Kaihōgyō
The Kaihōgyō ( Japanese 回 峰 行 , dt. "Summit orbit asceticism") is a ritual of monks of the Tendai school , which is performed for a duration of 100 or 1000 days. The mountain Hiei near Kyoto is circled again and again. The 1000-day ritual is completed in several stages, divided over seven years. In doing so, the monk covers a distance that is said to be almost like going around the world (around 38,000 km). Therefore the graduates of the Kaihōgyō are also called "marathon monks". Thus the ritual is like a pilgrimage.
History and environment
The Kaihōgyō ritual probably goes back to the monk Sōō ( 相 応 ; 831-918). He practiced rituals in an ascetic way. Early in his life he joined the still small Tendai movement in Enryaku Temple on Hiei Mountain in northeast Kyoto. It is stated that Sōō himself performed a thousand-day ascetic ritual after meeting a local god (Shikobuchi Myōjin) after intense prayer.
Sōō founded the ascetic practice, which in the following centuries developed into a pilgrimage ritual in which various mountains were approached. From the 14th century Kaihōgyō was heavily systematized. After the Enryaku-ji was burned down by Oda Nobunaga in 1571 , a Kaihōgyō was recorded a decade later. Since then, only around 40 monks have successfully completed the Kaihōgyō.
In the late 1980s, a report by the Japanese television station NHK made the exceptionally extensive ritual very popular. TV reports, documentaries and articles followed, which also found their way to Europe via English-language literature.
procedure
The Kaihōgyō is performed at night, as the monk is not released from his monastic duties of the day (prayers) despite his preoccupation with the ritual and pilgrimage status. As a rule, the ascetic gets up shortly after midnight and, in the hours leading up to morning, completes a 30-kilometer walk around Mount Hiei. On the way he has the task of holding prayer ceremonies at around 260 locations at short intervals. Since the way is long and doubles and triples in the later stages, the monk has to run.
This process, the Kaihōgyō, can be completed by the monk for a hundred consecutive days, hyaku-nichi ( 百日 ). Then he is referred to as shingyō ( 新 行 ), as a new ascetic.
If the monk decides to carry out the thousand-day practice, sen-nichi ( 千 日 ), stages of 100 and 200 days are completed in seven years - each in succession. The monk does not follow the ritual between the stages.
The ascetic exercise experiences a turning point at the end of the fifth year in which the dōiri ( 堂 入 り ), "entering the temple", is performed. After 700 days, the monk fasts for nine days. He does not eat, drink, sleep or lie down. Only then does he take the last two years of Kaihōgyō. In the sixth year the distance doubles to 60 km in which the monk also has to visit the temple Sekizanzen-in ( 赤山 禅院 ). In the first hundred days of the seventh year there is also the “great Kyoto orbit” ( 京都 大 廻 り ), during which various temples and shrines in downtown Kyoto must be visited, increasing the distance to 84 km. In the last hundred days this has been reduced to the original 30 km.
The breakdown of the stages by year, consecutive days and route length in the following table:
| year | Days | Distance [km] |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100 | 30th |
| 2 | 100 | 30th |
| 3 | 100 | 30th |
| 4th | 200 | 30th |
| 5 | 200 | 30th |
| 6th | 100 | 60 |
| 7th | 100 | 84 |
| 100 | 30th |
literature
- Catherine Ludvik: In the Service of the Kaihōgyō Practitioners of Mt. Hiei. The Stopping-Obstacles Confraternity (Sokushō kō) of Kyoto . In: Nanzan University Nagoya (Ed.): Japanese Journal of Religious Studies . Vol. 33, No. 1 , 2006, p. 115–42 ( Internet Archive ( Memento from April 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF]).
- Robert Rhodes: The Kaihōgyō Practice of Mt. Hiei . In: Nanzan University Nagoya (Ed.): Japanese Journal of Religious Studies . Vol. 14, No. 2/3 , 1987, pp. 185–202 ( Internet Archive ( Memento of August 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF]).
- John Stevens : The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei . Shambhala, 1988, ISBN 0-87773-415-1
Web links
- NPR: Monk's Enlightenment Begins With a Sennichi Kaihogyo Marathon Walk. Archived from the original on November 2, 2013 ; Retrieved November 2, 2011 .
- Monk's Enlightenment Begins With A Marathon Walk, by Anthony Kuhn
- The marathon monk of Kyoto, by 3sat, by Ingolf Bauer
- Waypoints of the 84km long route on Google Maps
Individual evidence
- ↑ Counting methods and length specifications differ in the reports.
- ↑ Rhodes, p. 191 ff.
- ↑ “Marathon Monks”, broadcast on ABC Australia, November 2004
- ↑ a b 修行 . Tendai-shu, accessed September 23, 2017 (Japanese).
- ↑ The monk walks around in the anteroom of the temple and tries not to fall asleep.
- ↑ Rhodes speaks of 48 miles (p. 194), others like the Tendai-shu itself just 84 km (52 miles).