This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Please check back later for the full article. Suicide in Japan has a relationship with various belief systems, including secular belief systems, such as Bushidō (‘the way of the warrior’) and emperor worship, as well as religious systems, such as Shintō, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity, from the earliest times to the early twenty-first century. Cultural and religious environments in Japan have tended to take a neutral or even positive attitude toward suicide to some extent, similar to that seen elsewhere, for example, in ancient Rome, but in contrast to the stigma attached to suicide by the Abrahamic religions. Iconized Japanese practices of suicide, including seppuku/harakiri (ritualized self-disembowelment), junshi (suicide for the purposes of following one’s lord in death), shinjū (double suicide or murder–suicide by lovers), and the kamikaze of World War II (lit. “divine winds,” usually referred to as tokkōtai “special attack units” in Japanese) show the links between suicide in Japan and the construction of Japanese identity and are further expanded upon in literary and dramatic texts, in addition to religious and philosophical treatises and historical records. Suicide in Japan also intersects and overlaps with other forms of violence, such as warfare, capital punishment, and murder. In addition to causes and motives, of interest are preferred or unusual methods of suicide in Japan, their distinctive aspects in comparison with other cultures, and the symbolic and ritual elements of Japanese suicide.

This article explores the representation of chigo-adolescent males attached to Buddhist temples or aristocratic households who were educated, fed, and housed in exchange for personal, including sexual, services-in medieval Japan. The author discusses how chigo were depicted in historical records, in contemporary short fictional narratives, and in a "Chinese" legend invented by Japanese Tendai monks; the chigo are also compared to the Tang consort Yang Guifei. Fictional and real chigo tend to fall victim to violence, and it is argued that the chigo functions as a surrogate sacrificial victim, a cultural figure whose role is outlined most prominently in the works of René Girard.S OME BUDDHIST TEMPLES AND aristocratic households in medieval Japan included among their members one or more chigo (literally, "children"), adolescent males who were given room, board, and education in exchange for their companionship and sexual services, which they were obliged to provide to high-ranking clerics or elite courtiers. In literary and dramatic texts and in pictures such as those included in illustrated handscrolls (emaki), the chigo are often portrayed as the center of attention at banquets-seated in the place of honor and drinking from the host's cup, the chigo sings, dances, plays music, or composes poetry while the other guests watch in rapt delight. In the handful of extant short stories from the medieval period featuring chigo (a subgenre known as chigo monogatari), the chigo typically meets a tragic death by suicide, murder, or illness. In some cases, the chigo is posthumously revealed to have been an avatar of a bodhisattva, usually Kannon (Avalokiteśvara). Around the figure of this "divine boy" accreted a great deal of lore, ritual, and literature whose contradictions pose intriguing and troubling questions. How does the portrayal of chigo in cultural discourse compare to the historical record? Why are these sexual playthings simultaneously deified and repeatedly subjected to violence? What does the plight of the chigo reveal about the inner workings of medieval Japanese politics, religion, and culture? These questions lead us to a deeper understanding of the intersecting histories of sexuality, violence, kingship, and the sacred in East Asia and beyond.This study is principally concerned with depiction, which is to say, with the necessary distortions, intentional and otherwise, that writers, painters, and other artists introduce in the process of pretending to represent reality. Yet before discussing how chigo were depicted in short fiction, handscrolls, and noh plays, it is first necessary to understand how chigo actually functioned in medieval Japanese society (by consulting historical records) and to develop a basis for comparison.Tsuchiya Megumi has written about the function and role that chigo played in the private quarters (in and bō ) of medieval Japanese temples, drawing upon temple records instead of accounts from folk literature (2001,. Various classes of children were attached to temples: The chigo were se...

Explosive volcanism is a key contributor to climate variability on interannual to centennial timescales1. Understanding the far-field societal impacts of eruption-forced climatic changes requires firm event chronologies and reliable estimates of both the burden and altitude (that is, tropospheric versus stratospheric) of volcanic sulfate aerosol2,3. However, despite progress in ice-core dating, uncertainties remain in these key factors4. This particularly hinders investigation of the role of large, temporally clustered eruptions during the High Medieval Period (HMP, 1100–1300 ce), which have been implicated in the transition from the warm Medieval Climate Anomaly to the Little Ice Age5. Here we shed new light on explosive volcanism during the HMP, drawing on analysis of contemporary reports of total lunar eclipses, from which we derive a time series of stratospheric turbidity. By combining this new record with aerosol model simulations and tree-ring-based climate proxies, we refine the estimated dates of five notable eruptions and associate each with stratospheric aerosol veils. Five further eruptions, including one responsible for high sulfur deposition over Greenland circa 1182 ce, affected only the troposphere and had muted climatic consequences. Our findings offer support for further investigation of the decadal-scale to centennial-scale climate response to volcanic eruptions.

The late medieval poet and monk Shōtetsu (1381–1459) deeply revered Teika. This chapter begins the study by seeking the reasons for Shōtetsu’s reverence, provides an overview of Teika’s life and oeuvre, and introduces the structure of the book.