The Institute of International Studies, MAS, has selected as a recipient of books through The Japan Science Society’s READ JAPAN PROJECT “Books for Understanding Japan” book donation program supported by The Nippon Foundation, 32 books received themes in Japanese culture, history and international relations.
A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism this book published in 2015, by William Deal and Brian Ruppert, the authors both experts on Japanese religions study. The book covers the Buddhism in Japan period form the sixth century to the present. It consists of 314 pages, divided into seven chapters including glossary and index, and every chapter has its own notes, references and also further reading; that allows readers to study of narrow of Japanese Buddhism. Also, that includes the interpretation of Japanese terms in the “On translation” section, which becomes easier to understand and more cognitive. Intended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students as well as scholars, will make a good textbook for them.
The authors offer a comprehensive, consideration detailed account of the old texts, a multiple analysis by the complex and controversial major Japanese historical each period event, and unfolding narratives, Buddhist images, and ritual paraphernalia, compering interpretations within the broader relevant social, cultural and political contexts. A book also coverage of contemporary scholarly issues and debates, as well as topics of contemporary interest for example Buddhist themed manga comics and pet memorial rituals. Some chapters are focused on nuns and Buddhist women, which illustrate the important role of women in Japanese Buddhism.
If you want to deepen your knowledge of Japanese Buddhism, to understand the dissemination of Buddhism to Japanese islands this book is a much-needed resource.
In this book begin with a discussion of the narrative in Nihon shoki (日本書紀), translated as The Chronicles of Japan, the oldest classical Japanese history’s book. According to the mentioned in Chapter 1, “Early Historical Context (Protohistory to 645)”, the Nihon shoki is the primary textual source for the transmission of Buddhism to the Japanese islands, and for Buddhism’s early development.
In this chapter authors explored that Japanese responses to Buddhism in formative period following its transition to the Japanese islands and consider these issues from both the East Asian perspective and from the specific context of Japan. An author offers the notion of “The China Sea interaction sphere” by Joan Piggott, and the authors adopt consider that China Sea sphere cultural transmission was multidirectional, cultural flows back and forth throughout East Asia included such things as trade goods, art and architectural techniques and styles, texts, medicines, and Buddhist monks, Confucians, merchants etc. The transmission to Buddhism flowed into the Japanese islands was connected with struggles over the consolidation of political power, at the same time as powerful extended families or clans were competing for political.
In the Nihon shoki example, Paekche’s King Songmyong sent his envoys to the Japanese archipelago seeking Yamato military support for its war against Silla and China, accompanied by gifts of Buddhist imagery and texts offering Buddhism in exchange in the sixth century. Authors said thus, the transmission of Buddhism to Japan needs to be understood within the context of relations between the Japanese archipelago, the Korean peninsula, and the Chinese mainland.
Authors explain two models for the transmission of Buddhism to the Japanese islands. The first model is of Buddhism as transmitted from the ruler of one country to another. Buddhism then comes to be officially supported and patronized by the ruling classes and only later spreads to the larger population. In the second model, and the one often ignored, Buddhism is seen as transmitted from person to person within the general population.
Japanese scholars, like Tamura Encho, describe “household Buddhism” in contrast to “temple Buddhism”. Explain the term “temple Buddhism” in recognition that the acceptance of Buddhism in a particular kingdom was typically followed by imperial patronage of temple-building project and to run the temple and conduct rituals-rituals often directed toward the well-being of the kingdom and its ruling class.
Authors noted the role of immigrant in bringing Buddhism to the Japanese islands and of promoting its practice, whether privately or publicly. The other mode of transmission as ‘household Buddhism’, this form of Buddhism was transmitted in an informal way, which through Chinese and Korean immigrants who were Buddhist and who settled in Japan.
About date for the transmission of Buddhism to the Japanese archipelago, there are two competing dates given in early texts for the moment Buddhism arrived in Japan. While the Nihon shoki provides the date of transmission as 522 CE, another text, a temple legend called the Circumstances Leading to the Founding of the Monastery Complex of Gangoji and a List of Its Accumulated Treasures gives the date 538 CE. In the Nihon shoki there are more specific quoted regard the transmission, it has long been pointed out that the statement uttered by King Song in praise of the Dharma he is offering in tribute to King Kinmei- and passage for 522- is partly a quotation form the Sovereign Kings of the Golden Light Sutra.
The authors’ detailed analysis, the struggles between Suga and Monobe kinship indicate that a struggle between Buddhism and Shinto, Soga kinship group represented the faction that embraced the Buddha and The Mononobe kinship group represented the faction that rejected the foreign deity-Buddhism. In the end, this struggle did establish Buddhism as central to the task of nation-building as its patronage by the royal family in subsequent decades attests. It is interesting that this section describes about confronted decision to whether it was good or bad to accept and worship foreign deities-Buddhism, and a conflict between indigenous kami and Buddhism.
