Columbia University (directions to Morningside Campus)
Dates and Locations:

Friday, May 1st: 403 Kent Hall
Saturday, May 2nd: 301 Philosophy
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009: 301 Philosophy

Schedule

Friday, May 1st: 403 Kent Hall

Suzuki Ikkei, “’On’yōdo’ and ‘Onmyōdō’: Reflections on the Lineage and System of the ‘Way of Yin and Yang’” 「『おんようどう』と『おんみょうどう』－陰陽道の系統と体系に関する考察」.
(Discussant: Marco Gottardo)

Koike Jun’ichi, “Onmyōdō and Folkloric Culture: Three Prespectives for the Development of Research” 「陰陽道と民俗文化―研究の進展のための３つの視点―」.
(Discussant: Lucia Dolce)

Hermann Ooms, “Onmyōdō in a Restricted Market: Nara.”
(Discussant: Will Hansen)

Michael Como, “Technology and the Diffusion of Onmyōdō in Ancient Japan.”
(Discussant: George Clonos)

Yamashita Katsuaki, “The Characteristics of Onmyōdō and Related Texts”「陰陽道の特質と関係典籍」.
(Discussant: Lucia Dolce)

Film screening (on Izanagiryū)

Saturday, May 2nd: 301 Philosophy

David Bialock, “Geographies of Sound: Onmyōdō, Music, and Heike Narratives.”
(Discussant: Mark Teeuwen)

Steven Trenson, “Shingon Rain Rituals and Dragon Cults: A Case of Onmyōdō-Mikkyō Interrelation.”
(Discussant: Dominic Steavu)

Nishioka Yoshifumi, “Aspects of Esoteric Rituals Centered on the Divination Board (banpō)”「式盤を祭る密教修法（盤法）の諸相」.
(Discussant: Iyanaga Nobumi)

Bernard Faure, “Daishōgun: From Calendar to Cult”
(Discussant: Marco Gottardo)

Matthias Hayek, “Divinatory Practices and Knowledge in Early Modern Japan: Redefining Onmyōdō from the Inside.”
(Discussant: Dominic Steavu)

Hayashi Makoto, “The Yin-Yang Masters of Early Modern Japan and the Kirishitan (‘Christians’)”「近世の陰陽師とキリシタン」.
(Discussant: Mark Teeuwen)

Sunday, May 3rd: 301 Philosophy

Saitō Hideki, “The Cult of Gozu Tennō and the Ritual World of the Izanagiryū” 「牛頭天王信仰といざなぎ流の儀礼世界」.
(Discussant: Iyanaga Nobumi)

Simone Mauclaire, “The Izanagiryū and the Theory of Universal Power.”
(Discussant: George Clonos)

Umeno Mitsuoki, “Aspects of the Izanagiryū” (tentative title).
(Discussant: Will Hansen)

Description

The Japanese film series “Onmyōji,” recently subtitled in English, has allowed the American public to discover the so-called Way of Yin and Yang (Onmyōdō, or On’yōdō). Paradoxically, through this and other mass media accounts of the legendary life of the famous Yin-Yang master Abe no Seimei, Japanese and American audiences are probably better informed at this point about this religious tradition than many specialists of Japanese history. Indeed, despite the recent publication of a limited number of Japanese works on the topic, at this point there are still virtually no Western monographs devoted to Onmyōdō (with the significant exception of Prof. Bernard Frank’s pioneering work on directional taboos). The present symposium is intended in part to bridge such a lacuna.

Although it may be somewhat anachronistic to apply the term “Onmyōdō” to Chinese Yin-Yang thought as it was imported to Japan and then developed during the Nara and Heian periods, it would be impossible to understand the emergence of Onmyōdō as a religious movement during the medieval period without taking into account the role of the Yin-Yang Bureau (Onmyōryō) and other phenomena from the Nara and Heian periods. While the term “Onmyōdō” itself may be of relatively late coinage, however, the semantic field of the term is extremely broad, covering various aspects of Confucianism (the weishu or “weft-texts,” for instance) and Daoism, without totally overlapping with either of these two intellectual currents. With the development of esoteric Buddhism (mikkyō) in the Heian period, the rivalry and reciprocal influences between esoteric rituals and Yin-Yang rituals led to new syntheses such as that of the Hoki naiden (14th century). These aspects of the tradition were recently the object of a fascinating exhibition at Kanazawa Bunko, in whose wake the present symposium would like to inscribe itself.

In addition, while Onmyōdō as cosmological system suffered from the concurrence of Western cosmology in early modern Japan, it is also as a ritual system that maintained itself at the level of local communities until the present. This system has recently been rediscovered, owing to flourishing studies on the Izanagiryū tradition in Shikoku. Part of this symposium will therefore be consecrated to this tradition, which is still practically unknown in the West.

Symposium Participants

David Bialock (University of Southern California)

Michael Como (Columbia University)

George Clonos (Stanford University)

Lucia Dolce (School of African and Oriental Studies, London)

Bernard Faure (Columbia University)

Wilbur Hansen (San Diego State University)

Matthias Hayek (Paris Diderot University)

Saitō Hideki (Bukkyō Daigaku)

Suzuki Ikkei (Eastern Institute)

Koike Jun’ichi (National Museum of Japanese History)

Yamashita Katsuaki (Daitō Bunka University)

Hayashi Makoto (Aichi Gakuin Daigaku)

Simone Mauclaire (Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique, Paris)

Umeno Mitsuoki (Kōchi kenritsu rekishi minzoku shiryōkan)

Iyanaga Nobumi (Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient)

Hermann Ooms (UCLA)

Dominic Steavu (Stanford University)

Mark Teeuwen (Oslo University)

Steven Trenson (Kyoto University)

Nishioka Yoshifumi (Kanazawa Bunko)