Buddhist Rainmaking in Early Japan: The Dragon King and the Ritual Careers of Esoteric Monks

Buddhist Rainmaking in Early Japan: The Dragon King and the Ritual Careers of EsotericMonksAuthor(s): Brian O. RuppertReviewed work(s):Source: History of Religions, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Nov., 2002), pp. 143-174Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3176409 .Accessed: 07/06/2012 06:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Historyof Religions.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3176409?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

Brian 0. Ruppert BUDDHIST RAINMAKING IN EARLY JAPAN: THE DRAGON KING AND THE RITUAL CAREERS OF ESOTERIC MONKS

Originally, when the Thus-Come One [Buddha] came to Wu-ch'ang to proselytize, the dragon king [there] was angry and made a great wind and rain.... The dragon king resided in a pond to the west of the [body of] water [there]. At the edge of the pond was a temple with more than fifty monks. Every time the dragon king made wonders, the king [of the country] offered prayers with gold, jade and other treasures, throwing them into the pond; and when washed ashore, the monks took them. The temple relied on the dragon for [the necessities of life such as] food and clothing. People of the day called it Dragon King Temple. (YANG HSUAN- CHIH, Lo-yang ch'ieh-lan-chi [mid-sixth century])1

The universal human concern with rain and its dispensation has, we

might say, been intimately connected with the construction of not only a

variety of metaphors of origin and renewal but also the creation of mul- tifarious religious rituals undertaken for purposes of rainmaking. The sources of rain were conceived in various ways, most commonly as one form or another of deity, especially associated with the heavens or with creation in general. And, as Ann Dunnigan noted, rainmakers were most

1 Takakusu Junjir6 and Watanabe Kaigyoku, eds., Taisho shinshu daizokyo (Tokyo: Taish6 issaikyo kankokai, 1924-32) (hereafter referred to as T), vol. 51, no. 2092: 1020a. For another translation, see Yi-t'ung Wang, trans., A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 230-31.

? 2002 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0018-2710/2003/4202-0003$ 10.00

Buddhist Rainmaking in Early Japan

commonly shamans, often simultaneously chiefs or rulers who "were the most important members of the community and exerted enormous authority over the group."2

A variety of means were used to petition deities for rain. In East Asia, the ritual methods ran the gamut from benign prayers to coercive tactics. In his exploration of the Chinese case, Alvin P. Cohen gave attention to sundry means such as appeals through "sympathetic magic" undertaken toward dragon images, rain dances by shamans, the ritual exposure of shamans' bodies or even their self-sacrifice, not to mention coercive methods sometimes used in which the deity was demoted in rank or otherwise threatened with violence or destruction.3

Among these objects of rain petition in East Asia, dragons have long been associated with royal power as well as with the ability to control the elements. In this context, scholars have been interested in the legends and ritual practices related to dragons, especially the petitions to dragons for rain.4 However, their interest in such prayers has usually been limited-that of Cohen constituting a typical case-to Chinese examples. Moreover, these studies have virtually ignored Buddhist rainmaking practices, which is all the more striking given their pronounced character in East Asian religious and political history.5

Literary accounts depicting the powers of dragon-like creatures can be traced to the Indian subcontinent, where Buddhist scriptures depicted serpent-deities (nagas) that guarded the Buddha and Buddhist treasures such as relics (sarira) and sutras.6 They also, on occasion, depicted ser-

2 Encyclopedia of Religion, s.v. "rain." 3 Alvin P. Cohen, "Coercing the Rain Deities in Ancient China," History of Religions

17, nos. 3-4 (1978): 244-65. 4 Studies of note include M. W. de Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan (Amsterdam:

Johannes Miller, 1913); Robert des Rotours, "Le culte des cinq dragons sous la dynastie des T'ang (618-907)," in Melanges de sinologie offerts a monsieur Paul Demieville (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966), pp. 261-85; and Michael Loewe, "The Cult of the Dragon and the Invocation for Rain," in Chinese Ideas about Nature and Society: Studies in Honour ofDerk Bodde, ed. Charles Le Blanc and Susan Blader (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1987), pp. 195-213. For recent Japanese overviews concerning the Chi- nese dragon, largely from the perspective of the history of art, see Hayashi Minao, Ryi no hanashi-zuzo kara toku nazo (Tokyo: Chuko shinsho, 1993); and Ikegami Sh6ji, Ryu no hyakka (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2000).

5 The only study that includes the Japanese case and concerns Buddhism at any length is the general survey by M. W. de Visser, which dates to the early twentieth century, pp. 21-25, 113-21, and 152-78. Geoffrey Bornas's Japanese Rainmaking and Other Folk Practices (London, 1963) provides a general overview of rainmaking and a variety of other rites in Japan. Chou Yi-Liang offered an excellent early study of Chinese esoteric Bud- dhism in "Tantrism in China," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 3-4 (1945): 241-332, including brief accounts of Buddhist rainmaking and passages in Shan-wu-wei's, Vajrabo- dhi's, and Amoghavajra's biographies concerning Chinese Tantric Buddhist rain rites.

6 The best-known narrative concerning a naga in early Buddhism was that of the niga king Mucalinda, who protected the Buddha from wind and rain for seven days under the Bo- dhi tree. Nagas constituted the second of the eight classes of deities and demideities who

144

History of Religions

pent-deities who were antagonistic in character, such as the ndga king that tried to burn the Buddha, who responded by creating a superior fire

by means of samddhi, subduing the deity and placing him in his begging bowl.7

Important for us, however, is the fact that the serpent-deities of Bud- dhism could also control the elements. The position of such deities as the objects of rain prayers was especially pronounced in Mahayana, particularly esoteric Buddhist, traditions. In East Asia, they took on the guise of dragons (Ch. lung; J. ryu) whose powers could be appropriated to make rain.

This study, through focusing on the development of Buddhist rainmak-

ing rites in the Heian era (794-1185), analyzes the efforts of esoteric Buddhist monks to improve their relations with the sovereign and aristocrats of the Japanese court through performing rain prayers and producing literatures attesting to their abilities. As will be shown, these clerics did so through promoting aristocrats' belief in the existence and powers of Buddhist dragon kings, which were especially associated with grot- toes and ponds. Drawing upon native belief in the powers of dragons as well as the precedent set by the Buddhist dragon of Mount Muro, they attempted to convince aristocrats of the special relationship of clerics with these dragon kings and consequent ritual ability to influence the production of rain.

High-ranking monks of the Shingon school of esoteric Buddhism were particularly successful in their efforts to convince others of their powers. Their success, as we will see, was won through a threefold strategy that crystallized between the late ninth and tenth centuries. First, the clerics produced a narrative tradition that appealed to the ritual prestige of Kukai (774-835)-particularly the story that he had performed a rain rite on behalf of the sovereign-to claim that Shingon monks had unique abilities in rain prayer. They promoted a reputed Last Testament (Go-yuigo) as well as a series of biographies of Kuikai between the late ninth and early twelfth centuries that portrayed the master as a great rainmaker.

At the same time, these narrative constructions also helped the monks to reinterpret the topos of the capital, Heian-ky6 (Kyoto). In particular, the stories depicted the dragon king Zennyo as residing in the royal pleasure garden Shinzen'en (or Shinsen'en), providing narrative evidence of

protect Buddhism, and the Lotus Sutra depicts eight ndga kings who protect the faith (T 9, no. 262: 2a). In Buddhism, it was understood that the ndgas enjoy wealth, and once converted to Buddhism they protected the treasures of the tradition. For a discussion of their position in Buddhist popular religiosity, see Lowell W. Bloss, "The Buddha and the Naga: A Study in Buddhist Folk Religiosity," History of Religions 13 (1973): 37-53.

7 For a useful analysis of representations of ndgas in early Buddhist canonical literature, see Kumoi Akiyoshi, "Naga ko," Mikkyo bunka 160 (1987): 13-34.

145


his location and support for the claim that the rain prayers of Shingon monks compelled him to provide rain in time of drought. In doing so, the Shingon monks-especially those living in or near the capital-succeeded in grafting the Buddhist cosmos onto the capital, insofar as they represented Zennyo Ryiu as the naga king of continental Buddhist literature who inhabited Anavatapta (J. Anokudatchi) pond in the northern Himalayas-the water source for the four main rivers of Jambudvipa.8

Finally, the Shingon monks produced a regime of rainmaking ritual through using the esoteric Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer (Shougyo [no] ho) and other esoteric rituals (shuho) on behalf of the government and powerful aristocrats. Their possession of rainmaking suitras, and their presumed knowledge of the rituals described therein, gave them access to the powers of the dragon king of Shinzen'en that was available to no other group of clerics.

The late Kuroda Toshio once noted that the medieval discourse pro- claiming the mutual dependence of the royal law (obo) and Buddhist law (buppo) was primarily a "catch-phrase" behind which "lay the actual system and thought that allowed it to have currency."9 This study is thus offered as part of an effort to give flesh to our understanding of the connection between Buddhism and power in the early medieval era. We will see that the relocation of the dragon king of Anavatapta to the royal pleasure garden, the tracing of Shingon rainmaking to the ritual ancestor Kuikai, and the production of a ritual regime together helped the Shin-

gon rainmakers, who typically acquired higher status after rain prayers through appointment to the abbacy of the temple Toji in the capital, establish their lineage in a unique relationship vis-a-vis the family of the sovereign (tenno) and the powerful aristocrats there.

Indeed, the lineage of rainmaking ascribed to the monks of Shingon represented them as having knowledge of and ritual access to the powers of the dragon king, and inscribed individual monks as the ritual descendants of Kikai. I engage in a brief analysis of the connection between their relationship with the dragon king and the establishment of the careers of Shingon monks as ritual specialists. I show that the monks' ritual accomplishments vis-a-vis the dragon king came to be recognized through their reception of higher status within the clerical system sanc- tioned by the government-availing them of a new measure of power that, to use the terminology of Pierre Bourdieu, might be described as

8 The most important early source concerning the nagas of Anavatapta pond in Chinese Buddhist canonical literature is Buddhayasas's translation (early fifth century) of Dirghd- gama, Ch'ang-a-han ching (T 1, vol. 1, no. 1), pp. 116c-17a.

9 Jacqueline I. Stone, trans., "The Royal Law and the Buddhist Law," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, nos. 3-4 (1996): 279.

146


"symbolic capital."10 I evaluate the relevance of the analysis to the study of relations between religious institutions and other sectors of Japanese society by comparing our results with the insights of Kuroda, whose views constitute the prevailing theory of power concerning medieval

Japan. Finally, I discuss the similarities and differences between the Jap- anese Shingon rainmaking cult and Buddhist rainmaking in other parts of Asia as well as the importance of the developing rainmaking tradition to the Shingon community itself.

