In the Initiates’ Chapter, the final chapter of the medieval Japanese epic Tale of the Heike, the retired sovereign Go-Shirakawa （1127-1192） visits the royal lady Kenreimon’in
（1155-1213）１ at Ohara. One of the few members of the Taira family to survive the Battle of Dan-no-Ura in 1185 that saw most of her relatives killed, Kenreimon’in has since become a nun. In a speech to the retired sovereign, she relays the following message, left to her from her mother, the Nun of Second Rank, who committed suicide during the battle:
There is no chance in a thousand myriads that any male member of our house will survive. Even if some distant relative were to be left, we could not expect him to perform memorial services for us. Since it has always been the custom to spare women, you must do your best to come safely through the battle so that you may pray for His Majesty’s salvation. I hope you will also say a prayer for the rest of us.2
This phrase, which succinctly states that it is a woman’s role to pray for the salvation of deceased family members, is indicative of how in medieval Japan the prescribed Buddhist role to be performed in a given situation differed by gender. Interestingly enough, these lines appear only in this chapter, and not in the earlier chapter covering the battle which actually describes the Nun of Second Rank throwing herself into the sea with her grandson
１ While the Heike records her death as occurring in 1191, other sources give the date as 1213 and this has now become the consensus view.
２ Helen Craig McCullough, trans., The Tale of the Heike（Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988）, 435.
All of the Heike citations in this paper are taken from this translation, which is based on the Kakuichi variant of the tale.
As Represented in the Tale of the Heike
Rieko Kamei-Dyche
（and the only son of Kenreimon’in）, the former sovereign, Antoku （1178-1185）.3
It is not clear whether the historic Nun of Second Rank in fact left such words; however, the historicity of the excerpt itself is not a concern of the present project. Indeed, one should note that the work itself frames these lines as lacking solid evidence, but at the same time, as existing in the form of a powerful injunction in the memory of Kenreimon’in. Furthermore, regardless of the ambiguity surrounding its context―or perhaps, because of such ambiguity
―the message operates as a key phrase that determines her fate. Because it is presented in the form of the last words from her mother, the utilization of this injunction from mother to daughter carries far more weight than were it stated merely that Kenreimon’in had herself decided to renounce the world to pray for the salvation of her deceased family members.
While the appearance of such a statement in this context, and the historical social circumstances that informed such an outlook are both deserving of study in their own right, the issue taken up in this article is how such a perspective can be understood in terms of the roles prescribed for women in Buddhism. In this regard, the Heike, associated as it is with both Buddhist compilers and biwa hoshi４ propagators, offers more insight into the prescribed Buddhist roles expected of women than does their lived historical experience.
Through an examination of the circumstances and motivations of women who renounce the world in the Tale of the Heike, this article attempts to clarify the Buddhist roles that women were expected to perform, and how these were determined by their relations with men.
１．Praying for Deceased Family Members
While the most famous woman featured in the Tale of the Heike as “a woman who renounced the world” is the aforementioned Kenreimon’in, there are actually a number of women in the tale who pursue such a path. A consideration of their motivations in becoming nuns confirms that, as Hattori Kōzō argues, the most common practice is that of wives or daughters who lost their husbands or （primarily male） relatives renouncing the world in
３ Ibid., 376-378.
４ Biwa hoshi were itinerant monks, usually blind, who performed tales with accompaniment by a Japanese lute（biwa）.
order to perform memorial services for the deceased and pray for their salvation.5
Consider the daughter of Shunkan, an example Hattori offers.6 After the exile of her father to Iwo Jima, the daughter, who had already lost both her mother and brothers, came to hear of the death of her father Shunkan （1143-1179） as well, prompting her to renounce the world at the age of twelve.7 In the case of Kenreimon’in, recall, her mother offered a plea for her to survive primarily （or only） so that she could offer prayers on behalf of those who had fallen.8 Her family was considered doomed without surviving male heirs, but these circumstances did not end her duties to the family. Rather, her case illustrates the understanding that while the male members of the household were able to continue the line in this life, it fell to the women to offer prayers on their behalf to ensure their peace in the next.
