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Avalokitevara's Manifestation as the VirginMary: The Jesuit Adaptation and the VisualConation in Japanese Catholicism after 1614

Junhyoung Michael Shin

Church History / Volume 80 / Issue 01 / March 2011, pp 1 - 39

DOI: 10.1017/S0009640710001575, Published online: 07 March 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009640710001575

How to cite this article:Junhyoung Michael Shin (2011). Avalokitevara's Manifestation as the Virgin Mary:The Jesuit Adaptation and the Visual Conation in Japanese Catholicism after1614. Church History, 80, pp 1-39 doi:10.1017/S0009640710001575

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Avalokitesvaras Manifestation as the Virgin

Mary: The Jesuit Adaptation and the VisualConflation in Japanese Catholicism after 1614

JUNHYOUNGMICHAEL SHIN

These people used to call upon the name of Amida, but now when theyencounter danger or are alarmed by a sudden change of things, they recite

the names of Jesus and Mary. They call each other by baptismal names,and cross themselves before eating meals or drinking tea. This way theyare learning Christian customs so naturally that sometimes it even appearsto me that these people have been Christians from the old days.

Luis Frois, Historia de Japam, 15871

SINCESt. Francis Xavier landed in Kagoshima in 1549, the Jesuit mission

in Japan had achieved an amazing number of conversions, even though

their activity lasted for merely about fifty years. Their great success came

to an abrupt end in 1614 when the Bakufu government began the fullproscription and persecution of the religion. An earlier ruler, Toyotomi

Hideyoshi, had already banned Christianity and ordered the expulsion of

foreign missionaries in 1587, but without strict enforcement. Since the

1630s, the former Christians were required to enroll in local Buddhist

temples and annually go through the practice of treading on Christian icons

in order to prove their apostasy. However, many Christians secretly retained

the faith by disguising their true religious identity with Buddhist

paraphernalia. These so-called underground (or sempuku) Christians

survived more than two hundred years of persecution, and today somegroups still continue to practice their own religion, refusing to join the

Catholic Church. The present-day religion of the latter, called hidden (or

kakure) Christians to distinguish them from the former, has drawn the

attention of ample anthropological as well as religious studies.2

Junhyoung Michael Shin is Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology and

Art History at Seoul National University.

1Luis Froiss observation on the Christian converts of western Kyushu in 1587. See Luis FroisS. J., Nihonshi (History of Japan), trans. and eds. Kiichi Matsuda et al. (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha,19771980), 11:160.

2Terminology referring to early Japanese Christians is not consistent, but I will follow Miyazakis

definitions. The Christians throughout the period of persecution are called underground (sempuku)

1

Church History 80:1 (March 2011), 139. American Society of Church History, 2011doi:10.1017/S0009640710001575


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My essay concerns the underground Christiansvisual culture in the earlier

period of their secretive religion, roughly from the proscription of 1614 to the

middle of the eighteenth century.3 Even though Christianity was widespread

throughout the entire nation, I will focus on the Nagasaki and Bungo

regions of Kyushu, where the Jesuits missionary efforts had been highly

concentrated, and the majority of underground Christians were discovered

later in a series of crackdowns.4 Most of the visual objects I discuss in this

essay were recovered from the Nagasaki area and the islands off its coast.

During this period of persecution, the underground Christians religion and

practice gradually fused with Pure Land Buddhism, the process of which can

be observed in both their verbal and visual culture.

The Jesuitsadaptation method of teaching Christianity in comparison to the

indigenous religious tradition had the possibility of confusion from the

beginning, especially for the Japanese who were used to the syncretistic co-

existence of multiple religious beliefs.5 When severe persecution gradually

pulled the Japanese away from the Jesuits guidance,6 their isolated

Christians. After the lift of the ban in 1873, about the half of underground Christians rejoined theCatholic Church. This group is called resurrected (hukkatsu) Christians. The rest of undergroundChristians refused to return to the Church and continued to practice their own religion. They arecalled hidden (kakure) Christians. Kakure Kirishitan no Shinko Sekai (Secret Christians BeliefWorld) (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1996), 3034; Kentaro Miyazaki, Roman Catholic

Mission in Pre-modern Japan, in Handbook of Christianity in Japan, ed. Mark R. Mullins(Leiden: Brill, 2003): 45.

3For the introduction to the history of underground (sempuku) Christians, see Arimichi Ebisawa,

Crypto-Christianity in Tokugawa Japan,Japan Quarterly7 (1960), 28894; C. R. Boxer, TheClandestine Catholic Church in Feudal Japan, 16141640, History Today 16 (1966), 5361.

For recent studies in Japanese, see Koichiro Takase, Kirishitan no Seiki, Zabieru no Toichi karaSakoku made (Christian Century: From the Arrival of St. Xavier to the Closure of Nation)(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993); Sanae Murai, Kirishitan Kinsei to Minshu no Shukyo (TheProhibition of Christianity and the Religion of the People) (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha,2002); Kodai Obashi, Kinsei Nippon Sempuku Kirishitan no Shinko Kyodotai to SeikatsuKyodotai (Early Modern Underground Christians Religious Community and LifeCommunity),Chichukai Kenkyusho Kiyo 4 (2006): 11117.

4Shinzo Kawamura, S. J., Making Christian Lay Communities during the Christian Centuryin Japan: a Case Study of Takata District in Bungo(Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1999), 95;Miyazaki, Kakure Kirishitan, 3637. The most renowned case is a series of crackdowns inUrakami, near Nagasaki. See Yakichi Kataoka, Urakami Yonbankuzure: Meiji Seifu noKirishitan danatsu (Four Crackdowns in Urakami: Persecution of Christians by MeijiGovernment) (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1964), 5267.

5Ebisawa, Crypto-Christianity, 288.6Even after the enforced deportation of foreign priests in 1614, Catholic priests including the

Franciscans and the Dominicans secretly remained or reentered as late as 1639. See Boxer,

Clandestine Christians, 61. The Jesuits annual reports on Japan, though written from Macaoafter 1614, continued to 1625. They recount ample stories of martyrdom, return from apostasy,and even miracle. See Kiichi Matsuda et al., trans. and ed., Juroku-shichiseiki Iezusukai Nihon

Hokokushu (SixteenthSeventeenth Century JesuitsJapan Reports) (Kyoto: Dohosha Shuppan,1990), part 2, vol. 2 (16131618) and vol. 3 (16191625).

2 CHURCH HISTORY


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Catholicism and imagery came to be conflated with Pure Land Buddhism, from

which they adopted verbal, visual, and ritualistic elements to disguise their

religion. The lay leader and catechist alone, who had supplemented the

shortage of ordained priests in the pre-persecution era, seemed simply

insufficient to prevent such a gradual transformation over the generations

without regular contacts with the Church.7 This conflation would eventually

lead to a third religion, not identical to either Catholicism or Buddhism,

which has continued up to the present by hidden Christians in the western

islands off the coast of Kyushu.

I am arguing that the underground Christiansconflation of Catholicism with

Pure Land Buddhism was not only caused by external factors of persecution

and the need for camouflage but was also strongly effected by the internal,

theological elements common to both religions. Their initial use of Buddhist

icons as devotional substitutes was likely motivated by the purpose of

disguise based on the similarities among those icons and related rituals.

However, the substitution gradually became rationalized and justified, and

eventually led to a fusion of two religions. This phenomenon should also be

understood in light of the very theology of Pure Land Buddhism, in which

bodhisattva Avalokitevara (Japanese: Kannon) and Buddha Amitabha

(Japanese: Amida) miraculously intervene and conduct soteriological works

for sinful human beings. Under severe persecution from the government and

isolation from the Churchs theological guidance, Japanese Christians not

only had to camouflage their true religious identity but also, and more

urgently, needed to shape and preserve their religious imagery with the

verbal and visual traditions with which they had been deeply infused.

Among the multiple religious traditions that had syncretistically co-existed

in Japanese culture, Pure Land Buddhism appears to have provided

underground Christians with the most justifiable rationale for the substitution

of its visual and verbal imagery as alternatives.8 As a result, the unusual

circumstances of persecution and isolation brought forth an interesting case

of the two religions conflation, first in the realm of their visual imagery,

7Whelan suggests that this kind lay-oriented system could have resulted in the incompleteindoctrination of converts even in the pre-persecution period. See Christal Whelan, trans. et.nota., The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japans Hidden Christian(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996), 11, 2223.

8Ikuo Higashibaba,Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice (Leiden:Brill, 2001), 7681. Though rarely, Shinto icons were also adopted by underground Christians. Butthe main elements of Shintoism appropriated by underground and hidden Christians were, forexample, purification rites or commemoration of the dead rather than the major deities ofworship. See Ann Harrington, The Kakure Kirishitan and Their Place in Japans ReligiousTradition, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 7, no. 4 (December 1980): 31936; Stephen

Turnbull, From Catechist to Kami: Martyrs and Mythology among the Kakure Kirishitan,Japanese Religions19 (1994), 5881.

