SOURCE: “Tragedy and Salvation in the Floating World: Chikamatsu's Double Suicide Drama as Millenarian Discourse,” in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 53, No. 2, 1994, pp. 367-93.

[In this essay, Heine distinguishes love suicide (shinju) from other forms of suicide in Japanese culture, in order to consider its significance in Confucian and Buddhist frameworks. Heine argues that understanding the theological context of love suicides is crucial to recognizing the potential social power of Chikamatsu's double suicide dramas.]

Farewell to this world, and to the night farewell.
We who walk the road to death, to what should we be likened?
To the frost by the road that leads to the graveyard,
Vanishing with each step we take ahead:
How sad is this dream within a dream!

Chikamatsu, Sonezaki Shinjū (Love Suicides at Sonezaki)

SIGNIFICANCE OF DOUBLE SUICIDE

A distinctive feature of Japanese society is its apparent eagerness to embrace various forms of voluntary death or suicide as legitimate, even positive, behavior with a potentially redemptive value. These forms include the samurai's ritualistic disembowelment (seppuku or harakiri), remonstration suicide (kanshi) in protest against a corrupt superior, and suicide out of devotion to a lord or superior (junshi), all of which are surrounded by “a heroic, romantic, aesthetic, and moral aura” (Lebra 1976:190). Suicide is, of course, an extraordinary act in Japan as elsewhere in the world (Lifton 1979:24). Though it is not common, it is widely revered by Japanese if committed on the basis of authentic moral intentions in relation to societal pressure—that is, to exorcise shame (haji) and to highlight honor, dignity, and integrity. In a culture that esteems the tragic hero who embodies the “nobility of failure” (Morris 1975), and which regards voluntary death as an experiential transcendence for participants and observers alike, perhaps the most extreme and intriguing example of taking one's own life is the double suicide or love suicide (shinjū).

The several varieties of shinjū include examples of coercion when one party facing an unavoidable death forces the other, probably unwillingly, to die with him or her, and suicide involving a group of more than two persons, such as a family (ikka shinjū). But the classic meaning of the term is immortalized in the domestic dramas (sewamono) of Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725), particularly his first play dealing with this theme, Sonezaki Shinjū (Love Suicides at Sonezaki, 1703), and his masterpiece nearly two decades later, Shinjū ten no Amijima (Love Suicides at Amijima, 1721). In these dramas, shinjū refers to two parties willingly and deliberately choosing suicide to extricate themselves from a miserable and oppressive situation and represents the final consummation yet fundamental hopelessness of their love.

This article will examine the relation between ethical conflicts involving Confucian principles and soteriological claims based on Amida Buddhist theology in the double suicide or love suicide (shinjū) dramas of Chikamatsu. Like most other forms of voluntary death, double suicide gained acceptability and prominence in the Tokugawa era (although suicide based on religion or love dates back to the Heian era), particularly the Genroku period, and it must be seen in terms of the class system and moral customs of the day. The general pattern involved a member of the underclass—an aspiring townsman (chōnin) or merchant, or a leaderless samurai (rōnin)—who, while seeking gratification in the opulent though transitory pleasure quarters of the “floating world” (ukiyo), gravely jeopardized his social standing out of love for a courtesan. This love could never be legitimately fulfilled since the townsman was uanble to buy out the courtesan's contract as he had already squandered his fortune in the ukiyo. In Chikamatsu's works, double suicide is often portrayed as the tragic outcome of the conflict between the hero's social duty (giri), or network of responsibilities and obligations to his wife, family, and class, and his all-too-human passion (ninjō) for his lover. Shinjū is based on a pact between lovers trapped in a web of such intense turmoil they have no recourse save the ultimate destructive act. Chikamatsu's main characters often do not at first appear “heroic” in the classic sense because they are of lowly status—most are orphans or low-level courtesans who have been forced outside of the family unit (ka). Yet they are dignified and redeemed by the final act of courage that purifies their past sins as well as the promise based on Amidist theology of a perfect, eternal union with their lover in the hereafter. This hope, attained through nembutsu recitation, is eloquently conveyed in the concluding michiyuki (lovers' journey) sequence of Sonezaki Shinjū when Tokubei tells his lover, Ohatsu, on the way to their death, “Let's pretend the Umeda Bridge / Is the bridge the magpies built [a reference to legendary celestial lovers] / Across the Milky Way, and make a vow / To be husband and wife stars forever” (Keene 1961a:54).

Chikamatsu's numerous shinjū plays were generally based on actual incidents and they “so captivated the popular imagination that [they] were banned” (Hibbett 1979:27) for a period in 1722 by the shōgunate, which must have considered them subversive for supporting an action that was an implicit protest on behalf of social outcasts against the hierarchical status quo. Gunji Masakatsu notes that the bakufu tried to suppress suicide with “new regulations [that] insisted on the label aitaijini (death by accomplice) and prohibited the burial of the corpses of lovers” (Gunji 1990:203). Despite the popularity and apparent subversive quality of the plays in their day, modern critics often question the effectiveness and cogency of the claims for Pure Land redemption. If the situation is so hopeless and without recourse to any earthly solution, is it reasonable or believable that the lovers attain salvation at the time they have taken their own lives? Most interpretations by Western scholars based on traditional Japanese commentaries, including those by Donald Keene, Donald Shively, Howard Hibbett and George Sansom, seem to draw a misleading conclusion concerning the role of shinjū by stressing the Confucian-oriented social struggle between duty and passion as the paramount perspective. Their main debate concerns which aspect has priority: either giri, in terms of the inescapable tragic fate awaiting those who shirk their social obligations; or ninjō, since the lovers choose death out of devotion to each other over their mundane responsibilities.

While admiring Chikamatsu's literary skills in evoking the Buddhist themes of the frailty and impermanence of all levels of happiness as reinforcing the tragic quality of the heroes' plight, many interpreters tend to see Pure Land soteriology functioning as a kind of deus ex machina device, or even as an afterthought that does not contribute greatly to the overall dramatic development. They have questioned whether the conclusion of the plays is “far-fetched” and even a “mockery” of genuine Buddhist principles (Shively 1953). In Circles of Fantasy and other works, C. A. Gerstle does an outstanding job of introducing to English readers recent works by Japanese scholars exploring the folk Buddhist images and symbols pervasive in Chikamatsu's plays. Yet he, too, seems to support the duty vs. passion debate in stressing the role of ninjō in determining the final outcome of Amijima by arguing, “At the end of Chikamatsu's play two people … choose to die for a noble love which transcends the physical” (Gerstle 1986:152). However, it is important not to view shinjū as an offshoot of other types of suicide, or to see it in terms of the values and motives represented by seppuku, as if these were common forms of voluntary death, with the former representing a lower—merchant—class version of the latter experienced by the privileged samurai and supported by their bushidō code of honor. There are affinities between seppuku and shinjū, which both have roots in late Heian/early Kamakura religious and social practices. But by stressing the importance of Pure Land redemption inspiring the characters' intentions to sacrifice their lives, it is possible to see how shinjū often functions as a form of protest by a marginalized faction against the mainstream samurai values of hierarchical loyalty and duty that underlie seppuku. As Gerstle emphasizes, “Love suicide is only for the outcasts of society with no place of refuge” (p. 115).

This article thus seeks to add a layer of interpretation to the conventional view of ninjō vs. giri, which interprets the Amidist hope concluding shinjū drama as parasitic on social, psychological, and literary levels of interpretation. My argument is that an important key to understanding shinjū literature, as well as the powerful reaction it caused in the audience and government, is to see the soteriological expectations motivating the suicides as crucial to the entire drama by interpreting the claim for salvation as an example of millenarism. The term “millenarism” is an open-ended category encompassing a wide variety of phenomena involving a messianic hope for overcoming seemingly insurmountable social obstacles. From a survey of how these phenomena function in both a Japanese and a Western setting (Davis 1984, Ellwood 1984, Nattier 1988, Talmon 1968, Wilson 1982, Worsley 1968), it is clear that all forms of millenarism invariably concern the anticipation of a new order in mythical time (an Endzeit or millennium)—arriving either now or later, in this world or the other—by parties who have become cut off from the power-structure of their society. As Tetsuo Najita makes clear in Visions of Virtue in Tokugawa Japan, Tokugawa merchants were becoming increasingly conscious, and to a large extent successful, in realizing their wish to participate in the mainstream, or at least to define social values in their own terms, as in Osaka's Kaitokudō Academy. But for unsuccessful merchants who felt frustration and despair in sensing the impossibility of such participation, the need for the advency of a mythical eternity was precipitated by extreme, self-destructive behavior dramatizing the hopelessness of people who can only be saved by divine intervention.

