1022 barbara ambros
prohibitions against healing rituals (Miyake 2006, 48). In 1874, former
shugenja were prohibited from renting accommodations in towns and
designating them as temples (Moriyama 1973, 703).
Both Shingon clerics and shugenja lost control of village shrines
unless they chose to laicize and become Shintō shrine priests. However,
Shingon clerics had a greater chance of survival as religious profes-
sionals than shugenja because they could rely on funeral parishes and
tight-knit temple networks formed by the head-branch temple system.
In western Sagami province, of 206 temples extant in the 1830s, 174
temples (84.5 percent) survived into 1872. In contrast, of 48 Tōzanha
Shugendō temples extant in the 1830s, only 18 (38 percent) survived
until 1872. In both cases, most of the losses occurred on the village
level (figures based on Hayashi 1972 and Chikan 1984).
Based on comparable evidence from Honzanha in the region, it is
very likely that many shugenja became shrine priests or were com-
pletely laicized. For example, Chin’ei , the resident shugenja at
Gyokuryūbō, an important Honzanha temple in Odawara that con-
trolled most Honzanha temples in Sagami during the early modern
period, laicized and became the shrine priest of the Matsubara Myōjin
shrine in Odawara, where he had previously served as inten-
dant (Tsuji 1983, 599–601). Similarly, the shugenja at Sennōin ,
a Honzanha temple in Yokono village, Ōsumi district, who had served
as the intendant for a village shrine, chose to become its shrine priest
in 1869 (Hadano shishi hensan iinkai 1992, 34).
Among shugenja in general, scholars estimate that about 10 percent
identified themselves as Buddhist clerics, 30 percent became shrine
priests, and the remaining 60 percent gave up their lives as religious
specialists completely (Sekimori 2002, 211). Many of those who
became Buddhist clerics eventually did not survive the change because
they had no funeral parishes to sustain themselves and had to give up
their profession as religious specialists. For example, Kichijōji ,
a Tōzanha Shugendō temple in Shibusawa village (Sagami province),
had become a Shingon temple but was forced to close its doors in 1873
because it had no funeral parishioners and offered insufficient income
for the resident cleric, who became a farmer instead (Hadano shishi
hensan iinkai 1992, 14).
The differences in training made full integration of shugenja into
the Shingon school difficult to achieve. Indeed, even though shugenja
were reeducated in the sectarian practices and teachings and wore sec-
tarian robes, they were ranked below Buddhist clerics and were not