B. Ruppert
45 A work that argues for their independence is Matsuo, A History of Japanese Buddhism. Nevertheless, most
scholars in historical fields now see them as related to institutions. See Kikuchi Hiroki, Chūsei bukkyō no
genkei to tenkai. Two decades ago, Janet R. Goodwin published an excellent study of the hijiri and made
clear that many hijiri were connected to established institutions; see her Alms and Vagabonds: Buddhist
Temples and Popular Pilgrimage in Medieval Japan.
46 See Chōgen’s Sazen shū in Kobayashi Takeshi, Shunjōbō Chōgen shiryō shūsei, 482–495. For an example of
the view that Chōgen had only “occasional relationships with the secular powers,” see Matsuo, History
of Japanese Buddhism, 102. Hisano Nobuyoshi has discussed these establishment connections in the
context of Chōgen’s reception of patronage by the Murakami Genji nobles, which also runs counter to
assumptions of his independence from the major institutions of his days; see Hisano, Chōgen to Eisai:
sugureta jissenteki shakai jigyōka/shūkyōsha, 37–41. See also John M. Rosenfield, Portraits of Chōgen: The
Transformation of Buddhist Art in Early Medieval Japan, 27–30.
47 Kikuchi, Chūsei bukkyō no genkei to tenkai; concerning the late medieval era kanjin practitioners and
related hijiri, see Ōta Naoyuki, Chūsei no shaji to shinkō: kanjin to kanjin hijiri no jidai. I have referred to
these as a set of groups I call “networking monks” (nettowaaku sō); see Deal and Ruppert, A Cultural
History of Japanese Buddhism, 153–160, and Brian Ruppert, “Nihon chūsei no nettowaaku- sō to shōdō
shōgyō no denpa.”
48 See Miyake Hitoshi, most influential in the study of Shugendō traditions, in The Mandala of the Moun-
tain: Shugendo and Folk Religion for an overview. For more recent research see Bernard Faure et al.,
Shugendō: The History and Culture of a Japanese Religion.
49 See Sekiguchi Makiko, “The Sanbō’in Monzeki and its Inception as Head Temple of the Tōzan Group,”
and Sekiguchi, Shugendō kyōdan seiritsushi.
50 Hitoshi Miyake, The Mandala of the Mountain, 54–65.
51 Major works on shōgyō in Japanese include, from a historian’s perspective, Nagamura Makato, Chūsei jiin
shiryō ron (including his discussion of debates and sacred works, 272–332) and from a literature scholar’s
viewpoint, Abe, Chūsei Nihon no shūkyō tekusuto taikei, as well as Abe Yasurō, Chūsei bungaku to jiin shiryō/
shōgyō, especially the introductory essay, 13–37. See also Brian Ruppert, “A Tale of Catalogs and Colo-
phons: The Scope of the Lineage, the Touch of the Master and Discourses of Authenticity in Medieval
Shingon Buddhism,” and Asuka Sango, “Buddhist Debate and the Production and Transmission of
Shōgyō in Medieval Japan.”
52 See Sakagami Masao, “Nanto Bukkyō ni okeru hidenteki keikō.”
53 Nagamura Makoto, “ ‘Shōsoku’ to ‘shōgyō’: Shinran ni yoru Tōgoku kyōke no hitokoma.” There were
also so- called “good friends” (zenchishiki) who in medieval Japan came to refer in death- ritual contexts
to persons who helped the dying in the practices necessary to maintain mindfulness. These “good
friends” were, in elite circles, often prominent ritual practitioners but sometimes so- called “meditation
monks” (zensō) who usually bore only an ambiguous connection with the established monasteries and
were associated with “retreat holy men” (bessho hijiri). See Jacqueline I. Stone, “With the Help of ‘Good
Friends’: Deathbed Ritual Practices in Early Medieval Japan,” 66–88. See also Uejima, Nihon chūsei
shakai no keisei to ōken, 497–527.
54 Hiramatsu Reizō, “Kenchi shōnin no shōgai.”
55 The True Pure Land groups, for example, regularly venerated Hōnen’s spirit in addition to Shinran’s.
Shingon lineages also commonly venerated more recent masters in addition to Kōbō Daishi. A promi-
nent proponent of the focus on ancestral- master veneration has been Nakao Takashi. See, for example,
his Nichiren shinkō no keifu to girei.
56 Ōhashi Naoyoshi, “ ‘Jisha- ken’ no paasupekutibu.”
57 Mujū was a very complex figure who undertook study of an entire array of Buddhist schools, including
the esoteric lineages, the precepts, and some Nara lineages. See Abe Yasurō, “Mujū shū sōsetsu,” and
Chikamoto Kensuke, “Tonsei to kengaku/kenshū: Mujū ni okeru hanshūhateki shikō o megutte.” On
Nōshin and Chikotsu Dai’e, see Ruppert, “A Tale of Catalogs and Colophons,” 57–59; on Shiren, see
Kikuchi Hiroki, “Kokan Shiren no rekishiteki ichi” and Shōgei, see Suzuki Hideyuki, Chūsei gakusō to
Shintō. Concerning “pure” Zen, see Bernard Faure, Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Zen/Chan
Buddhism; William M. Bodiford, Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan, and T. Griffith Foulk, “Ritual in Japanese
Zen Buddhism.”
58 See Deal and Ruppert, A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism, 142–160 and Joseph Parker, Zen Buddhist
Landscape Arts of Early Muromachi Japan, 1336–1573; see also Imaizumi Yoshio, Zensōtachi no Muromachi
jidai: Chūsei zenrin no monogatari and Wada Ukiko, “Zenrin no shisō to bunka.”
59 Shiba Kayono, “Johen” and “Dokyōdō kō.”