That is, millenarism is about being conscious of powerlessness, in particular, an awareness of the implications in the loss of secular power based on money and social identity and the attempt of those who are alienated to claim an ultimate, eternal source of power that undermines or turns topsy-turvey the values of the mainstream social structure reinforced by orthodox theology. In the case of Chikamatsu's shinjū dramas, the characters are social misfits who are unsuccessful in the world of merchants, which is looked down upon by the samurai class, and who are further humiliated and disgraced by the loss of meaningful relations (en) that subjects them to the rejection and ridicule of their family and peers. Their fates hang precariously in the balance between sin and redemption, hell and heaven, against the background of the floating world, which functions not so much as an actual place as a conceptual arena that represents a form of decadence, corruption, and most of all, estrangement that stands in polarity with the mainstream. The floating world can be understood as an “anti-structure” in Victor Turner's terminology, or as a reflection of the epistemological “fault line” opened up within the Tokugawa era that often strove to maintain uniformity according to H. D. Harootunian's Foucaultian interpretation. However, the characters who are rejected by the mainstream structure based on giri are also unable to succeed in the anti-structure based on ninjō. The promise of other-worldly salvation as the only possible resolution of their conflict results in the choice of sudden death that is inevitable from the early moments of the plays. The dramatic effect comes from anticipating, not the ending, which is foreshadowed from the outset, but the questions of where and when it will take place.

A millenarian interpretation begins by considering the extent to which folk Buddhist imagery pervades the literary structure and syntax of the plays. As Gerstle's highly original interpretation demonstrates by drawing on studies by Suwa Haruo, Gunji Masakatsu, Yuda Yoshio, and Yokoyama Tadashi, there are profound correspondences between the lovers' journey and yamabushi pilgrimages, the image of six bridges in the final flight in Amijima and the notion of migrating through the six realms (rokudō) of samsara, and the sense of rhythm in the dramatic sequence of the journey and folk ritual chants. Moreover, it seems clear that Chikamatsu has drawn from a wealth of medieval Amidist doctrines and motifs that have millenarian implications. These include several themes dealing explicitly with death, such as how suicide was committed to speed up rebirth in the Pure Land based on the sanctioning of voluntary death as a superior form of sacrifice in Chapter 23 of the Lotus Sūtra and as recorded in late-Heian Ōjōden literature; the popularity of deathbed or last-thought conversions as well as Shinran's demythologized interpretation of Amida's “coming to welcome” (raigō) the converted; the idea of transcending purgatory associated with bodhisattva miracles performed in the course of the rokudō; and the hope for single-lotus rebirth by the souls of two people who have struggled together in life, as expressed, for instance, in the Noh play Atsumori. In addition, Chikamatsu appears to support the efficacy of the Amidist philosophy of eternal time as the key to salvation for the disenfranchised, as exemplified by the tradition of itinerant hijiri priests who broke off from and challenged the mainstream Tendai clergy in the Kamakura era by practicing the nembutsu. This commitment to Buddhist soteriology for outcasts stands in contrast to Shinto rituals and deities whose jurisdiction over localized spaces is portrayed in Amijima as serving as a protection for prosperous merchants (Keene 1961a:186).

Some of the Amidist imagery is evoked by Chikamatsu in a direct manner, such as a reference to the 108 beads of the rosary and the chanting of nembutsu during the final journey, which in Amijima, as Suwa (1980) points out, takes place at the time of the Buddhist Ten Nights festival (Keene 1961a:187). Yet, much of the significance of Amidism is conveyed in a subtle or indirect way involving the overall structure of the plays. For example, the dramatic action of Amijima begins in the ninjō realm of the floating world, moves in Act Two to the giri world of family, then returns to the ukiyo and finally leads out of that realm through the michiyuki to death at dawn, symbolic of awakening to Amida, at the gates of the Buddhist temple. The play culminates in the martyrdom of Koharu, who redeems outcasts by showing that one who lives beneath the basement, so to speak, can ultimately rise above mainstream society. Koharu, expecting to actually become a Buddha once she reaches the Pure Land during the Ten Nights, hopes to be seen as a goddess who “can save living creatures at will when once I mount a lotus calyx in Paradise and become a Buddha, [and wants to] protect women of my profession, so that never again will there be love suicides” (p. 203). While commenting on the unattainability of this prayer still reflecting a degree of worldly attachment, the Narrator affirms that it “touchingly reveals her heart.”

Therefore, a millenarian interpretation clarifies the relation between Confucian ethics and Buddhist soteriology by explaining the conjunction of the ukiyo as anti-structure and the nembutsu as a transcendental resolution for outcasts in Tokugawa society and a justification for the salvation attained through tragedy of fallen townsmen and their lovers. From the millenarian standpoint, the key issue is not a matter of asserting the priority of ninjō over giri, or vice versa, but of seeing how Amidism seeks to overcome this finite polarity; that is, the issue is a matter of ninjō/giri vs. a transcendent Amidist option that relativizes and surpasses both finite realms. The fact that rich merchants and high-class courtesans did not commit suicide, at least in drama, supports the argument. It is important to note, for example, that in Chikamatsu's Yari no Gonza (Gonza the Lancer, 1717), the samurai hero and his partner, Osai, the wife of the tea master, Ichinoshin, refrain from committing suicide and are killed in pitiful fashion by the avenging lord without a hope for attaining Pure Land redemption.¹ While double suicide plays a unique role of protest in the context of Tokugawa caste and authoritarianism, this interpretation also highlights the importance of millenarism in other periods in the history of Japanese religiosity in opposing an oppressive social order. Whereas the major religions of Japan operating on the level of “great tradition”—whether Buddhist, Shinto, or Confucian—often vied with one another for imperial patronage and the role of protector of the state, millenarism functioned on the level of “little tradition” based on shamanistic folk elements of belief and practice. Millenarism has been an undercurrent attitude or trend not necessarily aligned with a specific religion or ideology. When it has surfaced at times of social crisis or transition, it might be associated with any of the traditions to challenge the mainstream by generating expectations of a supernatural reward for earthly travails. In the case of shinjū drama, millenarism took the form of Pure Land pietism and folk Buddhist pilgrimage reacting against the discourses of Confucianism as the samurai orthodoxy and of Shinto as the nativist ideology of the successful merchant class.

LEVELS OF INTERPRETATION OF CHIKAMATSU

To establish the grounds for a millenarian interpretation, it is necessary to review critically the conventional interpretations of double-suicide literature. Because of the complex interconnection of social, psychological, literary, and religious factors combining Confucian as well as various Buddhist perspectives expressed in Chikamatsu's drama, the shinjū plays are usually interpreted in terms of several levels of significance. I shall examine each level and show how they collectively build up to support the millenarian discourse that emerges as a natural outgrowth—rather than simply standing opposed to or in conflict with—the other levels. The limitation in a primarily Confucian-oriented interpretation is that it fails to distinguish between the aspirations of successful merchants and the disillusionment of the outcast townsmen Chikamatsu portrays, who fail in both the mainstream and the floating world. The link between the Confucian and Buddhist standpoints concerns the relation between giri and karma as views of moral causality and retribution that at once present obstacles and set the stage for redemption.

The first main level in conventional interpretations focuses on the ethical dilemma concerning the Confucian value of giri in relation to human passion that stems directly from the hopes and frustrations of the emerging Tokugawa merchant class. While developing rapidly in economic terms, the merchants were yet to participate in power and prestige in the samurai-dominated Tokugawa society, which officially gave preference to impoverished farmers who worked the land over those whose livelihood was based on the exchange of currency. Despite the remarkable success of mercantilism, the townsmen had no legitimate access to the means of socio-political power, which was geared to the ideology of the ruling class.

In their alienation, townsmen often turned to the extravagance and opulence found in the licensed quarters of the “dream-like floating world” (Shively 1955:328), which provided an avenue for self-expression as well as pursuit of the baser pleasures that was relatively free from impunity. On the one hand, the self-contained floating world—known as the “nightless town” (fuyajō)—became a perpetual anti-structure coexisting with the mainstream social structure in a way that represented the antithesis and rejection of the puritanical, Japanese-adapted Confucian values endorsed by the shōgunate. In turn, the shōgunate through sumptuary laws persistently tried to confine buoyant exhilaration and risque behavior to the pleasure districts. The theater, itself often the object of scorn because it “ran so blatantly counter to the social and moral principles espoused by the Tokugawa government,” seems to be engaged in a running ideological battle with the shōgun that Shively refers to as the “bakufu versus kabuki.” At the same time, the strict sense of hierarchical ranking and fastidious etiquette characteristic of courtesan society in both licensed and non-licensed quarters indicates that the floating world absorbed and inverted Confucian virtues. Double suicide expressed a desperate protest and ultimate escape from the rigid social constraints demanded by the bakufu. Yet the willingness of the lovers to die for a higher purpose also reflected the values of seppuku, or the idealization of voluntary death of the samurai code, which counseled that “Bushidō means the determined will to die” and “Every morning make up thy mind how to die” (Bellah 1957:57). Thus, the intentionality of the event of shinjū is still framed by a commitment to following the strictures of giri.

