 379, 382, 437n45, 439, 439n51 An Shigao 安世高 (fl. 148–ca. 170) 14n35, 24 Androgynous, androgyny, androcentric 180–181, 444, 455, 462 Animation 369–370, 375, 382–383, 410–411, 447–448 See also Jing 精 See also Qi 氣 See also Root of life (Sk. jīvitendriya, Jp. myōkon 命根)

See also Sweet drops See also Tachikawa skull ritual See also Vital energy Annen 安然 (ca. 9th cent.) 283n70, 331, 353–355, 459 Antarābhava (intermediate being) 14, 17, 18, 266, 311, 361, 430, 442 See also Zhongyou 中有 (Jp. chūū) Anterior Heaven and Posterior Heaven, see Pre-celestial and post-celestial Apotropaic 218, 222 Apocalypse, apocalyptic 96, 99–105, 107–108 See also Eschatology See also Messianism Arts of the bedchamber, see Fangzhong shu 房中術 Asabashō 阿娑縛抄 (Compendium of A SA VA) 295, 351, 383 Asceticism, ascetic 41, 158, 171, 263, 335, 447, 462, 466, 469, 490, 492–493, 506 Aun jigi 阿吽字義 (On the Meaning of the Letters A and HŪṂ) 499–500, 505, 515–516 See also Seed syllable Autumn Peak (Akinomine 秋の峯) ritual 522, 535, 554 See also Haguro 羽黒 Authentic Scripture of the Way and Efficacy, see Daode zhenjing 道德真經 Avalokiteśvara, Guanyin, Kannon 觀音 214, 215n9, 217, 223, 227–230, 240, 244, 315, 317n24, 328, 352n22, 403, 448, 503–505, 542 Awakening to Reality, see Wuzhenpian 悟真篇 Ayaigasa 班蓋 (hat) 526, 529–530, 532, 536, 543–544, 548 Āyurvedic medicine, Āyurveda (Indian medicine) 9–12, 23–24, 262–265 Bagua 八卦 (eight trigrams) 70, 71n58, 73, 82, 231, 286, 490–491, 493, 510 Bagua antai lingfu 八卦安胎靈符 (eight trigram talisman for pacifying the womb) 237–239

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560 Bagua 八卦 (eight trigrams) (cont.) Bagua tu 八卦圖 (eight trigrams diagram/ mandala) 223, 224n30, 226, 231, 232n51, 237–239 See also Hexagrams See also Trigrams Bai Yuchan 白玉蟾 (1194–?) 155–158 Beheading the red dragon, see Zhan chilong 斬赤龍 Beidou 北斗 (Big Dipper) 65, 91, 216, 217n11, 222, 223, 231, 232, 234, 236, 237–239, 334n73, 335 Big Dipper, see Beidou 北斗 Bīja, see Seed syllable Birth as awakening 311 as cosmogony or transformation 42, 70, 91, 118–123, 136, 141, 153, 177–180, 181, 189, 193–194, 196n24, 197–203, 204, 208–210, 212, 223, 243–245, 512, 535–542 Childbirth (giving birth, labor, parturition) 1, 3, 5, 6n9, 10, 12–14, 22, 23, 27–30, 61, 63–67, 91, 118, 155, 162, 163, 214–218, 219, 224–229, 265–268, 292–293, 295, 271n42, 266n29, 317–319, 425, 433n37, 435, 443, 456–457, 459, 460, 465–466, 470, 480, 503 Childbirth deities (Ch. chansheng shen 産生神, Jp. ubugami) 214, 216, 223, 228, 230, 231, 234–237, 323–328, 332, 334, 449, 451, 529 See also Placenta deity Childbirth rituals 456–458, 465 See also Rituals for safe pregnancy and childbirth Classic of Birth, see Chanjing 產經 Rebirth 3, 11, 17–18, 19, 42, 153, 177–180, 213, 231, 238n56, 239, 265–267, 281, 283, 312n4, 318–319, 361n42, 410, 424, 435–438, 496, 501, 505, 512, 523, 525–526, 529 See also Conception See also Pregnancy See also Procreation See also Gestation Bixia Yuanjun 碧霞元君 (Princess of Jasper Billows) 214, 215, 244, 245

Index Blood 4, 8, 9–11, 16–17, 20, 22, 28, 41, 58, 59, 94, 102, 103, 131n55, 157–158, 168, 170–174, 179, 201, 217, 223, 225, 226, 228, 229, 236, 259n9, 264–267, 314, 316, 318, 334, 361–362, 408, 433, 444, 460, 498, 512–514, 529, 532, 535, 537, 554 See also Bones See also Mother and Father See also Two Drops See also Red and White Bodhidharma 311, 318, 506, 511 Bodhiruci 菩提流志 (d. 727) 25n67, 264n24 Boddhisattva, bodhisattva path 151, 152, 217, 281, 284, 284, 286, 289, 301, 317, 328, 357, 377, 397–398, 399, 404, 433, 437, 522, 539, 554 Bonden taoshi 梵天倒し 526, 535, 548 See also Haguro 羽黒 Bones 5, 7n11, 11, 21–22, 28, 59, 104, 105, 139, 148, 202–203, 218, 234, 259–260, 264– 265, 298, 324, 377, 383, 384n100, 433, 495, 528, 534, 537, 554 Book of Changes, see Yijing 易經 Book of the Way and Virtue, see Daode jing 道德經 Breasts 171–173, 179, 180, 243 Breastfeeding (lactation), see under Milk Breath, see Qi 氣 Buchū shūritsu 峰中就立 (On Spiritual Attainment in the Mountains) 524, 538 Buddha-Mother (butsumo 佛母), see under Mother Buddha nature (Ch. foxing 佛性, Jp. busshō) 18n48, 42, 100n41, 151, 278, 495, 529, 531, 539, 543 See also Tathāgatagarbha Buddhaghosa (5th cent.) 12, 13n33, 14n34, 23 See also Visuddhimagga Buddhahood (foetal; in this very body) 4, 40, 42, 151, 254, 259, 267n31, 274, 276, 278, 311, 318, 332, 369, 385, 397–398, 403–404, 411, 428–429, 438n48, 439, 493, 506, 513 See also Sokushin jōbutsu 即身成仏 Buddhas Five Buddhas (gobutsu 五佛) 278, 313, 490, 499

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Index Thirteen Buddhas (jūsan butsu 十三佛) 481–483, 495–497, 503–505, 515 See also Avalokiteśvara See also Kangiten 歓喜天 See also Mahāvairocana See also Mañjuśrī Buddhism Chan 禪, Zen Buddhism 149, 152, 165n48, 168, 312, 321n34, 362n44, 480n3, 485, 487, 493, 495n33, 506n69, 516 Caodong 曹洞, Sōtō school 487 Chinese Buddhism 18, 19–26, 30, 63, 88, 90, 94, 100, 102, 128, 148–153, 162, 169, 174, 177, 180, 214, 220, 223, 243–244, 269, 273, 276, 281 Esoteric Buddhism, or Tantric Buddhism 19, 41, 261, 271, 300, 311, 365–366, 368–369, 385, 435, 440, 483 Mikkyō 密教 311, 387n104, 421 Faxiang 法相, Jp. Hossō 423, 426n14, 436, 458 See also Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya See also Yogācāra Japanese Buddhism 255, 271 See also Buddhist and Shinto lineages See also Esoteric Buddhism See also Mikkyō 密教 Tendai 天台 256, 293–294, 300, 316,  329–330, 353, 368, 387, 401, 436, 457,459 Tiantai 天台 30, 100n41, 152, 269, 274, 281, 289, 432, 436 Tibetan Buddhism 13, 14n34, 14n35, 17n42, 253, 264n24, 266–267, 279, 289, 293n82, 299n98, 356, 385–386, 430, 431n31 Buddhist embryologies 9–19, 19–26, 257–270, 313–319, 422–434, 495–505 Buddhist initiation (kanjō 灌頂) 278n60, 295, 297–299, 317–318, 363n47, 381, 383, 424, 440, 445–446, 448–455, 458, 461n99, 462–463, 497–498, 501n54, 505, 538 See also Abhiṣeka Buddhist and Shinto lineages (kechimyaku 血脈) 253–254n2, 256n7, 294–295, 300, 320, 366–368, 379, 381, 382, 387n104–104, 392n113, 394, 421, 423–424n8–10, 426n13, 434, 440,

561 442n58, 443, 445, 447n70, 457–459, 461–463, 465–466, 481, 487n17, 492n27, 512–514, 523, 538 See also Daigoji 醍醐寺, Ninnaji 仁和寺, Sanbōin 三宝院 See also Goryū 御流, Miwa-ryū 三輪流, Tachikawa-ryū 立川流 Buddhist theories of gestation and the generation of organs 29 See also Five stages of gestation under Gestation See also Gestation Cakrasaṃvara Tantra 279, 348–349 Cantong qi 參同契 (The Seal of the Unity of the Three) 128, 139, 148, 156, 186–210 Caoshan Benji 曹山本寂 (840–901) 487 Caraka Saṃhitā (Compendium of Charaka) 9n19, 10–11, 14n36, 24n66, 266 Celestial Masters, see Tianshidao 天師道 Central Harmony, see Zhonghe 中和 Chan 禪, Zen Buddhism, see Buddhism Chanjing 産經 (The Classic of Birth) 27–28 Chen Jinggu 陳靖姑 (alt. Linshui furen 臨水 夫人; Lady of Linshui) 212–245 Chen Niwan 陳泥丸 (fl. 12th cent.) 178 Chen Pu 陳朴 (11th cent.) 157 Chengfu 承負 (Inherited burden) 62–63 Chinese Buddhism, see Buddhism Chinese Buddhist Canon (Ch. Dazangjing大 藏經, Jp. Daizōkyō) 2–3n3, 19n50, 26, 264, 268, 346 Chinese medicine 4–9, 23n62, 27n73, 113, 120–122, 125, 139, 148, 154–157, 159, 170, 171, 270–271 Chintaku Reifu 鎮宅霊符 330 Chizi 赤子 (Newborn child; Red Child) 64, 150, 118–120, 132n58 See also Inner gods See also Ying’er 嬰兒 See also Zidan 子丹 Chōgō 澄豪 (1259–1350) 294–295, 315, 382–383n97 Chronicle of the Lord of the Dao, Sage of the Latter Age, see Shangqing housheng daojun lieji 上清後生道君列紀 Chushen 出神 (egress of the spirit) 136, 137n73, 177, 180, 243

