(Junhyoung Michael Shin) Avalokiteśvara's Manifestation As The Virgin Mary The Jesuit Adaptation and The Visual Conflation in Japanese Catholicism After 1614

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Avalokitevara's Manifestation as the Virgin

Mary: The Jesuit Adaptation and the Visual
Conation in Japanese Catholicism after 1614
Junhyoung Michael Shin
Church History / Volume 80 / Issue 01 / March 2011, pp 1 - 39
DOI: 10.1017/S0009640710001575, Published online: 07 March 2011
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009640710001575

How to cite this article:
Junhyoung Michael Shin (2011). Avalokitevara's Manifestation as the Virgin Mary:
The Jesuit Adaptation and the Visual Conation in Japanese Catholicism after
1614. Church History, 80, pp 1-39 doi:10.1017/S0009640710001575
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Church History 80:1 (March 2011), 139.

American Society of Church History, 2011
doi:10.1017/S0009640710001575
Avalokitesvaras Manifestation as the Virgin

Mary: The Jesuit Adaptation and the Visual
Conflation in Japanese Catholicism after 1614
JUNHYOUNG MICHAEL SHIN
These people used to call upon the name of Amida, but now when they
encounter danger or are alarmed by a sudden change of things, they recite
the names of Jesus and Mary. They call each other by baptismal names,
and cross themselves before eating meals or drinking tea. This way they
are learning Christian customs so naturally that sometimes it even appears
to me that these people have been Christians from the old days.
Luis Frois, Historia de Japam, 15871
INCE St. Francis Xavier landed in Kagoshima in 1549, the Jesuit mission
in Japan had achieved an amazing number of conversions, even though
their activity lasted for merely about fifty years. Their great success came
to an abrupt end in 1614 when the Bakufu government began the full
proscription and persecution of the religion. An earlier ruler, Toyotomi
Hideyoshi, had already banned Christianity and ordered the expulsion of
foreign missionaries in 1587, but without strict enforcement. Since the
1630s, the former Christians were required to enroll in local Buddhist
temples and annually go through the practice of treading on Christian icons
in order to prove their apostasy. However, many Christians secretly retained
the faith by disguising their true religious identity with Buddhist
paraphernalia. These so-called underground (or sempuku) Christians
survived more than two hundred years of persecution, and today some
groups still continue to practice their own religion, refusing to join the
Catholic Church. The present-day religion of the latter, called hidden (or
kakure) Christians to distinguish them from the former, has drawn the
attention of ample anthropological as well as religious studies.2
1
Luis Froiss observation on the Christian converts of western Kyushu in 1587. See Luis Frois
S. J., Nihonshi (History of Japan), trans. and eds. Kiichi Matsuda et al. (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha,
19771980), 11:160.
2
Terminology referring to early Japanese Christians is not consistent, but I will follow Miyazakis
definitions. The Christians throughout the period of persecution are called underground (sempuku)
Junhyoung Michael Shin is Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology and

Art History at Seoul National University.
CHURCH HISTORY
My essay concerns the underground Christians visual culture in the earlier

period of their secretive religion, roughly from the proscription of 1614 to the
middle of the eighteenth century.3 Even though Christianity was widespread
throughout the entire nation, I will focus on the Nagasaki and Bungo
regions of Kyushu, where the Jesuits missionary efforts had been highly
concentrated, and the majority of underground Christians were discovered
later in a series of crackdowns.4 Most of the visual objects I discuss in this
essay were recovered from the Nagasaki area and the islands off its coast.
During this period of persecution, the underground Christians religion and
practice gradually fused with Pure Land Buddhism, the process of which can
be observed in both their verbal and visual culture.
The Jesuits adaptation method of teaching Christianity in comparison to the
indigenous religious tradition had the possibility of confusion from the
beginning, especially for the Japanese who were used to the syncretistic coexistence of multiple religious beliefs.5 When severe persecution gradually
pulled the Japanese away from the Jesuits guidance,6 their isolated
Christians. After the lift of the ban in 1873, about the half of underground Christians rejoined the
Catholic Church. This group is called resurrected (hukkatsu) Christians. The rest of underground
Christians refused to return to the Church and continued to practice their own religion. They are
called hidden (kakure) Christians. Kakure Kirishitan no Shinko Sekai (Secret Christians Belief
World) (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1996), 3034; Kentaro Miyazaki, Roman Catholic
Mission in Pre-modern Japan, in Handbook of Christianity in Japan, ed. Mark R. Mullins
(Leiden: Brill, 2003): 45.
3
For the introduction to the history of underground (sempuku) Christians, see Arimichi Ebisawa,
Crypto-Christianity in Tokugawa Japan, Japan Quarterly 7 (1960), 28894; C. R. Boxer, The
Clandestine Catholic Church in Feudal Japan, 16141640, History Today 16 (1966), 5361.
For recent studies in Japanese, see Koichiro Takase, Kirishitan no Seiki, Zabieru no Toichi kara
Sakoku made (Christian Century: From the Arrival of St. Xavier to the Closure of Nation)
(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993); Sanae Murai, Kirishitan Kinsei to Minshu no Shukyo (The
Prohibition of Christianity and the Religion of the People) (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha,
2002); Kodai Obashi, Kinsei Nippon Sempuku Kirishitan no Shinko Kyodotai to Seikatsu
Kyodotai (Early Modern Underground Christians Religious Community and Life
Community), Chichukai Kenkyusho Kiyo 4 (2006): 11117.
4
Shinzo Kawamura, S. J., Making Christian Lay Communities during the Christian Century
in Japan: a Case Study of Takata District in Bungo (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1999), 95;
Miyazaki, Kakure Kirishitan, 3637. The most renowned case is a series of crackdowns in
Urakami, near Nagasaki. See Yakichi Kataoka, Urakami Yonbankuzure: Meiji Seifu no
Kirishitan danatsu (Four Crackdowns in Urakami: Persecution of Christians by Meiji
Government) (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1964), 5267.
5
Ebisawa, Crypto-Christianity, 288.
6
Even after the enforced deportation of foreign priests in 1614, Catholic priests including the
Franciscans and the Dominicans secretly remained or reentered as late as 1639. See Boxer,
Clandestine Christians, 61. The Jesuits annual reports on Japan, though written from Macao
after 1614, continued to 1625. They recount ample stories of martyrdom, return from apostasy,
and even miracle. See Kiichi Matsuda et al., trans. and ed., Juroku-shichiseiki Iezusukai Nihon
Hokokushu (SixteenthSeventeenth Century Jesuits Japan Reports) (Kyoto: Dohosha Shuppan,
1990), part 2, vol. 2 (16131618) and vol. 3 (16191625).
AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY
Catholicism and imagery came to be conflated with Pure Land Buddhism, from
which they adopted verbal, visual, and ritualistic elements to disguise their
religion. The lay leader and catechist alone, who had supplemented the
shortage of ordained priests in the pre-persecution era, seemed simply
insufficient to prevent such a gradual transformation over the generations
without regular contacts with the Church.7 This conflation would eventually
lead to a third religion, not identical to either Catholicism or Buddhism,
which has continued up to the present by hidden Christians in the western
islands off the coast of Kyushu.
I am arguing that the underground Christians conflation of Catholicism with
Pure Land Buddhism was not only caused by external factors of persecution
and the need for camouflage but was also strongly effected by the internal,
theological elements common to both religions. Their initial use of Buddhist
icons as devotional substitutes was likely motivated by the purpose of
disguise based on the similarities among those icons and related rituals.
However, the substitution gradually became rationalized and justified, and
eventually led to a fusion of two religions. This phenomenon should also be
understood in light of the very theology of Pure Land Buddhism, in which
bodhisattva Avalokitevara (Japanese: Kannon) and Buddha Amitabha
(Japanese: Amida) miraculously intervene and conduct soteriological works
for sinful human beings. Under severe persecution from the government and
isolation from the Churchs theological guidance, Japanese Christians not
only had to camouflage their true religious identity but also, and more
urgently, needed to shape and preserve their religious imagery with the
verbal and visual traditions with which they had been deeply infused.
Among the multiple religious traditions that had syncretistically co-existed
in Japanese culture, Pure Land Buddhism appears to have provided
underground Christians with the most justifiable rationale for the substitution
of its visual and verbal imagery as alternatives.8 As a result, the unusual
circumstances of persecution and isolation brought forth an interesting case
of the two religions conflation, first in the realm of their visual imagery,
7
Whelan suggests that this kind lay-oriented system could have resulted in the incomplete
indoctrination of converts even in the pre-persecution period. See Christal Whelan, trans. et.
nota., The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japans Hidden Christian
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996), 11, 2223.
8
Ikuo Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice (Leiden:
Brill, 2001), 7681. Though rarely, Shinto icons were also adopted by underground Christians. But
the main elements of Shintoism appropriated by underground and hidden Christians were, for
example, purification rites or commemoration of the dead rather than the major deities of
worship. See Ann Harrington, The Kakure Kirishitan and Their Place in Japans Religious
Tradition, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 7, no. 4 (December 1980): 31936; Stephen
Turnbull, From Catechist to Kami: Martyrs and Mythology among the Kakure Kirishitan,
Japanese Religions 19 (1994), 5881.
CHURCH HISTORY
which would then eventually modify what they had originally stood for in
theology.9
The similar role and appearance of the Virgin Mary and bodhisattva Kannon
have been discussed by many scholars of religion and art history, but I believe
that not only their common intercessory role or external resemblance but also
the latters power of transformation and manifestation, drawn from the
Universal Gate chapter of the Lotus Sutra , led to the
justification of the iconographic substitute known as Maria-Kannon. In this
regard, another occasion of iconographic conflation or proximity was
observed between the image of Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary and Taima
Mandara, a schematic representation of Amidas paradisiacal Pure Land.10
Their association also needs to be explained, not merely by similar
compositions, but also by their analogous function in devotional practices.
Both rosary prayer and the sixteen-view contemplation of Pure Land
Buddhism utilized these images as visual manuals to guide mental
visualization often combined with repetitive, numerically formulated prayers.
On the other hand, the substitute Buddha images used by underground
Christians, unlike the case of Maria-Kannon, have rarely been identified as a
specific Buddha except for one Amida statuette.11 Usually these statues are
so small and simply shaped that they do not exhibit distinguishable
iconographic features to identify. I argue that their identity should be decided
by the perception and religious imagery of underground Christians rather
than ambiguous formal traits. I believe that in this regard they were deemed
to be Amida, initially disguising but eventually impersonating and fusing
with Christ. I will support this argument not only with the theology and
imagery of Amida in Japanese Buddhism and its art but also with significant
references to him in underground Christians orally transmitted biblical
account, Tenchi Hajimari no Koto (On the Beginning of Heaven and Earth,
hereafter THK), recovered in manuscripts circulating in the western islands
off the coast of Nagasaki.12
9
Higashibaba indicates that Christian symbols in Japan were indeed perceived and functioned in
the context of Japanese syncretistic religious system, which does not completely agree with the
Europeans. Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 3036.
10
Tei Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu (Namban Art) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1958), 4849.
11
For example, see Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan Zuhan Mokuroku: Kirishitan Kankei Ihin
Hen (Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum: Objects relating to early Christian
Faith in Japan) (Tokyo National Museum, 1972), cat. no. 47.
12
I primarily relied on Alfred Bohners German translation and original Japanese text therein, and
Christal Whelans translation and detailed annotations. Whelan also provides the listing of THK
manuscripts and their genealogy in her book on xixii, 1820. I also referred to Kenichi
Tanigawas modern Japanese rendition and notes. See Alfred Bohner, trans. et nota., Tenchi
Hajimari no Koto. Wie Himmel und Erde entstanden, Monumenta Nipponica 1, no. 2 (July
1938): 465514; Whelan, Heaven and Earth; Kenichi Tanigawa, trans. et nota., Tenchi
I do not, however, argue that underground Christians regarded the Virgin

literally as one of Kannons thirty-three manifestations, or that they
identified Amida as another of Christs hypostases, even though the rather
provocative title of this essay may misleadingly suggest as much. Rather I
attempt to point out that the Jesuits remarkable proselytization in Japan
must have been, regardless of their awareness of it, greatly facilitated by the
Japanese heritage of Pure Land Buddhism, which had shaped their religious
disposition to be susceptible to Christianity, alien but analogical regarding its
primary deities or personages, soteriology, and even visual culture. The Pure
Land School was much stronger and more deeply rooted in Japanese
Buddhism than in that of China or Korea, whence the school was
transmitted. No matter how much the Jesuit fathers dismissed and despised
Buddhism as the devils poor imitation of the true faith, similarities between
Jesuit Christianity and Pure Land Buddhism contributed to Japanese
conversion and tenacious adherence to Christianity in the following centuries
of persecution.
I. THE JESUITS PRESENCE IN BUDDHIST JAPAN