The second perspective in interpreting Chikamatsu deals with the psychological impact of the emotions of the lovers toward each other and, in Amijima, between Jihei and his deserted wife, Osan. What is the root of the passion that drives the lovers, particularly the hero, to abandon all earthly relations, including the newfound romance? Although giri and ninjō are generally seen as part of a fundamentally irreconcilable conflict with death as the only possible result, it is important to recognize that the emotional factor leading to double suicide involves both elements, since giri may also contain inner feelings. In his monograph dealing with Chikamatsu in light of Tokugawa society and literature, Giri to ninjō, Minamoto Ryōen distinguishes between polarized aspects of giri, including public and private as well as “coldhearted” (tsumetai) and “warmhearted” (atatakai) dimensions (Minamoto 1969:49). The coldhearted/public dimension of giri indicates duties, obligations, responsibilities, and loyalties inculcated and enforced by a variety of external factors ranging from peer pressure and tradition to the bakufu's edicts. It does not reflect inward feeling or subjective response, which, in fact, must be deliberately overlooked and suppressed. Rather, this type of giri “often is based on the fear of what people may think or is dictated by an awareness of obligations that have to be carried out, much though they go against natural feelings” (Keene 1984:122). Warmhearted giri, on the other hand, expresses an authentic natural human response of kindness, gratitude, or sympathy out of respect or affection for another person's attitude or behavior, even if that person seems to stand in the way of one's better interests. For example, in an ironic twist in Amijima, Jihei and Koharu genuinely admire Osan, who has dealt with them in a sympathetic rather than vindictive manner by making a secret plea to Koharu not to commit suicide in order to spare her husband's life. To show their warmhearted giri and to avoid embarrassing or disgracing Osan, the lovers agree to arrange their suicides so that “The time of our deaths will be the same, but the method and place will differ. In this way we can honor to the end our duty to Osan” (Keene 1961a:205).

Nevertheless, it is the intense passion of ninjō that compels the lovers to make the supreme sacrifice. Gerstle casts the opposition in terms of a Nietzschean view of Apollonian and Dionysian cultures by suggesting the translations of “reason” or conventionally correct behavior for giri and “desire” based on natural instinct for ninjō (Gerstle 1986:139). However, desire or passion in this context does not imply some irrational, unexplainable feeling that runs counter to all inhibitions. It is interesting to note that the term shinjū, which can suggest any pact requiring physical self-sacrifice (as of blood or a fingernail) between lovers, literally means “within” (jū or naka) the “heart” (shin or kokoro).² Unlike the terms for other kinds of suicide, shinjū refers not to death (shi) or a form of destructiveness (kiri) but to an emotional component of sincerity and compassion. Kokoro is etymologically and also sometimes philosophically related to the jō (or nasake) of ninjō. But while jō often suggests desire and attachment, an idea reinforced in the compound for “human (nin) feeling (jō),” kokoro in Japanese religion generally refers to a state of innocence or purity, as in Motoori's kokugaku notion of makogokoro (sincere heart) or in connections drawn in Buddhist philosophy between shō (true nature) and shin. Because in Chikamatsu's dramas the choice is made for apparently pure and sincere romantic feeling over social commitment, even of the warmhearted sort, shinjū is often seen as the “triumph” of ninjō over giri, although the author seems to suggest otherwise.³

The third area of significance involves the literary merit of the plays of Chikamatsu, who since the early Meiji period often has been referred to by Japanese as “our Shakespeare.” The comparison is apt in that the tragedies Chikamatsu depicts resemble the star-crossed-lovers theme of Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra. The main difference between the two playwrights is that whereas Shakespeare's tragic heroes and heroines are generally of noble birthright and/or personality and are victimized by fateful circumstances, Chikamatsu portrays townsmen who are flawed and petty and who for the most part bring ruin upon themselves (although both Jihei and Tokubei are betrayed and taunted by villainous merchants). The key to the success of Chikamatsu's writing is his skill in uplifting and ennobling these otherwise mundane, socially marginalized characters through several literary techniques. First, Chikamatsu's poetic eloquence rivals any in the vast and rich history of Japanese literature in evoking fragile evanescence, or inconstancy and suffering—“the dew of their unhappy lives”—as the ontological backdrop to the lovers' plight. In the conclusion of Sonezaki, for example, just before the passage on celestial lovers quoted above, the Narrator conveys the atmosphere of uncertainty and sorrow pervading the situation: “Farewell to this world, and to the night farewell. / We who walk the road to death, to what should we be likened? / To the frost by the road that leads to the graveyard, / Vanishing with each step we take ahead: / How sad (aware) is this dream within a dream!” (Keene 1961a:51).⁴

Perhaps the main literary device used to depict the transformation of the lovers is the michiyuki (literally, “traveling along a pathway”). Frequently appearing in Noh plays as well as earlier forms of literature in which it represents a densely textured lyricism with a web of associations from the Buddhist and literary traditions (Kaufman 1992:61), the michiyuki may be a theatrical throwback to mythical shamanistic and yamabushi pilgrimage motifs in which the adventure and austerity required by a journey to a remote sacred shrine is spiritually purifying (Blacker 1975:208-34). For Chikamatsu, the michiyuki sequence, according to Yokoyama, functions as a “compressed vision” or “compact retrospective summation” of the play as a whole that highlights the dramatic tension between the tragic inevitability of death and the hope for rebirth in the Pure Land (Gerstle 1986:121). One of the techniques that makes this sequence effective is the use of elaborate, extended wordplays, which recall the waka punning techniques of “relational words” (engo) and “intertextual allusiveness” (honkadori). For example, Jihei and Koharu are frightened in crossing Temma Bridge, which brings Jihei near his home, because the kanji literally mean “demon,” and they are inspired as they approach their destination as they cross over Kyō or “sutra” bridge to the higan or “other shore” of nirvana leading to the final Onari or “becoming [a Buddha]” bridge.

The literary dimension is connected to an aesthetic perspective on the meaning and value of dying, as suggested in Gunji's commentary (Gunji 1975:261ff). Japanese suicide is generally not an expression of the abhorrence of life but of a celebration of death as a grand possibility. From the standpoint of seppuku, the Zen philosophy of actualizing the absolute unity of life-and-death realized each moment is syncretized with the Confucian view of hierarchical loyalty and commitment to a communal cause that takes precedence over the individual. However, it is important to distinguish between seppuku, which affirms death based on the abandonment of any concern with the hereafter, and shinjū, which sees death as leading to an eternal, redemptive afterlife. Therefore, the literary-aesthetic significance of shinjū drama focusing on impermanence and death is also closely related to the religious dimension, that is, to the Buddhist quest for salvation, which in this kind of suicide stands in contrast to the Confucian-related ethics discussed in terms of the social perspective. Three main doctrines of Buddhism are crucial to the effectiveness of the michiyuki: (1) impermanence (mujō) and (2) moral causality (inga), which reflect the pan-Buddhist worldview underlying all of its doctrines of the great tradition, including Zen; and (3) the Amida recitation (nembutsu) specifically linked to the little tradition that is rooted, in turn, in numerous elements of pre-Buddhist shamanistic religiosity pervading Japanese millenarism. One of Chikamatsu's apparent aims is to show that the great and little traditions are consistent and compatible by highlighting how the folk dimension projects a vision of mythical eternal time that grows out of and yet supersedes the basic Buddhist notion of evanescence.

Impermanence and causality are always a major part of the fundamental Buddhist depiction of the world of suffering and transmigration. Chikamatsu poetically describes the traditional Buddhist theme, which has been found so alluring throughout the history of Japanese thought, of the uncertainty, frailty, and sorrow that characterize the conditioned world (see Nishida 1972). No one is free of the effects of the incessant flux—or the “winds of impermanence,” also symbolized by the fleeting images of dream, dew, lightning, echoes, and scattering blossoms—which invariably undercuts any sense of constancy or continuity with profound and unmitigated suffering. In addition, the decision to commit suicide is connected to what Chikamatsu depicts as a more or less popularized version of the law of karmic justice and retribution, which dictates that current behavior is morally a carryover from past karma which will, in turn, impact directly on the future lives of the characters even as it continues to be felt by others in this life. The michiyuki of Amijima begins with the Narrator's reference to the Karma Sūtra's law governing the characters' destiny, and the title of the play alludes to a passage in the Tao Te Ching referring to the breadth of “heaven's net” through which nothing slips. In both Sonezaki and Amijima, the main concern of the lovers just prior to their deaths is the effect of their action on family, especially wife, children, and parents, who are either left behind in this world or have already died. Any kindness left unrepaid or indebtedness unfulfilled has inevitable repercussions beyond the this-worldly concerns of giri, so that Tokubei declares, “It disgraces me to die without repaying [my parental uncle's] kindness. Instead, I shall cause him trouble which will last even after my death” (Keene 1961a:51). According to the standpoint of karma, the effect of one's actions on the network of relations continues throughout past, present, and future. For example, Koharu is told by Jihei's brother, disguised as a samurai, that she and her lover will end in hell and never become Buddhas. However, the wordplay on “net” (ami) of Amijima suggests the compassionate, saving net of Amida in addition to the impersonal, unforgiving karmic net, as well as the merciful promise of universal salvation in the Lotus Sūtra and the Mahayana Buddhist image of Indra's net as a symbol of timeless Buddhahood. Therefore, whether or not the family members have already died, the lovers are confident of greeting them eventually in the other world where all will enjoy the “bliss of nirvana.”

