Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies

“And the zasu Changed his Shoes”: The Resurgence of Combinatory Rituals in Contemporary Japan

crossmark logo

Abstract

It is often assumed that the combinatory practices that have characterised Japanese religious history were wiped away by the separation of Buddhism and Shinto imposed by the Meiji restoration. Yet field evidence attests that shinbutsu rituals are still performed today in major Shinto institutions. This paper offers a reflection on the nature of contemporary combinatory rituals through three study cases: rituals that continue premodern traditions at Kasuga and Hiyoshi Taisha; new rituals created to emphasise the combinatory as the proper dimension of religion in Japan; exorcistic rituals recovered as a contribution to the current health emergency.


open access | peer reviewed

Submitted: Jan. 26, 2021 | Accepted: April 6, 2021 | Published Oct. 18, 2021 | Language: en

Keywords Hiyoshi Taisha • Combinatory rituals • Goryōe • Iwashimizu Hachimangū • Shinbutsu • Pilgrimage

Copyright © 2021 Lucia Dolce. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-527-8/008


read this chapter