. shingon buddhism in the early modern period 1017
with one or the other, they also redefined what it meant to be a Bud-
dhist cleric. Suddenly, family ties superseded religious identities. In
1871, Shingon temples whose abbots were of imperial or aristocratic
lineage—for example Ninnaji and Daikakuji—were stripped of this
privilege, while aristocratic and imperial clerics were made to revert
to the corresponding lay status (Moriyama 1973, 701). The ban against
clerical marriage was lifted in the fourth month of 1872.^7 In 1874, all
clerics were reintegrated into their natal family registers, and their spe-
cial status as clerics was thus removed (Moriyama 1973, 703).^8
Furthermore, the Meiji regime eradicated status differentiations
between the various types of Buddhist religious specialists common
in the premodern Shingon school. On Mt. Kōya, clerics were divided
into gakuryo (highly educated ritual specialists), gyōnin
(administrative specialists), and hijiri (fundraising specialists), but
in 1869 the new regime abolished these distinctions by decree and all
clerics were designated as gakuryo. Monastic court ranks for clerics
were abolished in 1873 (Moriyama 1973, 699, 703). The decision to
incorporate shugenja into the Buddhist clergy also fit into the overall
policy to standardize the clergy and remove their privileges.
(^7) Eventually, the practice became accepted in the first decades of the twentieth cen-
tury (Jaffe 2001, 109, 154–59, 193, 214).
(^8) Those whose natal origins were unclear and those who did not wish to rejoin their
natal family register could opt to be registered at their current place of residence, but
they had to be registered like everyone else.