Melodic Insight Heresy
The Melodic Insight Heresy was an Immaculate sect which arose during the mid Shogunate Era, as the individual temple structure which characterized the early Immaculate Faith began to organize into larger philosophical and administrative groupings.
The Path of Melodic Insights was perhaps the most widespread of the Immaculate sects to reject study and understanding of the Immaculate Texts as the road to the enlightenment of one’s soul and its progress up the path of reincarnation. Instead, followers of the path held that devotion to the Texts was a distraction, and (citing examples such as the Geya of the Bamboo Grove) instead devoted themselves to seeking truth through pilgrimage, internal reflection and musical meditations (most often through using the Ascending Flute and hand bells), wearing woven basket hats to hide their faces. By travelling Creation, the adherent’s eyes could become one with the Immaculate of Wood Sextes Jylis and understand Creation as it truly was. By crafting their own hats & instruments their fingers could become one with the Immaculate of Earth Pasiap in crafting what they had into what they needed. By making their long journeys alone, their hearts could become one with the Immaculate of Water Danaa’d in knowing the self apart from others. By keeping their faces covered through heat and darkness, their bodies could become one with the Immaculate of Fire Hesiesh, restrained until the moment was vital. By playing perfectly, the adherent’s soul could become one with the Immaculate of Air Mela, and in so doing achieve perfection.
The first adherent of the Path of Melodic Insights was the monk known as Melodic Insight, who had once borne the name Komuso. Komuso did not preach, but his odd behaviours attracted much attention and several followers over the centuries. Komuso and the monks of the sect travelled the roads of Creation, wearing woven baskets upon their heads and playing their bamboo flutes. Their journeys saw them moving between the various Immaculate temples and sects, as well as settlements of laypeople, and they soon gathered reputation as reliable means for conveying messages and packages between the various temples.
At this time, the Immaculate Faith was far less unified than it is today, but movements had begun to bind the disparate branches under a central authority. When many temples, particularly on the Blessed Isle, began to look to the highly-regarded and neutral Mouth of Peace, a sage monk from the Temple of Immaculate Incandescence in Vanchow, the Shogunate Court in Meru sought to present alternatives more securely under its control. Komuso had been welcomed at Court by successive Shoguns for his amusing behaviours and musical talents, but it was not until the reign of Shogun Xuan-Zong that the Path of Melodic Insight was granted official sponsorship. Though little proof exists, it is thought that under Xuan-Zong and her successor Shogun Daizong, the itinerant sect was influenced to make it an intelligence-gathering organ for the Shogun which had reach across Creation.
This association brought great wealth and influence to the sect, whose adherents controlled several key temples (including the Immaculate Temple of Ivory Resplendence atop Mount Meru), but also brought them into conflict with more conservative elements of the Immaculate community. In the chaos of the War of One Thousand Shoguns, the sect lost its Shogunal protections, as each new Shogun attempted to root out agents of his predecessor or those pushing to usurp her in turn. A conclave was held amongst the most respected sages of the Immaculate Faith, including the venerable Zhang Wei, resulting in the pronouncement of the Mouth of Peace that the sect was guilty not of mere divergence but of heresy. With Shogunal backing, the monks of the sect were stripped of their status and wealth, many put to death as spies, and the temples under their aegis bolstered the foundations of the unified Immaculate Order.
