Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution 9780691221892, 0691055998, 0691024812

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Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan

Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan BUDDHISM AND ITS PERSECUTION

James Edward Ketelaar

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Copyright © 1990 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ketelaar, James Edward, 1957Of heretics and martyrs in Meiji Japan : Buddhism and its persecution / James Edward Ketelaar. p. cm. Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral—University of Chicago) under the title: of heretics and martyrs. 1987. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Buddhism—Japan—History—1868-1945. 2. Buddhists—Japan— Persecutions. 3. Buddhism—Social aspects—Japan. I. Title. BQ693.K48 1990 294.3'0952'09034—dc20 90-30100 ISBN 0-691-05599-8 ISBN 0-691-02481-2 (pbk.) First Princeton Paperback printing, 1993 Publication of this book has been aided by grants from the Suntory Foundation and the Japan Foundation This book has been composed in Linotron Times Roman Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

For Ikumi

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments

ix xiii

CHAPTER ONE

The Making of a Heresy: Anti-Buddhist Thought in Tokugawa Japan

Introduction Interpreting Persecution: Law of the Buddha, Law of the King The Language of Persecution: Anti-Buddhist Thought The Language of Persecution: And History The Language of Persecution: And National Essence The Language of Persecution: And Political Economy Conclusion

3

3 5 14 19 28 37 41

CHAPTER Two

Of Heretics and Martyrs: Anti-Buddhist Policies and the Meiji Restoration

Introduction Mita: By Way of Paradigm Satsuma: Complete Implementation Complications: Bannings, Banks, and Wooden Fish From Heretics to Martyrs Conclusion

43 43 46 54 65 77 83

CHAPTER THREE

Rites, Rule, and Religion: Construction and Destruction of a National Doctrine

Introduction Saisei itchi: Unity of Rite and Rule Seiky6 itchi: Unity of Rule and Doctrine Seiky6 bunri: Separation of Rule and Religion Conclusion

87 87 91 96 122 130

CHAPTER FOUR

The Reconvening of Babel: Eastern Buddhism and the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions

Introduction The Invitation

136 136 139

viii

• Contents

Parliamentarian Conceptions of Religion Constructing the Other The Champions of Buddhism Circumambulation of the Globe Conclusion CHAPTER FIVE

The Making of a History: Buddhism and Historicism in Meiji Japan Introduction Transsectarianism: "Essentials of the Eight Sects" Transnationalism: Constructing a United Buddhism Cosmopolitanism: Constructing a Global Buddhism Buddhist Bibles: Distillation of the Canon CONCLUSION

145 152 159 166 168 174 174 111 184 191 207 213

Glossary

221

Abbreviations

229

Notes

231

Bibliography

275

Index

283

Preface

of one class by another, one religion by another, one government or people by another, is one of the enduring horrors of humankind. That men and women are willing to kill or be killed for the sake of upholding and promulgating certain beliefs serves as eloquent and terrible testimony to the power of ideas in human society. It seems that no society, church, or state, now or in the past, can provide a history for itself devoid of those we call heretics and martyrs. An examination of heretics and martyrs will thus serve to describe the contours of the social nexus within which their identities are themselves established. This exercise is especially significant when applied to a time of profound social flux. Heretics and martyrs define by their deaths (for death is a defining element of their subjectivity) the precise outlines of the ideological strategies upon which the possibility of praxis within their historical moment depends. The horrific yet glorious deaths undergone by heretics and martyrs are subsequently used by their persecutors and their brethren alike as signifiers of the perpetuation of prevailing norms and the possibility of the violation of those norms. Heretics and martyrs dwell within a certain exteriority. They participate in this world (thus their death), but by virtue of their suffering they come to inhabit a position marked by fear and by awe. Heretics and martyrs are, in fact, one and the same. Martyrs are, after all, heretics whose brethren have not (yet) been annihilated and apotheosized. As long as there are those who will erect the shrines or memorial plaques, sing the hymns, and perform the ceremonies of remembrance, each and every heretic will be refigured as a martyr. Persecution, though pervasive in human history, is seldom in and of itself capable of totally extinguishing the other. It is precisely the privileged exteriority available to this persecuted other that provides a strategy crucial to the survival of the persecuted. The heretic here is not merely a "law breaker" but, in becoming a martyr, is transformed into a paradigm of the possibility of transcending the operation of certain definitions of "law." The heretic as martyr provides, that is, a position from which to carry out a critique of the formation and possibilities of law in operation within a given society. This is not to suggest that the heretic-as-martyr stands "outside" law itself; rather, the heretic-as-martyr figuration suggests a contestable relativization of certain claims to hegemonic authority in so far as it provides alternative possibilities of action derived from alternative codes of acceptability. The aim of the following pages is to examine the manner in which such a refiguration can be carried out. Focusing on the persecution of Buddhism in PERSECUTION

x • Preface the latter half of the nineteenth century in Japan—during, that is, the first half of the Meiji era (1868-1912)—makes possible an assessment of persecution strategies, the concomitant methods central to a displacement of that persecution, and the possibility of a formation of the creative and critical status of martyrdom. Further, as suggested above, an examination of the heretic as martyr will also cast in stark relief the dominant ideological concerns of the period and the consequences of those concerns for individual and institutional action. Specifically, the formation of the Meiji state, with its emphasis upon the nationalist and historicist "restoration of imperial rule" (psei fukko), coupled with the redefinition of the political economy in the quest for a "wealthy nation and a strong army" {fukoku kyohei), had profound implications for the very possibility of certain forms of thought and action. Buddhism, for example, caught in the crossfire between Shintoists, enlightenment thinkers, nationalists, imperialists, economists, Confucians, and the newly emergent scientists and historians (clearly these are not mutually exclusive identities) as they did battle over the correct interpretation of "civilization and enlightenment" (bummei kaika), underwent severe attacks and, in some locales, was threatened with complete and permanent eradication. Buddhism was successful, I contend, not only in weathering these physical and ideological attacks. Buddhism also achieved the more difficult task of reconstituting itself as nonheretical. This was accomplished, moreover, with such sophistication and thoroughness that the Meiji era persecution of Buddhism itself is all but forgotten in chronicles of Japanese history. Meiji Buddhists succeeded, that is, not merely in refiguring Buddhism from the heretical to the martyred; they also succeeded in producing a "new Buddhism" (shin Bukkyo) that in fact has come to be viewed as a bastion of "true Japanese culture." Our contemporary understanding of "modern Buddhism" (kindaiteki Bukkyo) as found in Japan (and to a large extent as found in the United States and Europe as well) can thus be traced to this crucible of persecution in the early Meiji era and the subsequent refiguration of its social and institutional contours. In the pages that follow, though I will frequently speak of "Buddhism" per se, it should be emphasized that such an object, somehow transcendent of particular forms or individuals, depends for its meaning upon definitional strategies set forth by various individuals implicated within specific social and political concerns. Particular sects of Buddhism, with often radically different and even contestable teachings, were in fact being consolidated and determined in terms of doctrine as well as institutional organization during the period in question. In addition, "Buddhism" in general, I argue, was in fact being examined and (re)defined in Meiji Japan with the same comprehensive rigor that accompanied its introduction into the Chinese cultural milieu nearly two millennia ago. The various attempts by Buddhist theologians and their critics to identify something called "Buddhism" thus must each be seen as aspects of the very defining process itself and not as stable or conceptually

Preface • xi exhaustive determinations of possibilities inherent in "Buddhism." This is as true for contemporary writers as it was for the Meiji Buddhists. Moreover, this caution is not limited to Buddhism alone; the entire social and cultural fabric of mid- to late-nineteenth-century Japan underwent an extremely volatile transformation. The conceptions and policies directed toward the religious life in general and the Buddhist life in particular were themselves both constructive of and derived from this volatile extended historical moment. By tracing the constitution of a Buddhism defined as heretical in one moment and martyred in another, I hope to show not only the characteristics central to an understanding of the particular moments within which these figurations of religion took place, but also the strategies necessary to and certain consequences of such elaborate re-presentations of history. I hope also to show, as Kant has suggested, that "the intention of all of them is to manage to their own advantage [something they perceive as] the invisible Power which presides over the destiny of men; they differ merely in their conceptions of how to understand this feat."1 How then, precisely, was it that Buddhism—a prominent aspect of Japan's philosophic, political, literary, artistic, and economic history for over one thousand years—could be constituted as the target of the most profound anathema in the early Meiji era? There is not one but a cluster of possible answers to this question. In Chapter One I address this issue by examining historicist, nationalist, and economic concerns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries germane to the critique of Buddhism that emerges with a surprising violence in the 1860s and 1870s. In Chapter Two I continue this examination by investigating how the persecution was carried out locally (with a focus on the antiBuddhist programs in the Mito and Satsuma domains) and how some of the affected Buddhists reacted (highlighting an anti-persecution uprising led by Pure Land Buddhists in the Mikawa domain). As local anti-Buddhist policies were gradually introduced into the nationwide redefinition of both the body politic and the body religious, the ideological plurality of anti-Buddhist critics became starkly apparent. The discussion of the Meiji government's creation and implementation of a National Academy responsible for the moral education of the populace, as presented in Chapter Three, reveals the tension of conflicting concerns over the precise nature of the content of a national ideology as well as its methods of promulgation. The Buddhist-led countermovement to "separate [state] rule and [religious] doctrine" (seikyo bunri), which succeeded in closing down the National Academy and its attendant institutions, is clearly a harbinger of the successful transformation of Buddhism from a persecuted other to a paradigmatic martyr of the illustrious heritage of the nation. Domestic policies in Japan of the late nineteenth century were not immune to events within the international arena. Though the conceit engendered in such frequent observations as Commodore M. C. Perry's (1794—1858) "open-

xii • Preface ing" of Japan in 1854 is endemic to Occidental oversimplifications of the Japanese political world, the international element of Meiji Japan is nevertheless crucial to an understanding of the age in general and of Buddhism's (re)definition in particular. In Chapter Four we will journey with Japanese Buddhist representatives to the World's Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 1893 in conjunction with the Columbian World's Exposition. The goals of these Buddhists were twofold. First, the Buddhists envisioned themselves as the first Mahayana Buddhist missionaries to the West, similar to those Indian emissaries to China centuries before, charged with carrying the spiritual wisdom of the Orient to an Occidental world drunk with its own material success. Second, they hoped to utilize the privileged position of exteriority available to them as cosmopolitan figures (a result of their ' 'journeys to the West'') to continue the resuscitation of a domestically besieged Buddhism. Central to a (re)definition of a modern Buddhism was, that is, its inherently international or cosmopolitan efficacy. Buddhism, these "champions of Buddhism" hoped to show, was not merely the "Light of Asia" but also the "Light of the World." Recognizing that those who control the production of history also to a certain extent control the interpretation of the significance of that history for the contemporary world, post-Parliament Buddhists set out to inscribe their past in the collective cultural conscience of modern Japan. Chapter Five presents the sources, strategies, and results of this historicist exercise. The history of Buddhism as thereby produced is—in the words of Yatsubuchi Banryu, a Pure Land Buddhist representative to the World's Parliament of Religions—"a Buddhism for the family, a Buddhism for marriage, a Buddhism for the workplace, a Buddhism for the military, a Buddhism for celebration, a Buddhism for all ages." 2 And, we should add, a Buddhism for all peoples. The historicization of Buddhism as carried out in the mid-to-late Meiji era served to guarantee the survival of Buddhism into the modern era. The socialization and acculturation of Buddhism had the concomitant consequence of transcending the heretic-as-martyr figuration of Buddhism that had dominated the early Meiji era as well as producing a "modern Buddhism" that has become in turn central to a definition of ' 'Japan'' itself. In a world imbued with, if not bound together by, relations of power and philosophies of possession, persecution in one form or another is clearly endemic. This examination of Meiji era Buddhism and its entrance into the twentieth century is designed to illustrate the strategies conducive to the establishment and promulgation of ideological hegemonies as well as the cultural and personal consequences contained therein. The case of the Meiji Buddhists reveals both the dangers of capitulation and the possibilities of a creative disobedience.

Acknowledgments

for this project was carried out in part during two years at Kyoto University's Department of National History (Kokushi) and the Institute for Humanistic Studies {Jimbun Kagaku Kenkyu Jo) and was supported in part by generous grants from a United States Department of Education Fulbright Fellowship, the Far Eastern Center at the University of Chicago, a Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship, and the Japan-America Friendship Council. I would like to express thanks to Professors Asao Naohiro, of the Department of History, and Asukai Masamichi of the Jimbunken, both at Kyoto University, for their many personal kindnesses as well as their professional aid. To Professor Haga Shochi of the Jimbunken, who, with flawless memory and sophisticated research techne, guided many of my readings and suggested numerous avenues of alternative approach, I extend deep thanks: were it not for Professor Haga's contributions, this book would have suffered tremendously. Professors Ikeda Eishun of Asahikawa University, Hayashima Aritake of Kobe Woman's College and the Ryukoku University Hongan-ji Research Institute, and Suzuki Norihisa of Rikkyo University generously sat through many hours of questions and patiently revealed certain intricate aspects of their research and their faiths. I learned, among other things, the manifold character of the Lay Buddhist and some of the creative possibilities available to those who choose to be religious. I imagine that the research librarians at the libraries of Kyoto, Ryukoku, Otani, and Tenri Universities and at the Tokyo University Meiji Newspaper/ Journal Archives are glad that I am gone; I am deeply grateful for their assistance. I would specially like to thank the researchers and librarians at Kagoshima Prefecture's Historical Research Center, the Reimeikan, and at the Archives of Meiji Buddhism currently housed at the Shidobunko at Keio University. Their generosity in providing office space, assistance, and copying privileges is all the more amazing because they did so so freely. I can wish only that every writer could know someone like Mrs. Kuki of the Far Eastern Library at the University of Chicago. Her unflagging interest, dauntless enthusiasm, and manifold assistance over these several years have been a constant source of encouragement. The conceiving and writing of this work were carried out largely at the University of Chicago. To my teachers there—in particular, Professors Tetsuo Najita, Harry Harootunian, Naoki Sakai, William Sibley, and Norma Field— I extend my unending gratitude. I consider myself profoundly fortunate to have experienced the volatile and creative intellectual milieu created by these RESEARCH

xiv • Acknowledgments people; I hope some traces of this experience and their brilliance have been translated, however imperfectly, into the following pages. To William Haver, ostensibly a fellow student yet inexorably my mentor, I offer profound thanks for his patience, clarity, and friendship; many of my best ideas are merely reworked versions of his initial insights. Professors John Maraldo and Sam Kimball at the University of North Florida and Professor Peter Duus of Stanford University each read sections of the manuscript and made many useful comments. I am also grateful to Cathie Brettschneider at Princeton University Press for her sensitive critiques and suggestions as editor. Finally, this book is dedicated, with love and gratitude, to Kaminishi Ikumi.

Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan

CHAPTER ONE

The Making of a Heresy: Anti-Buddhist Thought in Tokugawa Japan [TJhere is no quicker way to dispose of an enemy than to accuse him of heresy. The mere word stimulates such horror that when it is pronounced men shut their ears to the victim's defense, and furiously persecute not merely the man himself, but also all those who dare to open their mouths on his behalf. . . . [A]ll the saints have suffered persecution, although not all who have suffered are saints. —De Haereticis (Concerning Heretics), 1554 The animal to be devoured must be evil. —Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics

INTRODUCTION THE ATTEMPT by Imperial Japanese astrologers to counter the domestic and diplomatic turmoil of the final years of the Kaei era (1848-1854) by renaming the age itself (thus assuming a precise relation between the "naming" of an age and its character) proved insufficient to the task. The era of "Peaceful Rule" (J: Ansei; 1854-1860) was, in fact, to be one of the most volatile political periods in Japanese history. As the entire social fabric of the late Tokugawa organization was undergoing severe strain, it should come as little surprise that Buddhism and its institutions, key elements in the Tokugawa ruling hierarchy, would also collectively experience the tensions of the age. Less than one month into this new era of "Peaceful Rule" the Ministry of State (Dajokan) issued the following order to all local administrators regarding temples within their jurisdictions: "This year the American barbarians [Commodore Perry and the "Black Ships"] have again entered our harbors. In the fall the Russian barbarians [Admiral E. V. Putyatin] entered the Inland Sea. There can be only one concern for our nation at this time: the defense of our seas. To accomplish this goal all the bells in temples throughout the land will be refashioned into cannon and rifles."1 Though similar to previous governmental calls for aid from Buddhist institutions in times of crisis—characterized by an external threat or natural calamity that necessitated sell-sacrificial acts of gratitude—what the Ministry of State's 1854 proclamation called for indicated a shift from a common geo-

4 • Chapter One graphically circumscribed domainal sectarian policy to one with national implications. Even though this order of 1854 was restricted to "all bells except those in the main temples [honzan], those used for timekeeping, and those of great age and fame," local areas freely interpreted these limitations as they set out to fashion "tools for the preservation of the Imperial land." 2 The response from the temples was almost deafening. Temples claiming "main temple" status, and thus exemption from the confiscation law, far outnumbered the recognized sects; memorials to the throne, often signed by all the priests in an entire area, exceeded the number of bells to be confiscated; and politically powerful sects dispatched their most adept lobbyists to negotiate with local and national ministers. These monks would, if it were possible, emphasize their temple's relation to the Imperial family, to the shogunal family, or to the local daimyo. As the following excerpt from a letter by the priests of the Enryaku-ji indicates, at the least they asserted the spiritual efficacy contained within the bells. "Among all the materials used by Buddhism, the bells are by far the most profound; their destruction will topple the majesty of the Buddha, extinguish the light of the dharma, confound the wisdom of the three jewels, and disregard the protection of the land as provided by the divine kami. . . . How can the power of man succeed without the protection of the kami and the Buddhas?"3 Appeals to various authorities, both divine and temporal, were supplemented by thinly veiled threats of peasant unrest should the confiscation policy be enforced. The following is an excerpt from a letter composed jointly by priests from the Z6jo-ji, Kamei-ji, and Enryaku-ji temples and sent directly to the Ministry of State: Temple bells have stood guard over the dharma and our Imperial land for generations; since their use has been devoted continually to this end we have no argument when the nation itself asks to use them for its own purposes. However, these bells do not belong to the priests, or the temples, but rather to the people who built them. . . . These bells were fashioned by thousands of the faithful and dedicated to their ancestors and descendants; they were paid for by people who sold their clothes though they were cold, and sold their food though they were hungry. Each bell is made of a thousand hearts and 10,000 souls. We priests cannot remain silent when we see the hopes of the poor and ignorant masses of our nation so profoundly ignored.4 But even as the cannon to be produced from these bells were to fail to prevent the encroachment of the "barbarians" into the Imperial Nation, so too the Buddhists' appeals failed, in most cases, to prevent the confiscation of metal to construct those cannon. The metal bells and statues that did in fact survive this period unscathed were usually saved not through diplomacy but through the acts of faithful peasants. Many of these peasants are now remembered as local heroes: for example, Asaguma Juemon, who carried away a

The Making of a Heresy • 5 Kamakura period statue of Amida Nyorai to hide among the rafters of his home, or Uchimura Shoji, who hid a Yakushi Nyorai statue and other artifacts in his barn for over a decade.5 Local efforts such as these increased when, one month after the implementation of the confiscation order, a major earthquake struck Edo, killing 200,000 people. This tragedy, coupled with the frequently retold observation that the center of destruction was located near the governmental offices of the bakufu, was popularly seen as proof of divine dissatisfaction with the destruction of temple bells.6 The use of temple bells in the domestic battle to marshall sufficient strength to resist the increasing demands pressed upon Japan by the foreign powers was but a small corner of a pervasive and intricate restructuring of the entire social and political fabric of Japan during the mid-nineteenth century. It should be stressed, moreover, that the attacks upon Buddhism in particular—indeed the domestic turmoil in general evidenced in Japan throughout this period on the whole—though clearly exacerbated by the international issues of the day, were not fully determined thereby. The history of Japan, in other words, should not be read as merely a set of specific "responses" to the "impact" of the West. The dynamic interplay of historicist, Nativist, and economic concerns within Japan wove together many threads, domestic and international alike, in the creation of, finally, a new nation and, more specific to our concerns here, a new Buddhism. In this chapter I will examine the conceptual terrain upon which the persecution of Buddhism was enacted; how could a seemingly central element of Japanese history and culture be thought of as not merely extraneous but also exanimate and devolutionary? To explore this question I first take up the pre-Meiji interpretation of the correct relation between Buddhism and the central ruling authority and its rearticulation within the early months of the Meiji era; after offering some cautions and proposals germane to the interpretation of the Meiji era religious milieu, I turn to three clusters of anti-Buddhist critique: historicist, Nativist, and economic. We will find that though the Imperial astronomers were perhaps less than successful in determining the precise character of the age through their exercise of rectifying names, their larger concerns for a sound national body intimately connected to a specifically defined antiquity by means of a transcendent ideology were, finally, made manifest in the age of "Illuminated Rule" (J: Meiji; 18681912). Initially, many restorationists perceived that this "illumination" was possible only with a concomitant darkening of certain elements of society; Buddhism thereby became the paradigm of the eminently persecutable, the perfect darkness in an age devoted to "illumination." INTERPRETING PERSECUTION: LAW OF THE BUDDHA, LAW OF THE KING

Order number 133, issued in the fourth month of 1872 (Meiji 5) by the Ministry of State, does not read like any other legislative act; it neither prohibits

6 • Chapter One nor commands. It reads, in its entirety, as follows: "Priests may do as they wish [katte nasu beki koto] regarding the eating of meat, marriage, and the cutting of their hair. Moreover, they need not be concerned about [kurushikarazaru soro koto] the propriety of wearing commoner's clothing while not performing official duties."7 This order, in spite of its seemingly innocuous phraseology, in fact disguises a radical change in the conception of the relation between public, Imperial law (oho) and the Buddha's law (buppo) as contained within the priests' religious vows.8 In short, priests, and later nuns,9 who might violate the vows of their vocation would no longer be in violation of public law; their breeches of what were now merely private promises were no longer of any concern to the government. This was a complete reversal of the identification of these two systems of law that had been worked out during the Tokugawa period.10 The Tokugawa bakufu legal code was quite explicit on this point: "the unrepentant priest who violates the [Buddhist] precepts shall be punished [according to the seriousness of his crime] by either death or banishment."11 The promulgation of order number 133, however, not only limited the scope of public law as applied to religious practices, but also removed any basis by means of which the Buddhist law could regulate, or challenge, public policy. Priests and their institutions were, in fact, stripped of their previously enjoyed political status. The careful construction of a conceptual distance between the "religious" and the "political" had clearly begun many years prior to the issuance of this order and had been, in fact, supported by the legislation necessary to bring about a complete separation. This law, therefore, stands at the end of more than five years of complex, and difficult, machinations in the attempt to control the institutional power of religion concomitant to the construction of a new political order. (This will be discussed more fully in Chapter Three.) The policy carried out in the early years of the Meiji era and commonly known as the "separation of Shinto and Buddhism" (shimbutsu bunri) was expanded by order number 133 to include the separation of Buddhism from the state itself. There is, in other words—in addition to the particular, factional, political motivations of Nativist and Confucian ideologues to eliminate Buddhism as a political force—the beginnings of the notion, which would gain greater currency in the mid-Meiji era, that persons or institutions predominantly concerned with "religion" were generally ineffective operatives within the political arena. The "restoration of Imperial rule" (oseifukko), ostensibly presented as a revival of rule by divine authority, took part of its social identity from legislation issued in the name of the Emperor by the ever-unstable political entity called (for a brief period) the Ministry of Rites (Jingikan). Through these legislative acts "divine authority" was gradually being recast as an issuance of a bureaucracy cognizant of religion, if at all, as an extraneous social function more troublesome than useful. A prominent member of the restoration govern-

The Making of a Heresy • 7 ment, Okuma Shigenobu (1838-1922), in a 1912 interview recalls the early Meiji period in the following manner: ' 'Political concerns during this period were extremely complex, driving all of us to the point of exhaustion. . . . Before even one problem could be resolved another would be added to it. The frustration was immense. With hindsight it might be easy to say that religious issues were clearly the most crucial, but for those of us in politics it was seldom thought of. Even the burning of temples and the destruction of Buddhist statues were, at least initially, considered to be of no particular political significance."12 Prior to the obvious political concern evidenced by the legislated separation of politics and religion in the fifth year of Meiji, how was it that the closing and/or destruction of, as one scholar conservatively estimates,13 over 40,000 temples nationally, the forced laicization of thousands of priests, and the destruction of truly countless temple artifacts could be understood as having "no particular political significance"? It is, in fact, not until vehement protest in Toyama in late 1870, riots in Mikawa (Aichi) and Ise (Mie) in 1871, in Echigo (Niigata) and Bungo (Oita) in 1872, and in Echizen (Fukui) and Satsuma (Kagoshima) in 1873, each carried out in direct response to anti-Buddhist policies implemented by local authorities, that we can discover some direct response by the central government to the "religious issue." I would like to suggest that the governmental response to these issues arose not so much out of a belated recognition of the importance of religious autonomy but rather out of a deep fear of the power of an enraged peasant population. In spite of having been officially denied political status, priests, particularly Shin and Nichiren priests with their extensive local networks of the faithful, went on to claim exactly that, as organizers of grass-roots opposition to government policy. Their very depoliticization, both actively by means of the early Meiji legislation carried out by Nativist ideologues and passively by the lack of concern evidenced by bureaucrats of the time, served to constitute them as a force standing outside the political arena; they were a force, furthermore, that refused to accept decisions made within the political arena as binding. The "bloodless revolution," as the period after the Ansei Purges of the late 1850s and leading up to the Meiji Restoration is sometimes prosaically and wishfully called, was carried out by factions dedicated to the survival of their particular claims to absolute authority and to the forceful exclusion of all potentially rival claims. One dominant strain within this revolutionary segment of the last moments of the Tokugawa period is evidenced in the consistent advancement of anti-Buddhist ideologues and legislation in both the political and the social realms. The anti-Buddhist program legislated in the early months of the Meiji restoration was given public form via a series of "separation edicts" (bunri rei). A fuller discussion of the precise contours of the anti-Buddhist movement will be taken up below and in Chapter Two. Here let us begin with a brief look

8 • Chapter One at the first examples of anti-Buddhist legislation and the resulting immediate and violent interpretation. After Tokugawa Yoshinobu (1837-1913), the last shogun, officially relinquished political power to the Emperor (the so-called Dajo hokan) in the last months of 1867, the anti-bakufu alliance led by Satsuma and Choshu moved quickly to occupy strategic government positions. As is well known, the offices of imperial regency (sessho and kampaku) were dissolved and the "Three Offices of State'' (Sanshoku) were established and subsequently filled largely by samurai from Satsuma, Choshu, and allied domains. Concomitant to the ' 'reestablishment of the ancient ways'' (kyugi saiko) as embodied in the opening of the Ministry of State (Dajokan), itself an adapted version of the seventhand eighth-century Nara period political hierarchy, was the creation of the Ministry of Rites (Jingikan). Prior to the establishment of this Ministry (kan), however, which took place in the intercalary fourth month of 1868, there briefly existed a Division (ka) and an Office (kyoku) of Rites. The Division, formed in the first month of 1868, lasted less than one month; the Office lasted only slightly longer, itself terminating with the creation of the Ministry. These changes in governmental structure were not limited to the role of the office dedicated to the performance and articulation of state ceremonial; rather, these changes were comprehensive in nature. The shift from Divisions (of which there were seven, the Division of Rites placed at their apex) to Offices (of which there were eight, the Office of Rites still occupying the highest position in the hierarchy) seems to have been largely a matter of organizational consideration, as membership remained for the most part constant. But the shift from Offices to Ministries (again seven in number, with the Ministry of Rites at the apex), because of the extensive reshuffling of personnel, indicates a more problematic change. Some of the issues involved in this latter transformation will be discussed more fully in Chapter Three; here let us focus on the early stages of the life of the Division/Office/Ministry of Rites and its consequences for Buddhism. Kamei Koremi (1824—1885), lord of the Tsuwano domain and vice-minister (Jikan) of the Office of Rites, along with Fukuba Bisei (1831-1907), undersecretary (Kenhanji) for the Office of Rites and instructor of the Meiji Emperor in Shinto ceremonial, were the two figures most responsible for the drafting of the above-mentioned Separation Edicts. Like nearly every other member of the Office of Rites, both Kamei and Fukuba were active proponents of Nativist studies, though Kamei was a student of the Hirata School and Fukuba gave his allegiance to the school of Okuni Takamasa (1792-1871).14 (Initially this difference seemed rather inconsequential; from the second year of Meiji [1869-1870], however, the ideological differences between these two schools created a permanent fissure.) What this suggests, of course, given the antiBuddhist predilections of almost every Nativist scholar of the time, is that the

The Making of a Heresy • 9 "separation'' laws necessarily included as an integral part of their formulation a direct attack upon Buddhism. In his notes made in preparation for these orders, Kamei is very specific. He consistently refers to Buddhism as the "heretical law" (jaho) and claims that when these separation laws (themselves "based upon the ancient texts of our divine land") are fully enforced, they will result in "the worship and reverence of [Shinto] shrines by all people below heaven, the preservation of the doctrine of our Imperial nation . . . and the freeing of all people from the entanglements of the heretical law." 15 The first laws issued by Kamei's office appeared in the third month of 1868, on the eve of the founding of the Meiji era. The very first (dated the 17th of that month), in language similar to that found in the Charter Oath (which was promulgated a mere three days previously), proclaimed that simultaneous to the "Restoration of Kingly Rule" (osei fukko) "all ancient evils shall be wiped clean." The connection between the Charter Oath issued in the name of the Meiji Emperor and this first law issued by the Office of Rites is clearly too close to be coincidental. Article four of the Charter Oath reads, in its entirety, as follows: "Evil customs of the past shall be broken off and all will be based upon the just laws of nature." Within the context of the national regulation of religious policy, the "sweeping away" and "breaking off" of ancient evil customs was to be accomplished by the removal of all Buddhist priests, acolytes, and retainers from Shinto shrines throughout the nation. Thereafter, all administrative duties of shrines were to be carried out by Shinto priests alone. The second order (dated the 28th) forbade the use of Buddhist terminology as appellations for Shinto deities {kami).16 It further prohibited the use of Buddhist statuary as an image of the kami {shintai) as well as their presence within a shrine compound. In fact, all Buddhist paraphernalia was to be removed from every Shinto shrine in each domain.17 On the 1st day of the fourth month of 1868, a brief three days after the official promulgation of the second of the separation laws, Juge Shigekuni (1817-1911) arrived attheHiyoshi Shrine at the base of Mt. Hiei to carry out the enforcement of these orders. Juge, as an under-secretary at the Office of Rites, was involved in the writing of these orders, and as a Shinto priest of the Hiyoshi Shrine was without question resolute in the interpretation of them. After a brief pro forma exchange of documents with the Office of Shrine Affairs within the Enryaku-ji, the Tendai temple that until the promulgation of these orders had administered the shrine, Juge and his band of self-proclaimed "restorationists" (fukkosha) proceeded to remove every statue, bell, sutra, tapestry, scroll, and article of clothing that could be even remotely linked to Buddhism from the shrine complex. All inflammable materials were gathered together and burned; all metals were confiscated to be refashioned into cannon or coin; stone statues were decapitated and buried or thrown into the nearby river; and wooden statues were used for target practice, or their heads for impromptu games of kickball, and then burned. This "separation" of Bud-

10 • Chapter One

dhism from Shinto, perhaps the most dramatic of all incidents, and this due largely to its suddenness, went on to serve both as a model for subsequent separationist policies and as the symbol of a Buddhism under siege.18 There is also an important footnote to this incident, one that has only recently been revealed and which provides a significant counterpoint to the purported "success" of Juge's separationist activities. In the midst of the attack on the shrine, members of the Murakami family, retainers of the shrine who were loyal to the Enryaku-ji, tried to save what they could from the fires. Running amidst the attackers, the Murakami managed to collect and secrete away hundreds of sutras, miscellaneous shrine records, tapestries, and an impressive collection of syncretic statuary, armor, and paintings. All these items were hidden behind a false wall in the family storehouse and guarded with a curse that whoever should open the vault would be rendered blind by the deities of the mountain. These articles remained hidden, and forgotten, until the vault was reopened in 1983 by the current head of the Murakami family. He not only did not lose his eyesight but also discovered a cache of records and artifacts, many of which have since been designated Important Cultural Properties by the Japanese government.19 In the attempt by restorationist bureaucrats to constitute a national vision based upon Shinto as a state religion (Shinto kokkyo shugi), it is clear that Buddhism was necessarily constituted as decadent and inherently evil. Only later, when it was no longer politically expedient to maintain an anti-Buddhist position openly (the same can be said for the ban on Christianity), when in fact the Nativist clique no longer held a dominant position within the bureaucracy, and when peasant opposition was approaching unbearable levels, do we find the first overt attempts at reconciliation and cooperation in the formation of governmental religious policies. To accept unqualifiedly the image of a malignant Buddhism during this period is to ignore the main ideological thrust of the early restorationist movement; it ignores the needs of the apparatuses set in motion to distance the fledgling government from the Tokugawa bakufu. It also carefully ignores those examples of priests, peasants, and temples that exemplified an austere and sincere Buddhism; finally, this conception disallows for the possibility of there being any legitimate "defenders of the dharma" (gohosha). The terms of this early Meiji religious policy, articulated by ideologues who despised Buddhism intensely, were directed toward the removal of Buddhism from the social and political arena and the subsequent domination of national dogma. Kamei, Fukuba, and Juge were but three among many who spoke of a policy of "separation" and "amalgamation," intermediate steps in this religio-political program. The numerous attempts by rival ideologues, as well as later scholars, to cast these one-time central policy-makers as "rebels" who failed to uphold the wishes of the Emperor and thus to discount their policies as illegitimate are noteworthy largely because of the academic currency they have obtained, a currency that is surprisingly

The Making of a Heresy • 11 20

contemporary. There is, in other words, a continual willingness to identify the Meiji "government" as a body, somehow transcendent of its particular constituents, capable of representing itself, through the position of the Emperor, favorably in the light of later developments. There is a disappointing regularity of interpretation among many scholars of Meiji era Buddhism. This disappointment arises not so much from a perceived lack of rigor in existing research; for, with typical thoroughness and elaborate attention to detail, the prevailing examples of Japanese scholarship have produced a significant (though by no means overwhelming) number of useful examinations of the period. Rather, it is in the decidedly moralistic conclusions drawn by these historians (particularly those early in this century) that a certain unsettling unanimity is made manifest. Basing their analysis upon an idealized conception of Buddhism that united all of its various institutional and theological manifestations and that was codified by laws periodically issued by the central religious authority, many scholars have come to rely upon the conception of the failure of particular "Buddhists" to comply with, or actualize, the legal and spiritual standards of the age. In short, to use the language of one prominent scholar of the period, "decadence" (daraku) serves as the predominant theme of the history of Buddhism in Japan, particularly the history of late Tokugawa and early Meiji Buddhism. There is a preconception of Buddhism as a philosophically complete system trapped within a hopelessly inept institutional framework, such that the historical object called "Buddhism" could never be adequate to the standards set by those who desired to control its promulgation and sociality;' 'Buddhism'' could only ever be tending toward, or attempting to revive itself from, its "destruction." Analysis of mid-nineteenth-century Buddhism based upon this scheme has extended the predispositions of the analysis itself into the conclusions derived therefrom. "Temples were shut down; temple assets were confiscated, and title to lands turned over to the government; the legal relations to lay supporters were rendered meaningless; statues and halls of worship were destroyed; the precious jewels of Buddhism were cast away like so much dust. But because of these occurrences the eyes of the priests were opened." Or yet again, the great "profit" of the persecution was its "purifying function" (joka sayo) for Buddhism itself, because "the destruction of temples in early Meiji was necessary. We should acknowledge that there was indeed a surplus of temples." 21 There is, in other words, a conception of a justifiable persecution of Buddhism based upon the always-already-decadent character of Buddhism itself. For example, Tsuji Zennosuke in his seminal essays on the decline of Buddhism in the early modern period, a period that here extends from before the Ashikaga shogunate in the thirteenth century through the end of the Tokugawa bakufu, selects five particular aspects of Buddhist sociality that identify it as an object worthy of persecution: (1) participation in and organization of peas-

12 • Chapter One ant revolts (ikki), (2) the prevalence of womanizers, drunkards, and meateaters among the priesthood, (3) the prevalence of homosexual priests, (4) the selling of ranks and titles, and (5) the practice of moneylending for profit.22 The participation of monks (and nuns) in pleasures of the flesh clearly constituted a violation of the Buddhist law that was designed to promote the cessation of desire as a foundation for action. The engagement in economic and political transactions that might offend or compete with the aristocracy or ruling authority was a violation of the Imperial law, particularly for those who claimed allegiance to the Buddhist law. Engagement in moneylending, political machinations, and the pursuit of sensual pleasure were morally reprehensible only for those whose social position (determined by Imperial law) prohibited it. Priests, in addition to committing "gross breaches of morally acceptable behavior" (Tsuji quotes none other than the sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier for this insight!), had unfortunately ' 'fallen into realism" (genjitsushugi ni dashita);23 they sought to traverse the world in comfort rather than transcend it, and they had, literally, no legal right to do so. The point here and in the following pages is not to produce a Buddhist apologetic, nor to determine if, in fact, priests were "decadent" or not. Rather, it is to question the assumption of Buddhism's "guilt" itself. It is to inquire into the terms by which certain acts of violence are considered ' 'justifiable," and to question how Buddhism was constituted as an object worthy of severe and extensive legal and political attacks.24 Not only does accepting decadence as a justification sufficient for persecution place the burden of reform on the "decadent" themselves, it also absolves the persecutors of direct responsibility for their acts of persecution. Since the temple closings, defrocking of priests, and the melting of bells to forge cannon were interpreted as acts carried out for the betterment of both the nation and "Buddhism," as conceived by the ruling authorities, there was no further need to inquire into the actions of those who legislated these changes. Or, more specifically, there is a noticeable concern, by both pro- and anti-Buddhist writers, to absolve the Emperor in whose name the persecution was carried out. Okuma was adamant on this point: the separation of Shinto and Buddhism "was never intended as an attack upon Buddhism. Neither the Imperial proclamations nor the government communiques dealing with the issue set forth a program of the 'persecution of Buddhism' (haibutsu kishaku). There was never even the slightest political intention in that direction. It was emphasized and carried out entirely by the Shintoists themselves."25 This opinion is frequently supported by later writers, beginning with Tsuji, with the citation of a certain communique issued by the Ministry of State to a head temple of the Shin sect, the Nishihongan-ji. This latter reads, in part, as follows: "We have no intention of criticizing your sect. Yet there are foulmouthed rebels claiming to speak for the Imperial court who assert a policy of

The Making of a Heresy • 13 the persecution of Buddhism and antagonize the general populace. From the outset these are not men who can respect life or understand benevolence; not only do they fail to uphold the august wishes of his majesty, but they should also be known as enemies of the dharma."26 It should be stressed, though later commentators regularly fail to do so, that this was a private communique sent directly to the Hongan-ji and not an official public promulgation issued from within the Ministry of State. It was but one corner of an elaborate exchange between the fledgling Meiji government and the Shin sect organization; this exchange, which will be discussed more fully in Chapter Two, involved, among other issues, the transference of substantial amounts of gold species from the temple storehouses to the vaults of the government. Thus, rather than serve as an example of the "official" Imperial position on the status of temples in the nation, this letter represents the extreme discord current in the early Meiji political realm. The "foul-mouthed rebels" mentioned in the Ministry of State's letter refers to none other than Kamei Koremi, Fukuba Bisei, and Juge Shigekuni, among others, whose blatant anti-Buddhist policies resulted in their being referred to here as "enemies of the dharma." Moreover, based upon the hierarchy of governmental offices then current (the Ministry of Rites was placed above the Ministry of State when this letter was composed), Kamei and Juge were ostensibly among the most powerful bureaucrats in the government. Both Ministries spoke ' 'in the name of the Emperor," both were granted the legal right to do so, and both did so for very particular, and, in this instance (the Ministry of State's letter of reconciliation and the Ministry of Rites' "separation laws") contradictory, reasons. The attempt by later scholars to portray the Emperor himself as not merely innocent of involvement in the attack upon Buddhist institutions (which is entirely possible, as he was but a child at the time) but in fact highly supportive of some form of Buddhist church is clearly an artifact of the late Meiji and early Taisho era (1912-1926) attitude of reconciliation practiced by the government toward religious denominations. It is one aspect of the attempt by historians and other ideologues to remove the early Meiji policy on religion from the common narrative of the national past. A persecution carried out by "rebels" in isolated cases becomes merely a matter of private excess; it becomes, finally, a persecution that did not happen. The political apathy directed toward religious issues, noted by Okuma, can be seen to arise not merely from claims of an overabundance of pressing issues; there was also a clear preconception of some form of anti-Buddhist sanctions as being appropriate. There were, the argument ran, too many temples with too much wealth filled with too many priests concerned only about their own welfare and their intimate link to the Tokugawa bakufu. Buddhism, "having fallen into realism" as Tsuji might say, needed to be redefined. But, as I hope to show in subsequent chapters, the economic sophistication, social organi-

14 • Chapter One zation, and political savvy that the separation laws attempted to strip from Buddhist institutions were in fact the very qualities that allowed them to use this external attempt at "redefinition" to their own advantage. Ironically, in other words, it was the very "decadence" of Buddhist institutions that allowed for the creation of what is now called modern Buddhism. The rapidity of change that characterizes the entire Meiji period became the crucible of this "modern" Buddhism. As has been suggested, one central element in the Meiji redefinition of Buddhism was the continuous and pervasive attacks it underwent at the hands of numerous ideological opponents. For the remainder of this chapter, then, after a brief survey of the intellectual terrain of anti-Buddhist practices, we will examine the permutations and implications of anti-Buddhist thought for institutional Buddhism as this thought took on greater specification in terms of its history, its political practices, and its social identity. THE LANGUAGE OF PERSECUTION: ANTI-BUDDHIST THOUGHT

The Higashihongan-ji priest Ryuon (1800-1885), sometime lecturer at the Shin sect academy in Kyoto, describes the intellectual positions inhabited by anti-Buddhist writers as follows: Just who are these enemies that surround us on all sides? Foremost are the bigoted Confucian scholars intent on slandering the Buddha dharma; second are the so-called Shinto scholars who attempt to use the ancient books to advance theories that purportedly explain the ways and traditions of antiquity (kodo koden); third are the astronomers, who insist upon a spherical earth and revolving planets;finallythere are the Christians who have gradually made their way into our ports from across the sea. These are our enemies.27 Without too much exaggeration, we could say it would be much easier to compose a list of those who were not ardently opposed to Buddhism during the nineteenth century. In this rather extensive list of critics we would also necessarily include a number of Buddhists as well. The Tendai priest Fukuda Gyokai (1806-1888), for example, as he championed the restoration of the precepts (kairitsu no fukko) as a necessary step for Buddhists to reclaim their vocation, asserted in an 1875 memorial to the Meiji government that "Buddhists brought the recent persecution upon themselves by their own transgressions." 28 When we consider the so-called self-reflective, self-disciplined priests (jiseijikai so) such as Fukuda, who were devoted to a strict observance of the precepts, alongside the so-called loyalist priests (kinno so), who set out to reestablish the unity of the Buddhist law and the Imperial law, and alongside the "enlightenment priests" (keimo so), who attempted to "modernize" Buddhist institutions and practices by leading a "sectarian revolution" (shumon isshin), we must necessarily pause to reconsider the careful use of the term

The Making of a Heresy • 15 29

"persecution." That is, far-reaching and radical changes were being brought upon the entire organizational structure of Buddhism by the above-noted ' 'enemies of the Buddha dharma'' as well as by those who claimed to be protecting it. We may claim that the former sought to regulate Buddhism to the point of extinction and that the latter hoped to regulate Buddhism such that it could survive into the twentieth century; finally, however, this straightforward division is unfortunately inadequate to the object it purports to define. Where, we must ask, does critique end and persecution begin? When we recognize that martyrs and heretics are often one and the same person viewed from distinct ideological positions, where can we, as onlookers, place our own position? This is not to suggest that there was "no persecution," nor is it to suggest that the term can be used in a variety of contexts such that it is ultimately rendered meaningless. What I am suggesting is that the so-called attack on Buddhism cannot be seen merely as an opposition of "pro-" and "anti-Buddhists" (with the syncretists standing somewhere in-between). Rather, the articulation of the various forms of knowledge and action within the terms set forth by the newly formed tools of history (rekishi gaku), various conceptions of nationhood (kokka, kokufu, and kunigara), and theories of political economy (keisei rori) describe a mutually determining nexus of subject positions that cannot be limited to a simple dichotomy without employing a severely reductive analysis. What we have then is a rather broad field populated with frequently shifting points of reference that take as their object of inquiry a knot of problems variously and conveniently encapsulated by such labels as "religion," "Buddhism," and "persecution." The points of reference shift in relation to themselves (though having the "same" name) and/or each other over time, as well as in relation to the particular analytical system brought to bear on their enunciations; the "knot" of problems supports a variety of appellations, both because of this slippage among the numerous articulating positions from which it may be approached and because of its own inherent complexity. We can explore the recitation of the failings of Buddhism rung in different changes in a variety of texts and times. For example, the doctrine of no-self (Skt: andtman) has throughout Buddhism's history garnered charges of heresy from those concerned with social order and political stability. For, it was argued, any transcendent subject position, any position outside the particular ruling ideological apparatuses—be it described as a "positionless position" (as would be necessary for the articulation of the "subject position" of "noself") or not—was potentially a threat to the operation of those apparatuses. One frequent point of contention in this regard was philosophical Buddhism's critical interpretation of desire and physicality. Within certain (social) limits, desires were necessarily proscribed even by the critics of Buddhism; but to deny what Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) called our "heart which we are born with" or the "actions arising from our undefiled emotions"30 as evil and to assert the virtue of denying, finally, our raison d'etre were viewed by many

16 • Chapter One critics as a profound mistake. The denial of a recognizable subject, self-identical through time and subject to the social constraints of each particular historical juncture, could serve as a denial of the necessary character of not only those constraints but also of the apparatus that supported them. In other words, "Buddhism" was identified as potentially antithetical both to social organization and to the very possibility of conceiving of the particular elements that constituted society (or "the social") itself. ("The social" will hereafter be used to mean the entire discursive range of ideological apparatuses constructed within and constituent of a particular historical place.) Attempts were invariably made, often successful, either to render this ' 'other'' position subordinate to the ruling ideology, via the use of specific codes or "ethical systems," or finally to eliminate this "other" altogether. But "Buddhism" has clearly been many things for many writers, and the radicality of a "positionless position," of an unceasing affirmation of the fundamentally relative function of notions of self or desire, has certainly not been asserted with equal rigor or commitment throughout Buddhism's long history. To assert, in fact, that this particular conception of "Buddhism" is finally necessary to anything called "Buddhism" is, I would suggest, itself untenable. Clearly there are "versions" of "Buddhism" that would not ascribe to such a definition. To insist upon stepping beyond the recognition of the particularity of definitions and the limitations of their historical place is to participate in the same process of objectification we are attempting to challenge. Such a replication of the hegemonic exercise of objectification is perhaps inevitable; and yet recognition of this process is necessary in understanding the implications of ideological formulations based upon the operation of conceptions of the absolute, particularly when these formulations involve the practice of "persecution." The defining of religion in nineteenth-century Japan, and the use of these definitions as tools for the justification of programs of aggression or expansion, necessarily incorporates artifacts from a wide range of conceptual strategies; in these pages we will narrow the primary focus of our inquiry into this "knot of problems" to three threads that may be called the historicist, the social and political (or, within the milieu of nineteenth-century Japan, nationalistic), and the economic. These are not mutually exclusive categories but interdependent themes selected to illustrate various problem areas. Here they are introduced in brief. One intriguing ramification of the Buddhist denial of ' 'this world'' was the willingness to explicate "other worlds." Buddhist cosmologists were prepared to detail an amazing array of heavens, hells, and intermediary worlds, all emanating from Mt. Sumeru, the center pillar of the cosmos. In Japan from the eighteenth century on, the charges made against Buddhist mappings of the universe took on a new urgency. It became clear that Buddhists who "traveled only in the empty theories of their texts" could not offer any "scientific" evidence to support their theory over the Copemican conception of the solar

The Making of a Heresy • 17 system. Nor did the geographical mappings of this world, provided by Westerners who "traveled from the North Pole to the South as they casually go about their daily activities," provide any support to Buddhist claims of the "actual" existence of the holy mountain Sumeru.31 Buddhist conceptions of causality (J: innen; Skt: hetuphala) and co-dependent origination (J: engi; Skt: pratityasamutpdda), central to the formulation of theories of action and time, also underwent careful scrutiny. During this period, interpretations of the world and its operations grounded in "natural science," which also included a positivistic conception of "history," gradually took precedence over those based upon a Buddhist cosmology. The positivistic construction of history, with its inherent division between historical "fact" and traditional "myth," was critically applied to "Buddhism" in an attempt to reconstitute popular conceptions of Buddhist teachings as artificial constructions, seriously flawed, that were incompatible with historical, and thus social, "advancement." The consequences of this gradual and irrevocable erasure of the acceptability of Buddhist interpretations of the natural historical world are perhaps the most far-reaching of all critiques confronted by Buddhism. At least as early as the Liang dynasty (502-556) work the Hung ming shu, Buddhism had been considered "barbarian in nature and thus incompatible with our [Chinese] way of life." 32 It was the T'ang dynasty scholar Han Yu (768-824), however, and his classic treatise the Yuan-tao, that was to set the tone for anti-Buddhist rhetoric. This timely and elegantly crafted work was successful in producing a vision of Buddhism as a national threat: "[Buddhists] take the ways of barbarism and elevate them above the teachings of our own ancient kings. Does this not almost make all of us barbarians?"33 Though clearly Han Yii was familiar with, and even drew upon, Buddhist ideas for his own work, his rejection of Buddhism was based on a pervading sense of the Buddhist teachings as at best misleading and, if allowed to operate unattended, most certainly socially destructive.34 The jingoistic rejection of Buddhism, which appeared throughout its presence in China and Japan, was perhaps the most frequently used device for constituting Buddhism as a persecutable other. It appears, in fact, as a leitmotif underlying nearly every instance of antiBuddhist activity. Ironically, this conception of Buddhism as a foreign "other" was also capitalized upon by nineteenth-century Japanese Buddhists as they attempted to reverse this argument and construct both pan-Asiatic and universalistic roles for Buddhism as the articulation of the absolute most capable of unifying doctrinal opposition within it. The issue of doctrinal universals will be taken up again in Chapter Four. Specific criticisms of "Buddhism" as antithetical to conceptions of social economy varied, but such a criticism did become a prominent standard included within most "anti-Buddhist" positions. For example, the practice of begging by monks, or of relying on some form of support from those "within the world," was frequently recognized as a severe economic drain upon the

18 • Chapter One social order and resulted in numerous occasions wherein the scale of this dependency was forcibly reduced. Conversely, when it was determined that "Buddhism" had in fact taken economic sufficiency seriously and had engaged in the political and social machinations deemed necessary to obtain selfsufficiency, it was criticized not only for draining society of useful land and resources but also for violating its own basic tenets of denying self, society, and world. One final point before analyzing our three themes (the historic, the nationalistic, and the economic): we should note some structural similarities that can be identified in methods and justifications of the persecution of Buddhism between China and Japan. I have no desire or intention of providing an exhaustive comparative presentation of the issue here, as that would constitute a major digression from the present inquiry. It is important to note, however, that even as the issue of "persecution" cannot be limited simply to the pro- or anti-Buddhist dichotomy, the spatial and chronological parameters of nineteenth-century Japan can and should be expanded to include a range of possibilities. And yet, we must caution, observations projecting some sort of direct link between persecution in China and Japan, or elsewhere, invariably suggest a political intention external to the analysis of the problem of persecution itself. One example here of such an attempt will suffice. The late Meiji Buddhist historian Murakami Sensho (1851-1929) points out that under Emperor Wu of the Northern Chou dynasty (r. 561-578) a "religious overseer" (J: tsudo kangaku shi) was appointed to maintain Buddhism in a position of political and economic ineffectiveness. This office, a legal and institutional articulation of the previous years' anti-Buddhist actions, Murakami asserts, was the model for the Meiji era Office of Religious Affairs (Kyobusho). The sole basis for Murakami's observation here is that "details of this persecution can be found in texts that any good Confucian scholar has." 35 Murakami attempts, in other words, to use seemingly parallel moments in history to assert, quite unequivocally, that the persecution of Buddhism in Japan is the result of an overbearing continental influence in the higher ranks of government in Japan. This carries with it the unspoken assumption that were it not for this ' 'external'' influence, Buddhism would not have undergone the early Meiji conflicts. Such an argument succeeds finally in merely reproducing the strategies used to attack Buddhism. Murakami's attempt to identify the "guilty" party ignores the complexity of persecution policy both in Japan and in China. As in Meiji Japan, each of the four major anti-Buddhist campaigns in China, of which Murakami cites one, involved the confiscation of land and resources, the laicization of monks and nuns, the destruction of temples and artifacts, and the establishment of governmental offices to execute the anti-Buddhist program. Though the techniques are irrefutably similar (down to the use of surveys of temple holdings and populations prior to actual implementation), the particular ideological

The Making of a Heresy • 19 contours of each case defy monolithic judgments.36 Even though specific acts of persecution are clearly carried out by particular individuals who are often identified as inhabiting a specific ideological position, the perpetuation, articulation, and implications of anti-Buddhist policy cannot be grasped by focusing merely on specific incidences or by drawing conclusions based upon superficial similarities. As suggested by the comprehensive nature of the various ideological positions arranged in opposition to Buddhism, our net of inquiry must be cast widely to allow for the necessary diversity of intention and interpretation. THE LANGUAGE OF PERSECUTION: AND HISTORY

A list of Tokugawa scholars frequently identified as the core of anti-Buddhist ideologues reads like a "who's who" of the leading academies. Fujiwara Seika (1561-1619), Hayashi Razan (1583-1657), Yamazaki Ansai (16181682), and Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714), all noted Chu Hsi Confucian scholars, made frequent attacks upon Buddhism as an "other-worldly" (segaiteki) teaching whose anti-ethical claims to some transcendent absolute stood in stark opposition to their program for a nation ruled by natural principle as embodied in the bakufu organization. Ito Jinsai (1627-1705), Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728), and Dazai Shundai (1686-1747) added to Chu Hsi's critique of Buddhism as politically untenable a harsh attack stressing its social uselessness and inability to serve as an adequate basis for efficacious action. Yamaga Soko (1622-1685), Hayashi, and Ogyu were also careful to include Buddhists among those classed as yiimin, the infamous decadent "people of play," who existed outside the standard four classes of "productive" society and lived in comfort at the expense of the other classes. Other writers who incorporated anti-Buddhist arguments into their work, like Nakae Toju (1608-1648) and Kumazawa Banzan (1619-1691), two noted Wang Yang-ming (J: Oyomei) scholars, joined Hayashi, Yamazaki, and Fujiwara in attempting, each in his own way, to fashion a link between the social and political order detailed in Confucian texts and some originary ontological expression of unity among the peoples of the Japanese archipelago (frequently named "Shinto"). (Noticeable by their absence from this latter group are Ogyu and Dazai, both of whom refused to confine their historicist programs to a vision of ancient Japan.) Still other writers, such as Yamagata Banto (1748-1821) and Goi Ranju (16971762), who associated with the Osaka merchant academy, the Kaitokudo, and based their critique upon recent scientific, particularly astronomical, findings, added to the already significant lexicon of works by Fujiwara, Kumazawa, Yamazaki, and others that attacked Buddhist notions of hell, paradise, transmigration, and, of course, Mt. Sumeru, as being mere fabrications of fervent imaginations, at best amusing in their distraction. And finally, no list of this sort would be complete without recognizing Motoori Norinaga and Hirata At-

20 • Chapter One sutane (1776-1843). One consequence of their herculean efforts to articulate what is even today called the "Japanese spirit" was a recognition that this "spirit" differed, and fundamentally so, from the "continental spirit," and thus from Buddhism. All the above writers spoke to varying degrees about, or rather against, Buddhism. But in each case certain aspects, albeit important ones, of the Buddhist presence in Japan were attacked in a fairly circumscribed fashion, assuming a metonymic relation to the "whole" of what was called "Buddhism." These metonymic critiques, it was hoped, would be entirely adequate to a refutation of Buddhism as a totality. Rather than begin the discussion of antiBuddhist formulations here with these diverse critiques, let us take as our object of inquiry a work the implications of which within the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries' discourse on Buddhism can mildly be termed profound. I speak here of Tominaga Nakamoto's (1715-1746) Shutsujo kogo, a work that questioned the very operation of critique and the very formation of history while simultaneously serving as the standard compendium for modern antiBuddhist rhetoric. The Shutsujo kogo is generally recognized as the work that taught Buddhists to fear their own history, and as such it deserves special attention in any study of modern Japanese Buddhism. But it cannot, I feel, be relegated to the status of merely an anti-Buddhist text. It is undeniable that Tominaga's work was used for extensive attacks upon Buddhism, most notably by Hirata Atsutane and his followers. But it is equally important to recognize that this work also formed, albeit somewhat ironically, the basis of what would be called in the nineteenth century, "modern Buddhism" (kindaiteki bukkyo), that is, "historical Buddhism" (rekishiteki bukkyo). It provided, in other words, a standard of historical analysis transcendent of institutional dogma that was used self-critically to redefine the parameters within which that dogma could operate. The Shutsujo kogo is as much about historical discourse itself as it is about the objects that are taken up as its subject matter. Tominaga's argument, set forth in what could be called an almost commonsensical manner, is directed toward the establishment of both the degree and the manner in which historical objects were mechanistically ' 'built up'' (kajo) like so many layers of lacquer; more important, he argues for the inability of specific "layers" to be vital or appropriate to any given historical present external to the moment of their own occurrence: a radical relativism of historical performance. The immediate object of Tominaga's inquiry in the Shutsujo is Mahay ana Buddhism, particularly the version then found in Japan. But it is equally apparent that his discussion of the laws by which history is formed is applicable to any "tradition," "culture," or "people"—to anything, in fact, recognized as a historical object. It is perhaps useful to note that Tominaga's first work, titled Seppei (c. 1730) and no longer extant, for which he earned expulsion from the Kaitokudo Academy, is purported to have been a scathing

The Making of a Heresy • 21 attack upon Confucian scholarship as practiced in Tokugawa Japan. His other major work, the Okina nofumi (c. 1738), completes what we can call a critical three-nation intellectual history; in addition to discussions of India (and Buddhism) and China (and Confucianism), as detailed in the Shutsujo and the Seppei, the Okina includes an attack upon attempts to identify ancient Japanese practices as somehow adequate to contemporary philosophical and social needs: "The habits of Shintoism, to begin with, are occultism and secretinstruction, both being tantamount simply to hiding everything. Hiding is the beginning of lying and stealing. Witchcraft and figures of speech may be permissible as being interesting to look at and listen to. But depending on those habits alone is extremely harmful. . . . So it is wrong on the part of the teachers of Shintoism to defend those evil doings."37 It is thus as a dynamic segment of an extended argument on historical and cultural particularity that I read the Shutsujo. This reading stands in opposition to the myopic reading of the Shutsujo as popularized by Hirata Atsutane and followed by most subsequent readers of the work. Hirata's incorporation of the text into his own antiBuddhist polemic was so thorough as almost to define permanently the work as belonging to the anti-Buddhist canon. The Shutsujo contains much more than a chronicle of Buddhism's failings. This reading of the Shutsujo as a treatise on (Buddhist) historiography first and the failings of contemporary Buddhist thinkers second should also allow us to view the nineteenth-century use of Tominaga's work by Buddhist historians in the reworking of their own history not as an ironic acquiescence of the defeated, but rather as a recognition of the creative capacities necessary to each age in interpreting, and enacting, its own history. Let us begin our interpretation of the Shutsujo by offering a translation of the work's title. " J o " is a Buddhist term for spiritual exercises (shugyo) directed toward the actualization of the fundamentally nondualistic character of good and evil, positive and negative, and thereby the extinction of desire. It can be translated as "meditation." "Shutsu" means "to leave" or "depart from"; thus "shutsujo" can be read as "the cessation of meditation" or a "return to the world of everyday duality." ("Shutsujo" is also the term used to describe the eighth-century saint Kobo Daishi's future "return to the world" by the Shingon sect.) The second compound in the title, "kogo," serves to locate the place of operation of the text itself; literally "thereafterenunciate," this term places an emphasis upon the secondary, or derivative, role of speaking as an act contained within the world of duality and distinct from a centrality of unrefracted understanding. Tominaga styles himself the "tathagata of this world" (shutsujo nyorai), asserting that he, analogous to the Buddhist "enlightened ones" who make clear the transcendent nature of the Buddhist teachings, is one who can sort through the discrepancies and claims of the dualistic world; he goes on to call his work the "Bible of this world" (shutsujo kyoten), which thus serves as the textual location of this

22 • Chapter One enlightening exercise.38 We can also suggest that though seemingly reactionary, the "leaving" or even "renunciation" here is perhaps better understood as a profound affirmation. "Shutsujo" has as its antonym "nyujo," a term meaning "to enter into meditation." But this latter term was also used as a synonym for "nyumetsu," literally, to "enter destruction," or, in a more colloquial rendition, "death." In other words, Tominaga's "leaving" of meditation/extinction (here serving as a sign for Buddhism in particular and belief in general) was simultaneously an "entering" into the pluralistic world of the everyday present, into life, and I would suggest into history. The conception of history revealed in the Shutsujo relies not upon an originary creative moment in antiquity when some universal vision was first articulated, such as was common to other eighteenth-century writers. Rather, it is a history based upon an immediate interaction with each particular moment. Or, as he writes in the Okina: "[I] write these letters now, use these words now, eat this food now, wear these clothes now." He follows this celebration of daily life with the well-known "Buddhist" injunction to "perform no evil, carry out only good." This is, Tominaga claims, the "Way of Truth" (makoto no michi), which finally "comes not down from heaven, nor rises up from the earth. . . . [I]t did not come from India, nor was it transmitted from the Han [China], or even begun in the Age of the Gods [in Japan]." This "Way" is, rather, a universal of the immediate as it "comes forth from the ordinary" (atarimae yori deki taru koto nite).39 How this lionization of the quotidian produced the most shattering of antiBuddhist critiques is surprising only in its directness and simplicity. Tominaga was clearly well read, but his analysis of the Buddhist sutras relied entirely upon readily available commentaries. He used, for example, no Sanskrit texts and frequently chose secondary sources, mistakes intact, for quotation and comments.40 A rather banal critique, frequently made by disgruntled Buddhist scholars, was directed toward Tominaga's inaccurate use of terminology or his mistaken interpretations based upon secondary sources.41 But, as we shall see, comments of this sort merely served to illustrate Tominaga's argument all the more. The following few examples demonstrate Tominaga's method of argumentation. He quotes from the Kongo hannya haramitta kyo (Skt: Vajra cchedikd prajnd pdramitd sutra): "All the Buddhas and all the Buddha dharmas arise from this sutra"; from the Muryogi kyo (Skt: Amitdrtha sutra): "The profundity! The profundity! There is no sutra that can surpass this one"; the Konkomyo kyo (Skt: Suvarnaprabhdsa sutra): "The Buddhas of the Ten directions eternally meditate upon this sutra''; the Maka hannya haramitta kyo (Skt: Pahcavimsati sdhasrikd prajnd pdramitd sutra): "all the dharmas are contained within this sutra of great unsurpassed wisdom"; the Lotus Sutra (Skt: Saddharma pundarlka sutra): ' 'Of all the sutras, the Lotus is Supreme''; and several other sutras, each actively claiming its own supremacy over all the others.

The Making of a Heresy • 23 Tominaga concludes, "each sutra is itself merely an attempt at self-'extension.' " 4 2 That is, the sutras are not so much inviolable pronouncements made by the historical Buddha as they are consciously constructed attempts simultaneously to incorporate previous teachings and to proceed beyond them to create a position even more profound, even more absolute. Tominaga simply notes, "this is laughable" (warau beshi). Tominaga, quoting widely from standard Buddhist sources, points out numerous inconsistencies and impossibilities existent within the texts themselves. For example, regarding the description of Mt. Sumeru, which according to Buddhist tradition was located at the very center of the cosmos and was made up of seven tiers of mountain ranges and was surrounded by eight fragrant seas, he again comments, "one can only laugh." The height of this mountain, Tominaga points out, using citations from a plethora of different sutras, varied from 68,000 to eight billion yojanas. (Definitions of the length of one yojana vary from five to nine statute miles.) Its width varied accordingly, as did the arrangement of the seas and their measurements. The location of the central palace on the mountain; the numbers, names, and descriptions of the guardian deities who were said to dwell therein; the numbers and arrangement of the surrounding heavens; the types of nirvana attainable there; and so forth, were all presented differently in different sutras. Though most sutras agree on there being eight freezing hells and eight burning ones, their precise location, arrangement, and relationship is a matter of no small debate.43 It was with a similar precision and thoroughness of comparison that Tominaga went on to detail disagreement evidenced by various "Buddhist" texts, each of which claimed that it alone was the final and supreme authority, as regards some of the most fundamental aspects of that teaching called "Buddhism." Are there six levels of existence possible to sentient beings? Or is it five? Or ten? Did Ananda collect and record the sutras? Or was it Mahakasyapa? Or other disciples? Or a combination of these? How many "worlds" are there? 10? 1,000? 3,000? When the sutras themselves disagree, how are we to understand the work, appearance, or nature of a bodhisattva? (Are there indeed 51 ranks?) Or of the Buddhas? (Seven in all?) How can we decide which set of precepts we should follow when we are confronted with so many in so many different configurations? How is it that the Buddha is said to have prohibited the killing of animals or the eating of flesh, and yet many sutras provide numerous possible exceptions? There is not even an agreement upon the dates of the Buddha's birth and death, much less the sequence of events in his life! Tominaga concludes, very matter-of-factly, that because of the overabundance of internal contradiction, the sutras cannot serve as repositories of truth worthy of belief.44 And yet the sutras somewhat perversely, Tominaga suggests, constantly exhort us to believe. He laments, "Oh, what unmitigated foolishness."

24 • Chapter One For Tominaga that elusive moment called ' 'truth'' is clearly not an object obtainable through reductionistic verbalizations; rather, it partakes of a much more subtle plurality of dynamic expression, or performance: "The truth resulting from explanations of the world is always vague; being nothing more than an expression of the principle of the heart [shinri], there is no way finally to know what is true or false. That is why I say the world arises in accordance with one's heart [sekai wa kokoro ni shitagaite okoru]."45 Following this line of argumentation we should not be too surprised to find in Tominaga's writings a positive recognition of the denial of scriptural authority as taught by certain Ch'an (Zen) Buddhists. Tominaga interprets the first Buddhist Councils held after the Buddha'sparinirvana, during which the initial steps in the formation of the canonical literature were taken, as conscious attempts to determine the specific nature of the teachings of Shakyamuni—to create, in other words, a tradition. Or, to put a critical edge on this observation, Tominaga saw the Council's attempt to link text and truth as a rhetorical ploy to solidify artificially something that could be called "Buddhism." This exercise necessitated the select forgetting of certain ambiguities and the controlled remembrance of specific details conducive to the construction of a tradition, and thus notions of orthodoxy. But the oral tradition that preceded these Councils, and from which the eventually recorded sutras arose, was too varied, too multilayered, to allow for an uncontested monolithic textualization. (This was in spite of the legendary capacity attributed to Ananda's memory.) It is from within this textual instability, this cacophony of plurivocal intonations of truth, Tominaga asserts, that Zen arose.46 Zen located this instability in the reliance upon records or words and the assumption that they were somehow adequate to the truth they ostensibly signed for. "Since the appearance of the Buddha in the world, there are names. On the basis of these names, men grasp [only] the external characteristics of things."47 Tominaga read the possibility of Zen as an impassioned insight into the radically relative nature of the various sutras' clamoring for absolute, and exclusive, recognition. To the extent that Zen enacted this possibility, and did not rely upon words or scriptures while directly pointing to the true human heart,48 we could say that it was not "Buddhist" at all. Rather, one versed in this exercise might say with Tominaga, "I am not a disciple of Confucius. I am not a follower of Taoism. Nor am I a disciple of the Buddha. I merely gaze upon the world and speak of what I see." 49 And yet this generative hope that Tominaga saw in Zen, though analogous to his own position, clearly was not sufficient to prevent its own textualization, its own contribution to a literature devoted to the encoding of the alienable commodity called "Buddhism." It is precisely with regard to this problem of textualization that Tominaga's work makes its most enduring observations. Or, in the language of the Shutsujo, the operation of the "five figurative modes" (go rui) in the layering (kajo) of history is both

The Making of a Heresy • 25 the central problematic of the Shutsujo and the modus operandi of the historical critique of "Buddhism." Tominaga highlights the seemingly innocuous quatrain found at the beginning of sutras, "Thus have I heard . . ." (J: Nyoze gamon; Skt: evam may a srutatri), and suggests that it serves as an indicator of the derivative nature of sutra construction. He asks: "What is this T in 'Thus have I heard'? It is a speaker in a later age calling out his own name. What is this 'heard'? It is merely hearsay by a speaker in a later age. What is this 'thus'? It is merely a speaker in a later age who recalls this hearsay to the best of his ability."50 The " I , " isolated in a time distinct from both the acts of enunciation and of reading, can rely only upon "hearing" and the subsequent translation of that ' 'heard'' into a written text, such as can be remembered, to bridge the chasm to the former enunciation. As we depart from participation in unmediated experience, thus do we enter into the everyday world of memory, of contingency. It is, in fact, this "contingency" (henlkatayori) that Tominaga unqualifiedly asserts to be "the true": "The contingent is not disturbed by the truth of a statement. The contingent is the true." (Hen wa sunawachi jitsu nari.)51 The configuration of this contingency is fashioned by Tominaga out of a network of figurative modes, or tropes. Tominaga saw the operation of language as a series of integrative, imposed modes of representation, in varying degrees self-conscious, that create in each instance the field of inquiry and its constituent elements. Language, or words (gen), is used with particular emphasis (shucho), by specific people (hito), in their unique historical place (yo; literally "world"). The mechanisms by which this particular emphasis is made, Tominaga suggests, can be divided into five types or "figurations" (go mi); these figurations, along with the particular person and place of enunciation, make up what Tominaga called the "Three Things" (san butsu). These figurative modes are the self-professed central theme of Tominaga's work: ' 'My entire work is based upon the use of these 'Three Things' in the interpretation of discourse [gogen]."52 As noted above, it is within the operation of these figurations that Tominaga's reading of history is set forth; and though these patterns were tactically employed by later writers to assert the fabricated, and thus false, nature of Buddhism, the inherently self-critical capacity of Tominaga's discursive logic has been consistently overlooked. The five figurations of language, the operation of which produce layer after layer, lacquer-like, of history, are metaphor (cholharu), opposition (han), slippage (hanlukabu), agitation (kiluchitsukeru), and conversion (tenlkorobu). Metaphor (or "transfer"53) was an "expansion" (the literal translation of "haru") of a term to render it "mysterious" or putatively "subtle." For example, in the Daichido ron (Skt: Mahd prajndparamita sastra) the bones of the Buddha are equated with the dharmakaya, the "body" of the Buddhist teachings. Tominaga asserts that bones can only ever be bones, and it is only through the distortive practice of metaphorical expansion that such misleading

26 • Chapter One vagaries can be produced.54 "Slippage" operates as does metaphor in that a given term gradually takes on greater signifying capacity, but it differs in that this increase is due to an abstraction of the term itself rather than through the relation of that term to another. The example given here is the word ' 'nyorai'' (Skt: tathdgata), which in its original usage meant simply "to come thusly" or' 'to arrive in such a manner,'' and which was abstracted by Buddhist writers to represent one who has embodied the teaching of "suchness," a doctrine central to the later development of the Mahayana. The "agitation" of an idea, as revealed in Tominaga's use of the term, could simply mean its "exaggeration," the use of superlatives in the hope of elevating the meaning of a word to a critically unassailable position. It could also serve the more elaborate function of making a more general term (such as would be created through the exercise of metaphor or slippage) serve as a standard universal in its validity and application. The creation of the conception of the Great Vehicle (Skt: mahayana) of universal salvation as inherent in, and thus possible for, all sentient beings would be an example of this third figurative mode. The final two modes are "opposition" and "conversion." One use of the mode of opposition may in fact be ironic, that is, to affirm tacitly the negative of what is on the literal level affirmed positively, or the reverse, and thus inspire ironic second thoughts about the nature of the thing characterized or the inadequacy of the characterization itself.55 This technique is doubtlessly a favorite of many post-Nagarjuna Mahayana philosophers, especially those of the Zen persuasion.56 But Tominaga emphasizes not so much the creative use of ironic thought as the use of opposition as a strategy to fulfill an almost perverse desire to create a subject position putatively distinct from all others. For an example he uses the term "jishi" {onozukara hoshiimama, "selfwilled"), the original meaning of which was decidedly negative.57 As a translation of the Sanskrit term "pravarana" (J: haraberana), the practice of confession engaged in at the end of every training period in Indian monasticism, "jishi's" origin signified the desire, the willfulness of monks in training, that was to be expunged, or "bonded." 58 Later, Tominaga asserts, it was given the exact opposite meaning, namely, the necessity of self-directed action in one's practice and attainment. Opposition is at least potentially the most violent of these five linguistic figurations; it is also drawn upon frequently to contribute to Tominaga's own skeptical strategy. In the same way that the oppositional figuration of "self-willed" was used as an example to explicate the self-willed nature of the figuration of opposition itself, so too the act of religious conversion serves as Tominaga's model for the figuration of "conversion." Tao-sheng, a leading student of Kumarajiva, discovered in his reading of the sutras the line "except for the 'icchantika' [J: issendai], all have Buddha nature."59 This term "icchantika" meant the absence of Buddha nature, and thus the inability for that being to realize the

The Making of a Heresy • 27 Buddhist teachings. Yet, Tao-sheng reasoned, since all living beings carry within them the seed of the Buddha nature and even the most evil can have a "change of heart" (J: kaishin),60 how can there truly be such a being as an icchantika? Through the invocation of the possibility of conversion (kaishin), Tao-sheng converts (tenjiru) the particular figuration of a term into the possibility of its opposite; through the operation of a spiritual reversal, a case is made for a concomitant linguistic turn. Tominaga, in detailing the operation of these figurative tropes, and by juxtaposing the equally probable and mutually contradictory positions revealed by the use of these tropes in the Buddhist sutras (his use of isothenia as a technique of skeptical argumentation), hoped to suggest the necessity of the contingency of all forms of judgment, the termination of the possibility of a justifiable dogmatic position. Or, in the words of another "inquirer" (Gk: skeptikos): "To every argument investigated by me which establishes a point dogmatically, it seems to me there is opposed another argument, establishing a point dogmatically, which is equal to the first in respect of credibility and incredibility; so that the utterance of the phrase is not a piece of dogmatism, but the announcement of a human state of mind which is apparent to the person experiencing it." 61 Moreover, syncretic attempts to smooth over dogmatic differences, as seen for example in the numerous versions of the "Three Teachings" (sankyo),62 fail precisely because each attempt still maintains its own particular dogmatic concerns. They are, in short, doomed to the construction of comparisons and vague gestures of cooperation conducted entirely within a language of figurative tropes: "The proponents of syncretism argue that the Three Teachings are all the Way of the Good (zendo). The loss of one teaching is the loss of goodness itself. They even go so far as to say that this forms a subtle natural numerical configuration. What foolishness! If goodness is the criterion for inclusion, how can the number of teachings be limited to three? Are not each of the dozens of 'heretical' and 'heterodoxicaF teachings based on the Good? Their heart is indeed one, and their traces are manifold."63 It becomes clear that the inquiry suggested by Tominaga was directed at every attempt at an absolute articulation of knowledge and history adequate to any particular historical configuration. Recognition of the above five figurations in discourse is, we could say, the continual exercise of doubt: de omnibus dubitandum. The inadequacy of any given word, and thus finally language itself, to be transmitted accurately through time and across cultural formations (or even within a given culture) necessitates the continual refusal to adopt any subject position dogmatically and to rely exclusively upon the radical contingency of the quotidian. Tominaga indeed asserts that the "teachings of the Confucians are of the Good, as are those of the Buddhists. The Good that they speak of is in fact one and the same." 64 But we must also recall his claim that "[I] am not a disciple of Confucius . . . nor of Buddha."65 Through the prac-

28 • Chapter One tice of doubt, as articulated in the operation of the tropes of figuration, Tominaga creates a necessarily self-critical subject position. Yet there clearly is a position: a positionless position; a position that recognizes that the very terms by which it was constituted may possibly be the source of its refutation. The operation of doubt, as is well known, serves very much like aperient drugs that' 'do not merely eliminate the humours from the body but also expel themselves along with the humours."66 Tominaga could not be the disciple of any "sage." He was a disciple of the Good, as it was revealed in the heart of unmediated daily life, expunged of dogmatic formulations that serve only to produce endless series of unresolvable conflicts. Buddhism as the ostensible object of Tominaga's inquiry in the Shutsujo was, I think we can say with very little hyperbole, forever altered. The tropes of figuration when rigorously applied produced an exegesis of Buddhist writings that is generally considered brilliant. Tominaga's identification, for example, of various layers of production within specific sutras determined by the type of phraseology used—the oldest stratum, reflecting the more ancient oral tradition, was written largely in verse67—was one technique used to date sutra production and thus created, for the first time, a textual history of the Buddhist canon. Subsequent scholarship, carried out largely in the West and after Burnouf's monumental Introduction a I'histoire du Bouddhisme Indien in 1844, has shown Tominaga's conclusions to be substantially correct. It was the work of a pioneering Buddhist(\) historian that, 150 years later, the prominent historian of religions Anesaki Masaharu (1873-1949) applauds by dedicating his own work on Buddhist scriptural exegesis to Tominaga.68 This is but one example of the late Meiji attempt by Buddhists to incorporate Tominaga and his work into their construction of their own history. Moreover, the Shutsujo's piercing analysis of a tradition previously garbed in the inviolable cloak of sacrality was not only brilliant; it was also devastating. Indeed, it is more for the witheringly critical aspect of his work as directed against Buddhism than any other aspect that Tominaga's work was to be preserved. Here let us take up the thread of anti-Buddhist theory that later writers traced back to Tominaga. The focus of the following discussion will be Hirata Atsutane's reading of the Shutsujo as found in the central text of Hirata's attack on Buddhism: the Shutsujo shogo, A Laughing Discourse on the Everyday World. THE LANGUAGE OF PERSECUTION: AND NATIONAL ESSENCE

As noted previously, Tominaga himself employed a trinational schema in the analysis of historical patterns. In addition to a chronology of figurative layers, he concomitantly asserted a concept of cultural specificity in emphasizing the practice of the Good as the ' 'Way necessary for contemporary Japan'' as distinct from India and China.69 In the previous section I discussed the figurations

The Making of a Heresy • 29 of language as creative performances compiled over time and the concomitant critique of the possibility of a textual hermeneutic engaged somehow to restore a "pure" antiquity to an experiential immediacy. As suggested by Tominaga in the first two of his "Three Things," there is a particular person (hito) in a particular world (yo) that produces the text (be it verbal or nonverbal, written or performed). For Tominaga, such performances are possible only within the radical present; this ' 'present'' is a topos defined by the specific configurations revealed in the dynamic interaction between the "person" and the "world." This conception of the "present," further identified as being culturally specific and used in Tominaga's critique as one aspect of the process of historicization, later becomes, in a somewhat truncated form, the sole interpretive ground by which his work is approached. Or more specifically, Buddhism is recognized, based upon Tominaga's analysis, as a layered (kajo) fabrication that was produced in a cultural nexus foreign to, and thus incompatible with, the conception of culture produced in Japan. Moreover, in the hands of later writers—Motoori and Hirata most notably—certain select changes in Tominaga's argument can be identified. Though the conception of cultural specificity remains largely intact, the operation of textual figuration over time is slightly reformulated. It is in fact, the argument now runs, due to the distortive nature of textualization that the "true way" (makoto no michi) has been lost. But once such distortive elements (as found in and perpetuated by Buddhism) are removed, the original enunciation of an undefiled past can be regained. A restorative hermeneutic, they claimed, is indeed possible. The operation of time as creating an uncrossable abyss between what once was and what only ever is, as suggested by Tominaga in his radical vision of the quotidian, is regularly expunged from discussions of his work by Confucians, Nativists, and even many Buddhists. We have already discussed the operations of textual figuration; here let us take up the problem of cultural determination as argued by Tominaga and his later anti-Buddhist readers. For Tominaga, "The people of India are extremely fond of the mysterious [maboroshilgen\, the Chinese however respond most favorably to literary qualities \fumilbun]. Thus, one who would construct a teaching and speak of its way [in these countries] must necessarily base it upon these [themes]. Moreover, if the teachings do not arise from these themes the people will refuse to believe in them." 70 With his usual thoroughness of research, Tominaga marshals numerous examples of each "cultural quality." From the Daichido ron and other sutras, he draws forth case after case of "mystical power" (jinzu) and its tools (dharani, spiritual training, magic), discussions of Mt. Sumeru or Indra's net, and so on, to illustrate the fascination for the mysterious "boundless infinite" found in India. He uses the system of permutations found in the five elements, or examples from Chuang Tzu, Hsun Tzu, and the / Ching, as proof of the fascination with the "complexity of language" (kikkutsu no go) found among

30 • Chapter One the Chinese. "But the Japanese [Tojin; literally, Eastern People]," as we might expect, "do not enjoy these turns of phrase [tatoi]. They use only direct language [chokusetsu no go]." Evidently Tominaga thought the term "direct language" was itself nearly sufficient to express his own meaning, as he provides, contrary to his usual modus operandi, only one example. This "sentence," written in classical Chinese (as is the rest of the Shutsujo), comes straight from Tominaga himself. It is quoted here in full: "Shiki. His family name [was] Mitsuyoshi, his given name Tomei, from Osaka, and my dear friend. He has already died."71 The "eastern people," Tominaga asserts, cannot believe the mysteriousness favored by the Indian, nor can they understand the literary gymnastics of the Chinese because the sense, the essence (Juki), of the Japanese language is found in its terseness {shiborulko; literally, to "wring" or "squeeze"), as exemplified in the above bare-bones biography of friendship. It is because of this essential terseness that the adaptations (J: hoben; Skt: updya) of the Buddhists and the elaborate systematizations of the Confucians are inappropriate for the "eastern people." Furthermore, it is the character of the oral tradition in each culture, formed into verse, often with music to aid in memorization and ease of transmission from one generation to another,72 that determines the essence of the written, and thus historical, character of the culture. These formations could only ever be particular, and thus necessarily distinct. It is important to note that Tominaga, in contrast to his later readers, does not at this juncture cite the Man'yoshu or other ancient Japanese poetic anthologies as examples of a "pure Japanese" essence. Performance, in Tominaga's terms, can be found only within the present; regardless of whose past is called forth, its reverence as a repository of truth is misguided. Hirata Atsutane, himself a master of the vernacular use of Japanese in philosophical discourse, clearly enjoyed the possibilities inherent in such a discussion. His Shutsujo shogo, the title itself a parody of Tominaga's work, while contributing very little in terms of expanding the historicist exercise of Tominaga, focused largely upon what Hirata called a "laughing discourse" (shogo). This work was, finally, a mere vilification of those who so foolishly claimed allegiance to traditions fabricated by foreigners for their own vulgar uses; he spoke, of course, of the Buddhists. This work, divided into three major sections—lecture, addendum, textual analysis—begins by stating that after a brief examination of the climate and culture of India, "we will show that every collection and every chapter of the Buddhist texts are not from Shakyamuni but are each and every one without a doubt the fabrication of later writers."73 This work is, in other words, based upon the themes of chronological and cultural distinctiveness as set forth by Tominaga. But, as we shall see, it was composed with a fervor and a terseness perhaps possible only in the vernacular that made this one of the most popular anti-Buddhist texts ever written.

