Ch 1 looks how at how a monastic powerhouse—economically, politically, militarily—influenced Togakushi and beyond in the 13th c. through a simple technique. Storytelling. Subject: a serpentine demon with nine heads. (Photos below are mine from Togakushi and the archives.) - ThreadSky

calebscarter.bsky.social • 43 days ago

Ch 1 looks how at how a monastic powerhouse—economically, politically, militarily—influenced Togakushi and beyond in the 13th c. through a simple technique. Storytelling. Subject: a serpentine demon with nine heads.
(Photos below are mine from Togakushi and the archives.)

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calebscarter.bsky.social•43 days ago

Ch 2 shows how two centuries later–as the country’s central powers buckled under the brink of warfare–the mountain community flexed its autonomy, taking back its legendary origins and transforming the earlier beast into an all-powerful nine-headed dragon.

calebscarter.bsky.social•43 days ago

Ch 3 examines internal tensions over exclusionary policies against women at Togakushi and other mountains. Texts I introduce expose significant rifts over such practices in medieval Japan.

calebscarter.bsky.social•43 days ago

Ch 4 covers asceticism in the caves and on the slopes of Togakushi up through the fifteenth century. This activity is usually identified as part of Shugendō. I distinguish as part of esoteric Buddhism but absent of any self-aware elements of Shugendō.

calebscarter.bsky.social•43 days ago

In chapter 5 we reach the self-conscious system of Shugendō. First emergent in mountains south of Nara, it gets fully articulated in ritual texts compiled at Mount Hiko (Kyushu) in the early 16th century.

calebscarter.bsky.social•43 days ago

Ch 6 traces the transmission of those texts and the ritualized mountain entries they describe to Togakushi in the 1520s, marking the birth of Shugendō at the site.

calebscarter.bsky.social•43 days ago

Ch 7 focuses on how Togakushi's priests and Shugendō practitioners promoted their mountain’s wonders to a growing laity and traveling public who were eager to experience Shugendō firsthand and encounter the mountain’s famous dragon spirit.

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