There are relatively few episodes, however, concerning daughter-parent relationships in the tale, compared to the significant number of son-parent （and especially son-father）
relationships; given that the Heike is largely a military tale, this emphasis on the father-son masculine bond is perhaps not surprising. However, compared to cases of daughters, there are a number of cases of wives praying for deceased family members in the Heike. For example:
When Narichika’s wife heard of his ［her husband’s］death, she said, “Until today, I had felt reluctant to become a nun: I hoped that somehow I might see him unchanged just one more time, and be seen unchanged by him. But what is the use of delaying now?” She went to a temple called the Bodaiin, changed into a nun’s habit, and performed the prescribed rituals as prayers for Narichika’s enlightenment in the life to come.9
５ Hattori Kōzō, “Heike Monogatari no 12 Men: Shūkyō, Shukke,” in Heike Monogatari ga Wakaru （Tokyo:
Asahi Shinbunsha, 1997）, 69.
６ Ibid.
７ “The girl fell prostrate in an agony of grief, weeping aloud. Most pitifully, she became a nun forthwith at the age of twelve, and thereafter devoted herself wholly to prayer for her father and mother at the Hokke nunnery in Nara,” （McCullough, 114）.
８ McCullough, 435.
９ Ibid., 84. Hattori also refers to this example （69）.
The wife of Taira no Shigehira, Dainagon-no-Suke（Fujiwara no Hoshi, dates unknown）, is another representative example. Shigehira （1157-1185）, having been responsible for the destruction of temples, was executed by the monks of Tōdaiji Temple. The account is framed by the actions of Dainagon-no-Suke: the section opens with her rushing to meet her husband and suffering over his fate, and ends with her efforts to obtain his head and body for proper cremation, whereupon（in the final words of not only this section, but the entire chapter）, “Then, most touchingly, she became a nun and prayed for Shigehira’s welfare in the afterlife.”10 While Shigehira admits his sin and spends his last moments contemplating the compassion of the Buddha, it is implied that his redemption ultimately depends upon the efforts of his wife. Consider also the wife of Taira no Koremori, Kenshunmon’in-Shindainagon（1160?-?）, upon being informed that her husband drowned himself in the sea of Yashima:
…the lady, lost in memories of the dead, seemed not long for this world. She promptly became a nun, held a formal memorial service, and devoted herself to prayers for Koremori in the afterlife.11
Like Shigehira, Koremori （1158-1184?） is presented as attempting to redeem himself―he became a monk and offered prayers before drowning himself―but again, it falls to his wife to help him seek a peaceful afterlife. Certainly, the historical record tells us that this concept of the dutiful Buddhist wife praying for her husband was a recurring image; it can be understood as an extension of what Katsuura Noriko describes as the importance of keeping up the appearance of a “good Buddhist couple” bound by deep bonds of religious duty.12 Such a duty did not end with the death of one’s husband.
However, it is not only wives or daughters―those women directly related to the deceased males―who are depicted in the Heike as renouncing the world in order to pray for the salvation and peace of men in the afterlife. For example, in the case of Shigehira, his wife was not alone in seeking the salvation of his spirit through prayer. There was also a
10 Ibid., 397-400.
11 Ibid., 353.
12 Katsuura Noriko, Kodai Chūsei no Josei to Bukkyō（Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2003）, 45.
woman who had merely had a short, transient relationship with him. When Shigehira was sent to Kamakura to undergo investigation, a lady by the name of Senju-no-Mae （1165-1188）
was ordered, by Minamoto no Yoritomo （1147-1199）, to serve him （Shigehira）. They had relations for only one night; however, the Heike relates, upon hearing of his death, Senju- no-Mae renounced the world to pray for Shigehira in the afterlife.13 It is noteworthy that this differs significantly from what is recorded about her in the chronicle Azuma Kagami
（Eastern Mirror）, which states that she died four years after the death of Shigehira due to having missed him so much.14 There is no mention of her becoming a nun for his sake. While both works thus emphasize the impact that the brief relationship had on Senju-no-Mae, only the Heike, with its strong Buddhist inclinations, depicts her as choosing to become a nun to pray for the salvation of her lover.15
Neither was Senju-no-Mae the only other woman to become a nun for the sake of Shigehira. As Hattori Kōzō points out, as many as three women chose to renounce the world to pray for Shigehira’s enlightenment: in addition to his wife and Senju-no-Mae, there was a lady-in-waiting who had previously been involved with him.16 The Heike relates that she
…was the daughter of the Minister of Popular Affairs-Novice Chikanori.
