Preferred Citation: Kim, Yung-Hee. Songs to Make the Dust Dance: The Ryojin Hisho of Twelfth-Century Japan. Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press,  1994. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2f59n7x0/

Songs to Make the Dust Dance The Ryojin hisho of Twelfth-Century Japan Yung-Hee Kim UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley · Los Angeles · Oxford © 1994 The Regents of the University of California

Preferred Citation: Kim, Yung-Hee. Songs to Make the Dust Dance: The Ryojin Hisho of Twelfth-Century Japan. Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press,  1994. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2f59n7x0/

To my mother and to the memory of my father

Acknowledgments

Before this book took its present shape, it went through several stages of incarnation. This long process of birth was due mainly to the complexity of Ryojin hisho itself, for this Heian song compilation contains ideas, subject matters, sentiments, and poetic forms that are multidimensional and heterogeneous in nature. Even selecting songs for analysis proved rather onerous; it was always necessary to keep in mind the character of the anthology as a whole and to select representative samples accordingly. These factors required repeated adjustments in perspective and focus. In the end, this book strives to present the essence of Ryojin hisho —its diversity in both meaning and form.

Along the way, a number of individuals and organizations offered me invaluable help. First of all, I would like to thank Karen Brazell at Cornell University, who first introduced me to the unimaginable riches of Ryojin hisho and inspired me to pursue a study of the anthology. Much appreciation goes to Brett DeBary, also at Cornell, for her ready and generous assistance, which has extended beyond the process of preparing this book. Michael Cooper has always been there to supply ample encouragement and good humor.

At the Ohio State University, awards from the Special Research Assignment Program in the College of Humanities and the University Publication Subvention Fund provided me with time and resources to concentrate on research and writing. One of the most challenging tasks of this project was translating the Ryojin hisho songs. The guiding principle throughout was to stay close to the original in spirit and form but make the songs as authentic-sounding as possible in English. In this I am most grateful to Anthony Libby at Ohio State, whose final poetic touch truly

made the songs sing. Early on Gary Ebersole of the University of Chicago, my former colleague at Ohio State, gave an incisive critique after a thorough reading of the entire working draft; to him I am indebted. The following people at Ohio State also have been exceptional sources of assistance: Maureen Donovan at the Main Library, Yoshiko Uchida at the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, and Michael Garofano and Joo Hee Yoo at the Humanities Computer Center.

No words can do full justice to the encouragement given by Jeanne Sugiyama at the University of California Press, who recognized the importance of publishing this study. I remain grateful for Anne Canright's insightful comments and meticulous editing, which enhanced this book. Jenny Tomlin at the University of California Press has been invaluable in guiding the manuscript through the various editing and production stages. Most of all, it is thanks to the patience, understanding, and professional expertise of Betsey Scheiner at the Press that the manuscript has finally emerged as a book.

Lastly, to my family, whose continuing moral support has helped me through the high and low points of writing, I owe my deepest gratitude.

Abbreviations

From Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei and Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshu

NKBT Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei

NKBZ Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshu

RHRyojin hisho (1179) (NKBT, vol. 73; NKBZ, vol. 25)

WRSWakan roeishu (ca. 1013) (NKBT, vol. 73)

From Shinpen kokka taikan , vol. 1 (Kadokawa Shoten, 1983)

GSISGoshuishu (1086)

GSSGosenshu (commissioned 951)

KKSKokinshu (ca. 920)

SGSISShingoshuishu (1384)

SISShuishu (ca. 1005-11)

SKKSShinkokinshu (1206)

SKSShikashu (ca. 1151-54)

SZKKSShinzokukokinshu (1439)

SZSSenzaishu (ca. 1188)

From Shinpen kokka taikan , vol. 2 (Kadokawa Shoten, 1984)

KKRJKokin(waka)rokujo (ca. 987)

From Shinpen kokka taikan , vol. 5 (Kadokawa Shoten, 1987)

KYISUKaya no In shichiban utaawase (1094)

Introduction

Songs are meant to be sung. When performed, they come alive and serve their purpose to the fullest. In a performative context, the melody is the primary medium for aesthetic stimulation and appreciation, with lyrics tending to play a secondary or complementary role, at most. This fact accounts for the phenomenal success of some songs with lyrics of minor literary merit but with great musical articulation. In extreme cases, even one line of lyric can become a magnificent song, when carried by a melody of superb variation and modulation.

What happens, then, when we find song lyrics written or printed on the pages of books, to be read and appreciated as poems without the benefit of their music? What are we to do with them? Do we treat them as regular poems? If so, by what criteria do we appraise them? What occasioned them and who wrote them? In cases of anonymous poets, how do we know what the lyrics are really about? Who sang them? Who was the audience, and how did the songs function? What are we to do with them, especially, when they are popular songs of anonymous common people—the unofficial voices from an age long past?

Ryojin hisho (Treasured Selections of Superb Songs) is one such collection of songs, whose meanings can be partially deciphered when some of these questions are answered. Compiled in 1179, Ryojin hisho is the largest extant collection of imayo (meaning "modern style"), a popular song genre that flourished for over two centuries, from the mid-Heian to the early Kamakura period. The work's primary distinction is that it was not a commissioned project but was compiled personally by the emperor Go-Shirakawa (1127-92). Go-Shirakawa's involvement in the plebeian imayo as a devoted patron, practitioner, and critic, rather than in waka,

the "proper" literary form of his age, scandalized many in the inner court. Undaunted, the emperor dedicated most of his adult life to promoting imayo . This effort culminated in Ryojin hisho , which took him more than two decades to complete—concrete evidence of the emperor's single-minded pursuit of the art he loved.

Presumably the original Ryojin hisho consisted of two distinct parts, each comprising ten books. The first part is thought to have been a collection of imayo lyrics (kashishu ). Customarily, the name Ryojin hisho refers to this kashishu . The other part, called Kudenshu (Collections of Oral Transmission), is believed to have consisted of assorted information about the origins of imayo , musical scores and notations, instructions on imayo performance along with appropriate examples, and anecdotes related to these components.^[1] Regrettably, only small parts of the original are extant: from the kashishu , a fragment of Book 1 (21 songs) and the complete Book 2 (545 songs), making a total of 566 imayo songs; and from the Kudenshu , a fraction of passages from Book 1 having to do with a mythical exegesis on the origin of imayo , as well as the complete Book 10, which is Go-Shirakawa's memoir. The large number of songs in Book 2 of the kashishu suggests that the original Ryojin hisho was quite vast in scope and size. Despite its fragmentary condition, Ryojin hisho is still the largest extant collection of imayo .^[2]

An interesting but brief note on the origin of the name of Ryojin hisho is attached to the end of the fragment of Book 1. It explains that the title derives from ancient Chinese legends about two famous singers named Yü Kung and Han Ê. Tradition has it that their peerless voices moved listeners to tears, and the reverberating sound made the "dust on the rafters" (ryojin ) dance for three days before it settled down. Thus, the term ryojin came to refer to beautiful voices.^[3] The anecdote also under-scores the power of music to move not only human hearts but insentient beings as well.^[4] Given these various associations, the title of Ryojin hisho can be translated as "Treasured Selections of Superb Songs."

After its completion, Ryojin hisho was probably circulated among those who were close to the emperor. Sometime during the mid-fourteenth century, however, the anthology completely disappeared. The last known textual reference to it is a brief comment by Yoshida Kenko (ca. 1283-ca. 1352) in his Tsurezuregusa (ca. 1330) that “imayo lyrics of Ryojin hisho are deeply moving."^[5] In the succeeding centuries, the anthology became an unknown and lost entity. Scattered efforts were made in the seven-teenth century by a few scholars of the National Studies Movement (kokugaku ) to determine the whereabouts of the text, but their attempts were futile.

Then, in the fall of 1911, the historian Wada Hidematsu (1865-1937) happened upon a two-volume text titled Ryojin hisho while browsing in a used book shop in Tokyo. Wada entrusted his find to his friend Sasaki Nobutsuna (1872-1963), the renowned Japanese classics scholar, for a textual verification. Sasaki's scrutiny established that the text was a complete copy of Book 2 of Ryojin hisho dating from the late Edo period. Subsequently Sasaki unearthed the fragments of Book 1 of kashishu and Book 1 of Kudenshu in the Aya no Koji family archives, and in August 1912 he published the first modern annotated edition of Ryojin hisho , consisting of these three different parts.^[6]

Thus, after six centuries of complete silence, Ryojin hisho sang out once again. Its reception by Japanese scholars was nothing short of ecstatic—an understandable reaction given the dearth of information on popular literature of the Heian period, especially in the poetry genre. Indeed, the early 1910s and 1920s saw something of a Ryojin hisho boom, as the anthology engaged the attention of major literary scholars who repeatedly yielded newer editions of the text. Konishi Jin'ichi, an expert on Ryojin hisho , observed that the work would have been called "the second Man'yoshu “ had it been preserved in its entirety.^[7] The anthology rapidly became a major source of material not only for scholars of Japanese literature, but also for students of folklore, religion, and the performing arts.

The sensational rediscovery of Ryojin hisho and its introduction to the reading public provided powerful inspiration to a number of leading modern poets and writers, such as Saito Mokichi (1882-1953), Kitahara Hakushu (1885-1942), Sato Haruo (1892-1964), and the novelist Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927). Among them, Ryojin hisho's impact was perhaps most strongly felt by the tanka poet Mokichi, as his collection of literary criticism, Dobamango (1919), indicates, for in it he included thirty-six songs from Ryojin hisho as his favorite poems. Mokichi's second poetry collection, Aratama (1921), is also considered to have been clearly influenced by Ryojin hisho .^[8]

The extant Ryojin hisho displays a wide spectrum of subjects and themes. Its songs lift their voices to praise the boundless mercies of buddhas, then reveal with no qualms the world of gamblers and courtesans. Between these extremes, the topical range of Ryojin hisho explores the lives of the Buddha's disciples, eminent priests, and pilgrims, of shrine-maidens and nuns, of common soldiers, petty officials, and guards at provincial checkpoints, of woodcutters, potters, and menial workers, and even of abject beggars and nameless loafers on the streets of the capital. When we add to the list all the trees, birds, animals, articles of clothing

and accessories, foodstuffs, shrines, temples, cities, rivers, and mountains that come crowding in, the anthology achieves kaleidoscopic dimensions.

For all that, the riot of motifs in Ryojin hisho can be simplified and appreciated in terms of contrasting relationships—sacred and profane, high and low, serious and frivolous, men and women, old and young. many of the songs concern metaphysics and religious pedagogy, they do not shy away from the infirmities, squalor, and cacophony of secular life. A man in search of salvation is flanked by a courtesan beckoning him to a tryst; the mountain ascetic's discipline and hardship are juxtaposed to the wayward wanderings of a young gambler; an old man steeped in carnal desire is contrasted with a mother worrying over a wanton daughter. Ryojin hisho represents, therefore, a curious coalescence of the idealistic and realistic, esoteric and obvious, exotic and indigenous, and other-worldly and this-worldly. This comprehensive coverage of life as it is lived finds no parallel in the stylized poetry of Heian aristocrats; thus the anthology provides a relatively inclusive and multiple perspective from which to view Heian society.

The range of poetic voices also covers a whole gamut of characters: learned, proselytizing priests; villagers and city dwellers, many of whom demonstrate penetrating insight into the world around them; courtesans of sharp wit and engaging savvy; pilgrim-seducing shamans; mountain ascetics; even fishermen on the shore. One should, however, guard against the easy assumption that these songs were in fact created by such people. Evidence from other song traditions, as well as Japanese examples, suggests that the composers of the lyrics, many of whom may well have been the singers also, freely adopted the voices and perspectives of all sorts of people to create their lyric personae. In teal life, in other words, courtesans did not necessarily sing only about the life of prostitutes, priests about religion, or fishermen about fishing. Rather, the imayo poets/singers, in assuming the surrogate voices of many classes of people in Heian society, projected the typical, unique, or problematic situations of these characters in their songs.

Coupled with the thematic diversity of Ryojin hisho are distinctive formal and technical characteristics—the songs' prosody, mode of delivery, and rhetorical devices. Although these songs are products of the "age of waka, “ they represent a poetic orientation totally different from that of waka . Most conspicuous is the breakaway from the sacrosanct adherence to the thirty-one-syllable prosodic standard. Ryojin hisho songs exemplify a lyrical discourse that verges on prose narrativity, as well as an expository mode of delivery; this looseness results in the telling of stories and in-forming the mind, in contrast to waka's predilection to create pure lyric

moments within a strict poetic formula. Some of the shiku no kamiuta (four-line god songs) in the anthology, for example, are quite lengthy.^[9] Furthermore, no rules bind the choice of vocabulary, which in many instances violates aristocratic decorum or lexicon.^[10] Unlike waka, imayo do not usually utilize such poetic devices as pillow words (makurakotoba ), pivot words (kakekotoba ), or verbal associations (engo ) but instead turn to repetition, onomatopoeia, orchestra words (hayashikotoba ), honorifics, and exclamatory particles to produce poetic effects and emphasis. For readers accustomed to Heian court poetry, this different, plastic literary form becomes a refreshing treat, leading into an untrodden world of poetic experience and meaning.

Although Ryojin hisho has long been a subject of scholarship in Japan, it is little known in the West. It first came to the attention of Western readers through Arthur Waley's translations of a handful of songs in 1921,^[11] but no comprehensive, sustained inquiry resulted from that exposure. This study attempts to appraise Ryojin hisho in the larger context of cultural, social, and political developments of the late Heian period and to define its place in the Japanese literary tradition, while trying to answer some of the questions raised at the beginning of this Introduction. Wherever possible, readers are reminded of the performative context of imayo songs for optimal appreciation of the song texts we now have in hand. Although it is tempting to concentrate on the most aesthetically appealing texts, my approach has been to present as fair and balanced a view as possible of the anthology as a whole. Because of the miscellaneous character of the extant Ryojin hisho , one finds little consistent evolution of themes or motifs; rather, the anthology shifts from one topic to another, often in a distracting manner. My choice of songs necessarily reflects this mosaic nature, although I do try to bring a sense of unity to the themes discussed.

Ryojin hisho deserves attention not only for its intrinsic value as a literary anthology but also for its wealth of information about the Heian period. Given careful probing, Ryojin hisho yields important insights into the lives, both spiritual and worldly, of people in that age and into the tradition of song (kayo ) in premodern Japanese literature. It supplies rare information on the performing arts and artists, especially regarding female entertainers. It reveals the religious ethos and even the social and political developments of the late Heian period. And, most important, it helps to correct the perception of Heian culture as the monolithic achievement and closed domain of the elite, much as the eleventh-century Konjaku monogatari does in the prose genre. Ryojin hisho provides, in short, an alternative way of looking at the Heian society, since most poems are the works

of anonymous commoners and are about their most pressing concerns. The reader whose literary sensitivity is attuned to Heian aristocratic poetry—generally known for its ritualized, uniform, and controlled exclusivity—finds in Ryojin hisho a broad and open vista into the popular culture, a culture full of vitality, diversity, and realistic impulses to deal with life in all its guises, negative as well as positive. The plurality of Heian culture and society is the real subject of this anthology, and in that plurality can be found the animate spark of an age long past.

1
Emperor Go-Shirakawa and Imayo

Emperor Go-Shirakawa and His Career

Public opinion about Emperor Go-Shirakawa (Prince Masahito, 1127-92) was divided, and the views held by his contemporaries were often unflattering. Before his ascension to the throne, for instance, his own father, Emperor Toba (1103-56),^[1] was said to have belittled him, declaring that he was totally unfit for the emperorship owing to his indulgence in frivolous merrymaking.^[2] During his reign, even his trusted retainer, Shinzei (Fujiwara Michinori, 1106-59), and Kujo Kanezane (1149-1207), the minister of the right, disparaged him as a dull-witted man who was neither aware of the traitors around him nor heedful of truthful counsel—altogether a hopeless sovereign, without precedent in Japan or China.^[3]

Go-Shirakawa's political career, which spanned thirty-seven years as both reigning and retired emperor, was, indeed, rarely free of controversy or strife.^[4] From the outset, his brief formal reign (1155-58) was marred by a bloody power struggle within his own court, called the Hogen Disturbance (1156), plotted by the resentful ex-Emperor Sutoku (r. 1123-41), Go-Shirakawa's elder brother, who had been forced to abdicate by Toba.^[5] The insurrection was short-lived, and Go-Shirakawa quickly banished Sutoku to Sanuki, whence he never returned alive, and ordered the swift execution of other participants in the rebellion.^[6] Largely because of his harsh handling of the incident, Go-Shirakawa was perceived as a ruthless monarch who would tolerate no threats or challenges to his authority. The tragic family feud hastened the rise of the two rival military clans, the Taira and the Minamoro, whose meddling in court politics ushered in the "age of the warrior."^[7]

Soon after Go-Shirakawa's abdication came the Heiji Disturbance (1159),

in which he lost his chief advisor, Shinzei, and witnessed the passing of political hegemony to the Taira clan, headed by Kiyomori (1118-81). Thereafter, by pitting factions of the Taira and Minamoto against each other through his singular talent for maneuvering, and often by dint of sheer resilience and a good deal of luck, Go-Shirakawa presided over one of the most turbulent periods in Japanese history. It included the Taira despotism, during which Go-Shirakawa was even put under house arrest by Kiyomori in 1179; the carnage of the Genpei War (1180-85); the final destruction of the Taira clan; and the establishment, in 1185, of the Kamakura regime by Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-99); and it was a time, moreover, when many of the emperor's relatives and close associates perished.

Go-Shirakawa, subjected as he had been to ordeals and humiliation at the hands of many military leaders, retained one burning urge: to preserve his position as the patriarch of the imperial clan and the last, staunch defender of the Heian civil government. This determination was epitomized in his stubborn refusal to confer, despite constant pressure, the coveted tide of shogun on Yoritomo. The frustrated Yoritomo, in turn, denounced the emperor as "the biggest goblin in Japan."^[8] Only after Go-Shirakawa's death in 1192 was Yoritomo finally able to wrest the title from the incumbent emperor, Go-Toba, an event that marked the official beginning of the Kamakura government. Thus Go-Shirakawa, enthroned amid skepticism and discord, proved to be a resourceful and imaginative politician and a survivor.

When political responsibilities were not consuming his attention, Go-Shirakawa had personal interests that involved him in a variety of cultural and artistic activities, either as a sponsor or as an active participant. The best-known area of his artistic enterprise was the imayo genre: he was, in fact, its unsurpassed patron and practitioner. It has even been conjectured that one reason for Go-Shirakawa's abdication after only three years' reign was his desire to devote himself freely to imayo without the burden of emperorship.^[9] In addition, Go-Shirakawa invested an enormous amount of resources, human energy, and time in commissioning the waka anthology Senzai(waka)shu (Collection of a Thousand Years, ca. 1188) and numerous picture scrolls (emakimono ) and in undertaking religious pilgrimages. To be sure, many of these costly activities were possible only because of his imperial privileges; nonetheless, the intensity and grandiose scale with which he pursued his interests puts him in a class by himself.

The Imayo Genre

Go-Shirakawa's role in the cultivation and promotion of imayo began long before he entered the political arena. As we have seen, his father, Emperor

Toba, expressed serious doubts about Go-Shirakawa's qualifications to be emperor owing to the young man's reputed absorption in "merrymaking" (asobi ). Go-Shirakawa himself frankly admits in his memoir, Kudenshu , that he spent his youth in the carefree pursuit of pleasure: "Quartered at the Toba Palace, I passed as many as fifty nights singing. A group of my companions and I flocked to the Tosanjo Palace also and for some forty days enjoyed boating and making merry through the night until day-break."^[10]

It is understandable that Go-Shirakawa, with no immediate regal prospect in sight, exploited his princely prerogatives to the fullest. Yet his was not a passive appreciation of entertainment provided by others, for he, too, was an artist. From his teens, he had developed into an accomplished musician and singer in his own right. He was an expert flute player and excelled in such varied genres of vocal music as saibara, roei , shomyo , and imayo .^[11] His lifelong obsession, however, was with imayo , in which genre he was a superb performer.^[12] Thanks to Go-Shirakawa's consuming love for and patronage of imayo , that song form was elevated from the level of popular entertainment to a refined and sophisticated art.

The compound term imayo was originally generic and only later came to be used to designate a specific popular song genre. Yo signifies style or mode, while ima is presumed to derive from the adjective ima mekashi , with meanings that range from contemporary, modern, popular, novel, fresh, and lively to frivolous, vulgar, and lewd.^[13]Imayo , therefore, came to denote songs in modish style, with vivacious and buoyant melodies—in a sense, the pop music of the Heian age. Most likely, the term imayo was adopted to set these newly popularized songs apart from older song forms such as saibara, fuzoku , and roei , which long had been the staples of the nobles' music repertoire.^[14]

Kudenshu lists at least twenty different categories within imayo .^[15] Although it is impossible to determine just what musical characteristics distinguished these types from one another, the large number of these subgroups suggests that imayo must have reached a high degree of so-phistication by the mid to late twelfth century to warrant such minute classifications.

We do not know when or how the imayo genre came into being. The earliest known literary mention of the word imayo occurs in Murasaki Shikibu nikki (Diary of Murasaki Shikibu [ca. 978-ca. 1016], ca. 1010), and further reference is made in Makura no soshi (The Pillow Book, 11th cent.) by Sei Shonagon (ca. 965-ca. 1024), a contemporary of Murasaki's.^[16] During the time of Emperor Ichijo (r. 986-1011), then, imayo were apparently already in existence and had begun to enter court circles.

Some source materials suggest that imayo were of plebeian origin, sung

among common people before they reached the aristocracy. Kojidan (Stories About Ancient Matters), a Kamakura-period collection of tales, for example, relates that the abbot Genshin (942-1017), while walking on Mount Kinbu, met a female shaman who entertained him by singing imayo .^[17] And a passage in Sagoromo monogatari (The Tale of Sagoromo, 1069-72) describes a cart puller singing imayo .^[18] Even the Kudenshu substantiates the notion that imayo were the legacy of common people, since the majority of Go-Shirakawa's early imayo teachers were them-selves rural women of the lower classes.^[19]

By the time of Emperor Go-Suzaku (r. 1036-45) imayo had gained considerable popularity and were often performed at court banquets. Even so, the song form did not receive the approval of all members of the court, many of whom still found the music unfamiliar and odd-sounding. About thirty years later, however, during the reign of Emperor Shirakawa (r. 1072-86), the records of imayo performances at court and among the courtiers increased measurably, signifying the flourishing of the genre, as documented in courtiers' diaries such as Chuyuki (Record of the Middle-Right) by Fujiwara Munetada (1062-1141) and Taiki (Record on a Desk, 1136-55) by Fujiwara Yorinaga (1120-56).^[20]

It was the reign of Go-Shirakawa some eighty years later, though, that marked the peak of imayo popularity. This state of affairs is humorously described in Bunkidan (Literary Table Talk, 1278-88): "In those days, all classes of people, regardless of their status, hummed some tune or other, swinging their heads to and fro [to the beat of the rhythm]."^[21] The compiler of the collection also stresses that the people simply followed what their superiors were doing, which suggests that Emperor Go-Shirakawa was their ultimate model.

When imayo were performed at court, it was usually on congratulatory occasions or at banquets such as those following the New Year's Day ceremony, the daijosai (enthronement ceremony), the shinjosai (or niiname matsuri , a ceremony of the eleventh month in which the year's new grains are dedicated to Shinto gods), and certain Buddhist rites; accordingly, the imayo selected consisted principally of celebratory themes, not those related to the darker side of the commoner's life.^[22] Such imayo were performed as solos or duets, occasionally in conjunction with kagura or saibara but more usually with roei , a more up-to-date song form. Accompaniment was generally no more than the simple rhythm of a fan or drum, though sometimes an orchestral accompaniment of reed pipes (sho ) flutes, and flageolet (hichiriki ), or of koto, biwa , flutes, and other wind instruments, was featured. The festivities often lasted all through

the night until dawn, perhaps ending with a climactic dance performance (ranbu ), in which courtiers participated.^[23]

Thus seen, the flourishing of imayo coincided with the insei period, when retired emperors exercised political control from behind the scenes. The imperial patronage of imayo also meant that the emperors actively contributed to the evolution of the new cultural form, serving as its critical arbiters. In this sense, the insei period marked a turning point in Japanese history, and not simply for political reasons: it was also a watershed in the development of new aesthetic tastes and cultural preferences and choices. And imayo patronage by Go-Shirakawa was a telling indication that a new era was in the making.^[24]

Imayo Singers

Women played a decisive role in promoting and performing imayo , particularly such women of lower-class origin as miko (shrine-maidens or shamans), asobi(me ) (courtesans), and kugutsu(me) (female puppeteers). These groups are thought to have developed over time from a single caste of shamanic females (miko ).^[25] At one time early in Japanese history these women were at the center of the religious life of both the court and the ordinary folk, performing shamanic functions and ritual services.^[26] Over the centuries, however, their roles and status were degraded and desacralized. By the time these women appeared as singers of imayo in the Heian period, most of their original religious functions had been severely attenuated.^[27] While the miko group was still tied to its original shamanic profession, the asobi and kugutsu had moved into the secular realm of entertainment.

All of these female entertainers cultivated imayo as their primary medium of entertainment, but many also practiced prostitution. Female imayo singers were in fact marginal figures in the highly stratified Heian society, and were often forced to wander from place to place. Yet their musical talents and accomplishments in imayo brought them into close contact with aristocrats and even into the very heart of the aesthetic life of elite society. Had this paradoxical relationship not existed, nothing of the literary content and entertainment value of imayo would have been noticed or preserved.

