This study addresses the relationship between the veneration of Buddha relics (skt. Buddha-sarira; j. Busshari) and the appropriation of power in early medieval Japan. Focusing on the ninth to fourteenth centuries, it analyzes the ways in which relics formed media for the interaction of clerical Buddhists, the imperial family, and lay aristocrats.

This dissertation argues that relics, as objects of ritual economy, offered a means for reinforcing or subverting relations of hierarchy. Anthropological, historical, and literary modes of analysis are used to attest to the prominence and role of relic worship in the Japanese government, in lay practice associated with maintenance of the imperial line, and in the activities of fund-raising clerics.

After an introductory chapter on relic veneration in continental Buddhism, chapter two focuses on a rite called the Buddha Relics Offering (ichidai ichido busshari hoken), which was performed in the name of newly acceded emperors between the late ninth and thirteenth centuries. This chapter establishes that the development by the imperial government of this rite took place in the context of extensive knowledge of Buddhist traditions as well as of treasure traditions.

Chapter three examines the Latter Seven-Day Rite (go-shichinichi mishiho), which was conducted annually in the imperial palace. Performed as a rite of relic veneration by Toji monks in Shingon-in, the rite provided the Toji monks access to the court, and made them the first Buddhist lineage to have exclusive prerogative in the practice of an annual rite in the imperial palace.

Chapter four demonstrates that equating relics with "wish-fulfilling jewels" enabled a revaluation of the Buddha relic. As a result, relics were both jealously guarded as the sacred jewels of esoteric traditions and the common objects of theft.

Chapter five examines the appropriation of Buddha relics by members of the imperial house and the Fujiwara family. It establishes that the protection and worship of relics by women of these families attempted to maintain these lineages and, at the same time, to provide women with a means to salvation.