Rendering the body Buddhist: Sermonizing in medieval Japan

This dissertation concerns the Buddhist sermonizing tradition in medieval Japan. Focusing on setsuwa (exempla used in sermons to illustrate points of doctrine), this study combines recent scholarship in the fields of performance studies, medieval Christianity, Buddhist studies, and anthropology to explore the body as a theatre of transformation and redemption.; Chapters One and Two examine the history of setsuwa scholarship, tracing its origins in the romantic nationalism of European folklore studies. These chapters argue that studying setsuwa in terms of oral tradition is inadequate and needs to be tempered with a sensitivity to the rhetoric of medieval Buddhism and the performative nature of setsuwa texts. Material from two medieval sources---a preaching manual and notations documenting a sermonizing event---are used to establish a liturgical template for situating temple-based sermonizing in appropriate architectural, rhetorical, and ritual contexts.; Chapters Three and Four continue the emphasis on the performance as an event while Chapters Five and Six delve much more deeply into questions of the text as text. Chapter Three focuses on the role of erotics in setsuwa, examining the ways in which arousal, the deferment of sexual gratification, and the threat of predation are used as metaphors for the awakening, development, and performance of religious devotion. Chapter Four centers on the violent marking of the human body, such that one's physical appearance may be read as a reflection of one's karmic standing. In addition, this chapter considers modern criticisms levied against medieval Buddhism by the Critical Buddhism movement, arguing that medieval writings encourage attitudes of penitence and self-examination rather than positing karma as an excuse for social injustice. Chapter Five examines the literary trope of physical dismemberment in the context of meditations on the putrefaction of the human body after death, showing that setsuwa work to create an understanding of the human body itself as a potential text of Buddhism. Finally, Chapter Six concentrates on the significant overlap between descriptions of medieval technologies of chanting, memorizing, and copying sutras, arguing that Buddhism treats the body, the mind, and the page as metaphorically intertwined locations for the inscription of Buddhist texts.