The Jesuits mission in Japan was an unprecedented success at least in
numbers, especially when we compare it with the case in China that shared
with Japan cultural heritage such as Chinese writing and Buddhism. The
Jesuits converted around six thousand Japanese in the first ten years after
St. Francis Xaviers arrival, and by the time of proscription in 1614, the
number of converts reached around three hundred thousand. Conversion
continued even afterward and their number reached 760,000 by the early
1630s.13 The Christian mission began first in Kyushu but in the 1560s
spread to the main island of Honshu under Oda Nobunagas permission and
support.14 Finally, missionaries had free access to all parts of Japan, which
also contrasts with the situation in China.15
Surprisingly, the maximum number of priests in Japan by 1614 was merely
142, including seven Japanese. This shortage was complemented by the
Hajimari no Koto, in Kakure Kirishitan no Seiga (The Paintings of Hidden Christian) (Tokyo:
Shogakukan, 1999).
13
Miyazaki, Roman Catholic, 7; Peter Nosco, Secrecy and Transmission of Tradition: Issues
in the Study of the Underground Christians, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 20, no. 1
(1993): 5.
14
Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America: 15421773
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 57.
15
C. R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan 15491650 (Berkeley: University of California
Press), 79.
CHURCH HISTORY
Jesuits active employment of lay leaders and catechists.16 These lay catechists
catered to the religious needs of the villagers and were later even endowed the
authority to give baptism and funeral services. Furthermore, the Jesuits
encouraged the lay organizations called Confraria based on the model of
European confraternity, which initially aimed at charitable activities but
gradually became devotional organizations under persecution.17 These lay
brotherhoods and catechists continued to play their roles during the
underground era and served as the foundation for the disguise and
preservation of their religion. Kawamura interestingly observes that this
Christian confraternity resembled the traditional lay organization of True
Pure Land Buddhism, and thus could easily be understood and appropriated
by the Japanese populace.18
The impressive number of conversions is, to a certain extent, ascribed to the
unique Japanese political culture that caused the mass conversion. When a local
daimyo converted to Christianity, all his subjects in the realm, even including
Buddhist monks, had to follow their ruler.19 However, the sincerity of these
early Christians should not be underestimated merely due to their initial
motive for baptism, since the conversion continued even after the national
ban of 1587, and more significantly, when the severe persecution began in
1614, many Japanese Christians chose to die as martyrs rather than retreat
from their faith. Over the thirty years persecution after 1614, more than two
thousand Japanese Christians were martyred.20 Considering the roughly fifty
years of the Jesuits mission activity, the number of martyrs is simply
amazing. Even more remarkable about Japanese Christianity is the survival
of underground Christians, who secretly retained and continued their
religious identity and practice for the next several hundreds of years, even to
date. The martyrdom and the survival of underground Christians in Kyushu
indicates that Christianity, albeit not fully understood, took firm root among
the Japanese.21
Boxer, Clandestine Catholic Church, 55; Kawamura, Christian Lay Communities, 17980.
Ebisawa, Crypto-Christianity, 291; Kawamura, Christian Lay Communities, 19599.;
Obashi, Kinsei Nippon Sempuku Kirishitan, 11314; Koya Tahoku, Sempuku Kirishitan ni
okeru Kyokai Soshiki oyobi Tenrei no Henyo (The Transformation of Church Organization
and Ritual among Underground Christians), Kirisutokyo Shigaku 7 (1956): 3233. Such lay
confraternities, as well as the mission activities in general, were also presided by other religious
orders such as the Dominicans and the Franciscans. However, I will limit my discussion to the
case of the Jesuits, since their accommodation policy seems to have opened a way for religious
fusion with Buddhism.
18
Kawamura, Christian Lay Communities, 31537.
19
Higashibaba introduces the well-known case of Omura clan with specific numbers in his
Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 3940.
20
Boxer, Christian Century, 448.
21
Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 54, 81.
16
17
Such an eager sympathy with, if not the orthodox understanding of,

Christianity was possible, in part because the Japanese were already
ingrained with a similar set of ideas, deities, and visual culture from Pure
Land Buddhism. Early Jesuit fathers in Japan also noted the formal
similarities between Catholicism and Buddhism, as Fr. Matteo Ricci did in
China.22 Fr. Vilela reported, The monks say matins, tierce, vespers and
complines, for the devil wished them to imitate the things of Our Lord in
everything.23 Fr. Frois called the Gion festival in Kyoto the devils attempt
to imitate the Feast of Corpus Christi.24 No matter how devilish the Jesuits
regarded these elements, they attempted to take advantage of such
similarities to familiarize the Japanese with their Western religion. For
example, St. Francis Xavier borrowed Buddhist terms such as Dainichi
(Buddha Vairocana for God), jodo (Pure Land for heavenly paradise), jigoku
(hell), and tennin (angel).25 However, after the term Dainichi caused serious
confusion, the Jesuits preferred to use the transliterations of the original Latin.26
The religious and ideological foundation in Japan, though sharing much with
China, was rather different. Even though Confucianism was the ruling ideology
of China and Korea, it never reached the same status in Japan. It was largely
limited to the upper warrior class as their codes of conduct in the later
Bakuhu government.27 Thus, adaptation to Confucianism, which was Fr.
Matteo Riccis lifelong endeavor in China, was rather unnecessary in
Japan.28 Whereas Buddhism in China and Korea retreated largely as a
religion devoid of political power, Japanese Buddhism maintained a
considerable political status with wealth and even military force. Its position
in society was quite similar to that of Christianity in Europe.29 Already since
the Kamakura period (11801333), Buddhism had penetrated into every
level of Japanese society and was the de facto state religion.30 Boxer even
22
China in the Sixteenth Century: the Journals of Matthew Ricci: 15831610, trans. L. J.
Gallagher, S.J. (New York: Random House, 1942), 99.
23
24
25
Andrew Ross, A Vision Betrayed: the Jesuits in Japan and China, 15421742 (Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis, 1994), 29; Notto R. Thelle, The Christian Encounter with Japanese Buddhism, in
Handbook, 22829.
26
In comparison to the China mission, where almost all the theological terms were translated in
Chinese, it is relatively true that the Jesuits in Japan relied more on the transliterations than
translation of terms. However, Suzuki observes that the Jesuits and Japanese Christians
continued to explore the translation of theological terms such as corpora and carne by resorting
to analogical terms from Buddhism. See Hiromitsu Suzuki, Kirishitan Shukyosho ni okeru
Bukkyogo Mondai (The Issue of Buddhist terms found in Christian Literature), Nagoya
Daigaku Bungakubu Kenkyu Ronshu 109 (March 1991): 48.
27
Ebisawa, Crypto-Christianity, 28889.
28
Ross, Vision Betrayed, 86.
29
Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 54.
30
Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 55; Ross, Vision Betrayed, 34; Boxer, Christian Century, 44.
CHURCH HISTORY
observed that, compared with the Confucianist and rather atheistic Chinese and
Koreans, the Buddhist Japanese might have had more potential to embrace
Christianity as a religion.31 Three schools of Buddhism, namely Zen, Pure
Land, and Nichiren, became the most dominant in Japan. Pure Land and
Nichiren, in particular, held the strongest appeal to the populace.32
Pure Land Buddhism as an identifiable school in Japan was launched by
Honen (11331212), whose teachings on the simple practice of
Nembutsu , the invocation of Amida, and the reward of rebirth in the
Pure Land were easily accessible to a wide range of believers.33 As Pure
Land Buddhism grew and evolved, one of its sects, True Pure Land
founded by Shinran (11731262), became especially powerful. The
Nichiren School originated in the teachings of former Tendai monk
Nichiren (12221282), who deemed the Lotus Stura to be
the gist of the religion. In Pure Land Buddhism, the focus of popular
worship centered on two deities, Buddha Amida and bodhisattva Kannon.
Pure Land Buddhism teaches that in the degenerate age of the law, sinful
human beings are devoid of the ability to achieve nirvana by their own
efforts and thus they should rely on Buddha Amidas salvific compassion
and power to be reborn in his Pure Land. In this process, his attendant
bodhisattva Kannon provides immense help.
The Nichiren School proposes the thorough study and even worship of the
Lotus Sutra.34 This sutra is probably the one single most widely loved and
read sutra in Japan.35 Even though the Nichiren School was quite critical of
and even hostile to Pure Land Buddhism, their Lotus Sutra also contributed
to the great faith in and popularity of Kannon, since its chapter 25, titled
Universal Gate, details the intercessory power of this bodhisattva. For this
reason this chapter is even called Kannon sutra. Kannons intercession
ultimately aims to deliver human beings and transport them to the Pure Land
of Amida. Not limited to Pure Land scriptures, the Lotus Sutra also
describes Amidas Pure Land as the afterlife paradise in chapter 23.
If within the latter five hundred years after the Buddha entered Nirvana, there
is a woman who listens to this sutra and practices as it says, then at the end of
this life, she will go to the world of peace and delight, where Amitabha
31