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562 Chūteki himissho 中的秘密書 (The Secret Writing of Hitting the Mark) 483, 486, 489–491, 494, 502, 505, 515 Cinnabar (substance, elixir) 116, 138, 157–158, 199n29, 205–206, 347–348, 407–408 See also Elixir Cinnabar Child, see Zidan 子丹 Cinnabar Field (Lower), see Dantian 丹田 Cinnabar Fields (the three) 117–118, 120–122, 124, 127–128, 129, 132, 134, 136, 171 Code of Nüqing for Controlling Demons, see Nüqing guilü 女青鬼律 Conception 2n2, 3, 9–11, 14–15, 18–20, 26–28, 40, 56–59, 73, 89, 93, 114, 121–122, 124, 136, 197–203, 205, 207n53, 208–209, 234, 259n9, 263n19, 265–267, 274, 276, 279, 293, 298, 311–313, 314n11, 315n15, 316–318, 320, 326, 328, 332, 337, 420–421, 424–425, 428–433, 435–436, 441–444, 446–448, 455, 457–459, 464, 467, 469, 479n1, 483, 498, 501–502, 523, 526, 529, 532, 534–535, 537, 539, 554 See also Birth See also Pregnancy See also Procreation Confucianism 54, 67, 152n18, 444, 452, 510 Confucian Apocrypha 54 Confucian Classics 54 Confucian scholars 441n54, 491 Confucius 70 Neo-Confucianism 441n54, 444, 452–453, 480n3, 491–492, 510 Consciousness (Sk. vijñāna) 15–16, 151–152, 168, 266–267, 274, 276n55, 278, 297, 311, 359–362, 382, 393, 399, 428, 442, 444, 484n13, 529, 539n33 Ālāyavijñāna (Storehouse consciousness; Ch. alaiye shi 阿賴耶識, Jp. arayashiki) 16, 17, 361, 529 Contemplation, see under Meditation Correction of fortune, see Gaiyun 改運 Cosmogony 5, 7–9, 26, 69, 71, 83, 112, 114–118, 118–123, 123–128, 129–138, 139–141, 177n81, 180, 188, 189, 190–193, 194–195, 200–203, 204, 205, 208–210, 485–486, 490–493, 495, 507n75, 509–510, 515

Index Cosmology 3–9, 14n35, 26, 54, 57, 61n26, 70, 90, 97, 112–114, 114–118, 118–123, 123–128, 129–138, 139–141, 156, 157, 186–188, 192, 196, 198, 199, 204, 205, 208–210, 235, 270–276, 292–293, 297, 299–300, 313, 318, 334–335, 385n102, 425, 459, 469, 480, 483, 485–486, 491, 493, 495, 509–510, 512, 514, 515 Cosmos 4, 7, 103, 140–141, 147, 157, 235, 299, 335, 483, 485–486, 491, 495, 512 Cycles (temporal, cosmic, etc.,) 54, 67–75, 75, 76, 80, 81–83, 97, 124, 189, 192, 193n16, 194–197, 202n35, 232, 496 Gestational cycles, see Gestation Cycle of birth and death, see Rebirth under Birth Menstrual cycle, see Menses See also Time Da zhidu lun 大智度論 (Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom) 269, 281n67 Daigoji 醍醐寺 204, 300, 382, 421–422, 455, 457–458, 461 Daikokuten 大黒天, see 345, 351n19, 374–375 See also Mahākāla Dainichi 大日, see Mahāvairocana Ḍākinī (Jp. Dakini-ten荼吉尼天) 344–347, 349–351, 353, 375, 379, 381, 392, 411 Dantian 丹田 (Cinnabar Field, lower) 92, 117–122, 132–136, 160, 162, 164, 170–172, 178, 207n53 Dao 道 8, 41, 42, 93, 99, 100, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 119, 124, 125n35, 126n39, 129, 136n72, 141, 160, 165, 180, 187, 188, 190–194, 197–199, 201n33, 202, 204, 205, 208, 209, 210 Daode jing 道德經 (Book of the Way and Virtue) 7, 67, 75, 77, 81n94, 123, 126, 128n43, 139n75, 141, 148, 150, 187, 190, 192, 193, 202, 203, 204n42, 208, 209n59, 219n17 Daode zhenjing 道德真經 (True Book of the Way and Virtue; alt. Authentic Scripture of the Way and Efficacy) 67n48, 75n75, 77, 191n8

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Index Dari jing 大日經 (Jp. Dainichi kyō, Mahāvairocana Sūtra) 280, 283n70, 344, 346–347, 349, 353, 355, 382, 385, 392–397, 399n140–142, 400n144, 402, 423, 461n101, 484n13 Dari jing shu 大日經疏 (Jp. Dainichikyō sho; Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra) 344, 346n4, 349, 382, 385, 392, 489n20 Dari jing yishi 大日經義釋 (Jp. Dainichikyō gishaku; Commentary on the Meaning of the Mahāvairocana Sūtra) 280n64, 353, 393–394 See also Mahāvairocana See also Yixing 一行 Daisendatsu 大先達 (Shugendo priest) 525, 530, 534–536, 539, 547 See also Sendatsu Death 2, 9n19, 14, 16, 17n43, 18, 22, 58–59, 62, 73–74, 95, 99, 103, 105, 106, 121, 124, 133–134, 162, 163, 174, 178, 213n3, 216, 218, 223, 227–229, 230, 244–245, 266, 282, 321, 322, 324, 325, 330, 345, 357, 381, 401, 404, 437, 438, 481n6, 499, 500, 501, 504, 505, 515, 522, 525, 526 See also Rebirth, under Birth Declarations of the Perfected, see Zhen’gao 真誥 Dependent arising, dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), 10, 15, 266 Destiny, see Ming 命 Dharmakāya (Ch. fashen 法身, Jp. hosshin, alt. hōshin) 152, 153n19, 276, 279, 427 Dharmarakṣa 竺法護 (230?–316) 24, 264n24 Diamond Realm mandala, see under Mandala Divinity, see Shen 神 Dōhan 道範 (1178–1252) 294, 367n60, 424, 432–434, 458, 465 Dongshan Liangjie 洞山良价 (807–869) 487 Dongyuan shenzhoujing 洞淵神咒經, see Shenzhou jing 神咒經 Dongzhen huangshu 洞真黃書 (Yellow Book of the Dongzhen [Canon]) 97 See also Seed-people Dunhuang 20n52, 23n62, 26–27n70, 59, 65n39, 79n86, 108n64, 452n77, 453n79

563 Eschatology 89, 99–101 See also Apocalypse See also Messianism Egress of the spirit, see Chushen 出神 Eight trigrams, see Bagua 八卦 Elect, the 94, 99–105, 107–108 See also Eugenics See also Zhongmin 種民 Eliade, Mircea (1907–1986) 371 Elixir (Inner) 111, 112n4, 129, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 148, 157, 167, 173, 203–208, 209, 210 Golden Elixir (jindan 金丹) 160, 174, 177 Elixir poisoning 128 See also Cinnabar See also Tai 胎 See also Ying’er 嬰兒 Embryo, see Tai 胎 Embryonic breathing, see Taixi 胎息 Embryological charts 257–270, 291, 293, 297, 429–430 Embryonic knots, see Jiejie 結節 Emptiness (Sk. śūnyatā, Ch. kong 空, Jp. kū) 42, 55, 152, 163, 165–167, 173, 180, 189–190, 192, 397n136, 427, 447, 450, 487, 492, 528 See also Vacuity Ena 胞衣, see Placenta Enagami 胞衣神, Ena kōjin 胞衣荒神 (placenta deity) 319, 320–323, 325, 326–330, 332–337, 438n48, 529, 530 See also Placenta Enlightenment (original; within this very body; for women; post-mortem) 1, 10, 13n33, 254, 259–262, 274, 278–279, 282, 311, 353, 359–360, 369, 388, 393–397, 399, 404, 411, 420, 422–429, 431–432, 434, 436–441, 443–445, 456–457, 459, 465, 467–468, 470, 490n21, 502–506, 522, 529, 531, 536, 539–540, 543 See also Sokushin jōbutsu 即身成仏 Enni Ben’en 円爾弁円 (1202–1280) 36n90, 293, 295 Eschatology 89, 96, 99–105 Esoteric Buddhist temples 29, 420–421, 440, 457–458, 465 See also Buddhist and Shinto lineages Esoteric Buddhism, see Buddhism

