Fushidansekkyo and Performing Arts

The Japanese Buddhist preacher who says that being on the koza [dais, pulpit] is "fighting with real swords" has treasured every word with pride worthy to be called the "Preacher Spirit" and robust conviction. For every single word serves as salvation. Having a grasp on the heart of the unchanging religious truth, he talks for the people. The expression can vary widely with preacher's personality and his diction emanated from it. But, what sort of expression can be just perfect for the hearts and minds of the people? As well as being adapted to the times, preachers have sustained their inventive approaches to meeting the needs of the people, and those new initiatives have led to developing a lot of side branches which are the outpouring of the energy of the populace living at the bottom of human society where agony prevails.

After the emergence of medieval Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, the performing arts which are conceivable to be variants of the sermons and performing artists (or musicians ) who appear to be transmutations of the preachers have sprung. The former are heikyoku, shura monogatari , sekkyo joruri (sekkyobushi) and so forth. The latter are biwa hoshi , etoki hoshi , monogatari so, Kumano bikuni and the like. Welcomed by people with open arms, they were making waves as street performances and public entertainments. There is only a fine line between the sermons given in temples or in Buddhist services and the performing arts which have rise in Japanese Buddhism, such as sekkyo joruri and other popular entertainments. On the koza, however, Fushidansekkyo was seizing the initiative and having a great run. Put simply, preaching was the imperative mainstream in the tradition of the Japanese elocution, which had studied the diction best suited for the Japanese from every angle and established its methods.

Among those which are referred to as Japanese popular performing arts, especially, joruri, kodan and rakugo are, in their generations and developmental processes, very strongly tied with Fushidansekkyo. A boom of joruri inspired by the sermon and the presentation of joruri relating Shinran, which can be recognized as remakes of sermons that had ever been on the koza, and the publication of a number of joruri scripts ("Shinran ki" in six acts [1624-1644]) are a few such examples to learn about its strong link with Fushidansekkyo.

As Japanese popular entertainments which had been developed from Fushidansekkyo and came to consolidate unique performing styles are heikyoku and sekkyo joruri, so the prosodic base of the Japanese people which has been carried on from joruri through rokyoku to today's Japanese popular ballads (enka) consists in Fushidansekkyo. It is not only able to said that the Fushidansekkyo-based current is, as that which becomes very strongly musically marked, still much in evidence in rokyoku. In fact, the melodic part identical to the tune of Fushidansekkyo is ubiquitous, found in joruri and in rokyoku. It will, it is true, get to shomyo [Japanese Buddhist chant with melodious patterns added to the chanting sacred Buddhist words] and the flowing style of reading the sutras, when tracing back. Furthermore, as Matsutaro Kimura, a master of rokyoku, says, "Naniwabushi has grown and been developed as a living entertainment in its own terms which I am given money by the audience and get them to listen to me, (...) and so it is living, having taken this and that or made a good job of combining somewhere along the line," Fushidansekkyo alone cannot suffice as the origin when we delve into the performing arts born of Japanese Buddhism. But it is "the method of Fushidansekkyo, in which, adding the musical tunes of shomyo and sutras to the sermon, a talk becomes a tune (fushi ) before one is aware, and it is striking the right cord of the Japanese mind with having the feelings beautifully act on it," that had a big effect upon Japanese musical narratives like joruri and rokyoku. And the tune of Fushidansekkyo, which has been long-amassed through the originality and ingenuity of a great number of preachers, hoards a contained indefinable force that invokes the Japanese spirit. It is said that Yamatonojo (Naramaru II) Yoshida of naniwabushi who passed away in 1967 used to tell, "Our father is Choken-san [Agui ryu]."

Although kodan and rakugo made positive advances in recent times, and thrived as vaudevillian shows, they are those performing arts which were arisen in the way Fushidansekkyo established or of which art and form were, it can readily be said, created by the preachers. The form that, upon staging, a performer sits upright on the koza, with a hariogi [a special folding fan for bashing away on a script stand, and thereby toning his narrative] for a koshakushi [Japanese professional storyteller] and a sensu [a folding fan] for a hanashika [Japanese sit-down comedy artist], and talks to the audience with his carriage and gestures adheres exactly to the form of the sermon that a preacher talks from the koza with a chukei [a ceremonial folding fan] in his hand. The trainings of acting as a curtain raiser echo those of preachers in attendance upon their masters. Also, it is interesting to reflect that there was an excellent preacher of Pure Land Buddhism, Koun Myoshu (1403-1487), being ancestor to Akamatsu Hoin who is the commonly accepted creator of kodan and that Sakuden of the Anrakuan (1554-1642) who is the widely accepted founder of rakugo was a monk of the Pure Land school and a preacher in the line of "Sekkyo Nembutsu Gi (Sermon Nembutsu Doctrine, Homiletics)" of which father was Seikaku of the Agui.