She was a peerless beauty, with a warm, affectionate nature. Sadly enough, when she learned that Shigehira had been taken to the southern capital and beheaded, she promptly cut her hair and donned coarse black robes to pray for his enlightenment.17
The lady’s decision is presented as sad, but not by any means unexpected. The implication
13 McCullough, 338-341. This section of the work is named for her.
14 Azuma Kagami, National Institute of Japanese Literature website <http://www.nijl.ac.jp/databases/db- room/genpon/azumatop1.htm>, Bunchi 4, 25th day of the fourth month. Consulted 2 May 2007.
15 “For Senju-no-mae, the encounter seems to have led to sorrow. As soon as she heard that Shigehira had been sent to the southern capital and executed, she pronounced Buddhist vows, donned deep black robes, and began a life of pious exercises on the Middle Captain’s behalf at the Zenkōji Temple in Shinano. In the end, she attained her goal of rebirth in the Pure Land,”（McCullough, 341）.
16 Hattori, 69.
17 McCullough, 331.
of the account is that just as her appearance and charming demeanor presumably pleased Shigehira in life, in death he was to benefit from her austere prayers.
Of the various men who feature in the Heike, only Shigehira is depicted as having three women praying for his enlightenment. This fortuitous situation did not come about by chance: Hattori argues that this is “Because Shigehira was responsible for burning the southern capital, and was an enemy of the Buddha whose determined fate was to enter hell.”18 Shigehira’s case therefore offers insight into the mechanics of womanly salvation as depicted in the Heike. First, it testifies to the power of women who can through their prayers redeem one even as far-gone as Shigehira. Second, it indicates a correlation exists between the degree of the sin of the male and the degree of womanly power required to overcome that sin. Simply put, because Shigehira had committed such brazen crimes against the laws of the Buddha, the Heike has to portray multiple women praying on his behalf in order to enable his ultimate salvation.
Clearly, all of these cases reveal that in the world of the Tale of the Heike, and by extension, the world of Buddhist ideals in medieval Japan that informed the text, there existed an underlying expectation concerning the role of women in Buddhism―offering prayer for the salvation of men. This necessitates that the role of women was defined by their relations with men. In a time when men could, and were expected, to offer their lives in an instant, the use of women as an ideological crutch to redeem them spiritually after death was no doubt appealing. When Shigehira requests that Yoritomo permit him, as a final wish, to become a monk, he is denied; it is left to the women to work for his salvation.
By depicting the women around him becoming nuns, the Heike allows Shigehira’s wish to be fulfilled. In other words, the women function as the saviors of men who were unable to save themselves. As was the case with the Nun of Second Rank’s request to her daughter Kenreimon’in to pray for the salvation of her deceased family members, most women in the Tale of the Heike enter religious life due to the deaths of men who were close to them, reflecting the tacit expectation that women needed to take up the role of saving men.
As part of his explanation for the development of this prescribed role for women,
18 Hattori, 69.
Hattori stresses the religious power accorded women at the time in general; however, this argument largely depends on the underlying assumption that medieval Japanese society upheld a simple dichotomy between women possessing religious power and men possessing political power.19 Clearly in a range of social arenas varying degrees of religious and political power and authority were available to both men and women. However, with regards to the institution of the family, the cases from the Heike examined thus far suggest that if men were, broadly speaking, seen as responsible for ensuring the prosperity of their family in this world, it was women who were responsible for ensuring a higher form of prosperity in the next. This theory posits a gendered division of labor, whereby men were expected to embrace death as a duty, and women, who were presumed to be more likely to survive political and military strife, were expected to ensure that the spirits of those men found peace. Alternatively, however, it is also possible to conceive of a continuous trajectory of women’s labor, with women being expected to go on serving men in death as they did in life. While a woman’s particular duties and lifestyle could undergo transition, with becoming a nun representing a transformation parallel to that of a man crossing from life to death, the subordinate position of women in this system remained constant.