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564 Essence, see Jing 精 Essentials of Medicine, The, see Ishinpō 醫心方 Eugenics 95–96, 107 See also Zhongmin 種民 Evil 81, 101–104, 106, 107–108, 323, 326, 331, 334, 376, 395, 398, 541 See also Sin Exorcism 107, 218–223, 228–230, 238–239, 244, 359, 392, 396n128 External Alchemy, see Waidan 外丹 Fangzhong shu 房中術 (Arts of the bedchamber) 56, 89, 96–97, 129 See also Merging of pneumas See also Huangshu 黃書 See also Yellow and Red Fashi 法師 (ritual master) 217, 226, 231, 237, 239–243 Father, see Mother and father under Mother Faxiang 法相, Jp. Hossō, see under Buddhism Female Alchemy, see Nüdan 女丹 Fertility, fertile 12, 57, 69, 74, 81, 107, 171, 173, 179, 216, 219, 234n52, 266, 514, 527, 534 Filial piety 19, 102, 227, 229, 444, 453–454 Five Agents (Ch. wuxing 五行, Jp. gogyō) 4, 5, 7, 64–65, 72–74, 82, 115–118, 119, 124, 129, 133–135, 187n2, 198–202, 206, 209, 210, 254, 270–271, 276–277, 292–293, 313, 442, 446–448, 451 See also Four Elements Five Buddhas, see under Buddhas Five-element stupa, see under Gorintō五輪塔 Five flavours, five tastes (Ch. wuwei 五味, Jp. gomi) 4–5, 448–449 Five viscera (Ch. wuzang 五臓, Jp. gozō) 4–8, 65, 78n82, 115–117, 133, 134n66, 139, 148, 154, 172, 202, 213n3, 255, 270–277, 289–290, 427–428, 433, 444, 460– 462n101, 472 Meditation on the Five Viscera, see Gozōkan 五臓観 under Meditation See also Gorintō 五輪塔 See also Gozō mandara 五臓曼荼羅 See also Heart See also Meditation See also Organs

Index Foshuo baotai jing 佛説胞胎經 (Sutra Spoken by the Buddha on the Womb and Embryo; Sk. Garbhāvakrānti sutra) 14–15, 17–18, 24, 25, 253n1, 264n24, 269, 276n55, 430n28, 444 Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing 佛說父母 恩重難報經 (Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Profound Kindness of Parents Spoken by the Buddha) 20–23, 452–453, 455 Four Elements (Sk. mahābhūta, Ch. sida 四大, Jp. shidai) 26, 160, 270 Fu 符 (talisman) 222, 226–227, 238fig.6.6, 407, 410, 466 See also Chintaku Reifu 鎮宅霊符 Fudō Myōō 不動明王 256n7, 296n92, 297, 313, 316, 376, 380, 503, 524, 532 See also Aizen Myōō 愛染明王 Fudōson gushō 不動尊愚鈔 (Personal Commentary on Worthy Fudō) 316 Funeral, funerary cults 3, 13n33, 362, 373, 480–481, 500–503, 505, 515, 554 Furen guoguan tu 夫人過關圖 (The Lady Crosses the Passes) 213, 230–234 Fūrōshū 風露集 (Collection of Wind and Dew) 524, 535–537 Gaiyun 改運 (correction of fortune) 229, 237, 238 Gallbladder (dan 膽) 8, 116n11, 157, 347 Garbha (also gabbha), see Womb Garbhāvakrānti sutra, see Foshuo baotai jing 佛說胞胎經 Garbhopaniṣad (Upaniṣad of the Embryo) 9n19, 10n20 Gender 40–41, 89, 92, 148, 154–156, 179–180, 236, 299–300, 350n16, 377, 420, 422, 436, 440, 442, 456–457, 461–462, 468–469, 514 Generation, genesis, regeneration 4, 7, 9, 11, 13n33, 28n75, 42, 55–56, 58, 61, 80, 82, 87, 91, 99, 102, 106–107, 111–113, 114–117, 121–122, 123–128, 128–138, 138–141, 148–153, 153–159, 162, 164, 166, 168, 175, 177, 180–181, 188–190, 190–193, 193–197, 197–203, 204, 205, 208–210, 253, 255, 263, 267, 270–274, 277, 278, 280, 282, 283, 284, 287, 291, 292, 294–296,

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Index 299–302, 318, 336n81, 362, 433, 449, 459, 480–483, 492, 495–496, 499–500, 505, 509, 514–516 See also Birth See also Cosmogony Generations, genealogy, genetics 61, 62, 74, 94–95, 101–104, 130, 225, 227, 229, 337 Gestation 2–4, 4–9, 9–19, 19–26, 26–30, 54, 58–63, 66, 68, 71, 73, 74, 82, 91, 92, 112–123, 124, 127–128, 133, 136, 139, 140, 147–153, 154, 168–170, 175, 179, 180–181, 202–203, 208, 212–213, 215, 222, 227, 231–236, 238, 243, 253–258, 261–266, 269–271, 277–278, 280, 284, 290, 293–302, 311–322, 328, 335–336, 388, 430–431, 444, 455, 457–458, 464, 467, 470, 479, 489, 495–498, 503–505, 508–509, 512–517, 523, 526, 531–532, 534–540, 554 Autogestation 87, 134 Five stages of gestation 10, 12, 14n37, 16n40, 17–18n46, 257, 263, 265–266, 268, 312, 319, 429–430, 463, 496–498, 507, 516, 530, 537–538, 554 Tainai goi 胎内五位 (“Five Stages of the Embryo in the Womb”) 255–257, 263–265, 268, 311–312, 319, 502 Zenmon tainai no goi 禅門胎内之五位 (Five Stages [of the Embryo] in the Womb in Zen) 507, 511, 514 Thirty-eight weeks of gestation 12–14, 23–25, 30, 265, 269 Ten months of gestation 6–7, 13, 20–24, 27–29, 270, 301–302, 306, 313n6, 316, 460, 467, 504, 510, 531 See also under Cycles See also Kalala(ṃ) (embryo-initiation) See also Kirigami See also Pregnancy See also Zen kirigami Gochizō hishō 五智蔵秘抄 (Secret Treatise on the Repository of Quintuple Wisdom) 255–259, 267, 271–274, 276, 280–285, 287–289, 291–294, 298, 300 Gogyō 五行, see Five Agents Goō 牛黄 (Ch. niuhuang 牛黄, ox yellow; alt. bezoar) 345, 347n8, 355, 393, 400

565 See also Human yellow Gorin kujimyō himitsushaku 五輪九字明秘 密釋 (A Secret Interpretation of the Five Chakras and Nine Syllables) 273, 382, 425n12, 427–429, 483n12, 548 See also Kakuban 覚鑁 Gorintō 五輪塔 (five-element stupa) 257, 271, 272, 275–276, 278, 282, 284, 289, 291, 296, 298, 329n59, 333, 442, 499, 505, 537–538, 548 See also Gorin kujimyō himitsushaku 五輪 九字明秘密釋 (A Secret Interpretation of the Five Chakras and Nine Syllables) See also Kakuban 覚鑁 Goryū Shintō 御流神道 421, 445–455, 465 Gosō jōjinkan 五相成身観, see under Meditation Gozō mandara 五臓曼荼羅 (five viscera mandala) 255, 274–276 See also Five viscera Gozō mandara wae shaku 五臓曼荼羅和會 釋 (A Collated Commentary on the Five Viscera Mandala) 275 See also Five viscera Granet, Marcel (1884–1940) 67–68, 236n55 Great Harmony, see Taihe 太和 Great Peace, see Taiping 太平 Great Peace Scripture, see Taiping jing 太平經 Great Peace Scripture Digest, see Taiping jing chao 太平經鈔 Great Yang, see under Yin and Yang Guanyin 觀音, see Avalokiteśvara Guarding the One, see Shouyi 守一 Guanzi 管子 4–7, 8n17, 8n18, 23, 114–117 Haguro 羽黒 522–535, 537, 540, 542–545, 554 See also Autumn Peak Haguro Higashi Fudaraku 東補陀落 542, 552 Haguro shrine-temple complex (Jakkōji 寂 光寺 and Kōtakuji 荒沢寺) 525, 534, 539, 541, 546, 554 Hangai kuketsu 班蓋口訣 (Oral Transmissions Concerning the Hangai) 319, 326n52

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566 Heart (Sk. hṛdaya, Ch. xin 心, Jp. shin) 7–9, 11, 22, 64–65, 108, 116–118, 121, 135–136, 150, 152, 156–157, 345, 348, 350, 354, 359, 362, 392–393, 394, 396–398, 400, 435, 447, 455, 461n101, 496, 508, 516, 522n1, 538, 540, 549 Heart as center, heart as ruler 8–9, 117–118, 121, 134 Heart-liver (nai shinkan 内心肝) 359, 393, 400 See also Cinnabar fields (the three) See also Five viscera See also Liver Henshō goi 偏正五位 (Ch. zhengpian wuwei, the five positions of the Crooked and the Straight) 485–489, 492, 495, 509 Heterodox (Jp. jakyō 邪教) 103, 104n52, 253, 256, 302, 351–352, 366–368, 406, 481–482 Hexagrams 69, 71n60, 72, 73, 129, 188–189, 191n9, 193, 197n26, 198, 492, 508 See also Bagua 八卦 See also Trigrams Highest Clarity, see Shangqing 上清 Hōgushū 法具集 (Collection of Ritual Implements, 1649) 524, 527, 529–533, 535 Holy men (shōnin 上人, or hijiri 聖) 387, 422–423, 463, 469 See also Yamabushi山伏 See also Shugenja 修験者 Homunculus 17n44, 90–92 See also Elixir See also Tai 胎 See also Ying’er 嬰兒 Houtian 後天, see Pre-celestial and postcelestial Huainanzi 淮南子 6–9, 16, 23, 114–115, 117, 125n36, 125–126n37 Huangdi neijing 黃帝內經 (Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor) 5n7, 28n76, 159n36, 170, 196n24 Huangren jing 皇人經 (Scripture of the August Person) 130–132, 136, 141 See also Sanyi jing 三一經 Huangshu 黃書 (Yellow Book) 89–93, 96–98 HŪṂ, see under Seed syllable

