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This chapter introduces the connection between the sacred text and the devotional body in medieval Japan. It notes that the main focus of the book is on Buddhist texts, and stresses the importance of paying close attention to the language of the sutras, or the textual culture. The chapter then discusses the setsuwa, which serves as the main source of information on Buddhist textual culture in medieval Japan, and also examines miracles, literary Buddhism, the South Asian and Chinese forms of the sutras, and the definition of the term “medieval.”

This chapter examines the types of portraits used at funerals and memorial services. In medieval Japan, portraits of the deceased were considered ritual implements essential to Buddhist funerals and to the offering services performed on behalf of the deceased. In both of these contexts, portraits functioned as consecrated images through which the presence of the deceased could be invoked. This chapter begins with a discussion of portraits used in conjunction with Buddhist services for the dead and goes on to describe their function in the funerals and memorial rituals of Japan’s medieval elites. It also analyzes the terminology for mortuary portraits and raises a number of questions, such as when and where the portraits were displayed, who commissioned them and when, and what types of rites were performed before them. The chapter concludes by assessing the relationship between accuracy and efficacy in portraits; more specifically, how important it was for a portrait of the deceased to be an accurate rendition of its corporeal subject.

This chapter focuses on the opposition between Buddhist ideals of world renunciation and the persistence of familial bonds. In addressing the theme of death and mothers, the chapter examines how death-related Buddhist ritual and thought in medieval Japan mirrored a gradual shift in kinship and gender definitions that accompanied the emergence of the patriarchal household. The sufferings of women subordinated as childbearers to the patriline are reflected in tales of women dying in pregnancy who give birth in the grave, in the nagare kanjo rites performed for the salvation of women who died in childbirth, and in the cult of the apocryphal Blood Bowl Sutra. The chapter additionally details the emergence of the Buddhist rites and how they gave some spiritual reassurance to women facing the threat of death from complications in pregnancy or childbirth.

This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to trace the life and works of an extraordinary thirteenth-century woman who is known today as Nun Abutsu. By mapping the career of Abutsu and analyzing her writings within the historical contexts in which they were produced, this study delineates the limits of what was possible for well-positioned and talented women of medieval Japan. The remainder of the chapter discusses of Abutsu's life and works; institutional transformations during the medieval era that altered the social status of women; and the thirteenth-century court-based system of rank and title and its relation to an aristocratic woman's origins, her post at court, and her affiliation with influential courtiers. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This chapter describes the funerals of, and subsequent memorial services for, two members of a family of court officials in mid-fourteenth century Japan. Rituals associated with death among the elites in medieval Japan can be divided into three distinct segments that dealt with the preparation for death and the act of dying, the funeral and burial or cremation, and the mourning rites: forty-nine days of deep mourning followed by regular memorial services and additional offerings extending through at least the third year. Through a translation and analysis of the relevant sections of Moromoriki, a chronicle written by the courtier Nakahara Moromori during the era of the Northern and Southern Courts (1336–1392), this chapter examines the flow of the various rituals associated with death in the fourteenth century, along with other practices related to medieval lay funerals. The discussion revolves around variations between the funerals and memorial rituals held for Senior Secretary Nakahara Morosuke and his wife, Nakahara Kenshin.

This chapter examines a range of built structures that were used in medieval Japan to enclose and contain the body after death and to separate the dead from the living. In Japan, as in most cultures, the process of separating and containing the dead began on the deathbed. The containers and enclosures connected to death and funerals included clothing and coverings, coffins, folding screens, fences, screen curtains, and special buildings. The chapter first provides an overview of the most common types of containers and enclosures and how they were utilized in medieval and earlier death rituals, including cremation and burials. It then considers how each of these containers and enclosures functioned at successive stages in the process of separation. It also describes the containment practices prevalent among the elites—the imperial family, the court, and high-ranking members of the military—over a broad span of time.

This chapter examines the primary ritual implements used in funerals and memorials. In medieval Japan, death rituals required the use of special objects whose meaning lay in their roles in funerary and memorial ceremonies. Particular ritual implements are carefully depicted in medieval illustrations, a recognition of their importance in the performance of rituals and memorial services. This chapter considers the types of ritual objects depicted in funeral scenes in illustrated biographies of important priests dating from the fourteenth through the early sixteenth centuries, with particular emphasis on ritual implements used in funeral processions. The discussion focuses on the types of ritual implements that attended Priest Nichiren’s (1222–1282) funeral procession in the Nichiren shōnin chūgasan handscroll, and those that accompanied Priest Hōnen’s (1133–1212) seven seventh-day death memorials in Hōnen shōnin e-den. Examples from other medieval scrolls are given where useful.

