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