Pub Date : 2022-11-14DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.49.1.2022.1-20
I. Cho
Early modern Japan witnessed new and unprecedented debates surrounding ancient history, including a school of thought that suggested a significant Korean influence upon ancient Japan. This line of thought contrasted sharply with the contemporary school of kokugaku, which emphasized the traditional understanding of Japan as entirely indigenous. Scholars of kokugaku often positioned their work as a polemic against what they perceived as the widespread influence of traditions imported from China, especially Confucianism, for their alleged corruption of an autochthonic Japanese culture. Modern interpreters of kokugaku thereby focused on the issue of their revulsion of Chinese influence. Focusing on Motoori Norinaga, often considered the consummator of kokugaku, this article analyzes Norinaga’s responses to interpretations of a possible Korean origin of Japanese culture and customs. By contriving commentaries that eliminated such possibilities, this article argues that Norinaga attempted to defend the traditional understanding of ancient Japan as entirely indigenous and unified ab initio.
{"title":"Korea in the Kamiyo: Locating Korea in the Age of the Gods Narratives in Early Modern Japan","authors":"I. Cho","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.49.1.2022.1-20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.49.1.2022.1-20","url":null,"abstract":"Early modern Japan witnessed new and unprecedented debates surrounding ancient history, including a school of thought that suggested a significant Korean influence upon ancient Japan. This line of thought contrasted sharply with the contemporary school of kokugaku, which emphasized the traditional understanding of Japan as entirely indigenous. Scholars of kokugaku often positioned their work as a polemic against what they perceived as the widespread influence of traditions imported from China, especially Confucianism, for their alleged corruption of an autochthonic Japanese culture. Modern interpreters of kokugaku thereby focused on the issue of their revulsion of Chinese influence. Focusing on Motoori Norinaga, often considered the consummator of kokugaku, this article analyzes Norinaga’s responses to interpretations of a possible Korean origin of Japanese culture and customs. By contriving commentaries that eliminated such possibilities, this article argues that Norinaga attempted to defend the traditional understanding of ancient Japan as entirely indigenous and unified ab initio.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46627119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-14DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.49.1.2022.151-156
M. Teeuwen
{"title":"Review of: Yoshida Kazuhiko 吉田一彦, ed., Shinbutsu yūgō no Higashi Ajia shi 神仏融合の東アジア史","authors":"M. Teeuwen","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.49.1.2022.151-156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.49.1.2022.151-156","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42998183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-14DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.49.1.2022.156-158
P. Swanson
{"title":"Review of: Caleb Swift Carter, A Path Into the Mountains: Shugendō and Mount Togakushi","authors":"P. Swanson","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.49.1.2022.156-158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.49.1.2022.156-158","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48110515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-24DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.267-298
J. Stone
Between 1945 and 1951, the Nichiren Buddhist lay organization Soka Gakkai, which had disbanded during the Pacific War, regrouped and burgeoned in a massive proselytizing campaign led by its second president, Toda Jōsei. This effort intertwined three aims: to spread faith in the Lotus Sūtra as the basis for Japan’s postwar reconstruction; to establish an ideal government based on Buddhist principles; and to build a national ordination platform as Japan’s sacred center. Driving it was Toda’s conviction, inherited from his teacher, Makiguchi Tsunesaburō, that Japan was suffering a profound malaise and could only be saved by embracing Nichiren’s teaching. That message formed a powerful link between wartime and postwar Soka Gakkai organizations. It drew Makiguchi into conflict with wartime ideology, leading to his arrest; amid postwar hardships, it found eager reception and shaped what would become Japan’s largest religious movement.
{"title":"“We Alone Can Save Japan”: Soka Gakkai’s Wartime Antecedents and Its Postwar Conversion Campaign","authors":"J. Stone","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.267-298","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.267-298","url":null,"abstract":"Between 1945 and 1951, the Nichiren Buddhist lay organization Soka Gakkai, which had disbanded during the Pacific War, regrouped and burgeoned in a massive proselytizing campaign led by its second president, Toda Jōsei. This effort intertwined three aims: to spread faith in the Lotus Sūtra as the basis for Japan’s postwar reconstruction; to establish an ideal government based on Buddhist principles; and to build a national ordination platform as Japan’s sacred center. Driving it was Toda’s conviction, inherited from his teacher, Makiguchi Tsunesaburō, that Japan was suffering a profound malaise and could only be saved by embracing Nichiren’s teaching. That message formed a powerful link between wartime and postwar Soka Gakkai organizations. It drew Makiguchi into conflict with wartime ideology, leading to his arrest; amid postwar hardships, it found eager reception and shaped what would become Japan’s largest religious movement.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48294492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-24DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.383-394
M. Hamaguchi
I was born in northern Kyushu in 1995 and grew up there with three siblings. I have been living in Vancouver, Canada, since 2014. This autobiographical article is my attempt to examine how my worldview has been shaped, and how I have come to be who I am today, through an emerging sense of Japanese identity. My current learning environment has enabled me to be aware of what have often been styled as the distinct virtues of the Japanese people, which have been passed on to me by way of the embodied memories of their past lives. Yet those are quickly disappearing in contemporary Japanese society, and I have found my role through investigating histories that resurrect those virtues for collective rebirth.