Index Human head (or skull) 353, 359–363, 372–375, 403–408, 508 Human yellow (Ch. renhuang 人黄, Jp. ninnō) 344–355, 358–363, 375–377, 381–382, 388, 390–403, 432 See also Goō 牛黄 Hun 魂 and po 魄 souls 121, 122n29, 138, 154, 167, 222n23, 226, 323, 324, 375–377, 382, 388, 400, 410–411 Ignorance (Ch. muming 無明, Jp. mumyō) 151, 320, 331, 359–362, 394–398, 401, 435–436, 456, 530 Prenatal Ignorance (mengmeng 蒙蒙) 60–61 Immortality, immortal 60, 77, 92–93, 96, 97, 101, 104–107, 117, 147, 149, 153, 164, 167, 171, 172, 176, 177, 180, 214, 220, 242, 331, 348 See Embryo of immortality, under Tai 胎 Indian medicine, see Āyurvedic medicine Infant, see Ying’er 嬰兒 Inherited burden, see Chengfu 承負 Inner breathing, see Taixi 胎息 Inner gods (or bodily gods; inner pantheon or landscape) 114–117, 124–129, 131n55, 133–134, 141, 153, 167, 240, 543 See also Chizi 赤子 See also Ying’er 嬰兒 See also Zidan 子丹 Internal Alchemy, see Neidan 內丹 Inversion (ni 逆) 78, 124, 137fig.3.4, 199, 205, 206n46, 208–210 See also Return See also Reversal See also Reversion Ise monogatari zuinō 伊勢物語髄脳 (The Essence of the Tales of Ise) 36n87, 301n103, 388, 441, 451–452, 460–461, 465 Ise shoshō Nihongi ushiki honshō nin denki 伊勢所生日本記有識本性仁傳記 (Transmitted Records of Nihongi, Consciousness, Original Nature, and Humanity, Produced by Ise) 267n32, 268, 297–298 Ise shrines 297–298, 317, 434n40, 467

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Index Ishinpō 醫心方 (The Essentials of Medicine) 6n9, 27–28, 271, 466n114 Izanagi 伊弉諾 and Izanami 伊弉冉 442, 535 Japanese Buddhism, see Buddhism Jichiun 實運 (alt. Jitsuun, 1105–1160) 36n90, 293, 424, 429–430 Jiejie 結節 (embryonic knots, congenital knots) 133–135, 157, 164, 213, 237 Jindaiji 深大寺 256, 284, 292 Jing 精 (essence) 4, 6–9, 25, 76, 78, 91, 93–94, 114–115, 116, 117, 118, 121, 122n29, 133, 136, 138, 154, 158, 167, 168, 170, 172–173, 176, 189, 191, 192n13, 193, 195–197, 199–201, 205, 209, 324, 334n74, 353, 355, 388, 514, 516 See also Animation See also Root of life (Sk. jīvitendriya, Jp. myōkon 命根) See also Seed See also Semen See also Vital energy Jingi kanjō 神祇灌頂, see under Kami initiations See also Abhiṣeka Jitsuken 實賢 (alt. Jitsugen, or Jikken, 1176–1249) 294n84, 422, 432, 458 Jīva (living entity) 11, 266 Jizang / Kichizō 吉藏 (549–623) 354–355, 399n140 Juhōyōjinshū 受法用心集 (Notes on Precautions to Take When Receiving the [Shingon] Teaching) 35n84, 362–369, 375–384, 386–388, 403–404 Jushe lun 俱舎論, see Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143) 29n79, 273–274, 277–278, 382, 422, 424, 425n12, 427–429, 432, 435, 465, 483n12, 497, 538, 548–549 See also Gorin kujimyō himitsushaku 五輪 九字明秘密釋 See also Uchigikishū 打聞集 Kakugenshō 覺源抄 (Extracts from Lectures by Kakukai and Yūgen) 1, 422–427, 434– 439, 443, 459

567 See also Rendōbō 蓮道房 Kakuzenshō 覺禪鈔 (Compendium of Kakuzen) 351, 353, 358–360, 381, 390–403 Kalala(ṃ) (embryo-initiation) 9, 12, 16n40, 17, 257, 263, 265–266, 268–269, 312, 314, 316, 319, 323, 431–432, 435, 441, 447, 461, 496–498, 507, 537–539 See also Five stages of gestation under Gestation See also Gestation Kami 神 (Japanese deities) 297–299, 301n104, 317, 321–322, 421, 423, 445, 449–455, 460–461, 465–468, 529 See also Amaterasu 天照 See also Shen 神 Kami initiations (jingi kanjō 神祇灌頂) 297–298, 317–318, 445–455 Kami worship 297–299, 301n104, 317–322, 352n22, 420–423, 435n40, 443–446, 449–455, 465–468 See also Medieval Shinto (Chūsei Shintō 中 世神道) Kan 坎 ☵ and Li 離 ☲, see Trigrams See also Bagua 八卦 Kanazawa Bunko Archive 30n81, 275, 280n65, 294, 314n11, 332–333, 360, 367n60, 379, 381, 383, 401n146, 423n8, 466n112 Kangiten 歓喜天 328, 371, 447 See also Buddhas Kannon觀音, see Avalokiteśvara Karma 10, 11, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 26, 91, 104, 105, 259, 265, 266, 272, 279, 360, 361, 380, 425, 431, 435, 453–455, 468, 497, 537 See also Retribution Katabako 形筥, 肩箱 (oblong box) 526– 527, 543–544 Kazoiro (or Oyashiro) Kanjō 父母代灌頂 (Abhiṣeka of Father and Mother) 445–455 See also Abhiṣeka See also Kami initiations Keiranshūyōshū 渓嵐拾葉集 (Collection of Leaves Gathered in Stormy Ravines) 314n10, 315n14, 316, 351, 352n22, 373, 388, 393n119, 411n177, 412n181, 489–490

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568 Ketsudō Nōshō 傑堂能勝 (1355–1422) 491–492 Kirigami 311, 316, 320–321, 462–463, 479–481, 495–499, 501–512, 515–516, 523–525, 527–528, 530 Zen kirigami 316, 320, 479–481, 495–496, 499, 501, 503, 505, 507, 512, 514–515 Kitabatake Chikafusa 北畠親房 (1293–1354) 441–442, 446 Knots, embryonic or congenital see Jiejie 結節 Kogi Aka Osame 小木閼伽おさめ (Offering of Firewood and Water) 535 See also Autumn Peak See also Haguro 羽黒 Kōjin 荒神 317n25, 319–323, 326–337, 530 See also Enagami 胞衣神 or Ena kōjin胞 衣荒神 (placenta deity) Kongōchōkyō 金剛頂經 (Sk. Vajraśekhara sūtra, Ch. Jingangding jing, Sutra of Diamond Peak) 36n90, 279, 388n107 Kongōsatta 金剛薩埵 (Vajrasattva) 328, 357, 388, 398, 435–438, 443 Kōyasan 高野山 262, 294, 318,333n72, 364–357, 384n100, 421–429, 432, 434, 440– 441, 445–448, 455, 458, 462, 465–467, 469 Kōyō no kirigami 紅葉之切紙 (Red Leaves Kirigami) 501 See also Kirigami See also Zen kirigami Kou Qianzhi 寇謙之 (365–448) 89, 94 Kuhonmaki 九品巻 (The Nine Chapters Scroll) 524 See also Haguro 羽黒 Kūkai 空海 (774–835) 254, 277, 279, 287n74, 294n84, 315n14, 318, 349–350, 379, 394n124, 435n41, 437n45, 465, 497 Kumano no honji 熊野の本地 (The Original Ground of the Kumano Deities) 301, 319, 454, 466, 522, 532n30 Kusharon 俱舎論, see Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya Kushōjin 倶生神 327, 330, 332, 335–337, 438n49 Lacan, Jacques (1901–1991) 244 Lady of Linshui, see Chen Jinggu 陳靖姑 Laojun 老君 (Lord Lao) 101, 138, 241

Index See also Laozi 老子 See also Li Hong 李弘 Laozi 老子 54, 81, 101, 122 See also Laojun 老君 See also Li Hong 李弘 Laozi’s Book of the Way and Virtue, see Daode jing 道德經 Laozi’s Central Scripture, see Laozi zhongjing 老子中經 Laozi zhongjing 老子中經 (Laozi’s Central Scripture) 64, 113n7, 115–118, 118–121, 123–124, 132, 135–136, 170 Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1908–2009) 212, 217–218, 245, 335 Li Hong 李弘 101, 103, 105 See also Laozi 老子 See also Laojun 老君 Liqu jing 理趣經 (Jp. Rishukyō; Sutra of Guiding Principle) 378, 384, 387n105, 436n42, 437n45, 439–441, 455, 461, 469 Liqu shi 理趣釋 (Jp. Rishushaku; Commentary on the Sutra of Guiding Principle by Amoghavajra) 439 Liberation from the womb, see Tuotai 脫胎 Lifespan 27, 62–63, 229, 336, 433n36 Lingbao 靈寶 (Numinous Treasure) 98, 107, 150 Linshui furen 臨水夫人, see Chen Jinggu 陳 靖姑 Liu Huayang 柳華陽 (1735–1799) 149 Liu Yiming 劉一明 (1734–1821) 112n2, 173–176, 204n43, 207 Liver 8, 11, 22, 116, 156, 198n28, 316, 359–360, 393, 400, 428, 503 Longmei Zi 龍眉子 (fl. early 13th cent.) 160 Lord Lao, see Laojun 老君 Lotus imagery (eight-petaled lotus; heartlotus; lotus-womb, lotus mudra) 13, 223, 240, 245, 269, 281–282, 284, 286, 289, 317, 358–359, 390, 392n114, 393, 394n121, 395n127, 396–398, 400n144, 431, 432, 434n40, 435, 444–445, 449, 455, 457, 458, 460–463, 465–466, 469, 489, 508, 511, 523n2, 524n5, 529–531, 540, 542 See also Womb See also Women’s body

