is the Pure Land of buddhas and bodhisattvas (mitsugon
jodo,Pure Land adorned with mysteries). Third, a doc-
trine issued from Tendai esoteric circles (taimitsu)
proposed that this world’s flora could achieve buddha-
hood (somoku jobutsu), and this proposition enjoyed
a spectacular success in the medieval period and
evolved to the point that, in some cases, the flora was
regarded as the Buddha itself (somoku zebutsu).
Fourth, various PURELAND SCHOOLSproposed that
certain geographical locations were gates to the tran-
scendental Pure Land of the buddha Amida (Sanskrit,
AMITABHA) or of various bodhisattvas, with an em-
phasis on Kannon. As a consequence, quite a few
monastery gardens and buildings were built as physi-
cal replicas of various scriptural descriptions of the
Pure Lands.
Last but not least, the medieval assumption that
many local deities, the indigenous kamiof Shintowho
were objects of cult in precise locations, were mani-
festations of buddhas and bodhisattvas became a ma-
jor social practice. Known as HONJI SUIJAKU(Buddhist
deities leaving their traces in the form of Shinto
deities), this assumption and the related set of prac-
tices were responsible for a systematic association be-
tween Buddhist and non-Buddhist deities and their
respective cultic sites, and for the addition of Buddhist
notions of sacred space to native sentiments and prac-
tices. Nowhere was this system of associations, as well
as the former four doctrinal points, more evident than
in the development of pilgrimage and the formulation
of Shugendo.
Shugendo
An amalgamation of Buddhist, Daoist, and Japanese
native notions and practices, Shugendo slowly arose
and became a loose institutional system in the eleventh
century, by which time official records indicate the
presence of its practitioners (called shugenja or
yamabushi) in many parts of Japan, including the im-
perial court, where they served as thaumaturges and
healers. Shugendo’s dominant features include tenets
and practices that are central to both Shingon and
Tendai forms of esotericism, as well as longstanding,
pre-Buddhist notions of sacred space. Mountains that
had been regarded as the abode of gods (many of them,
incidentally, female entities), or as gods themselves, be-
came objects of worship on the part of these moun-
tain ascetics, but they also came to be treated as
off-limits to all but male ascetics. Women were only
allowed up to the point of certain boundaries marked
by engraved stones or wooden boards that read nyonin
kekkai(limit for women). Some peaks became the
object of ritualized ascents, while mountain ranges
became the object of highly ritualized peregrinations,
the goal of which was to realize buddhahood in this
body by becoming one with the land, each and every
feature of which was conceived of as a repository or
natural form of the Buddha’s teachings. Eventually,
several hundred mountains became sacred to Shugen-
dopractitioners.The main organizational characteristic of the Shugen-
dopractitioners’ ascents and peregrinations was to as-
sociate a given trek through mountain ranges with the
ritual acts and meditations monks of esoteric Bud-
dhism engaged in when using MANDALAs. Two main
mandalas were used in both Tendai and Shingon es-
oteric branches: the Adamantine mandala (kongo-kai
mandara), which was drawn as geometric elements
containing iconographic representations as well as
symbols in order to represent the essential character
of the absolute knowledge of the buddha Mahavairo-
cana (Dainichi nyorai), and the Matrix mandala
(taizo-kai mandara), which represented the various
objects of that knowledge. There were many other
mandalas, dedicated to single deities and known as
besson mandara,many of which were also used in
Shugendo. Elaborate rituals led to the achievement of
mystic identification with the deities shown in these
mandalas: Following a specific course through a given
mandala, ritualists engaged in the practice of the triple
mystery of the body, speech, and mind. Buddhahood
was supposed to be reached when distinctions between
the knower and the known (subject and object) were
annihilated. In Shugendo, this ritual process was pro-
jected over fairly large geographical areas: One moun-
tain range would be considered the natural form of one
mandala, and a nearby range was considered the nat-
ural form of the other mandala. Each peak rising in
these ranges, as well as some of the boulders, springs,
waterfalls, and other topographic features, were re-
garded as the residence of one of the many deities rep-
resented in the mandalas, and the practitioners would
spend several weeks peregrinating through such “nat-
ural mandalas” while dedicating rituals to these deities.
Practitioners usually followed one mandala course
through a given range in spring, the other mandala
course through a nearby range in autumn, and a sum-
mer retreat in the central mountain. Sacred space,
then, encompassed vast areas that were to be crossed
ritually, and stood as guarantor of physical and spiri-
tual salvation. Such “mandalized” areas were estab-
lished along several ranges, from the northernmostSPACE, SACRED