Caroline Hirasawa | Waseda University (original) (raw)

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Books by Caroline Hirasawa

Papers by Caroline Hirasawa

Artibus Asiae, 2012

Thirteenth-century Japanese paintings illustrate salvation from hell with a motif of infants rais... more Thirteenth-century Japanese paintings illustrate salvation from hell with a motif of infants raised above a cracking cauldron aboard blossoming lotus flowers. This motif draws on continental textual and visual components, but rearranges them by inserting conceptions of salvation in the Pure Land of the Buddha Amitâbha directly into the depths of hell, a radical compression of once-discrete imaginings of the worlds of paradise and damnation. Through tracing conceptual developments in different cultural contexts that inform this imagery, Hirasawa demonstrates how new ideas emerged from the shifting sands between text and image, and argues that the full flowering of this motif signals an important transition in Japanese conceptions of salvation during the medieval period.

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 2018

Narratives in the fourteenth-century didactic paintings Shidoji engi e 志度寺 縁起絵 and Yūzū nenbutsu ... more Narratives in the fourteenth-century didactic paintings Shidoji engi e 志度寺 縁起絵 and Yūzū nenbutsu engi 融通念仏縁起 preach that supernatural entities are actively involved in Buddhist devotional projects. Vows and other commitments to engage in nenbutsu practice, or to restore a temple, initiate exchanges with the heavens and the netherworld that support their fulfillment. Interworldly networks thereby convey to audiences the rewards of participation in a promotional or fundraising campaign and back that up with the threat of hell. Both image contexts portray documents as a medium for transcending worlds, emphasizing writing in ways that empower campaign documents. keywords: King Enma-netherworld-Shidoji engi e-Yūzū nenbutsu engi-revival narratives (soseitan)-fundraising-promotion (kanjin)-oaths (kishōmon)

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 2018

A grain of rice is venerated as a Buddha relic during rainmaking rites. An ox gallstone, made int... more A grain of rice is venerated as a Buddha relic during rainmaking rites. An ox gallstone, made into ointment, is given by a Buddhist monk to a midwife who spreads it on the genitals of a birthing empress. A used toy flute made of bamboo is dedicated to the deities of Miho Shrine in order to protect its former user. This special issue examines the relationship between materiality and the sacred by focusing on unassuming, familiar, unformed, or affordable objects-such as scraps of wood, grains of rice, and pieces of paperthat were invested with powerful meanings or cumulative effects. The articles assembled here explore the introduction and circulation of such objects through Japanese religious practice and imagination. Research on religious themes constantly refers to objects and materials. Iconography, implements, and ephemera play important parts in ritual and preaching, and objects serve as markers of faith and as protectors of the faithful. Birgit Meyer's clarification is helpful here: Materializing the study of religion means asking how religion happens materially, which is not to be confused with asking the much less helpful question of how religion is expressed in material forms. A materialized study of religion begins with the assumption that things, their use, their valuation, and their appeal are not something added to the religion, but rather inextricable from it.

