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Return to Contents, Volume XXVII, Southeast Review of Asian Studies

MYTHOLOGIES AND MIRACLES: THE SAIKOKU KANNON

PEREGRINOGENESIS

STEVEN. E. GUMP

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

Introduction: Saikoku Kannon Peregrinology and Peregrinogenesis

Although the term “peregrinology,” referring to the study of pilgrimage, has recently resurfaced in modern scholarship,[1] the term “peregrinogenesis” is, to my knowledge, a neologism. Within the context of this paper, I use the term to refer to the establishment of one particular pilgrimage: the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage 西国観音巡礼, a route pilgrimage to thirty-three temples in Western Japan dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon 観音 (Skt. Avalokiteśvara). Legend dates the founding of the Saikoku pilgrimage to as early as the eighth century (718), yet the earliest historical evidence situates the establishment of the pilgrimage in the twelfth century. The current order, as practiced today, was furthermore not codified until the fifteenth century. As Gorai Shigeru 五来重 relates, because we have no records of many of the popular peregrinogenesis tales that have been handed down, “getting a precise grasp” (的確に把握すること) on the true origins of the Saikoku route is difficult.[2]

In this paper, I examine these mythological tales of the Saikoku peregrinogenesis and compare them with the historical records available to the modern scholar. Clearly, as records show that two of the temples on the present thirty-three temple circuit were not founded until the first half of the eleventh century,[3] the earliest legends associated with the Saikoku route are little more than myths. The peregrinogenesis stories are perpetuated in pilgrimage guidebooks, by legends associated with the temples themselves, and by pilgrims who continue to travel the route; thus, they add a dimension to the very fabric of the pilgrimage experience. But how related are these myths to the founding and meaning of the Saikoku pilgrimage? And why, then, have these legends persisted?

In order to consider these questions, I first briefly introduce two broader topics: the ubiquitous nature of pilgrimage within world religious traditions and the more specific roles of pilgrimage in Japan. After creating a context with which to frame the discussion that follows, I turn to a brief examination of the bodhisattva Kannon, whose sculpted images, miracle stories, and transcendental compassion create the backbone of the Saikoku pilgrimage circuit. Only after this foundation is laid do I offer a summary of two particular myths and legends commonly associated with the founding of the Saikoku pilgrimage route. Finally, I examine the historical material, primarily through secondary studies, and attempt to rectify the accounts. Although I cannot claim to be able to discover the “true” origins of the Saikoku route, I hope my exercise into examining its peregrinogenesis sheds light on the meaning and use of the foundation myths and miracles associated with the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage, which, through its geographical, spatial, and temporal locations, revolves around the very “heart . . . of the Japanese cultural past.”[4]

The Field of Peregrinology in Perspective

Ian Reader describes pilgrimage as “one of the most universal of all religious phenomena,” and he is far from alone in this declaration.[5] Not only religious scholars but also historians, theologians, social geographers, and social anthropologists have become fascinated with the subject that is well-nigh ubiquitous among religious traditions and that has carried—and continues to carry—the faithful to Mecca, Jerusalem, Lourdes, Fatima, Canterbury, Kathmandu, Kumano 熊野, Ise 伊勢, and innumerable other sacred locations around the world. Naturally, then, comparative studies are possible (and popular) within the field of peregrinology. For example, Victor Turner’s model of pilgrimage as a liminal experience that exposes pilgrims to the depth of a religious tradition, revitalizing and rebinding the religious community (which he terms “communitas”) in the process,[6] has had wide application; it has even been appropriated by Western scholars of Japanese pilgrimage, including William LaFleur and James Foard.[7]

Before turning to pilgrimage in Japan, however, the concept of pilgrimage itself must be defined. I cannot improve on a definition put forth by Ian Reader and Paul L. Swanson, so I reproduce it here: Pilgrimage is both

a process and practice whereby people (pilgrims) make special journeys to or through sacred locations and engage in acts of worship, and . . . an institution that includes and is composed of all the various component parts and elements that surround that process.[8]

From the strictest religious perspective, pilgrimages are “properly” undertaken for personal spiritual reasons. As “special journeys,” then, pilgrimages may involve, in addition to performance of the physical journey itself, any or all of the following: worship, quest, departure from routine, and separation from the mundane.[9] Even though I will not specifically analyze the Saikoku pilgrimage example to assess how well it fits this ecumenical paradigm, the material I present below will create a picture of one particular pilgrimage in Japan and could easily be used as a basis for such a comparison.

Peregrinology and Pilgrimage in Japan

Japanese pilgrimage has been the subject of much recent scholarship, both in the West and in Japan. Two helpful evaluations of recent work, both of which include extensive bibliographies, are Ian Reader and Paul L. Swanson’s “Pilgrimage in the Japanese Religious Tradition” (see note 8) and Barbara Ambros’s forthcoming essay entitled “Geography and Environment.”[10] The following comments have been shaped primarily by ideas presented in works mentioned in those two surveys.

Although associated with ritual peregrinations of hijiri 聖 (wandering ascetics or holy people), widespread pilgrimage in Japan began with religious journeys of aristocrats during the Heian 平安 period (795–1185) and reached an apex of popularity with mass movements of commoners during the Tokugawa 徳川 period (1600–1868).[11] Pilgrimages are typically either to a set place (an act that posits the notion of a religious or spiritual center) or along a set route; pilgrimages to the Ise or Kumano shrines, mentioned earlier in my listing of pilgrimage sites, typify pilgrimages to set places, while the Saikoku Kannon circuit exemplifies a route pilgrimage. In all cases, pilgrimages revolve around sites that are “invested with sanctity by tradition.”[12] Pilgrimage in Japan is not exclusive to any particular religious tradition or sect; the Ise pilgrimage is Shintō[13] in nature, and most route pilgrimages involve multiple Buddhist sites, often including those with different sectarian orientations.[14]

Japanese pilgrimages fit into both categories of group and individual ritual practices. Reader identifies two religious reasons for pilgrimage, both of which are germane to the Saikoku Kannon route: (1) to experience “transcendent salvation” by accumulating religious merit and (2) to seek the “this-worldly benefits” (genze riyaku 現世利益) of, in this case, the bodhisattva Kannon.[15] Pilgrimages are also commonly undertaken for the fulfillment of vows (on anniversaries of deaths of relatives, for example).

