April 18th, 2020
Dr. Kenneth Jeremiah explores the practice of self-mummification. Practitioners of Japanese martial arts often have an inaccurate view of samurai, yamabushi (mountain ascetics), farmers, and priests. They also have an incomplete understanding of the complex interrelationships between these groups, since the media rarely mentions samurai who became farmers, priests who killed samurai, or mountain ascetics who buried themselves alive. The biographies of four individuals who all engaged in extreme ascetic practices can help to clarify the role these individuals played in history, and the effect that they had on others’ lives. Shinnyokai was a farmer who killed a samurai. Testumonkai fell in love with a prostitute, and then killed two warriors with his bare fists before becoming a priest. Honmyokai, a samurai vassal of Lord Sakai, killed himself to not only save his lord’s life, but to save all of humankind, and Myokai was on the verge of cutting open his own stomach, before a miraculous occurrence changed his mind and revealed his destiny.
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