Buddhist Women and Social Justice: Ideals, Challenges, and Achievements

13. Spiritual Piety, Social Activism, and Economic Realities: The Nuns of Mantokuji

Chapter 13 Spiritual Piety, Social Activism, and Economic Realities: The Nuns of Mantokuji DIANA E. WRIGHT While much is known about the daily lives of Buddhist monks in premodern Japan, relatively little is known about the lives of nuns, particularly Jishū (Time Sect) nuns. The degree to which these women (and female clerics in general) interacted with the secular world around them has been underestimated and under-appreciated. This lacuna is addressed here by analyzing records concerning life in Mantokuji, a Jishūtemple-shrine complex known as a “divorce temple” (enkiridera, literally, “temple for the severing of [karmic] ties”). This convent, which operated as both an ancestral temple of the Tokugawa shogunal line and as one of Edo Japan’s two official divorce temples, was neither “purely” religious nor “purely” secular. Accordingly, Mantokuji’s nuns played a vital, multi-dimensional role in the society around them. OF PIETY AND ACTIVISM Located in what today is Ojimamachi in Gunma Prefecture, Mantokuji (Temple Overflowing with Virtue) was the nucleus of the community. Inhabitants included members of both the Saṅgha and the laity 205 throughout the Edo period (1603–1868). On the religious side, the convent ’s clerics served in three basic capacities: “ordinary” nuns, incumbent abbess, and retired abbess (goshōninsama). This simple organizational structure belies the complex nature of each of these divisions. Little is known about Mantokuji’s ordinary nuns; their names do not appear in Mantokuji’s official death register (kakochō)1 and only rarely in temple documents. Even their exact numbers are unclear, a problem complicated by the fact that this component included both ordained and lay nuns. What is apparent, however, is that these nuns occasionally were divided in their loyalties to Mantokuji’s head clerics. Each abbess had her own disciples and becoming a retired abbess in no way invalidated their ties to her. If the successor was not a personal disciple of the former abbess, or only nominally so, the new abbess would develop her own group of disciples. Under such conditions, factionalism could develop. Thus, it is not surprising then to find that one of Mantokuji’s precepts (rules of behavior) stresses that harmony within the group must be maintained. Contrary to popular belief, the temple’s community was not limited to women. While the abbesses dealt with high priority matters, it was Mantokuji’s secular male employees who were responsible for the temple’s nonecclesiastical daily routine. These men resided within their own, fenced-off section of the temple compound. The highest ranked of such individuals were the convent’s “secular temple officers” (terayakunin ). Besides specific duties connected with the temple’s divorce procedures, terayakunin acted as judges in local dispute cases, oversaw the temple’s land holdings, and attended to temple interests in Edo. In addition to these officials, Mantokuji’s divorce process required that the temple employ some well-to-do villagers (gōnō) as part-time “Temple Inn” managers. These males had three major functions in the temple. They—and often their wives—ensured that the families of the parties involved in temple-officiated divorce proceedings were separately housed. They were to act as mediators for informal discussions between the two factions and to arrange a reconciliation, if at all possible , and serve as legal advisors. Finally, the convent employed nonelite male villagers as manual laborers and couriers. These men, who also served as temple gate guards, or temple “muscle,” lived within the terayakunin ’s section of the temple complex. Mantokuji housed a mixed-gender community whose members were involved in both secular and religio-political activities. There is 206 DIANA E. WRIGHT not enough data to estimate accurately the size of Mantokuji’s community prior to the nineteenth century. During the 1800s, however, records attest that between thirteen and twenty-one individuals lived there at any given time. The population of the temple complex fluctuated depending on the temple’s political fortunes and the number of women seeking divorce. Based on the records of public ceremonies, abbesses’ funerals, and divorce cases, a limited number of residents could be accommodated at Mantokuji’s precincts. Though officially an independent convent, that is, one with neither an overseeing nor a branch temple, Mantokuji and its clerics did have ties to other temple complexes. The Ji sect’s Shōrenji in nearby Iwamatsu Village had been interconnected with Mantokuji since at least the early Edo period. A 1702 Jishū document...