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY 3


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which would then eventually modify what they had originally stood for in

theology.9

The similar role and appearance of the Virgin Mary and bodhisattva Kannon

have been discussed by many scholars of religion and art history, but I believe

that not only their common intercessory role or external resemblance but also

the latters power of transformation and manifestation, drawn from the

Universal Gate chapter of the Lotus Sutra , led to the

justification of the iconographic substitute known as Maria-Kannon. In this

regard, another occasion of iconographic conflation or proximity was

observed between the image of Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary and Taima

Mandara, a schematic representation of Amidas paradisiacal Pure Land.10

Their association also needs to be explained, not merely by similar

compositions, but also by their analogous function in devotional practices.

Both rosary prayer and the sixteen-view contemplation of Pure Land

Buddhism utilized these images as visual manuals to guide mental

visualization often combined with repetitive, numerically formulated prayers.

On the other hand, the substitute Buddha images used by underground

Christians, unlike the case of Maria-Kannon, have rarely been identified as a

specific Buddha except for one Amida statuette.11 Usually these statues are

so small and simply shaped that they do not exhibit distinguishable

iconographic features to identify. I argue that their identity should be decided

by the perception and religious imagery of underground Christians rather

than ambiguous formal traits. I believe that in this regard they were deemed

to be Amida, initially disguising but eventually impersonating and fusing

with Christ. I will support this argument not only with the theology and

imagery of Amida in Japanese Buddhism and its art but also with significant

references to him in underground Christians orally transmitted biblical

account, Tenchi Hajimari no Koto (On the Beginning of Heaven and Earth,

hereafter THK), recovered in manuscripts circulating in the western islands

off the coast of Nagasaki.12

9Higashibaba indicates that Christian symbols in Japan were indeed perceived and functioned inthe context of Japanese syncretistic religious system, which does not completely agree with theEuropeans. Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 3036.

10Tei Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu (Namban Art) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1958), 4849.11For example, see Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan Zuhan Mokuroku: Kirishitan Kankei Ihin

Hen (Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum: Objects relating to early ChristianFaith in Japan) (Tokyo National Museum, 1972), cat. no. 47.

12I primarily relied on Alfred Bohners German translation and original Japanese text therein, andChristal Whelans translation and detailed annotations. Whelan also provides the listing ofTHKmanuscripts and their genealogy in her book on xixii, 1820. I also referred to KenichiTanigawas modern Japanese rendition and notes. See Alfred Bohner, trans. et nota., Tenchi

Hajimari no Koto. Wie Himmel und Erde entstanden, Monumenta Nipponica 1, no. 2 (July1938): 465514; Whelan, Heaven and Earth; Kenichi Tanigawa, trans. et nota., Tenchi

4 CHURCH HISTORY


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I do not, however, argue that underground Christians regarded the Virgin

literally as one of Kannons thirty-three manifestations, or that they

identified Amida as another of Christs hypostases, even though the rather

provocative title of this essay may misleadingly suggest as much. Rather I

attempt to point out that the Jesuits remarkable proselytization in Japan

must have been, regardless of their awareness of it, greatly facilitated by the

Japanese heritage of Pure Land Buddhism, which had shaped their religious

disposition to be susceptible to Christianity, alien but analogical regarding its

primary deities or personages, soteriology, and even visual culture. The Pure

Land School was much stronger and more deeply rooted in Japanese

Buddhism than in that of China or Korea, whence the school was

transmitted. No matter how much the Jesuit fathers dismissed and despised

Buddhism as the devils poor imitation of the true faith, similarities between

Jesuit Christianity and Pure Land Buddhism contributed to Japanese

conversion and tenacious adherence to Christianity in the following centuries

of persecution.

I. THE JESUITS PRESENCE IN BUDDHIST JAPAN

The Jesuits mission in Japan was an unprecedented success at least in

numbers, especially when we compare it with the case in China that shared

with Japan cultural heritage such as Chinese writing and Buddhism. The

Jesuits converted around six thousand Japanese in the first ten years after

St. Francis Xaviers arrival, and by the time of proscription in 1614, the

number of converts reached around three hundred thousand. Conversion

continued even afterward and their number reached 760,000 by the early

1630s.13 The Christian mission began first in Kyushu but in the 1560s

spread to the main island of Honshu under Oda Nobunagas permission and

support.14 Finally, missionaries had free access to all parts of Japan, which

also contrasts with the situation in China.15

Surprisingly, the maximum number of priests in Japan by 1614 was merely

142, including seven Japanese. This shortage was complemented by the

Hajimari no Koto, in Kakure Kirishitan no Seiga (The Paintings of Hidden Christian) (Tokyo:Shogakukan, 1999).

13Miyazaki, Roman Catholic,7; Peter Nosco, Secrecy and Transmission of Tradition: Issuesin the Study of the Underground Christians, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 20, no. 1(1993): 5.

14Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America: 15421773(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 57.

15C. R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan 15491650(Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress), 79.



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Jesuitsactive employment of lay leaders and catechists.16 These lay catechists

catered to the religious needs of the villagers and were later even endowed the

authority to give baptism and funeral services. Furthermore, the Jesuits

encouraged the lay organizations called Confraria based on the model of

European confraternity, which initially aimed at charitable activities but

gradually became devotional organizations under persecution.17 These lay

brotherhoods and catechists continued to play their roles during the

underground era and served as the foundation for the disguise and

preservation of their religion. Kawamura interestingly observes that this

Christian confraternity resembled the traditional lay organization of True

Pure Land Buddhism, and thus could easily be understood and appropriated

by the Japanese populace.18

The impressive number of conversions is, to a certain extent, ascribed to the

unique Japanese political culture that caused the mass conversion. When a local

daimyo converted to Christianity, all his subjects in the realm, even including

Buddhist monks, had to follow their ruler.19 However, the sincerity of these

early Christians should not be underestimated merely due to their initial

motive for baptism, since the conversion continued even after the national

ban of 1587, and more significantly, when the severe persecution began in

1614, many Japanese Christians chose to die as martyrs rather than retreat

from their faith. Over the thirty years persecution after 1614, more than two

thousand Japanese Christians were martyred.20 Considering the roughly fifty

years of the Jesuits mission activity, the number of martyrs is simply

amazing. Even more remarkable about Japanese Christianity is the survival

of underground Christians, who secretly retained and continued their

religious identity and practice for the next several hundreds of years, even to

date. The martyrdom and the survival of underground Christians in Kyushu

indicates that Christianity, albeit not fully understood, took firm root among

the Japanese.21

16Boxer, Clandestine Catholic Church,55; Kawamura, Christian Lay Communities,17980.17Ebisawa, Crypto-Christianity, 291; Kawamura, Christian Lay Communities, 19599.;

Obashi, Kinsei Nippon Sempuku Kirishitan, 11314; Koya Tahoku, Sempuku Kirishitan niokeru Kyokai Soshiki oyobi Tenrei no Henyo (The Transformation of Church Organizationand Ritual among Underground Christians), Kirisutokyo Shigaku 7 (1956): 3233. Such layconfraternities, as well as the mission activities in general, were also presided by other religiousorders such as the Dominicans and the Franciscans. However, I will limit my discussion to thecase of the Jesuits, since their accommodation policy seems to have opened a way for religiousfusion with Buddhism.

18Kawamura, Christian Lay Communities, 31537.19Higashibaba introduces the well-known case of Omura clan with specific numbers in his

Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 3940.20Boxer, Christian Century, 448.21Bailey,Jesuit Missions, 54, 81.

6 CHURCH HISTORY


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Such an eager sympathy with, if not the orthodox understanding of,

Christianity was possible, in part because the Japanese were already

ingrained with a similar set of ideas, deities, and visual culture from Pure

Land Buddhism. Early Jesuit fathers in Japan also noted the formal

similarities between Catholicism and Buddhism, as Fr. Matteo Ricci did in

China.22 Fr. Vilela reported, The monks say matins, tierce, vespers and

complines, for the devil wished them to imitate the things of Our Lord in

everything.23 Fr. Frois called the Gion festival in Kyoto the devils attempt

to imitate the Feast of Corpus Christi.24 No matter how devilish the Jesuits

regarded these elements, they attempted to take advantage of such

similarities to familiarize the Japanese with their Western religion. For

example, St. Francis Xavier borrowed Buddhist terms such as Dainichi

(Buddha Vairocana for God), jodo (Pure Land for heavenly paradise), jigoku

(hell), and tennin (angel).25 However, after the term Dainichi caused serious

confusion, the Jesuits preferred to use the transliterations of the original Latin.26

The religious and ideological foundation in Japan, though sharing much with

China, was rather different. Even though Confucianism was the ruling ideology

of China and Korea, it never reached the same status in Japan. It was largely

limited to the upper warrior class as their codes of conduct in the later

Bakuhu government.27 Thus, adaptation to Confucianism, which was Fr.