The following second chapter 2, “Ancient Buddhism (645-950)” examines the significance aristocratic ruling family’s support of Buddhist development in the Nara and early Heian period. An author marks the transition from aristocratic family sponsorship of Buddhism to a Buddhism patronized by ruler. In this period, Buddhism began its gradual diffusion outward to Japanese islands.
Authors notes that in this period by three interrelated developments produced that elements necessary for the formation of state Buddhism: (1) establishment of state temples, (2) state-sponsored ritual practices, and (3) state control of the monastic community. With increasing royal control of Buddhist practices and institutions, Buddhism was put into the service of promoting the idea of a unified state legitimately controlled by the royal family. As part of this process, the state became an active patron, commissioning temples and images, and sponsoring Buddhist rituals.
This chapter discuss the begin the private temple building of aristocratic families such as the Soga and Hata, the construction of Todaiji temple, and the brought with the first state temples Taika Reform, the state’s attempt to control monastic community, institutions, the six Nara Buddhist lineages, mentioned the relationship and Buddhism and the state the oldest Japanese collection of Buddhist didactic stories Nihon ryoiki, the new Buddhist ideas and practices that imported into Japan from the Chinese mainland. Also discussed the emergence new two Buddhist lineages, Shingon and Tendai, were both to played a significant role in developments in Japanese Buddhism.
In the period Buddhism became firmly established and increasingly ubiquitous in the Japanese population, slowly moving beyond the purview of state concerns and control. In this period begin to an expansion of state-sponsored Buddhist rituals, the purpose of these rituals focused on the welfare and prosperity of the state or the health and well-being of the ruling elite. Centered at the Todaiji temple, national temple system provided an structure for securing political authority in the provinces, becoming an integral part of the bureaucratic hierarchy needed to establish control over of land and to assert a unified state with a centralized ruling power.
Furthermore, the “Women in ancient Japanese Buddhism” in this section authors discuss the conflicted status of women in Japanese Buddhist history.
The third chapter, titled “Early Medieval Buddhism (950-1300): The Dawn of Medieval Society and Related Changes in Japanese Buddhist Culture” considers Buddhism’s practices how influenced in the lives of dominant court family such as the Fujiwara, and the Tendai lineages that were gave rise to important changes in Buddhist belief and practices, the increasing importance of Pure Land, the changing relationship between Buddhism and kami worship (Shinto), the role Buddhas and bodhisattvas in Japanese religious lives, the Buddhism’s effect and influence at that in the Kamakura lineages.
In the early medieval era, monks were interested in the study of the Lotus Sutra and esoteric Buddhist practice. One of these interests was the practice of the nenbutsu, that is, in hopes of birth in Pure Land at the time of death- or of enabling unsettled spirits to find peace. Japanese Buddhist monasteries paid special attention to the annual and seasonal Buddhist rituals in Japan and authors showed interesting chart of annual court rituals broken down by month and based on Minamoto. Authors consider interestingly the market growth of esoteric Buddhism in this period, which new ways of gathering ritual knowledge and played an integral role in the development of artistic lineages. Aristocrats gradually made efforts to integrate the arts into Buddhist practice.
Some themes that run though the chapter, “Annual court ceremonies and envisioning a Buddhist ritual calendar”, “The rising prominence of Tendai lineages and relates shifts in Heian Buddhism”, “The advent of Pure land Buddhist discourses and practices”, “Kami, Buddhas, and sacred space”, “Ritual knowledge, transmission, and the increasing prominence of esoteric Buddhist lineages”.
Chapter 4, “Late Medieval Buddhism (1300-1467): New Buddhism, Buddhist Learning, Dissemination and the fall into Chaos”, in this chapter concentrate on “Kamakura Buddhism”s further developing during this period. It was an era that began with the temporary disintegration of the royal family, the splintering of the royal family into northern and southern.
The authors analysis that the devastating Onin war in Kyoto, the destruction of the greatest temple complex in Japanese history, Enryakuji etc., the chaos that began the period may have contributed to the ease with which of varied peripatetic active so-called networking monks and mountain ascetics of assorted Buddhist lineages. They founded temples in locations throughout eastern and western Japan.
This chapter includes subsection on nuns and other Buddhist women and gender, noted that expansion of the numbers of nuns. Also mentioned Zen monks began to specialize in performing funerals for parishioners and a series of arts informed by Buddhism themes and practices which contributed to the wider disseminations of Buddhist to the populace.
