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Tourists in Paradise: Writing the Pure Land in Medieval Japanese Fiction.

2006; Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture; Linguagem: Inglês

10.18874/jjrs.33.2.2006.269-296

0304-1042

R. Keller Kimbrough,

Socioeconomic Development in Asia

Late-medieval Japanese fiction contains numerous accounts of lay and monastic travelers to the Pure Land and other extra-human realms. In many cases, the tourists are granted guided tours, after which they are returned to the mundane world in order to tell of their unusual experiences. This article explores several of these stories from around the sixteenth century, including, most prominently, Fuji no hitoana sōshi, Tengu no dairi, and a section of Seiganji engi. I discuss the plots and conventions of these and other narratives, most of which appear to be based upon earlier oral tales employed in preaching and fund-raising, in order to illuminate their implications for our understanding of Pure Land-oriented Buddhism in late-medieval Japan. I also seek to demonstrate the diversity and subjectivity of Pure Land religious experience, and the sometimes startling gap between orthodox doctrinal and popular vernacular representations of Pure Land practices and beliefs.