Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37/2: 223–245 © 2010 Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture Ross Bender Changing the Calendar Royal Political Theology and the Suppression of the Tachibana Naramaro Conspiracy of 757 In the aftermath of the suppression of the Tachibana Naramaro conspiracy of 757, the Empress Kōken (“Kōken/Shōtoku Tennō”) issued two edicts articu- lating the royal political theology of the time. The first edict was a senmyō, inscribed in the Shoku Nihongi in Old Japanese; the second was a choku in Chinese. A miraculous omen, the apparition of a silkworm cocoon with a message woven into its surface, was interpreted as the occasion for a change in the calendrical era name, or nengō. This article argues that the imperial edicts express a coherent ideology combining ideas from a cultic matrix in which may be discerned proto-Shinto, Buddhist, and Confucian elements. keywords: nengō—senmyō—choku—Shoku Nihongi—Kōken Tennō—Tachibana Naramaro—omens—edicts—Shinto Ross Bender is an independent researcher with a PhD in premodern Japanese history and religion from Columbia University. 223 Tachibana Naramaro’s 橘奈良麻呂 conspiracy to overthrow Kōken Tennō 孝謙天皇 in 757 was the first of three major challenges1 to the reign of the “Last Empress” (saigo no jotei 最後の女帝).2 Unlike the Fujiwara Naka- maro 藤原仲麻呂 rebellion of 764, which was an actual military insurrection, the Naramaro conspiracy was effectively stymied by the government after a series of secret reports from informants betrayed the plans of the conspirators, who were promptly and efficiently rounded up, interrogated, then executed or sent into exile. The account of the suppression of Naramaro and his fellow plotters is one of the lengthiest narratives in the normally terse Shoku Nihongi 続日本紀, the Chinese-style official history of the eighth century. Its description of the interro- gation, confessions, and punishment of the conspirators affords unique insights not only into the administration of justice during a major crisis, but also into the political theology of the imperial institution in mid-eighth-century Japan. In particular, it provides a window onto the thinking behind a major ritual event in the Nara period, namely the changing of the calendar. From the time of the Japanese borrowing of the era name system, or nengō 年号, originating in Western Han China, a portentous event, often an animal omen, provided the stimulus for the change and naming of year periods. In the Nihon shoki 日本書紀, dating was by reference to the posthumous Chinese name assigned to each emperor, until the first calendrical era, Taika 大化, was designated in 645, signifying the “great change” involved in the adoption of a Chinese-style governmental system. The next two nengō of the late seventh- century—Hakuchi 白雉 and Shuchō 朱鳥—designated birds. The former was occasioned by the presentation of an auspicious white pheasant to the court; the latter referred to the red bird of the south, one of the Chinese directional animals. There is some debate as to the historicity of the pre-Nara nengō, and there are gaps between them. With the adoption of the ritsuryō 律令 system, and beginning with the Taihō 大宝 era name in 701, the nengō are designated in per- * The author wishes to thank Peter Nosco, Alexander Vovin, Victor Mair, Futaba Terufumi, and the anonymous reviewer for various sorts of assistance. 1. Commonly referred to as the Tachibana Naramaro hen 変, the Fujiwara Nakamaro ran 藤原 仲麻呂乱, and the Dōkyō jiken 道鏡事件. See Bender 1979 for the Dōkyō Incident. 2. See Takinami 1998. Joan Piggott (2003) terms her more precisely “the last classical female sovereign,” as two female emperors sat on the throne during the Tokugawa period. Kōken abdicated in 758, then reascended the throne as Shōtoku 称徳 in 764, reigning until her death in 770. 224 bender: changing the calendar | 225 petuity. Taihō was adopted upon the fortunate omen of the discovery of gold in Tsushima (Tokoro 1996, 29–48). Nara Japan is conspicuous for its peculiar chelonian nengō—Reiki 霊亀 (715– 717), Jinki 神亀 (724–729), and Hōki 宝亀 (770–781)—all inspired by the appear- ance of sacred tortoises. The Tenpyō 天平 era name was inspired by characters engraved on the carapace of an unusual tortoise. Both the Keiun 慶雲 (704–708) and Jingo Keiun 神護景雲 (767–770) eras acquired their names from the awe- some manifestation of unusually colored clouds.3 In the case of the change from Tenpyō Shōhō 天平勝宝 (749–756) to Tenpyō Hōji 天平宝字 (757–765) during the reign of Kōken Tennō, the auspicious event was a fantastic oracle woven on the cocoon of a silkworm—sixteen “jeweled characters” interpreted