The Making of a Heresy • 31 Hirata's argument hinges upon what he calls, in this essay, the "national character" (kunigara) or the "national sense" (kokufu), a descriptive essence apparent in its effects and understood by those who are nurtured within that particular cultural nexus. Thus "the ways of each nation [kunigara no michimichi] arise in harmonious relation with the nation itself." His presentation of the climate and culture of India, which immediately follows the presentation of this assumption, is thus to serve as a case study in cultural difference. The recognition of these differences was derived, in part, from geographic— or more precisely, climatic—differences. After praising India for being a fertile country with warmth enough to produce easily two life-giving crops of rice a year, Hirata goes on to note that the people of India, however, are all "vulgar" (gehiri) and "yellow-black, or rather dirt-colored." They have numerous bizarre practices (hen na koto o sum), not the least surprising of which is to spread cow dung on floors and along the streets so that when warmed by the sun they may enjoy its fragrance. Hirata comments, "they consider this to be pure . . . and enjoy it as afineperfume." Hirata somewhat confusedly goes on to suggest that the reason Indians anoint themselves with fragrant oils is because "in the stifling heat all the people of this nation naturally stink." The thrust of this diatribe is, of course, to show that it was in a land such as this, with "customs inevitable to an inferior nation," that Shakyamuni Buddha was prince. To put just the right edge on his presentation of the "national essence" of India, Hirata concludes by saying that in Shakyamuni's own country, during Shakyamuni's lifetime, there were 10,000 cases of patricide and 18,000 cases of sons rising in revolt against their fathers. "We can see quite clearly the kunigara of India from these examples,"74 he concludes. As if this discussion of the "national essence" of the homeland of Buddhism was not sufficiently convincing, Hirata describes Shakyamuni himself. The Buddhists say that Shakyamuni was born out of the right side of his mother, notes Hirata; "he probably was, like the viper he is." Shakyamuni's so-called lion's roar at birth was no different from the cries of any newborn. And as for the newborn Buddha taking seven steps and proclaiming "I alone am the honored one," Hirata allows that "since this story is in every surra, it just might be true. That is, as the beginning of these fools' perverted way, since they are strange enough to spread this tale throughout the world, Shakyamuni's very birth could be this bizarre." Answering his own question as to why the Buddhists feel so compelled to perpetuate lies about their founder, Hirata concludes, "If Shakyamuni, as the Buddha, were to be born the same as all common people from a place as impure as the 'gate of shadows' [inmon; the vagina], he would not be worthy of veneration. In order to create something mysterious and marvelous, these lies have been perpetuated." Hirata, beside himself with anger, concludes that in addition to these tales associated with Buddha's birth, the sutras "tell only nonsensical lies"; in fact, "even

32 • Chapter One though they may have some truth in them, this too we are forced to think of as false."75 The Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Guardian Kings that populate the Buddhist cosmos Hirata dismisses as mere reflections of hopes and desires transmogrified by those who created the sutras. These "fanciful beings" are but "different names for the heart of man." More specifically he calls this transformation a distorted expression of the "virtue of the heart" (kokoro no toku).76 For example, Mahavairocana (J: Birushana, or Dainichi Nyorai) is but an imitation of the life-giving qualities of the sun; Avolokitesvara (J: Kannon) is a symbol for the hope of order and the possibility of compassion within disorder; and Acalanatha (J: Fudo Myo-o) is an appeal for strength when confronting an adversary. But, Hirata laments, these fabrications are popularly misunderstood as having some independent existence and thereby garner the grossly mistaken faith that is placed in dreams manufactured from basic anthropomorphic desires to manipulate the natural order. For Hirata the extreme example of this unfortunate phenomenon is located in the belief in Amitabha (J: Amida) Buddha and the portrayal of the Pure Land (J: Jodo). He is quite clear on his interpretation of Amida: "There is no doubt at all that this thing called Amida was entirely made up and has no relation whatsoever to the real." On the Pure Land he is of a similar mind: ' 'There is no place throughout this great earth where such a 'country' is found." But if, he continues, we were to name a country that truly exists as the Paradise on earth, then it most certainly would be Japan.77 Even the Indians, Hirata notes, were smart enough to get rid of Buddhism. In Japan it is much worse. Though the priests do not themselves destroy statues or burn their own robes and sutras, they are all "womanizers and meateaters" (nyobon nikushoku) that have destroyed Buddhism internally. ' 'Priests serve only one function, to deceive people and thereby steal their possessions. . . . They thrive on the sufferings of the people."78 This, Hirata is careful to point out, is not a recent phenomenon but a permanent predilection of Buddhism. When the teaching of that prince from an insignificant kingdom in "the barbarian nation called India"79 arrived in Japan, it immediately touched off a civil war and managed, finally, to deceive the Prince Regent Shotoku (574—622) to build temples and promulgate the teachings. ("Oh! How could [Prince Shotoku] turn his back on the deities of his nation and revere foreign gods?") Even though loyal clans resisted "nobly," they could not prevent the spread of Buddhism.80 And Japan has, ever since, slowly come under the influence of this inexorable invasion from abroad. Hirata summarized the teaching method of the Buddhists as follows. Preachers first tell the people that sour persimmons are, in fact, sweet. The faithful, to use Tominaga's terms, fooled by this oppositionary refiguration, eat sour persimmons until they learn truly to enjoy them. At this point the Buddhists then say that this enjoyment is itself shameful. The result of this

The Making of a Heresy • 33 manipulation is, of course, that neither the sweetness of the persimmon nor the persimmon itself can ever again be enjoyed.81 Then, to mock the people they have driven to a joyless life of suffering, priests, such as the Edo period Rinzai Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768), lecture on death. "If you are fearful of death, you should arrange to die soon. For once you have gotten it over with, it will not trouble you again." This, says Hirata, is an example of a priest who has seen the ' 'true essence" of the teaching of Shakyamuni: death and helplessness.82 No Buddhist could ever suggest otherwise, he continues, as such a teaching reflects not only the nature of Buddhism but also the indolent and ignorant nature of the priests themselves: ' 'Of course we might hope for a priest who is adept enough at Buddhist studies to vanquish me [Hirata] in a debate. But anyone who has penetrated to the true essence of the Buddha dharma would never be so stupid [aho rashiku] to continue following the Buddhist way but would invariably return to the lay life. . . . Most, however, merely rest content with the old saw 'He with the loudest voice wins.' " 8 3 After having soundly thrashed Buddhism's "cultural origins," the Buddha (in various forms), the Bodhisattvas, and the Guardian Kings, as well as Buddhist sutras, pedagogy, and priests, Hirata focuses on the consequences of the practice of Buddhism in Japan. The "national essence" of India formed a people that nurtured a Shakyamuni who sparked the collection of a set of teachings called "Buddhism." That this "vulgar" jumble of misshapen hopes had not only entered the "divine land" of Japan but in fact counted many of its people as believers was a source of great discomfort to Hirata and later to his followers. A major section of Hirata's Shutsujo shogo, itself titled the "Essay on the Two Enemies of the Kami [Shinto]" (Shin teki nishu rori),M was often treated as an independent work. In the fervor of the Meiji era persecution of Buddhism, it is to this chapter that Nativist scholars often turned for textual support of the physical attacks on Buddhist priests and property. For example, Shimoda Yoshiteru (1852-1929), an early Meiji student of the Kokugaku scholar Gonda Naosuke (1808-1887), provides the following description of the times: The reason we established the "unity of rites and rule" as was practiced in Emperor Jimmu's time was in order to eliminate Buddhism. . . . Nativist scholars were the most ardent anti-Buddhists, and the Hirata School, frequently citing the Essay on

the Two Enemies of the Kami from Hirata's Shutsujo shogo, was among the most active. . . . We students would go through town every day smashing every roadside Jizo or other Buddhist statue we could find. If even one were missed, it was a great disgrace to us. Fire, being a danger in the city, was not used to destroy pagodas and temple buildings, but we did our best in burning Buddhist artifacts.85 The "two sects" of the more than a dozen in existence singled out as "enemies" by Hirata were the Jodo Shin and Nichiren. 86 Hirata's disposition to-

34 • Chapter One ward the Shin sect was noted briefly above. If possible, his dislike for the Nichiren (1222-1282) was even greater. Though Shinran (1173-1262) was described as cunning and deceptive, Nichiren was variously styled as "crazy," "selfish," "foul-mouthed," and "perverted." Each of these characteristics, Hirata carefully noted, were not learned but were present at birth {umaretsuki).*1 Hirata then exclaims, irony firmly in place, that Nichiren was, however, frequently honest. For example, Nichiren did attack all the other Buddhist sects as false and deceptive. In this regard Hirata cites Nichiren's famous line: "The nembutsu is useless; the Zen are devils; Shingon destroys the nation; the Ritsu are pirates."88 To this Hirata gives his complete agreement. But he also laments that Nichiren was too ignorant to see that his own (Nichiren's) teaching was also among the useless and vile. As is most likely clear by now, Hirata had an expansive dislike for anything remotely linked to Buddhism. But why of all the sects of Buddhism did he bring his most sustained vituperance to bear on the Shin and Nichiren? The central thrust of Hirata's attack upon these two sects arises from the larger problematic of his radical affirmation of the "national essence" (kunigara) as made manifest in the "virtues of the heart" (kokoro no toku). For Hirata, "Buddhism" per se is, of course, a lamentable addition to Japanese cultural history. But the Shin and Nichiren sects have proved themselves above all other sects to be serious threats to the very perpetuation and operation of the geographically, and racially, distinct notion of a "virtuous heart" within the "divine nation." Or, to borrow Hirata's own phraseology, these sects, more than any other, like the lotus blossoms revered by the Buddhists, truly arise from the muddy swamp of foreign sensibility and stand in direct opposition to the cherry blossoms, the "King of Flowers," of Japan.89 Here let me present two specific problems raised by Hirata as applied to the Shin and Nichiren: "Shin believers forget the kami who are the source of their very body, and without the least bit of thought rash off to revere Amida Buddha, seek to enter the Western Paradise and sit nobly upon a lotus blossom, and there enjoy myriad pleasures of food and drink. They merely expand their desirous heart \yokushin] to reach for this goal." 90 Shin teachings for Hirata, like the formation of the Buddhist pantheon itself, were based upon the perversion of aspects of the pure human heart. Here the hope for spiritual sustenance was transformed into an affirmation of mundane desires for material comfort and, for Hirata the most irksome aspect, an attitude of passivity toward the kami of the "divine land." To illustrate this institutionalization of desire, Hirata takes his attack to one of the founding principles of Shin Buddhism: the ability of Shin priests to marry. In 1203 (Kenin 3) the then ex-Kampaku Fujiwara no Kanezane (1149-1207) asked Honen (also known as Genku, 1133-1212), founder of what is now called the Jodo ("Pure Land") Sect, to send one of his disciples to live in Kanezane's home as a teacher. Since Amida Buddha listens equally to lay as well as priestly invo-

The Making of a Heresy • 35 cation of the nembutsu, Kanezane asked, would a priest who lived the lay life be in any way hindered? Hirata very carefully records that, several months later, during the 5th night of the fourth month of 1204 (Genkyu 1), Honen, while sleeping in the Rokkakudo Hall at the Asuka Temple in Nara (built, we will recall, by the Prince Regent Shotoku), dreamt that the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Kannon) came to him and said in verse: If an ascetic [gydja] is destined to violate a woman [nyobon], I will become [naru] the body of that beautiful woman and there will be no violation [of the precepts]; living throughout life magnificently, they finally will be led to birth in paradise.91

Shortly after this dream Shinran, HQnen's chosen disciple, was married to one of Kanezane's daughters. This was the beginning of the tradition of priests being betrothed to "manifestations of Kannon" (honji kannon). To expose this incident as a mere political ploy, which was later parlayed into a publicly accepted affirmation of priestly desire, Hirata begins by noting that the verse itself is strikingly unlettered. A mere child, having studied but the rudiments of classical poetry, would not write something so poor. "Can Kannon," one of the greatest of the bodhisattvas, Hirata sardonically asks, "be as unlettered as this?" After pointing out several mistakes both in argument and in terminology he inquires again: "Is it possible that Kannon is as unstudied [in the Buddhist sutras] as this?" 92 Hirata intends to show that Shin Buddhism merely seeks to create an irresponsible, self-indulgent populace, such that, "no matter how profound a transgression one may make, by merely calling out Amida's name one's transgression will be absolved and belief in Paradise is assured. . . . [Believers] merely intone ' 'Nammaida,'' put their hearts at ease, and then proceed to carry out any act, however evil, that they may desire."93 Hirata, calling himself the true teacher of ' 'the divine people of the divine nation" and, mimicking Tominaga, the self-styled "Tathagata Atsutane," takes as his first vow the liberation of the deluded from the hold of Buddhism.94 This accomplished, there will be no hindrance to the complete revelation of "the ancient way of truth" (inishie no makoto no michi).95 Once, in other words, the layers of Buddhistic refigurations of the true Japanese spirit are removed, the original purity of that spirit can be, and for Hirata must be, restored. Nichiren Buddhists, unlike the Shin, did not refuse to recognize the native kami; rather, they set out to incorporate Shintoistic elements into their own doctrine and thereby produce a more comprehensive cosmology. The socalled Thirty Kami system (Sanjieban jin) served as an attempt to unite all major shrines and their enshrined kami with members of the Buddhist pantheon. The precise configuration of one particular kami for each day of the

36 • Chapter One month related to one Buddhist figure was drawn directly from Yoshida Shinto, a syncretic school founded by Yoshida (or Urabe) Kanetomo (1435-1511) in the Muromachi period. On each day of the month simultaneous ceremonies would take place at the appropriate shrine and temple that housed the kami and Buddhist figure of that day. For example, the first day of each month was devoted to the Sun Goddess Amaterasu at the Ise Shrine and the Great Sun Buddha Dainichi Nyorai at Atsuta. For Nichirenists, however, the "relation" between the kami and the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas was conceived in accordance with the standard reading of Buddhist syncretism (honji suijaku; literally, "original ground, remaining traces")96 whereby the kami were the dependent traces manifest by the original and primary members of the Buddhist pantheon. Hirata attacks this practice from two positions. First, he attacks Nichiren's credibility as a theologian. Hirata points out that Nichiren was a most unoriginal thinker, who merely mimicked a few of the more sophisticated Buddhist thinkers, such as the famous Chinese T'ien T'ai master Chi-I (538-597) or, in the case of the "Thirty Kami" system, the Shinto philosopher Yoshida. Moreover, Hirata notes, it should be remembered that Yoshida took most of the arguments for the formulation of his theories from the Shingon Buddhist syncretic system (ryobu shinto). So we have a "pitiable" situation where Nichiren, who had once attacked Shingon as the "destroyers of the nation," is reduced to peddling a version of syncretic Shinto as his own that was borrowed by a medieval Shinto scholar from a Buddhist sect that Nichiren despised.97 Second, Hirata attacks the notion of a syncretism based upon the original inferiority of Shinto. In this particular version only thirty kami were selected, and of these Nichiren felt that only Amaterasu and Hachiman were worthy of true veneration. But Hirata, at his scatological best, sweepingly condemns any conception of kami as contingent upon a Buddhist' 'foundation'' {honji). Anyone who would believe that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are the ground, or the essence, of the kami, he asserts, would "eat horse shit thinking it was nutritious rice cakes." 98 For Hirata, Shin Buddhists sought merely satiation of their physical desires. This unending quest, operating within an already calcifying institution, would produce dire consequences for the nation and its people if allowed to continue the violation of the "virtues of the heart." Nichiren Buddhists, in attempting to co-opt the divinities of the nation for their own selfish purposes, represented to Hirata a direct attack upon the "national essence." The obvious conclusion to Hirata's argument, and where he most profoundly differs from Tominaga, is found in the assumption that the removal of the "bald-assed lies" (shiri kara hageru uso)99 of the Nichirenists and the decadence of the Shin would somehow restore the "eastern people" to their original purity.

The Making of a Heresy • 37 THE LANGUAGE OF PERSECUTION: AND POLITICAL ECONOMY

Two decades after Hirata's death in 1846, Ryuon (1800-1885), a Higashihongan-ji priest and lecturer at the Shin academy, published a collection of his lecture notes. The notes, titled Soseki haibutsuben (A Complete Refutation of Anti-Buddhist Discourse), provide both an overview of pre-Meiji anti-Buddhist rhetoric as well as a proposal for countering their effects. 10° We will look more closely at this text in Chapter Two; here, however, Ryuon's comments on Hirata's Shutsujo shogo as well as the hints of a fragmented "Buddhism" are of interest: "In one section, called the 'Essay on the Two Enemies of the Kami,' Hirata actually groups our sect [Shin] with the Nichiren as enemies of the Kami. Such a vilification is unbearable. But what is truly amazing is that this miscellanea of derisive comments would go on to be so well known in the world. These days all those who despise Buddhism, extending even to samurai, physicians, and the like, seek it out and gleefully read it." 101 Aside from equating Shin and Nichiren, Hirata's work, "masquerading under the guise of scholarship," is troubling to Ryuon because of its diverse readership. Hirata merely "raves at the Buddhas and the patriarchs, and tramples on the beliefs of those who have true faith," and he lacks any skill in determining the true nature of the people he speaks about. But Hirata speaks "only to those who already despise and enjoy criticizing Buddhism," and thus, concludes an optimistic Ryuon, truly reflective readers would not be swayed by his vacuous arguments.102 Nevertheless, a more sophisticated threat, Ryuon cautioned, was indeed close at hand. Shoji Noriyoshi (1793-1857), a wealthy merchant scholar from Hizen (present-day Nagasaki), in 1833 published a thirty-volume treatise on political economy titled Keizai mondo hiroku (A Private Record of an Inquiry into Political Economy).103 Drawing heavily upon Sorai, Shundai, and Chikuzan for its theoretical position, the Keizai mondo hiroku was written in an almost anecdotal but carefully regulated, terse, colloquial style. It presented what Ryuon considered the most comprehensive, calculated, and timely critique of Buddhism in circulation. Indeed, it was, he wrote, "a fearful thing" (Osorubeki mono nari). Compared with Hirata's vituperations, Shoji's reasoned cautions to domainal leaders about the "useless" (muyo) character of Buddhism made the treatise profoundly dangerous for Buddhism.104 The Keizai mondo hiroku is not exclusively an anti-Buddhist text. Therein lay its sophistication and, from the Buddhist perspective, its danger. Shoji presented his discussion of "keizai" ("economy") in a manner very similar to the previous works on political economy. He wove together a diverse collection of pressing contemporary issues: national education, public law, private uses of economic knowledge, governmental surveys and taxation, the regulation of priests, the operation of international sea trade and ports of call,

38

• Chapter One

military expenditure, and crime and punishments. With his encyclopedic knowledge of political theory, Shoji tried to demonstrate the necessity of a strong central authority, based upon immutable law, that nurtures the people through education and prosperity and that eliminates conflicting or redundant local ordinances and wasteful practices. To borrow Shoji's terminology, the transcendent position of sagely virtue (daisei no toku) revealed the true way (shodo) whereby the people are instructed in benevolence, righteousness, and filial piety (jingi chuko). Since the people were the foundation of the nation (tami wa kuni no moto nari), their prosperity created a prosperous nation. Prosperity was, moreover, not mere self-attainment but the prosperity of the nation as a whole (kokka no fumi) and, interestingly enough, the creation of benevolence itself (fumi arazareba jin nasanai).105 To establish the link between benevolence and prosperity Shoji, following Nakayama's notion of the national system, proposes a unified national system of law (tenka tsuyo no ho). Drawing upon domestic metaphors from the Great Learning, Shoji then attempted to equate the rule of the state with the operation of the family; ' 'the prince is the father and mother of the people," or "for the son of heaven all under heaven is one house."106 As with every family within the state, the state itself must be guided not by profit but by righteousness, which, Shoji asserted, has its own benefits. ' 'The state does not use profit and thereby produce profit, it uses righteousness and produces profit."107 Shoji's particular reworking of the eighteenth-century discourse on political economy was consistent with earlier interpretations in its assertion of an economic understanding of politics and a political interpretation of economics, both of which, finally, were directed toward the nearly soteriological enactment of benevolence. Moreover, he was, if possible, even more insistent upon the production and distribution of surplus as an action conducive not merely to the increase of wealth but also to the desired attainment of benevolent action. Legislated benevolence (jinsei) was, finally, true national prosperity.108 The critique of Buddhism that so distressed Ryuon can be found in chapters seventeen through twenty of the Keizai mondo hiroku. This critique was linked to the system of benevolent political economy outlined above. It oscillated between a comparison of Buddhist and Confucian conceptions of the social to the disadvantage of Buddhism, and social evidence of the economically damaging character of Buddhist teachings and practices. Shoji attempted to show, finally, that Buddhism led only to disorder and anarchy, that it throve in "tragic times" (ayashiki toki), and that it owed its popularity entirely to its encouragement of indolence. Like most political economists of the period, Shoji saw Buddhism as parasitic and lacking any useful social function. Samurai, skilled in the literary and military arts, serve their lord, and in the event of rebellion are ready to lose their life in service; peasants give life to all by raising the five grains; artisans make tools each useful in its own way; merchants aid in the

The Making of a Heresy • 39 distribution of wealth and commodities. . . . But priests! They contribute not one coin to the general good, they know nothing of effort, and are entirely selfish; ignorant of the tribulations of lords and peasants, they eat and speak as they desire; claiming the nature of their meditations to be difficult they manage to work little and pass through the world tranquilly. They have no sense of benevolence and righteousness and are insensitive to their shame.109 In discussing the operation of economy Shoji highlights four pervasive social problems needing immediate attention; the first three—alcoholism, gambling, and lasciviousness—distract even the hard-working and sow discontent among all the classes of people. The fourth "problem" is actually a group: "priests and other debauchers." Generically identified elsewhere under the term yumin (literally, the "people of play"), this group incorporates the above three evils and, moreover, flagrantly disregards any conception of social order by both belonging to no particular class and by producing nothing.110 The essential character of Buddhism Shoji summarizes as follows: "All they seek is to leave the dust of the world and concentrate on their own spiritual discipline. Since they think there is no profit in turning disorder into the true, or in ruling the nation and bringing order to the world, they are content thinking 'If it stops it stops; if there is lack there is lack' [yamureba yami, naki toki

naki\:nn

Such a position of purposeful irresponsibility can produce only a social environment conducive to anarchy, and, Shoji notes, so it was "from the beginning" of Buddhism's presence in Japan. Similar to many anti-Buddhist writers, Shoji blames Shotoku Taishi for the introduction of Buddhism to Japan; but he does so with a vigor more common to the vehement anti-Buddhist diatribes of the Shinto Nativists. Soga no Umako (d. 626, minister under Emperor Bidatsu) joined Umayado no Oji (Shotoku Taishi) in the promotion of Buddhism. This "promotion" not merely entailed the study of sutras and building of temples, but also involved an attack upon the Mononobe clan in 587 and the assassination of the Imperial Prince Anahobe and later of the Emperor Sushun (r. 587-592). It is thus through murder and deception that Shotoku obtained the regency and was able to facilitate the subsequent expansion of Buddhism during the Nara period. Exercising a certain editorial control, Shoji limits his comments on this incident to the suggestion that "surely Buddhism is not a teaching of loyalty and filial piety."112 The Keizai mondo hiroku goes on to chronicle Buddhist improprieties perpetrated throughout Japanese history: the political desires of the Nara sects forced the move to a new capital named, appropriately, "Eternal Peace" (Heian, present-day Kyoto); the Kamakura Five Mountain (Gozan) system was merely a means by which greedy Zen monks could expand their own wealth through foreign trade at the expense of the Bakufu organization; and let us not forget the great wars fought by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Oda No-

40 • Chapter One bunaga during the sixteenth century with the armies of the Tendai, Shin, and Nichiren sects: "It took Oda ten years to unify all of Japan but thirteen years to defeat the Hongan-ji priests."113 With painstaking detail Shqji cites case after case of assassination, parricide, riots, revolts, and other miscellaneous deceits as he answers his own rhetorical question, "Is it possible for even those who sincerely practice and rely upon the Buddha to be at peace?" with a resounding "No." "For Shakyamuni," he claims, "all people were fools and he alone was wise." But on the contrary, "Confucianism is a teaching that leads to the path of the extinction of all people's ignorance."114 Buddhism results only in discord, Confucianism in harmony; Buddhism relies upon magic and deceit, Confucianism on knowledge and loyalty; Buddhism treats the social order with disdain, Confucianism shows that filial piety and the Five Relations create a prosperous family and a wealthy nation. "Wealth does not rain down from heaven," Shqji says, attacking the Buddhist's claim that sutra recitation or large donations will increase prosperity. "To purchase that which is worthless, even though it may cost only one coin, is wasteful." What the nation needs is not the deceitful "skill in means" (hoben) of Buddhism but the "honesty" (shojiki) of Confucianism in Japan; this is because, he concludes, prosperity arises "only from the labor of all the people."115 "There is a saying," notes Shqji, " 'The poor make themselves so' "; only the lazy or the extravagant are poor.116 He exhorts: "How can we sit quietly in our homes? Men, women, the aged and infirm, even children, should all join together to carry the earth and prepare the wood for the construction of the palace [i.e., the nation]."117 But priests, whose numbers he estimates approach one million (based on an average of three priests per temple and 320,000 temples nationally), merely "devour what the peasants produce."118 They arbitrarily create festivals or ceremonies that consume great amounts of money, supplies, and time, and produce mere delusion and delay. Echoing Hirata, Shoji points out that even in India, the place of Buddhism's "birth," Buddhism was discarded as useless. "Throughout the world only Japan is a priestly country [sokoku].'' Though this very observation was used positively by Meiji Buddhist leaders to stress the urgency of their work, Shoji and other proponents of the economic organization of the social order reached dramatically different conclusions as to the necessary next step. The numbers of priests, temples, and temple holdings should be cut back drastically, and in many cases eliminated. Buddhist teachings and practices (festivals, pilgrimages, and public lectures) should all be terminated. Priests should be carefully removed from all political offices. That which served merely as a drain upon society should be directed toward the production of general prosperity. Temple bells should be melted down for tools and weapons; temple lands should be tilled for public use; priests should become farmers or, "since they like to fight so much," soldiers. The respect given to priests merely because of their rank should be categorically denied. "Respect is not in the priest, but in his

The Making of a Heresy • 41 119

virtues," and virtue is found in production and general prosperity, not in consumption and selfish extravagance. CONCLUSION

The pervasive nature of anti-Buddhist ideas during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Japan contributed to an environment conducive to the radical repositioning of religious institutions within the social order. This repositioning—articulated within shifting definitions of history, nationhood, and economy—served in fact to spark the attempt to define the ' 'religious'' itself. Contrary to the "insignificance" accorded to "religious issues" by Okuma and other early Meiji politicians, the defining of particular discourses as "Buddhist," "Confucian," "Shinto," "Indian," "Chinese," "Japanese," "political," "historical," and "religious" was a wide-ranging exercise in signification that contributed to the refiguration of the very parameters within which any particular public discourse would be carried out. "Religion," like "politics," "economics," and "philosophy," was a newly translated term in nineteenth-century Japan.120 Its meaning, based in part on the Euro-American discourse on the philosophy of religion, was in fact being constructed during this period.121 This construction was carried out by means of a series of negative definitions of religion in order to "separate" religion from all other major conceptual fields. In the quest for definition, "religion" was placed in opposition to politics (the "separation of rale and doctrine," [seikyo bunri]), in opposition to education (for example, the explosive debate over Uchimura Kanzo's lese-majeste in the 1890s, which gave rise to the term "the collision of religion and education" [shukyo to kyoiku no shototsu]), in opposition to the discipline of science (the "rational" against the "irrational" [(hi)goriteki]), in opposition to cultural enlightenment (for example, the Meiji Six Society's debate on religion), in opposition to the prevailing articulation of Imperial authority, and in opposition to contrasting definitions of "religion" itself. One consequence of this interpretation of the term "religion" is the inclusion of the possibility, if not the necessity, of a certain universalist perspective; there is a recognition, that is, of certain universal "truths" that all religions "share." There is a recognition of the possibility of the construction of a "world religion" (the same can be said for the fields of "law," "economics," and "politics"). There is, thus, in addition to the debate over the parameters, faults, and possibilities of religion per se, a debate among religion* over the status of their particular teachings vis-a-vis other teachings and this universal vision of a global religion. The Greek root of the word heresy means merely sect or opinion. As a translation of the term jakyo, however, "heresy" implies the recognition of "other teachings" as objects worthy of derision, if not fear. In any case, jakyo/heresy was, we should note, a common word used by everyone in the internecine straggles between Shinto,

42

• Chapter One

Confucian, Buddhist, Protestant, and Catholic writers. Again, this separation or distinction between teachings served to define each, in turn, in relation to the "others." Or, more precisely, in the "separation" of Shinto and Buddhism, each needed the other as "other" to constitute itself. The critique of Buddhism outlined above is but one aspect of this new critique of religion itself. And the critique of religion, formed within the rapidly shifting intellectual terrain of nineteenth-century Japan, is one aspect of the formation of new articulations of history, nation, and economy. In Chapters Two and Three we will examine more closely the implementation of these "new articulations" in the attempt to determine the boundaries of religious action and institutions in modern Japan.

CHAPTER TWO

Of Heretics and Martyrs: Anti-Buddhist Policies and the Meiji Restoration Priests who have long been bastions of decadence, ignorant of the changing times, saturated in passions of the flesh, and confused as to which road to walk, priests who have lost all semblance of a true vocation . . . are themselves responsible for the destruction of Buddhism. —Promulgation by the Ministry of the People [Mimbusho], 1871 It appears that many priests of other sects have returned to the lay life as ordered. But my temple will, as long as the main temple exists, continue on as in the past. . . . [T]he supporters of my temple are all genuine believers, all profoundly aware of the grace revealed to them by Master Shinran. As their priest, even if I were beaten and left to starve by the roadside, I would rather relinquish my life than turn my back on my religion. —Head Priest of the Shogyo-ji, in Matsumoto, three weeks prior to the destruction of his temple, 1871 It really was quite a chore. It took us three or four years, working constantly, day in and day out, to finally close down all the temples. . . . —Ichiki Shiro, describing the Satsuma domain-wide removal of Buddhism, late 1860s How many men would be left on earth if each had this power [to kill heretics] over the other, in as much as each considers the other a heretic? —De Haereticis (Concerning Heretics), 1554

INTRODUCTION

As IMPORTANT as the explosive moments of persecution may in fact be, we should not confine our observations to these selected incidents. Our observations must also take into account the heavily ideologized use of the specific aspects of the social as directed toward the work of persecution. In their attempt to reconstruct the parameters of what was to be perceived as ' 'commonsensical," Meiji era ideologues carefully reworked public definitions of the

44 • Chapter Two acceptable and appropriate relations between the populace and the religious institutions. In other words, how one '' acted religious," in terms of ceremony, practice, education, and labor, was an axle pin of the Meiji ideological system, and as such this behavior received extensive and serious attention from the Meiji leaders. Moreover, in constructing a new definition of public social performance, Meiji leaders deliberately destroyed previous forms of social praxis. In this chapter we will look more closely at the early Meiji era persecution of Buddhism itself. How were the previous chapter's anti-Buddhist arguments interpreted in public policy and local action? Where, and how, was the "separation" successful? Where did it fail? Why? How did "Buddhism" respond? These and other questions will be posed to illustrate the larger problem concerning the types of strategies deemed necessary to construct contours of thought and action conducive to defining "religion" and "religious action." In this chapter we will concentrate on some of the earlier anti-Buddhist programs and the beginnings of a nationwide religious policy and then turn to the more thorough creation of a national definition of doctrine in Chapter Three. Emperor Komei (Osahito; r. 1847-1866) was the last Japanese emperor to be buried with Buddhist funerary rites. The long solemn funeral procession from the Kyoto Imperial Palace to the Sennyu-ji, the Imperial family's ancestral temple, in the last month of 1866 proved to be the last public display of Buddhism for several years. By Komei's third memorial service (in 1868), which took place three months after the Meiji Emperor assumed the throne, Imperial rites and ceremonies were well on their way to being completely divested of any Buddhist character. The third memorial service itself was performed in accordance with a newly divised Shinto ceremony. In early 1867, while still governor of the Tsuwano domain, Kamei Koremi had decreed that all funerals in his domain would be Shinto funerals (Shinso). In the intercalary fourth month of 1868, this order, with certain modifications, was adopted as national policy under the Office of Rites (Jingijimu kyoku), which, it will be recalled, counted Kamei as a central member.' Though limited in scope and rigor when compared with the Tsuwano case, the national use of Shinto funerals differs, finally, only in degree and not in strategy from its predecessor.2 The creation of Shinto funerals was one method—others will be discussed below—whereby a particular definition of religion was articulated in social and in institutional forms. By defining funerals—which by their very nature involved every person, members of every sect, and most of the deities in Japan—the state sought the right to define death, including the possibilities thereafter, and thereby reflexively to order life itself. It was assumed, in short, that those who controlled death controlled life. Kamei and his colleague Fukuba Bisei (1831-1907), then assistant director of the Board of Shinto Missionaries, both aggressive students of the Nativist scholar Okuni Takamasa

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 45 (1792-1871), perceived Buddhist-style funerals to be the central axis of the Buddhist institutional framework as well as of its social organization. To take full legislative control over the operation of funerals down to the smallest details on the national level would, they reasoned, serve the dual purpose of removing a prominent source of Buddhist influence from all levels of society from the Imperial household to the general populace.3 This control, moreover, would further provide a strategic foundation to promulgate a Shinto-based ideology designed to link emperor with commoner and the present with a divine antiquity. The Meiji era "restoration" of imperial power, a carefully articulated claim to political legitimacy grounded upon certain "ancient" texts and practices, was crafted in such a way as to distance the emperor, and thus the government, from previous bakufu policies, particularly those that incorporated Buddhist elements. Having long served as the local census bureau, tax offices, and so on for the bakufu, and having served as sole executioners of funerals, festivals, and the like, Buddhism clearly held an ambiguous social position. On the one hand, being intimately associated with personal aspects of the social life of a community, it was a central and necessary aspect of daily communal life. On the other hand, as the political adjunct of an "evil" government, it was also easily constituted as a source of social oppression and thus as an object worthy of critique. As alluded to above, the apparently simple, straightforward, and brilliant strategy adopted by the Meiji ideologues to resolve this seeming dilemma was to "separate Shinto from Buddhism" {shimbutsu bunri). In the process of carrying out this "separation," it was necessary to define, even to create, what in fact "Shinto" and "Buddhism" were.4 Understandably, this was not always a simple task. For example, immediately after the Emperor Komei's Buddhist funeral service, proponents of the Shinto funeral service were confronted with the following quandary: is the corpse of an emperor, like all other dead persons or animals, "impure" (kegare)l If so, then the tenets of Shinto, distinct from Buddhism, which have severe strictures that disallow the handling of the "impure," would be inadequate for conducting even Imperial funerary rites. Tanimori Yoshinori (1817— 1911), student of Hirata Nativism and junior officer in the Office of Rites, is generally credited with having resolved the issue by asserting that since the Emperor was a divine presence {akitsu mikami) both in this world and in the next (gense demo yukai demo), there was finally no possibility of his being "impure." This classic articulation of a pure spirit (mitama) distinct from the impure corpse became increasingly a public "Shinto" ontological position and was used to wrest control over funerary rites of passage from institutional Buddhism.5 There is a resurgence in the writing of norito, the songs of Shinto, during the mid-nineteenth century, and it is a resurgence with a particular sense of Meiji ideological concerns. These norito were verses designed to connect this

46 • Chapter Two world to the world of the kami and served to inform, praise, solicit, or cajole the kami. Their phraseology, terminology, and method of enunciation were carefully detailed in order to accent, or assure, the direct link between the present moment of their enunciation and divine antiquity. Through this ritual, most readily recognizable in the liberal use of the Kojiki, Engishiki, and other "guidebooks" as the basis for rites, ceremonies, and norito, the divine absolute was "made present." In the case of funerary rites, the norito verses were directed to the local tutelary deity (ujigami) as the immediate representative of the national shrine system.6 The funeral ceremonies carried out in local Ancestral Spirit Shrines (Soreisha)1 were designed to create a sense of community based upon a common conception of the afterlife, as mediated by the local Shinto shrine and resident deity, and thence directly connected to the larger Shinto pantheon that culminated in the nation state symbolized in the figure of the Emperor. In other words, the use of these Spirit Shrines was an attempt "to gather together all the spirits" of the people {mitama no subete wo atsumef to dwell under the gaze of the Emperor. Or, to borrow the words of Kamei when he addressed residents of the Tsuwano domain: "this land, ruled by emperors descended from the kami even until the present Emperor, himself linked by blood to these august kami, is a most venerable nation. . . . To be born in a superior nation such as this, and to be able to produce food and eat bountifully, to have sufficient clothing, to be able to build dwellings against the cold and thus to live out comfortably one's days is due entirely to the compassion [megumi] of the divine kami. Our gratitude and debt [on] are indeed most profound."9 Though the early Meiji era regulation of Buddhism was articulated in terms dominated by a sense of deep reverence for and inexhaustible indebtedness to the person of the Emperor and his divine ancestors, there were clearly other factors at work in the attempt to redefine Buddhism's relation to society. For the remainder of this chapter we will examine (1) how paradigmatic cases of persecution illustrate the techniques developed to embody the anti-Buddhist theories discussed above, (2) how the erstwhile local anti-Buddhist practices were implemented at the national level, and (3) how Buddhist institutions and individuals reacted to these practices. MITO: BY WAY OF PARADIGM

Ignorant people believe and sustain it, clever samurai employ it for their own uses, sincere and upright men despise and criticize it. . . . [I]n this wide world seventy to eighty percent of the people are ignorant, ten to twenty percent are clever samurai. Thus it is that Buddhism has survived to this day. The sincere and upright number a mere ten to the thousand.10

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 47 In his commentary on a Mito school manifesto, the Kodokanki, Fujita Toko (1808-1855) sets the tone for this prominent school's early nineteenth-century position on Buddhism. Calling the entire history of syncretic Buddhism (honji suijaku) a vicious mistake, Fujita asserts that the true teaching is to revere the kami and destroy the Buddha (keishin haibutsu).11 It is, in fact, to Mito that we must look for the earliest and most thoroughgoing anti-Buddhist policies. So careful, successful, and widely mimicked were these policies that we can say without hesitation that they served as a basic pattern for anti-Buddhist action throughout the nineteenth century. True, Kamei's institution of Shinto funerals, implemented through the authority of the Office of Rites nationally in 1868, drew upon his own earlier efforts in the Tsuwano domain. But it also drew upon the 1833 (Tempo 4) banning of cremations and the 1842 (Tempo 13) promulgation of official guidelines for all funerals to be carried out in the Mito domain.12 Both these prior orders, like Kamei's, were directed specifically toward the production of non-Buddhist funerals. More elaborate configurations doubtless can be presented to describe the contours of persecution found in nineteenth-century Japan.13 Here, however, I would like to suggest a four-step pattern. Derived from two extensive regulations of Buddhism (during the Kambun period [1660s] and the Tempo period [1840s]) carried out within the Mito domain, this pattern defines the general shape of persecution during the Meiji era. In the first step in this pattern, a governmental office is established to deal specifically with the "temple and shrine" (jisha) issue. In the cases of both the seventeenth- and nineteenthcentury reforms in Mito, this office, the Jisha bugyo, was already in place as an integral part of the bakufu structure for collecting census and tax information and for carrying out the banning of Christianity.14 In the post-1868 era, as we will see in the cases of Satsuma and Mikawa addressed below, newly elected officials were placed in local positions directly patterned after the Tokyo Office of Rites. Like the Tokyo bureaucrats of religion, the local officials were almost exclusively Nativist students or scholars. What this meant in practical terms was that in most cases the various offices created throughout the country to "regulate" or "survey" temple and shrine affairs were institutionalized attempts, in the words of Fujita Toko, to "revere the kami and destroy the Buddha."15 We should stress, however, that this strategy should not be seen as an attack upon Buddhism exclusively. To be sure, the various regulations and careful destruction of Buddhist property are conducive to such an interpretation. We must also attempt, however, to place this persecuting strategy within the context of the larger discourse on the structure of society itself. We will return to this issue again below. In the second step a careful survey of shrine and temple activities and properties is made. Tokugawa Mitsukuni (1628-1700), the second daimyo of Mito, ordered the first and perhaps most thorough of these surveys in 1661

48 • Chapter Two (Kambun 1), which took two years to complete. In this survey, the size and precise description of "temple and shrine" properties; the amount of produce yielded therefrom (this was applied to both taxed and untaxed lands); the numbers, ages, and ranks of priests; and the numbers, occupations of, and size of donations from temple supporters, were all carefully recorded. There was also a complete listing of every statue, scroll, sutra, robe, and other potentially valuable artifacts of temple or shrine life. The Jisha bugyo's duty was to visit each temple within the domain and by ' 'inquiring into the wealth of each temple determine thereby the good and evil of each institution."16 The survey describes the precise economic contours of religious institutions as perceived by the domainal authorities. Mitsukuni, it will be recalled, was also instrumental in beginning the monumental research project directed toward the production of the History of Great Japan (Dai Nippon shi). What can be suggested here is that in a manner analogous to the Nativist character of the offices charged with the regulation of temple and shrine affairs in the nineteenth century, this definitive survey of religious institutions in the early Tokugawa period was similarly carried out against a backdrop of specific historicist concerns. The Chu Hsi Neo-Confucian scholastic tradition appears in Mitsukuni's History with its emphasis on a certain dynastic and social organization. That emphasis, patterned after Ssu-ma Ch'ien's (145-186 B.C.E.) Records of the Historian (Shih Chi), reacted against and directly opposed Buddhist historical theories of theocratic rule.17 The very construction of a "national" history— underscored by Mitsukuni when he broke with the Chinese model and emphasized the unbroken line of divine authority in the Japanese emperor system— necessitated both the isolation of Buddhism as an object' 'foreign'' to the conception of "Japan" and the recognition of its failings as a utilitarian institution. Both the seventeenth- and the nineteenth-century surveys of religious institutions were carried out to quantify economic efficiency as defined by the central government's concerns for national order. The anti-Buddhist position is, in fact, one point of continuity between the so-called early and late Mito schools of thought. The "assessment of good and evil" (kanzen choaku), carried out by means of the delicate balance between Imperial loyalism and a Neo-Confucian moral universalism used in the early Mito critique of Buddhism, is later rearticulated in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with the completion of the History in terms of an institutional or economic critique. Like the Meiji ideologues generations later, the Kambun era antiBuddhists were compelled to temper ideological fervor with a clear sense of social utility; as we shall see below, this imperfectly closed seam was to prove to be institutional Buddhism's pathway out of otherwise certain destruction. The third step is the persecution itself: the concerted removal of elements determined extraneous or undesirable. This removal was most often carried out by the officials placed in charge of shrine and temple affairs and was based upon analysis of the recently conducted survey. It was generally applied in a

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 49 series of regulations directed on the one hand toward the institutional organization itself and on the other toward the priesthood and their practices. Of the approximately 2,400 temples in Mito before 1666 (Kambun 6), nearly 1,100 of them were closed by order of the Office of Shrine and Temple Affairs. The majority of these temples, over 700, were completely destroyed, and the majority of the remainder were sold or converted to private use.18 The priesthood was similarly decimated. Mitsukuni's ideal temple occupied no potentially productive land, was operated by a bare minimum of priest-functionaries (preferably one per temple),19 and primarily carried out funerary and memorial services, or served in a limited capacity as a local census and tax registration bureau. Certain code terms formulated during this early Mito reduction of Buddhist temples were subsequently used throughout the nationwide anti-Buddhist campaign of the nineteenth century. The terms "return to farming" (kino) or ' 'return to the secular'' (genzoku) suggested positive agrarian images of production and were used to sign for and ameliorate the politically forced apostasy of priests. That is, priests were not being de-frocked but were being "returned" to a more socially and ontologically natural status. In many cases the priests were "asked" to submit "requests" for the "right" to "return to lay life,'' which resulted in numerous confusing incidents.20 Though temples were often admittedly "demolished" (hakyaku), officially they were more frequently said to have been "managed" (shobun) or "amalgamated" (gappei). Here too we can witness the attempt to render the dramatic, often violent, nature of these policies as somehow appropriate and economical managerial techniques.21 In addition to the forced laicization of priests and the amalgamation of temples during the early-nineteenth-century anti-Buddhist legislation in Mito, there was also the implementation of laws severely limiting possible further expansion of the priesthood. For example, the so-called Ordination Order (Dochosei) of 1844 (Koka 1) limited the age of new priests to twenty years or older (to prevent "forced" childhood ordinations), placed strict financial and educational guidelines upon temples, and made it illegal for monks to neglect certain filial duties. Monks were finally disallowed, that is, from "leaving the world."22 Of the 190 temples "managed" in Mito during the 1840s, fully two thirds of them were "unoccupied," "deserted," or in "major disrepair." Priests were not allowed to move into unoccupied temples, and repairs could not be made in order to prevent temple closings. One variation of this practice indicates the tenor of the times and is found in an incident at the Akiba mountain in Totomi. After all resident priests and practitioners on the mountain had been expelled and "returned to lay life" by the local authorities, each and every one of the temples and practice halls wherein they had previously resided was closed because they were "unoccupied and unsupported."23 Such double-binding actions effectively cur-

50 • Chapter Two tailed Buddhist institutional expansion and promoted a program of controlled atrophy. A high percentage of the "temples" that were closed were in fact "halls" (do) or "hermitages" (an), structures erected for the purpose of carrying out ceremonies at appropriate holy days throughout the year. These structures were generally unoccupied throughout the year and were used only when a traveling priest (often from a nearby "temple" [tera]) would arrive to conduct the festival or training period. These halls, we should note, were also used for the most part by priests of the esoteric traditions: Tendai, Shingon, and Shugendo. It is not difficult to suggest that the attacks on the smaller, unafflliated, and unsupported seasonal structures were carried out because they were the points of least resistance within Buddhist institutions. We should also recognize, however, that the wandering Shugendo esoteric priests, standing outside any strictly regulated organization, were sources of magic and transcendental powers respected among the general populace and were thus perceived by government authorities as antithetical to the vision of political economy currently being set forth.24 To attack and eliminate these smaller halls served to reduce, if not eliminate, those Buddhists most difficult to regulate, and thus potentially those most consistently subversive of government policy; this could be done, moreover, with a minimum of effort and, if timed correctly, would meet with a minimum of resistance. This purposeful attack on politically marginal aspects of society disguises an issue of broad consequence. As the purposeful elimination of Shugendo as a noninstitutional practice suggests, "Buddhism" was not all that was "managed" during this period. It was not so much Shugendo itself as it was its noninstitutionalized, irregularly organized fringe existence that troubled the central authorities. We are witnessing, in other words, an unraveling of certain aspects of the social itself. The persecution is much more than a surgical strike against Buddhist teachings and institutions. It encompasses a wide range of practices and beliefs, many of which have in retrospect been collectively identified as "religious." Yet it is not limited to sectarian concerns. The early Meiji persecution of Buddhism depended upon a definition of Buddhism as an "ancient evil" associated with a decrepit bakufu. Buddhist institutions, ceremonials, and beliefs were reconstituted as aspects of a dangerous "other" by the Meiji state as it attempted to distance itself from policies of the previous political order. Yet the ' 'heresy'' of Buddhism persisted; and by its resistance, Buddhism indicated to the state the mammoth scale of its proposed social regulations. That is, Buddhism threatened by its very existence as defined by the state—as a powerful, socially pervasive "other"—to open up the social order to what Mikhail Bakhtin has called the "carnivalesque." Disobedience demands an exteriority for the successful execution of its critique of the norm; obedience demands a perpetuated sameness. AntiBuddhist regulations, initially carried out vis-a-vis an anti-Bakufu policy,

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 51 were quickly linked to a far more comprehensive political agenda extending to "religions" in general and finally to all potentially subversive (i.e., carnivalesque) aspects of society. The reasons for controlling Buddhism are quickly expanded to encompass reasons for the existence of the Meiji state itself. Catalpa bow diviners (azusa miko), mediums (ichiko), exorcists {tsuki gito), the removal of fox spirits (kitsune sage), divination (tama uranai), and All Souls' Day (Urabon) were variously and collectively banned in the early Meiji era under threats of fines and/or punishments. In addition to Shugendo, the more radical and politically sensitive Fuju Fuse sect was also banned. These "religious" targets were, however, frequently included in the same lists issued by various government offices that banned gambling, prostitution, drama shows, carnivals, dramatic lampoons (kyogen), blind balladeers (biwa hoshi), and blind women minstrels (goze). In other words, within the same orders banning the more blatantly "religious" or "Buddhist" practices such as priestly begging or pilgrimages based on the Sixty-Six Divisions of the Lotus Sutra, we also find, at both the local and the national level, bannings of public nudity, mixed bathing, tattoos, erotic literature (shunga), amateur sumo wrestling, and stand-up comics. All these practices or persons were being outlawed by an enlightened government as it attempted to lure the "foolish people" (gumiri) away from nonproductive, dissipating practices and direct their attention toward "good customs," "labor," and finally "civilization." The prohibitions were presumed adequate, that is, to the extinguishing of "superstition," "wasteful extravagance," and "disorder." Though identified as a central bastion of devolutionary, inefficient, and decadent practices by the central authorities, Buddhism was clearly not the sole target of anti-superstitious programs. Thus, to be able to read the full range of possibilities of the early Meiji persecution of Buddhism, we must be willing to situate the multifaceted phenomena of persecution in relation to attempts by authorities, both local and national, to control and even eliminate legislatively the volatile, uncontrolled potentiality of the "carnivalesque" in Meiji society. Carnival is an eminent attitude toward the world . . . which liberates from fear, brings the world close to man and man close to his fellow man . . . and, with its joy of change and its jolly relativity, counteracts the gloomy, one-sided official seriousness which is born of fear, is dogmatic and inimical to evolution and change and seeks to absolutize the given conditions of existence and the social order. The carnival attitude liberated man from precisely this sort of seriousness. But there is not a grain of nihilism in carnival, nor, of course, a grain of shallow frivolity or trivially vulgar bohemian individualism.25 This image of carnival standing in opposition to attempts to "absolutize the given conditions of existence and the social order" is important; it suggests crucial aspects of the social order that finally invalidate purely instrumental or

52 • Chapter Two fictional interpretations of that order geared exclusively to questions of political power, social hierarchy, and economic organization. The carnival, in other words, is not merely a safety valve; it is also serious. It "doesn't have to respect hierarchical distinctions; it freely blends the profane and the sacred, the lower and the higher, the spiritual and the material."26 The laughter of the carnival, the unmediated expressions of the "foolish people," is the possibility of speech and action carried out within codes of transgression and implies "a categorical tearing down from the norm and a relation of non-exclusive opposites."27 Such destructive creativity is equally obvious in performances of kyogen and in comic characters as well as in appeals to forms of knowledge based upon divination, fox spirits, or pilgrimages. The only truly free speech is thus carnivalized speech; for nineteenth-century Japanese ideologues, as with any "official seriousness," unrestricted carnivalized speech-acts were a serious danger to a tightly organized conception of the social order and were best dealt with by forceful legislation designed to remove such possibilities. We can recall at this juncture that the above-mentioned prohibitions were being ordered amidst a background of social instability. (There were, for example, over 1,000 peasant uprisings in the forty years between the 1830s and the 1870s.28) It is the recognition of the importance of the "carnival," of the final inability to legislate away completely "disorder" and "superstition," that led to the brilliantly conceived, though often sloppily implemented, attempt to incorporate into a system of national, Imperial polity regular and carefully crafted public festivals. In opposition to the possibility of subversive or at least burlesque discourse within the carnivalesque, the "festival" was used by the Meiji state as a controlled, "rational," version of disorder. Conversely, the creation/use of "festivals" was an attempt by the state to institutionalize, and thus destroy, the untamed creative potential of the carnival. This leads us to the fourth, and final, step in the pattern of persecution: the structuring of popular festivals and practices after (or simultaneous to) the removal of "inappropriate" or "false" elements. During the Tempo reforms of Mito in the 1840s rumors regarding the plights of Buddhists abounded: not a single Buddhist priest remained within the entire domain; each day would see the burning of yet another temple; and the only priests to be seen had become beggars who pleaded for food and tried to sell their once-precious robes. Such no doubt hyperbolic rumors nevertheless suggest the seriousness of the Tempo reforms, which, in addition to their regulations of temple and shrine organizations, reached every aspect of trade, agriculture, manufacturing, and local politics.29 One reason there was no sudden or pervasive outcry in response to these acts, as can be found in other areas, can be traced to the system of local management unique at this time to the Mito domain: the "one village one shrine" system (isson issha). Begun during the 1666 reforms, when there were a mere 175 shrines for nearly 600 villages, this system was almost fully implemented thirty years later (1699, Genroku 9) when the do-

Of Heretics and Martyrs

• 53

main officially switched from the bakufu system of temple registration (shumon aratame) to one of shrine registration (uji aratame). In the interim almost 400 shrines had been built to bring the total to 555 shrines for 578 villages.30 In addition to the legalistic aspect of census and tax registration at the shrines, wherein "Buddhist" priest-functionaries were simply replaced with "Shinto" officials, there was the carefully constructed network of tutelary deities that formed the unifying network between the far-flung and, for the most part, recently constructed shrines. This hierarchy of divinity culminated, as would be expected for Mito, in the Toshogu Shrine where the first Tokugawa shogun had his mausoleum built. This tutelary deity system (uji seido) served both to bind the many villages together in social formations articulated in specifically "Shinto" terms and to link the villages to the larger domainal organization by an extension of the divine relations among the "family" of deities. So important was this unity that in the rare event that a given area did not claim any particular tutelary deity as their own, the central authority would see that one would be assigned to them.31 The relations between the deities, the general populace, and the Mito authorities were reinforced by means of festivals associated with both local and domainal kami, funerals conducted in a specifically Shinto manner, and taxes collected on the basis of one's registration of land and resources at the local shrine. By the eighteenth century, in other words, the Mito domain had accomplished in many aspects what other domains would attempt in the mid-nineteenth century. During the Tempo reforms the organization of the yearly festival calendar (nenchii gydji) explicitly served as a tool for social organization, as a means to bring order to the carnivalesque. On the 16th day of the first and seventh months of each year, registration (of deaths, births, and marriages) would take place at the local shrines; at the same time there was the mandatory registration or confirmation of each and every person's religious affiliation. This latter practice, similar to that carried out in other domains at Buddhist temples, served to reaffirm the link between the local shrine, its deities, the Mito government, and the registrant, and to identify any potential members of the outlawed Christian religion. At least once each month there was scheduled a local shrine festival, meeting, or short pilgrimage (muramura jingi, jingi kaishu, or muramura kamimode). At least once each month there would also be domainwide public occasions ranging from the reading of domainal law to the celebration of specifically Imperial holy days.32 Buddhism could claim not one festival in this newly devised calendar as its own. Even the Urabon, or Obon, memorial services for the dead were officially proscribed and re-created as the Ancestor Festival (Sensosai), which was then held twice a year (instead of once, as with the Obon) during the second and eighth months.33 The specific and overt connections made between public law and divine action, between Imperial reign and ancestral continuity, and between Shinto and Buddhism

54 • Chapter Two (the latter noticeable only by its absence) were unadulterated attempts to articulate imperatives of monolithic law and thereby to eliminate the ambivalent, polyphonic, and potentially transgressive aspects of a social order not bound by codes emanating from the Imperial center to the village community. The use of the shrine registration system and the strategic use of the yearly calendar on the national level in the early years of the Meiji era34 functioned as did the use of Shinto funerals: each effected the persecution of a particular scapegoat—Buddhism—in the name of a more general persecutory technique of social control and social regulation, a technique central to modernism and the emergence of "Japan." In Chapter Three, for example, we will speak in more detail about the Ministry of Doctrine (Kyobusho) and its Instructors of Doctrine (Kyodoshoku) who operated within a national system based upon a shrine organization (the Teaching Academies, Kyoin) as they lectured on various pre-selected themes (kendai). These various strategies, generally "religious" in their orientation, will be discussed below in terms of the way certain positions came to be identified as "Shinto" or "Buddhist." Clearly, however, the argument extends beyond these specifically religious parameters. It is apparent that the elaborate configurations of, for example, national and local holidays served as one small corner of what has been called the "persecution of Buddhism," but they also played a key role in a state ideology that inaugurated, finally, the modern idiom of "Japan." In sum, the mid-sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries' reforms carried out within the Mito domain anticipate all the elements of social reorganizations endemic to a "persecution" of Buddhism in the nineteenth century. Theinstitutionalization of anti-Buddhist policy during the Meiji era involves a fourfold process: (1) the establishment of a government office vested with comprehensive authority over "religious affairs"; (2) the conducting of a precise survey to determine the imminent political and economic contours of the institutions in question; (3) the decimation of Buddhist temples, rites, and priestly practices and even of the Buddhist priesthood itself; and (4) the construction of a system to suppress Buddhism's differences, particularly those of its forms evocative of the carnivalesque. We shall now explore how this generalized process of persecution was carried out in particular regions of the country and with what consequences. First we will look at Satsuma, that great domain in the southern part of the island of Kyushu, where the Mito pattern was consciously and successfully implemented. So successful was the Satsuma antiBuddhist program that its leaders were later to take their local policies directly to a national level after the Boshin War of 1868. SATSUMA: COMPLETE IMPLEMENTATION

Shimazu Takahisa (1514—1571), fifteenth lord of the Satsuma domain, is credited with the aphorism "He who believes not in Buddhism is no descendant

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 55 of mine." Of the twenty-nine lords of the Shimazu clan reaching over the seven hundred years of the clan's existence, only the last two lords, Nariakira (1809-1858) and Tadayoshi (1840-1897), were not in fact devout Buddhists. All except these last two took Buddhist names, many were actually tonsured, and most had Buddhist priests as advisors and/or teachers. Yet, in spite of this heritage, beginning in 1866 and extending until the eve of the Seinan War (also known as the Satsuma Rebellion) in 1877, all but a few hidden traces of Buddhism were erased from the Satsuma area. Priests were, in true Confucian fashion, identified as useless, nonproductive economic drains on society; temples were viewed as tax havens for the inept that served only to occupy valuable and needed land; Buddhism itself was recast, in clear disregard of Takahisa's statement three centuries earlier, as a foreign teaching considered divisive, deluding, and incompatible with the history and people of the "divine land" (shinkoku). Until the passage of a domainal ordinance in the ninth month of 1876 (Meiji 9) granting all sects the right to preach and practice within the prefecture, Buddhism and Buddhist priests were methodically and completely cast out of Satsuma.35 Many of my generation were convinced that the vast majority of priests and temples, having failed to keep pace with the times, were useless and that in these times priests should, in fact, be forced to devote themselves to labor for the sake of the nation. We all felt that the resolution with which the destruction and amalgamation of temples \jiin haigo] had been carried out in Mito just a few years previously was highly praiseworthy. We ourselves were certain that the time had come to destroy the temples [in Satsuma].36

Ichiki Shouemon (1828-1903), here praising the Mito pattern, is one of the unsung players of Satsuma history; his biography is also representative of many of the early anti-Buddhist campaigners. Ichiki's early education included, in addition to training in the standard classical continental scholarship, an extensive exposure to recent Western scientific methods. At age twenty he was employed in shipbuilding and metallurgy research at the Shoko Shuseikan Institute founded by Shimazu Nariakira, the 28th lord of Satsuma. When Nariakira died in 1858, Ichiki went on to become director of the Institute, which housed, among other technical capabilities, Japan's first large-scale blast furnace for the forging of cannon. He studied cannon-making in Nagasaki and later led Satsuma's negotiations with England for firearms, ammunition, metal, and technological assistance, all of which were to be put to immediate use in the war against the bakufu. Ichiki also collected and edited the writings of Nariakira and the 29th, and last, lord of Satsuma, Tadayoshi.37 He was at the forefront of the collection of temple bells for their use in cannon-making (entirely consonant with his attempt to strengthen the domainal arsenal) and, as the above citation suggests, was instrumental in articulating and implementing anti-Buddhist policies throughout the domain. In commenting on the collection of bells in the late 1850s Ichiki notes: "The benefit to the nation

56 • Chapter Two [kokueki] was decidedly greater in this manner [turning bells into cannon and cash] than any claims the Buddhists might have about the care for the hungry ghosts [gaki]." This combination of utilitarian technical knowledge and a radically anti-Buddhist stance was, in Ichiki and in many others like him, forged into a powerful nationalist program focusing on the advancement of economic and military strength. An anti-Buddhist element figured prominently, in other words, in the increasingly widespread, ostensibly progressive pursuit during the restoration era for a' 'wealthy nation [and a] strong army'' (fukoku kyohei). Lessons learned from the Mito domain's early attempts at the regulation of Buddhism proved to be of significant advantage in Satsuma. "After hearing about the difficulties they had [collecting the bells] in Mito, we were very careful in conducting the survey and requesting the 'contribution' of the bells." Ichiki was modestly pleased with his effort, especially when it was compared with the Mito case: "I think the whole affair was handled rather well. But we really owe our greater success to the appropriateness of the times." 38 Shimazu Nariakira died too early to oversee the final collection of bells and the elimination of Buddhist influence from within the domain; this task was taken up and completed, however, by his two sons, Tadayoshi and Hisamitsu, as well as by loyal supporters such as Ichiki.39 Acting with the Shimazu clan's approval on the 15th of the fifth month of 1866 (Keio 2), an Office of Investigation for the Elimination of Temples (Haiji Torishirabe Kyoku) was formally established with Hisamitsu as the head officer (Jisha Bugyo) and Ichiki in charge of the "survey" itself (Jisha kata gakari). On the 27th day of the same month, the commencement of the survey was announced; the intention of this action was, moreover, explicitly described as the elimination of temples within the domain. The elder statesman Katsura Uemon (1830-1877), adjunct advisor to the Satsuma Office of Investigation, noted at this time that it was "not appropriate to a benevolent rule [jinsei] to allow monks who had lost their way to continue without guidance." The "elimination" qua "survey" began immediately and continued with one minor interruption during the Boshin War of 1868, until it was successfully completed in 1869-1870. Ichiki later felt confident enough to recall "Until 1876 (Meiji 9) in Satsuma, Osumi, and Hyuga there was not one temple or a single priest that remained."40 According to the survey, which included the larger Satsuma area (present-day Kagoshima, southern Miyazaki, and Okinawa), there were 1,066 temples with almost 3,000 resident priests under domainal jurisdiction.41 There were also over 4,000 halls (do) and approximately 4,500 shrines. Though the temples collectively had an annual independent income of just over 15,000 koku, they also received over 10,000 koku annually in support directly from the domain itself. The survey also suggested that the remaining collective metal wealth of the temples (as found in bells and other artifacts) could be conservatively estimated at "several hundred thousand ryo." The potential annual savings,

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 57 coupled with the increased income from both confiscated material and the significant increase in the taxable labor force with the influx of newly laicized priests (who were historically exempt from taxation), was too appealing to the central authorities of Satsuma to resist. Or as Ichiki notes: "There were none of contrary opinion" (ironsha wa orimasenanda). All priests in Satsuma were immediately laicized by legal fiat; those below the age of forty-five and above eighteen were drafted into the newly forming "modern" conscription army; those over forty-five years of age were sent to village schools to serve as teachers of the new domainal curriculum, and those under eighteen were sent back to the farms from whence they came. (Ichiki was convinced, along with almost every other critic of Buddhism, that "90 percent of those who became priests did so in order to 'escape' from taxes and to receive free room and board.") As the temples were gradually and methodically emptied there was some scattered resistance, but "[the priests] were finally convinced that [the closing of the temples] was for the greater good . . . and many were in fact quite happy to return to the lay life." The temple closings began with the largest (1,000 koku), the Shingon temple Dajo-in, and the several dozen branch temples that were also under its administrative control. The main temple structure itself was turned over to the military for offices while the branch temples were used to house soldiers in the local areas. The other main temples in the center of Kagoshima were each treated similarly. After "closing'' (which often involved selling or destroying) all temples in the "castle town" (Kagoshima City), Ichiki and the surveyors turned their attention to the surrounding villages until the entire domain had been "surveyed." Their labors proceeded apace. Buildings were razed and their lumber sold for scrap or firewood; depending upon the material of their construction, statues were (generally after being decapitated) burned, thrown into nearby rivers, buried, used as building stone, or collected to be melted down for bullets or cannon; and the "useless priests" were, finally and forcefully, converted into "productive community members." "It was really quite a chore," remembers Ichiki. "It took us three or four years, day in and day out, to close down all the temples."42 Parenthetically, there are significant traces of Ichiki's and the suveyors' work to be found in present-day Kagoshima. During excavations for new housing in the early 1970s several "statue graveyards" were unearthed in the Kagoshima area. One particularly large find that yielded up a significant cache of Kannon, Jizo, and Yakushi Nyorai statues has been resurrected as a testimony to the Meiji era martyrdom of Buddhism. All the unearthed statues are headless. Local Buddhists have built a substantial roadside shrine near the site, at which the statues are enshrined: it is called, appropriately, the Hall of the Headless Kannon.43 One aspect of Ichiki's and the surveyors' work that presented a certain difficulty was how, in their closings, to establish clear distinctions between

58 • Chapter Two "Shinto" shrines and "Buddhist" temples. Ichiki unabashedly notes that out of the approximately 4,500 shrines in the area there was only one(!), the Nakeki Yashiro in Osumi, that was entirely free of Buddhist "taints." 44 Yet rather than question the status of a "Shinto" so thoroughly entwined with "Buddhism," as nearly every structure in Satsuma illustrated, Ichiki stepped confidently, and simply, forward. If a structure's name was followed by the terms jinja, miya, or gii (herein and commonly all translated as "shrine"), then it was understood to be a "Shinto" building and escaped unscathed. If, however, its name contained the ideographs read tera,ji, or in (here and elsewhere usually translated as "temple"), it was identified as a "Buddhist" building and was subsequently closed down. Ichiki's arbitrary linguistic discrimination was itself a form of violence, itself an uncompromising adjunct to the violence against the temples and other Buddhist "signs." What, for example, should be done with "shrines" that "looked like" temples? Not all shrines at this time were clearly marked with the torii entry arches or the braided shimenawa ropes to identify the area as a dwelling place of a kami. (It is due, in fact, to the Shinto constructions of this period that these symbols have gained their contemporary currency.) Or again, what should be done with the various articles housed within these structures? Certain statues were said to "look" Buddhist but purportedly "represented" a Shinto deity. The issue of "Buddhist-looking" statues substituting for Shinto kami Ichiki resolved in a way that was to become the modus operandi for most subsequent shrine reconstruction: rather than become embroiled in the particularities of intentionality, function, and popular interpretation, Ichiki took a more aggressive and creative stance. Rather than decide the religious persuasion of a given statue, Ichiki replaced all such statues with mirrors. This served the dual purpose of eliminating any and all potential charges of Buddhist influence without succumbing to special interests as well as, and perhaps more important, promoting an easily replicable and popularly palatable version of a specifically "Shinto" practice. The archetypal model for this mirror is, of course, the mirror used to entice Amaterasu Kami no Mikoto from the "rock cave of heaven'' as related in the Kojiki. This new enshrined shintai (literally,' 'divine body" or "kami form") served physically to define a previously amorphous conception of "kami" and, by extension, the building wherein the kami dwelt: the "shrine." This mirror would in time come to serve as a "visual" link between this world and that of the kami, "reflecting" all of one's deeds, particularly those of a lawless nature, which were then "seen" and "judged" by the kami.45 What we are witnessing with Ichiki's labors is one of the earliest attempts to codify the physical presence of Shinto. Perhaps the most prominent sign of the "separation of Shinto and Buddhism" during the mid-nineteenth century is the now seemingly permanent distinction of the public forms of "Shinto" ritual, costume, prayer, and architecture from the "Buddhist" or continental

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 59 versions. The latter were identified as "foreign" religious forms that, until this separation, served to define the local deities and the accompanying metaphysics. We live today in a world determined by decisions made during the nineteenth century. For example, the use of the shimenawa rope is one practice that was carefully extracted from a common religious lexicon that was applied specifically, and exclusively, as a defining characteristic of that which is now called' 'Shinto." But even choices such as these, purporting to describe a truly "Shinto" environment, are not without certain difficulties. For example, the torii, or archway, now serving as a clear indication of a Shinto shrine, is in fact most likely derived from the arches used to describe the boundaries of sacred space within which the esoteric Buddhist fire ritual, the Goma ceremony, is carried out; the same type of arch is also used as a symbol of divine power in the "flower display" (kahyo) over the figure of one of the Buddhist guardian deities, Benzai-ten. Even after the physical characteristics of a "Shinto-style" architecture were established, certain difficulties remained; many buildings that should be Shinto shrines (by virtue of their name, the name of the enshrined deity, or the type of priest traditionally presiding therein) still did not look like Shinto shrines. Satsuma, similar to other locales, was not adverse to adjusting, or in some cases actually rebuilding, the structure to make its non-Buddhist character all the more distinct.46 Ichiki, in other words, in addition to being a central member of the bureau devised to conduct a survey of "Buddhism/Shinto" and thence effect the removal of Buddhism, also contributed to the construction of a newly articulated conception of popularist relations to the divine Other, here embodied in the increasingly specific form of a Shinto shrine. Throughout much of 1868, beginning with the stunning defeat of the bakufu troops at the battle of Toba-Fushimi in the first month and the various military and political skirmishes leading up to the enthronement of the Meiji Emperor in the eighth month, official attention in Satsuma was diverted away from the efforts of the Office of Investigation for the Elimination of Temples and toward the increasingly bloody battle with the bakufu. A few important steps were indeed taken regarding religious policy in Satsuma in 1868. Nonconfrontational promulgations in Satsuma legalizing Shinto funerals (but not requiring them) were issued in the sixth month of 1868, and, one month later, the building of shrines for the spirits of those who died in the battles to overthrow the bakufu (the Senshisha no Reisha, or more popularly the Shokonsha) was allowed (but not required). All such activities in Satsuma were to be carried out under the auspices of the newly formed Shrine Affairs Office (Jinja bugyo).47 But it is from the early months of 1869 (Meiji 2) that the "second phase" of the Satsuma campaign, echoing changes within the central government, was begun.

60 • Chapter Two The death of Shimazu Eko (1851-1869), wife of Tadayoshi, the 29th lord of Satsuma, in the third month of 1869 proved to be a watershed moment for Satsuma religious policy. Three months prior to her death, the Emperor K6mei's memorial service had been for the first time conducted in a strictly Shinto (non-Buddhist) fashion. In keeping with the recent domainal policy to reject Buddhist practices and simultaneously to make gestures of unity toward the Imperial household and the newly detailed system of Shinto, Eko's burial was carried out without any Buddhist "taints." It was also ordered that "even though funerals had been conducted in a Buddhist manner until this time," this practice would stop immediately, and "memorial services befitting the nation of the kami should be performed" (Shinkoku no reishiki wo motte nasarebeshi). These orders were accompanied by detailed, though temporary, descriptions of appropriate Shinto-style funerary behavior.48 Throughout 1869, a series of modifications and additions to the ceremonies surrounding the death event served to articulate with even greater precision the role of Shinto as a mediating factor between domainal authority, the general populace, and the Imperial household. A series of related orders appeared in quick succession. In the sixth month the "surveyors" were advised that in destroying temples, the careful preservation of any mortuary tablets housed therein was necessary. These tablets, bearing the name and posthumous title of the departed ancestor, would later be placed in a newly designed (and frequently newly built) shrine. Buddhist priests were legally prohibited from participating in any Shinto ceremony; similarly, memorial services for ancestors could not be performed to obtain their "Buddhist salvation." All goma services as well as the Obon festival were outlawed and quickly replaced by the newly devised Ancestral Festivals (Sosensai) held at the local shrines. The Shrine Affairs Office, in charge of an ever-expanding array of duties, was also made the center for the newly created specialist position of Shinto Funerary Ministers (Sogisha). A shrine dedicated to soldiers who died fighting the bakufu {Shokonsha), which was funded not unexpectedly by the Ministry of War, was also opened in Satsuma at this time. (The Shokonsha in Tokyo, perhaps better known by the name Yasukuni Shrine, was dedicated for the same purpose but on a national scale four months prior to the Satsuma version.) In the seventh month, the Fukusho-ji, the Zen Buddhist temple that served as the clan temple of the Shimazu family, was administratively joined to the shrine to the war dead just mentioned. This action succeeded in publicly and ideologically binding the ancestors of the Shimazu clan, and by extension the domain itself, to the ever-tightening knot of local and national functions tied together through a careful encoding of the spiritual world. In the last months of 1869, the Shimazu clan transferred all its memorial services, which for the last seven hundred years had been held at the Fukushoji, to the newly constructed Tsurugake Shrine; they simultaneously changed all temples officially related to the clan into Shinto shrines. All Shimazu fam-

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 61 ily members who, as devout Buddhists over the last centuries, had received posthumous Buddhist names (hogo) were also given Shinto appellations (kaigo; literally, "revised name")- These names were actually carved into each and every one of the clan members' gravestones (there are hundreds), often over the freshly chiseled-away Buddhist name. The ontological status of each member of the Shimazu clan was chiseled away in late 1869 and replaced with an identity more appropriate to "the nation of the kami." I can think of no clearer example of the intent of the Shinto ideologues to extend the operation of the kami into all aspects of being, and to all times (the changes were in effect retroactive!), than these gravestone changes.49 By the end of 1869, Buddhism in Satsuma was almost extinct. Shinto, by contrast, was visible in all funerals and memorial services, and by early 1870 the local festival calendar had been restructured to include the official, Imperial, celebration of holy days as well. With the creation of the unique ceremony known as the Yohaishiki, literally to "worship from afar," theoretically every person in the nation could participate in important national ceremonies, through the mediation of the local Shinto priest, such as the Harvest Festival (Niinamesai) or, from 1871, the commemoration of the first Emperor Jimmu's ascendancy to the throne. It is, of course, through such ceremonies that the very conception of "nation" was being given tangible form and promulgated to the population at large. The physical reduction of Buddhism and the close interrelation between deeply personal events (such as funerals) and the national polity (as presented in a year-round series of nationally "shared" festivals) was but the beginning of the Satsuma program of religion. In the early months of 1870, two brief pamphlets were published that served as the backbone of a new system of religious and moral education. The first, the Keishin setsuryaku (A Brief Discussion on the Reverence of the Kami), published by the domainal Office of National Studies (Kokugaku kyoku), was described by the Satsuma Legislative Office in a public announcement as "an explanation to the general populace of the principle of reverence for the divinities and the profit of such a doctrine." This text would also, it was promised, clarify the rationale behind the recent destruction of Buddhism. The second document, published one month later by the same office and titled Kami no narai gusa {Writings on the Lessons of the Kami), claimed to "expose the falsity and delusions created by Buddhist priests and reveal the natural character of our Imperial nation." The text of these Lessons, distinct from the Discussions, was not offered for public sale; it was distributed directly to each household within the domain. Let us here take a closer look at these two texts.50 The Keishin setsuryaku opens with the following narrative. "In this most beautiful of countries, called from ancient times the dwelling place of the gods (shinkoku)" the four seasons, all plants, stones, fire, and even the true human nature are "all equally descendants of the kami." Indeed there was a long period wherein "the kami were not thought of as kami" and the world was

62 • Chapter Two thereby thrown into chaos (a direct allusion to the "ancient evils" discussed in the Charter Oath that were explicitly associated with Buddhism's defiling presence); but today, drawing upon the ancient chronicles of the land, the Ministry of Rites (Jingikan) has been reestablished "as of old" and the land has once again been brought into harmony with the divine (in part through the cleansing of Buddhist "taints"). The Keishin setsuryaku then goes on to provide a detailed lineage of divine descent, carefully describing the first Festival of Thanksgiving (Daijosai) as performed in heaven, the birth of the first divine man (arabitogarni) Jimmu who was charged with the rule over the divine land, and the "continuous thread" that served to link the present (Meiji) emperor through the body of Jimmu to the very production of the universe itself. This text, after repeating these standard lines of interpretation for the newborn Shinto, goes on to offer a theory of social and political order that places it firmly within the Hirata School of thought. The kami, ranging from the creator heavenly deities of Takamimusubi no Kami and Kamimimusubi no Kami to the local clan or village deities, are themselves the very source of life for each person, plant, bird, fish, and stone throughout the literally divine land, the nation of the kami. These kami are also the very possibility of production, be it in the form of agriculture, manufacturing, or trade. "There is nothing that stands outside this powerful genesis [tokuka]." These kami, responsible for the production of the universe itself and its most minute operations, are described in the Keishin setsuryaku as forming a "hidden" or "shadow government" (yumei no mimatsurigoto). This government rules, in a seemingly misplaced ecumenism, in true Confucian fashion with benevolence (jinsei). Though this shadow rule is "unseen" (miezaru), its effects are both apparent and real: "[the unseen rule] is like a ruler in this, the visible, world who rules the earth and provides stability and peace to the land and its people by dividing his authority amongst regional representatives (such as the governors of province, domain, or city)." Replicating the rule of the kami, the emperor stands between the worlds of shadow and light and extends his own authority into every corner of the realm. At the village level the emperor's visible powers are present in the form of imperial decrees and in the offices of the local officials who carry out the decrees. The emperor's unseen powers reside within the local shrines. These Ubusuna shrines are within this document defined as the sources of life and the possibility of productivity.51 The kami and the emperor are the forces that give life to the individual and to the people; one lives, grows, and produces offspring while enjoying the fruits of this land and of one's labors through the blessings of the kami and the emperor; and finally, when one dies, the kami will guide one through the world of shadows to the resting place of those dead to the visible world where one will continue to enjoy divine care and protection. "It will be like unto receiving a great treasure." 52 The relations between the emperor and the people on the one hand and be-

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 63 tween the "visible" and the "unseen" worlds on the other is maintained, the Keishin setsuryaku suggests, through a combination of ceremony, festival, and worship. Daily prayer, at both the home and the local Ubusuna Shrine, is to be supplemented with seasonal ceremonies of gratitude and supplication. The latter are, moreover, carried out nationally and in accordance with the will of the emperor himself. This relation is, however, an exclusive and privileged arrangement. "Only the people of the divine land are born with (and within) the blessings of the kami. Even after death we continue to bask in gratitude to the kami. Be quite certain, the bewitching barbarian gods of guileless foreign nations will not provide lasting comfort."53 Those who would attempt to deny this profound and natural birthright, and thereby "ignore the kami, the benevolent government, their own father and mother, and their grandparents," will be punished accordingly. The pain will "belike unto suffering of spitting up blood or of having one's body crushed." In fact, though the sufferings of this world may already seem great, upon death one who ignores the divine presence will be sent to the "land of villains" {kyodokai) where they will undergo ' 'many and terrible tortures . . . and cruel suffering for all eternity." Those who are "unfilial, unrighteous, uncompassionate, and unloyal" will without fail be guided by the kami (actually in this case tengu) to just such an eternal fate. The text is also careful to point out that all Buddhists will certainly undergo precisely such a future of eternal suffering, as the full weight of the divinely ordered panoptic authority must resolutely fall on their forsaken shoulders.54 It is perhaps helpful to note here that a traditional punishment for a discovered member of a banned religious sect in Satsuma (this applied to both the Christian sects as well as to Pure Land Buddhists) was to be "sandwiched" between planks upon which heavy stones were slowly piled. The weight would be increased until one would either recant or be crushed. For those dwelling within the visible world, the "many and terrible tortures" to be found in the world of shadows were, in other words, lacking in neither precedent nor specificity. Because the world of shadows and the world of the visible are ' 'in one place and intermixed," one born in the "dwelling place of the gods" could only ever be devout by attending to the kami and the emperor. Because the "natural" system of authority of this world is created in perfect harmony within the divine order itself, there would be no conflict between the Shinto order and the social order. The divine order was the social order. This equivalence, of course, was exclusionary; it left no possibility for Buddhist or any other practices and beliefs. This equivalence, then, denned the very nature and possibility of the social, of sociality itself, and of what came to be thought of as "Japan." The social, conceived of as encompassing all forms of labor, production, reproduction, education, and belief, is ordered in a specific and carefully chosen manner. To comply with this "natural order" is to engage in the only true action available to one born in the divine nation; it is to be rewarded

64 • Chapter Two with prosperity and joy "like unto a great treasure." Deviation from this order, an intolerable but not quite unthinkable possibility, is to fail at one's fundamental obligation and will invariably meet with the crude yet effective response of "many and terrible tortures" for all eternity. The strength of this ideological strategy is its comprehensive nature, its identification of ontology with praxis. Its weakness lay in the thin fissure of the "not quite unthinkable" possibilities of alternative actions and alternative ontologies (such as provided by Buddhism). Written in a more popular style than the Keishin setsuryaku, the Kami no naraigusa was clearly designed to serve as what we might call a Hirata-studies-inspired Shinto catechism. In addition to providing a detailed genealogy of deities (focusing on local folk deities and linking them to the larger cosmological concerns found in the Kojiki),55 these "Writings" also gave detailed instructions on how, when, and where to offer prayers (norito), attend ceremonies, and make offerings. Making careful and obvious use of the older "Shinto" texts for authority, the "Writings" sought to present an irrefutable image of a land and a law intimately linked to and guided by the kami. What was the major hindrance to a life directly interacting with the kami? Buddhism. And what revealed Buddhism's evil? The history of the divine nation and the "life" of the first Emperor Jimmu. Buddhism, asserts the Keishin setsuryaku, has created a "gap" within history, a lacuna between the "present" and an unadulterated "antiquity." The "medieval period" (chusei) is thus seen as a synonym for the action of a decadent, distortive, or destructive Buddhism. By "restoring the Ministry of Rites and uniting once again rites and rule (saisei itchi), the eternal present, the unity of the divine and the human, can also be restored." This transfer between the divine and the mundane, between the transcendent and the historical, could, according to the Keishin setsuryaku, be enacted in daily worship, daily chanting, and national communal ceremonies of commemoration—all of which would produce a shared national memory and a politically unified experience of the "eternal presence." Buddhists, on the other hand, only "ignore the ways of the Emperor and his ministers, despise the love of family, and leave their house to dwell among rocks and trees. With empty stomachs they beg for food and are content to wear filthy and discarded robes and underclothing. When they die their bodies will lie discarded in some forgotten field or on some lonely mountain." 56 The Buddhists, argues the Kami no naraigusa, spoke of a "future" Pure Land or paradise; but "they are wrong." Why? Because this hope for the future betrays the divinity of the present; it distracts from family, from nation, and from the necessity of daily work. To succumb to the Buddhist quest for some other world, urges the Kami no naraigusa, violates both nature itself and the national essence.57 The ever-present duty of each household is thus to maintain and respond appropriately to the Teachings of the Kami {kami no

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 65 narai), a duty that, by definition, is not imposed from without but rather emerges spontaneously from within. It is the duty of one born into the divine nation. Borrowing freely from what we now consider' 'Confucian" concepts of social order in determining governmental and social actions (for example, the "five relations" or the metaprinciple of benevolence \jin\), and from current theories of nationalistic discourse (specifically in the form of Hirata Atsutane's work), Satsuma ideologues successfully negotiated the elimination of approximately 4,500 Buddhist temples and halls. They also succeeded in constructing a domain-wide Shinto education and shrine system capable of performing local as well as microcosmic reproductions of national Imperial ceremonies. In Satsuma "Shinto" and "Buddhism" were in fact "separated" by the apotheosis of the former and the persecutory elimination of the latter. The Mito pattern for the reconstruction of the social fabric necessitated the restructuring of the terms by which the social itself was conceived. Thus, what had been adopted into the Satsuma regulations on religion was not simply a strategy of persecution but a larger vision of social unification, that is, an incipient vision, a modernist vision, of "Japan." Unlike the prematurely terminated Mito exercise, however, it had been fully implemented. As noted above, except for a brief time during 1868, the religious regulation program was rigorously in effect in Satsuma for over a decade. After the 1868 restructuring of the central governmental authority in Edo/Tokyo, after the elevation of the imperial figure, the once-circumscribed domainal policies tested in Mito, Satsuma, and Tsuwano were quickly recast and promulgated nationally. The recasting, of course, changed the specific contours of the local anti-Buddhist programs. Certain elements were abandoned or overruled, others were implemented in different ways and with different efforts. Nevertheless, the recasting at the national level kept intact the general shape of the persecution effected at the local level. With Satsuma we have seen the organizational ideal of an anti-Buddhist program. Let us now turn to the national interpretation of these policies and intentions and the variety of responses given them. COMPLICATIONS: BANNINGS, BANKS, AND WOODEN FISH

During the first months of 1868, a series of laws collectively known as the "separation edicts" (the so-called Bunri rei) were issued by the Office of Rites. These laws formed the legislative backbone for all "official" anti-Buddhist activities carried out during the early Meiji years. Within a brief period of approximately three months, from the 17th of the third month when the first of the separation edicts was issued until the 21st of the intercalary fourth month when the Office of Rites was replaced with the Ministry of Rites, the preconditions for a nationally controlled religious policy had been created. A

66 • Chapter Two bureaucratic centralized office vested with comprehensive legal and ideological power had been established, surveys had been carried out (or were ongoing) to determine the precise economic contours of the national interaction of Shinto and Buddhism, and select trials effecting the removal of undesired, "tainted" (that is, Buddhist), aspects from shrines around the country had already begun. (The constructive aspect of the persecution—the creation of new national festivals, teachings, and the like—was to arrive later; these and related issues will be discussed more fully in Chapter Three.) The speed with which these tasks were ordered and executed testifies rather eloquently to the fervor of the period as well as to the compounded intensity of the changes implemented.58 The similarity of these national attempts at "separating" Shinto and Buddhism to those seen in Mito and Satsuma are neither surprising nor coincidental. The Ministry of Rites, under whose jurisdiction came the design and performance of festivals, the administration of shrines, public lectures, and the care of the kami, was long seen as an appropriate vehicle of the extension of Imperial rule among both Loyalists and Nativists alike. And as Iwakura Tomomi (1825-1883) has pointed out, it was largely through the efforts of Okubo Toshimichi (1830-1878), a Satsuma samurai and central member of the restoration era government, and Inoue Sekimi, the Shinto priest in charge of the Shimazu clan's tutelary shrine in Satsuma, that the final organization of the Ministry of Rites was possible.59 Those appointed to the Office of Rites were either Nativist scholars such as Hirata Kanetane (1799-1880), the adopted son of Hirata Atsutane, and his son Nobutane (1828-1872), or the socalled Restoration Shintoists (Fukko Shinto sha) such as Shirakawa Sukenori (1841-1909), a Shinto attendant to the Emperor Komei and the first head of the Office of Rites, or Tanimori Yoshinori (1817-1911), the renowned scholar of Imperial tombs. Some like Juge Shigekuni of the Hiei Shrine and leader of the first attack qua separation on a shrine-temple complex, and Yoshida Yoshinori (1837-1890) of the Yoshida Shinto lineage, were practicing Shinto priests. All were schooled in the Nativist discourse championed by Hirata Atsutane and perpetuated by his son and grandson, and all were either close friends of Iwakura and Okubo, or had otherwise participated in the anti-bakufu campaign of the preceding year. But with the establishment of the Ministry of Rites, it was only the first group, the Nativist scholars, who retained their positions within the Rites organization. The Shinto priests and Restoration Shinto scholars were all moved to research organizations, such as the Institute for Imperial Studies (Kogaku torishirabe dokoro) or the Research Center for Imperial Documents (Koten kokenjo—the forerunner of Kokugakuin University), or, in the case of many of the Shinto priests, were returned to their shrines. They were replaced by people such as Takatsukasa Sukehiro (18071878), who was once jailed for his anti-foreign and expulsionist position after protests he made over the unequal treaties concluded with the United States in

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 67 1858, and who emerged as a prominent figure in the Choshu anti-bakufu campaign in the 1860s. Takatsukasa was placed in charge of the Ministry of Rites; he was assisted by Nakayama Tadaysu (1809-1888), who, in addition to being a vocal opponent of the first trade treaties, was also an uncle to the Meiji Emperor and a prominent member of the anti-bakufu alliance. The junior offices of the Ministry were filled with Loyalist samurai such as Fukuoka Takachika (1835-1919) from Tosa. A peer of Goto Shojiro, Fukuoka joined Yuri Kimimasa (1828-1919) in drafting the Charter Oath and was an active proponent of creating both a strong army to keep the foreign powers at bay and a rapidly developed economy to produce an independent Japan (fukoku kyohei). The purposeful construction of a "Shinto"-styled government carried out in the early years of Meiji met its first severe setback with this careful removal of the more blatantly "Shinto" members of its highest ministry. There was, in fact, a section of the newly formed Ministry of Finance (Kaikeikan) that had as part of its administrative ken the ' 'regulation of shrine and temple affairs." The members of this Ministry included none other than Iwakura, Okubo, Kido Koin, Goto Shojiro, and Okuma Shigenobu. It seems fairly clear that Iwakura, Okubo et al., each instrumental in the construction of the basic formation of the Meiji government itself, were also very careful to remove devout Shintoists from positions of the highest political authority while they themselves carefully retained access to the regulation of religious affairs. The early Meiji oligarchs sought to utilize the organizational possibilities inherent within a system of national "reverence for the kami" for their own purposes. They knew such a program could be translated immediately into a popular sense of respect for the Emperor and, with very little stretch of the ideological imagination, for the government and its representatives as well. But they also sought not to extend carte blanche to those in the government who championed ' 'faith'' in either the Buddha or the kami. From the perspective of the enlightenment thinkers of the Meiji era, "faith" (shin) was clearly viewed as disruptive, deceptive, and devolutionary. It was crucial for those who would rule to prevent the state ideological system from being dictated solely by concerns for the conception of "divinity." It is, for example, more than coincidental that the seventh- and eighth-century Ministry of Rites, upon which the Meiji version was ostensibly based, included bureaus devoted to the practices of divination and the uses of mediums to communicate with the divine powers operative within and external to the world of human affairs. The nineteenthcentury version of this central Ministry, otherwise faithful to the original structure, excludes only these two bureaus from its organization. By removing Shintoists from this high political office and replacing them with those specifically concerned with political and economic issues, the leaders of the restoration government were attempting to emphasize rather the national organization based upon specifically rational concerns. It was thus a concern for a rational order, not a divine one (or at best a rational sense of divinity), that

68 • Chapter Two motivated religious policies subsequent to the establishment of the Ministry of Rites. This motivation was to prove crippling for the political aspirations of many, notably those followers of Hirata studies who had joined in the formation of these new government offices dedicated to a "religious rule." The political reality of this shift in ideological concern is dramatically expressed by the central character of Shimazaki Toson's (1872-1943) novel of the period, Before the Dawn (Yoakemae), when he laments, "The way to the restoration of antiquity has been lost and the Hirata school is finished. . . . [Is] it possible that the simple honesty of the people of antiquity no longer [has] any place in this world?" 60 As noted above, the crucial outlines of this controlled religious policy took a mere three to four months to construct on the national level. The process continued, however, for at least another three to four years. Bannings directed against Buddhism continued unabated throughout this period and exhibited a widely varied character: from quaint to crippling. For example, several orders were issued forbidding the use of the chrysanthemum seal by temples (once associated with the Imperial household) and limiting its use exclusively to members of the Imperial family. Or, from the eighth month of 1869 (Meiji 2), it was no longer necessary for a lay visitor to dismount from his horse or carriage upon entering a temple compound—a longstanding order that had forced even the highest ranking officials to recognize the authority of Buddhism within the world. Steps of a more severe nature were also taken. From the eleventh month of 1868, during national, Imperial, or even major local shrine ceremonies, it became commonplace to issue limited special regulations lasting from the evening prior to the ceremony to the morning after its completion. During this period, the presence of monks and nuns or the use of Buddhist bells or gongs anywhere in the vicinity of the ceremony were strictly forbidden. That is, though the entire Buddhist presence could not be excised, at least during the crucial moments of the national carnivalesque it could, it was hoped, be rendered transparent. Buddhist festivals were gradually banned and replaced with national ceremonies; Buddhist pilgrimages of all kinds were outlawed; tonsure was prohibited without first having obtained the necessary but nebulous "proof of competence" and the permission of the local authorities (this regulation was later elaborated into a national testing system—see Chapter Three); and Buddhists were denied the right of direct appeal to the national government on any religious issue and were thus forced to abide by local interpretations of law in all cases. Buddhism, not unlike Christianity during this period (though not quite to the same degree), was being carefully removed from any public position. It was publicly defined as foul and polluted (kegare) as well as heretical (jashu), In fact, the only public approbation accorded Buddhism at this time was for the service its institutions and priests might render in the colonization of the northern territories: Hokkaido, then called the Barbarian Land (Ezo chi) or the

