Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture

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154 Stephen Covell

as clerical marriage and the passing on of temples within priestly families

expanded exponentially following Order 133. Today they are the norm.

These practices in turn changed the face of local life at temples, where the

wives of priests over time came to play a major, if unrecognised, role in

the religious life of temples. The increased visibility of temple wives also

served to call into question the position of women more generally within

Temple Buddhism and the ideals of world-renunciation promoted by the

male priesthood.

The interaction between Buddhism and the state during Japan’s modern

period has not been one of two monolithic entities locked in struggle but

has been marked by a variety of voices representing various causes and

constituencies manoeuvring to maintain or create relevancy. In this process

we see the creation of a number of new Buddhisms. Regarding Temple

Buddhism, Ketelaar writes:

Meiji Buddhists succeeded not merely in reﬁguring Buddhism from the

heretical to the martyred; they also succeeded in producing a “new

Buddhism” (shin Bukky

o) that in fact has come to be viewed as a

bastion of Japanese culture. Our contemporary understanding of

modern Buddhism (kindaiteki Bukky

o) 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 reconﬁguration of its social institutional contours.

In short, the enduring image of Buddhism as a rational philosophy in which

ritual is downplayed or outright disparaged that is so dominant today came

about at this time. For example, think for a moment of the image of Zen

in the United States today. It is used in advertising to represent the serene,

or moments experiencing a deep connection with oneself or the universe.

Buddhist monks are depicted bald-headed, robed and living a life of quiet

contemplation and retreat. This is not to say rituals for everything from

assuring safe childbirth to guaranteeing rebirth in a Pure Land did not

continue in Japan following the redeﬁnition of Buddhism in the modern

period; far from it, they remain today the bread and butter of most temples.

It is to say, however, that Temple Buddhism in Japan today suffers from

a kind of schizophrenia – on the one hand it is envisioned as a modern,

rational, philosophical system, while on the other hand it still serves the

ritual needs of the Japanese for healing, protection and the afterlife.

The crucible of Buddhist persecution had an equally powerful effect

on Shinto. Government efforts at unweaving strands from the cloth of

Religious culture 155

Japanese religion to create what we now know as Shinto and Japanese

Buddhism had a lasting inﬂuence on the religious life of the Japanese. For

example, government attempts to create a state religion, State Shinto, altered

local and national religious practices. It was recognised early on in the Meiji

period that religion could play a powerful role in creating a sense of national

identity. State Shinto combined Imperial Shinto, which centred on the rites

of the Imperial household, and Shrine Shinto, which consisted of the many

shrines around the country. Its rites supported the emperor system, its

priests were involved in national teaching campaigns and its shrines became

a conduit between the centre and the periphery of the modern Japanese

political landscape.

One example of the impact of the creation of State Shinto on the reli-

gious life of ordinary Japanese can be seen in the shrine merger policy

implemented between 1906 and 1912.

Here state policy regarding shrines

dovetailed with other state policies such as the Local Improvement Cam-

paign. The state sought to integrate local shrines into a system of national

shrines and, thereby, to turn local people into citizens of the nation. This

necessitated the merger of many local shrines. The mergers coincided with

new administrative districts. The shrine merger policy met with signiﬁcant

local resistance as shrine members fought to preserve local sacred identities,

much as attacks against Buddhist temples had met with opposition at the

local level from lay members who sought to save their temples, which had

become caretakers of the ancestors.

From this rich soil of Temple Buddhist traditions, modernity, and the

turmoil caused by State Shinto, not only did a ‘new Buddhism’ blossom

but a monumental shift in religious culture occurred. The Meiji, Taisho and

Showa eras saw the rise of new lay Buddhist movements and new religions.

One early example of this is Reiy

ukai, which was founded in 1925.Reiy

ukai

became the parent of many other Buddhist lay movements, including Rissh

oseikai, which grew to become a much larger organisation than its parent.

‘Reiy

ukai’s uniqueness lies in its combination of Lotus Sutra faith and ances-

tor veneration.’

Reiy

ukai removed the priesthood of Temple Buddhism as

mediator between families and their ancestors. Moreover, in recognising the

changing structures of the modern Japanese family, Reiy

ukai emphasised

that the ancestors of both the husband and wife should be venerated at the

home alter. These changes were maintained in its offshoots such as Rissh

oseikai, which today claims six million adherents worldwide.