Monumenta Nipponica, 2015

aided our understanding of the movement of these stories between genres, and of their composition... more aided our understanding of the movement of these stories between genres, and of their compositional methods and goals. Again and again, we see the reuse of particular themes and motifs, such as children willing to sacrifice themselves for their parents' well-being, the importance of deciphering "riddle-letters" (missives of mysterious or uncertain meaning) as an impetus for action, cruel stepmothers, and lake serpent-deities that require an annual sacrificial victim. Phrases, too, are reused, as for example to be reborn as "a paving stone on the Kamakura highway" (p. 98-99, Shintokumaru; p. 126, Oguri) and s/he "wept as if to disappear" (pp. 171 and 179, Sayohime; p. 206, Aigo-no-waka). Other elements of circulation and reuse also characterize the oral-formulaic origins and nature of these texts. Kimbrough suggests only that "the seventeenth-century sekkyō repertoire may have been more akin to a store of interchangeable scenes and events than a collection of strictly disparate plays" (p. 10). After reading the translations, few would argue otherwise. Mixed with literary language and techniques such as wordplay, lists of related words woven into descriptive passages, and michiyuki travel scenes as a ubiquitous dramatic device, the texts are amalgams of oral and literary elements, technique, and content, all part of the narrator's art and the audience's pleasure. Given that the printed format of these works is among the topics Kimbrough takes up in his introduction, it is wonderful that he managed to include many reproductions of the images that form an integral part of the original works. We are given the opportunity to compare illustrations from woodblock-printed editions with the more-elegant naraehon illustrations. Kimbrough explains that shōhon illustrations were true to the recited tale rather than to its theatrical performance and that illustrations are often out of sync with the text portion they illustrate. With this information, we are equipped to consider an important instance of text/illustration relationships so essential to Japanese literature and theater-related texts. These two volumes of translation are important contributions to the scholarship on bunraku, as well as the narrative arts and puppet performances that preceded it. One hopes and expects that these volumes, with their wealth of fascinating material, will inspire further studies that will continue to add to our understanding of Edo-period puppet theater.

, special issue of the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 45:2, 2018

Artibus Asiae, 2012

Thirteenth-century Japanese paintings illustrate salvation from hell with a motif of infants rais... more Thirteenth-century Japanese paintings illustrate salvation from hell with a motif of infants raised above a cracking cauldron aboard blossoming lotus flowers. This motif draws on continental textual and visual components, but rearranges them by inserting conceptions of salvation in the Pure Land of the Buddha Amitâbha directly into the depths of hell, a radical compression of once-discrete imaginings of the worlds of paradise and damnation. Through tracing conceptual developments in different cultural contexts that inform this imagery, Hirasawa demonstrates how new ideas emerged from the shifting sands between text and image, and argues that the full flowering of this motif signals an important transition in Japanese conceptions of salvation during the medieval period.

Monumenta Nipponica, Jan 1, 2008

Artibus Asiae, 2012

Thirteenth-century Japanese paintings illustrate salvation from hell with a motif of infants rais... more Thirteenth-century Japanese paintings illustrate salvation from hell with a motif of infants raised above a cracking cauldron aboard blossoming lotus flowers. This motif draws on continental textual and visual components, but rearranges them by inserting conceptions of salvation in the Pure Land of the Buddha Amitâbha directly into the depths of hell, a radical compression of once-discrete imaginings of the worlds of paradise and damnation. Through tracing conceptual developments in different cultural contexts that inform this imagery, Hirasawa demonstrates how new ideas emerged from the shifting sands between text and image, and argues that the full flowering of this motif signals an important transition in Japanese conceptions of salvation during the medieval period.

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 2018

Narratives in the fourteenth-century didactic paintings Shidoji engi e 志度寺 縁起絵 and Yūzū nenbutsu ... more Narratives in the fourteenth-century didactic paintings Shidoji engi e 志度寺 縁起絵 and Yūzū nenbutsu engi 融通念仏縁起 preach that supernatural entities are actively involved in Buddhist devotional projects. Vows and other commitments to engage in nenbutsu practice, or to restore a temple, initiate exchanges with the heavens and the netherworld that support their fulfillment. Interworldly networks thereby convey to audiences the rewards of participation in a promotional or fundraising campaign and back that up with the threat of hell. Both image contexts portray documents as a medium for transcending worlds, emphasizing writing in ways that empower campaign documents. keywords: King Enma-netherworld-Shidoji engi e-Yūzū nenbutsu engi-revival narratives (soseitan)-fundraising-promotion (kanjin)-oaths (kishōmon)