by court officials as prophesying long life for the empress and peace in the realm after the tumultuous events of the Naramaro conspir- acy. But Shoku Nihongi describes not only this pivotal miraculous omen, it also records a number of imperial edicts highlighting the political theology of the court. The content of these edicts evidences the various theological strands— native, Buddhist, and Confucian—woven into the intellectual tapestry of the emerging ideology of the Nara state as the court weighed the significance of the intervention of the gods into human affairs and continued to articulate theories of divine legitimation for imperial power. The Tachibana Naramaro Conspiracy and its Suppression A series of entries in Shoku Nihongi beginning on the twenty-eighth day of the sixth month of Tenpyō Hōji One and continuing through the eighteenth day of the eighth month relate the story of the revelation of the plot: the arrest, interro- gation, and punishment of the conspirators; and finally the changing of the cal- endar.4 The narrative is carried in a series of imperial edicts—seven senmyō 宣 命 in Old Japanese, and twelve edicts (choku 勅 and shō 詔) in the Chinese of the chronicle.5 The story begins with a brief account of the resignation from office of Naramaro’s father, the Sadaijin Tachibana Moroe 左大臣橘諸兄, who died early in the year, then jumps immediately to a secret report by Prince Yamashiro 山背 3. Edward Schafer (1977, 88–89) categorized similar cloud omens in China as “atmospher- ics,” including phosphor or iridescent clouds and solar or lunar halos with five colors. 4. A source of possible confusion for the reader of Shoku Nihongi is that in fact these events unfolded in Tenpyō Shōhō Nine: when the calendar was officially changed to Tenpyō Hōji One in the eighth month, the change was made retroactive, so that the chronicle dates all events of the year to the latter year name. It should also be kept in mind that the year Tenpyō Hōji One does not correspond precisely to the Julian year 757; it began on 25 January 757 and ended on 12 February 758. See Tsuchihashi 1952, 24. 5. See Bender 2009 for the different edict types of Shoku Nihongi—the senmyō, choku, and shō. 226 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37/2 (2010) 王 that Naramaro and others are plotting treason and gathering soldiers. Both Kōken Tennō and her mother, the Empress Dowager Kōmyō 光明, issue edicts addressing the conspirators and give orders to various guard units to round up the plotters. Interrogations and confessions are narrated in great detail, affording a many-sided overview of the event, and punishments of death by beating with a heavy stick or near and distant exile are pronounced. Several imperial princes are reduced to the status of commoners before being sentenced to death, and two of them assigned the names “filthy” and “foolish.” The narrative climaxes with an address to high officials and village heads by Empress Kōken, and con- cludes with the edict changing the calendar. In fact the story begins in the previous year, 756, with the death of the retired emperor Shōmu 聖武 in the fifth month. Upon his death, a posthumous edict (a shō) was discovered and proclaimed which designated the imperial Prince Funado 道祖 王, a grandson of Tenmu 天武, as the crown prince and heir to the reigning Kōken Tennō (Shoku Nihongi 3, 158–59).6 It was unusual, insomuch as any process of succession can be said to be unusual in ancient Japan, for the crown prince to be named by anyone other than the emperor regnant. This posthumous edict almost immediately gave rise to a full-blown succession dispute. Fujiwara Nakamaro, the rising star at court, favored setting aside Funado and designating Prince Ōi 大炊王. Kōken was per- suaded and accordingly issued an edict in the fourth month announcing and justifying this change. The Sadaijin Tachibana Moroe, Naramaro’s father and the most powerful member of the bureaucracy, had offended the retired Emperor Shōmu with disparaging drunken remarks at a banquet and was forced to resign; Moroe’s death in the first month of 757 left his son as the putative heir apparent to power in the bureaucracy, but still a relatively low-ranking courtier. A number of oddities and points of interest arise from the perusal of the Shoku Nihongi account, chief of which is the fact that the ultimate fate of Nara- maro himself was not recorded. Japanese historians tend to assume that he died in prison along with other named conspirators, but the survival of his imme- diate family seems peculiar given that the ritsuryō 律令 law codes provided severe treatment, including extermination, for the families of those