Finally, Joseph Kitagawa developed another potentially useful typology for the study of Japanese pilgrimages: (1) pilgrimages to sacred mountains, (2) pilgrimages organized around a divinity or a sacred presence, and (3) pilgrimages organized around the life of a founder of a religious tradition or another holy person.[16] The Saikoku route, based on sacred sites associated with miracles of the bodhisattva Kannon, typifies Kitagawa’s second type of pilgrimage.[17] Before considering the pilgrimage itself in more detail, I briefly look at the bodhisattva Kannon to gain a better understanding of how this Buddhist figure could have been popular enough to warrant the founding of a pilgrimage.[18]

Kannon: The Compassionate Bodhisattva

Who is Kannon, and what influence has this figure had on Japanese culture and religiosity? Oliver Statler, in Japanese Pilgrimage, offers that

Kannon has always been popular among the Japanese. . . . From the ninth to twelfth centuries worship of Kannon came to full flower: of the treasured statues from that period, the majority are of Kannon; there came into being a pilgrimage to thirty-three Kannon temples stretched across the waist of Honshu.[19]

What is it, then, that Kannon had done to be so popular as to warrant the sculpting of “treasured statues” and the establishment of a pilgrimage to thirty-three sites? Indeed, the pilgrimage was already so popular by the Muromachi 室町 era (1334–1573)[20] that a Zen text from that period had the following to say about it: “Whether warrior or commoner, not once doing the Saikoku pilgrimage would be the shame of one’s whole life.”[21] Before I turn to the pilgrimage itself, I must first give some attention to Kannon, a bodhisattva par excellence.

Within the Buddhist tradition,[22] bodhisattvas, fulfilling a vow to attain enlightenment, must perfect a series of virtues, an exercise that typically involves helping other sentient beings (who are at earlier stages along the Buddhist path) when in distress.[23] The very name of Kannon is a translation of the Sanskrit Avalokiteśvara, the “Regarder of the Cries of the World,” the focus of Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sūtra (Hokkekyō 法華経).[24] In Japan, this chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, called the Kannon-kyō 観音経, is often recited independently from the rest of the sutra. The chapter teaches the saving power of Kannon over the seven calamities (fire, flood, storm, weapons, demons, enemies, and inner evils) and over the three poisons (greed, anger, and stupidity).[25] Like the practice of pilgrimage in Japan, worship of Kannon is not an exclusive characteristic of any particular Buddhist sect; this fact helps to explain Kannon’s popularity. Nor is Kannon worship limited to any particular class of people.[26] Indeed, Kannon is important on some level to all Japanese Buddhists; but more actual acts of veneration center on images of the bodhisattva than on scriptures pertaining to her.[27] How fitting it is, then, that the Saikoku pilgrimage centers on temples wherein images of the bodhisattva are enshrined.[28]

Stories about Kannon’s miraculous powers rose to prominence in Japan between the eighth and twelfth centuries—the same time frame in which the stories of the Saikoku peregrinogenesis arose. Many Kannon miracle stories were recorded in collections of Buddhist morality tales, such as the Konjaku monogatarishū 今昔物語集 (ca. 1120) or the Dainihonkoku hokekyōkenki 大日本国法華経験記 (1174).[29] The majority of these stories relate how devout Kannon-worshipers are saved from death in amazing ways; the stories thus provide examples of miraculous deeds that demonstrate the extent of Kannon’s compassion for those in need. The stories frequently involve Kannon taking on one of the thirty-three manifestations or incarnations (keshin 化身) that are detailed in Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra.[30] Hence the thirty-three sacred sites on the Saikoku pilgrimage are with scriptural precedent and, thus, imbued with significant sacred meaning.[31]

Since Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sūtra provides the fundamental narrative describing what Kannon can do for the faithful, and the miracle tales told in collections such as the Konjaku monogatarishū provide examples of Kannon’s compassion and miraculous abilities, it is only fitting, then, to begin a discussion of the peregrinogenesis of the Saikoku Kannon route with an investigation into the earliest stories that account for the founding of the pilgrimage. The two most prevalent stories involve two historical figures: the Buddhist monk Tokudō 徳道 (656–735) and Emperor Kazan 花山 (968–1008, r. 984–6). I shall address each of these stories in turn.

Mythological Origins of the Saikoku Kannon Pilgrimage

Tokudō and His Dream

Born in Harima 播磨 province[32] in 656, Tokudō left his father at age eleven and his mother at age nineteen, taking the solitary life of a Buddhist ascetic and eventually settling at the Hase-dera 長谷寺 (in present-day Nara Prefecture) for ascetic training.[33] In 727, when Emperor Shōmu 聖武 (701–56, r. 724–49) issued an order for a statue of Kannon to be erected at the Hase-dera, Tokudō was the carver; this particular story is shrouded in its own legends.[34] The particular myth that associates Tokudō with the Saikoku pilgrimage, however, is different and has many versions; and Sawa Ryūken 佐和隆研, for example, presents the problem faced by all Japanese religious historians regarding this myth when he states that he does not know precisely when the prototypical story, if there was one, first appeared.[35] James Foard recounts the version from the Saikoku sanjūsansho Kannon reijōki zue 西国三十三所観音霊場記図会 (1845) as follows: In the eighth century, Tokudō

became sick unto death and descended to hell, where he met Emma, the Lord of Hell. Since he had seen beings falling into hell like rain, the Lord of Hell instructed Tokudō in the pilgrimage course of thirty-three stations that Kannon had established in Japan, explaining that those who walk this course will attain merit enough to escape innumerable hells. Because Tokudō had the merit of a bodhisattva, Emma had summoned him to tell him of this pilgrimage. Tokudō was then guided back to this world, where his disciples still waited by his body, which had remained warm for three days.[36]

Although the gist of the dream-sequence story as recounted by Foard is largely the same in most other accounts, some of which even pinpoint 718 as the year in which Tokudō had his famous oneiric encounter with Emma 閻魔,[37] the version recounted by Foard is especially interesting in that it implies that the thirty-three sacred sites had all been previously established and identified by Kannon. Thus, in the version of the peregrinogenesis as told in the Saikoku sanjūsansho Kannon reijōki zue, Tokudō is merely the intercessor who reports to the people of this world the efficacy of visiting the thirty-three sacred Kannon sites. Most other versions of the edifying dream seem to give credit for the establishment of the Saikoku pilgrimage directly to Tokudō himself, even if he had been told which particular sites to include on the route.[38]

Many colloquial renditions further mythologize the story by giving voices to the characters themselves. For example, one late-twentieth-century (1987) guidebook reports that Emma said the following to Tokudō: “You are not allowed to die yet! In order to save the many people who suffer in the world, create and promulgate a pilgrimage to thirty-three sacred sites associated with Kannon.”[39] Indeed, the message remains the same in these more modern retellings: Tokudō was instructed by Emma in a dream to instruct commoners to complete the Saikoku pilgrimage circuit so as to save them from the torments and sufferings of hell.