EAST ASIAN LITERATURES: POWERS OF DRAGONS AND METHODS

OF BUDDHIST MONKS

A general process of invitation, offering, and establishment of a relationship of indebtedness with deities occurred in most Buddhist rainmaking rites described in East Asian literatures. There were, however, aspects of ritual practice that were peculiar to the veneration of dragons (nagas), in part because they were generally viewed with ambivalence. On the one hand, while Buddhist literatures usually portrayed nagas as protective of the faith, such works sometimes represented the creatures as antagonists to be subdued.11 They were, in other words, in no sense revered in the manner of Buddhas or bodhisattvas, instead ideally acting to protect Buddhism and provide material benefits to believers. On the other hand, they were most often depicted as dragon king deities. As kings, dragons ideally offered a bond of patronage of the sort granted by human sovereigns and were from ancient times "the traditional symbol of Chinese emperors."12 Thus guarding treasures and capable of conferring boons, they were the objects of a variety of offerings.

As deities, dragons possessed powers of a sort that sovereigns such as the Chinese or Japanese ruler often lacked-capacities not only to confer wealth but also to increase or decrease rainfall and harvests. It is well

10 For Bourdieu's classic discussion of the concept of symbolic capital, see his Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 171-83. For a more recent discussion, see his Practical Reason (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 102-4.

11 For several renderings of the story of the Buddha subduing the evil dragon by means of samadhi, as mentioned above, see Tseng-i a-han ching (T 2, no. 125), pp. 619c-20a; T'ai-tzu jui-ying pen-chi ching (T 3, no. 185), pp. 480c-81a; Fang-kuang ta-chuang-yen ching (T 3, no. 187), p. 611b-c; Kuo-chii hsien-tsai yin-kyo ching (T 3, no. 189), p. 646a-b; and Fo-pen hsing-chi ching (T 3, no. 190), pp. 841b-42b. As was noted, Alvin P. Cohen has shown that not only the dragon, but also a variety of rain deities were the objects of ritual coercion (see esp. pp. 251-54).

12 Howard J. Wechsler, Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitima- tion of the T'ang Dynasty (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 62. In contemporary Japan, the association of the dragon king with royal power is suggested by the name of one of the most illustrious of tournaments in Japanese chess (shogi), the Dragon King Battle (Ryuo Sen).

147


known, of course, that the virtue of the Chinese son of heaven or the Jap- anese tenno was ideally sufficient to ensure plenitude. In the Chinese case, the belief that the virtue (te) of the sovereign-expressed in his enactment of ritual (li)-directly affects the cosmos was related to the rising belief in portents and the five elements in the late Chou and Han periods.13 (The Japanese case, which is well represented by a passage in the chronicle Nihon shoki concerning the female ruler Kogyoku, will be discussed in detail in the section on early historical Japan.) However, as will be shown, ongoing droughts and their periodic recurrence brought situations in which sovereigns themselves often searched for alternative ritual specialists and powers by which to enrich the realm.

With the exception of a series of Dragon King Sutras and a couple of sutras of the Perfection of Wisdom traditions, all the canonical sources on rain prayer are products of esoteric Buddhism and were thus also translated between the sixth and eighth centuries-long after a number of texts native to Chinese Buddhist tradition had depicted Buddhist rainmaking.14 Given such was the case, as well as for purposes of space, I look instead at Chinese pilgrimage accounts to gain insight as to how people in East Asia first interpreted the Buddhist rituals of rainmaking and then turn briefly to the records of the tantric masters who had the most immediate influence on the rain rituals of esoteric Buddhists in Japan. The account by the monk Fa-hsien, who traveled to India and Sri Lanka from the late fourth to early fifth centuries, provides one of the earliest descriptions of rainmaking rites and other rites performed by South Asian Buddhists on behalf of dragons (nagas). Fa-hsien describes, in reference to the Buddhist community in the Indian kingdom of Sankasya, the veneration by Buddhists of a dragon in the area of a Bud- dha hall (vihara) constructed by King Asoka to mark where the Buddha descended from heaven following preaching for his mother: "There is a white-eared dragon living there, who acts as the benefactor to the assembly of monks. It makes bountiful harvest and plentiful rain according to the season so there are no calamities, and the assembly of monks acquire peace and feel blessed.... The country is producing and its people are

13 Ibid., pp. 25-26. 14 In particular, it was in the context of a number of "ritual" sutras and "nation-pro-

tecting" sutras that rainmaking rites would be produced. These can be grouped into four sets of sources. First are the three Dragon King Sutras (Ch. Lung-wang ching; T 15, nos. 597-99), of which the Sea Dragon King Sitra (Ch. Hai-lung-wang ching; J. Kairyuokyo, no. 598), translated by Dharmaraksa, was probably the basis for the earliest Buddhist rainmaking rites in China. Second are the seven Peacock (King) Sutras (Ch. Kung-chiao ching; J. Kujakukyo; T 19, nos. 982-88), only one of which, translated by Kumarajiva (Kung- chiao wang-chou ching, T 988, pp. 481-84), dates to a relatively early period of Chinese Buddhist history. Third are the five Great Cloud Wheel Rain Prayer Sutras (Ch. Ta-yiin-lun ch'ing-yii ching; J. Daiunrinshougyo; T 19, nos. 989-93), all of which were translated between the sixth and eighth centuries.

148


prospering-and so they are incomparably happy."15 The dragon here is not only represented as having a capacity to act as patron of the commu-

nity but a responsibility for the wealth of the country, fulfilling a role similar to that of a very wealthy merchant or king. At the same time, Fa-hsien treats the dragon with some ambivalence insofar as its role is primarily as provider for the community rather than the object of great esteem; the importance of the dragon lies precisely in its ability to enrich the community.

Moreover, Fa-hsien also represents a related yet distinct capacity unique to the dragon-the ability to produce rain. Fa-hsien is not alone in crediting the dragon among the creatures of the Buddhist universe with the production of rain; Buddhist literatures of Asia attribute rainfall to the powers of the dragon more than those of the human ruler, and other accounts by Chinese monks likewise describe the dragon as the producer of rain, provided it receives the proper gifts and, on occasion, coaxing.16

The travel account of the monk Hsiian-tsang (600-664) repeatedly describes dragons (nagas) as potential benefactors of the community. Indeed, at every point, the narrative depicts dragons as controlling the natural elements, especially rain. One tale Hsiian-tsang tells describes the conversion of a threatening dragon into a great patron of the community, represented primarily through its control of rainfall. Hsiian-tsang tells of a mountain near the royal city Svetavaras, at the summit of which is a pond: "One who asks for rain or prays for clear weather, accordingly acquires the fruit of his request."17 Hsiian-tsang explains that the current dragon king of the pond was in his previous life a novice who killed the original dragon king there, but following his confession and conversion was a patron of the Buddhist community.18

15 Kao-seng fa-hsien chiian, T 51, no. 2085, p. 860a; for another translation, see James Legge, A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms (New York: Dover, 1965), pp. 51-52.

16 One exception, however, to the rule that rulers do not produce rain in Buddhist literatures is the Kurudhamma-jataka, which depicts the king of Kuru as ensuring rain through his virtue. It should be noted that the king is Sakyamuni in a former birth. See E. B. Cowell et al., trans., The Jdtaka, or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births, 6 vols. (London: Luzac & Co., for the Pali Text Society, 1957), vol. 2, book 3, no. 276: 251-60. I later address, in the section on rainmaking in early Japanese history, representations of successful prayers by two female sovereigns for rain; however, in these cases, their success may be related more to Confucian rather than Buddhist precedents for the influence of the virtue of the ruler over the elements.

17 T 51, no. 2087, p. 874b; for another translation, see Samuel Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World, 2 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, 1906), 1:62-63.

18 The narrative is actually quite long, but we can summarize it as follows. An arhat was originally the recipient of constant offerings from the dragon king of the lake. The arhat, through using his mat, traveled to the dragon's home; a novice secretly clung to the underside of the mat. When they arrived, the dragon king gave food of immortality only to the arhat, which angered the novice, who then prayed that his own religious merit be used

149


The Indian tantric masters of seventh- and eighth-century China in fact had the greatest influence on the rainmaking traditions of esoteric Buddhists in Japan. The scriptures appropriated by Shingon monks for rainmaking were virtually all products of their translation, and their ritual capacities had been repeatedly called upon by the T'ang government. Sung Biography of Eminent Monks (Sung kao-seng chiian) includes depictions of the rainmaking practices of the three most influential of these masters, culminating with those of Amoghavajra (705-74; Ch. Pu-k'ung) and Hui-kuo (746-805), who transmitted the Chen-yen (J. Shingon) teach- ings and practices of Kfukai in the early ninth century. Amoghavajra, when called upon by the emperor, recited esoteric scriptures such as the Peacock (King) Sutra and the Great Cloud Wheel Rain Prayer Sutra, which he himself translated, praying for rain with repeated success.19 Hui-kuo, in turn, later performed rainmaking rites at the request of the emperor, and with his success was on both occasions showered with gifts and assistant officiants.20

RAINMAKING IN EARLY JAPAN

Rainmaking was recorded in the earliest historical period in Japan. Re- lying on the mytho-histories produced by the government in the early eighth century, we can imagine that the Japanese court sponsored a variety of rainmaking practices and that sovereigns (tenno) themselves may have often performed the rites. At the same time, there seem also to have been local rites practiced in the countryside.

The mytho-history Chronicles of Japan (Nihon shoki) depicts a series of rites performed at the time of a great drought in 642. Ministers of the royal court first noted that local rituals had been conducted and that horses and bulls had been sacrificed to the kami of native shrines. In other places, frequent changes of the marketplace were made, or prayers were made to river gods. In the wake of these failures, the leader of the powerful Soga clan proposed that monks chant a Mahayana scripture, at the time of which they also adorned figures of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the four heavenly kings. A large group of monks recited the Great Cloud and other suitras, while the Soga leader burned incense and uttered a prayer. Since the Buddhist practices were also ineffective, the recitation

to kill the dragon king so that he himself could assume the position. The wish of the novice came true: he died that night, was reborn as a dragon king, and proceeded to kill the other. Afterward, the new dragon king threatened the Buddhist king Kanigka's effort to build a stupa and Buddha hall in honor of the dead dragon by causing a storm, but through the power of Kaniska's merit, his opposition was overcome. The new dragon king repented and supported the king's effort. See T 51, p. 874b-c; and Beal, pp. 63-66.

19 T. 50, no. 2061, p. 71lb. 20 For a biography of Hui-kuo, see Ta-t'ung ch'ing-lung-ssu san-chao kung-feng ta-te

hsing chuang, T 50, no. 2057, pp. 294c-96a. His connection with Kuikai is noted on p. 295c.

150


was discontinued. Ultimately, however, it was the female tenno Kogyoku who succeeded through worshiping the four directions.21

The narrative, as part of the work's effort to legitimate royal rule, high- lights the glory and power of the actions of the tenno. The sovereign, the narrative emphasizes, is the most successful of ritual specialists, capable of channeling the powers of the elements. At the same time, it suggests tensions between more independent practices-local use of animal sacrifice and Buddhist recitation-and the ruler's own ritual activity as priest of the polity.

