- the deity of miwa and tendai esoteric thought 861
performance of Enryakuji and the construction of kami worship at
Hieizan since early times. Its principal deity, the usṇ̣īṣa, or One-syl-
lable Golden Sphere of Buddha’s Pate (ichiji kinrin butchō
), represented by the Sanskrit syllable brūm, was central to the
ritual of the same name, originally performed by Tendai monks for the
pacification of calamities and the protection of the emperor. The ritual,
also known as the Rite of the Buddha’s Pate (dai butchō hō ),
was brought to Japan by Saichō, who had received it in an esoteric ini-
tiation at Guoqingsi in 804. In the medieval period, however,
the Ichiji kinrin butchō became a powerful tool in the conception of
esoteric kami worship and a prominent ritual in Sannō Shintō, a tradi-
tion developed at Hiezan dedicated to the worship of Sannō , the
Mountain King (Misaki 1992b; Kiuchi 1984, 337–44). It was assumed
that the One-syllable Golden Sphere (ichiji kinrin ) was the
“original manifestation” (honji ) of the deity of Sannō.
In the Origins of the Great Miwa Deity, similar concepts appear
to be of central importance. The text says that the name of Amat-
erasu, the Great Ise deity, was in fact “Dainichi, King of the Heavenly
Golden Sphere [Cakravartin], Illuminating All Things” (Ten kinrinnō
kōmyō henjō dainichi no son ) (ST, Jinja
hen, Ōmiwa Isonokami, Ōmiwa, 95). Although the particular use of
this term is not encountered elsewhere, it may be closely related to
numerous descriptions of the one-syllable golden sphere in the sutras
brought to Japan by Ennin and Enchin. As well as stating that the
identity of the Miwa deity was tripartite, the text also demonstrates
the use of the threefold pattern of the two-world mandala important
in the Taimitsu tradition, which interprets the mandala as consist-
ing of “three parts” (sanbu wagō ): the Kongōkai ,
the Taizōkai , and the nondual ( funi ), in accord with the
Tiantai doctrine of the Three Truths (santei.^11
One of the major puzzles in the discourse on medieval kami wor-
ship remains that of the production and possible circulation route of
the Miwa daimyōjin engi. It could be that such a merging of concepts
happened within the networks of esoteric and shugendō practitioners
who had connections to both Hiezan and Miwa and who congregated
(^11) On the key notions of Chinese Tiantai, such as the Three Truths, see Swanson
1989 and Stone 1999a.