Matteo Riccis lifelong endeavor in China, was rather unnecessary in

Japan.28 Whereas Buddhism in China and Korea retreated largely as a

religion devoid of political power, Japanese Buddhism maintained a

considerable political status with wealth and even military force. Its position

in society was quite similar to that of Christianity in Europe.29 Already since

the Kamakura period (11801333), Buddhism had penetrated into every

level of Japanese society and was the de facto state religion.30 Boxer even

22China in the Sixteenth Century: the Journals of Matthew Ricci: 15831610, trans. L. J.Gallagher, S.J. (New York: Random House, 1942), 99.

23Boxer, Christian Century, 66.24Boxer, Christian Century, 70.25Andrew Ross, A Vision Betrayed: the Jesuits in Japan and China, 15421742 (Maryknoll,

N.Y.: Orbis, 1994), 29; Notto R. Thelle, The Christian Encounter with Japanese Buddhism, inHandbook, 22829.

26In comparison to the China mission, where almost all the theological terms were translated inChinese, it is relatively true that the Jesuits in Japan relied more on the transliterations thantranslation of terms. However, Suzuki observes that the Jesuits and Japanese Christianscontinued to explore the translation of theological terms such as corpora andcarne by resortingto analogical terms from Buddhism. See Hiromitsu Suzuki, Kirishitan Shukyosho ni okeruBukkyogo Mondai (The Issue of Buddhist terms found in Christian Literature), NagoyaDaigaku Bungakubu Kenkyu Ronshu109 (March 1991): 48.

27Ebisawa, Crypto-Christianity, 28889.28Ross,Vision Betrayed, 86.29Bailey,Jesuit Missions, 54.30Bailey,Jesuit Missions, 55; Ross, Vision Betrayed, 34; Boxer,Christian Century, 44.



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observed that, compared with the Confucianist and rather atheistic Chinese and

Koreans, the Buddhist Japanese might have had more potential to embrace

Christianity as a religion.31 Three schools of Buddhism, namely Zen, Pure

Land, and Nichiren, became the most dominant in Japan. Pure Land and

Nichiren, in particular, held the strongest appeal to the populace.32

Pure Land Buddhism as an identifiable school in Japan was launched by

Honen (11331212), whose teachings on the simple practice of

Nembutsu , the invocation of Amida, and the reward of rebirth in the

Pure Land were easily accessible to a wide range of believers.33 As Pure

Land Buddhism grew and evolved, one of its sects, True Pure Land

founded by Shinran (11731262), became especially powerful. The

Nichiren School originated in the teachings of former Tendai monk

Nichiren (12221282), who deemed the Lotus Stura to be

the gist of the religion. In Pure Land Buddhism, the focus of popular

worship centered on two deities, Buddha Amida and bodhisattva Kannon.

Pure Land Buddhism teaches that in the degenerate age of the law, sinful

human beings are devoid of the ability to achieve nirvana by their own

efforts and thus they should rely on Buddha Amidas salvific compassion

and power to be reborn in his Pure Land. In this process, his attendant

bodhisattva Kannon provides immense help.

The Nichiren School proposes the thorough study and even worship of the

Lotus Sutra.34 This sutra is probably the one single most widely loved and

read sutra in Japan.35 Even though the Nichiren School was quite critical of

and even hostile to Pure Land Buddhism, their Lotus Sutra also contributed

to the great faith in and popularity of Kannon, since its chapter 25, titled

Universal Gate, details the intercessory power of this bodhisattva. For this

reason this chapter is even called Kannon sutra. Kannons intercession

ultimately aims to deliver human beings and transport them to the Pure Land

of Amida. Not limited to Pure Land scriptures, the Lotus Sutra also

describes Amidas Pure Land as the afterlife paradise in chapter 23.

If within the latter five hundred years after the Buddha entered Nirvana, thereis a woman who listens to this sutra and practices as it says, then at the end ofthis life, she will go to the world of peace and delight, where Amitabha

31Boxer, Christian Century, 209.32Ross,Vision Betrayed, 5, 95; Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 55.33Allan A. Andrews, Honen and Popular Pure Land Piety: Assimilation and Transformation,

The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 17 (1994): 96110.34For a general introduction to Nichiren School, see Tamura Yoshiro, The New Buddhism of

Kamakura and Nichiren,Acta Asiatica 20 (1971): 4557.35The belief in the power of this sutra spawned ample miracle stories. See Yoshiko Dykstra,

Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra. The Danihonkoku Hokkegenki, Monumenta Nipponica32, no. 2 (Summer 1977): 189210.

8 CHURCH HISTORY


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Buddha and the great company of bodhisattvas reside around, and she will beborn on a jeweled seat inside the lotus flower.36

, , , , , ,,37

Thus, both the Pure Land and Nichiren Schools spawned the cult of these two

deities, whose positions in Japanese Buddhism were far more prominent than in

Chinese or Korean Buddhism.38

The Jesuits active adaptation to Japanese culture began with Fr. A.

Valignano, whose method of so-called modo soave differed from the earlier

one-way approach.39 He appreciated the firm status of Buddhism in Japanese

culture. Its priests were a respected model of decorum and the Jesuits had to

emulate them to compete.40 Due to Japanese respect for Buddhist monks, the

Jesuits also enjoyed a similar esteem, being regarded as their peers.41 Both

elementary and advanced levels of education were offered in Buddhist

temples and monasteries, which further consolidated the respect for

Buddhism in the society.42 All these circumstances led Valignano to

conceive of the adoption of Buddhist models in the shaping of Christian

church and community organizations. Furthermore, the Jesuit seminary and

college at, respectively, Funai and Nagasaki seriously taught Buddhist

theology in their curricula, although only to refute it.43

However, such an active interest and approach to Buddhism did not last long.

Seeing that Oda Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi repressed the

militant Buddhists, such as those of True Pure Land and Nichiren, Valignano

abandoned the idea of following Buddhist models, regarding the latter no

longer as powerful peers.44 But Nobunaga and Hideyoshi opposed the secular,

political power of certain Buddhist sects, not the religions status in Japanese

36For consistency of terms, all the scriptural citations in this essay are translated by author. I triedto make the translations as literal as possible, strictly conforming to the original Chinese.

37Taisho Tripitaka, T262: 54b.38The worship of Amida and Kannon was not limited to Pure Land Buddhism but truly a pan-

Buddhist phenomenon in Japan. Their worship in Japan was greatly enhanced by Tendai schoolmonk Genshins Essentials of Rebirth Pure Land (985), teaching the blissful PureLand of Amida and Kannons salvific intervention. Zen Buddhism also fostered the iconicworship of Amida and Kannon. See Mark MacWilliams, Living Icons: Reizo Myths of theSaikoku Kannon Pilgrimage,Monumenta Nipponica59, no. 1 (Spring 2004), 36, 41.

39Bailey,Jesuit Missions, 61.40J. F. Moran, The Japanese and the Jesuits: Alessandro Valignano in Sixteenth-Century Japan

(London: Routledge, 1993), 54; Boxer, Christian Century, 83.41Boxer, Christian Century, 78.42Boxer, Christian Century, 39, 87, 116.43Bailey,Jesuit Missions, 62; Boxer, Christian Century, 221.44Kazuo Kasahara, ed.,A History of Japanese Religion, trans. P. McCarthy et al.. (Tokyo: Kosei,

2001), 208, 38889; Moran,Jesuits and Japanese, 5657.



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culture, which Valignano did not understand.45 Thus on the eve of the Jesuits

expulsion from Japan, there remained between Buddhism and Christianity

enmity and distrust. The real contact and mutual acculturation between the

two were to take place under persecution, in which underground Christians

had to continue to shape their religious life and practice, on the one hand, with

their isolated memory of Christianity, and on the other hand, with their own

cultural heritage of worshiping Buddhist deities through visual experience.

The Jesuitsannual report on the year 1621, written by Fr. Geronimo Majorca

from Macao to the Jesuit General Matteo Vitelleschi, recounted two interesting

incidents that attest to a strange coexistence, albeit not yet a fusion, of the two

religions. The setting of these two events was Bungo province, an important

center of mission activity with the Jesuit college built in Funai.

A young man, an ardent worshiper of the idol [Amida], fell ill and asked hisChristian parents to bring in a Buddhist monk. The superstitious prayer of theBuddhist monk did not cause any improvement and his condition becameworse. His mother repented of her inviting a Buddhist monk and went outto the house garden in the night and harshly flagellated herself for

punishment. While beating herself, she saw that a cross surrounded bymysterious light was arising above a nearby mountain. She furtherwhipped herself and cried, asking for Deuss mercy. She called her

husband to bring the sick son so that he could also see the mysteriouscross. The vision of the cross changed everything for this young man. Hethence received baptism and recovered his health.

