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Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 2.2 (2019): 1–30; https://dx.doi.org/10.15239/hijbs.02.02.01
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Buddhism and Business: South and East Asian Perspectives)
Adding Value (with Limits): Pilgrimage and Women’s Exclusion in Japan’s Sacred Mountains
Caleb CARTER
Kyushu University, Faculty of Humanities
ccarter@lit.kyushu-u.ac.jp
Abstract: This article examines competing interests over pilgrimage and women’s exclusion at numinous mountains in early modern Japan. Developing new forms of ritual and practice, Buddhist clerics encouraged pilgrimage to mountain temples as a source of revenue. Many of these temples, however, simultaneously increased the exclusion of women from certain areas of their premises. What explains this seeming contradiction? Through the case of Mount Togakushi (Nagano prefecture), this article explores the historical coincidence of pilgrimage growth with discriminatory policies targeting women in early modern Japan. It builds from research in the fields of pilgrimage and women’s studies, offering insight into how pilgrimage and women’s exclusion often intersected among competing interests within regional mountain communities.
Keywords: Buddhist mountain pilgrimage, temple economics, women’s exclusion, nyonin kekkai, nyonin kinsei, Mount Togakushi, Mount Fuji
About the Author: Caleb Carter is Assistant Professor of Japanese religions in the Faculty of Humanities at Kyushu University. He specializes in Japanese religions, particularly Shugendō, and is interested in issues related to space and place, narrative and folklore, women and gender, and ecology. Carter is currently preparing a book manuscript on the historical formation of Shugendō through a case study of Mount Togakushi. Recent publications include ‘Power Spots and the Charged Landscape of Shinto’, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 45, no. 1 (2018); and ‘Constructing a Place, Fracturing a Geography: The Case of the Japanese Tendai Cleric, Jōin’, History of Religions 56, no. 3 (2017).
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
