Weaving and Binding: Immigrant Gods and Female Immortals in Ancient Japan

Chapter 4 The Queen Mother of the West and the Ghosts of the Buddhist Tradition

CHAPTER 4 The Queen Mother of the west and the Ghosts of the Buddhist Tradition Reckoning with ghosts is not like deciding to read a book: you cannot simply choose the ghosts with which you engage. . . . To be haunted is to be tied to historical and social effects. —Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters1 ONE AFTERNOON EARLY in the seventh month of 587, so the story goes, the political and cultic landscape of the Japanese islands was profoundly transformed as an army of pro-Buddhist princes and lineages led by the Soga kinship group overcame the forces of their powerful Mononobe opponents and established a new, pro-Buddhist regime within the Japanese islands. The birth of the new order, however, was also apparently drenched in blood, as the victors hunted down the members of the main Mononobe line and confiscated the lands of their allies. After installing a new ruler, Suiko, upon the throne, the Soga and allies such as Prince Kamitsumiya (Shòtoku) are then said to have set about augmenting the power of the throne through the promotion of continental political, religious, and technological forms. Although, as is so often the case, this account cannot be considered an accurate rendering of historical reality, the legend was clearly a cornerstone of the early Japanese Buddhist tradition’s understanding of its own origins. In addition to the account of the battle and its aftermath that is provided in the Nihon shoki, for instance, similar versions of the legend are recounted in the Hòryûji garan engi narabi ni ruki shizaichò and the Gangòji garan engi narabi ni ruki shizaichò, two of only three extant temple records from the Nara period. The legend is also recounted in the Jògû Shòtoku hòò teisetsu, an early hagiographical text, parts of which are thought to predate the Nihon shoki, as well as in the Nihon ryòiki, which, as we have already noted, is the oldest collection of Buddhist legends in the Japanese islands. The pervasiveness of this legend across so many different texts and genres 84 Queen Mother of the West & Ghosts of Buddhist Tradition 85 testifies to its central place in the earliest Buddhist literature of the Japanese islands.2 The undoubted importance of this legend and the figure of Shòtoku for the early Buddhist tradition, however, should not blind us to the fact that the prince of legend was also depicted in such texts as the Nihon shoki as a paragon of continental culture and learning. Within the text Shòtoku is also said to have been a master of non-Buddhist learning, who composed the first historical chronicle in the Japanese islands, promulgated a constitution for the court, and constructed the first continental-style system of ranks for the court. Shòtoku’s association with written continental culture can thus be seen in numerous legends depicting the prince as a sage, exegete, judge, lawgiver, and immortal.3 As we have already seen in Chapter 2, the Nihon shoki also depicts the Suiko court as the era in which Chinese astrological and divinatory texts were first promulgated at court. There is, further, good reason to believe that continental rites and cults associated with such texts were promoted by immigrant kinship groups such as those at the forefront of the early cult of Prince Shòtoku. In this chapter I therefore propose to explore the nature and uses of Chinese rites of spirit pacification in Nara Japan as they related to the formation of the founding legend of Japanese Buddhism. Because this legend is presented even in primary sources in terms of resistance to the introduction of the “foreign” Buddhist tradition, it is also an ideal vehicle through which to examine in greater depth how the rites of the Chinese festival calendar influenced the development of Buddhist and local cultic traditions of Nara Japan. This involves venturing into relatively uncharted territory. Although a wide spectrum of Chinese cults and deities informed religious life in the Japanese islands, my focus will be on the influence of the cult of the Queen Mother of the West, an ancient figure in the Chinese pantheon with deep roots in the Chinese calendar, immortality beliefs, and weaving cults. We shall see that the cult of the Queen Mother played a prominent role in the legends and cultic practices of a cluster of influential kinship groups associated with both the Mononobe and the early Shòtoku cult. We shall also see that to a surprising...