Other accounts in the work, however, suggest that by the late seventh century the Japanese court was convinced to some degree of the ritual capacities of Buddhist monks. The work describes how the Korean (Paekchean) monk D6oz prayed for rain with success and was on a later occasion ordered by the court to pray for rain-culminating in rainfall.22

Government records and temple narratives of the eighth century suggest that rainmaking was increasingly common.23 A ritual program of governmental offerings to deities in votive prayer for rain clearly coincided with the crystallization of the Ritsuryo state in the period. The largest number of rainmaking rites recorded in the official history Con- tinued Chronicles of Japan (Shoku nihongi) between the years 698 and 791 were offerings of cloth, food, and other materials (hobei, twenty-one times), followed by the offering of a horse to one or more shrines (thirteen), and the dispatch of envoys to pray at shrines or natural areas inhabited by deities (eleven).24 At least six accounts, most of which are

21 Kogyoku 1, Nihon koten bungaku taikei 68 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1967), pp. 192- 93; W. G. Aston, trans., Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1988), 2:175-76. The scripture referred to here, described as Daiungyo (Great Cloud Satra), is apparently one of two rainmaking scriptures translated by Jnanayasas in the late sixth century: Ta-fang-teng ta-yiin ching ch'ing-yii pin-ti liu- shih-ssu (T 19, no. 992), or Ta-yiin ching ch'ing-yii pin-ti liu-shih-ssu (T 19, no. 993). As noted by Nemoto Seiji, the Great Cloud Sitra translated by Narendrayasas (T 19, no. 991) was copied by the Japanese sutra-copying bureau only in the mid-eighth century, making it unlikely to have been the text depicted here; see his "Nara jidai no bukkyoteki kiu ni tsuite," in Nihon shukyo nofukogoteki kozo, ed. Sakurai Tokutaro (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1978), pp. 224-26. Amoghavajra's translation in the eighth century of the Great Cloud Sutra is obviously a different text.

22 Nihon shoki, vol. 68 of Nihon koten bungaku taikei, Tenmu 12.8 (683) and Jito 2.7.20 (688), pp. 458-59, 492-93; Aston, pp. 360, 388.

23 Noguchi Takeshi, Sasaki Ryoshin, and Nemoto Seiji have each done research on rainmaking in the early period. See Noguchi, "Rikkokushi shoken no 'kiu/kishiu' kiji," Kokugakuin zasshi 87, no. 11 (1986): 216-57; Sasaki, "Kodai ni okeru kiu to bukkyo: Kyuchu doky6 o megutte," Otani gakuho 50, no. 2 (1970): 65-88; and Nemoto, "Nara jidai no bukky6teki kiu ni tsuite," in Tokutaro, ed., pp. 219-38.

24 Less common methods were the use of Buddhist clerics by means of feast or prayer (3), a general pardon of criminals (2), as well as the ruler's bodily purification and prayer for rain (1). These calculations were made based on the comprehensive list of quotations in Noguchi, pp. 217-21; the relevant accounts are Shoku nihongi, vol. 2 in the revised and enlarged Kokushi taikei series (60 vols.; Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1929-67). Hereafter, Kokushi taikei will be referred to as KST.

151


quotations of royal rainmaking proclamations included in the work, suggest that the cause of drought is a lack of royal virtue (J. toku; Ch. te) or that the solution is a royal act marked by virtue.25 The sovereign and his state are thus represented as the sufficient cause of and solution to drought, the sources of both national prosperity and decline, like the classic Confucian sovereign.26

Thus the sovereign and government rarely called upon the powers of Buddhist clerics in rain prayer, and their rainmaking efforts seem not to have been directed at a distinct site or religious institution.27 At the same time, subtle changes seem to have commenced near the end of the eighth century. The removal of the government from Nara, made in part to es- cape the powerful Buddhist establishment of the capital, and an increase in interest in esoteric Buddhism seem to have formed the context for the increasing specialization of the objects of rainmaking offerings as well as experiments in the use of the rainmaking rites of esoteric Buddhism.

A NEW RITUAL HISTORY AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE DRAGON KING

Especially after the installation of the government in the new capital of Heian-ky6 in 794, it was imperative for the sovereign and those around him to develop new and enduring relations with ritual centers. The more the tenno and government could develop ongoing relations with shrines and temples nearby, the more they could establish ritual networks largely independent of the temples of the Nara area.

Namiki Kazuko has cited the Enryaku era (782-805) as the period of increasing specialization of rainmaking rites, because of the increased appearance of references to government-sponsored rain prayer offerings to Niu Kawakami shrine as well as to Ise Jingl along with "deities (my- ojin) of the seven circuits... and the home province"-references to what would be shrines described as objects of official patronage in ritual texts such as the Rituals of the Engi Era (Engishiki, 927).28 It is evident

25 Reiki 1.6.13 (715); Y6rf 6.7.7 (722); Tenpyo 4.7.5 (732), 9.5.19 (737), 19.7.7 (747); and Enryaku 7.4.16 (788).

26 This view was even expressed in the eighth-century Buddhist work Gangoji garan engi, in Jisha engi, Nihon shiso taikei 20 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), p. 331. This work, however, attributes the fall of rain and prosperity to the virtuous faith of the ruler in Buddhism. The female tenno Suiko vows to make up for past sins by giving forests, rice fields, water drains, sustenance households, and servants to the Buddhists, thereby establishing good roots (zenkon); the account concludes, "In this way, when [the empress] finished her vow, the earth shook, thunder rumbled, and suddenly a great rain fell, cleans- ing the entire realm."

27 The Yin-Yang Bureau once proposed that the government sponsor the recitation of a dhdrant based on the Daihannya haramitta kyo scripture, yet the tenno and the populace were additionally asked to recite it as part of the effort. See Shoku nihongi, Tenpy6 Hfji 3.8.18 (759), KST 2, p. 254.

28 Namiki Kazuko, "Heian jidai no kiu hobei," in Heian jidai no jinja to saishi, ed. Nijinisha Kenkyuikai (Tokyo: Kokusho kankokai, 1986), p. 115.

152


that the government, by recognizing the prominence of shrines such as Niu Kawakami along with the deities of shrines surrounding Heian-ky6, inaugurated a network of rainmaking.

We can see this geographical movement of ritual practice by considering the shrines to which rainmaking offerings were most often made. In the

period from 809 to 930, the shrines to which the most rainmaking offer-

ings were presented were Upper and Lower Kamo shrines (twenty-five times), Matsuno'o (twenty-four), Kibune (eighteen), Otokuni (sixteen), Niu Kawakami (fourteen), and Inari (thirteen).29 The numbers indicate not

merely the increasing prominence of the Kibune, Kamo, and Matsuno'o shrines but also the locale of rainmaking patronage. All of these shrines, with the exception of Niu Kawakami, are in Heian-ky6 or its surround-

ings, and Niu, for that matter, is far south of Nara. Moreover, we can note the close relationship between these shrines and

those included within the systems of government patronage established to mark the royal accession and for use in rites in the capital region and

surrounding areas-the Daijo-e network of roughly fifty-five shrines and the developing twenty-two-temple-shrine system. Three of the shrines were part of the Daij6-e network, which included shrines of virtually the entire realm, and all except for Otokuni would be part of the temple- shrine system, which crystallized in the eleventh century. Their inclusion in these networks, particularly the temple-shrine system, suggests that these shrines were objects of a larger effort by the royal government to control the area surrounding the capital through the establishment of an effective system of ritual practice and economic patronage.30

Veneration of dragon kings for rain developed at the same time as that of the network of rainmaking shrines. In fact, while it shared some characteristics with the network of shrines as well as with rain prayers performed by or at multiple temples of exoteric Buddhism, worship of

dragon kings was distinct in both its locale and its character. Indeed, its rise to prominence, while first providing the monks of the Nara temple Kofukuji continued access to royal patronage, gave Shingon monks, especially of the area of Heian-kyo, an opportunity to garner material support for their lineage while at the same time constructing individual careers of ritual practice.

29 This list is drawn from Namiki's article (ibid., pp. 119-20). 30 The Daijo-e network was inaugurated in the late ninth century through the set of reg-

nal rites in which treasures (Ichidai ichido daijinpo hobei) and Buddha relics (Ichidai ichido busshari hoken) were offered to the shrines after the completion of the royal accession. The Daij6-e network is discussed in the context of the development of government rites of relic veneration in Brian D. Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000; dis- tributed by Harvard University Press), pp. 53-58. For a study of the twenty-two "temple- shrines" (jisha), see Allan Grapard, "Institution, Ritual, and Ideology: The Twenty-Two Shrine-Temple Multiplexes of Heian Japan," History of Religions 27, no. 3 (1988): 246-69.

153


The dragon of Muro grotto was the first deity ever recorded as the individual object of rainmaking rituals. The Muro temple was founded per the request of the sovereign Kanmu between 781 and 783, and it is believed that the shrine there-home of the dragon-was built soon thereafter.31 By the second decade of the ninth century, the dragon of the shrine seems to have become the object of a government-sponsored rainmaking rite, as the precepts master Shien (771-835), a Kofukuji monk also trained in the esoteric Buddhism of Tendai, was dispatched to Mount Mur6 to pray for rain.32

In the year after the dispatch of Shien, royal envoys were sent to the Mur6 dragon grotto and to the Kibune shrine to pray for rain; although the Muro dragon disappeared from records for almost fifty years, it rose to prominence soon after the onset of rule by the Fujiwara regents. In 867, the grotto dragon began to gain prominence in the official history, as the deity was raised in status by the court from junior fifth rank, lower grade, to senior fifth rank, lower grade.33 And while the official history does not explain the reason for the increase in rank, the earliest extant text of Muro, Ben'ichisan nenbundosha sojo (937), describes the conferral as resulting from the demonstrated powers of the dragon to protect the state, guard the temple area against calamity, and to produce rain in time of drought. According to the text, the deity (kami) was named "Dragon King Zennyo" (Zennyo ryuo) and the temple, "Dragon King" (ryii). In the tenth century, the dragon, now commonly viewed as a

king, was approached some twenty-one times, for purposes, usually of

rainmaking, though sometimes of rank conferral.34 It is clear that the court and royal family believed in the rainmaking

powers of the dragon of Muro. The Daily Record of Rain Prayer (Kiu

31 Tsuji Hidenori, Murojishi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Gannando, 1979), pp. 29-31, 39. For an overview of the history of the religious beliefs and practices at Muro, see Sherry Fowler, "In Search of the Dragon: Mt. Muro's Sacred Topography," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24, nos. 1-2 (1997): 145-61.

32 The account is the first to depict a rainmaking rite performed by a named individual on behalf of the government-with the exception of the sovereign-since that describing the Paekchean monk Dozo of the late seventh century. See Nihon kiryaku, K6nin 8.6.2 (817), KST 10, p. 305. Shuen was the disciple of the founder of Muroji, Kengy6 (714-93), and thus a Hosso monk trained at K6fukuji. He was, moreover, apparently a well-known monk in his day; in 805, he was the first ever to receive from Saich6 the esoteric sanmaya precepts in the Kanj6 initiation rite, and so trained in the ritual practices of Tendai esoteric Buddhism (Taimitsu). His initiation is recounted in Shoku nihon koki, Tench6 10.10.20 (833), KST 3, p. 16.

