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Description
On a sunny day in the fourth month, thousands have gathered to celebrate the Kamo Festival. One of the highlights of the imperial calendar, the festival features a procession from the imperial palace to the Kamo shrines. When the capital moved from Nara, the imperial family built a Shinto shrine at Kamo just north of their new capital, Kyoto. Here, each emperor chose a young girl from the imperial family to represent him as High Priestess or Saiin. Her duty was to stay as pure as possible to maintain the imperial family's good standing with the gods. This meant she spent most of her time at the Murasakino mansion near the shrine grounds, but once a year, she left to perform special rites as part of the Kamo Festival.

In the year 1000, the Saiin was an imperial princess called Senshi. She had held the position since she was only twelve years old, but now she was thirty-six, a veteran of the Kamo Festival. In the past, most Saiin had retired whenever the Emperor who installed them left the throne, but Senshi was unusual: She would hold the position through the reigns of five emperors, until she was sixty-eight years old. Why she held the position so long is unclear. She was the daughter of Emperor Murakami, and the emperors she served after him were her brother, nephews, and grand-nephew. Her reign was a time of political consolidation on her mother's side of the family, the all-powerful Fujiwara clan, so perhaps she was kept in power for so long because the Fujiwara men who were her close relations didn't want to cause further rivalries by seeking to replace the Saiin. We do know one thing, though: Senshi certainly didn't stay in power because she wanted to.

Senshi was a devout follower of the Buddha. Buddhism had come to Japan centuries before, and for the most part, it had settled into a symbiotic relationship with Shinto, the indigenous Japanese religion. Most upper-class women in Senshi's family and social circle were able to venerate both the Buddha and the Shinto kami, or gods, without any conflict. Senshi, however, had unique restrictions on her as the Saiin. To avoid ritual pollution, a key feature of Shinto, the people of her household had many taboo words. Some of them were the names of different pollutants such as blood and death, but they were also forbidden from saying anything related to Buddhism. The names of the Buddha and his teachings were replaced with euphemisms taken from Sanskrit, reduced to nonsense words in Japanese that only the Saiin and her household used. They were also forbidden from attending any Buddhist religious ceremonies or even talking face-to-face with Buddhist monks and nuns. This meant that as long as she was the Saiin, Senshi had to avoid all associations with Buddhism lest she pollute one of the imperial family's most sacred shrines.

The problem was that Senshi, like many in the imperial family from the 980s onward, had a strong personal devotion to Amida Buddha. Amida Buddha offered eternal salvation to all, breaking people free from the cycle of suffering and rebirth. Anyone who followed Amida Buddha would join him after death in the Pure Land, a paradise far in the west where they could easily reach enlightenment. The only condition? Repeating the name of Amida Buddha. While many in the imperial family eagerly began to follow Amida Buddha, the condition of salvation caused a unique problem for Senshi - as the Saiin, she could never say his name.

We know from her poetry that this situation caused Senshi an acute sense of spiritual anguish throughout her life. Since her ritual duties only commanded her attention a few times a year, Senshi spent most of her time holding court at one of the finest salons in Japan. While empresses in the palace sometimes had rival salons, such as the group Sei Shōnagon was part of under Empress Teishi, Senshi was different from them in that her fortunes didn't depend on which wife was in favour. She was a close relative of all the rival Fujiwara men who jockeyed for power by marrying their daughters to the Emperor, so while Shōnagon's time as a lady-in-waiting came to an abrupt end when Teishi died at the end of the year 1000, Senshi maintained her influence regardless of who was in power. With more security in her position than most Heian women ever achieved, she presided over an intellectually lively court of women who suffered no threat of imperial politics interfering with their ability to write.

And write they did. Senshi was renowned above all as a poet, master of the waka form of Japanese poetry. Her reputation as a poet was so distinguished that when Empress Teishi received a gift and poem from her at New Year, Sei Shōnagon was "filled with sudden and delighted awe" to receive the message and hastily awoke the Empress. Shōnagon writes in The Pillow Book that Teishi took great care to avoid any mistake when writing to Senshi, taking longer to compose a reply than usual. Shōnagon did say that the Saiin's household was a very sinful place and an offense to Buddhism, but that characteristically didn't stop her from declaring that it was a very entertaining place!

