Eiichi Ōtani. Kindai Bukkyō to iu shiza: sensō, Ajia, shakai shugi.
Tōkyō:
Perikansha, 2012. 294 pp. ISBN 978-4-8315-1318-2.
Reviewed by Orion
Klautau (Heidelberg University)
Published on H-Shukyo (January,
2014)
Commissioned by Jolyon B. Thomas
Modern Buddhism as a
Perspective
In Japanese academia in recent years, it has become quite
common to
hear people mention the flourishing of studies on modern Japanese
Buddhism.
The field has made rapid progress from the mid-1990s, when
conferences
would gather no more than a dozen researchers, to the present,
with the
field being a popular arena for researchers, especially younger
ones.[1]
The numbers are clear: over ten monographs, edited volumes, and
journal
issues have been published in Japanese on the subject since 2001,
and
there are a few more on the way.[2] This is already almost as much
as
everything else published on the subject in the five decades prior
to
the millennium. Ōtani Eiichi, the author of the work under review,
is
indisputably one of the central figures responsible for the
popularization
of modern Buddhism as a research topic. For instance, Ōtani’s
first book,
Kindai Nihon no Nichiren shugi undō (2001), is a detailed study
of
nationalistic movements led by the likes of Tanaka Chigaku
(1861–1939)
and Honda Nisshō (1867–1931). Published twelve years ago, this
work can
be regarded as one of the first instances of the “new wave” of
research
on modern Japanese Buddhism.
Kindai bukkyō to iu shiza is
divided into three parts: "Kindai Bukkyō
kenkyū o toi naosu" (Questioning the
Study of Modern Buddhism, Part 1),
"Kokumin kokka to kindai Bukkyō" (The
Nation State and Modern Buddhism,
Part 2), and "Ekkyō suru kindai Bukkyō"
(Modern Buddhism Beyond Borders,
Part 3). Each of these parts is, in turn,
subdivided into three chapters.
In the first chapter of part 1, Ōtani’s
goal is, in his words, to
"critically reevaluate the historical research on
modern Japanese Buddhism
produced since World War II," while
(re)problematizing the issue of the
"modernization of Buddhism" (Bukkyō no
kindaika) (p. 13). According to the
author, previous research on modern
Buddhism, specifically that of Ikeda
Eishun (1929–2004), Yoshida Kyūichi
(1915–2005), and Kashiwahara Yūsen
(1916–2003)--who are now referred to as
the "big three" (biggu san) in
the field--has tended to approach Buddhism
from a "modernist" (kindai-
shugiteki) perspective.[3] In contrast, Ōtani
suggests we begin our
scholarship on Buddhism by considering how the concept
of Buddhism
itself was created. Drawing on the work of scholars such as
Isomae
Jun’ichi, he argues that historical research on modern Japanese
Buddhism
needs to be pursued in light of the recent studies on the concept
of
"religion" (shūkyō), and also emphasizes the considerable role
played
by the concept of Buddhism in the establishment of the discourse
on
religion in modern Japan.[4]
Isomae, whose work serves as the
framework for Ōtani’s criticism of
previous research on modern Japanese
Buddhism, explicates the development
of the discourse surrounding the concept
of religion using the binary of
"practice" and "belief."[5] While the
boundaries between these two
aspects in what came to be called religious life
were ever-shifting,
according to Isomae in traditional Edo-period society
there was a clear
tendency to engage in nonverbal ritual acts (that is, an
emphasis on
practical "religious activities"). In modern Japan, however, with
the
(re)invention of religion brought on by the country’s encounter
with
the Christian West, a "belief-centered" (birīfu chūshin-shugi)
view
of Buddhism, which valued doctrine and individual faith over
formalized
rituals, became the norm. This notion, which Sueki Fumihiko has
called
"Protestant Buddhism" (purotesutanto Bukkyō), also became, as
Ōtani
goes on to show, the discursive ground for the subsequent
academic
study of Buddhism.[6] While most previous scholarship (from
the
more established narratives put forward by the "big three" to
the
relatively recent works of Sueki Fumihiko) has taken this
"belief-
centered" Buddhism as its main focus, Ōtani provocatively hints
at
all the other histories of modern Japanese Buddhism that could
be
written should scholars focus instead, for instance, on the
practice-
centered elements contained therein. According to Ōtani, one
can
speak, then, of modern Buddhism in both a "narrow" and "broad"
sense:
while the former overlaps with the above-mentioned category
of "Protestant
Buddhism," the latter would also combine factors such
as ancestor worship
among lay believers and the ritual aspects of
traditional Buddhist sects.