２．Women and Remarriage
Among the women in the Tale of the Heike, so often depicted as becoming nuns upon the death of their husband or lover, the case of Kozaishō （1164?-1184）, the wife of Taira no Michimori （1153-1184）, represents an exceptional case. Upon hearing that her husband has been killed, like the women discussed previously Kozaishō reorientates herself in response to his new status. However, in this case the path she chooses is not that of becoming a nun. Rather, overcome with grief and unable to cope with the loss, and despite being pregnant, she develops aspirations of following him in death.20 She states that,
Even if a woman manages to lead a quiet, obscure life, something unexpected is
19 Ibid.
20 McCullough, 320-321.
likely to happen in a world where things seldom go as we wish―and that is painful to contemplate, too.21
Her nurse tries to soothe the grieving Kozaishō, while reminding her of her duties, admonishing her that
…every wife whose husband was slain at Ichi-no-tani must experience the same agony:
you should not consider yourself unique. Give birth to the child in peace, rear him, take holy vows somewhere, even among rocks and trees, and recite Buddha- invocations for Michimori’s enlightenment.22
Kozaishō appears to have been convinced by her nurse’s arguments, but this is merely an act that she puts on so as to patch things up for the moment: during the night, while uttering supplications, she casts herself into the sea.
In the words of the nurse, touching on the universal experience of suffering and the need for Kozaishō to pray for her husband’s salvation, one clearly detects the expectation that women were to enter religious life after the death of men close to them in order to pray for the enlightenment of the deceased―as was discussed above. However, in spite of this expected role being set before her, Kozaishō chose to take another path. Ultimately it is her nurse who fulfills this duty, becoming a nun upon the suicide of her mistress. Did Kozaishō, then, transgress against the social expectation for women at the time, in failing to devote herself to prayer for her husband as a devoted Buddhist wife? In light of the cases discussed above one could certainly understand her actions this way. However, the Heike itself takes a different approach. The text states that, “Among the many women who have lost husbands, it has long been common practice to enter the religious life, but few have gone so far as to drown themselves.”23 Casting herself into the sea is thus reconfigured as an extreme form of prayer for her husband, not as something in conflict with that duty―
21 Ibid., 321.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., 323.
Kozaishō, by offering herself as a sacrifice, carries out, as it were, the ultimate transfer of karma to her husband.
From this perspective, the wife of Michimori is depicted not as one who betrayed her expected role as a good Buddhist wife, but rather as a figure who exceeded all expectations in fulfilling that duty. Furthermore, her action is informed by a pure desire to be released from the suffering of the world and to be reborn in the Pure Land on the same lotus as her husband, suggesting that through seeking the salvation of their male relations women could bring about their own salvation.24 In other words, to some extent a woman’s salvation was understood as hinging upon the effective performance of her duty to seek salvation on behalf of men.
However, there is more to this episode than a simple reworking of the prescribed Buddhist role of women articulated earlier. There is in fact another reason why Kozaishō chose to take her own life rather than fulfill the normative social expectation of becoming a nun to pray for her husband’s salvation―and in this regard the episode can offer considerable insight into the place of women in medieval Japanese Buddhism, and in particular the motivation of women for entering religious life. In addition to her deep affection for her husband, Kozaishō expresses a desire to avoid those “unexpected things”
that might happen to her as long as she lives, but here she is not just referring to the random accidents of fate that mark a transient existence. Rather, she specifically means that she is afraid of being forced to remarry against her will.25 It is for this reason that the Heike remarks rather cryptically upon Kozaishō’s suicide, “Might this be the kind of thing that is meant by the saying, ‘A loyal vassal does not obey two masters; a chaste wife does not serve two husbands’?”26
Being forced to remarry was a common fate for women who survived their husbands, particularly if they were young. This was problematic because such remarriage directly conflicted with the prescribed role of devoting oneself to prayer for one’s deceased husband.
Unmarried women who devoted themselves to prayer for their fathers or other male
24 Ibid., 322.
25 Heike Monogatari, Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei series, Volume 33 （Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1959）, 229.
26 McCullough, 323.
relatives would have faced a similar quandary if they were forced to marry, although the Heike does not contain such a case. Prescribed Buddhist behavior therefore required women to pray for the men who had died, ideally by retiring from the world and becoming nuns, while at the same time preventing them from remarrying. This could produce a serious conflict because social norms tended to support remarriage regardless of the woman’s views of the matter. Kozaishō’s resolution to this dilemma was to remove the threat of remarriage by giving up her own life, an act of sacrifice offered to her husband that Buddhism could tolerate if not fully endorse. From the perspective of the prescribed Buddhist roles articulated in the Heike, it was important to survive one’s husband so as to pray for his salvation, but better to die for him than to remarry.