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 69 Northern Gate of the Imperial Land (Kokoku no hokumori). Imperial troops first landed in Hakodate, beginning the final subjugation of the northern islands, in the fifth month of 1869. In a vague attempt to ameliorate the anger of the "aborigines," it was thought that Buddhist missionaries could perhaps prove useful. Priests, it was hoped, could also serve as a pacifying element among the many condemned prisoners sent to construct roads into the harsh interior and, if they survived, to dwell there later as colonists. From the perspective of the fledgling Meiji government, next to condemned prisoners, priests were clearly the most readily expendable section of society; moreover, the Hongan-ji temple complex, particularly anxious to reestablish its position as a leading social organization, saw Hokkaido as an opportunity to prove the worth of Buddhism to the nation and to that end lobbied aggressively for the right to participate in the colonization.61 There are two important qualifications to be made in presenting this seemingly inescapable elimination of a Buddhist presence from the social. First, the more severe restrictions—such as the confiscation of all temple properties (the Jochi rei, carried out in the first month of 1871 [Meiji 4]), which eliminated most external income to the monasteries, and the banning of privately performed ceremonies (enacted in the second month of 1871), which made the government the de facto leader of all ceremony throughout the entire country—were equally placed upon all aspects of Shinto organizations as well. That is, Shinto, the so-called state ideology, the privileged strategy, was no less regulated—in terms of membership, ceremonial function, and economic operation—than Buddhism. Second, and perhaps less surprising, not all the laws that were promulgated were universally enforced or unequivocally enacted. The first qualification can be highlighted by looking at two major surveys of shrines and temples carried out during 1869 and 1870 (Meiji 2-3). The former, conducted by the Ministry of the People (Mimbusho), called for a report covering the previous five years detailing governmental allotment, lay donations received, land value, and production rate for every shrine and temple (issha ikkadera zutsu) throughout the entire country. The 1870 survey carried out by the Ministry of State, though similar, required a much more detailed breakdown of land type, production rates, value of produce when converted to silver, and population for each of the previous six years. This survey was also directed toward both shrines and temples.62 Temple closings, or "amalgamations," shrine relocations, and taxes, as well as the nationalization of all temple and shrine lands, carried on in the months immediately following the completion of these surveys, were all clearly based upon information derived therefrom. We should also note that in tabulating the census, registration for which was officially shifted from local temples to local shrines in the seventh month of 1871 and implemented the next year, four distinct social divisions were recognized. No longer the bakufu's Confucian-styled

70 • Chapter Two fourfold division of samurai, peasant, artisan, and merchant, this new hierarchy carried with it a new social specificity; all registrants were classed generally as "subjects" (shimmin ippan); thus at least within the confines of legal abstraction all were equal before the Emperor. Yet some vestiges of social heirarchy were retained as each registrant was also further defined as belonging to the "classes" of nobility (kazoku), samurai (shizoku), commoners (heimiri), or Shinto and Buddhist priests (shikan soryo).63 This newly created social identity of the shrine and temple priests (appropriately absent from the Tokugawa era Confucian categorization of society) produced a new social definition for the priests as part of legal society; and like all definitions, it relied as much upon affirmation of a specific identity as upon denial of certain practices and characteristics. The state's official recognition of the priesthood was, in other words, not designed to give the priesthood a greater sense of autonomy but rather to bring it directly under state supervision. Although throughout the first years of the Meiji era the public difference between Shinto and Buddhism seems to have been profound, the similarity in their legislative use by the Meiji ideologues belies a commonality of position that is acknowledged around 1872. It is at this time that the Ministry of Rites is dissolved and a Ministry of Doctrine is established in its stead. As finally established in 1872, this office was designed to incorporate both Shinto and Buddhist teachers into a state-devised national pedagogical program devoid of, it was hoped, sectarian taints and differences. I will speak more fully about this institute of state ideology in the next chapter, but here we should note that the frequently proposed model of an opposition between a persecuted Buddhism and a persecuting Shinto fails to accommodate problems such as the tenuous social, political, and (even) religious position of that inadequately defined entity known as "Shinto." A certain destabilization of institutional Buddhism and a defining, and thus a stabilization, of Shinto indeed did occur; but so did the opposite. Moreover, both actions were carried out by groups fully cognizant of and acting with due consideration for the uses as well as the dangers of institutionalized religion to the ruling factions of government. The ideological tension that resulted from the attempted combination of a purportedly rational political policy and conceptions of the restoration of a divine antiquity could not and cannot be overlooked. One result of this tension was a refusal by Okubo, Iwakura et al. to allow an overabundance of political control to the so-called Shinto factions. The interpretation of the "institutional similarity" of Shinto and Buddhism suggested here also goes far in explaining the gradual demotion of the Ministry of Rites through a series of hierarchical restructurings until (around 1877, Meiji 10) its duties were finally divided among many suboffices dispersed throughout several different Ministries. Behind the various institutional posturing was an increasing recognition of the necessary limitations in the use of a blatantly religious foundation for the support of state ideology. There was an increasing recognition, that is, that human

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 71 beings were quite capable of producing a government at will, but the construction of a religion, state-run or otherwise, was a very different matter. The second qualification noted above—the occasional ineffectiveness of the orders themselves—can be illustrated by examining two distinct issues: first, the conflict of interest between the implied direction of the separation edicts and the action deemed necessary to the political management of the nation; and second, the blatant refusal of many of those affected to abide by the sometimes confusing new laws. For the first two years of its operation, 1868-1869 (Meiji 1-2), the fiscal condition of the Meiji government could easily be described as one of destitution. In the first year alone, over sixty percent of the entire operating budget was derived from emergency loans. Many of these loans were obtained for immediate and specific purposes. For example, Iwakura was able to convince the departing last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu (1837-1913), to provide a 50,000 ryo "loan" for the maintenance of the Imperial household. Many of the new government's troops were in fact fed and clothed by personal loans made by local politicians or military leaders.64 In addition to these temporary measures, a more substantial influx of income was necessary. Domestically, the Meiji government turned to two sources: first, to the Mitsui, Ono, and Shimoda families, large business combines that in 1868 were granted the right to serve as loan agents for the restoration government; and second, to the less official source of the large Buddhist institutions, most notably the Higashihongan-ji and Nishihongan-ji organizations. Neither direction represents a startling departure from previous practice; both the merchant families and the temples had long provided a variety of fiscal services to the central governmental authority. In the early Meiji period, however, these two sources sought much more than just a return of interest on their investment.65 The Mitsui and other families hoped to, and finally did, parlay their favored-son status into a wealthy independence. The temples, undergoing severe strain in the operation in other quarters due to the persecution qua separation, hoped to bring about a relation with the government that would be less hampered by bannings and restrictions. Though no less generous than the merchant houses, the temples' successes were, to say the least, less immediate. Although lending by temples other than the Hongan-ji organization seems to have been not uncommon,66 the amounts and regularity of the Hongan-ji contributions to the government should be seen as anything but typical. Prior to the defeat of the bakufu troops, the Nishihongan-ji and Higashihongan-ji were on opposite sides of the political fence. The Higashihongan-ji, built by Tokugawa Ieyasu in the seventeenth century and only recently rebuilt twice with substantial bakufu assistance after fires (in 1858 and 1864), had long occupied a position of direct and indirect support for the bakufu. In addition to maintaining a shrine housing a statue of the semi-divine Ieyasu in the Kyoto main temple, and overseeing Ieyasu's mausoleum in Nikko, the Higashihon-

72 • Chapter Two gan-ji also, for example, generously contributed to the bakufu armies in their sorties against Choshu in 1864 and again in 1866. Prior to the second attack on Choshu, which by then had joined with Satsuma to form the so-called Satcho Alliance, the Higashihongan-ji made an appeal directly to all its branch temples requesting specific amounts of rice and gold, silver, or copper species for use in the conflict. In the following year, with the bakufu troops being constantly out-maneuvered, the Higashihongan-ji even went so far as to request that all available priests at branch temples volunteer for the bakufu armies. (Events such as this should be born in mind when considering many of the postrestoration policies directed against Buddhism.) The Nishihongan-ji, on the other hand, though not without some direct relation to the bakufu, was politically much closer to those who rallied to the battle-cry of "revere the emperor, expel the barbarians" (sound joi). The Nishihongan-ji was, however, careful to present this slogan with its own slight variation: "revere the emperor, preserve the dharma" (sound goho). The Nishihongan-ji seemed convinced, contrary to the Higashihongan-ji, that the best way to ' 'preserve the dharma'' was to align the temple and its resources with the anti-bakufu alliance. One example of these political differences can be found in their response to the Incident at the Gate of the Imperial Palace (Kinmon no hen) of 1864. Choshu, citing the recent assassination of Imperial Loyalists by agents hired by the bakufu (the Ikedaya Incident), attempted forcibly to enter the Imperial Palace from which they had been banned earlier. Defeated and hunted after their attempt to storm the Palace Gate, several dozen of the Choshu samurai were safely secreted away within the walls of the Nishihongan-ji while bakufu agents searched the city for them. (It is more than coincidental that the headquarters of the Shinsengumi, the bakufu assassins qua agents noted above, was placed within the main temple of the Nishihongan-ji immediately after this incident.) In contrast to the Higashihonganji's call for volunteers to the bakufu armies, members of the Nishihongan-ji, both priests and laymen, were active members of the "irregular brigade" (Kiheitai), the military force formed by Takasugi Shinsaku (1839-1867) in Choshu. This force, made up of peasants, merchants, and priests, was used to supplement the trained traditional samurai forces in the battles against the bakufu. The Kiheitai's headquarters were actually located within a Hongan-ji temple, the Amida-ji, and many of the brigade names reflect direct Buddhist participation: the "Hachiman Brigade" or the "Priests Brigade."67 After Tokugawa Yoshinobu "relinquished" his political authority to the Emperor and thereby became the last shogun, the Higashihongan-ji joined the Nishihongan-ji in full support of the Imperial household and its new government of Loyalists. In turning to the Hongan-ji complex for funds, noted for its extensive and dedicated branch temple network, the restoration government obtained quick results. The two temples each provided over 30,000 ryo almost immediately to the government for use in the paying off of pressing debts

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 73 incurred during the Boshin War. Both organizations then set out to establish more long-term projects to aid the new government and, of course, thereby solidify their own political positions as well. The Higashihongan-ji, as noted earlier, contributed significant quantities of cash and other support to the colonization of Hokkaido. The Nishihongan-ji set its gold as collateral to help shore up the flagging status of the paper currency issued by the new government in the summer of 1868. (The Nishihongan-ji lost over 10,000 ryo in this exchange in a modern form of the Goyokin practice of "gift" giving.) It was also during the summer of 1868 that the Hongan-ji organization led the formation of the Organization of United Buddhist Sects (Shoshu Dotoku Kairen). Of the eight points set forth as the Organization's platform, the first two are important to note here. They hoped to promote first "the inseparability of the Kingly Law and the Buddhist Law," and second, "the critique and expulsion of Christianity." Donations from the Hongan-ji temples either directly to the Imperial house or to its representative, the Meiji government, should thus be seen as the Buddhist attempt to reassert the unity of Buddhism with the Imperial system: a unity only recently lost and a unity that was perceived by many as crucial to the institutional survival of Buddhism.68 As one specific goal of the Hokkaido colonization was to prevent European and Christian expansion into an area so close to the Japanese homeland, we can view the Buddhist efforts in this direction as both cooperative in the national mission and self-serving. We should emphasize that in the early months of 1868 an optimistic hope on the part of the Buddhists that they would be successful in these enterprises was not entirely unwarranted. In the last days of 1867 the Hongan-ji exchanged several letters with Saionji Kimmochi (1849-1940) and Karasumaru Mitsue (1832-1873), both of whom held the rank of Councilor {Sanyo) for the restoration government at the time and were frankly assured by these officials that the government found their loyalty and service to the nation "deeply satisfactory" (fukaku ommanzoku oboshimesare soro).69 Although the events of 1868 proved contrary to the assurances of Saionji and Karasumaru, the positions of the Hongan-ji temples were, in contrast to most other sects and within certain limitations, respected by the government. As noted in Chapter One, it was directly to the Hongan-ji that the Ministry of State addressed its mid-1868 assurances that recent attacks upon Buddhism were carried out by a few "foul-mouthed rebels claiming to speak for the Imperial court," when, in fact, they did not. The true national policy, the Hongan-ji was assured, was a mere "separation" of Shinto and Buddhism and not the vicious anti-Buddhist campaign that a few overzealous misguided individuals desired. Similar assurances, directed only to the Hongan-ji, were sent from the central government at various points over the next few years. In fact, there was only one official denial of anti-Buddhist intent on the part of the Meiji government; this document was issued ten days after the adoption of the reign name of "Meiji," in the ninth month of 1868. The issuing body for

74 • Chapter Two this disclaimer was not, as one might expect, either the Ministry of Rites or the Ministry of State whose edicts had prompted the violent anti-Buddhist "misinterpretations" to occur; rather it was the relatively unrelated Ministry of Legislation (Gyoseikan). Although in this denial it is indeed stated that the persecution of Buddhism was "most certainly not intended" (goshui ni wa kesshite kore nashi soro), it was also pointed out that priests who "elected" the lay life, proceeded to learn a "useful trade," and removed themselves from all Shinto affairs would contribute significantly to the profit of the nation. In as much as these were the precise conditions that the anti-Buddhist factions hoped to enforce, the disclaimers of violent intent asserted in this "denial" are perhaps best read as classic examples of a ruling body's gestures toward a disarming disingenuousness.70 Understandably, there were several incidents wherein the tension between a national policy of elimination qua separation of Buddhism and the more private economic relations between the Hongan-ji temples and the restoration government reached unbearable levels. Effective lobbying within the Tokyo ministries by Hongan-ji priests such as Shimaji Mokurai (despite the ban placed upon such direct appeal by priests) served to solicit some central governmental response to extremist district policies and thereby limit the permanent damage in any given locale. But in the final analysis, rather than direct government intervention, it was the elaborate lay support system of the temples, the very organization that the restoration government relied upon for a portion of its fiscal security, that allowed the Hongan-ji temples to survive battered but not broken through the most violent anti-Buddhist activities.71 In addition to difficulties raised by such economic conflicts of interest, there were also numerous cases where the separation edicts, either willfully or out of confusion over their precise meaning, were ignored or "misinterpreted." A few examples here will suffice. Haguro Gongen, a branch temple of the Tendai sect's Higashi Eizan, was ordered, with all other "Gongen"-style organizations, to be changed into a "Shinto" shrine from a "Buddhist" one: yield Haguro Shrine (jinja). Of the eighteen resident priests, fifteen agreed to convert to the Shinto priesthood and entrusted the remaining three with the Buddhist paraphernalia that had been ordered removed from the newly designated "Shinto" establishment. The fifteen, though conducting Shinto ceremonies according to the recently promulgated guidelines and festival calendar, merely wore Shinto robes lightly over their Buddhist vestments; they also made several adjustments to the recommended Shinto style of ceremonies as well. For example, Shinto sacrificial offerings to the kami would include the offering of fish and/or fowl along with vegetables and/or fruit and sake. But the Buddhist ban on killing prevented the Haguro priests from making such an offering. The issue was resolved by carving wooden fish and wooden birds to substitute for the "genuine" sacrificial items. It was thus possible, in other

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 75 words, for the recently converted priests to remain good Buddhists while executing the ceremonial demands of their new religion.72 A Buddhist guardian deity, Fudo Myo-6, was so popular in many areas that local officials hesitated to call for its removal. A compromise was reached first at the well-known Narita Fudo in the Sakura domain (this temple is still in operation today and is located near Tokyo's international airport). The ideographs generally pronounced "Fudo-son" ("Honorable Fudo") were "reread" according to their so-called literal Japanese reading, and thus by simple enunciatory gymnastics the one-time Buddhist figure is transformed into the "Japanese kami" called "Ugokazu no mikoto" ("The Unmoving Kami"). Such sliding signification is in itself intriguing and is clearly reflective of the contemporary confusion over the interpretation of the institutional forms of the divine; but that such artifice would be sufficient in the redefinition of powerful and, ostensibly, nationalistic deities indicates a level of purposeful obfuscation and manipulation that would later, in fact, contribute to the undoing of the pro-Shintoist's movement.73 Iwashimizu Hachiman, as with many of the more ancient temples, presented a special difficulty: the resident kami was recorded as itself having requested through an oracle the Buddhist presence within the shrine. This request proved, however, inadequate for the Meiji separationists and was finally ignored. This was recognized as a classic case, as one contemporary observer noted, of ' 'the placing of the human will over the will of the kami." 74 Since it was common for the same priest to be both the local Buddhist and, after the separation edicts had been carried out, the local Shinto representative, the performance of similar ceremonies by the same person with similar intent under a different name often resulted in little noticeable or actual change. The great Shugendo centers of Yoshino and Dewa were consistent in their work throughout this period regardless of external trappings. The same disregard for maintenance of the "pure" Shintoesque flavor of the new ceremonies can be seen in the numerous Pure Land priests who taught the nembutsu as the perfect norito, or the Nichiren priests who would read the Lotus Sutra before the kami for the kami's own edification. These are but a few examples of the innumerable ways in which the separation orders could be, and were, foiled from within. In the midst of codes of praxis demanded from without, in other words, we can often find the subtle, stubborn resistant activity of those who refused to relinquish their traditional patterns of action and yet nevertheless sought to "get along" somehow within the imposed network of the overwhelming forces of social representation. These stratagems of subtle resistance are not as noticeable as blatant pilfering or absenteeism, nor as dangerous as blatant opposition; they are, rather, free and creative "borrowings" or diversions of time and labor that are channeled in precisely the direction forbidden by the authorities.75 The Buddhist is a Buddhist "disguised" as a

76 • Chapter Two "Shinto priest." Fudo is "disguised" as a "Shinto kami." Where, we must ask again and again, do "Buddhism" and "Shinto" begin and end? It would be misleading to suggest that the "separation" took place only in isolated cases and was thwarted by a massive resistance of a ' 'folk'' desirous of religious and intellectual autonomy. (Such conceptions can readily be found in the contemporary writings of scholars such as Murakami Shigeyoshi and, with certain modifications, Tamamuro and Yasumaru.) But neither is it correct to assume that the "separation" was in fact a "national event" that brought all of Buddhism to its knees and concomitantly systematically elevated a newly institutionalized national Shinto in its stead. (Sakamoto Kenchi's recent work is an excellent case study of Meiji era Shinto from this perspective.) The separation did indeed take place. Meiji era and subsequent scholarship on the persecution years, much of it in fact carried out by Buddhists, has carefully distinguished, created if you will, the history of every Shinto kami and Buddhist figure found in Japan. The ceremonial, architectural, and textual specification of Shinto and Buddhism as distinct entities begun during the Meiji period continued until even the most casual observer could not fail to distinguish between them. For example, Shinto priests wear white robes while Buddhists wear black. But the separation qua elimination of Buddhism and other "heretical teachings," except in certain temporary, localized incidents, was never accomplished. The "persecution" resulted, in other words, not in the elimination of Buddhism per se, but rather in a redefinition of religion and religious institutions within the social order. The enduring legacy of the persecution years is not to be found in the tens of thousands of destroyed and confiscated temples, in the tons of bells melted down for cannon, or in the uncounted numbers of headless statues that can still be found discarded along the roadsides of rural Japan. Rather, it is in the newly created systems of religious education, the construction of Buddhist and Shinto histories, and the postpersecution legislation of precise legal and political contours of all sectarian institutions that the anti-Buddhist movement left its deepest traces. As the larger contours of "Shinto" and "Buddhism" became distinct, they also underwent internal specification. Shinto was continually redefined or reinterpreted, and by the mid-Meiji period the "Sect Shinto'' system was legally codified to include thirteen distinct and specific "schools" {ha) of Shinto. Clearly this was one case where the co-optation of potentially rival doctrines proved easier than their destruction.76 Buddhism underwent a similar process. The once-amorphous division between specific "sects" (shu) or "schools" {ha) was, during this period and for the first time, solidified and constituted as a legally binding hierarchy of difference. Each "sect" had (or was given) one and only one ' 'head temple'' {honzan) and could be divided into only a limited number of distinct "schools," each of which would finally be guided by decisions made by the sectarian head {kancho) who resided in the main temple

Of Heretics and Martyrs

• 77

and was responsible to the government office in charge of temple affairs.77 This chain of command was not, however, without its own complications, as the case of Mikawa in the following section will reveal. As will be discussed in Chapter Three, this sectarian specificity also had profound implications for both Shinto and Buddhist doctrinal organizations. The "separation" of Shinto and Buddhism finally served as an impetus for the rigorous definition of both "religions" in terms of their physical appearance, ceremonial practice, doctrinal instruction, and sectarian history. Nevertheless, and this bears repeating, the separation was carried out against a backdrop of conflicting policies. Along with calls for the "unity of rite and rule" (zaisei itchi) and the "separation of Shinto and Buddhism'' (shimbutsu bunri) espoused by pro-Shinto ideologues, there was the equally prominent call for yet another kind of separation: the separation between religion and government (seikyo bunri). These simultaneous calls for "unity" and "separation" are not mutually exclusive, and it is their interaction that in fact informs much of the Meiji discourse on religious policy. We have already alluded to economic cooperation and passive resistance as the key elements that complicated the separation edicts and their implementation. This chapter will close with a discussion of one example of active resistance by Buddhists as they attempted to "defend the Buddha dharma" (goho) in the face of multifaceted and seemingly insurmountable opposition. FROM HERETICS TO MARTYRS

I was led through town in shackles and taken [from the jail] to the courthouse [for further questioning]. All along the streets great crowds of people had gathered to watch. It is so strange. I have no desire for fame or profit, I merely seek to live within my religion [tada shukyo tachiai soryo yd to]; within my heart there is no shame. Ahh! Who understands my true intention? The Buddha? The Kami? Why do the common people fail to understand? Laugh if you will! Slander me if you will! Those who laugh are but the enemies of the Buddha. Slanderers are but the enemies of the dharma.78

Such was the lament of Ishikawa Tairei (1842-1871), a Pure Land priest of the Rensen-ji, a branch temple of the Higashihongan-ji, imprisoned for his participation in a riot in Ohama, in the Mikawa area, in early 1871. A government official had been murdered. Tairei, identified by investigating officials as a leader of the uprising, was one of fifty-one priests and twenty-six peasants arrested and tried in the aftermath of the disturbances. After nine months of investigation a pro forma trial took place on the 27th day of the twelfth month of 1871. Thirty-four priests, whose average age was twenty-six, were found guilty of sedition. Twenty of them were sentenced to eighteen months in prison; four fell ill and died as a result of poor prison conditions and harsh

78 • Chapter Two treatment. Hoshikawa Hosawa, priest of the Senshubo and Tairei's friend and associate, was sentenced to ten years of banishment; he died, however, in a Nagoya prison, where he waited two years for the sentence to be executed. Tairei himself, deemed the central organizer of the uprising, was held fully responsible and two days after sentencing, at the age of twenty-nine, was beheaded. Of the nine peasants found guilty of seditious behavior, eight were flogged, and one, Kashiwabara Kiyoshichi, deemed responsible for the murder of the official, was hanged.79 Although the Ohama uprising, which involved from 3,000 to 4,000 peasants and five administrative areas, was quickly suppressed, it illustrates several aspects crucial to an understanding of Buddhism under siege. Here we shall look into the tragedy of a misinformed but Promethean group of young priests who dared to believe profoundly in their faith and tried to act in accordance with those beliefs. Their actions were initially rejected as heretical by both their own spiritual leaders, who were ensconced in the main temple in Kyoto, and by the local political authorities. Ironically, twenty years later they were pardoned by both church and state and embraced as martyrs of the faith and of the quest for modernity. The events at Mikawa represent a case in which the stratagems of subtle resistance were found wanting. And unlike cases of "hidden" resistance, where officials are often willing to "look the other way," the panoptic authority of the state was brought to bear fully on these young priests and their local peasant supporters. In tracing the arguments necessary for the production of conceptions of heresy applied to these priests, and the subsequent reworking of these arguments to produce conceptions of martyrdom, we once again come up against the problems surrounding the creation of definitions. Definitions determine the way in which objects are made known; further, they cannot be completely divorced from the defined object or their employer, the definer. To define, or to act according to certain definitions (according to, for example, "common sense"), is to delimit and concomitantly to create. The defining practice is invested, in other words, with a certain conceptual and practical power; it is also implicated within strategies dedicated to the perpetuation of the accepted forms of the social. It was here, within the shifting sands of social definition and acceptable codes of public and private action, that the Mikawa tragedy was played out. And it was here that the distance between the despised heretic and the revered martyr was but razor thin. By the second month of 1871, the "anti-Buddhist storm," as modern writers are wont to call it, had calmed. The major attacks carried out in Mito, Satsuma, Choshu, Hiei, Sado Island, and Toyama were over. There were, in fact, to be no further attacks as thorough as Satsuma, as dramatic as Hiei, or as devastating as the "one temple per sect" policy of Toyama. (As noted above, the gradual temple closings did, however, continue well into the

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 79 1870s.) But lingering fears and uncertainty among Buddhists were not ungrounded. For example, in the final days of 1871 the Ministry of State issued two orders that justified continued vigilance on the part of Buddhists. On the 24th of the twelfth month, the "amalgamation" of unregistered temples or those without permanent residents was permitted. On the 26th, all main temples received a communique from the Ministry of State asserting that in recent years, ruled by disorder, temples housed the unordained and undisciplined who "indulge not only in idle and lecherous living but also bring no end of harm to government and religion." To terminate this obvious abuse the state required that in the future all "priests uphold their precepts and carry out the intent of the civilizing restoration '' (bummei isshin no onshui wo hotai itasubeshi mune sdro).i0 The opponents of Buddhism had at their disposal the legal tools to prune and direct local institutions as they saw fit. When Hattori Jun, Lt. Governor (Shosanji) of the Kikuma domain within Mikawa, issued the following seemingly innocuous statement to the local temples on the 15th of the second month of 1871, the Mikawa Buddhists knew that a crisis was developing. "Regarding the amalgamation of unsupported, uninhabited temples, regardless of their ages, submit your opinions [to this office]."81 Five days later—during a public ceremony dedicating the opening of a new school—Hattori, citing the national separation edicts, simultaneously outlawed chanting of the nembutsu before the kami and promulgated a norito to be used in its stead. The next day, the 21st, he announced that on the mornings of the 15th of each month this norito should be chanted by every member of the community while facing the rising sun in recognition of gratitude toward the Emperor. Rather than a "separation" of the practices of worship, as Hattori seemed to intend, it was rumored that in fact Hattori had banned the practice of the nembutsu altogether and had replaced it with this "worship of heaven, worship of sun" (tenhai nippai) ceremony. Hattori's announcement at the opening ceremony for the public school was made before a newly dedicated statue of Sugawara no Michizane, the deified imperial minister of the ninth century associated with scholastic attainments; it was rumored, however, that the statue was in fact a likeness of Hirata Atsutane! Thus, rather than serve as a benign symbol of educational excellence, the statue was interpreted as blatant support for an official anti-Buddhist position. There is yet another twist in this elaborate exercise in misinterpretation. Hattori, six months prior to these pronouncements, had embarked on a major revision of domainal policy carried out in the spirit of "the restoration of civilization." This included economic, social, educational, and legal revisions as well as the new suggestions for public worship mentioned here. Hattori was, in other words, one of the progressive "enlightenment thinkers" involved in the interpretation and implementation of the ideals of the Meiji ideologues. The building of new schools, elderly care centers, and hospitals was popularly viewed as government action carried out "for the people" (heimin teki) and

80 • Chapter Two was initially positively received. But when Hattori began lecturing on the need to "revere the kami and love the country" (keishin aikoku) and to disparage the practice of the nembutsu, the collective impressions of these "new" practices were recast. The chanting of the nembutsu before the kami, which Hattori attacked as heretical, was a widespread practice. Since in the popular imagination the kami and the Buddhas were not perceived as contradictory entities, to demand that the people pray to a kami and not to a Buddha could mean only, the argument ran, that Hattori must be referring to a different kami. "Tenhai," translated above as "worship heaven," was used by Hattori to refer to worship directed toward the Emperor as a direct descendant of the Heavenly Kami. But within this rereading of Hattori's intentions, this phrase was understood as the heaven of a different kami: the Christian Heaven. Christianity, long a target of severe bakufu regulations, was popularly conceived as embodying both the "different" and the "dangerous"; it was also the unqualified "enemy" of Buddhism. Hattori created a new Office of Priest and Nun Investigation (Soni Torishirabe Dokoro) and appointed traveling ' 'religious instructors" (Kyoyoshi). These offices and instructors attacked Buddhism, spoke of worshipping this "new" kami, and used a newly produced textbook. They were also soon viewed as Hattori's thinly disguised attempts to convert the entire domain to Christianity: Yasokyo, the "Teaching of Jesus." According to this interpretation, the new norito was a Christian prayer, the instructors were Christian priests, and Hattori himself was their leader. As one later commentator remarked, "a needle was exaggerated to the proportions of a rod'' (shinsho bodai); ironically, Hattori's attempts at a nationalistic revision of local policy were reread as attempts to destroy the nation with a foreign religion. One more aspect that we should include in this complex of prejudices can be traced to an 1868 Ministry of State promulgation restating the ban on Christianity and on heretical teachings. (This was a slight change from the previous ban, which had simply read the "Christian heretical teachings.") Inspired by Hirata Atsutane's work on the "enemies of the kami," the "heretical teachings" were commonly identified as the Pure Land and Nichiren Buddhist sects. This association with Christianity was not a welcome one. Buddhists throughout the country—and the predominantly Pure Land Buddhist populace of Mikawa was no exception in this regard—were placed on the defensive. Moreover, it was popularly perceived that one way for the Buddhists to absolve the charges of national heresy directed against them would be to attack Christianity and thereby prove their own loyalty to the nation. The consequences of this volatile climate within the Mikawa area were profound. Once the charge of "Christian" had been leveled at Hattori, it did not take much to galvanize extensive Buddhist opposition to him and his policies.82 The Mikawa Buddhists voiced their opposition to Hattori's position with a public document outlining three points of contention: the closing of temples;

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 81 the need for Buddhists to chant norito; and the forced daily worship of sun/ heaven. The Mikawa Dharma Preservation Society (Mikawa Goho Kai), led by Hosawa and Tairei, held a series of meetings to debate these points in the weeks prior to the uprising. Before proceeding with a discussion of these three points, let us digress briefly to discuss the formation of the Dharma Preservation Society itself. This society, formed by Tairei and Hosawa in the first month of 1869, arose out of a deep sense of urgency over the previous year's increased attacks upon Buddhism throughout the nation. Both Tairei and Hosawa throughout 1868 had been students at the Takakura Academy, the Higashihongan-ji academy of traditional Pure Land exegetical studies in Kyoto.83 They were also involved during this period in the debate over the formation at the Hongan-ji of the Institute for Dharma Preservation Studies (Goho Gakujo). This Institute, which will be presented in greater detail in Chapter Three, was the center of activity for the so-called sectarian revolution (shumon isshiri), whereby forward-looking priests hoped to create a more politically and socially effective temple organization. The doctrinal and institutional reforms proposed through the Institute's offices were politically inflammatory. Senshoin Toei (Kukaku), the central organizer of the Institute, was assassinated by disgruntled fellow clergy a mere two days prior to the official opening of a new temple-governing office in the tenth month of 1871. Toei was also, it is important to note, the teacher of Tairei and Hosawa. Tairei and Hosawa were schooled in the classic Pure Land texts; but they studied these works amidst the "anti-Buddhist storm" of 1868 within one of the centers most profoundly affected by this turmoil, the Hongan-ji. The need for goho, the preservation of the dharma, for these young priests was visible and pressing. They, like Mito scholars and Restoration Shintoists, determined that it was individual ability (jinzai) alone that could preserve their temples. In an age of transition, as the Meiji era was broadly understood to be, the reliance upon some assumed social prestige and authority could be deadly. The slogan "sweep away all ancient evils," as found in the Charter Oath of 1868, contained an assumption that all that was "ancient" was also potentially equally "evil." The emphasis upon individual action and the radically utilitarian sense of "ability" was one means by which early Meiji Buddhists hoped to counter the pervasive opposition to their teachings and institutions. "Ability" as taught within the academy was translated into a broad-based study of, in addition to Buddhist history and texts, the fields of national studies, foreign languages, history, and the important heretical studies (hajagaku), that is, the study of Christianity. Tairei and Hosawa, like many of their fellow students, returned to their home temples from the capital and established their own academy, the Dharma Preservation Society. It is from local institutes of Buddhist learning and social action such as these that the genuine attempts to launch the "preservation of the dharma" campaign were made. They were, in many cases, dangerous undertakings. The volatile nature of the times demanded difficult decisions; many

82 • Chapter Two of these decisions were to alienate not only the political opponents of Buddhism but also conservative members of the clergy; Toei's assassination is a case in point. Though the precise series of events seen in Mikawa are to a certain extent unique in their violent conclusions, the issues raised and problems confronted are indicative of Buddhist communities throughout Japan at this time: What are the boundaries of the authority, control, and responsibility of the main and branch temples? What are the limits of state authority vis-avis the local temple? The main temple? Should the priest obey his teacher? The head of his sect? The state? His own sense of vocation? These and related questions are brought into dramatic relief in the incident at Mikawa.84 The political battles at the Hongan-ji were to haunt the Mikawa priests. On the 6th day of the third month in 1871 a cautious letter from the Hongan-ji was received at the Mikawa Dharma Preservation Society. The main temple—assured by the government that current, seemingly "anti-Buddhist," actions were merely "separation" attempts and were in no sense to be interpreted as acts of "persecution"—advised the Mikawa priests that cooperation with the local authorities was preferred over opposition of any kind. The more than 200 members of the Mikawa Society disagreed with the main temple's conclusions. They drafted a three-point appeal such that (1) Pure Land Buddhists would never be legally compelled to chant the norito or participate in the newly created tenhai nippai ceremonies; (2) as there is no legal basis for the "amalgamation" of temples, no temples should (or could) be closed down; and (3) all religious policies should thus remain unchanged. (This last point was not merely reactionary but was also a thinly veiled allusion to the stillcurrent ban on Christianity and Hattori's purported "illegal" association therewith.) The meetings to produce these seemingly straightforward and nearly innocuous points were anything but harmonious. Tairei and Hosawa expended no little energy in attempting to convince the Society's members that an assassination of Hattori (or its attempt) would not be an appropriate response.85 On the 9th day of the same month these three appeals were formally presented to the local domainal officials. The debate between the officials and the Dharma Society's representatives over the proposals continued for hours (already following hours of waiting for the officials to appear). The several thousand lay supporters who had accompanied the priests were waiting in and around the house where the meeting was taking place; they were also growing increasingly impatient as the hours dragged on. Most of these peasants were armed with bamboo spears; purportedly an entire grove had been felled for this purpose. Out of disgust over the intractability of the officials, someone threw from the kitchen a clump of miso soybean paste at the officials. As the officials then arose to leave, still having arrived at no decisions, some dirt was thrown, then roof tiles; the officials drew their swords and attempted to flee through the hostile crowd. Five of them in fact managed to cleave a passage

Of Heretics and Martyrs

• 83

through the mob and escape; but the last, Fujioka Kaoru, age nineteen, was tripped up and stabbed to death with dozens of bamboo spears while the angered mob shouted "The Christian has fallen! The Christian has fallen!" (Yaso ga taoreta! Yaso ga taoreta!) Fujioka's head was then cut off and carried about on a pike; the peasants, making their way toward the central domainal offices in Ohama, chanted as they proceeded: "Look on the head of the Christian!" {Sore Yaso no nama kubi da, mite oko!). The priests involved in the negotiations, realizing that events had swung completely out of control, had meanwhile returned to their temples and began burning documents that might serve as incriminating evidence. Oddly, the most incriminating piece of evidence possible, a blood oath signed by the priests and peasants who led the revolt, was to escape destruction and resurfaced during the ensuing investigation. When the peasants, with the head of Fujioka as their banner, reached Ohama, they were met by Lt. Governor Hattori, two heavy cannon, and several brigades of armed troops. After a brief skirmish, wherein seventeen of the peasants were seriously wounded, the uprising was quickly quelled and the mob dispersed in disarray. Arrests and investigation began that same night.86 Three days later, on the 12th, Ohama domain sent a letter to the Higashihongan-ji holding it responsible for the action of its priests. The main temple replied with immediate and profuse apologies and promised to send its own special investigator (who indeed arrived within days). By month's end a Higashihongan-ji spokesman publicly announced that the Mikawa incident "was not merely a transgression against the nation, but the violation to the main temple was also not insignificant," and thus he clearly attempted to distance the sect's position from that of the Mikawa priests. A new collection of restrictions were immediately placed upon all temples within the area that severely limited travel, public lectures, or gatherings of any sort. (These restrictions were first applied to the Pure Land temples and subsequently expanded to include all Buddhist sects.) Ironically, and cleverly, ten days after the uprising Hattori agreed to all of the priests' demands. In lieu of the newly imposed regulations and Hattori's unopposed control over the temple's public operation, this was an empty gift.87 CONCLUSION

There are several points in this incident that deserve accent. First, analogous to the tension found in a government that simultaneously attempted to curtail Buddhist influence and yet not jeopardize its relation with a useful fiscal partner, the Higashihongan-ji academy had attempted to create a young army of "defenders of the dharma" and yet subsequently disclaimed any direct responsibility for hazardous actions this army might take. Clearly the hopes instilled in priests such as Tairei and Hosawa at the Higashihongan-ji Academy far outstripped the more constrained intentions of many of the temple's man-

84 • Chapter Two agers. The Mikawa incident is, in other words, one case where goho, the preservation of the dharma, was blatantly incompatible with gohonzan, the preservation of the main temple. For priests such as Tairei and Hosawa, their belief in "Buddhism" and in the concomitant need to preserve and perpetuate its teachings was found to be incompatible with the larger institutional framework ostensibly created for just such a purpose. Second, the Mikawa incident also proved to be an important case legally. The main temple was, in a landmark decision, held fully responsible for the actions of members of one of its branches. The main-branch hierarchy, though potentially serving as a source of united strength for the Buddhists in opposition to the government regulations, proved to be an equally effective system for ordering and limiting Buddhist (and Shinto) organizations. The scope of the temple's responsibilities and the effectiveness of the main-branch system for central government control over local religious policy were dramatically expressed in the government's response to the Mikawa uprising. Third, there is the problem of the identification of the new local policies as Christian in nature. During one interrogation after the riot Tairei was asked, ' 'Why did you have so many farmers accompanying you [when you presented your appeals to the officials]?" He replied: "Our temples have many followers . . . and only those with true determination followed." "What was the content of your lecture to them [before setting out]?" "I spoke about the purported Christian." ' 'What do you mean?'' "There were rumors among the peasants of Ohama that a Christian priest was in the area. . . . Christianity is not one of the Three Ways [Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism] of our Imperial Nation; it violates the common norms and discards all true standards of religion [shufu\, and finally is loved only by those who revere the inappropriate laws of foreign lands. We were all of one opinion that it should not be allowed here." 88 In the early Meiji period, the creation of a distinct practice called "Shinto" and the attempt to mandate adherence to it were met with a variety of responses, some of which have already been discussed above. In the Mikawa uprising, however, the Imperial-centered Shintoist strategies of reconstructing the social order were ironically reread as not being the divine and natural practice of a nation united since ancient times in a commonality of spirit and intent, but as a destructive practice, borrowed from abroad. Nativism was turned on its head as the foulest form of decadent foreignism that promoted a practice which finally "violated the common norms" of the Japanese people. This conflation of an anti-Christian attitude with resistance to proposed policy change was both a common technique and a common misperception in the early Meiji years of rampant social change.89 One final point. In 1880, special appeals were made to the Higashihongan-

Of Heretics and Martyrs • 85 ji to build a monument to Tairei. In 1887, sixteen years after his death, this request was granted and a memorial stone commemorating his "selfless action in the protection of the dharma" was erected near the site of his execution. Two years later, on the occasion of the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution, he, along with the other Mikawa priests, were granted an Imperial pardon. That same year, each of the priests was elevated to the status of "martyr" (junkyosha) by the Higashihongan-ji; they were all given appropriate posthumous names and titles, special graves were constructed, a monument in their honor was built in Ohama, and a pictoral history (the Junkyo eshi) dramatizing their efforts was drafted and published. The priests were, in fact, turned into sacrificial offerings dedicated to the preservation of the institution that had, in the heat of the moment, denied the legitimacy of their actions.90 As Pure Land Buddhists they had been portrayed by Nativist scholars and government ideologues as "enemies of the kami" as well as of the nation. In attempting to demonstrate the inadequacy of this definition of their beliefs, they lashed out at what they perceived to be the true enemy: Christianity. They struck, however, not the "enemy" they perceived but the very nation they had hoped to defend. The initial verdict passed upon their acts showed that they had succeeded in violating both the Law of the Buddha (as represented in the institutionalization of the doctrine within the main temple) and the Law of the King (which found its local manifestation in the figure of Lt. Governor Hattori). And as heretics standing in violation of both sets of laws, they were punished accordingly. Yet by the mid-Meiji period, the goho ideology had been successfully linked to the conception of the preservation of the nation: gokoku. It was recognized that Buddhism could not be expunged from the Japanese archipelago and that it was, in fact, an important and useful aspect of definitions of cultural and historical identity. It is not a coincidence, for example, that the Meiji Emperor granted more posthumous honorary titles to Buddhist figures, each carefully selected to represent loyal and nationally minded leaders of each sect throughout Japanese history, than any other emperor. Buddhism was gradually being incorporated into the acceptable national past, the orthodox national history central to the legitimating strategies of the Meiji state. The Mikawa heretics/martyrs were made into heroes, but heroes of a particular sort. The hagiographic presentations of their protests speak not so much to the nature of their oppposition but rather describe the importance, the "beautiful virture" (bitoku), of their willingness to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their beliefs. As one writer comments in summary of the Mikawa incident: "Of course the importance of selfless action cannot be denied. But the institutional praise of such sacrifice is often nothing more than a legitimating theory for violence carried out by the more powerful at the expense of the weaker."91 Meiji Buddhism itself, like the Mikawa priests, underwent a transformation from being cast as heretical to being portrayed as having passed through the

86 • Chapter Two sufferings of unfortunate martyrdom. Both definitions—Buddhism as martyr or as heretic—finally served, however, merely to legitimate the violence of persecution and social oppression. When understood as "heretical," Buddhism clearly "deserved" the severe sanctions and violent opposition directed against it. (Tsuji Zennosuke's reading of Buddhism as "decadent" and thus deserving of strict regulations is a classic example of this point.) The only real problem for this strategy is how to constitute Buddhism successfully as appropriately "heretical"; there are no "natural" heresies. (The anti-Buddhist programs found in Mito and Satsuma are excellent examples of local attempts to produce exhaustive and carefully implemented definitions of the social that would cast Buddhism, its institutions, and its followers as heretical.) Buddhism, by willing itself to exist in spite of the harsh local and national actions directed against it, was thereby immediately identified publicly as in violation of the will of the state and as eminently persecutable. The successful renegotiation of the social identity of Buddhism during the mid-to-late Meiji era was carried out not merely as a refutation of Nativist claims to Buddhism's decadent and defiling nature, though the fall in prestige of the Nativist clique was clearly a significant factor in the restoration of Buddhist prestige.92 The Mikawa "martyrs" did not die merely for Buddhism; they offered their lives for the sake of constructing a "modern Buddhism," a Buddhism enlightened to the demands of a modern, industrial, urban, and cosmopolitan society. The Buddhism of the Mikawa incident in 1871 and Buddhism at the time of the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889 are, in many senses, two very different entities. Buddhism had managed to transform itself from being perceived as one of the plethora of' 'ancient evils'' into one of the essential repositories of the true essence of' 'Japanese culture." Buddhism had succeeded in surviving itself in the form of its own martyrdom. This fascinating and complex transformation was driven forward by the battles fought initially over the right to control the national education system. As we saw in the case of the establishment of Shinto funerary rites, it was assumed that those who controlled the transition to death controlled life; a corollary of this assumption in effect during the mid-Meiji era was that those who controlled the past controlled the living. The battle for religious and institutional autonomy is finally waged within the confines of the construction of history. By determining the origins, developmental patterns, and ruling strategies of historical change, Meiji era ideologues, Buddhist or otherwise, maneuvered to provide definitive guides for all appropriate action. This historical debate will be taken up in Chapters Four and Five. Here let us examine more closely the transition of Buddhism from the heretical to the martyred and the concomitant attempt to establish a national ideology.

CHAPTER THREE

Rites, Rule, and Religion: Construction and Destruction of a National Doctrine The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. And just when they seem engaged in revolutionizing themselves and things, in creating something that has never existed, precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names and battle cries and costumes in order to present the new source of world history in this time-honored disguise and this borrowed language. . . . Thus the awakening of the dead in those revolutions served the purpose of glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; of magnifying the given task in the imagination. . . . —Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte The superior nature can be taught, the inferior nature can be controlled. —Han Yu, Yuan-hsing

INTRODUCTION

as a vital, meaningful knot of conceptualizations, was given public form in a series of promulgations announcing the ' 'reestablishment of ancient practices" (kyugi no gosaiko) embodied in the Ministry of Rites. The explicit intention of these promulgations was to "restore Kingly [Imperial] Rule" (oseifukko) based upon the "unity of rites and rule" (saisei itchi) as practiced at the time of Emperor Jimmu's founding of the divine land (Jimmu sogyd). This ostensible mimicking of the old included the simultaneous expurgation of all "past impurities" (kyuhei) from the land and the construction of national and local bodies devoted to articulation of the "restored" national themes of unity, purity, and divinity. As detailed in Chapter Two, the expurgation of select aspects of the collective past was translated in part into the attempt to remove Buddhism from all political and public life; further, the spirits of the past were conjured up so their names and costumes could be used in the creation of a national shrine system and the encoding of a new language called "Shinto." Here let us explore more precisely how the "ancient past" was resuscitated and placed before "the people." What asTHE " M E I J I E R A , "

88 • Chapter Three pects of this truly "Japanese past," that is, the age prior to the importation of Buddhism and the enforced military bureaucracy of the last millennium, were vested with the power and prestige sufficient to guarantee the national (if not universal) order? How were ceremonies used to facilitate the production of a national consciousness focusing on the newly emergent, phoenix-like role of the child emperor? Moreover, as farsighted ideologues, the participants in this production of the "illuminated rule" of "Meiji" were aware that only by controlling the apparatuses that both produced and reproduced the conditions for social and political action could they effect a continued transformation of, and control over, the present. To carry out this project, they would focus on the construction of unified systems of ceremony and education that were directed from Tokyo and extended by means of a national network literally to every village in the land. The first of the so-called separation edicts, which announced the "renewal" (isshin) of ceremonies that would "once again be carried out" before shrines housing the native kami, was issued on the 13th day of the third month of 1868. On the following day the formal Ceremony of Vows (seisai gishiki) dedicating the five articles of the Charter Oath (Gokajo no goseimon) was performed within the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. Drafted largely by Yuri Kimimasa and Fukuoka Takachika, under the direct guidance of Kido Takayoshi, the Charter Oath was designed to be precisely what its name indicates: a contractual instrument promising, vowing, certain primary rights and privileges. What I would like to emphasize here is the nature and the direction of the vows made during this ceremony.1 There were three major parties participating in the restoration government's inaugural address to the "deities of heaven and earth'' (tenjin chigi): representatives from the Office of Rites, representatives from the Office of State, and the Emperor himself. The Emperor began the ceremony by performing the heihaku teijo, a "presentation" (teijo) of a folded-paper offering to the myriad deities that is then used as a divine "cloth" (haku) to clear away the "defilements" (hei) of the assembly. The representative from the Office of State, Sanjo Sanetomi (1837-1891), at the time vice-president (Fukusosai) in the restoration government, then intoned the verses of dedication (norito) to the kami.2 Finally, the members of the Office of Rites arranged and carried out the offerings and other ritual performances devised for dedication and worship. The simultaneous presence and cooperative performance of the Emperor and the government, as mediated by the Office of Rites and the ceremonial of dedication, first physically articulated here in the promulgation of the Charter Oath, was to serve as the paradigm for one of the basic tropes of the Meiji system: the Unity of Rites and Rule, saisei itchi.3 The explicit goal of this ceremonial structure was, in the words of Kido Takayoshi, "to show all people below heaven that the ministers and lords, in accordance with the Emperor, have concluded an oath with the deities and do

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 89 thereby determine national policy." The vows made during the ceremony operate on several distinct levels simultaneously. The Emperor vows to his ancestral kami, and by extension the kami of the nation, to carry out the Charter in order to ' 'guarantee the safety of Japan and to establish more firmly a national unity"; the "minister and lords" vow to the Emperor to carry out the collective and unified wills of the kami and the Emperor; and upon promulgation of the Charter to the "people" they themselves, out of a deep and abiding sense of "gratitude" (on), vow to abide by the principles therein.4 The Unity of Rite and Rule served as an ideological tool designed to create, articulate, and manifest an "alliance" (meiyaku) extending from the myriad deities (jingi) through the figure of the Emperor and the mediation of his ministers "even unto the least persons under heaven" {tenka no shomin ni itaru made mo). It served, in other words, to insert the position of the Emperor into the political realm and simultaneously to elevate the status of "the people" to full participants in the drama of nation-building. This alliance was based upon the ability of the Emperor to stand at the precise point of unity between this, the seen, world, and the unseen world of the kami. In as much as the Emperor served as the point of transference of the divine power (shintoku) of the kami into the particular form of rule (seitai) of the government, the ceremonial unity indicated by these vows ostensibly subjugated the desires of the government to the wills of the kami and the Emperor. It bears noting, however, that even the outlines of the above ceremonial structure were the subject of great debate. In opposition to the plan devised by Kido, Mutobe, and Yano, which called for an explicit testimony by the ministers of their bond to the will of the Emperor, Sanjo, Iwakura Tomomi, and Nakayama Tadayasu led a spirited opposition calling for a ceremony that consisted of merely a public signing of the document in the presence of the Emperor as a witness to governmental proceedings. Such a ceremonial interpretation of the Imperial position would clearly have relativized the power not only of the Emperor but also of ' 'the people" in favor of the elevation of ministerial positions. The Restoration Shinto clique was, at this time, to prove victorious, and the ceremonial enunciation of a divine body politic was in fact performed. We can see that subsequent readings of the Charter Oath as a "modern" document involve a careful forgetting of the fundamental assertions of the Oath's role in the restoration of a primordial national unity. Implicit in the Ceremony of Vows and within the Oath itself, in other words, was a tension between the "reestablishing" (saiko) and the creating "anew" (isshin) of political policy.5 Slogans such as the "Restoration of Kingly Rule," "Direct Imperial Rule" (tenno shinsei), the "Rectification of Ranks and Names" (taigi meiburi), the "Founding [of the nation] by Jimmu" (Jimmu sogyo), or the "Unity of Rite and Rule,'' invariably constructed in the continental aphoristic form using four ideographs, were ubiquitous in their use as they were dispersed across a wide range of potential signifying practices. These code terms are a few examples

90 • Chapter Three of the elaborate symbol system devised to define the political contours of the early Meiji state. Tsuda Sokichi, in his usual uncompromising fashion, describes this symbol system as a collection of "vacuous concepts" {kukyo no kannen) devoid of "actual meaning" that were designed and used to "promulgate lies to the people." In spite of Tsuda's debatable assumption of some conspiratorial manipulation of an innocent "folk" by a disingenuous government, his insight into the operation of these code terms is significant and useful for our present discussion.6 Similar to Tominaga Nakamoto in his use of the figurative tropes of "metaphor" and "agitation," Tsuda interprets these numerous code terms as dependent upon the operation of "exaggeration" (kocho) for their expressive force. "Fukko," literally a "return to times past," often translated as "restoration," served as a predominant discursive theme of the early Meiji government. And yet, Tsuda points out, the precise historical juncture indicated by this term was unspecific, serving finally to indicate merely some time ' 'prior'' to the military rule (as opposed to Imperial rule) as found in the early nineteenth century. This (purposely) vague anterior moment was sometimes further identified a s ' 'when the Emperor himself exercised political authority." Victories in battle by the mythical Emperors Jimmu (r. 660585 B.C.E) and Keiko (r. A.D. 71-130) are two of the few cases frequently cited as examples of actual Imperial rule; but, Tsuda notes, even these, as rare as they are, are derived from texts whose historical veracity can only be questioned. (A record of Emperor Keiko's military conquests, in fact, appears only in the Nihonshoki.) Furthermore,' 'from the ancient past the Emperor of Japan has never held the reins of political power but has served exclusively as a symbol of the independence or unity of the Japanese state, or as a symbol of its continuation. This is the Imperial household's most appropriate role. The rare occasions on which an Emperor has attempted to exercise political authority has resulted only in tragedy for both the Imperial household and the people." 7 Tsuda does accuse Kido, Iwakura, and others of being "historically ignorant, or perhaps just slightly illiterate" for basing their arguments for a new political system upon some artificial past created in a way best described as "logically inconsistent vagary." Yet Tsuda recognizes that these code terms, rather than serve merely as products of historically ignorant ideologues, can also be read to reveal the hopes and aspirations of those revolutionaries (shishi) and masterless samurai (roniri) who constituted themselves as the new national government. The very "exaggeration," in other words, implicit in the use of terms like the ' 'Restoration of Imperial Rule'' or the "Unity of Rite and Rule" is essential to the creation of a conceptual "vacuum" that, within certain limits, can be interpreted, or "filled," in ways conducive to the production of numerous and distinct strategies. The "layers" pointed out by Tominaga as figurative artificialities are thus, according to Tsuda, neither ac-

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 91 cidental nor without purpose. They are, rather, the life blood of the modern world. It is by means of code terms such as these that the Meiji era ideologues attempted to produce a public consciousness, a modern "common sense," that could be directed and redirected as historical necessity determined. In the midst of the Meiji revolutionary crisis, the spirits conjured up from the past did not, in fact, reproduce the old or even parody it; they merely served to glorify the present by disguising its intent in the time-honored costumes and battle cries of the long dead. In this chapter we will explore the contours of these "vacuous concepts" and present some of their potential readings, attempting thereby to reveal some of the plethora of voices that have been frequently, and perhaps too quickly, submerged in the appellation "Meiji Restoration." After beginning with a discussion of the formation and generation of the Unity of Rite and Rule and its relation to the Ministry of Rites, I will then look at the creation of the Ministry of Doctrine (Kyobusho), the attempted amalgamation of Shinto and Buddhist teachings into a state doctrine, and the concomitant ideological shift to a position that can be identified as the "Unity of Rule and Doctrine" (seikyo itchi). Finally, with the dissolution of the Ministry of Doctrine, prompted by the withdrawal of Shin Buddhist participation from the national system of Doctrinal Instructors (Kyodoshoku), I will present the debate over the Separation of Rule and Religion (seikyo bunri), attempting to detail, in other words, certain aspects involved in the early Meiji attempt to create a public history. It is important to note that Buddhism is simultaneously rejected as part of the "evil customs" of the immediate past that must be surmounted in the approach to "true history" as well as included among the strategies employed in the very effort to "recover" that past. While partaking in the public recovery of a national history, Buddhism also begins the creation of its own private history: a history constructed out of institutional Buddhism's own needs, past, and language. These various efforts can each equally be used to suggest that indeed "men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please." 8 SAISEI ITCHI: UNITY OF RITE AND RULE

In Chapter Two I discussed the formation and development of the governmental organization charged with administering national rites and ceremonies; I traced, that is, the rise of the Division/Office/Ministry of Rites and alluded to its subsequent dispersal across several institutions both within and external to the government. Before turning to the dissolution of the Ministry of Rites, and the simultaneous establishment of the Ministry of Doctrine (and thus the concomitant shift in political priorities from the use of "religious" ceremony to practices of "doctrinal" education in the promulgation of state dogma), let

92 • Chapter Three us here examine a central component of the ideological nexus created in the early Meiji period: namely, the use of ceremony and ritual in the production of a system of government that has been called, among other appellations, "theocratic absolutism" (shinteki zettaisei), the "Meiji centralization," or "that mythological fiction."9 We will approach this theme by examining the construction, physical articulation, and implications of the term saisei itchi, the Unity of Rite and Rule. How, in other words, was the ' 'religious'' used to define the "political"? As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the Ceremony of Vows, which served to situate the Charter Oath both in relation to the political and the social realms and in relation to the national deities, can be seen as the first public articulation of the Unity of Rite and Rule in the Meiji era. Within the span of approximately one year there were three other national ceremonies that similarly served to link the Imperial house with political rule as mediated by the Ministry of Rites. The Charter Oath ceremony was performed in the fourth month of 1868, immediately after, it will be recalled, the promulgation of the so-called Order of the Restoration of Imperial Government (oseifukko daigorei). It was this order that introduced into public, legal language the terms used to describe the return to a unity of rite and rule "patterned" after ancient times. The first lines of this order read: "In restoring Imperial rule, which began with Emperor Jimmu's founding of the nation, all things have been renewed. The Ministry of Rites will once again be established, and we will thereby return to the practice of the unification of rite and rule [saisei itchi no goseido ni gokaifu asobasare soro]."10 In the eighth month of the same year the Meiji Emperor's enthronement ceremonies were executed in a manner determined to accentuate this unity; in the twelfth month the memorial services for the Emperor Komei were recast to assert both the unity of a national ceremony divinely linked via the unbroken Imperial line to an ancient purity and to expurgate any possible Buddhist presence from participation in such a relation. Finally, the festival calendar (nenchu gydji) of 1869 was begun with the recently reestablished, and redesigned, Imperial new year's ceremony (toshigoe no matsuri) in which the Emperor and the myriad kami jointly vow to protect the realm and facilitate bountiful agricultural production." These early national ceremonies involving the enthronement of one emperor, the posthumous care of another, the coordination and direction of divine powers (shintoku) toward the productive expansion of the fruits of the land, and, finally, a vow by the Emperor to the kami and the people were each carefully constructed as public, visible performances of the Unity of Rites and Rule. They were directed, as expressed in the language of the Charter Oath, to promote public discussion of national concerns, construct a spiritual unity of the nation, destroy all ancient abuses of divine Imperial authority, and seek knowledge throughout the world with the intention of thereby strengthening the foundations of Imperial rule. The Emperor

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 93 was portrayed as both mother and father of the people (tami no fubo) and as the manifest spirit of the Imperial kami (korei); the Ministry of Rites provided the corporeal topos wherein the ritual link between the "unseen world" of the kami and the "visible world" of humans could be joined in an eternal, and national, celebration of unity and order. The Unity of Rites and Rule, through ritual direction of political policy, agricultural production, and national worship, claimed not merely the construction of a unity of "the people" and "the nation" but also the formation of a universal ontological totality. The enshrinement of (1) the "eight deities" (hasshin), (2) the protectorate kami of the Imperial line and creators of the national land, and (3) the spirits of all Imperial ancestors and the "myriad deities of heaven and earth" (tenjin chigi) within the Ministry of Rites was a sophisticated attempt to gather together in literally one place a diverse spectrum of ideological strategies and hence, through the controlled exercise of a national ritual, eliminate potential political contestation.12 Nativists, Restoration Shintoists, members of the court, and military houses could not effectively oppose an attempt to construct a national unity carried out in the name of the Emperor and under the auspices of the Imperial and national deities. To do so would be to oppose their own ideological raison d'etre. Such a conceptual suicide would inevitably result in failure. The incontestable political vacuum created around the Meiji Emperor, which succeeded in reducing political opposition to its lowest common denominator, simultaneously produced and relied upon a hegemonic assertion of the necessarily harmonious unity of this world and the Other. The Other, as embodied in the figure of the Emperor and in the mediatory rituals of national order, was itself thereby made eternally present and thus, finally, deprived of its status as truly Other. Or, rather, the incorporation of the Other into the present produced a purportedly closed ideological system wherein the present place, as a unity of past and present, of seen and unseen worlds, could recognize no Other, no "outside" to itself, as it is always already all that ever is or was. The Unity of Rites and Rule—created out of a concern for national political and social unification—claimed to produce an unassailable totality of nationhood, race, and culture firmly ensconced in the unity of divine and temporal powers. It also carried within it seeds useful to the production of specific conceptions of history as well as of a cosmopolitan vision of the national body. Here let us look further at certain social aspects of this unificatory policy and their implications. Drawing upon a rationalist Neo-Confucian conception of social order for a norm descriptive of the operation of this world, early-nineteenth-century Nativist scholars attempted to link the unseen kami directly to the visible world as the organizing principle of the world itself, of the social order, and finally of action. "He who is not loyal to the kami, to the Emperor, and to the nation is finally not human. . . . Therefore, do not begrudge orders from one's lord, but carry them out loyally; console one's parents and each day act with a true

94 • Chapter Three heart; teach your wife and children with care; act with sympathy toward one's servants; interact with one's peers with trust; be diligent in carrying out one's household duties; treat one's descendants with honesty and integrity; and, finally, do not violate any public laws." 13 The recognition of this "link" produces both awe and shame, as well as a "natural" desire to act in accordance with prescribed social norms in order to fulfill one's obligations to family, state, and kami. "In shame before the invisible kami of the shadows I refuse even to think of evil within my innermost heart. Without light or darkness it is difficult to ascertain the Way, and the principles of loyalty, filiality, benevolence, and righteousness must therefore be firmly maintained."14 Further, this obligation is best fulfilled by the careful execution of one's ' 'occupation'' (shoku); social labor, the particular form of which is itself determined by the unseen kami, is thus transformed into an ethical act—into, finally, divine labor. During the nineteenth century, the Way of the Kami (kannagara no michi) was, in other words, gradually being constructed into a source for definitions of the social based upon not only conceptions of a normative hierarchy of society and acceptable (read ' 'necessary'') forms of action, but also upon a recognition of the operation of the unseen, the potentially chaotic and the omnipresent, within the social order itself. There is what we could call an attempt to produce a socialization of the divine. In analogy to this "socialization" process we can also identify an attempt in the nineteenth century to "politicize" conceptions of the divine. It is the combination of these two refigurations of various articulations of the absolute that produce both the term saisei itchi and the practices associated therewith.15 As the well-known Mito scholar Aizawa Seishisai (1782-1863) in his Shinron (New Thesis) points out, even as the people have their divinely ordained "occupations," the Emperor also has the duty to govern the land with "truth and reverence." Moreover, it is the Emperor, in fulfilling his "heavenly occupation' ' (tenshoku), whose labor provides a link between the visible and the invisible worlds. "Amaterasu in heaven illuminates the earth below; the emperor serves Amaterasu by means of his manifestation of truth and reverence throughout the world. Rites and Rule are one. The heavenly occupation of governance as well as divine labor carried out in the name of Amaterasu are equally labors performed for the sake of Amaterasu."16 This mediation is graphically represented in the operation of the divine mirror, one of the three Imperial Regalia. "When Amaterasu transmitted the Regalia [to Ninigi no Mikoto], she took up the jeweled mirror and said 'When you look into this mirror it will be as if you were looking upon me.' For over one thousand generations the mirror has thus been revered as Amaterasu herself. Emperor after emperor have looked upon their reflection in this mirror; in seeing the traces of Amaterasu [i.e., themselves] they beheld none other than Amaterasu herself."17 The consubstantiality of the emperor and Amaterasu as reflected in the Im-

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 95 perial gaze into the jeweled mirror is construed as the basis for the identification of worldly rule as a direct extension of divine will. Certain ceremonies, such as the Daijosai, serve to renew this unity continually; other ceremonies, such as those seen in the promulgation of the Charter Oath, serve to extend the range of this unity to encompass the entire social and political order. Ceremony, used here as a unifying function between the divine and the political orders, is an attempt to use history, and in fact to create a notion of the historical present affirmed through ceremony, as a continuation of the eternal rule of divine authority.I8 Tsuda Sokichi is correct in asserting that the theory of the Unity of Rite and Rule as derived from Mito scholarship, particularly the Shimon, was crafted by Aizawa and other like-minded ideologues out of equal parts of Confucian morality (for its doctrinal and social norms), Nativist theories (for religious/ ceremonial practices), and governmental policies (for its nationwide implementation). That such a plurality of concerns was ostensibly "united" and thence promulgated as the true representation of an original and native form of governance Tsuda found both suspect and dangerous.19 Yet it is precisely this "exaggerated" and manufactured "unity" of diverse intentions that is held up as a normative strategy during the early Meiji period. The implementation of this norm, which involved the participation of every aspect of society, was necessitated, the argument went, not merely out of a political concern for order. Rather, it was based on a recognition of the internationally unparalleled presence of the divine unseen world manifest in the figure of the emperor as benevolent ruler. In the attempt to carry out this unparalleled program, however, the differences implicit within the supposed "unity" were made manifest. Rite and Rule may, in fact, have been conceived of as one, but the precise manner of the performance of the rites, much less the execution of governmental functions necessary to any conception of rule, underwent considerable debate such that any "unity" was obtained only in fleeting and fractured instances. Factional conflicts within the Ministry of Rites, disagreement over the status of Rites and Ceremonies as related to political policy between leading ideologues and officers within the Ministry of Rites, the ongoing and popular debate between those emphasizing expansionist international policies and those demanding strictly restorative domestic entrenchment, were some of the many factors involved in the closing of the Ministry of Rites in 1872.1 will take up this issue again below. Here I can say, in brief, that the downfall of the Ministry was triggered by its internally initiated attempt to dominate Rule with Rites. Political ideologues responded to this attempt not by eliminating ceremony entirely but rather by creating a national doctrine intimately linked to the conceptions of ceremony set forth by the Ministry of Rites yet articulated in terms more conducive to centrist government control. The bureaucracy created for this task was called the Ministry of Doc-

96 • Chapter Three trine {Kydbusho); it was officially opened on the 14th of the third month of 1872—the same day the Ministry of Rites closed its doors. SEIKYO ITCHI: UNITY OF RULE AND DOCTRINE

Under the Ministry of Rites the tasks of the promulgation of the newly constructed system of national and local ceremonies, the introduction to the populace of the finer points of the necessary "separation" of the local shrine/ temple into distinctly "Shinto" and "Buddhist" elements, and the popular presentation of state doctrine were all relegated to a group of Missionaries or Proselytizers (Senkyoshi) selected by the Ministry of Rites itself. (It is interesting to note that "Senkyoshi" was also the standard name for the "missionaries" to and from foreign lands, Christian, Buddhist, or otherwise. The need to "convert" the populace domestically to the new and purportedly "national' ' teaching is an explicit aspect of the term and highly indicative of early Meiji doctrinal policy as well.) Though the office of the national proselytizer was created in the seventh month of 1869, it was not until the first month of 1870 that guidelines were in fact issued for these ideological shock troops. The guidelines appear first in the form of the Imperial Edict on the Promulgation of the Great Teaching (Sempu daikyo no mikotonori), which asserted that the most propitious manner to ' 'expel the defilements that the Way has undergone since the middle ages," to "unite the hearts of the masses," and thus to confirm the "Unity of Rite and Rule" is "clearly to implement the public teaching [chikyo] that exalts the Great Way of the kami" (kannagara no daido).20 Precisely how this was to be done, however, was largely left up to the proselytizers themselves. It will be recalled that 1869-1871 were the peak years of anti-Buddhist activity; the Imperial Edict, juxtaposing the defilements of the past with the Great Way restored in the present, was in fact read in many locales as Imperial sanction for anti-Buddhist activities. This issue was addressed four months after the issuance of the edict when the Ministry of Rites nationally distributed a fifteen-point commentary on the Great Teaching titled Instructions for Proselytizers (Senkyoshi kokoroe sho). The third point in this commentary suggests that even though it may indeed be appropriate to attack Confucianism and Buddhism "within the academy and with scholarship," such contestable behavior is not acceptable for daily lectures as it merely produces animosity and unnecessary tension among the local populace. The remaining points of the instructions are concerned with the logistics, technique, and economics of rural lectureships, and they carefully, yet oddly, avoid any precise treatment of doctrinal content.21 Under the guidance of Kamei Koremi and other Restoration Shintoists, the Ministry of Rites' aggressive pro-Shinto policies, carried out by these casually regulated proselytizers, enjoyed approximately two years (1869-1871) of contested but largely uninterrupted operation. The combined protests of political notables such as

Rites, Rule, and Religion

• 97

Saigo Takamori, Eto Shimpei, and the Shin Buddhist priest Shimaji Mokurai, however, coupled with conflicts both within the Ministry of Rites and between Nativist factions, led to the gradual demotion and final dissolution of the Ministry.22 In the seventh month of 1871 the Ministry of State, sidestepping the Ministry of Rites, issued its own definition of acceptable doctrinal instruction.23 After coining the term "Great Teaching" (Daikyo) to identify its main ideological assertions as specifically doctrinally oriented, the promulgation continues as follows: The central principles of the Great Teaching are to revere the deities, to illuminate the relations between humans, and to guide correctly the hearts of the masses and engage them in beneficial occupations. Thus shall the Imperial court be served and maintained. Without the guidance of doctrine [kyo] the hearts [of the masses] cannot be correctly guided; without the regulation of governance [sei] the occupations [of the masses] cannot be made beneficial. Thus it is absolutely necessary that doctrine and rule be mutually performed.24

The terms used are deceptively similar to previous promulgations made by the Ministry of Rites; the Ministry of State's order appeals to local authorities, with a true sense of urgency, to revere the kami, support the Emperor, and cooperate with the government. There is, however, a crucial shift toward an emphasis upon the unity of the hearts of the people and their occupation on the one hand, and between these beneficially occupied people and the will of the government on the other. This is not to suggest that the linkage between the seen and the unseen, as emphasized in the Unity of Rite and Rule, is no longer used as an integral part of the discursive strategy for the organization of doctrine; it is. The emphasis, however, has been shifted from a primogenitive hidden world of shadows to a concentration upon the immediate, corporeal present. Or to use the code terms present within our current discussion, correct doctrine will produce the unity of the people and their labors, and correct governance will ensure the harmony of their labors with the needs of the nation. The Unity of Doctrine and Rule is herein conceived as the necessary and appropriate form of social and political organization. Of interest is the fact that there is no mention of festivals, ceremonies, funerals, or enshrinements; the deities are presented as the vague, and somewhat distant, creative origin of blessings, benevolence, and the Imperial line. Rather, it is the "unparalleled labors carried out by the Emperor Jimmu," the "management of the four directions accomplished by Emperor Sujin" (r. 97-30 B.C.E.), and the need for clear-minded and farsighted decisions by the current government charged with the preservation of the Imperial line that inform this promulgation. Rites and ceremonies are by no means abandoned, but they are increasingly refused precedence over doctrinal indoctrinations. It is here that we can

98 • Chapter Three see a shift from an emphasis on Shinto initiation toward a concern for a national and social doctrinal training per se.25 Sometime in late 1871 or early 1872 Saigo Takamori and Eto Shimpei, prompted by claims that the Ministry of Rites was inadequately executing its prescribed duties, paid a visit to the Ministry's offices in Tokyo. (The Ministry of Rites during its last months of operation was popularly called the Ministry of Afternoon Naps [Hirune kan] or the Ministry of Indecision [Injun kan].26) During, or more likely as a result of, the visit, Saigo announced that Shinto priests, no less than their Buddhist counterparts, were completely useless (muyo no chobutsu) and that both groups should be put to work in a Ministry of Doctrine under the strict control of the government itself. Saigo then charged Eto with the responsibility of taking the organizational steps necessary to establish such a ministry.27 Eto did not have to look far for assistance in the matter. One of the many letters written by Buddhist priests to the central government and typical of this period reads in part as follows: Buddhism should be used to facilitate the hardening of the hearts of foolish men and women to prevent their being deceived by Protestant or Catholic teachings. If this is done, we priests, with over one thousand years of devotion to our nation, will be able to continue our loyal service. Like trees that stand together in a forest, why is it that the various [Buddhist] sects cannot coordinate and consolidate their teachings? . . . All [Buddhist] sects uphold the Great Teaching of our Imperial Nation; thus, without exception, the teaching of each [Buddhist] sect should be used in the guidance of the people's hearts.28 This letter, signed by thirty-four priests representing the Tendai, Jodo, Jodo Shin, Soto, Rinzai, Shingon, Nichiren, and Ji sects of Buddhism (and thus most likely a product of the Organization of United Buddhist Sects [Shoshu Dotoku Kairen]), began by asserting that the office of proselytizer was established solely for the purpose of preventing the expansion of Protestant and Catholic teachings (not, note, the removal of Buddhism). Rather than rely upon the ineffectual efforts of inexperienced lecturers to promulgate the Great Teaching (also interpreted by the Buddhists as an anti-Christian policy), the more "experienced," "devoted," and "unified" presence of Buddhism should be used instead. Three months later in a White Paper (kempaku sho) submitted to the government by the Hongan-ji complex we find the following: "We request that doctrinal instruction of the temples be coordinated and that an institute made up of men of eminent virtue and proven talent representing each sect be established. With such an institute the evils of idleness and lecherous living will be cleared away, and universal support for the continual renewal of civilization [bummei isshin] and for the political order will be obtained."29 One month later, in the third month of 1872, the labors of Eto and the appeals of the Buddhists were combined in the formation of the Ministry of Doctrine.

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 99 Beginning with orders issued in the final days of the fourth month of 1872, the range of the Ministry of Doctrine's authority (which superseded that of the Ministry of Rites), and its conception of "doctrine," was determined. The following five areas were to be administered by the new bureaucracy: (1) the building or closing of shrines and temples and the approval of all priestly ranks and privileges; (2) the ordination or appointment of all Shinto and Buddhist priests; (3) the approval and publication of all materials used for doctrinal instruction; (4) the approval of all public lectures as well as private study organizations (ko); and (5) final judgment over any doctrinal differences that might arise. The Ministry of Rites' position of Proselytizer was abolished and in its stead was placed the Doctrinal Instructor (Kyodoshoku) who was to be trained, tested, and appointed by the Ministry of Doctrine. The creation of the position of Instructor was a thinly veiled attempt by the state to create, in fact, a de facto state priesthood; those uncertified by the state were barred from any public lecturing or ceremonial duties, as well as from residence in any shrine or temple. Initially only Shinto and Buddhist clerics and a few Nativist scholars served as Instructors. Within four months of the creation of the position, however, the Ministry of Doctrine, noting that No, Kyogen, and Kabuki actors, along with minstrels and professional storytellers, have a "not insignificant relation through their work to the everyday customs of the people," allowed these professional public speakers to assist in the promulgation of the national doctrine (kokkyo). The actual content of this doctrine, which will be discussed more fully below, was initially set forth in the Three Standards of Instruction (Sanjo kyosoku). Copies of these Three Standards were distributed throughout a national network of Teaching Academies (Kydin) consisting of the Great Teaching Academy (the Ministry of Doctrine's headquarters in Tokyo), Middle Teaching Academies located in each prefecture, and Small Teaching Academies distributed (ideally) throughout the country in each village. The goal here, reminiscent of the earlier Mito domain policy of "one shrine per village," was to have at least one Doctrinal Instructor per village. The national organization was further divided into two large administrative units: the so-called East and West Instructional Areas, with Kyoto serving as the dividing line (itself included in the Eastern group). This basic national hierarchy provided the foundation stones upon which the national education system was eventually built: lower schools in each local area, middle schools established at the prefectural level, and universities in select national administrative areas. In fact, many of the actual buildings that first served as Teaching Academies were later used as public schools. The two geographical divisions (later changed to seven, which incidentally corresponds to the number of mid-Meiji national university areas) were administered by Shinto priests; they and the head abbots of the seven state-recognized sects were included in the administrative board of the Great Teaching Academy in Tokyo. Major area temples (many of these selected from the older Kokubun-ji system) were des-

100 • Chapter Three ignated Middle Teaching Academies, and local shrines and temples served as the final link in the national hierarchy. The largest concentration of political qua doctrinal power actually resided in the Middle Teaching Academies. It was here that tests were administered and Instructors appointed; the prefectural organizers were also responsible for communicating Tokyo's decisions to the local areas and relaying local issues back to Tokyo. There were major problems with this system, and with its strategic intent, from its very inception.30 In the middle of the fifth month of 1872 the municipal government of Kyoto sent a communique to the central government that was severely critical of the newly organized Ministry of Doctrine. This inflammatory communique, subsequently released to the public press, sparked a year-long debate. The letter began as follows: "The harm brought about by religion [shumon] both domestically and abroad has, since of old, been great. And yet, in spite of the numerous politicians and scholars who have taken up this issue, none has been able to resolve this problem satisfactorily."31 The anonymous writer of this letter goes on to assert that the current attempt to incorporate Buddhism and Shinto into a unified presentation of state doctrine ignores the true wishes of the people, tramples on the authority of local governments, and fails to comprehend the precise nature of a Buddhism that "withdrew its fangs and claws and meekly followed the path of civilization" only after its near eradication in the recent restoration of Imperial rule. Drawing upon government promulgations, recent domestic disturbances (such as the Mikawa riot described in Chapter Two), and, in the true "enlightenment" style, relevant Euro-American events (such as the banishing of the Mormons to a desolate Utah), the Kyoto document goes on to assert that in this the age of the flowering of international civilization, deceptive and grotesque religions must be discarded and the people must be trained in reasoning and the importance of fulfilling their occupations. Only then will we be able to enter into the realm of civilization [bummei no iki]. And yet, rather than proceed to the true civilization and discard the deceptions of Buddhism, the government has gone so far as to appoint priests to positions of doctrinal authority and hold them up as standards of a true faith. In their attempt to direct man toward the light, they have instead plunged him into darkness. This is a time of great financial need for our nation; the useless must be quickly discarded, the profitless must be terminated; the useful must be promoted and the worthy utilized. The preservation of a deceptive religion and the control of each and every priest should not be an urgent concern of the ministers of our nation.32

There are several intriguing aspects to this issuance by a local government. The first several pages are a point-by-point critique of the five administrative areas controlled by the new Ministry; the consistent theme therein is the fear that the power of the local governmental authorities will be radically reduced

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 101 and they would then be rendered subservient to "uninformed and interfering" Tokyo officials. We should recall that the destruction of the domainal system of local regulation and its replacement by the more centrally controlled prefectural system (the so-called haihan chikeri) had been carried out about six months prior to the establishment of the Ministry of Doctrine. The intended range of the Ministry of Doctrine's labors is thus perhaps best understood as not limited to popular and folk education, as is frequently the case, but should also be seen as an integral part of the postrestoration government's broader attempt to construct and maintain a centrist rule based in the newly created "eastern capital," Tokyo. This will become even more apparent when we look at the Ministry of Doctrine's response to this letter below. The blatant anti-Buddhist posturing in the letter, at the time of a general retreat from this volatile position as being socially and politically untenable, also bears special notice. The argument itself here, however, is limp, merely repeating the by now well-worn presentations of Buddhism as an imported and socially devolutionary collection of distorted visions incompatible with the true Japanese spirit. We should also note that "Buddhism," along with "Christianity," is linked directly to the irrational practices of "religion," whereas "Shinto Doctrine" is not. The attempt to portray Shinto as the inviolable essence of a united people is one point of commonality, among many differences, between the Kyoto letter and the Ministry of Doctrine's project. The Ministry, however, in contrast to the Kyoto government, was convinced that Buddhists were also capable of articulating, and demonstrating, for the common people the content of this "inviolable essence" of the nation's people. Or, perhaps due to growing recognition of the role of Buddhism in the very formation of Japan's cultural history, at the very least the Ministry assumed that the Buddhists could be neither discarded nor ignored in the national movement to promulgate this "essence." One last point that bears accenting here is the manner in which the Kyoto letter's argument was presented. There is indeed the careful intoning of proven anti-Buddhist rhetoric; but there is also the careful attempt to use presentations of past events to articulate and support the writer's position. That Buddhism is socially disruptive is illustrated by citing the recent disturbances in Mikawa; that it seeks merely to conquer and dominate is shown by a retelling of the events surrounding Buddhism's importation into Japan and its corruption of a native prince, Regent Shotoku. That religion itself needs careful regulation the writer of the Kyoto document sought to prove by citing variously the enlightened attempts by Victor Emmanuel II to regulate papal authority in Rome, by Bismarck to regulate the priests in Prussia, and by the expulsion of the "ethically unacceptable" Mormons in America. There is, in other words, the assumption of an evolutionarily certain path toward national development that includes as a necessary adjunct the expulsion of "deceptive and grotesque religions." Further, this path is determined according to standards that are

102 • Chapter Three internationally applicable. This assumption is given life in the Kyoto letter through the use of a method of comparative historical analysis that, though rudimentary, assumes a cosmopolitanism of global evolution. The prominent Shin Buddhist priest Shimaji Mokurai, who was himself instrumental in the formation of the Ministry of Doctrine, was at the time of the Kyoto letter's release on a study tour of Europe.33 His response to this letter as both a leading Buddhist and as a certified Doctrinal Instructor, written but one month after the Kyoto letter's publication, was also submitted to both the central government and the public presses.34 Shimaji begins his retort by suggesting that the Kyoto letter, because of its obvious vituperation, must certainly be a forgery. "The entire work is the most frivolous collection of fallacies and warped explanations ever dreamed up by a worthless Confucian. It contains not one element of truth. How could the [Kyoto] Municipal government be responsible for such incompetence and discrimination?"35 Shimaji goes on to attack the Kyoto letter on several different levels; for the purposes of discussion here I will, however, mention but three. First, responding to the claim that religion "since of old" has caused inestimable damage to human society, Shimaji asserts that "if one isolates and highlights only damage caused and disregards truths expressed, there is not one thing on earth that cannot be included in such an argument."36 The same argument could be applied to the military, to government, to merchants, and to philosophers. Religion (shukyo), Shimaji asserts, is a universal phenomenon; the benefit or harm derived therefrom is, like politics, entirely contingent upon those who practice it. By the same token, priests cannot be singled out as the sole perpetrators of social inequities; the ignorant and idle can be found in all "occupations." Shimaji attempts, in other words, to constitute religion as a social institution on par with and yet distinct from organizations such as the government or the military. Service to one's religion would thus be seen as a legitimate social "occupation." Priests labor with "truth" and "fidelity" and thereby render needed service toward the cultural advancement of the state. But, and here he both parts with the Kyoto opinion and simultaneously expresses a certain dissatisfaction with the Ministry of Doctrine's attempt at a hegemony of doctrinal affairs, Shimaji also demands that' 'matters of doctrine be determined by the main temples; there are none who are entitled to add or subtract a single word therefrom."37 Priestly ranks, ordinations, publications, lectures, and doctrine (kyoron) must be left up to the temples themselves. Shimaji seeks, that is, total religious autonomy, as well as the recognition of the social efficacy of the Buddhist teachings. Second, the Kyoto letter's interpretation of Buddhism Shimaji attacks as an example of "the dregs of those total distortions that ceaselessly issue forth from deranged Confucians and that exhibit not the slightest presence of insight."38 Buddhism, Shimaji claims, never "took" political power; but because of its social efficacy it was often "given" the same. The great tragedies

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 103 of Japanese history have not been, as the Kyoto letter claimed, Buddhism, but rather the internecine warfare of the military families followed by the Tokugawa bakufu's forced termination of extensive contact with foreign nations. The former produced chaos and uncertainty while destabilizing the nation; the latter created a semi-stable political organization but was content to ignore the advancement of the world while managing a blindly self-satisfied people.39 In short, Buddhism has served as a convenient scapegoat for larger socio-political inadequacies that, Shimaji claims, Buddhism can in fact make significant contributions toward correcting. The third point I would like to note here is Shimaji's method of argumentation. The argument over definitions of religion, the priesthood, and an "unjustly maligned" Buddhism is, similar to the Kyoto letter, carried out vis-avis interpretations of past events and their impact upon present conditions. The Kyoto writer described Buddhism as a deceptive usurper of Imperial power, a power only recently reclaimed. By contrast, Shimaji, as a prototypical Buddhist historian, details during the very same periods discussed in the Kyoto letter the close relation between various Buddhist sects and the Imperial family. That the Kyoto letter would suggest that the Imperial family could, in fact, be deceived for so many centuries seems to be, rather than an attack upon Buddhism, a serious insult directed toward the Imperial family.40 Similarly, in the case of Emmanuel II, for example, Shimaji reads the King's action not as an attack upon "religion" but as an attempt to "remind" the Pope of the paramount position that should be given his religious duties over his political concerns. Emmanuel II himself never ceased being a Catholic during this exchange and even appealed to the Pope to unify the spirit of Italy while he, the political and military leader, would care for the worldly order. Both Shimaji and the writer of the Kyoto letter, in other words, were conscious of the power inherent in an ordering of domestic incidents in narratives conducive to the support of their own strategies, as well as of the use of events in the "West" as convenient benchmarks for the projected goals of these strategies. Though both sides claimed historical veracity, as any positivist historical narrative must, the interpretations derived therefrom show not only the recognition of the political and ideological usefulness of historicist claims, but also the intriguing figure of the "West" as capable of serving as a "model" for strikingly opposing strategies. Native "history" was used to present "truth," and the "West" was used to illustrate the consequences of these historical truths. This newly emerging cosmopolitan vision of domestic history, here used in the production of two distinct definitions of religion, was proving to be a tool equally useful in the exercises of either critique or apologetics. We have looked at opposition to the formation of the Ministry of Doctrine as set forth by the municipal government of Kyoto and a Buddhist response to this opposition; here let us look at the Ministry of Doctrine's own response to this debate. The following discussion is drawn from what began as an internal

104 • Chapter Three Ministry communique that was eventually released to the public press as a direct reply to the Kyoto position.41 The writer of the Kyoto document fails, the Ministry notes, to appreciate fully the current age of renewal {isshin) and the difficulty of "extending enlightenment" to the remote areas of the nation. It is the task of the central government to extinguish "immorality and licentious behavior" from "every corner of even the most remote areas of the nation." Granted, the Ministry notes, Buddhism has caused no end of trouble over the centuries, but it, like religion (shumon) in general, has also permeated every aspect of the common person's daily life. In a somewhat surprisingly candid admission of the failure of the previous years' attempts to remove Buddhism from the social order entirely, the Ministry notes: "Even if [Buddhism] is banned and its practitioners severely punished, the people would not thereby immediately relinquish the Buddhist teachings. Even if priests are not allowed to preach, Buddhism would continue on in the shadows undisturbed. . . . But if we cleanse the source and remove impurities by directing the people's belief itself, a true reform could be accomplished and the useless could be refashioned into the useful."42 The Ministry of Doctrine's program suggested by the foregoing response represents a significant departure from that of the Ministry of Rites; all available resources under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Doctrine are to be put to the task of "expanding the enlightenment of culture," and Buddhism is perceived not so much as part of the problem as an asset—an asset that needs, however, certain careful direction. The Ministry of Doctrine is also careful to respond to the Kyoto municipal government's concern over the status of local authority. The numerous governmental offices throughout the land, the Ministry notes, are finally but' 'one body'' (ittai), and as one body they must work together. It is true that the local authorities are in charge of the population within their jurisdiction. Even as criminal law and the jails are controlled by the Ministry of Justice, education by the Ministry of Education, and lands for cultivation and forestry by the Ministry of the Interior, however, so too doctrinal affairs (kyobu) are henceforth to be controlled by the Ministry of Doctrine. ' 'If we were to enact the Kyoto area's plan, there would remain only the Ministry of State and the local governments. Then as each separate entity would attempt to assert and maintain its independence, government would be impossible. In fact, there would be no need for a national government at all." 43 The Ministry of Doctrine then reminds Kyoto that they, along with all other local governments, are not prohibited from, and are rather encouraged in, participating in regulation of the affairs of government within their jurisdictions; there is, however, the need for Kyoto, and the rest of the nation, to recognize that there is only one national doctrine (in the same manner that there is only one legal code or one system of education), and this is to be determined, logically, by the Ministry charged with doctrinal affairs. Moreover, the national

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 105 doctrine is ' 'promulgated with the purpose of revering and maintaining the Imperial court"; opposition to the doctrine, or to the Instructors, is thus opposition to the divine will of the Emperor. The national doctrine would serve as the ideal ideological apparatus: absolute, self-perpetuating, and commonsensical. Once the teaching is fully implemented, "how can there be any reason to oppose the enlightenment (kaika) of the people or any attempt to harm the Imperial government?' ' 44 Carefully distinguishing itself from other Ministries that handle material or fiscal concerns, the Ministry of Doctrine proclaims that its tools are "formless" (mukei) and purposely hidden or "unseen" (miru bekarazu), and its goal is to illuminate the "great way of the revered kami of the Imperial nation" (Kokoku keishin no daido). Divisive plans such as those found in the Kyoto letter serve merely to foster the creation of a ' 'gold-hungry nation of barbarians that would finally produce only entertainment for the foreign nations" waiting on Japan's doorstep. This severe chastisement issued by the Ministry of Doctrine effectively terminated subsequent vocal opposition from within the government's ranks. After a bitter dispute with the Buddhist temples that it included within its organization the Ministry was indeed dissolved in 1877 (Meiji 10). Yet this was not to occur before the successful establishment of a nationwide doctrinal program. A record dated 1880 (Meiji 13) issued by the Office of Shrines and Temples (a bureau within the Ministry of the Interior and the institutional descendant of the Ministry of Doctrine) claims that at that time there was a total of over 103,000 Doctrinal Instructors, over 81,000 of whom were members of Buddhist sects. The largest single group were the Shin Buddhists with almost 25,000 members. These Instructors operated out of over 1,800 Teaching Academies (Kyoiri) and lecture halls (kosha), over a thousand of which were actually Buddhist temples. These figures illustrate not only the scale of the doctrinal organization and institutional Buddhism's involvement therein, but also the extent to which local "religious" associations were potentially regulated by the Great Teaching Institute in Tokyo. By the time of this 1880 survey, every priest, instructor, temple, shrine, and academy had been investigated and registered by the central government.45 The precise physical contours of instruction were well known and centrally controlled; but as the Ministry of Doctrine itself noted, its primary concern was with the "unseen" and "formless." How was this presented? In what way, in other words, was the formless given form and the unseen made visible? How, precisely, was the Unity of Doctrine and Rule to be carried out? The above-mentioned Three Standards of Instruction promulgated in the fourth month of 1872 formed the central core of the National Doctrine. These Three Standards were supplemented first in the second month of 1873 with the Eleven Themes (Juichi kendai) of instruction and then again eight months later