Miko

Some twenty songs about miko are found in Ryojin hisho .^[28] Many of them describe miko performing shamanic rituals, while others deal with aspects of personal conduct and moments in the women's emotional lives.

Some songs are rendered with a light touch; others, such as the following, convey a mixed sense of fascination and surprise:

This description of a miko in shamanic ecstasy is reminiscent of the mythic portrayal of Ameno uzume no Mikoto, the archetypal shamaness whose similarly disheveled appearance, sexually suggestive dance, and song lured Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, out of the Heavenly Rock-Grotto.^[29]

The involvement of miko in imayo performance and other popular entertainment is no accident. In fact, the miko's professional performances, with their characteristic trancelike dance and utterances, always accom-panied by bells and drums, could easily be perceived as erotic; it was a short step from there to secular entertainment. This liminal nature of miko's ritual performance, located on the threshold between the sacred and profane, even made it easier for miko to fluctuate between their sacerdotal functions and their performative roles as entertainers—an intriguing and paradoxical blend indeed. The following song captures the entertainment value of miko :

The encounter between the priest Genshin and a miko on Mount Kinbu cited previously illustrates the miko's use of imayo for seductive entertainment. With the craze for pilgrimage ever accelerating, the vicinity of shrines where pilgrims and worshipers converged away from home was fertile ground for miko to carry on prostitution; in this, the use of popular

imayo was a good part of their allure. It is quite possible that these miko authored some of the imayo songs in Ryojin hisho , including the Shinto-Buddhist syncretic songs or miko songs in the shiku no kamiuta (four-line god songs) section of Ryojin hisho .

In the late Heian period a new type of miko , called arukimiko (walking miko ) appeared. Unlike regular miko , who kept a fixed abode and were associated with specific local shrines, arukimiko wandered around the country combining their religious function with prostitution and entertainment.^[30] Their uprooted and precarious livelihood is depicted in the song of an anxious mother whose daughter is an arukimiko :

Much of the regional description found in Ryojin hisho owes its color and piquancy to this on-the-move group of female shaman/entertainers. They, along with kugutsu , another imayo singer group who took a similar itinerant life-style, are also credited with the propagation and cross-fertilization of the imayo repertoire, made possible by their wandering from one region to another.

Asobi

Asobi were among the first female performing artists to be given a formal group designation. They were also the earliest-known female group specializing in a single artistic genre. Their origin is traced to the ancient professional lineage of asobi-be , the court morticians.^[32] Females formed the backbone of this group, with assistance coming from male members; the women performed the most crucial rites of the funeral, including dances, songs, and incantations, and their professional, ritual skills were secretly transmitted within the group.^[33] Owing to the gravity of their function in the critical rites of death at court, and probably also to their ritual pollution deriving from contact with the dead, asobi-be were ex-

empted from conscript labor and taxes. Thus they possessed a certain social distinction and accompanying privileges in early Japanese society.^[34]

With the Taiho Reform of 701, however, asobi-be lost much of their social status; and within fifty years, the group's ritual functions at court had ceased to exist.^[35] As a result, many of the female asobi , having neither land nor other skills to maintain a livelihood, became socially uprooted and adopted an itinerant mode of life. Increasingly, for sustenance, they turned to performing arts and to prostitution.

Sometime during the Heian period, asobi began to abandon their migratory lives in favor of permanent settlements, chiefly at strategic transportation loci along rivers and at inland seaports, where travelers, merchants, and cargo boat crews sought lodging. Asobi's popularity grew in direct proportion to the prosperity of the ports, which saw the amassing of luxury goods from various parts of the country to supply the demanding tastes of aristocrats in the capital. The most fabled asobi colonies were in Eguchi, on the Yodo River, and in Kanzaki and Kanishima, on the Kanzaki River, those two rivers being the main passageways to the Heian capital from the Inland Sea. As "Yujoki" (Record on Courtesans, ca. 1087), a short tract on asobi by Oe no Masafusa (1041-1111), put it, "Kanzaki and Kanishima of Settsu Province are lined with the asobi quarters one door after another."^[36]

Asobi conducted their business in a distinctive manner, enticing potential customers by singing from their boats and then, once their patrons were on board, entertaining the men by singing imayo and bestowing sexual favors while floating on the water. An average asobi boat carried three members: a principal asobi , who entertained the customers by singing to the beat of her small drum; an apprentice asobi , who sheltered her mistress with a large parasol and looked to her needs; and an elderly asobi , who was in charge of rowing the boat.^[37] "Yujoki" further describes this exotic trade as follows:

Asobi row their small boats toward the passenger boats and invite the travelers to their beds. Their singing stops the clouds over the valleys and their rhymes are on the wings over the river. All the passengers cannot help but forget their homes while floating along the isles with rushes and breakers. Hordes of fishermen's and merchants' boats throng stern to stern toward asobi boats, with almost no empty space left on the water. This must simply be the best pleasure world under heaven.... From aristocrats down to commoners, none hesitates to sleep with these women and to lavish their love on them. Some of the [asobi ] get married to these men and some become concubines to be

cherished until their death. Even men of wisdom and men of character cannot avoid such deeds.^[38]

It must be stressed here that the primary distinction of asobi from other women who sold their favor was their superb skill in singing imayo . Lacking this musical competency, other courtesans at Eguchi or Kanzaki were simply called yahochi , meaning mere prostitutes, not asobi .^[39]

As a group, asobi seem to have maintained a loose internal structure headed by a female leader. These headmistresses are believed to have reached their position of authority by virtue of superior skill in singing imayo , personal charm as courtesans, and, undoubtedly, excellent business and managerial skills. Presumably, too, they protected group members from undue exploitation by customers, maintained a certain order within the group, and sometimes supervised the distribution of goods.^[40]

In addition, asobi sought a further safeguard for their business prosperity in the worship of a deity named Hyakudayu. Hyakudayu worship was apparently a phallic cult, its object of veneration being representations of the male sexual organ made of wood, paper, or stone.^[41] The cultic practice stems from the fetishistic belief that by praying to and honoring Hyakudayu, the courtesans could ensure continued success in attracting male customers. The powerful appeal of the Hyakudayu worship to asobi is evidenced in "Yujoki," which notes that asobi kept hundreds and even thousands of these objects.^[42]

Hyakudayu worship was not, however, confined to private observances by asobi . Besides keeping a large stock of phallic-shaped objects for their personal devotion, asobi made it a point to go on pilgrimages to shrines famous for their Hyakudayu practice, most notably the Hirota and Sumiyoshi shrines.^[43] Coincidentally, the Sumiyoshi Shrine was also a favorite pilgrimage destination for aristocrats from the capital. Thus, sacred sites such as these became mingling grounds for asobi and aristocrats, each group following separate paths and harboring different sets of aspirations. Here a series of interactions was played out, resulting in an utterly secular form of carnal and material satisfaction. The benefits of visiting these shrines reinforced and successfully promoted the Hyakudayu cult among asobi , and the shrines also benefited, since more visits by the affluent aristocrats drawn by asobi meant increased income in the form of offerings. This triangular symbiotic relationship among asobi , the shrines, and the aristocrats undergirded the Hyakudayu worship practiced at the shrines, producing a singular coalescence of diverse interests in a most unlikely setting.

Songs in Ryojin hisho reveal the importance of the Hyakudayu cult among asobi :

Some Heian nobles such as (Oe no Koretoki (or Yukitoki, 955-1010) wrote poems on the topic of asobi , declaring that the pleasure derived from a tryst with asobi cruising along the river was as exciting as their wedding-night experience:

Even the female author of Sarashina nikki (Sarashina Diary, mid-11th cent.) was not immune from their charms; she had this to say about an asobi she encountered one night on the water:

In the Autumn I had occasion to go down to Izumi. After Yodo the country became more beautiful and impressive than I can say. We spent the night on our boat in Takahama. Late at night, when it was

extremely dark, I detected the sound of oars. Someone asked who was there and I was told that it was a woman singer [asobi ]. My people became very interested and called for her boat to be rowed alongside ours. By the distant light of the flares I could see the woman standing there in an unlined dress with long sleeves, hiding her face with a fan as she sang for us. It was a very moving sight.^[45]

In fact, it has been observed that high court nobles and even imperial family members, after completing pilgrimages to shrines and temples, frequently made excursions to asobi quarters in Eguchi and Kanzaki in pursuit of pleasure. The list of these highborn visitors contains such illustrious figures as Emperors Ichijo and Go-Sanjo (r. 1068-72), Fujiwara Michinaga (966-1027), the most powerful regent in Japanese history, and his son, Yorimichi (992-1074). In the year 1000, on his return from a pilgrimage to the Sumiyoshi Shrine, Michinaga, in the company of the Empress Dowager Tosanjo-in (962-1001), his sister and the mother of Emperor Ichijo, dropped by Eguchi, where he is reported to have shown favor to an asobi named Kokannon. Although the relationship was a brief, one-time affair, Kokannon presented herself to Michinaga again when he later revisited Eguchi as a lay priest, embarrassing him to no small measure. In the year 1031, Yorimichi followed his father's suit, falling in love with an asobi named Nakanogimi in Eguchi.^[46]

Diaries and letters of Heian court nobles often contain references to asobi , further suggesting the attraction these women exerted. Particularly informative are Kaya no in suikaku utaawase (Poetry Match Held at a Pond Pavilion in Kaya no In), a record of the waka competition held at Kaya no In, Fujiwara Yorimichi's residence, on the sixteenth day of the fifth month of 1035, which contains a description of the winning party's pleasure trip to the Yodo River with asobi; Choshuki (Record of Long Autumn), a diary by Minamoto Morotoki (1077-1136), especially the entry for the third day of the ninth month of 1119, which provides detailed information on the relationship between nobles and asobi ; and Fujiwara Yorinaga's Taiki , which mentions his tryst with an asobi in the entry for the twenty-first day of the third month of 1148.^[47] The asobi coveted these visits because they were often accompanied by lavish material donations, at times up to hundreds of bushels of rice and hundreds of skeins of silk. Such gifts far surpassed the fees paid by ordinary customers. In some cases at least, material donations of this sort were given because the nobles took pity on the women.^[48]

In rare cases, a relationship between a nobleman and an asobi went beyond temporary infatuation and developed into a lasting commitment. One asobi by the name of Tanba no Tsubone captured the attention of

Emperor Go-Shirakawa, went on to become one of his consorts, and bore him a prince. This honor was made possible in part by her talents as a imayo singer. She is even mentioned in Kudenshu , the emperor's person memoir, unlike his numerous other consorts from noble families.^[49]

According to tradition, even religious figures were fascinated by asobi Perhaps the most famous case involves the legendary encounter, which supposedly took place in 1178, between the priest Saigyo (1118-90) and an asobi at Eguchi. Their meeting is included in Shinkokinshu (New Collection of Ancient and Modern Times, 1206), where it is rendered as poetic dialogue between Saigyo and an asobi named Tae:

At least two poems by asobi are included in the imperial anthologies:

The rise of asobi and their acceptance into the court circle testify that there existed a positive artistic dialogue between the high and low cultures in Heian society, largely through the powerful medium of imayo .

Kugutsu

Of the major female imayo performance groups, the kugutsu were most seriously involved in cultivating imayo as an art form. Unlike both the miko and asobi , they had a long-established tradition of oral transmission of imayo .^[53] The Kudenshu reports that they took pride in this tradition and guarded it jealously.^[54] The fact that Emperor Go-Shirakawa, after a long association with other groups of imayo singers, chose as his teacher Otomae (1086?-1169), a performer of kugutsu background, strongly suggests these women's artistic accomplishments.

Oe no Masafusa, in his essay "Kairaishiki" (Record on Puppeteers, ca. 1087), an excellent source of information on kugutsu and a companion tract to "Yujoki," sees kugutsu primarily as artists of foreign ethnic origin. This is seen in his description of the group's exotic mode of life:

Kugutsu have neither fixed abodes nor houses to live in. They put up woolen tents and lead a nomadic life, a custom similar to that of the northern barbarians. The males make use of bows and horses when hunting. They juggle a pair of swords or daggers and balls; they manipulate wooden dolls in such a way as to make them look alive or make them fight each other. Their performances are similar to magic shows. They also change sand and pebbles into gold coins and transform trees into birds and beasts. They can dazzle people's eyes.

As for the females of the group, they let out coquettish cries and swagger around swinging their hips and smiling bewitchingly. They make up their faces with rouge and white powder. These women lure people with their lewd songs and music. Neither their parents nor husbands nor sons-in-law reprove them. Without hesitation, the women entice wayfarers and travelers for a night's tryst. For such services, they are paid well. These women own clothes embroidered with golden threads, brocade robes, golden hair ornaments, and beautiful cosmetic boxes with mother-of-pearl inlay.

Kugutsu neither till a single furrow of rice paddy nor gather the leaves from a single branch of mulberry. Since they are under no official provincial control, none of them are settled peasants, but instead they are transients. They do not know who the sovereign is or who the nobles are, and they do not fear the local magistrates.

Since they are exempt from taxes and conscript labor, they spend their lives in pleasure. At night, they worship Hyakudayu and pray for good fortune by making a racket with their dances and drum.^[55]

It is evident from this depiction that, like asobi, kugutsu females cultivated the Hyakudayu cult and engaged in prostitution; and also like asobi, kugutsu followed a migratory life-style. In this same tract, however, Masafusa underscores the fact that a number of kugutsu(me ) were well known for their superb skill in singing imayo ; indeed, in his view they equal the famed Chinese female singer Han Ê^[56]

Even in their migratory life, the kugutsu apparently kept their musical skills refined, as reported in the lengthy and vivid account by the author of Sarashina nikki on her meeting with a group of female singers in the wilds of Mount Ashigara in Sagami Province:

From somewhere in the dark three women singers [asobi mitari ] emerged, the eldest being about fifty, the others about twenty and fourteen. . . . The oldest woman told us that she was the granddaughter of the famous singer, Kohata. Their hair, which was extremely long, hung beautifully over their foreheads; they all had fair complexions and looked attractive enough to serve as waiting-women.

Our party was charmed by their appearance and even more impressed when they started singing, for they had fine, clear voices that rose to the heavens. The women were invited to join us. One member of our group remarked that the singers in the western provinces were no match for these performers, whereupon they burst out into the splendid song, "Should you compare us with those of Naniwa . . ." Yes, they were really pretty to look at, and their beautiful singing ended far too soon. We were all so sad to see them disappear into those fearful mountains that we wept as they walked away.^[57]

Because of their vagrant mode of life, similar to that of arukimiko, kugutsu are considered to have also been effective agents in the transmission and circulation of imayo .^[58]

By the late Heian period some kugutsu had given up their wandering existence and had begun to settle in fixed locations, having gained renown for their accomplishments in the genre of imayo . In contrast to asobi , who sought their livelihood along the waterways, kugutsu settled near inland way stations, most prominently around Aohaka (Otomae's birth-place), Sunomata, Nogami, and Akasaka in Mino Province, all of which were frequented by travelers making their way along the Tosando Highway.^[59] The aforementioned author of Sarashina nikki and her retinue were obviously entertained by female singers of this region, as she records in her diary: "At the border of Mino province we took the ferry at Sunomata

and reached a place called Nogami. Here again we were joined by a band of entertainers [asobi domo ], who sang for us all night long, bringing back fond memories of Mount Ashigara."^[60]

Female imayo singers of kugutsu background underwent strenuous musical training. Kudenshu reports an account Go-Shirakawa's teacher, Otomae, told him of the great self-discipline and concentration required of imayo aspirants: "Kiyotsune gave intensive, rigorous musical training to Tori and Hatsukoe. To ward off sleep at night, Tori would rush outside and splash her eyes with water and even pluck her eyelashes to wake herself up. Still she would feel sleepy. She stayed up every night, and even when the dawn came she would keep on singing without opening the shutters."^[61] A similar seriousness is reflected in Otomae's insistence that she would not waste her efforts on a student who lacked determination or an earnest desire to learn imayo , even if her pupil were already under the patronage of influential court nobles:

The Middle Councillor Ienari sent Sasanami to my house with the request that I instruct her; and so I taught her ashigara, kurotoriko, ichiko, furukawa, furukoyanagi, tauta , and other songs. She made a great to-do of having her palanquin wait for her in front of my house while she studied a number of different kinds of songs. This may well have led to some errors in her singing. As I did not intend to force my teaching upon her, I did not make any special effort to correct her, either. Since I did not really teach her anything, I do not consider her to have received a complete transmission from me.^[62]

Even Go-Shirakawa had to discard his previous imayo training once he came under Otomae's guidance, for she required him to relearn the entire repertoire according to her style. Through strict adherence to these principles of music training, then, singers of the Mino imayo tradition succeeded in establishing themselves as an uncontested artistic lineage; for generations the transmission of imayo through female lines continued unchanged, until during Go-Shirakawa's time when male aristocrats were finally admitted as members of the lineage.

Like some poetically talented asobi , a few kugutsu left waka poems. At least three are included in two separate imperial anthologies, all occasioned by partings that took place in Mino or Owari Province:

The inclusion of these poems in the imperial anthologies may be considered a recognition of the literary achievements of the kugutsu as a whole. This also supports the opinion that kugutsu , together with asobi , had a large share in composing imayo lyrics.

Decline of Imayo Performers

We do not know why the asobi and kugutsu imayo singers vanished so completely. Perhaps all we can say at this point is that when the govern-mental seat was transferred to Kamakura in 1186, a concomitant shift of emphasis in national life occurred. The warrior class, consciously seeking to distance itself from many of the ways of court, offered a set of values that differed sharply from those of Heian courtiers. The courtiers who had once been the lavish patrons of imayo now found themselves stripped of political and economic power and the prerogatives to sustain their aesthetic pursuits. With the relocation of the capital, the pulse of the nation shifted geographically as well, to the east. Major routes now led to Kamakura along the Tokaido Highway. The prosperity of Eguchi and Kanzaki declined and the busy crossroads connecting Aohaka and Sunomata with the Tosando Highway were deserted. Those asobi and kugutsu whose livelihood depended on the travelers on these thoroughfares faded away.

Another factor may be found in the appearance of a newly rising group

of female entertainers, known as shirabyoshi (women performers in white costume), toward the end of the Heian period.^[64] The shirabyoshi , with their combination of song and dance, added momentum to the decline of the more one-dimensional vocal entertainment of imayo singers, vying with them for aristocratic patronage. Two celebrated cases of late Heian nobles' patronage of shirabyoshi are Taira Kiyomori's bestowal of favor on Gio and Hotoke, and Minamoto Yoshitsune's (1159-89) romantic involvement with Shizuka.^[65] Finally, it is said that Emperor Go-Toba's infatuation with Kamegiku, another woman of shirabyoshi background, was partial cause for the Jokyu Revolt in 1221.^[66] Other types of entertainers, as diverse as jushi (acrobatic performers) and sarugaku ("monkey music") musicians and dancers, likely posed serious competition as well. The in-creasing popularity of these newer forms of performing arts may also have contributed to the disappearance of imayo singers and their art.^[67]

Thus the vicissitudes of imayo and its transmitters seem to be closely related to social and political developments during the latter part of the Heian period. Ironically, the very success of imayo singers was what spelled their downfall, for if the singers "succeeded" in attracting noble and even imperial patronage, they thereby rendered themselves highly vulnerable to shifts in political fortune.

Go-Shirakawa and Imayo

Emperor Go-Shirakawa played a crucial mediatory role in the history of imayo . Under his aegis, a number of imayo concerts in which asobi or kugutsu participated were held in his palace. In addition to performing, these singers actively participated in informal critical discussions on imayo as an art form, demonstrating their mastery and esoteric knowledge of the medium.^[68] What emerges from these occasions is a picture of an unusual artistic moment, in which upper and lower classes interacted in a special and creative milieu.

As his memoir indicates, when it came to imayo Go-Shirakawa did not hesitate to associate with members of the lower classes; in fact, he sought them out as his musical instructors and companions: "I associated not only with courtiers of all ranks, but also with commoners of the capital, including women servants of various places, menial workers, the asobi from Eguchi and Kanzaki, and the kugutsu from different provinces. Nor was this company limited to those who were skillful. Whenever I heard of any imayo singers I would have them sing together, and the number of these people grew quite large."^[69]

In the Kudenshu , Go-Shirakawa records the different phases of his involvement with imayo and reiterates its central position in his artistic

life. The memoir chronicles his growth as a practitioner, patron, connoisseur, and authority as the head of his own school of imayo singing. He opens the memoir by detailing his long and arduous training. It was not unusual for him to forgo sleep for days or to endure physical discomfort in his efforts to master the art. His interest was not transitory, as some around him may have assumed. It seems clear that the aesthetic satisfaction he derived from imayo was in no way inferior to that which other courtiers found in waka . He wrote:

I have been fond of imayo ever since my youth and have never neglected it. On balmy spring days when cherry blossoms open on the branches and then fall to the ground, and in the cries of the bush warbler and the song of the cuckoo, I have perceived the spirit of imayo . On lonely autumn nights as I gazed at the moon, imayo added poignancy to the cries of the insects. Ignoring both summer's heat and winter's cold, and favoring no season over another, I spent my waking hours in singing; no day dawned without my having spent the whole night singing. Even at dawn, with the shutters still closed, I continued singing, oblivious to both sunrise and noon. Rarely distinguishing day from night, I spent my days and months in this manner.^[70]

He was clearly not pushed to study imayo , but rather found it to be the most congenial medium of self-expression. In writing about the art form, Go-Shirakawa employs the same poetic idiom and images usually associated with waka aesthetics: the spring and cherry blossoms, bush warblers and cuckoos, and the autumnal moon and the cries of insects. For him, waka's refined sentiment of aware could be evoked equally well by imayo ; if waka helped to heighten one's aesthetic sensibility, so did imayo . Indeed, in power, utility, and effect imayo is just as potent as waka , if not superior.

Go-Shirakawa devoted himself to imayo with a fervor verging on fanaticism. In its intensity, this severe self-discipline suggests that for the emperor imayo was a religio-aesthetic way (michi ), not inferior to other forms of religious discipline:

On occasion I gathered together some people to dance and enjoy the singing. At times we gathered in groups of four or five, or seven or eight, simply to sing imayo . Sometimes I set up a schedule for my close retainers to take turns as my singing partners as I practiced imayo day and night. On other occasions, when I was by myself, I opened Zogeishu and, beginning with the imayo on the four seasons, homon , and hayauta , I exhausted the repertoire. Three times I lost

my voice. Twice I sang to the point where, even as I tried to follow the set rules as closely as possible, I could no longer produce a sound. Straining my voice in this way gave me a sore throat and made it painful even to swallow water. In spite of this affliction, I still managed to keep on singing.

Sometimes, after first practicing for seven, eight, fifty, or one hundred days, I continued singing for even a thousand days on end. Although there were times when I did not sing during the day, no dawn broke without my singing.^[71]

The lengths to which Go-Shirakawa went to train himself in the art of imayo recall the ascetic's grueling regimen pursued in hopes of attaining ever higher levels of religious consciousness. In this sense, the emperor's self-discipline reflected a cultural trend of his time. A similar attitude is observable in certain of his contemporaries, such as in Fujiwara Shunzei (1114-1204) and his son, Teika (1162-1241), who increasingly combined aesthetic and meditative practice.^[72] Yet imayo , a popular rather than courtly form, seemed an inappropriate focus of devotion to many and elicited some censorious remarks, notably from Go-Shirakawa's own father, Emperor Toba.

Undeterred by such criticism, Go-Shirakawa pursued his desire to perfect his skills in imayo . To gain expertise in singing he sought out tutors, who invariably came from the lower classes. Among those summoned to Go-Shirakawa's imperial residence to instruct him were female asobi , including a woman from the Kanzaki area named Kane who was employed as a servant to his mother.^[73] His free association with commoners sharply contrasts with the attitude of some court attendants of earlier periods, such as Sei Shonagon, who found even the snow on the houses of common people disagreeable.^[74]

Go-Shirakawa's training in imayo prior to his accession to the throne was uneven and lacking clear direction. He continued in this manner for some fifteen years, becoming in time a rather accomplished imayo singer. He even boasts in the Kudenshu : "I could not find anyone who far surpassed me in knowledge of imayo ."^[75] The Hogen Disturbance in 1156 brought his imayo practice to a sudden halt, though only temporarily; for as soon as order was restored, Go-Shirakawa resumed his training. Now, however, he began systematic professional training, inviting the undisputed authority in imayo , Otomae, a woman in her mid-seventies, to court.^[76]

Otomae radically transformed Go-Shirakawa's involvement in imayo . She had him relearn his entire repertoire in her singing style, the only one she considered authentic. The training continued for almost ten years,

from 1159 until Otomae's death in 1169. By then, Go-Shirakawa had become the uncontested successor to her school of imayo . Their relation-ship was indeed an extraordinary one. Otomae, apparently seeing in Go-Shirakawa a worthy disciple, spared no effort to make him a virtuoso in the art. The deep mutual esteem and affection that developed between them is evident in his moving description of his visit to her sickbed near the end of her life:

Otomae fell ill in the spring of her eighty-fourth year [1169]. Since she had been in good health and did not appear to be suffering from any specific illness, it did not seem likely that her health would take a serious turn. But shortly afterward the news reached me that her condition was critical. As I had her living close by in a house built for her, I hurriedly slipped out of my residence to visit her. She was sitting up, leaning against her daughter and facing me. As she looked feeble, I recited a chapter from the Lotus Sutra for the sake of her well-being in this as well as the next life. I then asked her, "Would you like to hear a song?" She was extremely pleased and nodded her head.

