Encyclopedia of Shinto

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カテゴリー1： 8. Schools, Groups, and Personalities
カテゴリー2： Medieval and Early Modern Schools
Title
Sannō Shintō
Text
A branch of Shinto that took shape in the Tendai sect, based on the cult of the Mountain King (Sannō) at the Hiyoshi Taisha (alt., Hie Taisha), tutelary shrine (chinjusha) for the temple Enryakuji. Its early modern doctrines that concern the shrine Tōshōgū are specially distinguished as Ichijitsu Shintō, the "Shinto of the Single Reality." The original Hie deity was the mountain kami on Mt. Hiei; interaction between it and the Tendai sect began with Saichō's founding of the Enryakuji. The appellation "Mountain King" follows a general Buddhist practice of designating mountain deities as such, but here it is said to directly stem from the name of the tutelary deity ( chinjugami ) "Perfected Lord, Mountain King Yuanbi" (Shanwang Yuanbi Zhenjun) at the Tientai sect temple Guoqingsi, located at the Tientai headquarters in China. According to Enzan Daishi den [Biography of the great teacher Enzan], Saichō's birth was granted by the deities in response to prayers offered by his parents at the shrine-temple (jingūji) of Hie (Hiyoshi). The term "Mountain King" appears in Saichō's Sōrintōmei, and faith in the Mountain King of Hie is advocated in Enchin's Seikaimon. These are two examples of the deep cultic association with the deity of the Hie (Hiyoshi) Shrine dating from the founding of the Japanese Tendai sect. In the late ancient periods of rule by regents and retired sovereigns, Enryakuji grew into a temple with great power, and its institutional and cultic unity with the Hie Shrine developed apace, with belief in the Mountain God becoming a sine qua non for Tendai monks. Go-Shirakawa-in's poetry collection Ryōjin hisho and Taira no Yasuyori's Hōbutsushū associate the main deities worshipped at the various shrines of Hie with honjibutsu—buddhist figures considered to be the metaphysical "essences" (honji) of the deities. For example Ōmiya was identified as an incarnation of Sakyamuni; Ninomiya as Bhaisajyaguru (Jp. Yakushi); Shōshinji as Amitayus (Jp. Amida); and Hachiōji as the Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara (Jp. Senju Kannon). According to the Zoku koji dan of the the early Kamakura period, notions that the Mountain King was in fact the spirit of Saichō, or that the Mountain King appeared as a result of an invocation (kanjō) by Saichō, circulated at that time. These traditions can be considered nascent forms of the doctrines of Sannō Shinto.
Confentionally, the earliest book of doctrines related to Sannō Shintō has been taken to be the Yōtenki, thought to have been composed around 1223. Recent research, however, suggests that the section "Concerning the Mountain King" (Sannō no koto), which describes doctrinal discourses in the work, was a later accretion to the original text. The original form of the text is now regarded as having been a memorandum composed by shrine priests concerning the shrine's rituals and origins. Texts representing substantial collections of the doctrines of Sannō Shintō include the Sange yōryakki and the Enryakuji gokoku engi. Both treat not only Sannō Shintō but also historical events relating to Mt. Hiei, but accounts relating to Shinto occupy over half their volumes. The former was primarily edited by Gigen in the later Kamakura period, and the latter took shape in roughly the same period. Scholarship on Mt. Hiei during the medieval period was divided into the four houses that controlled exoteric learning, esoteric learning, study of the precepts, and activities of the chroniclers.
The chroniclers (kike) were deeply involved with the editing of the above-mentioned works on Sannō Shinto. The chroniclers were a group that sought to attain Buddhahood by making records of the structures, images, prescriptions for practice, and deities on Mt. Hiei. They regarded the abhiseka (initiation) ritual for "dimming the radiance and mixing with the dust" (wakō dōjin), an initiation ritual on kami-related matters, as their profoundest teaching, and devoted particular attention to Shinto. The doctrines included in the chroniclers' texts take the form of selected "excerpts" from such works as Saichō's Gonjin reiōshō and Sanbō jūjishū ; Ennin's Sanbō hogyōki and Jingi kanten; Enchin's Kenmitsu naishōgi; Sōō's Sōtai hōsokushū; Annen's Shimyō anzengi, and Ōe Masafusa's Fusō myōgesshū and Jingi senrei. However, all of these books are apocryphal, and a high probability exists that no complete originals existed for many of them. Aside from these, documents such as Kongō himitsu sannō denju daiji, Wakō dōjin riyaku kanjō, and Gonjinshō, which contain doctrinal traditions of the Kajii lineage, also took shape. In addition, Kōshū, who continued the chroniclers' tradition, also devoted much space to Sannō Shintō in his Keiran shūyōshū, a valuable work as it affords us a glimpse of the development of Sannō Shintō doctrines after the time of the Sange yōryakki. In the period of the Northern and Southern Courts, Jihen wrote the Tenchi jingi shinjin yōki, where he attempted to organize and make sense of doctrinal contradictions and intricacies, in search of a broad consistency between the Japanese classics, Ise Shintō and Ryōbu Shintō.
