![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ahorbinskiBibliographic Data: Thal, Sarah. Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods: The Politics of a Pilgrimage Site in Japan, 1573-1912. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Main Argument: Thal notes at least four difficulties in defining the nature of kami (their particularity, their plasticity, their close association with other types of powerful beings, and the difficulty of applying Western religious concepts to Japanese phenomena), using the sacred site of Mt. Zôzu on Shikoku (beter known as Kotohira or Konpira) to argue that in the early modern period "not only priests but also politicians, pilgrims, entrepreneurs and officials shaped the complex structure of what would become modern Shinto: a purportedly timeless, unchanging, native tradition that in fact emerged from the pressures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries" (09-10).
Historiographical Engagement: Particularly with the work of John K. Nelson on Shinto, more broadly in counterpoint to the scholarship of "state Shinto" in the Meiji period in particular as well as on the scholarship of "religion" in "Japan," including the work of Helen Hardacre.
Introduction: Argument, Sources, Examples There is always a politics inherent in the portrayal of powerful beings such as the gods, portrayals which must be constantly renegotiated to ensure the survival and status of those associated with them in changing conditions.
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter follows an archetypal pilgrim up the mountain in the 1850s, pointing out the "unspoken assumptions" of the time: that pilgrimage worked because the powers of the gods were located in specific places (i.e. spatially bounded); that donations worked because the gods of sacred sites "actively intervened in the human world;" that divine intervention was closely linked to quotidian economic realities (i.e. undertaken for petitioners' economic benefit and enabled by the complex late Tokugawa economy); and that pilgrimage as a physical journey (further up and farther in, one might say) "allowed pilgrims to transcend the hierarchy of the world while yet confirming both its existence and its relevance" (35-36).
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples Far from being independent powers, the gods and priests of Mt. Zôzu saw their influence wax and wane based on which sponsors they elected to support, the most influential of which, in the runup to the establishment of the Toyotomi regime and the Pax Tokugawa, were the warlords of the late 16thC. Priests and their gods "vied to prove the efficacy of their own traditions for legitimizing, protecting, and enhancing the governing ability of the ruling lord" (54).
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples "In the early 17thC, the priests of the god Konpira, in particular, successfully positioned themselves politically, ritually, and economically in relation to both wealthy rulers and rivals on the mountain, thereby establishing the long-term survival of Konpira on Mt. Zôzu and the hereditary security of their administrative base, Konkôin. In doing so, they responded and contributed to the intellectual, social, and political structures of the time" (56).
Chapter 4: Argument, Sources, Examples "Supermarket Catholicism" may be a post-Vatican II phenomenon in the United States, but a kind of supermarket religion prevailed at Konpira from almost the beginning of the Edo period, allowing the mountain to attract and to be supported by "a variety of social groups, building first a local, then a regional, and eventually a national following" (71). Over time, Konpira developed ties to all three of the major political institutions of the Tokugawa period (the shogunate, the domains, and the imperial court in Kyoto). Divergent interpretations appealed to different groups of people, but they stoked the overall popularity of Konpira within the nation.
Chapter 5: Argument, Sources, Examples "Konpira rose to prominence with the expansion of the market economy and the social stratification that ensued. … As the cult of KOnpira flourished in Edo…the worship of Konpira became part of a mass culture of gods, miracles, and pilgrimage that shaped the thougths and behaviors of people in 19thC Japan" (97), which lay beyond the control of Konpira's priests.
Chapter 6: Argument, Sources, Examples As well as overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate, the Meiji coup (as Thal terms it) brought about an absolutely pivotal transformation in the political, intellectual and social sphere: the new nativist regime boldly rewrote the entire pattern of Japanese belief, insisting on a rigid separation between what were defined as "Buddhism" and "Shinto" as the state and priests in unequal conjunction "began the long process of creating modern Shinto" (129).
Chapter 7: Argument, Sources, Examples As part of the Meiji project, nativists in the new government sought to use sites of gods, in particular, "to foster a sense of nationalism, dedication, and loyalty to the state," creating "new structures and statuses that would entice influential men throughout the country to throw in their lot with the new regime, laying "the groundwork for a sense of national identity and patriotism inextricably tied to the sties of the gods" (148).