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Index Lotus Sūtra 153, 269, 354–355, 388, 399n140, 411n177, 420n1, 456n86 Fahua wenju ji 法華文句記 (Notes on the “Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra”) 269 See also Zhanran 湛然 (711–782) See also Zhiyi 智顗 (538–597) Lu 籙 (registers) 87–88, 91, 96–97, 99, 231, 239, 334–335 Lüshan pai 閭山派 (Lüshan lineage) 214n7, 215–216, 217, 219, 220, 223, 226, 229, 230, 232, 238, 240, 241 Macrocosm/microcosm 115, 126, 57n15, 72n65, 199, 205, 271, 276, 335, 336, 383, 493–494, 497 Mahākāla (Jp. Makakara 摩訶迦羅) 345, 374 See also Daikokuten 大黒天 Mahāvairocana (also Vairocana), Dainichi  大日 262n16, 271, 272, 278, 279, 298, 323, 326, 328n57, 331, 344–345, 347, 400n144, 402, 424, 427, 433, 464, 484–485, 486, 494, 496, 499, 530, 538 See also Dari jing 大日經 (Jp. Dainichi kyō, Mahāvairocana Sūtra) Mandala 223, 224, 226, 237–239, 255–256, 271–273, 280–293, 298, 327, 329n58, 370, 407–410, 429, 431, 448–449, 454–455, 469, 489, 495–496, 524, 543 Kumano kanjin jikkai 熊野勧進十界 454–455, 522 Womb Realm (Taizōkai 胎蔵界) and Diamond Realm (Kongōkai 金剛界) mandalas 259–261, 271–272, 278, 280–282, 311, 316, 328n57, 343–344, 357, 424–426, 433–435, 444, 446, 448–449, 454, 456–457, 460–463, 469, 492–493, 527–534, 539, 540, 542, 543 See also Bagua antai lingfu 八卦安胎靈符 under Bagua tu 八卦圖 See also Gozō mandara 五藏曼荼羅 Mandate of life, see Ming 命 See also Root of life (Jp. myōkon 命根) Mañjuśrī (Monju 文殊) 317n24, 331, 411, 425–426, 435, 503 See also Buddha-Mother (butsumo 佛母)

569 See also Mother of awakening (kakumo 覚 母) Mantra (Dainichi; Ḍākinī; meonzō samadhi; soul-returning) 274n47, 282, 283n70, 296, 344–346, 348–349, 370, 382, 392, 394n122, 396, 407, 429n25, 447–449, 484, 486, 494, 511 See also Ḍākinī (Jp. Dakini-ten 荼吉尼天) See also Mahāvairocana Mawangdui 馬王堆 5–6, 271, 300n99 Meditation, meditative 3, 23, 29n79, 40, 64, 73–74, 75–76, 112–118, 118–123, 126– 128, 128–139, 141, 147, 150, 153–154, 165, 168, 170, 177, 181, 204, 243, 255, 265n27, 272, 274, 276–280, 282, 289, 291–292, 296, 311–312, 382, 429n25, 431n30, 432, 436–437, 483, 485, 490n21, 492, 495, 506, 508, 511, 515 Contemplation 8n17, 29, 40, 112–113, 125, 128, 135, 136–138, 140, 157, 260, 312n4, 331, 398, 427–429, 454–455, 496 Visualisation 23, 36n90, 64–65, 74, 76, 79n86, 87, 90, 92, 112–118, 120–122, 127– 128, 130–138, 139–141, 175, 255–256, 272, 277–280, 284, 287, 289, 291, 296, 300, 359, 400–401, 403, 429, 489, 522n1, 526, 534, 536, 538, 541 Gosō jōjinkan 五相成身観 (ritual visualisation of the body in five aspects) 279 Gozōkan 五臓観 (Meditation on the Five Viscera) 29–30n79, 427 Meonzō samādhi 馬陰蔵三昧 (“meditation on the hidden organ of the horse”) 296, 402n151, 429n25, 431n30, 436n45, 438n50, 458n90 Mediums, see Shamanism; see also Miko 巫女 Menses, menstrual blood, menstrual cycle 11–12, 97, 118, 158, 170–173, 179–181, 243, 259n9, 408, 443, 465 Meonzō samādhi 馬陰蔵三昧, see under Meditation Merging pneumas, Union of Qi (heqi 合炁/ 和氣) 87–89, 90, 92–97, 99, 108 Merging fluids 11, 157, 197n26, 431, 439, 440n52, 447, 462, 529, 535 See also Qi 氣 See also Red and white

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570 Messianism 99, 101–103, 105–107, 108 See also Apocalypse See also Eschatology Microcosm, see Macrocosm/microcosm Mikkyō 密教, see Buddhism Miko 巫女 (female mediums or shamans) 350, 368, 371–373 See also Shamanism Milk (maternal, breat) 16, 171–172, 315, 528 Breastfeeding (lactation) 22n61, 139n77, 148 Jade milk (yuru 玉乳) 172, 176 See also Breasts Ming 命 (Mandate of life; alt. destiny) 55–56, 64, 72, 80, 82, 90, 91, 117, 121, 157, 167, 172–173 See also Root of life (Jp. myōkon 命根) Miwa-ryū 三輪流 lineage 421, 423–424, 445–447, 462n104, 465–466, 469 See also Buddhist and Shinto lineages (kechimyaku 血脈) See also Goryū Shintō 御流神道 lineage Mohe zhiguan 摩訶止観 (Jp. Maka shikan, Stopping and Contemplating) 30, 274n48, 276, 281n67, 399n140, 432, 433n36 See also Zhiyi 智顗 Monastic robe (Sk. kaṣāya, Jp. kesa 袈裟) 12, 320, 511, 531–532, 545 Morality 60, 61, 63, 78, 79n86, 80–82, 88, 93–95, 99–104, 107, 270n39, 336, 337 Mother 6n8, 11n27, 13, 16, 19–22, 25, 28, 58–60, 64, 119, 121, 126, 138, 162–167, 180, 188, 199, 207–209, 210, 216, 220, 223–224, 227, 228, 240, 243, 245, 259–260, 264, 266, 299–301, 311–313, 319–321, 325, 328, 334n74, 336, 361, 406, 426, 435, 443, 444–445, 457, 460, 464–465, 507–508, 511, 513, 528–529, 532, 534, 539, 540 Buddha-Mother (butsumo 佛母, “mother of buddhas”) 425, 434–435, 444, 457– 460 Mother and father 11, 16, 59, 63, 64, 67, 121, 134, 157–158, 166–167, 180, 189, 194, 199, 259, 266, 274, 297–298, 318, 324, 361, 426, 429, 432–433, 445–455, 462–463, 467–468, 470, 499, 507, 509, 514, 524, 527, 532–538,

Index Mother of Awakening (kakumo 覚母) 425, 434, 435n41, 444, 457, 457, 459– 460 Motherhood 22, 168, 181, 215, 216, 229 Mother’s womb, see Womb Shengmu 聖母 (Sagely Mother) 228 Taiyi 太一 as Mother 119–122, 125–128, 134, 138, 334n74 See also Taiyi 太一 Wangmu niang 王母娘 (Queen Mother), Xi wangmu 西王母 (Queen Mother of the West) 216, 220, 222n23 Mudra (Aizen, Dainichi, Ḍākinī; meonzō samadhi; lotus mudra) 257, 272, 282–283, 287n77, 295–297, 314, 317, 328, 345–346, 359, 383n97, 395, 401, 403, 425n12, 427n16, 437, 448–449, 466, 486, 498, 511, 538–539 Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya 25n67, 264n24, 355 See also Sarvāstivāda school Myōken 妙見 328, 330, 334–336 Myth, mythology, mythological discourse 155, 179, 212–218, 221, 231, 234n52, 244, 298, 317–318, 331, 349, 353, 355–356, 382, 385, 385–386n102, 402n151, 443, 445, 451n74 Nainiang zhuan 奶娘傳 (Biography of the Mother) 213, 217, 218–222, 223, 225–227, 229– 230, 241 Neidan 內丹 (Internal Alchemy) 87, 92, 111–115, 123–125, 128–130, 134–138, 138–141, 147–153, 155, 156, 158, 159–169, 172, 176, 177, 179, 181, 186, 197n26, 203, 208–209 See also Nüdan 女丹 See also Waidan 外丹 Neo-Confucianism, see under Confucianism Nihon shoki 日本書紀 (The Annals of Japan) 314, 441n54, 443, 446, 450, 453 Ninnaji 仁和寺 temple 28n76, 29n77, 36n89, 254–255, 257–258, 272, 274, 283, 288, 292, 300, 426, 445, 455, 458 Newborn child, see Chizi 赤子 Nüdan 女丹 (Female Alchemy) 149, 153, 169–177, 181 See also Neidan 內丹 See also Waidan 外丹

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Index Nüqing guilü 女青鬼律 (Code of Nüqing for Controlling Demons) 94, 95n24, 99n35, 108 Nyūtai shussei kirigami 入胎出生切紙 (On Entering the Womb and Birth) 495–498, 502, 504, 515 Oi 笈 (box) 371–372, 373, 526–528, 534, 536, 541, 543–544, 548 Oitate 笈立 (altar stand) 526, 543 Onmyōdō 陰陽道 351, 373, 466 See also Yin-Yang Onna Chōhōki 女重宝記 (Treasure Records for Women) 29, 464n110, 466 Organs, bodily 7, 8, 10, 11, 13n33, 21, 29, 73, 115, 268, 273–274, 289, 312, 361, 382, 427–428, 433, 460, 472, 498, 511, 526, 531, 537 Reproductive organs 55, 281, 284, 289, 382, 462n101, 526 See also Five viscera See also Gosō jōjinkan 五相成身観 under Meditation See also Gozō mandara 五藏曼荼羅 See also Womb Ōsu Bunko 大須文庫 254, 275, 276n54, 278n60, 465n111 “Pagodic body” 483–485, 488–489, 502 See also Five-wheel stupa under Gorintō 五輪塔 Pāli canon 2, 11n27, 12–13, 19, 263, 265n26 Parturition hut (ubuya 産室; also birthing room) 541, 551 Peach Child or Peach Vigour, see Taohai 桃孩; Taokang 桃康 Placenta (ena 胞衣; Ch. bao 胞, Jp. hō; also tai 胎), also, “a spore” 20n53, 28, 154, 224, 311– 312, 314, 319, 319–323, 326, 326, 327, 328, 329–330, 332, 333–337, 508n78, 511, 526, 529–532, 534, 536–537, 554 See also Ena 胞衣 (placenta) See also Enagami 胞衣神 or Ena kōjin 胞衣荒神 (placenta deity) Pneuma, see Qi 氣 Pollution 58, 181, 216, 279, 346, 377, 443, 537, 541