Ross, Vision Betrayed, 5, 95; Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 55.
Allan A. Andrews, Honen and Popular Pure Land Piety: Assimilation and Transformation,
The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 17 (1994): 96110.
34
For a general introduction to Nichiren School, see Tamura Yoshiro, The New Buddhism of
Kamakura and Nichiren, Acta Asiatica 20 (1971): 4557.
35
The belief in the power of this sutra spawned ample miracle stories. See Yoshiko Dykstra,
Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra. The Danihonkoku Hokkegenki, Monumenta Nipponica
32, no. 2 (Summer 1977): 189210.
32
33
Buddha and the great company of bodhisattvas reside around, and she will be
born on a jeweled seat inside the lotus flower.36
, , ,
, , , , 37
Thus, both the Pure Land and Nichiren Schools spawned the cult of these two
deities, whose positions in Japanese Buddhism were far more prominent than in
Chinese or Korean Buddhism.38
The Jesuits active adaptation to Japanese culture began with Fr. A.
Valignano, whose method of so-called modo soave differed from the earlier
one-way approach.39 He appreciated the firm status of Buddhism in Japanese
culture. Its priests were a respected model of decorum and the Jesuits had to
emulate them to compete.40 Due to Japanese respect for Buddhist monks, the
Jesuits also enjoyed a similar esteem, being regarded as their peers.41 Both
elementary and advanced levels of education were offered in Buddhist
temples and monasteries, which further consolidated the respect for
Buddhism in the society.42 All these circumstances led Valignano to
conceive of the adoption of Buddhist models in the shaping of Christian
church and community organizations. Furthermore, the Jesuit seminary and
college at, respectively, Funai and Nagasaki seriously taught Buddhist
theology in their curricula, although only to refute it.43
However, such an active interest and approach to Buddhism did not last long.
Seeing that Oda Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi repressed the
militant Buddhists, such as those of True Pure Land and Nichiren, Valignano
abandoned the idea of following Buddhist models, regarding the latter no
longer as powerful peers.44 But Nobunaga and Hideyoshi opposed the secular,
political power of certain Buddhist sects, not the religions status in Japanese
36
For consistency of terms, all the scriptural citations in this essay are translated by author. I tried
to make the translations as literal as possible, strictly conforming to the original Chinese.
37
Taisho Tripitaka, T262: 54b.
38
The worship of Amida and Kannon was not limited to Pure Land Buddhism but truly a panBuddhist phenomenon in Japan. Their worship in Japan was greatly enhanced by Tendai school
monk Genshins Essentials of Rebirth Pure Land (985), teaching the blissful Pure
Land of Amida and Kannons salvific intervention. Zen Buddhism also fostered the iconic
worship of Amida and Kannon. See Mark MacWilliams, Living Icons: Reizo Myths of the
Saikoku Kannon Pilgrimage, Monumenta Nipponica 59, no. 1 (Spring 2004), 36, 41.
39
Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 61.
40
J. F. Moran, The Japanese and the Jesuits: Alessandro Valignano in Sixteenth-Century Japan
(London: Routledge, 1993), 54; Boxer, Christian Century, 83.
41
42
Boxer, Christian Century, 39, 87, 116.
43
Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 62; Boxer, Christian Century, 221.
44
Kazuo Kasahara, ed., A History of Japanese Religion, trans. P. McCarthy et al.. (Tokyo: Kosei,
2001), 208, 38889; Moran, Jesuits and Japanese, 5657.
10
CHURCH HISTORY
culture, which Valignano did not understand.45 Thus on the eve of the Jesuits
expulsion from Japan, there remained between Buddhism and Christianity
enmity and distrust. The real contact and mutual acculturation between the
two were to take place under persecution, in which underground Christians
had to continue to shape their religious life and practice, on the one hand, with
their isolated memory of Christianity, and on the other hand, with their own
cultural heritage of worshiping Buddhist deities through visual experience.
The Jesuits annual report on the year 1621, written by Fr. Geronimo Majorca
from Macao to the Jesuit General Matteo Vitelleschi, recounted two interesting
incidents that attest to a strange coexistence, albeit not yet a fusion, of the two
religions. The setting of these two events was Bungo province, an important
center of mission activity with the Jesuit college built in Funai.
A young man, an ardent worshiper of the idol [Amida], fell ill and asked his
Christian parents to bring in a Buddhist monk. The superstitious prayer of the
Buddhist monk did not cause any improvement and his condition became
worse. His mother repented of her inviting a Buddhist monk and went out
to the house garden in the night and harshly flagellated herself for
punishment. While beating herself, she saw that a cross surrounded by
mysterious light was arising above a nearby mountain. She further
whipped herself and cried, asking for Deuss mercy. She called her
husband to bring the sick son so that he could also see the mysterious
cross. The vision of the cross changed everything for this young man. He
thence received baptism and recovered his health.
A Christian lady, without judging from God-fearing reverence, was rather
heedlessly drawn to the temptation to visit a pagan [Buddhist] temple.
Visiting a temple, she was urged by her company and together with them
bowed to the idol. After committing this act of blasphemy, she suddenly
felt a sharp pain in her body. When the pain abated for a moment, she
came back home with all her strength. To her alarmed husband, she
recounted her act of reckless curiosity. He told her that she was being
punished and that she should beg for forgiveness from Deus. She
earnestly implored Deus for His mercy and the pain disappeared.46
Even though the Jesuit writer underscored the eventual triumph and superiority
of Christianity, the story more likely demonstrates the coexistence of different
religions typical in Japanese culture. Christian parents were calling a Buddhist
monk to cure their Buddhist sons illness. A Christian lady was tempted to visit
and venerate a Buddhist statue, probably expecting that the act would bring her
extra merits in addition to Christian blessing. These Japanese converts did not
45
46
Moran, Jesuits and Japanese, 70; Boxer, Christian Century, 64.

Iezusukai Nihon Hokokushu, part 2, 3:15253.
11
see much contradiction until they ran into a punishment from the monotheistic
Christian God. Furthermore, a beaming cross soaring above the village
mountain is strongly reminiscent of the Pure Land Buddhist iconography of
Yamagoshi Amida, in which Amida surrounded by light appears above a
nearby village mountain.47 This common Amida image was christened by
changing his image into a cross.
In 1621, even though these Japanese converts were clearly aware of the
distinction between Christianity and Buddhism, they were not shunning the
latter from their daily lives. In the next decade, priests who were in hiding
would be rooted out, and these Japanese Christians actively employed
Buddhist terms and images, disguising their secret religion. Without the strict
guidance of the ordained priests, as they continued to practice on their own
their underground Christianity camouflaged with Buddhism, which they had
not strictly detested even in the earlier days, the latter gradually became
more and more a part of the former, and the confusion and conflation
between the two in words and images became more firmly substantiated as a
third entity over the generations.
II. MARIA-KANNON: MASQUERADE AND MANIFESTATION

When the persecution of Christianity intensified, Christians were required to
declare apostasy and enroll in local Buddhist temples.48 However, many of
them chose to secretly retain and continue their religious practices, using
Buddhist statues and altars as a domestic substitute. The so-called MariaKannon is, accurately speaking, the statue of the Son-bringing Kannon,
which underground Christians substituted as the icon of the Madonna and
the Child in their secret practice of Christian devotion (Fig. 1).49 Many of
these statues are porcelain figures imported from southern China, where the
cult and production of Son-bringing Kannon was very popular.
Studies on this Christian substitution of the Kannons icon primarily discuss
the tactic of disguise relying on the apparent formal similarity between the
bodhisattva with a boy and Madonna holding the Christ Child.50 In China,
where the bodhisattvas feminization as the Son-bringing Kannon (Chinese:
Songzi Guanyin ) was first established, her figure already caused a
47
Joji Okazaki, Pure Land Buddhist Painting (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1992), 13946.
49
Satoru Takemura, Kirishitan Ibutsu no Kenkyu (Studies on Early Christian Objects) (Tokyo:
Kaibunsha, 1964), 102; Teiji Chizawa et al., Kirishitan no Bijutsu (Early Christian Art) (Tokyo:
Hobunsha, 1961), 182; Ross, Vision Betrayed, 107.
50
Takemura, Kirishitan Ibutsu, 1025; Chizawa, Kirishitan no Bijutsu, 18285; Kirishitan
Kankei Ihin Hen, 6; Kentaro Miyazaki, The Kakure Kirishitan Tradition, in Handbook, 28;
Nosco, Secrecy and Transmission, 14.
48
12
CHURCH HISTORY
Fig. 1. Maria-Kannon, seventeenth century, Porcelain, import from Fujian, China. Courtesy of
Oura Cathedral, Nagasaki, and Kaibunsha (Kirishitan Ibutsu, 1964)
serious confusion with the Catholic icon of Mary.51 Such confusion reflects
Catholicisms fast spread under the mission project of Jesuit Giulio Aleni
(15821649) in Fujian province, where these figures were made and
exported to Kyushu.52 A similar phenomenon of iconographic conflation is
repeated in Kyushu, but here for the purpose of camouflaging underground
Christians true religious identity and guaranteeing their survival.
Significantly, Takemura indicates that such a conflation of Mary and Kannon
could have begun much earlier than the ban of Christianity and persecution.
The Japanese populace, ignorant of the outside world, often perceived
European missionaries as Indians and thus regarded the female figure Mary
they brought as a Buddhist deity. In particular, the Jesuits traditional manner
51
Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 84. For the feminization of Guanyin in China, see Chn-fang Y,
Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitevara (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2001), 191, 18687, 29394; Chn-fang Y, A Sutra Promoting the White-robed
Guanyin as Giver of Sons, in Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology, ed. D. S. Lopez
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 35051.
52
On Giulio Alenis mission in Fujian, see Tiziana Lippiello and Roman Malek, eds., Scholar
from the West: Giulio Aleni S.J. (15821649) and the Dialogue between Christianity and China
(Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1997). On the Songzi Guanyin figure or its importation into Kyushu, see
Y, Kuan-yin, 12630; Kirishitan Kankei Ihin Hen, 6; Miyazaki, Kakure Kirishitan, 28.
13
of venerating Mary was hardly different from Japanese devotional practice to

Kannon. Even the swastika carved on Kannons chest was easily confused
with the cross.53
The statuettes of Maria-Kannon were made also indigenously in Japan, and
as the persecution became severer, the figure of the boy was removed and only
the female Kannon remained.54 This was apparently an attempt to avoid the
persecutors suspicion that underground Christians were using the Sonbringing Kannon figure as the icon of the Virgin and the Child. However,
paradoxically the Kannon statuette became more indistinguishable from that
of Mary, since Marys single figure had already been made in the fashion of
Kannon from the pre-persecution era in Japan. It was an indigenization
process, and the Japanese perceived it to be Marys real appearance.55
Compared with other, more technically accomplished Christian art, such as
painting and engraving, these Maria-Kannon statuettes have received much
less attention from art historians, probably because many of them were
Chinese imports appropriated, but not produced, by Japanese Christians, and
the point of discussion centers around their unusual use compared to their
original iconographic meaning.
I am distinguishing my thesis from these studies by posing different
questions. Focusing on the earlier period of persecution after 1614, I am
asking what rationale justified these underground Christians in using
Kannons icon as Marys. If the purpose of Buddhist disguise was the
primary one, why would they have chosen this specific bodhisattva out of so
many? Because Kannon was the most popular deity in Japanese Buddhism?
If so, would they not have wanted to use a rather less renowned deity, since
due to her prominence it might have been difficult even for the Christians to
perceive Kannon as somebody else? Or, because she is the personification of
compassion as Mary is?56 Or that her female sex and an attending boy were
so reminiscent of Mary and the Child? Could such similarities in attribute
and appearance, on the contrary, not have led them to regard the Sonbringing Kannon as detestable and dangerous, as their Jesuit fathers had
often accused Buddhist resemblances of being the devils mockery of the
true religion?
Probably in the first instance, it was such an analogy or the prominence of
Kannon that led underground Christians to appropriate her image as Marys
substitute. However, once it began, the conflation of the two images
gradually became reasonably plausible and even justifiable due to the
53
Takemura, Kirishitan Ibutsu, 1023.

