Harvard University Fairbank Center For Chinese Studies

Since the early fifteenth century, the monastic participants in the Risseigi debates at the Kōyasan esoteric Buddhist community have been promoted to membership in the “Myōjin-kō” confraternity. Although debate protocol was based on that of Kōfukuji’s, the process by which the debating priests were qualified for the confraternity is modeled on practices of rotating leadership in the local communities outside the Buddhist complex. These involved the excursions of various “non-Buddhist” gods and the investiture of their temporary custodians with a program of worship. I will introduce this organizational model and its variants before focusing on the objects of worship, their material supports, and their meanings.