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The term in Japanese religious terminology refers to a theory widely accepted until the Meiji period according to which Indian Buddhist deities choose to appear in Japan as native ''kami'' in order to more easily convert and save the Japanese.〔〔Breen and Teeuwen (2000:95)〕 The theory states that some ''kami'' (but not all) are in fact just local manifestations (the , literally, a "trace") of Buddhist deities, (the , literally, "original ground").〔〔Satō Masato (2007)〕 The two entities form an indivisible whole called ''gongen'' and in theory should have equal standing, but in history this was not always the case.〔 In the early Nara period, for example, the ''honji'' was considered more important, and only later did the two come to be regarded as equals.〔Basic Terms of Shinto〕 During the late Kamakura period it was even proposed that the ''kami'' were the original deities, and the buddhas their manifestations (see the ''Inverted honji suijaku '' section below).〔 The theory was never systematized, but was nonetheless very pervasive and very influential.〔 It is considered the keystone of the shinbutsu-shūgō (harmonization of Buddhist deities and Japanese ''kami'') edifice.〔Satō Makoto〕 ==History== Early Buddhist monks did not doubt the existence of ''kami'', but saw them as inferior to their buddhas.〔Bernhard Scheid〕 Hindu deities had already had the same reception: they had been thought of as non-illuminated and prisoners of samsara.〔 Buddhist claims of superiority encountered however resistance, and monks tried to overcome it by deliberately integrating ''kami'' in their system.〔 Japanese Buddhists themselves wanted to somehow give the ''kami'' equal status.〔 Several strategies to do this were developed and employed, and one of them was the ''honji suijaku'' theory.〔 The expression was originally developed in China〔Sueki (2007:24)〕 and used by Tendai Buddhists to distinguish an absolute truth from its historical manifestation, for example the eternal Buddha from the historical Buddha, or the absolute Dharma from its actual, historical forms, the first being the ''honji'', the second the ''suijaku''.〔〔 The term makes its first appearance with this meaning in the ''Eizan Daishiden'', a text believed to have been written in 825.〔 The ''honji suijaku'' theory proper later applied it to buddhas and ''kami'', with its first use within this context dated to 901, when the author of the ''Sandai Jutsuroku'' says that "mahasattvas (buddhas and bodhisattvas) manifest themselves at times as kings and at times as ''kami''."〔 The dichotomy was applied to deities only in Japan and not, for example, in China.〔 A different but equivalent explanation of the idea that Buddhist deities choose not to show themselves as they are, but manifest themselves as ''kami'' was expressed in a poetic form with the expression , which meant that to assist sentient beings, deities "dimmed their radiance and became identical to the dust of the profane world".〔 Their brightness would otherwise be such to destroy mere mortals.〔 In the 10th and 11th centuries there are numerous examples of Buddhist deities and ''kami'' pairings, and the deities are usually Kannon, Yakushi, Amida or Shaka Nyorai.〔 The association between them was usually made after a dream or revelation made to a famous monk, later recorded in a temple's or shrine's records.〔 By then, ''kami'' in Japan were universally understood to be the form taken by buddhas to save human beings, that is, local manifestations of universal buddhas.〔Teeuwen, Rambelli (2002:6)〕 Around the beginning of the Kamakura period the pairings had become solidly codified in large temples or shrines.〔 The frequency of the practice is attested by the , or "Hanging buddhas" found in many large shrines, metal mirrors which carry in the front the effigy of the shrine's ''kami'', and on the rear the relative Buddhist deity.〔 The name is due to the fact that they are usually hanged from a shrine's outer wall.〔 As the theory gradually spread around the country, the concept of ''gongen'' ("provisional manifestation", defined as a Buddha that chooses to appear to the Japanese as a ''kami''〔) evolved.〔 One of the first examples of ''gongen'' is Hie's famous .〔 Under the influence of Tendai Buddhism and Shugendō, the ''gongen'' concept was also adapted for example to religious beliefs tied to Mount Iwaki, a volcano, so that female ''kami'' Kuniyasutamahime became associated with Jūichimen Kannon Bosatsu (eleven-faced Kannon), ''kami'' Ōkuninushi with Yakushi Nyorai, and Kunitokotachi no Mikoto with Amida Nyorai.〔Breen, Teeuwen (2000:194)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Honji suijaku」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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