Buddhist lay movements were not the only new religions to arise in the

modern period, indeed, religions claiming roots in Shinto and Christianity

156 Stephen Covell

also appeared in great numbers with a similar emphasis on ancestor venera-

tion and lay leadership. New religions and lay movements such as Reiy

ukai

ﬂourished brieﬂy during the Meiji and Taisho periods only to be suppressed

during Japan’s Paciﬁc War. Following the end of hostilities and the Occu-

pation of Japan in 1945, new religions once again grew in number. Today

they claim tens of millions of followers worldwide and are a powerful force

in Japanese society and politics.

Shimazono describes the relationship of the new religions and modernity

as follows:

The modernization process dissolved traditional communal social

bonds. In the process, people began searching anew for a clear

intellectual symbol of the ties between themselves and others, and

between themselves and nature; these were ties that had been evident

until that time. Such symbols became one type of support for people

who were adapting to modern social relationships. This . . . can be

identiﬁed as an intellectual question existing at the most fundamental

level of human life. Japanese vitalistic thought, of which the populace

was the principle bearer, attempted to answer this most fundamental

intellectual problem of the people who were in direct confrontation

with modernization.

Vitalism stresses salvation in this life. Shimazono identiﬁes ‘vitalistic

thought’ as the core of much of modern Japanese religious culture.

Vitalistic thought is understood to be common to most religions in Japan

today, both new and old, and to have its roots in what Yasumaru Yoshio

identiﬁes as ‘the philosophy of heart’ or common moral values developed

during the 18th century. These values include sincerity, thankfulness and

frugality and formed the core of the values later adopted by the Meiji gov-

ernment for use in mandatory ethics classes taught in the new compulsory

education system, thus assuring that they became widespread and identiﬁed

with a ‘timeless’ Japanese culture. The education system served to ﬂatten

out regional difference and had as one of its goals the creation of a Japanese

identity based on these now shared ‘common’ values. Vitalistic thought

underlies and overlaps these ‘common’ value sets, and understanding it is

the key to understanding modern Japanese religion.

Shimazono outlines several characteristics that describe the vitalistic con-

cept of salvation. Though Shimazono and Tsushima Michihito derive the

concept of vitalistic salvation from the study of new religions, it can be

seen within the teachings and practices of modern Temple Buddhism and

Religious culture 157

Shinto as well. Key characteristics include the following: (1)aviewofthe

cosmos as a life-force possessed of everlasting fertility in which humans

participate; (2) a primary religious being conceived of as the ‘source of life’;

(3) humans as born of the source of life and as ‘tributaries of the Life-

Source’; (4) ‘salvation as the growth and efﬂorescence of life in this world’;

(5) evil and suffering as stemming from the severing of the connection to

the life-source; (6) salvation as reconnecting to that life-force; and (7)the

saved state as being one of bliss and joy in this very life.

Robert Kisala

(and elsewhere Helen Hardacre) describes a worldview that is helpful in

understanding how Shimazono and Tsushima’s vitalistic salvation might be

enacted upon:

The world is seen as an interconnected whole, and activity on one level

will affect other levels. Therefore, a transformation on the most

immediate level of the inner self will have repercussions within one’s

family, the surrounding society and eventually on the universe as a

whole. Consequently, emphasis is placed on individual self-cultivation,

centering on the virtues of thankfulness, sincerity and harmony.

In this worldview, individuals are empowered to change their lives through

self-cultivation. The details of cultivation vary from religion to religion. In

some forms of Buddhism, for example, cultivation may occur through ritual

practice (ﬁre ceremonies, meditation retreats) or through the embodying of

Buddhist moral codes through precept practice in daily life, whereas in

some Shinto schools cultivation may take place through puriﬁcation rites.

Ian Reader and George Tanabe’s study of contemporary Japanese Bud-

dhism, Practically Religious, echoes Shimazono’s work.

Here Reader and

Tanabe assert that the ‘common religion’ of Japan is that of worldly beneﬁts

integrally tied to the moral life of the practitioner. This ‘common religion’

has roots that extend centuries into the past but is particularly relevant

today. Japanese religion, Reader and Tanabe conclude, is focused on this

life and the palpable beneﬁts – physical, emotional and spiritual – of prac-

tice. Common practices seen today include praying for success in school

entrance exams and purchasing amulets to hang in cars to ward off trafﬁc

accidents.

