UCLA

This dissertation shows how early modern (1603–1868) Japanese Buddhist ritual performances created forums for the transmission of religious knowledge across lay and clerical divides within the Shingi Shingon school. Analyses of liturgical manuscripts, commentaries, temple records, and denominational scholarship reveal the emergence of registers of reception, or distinct levels of social, linguistic, and performative apprehensions of doctrinal knowledge, during the delivery of ceremonial lectures (kōshiki 講式) before mixed audiences at the Shingon temple Chishakuin in Kyoto. Ceremonial Lecture [on the Merits of] Relic Offerings (Shari kuyō shiki 舎利供養式), written by the medieval monk Kakuban 覺鑁 (1095–1143), drew in a variety of actors who participated in related ways. Laity witnessed hymnal versions of the ritual during the same performative sequence, scholar-monks repurposed the ritual as commentaries which circulated among novices, the ritual shared calendrical space with other ceremonies for clerical advancement, and it met new curricular concerns during periods of sweeping educational reform. In each of these cases, the Shari kuyō shiki offered opportunities for heuristic engagement among laity and clerics alike. This research shows how approaches to socially inclusive rituals can destabilize dominant tendencies to treat lay and clerical liturgical experiences as disconnected. In an effort to draw greater attention to false dichotomies that shape conceptions of “authentic” religious experience, this dissertation shows how the delivery of kōshiki offered not only performers and observers, but also readers, note-takers, publishers, and teachers opportunities to enact a religious and denominational discourse on a spectrum of experience.