106 • Chapter Three with the Seventeen Themes (Junana kendai) of instruction. The Three Standards are as follows: 1. Comply with the commands to revere the kami and love the nation. 2. Illuminate the principle of heaven and the way of man. 3. Serve the Emperor and faithfully maintain the will of the court. The Eleven and Seventeen Themes (also called the Twenty-Eight Themes) are a little more problematic in their translation. The Themes are drawn from a diverse range of often contradictory ideological positions that range from classical Confucian concepts of appropriate social order to current theories of international law to Shinto purification practices. All except seven of the first Eleven Themes have the standard aphoristic form of four-character compounds and can thus be "read" either in the so-called Chinese manner or according to Japanese syntactical rules; interpretive variations derived from creative "readings" were possible and not infrequently practiced. It should be noted that these Themes, like the Three Standards above, were used as beginnings of doctrinal instruction. They were, as Tsuda Sokichi might say, "perfectly vacuous concepts" that could be filled in a variety of ways to construct an incredibly diverse range of arguments. It was in fact this inherent diversity of potential signification that rendered the Ministry of Doctrine's attempt to construct one National Doctrine finally impossible; the slippage or, to borrow Tominaga's term, the "layers" of interpretation, and thus the nature of the Doctrine itself, based upon these Themes produced finally a polyphony of instruction unintended by the Ministry and often conflicting with its explicit goals. The translation of these Themes offered below should thus be seen, as should the Themes themselves, as mere beginnings, tentative formulations of points constructed purposely to allow for formal discussion of the formless. The Eleven Themes: (1) the kami and power, the Emperor and gratitude; (2) the spirit of man is immortal; (3) the heavenly deities and creation; (4) the worlds of the visible and the invisible; (5) love of nation; (6) divine rites; (7) pacification of the spirit [of the dead]; (8) [the relation between] lord and minister; (9) [the relation between] father and child; (10) [the relation between] husband and wife; (11) the Great Purification [Ceremony]. The Seventeen Themes: (1) Imperial nation, national polity; (2) the Way does not change; (3) organizations must correspond with the times; (4) renewal of Imperial rule; (5) man is distinct from the beasts; (6) study is necessary; (7) [the] Doctrine is necessary; (8) international relations; (9) national law, civil law; (10) development of laws; (11) taxes and conscription; (12) wealthy nation, strong army; (13) [agricultural] production and manufacturing; (14) cultural enlightenment; (15) different forms of government; (16) employing the heart, employing the form; (17) rights and responsibilities.46 I will not attempt a concise "definition" of each of the above Themes, not only out of consideration for the reader but also on account of the very nature

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 107 of the terms themselves. No definition of these Themes, in the sense of describing the boundaries of their signification, is finally possible because these boundaries are in fact never firmly established. The following pages will be rather an attempt at an exposition or a telling of several of these beginnings. In this telling I will draw upon several recorded versions of similar attempts made by Doctrinal Instructors: Shinto prelates, Buddhist priests, and popular entertainers. The preferred method of presentation of the Themes was to weave together into a unified construct a few Themes designated as central and then to use this formulation to present, or to situate, the remainder. Although the Themes themselves allowed, if not promoted, a plurality of interpretation, within any particular presentation there operates an invariable rigor. These "perfectly vacuous concepts" were, in other words, repositories of a potential made manifest by their collection. These terms were carefully "filled" and skillfully wielded as malleable discursive forms used to describe and promote formal conceptions of belief, action, the social, and nationhood. There are many teachings under heaven, but the fundamental intent common to them all is the search for the good and the shunning of evil. Among these teachings there can be found, in almost infinite gradations, both the profound and the shallow. The teaching of our kami, however, is the most invaluable, wonderful, profound, and mysterious teaching of all. In the creation of heaven and earth the great ancestral creator kami Izanagi and Izanami took up the jeweled spear of heaven and made firm the land of our nation. This [very act] is none other than the fundamental teaching of the kami [kannagara no moto oshie].... The teaching of our Imperial nation [sumera mikuni no oshie] is the law transmitted directly from heaven unchanged, unbroken, and undisturbed through the generations of emperors even until today.47 Tanaka Yoritsune (1836-1897), head priest of the Ise Shrine and prominent figure in the formation of the Ministry of Doctrine, wrote the above passage as an introduction to a lecture on the Three Standards. The very creation of the land itself is here conceived of as the basis of all divine teachings; the Imperial line is presented as the unadulterated extension of that teaching which reflexively guarantees the perpetual presence of the kami. ' 'The Emperor reverently honors all kami for the sake of everything below heaven, and with profound empathy he nurtures the people and governs the nation. This is the Imperial Occupation [tenshoku]."4* The language of the Emperor, and thus the language of the people, is, like the land and the people, equally a creation of the kami. This language, most perfectly recorded in the "books of the kami" (shinten), has been used to give form to the "teaching without words" (kotonashi no oshie) and is itself the most immediate source for any approach to the divine teaching. Tanaka writes his lecture, which is dated the year 2533 of the Imperial Reign (Meiji 6, A.D. 1873), in a manner carefully chosen to highlight the use and importance of this native language. "Doctrinal Instructor" is written with the characters read, after the Chinese fashion, "kyokan,"

108 • Chapter Three but Tanaka notes that the correct pronunciation is in fact according to the native reading "oshie no tsukasa"; "Emperor" written "Tenno" should be pronounced "Sumera Mikoto"; "creation" written "zoka" is to be read "musubi," and so on. The primacy of the teaching of the kami is not to be found in the written word per se but in the enunciation, the verbal performance of those words; the teaching of the Imperial land is to be encoded firmly in the language that itself belongs to the Imperial land and has been handed down from the time of the ancients. Words are thus seen as living things that manifest their own power and history at their every enunciation. Rather than rely upon the fractured foreign meanings of imported terms, those who have been truly civilized should appeal to and perform only those inviolable teachings of the native past. This teaching, Tanaka asserts, is in fact summarized in the Three Standards. Although it appears that the death of the body is complete and final, Tanaka suggests that this is only a partial truth. The human spirit (tamashii/reikori), which was placed within the body by the kami, in fact knows no death. "The spirit is the unity of kami and man; man is the resource [shihon] of the kami; the world of the kami is the true world of man.' ' 49 Moreover, this spirit, shared by all below heaven, is identified as both benevolent and good. Placed within corporeality, which is impure (kegare), this essence is subject to a variety of permutations. In fulfilling the natural inclinations of this ontological essence (hombun) one thereby fulfills one's duty as a being created by the kami, returns to the world of the kami, and there receives endless good fortune. Violation of this nature accordingly produces remonstration. For those who visibly transgress this essence, the law of the Emperor was created to maintain this worldly order; and for those whose transgressions remain unseen, there is the inescapable law of the kami. Though there appears to be a distinction between the seen and the unseen, Tanaka notes, "the seen complies with the unseen, and the unseen receives the seen." From birth until beyond death, not one action or word stands outside the profound unity of the unseen world of the kami and the Imperial rule of the visible world. There is, in other words, a continuum of creation itself, permeating all existence within a divinely created land. "The people are the essence of the nation, the Emperor is the essence of the people. Thus it is that the love of the nation is the love of the Emperor."50 The entire national doctrinal project is based upon the successful articulation of the above argument: the primacy of the creator kami, and the direct, undisturbed link between these unseen divinities and the visible world as guaranteed through the unbroken mediation of the Imperial line. (We can see here certain structural similarities to the Ministry of Rites' emphasis on the Unity of Rite and Rule.) In this unity of spirit, time is collapsed into the unity of the present and the eternally creative power of the kami (shintoku). History is not thereby extinguished but is rather articulated in terms of the continual presence

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 109 of the kami, generationally transmitted in the body of the Emperor, from the very moment of creation to the present. The unity of the land, the language, and the people is maintained by the extension of this power of the kami through the presence of the Emperor. The "natural" love of the land is thus none other than the love of the nation and, by extension, the reverence of the kami that provided for its very existence. This explication is, in brief, one reading of the first of the Three Standards: revere the kami and love the nation. Because of the "impurity" inherent in form, however, there are possibilities of differentiation in practices and interpretations; it was to control the expansion of these differences that the latter two of the Three Standards were promulgated. Tanaka identifies the first part of the second Standard, the "principle of heaven,'' with none other than the ' 'principle of the creator kami'' (musubi no kami no kotowari). To illustrate this he draws upon the ancient continental conception of the natural universe as continually constituted and reconstituted from combinations of the five elements of nature: fire, wood, metal, water, and earth. These are the tools by which the constant creation, production, and growth within the seen world are carried out. The latter half of this second Standard, the "Way of man," is similarly defined as the careful maintenance of the five social relations: between lord and minister, father and child, husband and wife, and between friends. (Regularly the relation between elder and younger siblings is elided from the Shintoistic readings of this social system.) "When the father loves his child, and the child reveres the father, the Way of man is thereby perpetuated and the essential teaching of the kami is made manifest."51 The operation of the creative powers of the unseen kami, and thus the "occupation" of the Emperor, is defined in terms describing the basic operation of the known natural world; these powers are reflected in the social by the invocation of the necessarily harmonious, in fact inviolable, standards of correct social interaction. Imperial rule becomes, in other words, a natural phenomenon as essential to the operation of the universe as the harmony of the constituent elements of the natural world and as inevitable as the love of parents for their child. Not surprisingly, the "will of the court" mentioned in the third Standard is construed as none other than the will of the Emperor (and thus of the kami). The organization of the offices of the government is said to reflect directly the hierarchy of the unseen world of the divine. Because the visible world, as manifested in accordance with the divine will, "complies with the unseen," the compliance with this will is an unquestionable given. "The promulgations issued by the Imperial government all emanate from the sublime will of the Emperor; entrusted to him by the heavenly kami, they are then used by the ministers to care for the people." To transgress public law is to violate the Imperial will and to ignore the compassion of the creator kami. Such trans-

110 • Chapter Three gressions, Tanaka reminds his audience, are all known and duly compensated for. To construct this nearly closed ideological system, Tanaka and other Doctrinal Instructors drew first upon newly articulated definitions of the roles and manifestations of the kami; this was a strategic precursor to the establishment of the Emperor as mediator between the seen and the unseen worlds: the Imperial occupation. This Nativist project is revealed specifically in the language of the first of the Three Standards. The second Standard presents a thinly disguised reworking of Confucian concepts of both the natural world and the social order as the field within which the Imperial mediation is performed. The Way of heaven here is, of course, not to be located by relying upon continental Sage Kings; rather, it is by means of the careful fulfillment of one's own ' 'occupation," coupled with the maintenance of the correct standards of social intercourse, that the true reverence of the kami and the love of the nation are possible. The minister's own "occupation" is defined within this second Standard as devotion to the articulation, or translation, of the Way of heaven as revealed by the will of the Emperor into the laws of this world. The third Standard then explicitly emphasizes the ontological compulsion of the people's service and maintenance of the Imperial and ministerial positions as the first step in the perfect fulfillment of their own "occupations." The Three Standards, in short, draw upon Nativist, Confucian, and utilitarian constructs to locate the precise social functions, or "occupation," of the Emperor, the government, and the governed. By incorporating all aspects of existence into an elaborately defined conception of the social order, the Standards were used to construct a putatively perpetual, self-renewing, self-contained ideological system—a system that claimed both to know and thus to control its own "other." Ueda Kyushin, a lower-ranking samurai from Okayama and a Doctrinal Instructor, submitted a collection of his essays to the Ministry of Doctrine, which then edited and published them under the name of Introduction to the Instruction of Children with the Three Standards (Sansoku doyu gaihen).52 Ueda calls the Three Standards the "great law of the world of humans," the basis of all political and doctrinal efforts, the "eternal and inviolable" teaching of the kami transmitted "from the beginning" through the compassion of generations of emperors to the present day. To explain these teachings best, Ueda suggests the division of the Three Standards into a schematic arrangement of six distinct elements: namely, reverence of kami, love of nation, principle of heaven, way of man, serving [the Emperor], and maintenance [of the laws]. These six are then arranged, in flow chart form, into eight different interpretive configurations. Ueda goes on to provide a multilevel reading of the Three Standards based upon the physical reordering of the compounds and thus the order of their reading. The first model, called "seikai,'' or "standard interpretation," begins with reverence of kami, the practice of which in pre-

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 111 scribed manners is the precondition to true love of nation, which in turn is necessary to understanding the principle of heaven; this understanding is then reflected in the social world by the actualization of the way of man, itself most perfectly accomplished through service to the Emperor and maintenance of the laws. The second model, appropriately called "henkai" or "changed interpretation," flips this reading on its head and begins by emphasizing the necessary maintenance of the laws by the people, which, as they are received from the Emperor himself, inspire service to both emperor and government. This service, in turn, is best accomplished through the maintenance of correct social standards in accordance with the way of man, which, when accomplished, will of its own accord fulfill the principle of heaven. True love of nation is then possible, and the actualization of all of these teachings serves as social performance of the reverence ofkami. The point of entry into this schematized version of the Three Standards is, throughout each of the next six models, shifted by Ueda. This technique reveals both an interpretive flexibility and a sophisticated interconnection of categories that are aligned to produce a totalization of thought, action, and belief always already directed toward and motivated by the master categories of reverence of the kami and love of the nation. Ueda's reading of the Three Standards produces an ideological system with an infinitely accessible center; wherever one is, or whatever approach one might take, the Three Standards serve to link all aspects of praxis into one state-produced code. The plurality of potential beginnings within the national doctrine is, in other words, distilled through the Three Standards into one language; difference is resolved in the commonality of reverence for the divine and the form this love for the divine takes when manifested: the nation. In contrast to the political and philosophical style of Tanaka and the schematic details manipulated by Ueda, both of which sought to produce a rational and precise-sounding doctrinal philosophy, there were also numerous attempts to appeal directly to daily customs of the people for didactic material illustrative of both the importance and permeation of the operation of the Three Standards within the world. It was to this end that popular figures in the literary, pictorial, and performing arts were included among the ranks of Doctrinal Instructors. Though often cited as an example of the haphazard if not laughable approach of the government to the problem of national indoctrination, which on a certain level is undeniable, the use of popular entertainers has an equally undeniable, sophisticated, and serious aspect as well. As noted above, the Ministry of Doctrine chose these entertainers as Instructors because of their intimate relation to the "hearts and customs of the people" (jinshin fuzoku); they could, in other words, speak in a language and draw upon a common pool of tales and images immediately familiar to "the people." The task of the Instructor was to elevate familiar aspects of daily life in order to produce an

112 • Chapter Three ideology of the quotidian sanctified by the state and encoded in the Three Standards and Twenty-Eight Themes. This teaching, encoded as common sense, would be perceived as derived from indigenous social relations and their more profound antecedents located within the divine production of the land itself. What better way to construct a national folk religion than to appeal to certain aspects of the "folk" itself? Many of these artists were writers of Gesaku, the popular, bitingly humorous renditions of daily life. And this indecent play (ge) was itself conceived of as purposefully nonclassical, noncontinental, and thus a genuinely local expression of the world.53 This is yet another example of the careful attempt by the governmental authorities to control (or at least regulate) the direction and production of the carnivalesque; festival, entertainment, and play are being carefully worked into the state's celebration of its own existence, its own history. Perhaps the two most famous popular artists enlisted as Doctrinal Instructors were Sansantei Arindo (1832-1902), the noted writer of humorous and critically sarcastic short stories (and a founding member of the Tokyo nichi nichi shimbun), and Kanagaki Robun (1829-1894), whose timely caricatures of foreigners and the many disguises of "civilization" rode the wave of the burgeoning printing industry and the production of a mass culture. The two cooperated on several guidebooks for the Three Standards; here we will concentrate on one of Kanagaki's solo efforts, A Short Cut to the Teaching of the Three Standards (Sansoku oshie no chikamichi) ,54 "In order to save the foolish masses, you must have something that can be told to every person and provide instructions for every household. . . ," 55 Kanagaki's popular language, humorous drawings, and occasional biting satire guaranteed that his audience, the "foolish masses," would be thoroughly familiarized with the doctrinal intention of the Three Standards. In this land "that was formed before all other nations of the world" and where each and every person is in fact part of the same family (kyodai ikki), there are none who were not created and nurtured by the kami and the Emperor. ' 'Even waste paper and toilet paper are contained within the kami'' (chirigami mo asakusagami mo kami no uchi). (Note here the homophonic play on words between the "kami" of waste paper and the divine "kami.") But those who fail to recognize this, those who refuse to revere the kami and love the nation within which they dwell, are "devils and heretics" (akuma gedo): "They are like a merchant whose house's existence depends upon the profit made from selling his wares but who ignores his wares entirely. Decrepit and useless, they will not be bought and there will then be no profit made." 56 And thus the merchant's house will fall. To ignore the kami and the nation is like ' 'using currency issued by the Ministry of State to make paper sailboats, or to use Mitsui cash to grow flowers in the gay quarters."57 And, Kanagaki points out, beginning at Ise with Amaterasu and extending throughout the entire land via her "retainers" (gokerai) in the local shrines, "Ise knows" what

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 113 happens. To be, for example, "like priests or wild men, who are not among those made by the kami but are heretical perversions, is to fail to fulfill one's occupation received at birth [umaretemorae no shokugyo]; it is to act selfishly according to one's desires and to perform only evil." This is, moreover, "reflected in the mirror" at Ise. If one manages to escape trial in this world, fear not, warns Kanagaki, "there is the law of the Kami! The spirit of an evil person will be thrown into the endless night of devils, heretics, demons, and beasts. . . . Remember, for example, the countless evil deeds of that usurper of Imperial power Hojo Tokimasa, who seemed to pass through this world enjoying good fortune. But rest assured that upon his death he was subjected to divine punishment. Undergoing endless suffering, he is crying bitter tears even unto the present day." 58 Kanagaki, like all great lecturers, does not leave his audience in the clutches of demons undergoing the endless tortures of hell. Rather, he switches to emphasize the great glory and profit obtainable by one who fulfills his occupational duties and thus labors unceasingly for the nation and the Emperor. The world, he notes, is filled with many shapes and colors of people, "but it is our duty among all the other nations of the world to polish our spirits and thus universally emanate the brilliant light of the kami." 59 Kanagaki makes a crucial move into the social realm when he links the principle of heaven and the way of man through the institution of marriage. The progenitors of the people, Izanagi and Izanami, are the original husband and wife (fufu) from whom all are descended.60 The divine occupation, here represented in the actions of the divine couple, is to nurture and educate all those below heaven; a similar task is designated for parents in this world. To raise children by one's own example to respect the five relations is to guarantee the reverence for the kami and service to the Emperor; this is as binding for members of the Ministry of State as it is for the village headman or the simplest farmer. To establish the link between the immediate family and the divine family of man, Kanagaki provides an agrarian language of shared production that extends from familial to divine conceptions of labor, from rice for the daily meal to the creation of rice itself. All people are given the opportunity to fulfill their occupations and thereby contribute to the harmony of the entire land. All people, as the descendants of the divine couple, are given the privilege of dwelling in a land watched over by the Imperial son of the kami. These Three Standards, whether philosophically, schematically, or dramatically enacted, were indeed simple enough in their organization to allow for a quickly presented and easily portrayed system of national doctrine. Moreover, the Standards successfully incorporated an interpretive flexibility that was necessary to a document that would be pleasing to ideologues as diverse as Restoration Shintoists, Neo-Confucians, and the many political cliques among the military clans. Because of what Tsuda might call their intellectually suspect vacuousness, the Three Standards, like the Charter Oath, allowed for a certain

114 • Chapter Three ideological unity among otherwise contestable factions. But in contrast to the Charter Oath, which was able to traverse the years untampered with and eternally vague, and was thus continually politically useful, the Ministry of Doctrine went on to provide specifications to these Standards in the form of the Twenty-Eight Themes of instruction. These lecture topics, though they succeeded in making the Three Standards immediately applicable to specific social, political, and religious concerns, also served to produce an ideologically constricted system that was eventually withdrawn primarily because it was overly defined and thus politically limited. The Eleven Themes, issued in the second month of 1873 (Meiji 6), indicate aspects within the Three Standards that the Ministry of Doctrine was desirous of either emphasizing or clarifying. For example, theme number five, "love of nation," and themes eight, nine, and ten, the relations between "ruler and minister," "father and child," and "husband and wife," are regularly treated by Instructors as specifications or clarifications of the "Way of man" found in the second of the Three Standards. Further, there was an issue of epistemological as well as ontological concern for the ministry that the themes respond to: How can the kami, the unseen and in many ways unknowable, be firmly located as an essential constituent of the social? How, in other words, is the world of form to know the formless kami? By what way shall humans approach God? The failure to provide an irrefutable link between the world of the kami and the quotidian world would result in the internal collapse of the doctrinal system and thus the severe weakening of the ideological hegemony of the Meiji state. Three answers are offered to this question by the remaining themes: (1) define the world of form as an image or corporeal continuation of the unseen world as mediated by the figure of the Emperor; (2) emphasize the infinite, and eternal, nature of the individual's particular spirit as created by the kami; and (3) interpret the remnants of the National Ceremonies as national and local events necessary to the preservation of this world by virtue of the efficacious power of the divine Other that is latent within them. The first and last of these "answers" are well-worked formulae, both within these chapters and throughout the early Meiji period; the second, the notion of an ' 'immortal spirit of man," is somewhat unique within government documents of this period. In exploring these "answers" we can also discern something of the nature of the Themes themselves. The first of the Eleven Themes, shintoku ko'on, which was translated above as "the kami and power, the Emperor and gratitude," as well as the fourth Theme, kenyu bunkai, "worlds of the manifest and the hidden," are the Ministry of Doctrine's attempts to provide metaphysical definitions adequate to the Ministry's teleological and cosmological assumptions. "Shintoku" is a contraction of the term "Jingi reitoku," the spiritual, or magical, efficacy of the myriad deities. Tanaka Yoritsune in a work titled Shintoku ron {On Kami and Power), which served as a textbook issued by the Great Teaching Acad-

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 115 emy in Tokyo, notes that Ame no Minaka Nushi no Kami, the central creator kami of the Shinto pantheon, "uses shintoku to produce Taka Mimusubi no Kami and Kami Mimusubi no Kami," the other two kami that, with Ame no Minaka, constitute the Three Creator Kami (Sanzo shin). Further, it is "by means of shintoku that the heaven and the earth and the world itself were created."61 It is this shintoku, in other words—located in personified visions of active, knowledgeable, and compassionate kami—that underlay the generation and operation of all being. Instructors other than Tanaka then took this primary conception and used it variously to explain "food, health, and home" or to aid in "the preservation of the people from calamities, the enlightenment of culture, and the preservation of the dharma [!]"62; they attempted to show, in other words, the direct and explicable relation between the kami and the world. The second part of this thematic equation, "the Emperor and gratitude," describes a moral ought—a necessary, irrefutable, reflexive response toward the Emperor out of gratitude for not only life itself but all that it contains. The assumed unbroken continuity between the kami and the Emperor is, of course, the point these themes are ostensibly designed to prove; yet the claims to irrefutable standards of social behavior as determined by the natural reproduction of these standards by kami and emperor are clearly circular in their presentation. The relation between the worlds of form and no-form is "explained" in the fourth Theme, "worlds of the manifest and the hidden," where perhaps the greatest doctrinal contestation occurred. The "ruler" of this, the visible and manifest world, was conceived of as the Emperor; Okuni Nushi no Kami, the central kami of the Izumo Shrine, was frequently paired with the Emperor as the ruler of the unseen world. Even as Okuni Nushi no Kami oversees the governance of order/disorder, fortune/misfortune, life/death within the world itself, the Emperor governs the operation of the nation-state. Though the emphasis within the Academy was placed more upon the corporeal rule of the Emperor and the operation of doctrine in this world, the primacy obviously rendered to the ruler of the unseen proved to be the source of serious and sustained political conflicts. The Ise group, led by Tanaka, and the Izumo group, led by Senke Takatomi (1845-1918), head priest of the Izumo Shrine and director of the Western Instructional Area for the Ministry of Doctrine, carried on a struggle for the establishment of the primacy of their own interpretation of the national doctrine. (Izumo elevated Okuni Nushi, and the Ise group emphasized Amaterasu and the Emperor.) Both factions claimed the fundamental unity of the seen and the unseen; their differences arose over interpretation of the precise method by which the mediation of the two worlds took place. Simply put, was the Emperor, as the "morally perfect human" (dotoku teki ni kanzen na hito) and the most "perfect persona" (kanzen na jinkaku), in fact the crucial interpreter of the divine will? Or, rather, was he the mere reflection of the divine, a lesser presence necessary to the world but

116 • Chapter Three confined and defined entirely by his service to the kami? We can see how the earlier discussion of the Emperor's "divine occupation" (divine to be sure, but an occupation nonetheless) could support the Izumo position. In spite of the Ise clique's eventual final prominence, it proved in some way a hollow victory, as this continually seething doctrinal warfare effectively destroyed the unified organization of the Academy and thus its hegemonic potential as a leader in the Meiji era exercise of national self-definition.63 The second method of linking the divine to the human is expressed in Theme number two, jinkonfushi, "the spirit of man is immortal." The spirit, created by the kami and unseen by the "eyes of the flesh," is placed within the body to preside over corporeal praxis. It is a division of the fundamental creative power of the kami (shintoku) and as such is pure and undefiled. Possessing vital warmth, the spirit is the most readily recognizable aspect of divine labor; by extension, the individual spirit produced by and partaking of this shintoku, like the kami themselves, cannot possibly be terminated.64 The acceptance of this position immediately produces not only a vital link between the divine and the human but also a social need to recognize the large body of ancestors residing with the kami—thus the production of select Shinto ceremonial. The third attempt to link the world of the kami and the world of humans presented in the Eleven Themes is through the use of ceremony, of which the Eleven Themes cites three: Theme number eleven, Oharai—the "purification" ceremony mythically first performed by Izanagi upon his escape from the impurities of hell65 and later expanded to include the national expurgation of impurities; Theme number seven, Chikon—a ceremony specifically directed toward the "preservation of the spirits" of those passed from the visible world; and Theme number six, Shinsai—"divine rites," a generic term used to describe both national and local festivals largely created to accent the link between Imperial rule and divine presence, to, as one writer put it, "serve and revere the kami on high and to order and produce good fortune among the people below."66 We have spoken of the function of such ceremonial elsewhere. Here let us briefly note the creation of a new national practice designed to connect these three types of ceremony together into one. From 1868, numerous shrines dedicated to those who died in service to emperor and nation were constructed in many locales. In Chapter Two I spoke of the Shokonsha, memorials to the war dead, built in local areas patterned after the main shrine in Tokyo (present-day Yasukuni Shrine). Shrines were also built to honor specific "heroes" of the Imperial system; cut down in service to the empire, these spirits had been left unattended throughout the years of military rule. These shrines provided an opportunity to unite purification, memorial, and national ceremonies for the long-ignored spirits of the "unjustly" killed (another example of the "ancient evils" that characterized the pre-Meiji era) into one concentrated milieu literally under one roof. Kusunoki

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 117 Masashige, Kitabatake Akiie, Kikuchi Taketoki, and Nawa Nagatoshi were all generals under the Emperor Godaigo when he attempted in the fourteenth century to unite with force of arms the Imperial charisma with political rule. Godaigo's armies, after being forced from the capital, fled to Yoshino and established the short-lived Southern Court in the 1330s. Godaigo's generals were all either killed in action or died while in exile; they were all also enshrined in the early Meiji period by the restoration government and the Ministry of Rites/Ministry of Doctrine. Similarly treated were the Imperial princes, Munenaga and Kanenaga, sons of Godaigo, who were also exiled from the capital. Shrines for these medieval Imperial supporters were located throughout the country—Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Kumamoto—and those enshrined were selected because of their ability to represent best the ideals of the new government: possession of a radical sense of duty and loyalty for a powerful ruling emperor. Those who died in shame and defeat as yet another group of failed revolutionaries were, in other words, resurrected in the Meiji era as martyred heroes of the Imperial cause. The label of heretic enforced upon the Imperial troops during the intervening centuries of military rule was erased and refigured into its dynamic opposite. This heroic opposition, moreover, enscribed by the Imperial charisma, contributed to the discourse on nationbuilding. The majority of those receiving national funerals and exclusive holy day festivals, and who were not themselves members of the Imperial family, were personages surrounding Emperor Godaigo in his "noble attempt to restore imperial rule." There were also cases, however, where later figures such as Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi were officially elevated to the status of divine protectors of the nation; the Meiji government even saw to the enshrinement of one of their own, Sanjo Sanetomi. The greatest concentration of historical reconstructionism directed toward the creation ("restoration") of a public display of Imperial divinity, however, is to be found in the careful research into the identification and construction of Imperial tombs. Shrines and memorials built in the early Meiji years focused on the emperors who died in exile, such as Sutoku (r. 1123-1141) in Sanuki, or during military conflicts, such as Antoku (r. 1180-1183) at the battle of Dannoura, or whose legends were of primary significance to the ruling powers, such as the mythical first Emperor Jimmu. Efforts, led by the Bureau of Tombs within the Ministry of Rites, then extended to the entire Imperial line. Enshrinement practices were designed to maximize "Shinto" visibility and eliminate all "Buddhist" presence. The association of shrines with imperial tombs was made legally binding, and ceremonies performed there were constructed in manners prescribed by the Ministry of Rites and later by the Ministry of Doctrine.67 This use of ceremonial served not only to link this world with the world of the kami, it also proved effective in elevating the imperial position, within local areas in particular, to unprecedented levels. Through the creative use of past events

118 • Chapter Three revolving around the unbroken but often abused imperial line, the construction of a national history was given public form. Moreover, as this public form was largely dependent upon shrines dedicated to the pacification of maligned Imperial spirits, it can also be seen as an attempt to produce a purified and thus deeply emotive national history.68 The Eleven Themes served to coordinate specific social and political concerns into a metaphysics palpable and presentable to the masses. They were largely repetitions of contemporarily prominent strategies, encapsulated and then directed toward the state's doctrinal goals. The Seventeen Themes, however, constituted a more dispersed, dangerous, and finally self-defeating strategic field. As the Ministry of Doctrine attempted to expand the range of its doctrinal hegemony by including increasingly complex issues, it also introduced conceptual lacunae into the doctrinal system that allowed for radically differing interpretations. Rather than totally incorporate the "other" as it had hoped, the Ministry of Doctrine finally succeeded in producing, in fact, loci of action for that "other." Within the Seventeen Themes there is no mention of national or local Shinto ceremonial; there is no discussion of the "unseen,'' and the word "kami" appears not once. Rather, these doctrinal topics for popular lectures deal exclusively with law, economics, production, political organization, and international relations. It should be stressed that the Seventeen Themes do not replace the Eleven but were merged with them to form Twenty-Eight Themes of doctrinal concern. The contemporary and ongoing ideological shift away from an emphasis on rites and rule to the doctrinal construction of that rule is, moreover, clearly reflected in the inclusion of these last Seventeen Themes into the Instructor's lexicon. Several of these Themes, like the earlier collection, indeed do incorporate a conception of the unseen powers of the kami, but with a slightly different emphasis from what we have seen so far. For example, number thirteen, sambutsu seibutsu, "[agricultural] production and manufacturing," adds yet another link between the world of the kami and the world of humans: production. An individual's occupation is no longer interpreted merely in terms conducive to "good fortune" or some sense of "national well-being." It is specified to include labor necessary to the manufacturing of goods {seibutsu) brought about by the increased consumption of a growing nation. Manufacturing is defined as a social operation congruent to the divine within the natural world as exemplified in its "natural production" (sambutsu) of the fruits of the world. Material production is thus seen as partaking in divine labor in a manner particular to its own needs and not as a mere image or reflection of divine production. Or again, Theme number sixteen, ekishin ekikei, "employing the heart, employing the form," suggests that, following Mencius, to guide the majority, form, or rather force (chikara) is a necessity; only those of superior sensitivity are capable of responding to or comprehending the formless heart. The explicit intent of these themes is, rather than to stress the continual oper-

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 119 ation of the absolute and the divine within the finite and the corporeal, to suggest that even though strategies best suited to control the expansion of the finite and corporeal may draw directly upon powers of the divine for guidance, it is by virtue of these strategies' relation to the Meiji oligarchy that their efficacy is guaranteed. There is, in other words, a recognition of the "unchangeability of the Way" (michi wa kawaru bekarazu; Theme number two), but there is equally a careful articulation of the "necessity of organizations coinciding with the age'' (sei wa toki ni shitagau beshi; Theme number three). The divine is put to work; the unseen is recognized as a commodity. The nation is being constructed not merely as a creation and a reflection of the divine but also as a nation among nations. The task is thus to produce a state doctrine in harmony with the times and capable of the control of historical, political, and economic strategies. Ostensibly this was not a "creation" but a "renewal." The "renewal of Imperial rule" (kosei isshin; Theme number four) recalls the generations of abuse the Imperial house endured prior to its "restoration." One Doctrinal Instructor interpolates isshin not just as "renewal" but also as the simultaneous erasure of evils that had accumulated like so much dust upon the Imperial mirror. There were, in fact, six layers of such impurities in Imperial history: (1) the lawless violation of the Ritsuryo Code by those who refused to recognize Imperial authority; (2) the Fujiwara usurpation of Imperial power carried out in the name of the Emperor; (3) the Taira usurpation; (4) the Minamoto usurpation, during which was established the military rule perpetuated by (5) the Hojo and (6) the Tokugawa. Domestic Imperial history is presented as a long devolution of Imperial power, barring such luminous moments as obtained by the Emperor Godaigo, such that during the Tokugawa era "it even reached the point where enthronement ceremonies could not be carried out'' due to the financial insolvency of the Imperial house. The present "renewal," however, was seen as erasing these centuries of abuse (chronologically equivalent to the Buddhist presence in Japan) and reconstituting history through the resuscitation of the Imperial charisma.69 The Themes "Imperial nation, national polity," "international relations," "national and civil law," "the development of law," and "different forms of governance'' are each used not only ' 'to educate the masses'' regarding social, political, and legal forms but, more important, to stress the internationally unique character of the Japanese versions of these systems. For example, the possible forms of governance are generally identified by Doctrinal Instructors as consisting of either civil or republican rule on the one hand, and various forms of monarchical rule on the other. The former relies upon laws, constitutions, and other types of public contracts to guarantee the continued operation of rule and the contentment of the people; the latter, in most cases, depends upon unchallenged authority either despotic or authoritarian in nature. The laws of Japan are not imposed by a despot, the Instructors claim; rather, they arise out of the natural combined labors of kami and humans; there is no

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need to form public contracts, as the "one hundred twenty-three generations and 2,533 years of unbroken Imperial rule" symbolizes—in fact is—the epitome of munificence and civilized rule.70 "The various countries of the West have indeed charged ahead of other nations in the pursuit of civilization [bummei kaika]. And even though they have finally managed to unite above and below through the reliance upon constitutional forms of government and political order, it is here, in our Imperial nation, that the true source of civilization is to be found."71 "Japan" is then portrayed as the only true monarchy, as it alone possesses the cooperative and benevolent rule (ddji nojinsei) of a cooperative monarchy (kunshu ddji).12 Although the promise of deliberative assemblies was made in the Charter Oath, at the time of these commentaries on the doctrinal themes political "unity of the above and below" did not exist; these writers, though invoking the Charter Oath and the eventual use of such assemblies, thus concentrated more on the mythical unity of a national spirit. "The term 'nation' refers not to the nation made up of clans, or the geographical nation, or even the nation among many other nations. We speak only of the Imperial Nation: the only true nation on earth."73 The "cooperative" nature of the monarchy in Japan is further manifest, the Doctrinal Instructors claim, in the shared "rights and responsibilities" (Theme number seventeen) of all within ' 'the one nation that is like one family which is of one body." 74 The Emperor has the right to request and receive "taxes and conscripted labor" (Theme number eleven), and he also has the responsibility to maintain the nation as both "wealthy and powerful" (Theme number twelve). The people have the rights to enjoy the telegram, steam engine, mail service, fire and police departments, schools, and other aspects of "cultural enlightenment" (Theme number fourteen) produced by the cooperative efforts of the Imperial will and national taxes; they also have the duty to pay those taxes, to fill the ranks of the army, and to manufacture the goods for trade that will continue to maintain the nation's wealth and strength. The truly enlightened civilization, the Instructors caution, is not "mere luxury and idle pleasure," nor a mindless mimicking of Western fashion, but rather is "the people acting in complete accordance with the Imperial will. Civilization is the essence of the Imperial doctrine; enlightenment is the expansion of the customs of the people." 75 "Bummei"—literally, the clarity or brilliance of forms, of language, translated above and elsewhere as ' 'civilization''—is given form in the objects of modernity: steam engines, fire and police patrols, district schools. These brilliant forms are none other than the Imperial will manifest, and here they stand in direct opposition to the hidden, shadowy rule of the invisible kami. "Kaika"—literally, to change to the open, and translated as "enlightenment"—is presented as the education of the "foolish masses," as the expansion of these brilliant forms throughout every village and hamlet in the divine

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 121 nation as well as throughout every nation on earth. This last step is possible only with the termination of the so-called closed door policy enforced throughout much of the Tokugawa period and with Japan's careful and rigorous entrance into the international arena. To fail to engage in international exchange is likened to "sitting in a dark room with the door closed," ignorant of the beautiful and superlative outside one's own ken. Moreover, the Instructors claim, it is only Japan that possesses the national power (kokuryoku) to unite Asia and thereby promote the expansion of a true cultural enlightenment.76 (This last issue will be taken up again in Chapters Four and Five.) Finally, in a classical self-perpetuating and self-referential gesture, the Themes are used to assert that it is ' 'necessary that one study'' (Theme number six) and that there must "necessarily be a doctrine for study" (Theme number seven). This doctrine is none other than the Three Standards and the TwentyEight Themes. It is kyo, doctrine or teaching, that produces the brilliance and illumination of the Imperial will, and it is gaku, or study, that allows these forms to be used, appreciated, and promulgated. To study is to control and to implement the forms of the world; to teach is to direct the manipulation of these forms into political, legal, and economic channels conducive to the production of a wealthy and powerful nation among nations: an Imperial nation. The above is a telling of the formation of a system of education directed toward the creation of a nation. In order to "unify the people" and produce the image of the transcendent collective unity of the nation-state, attempts were made to link the world of the kami directly to the world of humans. This linkage was described by means of ceremony, comparisons of divine and human marriage, labor, hierarchy and organization, the mediation of the Imperial line, and the production of a national history itself directly derived from a "divine antiquity." This linkage produced not only a specific and unalterable definition of the social order, it also attempted to include a certain cosmopolitan vision of this definition appropriate to and applicable on an international level. The national doctrine was an attempted co-optation of all teachings; the state's de facto priesthood, the Doctrinal Instructors, had exclusive rights to the interpretation of the above, ostensibly all-inclusive Themes. Uncontested, this program would have eliminated institutional Buddhism and most Shinto sects and necessitated the continual ban of Christianity. For the major source of opposition to this program I will, as in the case of opposition to the physical persecution of Buddhism, begin with Shin Buddhism. From a discussion of the extent of the Ministry of Doctrine's control and its gradual weakening, as promoted by the work of Shimaji Mokurai and the Shin sect's withdrawal from the Ministry of Doctrine organization, we will trace the creation of the Buddhist academies and the concomitant demise of the Ministry of Doctrine. The discussion will also touch upon the nascent efforts directed toward the production of a Buddhist history. For it is at this level, in the rival historicist claims

122 • Chapter Three for social legitimacy, that the battles over ideological legitimacy and government control were fought. It is here, in other words, that the status of martyrdom is confirmed or denied and a heresy is either upheld or revoked. SEIKYO BUNRI: SEPARATION OF RULE AND RELIGION

In contrast to the strict regulation, and in many areas the gradual decimation, of institutional Buddhism in the first years of Meiji, the establishment of the Ministry of Doctrine seemed to provide a thin strand of hope to the besieged Buddhists. This exercise in the construction of a national doctrine was soon to be proved, however, more co-optive than cooperative. Buddhists were to participate not as Buddhists but as Doctrinal Instructors; clothes, language, ceremony, and lecture topics were all determined in patterns incongruent with contemporary institutional Buddhist practices. We have already spoken about the required lecture themes; none of the Twenty-Eight Themes was explicitly Buddhist in content, although, as we will see shortly, many creative, or desperate, Buddhistic renditions were indeed produced. The Great Teaching Academy (Daikyo-iri), the administrative and symbolic center of the national doctrine system, was placed in the Zojo-ji, a Pure Land Buddhist temple in Tokyo. This temple, moreover, was the ancestral temple of the Tokugawa family. The choice to place the Ministry of Doctrine's instructional headquarters within the spiritual center of the previous regime's ruling family was a true ideological coup de grace; in one stroke the Tokugawa bakufu was defaced and the Buddhism it had elevated to the status of national religion was cast aside—yet another example of the "sweeping away of all ancient evils." The home of the Great Teaching Academy was physically altered in 1873 to coincide with its self-proclaimed central task of "the reverence of the kami." 77 All Buddhist paraphernalia were removed and the altar reconstructed. The Three Creator kami and the "Imperial ancestor Amaterasu Omikami" were enshrined in the central altar. Torii and shimenawa were appropriately placed within the Academy's grounds. All Doctrinal Instructors were required to wear Shinto robes, learn and recite Shinto prayer, and perform Shinto ritual before the new center of the national cosmology.78 No provisions were made for continued Buddhist teachings; such teachings, along with all other teachings, were legally dissolved with the implementation of the Doctrinal Instruction system. That is to say, as surprising as it may seem, Buddhism, along with all nonofficial doctrinal instruction, was thereby legally banned. This was not an explicit act, as there was no promulgation specifically and publicly forbidding the teaching of "Buddhism" per se. But during the peak years of the Teaching Academy's operation, no nonstate public instruction was to be permitted. (Punishment for violation of these regulations, excepting the initial period of their implementation, seems, however, to have been almost nonexistent.)

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 123 Even prior to the establishment of the Instruction system, the testing of priests by local authorities was implemented. These early tests were both haphazardly applied and freely interpreted. One frequently used version had twelve questions that were designed explicitly to expose either the doctrinal weaknesses or the anti-Imperialist nature of Buddhism: "What value does Buddhism have for the nation?" "Is there or is there not a Mt. Sumeru?" "Which is primary, the kami or the Buddha?" To answer any of these questions in a manner satisfactory to the local examiners would require either an extremely clever priest or one content to perjure much of contemporary Buddhist teachings. To answer unsatisfactorily, however, resulted in immediate defrocking of the priest and the closing of the temple.79 By 1874 the Ministry of Doctrine had created a battery of four tests, each consisting of two levels, required of everyone who would lecture publicly on doctrinal issues. The first test dealt solely with the Three Standards; the second test was a written exam on the Twenty-Eight Themes; the third test was an oral exam, or rather a lecture, given by the student on the Themes; and the final test was a battery of questions dealing with the various Imperial and governmental proclamations on doctrinal issues. These tests were arranged in a hierarchy of difficulty, with passage of each one recognized by a raise in the Instructor's rank.80 The precise content of the exams, like the Three Standards and the Twenty-Eight Themes upon which they were based, was simultaneously vague and intractable; the diversity of possible interpretations was in fact limited by (shifting) notions of acceptable interpretations. Buddhists who did pass the exams, and were thus granted the right to lecture on the Themes, were the frequent targets of cautionary remarks regarding their lecture styles and contents. For example, a nine-point promulgation distributed to all Teaching Academies in 1872 by the Ministry of Doctrine specifically warns priests to limit their comments to the Three Standards and to refrain from "individual or Buddhistic" interpretations. "To lecture with hidden meanings serves only to delude the general populace further." Priests were also forbidden to lecture on the kami in any manner suggestive of their being derivative of Buddhist teachings. One obviously Shinto Instructor, while lecturing on the Seventeen Themes, used the seventh Theme on the "necessity of the doctrine" to stress a similar point. "Those wearing priestly robes and deriding the Three Creator kami or the dwelling place of Amaterasu are but examples of an uncontrolled person with an unenlightened heart. Seeking neither to hear the Great Teaching nor to learn its true essence, they have failed to apprehend the true purpose of the position of Doctrinal Instructor."81 Two examples, out of many possible, will serve to illustrate both the manner in which Buddhist Doctrinal Instructors could bend the Themes to their own use as well as the final futility of the Ministry of Doctrine's cautions to terminate such activity. In discussing the Theme "the worlds of the visible and the hidden," one Buddhist commentator suggests that the best example of

124 • Chapter Three the chronological and spatial unity of these two worlds can be found within the Buddhist hierarchy of the rokudo, the "six paths" of existence. The upper and lower levels are all present within every moment of the world of form; the organization of this world is most perfectly actualized in the correct operation of the "way of man,'' which leads to existence in the more rarefied, and more profound, levels of divine existence. On the basis of this unity, the affirmation of the proximity of the physically deceased, the possibility of damnation, and the eternal nature of the spirit can all be explained.82 Syncretic statements such as these, which are by no means infrequent, not only continue the production of hybrid definitions of "Buddhist" and "Shinto" doctrine but also illustrate the unending problem of "separation" between these purportedly now-"distinct" (by 1874) entities. Another Buddhist commentator, speaking on the Theme of the "necessity of the teaching," produced a very different reading than did his Shinto counterpart quoted above. There are, he asserts, in fact two teachings: the public or governmental doctrine (chikyo) and the private or sectarian doctrine (shukyo). The former deals with the external operation of the social order and is articulated by the Three Standards; the latter deals with that which occurs before one's birth and after one's death and is called the ' 'eternal and true.'' This latter teaching is also something that the public doctrine of the state cannot claim to control. "Revering the kami" he calls a social and not a religious practice.83 Of these two Buddhistic readings of the state doctrine, the latter, suggesting the separation of public and private conceptions of doctrine, is clearly a critique of profound consequences. We will take up this issue again momentarily. In addition to the regulation of shrine and temple properties, priestly ordination, doctrinal content, and certification examinations, the Ministry of Doctrine also exercised control over the formation of study groups or private religious organizations. From the 1873 edict governing the Purpose of Instructional Groups (Kyokai tai-i), every private organization in the country was charged to uphold the Three Standards, promote the correct relations between people, seek to eliminate sickness and suffering, condemn heretical teachings, and present no conflicts with members' fulfilling their occupational duties.84 Freedom of religious expression {shinkyo no jiyu) was permissible within these rather substantial boundaries. (Echoing Henry Ford's famous dictum on the color of one's Model' 'T'' we could say that belief in anything was possible as long as it was what the state believed.) The Ministry of Doctrine was making certain, that is, that both Instructors and the general populace were fully aware of their "rights and responsibilities." Or to quote one Instructor's precise comment upon this doctrinal theme: "freedom separated from responsibility is not a true right."83 With the invocation of terms such as "freedom" (jiyu) and "rights" (kenri) we enter into yet another contestable field strewn with often vaguely defined but dearly treasured arguments. The Ministry of Doctrine attempted to define

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 125 the "rights and responsibilities" of each person within the Imperial nation as contingent upon a direct, inviolable relation between the national polity and the individual as identified vis-a-vis one's "occupation." The gradual doctrinal shift from a concern with ceremony to the formalistic construction of strategic definitions of the social relied upon an assumed unity of the "visible and hidden worlds" and served finally to accent their underlying difference. The more the Ministry of Doctrine stressed the primacy of the Imperially mediated link between the kami and the state, ironically the greater was the perceived difference. It is precisely at this point, the keystone problem of the linkage between the worlds of the divine and the human, that the Shin Buddhist ideologue Shimaji Mokurai focuses his attack on the state's doctrinal hegemony. Shimaji, as mentioned earlier, was instrumental in forming what he believed (somewhat naively as it turned out) was to serve as a transsectarian platform supportive of genuine, and "modern," religious plurality. The Ministry of Doctrine, as we have seen, was ultimately directed toward very different purposes. The most widely publicized challenge to the Ministry of Doctrine from any source was Shimaji's "Critique of the Three Doctrinal Standards" (Sanjo kyosoku hihan kempaku sho), written in 1872 while Shimaji was in Paris. Basing his critique upon the fundamental difference between governance (sei) and religion (kyo), Shimaji's work sparked what came to be called the movement for the Separation of Religion and Rule (seikyo bunri undo).i6 The term "kyo" noticeably shifts its range of signification many times during the Meiji period. In the context of issues related to the Ministry of Doctrine above, this ideograph was translated with the word "doctrine." Here, however, the same term, used even in the same compound (seikyo), will be rendered "religion." This is done for two reasons: (1) Shimaji and others often use this word specifically within the context of the contemporary Euro-American discourse on the status of religion vis-a-vis the state; and (2) what Shimaji and others asserted as the content of this ' 'vacuous concept'' differs markedly from the socio-political teachings of the Ministry of Doctrine. The differences are consciously made and purposefully exploited. A brief examination of certain aspects of Shimaji's work will serve to accent this choice. Shimaji, along with other prominent Shin Buddhists such as Nanjo Bun'yu (1849-1927), Ozu Tetsunen (1834-1927), and Akamatsu Renjo (1841-1919), began his political and priestly career in Choshu. Serving in the Shin sect brigade, the Shimmutai, organized under Takasugi Shinsaku (1839-1867), Shimaji led troops in the anti-bakufu battles prior to the restoration. In the immediate postrestoration period Shimaji, joined by Akamatsu and later Ozu, began a total reorganization of the Shin sect's administrative hierarchy. After beginning in their own area of Yamaguchi, they eventually were able to launch a sectarian restoration (shumon isshin) in the Kyoto main temple as well. This so-called Yamaguchi Buddhism clique staged a priestly coup and in effect took over the administration of the 10,000 temples and over one million koku an-

126 • Chapter Three nual income of the Nishihongan-ji complex. Their exposure of rampant graft, careless management, and general disarray within this temple's vast organization aroused significant opposition, including several assassination plots. Although the full scope of their "main temple reorganization movement" (honzan kaikaku undo) was finally not obtained, the support received from sources external to the sect, namely from Kido Takeyoshi, Ito Hirobumi, and Yamagata Aritomo, proved significant in later temple policies. One immediate result of this support was the first priestly study tours to Europe. Shimaji and four other Nishihongan-ji priests sailed for Europe in the first month of 1872; in the autumn of the same year the Higashihongan-ji also sent its own contingent of "monks to the West" (yogyoso).81 The priests' goals were manifold. Generally they sought a more precise knowledge of European social customs, political policy, and local history that would allow for more accurate understandings of the contours of the problem of "culture" in which they were engrossed; what, they would ask, is the essential character of' 'cultural enlightenment'' that is transcendent of mere geographically distinct customs? More precisely, they sought a knowledge of the relation between religious organizations and political systems. They examined the Catholic Church in Italy, France, and Germany, as well as the Church of England and the seemingly endless varieties of churches in the United States. These priests were not merely interested in obtaining a cosmopolitan knowledge of the problem of sectarian and political relations. They also sought immediately usable tools for the critique of Christianity in Japan, new methods for sectarian (Buddhist) interaction with the social, and familiarity with contemporary historico-critical and philosophical treatments of "religion." This latter point was to prove by far the most radical in its consequences. When, for instance, the Higashihongan-ji priests Otani Koei and Ishikawa Shundai discovered a Buddhist sutra written in Sanskrit and displayed in a French library they were, we could say, "reminded" of a "Buddhism" very different from their own—a Buddhism that they, literally, could not understand. Ishikawa returned to study this text many times but soon realized the extent of the effort required for linguistic skills adequate to the reading, finally, of the history of his own belief. Upon their return to Japan, Otani and Ishikawa were engaged in the selection of two bright young monks, Kasahara Kenju (18521883) and Nanjo Bun'yu, who would travel to Europe explicitly for the study of Buddhology. I will speak more of their efforts in Chapter Five.88 For the purposes of our discussion here I will focus on the most prolific writer among the first priests to Europe, Shimaji, as he grapples with the organization of the Ministry of Doctrine. Mori Arinori in his (in)famous proposed charter on "religious freedom" of 1872, written in English while Mori was in the United States, wrote of the Ministry of Doctrine as follows: The department specially established for the administration of our religious affairs has indicated to the public as yet no mark of its success in gaining the confidence of

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 127 the people. Far from it. Its policy of combining the two antagonistic faiths of Buddhism and Shintooism [sic] . . . has utterly failed to command our respect. Its attempt to impose upon our people a religion of its creation cannot receive too severe condemnation, because such an attempt not only disregards our sacred liberty of conscience, but its effect is to crush the very soul of man.89 Though Shimaji would agree with Mori's assessment of the failure of the Ministry he helped design, as well as with Mori's demand for the freedom to practice one's religion unhindered, Shimaji would not agree with Mori's eventual extension of that right to include Christianity within Japan. As we shall see, the word "religion" may indeed be used as a translation of the Japanese term "kyo," but like "kyo" its precise content undergoes numerous changes relevant to the strategies of its enunciation. As suggested earlier, the "West" was frequently used as a tabula rasa upon which could be written a wide range of strategic intentions. The use of events in Western history, or citations of derisive observations of aspects of Japan (of which there was certainly no shortage), could all be marshaled in a cosmopolitan argument that putatively spoke from an international, and thus "true," perspective. Shimaji was a master of this discursive method. Writing his Critique of the Three Standards from a Paris hotel room, Shimaji cried "tears of blood" as he contemplated the state's use of religion in Japan; "even a child in Europe would laugh in disdain and would look down upon us as rough and uncivilized. . . . I am ashamed for my nation . . . and I can no longer remain silent." He goes on to quote an editorial from an unnamed European newspaper: "The opening of Japan is really an endless source of surprise and wonderment; this is due largely to the Japanese government's recent rapid construction of numerous and different things. For example, they have, in a very short period of time, constructed a new religion with which they seek to strengthen the people; altercations due to this, however, appear to be violent and extreme."90 "Can we," Shimaji laments, "continually bear the brunt of such derisive European humor?" Drawing upon "the Greek sage Socrates and the famous man of science Aristotle" for support, Shimaji goes on to assert the theological and epistemological superiority of monotheistic concepts over the "blind foolishness" of worship of the "10,000 gods of the mountains, rivers, and fields." Such practices may indeed be found "among the barbarians of Africa, South America, the Pacific Islands, and Siberia" but are inappropriate for an enlightened (and enlightening) civilization such as Japan. What is appropriate can, he suggests, be found very close to home. Shimaji, after a lengthy discussion of ancient Indian mythology and social relations, asserts that Buddhism, from its inception, has been concerned exclusively with unified and rational articulations of mind, principle, and spiritual training. These, clearly, are desirable attributes in an enlightened society. Shimaji alludes to Moses, Mohammed, Job, and even the Mormons as

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examples of how religion can result only from direct contact with the absolute other. It is not, and never has been, a manufacturable commodity. After describing the "overwhelming grandeur" of two recently erected Jewish temples in the Prussian capital of Berlin, Shimaji comments that in spite of the generations of suffering at the hands of their fellow Europeans, the collective memory of the years of isolation in the desert (and the gratitude for the love and guidance received from Moses) has served to maintain the Jewish faith powerful and intact.91 Shimaji also provides a brief history of the Jesuit sect and its refusal to disband, even upon the insistence of the Pope. This last example serves, however, not as a case of religious fortitude but as proof of the politically ostentatious and socially retrograde character of the Catholic society so well known in Japan. Modern science, in the persons of Charles Darwin and Auguste Comte, are also exhibited by Shimaji as the source of great dangers; rather than political revolt, ' 'inevitable'' under Jesuit influence, it is the heretical notions of atheism (mushin setsu) that Shimaji fears from these quarters.92 In order to evaluate the Three Standards of Doctrinal Instruction, Shimaji first constructs a conceptual field drawn from ' 'historical fact'' and personal observations from his travels in the "West." Contemporary Japan is then situated within that field. The problem of the Ministry of Doctrine is thus conceived in terms of a definition of religion most appropriate to the rapid cultural advancement of Japan as judged by international, and thus objective, standards. Religion, being the relation of the human to the divine, knows no political boundaries and is thus "prevalent throughout the world." Government, however, "serves only to regulate the form and is limited by the boundaries of nations." Nations must rely upon the standards of rational law for their domestic organization; international relations must rely upon the common laws of treaties and trade. These regulations of external "form" (yilkei) will always fail to penetrate to the "formless" (mukei). And in true Spencerian fashion, it is this formlessness that Shimaji identifies as the practice of religion. Form and formlessness can be complementary, but the former cannot be used to control or define the latter. Love of one's country, and in Japan's case respect for the Emperor, as well as obedience to all laws, Shimaji sees as necessary adjuncts to residence within any nation. But to compound these positions with "reverence of the kami" and with following "the way of heaven" is hopelessly to confuse the roles of religion and rule. "With religion man is made excellent; with politics he is made assiduous." A prime example of this is the enlightenment in Europe that, Shimaji notes, "was based upon knowledge, not upon religion."93 This knowledge is both useful and important for Europe as well as for Japan; but its origin never has been, and never can be, an exclusively nationalized form of religious doctrine. The Three Standards Shimaji sees as a profoundly hopeless mixture of religion and government. Moreover, the teachings encoded within the Three

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• 129

Standards and the Twenty-Eight Themes should be distinguished from true hierophantic religious teachings—the former being created by "human hands" and the latter arising from direct contact with the absolute. If there are Shintoists who desire to construct their own "religion," says Shimaji in true liberalist fashion, that is their own affair. They should not be permitted, however, to persist in the assumption that such a teaching is beneficial for the nation and truly conducive to the production of an enlightened civilization. I simply seek that the distinction between doctrines of rule [chikyo] and religion [shukyo] be made clear. I ask that the incorporation of useful laws derived from foreign nations, the study of beneficial sciences, and the use of electricity and steampowered vehicles and the like, not be interpreted as the fulfillment of mysterious and divine orders, as the brilliance and munificence of a divine rule, or as the glorious manifestation of a religion of the hidden. These abilities are all none other than the result of efforts made to expand and lengthen the great road of civilization (bunmei nodaido).94

Between his first attack on the Ministry with the Critique of the Three Standards in 1872 and the withdrawal of the official Shin sect from the Ministry of Doctrine in 1875, Shimaji wrote thirteen appeals to the central government and over thirty widely circulated essays all dealing with various aspects of the problem of separation.95 What began the Meiji era's discourse on religion was a discussion of the "separation of Shinto and Buddhism." The state's doctrinal system in effect abrogated that very policy by attempting to combine the two doctrines in the production of an artificial third doctrine. Shimaji appropriates the same terms used by the anti-Buddhist ideologues of the early Meiji period to launch his attack on the state's program; he moreover not only expands the range of the "separation" to include the difference between specific sects (whether created by "human hands" or not) but also attempts to bring about a complete and comprehensive separation between religious, formless, and private concerns on the one hand and political, formal, and public concerns on the other. Shimaji, in other words, was willing to discuss the Themes raised by the Ministry of Doctrine, but he was not willing to limit his interpretations to coincide with the Three Standards. Problems of law, taxation, rights, and responsibilities, or cultural enlightenment, necessarily include elements other than those of specific concern to any particular political order. Religion, while engaging in this discourse, cannot be created or destroyed within such formal istic confines. It necessarily partakes of the Other. The Meiji government's attempt to define the Other failed to recognize the sheer radicality of the Other—be it called "Buddhism," "religion," or "culture"—and was finally unable to accommodate characteristics of true difference produced by their own system of definition. Shimaji's was clearly not the only voice raised in opposition to the state's doctrinal project. We have already mentioned the

130 • Chapter Three Kyoto municipal government's concern, the "charter" proposed by Mori Arinori, and the creative, passive resistance offered by certain Buddhist Doctrinal Instructors. There were obviously others—Christian, Buddhist, asectarian, and (even) Shinto alike—who refused to participate within the Teaching Academies or who produced important critiques thereof. But it was the Shin organization that spearheaded the legalistic and institutional critique of the Great Teaching Academy and drafted several appeals for its closing; and in the first month of 1875 it was the Shin sect that officially withdrew both its substantial support of and membership in the government's Academy of Doctrine. Four months later the Great Teaching Academy was closed. CONCLUSION

For a brief, potent moment (roughly 1868-1872) the reins of control over education, worship, social organization in general, and many aspects of the political realm were held by, alternately, the members of the Office/Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Doctrine. Led by members of the Hirata School of Nativism, the Ministry of Rites had attempted to usher in a new age based upon the resuscitation of a pure ancient past, This historical creationism was to be made manifest by a deceptively simple national praxis: the Unity of Rites and Rule. The Emperor, freed from the medieval shackles of military bureaucratism, the argument went, and the people, liberated from delusory (Buddhist) notions of the kami and the natural world, would be (re)joined by means of a nationalized ceremonial. The unity of the Emperor and the people was concomitantly viewed as a unity of the ancient and the contemporary, the hidden and the visible, the divine and the mundane. Clearly this "restoration" of an ancient past drew as much upon the contemporary political milieu as on an equally contemporary interpretation of that refigured past. That is, the "restoring" of the ancient sentiment "essential" to any notion of "Japan" was not a facile reproduction of what once was, but an attempt to spiritualize the social in an entirely new fashion. The strategy employed to articulate this attempted spiritualization drew upon a proposed hermeneutic of the archaic national heritage, a national educational apparatus, and a legislated policy of centralized religious exclusivity. The culmination of the Hirata School's powers produced a combination of a heavily politicized Shinto nationalism and a vigorous anti-Buddhism. It was, however, precisely the success of these two aspects of the Hirata program— spiritualization of the role of the Emperor in political rule and organized attacks upon Buddhism—that led to the institutional fall of Nativism. Nativism proved itself to be too religious to rule, and Buddhism proved to be too integrated into the social and economic fabric of the nation to be discarded. By 1872 (Meiji 4) Meiji political ideologues had reduced the political power of the Nativist clique. Rather than create a volatile and unwieldy system of a

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 131 spiritualized governance under direct Imperial rule, key members of the Ministry of State hoped to use the Emperor as a legitimating symbol linking the new order to the archaic origins of the Japanese state. The ideological code terms of Imperialism and Nationalism already injected into common parlance by Nativists and others could be used without reliance upon the "unrational" and devolutionary (i.e., ' 'religious") strategy of the Unity of Rites and Rule. The attempt to rule the national polity with a comprehensive, rational, and popular doctrine—the Unity of Rule and Doctrine—was sustained for a brief yet crucial period (roughly 1872-1875). Doctrinal Instructors, armed with the Three Standards and the Twenty-Eight Themes, crisscrossed the country from one Teaching Academy to another attempting to instill in the populace a sense of reverence and devotion toward the Emperor and the state. These carefully nurtured sentiments were, moreover, to be translated into the fulfillment of a public "occupation" (i.e., a divinization of public labor). Inasmuch as individual performance, national prosperity, and divine harmony were all meshed into a single mechanism, the Unity of Doctrine and Rule appeared to be the perfect ideological apparatus: comprehensive, self-perpetuating, and based on the unassailable position of the Emperor. The failure to eradicate Buddhism guaranteed the failure of the state's attempt to establish a universally accepted doctrinal apparatus. Though initially agreeing to the co-optation through their participation in the Teaching Academies, Buddhists were quick to realize the limits of the state system and the extent of their own institutional power. Buddhism's withdrawal from the Teaching Academies, led by the Shin sects, thus contributed to both the downfall of this central state ideological apparatus and the emergence of a new discourse on the freedom of religion: the separation of religion and rule. The "Separation of Religion and Rule" served as a rhetorical device used by Buddhists to accent their claims of autonomy and by political and social critics who attempted to produce a "modern nation" where "freedom of religion" served as an indication of the "realm of civilization." The shift from the "Unity of Rule and Doctrine" to the "Separation of Rule and Religion" partook, in other words, in a certain conceptual sleight of hand. The redefinition of "kyo" from a national doctrine (kokkyo) to a sectarian doctrine (shukyo), as forced by activists such as Shimaji, successfully altered the rules of the game. National goals set forth in the Doctrinal Themes such as "cultural enlightenment," "wealthy nation, strong army," and "international relations" remained goals for religious and political ideologues alike. Yet these constantly shifting targets of social evolution were approached with a recognition of a necessary ideological plurality. The recognition of difference, of course, does not necessarily imply its acceptance. The Meiji Constitution, promulgated in 1889, contains what is commonly heralded as the Freedom of Religion Clause. Chapter Two, Article TwentyEight, reads in its entirety as follows: "Japanese subjects shall, within limits

132 • Chapter Three

not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief."96 "Freedom of religious belief" is a translation of "shinkyo no jiyu," a term popularized by Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901) in his 1866 Seiyo jijo (Conditions in the West). "Shinkyo" can be interpreted as, literally, the "teachings of the faith," or, as the term "shukyo" was often read, as a pejorative label for an inadequate, or subversive, form of knowledge or education. This latter interpretation is present in the ascribing of constitutional "limits" to this "freedom" (jiyu).91 The conflict between religious freedom and the state was perhaps most rigorously, and violently, held before the public by Inoue Tetsujiro's (1855-1944) sustained attack upon Uchimura Kanzo in the early 1890s. Uchimura, a teacher at a national high school and a Christian, failed to bow in a correct manner before a photograph of the Meiji Emperor in a school ceremony. This incident, which was attributed to his Christian refusal to recognize the divinity of the Emperor, Inoue exploits in his 1893 The Collision of Education and Religion (Shukyo to kyoiku no shototsu), a work serialized in over thirty different magazines and journals. Religion in this work is portrayed as the dark, uncontrolled, and irrational fears of an ignorant people; it is a philosophy of the quotidian providing guidance to the weak-minded; it is the symbol of disunity and chaos. And Christianity, Inoue claims, by choosing the Kingdom of God over the Imperial Nation, is the most dangerous of all. Inoue asserts, in other words, that religion by its very nature is "prejudicial to peace and order," and those who practice it will necessarily be "antagonistic to their duties as subjects." "Religion" as thus denned would clearly be a subversion of the state's definition of the acceptable social "occupations" of the populace. With this definition of "religion," Article Twenty-Eight of the Constitution in fact guarantees nothing; during this period there is, I suggest, a prominent emphasis on knowledge over belief, duty over faith, and education over religion. Buddhism attempted to counter this definition of religion through the reconstitution of its own sociality, politicality, and history. As suggested in Chapter One, the main thrust of the anti-Buddhist critique was directed against three problem areas: (1) the socio-economic uselessness of its priests and temples, which detracted from the nation's entrance into the "realm of civilization"; (2) the foreign character of its teachings, which promoted disunity and was incompatible with the directives of the Imperial Nation; and (3) its mythological—that is, "unscientific"—history. Each of these areas was responded to by Buddhists as they produced what came to be called New Buddhism (shin bukkyo). Temples, carefully linked to one another through the main-branch hierarchy and intersectarian organizations, were newly conceived of as loci of social praxis. Each of the sects became engaged in long-term projects for the aid of the destitute as well as in short-term relief in times of famine, disaster, or economic hardship. Numerous hospitals and clinics were constructed along

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 133 with centers to train ' 'Buddhist doctors and nurses'' to staff them. Schools for the blind and physically disabled soon followed, as well as hostels for the aged and infirm. Special lectures were conducted among prisoners; rehabilitation centers were established to aid those recently released. Social movements, or advertising campaigns, were carried out, covering a wide variety of issues including public health, temperance, anti-abortion, and anti-capital punishment, and extending even to the prevention of cruelty to animals. Initially these were largely domestic actions; international projects, however, were also launched. During massive starvation and death by cholera in India in 18961897, even Okuma Shigenobu, then Foreign Minister, followed the Buddhist transsectarian organizations' lead in sending large amounts of food and medicine to the stricken areas. Cooperation in the colonization of the northern territories, at great expense and loss of life to many sects, was the first extensive "proof of loyalty to the throne" for postpersecution Buddhism. These efforts were followed by institutional Buddhism's active support of involvement in the Sino-Japanese (1894—1895) and, to a lesser extent, the RussoJapanese (1904-1905) wars. Buddhist missionaries and medics accompanied the troops abroad while the local social organizations collected food, supplies, and blood to be delivered to the front for emergency use. Buddhist magazines printed wartime advice and news of battles while simultaneously exhorting the populace to continue their support for the war effort and their careful attendance to their own "occupations." Transsectarian meetings were frequently opportunities for public support of the state's policies directed toward strict social order and militaristic expansion. Though there indeed were various antiwar movements, they were organized largely by protestant organizations, Uchimura Kanzo's being perhaps the most widely publicized.98 So entrenched were Buddhist institutions in every aspect of Japanese "civilization" by the end of the nineteenth century that the earlier critique of an "other-worldly" Buddhism was no longer applicable. Such a critique did serve, however, to remind some contemporary Buddhists of doctrinal aspects displaced by their overriding social concerns." It perhaps bears noting that many of these social concerns are not "new" to Buddhism and have antecedents throughout Asia and earlier Japanese history as well. My emphasis here is upon a resurgent and comprehensive (i.e., transsectarian) concern for social action as crucial to a definition of a "modern" Buddhism; that such practices have extensive place within the Buddhist surras and records serves finally to support what I call a cosmopolitan interpretation of Buddhism. This issue will be taken up again in Chapters Four and Five. Buddhist academies, many formed in the early 1860s, had expanded in the 1880s into well-supported Buddhist universities and high schools. Subjects not only included sectarian histories and exegetical exercises but also involved critical reviews of world and political history and the beginnings of the study

134 • Chapter Three of the history of religions. Many of these attempts were admittedly apologetic or reactionary in tone. With the constant increase of Buddhist scholars, however, most of whom studied either in Europe or in other Asian nations, the craft of history in general and Buddhist history in particular took on a new sophistication. As mentioned in Chapter One, Anesaki Masaharu's dedication of his history of Buddhism to Tominaga Nakamoto was in many ways a gesture by one within the Buddhist tradition, himself actively involved in the very creation of how that tradition was to be perceived and remembered. For the New Buddhists, Buddhism was capable of encompassing its own "other" within a universalistic discourse. Tominaga's work, which taught Buddhists to fear their own history, was used as the means by which that history could be reproduced. As the creation and use of a Buddhist historiography will be taken up in the next two chapters, I will refrain from further comment here. Buddhism, no different from the Ministry of Doctrine, was confronted with the problem of identifying the source of its authority. Buddhism, that is, while emphasizing its efficacy within the world of form, was not merely a social/ political entity; its history was not merely a record of its temporality. It clearly was not what Inoue Tetsujiro called "education"; Buddhism also claimed sources of knowledge distinct from those identifiable by rational and formalistic standards. Buddhism claimed, here parting with the Ministry of Doctrine's strategy, a transcendent, unificatory epistemology not bound by any particular chronology or temporality that was, however, simultaneously present within any particular historical place. Shimaji expressed this as the "identification of difference and unity" (sabetsu soku by odd).100 Within the world of form there are necessary and irrefutable differences that must be recognized and incorporated into praxis. There is also, according to this strategy, an underlying commonality—a unity of laws, rights, and worth. The distinctions of ranks, wealth, and prestige found within society are as permanent as differences of age, sex, and language; there is, however, Shimaji claims, a "fundamental material unity" (honrai ichi buttai) that guarantees the harmonious interaction of all individuals, families, villages, and nations, of heaven and earth. Socialism, says Shimaji, is flawed because of its emphasis upon only a social and economic unity. The socialists' search for the "equality of man'' is finally doomed because of their confusion of the world of form (yukei) and that of formlessness (mukei).W{ True equality, claims Shimaji, is possible only through the recognition of the unity before and during the necessary difference of forms. This bifurcation of form and formless becomes a dominant theoretical position of late-nineteenth-century Buddhist thought. It serves to legitimate Buddhism's involvement in war as well as to criticize that involvement; it provides ammunition for the attack upon Western expansionist policies in Asia and for Buddhism's assistance in Japan's own expansionist programs; it is used in the critique of social Darwinism and simultaneously in the production

Rites, Rule, and Religion • 135 of a conception of the "spiritual evolution of the race of man" to be led by Buddhism itself. The Meiji Buddhists knew that their very survival was contingent upon their ability not merely to be conversant in the "modern" discursive strategies of political and social efficacy; they also needed to be full participants in the articulation of these strategies on the popular level. A modern and cosmopolitan Buddhism would thus be not only an efficient institution noticeably contributive to society; it would also be a bastion of the true and unadulterated national spirit. Buddhist history, taken up more fully in Chapter Five, was constructed to accentuate the long and intimate relation between Buddhism and the Japanese national spirit. Drawing upon this newly produced domestic history, Buddhism would go on to produce a global vision of human evolution—an evolution led by Buddhism itself. The interpretation of its increasing sociality and politicality is thus best understood through an examination of the production of this cosmopolitan Buddhism. In Chapter Four we will journey with several Japanese Buddhist priests to Chicago and the World's Parliament of Religions, where the international capabilities of this newly socialized Buddhism were both tested and modified.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Reconvening of Babel: Eastern Buddhism and the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions The Simidae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and the Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the universe, proceeded. —Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1883 "Come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men [Adam] had built. And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down, and there confuse their language. . . ." —Genesis 11:4-7 The entire world is engaged in a pitched battle of racial competition \jinshu kyoso] . . . it is a battle between the yellow and the white races, between Asians and Europeans, and it is truly a battle that will determine the survival or the extinction of each race. —Editorial in the Shingon Buddhist Journal Mitsugon Kyoho, 1893

INTRODUCTION

DURING the nineteenth century, a dominant characteristic in the relation of the two political entities known as " J a p a n " and the " W e s t " was that of confrontation: the blatant aggression of Commodore Perry's ironclad fleet; the obstinacy of Townsend Harris and the subsequent establishment of the "unequal treaties" of trade; the tripartite intervention at the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War; and, in the early twentieth century, the "unsatisfactory" treaties between Russia and Japan at the termination of the Russo-Japanese war. 1 These formal engagements between Japan and the Western powers are characterized by consistent attempts by both parties to dominate and to escape domination. The Iwakura diplomatic mission, as well as the gradually increasing number of technical students that journeyed to Europe and the United

The Reconvening of Babel • 137 States (including the priests mentioned in Chapter Three), were deeply concerned not only with the immediate political and economic consequences of their journeys, but also with the national images of Japan in the West and of the West in Japan. As suggested in Chapter Three, one function of the West was to serve as a position external to Japan by which domestic policies could be effectively analyzed. When ideologues such as Shimaji or Mori wrote directly from Paris or Washington, D.C. to both the Ministry of State and the popular press in Japan, they claimed to write from a position of historical, comparative, and scientific, and thus cosmopolitan, truth. The "West," in fact, served as a "created consistency," a "regular constellation of ideas" that was "suitable for study in the academy, for display in the museum, . . . for theoretical illustration in anthropological, biological, linguistic, racial and historical theses about mankind and the universe, for instances of economic and sociological theories of development, revolution, cultural personality, national or religious character."2 Even as the West carefully constructed an image of the "Orient," images of the "West" were used as elements of discursive strategies in Japan that served as a stage for elaborate representations useful to the ideologues' own project. This "imaging" could be carried out, moreover, unencumbered by the need for "accurate" portrayals of the "West itself." The logical extension of this argument is, of course, that neither the "West itself" nor "Asia itself" exists, both serving exclusively as ideological constructs necessary to the continuation of certain definitions of global hegemony. These images partake, in other words, of an "exteriority" to the place of their enunciation. Shimaji, and many others, appropriated certain strategically potent forms found in their journeys and used them to stress or refine items within their political agenda. This, in turn, resulted in a projection of the always already existent character of these newly politicized concerns onto historical narratives. This was a conscious use, not a mere mimicking, of the West; this is an exercise of what could be called the practice of strategic Occidentalism. In the mid-fifteenth century, John of Segovia, Nicholas of Cusa, Jean Germain, and Aeneas Silvius (Pius II) attempted to construct a contraferentia, or "Conference," between the Christian and the Muslim worlds. This was a fairly sophisticated attempt (that finally was never actualized) to ' 'put a representative Orient in front of Europe, to stage the Orient and Europe together in some coherent way." 3 The goal in this conference was that Christianity would finally and completely convince the Muslim world that Islam was in fact "just a misguided version of Christianity." In the late nineteenth century another, more grandiloquent attempt was made to dramatize relations between the "Occident" and the "Orient." This latter event, drawing upon both Darwinistic interpretations of evolution as applied to religious traditions and the newly created "field" of the history of religions as championed by F. Max Mtiller, was yet another attempt by the ' 'West'' to incorporate the "East'' into

138 • Chapter Four its sphere of operations. Even as the industrial revolution had lifted the material world to heights heretofore unimagined, nineteenth-century American religionists reasoned, have we not now the capability to unite all of humankind into one global family, joined by a single world religion? Based on this assumption of a link between material and moral sophistication, these self-appointed unifiers sought to convene a "Festival of Peace" among the many nations and religions of the world. They hoped to right the wrong of the first Tower of Babel, "the gate of God," where all "languages were confused" (Hebrew: balal), and through this reconvening of Babel construct a new harmony of nations, races, and creeds. In this chapter we will journey to this self-styled tower to God, the World's Parliament of Religions, held for seventeen days in September 1893, in conjunction with the Columbian World's Exposition, in Chicago. Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, and other representatives gathered before overflowing audiences to deliver the "particular truths" of their respective religions in (more or less) reasoned papers as they sought to construct a program of the universal applicability of certain "transcendent truths." This Icarian task, heralded in newspapers and publications literally around the globe, while claiming to lay the foundation stones of international peace in fact disguised a seething discontent. Christianity, assailed by philosophical materialism and evolutionary theory in Europe and America, meeting with disappointing results in its missionary efforts in the Near and the Far East, desperately needed a reorganization, a rallying point of faith. It needed, some suggested, to reclaim or to rearticulate its God. Members of the "other" religions, generally limited to the so-called Ten Great Religions (more on this below), were painfully aware of the consequences should a Christian-centered world religion be produced. The calling together of representatives of the world's religions was seen by many of those "invited" as a direct challenge. If this challenge could not be met—a duel with Christianity on its own terms in its own land—it would be but a matter of time before Christianity would be deemed the de facto victor and claim the spoils: the sole right to define and orchestrate the use of "the absolute." The "victor," in other words, would retain the right to define religion according to standards of its own making, with the assumption that this "definition" would have universal validity. For the Meiji Buddhists this nineteenth-century contraferentia was perceived as an international event not to be missed. Buddhism in Japan, having only recently achieved some domestic institutional security, was continually seeking ways to enhance its position further as a harbinger of civilization and enlightenment. Entrance into the international arena of religious debate was seen as a perfect means by which Buddhism could be proved fit as a vital contributor to the "modern" world. Moreover, the Japanese Buddhists who would journey to Chicago were as certain as their Parliamentarian hosts that their religion was the one most capable of a dynamic and comprehensive compatibility with

The Reconvening of Babel • 139 the concerns of modern men and women throughout the world. The reconvening of Babel in Chicago was thus not only a threat and a challenge to nonChristian religions; it was also perceived as an opportunity. Here I will examine the nature of this threat by looking first at the work of Charles Darwin and F. Max Miiller in the construction of universalist notions of race and religion central to the operation of the Parliament itself. The challenge of the Parliament will be discussed vis-a-vis the presence of five Japanese Buddhists (four priests and one layman)4 who journeyed to Chicago both to engage the "Christian nation of America" in a debate over the definition of the true characteristics of a "world religion," and equally to use that engagement as a stage for their activities in the domestic redefinition of Buddhist institutional practices. The discussion of the Parliament and the Japanese Buddhists' performances there is thus presented both to accentuate the cosmopolitan nature of nineteenth-century Japanese religionists as they attempted to reconstruct domestic definitions of religion and to highlight the uniquely oppressive character of the discourse upon which they drew for this redefinition. THE INVITATION

John Henry Barrows (1847-1902), Chairman of the World's Parliament of Religions, spent the last years of his life on a mission, an "inspiring duty," to bring the unrefracted light of truth, as revealed on the cross, to those lost in a dimmer illumination, to those who "touched the Great Hand and knew it not." 5 We believe that Christianity is to supplant all other religions because it contains all the truth in them and much besides. . . . As any wise missionary in Bombay or Madras would be glad to gather beneath the shelter of his roof the scholarly and sincere representatives of the Hindoo religion, so too Christian America invites to the shelter of her hospitable roof, at her Grand Festival of Peace, the spiritual leaders of mankind. . . . Though light has no fellowship with darkness, light does have fellowship with twilight. God has not left Himself without witness, and those who have the full light of the cross should bear brotherly hearts towards all who grope in a dimmer illumination.6 Barrows, head of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago; professor of religion at the University of Chicago; Chairman of the Central Committee on Religious Congresses of the World's Congress Auxiliary at the Columbian World's Fair; editor of the official chronicle of the Parliament, The World's Parliament of Religions (1893); author of the widely read The Gospels are True Histories (1891) and of the "literary completion" of the chronicle of the World's Parliament of Religions, The Christian Conquest of Asia (1899), and so on, articulates within his life's work the formative impulses of the Parliament itself. His faith in his religion, his attitude toward "science," and his

140 • Chapter Four desire for the Parliament to be an ongoing actualization of' 'man seeking after God" while simultaneously "[sjtriking the noble chord of universal human brotherhood" will provide a narrative to the following discussion. Ten goals for the World's Parliament of Religions were set forth by the Central Committee, each of which was designed "to win the approval of all broad-minded men." For example: "(1) To bring together in conference, for the first time in history, the leading representatives of the great historic religions of the world. (2) To show to men, in the most impressive way, what and how many important truths the various religions hold and teach in common. (3) To promote and deepen the spirit of human brotherhood among religious men of diverse faiths. . . . (10) To bring the nations of the earth into a more friendly fellowship, in the hope of seeking permanent international peace." 7 Let me state at the outset that the "spirit of human brotherhood" and the "friendly fellowship" of the "nations of the earth" should be understood as one example of ideas of the transcendent, which, though in a certain fashion conceivable, have no particular existence outside their very conception. Every speech, newspaper article, and social gathering of the time, however, was punctuated with invocations of "fellowship" and "brotherhood," and many people undoubtedly believed in the actualization of these universals and the extinction of difference prerequisite to such a totalization. We must note, in other words, that in response to Barrows' call for brotherhood and the universal truth of Christ (as the two were frequently linked) there was Vivekananda8 also demanding brotherhood, but he did so by saying: "the Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. . . . [I]f anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own [religion] and the destruction of others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart." 9 The Parliament's attempt at "brotherhood" could exist only given very particular conceptions of race, religion, and nation; it was entirely contingent upon a specific notion of a central defining concept around which all the "others' " concepts were to revolve. But, to the chagrin and fascination of the Parliamentarians, these "others" frequently refused the confinement of the preselected roles. They insisted upon other acts, other ideas. We shall see that this was not a denial that resulted in a total dissolution of the projected universal concept, but that the very same code terms were used toward the same ends in a strikingly oppositional manner. Or, in the words of Ashitsu Jitsunen, Tendai representative to the Parliament: "While we promulgate our own teachings we must confound those of our enemy. We must use that controlled by the enemy in our attack upon the enemy itself."10 "One chief hindrance to missionary progress," Barrows pointed out, "is the misty unreality of the great heathen world. We scarcely think of them as our brethren."11 The nineteenth century's need for the comparative study of religions, publicly expressed in the Parliament's seventh goal "to inquire what light each religion has afforded, or may afford to other religions of the world,''

The Reconvening of Babel

• 141

we should understand as inextricably linked to a Christocentric evangelical mission. Or, to quote Barrows yet again: "Religion, like the white light of heaven, has been broken into many colored fragments by the prisms of men. One of the objects of the Parliament of Religions has been to change the manycolored radiance back into the white light of heavenly truth."12 This Babelian conception of a primordially unified pure religion somehow fractured, frequently cast as differences between light and shadow or between white and the multicolored, is not limited in its use to Barrows' obvious attachment to the metaphor. The Columbian Exposition itself, with its buildings of white granite, was called the White City: "The City so holy and clean/ No sorrow can breathe in the air; No gloom of affection or sin/ No shadow of evil is there." 13 Moreover, extending from the White City was a central plaisance, a "Midway," established by the Exposition's Department of Ethnology to display by means of archeological collections and several "living exhibitions" the underlying principles of anthropological evolution. Or, in the words of G. Goode Brown, assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institute and coordinator of ethnological exhibits at the Exposition, the Midway would be "in fact, an illustrated encyclopedia of civilization."14 The very arrangement of the Midway was based upon a sliding scale of humanity. Nearest to the White City were the Teutonic and Celtic races found in the German and Irish ' 'villages." At the center of the Midway were the Middle Eastern and East Asian exhibitions. And then "we descend to the savage races, the African and the Dahomey, and the North American Indian" at the furthest end of the Plaisance.15 The White City, resting upon a pyramid formed out of the human races, was presented to the approximately thirty million fair-goers as the natural culmination in the human race's painful climb to the industrial and technical sophistication of the "modern age." A primary force essential to this formal conceptualizing of different "peoples" in the late-nineteenth-century World Expositions (at Chicago and elsewhere) can be located in the work of Charles Darwin (1809-1882).16 As evidenced at the Columbian Exposition and the World's Parliament of Religions, the overarching principle governing the natural world was determined to be progressive, utilitarian, and (though seldomly made explicit, clearly) ruthless. "Civilization" and its material wonders were indeed the result of this inexorable evolutionary advancement of human beings vis-a-vis the material world; moreover, such civilizational advancements necessitated (as determined by "scientific" and "objective" truths) the concomitant destruction of the primitive, the useless, and the unenlightened. The showcase of the Columbian Exposition proved to be a significant institution of higher learning for the average man and woman, a veritable temple of the commonsensical. The display of racial and cultural differences at the Exposition as being not merely "differences" but rather distinct "stages" in a people's "development" formed the basis of a common support for political, economic, and territorial expansion-

142 • Chapter Four ism when carried out in the name of progress and civilization. Much of this argument was taken up with very little modification at the World's Parliament of Religions in order to construct a schematic analysis of the world's religions supportive of the Parliament's Eurocentric and Christocentric understanding of the world. Modernization was perceived, in other words, as Westernization. With the above discussion in mind, and in order to set the stage for the World's Parliament and the Japanese Buddhists' presence thereon, here let us turn briefly to the works of Darwin (particularly his later writings) and F. Max Miiller. We will be asking about not only the materials of which the Parliamentarian stage was constructed, but also the standards the invited representatives would be required to meet and, perhaps more important, the standards they were expected to fail to meet. Contrary to many naturalists of his age, Darwin chose not to view each human race as constituting a specific species. Gradations of particular characteristics in the so-called races, Darwin reasoned, were too finely differentiated to admit of satisfactory categorization.17 Darwin, sensitive to the seemingly "insoluble" problem of classification, lamented the misfortune of every naturalist who attempted to determine "how much weight we ought to assign in our classification to strongly marked differences in some few points . . . and how much to close resemblance in numerous unimportant points."18 He did not, however, continue to examine by what standards these judgments of "strength" or "importance" could be made. The very "insoluble" nature of the problem was in no small way compounded by the casualness with which the founding judgments were frequently accorded an a priori status. The almost infinite possibility of categorical systems, aided to a large degree by the variously (if at all) defined term "species," certainly led to radically different positions regarding race; but Darwin himself was confident enough to assert that "all the races of man are descended from a single primitive stock" (not, it will be noted, from a "single pair of progenitors").19 The crux of Darwin's analysis of difference between peoples and societies is his theory of evolution itself; when crudely expressed for the purposes of our discussions here, this theory can be summarized as follows: "All civilized nations were once barbarous."20 All forms of life have advanced from the simple to the complex; so too, Darwin asserted, did human society. But it is crucial to recall the consequences of the changes that accompanied this advancement: "Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness into distant futurity."21 What species then will be transmitted and in what form? How do civilizations, that is, survive? There is, for Darwin, a hierarchy of survival; and in spite of his reluctance to treat races as distinct species, Darwin evidently had few qualms in identifying races as inhabiting particular levels in this hierarchy of civilization.