The portrayal of karma in relation to giri and mujō provides the necesary link between the intellectual levels of Confucianism and Buddhism, depicting the causes of tragedy, and the folk, millenarian elements of Pure Land pietism highlighting the claims for eternity. This connection sets up the fact that the most striking aspect of the michiyuki is the increasingly unshakable conviction shared by the lovers in the joy and redemption to be experienced in Amida's western paradise. This is felt despite—or rather, according to Amidist other-power (tariki) theology, because of—an equally growing recognition by the characters of their despair and deficiencies. The lovers as well as the Narrator believe that by prayer or worship (or by copying the Lotus Sūtra) they will be cleansed of sins, avoid the fate of hell and be saved by the net of Amida's compassionate vow to offer salvation even (or primarily) to the karma-stricken. The lovers are certain they will be delivered to a rebirth in an eternal marriage on the same lotus blossom. “What have we to grieve about?” Koharu rhetorically asks Jihei. “Though in this world we could not stay together, in the next and through each successive world to come until the end of time we shall be husband and wife” (p. 203). Another remarkable feature of the michiyuki, given the characters' weaknesses and sense of hopelessness, is the strength of their conviction that their own personal redemption is directly linked to the salvation of others. The lovers' assurance that they will simultaneously attain Buddhahood is considered to have benefits that extend to and help redeem all those who come in contact with them. People will hear of their story spread by the “winds of Sonezaki Wood” or “from mouth to mouth,” or by people “who will sing” and will be “moved to tears,” it is said, and “high and low alike [will] gather to pray for these … models of true love who beyond a doubt will in the future attain Buddhahood” (p. 56). Also, “believers and unbelievers will equally share in the divine grace” (p. 201).

THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF MILLENARIAN DISCOURSE

In light of the diverse and often conflicting elements, what is the underlying meaning and significance of millenarism and how does it apply to the sense of certainty felt by the lovers in Chikamatsu's shinjū plays? As noted, the conventional reading has drawn a basic distinction between two levels of interpretation, the social-Confucian and religious-Buddhist. It tends to emphasize the former and discredit the latter level by maintaining that the claim for salvation after the extreme nature of the dual tragedy comes across as forced and melodrmatic. Sansom argues, for example, “It is to be noted that there is no religious problem here. The governing motive is one of social ethics” (Sansom 1952:487, emphasis added). Shively criticizes the apparent lack of free will or genuine attainment in the kind of soteriology Chikamatsu evokes by arguing, “This salvation seems to work automatically … The characters do not seem to act on the basis of their own will or reason, but are led on by formulas … in the final analysis [the characters] are what they appear on the stage—puppets of [the author's] idealized ethic” (Shively 1953:41-42, italics added). Keene observes that traditional Japanese commentaries often discredit the soteriological claims in the michiyuki as a kind of afterthought or addendum to the suicides. Keene himself tends to give more credence to the religious or Buddhist motif of soteriology, although his presentation separates and compartmentalizes this aspect of the plays in relation to their social, ethical, and literary significance (Keene 1961a:26-37). He points out that Chikamatsu, who may have been of samurai background, had some strong anti-Buddhist (particularly anticlerical) leanings as expressed in Shinjū Mannensō (Love Suicides at the Women's Temple, 1710) (p. 36) and as indicated by the prayers recited by the minstral in the first act of Amijima. Keene concludes that Confucianism provides the key to affairs in this life while Buddhism is the basis for the next life. But he also expresses reservations about whether the intentions—the total despair and soteric aspiration—behind the acts of suicide are portrayed in a convincing enough manner to redeem the inalterably tragic ending. He argues, “In some of the plays the motivation is inadequate and the audience may be left wondering if the love suicides were really necessary” (Keene 1984:123, italics added).

The aim here, however, is to suggest that a millenarian interpretation provides a unified basis for understanding the relation between the various levels of significance by showing the inseparability of tragedy and salvation, and shinjū and nembutsu. There are three factors consistently evident in the worldview of millenarian movements: alienation from the source of power, as for the outcast heroes and heroines in Chikamatsu; unusual, extreme, and often self-destructive forms of behavior, as in the floating world as well as the suicidal act; and the image of mythical, eternal time as the solution for problems unsolvable if left in historical, sequential consciousness, which pertains to the Amidist millennium reached through the purgatorial journey of the michiyuki.

ALIENATION FROM POWER

First, the question of power must be stated in negative terms as an inherent lack of power experienced by a particular group that has become marginalized because the mainstream legitimates a set of values reflecting only its needs and excluding competition from other factions. The alienated group looks to compensate for its feelings of dissatisfaction and oppression, according to Kenelm Burridge, through “the adoption of new assumptions, a new redemptive process, a new politico-economic framework, a new mode of measuring the man, a new integrity, a new community: in short, a new man” (Burridge 1969:13).

The situation of marginalization seems to apply to the emerging but frustrated Genroku-period merchant class. The merchants were victimized by false hopes created by the attainment of unmistakable financial power that remained ever untranslatable into social, political, or ethical status. Despite tremendous economic gains often made at the expense of the indebted ruling class, who forsook the use of currency on principle, the townsmen were looked on with disdain as parasites lacking integrity and ideals. Bushidō ideologues such as Yamaga Sokō attacked townsmen for being concerned only with profit and self-aggrandizement rather than righteousness.⁵ As Maruyama Masao observes, “the [townsmen] were seen as living outside the ethical realm, supposedly devoid of all sense of public responsibility, pursuing only their personal economic interests. Naturally enough, politically they were held to be ‘rien’ (Abbe Sieyes)” (Maruyama 1974:329). And in terms of morality and social behavior, “[t]he government's attitude was that the townsmen were ‘stupid people’ (gumin) who had to be talked to like children” (Shively 1955:338), and regulated through legislation. The merchants lived in a precarious position, and their fortunes could be wiped out overnight. This was not only due to the vagaries of the marketplace. Disturbed, resentful, and suspicious of the rise of the merchants who were supposed to be at the bottom of the social ladder, but unable to develop a tax system to restrict the conspicuous signs of their growth, the shōgunate periodically tried to deal with the economic hold the merchants exerted over samurai by unilaterally nullifying all debts (Sheldon 1958:165).

In the floating world, much could be won but at the same time all could be lost in the social game townsmen played, which was for very high stakes revolving around the essence and fabric of identity. The key to winning and losing, glory and despair, triumph and tragedy, was simply Money. Wealth, which could buy as much pleasure as the heart desired, became the source of identity and the substitute for political power. But the loss of funds put one in double jeopardy, for it signified a failure to survive in the anti-structure in addition to an inherent inability to succeed in the establishment structure (Shively 1953:24). As portrayed by Chikamatsu, there were two levels of townsmen as to wealth: first, those who were financially successful in the world of giri and, like the villainous Kuheiji in Sonezaki and Tahei in Amijima, tried to flaunt their wealth in the floating world, even over samurai, and whose prestige suffered when they could not compete with the merchants on strictly economic terms; second, those, like Tokubei and Jihei, who were unsuccessful in the giri realm due to their dalliances and yet were unable to prevail in the floating world, largely because of their loss of money, where they were further victimized and betrayed by their haughty merchant peers. It is crucial to the development of Chikamatsu's drama that the hero's financial ruin precipitates the double suicides. For example, while Kuheiji shows off his valuable “new silver,” Tokubei complains early on that his “mind's been in a turmoil, and my finances in chaos” (Keene 1961a:41) because he cannot collect a debt from his deceitful friend.