33 The dispatch of the envoys to Muro and Kibune is noted in Nihon kiryaku, K6nin 9.7.14 (818), KST 10, p. 307. The increase in rank is recorded in Nihon sandai jitsuoku, Jogan 9.8.16, KST4, p. 220.

34 The Toji Kanchiin KyTizobon version of the Ben'ichisan nenbundosha sioj is repro- duced in Nishida Nagao, Nihon shintoshi kenkyi, vol. 4, Chusei (Tokyo: K6dansha, 1978), pt. 1:224-27. For the records of the tenth century, I have drawn particularly on the list of references to Mur6 compiled by Tsuji, pp. 79-80.

154


nikki), compiled from a variety of sources by the Shingon monk Sh6ken

(1082-1147) in the early twelfth century, provides among others a detailed account of the court's actions vis-a-vis the ritual officiants of rain-

making at Mur6 during the drought of 961. Although the court granted Mur6 eleven novice monks following successful suitra recitations at the

dragon grotto, the K6fukuji precepts master Sh6en petitioned the court to increase the rank of the dragon king at Mur6 Dragon Grotto Shrine

(Mur6 Ryuketsu Jinja) based on the fact that rain resumed on the day of the concluding vow: Why is there no act of thanksgiving (hosai)?" The chamberlain Fujiwara no Masaki, following an investigation of the rank of the dragon king, conducted on behalf of the court, determined that it should be increased.35

A brief glance at the sources depicting the rites at Muro suggests that the rainmaking rites there were not particularly influenced by esoteric Buddhism. However, as we will see, the rainmaking rites of Muro would be largely overshadowed by the government's increasing patronage of the esoteric Buddhist monks of Shingon and a broad belief that the most

powerful of rainmakers was a dragon king located in the royal garden- cum-dragon-pond Shinzen'en. The monks of Shingon represented themselves as having sole prerogative over the rain prayers to the dragon king there. Indeed, by the tenth century, with the writing of the Last Testament

(Go-yuigo), attributed to Kukai, the Shingon clerics began to produce literature claiming a direct connection between Kfkai and the dragon king of Shinzen'en-as well as to spiritual authority over Mount Muro.

THE RISE TO PROMINENCE OF THE DRAGON KING OF SHINZEN'EN

It was the dragon in the pond of the royal pleasure garden Shinzen'en that offered esoteric Buddhist monks their greatest opportunity to perform rainmaking rites on behalf of the sovereign and those around him. First, it is indeed likely that Kukai performed a rain prayer within the

royal palace in 827. However, contrary to some of the later historical records, it is questionable as to whether he ever conducted a rain prayer at Shinzen'en.36

35 Owa 1.6.11-8.17, Hanawa Hokiichi, ed., Zoku gunsho ruiji 25 (Tokyo: Zoku gunsho ruiji kanseikai, 1924), pt. 2, no. 725 (hereafter referred to as ZGR), pp. 222-24.

36 For references to the rain rite in the royal palace, see Nihon kiryaku, Tencho 4.5.26, KST 10, p. 325; Ruija kokushi, KST 6, p. 151. As for the reputed rain rite at Shinzen'en, both Tsuji Hidenori and Sasaki Ry6shin are in agreement on this point. Tsuji attributes the claim to twelfth-century legends that were accretions to the historical record (Tsuji, pp. 220-23). Sasaki makes an argument based essentially on the fact that the story seems never to have appeared in the official history Nihon koki. See Sasaki, "Kiikai Shinzen'en sh6u kito setsu ni tsuite: T6nitsu fukk6 no ikkanten," Bukkyo shigaku kenkyi 17, no. 2 (1975): 35-47.

155


Shinzen'en was established at the time of the construction of the new palace in Heian-kyo and reflects the influence of T'ang Chinese culture at the beginning of the Heian era (794-1185). An artificial yet beautiful haven for royal banquets, it included a wood on the grounds, numerous deer, and a large pond. The pond, which sometimes was the object of fishing, provided poetic inspiration for a number of aristocratic authors of the day. The space, its grandeur, and the banquets held there all testified publicly to the glory and gratia of the sovereign.37

The garden first appeared in historical records in the early ninth century, when the sovereigns Kanmu, Heizei, Saga, and Junna visited it on more than one hundred occasions. However, by the late ninth century, it began to take on features of a sacred site. The earliest recorded rainmaking rite there was led by the monk Eun of the Shingon temple Anjoji in Yamashina (Heiankyo). According to Daily Record of Rain Prayer, he performed a seven-day esoteric rite (shuho) at Shinzen'en in 854, leading twenty-one monks in recitation. The first government record of a rainmaking rite at Shinzen'en was in Actual Record of Three Japanese Reigns (Nihon sandai jitsuroku), which noted the performance in 875 by a group of monks of the Rite of the Great Cloud Wheel Scripture on Rain Prayer (Daiunrin shougyo no ho) as well as a non-Buddhist rite conducted by government officials.38

How do we account for this transformation from pleasure garden to sacred space? Initially, we should note the value of the pond in the garden as a water source and hence its usefulness to the government in efforts to placate the populace in times of drought. On four occasions of drought or related water problems, the government opened the pond to the public so that farmers and others could acquire water for personal use or for

irrigating land. Three of the four occasions coincided with the period in which rainmaking rites were gradually supplanting banquets as the main focus of use of the garden-862-77. Moreover, the pond became quickly associated with rites of purification (o'harai) to exorcise epidemics as well as with spirit meetings (goryo'e) to pacify the dead.39

In addition, a dragon was also believed to reside in the pond-a belief that may have preceded any association with Buddhism. The account in

37 See Hayashiya Tatsusaburo, Kyoto no rekishi 1 (Kyoto: Gakugeishorin, 1970), pp. 380-84.

38 The account of Eun's rite is in Kiu nikki, Saiko 1.4, ZGR 25, no. 725, pt. 2:218; and the description of the rite of 875 is in Nihon sandai jitsuroku, Jogan 17.6.15-23, KST 4, pp. 363-64.

39 The first three accounts are in Nihon sandai jitsuroku, Jogan 4.9.17 (862), 17.6.23-26 (875), and Gangyo 1.7.10 (877), pp. 96, 364, and 409. For a brief discussion of this practice, see Hayashiya, pp. 386-87. For an example in which the goryo'e was conducted in the effort to ward off an epidemic, see Nihon sandai jitsuroku, Jogan 5.5.20 (863), pp. 112-13.

156


Actual Record of Three Japanese Reigns concerning the rainmaking rites of 875 indicates that the deity was not originally believed to be a dragon king. Following initial rites that were unsuccessful, the government in- vited sixty monks into the palace to chant the Great Perfection of Wisdom scripture and fifteen monks to Shinzen'en to perform the Rite of the Great Cloud Scripture on Rain Prayer. Since none of these rites were effica- cious, the government turned to Shinzen'en again, and the text reads: "El- ders of old said that there is a dragon deity in the pond of Shinzen'en. In olden times, during drought, stones were melted and weeds were burnt, the water being thereby drained and the pond dried. They rang bells, beat drums and yelled. In time there was thunder and rain, [this approach] being effective without fail." Based on this belief, the sovereign sent some officials to the pond to drain its water and others to ring bells, beat drums, dance, and sing in "dragon boats," producing a loud sound that "shook heaven." Although this ritual proved only partially effective, the account indicates that the dragon king of Shinzen'en was preceded by a dragon understood in terms very different from Buddhism.40

At the same time, through examining the rainmaking practices at the garden in this era, we can see that the majority of the rituals were now performed for the dragon king. While the nature of the early Buddhist rites there apparently varied, esoteric monks seem to have performed all of them. In fact, by the mid-tenth century, the esoteric Rite of the Scrip- ture on Rain Prayer (Shougyo [no] ho) was predominant. The rite, which required between four and seven days, focused on the production of a great altar with two mandalas, an altar featuring a portrait of Kikai, a fire altar (goma no dan), and altars for a series of deities. The mandala to be hung at the great altar featured the scene of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni surrounded by bodhisattvas and dragon kings, as portrayed in the Procedures for the Altar of the Rite of the Great Cloud Wheel Scrip- ture on Rain Prayer (Ta-yiin ching ch'i-yii t'an-fa, T 19, no. 990); the mandala to be spread out laterally on it depicted the five dragon kings of the Collection of Dharani Sitra (To-lo-ni-chi ching; T 18, no. 901). On the lateral mandala, a vessel containing the Great Cloud Wheel Rain Prayer Sutra (Ta-yiin-lun ch'ing-yii ching) and Buddha relics (fo-she-li;

40 Thus the production of rain, from this non-Buddhist perspective, required special measures that coerced the dragon to act, an approach that parallels those analyzed by Alvin P. Cohen in the context of early China (n. 3 above). Based on this knowledge, the draining of the water of the pond of Shinzen'en was as much to coerce the flow or cessation of rain as it was to aid the peasantry. The continuation of drainage practices into the tenth century as well as the periodical performance of the Five Dragons Festival by officials of the Ying- Yang Bureau as another means of rain prayer in the Heian era probably echo the earlier view of the dragon of Shinzen'en. A brief discussion of the latter rite is in K6da Toshio, Heiancho rinji kuji ryakkai (Tokyo: Zoku gunsho ruiju kanseikai, 1981), pp. 49-52.

157


J. busshari) was placed, along with vessels of Shinzen'en water and other ritual objects.

Throughout the rite, the monks were to visualize the Buddha preaching the dharma to the dragon kings-thereby enabling them to overcome their suffering and produce rain on behalf of beings-while using hand gestures (Sk. mudra; J. in) and verbal formulae (Sk. dharani; J. darani) appropriate for invoking the presence of Sakyamuni, attendant bodhisattvas, and the dragon kings. The recitation of rainmaking scripture and the Buddha-name, the performance of a fire rite for the increase of wealth (zoyaku), the presentation of offerings to the dragon kings and a series of other deities, and an occasional performance by the Ying-Yang Bureau of the Five Dragons Festival followed. However, on the failure to produce rain during the first four days, for the final three days of the rite it was incumbent on the officiant monk to perform the Dragon Offering (ryiku) secretly alone in the dead of night. He made two dragon figures of miscanthus, large and small, wrapping the small one in paper, then covering the paper with gold leaf; he placed a Buddha relic in the head of the small figure, and placing the small figure in the larger one, went to the dragon grotto (ryuketsu), interpreted variously as the area at the edge of the pond or on the small island in the pond, and offered it to the dragon king.41

The monks recorded in early texts as having performed the rite were all highly placed Shingon prelates. Following are the clerics and the years of their recorded performance of the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer: Yakushin (827-906), second-level abbot of Toji and ancestor of the Hirosawa Branch of Shingon, who became head Toji abbot three months after the rite (891); Kangen (853-925), head abbot of Toji, then of Daigoji and, notably, Kong6buji, and who was also a teacher of the sovereign Uda (915, 919); Kanshuku (844-928), disciple of Daigoji abbot Shobo and a palace monk (naigu) who in the year after the rite became abbot of Toji (927); Kangu (884-972), boy servant, palace monk, and disciple of Uda, who became a disciple of Kangen and in the year after the rite became head Toji abbot and, soon after, abbot of Kong6buji

41 This description is an abbreviated explanation based on the depictions of the rite in a number of Shingon works written between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Since among the texts consulted there were many discrepancies in the details, this morphology should be seen as a general outline of a typical set of rituals performed. The works on which the morphology is based include Sh6ken (1138-96), ed., Ugonzatsuhiki, ZGR 25, no. 725, pt. 2:241-80; Minamoto no Moroyori, Eikyu gonen shougyo [no] ho ki, ZGR 25, no. 725, pt. 2:311-17; Ken'en, Eikya gonen shougyo [no] ho chushinjo, ZGR 25, pt. 2:318- 19; Ken'en (n.d.), Eikyi gonen shougyo [no] ho shitaku ki, ZGR 25, pt. 2:320-26; Kakuzen (1143-ca. 1213), ed., "Sh6u[no]ho," in Kakuzen sho, Dainihon Bukkyo zensho (DNBZ), 150 vols. (Tokyo: Dainihon Bukkyo zensho kanseikai, 1987), 46:489-576; Genkai (1094- 1157), ed., Atsuzoshi, T 78, no. 2483, pp. 267a-69a; and Jichiun (1105-60), ed., Genpi sho, T. 28, no. 2486, pp. 401a-2c.