The Reconvening of Babel • 143 At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races will most certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time, the anthropomorphous apes . . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.22 The means of this destruction, in addition to the common dangers of famine, accident, sickness, low fertility, and infanticide,23 will be the inevitable "war, slaughter, cannibalism, slavery, and absorption" that follow on the heels of the meeting of advanced and primitive societies. Moreover, this ' 'absorption" will take place relatively quickly, for "when the civilized nations come into contact with barbarians, the struggle is short."24 Darwin did not seem alarmed by this prophecy; the extinction of races "is the same problem" as the necessary evolutionary extinction evidenced throughout the history of the world. To acknowledge that some moral sense was "acquired by each individual during his lifetime" Darwin found to be a "serious blemish" in many works of his day and concluded that "based on the general theory of evolution, this is at least extremely improbable."25 Thus when Darwin invoked the Kantian ' 'ought'' and held up ' 'duty" as a cause celebre,26 we must recognize both his attempt at a schematic totalization of humanity sharing in a common development of inherent characteristics and his invocation of a developmental ontology—however nonteleological—that brought humans and the lower animals together as (sentient) beings sharing the emotions of "love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc." 27 To quote Kant: "Duty! Wondrous thought, that workest neither by fond insinuation, flattery, not by any threat, but merely by holding up thy naked law in the soul. . . . " and "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, . . . the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." 28 This moral law that is found to some degree in all animals, including humans, provides Darwin with a transcendental category for a new organization of the natural world. Further, Darwin goes on to refute the older system by saying "if man had not been his own classifier, he would never have thought of founding a separate order for his own reception."29 In other words, Darwin made a typically Kantian move in shifting the emphasis from a discussion of eschatology to one of duty ("but man can do his duty" 30 ); then, similar to Kant's refusal to acknowledge the hegemony of theology over knowledge and actions, Darwin refused to allow to humankind an irrefutable hegemony in the practice of morality. The operation of the moral "ought" that Darwin discovered in every animal provided the universal category with which he united humankind, transcen-

144 • Chapter Four dent of race, and animals, transcendent of species. He created a continually evolving ontological hierarchy, the highest point of which in the nineteenth century was the practice of' 'disinterested love" by the most civilized of races, the Caucasian. ("Disinterested love for all living creatures [is] the most notable attribute of man."31) Alongside this universally operative "ought" stood the law of evolution—the continually advancing power of universal growth and increasing complexity. And, in short, sophistication arose concomitantly with the destruction of the simple forms of life. Granted, occasional "lapses" did occur, but when viewed in the passing of centuries these "lapses" appear insignificant. The practice of the highest known morality, "disinterested love," was forced to remain disinterested in the evolutionarily certain "destruction of the races." This is not to suggest that Darwin sought to promote the actual destruction of cultures or races other than his own. His statements are clearly based upon records of his travels and the clear impression left upon him of the trends of "civilization"; as such they provide a glimpse into the difficulties in the material clash of cultures. Much of what Darwin set forth in The Descent of Man, however, was taken up in theories of evolutionary theology that incorporated a critique of racial difference based upon evolutionary grounds. This uneasy tension between claims to moral superiority, as "proved" by a scientific analysis of the physical world, and the reconciliation to the inevitability of the destruction of beliefs, cultures, and peoples outside the industrialized Caucasian nations, is central to a conception of the World's Parliament of Religions' discourse on humankind and religion and will reappear not infrequently in the pages to follow. Though clearly disagreeing with certain of Darwin's conclusions (a full discussion of which falls outside our present concerns), the organizers of both the Columbian Exposition and the World's Parliament of Religions were not adverse to using certain of his methodological apparatus to construct their own conception of a universalist discourse upon, in the case of the Exposition, human evolution, and at the Parliament, the evolution of religions. Further, the World's Parliament of Religions, traversing the same steps of ethnological evolution that led up to the White City, claimed to go yet a step higher. Rather than exhibiting the merely material, the Parliament would present the "higher forces which had made civilization itself possible"; it would exhibit "man's intellectual and moral progress"; and it would seek to promote the unity of the world in a way that was not possible by the joint operation of diplomacy and commerce. It was deemed, in fact, a "natural outcome of the spirit of the Prince of Peace'' to attempt no less than a universal spiritual unification of the many races found throughout the "civilized" as well as the "uncivilized" worlds. The words of John 10:16 take on new, even ominous, meaning in such a context. "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice: and they shall become one flock, one Shepherd." Evolution was read within its Christian refiguration to extend

The Reconvening of Babel • 145 from the simple to the complex, which is then fully, and finally, united by the pure light of a Christian definition of civilization. The invitations issued by the Parliament, and the goals of many of the Parliamentarians as well, emerged from an intellectual milieu antithetical to certain conceptions of religion. What, for the Parliament, we must now ask, was "religion" and how would the Japanese Buddhists fare within such culture-specific definitional strategies? PARLIAMENTARIAN CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION

Of all antagonisms of belief, the oldest, the widest, the most profound, and the most important, is that between religion and science. . . . It shows itself everywhere throughout the domain of human knowledge affecting man's interpretations alike of the simplest mechanical accidents and of the most complicated events in the history of nations. It has its roots deep down in the diverse habits of thoughts of different orders of minds.32 Expanding from this statement, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) proceeds to constitute religion as the "nescience," always beyond the faculty of knowledge and, as a true absolute, always completely other and thus having logical but no social necessity. This definition of religion was, in fact—even though a somewhat less inflammatory version of religion as found in Darwinist or positivist theories—one of the main targets of nineteenth-century religionists both in Japan and at the Parliament. Religion must be equally social, equally personal, and equally absolute; to attempt to relegate it entirely to the "other" was, as far as most Parliamentarians were concerned, tantamount to an assertion that there was in fact nothing called religion, or that the only thing that could be called religion was no-thing. The occasional reliance upon Spencerian theories (some of which were also taken up by contemporary Theosophists) by nineteenth-century Buddhists and scholars of Buddhism to "explain" certain aspects of the teachings contributed in no small fashion to the ongoing conception of "Asian religion" as a nihilistic quest for annihilation: the search for no-thing. Etut rather than Spencer's widely read and, in many circles, extremely popular rational proposition called "religion," it was F. Max Muller's (1823-1900) "scientific study of religion" that contributed most directly to both the Parliamentarian and Meiji Buddhist attempts to construct a transglobal vision of religious development. Both these visions, though methodologically similar to Muller's work, were produced in a fashion conducive to the even more thoroughgoing opposition of Buddhism and Christianity, East and West. Even as Goethe sought to avoid philological somnambulism with his edict "he who knows one language, knows none," so too Miiller tried to create a language that, ruled by a grammar of Kantian reason,33 would provide the

146 • Chapter Four categories necessary to an examination of the eternal and absolute. Muller, distinct from many of his contemporaries, also recognized the basic legitimacy of similar quests when found in radically different cultures, even among the so-called primitives. Muller's use of a Kantian metalanguage, ruled by reason and divorced from the particular passions of dogmatic practices, was directed toward the construction of a discourse concerned exclusively with the articulation and interpretation of the absolute within the historical world. It was used, in Muller's terms, for the examination of the ' 'third faculty'' of humankind: the "struggle to conceive the inconceivable," the faculty of a faith in the presence of infinity, or in the operation of the other in thought itself.34 The three faculties—sense, reason, and faith—possessed by all humans in varying degrees, can be equated to three steps necessary to the formulation of Muller's metalanguage of the transcendent. The faculty of sense provides empirical data for historical examination; the faculty of reason allows for the classification of these data for comparative analysis; finally, by means of the third faculty, the operation of the infinite, a truly theoretical or philosophical understanding can be obtained. These three practices when applied to the study of religion are called the History of Religion, Comparative Theology, and Theoretical Theology. It perhaps goes without saying that it is only by means of the faculty of reason and the operation of the faculty of the infinite that this very schematic representation can be produced; that is, data are not gathered outside of the operation of reason, nor is the faculty of the infinite divorced from the operation of the senses; these are not mutually exclusive categories. In order to set this tripartite schema to work, and thereby attempt a theological articulation of the infinite, Muller began by asking "What makes a people?" And, what is perhaps more important, he went on to posit exactly what he was attempting to prove: the universality of truth and a common humanity capable of actualizing this truth, or, as he later called it, the divine education of the human race. It was Schelling, says Muller, who impressed upon him the importance of the question of the origin of "a people." Ethnological attempts to classify races (by blood type, skull formation, etc.) failed to account for the ' 'higher and purely moral feeling which binds men together and makes them a people." Schelling suggested that "a people exists only when it has determined itself with regard to its mythology."35 Muller takes this position a step further and asserts that a people are constituted by means of the commonality of language and the unifying power of religion, that is, through intimately interconnected operation of expression in language and the codification of the expressible by religion.36 Muller concluded that it was the unity of the religious life, as proved by a commonality of language, and not notions of nation, state, or shared physical characteristics, that takes precedence in the naming of a people. And it is with the full bravura of nineteenth-century philology that he demonstrates this by means of a comparative analysis of terms that were selected as essential characteristics of religion consistent in use regardless of

The Reconvening of Babel • 147 time, place, and political environment: "prayer, sacrifice, altar, spirit, law, and faith" and of course "God." This list, intriguing in itself, coupled with its analysis, yielded for Miiller some not too surprising results.37 This attempt to, in effect, determine philologically the "origin of species" presented no difficulties that seriously swayed Miiller's confidence. The tenuous link between religion and language he glossed as being a "natural" occurrence; his claim to have identified three world language/religion centers— Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian (the latter was composed of the "Chinese, Mongolians, Finns, Lapps, etc.")—was based upon a Darwinian argument of development from the simple to the complex, which provided no account for the original difference of language, nor did it provide any schema upon which any subsequent comparison could be made.38 Muller was quite content, here rereading his own typology, to accept on faith the faculty of the infinite as a universal category operative regardless of spatial or chronological particularities. He thus, for example, answered his own rhetorical question "What have we in common with the Turanians?" quite easily: "Very little it may seem; and yet it is not the yellow skin and the high cheekbones that make the man. Nay, if we look but steadily into those black Chinese eyes, we shall find that there, too, is a soul that responds to a soul, and that the God whom they mean is the same God whom we mean, however helpless their utterance, however imperfect their worship."39 Muller claimed to refuse the hegemony of Christianity as an absolute determinative of religious practice or conceptualization of the absolute, and he attempted to illustrate the culturally and racially isolated dogma of truth-statements collected throughout Christian history. But he consistently refused to question the status of an infinite godhead at the center of human and cosmic existence. It is this assumption that unites his arguments on the constitution of religion and of a people; it is also an assumption that radically compromises his hope for a metalanguage adequate to the plurality of religious forms. Without assuming a commonality of human experience, Muller thought he would be faced with either an infinity of the utterly contingent or an irrefutable totality of dogmatic theology. He strove to establish a basis of comparison between religious phenomena and in so doing, perhaps inadvertently, actually contributed to the oppressive hierarchy found in evolutionary theology. Miiller's reading of the Biblical conception of universalism reveals to us two goals for comparative religion: (1) to show the operation of the absolute in all times and places ("God shows no partiality") and (2) to elucidate the divine education of the human race ("any who fears him does what is right"). 40 It is here, while reflecting most clearly the presuppositions of his age and discipline, that Muller makes his most lasting contributions. "Everywhere, whether among the dark Papuan or the yellowish Malay, or the brown Polynesian races, . . . even among the lowest of the low in the scale of humanity, there are, if we will but listen, whisperings about divine imaginings of a future

148 • Chapter Four life; there are prayers and sacrifices which, even in their most degraded and degrading form, still bear witness to that old and ineradicable faith that everywhere there is a God to hear our prayers, if we will but call on him." 41 Elsewhere Miiller calls these whisperings and imaginings a "hunger," a material quest for something.42 In spite of exhaustive argumentation to the contrary, Miiller asserted that the infinite could be a genuine object of our consciousness. As a faithful Kantian, Muller of course disallowed knowing the Ding an sich, and yet he did assert that' 'with every finite perception there is a concomitant perception . . . of the infinite."43 For example, the eye can see only to a certain point beyond which the power of sight fails. It is at that precise point of the failure of the senses that we "suffer" from the infinite. Miiller's work can be seen as an attempt to provide a chronicle of the attempts by the finite human mind to pierce continually further into the infinite and to "raise the dark perception of [the infinite] into more lucid intuitions and more definite names.'' Every sense of every human is in every moment' 'impinged'' upon by the "dark pressure of the infinite." It is thus by one's very corporeal existence that there arises the indisputable sentiment of the infinite; this "sentiment" is what Muller identifies as the prehistoric impulse to all religion. It is not surprising then when Muller claims that' 'theology begins with anthropology." 44 The ontological unity of humankind was established by Muller based upon individual corporeality; he went on to account for differences in articulation of the always already impinging infinite by accenting the particularity of any given sense-body that both determines and is determined by the monotony of the finite life of the individual. Muller concludes that the impingement of the infinite, responded to out of a ' 'hunger'' for this ever present "beyond," is the "root of the whole historical development of the human faith."45 Miiller's work was in many ways the guiding light of the World's Parliament of Religions, contributing both a language and a strategy by which the comparative analysis of distinct "religious traditions" could be carried out in an efficient and "scientific" manner. It was used frequently as a means, in fact, to escape the scientificity of Spencer while simultaneously producing a transcendent category of cultural analysis based upon theories of evolutionary development. Muller, a consummate philologist, was the ideal model for a reconvened Babel.46 The Parliament officially opened on 11 September 1893 with the "Columbian Liberty Bell" tolling ten times, once for each of the "Ten Great Religions." This term appears in a wide variety of literature of the period, and not surprisingly the ten religions that were included varied considerably. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, "Mohammedism," Confucianism, and Hinduism were invariably included, strongly reminiscent of Miiller's three religious families, the Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian. In addition to these, Jainism, Zoroastrian-

The Reconvening of Babel • 149 ism, Taoism, Shinto, Brahmanism, and various geographically defined religious groups such as found in Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia were mixed in numerous configurations within this oddly consistent number "ten." Perhaps the most widely read example of this schema contained discussions of each of the Ten Great Religions in turn, "doing full justice to all . . . acknowledging their partial truth and use," and then proceeded to set forth the truth and value of Christianity as the religion by which all others must be judged. The other religions being both limited in geographical or ethnic scope and fundamentally incapable of evolution can lay claim only to limited notions of "truth"; Christianity, on the other hand, is heralded as the only transethnic, transnational, and thus the only universal religion.47 In contrast to the developmental hierarchy of civilization based, as we have seen, on the concerns of the Caucasian and Christian nations stand the concerns of the invited others who attended the Parliament. As invited guests they were generally to abide by certain preset standards; but they also came with their own agendas and different interpretations of "religion." For example, Pung Kwang Yu, special commissioner to the Columbian Exposition and the World's Parliament of Religion for China, provides us with a list of concerns detailing the definition of religion in use at the Parliament. Barrows had suggested to the various delegates to the Parliament that they merely "answer certain questions on matters in which the American public is interested." This exposition, it was further requested, should be nontechnical, brief, and in English. The topics to be entertained were (1) God, (2) man, (3) the relation of man to God, (4) the role of woman, (5) education, and (6) social morality.48 It was hoped that each of these topics would.be given a day's or more discussion at the Parliament itself; because of the rather haphazard collection of papers, however, this was finally not possible. Pung's essay on Confucianism, in seven sections and edited to approximately 35,000 words, was not only not brief, but in it he also refused to limit his treatment of Confucian thought to the categories suggested by Barrows. As to the discussion of God, problems of creation, and so forth, Pung flatly states "the Confucianists have never indulged in speculations of this nature." 49 Further, since the very term "religion" (Pung quotes Webster here for his definition) is itself contingent upon "feelings toward God," Pung wonders whether he can speak about Confucianism before the Parliament at all. For in China, "religion [as defined here] has never been a desirable thing for the people to know and for the government to sanction." Religion served only to promote the "spreading of falsehoods and errors, and finally resulted in resistance to legitimate authority and in bringing calamities upon the country." 50 This is equally true for Christianity, Buddhism, and Taoism; the relative validity of a particular religion is of secondary concern as the ' 'final result is the same": propagating religious doctrines "drives away those who value filial piety, brotherly love, sincerity, truth. . . ." 51

150 • Chapter Four Pung indicates, in other words, the precise point at which the Parliamentarian project is at its most oppressive. He refused, first, to confine his remarks to the definition of religion set forth by the Parliament, which could only result in all religions appearing to be concerned with the same issues and appearing to be different only as to particular terminology. That is, all religions could appear only as incomplete copies of Christianity. (For example, Buddha was described as Asia's Christ, the Bo Tree was equated with the cross, and the Ganges was called the Indian Jordan.52) Second, Pung refused to accept the basic ideological tenet that "religion is the greatest fact of history," and that the culmination of human evolution must needs be articulated in "religious" terms. Yet, in spite of the unqualified directness of these comments, Pung was only heard by the "American public" to say that Confucianism was a form of proto-humanism and that humankind is "the heart of heaven and earth. Humanity is his natural faculty and love his controlling emotion."53 Barrows' desire for the delegates to speak only on nontechnical issues of interest to the general public was thus finally upheld, and Confucianism was "translated" into a promising but lesser developed Chinese-style precursor to the Christian message. The success of the Parliament's staging of the Other is impressive for both its tenacity of purpose and its ability to reflgure even the clearest opposition into a harmonious utterance. Participants in the Parliament were ready to hear any number of protestations of universal brotherhood; barring few notable exceptions, regardless of what was in fact said, that was exactly what they heard. Parenthetically we should note that part of the responsibility for this problem in Pung's case must be attributed directly to Pung himself. Pung asked Barrows to provide him with suggestions for acceptable comments to be included in his address during the opening ceremonies of the Parliament. On the fateful day, Barrows was asked to read Pung's speech (as Pung himself could speak little English) and discovered that he had been handed the exact sheet he had provided Pung weeks before. Barrows, after reading his own remarks as if they were Pung's, was somewhat embarrassed by the "manifestation of welcome and honor as came to no other speaker" and was also oddly but characteristically pleased when the press later remarked that the noble Christian sentiments "spoken by Mr. Pung at the Parliament of Religions mark an era in the progress of humanity. Such friendly and magnanimous words indicate that China has been touched by the Christian spirit and is fast coming out into the brotherhood of nations."54 This is perhaps the clearest example of how the Parliament succeeded in providing the "Orient" not only with a voice but also with the language and ideas with which to animate that voice. The Parliament, in the guise of Barrows' letter, used "China" to confirm that the Parliament's assumptions and strategies vis-a-vis China and Asia were in fact correct. China, in the guise of Pung, unfortunately allowed itself, admittedly after no little resistance, to be constituted as the easily assimilable "other."

The Reconvening of Babel • 151 The Japanese Buddhists in their speeches were not as critically successful as Pung in their use of the acceptable Parliamentarian definition of religion. On the whole their speeches tended to comply with Barrows' initial request to speak only on certain general subjects of interest to the American public. When writing in Japanese for the home audience, the Buddhists did so with great strength and conviction; they were also frequently uncompromising in their anti-Christian posturings. But these same "champions of Buddhism" transplanted to Chicago were much more subdued and noticeably less successful in asserting their own sense of religion and its appropriate manifestations. The Shingon priest Toki Horyu's (1854-1923) speech, when compared with Barrows' list, proves to be an almost exact copy of Barrows' outline. Except for the vague denial of the "existence of one creator (not by this expression meaning God)," Toki's presentation of "Buddhism in Japan" (the title of his talk), replete with a description of the Buddhist "soul or spirit" as having a "fine phantasmal form," reads very much like a poor copy of Christian doctrine. The inclusion of a photo after his paper in the Parliament's chronicle adds a certain insult to the injury Toki had already inflicted on the interpretation of Buddhism offered in his speech. Depicting a mendicant shaman with a portable altar, the "pagan" nature of Buddhism is accented by the title of the photo placed there by the editor (Barrows): "Buddhist priest with portable idol shrine."55 Most of the Meiji Buddhists who delivered speeches in Chicago were similarly hampered in their presentations. In attempting to make their messages heard by an audience at the very least unprepared, and frequently hostile as well, they succeeded finally in producing emasculated gestures vaguely directed toward their goals. For example, the Tendai priest Ashitsu Jitsunen's (1841-1921) earlier writings reveal a profound concern about the "savage nature" (satsubatsu shugi) of Christianity in the world. He hoped to show at the Parliament the "true nature" of religion to be both peaceful and progressive; though Christianity worships a "God of suffering," Ashitsu hoped to explicate the compassionate practice of self-sacrifice and divine labor as found in Buddhism.56 His lecture before the Parliament, however, fraught with translation difficulties, was a detailed and highly technical enumeration of the "Buddha-bodies" (J: sanshin; Skt: trikaya) as found in Tendai philosophy. Considering the circumstances, this was not a well-chosen topic. Shaku Soen (1859-1919), a Rinzai priest, chose to lecture on the topic of causality; though his paper in Japanese is a precise and well-handled technical exposition of the Buddhist doctrine of co-dependent origination, the terms used in Chicago, taken directly from language current to contemporary Theosophical discourse, served better in the production of an image of Buddhism as quaint and approximate than as the dynamic and socially viable force the Japanese Buddhists hoped to present. As dismal as their English performances may have been (with the exception of the lay Buddhist Hirai Kinzo's [d. 1917]), it is impor-

152 • Chapter Four tant to note that this was but one half of Meiji Buddhism's association with the Parliament. The numerous post-Parliament press releases in Japan were characterized by an unbridled optimism as article after article asserted the joyous and unhindered promulgation of Mahayana Buddhism among Westerners saturated with material comforts but sadly lacking in the life of the spirit. "Religion" at the World's Parliament of Religion was fashioned of elements germane to nineteenth-century America. Articulated with terms drawn from, but not necessarily in agreement with, the work of Darwin and Miiller, the global definitional project of the Parliament was, as officially chronicled, a great and uncompromised success: the religions of the world were in fact reflections of the Christian message; these paler reflections would someday each evolve to a position in accordance with those who already lived "within the full light of the cross." As suggested in the discussion of Pung's presentation, the more profound traces of Pung's performance at the Parliament were not to be found in his talk (which in fact refuted elements central to the Parliament's larger project) but were located in Pung's presence itself. Pung and the invited '' others'' of the Orient were by their very participation already constituted by the Parliament as representatives who desired to be included. Herein lay the great irony of the Parliament. The value of the "others" present at Chicago was their exteriority to the Eurocentric and Christocentric world; yet this exteriority could not finally be allowed its full reign. The truly exterior would destroy the universalist assumptions in operation at the base of the Parliament's very formation. Pung and the "others" were allowed the status of the familiar other, the weak other, the other to be taught and ushered into the realm of the same—an other willing to sacrifice its exteriority. The Parliamentarian other was given life so that it could be sacrificed on the altar of evolutionary progress. CONSTRUCTING THE OTHER

In the late nineteenth century's discourse on power, terms such as "race," "nation," and "religion" were used in one of two ways: stressing differentiation, or stressing unification. Particular races were arranged in a hierarchy that described the human race; fragments of the complete religion were straining to cease being religions and to begin participating in religion itself. Or so it was argued. Here let us take up some of the specific images of race and religion, self and other, as "exhibited" at the Parliament. Yellow and blue, red and lavender, old gold and green, cardinal, crimson and scarlet . . . a bewildering kaleidoscope of tints, punctuated and emphasized by the still black and white of American and European. . . . Strange costumes of rich silks, satins, and velvets were next neighbor to commonflannel.One son of Asia dressed his limbs in blue and pink percale pantaloons, and another in some soft good of

The Reconvening of Babel • 153 shrimp pink. . . . At the eastern end of the stage sat . . . [the representatives] from Japan. Their rich silk vestments, delicate in texture, and gorgeous in their richly blended tints and shades, looked in the distance like a flower pot in a garden of black.57 The strange, delicate, decidedly feminine garb of those "sons of Asia at the eastern end of the stage" during the Parliament's opening ceremony was more than enough to assure the fulfillment of the second goal of the Parliament: a display "in the most impressive way." So crucial was this colorful presence to the popular conception of the Parliament that after a temporary absence of the Japanese delegation, it was duly noted in the following day's press that the "effect upon the platform picture" was considerably lessened.58 The very presence of these "delegates from the Orient" was, in many cases, far more crucial a performance than any official presentation they might have made. The Japanese, Chinese, and Indian representatives were consistently frontpage news, more frequently for what they wore and did as for what they might have said at the Parliament. Clearly, without these representatives there could be no World's Parliament; these silk- and velvet-clad souls were the unknown beyond the boundaries of "civilization"; and by their very presence they had given sanction to the unitary power of "Christian America," to the hope of the White City. Or in the words of George Boardman, Baptist from Philadelphia, and the last lecturer at the Parliament, "Buddha and his religion are Asiatic; what has Buddha done for the unity of mankind? Why are we not holding our sessions in fragrant Ceylon? Mohammed taught some very noble truths; but Mohammedism is fragmented and antithetic; why have not his followers invited us to Mecca? But Jesus Christ is the sole bond of the human race; the one nexus of the nations, the great vertebral column of the body of mankind."59 The incorporation of non-Christian representatives into the Parliament's program was not, however, merely an exercise in a purposeful creative distancing. There was also an equally creative gesture to incorporate their presence into the (almost) familiar. For example, one press release commenting on the opening ceremonies exclaims: "The Orient will be there to recall the Magi." 60 Or again, we find the following comments regarding the Indian representatives during one of the many social events scheduled around the foreign guests: ' 'With their peculiar head gear and flowing robes they recalled pictures of Biblical personages."61 Barrows himself felt moved to conclude in his last book that Japan was a "wild cherry blossom, gleaming in the morning light of western civilization."62 India, the ancient cradle of the Aryan religion, had somehow managed to continue in an almost "Biblical" fashion: here ironically synonymous with the uncivilized period of the West's foundation, or in the case of the Magi, in the status of a tributary nation. The Japanese on the other hand, long identified as the "Yankees of the East'' and well represented

154 • Chapter Four at the Exposition itself,63 were clearly expected to have an uplifting—that is, Americanizing—influence on all of Asia. There were times, of course, when neither the image as "other," nor the role as mirror into Christianity's own past, was entirely adequate to the other's presence itself. One such case involved Shibata Reiichi, son of the founder of the Jikko sect of Shinto. The following is excerpted from the day's press following the incident in question. "Women from the audience climbed over chairs and tables to pay their compliments to the distinguished oriental. . . . Then a loud cheer rent the air and there was a mad rush for the platform. . . . The excitement was caused by the High Priest in a spirit of true reciprocity embracing a couple of ladies. It was over in a moment but in that moment they had felt on their cheeks the kiss of the High Priest of Shintoism."64 Though called a "chaste kiss of brotherhood" and an application of an "Eastern custom," that this "little breach of etiquette" should be so quickly forgiven—and the entire event recalled later as "the pleasant little incident' '—reflects an elaborate attempt to articulate difference in such a way as to construct a palatable sameness. The shocking scene of an Oriental High Priest kissing several Caucasian gentle ladies in public reinterpreted as "chaste," "customary," and so on, is a creative use of the notions of universal religious equality and transracial universalism to stress, in the words of the Parliament's tenth goal, "friendly fellowship, in the hope of securing permanent international peace." The carnival-like nature of the Parliament was not lost on the Japanese Buddhists who journeyed to Chicago. Yatsubuchi Banryu, a Shin priest from Kumamoto, in a speech before the Kyushu Buddhist Club after returning to Japan from the Parliament, noted that upon the arrival in Chicago of the Japanese contingent, "with the speed of a typhoon the news that we had arrived spread throughout the entire city"; wherever they went the priests were mobbed by crowds chanting "The Japanese are here! The Japanese are here!" Yatsubuchi observes that the very presence of the Japanese priests "restored the faith of the local Christian organizers" that there could in fact be a World's Parliament of Religions. His understanding of the dramatic nature of the moment was further confirmed by the opening-day ceremonies, which he described as the stage debut (kao mise) of the world's religious actors.65 Fashion was ever on the minds of chroniclers of the Parliament, and Yatsubuchi's account was no different. He, like many others, used the images found in the dress of the Parliamentarians, or rather the reaction to his own, in order to present his own arguments regarding the dire need in the West for true spiritual sustenance. Yatsubuchi spends several pages of his account of the Parliament discussing the Americans' fascination with the Japanese Buddhist priests' silk robes, the very possession of which marked them all as gentlemen of the highest rank and wealth in Westerners' eyes. After a careful listing of costs associated with the Western gentleman's wardrobe, Yatsubuchi

The Reconvening of Babel • 155 suggests that this preoccupation with dress by Westerners is, in fact, a perfect example of the West's preoccupation with wealth and the assumption that there is a direct correlation between the cost of one's possessions and the worth of one's person. Yatsubuchi goes on to note that this is, moreover, but one type of desire iyokubo) innate (sententeki) to Westerners. In addition to the endless and insatiable quest to possess, finally, the material world, Westerners also seek knowledge of the operation of the natural world and the means to exploit that knowledge to, inevitably, increase their wealth. Western thought is based exclusively on the external world; Yatsubuchi, to prove this assertion, notes that most inventions designed in the West merely extend the knowledge obtainable through the senses to broader (for example, the telescope) or more precise (the microscope) ranges. There are indeed limits to the resources and capabilities used to manipulate or obtain those resources, but, Yatsubuchi observes, there seems to be no limit to the West's collective desires; all aspects of culture—religion, ethics, art, the military, and science (this is Yatsubuchi's list)—are directed exclusively toward the actualization of the West's desire to control the world of form. Further, the true spirit of Westerners can best be seen in their relation to other races of the world, which is inevitably one of subjugation and annihilation. Look, demands Yatsubuchi, at the American Indian and the Africans, but also look at problems much closer to home: India, Annam (Vietnam), Siam, Korea, and China. Japan, he suggests, has been lucky so far. The weak point of the West is, he claims, their unbridled strength; their instinctual need to dominate will be their undoing. ' 'They are slaves to their life-styles, slaves to their physical desires, and slaves to their wealth." The fascination with the material world in the West, made apparent to Yatsubuchi in part through the banal interest of Parliamentarians in the material image of the Orient, was, he concluded, "like a candle in a snowstorm." It gleams brightly and melts all that comes near, but it is also constantly on the verge of extinction with every gust of wind.66 Yatsubuchi's proposal for the salvation of the West will be taken up in a later discussion. There were certain disagreeable moments for the Buddhist priests journeying in America as they confronted many of the artifacts of, what was being called in late-nineteenth-century Japan, "civilization" for the first time. Confronting Western-style breakfasts (invariably "fried pig fat [bacon] and the eggs of chicken" or "fried chips of ground corn [corn flakes] with the milk of cows"), observing touch dancing (which Yatsubuchi found particularly offensive), or smelling the "excessive use of perfumes on meat-eating Westerners" led Yatsubuchi to exclaim, "this thing they call 'civilization' seems rather like the customs of barbarians."67 Nevertheless, closer to their areas of expertise, the priests were impressed with both the regularity of Christian religious observations and the unflagging efforts of ministers and missionaries to carry on their work. From the Christian minister who held service on board ship en route to Vancouver, who even administered to those in the lowest classes trav-

156 • Chapter Four eling with the animals and luggage in the ship's hold (the Japanese priests all traveled second class, except for Shaku Soen, who traveled in first class), to the scriptural exegesis performed in well-received lectures at the Parliament, the social presence of an interactive faith was made vividly clear to the Meiji Buddhists. Shaku Soen records in his chronicle of the Parliament a lecture on the historical veracity, or lack thereof, of certain passages in the Bible. What intrigued him here was not the speaker's final claim of the Bible's universal validity and superior nature but the disclaimers offered regarding certain factually, scientifically, or historically mistaken passages contained therein. The ancient recording of the physical world may in fact contain certain distortions easily discovered by the modern reader ("we know much more than we did"), but the basic transcendent truths of the Bible are not thereby rendered inconsequential. Shaku of course linked this apologetic technique directly to current problems in the interpretation of the Buddhist sutras that, ever since Tominaga, had been interpreted in much the same manner as in contemporary Biblical exegesis. The elements of "form" and their underlying "truths" were herein perceived as distinct, in such a manner that the essential teachings of (in Shaku's case) the Buddha need not be seen as defiled by certain technical difficulties.68 Due partly to their inability to communicate in English (except for Hirai Kinzo, whose command of the language seems to have been legendary), but more probably due to their concern for constructing their own image of the Parliament, all records made by the Japanese priests regularly elide the blatantly confrontational aspects of Christian universalism explicit in numerous speeches at which they were in attendance. Shaku, for example, glosses even the most vitriolic attacks upon non-Christians as attempts at the construction of "universal brotherhood." One Alexander McKenzie, the sole Puritan representative to the Parliament, spoke of the need to fashion ' 'black material into noble men and women" and "red material into respectable men." 69 In Shaku's record, however, McKenzie's call to fashion a "new spiritual republic" (seishinteki shin kyowa koku) was seen not as racist elitism but rather as a sincere attempt to produce a true "global family" {shikai kyodai).10 The point here is not merely to suggest that the Japanese Buddhists did not understand what "really" happened at the Parliament, though language was clearly an important factor in this regard (this was also true in the case of other delegates, for example, Pung). Rather, what this suggests is that the portrayal of the Parliament, and the West in general, by these Meiji Buddhists was carried out in a manner conducive to their own goals for the reformulation of domestic institutional Buddhism. The invited Buddhists, like the hosting Christians, saw and heard precisely what they desired. The Parliament's emphasis on a transcendent truth over particular issues of historical veracity was, for example, extracted from the uniquely Christian environment of its initial use and was then applied by the Buddhists as their own strategy; the idea of a tran-

The Reconvening of Babel • 157 scendent truth took precedence over the particular version of that truth. Similarly, the Christian emphasis on social work and the crossing of class barriers for the sake of religious conversions was seen as yet another important and useful technique that could be extracted from its Christian milieu. Tactics such as these, already begun in the "sectarian restoration" of the early Meiji, could be more forcefully articulated in Japan from the privileged "exterior" position of the cosmopolitan interpretation of the "world's religions" as staged in Chicago. The blatant racism and cultural elitism found at the Parliament, in its organization and definition and within the presentations, were in fact ironically reconstituted as the welcoming of the plurivocal. It was, in other words, a shared assumption by many non-Christian delegates that the very purpose of the Parliament was to aid a beleaguered Christianity in meeting the demands of the modern age. The representatives were thus invited to Chicago, this argument went, to teach Christianity both what it lacked and what it had lost.71 Though the images of the "other" provided here have been few (entirely out of concern for space), we can conclude that the ethnological hierarchy "displayed" along the Midway was also in operation at the Parliament. No representatives of American Indian, African, or other "primitive" religions were invited (presentations were made on these subjects only during some of the "scientific sessions"); the only "other" that could possibly be present was one that could be assimilated. Assimilation took different guises and was at times severely tried, but the Parliamentarian "other," though by definition existing as an exoticism, also needed to meet some fundamental criteria for inclusion among those acceptable as "other." Further, this "other" was by no means merely a passive object of the Parliament's construction but was itself engaged in the select imaging of the Parliamentarian proceedings and their subsequent interpretation. On the eleventh day of the Parliament, the newly formed Brotherhood of Christian Unity formally presented to the Parliament a "formula" designed to "perpetuate the remarkable spirit of unity" at the Parliament and to serve "as a suitable bond with which to begin the federation of the world upon a Christian basis." The formula, which gathered numerous signatures, not one of which was from a non-Christian delegate, reads in its entirety as follows: "For the purpose of uniting with all who desire to serve God and their fellow men under the inspiration of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, I hereby enroll myself as a member of the Brotherhood of Christian Unity."72 For Barrows, a man who believed that "the Christian religion is inherently expansive, and the idea of worldwide conquest entered its heart and brain from the very beginning," such a formula was mere common sense.73 It was his one avowed mission to preach to the world the living "larger Christ," "the Christ who has not forgotten or forsaken any part of the world."74 The Parliament clearly had as an (unexpressed) goal the production of a Christianity that

158 • Chapter Four carried with it the gospel that "Paul carried to Rome, and the Puritans to America." It is America, finally, that has the responsibility to "set in motion" the "Christian forces" with the "ever-living Son of God marching at the head of Christendom," and to direct these forces as they move upon "vitally intimate" Asia. Only America, claims Barrows, can accomplish what "sixteen centuries of European civilization" have failed to achieve. But, we might ask, at what cost was such a worldwide unification to be obtained? Barrows answers in language reminiscent of Darwin; religion, like all organisms, evolves, and this evolution itself necessitates the possibility of extinction of certain forms and the survival of others. Judaism, after "acceptance of the truth" of the divinity of Christ, will "be made one" with Christianity. Islam has an even less enviable role in Barrows' schema of religious evolution: ' 'the long blight and agony of Mohammedan rule will be mitigated and the throne of the Arabian prophet will be beaten to fragments by the leaves of the New Testament. . . . And Jesus, in the person of His disciples, shall enter the ancient shrine of Mecca, and there at last the whole truth will be told." 75 Similar futures are foretold for the "acrid expanse, above which hang the mists of restless discontent" called Hinduism and the "wild fantasies" and "partial truths" of Buddhism.76 In spite of the lofty ideals played large in speeches and in publications, the Parliament's certainty that "this world of ours needs Christ," and the willingness and desire to "conquer with love" all peoples of the world, uniting them in that great White City "so holy and clean," describes an irrefutably oppressive ideology thinly disguised with a veneer of evolutionary ethnology, comparative religious studies, and assumptions of a universal brotherhood transcendent of all difference. It is, in other words, a powerful presentation of the ' 'practical power'' of the idea of the transcendent as set forth by Kant. It is also a clear example of the fiction of certainty perpetuated by dogmatists "unable to establish and defend [their] assertions except by war." The fifth expressed goal of the Parliament was "To indicate the impregnable foundations of theism, and the reasons for man's faith in Immortality, and thus to unite and strengthen the forces which are adverse to a materialistic philosophy of the universe." As Kant showed, there can be no "reasons" for faith. The "foundations" of Theism might be deemed "impregnable" when articulated within a Spencerian system, but this would simultaneously disallow the construction of "forces" operative against a "materialistic philosophy." There is a clear attempt throughout the Parliament to disparage mechanical and industrial (i.e., "material") advances and to elevate "religion" as the meaning and the source of all "science." "Science," as one writer expressed it, "is a revelation of God." 77 Darwin's theories of evolution, translated into social (national) and ethnological (racial) terminology, provided the very argument by which nineteenth-century Theism attempted to unite its forces against the materialistic advance in which Darwin and Spencer actively participated. Miiller

The Reconvening of Babel • 159 did not go to the Parliament; his letter calling for a return to the radicality of an ante-Nicean Christianity was read and quietly ignored. Miiller was invoked, however, by numerous speakers, almost exclusively to provide expert testimony for claims of the universality of religious experience, of the centrality of the Aryan tradition, or of the final superiority of Christianity. His work in popularizing the comparative study of religion was heralded as having reached full flower in the Parliament itself. Miiller was, in short, used to provide "reasons for man's faith in Immortality" (a task he himself, clearly, was not totally adverse to take on). But his Kantian suggestions of the validity of plurivocal enunciations of religious truths and the concomitant assertion that "nineteenth-century Theism" was not the totalizing universal of the world's religious experience (if, indeed, such a thing even existed) could not be heard over the din of the Parliamentarians as they tried to baptize the world. THE CHAMPIONS OF BUDDHISM

The five "champions of Buddhism" (Bukkyo no championra)1* received no official government funding or authorization; they were also not recognized as official representatives of Buddhism by the Buddhist Transsectarian Cooperative Society (Bukkyo kakushu kyokai). This lack of official status had, however, no effect whatsoever on their reception in Chicago, where they were accorded the privilege of speaking for all Buddhists in Japan. The disorganization of the only transsectarian Buddhist organization then in existence was compounded by an open letter sent from an Indian Buddhist reporter resident in the United States.79 The author asserted that any Buddhist who journeyed to Chicago would serve merely as a source of entertainment for the Christians who would ' 'portray themselves as compassionate and humble lambs and all other religions' representatives as perverse and ravenous jackals." The previous unqualified support for the project quickly disappeared as the various sects envisioned a potentially embarrassing international situation. Perhaps the two most prominent Buddhists of the Meiji era, Nanjo Bun'yu and Shimaji Mokurai, were also prevented from participating by the leaders of their sect.80 The five Buddhists that did go to Chicago were thus dependent upon their own temples for support.81 Only two, Shaku Soen (Rinzai Zen) and Yatsubuchi Banryu (Pure Land), had any significant clerical rank (abbott); and only Shaku had traveled abroad before (to Siam). Only Ashitsu Jitsunen (Tendai) had published a monograph prior to participation in the Parliament,82 though all were to publish extensively afterwards. None of them, except the lay Buddhist Hirai Kinzo, could speak, read, or write English or any other European language. None of them doubted that they would be participating in a program controlled by Christian luminaries "for the sole purpose of expanding the glory of Christianity." Yet, not surprisingly, none of them doubted their own ultimate victory in this battle of religions, a victory that they assumed was

160 • Chapter Four guaranteed by the universal efficacy of the teachings they represented. These difficulties were further compounded by two factors: personal animosity between certain of the delegates themselves, and the role the Nichiren sect was to play in the image of Japanese Buddhism at Chicago. Yatsubuchi, from Kumamoto and lacking extensive scholastic training, looked upon Toki Horyu (Shingon) and Shaku (both from the capital area), their literary attainments, and their social sophistication as "ostentatious and hypocritical" attempts to impress Westerners with their "civilized nature." Yatsubuchi published several remarks criticizing their, particularly Shaku's, grandstanding. (Toki and Shaku spent their crossing of the Pacific on deck composing classical poetry; Shaku traveled first class and always took his meals in private in his suite.) Shaku responded in his record of the Parliament by editing out Yatsubuchi's speech from his work, noting only "it is not really worth recording."83 A second complication is found in a letter sent by two high-ranking Nichiren priests, still in Japan, directly to Barrows as chairman of the Parliament. Barrows, unable to read Japanese, innocently asked the Shingon priest Toki Horyu to aid him in translating the letter. This brief epistle stressed in no uncertain terms that the "only true Buddhism" was the teaching of Nichiren; the letter specifically mentions Shingon and the Pure Land teachings as being decadent bastardizations of Shakyamuni's works and cautions Barrows "not to be fooled by their smooth words" as they have no right to represent Buddhism to the world. Toki and Yatsubuchi both immediately wrote letters to Japan that were published in numerous religious journals. They said, again in no uncertain terms, that the Nichiren priests were "ignorant fools" who seem to take great pleasure in merely attempting to destroy sincere attempts to promulgate Buddhism to the world. The delicacy and value of the first "international' ' moment of Japanese Buddhism was too great to risk being damaged by some "unskilled and unschooled enemies of the dharma." Their position seems to have been supported; Barrows makes no mention of the incident, nor can it be found in the popular American press of the day. Kawai Yoshijiro, the only follower of Nichiren officially present in Chicago, was not allowed to deliver his paper before the Parliament, as the agenda was "full." 84 In spite of such internal dissension the "champions" did indeed leave their mark on the Parliament's proceedings; they also successfully utilized their newly created international positions to direct the ongoing redefinition of Buddhism within Japan. Now let us turn to problems central to the interpretation and presentation of Japanese or Eastern Buddhism at the Chicago Parliament. Nineteenth-century Buddhologists divided the object of their study into the three thematic/geographic divisions of Southern, Northern, and Eastern Buddhism. Southern Buddhism, also known as the Hinayana, was generally identified as the "original Buddhism," the purest in form, and (perhaps thus the claim to purity) almost nonextant. The Northern and Eastern forms, both

The Reconvening of Babel • 161 called the Mahayana, until around the turn of the century were most frequently described as having "broken away from" the original Southern Buddhism, such that wherever Buddhism appeared, "it has been so modified by the national characteristics and the inherited beliefs of its converts, acting upon the natural tendencies within itself to alteration and decay, that it has developed, under these conditions, into strangely inconsistent and even antagonistic beliefs and practices" from that found in the "original" Buddhism.85 Nineteenth-century Buddhologists would argue that the "benevolent agnosticism" of Southern Buddhism, describing a ' 'passionless yet selfish pursuit for extinction" and tinged with a "bald scepticism and unsettled moral discipline," gave way to belief in a plethora of "hypothetical beings'' of fantastic description dwelling in an equally fabulous universe.86 Buddha, the argument ran, had hoped to rise above the superstitions of the common people, but, even though partially successful, "the clouds returned after the rain." That is to say, the old, dead gods of Brahmanism returned under new names and forms.87 The most immediate consequence of this line of reasoning was the noticeable lack of concern—disdain might be more accurate—evidenced by scholars and the general public alike for Buddhism as found in China, Korea, and Japan. And it was Eastern Buddhism (i.e., Japanese Buddhism), more than any other, with its particularly "dreadful heresy" of syncretism conjoined with Shinto, that succeeded in "rousing the indignation of students of early Buddhism, like Max Miiller."88 One characteristic student of the science of comparative religions at this time felt compelled to ask, "is Japanese Buddhism really Shintoized Buddhism or Buddhaized Shinto? Which is the parasite and which the parasitized?'>89 This same writer went on to trace the source of the ' 'abomination'' of original Buddhism in Japan to the syncretic tendency most clearly seen in the work of Kukai. This "ecclesiastical dexterity" in coordinating Buddhism with various and sundry folk practices testified to the fact that Japanese Buddhism was merely a "swapping of history for legend and of fact for dogma."90 The Euro-American Parliamentarians at Chicago, as both descendants and participants in this analytical perspective, in fact knew very little of the teachings and practices of their fellow parliamentarians from Japan. Moreover, what they did know was decidedly not of a nature conducive to a positive dialogue. It is interesting, but not surprising, that the Japanese themselves had a very different view of the syncretic nature of the teachings they sought to re-present to the West in Chicago. For example, the Shingon journal Dento, in a review on the World's Parliament of Religions, described the Parliament itself as a syncretic exercise along the lines of Kukai's famous Hasshu-ron ("Essay on the Eight Teachings"), just on a larger scale. But the Parliament, they asserted, being ignorant of the Mahayana and dependent upon Christian writers for what they did know about Buddhism, would finally fail to obtain an accurate understanding of the world's true religion. Kukai, they noted, would not

162 • Chapter Four return to this world for another 5,670,000,000 years.91 Thus what was needed was the (re)birth of an illustrious priest like unto Kukai himself who, if he were to appear, would doubtlessly go to Chicago and attend the Parliament in order to spread the true and comprehensive teaching of the dharma to the benighted West.92 Toki Horyu, the Shingon representative to the Parliament, though not possessing the eloquence of a Kukai, did attempt to show that the Buddhism that was "the spirit of Japan" was indeed the Greater Vehicle, or rather the One Vehicle (Skt.: Ekayana).93 The origin of the Mahayana and the Hinayana is indeed one, says Toki (along with most other Meiji Buddhists), and he thereby glosses over the difficult chronological problem of Mahayana texts (the socalled Dajo hi bussetsu, "the Mahayana was not spoken by the Buddha"). Despite this original unity, whereas the Greater Vehicle provides an absolute perspective of this world, the Smaller Vehicle is but a relativistic pursuit of some tranquil other world (shingai ni jodo).94 The multiplicity of teachings, or Vehicles, Toki attributes to the now very familiar concept of skill-in-means (J: hoben), which, as it is presented in Toki's paper, is designed to compensate for differences between particular beings' evolutionary development {nikutai jo no hattatsu). Toki reads, in other words, the classic Buddhist practice of adopting the message to the listener's ability as an early example of how Buddhism took into account evolutionary differences within specific followers of the Way. The Buddha dharma is here read as an evolutionary practice that is both carried out within history and serves to drive it forth. Further, practices of "idol worship," and the characteristics of "passivity" and "negativity" generally attributed to Buddhism as a whole, Toki suggests should be carefully weighed against the serious differences between the Mahayana and Hinayana teachings. The simultaneous operation of "form" iyukei) and "formless form'' (mukei) in the Mahayana (samsara is nirvana is samsara) is the ' 'true standard" by which Buddhism needs to be measured, and not by the "law of passive uniformity" or the "delirious condition" of the "calm extinction of mind and body" of the Hinayana. Simultaneous to distancing the conception of the Greater from the Smaller Vehicle Toki, like many others who attempted to transmit Eastern Buddhism to the West, tried to draw usable parallels between the definitions of Buddhism and Christianity. The Ten Bodhisattva Precepts (J: bosatsu kai) would be called the "Ten Buddhist Commandments"; the "formless form" of the "soul or spirit" (reikon aruiwa seishin) in Buddhism, or the Shingon teaching of the "True Word" (J: shingon, Skt.: mantra), would be linked to Christian uses of the ' 'holy ghost'' and the ' 'logos,'' and so forth. But perhaps the most forceful parallel made here was that of the bodhisattva ideal, the "self-sacrifice of a particular being's salvation (Buddhahood) in the quest for universal salvation. Many European writers, echoing Rhys Davids, would assert that

The Reconvening of Babel • 163 Buddhism was "radically selfish" and that its only form of morality was the determined search for self-extinction and thus a relief from eternal suffering.95 The Japanese Buddhists' attempts to present their so-called Eastern version of Buddhism as a legitimate compassionate quest for the complete salvation of all beings met with varying degrees of success at the Parliament. Christianity, its defenders would stress, from its very inception on the cross has been devoted exclusively to the compassionate guidance of all humankind. Further, as the Christian claim to universal validity could obviously be made much more effectively if its status as "bearer of the truth of compassion" remained uncontested, the allowance of similar capabilities to Buddhism was not to be given easily. The seeming parallels that could be drawn between Christianity and Japanese Buddhism, though potentially disconcerting, were in fact quickly discarded as superficial mimicry. "Almost everything that is distinctive in the Roman form of Christianity is to be found in Buddhism . . . vestments, masses, beads, wayside shrines, monasteries, nunneries, celibacy, fastings. . . . " Nevertheless, these resemblances are almost wholly superficial and have little or nothing to do with genuine religion.96 There is not a piece of dress, not a sacerdotal, not a ceremony of the court of Rome, which the Devil has not copied in this country [Japan].97 Eastern Buddhism, that is, Japanese Buddhism, set out to recast the terms by which it had been defined in the West. Drawing directly from the discursive strategies of nineteenth-century Protestantism Toki, for one, suggested that Buddhism should be described as practicing the "tenderest humanity" and "deepest sympathy" as it followed its "grand aspiration toward universal development and the benefit of mankind." Other writers asserted that Buddhism should be praised for its inherently rational character, its non-prejudicial stance toward women, and its practical and evolutionary, rather than speculative and static, nature.98 To carry forth this message beyond the confines of the Parliament's main stage, the Meiji Buddhists at Chicago held meetings in public halls, coffeehouses, and churches; they distributed literally tens of thousands of pamphlets discussing aspects of Mahayana Buddhism. These missionary efforts, the first ever by modern Buddhists, were so positively received that the Meiji Buddhists confidently concluded that the "West's misplaced love for the Hinay ana" had been extinguished. By displaying the "brilliant, eternal, universal light of the truth of the Mahayana" while "waving the flag of universal love we have pacified the barbarian heart \yashin] of the white race." 99 The "formless form" of Eastern Buddhism, they determined, was precisely the universal principle needed to recast Buddhism as a world religion. Preparliament nineteenth-century Japanese Buddhists were largely unaware of and uninterested in the particular forms of Buddhism found outside their

164 • Chapter Four own archipelago. The construction of a New Buddhism, eminently social, practical, and compatible with scientific principles and evolutionary laws, was in its early stages as reactionary as the attempt to distance the Mahayana from the Hinayana traditions. In the words of Yatsubuchi Banryu, Shin representative to the Parliament: ' 'If we desire to extend the influence of Japanese Buddhism to every aspect of our nation then we must, like the Christianity of America and Europe, become a Buddhism for the family, a Buddhism of marriage, a Buddhism for the workplace, a Buddhism for the military, a Buddhism for celebration, a Buddhism for all ages." 100 Ashitsu Jitsunen had previously worked out an eleven-point program for a revitalization of Buddhism.101 In addition to programs for incorporating Buddhism into each aspect of daily life (in the form of schools, Buddhist doctors, hospitals, and public lecture halls), he proposed the creation of a unified Buddhism: the Shakyamuni sect (J: Shaka-shu), transcendent of particular sectarian concerns, philosophically and politically adept, and active in foreign missionary work. A more complete discussion of the unified history of Buddhism itself, of the creation of the Buddhist "bibles" (seiten), and the problem of a ' 'unified Buddhism'' (Tsiibukkyo) will be taken up in the next chapter. Here let us note the threefold aim of Ashitsu's proposed "revitalization" of Buddhism: (1) it will prevent further Christian expansion in Japan; (2) it will aid in the management of Japan itself (kokutai o iji sum); and (3) it will irrefutably demonstrate that "religion will exist as long as there are people in the world, or, in other words, religion is not bound for extinction as some suggest, but will change in accordance with the needs of the particular time and place. . . . [W]ith these changes religion will be able to evolve (shinka) along with the world itself and thereby profit the nation and its people."102 This amazing mixture of religious exclusivity, nationalism, and a naturalistic vision of a religious ontology was further highlighted by Ashitsu's analysis of Japanese history. By basing his argument upon principles of evolution and the operation of karmic law, Ashitsu interpreted events as individual contributiions to the development of the national character of Japan vis-a-vis Buddhism. For example, Tendai Buddhism, after having taken up the sword and straying too far from Saicho's edict to "dwell in temporary huts, . . . regard living lightly and the law profoundly," had aroused the wrath of Nobunaga. Then, "Hiei merely used Nobunaga to purify itself' by means of its own destruction and thereby contributed significantly to the unification of the nation!103 It was in fact the form of argument used here by Ashitsu—the strength of the nation is derived from the strength of its constituent parts as they themselves evolve—that would be used over and again by "modern" religionists in Japan and elsewhere. Yatsubuchi Banryu, adopting Comte, took this argument a step further and placed domestic changes within a schema of world evolution and thereby envisioned a universal revolution in the twentieth century: the Fourth Revolu-

The Reconvening of Babel • 165 tion. The sixteenth century saw the destruction of the unity of church and state (seikyo bunri) and the concomitant creation of a true religious faith (shinsei naru shukyo ryoku); this was the first revolution in the spiritual development of humankind. The second revolution occurred in the eighteenth-century destruction of aristocratic rule and the establishment of universal rights (ningen by odd no dai ken). The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, as the third revolution, did indeed provide a freedom based upon the major increase in world wealth, but this new freedom simultaneously resulted in the sacrifice of a large portion of the faith and rights obtained in the first two revolutions. Though the previous revolutions in the spiritual advancement of humankind had been carried out largely in Europe, the culmination of the Three Great Revolutions (sandai kakumei) was to be the harmonization of East and West (tozai ryoyo chowa). Moreover, the "general of the revolutionary army of the spiritual world'' (seishinkai kakumeigun no daigenshi) will be the religion of the twentieth century: Buddhism.104 In other words, Yatsubuchi asserted that Buddhism would bring about the spiritualization of science; the domestic revolution of a newly formed social Buddhism was to coincide with the twentieth century's worldwide revolution of knowledge. Christianity, unable to turn back the ills of materialistic progress, convened the Parliament of Religions. It sought, the Japanese Buddhists assumed, answers to its own dilemma by turning to the East. One chronicler of the Parliament, following Spencer, asserted that the West (Christianity) had failed to actualize the radical distinction between "spiritual" teachings (seishinteki; kyo) and "material" study of the world (bushitsuteki; gaku).105 Christianity, overwhelmed in the competition for materialistic survival (bushitsuteki sezon kyoso), had not only lost its raison d'etre but had, in fact, directly contributed to the West's "slavery to its own material wealth" (tomi no dorei).106 Shaku Soen replied to this plea from Christianity with an explication of the logicality of the operation of Karmic retribution and codependent origination. He spoke of a "logical circle" of causality in operation at each particular configuration of time and space; he went on to link this law to the "law of nature," the eternally operating clock describing the "progress of the universe." 107 Since the Karmic Law, like Darwin's own, is applicable to all beings, the moral life of human beings is thereby equally determined by a logical calculus of evolution driven forth by the actions of particular individuals. Yatsubuchi (though disagreeing with Shaku on other issues) elsewhere elaborates that Christianity failed to comprehend modernity because of its failure to understand the evolutionary character of the world. He offered three reasons for this failure: Christianity (1) had elevated human beings almost to a point external to the world by giving them "dominion" over it; (2) had extended the right of dominion to the "chosen" versus the "damned"; and (3) had harbored an exclusive concern with the external world at the expense of the life

166 • Chapter Four of the spirit. All three points he traced to the unfortunate insistence upon an external, objective God.108 In short, the operation of "science" and the management of society based entirely upon some notion of control over the external world were at once the strength and doom of the West; concomitantly they were perceived as the strength and doom of Christianity in the world. Without the operation of a noncontingent yet immanent spirituality (which, the Meiji Buddhists were certain, had been fully revealed only in the teachings of Eastern Mahayana Buddhism), science, society, international politics, and so forth, would be but hollow hulks casting generations into servitude. Conversely, development of the material world based upon such a spirituality would result in a universal attainment to the "realm of the complete, perfect, and true civilization" (kanzen emman naru shinsei bummei no iki).m Yatsubuchi, Toki, and Shaku—seemingly oblivious to their own ideologically complex participation in the reinterpretation of Buddhism into a socially efficacious religion—expected such undefined terms as '' spirituality," " formless form," and so on, to carry the weight of their arguments. Within their Japanese-language publications the mere invocation of such code terms doubtlessly served more or less adequately to express to their audiences the vast and hopeful future they envisioned for Buddhism and Japan. Their English essays, however, quickly degenerate into bold statements fired without calculus into a poorly understood and largely uncaptivated audience.110 Parallels between Christianity and Buddhism, produced in part through the incorporation of the prevailing terminology of the nineteenth-century Protestant discourse on religion, were responded to with both disdain and confusion. For example, such statements frequently contributed to the relegation of Buddhist thought to the ' 'table rapping and spirit talk'' of the Theosophists along the order of Madame Blavatsky or Colonel Olcutt.111 ClRCUMAMBULATION OF THE GLOBE

A religious victory is an eternal victory! An indestructible victory! A victory among victories!112 We should recall that the Buddhist delegates to Chicago were writing of international peace and the unity of humankind on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War. After their return to Japan the link between their missionary work and the national foreign service was strong. Yatsubuchi's discussion of a Fourth Revolution drew ammunition from the Tonghak Rebellion on the Korean peninsula; Ashitsu was attempting to coordinate the Buddhist continental missionary service when war broke out with China in August of 1894; and Shaku eventually spent several months in China organizing priests charged with administering to the troops. With an almost embarrassing rapidity, Buddhists in

The Reconvening of Babel • 167 mid-Meiji Japan, acting under the lingering aftershocks of the early Meiji governmental stance on religion, readily joined Japan's continental expansionist program. Buddhism, they intoned, is both the true source and one of the few (if not the only) remaining bastions of Asian culture. They further asserted that Eastern Buddhism, the most evolutionarily advanced of the various forms of Buddhism (and containing these various forms within it), coupled with the materialistic wealth of (Japanese) technology, will begin the next revolution in Asia. Although there are obvious conceptual similarities between the midMeiji Buddhists and late Tokugawa thinkers, notably Sakuma Shozan (18111864), in the use of "Asian morality and Western technology," there are also important differences. First, "Asian morality" is specifically and exclusively identified for the Meiji era Buddhists with Japanese Buddhism; second, this New Buddhism is in a direct relation to the manipulation of the material world. It is not, as in the case with Sakuma, a relation of underlying principle and external manifestation. In other words, for the Meiji Buddhists, Buddhism is moral and is technological; it is also Japan. Nanjo Bun'yu, in his introduction to the Short History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects, echoing Yatsubuchi (echoing Comte), constructs a tripartite division for describing the development of Japanese Buddhism: ancient Hinayana schools, medieval syncretic sects, and the "modern" sects of Pure Land, Nichiren, and Zen.113 The domestic development of Japanese Buddhism he regards as a microcosmic representation of the evolution of Buddhism itself, as it passed from the Hinayana in India, to the major syncretization of the Mahayana in China, and then to the "modern" creation of Zen and the faith sects begun in China and "completed" in Japan. Moreover, Nanjo notes that each stage of Buddhism flourished only within the period of its development; a prior age, after providing for advancement to a later one, quietly receded but did not disappear. The Fourth Revolution, borrowing Yatsubuchi's term, must reincorporate the activity of each aspect of Buddhism's history into a unified and universally promulgated teaching. In the introduction to a French translation of Nanjo's work, it is noted that since Indian and Chinese Buddhist practices are all but extinct (due to "connaissance insuffisante des doctrines profondes du Mahayana"), the term "Buddhism" itself can now refer only to Buddhism as found in Japan. "Aussi, ne donnons-nous le nom de Bouddhisme orthodoxe qu'a celui du Japon."114 Nanjo's conception of the Fourth Revolution, following on the earlier revolutions from India to China to preTokugawa Japan, and Yatsubuchi's, coming in the wake of the religious, political, and industrial revolutions of the West, unite in the form of Japanese Buddhism of the nineteenth century. This "New Buddhism" was conceived of as the moral and humanistic use of material sophistication and, concomitantly, as the rational operation of the Buddha dharma. The World's Parliament of Religions was viewed as an excellent platform from which to launch this quest for the Fourth Revolution. Buddhism could be

168 • Chapter Four demonstrated there in all its Mahayanistic sophistication. (There was, we should note, very little sympathy by the Japanese Buddhists for the Hinayana priests from India; Shaku, for example, regularly edited out their speeches from his chronicle of the Parliament.) Further, schooling of Buddhist missionaries for the future could be based upon lessons drawn directly from the eclectic atmosphere of heady universalism that permeated the conferences and the long hours spent in the special "Buddhist Room" discussions.115 The four priests and one layman from Japan, called the ' 'pioneers of Buddhist missionary work" {bukkyo kaigai sekkyo no koshisha), were likened unto the Chinese and Indian priests who carried the dharma from India to China and were assured of the transcendent support of Emperor Kimmei. •16 Moreover, they were advised that as Columbus had merely discovered the "America of form" (in search of wealth in order to finance another crusade against the Muslim world), the Buddhist missionaries would have the opportunity to reveal the "formless America" and thereby create an "unexcelled nation of nirvana" (mujo no dai nehan koku).ul This would serve to further Buddhism's inexorable march to the east, whereby it would both spiritually and, in the bodies of its missionaries and temples, physically circumambulate the globe. Yatsubuchi was perhaps the most active in promoting Buddhist missionary work abroad. He emphasized the need for language and secular education as crucial adjuncts to "rigorous spiritual training" (seishinteki kunren) for missionaries. He also suggested two areas that should be of immediate concern for a missionary Buddhism: (1) to work among Japanese immigrants to other nations or, as he called them, "our people, our faithful" (waga kokumin, waga shinto); and (2) to provide spiritual "training" (again kunren, not just "guidance") to the military. "Flashing like a sword and glittering like a flower" {ken to narite hirameji, hana to narite kagayaku), the Imperial Army and Navy can, like the faithful Muslims who defeated the Russians in the Crimea, or the soldiers of the Hongan-ji who held back the armies of Nobunaga, face all trials and tribulations with confidence and strength.118 The Fourth Revolution was to be fought in the name of the Buddha dharma and in the hope of Nirvana by soldier priests {soryo hei) certain of the worldwide evolutionary processes that led up to and assured victory in the upcoming conflict. CONCLUSION

The World's Parliament of Religions was constructed out of a patchwork of nineteenth-century evangelical Christianity, particular readings of evolutionary theory as applied to ethnology and cultural anthropology, and the use of positivistic philosophy for the comparative analysis of religion. Eastern Buddhism, in the form of the five Meiji Buddhists at Chicago, was conceived by the West as an object of both fascination and aggression; it was they whose inclusion into the world of the Parliament was necessary for the spiritual uni-

The Reconvening of Babel • 169 fication of "all the world." The Japanese Buddhists agreed. But the terms of this unification, though formed out of readings of Darwinian and Spencerian thought, and drawing heavily upon Miiller's comparative "Science of Religion," were recast into specifically Buddhist language. Evolution is evident, revolution is imminent; but it is Buddhism, they reasoned, not Christianity, that is most capable of serving as the spiritual guide of technology, as the more universal manifestation of the love of humankind. And not surprisingly, both Christians and Buddhists were convinced they had persuaded the other of the futility of the other's claims and of the final superiority of their own truths. Hirai Kinzo, lay Buddhist representative to the Parliament, was by far the most eloquent of the Buddhist representatives from Japan. As the next day's press releases suggest, his paper, ' 'The Real Position of Japan Toward Christianity,' ' was a genuinely risky presentation of great vehemence. ' 'At the center of the platform stood a slender and delicate looking Japanese priest. His voice trembled in the fervor of his feeling and the strange robes of his office were forgotten in the eloquence of his utterances. . . . It was like a voice out of darkness, a cry of oppression from a strange land. It came to the thousands of Christians who listened as a thunderblast, and when the priest had finished, the people rose again to their feet and gave him three mighty cheers." 119 Hirai himself later noted that "I expected that before I had finished my address . . . I should be torn from the platform." It was indeed so potentially offensive that Barrows had at first refused to allow Hirai to present his paper.120 Hirai was quite careful to state at the outset of his presentation that the goal of "religious affinity," that is, the goal of the Parliament, was being severely impeded by self-motivated diplomats and economically minded persons. Incidents involving this sort of individual can be found literally "everywhere," but one example bearing particular notice is the presence of Christianity in Japan. After recognizing Tokugawa Iemitsu's (1604—1651) mid-seventeenth-century suppression of the Shimabara rebellion and his banning of Christianity as a legitimate response to an external government's intended subjugation of Japan, Hirai went on to enumerate the current status of Japan vis-a-vis the so-called Christian Nations. Noting the unequal treaties between Japan and Western powers that guaranteed the latter nations the rights of extraterritoriality and tariff regulation in Japan, and continuing with a heartfelt attack of various injustices against Japanese citizens abroad resulting from exclusionist policies, Hirai goes on to assert that the Japanese people popularly conceived of as "idolaters and heathen'' in the West are by virtue of this moral and ontological interpretation of their national essence relegated to a position outside the "principle of civilized law." If Christian ethics is that which, in the guise of international law, maintains that ' 'the rights and profits of the uncivilized, or the weaker, should be sacrificed" for the sake of the stronger, then those who ' 'refuse to swallow the sweet and warm liquid of the heaven of Christianity'' cannot be seen as unreasonable if they remain ' 'perfectly sat-

170 • Chapter Four isfied to be heathen." Hirai continues by saying that he is confident that there are sincere efforts being made in the West to overcome this "false Christianity" (as an example he notes the Emancipation Proclamation). The emotional conclusion of his presentation was heightened by quoting the preamble to the Declaration of Independence in its entirety and by asserting that the same call of "liberty or death" heard at the founding of America can be heard today in Japan. "If any religion urges the injustice of humanity, I will oppose it, as I have ever opposed it, with my body and soul." Hirai's performance was unsurpassed. He "out-Christianized" the Christians and "out-Americanized" the Americans. His appeal for religious, racial, and national equality for Japan was couched in the same language as the basic sentiments of the founding fathers of the United States. Coupling this appeal for "liberty or death" with the hard facts of an increasingly oppressed Japanese government in the realms of international politics and economics and a portrayal of an obviously compromised and divisive history of missionary Christianity in Japan, Hirai succeeded in driving home his point as few foreign delegates were able to do. His use of a real politik presentation of current relations stripped away the thin veneer of' 'brotherhood'' that had been evoked by almost every Parliamentarian and had been used to cover the severe fissures that riddled the Parliament's cosmopolitan project. Hirai laid the groundwork for genuine cultural interaction based upon a healthy respect for real difference. In the willingness to remain "heathen," which in itself must have been a serious shock to the evangelical sensibilities of the audience, Hirai allowed for the continued possibility of a critique of the universalist conception set forth by Christianity and given form in the Parliament of Religions. His criticisms were not directed solely against the West, for in a later work Hirai makes similar charges against Japan as well; the farce of people's rights in a land governed by wealth and diplomacy, and the resultant servitude of large segments of the populace (women and workers) required for the perpetuation of such a system, is contingent upon some carefully constructed, and co-opted, notion of the ' 'other'' as a means to terminate positions ofpossibly destructive critique.121 Hirai—in notable contradiction to Yatsubuchi, Ashitsu, and Nanjo—asserts that religion, far from being the inviolate locus of any universalist discourse, must remain as a position in flux, a place at risk. Indeed, for Hirai, "religion is the savior of society" (shukyo wa shakai no kyiiseisha nari), not because it is social or becomes society itself but because it remains a position from which forceful critiques of law and of economy within an institutional society can be made. (This would, of course, include critiques of institutional religion as well.) This very locus of critique, moreover, cannot be thought of as distinct from society (here parting with Kant), for then it purports to be beyond critique itself and is thus rendered ineffective, or rather, contributes to the very discourse it purports to examine (as in Yatsubuchi's Fourth Revolution). The problem here is not so much who has the power but

The Reconvening of Babel • 171 rather power itself. A religious practice that refuses to be either belief in politics or the politics of belief can for the first time allow, perhaps, for the possibility of critical compassion. The Japanese Buddhists returned to their homeland as true conquering heroes. They were feted and paraded and traveled the countryside giving speeches on the material marvels of the West and on their own equally marvelous successes in promulgating the teachings of the Buddha. Variously described as "thunder,' ' ' 'brilliant light," or ' 'seeds of the future,'' the Buddhist presence at the "exposition of humanity" was touted as having refuted conceptions of Buddhism as a historically artificial construct, as nihilism, as idol worship, and as anti- or a-social. The elevation of "Buddhism," conceived of as a cultural product of the particular geopolitical area of the "Orient," to the position of an international and, as the returning Parliamentarians would have us believe, sophisticated evangelical tool, was put to immediate use in the domestic reconstruction of images of modern and nationalistic Buddhism. By the close of the nineteenth century the earlier historical, nationalistic, and socio-economic attacks upon Buddhism had indeed largely been put to rest. These themes did, however, remain constant areas of debate. Subsequent domestic versions of the World's Parliament, designed to effect transsectarian and transreligious unity, were held in the last years of the Meiji era. The most widely publicized of these meetings were the two Religionists' Conferences (Shilkydka kondankai). The first, attended by forty-two prominent religious figures representing Shinto, Buddhism, Christianity, and various independent groups, was held for one day in 1896; the second was an almost exclusively Christian affair and in fact appears to have been little more than a fete for Barrows, who was on the last leg of his Asian preaching tour. Both of these highly visible meetings claimed to assert the "evolutionary and social" character of religion. Within late Meiji era Japan "evolutionary" translated, however, into a willingness to compromise, and "social" was interpreted as the need to cooperate with the state ideological apparatus. Religious unity was obtained, that is, in combined protestations of the reverence for imperial rule. In 1904, an anti-war essay by Tolstoi was published in both the weekly Heimin shimbun and the daily Tokyo Asahi newspapers. In this article Tolstoi quotes the contemporarily prominent Zen Buddhist priest Shaku Soen, also of Parliament fame, as he (Soen) attempted to justify Buddhism's support of recent wars carried out by the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy. Shaku's statement as quoted by Tolstoi, in part, is as follows: "Even though the Buddha teaches not to take another's life, he also teaches that all sentient beings through the exercise of infinite compassion will be united and thereby obtain final and ultimate peace. As means toward the harmonizing of the incompatible, killing and war are necessary."122 Shaku, like Yatsubuchi, Shimaji, and to a lesser extent Nanjo, firmly links

172 • Chapter Four the world of the spirit and the contemporary world of form. Because of the final, ultimate justification of the perfect unity of the spirit of all humankind, the temporal manipulation of certain "sentient beings'' is not only possible, it is in fact necessary. This trend among late Meiji sectarian Buddhists toward what we can call yet another attempt to unite religion and politics {seikyo itchi), this time based upon a new scientism of cooperative global evolution, carried with it consequences, such as evidenced in the quote by Shaku, radically in opposition to some of the fundamental tenets of Buddhism. This new seikyo itchi is, distinct from the early Meiji attempt legislated by the government, initiated by the Buddhists themselves and all the more lasting because of it. Yet, in contrast to such statements by Shaku and like-minded nationalist or imperialist Buddhists, we should also note that Hirai's work sought to obtain just the opposite. Though Hirai actually uses the term seikyo itchi as both desirable and obtainable, it is meant in a very different way. For Hirai, religion is not used to further the designs of the political world; rather, religion by its very nature necessarily partakes in an undeniable politically. Religion is an integral element of the social order and as such must serve as both a moral and an ethical guide, as well as a tool for expanded social production and the distribution of wealth, and clearly not as a mere handmaiden to the military. It is not surprising, however, that Hirai's work is all but ignored, whereas the missionary efforts of the sectarian Buddhists are the subject of frequent and extensive praise. There were other attempts to remove religion from the privileged realm of the religionists. A young reporter at the Religionists' Conferences, Anesaki Masaharu, was convinced that students of religion and religionists had dramatically different aims in approaching their ostensibly mutual object. (It is interesting and somewhat ironic that Anesaki here has taken up the earlier division—used by, among others, the Ministry of Doctrine—between teaching/kyo and studyi'gaku.) The attempt to separate religion from the confines of belief and thus place it within the larger problem of history and society was in fact begun with critiques of Buddhism, such as found in Tominaga's work, several generations prior to this time. Anesaki and others, like his predecessor Kishimoto Nobuta, expanded upon this methodology with the use of contemporary histo-critical and philological techniques. Religion in general, and Buddhism in particular, was being constituted as a discipline, as a field for scientific inquiry. This historicization of Buddhism should not, however, be seen as a withdrawal of Buddhism from society. Rather, following Hirai's claim of the inherent politicality of religion, it is an increased recognition of the volatile nature of conflicting definitions of the absolute. Or, in the words of Murakami Sensho, one of the first generation of Buddhist historians: ' 'It is extremely difficult to criticize war when one's place of enunciation is located

The Reconvening of Babel • 173 within the state. It is only when one takes a position outside the state [for example] in religion . . . that war can be shown as evil." 123 A tracing of the production of this historicization of Buddhism and of some of its consequences follows in the next chapter. Clearly the uses of history are manifold. Even as the intentions of the Buddhists at the Parliament were diverse, and this in spite of their supposed cultural and religious unity, the means of production and final uses of the newly crafted histories of Buddhism were equally disparate and divisive. A trace of intentional commonality, however, can be found. Buddhism as "heretical," as socially exterior to a vital pervasive national construct and thus as deserving of censure, was a serious and ongoing concern of mid-Meiji Buddhists. I suggested in the discussion of the Mikawa uprising that the successful reformulation of "heretics" into "martyrs" was carried out vis-a-vis a comprehensive rereading of "history." Here let us examine this strategy more carefully; for in this move to the historicization and subsequent culturization of Buddhism, not only are Buddhists and their institutions refigured from the heretical to the martyred, they are also fashioned into national cultural paradigms. The Meiji Buddhists, in other words, in opposition to the hegemonic practices of both the Meiji state and the nineteenth-century Christocentric discourse on religion, carefully and successfully "layered" an "oppositionary figuration" of their own history and social and international identity in a manner worthy of Tominaga himself.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Making of a History: Buddhism and Historicism in Meiji Japan The token of the true church is its universality; the sign of this, in turn, is its necessity and its determinability in only one possible way. Historical faith (which is based on revelation, regarded as experience) has only particular validity, to wit, for those who have had access to the historical record upon which this faith rests; and like all empirical knowledge it carries with it the consciousness not that the object believed in must be so and not otherwise, but merely that it is so; hence it involves as well the consciousness of its contingency. Thus historical faith can become an ecclesiastical faith (of which there can be several), whereas only pure religious faith, which bases itself wholly on reason, can be accepted as necessary and therefore as the only one which signalizes the true church. —Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone What type of sentence (I asked myself) will an absolute mind construct? —Jorge Luis Borges, The God's Script

INTRODUCTION

POSTPERSECUTION Buddhist ideologues, presented in previous chapters in the figures of Shimaji Mokurai, the Parliamentarian Buddhists, Nanjo Bun'yu, and others, sought throughout the Meiji era to construct a definition of "Buddhism" that would be both resistant to further dissipating regulations and would allow for continued sectarian expansion and operation. An initial respite, resulting from the ostensible political parity within which the Ministry of Doctrine was to operate, allowed for a period of institutional reorganization and transsectarian cooperation. The dissolution of the Ministry and the creation of the priestly "occupation," articulated in terms drawn directly from the contemporary discourse on social formation and moral education, were perceived as the first steps toward the construction of real religious autonomy. An independent priesthood—bound by both the laws of their vows and the laws of the state, educated in sectarian annals and chronicles as well as in the histories of the political and scientific worlds, and finally active in teaching and service to both the religious and the larger social communities—was to

The Making of a History • 175 serve as the basis of a reconstruction of the Buddhist definition of the social. This new priestly order would concentrate its efforts on the construction of public assemblies dedicated to the explication of religious doctrines, on the propagation of fellowship to new members, and on the maintenance of this fellowship through the repetition of ceremony and the moral education of the faithful. In the attempt to construct, in other words, a ' 'true church,'' Buddhist ideologues set out first to construct a definition of Buddhism harmonious with its contemporary social and political environment. Further, they hoped to instill in this definition of a socialized Buddhism the ability to "evolve," to "progress with the times," such that this sociality would continually renew its efficacy. In true Althussurian fashion, Meiji Buddhist ideologues sought to guarantee the apparatuses of their own ideological reproduction. To produce a definition of an "evolving Buddhism," two strategic figurations were necessary: first, the articulation of some entity that could be called "Buddhism," which, transcendent of sectarian differences, would resist particularization and could thus be invoked regardless of time or place; and second, the construction of a history capable of not only recounting events from this "Buddhism's" past but also of incorporating these events into a narrative with immediate social and political import. These figurations were not mutually exclusive exercises: to conceive the trans sectarian aspect, some historical justification was needed; to articulate the historical narrative, a transsectarian definition of Buddhism was necessary. "Buddhism" returned from the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago claiming a more cosmopolitan status than when it left and, to that precise extent, claiming a status closer to that of a true universal religion. The speeches given, conferences held, and pamphlets distributed by the Eastern Buddhists in Chicago were all performances conceived as paradigmatic manifestations of this cosmopolitan Buddhism. Buddhism's movement from India to China to Japan, frequently described as Buddhism's inexorable penetration of the East (tozeri), in fact served to relativize radically the "West" as existing merely ' 'further east.'' The physical presence of Buddhism being promulgated "ever eastward" was a geographical metaphor invoked as the path necessary for Buddhism as the universal religion. The eastward progression of Buddhism was articulated, as I have suggested, in language derived from social Darwinism and the newly emergent field of the history of religions that were combined with the powerful conceptions of racism and colonialism; this entire system was then directed toward the construction of a religious and political universality. This universality was not merely a claim made by a "historical faith," and thus a claim conscious of its own contingency, but rather it was a claim to the irrefutable necessity of its acceptance. History is used in the formation of Eastern Buddhism, in other words, to produce a universality ostensibly transcendent and yet simultaneously implicated in any particular historicist figuration.