This version of the Saikoku peregrinogenesis also occasionally includes a segment in which Tokudō, before returning to the world of the living, receives a sacred seal (in 印) from Emma. Tokudō delivers this seal to the Nakayama-dera 中山寺, the original starting point for the Saikoku pilgrimage and the first temple dedicated to Kannon in Japan, founded by Prince Shōtoku 聖徳太子 (574–622) in 604.[40] Foard points out that this seal provided the impressions that pilgrims to the Nakayama-dera would receive on their scrolls (kakejiku 掛軸), staves (kongōzue 金剛杖), or coats (hakue 白衣); each of the thirty-three temples on the route had its own unique seal.[41]

In interpreting the sacred myth of Tokudō, Gorai believes that textual descriptions and images of hell, imported from China via India, as well as stories of Emma and his attendants from China, would have been in common circulation among Japanese monks and ascetics of the Nara 奈良period (710–84).[42] Furthermore, Gorai recounts the story of Tokudō as exemplary of the many apocryphal stories attributed to hijiri of the time. Many different holy men were affiliated with the various sacred sites that came to be associated with Kannon and the Saikoku route; thus the formulation of the pilgrimage reflects a mixture of mountain esotericism (sangaku mikkyō 山岳密教) as well as more orthodox Buddhism, particularly belief in the Lotus Sutra and faith in the bodhisattva Kannon (Kannon shinkō 観音信仰).[43] As Foard concludes, “popular pilgrimage was an appropriation by the common people of the symbolic and behavioral patterns of the ascetic holy men,” of whom Tokudō provides a prime example.[44]

Emperor Kazan and His Pilgrimages

The second popular Saikoku peregrinogenesis story involves the Emperor Kazan, who flourished nearly three centuries after Tokudō.[45] After abdicating from the throne in 986 and taking religious vows (shukke 出家), Kazan went on a pilgrimage to Kumano 熊野, where, after nearly three years of ascetic practice in the area of the Nachi waterfall 那智滝,[46] he received an oracle from the Kumano Gongen 熊野権現 (a manifestation of the deity enshrined there) telling him of Tokudō and his dream about the thirty-three sacred Kannon sites. Since nobody had performed the Kannon pilgrimage since Tokudō’s time, Kazan was asked to revive the pilgrimage. This he did, beginning at the temple closest to Kumano (the Seiganto-ji 青岸渡寺in present-day Wakayama Prefecture) and completing his circuit at the Kegon-ji 華厳時 in present-day Gifu Prefecture). This order, in fact, reflects how the pilgrimage is formally organized to this day, as shown in appendix A. And while he went from temple to temple, Kazan is credited for having written the thirty-three pilgrim songs (goeika 御詠歌) that still appear in temple guidebooks and are still occasionally chanted or sung by pilgrims today.[47]

Like the tale of Tokudō’s dream, the story of Kazan and his involvement in the peregrinogenesis of the Saikoku route is also apocryphal; the first extant historical documents to record the story date from the Muromachi era.[48] Thus the stories of Tokudō and Kazan establish the sacred mythology upon which—and from which—the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage route was constructed.[49] In the following section, I consider historical sources that mention a pilgrimage to thirty-three temples in the Saikoku region, the earliest source of which is the Senzai wakashū 千載和歌集, a twelfth-century anthology of waka poetry.

Historical Origins of the Saikoku Kannon Pilgrimage

Although the stories summarized above may situate the Saikoku Kannon peregrinogenesis as far back as the eighth century, the earliest written documents to mention a pilgrimage to thirty-three sites associated with Kannon date to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The first literary reference to the pilgrimage can be found in a poem by Kakuchū 覚忠 (1118–77), a priest of the Mii-dera 三井寺, in the Senzai wakashū, a collection of waka poetry compiled in 1187.[50] This source can be trusted, according to Japanese scholars, because a later historical document, the Jimon kōsōki 寺門高僧記 (Records of the Jimon High Priests, ca. 1223), also mentions that Kakuchū visited thirty-three Kannon temples in 1161;[51] the route he took (as recorded in the Jimon kōsōki ) is reproduced in appendix B.

Kakuchū is not the only priest whose journey to thirty-three Kannon sites is recorded in the Jimon kōsōki, however. The document cites an earlier pilgrimage, that of the monk Gyōson 行尊 (1055–1133) of the Enryaku-ji 延暦寺 on the Tendai 天台 stronghold of Mt. Hiei 比叡山. Although the route Gyōson took as he traveled around to the thirty-three sacred sites in 1093–1094 is also reproduced in appendix B (as it appears, in full, in the Jimon kōsōki ), some scholars believe that there is no historical proof that he purposefully completed the circuit as a pilgrimage.[52] Nevertheless, within the realm of less critical history, both Gyōson and Kakuchū are popularly credited with laying out the temples on the route as practiced today. The two were both trained in the mountain tradition on Mt. Hiei and are credited also with teaching the route and its purpose to those who would listen.[53] Perhaps they even included the mythical stories of Tokudō and Emperor Kazan in their sermonizing.

Temple records, which include the dates of founding of the thirty-three sites visited by either Gyōson or Kakuchū, reveal that the most recently established temple on the route is the Yoshimine-dera 善峯寺 in Kyōto, which was founded in 1029. Thus credence can be given to both Gyōsan and Kakuchū, as far as the possibilities of their visits is concerned. However, as a glance at appendix A will show, only fifteen of the temples on the current route—or a little under half—had been established by 718 (the alleged year of Tokudō’s dream), though all except one (or two) would have been founded by Kazan’s time. What is likely, then, is that, in the early years, at least, the specific sites, if there were thirty-three, fluctuated over time.[54] Nevertheless, that the thirty-three temples purportedly visited by both Gyōson and Kakuchū, according to the Jimon kōsōki, are the same thirty-three as on the pilgrimage route today is quite remarkable.[55] At the very latest, then, the same thirty-three temples have been associated with the Saikoku route since the writing of the Jimon kōsōki in the early thirteenth century.