Nanshu Tanabe, a master of kodan, recounts, "The most important thing in kodan is, what is being said, to read, not to talk. To talk can make a total difference, and we are told, 'should not talk, must read.' Let's just put it this way, a koshakushi put a book in front of himself and had the text listened to by the audience. Having read and given commentary, that was actually to elucidate the meaning of text. As we follow in this tradition, it is never said that we talk, but we do read." From this standpoint, it seems to indicate that kodan is that which originated primarily in the line of the tradition of a pure exposition of Buddhist canonical texts. Left in kodan to the present day as "shuraba yomi " that is the highlight of kodan, however, is shuraba sekkyo from among those which were called "rokudo (rikudo) sekkyo " or "rokushu sekkyo ," that is, the preaching in a fierce tone of voice being styled "seriben" from old times that was one of the expressive methods which was right up Fushidansekkyo preachers' street. Thus, it is easy to assume that there would have been a strong input from Fushidansekkyo in the process of being elaborated as the art of narrative performance from taiheiki yomi into kodan. Additionally, the presence of those who had been laicized from the priesthood and achieved prominence and the existence of those pieces of kodan which dealt with the same subjects as the sermon treated, like "Shinran Shonin goichidaiki," are matters to be reckoned with in the effort to confirm the relationship between preaching and kodan. By extension, it will stand in to a direct relation between the sermon and the art of oracy, and the trend continues in these modern days, and so we hear it said that Entama Godoken, a master of kodan had become pupil of the Reverend Shonen Sobue in order to study Fushidannsekkyo, and brought in its approach into his kodan and spoke on the life story of Honen and Shinran.

Sakuden of the Anrakuan (1554-1642) gave a demonstration of otoshibanashi [a short story with the punch line effect] on the koza and left Seisuisho in eight volumes covering various subject matters for posterity. Although all the tales included in these volumes are what came out of his life as a preacher and they are consistently the subjects for the sermon, yet they are replete with funny stories, bespeaking the consciousness of life of the people at the time. Many a story taken from this Seisuisho was handed down into the contemporary rakugo with representative works, such as "Heirin," "Muhitsu no Inu" and "Teresuko," and thereby should be ascertainable a part of the genealogy from the sermon down to rakugo. Accordingly, if Buddhism were removed from the classic rakugo remained today, it would look utterly deserted, and those which are undisputedly collected from the sermon or those which appear to be sermon's own becoming rakugo are too numerous to mention. Especially, those in the line of the Pure Land school are conspicuous in kamigata ragugo [Kyoto and Osaka area's rakugo]. Ninjobanashi is nagabanashi [a long rakugo story] which was born of the compelling elocution practiced in Fushidansekkyo and kaidanbanashi [a ghost story] is, it can be said, actually an allaxis of the allegorical-causal tale [hiyu innen dan] of Fushidansekkyo. Fushidansekkyo has left its mark upon the formation of the art of oracy in Japan, but it is particularly true for its effect upon rakugo, and that in a striking manner.

Fushidansekkyo is the embodiment of preachers having turned every word over and over again with their rigorous trainings through its long history and tradition. Therein lies the factor that allowed the art of oracy of top caliber to be born. No matter how good it is as verbal skill, however, if the hearts and minds of the people do not go with it, it will be what is fleeting. That Fushidansekkyo had predominated from medieval period through early-modern times to the Meiji, Taisho and early-Showa period is ascribable to the fact that the preachers had taken a stand on what they believed in and maintained the attitude, that is, they preach for the people, and with their keen senses, they had evolved the sermon that was directly linked to the popular sensitivity and sentiment and the lives of the populace in various periods in history. Even more than preachers' having a way with words, herein lies the cause of the integration that a preacher and the congregation are identifying with one another for themselves. Fushidansekkyo was fully for the people, or what was their own. The preachers had, it is true, tried to meet the recreational wants of the populace. It was, however, not their pandering to the people, and they have, standing fast on the imperative tradition and adhering firmly to the unwavering "Preacher Spirit," never chipped away at the quintessence of the sermon. These regards are, I should say, the primary agendas for Japanese traditional performing arts as referred to above as well.

Note: Although there are those which were further developed into "Geijutsu (fine art, high performing arts)" from "folk art (folk performing arts)," yet they are not Geino, for Geijutsu lose touch with our real "lives," while Geino correspond to our real "lives."

(From my Notes (35) for my master's thesis "The Religion of Kokan: On Fushidansekkyo." All the written sources are acknowledged either in the main text of my master's thesis or in the notes of my master's thesis. Please see them.)  About Me

The Reverend Shonen Sobue refers to the negative view held by the academics of dogmatics of Japanese Buddhism in Fushidansekkyo Audio Video Material A2-1 as follows:
Well, in the first place, Japanese oral performing arts, be it naniwabushi, rakugo or kodan, if we went back to the original sources, all of them were born of preaching. So, it is naniwabushi in the melodic sense, rakugo on the laughter front, and kodan in terms of firing out words in a compelling way. All those oral arts have their roots in preaching. Despite this, fewer and fewer preachers are delivering such sermons. Around Showa eight or nine [1933 or 1934], academians started saying, "To give a sermon with a tune is," for some reason or other, uh, "About the blessed teachings, talking like an entertainer. How disgraceful!" They started saying that. But, if tune is disgraceful, they should try to read out a sutra with no tune, right? na mu a mi da bu na mu a mi da bu. Well, in contrast, when we intone it, it resonates venerably, you know? That's how it should be, the way of saying "There is a mountain," on the other, saying "(cadence) There is a towering mountain (end cadence)," isn't this way more thorough?

On www.hdever.com, there are many material files which highlight the sound and melodious quality in the sermon, such as the "tune" of Fushidansekkyo and the "key" of Gospel Mission Work. Yet I am not merely saying that preaching with tune is good and that preaching with music is good. What I am trying to do is to bring the significance of hearing a sermon in one's heart, not in one's head, that is, "feeling" the teachings and the words or "experiencing" the teachings and the words, into question.