This chapter looks at the funerary and mortuary dimension in premodern Japan of the worship of relics. The account of the Buddha's cremation has didactic value as a dramatic performance of impermanence, the body of a once-living person being reduced to smoke and ashes before the viewers' eyes. But at the same time, cremation has an equally significant if opposing purpose in generating enduring physical relics for enshrinement and veneration. Buddha relics, then, transcend the boundary between life and death and thus, came to represent the ongoing possibility of enlightenment even in an age of decline. The chapter also shows how relic worship in medieval Japan was bound up in a multivalent “thematic complex” involving indebtedness to the Buddha, the soteriological value of self-sacrifice in repayment, and the legitimation of rulership.

This chapter focuses on rituals performed at funerals in fifteenth-century Japan, including the closing of the coffin lid, moving the coffin out of the residence and to the cremation site, and the final offerings of tea and hot water to the deceased. It describes and compares four funerals containing new components borrowed from Chinese Chan Buddhist funeral traditions: Prince Yoshihito (1361–1416), Ashikaga Yoshimochi (1386–1428; Shogun 1394–1423), Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408; Shogun 1368–1394), and Hino Shigeko (1411–1463). These four case studies offer insights into the general organization of funerals in medieval Japan, the essential rituals that accompanied the deaths of important individuals, and the most important ritual implements used in the new style of funerals.

This book examines the material culture of death, and particularly how ritual objects functioned in death rituals, in Japan in the early medieval period. Through a close reading and interpretation of funeral manuals, diaries, and other records, coupled with a careful examination of medieval illustrated handscrolls, the book considers how elites in medieval Japanese society negotiated the boundary between the living and the dead through their funerals and memorial services. It also explores whether the ritual implements that accompany Japanese Buddhist funerals and memorial services fall under the rubric of art. Overlapping ritual studies, material culture, and art history, this study analyzes the context that rituals provide to the objects and the role of objects within the rituals. Finally, the book explains the ways in which rituals and ritual objects were interconnected with societal norms of class and gender.

This chapter examines the impact of Song medical texts in medieval Japan and more specifically how they restructured the landscape of knowledge about Japanese medicine. Against a background of the scarcity of Japanese medical works and the plethora of information that became available in a new media as a result of the Song printing revolution, the chapter describes the contours of what is best understood as the appropriating context of Song-period Chinese medicine. It also looks at the variety of Song printed medical works as well as some of the works that Kajiwara Shōzen consulted. Some Chinese medical works are noted in the Ton'ishō and others in the Man'anpō. The chapter concludes by discussing the ways in which Shōzen benefited from Song medical knowledge and how print culture in China helped him become familiar with Song-period Chinese medicine.

This chapter examines the emergence of wound medicine as a medical specialty in response to the eruption of violence and warfare in Japan in the early fourteenth century, with particular emphasis on factors that shaped the availability and reception of Song medical knowledge. It begins by discussing the new warfare environment from the 1330s that arose after the destruction of the Kamakura bakufu. It then provides an overview of wound medicine prior to the 1330s and goes on to consider sources of knowledge for wound medicine, along with various items of materia medica mentioned in wound medicine texts such as Sanyin fang. It also explores how Song-era Chinese medicine influenced Japanese wound medicine. The chapter shows that physicians in medieval Japan gained experience in treating wounds by extrapolating from generic knowledge and that Song medicine provided—courtesy of Sanyin fang—a conceptual basis for wound medicine where one did not exist before.

This chapter considers Nun Abutsu's early life and what her upbringing and career at court tell us about the lives of women who served as attendants. It focuses on The Nursemaid's Letter, a lengthy instructional letter Abutsu wrote for her daughter based on her experiences at court. The letter outlines what skills were crucial to success as an attendant within an imperial salon, how success was defined in court service, and what options existed for those who did not flourish in court service. The chapter examines Abutsu's letter as both a window into her life and an indication of the future she anticipated for her daughter. The letter itself was designed to be read by her daughter and the larger circle of women at court where it soon circulated. It reveals the particular skills Abutsu gained through court service and offers a practical guide to surviving as an attendant.

This chapter chronicles Abutsu's journey from the capital to Kamakura and considers why she undertook this arduous and perhaps unnecessary trip to represent her interests in a legal case against her son-in-law. By recording her travel preparations, the sites along her route, and finally her period of residence in Kamakura, Abutsu asserts her moral stance as a widow and mother, her literary claim to the Mikohidari poetic lineage, and her legal rights as a widow nun. The medium of a travel diary enables her to focus on the sacrifice she makes for her children and the legitimacy of her positionas Mikohidari poet and educator to the heirs of this lineage.

This chapter takes up one of Abutsu's best-known works, her diary Fitful Slumbers. The diary demonstrates her vast knowledge of The Tale of Genji, a talent that enables her to position herself as pining heroine in the mode of the Genji's Ukifune. Her portrayal suggests ways in which medieval women were casting themselves as heroines in their autobiographical writings by borrowing from classical tales. The figure of Abutsu in Fitful Slumbers is wracked by indecision over whether to become a nun or return to court life, an ongoing theme that reveals how reclusion, tonsure, and ascetic practice were seen as paths for women of the Kamakura era and how these choices functioned within autobiographical narrative.