Pilgrimage's Role in Development of Buddhism in Japan - Essay Example

? Pilgrimage’s Role in Development of Buddhism in Japan  College: Introduction Pilgrimage has been defined as a journey or a search for a great spiritual or moral significance among people. Typically, pilgrimage is a journey to some locations of importance to someone’s faith and beliefs such as shrines (Shahshahani 2011). Many religions attach immense importance to the particular place, such as the place where the birth or the death of the founder of that particular faith took place, which is deemed as a place of spiritual awakening, because the verbal or visual connections with the divine attached to the site. Such places are perceived as having some special spiritual power. At such a place, the faithful of the religion in question believe that miracles are witnessed, thus all should endeavor to walk the journey towards the place, thus the pilgrimage (Webb, 2001). In almost all religions, the destiny of the pilgrimage is perceived to be a holy land, such as Jerusalem and Mecca for Christians and Muslims respectively. Background Within Japanese society, the pilgrimages could be divided into two major categories. The first category is epitomized by the journey to a total of 33 sites that are sacred to the Kenon in the Western region of Japan and the journey to 88 Shikoku Holy Sites, in which the sojourner makes a circuit of series of holy places and temples, sometimes separated by a huge distance in an established order. The order of doing the pilgrimages to various holy places and temples is quite an important feature: One cannot just move from one place to another at own convenience (Cole, 2000; Covell 2005). The second type of pilgrimage is to some meticulous holy places. The pilgrimage to the second category include to the famous Ise Shrine (Mie), Kumano Sanzan (Wakayama), Mt. Fuji and Mt. Koya (Kii Peninsula Wakayama) among some other holy mountains (Swanson & Chilson 2006). The commonly employed term in reference to pilgrimage in Japan, though its limited to the first type is Jenrei. The history of Japan observes that the very first pilgrimages were undertaken during the Nara Period (between 710 and 794 AD). However, this custom did not become prominent among the Japanese until during the Heian Era that came immediately after the Nara Era to 1185 AD. The Kumano within the Southern Wakayama Prefecture ended up becoming a large center for pilgrims and adherents of Shugendo Sect during Heina Period. Some other significantly important pilgrimages at the time were to Mt. Koya, Hasedera (Kyoto) and Shitenno-ji (Osaka) (Swanson & Chilson 2006). Between 160 and 1868 AD, during the Edo Period, the number of persons making pilgrimages to Shinto Shrines and Buddhist temples increased rapidly, particularly to the Kotohira Shrine, the Ise Shrine, the 88 Shikoku temples, Zenkoji (Nagano), Mt. Fuji (Shizuoka), and the Kiso Ontake (Nagoya) (Reynolds 2001; Covell 2005). One phenomenon during Edo Era was the special pilgrimage to Ise-Jingu Shrine, known as Okage Mairi. The tradition of Okage Mairi has continued to be unabated even the contemporary Japanese society, with approximately 6 million people paying a visit to Ise Jingu Shrines per annum. Perhaps behind the phenomenon lies some nostalgic past: Resurgent interest in the region and some desire for a temporary escape from the over-crowded urban settings (Alisal, Ackermann, Dolores 2007). Pilgrimage and Development of Buddhism The history of pilgrimage in Japan could be traced back to the early years, at least by the era of Nara, between 7610-794 AD. The pilgrimages flourished during the initial day, through Heian era (947-1185). At the time, the aristocrats and the imperial family were the most active pilgrims (Kaempfer 1995). During the latter days of the ninth century, the imperial family members took some interest in the religious visits to various shrines in the country and the temples that existed outside Japanese capital of Kyoto. From the late tenth century, the custom became adopted by the aristocrats, to a certain extent because of aristocracy enrichment at that time. The primary objects of pilgrimages at the time were seven great temples based in Nara, which was the original capital. In the southern Kii Peninsula, there existed Kumano which also attracted a huge number of pilgrims, among whom were a number of retired emperors. The retired emperors’ pilgrimages were conducted together with some large parties of pilgrims, by then consisting of thousands of followers (Morishita 2001). Bergmann and Kim have noted, “At the center of pilgrimages to Kumano was faith in the bodhisattva, Kanon. Kumano also has strong connection with Shintoism, since this was the place where the god Izanami was buried, according to Japanese mythology” (p. 95). It had been quite a significant sacred place even long before it was made a Kannon pilgrimage site. Ise Shrine located on the southern side of Kyoto and which is the main site for the Shinto shrine marks another significant pilgrimage site for development of Buddhism in the region. The shrine was established about two millenniums ago and the sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami, who was also an imperial family’s ancestress according to the mythology of the Japanese, was enshrined there. The shrine remained exclusively