Family in Buddhism

12 The Priesthood as a Family Trade

253 12 The Priesthood as a Family Trade Reconsidering Monastic Marriage in Premodern Japan Lori Meeks Buddhists in other parts of Asia have been known to look askance at Japanese monks, who, unlike clerics in most of Buddhist Asia, openly engage in marriage and family life. In a recent textbook on Japanese Buddhism, Kenji Matsuo recalls how foreign students enrolled in his Japanese culture courses (especially those from Southeast Asia) consistently approached him with the same question: “Why do Japanese priests [marry]?”1 Matsuo says that he first responded by repeating conventional wisdom on the issue: first, he would explain the innovative teachings of the Jōdo Shin sect, which, given its rapid growth over the course of the late medieval period, eventually came to exert great cultural influence in Japanese history . This movement formally accepted clerical marriage from the time of its founder, Shinran (1173–1262), who married, fathered numerous children, and called himself “neither priest nor layman” (sō ni arazu, zoku ni arazu). Second, Matsuo writes, he would discuss cultural and political changes in the Meiji period that encouraged clerical marriage.2 These standard textbook answers did not satisfy Matsuo’s students, however . As they continued to press him, he realized that these answers were too simple.3 Indeed, as much recent research has shown, it is now clear that the tolerance of marriage and family life visible in Japanese Buddhist history, while bolstered by the success of Shinran’s teachings and further regularized 254 Lori Meeks in response to the political needs of the Meiji government, was evident long before Shinran’s time. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that Japanese Buddhism was, from its earliest years, generally tolerant of sexual relations and biological inheritance. As Nishiguchi Junko has put it, “Japanese Buddhism and Buddhist communities always developed in forms shaped by the ie [family, or corporate household].”4 Insofar as Japanese Buddhism developed alongside, or within, preexisting ideas about the role of family in institutional life, it is inaccurate to interpret Japanese tolerance of clerical marriage as a sign of degeneracy or decline.There was no established culture of lifelong celibacy in the archipelago before Buddhism was imported, and although the early Japanese state, as well as elite Buddhist institutions, did make attempts to legislate clerical celibacy, the practice never came to be widely regarded as an absolute requirement for clerical competence or authenticity. As I will illustrate below, Japanese patrons of Buddhism valued priests for their ability to execute effective rituals, for their scholarly training, and for their skills in chanting and preaching. They appear to have judged priests primarily in terms of skills in these areas; surviving texts, including narrative literature and temple documents alike, suggest that whether a priest was celibate had little bearing on his reputation among the laity. This principle stands in great contrast to the religious cultures of South and Southeast Asia, where lay followers have long been taught to regard donations to celibate monks as more worthy—and more efficacious—than those bestowed upon ordinary, and therefore less pure, beings. In this chapter I will draw upon texts from the Nara (710–784), Heian (794–1185), and Kamakura (1185–1333) periods to sketch changes in social attitudes toward clerical marriage and biological inheritance. A broad survey of legal codes, land transfer documents, courtier journals, lineage charts, hagiographies , and popular narratives from these periods demonstrates that, while Japanese monks were certainly aware of the precepts against sexual relations and marriage, ecclesiastical and political authorities in the archipelago enforced celibacy only at particular times or in particular situations. In general, it was during the Nara period that court authorities were most concerned with regulating clerical compliance with the monastic code; as court nobles began to populate major temples during the Heian period, the court grew increasingly tolerant of clerical violations of the monastic codes. By the Kamakura period, it was a widely accepted fact that priests had sex and that they commonly bequeathed their valuables—knowledge, property, and even clerical positions—to biological heirs. The Priesthood as a Family Trade 255 Attitudes toward Monastic Discipline It has long been acknowledged that Indian and Chinese Buddhist texts stressed the dangers of association with women.The monastic codes of the vinaya, like other works aimed at guiding men in ascetic practice, treat women as temptresses against whom male practitioners must be on their best guard. One...