Acknowledgements
Notes for the Reader
List of Contributors
List of Illustrations
General Introduction: The Sea in the History of Japanese Religions,
Fabio Rambelli (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)
Foreword: Cults and Culture of the Sea: Historical and Geographical
Perspectives, Allan G. Grapard (University of California, Santa
Barbara, USA)
Part One: Ancient Sea Myths and Rituals and Their
Reinterpretations
1. Imperial Sea Magic? The Sea Kami and the Great Tasting
(daijosai) at the Early Yamato Court, Mark Teeuwen (Oslo
University, Norway)
2. The Sea and Food Offerings for the Kami (shinsen), Sato Masato
(University of Kitakyushu, Japan)
3. Taming the Plague Demons: Border Islanders and the Ritual
Defense of Japan, Jane Alaszewska (SOAS, UK)
4. Island of Many Names, Island of No Name: Taboo and the Mysteries
of Okinoshima, Lindsey E. DeWitt (Kyushu University, Japan)
Part Two: Sea Deities and Sea Cults
5. Musical Instruments for the Sea-God Ebisu: The Mythological
System of Miho Shrine and Its Performative Power, Ouchi Fumi
(Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University, Japan)
6. An Empress at Sea: Sea Deities and Divine Union in the Legends
of Empress Jingu, Emily B. Simpson (University of California, Santa
Barbara, USA)
7. Frogs Looking Beyond a Pond: Shinra Myojin in the “East Asian
Mediterranean” Network, Sujung Kim (DePauw University, USA)
8. Hachiman Worship Among Japanese Pirates (wako) of the Medieval
Period: A Preliminary Survey, Bernhard Scheid (Austrian Academy of
Sciences, Austria)
9. Shugendo and the Sea, Gaynor Sekimori (SOAS, UK)
Part Three: Buddhism and Japan in the Global Ocean
10. Buddhas from Across the Sea: The Transmission of Buddhism in
Ancient and Medieval Temple Narratives (engi), Abe Yasuro (Nagoya
University, Japan)
11. Lands and People Drifting Ashore: Distorted Conceptions of
Japan’s Place in the World According to Medieval and Early Modern
Japanese Myths, Ito Satoshi (Ibaraki University, Japan)
12. Buddhist Japan and the Global Ocean, D. Max Moerman (Columbia
University, USA)
Part Four: Interpretive Constructs
13. The World Was Born from the Sea: Reading the Origin of Heaven
and Earth in the Ruiju jingi hongen, Kanazawa Hideyuki (Hokkaido
University, Japan)
14. Origuchi Shinobu and the Sea as Religious Topos: Marebito and
Musubi no kami, Saito Hideki (Bukkyo University, Japan)
15. Sea Theologies: Elements for a Conceptualization of Maritime
Religiosity in Japan, Fabio Rambelli (University of California,
Santa Barbara, USA)
Bibliography
Index
The first book to explore the sea in Japanese religions, an understudied and important new research direction in the study of Japanese religion and culture.
Fabio Rambelli is Professor of Japanese Religions and Cultural History and ISF Endowed Chair in Shinto Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.
The Sea and the Sacred in Japan makes a valuable contribution to
the field of Japanese maritime religion that will grant important
insights to scholars and graduate students of Japanese religion,
history, and literature.
*Reading Religion*
Identifies a number of important research themes that have long
remained understudied. As such, it is a timely and relevant
contribution to the field, groundbreaking in several respects,
which offers a number of new insights and raises some fascinating
questions ... This is a very rich volume ... Scholars of Japanese
religion and history will undoubtedly find much of interest in the
volume, which provides a number of intriguing new insights, based
on sound textual and historical analyses.
*Journal of Religion in Japan*
This volume is a very welcome addition to the body of
English-language literature on maritime perspectives of Japanese
history.
*Global Maritime History*
Readers will find here a collection of fascinating and pioneering
scholarship.
*Religious Studies Review*
Fabio Rambelli and the authors of the essays in this volume ask how
our understanding of Japanese religions would change if we set
aside our presumptions of the centrality of rice agriculture and
instead thought of Japan in its other guise, as a seafaring
society. This book offers a host of fresh approaches to familiar
topics and brings new and exciting material to subjects that have
not been extensively explored before now. This book will become
essential reading for everyone interested in Japanese religions,
culture, and society.
*Helen Hardacre, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute Professor of
Japanese Religions and Society, Harvard University, USA*
This book constitutes a landmark in the study of maritime factors
in Japanese religion It comprises of a sparkling set of essays on a
remarkable range of topics related to its main theme and points the
way to much future research to be done.
*T. H. Barrett, Professor Emeritus of East Asian History, SOAS,
UK*
This is a long-awaited, excellent volume that illuminates a
central, though hitherto neglected, theme in the study of Japanese
religions. Its thoughtful editor balanced a wide range of topics
and research angles, considering sea myths, legends, rituals,
deities and cults; locating Japan’s sea religion in the “ocean” of
Asian Buddhism; and offering interpretive conceptualizations of
maritime religiosity in Japan.
This inspiring, path-breaking book opens new directions in the
study of Japanese religions and belongs in any academic library and
on any Japanese religions’ scholar’s shelf.
*Irit Averbuch, Associate Professor of Japanese Studies, Tel-Aviv
University, Israel*
Scholars have for some time argued about the importance of sea
routes for East Asian trade and politics, but no one until now had
examined their impact on religion and culture. Fabio Rambelli must
be credited for bringing together eminent scholars from across the
globe to produce a unique and important project in Japanese
religious studies. Examples are used expertly to reflect the
significance of the sea in Japanese religion. This will be
essential reading for all those studying Japanese religion,
culture, and history.
*Bernard Faure, Professor of Japanese Religions, Columbia
University, USA*
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