Rituals of Initiation and Consecration in Premodern Japan: Power and Legitimacy in Kingship, Religion, and the Arts - Hardcover

by Fabio Rambelli (Editor), Or Porath (Editor)

In premodern Japan, legitimization of power and knowledge in various contexts was sanctioned by consecration rituals (kanjō) of Buddhist origin. This is the first book to address in a comprehensive way the multiple forms and aspects of these rituals also in relation to other Asian contexts.
The multidisciplinary chapters in the book address the origins of these rituals in ancient Persia and India and their developments in China and Tibet, before discussing in depth their transformations in medieval Japan. In particular, kanjō rituals are examined from various perspectives: imperial ceremonies, Buddhist monastic rituals, vernacular religious forms (Shugendō mountain cults, Shinto lineages), rituals of bodily transformation involving sexual practice, and the performing arts: a history of these developments, descriptions of actual rituals, and reference to religious and intellectual arguments based on under-examined primary sources. No other book presents so many cases of kanjō in such depth and breadth.
This book is relevant to readers interested in Buddhist studies, Japanese religions, the history of Japanese culture, and in the intersections between religious doctrines, rituals, legitimization, and performance

Back Jacket

The first interdisciplinary collection of essays on a central Japanese Buddhist ritual called kanjō ("pouring water on the top of the head"), a variant of the ancient Indian abhiṣeka ritual. This book traces the history of this ritual from ancient Persia and India, where it was used to consecrate a new king at the time of the enthronement, to its momentous adoption by Buddhism, when it became the ritual to appoint a new monk. In this form, it spread to China and Tibet and further east to Japan, where it was performed in a wide range of occasions and transformed in response to local cults.

Author Biography

Fabio Rambelli, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA and Or Porath, Leiden University, Netherlands.