Another key episode which must be considered when discussing the entry of women into religious life and the prospect of remarriage, is the one concerning Koremori and his wife discussed in the first section above. While in the aforementioned Heike account Koremori’s wife becomes a nun to pray for her husband in the afterlife, it is known that historically this did not occur, and in fact after his death she married Fujiwara no Tsunefusa.27 Yet despite creating a fictional resolution consistent with the prescribed role of the devoted wife offering prayers for her deceased husband, the Heike does not avoid the issue of remarriage: in fact, Koremori and his wife are depicted as explicitly discussing the issue. Interestingly enough, it is Koremori who suggests to his wife that she consider remarriage in the event of his death: deciding not to take his wife and two small children along on his flight westward from the capital, he tells her
I would like nothing better than to take you wherever I go, but it will not be easy to pass the enemies who are said to be waiting on our route. Don’t think of becoming a nun if you hear I have been killed. Find another husband―anyone at all―so that you can save yourself and care for the children. Some man will take pity on you, I know.28
27 Hattori, 69.
28 McCullough, 244.
His words, requesting that his wife not become a nun after his death, indicate the tacit understanding in his mind that his wife would choose to be a nun unless explicitly instructed not to do so. At the same time, he also requests that she remarry. His wife responds by speaking reproachfully to him:
I have no father or mother in the capital, and I could not possibly remarry after being abandoned by you. You are cruel to say, ‘Marry anybody at all!’ Even though you may love me because of a karma tie, how could I count on kindness from just anybody? I swore to follow you anywhere; we said we would vanish like dew in the same field or become debris at the bottom of the same body of water― but now all those night whispers have turned out to be lies. If it were only a matter of myself, I could stay here and accept the misery of being discarded, but what do you expect me to do about the children?29
Like Kozaishō, Koremori’s wife recognizes that remarriage is something that may well be imposed upon her, but she clearly rejects this fate as undesirable. In both cases, remarriage is seen as an obstacle preventing the wife from fulfilling her duty to her late husband, as well as something offensive to the deep, karmic relationship that a husband and wife were supposed to share. Koremori’s wife feels hurt and betrayed by the suggestion that she remarry; she appeals to her husband’s feelings by mentioning their children, and accusing him of having reneged on their promise to perish together.
The fact that the historical Kenshunmon’in-Shindainagon in fact remarried makes her strong opposition to the possibility of doing so in the tale all the more pronounced. This divergence between the historical and the literary accounts of her life draws out the extent to which the Tale of the Heike is a constructed world representing the Buddhist ideals of medieval Japan. The women in the Heike are able to fully perform their prescribed Buddhist roles, reinforced through the support of a sympathetic narrator, in contrast to the lived experience of women at the time who may have had no choice but to remarry. Clearly, the
29 Ibid., 244.
possibility of remarriage, whether desired or not, was always facing a woman who survived her husband’s death. Yet in the Heike, not only are women depicted as consistently standing against remarriage, but moreover they are willing to undertake drastic action if need be to fulfill their duty to their deceased husband.
Ideally, becoming a nun in medieval Japan enabled a woman to fulfill the prescribed role of praying for her deceased husband’s salvation, while simultaneously protecting her from the threat of remarriage （which would have violated that role）. This is because, as Katsuura Noriko points out, becoming a nun entailed a woman negating the sexual aspects of one’s marriage relations.30 Kurihara Hiromu, examining the connections between renouncing the world and the cancellation of marriage, concluds that there were in principle no differences between genders in this regard; however, he also points out that there were many cases where the religious commitment of women was violated by the unbridled force of men.31 That being said, taking Buddhist vows and entering religious life was still considered to be one of the most effective ways to negate marriage relations, and so it is not surprising, as Kurihara indicates, that some women chose to be nuns in order to avoid remarriage.32 Thus, while less dramatic than Kozaishō’s suicide, the portrayal of Koremori’s wife as a typical woman who became a nun after her husband’s death, so as to pray for his salvation while avoiding the remarriage which he had recommended, constitutes a representative example of the attitudes toward remarriage present in the Tale of the Heike.
As mentioned above, Koremori himself was neither killed in battle nor executed.