In the time of Imitation Dharma,
the vows of Yakushi are trustworthy!
Hear his sacred name once only,
they say, and escape even a million ills.^[77]

I repeated the song two or three times over for her, and she enjoyed it even more than my sutra chanting. Rubbing her hands and weeping with happiness, she exclaimed, "Now that I have heard the song, my strength seems to have returned." A deep emotion filled my heart and I returned home.^[78]

This poignant rendering of the last meeting of master and disciple is followed by Go-Shirakawa's account of Otomae's death and his reverent words of homage:

Later, when I was performing the ascetic ritual of reciting the Rishu Sutra at Ninnaji, a report reached me saying that Otomae had passed away early on the nineteenth day of the second month [in 1169]. Although death at her age was not something to be mourned, my grief was boundless because I had known her for so many years. It was not the first time that I grieved for those who had gone ahead of me, but my memories of her kept surging up. She was my teacher from whom I had learned so much, and so at the news of her death I started reading the sutra in the mornings to purify the six roots of evil, and in the evenings for fifty days I read the Amida Sutra continuously to pray for her rebirth in the Western Pure Land.^[79]

On the first anniversary of Otomae's death, Go-Shirakawa sponsored a special memorial service in which he sang imayo he had learned from her and dedicated an eloquent memorial prayer in tribute to her. There-after, he offered annual memorial services on her behalf. Close to one-third of the Kudenshu is devoted to describing people associated with Otomae and anecdotes concerning her, revealing the special place she had in his life. Moreover, Go-Shirakawa affirms in Kudenshu his status as an authentic transmitter of Otomae's imayo tradition, by relating a dream by his secondary consort Tanba no Tsubone in which Otomae appeared and joyfully communicated her approval of and pride in Go-Shirakawa's imayo singing.^[80] It is generally believed that Ryojin hisho , which presumably was undertaken soon after Go-Shirakawa initiated his lessons with Otomae, was inspired by his teacher as an effort to commit to writing the oral instruction he received.

Summing up his master-disciple relationship with Otomae, Go-Shirakawa states in the Kudenshu : "For ten years I had received training from Otomae. In order to give unity to my songs in accordance with her style, I even corrected and relearned all the songs that I had sung and collected by listening to different people in the past. I received a complete transmission from Otomae, with absolutely no omission."^[81] Later, after searching in vain for a disciple to whom he could transmit all he had learned from Otomae, Go-Shirakawa laments:

I have been contemplating transmitting to someone this tradition to which I have dedicated myself for years, so that it may continue in the future. Although I have a number of people who practice singing with me, it is to be regretted that I have no disciple who can succeed me in this endeavor. Even though a number of people ranging from courtiers to commoners gather for the purpose of singing, not one of them sings with my zeal.^[82]

Finally, however, around 1179 Go-Shirakawa settled on two disciples, Minamoto Suketoki (b. 1159) and Fujiwara Moronaga (1137-92): "These two are my disciples who have received an authentic transmission of melodies and style from me. Anyone who sings in the same way as these two men can be said to have correctly received the training, but any method of singing that deviates from that of Suketoki or Moronaga should be considered unauthentic."^[83] Go-Shirakawa's act of faithfully transmitting the imayo tradition to worthy disciples was both an ultimate tribute to his own master, Otomae, and insurance for the survival of the vocal imayo art.

As a patron of imayo , Go-Shirakawa held a number of informal imayo

gatherings to which he invited his retainers as well as singers of the asobi and kugutsu backgrounds. But one formal imayo awase (imayo competition) held under his sponsorship from the first to the fifteenth day of the ninth month of 1174 at his Hojuji Palace caught the attention of various historical and musical commentators for its rare magnitude and splendor, as recorded, for instance, in Kikki (Felicitous Record), a diary by Fujiwara Tsunefusa (b. 1143).^[84] Presumably modeled after the utaawase (waka competition) popular among the aristocrats, this awase featured two teams and fifteen rounds of competition. The participants were courtiers, with Fujiwara Moronaga and Minamoto Sukekata serving as judges. Unfortunately, no details survive indicating what kinds of imayo were chosen and sung for the occasion. But Kikki makes a special note that on the thirteenth day, after the competition when the participants held a musical recital accompanied by string and wind instruments, Emperor Go-Shirakawa joined in the singing of imayo himself and that his performance was absolutely sublime.^[85]

As a practitioner of imayo , Go-Shirakawa helped to create a new cultural milieu in which commoners and aristocrats could enjoy and learn from each other's artistry. His patronage added an aura of prestige to the popular song genre, transforming it to a higher form of entertainment to be cultivated by all.

2
Emperor Go-Shirakawa as a Patron of Heian Culture

Go-Shirakawa's patronage was not by any means limited to imayo . The emperor made important contributions in many other cultural areas as well, allowing them to thrive under his sponsorship. These areas suggest the cultural diversity and riches created and enjoyed by Heian society, and also hint at the emperor's wide-ranging cultural entrepreneurship.

Senzaishu (Collection of a Thousand Years, ca. 1188)

Go-Shirakawa's commissioning of the twenty-volume Senzaishu , the seventh imperial waka anthology, was based in large part on his concerns for his kingly position and its mandates. Although not himself an expert in waka , Go-Shirakawa skillfully used the talents and aspirations of Fujiwara Shunzei to restore the prestige of the courtly poetic tradition, which had been diminished by Senzaishu's two immediate predecessors, Kin'yoshu (Collection of Golden Leaves, ca. 1124-27) and Shikashu (Collection of Verbal Flowers, 1151-54), both comprising only ten books and without prefaces. Owing to the reinstatement of the preface and the restoration of the twenty-book format, Senzaishu is considered an attempt to return to Kokinshu (ca. 905) in terms of organization, structure, and content, and is considered to have been a veritable forerunner of Shinkokinshu , which immediately followed it.^[1] In fact, the very names of these three imperial anthologies—Kokinshu (Collection of Ancient and Modern Times), Senzaishu (Collection of a Thousand Years), and Shinkokinshu (New Collection of Ancient and Modern Times)—indicate a single, shared aspiration: to disseminate the best poems of their times, which will transcend the passage of time itself.

Go-Shirakawa commissioned Fujiwara Shunzei to undertake the compilation of Senzaishu around 1183. The emperor had never been known as a waka enthusiast. He openly preferred imayo , and unlike other royal family members, such as Emperor Sutoku, he had never cultivated a waka circle around him. Even at the regular flower dedication ceremonies at his court, imayo remained the center of the ritual.^[2] Why, then, would he support the compiling of an anthology devoted to waka, a form he apparently had little interest in, and why during the Genpei War at that? Moreover, why did he select Shunzei, who, although a poetic icon of his day, was a protégé and confidant of Sutoku, to oversee the compilation? Scholars have shown that the anthology was conceived and executed ac-cording to calculated, political motives.^[3] For Go-Shirakawa, it was one way of countering the rancor and hostilities that were rending the fabric of his society and making havoc of everyday life.

Historical sources indicate that Shunzei received the official imperial order to begin the Senzaishu project in the second month of 1183. According to Meigetsuki (The Record of the Clear Moon, 1235), a diary by Shunzei's son Teika, the first meeting between Go-Shirakawa and the seventy-year-old poet took place at the emperor's Hojuji Palace on the tenth day of the eleventh month of 1181, to be followed by a second within four days and a third about a month later. Taniyama Shigeru suggests that these conferences were not ordinary social calls; rather, they were planning sessions in which both parties sounded out the other's intentions and confided their respective aspirations and needs.^[4] It is believed that the emperor communicated his plans for the imperial anthology, while Shunzei promoted himself as the man best suited to become the compiler.

The years 1180 and 1181 had been particularly trying for Go-Shira-kawa, both as far as family matters were concerned and in terms of the national welfare. To begin with his third son, Prince Mochihito (1151-80), spurred on by Minamoto Yorimasa (1104-80), issued a secret edict urging the Minamoto clan warriors to rise against the Taira; his plans were prematurely discovered, however, and he was killed at Uji by the Taira army in the fifth month of 1180. This incident prompted Minamoto Yoritomo to rise in arms and eventually plunged the country into the full-scale Genpei War. Then, in the sixth month of the same year, Go-Shirakawa, together with ex-Emperor Takakura and Emperor Antoku, had to move to Fukuhara, a new capital established the preceding year. In the latter part of the eleventh month of 1180, however, the capital was moved back to the Heian city and the court again was obliged to move; this caused further strain on an imperial family already coping with traumatic adjustments. Shortly thereafter, toward the end of the twelfth month, the

rebellious monks in Nara, who opposed the Taira hegemony, provoked the Taira army to take action against them; Kofukuji, Todaiji, and numerous other temples were burnt to the ground, and there was massive loss of life. The next month the ex-Emperor Takakura, who had been trying to mediate the ever-intensifying animosity between Go-Shirakawa and Kiyomori, died at the age of twenty-one. As if these political events were not enough, the entire nation was suffering from a serious famine.

Beleaguered by this series of calamities, Go-Shirakawa turned to his courtiers for advice but received little support. Especially critical was Kujo Kanezane, the minister of the right, who questioned Go-Shirakawa's wisdom in ordering the reconstruction of Kofukuji and Todaiji during a famine. When Go-Shirakawa requested counsel about his proposed pilgrimage to the Grand Ise Shrine to offer a special prayer, the court officials rebuffed him, saying that since there was no precedent for such an act, it was difficult for them to advise him. Despite Go-Shirakawa's wish to promote unity within the court, he was met only with increasing hostility.

As a last-ditch effort, Go-Shirakawa even delivered a conciliatory message from Minamoto Yoritomo to the Taira, but the leader and heir of that clan, Munemori (1147-85), rejected the proposal outright.^[5] It was against this backdrop of continuously unfolding political crisis during the Genpei War, then, that the meetings of Go-Shirakawa and Shunzei took place.

The proposed Senzaishu was to serve at least three purposes for Go-Shirakawa, all intended to prevent an imminent national catastrophe. A primary concern was to appease the soul of the late Emperor Sutoku. One such attempt had been made in 1177, when the posthumous title of "Sutoku-in" was conferred on the late emperor, who until then had been known as "Sanuki-in" after the place of his banishment. Now, however, faced with impending attack by the Minamoto forces, residents of the capital began to speculate that a grudge borne by Sutoku against Go-Shirakawa for his political ruin was the true cause of the troubles. In fact, Hogen monogatari reports Sutoku's allegedly intense bitterness by saying that he vowed to become a great devil in Japan and thereby make the emperors commoners and the commoners, emperors.^[6] Considering Sutoku's poetic talent and love for waka , Go-Shirakawa seems to have decided that an appropriate memorial to him would be an imperial waka anthology.

Shunzei had enjoyed a special relationship with Sutoku; in some ways he owed his career to the late emperor, who first recognized his poetic gifts and became his patron. In fact, it was Sutoku who in 1143 appointed Shunzei, then a little-known poet of thirty, as compiler of Kyuan hyakushu (Collection of One Hundred Poems of the Kyuan Era, 1150).^[7] Under Sutoku's patronage, Shunzei became the central figure of court waka

circles. Sutoku's banishment to Sanuki in 1156, therefore, must have been a severe blow to Shunzei. From Sanuki, Sutoku wrote poems to Shunzei, wistfully recalling their old days as waka companions while giving vent to his grievances.^[8] After Sutoku's death, Shunzei reportedly composed a poem in his memory and secretly took it to his tomb, where he vowed to seek a reunion in the next world.^[9]

As any waka poet would, Shunzei had long cherished the dream of being appointed compiler of the imperial anthology, a dream apparently dashed by Sutoku's banishment. He suffered another setback when Emperor Nijo bestowed the honor of compiling Shokushikashu (Later Collection of Verbal Flowers, 1165) on Fujiwara Kiyosuke (1104-77), Shunzei's rival.^[10] Shunzei then started his own collection of waka , realizing that Kiyosuke's personal waka collection had served as the basis of Shokushikashu . Shunzei's anthology, which took more than ten years to complete, was called Sangodaishu (Collection of Fifteen Eras, ca. 1177-79). Although he tried to promote this collection, then in its final stages of completion, as an imperial anthology, the death of Emperor Takakura in 1180 shattered his hopes once again.

In the end, however, Shunzei's faithful cultivation of his art paid off. With the death of Kiyosuke in 1177 Sunzei's poetic accomplishment began to be publicly recognized, culminating in Kujo Kanezane's praise of him as the "Eider of the waka ."^[11] At the time of his audiences with Go-Shirakawa in 1181, his dream of compiling the imperial anthology must have been uppermost in his mind, a sort of crowning point for his growing poetic stature. He already had the manuscript of Sangodaishu in hand; all he needed to do was rework it as Kiyosuke had. On Go-Shirakawa's part, he was well aware that Shunzei had been a devoted retainer of Sutoku and was a recognized authority on waka . The selection of Shunzei as compiler of Senzaishu was thus not only expedient, but also entirely fitting.

Senzaishu was also intended to mitigate the Taira's growing aggressiveness. Although the Taira were a military clan, they had produced a number of poets of worth, including Tsunemori (1124-85), Tadanori (1144-84), and Shigehira (1157-85), to name but a few. Perhaps, if matters so dictated, Go-Shirakawa could weaken Taira solidarity by luring some defectors from their camp with a tactful inducement—inclusion in the anthology. At the same time, the compilation of an imperial anthology at such a critical moment was a symbolic statement that the emperor was still in charge and not shaken by immediate goings-on. Given this back-ground, Shunzei's selection can be seen as politically astute as well, for he counted a number of Taira clan members in his waka circle. For instance, Heike monogatari (The Tale of the Heike, 13th cent.) highlighted the fact

that Tadanori, confident of Shunzei's appreciation for his artistic work, risked his life to entrust his poems to Shunzei during the hurried flight of the Taira from the capital in 1183.^[12] Thus, in the second month of 1183, Go-Shirakawa selected Taira Sukemori, the newly appointed imperial secretary, rather than a court noble, to deliver the imperial order commissioning Shunzei to compile Senzaishu .^[13]

A third purpose of the Senzaishu anthology was to give the aristocrats a much-needed moral uplift. They had the most to lose in the civil war and precisely for this reason were apprehensive about the current state of affairs. Many realized that their golden days were over, no matter how the war ended. Go-Shirakawa had to offer these dispirited courtiers some-thing to cling to. The most hallowed of traditional court literary practices, the imperial anthology, could demonstrate, he hoped, that the court still transcended political crisis.^[14]

Senzaishu was finally completed in 1188, after the Genpei War had ended. Shunzei is known to have based the work on his Sangodaishu , with certain alterations made to accommodate the changed sociopolitical situation.

Worthy of note in Senzaishu is the number of poems by Emperor Sutoku—twenty-three altogether. No previous imperial anthology ever included so many poems by a single emperor, an indication perhaps that Sutoku was one of the superior poet-emperors in Japanese history. An-other interpretation is that with this edition both Emperor Go-Shirakawa and the compiler Shunzei were paying a special tribute to Sutoku. This possibility becomes even stronger when we consider that Go-Shirakawa must have approved the use of so many of Sutoku's poems; then too, it is noteworthy that the anthology includes only seven poems by Go-Shirakawa himself. All in all, thirty-six of Shunzei's poems are included; in addition, we find at least eight poems by members of the Taira clan, some identified by name, some anonymous.^[15] Both Go-Shirakawa and Shunzei seem to have been united in their willingness to brave possible criticism from the Kamakura military government for using these poems in an imperial anthology, although they did discreetly withhold some of the poets names. The following are a few selected poems by the figures closely linked to Senzaishu :

The overall mood of Senzaishu is reflective, of nostalgia for a past irrevocably lost, desolate loneliness, and sadness over the transiency of this world. This atmosphere pervades even poems on the seasons and love, but it is strongest in the Miscellaneous section. In fact, among the Miscellaneous sections of the first eight imperial anthologies, that in Senzaishu has the largest number of songs that express such sentiments.^[19] The link between the dismal political and social situation of the times and the dark, rueful tone of the anthology is quite clear.

Picture Scrolls (Emakimono )

Go-Shirakawa was deeply interested in other arts and crafts besides poetry as well. Some contemporary nobles' diaries report the unconventional manner in which he indulged his interests. Kujo Kanezane, for instance, in Gyokuyo (Leaves of Jewel), relates an incident he heard about from Fujiwara Mitsunaga, a contemporary picture scroll illustrator. Emperor Go-Shirakawa was passing a certain alley and, through an open gate,

chanced to see an old lacquer worker bent intently over his work. The emperor had his carriage stopped and without ceremony stepped into the artisan's drab house and sat on a stool in front of him to watch him work. After a while, when he was leaving, the emperor asked the old man, probably in jest, whether he would give him some souvenir. The crafts-man, having nothing to offer, was at a loss. Yet he evidently took the emperor's request seriously, for a few days later he appeared at the palace with a beautifully wrought lacquer box in hand. A courtier had a quiet talk with the artisan and sent him on his way.^[20]

This episode illustrates a certain eccentricity on the part of the emperor, but at the same time it underscores his love and admiration for the arts. While he seems to have been attracted to all types of arts, scroll painting apparently held a special allure. According to one unofficial record, he kept ten emaki chests in the treasure house of his Rengeoin Palace, and Komatsu Shigemi, a scholar of scroll painting, goes so far as to call Go-Shirakawa an emaki "maniac" (mania ).^[21] At least eight scroll paintings are known to have resulted from his official commissions: Hogen sumozu emaki (Picture Scroll of the Sumo Wrestling Matches in the Hogen Era), Hogen jonanji keiba emaki (Picture Scroll of the Horse Races at the Jonanji Palace in the Hogen Era), Genshu kotei emaki (Picture Scroll of Emperor Hsüan Tsung), Nin'an gokei gyoko emaki (Picture Scroll of the First Imperial Attendance at the Festival of Thanksgiving in the Year of Nin'an), Gosannen kassen emaki (Picture Scroll of the Later Three Years' Battle), Shoan gosechi emaki (Picture Scroll of Gosechi Dancing in the Year of Shoan), Nenjugyoji ernaki (Picture Scroll of Annual Rites and Ceremonies), and Sueba no tsuyu taisho ernaki (Picture Scroll of the Tale of General Sueba no Tsuyu).^[22] Unfortunately, the originals of these emaki are now lost; all that remain are a seventeenth-century copy of part of the Nenjugyoji emaki and an Edo-period reproduction of the Shoan gosechi ernaki .^[23]

Nenjugyoji emaki offers concrete representations of the manners and customs of both aristocrats and commoners in late-Heian Japan. The original scroll is believed to have been a massive sixty-volume set that was kept in the Rengeoin Palace treasure house.^[24] Komatsu Shigemi, though working from admittedly incomplete data, suggests that the work was ordered around 1157-58 and completed no later than 1171; its illustrator was Tokiwa no Genji Mitsunaga, and the headnotes were written by Fujiwara Norinaga (1109-80), a renowned calligrapher of the day (these two are known to have collaborated as well in the creation of Ban Dainagon ekotoba [Picture-Narrative Scroll of Ban Dainagon]); Fujiwara Motofusa (1144-1230), the regent at the time, provided editorial super-

vision.^[25] What remained of the original was lost during the great Kyoto fire of 1661; only sixteen scrolls, which the father-and-son team of Su-miyoshi Jokei (1599-1670) and Gukei (1631-1705) had copied from the original, then in the possession of ex-Emperor Gomizuno-o (1596-1680), remained following this disaster.^[26] Indeed, various sources suggest that even the original was by this time missing large portions, with only sixteen scrolls left.^[27] Of the copies, only the first seven are painted in color; the other nine are in monochrome sketch.

Nenjugyoji emaki is devoted chiefly to the depiction of important annual ceremonies and religious observances conducted at court. Mixed in are occasional sketches of the festivals of commoners, a rare juxtaposition of upper- and lower-class cultures that is nevertheless almost to be expected with Go-Shirakawa.

In the scenes that feature court activities, the backdrop is always the imperial palace. By Go-Shirakawa's reign, the old palace had fallen into severe disrepair, and the emperors usually took up residence in mansions specially prepared and offered by the Fujiwara regents outside the palace compounds. After the Hogen Disturbance in 1156, however, Shinzei, who became a far closer advisor to Go-Shirakawa in the wake of the incident, suggested a plan for reconstruction of the imperial palace, in part to help restore dignity to the imperial household. This proposal was approved in the second month of 1157, the third year of Go-Shirakawa's reign, and construction started immediately, with funds raised from taxes on the temples, shrine landholdings, and nobles' estates.^[28] By the tenth month of the same year the palace was completed. In celebration, an imperial banquet was held on the twenty-second day of the first month of 1158, the first time in 123 years such an event had been staged at the palace. In many senses, the event was a symbolic declaration of the power and autonomy of imperial rule. At the musical party that followed the feast, Go-Shirakawa himself sang songs to instrumental accompaniment provided by his courtiers.^[29] The purpose of Nenjugyoji emaki , in short, was to provide a visual documentary of the revival of court ceremonies and activities, thus preserving the record of the dignity and prestige of the imperial institution. In this regard, Nenjugyoji emaki is quite different from other emaki based on literary works, which were intended mainly for artistic appreciation.^[30]

The portions of the extant scroll that relate to court activities include scenes of the emperor's visit to his parents in the new year, cockfights in the imperial courtyard, football games, archery contests on horseback, imperial poetry contests and banquets, the regent's banquets for the court-

iers, Buddhist ceremonies to ensure the welfare of the country, the purification rite of the sixth month, and the regent's visit to the Kamo Shrine. In side-by-side format, the scroll also depicts events from the lives of commoners, such as the Inari and Gion festivals, Kamo festival parades, cockfights, a ball game that resembles modern hockey, and processions of prisoners through the city streets.

As a record of urban life generally, Nenjugyoji emaki is very revealing. The scroll is filled with scenes showing commoners rushing and milling about or crowding onto the site where an event is taking place. The wide range of people represented—men, women, and children, the old and the young, laypeople and religious personages, peddlers and sightseers—the liveliness of their expressions, and the endless variety of their movements, postures, and gestures dramatically convey the mood of festivity and the excitement that these occasions generated. The focus on popular culture in Nenjugyoji emaki can be taken as another manifestation of Go-Shirakawa's acceptance of the diversity of his own society, in a manner consistent with his interest in imayo .

Go-Shirakawa's decision to store so many scrolls and other artifacts in his palace may well have stemmed from his ambition to compete with the Shosoin at Nara, the Shokomyoin treasure house at the Toba Palace built by Emperor Toba, and the Byodoin at Uji, a residence of Fujiwara Yori-michi.^[31] It is known that he housed one thousand statues of Thousand-armed Kannon in his Rengeoin Palace. With this diverse collection of costly art objects it seems that Go-Shirakawa hoped to demonstrate the range of his influence and to assert the prestige and authority of the imperial house, not to mention his political ambition to outdo his predecessors.^[32]

It is noteworthy that Go-Shirakawa's era saw a proliferation of picture scrolls. Although their precise dates are unknown, the four emaki masterpieces Genji monogatari emaki (Picture Scroll of the Tale of Genji), Ban Dainagon ekotoba, Shigisan engi (Legends of the Shigisan Temple), and Choju jinbutsu giga (Scroll of Frolicking Animals and People) are believed to be products of Go-Shirakawa's time. To them might be added Nezame monogatari emaki (Scroll of the Tale of Nezame), Kibi Daijin nitto ekotoba (Picture Narrative of the Minister Kibi's Visit to China), Kokawadera engi (Legends of the Kokawa Temple), Jigoku zoshi (Scroll of Hell), Gaki zoshi (Scroll of Hungry Ghosts), and Yamai no soshi (Scroll of Diseases and Deformities).^[33] The following song in Ryojin hisho suggests a poetic transcription of a part of the picture scroll Choju jinbutsu giga :

It is not clear why the graphic arts flourished during Go-Shirakawa's time. But we may speculate that without court sponsorship in terms of interest and finance, such costly and time-consuming undertakings would have been impossible. Hence, the ample artistic harvest of picture scrolls at the end of the Heian period may owe much to the emperor's fascination with the visual arts.

Pilgrimages

Go-Shirakawa's enthusiasm also manifested itself in his religious activities, especially the making of pilgrimages. It is generally agreed that the religious pilgrimage tradition in Japan was instituted in the mid-Heian period (ninth century) by high priests who themselves had once made long pilgrimages to China.^[34] Most representative of these leaders are Saicho (Dengyo Daishi, 767-822), founder of the Tendai sect of Buddhism; Kukai (Kobo Daishi, 774-835), founder of the Shingon sect; Ennin (Jikaku Daishi, 794-864); and Enchin (Chisho Daishi, 814-91).^[35] Once implemented, pilgrimage became a lasting mass practice in Japan.