Chapter 5 addresses “Buddhism and the Transition to the Modern Era (1467-1800)”, the chapter begins the works of prominent scholar Yoshida that suggest that the final of the three major periods is that of “New Buddhism”, which he sees as beginning in the second half of the fifteenth century focused particularly on the development of sects and “mortuary Buddhism”, especially of the True Pure Land and Soto lineages. An author offers, developments in Buddhism at that time greatly influenced the direction of its modern manifestations.
This chapter focused on the devastation wrought by the Onin war and he evolving positions of Buddhist as well their learning and rituals, new dissemination mode of Buddhist text, popularization of Buddhist lineages such as “new” lineage of so called “Kamakura Buddhism”s the character. The Zen lineages, for example, undertook reforms that respectfully focused on the newly institutionalized koan examination system and on Dogen’s writing- features that have continued into current Japan. Also mentioned that preaching performances and literature flourished and further contributed to Edo Buddhist culture and which increased interaction with the population throughout the Japanese isles.
Chapter 6 titled “Modern Buddhism (1800-1945)”, this chapter describes anti-Buddhist sentiments in the Meiji period. In 1798, the Kokugaku (National Learning) scholar Motoori Norinaga completed work in his Kojiki-den (A Commentary on the Kojiki). In this text, Norinaga asserts that it is possible to reclaim the origins and essence of the Japanese spirit in the pristine Shinto sensibilities apparent in the Kojiki narrative. Significantly, the loss of this pure Japanese spirit was purported to be the direct result of foreign influences, especially Buddhism. The Kokugaku (often referred to as “nativism”) movement of Norinaga and others become ideologically important in efforts to transform Japan into a modern nation-state and became coupled with the movement that generated the Meiji Restoration. This movement sough to restore imperial rule and to mitigate the influence of, or the foreign influences that these reformer sought to reject. Buddhism was one of the foreign influences that these reformers sought to reject.
According to the authors, the Meiji Buddhists responses to these changes such as some Buddhist saw a need to reforms, Buddhist missionary activities increased abroad including blending Buddhism with Western philosophy and science. Furthermore, the rise of the study of Buddhism as an academic field, and the study of Buddhism as an academic discipline, According to Hayashi, Buddhism, in the Meiji period, became for the first time both a lived experience and an object of academy study. Despite anti-Buddhist sentiment and policies detrimental to Buddhism, there were a number of new Buddhist movements popular in the Meiji period through 1945.
In the final chapter “Buddhism since 1945”, elaborates on the present situation and focusing on the Japanese people’s lives in detail.
The postwar Japanese constitution, promulgated in 1946, it contains two articles, 20 and 89, that are of particular importance to the legal status of religion in postwar Japan, and to ensure the separation of religion and state, and to prohibit state support of any religion. The state no longer controlled the practices of religions and religions were no longer required to get state approval to function. One of the implications of this new legislation for Buddhism was that temple affiliations could be freely changed.
New religious grew rapidly, they were free to teach, practice, and proselytize more or less as they wished. Among new religious Soka Gakkai and Rissho Koseika were especially popular to Japan’s growing middle class and are, today, the two largest lay Buddhist organizations in Japan. They are both grounded in Lotus Sutra faith. Also, there is such an example Buddhist new religious’ such as teaching is based on Tibetan Buddhist thought and practice blended with Christian and Jewish religious and millenarian ideas, Aum Shinrikyo’s notoriety is the result of the group’s 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system in which 12 people died and many thousands were hospitalized.
The authors mentioned that traditional Buddhist lineages still play an important role in contemporary Japanese religious and cultural life. Many challenges confront traditional Buddhist lineages such as attracting new priests and nuns, maintaining and creating new and younger followers in an aging population, welcoming women into important organizational roles, engaging religious practices meaningful to contemporary Japan, addressing technological changes especially with regard to medicine and medical ethics, and otherwise flexibly addressing institutional problems when they arise.
Interestingly the author examines the long history of Buddhist funeral and a memorial ritual has shifted in another direction in contemporary Japan. Since 1990s, pet ownership has increase dramatically. For those who treat their pets as family members, pet memorial rituals have become important events. Also mizuko kuyo, paid services offered for the repose of the spirits of miscarried or aborted fetuses etc. Some themes that representation of “Buddhism in Contemporary Japanese Culture”, animate films (anime), fiction, poetry, comics (manga) and various forms of new media have all been vehicle for expressing Buddhist thought in contemporary Japan.
William E.Deal and Brian Ruppert
Wiley Blackwell Publishing, 2015, 314 pages, ISBN 978-1-4051-6700-0
Introduced by Sosorburam Amarbat MA
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