limited to the Imperial family members until the culmination of Heian’s era (Lopez 1995). Later on, the other strata among the Japanese were granted the access together with the higher ranking priests. The pilgrimages to the shire of Ise during the ear of Tokugawa became a common custom for almost all Japanese societies. During the era of Kyoho (1716-1735), almost 600,000 people visited the shrine. There was intense interest during the Heian era in the pilgrimages, though they were limited to the high ranking societal members such as aristocrats, retired emperors or priests. The tendency remained stagnant until in the thirteenth century. During the Tokuwaga era, majority of the pilgrims were just ordinary people with no social status or rank. The novel development was a contribution of a number of factors, among them being the economic advantage that the peasants and farmers had acquired, the emergence of the urban merchants’ class, the politically created safety and the development of infrastructure and communication network (Suzuki 1959). Moreover, pilgrimages acted as a great opportunity for people to travel around the country, which was a rare occurrence. Alongside the trails of pilgrimages, different restaurants and shops were established that contributed to the pilgrimages popularity. Through the pilgrimages, people were able to attain some temporary sense of freedom (Victoria 1979). During Tokugawa period, the pilgrimages to traditional sites of pilgrimage became increasingly popular, with a number of pilgrimage sites being developed across Japan. The pilgrimage ascetic character, which was important within the early Japanese history, became less emphasized (Kitagawa 1987). In some religious traditions, pilgrimage is among the most central and intimate parts of worship. Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists all have some extensive pilgrimage traditions. The Protestants, particularly the evangelicals, together with most Jews are either opposed or indifferent about such practices. For the Buddhists who are advanced seeking nirvana, which is the escape from the birth, death and rebirth cycle, pilgrimage is not a necessity for them. However, the average laymen who are mired in the worldly obligations, cares and passion, they practice pilgrimage in the endeavor to focus their spiritual energies on the novel life, which comes with the reincarnation process. The need is met when pilgrimage are done, allowing the individual to enter monkhood for either shorter or longer periods, characterized by studying sacred books or chanting mantras. Within a given pilgrimage, one might have to practice all the above (Jaffe 2002). Some sites of pilgrimage are universal because they appeal every school of Buddhist faith. Such places include the ones associated with Buddha’s life, which is known as Hearth of Buddhism. This is the place that Buddha was born and the place that he realized the enlightenment. It was also the place that Buddha preached his very first message within the deer park. Buddha died in this very place, thus marking the place as a holy ground for Buddhists. The shrine serves as part of the pilgrims’ circle, bringing together various Buddhists from every corner of the world, with diversified nationalities and cultural orientations. The only Christian comparison for the region is Jerusalem: This region is meaningful to all Christians, irrespective of their background or nationality (Ketelaar 1990). The Hearth of Buddhism has four of the eight shrines known as the Great Places, where it is believed that Buddha performed miracles. The other four great places are in India, even though they are not included in the sayings of Buddha or even in Buddhist scriptures. Before the death of Buddha, he required his followers to make visits to the 4 sacred places, and promised every Buddhist who would die at the pilgrimage to the four places would be born to eternal happiness. Therefore, Buddha had a very significant influence upon his followers to be involved in pilgrimage. Mahayana tradition, within Buddhism added some sites associated with Buddha and also added many shrines to the already existing bodhisattvas, meaning enlightened ones. These were the people who held back from getting to Nirvana in the endeavor to help the other people to make towards it. They made the supreme sacrifice of self for the sake of others, thus they were the enlightened. Among the most renowned are the temples which are dedicated to bodhisattva of compassion and mercy (Ketelaar 1990). Among the Japanese people, pilgrimages were perceived as templates for life journey, which is an act of worship by itself. The Japanese Buddhists were in favor of “extensive walking pilgrimages from shrine to shrine, temple to temple, as a progressive experience of purification The Journey is goal, not necessarily the end point. Some even wander for months at time with no fixed end point. There are more than a hundred pilgrimages routes touching upon more than 500 monasteries and temples (often and the same) (Brockman 2011, p. 63-64). Majority of Japanese do not profess any religion but even the nonbelievers that is estimated about 70 percent, following some mixed Buddhist and Shinto customs, which include the pilgrimages. About half this population is identified as Shinto as far as culture is concerned, with about 44 