158


and Ninnaji (948); Kuse (890-973), trained in Tendai but who became a

disciple of Shunnyi (890-953) and Kangi, becoming head abbot at Toji and Kongobuji in years after the rite (963); Kanjo (901-79), younger brother and disciple of Kangui as well as of Uda, deputy minor bishop, and in years after the rite named second-level Toji abbot and abbot of

Kongobuji (969); and Geng6 (914-95), first a Daigoji monk and a disci-

ple of Kangui who became a deputy precepts master after his first performance of the rite and later palace monk and second-level Toji abbot, and master of the famous rainmaker Ningai, historical founder of the Ono Branch of Shingon (951-1046) (972, 982, 985).42

THE DRAGON KING IN LITERATURE

The meteoric rise of the dragon king of Shinzen'en is apparent, given the

increasing frequency with which monks approached it, and the fact that

by the Ench6 era (923-31), the rainmaking character of the garden com-

pletely replaced its former connection with royal banquets.43 In order to understand the context for this ascendancy, however, it is necessary to

investigate the narrative representations of Shinzen'en and the dragon

42 These dates are based on examination of a wide range of sources, which were limited to those deemed most historically accurate. Their respective sources are (numbers in pa- rentheses refer to multiple performances by the same monk) Yakushin, Nihon kiryaku, Kanpyo 3.6.28, KST 10, p. 538; Kangen, (1) Kiu nikki, Engi 15.5.24, ZGR 25, no. 725, pt. 2:221, and Toji choja bunin, Zoku zoku gunsho ruiji 2 (five fascicle ed.; Zoku gunsho ruiju kanseikai, 1984), p. 490, (2) Toji choja bunin, p. 491, and Fujiwara no Tadahira, Teishinko ki, Engi 19.6.28, Dai nihon kokiroku ed. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1956), p. 64, though the latter text does not mention the name of the officiant monk; Kanshuku, Kiu nikki, Encho 5.7.1, p. 220, Toji choja bunin, Encho 5.7.8, and Teishinko ki, Encho 5.7.5 (without mention of name of officiant); and Fujiwara no Kint6 (966-1041), Hokuzan sho, Encho 5.7, Kojitsu sosho 31 (Tokyo: Meiji tosho shuppan, 1993), p. 462; Kangu, Teishinko ki, Tenry- aku 2.6.12, p. 259, and Nihon kiryaku, Tenryaku 2.6.14, KST 11, p. 58; Kuse, Nihon kiryaku, Owa 3.7.9, p. 90, Toji choja bunin, p. 501, Kiu nikki, pp. 224-25, Kiu hoki, ZGR 25, no. 725, pt. 2:307; Kanj6, Nihon kiryaku, Anna 2.6.24, p. 112; and Gengo (1) Nihon kiryaku, Tenroku 3.6.20, p. 121, (2) Nihon kiryaku, Tengen 5.7.18, p. 146, and Tiji choja bunin, p. 506, (3) Fujiwara no Sanesuke, Shoyuki, Kanna 1.6.28, Dai nihon kokiroku ed. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1987), 1:103, Nihon kiryaku, p. 154, and Kiu nikki, p. 226. There were other figures who may have conducted such rites but for whom the historical documentation is inadequate to judge. For example, the Shingon monk Shinga may have been the monk who led the rite in 875 (J6gan 17), while Nihon sandai jitsuroku does not mention the name of the officiating monk, the eleventh-century work Kiu hoki notes that he was partially successful during the J6gan period in a rain prayer conducted in the Daigokuden, in a different area of the palace (ZGR 25, no. 725, pt. 2:306). Toji choja bunin raises the question as to whether or not he was the monk who led the rite at Shinzen'en on J6gan 17.6.15 (Zoku zoku gunsho ruiji 2, [Tokyo: Zoko gunsho ruiji Kanseikai, 1984], p. 482). It should be noted, moreover, that the officiants and dates of the rite outlined above are only those which are attested to in reliable documentation. Given that the tenth century marked the boundary between the end of the six official histories (rikkokushi) and later increases in the production of records (monjo) in temples and other institutions, it is likely that there were many more occasions in which the rite was conducted.

43 Sasaki Ryoshin emphasizes this shift in "Kukai Shinzen'en sh6u kit6 setsu ni tsuite: Tomitsu fukk6 no ikkanton," p. 40.

159


king there produced in Shingon Buddhism. It was by means of producing a reputed Last Testament (Go-yuigo) and a series of biographies of Kuikai between the late ninth and early twelfth centuries that the Shingon school

legitimized belief in both the presence of the dragon king and in the

unique ritual capacities of Shingon monks. The Last Testament testified to the presence of Dragon King Zennyo in the garden, thereby implicitly relocating the dragon king of Mur6. The story of Kiikai's rainmaking success at Shinzen'en and consequent increase in ecclesiastical rank gave evidence of the ability of the ritual ancestor of present-day officiants; moreover, it pointed to the proper means by which the government could

requite its debt to Shingon officiants for their ritual services-providing a narrative model for the reproduction of relations of indebtedness for

generations to come. Initially, it is important to examine the text that through its production

in the late ninth or tenth century forever marked both Mount Mur6 and Shinzen'en as the ritual property of the monks of Shingon-the twenty- five-article Last Testament (Nijugokajo go-yuigo) of Kukai.44 This work invokes Kukai's connection with Shinzen'en by quoting the master as

saying:

Therefore, in four successive reigns since [my return from China], I made an altar for the realm and performed esoteric rituals 51 times. Further, in accor- dance with a vow of the sovereign, I prayed for rain with effect, [the benefit of] which reached from high nobles to those of low rank.

In the pond lives a Dragon King named Zennyo. Originally, this was one of the dragon kings that lived in Anavatapta pond [in the Himalayas]. Because of its deep compassion, it bears no ill will towards humans.

How do we know this? During the august esoteric rite (mishuho) [performed on behalf of the ruler and the court], [the Dragon King] entrusted [the knowledge] to people by indicating it. Thus, revering the deep principles of Shingon, when it showed its form [by rising] from the pond, we attained miraculous effects [of the rain prayer-rain fell]. The figure and activity were just like a

44 While there are other versions of the Last Testament, this account is the earliest production. The dating of the twenty-five-article manuscript, however, continues to be a source of debate. The most compelling arguments are those of Shirai Yuko and Miyagi Yoichiro. Shirai has dated this and other works concerning Kukai by combining analysis of intertextual interpolations between biographies and a comparison of these contents with institutional developments. Shirai points out that article 22 of the work notes that Kon- gobuji temple is under the umbrella of T6ji, a development that did not occur until the early tenth century, and thus sees the work as a production of the tenth century; see Shirai, Kiikai densetsu no keisei to koyasan: Nyujo densetsu no keisei to koyasan nokotsu no has- sei (Tokyo: Doseisha, 1986), pp. 21-22. Miyagi sees the work as well as a small number of related works as having been produced prior to 921, given their lack of the appellation Kobo Daishi for Kukai, which was conferred by royal decree in that year; see Miyagi, "Heian makki no kfbo daishi den," Bukkyo shigaku kenkyi 38, no. 1 (1995): 94-117.

160


golden snake 8-sun long. This golden snake was in the head of a snake of 9 shaku. The disciples who also witnessed its appearance were Jitsu'e Daitoku, Shinzei, Shinga, Shinjo, Kenne, Shingy6 and Shinzen. The numerous other dis-

ciples could not see it.

These events were reported in detail to the royal palace. Immediately, Junna Tenno dispatched Wake no Matsuna as royal envoy, and offered paper strips (gohei) of many colors to the Dragon King. In this way, [following this precedent] the preciousness of the path of Shingon has been demonstrated more and more. If the Dragon King of the pond moved to a different world, the pond would become shallow and its water would dissolve. The prosperity of the world would diminish, and people would surely become poor. Truly, even if at such a time you do not report this to the court, you should secretly pray [for the weal of the world].45

As can be seen, this literary production invokes the connection of Kukai,

together with a select group of disciples, with Shinzen'en. It also places Zennyo, a dragon king of the same name as that at Mur6, in the pond of the garden. In doing so, it transports the deity to Shinzen'en while at the same time claiming that a special ritual connection exists between Kukai, his disciples, and Zennyo.46 The work also notes the indispensability of the powers of Zennyo to the prosperity of the pond, the court, and the world. In this context, it emphasizes that the proper response of the government on witnessing Zennyo's ability is to make generous offerings to

him; it reinforces this narrative and ritual logic by interpreting the powers of the dragon king as the key to national prosperity, implicitly threat-

ening that should Zennyo not be patronized generously, he might leave the pond-with disastrous consequences for the entire realm.

Roughly coincidental with the production of the Last Testament was the writing of a biography entitled Record of the Late Great Archbishop Kukai (Zo daisojo kukai wajo denki) by a monk called Joganji zasu

(Shobo? 832-909) in 895. This work describes Kikai as having performed a rainmaking rite in Shinzen'en during the Tench6 era (824-34) at the request of the sovereign. It claims, moreover, that the government

45 T 77, no. 2431, p. 409a-b. The complete text is pp. 408b-14a. 46 Horiike Shunpo makes the argument that while some later texts, such as Ben'ichi hiki,

claim that Zennyo moved from Shinzen'en to Muro, the reverse was in fact the case. The biographical traditions concerning Kukai's rainmaking at Shinzen'en date only to the late ninth century, and so the older Buddhist rainmaking at Muro-evidenced by the practice of Shuien-was more likely the first home of Zennyo. See Nanto bukkyoshi no kenkyu (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1982), 2:44-46. I also note that the work avoids any mention of the connection between Zennyo and Muro-in spite of the fact that the concluding sections go into some detail regarding the mountain. The discussion of Mur6 is, however, limited to the story that Kuikai buried Buddha relics, in the form of a wish-fulfilling jewel (nyoi hoju) on the mountain, thereby reinforcing claims that Muro had been a bastion of Shingon practice since the period of the founder (Go-yuigo, T 77, no. 2431, pp. 412a-13b).