With the exception of Jihen's works, the contents of these medieval works on Sannō Shintō represent assemblages of doctrines and fragmentary origin tales relating to the sub-shrines within the Hie Shrine complex, most prominently the Seven Shrines to the Mountain God, with the result that they lack consistency. We may adduce some representative doctrines as follows: one teaching is that the "original essence" Buddha for the deity Hie Ōmiya is the Tathagata Sakyamuni (Jp. Shakamuni), expounder of the Lotus Sutra, which is the fundamental scripture for the Tendai sect, and that, therefore, Ōmiya is the most esteemed of all the deities in Japan. Another teaching relies upon the notion of the unity of Tendai esotericism and exotericism to expound the unity of the Great Shine at Hie, which takes Sakyamuni as its "original essence" Buddha, and the Grand Shrines of Ise (Ise Jingū ), which are identified with Mahavairocana as the original essence Buddha. Another teaching claims that the written strokes forming the two characters for "mountain" 山 (san) and "king" 王 (ō) represent the basic teachings of the Tendai sect, namely the "unity of the three truths" (sandai soku ichi) and the "threefold contemplation in a single mind" (isshin sangan). A further teaching identifies the Seven Shrines of Hie with the stars in the "Big Dipper" constellation, based on a cultic belief devoted to the stars of the Big Dipper, which were thought to be in control of the destiny of individual humans. Further, a teaching in the Esoteric (Taimitsu) tradition identifies the "original essence" Buddha of the kami Mountain King as being Ichiji Kinrin Butchō (the principal Buddha of the "Court of the Perfected" (Jp. Soshitujibu) characterizing one doctrine in Esoteric Tendai Buddhism), and thus an esotericized Shakyamuni.
In the realm of ritual, too, syncretic Buddhist ceremonies such as offerings to the Mountain Kami and offerings to Mountain King's "original essence" Buddha were practiced and exerted influence on the Tendai practice of kaihōgyō walking meditation, resulting in a practice of walking meditation around the subshrines of the Hie (Hiyoshi) Shrine. Shrine priests also became guides for wandering mountain monks. Thus were born such rituals as secret nocturnal shrine visits; the practice of "mental pilgrimage" (unshin junrei), in which a supplicant visited the shrines through visualization; and after the year 1025, the raihaikō, Buddhist service held before the shrine. In 1571, the Hie (Hiyoshi) Shrine burned and was destroyed along with the Enryakuji in Oda Nobunaga's attack on the temple. The shrine priest Hafuribe Yukimaro barely escaped with his life and wrote Hie Jinja dō himitsuki and Hie Jinja yaku nenchū gyōji, exerting himself to the utmost for the revival of the Hiyoshi Shrine and of Sannō Shintō.
In the early modern period debate over the burial ritual for Tokugawa Ieyasu, Tenkai countered the Yoshida house's Yuiitsu Shintō by newly proclaiming "Ichijitsu Shintō." Following in the tradition of medieval Sannō Shintō, Ichijitsu Shintō gave a doctrinal foundation to the rituals conducted for Ieyasu as Great Radiant Deity of the East (Tōshō Daigongen). Since Tenkai himself did not leave any particular doctrinal texts, we cannot adequately grasp his own doctrines, but from the fact that Ieyasu's body was interred in a treasure stupa of the kind described in the Lotus Sutra, and from the appearance of an interpretation of Ieyasu's spirit as the incarnation of the Ichiji Kinrin as expressed in the ceremonial procedures for Ieyasu's funeral and interment (Sannō ichijitsu Shintō tōchū kanjō chinza saigoku shinmitsu shiki), we can see that the original ground for the Great Shining Deity of the East was regarded as the Tathagata Sakyamuni, or his esoteric incarnation as Ichiji Kinrin. The theology of Ichijitsu Shintō would later be assembled in such works as Jitō's Sannō Ichijitsu Shintō gen and Jihon's Ichijitsu Shintōki. In addition, Jō'in of Togakushi wrote such works as Kongōtō and Tenrin shōbō shō, incorporating elements of Shūgendō and Taoism within the his doctrines, and labeling this "spirit-lineage Shinto" (Reishū Shintō). Meanwhile, the Sannō Shintō traditions were maintained, centering on the Hiyoshi Shrine. Such works as Jisshun's Hiyoshi sannō shinki and Gōkan's Hiyoshi sannō gongen chishin ki were edited, but they were mere collations and compilations of old doctrines in which we can see no particular doctrinal innovation. Among the shrine's priestly houses (shake), Yoshida Shinto had been accepted from the time of the sixteenth century's Hafuribe Yukimaro, and in the Edo period, they called themselves "Miwa Lineage Shinto."

-Satō Masato

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Sannō Torii of Hiyoshi Taisha_Fujii Hiroaki___1995****_Siga Prefecture