He decided to renounce the world by himself. After strengthening his resolve through encouragement from the Takiguchi Novice, he committed suicide by plunging into the sea while intoning the name of Amida Buddha in the hope of being reborn in the Pure Land.33
30 Katsuura, 43.
31 Kurihara Hiromu, Heian Jidai no Rikon no Kenkyū: Kodai kara Chūsei e（Tokyo: Kōbundō, 1999）, 283-284.
32 Ibid.
33 McCullough, 350. The Tale of the Heike spends several episodes in chapter 10 on describing how he came to decide to take this path. See “The Book of Koya,” “Koremori Becomes a Monk,” “The Pilgrimage to Kumano,”
and “The Suicide of Koremori.”
In this regard, his wife, unlike other women like Senju-no-Mae, is not an agent who carries out the last wish of a man who desired, but was unable, to take Buddhist vows to pray for his own salvation. Indeed, given Koremori’s redemptive stance and efforts on his own behalf, one questions to what degree his wife would have to pray for his salvation.
Yet while the amount of redemptive power required to enable an individual man to obtain salvation varies, it is consistently depicted as significant―just particularly more so for cases like that of Shigehira. Moreover, the Heike implies that there is no instance in which a man does not benefit from the prayers of the women left behind. This is significant because it precludes the possibility of a woman deciding against becoming a nun on the basis of her male relations not requiring her assistance.
It is important to understand the insistence on this prescribed role within the context of the gendered norms of medieval society and how these were informed by religious and social expectations. Remarriage and becoming a nun both represent forms of prescriptive behavior aimed at controlling women’s bodies and sexuality―while conventional family norms pushed a widow to remarry and provide a new husband with heirs, Buddhist norms pushed her to deny her sexuality and dedicate herself to her former husband’s salvation. In either case, the woman’s body and behavior are directed to the service of her husband, alive or dead. There was, in other words, a struggle between social and religious values over the regulation of women’s behavior. Taken in this context, the degree to which a deceased man was judged as truly needing the religious intervention of a woman became less significant because the real issue was assuring the predominance of religious over family and social values with regards to determining the role of women. From this perspective, the Heike’s depiction of Koremori’s wife becoming a nun so as to ostensibly pray for her husband, while avoiding remarriage, is clearly revealed as representing the prescribed Buddhist role for women―in contrast to the historical figure who instead followed the rival prescribed role of remarriage.
The degree to which this dominance of the religious role actually reflects the behavior of the time period is debatable, as the case of Koremori’s wife demonstrates.
Needless to say, since the Tale of the Heike is not a purely historical record and contains fictionalized elements, one could make the argument that the episodes it depicts do not
contribute to understanding the circumstances surrounding women becoming nuns in medieval Japan. However, at the same time it is important to note that works of literature like the Heike reflect the religious ideals and prescribed roles that informed and shaped those circumstances. After all, as Hotate Michihisa points out, even in a fairy tale such as “Sleeping Beauty,” familiar to our ears since childhood, it is possible to find traces of historical figures of contemporary women and social attitudes towards them.34 Thus, while it is a mistake to read the depictions of women in the Tale of the Heike as an accurate portrayal of individual women and their behavior at the time, it is nevertheless possible to ascertain social expectations and attitudes towards women through examining the work.35
As Kurihara’s research revealed, while in principle there was supposed to be no difference between the genders regarding the tenant that entering religious life entailed the cessation of sexual relations, in reality it was not easy for women―who may have remained objects of male desire while simultaneously lacking men to protect them―to maintain their chastity. Indeed, Hosokawa Ryōichi argues that nunneries in medieval Japan also functioned as accommodations for traveling women where their sexual purity could be protected.36 In such a historical context, the Tale of the Heike’s attitudes towards women and remarriage can also be read as a critique of society at the time, a society where mainstream discourse often put social and family norms before religious ones. A woman’s sexual purity was hardly guaranteed by becoming a nun, but to be a lay woman was to continually face the risk of violation. Therefore, this context of the real situation faced by historical women in medieval Japan, and the competing claims made on women by social and religious values, are keys helping us to unlock the reasoning behind the expectation, portrayed in the Heike, that women would become nuns after the death of their male partners or relatives.
34 Hotate Michihisa, Chūsei no Onna no Isshō （Tokyo: Yōsensha, 1999）, 7-9.
35 On a related note, consider Barbara Ruch’s statement that nothing else has so influenced the historical consciousness of the Japanese as has the Tale of the Heike （Barbara Ruch, Mōhitotsu no Chūseizō （Tokyo:
Shibunkaku Shuppan, 1991）, 59. In English, see Barbara Ruch, “Akashi no Kakuichi,” The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 24.1 （April 1990）, 35. Wakita Haruko also shares this view （Chūsei ni Ikiru Onnatachi （Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995）, 131-132）.
