Organizer: Robert L. Brown, University of California, Los Angeles
Chair and Discussant: John Strong, Bates College
The panel asks to what extent literature and art are actual creators of pilgrimage traditions and concepts of sacred space, rather than their reflections. According to the papers presented in this panel, sacred space and the need to connect physically to it are created by the poetry, paintings, inscriptions, architecture, and sculpture that scholars have so often considered as merely a "record" of pilgrimage activity or an ancillary artifact of pilgrimage.
The panel explores how sacred places and journeys were depicted in three Asian cultures, India, China, and Japan, and two Asian religious traditions, Buddhism and Jainism. The papers share a common concern to examine what literary and artistic representations of sacred places can tell us about how pilgrimage traditions are developed and defined. The ritual and doctrinal motivations for pilgrimage are found to be in some cases of secondary importance to, or at least at variance with, the sacred places being constructed in words, paint, and stone that have a reality and significance of their own.
Each paper approaches its subject from a different perspective, in an effort to elucidate the various angles which may be fruitful in achieving a comprehensive understanding of the complex issues. Our experience with comparative projects has led us to the conclusion that the comparative encounter is a vital stimulus for framing general questions and assessing the relevance of conclusions that we each arrive at from our specialist's point of view. We propose to use this panel as the occasion to listen carefully to each other's presentations and the audience's comments.
Japanese Pilgrimages at Nachi
Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Boston University
Priests of the Japanese seaside temple of Fudarakusenji in the town of Nachi, Wakayama Prefecture, tend memorial monuments dedicated to twenty-five unusually devout pilgrims. In the years between 868 and 1722 A.D., these pilgrims set sail from the port of Nachi, bound for the Pure Land of bodhisattva Kannon (Skt. Avalokitesvara). They embarked in rudderless, oarless boats, often nailed into coffin-like boxes. This paper will discuss the 16th and 17th century paintings called Nachi pilgrimage mandara (Skt. mandala), which not only commemorate those suicidal pilgrims but also depict the precincts of the Nachi shrine at Kumano and safer pilgrimage routes on land.
Kumano, a shrine complex on the southeastern coast of the Kii Peninsula, comprises three shrines, one of which is Nachi Shrine. Many elements of worship converge at Kumano-kami veneration (Shinto), Tantric Buddhist, Pure Land Buddhist, and shamanistic. The area was also identified with the Western Pure Land of the Buddha Amida (Skt. Amitabha).
In the 16th century, new and popular paintings of Nachi shrine emerged, the Nachi pilgrimage mandara, which were used for preaching, proselytizing, and fundraising. The appearance of these paintings coincided with the increasing popularity from the 15th century onward of a grand pilgrimage route dedicated to Kannon. Nachi was associated with Kannon whose Pure Land became identified as an imaginary island off the coast of Nachi, and it was to this place that some pilgrims set sail on their one-way journeys. The boats depicted in the paintings convey an ambiguous message, suggesting not only departure for Kannon's Pure Land, but also arrival at the sacred realm.
Chen Xunyu's Essay on Mt. Lu: Literary Construction of the Sacred Space in
Traditional China
Koichi Shinohara, McMaster University
My paper will examine how a sacred site and important pilgrimage center is constructed in a written record. A large body of records on sacred mountains and temples in China exists, in which diverse writings directly related to these locations are collected. Here I will focus on Lushan Ji by Chen Xunyu. This record of Mt. Lu is organized into eight parts, two of which describe in detail the temples and sacred locations on the mountain. This description is a carefully drawn literary map of the mountain in which various sacred spots are combined with their histories.
Li Chang's preface to the Lushan Ji explains that Chen traveled through various parts of the mountain for six days, suggesting that the detailed map is largely based on his own visit. He also carefully notes the sources of his historical information, while literary references to specific locations are supplemented by a collection of poetry. The biographical collection of 18 sages relates directly to the account of the formation of the Pure Land society in the work. These supplementary lists and collections enables us to follow some of the steps that Chen took to construct his literary account of Mt. Lu.
Starting from the assumption that sacred space is constructed, I will examine the rhetoric of sacred space in traditional China, paying particular attention to two issues: (1) how geography (space) and history (time) are combined in this rhetoric; and (2) how the rhetoric draws from different religious traditions (Buddhism, Taoism, and local cults).
The Erotics of Sacred Space: Mt. Girnar and Mt. Saturnjaya in the Jain Religious
Imagination
Phyllis Granoff, McMaster University
Two famous places of pilgrimage for medieval Jains were the mountains of Girnar and Saturnjaya. There are both literary and painted records of pilgrimages to these mountains, both at times commemorating actual journeys. Yet, I contend that the literary texts and the paintings seem in fact to be quite distinct. The poems make ample use of the conventions of Sanskrit court poetry and describe the sacred sites along the conventional model of wonderful mountains in classical Sanskrit poetry. Thus Girnar becomes the typical sacred mountain on which dwell heavenly damsels and their lovers; the six seasons all attend upon the mountain, which is described as a veritable paradise, and a delight to the senses. All of this is of course at variance with normative accounts of why the mountains are sacred in the Jain tradition; they are the place where some tirthankaras and their followers practiced asceticism and attained nirvana.
The paintings appear to be freer of the weight of established convention than the Sanskrit texts. They show much greater variability between themselves, and concentrate on the pomp and splendor of the pilgrimage party, the depiction of temples and images, and the pious rituals associated with the journey and with worship at the temples.
My hypothesis is that the "construction" of a sacred space depends on the nature of the "building materials." When the Jain sacred space is constructed in a literary text, for example, the resulting description takes the shape given it by poetic convention and not normative religious discourse.
Buddhist Pilgrimage in Ancient India: Myth or Fact?
Robert L. Brown, University of California, Los Angeles
Pilgrimage to Buddhist sites in India is usually considered by scholars an essential part of religious practice. However, the Buddhist pilgrimage tradition in India may be very much exaggerated by scholars today. Indeed, the literary and artistic evidence tends not to support the argument that pilgrimage was practiced to any great extent. Rather, this evidence (rather than the act) has become the definer of our notion of pilgrimage, which is misinterpreted as a recording of history.
Three instances of misinterpretation of evidence are given: (1) that King Asoka was a "typical" Indian pilgrim and his pilgrimage a model for lay devotees in general, while in fact King Asoka's pilgrimage was more a political than a religious act that was in most ways unique; (2) that the Chinese pilgrims were examples of Indian pilgrimage, while they traveled around India with specific objectives not shared by Indian Buddhists; and (3) that the earliest Buddhist donative inscriptions, from sites like Sanchi, indicate early pilgrimage, while we do not know if the individuals named went to the site at all.
Thus, this paper problematizes the almost universal acceptance by scholars that Buddhist pilgrimage was an essential part of Buddhist practice in India. At least the evidence used for this notion cannot be read as a simple continuous record of historical (f)acts but is made up of autonomous, regional narratives, each culturally specific.