898 sarah fremerman aptilon
cosmic tableau of universal salvation, choosing rather to isolate par-
ticular rites to be performed to gain specific benefits.^14 The “jewel
woman” passage itself is cited from the Beppongi, whose other selec-
tions include rituals for achieving the love of a woman, assuring safe
childbirth, bearing male children, and arousing and extinguishing lust,
among others. By this time in Japan, Nyoirin’s wish-fulfilling jewel
had come to signify not merely the power of her dhāraṇī but her direct
intervention to grant devotees’ wishes, and even the female body that
she offered to worthy emperors and monks.
Nyoirin’s manifestation in female forms like the jewel woman in
Japan may have their roots in the visions of Shōbō, or Rigen Daishi
, in the ninth century. Renowned for his supernormal pow-
ers, Shōbō was an accomplished scholar-monk known as the founder
of Daigoji, the temple from which the Ono lineage later emerged, and
also as the restorer of the Tōzan branch of Shugendō.^15 According
to the tenth-century Daigoji engi , Shōbō discovered what
he considered to be a holy site at the top of Mt. Kasatori, southeast
of Kyōto.^16 The Engi recounts that in 874 he began work on images of
Nyoirin and Juntei Kannon (Cundī-Avalokiteśvara; Zhunti
Guanyin) and on a hall to enshrine them on the mountain.^17 The work
was completed in 876, the year Daigoji was officially founded (see
Saeki 1991, 80–92). Once installed, however, the Nyoirin icon slipped
out of the hall and took a seat on the eastern peak of the mountain.
There Shōbō worshiped her day and night until she revealed that the
mountain was Potalaka, mythical home of Avalokiteśvara, and that
from this spot she sought to bring happiness to all sentient beings.
nature of the items drawn from the no longer extant Beppongi, and suggests that it
was probably a Japanese creation of the late Heian or early Kamakura period (Iyanaga
2002, 577–87).
(^14) For a more detailed study of this list of benefits, see Fremerman 2008.
(^15) On Shōbō’s biography, see Saeki 1991.
(^16) This text, whose earliest extant manuscript dates to 937, is the earliest account
of these events. See BZ 117, 246a–252b; see also Saeki 1991, 80–108, 204–17. Several
incidents recorded in the Engi also appear in two Daigoji document collections. See
Keien (twelfth century), Daigo zōjiki (Nakajima 1932); and Gien
(1558–1626), Daigoji shinyōroku (Daigoji bunkazai kenkyūjo, ed.
1991).
(^17) Like Nyoirin, Juntei is often depicted holding a cakra and cintāmaṇi, among
other attributes. On the bodhisattvas’ iconographies, see Inoue Kazutoshi 1992, 1–98;
Asai Kazuharu 1998, 1–98.