However, for the remainder of the book,
Ōtani does not focus on these
heretofore largely ignored "broad"
aspects of modern Buddhism, but instead
dedicates himself to
reconsidering, under different light, the same
"belief-centered"
elements which have so far been the axis of histories of
modern
Japanese Buddhism.
In chapters 2 and 3 of part 1, Ōtani focuses
on the idea of "new
Buddhism," a recurrent trope in several Buddhist
movements between the
late 1880s and the 1930s (p. 44). In the second
chapter, he shows how
the binary of "old Buddhism" (kyūbukkyō) and "new
Buddhism" (shinbukkyō),
which was already a strong motif in the early works
of Inoue Enryō
(1858–1919), went on to become further systematized through
the
writings of yet another Buddhist reformer, Nakanishi Ushirō
(1859–
1930). Ōtani further discusses how this same opposition was
utilized
around the turn of the century as the intellectual framework
for
Sakaino Kōyō's (1871–1933) Shin Bukkyō movement and the journal
with
the same name, which were part of what Ōtani calls the "youth
culture" of the
time. In chapter 3, he focuses on the discursive
framework of the Shinkō
Bukkyō Seinen Dōmei (New Buddhist Youth
Alliance), established in the early
1930s by socialist activist
Seno'o Girō (1889–1961). In part 1, Ōtani thus
considers the
formation and political context of Buddhists employing the
term
"new Buddhism" between the 1880s and 1930s, giving the
reader
valuable information to understand the broader intellectual
and
social background against which the "belief-centered" type of
modern
Buddhism developed.
In part 2, Ōtani aims to reconsider the relationship
between the
Japanese nation-state and modern Buddhism. In the first
chapter,
through a historical overview focusing on four specific
aspects
(or moments) of Buddhism’s relationship with the Japanese
state
between the Meiji restoration (1868) and early Shōwa period
(1926–89),
he attempts to further clarify the public role of several lay
Buddhist
movements during this time. Drawing from José Casanova's 1994
study
_Public Religions in the Modern World_,[7] Ōtani focuses on
examples
such as Tanaka Chigaku’s Nichirenism and Seno'o Girō’s New
Buddhist
Youth Alliance, if only to conclude that, despite their
obvious
contemporary social role, it is difficult to identify these
movements
as "public religion" (p. 114). He does, however, manage to show
through
these and other examples that modern Japanese Buddhism was far
less
subservient to the state than previous scholarship depicts it as
having
been. In chapter 2, Ōtani is in familiar territory, focusing
specifically
on Tanaka Chigaku’s Kokuchūkai (National Pillar Society), one of
the main
topics of his 2001 monograph. However, this time Ōtani focuses
thereon in
order to consider the contemporary limitations, vis-à-vis
nationalism, of
this institution with regard to the formation of a
transnational "sacred
religious community" (sei naru shūkyō kyōdōtai). In
chapter 3, he
considers pacifist discourses put forward by Buddhist
intellectuals in
the context of Japan’s modern wars. He focuses, for
instance, on the
impact in the Buddhist world of the Japanese translation of
Leo Tolstoy's
criticisms of the Russo-Japanese War, and on the ideas of Shin
priest
Takenaka Shōgen (1867–1945), one of the few Buddhist voices
explicitly
critical of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
In the third and
final part, Ōtani discusses the "transnational" endeavors
of modern Japanese
Buddhists. In chapter 1, he introduces the concept of
"Buddhist Asianism"
(Bukkyō Ajia shugi), defined as "the philosophy and
logic oriented towards
the communality [kyōdōsei] and unity of the
various Asian countries that is
either based on or given meaning by
universal Buddhist thought” (p. 181).
