Authorizing the shogunate : ritual and material symbolism in the literary construction of warrior order

212 Pages·2013·1.506 MB·English

by  Vyjayanthi Ratnam Selinger

Authorizing the Shogunate
Brill’s Japanese
Studies Library
Edited by
Joshua Mostow (Managing Editor)
Caroline Rose
Kate Wildman Nakai
VOLUME 44
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bjsl
Authorizing the Shogunate
Ritual and Material Symbolism
in the Literary Construction of Warrior Order
By
Vyjayanthi R. Selinger
LEidEN • BOStON
2013
Cover illustration: Scene from the episode “Kiso no saigo no koto” (“the death of Kiso”) in Nara
ehon Heike monogatari (early eighteenth century), Chapter 9. Reproduced with permission from
Kokugakuin University Library, tokyo.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Selinger, Vyjayanthi Ratnam.
 Authorizing the shogunate : ritual and material symbolism in the literary construction of
warrior order / by Vyjayanthi Ratnam Selinger.
  pages cm. — (Brill’s Japanese studies library ; volume 44)
 includes bibliographical references and index.
 iSBN 978-90-04-24810-6 (hardback : alk. paper) — iSBN 978-90-04-25533-3 (e-book) 1. Heike
monogatari—Criticism, textual. 2. Heike monogatari—Language. 3. Genpei seisuiki—Criticism,
textual. 4. Genpei seisuiki—Language. 5. Japan—History—Gempei Wars, 1180–1185—Literature
and the war. i. title.
 PL790.H43S437 2013
 895.6’322—dc23
2013019449
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covering Latin, iPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
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iSSN 0925-6512
iSBN 978-90-04-24810-6 (hardback)
iSBN 978-90-04-25533-3 (e-book)
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CONtENtS
Acknowledgements  ........................................................................................ ix
Note on Conventions and texts Used  ...................................................... xiii
1 the Genpei jōsuiki and the Historical Narration of the
Genpei War  ............................................................................................... 1
 the Late Heian World and the Genpei War  .............................. 2
 the Historical Rhetoric of the Genpei jōsuiki  ............................. 4
 Critical Approaches to Historicity in the Heike monogatari  .... 10
 the Scripting of Socio-political Order through the Semiotic
  Codes of Material and Ritual Culture  ..................................... 12
 Variants and textual Lines  .............................................................. 17
 the Genpei jōsuiki and the Dai Nihonshi  ..................................... 20
2 Fictions of Emergence: the Symbolic Regulation of Violence
in the Battles of 1180  ............................................................................... 27
 the defiled East and the Unpropitious Beginning of the
  Genpei War  ..................................................................................... 27
 Cleansing and Karmic Rebirth: the Sacralizing Potential of
  the Bathhouse  ................................................................................. 31
 dreaming the Body and Soothsaying the Face: the Legible
  Body in an Arbitrary World  ........................................................ 39
 the Fukuhara Edict, the Hōjōe, and the Legitimation of
  Violence  ............................................................................................ 45
 tree Hollows, Boats, and other Fortune-Reviving Spaces:
  Yoritomo as the Latter-day Emperor tenmu  ........................ 53
 the Battle of Fuji River and the Reimagining of the
  Borderlands  ..................................................................................... 60
 Punishing traitors and Awarding Followers: Performing the
  Birth of a Law-Making Political Body  ..................................... 63
 Conclusion  ............................................................................................ 65
3 Gastro-Politics and the Shifting Geography of Medieval Japan:
Famine, Feasts, and the Court’s Appointment of a Shogun
in 1183  .......................................................................................................... 69
 the Material and the Cultural in Food  ........................................ 69
 Gallows Humor: domesticating the Political Challenge of
  Minamoto Yoshinaka  ................................................................... 70
vi contents
 Uncourtly dining Manners in the “Nekoma” Episode:
  Challenging the Court’s Maintenance of Gastro-Political
  Order .................................................................................................. 76
 Yoritomo’s Feast in the Heike: Rewriting the
  Center-Periphery dichotomy  ..................................................... 83
 Food and the Shifting Geography of Power: the ‘Warrior
  Banquet’ trope in the Konjaku monogatarishū  ................... 89
 Shogunal Feasts: Power and Pageantry in Medieval Japan  ... 97
 the Yōwa Famine in Historical Records  ..................................... 100
 Conclusion  ............................................................................................ 104
4 Converging and diverging doubles in 1185: Sword Replicas
and the Locations of Martial Power  .................................................. 107
 Sword Symbolism and Political duality in the
  Medieval World  .............................................................................. 107
 (Re-)Placing the imperial Sword in the Medieval World  ...... 111
 the “Hōken setsuwa” Passage: Atsuta Shrine and the
  Overlay of Sword Stories  ............................................................. 114
 Proleptic Visions of New Swords in the Genpei jōsuiki  ........... 123
 the “Tsurugi no maki”: Bloodline and the Fashioning of
  Shogunal Genealogy  ..................................................................... 127
 Conclusion  ............................................................................................ 135
5 the Cultural Shift from the Carriage to the Horse: Portending
Historical Change  .................................................................................... 141
 Horses amidst Carriages: turmoil in the Construction of
  Symbolic Authority  ....................................................................... 142
 Clashing Vehicles in the Streets of Kyoto: Marking imperial
  decline  .............................................................................................. 147
 the Horse that Sparked the Genpei War: Absorbing the
  Unpredictable Eruption of Warrior Violence  ....................... 151
 ikezuki and Surusumi: Horse Racing (kurabeuma) and the
  transformation of War into Sport  ............................................ 154
 the darkness of Horse Narratives in the Konjaku
  monogatarishū: Violence Rendered distant  .......................... 158
 Equine Culture and the Logic of Power in Late Heian to
  Kamakura Japan  ............................................................................. 163
contents vii
6 the Past in the Present: troping Warrior Power in the
Muromachi and tokugawa Periods  ................................................... 167
 the Uses of the Past: the Founding of Warrior Power in the
  Retrospection of Later Eras  ........................................................ 170
Works Cited  ...................................................................................................... 173
index  ................................................................................................................... 185