Not all of the palace women had such high opinions of the Saiin, however. Murasaki Shikibu, who served Empress Shōshi, saw a letter from a woman in Senshi's household that filled her with indignation. Lady Chūjō, who lived at Murasakino, wrote, "When it comes to judging poetry, is there anyone who can rival our Princess? She is the only one who could recognise a promising talent nowadays!" This prompted Murasaki to write a long and defensive diatribe about how Senshi's group wasn't really any better than the group she was part of in Empress Shōshi's court. She opines that Senshi's court produces very little poetry of real merit, and that without the distractions of visits from the Emperor and the Regent, perhaps she and her companions might become ladies of leisure to match what Senshi's women achieve in their isolation from palace life. The men at court may prefer going over to Murasakino to exchange love poems with Senshi's women, but that's only because Empress Shōshi is a serious young lady who seeks to avoid scandal at the palace, not because Murasaki and company are duller than Senshi's salon. Although Murasaki clearly finds Senshi's court not all it's cracked up to be, she does leave us with an evocative description of Senshi's life at Murasakino:

They keep themselves very much to themselves. Whenever I have visited them, for it is famous for its beautiful moonlit nights, dawn skies, cherries, and the song of the cuckoo, the High Priestess has always seemed most sensitive. The place has an aura of seclusion and mystery about it, and they have very little to distract them.

While Murasaki envies how Senshi can live a life untroubled by the hectic demands of palace life, the grass is always greener on the other side. Senshi clearly enjoyed presiding over a court of well-educated women and training them in poetic refinement, but her separation from the world of Buddhism caused her great anxiety. Murasakino was very near a Buddhist monastery, and sometimes Senshi and her women would wake in the night hearing the wheels of an ox-cart rumble past as a group of dignitaries left their Buddhist worship. At times like these, Senshi could only express in poetry her yearning to grow closer to Amida Buddha. Her true desire in life was to become a Buddhist nun, but she had to watch as all the other women in her family retired into monastic life while she had to remain estranged from it. In 1026, when she was still serving as Saiin at the age of sixty-two, she sent this poem to a female relative who had just taken vows: I hear that now you, too, have entered upon the true way; shall I alone remain lost in the endless darkness?

In spite of her protestations, Senshi was not completely unable to act on her convictions while serving as Saiin. In the early years of the 11th century, Senshi produced a poetic collection called Hosshin wakashu, "A Collection of Poems for the Awakening of Faith". In this collection, she took the secular waka form of poetry and turned it to a new aim - Buddhist devotions. In her preface, she explained that the traditional avenues of Buddhist patronage were closed to her, such as commissioning temples or becoming a nun. But she was a master of poetry, and so she dedicated her considerable intellectual talents to composing a collection of waka poems based on Buddhist Scriptures. Each waka poem was written in response to an excerpt from a sutra. Throughout the collection, she explores themes such as the role of women in Buddhism. Although it was taught in Japanese Buddhism that women faced extra obstacles to Enlightenment, requiring rebirth as a man, she rejected this interpretation by reiterating Amida Buddha's promise of salvation to all. The sophistication and innovation of Hosshin wakashu ushered in a new era in waka collections, bringing collections of Buddhist poetry into the highest esteem.

At the Kamo Festival, Senshi was ostensibly a Shinto envoy only, representing the imperial family at her shrines. In preparation for this event, she purified herself in the river that ran between the shrines. By all accounts, she took her role seriously, abstaining from sex and marriage as was required of all women who served as Saiin. But even at the Kamo Festival, the apogee of her devotion to Shinto, she took opportunities to express her devotion to Buddha. Secure, perhaps, in her well-established role, she once boldly used the Kamo Festival as an opportunity to proselytize on behalf of Amida Buddha, urging everyone to accept his offer of salvation.

Her devotion to Amida Buddha was well-known, and no one dared censure her given her exalted position in the imperial family. It's said that in her old age, visitors to Murasakino would find her repeating the name of Amida Buddha for hours at a time. Although this violated the taboo, by this point in her life, Senshi was beyond reproach. In 1031, after fifty-six years of service, she finally retired, citing poor health as the cause. The sixty-eight-year-old woman moved to her private Muromachi palace, and six days later, she took her vows as a Buddhist nun. She was too ill to attend the official send-off ceremony for Kamo priestesses in Lake Biwa, but she lived for four more years, no doubt filled with relief to finally be able to pray to Amida Buddha openly in hopes of achieving her own salvation.