Takemura, Kirishitan Ibutsu, 1034.
Chizawa, Kirishitan no Bijutsu, 185.
56
Ebisawa suggests the assimilation of Mary and Kannon in this aspect. See CryptoChristianity, 292.
54
55
14
CHURCH HISTORY
inherent attribute of this bodhisattva, namely her power to transform in thirtythree manifestations. I need to underscore again that these underground
Christians, so determined and devoted enough to risk their lives for faith,
were certainly well aware of the difference between the two religions, and
they could not have believed that Kannon literally became Mary, at least in
the earlier decades of underground faith. The term Maria-Kannon was not
used by underground Christians.57 However, as I will discuss in the last
section of this essay, these devoted Christians religious imagery was amply
infused with their own cultural heritage of Buddhism and, even at this early
stage, a unique kind of syncretism or fusion was in the process of
germination. The double circumstances of persecution and isolation were
bringing their religious imagery of Mary close to that of Kannon, since the
latter not only protected their identity, but was filling in their incomplete and
fading knowledge of Marian imagery and theology.58
Higashibaba observes that in the syncretistic religious culture of Japan, such
an assimilation of different religious deities had not been unusual.59 It was the
concept of hierarchical manifestation that has frequently explained and justified
the coexistence of different religious systems or deities.60 For instance, the
indigenous deity Kami was incorporated into the Buddhist system as a
manifestation of bodhisattva or Buddha. Furthermore, Buddhas and
bodhisattvas also could be the manifestations of the one original Buddha.
And, significantly, this one original Buddha was Amida in the Japanese
religious culture, in which Pure Land Buddhism was very powerful. In other
words, all deities in the universe could be ultimately encompassed in the one
body of Amida, who stands at the apex of the complicated chain of
manifestations. If so, the Virgin Mary as the manifestation of Kannon could
also be eventually related to Amida along this chain of manifestations and
completely incorporated into the Buddhist cosmology. The problem was,
however, that Christianity was the first religious idea to enter Japan that
did not allow such assimilation to other religious systems. However,
Christianitys exclusivity could not be enforced after 1614 due to the
expulsion of foreign missionaries and the isolation of Japanese Christians
from the European Church authority.
Nosco, Secrecy and Transmission, 13n19.

Whelan, Heaven and Earth, 11, 2223. See note 7.
59
Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 9091.; Ebisawa also points out that the
Japanese have traditionally regarded various religions as the different expressions of basically
the same truth. Thus their co-existence and blending were not unusual in Japanese culture. See
Crypto-Christianity, 288.
60
Whelan also observes that a similar process can explain the syncretism of Buddhism and
Christianity in THK. Heaven and Earth, 28.
57
58
15
Even in the pre-persecution days when the missionaries were present,

Christianity was often understood by the Japanese as compatible with
Buddhism. Frois observed an incident in western Kyushu in 1564:
Among those receiving baptism, there was a 90-year-old lady from a very
prominent family. She had been a very devoted Buddhist and had made
pilgrimages to most of the famous temples in Japan. She was wearing a
garment, on which the life [that is, teaching] of Amida was written. Some
monks gave her this paper garment and told her that wearing it would
bring her to paradise when she died. Wearing this garment of scriptures,
she also carried with her the writings of Papal Bulls and edicts. . . . When
she learned about Christian teachings, she became quite pleased and asked
to receive baptism. When she learned many Christian prayers despite her
old age, she brought the scripture garment and other Buddhist things to
the priest to burn them all.61
It is always after the priests intervening admonition that their Japanese
converts realized the incompatibility of Christianity with other religions.
Another illustrative example is the story of converts bidding farewell to
Amida and asking for Amidas understanding before baptism, which I will
discuss in the last section of this essay.
The conflation with Buddhism was not entirely discouraged by Buddhists
either. Buddhist monks often granted underground Christians the certificates of
apostasy without asking for real conversion.62 As underground Christians
concealed their religious identity literally under the protection of Buddhism,
their perception and use of Buddhist symbols and images could gradually
become indistinct with the original Christian signs, sometimes with the former
overriding the latter. A kind of transculturation, albeit employed for survival,
in the realm of visual representation could eventually affect their represented
as well.63 Quite illustrative of such a bond between the two religions is an
incident of arrest in 1623, when a Christian girl, Regina, was arrested near
present-day Kawaguchi City in Honshu. Since the head monk of the Chodoku
temple helped pardon and free her, out of gratitude her father donated to the
temple a seated Amida statue, inside of which a little figure of Maria-Kannon
and a cross were later found.64 Because it was taboo to freely open an
enclosed box inside a Buddhas body, the insertion of Christian objects in the
Amida statue could signify quite different messages simultaneously. However,
Mary in the figure of Kannon was inserted in the body of Amida, who often
61
Frois, Nihonshi, 9:14344.

Whelan also observes such a possibility in Christal Whelan, The Kakure Kirishitan on
Narushima, Monumenta Nipponica, 47, no. 3 (Fall 1992): 371.
64
62
63
16
CHURCH HISTORY
impersonated Christ for underground Christians, in order to thank the Buddhist

for his help and protection for Christianity. This association of symbols likely
exemplifies a certain degree of amalgamation of the two religions, even
though those effecting it probably were not precisely aware of the process.
It is true that Kannon could easily be adopted as Mary because of her female
sex. However, the aforementioned feminization of Kannon in China was also
ascribed to her capability of transformation asserted in the Lotus Sutra. Its
Universal Gate chapter lists seven female transformations of Kannon. Such
transformation stories abound in Japanese folktales as well, where Kannon
has been worshiped even more fervently than in China.65 In addition, the
most widely read and respected sutra in Japan was the Lotus Sutra,
the origin of the belief in Kannons transformation and manifestations.
The Lotus Sutra was the primary text of the Nichiren School, but like the
worship of Amida and Kannon, it was a Pan-Buddhist scripture in Japan.
There are many Japanese miracle stories that attest to the wonder-working
power of this sutra and especially its most prominent deity Kannon. The
Konjaku Monogatarishu (ca. 1107), the largest tale collection in
Japan, contains forty stories about Kannons miraculous intervention, of
which many recount her transformation and manifestation. Furthermore, The
Miraculous Tales of the Hasedera Kannon (ca. 1210), originating from one
of the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage sites, contains the thirty-three stories of
Kannons manifestations.66 The belief in Kannons manifestation and
intervention in human life was further encouraged in the True Pure Land
sect. Its founder, Shinran (11731262), is said to have received a
message from Kannon in a dream that the deity would appear to him as a
woman and be his wife in order to lead him to the Pure Land.67 The female
manifestation of Kannon continued to be depicted in paintings up to the
eighteenth century in Japan.68
The concept of Kannons thirty-three manifestations was so firmly rooted in
Japanese belief that the aforementioned Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage sites also
consist of thirty-three temples, where thirty-three holy icons of Kannon were
MacWilliams, Living Icons, 64, 68.
Yoshiko Dykstra, Miraculous Tales of the Hasedera Kannon, Religions of Japan in Practice,
ed. G. Tanabe (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 11619; Yoshiko Dykstra, Tales
of the Compassionate Kannon: The Hasedera Kannon Genki, Monumenta Nipponica 31, no. 2
(Summer 1976): 11317; Also see her Japanese Stories about Avalokitevara and the Lotus
Sutra, Studies in Indo-Asian Art and Culture 6 (1980): 71109.
67
Shinran did not regard marriage as an obstacle to enlightenment and boldly broke the
traditional rule of celibacy for monks, which became a unique feature of Japanese Buddhism up
to date. See Toshikazu Arai, The Meaning and Role of the Boddhisattva in Shinrans Pure
Land Tradition, Horin: Vergleichende Studien zur japanischen Kultur 10 (2003), 194.
68
Patricia J. Graham, Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art: 16002005 (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 15354. I thank Dr. Fusae Kanda of the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, for bringing to my attention current studies on the early modern Buddhist art of Japan.
65
66
17
supposed to personify those manifestations.69 However, the specific thirty-three

manifestations enumerated in the Lotus Sutra were not literally understood as
such, since the thirty-three icons of the Saikoku pilgrimage do not represent
those of the sutra. Her manifestations that appear in the miracle stories are not
limited to them. In other words, her power to transform was believed to be
virtually at will, opening the possibility to manifest even as a Christian
personage, Mary.
Alluding to this possibility is a phrase from THK, wherein the Trinity was
expounded in a rather strange transformation. Deusu [Deus] is the Father or
Paateru, the Holy One is the Son or Hiiriyo [filius or filho in Portuguese],
and the Holy Mother is the Suheruto Santo [Sactus Spiritus]. Deusu became
three bodies although they were originally One.70 Apparently referring to
the theology of Holy Trinity, however, the hypostasis of the Holy Ghost is
identified with the Virgin. This imagery of the central Deus accompanied by
two flanking deities or personages, especially one with an apparently female
appearance, strongly reminds of the iconography of Amida Triad (Fig. 6), in
which the central Amida appears in the company of the female bodhisattva
Kannon and male Seiji (Sanskrit: Mahasthamaprapta). This iconography of
the Amida Triad was highly popular in Japan and appeared in various
Buddhist paintings throughout the ages. In fact, Matteo Ricci in China
perceived it to resemble the Christian Trinity.71
III. ROSARY, MANDARA, AND KANNON PRAYER

The devotion to Mary played a considerable role in the religion of underground
Christians. First, the prayer of the rosary, consisting of fifteen narrative themes
drawn from Marys and Christs life stories, provided them with a mnemonic
framework of salvation history, which was absolutely indispensable as their
Christian texts were all confiscated. Secondly, due to the yearly trial of
treading on Christian icons, penitential prayer and rite became very
significant for underground Christians. As a result, their religious
orientations moved from the fearful judging Father to the forgiving Mother,
Mary. In this context, Maria-Kannon often occupied the central position
of their domestic Buddhist-Christian altar.72 Underground Christians
MacWilliams, Living Icons, 51.
Whelan, Heaven and Earth, 63.
71
Junhyoung Michael Shin, The Reception of Evangelicae Historiae Imagines in Late Ming
China: Visualizing Holy Topography in Jesuit Spirituality and Pure Land Buddhism, Sixteenth
Century Journal 40, no. 2 (Summer 2009), 303, 306.
72
Miyazaki, Kaukure Kirishitan, 21, 28; Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu, 18; Miyazaki, Tenchi
Hajimari no Koto ni miru Sempuku Kirishitan no Kyusaikan (The View on Salvation found in
Tenchi Hajimari no Koto), Shukyo Kenkyu 70 (1996), 80, 93.
69
70
18
CHURCH HISTORY
penitential prayer book, Konchirisan no Ryaku (Essentials of Contrition),