But when and how was the Saikoku route finally organized into the route it is today? In short, the current order was established by pilgrims (many of whom were monks or other ascetics) traveling from Eastern Japan soon after the first major replica of the Saikoku route was laid out in the thirteenth century.[56] These pilgrims initiated their pilgrimage with visits to the Ise and Kumano shrines and thus, for the sake of convenience, began at the Seiganto-ji (the closest of the thirty-three Kannon temples to Kumano).[57] Interestingly, the route that resulted was identical to that allegedly traveled by Emperor Kazan in the tenth century; so it seems to be no coincidence that the earliest written records of Kazan’s dream and pilgrimage do not date until after pilgrims from Eastern Japan had begun completing the Saikoku circuit.

Conclusions: Myth Management and Peregrinogenesis Problematization

As the above discussion has shown, the scholar attempting to get a “precise grasp” on the origins of the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage—its peregrinogenesis—is faced with a difficult task. Although some academic works may point to the story of Emperor Kazan’s dream as an early myth, the fact that the story of Kazan intertextually refers to yet an earlier mytho-historical event, Tokudō’s dream, complicates the matter of attribution further. (Scholars will consent to acknowledge the Kazan story, at least, because they do have Muromachi-era records of it; but apparently it is within those very records, the literature of the Five Mountains Zen monks, that the story of Tokudō’s dream and involvement with the establishment of a pilgrimage to thirty-three Kannon sites is mentioned for the first time. Clearly, the emphasis that is placed on dreams within these earliest stories is not coincidental.[58])

But regardless of how far back in time historians and religious scholars will venture to place the origins of the Saikoku pilgrimage, most would agree that nothing concrete is known about the existence of a set route to thirty-three Kannon temples prior to the twelfth century. Thus a potential shortcoming in the concept of peregrinogenesis itself is revealed: The term implies a birth—a definitive moment wherein the idea behind, organization of, and practice of the pilgrimage almost instantaneously arose. Although the myths may suggest otherwise, historical records of the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage show how its peregrinogenesis was anything but instantaneous. Instead, the process was quite elongated, requiring several centuries for the various early routes to mature and to be ultimately codified, by the fifteenth century, into the single pilgrimage tradition that it is today.

Thus, by the middle of the Muromachi period, the Saikoku Kannon peregrinogenesis had finally been completed. The thirty-three Kannon temples, tracing their origins to Kannon miracles—or even dreams wherein Kannon requested a particular holy man to erect an image and build a temple in a particular location, had all been established;[59] and their order within the pilgrimage had likewise been prescribed. The earlier work of the hijiri who were based at the various temples on the route had come to fruition as more and more people began to traverse the circuit. But only during the Tokugawa era, when stability gradually resulted in increased wealth and mobility, did the Saikoku pilgrimage become widely practiced among commoners. Pilgrimage was an acceptable excuse for commoner travel and thus was implicated in what Constantine Vaporis has quite compellingly referred to as the “secularization” of pilgrimage during the Tokugawa period.[60]

How, then, is one to interpret the mythological stories associated with the establishment of the Saikoku Kannon route? On one level, they provide sacred validation for the efficacy of the route: The dreams in which Tokudō and, later, Emperor Kazan were instructed either to create or to follow the pilgrimage represent communication (and communion) with the gods and thus signify divine revelation. Perhaps these apocryphal stories were written as a means of validation; but they also seem to address the problem of peregrinogenesis brought up earlier. By situating the origin of the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage at a fixed point in “history”—and alongside a particular venerable person (either Buddhist saint or emperor, whom Foard has pointed out to be symbolic of all Japanese people[61])—a spontaneous peregrinogenesis narrative that is complete in and of itself has been produced. Pilgrims on the route can associate themselves with this mythical past and, in turn, associate themselves with the modality of human social existence that Turner termed communitas. Thus the pilgrimage tradition is perpetuated.[62]

Hans-Georg Gadamer made a comment that is fitting of the perpetuation of the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage:

Tradition is constantly an element of freedom and of history itself. Even the most genuine and solid tradition does not persist by nature because of the inertia of what once existed. It needs to be affirmed, embraced, cultivated. It is, essentially, preservation, such as active in all historical change. But preservation is an act of reason, though an inconspicuous one.[63]

Indeed, Tokudō, Kazan, Gyōson, Kakuchū, and even Kannon notwithstanding, without the pilgrims themselves, who personalize and internalize the various peregrinogenesis narratives, there would be no Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage today.

APPENDIX A

Present Order of the Saikoku Circuit Temples,

Including Locations and Dates of Establishment

	Temple Name(s)	Location	Date of Establishment
1	Seiganto-ji 青岸渡寺 (Nachi-san 那智山)	Wakayama pref.	313–99
2	Kongōhōji Gokokuin 金剛宝寺護国院 　 　(Kimii-dera 紀三井寺)	Wakayama city	770
3	Kokawa-dera 粉河寺	Wakayama pref.	770
4	Sefuku-ji 施福寺 (Makinoo-dera 槇尾寺)	Ōsaka-fu	538
5	Gōrin-ji 剛林寺 (Fujii-dera 藤井寺)	Ōsaka-fu	725
6	Minamihokke-ji 南法華寺 　(Tsubosaka-dera 壷坂寺)	Nara pref.	703
7	Ryūgai-ji 龍蓋寺 (Oka-dera 岡寺)	Nara pref.	663
8	Hase-dera 長谷寺	Nara pref.	686
9	Kōfukuji Nan’en-dō 興福寺南円堂	Nara city	813
10	Mimuroto-ji 三室戸寺	Kyōto-fu	770
11	Kamidaigo-ji 上醍醐寺	Kyōto city	874
12	Shōhō-ji 正法寺 (Iwama-dera 岩間寺)	Shiga pref.	722
13	Ishiyama-dera 石山寺	Shiga pref.	749
14	Onjō-ji 園城寺 (Mii-dera 三井寺)	Shiga pref.	686
15	Kannon-ji 観音寺 (Ima Kumano 今熊野)	Kyōto city	824–34
16	Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺 (Otowa-zan 音羽山)	Kyōto city	778
17	Rokuharamitsu-ji 六波羅蜜時	Kyōto city	951
18	Chōhō-ji 頂法寺 (Rokkaku-dō 六角堂)	Kyōto city	587
19	Gyōgan-ji 行願寺 (Kōdō 革堂)	Kyōto city	1004
20	Yoshimine-dera 善峯寺	Kyōto city	1029
21	Anaoo-ji 穴太寺	Kyto city	705
22	Sōji-ji 総持寺	Ōsaka-fu	886
23	Katsuō-ji 勝尾寺	Ōsaka-fu	727
24	Nakayama-dera 中山寺	Hyōgo pref.	604
25	Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺 (Mitake-san 御岳山)	Hyōgo pref.	627
26	Ichijō-ji 一乗寺 (Hokke-san 法華山)	Hyōgo pref.	650
27	Enkyō-ji 円教寺 (Shosha-zan 書写山)	Hyōgo pref.	966
28	Nariai-ji成相寺	Kyōto-fu	704
29	Matsuo-dera 松尾寺	Kyōto-fu	708
30	Hōgon-ji 宝厳寺 (Chikubu-shima 竹生島)	Shiga pref.	724
31	Chōmei-ji 長命寺	Shiga pref.	619
32	Kannonshō-ji 観音正寺	Shiga pref.	605
33	Kegon-ji 華厳寺 (Tanigumi-san 谷汲山)	Gifu pref.	798