But in the moment illustrated here, she still has thirty-one years of service as Saiin ahead of her. The attendants gathered around her are festooned in hollyhock as they carry her palanquin through the procession. People like Sei Shōnagon looked forward to the festival every year - Shōnagon, for example, loved seeing the little girls process in solemnity while their mothers and aunts followed after them, making sure that their clothes stayed in order. But for Senshi, this day is a reminder of why she is kept away from the means to salvation. And so I drew her here, looking to the west where Amida Buddha resides in the Pure Land, thinking the words of her most famous poem:

Though I think about it, it is taboo, a thing not to be said,
and so all that I can do is turn in that direction and weep.

I am so happy to bring you the story of High Priestess Senshi! As you can tell by how much I wrote, I love her story and thinking about her as a person. I remain in awe every day that we have so much material available to reconstruct the intellectual networks and devotional lives of women from a thousand years ago in Japan. It's so interesting to compare Sei Shōnagon's and Murasaki Shikibu's accounts of Senshi with her own writings, and to consider their different circumstances.

This picture took a LONG time to draw, and I'm so thankful to everyone who offered me support, advice, and encouragement while working on it! There is a modern version of this festival recreated every year in Kyoto called the Aoi Matsuri, and the people dress in Heian clothing so it was a very useful resource for illustrating this scene. I flipped so many reference pictures around that there might be a few women whose clothes are accidentally drawn in the style of the dead, but... you do what you can! This illustration represents a few firsts for the Women of 1000 series: the first men, the first crowds, and the first woman who personally knew another woman I've drawn! I'm honoured to have brought you Senshi's story and only hope that I did it justice. I have so many unfinished pieces right now that it feels really good to finish one.

Learn more on the website: womenof1000ad.weebly.com/high-…

Others in the series include...

The Explorer of Ua Huka
Mór
The Reader of Ancash
The Skiier of Sápmi
Mahendradatta
Martha Mother of Kings
Miss Zeng
The Singer and Dancer of Calos
The Devotee of Žemyna

The Little Family of Guayaquil

Description
On a sunny day in the fourth month, thousands have gathered to celebrate the Kamo Festival. One of the highlights of the imperial calendar, the festival features a procession from the imperial palace to the Kamo shrines. When the capital moved from Nara, the imperial family built a Shinto shrine at Kamo just north of their new capital, Kyoto. Here, each emperor chose a young girl from the imperial family to represent him as High Priestess or Saiin. Her duty was to stay as pure as possible to maintain the imperial family's good standing with the gods. This meant she spent most of her time at the Murasakino mansion near the shrine grounds, but once a year, she left to perform special rites as part of the Kamo Festival.

In the year 1000, the Saiin was an imperial princess called Senshi. She had held the position since she was only twelve years old, but now she was thirty-six, a veteran of the Kamo Festival. In the past, most Saiin had retired whenever the Emperor who installed them left the throne, but Senshi was unusual: She would hold the position through the reigns of five emperors, until she was sixty-eight years old. Why she held the position so long is unclear. She was the daughter of Emperor Murakami, and the emperors she served after him were her brother, nephews, and grand-nephew. Her reign was a time of political consolidation on her mother's side of the family, the all-powerful Fujiwara clan, so perhaps she was kept in power for so long because the Fujiwara men who were her close relations didn't want to cause further rivalries by seeking to replace the Saiin. We do know one thing, though: Senshi certainly didn't stay in power because she wanted to.

Senshi was a devout follower of the Buddha. Buddhism had come to Japan centuries before, and for the most part, it had settled into a symbiotic relationship with Shinto, the indigenous Japanese religion. Most upper-class women in Senshi's family and social circle were able to venerate both the Buddha and the Shinto kami, or gods, without any conflict. Senshi, however, had unique restrictions on her as the Saiin. To avoid ritual pollution, a key feature of Shinto, the people of her household had many taboo words. Some of them were the names of different pollutants such as blood and death, but they were also forbidden from saying anything related to Buddhism. The names of the Buddha and his teachings were replaced with euphemisms taken from Sanskrit, reduced to nonsense words in Japanese that only the Saiin and her household used. They were also forbidden from attending any Buddhist religious ceremonies or even talking face-to-face with Buddhist monks and nuns. This meant that as long as she was the Saiin, Senshi had to avoid all associations with Buddhism lest she pollute one of the imperial family's most sacred shrines.

