The Sembon Emmado, home of the Sembon Emmado Nembutsu Kyogen, one of the three great
nembutsu kyogen traditions of Kyoto, was first founded in the early Heian period (794-1182) by the
poet and courtier Ono no Takamura (802-852) as a hall dedicated to an image of Emma Daio (Sans.
Yama, the so-called King of Hades). Two centuries later, in the first year of the Kannin Era(1017),
during the reign of the emperor Go-ichijo, Jokaku Shonin, a disciple of the then Bishop of Yokawa
(Eshin Sozu), from the foothills of Hiei-zan, had the hall made into a temple, with the purpose of
promulgating the way of the Buddha among the common people. At the same time he had the name of
the Emmado changed to Injoji, a name which carries the meaning of '1eading the people to Buddha..
At the time of its first founding, the Emmado had stood alongside the Suzaku Oji, the great central
avenue that ran from the Rajomon gate in the south to the Otenmon gate of the Imperial palace to the
north. However, soon after the founding of the new capital in 794 the western half of the city fell into
decline, and by the eleventh century had become little more than a wilderness, sparsely dotted with the
hovels of peasants. The immediate vicinity of the Emmado was known as one of the five great burial
grounds(Godaisammai), which served the capital; a wild and lonely place, the haunt of robbers and
brigands, whose activities were a constant menace to the inhabitants of the nourishing capital to the
east.
Thus it was that the warrior Tametomo, at the orders of the Chancellor Fujiwara no Michinaga, was
sent to aid Jokaku Shonin in the suppression of the bandits. Using his pilgrim,s staff as a weapon,
Tametomo confronted the hordes of bandits that came attacking him, as he set about him with his
staff, sending his opponents flying helter-skelter, miracles began to occur, as whoever his staff touched
repented of their evil ways. Other miracles effected by the staff included the curing of dis6ases and the
stemming of natural disasters.
It was in order to commemorate these miraculous events connected with the Emmado, and to bring
comfort to the souls of those buried in the areas that the Emmado Nembutsu Kyogen were brought
into being. (Nembutsu has the meaning of a prayer to Amida Buddha, Lord of the Western Paradise.)
As a reminder of the deeds of its progenitor, Tametomo, even today a play called Senningiri, or
''Saving a Thousand Souls,'' is performed at the end of each years kyogen, and is considered the
primary play in the repertoire. It consists of a reenactment of Tametomo,s miraculous deeds, as he sets
about curing illness and righting wrongs with his pilgrim's staff.
The Kyogen, begun by Jokaku Shonin, and celebrated in a local children.s rhyme, was discontinued
in the later Heian period, to be revived in the Kamakura period(1192-1333) by the famous priest
Nyorin Shonin, and it has continued in an unbroken tradition ever since. Enchanted by the Emmado,s
unique cherry trees, the famous Fugenzou cherries (which are the second latest bloomers in all of
Kyoto), the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu ordered that the kyogen be performed each year when the
flowers were at their height, awarding a stipend of two-hundred and fifty bushels of rice to the temple
in order to cover the expenses of the performance.
One feature of the Emmado Kyogen that sets it apart from the other nembutsu kyogen is that it is a
spoken drama, as opposed to mime, as are most other folk kyogen. Today there are more than 50 plays
in the repertoire.
In the Edo period(1600-1868), the Kyogen is recorded as having been performed as a memorial
service for the dead, and with its raw humour and crowd-pleasing spectacle it was seen as a suitable
form of instruction for the common people in the way of the Buddha, much like the early miraclelPlays
of Europe were considered as a means of providing moral enlightenment to the populace.
By performing the Sembon Emmado Nembutsu Kyogen each year from the lSt tO the 4th May, we
hope to keep alight this beacon of Kyoto's traditional arts. Furthermore, in the Spring of 1984,
Emmado Kyogen was performed as part of a festival of folk arts at the National Theatre to Great
acclaim.