REKIHAKU

No.159 A Witness to History

Feeling for Cherry Blossoms -- Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuengi and Shigure-no-Sakura

Do you know what Ryakuengi is? Engi is a word that was originally used in Buddhism with the philosophical implication that everything happens because of various connections in the universe. Based on this idea, narrative traditions about the foundation and the origin of temples and shrines came to be called Engi by Japanese people. Ryakuengi is a material printed in the Edo period to inform people widely of the Engi of such temples and shrines, or mortuary chapels.

Even today, we have many opportunities to obtain leaflets for visitors or similar brochures at famous temples and shrines. By those materials, we recognize and accept not only the buildings and Buddhist statues before our eyes, but also the histories and the stories concerning them again. Ryakuengi is a material showing the long-standing continuance of such a religious mode since the early modern period.

Photo 1: Cover of "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki" (Museum Collection)	Photo 2: Text of "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki"

In fact, only very dedicated people carefully keep the leaflets of the temples and shrines they have visited, and trying to collect them may also be rare. It is thought that many of the Ryakuengi of the Edo period were treated as consumable materials and lost. Because many Ryakuengi are just pieces of paper called Ichimaimono with less than ten pages or so in many cases, it is probably natural that they were treated in such a way.

However, recently the Ryakuengi materials related to such a common popular belief were compiled through the efforts of Takeshi Nakano and Taiichi Inagaki, or members of the Ryakuengi Study Group, allowing us to see their contents easily. Many of them are built on their tremendous works. They focused attention on the materials combining several Ryakuengi materials stored in libraries across the country, and analyzed and studied them repeatedly without minding partiality or duplication.

Photo 3: Text of "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki"	Photo 4: Text of "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki"

This shows that there were some dedicated people mentioned above who collected and kept Ryakuengi brochures or leaflets of temples and shrines in the Edo period. The study on Ryakuengi was started by inheriting such insistence of the people in the Edo period, and it ultimately came to be a subject of study in the present day.

Compiled and combined Ryakuengi materials are very convenient for the study in the first step. However, they are not sufficient for looking at individual people who visited temples and shrines and collected Ryakuengi, not to mention individual temples and shrines that issued Ryakuengi and the situation of each period.

Developing a new area in the study of Ryakuengi while succeeding the study of Takeshi Nakano, Toshihiko Hisano says "visitors to temples and shrines who received Ryakuengi might have treated them like souls or charms and have kept them in Buddhist or Shinto altars in their houses," and he also suggests that we may discover "concrete statements of belief in temples and shrines that increased importance in the early modern period through Ryakuengi, which is a folk literature accepted in the hands of common people while carrying a social function in the management of temples and shrines" (Toshihiko Hisano. Folklore of Illustration and Engi. Shinwasha, 2009).

Following the suggestions of Hisano, we have to pursue the process of acceptance and development of individual Ryakuengi materials that may be called folklore/religious study (history) for the future.

Photo 5: Text of "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki"	Photo 6: Text of "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki"

The Museum does not have Ryakuengi material in a combined form at present. However, there was a discussion on the importance of Ryakuengi during collaborative research in "Comparative Study of Proselytizing Cultures" (led by Masahiko Hayashi, Professor at Meiji University), and individual Ryakuengi materials have been studied. Here, I would like to introduce a Ryakuengi material of the Museum Collection imbued with the sentiments of the former collector. That is "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki" (titled "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuengi" on the first page) (Photo 1).

It is said that Tsukinowa Temple on the hillside of Atagoyama in Kyoto was founded in the period of Emperor Konin (reigned from 770 to 781), and it has an Engi to worship a dragon lady enlightened by Kuya-Shonin as a daemon. Furthermore, the temple has a cherry tree called "Shigure-no-Sakura." Legend has it that in the Kamakura period, when Kujo (Fujiwara no) Kanezane who became a believer of Honen-Shonin regretted the banishment of Honen and Shinran who were sentenced to deportation under this very cherry tree of the temple, so strong was the feeling that it caused an autumn shower which poured from the tips of the cherry leaves like tears. "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki" describes such Engi and treasures of Tsukinowa Temple in six sheets.

Photo 7: Text of "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki"	Photo 8: A piece of paper attached to the inside of the cover

The Engi text does not contain much description. However, the end part describes how Kanezane at his death requested his grandson Michiie to abolish the banning of prayer to Buddha and to call Honen and Shinran back to the capital. It shows that the historic character of this temple had been recognized as a place where a turning point was marked in the Kamakura new Buddhism by Honen and Shinran. Visitors to Tsukinowa Temple would have joined their hands in prayer to the principal image, and while viewing the cherry trees of the temple, they would have refreshed their worship of the founders of the belief of prayer to Amitabha Buddha, the Pure Land Buddhism, and the Shin-Buddhism.

Without the indication of the publication year in a single state bound simply with a twisted-paper string, "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki" of the Museum Collection does not have much information to draw upon. However, a piece of paper with a text saying "Tsukinowa Temple/Shigure-no-Sakura" is folded and attached to the inside of the cover of this Ryakuengi (Photo 8). When the piece of paper is unfolded, a cherry blossom, and cherry leaves are found (Photo 9).

Photo 9: A pressed cherry blossom that has been enclosed in a piece of paper

This suggests that the former collector of this Ryakuengi actually climbed the Atagoyama, arrived at Tsukinowa Temple, obtained the Ryakuengi after worship, and also brought back a piece of "Shigure-no-Sakura." Probably, a considerable number of editions of "Tsukinowa Temple Ryakuenki" would have been published. However, not so many people would actually have visited Tsukinowa Temple in the cherry blossom season and have brought back Ryakuengi with a cherry blossom petal from there. Because the blooming season of "Shigure-no-Sakura" is very limited, it is not easy to see the flower even today.

Or, expanding the imagination, this Ryakuengi and the cherry blossom enclosed within it might have been sent to a person who was unable to visit such a temple on a mountain, along with the travel tales of the person who visited the temple. The relationship between them might have been parent and child, brothers, husband and wife, just friends, or lovers.

This Ryakuengi does not tell such a fact. Still, we can feel the heart of our ancestors who admired the cherry blossoms of Tsukinowa Temple and tried to convey their feeling with the Engi of this temple.

Jun-ichi Koike （Folklore Studies/Religious History, Research Department）