convicted of high treason. Naramaro’s son Kiyotomo 清友 survived to hold high office dur- ing Kanmu 桓武 Tennō’s reign, and his grandson Hayanari 逸勢 was renowned as a great calligrapher, one of the “Three Brushes” along with Kūkai and Saga 嵯峨 Tennō. A granddaughter became the chief consort of Emperor Saga and founded an institute for classical studies in the Heian capital (Bohner 1942, 6. References to Shoku Nihongi (hereafter sn) are to sn volumes 1–5 in the Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei edition (sn comprises volumes 12–16 in the series). The kanbun text is on the even-numbered page, the yomikudashi is on the odd-numbered. bender: changing the calendar | 227 190–99). Most intriguing is that in 837 Naramaro was posthumously awarded the highest court rank and the title of Dajōdaijin 太政大臣 (Shoku Nihon kōki 続 日本後紀, 201). An examination of these peculiarities and an analysis of the disparities of the sentences in light of the law codes provide material for a study in its own right. Those who were beaten to death with the heavy stick, those who were sentenced to near or distant exile, those who were pardoned immediately, those who were pardoned in later amnesties and those, like Naramaro himself, who were rehabilitated posthumously all seem to have been involved in the plot to much the same degree. It is difficult from reading the chronicle to understand these discrepancies, although in one edict Kōken specifically attributed the pardon of Prince Shioyaki 塩焼王 to his father’s distinguished service to the throne (sn 3, 218–19). Another issue concerning the entire narrative is the fact that it is included in volume twenty of the forty-volume Shoku Nihongi. The provenance and recen- sion of the different volumes of the chronicle have been at issue since the time of its presentation to the court of Emperor Kanmu in 794 and 797, and volume twenty in particular is problematic, since the original was acknowledged by the compilers to have been lost and reconstructed at a later date (Sakamoto 1991, 94–95). Incidentally, other than in Brownlee’s translation of Sakamoto, none of these points has been addressed in Western scholarship, which has largely ignored the whole affair. Joan Piggott (2003, 37), in the three sentences which she devotes to the subject, completely misjudges the nature of the event, writing that “Tachibana Naramaro, son of the retired prime minister Tachibana Moroe, led a stunning coup.…” In fact Moroe was not merely retired, but dead at the time, and Naramaro’s intrigue represented not a “stunning coup” but a com- pletely incompetent debacle. Furthermore, “prime minister” is a questionable translation for Sadaijin—Minister of the Left. Herman Ooms touches on the event several times, accurately classing it with other “plots [that] leaked before they hatched,” but he mistakenly attributes to Naramaro an order banning saké drinking at banquets in the year after his apparent death (Ooms 2008, 214). Senmyō #19: Divine Protection of the Throne The meat of the theological material is laid out particularly in two edicts— Senmyō #19, an edict in Old Japanese read on the twelfth day of the seventh month, and a Chinese-language choku issued on the eighteenth day of the eighth month. On the first occasion Kōken Tennō summoned not only the high offi- cials (fifth rank and up) who were normally the audience for edicts, but also the village heads and local officials from the capital region to the grounds of the Heijō Palace. The following edict was read to the multitude: 228 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37/2 (2010) Let the words of the Manifest Deity, the Child and Imperial Lord of Yamato, ruling the Great Land of the Eight Islands, be proclaimed, and let all pay heed—all the Imperial Princes, Princes, the Hereditary Lords, the Hundred Officials and Lesser Officials of All Under Heaven—let all give ear, thus I pro- claim. The Throne of Heavenly Sun Succession, established and ruled over by the Imperial Male and Female Ancestral Deities seated in the High Throne of Heaven has been attacked by evil and treacherous slaves seeking to wrest away the Succession by force. These evildoers—Kuna Tabure,7 Matohi,8 Naramaro, Komaro and others—leading a party of traitors sought to 1. surround the man- sion of the Naishō 内相 (Fujiwara Nakamaro) and kill him; 2. surround the palace of the crown prince (Ōi) and set him aside; 3. descend on the palace of the Empress Dowager and steal the bells, seals, and tokens; and 4. summon the Udaijin (Fujiwara Toyonari 豊成) and put the rulership into his hands. Next they planned to depose the Mikado 帝 (Kōken) and to put one of