The problem was that Senshi, like many in the imperial family from the 980s onward, had a strong personal devotion to Amida Buddha. Amida Buddha offered eternal salvation to all, breaking people free from the cycle of suffering and rebirth. Anyone who followed Amida Buddha would join him after death in the Pure Land, a paradise far in the west where they could easily reach enlightenment. The only condition? Repeating the name of Amida Buddha. While many in the imperial family eagerly began to follow Amida Buddha, the condition of salvation caused a unique problem for Senshi - as the Saiin, she could never say his name.

We know from her poetry that this situation caused Senshi an acute sense of spiritual anguish throughout her life. Since her ritual duties only commanded her attention a few times a year, Senshi spent most of her time holding court at one of the finest salons in Japan. While empresses in the palace sometimes had rival salons, such as the group Sei Shōnagon was part of under Empress Teishi, Senshi was different from them in that her fortunes didn't depend on which wife was in favour. She was a close relative of all the rival Fujiwara men who jockeyed for power by marrying their daughters to the Emperor, so while Shōnagon's time as a lady-in-waiting came to an abrupt end when Teishi died at the end of the year 1000, Senshi maintained her influence regardless of who was in power. With more security in her position than most Heian women ever achieved, she presided over an intellectually lively court of women who suffered no threat of imperial politics interfering with their ability to write.

And write they did. Senshi was renowned above all as a poet, master of the waka form of Japanese poetry. Her reputation as a poet was so distinguished that when Empress Teishi received a gift and poem from her at New Year, Sei Shōnagon was "filled with sudden and delighted awe" to receive the message and hastily awoke the Empress. Shōnagon writes in The Pillow Book that Teishi took great care to avoid any mistake when writing to Senshi, taking longer to compose a reply than usual. Shōnagon did say that the Saiin's household was a very sinful place and an offense to Buddhism, but that characteristically didn't stop her from declaring that it was a very entertaining place!

Not all of the palace women had such high opinions of the Saiin, however. Murasaki Shikibu, who served Empress Shōshi, saw a letter from a woman in Senshi's household that filled her with indignation. Lady Chūjō, who lived at Murasakino, wrote, "When it comes to judging poetry, is there anyone who can rival our Princess? She is the only one who could recognise a promising talent nowadays!" This prompted Murasaki to write a long and defensive diatribe about how Senshi's group wasn't really any better than the group she was part of in Empress Shōshi's court. She opines that Senshi's court produces very little poetry of real merit, and that without the distractions of visits from the Emperor and the Regent, perhaps she and her companions might become ladies of leisure to match what Senshi's women achieve in their isolation from palace life. The men at court may prefer going over to Murasakino to exchange love poems with Senshi's women, but that's only because Empress Shōshi is a serious young lady who seeks to avoid scandal at the palace, not because Murasaki and company are duller than Senshi's salon. Although Murasaki clearly finds Senshi's court not all it's cracked up to be, she does leave us with an evocative description of Senshi's life at Murasakino:

They keep themselves very much to themselves. Whenever I have visited them, for it is famous for its beautiful moonlit nights, dawn skies, cherries, and the song of the cuckoo, the High Priestess has always seemed most sensitive. The place has an aura of seclusion and mystery about it, and they have very little to distract them.

While Murasaki envies how Senshi can live a life untroubled by the hectic demands of palace life, the grass is always greener on the other side. Senshi clearly enjoyed presiding over a court of well-educated women and training them in poetic refinement, but her separation from the world of Buddhism caused her great anxiety. Murasakino was very near a Buddhist monastery, and sometimes Senshi and her women would wake in the night hearing the wheels of an ox-cart rumble past as a group of dignitaries left their Buddhist worship. At times like these, Senshi could only express in poetry her yearning to grow closer to Amida Buddha. Her true desire in life was to become a Buddhist nun, but she had to watch as all the other women in her family retired into monastic life while she had to remain estranged from it. In 1026, when she was still serving as Saiin at the age of sixty-two, she sent this poem to a female relative who had just taken vows: I hear that now you, too, have entered upon the true way; shall I alone remain lost in the endless darkness?

