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.
Scheid, Bernhard