Mountain Mandalas: Shugendō in Kyushu by Allan G. Grapard (review)

Allan Grapard’s new book explores in rich detail the religious, social, and political history of three cultic sites in northern Kyushu: Mt. Hiko, Usa, and the Kunisaki Peninsula. Central to that region is Hiko, which refers to both the mountain and the peaks surrounding it, with the Kunisaki Peninsula at the easternmost edge of northern Kyushu and Usa—the birthplace of the Hachiman cult—between the two. Grapard brings each location into focus through the lenses of space, place, and time, thus advancing his long-standing investigation into how constructs of space (“geo-types”) and, to a lesser extent, time (“chronotypes”) directed major cultural developments on the Japanese archipelago. The book’s title speaks to this concern. Mandalas were utilized broadly in the conceptualization and performance of sacred space in premodern Japan. They were even envisioned across actual landscapes, most prominently, mountains. Invoking Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, and other theorists on the social production of space, Grapard explores the mandalization of the Hiko mountains as well as a range of other complex orderings of architecture and geography in northern Kyushu that, he successfully argues, impacted spiritual, ideological, and territorial practices in significant ways. According to the book’s premise, Shugendō lay at the center of this history. Unfortunately for a work so heavily invested in the categories of space and time, Shugendō’s own locative and temporal placement falls onto less stable ground.

Readers will recognize Hiko, Usa, and Kunisaki from Grapard’s earlier articles and essays, and indeed some of the material has appeared before. That said, Mountain Mandalas introduces many new objects of analysis and situates the three sites in a larger historical and regional context than the author’s previous works. With several exceptions, chapters are chronological and thematic rather than site oriented. This allows Grapard to address points of intersection and distinction within the broader region, though it also leaves the content of chapters 1–3, the core of the book, feeling unwieldy at times. Roughly speaking, chapter 1 examines the early history of the sites, including ties to the Korean peninsula and Yamato; chapters 2 and 3 cover a breadth of deities, ritual sites, doctrines, festivals, and social practices in, respectively, the medieval and (mostly) early modern periods; and chapter 4 turns to the radical restructuring of the three sites in the modern period. Throughout the book, analyses are interspersed with superlative translations of passages from the premodern sources. Complete translations are available on the book’s website.¹ They contain errors—some macrons and siddhaṃ glyphs have been misrendered in the document’s conversion—but this could be easily remedied.

Chapter 1 presents a detailed examination of the emergence of the three sites, beginning as early as Usa’s third- and fourth-century kofun mounds and extending through the Heian period. Grapard thoroughly engages the earliest sources from each, at times challenging conventional interpretations of them, and presents educated guesses on the origins of each site—a difficult task given the modicum of evidence. The cult of Hachiman (a name originally pronounced “Yahata”) receives the most attention. In his investigation of early sources, Grapard challenges the “illusionary linearity” of a Shinto-based cult as portrayed in modern times, focusing instead on continental influences; relations and dynamics with Buddhism; and the political, military, and economic interests that spurred the cult’s formation (p. 18). From early on, the power of the deity lay in his speech: Hachiman’s oracles on all manner of political events and appointments carried tremendous weight, influencing the fortunes of the nobility around Usa and—following the god’s transfer to Iwashimizu in 859—up to the highest levels of the court in Kyoto. The earliest mediums were women with the assistance of male interpreters, or saniwa. Grapard closely tracks how Buddhist monks took over this role as temples increased their oversight of the cult in the latter half of the ninth century. Beyond demonstrating the centrality of...