Ōtani utilizes this concept in order
to consider the activities of Nichiren
priest Takanabe Nittō (1879–1953),
both as a prolific pan-Asian ideologue in
early twentieth-century Japan and
then as a missionary in Inner Mongolia from
1939. In chapter 2, he focuses
on the Ketsumeidan (Blood-Pledge Corps) and
its founder, Inoue Nisshō
(1887–1967). Here, Ōtani traces the religious
trajectory of Nisshō from
Christianity to Marxism and then into Buddhism, and
places him within an
overall context of modern Nichirenism. While most
studies on the
Ketsumeidan have focused mainly on the thought and activities
of Nisshō,
the author broadens his scope to include disciple groups formed,
for
instance, by college students and the rural youth, thus shedding new
light
on the structure of the movement. In chapter 3, Ōtani returns to
Seno'o
and his Shinkō Bukkyō Seinen Dōmei, considering his thought (as
expressed
in the diaries he wrote throughout his life) vis-à-vis his daily
activities.
The resulting contrast between Seno'o’s ideas and the course of
the
Nichirenist movement in general serve to help Ōtani rethink not only
the
nature of "new Buddhism" itself but also, ultimately, the
connection
between "Buddhism and the state."
Despite the
above-mentioned contributions, I have, however, to mention
one personal
reservation about Kindai Bukkyō to iu shiza: it has no
concluding chapter. Of
course, as a collection of previously presented
articles, each chapter reads
well as a stand-alone piece, but those who
have been following his work thus
far cannot help but wish for Ōtani's
own overall perspective on his
findings.
One of the most pronounced characteristics of Kindai Bukkyō to
iu shiza,
and perhaps that which sets it apart from previous and more
traditional
works on the topic, is Ōtani's semantic approach. While the likes
of
Yoshida Kyūichi, for instance, saw the history of modern
Japanese
Buddhism as the process of realization of their own postwar ideal
of
modernism--and criticized everything that was not part thereof
as
"feudal"--Ōtani focuses on historical actors’ strategic self-styling
as
"new Buddhists," and on their different understandings of their
religion’s
role vis-à-vis the Japanese state. Also, unlike many of the
works of the
aforementioned "big three," it does not seem that Ōtani
intends Kindai Bukkyō
to iu shiza to be read as a historical
introduction to modern Japanese
Buddhism. It may, nonetheless, be
read as such by scholars who are already
familiar at some level
with the religious history of modern Japan. It will
also surely be
useful for scholars of modern Japan who focus on areas other
than
religion, and wish to become acquainted with current scholarship
in
the field. Indeed, Ōtani’s work not only brings a new perspective
to
the study of modern Japanese Buddhism, but also teaches us
much
concerning how one may use Buddhism as a perspective for
considering
broader questions in the context of modern Japan.
Notes
*This
review is partly based on "Ōtani shūkyō shakai gaku to kindai
Bukkyō kenkyū"
(published as part 1 of "Ōtani Eiichi, Kindai Bukkyō
to iu shiza o yomu," ed.
Yoshinaga Shin’ichi and Ōtani Eiichi,
Nanzan shūkyō bunka kenkyūjo kenkyū
shohō 23 (2013): 14–17.
[1]. Besides the Kanto-based Society for the
Study of Modern Japanese
Buddhist History (Nihon Kindai Bukkyōshi Kenkyūkai,
headed by Hayashi
Makoto), the main hub for scholars in the field, and the
Kansai-based
"Buddhism and Modernity" Research Society ("Bukkyō to
Kindai"
Kenkyūkai, headed by Yoshinaga Shin’ichi), there are also three
other
active research groups focusing on the topic: the Modern Religion
and
Archival Research Group (Kindai Shūkyō Ākaivu Kenkyūkai, led by
Ōtani
Eiichi); the Chikazumi Jōkan Research Group (Chikazumi Jōkan
Kenkyūkai,
led by Iwata Fumiaki), and the Research Group on Buddhist
Apologetic
Discourses in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Japan (Bakumatsu Ishinki
Gohō
Shisō Kenkyūkai, led by Kirihara Kenshin). I should also mention
the
"Shinbukkyō" Research Group ("Shinbukkyō" Kenkyūkai, led by
Yoshinaga
Shin’ichi), and the Nichibunken Research Group "Buddhist
Perspectives
on the Modern and Pre-modern" (Bukkyō kara Mita Zenkindai to
Kindai,
led by Sueki Fumihiko), both of which were active until very
recently.