percent indentified as Buddhist. According to the government, there are 157 recognized schools for the Buddhists. A number of prominent pilgrims have become part of the pilgrim lore of Buddhists. Perhaps the most important among them was the Emperor from India, Asoka, who was an ardent convert, around 250 BCE visited every of the 4 primary pilgrimage sites. He embroidered the shrines, encouraging pilgrimages throughout the kingdom. The emperor build thousands of stupas across India that were relic holding. Through establishing of stability to the region, the emperor promoted the creation of vast routs of pilgrimage, which doubled as the trading routes. This facilitated the establishment of pilgrims across Asia. The Rout of silk through the Central Asia could perhaps be perceived as the best known for these (Covell & Rowe 2004). Through the works of the emperor Asoka, the pilgrimages spread throughout Buddhism regions and beyond the margins into the new cultures and distance lands. Doi Suthep, within the region of Chiang Mai in the former Lana Kingdom, acts as a great demonstration for the regional and national Buddhist pilgrimage site which resulted from the works of Asoka. Such sites were often established to the house of relic of Buddha. The very first shrine was built in Doi Suthep at 1383 after the excavation of a bone which was believed to be Buddha’s shoulder (Covell and Rowe 2004). It is claimed that one of the monks got a revelation about the bone in a dream. A fragment of the bone was kept by the king in the white elephant, which was sacred in Thailand, and then he released the beast into the jungle. The beast climbed some high and promontory regions where it died, which was a sign that this relic belonged at that particular spot. For many centuries, this shrine has undergone many developments, with inclusion of multiplicity of shrines, which include the white elephant statue. There is a bodhi tree that is grown from cutting that was drown from the tree under which bodhi received the enlightenment, thus attracting many pilgrims. Pilgrims decorate the fence to the tree with tiny prayer pennants and women flowers. A number of shrines have become animist as well (Ketelaar 1990). People picnic and mingle in an easy as well as relaxed atmosphere. Boys who are entering the period of monkhood or even processions for wedding under the golden umbrellas that are wend in the mannerism along the open plazas. Accessing Doi Suthep is not a hard task owing to the fact that it is located near a major city. However, there are some long stairways that one has to negotiate in order to reach the shrines. Just like many other shrines in Japan, Doi Suthep provides allowances for the tourists and the pilgrims who desire to use an elevator to the position of the shrine (Sekimori 2011). There are some common pilgrimage practices. Upon arrival to the shrine, the pilgrim is required to walk clockwise around it. The ritual practice is popularly known as circumambulation, which is found among pilgrimages of medieval Christians. The idea behind the spiritual act is to keep sacred the right side of the devotee’s body. The circling takes place irrespective of the nature and location of the shrine, whether on the mountain, single stupa or monasteries. The Tiberian pilgrim normally circles the Kailas Mountain on the bellies or on their knees, often taking a whole day to complete the whole circuit. At the temples that act as some of the shrines for pilgrimages within Kathmadu, the pilgrims walk around as they spin the prayer wheels that are set at the bases of the temple bases. They also offer prayer flags, flowers, and/or candles that are left there. Another custom involves buying golden leaf sheets and applying them upon the statue of Buddha that is considered as a fortune or great merit key (Swanson 1981). “Pilgrimages developed as a lay religion activity during the Heian era, at which time the practice was especially associated with the upper echelons of society: Many of the pilgrims were aristocrats and (especially in the pilgrimages to Kumano) retired emperors” (Swanson 1981). However they did not make the pilgrimages in different guise or even a different intention from those within the lower strata from as late as Heian’s era, onwards. Even though there was some class division within the modes of travel (aristocrats went by horsebacks as they rules in the company of their servants as the ordinary people walked by foot) the desire for acquiring some practical benefits from the pilgrimages, which was shared by all the people. Aristocrats established on their pilgrimages the intention of acquiring practical benefits as did the artisans (Sekimori 2011). Perhaps, at times, those with dissimilar stations within life would seek diversified types of benefits, with the leading aristocrats or the retired emperors involved in the law systems/courts intrigued more likely petition of Buddha ad gods for the benefits related to their temporal powers than the artisans would. Pilgrimages were also characterized by egalitarianism, in that the pilgrims, irrespective of how he/she made the pilgrimage, acquired equal within the gates of the temples. At the pilgrimage gateway to the temples of pilgrimage, one will often find some stones with the ideograms dismount from the horse, thus the term “geba”. Such markers could be seen in