ACKNOWLEdGEMENtS
this book is dedicated to the memory of two valued teachers at Cornell
University who passed away in the past year, Karen Brazell and Kyoko
Selden. Karen was both academic advisor and life coach, and Kyoko was
the most generous mentor and insightful listener one could hope for.
From my days at Cornell, Brett de Bary remains an inspirational guide,
modeling for me intellectual engagement and professional generosity.
Likewise, Edwin Cranston and Joan Piggott were incredibly important
teachers who showed me how to be faithful to the language and history
of medieval Japan. All these mentors deserve much of the credit and none
of the blame for this book. Among countless others who provided gener-
ous advice during graduate school, ding Xiang Warner, daniel Boucher,
and Fred Kotas deserve special mention.
i have had the good fortune of meeting generous teachers in my second
research “home” of Japan. While i was a graduate student, Hyōdō Hiromi of
Gakushūin University and Matsuo Ashie of Kokugakuin University invited
me into their seminars and generously shared their considerable expertise
on the Heike with me. Matsuo Ashie, in particular, has seen this project
to the end, providing feedback during critical phases, and arranging for
Kokugakuin University Library to share the illustrations included in this
book. She also invited me into a research group named Bunka genshō to
shite no ‘Genpei jōsuiki’ (the Genpei jōsuiki as a Cultural Phenomenon)
she leads, where Sakai Koichi of Sōka University and numerous others
provided intellectual support for this project. in Japan, tagaya Yūko of
Kantō Gakuin University, takagi Makoto of Sagami Women’s University,
and Kondō Shigekazu of tokyo Historiographical institute are valued col-
leagues as well. i also thank Shinoda tōru of Waseda University for giving
me access to Waseda University’s library, where i spent many happy hours
researching.
the process of reworking early drafts of the book brought me into con-
tact with numerous American scholars who gave generously of their time.
Sarah Strong and Elizabeth Oyler provided feedback on a chapter of this
manuscript, while Ethan Segal and Susan Klein read larger sections. Susan
Matisoff took time out during Christmas vacation to give me astute com-
ments on a substantial selection of this manuscript. A portion of this work
was presented at a Tales of Heike workshop organized by Elizabeth Oyler