the four princes9 on the throne. On the night of the twenty-ninth of the sixth month, they met in the gar- den of the Dajōkan, drank salt water and swore an oath, and bowed to Heaven and Earth and the Four Directions, concluding their plot to raise troops and attack on the second day of the seventh month. On the afternoon of the second day, at the hour of the ram, Ono no Azumahito 小野東人 called upon the Gov- ernor of Bizen 備前, Officer of the Palace Guard Kamitsumichi no Hidatsu 上 道斐太都, and invited him to join the attack. Hidatsu dissembled, pretending to agree, but at the hour of the boar reported all the details to the court. Thus the conspirators were interrogated and all the details of Hidatsu’s report prov- ing to be true, the guilty were punished. Now according to the law all were guilty of high treason and deserved death. However, We in Our mercy lightened the sentence by one degree and merely changed the surnames of some or sentenced them to distant exile. That the filthy and detestable wretches have been swept away is indeed due to the compassion and protection of the kami of Heaven and Earth and the awesome and majestic mitama 御霊 of the Imperial Sovereigns who have ruled since the Creation. Further is this due to the incredible power of the Rushana Nyorai 盧 遮那如来, Kanzeon Bosatsu 観世音菩薩, and the protectors of the law—Brahma 梵王, Indra 帝釈, and the Four Great Heavenly Kings. Thus the plotters have all been completely punished. These are the divine words of the Emperor who reigns and pronounces even as a god—let all hear these words, I the herald proclaim. ( sn 3, 214–17) 7. Prince Kibumi’s 黄文王 name was changed to Tabure 多夫礼 (“filthy,” “wicked”), and he was given the surname Kuna 久奈 before he was executed. 8. Prince Funado’s name was changed to Matohi 麻度比 (“foolish”) before he was executed. 9. Shioyaki, Asukabe 安宿, Kibumi, and Funado. bender: changing the calendar | 229 Divine Protection by the Imperial Ancestral Kami The theme of the senmyō is divine protection of the state both by the native kami and Buddhist deities, in whose number have been assimilated the Hindu gods Brahma and Indra and the Deva Kings of the Four Directions (shitennō 四天王). In Shoku Nihongi the edicts, both those in Old Japanese and those in Chinese, provide some of the best articulations of royal theology and as a result portions of a number of them have been translated into English. Those concerning Bud- dhism and its relation to the kami religion are probably the best known; one is reminded of the famous edicts of Emperor Shōmu concerning the construction of the Tōdaiji Daibutsu, or Shōtoku Tennō’s edicts explaining her elevation of the Buddhist priest Dōkyō to supreme political office.10 Edicts with a more spe- cifically Chinese flavor have also been translated and commented on as Western scholars have emphasized the Confucian aspects of Nara ideology (Holcombe 1999; McMullen 1996). This senmyō employs one of the lengthier florid and archaic-sounding pref- aces which are thought to characterize the Old Japanese edicts, even though only about a third of the senmyō exhibit this distinctive phraseology. George Sansom’s pioneering but unfinished translation of the senmyō rendered akitsukami 明神 as “Manifest Deity”; ama no hitsugi 天日嗣 as “Throne of Heavenly Sun Succession”; and ama no takamikura 天高御座 as “High Throne of Heaven” (Sansom 1924, 7–12). Other phrases here are more unusual in the senmyō prefaces: yamato neko 倭根子, which Sansom ignores but Zachert (1950, 95), translates as “Das Liebe Kind von Yamato,” and sumera ga mutsu kamurogi kamuromi no mikoto 皇親 神魯岐神魯彌命 (“Imperial Ancestral Male and Female Deities”) which appears in only four of the edicts. Although the ritsuryō, fragments of which were col- lected in the ninth century ryō no shuge 令集解 and ryō no gige 令義解, specified that these senmyō prefaces be reserved for such extraordinary occasions as the designation of a crown prince or the accession of an emperor, it has long been realized that in fact the Shoku Nihongi edicts follow no such pattern in actual usage. Elsewhere I have argued that the pattern of usage (or the absence) of such language reflected the theological struggles at Shōtoku’s court to discover an acceptable balance between native and imported Buddhist beliefs.11 Before looking briefly at some of these phrases, I would like to raise the ques- tion of whether this language may be characterized in general terms as “Shinto” language. In 1981 an influential article by Kuroda Toshio appeared in the Jour- nal of Japanese Studies asserting that the term “Shinto” was useless or misleading for early periods and that the entity which we thus identify “did not exist as an 10. See inter alia De Bary et al. 2001, 114–20; Piggott 1997, 267–68. 