The Revolution of Buddhist Modernism: Jōdo Shin Thought and Politics, 1890–1962 9780824894719

Table of contents :
Contents
Series Editor’s Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I Intellectual Politics
Chapter 1 The Language of Religious Experience
Chapter 2 Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies
Chapter 2 Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies
Chapter 3 Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University
Chapter 4 Heresy, Protests, and the Press
Part III National Politics
Chapter 5 Amida and the Emperor
Chapter 6 A Democratic Sangha
Conclusion
Glossary of Institutional Terms
Glossary of Books and Articles
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Revolution of Buddhist Modernism

Pure Land Buddhist Studies

a publication of the Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union

•

EDITORIAL BOARD Richard K. Payne Chair, Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union Carl Bielefeldt Stanford University Harry Gyokyo Bridge Buddhist Church of Oakland James Dobbins Oberlin College Jérôme Ducor Université de Lausanne, Switzerland Paul Harrison Stanford University Anne Klein Rice University David Matsumoto Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union Scott Mitchell Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union Eisho Nasu Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan Jonathan A. Silk Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands Kenneth K. Tanaka Musashino University, Tokyo, Japan

The Revolution of Buddhist Modernism

Jōdo Shin Thought and Politics, 1890–1962

Jeff Schroeder

University of Hawai‘i Press / Honolulu

© 2022 Institute of Buddhist Studies All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First printing, 2022 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Schroeder, Jeff, author. Title: The revolution of Buddhist modernism : Jōdo Shin thought and politics, 1890–1962 / Jeff Schroeder. Other titles: Pure Land Buddhist studies. Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press, 2022. | Series: Pure Land Buddhist studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022038417 | ISBN 9780824893941 (hardback) | ISBN 9780824894719 (pdf) | ISBN 9780824894726 (epub) | ISBN 9780824894733 (kindle edition) Subjects: LCSH: Kiyozawa, Manshi, 1863–1903—Influence. | Shin (Sect)— Political aspects—Japan. | Shin (Sect)—Japan—History. | Buddhism and politics— Japan. Classification: LCC BQ8712.9.J3 S37 2022 | DDC 294.3/372—dc23/eng/20220817 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022038417 The Pure Land Buddhist Studies series publishes scholarly works on all aspects of the Pure Land Buddhist tradition. Historically, this includes studies of the origins of the tradition in India, its transmission into a variety of religious cultures, and its continuity into the present. Methodologically, the series is committed to pro­ viding a venue for a diversity of approaches, including, but not limited to, an­ thropological, sociological, historical, textual, biographical, philosophical, and interpretive, as well as translations of primary and secondary works. The series will also seek to reprint important works so that they may continue to be avail­ able to the scholarly and lay communities. The series is made possible through the generosity of the Buddhist Churches of America’s Fraternal Benefit Associa­ tion. We wish to express our deep appreciation for its support to the Institute of Buddhist Studies. University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Cover art: The Kōkōdō group, 1901. Kiyozawa Manshi is fourth from the right in the second row. Reproduced from Shūkan Asahi hyakka: Bukkyō o aruku, no. 30 (2004), with permission from Ōtani University Library.

Contents Series Editor’s Preface

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

Part One: Intellectual Politics 1  The Language of Religious Experience

23

2  Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies

55

Part Two: Institutional Politics 3  Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University 4  Heresy, Protests, and the Press

89 116

Part Three: National Politics 5  Amida and the Emperor

149

6  A Democratic Sangha

187

Conclusion

214

Glossary of Institutional Terms

229

Glossary of Books and Articles

233

Notes

237

Bibliography

287

Index

305

v

Series Editor’s Preface

Widely studied in Japan today, Kiyozawa Manshi is increasingly being recognized outside of Japan as one of the most important modern Bud­ dhist thinkers. Yet as is the case with many other Buddhist innovators, Kiyozawa’s ideas and initiatives met with great resistance. Issues related to how Kiyozawa and his followers were valorized—as orthodox or heret­ ical—within the Ōtani denomination of Shin Buddhists are relevant across the full range of Buddhist traditions that continue to change and grow in the present-day. Contestation over authority and legitimacy is the historical norm that the cloak of tradition conceals with claims of undisturbed unanimity unless examined carefully and closely as Jeff Schroeder has done in this work. Important for both the academic study of Buddhism and its popular reception is Schroeder’s focus on disputation regarding authority and legitimacy. These issues have been critical from the earliest periods of the Buddhist institution, starting with the question “What is the author­ itative teaching of Śākyamuni Buddha, or, in the terminology of the tra­ dition itself, what is buddhavacana?” Every developmental moment in the history of Buddhist thought has either accepted the received tradition of what is proper belief and practice—orthodoxy and orthopraxy—or has actively engaged in questioning what texts, teachings, and practices are legitimate and effective. The modernization of Buddhism does not begin in the West, where Buddhism was recreated as a one of the “world religions.” This required a radical restructuring of it to accord with a set of cultural presupposi­ tions about “religion.” The modernization of Buddhism instead origi­ nates in Asia and was largely motivated by anti-colonial forces. The denigration of peoples other than those of western Europe has been cen­ tral to justifying colonialism. Western culture and Christian religion have been—and continue to be—valorized as superior to all other cul­ tures and religious traditions. Claiming this putative superiority has led to the belief that colonized peoples can only benefit from being placed under the control of European powers. The negative effects of colonial­ ism on both the colonized and the colonizers have been an important vii

Series Editor’s Preface

strand of post-colonial thought and has transformed our understanding of the nature of Buddhism in the modern and post–modern worlds. Resistance to negative stereotypes of Asian peoples and their religions motivated many of the key Buddhist movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Examples of politicized reformers of Buddhism include Anagarika Dharmapala, who while perhaps best known in religious studies circles today for his role in introducing Buddhism to the West at the World’s Par­ liament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, was also instrumental in both modernizing Buddhism and contributing to Sinhalese Buddhist national­ ism. Similarly, Taixu both wanted to modernize Buddhism and was active in the political and social transformation of China. And likewise, the cre­ ation of insight meditation as a popular lay practice by Ledi ­Sayadaw was intended not only to revitalize the Buddhism of Burma, but to provide a cultural resistance to British imperialism. The Japanese situation differs from these anti-colonialist ones in that Japan was never colonized by a foreign power. Instead, resistance to neg­ ative stereotypes of Asian peoples led to a cultural and intellectual colo­ nization. European and American ideas and practices were proactively adopted by Japan’s leaders in order to modernize the country and avoid the fate of China, which they saw as having been colonized and deni­ grated. In other words, the modernization of Buddhism in Japan was largely an internal conversation involving the various Buddhist sects and the modernizing and Westernizing government. Complicating this was the invention of State Shinto as distinct from Buddhism. The cre­ ation of State Shinto was part of Japan’s new imperial identity as it sought to create a colonial empire comparable to those of European pow­ ers. Kiyozawa’s followers became leading figures among the Shin Bud­ dhist clerics and educators who struggled to redefine Buddhism in this modern context of globalization, democratization, and empire-building. Schroeder’s exposition of the institutional history surrounding the reception of Kiyozawa’s Buddhist modernism provides an important perspective on how Buddhism not only developed at the transition from nineteenth to twentieth centuries, but also continues to develop in the present day—not only in Japan, but globally.

viii

Acknowledgments

“The first thing you need to understand about Shin Buddhism is its teaching of gratitude.” Such was the lesson I received from Shin priest and scholar Fukushima Kazuto upon my arriving in Kyoto in 2012 as a doctoral student to begin research for this project. I have so much to be grateful for, not the least of which is the opportunity to have spent a decade in Japan, North Carolina, and Oregon researching and writing this book. For that opportunity, and for all the help I received along the way, I have many people to thank. First, I’d like to thank two extraordinary advisors and mentors: Rich­ ard Jaffe, who oversaw this book project from its beginnings, and Fuku­ shima Eiju, who helped see it to its conclusion. Whatever past karma or dumb luck led me to work with each of you, all I can say is that I feel incredibly fortunate and grateful. This book owes tremendously to your generosity and sage guidance. Michael Conway was an invaluable teacher and conversation partner, continually challenging me to examine my sources more carefully. James Dobbins was both a constant source of encouragement and a care­ ful critic of early drafts. Moriya Tomoe offered vital insights and advice during our weekly meetings reading documents together. Tahara Yukio taught me much about Ōtani politics and kindly directed me to many useful sources. Galen Amstutz always provided extremely helpful and thorough replies to my many questions. During my stays in Japan, I benefited enormously from exchanges with a welcoming community of kindai Bukkyō scholars, especially Hayashi Makoto, Orion Klautau, Kondō Shuntarō, Dylan Luers, Okada Masahiko, Ōmi Toshihiro, Ōtani Eiichi, Yamamoto Nobuhiro, and Yoshi­ naga Shin’ichi. At Ōtani University, I learned much from discussions with Ama Toshimaro, Fujii Yūsuke, Inoue Takami, Nabata Naohiko, and Yasutomi Shin’ya. I also thank Kiyozawa Sōshi for welcoming me to Saihōji Temple and answering my questions about the temple’s history and the Kiyozawa family. During my time at Duke University, I received critical feedback and guidance from Barbara Ambros, Hwansoo Kim, David Morgan, Simon ix

Acknowledgments

Partner, Leela Prasad, and Kristina Troost. My research agenda was also shaped by classes with Anne Allison, David Ambaras, Harry Harootu­ nian, and Engseng Ho. At the University of Oregon, I have been fortunate to join a welcoming community of inspiring scholars, supportive staff, and thoughtful stu­ dents. Above all, I offer special thanks to Mark Unno, who has been a constant ally and wonderful conversation partner. I received helpful feedback on chapter drafts from Galen Amstutz, Mark Blum, Jason Josephson Storm, Orion Klautau, Levi McLaughlin, and David McMahan. Natalie Quli and Scott Mitchell offered useful input on my treatment of the category of “Buddhist modernism.” I also received various forms of support and inspiration from Melissa Curley, Jacques Fasan, Alice Freeman, Jeff Hanes, Hans Martin Krämer, Haruchika Takashi, Hoshino Seiji, Rika Ikei, Ishii Kōsei, Kirihara Kenshin, Jessica Main, Lori Meeks, Matt Mitchell, Tori Montrose, Murayama Yasushi, Nawa Tatsunori, John Nelson, Aaron Proffitt, Jessie Starling, Jolyon Thomas, John Tucker, and many others. Initial research for this project was funded by a dissertation fellow­ ship from the Japan Foundation. Final stages of research and writing were supported by a fellowship from the Oregon Humanities Center and the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences. Indexing and other publication expenses were funded in part by grants from the Ore­ gon Humanities Center and the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies. The staff at Ōtani University and its Shin Comprehensive Research Institute graciously facilitated my research in Japan. I thank Richard Payne, Stephanie Chun, and the rest of the editorial and production team that expertly helped see my book into print. I also thank the three anony­ mous reviewers whose pointed critiques and questions led me to make substantial changes during the final stages of revisions. Finally, for countless kindnesses and encouragement, I offer thanks to family in Los Angeles, Vermont, North Carolina, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia and to friends and neighbors in Eugene, Portland, North Carolina, Kyoto, and beyond. To my parents: thank you for instill­ ing in me the curiosity and drive essential for a project like this. To Zak and Naomi: thank you for reminding me to laugh and play each day. And to Lauren: thank you for helping me pass my exams, finish a disserta­ tion, get a job, travel the world, build relationships, celebrate milestones, meet deadlines, take breaks, be self-critical, maintain balance, and so much more. I could never have done this without you.

x

Abbreviations

CWS Shinran. The Collected Works of Shinran, translated by Dennis Hirota, Hisao Inagaki, Michio Tokunaga, and Ryushin Uryuzu. 2 vols. Kyoto: Jōdo Shinshū Hongwangji-ha, 1997. KMZ Kiyozawa Manshi. Kiyozawa Manshi zenshū, edited by Ōtani Daigaku. 9 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2002–2003. ODH Ōtani Daigaku Hyakunenshi Henshū Iinkai, ed. Ōtani Daigaku hyakunenshi. 3 vols. Kyoto: Ōtani Daigaku, 2001. SRS Soga Ryōjin. Soga Ryōjin senshū, edited by Soga Ryōjin Senshū Kankōkai. 12 vols. Tokyo: Yayoi Shobō, 1970–1972.

xi

Introduction

On the morning of June 3, 1903, Kiyozawa Manshi sat alone in his temple, coughing up blood—150 grams of it, according to his meticulous diary. Kiyozawa was the head priest of a modest Buddhist temple in Ōhama, a small industrial town on the coast of central Japan. Two days prior, he had relocated from a small, windowed room on the second floor to a smaller, dark corner room on the first floor that allowed his attendant to care for him more easily. Kiyozawa’s final days were lonely ones. The previous November, his wife, Yasuko, had died of tuberculosis, the same illness he had long been suffering from. Two of their four children also died that year. Kiyozawa lived in the temple with his in-laws, who were not fond of him. In fact, he was not much liked by anyone in the town of Ōhama. An outsider, whose marriage to Yasuko had been arranged by sect administrators, Kiyozawa was viewed by his Ōhama congregation as a terrible priest. He was away in Kyoto or Tokyo on official business too often, his philosophy-laden sermons were impossible to understand, and he was not pleasant to look at. Less than five feet tall, with a head awk­ wardly large for his body, he sometimes stood before his congregation to preach while spitting blood into a spittoon. Far away in Tokyo, a group of Buddhist priests lived together in a com­ munal house, fervently seeking awakening. For a time, Kiyozawa had left Ōhama and lived there with them as their teacher. Besides giving regular sermons for his followers, he had also been serving as the first president of a new Buddhist university. He had hoped the university would main­ tain a purely religious orientation, but when students demanded that the university seek government accreditation, Kiyozawa had resigned and returned to Ōhama. Around the time he was writing the last entry in his diary, one of his followers received a letter from him along with a short essay: “This Is How I Have Faith in Buddha.”1 Kiyozawa’s final essay would become a veritable scripture for his followers. In it, he juxtaposed his prior anguish, intellectual frustration, and suicidal thoughts with the great peace of mind he now had achieved through faith in the Buddha. The impact of Kiyozawa’s essay was surely heightened by the fact that it had been written while undergoing the agonies of dying. 1

Introduction

On June 4, Kiyozawa’s attendant asked if he had any final words. Kiyo­ zawa responded, “Nothing at all.” He died at 1:00 a.m. on June 6. Thus ended the extraordinary life of Kiyozawa Manshi. And thus begins an even more extraordinary story.

The Extraordinariness of Kiyozawa Manshi The story of Buddhism in modern Japan begins with a crisis. Following the intrusion of Matthew Perry’s black ships, a samurai rebellion, and the enthronement of a boy emperor, a sweeping set of revolutionary pol­ icy changes was unfurled by the new Meiji government beginning in 1868. Among those new policies were edicts ordering the separation of Shinto kami from buddhas. Shinto rituals and theologies, purified of Buddhist influence, were to provide an ideological foundation for rule by the divine emperor. For Buddhists, the new policies brought loss of state support, loss of revenues, closing of temples, confiscation of temple lands, and forced laicization of many priests. They also triggered riots in various locales where Shinto priests and their supporters, disgruntled by centuries-long subjection to Buddhist priestly authority, desecrated Buddhist temples, burned Buddhist scriptures, and plundered Buddhist treasures under the banner “abolish Buddhism and destroy Śākyamuni.” These riots and policy changes were perceived by some as so threatening that one prominent Buddhist leader predicted “an Imperial Rescript eradicating Buddhism within five to seven years.”2 In the new, modernizing Japan of the Meiji era (1868–1912), Buddhists were castigated for economic parasitism, for idleness and corruption, for upholding a tradition of foreign origin, and for promoting teachings out of touch with modern ideals of individualism and progress. Also, in strik­ ing contrast to its image in many parts of the world today, Buddhism was critiqued for its disharmony with modern science and rational thought. In particular, Buddhist teachings about a Mount Sumeru–centered cos­ mos, heavens, hells, pure lands, transcendent buddhas and bodhisattvas, and evil spirits were increasingly viewed as empty superstitions.3 Enter Kiyozawa Manshi (清沢満之). Born on June 26, 1863, in Nagoya in the final years of the waning Tokugawa era (1603–1868), the son of a poor, low-ranking samurai who peddled tea to provide for his family, Kiyozawa entered the Buddhist priesthood at the age of fifteen to get access to free education.4 Such education was on offer at a school in Kyoto run by the Ōtani branch (Ōtani-ha, 大谷派) of the Jōdo Shin, or True Pure Land, sect (Jōdo Shinshū, 浄土真宗; Shin sect for short). Kiyozawa proved such an 2

Introduction

exceptional student that the Ōtani authorities eventually sponsored his studies of Western philosophy at the elite Tokyo Imperial University. Kiyo­ zawa’s first major work, an attempt to synthesize Buddhist and Western philosophy, was translated into English and distributed at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago. In spite of his successes, Kiyozawa relinquished his budding career as an academic philo­sopher and turned instead to a life of religious devotion. He served as teacher and principal at various Ōtani-run schools in Kyoto, rising to the position of founding pres­ ident of Shinshū (later Ōtani) University in Tokyo, led a nationwide protest movement calling for democratic reform of the Buddhist establishment, and engaged in a personal quest for Buddhist awakening involving extreme forms of asceticism, including a diet consisting of nothing but buckwheat flour and pine resin. In the final years of his short life, Kiyozawa headed a communal house of Buddhist seekers known as the Kōkōdō (浩々洞, deep cave) and helped develop an approach to Buddhism called Seishinshugi (精神主義, spiritualism), which taught introspection, realization of the limits of one’s powers, and a transformative encounter with Amida Bud­ dha, whom Kiyozawa also referred to as “the Infinite” (mugensha, 無限者). “We do not have faith in kami and buddhas because they exist,” Kiyo­ zawa famously wrote. “Kami and buddhas exist for us because we have faith in them.” In Kiyozawa’s telling, Pure Land Buddhism was a matter of inner discovery and transformation fostered by, but not reliant on, scriptures, rituals, and institutions. Even Buddhism’s ethical teachings, according to Kiyozawa, were a means toward the inner discovery of one’s own moral powerlessness and one’s need to rely on a power outside one­ self. This inner transformation—an experience of awakening ( jikaku, 自覚) brought on through faith (shinjin, 信心) in Amida Buddha—was said to bring deep ­contentment, freedom, and compassion for others.5 While others taught that such liberation and empowerment were possible only through rebirth in Amida Buddha’s Pure Land after death, Kiyozawa declared the possibility of encountering Amida and attaining liberation in this world during this life. In the 1960s, pioneering scholars of modern Japanese Buddhism like Yoshida Kyūichi and Kashiwahara Yūsen drew attention to Kiyozawa’s movement as a pinnacle in the project of reforming Buddhism for the modern world. In their assessment, Kiyozawa initiated the praiseworthy processes of upending feudal sect authorities, surmounting superstitious interpretations of Buddhist teachings, and reframing Buddhism as an introspective search for truth.6 The ensuing decades saw a steady flow of scholarship on Kiyozawa, some of it critical, most of it echoing Yoshida’s 3

Introduction

and Kashiwahara’s positive assessment.7 More recently, Hayashi Makoto and Ōtani Eiichi have questioned whether scholars’ ­fixation on Kiyozawa and other modernist reformers like him may be problematic. The study of modern Buddhism, they argue, ought not focus only on the modernization of Buddhism. Such a focus, grounded in unacknowledged normative views about what modernity ought to consist of and how Buddhism ought to reform itself, has obstructed development of a more comprehensive pic­ ture of Buddhism in modern Japan. Toward such ends, they point to the need for studies of folk Buddhism, traditionalist and neo-traditionalist elements within modern Buddhism, Buddhist institutions, Buddhist social networks, Buddhism-state relations, and Buddhism and colonialism.8 Such interventions notwithstanding, the appetite for research into the founding figures of Japanese Buddhist modernism, Kiyozawa included, has only grown.9 Especially in the period since Kiyozawa’s hundred-year anniversary memorial celebrations in 2002, there has been a flood of scholarship on him, including monographs, edited vol­ umes, translations, articles, and dissertations.10 In this extensive schol­ arship, Kiyozawa variously figures as an innovative philosopher, a heroic restorer of Jōdo Shin sect founder Shinran’s (親鸞, 1173–1263) true teach­ ings, an intrepid pioneer in the development of a modernized Buddhism, or a flawed figure who produced a distorted Buddhism of introversion and social conservatism.11 In all cases, however, there seems to exist a broad consensus that anyone interested in the project of Buddhism’s adaptation to the modern world ought to study the life and thought of ­Kiyozawa and other extraordinary individuals like him.