In a similar vein, Reader elsewhere emphasises the ‘primacy of action’

as an explanation for the continued importance of religion in contempo-

rary Japan. Situations demand actions that in turn express religiosity.

Winston Davis notes, the criteria of believer versus non-believer is not

easily applied to Japan, where praxis and feeling ‘are the primary indicators

158 Stephen Covell

of Japanese religious behaviour.’

Shimazono, Reader and Tanabe’s work

moves us far beyond simplistic explanations such as crisis theory for the rise

of new religions and the continued relevance of Temple Buddhism and other

so-called ‘traditional’ religions. The rise of new religions in Japan had long

been tied to several moments of crisis in the modern period, such as Japan’s

defeat in the Paciﬁc War, but as the work of these scholars demonstrates,

the lasting inﬂuence and continued vitality of Japanese religion can best be

understood through concepts such as vitalistic salvation and the primacy of

action.

This model of religious practice remains relevant today, yet there have

been signiﬁcant changes since the 1970s. Whereas the new religious move-

ments of the prewar and early postwar period, as well as Temple Buddhism

and Shinto, tended to focus on the moral values made common during the

Meiji period and the ‘traditional’ family and community structures that lay

at the heart of those values, the movements that began in the 1970s, often

called by the unwieldy term ‘new new religions’ (shinshinsh

uky

o), shifted

the focus of practice. New new religions tend to be urban in focus, centred

on a young membership, and concentrated on the individual rather than the

group or family. Whereas new religions stress communal sharing of experi-

ences and group counselling-like sessions, the new new religions emphasise

personal transformation and individual practice. One marked difference

between the new and the new new religions is the often pessimistic outlook

of the new new religions. As can be seen within the vitalistic concept of

salvation, the new religions have a very positive worldview in which sal-

vation is possible through the efforts of the individual and where salvation

can take place in this life. Moreover, such religions have taken the positive

view that salvation is possible for all of humanity through the application of

their practices. By contrast, new new religions tend to be shaped by a sense

of impending doom. They do not all necessarily espouse an apocalyptic

doctrine but the view that the world will meet its end in the not-too-distant

future is not uncommon. This end is often envisioned as coming about at

the hands of humans either through nuclear, biological or environmental

disaster.

Diversity and variation

As we have seen, some of the most dramatic changes that took place in

the modern period stem from efforts on the part of the state to control

diversity, to create a notion of sameness and/or to control the powerful

Religious culture 159

inﬂuence of religion in the lives of its citizens. But what is even clearer

is that despite the great efforts of the state to control religion during the

modern period, religion has remained as diversely practised as ever. It is

often said that Japan is a homogeneous country, but even a cursory exam-

ination of Japan’s religions proves this to be an overly simplistic view. We

can observe regional diversity, diversity of gender roles, status and eth-

nic diversity, and generational diversity. And yet, to borrow from Byron

Earhart,

there is unity within the diversity, even if that unity is often

imagined.

The practice of Japanese religions has long been marked by gender-based

role distinctions. As Confucianism, which entered Japan around the 4th

century, came to play an increasingly dominant role in Japanese society, the

prominent roles women once played in political and religious leadership

were greatly diminished. In the modern period, women have often been

relegated to behind-the-scenes or subservient roles, with the noticeable

exception being in some new religions. In Shinto, women, who once played

pivotal roles as active leaders and shamans, now mostly play less prominent

performative roles as shrine maidens selling amulets, cleaning the grounds,

and performing ritual dances for the deities. Within Buddhism, women are

also bound by gendered roles. Nuns undergo similar training as monks,

and yet are always in an inferior position within institutional hierarchies

(though this is not unique to Japanese Buddhism). Some nuns today argue

that their practices as renunciates are more in keeping with tradition than

the monks. In particular, they point to clerical marriage and note that only

the monks break precepts by marrying.

Yet these arguments fall on mostly

deaf ears in the male-dominated sectarian hierarchies. Such arguments have

also been the source of conﬂict among those nuns who enter the priesthood

and maintain celibacy and those who enter the priesthood married and

choose to remain married.

Gendered roles in which women are allocated domestic duties, nurtur-

ing and education of the next generation are still the norm. Leaders of the

various denominations of Temple Buddhism call upon the wives of priests

to support the priest, be a model housewife, produce a male successor

and see to the education of the children.