Source: Tomita Kōsai 富田広才, Kubota Masao 窪田政男, and Honjō Aya 本庄彩, Saikoku sanjūsankaji & shūhen gaido 西国三十三カ寺＆周辺ガイド (Osaka: Keihanshin Erumagajinsha, 2000), 13–141.

APPENDIX B

The Saikoku Circuits of Gyōson and Kakuchū

	Gyōson 行尊 (1093–4 journey)	Kakuchū 覚忠 (1161 journey)
1	Hase-dera 長谷寺	Nachi-san 那智山
2	Ryūgai-ji 龍蓋寺 (Oka-dera 岡寺)	Kimii-dera 紀三井寺
3	Minamihokke-ji 南法華寺 　(Tsubosaka-dera 壷坂寺)	Kokawa-dera 粉河寺
4	Kokawa-dera 粉河寺	Minamihokke-ji 南法華寺 　(Tsubosaka-dera 壷坂寺)
5	Kongōhō-ji 金剛宝寺 (Kimii-dera 紀三井寺)	Ryūgai-ji 龍蓋寺 (Oka-dera 岡寺)
6	Nyoirin-dō 如意輪堂 (Nachi-san 那智山)	Hase-dera 長谷寺
7	Makinoo-dera 槇尾寺 (Sefuku-ji 施福寺)	Nan’en-dō 南円堂
8	Gōrin-ji 剛林寺 (Fujii-dera 藤井寺)	Sefuku-ji 施福寺 (Makinoo-dera 槇尾寺)
9	Sōji-ji 総持寺	Gōrin-ji 剛林寺 (Fujii-dera 藤井寺)
10	Katsuō-ji 勝尾寺	Sōji-ji 総持寺
11	Nakayama-dera 仲山寺	Katsuō-ji 勝尾寺
12	Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺	Nakayama-dera 仲山寺
13	Hokke-ji 法華寺 (Ichijō-ji 一乗寺)	Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺
14	Nyoirin-dō 如意輪堂 (Enkyō-ji 円教寺)	Hokke-ji 法華寺 (Ichijō-ji 一乗寺)
15	Nariai-ji成相寺	Shosha-zan 書写山 (Enkyō-ji 円教寺)
16	Matsuo-dera 松尾寺	Nariai-ji成相寺
17	Chikubu-shima 竹生島 (Hōgon-ji 宝厳寺)	Matsuo-dera 松尾寺
18	Tanigumi-dera 谷汲寺 (Kegon-ji 華厳寺)	Chikubu-shima 竹生島 (Hōgon-ji 宝厳寺)
19	Kannonshō-ji 観音正寺	Tanigumi 谷汲 (Kegon-ji 華厳寺)
20	Chōmei-ji 長命寺	Kannonshō-ji 観音正寺
21	Nyoirin-dō 如意輪堂 (Mii-dera 三井寺)	Chōmei-ji 長命寺
22	Ishiyama-dera 石山寺	Mii-dera 三井寺
23	Shōhō-ji 正法寺 (Iwama-dera 岩間寺)	Ishiyama-dera 石山寺
24	Kamidaigo-ji 上醍醐寺	Iwama-dera 岩間寺
25	Kannon-dō 観音堂 (Shinkumano 新熊野)	Kamidaigo-ji 上醍醐寺
26	Rokuharamitsu-ji 六波羅蜜時	Kannon-ji 観音寺
27	Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺	Rokuharamitsu-ji 六波羅蜜時
28	Rokkaku-dō 六角堂	Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺
29	Gyōgan-ji 行願寺	Rokkaku-dō 六角堂
30	Yoshimine-dera 善峯寺	Gyōgan-ji 行願寺
31	Bodai-ji 菩提寺 (Anaoo-ji 穴太寺)	Yoshimine-dera 善峯寺
32	Nan’en-dō 南円堂	Bodai-ji 菩提寺 (Anaoo-ji 穴太寺)
33	Senju-dō 千手堂 (Mimuroto-ji 三室戸寺)	Gomuroto-ji 御室戸寺

Source: Asano Kiyoshi 浅野清, Saikoku sanjūsansho reijō jiin no sōgōteki kenkyū 西国三十三所霊場寺院の総合的研究 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Bijutsu Shuppan, 1990), 17–18.

NOTES

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[1] One example was used by a professor of cultural geography who studies pilgrimage (especially within Hinduism) as a means of identity. Surinder M. Bharwaj, “Expectancy, Obligation, and Fun: Some Aspects of Comparative ‘Peregrinology’” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, University of South Carolina, Columbia, April 3, 1997).

[2] Gorai Shigeru五来重, Yugyō to junrei 遊行と巡礼 (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1989), 86.

[3] A list of the current order of the 33 temples on the pilgrimage, their locations, and their dates of establishment is provided in appendix A.

[4] James H. Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion: Buddhism and National Tradition in Japanese Pilgrimage,” Journal of Asian Studies, 41, no. 2 (1982): 231–52, 237.

[5] Ian Reader, “Pilgrimage as Cult: The Shikoku Pilgrimage as a Window on Japanese Religion,” in Religion in Japan: Arrows to Heaven and Earth, ed. P. F. Kornicki and I. J. McMullen, 267–86 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 267. See also, for example, Gorai, Yugyō to junrei, 8–12; Joseph M. Kitagawa, On Understanding Japanese Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 127; and Maeda Takashi 前田卓, Junrei no shakaigaku: Saikoku junrei to Shikoku henro 巡礼の社会学：西国巡礼と四国遍路 (Osaka: Kansai University Institute of Economic and Political Studies, 1970), 1–2.