A More Extraordinary Story But Kiyozawa died alone, in a provincial temple, his ambitions unreal­ ized. Kiyozawa did not change the world of Japanese Buddhism. But that world was changed. There is a gap here between the diminutive, dis­ eased, disliked priest who died young, his vision for a purified Buddhism embraced by only a tiny band of followers, and the larger-than-life, beloved hero of Buddhist modernism discussed profusely in academic scholarship whose portrait now hangs prominently in the halls of Ōtani University, whose life story has been dramatized in novels, theatrical productions, and television documentaries, and whose death has been memorialized in temples across the country.12 This is a gap separating Kiyozawa the historical individual from Kiyozawa the symbol of a new orthodoxy—a fifty-three-year gap, according to my reckoning, for it was 4

Introduction

in 1956 that Ōtani authorities officially endorsed Kiyozawa and his thought, initiating a torrent of Kiyozawa studies, Kiyozawa memorial­ ization, and Kiyozawa-inspired organizational reforms. How was this gap traversed? How did concrete changes in the world of modern Japa­ nese Buddhism result from the eccentric visions of a single priest? When Kiyozawa died, it was left to others to speak for him. His follow­ ers immediately set to work preparing the next issues of their group’s Seishinkai (精神界, Spiritual world) journal, complete with reproductions of ­Kiyozawa’s writings and hagiographical narratives of his life. Memo­ rial services were held each year on the anniversary of his death in Ōhama, in Tokyo, and in temples across the country, oftentimes featur­ ing a ritual reading of his “This Is How I Have Faith in Buddha” essay (referred to by the abbreviated title “My Faith”). His pastorally inclined

Kiyozawa Manshi depicted on a hanging scroll at Saihōji Temple. The scroll’s haiku poem, penned by ­future chief abbot Ōtani Kōen, reads: “If even ­pumpkins / have Buddha nature / so it goes.” “Pumpkins” is reportedly an allusion to Kiyozawa’s oversized head.

5

Introduction

followers—­particularly Akegarasu  Haya (暁烏敏, 1877–1954) and Tada Kanae (多田鼎, 1875–1937)—developed and disseminated Kiyozawa’s thinking regionally through preaching and publishing. His academically inclined ­followers—particularly Sasaki Gesshō (佐々木月樵, 1875–1926), Soga Ryōjin (曽我量深, 1875–1971), and Kaneko Daiei (金子大栄, 1881– 1976)—developed and disseminated his thinking at the university that Kiyozawa had been instrumental in founding. Traditionalist preachers, scholars, and lay members opposed both groups every step of the way through their own preaching and publishing, as well as through admin­ istrative battles, heresy proceedings, and doctrinal debates, all of this carried out within a rapidly changing social-political context. By the 1950s, Kiyozawa’s proponents had succeeded in amplifying his voice above the cacophony of competing voices present within the Ōtani community. Naturally, their struggle to amplify Kiyozawa’s voice did not leave it unaltered; the voice that emerged was a product of the voices of everyone involved, of an entire community. By tracing this complex his­ tory, this book connects the dots between the person of Kiyozawa and the historical changes that he helped bring about, producing a more comprehensive, more realistic, and more extraordinary story of Bud­ dhist modernization that accounts for the contributions of diverse indi­ viduals, the significance of institutions, and the influence of national politics and social movements, among many other factors. Such an approach promises to link the extensive study of Kiyozawa and other extraordinary Buddhist modernizers like him to the understudied fac­ ets of “modern Buddhism” identified by Ōtani and Hayashi. This book offers a study of Buddhist orthodoxy, by which I mean that subsection of Buddhist thought that has been rendered authoritative for a given community. Who possesses the authority to determine ortho­ doxy, how those determinations are made, and how distinct the line is between orthodoxy and heterodoxy are questions that need answering in each particular case. Through various means—doctrinal debate, pop­ ular support, institutional endorsement, educational policies, and so on—certain ideas are authorized as correct and come to be transmitted to future generations as “tradition.” To understand Buddhist orthodoxy requires examination not just of its content but also of the various social and political processes that go into determining it. In other words, we need to examine how communities and institutions incorporate or ­exclude the ideas of individuals, maintaining past orthodoxies or gener­ ating new ones.13 In the case of modern Ōtani thought, rather than just studying Kiyozawa’s writings in relation to his life and times, we should 6

Introduction

also examine the historical processes by which his work came to be authorized as orthodoxy for the Ōtani community.14 There are many reasons why scholars might choose to study—and read­ ers  might prefer to read  about—the Buddhist thought of extra­ordinary individuals like Kiyozawa ​rather than the Buddhist orthodoxy of a com­ munity. We may equate Buddhism with the insights and practices of bud­ dhas and thus prefer to study great individuals because they most closely approximate buddhas. Or subscribing to a “great man” theory of Buddhist history, we might believe that great individuals—­buddhas, bodhisattvas, sect founders, Zen masters, chief abbots, holy persons—are the engines of the Buddhist tradition. Or we might hold the view that Buddhist institu­ tions are fundamentally conservative or corrupt and that significant Bud­ dhist insights and innovations tend to come from individuals who are opposed to, or are working outside of, those institutions.15 In this book, I seek to show that such assumptions are problematic and that, as Durkheim would have us understand, B ­ uddhist ideas and practices are “social facts” produced by communities and their institutions.16 In Buddhist terms, I am saying that the sangha is not just a container for the Buddha and the dharma; the sangha also generates the Buddha and the dharma. One critique that must be considered here is that focus on orthodoxy may lead to neglect of heterodoxies, heresies, or individuals and groups who do not play a central role in the production and maintenance of ortho­ doxy. In the case of Kiyozawa, by turning to the question of how his thoughts became  orthodoxy for  the Ōtani community, this book reveals the contributions of many individuals and groups hitherto neglected in scholarship, including his circle of disciples, his critics, administrators of various types and ranks, university faculty and students, and lay­people. Thus, this study of orthodoxy expands the range of voices heard. Yet cer­ tain voices are conspicuously left out. For example, this book does not fea­ ture many women.17 The Shin sect was founded by a man; all the seven Shin patriarchs—Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Tanluan, Daochuo, Shandao, Genshin, and Hōnen—are men; the Ōtani organization has been run almost entirely by men; until recently, women have rarely been permitted to serve in priestly roles; and Ōtani’s seminaries and universities have been run largely by men.18 As such, women’s contributions to Shin Buddhist ortho­ doxy are less visible than those of men. Jessica Starling has recently drawn attention to the ways in which Shin temple wives shape the dispositions of individual practitioners through the influence they exert in informal, domestic settings.19 While this book’s study of modern Ōtani thought and politics focuses on what might be called “formal orthodoxy”—the 7

Introduction

orthodoxy of the organization’s central institutions, highest-ranking scholars, and official publications—future studies might attempt to con­ ceptualize orthodoxy in broader terms so as to include attention to infor­ mal, domestic channels of influence and tradition-formation.

Revival, Renewal, Revolution As anthropologist Clifford Geertz once noted, “The notion that religions change seems in itself almost a heresy. For what is faith but a clinging to the eternal, worship but a celebration of the permanent?”20 In the case of Shin Buddhism, the sermons of Śākyamuni Buddha found in the three Pure Land sutras, Shinran’s interpretations of those sermons and other writings, and the interpretations of Shinran’s interpretations by his suc­ cessors Kakunyo, Zonkaku, and Rennyo are treated as foundational, true for all times and places and thus impervious to revision. In an ideal sense, the primary task for Shin Buddhist leaders and thinkers is to pre­ serve, comprehend, and transmit those eternally true Buddhist teach­ ings, not to innovate new ones. In practice, though, the project of preserving and transmitting B ­ uddhist traditions invariably produces changes in those traditions. Decline, devel­ opment, deviation, distortion, purification, adaptation, revival, restoration, reformation, transformation, innovation—we have many ways of discuss­ ing such changes. Undesirable changes (decline, deviation, distortion) cre­ ate situations that demand reforms. Broadly speaking, such reforms can be categorized into efforts at revival (restoration, return, recovery) of past tra­ ditions and renewal (adaptation, innovation, development) through gener­ ation of new forms. The precept revival movement, led by Jōdo priest Fukuda Gyōkai and Shingon priest Shaku Unshō, is a good example of the former. Drawing on earlier discourses of anti-Buddhist critique and Bud­ dhist self-critique, Fukuda and Unshō interpreted the early Meiji persecu­ tion of Buddhism as just desserts for the corruption, indolence, and ignorance of the Buddhist community.21 As a solution, they promoted the revival of certain precept practices both for laypeople and priests. They did this in the context of the state’s 1872 decriminalization of marriage and meat-eating by priests, a drastic policy reversal that triggered widespread debates over whether celibacy and vegetarianism were evil customs of the past that ought to be abandoned. Rather than trying to adapt Buddhism to a new age of nation-building and science, Fukuda and Unshō sought to restore (fukko, 復古) and revive (fukkō, 復興) past precept practices, which they took to be immutable.22 Such attempts to revive earlier precept 8

Introduction

traditions are related to broader efforts by modern Japanese Buddhists to recover and return to the original teachings of Śākyamuni.23 By contrast, other Buddhists confronted the early Meiji crisis as an occasion for developing new forms of thought and practice. Some advo­ cated priestly marriage and meat-eating as a means of integrating Bud­ dhist priests into the nation and increasing their effectiveness as national educators and proselytizers.24 Nichiren ex-priest Tanaka Chigaku inno­ vated the first Japanese Buddhist wedding ceremony to accommodate such changes.25 In regard to Buddhist thought, New Buddhism (Shin Bukkyō, 新仏教) movement members Furukawa Rōsen and Sugimura Sojinkan argued that Buddhists had entered a new age of skepticism in which critical, rational reassessment of Buddhist teachings would enable Buddhist thought to evolve to new levels.26 Similarly, Sōtō Zen scholar Hara Tanzan promoted the integration of scientific methods into the study of Buddhist thought so as to enhance Buddhist understandings and win the approval of modern, science-minded audiences.27 Renewal in these cases need not imply a radical break with the past. Old ideas and practices are updated, modified, or expressed in new forms; the outward form is changed while an inner essence purportedly remains. In Kiyozawa and his Seishinshugi followers’ efforts at reform, one sees elements of both revival and renewal. They sought to cast off what they viewed as accumulated superstitions and to revive proper understand­ ing of Shinran’s teachings. In part, this meant disavowing the orthodox interpretive tradition and reengaging Shinran’s writings directly. In later decades, it meant attempting to restore the ideal of the Shin orga­ nization as an egalitarian one of dōbō (同朋, companions) with priests and laypeople all sharing in the same equal faith. In other instances, Kiyozawa and his followers’ efforts can be better characterized as attempts at renewal. Kiyozawa’s philosophical explorations and ascetic practices, Soga Ryōjin’s reinterpretations of Shin teachings and novel renderings of Shin terminology, Kaneko Daiei’s systematization of Shin Buddhist studies as a modern academic discipline, and Sasaki’s efforts to restructure the Ōtani University curriculum are all examples of this. So, too, as discussed below, are Soga’s and Kaneko’s wartime writings. “Revival” and “renewal” are terms that identify the directionality of a change, with revival pointing toward the past and renewal pointing toward the future.28 In regard to the scope of a change, we need different terms. The reforms carried out by Kiyozawa and his followers, in my assessment, amounted to a revolution. Here I contrast “revolutionary” change with “cumulative” change, a set of terms I adopt from Thomas 9

Introduction

Kuhn’s work on scientific revolutions. The history of science, as Kuhn notes, is ordinarily told as one of cumulative, incremental progress, yet a close examination of that history shows normal periods of cumulative scientific progress occasionally punctuated by dramatic shifts from one paradigm to another (e.g., from Ptolemaic to Copernican astronomy or from the phlogiston to the oxygen theory of combustion). Kuhn describes these revolutionary shifts as marking a rupture with the past and as generating entirely new questions, methods of study, principles of eval­ uation, equipment, textbooks, and institutions.29 In a similar way, cer­ tain Buddhist reforms are so transformative that they mark a rupture with the preceding period (although not with the past altogether) and lead toward wide-ranging, structural changes.30 This book will track how the emergence of this-worldly interpretations of Shin teachings among Kiyozawa and his followers marked a rupture with the prevailing other-worldly orthodoxy and led toward a wide range of transforma­ tions within the Ōtani community—not just new doctrinal interpreta­ tions but also new ways of speaking about Shin teachings, new methods for studying them, a new education system, new norms for evaluating orthodoxy and heresy, and a new organizational structure. Thus, begin­ ning from an investigation of one Buddhist priest’s thought, this book will open out into a multifaceted study of the discursive, practical, com­ munal, and institutional dimensions of modern Ōtani Buddhism.31 One important distinction between this book’s portrait of Buddhist revolution and Kuhn’s account of scientific revolution is the relative weight placed on external social, economic, and political factors. Kuhn acknowledges the importance of external factors in triggering crises that can prompt a scientific paradigm shift, but overall, his account portrays scientific revolution as a self-enclosed process driven by com­ peting ideas. 32 By contrast, this book highlights the critical impor­ tance of broader social-political changes—including the development of a national education system, state suppression of leftist political thought, war mobilization, and postwar policies of democratization— in shaping actions and outcomes within the Ōtani community’s revolu­ tionary conflict. Cumulative changes can be added to an existing system without major disruption. Revolutionary changes bring conflict. In Kuhn’s terms, the viewpoints of Kiyozawa and his followers were “incommensurable” with those of leading Ōtani doctrinal authorities, so their differences could not be reconciled through ordinary means (e.g., scriptural study or appeal to higher authorities). Competing camps formed and struggled 10

Introduction

to muster as much force to their sides as they could. Here, Kiyozawa and his followers’ revolution can be conceptualized as revolutionary in the Marxist sense—uniting people into a common cause, overthrowing the ruling class, and taking control of the means of production. In this case, the people were branch-temple priests and students; the ruling class comprised wealthy lay donors, high-ranking scholars, and the Ōtani chief abbot and his family; and the means of production were the Ōtani organization’s administrative bodies, schools and universities, and newspapers and journals. The outcome of that revolutionary struggle depended on political dynamics both within and outside the Ōtani Bud­ dhist world. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of overlapping cultural and political fields, this book will explore how an intellectual conflict gave rise to an institutional conflict that was in turn shaped by broader national and international conflicts. By using the term “revolution,” I also intend to reinforce a point already introduced above—that the modernization of the Ōtani commu­ nity was not the product of a single individual. Minor, incremental reforms might be carried out by an individual, but revolutionary reforms require the work of a community. The very first revolution of Buddhist history—Śākyamuni Buddha’s setting in motion of the wheel of dharma—was apparently achieved through the heroic actions and insights of one great individual. Through his first sermon, Śākyamuni, like an all-powerful cakravartin king, is said to have set in motion a pro­ cess that “cannot be stopped by any renunciant or brahman or māra or brahma or by anyone in the world.”33 Yet in that scriptural account, it is only after a succession of divine beings echo the announcement that the wheel of dharma has been set in motion that “this ten thousandfold world system shook, quaked, and trembled, and an immeasurable glori­ ous radiance appeared in the world.” Without those heavenly beings’ amplifying cries, would Śākyamuni’s sermon have shaken the world? In historical terms, Śākyamuni’s revolutionary impact depended on the contributions of his followers grasping his message and relaying it to others and also on the kings who sponsored his community. Similarly, Kiyozawa came to be heralded by his followers and admirers as a new Śākyamuni, reborn into modern Japan to set the wheel of dharma in motion once more.34 But in historical terms, the revolution Kiyozawa helped initiate was accomplished through the amplifying cries of a whole community of Buddhists—scholars, preachers, administrators, students, and laypeople—and their adaptive responses to the changing politics of the era. 11