Similar roles are espoused by

many of the new religions. Hardacre observes a ‘clear division of labor and

moral responsibility by sex’ within the new religion Reiy

ukai. Women are

encouraged to care for the domestic side of the family, be submissive and

support their husband.

The new religions of Japan also provide examples

of challenges to gendered role division, though these have met with limited

160 Stephen Covell

success. The founders of

Omotoky

o, for example, practised inverting gen-

der roles. The female leader took on aspects of male identity through her

choice of clothing and behaviour just as the male leader did the same with

stereotyped female attributes. While this may have had an effect on their

ability to lead through projecting certain images, neither leader appears to

have expected members to follow suit. Their experimentation with crossing

gender boundaries stopped with them.

Religion has also been used to enforce status diversity. The best example

of this is the treatment of Japan’s once hidden minority, the burakumin,at

the hands of the priesthood of Temple Buddhism. The Buddhist priesthood

systematically discriminated against the burakumin. Burakumin were given

discriminatory posthumous Buddhist names (kaimy

o). These names singled

them out in death as they had been in life and were used by businesses,

potential marriage partners and others to determine whether or not a person

came from a burakumin family. This practice, common across the sects of

Temple Buddhism, only ceased in the 1980s.

Since the 1970s, Japanese religious culture has added new and diverse

layers. We have already discussed the new and new new religions. To these

we must add the new spirituality movements.

From the point of view of these new spirituality movements, earlier

religions with their hardened doctrines and institutional forms have

restricted individuals and prevented them from realising their full

spiritual potential.

As noted at the outset of this chapter, the very deﬁnition of religion is

contested in Japan. People involved in these movements tend to shy away

from the term ‘religion’, which to them implies moribund institutions, in

favour of ‘spirituality’.

These movements share connections with the past

just as the new religions do, but emphasise individual transformation of

consciousness over institutionalised ritual and doctrine. The links to the

larger religious/spiritual milieu, the unity within the diversity, can be seen

in an emphasis on communication with divine beings, identiﬁcation with

leading religious practitioners of the past and active participation in the

intellectual debates of their time.

Another area in which we ﬁnd the theme of unity and diversity played

out in modern Japan is ancestor veneration. Ancestor veneration has been an

important aspect of religious practice in Japan for centuries. Like so many

other things, the content of ancestor veneration has changed over time even

Religious culture 161

as the general concept has remained in place. In the modern period we see

dramatic shifts in ancestor veneration playing out in response to changes in

social structure. Moreover, religious practices such as ancestor veneration

have themselves encouraged change in social structures. Modern ancestor

veneration as conducted in many new religions and more often now in

Temple Buddhism as well is marked by the veneration of the ancestors of

both the husband and wife. This recognises the shift in household structures

away from the extended family and towards the nuclear family. But it

also ﬁnds its roots in the nationalism of prewar religious groups such as

Reiy

ukai, which believed that unsaved spirits could not serve to protect the

nation.

By allowing more ancestors into the practice of each household

the protection of the nation was assured.

More recently, as Mark Rowe’s work shows, a handful of priests of Tem-

ple Buddhism have begun to change how ancestors are venerated.

Rowe’s

study of various associations for burial and memorial clearly demonstrates

the changing nature of veneration and the manner it which it affects social

structures. Rowe states:

the two most common forms of relationship or bond (en) in Japan are

those of blood and locale. What is fascinating to note about some of

these burial groups is the way they are appropriating the en bond in new

ways. The En no Kai offers no modiﬁer for en, and becomes thus a

“Society of Bonds.” The use of the term shienby

o by the Society for a

Women’s Monument consciously modiﬁes en by adding “will” or

“intent” and thus enabling these women to form new types of bonds. In

both cases as well as with other burial societies, the traditionally

recognized forms of relations are being dramatically expanded, so that

friends, acquaintances, even strangers, may now be buried together and

memorialize each other.

Religious culture does not simply reﬂect larger social trends, it participates

in their construction. While the groups Rowe examines are still in the

minority, they represent the beginning of a gradual shift in how people

memorialise the dead.