Chapter 8: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter is focused exclusively on the Reverence Association established at Kotohira Jingû (Shrine) in 1874 to support the shrine, through which "the priests aimed at nothing less than the transformation of the purpose of worship: from episodes of personal petitioning to ongoing, formal expressions of respect" (177). One might add that this transformation of worship would necessarily transform belief, and note that in these projects priests at Kotohira and around the country were less than completely successful.
Chapter 9: Argument, Sources, Examples Beginning in the 1880s, government oligarchs fixated on creating Japan as a modern constitutional industrial power equal to the West instituted a series of policies with grave effects on shrines, namely cutting government funding to shrines and institution high tax rates, squeezing the surplus cash of the shrine's potential commoner patrons. Explicitly barred from playing a "religious" role, the priests of Kotohira began to cultivate local magnates, creating the shrine along with others as "sites for the rituals of imperial subjecthood" (208). "With 'religion' now defined as private, divisive, and selfish, the priests--focusing more on the educated elite than on the 'superstitious' masses--increasingly aligned the gods with values of unity and the public good as part of the nation, not with faith" (219).
Chapter 10: Argument, Sources, Examples At Kotohira in particular, the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) provided an opportunity for non-elites to make demands upon shrine priests "to expand their ritual duties beyond general support of the nation to provide an arena in which villagers could personalize their prayers, calling on the assistance of the god. In the process, they created new group rituals that tied their communities together, through the god, to the military, the nation, and the empire. In doing so, they pushed the priests once again to return the miracles of the deity to the rites of the state" (235). Draws heavily on shrine diaries.
Chapter 11: Argument, Sources, Examples "…confronted both with the politics of their rituals--whether civic or miraculous--and with the economics of their pilgrimage, the priests of Kotohira were forced to seek out new ways to compete within the rapidly changing economy of industrializing Japan" (237). In a reversal from the Edo period, priests found themselves forced to promote the Kotohira pilgrimage themselves, and in the position of supporting, rather than dictating, local politics and political leaders. In particular, priests found that they could no longer attempt to play favorites in offering pilgrimage discounts, even as their ideal pilgrims became moneyed Westernized elites while their real pilgrims were overwhelmingly poor and non-elite.
Chapter 12: Argument, Sources, Examples By the end of the Russo-Japanese War, priests, worshippers, and businesspeople created at Kotohira a culture "that brought the god, the military, and the business of pilgrimage into a tighter embrace than ever before" (260). All of these factions' interests "combined with the cult of miracles at the root of the deity's continuing widespread popularity to create an image of Konpira and other gods as protectors of Japan" (276).
Chapter 13: Argument, Sources, Examples Reflecting the heterogeneity that would be violently suppressed in the Shôwa period, Kotohira at the end of the Meiji period was "among other things, a destination of devout pilgrimage, an exciting urban adventure, a cultural monument, and a rural anachronism" (297). Each of these facets or aspects, it must be noted, were thoroughly embedded in the sociopolitical order of the Meiji state, although, as Thal scrupulously notes, the term "emperor worship" that has often been used to describe state Shinto in this period is not supported in the historical record; at Kotohira prior to 1912, "the emperor figured more in the abstract than in real flesh and blood" (295).
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples By way of a conclusion, Thal assesses the efforts of Kotohira since the end of the Meiji sociopolitcal order in 1945 to transform with the times, noting that "the current head priest has turned the [Konpira] symbol from an evocation of national pride into an even more straightforward image of wealth and prosperity" and that he "seems to be shfiting the shrine away from his father's focus on national culture and identity toward a more inclusive international outlook" (309), setting up a website as well as allowing women to participate fully as miko in shrine ceremonies. Thal notes that "such changes highlight the position of Kotohira Shrine within history, not outside it. Far from being frozen in an ideal past, the mountain shrine is dependent for its survival upon the abilities of its priests to negotiate successfully between several groups" (314). "Throughout, the story of Konpira highlights the ongoing connections between politics and the gods--and the lasting impact of those connections on the physical and ritual landscape of Japan" (314).