However, much more is involved with the loss of money than economic status, for financial ruin precipitates a crisis concerning identity and social relations that is at once reflected in and yet beyond the implications in the ninjō-giri conflict. Thus, Jihei's brother, Magoemon, is mistaken when he declares, “No doubt money's the problem” (p. 179), while trying to persuade Koharu not to impulsively commit suicide. First of all, both Tokubei and Jihei are orphans, raised and still protected and provided for, and therefore controlled and judged, by their deceased parents' siblings, which leaves them especially vulnerable and without a safety network of supportive relations. Also, their courtesan lovers are in business primarily for their supervisor's profit, and they dare not consider marriage as their contracts cannot be bought out by their impoverished suitors. The basic problematic situation of the heroes and heroines must be understood in terms of the Japanese family system of arranged marriages whereby wives could still be considered the property of their father's household. Tokubei has been promised in marriage to the niece of his uncle/surrogate father, who is also his master/employer, and Tokubei's mother agrees on behalf of her son in order to get hold of the dowry. Tokubei gains back the money from his mother but fails to repay his uncle because Kuheiji refuses to pay back a loan, and then the deceitful friend publicly charges that Tokubei forged his seal while he boasts of his wealth openly in trying to win over Ohatsu (p. 50). It is also interesting to note the subtle but important point that Kuheiji plans to use the money he has apparently stolen to support a Shinto pilgrimage with his neighbors to Ise shrine (p. 44). The plays have several references to how the kami protect the interests of merchants (p. 186), setting up the contrast between Shinto and Buddhism, which is ridiculed by Tahei as nonsense gibberish no more substantive than the “shredded confetti” he has made of Jihei's fortune (p. 176).

In Amijima, unlike Sonezaki, the villain does not initially appear to succeed, for he is defeated in public by Jihei and his brother. But Tahei persists in a more insidious way to ruin Jihei's reputation by paying off Koharu's contract while letting people assume that Jihei has squandered more of his family's funds on this deed. Just when Jihei appears to have settled his troubles with his family, the rumor that he has bought Koharu begins to spread outside the confines of the floating world, and the suicides become necessary both to free his lover from the clutches of Tahei and to salvage his honor. Although Jihei's wife is willing to forgive him and even considers selling her wardrobe to buy out Koharu's contract, and his brother continues to offer support, his father-in-law, the stern, unforgiving husband of his aunt/surrogate mother, takes Osan away, leaving their children temporarily orphaned while Jihei returns to the floating world for the last time.

REDEFINING THE BASIS OF POWER

The second factor consistently evident in millenarism is behavior that appears unusual and extreme because it deliberately goes outside the norm with its rebellious, subversive edge. In cargo cults, antinomian behavior often takes the form of trance, possession, ecstatic dancing, etc., and sometimes leads to violent or inexplicable actions which become self-defeating and self-destructive, at least on the material level. For example, in the “caterpillar cult” of early Japan, “[p]eople threw away food and possessions, placing them by the side of the road and shouting, ‘The new riches are coming!’” (Ellwood 1984:222). And in the bakumatsu period, Ise pilgrims were known for spontaneously taking off on their journeys without a care as to carrying provisions or making arrangements for their return (Davis 1984). Of the three reasons for such an abandonment of conventional goods and concerns, the first two refer to the millenarian group's relation to society. First, violating norms helps establish the identity and solidarity of the newly forming membership that is defined by its alienation from mainstream values. As Worsley notes, “The energy liberated by breaking taboos which are considered particularly powerful—sexual, religious, and others—is strong enough to bind people together under the greatest difficulties and hardships” (Worsley 1968:250). Second, the rejection of the objects or mores the ruling class prizes shows a disregard for the definition of power upheld by the elite: the message in throwing away possessions and ideals is that these are not the way to true prestige or power. The third factor pertains to the means of bringing about the advent of the millennium. Objects no longer valued are abandoned as a kind of sacred exchange or sacrifice made to procure a benefit from a supernatural source of power. However, the idea that there is a trade-off of goods for spiritual power may not be sufficient to explain the kinds of excessive behavior typical of millenarism. The crucial point is that since “the majority of millenarian movements combine catastrophe and redemption” (Talmon 1968:353), the groups presume that a great decline or collapse must be experienced in the concrete, historical world prior to, and as a means of inviting and promoting, the final change that comes down from above. Millenarians must deliberately tempt fate or flirt with grave danger as a necessary preliminary stage demonstrating disdain for conventional values and the crossing over to a realm where the gift of eternal time can be received.

Thus, the millenarian belief helps transmute the roots of social alienation into a spiritual advantage by redefining power in one's own terms so as to overturn mainstream values. In the Tokugawa era, the floating world fulfilled the first two functions of violating taboos and flouting the mainstream, and shinjū must be understood in terms of how it and other related merchant discourses emerged out of or as responses to the floating world. With a “splendor [that] was by day like Paradise and by night like the Palace of the Dragon King,” the floating world created a perpetual carnival atmosphere populated by “townspeople [who] were debarred from public functions” (Sansom 1952:482), in addition to leaderless or unemployed samurai snubbed by their own class. Actors, artists, courtesans, and geishas entertained the rakes and dandies seeking sensual pleasures combined with a sense of etiquette and elegance. The floating world defied the status quo by at once scorning and yet reflecting its values in an inverted way. Whereas the ideal of the orthodoxy was “a life of austerity, temperance, constant self-discipline” (De Bary 1958:386) based on loyalty to hierarchical leadership, the pursuit in the floating world was for just the reverse: unlimited opulence, extravagance, and luxury. Money and style ruled, while austerity and frugality were ridiculed, and all who could flaunt this enjoyed an equally high status regardless of background. Although kabuki was tolerated by the shōgunate as a “necessary evil,” there were often attempts to ban it as a social affliction “because it disturbed the country, caused deterioration in various ways, and was the cause of calamities” (Shively 1955:329). Furthermore, many townsmen attending kabuki were willing to sacrifice not only possessions but the supreme value of orthodoxy—giri or duty and loyalty to wife and family—for the sake of total immersion in the rapture of sensuality. The act of shinjū, of course, takes the notion of self-sacrifice as a preparation for a special divine revelation and transformation to its ultimate conclusion.

The floating world functioned as an anti-structure well suited to Tokugawa history and ideology. In The Ritual Process, Victor Turner suggests that millenarism operates in a communitas setting in a way that parallels the process of liminality that is ritualistically experienced in the development of the individual. That is, millenarism is a communitas example of undergoing “a set of transitional qualities ‘betwixt and between’ defined states of culture” or “a limbo of statuslessness” (Turner 1969:107, 97) as part of a passage to a new level or a redefinition of the meaning of status. In some ways, Turner's approach is the converse of the interpretation of Chikamatsu offered here, which considers the plight and hopes of particular characters in a drama to be symbolic of their caste in relation to the Tokugawa power-structure. But the notion of liminality seems to be helpful in understanding the significance of the floating world as the conceptual arena whereby a group is avoiding or escaping from being defined by the mainstream culture. For chōnin and rōnin (lit. “wave-men”), the floating world was a liminal realm outside the definition of power, political and otherwise, established by the shōgunate, thus offering a new meaning of identity and redemption.

The importance of viewing ukiyo in terms of the “limbo of statuslessness” must be seen in light of the remarkable ability of the Tokugawa regime to establish and preserve “a comprehensive sixfold order … with the shōgun in its pivotal position” (Eliade 1986:531). This order was manifested politically (through centralized and local administrations), socially (the class system), legally (administrative and legislative principles and regulations), philosophically (Neo-Confucian sacrality of nation, family, and social hierarchy), religiously (the immanental theocracy of the Tokugawas), and morally (codes of conduct, including jinsei or benevolent rule in addition to giri and bushidō). For the shōgunate, order was not a means to some other political goal but the end in itself of a stable society. As Harootunian suggests, “Participants in few epochs in history have shown more consistency and resourcefulness in seeking to conceal conflict and the inevitable clash of claims to power than Japanese of the Tokugawa era” (Harootunian 1982:25). But as in any system, there were reactions and rebellions. According to Harootunian, the indirect or concealed conflicts were experienced in terms of “eruptions” of new discourses along an epistemological fault line of “geological” dimensions, which “made possible a multiplicity of meanings and cultural ambiguity [concerning power] where none existed before” (p. 26). In many ways, ukiyo existed right on the fault line, or was itself the line of disruption in the orthodoxy. Liminality always involves a profound sense of risk, adventure, and unpredictability as one moves into new, unmarked territory. In contrast to the bakufu's concern with order, the floating world represented ambiguity or dis-order as an end in itself, that is, holding oneself in the midst of the liminal dimension prior to generating a new self-definition. The floating world lying on the fault line of society, was concerned with play as opposed to work, or desire/passion in contrast to reason/order. It provided in a decisive, existential fashion an outlet and release for townsmen, and a way to actualize a new identity outside of—or by turning upside down—the class structure itself.

