Defining Shugendo

Fabio Rambelli is Professor of Japanese Religions and Cultural History and ISF Endowed Chair in Shinto Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.Carina Roth is a Teaching and Research Fellow at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.Andrea Castiglioni is Senior lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nagoya City University, Japan.

• 1. Introduction Part 1: Intellectual History of Shugendo Studies2. A Critical History of the Study of Shugendo and Mountain Beliefs in Japan, Suzuki Masataka (Keio University, Japan)Part 2: Constructed Topologies and Invented Chronologies3. Shugendo within Japanese Buddhism, Hasegawa Kenji (Prefectural Museum of Tokushima, Japan)4. Imagining an Ancient Tradition: Eighteenth-Century Narratives of Shugendo at Mount Togakushi, Caleb Carter (Kyushu University, Japan)5. Otake Dainichi Nyorai and Haguro Shugendo: Unearthing a Lost History, Gaynor Sekimori (SOAS, University of London, UK) 6. Shugendo and Modernity Face to Face: The Daigoji Case, Hayashi Makoto (Aichi Gakuin University, Japan)Part 3: Imagining the Founder, En no Gyoja, and Fictionalizing Shugendo7. Between Companionship and Worship: A Reflection on En no Gyoja Statuary Past and Present, Carina Roth (University of Geneva, Switzerland)8. En no Gyoja’s Legitimization in the Context of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, Kawasaki Tsuyoshi (Shujitsu University, Japan9. The Description of Mountains in Minoodera engi, Niki Natsumi (National Institute of Technology, Akashi College, Japan)10. Images of the Shugenja in Edo Popular Fiction, William Fleming (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)Part 4: Materiality and Visual Culture of Shugendo11. The Cult and Statuary of Zao Gongen, Fujioka Yutaka (Osaka University, Japan)12. Religious Culture in Transition: Mt. Fuji, Janine Sawada (Brown University, USA)13. The Shape of Devotion: Mounds, Stelae, and Empowering Ritual Fasting, Andrea Castiglioni (Nagoya City University, Japan14. Shugendo as Social Practice: Kumano Talismans and Inscribed Oaths in Premodern Japan, (Max Moerman (Barnard College, USA)BibliographyIndex

Defining Shugendo: Critical Studies on Japanese Mountain Religion [is] an essential and overdue contribution ... Each of [its] chapters is a doorway to new perspectives on this ancient religion.