176 • Chapter Five The emphasis on universality is one painfully apparent aspect of the nineteenth-century discourse on religion and the "true church." Geopolitically, racially, or culturally limited religions could not be the true ' 'world religion.'' Or as Kishimoto Nobuta (1866-1928), frequently called the "first historian of religion in Japan," remarked, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism are each described as "world religions"; "how can there be three 'world religions' in one world?" 1 The true world religion is the true universal religion; it is, moreover, for Kishimoto, relegated finally to the position of the "religion of the future." A universal definition of religion, following Kishimoto's schema, should be capable of containing within it all other definitions or types of religion. Kishimoto himself identifies ten such definitions common to contemporary scholasticism, which he arranges in an evolutionary hierarchy. Beginning at the lowest levels with "nature worship," "totemism," "fetishism," and "phallicism," then rising through "animism," "ancestor worship," and "idolatry," the human religious experience finally culminates in "polytheism," "dualism," and last of all, in accordance with a typical theological evolutionary reductionism, "monotheism." Kishimoto further suggests that such a universal definition must have, among other characteristics, "inclusivity," "impartiality," and "progressivity." Only then would the "marrow" of religious experience be available to scientific analysis, and only then could a history of religion be constructed. What this history reveals to Kishimoto and other nineteenth-century religious philosophers is a definition of the universal religion itself. Not only must this religion be transcendent of particular localisms or nationalisms, it must also be "scientific" (that is, elide the perceived gap between knowledge and faith),'' moral'' (emphasize righteousness and benevolence over magic, civilization over barbarism), "philosophical" (allow for the study of the unity of the manifest and the absolute), and "ideal" (promote the unity between the individual [kojin] and society [shakai]).2 Kishimoto, like Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) writing a decade later, asserts that "one single religion, whatever its field of extension may be, is too narrow a base" to provide a truly universal definition of religion; such a religion does not, in fact, exist.3 But Kishimoto, here parting with Durkheim, maintains ihspossibility of the unity of this universal and a particular religious form: ' 'the religion of the future." The history of religion as forming in late Meiji Japan was not content to detail a formative chronology of the permutation of religious phenomena throughout past ages. "Scientific" analysis here was not merely the objective observation of measurable data, an act always external to and thus relativizing any universal claims the "data" may suggest. This universal definition of religion was created not to produce a nebulous "collective ideal"; it is used not merely to ' 'enrich our knowledge, nor to add to the conceptions which we owe to science . . . but rather, it is to make us act, to aid us to live." 4 The universal definition of religion does not merely provide an increase in knowledge; it

The Making of a History • 177 concomitantly produces a unified vision and a new and pervasive power. It makes " u s " stronger. In this chapter we will look first at the mechanism by which the unified vision of Meiji Buddhism was produced; second, the history created from this mechanism; and finally, certain uses of that history in the production of a Buddhist claim to true religious universality. We will trace this argument through three distinct yet mutually interactive textualizations of Buddhist tradition and history: what can be called the transsectarian, the transnational, and the cosmopolitan. Simply put, Buddhism during this period sought first to constitute itself as one unified teaching within Japan. Sectarian differences in terms of doctrine, ceremony, and organization were due to the bountiful and comprehensive nature of the Buddha's teachings and not to fundamental internal disagreements or inadequacies. It is to such figures as the thirteenth-century Kegon priest and syncretic philosopher Shaku Gyonen (1240-1322) that the Meiji Buddhists turned for a discursive vocabulary amenable to their unifying exercises. Domestic sectarian unity, chimerical though it may have been, was still only a portion of the Meiji Buddhists' strategic concerns. They also sought to expand their definition of a "United Buddhism" across the entire geocultural breadth of Asia. To accomplish this they relied upon "modern" histo-critical techne and, somewhat iconoclastically yet entirely in consonance with their historicist project, upon "classic" works such as Asvaghosha's second-century work, The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana. The unity of Buddhism was to be found, they reasoned, within the most profound distillations of faith, practice, and wisdom essential to Buddhism itself, unrefracted by divisive sectarian factors. The vitality and meaning of such a United Buddhism could not, in the final analysis, be geographically circumscribed. The production of Buddhist "histories," drawing upon the most modern and positivistic methods, succeeded in defining a cosmopolitan Buddhism: a Buddhism at once classic and modern, grounded in faith and in reason, born in Asia and global in its application. Moreover, these histories were also to be used effectively to erase the early Meiji era anti-Buddhist policies from historical consciousness. Finally, in the production of Buddhist Bibles we have paradigmatic artifacts of these strategic considerations: the textual unity of philology, history, doctrine, and faith. Late Meiji Buddhists sought, here rereading Kant's epigraph at the outset of this chapter, to construct both a "historical faith" with its particular validity and a "pure religious faith" based on reason alone and thus universally valid. TRANSSECTARIANISM: "ESSENTIALS OF THE EIGHT SECTS"

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Buddhism in Japan underwent what Tsuji Zennosuke has called the "restoration of ancient Buddhism" {kyit bukkyo no fukko).5 The rise of this revitalized Buddhism, embodied in the

178 • Chapter Five works of Honen, Shinran, Dogen, and Nichiren, took place against a background of intra- and inter-sectarian conflict, the threat of Mongol invasion, the establishment of the Kamakura bakufu, and the new imposition of strict regulation of temples, priests, and temple properties. The Buddhist temples responded to the political situation by attempting to align themselves more closely with the dominant political faction, by constructing "new" and purer versions of the Buddhist teachings, or by increasing emphasis upon socially propitious action such as the building of roads, bridges, wells, and land preserves.6 We can see that there are certain parallels between the response of Buddhism to the establishment of the bakufu and its relation to the Meiji era events described above. These parallels were not lost upon the Meiji Buddhists themselves. It is not coincidental that the syncretic writings of Shaku Gyonen were revived, popularized, and even included in the required curriculum of most Meiji era Buddhist academies. In a classic historicist move, Meiji Buddhists appealed to a medieval theologian to situate their own modern concerns firmly within traditional native conceptions of social and religious praxis. In the premier issue of one of the first journals dedicated to the examination of Buddhist history, Bukkyo shigaku, the editors noted that it was Gyonen, "the first writer to examine publicly the history of Buddhism," that served as the inspirational origins of their present efforts. "All scholars have benefited profoundly from his work. He should be revered as the founder of Buddhist history in our nation."7 Though many of his works were destroyed by fire in the mid-sixteenth century, Gyonen is said to have written over one hundred twenty titles, encompassing 1,200 fascicles. Producing his first work when he was twenty-nine, he wrote constantly until his death at the age of eighty-two; one scholar has called him "the most prolific writer in the history of Japanese Buddhism."8 Half of his works dealt with the Kegon or the Ritsu teachings, and the remainder with the teachings of Kusha, Jojitsu, Hosso, Tendai, Shingon, and, toward the end of his life, Jodo and Zen. His life work is a classic example of socalled Eight-Sect Scholasticism {Hasshu kengaku). In order to study "Buddhism itself," the various scholastic, technical, and sectarian divisions within Buddhism were interpreted as "distinct rivers flowing forth from the same source"; the various teachings thus represented distinct aspects of the teachings of the Buddha, the full ramifications of which could be interpreted only after an exhaustive penetration of the particular truths within each teaching. In an attempt to actualize this goal, Gyonen spent the first two decades of his priestly life studying under the leading masters of each of the "eight sects" (the six Nara Schools, Tendai, and the esoteric Shingon sects).9 His first work, and the most widely circulated of all his writings, was a guidebook to this transsectarian exercise. It was appropriately titled Hasshu koyo {Essentials of the Eight Sects). The Sangoku buppo dentsu engi {Record of the Transmission of the Buddha Dharma Through the Three Nations), writ-

The Making of a History • 179 ten toward the end of his life, and extensively employed during the Meiji era, not only included a discussion of doctrinal aspects of the eight sects but also dealt with the cultural transference of the teachings as they passed from India to China to Japan.10 As mentioned in Chapter Three, institutional Buddhism sought to train the priests necessary to the production of a "modern Buddhism" mainly through the expansion of existing academies. Programs that as late as the second decade of the Meiji era were constituted almost exclusively as sectarian training centers were altered to encompass a full range of political and academic subjects. In 1882, the Higashihongan-ji established its university academy, the Daigaku-ryo, which later (1896) became Shinshu University; in the same year the Soto sect established their university, the Sotoshu Daigakurin Semmon Honko. In 1886, the Shingon sect built its first university, the Shingonshu Daigaku, which was followed by a second one five years later. But the Nishihongan-ji, whose Daigakurin was established in 1868 (expanded first in 1872 and again in 1876), and which built twelve such institutions for advanced studies between 1876 and 1879, clearly led the way in the number of academies as well as the expansive nature of their academic content.11 Precisely how were these new scholastic programs organized? An 1876 issuance from the Hongan-ji complex (made up of the four major Shin sects) provides a detailed look at one of the most thorough and expansive of these new academies: the Daikyo-ko in Kyoto. Although we will look at only one section of this document, it should be noted that this issuance was a comprehensive sectarian manifesto that discussed the official interpretation of sectarian history, patriarchal lineages for each of the schools, standards for statues and sutras, ceremonies performed, building maintenance, and of course the operation of the Academy itself.12 To gain admission to the Daikyo-ko a student (in the early years only priests were admitted) would have to pass tests administered by the sectarian Middle Schools (Chukyoko), located in roughly the same areas nationally as the Middle Teaching Academies set up by the Ministry of Doctrine. Successful completion of this exam indicated that the student had also mastered the material taught by the Lower Schools (Shokyoko). The goal of such an examination hierarchy was to produce a standardized system of priestly education. The Hongan-ji issuance on education was promulgated four years after the first Meiji government proclamation on education (the 1872 Gakusei, which is the same title used for the Hongan-ji Academy orders) and three years prior to the sweeping reforms embodied in the 1879 Standards of Education (Kyoiku rei). The temples were attempting to stay one step ahead of government orders regarding institutional participation in education. They were reacting to the imposition of a new public education system by setting forth independent programs designed to maintain their own educational autonomy. In education,

180 • Chapter Five institutional Buddhism was in many ways more aggressively "modern" than the Meiji government itself. The organization of this autonomous educational system into academic levels or forms was based on contemporary political and social concerns as well as on the transsectarian format found in the reemergent Eight-Sect Scholastic tradition. The lower forms concentrated on reading, writing, calculation, and memorization; students began by learning the i-ro-ha syllabary system (the modern Japanese A-B-Cs) and memorizing era and emperor names. This exercise in memory was no small task, since there were more than one hundred twenty recognized emperors and over two hundred twenty era names, not including the controversial emperors of the fourteenth-century Northern Court and their era names. It goes without saying that at stake here was not merely the mental dexterity necessary to perform such tasks. The task of memorization was directed to accentuate a specific type of historical consciousness. In the same manner that the i-ro-ha alphabetic system was created to provide a moralized version of the language itself—to suggest a method of thinking/ writing already implicated within a specific moral code—historical training was being used to create a morally correct version of Japanese history. This history begins with the (mythical) first Emperor Jimmu (r. 660-585 B.C.E.). The regular-lower forms ifutsu geto ka) proceeded into more advanced mathematics and composition, Chinese and Buddhist classics, geography, history (Japan and the continent), natural history, physics, sectarian studies (shujo), and, central to our discussion here, "other" sectarian studies iyojo). The introductory levels of "other studies" consisted of Gyonen's Record of the Transmission of the Buddha Dharma through the Three Nations, which began with a general survey of Buddhism in India and China in order to establish the patriarchal and sectarian links to Japan, and proceeded to a detailed analysis of the sutras taught by the Hosso, Kegon, Jojitsu, and Kusha schools. This three-nation history of Buddhism culminated in the encompassing teachings of the Ritsu, Shingon, and Tendai. More advanced students in this form studied Gyonen's Essentials of the Eight Sects, which discussed more fully the operation and history of the eight-sect teachings within Japan itself. Many editions of the Essentials included extensive notation to enhance the immediacy of these transsectarian observations. The regular-higher form (futsu joto ka) added to these topics ancient Japanese and imperial studies, European and American history and languages, diplomatic history, international and constitutional law, as well as examinations of Islam, Zoroastrianism, Brahmanism, Judaism, and ancient and modern Christianity. This program was completed with the advanced studies course for priests (semmon toka). There were nine topics of study at this level. The first, Shin sect studies, focused on works such as Genshin's Ojoyoshu and the three main sutras of the Shin sect (the Larger and Smaller Sukhavati vuyha and the Amida Dhyana Sutra). The second topic was the study of a miscella-

The Making of a History • 181 nea of sects: Zen, Nichiren, and Ji. The last seven topics were, except for the Jqjitsu school (which was included among the miscellaneous sects), a study of the same sectarian divisions set forth by Gyonen in his two works. The Buddhist academy was dedicated to the training of, on the one hand, a politicized priesthood devoted to the study of historical and scientific issues and, on the other hand, a priesthood aware of an increasingly eclectic theological perspective. These concerns eventually led to interest in what we now call "Buddhology" (bukkyogaku) and the "science of religion" (shukyogaku).13 The attempt to construct a "modern" educational system was a response to social and political critiques of institutional Buddhism and the admittedly unskilled nature of the priesthood; the emphasis upon a transsectarian education was a careful attempt to locate the history of not only a particular sect but, through the mechanism of Gyonen's transsectarian scholasticism and the recently imported "science of religion," Buddhism itself. What aspects of Gyonen's work contributed to its resurgence during the mid-Meiji era? It should be stressed that of all Gyonen's works it was only the two texts we have mentioned so far, and of these primarily the Essentials of the Eight Sects, that underwent continuous republication and commentary during this period. As a concise introduction to the Buddhist teachings, the Essentials continues even today to serve both the sectarian and the scholastic communities. (Modern editions have been released in 1960, 1967, and most recently in 1980.)14 But why this text, constantly repeated? Why "Eight Sects," most of which by the Meiji period were no longer, in fact, even recognized as "sects"?How, in other words, could this work serve the mid-Meiji historicist project? We can identify three strategic uses of Gyonen's work in the Meiji era historicization of Buddhism. Gyonen begins the Essentials, constructed in dialogue fashion, with the question "How many gates are there into the teaching of the Buddha?" 15 The answer of "eighty-four thousand" corresponds to the assertion within both Mahayana and Hinayana teachings that there are eighty-four thousand delusions suffered by sentient beings; each of these delusions, Gyonen asserts, can be resolved by an appropriate teaching of the Buddha. These manifold teachings were distributed and transmitted through the ages divided into the "two baskets" of the Mahayana and the Hinayana as well as into the "three baskets" of the Sutra, Vinaya, and Commentaries. These divisions, Gyonen claims, were completed during four conferences held soon after the Buddha's death. Gyonen makes no attempt to assert, that is, that the entire Buddhist canon was "spoken by the Buddha"; clearly a creation of those who had been enlightened through the teachings of the Buddha himself, these works serve, for Gyonen, as a repository (baskets) of the records and commentaries of the enlightened.16 Though consisting of later "additions," as forcefully pointed out by Tominaga in his historicist critique of Buddhism, the Buddhist canon is not thereby rendered invalid. Because the wisdom of enlightenment is tran-

182 • Chapter Five scendent of chronology and the material world, the writings of those enlightened by the teachings of the Buddha are, in other words, no less valid than the Buddha's words themselves. This is one Meiji era use of Gyonen's work. The various sectarian schisms after the Buddha's death, such as found in the teachings of Dhammapala, Bhavaviveka, Sllabhadra, and others, are treated by Gyonen not as a degeneration but as aparticularization of the teachings: the application of Buddhism to the full range of human experience. Although he was aware of the theory of the degeneration of the Buddha law (himself writing in the "lawless" days of mappo), Gyonen's work suggests the continual expansion of the Buddhist law after the Buddha's death. He describes the debates leading to the creation of the various sects of Buddhism in India as a dialectic of multifaceted and pure "diamonds meeting diamonds" with "each sect taking the aspect most appropriate [to it]." The production of such variability necessitated the eventual expansion of the Buddha's teachings into China. The precise manner of this cross-cultural transference of Buddhism Gyonen describes by means of the Eight-Sect typology.17 After Buddhism's entrance into China it was merely a matter of time until Buddhism, now constituted in the form of the Eight Sects, would proceed to Japan. It is solely within the geocultural parameters of India, China, and Japan that the institutional and concomitant textual expansions of the teachings of the Buddha took place.18 In the Essentials we find a direct link between textual production, translation, the organization of distinct sects, and the transmission/ expansion (the frequently used compound kuden implies both) of the ' 'teachings of the Buddha." There is in Gyonen's work (particularly as read by nineteenth-century Buddhists), in other words, a conception of the historical evolution of Buddhism as it proceeds from the simple to the complex, as it adapts to numerous geocultural environments, and as it both advances and promotes the advancement of each of these environments. There is a single Buddhism, but it also has "eighty-four thousand gates" and is capable of matching an equal (i.e., infinite) range of historical configurations. The conception of a transcendent unity combined with an evolved sectarian particularity of a manifest teaching was useful to Meiji era Buddhists as they sought to locate their own positions vis-a-vis critiques of their institutional artificiality. This is a second Meiji era use of Gyonen's work. The adaptation of the "Buddha's teachings" to differing ages and peoples is made possible through two strategies: a series of unifying configurations of seemingly oppositional entities or practices, and the encoding of possible forms of praxis within the standards of Vinayan laws (J: ritsu). Gyonen claimed that the order of the discussion of the Eight Sects was not based upon a hierarchy of sophistication and that he "merely wrote them down in this order."19 By purposely deemphasizing a hierarchical arrangement of doctrinal significance, Gyonen's work can be read to suggest the cooperative and continual manifestation of the Buddha's teachings per se rather than the gradual

The Making of a History • 183 production of increasingly superior teachings. This strategy stands in marked contrast to the "five ages and eight teachings" hierarchy taught by the Tendai and the "ten ranks" as set forth by Shingon Buddhism, both of which were specifically designed to elevate one teaching to a position of all-encompassing superiority. Similarly, the teachings of the "three vehicles" as found in Hosso and Sanron are not presented as inferior to the "one vehicle" of Tendai and Kegon but rather as particularizations possessing their own raison d'etre. The postscript descriptions of Jodo and Zen, the very inclusion of which Gyonen acknowledged would in fact produce "Ten Sects," indicates that this is not a closed system; interpretive expansion is not only probable but is continually carried out.20 Gyonen concludes, that is, that there can be no conclusion to the exegetical expansion of the Buddha's original enlightenment. Sectarian ranking systems, identified with the rubric of p'an-chiao or "doctrinal classifications," produced extensively by fifth- and sixth-century Chinese T'ien-t'ai and Hua-yen exegetes, were designed to incorporate all Buddhist texts into one interpretive scheme. Simply put, these strategies assumed a primary unity of all Buddhist teachings. This unity, moreover, incorporated within it differences in interpretation, differences in pedagogical methods used (the practice of upaya or "skill in means"), and differences of application. Furthermore, these schemes were invariably ranked in a hierarchy of value proceeding (generally) from the simpler individual methods of salvation (associated with the Hinayana schools) to the comprehensive salvation of all beings (associated with various Mahayana schools). The significance of Gyonen's work for the Meiji Buddhists is that his scheme of transsectarian organization explicitly (though not perhaps implicitly) refused such hierarchical determination in the pursuit of a doctrinal unity that sought to maintain the plurivocal nature of the Buddha's teachings. Moreover, Gyonen's work presages Tominaga's analysis of the figurative "layering" of history in the production of doctrinal truth. Though Tominaga used this position to argue for the subjective, relative, and thus misleading nature of historical figurations, Gyonen suggested that it was precisely the ongoing comprehensive, yet necessarily particular, interpretation of Buddhism that guaranteed its efficacy. For Tominaga and for Gyonen the crux of their argument lay in the interpretive exercise itself. Both of them sought the "essentials" of a historically determined present. For Gyonen the most appropriate historical manifestation in his age was to be found in the organization of the "Eight Sects." 21 There is thus, I suggest, a third element inherent in Gyonen's work and crucial to the Meiji Buddhist historical project: a transdoctrinal interpretation that recognized the appropriateness of each teaching and the final superiority of none. Or, borrowing aspects of the Kegon teaching, the Buddha's teachings—like those of all other dharma (here used in its widest sense as phenomena)—are among the infinite number of jewels, each with an infinite number of facets, that are woven together into "Indra's net." Each jewel reflects every

184 • Chapter Five other jewel as it is simultaneously reflected by every other jewel. Although each jewel is a unique manifestation, it is equally inextricably united with all others in an infinite matrix of being. Further, this spatial nexus extends throughout the ' 'ten worlds'' of time (past, present, and future, each of which is in turn constructed out of a past, present, and future—producing nine worlds—that are then all joined together to form the ten worlds). The Buddha's teachings, like Indra's net, thus describe a temporal and spatial configuration of simultaneous and continuous transcendence and particularity.22 Praxis within this continually operative universal configuration is articulated in the Vinayan codes that were established, says Gyonen, soon after the death of the Buddha. These codes, like the teachings themselves, inhabited forms unique to each of the three nations. The law codes owed their plurality to the unique requirements of each historical moment.23 These laws,' 'the laws of the Buddha," were interpreted by Meiji writers as not only adequate to the perfection of understanding within the Buddha dharma, but when carefully performed were also adequate to the fulfillment of one's duties as a member of a family or of a nation. These standards, found in each sect and in every age, were thus physical manifestations of the unities of opposition noted above; they were designed to produce a harmonious interaction of the eternal and the temporal. This problem will be taken up again momentarily. Gyonen's work, specifically the Essentials of the Eight Sects, can be read as having contributed the above three strategies used by Meiji Buddhist ideologues. Or perhaps more accurately, his work served as a classical legitimating position that was used by the Meiji Buddhists (like many of their predecessors) to articulate their own particular political concerns. In summary, the three central uses of Gyonen's work were (1) a refutation of the historicist claim, initially made by Tominaga, that as the Buddha did not in fact preach the Mahay ana, it must be an artificially constructed and thus false teaching; (2) a presentation of the evolutionary character of Buddhism as exhibited by its geocultural transmission and expansion; and (3) a detailing of specific mechanisms of transsectarian unity through a recognition of the plurivocal character of the teachings and the codes of praxis found in the Vinaya. The Essentials of the Eight Sects, taught in the academies of Meiji Buddhism and extensively commented on by leading Buddhist writers, was used to produce a conception of what came to be called a United Buddhism (Tsu-bukkyo). TRANSNATIONALISM: CONSTRUCTING A UNITED BUDDHISM

Takada Doken, editor of the Tsuzoku Bukkyo Shimbun {The Commonman's Buddhist Newspaper) and Tsu-bukkyo anshin {The Salvation of United Buddhism), is a leading example of the Meiji era transsectarian movement sparked by the combination of evolutionary theory and Gyonen's syncretism. For Takada "All things are in the beginning simple but inexorably tend toward the

The Making of a History • 185 complex; moreover, they also then return once again to the simple. This is the way of nature." According to Takada's modified version of social Darwinism, the teaching of Buddhism, having undergone finer and finer divisions over the centuries, was on the threshold of its next evolutionary stage. Buddhism was ready to ' 'return . . . to the simple,'' to become, in Takada's terminology, a ' 'United Buddhism'' (Tsu bukkyo) This United Buddhism would not rely on any single sect for its form or meaning but rather would draw directly from the "essence of Buddhism itself."24 "Salvation is not obtained from temples or halls" but from immediate participation in the teachings themselves. There is thus no "occupational" distinction between priests and lay persons. Leaving the world (shukke) or dwelling within the world (zaike) is not merely a matter of corporeal displays but is contingent upon the unity of the body/mind (shinjin) and its relation to the teachings themselves.25 The "lay Buddhist" (zaike bukkyo sha), as most frequently represented in the figures of Vimalakirti and Prince Regent Shotoku, is thus lionized as the practical ideal of a modern Buddhism. Takada, through a rhetorical interlocutor, summarizes the argument as follows. If this "United Buddhism" has no main temples, no branch temples, no sectarian codes, and even no need for formal priests, then it seems that we must call it a completely formless Buddhism [mattaku mukei no bukkyo]. Is this what you are suggesting? From the perspective of institutional sectarian Buddhism this could perhaps be called "formless," and yet it is both not distinct from and not united with institutionalized Buddhism. Since it moves freely in the interstices, it transcends the distinctions of "being" and "non-being."26 Buddhism's interstitial existence does not exclude the mandatory maintenance of social standards; rather, it incorporates these standards as one central aspect of the teachings. Takada, acknowledging the "necessity of moral action in the world of humans," invokes the "five vows" of Buddhism as a means of guaranteeing the fulfillment of an individual's duties to society. The five vows (to shun the taking of life, stealing, licentious acts, lying, and drinking) are interpreted as a "simplification" of the Vinayan codes. "The five vows are the true teaching of the kingly law; as the essential characteristic of governance they are upheld by not only Buddhism but are also the basis of all laws [horitsu] below heaven."27 The projected "evolution" of a "modern" Buddhism is intimately related to the construction of an equally "modern" conception of doctrinal concerns; the status of the Buddhist vows can no longer be interpreted merely as operating within the confines of sectarian codes but are, as in the pre-Meiji era unity of Kingly and Buddhist Law, linked to the fundamental operations of the modern state. Buddhist law (ho) and the vows (ritsu) are combined to form the basis of a public law (horitsu).2i As it is now commonplace to remark, there is an increased emphasis upon

186 • Chapter Five the maintenance of the Vinayan codes during the Meiji era. Fukuda Gyokai, as noted in earlier chapters, was long a champion of this restoration of Buddhism to its ' 'central practice." He was certain that such a sectarian restoration would eliminate both external criticism and internal divisiveness. "The essence of the unsurpassed Buddha vehicle is one and undifferentiated. Yet even as society (shakai) manifests a thousand distinctions, so too the dharma teachings of form correspond by revealing 10,000 aspects. . . . Transcending the sickness of prejudicial distinction between the teachings of different sects, we will finally be able to obtain a profound understanding of universal selflessness." 29 Many Meiji Buddhists asserted that the distillation of the Buddhist vows into more precise figurations than those found in continental or ancient sectarian practices would be one means by which a unity amidst difference could be obtained. "If we were to summarize the eighty-four thousand teachings of the Buddha it would be contained in the single phrase 'Perform no evil, carry out only the good, purify your mind; this is the teaching of the buddhas.' " 3 0 The more than two hundred fifty vows for priests and more than three hundred fifty for nuns are not by any means discarded during the Meiji era; but in the popular discourse on religious praxis there is an increased emphasis upon distilled versions of the vows into more palatable collections of their central intentions into groups of fifteen or ten or seven, and so on. The phrase quoted above, called the ' 'United Vow" (Tsukai), is the final summation and the most perfect injunction—the one vow shared by all the Buddhas themselves. Further, the reduction of the number of vows in fact served to expand the range of applicability of the Buddhist teachings. (This is analogous to the ideological flexibility witnessed in the Three Standards that was, however, lacking in the Twenty-Eight Themes.) Though Gyonen's work was used to accent certain themes of a Unified Buddhism during the Meiji era, it did so while maintaining the sectarian differences embedded within its organization. There was, however, yet another text equally significant in its impact on Meiji Buddhist conceptions of sectarian organization that did not draw upon teachings limited to specific sects but depended solely upon a terse articulation of "Buddhism itself" for its presentation of a United Buddhism. Takada is one among many who claim that the "fundamental essence" (kompongi) that penetrates every sect of both the Mahayana and the Hinayana teachings is most perfectly articulated in the work attributed to Asvaghosha and titled The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana (J: Dajo kishin ron; Skt: Mahaydna-sraddhotpada-sastra). A brief discussion of this famous work as related to the Meiji historicist project is thus in order. As with the above discussion of Gyonen's Essentials, the following discussion is not meant to be an elaborate explication of Buddhist faith or practice as presented in The Awakening of Faith or a complete discussion of the history

The Making of a History • 187 of the work. Rather it is meant to suggest that the Meiji era use of this (and other) "classical" Buddhist document(s) was carefully orchestrated within the larger problem of the construction of Eastern Buddhism. It is, in fact, the historicist concerns endemic to this figurative exercise that determined that these texts would (continue to) serve as the "classical" articulations of "Buddhism" itself. Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki's (1870-1966) translation of The Awakening of Faith will be the focus of the following discussion.31 Buddhism, like Christianity, is split up into innumerable sects, and these sects not infrequently cling to their sectarian tenets as being the main and most indispensable features of their religion. The present book follows none of the sectarian doctrines,

but takes an ideal position upon which all true Buddhists may stand upon a common ground.32

Paul Carus (1852-1919), speaker at the World's Parliament of Religion, editor of the Open Court Publishing Company, friend of Shaku Soen, and patron of Teitaro Suzuki,33 wrote the above passage, not in reference to Asvaghosha's work but rather as an introduction to his own. Cams' work, The Gospel of the Buddha, was designed not merely to aid in the understanding of the "sacred books of Buddhism" or to "impress the reader with the poetic grandeur of Buddha's personality." Rather, it was written to "set the reader a-thinking" on pressing religious problems of the day. It was written in an attempt to "press the necessity of discriminating between . . . dogma and religion . . . between man-made formulas and eternal truth." 34 As the next step in a series of doctrinal figurations beginning with the Hinayana ("lesser vehicle") and Mahayana ("greater vehicle") that are used to "cross the stream of selfhood and worldly vanity," Carus coins the term Mahasetu ("great bridge") to describe Christianity and its "great mission in the evolution of mankind." Moreover, Carus concludes with the suggestion that, finally, above all these particularist figurations is something he calls a "Religion of Truth." 35 Thus Cams' Gospel of the Buddha was first an attempt to, in the terms of our present discussion, constitute a United Buddhism, an "ideal position upon which all true Buddhists may stand," and second to extend this argument to the global production of a united Religion of Tmth that, we may assume, would be an ideal position upon which all who seek "eternal tmth and not man-made formulas" may stand. Cams, as Suzuki's patron and publisher, wrote in the preface to Suzuki's translation of the Awakening of Faith that Asvaghosha's monograph is recognized by all "schools and sects as orthodox" and is used widely as a "textbook in the instruction of Buddhist priests." Cams also pointed out that the ideas within this work ' 'fully justified'' his own interpretation of Buddhism as found in the Gospel of the Buddha.36 This justification can be found on the level of a transsectarian and transhistorical unity of Buddhist doctrine as well as in the works' mutual emphasis upon "the idea of Suchness." Carus' un-

188 • Chapter Five derstanding of this term is, not surprisingly, one that is most accommodating to his own universalist project. In brief, Asvaghosha's presentation of "suchness,' ' according to Cams, is best understood as the ' 'Gesetzmassigkeit of the world," the legalistic standards or absolute laws that "determine the destinies of [the universe's] creatures." Suchness is, suggests Cants, "Plato's realm of ideas and Goethe's 'mothers' of the second part of Faust." Through such an invocation of a Greco-Aryan intellectual and spiritual unity of human beings, Cams attempts to introduce the Awakening of Faith to the "Western" audience. Such strategies are endemic to the construction of a transsectarian conception of a United Buddhism and its extension to include the conception of a universal Buddhism. Suzuki, with an explicit intentionality quite similar to Cams', attempted with the translation of the Awakening of Faith (his first major endeavor at presenting "Buddhism" to the "West") to articulate both a united and (thus) a universal Buddhism. In his fifty-page introduction to the translation, Suzuki launches a forceful and well-argued defense of "Eastern Buddhism." The Awakening of Faith "is dedicated to the Western public by a Buddhist from Japan, with a view to dispelling the denunciations so ungraciously heaped upon the Mahayana Buddhism." By seeking to prove that Mahayana Buddhism was not a ' 'queer mixture of Indian mythology" invented in its entirety by Nagarjuna and best understood as "a degenerated form of the noble ethical teachings of primitive Buddhism,"37 Suzuki was clearly continuing the work of his teacher, Shaku Soen, and the other Meiji Buddhist participants in the Chicago World's Parliament of Religions. His sophisticated use of the English philosophical idiom, however, sets his work above the more pusillanimous efforts of his immediate predecessors. To accomplish this task, Suzuki proposed to prove Asvaghosha's "historical" existence, to locate his position within a chronology and genealogy of Buddhist development, to describe the ' 'rational'' and ' 'natural" character of his teachings, and to isolate the "most salient points" of the Awakening of Faith necessary to a description of the work's historical and philosophical import. Suzuki sought to show, that is, that Buddhism was both classical and modern: the two keys to a true cosmopolitanism. Suzuki's concern over the precise dates of Asvaghosha's life and other biographical data arises in direct response to two charges current to Mahayana Buddhist scholarship. The first, made by Kern in his Der Buddhismus und seine Geschichte in Indien (1884), was that the figure of Asvaghosha was not, in fact, a "historical man" but rather a "personification" of certain ideals important to the "Asian mind."38 The second charge was a more widely shared assumption of both the unqualified centrality of Nagarjuna's role in the production of Mahayana thought and the location of Northern India as the "cradle of the Mahayana school." I will not repeat Suzuki's argument here, which is both well documented and—as he himself admits—at times "tedious." In brief, Suzuki concludes that Asvaghosha was indeed a historical per-

The Making of a History • 189 sonage who lived during the sixth century after the Buddha's death (and thus prior to Nagarjuna), and who was a "Brahman by birth either of South, or West, or of East, but not of North India'' (and thus outside the popularly identified "center" of Mahayana studies). The Mahayana teachings are thus, Suzuki concludes, both older and far more pervasive than Western scholars have recognized.39 Throughout his discussion of chronology relevant to Asvaghosha's life and work, Suzuki makes consistent allusions to both the distinction between the Mahayana and Hinayana teachings and to the character of the lands of their origin. For example, he speaks of the "imaginative Indian mind" that, "deeply absorbed in metaphysical speculation . . . paid very little attention to history"; he also laments that because of the "mystery and irrationality" of the Tibetan sources they were frequently "incorrect." In contrast, China, the eventual home of the Mahayana doctrine (and a crucial source for the production of Eastern Buddhism), is populated with scholars who are "most learned and illustrious" and capable of arguments "natural enough to convince us" of their veracity. Japan, though almost never mentioned in the introduction is, of course, represented in the figure of Suzuki himself, who, though admitting "his limited knowledge and lack of philosophical training," is "confident he has interpreted the Chinese text correctly." Suzuki is here both describing and performing the tasks necessary to a "modern" Buddhist. His great attention paid to "history," his emphasis upon "rationality" and "veracity," and his concern for the "universality of truth" stand in stark contrast to practices within the majority of other "Asian nations" (i.e., non-Japanese) and discussions of Buddhism less in harmony with the contemporary philosophical, philological, and historical discourse upon religion.40 Suzuki is thus a paradigmatic example of Buddhism essential to the Fourth Revolution as discussed in Chapter Four. When Suzuki isolates the "most salient points" of the Awakening of Faith, he does so in a way that is central to the conception of Eastern Buddhism. There are three points deemed crucial in Suzuki's work: first, the conception of "suchness" (J: shinnyo; Skt: tathatd). Suzuki reads "suchness" as the driving "principle of evolution." The exposition of the teachings of the Buddha is subject to variation in accordance with the ' 'predispositions and inclinations of the people" as civilizations evolve. Moreover, such exposition of the "universal illumination . . . the eternal, the self-regulating, and the pure,'' is necessary to the continued manifestation of the Mahayana teachings: thus Asvaghosha's writing of the Awakening of Faith, and thus Suzuki's translation of and introduction to the same.41 The second point highlighted by Suzuki is what he calls the "theory of the triple personality." The "triple body" (J: sanshin; Skt: trikaya) of the Buddha, the means by which the specific elucidation of the Buddha dharma is carried out, is clearly one of the most important theories in Mahayana teachings. Through the Dharma-kdya, or "essence-body," pure suchness is manifest in the world of form; through the

190 • Chapter Five Sambhoga-kdya, or "bliss-body," suchness as revealed in the vows and spiritual training of the bodhisattvas is made manifest; and finally through the Nirmdna-kdya, or "transformation-body," suchness as conceived by ordinary persons is made manifest (as exemplified by Shakyamuni). Suzuki interprets these three "bodies" as describing, in turn, a "pantheistic idea of suchness, . . . religious consciousness, . . . and the scientific law of causation." Further, each of these, embodied within "infinite love" and "infinite wisdom," serves to regulate our "ethical as well as our physical worlds." 42 On the basis of his interpretation of this point of doctrine, we can see that the Mahayana for Suzuki is to be articulated as a transcendent unity of religious consciousness and scientific law. This cosmopolitan definition of Buddhism—combining classical and modern definitions of religion and science—is further suggested when we recognize the historicist role played by Asvaghosa's second-century work in Suzuki's "transmission" of Buddhism to the West. The third, and from the perspective of Eastern Buddhism most crucial, point accented by Suzuki is the "doctrine of the salvation by faith." There are two places within the Awakening of Faith where notions similar to the Shin Pure Land teachings are found. The first passage suggests a method of meditation conducive to subsequent birth ' 'in the presence of [the] Buddhas"; the second, in the concluding pages of the entire work, suggests that the Buddhas, out of compassion for those suffering in the world, and by virtue of their "unimpeded supernatural powers," "are able to emancipate all suffering beings" and assist them to "be born in the Buddha-country beyond."43 Suzuki strongly suggests that even though the quotations in the Awakening of Faith are unidentified, ' 'it is not difficult to discover similar passages'' in the Pure Land sutras. What this implies for Suzuki is that not only did the Mahayana teachings come into existence much earlier than what Western scholarship has revealed, but that the Pure Land teachings, specifically a faith directed toward a transcendent and absolute Other (Amida Buddha), also figured prominently therein.44 Suzuki concludes his introduction with the observation that the Awakening of Faith, as the first attempt at a systematization of the fundamental concepts of Mahayana Buddhism, should be considered a main authority of all the Mahayanistic schools: "Those who study the doctrinal history of Buddhism cannot dispense with i t . . . and so I here offer to the public an English translation of the entire text."45 In such a manner the united and universalist doctrine of the Mahayana was first made "manifest in the West." According to Takada Doken's vision of the operation of a natural ontology, the world proceeds on a dialectical cycle of evolutionary development from the simple to the complex to the simple. Each simplification is not merely a reductionist return to an unreflective antiquity but rather necessitates as "evolution' ' a dialectical operation productive of a new metastatement that both incorporates (totalizes) all previous statements and simultaneously redirects

The Making of a History • 191 the flow of history. For the newly emergent cosmopolitan Buddhists, within Buddhist history (which, as I will show in the next section, involves the history of Japan, of Asia, and finally of the world), this principle of historical evolution is evident in the Buddha's initial teaching as well as in the subsequent major doctrinal rearticulations such as those found in the Awakening of Faith and the Essentials of the Eight Sects. The next simplification, suggested by Meiji Buddhists as varied in their sectarian and political concerns as Fukuda Gyokai, Yatsubuchi Banryu, Ashitsu Jitsunen, Takada Doken, and Teitaro Suzuki, is the production of one Buddhism. This transsectarian unity— variously called United Buddhism, the Shaka Sect, Mahayana Buddhism, or most significantly Eastern Buddhism—is, of course, not the fullest or most perfect possible unity. (The plurality of names purporting to identify this unity already suggests a certain tension between the diverse attempts to achieve conceptual closure.) The unification of sectarian difference is prefatory to the unification of what Suzuki called world religious consciousness and scientific laws. The next stage in the evolution of (Eastern) Buddhist history is no longer confined to sectarian issues but logically seeks, the Meiji Buddhists suggest, the global unity of the human race. Such a unity is possible only through the unity of the faith in the absolute other and the knowledge of the manifest world. COSMOPOLITANISM: CONSTRUCTING A GLOBAL BUDDHISM

Shigeno Yasutsugu, Hoshino Hiroshi, and Kume Kunitake, professors at Tokyo Imperial University and members of the Compilation Board of Historical Chronology (Hennen shihen hensan kai) and of the national Historical Society (Shigakkai) (Shigeno was a founder of the latter organization), produced in 1890 one of the first national history textbooks for use within the state school system.46 Expanding upon earlier state-produced histories—such as the Short History of Japan (Nihonshi ryaku) exhibited at the World's Exposition in Paris in 1877, and its revised version, produced by the History Compilation Bureau (Shushi kyoku) within the Ministry of the Interior in 1885—the seven-volume Vision of National History (Kokushi gan) was designed to present a "correct" account of Imperial Japan from its founding with Emperor Jimmu until the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889. Carefully shunning the artificial method "used by Westerners of dividing eras into one-hundred-year sections," the work was divided into twenty-one ages iki) that were "determined based upon political changes" deemed inherent in the national history itself. The first age, titled the "World of the Unity of Man and Kami" (shinjin mubetsu no yo), which extended from Emperor Jimmu (r. 660-585 B.C.E. 4 7 ) through the ninth emperor, Kaika (r. 158-98 B.C.E.), opens with the assertion that "National history begins with Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto." It is, of course, these kami who produce the lands of the "nation"

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whose "history" is about to be recounted. Succeeding ages are bracketed between Imperial-centered performances. Thus it is that the tenth Emperor Sujin's (r. 97-30 B.C.E.) reception of the Imperial regalia is used to indicate the shift from the first age to the second, which is titled ' 'World of the Distinction Between Man and Kami" (shinjin yubetsu no yo). All Imperial acts are, by virtue of the Imperial charisma, placed on a level congruent to the original creative acts of the divine couple. Through the incorporation of the divine myths into the conception of the Imperial lineage, and the subsequent equation of that lineage with the nation's past, a transitive consubstantiality is produced; national history is Imperial history is divine history. The kind of history that is being set forth here bears accenting. The work begins with three distinct yet overlapping prefatory organizations of the seven volumes' contents. The first of these is a chart detailing an Imperial genealogy; presented in a carefully pruned tree-branch fashion are the "correct and true" succession of emperors, empresses, Imperial princes, and—the one aberration—the emperors of the Northern Court. The emperors are marked by only their Imperial (not personal) name and by a number indicating the order of succession. Concluding notes indicate that "from the time of Emperor Jimmu until the present [Meiji] Emperor there have been one hundred twenty-two emperors who have continued through sixty-eight successive generations of fathers and sons," which have encompassed "2,849 years" (until Meiji 22). (The problematic ninety-eighth emperor, Chokei [r. A.D. 1368-1383], based upon the Mito domain's History of Great Japan and certain unidentified "ancient texts and annals," is here included in the "true lineage" [seito] of the Southern Court, not in the Northern, and not, as was to occur later in some lineages, omitted altogether.) This Imperial genealogy, itself the result of no small scholastic endeavor, can be read as the most perfect distillation of the history contained in the following volumes of the Vision. The "national history begins" with the creator deities themselves; it is then immediately transferred to the Emperor Jimmu, thence to Suizei, Annei, Itoko, and so forth, continuing to the Emperor Meiji in an "unbroken" line (assuming, that is, that the case of Emperor Chokei, along with many other "minor" lacunae, are considered resolved). The assumption of the congruence of national history and divine history allows for the presentation of the Imperial lineage as a national history. The Emperor within such a figuration does not merely "represent' ' an age but is consubstantial with it. The second organizational level of the text is presented through an expansion of the Imperial genealogy into an annals form. The same order of emperors, in the previous figuration transcendent of any particular associations of place (other than the amorphous ' 'Imperial Nation'') or of time (other than as suggested in either the linear relation between emperors or in the concluding remarks regarding the total sum of years and generations), is here given specific shape. In a charting separate from the genealogical tree, the emperors are

The Making of a History • 193 identified by their divine and given names, the years they occupied the throne (and in the early years the location of their court), the place of their birth and location of their tomb, the name of their mother and (where appropriate) their empresses, and (occasionally) certain comments to locate this new Imperial matrix further within ' 'history."48 The transcendent divine genealogy is in this way made present and is introduced into an annals that reaches into both geographical and social forms for its field of operation. The third organizational level embedded within this production of a national history is the narrativization of this manifest Imperial line into a chronicle. It is, as the title of the work suggests, a "vision" of, or into, the nation itself. Beginning with the lack of separation between humans and kami, extending through a chronicle of that separation, to the building of national laws, trade with the continent, and a careful recording of the succession of Imperial and military dynasties, the chronicle attempts to produce a concise historical narrative vision dominated by the centrality of Imperial unity. Events to be recorded within this narrative are "true" precisely because of their relation to the divine order from which they derive both their meaning and their existence. To paraphrase Hay den White, though the "orderly succession" of the Imperial genealogy has "no counterpart in the events, natural and human" that are expanded upon in the chronicles themselves, it does serve as "a 'subject' common to all of the referents" found within the chronicles of the different ages.49 The Imperial figure is constituted, that is, as not only that which makes history possible, but as that which provides the very power of "sight" by which a "vision of national history" can be created. The judgment of events is thus necessarily carried out vis-a-vis the "narrativizing resolution," the embodied moral principle, of the Imperial charisma, of that which "sees" all within the realm. "Sight," long linked with conceptions of rule and power, is specifically associated here with the rale over/of history. In this regard it is perhaps useful to recall that the era name "Meiji" was itself derived from a verse within the classic book of divination, the / Ching. This verse reads in part as follows: "Seeing each of the ten thousand things in turn, the land is thereby divined; the sage king faces south and hears all below heaven; [his] leadership is thus brilliant [mei] and [the land is] governed [/7]."50 To "see" for an emperor is to "divine," to "know" in its most profound dimensions. An Imperial historical vision is thus unparalleled in its penetration and comprehension. Historical narrative is the highest form of historical discourse, being the culmination of the forms of annals and chronicles. As such, it "reveals to us a world that is putatively 'finished,' . . . [where] reality wears the mask of a meaning, the completeness and fullness of which we can only imagine, never experience."51 The narrative constructed in this Imperial history (and as I will suggest below, Meiji Buddhist histories as well) attempts to present both the

194 • Chapter Five ' 'fullness" of a completed (there is nothing' 'missing'') history and the radical experiential immediacy of that fullness. The emperor, conceived of as a divine form, a manifest kami, simultaneously serves in the capacity of an unbroken continuity (as, in other words, the absolute) and as the current temporal representation of that continuity. There is indeed a demand for both moral meaning and historical closure in figuring the emperor as the absolute. Through the careful use of ceremony, doctrine, and now history, the implementation and interpretation of the divine will is totalized and thus controlled. The absolute is made "known." But there is also the lingering suggestion of a potential discontinuity. The emperor—as form, as body—is subject to his own natural laws; he dies. There are different emperors, each, as the Vision of National History suggests, constituting the essential and distinct characteristics of his own age. The "renewal" of the divine charisma found in ceremonies such as the Daijosai is thus not merely a repetitive re-presentation but is a discontinuous renewal. History does not achieve total closure with the inclusion of the emperor as the absolute; by the very injection of the absolute into the corporeal, a certain discontinuity is necessary. Imperial ideologues assumed that their rigorous control of the past, through history, and the present, through doctrine and ceremony (obviously these divisions are not mutually exclusive), would necessarily produce commonsense articulations of both the immortality of the state and its monopolization of the future. They had to settle, however, for a conceptually strained vision of a discontinuous continuity. Within Meiji era national histories Buddhism figured as an unpleasant yet inescapable guest. Its entrance into Japan was described as an unintended consequence of the attempt to import from the continent medical, calendrical, mechanical, and literary skills. The Vision of National History carefully notes that it was only after these culturally essential items were received that the artifacts of Buddhism arrived. The varieties of discord resulting from the introduction of Buddhism into Japan in the form of murders, power plays, and endless debates are listed carefully and in generally the same order in numerous similar works. The continual expansion of Buddhist political influence and its gradual incorporation of Shinto throughout the medieval period are described as the "vilification" (fujoka) of shrines and the national faith. Certain artifacts of Buddhism's presence (such as the great Buddha at T6dai-ji) are presented, however, as exemplary products of national organization and divine patronage. From the perspective of national history Buddhism clearly had its uses, though these were both limited and carefully regulated. In contrast to the national histories based upon the specific concerns of the state, such as the Imperial University's Vision, we can also find numerous publications of distinctly "Buddhist histories." Shakyamuni Buddha and the partriarchs, much like the emperors, are given historical identities upon which elaborate patriarchal genealogies (kosoden) are constructed. A canon of cen-

The Making of a History • 195 tral texts and commentaries is established and is used as the basis for the production of numerous "Buddhist Bibles" (bukkyo seiten). Further, drawing upon philological, geographical, archeological, and other comparative scientific methods of analysis, histories of domestic "Japanese Buddhism" as well as the "Three-Nation" {sangoku) narratives of an evolving Buddhism are also produced. "Originating" in India and undergoing various permutations and "specialization" in China, Buddhism gradually "evolved" eastward (tozen), culminating in its "Japanese" manifestation. The use of "genealogies" (den) and other classic forms of sectarian narrativity found throughout Buddhist literature, such as the chronicles of dharma transmission or of patriarchal succession, are not merely repeated within these Meiji Buddhist histories. Rather, these "narremes" are carefully incorporated by means of "modern" analytical methods into a more comprehensive narrative structure designed not only to constitute a specific tradition (which has itself been expanded through the transcendental notions found within Gyonen's and Asvaghosha's works to include Buddhism per se) but also to situate that tradition within a social and political matrix in such a way that the continued evolution of the social in the modern age is itself perceived as intimately related to (if not dependent upon) the Buddhist tradition. Or, within the terms of our present discussion, distinctly Buddhist histories produced during the Meiji era were used not only to refute the historicist attacks begun by Tominaga a century and a half previously; these narrations of the "Buddhist tradition" were also attempts to trace the political and social contours of Buddhist institutions and teachings in ways conducive to images of a distinctly "modern" Buddhism. The first attempts at historical readings of religion during the second decade of the Meiji era tended to be, like much of the heated polemic of the first ten years of the era, comparative exercises devised to illustrate the superiority of one tradition's teachings over another's. The major difference between the works of the 1880s and those of the 1870s is largely one of expanded conceptions of chronological and spatial boundaries within which two (or more) traditions had existed. Although the polemics of religious separatism and elitism were never dissolved but merely relocated, the simple dichotomy evidenced between many works (between, for example, Christianity and Buddhism, or Buddhism and Shinto) gives way to a plurality of comparative analyses. A surprising number of writers claim, as Takahashi Goro does, that after "a study of all the texts of the world's religions" there was a need for "one book that would elucidate the principles of all the religions on earth, a book that would provide, at a glance, the truths and falsehoods of each religion for all people to see." 52 Takahashi, himself a practicing Christian, attempted in the true spirit of "enlightenment thought" (keimoshugi shiso) to produce a "rigorous and unbiased treatment" of Shinto, Buddhism, Brahmanism, Zen, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, and the various schools within Japanese Buddhism (all within one hundred pages!). Other works, such as Yamamoto Sen-

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ga's 1886 Record of the Shinto Kami, Shayamuni Buddha, Christ, and Confucius (Nihon shindai shaka yaso koshi daiki), adopted a (somewhat) less global approach and focused specifically on the manifestation of different, predominantly "Asian," religions as found within the Japanese archipelago.53 Even works ostensibly dedicated to the comparison of Christianity and Buddhism expanded the focus of their critique to include Brahmanical and Judaic studies as well as extensive commentary on various aspects of world history. Thus, for example, Kamagaki Midori in his 1880 New Thesis on the Comparison of Christianity and Buddhism (Budda yaso ryokyo hikaku shinron) not only discussed the doctrinal differences between Buddhist and Christian theories and the origin of humankind or the operation of the stars and the planets, but also drew upon a conception of the "historical development" of each tradition to analyze these differences.54 One strategy shared by many of these sectarian histories was a retrospective critique of the futility of the Meiji state's attempt to produce a national system of doctrine. In the same way that national histories were being written to emphasize the "discordant" character of religion by emphasizing past events, these sectarian histories were being written to show that religion, though related to the political, could not be fully determined thereby. Shimaji Mokurai, writing in 1880 in one of the first Buddhist histories of the Meiji era, concluded his monograph with the line "when the Office of Doctrinal Instructor was terminated, religious authority was returned to the sects and the complete separation of religion and government was obtained."55 The mid-Meiji termination of the state's attempt to define public and private religion served, at least for Shimaji, as a benchmark of new forms of religious discourse. The establishment of autonomous institutional and educational systems was but the beginning of the New Buddhism. The creation of a distinctly modern "Buddhist history," as an autonomous discursive practice, was an equally crucial aspect of the refiguration of postpersecution Buddhism. The standards by which a religion was to be judged, as suggested in the discussion of the Meiji Constitution and the "freedom of religion" clause in Chapter Three, remained both active and pervasive in spite of the ostensible termination of state control over sectarian affairs in the late 1880s. The use of the Imperial genealogy as an organizing narreme for histories of Japanese Buddhism can, for example, be found in many works dating from this time: for example, Tajima Shoji's History of Japanese Buddhism {Nihon bukkyo shi), and extending through Taisho era works such as the Shingon sect's 1915 official history of the relation between the Imperial household and esoteric Buddhism.56 Even though these works, like the Vision of National History, relied upon the organizing principle of Imperial continuity to define the ages within which Buddhism operated, and relied upon recountings of Imperial support for Buddhist expansion (temples built, statues carved, sutras copied) to establish a sense of historical legitimacy, Buddhism's history was no longer

The Making of a History • 197 confined to standards determined solely from within the Imperial milieu. Tajima, for example, though listing each emperor beginning with Emperor Jimmu in a chart form of the same organization as found in the Vision, left blank the space (for "pertinent information") beneath each emperor's name prior to Kimmei (r. 539-571). Prior to the "official" entrance of Buddhism into Japan in the thirteenth year of Kimmei's reign, "Japan was for 1,212 years a Buddha-less world" (mubutsu sekai).51 Within the confines of Tajima's work, it should be noted, these 1,212 years were thus also distinctly lacking in historical narrative and thus "history." Though Buddhist histories were careful to detail the close relation between Buddhism's presence and the "cultural advancement" (bunka hattatsu) of the nation, there was also a careful preservation of Buddhism's final exteriority to exclusively national historical formulations. It is precisely this undeniable exteriority, found both within its doctrinal organization and the structuring of its past, which contributed to extensive attacks upon Buddhist institutions in the early years of Meiji. Here, however, this undeniable exteriority is gradually refashioned into its strategic opposite. No longer a burden to Buddhism, or at least not a burden in the same manner, this exteriority becomes the key element in the formulation of a newly defined Buddhism and its global conception. This ironic refiguration of its own exteriority (worthy of Tominaga himself) allows Buddhism, in the name of national cultural evolution, to refigure its heretical past into a lamentable martyrdom. Shimaji Mokurai, Ashitsu Jitsunen, Shaku Soen, and Toki Horyu joined together in 1890 to edit the five-volume Essentials of the Buddhist Sects, officially published under the authority of the Transsectarian Cooperative.58 This work drew more than the suggestion of its title from Gyonen's thirteenth-century Essentials of the Eight Sects. Of Gyonen's eight sects, only four remained: Hosso, Kegon, Tendai, and Shingon. By the Meiji era the other Nara sects had been either included as schools within the larger sects or institutionally abolished. (Hosso had in 1872 been amalgamated with the Shingon sect but in 1882 was regranted full sectarian status and the administration over the K6fuku-ji and Horyu-ji.59) Zen, included as a brief notation at the conclusion of Gyonen's work, here is expanded to include the Rinzai, Soto, and Obaku sects; similarly, the Pure Land teachings are represented by the sects of Jodo, Yuzu Nembutsu, Shin, and Ji. There is also one new addition: Nichiren. The order of the discussion of these twelve sects, though no longer able to follow Gyonen's exact figuration, does claim the same impartiality of organization: the Meiji text's order of the sects is based upon the chronological sequence in which the sects had "entered Japan." "Time," that is, is used as an objective and thus impartial ordering device, productive of irrefutable data and divorced from particular sectarian concerns. (Gyonen, it will be recalled, "merely wrote them down in this order.") Moreover, particular splinter groups are excluded (only the major sects (shu), and a few of the numerous schools (ha),

198 • Chapter Five are discussed); technical terms are edited to a minimum; and all names and dates, particularly those of the patriarchs and the order of their succession, are made consistent throughout the twelve sects' individual histories. In attempting to provide concise presentations of the "essentials" of each sect, each differing in technical and institutional forms, the editors hoped to construct, much as Gyonen had done, a concise presentation of "Buddhism" itself. Or, within a slightly different context, the editors, three of whom (Ashitsu, Shaku, and Toki) were to journey to Chicago as Buddhism's representatives at the World's Parliament of Religions, sought to produce a streamlined conception of Buddhism conducive to its presentation on the international stage of religious discourse. Buddhist histories, particularly transsectarian histories, from the outset were invested with a politicality that was derived from and contributed to both the domestic and the international concerns of a radically selfaware institutional Buddhism. Although the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects, heralded as a historical tour de force of Buddhist unity, was to enjoy a half-dozen reprints in its first year alone and be released in four different editions over a period of ten years, events surrounding its production suggest something less than transsectarian unity. As noted above, the editorial board first gathered in 1890; within a year the completed essays had been collected from the different sects. (In the spirit of the true plurivocal presentation of history, each sect was responsible for the construction of its own history.) It took, however, another five years for the work finally to be released. Ashitsu, in his introduction to the work, notes only that "because of certain difficulties" publication was delayed. Part of the difficulty seems to have arisen over the Nichiren sect's insistence upon including in their portion of the work Nichiren's famed statement: "The nembutsu is useless; the Zen are devils; Shingon destroys the nation; the Ritsu are pirates." The editors, on the other hand (none of which incidentally was a Nichiren priest), sought to eliminate this phrase in favor of a more conservative one: ' 'distinguishing the heretical interpretations of the Buddha dharma from the true, Nichiren discarded the false and upheld the true." Although the editors' choice was eventually selected, the selection was made not without extensive disagreement (even to the point of legal action and an appeal for governmental intervention). The potentially volatile incident at the World's Parliament of Religions involving the Nichiren sect's letter to Barrows as discussed in Chapter Four, and Toki's swift and angry reply, is most likely related to this editorial disagreement as well. The editorial board for the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects enjoyed unparalleled prestige within the Buddhist and (to a certain extent) academic communities; Shimaji was popularly credited with almost single-handedly extricating institutional Buddhism from governmental control, and the other three priests, having returned from the Chicago Parliament by the time of publication, were regarded as true symbols of the new international Buddhism. This

The Making of a History • 199 work was also credited with the status of an unquestionable orthodoxy in its interpretations; the head of each sect both approved the version of their sect's history and contributed their calligraphic imprimatur to the volume in which it appeared. Precisely because of this prestigious orthodoxy, we should recognize that this work served not merely as an innocent expression of an unadulterated record of pure Buddhist spirituality throughout Japanese cultural history. Rather, this effort to determine (not describe) the "essentials" of Buddhism is better understood as a normative attempt to establish the limits and definition of orthodoxy, to restrain the "proliferation of unauthorized discourse," and thus as an attempt to obtain political power.60 This power was not only sought in relation to potential differences between sects (thus the codification of sectarian ranks, names, dates, and the altercation with the Nichiren sect), but was also an attempt to construct a unified political entity capable of active resistance to the state. None of these histories, for example, discusses critically or at length the early Meiji period and the socio-political difficulties experienced by Buddhism at that time.61 Similarly, certain aspects of the more distant past were also quietly ignored. The Rinzai Zen sect's essay concentrates almost entirely upon the Ashikaga period and the advancements in literature and trade that were made during that time and then goes on to ignore the Tokugawa period entirely, which evidently was deemed historically insignificant. In the Tendai sect's essay, participation in the medieval wars with Oda Nobunaga and the presence of sohei, or warrior monks, in the temple hierarchy is admittedly described as "a truly unfortunate mistake." The essay does, however, devote the next several pages to an attempt to persuade the reader that the sohei were not really warrior monks but merely overzealous temple workers. Oda's action against the Enryaku-ji complex itself is dispatched with the line "after Oda's burning [of the mountain], . . . Toyotomi [Hideyoshi] and Tokugawa [Ieyasu] were active in its rebuilding."62 In order to redirect the conception of Buddhism in the present age, the individual essays select aspects of the distant past (skipping over Meiji)—generally extending back to Asvaghosha, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, and Buddha in India—and attempt to display the present as an important result of these past causes. Buddhist history, that is, is being articulated in ostensibly Buddhist terms as the operation of the karmic law of cause and effect. The judicious selection of causes is therefore the first step in the production of a Buddhist historiography—a selection that is, nevertheless, determined by the particular ideological configuration of the moment of selection itself. Each sect was asked by the editors to compose an essay comprising two major sections, "historical transmission" (shiden) and "doctrine" (shugi); each of these sections was in turn subdivided: the former into "history" {rekishi) and "biography" (kiden), and the latter into "central sutras and texts" (shii-i kyoteri), the "name of the sect" (shumei), "interpretation" (hanyaku), and "sectarian teachings" {shii-i). These categories can be read as the param-

200 • Chapter Five eters within which leading Buddhist ideologues of the Meiji era attempted to define "Buddhism." Although many of the sectarian teachings (the precise makeup of which obviously varied from sect to sect) purported to reach beyond, even destroy, formalistic interpretations of the Buddhist teachings, they were each encapsulated within a ranked order of mnemonic ideographic quatrains, and carefully included within the larger organizational framework of this history of Buddhism. Even though perhaps less restraining than the Parliamentarian guidelines for the discussion of "religion" noted in the previous chapter, this outline was not without its own internal tensions. For example, both the Rinzai and the Soto sects (Obaku claimed its doctrine was ' 'the same as" the Rinzai sect's) in the section on "central surras" replied that there were none;' 'we treat all of the Buddha dharma as central surras," or "we rely only upon the continual transmission of the lamp [toto]."63 Claims to the absolute, like the ancient Chinese and Indian mathematicians' use of the "zero" in calculation, could be indicated only by the invocation of a present absence. Perhaps, indeed, this is all that is ever possible; yet the careful regulation of the allowable forms by which that absence may be registered has intentions exterior to the primal epistemological concerns of engaging the absolute. Shimaji, in his lengthy introduction to the entire work, provides further insight into the operation of these categories.64 From his first sentence it is clear that specific, and problematic, choices had been made. After acknowledging the existence of forty-eight different theories as to the correct dating of the birth and death of the Buddha, Shimaji merely notes "we will follow the traditional version," which placed the Buddha's birth at 1027 B.C.E. (three hundred sixty-seven years prior to the date assigned to Jimmu's ascension of the throne in 660 B.C.E.). It is more than a little surprising that this unqualified and undocumented choice was made. The amount of scholastic energy expended to determine the "factual" biographical data pertaining to Shakyamuni Buddha was, to say the least, massive. Nanjo Bun'yu, who collected these forty-eight different theories from Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Siamese, Chinese, Mongolian, and contemporary (largely German) sources, had also written extensively on the problem; the numerous Meiji era "biographies of the Buddha" all attempted to clarify this issue; and every Buddhist history written during the Meiji era generally began with a review of this problem.65 The "traditional version" that Shimaji chose, suggested by the T'ang dynasty priest Fa-lin, was selected precisely because of its "traditional" character. Explanation of which tradition (the different sects until the publication of the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects relied upon different chronologies) or other matters involved in the choice are not addressed. It should be noted that whereas many texts contemporary to the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects were selecting the sixth and fifth centuries before the Christian era for the period of Buddha's life, Shimaji and others chose a much earlier date. Like Tajima's work cited above, Shimaji is careful to point out that for the first 1,212 years

The Making of a History • 201 of Japan's existence it was a "Buddha-less world," thus inversely acknowledging the seventh-century B.C.E. date of Jimmu's ascension of the throne. Further, Shakyamuni's dates are also given in relation to Jimmu's: Jimmu kigen zen, "Before Jimmu." Chronology, though used as the basis of the "objective" internal ordering of the Buddhist sects' histories, is here invested with the suggestion of historical exteriority; Buddhism's history, which has its narrative beginnings with the historical Buddha, enters into Japan and is situated by means of a Japanese Imperial chronology. Yet through the invocation of a specifically Buddhist chronological narrative it succeeds in not being entirely contained therein. Shimaji, in other words, from his very first sentence is seeking to establish, by means of the "objective" ordering of chronology, historical autonomy for the Buddhist tradition.66 According to Shimaji, Buddhism, after its initial enunciation by the Buddha (Shimaji, like many Meiji Buddhists, ignores this aspect of Tominaga's historicist critique), passes through five stages of development; this development is measured in years extending from the death of the historical Buddha. Within four hundred years of the Buddha's death, the four major councils had been concluded and the Buddhist canon had been established. (The dates, number, and content of these councils were debated no less vigorously than the biographical data of the Buddha; Shimaji again is making undocumented decisions simultaneous to the production of a "true history.") Six hundred years after Buddha's death Asvaghosha writes the Awakening of Faith and clarifies the true nature of the Mahayana teachings. Eight hundred years after the Buddha's death Nagarjuna, whom Shimaji calls the "Founder of the Eight Sects" {hasshu no daiso), expands upon Asvaghosha's work to allow for specificity and diversity of its application (the great vehicle becomes even greater). One thousand years after the Buddha's death, Buddhism begins its "penetration of the East" and enters China. After undergoing both expansion and persecution, "the true diamond vehicle," 1,500 years after the death of the Buddha, enters Japan. Advancing from the "six sects" of the Nara period to the eight of the Heian and the ten during the Kamakura, Buddhism finally obtains the "twelve sects" found in contemporary Japan. Each of these sects, Shimaji adds— though distant in terms of time, space, and schematic particularities from the Buddha and his age—can be traced directly to ancient India through the reversal of the developmental schema just traced through China, Nagarjuna, and Asvaghosha. After Southern Buddhism, which was largely limited to the Hinayana (found in India, Ceylon, Siam, and Burma), and Northern Buddhism, which was largely limited to esoteric teachings (found in Tibet, Manchuria, Mongolia, and South China), Eastern Buddhism, containing all aspects of the Buddha's teachings (i.e., the Hinayana, esoteric, exoteric, and faith teachings of the Mahayana), was produced in Japan. Shimaji concludes that it is the "transsectarian" (shutsu) and "transdoctrinal" (settsu) character of Eastern Buddhism that will be discussed in the following volumes of the Essentials of

202 • Chapter Five the Buddhist Sects. Since Southern Buddhism is still limited to the Hinayana, and "China and Korea are finally nothing more than a great wave sweeping up to the shore of the teachings of Eastern Buddhism, there is no need to discuss them at great length."67 Shimaji not only seeks historical autonomy vis-a-vis the Japanese state; he also seeks it vis-a-vis the Buddhist tradition itself. The image of an evolving Buddhism encompassing, to date, all of Asia is used as a means to relativize the Imperial claim to a historical hegemony; further, the potential of Buddhism to expand beyond Asia is used as a means to relativize the particular geocultural "origins" of Buddhism that are deemed inadequate when judged by the standards of "modernity" and the task immediately ahead. Noting that the continued eastward journey of Buddhism has already begun, as evidenced by both the Japanese Buddhists' efforts at the World's Parliament of Religions and Paul Cams' Gospel of the Buddha (which was translated into Japanese almost immediately after publication as Budda no fukuori), Shimaji rejoices: "Ahh! Throughout the great expanses of the American continent and across the mountains and rivers of Europe, we shall actualize the subtle brilliancy of the Pure Land, we shall bathe in the sagacity of the perfected man. How can one be without boundless hope for the future of Buddhism?"68 Although it is not reflected in the individual essays themselves, Shimaji suggests that there is in fact a doctrinal unity amidst particular (and extensive) sectarian difference. He selects items such as the Three Jewels {sambo) of the Buddha, dharma, and sangha; the Six Paths of Existence (rokudo); or the Twelvefold Path of Causality (juni inneri) as aspects of Buddhism that, analogous to the Lords' Prayer and the Ten Commandments in Christianity, serve to unify the diversity of sectarian interpretations. But such a collection of doctrinal shards, divorced from the sectarian interpretations that in fact give them meaning, could not finally purport to bring unity to the diversity of teachings. This was one aspect of the editor's attempt to establish an ideological hegemony over the very conception of Buddhism per se that did not, and in fact could not, meet with success. (This issue will be raised again in the discussion of Buddhist bibles below.) There were, however, certain points of commonality found (created) between the different sects. Rather than within the sphere of doctrine, it is in the other major division of the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects, "historical transmission"—and the interpretations of "history" and "biography" found therein-that such commonality can be found. "Biography" is a translation of the term "kiden," which, in its use in ancient Confucian academies as one of the Four Ways of study (J: shido; Ch: ssu tao)—the other three being the study of the classics, of laws, and of calculations—could also be translated as "history": the records of deeds and sayings of significant figures of the past that have been ordered into a narrative reflective of the times and transmitted to the present. Within the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects the biographies are exclusively of the founders and major re-

The Making of a History • 203 formers of each sect. (The "kiden" section is, further, juxtaposed to and distinguished from yet another narrative configuration called "rekishi," which I translate as "history," the term for which "rekishi" has been used in contemporary Japanese.) The transmission (den) or biography (kiden) section of the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects thus reflects, largely uncritically, the widespread hagiographic "chronicles of illustrious priests" (Kosoden), each designed to elevate the founder of the sect and his disciples, as well as produce evidence of the legitimate claim to sectarian succession.69 Certain patterns, such as the almost obligatory story of the precocious nature of the sect's founder as a child, are repeated in unabashedly similar terms. For example, both Roben, the prominent Kegon priest, and Ryonin, the founder of the Yuzu Nembutsu sect, were said in true Confucian style to be able to ' 'hear one point and understand ten"; Dengyo (of the Tendai) and Genku (of the Jodo) were said to have read the entire Buddhist canon "five times" while they were novices; or, in a more Three-Nation-style of recounting the past, Kukai's ten disciples were considered the Japanese equivalents of the Buddha's ten original disciples; and so forth.70 The dividing line between such biographical accounts of the sect's patriarchs and the "history" of the sect itself is clearly a flexible one. One possible reading of the difference, as revealed in their status as separate categories within this text, is that biographies are used to accent the particular—the sectarian—interpretations of the manifestations of the Buddhist teachings. These biographies, fashioned into genealogies and interpreted from the global perspective of a Three-Nation typology, are then perceived as constituent elements of the larger history of Buddhism itself. The "subject positions" of the patriarchs are used in the construction of Buddhist narrative that is both transcendent (by means of the Three-Nation typology) and immanent, if not indeed physical. In order to describe the relation between the categories of' 'history" and "biography," and thus the operation of historiographic strategies within the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects, let us briefly examine the issue of transmission. How, that is, was that historical entity (for it indeed has become this) called "Buddhism" perceived as having been transported intact from Gaya (the purported site of Buddha's enlightenment) to Nara, Kyoto, and beyond? When speaking about the most recent step in Buddhism's trans-Asian journey, Meiji writers invariably invoked the Imperial will as the central factor in the establishment of Eastern Buddhism in the Japanese archipelago. The often-noted "historical fact" that between the Empress Suiko (r. 592-628) and the Emperor Meiji there were thirty-six emperors, seventy-four empresses, two hundred thirty-three Imperial princes, and sixty-seven princesses who were ordained as Buddhist monks or nuns (while numerous others took various forms of the lay vows) served as irrefutable evidence of the significant Imperial support for Buddhism.71 The standard used by almost every sect to de-

204 • Chapter Five scribe their entrance into Japan can be distilled to the following pattern: first, the reigning emperor designates the soon-to-be-founder to travel to China in order to study; second, after having "mastered" a doctrine previously unknown in Japan, and having received certification of this mastery, the founder returns as was bidden by the emperor, third, the "master" begins teaching in an Imperially sponsored temple; fourth, in the same manner as he was certified in China, the founder' 'transmits the dharma'' to a certain number of disciples; and finally, these disciples continue in loyal service to each successive emperor out of gratitude for their opportunities to both teach and ' 'protect the nation." But this rather obvious attempt to assert the unbroken relation between a Buddhist lineage and the Imperial lineage, described frequently as "the two wheels of a single axle, two wings of a bird," does not so much describe the problem of transmission as it does attempt to legitimate further its already assumed efficacy vis-a-vis its relation to the Imperial genealogy. Since the Imperial "transmission" is unbroken and inviolable, its selection and continued protection of the Buddhist transmission was assumed to be adequate and substantial proof of Buddhist institutional legitimacy. Again, the careful ignoring of the early Meiji anti-Buddhist measures in this regard serves to indicate that for many Buddhists, the persecution became an aberration that could never be accorded the status of historical veracity: an event outside official chronicles, thus an event exterior to history itself. The notion of transmission, however, exceeds both the attempt to garner irrefutable Imperial support and the particular version of Buddhism found within the Japanese archipelago. Transmission is the means by which Buddhism guarantees its historical exteriority; it is also the means by which particular manifestations of Buddhism are equated with the original teachings of the Buddha: the unity of a transcendent teaching and a distinct historical entity. Schematically there are two major forms of transmission: first, direct contact between the master and disciple whose encounter provides a physical, familial link through which the mysteries of the Buddha dharma are transferred (like a flame passed from one lantern to another); second, the attainment of direct access to the teachings themselves, unmediated by prior interpreters (like the discovery of a lantern eternally bright). Both types are represented in the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects, and both in some sense rely upon the interplay of biography and narrative for the construction of history.72 Both the Rinzai and Soto sects' essays note that although their own sects appear to have begun in China (as their very names indicate), their "origin" as the true Buddha Mind sect {Busshin shu) can be traced directly to Buddha himself. Very much like the obviously strained efforts extended to provide precise dates, names, and select biographical' 'facts'' for the Japanese emperors as seen in the national histories, the Indian and early Chinese patriarchal trees of "Dharma fathers," "brothers," and "sons" of the Zen schools are offered as chronological (thus impartial) proof of the actual (thus historical)

The Making of a History • 205 meeting of each link in the transmission chain.73 (So painstaking are these lineages that one cannot but assume the direst of consequences should a link be broken; it is as if a break in the physicality of the transmission would in fact constitute an irrevocable break in the transmission itself.) The Soto sect's essay also includes the observation that each of the twenty-eight Indian masters and the first five Chinese patriarchs had only "one true disciple"; thus it is not until the creation of the sects of Zen that divisions, or evolutionary "specifications," within the Buddha Mind sect arise.74 These two elements, the ' 'unbroken'' nature of direct face-to-face contact between master and disciple (menju menju) and the recognition of a plurality of legitimate transmissions, form the basis for Zen's Meiji era production of its "history." Biography, the record of distinct performances of the Buddha dharma by spiritually "related" personalities (jinkaku), is extended into a transnational cultural history. The "chronicles of illustrious priests," once vested as an evolving Buddhism, are no longer mere annals or chronicles but serve as the narrative backbone of a history. The second type of ' 'transmission'' employed in the figuration of a Buddhist historiography asserts that precisely because that-which-is-transmitted cannot be limited to the particular historical juncture of its transmission—cannot finally be reduced exclusively to the corporeality of personal performance—there is no need to produce a physical chronological "link" to the "original" enunciations of the Buddha. Rather than the "face-to-face" transmission, one's "direct reception" (chokuju) of the teaching from the Buddha is elevated as the source of the dharma transmission. This does not mean that patriarchal lineages were deemed inconsequential. Nor does it imply that the linear notion of transmission just discussed saw the mediation of the patriarchs as a barrier to the direct apprehension of the Buddha's teachings. The various Pure Land faith sects (Jodo, Shin, Yuzu Nembutsu, Ji) who championed this latter form of transmission jealously guarded their sects' priestly genealogies. The form of these genealogies, however, particularly regarding the period prior to the sects' introduction into Japan, bears special notice. The Pure Land sect's "tradition" was constructed after the formation of the "sect" within Japan (thus after Shinran's death).75 The Chinese monks T'an-luan, Tao-ch'o, and Shan-tao, whose works from the fifth to the seventh centuries were used to document the existence of the Pure Land and the possibility of salvation through the grace of Amitabha, and the Indian sages Asvaghosha, Nagarjuna, and Vasubandhu, who were central to the production of the texts used by these three Chinese monks, were constituted as the Pure Land "lineage." This lineage, though chronologically and spatially dispersed, was taken up again five centuries later by the Japanese priest Genku (Honen) and subsequently promulgated throughout Japan.76 Transmission within this lineage took place by means of four overlapping mechanisms: (1) the actual "physical meeting" of the patriarchs (this probably occurred only between Shan-tao and Tao-ch'o),

206 • Chapter Five (2) the "spiritual communion" between the patriarchs (which is described in terms resonant of divine possession), and (3) "textual transmission" (for example, Genku's reading of Shan-tao's work that' 'revealed'' to Genku the true teachings of Amitabha). These three types of transmission are made possible because of the fourth, the "transcendent transmission," which is directly associated with the metafiguration of the Three Nations.77 Each national entity— India, China, and Japan—is invested with a specific character in the production of "Eastern Buddhism." The "scientific" methodologies of "historical" analysis, used in the production of chronological narratives of doctrinal development and detailed patriarchal genealogies, are interpreted by Shin ideologues through the use of this mixture of historicist strategies. India, as the original spark of the teachings in this world, is represented by the first Mahayana masters (a practice shared by most sects in Japan); China, as the source of specification and translation of the teachings, is represented by the first priests engaged in Pure Land worship; and Japan, as the heir to these efforts, is the culmination of this development in the historical present. In other words, a transcendent textual spiritual unity replaces the reliance upon biography in the production of history. Although Buddhist histories, as represented by one of the predominant versions of the genre, both mimic and, to a certain extent, rely upon the national histories ordered by an Imperial genealogy, they also purport to construct a history external to concerns essential to a strictly national narrative of the past. Through the mechanism of the Three-Nation history, constructed by means of figurations of priestly biographies and claims to textual and spiritual unity, a totalized "vision" of Buddhism's sectarian "origins and development" was produced. Buddhism "evolved" from the unified great vehicle as presented in Asvaghosha's Awakening of Faith, to the plurivocal sectarianism described by Gyonen in his Essentials of the Eight Sects, to the reunited and historically vital Buddhism of Shimaji and the Parliamentarian Buddhists as edited into their discussion of the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects. Such a history guaranteed, among other things, that the early Meiji persecution of Buddhism would be relegated to a minor position in the interpretation of' 'modern'' Buddhism. The projection of a Buddhist historical consciousness across such broad spatial and chronological terrain had as a fully intended consequence the resurrection of the political and social status of institutional Buddhism within Japan. The persecution indeed happened (though late and post-Meiji writers seldom take this into account); but it was never accorded historical significance. As an aberration it thus was granted its own exteriority; shunted off into one of the eddies of historical evolution, the years of persecution for all practical and historical purposes thus ceased to exist. Biographical chronicles used to trace a serial succession, contingent and contiguous, are never simple registers of events. Through their "emplotment"

The Making of a History • 207 in the narrative of an organic evolution in transit through the Three Nations, these chronicles—and by extension the priests, temples, statuary, and sutras they speak of—are read as individual contributions to the gradual, inevitable, "presencing" of the Buddhist teachings throughout the world. The "parts are configured (con, together + figurare, to shape) within a whole" and are thus "comprehended (com, together + prehendre, to seize) within a totality."78 Historical closure, in the sense of the termination of potentially contradictory readings of the figured parts, was sought. Moreover, it was assumed that the very production of a Buddhist history was itself a direct contribution to the making present of the absolute, the task that Buddhism had ever been engaged in. The inexorable advancement of the "presencing" of Buddhism, though obtaining a certain culmination in Eastern Buddhism in late-nineteenth-century Japan, was not bound by a limited chronology, nor was it driving toward some permanent teleology. Buddhist history has no ending. Though the shapings of the past produced, and were produced by, specific visions of the sectarian, social, and political contours of institutional Buddhism, the operation of history, which is always already being lived, can know no "conclusion." Buddhism is made present, in texts, teachings, and temples; its history, which is read from the vantage point of Eastern Buddhism as the evolution of the "spiritual culture" of the human race, is constituted as the transcendent unity of these various historical presents. BUDDHIST BIBLES: DISTILLATION OF THE CANON

The expanding social contours of institutional Buddhism coincide with the expanding historical figurations of its social and doctrinal past. The production of the so-called Buddhist Bibles (Bukkyo seiten) is one instance where the practices of philology, history, doctrine, and faith are woven together into one book. The doctrinal unity between various sects suggested by Shimaji in his introduction to the Essentials of the Buddhist Sects was indeed chimerical. Only by positing the existence of a "Buddhism" external to any particular manifestation of the teachings could a unity in fact be conceived. Such an exteriority, though conceptually quite useful, would invariably be compromised by its necessarily fractured interpretations. What was needed was a doctrinal and social form malleable to the needs of this exteriority and yet particular in its applications. The production of Buddhist Bibles was just such an attempt to give form to this chimera of a unified Buddhism. In the same fashion that the teachings of Shakyamuni brought "unity to the ninety-six schools" in ancient India, Eastern Buddhism would bring unity to the textual diversity that resulted from the past two thousand plus years of increasingly precise divisions of the "one teaching." "Buddhism," as Anesaki Masaharu was to write in an appendix to his English essay on Nichiren in 1916, "is a comprehensive system of thought."79 Amidst a diversity of emphasis and in-

208 • Chapter Five terpretation an internal coherence can be detected. One means by which this coherent entity was expressed was through the distillation of the Buddhist canon. The Ming edition of the Buddhist canon, printed in the early fifteenth century by order of the third Ming Emperor, and reprinted in Japan during the seventeenth century by the Obaku Zen priest Tetsugen, comprised over 1,600 different titles. (The Taisho edition, prepared by Takakusu Junjiro and Watanabe Kaigyoku, by comparison was actually expanded to comprise over 2,100 titles.) In 1883 Nanjo Bun'yu published his catalogue of this Ming edition, hoping, he noted, "to show the original, though it may be not quite scientific, arrangement of this great Collection of our Sacred Canon."80 Nanjo's mammoth reconstructive undertaking—involving the comparison of ancient Chinese, Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan sources—was crucial in the production of a critical version of a Buddhist textual history. Yet, as Ashitsu Jitsunen pointed out in his pre-Parliament work The Future of Japanese Religion, "if, in order to understand Buddhism, one would have to read each and every sutra, there would not be one Buddhist in the world today." Ashitsu, himself a more than capable Tendai scholar, after acknowledging the inconsistencies and illogicalities produced by different sutras (reminiscent of Tominaga), also goes on to suggest that one source of Christianity's strength is its textual unity. All differences of sectarian interpretation within Christianity, Ashitsu suggests, in fact arise from the single source of the Bible. Buddhism, however, does not yet enjoy such unity within difference. "We must unite all the sects [of Buddhism] in Japan and thence promulgate our national teaching [kokkyo]. The literary spirit of Japan [Nippon kotodama] has been nurtured by none other than the virtue found within the Buddhist canon. We must select the most significant aspects from these works and thereby guide the Japanese to salvation." 81 Another Parliamentarian, Shaku Soen, in a review of Paul Carus' 1896 Gospel of the Buddha, writes: "the sacred books of Buddhism are so numerous that beginners are at a loss how to begin their study; it has been our endeavor to sketch out Buddha's doctrines plainly and concisely. Your [Cams'] book just fills the place." 82 One figuration crucial to the evolution of Buddhism was its textual unification. Ashitsu's conception of the ideal Buddhist Bible was a collection of a dozen sutras representative of the sectarian divisions current to Japan. For example, for the Pure Land teachings the Larger and Smaller Sukhdvatl-vyuha (J: Muryoju kyo, Amida kyo) and the Amitdyur dhydna sutra (Kammuryoju kyo) would be included; for the Shingon teachings the comprehensive Mahd vairocand sutra (J: Dainichi kyo) would be used; and so on for each of the sects represented in the soon-to-be-written Essentials of the Buddhist Sects. (This is an excellent example of the normative status given to this comprehensive history.) In addition to sutras used almost exclusively by one or another sect, Ashitsu also suggested the inclusion of works such as the Vimalakirti-nirdesa

The Making of a History • 209 siitra (J: Yuima gyo), to be used in the construction of the newly emphasized Lay Buddhism (for which Vimalakirti was the role model), and the Mahayana mulagdta hridaya bhumi dhydna siitra (J: Dajo honsho shinji kan kyo) to emphasize the unifying principles of the Mahayana teachings inherent in each of the more "sectarian" sutras.83 Ashitsu's attempt to construct a "bible" based upon the transsectarian principle of Eight-Sect Scholasticism of Gyonen and the transcendental Mahayana theories suggested by the Awakening of Faith was not, however, actualized. The sutras he selected for inclusion in this consolidated text still would have constituted a collection of over seventy volumes in over one hundred fascicles. Not surprisingly, it is to Nanjo Bun'yu that we can look for the actual production of such a "bible." Nanjo, joined by the Shin ascetic Maeda Eun (1857-1930), published a five-hundred-page collection of short, carefully chosen selections, translated from Sanskrit, Chinese, and even English versions of the Buddhist canon, into contemporary Japanese and titled A Buddhist Bible (Bukkyo seiten).M Though many of the selections did indeed come from the Shin sect's main sutras, an obvious attempt was made to present an unfractured "Buddhist" image by dispersing the readings across a wide range of issues and sutras. (The sutras that were chosen formed a far more comprehensive list than the twelve chosen by Ashitsu.) This Bible was divided into four chapters: an "introduction to Buddhism" per se, "faith" (which was further divided into the sections of the heart of faith, nembutsu practice, and confession), "action" (self, other, society, and the three treasures), and "doctrine" (concerning the universe, sentient beings, and the Buddha). Each section was devised to answer questions that the faithful could (should?) have regarding issues of contemporary religious practice. For example, "faith" was described, in a selection from the Kegon Sutra, as "the hands with which one, upon entering the vast mountains [of Buddhism], can grasp of one's own accord the unsurpassable jewel [of truth]," or, from the Nirvana Sutra, as necessarily paired with knowledge (chishiki):' 'if there is faith without knowledge darkness will continue to expand, if there is knowledge without faith false views will continually expand; faith and knowledge unified, this is the essence of true action." Action here is, as true Mahayana labor, not directed merely toward self-profit ijiri) but toward the profit of others (tari) and the general good of society (koeki). The Buddha is quoted as suggesting, in the Bramajala Sutra, that there are seven types of labor recommended for Buddhists; these range from the carving of Buddhist statues and the building of Buddhist halls and sanctuaries, to the building of wells and bridges, or providing medicine and care for the old and infirm. Moreover, as the teachings are said to be capable of "matching" (djiru) any person in any historical moment, there is finally no difference in class or occupation before the teachings. Thus all labor, all existence in fact, can be directed toward the final salvation of "all sentient beings." 85

210 • Chapter Five The arrangement of the book and the easy-to-read format of the modern Japanese translations (including a purposeful reduction of difficult ideographs) indicate the concern both to reach a wide readership and to promote the image of a Buddhism intimately involved in everyday life. Also included in this Bible were a Chronicle of the Buddha's Life and an Outline of Buddhist History. The Chronicle included a general description of Indian history and custom as well as a recounting of the Buddha's life (which followed the standard narrative beginning with his birth, then to his renunciation of the world, his training, his enlightenment, his preaching, and finally his death). The Outline of Buddhist History begins with the death of the Buddha. The text itself is divided into three sections presenting a standard Three-Nation account of Buddhism's gradual expansion across the globe. ("If we view the Tendai and the Shingon as the flowers of Buddhism, than the Jodo, Shin, Nichiren, and Zen are all the fruits and seeds of Japanese Buddhism."86) A map of the world with the locations of Buddhist influence shaded in, as well as a brief daily catechism, are also appended. In much the same way that the Pure Land lineage depended upon the sutras themselves to provide a textual doctrinal continuity (based upon the presupposition of the unalterability of the written word and the unfractured transmission via Chinese translations), the "Buddhist Bibles" were perceived of as modern repositories of the essentially unified, continually manifesting, Buddhist teaching. Though the (if you will) generic Bible just noted was an attempt to create a contemporary, portable, and reliable rendition—Nanjo and Maeda were both presented as "Doctors of Literature" (Bungaku hakase)— of pertinent aspects of Buddhwm, there were also other, less expansive, attempts in distilling the vast Buddhist canon down to potent selections. For example, Ando Masazumi (1876-1955), a professor at Toyo University, produced for the Shin sect a substantial Bible of its own.87 The work, in one thousand pages and beautifully bound, stands as the textual culmination of the "modern," "social," and "historical" Buddhism. We find graphically presented in this book many of the issues raised in this and in previous chapters. Calligraphic imprimaturs by the leaders of each division within the Shin sect (whose rank and status were determined by law during the early Meiji conflicts) begin the work; plates of Honen, Shinran, and the reformer Rennyo are followed by photographs of the prior, and current, sects' head and his wife (establishing the domestic patriarchal lineage and emphasizing the continued role of the family—Shin sect abbotship is patrilineal—and the social importance of women). These are followed by photographs of each major temple in the country (located in the areas that were once within the jurisdiction of the Middle Doctrinal Academies) as well as missions built in Hakone, Karafuto (Saghalien), Taipei, and Hawaii (establishing the continually expanding character of a truly international Buddhism). Felicitous epistles from Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu to

The Making of a History • 211 the Hongan-ji are also photographically reproduced (suggesting the unity of political concerns, national history, and the Buddha dharma). Finally, a photo-essay of the life of Shinran is provided. Typical of the pattern of biographies of Shakyamuni, the reader is provided with grainy images of the place of the founder's birth, his entering of the priesthood, his training, enlightenment, preaching, death, and mausoleum. The self-proclaimed purpose of this Bible is ' 'to present the doctrine and history of the Shin sect, as well as the life of its founder, in a clear and common fashion." Based upon extensive research and careful preparation, the book is not only "required reading for all Shin believers" but will also serve as an introduction to "other-power Buddhism" (tariki bukkyo) for the uninitiated. Divided into three sections—an introduction to Buddhism and the history of the Shin sect, a guide to sectarian ceremony and the life work of Shinran, and the annotated versions of the central texts of the sect—this Bible is a comprehensive articulation of the knowledge, faith, and action most appropriate to a modern Shin Buddhist. "What is Buddhism?" the book asks. "It is the teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha who lived three thousand years ago in India. . . . [I]t is the turning of people from illusion and leading them to the path of enlightenment . . . [thereby] relieving them of suffering and providing for their happiness." Again the date of the Buddha's birth is placed at 1027 B.C.E., or rather 367 Before Jimmu. Through the series of conferences, and the "editorial efforts" of the Buddha's direct disciples, and then their direct disciples, the 5,700 fascicles of the Buddhist canon were produced. "Thus I have heard," which appears at the beginning of many of these works, is read, not as Tominaga suggests as proof of the derivative nature of the sutras, but as a recognition of a physical link between the sutras annotated and in modern Japanese in the third section of this Bible and the Indian sage of three thousand years ago. The sheer mass of the canon is seen not as an unwieldy confusion of indeterminate sediment but as the illustrious testament of a universal teaching, a repository of infinite knowledge. Doctrinally, Buddhism can be divided into the Hinayana and the Mahay ana; the Hinayana teachings are described herein as "introductory," as the recognition of suffering and the desire to seek individual release; the Mahayana, as is usual for this division, is described as "profound," as it recognizes joy in addition to suffering and seeks the universal salvation of all being. Buddhism passed from India to China and thence to Japan, gathering in sophistication and specification such that now (in 1916) there are thirteen sects and fifty-six schools. The Mahayana, the true fruit of the Buddha's teaching, is most fully represented in Japan with this diverse unity of sects. In this way the Bible presents the "doctrinal advancement" {kyori hattatsu) of the Buddha's teachings. Buddhism can also be divided, based upon "religious praxis" (shukyoteki jissen), into the two types of selfpower and other-power. Kegon, Tendai, Shingon, Zen, Nichiren, and Ritsu

212 • Chapter Five all rely upon the individual's strength to turn illusion into enlightenment; Jodo, Shin, Ji, and Yuzu Nembutsu, however, recognize the (near-) futility of this and rely only upon the power of the Buddha. "These divisions are not designed to separate Buddhism into the superlative and the inadequate. As each sect teaches the Buddha dharma of the transcendent universality of infinite wisdom and compassion, if one believes and practices according to any of these sects, without fail illusion will be turned and one will obtain the light of the Buddha."88 And yet, the matching of the appropriate teaching to the particular historical moment (jiki so-o) is crucial. After numerous calculated gestures toward a transsectarian unity, it is clearly this Bible's intention to show that the most recent evolutionary sophistication of Buddhism has been obtained in the faith teachings of Shin Buddhism. The increasing complexity and sophistication of Buddhism's development across "three thousand years" and Three Nations is seen to culminate here in the simple and irreducible faith of Eastern Buddhism. One writer, in the West in the 1930s, had the following to say about Buddhism: Buddhism has powerfully conditioned the cultural, ethical, and spiritual life of the great Oriental nations. It may well be the salvation of Western civilization. Its rationality, its discipline, its emphasis on simplicity and sincerity, its thoughtfulness, its cheerful industry not for profit but for service, its love for all animal life, its restraint of desire in all its subtle forms, its actual foretastes of enlightenment and blissful peace, its patient acceptance of karma and rebirth, all mark it out as being competent to meet the problems of this excitement-loving, materialistic, acquisitive, and thoughtless age.89 Shimaji, Ashitsu, Yatsubuchi, Shaku, Toki, Nanjo, Suzuki, and the first generation of Eastern Buddhists would no doubt be pleased to find comments such as this. But, we can be equally certain, they would not be surprised.