Maruyama contends that townsmen learned too quickly to adapt to the marginalized role assigned them by the establishment and—unlike peasant uprisings at the time of the bakumatsu—persisted in shying away from pursuing the political power necessary to change their status (Maruyama 1974:329-30). However, Maruyama's criticism of townsmen for seeking “petty satisfaction in ephemeral private freedom” presupposes the standpoint of the Confucian moral order that the floating world rejected. In an important contrast to this viewpoint, for instance, Najita demonstrates that in the thought produced by the Kaitokudō Academy, “Out of the very Confucianism which defined their lowly status, [merchants] sought a philosophy defining their own moral and practical worth” (Najita 1987:18). Indeed, the townsmen developed several new ideologies to redefine power in their own terms, including the formal religio-philosophical doctrines of kokugaku, mitogaku, shingaku, and even rangaku, in addition to the Kaitokudō. For example, Ishida Baigan, leader of the shingaku movement who was a farmer's son but became a merchant, likened a merchant's profits to a samurai's stipend (Bellah 1957:158). Also, while Maruyama mentions that the floating world was often referred to as the “indecent quarters” (akusho) by those who rejected it, it was also known, perhaps somewhat ironically, as “paradise” (gokuraku) by those who affirmed it. The two main discourses that emerged from the floating world were: the “culture of play” (gesaku) expressed in literary forms (ukiyo-zōshi) increasingly popular by the nineteenth century that romanticized the status of the ukiyo, and shinjū, which sought to transcend it. All of these discourses existed in competition with each other as well as the samurai values of the Confucian establishment. Although the merchant ideologies attempted to legitimate the nonorthodox by at once usurping and rejecting mainstream values, shinjū was perhaps the most radical antiestablishment form of townsmen discourse in the sense of distancing itself and making a statement against orthodoxy.

To situate the significance of the shinjū discourse, it is helpful to understand how the gesaku movement, “an expression of resistance and criticism, however modest its scale and impact” (Miyoshi 1989:151), was itself criticized, especially by the kokugaku. Kokugaku thinkers, Harootunian points out, “combatted” the way the gesaku tended to debase values into the carnivalesque and reduce poetry to the burlesque through an inordinate emphasis on wit and style rather than genuine elegance and refined aesthetics. They considered it a gross distortion, which might easily lure common folk into a life of idle revelry, that the gesaku “valorized sexual love over fertility and reproduction, and it designated drinking and eating as objects of pleasure rather than necessities to maintain collective work” (Harootunian 1988:172). The kokugaku arguments must be seen in light of their commitment to the priority of idealized traditional peasant values and fertility rituals, but they probably were correct in charging that the floating world was a valorization of play as a kind of ritual dance. Yet, as Martin Heidegger and Eugen Fink suggest, based on their reflections on Greek and mystical sources, purposeless play is not necessarily a problematic ideology but may constitute the answer to life's problems so long as it reflects a transcendental awareness, or a process of “ludization” (LaFleur 1983:54ff.). For the participants in the ukiyo, play may have served as a means of purification of the experience of liminality. Chikamatsu seems to make this point when he says that his writing stays on “the slender margin between the real and the unreal. It is unreal, and yet it is not unreal; it is real, and yet it is not real. Entertainment lies between the two” (de Bary 1958:439).

The approach of shinjū discourse is closer to the gesaku in rebelliously asserting the priority of the floating world over mainstream orthodoxy, but it also tends to concur with the kokugaku critique of a naïve or hedonistic affirmation of the pleasure quarters. To the extent that the floating world was a demimonde on the fringes of respectable society, or an antinomian sensual and sometimes sordid pursuit of pleasure without a spiritually uplifting sentiment, the discourse of double suicide must be set apart from the ukiyo to qualify as a genuine religious phenomenon. It also differs from the sacrificial attitude of seppuku, which requires loyalty and honor in a strictly hierarchical sense. The key to the religiousity that sacralizes the shinjū participation in the realm of the intense, all-consuming passion of the floating world lies in how the michiyuki reflects yamabushi self-sacrificing purgation and Amidist purifying chants. Both of these folk elements are rooted in traditional forms of shamanism that have always been a central factor in antiestablishment, millenarian movements in Japan. Talmon suggests that many millenarian movements are “predominantly restorative. Their aim is a revival and revitalization of the indigenous culture, and their view of the future is largely traditional” (Talmon 1968:349). The restorative outlook by no means excludes innovation but tries to develop new ideas within the context of the sources of the tradition that have been neglected by the current establishment and hold the key to the promise of reclaiming paradise.

From the standpoint of some of the main examples of Japanese millenarism, the source of restoration has been shamanistic ritual that manifests the beliefs of downtrodden folk, who have no recourse to political power to make concrete changes in the material realm, as a protest against a religious order and ideology imposed by the state. Millenarism may be associated with rural groups opposed to the urban elite, or, in this case, to townsmen in conflict with samurai. For example, the antiestablishment function of shamanism identified with Shinto opposing Buddhism is evident in early Japan in the caterpillar cult and in the prophecies and miracles associated with Gyōgi, the irregular, charismatic Buddhist priest known for his resistance to the ritsuryō government (Kitagawa 1988:209-10); both movements reflected a nativist resistance to the official imperial identification with institutional Buddhism. The impact of shamanistic folk piety is also evident in the development of the unofficial, counter-tradition in medieval Buddhism of the nembutsu-hijiri (wandering monks), whose syncretistic approach to Pure Land theology was influenced by yamabushi magico-religious rites and austerities practiced in sacred mountains. In the bakumatsu period, the Ise pilgrimages (eejanaika-mairi) and New Religions, with their claims of supernatural portents, oracular visions, and the efficacy of amulets, chants, and trance healing, reflected folk Shinto protests against the shōgunate's orthodoxy (Davis 1984).

The role of shamanism in kabuki, as in Noh, is apparent in several ways for “(t)hese theatrical arts have roots in the shaman who, possessed by a god, danced and gave oracles in trance. Such nonordinary behavior would itself be a sign of its divine character, and watchers would be struck with awe, believing they were consorting with a god” (Ellwood and Pilgrim 1989:110; Blacker 1975). It is said that Okuni, the originator of the kind of performance that developed into kabuki, probably had been an attendant at Izumo shrine. In her shows she used nembutsu-odori (ritual dance), a type of religious ecstaticism dating back to medieval Pure Land evangelism, though she brought out the sensual side of dance (Gunji 1959).⁶ Also, kabuki, like Noh, integrates several other kinds of ecstatic, visionary dance into its structure, including kagura (shrine worship) and dengaku (rice fertility performances). Further, Chikamatsu's jōruri (as well as Zeami's Noh plays such as Atsumori) frequently culminate in the hope for a single-lotus rebirth for lovers or for adversaries. This is attained through the recitation of the nembutsu, which has a magical efficacy in purifying sin, exorcising demons, and insuring a peaceful, eternal afterlife.

The symbolism of antiestablishment, ritual dance in relation to Amidist millenarian hope culminates in Amijima in the michiyuki at the end of the third act, which concludes the dialectical movement of the dramatic action and ethical conflicts between the ninjō/ukiyo and giri/bushidō realms in the first two acts and in the first scene of the third act (as Gerstle points out, this order is reversed in the first and second acts of Chikamatsu's Shinjū Kasane Isutzu [Love Suicides at the Sunken Well], 1707) (Gerstle 1986:120-21). The play opens in the floating world, which has a romantic atmosphere pervaded by love songs, yet also bears ominous signs as the autumn season reflects the despair felt by Koharu, whose name literally means “little spring” or “Indian summer.” Jihei's encounter with his brother, disguised as a samurai who helps him temporarily offset Kuheiji, brings him to a breaking point with his lover. This marks the beginning of a rapidly accelerating series of misunderstandings and acts of betrayal that lead to his loss of social relations and identity. In the second act, Jihei returns to his family and the giri world of responsibility. He tries to fulfill his duties to his wife, children, and in-laws but all of these people are taken away from him because of Kuheiji's deceit and the father-in-law's harsh judgment. When Jihei returns to the floating world late at night, it has become a dangerous place, with warnings of fire cried out by a heavy voice. As the lovers wind their way to death/salvation, the michiyuki moves away from the ukiyo toward the Buddhist temple, with each part of the landscape contributing to the sacred geography symbolic of migrating through the rokudō. For example, the six bridges Jihei and Koharu cross reflect their states of mind as they move from the purgatory of samsara toward the Buddhahood of nirvana. This demonstrates the yamabushi theme, as Gunji shows (1975:131-208; Gerstle 1986:122) that it is necessary to experience suffering in the realms of hell before acceding to redemption in paradise.