A Christian lady, without judging from God-fearing reverence, was ratherheedlessly drawn to the temptation to visit a pagan [Buddhist] temple.Visiting a temple, she was urged by her company and together with them

bowed to the idol. After committing this act of blasphemy, she suddenlyfelt a sharp pain in her body. When the pain abated for a moment, shecame back home with all her strength. To her alarmed husband, she

recounted her act of reckless curiosity. He told her that she was beingpunished and that she should beg for forgiveness from Deus. Sheearnestly implored Deus for His mercy and the pain disappeared.46

Even though the Jesuit writer underscored the eventual triumph and superiority

of Christianity, the story more likely demonstrates the coexistence of different

religions typical in Japanese culture. Christian parents were calling a Buddhist

monk to cure their Buddhist sons illness. A Christian lady was tempted to visit

and venerate a Buddhist statue, probably expecting that the act would bring her

extra merits in addition to Christian blessing. These Japanese converts did not

45Moran,Jesuits and Japanese, 70; Boxer, Christian Century, 64.46Iezusukai Nihon Hokokushu, part 2, 3:15253.

10 CHURCH HISTORY


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see much contradiction until they ran into a punishment from the monotheistic

Christian God. Furthermore, a beaming cross soaring above the village

mountain is strongly reminiscent of the Pure Land Buddhist iconography of

Yamagoshi Amida, in which Amida surrounded by light appears above a

nearby village mountain.47 This common Amida image was christened by

changing his image into a cross.

In 1621, even though these Japanese converts were clearly aware of the

distinction between Christianity and Buddhism, they were not shunning the

latter from their daily lives. In the next decade, priests who were in hiding

would be rooted out, and these Japanese Christians actively employed

Buddhist terms and images, disguising their secret religion. Without the strict

guidance of the ordained priests, as they continued to practice on their own

their underground Christianity camouflaged with Buddhism, which they had

not strictly detested even in the earlier days, the latter gradually became

more and more a part of the former, and the confusion and conflation

between the two in words and images became more firmly substantiated as a

third entity over the generations.

II. MARIA-KANNON: MASQUERADE AND MANIFESTATION

When the persecution of Christianity intensified, Christians were required to

declare apostasy and enroll in local Buddhist temples.48 However, many of

them chose to secretly retain and continue their religious practices, using

Buddhist statues and altars as a domestic substitute. The so-called Maria-

Kannon is, accurately speaking, the statue of the Son-bringing Kannon,

which underground Christians substituted as the icon of the Madonna and

the Child in their secret practice of Christian devotion (Fig. 1).49 Many of

these statues are porcelain figures imported from southern China, where the

cult and production of Son-bringing Kannon was very popular.

Studies on this Christian substitution of the Kannons icon primarily discuss

the tactic of disguise relying on the apparent formal similarity between the

bodhisattva with a boy and Madonna holding the Christ Child.50 In China,

where the bodhisattvas feminization as the Son-bringing Kannon (Chinese:

Songzi Guanyin ) was first established, her figure already caused a

47Joji Okazaki, Pure Land Buddhist Painting(Tokyo: Kodansha, 1992), 13946.48Ross,Vision Betrayed, 106.49Satoru Takemura, Kirishitan Ibutsu no Kenkyu (Studies on Early Christian Objects) (Tokyo:

Kaibunsha, 1964), 102; Teiji Chizawa et al., Kirishitan no Bijutsu (Early Christian Art) (Tokyo:Hobunsha, 1961), 182; Ross, Vision Betrayed, 107.

50Takemura, Kirishitan Ibutsu, 1025; Chizawa, Kirishitan no Bijutsu, 18285; Kirishitan

Kankei Ihin Hen, 6; Kentaro Miyazaki, The Kakure Kirishitan Tradition, in Handbook, 28;Nosco, Secrecy and Transmission,14.



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serious confusion with the Catholic icon of Mary.51 Such confusion reflects

Catholicisms fast spread under the mission project of Jesuit Giulio Aleni

(15821649) in Fujian province, where these figures were made and

exported to Kyushu.52 A similar phenomenon of iconographic conflation is

repeated in Kyushu, but here for the purpose of camouflaging underground

Christians true religious identity and guaranteeing their survival.

Significantly, Takemura indicates that such a conflation of Mary and Kannon

could have begun much earlier than the ban of Christianity and persecution.

The Japanese populace, ignorant of the outside world, often perceived

European missionaries as Indians and thus regarded the female figure Mary

they brought as a Buddhist deity. In particular, the Jesuits traditional manner

Fig. 1. Maria-Kannon, seventeenth century, Porcelain, import from Fujian, China. Courtesy ofOura Cathedral, Nagasaki, and Kaibunsha (Kirishitan Ibutsu, 1964)

51Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 84. For the feminization of Guanyin in China, see Chn-fang Y,Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitevara (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2001), 191, 18687, 29394; Chn-fang Y, A Sutra Promoting the White-robedGuanyin as Giver of Sons, in Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology, ed. D. S. Lopez(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 35051.

52On Giulio Alenis mission in Fujian, see Tiziana Lippiello and Roman Malek, eds., Scholarfrom the West: Giulio Aleni S.J. (15821649) and the Dialogue between Christianity and China

(Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1997). On the Songzi Guanyin figure or its importation into Kyushu, seeY, Kuan-yin, 12630;Kirishitan Kankei Ihin Hen, 6; Miyazaki, Kakure Kirishitan,28.

12 CHURCH HISTORY


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of venerating Mary was hardly different from Japanese devotional practice to

Kannon. Even the swastika carved on Kannons chest was easily confused

with the cross.53

The statuettes of Maria-Kannon were made also indigenously in Japan, and

as the persecution became severer, the figure of the boy was removed and only

the female Kannon remained.54 This was apparently an attempt to avoid the

persecutors suspicion that underground Christians were using the Son-

bringing Kannon figure as the icon of the Virgin and the Child. However,

paradoxically the Kannon statuette became more indistinguishable from that

of Mary, since Marys single figure had already been made in the fashion of

Kannon from the pre-persecution era in Japan. It was an indigenization

process, and the Japanese perceived it to be Marys real appearance.55

Compared with other, more technically accomplished Christian art, such as

painting and engraving, these Maria-Kannon statuettes have received much

less attention from art historians, probably because many of them were

Chinese imports appropriated, but not produced, by Japanese Christians, and

the point of discussion centers around their unusual use compared to their

original iconographic meaning.

I am distinguishing my thesis from these studies by posing different

questions. Focusing on the earlier period of persecution after 1614, I am

asking what rationale justified these underground Christians in using

Kannons icon as Marys. If the purpose of Buddhist disguise was the

primary one, why would they have chosen this specific bodhisattva out of so

many? Because Kannon was the most popular deity in Japanese Buddhism?

If so, would they not have wanted to use a rather less renowned deity, since

due to her prominence it might have been difficult even for the Christians to

perceive Kannon as somebody else? Or, because she is the personification of

compassion as Mary is?56 Or that her female sex and an attending boy were

so reminiscent of Mary and the Child? Could such similarities in attribute

and appearance, on the contrary, not have led them to regard the Son-

bringing Kannon as detestable and dangerous, as their Jesuit fathers had

often accused Buddhist resemblances of being the devils mockery of the

true religion?

Probably in the first instance, it was such an analogy or the prominence of

Kannon that led underground Christians to appropriate her image as Marys

substitute. However, once it began, the conflation of the two images

gradually became reasonably plausible and even justifiable due to the

53Takemura, Kirishitan Ibutsu, 1023.54Takemura, Kirishitan Ibutsu, 1034.55Chizawa,Kirishitan no Bijutsu, 185.56Ebisawa suggests the assimilation of Mary and Kannon in this aspect. See Crypto-

Christianity, 292.



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inherent attribute of this bodhisattva, namely her power to transform in thirty-

three manifestations. I need to underscore again that these underground

Christians, so determined and devoted enough to risk their lives for faith,

were certainly well aware of the difference between the two religions, and

they could not have believed that Kannon literally became Mary, at least in

the earlier decades of underground faith. The term Maria-Kannon was not

used by underground Christians.57 However, as I will discuss in the last

section of this essay, these devoted Christians religious imagery was amply

infused with their own cultural heritage of Buddhism and, even at this early

stage, a unique kind of syncretism or fusion was in the process of

germination. The double circumstances of persecution and isolation were

bringing their religious imagery of Mary close to that of Kannon, since the

latter not only protected their identity, but was filling in their incomplete and

fading knowledge of Marian imagery and theology.58

Higashibaba observes that in the syncretistic religious culture of Japan, such

an assimilation of different religious deities had not been unusual.59 It was the

concept of hierarchical manifestation that has frequently explained and justified

the coexistence of different religious systems or deities.60 For instance, the

indigenous deity Kami was incorporated into the Buddhist system as a

manifestation of bodhisattva or Buddha. Furthermore, Buddhas and

bodhisattvas also could be the manifestations of the one original Buddha.