Conclusion

The Pacific Ocean which once put a check on emigration and adventure is now a great highway which links the nation with the wide world. The Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea, which once presented obstacles to invaders from the continent and gave security to the archipelago, are nowadays the avenue of the nation's intercourse with the neighbors across the waters. . . . The Japanese were ever a virile people who knew how to make the most of native forces and foreign contributions. Conceited effort was a conspicuous feature, the numerous clans and tribes were practically united in early times under the rule of one powerful family; thus there was a basis for ordered progress. The advance of civilization, however, was made possible chiefly by the universal religion of Buddhism, together with its arts and literature, and by the civic morality of Confucian ethics, with their educational methods and legal institutions, all introduced from the Asiatic continent. Chance may have played a great part in the entrance of these inspiring and civilizing influences from the outside, but equally, perhaps more, important was the role played by the people themselves in receiving these importations with an open mind, tempering and refining them and stamping them with the mark of the Japanese genius. The nation passed through the vicissitudes of its history not in blind submission to chance or fate but in an inspired enthusiasm and with keen insight.1 B Y THE 1 9 2 0 S , when Anesaki was preparing his monumental History of Japanese Religion, from which the above quote is taken, Japan was very much a "nation among nations," and the "virile people" who populated the archipelago were indeed widely recognized for their "inspired enthusiasm" and "keen insight." As for Buddhism, its early Meiji persecution was widely perceived, if in fact it was remembered, as merely one of the many "shocks and irritations" that had accompanied the "entire renovation of national life," and which were prefatory to a "new vitality" by "enterprising Buddhists." 2 Following hard on the "socialization" and "historicization" of Buddhism was the distillation of Buddhist institutional and social history into precise and palatable "cultural" forms that resulted in the widely accepted currency of its contribution to the "advance of civilization." Indian Buddhism, the spiritual source of "Asian culture," coupled with Chinese Confucianism, the driving force behind " A s i a n " social and political norms, once introduced into Japan were tempered, refined, and stamped "with the mark of the Japanese genius." And the Three-Nation narrative of Buddhist institutional and doctrinal forms, designed to create an autonomous history of Buddhism distinct from purely native national histories—designed, that is, to produce a definition of Buddhism supportive of but finally possessing an exteriority to the state's ideolog-

214 • Conclusion ical hegemony—found its way back into the very ideological apparatus it sought to escape. Meiji Buddhism's attempts to define its own history, to give itself meaning, to create, in fact, something called "Meiji Buddhism," and then to use that definition to create a "social," "immediate," and "productive" transsectarian unity, was an attempt to dissipate the vision of Buddhism as heresy; this very creation of a historical autonomy directly contributed to the production of a pan-Asianism central to the geopolitical strategies of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. The production of the narrative of the Three Nations was designed to produce a unity of spirit, society, and civilization. The tragic irony of Meiji Buddhism is that it succeeded in the production of just such a conceptual unity. In retrospect it is possible to trace the transition of Buddhism from a heretical "other" to a tragic martyr and finally to its figuration as a bastion of true Japanese (and thus Asian) culture. Yet clearly such an outcome was not apparent to early and mid-Meiji Buddhists and their critics. The sheer scale of the persecution suggests a level of turmoil and consternation that can, from our contemporary vantage point, only be imagined. Although the material effects of the anti-Buddhist movement were more pronounced in some locales than in others, it should be recalled that those areas that bore the brunt of the "anti-Buddhist storm" were also the home provinces of the leaders of the Meiji restoration government. Despite certain cosmetic denials, in the early years of Meiji an anti-Buddhist policy was a significant element of central government policy. The factional disputes that nearly presaged the collapse of the Meiji government in the late 1870s were informed in no small part by the degree of anti-Buddhist sentiment held by certain central government figures and the increasing scale of political and local opposition to their policies. The attempt by Meiji ideologues, and an unfortunate majority of later scholars of the period, to justify the anti-Buddhist measures by identifying Buddhism as "decadent" (daraku) must be understood in the broader context of the attempted redefinition of the social itself: "all ancient evils must be swept away." A vast range of practices labeled "feudalistic," "foreign," and "wasteful" were besieged and in many cases eliminated. Buddhism was one social institution of the period that succeeded in transforming itself into a "modern," "cosmopolitan," and "socially efficacious" institution; this transformation also served to deny the daraku historians their attempt to isolate Buddhism to a moribund, devolutionary past. Buddhism was attacked for its doctrinal and historicist inadequacies, its pro-Tokugawa and foreign character, and its social and economic inefficiencies. Again it bears emphasis that though Buddhism was indeed frequently isolated as a paradigm of "ancient evil" worthy of the most violent opposition, it was but one aspect of the rampant redefinition of all aspects of the social order undertaken in early Meiji Japan. The production of an entirely

Conclusion • 215 new festival calendar {nenchu gydji), the equally rigorous regulation of all Shinto organizations, and the production of a new National Doctrine strongly suggest that though Buddhism was not the sole object of this pervasive exercise in social redefinition it was indeed one, if not the only, organization capable of offering effective resistance to state policy. The tensions within the Buddhist organizations because of this turn of events were monumental. The Mikawa incident illustrates the painful opposition that emerged between the desire to preserve the dharma (goho) and the need to preserve the temple organization itself (gohonzan). Individual priests, caught in the crossfire between their church and their state, were punished for their beliefs as heretics only to be resurrected later as martyrs by that same church and by a state convinced of the need to redress its earlier anti-Buddhist posturing. "Vacuous concepts," to borrow once again Tsuda Sokichi's term, invested with meanings both powerful and pervasive, are keys to understanding the definitional strategies employed by Meiji ideologues. By tracing one such series of terms—the Unity of Rites and Rule (saisei itchi), the Unity of Rule and Doctrine {seikyo itchi) and the Separation of Rule and Religion (seikyo bunri)—I described the inherent tension between factions within the early Meiji government (notably between the imperialists and the nationalists on the one hand, and the political economists and the enlightenment thinkers on the other) as well as the production of a new state doctrine with its attendant ideological apparatuses of government bureaus (the Doctrinal Academies) and its accepted curriculum of study (the Three Standards and Twenty-Eight Themes). Much of this internecine warfare seems to draw to a close with the issuance of the Meiji Constitution of 1889 and its Article 28 guaranteeing the freedom of religion within the boundaries of law. Yet during an age in which knowledge is valued over belief, duty over faith, and education over religion, it is clear that the "separation" of state and religion suggested in the Constitution was designed not so much to give individuals the "freedom" to practice their chosen creeds. Rather, this "separation" was designed to eliminate the potentially chaotic "carnivalesque" character of religious practice and belief from the political and economic world. Freedom, as it is now rather commonplace to suggest, was herein conceived not merely as the guarantee of certain rights but also as an acknowledgment of specific responsibilities. Further, these rights as well as their tandem responsibilities are contingent upon definitions provided by the dominant ideological apparatuses. Buddhism, it is fair to say, rose to this challenge as well. Led by the Pure Land sects, institutional Buddhism successfully negotiated this second "separation"—the first being Buddhism's forced "separation" from Shinto (shimbutsu bunri)—and used it as an opportunity to inject, itself even more firmly into the socio-political fabric from which the state had hoped to deny it access. The priestly "profession" (shoku), like every other modern occupation, carried with it certain expectations. Priests were not only to be informed in sectarian and theological mat-

216 • Conclusion ters, but they were also expected to be versed in science, language study, the arts, and of course politics. (Clearly this "renaissance priesthood" was achieved with varying degrees of success.) In fact, it is this position of exteriority, created in part when the state denied religionists a political voice, that provided the conceptual distance essential to any sectarian critique of secularity. (It can also be suggested that because of these "separations" this is the first time in Japanese history that the sectarian/secular division is in fact a valid one.) This "exteriority," initially designed to limit religionists' intervention in the political realm, was further capitalized upon by the Meiji Buddhists after five of their "champions" journeyed to and returned with all due pomp and circumstance from the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The incorporation of select elements of Christian universalism and social Darwinism by Meiji Buddhist thinkers contributed significantly to their later historicist exercises carried out in order to liberate Buddhism from any rival definitional attempts. Buddhism demanded and produced its own history. Concomitantly, it thereby attempted to determine its own present and future. The West— plagued by racism, religious exclusivity, and materialism (or, as Yatsubuchi cryptically noted, "they are slaves to wealth")—is radically relativized not as some superlative "other" to be held in awe but merely as a cultural stage existing "further east" in Buddhism's inexorable global trajectory. Hirai's willingness, for example, to "remain heathen" is a bold confession of cultural particularity that signifies an adamant refusal to be defined by the West's terms. (Again, here due in part to language difficulties, this goal was, in more cases than not, less than perfectly actualized by the Buddhists at the "Festival of Peace.") Finally, it is here, within the definitional strategies inherent in the identification of culture and history, that Buddhism completely extricates itself from the years of persecution and succeeds in elevating itself to the preeminent position that it continues to enjoy to this day. The new historical order produced in the mid-Meiji era, in a conflation of nationalist and cosmopolitan urges, served to recreate a new sense of order within both the sectarian and the secular worlds. Much like the mnemonic i-ro-ha syllabary, which provided a popular metonymic relation to an imperially sanctioned lingua franca of modern Japanese language, this new history produced a "vision" of the world intricately bound to the concerns of an imperial state that envisioned itself on the threshold of a new international age. Strictly national histories from this period initially attempted to refuse Buddhism access to the national "essence" they purported to describe. Yet Buddhist histories stepped beyond the boundaries of this Imperial discourse and, after laying claim to a pan-Asian chain of evolutionary cultural development, asserted that a true understanding of "Japan" would be possible only with a recognition of its position as the culmination of a specifically Asian (read "Buddhist") development. The ear-

Conclusion • 217 Her attacks upon Buddhism as "foreign" are, in other words, turned on their head. Buddhism's foreignness (its "exteriority") is now a reason for its dynamic role in modern Japanese history; it includes the history of Japan itself and yet points beyond to the necessity of a global concern. Similarly, Buddhist historians agreed with Tominaga's notion of the "layering" of events and yet disagreed with his conclusions. The multiple textual layers, later harnessed into the ideological tour-de-force of the Buddhist Bible, are viewed by Buddhists not as signs of forgery or inadequacy but rather as testimony of the versatility and universal applicability of the Buddha's original teachings. Within the confines of the present work, perhaps the most significant consequence of this new historical consciousness is a relativization of the persecution itself. Identified as a minute aberration in this sweeping system of global evolution, the early Meiji persecution of Buddhism is effectively deprived of historical meaning. The general absence of discussion of these events in most histories of Japan testifies quite eloquently to the degree of success obtained by the Meiji Buddhist ideologues and their refiguring of their institutional and doctrinal history. Let me conclude with some brief remarks on the ramifications of this creation of a "modern" Buddhism and its attendant historicist strategies for the twentieth century. Anesaki began his 1899 work The History of Buddhist Sacred Texts by asserting that "India and Greece are the wellsprings of the spiritual culture (seishinteki bunka) of the world."3 There is, in other words, an original bifurcation of the world's culture, history, and thus "spirit" into the "East" and the "West." The true comprehension of the "spiritual society of mankind" (jinrui seishin shakai) is possible, Anesaki suggests, only through the unity of these two polar historical figurations. This is not merely a proposal to implement a "dialogue" between Christianity, as the representative of the spiritual heritage of Greece, and Buddhism, as the spiritual child of India. Both these products (sanbutsu) of the "spiritual culture" must themselves be the object of a rigorous scientific social history (kagakuteki shakaiteki rekishi); only then will the "development of the religious spirit" {shukyoteki seishin no hattatsu) be fully comprehended. What Anesaki proposes is the use of GrecoAryan philosophy for the study of Indo-Chinese thought. German philosophy, as the intellectual torchbearer of Greek thought, carried out by the racial descendants of the Indian Aryans, is ideally suited to contribute to such a project. Buddhism in turn is selected as the pinnacle of "Asian" thought. And Japan, the island empire that has become "a repository for the various arts, religions, and literatures of the Asiatic continent, and has preserved many things which have been lost in their continental homes," 4 is ideally suited as the topos of this inquiry. Moreover, "Our Nation [Japan] is the only true Buddhist nation of all the nations in the world. It is thus upon the shoulders of this nation that the responsibility for the unification of Eastern and Western thought and the

218 • Conclusion continued advancement of the East falls."5 Anesaki sees Japan as the most complete articulation of Asian culture; moreover, he suggests that the true analysis of this culture, necessary to an accurate rendition of the spiritual culture of the human race itself (as these are indeed the terms we are dealing with), can be carried out only through a dialectical operation. In response to the thesis of the primal "spiritual society of mankind," most perfectly revealed in the teachings of Buddhism, Anesaki invokes an analytical antithesis in the form of "scientific culture" (kagakuteki bunka), most perfectly revealed in the Greco-Aryan philosophical tradition. The synthesis of this global evolution of humankind is, finally, best carried out within Japan: a nation that has passed through history "not in the blind submission to chance or fate but in an inspired enthusiasm." Anesaki dedicates his work on the Buddhist canon to two scholars. One, Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1861), born in Stuttgart, was a theologian whose extensive and radical philological critiques of the Christian Bible developed the strategy of bibelkritik into an essential historical tool. The other scholar, Tominaga Nakamoto, discussed in Chapter One, is for Anesaki' 'truly a lotus blooming within a swamp," for whom he has only "gratitude and praise." Tominaga, whose use of Buddhism in his critique of historical figurations, contributed to, if not began, the discourse on the radical rethinking of Buddhism (and by extension, religion) and the social, is here reincorporated into an ideological figuration of a universal spirituality. Tominaga's own work underwent, in his own terms, an oppositionary figuration indicative of the radical relativity of historical moments. Tominaga was certainly not the only figure from Japan's or Asia's past to be integrated into a conception of global evolution and cosmopolitan spirituality. We discussed the postpersecution uses of works by Gyonen and Asvaghosha; there were numerous others. Anesaki's use of Tominaga was in fact a harbinger of historicist-oriented religious works that were to emerge in the Taisho and Showa periods. Anesaki's work on Nichiren, published simultaneously in English and Japanese in 1916, began the lionization of persons known as having "religious personalities" (shukyoteki jinkaku) or the charisma of a spiritual leader. Watsuji Tetsuro's work on Dogen in 1926 and Miki Kiyoshi's posthumously published work on Shinran are two further examples of the twentieth century's attempt to read select aspects of the religio-cultural past as a means to establish critical positions from which to address the present. Although these works claimed to extricate these "religious" figures from the burdens of their own "religiousness," and thus elevate them to the world of "reason alone," they also succeeded in injecting Nichiren, Dogen, and Shinran into their own carefully crafted intellectual terrains. Nichiren for Anesaki was a psychological phenomenon, a classic example of the "religious prophet," and as such spoke directly to Anesaki's concerns for the "Japanese" construction of a rigorous and exportable spirituality. Dogen for Wat-

Conclusion • 219 suji was a literal artifact—placed on par with the Man'yoshu, Hakuho-Tempyo sculpture, and the Makura no soshi, all of which were contained within the ineffableness of the Japanese sense of climatic beauty, mono no aware. Dogen became a text upon which Watsuji wrote the legacy of a pure national essence. Shinran is used by Miki to form critiques of history ("history itself is the subject of a single nembutsu'''), of society, and of the moral order. Once the "culturization" of Buddhism was effectively performed—once, that is, Buddhism was interpreted primarily vis-a-vis its material contours (texts, buildings, and artifacts)—figurations of Buddhist personages as culturally, historically, and socially significant entities were easily executed.6 These figurations were generally directed toward one of two ends: first, the support of the state's hegemonic claims and Buddhism's central position therein, and second, the emphasis upon the salvation of "the people." From even before the turn of the century, however, the difference between "religious" (Buddhist) salvation (kyiizai) and the material sufficiency necessary to a political economy adequate to the needs of the general populace (keisei saimin) was gradually elided; economic expansion and spiritual growth of an objectified Asian people were seen as mutually inclusive eventualities. To this precise extent the "salvation of the people'' and the support of state policies were not read as conflicting exercises. But this is not all that Buddhism could be, nor was it all that it was used for. Polemic histories of Buddhism alternately portray Buddhism as contributing to the operation and critique of the very assumptions behind governmental authority. In the terms of the present work, Buddhism was seen to produce not only its own conceptions of historical martyrdom but also figurations of heresies in opposition to its own teachings. Within the Meiji era discourse on religion in Japan, the recognition of religion in general and Buddhism in particular as the source of a significant and powerful political critique was occasionally drawn upon but seldom sustained or recognized as viable. Within the confines of the above chapters, the figures of Shimaji Mokurai and Hirai Kinzo are excellent examples. Shimaji quickly retreated from his initial attack upon the state's doctrinal apparatus after institutional Buddhism had been guaranteed a certain political autonomy. Hirai, insistent throughout the Meiji era on the necessity of an active critique of state policies from a position made possible only through the "exterior" capabilities within religion, was largely ignored. Cooperation, not critique, was the dominant theme in late-Meiji religious politics. But there are obviously other readings of medieval Buddhist figures and their work that do not contribute directly to current hegemonic claims of the state. The work of Shinran and Nichiren, for example, themselves seen as organizers of peasant enclaves directed toward spiritual sustenance and communal cooperation, can be read as radical attempts to give voice to the politically dispossessed and the socially nonexistent. Dogen, Hakuin, and other Zen teachers can be interpreted as powerful examples of creative potential external

220 • Conclusion to all state and institutional formations. Finally, on the level of Buddhist thought in general, when the radicality of Nagarjuna's work is introduced as a radical philosophy (rather than as a salve for certain social ills), "Buddhism' ' can no longer be seen as some entity determined exclusively by institutional or political concerns. The Madhyamika method of sustained negation, doubt, and critique—perhaps most popularly represented today in the form of Zen debates (mondo)—can be used to generate a critique of all conceptual, experiential, and social forms.7 From the very first verse of Nagarjuna's major work, the Mddhyamaka kdrika, the powerful gesture of a Buddhism shorn of the "social," "historical," and "cultural" aspects so carefully crafted through the Meiji era is revealed: "At no place and at no time can entities ever exist by originating out of themselves, from others, both (self-other), or from lack of causes." 8

Glossary

Bunri rei (5J-It^)—the "separation edicts" of 1868-1869 designed to "separate" an officially recognized "Shinto" from tainted "Buddhist" influence. These laws, the first salvo in the anti-Buddhist action at the national level, regulated temple architecture, priestly ordination, religious ceremonies, and enshrined statuary. The act of regulation itself served as a defining process: the forced separation provided an opportunity for Buddhists and Nativists alike to make public their own positions. Understandably these edicts were highly inflammatory, and their implementation led to violence in many areas. chikyo (#}#£)—the "public teaching" used by the Ministry of Doctrine as a synonym for their "Great Teaching" and as an antonym for "sectarian teaching" or "religion" {shukyo). This term was used to distinguish the Ministry of Doctrine's concern for public indoctrination as a fundamentally political event from the earlier Ministry of Rites' view of indoctrination as a religious event. In this capacity chikyo is thus also used in contrast with certain Nativist theories of national order. cho/haru ($t)—one of Tominaga'sfivefigurationsof language translated as "metaphor" or "expansion." This technique, used to transform the mundane into the subtle, is one means by which the "layers" of artificiality found in language and history are built up. goho (Hj£)—"dharma preservation." Similar to the medieval Buddhist "preservation of the nation" (gokoku), the powers of Buddhism are here directed in a self-sustaining fashion. Tantamount to notions of patriotism (aikoku), the goho ideology was a transsectarian appeal for Buddhist unity that took on a special urgency in the early Meiji period. To preserve the dharma meant, in most cases, to preserve the institutions that historically had been charged to preserve the practices and education central to promulgating the dharma. Clearly, difficulties arose in interpretation of appropriate means and final goals. gongen (fSii.)—Similar to a gonge (Skt: avatara), these "alternate manifestations" are popular deities incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon. As local manifestations of more universal principles, these gongen were accorded a secondary status. One of the "separation edicts" was directed explicitly toward the banning of gongen; many of the popular deities were considered "Shinto" in character, and thus a slighting of the deity was a slighting of the nation. Most gongen were associated with the esoteric traditions of Shingon {Ryobu shinto) and Tendai (Sanno ichijitsu). haibutsu kishaku (Ja§ \k Wi fR)—Rather than the officially benign practice of

222

• Glossary

the "Separation of Shinto and Buddhism" {Shimbutsu bunri), the early Meiji anti-Buddhist activities are also identified as the "abolishing of Buddhism and the demolishing of Shakyamuni." This phrase was used most frequently among Buddhists seeking to represent the state's project as purposive and prejudicial. Nativists and many apologetic historians prefer the idea of "separation" over "demolishing." It is clear, however, that a "separation," as being denned by the state, was possible only with destruction. han (fx)—one of Tominaga's five figurations: "opposition." Perhaps the most dramatic of the figurations, "opposition" describes a creative exercise of irony used in a self-objectifying practice. For things to become other to themselves, as this figuration suggests, there must be a willful suspension of certain forms of logic and memory. In terms of the historical and cultural manipulations made possible by such a strategy, this is potentially the most violent of Tominaga's figurations. han/ukabu (£?)—one of Tominaga's five figurations: "slippage." Similar to metaphor (chdjharu), this figuration describes how a term or event takes on greater significance through its use in different environments. Yet this increase in signification is due to abstraction or general carelessness in use rather than to the creative reconstructions found in metaphorical changes. hasshu kengaku (A^M^)—"comprehensive study of the eight sects." This transsectarian appeal to the study of Buddhism was typified by Gyonen's thirteenth-century work, the Hasshu koyo {Essentials of the Eight Sects). Resurrected by Meiji Buddhists as a means to build an academic, and thus modern, historical and cosmopolitan basis for a New Buddhism, this medieval pedagogical technique was invested with a new historicist agenda in the quest for the "essentials" of Buddhism transcendent of particular historical conditions. hen/katayoru (M)—Tominaga's notion of "contingency." The radical relativity of each moment—as proved by the invocation of the five figurations—necessitates recognition of "truth" itself as being relational. Absolute ideals can be invoked, yet simultaneous to this invocation the ideals lose their absolute nature. As things and ideas only ever exist in relation to other and always different things and ideas, Tominaga asserts that only "the contingent is the true." honji suijaku{^i^^M)—"original ground and residual trace." This generic name for syncretic Buddhist/Shinto thought describes the relation between the Buddhist figures that serve as the "original ground" for the local divine manifestations, the "residual traces." Within Buddhist theology this notion was used to describe the universal status of the Buddhist teachings and its infinite capability of acclimation (for purposes of instruction) to local sensibilities. The most prominent forms of syncretic Shinto were Ryobu Shinto (emphasizing the unity of Buddhist

Glossary • 223 figures and Shinto deities as depicted in mandalas) and Sanno Ichijitsu Shinto (focusing on the protectorate deities of Mt. Hiei and their implications for Buddhism nationally). For nineteenth-century Nativists and Imperialists of every persuasion, however, this was a co-optative ideology that defiled the native kami; as such it was attacked with great vigor. jiin haigo (ifVnM'a')—"destruction and amalgamation of temples." This term was initially used by officials in Mito and Satsuma to describe domainal anti-Buddhist policy. Temples were, as the phrase clearly suggests, either destroyed or recycled as private residences, government offices, and troop stations. Jimmu sogyo (#iSii) H)—"founding [of the nation] by Jimmu." This was one of the "vacuous concepts" or code terms used to justify, articulate, and implement the Meiji era political agenda. The Meiji "restoration" was, after all, ostensibly a restoration of Imperial rule. The historical locus classicus for such a divine rulership was found in Emperor Godaigo's fourteenth-century Kemmu Restoration. A more flexible and less problematic paradigm was to be found in the first (mythical) Emperor Jimmu. The Nativist quest for pristine origins ends with Jimmu; the nation itself thus begins with his politico-military exploits. A similar ideal is expressed by the phrase "restoring of ancient ways" (kyugi saiko). jinsei (fH®)—Ostensibly Confucian in origin, this notion of "benevolent rule" gained such a broad intellectual currency during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that any political theory needed to prove its social and moral efficacy vis-a-vis the "people." Tominaga would appreciate the expansive and slippery nature of this term. Jisha bugyo (^ptt^ff)—office within the bakufu structure charged with the regulation of shrines and temples. During the anti-Buddhist phases, this office, staffed largely by Nativist scholars and Shinto activists, served as the clearing house for anti-Buddhist activity. With the dissolution of the bakufu, the duties of this office were transfered to the Ministry of Rites and later to the Ministry of Doctrine. There were also local versions of this office such as Satsuma's Office of Shrine Affairs (Jinja bugyo). Juichi kendai (+—Jftffi)—"Eleven Themes" used as lecture topics by Doctrinal Instructors to explicate the National Doctrine. They are: 1.

2.

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5. a s 6.

10.

ii.

224 • Glossary Junana kendai (-{- -fc; 3$: ||)—"Seventeen Themes" used as lecture topics by Doctrinal Instructors to explicate the National Doctrine. They are:

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S A S ^ r pf-I1 •^. y v 3*c p% pA

7. ^ p l ^ J f c 8. 7JH3£I^ 9. l l ? i g S 10. I t S r f i ^

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13. 14. 15. 16.

17 i '.

kaizoku (SiS)—Inasmuch as priests were said to have "left the world" (shusse), one goal of the anti-Buddhist edicts was to "return [priests] to the secular." Such a "return" would serve, in addition to reducing the number of priests, to increase the labor force, broaden the tax base, and fill the ranks of the army. The reversal of priestly vows was herein interpreted as a sensible act necessary to the creation of a modern nation devoted to the ideal of a "wealthy nation with a strong army." kannagarajkamunagara no michi (Rt# ifi)—"follow the way of the gods." Derived from a line in the Nihonshoki, this phrase is used by Nativists, following Hirata, to identify a pure and ancient Shinto. To act in accordance with one's "true heart" is to trust one's body and will to the deities in all things. Thus, to follow the gods is to live within a blessed and bountiful world harmonious with the will of the deities themselves. One consequence of the Separation Edicts was a clear distinction of this Way from all other Ways. kijuchitsukeru (0)—one of Tominaga's five figurations: "agitation." This figuration is most frequently found in the "exaggeration" of a term or event to ascribe a greatness or profundity not found in the original. kinno ('J§Jt)—a benign phrase disguising an intent of great violence: "return to farming." This is one code term used to describe the forced apostatization of priests by the state. The sense of a modern agrarianism employed here is used to criticize the Buddhist order as "other-worldly" and simultaneously to abrogate temple authority. kokkyo 0®$:)—"National Doctrine." This term was used in a wide variety of ideological contexts. Within the confines of the present work, I have limited its use largely to the teachings promulgated in the Teaching Academies in the form of the Three Standards and the Twenty-Eight Themes. As the official state doctrine, it was designed to link all education to statist concerns; as such, it was diametrically opposed to "sectarian doctrine" (shukyo). Kyobusho (ffclft^)—"Ministry of Doctrine." Opened in 1872 as a replacement for the Ministry of Rites, this Ministry was charged with the

Glossary • 225 manufacturing and promulgating of a National Doctrine (Kokkyo). This Ministry was closed in 1875 following the withdrawal of Shin Buddhist support. Kyodoshoku (%Mffl)—"Doctrinal Instructors" employed by the Ministry of Doctrine to promulgate the National Doctrine. Instructorships were originally limited to Shinto and Buddhist prelates; membership, however, was soon expanded to include storytellers, popular artists, and actors. The state hoped by means of these lecturers to appeal to a certain mass sensibility in their promulgation of the state ideology. For all its creative ingenuity it was a glorious failure. Kyoin (iftgc)—the "Teaching Academies" established by the Ministry of Doctrine. There were three levels in the Academy system: the Smaller Academies, located in villages and small towns throughout the countryside; the Middle Academies, located at the prefectural level; and the Great Academy, or main office, located in the erstwhile Tokugawa clan temple, the Zojo-ji in Tokyo. nenchu gyoji (^.tfi'jj^t)—"yearly festival calendar." Within the early Meiji era this calendar was not merely a record of which festivals occurred when. Rather, it was a heavily politicized tool by which the state sought to regulate society at the village level. Through careful regulation of festivals and ceremonies—allowing only those that contributed directly to the National Doctrine—it was assumed that a controlling of the anarchical potential of the "carnivalesque" was possible. oseifukko (iEiKIS iS")—"Restoration of Kingly Rule." This was one of the many code terms or rallying cries used by early Meiji ideologues to popularize their antiquarian theories of divine Imperial rule. Demonstrating the success of this term, one of the perpetual myths of the Meiji coup d'etat is that something was "restored." saisei itchi (UK—JSC)—"Unity of Rite and Rule." In ancient times the single word matsurigoto was used to identify (what were later distinguished as) the two functions of ritual and politics. Ritual acts, as performed by/for the emperor, were political; political decisions were guaranteed and promulgated by means of ritual. These were the terms used by Meiji Nativists as they set out to create a modern theocracy and championed most vigorously by the Ministry of Rites. Sanjo kyosoku (HlfefScS!])—"Three Standards of Instruction." Promulgated in 1872 by the Ministry of Doctrine, these Standards formed the core of the National Doctrine. They are:

226

• Glossary

seikyo bunri ($£&•%•%£)—"Separation of Rule and Religion." The Ministry of Doctrine was dissolved in 1875 over this issue. The complete separation of church and state was ostensibly achieved with the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889, though, as argued elsewhere, this was somewhat chimerical. The call for sectarian independence from state rule, which began in the early Meiji period, is perhaps best represented in the work of Shimaji Mokurai. seikyo itchi ($.%t~^$X)—"Unity of Rule and Doctrine." Concomitant to the dissolution of the Ministry of Rites and the creation of the Ministry of Doctrine, there was a shift from ritualistic, indeed "religious," forms as central governing strategies to an emphasis upon more utilitarian concerns. As championed by the Ministry of Doctrine, this phrase signified that political rule was henceforth to be carried out by means of a National Doctrine, and the previous emphasis on Rites was accordingly diminished. shimbutsu bunri (#fi,5}-l8ft)—"Separation of Shinto and Buddhism." In contrast to the "destruction of Buddhism" {haibutsu kishaku), the official state policy was one of "separation." Yet to "separate" two traditions that had been intimately interwoven over the last thirteen hundred years was clearly no easy task. In short, "separation" without "destruction" was an impossibility, and official attempts to suggest otherwise should be judged accordingly. shinkyo nojiyu (ff ifc / g &)—This was a rallying cry of those who sought to separate sectarian from governmental concerns: "freedom of faith and religion." As included in the 1889 Meiji Constitution this "freedom," within the bounds of law determined by the state, was allowed. shintai (JftW)—"divine form." The representation of deities by means of statuary, rocks, and mirrors is understood as the material manifestation of the divine power {shintoku). In the early Meiji era such "god bodies" (a literal reading of shintai) were restricted in their possible variations; a significant portion of kami were from this time "embodied" within mirrors. shintoku (tttS)—"divine creative power." This term is a contraction of jingi reitoku: the spiritual or magical powers of the "80,000 kami" that dwell within Japan. The creation of the universe itself is described as the manifestation of shintoku. Further, the Imperial position, as constructed in the Meiji era, was the living conduit for this continually manifesting generative force. Thus life itself, both its origin and its possibility, is due to the operation of this "divine power." Shokonsha (fgsSttfc)—In 1869 "Shrines to the War Dead" were erected across the country. These shrines were designed to honor those who gave their lives in the cause of Imperial restoration. Death for the emperor was interpreted as a passing of a different order. The most famous of

Glossary • 227 these, the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, is still very active and problematic. shoku (^)—"occupation." Concomitant to a definition of society as a direct manifestation of the divine powers was an emphasis on the necessary role of each individual within that milieu. Reminiscent of Ogyu Sorai's notion of individual virtue, one's "occupation" was herein determined, justified, and valorized as a necessary component to the divine nation-state. The emperor had an occupation as well: tenshoku (divine occupation). shujo {m^fc)—"sectarian studies"; see yojo: "other [sectarian] studies." shukyo (TJ?$C)—"sectarian doctrine." This term is the modern translation of the European word "religion." Yet within the Meiji era its use and implications are somewhat distinct from its modern form. Within a milieu literally bursting with "doctrines"—public doctrine (chikyo), state doctrine (kokkyo), Great Doctrine (Daikyo)—a specifically "sectarian doctrine" is both relativized and particularized. "Religion" is thus one doctrine among many that has survived. shumon aratame (7j?H2£to)—"temple registration system." Begun at the national level in the early seventeenth century, this system of registration (for census, taxes, etc.) contributed significantly to Buddhism's close relations with the Tokugawa bakufu. Ironically it was precisely this relation that was considered suspect by Meiji era political activists. Shutsujo kogo (Hi5Ef^f&)—title of Tominaga Nakamoto's historicist critique of Buddhism. Shutsujo shogo (tfi/E 3? t§)—title of Hirata Atsutane's anti-Buddhist diatribe; though the title is reminiscent of Tominaga, the argument contributes little to Tominaga's historicist concerns. SoreishajSoreisha (ffi/ISlttt)—"Ancestral/Communal Spirit Shrine." These were shrines erected in local areas during the early Meiji era to replace the Buddhist family temples (bodai-ji) with a distinctly "Shinto" version of ancestral enshrinement. The ideological intent of these shrines is similar to the practice of Yohaishiki or "worship from afar." They were designed to create a sense of community, transcendent of time, that was bound together by the national doctrinal and ceremonial system. tenjkorobu ((s)—one of Tominaga's five figurations: "conversion." Implying that religious insight can produce radically different, indeed opposite, interpretations of ideas or events, this figurative technique emphasizes the limits of language in determining or describing insight. The potential redefinitions of terms are here, along with the figuration of "opposition," the most radical. tenjin chigi (^^J&jjK)—"deities of heaven and of earth." Frequently abbreviated jingi, this phrase refers to the all-pervasive character of the Shinto pantheon: kami exist in all times and in all places. Tsubukkyo (Mttii)—"United Buddhism." Though finally discarded as

228 • Glossary institutionally impractical, the attempt to unify Buddhism in terms of its history, doctrine, texts, and to a certain extent organization was one of the driving forces behind the Meiji Buddhist restoration. uji aratame (ftt&to)—"shrine registration." With the discarding of Buddhist temple registration, some locales (notably Mito and Satsuma) shifted to a system of shrine registration for census and tax purposes. Organizationally similar to their Buddhist predecessors, these offices were, however, more in line with governmental ideological intentions. Yohaishiki (J2W£)—"worship from afar." This was a technique used to promote a centralized state dogma. When official ceremonies were conducted at national shrines, duplicate microcosmic ceremonies were simultaneously performed at smaller local shrines. This afforded the general populace the opportunity to participate "directly," though "from afar," in the state ritual; it also gave the state another opportunity to project its ideological agenda into the countryside. yojo (#t ^)—"other [sectarian] studies." Shujo, or "sectarian studies," had long been a component of priestly education. In the Meiji era reconstruction of monastic schooling there was a new transsectarian emphasis. Typified by Gyonen's essentialist discourse on a transnational Buddhism, this program was part of institutional Buddhism's attempt to reconstitute itself along modernist and cosmopolitan lines.

Abbreviations

BKK HGJS HSKY KKS KMH MBSSS MSS NBS NBSK SBBS SJKG SJSG SMZ sscs sss WPR

Bukkyo kakushu koyo. Edited by Bukkyo Kakushu Kyokai. 5 vols. Kyoto: Kaiba Shoin, 1896. Hongan-ji shi. Edited by Honganji-ha Shiryo Kenkyujo. 3 vols. Kyoto: Hongan-ji Shuppan, 1969. Hasshu koyo. Edited by Hirakawa Akira. Vols. 39^40 of Butten koza. Tokyo: Daizo Shuppan, 1980. Kagoshima ken shiryo. Edited by Kagoshima ken Ishin Shiryo Hensanjo. Vols. 1-3: Nariakira ko shiryo. Vols. 4—6: Tadayoshi ko shiryo. Kagoshima: Bunkodo, 1983. Shoji Noriyoshi. Keizai mondo hiroku. Vols. 34—35 of Nihon keizai daiten. Edited by Takimoto Seiichi. Tokyo: Meiji Bunken, 1970. Meiji bukkyo shiso shiryo shiisei. Edited by Meiji Bukkyo Shiso Shiryo Shusei Henshu Iinkai. 8 vols. Kyoto: Dobosha, 1980. Mito shishi. Edited by Mito Shishi Hensan Iinkai. 3 vols. Mito: Mito Shiyakusho, 1976. Nihon bukkyo shi. Edited by Tsuji Zennosuke. 11 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1961. Nihon bukkyo shi kenkyii. Edited by Tsuji Zennosuke. 6 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1984. Meiji ishin shimbutsu bunri shiryo. Edited by Tsuji Zennosuke, Washio Junkyo, and Murakami Sensho. 6 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1926. Tominaga Nakamoto. Shutsujo kogo. Edited by Yoshikawa Entaro. Osaka: Kyogaku Shobo, 1944. Shutsujo shogo. Vol. 10 of Shinshu Hirata Atsutane zenshu. Tokyo: Meicho Shuppan, 1977. Shimaji Mokurai zenshu. Edited by Futaba Kenko and Mineshima Hideo. 5 vols. Kyoto: Hongan-ji Shuppan, 1973. Shukyo seido chosa shiryo. Edited by Mombusho Shukyo Kyoku. Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1977. Shinshu shiryo shusei. Edited by Mori Takekichi. 13 vols. Kyoto: Dobosha, 1975. The World's Parliament ofReligions. Edited by John Henry Barrows. 2 vols. Chicago: Parliament Press, 1893.

Notes

PREFACE

1. Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), p. 164. 2. From Yatsubuchi Banryu, "Daikai no genjo oyobi kansatsu," Kokkyo, no. 31 (3/1894): 34-35. CHAPTER ONE

1. Washio Junkyo, "Kikane-iho no chokujo," Bukkyo shigaku 2, no. 1 (April 1912): 1-13; and Kagoshima-ken Ishin Shiryo Hensanjo, gen. ed., Kagoshima ken shiryo (Kagoshima: Bunkodo, 1983), vol. 2: Nariakira ko shiryo, p. 74 (no. 214) (cited hereafter as KKS). Confiscation of the substantial wealth of metals found in temple bells was certainly not a novel practice. As early as the seventeenth century, Tokugawa Mitsukuni had exercised considerable liberty in manipulating temple holdings; and more recently, Mitsukuni's descendants had implemented a carefully organized survey and collection of the material wealth of temples within the Mito domain. This latter incident culminated in the 1842 (Tempo 13) order exacting "full cooperation, based upon gratitude [on] toward the nation" from the populace in general, and priests in particular, as the domain set out to increase its arsenal of cannon and shot at the expense of Buddhist temples. In this regard see Washio, "Kikane-iho," pp. 3-4; also Tamamuro Fumio, Shimbutsu bunri (Tokyo: Kyoiku Shuppan, 1977), pp. 22-56, 90. 2. KKS 2: 74 (no. 214). The most extensive transformation of bells into cannon took place within the Mito domain. The Uraga foundry, opened in 1845, served as the prototype for foundries later built in Nagasaki and Satsuma. See Washio, "Kikane-iho," p. 4. Over 900 bells were confiscated in Mito as a result of this order. See Mito Shishi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Mito shishi, 3 vols. (Mito: Mito Shiyakusho, 1976), 2 (bk. 3): 214-215 (cited hereafter as MSS). 3. KKS 2: 391 (no. 187). 4. Ibid., pp. 635-636 (no. 354). 5. Both of these cases are from Satsuma: Chiran cho Kyodo Shi Iinkai, ed., Chiran cho kyodo shi (Kagoshima: Chiran cho Shuppan, 1982), pp. 1127-1129. 6. Washio, "Kitane-iho," p. 8; and Haneda Bummyo, Ishin zengo bukkyo sonan shiron (Shiga ken: Kokko-sha, 1925), pp. 23, 31. There were also several cases of the "mysterious" sinking of ships charged with the carrying of confiscated bells to the foundry. See Tsuji Zennosuke's "Shimbutsu bunri no gaikan" for the disappearance of a ship from Iwashimizu, and Okada Shigeya's ' 'Toyama han no jiin gappei" for an account of a similar ship sunk leaving Toyama. Both cases were frequently related as further "proof" of divine dissatisfaction with the order; see Tsuji Zennosuke, Washio Junkyo, and Murakami Sensho, eds., Meiji ishin shimbutsu bunri shiryo, 6 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1926), 1: 10, 787 (cited hereafter as SBBS). 7. This order appears in a number of secondary sources. For ease of reference I have

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taken the citation for this and subsequent Ministry promulgations related to the regulation of religion from Mombusho Shukyo Kyoku, ed., Shukyo seido chosa shiryo (Tokyo: Harashobo, 1977); this quote is on p. 8 (cited hereafter as sscs). 8. Because of the similarities between this order and Shin Buddhist doctrine, its implementation could also be interpreted as an attempt to amalgamate all Buddhist sects into a single "lay Buddhist" organization. Although this law indeed had the least "impact" on Shin Buddhists, the controversial nature of what it purported to legislate would make it a troublesome theme for any transsectarian amalgamation. What is translated here as "the eating of meat, [and] marriage" {nikushoku saitai) was a code term frequently used by, and to identify, Shin Buddhists, who, in contrast to all other Buddhist sects, allowed such practices. The radicality of Shinran's break with the more "orthodox" Buddhist position on these points should not be underestimated, as it formed the groundwork for an extensive lay support organization that was, among other things, to play a major role in opposition to the early Meiji persecution. These practices were controversial from their inception. For a more detailed critique see the section in this chapter on Hirata Atsutane. In support of this position see Chiku's "Shinshu nikushoku saitai ben" and Encho's "Shinshu taisai nikushoku gi" (both written in the early eighteenth century) in the Shinshu zensho, ed. Tsumaki Naoyoshi, 75 vols. (Tokyo: Kokusho kangyokai, 1975), 59: 293-332. 9. A similar law for nuns was promulgated several months later on the 22nd day of the first month, 1873 (Meiji 6). sscs, p. 121 (no. 26). 10. See Haneda, Bukkyo sonan, p. 108. Toyoda Takeshi, Shukyo seido shi (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1982), pp. 139-167, also provides an economic discussion of the legal connection between the bakufu and the temples. For a discussion of the preTokugawa relation between the bakufu and Zen institutions see Martin Collcutt, Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1981), esp. pp. 91-130. 11. One aspect of this Tokugawa era coordination between the two law codes was the use of the public squares where the bakufu placed information boards (seisatsuba) as places for the public humiliation of guilty priests. For example, in 1796 (Kansei 8) the bakufu in a special surprise raid of the Yoshiwara pleasure district near Edo arrested over 70 priests on their way home from an evening's entertainment. They were each bound and displayed in the public stocks at the Nihombashi crossroads, their offense written above them, for several days prior to their banishment. Similar massive raids also took place in the Kyoto-Osaka area in 1830 (Tempo 1) and again in Edo in 1851 (Kaei 4). In the former case the arrests were made by Oshio Heihachiro; in the latter, 13 prostitutes turned informants to aid in the arrest of 59 priests. See Tsuji Zennosuke, "Kinsei bukkyo suibi no yurai, dai san, Edo jidai ni okeru soryo no daraku," inNihon bukkyo shi kenkyu, 6 vols. (Tokyo: lwanami Shoten, 1984), 4: 96-101 (cited hereafter as NBSK).

12. Okuma Shigenobu, "Meiji shonen no haibutsu kishaku," Bukkyo shigaku, 2, no. 1 (April 1912): 31. It is interesting to note that Okuma is writing here in one of the leading Buddhist journals of the day; clearly this article is an attempt to ameliorate some of the harsh feelings among members of the Buddhist community over the government's earlier position on religion. 13. Tamamuro Fumio, "Shimbutsu bunri to haibutsu kishaku no jittai," Rekishi

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koron, no. 96 (November 1983): 62. This figure is based upon Tamamuro's partially calculated estimations. For a more detailed discussion of the actual number of temple closings see Martin Collcutt's "Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication" in Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji, ed. Marius Jansen and Gilbert Rozman (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986), pp. 160-161. Collcutt, pointing out that the closings continue well into the 1870s, demonstrates that this was no "sporadic or short-lived phenomenon." Figures are unavailable, however, for the large number of unregistered halls {do or an) that in many locales absorbed the brunt of anti-Buddhist fury. 14. The highest positions in the Office of Rites were held by Nakayama Tadayasu, maternal grandfather to the Meiji Emperor, Prince Arisugawa no miya Takahito, and Shirakawa Sukenori. They were "assisted" by Nativist scholars such as Kamei, Fukuba, Hirata Kanetane, Hirata Nobutane, Mutobe Yoshichika, Tanimori Shigematsu, Juge Shigekuni, and others. Though ostensibly lower in rank than the imperially connected leaders of the Office, Kamei—by virtue of his hands-on experience in the establishment of the Nativist academy, the Yorokan, in Tsuwano and his long-standing relations with leading scholars of the Hirata, Okuni, and Senke Schools of Nativism— was clearly a dominant figure in the early day-to-day running of the Office of Rites. The makeup of the Office/Ministry of Rites will be taken up again in Chapter Two. 15. See Honganji-ha Shiryo Kenkyu-jo, ed., Hongan-ji shi, 3 vols. (Kyoto: Hongan-ji Shuppan, 1969), 3: 29 (cited hereafter as HGJS). 16. The use of Buddhist terminology in naming (and, in fact, in conceiving) "kami" was a widespread practice carried out since soon after Buddhism's introduction into Japan in the sixth century. The most prevalent systems of syncretic versions of Buddhism and Shinto were created by the Tendai sect (sanno ichjitsu) and the Shingon sect (ryobu shinto). In many cases, as will be discussed in Chapters Two and Three, the actual "Shinto" content was barely distinguishable from the "Buddhist" content. Two terms, mentioned specifically in the order of the 28th, were "Gongen" (Skt: avatara) and "Gyuto Tenno" (literally "Bull-head heavenly king"). Both terms were used to identify "Shinto kami" that were manifestations of, or assistants to, the more fundamental "Buddhist" figures. 17. sscs, p. 2. The Ministry of State issued several orders in conjunction with those noted here illustrating that, at least on one level, they and the Ministry of Rites worked in cooperation with each other. For details and the orders themselves, see Chapter Two; sscs, pp. 1-5; and SBBS, 1: 81-84. 18. For a discussion of Juge's work, which is widely portrayed, see SBBS 1: 679685. A record of his official "confession" (no legal action was ever taken) can be found in KKS 5: 512-513 (no. 288). 19. This version of events is based upon my discussions with Mr. Murakami at the family museum near the Sakamoto entrance to Mt. Hiei and the Hiyoshi Shrine in February of 1986. 20. For example, see Yamateru Toshio's comments on Meiji Buddhism ("boring," etc.) in Rekishi koron, no. 11 (November 1983): 13. In contrast, for a more balanced presentation of the issue, see Collcutt, "Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication," p. 151. We should also note that many Buddhist scholars have also sought to perpetuate this reading of anti-Buddhist activities. Since they were rebels, the argument goes, the

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persecution was not in fact legitimate and proves that Buddhism did not "deserve" the attacks it underwent. For example, an editorial in Bukkyo shigaku described Juge's attack on the Hiyoshi Shrine and pointed out that Juge "in his later years was engaged in Taoist practices and . . . ate nothing but sweet potatoes. He was quite an odd fellow [kawatta hito de atta]." "Hiyoshi gongen kami aratame no shumatsu," Bukkyo shigaku 2, no. 1 (April 1912): 23. 21. These comments are taken from the work of Tsuji Zennosuke; on "opening the eyes of the priests" see hisNihon bukkyo shi, 11 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1961), 10: 494-495 (originally published from 1944 to 1954; cited hereafter as NBS). On the surplus of temples see his "Haibutsu mondai ni yoru soryo no kakusei" in his NBSK 4: 242; also "Meiji ishin no haibutsu mondai to seifu no taido" in ibid., 4: 217. 22. "Kinsei bukkyo suibi no yurai" in NBSK 4: 27-102. 23. For the quote from Xavier see ibid., p. 67; for Tsuji on "realism" see ibid., p. 76. 24. Haneda, Bukkyo sonan, pp. 92-93, for example, begs this question when he suggests that the attack on Mt. Hiei by Oda Nobunaga in the sixteenth century was not nearly as tragic as the Meiji persecution led by "fanatics acting in the Emperor's name" because the former instance was more "justifiable." 25. Okuma, "Meiji shonen," pp. 32-33. ( Emphasis added.) 26. SBBS 1: 67; also in HGJS 3: 31. For a draft of this letter (sent 9/17/1868) see sscs, p. 13 (no. 504). The letter was sent first to the Nishi and Higashihongan-ji temples and then on to the other major Shin temples: Kosho-ji, Bukko-ji, and Senshu-ji. 27. From his "Kyusakubun" in Shinshu shiryo shusei, 13 vols. (Kyoto: Dobosha, 1975), 11:13 (cited hereafter as sss). 28. For a brief biography of Fukuda and his rather amazing career see Tsunemitsu Konen, Meiji bukkyosha, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1968), 1: 130-140; this quote is the first point of a 14-point memorial to the government and quoted in Tamamuro Taijo, Nihon bukkyo shi, 3 vols. (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1967), 3: 333. 29. For a further discussion of the use of these terms to define certain "types" of priests, see Kashiwahara Yusen's "Goho shiso to shomin kyoka" in Nihon shiso taikei, 57: Kinsei bukkyo shiso, ed. Kashiwahara Yusen and Fujii Manabu (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1973), pp. 533-556; also Ikeda Eishun, Meiji no Shimbukkyo undo (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1976), esp. pp. 112-172 on the "Keimoshugi" priests. 30. From Motoori' s Murasakifumi yoryo and Tsuzura hana, quoted in Kashiwahara Yusen, "Kinsei no haibutsu shiso," in Nihon shiso taikei, ed. Kashiwahara and Fujii, 57: 528. 31. Observations by Motoori Norinaga in his "Shamon Bunyu ga kyuzan hachikai chokai ron no ben," quoted in Kashiwahara, ibid., p. 529. 32. Quoted in Kamekawa Masanobu, "Kaisho no haibutsu ni tsuite," Shina bukkyoshi no kenkyu, no. 6 (1942): 65. This text also assumes that Buddhism was formulated in very recent times (the Ch'in, third-fourth centuries A.D.) and thus could lay no genuine claim to an orthodoxy drawn from antiquity. This latter point is highlighted by eighteenth-century Japanese scholars such as Tominaga Nakamoto. 33. Quoted in Wing-tsit Chan, trans, and ed., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1963), p. 455.

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34. For a further discussion of Han Yii and his work see Charles Hartman's Han Yii and the Tang Search for Unity (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986); for a look at the Yuan-tao see esp. pp. 145-162. It is interesting to note that Han Yii also seemed a bit hesitant to write out the more polemical of his anti-Buddhist (and anti-Taoist) diatribes for fear of reprisal: "If I were to write a book, I would anger even more people, and they would consider me crazy and deluded. My life would be in danger, and what then would become of my writing?'' Quoted in ibid., p. 162. 35. Murakami Sensho, ' 'Shina bukkyoshi yori mitaru Meiji shonen no bukkyokai," Bukkyo shigaku, 2, no. 4 (July 1912): 31-36. 36. The descriptive literature here is vast, so I will note but a few representative works. Chia Chung-yao, "Tang Hui-ch'ang cheng-chiao ch'ung-t'u shih-liao," Shihhuo (January 1936): 4; Tsukamoto Zenryu, Shina bukkyoshi kenkyu: hokugi hen (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1942); Kamekawa Masanobu/'Kaisho no haibutsu"; Kenneth Ch'en, Buddhism in China (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1965); Edward Ch'ien, "The Neo-Confucian Confrontation with Buddhism," in Journal of Chinese Philosophy, no. 9 (1982): 307-328 ; and for an intimate view of the T'ang dynasty persecution, Ennin's Diary, trans. E. O. Reischauer (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1955). 37. Okina nofumi, section 16, quoted in Hajime Nakamura, The Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1964), p. 487. 38. All citations for the Shutsujo kogo are taken from Yoshikawa Entaro's excellent edition: Shutsujo kogo (Osaka: Kyogaku Shobo, 1944) (hereafter cited as SJKG). This quote appears on p. 9. 39. Quoted in Nakamura Hajime, Nakamura Hajime zenshu, vol. 7: Kindai nihon no hihanteki seishin (Tokyo: Shubunsha, 1965), pp. 189-191. 40. Ibid, pp. 199-200; also in Wakimoto Tsunega, Kindai no bukkyo sha (Tokyo: Takuma Shobo, 1967), p. 18. It is also frequently suggested that after being expelled from the Kaitokudo, Tominaga assisted in the publishing of the Buddhist Tripitaka, a project begun in the 1680s at the Mampuki-ji by the Obaku master Tetsugen. While working and studying there he is said to have formulated his arguments used in the Shutsujo. See, for example, Wakimoto, ibid., p. 16, or the emotional, and anonymous, Meiji period critic of Tominaga who wrote "though receiving kindness and blessings from his teachers there, . . . he turned his back on his true debts [on] and wrote this vile text." Shinteki nishu ron ben (Tokyo: Komeisha, 1885), p. 1. 41. Two of the more widely read examples of the Buddhist response to Tominaga are Muso Fumio's "Hishutsujo," in Nihon shiso toso shiryo [where it is titled "Hishutsujo kogo"], ed. Washio Junkyo, 10 vols. (Tokyo: Toho Shoin, 1930), 3: 239265, and the Shin priest Cho'on's "Kakuretsu jamo hen," in Shinshu zensho 59: 509550. (A slightly different version of this latter text also appears in Washio, ed., Nihon shiso toso shiryo 3: 272-346.) The editor introduces Tominaga here as a "Shintoist" (p. 7). Both these works were written in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries and went through several editions. Both responded specifically, and adequately, to certain technical issues (the order of events portrayed in sutras, terminological inadequacies, etc.), but they failed to provide appropriate argumentation to counter Tominaga's basic historicist attack. They seemed to rest content in concluding that pointing

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out enough inaccuracies in Tominaga's writing was adequate to show the "distorted" or "inane" character of the argument itself. 42. SJKG, pp. 35-36; Yoshikawa points out in his introduction that Tominaga quotes extensively from over 300 different sutras (p. 1). 43. Ibid., pp. 52-55. 44. On the levels of existence, see ibid., p. 33; on the collection of sutras, pp. 4 3 46; on the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, pp. 130-173; on the precepts, pp. 216-227; on the eating of meat, pp. 240-245; on the Buddha's biography, pp. 327-337; on the sutras, p. 56. Tominaga also suggests here that the translators are as guilty as those who wrote the sutras for producing this confusion. The complexities involved in the act of translation itself are treated by Tominaga, but he does not relate the problem of translation specifically to the order of production of the Buddhist sutras. This problem is taken up, however, by Hattori Tenyu in his Sekirara, a work dedicated to both Tominaga and Hirata Atsutane; vol. 6 of his Kinko bungei onchi sosho (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1891), pp. 41-81. 45. SJKG, pp. 56-57.

46. Ibid., p. 34. 47. Nan-chiian P'u-yiian (748-834), T'ang dynasty Zen master, disciple of Ma-tsu; quoted in Heinrich Dumoulin, A History of Zen Buddhism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), p. 99. 48. This famous line, invoked by Tominaga (SJKG, p. 34), is generally attributed to Nan-chiian and reads in full: "A special transmission outside the scriptures, relying not upon words and letters; point directly to man's heart, [thereby] see one's nature and become Buddha." Quoted in Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism, p. 67, with certain differences. 49. SJKG, pp. 343-344.

50. Ibid., p. 43. This assertion by Tominaga of the delayed construction of sutras "in a later age" contributed the basic outline to the argument against the possibility of the historical Buddha being able to have preached the Mahay ana sutras: the so-called Dajo hibussetsu, literally "the Buddha did not speak the Mahayana." 51. Ibid., p. 175. 52. Ibid., p. 176. 53. From Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in 19th-century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1973), p. 34. 54. SJKG, p. 175.

55. Definition taken from White, Metahistory, p. 137. 56. On this point see, for example, Ishihama Juntaro, Tominaga Nakamoto (Osaka: Sogensha, 1930), pp. 105-106. 57. " 'Jishi' no go wa moto to aku ni ari." SJKG, p. 176. 58. For a discussion of the early forms of the Buddhist confessional as practiced in India, see Sukamar Dutt, Early Indian Monachism (Bombay: Asian Publishing House, 1960), pp. 84-89. The "pravarana" was later institutionalized in Japan as the Urabon Festival. The term "bond" is the literal meaning of "Patimokkha," the earliest form of the Buddhist Vinaya, the codified regula for monks, nuns, and laypersons. 59. SJKG, p. 366.

60. This line of reasoning is derived from the Kegon sutra. Tao-sheng is widely

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recognized for this contribution to Buddhist philosophy. Though the existence of the icchantika class is denied by Tendai and Kegon Buddhism, the Hosso maintains the category in its interpretation of the hierarchy of beings. 61. Sextus Empiricus, trans. R. G. Bury, 2 vols. (London: Heinemann, 1933), 1: 121. 62. This was perhaps the most prevalent form of religious syncretism practiced in the Tokugawa era. Combinations, as well as the constituent members, varied greatly, including Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Shinto, and even Christian doctrines. A triumvirate combination, however, seems to have been the most common. See Kashiwahara Yusen, Kinsei shomin bukkyo no kenkyu (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1971). Tominaga's use of the term refers to the combination of Taoism (concerned with the preservation of life), Confucianism (concerned with classical learning), and Buddhism (concerned with the problem of life/death [shoji]). SJKG, pp. 338-344. 63. SJKG, p. 341.

64. Ibid.; similar comments are also made in Tominaga's own introduction, p. 1. 65. Ibid., pp. 343-344. 66. Sextus Empiricus, p. 123. 67. SJKG, pp. 73-79.

68. Anesaki Masaharu, Bukkyo seiten shiron (Tokyo: Keiso Shoin, 1899), p. 19. Nakamura is another later scholar elaborate, and creative, in his praise for Tominaga. For example, in his Hihanteki seishin, pp. 194-196, he describes Tominaga as a paradigmatic representative of a ' 'historical humanism'' unique to "Japanese philosophy/' 69. From the Okina no fund, quoted in Nakamura, Hihanteki seishin, p. 187. 70. SJKG, p. 112; Nakamura, in Ways of Thinking (p. 138), translates gen as "hallucination" or "illusion" and bun as "culture." The translation of the former term is, in Tominaga's case, a little extreme; in the case of bun, ' 'culture'' fails to account fully for the philological nature of comparison used by Tominaga here and elsewhere. We should also note that Nakamura's expression "eastern people," as well as the manner in which he describes the national character of each of these ' 'peoples,'' draws heavily from Tominaga's thought as found in the Shutsujo. 71. SJKG, p. 114. The individual mentioned in this brief notation could be one Kuninomiyatsuko Jin'in, a Confucian scholar and physician who had, at one time, an academy in Nagasaki. Although inasmuch as the traditional death date for Jin'in is in 1713, even this identification is speculative. 72. Ibid., pp. 76-77. 73. Hirata Atsutane, Hirata Atsutane zenshu, vol. 10: Shutsujo shogo (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1977), pp. 279-537. This quote appears on p. 279 (cited hereafter as SJSG). It perhaps goes without saying that the following discussion is not intended as an exhaustive evaluation of Hirata's philosophy. The rather narrow focus here is upon his critique of Buddhism, its relation to Tominaga's work, and its consequences for Meiji Buddhists. 74. On the "ways" of nations, see SJSG, p. 282; on "fine perfume," p. 284; on "natural" odors, p. 285; on "inferior nation" and on patricide, p. 287. 75. On Shakyamuni as "viper" and on Shakyamuni's birth, see ibid., p. 291; on the true as the false, p. 292. 76. Ibid., p. 367.

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77. Ibid., p. 369. 78. On internal destruction of Buddhism, see ibid., p. 424; on the function of priests, p. 422. 79. Ibid., p. 416. 80. Ibid., p. 410. 81. Ibid., p. 280. 82. Ibid., p. 422. 83. Ibid., p. 418. 84. Ibid., pp. 448-504. 85. SBBS 1: 292-297, esp. p. 294.

86. Throughout the Tokugawa period, and often in the early Meiji period as well, the former sect was generally known as the "Ikko sect," literally, "one direction" (and by extension "wholeheartedly"), a term taken from their devoted practice of intoning the name of Amida. They were not officially recognized as the "Jodo Shin Sect" until around 1880. The latter were frequently identified as the "Monto," literally, "followers of the gate," though Hirata uses the term "Nichiren" almost exclusively. We will, as is now customary, refer to these sects as the "Shin" and the "Nichiren." 87. For comments on Shinran, see, SJSG, p. 449; on Nichiren, p. 474. 88. Ibid., p. 470. 89. SJSG, pp. 499-500; Hirata actually uses flowers in a synecdochic relation with the national essence of each of the three nations: mud-born Lotus for the Indians; Peonies, full-blossomed and multicolored, for the Chinese; and the ancestor of all flowers {hana no oya), the Cherry, for the Japanese. 90. Ibid., p. 450. 91. Ibid., p. 451. 92. The term nyobon, translated here as to "violate a woman," is the term used to identify one of the ten major prohibitions placed upon monks when they make their vows. To say, as Kannon does, that this can both occur and not occur strikes Hirata as an inadequate method of argumentation. The "manifestations" of Kannon are expressed throughout various sutras with the ideograph arawasu/gen, to "appear" or "present"; the more colloquial verb naru, to "become," as used here, asserts Hirata, is clearly a mistake. 93. Ibid., p. 467. 94. Hirata both assumes the title of a Buddha and then mimics Amida's use of vows. Whereas Amida's eighteenth vow was the promise to escort those who called his name into the Pure Land, Hirata says his first vow, as a Tathagata, will be the enlightenment of the deluded. He concludes these remarks with the cryptic observation, "Isn't this fascinating?" (Omoshiroi koto de wa arimasenka.) 95. Ibid., p. 469. 96. For a good general discussion of Shinto/Buddhist syncretism see Maruyama Shuichi, Shimbutsu shugo shicho (Kyoto: Sorasho, 1961). 97. Ibid., p. 472. 98. Ibid., p. 454. 99. Ibid., p. 493.

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100. Ryuon, Soseki haibutsuben, in Nihon shiso taikei, ed. Kashiwahara and Fujii, 57: 106-146. 101. Ibid., p. 118. 102. Ibid., pp. 127-129. 103. In Keizai mondo hiroku, vols. 34—35 of Nikon keizai daiten, ed. Takimoto Seiichi (Tokyo: Meiji Bunken, 1970) (cited hereafter as KMH). Shqji drew heavily from Kumazawa Banzan's Keizaiben (c. 1655), Ogyu Sorai's Seidan (c. 1720), Dazai Shundai's Keizairoku (1729), Nakai Chikuzan's Sobo kigen (1789), and Sato Nobuhiro's Keizai yoroku (1827) for methodological and theoretical support. 104. KMH, p. 129. Ogyu's treatment of Buddhism in the Seidan (in Nihon shiso taikei, vol. 36: Ogyii Sorai [Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1973], pp. 259^45) is rather brief. His comments are limited to a discussion of the use of temples in the official registration of the populace (terauke shumori) and the registration cards (shumon tefuda) the lower classes were required to carry (pp. 269, 404-405), regulations necessary for nuns (p. 418), the use of the honorary purple robe by priests (p. 418), and a brief section on the need to tighten restrictions on priests' ordination, education, and behavior (pp. 432-433). Dazai Shundai was similarly circumscribed with his comments on Buddhism in the Keizairoku (in Yokogawa Shiro, ed., Dazai Shundai shu [Tokyo: Seibundo, 1935], pp. 5-336). He, for example, praised the Buddhist teaching of faith but emphasized the need to direct this faith toward the Confucian sages of antiquity (pp. 13-14); or he noted that though cremation may have been an appropriate form of funeral service for Buddhists in India, it was neither never used in China nor appropriate to Japan (pp. 39-44). The emphasis in these two texts lay in arguing the relation of politics and economy and dealt with Buddhism only to the extent that it interfered with social and economic policy, or, particularly in Dazai's case, when Buddhist teachings were not in accord with the rites and ceremonies of antiquity. Nakai, however, devotes an entire section of his Sobo kigen to the problem of Buddhism. (In Takimoto Seiichi, ed., Nihon keizai sosho, 36 vols. [Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Sosho Konko Kai, 1915], 16: 261-490, esp. pp. 416-437.) For Nakai, "Buddhism has always been one of the great evils on earth," which, as soon as it enters a nation, causes revolt (p. 418). He, like Hirata, singles out Shin Buddhism, with its "worldly practices," as "the most destructive of all [sects]" (sono naka ni mottomo gaifukaki wa Ikko-shu nari) (p. 420). Citing the large number of temples (p. 425), the civil wars involving Buddhist armies (p. 426), the large and irresponsible priesthood (pp. 427429), and the negative influence Buddhism has had on the general populace (pp. 432434), Nakai proposes a drastic reduction of temples, a ban on further ordinations, and restrictions on spending and other priestly vices. Clearly, Shoji drew extensively from this text as he constructed a similar, though more extensive, critique in a somewhat more colloquial language. 105. KMH, p. 22. 106. See Nakai's Sobo kigen, esp. pp. 288-292, for his discussion of the "national system." The first quote is from the Great Learning, quoted in KMH, p. 25; the latter quote is Shoji's interpolation; KMH, p. 26. 107. From the Great Learning, quoted in KMH, p. 8. 108. For a fuller discussion of the problem of political economy in eighteenth-century Japanese intellectual history see Tetsuo Najita's seminal work Visions of Virtue in

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Tokugawa Japan: The Kaitokudo, Merchant Academy of Osaka (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987). 109. KMH, pp. 516-517. 110. Ibid., pp. 38-39. 111. Ibid., p. 506. 112. Ibid., p. 508. 113. Ibid., p. 552; Toyoda, Shukyo seido shi, p. 151, calls medieval priests hoshi daimyo ("dharma master lords") due to their vast holdings and military and political power. See also Kuroda Toshio's ground-breaking work Jisha seiryoku: mo hitotsu no chusei shakai (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1980) for a discussion of the position of temple organizations throughout the medieval period. 114. KMH, p. 513. 115. Ibid., pp. 567-569. 116. Ibid., p. 29. 117. Ibid., p. 26. 118. Ibid., p. 541; Toyoda, Shiikyd seido shi, pp. 149-150, on the basis of later government estimates, provides a more conservative number of registered temples, around 70,000. 119. KMH, p. 566. 120. The ideographic compound shukyo can, in fact, be found with some regularity in Buddhist literature dating to at least Chi-I's late-sixth-century Miaofa lian hua ching hsiian i. The Buddhist use of this term revolved around two readings of the first character, slid: as "essence" (of the teaching) or as a "sect" (within the teaching). The early use of this compound served to indicate the teachings, and not a relative conception of the Buddhist teachings; that is, outside the Buddhist teachings there were in fact no recognized teachings; other groups, by and large, were referred to by such pejorative terms as "deluded teaching" (meikyo) or "heretical teaching" (jakyo). The "same" compound is then, in the nineteenth century, employed as a "translation" of the Western term "religion." See Aihara Ichirosuke's intriguing essay "Yakugo 'Shukyo' no seiritsu," in Shukyogaku kiyo, no. 5 (1938): 1-15. 121. Aihara locates the first' 'modern'' use of the term shiikyd in the translation of a clause of the 1869 treaty, from the German, with the Republic of Germany; "Recht frier Religionsubung haben" is rendered as "shukyo wo jiyu ni okonau no ri arubeshi" (ibid., p. 4). Suzuki Norihisa locates a slightly earlier use of the term in an 1868 correspondence from the American Consul in protest over the continued banning of Christianity: "the religion of the country I represent" translated as "hongoku no shukyo." (Emphasis added.) See his Meiji shukyo shicho no kenkyu (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan, 1979), p. 16. Also suggestive in this area is Yanabu Akira's Honyakugo seiritsu jijo (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1982). It is important to note that although both of these early diplomatic uses of the term religion/shukyo do not refer to ' 'Buddhism," they do refer specifically and exclusively to the Christian teachings. "Shukyo" is indeed a "translation" of the term "religion" as found in the West and as such carries with it much of the conceptual baggage associated with its exclusively Christian origins. This problem will be taken up again in the discussion in Chapter Four of the World's Parliament of Religions.

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CHAPTER TWO

1. For a description of Emperor Kdmei's funeral service see Haneda, bukkyo sonan, pp. 94—96; for a description of the memorial service see Haga Shoji, "Meiji Jingikansei no seiritsu to kokka saigi no zaihen," Jimbun gakuho, no. 49 (February 1981): 7274; for the national order see sscs, p. 10 (no. 320); the law was limited to shrine attendants and their families; for Kamei's domainal policy on Shinto funerals, as well as an example of an "appropriate" ceremony, see "Tsuwano han koki sosai aratame ho," in SBBS 2: 808-839. Note that in the Tsuwano case this order was followed almost immediately (4/17/1868) with the total ban on priests within the domain and the order to close down all Buddhist temples. See "Tsuwano han no butsuji no hatsugo soryo genzoku . . ." in SBBS 2: 840-841. For a discussion of Emperor Komei's third memorial service see Sakamoto Kenichi's Meiji shintoshi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Kokushokan, 1983), pp. 482-483. 2. So thorough was the Tsuwano ' 'model case'' that even today over one half of all families in the area still use only Shinto funerals. For a discussion of this modem kesu see Kato Takahisa, "Soreisha no ikkosai: Tsuwano chiho o chushin to shite," Kokugakuin Daigaku Nihon bunka kenkyujo kiyo, no. 22 (1968): 214, 216. For a more thorough discussion of Shinto funerals as formed in the Tsuwano domain and internally linked to the Nativist Academy Yorokan, see Kato Takahisa, Shinto Tsuwano kyogaku no kenkyu (Tokyo: Kokushokan, 1985), pp. 38-184. 3. One excellent example of this can be seen in a manuscript collection of various types of Shinto funerals (varying according to rank, local custom, etc.), compiled in the Mikawa domain in 1857 (Ansei4). This "Compendium of Shinto Funerals" (Shinsoshiki ruishu) contained advice ranging from how to handle the corpse of one who died of disease to the exact placement and contents of the funeral altar, measurements and diagrams of various paraphernalia, seating order of guests, the appropriate salutations (norito) to offer to the kami, and types of posthumous names to be offered to male or female deceased. See also MSS 2 (bk. 1): 296 for 1842 (Tempo 13) regulations on Shinto funerals. This was the same year (1842) as the ordinance calling for the collection of temple bells to be melted down for cannon. 4. There were attempts made throughout the Tokugawa period, and some from an earlier date, to construct a definition of Shinto as distinct from "foreign" Buddhist influence. Traces of several of these reactionary constructs of Shinto can be found in the Meiji attempts to produce a national "religion." The most prevalent forms were derived from the work of Yoshida Kanetane (1435-1511) and the so-called school of Yoshida Shinto. See Kishimoto Hideo's Kinsei shinto kyoiku shi (Tokyo: Meiji Shoten, 1962), pp. 11-26, 60-145, for a discussion of pre-Meiji Shinto doctrine. 5. Tanimori is best known for his pioneering research into the Imperial tombs. On the basis of his work, many of the "lost" tombs were rediscovered, and new ones following the "ancient laws" were built. For a discussion of Imperial funerals and their relation to Shinto-style funerals see Yasumaru Yoshio, Kamigami no Meiji ishin (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1979), p. 65. 6. For some examples of "modern" norito see Sakamoto, Meiji Shinto, pp. 25-26. For a discussion of the national shrine system see Daniel Holtom, The National Faith of Japan: A Study in Modern Shinto (London: Kegan Paul, 1938) and Muraoka Tsu-

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netsugu, Studies in Shinto Thought, trans. Delmar Brown and James Araki (Tokyo: Ministry of Education, 1964). 7. The ideograph so, here translated as "ancestor," was also occasionally written with the character meaning "all" or "whole," so; thus Soreisha could then be translated as the "Communal Spirit Shrine." 8. Kato, "Soreisha," p. 219. 9. From Kamei's 1867 (Keio 3) promulgation Satoshi gaki, quoted in Tamamuro, Shimbutsu bunri, p. 126. 10. From Fujita Toko's Kodokankijutsugi, quoted in Tamamuro, Shimbutsu bunri, pp. 72-73. 11. Ibid. 12. For these funeral guidelines see MSS 2 (bk. 1): 296. 13. See, for example, ibid., p. 288 for an eightfold typology of elements that constitute theMito "phenomenon" of persecution. 14. We should recall that the Shimabara uprising of Christians took place in 16371638; the freshly constructed anti-Christian regulations may easily have served as a model for the Kambun period Mito leaders in their treatment of Buddhism. 15. Shimazaki Toson's historical novel of the Meiji Era, Before the Dawn [Yoakemae], provides an intriguing, though somewhat pacified, look at how Nativism and Buddhism fared at the village level during the volatile first years of the Meiji era. See the recent translation by William Naff (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1987), especially pp. 380, 561, 577-578, 609-614, 637, 736. 16. For the survey and its results see MSS 2 (bk. 1): 836-842. This quote is from Tamamuro, Shimbutsu bunri, p. 26; for his description of the Kambun era survey see pp. 22-29. It perhaps bears stressing that even though there are many prior cases of surveys of temple holdings, the majority of these were carried out by the temples themselves; moreover, the intended use of the Mito data was one of purposeful comprehensive regulation of temple practices and not merely for the sake of taxation, recordkeeping, or other similarly limited purposes. 17. For a discussion of the Mito History as related to Neo-Confucian models see J. Victor Koschmann's The Mito Ideology: Discourse, Reform and Insurrection in Late Tokugawa Japan 1790-1864 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1987), esp. pp. 34-43; see also "Dainihonshi no shiso" in MSS 2 (bk. 1): 754-790. The comparison with Buddhist histories here is my own. 18. MSS 2 (bk. 1): 258-260; see also Tamamuro, Shimbutsu bunri, pp. 34-40. 19. MSS 2 (bk. 1): 855-857; see also the Shoshu hihoshiki yosu no oboe, the 1666 promulgation by the Mito domain detailing the regulation of priests and temples, cited in Tamamuro, Shimbutsu bunri, p. 34. 20. One famous example of such manipulation and its confused results occurred at the K6fuku-ji in Nara. After the government's "request" for the resignations of all priests in the area, the entire priestly body of the K6fuku-ji resigned en masse; many of these priests immediately converted to Shinto and took positions in the neighboring Kasuga Shrine. Upon subsequent discovery that the government's "request" was in fact not legally binding, the priests attempted to return to the K6fuku-ji but were prohibited from doing so on the grounds that they had all willingly requested the right to return to lay life. In their absence the temple's library, one of the largest in the country

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at that time, along with many artifacts, was burned or sold. (Paper from the ancient text that had escaped the flames was used by local shops as wrapping paper for many years.) The now famous pagoda in the temple compound (designated a National Treasure by a reconciliatory National Assembly) was purchased for 250 yen by a metalsmith who intended to burn the structure down in order to salvage the metal. He was prevented, the story goes, only by neighborhood concerns over the spreading of fire. See SBBS 1: 53-54 and Haneda, Bukkyo sonan, pp. 161-163, for discussion o'f these and related incidents. 21. The most famous case of' 'amalgamation'' is to be found in the early Meiji antiBuddhist legislation of "one temple per sect" (ippa ichidera), wherein all temples of a given sect were "amalgamated" into a single building, as carried out in Toyama on the Japan sea. At 10 A.M. on the 27th day of the intercalary tenth month of 1870 (Meiji 3) the amalgamation order was issued; by 6 A.M. on the 29th all priests were to be ready to move all private possessions to the one designated temple of amalgamation. Reliable estimates vary from 200 to 400 as to the number of temples affected. (Tsuji is mistaken with his total of over 1,600 temples as found in SBBS 1: 47 and elsewhere.) Only seven temples were originally allowed to remain open. By any estimate the Pure Land sect was the hardest hit; not only did it have the largest number of temples in the area (from 125 to 250), but many of the priests were married and had families. Over 1,200 Pure Land Buddhists (along with 36 recently exiled Urakami Christians) were crowded into two small temples! Toyama and the neighboring domain of Kaga were rocked by riots and priest-led skirmishes with the local constabulary well into the next year. Constant patrol by the military was also deemed necessary during this period. For details of the Toyama incident see Toyama kenshi Hensan Iinkai, Toyama kenshi, 5 vols. (Toyama: Toyama ken, 1970), 5: 65-90; see also SBBS 1: 785-812. For a vivid account of the Pure Land sect's tribulations during this period, see Shimaji Mokurai's letter to the Meiji government in this regard in Shimaji Mokurai zenshu, 5 vols. (Kyoto: Hongan-ji Shuppan, 1973), 1: 2-6 (cited hereafter as SMZ). 22. For the order see MSS 2 (bk. 3): 298. 23. Recounted in Yasumaru, Kamigami, pp. 158-159. 24. In the sixth month of 1870 (Meiji 3) Shugendo was ordered to be included in either Tendai or Shingon Buddhism and was thus denied official independent status. See SBBS 5: 1115-1116. The official stance against Shugendo solidified in the ninth month of 1872 (Meiji 5) when all unaligned Shugendo temples and priests were officially banned. See Yasumaru, Kamigami, p. 152. Yasumaru also suggests that many Shugendo priests joined various of the new Shinto (the so-called Sect Shinto) groups and thereby somewhat ironically contributed to the noticeably esoteric tinge of these state-sanctioned groups. See Yasumaru, Kamigami, p. 146. For figures on the Mito temple closings of the 1840s see MSS 2 (bk. 3): 300, and Tamamuro, Shimbutsu bunri, pp. 83-85. 25. Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, trans. R. Rostel (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1973), p. 133. The notion and use of the term "carnivalesque" is drawn from readings of Bakhtin. See also his Rabelais and His World, trans. H. Iswolsky (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968); Dominick LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1983); and Julia Kristeva, especially her Desire in Language (New York:

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Columbia Univ. Press, 1980). Though clearly addressing issues chronologically and geographically distinct from the issue at hand, the precise social and political implications of this concept provide significant insight into concerns central to the Meiji era manipulation of the social order and the concomitant persecution of Buddhism. 26. Bakhtin, Rabelais, p. 418. 27. Kristeva, Desire, p. 71. 28. Herbert Bix, Peasant Protest in Japan 1590-1884 (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1986), pp. xx-xxiii. 29. For rumors of this sort see, for example, MSS 2 (bk. 3): 326; for a detailed discussion of other aspects of the Tempo reforms, see ibid., pp. 333-905. 30. MSS 2 (bk. 3): 319-322, and Tamamuro, Shimbutsu bunri, pp. 47-56. 31. Yasumaru, Kamigami, p. 164, points out this possibility in relation to a similar process carried out in Niigata. 32. One type of festival created during this period, which will be discussed more fully in Chapter Three, is the series of memorial days devoted to select historical personages. Tokugawa leyasu was clearly an important figure in Mito in this regard, but the Meiji era list grew to include, for example, supporters of the Emperor Godaigo in his separatist movement of the fourteenth century such as Kusunoki Masashige (1294— 1336), or late prominent military leaders such as Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. 33. See MSS 2 (bk. 3): 327 for a Tempo era calendar of official yearly events. 34. An excellent example of the latter case can be found in the official listings of holidays published by the Meiji government in 1875 (Meiji 8). Therein are described 182 festivals for the calendar year (over 15 for each month!), 121 of which were commemoration ceremonies for the emperors and empresses and some select members of the Imperial family. The remaining festivals, exclusively Shinto in character, were those carried out within the Imperial compound itself, at the Grand Shrine at Ise, or at other local shrines throughout the national network. See Iwai Tokudo, ed., Jinkan nenchu gydji (Tokyo: Kami Narai Seki, 1875). 35. ForTakahisa's quote see Obata Buntei's "Satsuma no haibutsu to sono fukko," in SBBS 2: 1043; for a copy of the 1876 ordinance granting freedom of movement to the Buddhists see Momozono Eishin, Satsuma Shinshu kinsei shi no kenkyii (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Bunko, 1983), p. 257. The Shimazu clan, it should be noted, were all Zen Buddhists. From around 1585 the Pure Land Sects were all banned from Satsuma. This occurred for a number of reasons, the most frequently asserted being that the ban was a reaction to the assistance provided to Hideyoshi by the Pure Land Buddhists when the former invaded Kyushu in the sixteenth century as part of his attempt to ' 'unify'' the Japanese archipelago under one rule. A more likely reason for such a thoroughgoing ban lasting almost 300 years was a recognition of the tightly woven social connections created within Pure Land Buddhist communities: an organization that could offer serious opposition to domainal authority. Though there were several "underground" groups of Pure Land Buddhists {kakure nembutsu) that continued to operate during this period, the public teaching or practicing of Pure Land doctrine was punishable by either death or banishment. The unique position of Pure Land Buddhism will appear again later in this chapter. See Momozono, Satsuma Shinshu, pp. 7-20, 140-152, for comments on aspects of pre-Meiji Pure Land Buddhist activities in Satsuma.

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36. From an interview with Ichiki Shouemon titled "Satsuma nite jiin wo haishi jinja wo yosai seshi jitsubutsu tsuki," inShikan soku kiroku, no. 13 (Tokyo: Shidankai, 1893), p. 42; this interview can also be found in a rather emasculated form in SBBS 2: 1034—1043 titled "Kagoshima han no jiin shobun." 37. Ichiki is remembered locally largely for this mammoth research effort alone. See, for example, Shimodozono Junji, Kagoshima rekishi sampo (Kagoshima: Nanshu Shuppan, 1977), pp. 65-68. 38. For the "profit to the nation" quote see Ichiki, "Satsuma nite," p. 53; for his comparison with the Mito case see ibid., pp. 55-56. For a further discussion of the importance of the Mito pattern of anti-Buddhist and related economic and social policies see Okuchi shi kyodoshi, 3 vols. (Okuchi: Okuchi shi Kyodoshi Shuppan, 1978), 2: 118ff. 39. Shimazu Hisamitsu, it will be recalled, was the Satsuma notable involved in the Namamugi Incident wherein several British subjects were killed or wounded when they refused to allow Hisamitsu's procession to pass. The subsequent refusal by the Satsuma domain to accept responsibility for the incident, and pay the indemnity demanded by the British, triggered the British bombardment of Kagoshima City in 1863. It is interesting in this regard to note that the British and the other Western powers referred (and indeed still refer) to this incident as the "British bombardment of Kagoshima," whereas the Japanese have come to know this incident under the rubric of the "Satsuma-English War" (Satsu-ei Senso). 40. On the Establishment of the Office of Investigation, a listing of its members, and the content of its survey see "Jiin haigo meirei" in KKS 4: 133-135 (no. 147 [1— 2]). For Katsura's comments see "Jiin haigo futatsu" in ibid., p. 136 (no. 148), and for his quote see Matsuda Michiyasu, ed., Meiji ishin Sappan ryonai no shimbutsu bunri shiryo shuyo (Kagoshima: Tamayama Jinja, 1966), p. 84. (Document privately printed and not sold; I am in debt to Professor Haga Shochi for providing me with a copy of this important collection of documents.) 41. Doubtlessly of great aid to the surveyors at this time was the already-existing thorough registration system. In the Satsuma area this registration was carried out with great rigor including the issuance of mandatory identification tags to be carried when traveling. These tags included as standard information one's religious affiliation and, if applicable, one's criminal record. For an important insight into religious policy in Satsuma and the status of Pure Land Buddhism there see Robert Sakai et al., trans, and eds., The Status System and Social Organization of Satsuma (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1975), esp. pp. 45-48, 59-61, 81-83. 42. All quotes from Ichiki, "Satsuma nite," pp. 46-49. For the survey figures see Ichiki, "Satsuma nite," pp. A3—A6, and Matsuda, Meiji ishin, pp. 85-88. Momozono in his Satsuma Shinshu, p. 264, claims that 1,600 temples were closed down but gives no source for this figure; assuming this is not merely a typographical error, I imagine it would be based upon a combination of both temples (terd) and halls (do), but it still figures a bit high. Kobata Buntei, relying on the survey itself, sets the total at 1,060 temples closed: Satsuma no haibutsu to sonofukko, in SBBS 2: 1045. On the Dajo-in closing see Katsura's report on the temple closings in KKS 4: 134 (no. 147). 43. I am indebted to Mrs. Kaminishi Yasuyo for guiding me to this site. See also

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Chiran cho kyodoshi, p. 1127 for a similar discovery in 1931. The statues uncovered in Chiran are now in the city's Historical Museum. See Haneda, Bukkyo sonan, p. 136 for stories of Jizo statues used as building stones for toilets, walls, and schools. 44. Ichiki, "Satsuma nite," p. 49. This comment seems to have taken on legendary proportions; see Matsuda, Meiji ishin, p. 86. Haneda, Bukkyo sonan shi, p. 122, commenting on some early Meiji anti-Buddhists, notes that they were attempting to remove that which "smelled of Buddhism" (Bukkyo kusai) from the shrines; the idea of Buddhism as so much carrion rather dramatically reflects official attitudes toward its existence. 45. For Ichiki on the use of mirrors see "Satsuma nite," p. 49. For the well-known story of Amaterasu and the mirror see D. Philippi, trans., Kojiki (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), pp. 81-86. On the use of the mirror as a tool for moral pedagogy see Sansoku oshie no chikamichi, an official textbook on Shinto morality, by the satirical artist and short story writer Kanagaki Robun (Tokyo: Nakanishi Gempachi, 1873), p. 21; in this regard see also Chapter Three. 46. On the torii see Haneda, Bukkyo sonan, p. 210, and Sutara Ryoen, "Shimbutsu bunri to jinkan soryo," in Bukkyo shigaku 2, no. 1 (April 1912): 43. On the shrine/ temple distinction see Ichiki, "Satsuma nite," pp. 49-50. On the rebuilding of shrines see Haneda, Bukkyo sonan, p. 130. 47. KKS 5: 819 (no. 575). 48. On Eko's funeral see Momozono, Satsuma Shinshu, pp. 264-265 and Matsuda, Meiji ishin, p. 13. For the orders quoted here and the guidelines for Shinto funerals see the letters from the domainal Legislative Office (Chiseisho) in Matsuda (ibid.), pp. 13, 16, 19. The body was to be perfumed and buried (as opposed to the Buddhist preference for cremation). All tools and clothes used for the service were, however, destroyed by fire afterwards. The funeral service was later codified by the domain and consolidated into a handy reference manual form for the officiating priest. See the 1871 (?) funeral manual Reisosaishiki for a detailed presentation of prayers, paraphernalia, and ritual performance in Matsuda (ibid.), pp. 74-82. 49. On saving the mortuary tablets see KKS 6: 280 (no. 322); on Buddhist priests banned from Shinto services see p. 288 (no. 332); on memorial services and the canceling of the Obon festival see p. 306 (no. 349), and Matsuda Meiji ishin, Satsuma, p. 18; on the Funerary Ministers see KKS 6: 322 (no. 377); on the shrine for the war dead see p. 286 (no. 329); on Fukusho-ji see p. 408 (no. 491) and pp. 448^49 (no. 518), and Matsuda, Meiji ishin, p. 19; on the Shimazu clan and its shrines see KKS 6: 448449 (no. 518) and pp. 499-500 (no. 551). The remarks on the altering of the gravestones are based upon personal observation; I am in debt to Professor Hayashima of Kobe Woman's College and the Hongan-ji Research Institute for making this phenomenon known to me. 50. On the Yohaishiki see Yasumaru, Kamigami, pp. 132-133; Tamamuro, Shimbutsu bunri, p. 208; and Matsuda, Meiji ishin, pp. 27-35. Yasumaru provides a brief explanation of the ceremony as performed in relation to the memorial of Emperor Jimmu's assumption to the throne, whereas Matsuda provides a more general description of Worship from Afar as performed within Satsuma. As early as the Niinamesai of 1868 the Ministry of State was also ordering the performance of Worship from Afar to be carried out in select shrines designated by the state; see sscs, p. 18 (no. 962). It was

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also common practice by this time to forbid nationally the use of Buddhist bells, drums, or chanting during the hours of ceremony in order to prohibit the Buddhist "taints" from despoiling the Shinto ceremonies; see sscs, p. 18 (no. 962) and passim. For a copy of the Keishin setsuryaku see Matsuda, Meiji ishin, pp. 57-65; its publicity announcement appears in KKS 6: 776 (no. 853). For the Kami no naraigusa see Matsuda, Meiji ishin, pp. 68-72; very brief selections from this text can also be found inSBBs2: 1140-1142. 51. Ubusuna can be written with a wide range of ideographs. Ubu is generally taken to mean "to give birth" or "produce," and na refers then to the land or place that one is born into. It is thus within the Shrine (yashiro) of this land that the protector kami of all who were born there dwells. Though sharing elements with the more ancient Uji (tutelary deity) system and the Buddhist Chingo kokka (national protection) practices, the specific link between land and country, kami and emperor, implicated within this Ubusuna system is a more recent, comprehensive, and I would suggest far more emotionally charged creation. 52. All quotes are from the Keishin setsuryaku: the introductory quote is from p. 53; onyilmei, pp. 58-59; on Ubusuna, pp. 60-61; for the "treasure" see p. 64. 53. Ibid., pp. 60-61. 54. Ibid., p. 64. 55. The technical similarity between the interpretation of local "Shinto" figures based upon the more comprehensive pantheon operative at the national level and the incorporation of native deities by Buddhism into its pantheon a millennium earlier should not be overlooked. I find it continually intriguing to note that disagreement between competing religious concerns often seems to manifest itself in accordance with shared strategies. 56. All quotes are from Kami no naraigusa: on the local deities and the Nihongi see pp. 68-70; for sample norito and accepted Shinto behavior, p. 71; for the quote on Buddhism see pp. 71-72. 57. Ibid., p. 70. 58. It should be mentioned at this juncture that there was also a series of (continued) bannings of Christianity during this period as well. In the fourth month of 1868, over 3,000 "hidden Christians" (kakure kirishitan) were "discovered" in Nagasaki; each of these self-confessed practitioners of a forbidden religion were forced to apostatize before being banished to remote areas. This incident sparked both a series of vehement renewed condemnations of Christianity as an evil religion (jakyo) that posed a '' serious harm to the nation'' and a vigorous response from Euro-Americans concerned with Japanese domestic politics. For the Separation Edicts see sscs, pp. 1-11. In addition to the promulgations by the Division/Office/Ministry of Rites, some orders were also issued by the Ministry of State. For edicts in relation to Christianity see pp. 1 (no. 158), 4 (nos. 256, 279), 5— 10 (no. 314). For a collection of typical Western responses to these anti-Christian orders see Notto Thelle's Buddhism and Christianity in Japan: From Conflict to Dialogue 1854-1899 (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1987), pp. 12-15. 59. For the Iwakura quote see Yasumaru, Kamigami, pp. 46-47. See also Haga, "Meiji Jingikan," no. 49, p. 52, in this regard. Shimoda Yoshiteru, student of Nativist scholar Gonda Naosuke, commenting strictly on the charismatic presence of members

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of the Ministry of Rites, was convinced that the Satsuma members, being much more well read in the works of Hirata Atsutane, and having had the opportunity already to have used similar anti-Buddhist regulatory techniques in their home domain, were in a much higher position of authority than any other group within the Ministry. See his "Haibutsu kishaku no yurai oyobi jikkyo," in SBBS 1: 295. For a complete listing of members of the division and Office see Haga, "Meiji Jingikan," no. 49, p. 55; for members of the Ministry see p. 61. In terms of sheer numbers the Satsuma contingent was not overwhelming; in terms of "charisma" and "authority" we can only surmise how these radical southerners would have carried themselves. 60. Shimazaki, Before the Dawn, p. 686. 61. On the bans affecting the use of the chrysanthemum symbol see sscs, pp. 23 (no. 216), 29-30 (no. 803), 32 (no. 981); on dismounting before temples see pp. 30 (no. 804), 77 (no. 299); on the temporary bans placed on monks, nuns, and musical instruments see pp. 18 (no. 962), 20 (no. 1007), and passim. Some representative comments on Hokkaido can be found on pp. 23 (no. 362), 30 (nos. 816, 887) and in sss 11: 10-11. In the first years of the Meiji period the Higashihongan-ji alone sent over 100 priests to Hokkaido and spent over 33,000 ryo in building three new highways and finishing a fourth; they also built 16 public meeting halls that later served as the anchor for subsequent population centers. The separation of Hokkaido from the other islands at this time was profound. Even as late as the 1930s we can find comments similar to these of a Japanese scholar referring to the island Hokkaido as "long given over to the Ainu tribe . . . and regarded more as a colony than as an integral part of the motherland; but . . . it is forming part of the Empire as integral as any other." N. Matsunami, The Constitution of Japan (Tokyo: Maruzen, 1930), p. 2. 62. For the 1869 survey see sscs, pp. 26-28 (no. 534), and pp. 56-64 (no. 879) for the 1870 survey. Toyoda Takeshi calculates that over 210,000 acres of shrine lands and over 120,000 acres of temple lands were confiscated. See Collcutt, "Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication," p. 160, for these and related figures. Haneda, Bukkyo sonan, p. 274, estimates that the average annual taxes obtained from confiscated temple lands alone to be in excess of four million yen. As the "inside" or unconfiscatable lands of a temple were often described as the "dry spot around the main hall when it rains," the proportion of "outside" confiscatable lands seems to have been considerable; clearly, many temples that did manage to survive did so retaining only the land they physically stood upon. See Tamamuro Taijo, Nihon bukkyo shi, 3 vols. (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1967), 3: 306-310. 63. See sscs, p. 70 (no. 170) for these categories. Approximate population totals for 1872 are 3,000 nobility, 1.9 million samurai (including the lower ranks), 31 million commoners, and 300,000 Buddhist and Shinto priests. 64. Honsho Eijiro, "Meiji shonen no goyokin," in Meiji ishin shin keizaishi kenkyu, ed. Honsho Eijiro (Tokyo: Kaizosha, 1930), pp. 361-406. On specific loans and percentage figures see Yoshikawa Hidezo's "Meiji seifu no kashitsukekin," in ibid., pp. 407-484. 65. During the Tokugawa period and earlier the "Goyokin" ("government funds") lending system was often carried out at the expense of the lending party; "loans" were frequently and arbitrarily turned into "gifts" by an often unstable government treasury. See Honsho, "Goyokin," in his Keizaishi, p. 365.

