| This project is a quest for hiden, the Japanese term for esotericism. The tradition of Japanese hiden is said to have originated in the institutional establishment of Esoteric Buddhism in the ninth century. Afterwards, esotericism as a method of closed knowledge transmission was adopted broadly in the realm of gei, such as poetry composition, theater, and martial arts. (Gei is a blanket term for acquired technique, be it martial, literary, or musical.) This project takes hiden in the realm of gei as its focus, and investigates its operation and logic in its prime, and its survival in modern times. Importantly, the world of esotericism has been mystified to a great extent. Even after many esoteric texts were published in the early twentieth century and thus became accessible to those outside the esoteric communities, esotericism has been regarded as an illogical, irrational enigma that an outsider cannot understand, especially by reading texts. This project, which I characterize as an analysis of literature conducted by an outsider, as opposed to participation in esoteric practices as an insider, challenges this assumption for two reasons. First, contrary to the popular conception above, esoteric texts demonstrate a certain readable logic. Second, the logic in question is so rich that it must be of acute interdisciplinary interest within, or even beyond, the confines of Japanese studies. For instance, esotericist logic can visualize various notions in medieval Japanese literary traditions that are considerably different from those in modern times: "knowledge," "creativity," "verbalization," "physicality," and so forth. Furthermore, those interested in the everlasting question of "modernity" might well be intrigued by an elusive---dramatically isolated and yet uncannily intimate---relationship between esotericism and modernity. To this end, this project mainly reads the writings of Yagyu Munenori, Zeami Motokiyo, and Osanai Kaoru. In terms of esotericism, Munenori and Zeami can be historicized as situated in the establishment stage. They thus provide material for an analysis of the operation and logic of esotericism. Osanai's writings illustrate the meanings of esotericism in modern Japan (from the late nineteenth century onward). |