Critical assessment: This is a strong, excellent study that, through its tight focus on Kotohira, manages to reveal telling points about the Japanese experience of the category that we call "religion" through the Edo period and into the early Meiji era. That said, I did get tired of how absolutely everything in the three centuries Thal covers dramatically reshapes Kotohira (which does lead to the question: how does one convey dynamism without going too far into hyperbole?).
That said, this site history does provide some fascinating corrections to more generalized narratives of the Meiji period and of the relationship between state Shinto and the state, as well as being engaging in its own right, particularly in the chapters after 1868. Thal succeeds well in conveying through thick description the inextricably intertwined and combinatory nature of religion in Japan before the Meiji. I appreciated the reminder her book offered that institutions must always successfully negotiate the political, social, and economic contexts around them for their survival; in particular I thought her account of the Kotohira priests' maneuvering around and through the early Meiji state's policy shilly-shallying was very nicely illustrative of the kinks that are almost always flattened in more general histories of the period, even if the adaptability and functional ambiguity of religion and worship, respectively, in Japan, is nothing new (for which see Karen Smyers' excellent The Fox and the Jewel). Of especial note and fascination is her revealing just how much of the actual lived practice of state Shinto was created, not in a top-down manner by priests or officials, but in response to and with the active participation of commoners, from undifferentiated laity to businesspeople to potential patrons.
Further reading: Karen Smyers, The Fox and the Jewel; Michael Dylan Foster, Pandemonium and Parade; Helen Hardacre, Shintô and the state, 1868-1988
Meta notes: It's interesting to see this book in the Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute series, which is explicitly devoted to "significant new research on modern and contemporary East Asia." Also, I don't enjoy the multitude of short chapters; for my taste, I'd rather have longer, tighter ones.
I visited Kotohira this summer (it was deathly hot), and it's interesting to go back over this book in light of that perspective. Thal is right that for most people the primary experience of the shrine is now as a series of steps (with a side of udon and sweet potato soft cream, in my case). You can still see the palimpsest of history in the town and the shrine, and visiting Kotohira with Thal's book in mind enriches the experience by making the layers of that palimpsest legible.
Our department offered Thal a job in 2007, and I wish she'd taken it.
Main Argument: Thal notes at least four difficulties in defining the nature of kami (their particularity, their plasticity, their close association with other types of powerful beings, and the difficulty of applying Western religious concepts to Japanese phenomena), using the sacred site of Mt. Zôzu on Shikoku (beter known as Kotohira or Konpira) to argue that in the early modern period "not only priests but also politicians, pilgrims, entrepreneurs and officials shaped the complex structure of what would become modern Shinto: a purportedly timeless, unchanging, native tradition that in fact emerged from the pressures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries" (09-10).
Historiographical Engagement: Particularly with the work of John K. Nelson on Shinto, more broadly in counterpoint to the scholarship of "state Shinto" in the Meiji period in particular as well as on the scholarship of "religion" in "Japan," including the work of Helen Hardacre.
Introduction: Argument, Sources, Examples There is always a politics inherent in the portrayal of powerful beings such as the gods, portrayals which must be constantly renegotiated to ensure the survival and status of those associated with them in changing conditions.
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter follows an archetypal pilgrim up the mountain in the 1850s, pointing out the "unspoken assumptions" of the time: that pilgrimage worked because the powers of the gods were located in specific places (i.e. spatially bounded); that donations worked because the gods of sacred sites "actively intervened in the human world;" that divine intervention was closely linked to quotidian economic realities (i.e. undertaken for petitioners' economic benefit and enabled by the complex late Tokugawa economy); and that pilgrimage as a physical journey (further up and farther in, one might say) "allowed pilgrims to transcend the hierarchy of the world while yet confirming both its existence and its relevance" (35-36).
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples Far from being independent powers, the gods and priests of Mt. Zôzu saw their influence wax and wane based on which sponsors they elected to support, the most influential of which, in the runup to the establishment of the Toyotomi regime and the Pax Tokugawa, were the warlords of the late 16thC. Priests and their gods "vied to prove the efficacy of their own traditions for legitimizing, protecting, and enhancing the governing ability of the ruling lord" (54).