36 Hosokawa Ryōichi, Onna no Chūsei （Tokyo: Nihon Editā Sukūru Shuppanbu, 1989）, 184. Hosokawa further points out that the nunneries of the Ritsu sect were the places to which girls were sent who were born due to illicit love affairs within the royal family, as the circumstances of their birth could not be made known （137）.
Conclusion
Historically, men and women chose to pursue religious devotions for a variety of reasons, in a process in which, no doubt, prescribed roles significantly factored. Clearly the nature of those roles, a sense of which can be articulated from a careful reading of the Tale of the Heike, varied according to gender.
In part of his study, Hattori Kōzō categorizes the reasons for which various characters in the Heike renounce the world.37 He bases his categories on men who were already adults, and who were previously living as laypeople （he therefore does not include those who chose to take Buddhist vows at a young age）. The categories that he formulates number six, and are as follows: 1） due to aging, 2） due to illness, 3） retirement （i.e. to be free from official duties）, 4） as repentance, 5） as punishment, and 6） for the appeal.38 However, the majority of these reasons cannot be applied to the cases of women becoming nuns. Kogō （1157-?） was forced to become a nun due to her relationship with Takakura Tennō, which would mean her case satisfied the criteria for category five, while Hattori argues that Hotoke fits into category six because she chose to become a nun upon realizing that everything she possessed―wealth, power, fame, clothing, food, and sex―amounted to nothing but ostentation given to her by men.39
However, aside from these, there are no other cases of women becoming nuns in the Heike where their motivations fit into this categorization scheme. Instead, as this article has shown, in the majority of cases where women become nuns their motivation amounts to the necessity of performing the prescribed role of praying for the salvation of male relatives and partners while avoiding the threat of remarriage. Clearly, men and women were expected to pursue religious life for fundamentally different reasons.
The Tale of the Heike concludes with a description of Kenreimon’in’s rebirth in the Pure Land, along with the two women who were serving her at Ohara:
After her chanting voice had gradually weakened, a purple cloud trailed in the
37 Hattori, 66-67.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
west, a marvelous fragrance permeated the chamber, and the sound of music was heard in the heavens. Man’s time on earth is finite, and thus the lady’s life drew to a close at last, midway through the Second Month in the second year of Kenkyū. The parting brought agonies of inconsolable grief to the two attendants who had never left her side since her days as Empress. They had nowhere to turn for help, the grasses of old ties having long withered; nonetheless, they contrived most touchingly to perform the periodic memorial services. People said both of them attained the Nāga Girl’s wisdom, emulated King Bimbisāra’s wife, and achieved their goal of rebirth in the Pure Land.40
Ikeda Keiko argues that “the rebirth of Kenreimon’in, whose later life was devoted to prayer for the afterlife of her deceased family, means that all of her wishes came true.”41 That is to say, the wishes of Kenreimon’in were achieved, and as a result of her success, she was able to attain rebirth in the Pure Land.
Of course, here it is not really a matter of her achieving a personal wish, but rather a matter of her successfully completing a task appointed to her―to pray for the salvation of the deceased men of the Heike family. This task reflects the prescribed role for a woman in her position, according to the religious values of the medieval era, reinforced by the personal injunction from her mother emphasizing this duty. Here is a clear delineation of the role of woman as agent of salvation: to be reborn, a woman must fulfill her role, and that role is to achieve the salvation of men―only by enabling salvation for men can women then obtain it for themselves.
In Buddhist teaching, the rebirth of women into the Pure Land was normally held to be difficult due to the presence of the Five Obstacles and the Three Obediences. It was also widely believed that women needed to be reborn as men before they could achieve rebirth in the Pure Land, a notion which presupposed that women were at least one step removed from men in a hierarchical progression towards enlightenment. Not everyone supported
40 McCullough, 438.
41 Ikeda Keiko, “Heike Monogatari no 12 men: Shi,” in Heike Monogatari ga Wakaru（Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1997）, 73.
this view. For example, Katsuura notes that this theory of the necessity of rebirth as men was not accepted by Nichiren, who held that women could expiate their transgressions through believing in the Lotus Sutra―indeed, he aggressively insisted that the Lotus Sutra could help women to overcome the restrictions imposed by the Five Obstacles and Three Obediences.42 That being said, Katsuura continues, Nichiren still carried out propagation based on family relationships that were dominated by the husband.43 Even with religious and social values struggling against each other, and divisions within those spheres, the subordinate position ascribed to women went unchallenged. Thus, a male-centered system in which the role of women was defined by men, in relation to men, remained the cornerstone of the ideological system.