One region that particularly captured the popular imagination as a pilgrimage destination was Kumano in the south. The Kumano area has been important in Japanese history from mythical times, beginning with the story of Izanami, who reportedly was buried in the village of Arima. The people there are said to have commemorated her death by playing flutes, beating drums, and dedicating flowers and flags to her memory.^[36] Although clearly this account describes funeral processions in general, it also conveys a particular association of Kumano with the mysterious, dark region of the dead.^[37] The mythological significance of the Kumano region was heightened by its connection with Emperor Jinmu (r. 660-585 B. C. ), who is said to have been guided through its terrain by a three-legged crow until he safely reached the Yamato plain.^[38]

The first pilgrimage to Kumano by a sovereign was made by ex-Emperor Uda (r. 887-97) in the tenth month of 907. His journey did not, however,

inspire an immediate following among the royal family, for a full eighty years passed before the next imperial pilgrimage was made, by ex-Emperor Kazan (r. 984-86) around 987. In fact, it was not until the insei period that the Kumano pilgrimage gained a real prominence at court. Emperor Shirakawa visited Kumano nine times after his abdication in 1086, Toba undertook the trip twenty-one times, and Go-Toba, twenty-eight. But it was Go-Shirakawa who set the record, making thirty-two pilgrimages to Kumano.^[39]

Go-Shirakawa's first pilgrimage to Kumano took place in the year 1160, two years after his abdication. Thereafter, he repeated the journey almost annually for more than thirty years, making his last trip in 1191, a year before his death.^[40] In some years he even went on the Kumano pilgrimage twice.^[41] One round-trip to Kumano usually took about a month; considering the distance, preparations, retinues, accommodations, and, most of all, expense, it was an enormous undertaking.

The Kumano pilgrimage, which involved the endurance of significant austerities en route, was said to bring one longevity in this world and rebirth in paradise.^[42] Its popularity and powerful appeal arose from a complex interplay of religious trends toward the end of the Heian period, including a syncretic fusion of indigenous mountain cults and the esoteric Shingon cosmology, which envisioned the region as the "matrix realm." The mountains of Kumano, reached only by a dangerous and arduous climb up forbidding precipices and through thick vegetation and forests, aroused a sense of otherworldliness in the pilgrims, as if they were nearing the presence of the divine. The Nachi Falls area and the nearby breathtaking shoreline were associated with the southern seashore at the foot of Mount Potalaka (Fudaraku in Japanese), the Pure Land of Kannon, and drew a large number of ascetics and pilgrims. Occasionally people drowned themselves there, in hopes of thereby attaining the Pure Land.^[43]

Court diaries, such as Fujiwara Tamefusa's Tamefusakyo ki (Record of the Lord Tamefusa), Minamoto Morotoki's Choshuki , Fujiwara Munetada's Chuyuki , Fujiwara Teika's Meigetsuki , and Go-Shirakawa's Kudenshu , all include personal accounts of the Kumano pilgrimage.^[44] The devotional journey was preceded by an exacting preparatory regimen, involving strict abstinence from certain taboo foods and purification by bathing in the morning and evening prior to departure. Such discipline was required along the way as well, putting the pilgrims' will and perseverance to an extreme test. Sometimes they were pressed to pour cold river or well water over their bodies, and at other times to bathe in the sea, regardless of the time of year.^[45] Accompanying the imperial retinue were priests, who performed the appropriate religious rites. Since Emperor Shirakawa's

first Kumano pilgrimage had given this honor to priests of the Onjoji (Miidera) Temple, it became the rule to select the leader of the Kumano pilgrimage from that temple; thus a powerful alliance was forged between the court, Onjoji, and the Kumano region.^[46]

A large number of subsidiary shrines sprang up along the Kumano pilgrimage route from Kyoto to the main Hongu Shrine, reportedly as many as ninety-nine; these served as resting places for pilgrims, offering a respite from physical strain and supplying material goods for the next leg of the difficult journey.^[47] Nor was the pilgrimage utterly lacking in diversions. On at least three different occasions recorded in Kudenshu , Go-Shirakawa and his company, after completing basic religious observances, enjoyed some music on their way to Kumano, including the emperor's singing of imayo before an admiring audience.^[48] Sometimes these performances were accompanied by dancing and acrobatics or by koto and biwa recitals as well.

Go-Shirakawa's frequent journeys to Kumano no doubt fueled the popularity of sacred pilgrimages in general and of pilgrimages to Kumano in particular.^[49] Such expressions as "ari no kumano mode" (the pilgrimage of ants to Kumano—a reference to the endless lines of people climbing the steep Kumano mountains)^[50] convey vividly the fervor of this and probably similar trips of devotion.

Besides the long journeys to Kumano, Go-Shirakawa made a number of shorter trips to shrines and temples nearer the capital. Kudenshu , for example, Fists pilgrimages to the Kamo (1169) and Iwashimizu Hachiman shrines (1178) and, farther to the west, the Itsukushima Shrine (1174).^[51] During the Genpei War, when Go-Shirakawa could not travel as far as Kumano, he frequently visited the much closer Hie Shrine. During his last few years he often called at the Tennoji Temple, where, in the eighth month of 1187, at the age of sixty, he was consecrated in an esoteric rite of anointment.^[52]

Each of the six pilgrimage accounts in Kudenshu records mystical revelations encountered on Go-Shirakawa's journeys. Sometimes these epiphanies were experienced directly by Go-Shirakawa himself, though more often they involved supernatural manifestations that appeared to members of his entourage or to a local shaman, who then delivered the divine message to the emperor. One such event occurred in the first month of 1162:

Late that night Ion the twelfth day] I went up to the main shrine [at the Kumano Shingu] again and, after circumambulating it, I stayed up all night in the ceremonial hall chanting the Sutra on the Thou-

sand-armed Kannon. Other people were there, but they dropped off to sleep in the corner of the hall, and nobody was sitting in front of me. Even Michiie, who was supposed to assist me in rolling the sutra scroll, was dozing off.

The noise of the offerings gradually subsided just past midnight. As I gazed toward the sanctuary, the sacred mirror was glittering faintly in the dim light. I was deeply moved; tears began to flow, and my heart became clean. About dawn, as I continued weeping and reciting the sutra, Sukekata, his own nightlong religious service over, came into the ceremonial hall. I said to him: "How about singing imayo ? Now is the perfect time!" But he sat motionless out of respect for me. Since there was nothing else for me to do, I started out myself:

Far above the vows of ten thousand buddhas
trustworthy the vows of Thousand-armed Kannon;
even withered grass and trees, so it is said,
blossom and bear fruit in a moment. [RH 39]

I sang the song over and over again, and both Sukekata and Michiie joined in. Perhaps because of the serenity of my heart, the song seemed better and more enjoyable than usual. The priest Kakusan had completed his circumambulation and was performing an all-night ceremony under a pine tree in front of the shrine when he heard a voice from the top of the tree say, "Now is the time for our hearts to melt." It sounded so eerie that he was startled. He came rushing into the ceremonial hall and hurriedly reported to us what had happened. When a person concentrates single-mindedly on cleansing his heart, such things do happen.^[53]

Regardless of the channels through which such extraordinary communications came, they served for Go-Shirakawa as public acknowledgment of divine favor. It must be noted that Go-Shirakawa promoted the idea that these miraculous events were rewards for his cumulative merit gained from daily, private religious observance. Even as they legitimized the difficulties, personal sacrifices, and expenses he bore on his pilgrim-ages, they confirmed his position as the sacred king. This point is borne out by a remark he cites in Kudenshu , uttered by his retainers on a trip he made to the Kamo Shrine in 1169: "Every time His Majesty comes in person, it seems that strange sounds are heard."^[54] Thus Go-Shirakawa's many pilgrimages, culminating as they often did in mystical revelations, both fulfilled his desire to be in contact with the divine and augmented his worldly political status.

Go-Shirakawa's promotion of pilgrimage was demonstrated not only

by his own visits to sacred sites around the country, but also by his construction in the capital of proxy shrines. For instance, the Ima-Hie Shrine, built in 1160 in the Higashiyama area in the eastern part of the Heian capital, invoked the divinities of the Hie Shrine to protect his Hojuji Palace. Go-Shirakawa is known to have made thirty-six pilgrimages to the shrine over the years.^[55] In similar manner, the nearby Ima-Kumano Shrine, erected in 1161, summoned the Kumano triad as overseers; this shrine is noted for its elaborate and imposing rituals and celebrations.^[56] The basic idea was that a shortened and simplified form of pilgrimage was as effective and valid as one made to the distant shrines themselves. Apparently these shrines also served religious purposes for common people, who had neither the financial nor the physical means to undertake long pilgrimages to distant regions like Kumano.^[57]

In his sponsorship of religious and cultural activities, Go-Shirakawa was to a great extent motivated by political considerations, including the desire to restore imperial prestige and power. Yet in his view, artistic performances—particularly of imayo —could also serve as vehicles of spiritual salvation. By anthologizing imayo in Ryojin hisho , he implied a correspondence between art and religion: rather than being the hand-maiden of religion, art was worthy of the same degree of devotion as religion.

3
Go-Shirakawa and Ryojin hisho

Compilation of Ryojin hisho

The compilation of Ryojin hisho and Kudenshu was an ambitious under-taking. What primarily compelled Go-Shirakawa was the lack of any critical appraisal of imayo up to his time, as he states in the preamble of Kudenshu : "Many treatises and commentaries have been written on waka poems, but as no such precedent exists for imayo , I have put together this collection using Toshiyori's Zuino as a model."^[1] Go-Shirakawa's choice of Zuino (Poetic Essentials, ca. 1115) by Minamoto Toshiyori (or Shunrai, 1055-1129?) as his exemplar is significant.^[2] This work stands in the tradition of Japanese waka poetic treatises, beginning with the preface of Kokinshu (ca. 905) and continued by Mibu no Tadamine's (fl. 898-920) Wakatei jusshu (Ten Waka Styles, 945; also known as Tadamine juttei , Tadamine's Ten Styles) and Fujiwara Kinto's (966-1041) Shinsen zuino (Essentials of Poetry, Newly Compiled) and Waka kuhon (Nine Styles of Waka ), both supposedly completed between 1004 and 1012. An innovative poet in his own right, Toshiyori in Zuino lamented the sterility of waka in his time and advocated the revitalization of waka practice through a new, freer, more unconventional use of language, diction, and poetic ideas.^[3] The most outstanding aspect of Zuino was the inclusion of a group of setsuwa uta (poems with historical anecdotes), for which Toshiyori pro-vided critical interpretations that uncovered the stories surrounding the poems.^[4] This anecdotal approach and his methods of explication represented the most innovative changes in the history of Japanese poetic criticism and were to be emulated by later poetic tracts.^[5] Given this back-ground, Go-Shirakawa's undertaking can be seen as an attempt to canonize the imayo genre and accord it its rightful place vis-à-vis waka . Indeed, a

number of imayo in Ryojin hisho have a similar anecdotal or setsuwa flavor, as does the very narrative flow of Kudenshu itself.

Go-Shirakawa feared that imayo , as a purely vocal art, was in danger of dying out: "Those who write Chinese poems, compose waka , and practice calligraphy can preserve their works in writing and leave them for posterity, thus saving them from destruction. In the case of vocal music the sad fact is that once I am gone, nothing will be left behind. For this reason, I have committed to writing the oral transmission of imayo , hitherto never undertaken, for the sake of future generations."^[6] This statement equates imayo with the other principal aesthetic pursuits cultivated by the late-Heian elites. Yet one feature distinguishes imayo from the other genres mentioned, and that is its orality. While waka , Chinese poems, and calligraphy are all written arts, imayo is essentially an oral performative art: it disappears the instant a song is completed. Imayo can never be recaptured or repeated exactly as it was uttered. Go-Shirakawa's recognition of the irretrievable, temporal nature of imayo music and its perishability provided him with the incentive to compile Ryojin hisho . In essence, Ryojin hisho represents Go-Shirakawa's attempt to overcome the limitations inherent in imayo as oral art by giving it a chirographic dimension.

An additional impetus could be the fact that Go-Shirakawa had not yet found a disciple to whom he could convey his art. Awareness that his own death would mean the end of the authentic transmission of imayo must have stimulated him to commit the oral tradition of imayo to writing. At the very end of Kudenshu , in fact, Go-Shirakawa laments the fate of imayo once he was gone, even though by then he had secured two successors.^[7]

Ryojin hisho represents the most comprehensive attempt since Man'yoshu (Collection for Ten Thousand Generations, ca. 759) to collect an oral tradition and put it in writing. By Go-Shirakawa's time, the Japanese aristocracy had passed from the age of orality into that of literacy.^[8] The folk tradition, however, was still primarily oral. The transmission of oral material depended entirely on the power of memory through direct master-disciple contact, as is seen in Go-Shirakawa's own training under Otomae and, later, his training of his two disciples. In compiling Ryojin hisho , Go-Shirakawa effectively transformed that oral legacy into a literate medium, for now the songs were available to the entire reading public, not to mention succeeding generations.

Go-Shirakawa apparently realized that his project to collect imayo was done in a larger context, that of the entire Japanese song tradition begin-

ning with kagura . His sense of this history is recorded clearly in Book 1 of Kudenshu :

There are several song forms that have been transmitted from long ago to the present. They are called kagura, saibara , and fuzoku. Kagura originated in the age when the Goddess Amaterasu pushed open the gate of the rock cave, whereas saibara has its origin in the songs of people from various provinces who dedicated their tributes to the Ministry of the Treasury. These songs are not something to be taken lightly, because they convey the people's praise of good government, as well as their censure of the evils of misgovernment. Saibara is a musical arrangement made possible by adding elegance to Japanese melodies and accompaniment of koto, biwa , and flute. It is used for official and private entertainment. All of these song forms have the power to move heaven and earth, to pacify the angry gods, and are an effective means of governing the country and benefiting its people. Fuzoku is used at palace music rehearsals or on pilgrim-ages to the Kamo Shrine. In the olden days, it used to be performed at the banquets of aristocrats, but recently it has ceased to be used on these occasions. Besides these forms, another oral song tradition exists—imayo . The number of songs is large and its repertoire is wide, with songs in such categories as kamiuta, mononoyo , and tauta .^[9]

Here, Go-Shirakawa seeks to establish imayo as part of an unbroken classical song tradition. The earlier song forms, moreover, provided Go-Shirakawa with models, for they had been collected and put into writing before Go-Shirakawa's time. The oldest extant kagurauta text, for in-stance, is believed to have been written down during the late tenth or early eleventh century, some hundred years before Go-Shirakawa began to compile Ryojin hisho .^[10] The same was true of saibara , texts of which from different musical lineages were being committed to writing toward the end of the Heian period, when Go-Shirakawa was making his collection of imayo .^[11] Thus, Go-Shirakawa's cultivation of imayo and his compilation of Ryojin hisho served two functions: to continue the Japanese song tradition and to anthologize song texts for posterity.

Several features, however, set Ryojin hisho apart from other song collections. The most conspicuous is the size of the original collection. No known kagurauta or saibara collections of the period come close to matching the number of songs included in Ryojin hisho . Furthermore, Ryojin hisho represents a collection of popular songs that were still being generated and circulated among the people, whereas both kagurauta and saibara

had already lost their popular appeal, in part because of their longer usage in court and their consequent conservative, ritualized nature.^[12]

Go-Shirakawa's interest in imayo may be seen in part as an expression of his unconventionality, as he sought to distinguish himself in his pursuit of the new and unorthodox. More significantly, however, Go-Shirakawa probably discerned in imayo a possible means of revitalizing court music. As an accomplished singer of both kagurauta and saibara , Go-Shirakawa surely recognized the enervated status of those traditions and may have wanted to infuse some regenerative elements into existing popular song.

Imayo Poetics

Go-Shirakawa's view of imayo is imbued with a mystical sense that al-lowed him to see the songs as more than a medium of artistic communication. His devotion to imayo eventually developed into an esoteric belief concerning the power of song. For Go-Shirakawa, imayo possessed a magico-religious potency that could produce a desired result, whether involving immediate, pragmatic benefits in this world or rebirth in the next. Here we must recognize that in his imayo poetics Go-Shirakawa saw no distinction between the secular and the profane. This passage in Kudenshu is representative: "The imayo that are popular these days are not intended simply for entertainment. When they are sung with sincerity at shrines or temples, they bring about divine revelations and fulfill our wishes. They obtain for people their desire for official positions, prolong human life, and immediately cure illnesses."^[13] Go-Shirakawa substantiates his claim of the religious efficacy of imayo by citing in Kudenshu seven publicly known or legendary cases in which either a miraculous healing (four cases) or rebirth in the next world (three cases) was effected through the whole-hearted singing of imayo^[14] :

[Fujiwara] Atsuie, who had a superb voice, was detained on Mount Kinbu by the deities as their kin.^[15] When Inspector Kiyotsune fell critically ill, Mei sang, "In the age of the Imitation Dharma, what can we do but rely on Yakushi's vow?" and he was instantly cured. More recently, when Michisue, the chief of the left gate guards, was suffering from a dangerous fever, he twice sang the imayo "Don't ever slander the Lotus Sutra followers" and, after sweating, was cured.^[16] A person suffering from a tumor on his neck was gravely ill and had even been given up on by the doctors, so he secluded himself in Koryuji Temple and sang imayo with the utmost concentration.^[17] Immediately the tumor shrank and disappeared. A blind person se-

cluded himself within a shrine for more than a hundred days and sang imayo , and he left with his sight restored. The list does not stop here. Tonekuro, an asobi , was caught up in some fighting, and before breathing her last she sang "Now is the time for the Western Pure Land;' whereby she attained rebirth.^[18] Shirogimi of Takasago attained her lifelong wish for rebirth in the Pure Land by singing "Prince Shotoku."^[19]

Go-Shirakawa's advocacy of the supernatural mantric potency of imayo is reminiscent of many related practices—in his age, particularly prominent in Pure Land Buddhism—based on the power of words to produce supramundane and religious results (kotodama ). The incidents he cites illustrate the belief that imayo art, when pursued with the utmost dedication, can coerce supernatural intervention in the temporal order and can even substitute for institutionalized religion. Go-Shirakawa's identification of imayo's pragmatic power with such miraculous phenomena thus represents an ultimate sanctification of imayo .

As if to underscore this point, Go-Shirakawa also recounts his own six epiphanic moments that occurred as a direct consequence of imayo performances. Invariably, such incidents occurred during his pilgrimages to shrines and temples, and mostly at night.^[20] All of these visionary experiences are recorded as also having been witnessed by bystanders, usually members of his retinue. One of the most memorable incidents took place at the Kumano Shrine in 1169. After singing imayo all night, Go-Shirakawa, who was soon to take the tonsure, realized that this would be his last sacred journey as a layperson. He thus expended extra effort to make the occasion special by covering most of the categories of imayo .^[21] He recalls:

When everything became quiet around dawn, I sang this ichiko with an especially serene heart. Thereupon, from the western side of the main shrine, an indescribable fragrance wafted in. Narichika asked Chikanobu, "What's happening? Do you notice a fragrance?" While all the people there were puzzling over it, a roaring sound broke out as if the sanctuary were rumbling. Shaken anew, Narichika asked, "What is it all about?" I replied, "It may be the flapping sound of the chickens in their sleep after they have taken temporary shelter else-where." After a while, the fragrance completely enveloped the hall. Then the sanctuary curtain rose and swayed as if someone were passing through. The sacred hanging mirror also swayed, and every-thing else rocked for a while. By then, as though startled, the phantom vanished. It was then between two and four o'clock in the morning.^[22]

The reason for the inclusion of this incident in Go-Shirakawa's memoir may have been related to his mystical conception of imayo art as able to move the spirits.

But Go-Shirakawa found a significance in imayo that ventured far beyond the confines of the temporal order. Ultimately, in his view, imayo could be a vehicle of religious salvation:

Why shouldn't singing imayo contribute to my securing a seat on the lotus pedestal in paradise? ... Homon uta is no different from the words in the sutra. Each of the eight scrolls of the Lotus Sutra radiates light, and each character in the twenty-eight chapters is a golden buddha. Why shouldn't secular words, too, transform themselves into praises of buddha and become a wheel for propagating the Dharma?^[23]

The lyrics of most homon uta are derived from a number of sutras, most often the Lotus Sutra; some amount to direct quotes from these sacred texts. The imayo genre, however, also encompassed openly erotic themes and other profane subjects seemingly opposed to the concerns of the predominantly religious homon uta . What is noteworthy is Go-Shirakawa's advocacy of imayo of different persuasion and content than homon uta as nevertheless fulfilling the same function as homon uta . To understand this all-encompassing view of art and its relationship to religion, one must comprehend the concept of kyogen kigyo (or kyogen kigo ), "delusive words and decorative language."

During the mid-Heian period, the notion of kyogen kigyo was popular among men of letters, especially those well versed in Chinese poetry and classics. They formed a literary circle called Kangaku-e (Learning Encour-agement Meeting) under the leadership of Yoshishige Yasutane (ca. 931-1002). Its main members over the decades included such leading scholars of the day as Minamoto Shitago (911-83), Fujiwara Arikuni (943-1011), Tachibana Yorihira (dates unknown), Takashina no Moriyoshi (dates unknown), Ki no Tadana (957-99), Minamoto Toshikata (960-1027), Oe no Masahira (952-1012), Minamoto Tamenori (b. 1011), Fujiwara Koreshige (953-89), and Oe no Koretoki (or Yukitoki).^[24] The chief goal of this group was to achieve a harmonious relationship between their literary activity and Buddhist religious concepts and practices. What helped these literati in their search for such a synthesis and also for a justification of their engagement in secular literature was the Buddhist dialectic embodied in the dictum kyogen kigyo , a phrase coined by the T'ang poet Po Chü-i (772-846): "My aspiration is that the karma wrought by my secular literary work in the present life, with its delusive words and decorative language, becomes for future worlds a medium of praising the Dharma and a cause for propagating the Buddha's teaching."^[25]

Traditionally, Buddhism took a negative stance toward human language, warning of its fallibility and inability to transmit ultimate truth. In this conceptual framework, words, especially literature, are the epitome of delusion, absolutely lacking in substance and truth and depicting a phantom world with no reference to reality.^[26] Ultimately, literature as a class of human activity is held to exert an insidiously corrupting influence over its readers, luring them from the truth. Under such stringent doctrinal proscription, the conflict faced by the writers of secular literature based on fiction was inevitably acute.

Others, however, argued that like the celebrated parables in the Lotus Sutra, fiction could serve as a superb vehicle—or expedient means (Skt., upaya ; hoben )—of enlightenment.^[27] In these critics' view, the conceptual dualism of secular literature and religious truth was itself a form of delusion, focusing only on the superficial differences while missing the essential unity that informs the world of phenomena. Pushed to its logical conclusion, this radical Buddhist dialectic identified transmigration with nirvana and delusion with enlightenment.^[28] When these seeming polarities are balanced so that they cancel each other out, a new concept of secular literature and its profane languages emerges, guided by a single ideological purpose: to propagate the Buddhist ultimate truths.

This acknowledgment of the coexistence in a single continuum of the secular and the religious in literature, based on kyogen kigyo , helped to set the poetic ideal for generations of waka poets after the Kangaku-e. It gained an ever-widening following throughout the Heian period and eventually provided one foundation for Heian poetics. Kyogen kigyo also figures prominently in the poetics of Go-Shirakawa's contemporaries and the waka luminaries Fujiwara Shunzei and Saigyo, where it received further elaboration.^[29] The complete passage by Po Chü-i quoted above was even adopted into the roei genre and included in Wakan roeishu (Collection of Japanese and Chinese Poems, ca. 1013), compiled by Fujiwara Kinto.^[30]

The application of the kyogen kigyo concept to imayo is not limited to an abstract enunciation in Go-Shirakawa's memoir. The same idea is re-iterated and embodied in one of the Ryojin hisho songs, which reads:

In this salvational scheme, art is a superb vehicle or expedient means. Here we discern an echo of the religious ethos of the late Heian period, which increasingly identified art with religion itself and thereby heightened the status of secular cultural activities by bringing them on par with the sacred.

Imayo Politics

In addition to these literary and religious concerns for imayo , there was another important reason for Go-Shirakawa to turn to that song form. The following statement, cited above, in retrospect is full of implications: "All of these song forms have the power to move heaven and earth, to pacify angry gods, and are an effective means of governing the country and benefitting its people ."^[31] The first half of the passage is almost a verbatim recitation of a passage by Ki no Tsurayuki (ca. 872-945) in the Japanese preface to Kokinshu , itself based on Chinese precedents. It is the second half, with its largely Confucian emphasis on the political use of the arts, that interests us here. The implication is that these songs, by virtue of their origin with the people, reflect the popular will and can serve as an index of the affairs of the nation at large. When listened to carefully, therefore, these songs could provide valuable cues for proper and judicious rule.^[32]

Go-Shirakawa's statement also represents a certain nostalgia for the golden past when the sovereign, as a living god, ruled over a happy and prosperous land. In Go-Shirakawa's own day, the unsettled political situation and the decline of real imperial power would have made the Confucian ideal, presented in the Confucian classics, all the more attractive.

Go-Shirakawa was of course not the first to recognize the political dimension of popular song. In fact, the prototypes for kagurauta, saibara , and fuzoku were songs dedicated to the central government on special ritual occasions such as the enthronement ceremony (daijosai ) and the new grain dedication ceremony. These songs, all from the nonimperial powerful lineages in the outlying regions, were offered as symbolic tokens of submission to imperial rule and as pledges of loyalty. The importance of the kagurauta performed during the daijosai has long been recognized,^[33] but attention must be extended to the whole range of performance arts staged during these ritual times. Their delivery signified a yielding of the collective tribal identity, even the very soul of the lineage itself, to the imperial line.^[34] More often than not, artistic performances dedicated to the emperor himself were valued as highly as material offerings, signifying as they did ideological surrender to the central government, and frequently became mandatory parts of such rituals at court.^[35] Thus Go-Shirakawa,

perceiving the unique relationship between politics and popular music, recorded the usefulness of such music in his Kudenshu and may have partially exploited the implications of that relationship when he personally involved himself in the collection and preservation of the most widely popular song form of his time, imayo .