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples "In the early 17thC, the priests of the god Konpira, in particular, successfully positioned themselves politically, ritually, and economically in relation to both wealthy rulers and rivals on the mountain, thereby establishing the long-term survival of Konpira on Mt. Zôzu and the hereditary security of their administrative base, Konkôin. In doing so, they responded and contributed to the intellectual, social, and political structures of the time" (56).
Chapter 4: Argument, Sources, Examples "Supermarket Catholicism" may be a post-Vatican II phenomenon in the United States, but a kind of supermarket religion prevailed at Konpira from almost the beginning of the Edo period, allowing the mountain to attract and to be supported by "a variety of social groups, building first a local, then a regional, and eventually a national following" (71). Over time, Konpira developed ties to all three of the major political institutions of the Tokugawa period (the shogunate, the domains, and the imperial court in Kyoto). Divergent interpretations appealed to different groups of people, but they stoked the overall popularity of Konpira within the nation.
Chapter 5: Argument, Sources, Examples "Konpira rose to prominence with the expansion of the market economy and the social stratification that ensued. … As the cult of KOnpira flourished in Edo…the worship of Konpira became part of a mass culture of gods, miracles, and pilgrimage that shaped the thougths and behaviors of people in 19thC Japan" (97), which lay beyond the control of Konpira's priests.
Chapter 6: Argument, Sources, Examples As well as overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate, the Meiji coup (as Thal terms it) brought about an absolutely pivotal transformation in the political, intellectual and social sphere: the new nativist regime boldly rewrote the entire pattern of Japanese belief, insisting on a rigid separation between what were defined as "Buddhism" and "Shinto" as the state and priests in unequal conjunction "began the long process of creating modern Shinto" (129).
Chapter 7: Argument, Sources, Examples As part of the Meiji project, nativists in the new government sought to use sites of gods, in particular, "to foster a sense of nationalism, dedication, and loyalty to the state," creating "new structures and statuses that would entice influential men throughout the country to throw in their lot with the new regime, laying "the groundwork for a sense of national identity and patriotism inextricably tied to the sties of the gods" (148).
Chapter 8: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter is focused exclusively on the Reverence Association established at Kotohira Jingû (Shrine) in 1874 to support the shrine, through which "the priests aimed at nothing less than the transformation of the purpose of worship: from episodes of personal petitioning to ongoing, formal expressions of respect" (177). One might add that this transformation of worship would necessarily transform belief, and note that in these projects priests at Kotohira and around the country were less than completely successful.
Chapter 9: Argument, Sources, Examples Beginning in the 1880s, government oligarchs fixated on creating Japan as a modern constitutional industrial power equal to the West instituted a series of policies with grave effects on shrines, namely cutting government funding to shrines and institution high tax rates, squeezing the surplus cash of the shrine's potential commoner patrons. Explicitly barred from playing a "religious" role, the priests of Kotohira began to cultivate local magnates, creating the shrine along with others as "sites for the rituals of imperial subjecthood" (208). "With 'religion' now defined as private, divisive, and selfish, the priests--focusing more on the educated elite than on the 'superstitious' masses--increasingly aligned the gods with values of unity and the public good as part of the nation, not with faith" (219).
Chapter 10: Argument, Sources, Examples At Kotohira in particular, the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) provided an opportunity for non-elites to make demands upon shrine priests "to expand their ritual duties beyond general support of the nation to provide an arena in which villagers could personalize their prayers, calling on the assistance of the god. In the process, they created new group rituals that tied their communities together, through the god, to the military, the nation, and the empire. In doing so, they pushed the priests once again to return the miracles of the deity to the rites of the state" (235). Draws heavily on shrine diaries.
Chapter 11: Argument, Sources, Examples "…confronted both with the politics of their rituals--whether civic or miraculous--and with the economics of their pilgrimage, the priests of Kotohira were forced to seek out new ways to compete within the rapidly changing economy of industrializing Japan" (237). In a reversal from the Edo period, priests found themselves forced to promote the Kotohira pilgrimage themselves, and in the position of supporting, rather than dictating, local politics and political leaders. In particular, priests found that they could no longer attempt to play favorites in offering pilgrimage discounts, even as their ideal pilgrims became moneyed Westernized elites while their real pilgrims were overwhelmingly poor and non-elite.
