JJRS > Volume 23 Issue 1-2 An Otogizōshi in Context: Saru no sōshi and the Hie-Enryaku-ji Religious Multiplex in the Late Sixteenth Century

Takeuchi, Lone

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This article presents a multiple reading of Saru no sōshi; as a piece of lighthearted entertainment describing the marriage of the daughter of the monkey head-priest of Hiyoshi Shrine to a monkey from Yokawa; as an exposition of religious beliefs symbolizing the union of buddhas and kami in the Sannō deity; and as a ritual representing a sequence of ceremonies belonging to the contemporary Yayoi sairei. It is suggested that the production of Saru no sōshi reflects and may indeed have been directly occasioned by the vigorous reconstruction efforts at Hiyoshi Shrine, led by the head priest Hafuribe Yukimaru, following the shrine’s destruction by Oda Nobunaga in 1571.