The imperial anthologies of waka , the crème de la crème of elitist poetic endeavors, were all commissioned works, not compilations by emperors. In choosing to compile imayo songs himself, Go-Shirakawa stands out as a unique figure. He alone seemed to have possessed a keen awareness of the need to preserve imayo , not to mention the perseverance and commitment to complete the task.

4
Poetic Forms and Techniques

Ryojin hisho contains three major types of songs: homon uta (literally, songs of Buddhist scriptures; 220 songs), shiku no kamiuta (four-line god songs; 204 songs), and niku no kamiuta (two-line god songs; 121 songs). These divisions seem to be based on differences in musical mode rather than in subject matter, for a large number of songs related to Buddhism appear not only in homon uta but frequently in shiku no kamiuta and even occasionally in niku no kamiuta as well. In addition, song texts are often duplicated in the anthology, either within a single section or in different subsections.^[1] The homon uta probably bore traces of melodic solemnity, as their origins are traced to the Buddhist ceremonial music used in temples. In contrast, both shiku no kamiuta and niku no kamiuta shared the musical characteristics of kagurauta performed at Shinto shrines, which derived from folk songs and so bear a closer affinity to secular music than do homon uta .^[2]

All three song types take distinctly different poetic forms. Homon uta usually consist of a four-line stanza, each line with a 7-5 or 8-5 syllable count.^[3] Shiku no kamiuta are characterized by much looser prosodic structure than homon uta ; although many have a four-line stanza, with each line displaying a 7-5 or 8-5 syllable count (like homon uta ), some deviate from this formula, being irregular in meter and line length. Niku no kamiuta are also distinguished by a variety of formal arrangements: a majority exhibit waka prosody with the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count, but a considerable number have far: more lines and an irregular meter.

Homon uta

The name homon uta is believed to have been used for the first time in Ryojin hisho ; it does not appear in any other contemporary sources. The term may have been coined by the compiler of the anthology, Go-

Shirakawa, to distinguish this subgroup of imayo of dominantly Buddhist content from others of secular theme^[4]

The homon uta section is the largest in the extant Ryojin hisho , making up about 40 percent of the total. It shows the highest degree of uniformity, homogeneity, and stability in terms of themes, prosodic structure, and formal arrangement. The entire section is devoted to the single topic of Buddhism, its elaborate organizational design reflecting Go-Shirakawa's careful attention to his material as well as his knowledge of Buddhist thought and doctrines. This concern may have resulted from Go-Shirakawa's assertion in Kudenshu that these songs reflected the sacred scripture itself and for that reason alone deserved meticulous handling.^[5]

The homon uta are divided into carefully defined categories based on the conceptual framework of the "three baskets" or "Three Treasures" of Buddhism—the Buddha, the Dharma (or the Law), and the Sangha (com-munity of Buddhist priests). This tripartite division serves not only as a formal classificatory scheme but also as a reminder of the basic articles of belief in Buddhism. An additional and final division in the section, called zo (miscellaneous), represents an amalgam of the elements found in the preceding sections plus a few strains of personal lyricism.

The sutra section of the homon uta is the largest, comprising 125 songs (56.8 percent of the entire section). The songs are further arranged according to the "Five Periods" of the Buddha's teachings following his enlightenment, a chronology devised by Chih-i (538-97), the founder of the Chinese T'ien-t'ai school of Buddhism (the Tendai sect in Japan). The corresponding five categories of sutras are known as Hua yen (Kegon in Japanese), Lu yüan (Rokuen or Agon), Fang teng (Hodo), Po-jo (Hannya), and Fa hua Nieh-p'an (Hokke-nehan). A majority (114, or 91.2 percent) of the sutra songs in the homon uta section are related to the Lotus Sutra, which the Tendai sect especially emphasizes; this fact clearly reflects Em-peror Go-Shirakawa's own religious leaning toward Tendai.

The order of arrangement of homon uta in Ryojin hisho is closely parallel to that of the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra, rendering the homon uta section almost a Lotus Sutra in miniature. The following three songs, which appropriate some of the best-known parables of the Lotus Sutra, illustrate this feature:

Homon uta versification is considered to have grown out of the Buddhist hymns, especially from wasan (Buddhist hymns written in Japanese), which were used in temple services or lecture meetings.^[9] Wasan were based on kansan (Buddhist hymns written in Chinese), which in turn derived from bonsan (hymns written in Sanskrit).^[10] These were songs praising the Buddha, his major disciples, bodhisattvas, and illustrious priests, as well as interpretations of doctrinal points.

Kansan came to Japan along with Buddhism and were soon being imitated by Japanese Buddhists. Later, a Japanese genre of kansan emerged, including a work, "Shiho gokuraku san" (Praise of the Western Paradise), written by Prince Tomohira (964-1009), the seventh son of Emperor Murakami (r. 946-76).^[11] Others who composed in this genre included such members of the Kangaku-e as Yoshishige Yasutane, Oe no Yukitoki, Oe no Masahira, and Ki no Tadana. In the long run, however, the kansan form was felt to be too rigid and abstruse to be understood clearly by the general public; as a foreign linguistic medium, it was simply inadequate to express indigenous thoughts and emotions.^[12] The wasan form likely arose as an attempt to overcome such drawbacks.

The development of wasan coincided with the emergence of a national literature, represented by the waka revival in the mid-Heian period. At first, wasan creation was centered among mid-Heian Buddhist leaders, especially those scholarly monks of the Tendai school on Mount Hiei.^[13]Wasan were on the themes of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the "Three Treasures of Buddhism," and were sung in front of the Buddhas.^[14] The earliest known wasan , "Honkakusan" (Praise of the Original Awakening of the Buddha), is attributed to the priest Ryogen (Jie Daishi, 912-

85).^[15] This work was followed by such wasan classics as "Gokurakukoku mida wasan" (Praise of the Amida in Paradise), by Senkan (918-83), and "Tendai Daishi wasan" (Praise of the Great Tendai Priest [i.e., Chih-i]), "Raigo wasan" (Praise of the Amida's Welcome of His Believers into His Paradise), and "Gokuraku rokuji san" (Praise of the Sixth Hour in Paradise), all written by the abbot Genshin.^[16]

Basically, a wasan consists of lines with a syllable count of 7-5, and some of the early wasan are rather lengthy. "Tendai Daishi wasan," for example, is 230 lines long, while "Gokuraku rokuji san" is epic in scale, having 878 lines.^[17] Certain parts of a wasan , however, consisted of semantically complete units of four lines, inherently allowing independent four-line stanzas to be formed. It is believed that such fragmentation gave rise to the four-line homon uta form, especially when the units were suitable for chanting.^[18]

Some homon uta in Ryojin hisho , in fact, are direct extracts from longer wasan works. For instance, no. 224, on the priest Chih-i, is taken from Genshin's "Tendai Daishi wasan," while nos. 43 and 227 are based on his "Gokuraku rokuji san."^[19] Similarly, nos. 172 and 174, each consisting of four lines, are extracted from "Shari wasan" (Praise of Buddha's Relics) by Yokan (Eikan, 1032-1111);^[20] no. 18 derives from "Kuya wasan" (Kuya's Praise) attributed to Kuya Shonin (903-72), an early Pure Land proselytizer among the common people; and no. 30 has its origin in "Gokurakukoku mida wasan."^[21] The following song is a specimen of such direct quotes:

Compared with wasan, homon uta have greater flexibility in lexical choice, syntactic arrangement, and mode of delivery. Despite efforts to make wasan a more tractable mode than kansan , it still bore the imprint of its predecessor, especially in a rigidity that came from forcing Chinese verses to fit into the native 7-5 or 8-5 prosody.^[23] With homon uta , Japanese poets overcame many of the barriers between the two languages by more skillfully mingling Buddhist terms (couched in Chinese loan-words) with indigenous diction, phrasing, rhetorical devices, and syntactic structuring.

Although not completely free of the constraints inherited from wasan , the homon uta form was thus better able to reduce cumbersome generic constraints, thereby achieving a softer tone. With homon uta , in other words, a closer approximation to the vernacular could be effected, and the foreign linguistic medium thus achieved a sort of naturalization. In the end, it represents an intermediate poetic form between formalistic temple ritual songs (kungata, kyoke , or wasan ) and subjective or lyrical waka on Buddhist themes (shakkyoka ), which is for personal use, not to be sung in front of the Buddha in the temple.^[24] Herein rest the characteristics of the homon uta as a poetic form.

Shiku no kamiuta

The shiku no kamiuta section of Ryojin hisho differs markedly from the homon uta in terms of organization, formal characteristics, and poetic technique. In place of the exacting categorical divisions of homon uta , only six general nominal groupings differentiate the shiku no kamiuta: jinbun (Shinto-Buddhist syncretic ceremony, 35 songs); butsu (the Buddhas, 11), kyo (the sutras, 7), so (the Sangha, 12), reigensho uta (songs on miraculous sites, 9), and zo (miscellaneous, 130). Each verse, moreover, has much looser and freer prosody than is the case with homon uta . As regards subject matter, in contrast to the preoccupation with Buddhist metaphysics in the homon uta and the accompanying foreign exoticism, the shiku no kamiuta focus largely on aspects of mundane Japanese life.

In general, but by no means invariably, shiku no kamiuta consist of a four-line stanza (as their name suggests) with a syllable count of 8-5 or 7-5. Thirty-two of the total 204 shiku no kamiuta (15.7 percent), however, depart from the four-line format, usually with an increase in line number. For instance, no. 314, the longest song of this genre in Ryojin hisho , has fourteen lines, while no. 257 is a mere three lines long. In addition, almost half the total shiku no kamiuta lines deviate from the 7-5 or 8-5 syllabic scheme; this subgenre, in other words, is somewhat loose in terms of prosody. These facts led to speculation that shiku no kamiuta were born of the contact between the relatively regulated four-line homon uta form and the much looser form of folk songs.^[25]

Shiku no kamiuta frequently include exclamatory particles such as ya, yo , or na , orchestra words (hayashikotoba ) such as ya , and repeated words or phrases; occasionally onomatopoeia make an appearance as well. The following song about the mystic power of shamans is one instance in which most of these elements are present, resulting in a striking rhythmic quality:

The most noted technique in shiku no kamiuta is known as mono zukushi (cataloging device). More than eighty Ryojin hisho songs can be counted in this category, some seventy of which are shiku no kamiuta Four basic syntactic forms characterize the cataloging songs: (1) a line with adjectival + mono + wa ; (2) the same structure, but without wa ; (3) a line with an adjectival (or no ) or adverbial + nominal excluding mono (it could also be rentai kei , attributive form of verbs or adjectives) + wa ; and (4) the same structure, but without wa .

Regardless of differences in the syntactic arrangement, the first line is critical because it sets the topic and mood for each verse. It specifies what the song is about, raising curiosity and expectations. Subsequent lines are usually a straight inventory of objects related to that topic. Although no specific rules govern the number of lines in a song, on the whole mono-zukushi songs take a four-line stanza form.

The following are examples for each of the four categories:

Within the cataloging songs, the michiyuki (road travel) type, signaled by the phrase e mairu michi ("the road to pilgrimage") or jusho wa doko doko zo ("where, oh where, is the residence") and usually used for listing sacred pilgrimage sites, forms a subgroup with formulaic overtones. For instance, the following song on the major leaders of Heian Buddhism makes use of this list-making technique:

In one sweeping stroke, the song names the Buddhist giants of the age and their institutional affiliations, showing respect by honoring them with their posthumous official titles. A who's who of the pillars of Japanese Buddhism, this list would have provided an effective mnemonic device for learning these important facts.

The technique of making poetic lists is by no means a novel invention. A prototype already appeared in two Kojiki poems, one in michiyuki form (no. 58), the other as a simple enumeration (no. 100).^[29] Nihonshoki (Chronicle of Japan, 720) contains one michiyuki-type poem (no. 94),^[30] while four michiyuki in choka (long poems) can be found in book 13 of Man'yoshu (nos. 3230, 3236, 3237, and 3240). The tradition was continued by Heian-period saibara ,^[31] and by the prose monument in catalog making, the Makura no soshi of Sei Shonagon. The large number of catalog songs in Ryojin hisho and the variety of techniques that they display may qualify the anthology as the veritable poetic counterpart of Makura no soshi .

Niku no kamiuta

The niku no kamiuta section contains the smallest number of songs in Ryojin hisho —only 121—and yet it represents a fascinating study in contrasts in terms of structure and form.

First, we find an elaborately broken-down subsection of jinja uta (shrine songs), with sixteen subheadings for only sixty-one songs, sandwiched between two untitled subsections comprising sixty songs in all. Second, while the jinja uta are adopted largely from waka poems with verified authorship, the songs in the two untitled subsections are entirely anonymous. Third, the name niku no kamiuta , generally translated as "two-line god songs;' is itself open to interpretation. Niku may refer to a poem of two lines; more likely, though, the reference is to songs constructed like a waka poem, in which a third line (of five) serves as a caesura, breaking the whole into two "parts."^[32] In fact, the majority of niku no kamiuta , mostly in the jinja uta section, fit this latter formal category. The following song demonstrates this feature well, with uchitataki serving as a caesura:

The niku no kamiuta , in fact, include too many exceptions to be called simply "two-line" songs. The following untitled song is an extreme case, comprising seven lines of irregular prosodic scheme:

The diversity of forms in niku no kamiuta led to a theory that niku referred neither to the prosody nor to the length of the verse, but to the songs' musical style.^[35] This hypothesis further promoted the idea that niku no kamiuta were products of the interaction between folk songs, unbound by formal restrictions, and court kagurauta , with their prescribed prosody.^[36] This would parallel the development of shiku no kamiuta , which apparently arose from the interaction of folk songs and the prosodically regulated Buddhist ritual repertoire.^[37]

Jinja Uta

The jinja uta section, as we have mentioned, is divided into sixteen parts, each of which is named for a specific shrine. Generally speaking, the Shinto shrines are grouped according to an official classification called nijuni sha , or "Twenty-two Shrines," which extends from the Ise Imperial Shrine at the top to the Kibune Shrine at the bottom. These were the most prestigious shrines in Japan, and from the mid-Heian period they had gained considerable power and influence as recipients of court support and patronage.^[38] Out of these twenty-two, twelve are selected as headings for the jinja uta : Iwashimizu, Kamo, Matsuno-o, Hirano, Inari, Kasuga, Oharano, Sumiyoshi, Hiyoshi, Yoshida, Kibune, and Hirota. The four non-

nijuni sha are Kumano, Itsukushima, Amatsuyuwake, and Konoshima.^[39] The number of songs about each of these shrines varies widely, and does not necessarily reflect the official importance of the shrines. For instance, only six songs are devoted to the prestigious Iwashimizu Shrine, second in rank only to Ise, while the lower-ranking Inari and Kasuga shrines are granted ten songs each. Furthermore, eleven songs—the largest number devoted to any one shrine concern the middle-ranking Sumiyoshi Shrine.^[40]

The most important sources for the jinja uta lyrics in Ryojin hisho are two imperial anthologies, Shuishu (Collection of Gleanings, ca. 1005-11) and Goshuishu (Later Collection of Gleanings, 1086; the third and fourth imperial waka anthologies, respectively), with eleven poems adopted from each. In addition, two poems come from Kokinshu (the first imperial anthology), along with one each from Gosenshu (Later Collection, 951; the second) and Shikashu (the sixth). The sections in these anthologies that proved most fruitful for the provision of jinja uta lyrics were those entitled “Praise" or “Shinto." Privately compiled waka anthologies were mined for material as well: Kyuan hyakushu provided seven poems; Kokin(waka)rokujo (Six Quires of Ancient and Modern Japanese Poetry, ca. 987) and Kaya no in shichiban utaawase (Seventy Rounds of Poetry Matches at Kaya no In) supplied five each; and Horikawa-in hyakushu-waka (One Hundred Poems for Emperor Horikawa, 1105) and Tsurayukishu (Collection of Tsurayuki's Poems, date unknown) contributed one each.^[41] The fact that Kyuan hyakushu , a work personally commissioned by Emperor Sutoku, occupies a conspicuous place in the jinja uta section may reflect the same kind of concern as was shown in the compilation of Senzaishu (see chapter 2). In any case, it is evident that the jinja uta lyrics are rooted firmly in the elite waka poetic tradition. The following song, taken from Goshuishu , poem no. 1062, composed by Emperor Go-Sanjo (1034-73), speaks clearly for such aristocratic origin:

One distinctive feature of jinja uta is that every poem mentions either the name of the shrine under which it is grouped or some clearly associated landmark. This lack of ambiguity ensures for the jinja uta section a certain exactness and uniformity. For instance:

Many songs in the jinja uta section originated as written waka poems but were later put to music for imayo vocal performance. Most of the other songs in Ryojin hisho , by contrast, were intended for oral performance from the very start. Thus we come full circle as these poems, which originally existed in written form, were now set on paper again but in a very different context: that of imayo textual transmission.

Untitled Niku No Kamiuta

The untitled niku no kamiuta , which appear before and after the jinja uta in two parts, consist of forty-nine songs and eleven songs, respectively, with the latter section bringing Ryojin hisho to a close. This second group of untitled niku no kamiuta is in fact believed to be a later addition.^[44] For the sake of convenience, we will call the songs in the untitled parts simply niku no kamiuta , in contradistinction to the jinja uta .

In terms of form and prosody, the niku no kamiuta are a mixture of regular tanka and irregular syllabic schemes and line lengths. As in shiku no kamiuta , orchestra words, onomatopoeia, and repetition, the trade-marks of folk songs, are frequently found in niku no kamiuta . For example:

The technique of repetition is fully exploited here: the negative imperative, “na ... so; ‘ is used twice, while chiri (from chiru , to fall) is repeated three times, producing a strong rhythmic resonance. Such a device renders the message of the song compelling—whether it is a wish for long life for an aging mother (haha , couched in hahasoba , oak leaves) or a plea for changeless love.^[45]

The use of onomatopoeia is exemplified by the following song, dra-

matizing the pain of lost love, where cho to and tei to aptly convey cracking and jarring noises:

Niku no kamiuta also often employ kakekotoba, engo , or joshi (preface) to give multiple levels of meaning, a fact that sets this particular subsection apart from the other sections of Ryojin hisho . As the following song on jilted love illustrates, the use of these classical waka techniques expands and enriches the content of the poem beyond its literal signification:

This song consists of a series of puns or plays on homonyms involving the words azumaya (a bower, or a house in the east), tsuma (eaves, or a wife), and mune (a ridge, or breast). First there is a wordplay between azumaya and its engo, tsuma , which also functions as a kakekotoba , producing two layers of meaning: "bower with eaves" and "a wife in the eastern house." Next enters another wordplay between tsuma and mune , which is another engo for azumaya and also a kakekotoba , to further stretch the meaning of the poem to something like "the breast of a wife in a ridged eastern house."^[47] This kind of complex wordplay in niku no kamiuta , though infrequent, provides the imayo genre with rare but close poetic parallels with waka .

As we have seen, the motley nature of Ryojin hisho as an anthology stems in part from the prosodic, rhetorical, and formal diversity displayed in the song lyrics. Even the arrangement and organization of the subsections contribute to the multifariousness of the collection as a whole. It is

important to observe, however, that these devices accommodate the con-tent and themes they embody and are governed by certain philosophical, religious, and poetic principles; they are not, in short, haphazardly assembled. The songs with religious orientation, such as the Buddhist homon uta and the Shinto jinja uta , tend to be carefully regulated, while some of the folk song-like shiku no kamiuta and niku no kamiuta are largely allowed to deviate from tight formal control. This concord of the techniques and formal characteristics of the Ryojin hisho songs will become more apparent in the following chapters, where we will explore the songs from a thematic point of view.

5
The World of Religion in Ryojin hisho

Religion is at the heart of the extant Ryojin hisho . In all, songs on overtly religious themes constitute close to two-thirds of the anthology; and when related songs are factored in, the collection easily qualifies as a religion-oriented work. These songs can be roughly broken into three categories: those of Buddhist inspiration, those expressing Shinto-Buddhist syncretism, and those of Shinto origin.

Most of the songs having to do with Buddhism are concentrated in the homon uta section, though some are also scattered among the shiku no kamiuta , and a few examples are niku no kamiuta .^[1] Songs of a Shinto-Buddhist syncretic vein, by contrast, are predominantly shiku no kamiuta , with a smattering among the niku no kamiuta . Finally, Shinto songs are localized among the niku no kamiuta , especially in the jinja uta subsection. Given not only this distribution of religious thematic concerns, but also the physical organization of the anthology proper, we can say that shiku no kamiuta provides a transition from homon uta to niku no kamiuta .

In these songs various poetic responses elicited by religious concerns are articulated, sometimes in a sophisticated manner but often with child-like simplicity. The outcome of such a confrontation with the transcendental sometimes emerges as a happy affirmation of Amida's grace, though sometimes a deep inner turmoil at the realization of spiritual impairment counterbalances the mood. In the case of Shinto shrine songs, spiritual contact with the sacred is understood to be the source of a rich life here and now. In short, the religious songs in Ryojin hisho create a space in which the question of human spirituality is raised, its conditions are revealed, and certain messages are communicated, whether to resolve conflicts or to provide assurance and comfort.

Buddhism

The predominance of Buddhist themes in Ryojin hisho gave the anthology a reputation as "a miniature encyclopedia of Heian Buddhism seen through the form of songs."^[2] Indeed, because the songs were created to inform listeners about the fundamentals of Buddhism—the Buddhist canon, creeds, and precepts, as well as legends and stories about the pioneers in the history of the faith—most present these facts in expository rather than lyrical, and prescriptive rather than expressive, modes: a public rather than a private voice prevails.

In some cases, the songs are extremely elementary in their content. This does not necessarily mean simple; certain songs, particularly among the homon uta on the Lotus Sutra, are merely poetic quotations or paraphrases from Buddhist scripture devoid of emotional or subjective interpretation. This tendency is somewhat relaxed in the "Miscellaneous" subsection of homon uta , which contains a few songs (but only a few) that present personal religious sentiments, musings, or reflections. The exclusive bent toward the theoretical and ideational aspects of Buddhism, which is reinforced by the proselytizing spirit of the poems—especially those included in the homon uta section—makes the verses rather strained and unwieldy. This quality becomes understandable when we recall that homon uta derived mainly from wasan , various sutras, and other Buddhist oral traditions, all of which share in didacticism, and that some of their predecessors were performed in a religious ritual context where personal elements were eschewed.

Such requirements placed inevitable limits on the thematic range of the Buddhist songs in Ryojin hisho . Therefore, the uniqueness of any given song rests on the choice of the source text, the way it was appropriated, and the elements that were emphasized, rather than on any boldness or originality in exploring new thematic ground. Even so, it is important to remember that these songs, which may sound like platitude or naiveté when judged according to modern poetic standards or sensibilities, were accompanied by imayo music, which may have been as appealing and satisfying to late-Heian listeners as modern gospel music is to its audience.

Paeans of Buddhas

The Buddhist songs in Ryojin hisho present major luminaries in the colorful Buddhist pantheon, describing the divinities' abilities, powers, and spheres of activity. Indeed, these figures appear in bewildering number. Included are the Buddha and his two attendants, Monju (Skt., Manjusri, representing perfect wisdom) and Fugen (Samantabhadra, standing for truth and practice); Amida (Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light,

the Buddha of the Pure Land), also with his two attendants, Kannon (Avalokitesvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion) and Seishi (Mahasthamaprapta, Bodhisattva of Wisdom); Miroku (Maitreya, the Future Buddha), Yakushi (Bhaisajya-guru-vaidurya-prapbhasa, the Buddha of Medicine and Healing), and Jizo (Ksitigarbha, a bodhisattva who saves the souls suffering in hell); the Dainichi Nyorai (Mahavairocana, the Cosmic Buddha of the Shingon sect); and other divinities of the Shingon sect, such as Fudo(myoo) (Acala, the Immovable One), a messenger of Dainichi, and Kongosatta (Vajrasattva, Diamond-Being). Even more obscure deities such as Myoken (Sudrsti, Wondrous Seeing, Bodhisattva of the Pole Star) make an appearance.^[03] Strictly speaking, however, only the historical Buddha and Amida play a large role in the divine world of Ryojin hisho . These songs also provide a survey of the principal schools and cultic practices that developed in Japanese Buddhism over the centuries until the end of the Heian period, including both the Tendai, Shingon, and Amidist sects and the Kannon, Yakushi, and Jizo cults.

