Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku as a Combinatory Paradigm [Hardcover]

This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the combinatory tradition that dominated premodern and early modern Japanese religion, known as honji suijaku (originals and their traces). It questions received, simplified accounts of the interactions between Shinto and Japanese Buddhism, and presents a more dynamic and variegated religious world, one in which the deities' Buddhist originals and local traces did not constitute one-to-one associations, but complex combinations of multiple deities based on semiotic operations, doctrines, myths, and legends. The book's essays, all based on specific case studies, discuss the honji suijaku paradigm from a number of different perspectives, always integrating historical and doctrinal analysis with interpretive insights.This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the combinatory tradition that dominated premodern and early modern Japanese religion, known as honji suijaku (originals and their traces).Mark Teeuwen teaches at the University of Oslo, Norway. He specialises in the history of Shinto.
Fabio Ramballi teaches at Sapporo University, Japan. He specialises in the history of Buddhism, particularly Esoteric Buddhism in Japan.Contributors Preface 1. Introduction: Combinatory religion and the honji suijaku paradigm in pre-modern Japan Mark Teeuwen and Fabio Rambelli 2. From thunder child to Dharma protector: Dojo hoshi and the Buddhist appropriation of Japanese local deities Irene Lin 3. The source of oracular speech: absense? presence? or plain treachery? The case of Hachiman Usa-gú gotakusenshú Allan Grapard 4. Wrathful Deities and saving deities Sato Hiroo 5. The creation of a honji suijaku deity: Amaterasu as the Judge of the Dead Mark Teeuwen 6. Honji suijaku and the logic of combinatory images: Two case studies Iyanaga Nobumi 7. Honji suijaku and the development of etymological lãC