161


raised the ecclesiastical rank of Kiikai to deputy archbishop (gonsojo) based on the success of his rain prayer, and almost immediately thereafter to great archbishop (daisboj).47

There would not, however, be another major effort to write a biography of Kikai until 968, when an anonymous Shingon author produced Narrative of the [Master Kikai's] Exertion to Construct Kongobuji (Kon- gobuji konryi shugyo engi), which briefly mentions Kikai's reputed practice of the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer (Shougyo [no] ho) on behalf of the sovereign Junna in 824 (Tencho 1), following the royal pro- cession.48 This work, however, did not make a direct connection with Kiikai's attainment of higher rank soon after the rite, instead mentioning in the next sentence his attainment of the rank of great bishop six years later; at the same time, it makes note of his ritual success and the even- tual attainment of higher rank not only during but also again at the end of the work, suggesting the importance of these events within the larger narrative of Kukai's life.

It was especially Biography of Kobo Daishi [Kukai] (Kobo Daishi den), written in 1002 by the monk Shoju (959-1016), which marked the crystallization of the narrative of Kukai's ritual success and reward. The latter work records an expanded version of the account given in the Last Testament of rainmaking at Shinzen'en, recounting faithfully the description of the anomalous effect (reigen) in which Zennyo appeared in his true nature and form, as well as the offerings given to the dragon king. At the same time, the expanded portion offers a reinterpretation of the meaning of the original account: On the last day of the rite (kechigan no hi), clouds gathered, the heavens thundered, and water poured without ceasing for three days and nights. Thus the offering given in thanks is now described as an act of petition. The text notes that Kuikai rose in rank to minor bishop and then repeats the warning of the severe consequences that would follow the exit of Zennyo to another world. To the threat of poverty the work adds: "There will be regular drought and constant epidemics."49

The next version of the biography of Kiikai, Notes on the Transmission and Essentials of Shingon (Shingon fuho sanyosho), written in 1060 by Seizon (1012-74), the disciple of the illustrious Ningai, offers a more fully developed buddhological explanation of the connection between the dragon king of Shinzen'en and the wealth of the realm, informing readers of scriptures from which elements of the narrative have been bor-

47 Kobo daishi den zenshu 1 (Tokyo: Pitaka, 1977), pp. 37-38. 48 See the printed annotated edition of the text as well as a T6ji Kanchi'in original

manuscript in Takeuchi K6zen, "Kongobuji konryu shugyo engi no kenkyu," Koyasan daigaku mikkyo bunka kenkyujo kiyo 11 (1998): 21-80, esp. 43-44, 58.

49 Kobo daishi den zenshu, pp. 65-66.

162


rowed. The work quotes an account from the Commentary on Great Wis- dom (Ta chih-tu lun) to explain the reason the Last Testament depicted a connection between the dragon king and the wealth of the realm: "'The

Dragon King Apalala's heart was transformed for the good, becoming a

disciple of the Buddha. Thus he always makes refreshing rainfall to prevent a bad harvest in the world. For this reason, the realm (Magadha) is prosperous.' Correspondingly, our national prosperity and happiness sim- ply reside in this dragon. For this reason, [Kobo] Daishi said in his Tes- tament, 'If the Dragon King of this pond moves to another world, the pond will become shallow, its water will dissolve, the world will be di- minished, and the people will become impoverished.'"50 Apalala was not actually a dragon king of Anavatapta in continental literature, but as is suggested in the quotation, he was an evil dragon converted to Bud- dhism.51 However, the account indicates that like those of Anavatapta, he provides for the prosperity of the realm by producing water. It thus re- iterates the connection between the powers of the dragon king of Shin- zen'en and the wealth of the realm.

Finally, the writing of more biographies in the early twelfth century marked the maturation stage in the development of the narrative of Kukai, his consequent patronage, and the importance of his lineage to the enrichment of the realm. The August Biography of Koya Daishi (Koya daishi goko den), written by the Daigoji monk Sh6ken in 1118-the same cleric who compiled the Daily Record of Rain Prayer, discussed below-introduces a tale of a rainmaking competition between Kuikai

50 Ibid., p. 93. The phrasing in the original text of Ta chih-tu lun is virtually identical with the quote here; see T. 25, no. 1509, p. 78a-b.

51 It would seem that this dragon king, who according to legend was converted by the Buddha during his life, is not the same as that depicted in Tsa-a-han ching (T 2, no. 99, p. 165b), which while it had a similar name, was one of a small group of dragons subdued and converted after the parinirvana of the Buddha. The Apalala depicted in Ta chih-tu lun is, in fact, the unnamed dragon king described in the account that forms the epigraph of this study. He is also mentioned in Fa-hsien's account (T. 51, no. 2085, p. 858a). However, the most detailed account of this dragon king is in Hsiian-tsang's Ta t'ang hsi-yii chi (T. 51, no. 2087), p. 882b-c. According to this work, the pond of Apalala is in Udhyana, and the story of this dragon king began during the life of the former Buddha Kasyapa. He has been able to control the powers of evil dragons to prevent violent rain storms, so that the people of his land were extremely indebted to him. The families agreed to express their gratitude by offering him a yearly tribute of grain, but over time some of them failed to do so, whereupon he became angry and prayed to become a poisonous dragon to destroy their crops with violent wind and rain. After his death, he became a poisonous dragon that plagued the land, until Sakyamuni Buddha came to the country and felt compassion for the people; the Buddha preached to the dragon and convinced him of his wrongdoing. The dragon was converted and agreed no longer to plague the country under one condition: he requested that he receive one crop every twelve years. The Buddha agreed, and so every twelve years there was a flood (in which the dragon king received the lost crop). It is in- teresting to note the exchange relationship produced after the conversion of the dragon king and the fact that the Japanese text borrows from the account in Ta chih-tu lun that has the most succinct and positive presentation of Apalala.

163


and a cleric of high rank named Shubin Daitoku, evidently another name of the famous Kofukuji monk Shien, who prayed for rain at Muro in the early ninth century. In contrast to his opponent who tried unsuccessfully to place dragons in a vase through using verbal formulae, he entered a trance, whereupon he realized that Zennyo, a compassionate dragon king, was in the pond. From there, the account largely repeats those of earlier biographies, though here, given Kikai's success upon royal request, he is described as receiving a reward (kansho, kenjo) from the im- perial family in addition to receiving elevation in clerical rank from the government. The account concludes as follows: "At that time, the miraculous effect of Shingon was [due to] the virtue of Daishi. Eyes and ears were especially surprised, the Sovereign, Nobility, peasants, and mer- chants being converted. Daishi said, 'If this Dragon King should leave, the pond and water would respectively become shallow and dissolve, the water for the world would gradually diminish, and Heaven will con- stantly have drought. And at that time, even if the disciples of my Lin- eage (wagamon) do not report it to the Sovereign, they should secretly pray to the Dragon King for rain.'"52

INDEBTEDNESS IN THE POLITICS OF RAINMAKING

What, precisely, were the fruits of the literary and ritual reproduction of the Buddhist dragon king in the royal garden? It is clear that Shingon literatures increasingly tied the lineage of Kikai to Zennyo and to the method singularly capable of invoking the powers of the dragon king- the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer (Shougyo [no] ho). Moreover, the conclusion of the story of Kikai's ritual success was always his elevation in ecclesiastical rank. At the same time, what was the relationship between the tales of Kukai's prowess and the historical conditions of tenth to twelfth century Japan? Did the government, calling on monks of the Shingon school to pray to the dragon king of Shinzen'en in times of drought, respond to their completion of the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer by elevating the rank of the officiant?

We will see that by the late tenth century high-ranking Shingon monks began to gain individual prominence as ritual rainmaking specialists, indicated by the increasing documentary references to the bestowal of "rewards" (sho, kansho, onsho) of rank of goods to officiants upon the completion of the rain prayer. In particular, we can understand the connection between the promotion of rainmaking monks and their ritual capacities by examining the following records of Shingon monks: Shoken's

52 Kobo daishi den zenshu 1, p. 255. The other work is Kobo daishi go-den, written by Kenni, which includes an account of the competition with Shubin and the Shinzen'en rite, pp. 211-12. The story of the competition with Shubin and of the rite at Shinzen'en is told as a set of tales in Konjaku monogatari sha, Nihon koten bungaku taikei 24 (Tokyo: Iwa- nami shoten,1961), pp. 332-35.

164


(1083-1149) compilation Daily Record of Rain Prayer (Kiu nikki), Record of Rain Prayer (Kiu ki) by Kanjin (1084-1153), and Daily Record of the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer (Shougyo [no] ho nikki) by Y6zen (1172-1259).

The Daily Record of Rain Prayer (ca. 1117), compiled by Sh6ken, a Daigoji monk and founder of the Kongoo'in line of the Ono branch, makes it evident that rewards were routinely granted to monks who succeeded in their rites and that Shingon monks understood these rewards as naturally pursuant to ritual efficacy. Indeed, as will be shown, the Daily Record and Kanjin's compilation are both documents internal to Shingon that constitute a distinctly new genre of temple literature. Their descriptions of the ritual successes and rewards of individual monks offer us insight into the historical confluence of the expectations of the clerics and the court and the related constitution-both historical and literary-of a lineage unique to the reputed ritual descendants of Kikai, the original rainmaker.

Upon close examination, the Daily Record notes that Kukai received an elevation in rank to minor bishop (shosozu) following his success at Shinzen'en, but it does not use the term "reward" (sho). Its first mention of "reward" following rain prayer is in the K6ho era (964-67), when Geng6 (911-95) performed a seven-day Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer at Shinzen'en. Having no success, he then made a miscanthus dragon and prayed, whereupon rain began to fall. For his achievement, Geng6 was promoted to deputy precepts master (gonrisshi). The pattern of conferral of higher rank as a reward (sho, kansho) for rainmaking continued unabated thereafter. In 968, Geng6 succeeded again and was rewarded with the post of precepts master. The text goes on to note that Geng6 was later rewarded with the rank of major bishop (daisozu) after his success in performing the rite in Shinzen'en in 985, whereupon Sho- ken interpolates by drawing on other sources to note two other rainmaking occasions on which the rank of Geng6 was elevated.53

The work continues with a whole series of descriptions of rainmaking rites, mostly at Shinzen'en, and the clerical promotions to which they often led. Ningai (951-1046), a disciple of Gengo who became the most illustrious of Buddhist rainmakers, was promoted several times. The per- ceived ritual prowess of Ningai became so great that he could readily decline the sovereign's request to pray for rain. The text describes how, in

53 ZGR 25, no. 725, pt. 2:225-27. By the way, careful study of archival records of Kiu nikki indicates that the printed reference to Kikai's "reward" (sho) in the printed ZGR edition is the result of an error in transcription. The last two rites noted were in Koho 5 and Kanna 1, respectively. The work is not completely consistent, as it also includes an account from a record of administrative appointments that claimed he was made deputy precepts master in 981 (Tengen 4). The term kansho came to be pronounced kenjo by samurai of the Kamakura era and later.

