Abstract
The cult of Hachiman or “Hachimanism” is discussed from its inception
as a national cult (mid-eighth century) to its firm establishment in the ninth
century. Hachimanism was initially part of the politico-religious program of
Emperor Shōmu and his daughter Abe, the “last empress”. Their kind of state
Buddhism implied a combination of Buddhist ritualism based on the Golden Light
Sutra and other state protecting Buddhist texts as well as non-Buddhist ancestor
worship. Hachiman functioned according to both systems, since he was both a
protector of Buddhism and an imperial ancestral deity. After what I call a Hachiman
boom from about 750 to 770, the famous Dōkyō incident (769) must have led
to a fundamental doubt in the validity of Hachiman’s oracles and therefore to a
crisis for Hachimanism. However, in the early Heian period, innovative monks
such as Kūkai, Saichō, and Gyōkyō re-established Hachimanism to strengthen
their ties to the imperial court. In order to obtain protection by the state they
redefined the cult of Hachiman as an explicitly Buddhist state protector.