ENDZEIT AS THE RESOLUTION OF THE POWER CONFLICT

The third main element in millenarism is the belief in an Endzeit arriving as a new order that brings about a fundamental change replacing and/or redeeming the current social structure. Almost all religions argue in one way or another for the priority of the spiritual over the material, the eternal over the historical, and the ideal over the practical.⁷ The unique feature of millenarism is to view these distinctions not as representing a matter of preference for an abstract goal to be reached sometime in the future, but as an urgent, immediate crisis requiring divine intervention that takes place in a dramatic, once-and-for-all way. Despite differences in interpreting the how, when, and where of advency, millenarians tend to highlight the ever-widening gap between what cannot be changed by any means in the conventional world and expectations for total reformation in the realm of mythical time and space. That is, the more one fails and abandons hope for rectification in actual history, and looks forward to the breakdown of this domain, the greater the aspiration for a perfect and final resolution. In the history of Japanese religion, claims of a millennium have been popularized in Buddhist worship of Amida and Miroku and in folk beliefs in marebito, or “mysterious visitors” who arrive from a horizontally conceived spiritual realm in connection with fertility rites, as well as in yonaoshigami, or gods who will transform the world into paradise after a terrible catastrophe (Hirota 1989:xxx). Amidism, especially in association with the nembutsu, has shown both shamanistic and millenarian tendencies at least since the time of Kūya, the tenth century “hijiri of the marketplace” who practiced ecstatic dancing and was also known for public works projects and healings. Amidism has generally believed in the notion of the final Dharma (mappō) lasting ten thousand years when the fundamental decadence of people renders them incapable of saving themselves through their own efforts. However, salvation can come long before the end of the era even for those who lead a sinful life; “because of some meritorious deed such as hearing a single sermon on the Lotus Sūtra or reciting the nembutsu at death, [the sinners] do not suffer the consequences that their misdeeds might have brought on them” (p. xxvii). These good deeds could also include a noble suicide, according to Ōjōden literature. For a devout believer like Kūya, death “was attended by miraculous fragrances and music from the skies, indicating that Amida had come to receive him” (Ueda and Hirota 1989:261). But in Shinran's interpretation of Pure Land, Amida's coming to welcome believers is demythologized so that it is not a futural event to be awaited at one's deathbed, but a momentary, here-and-now occurrence that signifies the “return to the eternal bliss of the city of Dharma-nature.”

In Chikamatsu, the loss of money becomes the final stripping away of any vestige of the heroes' claim to power, and symbolizes the total collapse and degradation of their personal and social identity. Among Japanese religions at the time of Confucian hegemony, Shinto revival, and the rapid diminishing of Buddhism's strength, it was Amidism that was able to touch base with the long-standing folk, millenarian impulse and thus provide the theology best suited to Tokubei, Jihei, and their lovers. Their experience of liminality has plunged them into a state of dis-grace, and the appeal of Amidist peitism is precisely to those who cannot by any means hope to save themselves. As Shinran laments after long self-reflection in which he determined that his ego was an obstacle to liberation that could never be overcome, “We are fools bottom deep in afflicting passion” with minds “like serpents and scorpions” and without “purity or truth.” Since all practice is “false” and “tainted with poison,” Shinran says, “hell is to be my home whatever I may do” (Abe 1992:179-85). Rebirth in the western paradise is not unattainable, but it is only to be reached through the vow of Amida Buddha to save those who have come to the point of acknowledging their bottomless deception and karma-strickenness. Amida's welcome occurs not in the future, but at the precise present moment of transformation as Buddha's grace awakens the nembutsu in the faithful heart of the newly found believer. At that instant, one “boards the ship of the Vow of great compassion and sails out on the vast ocean of light” (Ueda and Hirota 1989:182). Therefore, it is not incongruous in shinjū drama that the nembutsu is not evoked until the very end of the michiyuki, after all hope for changing one's life has been lost. Rather, that dramatic sequence is in accord with the Amidist view of karma-strickenness and the efficacy of a last-thought transformation.

Once again, it is clear that the importance of millenarian attitudes in shinjū drama is indicated by the role of nembutsu in the michiyuki passage. Nembutsu is consistently evoked as a means of contemplation and visualization of an Endzeit that resolves the characters' plight. Leading up to the tragic conclusion, the lovers contemplate the meaning of their suicide, try to overcome fear and hesitation, and, to build up their confidence, begin to thrust the blades and express the final conviction in their deliverance. At each stage, their eyes are focused on “the westward-moving moon” [symbolic of Amida's vow], their thoughts consist of “concentration on the Western Paradise,” and their voices recite the prayer “Namu Amida Butsu.” In Sonezaki, Tokubei tells Ohatsu between recitations, “Tomorrow our bodies may be [the night ravens'] meal,” and yet he is certain their deaths will be “immaculate” and “unparalleled” (Keene 1961a:55). As he takes up the razor the nearby palm fronds “serve as a broom to sweep away the sad world's (ukiyo)⁸ dust” (Keene 1961a:55). In Amijima, Jihei cuts off his topknot of hair, signifying the end of his conventional marriage and attachment to worldly affairs and possessions so that he symbolically becomes “a monk” who now can attain an eternal union with his lover (though strictly speaking they are physically separated). Jihei utters the nembutsu just as he thrusts the “saving sword” into Koharu, an image that suggests that the sword that kills also redeems. That is, the material instrument that causes physical death simultaneously and paradoxically creates spiritual rebirth in paradise, for “they who were caught in the net of Buddha's vow immediately gained salvation and deliverance” (p. 208). The image of the “net” (ami) has been transformed from a symbol of karmic judgment to the Buddha's promise to catch and save all humankind. As Shinran writes of the karma-stricken, “When … they awaken in their ordinary moments One Thought of trust in Amida, let this be regarded as the last moment, the end of the world, for them” (Suzuki 1973:128).

The Amidist millenarian hope is portrayed as being consistent with the traditional Buddhist emphasis on impermanence, which is so eloquently evoked throughout the michiyuki. The relation between the two elements of time, impermanence and eternity, is reflected in the philosophical implications of the term ukiyo, which, according to the author of Ukiyo monogatari, is based on a pun on the word uki: “In the past ukiyo was used as a term for the sadness of a world where everything went contrary to one's hopes; but now, taking the meaning ‘floating’ for [the kanji] uki instead of ‘sad,’ it had come to designate the delightful uncertainties of life in a joyous age when people lived for the moment, merrily bobbing up and down on the tides of uncertainty like a gourd on the waves” (Keene 1976:156). That is, traditionally (especially in the Kamakura era) uki-yo implied the “fleeting world” in the sense of melancholy and sorrow concerning incessant transiency and flux. Another kanji pronounced uki means “floating,” and while ukiyo came to be read in this new way during the Tokugawa era, the original implication was still retained because both meanings are based on a Buddhist awareness of the pervasiveness of ephemerality or impermanence (mujō). The original meaning of ukiyo used in classical literature reflected a pessimistic view of the flux as illusion, while the new paradigm was an affirmation of momentary pleasure. However, Chikamatsu (unlike other ukiyo authors, notably Saikaku) by no means celebrates only the latter meaning, which is applicable to townsmen who affirm the gesaku, for in the michiyuki he often laments the “inconstant world” that is nothing more than “a dream within a dream.”

But these two readings of ukiyo are not merely complementary, with the former having a negative connotation and the latter a positive one. Rather, philosophically, “fleeting world” sublates “floating world”—reversing chronological sequence—because it represents the more fundamental condition or ground of impermanent reality that makes possible the pursuit of evanescent joys. Thus, the double meaning of ukiyo indicates a twofold implication of liminality. While “floating” refers to a psychological or social state of an anti-structure of “delightful uncertainties” in contrast to the orthodox fixation with order, “fleeting” signifies the fundamental nature of existence characterized by sadness that is universally experienced, even if not always fully understood, as the condition underlying all aspects of transiency. From the standpoint of Buddhism, therefore, liminality is not a transitional stage from one finite definition of status to another, but the transcendental and all-pervasive reality. This means that for outcast townsmen, “everything went contrary to one's hopes” despite the facade of—and in a way constantly undermining—carefree enjoyment. In Amidism, in particular, the basic meaning of “fleeting” is associated with the age of decadence, or the inherent inability of people to extricate themselves from suffering and illusion. Thus, the characters in shinjū drama are faced with a double tension: one is the finite conflict between structure and anti-structure, order and ambiguity, giri and ninjō; the other is the transcendent encounter between these sets of finite conflicts and the nature of impermanent, innately decadent reality determining their own sinfulness. The hero's destituteness and karmic entanglements reflect the latter tension, and his inability to truly understand or resolve it sets up double suicide as the only way out of the dilemma.

In accord with these two levels of tension, there are two ways of coming to terms with liminality as the “limbo of statuslessness.” The first method is the legitimation of the anti-structure and the simultaneous disparagement of the values of the establishment. This is attained through a redefinition of status that turns the tables on the establishment's standard by renaming and at the same time ridiculing the source of power. This effort was being waged in the floating world in much of the ukiyo-zōshi writings that glamorized the tsūjin, the connoisseur or man of currency in the demimonde who embodied the understated elegance of iki (Kuki 1981; Kawahara 1963). Plays like the Sukeroku idealized the brave and true dandy while caricaturizing the decadent, dissolute samurai.

