<論説>祈りの意味・物質・身体 : 四国遍路の政治学 (特集 : 祈り)

Abstract

本稿は四国遍路の意味が近代においてどのように物質や身体をとおして生産されてきたのかを検討する。これは近年の地理学や宗教研究において盛んに論じられる物質性や身体性の議論に共鳴しながらも、権力や政治性への視座の再提示を介して議論を再政治化することを自論んでいる。四国遍路は弘法大師空海への信仰を基盤とする巡礼であるが、教義も厳密な宗教的意義も与えられなかった。この曖昧さは近代において観光や運輸産業と四国遍路とが結びつくことを可能にし、一部の巡礼者の身体感覚を大きく変容させた。この近代化に対して巡礼の宗教的意義を唱える遍路同行会は、巡礼の神聖性・真正性を巡礼の「本式」の巡礼手段や装束、巡礼者の日常的実践をとおして構築した。

This paper aims to contribute to a series of studies on the geography of religion through an eloration of the role of corporeality of religious materials that were not only produced by the religious system and encoded with a particular meaning, but that are also always embedded in the dynamics of sociability and materiality. Recent studies on the ontological understanding of the religious stress the interdependence of the sacred and the mundane. They depict a performative Inscription of religious ethics and poetics into mundane bodies through events and thoroughly reject the consideration of religious meanings, ethics, and poetics within a coherent religious ideology. Religious matters, including bodies, are not just passive receptacles of religious doctrine, but also positive actors institutionalizing religious meanings. This article focuses on the henro pilgrimage in Japan in order to examine religious materiality and the body. The pilgrimage involves visiting eighty-eight sacred Buddhist temples in Shikoku, each of which is assigned a number from one to eighty-eight, and extends over 1400 km. It is not associated with any one Buddhist sect. In this pilgrimage, the objective is to visit all the sacred places related to Kukai, who is the patriarch of the Shingon denomination as well as a folk saint. This is not a well-structured pilgrimage based on sophisticated doctrinal tenets but a symbolic one based on the belief system concerning Kukai. The uniqueness of the pilgrimage is found in a fact that this pilgrimage remained on the outer margins of the Buddhist religious system until the 1920s. This means that the pilgrimage was not one ordered by coherent religious doctrine, but a poorly structured pilgrimage influenced by both religious and mundane affairs. The development of new public transportation systems in Shikoku beginning in the 1910s gradually changed the mobility and quality of the pilgrimage experience in the 1930s. The modernization also transformed the pilgrimage into a leisure activity in the 1920s when Japan witnessed the development of the domestic tourism industry. The expansion of the domestic tourism market entailed delimiting places as tourist destinations, and the henro pilgrimage was included in the list of destinations in the late 1920s. Modernisation and tourism changed the henro pilgrimage in several ways. First, it separated the pilgrimage from both religious and folk culture, Second, it changed the importance of the pilgrims' bodies. Undertaking the pilgrimage on foot had forced pilgrims to follow signposts that guided them to the next temple, while public transportation relieved them of using their bodies. Enjoying the scenery became an important aspect of pilgrimage. Mundane things such as transportation and tourism diversified the pilgrims' performance. In reaction to the modern pilgrimage, an organization called the Henro Dogyo Kai was set up in 1928 by Tomita Kyojun, the chief priest of Hosenji-temple in Tokyo, and the group insisted on the 'authentic' way of pilgrimage. The authentic pilgrimage they advocated was visually and practically shown in an annual pilgrimage parade started in 1931 and monthly training began in 1933- both of which involved travelling to places in Tokyo. The participants in the annual parade were encouraged to bring 'authentic' pilgrimage items (white gloves and socks, a bag, sandals, sedge hat and wooden staff) with them. The wooden staff was said to be a 'must have' item. The insistence on the authentic costume and goods contradicted the modern idea of pilgrimage as leisure activity. In addition, as the organisation esteemed walking as the authentic method of pilgrimage; they attempted to discipline pilgrims' bodies perfomatively through both discourse and events such as the parade and training. It is worth noting that the oldest guidebook of the pilgrimage, issued in 1687, did not attribute special religious meaning or value to these objects or to walking. The insistence of the organisation on authenticity is not grounded in historical fact. The discourse of authentic pilgrimage by the organisation became linked with governmental policy after the late 1930s and during wartime to discipline nations' bodies and daily life. Here too the mundane produced the authenticity of the pilgrimage.