{"title":"Epilogue: Japanese Religions and their Contributions to One Woman’s Identity","authors":"M. Hamaguchi","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.383-394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.383-394","url":null,"abstract":"I was born in northern Kyushu in 1995 and grew up there with three siblings. I have been living in Vancouver, Canada, since 2014. This autobiographical article is my attempt to examine how my worldview has been shaped, and how I have come to be who I am today, through an emerging sense of Japanese identity. My current learning environment has enabled me to be aware of what have often been styled as the distinct virtues of the Japanese people, which have been passed on to me by way of the embodied memories of their past lives. Yet those are quickly disappearing in contemporary Japanese society, and I have found my role through investigating histories that resurrect those virtues for collective rebirth.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67748219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-24DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.365-382
H. Yamanaka
This article examines the state of religion in contemporary Japan from the perspective of consumerism and marketization, focusing on the influence spirituality movements have had on the established religious traditions of Buddhism and Shinto as well as traditional practices such as visiting family graves. By introducing statistical data, the article analyzes the popular notion of shifts “away from temples” and “away from shrines” in Japanese society. As a case study, the article discusses Ehara Hiroyuki and his use of media such as television and magazines, which situates his notion of spirituality within a religious marketplace dominated by the fluidity of individual choice. These trends are not alternatives to the religious practices and worldviews of traditional religions, but rather are in continuity with dominant social values such as reverence of ancestors.
{"title":"Religious Change in Modern Japanese Society: Established Religions and Spirituality","authors":"H. Yamanaka","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.365-382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.365-382","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the state of religion in contemporary Japan from the perspective of consumerism and marketization, focusing on the influence spirituality movements have had on the established religious traditions of Buddhism and Shinto as well as traditional practices such as visiting family graves. By introducing statistical data, the article analyzes the popular notion of shifts “away from temples” and “away from shrines” in Japanese society. As a case study, the article discusses Ehara Hiroyuki and his use of media such as television and magazines, which situates his notion of spirituality within a religious marketplace dominated by the fluidity of individual choice. These trends are not alternatives to the religious practices and worldviews of traditional religions, but rather are in continuity with dominant social values such as reverence of ancestors.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42964265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-24DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.341-363
Michiaki Okuyama
This article examines the holy ground of Kōshien, Japan’s annual high school baseball tournament, and the national festival and cultic fever that accompanies it. Some of the most successful schools that participate in Kōshien were founded by new religious groups such as Tenrikyō, PL Kyōdan, and Bentenshū. I offer some suggestions why this is the case, since none of these religions espouse either sports or competition in their formal creed. Furthermore, I consider the success of these schools in a postwar Japanese social context that has changed substantially since their establishment. The article will also touch on the most recent criticism of Japanese collectivism and how this criticism may effect baseball culture.
{"title":"New Religions in Kōshien: Religious Identity and High School Baseball","authors":"Michiaki Okuyama","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.341-363","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.341-363","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the holy ground of Kōshien, Japan’s annual high school baseball tournament, and the national festival and cultic fever that accompanies it. Some of the most successful schools that participate in Kōshien were founded by new religious groups such as Tenrikyō, PL Kyōdan, and Bentenshū. I offer some suggestions why this is the case, since none of these religions espouse either sports or competition in their formal creed. Furthermore, I consider the success of these schools in a postwar Japanese social context that has changed substantially since their establishment. The article will also touch on the most recent criticism of Japanese collectivism and how this criticism may effect baseball culture.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46607962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-24DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.321-339
Ryūhei Hirota
Yōkai is an elusive category in Japanese history, folklore, and popular culture. It consists of mysterious phenomena that can exercise extraordinary agency in their interactions with humans. Attempting to grapple with this amorphous category, Japanese folklore studies has defined yōkai as malevolent supernatural beings. However, a survey of these studies reveals that most instances of yōkai do not fit this definition. This article discusses the supernaturalization of yōkai and their relegation to the “otherworld” as a process that primarily occurred in three stages: developments in kokugaku cosmology during the early nineteenth century, the import of the concept of the supernatural at the turn of the twentieth century, and the yōkai boom of the late 1960s. In particular, this article emphasizes the importance of the yōkai boom that straddled a premodern folk community and a modernized popular society, leading to a conflation of the concepts of the supernatural, the otherworld, and yōkai.
