From Stars to Stones: Gods of Medieval Japan, Volume 4

Written by one of the leading scholars of Japanese religion, From Stars to Stones is the fourth installment of a multivolume project that promises to be a milestone in our understanding of the mythico-ritual system of esoteric Buddhism—specifically the nature and roles of deities in the religious world of medieval Japan and beyond. Bernard Faure introduces readers to medieval Japanese religiosity and shows the centrality of the gods in religious discourse and ritual; in doing so he moves away from the usual textual, historical, and sociological approaches that constitute the “method” of current religious studies. Throughout, he engages theoretical insights drawn from structuralism, post-structuralism, and Actor-Network Theory to retrieve the “implicit pantheon” (as opposed to the “explicit orthodox pantheon”) of esoteric Japanese Buddhism (Mikkyō).

In volumes one and two, The Fluid Pantheon and Predators and Protectors, Faure argued against a polarity or dichotomy between buddhas and kami by emphasizing the existence of deities that did not belong to either category, and he rejected the retrospective notion of “hybridity.” In volume three, Rage and Ravage, Faure made a similar case about the reified distinction between gods and demons to show that, due to the fluid nature of the Japanese pantheon, these terms do not represent stable identities: gods can become demons, and demons are sometimes deified. Moving from the deities of the Earth and the dialectic of autochthony to the theme of embryology, volume four, From Stars to Stones, is organized around a deity (or an aspect of it) identified as “placenta kōjin” (ena kōjin) and the network or nebula it forms with a few divinities—often personalizations of one or more of its aspects. If Rage and Ravage brought us back to earth, this book is a return to the womb and to the matrix of Japanese religion, which in turns opens up to the stars. It shows how mythological notions influenced (and in returned were transformed by) medieval Japanese religion and the performing arts (geinō).

From Stars to Stones and its companion volumes should persuade readers that the gods constituted a central part of medieval Japanese religion and that the latter cannot be reduced to a simplistic confrontation, parallelism, or complementarity between some monolithic teachings known as “Buddhism” and “Shinto.” Once these reductionist labels and categories are discarded, a new and fascinating religious landscape begins to unfold.

• Bernard Faure, Author

  Bernard Faure is Emeritus Kao Professor in Japanese Religion at Columbia University and Emeritus George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University.