In spite of her protestations, Senshi was not completely unable to act on her convictions while serving as Saiin. In the early years of the 11th century, Senshi produced a poetic collection called Hosshin wakashu, "A Collection of Poems for the Awakening of Faith". In this collection, she took the secular waka form of poetry and turned it to a new aim - Buddhist devotions. In her preface, she explained that the traditional avenues of Buddhist patronage were closed to her, such as commissioning temples or becoming a nun. But she was a master of poetry, and so she dedicated her considerable intellectual talents to composing a collection of waka poems based on Buddhist Scriptures. Each waka poem was written in response to an excerpt from a sutra. Throughout the collection, she explores themes such as the role of women in Buddhism. Although it was taught in Japanese Buddhism that women faced extra obstacles to Enlightenment, requiring rebirth as a man, she rejected this interpretation by reiterating Amida Buddha's promise of salvation to all. The sophistication and innovation of Hosshin wakashu ushered in a new era in waka collections, bringing collections of Buddhist poetry into the highest esteem.

At the Kamo Festival, Senshi was ostensibly a Shinto envoy only, representing the imperial family at her shrines. In preparation for this event, she purified herself in the river that ran between the shrines. By all accounts, she took her role seriously, abstaining from sex and marriage as was required of all women who served as Saiin. But even at the Kamo Festival, the apogee of her devotion to Shinto, she took opportunities to express her devotion to Buddha. Secure, perhaps, in her well-established role, she once boldly used the Kamo Festival as an opportunity to proselytize on behalf of Amida Buddha, urging everyone to accept his offer of salvation.

Her devotion to Amida Buddha was well-known, and no one dared censure her given her exalted position in the imperial family. It's said that in her old age, visitors to Murasakino would find her repeating the name of Amida Buddha for hours at a time. Although this violated the taboo, by this point in her life, Senshi was beyond reproach. In 1031, after fifty-six years of service, she finally retired, citing poor health as the cause. The sixty-eight-year-old woman moved to her private Muromachi palace, and six days later, she took her vows as a Buddhist nun. She was too ill to attend the official send-off ceremony for Kamo priestesses in Lake Biwa, but she lived for four more years, no doubt filled with relief to finally be able to pray to Amida Buddha openly in hopes of achieving her own salvation.

But in the moment illustrated here, she still has thirty-one years of service as Saiin ahead of her. The attendants gathered around her are festooned in hollyhock as they carry her palanquin through the procession. People like Sei Shōnagon looked forward to the festival every year - Shōnagon, for example, loved seeing the little girls process in solemnity while their mothers and aunts followed after them, making sure that their clothes stayed in order. But for Senshi, this day is a reminder of why she is kept away from the means to salvation. And so I drew her here, looking to the west where Amida Buddha resides in the Pure Land, thinking the words of her most famous poem:

Though I think about it, it is taboo, a thing not to be said,
and so all that I can do is turn in that direction and weep.

I am so happy to bring you the story of High Priestess Senshi! As you can tell by how much I wrote, I love her story and thinking about her as a person. I remain in awe every day that we have so much material available to reconstruct the intellectual networks and devotional lives of women from a thousand years ago in Japan. It's so interesting to compare Sei Shōnagon's and Murasaki Shikibu's accounts of Senshi with her own writings, and to consider their different circumstances.

This picture took a LONG time to draw, and I'm so thankful to everyone who offered me support, advice, and encouragement while working on it! There is a modern version of this festival recreated every year in Kyoto called the Aoi Matsuri, and the people dress in Heian clothing so it was a very useful resource for illustrating this scene. I flipped so many reference pictures around that there might be a few women whose clothes are accidentally drawn in the style of the dead, but... you do what you can! This illustration represents a few firsts for the Women of 1000 series: the first men, the first crowds, and the first woman who personally knew another woman I've drawn! I'm honoured to have brought you Senshi's story and only hope that I did it justice. I have so many unfinished pieces right now that it feels really good to finish one.

Learn more on the website: womenof1000ad.weebly.com/high-…

Others in the series include...

The Explorer of Ua Huka
Mór
The Reader of Ancash
The Skiier of Sápmi
Mahendradatta
Martha Mother of Kings
Miss Zeng
The Singer and Dancer of Calos
The Devotee of Žemyna

The Little Family of Guayaquil