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66. See ibid., p. 364 for a discussion of loans by the S6koku-ji on the eve of the Battle of Fushimi, and from the K6fuku-ji about the same time for governmental "operating expenses." 67. Priestly participation in the battles leading up to 1868 was not uncommon. Nanjo Bunyu (1849-1927), generally known for his scholastic achievement, also served as a foot soldier in an all-Buddhist military unit in the domain of Ogaki (presentday Gifu prefecture). This Warrior Priest Force (Soheitai) was made up of a 200-strong Unit to Aid Prosperity (Shoryutai) and an artillery brigade of 40 priests called the Fire King Unit (Kaotai). This latter brigade would chant while drilling: "We move the wagons of fire; assisting Emma the King of Hell, we are Hell's tormenting devils." On the "Irregular Brigade" see. Yahiro Shunsuke, Takasugi Shinsaku (Tokyo: Seibido, 1976), pp. 170-173. On Nanjo and the priestly troops in Ogaki see Tsunemitsu, Meiji no bukkyo sha, 1: 245-256. For a brief but concise discussion of the Higashihongan-ji and Nishihongan-ji's relation to the government prior to the Meiji era see sss 13: 7-9. 68. On post-Meiji donations see sss 11: 10-13; on the United Buddhists see Tsuji Zennosuke's 1929 essay "Haibutsu mondai ni yoru soryo no kakusei," in NBSK 4: 220241, esp. pp. 225-226. 69. These letters can be found in HGJS 3: 11-15. 70. For the assurances to the Hongan-ji see sscs, pp. 13 (no. 504), 30 (no. 804), 69 (no. 143); for the single public denial see p. 16 (no. 752). 71. For examples of temple closings and appeals for state intervention see HGJS 3: 27-56. In SBBS see articles under the local areas (in particular, Toyama, Sado, and Echizen) for further details on the Shin sect and its survival. In Sado, for example, where over 500 temples were reduced to 80 in a mere 19 days, not a single Pure Land priest acknowledged the request to "return to farming" and instead continued with the support of the lay community to preach without a temple. Prior to the closing, each Shin priest had visited his supporters, assured them that the temples would not remain closed for long, and asked for patience and assistance; most temples were indeed reopened within two years. On the Sado case see, in addition to the SBBS articles, sss 11: 16, and HGJS 3: 35-38. 72. SBBS 1: 21-22.

73. The popularity of the Fudo figure was one factor in the limited anti-Buddhist action at the Narita Shingon temple. This clever rereading is said to have been first used by a priest responding to an investigating committee sent to the temple from the Ministry of Rites. For a discussion of the Narita incidents see Murakami Shigeyoshi, Narita Fudo no rekishi (Tokyo: Totsusha, 1968), pp. 253-262; Yasumaru, Kamigami, p. 153; Haneda, Bukkyo sdnan shi, p. 220. 74. Haneda, Bukkyo sdnan, p. 123; SBBS 1: 9-11. 75. For a further meditation on such quiet yet determined opposition to authority see Michel de Certeau's discussion of la perruque in his Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1984), esp. pp. 18, 24-28. 76. This disunity of the Shinto "tradition" is presented in Joseph M. Kitagawa's Religion in Japanese History (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 214—225; the portrayal of the issues here is, unfortunately, played down somewhat as merely disorganized and falls short of adequately identifying the clearly contestable aspects of the making of this tradition.

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77. Initially based on an 1870 survey (discussed above and found in sscs, pp. 4250 [nos. 493^-94]), these divisions underwent several adjustments over the following years. See Chapter Five for a more elaborate discussion. For an example of the process of selection of head and branch temples, see sscs, pp. 39-40 (nos. 240-241) for laws relevant to the selecting of Enryaku-ji on Mt. Hiei as the honzan of the Tendai sect; other serious contenders at the time were the Higashi Eizan and Nikko. 78. Ishikawa Tairei, Yushu nisshi [Prison Diary], contained in its entirety in Kitanishi Hiroshi's Mikawa Ohama jiken no kenkyu (Nagoya: Shinshu Otaniha Okazaki Kyomusho, 1983), pp. 73-115. This quote is found on p. 82. This work, held for the last 100 years by the temple and a prominent Mikawa family, was made available to the public for the first time in a special dedication to the "martyrs of Mikawa" held in 1983. 79. For further information on the charges and convictions see Takahama shi Shihensan Iinkai, ed., Takahama shi shiryo (Takahama: Takahama shi, 1972), pp. 30-55. For thorough treatments of the incident see Kitanishi Mikawa jiken, passim, or Yoshida Kyuichi, Nihon kindai bukkyoshi Kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1959), pp. 17-80. 80. For the orders in full see sscs, pp. 65 (no. 982) and 66 (no. 1008). 81. Quoted in Kitanishi, Mikawa jiken, p. 15. 82. On Hattori, his speeches, and the Christian interpretation of his work see ibid., pp. 13-15; for related material see also Takahama shi, pp. 514-518, and Tanaka Chorei, Meiji shimmatsu junkyo eshi (Tokyo: Seikaido, 1911), pp. 3-5, 16-17. For a discussion of Hattori's new local policies see Yoshida, Kindai bukkyo, pp. 29-40. For the earlier ban on Christianity see sscs, p. 1 (no. 158); for the 1868 rewriting see sscs, pp. 4-5 (no. 279). 83. Tairei is recalled by the father of Buddhist philology and translation studies in Japan Nanjo Bun'yii who, six years Tairei's junior, began his own academic career in Kyoto that same year. Nanjo was impressed with Tairei's organizational ability and his desire to "reform" (kaisei) everything from the running of the monk's kitchen to the Main Temple itself. These comments are dedicated to Tairei well after his demise and have contributed not insignificantly to his hagiography; they can thus be found in several locations. See for example Kitanishi, Mikawa jiken, p. 1. 84. On the Kyoto Institute for Dharma Preservation Studies see HGJS 3: 260-270; on Tairei and Hosawa's work there see Kitanishi, Mikawa jiken, pp. 1-5. For a discussion of the main temple reforms by a priest active in their implementation see SMZ 1: 97-98 for Shimaji Mokurai's essay on "Honzan kaikaku." 85. Tanaka, Junkyo eshi, pp. 8-13. 86. See ibid., pp. 13-24, and Kitanishi, Mikawa jiken, pp. 12-30 for descriptions of the uprising. 87. For the exchange of letters see Takahamashi, pp. 23-24; for the Higashihonganji apology see p. 27, and for Hattori's response, p. 25. For a more detailed presentation of the negotiations between the Hongan-ji and the local authorities see Kitanishi, Mikawa jiken, pp. 39—48. 88. Kitanishi, Mikawa jiken, p. 78. 89. Most frequently in this regard Buddhists assumed that opposition to the "heresy" of Christianity would garner for them greater social acceptance as defenders not

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only of the dharma but also of the nation. A phrase popularized by Inoue Enryo was goho aikoku, "defend the dharma and love the nation." But there are also several cases of creative misinterpretations of new government policy. For example, when Yamagata Aritomo promulgated the 1872 Military Conscription Ordinance, he described the military obligation in Western terms as a "blood tax." In certain areas, largely rural, this was taken literally as payment in blood; moreover, it was also popularly assumed that the Christians regularly drank blood as part of their religious ceremonies (derived from the use of "blood-red" wine in the communion). Assuming collaboration between the new government and the Christian nations, much as in Mikawa, numerous protests directed against the state ensued as community after community refused to give their blood to be used by Christians. (I am indebted to Professor Haga for these observations.) 90. Tairei's posthumously released writings, including his prison diary, reveal a quiet and cautious man devoted to prayer and the continued health of his family, cell mates, and neighbors. The lionized caricature of him presented in the Pictorial History as a warrior of Buddhism who proclaims with his final breath that he is profoundly happy to be able to die for the sake of the dharma rings, to this reader, rather sour. 91. Kitanishi, Mikawa jiken, p. 69. 92. Shimazaki Toson describes this fall of Nativism in the following fashion: "It could be said that the anti-Buddhist campaign marked the high point of the National Learning movement. But at the same time, as soon as the abolition of Buddhism came to be mistakenly perceived as constituting the whole of the National Learning movement's program, it led directly to the downfall of the movement"; Before the Dawn, p. 637; or again: "Once the movement to separate Buddhism and Shinto had run its course, the Hirata disciples who formed the very vanguard of religious purification in the country were treated as blind and obstinate fanatics" (p. 734). CHAPTER THREE

1. There are obviously many different aspects of this document worthy of substantial analysis. For example, the Charter Oath was also one attempt by the restoration government to demonstrate that it, the central government, was capable of maintaining domestic order; specifically, it was an attempt to ameliorate potential differences between the military houses, to establish the authority of the court, and to substantiate the claim that the central government, in fact, acted in accordance with the Imperial will. The problem of the centralization of power will recur in the discussion of the establishment of the Ministry of Doctrine later in this chapter. For further discussion of the Charter Oath and central government authority see Umegaki Michio's "From Domain to Prefecture," in Japan in Transition, ed. Jansen and Rozman, pp. 95-98. For further insights into the plethora of potential readings into the Oath, particularly as found in rural areas, see Shimazaki Toson's presentation of the Oath as found in mountain villages along the Tosando Highway: Before the Dawn, esp. pp. 563ff. 2. The current leader of the government, the Imperial Prince Arisugawa, was at the time of the ceremony at the head of a large body of Imperial troops engaged in the occupation of the Edo Castle and was thus unable to attend. At all subsequent major ceremonies it was, however, the current head of the Ministry of State that fulfilled the duties here dispatched by Sanjo.

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3. On the performance of the ceremony see Haga, "Meiji Jingikan," no. 49, pp. 67-72. The ceremonial structure itself was devised by Mutobe Uta, an officer in the Office of Rites, and the noted Nativist scholar and Shintoist Yano Harumichi (1823— 1887), who was a student of Hirata Atsutane, a prolific writer, and, during the early Meiji years, widely influential in the formation of governmental policy as related to doctrinal affairs. 4. Writing on the Meiji Constitution, promulgated in 1889, N. Matsunami, dean of Nihon University, points out that the Emperor takes an oath ' 'before the Imperial Ancestors" to "maintain and secure from decline the ancient form of government." But the Emperor addresses the subjects of his realm, providing neither "promise nor contract"; rather, the Constitution, like the Charter Oath, is a "gift from the throne, a gift granted to the subjects by the Imperial house." From Matsunami, The Constitution of Japan, pp. 9-15. 5. For Kido's quote see Haga, "Meiji Jingikan," no. 49, pp. 68-69; the discussion of the intent of the ceremony is derived from Fukuoka Takachika's commentary on the ceremony, in ibid., p. 69. For an English translation of the Charter Oath see Ryusaku Tsunoda et al., comps., Sources of Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1958), p. 644. For mid- and late-Meiji claims to the Charter Oath's "modern" character see Carol Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1985), pp. 48, 95, 216-217, and passim. 6. The argument here and following was suggested by a reading of Tsuda Sokichi's Bungaku ni awaretaru kokumin shiso no kenkyu: Ishin seifu no senden seisaku, vol. 8 of Tsuda Sokichi zenshu (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1964), pp. 297-337. It can also be noted that Nietzsche, writing almost simultaneous to these events, reached conclusions similar to Tsuda's. Both writers, that is, accentuated the artificial nature of knowledge as constructed and constructing as well as the requisite nature of "belief" in its operation. For example, see Nietzsche's attack on the Kantian search for a priori synthetic judgments as misleading and false: ' 'Or to speak more clearly and coarsely: synthetic judgments a priori should not 'be possible' at all. . . . Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary." Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1966), p. 19. 7. Tsuda, Bungaku, p. 302. 8. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (New York: International Publishers, 1984), p. 15. 9. For "theocratic absolutism" see Murakami Shigeyoshi, Kokka shinto (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1970), p. 67; Jansen and Rozman, eds., Japan in Transition, pp. 1322, highlight the term "centralization," and we owe "mythological fiction" to General Douglas MacArthur, quoted in Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths, p. 4. 10. This order is found in its entirety in sscs, p. 1 (no. 153). 11. See Haga, "Meiji Jingikan," no. 49, pp. 67-76 for a concise review of these ceremonies. 12. The creation of this trinity (the hasshin, the Imperial ancestral kami, and the tenjin chigi), located first in the Imperial Palace itself and later within the newly established Ministry of Rites, was proposed and carried out by Yano Harumichi. 13. Miyahiro Sadao, from his 1831 Minka yojutsu, quoted in Matsumoto Sanno-

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suke, Kokugaku seiji shiso no kenkyil (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1972), p. 111. The following discussion in the text draws extensively from Matsumoto's work. 14. Ibid., pp. 111-112. 15. See ibid., pp. 114—115 on the Shinto use of what I call here "divine labor" as a commonsensical device to order the social order. The conception of Nativism presented here is largely derived from the Hirata School; the attempt to unify the "rational" and the "irrational" is perhaps Hirata's most serious break with the earlier work of Keichu and Motoori for whom the "true heart" (magokoro) stood outside of and distinct from Confucian social norms. Further details of the differences in Nativist practices may be found on pp. 94—102. See also H. D. Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1988). 16. Aizawa Seishisai, in Nihon shiso taikei, 53: Shimon (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1974), p. 53. (Emphasis added.) The tension that exists between the role of Izumo's Okuni Nushi no Kami, as the kami in control of the invisible world and ultimate judge of those within the visible world, as presented in Hirata Nativism, and the similar claim made in the discussion of the Emperor's "occupation" in Mito scholarship proves to be a finally irreconcilable difference. It is the latter version, providing absolute authority to the Emperor as the central figure of mediation between the seen and the unseen, that is finally given political precedence. This tension contributes to the 1870-1871 purge of Nativists from central government positions as well as the debates in the late 1870s between Ise and Izumo over enshrinement practices associated with the Imperial household. See Haga, "Meiji Jingikan," no. 51, pp. 67-71; see also Fujii Sadafumi, Meiji kokugaku hasseishi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Bunko, 1977). 17. Aizawa, Shimon, p. 52. 18. See Koschmann, Mito Ideology, pp. 64—77, for a discussion of Imperial ritual and renewal. Rather than drawing on Eliade's notion of ceremony serving as an "abolishing of history" as presented in Koschmann, I would like to suggest that although there is indeed a collapsing of time with these rituals, this collapse does not necessitate the concomitant extermination of history—only its redefinition. 19. Tsuda, Tsuda Sokichi zenshu 8: 312-317. 20. This quote and the following discussion are based upon the Edict itself and the Ministry of Rites commentary thereon, both found in sscs, pp. 35-36 (no. 4). Note that the "middle ages" (chusei), here identified as the period of "defilement" (kegare) of the Great Way, is construed as a historical lacuna introduced by Buddhism between the divine "origins" of the land and the imperially "restored" present. 21. Certain general comments, however, can be found, as in point number ten: ' 'the lecturer must endeavor to elicit the true faith and trust of the people." sscs, p. 36 (no. 4). 22. For a discussion of the institutional decay of the Ministry of Rites see Yasumaru, Kamigami, pp. 121-124; Collcutt, "Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication," pp. 153154; Tsuchiya Senkyo, Meiji bukkyo shi (Tokyo: Sanseido, 1939), pp. 33-48; Shibata Doken, Haibutsu kishaku (Tokyo: Koronsha, 1978), pp. 101-114; and Yoshimura Masanori's "Meiji shonen no seifu to shimbutsu nikyo," in SBBS 1: 280-285. 23. sscs, pp. 79-80 (no. 326). 24. Ibid.

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25. On this last point, the shift from initiation (denju) to training (kyoshu), see Haga, "Meiji Jingikan," no. 49, pp. 63-65. 26. For other less-than-flattering portrayals of the Ministry during this period—its workers engaged in bawdy storytelling—see Shimazaki, Before the Dawn, pp. 625627. 27. Yoshimura, "Meiji shonen," SBBS 1: 281-282; Shibata, Haibutsu, p. 104; Yasumaru, Kamigami, p. 122; and Sakamoto Koremaru, "Meiji shoki ni okeru seikyo mondai," Shukyo kenkyu 58, no. 3 (December 1983): 48-53. 28. Dated 11/1871, this letter is included in manuscript form among the private letters of Okuma Shigenobu: Okuma monjo, Waseda Daigaku Okuma Kenkyushitsu, Waseda Univ. Library (A4129). 29. Okuma monjo (A4130); the only signature is "Both [Ryo] Hongan-ji." This letter was followed (in 4/1872) by another trans sectarian appeal to the government by letter, and (in 5/1872) by an official delegation of Buddhist priests to the Ministry of State in Tokyo. See Yoshida, Kindai bukkyoshi, pp. 86-88. 30. The temple where the Ministry of Doctrine's records were stored was burned both in the 1870s and during the Tokyo bombings in the mid-1940s. Most of the records were destroyed. Thus only fragments, and the official promulgations, are currently available. See sscs, pp. 98-118 for the first cycle of Ministry of Doctrine promulgations. Though not a complete record here, the sscs does provide numerous appendices and so forth that were published separately by the Ministry of Doctrine and thus do not appear in the Ministry's own record. The order for the inclusion of popular entertainers as instructors is, however, not to be found in sscs; for this see Kyobusho futatsu (Tokyo: Kyobusho, 1874[?]), no. 15 (no page numbers). A general discussion of the formation of the Ministry of Doctrine and the Teaching Institutes can be found in Shibata, Haibutsu, pp. 129-152; Yoshida, Kindai bukkyoshi, pp. 82-97; and Tamamuro Taijo, Nihon bukkyd shi, 3: 291-292. The "seven state-recognized sects" were the Tendai, Shingon, Jodo, Zen, Shin, Nichiren, and Ji. Soto, Rinzai, and Obaku were constituted as "one sect"; Shugendo, Fujufuse, and other "marginal" sects (such as the so-called Nara Schools) were not included in the Ministry and were thus not accorded full sect status. Buddhism as an institution was, in other words, being carefully regulated and unified to serve as a malleable governmental tool. 31. This version of the document is an except from the Osaka zasshi, found in SBBS 3: 98-103. Sakamoto, "Seikyo mondai," pp. 54-60 also has a brief discussion of the Kyoto government's position on this issue. 32. SBBS 3: 102. Though anonymously submitted and circulated, this letter was most likely either penned or dictated by Uemura Masanao, the contemporary Assistant Governor (Kendaisanji) of the Kyoto Municipality. Uemura took frequent and vocal exception to the work of Eto Shimpei and was consistently critical of the Buddhist presence within his jurisdiction. This opposition was much more than rhetorical posturing on Uemura's part. Through Uemura's efforts, for example, the steel used in the construction of the modern Fourth Avenue bridge over the Kamo river was obtained by melting down temple bells. Or again, during Uemura's tenure all the property in the Teramachi area, the main "temple district" just south of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, was confiscated and turned over to merchants and small businesses to create an entertainment

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district "for the people of Kyoto." A plaque dedicating the area "to the people," and placed there in "early Meiji," still stands at the Fourth Avenue entrance to this district. It makes no mention of the anti-Buddhist climate of the time or of the forced nature of this dedication. 33. For his work on the forming of the Ministry of Doctrine see Shimaji Mokurai's Jiinryo setsuritsu seigansho and Kyobusho kaisetsu seigansho, SMZ 1:1, 6-10. 34. The following discussion is based on the version of this letter found in his collected works and titled Kyoto fu no kempakusho wo yomu, SMZ 1: 205-218. 35. Ibid., p. 205. 36. Ibid., p. 206. 37. Ibid., pp. 212-213. 38. Ibid., p. 208. 39. Ibid., p. 209. 40. Ibid., pp. 209-211. 41. Titled "Tozaibu Kyodoshoku kancho no kengi," and found in the Nichiyo shimbun, no. 41 (9/1872), this too is an anonymous front-page article. We can assume fairly easily, however, that it represents the thought of Eto Shimpei. 42. Ibid., p. 1. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. Although the Ministry of Doctrine had been extinct for five years by the time of this survey, and the Shin sect had also withdrawn its substantial official support, the position of Instructor (Kyodoshoku) continued on until 1884 (Meiji 17). The amount of control exercised over the individual Instructors by the Office of Shrines and Temples seems to have been minimal at most; these figures are thus best seen as a bureaucratic attempt to give quantitative form to the truly formless. 46. That the precise order of the Eleven and the Seventeen Themes varied with different presentations further illustrates the fluidity of their organization. Because of this flexibility it was possible to construct several different arguments by merely changing the order of the Themes themselves. They are listed in the text in an order approximating the commentaries drawn upon later for analysis. See the Glossary for the original Japanese terms. Muraoka Tsunetsugu has both a different order and alternate translations for these twenty-eight terms. See his essay "Hirata Shinto and the Ideological Control of the Meiji Restoration," in his Studies of Shinto Thought, pp. 203-244, esp. pp. 206-208. Muraoka summarizes these Themes by noting two salient features: (1) they are a clear articulation of the "civilization and enlightenment" ideal of the day, and (2) no Buddhism was included. Both statements are, I feel, in need of qualification. 47. Tanaka Yoritsune, Sanjo engi (Tokyo: Nakanishi Zohan, 1873), reprinted in Meiji bunka zensho, vol. 19 (Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha, 1967), pp. 7-14. This quote appears on p. 10. 48. Ibid., p. 11. 49. Ibid., p. 10. 50. Ibid., p. 11. 51. Ibid., p. 13. 52. Ueda Kyushin, Sansoku doyu gaihen (Osaka: Tanaka Taiuemon, 1875).

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53. See Nakamura Yukiko, Gesakuron (Tokyo: Kadokawa, 1966), p. 26. 54. Published in 1873 (dated the year 2533 of Imperial Reign), this text can be found in the Meiji bunka zensho 19: 15-26. 55. Ibid., p. 17. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., p. 19. This remark, while ostensibly supporting governmental fiscal policy, also makes a slap at the government itself; the currency of the Ministry of State referred to here as too valuable for wasteful use was in fact about the worth of a paper sailboat. 58. Ibid., p. 20. 59. Ibid., p. 21. 60. This use of marriage is widespread. It was also extended to include all the peoples of the world. See, for example, the prints of Izanagi and Izanami along with those of their "Western versions" of Adam and Eve from the 1875 primer for "inquiring youngsters" titled The Beginning of the World (Sekai no hajime), by Satomi Yoshi and Futaki Masau (Tokyo: Kyowaga Shakuzo, 1875). 61. Tanaka Yoritsune, Shintokuron (Tokyo: Daikyoin, 1874), p. lb. It is important to note that this divine power, as articulated by Tanaka and other Shinto ideologues, is used not only to justify Japan's unique position within the contemporary political world, but also to assert the righteous character of an army therefrom. "There is a divine nation in the East; its name is Japan. There is also a sage king; it is the Emperor [of Japan]. The soldiers there can be but divine soldiers [shimpei]." Ibid., p. 34b. Tanaka, from Satsuma, is here speaking on the issue of the proposed invasion of Korea. 62. See, for example, Mitsukawa Naritane, Juichi kendai bengi (with an introduction by Tanaka; 1874) in Meiji bukkyo shiso shiryo shusei (cited hereafter as MBSSS), 8 vols. (Kyoto: Dobosha, 1980), 3: 100-114; and Kanoka Shuko(?), Nijuhachi dai benryaku (1874), in ibid., pp. 10-43. 63. For a discussion of the Ise/Izumo conflict see Fujii Sadafumi, Meiji kokugaku hasseishi, pp. 376-415. The interpretation of the emperor as the "perfected" corporeal form can be found in Tsuda, Tsuda Sokichi zenshu 8: 320-321. For a discussion of Restoration era Nativism see Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen, pp. 374-406. 64. See Mitsukawa, Juichi kendai, MBSSS 3: 102, and Kanoka, Nijuhachi dai, MBSSS 3: 19-20, for their presentations of the spirit's immortality. 65. Graphically told in the Kojiki; see Donald Philippi, trans., Kojiki (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), pp. 68-70. 66. Mitsukawa, Juichi kendai, p. 107. 67. Fujii Sadafumi in his "Meiji shinsei to sanryo no shochi," Kokushigaku 6 (March 1931): 37-59, provides an excellent review of tomb research and the importance of Buddhist and Shinto separation practices associated therewith. So thorough was the Bureau of Imperial Tomb's work that by the late Meiji period, guidebooks were being published for pilgrimages to Imperial tombs. An early Taisho version of one of these guidebooks in my possession begins with engravings of Emperor Jimmu and Emperor Meiji and then includes brief histories and transportation routes for tombs of all emperors and empresses and many imperial princes: Tomura Hideo, ed., Koryo sampai no saku, 3d ed. (Osaka: Nihon Jitsugyosha, 1918). Many of these figures are

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historical fabrications, and thus the presence of their tombs must also be, of course, suspect. 68. See Sakurai Masashi, Meiji shukyoshi kenkyu (Tokyo: Shunshusha, 1971), pp. 17-19, and Yasumaru, Kamigami, pp. 61-63 for further discussion of these political enshrinements. 69. Kusunoki Senryu, Junana rondai ryakusetsu (1874), MBSSS 3: 133-137. 70. Hamada Seisaku, Junana kendai ryakusetsu (1874), MBSSS 3: 119. 71. Araoka Shuko, Nijuhachi dai benryaku (1874), MBSSS 3: 36. 72. There was a certain amount of inconsistency among various commentators over this issue. Some, like Hamada (pp. 129-130), would describe Japan as an autocratic monarchy (kunshu seiji), while others like Araoka (p. 36) or Kusunoki (p. 152) would emphasize the cooperative nature of the Japanese state's rule. These differences, among official spokesmen for the Ministry of Doctrine, again reveal the plurality of interpretation possible within the Ministry. (See notes 69-71.) 73. Araoka, Nijuhachi dai, p. 27. 74. Kusunoki, Junana rondai, p. 148. 75. "Luxury" from Hamada, Junana kendai, p. 129; "mimicking" from Kusunoki, Junana rondai, p. 151; "Imperial will" from Araoka, Nijuhachi dai, p. 37. 76. Kusunoki, Junana rondai, p. 151. 77. sscs, p. 143 (bangai)—one of several statements of purpose issued by the Ministry of Doctrine regarding the Teaching Academy. 78. For a description of the opening ceremony at the Academy, including the norito, guest lists, and so forth, see the Daikyo-in koritsu shidai ki, ed. Nagatane Tsuneyo (Tokyo: Daikyo-in, 1873). 79. These questions are taken from the Junimondo, collected and explained by the Buddhist priest Ukai Tetsujo in 1871. Ukai hoped that the circulation of his pamphlet in local areas would prevent further closings of temples by preparing priests for the particular nature of the exam questions. See MBSSS 2: 168-176, and the commentary on pp. 426-427. 80. Tests were required by the Ministry of Doctrine from 1872 (sscs, p. 107 [no. 13]); the four-tiered placement exam was implemented in 1874 (sscs, pp. 162-163 [no. 39]). Of the fourteen Instructor ranks, tests were required for only the lower eight ranks (level fourteen through level seven). All higher ranks were appointed on the basis of merit and political necessity. The Meiji shinrei soryo hikkei, a handbook of governmental proclamations applied to priests, compiled by one Tauchi Kando in 1877, organized every order issued by the government from 1872 to 1877 relevant to doctrinal regulation into convenient "problem areas." Not only is this a useful source document, but it most likely served as a study manual for those testing into the higher Doctrinal Instructor ranks. See MBSSS 5: 328-372. 81. Hamada, Junana kendai, p. 124. 82. Araoka, Nijuhachi dai, pp. 17-20. 83. This argument is found in Kusunoki, Junana rondai, p. 141. The similarities between this conception of "religion" and that found in Herbert Spencer's work are significant and more than coincidental. This problem will be taken up in Chapter Four.

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84. sscs, pp. 138-140 (bangai) records an extensive list of limitations for study groups, only a small portion of which are cited here. 85. Kusunoki, Junana rondai, p. 155. 86. The Critique can be found in SMZ 1: 15-26. Shimaji sent the manuscript from Paris to Ozu Tetsunen, a fellow Choshu Shin priest, who made slight changes and then presented it to both the Ministry of Doctrine and the popular presses. The perceived tension between Shimaji's naivete in working to establish the Ministry of Doctrine and the sophistication and vehemence of his attack on the Ministry shortly thereafter has led to critiques of Shimaji's work. See, for example, Yamateru Tetsuo's rather myopic assertion that Shimaji lacked any "charisma" and thus for the contemporary historian is devoid of any "historical interest"; in "Meiji bukkyo no shiteki saikento," Rekishi koron, no. 96 (November 1983): 13. A problem much greater than Shimaji's lack of "charisma" is his later (mid-Meiji) unquestioning support of nationalistic expansionism, with Buddhism leading the way. 87. Plans had originally been made for the priests to accompany the Iwakura diplomatic mission that departed in the last month of 1871; plans, however, were "changed." After studying in England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and India (Shimaji was the first Japanese Buddhist recorded to have traveled to India and returned), Shimaji returned to Japan in the seventh month of 1873. For a discussion of the Hongan-ji priests' journeys, of which Shimaji's was the most extensive, see HGJS 3: 270-283; Yoshida Kyuichi, Nihon kindai bukkyo shakaishi kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1964), pp. 34-36; and Tsunemitsu, Meiji no bukkyosha, 1: 18,53,65-66. Kido, instrumental in the organization of travel plans and finances for the priests, also met with them more than a dozen times while in Europe. Further, one of the major contributors to this journey was the political leader Sanjo Sanetomi. See Yoshida, Bukkyo shakaishi, pp. 101-102. 88. See Yoshida, Bukkyo shakaishi, pp. 103-106; HGJS 3: 270-297; Tsunemitsu, Meiji no bukkyosha 1: 147-150; and sss 11: 26-28. 89. Mori Arinori, Religious Freedom in Japan: A Memorial and Draft of Charter (Washington, D.C.: privately published, 1872), p. 4. 90. S M Z I : 18-21.

91. Ibid., pp. 21-22. 92. Ibid., pp. 23-24. 93. Ibid., pp. 16,24. 94. From Shimaji's Kyodoshoku no chikyo shukyo kondo kaisei ni tsuki, SMZ 1: 6468. 95. Some of the more notable of these are Daikyoin bunri kempakusho, SMZ 1: 3440; Shimbutsu hanzen ni tsuki, pp. 60-63; Bunri kyoka sokushin ni tsuki, pp. 75-80; Kyoin kaiseian, pp. 128-129. 96. This translation is from Matsunami, The Constitution of Japan, p. 136. (Emphasis added.) It is interesting to note that many commentators on this section of the Meiji constitution frequently elide the emphasized section, producing thereby a significantly different reading of this article. 97. The term "jiyii" frequently translated as "freedom" is also not without certain difficulties. Very much like the term "jishi" (self-will or intent) discussed in Chapter

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One, "jiyu" had currency as a pejorative word within Buddhist terminology prior to its being drafted as the standard translation of the English word "freedom." "Jiyu," literally "to act according to one's own reason or intent''—clearly a problematic notion within Buddhist practice—still serves as the standard rendering of the English term. See Yanabu Akira's Honyakugo seiritsujijo (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1982) for further discussion of the Meiji era creation and use of the translated term. 98. See Tamamuro Taijo, Nihon bukkyo shi, 3: 374-377 for a brief discussion of the 1904 and 1912 meetings of religious leaders voicing public support for "the security of the Japanese Empire and the eternal peace of the Far East." These meetings were also used by Protestant organizations as means to assert their loyalty to the nation. In the service of nationalism, the religious leaders were content to "enter into dialogue." See Thelle, Buddhism and Christianity, pp. 250-253. 99. For a discussion of late Meiji Buddhist social concerns see Yoshida, Bukkyo shakaishi, pp. 260-379; for the Indian relief project see pp. 490-4-93. Somewhat outside the scope of the present inquiry is an examination of the work of priests and devout laypersons such as Kiyozawa Manshi, Furukawa Isamu, or Ito Shoshin, which was directed, in Kiyozawa's terms, more toward the world of the spirit (seishinkai) than toward the obviously material concerns of the majority of New Buddhists; social culture is material culture, and a social Buddhism is thus clearly a material Buddhism. 100. The following discussion is based upon his 1879 (Meiji 12) essay titled Sabetsu by odd, in SMZ 3: 285-296. 101. Ibid., pp. 293-296. This is one of the earliest introductions of socialist thought into Japan. Tarui Tokichi's formation of the first socialist organization in Japan, the Toyo shaki to, was still three years away. Shimaji's critique was to remain a constant concern for later Buddhist writers concerned with socialism, and it accented the uneasy relation between the two groups. CHAPTER FOUR

1. This opposition itself—Japan and the West—indicates the somewhat unique status accorded the relation between Japan and the Euro-American powers in the modern period. "Japan" somehow serves as the polar balance of the Western powers and concomitantly signs for all of "Asia" or perhaps "the Orient" itself in this relation. The relation is clearly a problematic one, compounded in part by its near universal acceptance. A locus classicus in this regard is Sir George Sansom's The Western World and Japan: A Study in the Interaction of European and Asiatic Cultures (New York: Random House, 1949). An important and intriguing alternative to this method of analysis can be found in Masao Miyoshi's As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1979). 2. From Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), pp. 7-8. Said's use of these categories is actually applied to the Occident's vision of the Orient. I am suggesting that this is an equally accurate observation when applied to nineteenthcentury Japan's conceptions of the West. 3. Ibid., p. 61. 4. The five "champions of Buddhism" (bukkyo no champion ra) were Toki Horyu (Shingon), Ashitsu Jitsunen (Tendai), Shaku Soen (Rinzai), Yatsubuchi Banryu (Shin), and Hirai Kinzo (layman). In the Buddhists' entourage there were also two interpreters

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and several newsmen. One Kawai Yoshijiro (Nichiren) arrived too late to present his paper, though it can be found in the World's Parliament chronicle. There was also one representative for Shinto, Shibata Reiichi of the Jikko sect, and a large number of Japanese Christians led by Kozaki Hiromichi, then President of the Protestant university Doshisha. 5. John Henry Barrows, ed., The World's Parliament of Religions, 2 vols. (Chicago: Parliament Press, 1893), 1: viii (cited hereafter as WPR). 6. Ibid., p. 28. 7. Ibid., p. 19. 8. Born 1863, a student of Ram Krishna, and graduate of the University of Calcutta, Vivekananda took on the role of the "official representative" of the "Hindoo religion." An eloquent and handsome figure, his impression on many at the Parliament appears to have been a lasting one. See WPR 1: 65, 101-102, 248, and passim. For his paper "Hinduism" delivered at the Parliament see ibid., 2: 968-978. 9. Ibid., 1: 170-171. 10. Ashitsu Jitsunen,"Bankoku shiikyo daikai sanrei chinjosho," Kokkyo 21 (3/ 1893): 20. 11. Quoted in Mary Barrows, John Henry Barrows: A Memoir (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1904), p. 264. 12. WPR 1: 3. 13. Robert Rydell, All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916 (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 48. 14. Ibid., p. 45. 15. Ibid., p. 65. We should also recall that the battle of Wounded Knee was but three years past, and that a major attraction, performing daily before packed houses three blocks south of the Exposition's Midway on 63rd Street, was Wild Bill's Congress of Rough Riders. 16. See Rydell, All the World, passim. 17. There were, however, numerous attempts at definitive categorization of human races into species that ranged in number from two or three to as high as 63 distinct races/species. See Darwin's The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1883), p. 174. 18. Ibid., p. 153. 19. Ibid., pp. 176, 180. 20. Ibid., p. 143. "Proofs" for this assertion offered by Darwin were (1) traces of "primitive" customs in current language, beliefs, and so on; (2) the obvious "advancement" of "savages" when exposed to "civilization," thus showing the dominance of the civilized over the barbarous; and (3) the gradual development of the "highest form of religion"—a righteous God—unknown in ancient times. 21. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by the Means of Natural Selection, 5th ed. (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1883), p. 428. 22. Darwin, Descent, p. 156. 23. See ibid., p. 182 for an amazing panorama of the '' natural'' destruction of species. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid., p. 98, n. 5.

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26. See Francis Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1887), 1: 277; and Darwin, Descent, p. 97. 27. Darwin, Descent, p. 126. 28. The first quote is from Kant's Metaphysics of Ethics, 1835, p. 136, and quoted in Darwin, Descent, p. 97; the latter is perhaps the most often quoted phrase of Kant's in this regard, from his Critique of Practical Reason: And Other Writings in Moral Philosophy, trans. Lewis Beck (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1949), p. 258. 29. Darwin, Descent, p. 150. 30. Francis Darwin, Life, p. 277. 31. Darwin, Descent, p. 126. 32. Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 4th ed. (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1883), p. 11. 33. Miiller read Kant as the foundation of all modern thought and the culmination of an entire race's development: "The bridge of thoughts and sighs that spans the whole history of the Aryan world has its first arch in the Veda, and its last in Kant's Critique [of Pure Reason]." Miiller described his own work as a mere application of Kant's arguments to the fields of religion and mythology and, as evidenced by the dedication of his translation of this Critique to the "English speaking race, the race of the future," he also hoped to serve as a link in the "transmission" of this particular form of knowing. For these quotes see Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, trans. F. Max Miiller, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881), 2: xiii, lx. 34. For a discussion of the "three faculties" see Friedrich Max Miiller, Introduction to the Science of Religions, Lectures at the Royal Institute, 1870 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1893), pp. 14—17; and his Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion: As Illustrated by the Religion of India, The First Hibbert Lectures at Westminster Abbey, 1878 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1880), pp. 23-24. 35. Muller's comments can be found in Science of Religions, pp. 85-87; he is quoting from Schelling's Vorlesungen u'ber Philosophie der Mythologies. 36. See also Hegel in his Philosophy of History: "The idea of God constitutes the general foundation of a people." Quoted in Muller, Science of Religions, p. 87. 37. For Muller's discussion of these terms and the relation of language to religion see Science of Religions, pp. 83-104. 38. Christianity is identified as the product of the first two "centers" and, Muller claimed, without these antecedents Christianity could not have become "the religion of the world." See, for example, his Theosophy ofPsychological Religion, The Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow, 1892 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1903), p. 447. Muller's unwillingness to acknowledge a common origin of the world's religions and languages, as well as his lack of discussion accounting for differences evident prior to a certain selected juncture, is typical of many uses of evolutionary theory. Under the assumption that evolution described a move from the simple to the complex, it is generally concluded that the origin of any given form must be simple and the origin of all forms must be the simplest. But evolutionary theologians did not, because they could not, claim that the most primitive religion was monotheistic. Rather, we find the nearly oxymoronic conclusion that the truly simple was seen as a collection of the infinite diversity of divinity, while the theologically complex is found in the comprehensive reductionism of monotheism.

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39. Miiller, Science of Religions, p. 125. 40. Perhaps the most frequently quoted section from the Bible in this regard during the nineteenth century was Acts 10: 34—35: "Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him does what is right and acceptable to him." 41. Miiller, Science of Religions, p. 66. 42. See his Anthropological Religion, The Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow, 1891 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1892), p. 334. 43. Ibid., p. 37. 44. For this discussion see Miiller, Origin and Growth, pp. 32-50; the quotes are found on pp. 48, 45, and 38. It should be noted, as Miiller himself was quite careful to do, that this argument of the infinite as based upon human faculties should be distinquished from the theories found in the work of Miiller's somewhat older contemporary, Ludwig Feuerbach. Feuerbach asserted that human beings make their own gods and thereby become other to themselves: "the conscious subject has for its object the infinity of its own nature." For Miiller the infinite other as infinite other can never be a manufactured object of a conscious subject. Religion for Miiller could never be defined, as it is for Feuerbach, as a "dream of the human mind." For Feuerbach see The Essence of Christianity, trans. Marian Evens, 3d ed. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co., 1893); on Miiller's critique of Feuerbach see his Origin and Growth, p. 7. 45. Miiller, Origin and Growth, p. 43. 46. Miiller did not attend the Chicago Parliament. In a public letter he addressed to Barrows (in WPR 1: 935-936 and titled "Greek Philosophy and the Christian Religion") he did, however, make an appeal for the "resuscitation of pure and primitive ante-Nicene Christianity," which he perceived as the last moment in Christian history that the absolute was truly, doctrinally, accessible. The concept of homoousion ("of the same substance''), whereby Christ was identified with the absolute as no other man could be, Miiller asserted, was the mistaken premise upon which 1,500 years of Christian education had been carried out. Not surprisingly, this letter received very little attention at the parliament; Miiller's importance there was in the use of his method, not his philosophy. 47. James F. Clarke, Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1871), pp. 13-14. Other entertaining examples of this methodology can be found in Marcus Dods, Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ: Four Lectures on Natural and Revealed Religion (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1890). 48. WPR 1: 374-375. A similar list can be found in Yatsubuchi Banryu, Shukyo daikai hodo (Kyoto: Kokyo Shoin, 1894), p. 28, and in Shaku Soen, Bankoku shukyo daikai ichiran (Tokyo: Omeisha, 1893), p. 9. 49. WPR 1: 376. 50. Ibid., p. 384. 51. Ibid., pp. 386-387. 52. See John H. Barrows, The Christian Conquest of Asia (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899), pp. 165-166, 169. 53. Chicago Daily Times, 14 September 1983, p. 1.

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54. Mary Barrows, Memoir, pp. 284—285. 55. WPR 1: 553. The photos in WPR are themselves an intriguing study of sliding signification. For example, a photo of the Grand Shrine at Ise is labeled simply "Shogunal Tombs." 56. See Ashitsu Jitsunen, Nihon shukyo mirai ki (Kyoto: Tendai Shumusho, 1889), pp. 122-127, and Ashitsu, "Sanrei chinjosho," pp. 19-22. 57. Chicago Times, 12 September 1893, p. 1. 58. Inter-Ocean, 13 September 1893, p. 1. 59. WPR 2: 346. 60. Inter-Ocean, 11 September 1983, p. 1. 61. Ibid. 62. Barrows, The Christian Conquest, p. 152. 63. The government of Japan spent over $630,000 in creating its national exhibit at the Exposition, one of the largest expenditures by any foreign nation; an entire construction crew, replete with materials, was sent directly from Japan for building several traditionally styled buildings. The collection of ceramic, textile, and other wares was also of major proportions. See Rydell, All the World, pp. 48-51. 64. Inter-Ocean, 14 September 1983, p. 1. The Chicago Daily Tribune also carried a first-page synopsis of Shibata's "embracing three Caucasian ladies." Shaku notes the incident unabashedly. "Shinshi kifujin shi o yoshite seppun akushu sukoburu tabo o kiwamu." See Shaku, Bankoku shukyo daikai ichiran, p. 25. Not surprisingly Shibata himself makes no note of the incident in his chronicle of the Parliament. Barrows, on the other hand, recalls it five years after the fact with great detail and emphasis. See Mary Barrows, Memoir, p. 384. 65. Yatsubuchi, Shukyo daikai hodd, pp. 26-29. 66. Ibid., pp. 8-12, 33-36. 67. Yatsubuchi Banryu, "Bankoku shukyo daikai rinseki dochu ki," Kokkyo no. 26 (9/1893): 24-32. 68. Shaku, Bankoku shukyo daikai ichiran, p. 58. Shibata Reiichi's record of the Parliament (Sekai shukyokai enzetsu tekiyo, 1893) is unfortunately an almost exact duplicate of Shaku's (though shorter). As neither man could speak or read English, we can assume that both works are based upon a third text, most likely the notes of their translators Nomura and Noguchi. One major difference between the two is that Shibata's work edits out the Buddhists' speeches while quoting his own in great detail (in fact much longer than that recorded in WPR); similarly, Shaku's version, while more generous to his fellow Buddhists, barely mentions Shibata. Their observations of speakers and the perceived content of all the talks are repeated, however, in much the same language with all the same omissions. 69. Although there were no "red" delegates among Parliamentarians, there were several "black" ministers; I can only assume McKenzie refrained from the use of "yellow material" out of some sense of courtesy to the then-present "delegates from the Orient." 70. Shaku, Bankoku shukyo daikai ichiran, pp. 8-9. 71. This was a rather widely accepted interpretation; for the delegates' opinions see Matsuyama Rokuin, Bankoku shukyo daikai gi (Tokyo Kobundo, 1893), p. 66, and

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Yatsubuchi, Shukyo daikai hodo, p. 50; see also his "Bankoku shukyo daikai ni tsuite shoshi ni iu," Dento, no. 47 (1893): 5-7. 72. WPR 1: 132. 73. Barrows, The Christian Conquest, p. 222. 74. Ibid., p. 223. 75. Ibid., p. 58. 76. Ibid., pp. 90-91, 159, 166, and passim. 77. Paul Cams, ed., The World's Parliament of Religions and the Religious Parliament Extension (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1896), and WPR 2: 980. 78. From an editorial, "Bankoku shukyo daikai o ronzu," in the Shingon journal Dento, no. 37 (1892): 10. See also note 4 in this chapter. 79. This article, first published in the Buddha's Light (Bukko) in late 1892, was translated and distributed (it was even rumored solicited) by one Ohara Kakichi, a friend and collaborator of Ashitsu Jitsunen. It subsequently appeared in every major (and most minor) journals within a very short period. The violence of the language shocked many Buddhist supporters of the Parliament out of their idealistic conceptions of the Parliament's goals; the implications of this commentary should not be underestimated. (See, for example, Suzuki Norihisa, Meiji shukyo shicho no kenkyil, p. 212 for a copy of this letter and a brief commentary.) The quotes here are taken from "Bankoku shukyo daikai ni taisuru Bukko kisha no iken," Mitsugon Kyoho, no. 75 (1893): 13. 80. The Bukkyo kakushu kyokai, the most serious institutional attempt made in the pursuit of a ' 'united Buddhism'' and made up of some of the highest ranking clergy of the time, saw its efficacy disappear in an avalanche of intersectarian skirmishes in the debate over the delegate issue. 81. Shaku was even rumored to have sold som& valuable Buddhist paintings to a foreign collector to pay for his trip. See HanseiZasshi, no. 9 (1893). 82. Ashitsu Jitsunen, Nihon shukyo mirai ki. He was also coeditor with Shimaji and Shaku of the Bukkyo kakushu koyo (1896). See Chapter Five for a further discussion of these materials. 83. For Yatsubuchi on Shaku and Toki see, for example, "Rinseki dochu ki," pp. 24—28. For Shaku's remark see his Bankoku shukyo daikai ichiran, p. 67. 84. For the Nichiren letter, and Yatsubuchi's and Toki's responses, see "Bankoku shukyo daikai kaikaishiki no kokei," in Kokkyo, no. 27 (10/1893): 26-28. This article is a general collection of news and reviews of the first days of the Parliament; after appearing here these letters then circulated to journals of Shingon and other sects. Kawai's paper—though not delivered—was, however, included in WPR. 85. T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhism: Its History and Literature (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1896), p. 188. 86. For a typically graphic rendition of Mahay ana Buddhism by a nineteenth-century commentator see William Elliot Griffis, The Religions of Japan from the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895), pp. 171-176. See also Barrows, The Christian Conquest, p. 154; or, for a more balanced treatment, Rhys Davids, Buddhism, passim. 87. Griffis, The Religions of Japan, p. 187. 88. Only one of the more than 100 volumes of Miiller's major editorial work, the

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Sacred Books of the East series, contains Mahayana texts, and they are limited largely to texts used by Shin Buddhism in Japan. We should recall that Nanjo Bunyu, Miiller's long-time disciple, was a Shin Buddhist priest and scholar. 89. Griffis, The Religions of Japan, pp. 211-212. 90. Ibid., p. 221. 91. According to Shingon tradition, Kukai has but retired into meditation inyujo) and after the completion of this age will return (shutsujo) along with the Buddha of the future. 92. "Bankoku shukyo daikai o ronzu," Dento, no. 37 (1893): 10. 93. ForToki's talk see WPR 1: 551; and for the Japanese text see "Beikoku Shikago Bankoku Shukyo Daikai ni okeru Toki sosho no enzetsu kihitsu," Mitsugon Kyoho, no. 95 (1893): 12-14. The quotes in the text are all from the Japanese version of the speech. 94. The invocation of the "Pure Land" ijodo) here is an example of the constant subtle infighting that occurred between the priests during their public presentations. Toki, as a Shingon priest, had little that was positive to say about the Shin Pure Land teachings. 95. For example, seeDods, Mohammed, Buddha, andChrist, pp. 168-171; Clarke, Ten Great Religions, p. 165, where he writes, as for Buddhism "its radical thought is a selfish one"; or Barrows, The Christian Conquest, p. 171, where he asserts that Buddhism only teaches you to "be a refuge unto yourself." 96. Griffis, The Religions of Japan (commenting on Basil H. Chamberlain's Things Japanese), pp. 301-302. 97. Clarke, Ten Great Religions, p. 139. 98. WPR 1: 551 for Toki's comments; for the other suggestions see Matsuyama, Bankoku shukyo daikai gi, p. 127. 99. A partial list of the texts distributed is Outlines of the Mahayana as Taught by Buddha, A Brief Account of Shinshu, A Shinshil Catechism, Tendai Religion, Basic Principles ofNichiren, and The Essentials of Buddhism. All were written by the Buddhists who attended the Parliament, or by their teachers, and were published by their home churches; most were translated by Noguchi or Hirai. For comments on the publications and the quotes on the victory of the Mahayana see WPR 1: 442, 549;' 'Daikai rinsekisha kaeru kongo no undo ikan," Kokkyo, no. 28 (1893): 1-3; and "Daikai kichogo dai'ikkai hodo," Kokkyo, no. 28 (1893): 12-15. 100. "Daikai no genjo oyobi kansatsu," Kokkyo, no. 31 (3/1894): 34-35. Emphasis added. 101. Ashitsu, Nihon shukyo mirai ki, pp. 34—38. 102. Ibid., pp. 55-56. Though it is somewhat outside the scope of this discussion, it bears noting here that Inoue Enryo's Bukkyo katsuron: joron shares a number of central concerns with Ashitsu's work; the unification of Nationalistic and Buddhist concerns and the quest of a worldwide unification of evolution centered upon Buddhism are but two of them. It is common, though no less unfortunate for being so, to read Inoue Enryo's work as the paradigm of "modern" Buddhism's formation. (See, for example, " 'Defend the Nation and Love the Truth': Inoue Enryo and the Revival of Meiji Buddhism" by Kathleen Staggs in Monumenta Nipponica 38, no. 3 [1983]: 251-281.) Though clearly significant and not without its own sophistication, Inoue's

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work is perhaps better seen as a portion of the larger discursive redefinition of Buddhism during this period and not as the determinative standard of modernity. To isolate the creative locus of "modern" Buddhism to any single subject position is to isolate prematurely the status of the Buddhist critique of society as well. A central characteristic of "modernity" here is its critical and pervasive nature; in order for Buddhism to partake of this sense of modernity it must, by definition, be capable of inhabiting many distinct subject positions. 103. Ashitsu, Nihon shukyo mirai ki, p. 22. 104. See "Daikai daisankai hodo: kakumei taikan," Kokkyo, no. 30 (1894): 18-20; see also Yatsubuchi, Shukyo daikai hodo, pp. 50-53. 105. Matsuyama, Bankoku shukyo daikai gi, pp. 71-75. 106. Ibid., p. 95; also Yatsubuchi, Shukyo daikai hodo, p. 12. 107. WPR 2: 829-831. 108. Yatsubuchi, Shukyo daikai hodo, pp. 14-17. 109. Ibid., p. 17. 110. Regarding the general audience's reception of the Buddhists' ideas, there is a revealing comment made by Nomura, the main translator for the Buddhists, and recounted in Shaku's record: Nomura was asked by a gentleman in the audience if he had understood Toki Horyu's talk on Buddhism. Nomura replied, "Certainly. And yourself?" To which the immediate answer was "Nope!" (Iyal) Shaku himself comments on this, saying it was not an unusual occurrence while they were at Chicago, and he lamented the amount of education necessary prior to any possible success in missionary work. Shaku, Bankoku shukyo, p. 39. 111. Griffis, The Religions of Japan, pp. 173-174; "Blavatsky Lives: Not in Body but in Spirit," in Inter-Ocean, 16 September 1893, p. 1. Colonel Olcutt, a sometime Theosophist, was well known in Japan, particularly among Buddhists concerned with the ongoing, and often emotional, debate between Christianity and Buddhism during this period. His popularity in Japan can be attributed largely to his "generous" comments on the Buddhist teachings and a certain derision directed toward the Protestantism of the day. 112. Korai Hosaku, representative of the Kyushu Buddhist Youth Group on the occasion of Yatsubuchi's departure for Chicago; in "Yatsubuchi shi no banri ensei wo okuru," Kokkyo, no. 23 (6/1893): 24. 113. Nanjio Bunyiu [sic], A Short History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects (Tokyo: BukkyS Shoeiyaku Shuppan, 1886), pp. xix-xxxi, esp. p. xxix. The French version of this text, based upon Nanjo's English translation and not upon the original essay in Japanese (Juni shit koyo), provides another useful introduction to early attempts by Japanese Buddhists to "explain" or transmit correctly their doctrines to the West. See Fujishima Ryauon [sic], LeBouddhisme Japonais: Doctrines etHistoire des Douze Grandes Sectes Bouddhiques du Japon (Paris: Maisonneuve et Ch. Leclerc, 1889). 114. Fujishima, Le Bouddhisme Japonais, pp. iv-v. 115. This was a room within the Parliament's building set aside for more "in depth" discussions of Buddhism than were possible otherwise. Hirai, whose superb English made him the most desired speaker there, was said to have been so busy ' 'that he consistently went without meals or rest in order to speak about Buddhism." See

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Yatsubuchi, Shukyo daikai hodo, p. 45; Shaku, Bankoku shukyo daikai ichiran, p. 30; andwPRl: 165-166. 116. Reigned 539-571; Kimmei is generally recognized as the emperor during whose reign Buddhism first entered Japan. 117. See "Bankoku Shukyo Daikai rinsekisha Yatsubuchi o okuru," Kokkyo, no. 23 (1893): 1—2, 22-24; "Toki Horyu shi gai san koso ichi koji no raibei no to [michi] ni noboraru ohoji," Dento, no. 51 (1893): 1-3. 118. See Kokkyo, no. 31 (1984). This, after all that occurred in the early Meiji critique, cannot help but bring pause. The strength of Buddhism, here "as always," is interpreted as being in combat, where life and death are "not-two" at each and every moment. 119. Chicago Daily Times, 14 September 1983, p. 1. 120. For Hirai's essay in English see WPR 1: 444-450; for the Japanese version see Matsuda Jin'emon, ed., Hirai Kinzo shi bankoku shukyo daikai enzetsu (Kyoto: Yushichu, 1894). For his comments on the speech reception see Kokkyo, no. 31 (1894): 34; Yatsubuchi, Shukyo daikai hodo, p. 39; and Shaku, Bankoku shukyo daikai ichiran, p. 130. Regarding the actual presentation of the paper, Barrows himself says only that the paper was "lost" and thus he thought it could not be presented (see Mary Barrows, Memoir, pp. 278, 281), whereas Shaku and Yatsubuchi recount their anger, as well as Hirai's carefully gauged attack, directed toward Barrows for his seeming lack of support. 121. See Hirai's Shukyo to seiji (Kyoto: Kendo Shoin, 1898), passim. 122. This quote can be found in Yoshida, Shakaishi, p. 433, and in Tamamuro Taijo, Nihon bukkyoshi, 3: 377-378. Shaku, like many other Meiji era Buddhist priests, actively supported Japan's continental expansion. In 1912 he even made an extensive lecture tour, as a guest of the Southern Manchurian Railways Company, through Korea and Manchuria; the theme of his talks was "the spirit of the Yamato race." See Furuta Shokuin, "Shaku Soen: The Footsteps of a Modern Zen Master," Philosophical Studies of Japan 8 (August 1967): 67-91. 123. Yoshida, Shakaishi, p. 434. CHAPTER FIVE

1. Kishimoto Nobuta, Shukyo kenkyu (Tokyo: Keiseisha, 1902), p. 107. Kishimoto, after a relatively short career as a historian of religions, at which he could not make a decent living, took a well-paying position teaching English at the private university founded by Okuma Shigenobu, Waseda University. He had borrowed extensively in order to study in England and, the story goes, took the better paying position to repay his loans. 2. Ibid., pp. 51-75. All terms in quotes were written in English by Kishimoto along with his Japanese translation, reflecting the closeness of his work to Euro-American sources. The somewhat unorthodox definition of these terms, particularly "science," is taken directly from Kishimoto's work. 3. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religion (New York: George Allen and Unwin, 1915; reprint ed., New York: Free Press, 1965), p. 462. 4. Ibid., p. 464. 5. For Tsuji's discussion of this medieval restoration see NBS 4: 194—285.

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6. See, for example, NBS 4: 240-242 for a discussion of the monk Ninjo (b. 1217) and his efforts to realign Buddhism to the social through such "acts of compassion" (jizengyo); it should be noted that much of the priestly labor carried out in this manner was to a large degree the reconstructing of bridges and roads that were damaged during recent wars, in which the priestly armies played no small part. 7. Bukkyo shigaku 2, no. 1 (April 1912): 2. There are numerous examples of preMeiji Buddhist texts used for "modern" Buddhist historiography. The comprehensive nature of Gyonen's work, however, brought it special attention in the Meiji era; moreover, its use as a methodological paradigm stands unparalleled. 8. Tamaki, Koshiro, Shoki no bukkyo: Hasshu koyo (Tokyo: Sakuma Shobo, 1968), p. 194; for a discussion of Gyonen's works see also NBS 4: 227. Tsuji has a total of 217 titles, but as shown in the excellent survey of Gyonen's work in Hirakawa Akira's annotated version of the Hasshu koyo, this is unnecessarily inflated: vols. 39-40 of Butten koza (Tokyo: Daizo Shuppan, 1980), pp. 17-25, 36-38 (cited hereafter as HSKY).

9. For a discussion of Eight-Sect Scholasticism and Gyonen's training therein see Ochi Michitoshi, Shamon Gyonen (Matsuyama: Hime Bunka Sosho, 1972), pp. 34-65. 10. See HSKY, pp. 23-35 for a partial listing of the many versions of the Hasshu koyo. I personally used Sugihara Shundo and Eto Sentaro, eds., Kando hasshu koyo, 4 vols. (Kyoto: Nishimura Kyuromon, 1888); for citation references I have chosen, however, the more readily available version found in Hirakawa's work. No comparable modern edition of the Sangoku buppo dentsu engi exists; here I have relied upon the three-volume version published in 1888 and edited by the same group as the Hasshu koyo just mentioned. 11. Throughout the Tokugawa period the Tendai sect's ecclesiastical training centers were perhaps the most numerous, widespread, and rigorous in their education; the predominance of the Shin sect, particularly the Nishihongan-ji, in producing academies along both transsectarian and secular patterns thus represents a departure from standard "Buddhist" forms of education. This new educational vision found in the Hongan-ji sects can be associated with their aggressive stance toward foreign travel for their priests. As noted in Chapter Three, the first priests to travel abroad in the modern period (1872) were Shin Buddhists (including among them Shimaji Mokurai); perhaps the most famous Meiji era scholar priest, Nanjo Bun'yu of the Otani branch of the Hongan-ji, traveled to England three years later for Sanskrit and Buddhological studies. See, for example, Saito Akitoshi, Kindai bukkyo kyoiku shi (Tokyo: Kokushokan, 1975), pp. 87-99; and by the same author, Nihon bukkyo kyoiku shi kenkyu (Tokyo: Kokushokan, 1978), pp. 193-198, 326-383. A discussion of the pre-Meiji Hongan-ji Academy can be found in Murakami Sensho, Shinshu zenshi (Tokyo: Heigo Shuppansha, 1916), pp. 628-655. 12. Called the Shuki koryo (Outline of Sectarian Standards), this document can be found in sss 11:351-370; for the section on the operation of the Academy see pp. 362367. 13. The translation of the term the "science of religion" is based on the Japanese translation of Mtiller's seminal work Introduction to the Science ofReligion as Shukyogakuron. The reading and translation of this central work were clearly a major contri-

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bution to the introduction of both terminology and concepts useful to the thinking about "religion" in Meiji Japan. The success of this elaborate sectarian educational program is, however, another matter. Hirai Kinzo, in his post-Parliament work Shukyo to seiji, laments the still (1898) moribund system of Buddhist education (he found no better in the secular educational system either); see pp. 23-37. 14. HSKY, pp. 22-23.

15. Ibid., pp. 59-60. 16. Ibid., pp. 64, 81,85, 88. 17. "Sect" (shu) used here is not associated with the same doctrinal and institutional exclusivity as found in later (Tokugawa-Meiji) Buddhism. "School" might be a more accurate translation, as it was not uncommon for a priest (in Japan ordained either at Hiei or at T6dai-ji) to study several or, as Gyonen's work suggests, all eight schools' teachings. On the formation of the Indian schools see ibid., p. 107; on the "transmission" and "expansion" of Buddhism see pp. 113, 119. 18. Other geographical areas are either not mentioned by Gyonen or are included, like Korea, as tributary, and thus "insignificant," states. This is, of course, not unique to Gyonen. Use of the ' 'three-nation'' (sangoku) typology for describing cultural transmission is prolific to the point of distraction. This is as true during the Meiji era as it is today. 19. The work clearly does, however, have its own narrative cohesion. It begins with the Hinayana Schools of the Kusha and Jojitsu; proceeds through the later and transitional teachings of the Ritsu, Hosso, and Sanron; and concludes with the purely Mahayana teachings of the Tendai, Kegon, and Shingon. There is also an appendix on Zen and Jodo. 20. HSKY, pp. 46-52. Gyonen's discussion of Zen and Jodo, though brief (pp. 832, 835, 840), was later expanded in his Sangoku buppo dentsu engi wherein they are included among the ' 'Thirteen Sects.'' Shimaji Mokurai also produced a brief synopsis of these same 13 sects for his own use in articulating a transsectarian Buddhism. See his Bukkyo jusanshu koyo, in SMZ 3: 172-178. That the Zen and Jodo are not accorded full "sect" status in Gyonen's earlier collection is most likely due simply to their lack of institutional organization at the time of Gyonen's writing. Dogen, founder of the Soto sect in Japan, it will be recalled, died a mere nine years prior to Gyonen's writing of the Essentials. 21. For a discussion of p'an-chio organization see Donald S. Lopez's "Introduction" to his edited volume Buddhist Hermeneutics (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1988), pp. 1-10; Peter Gregory's "What Happened to the 'Perfect Teaching'? Another Look at Hua-yen Buddhist Hermeneutics," in ibid., pp. 207-230; and Thomas Kasulis' "Truth Words: The Basis of Kukai's Theory of Interpretation" in ibid., pp. 257272. In relation to the Chinese Confucian reworking of orthodoxy and its relation to thep'an-chiao strategy see Edward Ch'ien's Chiao Hung and the Restructuring ofNeoConfucianism in the Late Ming (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1986), esp. pp. 811, 179-180; and Thomas Wilson's Genealogy of the Way: Representing the Confucian Tradition in Neo-Confucian Philosophical Anthologies (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Chicago, 1988), esp. pp. 103-107.

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22. On Indra's net see Tamaki, Hasshu koyo, pp. 241-244; and HSKY, pp. 719— 720. 23. See Hirakawa's discussion of the numerous figurations of the vinaya known to Gyonen (HSKY, pp. 226-349), especially his summary of vinayan research materials on pp. 341-349. 24. All quotes are from Takada Doken, Tsu-bukkyo anshin (Tokyo: Bukkyokan, 1904). For the law of nature, see p. 2; for the simple doctrine of the one Shakya, p. 6; and for essence, p. 7. 25. Ibid., pp. 23-24, 29. 26. Ibid., pp. 33-34. The similarity between the strategies suggested here by Takada and the "Churchless" (Mukyokai) Christianity of Uchimura Kanzo reflects a more general trend among late Meiji religious thinkers to escape the confines of institutional limitations in favor of an organizational plurality. This potentially fruitful line of inquiry of the examination of similarities between Christian and Buddhist thinkers of the period is, unfortunately, outside the scope of this work. NottoThelle's Buddhism and Christianity in Japan is helpful in this regard. 27. Thelle, Buddhism and Christianity in Japan, p. 146. 28. Indeed the very word for "law" in modern Japanese is "horitsu." 29. From Fukuda Gyokai's introduction to an annotated version of Gyonen's Essentials; see Yanagisawa Geison, ed., Hasshu koyo kogi (Kyoto: Sanshodo, 1888), pp. 9— 10. 30. Ishikawa Sadachi, Bukkyo kakushu dai-i (Tokyo: Seikyoiku kai, 1886), p. 1; this pamphlet, typical of many figurations of a United Buddhism, relies upon this sentence for its entire argument. 31. Teitaro Suzuki, trans, and intro., Acvaghosha's Discourse in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahdydna (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1900); a more recent rendition, benefiting from ongoing Buddhological studies and possessing an excellent introduction, has been published by Yoshito Hakeda, trans, and intro., The Awakening of Faith: Attributed to Asvaghosha (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1967). For reasons that will become apparent in the text, I have chosen here to refer to Suzuki's Meiji era translation. 32. Paul Carus, The Gospel of the Buddha (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1896), p. vi. (Emphasis added.) 33. For a discussion of Cams' relation to Shaku and Suzuki see Larry Fader's "Zen in the West: Historical and Philosophical Implications of the 1893 Chicago World's Parliament of Religions," Eastern Buddhist, n.s., 15 (Spring 1982): 122-145. 34. Carus, Gospel of the Buddha, p. ix. 35. Ibid., p. xi. 36. Suzuki, Acvaghosha's Discourse, pp. iii, iv. 37. Ibid., p. xii. 38. Ibid., p. 2. 39. Ibid., pp. 17-20. Suzuki also graphically presents this claim in the form of a patriarchal lineage of the Indian transmission of the Buddha dharma; though soon to be the most prevalent form of Buddhist chronology, this list is certainly one of the first of this type to be compiled in English; see also pp. 32-34. 40. On India, see ibid., pp. 9, 24; Tibet, pp. 24, 32; China, pp. 24, 40.

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41. Ibid., pp. 95-96. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., pp. 50, 145. 44. Hakeda points out the "somewhat strange" location of these passages within the text and suggests, through the citation of another scholar's work, the possibility of these sections having been added to the text at a much later date. Hakeda, The Awakening of Faith, pp. 116-117. Of course such considerations do not appear in Suzuki's work. 45. Suzuki, Acvaghosha'sDiscourse, p. 45. 46. Shigeno Yasutsugu et al., Kokushi gan, 7 vols. (Tokyo: Teikoku Daigaku Zoban, 1890). 47. It should be remembered that all dates for the early emperors are fabrications designed, largely during the Meiji era, as a means to provide some "historical" (that is, "chronological") legitimacy to the Imperial line. The dates are thus given here and later as provisional reference points only, which one could argue are all that chronological dating can ever do. 48. Though many Imperial charts make a special notation for women who have occupied the throne, the Vision of National History does not. It is of course only during the Meiji period that the male-dominated system of Imperial rule becomes legally codified. 49. From Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1987), pp. 14—18. The use of the terms "annals," "chronicles," and to a limited extent "history" is taken from his article "Narrativity in the Presentation of Reality," in ibid., pp. 125. 50. MoriRintaro, OgaiZenshu, 18 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1953), 13: 165. (Emphasis added.) 51. White, The Content of the Form, p. 21. 52. Takahashi Goro, Shokyo benran (Tokyo: Iijima Seiken, 1881), pp. 1-2. 53. Yamamoto Senga, Nihon shindai shakayaso koshi daiki (Osaka: Takeda Seimi, 1886). 54. Kamagaki Midori, Budda yaso ryokyo hikaku shinron (Kyoto: Shiokakuni, 1888). 55. Shimaji Mokurai, Sangoku bukkyo ryakushi, SMZ 5: 817. 56. Tajima Shoji, Nihon bukkyo shi (Tokyo: Tenshoin, 1883); and Sofu Senjo Kai, ed., Koshitsu to Shingonshu (Kyoto: Rikudai Shimposha, 1915). 57. Tajima, Bukkyo shi, p. iii. 58. Bukkyo Kakushu Kyokai, ed., Bukkyo kakushu kayo, 5 vols. (Kyoto: Kaiba Shoin, 1896) (cited hereafter as BKK). At almost the same time as the formation of this editorial board Yoshitani Kakuju published his Meiji shoshu koyo (Tokyo: Zeshinkai, 1890). Though much shorter than the Cooperative's work, the structure and terminology of Yoshitani's volume so closely parallels the former that coincidence can easily be ruled out. Published through a Shin sect organ (Yoshitani was a lecturer at the Otani Academy at the time), this book was most likely used as a pattern for the later, more comprehensive, and politically astute (each sect wrote its own essays) work.

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59. BKK 1, I: 3ab. (As each chapter begins with separate pagination, the volume number is followed by the chapter number in roman numerals.) 60. This observation was suggested in part in the essay by Bernard Faure, "The Daruma-shu, Dogen and Soto Zen," Monumenta Nipponica 42 (Spring 1987): 25-55, esp. his concluding remarks on pp. 52-55. 61. Many of the essays mention the Meiji period, but for different reasons. For example, the Shingon discussion of Meiji is limited to a presentation of the gradual unity of the various sectarian factions (including Shugendo); BKK 2, IV: 4ab. The Rinzai essay's comments on the Meiji were restricted to noting only that Hakuin received an honorary posthumous title from the Emperor Meiji (!); BKK 4, VII: 5b. 62. Ibid.,2,III:40a-48b. 63. The first quote is from the Rinzai sect's essay, ibid., 4, VII: 15a; the second is from the Soto sect's, ibid., 4, VIII: 13a. 64. Found in ibid., I: 1—15b; for ease of access, citations from this introduction are taken, however, from the version in Shimaji's collected works, where it is titledBukkyo kakushu koyo, in SMZ 3: 154-167. 65. Nanjo wrote extensively on the problem in the Reichikai Zasshi; for a summary of this work, a review of Western scholarship on the subject, and the 48 theories, see Fujii Sadamasa, Bukkyo shoshi: Indo bu, 2 vols. (Kyoto: Otani Tsukan, 1896), 1: 173— 202. One of the most widely read biographies of the Buddha written during this period is by Inoue Tetsujiro, who, though highly critical of the "traditional version," raised many provocative issues; see his Shakamuni den (Tokyo: Bummeido, 1902). This work was an expansion of earlier lectures he gave at Gakushu-in Imperial Academy on the Shaka clan: Shaka shuzoku ron (Tokyo: Tetsugaku Shoin, 1897). In response to Inoue's critical work many "Buddhist" scholars produced their own versions of critical biography. Perhaps the most thorough (and prestigious) was a joint effort by three leading Buddhist historians, Tokiwa Daijo, Chikazumi Jokan, and Yoshida Kenryu: Shaka shi den (Tokyo: Morie Shoten, 1904). 66. SMZ 3: 154; Shimaji makes the same argument in his own Three-Nation history; see his 1887 Sangoku bukkyo ryakushi, SMZ 5: 678. 67. SMZ 3: 156-159, 161. 68. Ibid., p. 161. 69. Hajime Nakamura suggests that the production of such chronicles, almost exclusively carried out within China, along with the various records of transmissions of different sutras (what we can call a "textual biography"), can be interpreted as examples of the "tendency [of the Chinese] to emphasize particularity" (Ways of Thinking, pp. 200-203). It is this "particularity" that, according to the Meiji Buddhists, laid the groundwork for distinctly "Buddhist" histories and the construction of distinct sects. 70. On Ryoben, BKK 1, II: 3b; on Ryonin, 3, V: 4a; on Genku, 3, VI: 6a-b; on Dengyo, 2, III: 7b-8a; on Kukai, 2, IV: 3a-b. 71. See, for example, Murakami Sensho, Shinshu zenshi, pp. 8-11 for a detailed discussion of this list. 72. For a discussion of these two distinct strategies of transmission, as analyzed from the perspective of differing exegetical methodologies, see David ChappelPs "Hermeneutical Phases in Chinese Buddhism," in Buddhist Hermeneutics, ed. Lopez, pp. 175-205.

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73. BKK 4, VII: la-2b, 4b-6a, 15b and VIII: la-5a; as noted above, Suzuki, Acvaghosha's Discourse, pp. 32-34, provides a comparative chart of the Indian patriarchs; see also Ruth Fuller and Isshu Miura, Zen Dust: The History of the Koan and Koan Study in Rinzai (Lin-chi) Zen (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966), pp. 488-510, for several examples of these genealogical trees. A recent perpetuation of this method of recording Zen history can be found in Heinrich Dumoulin's Zen Buddhism: A History, India and China (New York: MacMillan, 1988), pp. 327-336. 74. BKK 4, VIII: lb. 75. The belief in the existence of the Pure Land, as well as practices associated with the desire to obtain rebirth there, obviously circulated widely long before this. The systematization of practice, teaching, and lineage, however, began with Honen (Genku) and his disciples. 76. For a Meiji era example of this Pure Land version of this genealogical theme see Ohashi Shintaro, ed., Sangoku nana koso den (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1893). 77. These figurative mechanisms are found in Yoshitani, Meiji shoshu, pp. 235236. 78. Mark C. Taylor, Erring: A Postmodern A/theology (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 64. 79. Anesaki Masaharu, Nichiren: The Buddhist Prophet (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1916), p. 137. 80. Nanjio Bunyiu [sic], comp., A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka: The Sacred Canon of the Buddhists in China and Japan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1883), p. xi. 81. Ashitsu, Nihon shukyo mirai ki, pp. 64, 68. 82. Carus, Gospel of the Buddha, appendix, p. iii. 83. Ashitsu, Nihon shukyo mirai ki, pp. 66-67. 84. Nanjo Bun'yu and Maeda Eun, Bukkyo seiten (Tokyo: Sanseido, 1905). It is interesting to note that in 1938 Dwight Goddard published his A Buddhist Bible (New York: E. P. Button and Co., 1938), which was constructed in very much the same manner and, it should be emphasized, intent. 85. Nanjo, Seiten, pp. 18, 19 for quote on faith; p. 284 on profit, p. 259 on labor, p. 287 on "matching," and p. 261 on classless nature of teachings. 86. Ibid., p. 91 (within the History). 87. Ando Masazumi, Shinshu dai seiten (Tokyo: Bukkyo Kai, 1916). Ando was "advised" in the work's production by both Nanjo and Maeda who, within the decade between this work and the publication of their first Bible, clearly became the guiding light for the production of Buddhist Bibles. The traces of their work are still being felt today. For example, the Buddhist Promoting Foundation (Bukkyo dendo kai) has published its own Buddhist Bible, The Teaching of the Buddha (Bukkyo seiten), which they place in hotel rooms throughout Japan and in select foreign resorts. Its organization and orientation mirror almost exactly the patterns established by the Meiji Bible writers: Bukkyo Dendo Kai, ed., The Teaching of the Buddha (Tokyo: Kosaido, 1966). (By 1978, this work had already undergone 53 revisions and reprintings.) 88. Ando, Shinshu dai seiten, p. 22. The previous discussion was taken from pp. 1-20. 89. Goddard, A Buddhist Bible, p. xvi.

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• Notes

CONCLUSION

1. Anesaki Masaharu, History of Japanese Religion: With Special Reference to the Social and Moral Life of the Nation (Rutland, Vt. and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1963), pp. 1-2. This work, first printed in 1930, was the result of notes prepared while Anesaki was a professor at Harvard University from 1913 to 1915. 2. Ibid., pp. 329-337. 3. Anesaki, Bukkyo seiten shiron, p. 1. 4. Anesaki, History of Japanese Religion, p. 5. 5. Anesaki, Bukkyo seiten shiron, p. 17. 6. Some prominent prewar representations of the genre are Tanimoto Tomi, Nihon bunka to bukkyo (Osaka: Kindai Bungeisha, 1922); Hashikawa Tadashi, Nihon bukkyo bunkashi (Kyoto: Dobosha, 1924); and of course Tsuji Zennosuke's Nihon bunka to bukkyo (Tokyo: Dai Nippon Shuppan, 1943). An excellant postwar example of the use of Buddhist figures for critiques of the present is Ienaga Saburo, ed., Nihon bukkyo shiso no tenkai: hito to sono shiso (Kyoto: Heiryaku-ji Shoten, 1956). 7. A prime example of this critical potential of Buddhism in post-Meiji Japan is Ienaga Saburo's important work, Nihon shiso shi ni okeru hitei no ronri no hattatsu (Tokyo: Sinsensha, 1969). 8. Kenneth Inada, trans., Nagarjuna: A Translation of his Mulamadhyamakakarika with an Introductory Essay (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1970), p. 39.

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Index

Aizawa Seishisai, 94, 95 Akamatsu Renjo, 125 Ancestral Spirit Shrines, 46 Anesaki Masaharu, 28, 134, 172, 207, 213, 217-218 anti-Buddhist legislation, 3-5, 7-10, 13, 54, 56-57, 65, 68, 79, 86, 244n35, 246n50, 247n58 Ashitsu Jitsunen, 151, 159, 164, 166, 197198, 208-209, 212 Asvaghosha, 177, 186-187, 190, 195, 199, 201,205,208,218 Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, The (Dajo kishin ron), 177, 186-191, 206 Barrows, John Henry, 139, 157, 160 Buddhism, x, 11-16, 23-24, 33, 41, 45, 7677, 91, 102-103, 175, 177-178, 181-182, 185, 200, 202, 207, 219; Eastern, 160-167, 175, 187-191,201,203, 207, 212; and education, 81-82, 179-181; and history, 62, 64, 191, 194-207, 216; modern, 14, 20, 81, 86; New, 132-133, 134, 164, 166-169, 172-173, 174-175, 179, 181, 259n99;and social, xii, 11-12, 15-17, 82; and the Teaching Academy, 98, 100, 105; United, 177, 184-191; and vows, 185-186; at the World's Parliament of Religions, 138, 151152, 156, 159-166, 168. See also anti-Buddhist legislation; Separation of Shinto and Buddhism bummei kaika, x, 51 Bureau of Tombs, 117 carnivalesque, 50-52, 54, 112, 215 Cams, Paul, 187-188, 202, 208 Charter Oath, 9, 88-89, 92, 95, 113-114, 120 Chicago, 141 Christianity, 10, 47, 68, 73, 80-84, 101, 121, 126-127, 132, 137-139, 145, 147-151, 154, 157-159, 162-166, 168-172, 176, 187, 195-196, 208, 217, 247n58, 251n89 Comte, Auguste, 128 Confucianism, 40, 41, 48 contingency, 25

cosmopolitanism, xii, 100-103, 121, 126128, 133, 135, 137, 139, 157, 175, 177, 188, 190-207, 214, 218 critical compassion, 171 Dai Nihon shi (History of Great Japan), 48 Dajokan: see Ministry of State Darwin, Charles, 128, 136, 139, 141-144, 152, 158, 165; Darwinism, 134, 175, 185, 216 Dazai Shundai, 19, 37, 239nlO4 decadence, 11-12, 14, 19, 32, 39, 43, 51, 64, 86, 214 Doctrinal Instructor (Kyodoshoku), 54, 91, 99, 105-107, 110-112, 119-123, 130 Eight-Sect Scholasticism, 178, 180, 182-183 Eleven Themes, 106, 114-118 Emperor Antoku, 117 Emperor Godaigo, 117, 119 Emperor Jimmu, 61, 62, 64, 90, 97, 117, 180, 186, 191,201 Emperor Komei, 44, 45, 60, 66, 92, 241 nl Emperor Meiji, 44, 59, 62, 92, 93, 192, 203 Emperor Sutoku, 117 Essentials of the Buddhist Sects (Bukkyo kakushu koyo), 197-207 Essentials of the Eight Sects (Hasshu koyo), 178, 180-184, 206 Eto Shimpei, 97, 98 exteriority, ix, xii, 50, 137, 152, 157, 197, 204, 206-207, 210, 213, 216-217, 219 festival calendar, 53, 54, 61, 92, 215 Fujita Toko, 47 Fujiwara Seika, 19 fukoku kyohei, x, 56, 67 Fukuba Bisei, 8, 10, 13,44 Fukuda Gyokai, 14, 186, 191 Fukuoka Takachika, 67, 88 Fukuzawa Yukichi, 132 goho, 77, 81-85, 215 Goi Ranju, 19

284

Index

Han Yu, 17, 235n34 hasshu kengaku: see Eight-Sect Scholasticism Hayashi Razan, 19 Higashihongan-ji, 14, 37, 71, 72, 77, 83-85, 126, 179, 248n61 Hirai Kinzo, 151, 156, 159, 169-172, 216, 219, 269nl3 Hirata Atsutane, 19-21, 28, 29-37, 66, 79, 80 Hirata School, 8, 33, 62, 68, 130 history, 17, 20-22, 25, 86-88, 101, 103, 108, 118, 121, 134-135, 164, 172-173, 175, 177, 192 honji suijaku, 36, 47 Ichiki Shouemon/Shiro, 43, 55-59 Inoue Tetsujiro, 132, 134 ippa ichidera: see "one temple per sect" IshikawaTairei, 77-78, 81, 83-86, 250n83 isson issha: see "one village, one shrine" Ito Hirobumi, 126 ltd Jinsai, 19 Iwakura Tomomi, 66, 67, 71, 89, 90, 136 Jingikan: see Ministry of Rites jinsei, 38, 56, 62, 65 Juge Shigekuni, 9, 10, 13, 66 Kamei Koremi, 8, 10, 13, 44, 46-47, 96 Kami no narai gusa (Writings on the Lessons of the Kami), 61, 64-65 Keishin setsuryaku (Brief Discussion on the Reverence of the Kami), 61-64 Keizai mondo hiroku (A Private Record of an Inquiry into Political Economy), 37-41 Kido Takayoshi (Koin), 67, 88-90, 126 Kikuchi Taketoki, 117 Kishimoto Nobuta, 172, 176, 267nl Kitabatake Akiie, 117 Kumazawa Banzan, 19 Kusunoki Masashige, 117 Kydbusho: see Ministry of Doctrine Kyodoshoku: see Doctrinal Instructor Kyoin: see Teaching Academies. Ministry of Doctrine (Kyobusho), 18, 54, 70, 91,95,98-106, 110-111, 114-115, 117118, 122-128, 174, 179 Ministry of Rites (Jingikan), 6, 8, 9, 13, 47, 62, 64-67, 70, 87, 88, 91-93, 95-98, 108, 117, 130 Ministry of State (Dajokan), 3-6, 8, 12-13, 69, 79, 88,97, 113, 131, 137

Mito, 46-54 MoriArinori, 126-127, 130, 137 Motoori Norinaga, 15, 19, 29 Mt. Sumera, 16-17, 19, 23, 29 Miiller, F. Max, 139-141, 145-148, 152, 158159, 161 Murakami Sensho, 18-19, 172-173 Nakae Toju, 19 Nakai Chikuzan, 37, 239nlO4 NanjoBun'yu, 125, 126, 159, 167, 171, 174, 200, 208-209, 212, 249n67, 265n88 national essence, 19, 29-36, 64, 101, 169, 219 nenchu gyoji: see festival calendar Nishihongan-ji, 12, 71, 72, 126, 179 norito, 45-46, 64, 75, 79, 80-82, 88, 241n6 Ogyu Sorai, 19, 37, 239nlO4 Okubo Toshimichi, 66, 67, 70 OkumaShigenobu, 7, 12, 13, 41, 67, 133 Okuni Takamasa, 8-9, 44 "one temple per sect," 243n21 "one village, one shrine," 52 Organization of United Buddhist Sects (Shoshu Dotoku Kairen), 73, 98 oseifukko, 87, 89 Ozu Tetsunen, 125 p'an-ch'iao, 183 public teaching (chikyo), 96, 124 Pung Kwang Yu, 149-150 Record of the Transmission of the Buddha Dharma Through the Three Nations (Sangoku buppo dentsu engi), 178, 180 religion, 6, 16, 41, 69-70, 76, 100-103, 125128, 131-132, 134, 138, 140, 145-152, 158, 164, 172, 181, 240nl20-121, 268269nl3 Saigo Takamori, 97,98 saisei itchi: see Unity of Rite and Rule Sanjo kyosoku: see Three Standards of Instruction Sanjo Sanetomi, 88, 89, 117 sectarian revolution, 81, 125, 157, 186 seikyo bunri: see Separation of Rule and Religion seikyo itchi: see Unity of Rule and Doctrine Senke Takatomi, 115

Index Senkyoshi (proselytizers/missionaries), 96, 98-99 separation edicts, 88 Separation of Rule and Religion, xi, 41, 77, 91, 122, 125-130, 131,215 Separation of Shinto and Buddhism, 6, 8-10, 12, 41, 45, 57-59, 65-66, 73-77, 82, 96, 124, 129, 215 Seventeen Themes, 106, 118-121 ShakuGyonen, 177-178, 180-184, 186, 195, 197-198, 206, 218 ShakuSoen, 117, 151, 156, 159-160, 165166, 171, 187-188, 197-198, 208, 212 ShibataReiichi, 154 Shimaji Mokurai, 74, 97, 102, 121, 125-130, 134, 137, 159, 171, 174, 196-198, 200201,207,212,219 Shimazaki Toson, 68, 251n92, 295nl Shimazu clan (Satsuma) Eko, 60; Hisamitsu, 56, 245n9; Nariakira, 55, 56; Tadayoshi, 55, 56, 60; Takahisa, 54 shimbutsu bunri: see Separation of Shinto and Buddhism Shinto, x, 9, 10, 21, 41-42, 45-46, 53, 59, 62-64, 69-70, 84, 91, 98, 100-101, 115118, 129, 171, 215; and Buddhism, 14, 3536, 53-54, 61, 65-66, 70, 74, 76, 91, 124, 127, 194-196, 233nl6; and Doctrinal Instruction, 98-100, 106, 122, 130; funerals, 44.47, 54, 58-61, 86, 117, 241n2-3, 241n5; and national government, 10, 6769, 76, 87, 96; and nativism, 33, 39, 62, 66, 89, 93, 96, 130; Ryobu, 36; shrines, 9, 53, 58-59, 74, 76, 96, 116-117; and the World's Parliament of Religions, 138, 149, 154, 161;Yoshida, 36, 66 Shoji Noriyoshi, 37-41 Shokonsha (Senshisha no Reisha), 59, 60, 117 Shoshu Dotoku Kairen: see Organization of United Buddhist Sects shrine registration, 53, 54 Shugendo, 50, 51, 243n24 shumon aratanie: see temple registration shumon isshin: see sectarian revolution Shutsujo kogo, 20-28

285

Shutsujo shogo, 28, 30-37 sonnojoi, 72 Soreisha: see Ancestral Spirit Shrines Suzuki Daisetsu Teitaro, 187-191, 212 TakadaDoken, 184-186, 190-191 TanakaYoritsune, 107-109, 111, 114-115 Teaching Academies, 54, 99, 105, 122, 130131,215 temple registration, 53 three-nation history, 21, 28-30, 178, 180, 182, 184, 203, 206-207, 210, 212-214, 269nl8 Three Standards of Instruction, 99, 105, 108, 110-113, 121, 123-124, 128, 131, 215 TokiHoryu, 151, 160, 162-163, 166, 197198,212,215 Tokugawa Iemitsu, 169 Tokugawa Mitsukuni, 47-49 Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 8, 71-72 Tominaga Nakamoto, 20-30, 36, 90, 134, 156, 172, 173, 195, 211, 217, 218 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 39, 199, 210 Tsuda Sokichi, 90, 95, 106, 215 Twenty-Eight Themes, 114, 121, 123, 129, 131,215 Uchimura Kanzo, 41, 132, 133, 270n26 uji aratame: see shrine registration Unity of Rite and Rule, 33, 64, 77, 87-97, 120,215 Unity of Rule and Doctrine, 91, 96-122, 131, 172,215 Vision of National History (Kokushi gan), 191-194, 197 "worship from afar," 61 Yamaga Soko, 19 YamagataBanto, 19 Yamazaki Ansai, 19 Yatsubuchi Banryu, xii, 154-155, 159-160, 164-168, 171, 191,212,216 Yohaishiki: see "worship from afar" Yuri Kimimasa, 67, 88