Vengeance of Animated objects and the
Illustration of Shingon Truth
WE havE sEEn huMan bEings inTEracT WiTh oni in the previous chap-
ters. Through human eyes, not only she or he but also it, an inanimate
object, can deal with oni. The “it” can become an oni as well. The recent
pop-culture boom in yōkai (monsters, spirits, goblins)1 in Japan has brought
about renewed interest in various native supernatural creatures, among
which are tsukumogami, or “tool specters.” Although animate tools appear
sporadically in the literature of the late Heian period (794–1185), the appli-
cation of the name tsukumogami to animate objects is largely a medieval
phenomenon, and portrayals and descriptions of tsukumogami increase nota-
bly in works of the medieval and Edo periods.2 According to a text titled
Tsukumogami ki (Record of Tool Specters), dated to the Muromachi period
(1336–1573), after a span of 100 years utsuwamono or kibutsu (containers,
tools, and instruments) receive souls; and, like everything involving indi-
vidual souls, they develop independent spirits and thus become prone to
tricking people. These spirits are called tsukumogami. Resentful after having
been abandoned by the human masters they so loyally served, the tools
and utensils in Tsukumogami ki become vengeful and murderous specters.
With imperial and Buddhist support, however, the wayward spirits learn to
repent their malevolent ways, enter lives of religious service, and, in the end,
attain Buddhahood through the Shingon sect of esoteric Buddhism. The
text emphasizes that the Shingon teachings enable even such non-sentient
beings as tools and containers to attain enlightenment.
While many references are made to this text as a major source for
the definition of tsukumogami, proper attention has not been paid to the
actual text of Tsukumogami ki. The tsukumogami story belongs to a genre
called otogizōshi.3 Befitting the otogizōshi genre, the story, while amusing, DOI: 10.7330/9781607324904.c007
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is markedly religious in tone. The Shingon tradition developed a sophis-
ticated materialist cosmology, but outside monastic institutions and the
highly trained and educated few, the philosophy of objects was proba-
bly less easily accessible or understandable even to the elite, let alone the
majority of the medieval population. Komatsu Kazuhiko ( Hyōrei shinkō ron
338) writes that the text could have been employed to enhance Shingon
Buddhist power. Indeed, I argue that the text was more than likely cre-
ated to (re)claim Shingon’s influence by highlighting the notion of sokushin
jōbutsu (realizing Buddhahood in this very body), as exemplified in the
case of Kūkai or Kōbō Daishi (774–835),4 and asserting that the Shingon
teachings enable even such non-sentient beings ( hijō, mujō ) as tools and
containers to attain enlightenment.
tsukuMOgaMi ki texts anD PLOt summary
The Tsukumogami ki 5 story appears in a number of extant manuscripts with
titles such as Hijō jōbutsu emaki (Illustrated Hand Scrolls on the Attainment
of Buddhahood by Non-sentient Beings), Tsukumogami ki (Record of
Tsukumogami ), Tsukumogami, and Tsukumogami emaki (Illustrated Hand Scrolls of Tsukumogami ). Essentially, there are two versions of the Tsukumogami ki
story: Type A, represented by the Hijō jōbutsu emaki, which is written on two
scrolls and owned by Sōfukuji in Gifu prefecture, and Type B, represented
by all the other surviving manuscripts, which are written on either one or
two scrolls.6 The major difference between Types A and B is that A does not
contain several narrative scenes; they are placed in square brackets in the fol-
lowing summary.
During the year-end susuharai (sweeping soot, housecleaning) events in
the late-tenth-century capital of Heian,7 old tools and objects are discarded
in byways and alleys. The abandoned goods become angry at the humans
who discarded them and plan, as specters, to torment their former owners.
One discarded object, the rosary Ichiren Novice (Ichiren nyūdō), chides the
others for their desire for revenge, but he is beaten up by the club of Rough
John (Aratarō) and barely escapes with his “life.” Another discarded object,
Professor Classics (Kobun sensei), who in the picture is depicted as a scroll,
proposes that they should all transform themselves into specters. With the
help of a creation god ( zōkashin), they do so on the day of setsubun, the lunar New Year’s Eve.
As tool specters, the tsukumogami kidnap humans and animals for con-
sumption, and they celebrate their new lives with such merrymaking as
drinking, gambling, and poetry recitations. [In the Type B Tsukumogami ki,
The Record of Tool Specters
211
they then decide to worship their creation god, naming it the Great Shape-
Shifting God (Henge daimyōjin). They propose to hold a Shinto festival
in honor of their god, as other Shinto shrines do. In spring, while they are
strolling through the capital for the Great Shape-Shifting God’s festival
procession, they encounter the Prince Regent’s party. A Sonshō Darani (Skt.
dhāraniī) charm the regent carries with him suddenly flares up and attacks
the tsukumogami,8 whereupon they scatter. The emperor hears of this inci-
dent, and, summoning the bishop who wrote the Sonshō Darani charm, he
has him perform ceremonies in the imperial palace. In response to the
prayers and rituals held by the bishop and other Buddhist priests, sev-
eral Buddhist divine boys ( gohō dōji )9 appear above the palace, after which
they fly off to the tsukumogami ’s den.] The divine boys immediately subdue
the tsukumogami, and the wayward spirits swear to convert to Buddhism.
