2025 Theses Doctoral

Wrath of the Rising Sun: The Gods of War and Military Rituals in Pre-Modern Japan

Sakai, Komei

The decoration of Japanese arms and armor often contains talismanic symbols and images that derive from Onmyōdō, an understudied tradition related to Daoism in China, and cannot be explained through the conventional narrative centered on Shinto-Buddhist dichotomy that has hitherto been used to understand Japanese religion.

This dissertation argues that, prior to the fall of the last shogunate in 1868, there existed a distinct religious tradition among the members of the samurai class that involved unique rituals and prayers dedicated to the gods of war that were based upon the Chinese principles of yin-yang duality and the Five Phases that also constituted the foundation of Onmyōdō. The first chapter presents the key major practices of this military tradition, which the author refers to as the religion of warfare, based on the divination instructions included in the various treatises on military strategy from the Edo period.

The second chapter explores the material dimension of the religion of warfare through the diverse ritual manuals passed down in the lineage of the decorum master Ise Sadatake, with a particular focus on those pertaining to the production of military equipment. The third chapter examines how the mainstream Buddhism responded to the non-Buddhist elements that feature prominently in the religion of warfare using the Nichiren School as a case study.

To conclude, the author contends that the religious decoration of Japanese arms and armor reflects the deities, rituals, and material culture of the distinctive religion of the samurai class that have been neglected until now.