It is important to observe and emphasise diversity in order to overcome

misleading stereotypes of religious culture, however, it is equally important

to understand that to look for the trees while ignoring the forest can create an

unbalanced picture of religious life. State Shinto, the spiritual mobilisation

campaigns of wartime Japan, compulsory education, the commercialisation

162 Stephen Covell

of ritual, together with the mass media and increased literacy combine to

have a ﬂattening effect on many aspects of Japanese religious life.

Morals education in prewar and wartime Japan, for example, served

to propagate a common set of values derived from a variety of sources

from Japan’s religious heritage. Moreover, just as the Meiji, Taisho and

Showa governments used moral education and the cooperation of religious

organisations to create a common understanding of Japaneseness and a

moral citizenry, successive postwar governments have sought to leverage

moral education for these same purposes. All of these attempts appeal to

a grounding in ‘common’ morals derived from religion. Postwar attempts

have generally met with poor results, due to powerful opposition from the

teachers’ unions and the peace movement.

In 1966 the Ch

uo Ky

oiku Shingikai (an advisory council established in

1953 that reports to the Minister of Education) declared that a desirable trait

to be cultivated was that of a mind of reverence. The report then explicitly

links this trait to religious sentiment (sh

uky

o).

‘True religious senti-

ment is [a mind of] reverence towards the source of life, in other words, the

divine. Human dignity and love are based on this. A deep sense of gratitude

wells forth from this. And, true happiness is based upon this.’

This clearly

echoes the vitalistic thought discussed above.

In 2002, the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology (for-

merly the Ministry of Education) produced the Kokoro no N

oto (The Heart

and Mind Notebook), a series of supplementary moral education texts for

use in public schools across Japan. The focus of these books is fourfold:

development of an awareness of self; development of an awareness of one’s

relationship to others; development of an awareness of one’s relationship

to the nation; and development of an understanding of one’s relationship

with nature and the sublime, which is described as ‘furthering one’s self-

awareness through one’s relationship with the beautiful and that which is

beyond human power.’

In short, these books seek to instil a worldview

rooted in religious values through the public school curriculum. This con-

tinued effort of government leaders has led, over the modern period, to the

invention and perpetuation of ‘traditional’ Japanese values identiﬁed as the

foundation of Japanese identity. The combined effect has led to a ﬂattening

of regional and other differences.

Commercialisation of practices has also had a ﬂattening effect. For exam-

ple, funerary rites were long the domain of Buddhist priests. Priests were

responsible for guiding the grieving family through the ritual process and

Religious culture 163

the customs related to funerals and memorials. As the funeral industry

grew, and as national conglomerates bought out local companies, funeral

companies came to play many of the roles priests once played. Moreover,

economies of scale in production have led to changes in practices as imple-

ments required by local custom are phased out by companies that produce

for a national market.

Conclusions

Modern Japanese religious culture is in ﬂux. Great change has occurred

in practices, institutions and worldviews over the last 100 years. This is

not to say that religious culture was static before the modern period, as is

often popularly portrayed. The Edo Period (1603–1868)wasatimeofgreat

change, as political stability came to Japan. Temple Buddhist institutions

underwent organisational change, local temples took part in government

campaigns to control heterodox religious movements such as Christianity

and certain Buddhist sects, and sectarian studies ﬂourished. Confucianism

also came to enjoy a place of honour within the Japanese government during

the Edo Period. Though the modern period has been one of tremendous

change, we would be remiss to assume it was somehow unique in this. To

make such an assumption only serves to essentialise the past.

Change in the modern period has most often occurred at least in part

through government action. Yet we must not understand this as the heavy

hand of a government somehow disconnected from the rest of society. Gov-

ernment action, whether it was the disassociation of Buddhism and Shinto,

the creation of State Shinto, the suppression of new religions, or the imple-

mentation of heart and mind education, did not take place in a vacuum. It

could only occur through a process of negotiation between various factions

within government, the input of competing religious groups, the voices of

local leaders and the power of local traditions.

The modern period has also witnessed the creation of common value sets

identiﬁed as the core of Japanese identity and the development of a shared

vitalistic worldview. Both of these have come to be viewed as timeless

traditions. Despite the pervasiveness of these, we already see within the

new new religions and the new spirituality movements a shift away from

these ‘timeless traditions’ and towards a new model based on individual

practices. It remains to be seen what the 21st century will bring to Japanese

religious culture, but change is inevitable.