The Saga of Sakyamuni . The historical Buddha is a dominant presence in the Ryojin hisho Buddhist songs. This ubiquity may indicate the pedagogical purpose of the songs, that is, to direct the audience's attention to the basics of Buddhism, beginning with its founder. But a more likely explanation is that most of the songs are extracted from the Lotus Sutra, in which the Buddha is the central figure presiding over the divine assembly gathered on Eagle Peak to hear his ultimate teaching of the sutra. Inevitably, many songs operate on the assumption that the audience knows this background. The following song, which describes the very beginning of the Buddha's teaching of the Lotus Sutra on the mountaintop, is a case in point:

The immensity of the assembly on Eagle Peak and the vast power of the Buddha as a supernatural being are conveyed indirectly in the next

song, taken from the "Hotohon" (Apparition of the Jeweled Stupa), chapter 11 of the Lotus Sutra:

The rare, blissful state of mind attained by revelation of the transcendent Buddha is conveyed in two unusual examples of personal lyricism in Ryojin hisho Buddhist songs:

With the omnipresent cosmic Buddha as a backdrop, ever darkly making his presence known, it is nevertheless the Buddha as a historical being on which the Buddhist songs in Ryojin hisho focus. More than thirty songs, scattered irregularly among the homon uta and shiku no kamiuta , deal with the earthly life of the Buddha from his birth to his nirvanic entrance, including his genealogy and his relations with close disciples as well as stories drawn from the repertoire of jataka , which exalt his deeds in his previous incarnations. We see the person of the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni, in human time and space; his humanity is what emerges most forcefully, rather than a remote and unapproachable divinity. The story-telling or anecdotal style attempts to hold the attention of the audience by

establishing narrative interest, within which framework essential personal facts about the Buddha can be communicated. The following song, which establishes the identity of the Buddha as a human being bound in a secular familial relationship, is one such example:

Another song relates the landmark decision by which Prince Siddhartha renounced the princely life and sought the way to the ultimate truth. Here again, the event is presented as a drama that unfolds within the context of the human network centering on the historical Buddha:

Some homon uta celebrate the historical Buddha's human origin by highlighting stories from his former existence. These are taken from the jataka story tradition, usually emphasizing the salutary karmic effect of his deeds in the previous life. In this way, the historical Buddha's life acquires additional moral dimension. The following homon uta , based on the sacrificial story about Prince Satta (Sattva or Makasatta) from the Konkomyo saishoo Sutra (Suvarna-prabhasa-uttamaraja sutra , Sutra of the Most Victorious Kings of the Golden Light),^[8] is one such example:

The first couplet comes from the story in the sutra in which Prince Satta, the youngest son of King Makarada, flung his body from a bamboo-covered cliff as food for a famished tigress with seven cubs. When his parents arrived at the forest in search of him, all they found was his robe hanging on the bamboo branches.^[9] As a poetic version of the jataka story, the song relates the sacrificial feat performed by the prince for the sake of an animal, not even for a human being, thereby illustrating the profound compassion of the historical Buddha in his previous incarnation. The second couplet, like song no. 207 cited above, derives from the story about Prince Siddhartha's departure from his father's palace to seek enlighten-ment. What is remarkable about this song is the parallelism used in presenting two momentous events in the lives of the Buddha. Also, by dwelling solely on the personal belongings left behind, the song plays on the popular Japanese concepts of katami (memento) and ato (trace). Katami are personal objects, places, or even progeny that served to recall the memory of a deceased person; they are found throughout Japanese literature, from Man'yoshu to Genji monogatari .^[10] Indeed, one of the earliest examples of Buddhist poetry in Japan, the so-called "Buddha's Footprints Sequence" of the mid-eighth century, uses this notion of making what is lost present by dwelling on what has been left behind.^[11] In the present homon uta , the simple objects left behind—robes and sandals—become poignant metaphors for the grief of the prince's parents and carry the emotional burden of the song.

Prince Siddhartha's ascetic practices that followed his renunciation of the world are chronicled in yet another homon uta :

Sakyamuni's enlightenment and his attainment of buddhahood, the climax of his religious pursuit, are captured in the following song, which brings them into sharp relief through the contrast between the cosmic darkness around him and the implied inner light of his awakening:

The Buddha's teaching career, which ensued from his awakening, figures in another homon uta about the fabled site of his retreat, the Jetavana Monastery, popularly known in Japan as the Gion Temple:

This poetic synopsis of the legend surrounding the foundation of the monastery is a tribute to the Buddha's persuasive religious influence during his teaching career.

The humanization of the historical Buddha is also evident in the following song, which relates the warm and legendary relationship between him and his cousin Ananda, who accompanied him as personal attendant throughout his teaching career until the Buddha's death:

Ananda's devotion to the Buddha was indeed proverbial.^[15] His constant presence near the Buddha and his superb power of memory later helped the Buddhist community commit the Buddha's oral teachings to writing through Ananda's recitation, thereby contributing invaluably to the formation of Buddhist written canon.^[16] By presenting him and the Buddha in terms of their intimate familial ties, however, the song calls attention to the human side of the Buddha.

Songs in the homon uta section include some details about the circumstances surrounding the Buddha's last days. Like other songs about the

life of the Buddha, these contain a setsuwa flavor, presenting the event in terms of human interaction and quasi-historical facts. The following song is adopted from the popular story that the Buddha's illness and eventual death were caused by food he took from Cunda, a smith, in Pava:^[17]

Upon eating the food, which was conjectured to be pork, the Buddha was taken violently ill. But, mindful of the blame Cunda might get, he told Ananda that Cunda should feel no remorse for what had happened.^[19]

Mortally ill, the Buddha, in the company of the ever-present Ananda, now headed toward Kusinagara, the ultimate destination of his earthly journey, and entered the Sala Grove. There, after teaching one last time, he passed away. The following song narrates this final moment of the historical Buddha's passing into nirvana, bringing his hagiography to a close in the homon uta section:

After the Buddha's mortal passing, the homon uta focus briefly on ensuing events, especially those involving his disciples of the first order: Mahakasyapa (or Kasyapa) and Ananda. Mahakasyapa, one of the Four Great Disciples, is traditionally credited with having convened the "First Council of Elders" and with having played a key role in the establishment of Sangha as a religious institution.^[21] From the council presided over by Mahakasyapa, it is believed, the basic canons of Buddhism evolved, clarifying the Buddhist community's disciplinary guidelines and ideological framework.^[22] Mahakasyapa was, in this sense, the first patriarch of the Buddhist ecclesia. The homon uta , however, are mute about Mahaka-

syapa's heroic achievements in Buddhist officialdom. Rather, a less glorious landmark in his career—the disastrous fact that he was the only important disciple to miss the moment of his master's death—is presented. It seems as if the song found Mahakasyapa's failure and his hidden personal anguish more appealing:

A similarly frustrating incident in the lives of the Buddha's disciples is presented in another song about Ananda. According to popular anecdote, Ananda, despite his close association with the Buddha, was not immedi-ately admitted to the First Council of Elders because he had not yet attained the status of arhat . Thus rejected by the Sangha and put to task by Mahakasyapa, Ananda exerted himself all night long and, at dawn, finally achieved awakening, whereupon he was accepted by the council and proceeded to participate in the formation of the canon.^[24] The song, based on this quasi-legend, empathizes with the initial shame and insult Ananda personally suffered—all too human and understandable:

The continuing chronicles of the Buddha and his close associates end with the following song, a poetic adoption of apocryphal stories about Mahakasyapa. According to these sources, after his official work was completed, Mahakasyapa, carrying the robe that the Buddha had given him as a token of his mandate to preach Dharma, retired to Mount Kukkutapada (Cock's Foot) in Magadha, where he is said to have entered into a nirvanic state waiting for the coming of the future Buddha, Mai-

treya.^[25] This cultic veneration of the leading disciple of the Buddha is encapsulated thus:

The narrative impulse behind the homon uta on the Buddha, some of which are based on popularly known stories, makes the most of the setsuwa style.^[28] Although dominant in these biographical songs is the desire to inform and educate the audience, it is mediated by a concern to engage the interest of the audience. Consequently, the songs impart knowledge not abstractly, but through concrete and entertaining narratives. Their enumeration of basic facts, moreover, suggests an original catechist setting. They met the needs of their audience for simple, fundamental religious information by putting it in question and answer form, easy to memorize and recall. Most important, they show the Buddha as a temporal being, existing in historical human time, space, and relation-ships. The final purpose of the setsuwa technique as it is used here, in other words, is to collapse the gap between the sacred person of the Buddha and ordinary men by demonstrating his humanity.

The following homon uta announces this identity of the Buddha with common humanity, thereby giving ordinary men hope for achieving a spiritual status like his:

The Grace of Amida . Next to the historical Buddha, Amida dominates the religious world in Ryojin hisho , providing another leitmotif and an additional spiritual dimension to the anthology. In fact, some of the most memorable songs in Ryojin hisho are related to Amida pietism, their central concern being the question of salvation. The few religious songs with personal lyricism belong to this category. In some cases, as in the following homon uta , the religious sentiment reaches a level of profound nobility in its conception and overtone:

Metaphorically, of course, dawn is a time of spiritual awakening. The appeal of the song comes from the speaker's ability to face his or her spiritual infirmity calmly and without illusion.

Another song is more explicit in voicing the same concern about salvation, this time from a pronounced Amidist perspective. These songs stand apart from other homon uta in that they personalize the issue of salvation, in sharp contrast to the impersonal teaching found in a number of homon uta .

The unconditional proposition of Amidism, which offers salvation through the simple verbalization of one's faith in Amida's grace, had a special appeal for the masses. The common people, who lacked the time and means enjoyed by aristocrats to pursue elaborate religious practices, were powerfully drawn by the compassion embodied in Amida's vows. The popularity of Amidism gained further momentum during the latter part of the Heian period as the idea of the mappo (the age of the Degenerate Dharma) spread, fanned by political and social upheavals. This influence of Amidism on the popular mind is clear in the songs of Ryojin hisho , as in the following homon uta on the essence of Amida's soteriological proposition:

The "vows" here refer to Amida's original forty-eight vows, especially the eighteenth, in which he pledges to postpone his buddhahood until he receives all living beings into his Western Pure Land—the fundamental basis for Amida pietism.

Echoing the same formulaic phrase of the preceding song, tanomoshiki (trustworthy), another song reaffirms the unconditional salvation to be achieved by simple trust in Amida:

This song expresses the epitome of Amidism: the contrast between the potential magnitude of the human infraction and the simplicity of the requirement for salvation. The Amida cult proposes a boundless expansion of the radius of salvation. This formulation radically changes the conventional notion of salvation by one's personal effort (jiriki ), posing instead reliance on other-power (tariki ) as the means to salvation.

As a variation on the same theme, the following niku no kamiuta describes the result of refusing to put one's trust in Areida:

The speaker of this homon uta pleads for assurance of Amida's salvation at his or her death:

A wistful longing for salvation purely through Amida occupies the mind of the speaker in another niku no kamiuta :

The following song approaches Amida pietism by means of several concrete metaphors drawn from nature in an attempt to naturalize the supernatural and render the sacred in concrete and familiar terms. By equating Amida's physiognomy with what each season offers as its most pleasing features, the song suggests the felicity to be derived from faith in him:

The invaluable spiritual riches to be had in the heavenly realm by salvation through Amida's compassion are projected into a sketch of Amida's palace decorated with precious gems in this homon uta :

In a fanciful flight, the speaker in the following shiku no kamiuta even discovers the praise of Areida in the chirping of insects:

The song plays on the word hataoru mushi (weaving insect), a variant of hataorimushi , which is an old form of kirigirisu (grasshopper). Since hataoru is an engo of koromo (clothes, robe), grasshoppers are associated with weaving. By equating the urgency of the short-lived insects' chirpings with nembutsu chanting by Areida followers, the speaker suggests the prevalence of Areida pietism in his time, which embraces even lowly creatures.

In a radically different mood, the following niku no kamiuta invokes Areida's protection from ghosts at night. The repetition of namu ya (hail) adds an incantatory urgency to the song. The song displays an amalgam of folk belief and Amidism, and perhaps a sense of humor as well:

Amida songs in Ryojin hisho , which range from fine personal lyricism to childlike chants, serve as an index to the variety of poetic responses to religious issues. In so doing they demonstrate the scope of Amidist influ-

ence throughout Heian society and the delight its members take in singing about their faith. The songs as a unit provide a new strain in Ryojin hisho , less abstract and much closer to the heart of their audience than doctrinal or pedagogic homon uta .

The Cults of Kannon, Yakushi, and Jizo . What pulses through the songs of praise to Kannon, Yakushi, and Jizo in Ryojin hisho is the spirit that is also central to Amidism: the notion of salvation through dependence on other-power rather than on personal merit. Although constituting only a handful, these songs continue the populist interpretation of salvation as something given, not striven after, and therefore all the more to be praised and to be grateful for. Underlying the cultic veneration in these songs is a keen awareness of the infirmity, weakness, and helplessness of human beings, which can be overcome only by divine intervention. In turn, their human limits require of believers absolute surrender to the power that willingly takes up the task of setting them free. This continuing interest in the intercessory role of the divine strengthens the other-power leaning in Ryojin hisho .

The following song about Kannon, one of Amida's two attendants, praises his compassionate readiness to help men gain spiritual emancipation:

Kannon is believed to assist people in distress, especially seafarers, by leading them to safety from his residence on Mount Potalaka.^[33] Although here Kannon's saving grace is set against an exotic Indian cosmology, it is made concrete and immediate by the metaphor of the "raft," something commoners can easily identify with.

The following homon uta conveys the same sentiments:

Among the various forms of this divinity, the Thousand-armed Kannon is a special object of veneration. In another homon uta , his revitalizing power is praised through the image of rejuvenated plant life:

In contrast to the other-worldly character of Amida's salvation, which usually occurs after death, that of Yakushi, "Master of Medicine," is this-worldly and corporeal. The following two homon uta forthrightly extol the healing power of Yakushi:

The word tanomoshiki links these songs to other Amida songs with the same rhetoric and theme—that is, the importance of relying on other-power.

In the following homon uta , the recognition of one's sinfulness and

need for salvation is this time addressed to Jizo, who is powerful enough to set even those in hell free:

The speaker, knowing the gravity of his or her transgressions, understands that salvation can be realized only through Jizo's compassionate help. The persuasiveness of the song comes from the speaker's frank admission of hopelessness and of the necessity that an outside power intercede. All these cultic songs are thus based on the realization of the believer's unregenerated condition and trust in the redemptive power of the divine, which, though often magnanimous, operates on the believer's extremely simple faith in such possibilities.

Buffhshood for All

The message of universal salvation is the main thrust of the Lotus Sutra itself. Similarly, the religious songs in Ryojin hisho reaffirm the avail-ability of buddhahood to all who aspire to that ideal. All forms of human effort and activity have validity as means of achieving this goal. The following homon uta , based on the "Expedient Devices;' chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra, suggests that even frivolous actions like children's play can become a means for achieving buddhahood:

Salvation is open to all. Side by side with the disciples of the Buddha, men of limited knowledge and low status also receive the same promise. In another homon uta , this one based on the "Jukihon" (Bestowal of Prophecy), chapter 6 of the Lotus Sutra, in which the Buddha prophesied

that his Four Great Disciples would attain buddhahood, we find a celebration of this privilege of universal salvation:

The contrast between the august shidaishomon (Four Great Disciples), imposing and high-sounding in Chinese loan-words, and the humble,. anonymous warera (we) in Japanese vernacular drives the message home.

The wish of ordinary men to benefit from universal salvation is ex-pressed in the next homon uta . It draws upon chapter 5 of the Lotus Sutra, "Yakusoyuhon" (Medicinal Herbs), in which the Dharma is likened to a shower of rain, falling equally on all vegetation to bring it to bloom and bear fruit:

The use of the word bonbu (common men), unprecedented even in imayo and here reinforced by the pronoun warera , conveys the collective religious aspiration of the common people. The same word warera connects this song to the preceding one conceptually as well as linguistically.

One issue of crucial importance to universal salvation is that of evil. We considered this problem briefly with regard to the intervention of Amida and other divine powers, yet the concern persists throughout Ryojin hisho . The following three songs raise the subject of transgression openly. In particular, they address the quandary faced by common people engaged in occupations such as fishing and hunting, which by their nature require violation of the Buddhist prohibition against taking life. Here, the problem of evil and salvation is not abstract, but part of life's ordinary

reality. The speakers' plights are revealed in these confessions, some of the most frank and direct in Ryojin hisho :

The impact of these songs comes from the intensity of religious self-awareness, as expressed in the gripping sense of guilt and fear. Cormorant fishermen use a peculiar method, alluded to in these songs: they tie the necks of cormorants with strings to keep the birds from swallowing their catch; once the birds return to the boat, the fish are forced out of the cormorants' throats and become the fishermen's own catch. The fishermen in turn kill turtles to feed their birds. Because turtles are associated with longevity and hence are considered a felicitous symbol, killing them is in

a way breaking a taboo.^[38] Given the Buddhist injunction against taking lives, the actions of the fishermen in any event constitute a transgression. Yet only in exchange for other animals' lives can they sustain their own. These Ryojin hisho songs capture that hapless dilemma. Similar songs were no doubt performed at special rites such as Kumano hakkoe (eight lectures on the Lotus Sutra in Kumano), held for the expiation of sins for those employed in taboo or polluting occupations associated with animal killing. It is believed that mountain ascetics (yamabushi ) with some Tendai training played an important role in performing this ritual for the fishermen and hunters in the Kumano region.^[39]

The concern with the relationship between evildoing and salvation in Ryojin hisho is evidenced by the large number of songs related to the twelfth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, "Daibahon" (Devadatta or Datta)—eighteen, more than for any other chapter.^[40] Devadatta, a cousin of Sakyamuni, represents a diabolical and irredeemable sinner. Estranged in his youth from Sakyamuni, Devadatta became his archenemy, relentlessly seeking to destroy him and disrupt his teaching. Eventually he was found guilty of five cardinal sins and was thrown into hell while still alive.^[41] Yet, as illustrated by the following song, he is assured of salvation:

Even more paradoxical is the fact that in a previous incarnation Devadatta had been the Buddha's mentor:

This claim is given more specificity and humanity in another song, which cites a jataka story describing the various arduous ways the Buddha served Asita:

The case of Devadatta represents the ultimate in the Mahayana interpretation of salvation. It proclaims the absolute certainty of universal salvation, even completely reversing the process of karmic retribution. It cancels the dichotomy of reality versus appearance, virtue versus vice, past versus present, sacred versus profane, and transgression versus sal-vation. This rejection of the conventional dualism nurtures the philosophy of tolerance that enables even the vilest of evildoers to achieve buddha-hood.

The need to recognize nirvana in samsara (the realm of transmigration) and the relative nature of perception is upheld in the following homon uta :

In conjunction with Devadatta, the personification of evil, Ryojin hisho deals with the salvation of women—who in Buddhism were considered no better off than transgressors. The focus is on the Naga Princess, daughter of the Dragon King Sagara, whose story occupies the second half of the Devadatta chapter.^[43] According to this account, Sariputra, the most brilliant of the Buddha's disciples, flatly rejected the possibility of women's attaining buddhahood on the basis of the "five obstacles," a concept stipulating the innate inferiority of women.^[44] Despite his objections, how-ever, the eight-year-old Naga Princess succeeded in attaining buddha-hood but only by relinquishing her sexuality and changing her body into male form, as symbolized in her offering of a jewel to the Buddha. This aspect of the story obviously reflects lingering reservations about women's potential to achieve salvation. But the fact that the Lotus Sutra addresses the issue at all, and even provides one successful case, was significant, for it represented a radical change from the centuries of prejudice against women enunciated by Buddhist scriptures and institutional practices.

Women, who were considered a necessary evil, had long posed an irksome problem to the Buddhist institution. An antifemale attitude arose early on, especially with the establishment of the vow of celibacy.^[45] Women ultimately came to represent the very entity against which the Buddhist order as a whole had to wage war:

Woman was portrayed as the purely sensual with uncontrollable de-sires in a number of early sectarian Buddhist texts.... Women represented limitations of human nature in much the same manner as Eve and Pandora, but woman glowed with a more intense sexual vitality and was the primeval force of fecundity, as she was in the Hindu religion. Unlike the Hindu Mother Goddess, however, the sexual energy was unequivocally repugnant in early Buddhist sects such as the Theravadin sect. What was feminine or sensual was samsara, the world of bondage, suffering, and desire, which led to cycles of rebirths. This world of the feminine had to be vanquished at all costs.^[46]

Early Buddhist texts like the Nirvana Sutra condemn women in the following terms: "The sum total of all men's sufferings put together from three thousand universes amounts to one single woman's sin." The same sutra says elsewhere: "Women are the devil's chief devouring all men; while in this world they coil around men, and, thus blocking men's path, they become men's bitterest enemy and foe in the next world."^[47]

Some scriptural sources went a step further and categorically denied

women any hope of salvation. The Shinjikankyo , for example, proclaimed that "although all the myriad buddhas' eyes from the three worlds of past, present, and future fall down onto the ground, there will come no time for women to become buddhas."^[48] It was within this conceptual framework that the notion of the "five obstacles" developed to finally obliterate women's chance for salvation altogether.^[49] Thus they were condemned to the realm of unenlightened existence, that of the six paths (the realm of gods, humans, devils, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell), caught in the continual process of birth, suffering, and rebirth with no hope of ever escaping these transmigrational cycles.

Seen against this backdrop, the message brought by the Lotus Sutra that women might achieve buddhahood would have been revolutionary. Ordinary women of Heian Japan certainly had little inkling of just how the theoretical arguments against women had evolved. But considering the fact that they were barred even from entering major temples, not to mention subjected to numerous other religious taboos, songs such as these would have had considerable impact on them. The following homon uta no doubt offered and confirmed such an altered religious vision for women, compressing the drama of the Naga Princess into four lines:

A shiku no kamiuta recaptures the same story, but with a colloquial verve befitting its origin in folk song:

The same message is repeated in two homon uta , but here the emphasis is on the power of the Lotus Sutra in helping one to achieve such a goal:

The following song expressly salutes the Naga Princess as an exemplar who was still relevant to Heian women and was to be emulated. At the same time, it challenges the Buddhist theories and prejudices against women by insisting that women do possess an inborn buddha nature:

To the common women of Heian Japan with their low social standing, not to mention the female performers of these imayo , who were of decidedly marginal social status, the message embodied in the narrative of the Naga Princess must have been welcome. Especially those asobi who made their living on the water's edge likely found poignant resonance in the story of the princess and her heroic feat.^[51] And it is presumably from songs such as these that women of the period learned possibilities for their spiritual salvation.

In Praise of the Lotus Sutra

The lofty tone in Ryojin hisho owes much to the group of songs that pay tribute to the power and efficacy of the Lotus Sutra. Together these songs exalt the absolute necessity of the scripture to the lives of its believers. Often the sutra provides miraculous benefits, both spiritual and material, a fact that reinforces undivided devotion to the holy text. There is a noticeable cultic streak in this veneration. In the following song, for instance, the lyric voice, knowing the rewards, expresses joy at having the rare privilege of hearing the sutra preached:

The following homon uta eulogizes the indispensable guiding role of the Lotus Sutra for its followers, using the symbolic contrast of the moon (the historical Buddha in nirvanic extinction) and sun (Maitreya, the future Buddha):

Another homon uta likewise underscores the centrality of the Lotus Sutra as a guide to its believers:

This song stands out among homon uta by virtue of its imagery and lexicon. One innovation is the use of the Japanese vernacular hachisu no hana in place of the sinicized renge for lotus blossom, a common motif in homon uta . Also, here we find a unique instance of plain and ordinary images such as ita (plank or board), kuki (stalk), and tsue (stave or staff) in homon uta songs of this nature. Finally, the lines are relatively free of Buddhist terms with their cacophonous clash; the result is a lightness of tone and an unstilted, smooth flow from one line to the next.

The practice of honoring the sutra is emphatically advised in chapter 19, "Hosshi kudokuhon" (The Merits of the Dharma-Preacher), where the text lists miraculous rewards that come to those who venerate the sutra:

If any good man or good woman shall accept and keep this scripture of the Dharma Blossom, whether reading it, reciting it, interpreting it, or copying it, that person shall attain eight hundred virtues of the eye, one thousand two hundred virtues of the ear, eight hundred virtues of the nose, one thousand two hundred virtues of the tongue, eight hundred virtues of the body, and one thousand two hundred virtues of the mind, by means of which virtues he shall adorn his six faculties, causing them all to be pure.^[52]

In short, the five activities of preserving, reading, chanting, explaining, and copying the sutra are primary forms of expressing veneration for the sutra. All these practices are considered equal in value and effect. Essentially, they stem from the desire to deify the sutra and hence ensure the propagation of the sutra, oral and otherwise. The following homon uta expresses the same message:

Some Ryojin hisho songs further illustrate direct and beneficial con-sequences of carrying out these counsels; for example:

The formulaic expression tanomoshiki (trustworthy) harks back to the homon uta on buddhas. Here, its use elevates the Lotus Sutra on a par with the Buddhist divinities.