[2]. A tentative list would include, for instance, the
following works.
Single-author volumes: Ōtani Eiichi, Kindai nihon no
Nichiren shugi
undō (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2001); Moriya Tomoe, Amerika Bukkyō no
tanjō:
nijū seiki shotō nikkei shūkyō no bunka hen’yō (Tokyo: Gendai
shiryō
shuppan, 2001); Chen Jidong, Shinmatsu Bukkyō no kenkyū: Yang
Wenhui
o chūshin to shite (Tokyo: Sankibō busshorin, 2003); Fukushima
Eiju,
Shisōshi to shite no "seishin-shugi" (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2003);
Sueki
Fumihiko, Kindai Nihon no shisō, saikō, 2 vols. (Tokyo:
Toransubyū,
2004); Ogawara Masamichi, Daikyōin no kenkyū: Meiji shoki
shūkyō
gyōsei no tenkai to zasetsu (Tokyo: Keiō gijuku daigaku
shuppankai,
2004); Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya, Nihon no shakai sanka Bukkyō
(Tokyo:
Tōshindō, 2005); Satō Tetsurō, Dai Ajia shisō katsugeki: Bukkyō
ga
musunda, mou hitotsu no kindaishi (Tokyo: Sanga, 2008);
Tanigawa
Yutaka, Meiji zenki no kyōiku, kyōka, Bukkyō (Kyoto:
Shibunkaku,
2008); Okada Masahiko, Wasurerareta Bukkyō tenmongaku (Nagoya:
V2
Solution, 2010); Yamamoto Nobuhiro, Seishin-shugi wa dare no shisō
ka
(Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2011); Ōtani Eiichi, Kindai Bukkyō to iu shiza
(Tokyo:
Perikansha, 2012); Orion Klautau, Kindai Nihon shisō to
shite no Bukkyō
shigaku (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2012); Kondō Shuntarō,
Tennōsei kokka to
“seishin-shugi”: Kiyozawa Manshi to sono monka
(Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2013); and
Shinbori Kanno, Kindai Bukkyō kyōdan
to goeika (Tokyo: Bensei shuppan, 2013).
Edited volumes: Kiba
Akeshi and Cheng Shuwei, eds., Shokuminchi ki Manshū no
shūkyō
(Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 2007); Ogawara Masamichi, ed., Kindai
Nihon
no Bukkyōsha (Tokyo: Keiō gijuku daigaku shuppankai,
2010); Sueki Fumihiko,
ed., Kindai kokka to Bukkyō, vol. 14
of Shin ajia Bukkyō shi (Tokyo: Kōsei
Shuppansha, 2011); and
Sueki Fumihiko et al., eds., Henbō suru Budda: kōsaku
suru
kindai Bukkyō (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, in press). Special issues of
journals:
Sueki Fumihiko, ed., "Bukkyō/Kindai/Ajia," special
issue, Shisō 943 (2002);
and Hayashi Makoto and Ōtani Eiichi,
eds., "Kindai Bukkyō," special issue,
Kikan Nihon Shisōshi
75 (2009). There is also Kindai Bukkyō, a yearly
peer-reviewed
journal already in its twentieth year published by the
Society
for the Study of Modern Japanese Buddhist History.
