1028 richard k. payne
homologies: food is equated with the ritual offerings, the mouth with
the outer rim of the altar-hearth, the heat of digestion with that of fire,
and so on.
Other aspects of the symbolism of feasting an honored guest are the
offering of water to wash the feet; powdered incense to spread on the
guest’s body; and flowers, incense, lights, and music for their enjoy-
ment. The ritually central action, though it may not fall at the literal
center of the ritual performance, is union between the practitioner and
the deity evoked into the ritual enclosure. This ritual identification of
practitioner and deity (nyūga ganyū ; ahaṃkāra) is found
in all forms of tantra, both Hindu and Buddhist—except those with
a clearly dualistic worldview, such as Śaiva Siddhānta, according to
which there is an unbridgeable metaphysical gap between the practi-
tioner and the deity (Brunner-Lachaux 1963–1977).
The Impact of These Rituals: Yoshida Shintō and Omiwa Shintō
Both of these medieval Shintō traditions integrated ritual practices
from tantric Buddhism. Indeed the three rituals of the Yoshida
or Yuiitsu Shintō (“One and Only” Shintō) corpus (san-
dan gyōji ) are clearly modeled on the four described here
(Grapard 1992a, 1992b). These include the jūhachishintō ,
the sōgen gyōbō , and the yuishintō daigoma.
The jūhachishintō replicates the jūhachidō (Payne 2010a), the sōgen
gyōbō is a Northern Dipper ritual, and the yuishintō daigoma
replicates the Shingon goma. For its part the Omiwa had its own ver-
sion of the goma as well.
The ritual training programs of both Kōyasan and Hieizan have
remained understudied. A multitude of monks were either trained in
or their religious worldview deeply informed by these esoteric tradi-
tions—including but certainly not limited to the familiar Kamakura
era founders, Hōnen, Shinran, Nichiren (Dolce 2002), and Dōgen. An
understanding of the ritual training they participated in would provide
an important insight into the formation of Buddhism from the medi-
eval period onward.