And, significantly, this one original Buddha was Amida in the Japanese

religious culture, in which Pure Land Buddhism was very powerful. In other

words, all deities in the universe could be ultimately encompassed in the one

body of Amida, who stands at the apex of the complicated chain of

manifestations. If so, the Virgin Mary as the manifestation of Kannon could

also be eventually related to Amida along this chain of manifestations and

completely incorporated into the Buddhist cosmology. The problem was,

however, that Christianity was the first religious idea to enter Japan that

did not allow such assimilation to other religious systems. However,

Christianitys exclusivity could not be enforced after 1614 due to the

expulsion of foreign missionaries and the isolation of Japanese Christians

from the European Church authority.

57Nosco, Secrecy and Transmission,13n19.58Whelan,Heaven and Earth, 11, 2223. See note 7.59Higashibaba,Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 9091.; Ebisawa also points out that the

Japanese have traditionally regarded various religions as the different expressions of basicallythe same truth. Thus their co-existence and blending were not unusual in Japanese culture. See

Crypto-Christianity,288.60Whelan also observes that a similar process can explain the syncretism of Buddhism and

Christianity inTHK. Heaven and Earth, 28.

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Even in the pre-persecution days when the missionaries were present,

Christianity was often understood by the Japanese as compatible with

Buddhism. Frois observed an incident in western Kyushu in 1564:

Among those receiving baptism, there was a 90-year-old lady from a veryprominent family. She had been a very devoted Buddhist and had madepilgrimages to most of the famous temples in Japan. She was wearing agarment, on which the life [that is, teaching] of Amida was written. Somemonks gave her this paper garment and told her that wearing it would

bring her to paradise when she died. Wearing this garment of scriptures,she also carried with her the writings of Papal Bulls and edicts. . . . Whenshe learned about Christian teachings, she became quite pleased and asked

to receive baptism. When she learned many Christian prayers despite herold age, she brought the scripture garment and other Buddhist things tothe priest to burn them all.61

It is always after the priests intervening admonition that their Japanese

converts realized the incompatibility of Christianity with other religions.

Another illustrative example is the story of converts bidding farewell to

Amida and asking for Amidas understanding before baptism, which I will

discuss in the last section of this essay.

The conflation with Buddhism was not entirely discouraged by Buddhists

either. Buddhist monks often granted underground Christians the certificates of

apostasy without asking for real conversion.62 As underground Christians

concealed their religious identity literally under the protection of Buddhism,

their perception and use of Buddhist symbols and images could gradually

become indistinct with the original Christian signs, sometimes with the former

overriding the latter. A kind of transculturation, albeit employed for survival,

in the realm of visual representation could eventually affect their represented

as well.63 Quite illustrative of such a bond between the two religions is an

incident of arrest in 1623, when a Christian girl, Regina, was arrested near

present-day Kawaguchi City in Honshu. Since the head monk of the Chodoku

temple helped pardon and free her, out of gratitude her father donated to the

temple a seated Amida statue, inside of which a little figure of Maria-Kannon

and a cross were later found.64 Because it was taboo to freely open an

enclosed box inside a Buddhas body, the insertion of Christian objects in the

Amida statue could signify quite different messages simultaneously. However,

Mary in the figure of Kannon was inserted in the body of Amida, who often

61Frois,Nihonshi, 9:14344.62Ross,Vision Betrayed, 106.63Whelan also observes such a possibility in Christal Whelan, The Kakure Kirishitan on

Narushima,Monumenta Nipponica, 47, no. 3 (Fall 1992): 371.64Chizawa,Kirishitan no Bijutsu, 14041.



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impersonated Christ for underground Christians, in order to thank the Buddhist

for his help and protection for Christianity. This association of symbols likely

exemplifies a certain degree of amalgamation of the two religions, even

though those effecting it probably were not precisely aware of the process.

It is true that Kannon could easily be adopted as Mary because of her female

sex. However, the aforementioned feminization of Kannon in China was also

ascribed to her capability of transformation asserted in the Lotus Sutra. Its

Universal Gate chapter lists seven female transformations of Kannon. Such

transformation stories abound in Japanese folktales as well, where Kannon

has been worshiped even more fervently than in China.65 In addition, the

most widely read and respected sutra in Japan was the Lotus Sutra,

the origin of the belief in Kannons transformation and manifestations.

The Lotus Sutra was the primary text of the Nichiren School, but like the

worship of Amida and Kannon, it was a Pan-Buddhist scripture in Japan.

There are many Japanese miracle stories that attest to the wonder-working

power of this sutra and especially its most prominent deity Kannon. The

Konjaku Monogatarishu (ca. 1107), the largest tale collection in

Japan, contains forty stories about Kannons miraculous intervention, of

which many recount her transformation and manifestation. Furthermore, The

Miraculous Tales of the Hasedera Kannon (ca. 1210), originating from one

of the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage sites, contains the thirty-three stories of

Kannons manifestations.66 The belief in Kannons manifestation and

intervention in human life was further encouraged in the True Pure Land

sect. Its founder, Shinran (11731262), is said to have received a

message from Kannon in a dream that the deity would appear to him as a

woman and be his wife in order to lead him to the Pure Land.67 The female

manifestation of Kannon continued to be depicted in paintings up to the

eighteenth century in Japan.68

The concept of Kannons thirty-three manifestations was so firmly rooted in

Japanese belief that the aforementioned Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage sites also

consist of thirty-three temples, where thirty-three holy icons of Kannon were

65MacWilliams, Living Icons, 64, 68.66Yoshiko Dykstra, Miraculous Tales of the Hasedera Kannon,Religions of Japan in Practice,

ed. G. Tanabe (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 11619; Yoshiko Dykstra, Talesof the Compassionate Kannon: The Hasedera Kannon Genki, Monumenta Nipponica 31, no. 2(Summer 1976): 11317; Also see her Japanese Stories about Avalokitevara and the LotusSutra,Studies in Indo-Asian Art and Culture 6 (1980): 71109.

67Shinran did not regard marriage as an obstacle to enlightenment and boldly broke thetraditional rule of celibacy for monks, which became a unique feature of Japanese Buddhism upto date. See Toshikazu Arai, The Meaning and Role of the Boddhisattva in Shinrans PureLand Tradition, Horin: Vergleichende Studien zur japanischen Kultur10 (2003), 194.

68Patricia J. Graham, Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art: 16002005 (Honolulu:

University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 15354. I thank Dr. Fusae Kanda of the Museum of FineArts, Boston, for bringing to my attention current studies on the early modern Buddhist art of Japan.

16 CHURCH HISTORY


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supposed to personify those manifestations.69 However, the specific thirty-three

manifestations enumerated in the Lotus Sutra were not literally understood as

such, since the thirty-three icons of the Saikoku pilgrimage do not represent

those of the sutra. Her manifestations that appear in the miracle stories are not

limited to them. In other words, her power to transform was believed to be

virtually at will, opening the possibility to manifest even as a Christian

personage, Mary.

Alluding to this possibility is a phrase from THK, wherein the Trinity was

expounded in a rather strange transformation. Deusu [Deus] is the Father or

Paateru, the Holy One is the Son or Hiiriyo [filius or filho in Portuguese],

and the Holy Mother is the Suheruto Santo [Sactus Spiritus]. Deusu became

three bodies although they were originally One.70 Apparently referring to

the theology of Holy Trinity, however, the hypostasis of the Holy Ghost is

identified with the Virgin. This imagery of the central Deus accompanied by

two flanking deities or personages, especially one with an apparently female

appearance, strongly reminds of the iconography of Amida Triad (Fig. 6), in

which the central Amida appears in the company of the female bodhisattva

Kannon and male Seiji (Sanskrit: Mahasthamaprapta). This iconography of

the Amida Triad was highly popular in Japan and appeared in various

Buddhist paintings throughout the ages. In fact, Matteo Ricci in China

perceived it to resemble the Christian Trinity.71

III. ROSARY, MANDARA, AND KANNON PRAYER

The devotion to Mary played a considerable role in the religion of underground

Christians. First, the prayer of the rosary, consisting of fifteen narrative themes

drawn from Marys and Christs life stories, provided them with a mnemonic

framework of salvation history, which was absolutely indispensable as their

Christian texts were all confiscated. Secondly, due to the yearly trial of

treading on Christian icons, penitential prayer and rite became very

significant for underground Christians. As a result, their religious

orientations moved from the fearful judging Father to the forgiving Mother,

Mary. In this context, Maria-Kannon often occupied the central position

of their domestic Buddhist-Christian altar.72 Underground Christians

69MacWilliams, Living Icons,51.70Whelan,Heaven and Earth, 63.71Junhyoung Michael Shin, The Reception of Evangelicae Historiae Imagines in Late Ming

China: Visualizing Holy Topography in Jesuit Spirituality and Pure Land Buddhism, SixteenthCentury Journal40, no. 2 (Summer 2009), 303, 306.

