The Halo of Golden Light examines the complex ways in which the emperor and other elite ruling groups employed Buddhist rituals to legitimate their authority. Although considered a descendant of the sun goddess, Amaterasu, the emperor used Buddhist idiom, particularly the ideal king as depicted in the Golden Light Sutra, to express his right to rule. In the Heian period, these ideals presented in the sutra became the basis of a number of court-sponsored rituals, the most important of which was the emperor’s Misai-e Assembly. By tracing the changes in the assembly’s format and status throughout ... More

The Halo of Golden Light examines the complex ways in which the emperor and other elite ruling groups employed Buddhist rituals to legitimate their authority. Although considered a descendant of the sun goddess, Amaterasu, the emperor used Buddhist idiom, particularly the ideal king as depicted in the Golden Light Sutra, to express his right to rule. In the Heian period, these ideals presented in the sutra became the basis of a number of court-sponsored rituals, the most important of which was the emperor’s Misai-e Assembly. By tracing the changes in the assembly’s format and status throughout the era and the significant shifts in the Japanese polity that mirrored them, the book demonstrates how the ritual enactment of imperial authority was essential to justifying political power, and challenges dominant scholarly models that presume the gradual decline of the political and liturgical influence of the emperor over the course of the era. It also compels a reconsideration of Buddhism during the Heian as “state Buddhism” by showing that monks intervened in creating the state’s policy toward the religion to their own advantage.