Tracing the Itinerant Path: Jishū Nuns of Medieval Japan by Caitilin J. Griffiths (review)

Anyone who has wondered about the lives of religious women depicted in medieval visual sources, such as the Ippen hijiri-e (Painting of the Holy Man Ippen; 1299)—a late-thirteenth-century scroll set depicting the priest Ippen (1239–1289) and his followers—will find a wealth of answers in Tracing the Itinerant Path by Caitilin J. Griffiths. By examining the roles of the many women leaders of the religious groups known as jishū (literally, "people of the time") during the peak of their activities from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, this book makes a major contribution to our understanding of nuns in premodern Japan; the development of medieval sects; and histories of pilgrimage, itinerancy, and travel. It is a welcome addition to existing English-language research on medieval and early modern nuns by scholars including Barbara Ruch, Lori Meeks, Gina Cogan, and Barbara Ambros.¹

Griffiths's monograph is distinguished by an approach that takes us away from "doctrines, sutras, and official documents" (though these are also considered) and into the daily, lived experience of jishū practitioners (p. 120). It offers a rich new perspective that pays particular attention to the physical spaces in which women practiced while also delineating women's positions within ascetic communities and their relationships to the patrons and sponsors who fostered these communities. Griffiths traces more than twenty jishū nuns over five centuries and demonstrates that for a period from the thirteenth through fourteenth centuries women led and taught mixed-gender groups of practitioners. "Women were active participants, sponsors, members, and even leaders of this early jishū movement" (p. 3), she asserts, drawing from myriad sources to paint a dynamic, varied, and diverse picture of jishū members and groups.

Griffiths is careful with her terms, specifying, for instance, that the term jishū was used to designate both the individuals and the groups of lay or religious practitioners who gathered on special occasions to chant the name of Amida Buddha for three daytime and three nighttime periods of uninterrupted worship. She situates the development and expanding popularity of jishū practice in a history of itinerancy and fixed spaces in the form of fourteenth-century practice halls (dōjō). This explanation of jishū origins and historical development is placed firmly within evidence of actual practices and their dissemination, rather than specific texts that reify one leader or sect. Today we associate jishū with the Ji sect (sometimes translated as the Time Sect) and the lineage it traces to Ippen, leader of the Yugyō school. But this usage is tied to the seventeenth-century recognition of Ippen and Shinkyō (1237–1319) as the major authoritative conveyers of jishū teachings and erases the history of the many other practitioners and leaders, including women.

The range of sources Griffiths has amassed is a testament to years of research and tremendous legwork examining jishū documents, ritual objects, sites, and facilities. These sources consist, first, of documents produced or commissioned by male leaders, required because there are no extant texts by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century jishū women about themselves. Examples include manuscripts by Yugyō-school leaders including Takuga (1284–1354); visual materials such as the Yugyō shōnin engi-e (Illustrated Biography of the Traveling Saint; fourteenth century) scrolls depicting the journeys of Ippen and Shinkyō and the better-known Ippen hijiri-e; doctrinal texts such as Bōhishō (Notes on Preventing Misconducts; 1341) by Kai'amidabutsu (n.d.); and letters, decrees, and poems by Shinkyō. In addition to other forms of written evidence, including journals and land records, Griffiths analyzes practice halls and other architectural spaces, ascertaining nuns' status based on positioning. She moreover examines oral tales, etoki (literally "picture explaining") narration, and other performative modes based on their existing forms and reenactments today and discusses rites and practices such as those associated with birth and death. By judiciously drawing from this spectrum of sources, Griffiths contextualizes the male-authored texts...