11. See Inoue 1976, 365–69; Kurano 1936, 137–38; Bender 1979, 149–51. 230 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37/2 (2010) independent religion” before [early] modern times. Kuroda discussed critically its three appearances in Nihon Shoki, and certainly the term was not used generally in ancient Japan—a quick count shows only eight citations in the Rikkokushi 六国 史.12 Since then Western scholars have been rather wary of using the term, instead speaking of “kami worship” or “native cult.” However, John Breen and Mark Teeuwen argued forcefully for the utility of the word in the introduction to their Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami (2000, 4–7), concluding “If we accept Kuroda’s argument in its most extreme form, and adopt his stance that there was no distinct “Shinto” tradition of thought during the premodern period, we render ourselves unable either to explain the process of amalgamation that dominated premodern Japanese religion, or to see the Shinto tradition that rose to prominence in the Edo and modern periods in its proper historical context.”13 In this light, I would assert that the peculiar Old Japanese terminology of the senmyō prefaces is indeed a type of proto-Shinto language, embodying along with the accounts of the Age of the Gods in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki the nascent concepts of the native kami cult. While detailed etymological inquiry is beyond the scope of this paper, I would like to examine briefly some of the key terms in the preface to Senmyō #19. The edict begins Akitsumikami to ohoyashima shirashimesu yamato neko sum- era ga ohomikoto rama to noritamafu ohomikoto 明神大八洲所和倭根子天皇大命 良麻止宣大命 (Let the words of the Manifest Deity, the Child and Imperial Lord of Yamato, ruling the Great Land of the Eight Islands, be proclaimed… ) (sn 3, 214–5). In his commentary on Senmyō #1, which employs the same language, Motoori Norinaga explains akitsumikami as the god who is visible or “manifest” in this world ruling all under heaven—hence the emperor. He likens it to the usage arahitokami 現人神 in the chronicles of Emperors Keikō 景行 and Yūryaku 雄略 (mnz 7, 196). In a recent discussion Herman Ooms (2008, 69–70) argues that both arahitokami and akitsumikami have distinct Chinese antecedents, the former as a Buddhist term for “avatar” and the latter with Daoist notions of the “perfected man.” Ohoyashima, the Great Land of Eight Islands, is an epithet for Japan com- mon in Kojiki, and shirashimesu is “to rule.” Norinaga glosses the characters 天 皇大命 as sumera ga ohomikoto, again meaning the emperor—literally “heavenly sovereign and great lord.” The second occurrence of ohomikoto here refers rather to the words of the sovereign. Usage of such phraseology is not confined to the senmyō, being also common in the Man’yōshū 万葉集. Man’yōshū texts com- monly gloss the characters 天皇 as sumeroki, which is also given as the reading 12. Teeuwen (2002, 236–45) provides a detailed analysis of some of these citations. 13. For an elaboration of this argument, see also Teeuwen and Scheid 2002, and Teeuwen 2002. My use of “proto-Shinto” below is merely a suggestion, on the analogy of historical linguis- tics, for example “proto-Indo-European.” bender: changing the calendar | 231 for 皇神祖 or 皇祖, with the meaning of “imperial ancestor.”14 Saeki Umetomo points out the association of Ōkimi 大君 with sumerogi in Man’yōshū poetry, referring to among others Man’yōshū 18:4098 which begins Takamikura ama no hitsugi to ame no shita shirashimeshikeru sumeroki no kami no mikoto… (Saeki 1954, 62–5). Kaneko Yoshimitsu discusses the same poem with reference to the senmyō, as demonstrating the broad similarities in the nativist theology shared across Old Japanese literature inherent in terms relating to the position of the emperor and the succession (Kaneko 1987, 117–20). Norinaga does not give an explanation for yamato neko, but the term com- monly forms a part of the emperor’s title in Nihon shoki as far back as the seventh emperor, Kōrei 孝霊. As we have seen, Zachert translates it as “das Liebe Kind von Yamato”; Maruyama’s Jōdaigo jiten 上代語辞典 (1967, 1023) assigns the parti- cle ne the function of an honorific. Herman Ooms translates neko as “root child,” and makes much of the fact that the term comprised a part of the name of some emperors. Although he does not discuss the language of the senmyō, he contrasts these imperial names to those bearing the component ame 天, arguing that the concept of “root child,” signifying an earthly deity as opposed to the heavenly deities, was an important component of Yamato mythology (Ooms 2008, 45). It should be emphasized that the etymology of these and other Old Japanese words is far from certain. Alexander Vovin notes that “WOJ sumērökī or sumēra is a mysterious word.