CENTERS
OF CONSECRATION: JAPAN 
Kasuga Taisha and Kofuku Temple are a shrine and a temple that together supported the rise and dominance of the Fujiwara family in the Nara (710-94) and Heian (9-12th c.) Periods. The Shinto shrine (Kasuga Taisha) and the Buddhist temple (Kofuku-ji) were founded by members of the famous Fujiwara lineage and illustrate the complex history of the political fortunes of this family and their extensive religio-political and economic roles. These two interconnected institutions, which Allan Grapard calls a "shrine-temple multiplex," expanded in tandem. The lands held by the multiplex, the political experience, acumen, and the ritual paradigm they supported and performed provided the foundation for the growth of Fujiwara power. Underlying this structural support was the role of the Nakatomi as "wife-givers" to the imperial clan. This custom may have already been established centuries earlier before the influx of Buddhism and Chinese culture. At any rate, the privileged role whereby the Fujiwara women became the consorts and mothers of emperors was another instrument of their dominance. They were the royal family if measured matrilineally. At the same time, the imperial lineage could maintain its identity if figured patrilineally. It was the custom for sons to grow up in their mother's (Fujiwara) home or estate so the influence of the female line remained strong.
(left: Kasuga Taisha Mandara with the four kami shrines lined up within the inner courtyard.)
(below: mon (gateway of Kasuga Taisha)
Enshrined at Kasuga Taisha is the original clan ancestor (ujigami) of the Fujiwara/Nakatomi, the kami that represents the source of the lineage. The shrine is the creation of space and, therefore, a place, where the clan enacts honor, gratitude, healing, empowerment, and authority through rites and ceremonies. The family line of the Nakatomi clan named Fujiwara began with Nakatomi no Kamatari at the point the Emperor bestowed the new name Fujiwara ("field of wisteria") on him in 669. Wisteria then became an emblem of Kasuga Taisha and the Fujiwara. Wisteria blossoms seasonally cascade over trellises at the shrine and appear on crests and garments.
Also associated with the shrine and visually depicted on mandalas and paintings are the mountain (Mt. Mikasa) that rises behind the shrine and the deer. Mt. Mikasa was probably an ancient site of ritual practice and considered the abode of sacred energy or kami before the current shrine was built in the 7th century. On the summit of Mt. Mikasa is another shrine which is referred to as the "original" shrine and is considered much older. There is some record that the Fujiwara bought the site from another family when the capital was moved to the city of Nara in 712. Herd of deer roam the park areas and probably establish Kasuga-Kofukuji as Deer Park in Benaras, India, where the Buddha gave his first sermon.
Fujiwara-no-Kamatari (614-60) was given the new clan name Fujiwara by the Emperor for his work on the Taika Reform of 645. The use of the Fujiwara clan name was eventually declared limited to Kamatari's direct descendents; other collateral sublineages of the Nakatomi were excluded. The ancient Nakatomi lineage had for centuries held key, indispensible ritual roles in the Yamato court's relationship with (the) kami. The Fujiwara continued its central position in governing the Japanese State under the name Fujiwara in negotiating a new relationship with Buddhist divinities and ritual.
The 7th and 8th centuries were a time of great change in the religio-political environment of Japan as new ideas of authority and bureaucratic structures and roles impinged upon and then took over the court and the "nation." This undoubtedly caused major power shifts among the clans and their divine ancestral kami as they jostled for position in the new idioms and in the conflict between the new Buddha figures and the plethora of indigenous kami. Buddhism was a reality that could not be denied and Buddhist monks became essential in the defining of the new state, imperial institution, and new ritual technologies, such as writing, iconography, and medicine.
The name change to Fujiwara may indicate a shift in religio-political viewpoint or a split within the Nakatomi clan itself, especially in sight of the traditional role of the Nakatomi in rites to the kami. Some parts of the family may have concluded that their fortunes lay with accepting and, somehow, synthesizing the paths of the kami and the buddha. From the perspective Buddhist ideology and practice, a local "deva" Skt. ("god") in Buddhist eyes would have been acceptible as a kind of existence, but one that is tied to the earthly world of constant change and impermanence. True salvation lay in detachment from the desires of this world, the end of the cycle of rebirth, and/or transcending this world (samsara) at death by entering into life in a Buddha Realm. The world of kami was thus superceded by the soteriology of Buddhism in ritual practices and beliefs, especially in regard to spirits of the dead. In the kami world, belief in angry spirits of the dead were identified and placated as the fundemental cause of disaster, such as plague, drought, oe earthquakes. Buddhist monks were a tremendous source of powerful chants and ritual arts (building temples, creating icons) that were understood to control angry kami.
below: Torii gateways and deer at the te-mizuya...................... stone lanterns hanging along the walkway at Kasuga Shrine