571 Posterior Heaven, see Pre-celestial and post-celestial Pre-celestial/Anterior Heaven (xiantian 先天) and post-celestial/Posterior Heaven (houtian 後天) 71, 112n4, 129–130, 137fig.3.4, 138, 168, 173, 175 Prenatal infancy 54, 60–63, 66, 75–81 Pregnancy 6n8, 9–10, 12, 27–30, 40, 140, 147, 154, 212, 216, 270, 301, 312n5, 316, 456, 464, 466–467, 504, 532n30 Male pregnancy 40, 92–93, 147, 154–158, 159–169, 179 Symbolic pregnancy 40, 140, 147, 149, 154, 156, 158, 159–169, 169–177, 180–181 See also Gestation Primordial pneuma, see under Qi 氣 Procreation, procreative 3, 6, 7, 11, 41–42, 53–54, 69–70, 81–83, 93–96, 115–116, 120, 122, 147–148, 153, 156–158, 171, 179, 195, 200n30, 212, 243, 245n73, 375, 421, 437, 440, 444, 490n21, 506, 512, 515 See also Birth See also Conception See also Pregnancy Protective deities Shutakujin 守宅神 (god protecting the house) 324 Taoist protective deities 88, 96, 97, 214, 221 Tatemashigami 立増神 301n104, 323–325, 334 Puguang 普光 (ca. 645–664) 269, 497 Puranic sources 9–10, 12 Pure Land 318, 422n3, 432, 455, 444, 455, 458, 464, 501–502, 511 Putixin lun 菩提心論 (Jp. Bodaishinron, Treatise on the Mind of Realization) 278–279, 280 Qi 氣/炁 (Jp. ki 気; pneuma, or breath) 4, 7–8, 57n5, 61, 64, 65, 68, 70, 72–76, 79, 80, 90, 92, 97, 102, 103, 112, 115, 117–119, 121, 122n29, 131n55, 133, 134, 136, 138, 153–160, 162–165, 168, 171–178, 190–191, 194, 199, 215, 237, 318, 319, 324, 355, 392, 486, 514 Sanqi 三氣 (three qi; three pneumata, three pneuma) 63–64, 91, 117

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572 Qi 氣/炁 (Jp. ki 気; pneuma, or breath) (cont.) Yuanqi 元氣 (primordial pneuma) 72, 82, 117–118, 121, 138, 164 See also Animation See also Merging pneumas, Union of Qi See also Root of life (Sk. jīvitendriya, Jp. myōkon 命根) See also Vital energy Qian 乾 ☰ and Kun ☷ 坤, see Trigrams Queen Mother, Queen Mother of the West, see Wangmu niang 王母娘 under Mother Rangyō zu 卵形図 (Egg-Shaped Image) 501, 507 See also Zen kirigami Rebirth, see under Birth Recalling souls, Soul-returning (Ch. fan hun 反魂, Jp. hangon) 228–229, 231, 240, 370, 384n100, 405, 407 Red and white 11, 13, 259–260, 267n31, 273–274, 277–278, 281, 298, 313n6, 314– 316, 318, 334, 361, 393n119, 400, 429–431, 433, 463, 468, 496, 499, 513, 524, 529, 535–536, 538, 546 Two drops (red and white) 267n31, 370, 407, 410, 429–430, 463, 468, 495, 499, 509, 524 See also Merging pneumas See also Mother and Father See also Yellow and Red Red child, see Chizi 赤子 Registers, see Lu 籙 Release of the embryo, see Tuotai 脫胎 Rendōbō 蓮道房 (also, Hōkyō Rendōbō 宝筐 蓮道房, fl. 1210–1270?) 422–427, 432– 434, 437–440, 445, 458–459, 462–465 Reproductive organs, see under Organs Retribution 91, 94, 95, 360, 378, 448 See also Karma Return (fan 反, 返, or huan 還; alt. gui 歸, hui 回, fu 復) 73, 78, 79, 83, 119, 122, 124, 125, 137fig.3.3, 138, 141, 158, 166, 171–176, 178, 187, 197, 199–202, 205, 208, 209, 226, 227, 322, 454, 483, 512 See also Inversion

Index See also Reversal See also Reversion Reversal (diandao 顛倒) 124, 140, 226, 237 See also Inversion See also Return See also Reversion Reversion (huan 還, or fan 反, 返) 54, 78, 80, 114, 122, 123–128, 130, 132, 133, 135, 153, 179 See also Inversion See also Return See also Reversal Rishukyō 理趣經, see under Liqu jing 理趣經 Ritual master, see Fashi 法師 Rituals for safe pregnancy and childbirth 30, 457–458, 465 Root, the 4, 42, 118, 123, 165, 173, 176, 178, 196, n3213, 433, 439–440, 456, 457, 459, 494–495, 514 Root of life (Sk. jīvitendriya, Jp. myōkon 命 根) 359, 362, 382, 392, 442, 505, 506, 512 See also Animation See also Jing 精 See also Vital energy Sagely embryo (Ch. shengtai 聖胎, Jp. seitai), see under Tai 胎 Saitō goma 柴燈護摩 536–637, 548 Samadhi, see Meditation Saṃgharakṣa 14n35, 15, 24 See also Yogacārabhūmi śāstra Sanbōin-ryū 三寶院流 36n89, 256n7, 278n60, 294, 313n7, 367, 422n3, 424, 445, 461 See also Daigoji 醍醐寺 See also Buddhist and Shinto lineages Sangai isshin ki 三界一心記; or Sanken itchi sho 三賢一致書 (Three Worlds in a Single Heart; or Confluence of the Three Sage Teachings) 286n73, 302n104, 463–465, 510– 511, 515–516, 532n30 See also Tachikawa-ryū 立川流 Sanhuang 三皇 (Three Sovereigns) corpus 113, 114, 116, 125, 128, 131n54, 132– 134, 136, 140–141 Sanhuang 三黃, see Three Yellows

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Index Sanhuang wen 三皇文 (Writ of the Three Sovereigns) 116, 131, 136 Sansei Ruijūshō 産生類従抄 (Encyclopaedia of Childbirth, ca. 1318) 30 Sanskrit syllables, see under Seed syllable Sanqi 三氣 (three qi; three pneumata, three pneuma), see under Qi 氣/炁  Sanyi 三一 (Three Ones) 125, 127, 128, 132, 133n58 Sanyi jing 三一經 (Scripture on the Three Ones) 120–123, 125, 126, 130–132, 135–136 See also Huangren jing 皇人經 Sanzon gōgyō-hō 三尊合行法 (joint ritual of the Three Worthies) 315–316, 328 Sarvāstivāda school 14, 16n40, 17n43, 18n46, 25n67, 264n24, 355, 395n126 See also Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya Scripture of Divine Incantations, see Shenzhou jing 神咒經 Scripture of the August Person, see Huangren jing 皇人經 Scripture on the Three Ones, see Sanyi jing 三一經 Seal of the Unity of the Three, see Cantong qi 參同契 Seed-people, see Zhongmin 種民 Seed (Sk. bīja, Ch. zhongzi 種子, Jp. shuji; also Ch. jing 精) 15–17, 56, 60, 89–89, 122, 180, 193, 194, 196, 197, 213n3, 236, 259, 255, 267, 274n48, 278, 284, 316, 321, 361, 376, 382, 388, 310, 411, 436, 438n48, 441, 451, 495, 496, 497, 512–514, 516, 527, 528–529 See also Jing 精 See also Seed syllable See also Semen See also Zhongmin 種民 Seed syllable (Sk. bīja, Ch. zhongzi 種字 or 種子, Jp. shuji) 257–259, 260, 272, 275, 278, 280–282, 284, 287–291, 296, 298, 317–318, 396–397, 427, 428, 430, 435, 484–485, 489–490, 494, 496, 505, 514, 527, 528, 529, 531 Seed syllable A 257–259, 272, 278, 281, 282, 284, 287–291, 298, 396–397, 430, 435, 489–490, 494, 496, 505, 511, 514, 516, 528–529, 533

573 Seed syllable HŪṂ 295, 298, 317–318, 430, 511, 516 Seed syllable VAṂ 272, 298, 317–318, 430, 527 Semen 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 56–57, 71, 93, 118, 157, 158, 162, 170, 173, 201, 259, 264–266, 314, 316, 318, 334, 361, 382, 444, 529, 535, 537 Sperm 11, 168, 179 See also Jing 精 See also Seed Sendatsu 先達 (mountain guide) 525, 531, 534–536, 538, 540, 547 See also Daisendatsu 大先達 See also Shugenja 修験者 See also Yamabushi 山伏 Sex, sexual intercourse 16, 17, 40–41, 69, 87–88, 95, 96, 127, 129, 200n30, 204, 214n5, 228, 237, 243, 245, 254–256, 266, 279, 280–293, 295–297, 298, 299–303, 312, 313, 316, 331, 334, 357, 368, 369, 372, 375, 377, 384, 386–388, 407, 410, 420, 435, 437–446, 450, 451, 465, 479, 482, 497, 502, 514, 522–523, 527, 535–537, 542 Sexuality 153, 155, 177, 179, 180 Sexual rites, Taoist 88, 89–93, 93–96, 96–99, 101, 107, 113, 141 See also Conception See also Fangzhong shu 房中術 See also Merging of pneumas See also Red and White See also Reproduction See also Yellow and Red Shamanism, shamanic, wu 巫 212–218, 218–219, 222, 223, 226, 229, 231–234, 239– 241, 245n73, 350, 368, 371, 385–386, 466n113 Medium, mediumistic 214, 229–230, 238–239, 325, 368, 372, 387, 466n113 Shamanic/ecstatic journey or voyage 177, 212, 213, 216, 231, 239–240 Wudao 巫道 (shamanism) 219 See also Exorcism See also Miko 巫女 Shangqing 上清 (Highest Clarity) 88, 92, 98, 101, 103, 113–114, 129–130, 133–135, 141, 150

