Japanese Theater (Week 1b) INTRO TO SHAMANISM AND BUDDHISM

I. Intro to Shamanism

A. What is shamanism? Who or what is a shaman?
 
1. A shaman conjures spirits into or out of human beings (and may themselves be spirit-possessed)
 
a. cf. modern day "channelling" and exoricisms

B. When and where did shamanism originate?

 

1. Around 10,000 BCE in Siberia, spreading to Americas and Asia

 

a. Image of turtle shell used for divinition (1500-1200 BC)

b. Image of prehistoric Japanese female shaman

C. Shamanistic World View

 

1. Familiar human (material) world

2. Spiritual World

D. What can shamans do?
 

1.

2.

3.

E. How do they do it?

 


1. Achieve a trance state by:

a. rhythmical sounds (strumming a catalpa bow; Noh drums and flute)

b. dance

c. torimono

Image: Japanese female shaman (miko) with torimono

Image: Shinto priests with sakaki branches for purification

F. Two forms of trance

 
1. Dream vision travel (out of body experience)

2. Possession

G. After introduction of Buddhism, by about 9th century two main kinds of Japanese shamans developed:

 
1. passive medium (miko)
 
a. mainly female, mainly use possession trance
b. "She can enter a state of trance in which the spiritual apparition may possess her, penetrate inside her body and use her voice to name itself and make its utterance. She is therefore primarily a transmitter, a vessel through whom the spiritual beings can make their communications to us in a comprehensible way." (Carmen Blacker, The Catalpa Bow, p. 22)

c. But note that prior to introduction of Buddhism (and even later, in rural areas where institutional Buddhism wasn't as strong) miko were sometimes also active mediums.

Images: Pre-Buddhist Female Shamans

Images: modern Korean female shamans

2. Active ascetic (often Yamabushi "mountain ascetics" or esoteric Buddhist priests) who gain power through spiritual practices (meditation and ascetic discipline of the body)

a. mainly male, mainly use dream vision trance

Images: modern Japanese yamabushi

II. Native Deities

A. What are kami (Japanese native deities) and what do they look like?

 
1.  Began as any numinous manifestation (hierophany) of the sacred, mainly in natural phenomena (similar to nature deities throughout Asia)
 

a. Therefore can take on a wide variety of forms and characteristics (Catalpa Bow, p. 35)

b. Natural phenomena include:

1) unusual natural objects (waterfalls, rocks, mountains, trees)

IMAGE: waterfall with shimenawa (sacred rope)

2) thunder and lightening (rain deities)

3) epidemic illness (disease deities)
B. When do they take on human-like form?
C. Visible Forms (some of these "kami" have merged with Buddhist deities)
 

1. Aristocratic men/women

 
IMAGE of Hachiman and female attendants
2. Sacred old man, okina

IMAGE of okina in Noh
IMAGE of Sumiyoshi deity (patron deity of poetry) appearing to the poet Fujiwara Teika in a dream as okina
3. Serpents, snakes, dragons (native deities that now defend Buddhism)
 

IMAGE of dragon king (often called upon in Noh plays to defeat demons)

4. Guardian King Deities (originally native deities that now now defend Buddhism)

IMAGE of Guardian Kings, Myôô (often called upon in Noh plays to defeat demons)
4. Thundergod (raijin, kaminari)
IMAGES of thunder and lightening deities
IMAGES in Noh play Kamo

III. Spirits

A. Tama ("soul")

1.  "An entity which resides in some host, to which it imparts life and vitality..." (Catalpa Bow, p. 43)
2. visible as round, glowing ball (tama means “round jewel”)
 

IMAGE of tama (hitodama) from the 19th century

a. Ikiryô (living spirit)

 

B. What should happen to tama after they leave the body for good?

 
1. Shinto thinking: ujigami (the communal ancestral spirit/kami)
 

a. e.g. Amaterasu Omikami as ujigami of Yamato Clan



2. Buddhist thinking: jôbutsu (becoming a Buddha)

 

IV. Introduction to Buddhism

A. Basic Premises

 

1. Perception of this world as SAMSARA (constant flow, movement, change)

2. Belief in reincarnation

3. Belief in karma (the law of causality, that our actions, good and bad, cause effects)
 

IMAGE: cartoon about karma and reincarnation

B. Goal of Buddhism

 

1. To break cycle of death and rebirth (achieve Nirvana)

 

C. Why isn’t reincarnation seen as good?

D. Problem of Passionate Attachments

1. Cause karma and therefore rebirth

2. Rebirth may be as a hungry ghost or in hell

 

IMAGES of ghosts and hell

 

V. Ghosts in Noh plays

A. How do you become a ghost?

 
1.
2.
3.

B. Most important reason:

 

1.

a.  shiryō who has died violently and is angry (onryō) or with deep passion in their heart
b. shiryō who has died without family or descendants (muenbotoke, a spirit with no "link" [en] to the living)

C. Result

 
1. The tama as shiryō does not proceed as it should (kami or buddha)

2. May be tortured in hell by their passionate attachments and will come back to haunt the living in order to get help from Buddhist priests  (basic plot of many Noh plays)

VI. Elements of Shamanism/Buddhism in Noh

A. Performance Elements (true of all Noh)

1. Music: drumming, flute, kakegoe by drummers

2. use of torimono by shite (main character)

3. Dance by shite
4. Stage:
    a. Pine tree (a yorishiro, dwelling place for the kami)

    b. Bridge (hashigakari)

B. Shamanistic Buddhism in Adachigahara

1. Structured overtly as a shamanic exorcism ritual by Buddhist priests

 

a. Use of Mantras and dharani (Buddhist spells)

1)  Recites incantations in pseudo-Sanskrit 
2) Calling upon Buddhist deities such as Guardian Kings, Fudō Myōō, Dragon Kings

b. Use of rosary beads, mudras (ritual hand gestures)

 

B. Shamanistic Buddhism in Kinuta (The Fulling Block)

 

1. Basic Story

2. Structure of second half is an overt Buddhist pacification ceremony commissioned by husband for his dead wife

 

a. Implication that the woman is appearing through the medium of a miko

 
1) "Yet from beneath the sod, I hear,  there is a way to bring her once again, to call her to the curved bow's tip, poor soul, that we two may speak." (167)


2) curved bow = catalpa bow used by miko to call up spirit

b. Role of passionate attachment
1) "anger creeping like a vine only spreads. My face, oh shame, is the very face of desparate clinging!" (169)


c. Spirit of wife describes existence in hell (reenactment is cathartic)

1) "Yet love's lustful karma rules me still. Fires of longing smoulder night and day. Now as before, I have no peace: this sin, a heart in pain, yields me its reward: assaults of hell-fiends, the Ahorasetsu, brandishing their rods and raining blows. Beat on, beat on they howl), as you deserve, the [fulling] block; for all my hate reaps me the fruit of wrongful clinging." (168)


e. Chanting of Buddhist Lotus Sutra commissioned by husband releases her from hell

 

1) "So powerful, the chanted Lotus Sutra, before the spirit a bright path of light opens out straight to Buddhahood." (170)

 

3. Image of fulling block and problem of hell in Noh

a. hell as individualized, metaphorical place (no different from this world)

b. role of image of fulling block in first half of the play

c. role of image of fulling block in second half of the play

d. fulling block's connection to Lotus Sutra and woman's release from hell

"See, how from the block she briefly beat,
its complaint her own, a perfect flower
has blossomed; the True [Buddhist] Teaching,
now the seed of her illumination." (170)