Introduction

Traditionalism and Modernism Throughout the book, I refer to Kiyozawa and his followers and support­ ers as “modernists” and to their opponents as “traditionalists.” Given how ambiguous and problematic these terms can be, an explanation is in order. In part, I use these labels to reflect how these groups referred to their own competing agendas. Kiyozawa and his followers frequently emphasized the need to reformulate Shin Buddhist teachings for people living in the modern age (kindai, 近代); their opponents frequently cri­ tiqued such reformulations as dangerous deviations from tradition (dentō, 伝統). The former group tended to embrace modern forces of science and democracy as positive influences that could help purify Shin teachings; the latter tended to warn of the corrupting influence of the changing intellectual world. Underlying these competing agendas was a difference in how each group perceived current sect orthodoxy. The former group, harboring skepticism toward that orthodoxy, was intent on rediscovering and reexpressing the essence of Shin teachings in modern forms; the lat­ ter group, content with current sect orthodoxy, sought to preserve and promote those established doctrinal interpretations and practices. The terms “modernist” and “traditional” have come to be used by Buddhist studies scholars in a broader sense to differentiate between established forms of Buddhism passed down from the past and new forms of Buddhism that emerged through nineteenth- and twentiethcentury encounters with Western modernity. In The Making of Buddhist Mod­ ichard ernism, David McMahan, building on the work of Heinz Bechert, R ­Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere, and Donald S. Lopez Jr., associates traditional Buddhism with belief in supernatural beings, emphasis on ritual, established institutions, social hierarchy, and trust in external authorities and Buddhist modernism with disbelief in the supernatural, rejection of ritual, deinstitutionalization, egalitarian ideals, and location of authority in individuals. These associations apply fairly well to the tra­ ditionalists and modernists discussed in this book. Kiyozawa’s followers expressed skepticism toward supernatural elements of Shin mythology and emphasized the authority of personal experience. However, their worldview was not strictly naturalistic; they granted an important role to faith alongside reason and experience, and their aim was to renew established Buddhist institutions, not discard them. The opponents of Kiyozawa’s faction were traditionalist, in McMahan’s terms, in their defense of established, hierarchical institutions, but they also tended to reject ritualism and certain forms of supernatural belief. 12

Introduction

Despite the apparent applicability of McMahan’s definitions to mod­ ern Ōtani history, I am hesitant to adopt those definitions here. As crit­ ics have noted, McMahan and Lopez derive their definitions from an examination of mostly English-language sources representing the voices of either North American and European Buddhists or Asian Buddhists speaking to Euro-American audiences. Shifting the focus away from Euro-America (or simply examining American Buddhism more closely), scholars have found Buddhists selectively adopting features of Western modernity in a great diversity of ways that do not always conform to Buddhist modernism as outlined by McMahan. These diverse attempts at modernization are not necessarily anti-supernatural, anti-ritual, or anti-institutional, but are they any less modernist?35 McMahan initially conceptualized traditional and modernist Bud­ dhism as two ends of a “widely variegated continuum” of hybrid forms in which traditional and modernist features are combined in diverse ways. The problem with this conceptualization is its positing of a certain form of Buddhist modernism as the norm. On a bipolar continuum, certain forms are more “modernist” than others, and one form—even if only an abstraction—is the most modernist of all. In subsequent essays, McMa­ han endorsed the now prevalent idea of multiple modernities along with the idea of multiple Buddhist modernisms. Under this framework, Amer­ ican Buddhists practicing Zen in a lay-centered meditation group, Sri Lankan Buddhists reasserting tradition in an ethnocentric, nationalistic framework, and Thai Buddhists seeking relief from economic uncer­ tainty through amulet worship are considered equally modernist insofar as they are all responding to the transformative forces of modernity.36 Charles Taylor’s notion of a “nova effect” is clarifying here. Taylor describes modernization as a process in which an established order (e.g., Catholic teachings and papal rule) is called into question, leading to a supernova-like explosion of alternative worldviews and traditions (e.g., various forms of Protestantism, Romanticism, secular humanism, Nietzscheanism).37 In a similar way, the collision of Buddhist Asia with Western colonialism, industrial capitalism, scientific rationalism, and Christianity brought established Buddhist worldviews and traditions into question and caused an explosion of adaptive responses. What is essential to Buddhist modernism, from this perspective, is not any spe­ cific feature but just the act of adaptive transformation—even acts of adaptive transformation that entail renewed emphasis on tradition. Adaptation to new conditions is a feature of Buddhism everywhere. Thus, any form of Buddhism in the modern era might be viewed as 13

Introduction

modernist from a certain perspective. To be meaningful, the term “mod­ ernist” must be used to draw contrast with one or more opposing tenden­ cies. In my usage, “modernist” and “traditionalist” are terms indicating opposing sides in conflicts over the adaptation of Buddhism to new, mod­ ern conditions. In any given conflict, traditionalists are those intent on preserving established teachings and practices while modernists are those intent on changing or overthrowing established teachings and practices. This definitional scheme has a number of advantages. First, it rec­ ognizes modernism and traditionalism as agendas, not fixed charac­ teristics, thus allowing for the possibility that a single individual or group may be traditionalist in one context and modernist in another. Second, it makes use of binary categories in a defensible way, to account for the empirical reality of bipolarization that arises in cases of conflict. And third, it potentially avoids the problem of implicit nor­ mative judgments. Here, the label “modernist” does not signify total abandonment of the past, nor does the label “traditionalist” imply total resistance to change. 38 Just about all Buddhists revere and seek connection to what they con­ sider to be the original teachings of Buddhism. What traditionalists and modernists disagree about is whether present traditions faithfully reflect and effectively manifest those original teachings. “Tradition” need not indicate an idea or practice of ancient provenance. In the case of Shin Buddhism, sect founder Shinran introduced novel ideas into the world of Japanese Buddhism—that faith is a gift received from Amida, that prayer to kami belies a lack of faith, and that celibate monasticism ought to be dispensed with. Yet he established those ideas as traditional by connecting them to the writings of seven discontinuous Buddhist thinkers of the past.39 Centuries later, the Shin sect is said to have been restored through Rennyo’s novel doctrinal explanations and institu­ tional innovations, all of which came to be viewed as traditional by later Shin followers.40 “Traditional” is a term often used to confer authority on present ideas or practices by claiming their connection to an authori­ tative past, and such claims can of course be disputed. Many Shin prac­ tices and understandings deemed traditional during the Meiji period had actually been worked out during the preceding Tokugawa period. In attempting to overthrow those traditions and institute new ones, Ōtani modernists were not rejecting Shinran or the norms of the early Shin community; on the contrary, they claimed to be restoring the essential understandings and practices of Shinran’s time, albeit through new modern forms—just as Rennyo had done in his time. 14

Introduction

Just about all Buddhists can also be expected to affirm the idea that Buddhist traditions do and must change. What traditionalists and mod­ ernists disagree about is the type or scope of change that is appropriate. As discussed above, change can occur incrementally or through revolu­ tionary rupture. Modernization, as defined here, can occur in either way. In a given conflict, traditionalists perceive present traditions as sufficiently connected to an authoritative past and thus not needing change or else requiring only incremental change; modernists perceive present traditions as disconnected from that authoritative past and thus requiring change, sometimes of the revolutionary type. Essentially, I am using the terms “modernist” and “traditionalist” to describe the dynamics of a conflict that is present throughout Buddhist history. The traditions fought over by early Meiji period Shin Buddhists were the modernist reforms of an earlier era. The modernist reforms introduced by Kiyozawa and his followers, once established as sect ortho­ doxy in postwar Japan, would become the sect’s new traditions. Given the strong associations of the term “modern” with a particular period in history, we need different terms for discussing how this ever-present conflict plays out in other periods. Thus, scholars speak of ­Buddhist modernism as now being challenged by processes of “retraditionaliza­ tion” and “postmodernization.”41 The terms are different; the points of contention are changed, but the underlying dynamic of conflict and transformation is the same.

The Politics of Buddhist Thought A thorough accounting of one individual’s life and thought is impossible. A thorough accounting of the life and (orthodox) thought of a commu­ nity of nearly eight million members is infinitely more so.42 Tracing cer­ tain key historical developments at the level of intellectual politics, institutional politics, and national politics from roughly 1890 through 1962, this book aims to outline the major contours of a revolution within the modern Ōtani community.43 The first section of the book investigates the early stages of that revo­ lution, concentrating on its intellectual politics. Chapter 1 focuses on Kiyozawa’s strategic use of language. Through a close reading of writings from early, middle, and late stages in his career, I demonstrate how the language Kiyozawa used to discuss Shin teachings changed over time even as his basic doctrinal standpoint remained consistent. Early in his career, Kiyozawa’s subjectivist, this-worldly interpretations of Shin 15

Introduction

teachings were largely established; only by the end of his career, however, did he come to frame those interpretations through a quasi-­scientific language of “experiments,” “experiences,” and “facts.” This shift in rhe­ torical strategy entailed both a reimagining of empiricism to include “ascetic experiments,” “subjective facts,” and “mental experiences” and a critique of scientific empiricism as limited and grounded in unacknowl­ edged faith commitments. Threading the needle between affirmation of Shin Buddhism’s scientific aspects and insistence that Shin Buddhism exceeds the bounds of science as ordinarily conceived, Kiyozawa helped develop a new empiricist way of speaking about Buddhism that was inte­ gral to his followers’ subsequent efforts to promote Shin modernism. Chapter 2 turns to the careers of three of Kiyozawa’s followers and the topic of Buddhist studies methodology. The prevailing method of Bud­ dhist studies among Ōtani scholars was focused on explicating key scrip­ tural terms and phrases and demonstrating consistency in meaning across the web of orthodox Shin teachers, including the seven Shin patriarchs, Shinran and his descendants, and a lineage of top Shin schol­ ars stemming from the Tokugawa period. Building on foundations laid by their teacher, Sasaki Gesshō, Soga Ryōjin, and Kaneko Daiei developed a new method of Buddhist studies primarily concerned with generating a transformative experience of awakening for the scholar or student. This shift in perspective introduced a liberal view toward what texts counted as scripture, a presentist view in regard to the meaning of teachings ostensibly about the distant past or future, an iconoclastic view that saw merit in the rejection of orthodox interpretations, and a rationalist view in regard to the nature of Amida and the Pure Land. Ultimately, the determination of Ōtani orthodoxy hinged on a choice between these two radically different, incommensurable models of Bud­ dhist studies, one of them oriented toward demonstrating the unity of sect teachings, the other oriented toward the pursuit and systematic explanation of individual experiences of awakening. Such incommensu­ rability yielded a divergence of approaches that could not be reconciled on an intellectual plane by the scholars involved. The next section of the book shifts to institutional politics. Chapter 3 charts institutional developments within the Ōtani organization—­ particularly its institutions of higher education—from the 1860s to the 1920s. During the Meiji period, Buddhism was classified as a “religion” pertaining to people’s private beliefs and was systematically excluded from public affairs, including the new national education system. In response, Buddhist leaders attempted to reassert Buddhism’s public 16

Introduction

significance through the establishment of private schools, universities, and research institutes. Within the Ōtani community, these new schools and institutes, which taught modern curricula inclusive of science, psy­ chology, foreign languages, and philosophy, stood in marked tension with the organization’s traditional seminary. Ōtani’s seminary scholars fought to retain their status as sole arbiters of Ōtani orthodoxy, while Ōtani’s university scholars increasingly laid claim to doctrinal authority on the basis of their ability to reformulate Shin teachings in new idioms for new audiences. Pulled in two directions at once, Ōtani administra­ tors oversaw a chaotic sequence of policy changes seesawing between modernization and conservatism. A new independent university was founded in Tokyo, only to be relocated to Kyoto and integrated with the old seminary. Modernist curricular development was approved, even as considerable funding was spent on a new institute for traditionalist studies. Modernist Sasaki Gesshō was appointed president of Ōtani’s newly accredited and rapidly transforming university, just as policies for persecuting heretics were tightened. In such ways, the irresolvable intellectual conflict between modernist and traditionalist Ōtani schol­ ars was mirrored at the institutional level by a conflict between mod­ ernist and traditionalist administrators. Chapter 4 documents the sudden escalation of these conflicts in 1928 when Kaneko Daiei was accused of heresy (ianjin, 異安心) and forced to resign his professorship at Ōtani University.44 Initiated by the com­ plaints of powerful laymen, heresy proceedings against Kaneko pro­ voked massive resistance by faculty and students at the university and a storm of press coverage, much of it critical of the Ōtani organization’s failure to uphold academic freedom. Public discussions of the Kaneko affair—by the editors of a national Buddhist newspaper, by Ōtani admin­ istrators, and by Ōtani university students—intersected with a national conversation then taking place regarding the so-called Communist Party Incident, in which the Japanese state had arrested alleged com­ munists throughout the country and had begun cracking down on left­ ist political thought more broadly. This concurrence of events brought magnified attention to the Kaneko affair and energized left-leaning stu­ dents and journalists in their defense of Kaneko. In contrast to heresy incidents of the Tokugawa era, when clear reso­ lutions backed by the authority of the state were the norm, in this case, no clear judgment on Kaneko’s alleged heresy was ever handed down by the chief abbot. Ōtani’s Inquiry Committee of traditionalist senior schol­ ars recommended a judgment of heresy, but that recommendation was 17

Introduction

never accepted and carried out. Ultimately, Kaneko yielded and left the university, but he was not officially judged heretical. This ambiguous resolution revealed a breakdown in the organization’s established meth­ ods of resolving heresy disputes in the face of the modern press and the growing popularity of modern ideals of rationalism, empiricism, and free inquiry. Superficially a setback for Kaneko and his supporters, this incident heralded the fracturing of the old orthodoxy. The final section of the book examines how national politics from the 1930s through the 1950s shaped Ōtani politics, producing conditions that enabled the rise of a new Kiyozawa-inspired orthodoxy. Chapter 5 looks at the Fifteen Years’ War period (1931–1945). As Sueki Fumihiko has noted, previous scholarship on Japanese Buddhism and the Fifteen Years’ War has tended to lump people into two stark categories of war supporters and war resisters.45 Such categories are not sufficient to make sense of the variety of viewpoints found within the wartime Ōtani community. Acknowledging Buddhists’ debts to the state, traditionalist Ōtani scholars like Kōno Hōun (河野法雲, 1867–1946) and Saitō Yuishin (斎藤唯信, 1864–1957) expressed support for the war without fully sacral­ izing it. Soga, Kaneko, and Akegarasu, by contrast, took up the study of Shinto thought and of Japan’s imperial institution, concluding that State Shinto ideology and Shin teachings were in harmony with one another and that Japan’s imperialist wars were connected to Amida Buddha’s sal­ vific mission. As the peak war years arrived and the Japanese state ratcheted up its demands of Buddhist organizations, Ōtani leaders turned to Soga and Kaneko to craft the organization’s wartime ortho­ doxy. Through an analysis of Soga’s and Kaneko’s wartime writings and their participation in a 1941 conference convened by Ōtani authorities, this chapter offers explanations for why the modernists so flexibly accommodated wartime ideology and how this enabled them to vault to high positions of doctrinal authority within the Ōtani organization. Chapter 6 describes the fulfillment of the modernists’ revolution in the postwar years. New policies implemented by the US-led occupa­ tion government pressured Ōtani authorities to issue a democratic sect constitution that transferred substantial power to a legislative assembly of elected priests. Over the course of the next decade, mod­ ernist reformers allied with Soga and Kaneko gradually gained con­ trol over the Ōtani administration through electoral victories, enabling them to announce a new Kiyozawa-based orthodoxy in 1956. Yet announcing a new orthodoxy was not the same as effectively establishing it, particularly given their tentative hold on power within 18

Introduction

a democratic system. The modernists’ challenge was to persuade mul­ titudes of Ōtani laypeople and priests to embrace modernist doctrinal interpretations and become seekers of awakening in this life rather than rebirth in the next. On a doctrinal level, Soga and his protégé Yasuda Rijin (安田理深, 1900–1982) promoted this agenda with lectures and writings on the topic of the sangha and Buddhists’ responsibilities toward others and toward Amida Buddha. On an administrative level, Soga follower Kurube Shin’yū (訓覇信雄, 1906–1998) developed inten­ sive training programs for priests and laypeople focused on the culti­ vation of experiences of awakening. These reforms culminated in the 1962 Dōbōkai movement, which aimed to transform the priest-lay relationship from one based on an exchange of money for funerary and memorial rites into one of cooperative study and practice. As all these revolutionary changes unfolded, Soga, Kurube, and their associ­ ates pointed to Kiyozawa as an exemplar of the Shin path who ranked alongside Rennyo as a heroic “restorer” of the sect, constructing him as a buddha-like figure who had set all these changes in motion. Thus, the creative actions of an ostensibly democratic, egalitarian sangha were presented as emanating from a great teacher of the past.

The Voice of a Community In a 2011 book, Shin studies scholar Yamamoto Nobuhiro presented a surprising discovery about Kiyozawa. It turns out that many articles published under Kiyozawa’s name were not actually written by him. Kiyozawa reportedly invited his followers to revise his words as they saw fit. Based on content and stylistic analysis, Yamamoto identified a selec­ tion of at least fifteen articles from Kiyozawa’s later years that were composed by his followers who either significantly rewrote Kiyozawa’s drafts or produced texts never written or spoken by him at all. Accord­ ing to Yamamoto, these misattributed articles, some of which present the Buddha’s grace as obviating the need for personal moral questioning and struggle, have seriously distorted readers’ understandings of Kiyo­ zawa’s teachings.46 By the twenty-first century, Kiyozawa has become a saint within the Ōtani community, so it is no wonder that scholars are painstakingly doc­ umenting and analyzing his writings and purifying them of admixture with the writings of his followers. What is especially remarkable about Yamamoto’s discovery, though, is its illustration of the point that Kiyo­ zawa’s voice is not just the voice of Kiyozawa, that his followers have 19

Introduction

always spoken for him, and that the Kiyozawa who speaks to us today is really the voice of a community. Not just after his death but even while alive, Kiyozawa’s followers were amplifying—and altering—his message. Without such amplification and alteration, Kiyozawa’s voice would have faded into nothingness, and most of us would never have heard the name Kiyozawa Manshi. The same, incidentally, might be said of Amida Bud­ dha’s name, which is amplified every time a Shin Buddhist engages in the nenbutsu (念仏) practice of reciting “namu Amida Butsu” (南無阿弥陀仏, homage to Amida Buddha).47 Confronted by the reality that during his life and after his death, Kiyozawa’s teachings were altered through a process of transmission and institutionalization, we can either work to peel back those layers of alteration and reveal the true characteristics of Kiyozawa’s life and teachings, or we can investigate those processes of transmission and institutionalization. The former response—epitomized by Yamamoto’s own work—evidences a valuation of origins as more significant than transmission and takes part in, or at least runs parallel to, a project of “restorative” Buddhist reform.48 Now that Kiyozawa is recognized as a celebrated, influential figure, it becomes important both for Shin Bud­ dhist practitioners and for scholars of modern Buddhism to figure out who Kiyozawa really was and what he really taught. Clearing away dis­ tortions and mischaracterizations that have accumulated over the years, scholars and practitioners alike are striving to restore an accurate rep­ resentation of the extraordinary individual of Kiyozawa Manshi, ideally to foster a critical and constructive conversation between us and him. But to seek out the purified voice of Kiyozawa is also to turn a deaf ear to the voices of his followers and community. It is to erase—as an instance of decline or distortion—the history of those in his community who interpreted Kiyozawa’s teachings, put those teachings into action, reshaped their community amid the turbulent changes of modern Japa­ nese history, and thereby rendered Kiyozawa orthodox, influential, and of interest to us today. If we exclude that history by focusing only on Kiyozawa’s life and thought, we are in a sense constructing and engaging with an idealized Buddhism above the fray of human politics and insti­ tutions. In doing so, we risk missing something crucial about how Bud­ dhism works. We risk failing to see how Buddhist thought and Buddhist traditions are functions of politics and institutions—how the Buddha and the dharma are not just contained and transmitted by, but are also generated by, the sangha.