In the following homon uta , a poetic conceit associates the merit of copying the Lotus Sutra with deer, introducing an unusual and pleasant change of pace:

Carrying out the fivefold practices, however, required economic means, time, and a certain degree of literacy and learning. In early Japan, there-fore, only the upper classes—imperial family, courtiers, priests—could follow the recommended procedures.^[53] Copying the sutra was an especially expensive proposition, and explaining the scripture, which presupposes

not only scholarship but also supreme dedication, was difficult even for aristocrats to do. Gradually, observance of the five practices began to be known among commoners, but their participation was necessarily limited. The basic option open to them was to attend occasional lecture meetings on the sutra, an activity that became increasingly popular during the Heian period.^[54]

In Ryojin hisho , the efficacy of listening to the sutra is stressed.^[55] Such an emphasis on listening, a passive and rudimentary act that does not even appear in the five prescribed measures, signifies a sharp lowering of the threshold for acquiring merits. Likewise, the playing down of the virtue of copying or explaining the sutra supports the view that the songs were aimed specifically at the unlettered laity, including women and commoners.^[56] The virtue of listening as a means of achieving salvation is proclaimed in the following song:

And this song strikes the same note:

The following song also celebrates the merits of listening to the Lotus Sutra, but in a more lyrical manner:

Unlike the more eulogistic homon uta , the next song expresses an overt cultic vision of the Lotus Sutra. It proclaims the value of the sutra in terms of its power to grant concrete, physical benefits, even medical help:

Another song, with its graphic details and bold pitch, proclaims the kind of reverence that the Lotus Sutra commands:

The importance that Ryojin hisho gives to the Lotus Sutra reflects the prevailing religious trend during the Heian period.^[59] The hokke-e (meetings on the Lotus Sutra) ritual, which revolved around the sutra, began to develop as early as 746 during the Nara period, when the abbot Ryoben (689-773) of Todaiji conducted the first such meetings. This was even before the establishment of the Tendai school, which is based on the Lotus Sutra. Not until the mid-Heian period, however, did interest in the Lotus Sutra begin to grow rapidly; sponsored by the nobility, Lotus Sutra-related events proliferated.^[60]

The most popular and widespread event was the hokke hakko , centering on the recital of the eight scrolls of the Lotus Sutra, usually in conjunction with memorial services for the dead. Fujiwara Michinaga was one of the

most famed promoters of such meetings; the hokke hakko held at his residence, Hojoji, were clear displays of his political and financial power. He is also believed to have performed the first ritual interment of copies of the Lotus Sutra text, in 1007 on Mount Kinbu, a practice that later became fashionable among the nobility during the insei period. Most important, Michinaga is thought to have created an entire subgenre of waka praising the Lotus Sutra.^[61] Other noble families vied with one another to conduct similar rites in the name of that hallowed sutra. Even Shinto shrines joined in, thereby contributing sizably to the syncretic interaction between Buddhism and Shinto.^[62] In this way the Lotus Sutra became an integral part of the upper classes' ritual practices during the Heian period.

Eventually hokke-e ritual activities filtered down to the common classes. The earliest such events performed for commoners reportedly took place in the Rokuhara Mitsuji Temple around the time of Kuya Shonin, in the latter half of the tenth century. These gatherings, which lasted several days and were open to all regardless of gender or social status, drew several hundreds of thousands. During the day priests lectured on the Lotus Sutra, while at night both clergy and the assembled masses engaged in chanting. The objective was not so much to memorialize the dead, as was the case with the aristocratic rites, but to teach the audience how to achieve spiritual salvation. In one gathering that lasted four days, the audience was divided into four groups—priests, men, women, and children—with one day allotted to each. Instead of expensive offerings to the temples, an integral part of the nobles' ceremonies, it was common for flowers to be dedicated. In the early decades of the eleventh century, the priest Gyoen (fl. 1018) is known for carrying out the same popular hokke hakko tradition in the Gyoganji Temple in the Heian capital.^[63]

Paralleling these gatherings in the capital, another type of hokke hakko designed for commoners began to be held in the countryside, particularly in the Kumano region. These Kumano hakko , called kechien hakko (eight lectures on the Lotus Sutra to establish ties with buddhas), supplemented chanting of the Lotus Sutra with ablution rites for fishermen and hunters, who made their living by killing animals. It is believed that yamabushi with some Tendai training played an important role in popularizing both the Lotus Sutra and kechien hakko among common people.^[64]

Thus the prominence of the Lotus Sutra in Ryojin hisho mirrors a broad religious trend of the Heian period. The poetry of the Lotus Sutra cult that appears in the songs is in fact an important cultural expression of the Heian Buddhist religious consciousness, especially designed for the instruction of those who might not otherwise have an opportunity to hear the good news contained in the sutra.

The following homon uta , filled with visionary calm, is representative of the reverence for the Lotus Sutra that resounds through Ryojin hisho :

The Ryojin hisho songs that relate to Buddhism endeavor to make the religion easy to understand and to show how to come closer to the divine. Such proselytizing efforts take the form of exhortation, coaxing, persuasion, and exemplification; they remove obstacles, arouse interest, and make listeners learn. In the end, the songs affirm the hope and possibilities of spiritual rebirth, as well as the need to let the message make its way into more hearts and minds. Belief in the oneness of human beings and the Buddha shines forth, as in this song:

Shinto-Buddhist Syncretism

The syncretic blend of Shinto and Buddhism, evolving from the Nara period on, represents an important development in both the religious consciousness and the history of Japan. While aiming at the harmonious coexistence of the two distinctive religious systems, the one indigenous, the other imported, the syncretic approach bred an array of new beliefs and observances based on what each component could offer. In this cross-fertilization, innovative notions about the divinities in both the Shinto and the Buddhist pantheon were spawned, with new dimensions being added to their nature, attributes, and power. New cults emerged focusing on ever more complicated combinations of these supernatural beings. The syncretic interaction caused the yamabushi and hijiri (holy men) traditions

to proliferate, which in turn accelerated the process of amalgamation of the two religions.^[66] Pilgrimage was similarly reinforced and also began to thrive, firmly establishing itself as an integral part of Japanese religious practice.

Syncretic advancement, however, was not limited to the religious realm. Its influence spread to other areas of culture, including the arts and liter-ature. The pictorial representation of sacred geography in terms of syncretic mandala is one distinctive by-product in the field of fine arts, for example, while the engi (origin myths of temples and shrines) experienced a similar efflorescence in the literary sphere.^[67] Ryojin hisho too, especially the shiku no kamiuta , reveals how the poetic imagination was inspired by the syncretic movement and how that energy was harnessed in lyrical modes.

Among motifs related to Shinto-Buddhist syncretism in Ryojin hisho , three occur with marked frequency: the concept of honji suijaku (original nature/trace manifestation), pilgrimage, and yamabushi and hijiri cults. Occupying considerable space in shiku no kamiuta , these topics convey another layer of religiosity embodied in the anthology.

Honji Suijaku

According to honji suijaku , indigenous Japanese deities are manifestations (suijaku , the traces left behind) of Buddhist divinities (honji , the original nature). Practically speaking, this meant selecting important gods from the Buddhist tradition and matching them with Shinto gods (kami ), then endowing the latter with the functions and capacities of the former. The deliberate effort to establish a correlation between Shinto and Buddhism resulted in the native kami being elevated to a metaphysical status they never had prior to contact with Buddhism. Simultaneously, it naturalized or acculturated Buddhism to the existing Japanese religious framework and outlook.

In what manner does the philosophy of honji suijaku find expression in Ryojin hisho ? We begin with a shiku no kamiuta that is in itself a poetic abstract of the concept:

This song establishes a correspondence between the powerful Shinto shrine of Hie and Enryakuji Temple, the center of the Tendai Buddhist sect in Japan. To present this syncretic relationship, the song plays on two phrases. The first one, consisting of ato (trace, jaku ) and tare (to drop, descend, sui ), renders honji suijaku in the Japanese vernacular. The second one is based on wako dojin (softening the radiance and becoming one with dust), a phrase used to explain the Buddha's historical appearance as a manifestation of the cosmic principle.^[69] In the third line of the song, namely, we find the words ko (light, hikari), wa (to soften, yawarage ), and jin (dust, chiri ), incorporating the meaning of wako dojin in one line. Thus the song suggests that the buddhas, having relinquished their transcendental existence (wako ), incarnated themselves as Shinto divinities (dojin )—synonymous with honji suijaku —and are working to spread the Buddha's teaching.

Of the diverse forms of syncretism found in Ryojin hisho , the Tendai-Hie correspondence, in which both major and subsidiary shrines in the Hie complex were matched with various Buddhist temples, is most conspicuous.^[70] Its prominence may in part reflect the strength of the actual alliance between the Tendai establishment and the Hie Shrine.

Traditionally, the Hie Shrine complex has been known as the Sanno (mountain king) system because of its links to the worship of nearby Mount Hiei. It consisted of twenty-one shrines, which were ranked ac-cording to primary, secondary, and tertiary status. With the rise of syncretism, all these shrines and their respective kami were matched with Buddhist divinities. The primary shrine of Omiya (Nishimotomiya), for instance, was linked with the historical Buddha; Ninomiya (Higashimotomiya) was identified with Yakushi; Shoshinji (Usamiya), with Amida; Hachioji (Oji or Ushiomiya), with Thousand-armed Kannon; and Ichido (Hayao), with Fudo.^[71] The Hie complex thus came to embody a comprehensive and elaborate systematization of Shinto-Buddhist syncretic inter-actions. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Sanno system was well represented in the jinbun (songs sung to Shinto deities) subsection of the shiku no kamiuta.

The following shiku no kamiuta , which identifies a number of shrines from the Hie complex as major Buddhist divinities, is a classic example of the Tendai-Sanno syncretism:

The song approximates a syncretic mandala in verse. First, the focus is on the top-ranking shrine of Omiya, where the most important ritual activities in the Hie complex were conducted. Accordingly, it is matched with Eagle Peak, the fabled site of the Buddha's preaching of the Lotus Sutra. The attention then shifts to the eastern base—that is, Ninomiya—which is identified with the Bodhi tree under which Sakyamuni achieved bud-dhahood. By specifically naming Sakyamuni and Yakushi (Buddha's attendant on his left), the verse reinforces that the two shrines are Omiya and Ninomiya. The third shrine, mentioned but not specified, is thought to be Shoshinji, which is paired with Amida. And the song ends by identifying Hachioji with the Thousand-armed Kannon, rounding out the Sanno syn-cretic mandala.^[73]

In contrast to that sweeping presentation of the entire Sanno system, the next song dwells at some length on each of a handful of shrines within the Hie complex:

Here, the phrase shujo (all living beings), a Buddhist diction, is appropriated to express the importance of the Shinto deity Ichido in the lives of the people, thereby establishing the Shinto-Buddhist correspondence through lexical borrowing.

The following song explicitly equates the main shrine of the Sanno complex, Omiya, with the Buddha, and its precincts with the Eagle Peak:

In some songs, the process of equation is reversed and Buddhist gods become part of the Shinto pantheon. In the next song, although the shrine in question is not specified, we can presume it is the Marodo Shrine in the Hie complex, which is identified with the Eleven-headed Kannon:

Syncretic rhetoric operates even in songs that praise the beauty of nature. In the following shiku no kamiuta , the scenic beauty of Lake Biwa in Omi region is praised from a Tendai-Sanno point of view. Here, the lake is described as a pond in the paradise of Yakushi, who supposedly resides on Mount Hiei (called Mount Tendai). The rich imagery is drawn from the usual Buddhist description of paradise, resulting in the Buddhistic sacralization of the Japanese secular landscape:

Similarly in another shiku no kamiuta , Mount Kinbu, the center for mountain asceticism, is perceived as the Tusita Heaven, the abode of Maitreya, and becomes a setting for the syncretic interaction of a female shaman (the speaker) and a pair of Buddhist monks:

The song depicts syncreticism in action. When the female shaman failed in her performance of the Shinto ritual task, the Buddhist priests took over and successfully carried it through. In this cooperation, Shinto and Buddhism are melded—though the song may seem to suggest the sha-man's surprise and wonder at the superior power of the monks.

Syncretism marks the Shinto shrines in the Kumano area as well, whose major divinities likewise were matched with those in the Buddhist pantheon. The Kumano sanzan (Kumano triad), for example—Hongu (Ketsumiko-gami), Shingu (Hayatamamiya), and Nachi (Yui no Miya)—were paired with Amida, Yakushi, and the Thousand-armed Kannon, respectively. Accordingly, the triad was also called Kumano sansho gongen (the three avatars of Kumano).^[75] Here, the term gongen means the Buddha's incarnation in the borrowed form of kami and so is equivalent to suijaku . Gradually, the Kumano syncretism absorbed nine additional locally worshiped Shinto divinities, allotting to each of them a Buddhist counterpart; they were called Kumano juni gongen (the twelve avatars of Kumano).^[76] Knowledge of this syncretic development in Kumano is reflected in the following shiku no kamiuta on Nyakuoji, who corresponds to the Eleven-headed Kannon:

The light tone and even the meaning of the song derive from two key words: waka (young), in the name of the bay, appears also in its sinicized version, nyaku , as part of the name of the shrine. The semantic interplay between the two words lends further depth to the song: we now see "a young lord, residing on the young bay, who will not be affected by the passage of time."

The next shiku no kamiuta is based on an implied correspondence

between the Shinto deity of the Nyakuoji Shrine and the compassionate Kannon:

This song is reminiscent of homon uta no. 37, in which Kannon is compared to a rafter.

Given the dominance of the honji suijaku concept in Ryojin hisho songs, especially in shiku no kamiuta , we can see that by the late Heian period the syncretic view of Buddhism and Shinto was spreading rapidly among the masses.^[78] To their credit, some shiku no kamiuta display a firm command of honji suijaku and even manage a certain degree of poetic conceit—no small feat, considering the difficulty of establishing correct correspondence between the various divinities, particularly in such a limited space. These shiku no kamiuta highlight the double religious world in which their poets lived and sang—their own religious internationalism, so to speak.

Popular Pilgrimage

Like many religious practices, the pilgrimage is a mechanism created to bring men into close contact with the divine. What makes the pilgrimage unique is its requirement that devotees physically separate themselves from their familiar, mundane environment and subject themselves to a ritualistic regimen in specific locations far from home. That is, whereas other religious observances, such as prayer, scripture reading, and fasting, can be carried out at home, a pilgrimage is not legitimate until a believer has left home and stayed in sacred sites.

Devotional journeying has a long history in Buddhism. The earliest significant historical precedent for pilgrimage in the Buddhist tradition is generally attributed to King Asoka (ca. 268-233 B.C. ) of India, who reportedly erected numerous sacred stupa and paid homage to them through periodic visits.^[79] Other celebrated Buddhist pilgrims in East Asia include Hsüan-tsang (596-664) of T'ang China, who went to India, and Saicho, Kukai, Ennin, and Enchin of the early Heian period, all of whom endured difficult journeys to China and then made numerous pilgrimages to sites

within that country. By their personal examples, these Japanese priests are believed to have begun the Buddhist pilgrimage tradition in Japan.

The practice of pilgrimage in Japan combined native mountain worship with the Buddhist focus on visiting sacred locales. It was further reinforced by the honji suijaku notion, in which the mountain kami took on the physical manifestations of Buddhist divinities. Therefore, "pilgrimages to these mountains, accompanied and guided by the experienced mountain ascetics, were believed to bring favours from both the Shinto and Buddhist divinities simultaneously."^[80] The making of pilgrimages reached its zenith toward the end of the Heian period, coinciding with the wide spread of Amidism, which, as we have seen, identified the Kumano area with Ami-da's Pure Land and the southern seashore of that region with Kannon's Mount Potalaka. Even within the sacred compounds, syncretic religious vision regulated the view of the holy ground:

In these mountains, certain areas around the temple are designated as representing jigoku ("hell") and gokuraku ("pure land" or "paradise"); worshipers are expected to go through the former before entering the latter. In this manner the historic Buddhist notion of perpendicular cosmology, consisting of the three levels of heaven, earth, and underworld, has been reinterpreted to fit into the indigenous religious view of the Japanese.^[81]

As a rule, pilgrimage sites in Japan were tucked away deep in the mountains or perched on nearly inaccessible precipices, as in the mountains of Yoshino and Kumano to the south of the capital. These forbidding locations required of the pilgrims determination, physical strength, firm belief in the undertaking, and sometimes even their lives. The popular expression mizu no sakazuki (the farewell cup of water), referring to the last drink shared by a pilgrim with those left behind, emerged from this recognition that the traveler might not return alive.^[82]

In Ryojin hisho , various aspects of pilgrimage are revealed. One dominant theme concerns the physical hardship of such journeys; this is exemplified in four clustered songs in the shiku no kamiuta section, all of which are related to Kumano pilgrimage. For instance:

Here the play on the honji suijaku relationship between the avatar (Kumano Hongu) and Amida, conjured up by the reference to lotus-blue eyes, makes the pilgrim's plea doubly beseeching, hinting at the difficulties he or she expects to encounter along the way.

Another shiku no kamiuta on the pilgrimage to Kumano expresses the pilgrim's hardship but with an imaginative conceit:

Even a short pilgrimage from the capital to the Yawata Shrine, another name for the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, was not easy, as this song suggests:

Here, too, we find evidence of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism, this time in the speaker's address of Hachiman, the powerful Shinto military god, as "Great Bodhisattva."^[84] Furthermore, the speaker's qualms about the pilgrimage expressed in the phrase mairan to omoe do mo (though I would like) connects this shiku no kamiuta with the preceding song in terms of mood and content.

The best-known pilgrimage sites, besides those on the way to Kumano, were on the long circuit routes of the Saikoku Thirty-three Pilgrimage (Saikoku sanju-san reijo ) and the Shikoku Eighty-eight Pilgrimage (Shikoku hachiju-hachi reijo ).^[85] The Saikoku pilgrimage, which comprehended thirty-three temples of Kannon, was especially popular among common-ers.^[86] As they traveled, the pilgrims sang rhythmic chants, which often

included lists of holy sites they had visited or intended to visit.^[87] In Ryojin hisho , the shiku no kamiuta subsection called reigensho uta (songs on miraculous places) is noted for its collection of such songs. For example the following song lists in catalog fashion some of the stops along the Saikoku pilgrimage route:

The longest song in Ryojin hisho , no. 314, is in fact such a pilgrimag route "guide map." It lists important sites and objects on the way to the Kiyomizu Temple, one of the stops on the Saikoku circuit. Although some names and places are unidentifiable now, the list suggests that the rout was something quite memorable:

Occasionally pilgrimage route songs focus on places for sightseeing or secular diversion along the way—including even locales where asobi -type female entertainment could be found. Apparently, the boundary between the sacred and profane was rather fluid for the pilgrims. The following song, which details the route to Horin Temple, located in Arashiyama in the western outskirts of the Heian capital, a pleasure resort known for its cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, is one example:

Some pilgrimage songs emphasize the positive by outlining the material rewards resulting from the difficult undertaking:

By emphasizing this-worldly, concrete benefit, this and similar shiku no kamiuta may have sought to encourage the act of pilgrimage by relieving the travelers of worry about both physical and mental hardships. Like the Buddhist songs that stress the historical, human aspect of the Buddha and the cultic power of Kannon, Yakushi, and Jizo, these songs emphasize the secularly or more pragmatically meritorious side of religion.

Cults of Hijiri and Yamabushi

Those who made pilgrimages and observed asceticism as part of their profession were hijiri (holy men), yamabushi (mountain ascetics), and shugyoja (those who undergo austerities; also known as shugenja , exor-

cists), all practitioners of shugendo , mountain asceticism.^[92] Historically as a group they shunned the official Buddhist establishment, which was closely allied with the ruling class, choosing instead to serve the common people. Their unorthodox attitude toward their religious calling was ex-pressed in their refusal to receive formal ordination, which only the official Buddhist institutions administered. Many of them, including such charismatic leaders as En no Shokaku (or En no Gyoja, b. 634) and Gyogi (668-749), to whom the origin of the hijiri tradition is usually traced, concerned themselves exclusively with the welfare of the masses.^[93]

The ascetics' practice was to retreat into the rugged mountains and suffer extremely harsh privations to become empowered with supernatural abilities. The term yamabushi , meaning "one who lies down on a mountain," alludes to these trials. Underlying this form of asceticism is a fusion of magico-religious mountain worship and Buddhism, as Ichiro Hori enunciates:

The mountain is ... believed to be the world of the spirits and of the deities, buddhas, or bodhisattvas, where shamans and ascetics must undergo the austerities of hell to receive the powers and blessings of paradise and where souls of the dead also must undergo initiation in order to enter paradise or Buddha's Pure Land. Shugen-do ... was built on just these primitive but fundamental common beliefs in mountains.^[94]

Thus, shugendo is yet another expression of the Shinto-Buddhist syncretism.

In fact, the mountain ascetics made use of various Buddhist and Shinto practices and worshiped numerous divinities whose interrelationships were established by the honji suijaku discourse. For instance, one of the main gods of shugendo , Fudo, is appropriated from the Shingon pantheon. And Kongozao gongen (the Diamond Zao Avatar), who is said to have endowed En no Gyoja with magical power on Mount Kinbu, is worshiped as a primary divinity by yamabushi in the Mount Kinbu area; moreover, he is supposed to have as his original bodies the Buddha, Kannon, and Mai-treya.^[95] The syncretic sacred geography also plays a large role in shugendo , providing the sites for these ascetics' trials. The whole mountain range from the Yoshino to Kumano, the cradle of shugendo , for example, is considered the dual mandala of Kongokai (the Diamond Realm, representing the wisdom of Dainichi and his efforts to destroy all kinds of illusion) and Taizokai (the Matrix Realm, symbolizing the teachings of Dainichi), the two diagrammatic schemes of the cosmos central to esoteric

Shingon symbolism and ritual practices.^[96] En no Gyoja, ascribed as the founder of mountain asceticism in Japan, is linked to a number of shugendo practice sites as well, and Ryojin hisho songs that deal with the subject of hijiri or yamabushi have him as an almost indispensable presence. The following song, for instance, which mentions important Heian-period centers of asceticism, features this combination of syncretic sacred geography and cultic worship of En no Gyoja:

Omine is known as the center of the mountain ascetics, with its highest peak, Mount Kinbu, associated with En no Gyoja. Mount Shosha refers to Enkyoji Temple in Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture, founded by Shoku Shonin and considered to be the Tendai center in western Japan. The temple is the twenty-seventh stop on the Saikoku pilgrimage route. During the insei period its reputation as an ascetic center became widely known; and incidentally, its refectory was built by Emperor Go-Shirakawa in 1174.^[97]

A number of songs in Ryojin hisho , especially among the shiku no kamiuta , exhibit keen interest in hijiri and yamabushi , the characteristic attitude being one of curiosity, fascination, and occasionally awe. In a manner quite different from its treatment of Buddhist figures, the an-thology considers this group of nameless people as a class rather than as individuals, closely examining their modes of life, favorite haunts, and the nature of their asceticism. A common technique is to list ascetic centers, usually with little subjective comment; frequently the names are obscure or refer to places that no longer exist, though they may have been thriving gathering places for yamabushi at the time when these songs were com-posed. The task of deciphering these songs is therefore often far from straightforward. A pair of companion songs, which present the extensive network of ascetic centers, illustrates this point:

Mino refers to Takianji Temple, located in Mino City, Osaka Prefecture, said to have been founded by En no Gyoja. Katsuo refers to the Katsuo Temple, also located in Mino City; it is the twenty-third stop on the Saikoku pilgrimage route and is known for its scenic beauty. Wanifuchi refers to Gakuenji Temple, located in Hirada City, Shimane Prefecture. Legend has it that the temple was founded by the priest Chishun Shonin at this location after the water from its valley miraculously cured the eye disease of Empress Suiko (r. 592-628). The name of the temple, which means "Crocodile Pool," originated in a story that when Chishun Shonin accidentally dropped a Buddhist utensil into the pool, a crocodile emerged from the water and brought it back to him. Hi no Misaki Shrine is also located in Shimane Prefecture, to the northwest of Izumo Shrine. Consisting of two shrines, with Susano o no Mikoto (the upper shrine) and Amaterasu (the lower shrine) as the main deities of worship, it competed for prestige with Gakuenji Temple.^[98]

Katsuragi is a rugged mountain range between Osaka and Nara prefectures on which En no Gyoja exercised asceticism. Ishi no Tsuchi, located in the eastern part of Ehime Prefecture, is the highest mountain on Shikoku Island. It, too, is associated with En no Gyoja, and sources relate that Kukai practiced asceticism here also.^[99]

These two songs map out the ascetic centers in the south and west of Japan; they also point to the prominence of Kumano in mountain asceticism. The sites mentioned embrace all three types of pilgrimage classified

by Joseph Kitagawa: pilgrimage to a sacred mountain, pilgrimage based on faith in certain divinities, and pilgrimage based on faith in charismatic figures.^[100] The juxtaposition of shrines and temples on such a grand scale not only portrays the Japanese landscape as a sacred mandala, in the Shinto-Buddhist syncretic mode, but also conveys the wide spread of mountain asceticism during the Heian period.