{"title":"Traversing the Natural, Supernatural, and Paranormal: Yōkai in Postwar Japan","authors":"Ryūhei Hirota","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.321-339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.321-339","url":null,"abstract":"Yōkai is an elusive category in Japanese history, folklore, and popular culture. It consists of mysterious phenomena that can exercise extraordinary agency in their interactions with humans. Attempting to grapple with this amorphous category, Japanese folklore studies has defined yōkai as malevolent supernatural beings. However, a survey of these studies reveals that most instances of yōkai do not fit this definition. This article discusses the supernaturalization of yōkai and their relegation to the “otherworld” as a process that primarily occurred in three stages: developments in kokugaku cosmology during the early nineteenth century, the import of the concept of the supernatural at the turn of the twentieth century, and the yōkai boom of the late 1960s. In particular, this article emphasizes the importance of the yōkai boom that straddled a premodern folk community and a modernized popular society, leading to a conflation of the concepts of the supernatural, the otherworld, and yōkai.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43791209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-24DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.299-319
I. Reader
The Shikoku pilgrimage has, until very recently, seen significant growth in pilgrim numbers and appears, as such, to provide a counter-example to the general trend evident in surveys and studies of declining engagement in religious practices in Japan. However, two caveats are needed here: numbers have started to fall in the last decade, and those doing the pilgrimage have often in recent times viewed their pilgrimages as journeys of self-discovery in which identity is paramount and faith is irrelevant or explicitly denied. In addition, the pilgrimage has been promoted by secular authorities as a signifier of regional and national cultural identity in order to develop Shikoku as a tourist destination, and boost the local economy. In this article, I explore these issues, drawing on fieldwork in Shikoku between 1984 and 2019 and on interviews with people—from pilgrims on foot to temple priests to regional government officials—involved in various ways with the pilgrimage. In discussing how identity construction is both a major factor in the motives of pilgrims and an aim of secular agencies seeking to promote the pilgrimage for nonreligious reasons, I examine what this means for studies of religion today through highlighting recent Japanese theoretical examinations of religion, pilgrimage, and tourism while discussing how the Shikoku example both fits with and provides critical counterarguments to their studies.
{"title":"Constructing Identities through the Shikoku Pilgrimage","authors":"I. Reader","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.299-319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.299-319","url":null,"abstract":"The Shikoku pilgrimage has, until very recently, seen significant growth in pilgrim numbers and appears, as such, to provide a counter-example to the general trend evident in surveys and studies of declining engagement in religious practices in Japan. However, two caveats are needed here: numbers have started to fall in the last decade, and those doing the pilgrimage have often in recent times viewed their pilgrimages as journeys of self-discovery in which identity is paramount and faith is irrelevant or explicitly denied. In addition, the pilgrimage has been promoted by secular authorities as a signifier of regional and national cultural identity in order to develop Shikoku as a tourist destination, and boost the local economy. In this article, I explore these issues, drawing on fieldwork in Shikoku between 1984 and 2019 and on interviews with people—from pilgrims on foot to temple priests to regional government officials—involved in various ways with the pilgrimage. In discussing how identity construction is both a major factor in the motives of pilgrims and an aim of secular agencies seeking to promote the pilgrimage for nonreligious reasons, I examine what this means for studies of religion today through highlighting recent Japanese theoretical examinations of religion, pilgrimage, and tourism while discussing how the Shikoku example both fits with and provides critical counterarguments to their studies.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43555194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-24DOI: 10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.225-243
H. Hardacre
Based on trainees’ testimonies published in 1941 by the Imperial Rule Assistance League, this article examines the spectrum of identification seen in an early 1940s spiritual cultivation regimen of cold-water purification (misogi) aiming to enhance popular commitment to such national projects as Japan’s war in China and the eradication of liberalism. The revival and ritualization of misogi within modern Shinto was initially led by Kawazura Bonji and later taken up with government sponsorship by a variety of influential Shinto figures, who promoted it within the league. While the league’s misogi programs conveyed a distinctive notion of identity for Japanese men, and while trainees’ testimonies show that they affirmed and identified themselves with it, it is also clear that the training regimen failed to meet their expectations in significant respects. In addition, a 1942 doctrinal dispute greatly undermined the intellectual coherence of misogi training and its concept of identity.
{"title":"We are Warriors for the Movement: Misogi Training in the Imperial Rule Assistance League","authors":"H. Hardacre","doi":"10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.225-243","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.48.2.2021.225-243","url":null,"abstract":"Based on trainees’ testimonies published in 1941 by the Imperial Rule Assistance League, this article examines the spectrum of identification seen in an early 1940s spiritual cultivation regimen of cold-water purification (misogi) aiming to enhance popular commitment to such national projects as Japan’s war in China and the eradication of liberalism. The revival and ritualization of misogi within modern Shinto was initially led by Kawazura Bonji and later taken up with government sponsorship by a variety of influential Shinto figures, who promoted it within the league. While the league’s misogi programs conveyed a distinctive notion of identity for Japanese men, and while trainees’ testimonies show that they affirmed and identified themselves with it, it is also clear that the training regimen failed to meet their expectations in significant respects. In addition, a 1942 doctrinal dispute greatly undermined the intellectual coherence of misogi training and its concept of identity.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43949762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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