Preaching the animal realm in late medieval Japan.

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Japanese visual and textual sources are replete with images and descriptions of Kumano bikuni, the itinerant and seemingly ubiquitous proselytizer-nuns known for preaching upon elaborate paintings of heavens and hells at crossroads, bridges, and other public spaces in early Edo-period Japan.

Although the women's painted props survive, their stories do not. In this article, I seek to explore the likely contents of Kumano bikuni's preaching upon (non-human) animals and the animal realm by examining seemingly related stories employed in a variety of Japanese ...

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