The other method is to accept statuslessness without endorsing a rationale; it views limbo not as a temporary, transitional state but as the ontological condition of transiency of “this uncertain world.” This is the realization Chikamatsu's heroes perhaps only partially attain, for in the michiyuki, genuine insight into impermanence as “the falling dew vanish[ing] even quicker than their lives” (Keene 1961a:54) is generally provided by the Narrator. In Buddhism, the aim of such a realization is based on the renunciation of worldly concerns and the singleminded pursuit of nirvana. In Amijima, Jihei declares that in cutting his hair, “I am a priest, unencumbered by wife, children, or wordly possessions,” and he refers to Koharu and himself as “a nun and a priest” who have “escaped this inconstant world” (p. 205). Jihei's last-minute gesture is supported by some Pure Land viewpoints that even a single deathbed prayer can redeem a lifetime of bad karma, although his motives have been called into question by Keene, Shively, and other interpreters as to whether they represent an authentic attainment of Buddhist enlightenment. The point of the michiyuki scene seems to be to highlight the dramatic and philosophical tension between the conventional world of order that the character's plight allows him to see through and a transcendental awareness he is still seeking to realize. Jihei's struggle yet fundamental powerlessness to move beyond the realm of finite conflict without divine intervention represents the inverse of the dilemma faced by the main character in Mishima Yukio's short story, “The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love.” Here, the Great Priest known for his total purity and absence of temptation suddenly is forced to decide between two worlds when he is attracted to the beauty of the Imperial Concubine: should he remain in renunciation or abandon that isolation for the world of love and beauty? “In the twinkling of an eye,” Mishima writes of the moment the priest is awakened to this impasse, “the present world had wreaked its revenge on the priest with terrible force. What he had imagined to be completely safe had collapsed in ruins” (Mishima 1966:63). Yet from the Pure Land standpoint, Jihei and the Great Priest are both suffering—at opposite angles, one looking beyond from within the floating world and the other peering back into it from Buddhist transcendence—from the inherent decadence of humanity which, just at the ultimate point of temptation and degradation, paradoxically becomes the window to an awakening to Amida's welcoming grace.

CONCLUSIONS

For Jihei and other shinjū heroes, the unresolvable tension between finite conflicts and transcendent realization creates the possibility of millenarian salvation beyond liminality. Perhaps more than Shakespeare, Chikamatsu's characters closely resemble the tragic fate of Alexandre Dumas's heroine in La Dame aux Camelias, Marguerite Gautier, whose situation is a composite of the male and female lovers in shinjū plays. Living the high life in Parisian bohemian society as a courtesan to various wealthy and famous suitors, Marguerite is one of the “kept women” who “flaunt through the capital the opulence of their beauty, their jewels, and their shame” (Dumas 1975:16). But Marguerite is also consumptive, and when her affair with the author is doomed to fail because he is too poor to support her in the style to which she has become accustomed and she is also pressured by his family, she becomes seriously ill and dies destitute and deserted. Marguerite is trapped by her financial dependence on a man and a lifestyle she realizes that she no longer cares for. Yet she is unable to marry the one she does love (the author), due in part to a noble pledge she has made to his father who still scorns her lowly status, and she thus becomes a symbol of the oppression of women and the victimization of her social class in nineteenth-century France. Dumas's dramatization of his novel about forbidden sensuality against a backdrop of untold luxury and decadence was, like Chikamatsu's plays, at first banned by censors for three years until it became a major stage success. According to the novel, Marguerite is ever the coquette as she dresses for her death. Yet, in her final agony she is said to be a “suffering martyr,” who, somewhat akin to shinjī victims, “has lived like a sinner, but she will die like a Christian” (p. 214), for despite her apparent decadence and lowly status, she exhibits a purity and spirituality of character surpassing the pettiness and greed of the upper classes.

Yet the Great Priest and Marguerite die of natural causes, although in unusual fashions, while Tokubei and Jihei kill themselves and their lovers. Why, then, is suicide the necessary ending in Chikamatsu? This is where shinjū drama must be interpreted not just as a Buddhist morality tale or a tragic romance, for it takes on important millenarian implications beyond the other factors influencing its enactment. There is little question that to some extent double suicide is influenced by the bushidō acceptance of dying; as Mishima comments on the Hagakure, “I discovered that the way of the Samurai is death. In a fifty-fifty life or death crisis, simply settle it by choosing immediate death. There is nothing complicated about it. Just brace yourself and proceed” (Mishima 1977:110-11). Yet the samurai's motive is a willingness to choose to sacrifice himself for his superiors because of a commitment to giri, while the shinjū hero regains honor through a protest against giri. On the other hand, both forms of suicide, seppuku and shinjū, reflect the Buddhist paradoxical view of time: an affirmation of the all-inclusive moment as the unity of life and death, and simultaneously a negation of the ephemeral, illusory quality of existence by virtue of embracing the incessancy of impermanence and change. That is, Buddhism accepts and affirms death as inextricably linked to life and sees life-and-death as two aspects of unified reality; therefore, death is not something to be feared while one is attached to life. Yet Buddhism also negates both life and death as constituting the illusory flux in contrast to enlightenment, thereby supporting the call to death as a release from illusion (pp. 118-19).

Buddhist enlightenment thus requires overcoming suffering and tragedy caused by the flux through contemplating and penetrating the philosophical unity of life-and-death, and in some interpretations it counsels that full and final liberation only comes after the demise of the body. However, scriptural Buddhism, unlike bushidō, generally does not prescribe or even condone the taking of one's life to speed up the process, with the prominent exception of the Lotus Sūtra passage. But shinjū drama is not primarily about the quest for salvation or ritual purification. The Buddhist, shamanistic, and bushidō elements are secondary, and are evoked for their millenarian associations and to serve an antiestablishment purpose. At the same time, the main aim of shinjū is not to express the emotional longings of unfulfilled romance because it is not about love but first and foremost carries a social message about the loss of money and identity. It is a cry of protest and anguish, not for ninjō versus giri (or vice versa, or even some combination of the two), but against this finite conflict that does not provide an effective transcendent answer. Millenarian beliefs intercede just at the point that the socio-religious impasse becomes impenetrable by redefining the structure of oppression so that it is seen as an opportunity for hope rather than an obstacle and source of despair. But the concept of millenarism is such a varied and seemingly contradictory category that it must at least be qualified by another label, such as mystical or fundamentalist, messianic or adventist. I would characterize shinjū as an example of “tragic millenarism,” when statuslessness offers the only status, and hopefulness comes from the utter abandonment of hope.

Notes

1. Unlike Amijima, Gonza and Osai, who are not truly lovers but have been framed by Gonza's rival, die on the (Fushimi) bridge, which they are unable to cross. Near the conclusion, Osai says somewhat wistfully, “No child will offer water at my last rites. And who will wash my body and arrange it for the funeral? I wish I could die now and, with these lanterns as my light through the darkness of the realm of Six Ways, dispel my delusions. At least in the world to come I want to be saved” (Keene 1961b:310). But there are no guarantees, and the Narrator comments, “She murmurs these words as they trudge along.”

2. Shively translates shinjū as “sincerity of heart,” and points out that the two independent characters when placed together form the character for chū or loyalty, the cardinal feudal virtue (1953:56 n. 46).

3. Chikamatsu writes in his essay on literary criticism, “On Realism in Art,” that “I take pathos to be entirely a matter of restraint (giri)” (de Bary:439).

4. I have changed the last phrase in the final line to “dream within a dream” from “dream of a dream” since the footnote to the Japanese edition interprets the original “yume no yume” as “yume no naka ni mata yume” (Chikamatsu 1959:32).

5. On the one hand, Yamaga felt that all classes including merchants were governed by giri, but he also stressed that samurai were above the crowd of common people: “The samurai is one who does not cultivate, does not manufacture, and does not engage in trade. But it cannot be that he has no function at all as a samurai” (de Bary 1958:389).

6. However, the issue of dance highlights the fact that the relation between Amidism and Shinto is quite complex in that both to some extent represent little traditions that are very influential on Kabuki ritualism. This, in turn, indicates how the polarity between little and great traditions becomes relative and must be clarified in terms of particular group and context. In this instance, shamanistic dance infiltrates through both religions and then into theatrical performance.

7. Of course, the one major exception to this is most forms of Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhism and Zen, which tend to identify the realms of temporality and eternity, yet the Amidism portrayed by Chikamatsu is not so much affirming the latter over the former as reconciling the polarity in a different manner than Zen.

8. This passage highlights the twofold implication of the term ukiyo, to be discussed below, as the “fleeting (and therefore sad) world” as well as the “floating (and therefore indulgent) world”—both are grounded in the Buddhist understanding of universal impermanence as expressed in the famous gāthā from the Diamond Sūtra, “All things phenomenal / Are like dreams, maya, bubbles; / Like dew and lighning flashes, / Thus one should regard them.”

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