20

Part I Intellectual Politics

Chapter 1

The Language of Religious Experience I have no idea whether the nenbutsu is truly the seed for my being born in the Pure Land or whether it is the kar­ mic act for which I must fall into hell. Should I have been deceived by Master Hōnen and, saying the nenbutsu, were to fall into hell, even then I would have no regrets. —Shinran, Tannishō

On the afternoon of June 5, 1909, a crowd of three hundred people gath­ ered in the lecture hall at Shinshū University in Tokyo to commemorate the seven-year anniversary of Kiyozawa Manshi’s death. Following the customary memorial rites and a reading of Kiyozawa’s “My Faith” essay, a series of speeches were given by disciples and colleagues of Kiyozawa. On June 6, further events were held at several other Tokyo venues, including Tokyo Imperial University. On June 7, more lectures were given at Asakusa Honganji Temple. Reports on all these events and transcriptions of fortyeight speeches given at them were subsequently published in an extended special issue of the journal Seishinkai, along with reports of memorial ser­ vices held for Kiyozawa in Tokyo, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Nagoya, Wakamatsu, Aichi, Ishikawa, Kumamoto, Morioka, Osaka, Kobe, Miyazaki, and Himeji. This elaborate memorialization of Kiyozawa testifies not to any accep­ tance of Kiyozawa’s radical thought by Ōtani ­doctrinal authorities but to a passionate devotion to him by a circle of modernist reformers and a widespread recognition of his service to the sect. The most striking theme of the memorial speeches is their consistent denial that Kiyozawa was dead. In one of the first speeches, Tokyo Impe­ rial University graduate student Fujioka Kyōun remarked, “I am convinced that even now Teacher [Kiyozawa] is not dead. I feel his guidance here in the present. Having once opened the eye of faith, all material things have 23

Intellectual Politics

fallen away, and deep within my heart, as clear as can be, there is a myste­ rious spiritual resonance. Truly, Teacher is with me.”1 The next speech, by Japan’s vice minister of education Okada Ryōhei, a former classmate of Kiyozawa’s at Tokyo University, echoed Fujioka’s remarks, albeit in a less mystical way: “Kiyozawa is certainly not gone. Here in the present, Kiyo­ zawa is fulfilling a great task. . . . There are the many disciples that he ­cultivated, and there are the books he left us, in which are congealed his very heart and soul. Through those [disciples and books], so-called Seishinshugi is sweeping over the world. In such a way, Kiyozawa is fulfill­ ing his great task.”2 Other speakers echoed this message: “There exists a Teacher Kiyozawa who is eternally present and forever undestroyed”; “the influence of [Kiyozawa’s] spirit and the benefits of his teachings are spreading more and more. . . . This is proof of Teacher having a spiritual existence beyond life and death”; “Teacher lived a quiescent existence akin to death while he was alive, but following his death, he for the first time came to manifest great activity.”3 Each speaker had a different way of describing Kiyozawa’s ongoing existence after death—as an aspect of “the being of the Tathāgata [i.e., the Buddha],” as a “mysterious spiritual reso­ nance,” as a “power” or “activity” in the world—but none resorted to tra­ ditional Shin language of rebirth in Amida’s Western Pure Land. Just before he died, in his well-known “My Faith” letter, Kiyozawa wrote to his followers explaining the benefits of faith in this life while implying uncertainty about the afterlife: “The Tathāgata in whom I have faith did not wait for the next world [raise, 来世] but brought me enor­ mous happiness in this world [genze, 現世]. . . . This happiness is some­ thing that I experience [ jikken, 実験] every day and every night. As I have not experienced happiness in the next world yet, I cannot comment on that.”4 Kiyozawa’s stated agnosticism regarding the afterlife may appear to be at odds with the fundamental Shin teaching that faith brings assur­ ance of rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land. Yet Shin teachings on rebirth are more complex and ambiguous than is often acknowledged. As quoted above, Shinran himself emphatically declared his own uncertainty regarding future birth in the Pure Land: “I have no idea whether the nenbutsu is truly the seed for my being born in the Pure Land or whether it is the karmic act for which I must fall into hell.” By speaking of faith in terms of verifiable experiences and avoiding comment on the distant worlds and future states described in Shin scriptures, Kiyozawa helped bridge the divide between Shin Buddhist teachings and modern learning. As one speaker at the memorial services commented, “There are those who explain [Shin teachings] as just an 24

The Language of Religious Experience

expedient way of preaching that is bereft of learning, but with Kiyozawa, there is no need at all to say such a thing.”5 Elsewhere in his writings, however, Kiyozawa did speak forthrightly of spiritual realities transcendent of birth and death. In particular, in a popular essay titled “The Great Path of Absolute Other Power,” Kiyozawa writes, “We are bound to die. But even if we die we shall never be reduced to extinction. We are not made up of life alone; death belongs to us as well. Our existence is composed of both life and death. We are not to be dependent upon life and death; we are beings having spiritual existence beyond life and death [shōji igai ni reison suru mono nari, 生死以外に霊存する ものなり].”6 Kiyozawa’s this-worldly, experientially verifiable Buddhism eschewed the mythology of an other-worldly Pure Land, but it also exceeded the bounds of scientific materialism. His was a Buddhism for Shin believers ambivalent toward science and for students of science skeptical of Shin Buddhism. Negotiating this mutual ambivalence and skepticism required more than a new scheme of doctrinal interpreta­ tion; it also required rhetorical creativity. A new, quasi-scientific lan­ guage of religious “experiences,” “experiments,” and “facts” was needed.

Kiyozawa Manshi’s “This Is How I Have Faith in the Buddha (My Faith)” manuscript (first page). Photo courtesy of the Ōtani University Museum.

25

Intellectual Politics

Scientific Skepticism The arrival of Western science into Japan over the course of the nine­ teenth century made an indelible impact on how Buddhism was under­ stood and discussed. If people today often characterize Buddhism as a uniquely rational religion in accord with science, that is testament to the success of modernist figures like Kiyozawa Manshi and D. T. Suzuki in developing new ways of thinking and talking about Buddhism. In fact, the arrival into Japan of scientific theories and methods was deeply unsettling for Buddhist communities. Copernicus’s heliocentric world­ view, first widely disseminated in Japan at the turn of the nineteenth century, contradicted the traditional Buddhist view of a flat earth cen­ tered on Mount Sumeru, thought to be populated by gods and demigods. Impressed by the explanatory powers of Western science, many Japa­ nese intellectuals became suspicious of supernatural beliefs in general. One Confucian scholar gave expression to this new mindset with the fol­ lowing poem: “After death, there is neither hell nor heaven nor self. All that exist are people and the ten thousand things. In a world without kami, buddhas, or demons, there are surely no marvelous, mysterious happenings.”7 In Weberian terms, Japan—or at least its intellectual class—was becoming “disenchanted.” Scientific rationalism, the idea that reliable knowledge comes only from systematic empirical observa­ tion and reason, increasingly became hegemonic. This caused a shift in “believability structures,” to use Charles Taylor’s phrase, making belief in many elements of the Buddhist worldview more difficult.8 The most prominent early Buddhist response came from Tendai monk Fumon Entsū in works like Astronomy of the Buddhist Land (1810) and Empirical Explanation of the Sumeru World (1821), which defend traditional Buddhist beliefs in Mount Sumeru and a flat earth. Fumon’s work has generally been understood by scholars as a fundamentalist reaction against science. However, Okada Masahiko has drawn attention to Fumon’s use of scientific concepts and methods in defending traditional Buddhist cosmology.9 As Okada demonstrates, Fumon mined Buddhist scriptures for geographical and astronomical statements that he used to construct a cosmological model that would follow mechanistic laws and predict phenomena like eclipses and seasonal changes. Supernatural ele­ ments such as hells and formless realms were removed from his model. In short, Fumon fashioned a Buddhist cosmology meant to compete with Western cosmology for empirical verification. And he adopted the scien­ tific language of empiricism in that project, specifically characterizing 26

The Language of Religious Experience

his account of Buddhist cosmology as grounded in jikken (実験), by which he meant empirical evidence. During the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods, a variety of Japa­ nese terms were used to connote Western notions of “empiricism,” “experimentation,” and “experience.” One such term was jikken, com­ posed of the characters jitsu (実), meaning “real,” and ken (験), meaning “inspect” or “verify.” Jikken thus indicated “verification of reality.” A closely related term was keiken (経験), which literally indicated “verifica­ tion” by “passing through.” By the third decade of the Meiji period (1888–1897), the modern connotations of these terms began to solidify, with jikken more or less corresponding to the English word “experiment” (as in “to put to the test”) and keiken corresponding to “experience” (as in “to meet with, undergo, or perceive”). Jikken thus came to be associ­ ated with science, while keiken came to be associated with religion and philosophy, including the philosophical school of empiricism (keikenron, 経験論). However, prior to that period (and in some cases, well after that period), the two terms were used interchangeably to indicate the verifi­ cation of some reality through encounter or observation. Each of these terms could be used to indicate either carefully controlled scientific experiments or extraordinary experiences of supramundane realities. This linguistic ambiguity—which also characterized English until the 1700s and French and Italian up to the present day—brought an air of scientific empiricism to Buddhist discussions of people’s experiences of past lives, other worlds, and meditative states.10 For example, leading Ōtani scholar Gijō (義譲, 1796–1858), in his 1824 work Records of Experiences of Cause and Effect in the Three Times of the Mundane World, compiled literary evidence from Indian, Chinese, and Japa­ nese sources of people’s experiences ( jikken) remembering their former lives or traveling to hell realms. Gijō thereby sought to demonstrate to skeptics an empirical basis for the traditional Buddhist teaching of rebirth. He was appealing to reports of people’s personal experiences rather than experimentally verifiable claims, but he used the same term that scientists were using to discuss the methods of Western medical sci­ ences, physics, and cosmology. In an influential series of articles, Robert Sharf took issue with mod­ ern representations of Buddhism as rooted in pure, unmediated experi­ ences of reality. Sharf traces the privileging of experience in accounts of Buddhism back to philosopher Nishida Kitarō’s and Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki’s encounter with the writings of William James in the first decade of the 1900s. He explains that Nishida, Suzuki, and their successors were 27

Intellectual Politics

attempting to help Buddhism “survive the headlong clash with secular philosophy, science and technological progress” by locating its core in a “private, veridical, ineffable experience inaccessible to empirical scien­ tific analysis.”11 However, as the discussion above demonstrates, the strategy of explaining Buddhism as rooted in experience preceded Suzuki and Nishida by a full century. In that earlier period, Japanese Buddhists appealed to experience not to shield Buddhism from scientific empiricism but to present Buddhism as itself scientific and empirical.12 Today’s hard-and-fast distinction between the intersubjective verifica­ tion expected in scientific experiments and the subjectivity characteris­ tic of religious experiences was not in force at that time, which made it possible for Buddhists to argue that their dreams, visions, and intro­ spective revelations were just as empirical as the results of scientific experiments. A figure who further complicates this picture is Sōtō Zen scholar Hara Tanzan (原坦山, 1819–1892). In the late 1860s, just as Japan was passing through the revolutionary moment of the Meiji Restoration, Hara devel­ oped a method of Buddhist studies that he called “Buddhist experimen­ tal studies” (Bukkyō jikken gaku, 仏教実験学). One of Tanzan’s goals was to purge Buddhism of its accumulated superstitions and return it to the truths of Śākyamuni’s “original Buddhism” by subjecting Buddhist thinking to scientific scrutiny.13 Yet Tanzan also believed that Buddhism had insights to offer to science. In 1869, he published a set of essays that explained Buddhist notions of awakening and delusion in physiological terms. Specifically, he argued that pure, awakened consciousness was an energy that arose in the brain; that impure, unawakened consciousness was a fluid excreted by the spine; that the mixing of these two conscious­ nesses produced delusion; and that blockages in the flow of these con­ sciousnesses led to physical illness.14 Tanzan claimed that such conclusions were based on experimental evidence. He relates, “If I tried to overturn [Western medical theories] only through explanations based on Buddhist introspection [naikan, 内観], I fear people would have diffi­ culty believing me. Therefore, I will provide several points of personal experimental proof [ jikken shinshō, 実験親証] as grounds for my argument.”15 The “personal experimental proof” he provided consisted of reports of his own meditation experiments, in which he intentionally cut off the flow of consciousness in different parts of his body and then reported on the physiological and mental effects he experienced.16 In each of the above cases, Buddhist scholars responded to scientific skepticism using the discourse of scientific empiricism, arguing that 28

The Language of Religious Experience

Buddhist teachings were grounded in experiences or experiments that verified their basis in reality. The same was also true of Kiyozawa Man­ shi. This chapter explores how in confronting scientific skepticism, Kiyozawa first developed a subjectivist, this-worldly understanding of Shin teachings and then skillfully deployed a discourse of empiricism in defense of that understanding. Above all, I seek to demonstrate how Kiyozawa’s use of a discourse of empiricism to bolster Buddhism’s believ­ ability went hand in hand with his critique of empiricism as limited and ultimately based in unacknowledged faith commitments. Thus, Kiyo­ zawa constructed a Buddhism that stood in a dynamic relationship of support and tension with the dominant scientific worldview of his time.

Subjectivist, This-Worldly Religion Kiyozawa’s first major work, Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion (hereafter Skeleton), was published in Japanese in 1892 and then translated into English for distribution at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago. As a mere outline (“skeleton”) of his philosophy, it is a short work, running only forty-two pages in its present English version. Short as it is, Skeleton nonetheless expresses core aspects of Kiyozawa’s basic understandings of religion, Amida Buddha, and the Pure Land that would carry forward into his later writings.17 Early in the text, Kiyozawa broaches the problem of defining religion. The very fact that Kiyozawa framed his work as a study of “religion” is significant, for it indicates his engagement with foreign concepts and thought systems. “Religion” was a foreign term introduced into Japan in the context of international pressures placed on the Meiji government to establish laws guaranteeing freedom of religion. Only by the 1880s was a standard Japanese translation settled on—“shūkyō” (宗教), literally meaning “sect teachings.”18 Having studied Western philosophy (in English, German, and Japa­ nese translation) at Tokyo Imperial University, Kiyozawa naturally approached the problem of defining religion by first considering how it had been defined by Western thinkers. Of the various definitions he con­ siders, those that bear the most relation to the one he subsequently advances are as follows (presented in Kiyozawa’s words): “the intellectual intuition of one’s own true nature” (Fichte) “the form which absolute truth assumes for the representative conscious­ ness, or for feeling, representation, and the reflecting understanding, and hence for all men” (Hegel) 29

Intellectual Politics “the feeling of one’s dependence and being one with the Infinite and the Eternal” (Schleiermacher) “the determination of human life by the sentiment of a bond uniting the human mind to that mysterious mind whose domination of the world and of itself it recognizes, and to whom it delights in feeling itself united” (Albert Réville) “a mental faculty or disposition which, independent of, nay, in spite of sense and reason, enables man to apprehend the Infinite under different names and under varying disguises” (Max Müller)19

All these definitions can be said to fall within a “subjectivist” or “phe­ nomenological” framework, emphasizing subjective intuitions or feel­ ings rather than social function, ritual practice, morality, reasoning, or even belief. In other words, for these theorists, religion was not estab­ lished to fulfill a social need, to influence the natural world, to commu­ nicate with spirits, to establish a moral code, or to provide answers to ultimate questions about the world or the afterlife. Rather, these theo­ rists all define religion as deriving primarily from some common “intu­ ition,” “feeling,” “sentiment,” or “apprehension” of a deeper reality to one’s self or the universe. In the English version of Skeleton, Kiyozawa simply concludes that there is no uniform definition of religion, before proceeding to his own definition: “Religion is the Unity of a Finite with the Infinite.”20 However, in lectures he gave based on the book, Kiyozawa connects his own defini­ tion to those previously listed: To overview these various opinions, it is recognized in each definition that religion is always the confrontation of two entities, mediated by mental conditions. In other words, the meaning [shared by each definition] is that religion contains two elements, the subjective and the objective, and their unification or harmonization is religion. Moreover, it is clear that the sub­ jective is fundamentally our minds, and the objective is the totality of exis­ tence (which is to say the Infinite) that confronts our subjectivity. Therefore, can I not simply say by way of a definition of religion, “Religion is the harmonization of a finite with the Infinite”?21

Kiyozawa here advances his own definition of religion as the common denominator of the definitions of religion he has cited. This is some indi­ cation of the great extent to which Kiyozawa’s basic conceptualization of religion—and by extension, his conceptualization of Shin Buddhism— was influenced by his study of Western philosophy. In evaluating Kiyozawa’s Western intellectual influences, scholars have generally pointed to Spinoza, Hegel, Spencer, and Hermann Lotze. 30

The Language of Religious Experience

However, in the matter of defining religion, German philosopher and theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher’s (1768–1834) influence is most evi­ dent. Immediately prior to writing Skeleton, Kiyozawa lectured on Schlei­ ermacher as part of a longer series of lectures on the history of Western philosophy. Kiyozawa’s lecture draws out two aspects of Schleiermach­ er’s approach to religion that were also fundamental to Kiyozawa’s. First, religion is to be understood in terms of “subjective feelings” as opposed to “objective bodies.” Second, religion is specifically a matter of “giving rise to a feeling of unity with the Infinite.”22 Kiyozawa praises Schleier­ macher for going beyond Spinoza’s monism and clarifying the principle that the infinite exists within the finite in a relationship of unity. Having defined religion as the unity of a finite with the infinite, Kiyo­ zawa explains that unity as follows: At first, we know nothing about finite and infinite. As we perceive the distinction, we enter the gate of religion. In the beginning, however, the two terms are merely distinguished from each other. The two elements are sep­ arate. Then comes the combination or the union, not yet unity, of the two. The two elements are only bound together as inseparable. The combination or the union becomes more and more intimate. Amalgamation, so to speak, comes in. Infinite is found in the finite and the finite in the Infinite. At last, the two elements become undistinguished. . . . Who is a Christian? It is he who believes in Christ (separate). No, it is he who has Christ in himself (mid­ dling). Not yet; he is a true Christian, who is himself Christ (undistin­ guished). Again, who is a Buddhist? It is he who believes in Buddha (separate). No, it is he who has Buddhahood in himself (middling). Not yet; he is a true Buddhist who is himself Buddha (undistinguished).23

Kiyozawa’s account presents a three-stage progression from objectiv­ ism (Buddha as an external object) to subjectivism (Buddha within one’s subject) to what he would later term “subject-object transcendence” (shukyaku chōzetsu, 主客超絶; no distinction between subject and object of faith). This understanding of religion can be characterized as “sub­ jectivist” on two counts. First, the subjective discovery of Buddha within one’s mind is an essential step toward true religious understand­ ing. Second, the final step of achieving subject-object transcendence marks a transformation of consciousness: “The aim of religion is to realize this relationship [of unity with the Infinite] in the brightest consciousness”; and again, “By the development of our mental activity, we arrive at the point when we perceive this relation and become conscious of the fact that we are finite and also infinite.”24 Kiyozawa’s approach thus emphasized introspection and subjective, mental transformation—but 31

Intellectual Politics

without asserting that Buddha or other religious realities are merely subjective. What then do Amida Buddha and the Western Pure Land mean to Kiyozawa within this subjectivist framework? Nowhere in Skeleton does Kiyozawa refer to Amida. He refers to Buddha on a few occasions but argues that “Buddha,” like “God,” is just an expedient expression for “the Infinite”: “Infinite is that which is not limited—independent, absolute, one, whole, perfect. We have taken the term infinite as the most appropri­ ate one to indicate what we intend to express. But any one of the terms Substance, Noumenon, Idea, God, Buddha, Reality, and the like, will do as well for the purpose.”25 Kiyozawa follows Schleiermacher in understanding the infinite as existing entirely within the finite: the universe as a whole—the collectivity of all finite objects—is the infinite.26 Elsewhere, Kiyozawa speaks in more dynamic terms of the infinite not as the uni­ verse as a whole, but as the law (rihō, 理法) that causes the activity of all finite objects of the universe.27 And Amida Buddha, according to Kiyo­ zawa, is simply an expedient, anthropomorphic expression of this uni­ versal law.28 Kiyozawa similarly explains Amida’s Pure Land as an expedient expression: The state of the infinite perfection is beyond the reach of our description. It is severally expressed metaphorically as the State of the infinite Happiness, the Land of Bliss, the peaceful Bliss, the Pure Land, the highest Nirvana, etc. It is the final stage of psychical development. . . . The infinite distance of place is simply an allegorical expression for our own imperfection, our own unconsciousness of the Infinite, our own lack of Enlightenment.29

Kiyozawa thus understands the Pure Land as a stage of psychological development that can be experienced anywhere. Regarding why the Pure Land is said to be located in the west, Kiyozawa explains elsewhere that in our present state of psychological imperfection, we must imagine the Pure Land as located at a great distance from us. We might say that the Pure Land lies in every direction from us (north, south, east, west, above, and below), but this “everywhere but here” model inevitably raises doubts as to why one’s present place is not included. Thus, practi­ cally speaking, the Pure Land ought to be fixed in one location. The west is convenient as the location of the setting of the sun, an image readily associated with the afterlife. Thus, for Kiyozawa, the western location of the Pure Land is a form of upāya, or expedient means, a useful fiction that helps us toward realization of the ultimate truth.30 32

The Language of Religious Experience

If the Pure Land is a metaphor for the world as perceived by enlight­ ened beings, why do Buddhist scriptures speak of being reborn there after death? In an 1895 work that analyzes the Sutra on Immeasurable Life and Shinran’s writings, Kiyozawa argues that rebirth after death is also a met­ aphorical expression. Through faith, one attains a connection with the infinite and is thereby reborn into the Pure Land. Kiyozawa affirms Shin­ ran’s teaching that faith brings two benefits—immediate benefits in this life and future benefits after death. However, according to his scriptural analysis, the benefit one receives at the time of death is not Pure Land rebirth but rather entrance into final nirvana. Final nirvana signifies the final obliteration of one’s karma and a reversal in one’s identity, as one’s finite nature shifts into the background and one’s infinite nature—that is, one’s identity as the infinite itself—comes to the foreground.31 Kiyozawa thus accepts the orthodox Shin view that faith brings ben­ efits in this life and after death, but his clear focus is on uniting with the infinite here and now and thereby attaining peace and happiness in this life. For this reason, I characterize his doctrinal stance as “this-worldly.” In discussions of religion, the term “this-worldly” is often associated with Max Weber’s work, especially his characterization of Puritan Chris­ tians as “worldly ascetics” focused on achieving success in worldly affairs (especially business) as a means of proving their status as among God’s elect. Kiyozawa’s this-worldly orientation has little to do with that of Weber’s Puritans.32 It is also considerably different from the pursuit of “this-worldly benefits” (genze riyaku, 現世利益) that is said to character­ ize Japanese religion generally.33 Kiyozawa’s this-worldliness was not a matter of praying to kami or buddhas for benefits like business success, physical health, or a happy family. To the contrary, Kiyozawa sacrificed wealth, health, and family in pursuit of ultimate truth and liberation. What distinguished Kiyozawa from so many other Shin Buddhists was his understanding of liberation through rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land as possible here and now in this world.

Kiyozawa and Shinran Traditionalist scholars questioned Kiyozawa’s application of Western philosophical terms and principles to the study of Buddhist thought, cri­ tiqued his disregard for interpretive precedents established by earlier scholars, and rejected his subjectivist, this-worldly interpretations of Amida and the Pure Land. Decades later, Kiyozawa follower Sasaki Gesshō recounted the situation as follows: 33

Intellectual Politics The Elders of those days representing the orthodox party were greatly exercised over the bold declaration on the part of the young and progres­ sive followers of the True Sect. They said, “It is subjectivism pure and sim­ ple, and stands against the traditional understanding of the doctrine; it is heterodoxy.” For according to the Elders the dogma of the True Sect was, “I believe because a thing exists objectively.” In other words, there is Amitābha [Amida] Buddha really residing in the Western Paradise, and in each of us there is an immortal soul; when the latter turned towards the former, this is faith; when a complete unification takes place between the two, we are saved. To them subjectivism was too frail a thing to be trusted, they wanted the object of their faith to be something more than mere believing.34

As noted above, it is inaccurate to describe Kiyozawa’s thought as “sub­ jectivism pure and simple”; Kiyozawa stressed time and time again that true faith required going beyond both objectivism and subjectivism. Regardless, his apparent denial of the common belief that “there is Amitābha really residing in the Western Paradise” was disturbing to many and provoked a counterreaction aimed at reasserting traditional doctrinal interpretations.35 The most extensive critique of Kiyozawa’s thought was penned by one of his former followers, Tada Kanae, who experienced a crisis of faith in 1914 that led him to part ways with the Seishinshugi group and publish critiques of Kiyozawa and his followers.36 Tada’s critique of Kiyozawa, published in a July 1933 article in the journal Gendai Bukkyō, highlights four points where Kiyozawa supposedly strayed from Shinran’s ortho­ dox teachings: overestimation of personal experiences along with underestimation of the need to rely upon Śākyamuni and Shinran’s instructions; misunderstanding of salvation as pertaining to fulfillment and freedom in this life, rather than the granting of a wholly new life in another world after death; affirmation of the unsatisfactory aspects of this present world due to confusion over the distinction between the defiled world (shaba, 娑婆) and the Pure Land; and over-emphasis on the need for personal cultivation (shūyō, 修養) as a result of a failure to understand Shin teachings as a sudden path rather than a gradual one. Tada additionally critiques Kiyozawa’s conception of Amida Buddha as corresponding to “the God of early modern Western philosophers.”37 The traditionalist doctrinal standpoint represented here by Tada and “the Elders” has its roots in interpretations given to Shinran’s teachings by Rennyo (蓮如, 1415–1499), the eighth chief abbot of the Honganji branch of the Shin sect and blood descendant of Shinran. Through his 34

The Language of Religious Experience

pastoral letters, Rennyo provided interpretations of Shinran’s teachings that appealed to commoners. Rennyo lived during the onset of Japan’s Warring States period (ca. 1467–1603) that saw the collapse of the bal­ ance of power between the shogunate and provincial military governors and the emergence of a complicated network of communities vying for power and survival. In a time of social disorder and warfare, Rennyo emphasized the impermanence and unsatisfactory nature of life in this world and the promise of a better life to come in the Pure Land: If you wish to attain faith and entrust yourselves to Amida, first realize that human life lasts only as long as a dream or an illusion and that the next life is indeed the blissful result in eternity, that human life means the enjoyment of fifty to a hundred years, and that the next life is the matter of greatest importance [goshō koso ichi daiji nari, 後生こそ一大事なり].38

Guided by Rennyo’s teachings and the interpretive tradition established in his wake, traditionalists like Tada were adamant that the Pure Land referred to a blissful world awaiting the faithful after death. From this perspective, Kiyozawa’s statement that the Pure Land is a metaphorical expression for this world as experienced by enlightened beings was heretical.39 Shinran’s own statements about rebirth in the Pure Land are varied and complex. In various hymns and letters, Shinran seems to confirm the straightforward interpretation of rebirth in the Pure Land as taking place after death. For example, he writes of living in expectation of the Pure Land to come, of Hōnen’s returning to the Pure Land at the time of his death, and of reuniting with friends in the Pure Land after death.40 The famous statement of Shinran’s quoted at the outset of this chapter— “I have no idea whether the nenbutsu is truly the seed for my being born in the Pure Land or whether it is the karmic act for which I must fall into hell”—also seems to accord with this straightforward interpretation. However, in his more technical writings, especially his magnum opus, the Kyōgyōshinshō (教行信証), Shinran discusses Pure Land rebirth in more complex ways. For example, in that work’s final chapter, Shinran writes: Thus I, Gutoku Shinran, disciple of Śākyamuni, through reverently accept­ ing the exposition of the commentators, and depending on the guidance of the masters, departed everlastingly from the temporary gate of the myriad practices and various good acts and left forever the birth attained beneath the pair of trees. Turning about, I entered the true gate of the root of good and the root of virtue, and wholeheartedly awakened the mind seeking 35

Intellectual Politics birth that is noncomprehensible. Nevertheless, I have now decisively departed from the true gate of provisional means and, [my self-power] overturned, have entered the ocean of the selected Vow. Having swiftly become free of the mind seeking birth that is noncomprehensible, I aspire to attainment of birth that is inconceivable.41

Here Shinran describes his spiritual path as proceeding from “myriad practices and various good acts” to “the root of virtue” and finally to “the ocean of the selected Vow.” In other words, he had begun by seeking salvation through virtuous actions; he then focused on chanting the Buddha’s name (the true “root of virtue”); and finally, he learned to fully entrust in the other-power (tariki, 他力) of Amida’s “selected Vow” (Pri­ mal Vow, eighteenth vow).42 At the same time, Shinran presents this narrative as a progression through three concepts of birth: “birth attained between the pair of trees,” “birth that is noncomprehensible,” and “birth that is inconceiv­ able.” “Birth attained between the pair of trees” refers to Śākyamuni’s death in a forest between two śāla trees. In Shinran’s explanation, seeking birth in the Pure Land through a lifetime of miscellaneous practices and virtuous actions—as modeled by Śākyamuni—leads toward a provisional birth (ben ōjō, 便往生) in the borderland of the Pure Land. Abandoning miscellaneous practices and focusing exclusively on chanting Amida’s name is a step in the right direction, yet because of lingering reliance on self-power, this, too, leads only to a provisional birth. Only by abandoning all self-power efforts and wholly relying on Amida’s powers can one attain what Shinran calls “immediate birth” (soku ōjō, 即往生).43 Much hinges on one’s interpretation of Shinran’s notion of “immedi­ ate birth.” As distinguished from provisional birth in the borderland of the Pure Land where, according to the sutras, one must pass five hun­ dred years before encountering Amida, immediate birth may simply refer for Shinran to an ideal birth directly in Amida’s presence at the time of one’s death. However, Shinran specifically contrasts those seek­ ing rebirth through self-power practices, who await the moment of death as the time to be met by Amida and taken to the Pure Land, with people of single-minded faith who need not wait for anything, for their birth has already become “settled.”44 Shinran also declares that for peo­ ple who have attained single-minded faith, “there is no further state of existence into which we must be born, no further realm into which we must pass.”45 Does the attainment of faith then signify that one has already been reborn into the Pure Land? 36

The Language of Religious Experience

Shinran further addresses the topic of immediate birth in his com­ mentary on an important passage in the Sutra on Immeasurable Life. The sutra passage, as translated into Japanese by Shinran, and Shinran’s commentary on it are as follows:46 “All sentient beings, as they hear the Name, realize even one thoughtmoment of faith and joy, which is directed to them from Amida’s sincere mind, and aspiring to be born in that land, they then attain birth [sokutoku ōjō, 即得往生] and dwell in the stage of nonretrogression.” . . . They then attain birth: then (soku) means immediately, without any time elapsing, without a day passing. . . . When one realizes true and real faith, one is immediately grasped and held within the heart of the Buddha of unhindered light, never to be abandoned. “To grasp” means to take in and to receive and hold. When we are grasped by Amida, immediately—without a moment or a day elapsing—we ascend to and become established in the stage of the truly settled; this is the meaning of attain birth.47

In this sutra passage and Shinran’s commentary, “attaining birth” is said to take place in this life at the moment of attaining faith; “attain­ ing birth” and “becoming established in the stage of the truly set­ tled” are synonymous, both of them taking place here and now in this life. However, in a note appended to his own commentary, Shinran appears to contradict himself, stating, “The truly settled: to become settled as one who will definitely be born in the Pure Land” (ōjō subeki mi to sadamaru nari, 往生すべき身とさだまるなり). In this note, Shinran appears to revert to the view that attainment of birth in the Pure Land takes place not at the moment of attaining faith but in the future, presumably at the time of death. This contradiction could be resolved by interpreting “attain birth” in this passage as signifying attainment of the conditions for future rebirth. The point I seek to establish here, however, is just that Shinran’s statements about Pure Land rebirth are complex and ambiguous enough to invite a wide variety of interpretations.48 As for the nature of Amida Buddha, there are places where Shinran seems to affirm the personified, objectivist language found in the Pure Land sutras. For example, he writes in the third chapter of the Kyōgyōshinshō that “when the Tathāgata [Amida Buddha], in profound compassion for the ocean of all sentient beings in pain and affliction, performed bodhisattva practices for inconceivable millions of mea­ sureless kalpas, there was not a moment, not an instant, when his prac­ tice in the three modes of action was not pure, or lacked this true mind.”49 Shinran speaks here of Amida in personified terms as feeling 37

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compassion, performing practices, upholding the “true mind” of faith, and later giving that mind of faith to all sentient beings. However, Shinran also describes Amida as omnipresent, eternal, formless, and inconceivable. Following Vasubandhu, Shinran notes that Amida is the Buddha of “unhindered light filling the ten quarters.” As such, Amida does not reside in one location but rather “pervades the lands countless as particles throughout the ten quarters.”50 In one of his hymns, Shinran intimates that Amida is not only omnipresent but also eternal: “It is taught that ten kalpas have now passed / Since Amida attained Buddhahood, / But he seems a Buddha more ancient / Than kalpas countless as particles.”51 Shinran describes the inconceivable nature of Amida with reference to the traditional Mahāyāna theory of buddhas having three bodies: a “dharma body,” which refers to ultimate reality itself; a “fulfilled body” or “reward body” adorned with the miraculous marks of a buddha and visible only to spiritually advanced beings; and a “transformation body” or “accommodated body,” meaning a human form. In Shinran’s explana­ tion, Amida has two kinds of dharma body: Amida’s “dharma body as suchness” has “neither color nor form,” and “the mind cannot grasp it nor words describe it”; Amida’s “dharma body as compassionate means,” which Shinran also refers to as the “fulfilled body,” is the manifesta­ tion of Amida’s “dharma body as suchness” in the form of Dharmākara Bo­dhisattva, who made forty-eight great vows and became a buddha. Yet Shinran also says that this “dharma body as compassionate means,” or “fulfilled body,” appeared in the world in the form of light, and it, too, is “without color and without form” and is “identical with the dharma body as suchness.”52 Finally, from this “dharma body as compassionate means,” or “fulfilled body,” innumerable “accommodated and transfor­ mation bodies” are manifested, “radiating the unhindered light of wis­ dom throughout the countless worlds.” To summarize, from a formless oneness emerged the Buddha of unhindered light who was also formless, and from that formless Buddha of light emerged innumerable human buddhas (such as Śākyamuni Buddha). If Dharmākara appeared in the world “in the form of light” and was “without color and without form,” what do the sutras mean when they speak of his forty-eight vows, kalpas of practices, and establishment of the Western Pure Land? If Amida is a formless light that pervades all the world, what does it mean to say that “there is Amida really residing in the Western Paradise”? As this discussion indicates, Kiyozawa’s understanding of Amida not as a personal being but as an impersonal law of the universe 38

The Language of Religious Experience

represents one reasonable interpretation of Shinran’s thought. The same can be said for his this-worldly interpretation of the Pure Land not as a separate world located far to the west but as a metaphorical expression of this world as experienced by enlightened beings. The previous section highlighted parallels between Kiyozawa’s conceptu­ alization of religion and that of Western philosophers like Schleier­ macher, but Kiyozawa’s thought was also unquestionably shaped by his extensive study of Buddhism. Kiyozawa received an early education in Shin sectarian studies at Ōtani-affiliated schools. During his univer­ sity days, he kept journals of notes on the Tannishō (歎異抄) and other Shin scriptures. 53 Following publication of Skeleton, he began working on a book on Shinran’s writings and Shin scriptures (which he never completed). 54 Tada Kanae likened Kiyozawa’s notion of Amida as “the Infinite” to “the God of early modern Western philosophers,” yet Kiyo­ zawa’s understanding also reflects Shinran’s depictions of Amida as the “dharma body as suchness.” Likewise, scholars have shown that Kiyozawa’s notion of finite beings existing in a relationship of unity with the infinite reflects the influence of Hegel and Loetze, but that same notion, frequently expressed by Kiyozawa with the phrase “the myriad things are one body” (banbutsu ittai, 万物一体), also has Bud­ dhist and neo-Confucian roots. 55 Kiyozawa drew upon both Western philosophy and traditional Bud­ dhist thought as he developed his particular modernist interpreta­ tions of Shin teachings. In that sense, he exemplifies what David McMahan has called the “hybridity of Buddhist modernism” which involves selective adoption of elements from within and outside the Buddhist tradition.56 Engaging with his own Shin tradition, Kiyozawa selectively adopted certain ideas, people, and texts, while critiquing or ignoring others. For example, he drew frequently upon the Tannishō, a text particularly conducive to presenting Shin as a universal path to personal awakening, rather than an institutionalized religion; mean­ while, he ignored other aspects of Shinran’s writings, including those evidencing belief in revelatory dreams, unseen spirits, and miraculous manifestations of Amida.57 The resulting hybridized, selective expres­ sion of Shin Buddhism formulated by Kiyozawa generated considerable controversy and conflict within the Ōtani community. Subsequent chapters in this book will trace the development of that conflict. The remainder of this chapter will examine how Kiyozawa harnessed the language of scientific empiricism as part of an effort to promote his modernist Buddhist thought. 39