… The meaning of sumē is unclear, at least there seems to be no internal Japanese etymology” (Vovin 2009, 137–38). On neko, he comments “I am not exactly happy with Ooms ‘root child’ for neko, but I must confess that anything else takes us even more far afield, and this something else looks grossly unsubstantiated like Zachert’s ‘Das Liebe Kind’” (Vovin, personal communica- tion, 1 July 2010.) The Jidaibetsu kokugo daijiten has no entry for “neko.” The doctrine of imperial legitimacy is most clearly stated in the lengthy locu- tion Takama no hara ni kamuzumarimasu sumera ga mutsu kamuroki kamuromi no mikoto no sadametamahikeru amatsu hitsugi takamikura no tsugite 高天原 神積坐須皇親神魯岐神魯彌命乃定賜来流天日嗣高御座次乎 (The High Throne of Heavenly Sun Succession, established and ruled over by the Imperial Male and Female Ancestral Deities seated in the High Plain of Heaven…) (sn 3, 214–15). Norinaga comments that this is the throne established by Amaterasu Ōmikami 天照大御神 and Takamimisuhi no mikoto 高御産巣日命, with the command that Amaterasu’s descendants should reign in the central land of Toyoashi- hara 豊葦原 (mnz 7, 318). A special point of interest here is the phrase kamuroki kamuromi no mikoto. As noted above, this unusual expression occurs only four times in the senmyō. Norinaga states that it may refer explicitly to Izanagi 伊 14. See, for example, Man’yōshū 1.0029; 3.0322; 3.0443. 232 | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37/2 (2010) 邪那岐 and Izanami 伊邪那美, or perhaps to all the male and female imperial ancestral deities down to Amaterasu Ōmikami (mnz 7, 100). Toward the end of the edict the theory of divine protection by the kami is explicitly stated: “That the filthy and detestable wretches have been swept away is indeed due to the compassion and protection of the kami of Heaven and Earth and the awesome and majestic mitama of the Imperial Sovereigns who have ruled since the Creation.” Together with the preamble, the edict articulates the doctrine of the divine legitimacy of the imperial throne, established by the imperial ances- tral kami, and also the protection of the succession to that throne by the spirits of those kami who have watched over the throne since the beginning of time. Divine Protection by Buddhist and Hindu Deities Divine protection by Buddhist and assimilated Hindu deities is a minor motif in this edict, comprising just a line after the theme of imperial legitimacy and protection by native kami has been sounded—“Further is this due to the incred- ible power of the Rushana Nyorai, Kanzeon Bosatsu, and the Protectors of the Law—Brahma, Indra, and the Four Great Heavenly Kings.” During the reign of Kōken Tennō and her reaccession as Shōtoku, the struggle to find an acceptable balance of nativist and Buddhist royal theologies would become a major intel- lectual undertaking at court, but in this response to the Tachibana Naramaro threat the former predominates. The Buddhist doctrine of divine protection of the state (gokoku shisō 護国思想) was of course a major emphasis in the sutras popular at the Nara court. The three sutras Konkōmyōkyō 金光明経 (Suvarṇa- prabhāsa sūtra), Ninnōkyō 仁王経 (*Kāruṇika-rāja sūtra) and Hokkekyō 法華経 (Saddharma-puṇḍarīka sūtra) were characterized as the “Three Sutras for the Protection of the State,” granting various Buddhas’ protection especially to kings and nations which revered the Dharma, and the provincial temples established by Emperor Shōmu were named after the first of the three. In reaction to the Tachi- bana Naramaro conspiracy, however, although a special reading of the Ninnōkyō was held at the palace on the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month (sn 3, 218– 19), a different amalgam of deities and sutras was appealed to. Rushana Nyorai was of course the Buddha enshrined at Tōdaiji as the Daibutsu. Descriptions of this cosmic Buddha are found both in the Kegon 華厳経 (Avataṃsaka sūtra) and Bonmō 梵綱経 (*Brahmājāla sūtra) sutras which were in vogue at the time. The latter sutra, focusing on the initiatory Bodhisattiva vows, was apparently seen as a companion to the immense Kegon sutra, although its depiction of the cosmic Buddha Rushana is just as vivid as that of the more frequently-cited Kegon.15 15. On the Bonmōkyō see Elisséeff 1936, and for a translation Batchelor 2004. The Avataṃsaka sūtra has been translated by Cleary 1993. Bowring (2005, 85) comments on the relationship of the two in Nara Japan.