72Miyazaki, Kaukure Kirishitan, 21, 28; Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu, 18; Miyazaki, Tenchi

Hajimari no Koto ni miru Sempuku Kirishitan no Kyusaikan (The View on Salvation found inTenchi Hajimari no Koto), Shukyo Kenkyu 70 (1996), 80, 93.



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penitential prayer book, Konchirisan no Ryaku (Essentials of Contrition),

originally published by the Jesuits in 1603 but continuing to circulate among

underground Christians up to the nineteenth century, also has a significant

reference to the intercessory power of the Virgin. What you wish, entrust it

to the [Holy] Mother. The Mother of Misercordia is the intercessor for

sinners. God eagerly listens to her. Apart from God Himself, there is no one

who can plead for our souls as much as the Holy Mother does.73 This

prayer book and the absolutional power of the Virgin were significant to

underground Christians since they could still be assured of the forgiveness

for their sins without the presence of priests and the sacrament of

confession.74 These two elements of the rosary and penitential prayer

brought the person of Mary even closer to Kannon.

The importance of the rosary for underground Christians is well

demonstrated by the fact that the content of THK is based on the mysteries

of the rosary.75 Isolated from priests and deprived of any scriptural literature

in hand, they must have relied heavily on the memorized sequence of

narrative themes in the rosary to compose the oral account of THK and

transmit it through memorization. Not only its storyline, but also the words

of THK directly urge the practice of the rosary. For example, on the day of

St. John the Baptists birth, THK commands the practice of fifty-three

orassho (oratio), which refer to the fifty Ave Marias for the Joyous Mysteries

of the Rosary.76 In the story of Mary finding her Son in the temple, THK

accordingly relates the event to the five Joyous Mysteries and instructs the

reader to practice them in the morning.77 As I discussed earlier, the Jesuits

encouraged lay organization based on European confraternities, and these

groups formed the basis of using devotional images and objects.78 Rosary

prayer was a routine for these groups.79 Nishimura points out that rosary

practice had been heavily promoted by the Jesuit fathers even before the

73Konchirisan no Ryaku is published with notes in Arimich Ebisawa et al., trans. and eds.,Kirishitansho, Haiyasho (Kirishitan Literature and Anti-Christian Literature), (Tokyo: IwanamiShoten, 1970), see 377.

74Whelan,Heaven and Earth, 79n16.75Miyazaki, Tenchi Hajimari, 74; Stephen Turnbull, Acculturation among the Kakure

Kirishitan: Some Conclusions from the Tenchi Hajimari no Koto, in Japan and Christianity:Impacts and Responses(New York: St. Martins Press, 1996), 66.

76Bohner, THK, 494n91.77Bohner, THK, original Japanese text on 509.78Bailey,Jesuit Missions, 57; Nosco, Secrecy and Transmissions,8.79Miyazaki, Kaukure Kirishitan,20; Obashi, Kinsei Nippon Sempuku Kirishitan,112. It is

true that the Dominicans highly underscored the rosary prayer and its confraternity due to theirtraditional claim for the origin of the prayer. However, already by the late medieval period, therosary prayer had become a pan-Catholic practice fervently practiced by all religious orders

including the Jesuits. For the Dominicans rosary brotherhood in Japan, see Boxer, ClandestineCatholic Church, 60; Boxer, Christian Century, 356.

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entry of Dominicans in 1602, as Jesuitscatechistic manualDoctrina Christan

attests.80 The use of the rosary and devotional images among lay groups likely

affected their oral formulation ofTHK.81

The practice of the rosary yielded a splendid illustration of its fifteen

mysteries made by an anonymous Japanese artist after 1623 (Fig. 2). These

kinds of works, due to their reflection of European modeling technique and

their own refinement, have drawn the attention of art historians far more

than the aforementioned Maria-Kannon statuettes.82 While discussing this

painting, Nishimura makes an interesting observation that its composition

reminds him of Taima Mandara (Fig. 3), which is not exactly the Mandala

of Esoteric Buddhism but a topographic representation of Amidas splendid

Pure Land.83 He further recounts that when a small Christian community in

eastern Nagasaki province was disclosed in 1657, an inspector dispatched to

the village reported that a Taima Mandara was hanging on top of a Christian

image, thus hiding the latter. Furthermore, the inspector revealed that the

Christian family of the house believed in the miraculous healing power of

this Buddhist Mandara.84 Nishimura pays attention to the latter fact and

suggests that these underground Christians were using Mandara to promote

Christian teachings. If so, the conflation of two religions was already well

underway by the middle of the seventeenth century, at least in the realm of

their visual imagery. Mandara, resembling the Fifteen Mysteries of the

Rosary, did not simply disguise the latter as the Maria-Kannon statuette did,

but it was incorporated into their Christian belief system, or vice versa.

The inspector did not record what kind of Christian image had been covered

by this Taima Mandara, but Nishimura points out its strong compositional

similarity to the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary (Fig. 2), thus implying the

possibility of their association, as in the case of Maria-Kannon. By formal

similarity, he refers to the vertical and horizontal grids along the edges of

Mandara, in which Buddha Sakyamuni expounds and shows to Queen

Vaidehi the sixteen views of Pure Land in due sequence. This indeed

resembles the image of the rosary mysteries, chaining fifteen grids of

80Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu, 42. For the critical modern edition of Doctrina Christan, seeKirishitansho, ed. Ebisawa et al.

81Turnbull observes that another feature ofTHKis the strong reminder of holy images, a trace ofJesuit pedagogy. Turnbull, Acculturation,71.

82Chizawa, Kirishitan no Bijutsu, 7879; Yoshitomo Okamoto, Namban Art of Japan (Tokyo:Heibonsha, 1972), 147.

83Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu, 4849; For Taima Mandara and its distinction from EsotericMandala, see Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Japanese Mandalas: Representations of SacredGeography (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), 124.

84Grotenhuis observes that, even in the late nineteenth century, Japanese village people tore up

the boundaries of Taima Mandara hanging on their house walls, and ate them as medicine forplague. Grotenhuis,Japanese Mandalas, 13.



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contemplative themes in sequence. The assumption thatTaima Mandara was

hiding or even substituting The Mysteries of the Rosary ascribes the

interchangeability of two images to their formal similarity, exactly as

scholars have explained the rationale of Maria-Kannon.Rather than the similar grid structure, however, I would like to turn to the

common characteristic of methodic visualization practice found both in the

rosary prayer and the sixteen-view visualization ofContemplation Sutra

, for which Taima Mandara was often used as a guiding visual

manual.85 This sutra and its iconography of Taima Mandara had the

strongest appeal and enduring popularity in Japan, far more than in China or

Korea. Earlier Pure Land patriarchs in Japan revered this sutra, as did

Shinran, the founder of True Pure Land.86 Even though Honen urged the

Fig. 2. Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary, color on paper, 75 63 cm, sixteenth century, made by ananonymous Japanese painter, National Historical Study Center, Kyoto University Museum.Courtesy of Kyoto University Museum.

85Wu Hung, Reborn in Paradise: A Case Study of Dunhuang Sutra painting and its Religious,

Ritual and Artistic Context,Orientations, 23, no. 5 (May 1992), 57.86Arai, Shinrans Pure Land Tradition, 191.

20 CHURCH HISTORY


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laity to practice Nembutsu rather than the more complicated, sequential method

of Pure Land visualization, the latter appears in a series of popularPure LandRebirth Stories dating from the tenth to the twelfth centuries.87

Furthermore, the iconography of Taima Mandara, originally named

Bianxiangtu , is hard to find in China and Korea after the fourteenth

century, but in Japan it continued to be produced and circulated up to the

eighteenth century, and even to the present.88 Even if the Japanese were not

actually practicing the devotional visualization with Taima Mandara, the act

itself of beholding the sixteen sequential features of the paradise depicted in

the painting closely resembles Contemplation Sutras meditative method.

Fig. 3. Schematic representation of a typical Taima Mandara, distributed by Taimadera, Naraprefecture, Japan. Courtesy of Dr. Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis.

87Andrews, Popular Pure Land Piety, 9899.88Grotenhuis,Japanese Mandalas, 13, 19, 12527.



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The rosary as prayer consists of repetitive sets of the Ave Maria with the

Pater Noster intervening. While reciting these sets of prayers, practitioners

are supposed to visualize the mysteries of the rosary, which are basically the

sequential themes drawn from Christs and Marys life narrative.89

Interestingly, the visual representations of the fifteen mysteries of the rosary

have been frequently used to facilitate the process of mental visualization or

contemplation. This method of mental visualization was likely underscored

by the Jesuits in their instruction of Japanese laymen since the same method

constituted the core of the orders spiritual training. In Spiritual Exercises,

which was originally written by the orders founder St. Ignatius of Loyola as

an initiation manual for novices, the saint lays out a methodology creatively

developing the long medieval tradition of envisioning, specifically visions of

Pseudo-Bonaventure and Ludolph of Saxony.90 His method of compositio

loci could be easily applied to the prayer of the rosary and enhance the

latters powerful affect. St. Ignatius directs as follows in the manual:

The first prelude is a composition made by imagining the place. Here weshould take notice of the following. When a contemplation or meditationis about something that can be gazed on, for example, a contemplation ofChrist our Lord, who is visible, the composition consists of seeing in theimagination the physical place where that which I want to contemplate

is taking place. By physical place I mean, for instance, a temple or amountain where Jesus Christ or Our Lady happens to be, in accordancewith the topic I desire to contemplate.91

In this envisioned space, the holy personages are to reenact the biblical

narrative.

At this point, the practitioner should further envision him- or herself inside

the mental space to join the holy events. Such participation in the mental

imagery is most vividly spelled in the moment of Christs nativity, which

also forms one of the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary. I will make myself apoor, little, and unworthy slave, gazing at them, contemplating them, and

serving them in their needs, just as if I were there, with all possible respect

and reverence.92 Thus, the composition of place demands that the

89For the pictorial traditions, both artistic and mental, of the rosary, see Anne Winston-Allen,Stories of the Rose: the Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages (University Park: PennsylvaniaState University Press, 1997), chapter 2.

90Jeffrey Chipps Smith,Sensuous Worship: Jesuit and the Art of Early Catholic Reformation inGermany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002), 36. On Pseudo-Bonaventuresmethod, see Junhyoung Michael Shin, Et in picturam et in sanctitatem: Operating AlbrechtDrers Marienleben(Berlin: Verlag fr Wissenschaft und Forschung, 2003), 75.

91Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works, ed. G. E. Ganss, S.J. (New York:

Paulist, 1991), 136.92Spiritual Exercises, 150.

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practitioner not only imagine space but also enter the mental imagery and

engage in various activities such as journeying, witnessing, and even contact

with the holy personage in the reenactment of the salvation history. Such an

active mental engagement, when applied to the rosary, likely magnified the

persuasion of contemplating fifteen narrative themes. After all, rosary is a

compendium of salvation history recreated in mental imagery. For a similar

purpose, the Jesuits produced quite an elaborate visual manual of the rosary

in China, Metodo de Rosario , published by Riccis colleague

Joo da Rocha (15651623) in 1608.

Also in Japan, the Jesuits produced not only the visual images of the fifteen

mysteries of the rosary but also its illustrated manuals. One such manual,

published in the Jesuit College of Nagasaki in 1607, is particularly

noteworthy since it urged the application of the Ignatian method to the

rosary. The manual is entitled SPIRITVAL XUGUIO no tameni yerabi atcumuru

xuquan no mannual (translated as SPIRITUAL EXERCISE, a manual of Bead-

Garland selected and collected for it[spiritual exercise]93 (Fig. 4). This title

demonstrates the typical Jesuit language in Japana mixture of Latin or

Portuguese transliteration with Japanese. Between the first and the last words

(SPIRITVAL and mannual) appear Japanese words. Rosary was translated as

bead-garland (Shukan). Especially interesting are the first two words,

SPIRITVAL XUGUIO, the latter of which in Japanese means training or exercise

(Shugyo). This illustrated manual of the rosary, which contains fifteen

small engravings representing the mysteries and verbal instructions, places

the Ignatian title, SPIRITUAL EXERCISE, on the top of the book cover in capital

letters, and it places the reference to the rosary below in lowercase letters.

Such labeling suggests that the Jesuits were indeed underscoring their

meditative methodology of visualization in their instruction of the Japanese

Christians in the same manner as they did with European believers. The

manual begins by explaining that it was published for lay believers use in

meditation on the fifteen mysteries. The book outlines the meditative

method of visualization and its merits:

The people in our age, who are not able to see the Lord in person . . .nonetheless by visually meditating on what the Lord did, what kind of

pains He suffered, and what words He gave us when He was living in theworld, [by such a method] they can receive the teaching as they couldhave received it directly from the Lord in person. The people in our agecan be illuminated by the [divine] light and receive the way to theteaching. This kind of contemplation becomes like a clean mirror. When

we face this mirror, we can see so many things, not visible by ourphysical sight, through the eyes of wisdom and understand them. And we

93Nishimura,Namban Bijutsu, 146.



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can eventually improve our way of life, as St. John said (1 John 2:6):Whoever says, I abide in Him, ought to walk just as He walked.94

Interestingly, the Ignatian method of visual meditation is related to a passage in

the New Testament. In this context, walk just as He walked is not merely a

metaphor, but it refers to the actual immersion or participation in the visualized

scenery of biblical events. Nishimura also observes that the core of the rosary

practice was understood as meditation, called mechitasan by underground

Christians, rather than mere repetitive sets of verbal prayer.95

Fig. 4. Title page of Spiritval Xuguio, printed at the Jesuits Nagasaki college in 1607, OuraCathedral in Nagasaki. Courtesy of Oura Cathedral.

94Arimichi Ebisawa, ed.,Spiritsuaru Shugyo(Spriritval Xuguio) (Tokyo: Kyobunkan, 1994), 15.95Nishimura,Namban Bijutsu, 43.

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Similarly, the Contemplation Sutra of Pure Land Buddhism teaches the

method of visualizing the sixteen views of Amidas Pure Land as a practice

to assure the practitioner of rebirth in the paradise. In this method,

practitioners visualize the sixteen views of paradise in a prescribed sequence

and often repeat the chanting of Nembutsu , which means, I relinquish

myself to Amida Buddha (or sometimes Kannon).96 Nembutsu is often

literally translated as the invocation of Buddhas name, but in fact it is a

complete sentence or statement with a verb Namu (Chinese: Nanwu) ,

thus comparable to ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc et in hora mortis

nostrae in the rosary. Pure Land Buddhism emphasized the importance and

efficacy of such devotional practices as contemplation, dharani-chanting, and

Nembutsu as ways to assure ones salvation. Contemplation Sutra asserted

that the practice of visualizing the Pure Land would absolve the supplicants

of accumulated sins and enable them to achieve salvation, that is, rebirth in

the Pure Land.97

The sixteen stages of visualization begin with the contemplation, not of the

imaginary, but of the actual sun setting in the West, which is the direction where

Buddha Amida resides. This stage serves as a triggering device to immerse the

practitioner in meditative visualization. The following stages unfold elaborate

and fantastic descriptions of the water, ground, trees, and beautiful pavilions in

the Pure Land, which are all radiant with multi-colored, gleaming crystals and

jewels. I will cite here the fifth stage, which instructs the practitioner to

envision the eight lakes in the Pure Land. This part is especially important

since the believer will be reborn inside a lotus flower floating on one of

these lakes.

There are eight lakes in the land of extreme delight [that is, Pure Land]. Eachlakes water is made of seven jewels. That soft jewel-water comes out of thewish-granting orb and divides into fourteen streams. Each stream makesseven jewel colors. The waterway is made of gold and below it the bottom

sands are all composed of multi-colored diamonds.

98

All these hyperbolic descriptions serve as a psychological device to initiate the

practitioners imaginative meditation.

The text of the sutra aims to assist practitioners in building in their minds the

imaginary topography of the Pure Land, as vividly as if they were to perceive a

picture or even walk on its holy ground. In this regard, its direction to create a

96Andrews, Popular Pure Land Piety, 102.97Wu Hung, Reborn in Paradise,57.98T365: 342a.



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mental space resembles the Jesuit method ofcompositio loci very closely.99

Furthermore, stages fourteen to sixteen are assigned to the visualization of

the practitioner him- or herself at the time of death and consequent rebirth in

the Pure Land. In this stage, the meditation practitioner visualizes him- or

herself within the holy topography and becomes a part of his or her own

imaginative meditation, as the trainee of the Spiritval Xuguio is urged to

walk with and even talk to the holy personage inside the pictured imagery.

Significantly, the bodhisattva Kannon plays the key role in the believers

transition from this world to the Pure Land, which I will discuss in the last

section with regard to the iconography ofWelcoming Descent(Fig. 6).