A greater consecration of the Japanese national geography occurs in songs that cover far larger areas, extending from remote corners of the eastern regions to the far western provinces. Some of the sacred places are associated with unusual natural features, such as hot springs or volcanoes, or with supernatural events from Japan's mythico-historical past. Thus a pilgrimage was not simply a religious exercise, but a cultural and historical journey into the national heritage. On the level of artistic craft, the following song is distinctive in its consistent listing of provinces, with one ascetic center per province being singled out, as if it were representative of the whole province:

Hashiriyu (meaning "hot running water") refers to the Izusan Shrine located on Mount Izu in Shizuoka Prefecture, its name being derived from a hot spring in the mountain. The Togakushi (Hidden Gate) Shrine is located on Mount Togaku in Nagano Prefecture. Mount Togaku is considered to be the rock gate that Ame no tachikara o no Mikoto removed from the rock grotto in which Amaterasu was hiding and hurled down to the lower world. Mount Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture has long been regarded as a sacred realm because of its sporadic volcanic eruptions. Daisenji Temple, located on the precipitous Mount Daisen in Tottori Prefecture, is said to have been founded by Gyogi. Nariai Temple, located in Kyoto-Fu, is the twenty-eighth stop on the Saikoku pilgrimage route and is known as one of its most scenic spots. The name of the temple has its origins in a miraculous story related to Kannon. A monk who was living on the mountain was on the brink of starvation owing to a heavy snow, when

suddenly a deer appeared before him and died. The monk ate it and was brought back to life; but to his horror, he discovered that the wooden Kannon statue he worshiped had fallen to the ground bleeding. As the monk wept in utter shame, realizing that he had eaten part of the statue, Kannon's wound was healed and the statue was restored to its former state (nari-au )—hence the name of the temple. Muroto refers to Hotsumisaki Temple located on the seashore of Muroto City at the southeastern tip of Kochi Prefecture facing the Pacific Ocean. As the celebrated site of Kukai's enlightenment, it is the twenty-sixth stop on the Shikoku pilgrimage route. Shido Temple, located in Kagawa Prefecture facing Awaji Island across the straits, is the oldest temple in the eastern Sanuki area and the eighty-sixth stop on the Shikoku pilgrimage route.^[101]

With these songs one gains an understanding of the complex religious vision of the late Heian period, which sees the country in terms of syncretic sacred manifestations and epiphanic contact points. At the time they were circulated, they may have helped the audience view their lives in the broader setting of religious and cultural tradition. In addition, they may have spurred curiosity about geographic areas beyond the capital or the listeners' home regions.^[102] In the larger context of the Japanese literary tradition, songs about ascetic centers may have been the forerunners of Muromachi-period pilgrimage songs such as "Kumano sankei" (Kumano Pilgrimage), which were presented on a much larger scale than shiku no kamiuta .^[103]

Songs on hijiri and yamabushi often take the audience to the hidden side of their austerities. These ascetic exercises included fasting, abstention from drinking water, gathering firewood, hauling water from the mountaintop, standing under a frigid waterfall, and even hanging upside down by a rope over a mountain precipice.^[104] Sometimes solitary confinement for extended periods in a cave was prescribed. The underlying goal of all this physical discipline was to gain control over one's own body and spirit, thereby gaining complete freedom from limiting human conditions.

Among the trials thus endured, the severest and most demanding occurred in the mountains in the depths of winter. It was often thought that unless an ascetic spent a winter undergoing self-privation in a mountain cave, he could never be a full-fledged yamabushi .^[105] The following song offers a glimpse of the extreme hardships of winter asceticism that push human endurance to its limit:

Here nature, once the ascetic's source of support, has become a most exacting testing ground, demanding utter stoicism. The song depicts the state of complete physical deprivation through which the yamabushi ac-quires supramundane power.

The next song reveals that the ascetics also faced more insidious spiritual temptations initiated by the devil. The power of evil was presumably so overwhelming that the ascetics prevailed over it only with difficulty, whereupon they obtained their supernatural potency:

As this song suggests, the invincibility often associated with holy men came from their successful struggle against powers at odds with their spiritual goals.

The pilgrimages made by hijiri and yarnabushi , another mandatory component of ascetic exercises, is the subject of a number of shiku no kamiuta . The degree and circumstances of hardship encountered surpassed those of occasional pilgrims. In the following song, the ordeals ascetics confront in traveling through rough and isolated regions in the Noto Peninsula are conveyed plaintively:

Another song includes more specific details about the harsh regimen of asceticism and the ascetics' physical appearance:

Two points in this song are noteworthy. First, the group is obviously undergoing a form of water asceticism. These austerities, at first conceived as a preparatory cleansing, eventually came to be regarded as an effective means of obtaining ascetic power in itself and so found a regular place in ascetic ritual.^[108] Second, "walking," indicated here by the word fumu (to walk), was a prerequisite and indeed the very soul of ascetic practice, as it constitutes a symbolic negation of the profane.^[109] The song, by presenting the image of a group of ascetics constantly on the go, in robes bleached by the blazing sun and salty seawater, vividly evokes the painful process of self-negation that ascetics routinely underwent.

The interest of Ryojin hisho poems in hijiri and yamabushi extends into taking detailed stock of their personal belongings and paraphernalia—all eccentric, and sometimes even comical. Characteristically, attention is paid largely to the physical side of the ascetics' existence. Three songs, all sharing the same formula, konomu mono (favorite things), reveal the preferences of mountain ascetics in personal gear and foodstuffs; they also show the subsistence level of their existence, for their possessions are crude items taken directly from nature:

A yamabushi clad in the full apparatus was supposed to symbolize one of shugendo's main divinities, Fudo, as well as the Diamond and Matrix Realm mandalas.^[111] The peculiar appearance of these mountain men aroused a sense of awe and curiosity in onlookers, and likely played a large part in perpetuating the mystique about their supernatural powers.^[112]

The following pair of songs list mountain ascetics' food items, which may have medicinal or magical qualities to give their consumer unearthly powers. Yet the primary message of these songs concerns their grim asceticism based on the bare necessities of life:

Most of these items grow in the wild, and items such as the mushrooms are rare delicacies with distinctive aroma. Others, such as taro root, and possibly parsley and burdock, possess medicinal value and must have been eagerly sought after, since many hijiri were involved in healing practices.^[114] Some items may have been associated with the esoteric magical powers of mountains, the secrets of which were known only to hijiri .

The lifestyles of these charismatic hijiri and yamabushi were bound to

create awesome impressions on those who had contact with them. The following two songs succinctly express the uncanny and even eerie sensations they aroused, as if they led a ghostly life:

The enduring interest in hijiri and yamabushi in Ryojin hisho may owe much to the singers of the imayo . Among them, the miko were known to have been intimately linked to the ascetics; some worked with yamabushi as their assistants or were married to them,^[115] and thus would have had ample opportunity to observe the ascetic life-style and outlook or even take part in it. No doubt they injected their firsthand knowledge into imayo , which they then circulated. Therefore, one should not necessarily identify the speaker of a poem with the ascetics themselves; rather, the lyric voices of the songs may well be those of miko who stepped into the yamabushi's lives and sang in their place. The following song, fraught with amorous innuendo and flirtation, throws light on the intimacy binding miko and mountain ascetics:

Since the time is early spring, the yamabushi must be about to emerge from the harsh regimen of winter asceticism to renew a more mundane life—a liminal time when an invitation like this might be especially tempting.

The attraction a woman feels toward a young mountain ascetic is also the subject of this shiku no kamiuta :

The spectacle of the pure mountain ascetic seduced by the miko has its whimsical side, but it fits the complex syncretic world of religion in Ryojin hisho , where the line between sacred and profane, physical and spiritual, religion and art, and singers and their subjects is not always clear. Rather, these dualities often form a seamless whole, overlapping, coexisting, and interpenetrating.

Shinto Congratulatory Songs

Some of the songs grouped under the rubric of jinja uta , a subsection in niku no kamiuta , provide yet another tier of religious sentiment in Ryojin hisho . As previously mentioned, these songs are basically recycled from waka of known authorship, composed mostly in the congratulatory Shinto ceremonial context.^[116] The rites in question were aimed at ensuring the private and exclusive group interests of the aristocracy, and as a consequence the songs contents tend to dwell on the felicitous and propitious. Indeed, the unseemly side of life treated in other songs—grief, anxiety, death—is deliberately avoided. It seems as if emphasis on the auspicious is expected to lead to good fortune all of itself.

By far the largest number of jinja uta are songs of praise or prayers dedicated to Shinto shrines related to the imperial household or illustrious

noble families like the Fujiwara or Minamoto. These eulogies, presumably intended for the limited elite class, are characterized by a this-worldly concern for the welfare and prosperity of aristocratic clans. This upper-class orientation of jinja uta forms a sharp contrast with both homon uta and syncretic shiku no kamiuta. Jinja uta , unlike homon uta , do not preach religious messages intended for public edification; they totally lack the pulpit consciousness that often informs homon uta . Nor are they concerned with commoners' religious practices, as are some of the more pious shiku no kamiuta . Rather, largely secular interest in worldly blessings is what dominates jinja uta .^[117]

Jinja uta are deferential and often obliging in tone. In terms of both content and rhetoric, they are formulaic, repetitious, and predictable. Recurrent rhetorical devices include such stylized phrases as chihayaburu (awe-inspiring), kimi ga (mi)yo (my lord's august reign or world), and yorozu yo (myriad generations), which set the incantatory tone of the songs rather quickly.

In the congratulatory mode of expression, however, the songs can be divided into roughly three categories. The first approach is to praise the beauty of the particular shrine or objects within the sacred precincts; in so doing, the speaker in effect expresses reverence for the shrine itself:

Praise is obliquely offered through the eye-catching color contrasts of green pine trees and crimson fences. The aesthetically pleasing aspect of the surroundings is equated with the felicitous sentiment the speaker feels in the shrine sanctuary. The next song takes a similar approach, indirectly attributing the speaker's feeling of well-being to the scenic beauty around the shrine:

A song on the Iwashimizu Shrine expresses through images of tranquillity the speaker's deferential attitude toward the shrine's sacred, life-giving water:

This song plays on the word iwashirnizu on two levels, using it both as the shrine's name and in its literal meaning, "rock-clear water" thus skillfully economizing the poetic space. The water gushing out of the spring in the shrine compound is perceived as a sacred locus; in the ritual gesture of making contact with it, the speaker venerates the shrine.

The second celebratory mode found in jinja uta captures the bounteousness of nature and projects them onto the shrines. Fecundity, growth, and vegetal luxuriance are posed in opposition to depletion, death, and decay. Through this imagery the ever-increasing prestige, value, and well-being of the songs' subjects are solicited. The focus on the bounteous and copious in nature may also indicate a fertility cult at work.

The next song refers to the vitality of nature and its inexhaustible energy as a way of blessing the Kamo Shrine:

In the following song on the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, the focus shifts to animal life. The sacredness and prosperity of the shrine are expressed through the image of doves, the messengers of the Hachiman divinity, which swarm in the shrine compounds, taking the pine trees as their nests:

Some of the songs in this category express blessings and admiration by focusing on the very timelessness of nature. By alluding specifically to this constancy, the songs implicitly raise the converse notion of the passage of time and the potential for growth. In turn, the continuity between nature and humans can be discerned. With the establishment of such an affinity, the speaker hopes to apply auspicious natural signs to human affairs. The following song is a typical example. The wish for the prosperity of the Kamo Shrine is expressed through praise of the young pine trees, which symbolize longevity and endurance:

A similar technique is used to present wishes for a long imperial reign, by invoking the luxuriant vegetation on the sacred mountain of gatsuno-o:

The following song makes use of the luxuriant image of fuji (wisteria), emblem of the Fujiwara clan, in full bloom and thereby expresses the speaker's loyal wishes for the good fortune of the clan:

The last poetic mode found in congratulatory songs is a straightforward statement of felicitation, stripped of rhetorical adornment. The inclusion in some of such formulas as kimi ga yo or miyo combined with chihayaburu makes these songs sound elevated in tone but at the same time extremely ritualistic and perfunctory:

Jinja uta are largely direct quotations or adoptions with minor changes of waka that served the Shinto ritual purposes of the ruling classes. They are therefore quite limited in lyrical flexibility, with many remaining on a formulaic or strictly ceremonial level. The congratulatory songs reveal a conservative religious consciousness that is fundamentally inclined to preserving and maintaining the existing order by expanding it to its optimal state. In essence, they are endorsements and affirmations of the here and now.

The presence in Ryojin hisho of jinja uta gives the anthology a comprehensive coverage in terms of Heian-period religious practices, showing the ritual life of the aristocracy as well as Buddhist evangelism and the folk observances of commoners. At the same time, these songs demonstrate how thoroughly the popular music of imayo penetrated the nobles' ceremonial activities, was fostered by the upper classes, and finally con-tributed to the enhancement of the critical moments in their celebration of life.

6
The Unrolling Human Picture Scroll in Ryojin hisho

Folk Life

One of the more engaging aspects of Ryojin hisho is its portrayal of common people—their aspirations, way of life, relationships, worries, and diversions. The people who populate this world are woodcutters, potters, common soldiers, peddlers, petty officials, shamans, and peripheral figures such as gamblers, jugglers, and asobi . No pretense of refinement or so-phistication enters songs delineating the folk life. Rather, life is presented realistically, in all its beauty and ugliness, joy and heartache, fulfillment and frustration. Even animals—cows, snails, grasshoppers, dragonflies, butterflies, and lice—as well as such mundane objects as charcoal containers, washtubs, hooks, and flails—all subjects far outside the poetic lexicon and canon of waka —provide poetic inspiration to the singers of these imayo .

Humorous, roguish, and sometimes satirical elements play a vital role, as do folk wisdom and wit. At times songs are used as vehicles for critical commentary about contemporary society. The observations are usually only suggestive, but they nevertheless provide rare glimpses into the common people's perspective on some of the changes that were occurring at the end of the Heian period. These poetic sketches leave one with the impression of having unrolled an emaki and viewed a human landscape teeming with activity. It is significant that the majority of these songs belong to the categories of shiku no kamiuta and niku no kamiuta , where the influence of folk song is strongest.

Of Men and Women

The Ryojin hisho poets' unflagging fascination with human beings turns the anthology into a portrait gallery decked with realistic sketches of men and women of Heian society, usually at its lower levels. Significantly, a number of names or nicknames of people who appear in this folk world are quite esoteric, and were probably restricted to certain specific social groups; their meanings may have been obscure even to Heian citizens, not to mention a modern audience. This is particularly true in the case of courtesans and gamblers—the outcasts. Some of the pictures we encounter are sketched with empathy, but more often they are caricatures highlighting human foibles. In any event, a keen sense of observation and awareness of surroundings is palpable in these songs.

What we hear, though, is not the personal, individual lyric voice of the Heian commoner in general, but rather that of the professional singers—miko, asobi , and kugutsu —who assume the voices of others, filtering, interpreting, and stylizing. Since the singers adopt the posture of the object they describe, we often encounter a shift in the lyric voice from the third person to the first person. Hence, the proxy or representational function and contribution of the female singers is of critical importance to any appraisal of these songs.

In the following shiku no kamiuta , the physical strength of a wood-chopper and the rigor of his work are vividly captured. The focus of the song, however, appears to be the fearlessness of the protagonist, who dares to challenge authority. If we assume that songs of this nature were composed by asobi or other such women, the attraction expressed here toward masculine virility and indomitability takes on a suggestive overtone as well:

Another song draws a group picture of woodchoppers, with a special eye turned on a novice among them:

The setting of this song—the western part of the capital near the Katsura River, which during the Heian period hosted a fair number of courtesans—suggests that the speaker is one such woman and that the woodcutters are making a difficult trip to find some diversion.^[3] The young woodcutter, then, is not only new in his profession but also new to amorous adventure—making the asobi's attention on him all the more suggestive.

Ryojin hisho frequently features men who seek physical enjoyment. In the following song, also set in the western outskirts of the Heian capital, the male protagonist is shown toying with the idea of having fun with women of pleasure—here suggested by the names of birds, often epithets for prostitutes:^[4]

On the surface, the following three songs deal with catching shrimp and small fish. In reality, however, they are talking about men chasing women of questionable reputation. This becomes clear when we realize that Otsu along the Setagawa River, which flows from Lake Biwa, was a well-known area populated by courtesans.^[5] But in any case, the entertain-ment context in which asobi performed these imayo songs for amorous provocation justifies taking songs of this kind other than literally.

This song, which seemingly is about a small sweetfish (ayu ), may well describe the plight of asobi exploited by their customers:

The following shiku no kamiuta may be about a man's sexual impotence, as symbolized by a dull sickle,^[7] and his repeated inability to make sexual conquests. Here, the kusa (grass) suggests women, the objects of his unsuccessful amorous pursuits:

In contrast to the men about town in search of women, the next song narrates the farce of a young bridegroom who gets cold feet at the prospect of matrimony. The speaker plays the role of a village gossip, who in so many cultures epitomizes folk humor at its broadest; she does not fail to relay all the details of local scandal and thus titillate the curiosity of her audience:

During the Heian period, on the two nights just before the wedding a bridegroom was expected to visit his bride at her home under the cover of night. Only at the end of the third night, after the wedding ceremony, was the marriage made public, thus freeing the man from the inconvenience of nocturnal visits.^[10] In this song the young bridegroom, knowing what is in store for him after the third night, beats a hasty retreat. The repetition of the verb ending -keru , used to report events, accentuated by the exclamatory particle wa , heightens the dramatic effect of the story.

A good marriage, and an upward one at that, is, however, the greatest dream of many parents—then as now. The following shiku no kamiuta voices this aspiration, focusing on the beautiful daughter of a lowly potter:

Provincial governors were officials dispatched by the central government to oversee the political and economic affairs of outlying regions. Toward the end of the Heian period, they frequently remained behind after the term of office was over. Gradually they emerged as regional economic potentates, amassing wealth in land and estates in the countryside, away from the watchful eyes of the central government. During the insei period, moreover, such men began to exercise political clout as they allied them-selves with the warrior classes and gained a say in governmental affairs.^[12] In the eyes of commoners, locked tightly within the class hierarchy of their day and lacking the economic means to escape it, the rising fortunes of the new classes must have been the object of envy. Marriage alliance, so often exploited by the aristocracy, was surely seen as a tempting way to climb out of poverty and low social status.

The onerous task of marrying a daughter is expressed in the following song, in which a mother-in-law faces a list of fashion preferences given by her future son-in-law, probably to be referred to in choosing wedding gifts for him. Presented in a combined dialogue-catalog form, the list reveals the rather finicky and presumptuous taste of the young groom. The song therefore pokes fun at the fastidious fashion consciousness and extravagance of the upper classes:

The human interest in Ryojin hisho does not, of course, attach only to songs about men. In fact, commentary on women is just as strong, some-times overriding the interest shown for men. We have already seen this in the songs about asobi and miko ; in addition, a number of songs expose the unseemly side of these women's lives, behavior, or deportment. But there is more humor than critique in the songs as a whole, perhaps because of the special relationships between the female singers/poets and their subject matter. The following one, for example, paints a humorous portrait of a young woman:

This song, most likely teasing a miko , plays on the word kami , which can mean either god or hair. Despite the conjunction in the first line of the words kami and matsuru (to worship), the kami turns out to be the woman's various hairdos—some of which are less than respectable. Especially, considering that during the Heian period straight hair was the fashion for women, the heroine's "curly," "frowzy" hairstyles suggest a certain freakishness on her part. At least two levels of wordplay are discernible in the word tezutsugami (an inept god). As a compound of tezutsu (clumsy or messy) and gami (kami , hair or god), the word suggests "the inept god in her messy hair." But tezutsugami can also be broken into te (hand), zutsu (or tsutsu , from tsuku , to be divinely possessed), and gami (god), resulting literally in "a hand possessed by a clumsy god"—an oblique reference to the woman's lack of skill. Thus the single word tezutsugami can be taken in an expanded sense to mean the sloppiness

and ineptitude of the woman as a miko . Last but not least, a walking god (arukigami ) in the soles—that is, a god who excites the woman to saunter around—implies yet further degradation of divinities. All this deliberate sport with the sacred fills out the humor in the song, while doubling as a commentary on a woman who deviates from the classical role of virtuous female—well groomed, good at sewing, and homebound.

Miko form an important topic in Ryojin hisho , being the subject of a large number of songs. In one, the speaker is captivated by the sight of a miko in an ecstatic state; but the speaker's attention focuses on her personal appearance, which provokes an awed disdain: her hair is false, and the ceremonial robes she wears are not really hers. Even so, the miko is perfectly capable of carrying out her ritual possession. In the detail of the long tear in her robe, even a hint of eroticism is suggested:

Here again, the phrase kami wa tsuki gami functions on two levels. On one hand, it refers to the trancelike state of the miko as she becomes divinely possessed; on the other, it is a reference to her wig, worn for dramatic effect in her performance. Likewise, the phrase kinu wa karl ginu has a double suggestiveness. Her borrowed hunting robe (kari ginu ), the ordinary court costume for males, evokes the image of a transsexual, signifying her asexuality, and hence her supramundane power. Yet it may indicate her poverty as well. This complex dimension of a miko's existence between spirituality and profanity seems to be the source of her magnetism.

In the following song, the promiscuity of a miko living near a shrine is described quite openly. The words sasakusa (bamboo grass) and koma (horse) are used allegorically to refer to women and men, respectively, with the image of the horse eating the bamboo grass suggestive of erotic relationships. The woman's sexuality is made explicit in the last couplet:

Interest in the erotic life of miko continues in the next song, which expresses unreciprocated desire. As this song makes clear, the shrines were often sites for affairs between miko and men on pilgrimage—this time, specifically, at the Sumiyoshi Shrine:

The song makes skillful use of the pivot word kake(ru ) (to hang or lock), which links omoikake (yearning) to kakegane (metal latches). It brings the tension between the miko and the amorous man into high relief: his strong yearning is bolted by the latch she uses to block the man's advance.

The topic of miko around the Sumiyoshi Shrine appears again in an-other song, marking the fact that the shrine was indeed a site for miko's double lives:

The song makes humorous use of the word nyotai , which can mean either "woman's body" or "empress." This double meaning is reinforced by the honorific verb owashimasu (to reside), which seemingly refers to an em-press but in fact points to the miko/prostitute .

The following song may be the bantering of a miko around the shrine area, cajoling a male pilgrim into a tryst with the word iro (color, but also erotic love). Here, the double lives of both miko and pilgrims come to the forefront:

We see a picture of women luring men into amorous adventure in the next song as well. The divinities mentioned are presumably aliases of these women, and it is in this unlikely link between the sacred and the profane that the humor of the song lies:

The following song is more somber, depicting the essentially desolate and lonely nature of a miko's life. It could well be one such woman's own lament:

Sometimes Ryojin hisho songs are about young girls or courtesans inexperienced in male-female relationships, and so provide words of warning. Here, the image of an early spring bracken hints at affection on the part of speaker for the young woman:

Within the poetic setting of the Ryojin hisho , where double entendre is plentiful, the following song cannot simply be taken as an innocuous list of foodstuffs. Rather, it may be another song of erotic suggestion.^[17] Here, the names of fruits and vegetables seem to refer to women who may have had amorous relationships with Seita, whom we met in song no. 370, a man of few sexual ventures, and largely unsuccessful ones. Since the song mentions a shrine, these women may be miko :

Humor plays an essential part in the treatment of women in Ryojin hisho The following song jokes about a homely woman who has lost the chance for marriage. Even so, the speaker may have his own secret designs on her, indicated by the word tane (seeds), meaning children:

The bustling marketplace scene in the next song is reminiscent in its earthy and animated quality of the folk characters that have appeared in other Ryojin hisho songs. The scene takes place in Suzaku Avenue, the border between the main part of the capital and its outskirts, where peddlers and shoppers swarm:

Ohara was especially famous for its women peddlers, called oharame (women of Ohara), who came to the capital carrying bundles of firewood on their heads, hawking their goods as they walked the city streets.^[20] Their voices must have contributed to the song's noisy scene. Humor is provided in the last line, where the word kine can be taken to mean either a wooden mallet or a shrine-maiden. On a literal level, then, the line describes a mountain monk asking if anyone is interested in trading for his wooden mallet; yet he may in fact be making a proposition of an entirely different sort. The market, in short, is not a place where only material commodities are exchanged. In a sense, the song serves as a fitting backdrop for the dramas that have been played out individually among the folk characters of the songs, conveying a sense of energy, multifariousness, and travesty of the folk life in the Ryojin hisho .

Love

Love has long been a prominent theme in the Japanese poetic tradition. Ryojin hisho is no exception. In the anthology, love songs are concentrated in the "miscellaneous" section of the shiku no kamiuta and in the untitled sections of the niku no kamiuta . None is found in the homon uta .

The love songs of Ryojin hisho deal exclusively with the love affairs of commoners and those on the fringes of Heian society, addressing in particular emotions experienced on an instinctual or physical level and ex-pressed with little reservation. The speakers are most frequently women, including courtesans, who tell of their desires, frustrations, vexations, and fears, as well as their flirtatious moods. Most of the songs are presented in an extremely fluid vernacular, which forms a sharp contrast to the homon uta , with their dominantly public, declarative mode of address.

In the performative context of asobi and other entertainers, the songs may have functioned to instruct the audience about the different kinds of love these women experienced. They may also have served as protests against inconstancy, cruelty, and desertion—all part of the love experience of these women. The graphic descriptions of sensual love likely aroused and satisfied erotic impulses of their male listeners as well, which in many cases, of course, was the entertainers' ultimate professional goal.

The next few songs represent a light mood of flirtation, which is achieved largely through repetition of similar phrases, alliteration, and the use of emphatic particles—rhetorical devices that in some cases lend an incantatory resonance as well:

A kindred sense of amorous dalliance dominates the following song, which deals with a successful consummation by a pair of lovers, symbolized by the man's rush hat (ayaigasa ) dropped into the river (the woman):^[22]

The artistry of this song is delightful. First, the echo of the verb ending -nikeri in ochinikeri and akenikeri creates a pleasing, refrainlike effect. This rhythmic cadence is then underscored by the alliterative pairing of ai and ayai in the first line, kamogawa and kawa in the third, and sarasara and sayake in the last line. To cap it off, an end rhyme is contrived by the repetition of ni in the third and fourth lines, and an internal rhyme is gained from the repetition of to in the fourth line. This intricate poetic craftsmanship gives the song a lively sense of movement.

The following two songs are rare instances in which the lyric voice is male, both expressing an erotic yearning for a woman. In the first song, this yearning—metaphorically conveyed through the image of a small flower—is one that cannot be gratified by sight only. In similar fashion, in the second song the presumably male speaker vocalizes his sexual fantasy by identifying himself with creeping and sinewy wild vines. His strong desire, he says, is as inevitable as a karmalike destiny (sukuse )—an exaggerated claim that produces a hint of whimsical humor: