history of japanese religions

nanzan guide to japanese religions edited by Paul L. Swanson and Clark Chilson university of hawai‘i press honolulu Contents Editors’ Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii traditions Japanese Religions Robert Kisala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Shinto Norman Havens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Buddhism Jacqueline I. Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Folk Religion Ian Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 New Religions Trevor Astley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Japanese Christianity Mark R. Mullins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 History Ancient Japan and Religion Matsumura Kazuo 松村一男 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Religion in the Classical Period YosHida Kazuhiko 吉田一彦 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 The Medieval Period: Eleventh to Sixteenth Centuries William M. Bodiford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Religion in Early Modern Japan Duncan Ryūken Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Religion in the Modern Period HayasHi Makoto 林 淳 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Contemporary Japanese Religions SHimazono Susumu 島薗 進 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220  tHemes The Ritual Culture of Japan: Symbolism, Ritual, and the Arts Richard K. Payne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Literature and Scripture Robert E. Morrell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 State and Religion in Japan Helen Hardacre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 Geography, Environment, Pilgrimage Barbara Ambros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 History of Thought in Japan Thomas P. Kasulis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Gender Issues in Japanese Religions KawaHasHi Noriko 川橋範子 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 researcH Japanese Reference Works, Sources, and Libraries Makino Yasuko 牧野康子 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 Using Archives in the Study of Japanese Religions Brian O. Ruppert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364 Conducting Fieldwork on Japanese Religions Scott ScHnell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 cHronology A Chronology of Religion in Japan William M. Bodiford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395 Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 Editors’ Introduction T o paraphrase J.R.R. Tolkien’s comment with regard to his monu- mental The Lord of the Rings, this book grew in the making. The project germinated as an ambitious suggestion many years ago (in the mid-1990s) by Okuyama Michiaki to produce a multivolume English-language history of Japanese religions, including a practical “handbook” of advice on resources, sources of funding, bibliographies, and so forth. Since such a multi-volume project was too grand and unwieldy, the goal was limited to the more modest and practical plan of first producing a single-volume handbook. This handbook then grew to become the wide-ranging introduction and critical analysis of the field of Japanese religions that you now hold in your hands as the Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions. A brief outline of this process will illustrate some of the issues we struggled with, and which reflect ongoing concerns and issues in the field of Japanese religions. vii iii Editors’ Introduction The preliminary rationale for this project was stated in an internal Nanzan Institute memo as follows: There has not been a scholarly overview of religion in Japanese history in English for over thirty years, since J. Kitagawa’s book Religion in Japanese History (1966). The books in English that give overviews on Japanese Buddhism and Shinto are based largely on the scholarship of the 1960s and 1970s. Consequently, many of the ideas contained within them are no longer accepted, and many of the issues they concentrate on are no longer the most important issues in the field. Originally named the “History of Japanese Religions Guidebook Project,” the goals were further defined in a meeting of Clark Chilson, Robert Kisala, and Okuyama Michiaki in October 1998, at which it was decided to “put together a research guidebook for the study of religion in Japanese history from ancient times to 1945.” The original concept was that the book should contain an introduction, review articles, appendices, and bibliographies. The introduction will delineate the major trends and debates in the field, and point out the main areas and problems that need to be researched in the future. The review articles will give an overview of the work done in a particular subfield of the history of Japanese religions (e.g., Tokugawa Buddhism, Shinto in medieval times) by pointing out the key problems and sources. The review articles should also give suggestions for further research. The number and content of the appendices has yet to be decided. OM suggested an annotated list of journals. CC suggested an appendix on how to access sources, particularly primary sources [and so forth]…. Paul Swanson, who was on sabbatical at Indiana University at the time, was contacted, and he agreed to participate in the project, eventually taking on a leading role as organizer and editor. As various ideas were tried out (translating review articles from the Japanese, adapting material from the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, producing bibliographical lists, etc.) through the summer and autumn of 1999, Clark Chilson agreed to write a formal book proposal, and Okuyama Michiaki took responsibility for preparing an application for a 3-year grant from the Japanese Monbukagakushō. Chilson’s proposal became the working model for the project: The book is intended to help students and scholars find what they need to do research on the history of Japanese religions. It will be the first research guide in any language to allow a researcher to navigate the whole field of the history of Japanese religions. Because no book maps out the entire field, most