1000 gaynor sekimori
ritual activities of the main shrine, Tendai ritual and liturgical ele-
ments were not excluded from worship there. Temple activities cen-
tered on fully ordained priests who served Kannon and lower-ranking
clerics who served the gongen and traveled to Haguro parishes scat-
tered around northern Japan to maintain contacts with lay supporters.
There were also a small number of shrine priests and miko serving
the kami.
At the end of the civil war period, Haguro was plagued by political
squabbles that laid waste to the mountain, in both environmental and
administrative terms, and which loosened traditional alliances among
lay supporters and branch temples in the localities. With the restora-
tion of order under Tokugawa rule, successive bettō made it a priority
to stop further disintegration and win back old alliances. Moreover,
though Tokugawa religious policy vis-à-vis Shugendō was to force all
temples to affiliate either with the Honzanha or the Tōzanha, certain
powerful centers, such as Mt. Hiko, Kinpusenji at Yoshino, and Mt.
Haguro, resisted this and lobbied to maintain their independence.
In an environment where the growing preeminence of Tendai was
a political fact, Jakkōji maneuvered to be made a branch temple of
Kan’eiji (Tōeizan ) in Edo, the preeminent Tendai tem-
ple in Japan. This campaign came to fruition in 1641, and as a result
Jakkōji became a Tendai temple, incorporating all the former temples
and sub-temples of the mountain and bringing all affiliated shugenja,
both in Tōge and in the parishes, under its control. A wholesale retell-
ing of the doctrinal and liturgical narrative occurred at that time, and
it is probably no accident that very little detailed documentary evi-
dence of pre-Tendai liturgies, rituals, or the conduct of mountain-
entry practices remains.
A series of documents dated 1744–1747 gives a broad picture of
Edo-period Jakkōji.^9 According to these, “Tendaishū Hagurosan
Hōzen’in” consisted of thirty-one sub-temples of Tendai priests, three
hundred and thirty-six households (bō ) of married shugenja in
Tōge, three nenbutsu (funerary) temples, and two gyōha
(lifelong ascetic) temples. In addition, there were seventeen branch
temples and two thousand eight hundred and forty-four village
shugenja distributed predominantly in northern Japan.
(^9) Aratame ninbetsuchō documents in Dewa Sanzan shiryōshū 1994, 119–20, 221–
24, 225–30.