originally published by the Jesuits in 1603 but continuing to circulate among
underground Christians up to the nineteenth century, also has a significant
reference to the intercessory power of the Virgin. What you wish, entrust it
to the [Holy] Mother. The Mother of Misercordia is the intercessor for
sinners. God eagerly listens to her. Apart from God Himself, there is no one
who can plead for our souls as much as the Holy Mother does.73 This
prayer book and the absolutional power of the Virgin were significant to
underground Christians since they could still be assured of the forgiveness
for their sins without the presence of priests and the sacrament of
confession.74 These two elements of the rosary and penitential prayer
brought the person of Mary even closer to Kannon.
The importance of the rosary for underground Christians is well
demonstrated by the fact that the content of THK is based on the mysteries
of the rosary.75 Isolated from priests and deprived of any scriptural literature
in hand, they must have relied heavily on the memorized sequence of
narrative themes in the rosary to compose the oral account of THK and
transmit it through memorization. Not only its storyline, but also the words
of THK directly urge the practice of the rosary. For example, on the day of
St. John the Baptists birth, THK commands the practice of fifty-three
orassho (oratio), which refer to the fifty Ave Marias for the Joyous Mysteries
of the Rosary.76 In the story of Mary finding her Son in the temple, THK
accordingly relates the event to the five Joyous Mysteries and instructs the
reader to practice them in the morning.77 As I discussed earlier, the Jesuits
encouraged lay organization based on European confraternities, and these
groups formed the basis of using devotional images and objects.78 Rosary
prayer was a routine for these groups.79 Nishimura points out that rosary
practice had been heavily promoted by the Jesuit fathers even before the
73
Konchirisan no Ryaku is published with notes in Arimich Ebisawa et al., trans. and eds.,
Kirishitansho, Haiyasho (Kirishitan Literature and Anti-Christian Literature), (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1970), see 377.
74
Whelan, Heaven and Earth, 79n16.
75
Miyazaki, Tenchi Hajimari, 74; Stephen Turnbull, Acculturation among the Kakure
Kirishitan: Some Conclusions from the Tenchi Hajimari no Koto, in Japan and Christianity:
Impacts and Responses (New York: St. Martins Press, 1996), 66.
76
Bohner, THK, 494n91.
77
Bohner, THK, original Japanese text on 509.
78
Bailey, Jesuit Missions, 57; Nosco, Secrecy and Transmissions, 8.
79
Miyazaki, Kaukure Kirishitan, 20; Obashi, Kinsei Nippon Sempuku Kirishitan, 112. It is
true that the Dominicans highly underscored the rosary prayer and its confraternity due to their
traditional claim for the origin of the prayer. However, already by the late medieval period, the
rosary prayer had become a pan-Catholic practice fervently practiced by all religious orders
including the Jesuits. For the Dominicans rosary brotherhood in Japan, see Boxer, Clandestine
Catholic Church, 60; Boxer, Christian Century, 356.
19
entry of Dominicans in 1602, as Jesuits catechistic manual Doctrina Christan

attests.80 The use of the rosary and devotional images among lay groups likely
affected their oral formulation of THK.81
The practice of the rosary yielded a splendid illustration of its fifteen
mysteries made by an anonymous Japanese artist after 1623 (Fig. 2). These
kinds of works, due to their reflection of European modeling technique and
their own refinement, have drawn the attention of art historians far more
than the aforementioned Maria-Kannon statuettes.82 While discussing this
painting, Nishimura makes an interesting observation that its composition
reminds him of Taima Mandara (Fig. 3), which is not exactly the Mandala
of Esoteric Buddhism but a topographic representation of Amidas splendid
Pure Land.83 He further recounts that when a small Christian community in
eastern Nagasaki province was disclosed in 1657, an inspector dispatched to
the village reported that a Taima Mandara was hanging on top of a Christian
image, thus hiding the latter. Furthermore, the inspector revealed that the
Christian family of the house believed in the miraculous healing power of
this Buddhist Mandara.84 Nishimura pays attention to the latter fact and
suggests that these underground Christians were using Mandara to promote
Christian teachings. If so, the conflation of two religions was already well
underway by the middle of the seventeenth century, at least in the realm of
their visual imagery. Mandara, resembling the Fifteen Mysteries of the
Rosary, did not simply disguise the latter as the Maria-Kannon statuette did,
but it was incorporated into their Christian belief system, or vice versa.
The inspector did not record what kind of Christian image had been covered
by this Taima Mandara, but Nishimura points out its strong compositional
similarity to the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary (Fig. 2), thus implying the
possibility of their association, as in the case of Maria-Kannon. By formal
similarity, he refers to the vertical and horizontal grids along the edges of
Mandara, in which Buddha Sakyamuni expounds and shows to Queen
Vaidehi the sixteen views of Pure Land in due sequence. This indeed
resembles the image of the rosary mysteries, chaining fifteen grids of
80
Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu, 42. For the critical modern edition of Doctrina Christan, see
Kirishitansho, ed. Ebisawa et al.
81
Turnbull observes that another feature of THK is the strong reminder of holy images, a trace of
Jesuit pedagogy. Turnbull, Acculturation, 71.
82
Chizawa, Kirishitan no Bijutsu, 7879; Yoshitomo Okamoto, Namban Art of Japan (Tokyo:
Heibonsha, 1972), 147.
83
Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu, 4849; For Taima Mandara and its distinction from Esoteric
Mandala, see Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred
Geography (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), 124.
84
Grotenhuis observes that, even in the late nineteenth century, Japanese village people tore up
the boundaries of Taima Mandara hanging on their house walls, and ate them as medicine for
plague. Grotenhuis, Japanese Mandalas, 13.
20
CHURCH HISTORY
Fig. 2. Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary, color on paper, 75 63 cm, sixteenth century, made by an
anonymous Japanese painter, National Historical Study Center, Kyoto University Museum.
Courtesy of Kyoto University Museum.
contemplative themes in sequence. The assumption that Taima Mandara was

hiding or even substituting The Mysteries of the Rosary ascribes the
interchangeability of two images to their formal similarity, exactly as
scholars have explained the rationale of Maria-Kannon.
Rather than the similar grid structure, however, I would like to turn to the
common characteristic of methodic visualization practice found both in the
rosary prayer and the sixteen-view visualization of Contemplation Sutra
, for which Taima Mandara was often used as a guiding visual
manual.85 This sutra and its iconography of Taima Mandara had the
strongest appeal and enduring popularity in Japan, far more than in China or
Korea. Earlier Pure Land patriarchs in Japan revered this sutra, as did
Shinran, the founder of True Pure Land.86 Even though Honen urged the
Wu Hung, Reborn in Paradise: A Case Study of Dunhuang Sutra painting and its Religious,
Ritual and Artistic Context, Orientations, 23, no. 5 (May 1992), 57.
86
Arai, Shinrans Pure Land Tradition, 191.
85
21
Fig. 3. Schematic representation of a typical Taima Mandara, distributed by Taimadera, Nara

prefecture, Japan. Courtesy of Dr. Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis.
laity to practice Nembutsu rather than the more complicated, sequential method
of Pure Land visualization, the latter appears in a series of popular Pure Land
Rebirth Stories dating from the tenth to the twelfth centuries.87
Furthermore, the iconography of Taima Mandara, originally named
Bianxiangtu , is hard to find in China and Korea after the fourteenth
century, but in Japan it continued to be produced and circulated up to the
eighteenth century, and even to the present.88 Even if the Japanese were not
actually practicing the devotional visualization with Taima Mandara, the act
itself of beholding the sixteen sequential features of the paradise depicted in
the painting closely resembles Contemplation Sutras meditative method.
87
88
Andrews, Popular Pure Land Piety, 9899.

Grotenhuis, Japanese Mandalas, 13, 19, 12527.
22
CHURCH HISTORY
The rosary as prayer consists of repetitive sets of the Ave Maria with the
Pater Noster intervening. While reciting these sets of prayers, practitioners
are supposed to visualize the mysteries of the rosary, which are basically the
sequential themes drawn from Christs and Marys life narrative.89
Interestingly, the visual representations of the fifteen mysteries of the rosary
have been frequently used to facilitate the process of mental visualization or
contemplation. This method of mental visualization was likely underscored
by the Jesuits in their instruction of Japanese laymen since the same method
constituted the core of the orders spiritual training. In Spiritual Exercises,
which was originally written by the orders founder St. Ignatius of Loyola as
an initiation manual for novices, the saint lays out a methodology creatively
developing the long medieval tradition of envisioning, specifically visions of
Pseudo-Bonaventure and Ludolph of Saxony.90 His method of compositio
loci could be easily applied to the prayer of the rosary and enhance the
latters powerful affect. St. Ignatius directs as follows in the manual:
The first prelude is a composition made by imagining the place. Here we
should take notice of the following. When a contemplation or meditation
is about something that can be gazed on, for example, a contemplation of
Christ our Lord, who is visible, the composition consists of seeing in the
imagination the physical place where that which I want to contemplate
is taking place. By physical place I mean, for instance, a temple or a
mountain where Jesus Christ or Our Lady happens to be, in accordance
with the topic I desire to contemplate.91
In this envisioned space, the holy personages are to reenact the biblical
narrative.
At this point, the practitioner should further envision him- or herself inside
the mental space to join the holy events. Such participation in the mental
imagery is most vividly spelled in the moment of Christs nativity, which
also forms one of the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary. I will make myself a
poor, little, and unworthy slave, gazing at them, contemplating them, and
serving them in their needs, just as if I were there, with all possible respect
and reverence.92 Thus, the composition of place demands that the
89
For the pictorial traditions, both artistic and mental, of the rosary, see Anne Winston-Allen,
Stories of the Rose: the Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1997), chapter 2.
90
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Sensuous Worship: Jesuit and the Art of Early Catholic Reformation in
Germany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002), 36. On Pseudo-Bonaventures
method, see Junhyoung Michael Shin, Et in picturam et in sanctitatem: Operating Albrecht
Drers Marienleben (Berlin: Verlag fr Wissenschaft und Forschung, 2003), 75.
91
Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works, ed. G. E. Ganss, S.J. (New York:
Paulist, 1991), 136.
92
Spiritual Exercises, 150.
23
practitioner not only imagine space but also enter the mental imagery and
engage in various activities such as journeying, witnessing, and even contact
with the holy personage in the reenactment of the salvation history. Such an
active mental engagement, when applied to the rosary, likely magnified the
persuasion of contemplating fifteen narrative themes. After all, rosary is a
compendium of salvation history recreated in mental imagery. For a similar
purpose, the Jesuits produced quite an elaborate visual manual of the rosary
in China, Metodo de Rosario , published by Riccis colleague
Joo da Rocha (15651623) in 1608.
Also in Japan, the Jesuits produced not only the visual images of the fifteen
mysteries of the rosary but also its illustrated manuals. One such manual,
published in the Jesuit College of Nagasaki in 1607, is particularly
noteworthy since it urged the application of the Ignatian method to the
rosary. The manual is entitled SPIRITVAL XUGUIO no tameni yerabi atcumuru
xuquan no mannual (translated as SPIRITUAL EXERCISE, a manual of BeadGarland selected and collected for it [spiritual exercise]93 (Fig. 4). This title
demonstrates the typical Jesuit language in Japana mixture of Latin or
Portuguese transliteration with Japanese. Between the first and the last words
(SPIRITVAL and mannual) appear Japanese words. Rosary was translated as
bead-garland (Shukan). Especially interesting are the first two words,
SPIRITVAL XUGUIO, the latter of which in Japanese means training or exercise
(Shugyo). This illustrated manual of the rosary, which contains fifteen
small engravings representing the mysteries and verbal instructions, places
the Ignatian title, SPIRITUAL EXERCISE, on the top of the book cover in capital
letters, and it places the reference to the rosary below in lowercase letters.
Such labeling suggests that the Jesuits were indeed underscoring their
meditative methodology of visualization in their instruction of the Japanese
Christians in the same manner as they did with European believers. The
manual begins by explaining that it was published for lay believers use in
meditation on the fifteen mysteries. The book outlines the meditative
method of visualization and its merits:
The people in our age, who are not able to see the Lord in person . . .
nonetheless by visually meditating on what the Lord did, what kind of
pains He suffered, and what words He gave us when He was living in the
world, [by such a method] they can receive the teaching as they could
have received it directly from the Lord in person. The people in our age
can be illuminated by the [divine] light and receive the way to the
teaching. This kind of contemplation becomes like a clean mirror. When
we face this mirror, we can see so many things, not visible by our
physical sight, through the eyes of wisdom and understand them. And we
93
Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu, 146.
24
CHURCH HISTORY
Fig. 4. Title page of Spiritval Xuguio, printed at the Jesuits Nagasaki college in 1607, Oura
Cathedral in Nagasaki. Courtesy of Oura Cathedral.
can eventually improve our way of life, as St. John said (1 John 2:6):
Whoever says, I abide in Him, ought to walk just as He walked.94
Interestingly, the Ignatian method of visual meditation is related to a passage in
the New Testament. In this context, walk just as He walked is not merely a
metaphor, but it refers to the actual immersion or participation in the visualized
scenery of biblical events. Nishimura also observes that the core of the rosary
practice was understood as meditation, called mechitasan by underground
Christians, rather than mere repetitive sets of verbal prayer.95
94
95
Arimichi Ebisawa, ed., Spiritsuaru Shugyo (Spriritval Xuguio) (Tokyo: Kyobunkan, 1994), 15.
25
Similarly, the Contemplation Sutra of Pure Land Buddhism teaches the