165


1043, the now eminent monk watched as five months passed without rain. Ningai, now elderly, refused four royal commands to pray for rain. After the sutra recitations at multiple temples, the Tendai center Enry- akuji, and the royal palace failed, Ningai agreed to perform the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer. On the sixth day of the rite, a red snake appeared from underneath the altar, and subsequently rain fell. Soon after, Ningai was awarded a carriage escort into the palace and seventy sustenance households.54

The work also reproduces several correspondences between clerics and the government regarding the rainmaking rites, including the oldest extant royal correspondence mediated by a chamberlain (i.e., the rinji form): the chamberlain, on behalf of the sovereign Go-Ichij6, sent a rinji to Ningai in 1028, asking him to follow the ancient example of the "ancestral master" (soshi) by performing the Rite of Rain Prayer at Shin- zen'en. Another such correspondence of 1038 requested that he perform the rite at Shinzen'en, noting that the power of Zennyo Ryii's oath to benefit sentient beings is a transformation of the power of the compassionate vow of the ancestral master, making evident once again the rhetorical appeal to Kiikai as both ritual master and ancestor of his lineage.55

A work by the prominent founder of the Kajuji line of the Ono branch and head abbot of T6ji, Kanjin's Record of Rain Prayer (1149) draws on earlier works to provide a series of records concerning the rainmaking practices of the Heian era. Like the Daily Record, this work notes that he received an increase in clerical rank following his successful rain prayer at Shinzen'en. Here too, the first record of an increase in rank after Kiikai is that following Gengo's success in rainmaking, though in this case, he is described as having been promoted to minor bishop (shosozu) following a rite in 982. From there, Kanjin's work, like the Daily Record, emphasizes repeatedly the other increases of rank and other rewards (sho) following the rainmaking success of Gengo, Ningai, Seizon, Shinkaku (1011-84), Genkaku (1056-1121), Joken (1024-1100), and Jokai (1074- 1149), among the monks of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries.56

In his record, Yozen, a Kajuiji monk, not only points out that during the fourteen royal reigns since Kukai's rite of 824, fifteen acaryas per-

54 Ibid., pp. 229-30. The date of the rites of 1043 begins on Chokyu 4.5.2, and Ningai's rite is described as having begun on 6.8.

55 Ibid., pp. 228-30. The dates of the royal correspondences are given as Manju 5.4.12 and Ch6ryaku 2.6.14, respectively. As is noted by Hayakawa Sh6hachi, "Rinji," in Kokushi daijiten (Tokyo: Yoshikawa K6bunkan, 1979-97), Fujiwara no Sanesuke's diary Shoyuki notes that use of rinji began between the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, but Kiu nikki provides the oldest extant reproduction of a rinji.

56 Geng6's promotion to the rank of minor bishop is recorded as Tengen 5, summer; Kiu ki, Tokyo Daigaku Shiryo Hensanjo Archives, 3014.10.

166


formed the rite on twenty-five occasions, but also includes a section on rewards (kansho no koto), beginning with Kikai's reputed rite in Shin- zen'en. From there, the next reward noted in the section is that of Kan-

gen, who it describes as having been assigned novice monks along with his assistants following a successful performance of the rite at Shin- zen'en, and who was made major bishop at the end of a Shinzen'en rite in 910. From there, the records given of rewards are those of Gengo's and

Ningai's reception of increased rank following their successes.57 Each of these works demonstrates that within the Shingon school-

particularly monks with strong connections to Daigoji or Kajuji of the Ono branch of Shingon and, largely by virtue of their ritual successes, to Toji-clerics produced literature that invoked the figure of Kikai as the ritual ancestor who reputedly received the first reward of increased rank

following his alleged performance of a rainmaking rite in Shinzen'en in 824. In each case, the monks Gengo and Ningai loomed large as repeated recipients of rewards based on rainmaking. These works indicate that the monks of Shingon more generally viewed the period from the tenth cen-

tury on as the most successful and rewarding era of rainmaking on behalf of the sovereigns and those around them. It is evident that the production of these texts not only resulted from an increasing consciousness of the ritual prowess of individual monks and their place within the lineage of Kukai but also, insofar as their writing culminated in the inclusion of a section on rewards, constituted the introduction of a new form of temple literature that directly represented the connection between ritual success and clerical advancement.58

At the same time, were the stories of the successes of Ningai and the

lineage of Kikai convincing to the aristocrats and other clerics of the era? Extant documents such as the rinji included in both Sh6ken's and Kanjin's record suggest that sovereigns and aristocrats also assumed that the Shingon monks had a unique capacity for rain prayer. Moreover, a brief examination of administrative appointment records of the era suggests that the monks indeed received rewards for their efforts. The Ap- pointments of the Clerical Hierarchy (Sogo bunin), an anonymous work

57 Unfortunately, the work is woefully incomplete in several sections, including this one; Y6zen includes three references to Gengo's rise in rank and three references to those of Ningai, after which an unrelated section is inserted. Shougyo [no] ho nikki, Toky6 Daigaku Shiry6 Hensanjo Archives, 3014.74. Yozen signed the manuscript "Katei 3" (1237), though the index Kokusho somokuroku records the date of the manuscript-for unknown reasons-as Kenryaku 3 (1213).

58 Following the production of the rainmaking records, manuscripts of esoteric rituals of the Shingon school, which were commonly referred to as mishuho [no] ki, would with equal veracity describe the connection between officiant clerics' performance of esoteric rituals and their reception of rewards. See, e.g., the Kujakukyo mishuho [no] ki ritual records, ZGR 25, no. 725, pt. 2:345-62 (late twelfth century), 371-81 (mid-Kamakura era), 384-86 (late Kamakura).

167


originally housed in the Nara temple Kofukuji, chronicles the advancement of monks of all schools within the government system of clerical administration between the seventh and mid-twelfth centuries. The earliest use of reward (sho, kansho [also kenjo], onsho) as the reason for elevation in rank was dated 870. Indeed, before the tenth century, the work records that the government granted only three rewards to clerics. How- ever, ten rewards were bestowed in the tenth century, and ninety-one were granted in the eleventh. During the first thirty-nine years of the twelfth century-the period by which the work was completed-some 133 rewards were bestowed.

Study of the text indicates that rainmaking was a reason for reward, particularly from the early eleventh century, when Ningai was active. The work recounts how Ningai was rewarded on two occasions following his performance of the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer at Shin- zen'en and substantiates the claim in the rainmaking records that Ningai received large numbers of sustenance households following a rite.59

Appointments of Toji Abbots (T5ji ch5ja bunin), the record of administrative appointments of high-ranking monks of T6ji, offers a more detailed, albeit in some cases more mythologized, representation of rewards granted to monks of the temple. This work is especially useful because it provides us with a sampling of the extent to which the monks gained rewards via rainmaking as compared with other kinds of rituals. As was the case with Appointments of the Clerical Hierarchy, references in this text to rewards increase substantially between the tenth and twelfth centuries.

As might be expected of a production of Toji, which stood as a marker of the pinnacle of status in the Shingon hierarchy and, together with Kong6buji, the great center of Kobo Daishi (Kukai) veneration, the first reference in the text to a reward was Kikai's elevation in rank following his rainmaking rite at Shinzen'en, one of only two rewards noted in the century. Of the five rewards bestowed during the tenth century, two were granted to monks for conducting the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer at Shinzen'en (Kanshuku and Geng6). Rewards to Ningai accounted for five of the nine rewards recorded during the first half of the eleventh century, and rewards for rainmaking constituted one-fourth of the 100 rewards recorded altogether.60

59 Kofukuji sosho 1, Dai nihon bukkyo zensho 123, pp. 61-288. The dates of the rites were Kannin 2.8.15 and Chokyu 4, eighth month, pp. 160, 174. The latter reference does not refer to the reason for reward, though the date clearly supports accounts referring to his performance of the rainmaking rite at Shinzen'en.

60 By the late twelfth century, the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer was increasingly replaced within the Shingon school by the Peacock King Rite (Kujakukyo [no] ho), which also included the veneration of dragon kings and was most commonly performed at Toji.

168


A NEW METHOD AND A NEW OBJECT

As we have seen, the Japanese Buddhists of the Heian era, while influenced by continental examples, especially tied rainmaking to the ongoing consolidation of relations with the sovereign and court. In doing so, while continental Buddhist literature often told tales of monks who appropriated the powers of dragon kings on behalf of the ruler and the realm, the high-ranking Shingon monks emphasized the actions of the native figure of Kukai as the precedent for their efforts at rain prayer. Moreover, while Chinese Buddhists would sometimes describe the ser-

pent-kings they saw in lands to the west, the esoteric monks of Shingon relocated the most famous of ndga kings to the pond of the royal garden of Shinzen'en.

In this way, we might say, Shingon Buddhists formulated a novel network of relations with the dragon king and the tenno while at the same time consolidating their own tradition vis-a-vis Kukai and earlier continental Buddhism. Of course, there existed native rituals used for rain

prayer prior to the advent of Buddhism. The Buddhists, however, in-

creasingly contributed to the practice of rituals on behalf of the sovereign and government, especially those for the health of the ruler and the prosperity of the realm. During periods of drought, they commonly recited

scriptures in prayer for rain. Moreover, in the seventh century, and in the

early Heian era, individual monks were on occasion believed to have

special capacities in rain prayer. Thus the members of the Shingon tradition understood ritual service to the ruler and realm as a concomitant of life as a Buddhist monk.

It was, in particular, the dragon king who provided the greatest opportunity for Buddhists to contribute to the process of rainmaking. The introduction of Zennyo provided Buddhist officiants with a ritual object specific to Buddhist traditions. Moreover, when Shingon monks located

Zennyo in Shinzen'en, they brought the unique object of their ritual ca-

pacities to the most resonant water source of the capital. During the Heian era the symbolic economy of esoteric Buddhist rain

prayer intersected with that of contemporary politics, enabling officiant monks and their lineage to forge relations of indebtedness with the royal family and the court. Thus serving the sovereign and aristocrats, clerics

This shift, which is beyond the concerns of the present study, was apparently related to a combination of failures of the Sh6ugy6 rite as well as internal politics between the Ono Branch, the monks of which were most involved in Sh6ugyo ho, and the developing Hiro- sawa branch based at Ninnaji, who prominently practiced the Peacock King Rite for a variety of purposes and increasingly dominated the Shingon school from the late twelfth century on. For a study of the developing centrality of Ninnaji within Shingon, see Yo- kouchi Hiroto, "Ninnaji omuro k6," Shirin 79, no. 4 (1996): 78-113.