Chapter 12: Argument, Sources, Examples By the end of the Russo-Japanese War, priests, worshippers, and businesspeople created at Kotohira a culture "that brought the god, the military, and the business of pilgrimage into a tighter embrace than ever before" (260). All of these factions' interests "combined with the cult of miracles at the root of the deity's continuing widespread popularity to create an image of Konpira and other gods as protectors of Japan" (276).
Chapter 13: Argument, Sources, Examples Reflecting the heterogeneity that would be violently suppressed in the Shôwa period, Kotohira at the end of the Meiji period was "among other things, a destination of devout pilgrimage, an exciting urban adventure, a cultural monument, and a rural anachronism" (297). Each of these facets or aspects, it must be noted, were thoroughly embedded in the sociopolitical order of the Meiji state, although, as Thal scrupulously notes, the term "emperor worship" that has often been used to describe state Shinto in this period is not supported in the historical record; at Kotohira prior to 1912, "the emperor figured more in the abstract than in real flesh and blood" (295).
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples By way of a conclusion, Thal assesses the efforts of Kotohira since the end of the Meiji sociopolitcal order in 1945 to transform with the times, noting that "the current head priest has turned the [Konpira] symbol from an evocation of national pride into an even more straightforward image of wealth and prosperity" and that he "seems to be shfiting the shrine away from his father's focus on national culture and identity toward a more inclusive international outlook" (309), setting up a website as well as allowing women to participate fully as miko in shrine ceremonies. Thal notes that "such changes highlight the position of Kotohira Shrine within history, not outside it. Far from being frozen in an ideal past, the mountain shrine is dependent for its survival upon the abilities of its priests to negotiate successfully between several groups" (314). "Throughout, the story of Konpira highlights the ongoing connections between politics and the gods--and the lasting impact of those connections on the physical and ritual landscape of Japan" (314).
Critical assessment: This is a strong, excellent study that, through its tight focus on Kotohira, manages to reveal telling points about the Japanese experience of the category that we call "religion" through the Edo period and into the early Meiji era. That said, I did get tired of how absolutely everything in the three centuries Thal covers dramatically reshapes Kotohira (which does lead to the question: how does one convey dynamism without going too far into hyperbole?).
That said, this site history does provide some fascinating corrections to more generalized narratives of the Meiji period and of the relationship between state Shinto and the state, as well as being engaging in its own right, particularly in the chapters after 1868. Thal succeeds well in conveying through thick description the inextricably intertwined and combinatory nature of religion in Japan before the Meiji. I appreciated the reminder her book offered that institutions must always successfully negotiate the political, social, and economic contexts around them for their survival; in particular I thought her account of the Kotohira priests' maneuvering around and through the early Meiji state's policy shilly-shallying was very nicely illustrative of the kinks that are almost always flattened in more general histories of the period, even if the adaptability and functional ambiguity of religion and worship, respectively, in Japan, is nothing new (for which see Karen Smyers' excellent The Fox and the Jewel). Of especial note and fascination is her revealing just how much of the actual lived practice of state Shinto was created, not in a top-down manner by priests or officials, but in response to and with the active participation of commoners, from undifferentiated laity to businesspeople to potential patrons.
Further reading: Karen Smyers, The Fox and the Jewel; Michael Dylan Foster, Pandemonium and Parade; Helen Hardacre, Shintô and the state, 1868-1988
Meta notes: It's interesting to see this book in the Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute series, which is explicitly devoted to "significant new research on modern and contemporary East Asia." Also, I don't enjoy the multitude of short chapters; for my taste, I'd rather have longer, tighter ones.
I visited Kotohira this summer (it was deathly hot), and it's interesting to go back over this book in light of that perspective. Thal is right that for most people the primary experience of the shrine is now as a series of steps (with a side of udon and sweet potato soft cream, in my case). You can still see the palimpsest of history in the town and the shrine, and visiting Kotohira with Thal's book in mind enriches the experience by making the layers of that palimpsest legible.
Our department offered Thal a job in 2007, and I wish she'd taken it.