82. SHINGON BUDDHISM IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD
Barbara AmbrosScholars of Japanese religions tend to assume Buddhist sectarian
boundaries were very clear from the early Edo period, when head-
branch temple hierarchies supplanted earlier lineage-based affiliations.
The relationships between the various schools of Shingon Buddhism—
officially divided into Kogi Shingon , Shingi Shingon
, and Shingon Ritsu at the time—and the relationship
between Tōzanha Shugendō and the Shingon temple Sanbōin at
Daigoji suggest otherwise. Even though the Tokugawa regime estab-
lished sectarian hierarchies in the seventeenth century, the institu-
tional relationships between the Shingon schools remained complexly
intertwined.
The Shingon school split into two schools in the late thirteenth
century: the Kogi, or “Old Rite,” school based at Mt. Kōya, and the
Shingi , or “New Rite,” school based at Negoroji. The lat-
ter traced its lineage back to Kakuban (1095–1143), who invigorated
Mt. Kōya and established Daidenpōin on the mountain but
faced opposition from the clerics at Kongōbuji. In 1288,
Daidenpōin was moved to Negoro, which became one of the great
powerful monastic complexes during the medieval period (George
Tanabe 1998, 47). Negoro was razed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1585.
The Shingi Shingon school subsequently divided into two branches:
Buzanha , based since 1588 at Hasedera in Yamato
province; and Chisanha , based at Chishakuin in Kyōto
(having been moved there from Negoroji in 1601 with the patronage of
Tokugawa Ieyasu).^1 In addition, though they formally belonged to the
Kogi Shingon school, Tōji, Ninnaji, and Daigoji remained influential
Shingon complexes throughout the medieval period. Daigoji in par-
ticular expanded the reach of its lineage in the Kantō region, including
Sagami, Musashi, Shimōsa, and Shimotsuke provinces (Kasahara 2001,
(^1) For the relationship between the Chizan and Buzan branches, see Kushida 1979,
615–28.