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574 Shangqing housheng daojun lieji 上清後生道 君列紀 (Chronicle of the Lord of the Dao, Sage of the Latter Age) 101–104, 105–107 Shangqing huangshu guodu yi上清黃書過度 儀 (Ritual of Passage of the Yellow Book of the Highest Clarity), see Huangshu 黃書 Shen 神 (spirit, divinity) 6–9, 76, 78, 90–91, 94, 111, 114, 115, 116, 121, 122n29, 136, 138, 156–157, 160, 161fig.4.1, 163–165, 191, 196, 197, 221, 316, 319, 323, 330, 355, 361, 397, 462 Sishen 四神 (four spirits [cinnabar, lead, mercury, saltpeter]) 348 Wushen 五神 (five spirits [of the five viscera)] 90, 276, 289, 335 See also Chushen 出神 (egress of the spirit) See also Kami 神 (Japanese deities) Shengtai 聖胎, see Sagely embryo under Tai 胎 See also Embryo See also Tai 胎 Shenzhou jing 神咒經 (Scripture of Divine Incantations) 96–98, 103–108 Shikiban 式盤 (cosmograph, divination table) 126, 381, 383 Shinjō 心定 (b. 1215) 363, 365–369, 375, 379–384, 387, 409, 412 Shinto, medieval 297–299, 301n104, 420–422, 445–455 See also Kami initiations (jingi kanjō 神祇 灌頂) Shōten 聖天 (Sk. Vināyaka) 328, 331–333 Shouyi 守一 (Guarding the One) 76, 127–128, 132–133 See also Huangren jing 皇人經 See also Shouyi jing 三一經 Shugen sanjūsan tsūki 修験三十三通記 (An Account of Shugendo in Thirty-Three Sections) 527–528, 531, 539 Shugendō 修験道 312–314, 318–323, 326, 328, 336–337, 462–463, 552–558 See also Haguro 羽黒 Shugenja 修験者 525, 526–527, 531, 536, 539–542, 544 See also Sendatsu 先達 See also Yamabushi 山伏

Index Shūkaishū 拾塊集 (Collection of Gathering the Pieces) 524, 535, 537–539 Shūkaku 守覺 (1150–1202) 352–353, 445 Shusanshō 手山鈔 (Brief Notes on the Mountain) 524, 534, 540–541 Shutakujin 守宅神 (god protecting the house), see under Protective deities Siddhi 29n79, 273n46, 345, 369, 370, 403, 406, 408, 454 Sin 95, 100, 103–104, 359, 401, 450 See also Evil Snake, deity or demon 217, 220, 228, 234, 240, 244, 326, 328, 329 Sokushin jōbutsu 即身成仏 (enlightenment with this very body) 254, 274, 278, 403–404, 420, 428, 444, 465, 543 See also Buddhahood See also Enlightenment Sōtō Zen 曹洞禅, see Buddhism Soul-returning, see Recalling souls Sterility, sterile 57, 94, 212, 234n52 Storehouse-consciousness, see Ālāyavijñāna under Consciousness Śubkhakarasiṃha (Ch. Shanwuwei 善無畏, Jp. Zenmui, 637–735) 29, 264n24, 280n64, 344, 428n22 Suśruta Saṃhitā (Compendium of Sushruta) 10, 11, 266 Sutra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Profound Kindness of Parents Spoken by the Buddha, see Foshuo fumu enzhong nanbao jing 佛說父母恩重 難報經 Suwa shrine 諏訪神社 321, 325–326, 329 Sweet drops (shichi tenteki 七甜滴) 353–355, 401 Symbolic efficacy 212, 218, 239–243 Tachikawa lineage, or Tachikawa-ryū 立川流 253, 262, 284, 289, 300, 313, 316, 362, 366–369, 463–464, 481–482, 494, 515, 523, 540 Tachikawa skull ritual 38, 362–370, 404–412 Tai 胎 (embryo) 1–4, 4–8, 9–19, 20–26, 28, 30, 40, 41, 62–63, 76, 80, 82, 83, 90, 92, 93, 111, 114, 121–122, 124, 133–134, 138, 148, 149, 159–161, 162–165, 168–169, 175,

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Index 176, 199n29, 202–203, 209, 212–213, 215–216, 222–223, 226, 228n41, 234, 236–238, 243–244, 254–255, 263–266, 276n55, 277n57, 282, 299, 311–312, 315, 322, 334, 420, 429–431, 433, 435, 436, 444, 447, 448–452, 470, 479–481, 495–496, 498, 503–504, 505, 508–511, 515, 528, 530–531, 537, 539 Embryo of immortality, inner embryo, divine or symbolic embryo 64, 83, 87, 89–92, 95, 99, 107, 112–113, 117–118, 120, 125, 130–132, 138–141, 148–153, 153– 159, 159–169, 169–177, 177–179, 180–181, 197n26, 199n29, 202–203, 207n53, 208–210, 243, 452, 454, 495–496, 498, 510–511 See also Embryological charts See also Garbha (gabbha) See also Homunculus See also Jiejie 結節 See also Placenta See also Taixi 胎息 See also Tuotai 脫胎 See also Womb Sagely embryo (Ch. shengtai 聖胎, Jp. seitai) 111, 112n4, 148–153, 153–159, 165, 167–168, 175, 176, 180–181, 243–244, 426 Taichan shu 胎產書 (Book on the Embryo and Childbirth) 5, 6n10, 23 Taihe 太和 (Great Harmony) 64, 157–158 Tainai goi 胎内五位 (Five Stages of the Embryo in the Womb), see Five stages of gestation under Gestation Tainai kuguri 胎内くぐり (passing through the womb of the mountain) 542, 553 Tainai sagashi no kirigami 胎内サガシノ 切紙 (Inquiring into the Womb) 593 See also Kirigami See also Zen kirigami Taiping 太平 (Great Peace) 53–54, 58n17, 62–64, 67–68, 74–­75, 78, 81–83, 100–101 Taiping jing 太平經 (Great Peace Scripture) 53, 55–60, 61, 62, 63n34, 64–68, 71, 73– 74, 75–81, 81–83, 135, 150 Taiping jing chao 太平經鈔 (Great peace Scripture Digest) 53n1, 62–67, 75, 78, 79, 81

575 Taiping guangji 太平廣記 (Extensive Records of the Taiping Era) 380–381 Taiyi 太一 (Great Unity, the Great One) 114, 118–123, 125–128, 131–136, 138, 141, 150, 237, 334n74 Taiyi as inner god 118–123, 125, 127, 131–136, 138, 150, 334n74 See also Taiyi as mother, under Mother See also Unity “Taiyi sheng shui” 太一生水 (“Taiyi Begets Water”) 8n18, 126–127 Taiyang 太陽 (Great Yang), see under Yin and Yang Taiyin 太陰 (Great Yin), see under Yin and Yang Taixi 胎息 (embryonic breathing, inner breathing) 80–81, 153, 163–165, 168–169, 175–176, 243 Talisman, see fu 符 Tanba no Yasuyori 丹波康頼 (912–995) 6n9, 27 See also Ishinpō 醫心方 (The Essentials of Medicine) Tantric Buddhism, see Esoteric Buddhism under Buddhism Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456–536) 88, 133, 347n7 Taohai 桃孩 or Taokang 桃康 (Peach Child; Peach Vigour) 90–93 Taoist Canon (Daozang 道藏) 2n3, 26, 53, 87, 89, 97, 131n52, 219 Tatemashigami 立増神 323–325, 334 See also Protective deities Tathāgatagarbha 151–152, 162, 168, 277n58, 282, 425n12, 459n94, 529 See also Buddha nature Tiantai 天台, see Tendai 天台 under Buddhism Ten kindnesses (shi’en 十恩) 22, 453 Ten months of gestation, see under Gestation Tendai 天台, see under Buddhism Thirteen Buddhas, see under Buddhas Thirty-eight weeks of gestation, see under Gestation Three Ones, see Sanyi 三一 Three Sovereigns, see Sanhuang 三皇 Three Yellows (Ch. sanhuang 三黄) 347–348