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Critiquing Empiricism For Kiyozawa and his followers, Amida Buddha is a this-worldly reality present within each of us and throughout the universe. Amida is none other than the totality of all finite things, or the law that courses through and animates those things. Described as such, is Amida Buddha a fanciful product of human imagination or a “fact” of the universe? Can the Pure Land be empirically verified? And does Buddhism’s require­ ment of faith set it irreparably apart from scientific thinking? In an age dominated by scientific empiricism and skepticism toward religion, such were the questions confronting Kiyozawa. One of the first articles Kiyozawa published was his 1888 “World of Experience.” The article begins with a succinct statement advocating empiricist epistemology—the position that all knowledge derives from sensory experience of the world. Kiyozawa here defines experience (keiken) straightforwardly as the manifesting of the world to our five sense organs. He goes on to advance the view that there is no world beyond the world of experience and that each person’s unique set of experiences determines the kind of world he or she lives in. The article concludes by exhorting people to seek out positive experiences so that they might achieve their aspirations and “come to peacefully reside in a realm of unlimited joys.”58 From his earliest writings, Kiyozawa was thus deeply influenced by empiricist thinking, doubting the existence of realities that could not be directly experienced and envisioning the  path to religious fulfillment in terms of the pursuit of positive experiences. In subsequent writings, Kiyozawa’s assessment of empiricism became more nuanced. For one thing, Kiyozawa came to observe that the raw data of experience does not in and of itself produce knowledge, that it must be interpreted through the use of reason. What are those princi­ ples of reason, and how effective are they at making sense of our experi­ ence? In Skeleton, Kiyozawa approaches these issues as follows: Remember that the nature of reason is incompleteness, i.e., reason can never be complete in its range or series of propositions, one proposition linking to or depending on the other ad infinitum, so that if any one relies on reason alone, he might never be able to attain the solid resting place of religious belief. This characteristic incompleteness of reason may be a warning to the seekers of scientific truth. Why is A? Because of B. Why is B? Because of C. Why is C? Because of D. And so on without end. Such is the chain of proofs or grounds. Reason can never stop and rest. If it stops and rests at any 40

The Language of Religious Experience point, it must be just a point of belief. Hence reason must ultimately rely on faith for its foundation.59

Why does the sun rise every morning? Because the earth is rotating. Why is the earth rotating? Because of the law of momentum conserva­ tion. Why does the law of momentum conservation hold? Such question­ ing of the reasons for things never reaches an end point. Science and scientific reasoning ultimately rest atop tentative postulates, which, in Kiyozawa’s thinking, amount to faith. To be clear, Kiyozawa is not deny­ ing the importance of reason. He notes that reason has an important regulatory role to play in correcting and purifying religious thinking, even going so far as to say that “if there are two propositions [opposed to one another], the one of reason and the other of faith, we should rather take the former instead of the latter.”60 However, he argues that reason cannot ultimately operate independently from faith. Kiyozawa’s depiction of reason vis-à-vis faith bears considerable resemblance to sections of Herbert Spencer’s 1862 First Principles: A System of Synthetic Philosophy. Spencer’s theories of social evolution became popular in Meiji Japan, including among Buddhist reformers like Inoue Enryō, largely due to the influence of Tokyo Imperial University profes­ sor Ernest Fenollosa.61 Under Fenollosa’s influence, Kiyozawa became interested in Spencer’s notion of “the unknowable,” the topic of part 1 of Spencer’s First Principles.62 There, Spencer attempts a reconciliation of religion and science via the concept of the unknowable. The fact of human experience on which religion is founded, according to Spencer, is the “positive” but “indefinite” consciousness of the absolute. Spencer’s argument for the existence of that absolute is premised on the neces­ sary incompleteness of science and reason. He first argues that all explanations of the origins of the universe—from atheism to pantheism to theism—end in the logical paradox of uncaused causes. Then, turning to supposedly well-grounded scientific concepts of space, time, matter, motion, force, consciousness, and the self, he attempts to show that they, too, are all logically incomprehensible. For example, Spencer asks about the nature of matter—is it infinitely divisible or not? On one hand, the infinite division of a material object, according to Spencer’s analy­ sis, is both practically and conceptually impossible. On the other hand, the idea of a material object so small or so strong that no power could divide it is also incoherent; one can always imagine that object’s further division. Thus, the very idea of matter turns out to be paradoxical and thus unthinkable. From such discussions, Spencer concludes, “Ultimate 41

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Scientific Ideas, then, are all representative of realities that cannot be comprehended. After no matter how great a progress in the colligation of facts and establishment of generalizations ever wider and wider, the fundamental truth remains as much beyond reach as ever.”63 For Spen­ cer, this fundamental, unknowable truth is the proper object of reli­ gious devotion. Kiyozawa embraced Spencer’s assessment of the limits of reason and science, but he did not accept that “the unknowable” must remain entirely mysterious to religious seekers.64 Having argued for reason’s incompleteness and dependence on faith, Kiyozawa’s Skeleton goes on to critique what he considers to be a faith commitment underlying empiricist thinking—the belief in materialism: At a certain stage of intellectual progress, men begin to lay exclusive importance on observation and experiment.65 Then anything, if it be dis­ cordant with the two processes, is thrown away as useless and untrue. And, by a natural mistake of misused logic, the observation and experiment are identified with sensations and then it is proclaimed that anything, if not founded upon the testimony of the senses, is unreal. The result of this the­ ory is materialism. There is nothing real but matter. The soul, as immate­ rial existence, is nothing. It has no substantiality of its own. The mental phenomena are nothing but functions arising from the combinations of material particles. This is an extreme theory.66

The contrast between Kiyozawa’s views here in Skeleton and his earlier views expressed in “World of Experience” is clear. Here Kiyozawa calls it a “mistake of misused logic” to identify observation and experiment with sensations and then proclaim the unreality of anything not subject to sen­ sation. Is the mistake to be found in identifying experimentation with sen­ sation or in proclaiming unreal that which is not subject to sensation? Kiyozawa clearly disagrees with the assumption that only sensible (i.e., material) objects have reality, but does he also disagree with the presump­ tion that experimentation can only target material objects? Might one also “observe” and conduct “experiments” on immaterial, subjective realities? In fact, there is evidence that at this time, Kiyozawa was beginning to consider the possibility of religious “experiments” that could verify Buddhist teachings about immaterial realities. By the time of his writing Skeleton, Kiyozawa had already embarked on a new lifestyle that he reportedly called “the way of minimum possible” (minimamu poshiburu shugi, ミニマムポシブル主義). From 1890, Kiyozawa began shaving his head, donning monastic robes, restricting his diet, and walking instead of using rickshaws or trains. In 1892, following the death of his mother, he 42

The Language of Religious Experience

intensified his practices, particularly his dietary restrictions. This con­ tinued until 1894, when he contracted tuberculosis and began a period of convalescence. In a letter dated December 9, 1893, Kiyozawa described his lifestyle changes as a form of experiment: I am also presently in the midst of experimenting [ jikken] with marvelous things. One can obtain firm results and then quickly make those known to others. I wonder whether there is anything in the world more wonderful than experiment. In all things, isn’t it possible to lessen disagreement and critique by turning to experiment?67

It is unclear precisely what experiments Kiyozawa is referring to here, but there is evidence that around the same time, he was busy gathering information about the practices of religious ascetics in the Kyoto area. Specifically, in an August letter, Kiyozawa marveled to his wife about the dietary practices of an ascetic he had met. Then, in October, he dis­ patched an associate on a fact-finding mission to inquire into the life­ style of a certain mountain hermit living in the forests of Mt. Hiei. After receiving a report about this hermit, Kiyozawa and Inaba Masamaru set out into the forests of Mt. Hiei to find him, but to no avail.68 In spite of the above evidence that Kiyozawa likely viewed his lifestyle changes as an experiment that might verify religious truths and per­ suade others of those truths, it is worth noting that in his lectures and published writings from this period, he nowhere promoted experimen­ tation or experience as components of the religious life. It seems he was still unsure of the applicability of empiricism to religion. His enthusiasm for the empirical pursuit of knowledge still stood in tension with his belief in immaterial realities inaccessible to scientific investigation.

Religious Empiricism A resolution to this problem began to take shape for Kiyozawa with his 1896 publication of “Truth and Religion” in the Shinshū University Mujintō journal. In that article, Kiyozawa sought to defend Buddhism against the charge of superstition by problematizing the very notion of “untruth.”69 He begins by pointing to the Buddhist teaching that a per­ son’s mental capacity is a function of his or her karma. Due to differ­ ences in karmic inheritance, Kiyozawa argues, some people will settle with the truth of materialism; others will proceed to the truth of mindonly; and still others will move on to higher truths of emptiness, seeing one’s original nature, or becoming a buddha through the nenbutsu. Each 43

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is a relative truth corresponding to a different level of understanding. From an enlightened viewpoint, these various teachings are all true, each with its own sphere of applicability. From an unenlightened view­ point, however, one discriminates, pronouncing some teachings true and others false. Kiyozawa’s article provoked two critical responses, both of which accuse Kiyozawa of ignoring the question of whether specific religious claims accord with “facts” ( jijitsu, 事実).70 Yes, these critics acknowledge, there are compelling reasons for religious practitioners to hold the beliefs they do; yes, such beliefs arise out of real experiences and may produce useful effects. However, the question of truthfulness hinges on whether any particular statement accords with facts. Incidentally, it is worth noting that a similar argument underlies contemporary discus­ sions of religious experience among religious studies scholars. For exam­ ple, in his influential 1985 Religious Experience, Wayne Proudfoot presents the example of a woodsman coming upon a fallen log on a trail and misperceiving it as a bear. It is accurate, Proudfoot notes, to describe the woodsman as having a powerful and consequential experience of per­ ceiving what he thought was a bear. But in explaining that experience, one should note the fact that there was no bear, only a fallen log.71 By the same logic, Buddhists may be making an error, believing themselves to be encountering the Buddha or the Pure Land when in fact they are encountering something else entirely. Kiyozawa defends his position in a follow-up response by asking, What is a fact? On what basis can people agree what is a fact and what is not? In Kiyozawa’s analysis, a fact is made up of two components: objective and subjective. In regard to a given phenomenon, the objective compo­ nent may be shared, but the subjective component will vary. To explain his point, Kiyozawa references the Buddhist metaphor of water’s being viewed in four ways; gods see it as a bejeweled land, humans as water, hungry ghosts as pus and blood, and fish as a place to live.72 To return to the example of the fallen log, the objective component of the fact is that it is a log and not a bear. To misperceive it as a bear would result in untruth. However, accurate perception of the log as a log and not a bear does not, by itself, produce a “fact.” There remains the problem of how viewers’ perspectives—determined by their karmic past—inform their perceptions of the log. The log might be viewed by a scientist as a mass of organic matter, by a hiker as a place to sit, by an activist as a sign of eco­ logical disaster, or by a Buddhist as a manifestation of the principle of dependent origination. In other words, there is no such thing as an 44

The Language of Religious Experience

uninterpreted “fact.” Scientific facts masquerade as purely objective and uninterpreted, but actually, they come accompanied by a host of personal, subjective claims about what is meaningful or useful. This argument that seemingly objective facts include a subjective component represents a stepping-stone toward Kiyozawa’s subsequent discourse of “subjective facts,” “mental experiences,” and “spiritual experiences.” An early instance of that discourse is found in an 1899 entry in Kiyozawa’s December Fan Diary. Following his failed movement to reform the Ōtani organization, Kiyozawa adopted the pen name Decem­ ber Fan (Rōsen, 臘扇) to indicate his sense of being useless and powerless like a fan in cold weather. The diary features Kiyozawa’s ruminations on death and its relation to freedom in light of his reading of The Discourses of Epictetus (which he read in English translation). From Epictetus, Kiyo­ zawa adopts a view of the world as strictly divided into an inner world that is “in our power” and an external world that is not. Freedom is obtained by recognizing this distinction and giving up any concern with “externals” (gaibutsu, 外物)—including one’s own body and its life and death. In one passage that seeks to explicate Epictetus’s notion of free­ dom, Kiyozawa speaks of “mental experience”: “Can one say that an independent person’s acts of body, speech, and thought are free? Those [acts] that can be free and that remain within the scope of freedom are free. The standard for this must be found in one’s own mental experi­ ence [shinteki keiken, 心的経験].”73 The passage goes on to paraphrase Epictetus’s argument that a person’s thoughts and volitions are always free, even when confronting external obstacles (e.g., when confronting a thief, people are always free to hand over their belongings without com­ promising their principles or becoming angry). According to Kiyozawa, to discern the boundaries of freedom and learn to live freely and hap­ pily, one must turn inward and investigate one’s private subjective expe­ rience. And for Kiyozawa, this process of discerning the boundaries of freedom was at the same time a process of discovering the workings of Amida Buddha, the great law of the universe. In Notes on the Finite and the Infinite, composed by Kiyozawa in late 1899 and 1900, Kiyozawa continued to reach for new language to describe the process of attaining faith. In an entry that recalls Herbert Spencer’s argument about the unknowable, Kiyozawa writes that the basic laws of logic, cause and effect, mathematics, and the sciences (including the cat­ egories of space, time, energy, motion, matter, and quantity) all have their basis in faith. Yet he goes on to reject Spencer’s view that the abso­ lute is intrinsically unknowable: 45

Intellectual Politics Philosophy is said ultimately to fix the foundation for all the fields of study. Yet its ultimate principles always fall into the limited world. What, then, is the ladder into the clouds by which to step out of the relative world and climb to the absolute world? One can say “direct perception” [chokkaku, 直覚] or “touch” [sesshoku, 接触], but isn’t “faith” the clearest [term]?74

Kiyozawa asserts that one can “climb to the absolute world” by “faith,” and significantly, he presents faith as synonymous with “direct percep­ tion” and “touch.” Through faith, Kiyozawa seems to say, one can “directly perceive” or “touch” the absolute world inaccessible to reason or science. Such terms might seem to point toward a concept of religious “experience.” Yet Kiyozawa follows this passage with a clear statement that such faith is not to be confused with “experience”: Experiment [ jikken], observation, experience [keiken]—are these not things that come after we establish a certain amount of faith? Thus, is it not the greatest contradiction to say that faith is not well-established if not based on experiment and observation?75

In this passage, “experiment” and “experience” come only after faith, so they cannot be expected to form the basis for faith. The implication seems to be that neither our scientific experiments nor our experiences occur on a tabula rasa but rather presume some preexisting commit­ ments and orientations that derive from faith. Thus far, Kiyozawa has argued that there is no pure objectivity because all “facts” include some subjective component, that the estab­ lishment of some subjective faith position precedes all empirical investi­ gation, and that faith itself is a kind of empirical instrument, producing subjective “experiences” and “perceptions.” In these formulations, Kiyo­ zawa is juggling two different notions of empiricism—an ordinary “objective” empiricism and a religious “subjective” empiricism. Accord­ ing to Kiyozawa, it is “subjective” empiricism that is foundational, pro­ viding the basis for “objective” empiricism. These two notions of empiricism are on display in a pair of seemingly contradictory lectures published in mid-April of 1901. In “A View of Equality,” Kiyozawa states outright that religion cannot be known through experience, while in “Science and Religion,” he states that it can be: As for things like hell, heaven, and Amida Buddha, we cannot truly know them through experience [keiken]. In this respect, they are nothing more than fancies.76 46

The Language of Religious Experience It is said that scientific facts are based on experience [keiken]. Religious facts, too, certainly must be based in experience. Also, it is said that scientific conclu­ sions then become common knowledge [ jōshiki, 常識]. Religious conclusions, too, certainly ought to become common knowledge.77

What are we to make of this discrepancy? In the second quotation, Kiyo­ zawa sets up two parallel categories of science and religion, each of which has its own “experiences,” “facts,” and “conclusions.” In other words, he sets up two parallel systems of empiricism: objective, scien­ tific empiricism and subjective, religious empiricism. As for the relation­ ship between these two systems, Kiyozawa writes: One may ask science whether [religion] runs counter to experience or con­ tradicts common knowledge, but science does not have the qualifications to make such a judgment. One may ask philosophy, but within the field of philosophy there are many different theories. Therefore, the final judg­ ment as to experience and common knowledge must be entrusted to the spirit of individuals, which is the fundamental birthplace of both [experi­ ence and common knowledge].78

According to Kiyozawa, the objective empiricism of science is not equipped to judge the subjective experiences and conclusions of reli­ gion. It is religion that stands in the more foundational position insofar as the “spirit of individuals” is the “fundamental birthplace” of experi­ ence and knowledge. In other words, our subjective experiences and conclusions precede and help determine our experiences of and conclu­ sions about the objective, external world. This claim is consistent with Kiyozawa’s earlier arguments that there are no purely objective facts and that scientific experimentation and reasoning necessarily proceed from some prior subjective faith commitment, which in turn is an effect of past karma. Returning to the first quotation above, Kiyozawa there denies that religious realities like hell, heaven, and Amida Buddha can be known through experience. On one level, Kiyozawa is simply denying that such realities can be known through objective empirical investigation. Yet in the larger passage in question, Kiyozawa is also making the point that experiential confirmation of religious realities requires a preexisting faith commitment: There is utility where there is faith—faith being a fancy [kūsō, 空想] built up in our mind with unshakable firmness. It is a matter of course that any great accomplishment requires a great faith or fancy: an infinite utility requires an infinite faith. That the larger universe is the same as the 47

Intellectual Politics smaller universe is indeed as much a fancy as anything that can be imag­ ined. If, however, this fancy should be implanted deeply in our minds, an immense use would come of it. The dead will come to life, or wicked spirits will change into buddhas. The so-called “mysteries of divine transforma­ tion” will come forth. This world as it is will become the Pure Land; it will become the heavenly realm. However, to know this mysterious meaning, to understand this mysterious realm, one must take care not to be trapped by [notions of] their objective reality.79