For medieval Japanese women, who were presumed to face such difficult obstacles in order to achieve enlightenment, renouncing the world in order to devote themselves exclusively to prayer for the salvation of deceased male relations was not only a prescribed role to be performed, but was also understood to be a method by which they might obtain the goal of enlightenment for themselves as well, as the cases from the Heike discussed here so vividly illustrate.
Bibliography
Azuma Kagami. National Institute of Japanese Literature website <http://www.nijl.ac.jp/
databases/db-room/genpon/azumatop1.htm>. Consulted 2 May 2007.
Fukutō, Sanae. “Bochi Saishi to Josei: Heian Jidai Zenki ni okeru Kizokusō.” In Shinjin to Kuyō
（Josei to Bukkyō, vol. 3）. Eds. Osumi Kazuo and Nishiguchi Junko. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1989. 81-109.
Hattori, Kōzō. “Heike Monogatari no 12 Men: Shūkyō, Shukke.” In Heike Monogatari ga Wakaru. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1997. 66-69.
Heike Monogatari. Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei series, Vol. 32 & 33. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1959.
Hotate, Michihisa. Chūsei no Onna no Isshō. Tokyo: Yōsensha, 1999.
42 Katsuura, 59-60.
43 Ibid.
Hosokawa, Ryōichi. Onna no Chūsei. Tokyo: Nihon Editā Sukūru Shuppanbu, 1989.
Ikeda, Keiko. “Heike Monogatari no 12 men: Shi.” In Heike Monogatari ga Wakaru. Tokyo:
Asahi Shinbunsha, 1997. 70-73.
Katsuura, Noriko. “Kikon Josei no Shukke to Kon’in Kankei: Sekkanki wo Chūshin ni.” In Kazoku to Josei no Rekishi: Kodai Chūsei. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1989.
_____. Kodai Chūsei no Josei to Bukkyō. Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2003.
Kojima, Naoko. “Genji Monogatari ni Egakareta Josei to Bukkyō.” Kokubungaku Kaishaku to Kanshō 877 （June 2004）： 22-29.
Kurihara, Hiromu. Heian Jidai no Rikon no Kenkyū: Kodai kara Chūsei e. Tokyo: Kōbundō, 1999.
McCullough, Helen Craig, trans. The Tale of the Heike. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.
Nishiguchi, Junko. “Chūsei Kōki ni okeru Josei no Shukke.”Kokubungaku Kaishaku to Kanshō 877 （June 2004）：90-97.
_____. “Josei to Bukkyō: Kiseki to Dōkō.” Kokubungaku Kaishaku to Kanshō 877 （June 2004）
155-160.
_____. Onna no Chikara: Kodai no Josei to Bukkyō. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1987.
Obara, Hitoshi. “Nyonin Ojōsha no Tanjō: Chūyūki no Josei wo megutte.” In Josei to Bukkyō 3:
Shinjin to Kuyō. Eds. Osumi Kazuo and Nishiguchi Junko. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1989. 111- 133.
Ruch, Barbara. “Akashi no Kakuichi.” The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 24.1 （April 1990）：35-47.
_____. Mōhitotsu no Chūseizō: Bikuni, Otogizōshi, Raisei. Tokyo: Shibunkaku Shuppan, 1991.
Takemura, Shinji. “Konjaku Monogatarishū ni Egakareru Ama.” Kokubungaku Kaishaku to Kanshō 877 （June 2004）：38-48.
Tanaka, Takako. Seinaru Onna. Tokyo: Jinbun Shoin, 1996.
Wakita, Haruko. Chūsei ni Ikiru Onnatachi. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995.
Yamada, Shōzen. “Heike Monogatari ni Egakareta Josei to Bukkyō.” Kokubungaku Kaishaku to Kanshō 877 （June 2004）：57-65.
（2016年11月29日受理、2016年12月14日採択）
