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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
After revising the conventional timeline of Shugendo, I similarly locate Shinto's arrival in the 17th c. Despite common perceptions, this shows that neither Shugendō nor Shinto were ancient traditions but spread to sites like Togakushi through specific historical contexts.
Ch 8 explores the early modern growth of Shugendō at Togakushi through new narratives, rituals, and policies. While the apex of Shugendō is typically romanticized as medieval, the evidence demonstrates that it’s really the Edo period when things take off.
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