According to Kiyozawa here, the cultivation of firm faith in religious realities eventually yields powerful effects affirming those realities. The dead come to life, the wicked are transformed into buddhas, and this world becomes the Pure Land—but in “mysterious” ways not corre­ sponding to “objective reality.” As before, Kiyozawa distinguishes reli­ gious realities from objective realities open to scientific investigation, but here he also clarifies that such religious realities only reveal them­ selves to us if we first have faith. Kiyozawa further expresses his emerging views on religious empiri­ cism in another 1901 lecture titled “Religious Teachings Are Subjective Facts.” The lecture begins, “Religious teachings are subjective facts. Sub­ jective facts are examined as to their validity only in our own inner minds. They should not be judged true or false by their relation to the outer world or because of other men’s views about them, as in the case of objective facts.”80 Whereas five years previously, Kiyozawa had argued that so-called objective facts always contain a subjective component, here he argues that certain facts are entirely subjective insofar as they relate to introspection rather than perception of the external world. Faith enables a person to have introspective “mental experiences” of the “subjective facts” of religion. Having defined religion as a matter of “subjective facts,” Kiyozawa confronts the dangerous implication that the Buddha and the Pure Land are mere subjective realities, contained within one’s mind or even fabri­ cated by one’s mind. In an oft-cited passage, Kiyozawa explains as follows: Then how can we explain the existence of kami, buddhas, hells, and para­ dises, which are understood as subjective facts? This is an extremely diffi­ cult matter. Even so, if I now were forced to try to explain the situation, I would say that we do not have faith in kami or buddhas because they exist. Kami or buddhas exist for us because we have faith in them. And we do not have faith in hells or paradises because they exist. Hells or paradises exist for us when we have faith in them. To use a metaphor, it is just like cold and 48

The Language of Religious Experience warmth. It is not the case that cold and warmth exist all along as objective facts and then we feel these facts of cold or warmth. Rather, so long as we do not feel them, these facts of cold or warmth do not exist at all. However, once we feel them, then they exist.81

Such statements shocked—and continue to shock—many Pure Land Bud­ dhists, who bristle at the suggestion that Amida Buddha does not exist until individuals bring forth faith. Yet Kiyozawa’s argument is more nuanced than is ordinarily recognized. To interpret this passage prop­ erly, it is first of all essential to note the key phrase “for us”: “We do not believe in kami or buddhas because they exist. Kami or buddhas exist for us because we believe in them.” Kiyozawa is here making the same point that he did in the quotation discussed above: religious realities only reveal themselves for us if we first have faith. This passage is then first and foremost an instruction about the correct order of operations: one must first cultivate faith; only later can one experience effects affirming the existence of the object of one’s faith. And yet, what sort of existence can be ascribed to buddhas and para­ dises in Kiyozawa’s thought? By way of the analogy of cold and warmth, Kiyozawa implies that buddhas and paradises “do not exist at all” so long as we do not feel them. As such, Amida Buddha and the Western Pure Land would not seem to be objective realities. Does that mean they are subjective realities? As discussed above, Amida Buddha is for Kiyozawa an expedient expression signifying the infinite, the universe as a whole, or the law that courses through and animates that universe. On one hand, we exist as part of the infinite, so the infinite is not merely an object external to us. On the other hand, the infinite is not a mere con­ tent of our mind. Rather, the infinite includes and unites the subjective and objective worlds. In “A View of Equality,” Kiyozawa explains this unity as follows: We also say in Buddhism, “mind only” or “consciousness only.” Recently I have been advocating Seishinshugi, which does not say that there are two kinds of things, objective and subjective, and that we take hold only of the subjective things and abandon the objective things among them. It says that even so-called objective things are subjective; or, objective things and subjective things are not two kinds of substance, but one. . . . Ordinarily, we speak of these two subjectivities as the “great universe” and the “small uni­ verse.” . . . The great universe is at one and the same time the small uni­ verse. In place of “great universe” and “small universe,” we may also speak of “great self” and “small self.” Well, each one of us is both great universe and small universe.82 49

Intellectual Politics

Here, the “great universe” is synonymous with the infinite, or the Bud­ dha. To achieve unity with the infinite—the very purpose of religion as defined by Kiyozawa a decade earlier—one must realize the continuity and indeed identity of one’s own subjectivity with the universe, here defined as a greater subjectivity. So long as we approach the infinite as an external object removed from ourselves, the infinite is not yet pres­ ent for us; likewise, so long as we approach the infinite as internal to our minds, the infinite is also not yet present for us. The infinite’s exis­ tence is only instantiated for us when we transcend subject-object dual­ ism, properly understanding the Buddhist teaching of “consciousness only.” Such an experience transforms our perspective, producing a reli­ giously charged world experienced as containing kami, buddhas, hells, and paradises (such metaphorical language being useful for expressing the inexpressible truths perceived from the perspective of faith). To return to the example of the fallen log, the person who has experienced unification with the infinite now views the fallen log as a subject con­ tinuous with his or her own subjectivity and the greater subjectivity of the universe. This is a “fact” for the religious believer standing without contradiction alongside scientific “facts” about the log—a “fact” open to confirmation by all those willing to cultivate faith and bring about “mental experiences” of that fact. This discourse of religious empiricism suffused the writings of Kiyo­ zawa in the final years of his life. In a letter written in April 1902 on the occasion of Shinran’s birthday celebrations, Kiyozawa speaks of how Shin teachings of other-power, Amida’s Primal Vow, recitation of Ami­ da’s name, Amida’s grasping of sentient beings, the Pure Land, and hells appear to outsiders as “foolish children’s games or absurd theo­ ries.” But through religious practice culminating in “touching the light of the one path” and “tasting the Other Power teachings,” such religious realities become “facts of spiritual experience” (shinreiteki keiken no jijitsu, 心霊的経験の事実) yielding “knowledge that cannot be doubted in the slightest.”83 In “My Faith,” the final letter written by Kiyozawa just one week prior to his death, Kiyozawa emphasizes how his personal religious experi­ ences confirmed and strengthened his faith. Significantly, he chooses to begin his personal testimony of faith by pointing to the observable effects of his faith: “This believing that I do has the primary effect of removing distress and pain from my life . . . during those moments when I have feelings of anxiety or even agony, emotions that can be brought on by a variety of different causes and conditions, if this faith should 50

The Language of Religious Experience

manifest in my heart I suddenly feel calmed and even joyful.”84 He explicitly contrasts the certainty of this first-person, empirical evidence with the hearsay reports of others: “Of course, one hears of the effects from others . . . but the impact of what amounts to hearsay never really goes beyond supposition. To truly know the presence or absence of the benefits of faith, one must be speaking on the basis of having experi­ enced [ jikken].” And most remarkably, he goes on to express unwilling­ ness to speak on religious teachings he has yet to experience: The Tathāgata in whom I believe did not wait for the next world but brought me enormous happiness here and now. . . . The happiness of my faith is my greatest happiness in this world. This happiness is something that I experi­ ence [ jikken] every day and every night. As I have not experienced happi­ ness in the next life yet, I cannot comment on that.85

For Kiyozawa, experience had proven the efficacy of religious faith and the truth of religious teachings of Buddhas and paradises. Scriptural language about Amida Buddha’s vows of the distant past and about future rebirth in Amida’s Western Pure Land represented for Kiyozawa expedient expressions pertaining to realities that could be “experi­ enced” and confirmed as “facts” here in the present. Regarding the next life, Kiyozawa’s empiricist Buddhism has nothing at all to say.86 In his iconic essay outlining a definition of religion, Clifford Geertz attempts to explain how religious believers become convinced of the truth of religious teachings. He begins with “frank recognition that reli­ gious belief involves not a Baconian induction from everyday ­experience— for then we should all be agnostics—but rather a prior acceptance of authority which transforms that experience.”87 Having accepted, even provisionally, the authority of religious teachings, an individual can then embark upon religious practice wherein the truth of said teachings are confirmed. Through concrete acts of collective ritual observance, Geertz argues, religious practitioners undergo “authoritative experiences” that demonstrate for them the “factuality,” or “utter actuality,” of otherwise mysterious religious realities. Kiyozawa would agree that acceptance of the authority of religious teachings (i.e., faith) is required to open up the world of religious mean­ ings, and he would also agree that religious practice (e.g., introspection, nenbutsu recitation) can then lead to authoritative experiences confirm­ ing the truth of religious teachings. Yet the problem Kiyozawa con­ fronted was the reluctance of individuals educated in the principles of 51

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scientific rationalism to accept the authority of religious teachings in the first place. He needed to find a way to “clothe [religious] conceptions with . . . an aura of factuality” for those unwilling to engage in religious practice. Next to the empirical truths of modern science, the stories of Amida Buddha and the Western Pure Land seemed utterly fanciful. Thus, Kiyozawa took it upon himself to clothe Shin Buddhist teachings with a language of factuality. As Kiyozawa well understood, religious claims that “the myriad things are one body” or that “each one of us is both the great universe and the small universe” cannot be factually verified by ordi­ nary standards. And yet in this new scientific age, without appealing to “facts” and “experiences,” Buddhist teachings risked being swept aside. Kiyozawa was not alone in this development of a discourse of religious empiricism. Prior to Kiyozawa’s time, Buddhist thinkers such as Fumon Entsū, Gijō, and Hara Tanzan had already begun discussing “experien­ tial/experimental” evidence for Buddhist teachings. During Kiyozawa’s career, psychologist and Zen practitioner Motora Yūjirō, Shin priest Chikazumi Jōkan, and New Buddhist Katō Genchi were among those sim­ ilarly converging on a discourse of Buddhism’s “empirical” or “experien­ tial” basis.88 Christian thinkers such as Uchimura Kanzō and Tsunashima Ryōsen also took part in this trend.89 In at least one case, there is reason to believe that Kiyozawa was directly influenced by these writings of his contemporaries. In December of 1900—just prior to publication of Kiyo­ zawa’s “Science and Religion” and “Religious Teachings Are Subjective Facts” essays—a book of Chikazumi Jōkan’s articles was published that spoke of religion in empiricist terms, for example, as based in “inner mental experience” (naishin no keiken, 内心の経験).90 Kiyozawa himself wrote a glowing preface for the book that drew attention to Chikazumi’s own perception (kanshu, 観取) and experience ( jikken) of Buddhist teach­ ings. Kiyozawa’s career was thus connected to a larger trend in modern Japanese religion, which preceded and may have influenced the subse­ quent thought of Nishida Kitarō and D. T. Suzuki in regard to “pure experience” and “Zen experience.” Is this ascription of “factuality” and “empiricism” to Buddhist teach­ ings simply a case of distorted language, or is the notion of subjective empiricism viable? A century later, this question has resurfaced in debates surrounding Buddhist meditation, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, and scientific initiatives carried out at places like the Mind & Life Insti­ tute, the Center for Healthy Minds, and the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. The Dalai Lama and B. Alan Wallace have pro­ moted the idea of combining third-person investigations by traditional 52

The Language of Religious Experience

scientists with first-person investigations of consciousness by experi­ enced Buddhist meditators. If multiple meditators can consistently and independently confirm the existence of some deep meditative state of consciousness, does the existence of that state of consciousness become a “fact”? If a hundred Buddhist meditators all achieve insight into noself and thereby experience lower levels of suffering, would that amount to empirical proof of Buddhist teachings? Thus far, the findings of such experiments have been modest, and the scientific community remains skeptical.91 Kiyozawa’s religious empiricism might seem to differ enormously from scientific empiricism on the count that, according to Kiyozawa, empirical verification of religious realities is possible only after a leap of faith. Yet this was precisely Kiyozawa’s point about empirical knowledge in general—scientific experimentation proceeds only after certain nonempirical assumptions are made about the world. Scientists may base their work on the assumptions that the world is made up of matter alone, that human beings are rational, or that physical illness is always a prob­ lem to be combated. By Kiyozawa’s account, even basic concepts such as matter, motion, time, and space are, in the final analysis, provisional assumptions, lacking any absolute foundation of certitude.92 If such nonempirical assumptions are accepted as a matter of course in scientific practice, why should nonempirical assumptions not be acceptable in the case of religion—particularly if those assumptions prove to consistently generate beneficial experiences or useful insights? Geertz sharply distin­ guishes science’s “Baconian induction from everyday experience” from religion’s “prior acceptance of authority which transforms that experi­ ence,” but don’t scientists also accept the authority of certain unfounded beliefs, which in turn influence the course of their investigations? Such was the challenge that Kiyozawa—inspired by Herbert Spencer and by Buddhist concepts of karma and “consciousness only”—directed at sci­ ence, even as he purged Buddhism of other-worldly superstitions and clothed it in scientific language. Judging by the impassioned speeches given at Kiyozawa’s seven-year memorial services, his teachings were clearly effective in helping his fol­ lowers surmount their skepticism and enter into Shin faith. As Kaneko Daiei commented at those services, “If it were not for Teacher, people like us, naïve and enveloped by dangerous scientific, materialistic think­ ing, would not have found it easy to receive faith. But Teacher had doubts about the same points we had doubts about. He provided answers to the same questions we had, and caused us to attain the same faith in 53

Intellectual Politics

absolute other-power that he had.”93 As this chapter has argued, part of Kiyozawa’s effectiveness lay in his development of a discourse of reli­ gious empiricism. That discourse was frequently invoked at those memo­ rial services through references to Kiyozawa’s “experiential faith,” his “experiments” in living, and his method of “researching the conditions of his own life and death.”94 Two decades later, Akegarasu Haya would explain Kiyozawa’s significance by saying, “Without experiments [ jikken], we have only empty principles and empty theories. . . . As for experiments regarding religious teachings, one cannot experiment using test tubes. One must experiment through one’s own life. I think that Kiyozawa’s shift toward actual practice rather than theorizing was greatly influenced by this trend toward an experiment-based academic culture.”95 And in recent years, a leading scholar of Shin studies at Ōtani University has characterized the essence of Kiyozawa’s teachings with the term “experimentalism” ( jikken-shugi, 実験主義).96 By developing this language of religious empiricism, Kiyozawa established space for Amida Buddha and the Pure Land within the realm of modern learning. His disciples would go on to construct a new model of Shin Buddhist studies grounded in Kiyozawa’s subjectivist, this-worldly doctrinal interpretations and expressed through his lan­ guage of empiricism.

54

Chapter 2

Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies If Amida’s Primal Vow is true, Śākyamuni’s teaching cannot be false. If the Buddha’s teaching is true, Shan­ dao’s commentaries cannot be false. If Shandao’s commentaries are true, can Hōnen’s words be lies? If Hōnen’s words are true, then surely what I say cannot be empty. Such, in the end, is the faith of this foolish person. —Shinran, Tannishō

From the sixth to the eighth day of the first month of the first year of the Kennin era [1201], [Shinran] attended lectures on the eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra in the Shōkōin Hall and carried out śamatha and vipaśyanā meditations. As always, the instructor was Teacher Jien Sōjō and the group consisted of the elders of the mountain. On the tenth day of the same month, he again entered Daijōin Hall. Here, our saint, who in his dark nights of ignorance regarding life and death had received a spiritual message from Kannon and recognized a faint light of hope, once again made a great vow. Night after night, for one hundred days, he descended to Kyoto, secluded himself in the hexagonal temple, and devoted himself to supplications. Dur­ ing that time, he sank into the fallen snow up to his knees, the cold wind cracked his skin, and he had to endure every kind of physical hardship. Ah, those hundred nights of prayer secluded in the Rokkakudō Hall. This was our saint’s final effort at seeking the way and settling the matter of life and death. Would he attain what he was seeking or would he not? Would the door that he knocked upon open or would it not? Would he find fulfillment or despair? Would he advance or retreat? Would he live or die? Our saint’s fate lay in this one effort. Finally, the day of the completion of his vow passed. Before long, a letter was abruptly delivered to the mountain announcing our saint’s farewell and departure from that mountain. . . . 55

Intellectual Politics And so, the figure of our saint would never again be seen on Mount Hiei or at Shōkōin Hall.1

Sasaki Gesshō’s seven-hundred-page biography of Shinran, published in 1910, was not meant to be a straightforward accounting of historical facts about Shinran’s life. Nor was it meant to be a mere retelling of tra­ ditional accounts of Shinran’s life, as passed down within Shin tradition. According to the “Confession” chapter that opens the book, Sasaki’s goal was to go beyond objective historical facts and uncover Shinran’s “per­ sonality” and his “great life extending across the three times” (sansei ikkan no dai seimei, 三世一貫の大生命). “This is why,” Sasaki explains, “in my biographical narration, I frequently extend my efforts to adding sub­ jective description that, although not strictly objective, does fall within the realm of what is permitted by the facts.”2 Building on the empiricist language developed by Kiyozawa and others, Sasaki goes on to identify and analyze the “spiritual experiences” and “facts of mental experi­ ence” that were crucial to Shinran’s life.3 Neither modern historicist scholarship nor traditional hagiography, Sasaki’s biography of Shinran represented a new paradigm of Buddhist studies concerned with subjec­ tive facts and experiences. When Sasaki’s narrative arrives at the critical juncture of Shinran’s visions of Kannon Bodhisattva, departure from the Tendai community on Mount Hiei, and joining Hōnen’s community, he pauses to insert a chapter titled “World-Honored Śākyamuni and Saint Shinran”: Why did Prince Siddhartha, son of King Suddhodhana, leave home, and how did he become Buddha? And why did Matsuwaka-maru [birth name of Shinran], eldest son of Lord Arinori, leave home, and how did he become Shakkū [name given to Shinran by Hōnen]? These are truly the aspects of these two biographies that we should pay the most attention to. If we do not carefully resolve these questions, we may not be able to know who the later saint was. Therefore, I would like to compare these two figures, and speak a little about their religious experiences.4

In Sasaki’s view, the crucial matter of why Śākyamuni and Shinran left home and how they became awakened requires looking beyond out­ ward historical facts toward the facts of their subjective “religious experiences.” In his comparison of Śākyamuni and Shinran, Sasaki notes many out­ ward points of similarity; both were born into noble families, both lost their parents at a young age, both were motivated to seek the way through confrontations with death, both ultimately denied that study or strenuous practice were the true path to enlightenment, and both 56

Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies

achieved their transformative insights in solitude after making deter­ mined vows to find the truth (under the bodhi tree and in the Rokkakudō Hall). Yet Sasaki also draws attention to one striking difference. Whereas Śākyamuni, upon reaching enlightenment, declared himself to be “allknowing” and to have “no teachers” and “no equals,” Shinran confessed that he “completely lacked a pure mind” and was totally indebted to his teacher Hōnen.5 Did Shinran attain his insights by simply trusting in his teacher Hōnen? Did Shinran simply receive and transmit a tradition of teachings stretching from Śākyamuni through the seven patriarchs? Is that what Shin Buddhist faith is all about? No, says Sasaki. According to his analysis of Shinran’s religious experiences, Shinran’s faith, like Śākyamuni’s, was based in something deeper, something beyond tradi­ tion or individual teachers. The proof of that, for Sasaki, lies in the Tannishō passage quoted at the outset of this chapter, a passage that at first glance may seem to express a simple message of trust in teachers and tradition: “If Amida’s Primal Vow is true, Śākyamuni’s teaching cannot be false. If the Buddha’s teaching is true, Shandao’s commentar­ ies cannot be false. If Shandao’s commentaries are true, can Hōnen’s words be lies?” In Sasaki’s explanation of this passage, Shinran’s faith in Amida did not derive from his trust in Hōnen’s teachings; on the con­ trary, Shinran first came to know Amida’s Primal Vow as true, and that enabled him to recognize the truth in Śākyamuni’s, Shandao’s, and Hōnen’s teachings.6 Shinran’s mature faith and understanding, accord­ ing to Sasaki, were rooted not in any trust in teachers or tradition but in his own direct encounter with the foundational, absolute truth of Ami­ da’s Primal Vow. In conclusion, Sasaki praises Shinran while invoking a famous phrase of Kiyozawa’s: “Ah, our saint is most excellent! Isn’t it great! The great path of absolute other-power!”7