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 2018

A grain of rice is venerated as a Buddha relic during rainmaking rites. An ox gallstone, made int... more A grain of rice is venerated as a Buddha relic during rainmaking rites. An ox gallstone, made into ointment, is given by a Buddhist monk to a midwife who spreads it on the genitals of a birthing empress. A used toy flute made of bamboo is dedicated to the deities of Miho Shrine in order to protect its former user. This special issue examines the relationship between materiality and the sacred by focusing on unassuming, familiar, unformed, or affordable objects-such as scraps of wood, grains of rice, and pieces of paperthat were invested with powerful meanings or cumulative effects. The articles assembled here explore the introduction and circulation of such objects through Japanese religious practice and imagination. Research on religious themes constantly refers to objects and materials. Iconography, implements, and ephemera play important parts in ritual and preaching, and objects serve as markers of faith and as protectors of the faithful. Birgit Meyer's clarification is helpful here: Materializing the study of religion means asking how religion happens materially, which is not to be confused with asking the much less helpful question of how religion is expressed in material forms. A materialized study of religion begins with the assumption that things, their use, their valuation, and their appeal are not something added to the religion, but rather inextricable from it.

Monumenta Nipponica, 2015

aided our understanding of the movement of these stories between genres, and of their composition... more aided our understanding of the movement of these stories between genres, and of their compositional methods and goals. Again and again, we see the reuse of particular themes and motifs, such as children willing to sacrifice themselves for their parents' well-being, the importance of deciphering "riddle-letters" (missives of mysterious or uncertain meaning) as an impetus for action, cruel stepmothers, and lake serpent-deities that require an annual sacrificial victim. Phrases, too, are reused, as for example to be reborn as "a paving stone on the Kamakura highway" (p. 98-99, Shintokumaru; p. 126, Oguri) and s/he "wept as if to disappear" (pp. 171 and 179, Sayohime; p. 206, Aigo-no-waka). Other elements of circulation and reuse also characterize the oral-formulaic origins and nature of these texts. Kimbrough suggests only that "the seventeenth-century sekkyō repertoire may have been more akin to a store of interchangeable scenes and events than a collection of strictly disparate plays" (p. 10). After reading the translations, few would argue otherwise. Mixed with literary language and techniques such as wordplay, lists of related words woven into descriptive passages, and michiyuki travel scenes as a ubiquitous dramatic device, the texts are amalgams of oral and literary elements, technique, and content, all part of the narrator's art and the audience's pleasure. Given that the printed format of these works is among the topics Kimbrough takes up in his introduction, it is wonderful that he managed to include many reproductions of the images that form an integral part of the original works. We are given the opportunity to compare illustrations from woodblock-printed editions with the more-elegant naraehon illustrations. Kimbrough explains that shōhon illustrations were true to the recited tale rather than to its theatrical performance and that illustrations are often out of sync with the text portion they illustrate. With this information, we are equipped to consider an important instance of text/illustration relationships so essential to Japanese literature and theater-related texts. These two volumes of translation are important contributions to the scholarship on bunraku, as well as the narrative arts and puppet performances that preceded it. One hopes and expects that these volumes, with their wealth of fascinating material, will inspire further studies that will continue to add to our understanding of Edo-period puppet theater.

, special issue of the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 45:2, 2018

Artibus Asiae, 2012

Thirteenth-century Japanese paintings illustrate salvation from hell with a motif of infants rais... more Thirteenth-century Japanese paintings illustrate salvation from hell with a motif of infants raised above a cracking cauldron aboard blossoming lotus flowers. This motif draws on continental textual and visual components, but rearranges them by inserting conceptions of salvation in the Pure Land of the Buddha Amitâbha directly into the depths of hell, a radical compression of once-discrete imaginings of the worlds of paradise and damnation. Through tracing conceptual developments in different cultural contexts that inform this imagery, Hirasawa demonstrates how new ideas emerged from the shifting sands between text and image, and argues that the full flowering of this motif signals an important transition in Japanese conceptions of salvation during the medieval period.

Monumenta Nipponica, Jan 1, 2008