Saimon Recitations: Two Examples from Oku Mikawa

Saimon are recitations read as part of Onmyōdō or Shugendo rituals. They are of particular interest because of their contents are not based on canonical Buddhist or Shinto lore but rather on sources of yin-yang divination like the fourteenth-century Hoki naiden. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, saimon became a central feature of village ritual, both in collective village festivals and in household rites, and as such, they reached the ears of many. This article offers annotated translations of two saimon that were used by village ritualists (tayū, negi) in small mountain settlements in Oku Mikawa (Aichi Prefecture). These translations are based on manuscripts from tayū archives and date from the seventeenth century. A textual analysis demonstrates that while these two saimon tell the stories of different deities, they display a number of shared motifs and traits. I argue that these commonalities reflect the continued relevance and performance of saimon in Oku Mikawa and confound attempts to draw clear historical boundaries between “medieval” and “early modern” religion.