fostered the development of textual criticism, which enabled the Confucian
Tominaga Nakamoto [92] (1715–1746) to deny their veracity.
Given such wide diversity of combatants and religious developments
over such a long span of time, it is impossible to explain interactions be-
tween religion and martial arts in terms of any single simplistic formula.
Neither the familiar trope of “Zen and/in the martial arts” nor the teleo-
logical determinism of “progressing from techniques to ways” can possibly
do justice to the variety of practices employed before 1868 to associate
martial training with cosmic forces and principles. The complexity of the
data is compounded by the fact that few scholars have researched either
Japanese religious practices or the vast literature describing premodern
martial arts. At this preliminary stage, tentative order can be imposed on
this vast topic by surveying it in terms of the three dominant religious pat-
terns of premodern Japan: familial religion of tutelary ancestors, alliances,
and control over land; exoteric-esoteric Buddhist systems of resemblances
and ritual mastery; and Chinese notions of cosmological and social order.
These three systems of meaning usually reinforced one another, but in some
circumstances they could just as easily stand in conflict. Even their con-
flicts, however, never approached the degree of mutually exclusive intoler-
ance historically associated with monotheistic religions. Instead of
monotheism, Japanese in those days recognized a hierarchical cosmology
populated by deities of local, regional, national, international, and univer-
sal significance, each type of which concerned only those spiritual matters
appropriate to their station.
Warriors relied on ancestral spirits and local tutelary deities to rein-
force their familial bonds, to intensify their military alliances, and to cement
their control over lands and over the peasants who worked those lands. In-
dividual warrior families publicly proclaimed their control over estate lands
by establishing a religious shrine for the worship of their clan ancestor
(ujigami [93]) or local tutelary deity who would assume the same functions.
Each male member of the household established permanent links to the
family’s tutelary spirits through special coming-of-age ceremonies at their
shrine. Obligations to contribute resources for and to participate in the an-
nual cycle of shrine rites forced otherwise estranged branches of the family
to cooperate with one another. Lower-ranked warriors who became vassals
also were obligated to participate in these ceremonies as a public confirma-
tion of their alliance. The relative positions and assigned roles among par-
ticipants in these ceremonies clearly revealed each family’s status, and
thereby constituted a mutual recognition of each one’s respective hierarchi-
cal rank. Before battles the entire warrior band invoked the protection of
their leader’s tutelary spirits. During peacetime, warriors invoked their tute-
lary spirits to threaten local peasants with divine punishment if they failed
Religion and Spiritual Development: Japan 487