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576 Tianshidao 天師道 (Celestial Masters) 66, 87, 89, 90n8, 92, 93–95, 96–101, 107, 108, 135n67, 150, 223 Tibetan Buddhism, see under Buddhism Time 53–54, 67–69, 73, 75–76, 80, 83, 124, 154, 189–190, 191n8, 192–195, 197, 198n28, 208, 212, 224–225, 237, 510n82 See also Cycles Tokin 頭巾 (mountain ascetic’s attire) 530–531, 545 Triadic logic 57–59, 62–63, 81–82, 316n19, 328–329, 335 Trigrams 70–73, 82, 129, 187n2, 188, 189, 191n9, 193, 195, 197, 198, 223, 240, 286n73, 483, 484, 490–493, 510 Kan 坎 ☵ and Li 離 ☲, 70–71, 138, 188–190, 190–193, 195–197, 199, 204, 205 Qian 乾 ☰ and Kun ☷ 坤 70–71, 138, 156, 166–167, 187n2, 188–190, 190–193, 193–197, 199, 200, 202, 204–206, 208, 209 See also Bagua 八卦 See also Hexagrams Tuotai 脫胎 (release of the embryo, liberation from the womb) 148, 160, 179, 215, 222, 223, 226, 234, 237, 243, 244 Ubugami 産神, see Childbirth deities, under Childbirth Ubuya 産室, see under Parturition hut Ugajin 宇賀神 326, 328, 329–331 See also Kami 神 Ujigami 氏神 (clan deities) 324 See also Kami 神 Unborn; also unproduced, or sterile (Ch. bu sheng 不生, Jp. fushō) 3, 18, 57, 152, 282, 284, 425, 438, 489 See also Sterility Union of Qi, see Merging Pneumas Unity (Yi 一) 67, 82, 123–128, 141, 160, 162, 186, 191, 193–194, 195, 197–202, 204, 205, 210, 492, 507n75 See also Shouyi 守一 See also Taiyi Untying embryonic knots, see Jiejie 結節 Vacuity, or void (Ch. xu 虛, Jp. kyo) 42, 126n39, 116, 136, 137fig.3.3, 462n102

Index See also Emptiness Vajrabodhi (Ch. Jingangji 金剛智, Jp. Kongōchi, 671–741) 29, 35n86, 293n82, 396n132 Vajraśekhara sūtra, see Kongōchōkyō 金剛 頂經 VAṂ, see under Seed syllable Vasubandhu 14n34, 15n39, 16n40, 17–18, 30, 265, 268n34, 431n31, 436, 444, 484n13, 497 See also Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya Vijñāna, see Consciousness Visuddhimagga (The Path to Purification) 12–13, 23 See also Buddhaghosa 12–13, 14n34, 23 Visualisation, see under Meditation Vital energy 353–355, 392 See also Animation See also Jing 精 See also Qi 氣 See also Seed See also Shen 神 See also Root of life (Sk. jīvitendriya, Jp. myōkon 命根) Void, see Vacuity Waidan 外丹 (External Alchemy) 113–114, 128, 130, 140–141, 186, 207n53, 347 See also Neidan 內丹 See also Nüdan 女丹 Wangmu niang 王母娘 (Queen Mother), see under Mother Weft texts, see Weishu Weishu 緯書 (Weft texts) 54, 69–71, 115, 126n37 Wish-fulfilling jewel (nyoi hōju 如意寳珠) 289, 298, 314, 328, 329, 352–353, 359 Womb (Ch. bao, Jp. hō 胞, also tai 胎) 4, 9–16, 20–21, 28, 60–63, 65, 75–76, 79n86, 80–82, 91, 117, 121–122, 127, 138–139, 148, 162–166, 171, 180, 193, 197, 203, 209, 213, 215, 216, 222, 223, 228, 231, 234, 237–239, 240, 244, 255, 260, 266, 268, 277n58, 278, 279, 299, 301n104, 311–319, 319–325, 328, 330, 332, 334–336, 361, 371, 410, 420, 425–429, 435, 441, 442, 444, 447, 449, 451, 458–460, 463–467, 470, 480, 483,

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Index 490n21, 494–495, 496, 499, 502, 505–512, 515, 522, 527–532, 534–542 See also Bagua antai lingfu 八卦安胎靈符 See also Gestation See also Lotus imagery See also under Womb Realm under Mandala See also under Meditation See also Placenta See also Tuotai 脫胎 (also liberation/ release from the womb) 179 Womb Realm mandala, see under Mandala Women’s bodies 13, 27–28, 30, 40–42, 81n94, 147–149, 153–154, 158, 160, 169–177, 174, 176, 179, 180–181, 212, 216, 219, 231, 234–235, 243–245, 299, 319, 420–421, 433, 443, 451, 455–469, 508 Women’s hand case (josei tebako 女性手箱) 466–468 Writ of the Three Sovereigns, see Sanhuang wen 三皇文 Wu Chongxu 伍冲虛 (1552–1640) 149, 165, 168 Wudao 巫道, see under Shamanism Wuxing 五行, see Five Agents Wuzhenpian 悟真篇 (Awakening to Reality) 111–112, 149, 156, 158–159, 176–177, 348 Xiang’er Commentary, see Xiang’er zhu 想爾注 Xiang’er zhu 想爾注 (Xiang'er Commentary) 93–94, 135 Xiantian 先天, see Pre-celestial and post-celestial Xin 心, see Heart Xuanzang 玄奘 (ca. 602–664) 16, 18n46, 155, 265n27, 268n34, 269n36, 436, 497n41 Yakṣas (also yakṣiṇīs) 345, 376 Yamabushi 山伏 368, 387, 544, 547 See also Haguro 羽黒 See also Sendatsu 先達 See also Shugendō 修験道 See also Shugenja 修験者 Yang Spirit (yangshen 陽神) see under Yin and Yang Yellow Book, see Huangshu 黃書

577 Yellow Book of the Dongzhen [Canon] see Dongzhen huangshu 洞真黃書 Yellow and Red (huangchi 黃赤) 87–89, 94, 97–98 See also Merging pneumas See also Red and white Yi 一, see Unity Ying’er 嬰兒 (the Infant) 64–65, 75, 77, 112, 117–118, 120n22, 121–123, 125, 132, 134, 138, 141, 150, 166fig.4.2, 176–178 Peach Child, Ruddy Infant, see Taohai 桃孩 See also Chizi 赤子 See also Homunculus See also Tai 胎 See also Elixir See also Zidan 子丹 Yijing 義淨 (635–713) 25n67, 26, 264n24, Yijing 易經 (Book of Changes; alt. Zhouyi 周易) 69, 71n60, 72n63, 187–188, 189n4, 191n10, 192, 193n17 197n26, 198fig.5.2, 199, 286n73, 480, 485, 491–492, 507n75, 509–510 Yin and Yang 7, 55–58, 64–67, 70, 72–74, 76, 78–81, 81–83, 87, 93–94, 118, 126n39, 134, 138–139, 148, 155–157, 164, 167, 168, 170, 172, 173–175, 177, 187, 189, 191, 193–196, 198–199, 203, 205–207, 210, 214n5, 227, 236, 237, 243, 254, 270n39, 285n73, 312, 316, 324, 375, 385, 410, 442, 446–449, 466, 486, 490–491, 507, 509, 510, 514 Great Yang (taiyang 太陽) 55, 64, 174, 206, 207n51 Great Yin (taiyin 太陰) 55, 72, 174 Pure Yin (chunyin 純陰) and Pure Yang (chunyang 純陽) 155–157, 175, 180, 193– 194, 197, 210, 486 True Yin (zhenyin 真陰) and True Yang (zhenyang 真陽) 112, 134, 138, 173, 187, 189, 193, 199n29, 205–207 Yang Spirit (yangshen 陽神) 165, 177–178, 209 Yin 58, 61, 63, 69, 82, 175–176 See also Onmyōdō 陰陽道 Yixing 一行 (683–727) 280n64, 344–346, 349­–350, 382, 399n140, 431n31, 484n13, 489n20 See also Darijing shu 大日經疏

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578 Yoga consecration (yugi kanjō 瑜祇灌頂) 295 See also Abhiṣeka See also Kami initiations Yoga sutra (Ch. Yuqi jing 瑜祇經, Jp. Yugikyō) 267n31, 293, 296–298, 314–315, 356, 378, 423, 436, 438–439, 457, 461, 497 Yoga sutra/Yugikyō commentaries 293–297, 315, 429–434, 437–439 See also Yoga consecration Yogācāra 14–18, 24, 30, 278n61, 458, 529 See also Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya See also Faxiang 法相, Jp. Hossō under Buddhism Yogacārabhūmi śāstra (Treatise on the Stages of Yoga) 15, 16n40, 18, 24, 30 See also Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya See also Saṃgharakṣa Yōsai 栄西 (1141–1215) 275, 295, 300 Yuanqi 元氣, see under Qi 氣 Yugikyō 瑜祇経, see Yoga sutra Zidan 子丹 (Cinnabar Child) 90, 117, 119, 120n22, 124, 191 See also Chizi 赤子 See also Inner gods See also Ying’er 嬰兒 Zen 禪 Buddhism, see under Buddhism Zen kirigami, see kirigami Zen’ai 染愛 295, 298, 313, 402n101, 429n25 See also Aizen Myōō 愛染明王

Index See also Buddhas Zenmon tainai no goi 禅門胎内之五位 (Five Stages [of the Embryo] in the Womb in Zen), see Five stages of gestation under Gestation Zeus 179 Zhan chilong 斬赤龍 (beheading the red dragon) 170–173, 181 Zhanran 湛然 (711–782) 269 Zhang Boduan 張伯端 (984–1082) 149–151, 156–162, 177, 348n9 See also Wuzhenpian 悟真篇 Zhang Daoling 張道陵 (2nd cent.) 88–89 Zhang Lu 張魯 (3rd cent.) 99 Zhao Bichen 趙避塵 (1860–1936) 149, 153n19, 168–169 Zheng Kangcheng 鄭康成, alias Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127–200) 69–70 Zhen’gao 真誥 (Declarations of the Perfected) 88–89 Zhiyi 智顗 (538–597) 30, 269, 274, 276n56, 281n67 Zhonghe 中和 (Central Harmony) 57–58, 62–64, 82 Zhongmin 種民 (seed-people) , zhongzi 種子 (seed-person) 88, 89, 92, 94, 99–103, 105, 106, 107–108, 135n67 Zhongyou 中有 (Jp. chūū) 18, 266, 361, 430 See also Antarābhava Zhouyi Cantong qi 周易參同契, see Cantong qi

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