[6] Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1970).

[7] William LaFleur, “Points of Departure: Comments on Religious Pilgrimage in Sri Lanka and Japan,” Journal of Asian Studies, 38, no. 2 (1979): 271–81; and Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion.” Hoshino Eiki 星野英紀, however, questions the appropriateness of Turner’s theories to circuit-type pilgrimages. See Hoshino, “Pilgrimage and Peregrination: Contextualizing the Saikoku Junrei and the Shikoku Henro,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 24, nos. 3–4 (1997): 271–99, esp. 296–97.

[8] Ian Reader and Paul L. Swanson, “Pilgrimage in the Japanese Religious Tradition” [Editor’s Introduction], Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 24, nos. 3–4 (1997): 225–70, 228.

[9] Ibid., 228–31.

[10] Forthcoming in the Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions, ed. Clark Chilson, Robert Kisala, Okuyama Michiaki, and Paul L. Swanson.

[11] One of the earliest and largest instances of okagemairi 御陰参り, pilgrimage to the Grand Shrines of Ise that took place on a country-wide level, occurred during a fifty-day period (between April 9 and May 29) in 1705, when more than 3.6 million pilgrims (over ten percent of the country’s population!) absconded from their homes and responsibilities and worshipped at Ise. See Nishigaki Seiji 西垣清次, O-Ise mairi お伊勢まいり (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1983), 194. And as with other periods of Japanese history, scholars are divided over when to place the beginning of the Tokugawa era: Some claim 1600; others, 1603, 1608, or 1615.

[12] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 232. Such sites include, but are not limited to, shrines, temples, and geographical features, such as peninsulas, mountains, or mountain ranges (Reader and Swanson, “Pilgrimage in the Japanese Religious Tradition,” 228). Regarding a sacralized peninsula, see Allan G. Grapard, “The Textualized Mountain—Enmountained Text: The Lotus Sutra in Kunisaki” in The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture, ed. George J. Tanabe, Jr., and Willa Jane Tanabe, 159–89 (Honolulu, University of Hawai‘i Press, 1989).

[13] This term must be taken with care, as Kuroda Toshio 黒田俊雄and Delmer M. Brown have effectively demonstrated. Kuroda, “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion,” trans. James C. Dobbins and Suzanne Gay, Journal of Japanese Studies, 7, no. 1 (1981): 1–21; and Brown, ed., “Early Kami Worship,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 1, Ancient Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 317–58.

[14] One of Hoshino’s major criticisms regarding the application of Turner’s pilgrimage model to Japan is that the major pilgrimage centers of the West (such as Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela in Spain) have been specific locations, while, in most of Asia, the circuit or multiple-site type of pilgrimage is more popular (Hoshino, “Pilgrimage and Peregrination,” 279–80).

[15] Reader, “Pilgrimage as Cult,” 268.

[16] Kitagawa, On Understanding Japanese Religion, 128–36.

[17] As for the other two types of pilgrimage, Mt. Kōya 高野山, Mt. Hiei 比叡山, and even Mt. Fuji 富士山 exemplify sacred mountains that are pilgrimage sites; and the Shikoku henro 四国遍路 is a pilgrimage to 88 sites dedicated to the popular figure (and Buddhist saint) Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師 (774–835), founder of the Shingon 真言 school of Esoteric Buddhism.

[18] Indeed, Kannon is the impetus behind not just one pilgrimage route but dozens—if not hundreds. Today there are at least 72 similar routes to 33 sites stretching from Hokkaidō to Kyūshū. See Fujita Shōichi 藤田庄市, Reijō no jiten 霊場の事典 (Tokyo: Gakken, 1997), 91–240. The number 72 is duplicated in Nakao Takashi’s 中尾堯 Koji junrei jiten 古寺巡礼事典 (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 1973; cited in Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 232). Reader, in “Pilgrimage as Cult,” 269, note 7, cites a Japanese source that indicates there are over 300 localized or small-scale versions of the Saikoku pilgrimage across Japan; but his source is a private publication that I have been unable to verify. At least 70 of these circuits (whether as few as 72 or as many as 300), according to Shinjō Tsunezō 新城常三, had been established by the mid-19th century. See Shinjō, Shaji sankei no shakai keizaishiteki kenkyū 社寺参詣の社会経済史的研究 (Tokyo, Hanawa Shobō, 1964), 807–10.

[19] Oliver Statler, Japanese Pilgrimage (New York: William Morrow, 1983), 145.

[20] Dates for the beginning of the Muromachi period vary; scholars have the period beginning as early as 1333 or as late as 1392.

[21] My translation of the following (modernized) passage from the Ten’in Goroku天陰語録, as cited in Shinjō Tsunezō, Shomin to tabi no rekishi 庶民と旅の歴史 (Tokyo: Nihon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai, 1971), 95: 「武士や庶民は、一度西国巡礼をしなければ、終身の恥となる。」Asano Kiyoshi 浅野清 dates the Ten’in Goroku to the latter half of the 15th century. See Asano, Saikoku sanjūsansho reijō jiin no sōgōteki kenkyū 西国三十三所霊場寺院の総合的研究 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Bijutsu Shuppan, 1990), 20.

[22] Especially within the Mahāyāna, or “Greater Vehicle,” tradition, the bodhisattva doctrine—the belief that bodhisattvas exist to help the less fortunate—formed a distinctive characteristic.

[23] Brian D. Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan, Harvard East Asian Monographs 188 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 318.

[24] See Bunnō Katō, Yoshirō Tamura, and Kōjirō Miyasaka, The Threefold Lotus Sutra (Tokyo: Kosei, 1975), 319–27. Ruppert contends that the Lotus Sūtra is the “most influential scripture in East Asian Buddhism” (Jewel in the Ashes, 357); I believe most scholars of Asian religion would concur. Although the Sanskrit name Avalokiteśvara means, approximately, “the lord who surveys, gazing lord,” the Chinese name (Kuan Shih Yin, commonly Kuan Yin) was apparently translated from an alternative spelling of the Indian forefather—“Avalokitaśvara”; and most translations subsequently seem to have entailed a sensory shift from sight to sound. Thus “Kuan Yin” is “one who perceives the sounds of the world” or, more explicitly, “one who hearkens to the cries of the world.” See John Blofeld, Bodhisattva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1977), 17. The Japanese “Kannon” (fully “Kanzeon” 観世音) was translated from a Chinese rendition of the Sanskrit original and can thus be approximated as “Perceiver of the World’s Sounds.” See Chün-fang Yü, Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 1.