method of visualizing the sixteen views of Amidas Pure Land as a practice
to assure the practitioner of rebirth in the paradise. In this method,
practitioners visualize the sixteen views of paradise in a prescribed sequence
and often repeat the chanting of Nembutsu , which means, I relinquish
myself to Amida Buddha (or sometimes Kannon).96 Nembutsu is often
literally translated as the invocation of Buddhas name, but in fact it is a
complete sentence or statement with a verb Namu (Chinese: Nanwu) ,
thus comparable to ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc et in hora mortis
nostrae in the rosary. Pure Land Buddhism emphasized the importance and
efficacy of such devotional practices as contemplation, dharani-chanting, and
Nembutsu as ways to assure ones salvation. Contemplation Sutra asserted
that the practice of visualizing the Pure Land would absolve the supplicants
of accumulated sins and enable them to achieve salvation, that is, rebirth in
the Pure Land.97
The sixteen stages of visualization begin with the contemplation, not of the
imaginary, but of the actual sun setting in the West, which is the direction where
Buddha Amida resides. This stage serves as a triggering device to immerse the
practitioner in meditative visualization. The following stages unfold elaborate
and fantastic descriptions of the water, ground, trees, and beautiful pavilions in
the Pure Land, which are all radiant with multi-colored, gleaming crystals and
jewels. I will cite here the fifth stage, which instructs the practitioner to
envision the eight lakes in the Pure Land. This part is especially important
since the believer will be reborn inside a lotus flower floating on one of
these lakes.
There are eight lakes in the land of extreme delight [that is, Pure Land]. Each
lakes water is made of seven jewels. That soft jewel-water comes out of the
wish-granting orb and divides into fourteen streams. Each stream makes
seven jewel colors. The waterway is made of gold and below it the bottom
sands are all composed of multi-colored diamonds.
98
All these hyperbolic descriptions serve as a psychological device to initiate the
practitioners imaginative meditation.
The text of the sutra aims to assist practitioners in building in their minds the
imaginary topography of the Pure Land, as vividly as if they were to perceive a
picture or even walk on its holy ground. In this regard, its direction to create a
Wu Hung, Reborn in Paradise, 57.
98
T365: 342a.
96
97
26
CHURCH HISTORY
mental space resembles the Jesuit method of compositio loci very closely.99
Furthermore, stages fourteen to sixteen are assigned to the visualization of
the practitioner him- or herself at the time of death and consequent rebirth in
the Pure Land. In this stage, the meditation practitioner visualizes him- or
herself within the holy topography and becomes a part of his or her own
imaginative meditation, as the trainee of the Spiritval Xuguio is urged to
walk with and even talk to the holy personage inside the pictured imagery.
Significantly, the bodhisattva Kannon plays the key role in the believers
transition from this world to the Pure Land, which I will discuss in the last
section with regard to the iconography of Welcoming Descent (Fig. 6).
According to the believers spiritual aptitude and accumulation of sin, there
are nine levels of rebirth: three grades subdivided into three ranks. I will quote
here the case of a person belonging to the lowest rank of the highest grade.
Shortly he himself sees his body seated on a golden lotus flower. After he
sits, the flower closes. Following the Buddha, he attains rebirth in the
seven-jewel lake. . . . After twenty-one days . . . he travels throughout the
ten quarters of the universe and worships all the Buddhas. In front of
these Buddhas, he hears the most profound dharma.
. . .
. . . 100
As instructed by the Spiritval Xuguio, the practitioner not only visualizes the
holy topography but also enters the visualized Pure Land to be reborn, to
travel, and to meet with and hear from the buddhas. This moment is called
the Receiving of Revelation , which I will discuss in the last section
in relation to a THK motif.
As I mentioned above, the panoramic Pure Land had been abundantly
represented since the time of the Tang Dynasty in order to assist the sixteenview visualization, but it was especially in Japan that this iconography,
indigenously renamed as Taima Mandara (Fig. 3), enjoyed the greatest
popularity and continued to be produced as late as in the eighteenth
century.101 Just as Taima Mandara did not merely represent the Pure Land
but also assisted visually-oriented meditation, so too did the Fifteen
Mysteries of the Rosary represent more than an abridged version of the
biblical narrative as it also served as a visual manual for contemplative
prayer. They both served to facilitate a meditation practitioners mental
creation of holy space and encounter with the holy personages therein.102
Shin, Reception of Evangelicae Historiae Imagines, 30910.
T365: 344c.
101
Grotenhuis, Japanese Mandalas, 13, 12527; Wu Hung, Reborn in Paradise, 57.
102
Shin, Reception of Evangelicae Historiae Imagines, 30910.
99
100
27
To conclude, the methodic contemplations that proceed in the prescribed

sequences of the fifteenth and sixteenth stages bring the rosary and the
sixteen-view visualization very close to each other. Therefore, their visual
manuals, namely the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary (Fig. 2) and Taima
Mandara (Fig. 3), likely imprinted the Japanese Christians not merely with a
similar appearance, but with their similar and even identifiable devotional
methodologies of visualization, often combined with incantatory prayer. In
the first instance, their formal similarity could have led to the possible
association of Taima Mandara with the Mysteries of the Rosary. However, as
the process of mutual acculturation or conflation intensified due to Japanese
Christians isolation from the Churchs guidance, their paralleling devotional
practices and beneficiary rewards could have further facilitated their
iconographic interchange or proximity.
The elements of repetitive prayer and visualization in the rosary also relate to
another devotional practice of Pure Land Buddhism: the dharani prayer
dedicated to Kannon. Higashibaba points out that Buddhists repetitive
dharani was analogous to Medieval Latin prayer, as both were perceived by
the illiterate common populace to have some wonder-working effects.103
Kannon is comparable to Mary, not only in her female appearance and
personification of compassion, but also in the devotional practice dedicated
to her. In this regard, the penitential prayer to the thousand-armed Kannon
(Japanese: Senju Kannon) is noteworthy. The pilgrimage to Kannon sites and
the prayer to her were believed to absolve one of accumulated sins, which
otherwise would prevent one from being reborn in the Pure Land of
Amida.104 Over half of Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage sites are dedicated to
Senju Kennon, to whom penitential dharani prayer was to be directed.105
Both Saikoku pilgrimage and the veneration of Senju Kannon continued up
to the seventeenth century, and the practice of dharani prayer to Senju
Kannon is mentioned amply in the Japanese miracle stories.106 Such a
Kannon dharani was supposed to be repeated in a set number while
beholding or visualizing the image of Kannon.107 Thus, the dharani prayer to
Kannon also aimed at the absolution of sins through the methodology of
repetitive prayer combined with visualization, which is the very essence of
the rosary.
103
Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 120.; Kawamura compares Nembutsu to
Catholic prayers. See Christian Lay Communities, 30514.
104
105
MacWilliams, Living Icons, 41, 75. The central focus in the Saikoku pilgrimage was after
all salvation and rebirth in the Pure Land through the absolutional help of Kannon.
106
Graham, Faith and Power, for Saikoku pilgrimage, see 77, and for Senju worship and image
production, see 151; MacWilliams, Living Icons, 63, 70.
107
28
CHURCH HISTORY
As I mentioned at the head of this section, the yearly practice of treading on

Christian icons made the penitential prayer and rite important for underground
Christians. In this regard, the absolutional efficacy of the rosary likely held
great value to them, and in their practice of the rosary in front of MariaKannon, they must have been reminded of the like efficacy attributed to the
Buddhist prayer dedicated to the porcelain deity (Kannon), who could also
transform into Senju as much as into Mary. The growing need to repent, so
pressing for the underground Christians under persecution, brought them
even closer to the absolutional devotion to Kannon, who posing as Mary
received their penitential prayer of the rosary.
IV. AMIDA AND CHRIST AS SAVIOR
FROM
HEAVEN
Underground Christians not only substituted the Son-bringing Kannon as Mary

but also Buddha statues as icons of Christ. One of them has been identified as
Amida, but the others are hard to identify due to their small size and lack of
iconographic details (Fig. 5).108 Unlike the concern among scholars to
identify the female deity as Kannon, scholars are quite indifferent to the
identity of this Buddha. I am arguing that this Buddha was none other than
Amida and that its identification should not rely on iconographic analysis,
which is almost impossible in these simple statuettes, but in the way
underground Christians perceived the deity with their memory of Christianity
in conjunction with their cultural heritage of Buddhism. In this light, the
aforementioned seventeenth-century seated Amida statue donated to
Chodoku temple by a Christian girls father also may have been perceived
by the family as impersonating the Christian God.109
Due to his role as the savior and lord of afterlife paradise, Amida was the
most appealing Buddha to the Japanese populace.110 Furthermore he is
accompanied and served by Kannon, also the most popular bodhisattva in
this country. According to the legend of Zenkojis wonder-working Amida
triad, Amida was the first Buddha icon that was transmitted to Japan from
the Korean kingdom of Paekche with the introduction of Buddhism in the
year of 538.111 Such a legend was probably invented later, as the devotion to
Amida grew stronger and even dominant in Japan. Earlier, I mentioned that
108
Kirishitan Kankei Ihin Hen, cat. no. 47; These Buddha statuettes have been hardly discussed
by art historians of underground Christian art.
109
110
Both Kawamura and Ebisawa compare this aspect of Amida to the similar role of Christian
God. Kawamura, Christian Lay Communities, 27890; Ebisawa, Crypto-Christianity, 292.
111
Donald McCallum, The Replication of Miraculous Icons: The Zenkoji Amida and the
Seiryoji Shaka, in Images, Miracles, and Authority in Asian Religious Traditions, ed. Richard
Davis (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1998), 209.
29
Fig. 5. Amida-Christos, wood, height 13.6 cm, Tokyo National Museum. Courtesy of DNP Art
Communications.
St. Francis Xavier adopted the name of Buddha Dainichi (Sanskrit:

Mahavairocana) as that of the Christian God, which, despite the saints great
embarrassment later, was not a totally misleading translation. Dainichis role
as the center and origin of the universe resonates with the neo-Platonic idea
of God as the One. However, if the issue is not cosmology but soteriology,
which naturally concerns the common populace more personally, Amida
rather than Danichi was the most suitable as an alternative name for the
Christian God.
Amida, unlike other Buddhas, has two distinctive theological aspects that are
closely analogous to Christianity. First, the terms of salvation do not rely on the
part of the believer, but on the compassion and will of Amida.112 When he was
still a bodhisattva, he made a vow to this effect.
112
Since the idea of salvation depending on the other supreme being differs drastically from
Indian Buddhism, Amida Buddhism is believed to have originated in central Asia rather than
India proper, and emerged in contact with Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. According to this
theory, Pure Land Buddhist scriptures were probably first written in central Asia, and their
Sanskrit versions are not originals but later translations. See Soho Machida, Life and Light, the
Infinite: A Historical and Philological Analysis of the Amida Cult, Sino-platonic papers, no. 9
(Philadelphia: Dept. of Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1980), 1921, 2931.
30
CHURCH HISTORY
Fig. 6. Ike Taiga (17231776), Welcoming Descent of Amia Triad, ink on paper, 72 31.8 cm,
Kumita Collection, Tokyo. Photograph by Patricia J. Graham.
If I become a Buddha and there are men of ten quarters who hear my name,
keep in mind my land, foster [their minds] in the origin of virtue, yearn to be
born in my land with utmost heart, and yet do not achieve it, I wont attain
the true enlightening.
113
113
Sutra of Infinite Life , T360: 268b. It was his twentieth vow as bodhisattva.
31
Human beings were understood to be living in the degenerate age of law and
thus incapable of achieving their own Buddhahood.114 In this distressful
world, the only salvation possible for sinful men lies in the total reliance on
Buddha Amida.115 This is an unusual and even alien idea to the original
Indian Buddhism, in which one has to achieve his or her own salvation by
realizing the root of earthly pain and escaping the vicious circle of karma
and reincarnation.
When Catholicism was introduced, the Japanese likely noted the similar
existence of one supreme deity as the savior in both religions. Higashibaba
notes that the concept of one supreme divinity was already familiar to the
Japanese in the existence of Amida Buddha of Pure Land.116 Furthermore,
devotional practices in Pure Land Buddhism, very much like good deeds in
Catholicism, counted as strong merits to assure rebirth in the Pure Land. In
the original scriptures, Amidas avowal specifies that one should exert all
the meritorious virtues and that they should not have committed five
treacherous sins and blasphemed the true dharma in order to be reborn in
Pure Land.117 The constant practice of Nembutsu rewards the believer
with an encounter with Amida in his or her dream.118 Lifelong practice of
Nembutsu ultimately leads to rebirth in the Pure Land.
Strictly speaking, True Pure Land patriarch Shinran taught that the practice
of Nembutsu was not to attain rebirth in the Pure Land, but that it was a
repeated expression of gratitude for salvation already granted by Amidas
vow.119 However, his heavy emphasis and urge to practice Nembutsu could
be interpreted a bit differently by less erudite laity. According to him,
Nembutsu was the one, exclusive religious act that could lead to the rebirth
114
Japanese believed that the degenerate age of law, mappo jidai, began in 1052. Mark
MacWilliams, Kannon Engi: The Reijo and the Concept of Kechien as Strategies of
Indigenization in Buddhist Sacred Narrative, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 5
(1990), 58.
115
This idea of complete reliance on Amida reminded the contemporary Jesuits of the Protestant
doctrine of sola fide and they even thought Protestantism had reached Japan before they did. Also
todays scholars of comparative religion see the close analogy between Amida Buddhism and
Protestantism. See J. N. Jennings, Theology in Japan, in Handbook, 183; Notto Thelle, The
Christian Encounter with Japanese Buddhism, in Handbook, 229; Christiane Langer-Kaneko,
Das reine Land: zur Begegnung von Amida-Buddhismus und Christentum (Leiden: Brill, 1986),
114, 12526.
116
Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 89.
117
See his twentieth vow cited below and the eighteenth vow, in which the line reads excluded
are only those who committed five treacherous sins and blasphemed the true dharma
. Taisho Tripitaka. T360: 268a.
118
For the scriptural sources asserting the power of chanting Nembutsu and dharani, see
Junhyoung Michael Shin, Iconographic Surrogates: Contemplating Amitabha Images in the late
Koryo Dynasty, Archives of Asian Art 55 (2005), 1011.
119
Japanese Religion, 193.
32
CHURCH HISTORY
in Pure Land, even for those who have violated Buddhist precepts. In his
Lamenting the Deviations , he said:
The moment we believe that we can be saved and enlightened through the
power of Amidas Original Vow, and conceive the desire to call upon his
name, he at once deigns to save us. . . .
Therefore, if we truly believe in the Original Vow, there is no need for other
good works. The Nembutsu is absolutely effective. What good works can
compare with it?120
While asserting a kind of predestined salvation, Shinran kept urging his
followers to practice Nembutsu, which thus sounds like a required
qualification to invoke Amida to deign to save us. Indeed, devotional
practices such as Nembutsu, Pure Land visualization, chanting, and copying
of sutra appear frequently as rebirth-bringing good deeds in the
aforementioned popular Pure Land Rebirth Stories .121
Higashibaba notes the similarity between Nembutsu practice and Catholic
good deeds since both involve and require human effort.122 The power and
efficacy of Nembutsu, similar to the dharani of Kannon, were underscored in
many popular miracle tales. Another powerful devotional practice to attain
ones rebirth in the Pure Land is the aforementioned sixteen-view
visualization of Pure Land, for which Taima Mandara was produced and
put to use. Contemplation Sutra teaches the practice of sixteen-view
visualization as the way to rebirth in paradise. Again, even if the Japanese
populace were casting aside the more complex practice of visualization in
favor of simpler Nembutsu, the production and contemplation of the painted
panorama of Pure Land already constitute the beneficiary deeds.
The second aspect of similarity lies in the concept of afterlife paradise. As we
saw above, Amidas vow from The Sutra of Infinite Life promises
rebirth in his Pure Land as an afterlife reward, which is reminiscent of the
eschatological vision of the heavenly Jerusalem in Christianity.123 Both
Ebisawa and Higashibaba regard Christian afterlife salvation as paralleling
the theology of Pure Land Buddhism.124 It is important, however, to note
that in Pure Land Buddhism the rebirth in the Pure Land is not the final
goal. Since sinful men do not have the capacity to be freed from the eternal
chain of karmic reincarnation and suffering, Amida allows them to be
120
Japanese Religion, 19394 (emphasis added).

Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 100, 122.
123
Langer-Kaneko, Das reine Land, 113.
124
Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 7785; Ebisawa, Crypto-Christianity,
292.
121
122
33
transferred to his paradisiacal Pure Land, where reborn believers will receive
the profound teaching and eventually proceed to attain nirvana.125
However, common folk were far more intrigued by the splendor of Pure
Land as the reward of their faith rather than the theological liberation of
nirvana, which is the extinction of being.
In this regard, Amida Buddhism and its concept of Pure Land are sometimes
viewed as a Buddhist protest against the emptiness of nirvana.126 Indeed, the
Jesuits in Japan understood Buddhism as nihilism.127 Valignano observed that
Buddhist monks were obscure about the afterlife and that some even seemed to
believe life ended with this one.128 It appears that Valignano encountered the
idea of nirvana, that is, extinction. Pessimistic views on life and suffering
led to the concept of extinction as the salvific consummation in Indian
Buddhism, but this profound teaching could be appreciated and embraced
only by the learned few. Ordinary folks ideas and afterlife expectations were
to be vested in the more vividly colorful vision of Pure Land, as is
fantastically detailed in Pure Land sutras.
The popular appeal of Amida as savior and lord of heaven is attested to in the
ample production and circulation of Amidas Welcoming Descent images
dating to the Kamakura period. This theme continued to be painted in Japan
up to the eighteenth century (Fig. 6), even though it was not frequently
represented in China or Korea after the fourteenth century.129 Its
iconography was derived from Amitabhas nineteenth vow appearing in the
Sutra of Infinite Life.
If I become a Buddha and there are men of ten quarters who strive for the
enlightening, exert all the meritorious virtues, make a wish to be born in
my land with utmost heart, and at the time of their death, if I do not
appear in front of such men with the great [heavenly] host around, I wont
attain the true enlightening.
130
In its typical iconography, Amida, attended by his bodhisattvas, descends from
heaven to receive the dying believer. Most significantly, bodhisattva Kannon is
holding and offering to the dying the lotus pedestal, which is a kind of vehicle
Shin, Iconographic Surrogates, 23.

128
Moran, Japanese and Jesuits, 76.
129
Graham, Faith and Power, 172.
130
T360: 268a.
125
126
127
34
CHURCH HISTORY
that transports the believer to the Pure Land. As we read from the passages of
Lotus Sutra and Contemplation Sutra, the believer is to be reborn in the lotus
blossom of the jewel-colored pond. This motif likely strengthened the belief in
Kannons role and power in the process of salvation.
The imagery of Amida as the savior and receiver of the dead was so firmly
rooted in the Japaneses minds that Fr. Frois often encountered it even among
the converts. He recounted a story of a man living in the Bungo area in 1584:
In the region, a pagan young man fell gravely ill. Since this man had heard
the teaching of Christianity before, he called in a priest to receive baptism
before death. At the time he said loudly [to the priest], Three devils
appear and tell me to recite Amidas name! I told them I dont believe in
Amida, but I believe firmly in Jesus and Mary. So [you] be the witness to
my words! He recited the name of Jesus and Mary many times and drew
his last breath.131
He recorded another story of a woman convert in the same year:
The lady was a fervent worshipper of Buddha, but after learning the
teachings of Christianity, she decided to convert. When a priest came to
town to give her baptism, he heard that she had visited a Buddhist temple
earlier in the day and prayed in front of a Buddha statue. The priest asked
her about it. Without denying it, she answered him. I heard that two
things are important to Christians. First, uprightness and secondly,
truthfulness. I have worshipped Amida for thirty years and believed that
He is the lord of salvation. Since I decided now that I wont visit a
Buddhist temple again, I thought it is an upright act to go visit Amida
Buddha and bid Him farewell. Also I made a vow before that I would
visit the temple as often as possible. So in order to be truthful to my
promise, I visited the temple today.132
To this convert, Amida had been, and probably still was, the lord of salvation
since there can be two or more lords of salvation in the Japanese religious
world. Even after the decision to convert, her respect for Amida and his
power remained, which of course would change with the guidance of the
priest sooner or later.
Such a belief in Amida as cultural heritage would not have diverted the
Japanese Christians but, on the contrary, predisposed them to easily
understand and sympathize with Christian soteriology and eschatology. The
aforementioned THK presents the verbal and visual imageries of
131
Frois, Nihonshi, 8:51.