Unpublished
doctoral dissertations (dates indicate the Japanese
academic
year of submission): Ōsawa Kōji, "Shōwa zenki ni okeru
Ajia
shoshūkyō no chōsa kenkyū katsudō ni kansuru bunsekiteki kenkyū"
(PhD
diss., Taisho University, 2007); Je Jum-Suk, "Higashi
Ajia shokuminchi ni
okeru Nihon shūkyō no 'kindai': shokuminchi
chōsen ni okeru Nihon Bukkyō no
shakai jigyō o chūshin to shite"
(PhD diss., Ritsumeikan University, 2008);
Ejima Naotoshi,
"Kindai nihon ni okeru 'Bukkyō' kan no ichi kenkyū" (PhD
diss.,
Taisho University, 2008); Erik Schicketanz, "Kindai Chūgoku
Bukkyō
no rekishi ninshiki to Nicchū Bukkyō kōryū" (PhD diss.,
University of Tokyo,
2011); Iwata Mami, "Bakumatsu ishinki ni
okeru Shinshū gohōron no kenkyū:
Chōnen to Gesshō no Haiyaron
o chūshin ni" (PhD diss., Ryukoku University,
2011); and Ōmi
Toshihiro, "Kindai Nihon ni okeru Bukkyō no hen'yō ni
kansuru
kenkyū" (PhD diss., Keio University, 2011). Japanese versions
of
Brian Victoria's _Zen at War_ (New York/Tokyo: Weatherhill,
1997, translated
by Aimee L. Tsujimoto as Zen to sensō [Tokyo:
Kōjinsha, 2001]) and James E.
Ketelaar’s _Of Heretics and
Martyrs in Meiji Japan_ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University
Press, 1990, translated by Okada Masahiko as Jakyō/Junkyō
no
Meiji [Tokyo: Perikansha, 2006]) were also highly influential.
Of
course, there are the works by Yamaguchi Teruomi (Meiji
kokka to shūkyō
[Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1999]),
Isomae Jun’ichi (Kindai Nihon no
shūkyō gensetsu to sono keifu
[Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2003]), and Hoshino
Seiji (Kindai
Nihon no shūkyō gainen: shūkyōsha no kotoba to
kindai
[Tokyo: Yūshisha, 2012]), which focus on the concept of
religion
and also deal, to a great extent, with modern
Buddhism. It is also worth
noting that scholars focusing
on Edo-period Buddhism such as Hikino Kyōsuke,
Hōzawa
Naohide, Matsukane Naomi, Nishimura Ryō, and Ueno Daisuke
are
increasingly applying to their work the theoretical
findings of research on
modern Japanese Buddhism, and
envisaging their research in a framework which
includes, and
intends to dialogue with, post-Meiji Buddhism.
[3].
Hayashi Makoto, “Henshū kōki,” Kindai Bukkyō 16 (2009).
[4]. See the
above-mentioned work by Isomae, Kindai Nihon ni
okeru shūkyō gensetu to sono
keifu.
[5]. While in this particular case Ōtani refers solely
to
Isomae’s work, in presenting the ideas of "belief" and "practice"
the
latter refers, in turn, to articles by Winston L. King
("Religion," in _The
Encyclopedia of Religion_, vol. 11, edited
by Mircea Eliade. New York, N.Y.:
MacMillan Publishing Company,
1987: 283) and Seki Kazutoshi (“Nihon kindai to
shūkyō”, Shunjū
393 [1997]: 35).
[6]. Sueki Fumihiko, “Bukkyōshi o
koete,” in Kindai Nihon no
shisō, saikō, vol. 2: Kindai Nihon to Bukkyō,
Toransubyū [2004]:
175; chapter originally published in 2000). Sueki focuses
on Japan
and does not seem to relate his ideas to the concept of
"Protestant
Buddhism" proposed, for instance, by Richard Gombrich and
Gananath
Obeyesekere in _Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri
Lanka_
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), xi and 202
ff.
Ōtani himself considers this term further in a more recent
paper,
"'Purotesutanto bukkyō' gainen o saikō suru," Kindai Bukkyō 20
(2013).
[7]. José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World
(Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994).
If there is
additional discussion of this review, you may access it
through the list
discussion logs at: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl.
Citation:
Orion Klautau. Review of Ōtani, Eiichi, Kindai Bukkyō
to iu shiza: sensō,
Ajia, shakai shugi.
H-Shukyo, H-Net Reviews. January, 2014.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=38987
This
work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-No
Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License.
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