[25] Shioiri Ryōdo 塩入良道, “The Meaning of the Formation and Structure of the Lotus Sutra,” trans. George J. Tanabe, Jr., in The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture, ed. George J. Tanabe, Jr., and Willa Jane Tanabe, 15–36 (Honolulu, University of Hawai‘i Press, 1989), 30.

[26] Kyoko Motomochi Nakamura, Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition: The Nihon ryōiki of the Monk Kyōkai (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 85.

[27] Ibid., 86. Until this point in this paper, I consciously avoided using a gendered pronoun for Kannon. Iconographic representations of Avalokiteśvara are male; but somewhere along the course of the sinification of Buddhism, representations seem to have been feminized. So the idea of Kannon as a compassionate female entered Japan from China (via Korea); Blofeld considers several theses for this gender change in his Bodhisattva of Compassion. The most comprehensive source on this issue, however, is Yü’s Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara. See note 24 for full citations of these works.

[28] Asano has carried out an extensive study of these images (Saikoku sanjūsansho reijō, 129–45). Tanimura Toshirō 谷村俊郎 comments not only on the honzō 本像 (principle images—referring to three-dimensional objects) at the Saikoku route temples but also those at temples of the two other most popular Kannon pilgrimage circuits, the Bandō 坂東 and Chichibu 秩父 routes. See Tanimura, Hyaku Kannon no tabi 百観音の旅 (Tokyo: Hokuyōsha), 14–25.

[29] Marian Ury suggests that the tales were compiled for use in sermons by Buddhist priests and monks. See Ury, Tales of Times Now Past: Sixty-Two Stories from a Medieval Japanese Collection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 2. On the tenth day of each month, services called Kannon-kō 観音講 were held in honor of Kannon; and it is likely that stories such as those in the tale collections would have been told on such days. See Yoshiko K. Dykstra, Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra from Ancient Japan: The Dainihonkoku Hokekyōkenki of Priest Chingen (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1983), 2.

[30] For further explanation of the significance of the number 33, see Tanimura, Hyaku Kannon no tabi, 11–13.

[31] Of note, however, is that each current temple on the pilgrimage (see appendix A) is not associated with one of the 33 particular manifestations of Kannon. The main Kannon images represent only seven forms of Kannon: (1) Shō (“Sacred”) Kannon 聖観音, (2) Jūichimen (“Eleven-Faced”) Kannon 十一面観音, (3) Senju (“Thousand-Armed”) Kannon 千手観音, (4) Juntei (“Mother-Goddess”) Kannon 准低観音, (5) Nyoirin (“Wish-Fulfilling”) Kannon 如意輪観音, and (6) Batō (“Horse-Headed”) Kannon 馬頭観音; these are the manifestations identified by Shingon 真言 Buddhism. Tendai 天台Buddhism replaces the Juntei Kannon with the (7) Fukū Kenjaku Kannon不空羂索観音 (“Kannon with rope and net”). Senju and Jūichimen Kannon images dominate the pilgrimage, appearing at a total of 21 of the 33 temples.

[32] In present-day Hyōgo Prefecture.

[33] This story of Tokudō comes from Sawa Ryūken 佐和隆研, Saikoku junrei: Sanjūsansho Kannon meguri 西国巡礼：三十三所観音めぐり (Tokyo: Shakai Shisōsha, 1970), 114–17.

[34] The image, an eight-meter Eleven-headed Kannon (Jūichimen Kannon 十一面観音), was said to have been divinely inspired, including the selection of the particular camphor tree (kusunoki 楠木) used. Tokudō was given the location of the sacred tree in a dream; he sought out the tree and then, according to legend, carved the image in just three days. The current image, some 8 meters (26 feet) high, was carved in 1538. See Usui Shirō 臼井史朗, A Pilgrim’s Guide to Forty-Six Temples, trans. Stephen D. Miller (New York: Weatherhill, 1990), 262. Another version of this story, still with Tokudō as the carver, can be found in the Konjaku monogatarishū, chapter 11, story 30. Yoshiko K. Dykstra recounts this miracle tale in her “Tales of the Compassionate Kannon: The Hasedera Kannon Genki,” Monumenta Nipponica 31, no. 2 (1976): 113–43, 116. As discussed below, the dream associated with the Hase-dera’s Kannon image was not the only dream of Tokudō’s to appear in his various hagiographies.

[35] Sawa, Saikoku junrei, 114.

[36] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 234.

[37] Hirahata Ryōyū’s 平幡良雄 Saikoku Kannon junrei 西国観音巡礼 (Chōshi, Chiba: Mangan-ji Kyōkabu, 1996), 8, is one such source that provides the date 718 (Yōrō 養老2).

[38] And, to pile legend upon legend, some sources attribute the founding of the Hase-dera to Tokudō. Most sources, however, credit the 7th-century monk Dōmyō (道明) with founding the temple in or around the year 686.

[39] Shimoyasuba Yoshiharu 下休場由晴, Saikoku sanjūsansho Kannon junrei 西国三十三所観音巡礼 (Osaka: Toki Shobō, 1987), 196. The words attributed to Emma read as follows: お前はまた死ぬことを許さない。世に悩み苦しむ人々が多いので、その人々を救うために、三十三ヵ所の観音霊所をつくり、巡礼をすすめなさい。

[40] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 234. Other sources state that Tokudō received seals for each of the 33 temples from Emma (see, for example, Tanimura, Hyaku Kannon no tabi, 34). Yet other sources explain that Tokudō received a written oath (seishi 誓紙) from Emma that permitted him to return to this world; legend at the Nakayama-dera claims that this oath—or the set of 33 seals—was enshrined within a stone sarcophagus that is still extant at the temple (Sawa, Saikoku junrei, 215). The Nakayama-dera engi 中山寺縁起 (History of the Nakayama Temple), cited in Koma Toshirō 駒敏郎, Saikoku sanjjūsankasho meguri 西国三十三ヵ所めぐり (Tokyo: Nippon Kōtsū Kōsha, 1994), 81, details the story of the temple’s founding by Prince Shōtoku.

