Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods: The Politics of a Pilgrimage Site in Japan, 1573-1912 (review)

After having, as she believed, left the isle of Shikoku for good some years ago, this reviewer finds herself returning there unexpectedly. The occasion is the publication of Sarah Thal's fine study of the political and religious history of the Konpira-Kotohira shrine (Mt. Zōzu, Kagawa prefecture).

Thal's study is notable in more ways than one. The author establishes her problematic with convincing logic and clarity and supports her thesis with solid evidence. Her aim is to present "a general pattern in the transformation of gods not just in Shikoku, but throughout Japan, indeed, the world" (p. 5), in other words, a model that can account for the manner in which the interests and actions of religious professionals, politicians, intellectuals, and ordinary believers influence the evolution of religious cults. The history of Mt. Zōzu, Thal holds, shows how its gods were literally shaped over the centuries by the priests and monks who lived on the site, by the local leaders who exercised authority over Sanuki province, and by representatives of national-level institutions (e.g., Mt. Kōya, the imperial court, the shogunate), as well as by intellectuals and ordinary believers from various corners of Japan. All contributed to the ideological construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of the deities of Mt. Zōzu that took place under the influence of a variety of economic, political, and religious interests. In short, the history of Mt. Zōzu, for several centuries the home of Konpira, a deity originally from India, is a rather tortuous one!

Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods guides the reader through eight centuries of the labyrinthine history of this religious site and the various beliefs and schematizations connected with it. Starting out in the thirteenth century as a modest hermitage and a small temple devoted to Kannon, Mt. Zōzu grew eventually to become in the Tokugawa period a magnificent and opulent complex devoted to the worship of the divinity Konpira, and then, from the Meiji Restoration onwards, a place enshrining the kami Ōmononushi. For each period under consideration, the author, drawing from a variety of sources, presents a range of competing religious interpretations of Mt. Zōzu. These divergent interpretations at times became a source of conflict, with each party seeking to make the most of the advantages at its disposal. Thal divides her study into twelve chapters, each focusing on a decisive stage in this centuries-long process. Greater availability of documentary sources for more recent periods probably explains why more than half the study is devoted to developments between 1868 and 1912.

Making excellent use of primary and other sources and paying due attention to the particularities of the political, intellectual, and spiritual context, Thal weaves together a rich tapestry of the history of Mt. Zōzu. We certainly cannot fault the author's accuracy concerning the names of persons and biographical details, dates, or the titles and content of historical records. This depth of scholarship is what gives the work its value. It will be a useful reference not only for specialists in Japanese studies but for historians, sociologists, and anthropologists in general.

In this book review, it would be pointless to run through the entire, ultimately quite human, history of the gods of Mt. Zōzu. I will limit my remarks to the period of which I am the least ignorant, namely that from the end of the sixteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century.

My initial remark concerns the early stages of the rise of the various cults associated with Mt. Zōzu, which grew until they occupied an important place in not only the religious landscape of Shikoku but also that of Japan as a whole. I was surprised to note that in her treatment of this phenomenon Thal makes no mention of the contemporaneous development...