Repentant, the tsukumogami seek the guidance of Holy Ichiren (formerly
Ichiren Novice) to help them embrace the Buddhist teachings and enter
the priesthood. After some time as priests, the tsukumogami ask Ichiren
how they might attain Buddhahood quickly, whereupon Ichiren describes
the Shingon teaching of realizing Buddhahood in this very body. The tsu-
kumogami thus become devotees of the Shingon sect, and after assiduous
ascetic practices, they all become Buddhas. The story ends with the moral
“if you wish to know the deep meaning of [the tale], it is that we should
quickly escape from the net of exoteric Buddhism and enter Shingon eso-
teric Buddhism” ( MJMT 9: 425).
I note three other points regarding differences between the Type A and
Type B scrolls. First, some illustrations and textual passages are located in
different places. For example, in the Type A text, the scenes of the objects’
discussion of revenge and Ichiren Novice’s beating by Rough John are
inserted before Professor Classic’s lecture on the art of yin-yang transfor-
mation, whereas in the Type B texts, the scenes are described after the pro-
fessor’s lecture. Second, the Type A narrative is generally more descriptive
(i.e., it includes more poems and verses in its banquet scene). Third, the
Type A text tends to be more specific. For example, it includes the explana-
ti
on that “[ tsukumogami] join a branch of Tōji and practice with the Yataku
schools” (okudaira 185).10 This sentence is not seen in the Type B texts,
which do not contain specific references to any particular sub-sect of the
Shingon school. As often suggested, the author of the Type A text may
have been a Tōji temple priest or someone otherwise associated with the
temple. Type B texts, in contrast, could have been used for more general
preaching on the Shingon teachings and been more easily modified to suit
an individual priest’s purpose.
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the Date of the texts
The issue of whether the aforementioned scenes were deleted from the
Type A text or added to the Type B texts raises the question of which came
first. Some scholars consider that the Type A Sōfukuji version predates the
Type B texts and that the Type B texts are copies of the Sōfukuji text. For
example, Shinbo Tōru argues that the format of the Type A scrolls follows
that of early literary works that lack the additional setsuwa tale (in the preced-
ing summary, the bracketed account of Prince Regent’s encounter with the
tsukumogami ) (Shinbo 88). Likewise, Shibata Hōsei compares the language of
the texts with that of Kōbō daishi gyōjō ekotoba (Illustrated History of Kūkai,
ca. fourteenth century), a work predating Tsukumogami ki, and he reaches
the same conclusion based on the similarity of Type A’s language to that of
Kōbō daishi gyōjō ekotoba (Shibata, “Tsukumogami kaidai” 395–99).11 Scholars
such as Kakehi take the opposite view because the Type B tale flows more
smoothly, and the first and second scrolls are almost equally long.12
It is difficult to judge which came first. But in an entry for the tenth
day of the ninth month of 1485 in Sanetaka kōki, the diary of Sanjōnishi
Sanetaka (1455–1537), Sanetaka writes that he saw a set of tsukumo-
gami scrolls (Parts one and Two) in the study hall of the imperial palace
(Sanjōnishi 621). While it is not known which text Sanetaka saw, by 1485 at
the latest, one set of tsukumogami scrolls had already been produced and was
in circulation among aristocrats.
tsukuMOgaMi ki: entertainment anD eDifiCatiOn
word Play on ki 器
Without a doubt, the Tsukumogami ki author enjoyed writing the story, as we
can see from the profusion of puns and parodies within the work. A prime
example is the appellation of the protagonists, identified as ki or utsuwa 器.
At the very beginning of Tsukumogami ki, the author defines tsukumogami
as follows: “According to Miscellaneous Records of Yin and Yang, after a span
of one hundred years, utsuwamono ( kibutsu) receive souls and trick people.
They are called tsukumogami” ( MJMT 9: 417). Thus, tsukumogami are said to be the specters of utsuwamono: old containers, tools, and instruments. Yet in
the very next paragraph the author explains that the custom of “renewing
the hearth fire, drawing fresh water, and renewing everything from clothing
to furniture at the New Year is . . . to avoid the calamity of tsukumogami”
( MJMT 9: 418). The term tsukumogami is therefore apparently more inclusive
than utsuwamono, embracing both clothing and furniture. Why, then, does
the narrator use the word ki 器, as in “containers?”
The Record of Tool Specters
213
Ki 器 and Shingon Teachings
I believe it is for the sake of metaphorical edification through wordplay.
