During the years of political uncertainty in the early 13th century, scholar-monk Jien (1155-1225) turned to the veneration of Prince Shōtoku (574-622), a regent known for his contributions to constitutional governance and patronage of Buddhism, composing a liturgical text in honor of the legendary prince titled Exaltations of the Imperial Prince in Five Sections (Jp. Kōtaishi godan tandoku). Written hundreds of years after Prince Shōtoku’s death, the liturgical text is not simply a remembrance of the prince’s past deeds but reveals a careful negotiation of existing hagiographic accounts and Jien’s own liturgical vision that presented the prince as simultaneously a historical figure of the distant past and the manifestation of bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara who continued to provide a salvific resonance to those who suffer. The liturgical performance of the text served to not only illustrate how Prince Shōtoku’s deep compassion to save all beings transcended spatial and temporal boundaries, but also presented itself as a ritual method to animate the prince’s salvific actions in the present. By placing this text within the social historical context of Jien’s broader activities and analyzing how it effectively embedded hagiographic accounts into its liturgical structure, I argue that the text reflects a hagiographic process that sought to legitimize Jien’s soteriological and political vision at the turn of the 13th century, with important implications to the way Prince Shōtoku worship continued to develop in medieval Japan.

Speaker Bio:
Professor Eric Haruki Swanson received his undergraduate degree from Indiana University Bloomington, his M.A. from Koyasan University in Japan, and Ph.D. from Harvard University. As a cultural historian he is interested in the study of religious traditions through the examination of literature, visual material, ritual practices, and performance arts, and considers the role of religious institutions and its actors within broader cultural patterns, political agendas, and expressions of identity. His research focuses on the interactions between Buddhist institutions and the ruling class during times of political crisis and social unrest in pre-modern Japan. His current book project is a study of scholar-monk Jien (1155-1225) and his establishment of exoteric-esoteric Buddhist ritual programs for the pacification of vengeful spirits and the restoration of order in the medieval capital of Japan.

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Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum co-sponsored by the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies