This book suggests that the gekokujō (“the world turned upside down”) model that informed and transformed medieval Japanese society also applied, mutatis mutandis, to the religious sphere. It therefore emphasizes the role played by certain deities that have been until now treated as marginal, while remaining relatively silent about the traditional protagonists of Japanese religion (the great buddhas like Dainichi and Amida, and kami like the Sun-goddess Amaterasu). It also de-centers traditional Japanese religious history by shifting the focus from purely Japanese Buddhist figures to their Ind ... More

This book suggests that the gekokujō (“the world turned upside down”) model that informed and transformed medieval Japanese society also applied, mutatis mutandis, to the religious sphere. It therefore emphasizes the role played by certain deities that have been until now treated as marginal, while remaining relatively silent about the traditional protagonists of Japanese religion (the great buddhas like Dainichi and Amida, and kami like the Sun-goddess Amaterasu). It also de-centers traditional Japanese religious history by shifting the focus from purely Japanese Buddhist figures to their Indian and Chinese prototypes and to their non-Buddhist (and also non-“Shinto”) elements, showing how, even as Japanese religion became increasingly “national” (not to say nativist), it remained heavily indebted to foreign influences. Indeed, more often than not, native gods were heterochthonous. Their foreign origin, quite visible in cases like that of Shinra Myōjin, the “bright deity of Silla,” did not prevent them from becoming local protectors, on the contrary.