169


took an active role in an economy in which ritual specialists and a variety of deities offered their services to governmental and familial patronage.

In particular, the broader development of the concept of reward for ritual service coincided by the tenth century with the production of both the story of Kikai and of the relations of indebtedness fostered with Zennyo. Indeed, while the Classified National History (Ruiji kokushi), compiled by Sugawara no Michizane (845-903) at the end of the ninth century, in- troduced the category of royal reward into governmental discourse, the examples were confined to material rewards such as silk, gold, and silver, and monks were virtually absent. Clerical rank (so-i) constituted a sepa- rate category that had no direct connection with the discourse of reward.61

In other words, although the preexisting notion of political reward and developments such as multiple shrine-temple patronage may have contributed to the development of clerical reward, the narrative of Kikai and his ritualized relations with the dragon king constituted inexorable elements in its genesis. The contemporaneity of elevations in rank of the dragon king of Mur6 and the rewards of Geng6 and others point to the connection between the development of a new form of social relationship and a new currency in the political economy of early medieval Japan: the economy of rain prayer, based on relationships of indebtedness with sovereigns-respectively, dragon and human-intersected with the economy of government administration, producing the reward as a new medium of social exchange.

The monks of Shingon drew upon the authority of Kukai and their relations with the dragon king of Shinzen'en in an effort to transform occasions of drought into opportunities to improve their positions vis-a- vis the government and insure the ongoing success of the lineage of Kukai among religious and other groups vying for patronage. Thus, although esoteric Buddhism in China never constituted an independent school, the lineage of Shingon, especially through the efforts of those tracing their ritual prowess to Kukai from the tenth to early twelfth centuries, attempted to establish a viable esoteric Buddhist tradition-and in the process helped produce the reward as a constitutive element in medieval Japanese society.

Kuroda Toshio has stressed that medieval Japan was marked by shift- ing degrees of competition and collaboration between the ruling elites (kenmon) of samurai, aristocrats, and religious institutions. From this perspective, the most powerful of religious institutions were the temple- shrine complexes (jisha) of exoteric-esoteric Buddhism (kenmitsu bukkyo), which were dominant religious and economic centers of the Heian-ky6

61 KST 5, pp. 400-412, 6, pp. 289-92.

170


and Nara areas. Moreover, the lineages associated with these complexes (e.g., T6ji, Enryakuji, Kofukuji, Onjoji, etc.) attempted to express their

special connection with the royal government through the use of the discourse of the mutual dependence of the royal law (obo) and the Buddhist law (bupp).62

The results of this study support the view that the lineage of Shingon, especially that of the Ono branch associated with Toji, constituted part of a powerful complex of the exoteric-esoteric Buddhist establishment. In fact, the sources we have examined suggest that the Shingon monks formed a lineage of rainmaking ritual from a very early period. Indeed, the fact that the officiating monks in rainmaking ritual and other major Shingon rites, who performed them at Toji or in the name of the T6ji lin-

eage, did not as a rule reside in T6ji would suggest all the more the symbolic connections among T6ji, ritual practice, and the lineage of Kuikai.

Toji was positioned within the Shingon Buddhist world not as a monastic environs but as a locative marker of status both within and outside the tradition: T6ji constituted the apex of clerical status within Shingon, and ritual activation of the lineage of Kukai in the name of T6ji promised higher status not only within the Shingon hierarchy but potentially also within the larger clerical appointment system, given the evident recogni- tion of the royal court of the lineage. Indeed, the rainmaking records indicate that the lineage began to form by the era in which Gengo and Ningai became active (tenth to eleventh centuries) and that monks of the

lineage were regularly employed by the royal court in times of crisis; Toji stood as a marker of ritual achievement and pursuant social status- one might say, symbolic capital-within the evolving social hierarchy of medieval Japan.

At the same time, does the discourse of the mutual dependence of the royal law and the Buddhist law fully explain the relations between the monks and the court? The sources on rainmaking suggest that the monks relied primarily on the production of the legend of Kukai and of the discourse of indebtedness rather than on the rhetoric of the royal law and Buddhist law in their effort to construct a lineage of rain prayer. In- deed, the Shingon monks converted their performance of rain ritual into

62 Kuroda outlined his theory in a series of works. See, in particular, Nihon chisei no kokka to shikyo (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1975), and Jisha seiryoku: Mo hitotsu no chusei shakai (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1980). An entire issue of the Japanese Journal of Reli- gious Studies (24, nos. 3-4 [1996]) was devoted to the translation and analysis of his work; see especially "The Development of the Kenmitsu System as Japan's Medieval Or- thodoxy," trans. James C. Dobbins, pp. 233-69 and, as was noted earlier in this essay, Stone (n. 9 above), pp. 271-85. The essay translated by Dobbins constitutes the first thirty- five pages of the essay "Chusei ni okeru kenmitsu taisei no tenkai," and the work translated by Stone, "Obu to bupp6"; these are drawn, respectively, from Kuroda Toshio chosakusha 2 (Kyoto: H6zokan, 1994), pp. 45-182, 185-96.

171


rewards as concrete measures of their success. They not only projected power through the production of discourse but actualized it through ac- quisition of increased rank-evidence, again, of the confidence of the sovereign and those close to him in their ritual abilities.

In addition, given that the legend of Kuikai and the ritual lineage crystallized by the tenth century, it is evident that the monks relied on a discourse and ritual practice that predated the development of the notion of the mutual dependence of the royal law and the Buddhist law. Kuroda himself dated the first use of the notion of mutual dependence at the beginning of the eleventh century, at minimum decades after the production of the Last Testament and the appearance of the lineage of Shingon rainmaking. While the monks continued to produce rainmaking records and biographies of Kiikai well into the twelfth century, the discourse and ritual lineage they constructed were operative well before the flourishing of the notion of mutual dependence.

These conclusions suggest that we should reexamine the emphasis Kuroda and others have placed on the discourse of mutual dependence. It is clear that mutual dependence was an inexorable part of power relations between exoteric-esoteric Buddhism and the other ruling elites from the twelfth century. However, what was its genealogy? Moreover, on what kind of social relations was it based? In other words, what constituted the ground of possibility for the discourse, and what were its mi- cropolitics? While Kuroda was right to stress the discourse of mutual dependence, the notion remains primarily abstract, and the discourse itself seems to have invariably been appropriated by members of institutions of the cultural and political elite.

I would like to suggest that, based on this study, we look at the discourse of indebtedness as the most immediate context for the development of the notion of the mutual dependence of the royal law and the Buddhist law. That is, the appearance of the notion of mutual dependence could only take place based on a discourse marked by exchange. Socially, the notion required relations marked by mutuality of loyalty and the promise of reward for faithful service.

Turning briefly to the power relations which the notion of mutual dependence invoked and undergirded, I ask whether Kuroda took an approach broad enough to conceptualize properly the place of esoteric- exoteric Buddhism in medieval Japan. One is aware of the demands of loyalty and the promises of reward through which warrior houses and their attendant samurai attempted to solidify their relations. Given the character of the sources on rainmaking, one wonders whether Kuroda sufficiently examined the apparent homologies between the discourse and relations operative in esoteric Buddhism and those in medieval society more generally. This study suggests that the power relations that devel-

172


oped among the exoteric-esoteric Buddhists, aristocrats, and warriors in medieval times, often discursively expressed in terms of loyalty and of reward (e.g., onsho, usually taking the form of land granted for faithful service), had their genesis in part in the triangle of relations among monks, dragon kings, and the government of the Heian era, in connection with the Buddhist discourse of indebtedness, which became prominent from the ninth century on.63 At the same time, while warriors, aristocrats, and monks may have hoped for continuing loyalty in return for rewards, the character of their relationships demanded their repeated reinforce- ment, as was usually the case with dragon kings. Otherwise, the burden of gratitude and debt might be lifted, leading to stormy results.

Finally, this study has theoretical implications for the study of rain-

making and other rituals throughout Asia. Rainmaking toward the

dragon king by Shingon Buddhists of early medieval Japan and by Bud- dhists in broader East Asia clearly shares qualities associated with the offering of gifts and engaging in sacrifice to naga serpent-deities of India and surrounding regions.64 Moreover, although Japanese esoteric Bud- dhists did not generally use violent methods to approach the dragon king, their ritual actions established relations of indebtedness and exchange associated with sacrificial offering.65 Indeed, as we have seen, the discourse produced by the esoteric monks invoked the dragon king as a figure homologous with the living ruler, while simultaneously drawing on the powers of both dragon and human sovereign through establishing parallel relations with both figures. Both figures constitute, when positioned in the Buddhist cosmos, viable benefactors (Sk. danapati) of the Buddhist community, to be treasured in the manner depicted by Yang Hsiian-chih in the epigraph of this study and in the account by Fa-Hsien. Dragon king and human sovereign equally vie to support the community along the lines of the great Asoka, known throughout the Buddhist world as the closest approximation of the ideal wheel-turning Buddhist ruler.

We can conclude by noting as well the important presence of Sakya- muni Buddha as the ultimate object of veneration in the esoteric rainmaking Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer. The dragon is present and is the object of scriptural recitations and offering, but the main object of

63 For an analysis of the discourse of the four debts (shion) and its relationship with social relations in early medieval Japanese society, see Brian D. Ruppert, "Sin or Crime? Buddhism, Indebtedness, and the Construction of Social Relations in Early Medieval Ja- pan," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 28, nos. 1-2 (2001): 31-55.

64 See, e.g., David Shulman, "The Serpent and the Sacrifice: An Anthill Myth from Tiruvarur," History of Religions 18, no. 2 (1978): 107-37.

65 For a classic discussion of sacrificial offering, see Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). They note, based particularly on the example of Vedic and Hebrew rituals, that any sacrifice is both "a useful act and... an obligation," since both worshiper and object of worship exchange their services (p. 100).

173


prayer (honzon) as represented in the Rite of the Scripture on Rain Prayer mandala is the historical Buddha himself-preaching to Apalala and other dragon kings, who are among his patrons as represented in Bud- dhist literature, and thereby removing their suffering. Shingon monks, in drawing on the powers of the dragon king, were receiving the blessings not only of a benefactor who had supported the ancestral founder of Jap- anese esoteric Buddhism but also those of Sakyamuni; thus they affirmed their place ritually within the lineage of the larger Buddhist tradition as well as within that of Japanese Shingon. Indeed, this study of the political implications of dragon king worship in no way has attempted to draw comprehensive conclusions regarding the ritual actions and discursive productions of medieval Shingon clerics, which were marked simultaneously by lived religious experience and the effort to construct a literary bridge to Buddhists of earlier Japan and across to those earlier Buddhist figures on the Asian continent. The polyvalence of the ritual actions and discursive productions of the medieval Shingon Buddhists thus reminds us that they simultaneously thereby mediated past and present Buddhism, religion and politics, and gained relations with beings of multiple realms- mimetically reinscribing social and political relations as "Buddhist" in the process.

University of Illinois

174

Documents

Buddhist Rainmaking in Early Japan: The Dragon King and the Ritual Careers of Esoteric Monks