Japanese Ghosts EA 116

Week 2 Online Lecture Outline: Religious and Political Context for Sugawara no Michizane

I. The historical development of Angry Ghosts (goryô)

A. Could a belief in kami (ekijin and raijin) and goryô be rational?

    1. Rationality of religious belief

      2. EKIJIN (kami of disease) as explanation for epidemics (typhoid fever, smallpox, leprosy, tuberculosis)

      3. EKIJIN combine with other nature kami such as RAIJIN (thunder deity) and with GORYÔ/ONRYÔ


    B. How did kami (ekijin and raijin) and goryô become tied to social protest/unrest?

       
      1. Confucian (Chinese) belief in harmony between virtuous ruler and state of nature

      a. "Disasters of all kinds were a barometer of social injustices" (Neil McMullin)
       

    C. How did belief in goryô help deal with cultural anxiety about societal problems?
     
      1. Functioned as explanation for:

      2. Functioned as form of:


    D . Description of GORYÔ-E (rituals of pacification for departed spirits)
     

      1. Syncretic (combined a number of different elements from different religions)

      2. Included elements of:

      a.

      b.

      c.

      3. What a goryô-e looked like:

      a. basic format: call the deity down, entertain it, and send it back

      1) music and dance

      2) horse races and archery on horseback

      b. Why might the governing aristocracy have not liked this kind of peasant organized goryô-e?

II. How does the political/economic situation in Japan contribute to a belief in angry ghosts?

    A. Why would there be any political unrest at this time? What is the political situation in the 9th century?

    1. Heian aristocratic politics

           a. Northern branch of the Fujiwara clan

                 b. What are they doing that is likely to create angry ghosts?

B. Urbanization of Japan

 

C. Peasants' point of view of combination of ekijin and goryô:

1. pacification rituals as indirect critiques

a. explains suppression of peasant-organized goryô-e
 

    D. Aristocrats' point of view

     
    1. Earliest e.g. of political gory?: Crown Prince Sawara (d. 785) exiled to Awaji island for supposedly being involved in assassination plot.

    a.peasants in Awaji complain and court sends Buddhist monks in 797 and 799.

    b. in 800 posthumously given the title of Emperor Sudô and buried in an Imperial tomb [Blacker, pp. 48-49]

    2. First state-supported GORYÔ-E in 863 sponsored by the Fujiwara to pacify six people who had died prematurely because of them (including Sawara)

    3. What would this accomplish for the Fujiwara?

    a.

    b.