According to one metaphor used in Kōbō daishi gyōjō ekotoba, the master
transmits the esoteric teachings to his disciple just as one fills an earthen-
ware pot full of water and then transfers that water to another container
without spilling a single drop.13 The earthenware pot is, of course, a con-
tainer, or ki. Hence the narrator says, “Tsukumogami are by nature big con-
tainers [to hold great knowledge] . . . so the Shingon esoteric teachings
were transmitted to them completely” ( MJMT 9: 424). This quoted sen-
tence also contains another pun: “tsukumogami are by nature taiki 大器 (big
containers)” precisely because they are utsuwa, or containers. Taiki signifies
a person of great talent, in this case, “talented containers that can hold a
great amount of knowledge” (okudaira 185; MJMT 9: 424). The kanji com-
pound 大器 further suggests another kanji compound 大機. Ki 機, a hom-
onym of ki 器, is an important Shingon term meaning “sentient being(s),”
and although 大機 is pronounced daiki rather than taiki, it, too, signifies a
large ki. The author may have wished to express through 大器/大機 that
the sentient protagonists (機), who are themselves quite literally “contain-
ers” (器), have exceptional capacities for understanding and exercising the
Buddhist teachings.
Various Japanese Buddhist sects profess the possibility of sōmoku jōbutsu
(the attainment of Buddhahood by plants), which means that not only
animate sentient beings ( ujō ) but also non-sentient beings, represented by
plants, can attain Buddhahood.14
This is related to hongaku shisō, or “original enlightenment thought,” a
vital concept in the medieval period according to which both sentient and
non-sentient beings contain Buddhahood within them and could all attain
enlightenment. The notion of hongaku, central to Tendai teachings and to the
later sectarian developments of Kamakura Buddhism, is in fact influenced
by the secret transmission of Shingon esoteric Buddhism in which hongaku
is said to be privately transmitted from master to disciple.15 As Jacqueline
I. Stone writes, conceptions of Buddhahood for plants “originated not as
responses to ‘nature,’ but in doctrinal debate over the implications of claims
for universal Buddhahood, and developed as a specific example of a larger
tendency” (Stone 30).16 Indeed, Fabio Rambelli writes:
In most premodern doctrinal tracts a term such as sōmoku usually did not
refer literally to plants only but rather indicated the entire realm in the
nonsentients; the latter comprises inanimate objects of any kind, includ-
ing human artifacts. This synonymy was indeed strengthened by esoteric
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ideas on the all-pervasiveness of the absolute body (Skt. dharmakāya,
Jp. hosshin) of the Buddha Mahāvairocana (Jp. Dainichi) . . . Therefore,
“plants” in the Buddhist theoretical vocabulary does not generally refer to
nature alone, and doctrines on the possibility for plants to attain salvation,
known as sōmoku jōbutsu (lit., “plants become buddhas”) . . . refer rather
to the Buddhist philosophy of objects and the material world in general.
(Rambelli 12)
That is, the term non-sentients ( hijō, mujō ) includes the “realm of
objects” ( kikai ), “territory” ( kokudo), and “plants” ( sōmoku), the most
concrete and specific of the non-sentients (Rambelli 12). The protago-
nists of Tsukumogami ki who are in the realm of objects, kikai or kisekai, are, according to esoteric Buddhist teachings, rightfully capable of being
awakened.17 Kūkai (774–835) was the first person in Japan to mention the
possibility of the salvation o
f plants, and “on the basis of Kūkai’s ground-
breaking conceptualization, the Shingon tradition developed a sophisti-
cated materialist cosmology according to which . . . objects became the
legitimate subject of philosophical speculations precisely because of their
status as particular manifestations or embodiments of the Buddha-body”
(Rambelli 19–20).
Although the concept of non-sentients attaining enlightenment may
have been familiar to esoteric Buddhist practitioners, it was perhaps not
so for most medieval people, even though their belief in the supernatu-
ral tended to be much stronger than that of those in later periods. Also,
for many people outside monastic institutions, tools and utensils were
probably perceived as less sentient than plants. With the long-standing
tradition of ancient Shinto’s nature worship, it is conceivable that people
outside monastic institutions could easily accept the notion of universal
Buddhahood in natural objects such as stones and mountains, where Shinto
deities traditionally manifest.18 Material objects are, in contrast, day-to-day
implements that do not immediately inspire awesome feelings, let alone
achieve enlightenment of their own accord. But precisely because the idea
of an object realizing Buddhahood is extraordinary, Shingon’s teaching in
the Tsukumogami ki scrolls is attractive and effective. Fortunately for their
author(s), there was an existing belief in tsukumogami, and thus the message
of Tsukumogami ki is that even lackluster material objects—or worse, venge-
ful ones—can realize enlightenment in their very bodies through the power
of Shingon esoteric Buddhism.
The fact that tsukumogami are initially evil and yet eventually able to
attain Buddhahood speaks all the more eloquently to the efficacy of the
The Record of Tool Specters
215
Shingon teachings. The narrator of Tsukumogami ki says that “while other
sects advocate only sōmoku jōbutsu, the Shingon sect alone goes so far as to
say sōmoku hijō hosshin shugyō jōbutsu (plants and nonsentient beings become
Buddhas by arousing the desire for enlightenment and performing ascetic
and religious practices)” ( MJMT 9: 425). These object-specters are consid-
ered demonic and are thus doubly challenged—they suffer from both arti-
Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan Page 33