Cosmology and Embryology in Medieval Japan

Abstract

This chapter considers the process and impact of adopting South and East Asian embryological notions and descriptions of fetal life into the cosmological accounts and ritual sources from early and medieval Japan. A plethora of different terms describing the stages of a fetus developing in the mother’s womb was known in both India and China, where they came to be adopted in the earliest medical or religious writings, produced by Buddhists, Daoists, and medical practitioners. In Japan, these terms were transmitted via the Buddhist, medical, and literary sources arriving from Sui and Tang China and became adopted into a variety of cosmological, medical, and religious sources produced by Japanese historical actors. Of particular importance were the rituals practiced in the esoteric temple milieu of the Tendai, Shingon, and Zen schools in medieval Japan, where the embryological concepts were used to introduce new ways of soteriological thinking and action.