researchers become familiar with a particular area of the field in rather unsystematic ways, and are often only vaguely aware of what exists in the rest of the field. Over a period of time of working on specific academic problems, a researcher learns what resources are available in an area by being pointed in profitable directions by senior colleagues or by serendipitously finding sources in the research process. This rather inefficient method pinions researchers, especially less experienced ones, and circumscribes their lines of inquiry. By providing a reference for finding resources in the field, from manuals to money, we can provide beginners and specialists with a reference that will allow them to research more efficiently and in greater depth. Paul L. Swanson & Clark CHilson ix Our proposal for a research grant was approved in the spring of 2000, allowing us to provide minimum payment to authors of essays, and giving us access to funds for travel, equipment, and books to support the project. Lengthy discussions were held through the summer and fall of 2000 on the evolving contents of the book. One of the issues debated was whether or not to use the traditional categories of “Shinto,” “Buddhism,” and so forth. Some of the problems associated with these traditional categories are discussed in the essays (see, e.g., Havens on “Shinto”), but it was decided that, if only for the sake of convenience, we would use the categories to provide familiar handles on the field, and authors were solicited to contribute essays on the six “traditions” of our section one. The letters requesting a contribution included the following description: Our intent with these essays is to provide an overview of key issues and important topics of research with regard to Japanese religions. The essay should be an overview of the subject, with attention given to issues in that area that have received special attention or have been controversial or the subject of debate in recent years. The essay should be structured along the following lines: 1. Definition of key terms. 2. Overview of the field and the main areas of interest. 3. Recent publications, and a general outline of the state of research, in this area. 4. mportant topics and controversial issues in the area, and points that need furI ther research in the future. In addition to your cited references, we would also like to have the author provide a select bibliography of primary sources in the area that have been translated into Western languages. Limited space means that the essays must be short and to the point. Please bear in mind that the intent is to help the student or scholar gain a wide yet incisive perspective on this topic. The essay should contain many “pointers” that would lead the reader to think “This is an important issue, this is an area that needs more work, this is an interesting point to follow up on, this is an important publication in this area,” and so forth. A key event in the evolution of the project was a “working session” conducted at the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion at Nashville on 20 November 2000. Armed with our list of six essays on the “traditions” and a tentative list of twelve possible thematic essays (e.g., mythology, archaeology and material culture, syncretism, historiography, ritual and matsuri, etc.), we presented our ideas to an eager audience and solicited their advice. A lively discussion ensued over the contents and purpose of the book, with numerous suggestions for additional themes. Duncan Williams suggested having three sections—on traditions, history, and themes—each with six interrelated essays, and this eventually became the basic framework of the book. After the AAR consultation, the structure of the book finally approached its final form. The remaining issues were to decide on the periodization for the historical essays in section two, and to select the representative themes for section three. A seminar was held in January 2001 to discuss the issue of historical periodization, and Yoshida Kazuhiko and Hayashi Makoto were invited to outline the issues and provide advice. A decision was x Editors’ Introduction made to avoid the usual “era” divisions (Nara, Heian, Kamakura, etc.) and instead aim for discussion of general, overlapping swaths of history. Thus, the essay on “ancient” Japan includes comments on events in the Nara period, “classical” covers from Asuka-Nara and into early Kamakura, “medieval” from late Heian to early Tokugawa, “early modern” from Tokugawa to Meiji, “modern” from the Bakumatsu (late Tokugawa) through Shōwa, and “contemporary” from post-wwii to the present. This approach, we felt, minimized arbitrary breaks in long-term trends that overlapped conventional historical eras, and allowed for a more sweeping analysis of religion throughout Japanese history. The choice of themes was refined from a list of “Religion and the Arts,” “…Literature,” “…Gender,” “…Philosophy,” “…Politics,” and “…Economics,” to the six themes now in section three. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of “themes in Japanese religions,” and surely everyone will be able to come up with some topic that “should” have been included (“why not an essay on matsuri,” or “what happened to institutional history,” we can hear ringing in our ears….). Our aim was to cover as much ground as possible while still addressing specific issues. Admittedly, at times the theme (and the resulting contents of the essay) was much influenced by the individual author. Posting the essays on the Nanzan homepage (as they were submitted and with a preliminary edit) allowed authors to consult and compare what others had done, and over time to revise their essays accordingly. As a result, though the essays retain their individual flavors, there is a great deal of natural cross-referencing, and, we believe, an unexpectedly high level of cohesiveness. The authors were given relatively free rein (with only the rather ambiguous “guidelines” quoted above), and we were very gratified when they went beyond our expectations to provide instructive, provocative, and insightful treatments of their subject, sometimes quite different from the content we envisioned when we first solicited the essays. Thus there is quite a variety in style, from the literary flavor (and annotated bibliography) of Morrell, the revisioning analyses of Havens and Yoshida, the sweeping overviews of Reader and Bodiford, the new perspectives and insights of Payne and Kasulis, the personal experiential touch of Schnell, and so forth. Again, our original intent was to compile a single comprehensive bibliography to which all the essays would refer, but the differences in style and content convinced us to leave each essay with its own list of sources. This resulted in some repetition, but the appearance of the same reference in more than one essay serves to underscore the importance of that work, and also the continuity between essays. As time went on it became clear that many of the objectives of our original plan—specialized bibliographies, information on sources of funding for research, lists of academic societies and universities in Japan involved in religious studies, and so forth—could now be better undertaken on the internet rather than in a printed format, since the information is being constantly updated and revised. (Believe it or not, “Google” was as yet unknown when this book project began, and searches on the internet were still crude and unreliable.) Some of the materials compiled over the years are already outdated and replaced by better resources on the internet (e.g., a list of research sources on Buddhism compiled by Swanson) and will be laid to rest. The following collections of information that were Paul L. Swanson & Clark CHilson xi compiled for the Guide and are still useful, but were left out of the final printing, will be provided on the Nanzan Institute homepage (www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/sHubunken/). 1. ist of educational institutions in Japan involved in the study of Japanese religions L (Okuyama and Terao) 2. ist of academic societies in Japan for the study of Japanese religion (Okuyama and L Terao) 3. List of major sources of funding for research on Japanese religions (Okuyama) 4. Bibliography of Japanese-language works on Christianity in Japan (Terao) 5. List of Primary Sources in Western Languages (Okuyama and Swanson) On the other hand, an essay on fieldwork was added late in the process to supplement the essays on libraries and archives in section four, and William Bodiford volunteered to provide his valuable “Chronology of Religion in Japan.” As a result, we now have a book that is neither a comprehensive introduction to Japanese religions, nor just a collection of research resources. Instead, we have a Guide that we think can serve as an overview of Japanese religions and help both beginning students and seasoned researchers navigate the field by providing overviews of scholarship in different subfields, different time periods, and on select themes, and by offering practical techniques for accessing relevant information. We hope the book will be useful as a supplementary textbook for undergraduates taking courses on Japanese religions and as a reference for graduate students that will help them carry out their research projects more efficiently. For specialists of Japanese religions, the book can serve as an inventory of the field, showing how the field has developed and its current state. We believe that historians and social scientists of Japan who do not specialize on religion, but whose research relates to it, will also find beneficial material in the book. acknowledgements First, we would like to thank our contributors for their extraordinary essays, especially those who submitted their essays on schedule and then waited patiently while the book evolved and underwent a long period of revision, updating, and final editing. We would also like to acknowledge the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai 日本学術振興会) for its generous three-year research grant (April 2000–March 2003; 文部科学省科学研究費補助金, on the theme 「日本宗教史に関す る基礎的な研究資料の編集刊行による研究の国際化の推進」, “Promoting the Internationalization of Research through the Editing and Publication of Basic Research Materials concerning the History of Japanese Religions”) that allowed us to pay authors a minimum remuneration for their essays, buy computer equipment and software, purchase books, and travel to international conferences. Thomas Kasulis provided the photos that appear on the divider pages. We would like to express a special thanks to Kawahashi Seishu, head priest of Reiganji (in Toyota) and photographer extraordinaire (see www.msk-gallery. com), who made a special effort to produce the cover photo of Daruma dolls. xii Editors’ Introduction The editors (who get to have their names on the cover of this Guide) would like to express their appreciation to the “project team” that, especially in the early stages, worked hard on various aspects of the project (many of whose results, for one reason or another, do not appear on the surface), and without which the Guide would never have coalesced: Trevor Astley Okuyama Michiaki Robert Kisala Terao Kazuyoshi Horo Atsuhiko The following essays were submitted in Japanese and translated into English: “Ancient Japan and Religion” by Matsumura Kazuo, translated by Benjamin Dorman; “Religion in the Classical Period” by Yoshida Kazuhiko, translated by Paul L. Swanson; “Religion in the Modern Period” by Hayashi Makoto, translated by Clark Chilson; and “Contemporary Japanese Religions” by Shimazono Susumu, translated by Robert Kisala. We also appreciate the advice and encouragement we received on numerous occasions from Yoshida Kazuhiko and Hayashi Makoto. Finally, James Heisig provided his usual invaluable services in designing the layout of the book, assisting with the layout, and offering crucial advice at various stages of the editorial process. April 2005 Paul L. Swanson Nagoya, Japan Clark CHilson Ithaca, New York pHoto credits Cover photo by KawaHasHi Seishu P hotos on divider pages by Thomas Kasulis: p. 1, “sunrise at wedded rocks near Ise” p. 129, “pilgrims at Tōdaiji in Nara” p. 232, “lion mask ritual costume” p. 337, “Fudō-myōō temple lanterns” p. 393, “statue of Zenkōji founder carrying Buddha image”