. shingon buddhism in the early modern period 1015
mine the extent to which this was borne out in practice and where this
curriculum was implemented.
Early Modern Shingon Innovations: Keichū and Kokugaku and
Precepts Revival
The upheavals of the Meiji Restoration had a profound impact on
the Shingon schools. Between the third and fifth months of 1868, the
new Meiji regime issued orders that forced Buddhist clerics serving at
shrines to either leave their shrines or become laicized if they wished
to continue as shrine priests. Moreover, shrine priests and their fami-
lies were required to hold Shintō instead of Buddhist funerals. The new
legislation also demanded the removal of Buddhist images, Buddhist
implements such as bells and gongs, and combinative titles or names
for deities at Shintō shrines, such as gongen , Gozu Tennō
, and bosatsu ( bodhisattva). These had to be replaced by
more orthodox Shintō names and objects of worship (Tamamuro 1977,
120–25). The Shingon clergy, many of whom administered shrines as
intendants (bettō ), were deeply affected by these new rules.
For example, during the early modern period, Hakone Gongen
, the divinity of Mt. Hakone (Ashigarashimo district, Sagami
province), was administered by a Kogi Shingon intendant (bettō) at
Kongōōin , a major Kogi Shingon center in the region. The
complex had been designated as one of thirty-four Kogi Shingon acad-
emies in the Kantō region in the early seventeenth century. It had
also been awarded two hundred koku by shogunate decree (goshuin
) as a grant for the administration of the shrine (sharyō )
to Hakone Gongen. Half of the grant was to be divided between the
intendant and six ritual clerics (kusō ) responsible for rites at the
shrine. The other half went to several shugenja and shrine priests. Nine
additional lower-ranking Buddhist clerics (shūto ) also resided at
the site but had no share of the grant (Jiinhonmatsuchō kenkyūkai
1981, 39).
By the 1830s, the Hakone intendant and six ritual clerics remained
at Kongōōin, but the cultic site also included six shrine priests, includ-
ing a kannushi (head shrine priest) and shasō (shrine cler-
ics). There was an additional contingent of Honzanha and Tōzanha
shugenja associated with the site, three of whom resided in town and
twelve others in nearby villages (Ashida 1977, 2: 107; 1: 225, 260, 279).
A combinative site of such complexity became a target during the