[41] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 234. Today many pilgrims commonly have impressions made in “pilgrim’s notebooks” (nōkyōchō 納経帳). I am inclined to believe, however, that the kongōzue nomenclature is related in some way to the legends that surround the person of Kūkai 空海 (posthumously known as Kōbō Daishi), who was mentioned in note 17 to be the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism. Here, then, it appears as if pilgrimage mythologies and traditions are overlapping, as Kūkai is remembered as the founder of the Shikoku pilgrimage 四国遍路 to 88 sacred places.

[42] Gorai, Yugyō to junrei, 89. For example, Gorai mentions the stories recounted in the Nihon koku genpō zen’aku ryōi ki (日本国現報善悪霊異記, Extraordinary stories of the retribution of good and evil in Japan), compiled by Kyōkai 景戒 (787–822), a monk at the Yakushi-ji 薬師寺 in Nara (Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes, 198).

[43] Gorai, Yugyō to junrei, 89.

[44] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 232.

[45] As with the Tokudō story, the description that follows is largely based on Foard’s reading of the Saikoku sanjūsansho Kannon reijōki zue.

[46] Daigan Matsunaga and Alicia Matsunaga, Foundation of Japanese Buddhism, vol. 1, The Aristocratic Age (Los Angeles: Buddhist Books International, 1975), 246.

[47] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 234. Some sources claim that Kazan, after receiving the oracle, initially went to the Nakayama-dera to recover the set of 33 seals that had been buried in a stone sarcophagus there (Tanimura, Hyaku Kannon no tabi, 35; Gorai, Yugyō to junrei, 91). In this case, retired Emperor Kazan is truly given credit for establishing the pilgrimage circuit, even though Tokudō may have heard (dreamt) about it first.

[48] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 234. The documents that relate these stories were written by Five Mountains (Gozan 五山) Zen monks and include works such as the Ten’in Goroku, from which I quoted in note 21. For more description of the Five Mountains literature that relates specifically to the Saikoku pilgrimage, see, for example, Shinjō, Shaji sankei no shakai keizaishiteki kenkyū, 421–39; or, more briefly, Hayami Tasuku 速水侑, Kannon shinkō 観音信仰 (Tokyo: Hanawa Shobō, 1970), 265.

[49] Professor Adam Kern (Harvard University) has suggested that, instead of focusing on the apocryphal stories contained within the myths themselves, an investigation of the time periods in which these stories were created and affiliated with the pilgrimage would be more profitable. For example, why, in the 14th or 15th century, would Emperor Kazan be credited with reestablishing the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage circuit?

[50] Shinjō, Shaji sankei no shakai keizaishiteki kenkyū, 422. Shinjō reproduces the poem, which explicitly begins with a reference to 33 Kannon stations 三十三所の観音, in his text (on p. 422). Earlier compilations, including the Konjaku monogatarishū, mentioned above, make literary or poetic references to pilgrimages to sites (typically seven) dedicated to Kannon in and around the capital; but the poem in the Senzai wakashū is the first to mention, specifically, 33 sites. The Senzai wakashū, or Collection of one thousand years of waka, was the seventh imperial anthology; it was compiled by Fujiwara no Toshinari 藤原俊成 (1114–1204), also known as Fujiwara no Shunzei.

[51] The year was 応保元年 (the first year of Ōhō, or 1161, which Shinjō mistakenly reports to be the year 1111 [Shaji sankei no shakai keizaishiteki kenkyū, 422]). The Jimon 寺門派 monks, who established their headquarters at the Onjō-ji 園城寺 (also known as the Mii-dera 三井寺), were a faction within the Tendai 天台 Buddhist tradition; they were frequently at odds with the Sanmon 山門 monks (who remained on Mt. Hiei).

[52] See, for example, Hayami, Kannon shinkō, 264–78. Gyōson may have visited most or all of the sites over the course of his life; but his 150-day trip, as recorded in the Jimon kōsōki, is believed to be apocryphal.

[53] See, for example, Hirahata, Saikoku Kannon junrei, 9; but Hirahata nevertheless suggests (citing Hayami, in fact) that Kakuchū’s iteration—not Gyōson’s—was the earliest occurrence of a pilgrimage to 33 Kannon sites in Western Japan.

[54] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 233.

[55] The order is different, and the names by which the temples are commonly known may have changed, however.

[56] This first replica route, called the Bandō pilgrimage, is located around present-day Tokyo (many pilgrims apparently came from nearby Kamakura) and also involves 33 temples; it was established by 1230 (Tanimura, Hyaku Kannon no tabi, 150). By 1490 (though legend says in 1234), the third major replica route to 33 temples was established in and around Chichibu; by 1536 one more temple had been added to bring the Chichibu route total to 34. Done together with the Saikoku and Bandō routes, then, a pilgrim can visit 100 sacred Kannon sites, which, due to the “magic of the number” (sūji no majutsu 字の魔術) allows the pilgrim skillfully to take in a fortuitous amount of merit (Tanibura, Hyaku Kannon no tabi, 242–43).

[57] Furthermore, it was the pilgrims from Eastern Japan who gave the Saikoku route its present name (so as to distinguish it from the Bandō route) (Hirahata, Saikoku Kannon junrei, 9).

[58] On the issue of dreams, see, for example Carmen Blacker’s brief discussion in “The Shinza or God-seat in the Daijōsai: Throne, Bed, or Incubation Couch?” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 17, nos. 2–3 (1990): 179–97, 194. Worth investigating further would be the relationship between these stories and the Five Mountains context within which they were written.

[59] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 243–44.

[60] Constantine Nomikos Vaporis writes: “Pilgrimage during the Tokugawa period appears to have undergone a process of secularization whereby it became little more than sightseeing.” See Vaporis, Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan, Harvard East Asian Monographs 163 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 236. See also Nam-lin Hur, Prayer and Play in Late Tokugawa Japan, Harvard East Asian Monographs 185 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).

[61] Foard, “The Boundaries of Compassion,” 235.

[62] I was part of the community of 71,000 pilgrims who took to the Saikoku Kannon route in 1996 alone. See Satō Hisamitsu 佐藤久光, “Heiseiki ni okeru Saikoku junrei no dōkō to jittai” 平成期における西国巡礼の動向と実態, in Junrei Kenkyūkai 巡礼研究会, ed., Junrei kenkyū no kanōsei 巡礼研究の可能性 (Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2000), 125–154, 129.

[63] Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. and ed. by Garrett Barden and John Cumming (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), 250.