all the temples gates such as Matsunoodera at the northern Kyoto prefecture, which is the 29th temple within Saikoku pilgrimage, also a path that leads to Shiromineji of the 88 pilgrimages sites of Shikoku. The convergence ideology, which implied the similarity of all the robes of the pilgrims, is prevalent among the Japanese even if there remain some important distinctions, between them within practice. Therefore, pilgrimages serve as appropriate examples for unifying dynamics of particular religion, such as Buddhism, practical benefits. Pilgrimages provide means via which every individual could seek the pertinent benefits to the common setting situation (Reader & Tenabe 1998). Conclusion The development of pilgrimages within Japanese society could greatly be conditioned to geographical, cultural, religious or topographical factors. There were there primary types of pilgrimages among the Japanese: Pilgrimage to the sacred mountains, pilgrimage to the shrines and temples based on the enshrined divinities and pilgrims to the sacred places, which are based on special powers of charismatic persons such as Buddha. The pilgrimages to the sacred mountains were founded on Buddhist notion of jiriki, self power, an idea that made those who are self strong via ascetic practices (Morishita 2001). Buddhists believed that there was a need of training for one to obtain some special powers, which were acquired through regular visits to the holy mountains. The non-Buddhists specialists like the healers, the ascetics and the shamans as well as the greater public also acquired the special powers. During the Middle Ages (twelfth and eleventh) aristocrats believed in pilgrimages to the sacred mountains to help them experience Pure Land while they were still living. Moreover, it was believed that kami of the mountains were manifestations of the Buddhists divinities; they were merely special ascetics, and would be guided by the aristocrats within the region. By the nineteenth century, there were more that 17,000 senior guides that were familiar with the sacred mountains (Morishita 2001). Even as the aristocracy and courtship declined during the initial days of Tokugawa era, there was a novel phenomenon emerging in already existing mountain pilgrimage beliefs. There were four major pilgrimage sites that had been recommended by Buddha. These are the regions that Buddha is believed to have lived, preached sermons or performed his first miracles. In conclusion, the study has noted that there was a strong interaction between Buddhism and pilgrimages. From the thirteenth century, Buddhism was greatly influenced by pilgrimages. The devotees to Buddhist religion were greatly inclined to the teachings of Buddha, who required them to do pilgrimages to the four great places, for the sake of their faith. The pilgrimages greatly influenced the spread of Buddhism to people along the routes to the shrines and temples for pilgrim. Even in today’s Japanese society, pilgrims are quite widespread: They are practiced in the endeavor to realize religious objectives. References Alisal, Ackermann, Dolores 2007, Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan, Routledge, New York. Brockman, N 2011, Encyclopedia of Sacred Places, ABC-CLIO, New York. Cole, T 2000, Selling the Holocaust: from Auschwitz to Schindler : how history is bought, packaged, and sold. Routledge, New York. Covell S & Rowe M 2004, Editors' Introduction: Traditional Buddhism in Contemporary Japan. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 31(2), pp. 245-254. Covell, S 2005, Japanese Temple Buddhism: Worldliness in a Religion of Renunciation, University of Hawaii Press: Hawaii. Jaffe, R 2002, Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical marriage in modern Japanese Buddhism, Princeton University Press, New York.  Kaempfer E, 1995, The History of Japan: Together with a Description of the Kingdom of Siam. Ketelaar, J 1990, Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and its Persecutions, Princeton University Press, New York. Kitagawa 1987, On understanding Japanese religion, Princeton University Press., New Jersey. Lopez, D 1995, Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism, University of Chicago Press: Chicago.  Morishita, S 2001, Teodori: cosmological building and social consolidation in a ritual dance, Gregorian & Biblical BookShop. Reader, I & Tenabe, G 1998, Practically religious: worldly benefits and the common religion of Japan, University of Hawaii Press. Reynolds, J 2001, Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition, The Art Bulletin, 83(2), pp. 316-341. Sekimori G 2011, Path to Mystic Power Via Ascetic Practices: Merger of Mountain Worship, Shamanism, Shintoism, Taoism, & Buddhism, Viewed from http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/shugendou.html Shahshahani 2011, Cities of Pilgrimage, LIT Verlag Munster: New Jersey. Suzuki, D 1959, Zen and Japanese Culture, Routledge, New York. Swanson P, 1981, Shugendo and the Yoshino-Kumano Pilgrimage: An Example of Mountain Pilgrimage, Monumenta Nipponica, 36(1), pp. 55-84.  Swanson, L & Chilson C 2006, Nanzan guide to Japanese religion, University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii. Victoria, B 1997, Zen at War, Weatherhill: London. Webb, D 2001, Pilgrims and pilgrimage in the medieval West, I.B.Tauris: New York. Read More