Frois, Nihonshi, 8:5556. A similar story of a woman bidding farewell to Amida and asking
his permission before conversion appears in vol. 10:22021.
132
35
underground Christians, which imply the fusion or even mutual acculturation

of two religions on the basis of similar theological terms. Though not
committed to writing before 1800, THK originates in the earlier era of
persecution.133 It was based not only on the mysteries of the rosary but also
on Doctrina Christan of 1592, the Jesuits catechistic textbook of the
Japanese mission.134 The philological studies of THKs language indicate
that it was composed in its current form sometime in the seventeenth
century, but drew on the devotional literature and discussions circulating in
the latter half of the sixteenth century.135 As these underground Christians
were gradually isolated from the Jesuits and the Church, they had to fill in
the gap of their fading memory of catechism, such as Doctrina Christan,
with what they were already familiar with. It was in this process that the
elements of Pure Land Buddhism came to the fore and fused with their
isolated Christianity.
THK uses a number of Buddhist terms that imbue the whole work with
strong Buddhist connotations.136 For example, this earthly realm is called
Shaba , fate is simply Karma , abbot is Osho , and St. Michael
is conducting a Buddhist meditation, Sazen .137 However, the most
significant is the terminology and imagery that concern God the Father and
Christ. In the beginning of THK, God the Creator is referred to as Ikibotoke
, the living Buddha, and he created the world and the angels. Ten
thousand angels should be brought into being. Then it happened according
to His Buddha power. Since He was a freely existing, living Buddha, He
created according to His will ten thousand angels. In total, they were of
thirty-three kinds of manifestations.138 In addition to his name, his work is
strongly reminiscent of Buddhist concepts. The angels he created out of his
will have thirty-three appearances, which originate in the thirty-three
manifestations of bodhisattva Kannon.139 For the Japanese fully ingrained
Turnbull, Acculturation, 63.
Turnbull, Acculturation, 66.
135
Whelan, Heaven and Earth, 22.
136
I agree with Whelan in that the adoption of signs, that is, Buddhist terms in this case,
inevitably bring in their rich connotations and eventually affect the signified. Thus, the ample
adoption of Buddhist terms in THK cannot be underestimated as simply nominal.
137
Bohner, THK, original Japanese text respectively on 504, 510, 513, 511 (see also 498n203),
513.
138
Bohner, THK, German trans. 468, original Japanese 500. From here and after, citations from
THK are authors translation from Bohners German version in comparison with original Japanese
text included therein.
139
Tagita relates the idea of different forms of God and angels to Kannons 33 manifestations. See
Koya Tagita, Meeting of Religions in the Tenchi Hajimari no Koto, Doho Gakuho 16 (1967): 5.
In addition to the forms or manifestations, there are also ample mentioning of ranks (so) of God and
angels. Both Tagita and Whelan observe that this idea originated in the Buddhist concept of
Buddhas thirty-two physical marks (so). See Whelan 7576n3.
133
134
36
CHURCH HISTORY
within the Buddhist heritage, the relationship between God and an angel could
easily be compared to that of Amida and Kannon. Also, Gods capability of
creation is called Buddhas power .140 Such an abundant use of
Buddhist terms is quite noteworthy given that after the term Dainichi for
God caused problems, the Jesuits preferred to use transliterations of the
original Latin, thus Deusu for Deus, orassho for oratio, and so forth. Once
the isolation began, Buddhist terminology and imagery floated to the surface
again.
Furthermore, three episodes in THK carry strong allusions to Amidas
Welcoming Descent, which I think is more significant than the terminological
adoptions. After Mary displays her supernatural power to bring snow in the
middle of summer, God sends from heaven a flower vehicle that transports
her to heaven:141 While they were thus making noises, Mary fled away.
From Heaven came down a flower vehicle, on which she rode, and it went
toward Heaven.142 Tanigawa points out that this motif was probably
inspired by Amidas Welcoming Descent imagery.143 The lotus pedestal,
which Kannon offers to the dying believer, is after all a flower vehicle to
transport him or her to paradise (Fig. 6).144 Also at the end of THK, Christ
brings the ten thousand innocents, three magi, two farmers (probably the
shepherds who received the announcement of his birth), and Veronica all up
to heaven.
To the ten thousand children, slaughtered by King Yoroutetsu [that is, Herod]
and wandering in Koroteru, the Lord gave names and brought them upward
to Him into Paradise. Furthermore, He let the innkeeper, who accepted the
Family at the time of His birth, three Kings from the three Lands, two
farmers, and Veronika all ride up to Heaven. He brought them all to Him
into Paradise.145
The THK concludes with the happy transport of all good men to heaven as an
afterlife reward, which resonates in general with Pure Land Buddhist
soteriology.
When the young Christ and Mary were chased by their enemies, God the
Father brought Christ up to heaven and conversed with the Son face-to-face
. Then God endowed Christ with a crown and an office suitable for his
Bohner, THK, 500.
The miracle of snow in the summer originates in a fourth-century Italian legend concerning the
site of St. Maria Maggiore. The day of Our Lady of Snow, Yuki no Santa Maria in Japanese, was
celebrated by underground Christians. See Whelan, Heaven and Earth, 89n37.
142
Bohner, THK, G. 476, J. 505.
143
Tanigawa, THK, 160n192.
144
Whelan relates this motif of flower to Marys Assumption. See Whelan, Heaven and Earth,
90n38.
145
Bohner, THK, G. 489, J. 514.
140
141
37
status.146 This motif, having no origin in the Gospels or Catholic tradition,

appears to reflect the Receiving of Revelation in Contemplation
Sutra. When the believer of Amida is reborn in the Pure Land, he meets
with Amida there, and directly receives from him the revelation of truth.147
A similar motif appears in another part of THK, in which the elect will be
awarded a blessing in paradise at the end of the world.148 Those people on
the right who received baptism will accompany Deusu [Deus] to Paraiso
[Paradise] where, once judged, their good works will be the basis of
the ranks they will receive. It is guaranteed that they will all become
buddhas and know unlimited fulfillment for eternity.149 The Receiving of
Revelation, which was phrased as know unlimited fulfillment, matters
since it further leads to the stage in which they will all become buddhas.
Tendai Monk Genshin (9421017) also counted it among the ten
pleasures of rebirth in Pure Land in his Essentials of Rebirth in Pure Land
:
First is the pleasure of being welcomed by many holy ones. . . .
Third is the pleasure of obtaining in ones own body the ubiquitous
supernatural powers of a Buddha. . . .
Seventh is the pleasure of joining the holy assembly.
Eighth is the pleasure of beholding the Buddha and hearing the Law.150
Also in Genshins words, the believer beholds Buddha face-to-face and hears
the revelation, which will enable to him to proceed to the enlightenment. The
believer is also given supernatural power in paradise. Likewise, Christ and the
elect in THK receive a crown and proper ranks from God the Father in heaven.
Even though THK has strong Buddhist elements, scholars have emphasized
that THK has a clear anti-Buddhist message, and that therefore THK does not
attest to a true transculturation or fusion of two religions. This opinion is based
on the episode of Christ in the temple, in which the young Christ defeats
rather than Jewish rabbisa Buddhist monk who was teaching the efficacy
of Amida Nembutsu. However, a close reading of this section reveals much
to the contrary. In the episode, the young Christ encounters a Buddhist
Bohner, THK, G. 48182, J. 509.
Scripture says meets with Buddhas, which must include Amida. However in visual tradition,
the moment was depicted exclusively as the receiving from Amida. See the Saifuku-ji Bianxiang Tu
discussed in Shin, Iconographic Surrogates.
148
Ebisawa also observes the assimilation of Christian paradise with the Buddhist Pure Land.
Crypto-Christianity, 292.
149
Whelan, Heaven and Earth, 66, 112n108.
150
Haruo Shirane, ed., Traditional Japanese Literature: an Anthology, beginning to 1600
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 221. I changed the translated words from
saints to holy ones; from assembling to joining; and from holy family to holy
assembly.
146
147
38
CHURCH HISTORY
monk, who taught that if one practices Amida Nembutsu, a boat of salvation
would come to him at the time of his death and transport him or her to
paradise, which is the recurring motif of Welcoming Descent.151 Young
Christ refutes this view, but ironically in his account of refutation he says
that the true God is the Buddha , who would complete the salvation of
men in the coming world: Then said the Lord, The Lord of Heaven,
whom men revered as Buddha, this One is the true Buddha, who
accomplishes the salvation of mankind in the future world. . . . This Hotoke
[that is, Buddha] has created mankind, all things, and everything there is,
according to His will.152
Concerning this phrase, Miyazaki observes that underground Christians
were naming their God Buddha in distinction to Buddhists Buddha, since
the former accomplishes the salvation of mankind.153 However, such a
distinction does not seem to hold, since, in Buddhist teaching, the one
Buddha who endeavors to redeem human beings and awards them the
future world reward of paradise is none other than Amida. In light of this,
Christ in this episode is not exactly negating the faith in Amida and his
power to transport the believers to paradise, but simply refuting the monk
who is teaching Nembutsu as the way to salvation. In this section, Christ
refers to God as Hotoke (Buddha) three times. Nishimura points out that
underground Christians use of Hotoke as Gods name not only shows their
attempt to disguise, but also their infusion with Buddhism. He also ascribes
such infusion with Buddhist rituals and terms to their isolation from the
Churchs teaching.154
V. CONCLUSION
Japanese Christians were completely isolated from foreign priests by the late
1630s, and by 1700 the fusion of underground Christianity with Buddhism
was well in advance, as exemplified in their Mandara usage and THKs
language ingrained in Buddhism. This process of conflation would continue
and eventually lead to the religion of Kakure Kirishitan, who refused to
rejoin the Catholic Church after the ban was lifted in 1873. They could not
identify themselves either with Catholics or with Buddhists, so they chose
the distinct way of continuing their own religion referred to as hidden or
secret Christianity. On the surface, their exclusive choice did not seem to fit
the Japanese religious culture, in which multiple belief systems
syncretistically assimilated and co-existed.
Bohner, THK, 509.
Bohner, THK, G. 483, J. 510.
153
Miyazaki, Tenchi Hajimari, 8788.
154
151
152
39
However, paradoxically, their emergence in Japanese history reflects the

very characteristic of the nations religious culture. Though specific historical
conditions played a large role in the process, Catholicism and Buddhism
were conflated in their religion since they saw the universal, common
elements in the theology, practice, and visuality of the two religions. In other
words, the underground Christians historical continuity with the current
hidden Christians is the outcome of the Japanese view itself that all religions
are different languages that speak basically the same truth.155
155
Ebisawa, Crypto-Cristianity, 288.

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Church History 80:1 (March 2011), 139.

Avalokitesvaras Manifestation as the Virgin

Junhyoung Michael Shin is Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology and

My essay concerns the underground Christians visual culture in the earlier

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

I do not, however, argue that underground Christians regarded the Virgin

I. THE JESUITS PRESENCE IN BUDDHIST JAPAN

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

Such an eager sympathy with, if not the orthodox understanding of,

Boxer, Christian Century, 209.

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

Moran, Jesuits and Japanese, 70; Boxer, Christian Century, 64.

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

II. MARIA-KANNON: MASQUERADE AND MANIFESTATION

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

of venerating Mary was hardly different from Japanese devotional practice to

Takemura, Kirishitan Ibutsu, 1023.

Nosco, Secrecy and Transmission, 13n19.

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

Even in the pre-persecution days when the missionaries were present,

Frois, Nihonshi, 9:14344.

impersonated Christ for underground Christians, in order to thank the Buddhist

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

supposed to personify those manifestations.69 However, the specific thirty-three

III. ROSARY, MANDARA, AND KANNON PRAYER

penitential prayer book, Konchirisan no Ryaku (Essentials of Contrition),

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

entry of Dominicans in 1602, as Jesuits catechistic manual Doctrina Christan

contemplative themes in sequence. The assumption that Taima Mandara was

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

Fig. 3. Schematic representation of a typical Taima Mandara, distributed by Taimadera, Nara

Andrews, Popular Pure Land Piety, 9899.

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

Nishimura, Namban Bijutsu, 146.

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

Similarly, the Contemplation Sutra of Pure Land Buddhism teaches the

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

To conclude, the methodic contemplations that proceed in the prescribed

As I mentioned at the head of this section, the yearly practice of treading on

IV. AMIDA AND CHRIST AS SAVIOR

Underground Christians not only substituted the Son-bringing Kannon as Mary

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

St. Francis Xavier adopted the name of Buddha Dainichi (Sanskrit:

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

Japanese Religion, 19394 (emphasis added).

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

Shin, Iconographic Surrogates, 23.

Frois, Nihonshi, 8:51.

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

underground Christians, which imply the fusion or even mutual acculturation

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

status.146 This motif, having no origin in the Gospels or Catholic tradition,

AVALOKITESVARAS MANIFESTATION AS THE VIRGIN MARY

However, paradoxically, their emergence in Japanese history reflects the

Ebisawa, Crypto-Cristianity, 288.

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