According to the believers spiritual aptitude and accumulation of sin, there

are nine levels of rebirth: three grades subdivided into three ranks. I will quote

here the case of a person belonging to the lowest rank of the highest grade.

Shortly he himself sees his body seated on a golden lotus flower. After hesits, the flower closes. Following the Buddha, he attains rebirth in theseven-jewel lake. . . . After twenty-one days . . . he travels throughout theten quarters of the universe and worships all the Buddhas. In front ofthese Buddhas, he hears the most profound dharma.

. . .

. . .100

As instructed by the Spiritval Xuguio, the practitioner not only visualizes the

holy topography but also enters the visualized Pure Land to be reborn, to

travel, and to meet with and hear from the buddhas. This moment is called

the Receiving of Revelation , which I will discuss in the last section

in relation to a THKmotif.

As I mentioned above, the panoramic Pure Land had been abundantly

represented since the time of the Tang Dynasty in order to assist the sixteen-

view visualization, but it was especially in Japan that this iconography,

indigenously renamed as Taima Mandara (Fig. 3), enjoyed the greatest

popularity and continued to be produced as late as in the eighteenth

century.101 Just as Taima Mandara did not merely represent the Pure Land

but also assisted visually-oriented meditation, so too did the Fifteen

Mysteries of the Rosary represent more than an abridged version of the

biblical narrative as it also served as a visual manual for contemplative

prayer. They both served to facilitate a meditation practitioners mental

creation of holy space and encounter with the holy personages therein.102

99Shin, Reception ofEvangelicae Historiae Imagines, 30910.100T365: 344c.101Grotenhuis,Japanese Mandalas, 13, 12527; Wu Hung, Reborn in Paradise, 57.102Shin, Reception ofEvangelicae Historiae Imagines,30910.

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To conclude, the methodic contemplations that proceed in the prescribed

sequences of the fifteenth and sixteenth stages bring the rosary and the

sixteen-view visualization very close to each other. Therefore, their visual

manuals, namely the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary (Fig. 2) and Taima

Mandara (Fig. 3), likely imprinted the Japanese Christians not merely with a

similar appearance, but with their similar and even identifiable devotional

methodologies of visualization, often combined with incantatory prayer. In

the first instance, their formal similarity could have led to the possible

association ofTaima Mandara with the Mysteries of the Rosary. However, as

the process of mutual acculturation or conflation intensified due to Japanese

Christians isolation from the Churchs guidance, their paralleling devotional

practices and beneficiary rewards could have further facilitated their

iconographic interchange or proximity.

The elements of repetitive prayer and visualization in the rosary also relate to

another devotional practice of Pure Land Buddhism: the dharani prayer

dedicated to Kannon. Higashibaba points out that Buddhists repetitive

dharani was analogous to Medieval Latin prayer, as both were perceived by

the illiterate common populace to have some wonder-working effects.103

Kannon is comparable to Mary, not only in her female appearance and

personification of compassion, but also in the devotional practice dedicated

to her. In this regard, the penitential prayer to the thousand-armed Kannon

(Japanese: Senju Kannon) is noteworthy. The pilgrimage to Kannon sites and

the prayer to her were believed to absolve one of accumulated sins, which

otherwise would prevent one from being reborn in the Pure Land of

Amida.104 Over half of Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage sites are dedicated to

Senju Kennon, to whom penitential dharani prayer was to be directed.105

Both Saikoku pilgrimage and the veneration of Senju Kannon continued up

to the seventeenth century, and the practice of dharani prayer to Senju

Kannon is mentioned amply in the Japanese miracle stories.106 Such a

Kannon dharani was supposed to be repeated in a set number while

beholding or visualizing the image of Kannon.107 Thus, the dharani prayer to

Kannon also aimed at the absolution of sins through the methodology of

repetitive prayer combined with visualization, which is the very essence of

the rosary.

103Higashibaba,Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 120.; Kawamura compares Nembutsu toCatholic prayers. See Christian Lay Communities,30514.

104MacWilliams, Living Icons, 49.105MacWilliams, Living Icons,41, 75. The central focus in the Saikoku pilgrimage was after

all salvation and rebirth in the Pure Land through the absolutional help of Kannon.106Graham,Faith and Power, for Saikoku pilgrimage, see 77, and for Senju worship and image

production, see 151; MacWilliams, Living Icons, 63, 70.107MacWilliams, Living Icons, 71.



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As I mentioned at the head of this section, the yearly practice of treading on

Christian icons made the penitential prayer and rite important for underground

Christians. In this regard, the absolutional efficacy of the rosary likely held

great value to them, and in their practice of the rosary in front of Maria-

Kannon, they must have been reminded of the like efficacy attributed to the

Buddhist prayer dedicated to the porcelain deity (Kannon), who could also

transform into Senju as much as into Mary. The growing need to repent, so

pressing for the underground Christians under persecution, brought them

even closer to the absolutional devotion to Kannon, who posing as Mary

received their penitential prayer of the rosary.

IV. AMIDA AND CHRIST AS SAVIOR FROMHEAVEN

Underground Christians not only substituted the Son-bringing Kannon as Mary

but also Buddha statues as icons of Christ. One of them has been identified as

Amida, but the others are hard to identify due to their small size and lack of

iconographic details (Fig. 5).108 Unlike the concern among scholars to

identify the female deity as Kannon, scholars are quite indifferent to the

identity of this Buddha. I am arguing that this Buddha was none other than

Amida and that its identification should not rely on iconographic analysis,

which is almost impossible in these simple statuettes, but in the way

underground Christians perceived the deity with their memory of Christianity

in conjunction with their cultural heritage of Buddhism. In this light, the

aforementioned seventeenth-century seated Amida statue donated to

Chodoku temple by a Christian girls father also may have been perceived

by the family as impersonating the Christian God.109

Due to his role as the savior and lord of afterlife paradise, Amida was the

most appealing Buddha to the Japanese populace.110 Furthermore he is

accompanied and served by Kannon, also the most popular bodhisattva in

this country. According to the legend of Zenkojis wonder-working Amida

triad, Amida was the first Buddha icon that was transmitted to Japan from

the Korean kingdom of Paekche with the introduction of Buddhism in the

year of 538.111 Such a legend was probably invented later, as the devotion to

Amida grew stronger and even dominant in Japan. Earlier, I mentioned that

108Kirishitan Kankei Ihin Hen, cat. no. 47; These Buddha statuettes have been hardly discussedby art historians of underground Christian art.

109Chizawa,Kirishitan no Bijutsu, 14041.110Both Kawamura and Ebisawa compare this aspect of Amida to the similar role of Christian

God. Kawamura, Christian Lay Communities,27890; Ebisawa, Crypto-Christianity, 292.111Donald McCallum, The Replication of Miraculous Icons: The Zenkoji Amida and the

Seiryoji Shaka, in Images, Miracles, and Authority in Asian Religious Traditions, ed. RichardDavis (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1998), 209.

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St. Francis Xavier adopted the name of Buddha Dainichi (Sanskrit:

Mahavairocana) as that of the Christian God, which, despite the saints great

embarrassment later, was not a totally misleading translation. Dainichis role

as the center and origin of the universe resonates with the neo-Platonic idea

of God as the One. However, if the issue is not cosmology but soteriology,

which naturally concerns the common populace more personally, Amida

rather than Danichi was the most suitable as an alternative name for theChristian God.

Amida, unlike other Buddhas, has two distinctive theological aspects that are

closely analogous to Christianity. First, the terms of salvation do not rely on the

part of the believer, but on the compassion and will of Amida.112 When he was

still a bodhisattva, he made a vow to this effect.

Fig. 5. Amida-Christos, wood, height 13.6 cm, Tokyo National Museum. Courtesy of DNP ArtCommunications.

112Since the idea of salvation depending on the other supreme being differs drastically fromIndian Buddhism, Amida Buddhism is believed to have originated in central Asia rather thanIndia proper, and emerged in contact with Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. According to thistheory, Pure Land Buddhist scriptures were probably first written in central Asia, and theirSanskrit versions are not originals but later translations. See Soho Machida, Life and Light, the

Infinite: A Historical and Philological Analysis of the Amida Cult, Sino-platonic papers, no. 9(Philadelphia: Dept. of Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1980), 1921, 2931.



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If I become a Buddha and there are men of ten quarters who hear my name,keep in mind my land, foster [their minds] in the origin of virtue, yearn to be

born in my land with utmost heart, and yet do not achieve it, I wont attainthe true enlightening.

113

Fig. 6. Ike Taiga (17231776), Welcoming Descent of Amia Triad, ink on paper, 72 31.8 cm,Kumita Collection, Tokyo. Photograph by Patricia J. Graham.

113Sutra of Infinite Life, T360: 268b. It was his twentieth vow as bodhisattva.

30 CHURCH HISTORY

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