Defining Shugendo: Critical Studies on Japanese Mountain Religion

Description

Winner of the 2022 Association for the Study of Japanese Mountain Religion Book Prize Defining Shugendo brings together leading international experts on Japanese mountain asceticism to discuss what has been an essential component of Japanese religions for more than a thousand years. Contributors explore how mountains have been abodes of deities, a resting place for the dead, sources of natural bounty and calamities, places of religious activities, and a vast repository of symbols. The book shows that many peoples have chosen them as sites for ascetic practices, claiming the potential to attain supernatural powers there. This book discusses the history of scholarship on Shugendo, the development process of mountain worship, and the religious and philosophical features of devotion at specific sacred mountains. Moreover, it reveals the rich material and visual culture associated with Shugendo, from statues and steles, to talismans and written oaths.

Fabio Rambelli is Professor of Japanese Religions and Cultural History and ISF Endowed Chair in Shinto Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Carina Roth is a Teaching and Research Fellow at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Andrea Castiglioni is Senior lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nagoya City University, Japan.

Defining Shugendo: Critical Studies on Japanese Mountain Religion [is] an essential and overdue contribution ... Each of [its] chapters is a doorway to new perspectives on this ancient religion. * Japan Review * [T]he contributions mark and outline the wide and complex area of Shugendo and its intersections with other (religious, political, cultural) domains. The destination is definitely worth the journey. * Religious Studies Review * This book is a crucial contribution to our understanding of the intellectual, historical, and lived dimensions of Shugendo. Covering an impressive range of topics, the volume succeeds in foregrounding the site-specific, local nature of mountain practices without ever losing sight of their interactions with trans-local discourses and movements. For this reason, Defining Shugendo is a must-read for anyone interested in this tradition and in Japanese Religions more broadly." * Benedetta Lomi, Lecturer in East Asian Religions, University of Bristol, UK * Defining Shugendo covers a wide swath of religious and cultural modes and activities in Japan. This fine collection may finally succeed in convincing readers that Shugendo-at least as an expression of the amalgamation of various religious figures and practices-is truly a central part of Japanese culture that cannot be ignored, and indeed should be recognized as one of the major religious traditions in Japan. * Paul L. Swanson, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Japan *