Paradigm Change In his 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn describes the history of science in terms of alternating periods of “nor­ mal science” and “revolution.” According to his account, during a period of normal science, fundamental theories are already in place, and a scholar’s task is to further articulate those theories and use them to explain an ever-expanding field of data. Kuhn describes that work as “mopping-up operations” that force new data into “the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies.”8 In time, the dis­ covery of anomalies that resist explanation within an existing paradigm 57

Intellectual Politics

of study can provoke a sense of crisis. For a time, ad hoc modifications of the prevailing paradigm can suffice, but if those modifications prove unconvincing or the anomaly proves significant enough, revolutionary shifts in scientific understandings and practices can occur. An unstable period of trial and error, generation of new theories, and heated debates over the fundamentals of the discipline eventually resolve into a new paradigm structured around new assumptions, new problems to be solved, new standards for judging solutions, new methods of study, and new institutions. Science thus evolves through a process of transforma­ tive rupture rather than a steady accumulation of knowledge. In Kuhn’s explanation, the success of a new paradigm over an older one is not the straightforward result of its obviously superior explana­ tion of the facts. Each paradigm successfully explains certain phenom­ ena while remaining limited in other ways. Different paradigms are incommensurable with one another, such that the choice between two paradigms cannot be settled by logic or empirical evidence alone. As Kuhn explains, “The choice is not and cannot be determined merely by the evaluative procedures characteristic of normal science, for these depend in part upon a particular paradigm, and that paradigm is at issue. When paradigms enter, as they must, into a debate about para­ digm choice, their role is necessarily circular. Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that paradigm’s defense.”9 Kuhn usefully compares the shift from one paradigm to another to a visual “gestalt switch.” In the classic example, a person looking at a drawing of a vase suddenly sees it instead as a drawing of two faces. In a similar way, the transition to a new paradigm results in a fundamen­ tally new way of seeing the same data. However, in the case of a new paradigm, “the scientist does not preserve the gestalt subject’s free­ dom to switch back and forth between ways of seeing.”10 For those who have resolved a crisis by entering into a new paradigm, that new para­ digm represents a clear improvement over the old one, so there is no going back. In this chapter, I will argue that a dynamic of revolutionary paradigm change characterizes the history of Shin sectarian studies during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The emergence of a new para­ digm was provoked by a crisis of faith brought on by a complex mixture of factors. As described in the previous chapter, the dissemination of Western science within Japan during the late Tokugawa period gave rise to doubts about traditional Buddhist teachings, including the doctrine of rebirth in the Western Pure Land. Encroachments by Western colonial 58

Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies

powers and the establishment of the new Meiji state further sparked critical reassessment of local beliefs and traditions and the pursuit of more practical forms of knowledge. On top of that, both the state’s eleva­ tion of Shinto ritual and thought within public life and a new influx of Christian missionaries touting their teachings as “universal” threatened to further undermine the authority of Buddhist teachings.11 For young, university-educated Shin Buddhists like Kiyozawa, who sought to solid­ ify their Buddhist faith and respond to all these challenges, the para­ digm of Tokugawa period sectarian studies was insufficient. Kiyozawa’s work represented one attempt to ground Shin faith and Shin studies on a new foundation. The very first article by Kiyozawa in the Seishinkai journal famously begins, “Our existence in the world ­requires a firm ground on which to stand. If one were to try to get along in the world and do things without such a ground, it would be like trying to give a performance standing on the clouds.”12 The onset of a new world defined by science, nation-building, and religious competition had taken the ground out from under Kiyozawa and his companions’ Bud­ dhist faith. Kiyozawa’s solution was Seishinshugi, a program of study and introspection leading to personal, transformative encounters with the Buddha here and now in this world. Kiyozawa’s followers built on that foundation, approaching the study of Shinran, Dharmākara Bo­ dhisattva, and Amida’s Western Pure Land from a new, this-worldly, sub­ jectivist perspective. A conflict ensued over the relative credibility of the old methods and theories and the new ones, in which neither side could unequivocally prove itself correct and convert its opponents. The primary purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the fundamental differences separating these two groups of scholars, whom I will refer to as “traditionalists” and “modernists.”13 Not only were their conclusions about the nature of Dharmākara, Amida, and the Pure Land different, but so too were their basic methods of studying and interpreting Shin scriptures. At the root of these differences was a basic difference in vision. Looking at the same scriptures, they saw fundamentally differ­ ent things. Or to switch metaphors, they were reading and speaking dif­ ferent languages. Kaneko Daiei compared his realizations about Shin teachings to the process of learning a foreign language and complained that others were merely imitating the sounds of the words of that lan­ guage without any understanding of their meaning.14 From his critics’ perspective, however, it was Kaneko’s and Kiyozawa’s lectures and writ­ ings laden with Western philosophical jargon that seemed to be deliv­ ered in an incomprehensible foreign language. Unable to communicate 59

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across this gap in vision and in language, the two competing camps of thinkers could not resolve their doctrinal disagreement through intel­ lectual argument.

Traditional Sectarian Studies Traditionalist scholars within the modern Ōtani community were intent on upholding and building on the traditions of Shin studies developed by scholars during the long Tokugawa period. This form of Shin studies was referred to by the term “shūjō” (宗乗), or “sectarian vehicle.” For practi­ tioners of shūjō, a foundation for correctly interpreting Shin teachings had already been laid by former scholars and chief abbots of the sect, so the remaining tasks were to convey those correct interpretations to sect members and to engage in “mopping-up operations” of hitherto unin­ terpreted texts and lectures. In understanding the sect’s central scrip­ ture, Shinran’s Kyōgyōshinshō, it was established practice to rely for interpretive guidance on the earliest written commentary on that text, the Rokuyōshō (六要鈔) by Zonkaku (存覚, 1290–1373). Thus, seminal Ōtani scholar Enjōin Senmyō (円乗院宣明, 1749–1821) clarified, “My lecture [on the Kyōgyōshinshō] is not an interpretation. Instead, I am simply consid­ ering what the text might mean based on the Rokuyōshō.”15 The primary task of such scholarship was to define scriptural terms and identify their sources in other scriptural texts. In addition, scholars engaged in the practice of “overcoming contradictions,” which is to say examining scriptural passages in Shinran’s writings or those of the seven Shin patriarchs that seem contradictory and then demonstrating their con­ gruence at a deeper level. In Nobutsuka Tomomichi’s explanation, this practice was guided by the Buddhist principle of expedient means, according to which discrepancies in Buddhist teachings reflect attempts to address the needs of different people.16 An example of the traditional Shin studies approach can be seen in Fukushima Eiju’s comparative analysis of modernist and traditional interpretations of the Tannishō. In stark contrast to the first-person confessional narratives and belief statements central to Akegarasu Haya’s modernist commentaries on the Tannishō, Kōgatsuin Jinrei’s (香月 院深励, 1749–1817) approach in his 1804 Tannishō monsho is to scrutinize the meaning of key terms in the text on the basis of statements found elsewhere in the writings of Shinran and other orthodox Shin figures. For example, Jinrei investigates the meaning of the katakana term “nao” that appears in the famous statement “Even a good person is born 60

Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies

in the Pure Land, how much more so is an evil person.” Jinrei rejects the earlier interpretation by Enchi of Seigan-ji Temple, who understood “nao” to mean “also” (猶). By logically considering Shinran’s critiques in the same Tannishō chapter of those who practice good by their selfpower, Jinrei concludes that “nao” must be understood as meaning “even” (尚). In a subsequent passage, Jinrei considers Shinran’s statement that the purpose of Amida’s Vow is “attainment of buddhahood by evil persons” (akunin jōbutsu, 悪人成仏). Considering the quotation just discussed, Jin­ rei notes, one would expect Shinran to say that the purpose of the Vow is to have evil persons attain rebirth in the Pure Land, not attain buddha­ hood. Jinrei resolves this discrepancy by pointing to a statement by Tan­ luan that rebirth in the Pure Land is equivalent to attainment of buddhahood (ōjō soku jōbutsu, 往生即成仏). Jinrei’s guiding principle is the consistency of Shin thought throughout the writings of Shinran and other orthodox Shin figures, particularly the seven Shin patriarchs, Kakunyo, Zonkaku, and Rennyo.17 Another important feature of traditional Shin studies was its hierar­ chical context. The official title of kōshi (講師), or “lecture master,” was bestowed on the sect’s top scholars by the chief abbot, granting them the authority to give the main lectures at the summer ango (安居)—a weeks-long study retreat for Shin priests—and to make pronounce­ ments on sect orthodoxy.18 Students were expected to absorb the knowledge transmitted to them by kōshi lecturers. Correct knowledge of Shin teachings was thus transmitted from above in a chain from Shinran and the seven Shin patriarchs through the chief abbots, who were descended by blood from Shinran (including Kakunyo, Zonkaku, and Rennyo), down to the kōshi and their students. In the example given above, kōshi Jinrei overturned the interpretation of a lower-ranking scholar; he was not liable to question the interpretations of Kakunyo, Zonkaku, or Rennyo. The summer ango was the principal occasion for doctrinal education. Another occasion for production of orthodoxy was the annual address given by the chief abbot at the Hōonkō services memorializing Shinran’s death. Following the chief abbot’s address, one or more secondary lec­ tures (fukuen, 複演) were given by high-ranking scholars who summa­ rized and elaborated upon the chief abbot’s remarks. These lectures, which in the modern period were regularly published in the official Ōtani newsletter, focused on defining key terms and phrases and dem­ onstrating consistency between the chief abbot’s remarks and those of 61

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Shinran and other orthodox Shin figures.19 In the analogy of Kuhn’s “normal science,” the chief abbot’s remarks produced new data that the scholar “mopped up” by fitting into the established paradigm. For example, in October 1922, a typical Hōonkō lecture was given by Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōen (大谷光演, 1875–1943). Kōen was popularly referred to as Kubutsu, or Poet Buddha, because of his pastime of poetry writing. As a young student, Kōen had been tutored by Kiyo­ zawa Manshi, but his Hōonkō lecture does not reflect that influence. Kōen instructs his audience that in spite of all of modern Japan’s “civi­ lization and progress,” the principle of swift impermanence remains, making urgent the task of attaining faith in Amida. He goes on to para­ phrase and quote two of Shinran’s letters: “I, for my own part, attach no significance to the condition, good or bad, of persons in their final moments. People in whom shinjin [faith] is determined do not doubt, and so abide among the truly settled,”20 and “There is no need to wait in anticipation for the moment of death, no need to rely on Amida’s coming. At the time shinjin becomes settled, birth too becomes settled.”21 The chief abbot’s commentary on these statements of Shin­ ran’s is as follows: It is said that in that one moment of faith in the Primal Vow of other-power, one already comes to abide in the stage of the truly settled and of non-ret­ rogression, so when one’s connection to this world is exhausted, one is made to attain the unsurpassed marvelous fruit of the realm of peace. Given this path to a mind at peace by completing the cause [of birth in the Pure Land] in ordinary life [heizei gōjō, 平生業成], if there are people who do not yet have minds at peace, those people should quickly raise alarm toward the great matter of the next life, abide in a mind at peace that is equal and of one taste, and come to a point of intoning the blessed Name from deep within. Without mistaking the sect tradition that understands the king’s law and Buddha’s law as a pair [ōbō buppō issō, 王法仏法一双], taking up a spirit of discarding the flower for the fruit, admonishing each other’s negligence, and not holding back their strenuous efforts, they should behold the great vastness of imperial blessings and become nenbutsu practitioners who enjoy the mutual dependence of the two truths [nitai sōe, 二諦相依].22

Kōen first takes two quotations of Shinran’s about the insignificance of the moment of death for Shin followers and connects them to Rennyo’s teaching on “the great matter of the next life.” Where a Shin modernist might interpret the same statements of Shinran as exhortations to focus on the blessings attained in this life when joining the “stage of the truly 62

Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies

settled,” Kōen highlights the impermanence of this life and the benefits to be attained in the next life. Kōen then connects those future-oriented blessings provided by Amida Buddha and nenbutsu practice to the present-oriented “imperial blessings” flowing from “the king’s law” and “mutual dependence of the two truths.” Here Kōen invokes an important strand of modern Ōtani doctrinal interpretation. According to the traditional Madhyamaka interpretation, “absolute and worldly two truths” (shinzoku nitai, 真俗二諦) relate to reality as understood by enlightened and unenlightened beings, respectively. An enlightened being perceives the absolute truth that all things are empty of intrinsic, independent existence, while unenlight­ ened beings perceive only the surface reality of a world of distinct, sepa­ rately existing entities. In the modern period, facing pressures to demonstrate stronger allegiance to the state, Shin leaders linked this doctrine to Rennyo’s teaching on the need to follow both the “king’s law” and Buddha’s law and reinterpreted it to mean that Buddhist teachings and secular law are separate but mutually beneficial truths. This doctri­ nal innovation, endorsed by chief abbots and enshrined in the sect con­ stitutions of both major Shin denominations, is a prime example of how traditional sectarian studies did allow for novel doctrinal interpreta­ tions, especially if introduced from above by a chief abbot. Within the hierarchical context of traditional sectarian studies, it then fell to kōshi and other scholars to explain how such doctrinal pronouncements of the chief abbots conformed to the established interpretive tradition.23 Following his invocation of the two truths, Kōen ends his lecture by again affirming Rennyo’s teaching about the afterlife. Reminding his lis­ teners that the seven-hundred-year memorial of Shinran’s founding of the sect will be celebrated the following spring, he urges the congrega­ tion to prepare to come together and express gratitude to Shinran for enabling Shin followers to find reassurance about “the great matter of the next life.” Kōshi scholar Hirose Morikazu (広瀬守一, b. 1854) gave one of two sec­ ondary lectures in response to the chief abbot’s. Hirose’s lecture serves two purposes. First, it reiterates and elaborates key themes in Ōtani Kōen’s lecture—the fleeting nature of life in this world, the urgency of quickly attaining faith so as to make future rebirth assured, the irrele­ vance of wisdom or virtue to this process, and the gratitude owed not just to Shinran but also to the emperor. In response to Kōen’s discussion of “completion of the cause [of birth in the Pure Land] in ordinary life,” Hirose elaborates as follows: 63

Intellectual Politics For those whose rebirth is settled, the goodness or evilness of one’s final moments is determined by past karma. One may be burned in a fire or drowned in water or felled by bullets. But at the end of one’s life, in the midst of a storm of bullets, even if one does not chant the nenbutsu even once, through that one [previous] thought-moment of calling upon Amida, one has reached a position of completing the cause [of birth in the Pure Land] in ordinary life, receiving the great benefit of being grasped [by Amida], and becoming assured of rebirth in the reward land. Such is the explanation we heard in the venerable instructions from our virtuous and wise teacher [zenchishiki, 善知識].24

Dramatizing the difficulty of chanting the nenbutsu at the moment of death through images of fire, drowning, and a “storm of bullets,” Hirose reinforces the chief abbot’s lecture by drawing further attention to the horrors of death and the question of the afterlife—rather than the peace of mind and spiritual heights attained by Shin followers in this life. In the final line quoted above, Hirose refers to Kōen as a “virtuous and wise teacher,” a general term for reliable Buddhist teachers that in a Shin context refers especially to the chief abbots. A second purpose of Hirose’s lecture is to show consonance between Kōen’s statements and orthodox Shin scripture. To that end, Hirose’s lec­ ture contains multiple quotations and references to writings by Rennyo and Shinran that purportedly support Kōen’s statements. In addition, Hirose connects Kōen’s references to “imperial blessings” and the “two truths” with passages from the Sutra on Immeasurable Life: With settled faith, the days of one’s life in this world should be spent rever­ ently beholding the vastness of blessings from the Emperor and the nation. Passing days in this world of samsara, through the benefit of a brightened heart, one should “always speak friendly words with a pleasing smile,” “respect and love each other,” “share things with others,” and obediently follow the golden words to “esteem virtue, practice benevolence and dili­ gently cultivate courteous modesty” in order to realize a world where “the country becomes wealthy, and its people enjoy peace. Soldiers and weapons become useless.” Applying one’s strength to capitalist industry and work­ ing toward the brightening of the nation’s prestige, one should joyously pass one’s days both in this life and the next life. Such is our sectarian tra­ dition of the mutual support of the two truths.25

By juxtaposing the chief abbot’s comments about imperial blessings and the two truths with sutra passages about ethical action and the ideal worlds brought about through the Buddha’s blessings, Hirose implies that obedience to the emperor—and contributions to capitalist 64

Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies

industry—are in the interest of building a more ethical world in line with instructions given by Śākyamuni in the Sutra on Immeasurable Life. In such ways, Hirose anchors the new utterances of the presentday chief abbot to the orthodox scriptural tradition. A year prior to Ōtani Kōen and Hirose Morikazu’s Hōonkō lectures, kōshi scholar Saitō Yuishin gave a series of lectures at a temple in Niigata that illustrate well the traditionalist commitment to upholding the interpretive tradition and forging doctrinal unity out of a diversity of scriptural and interpretive sources. Saitō’s lectures, subsequently pub­ lished under the title Shin Faith and Its Teachings, represent a summation of Shin teachings for a lay audience, given in a context unconstrained by the ango or fukuen lecture formats. Saitō begins by brushing aside doubts arising from modern historio­ graphy about the authenticity of Pure Land scriptures. Pointing to a long list of canonical sutras, commentaries, and verses that includes discus­ sion of Amida Buddha, he argues that this ubiquity is sufficient to dem­ onstrate Amida’s central importance within Buddhism.26 Later in his lectures, regarding doubts about the existence of the Western Pure Land brought on by Western science, Saitō simply asserts that the scripture’s assertion that the Pure Land lies to the west must be accepted. Saitō’s primary response to the anomalies raised by science and historical research is to ignore them, confident in the foundation of the existing paradigm. Saitō proceeds to consider three competing theories of Amida: Amida as the effect of a cause (that cause being Dharmākara’s vows and kalpas of practice), Amida as the manifestation of mind (as posited by Yogācāra “mind-only” teachings), and Amida as an expression of the mind’s original nature (as posited by Tathāgatagarbha teachings). He concludes that all three theories are correct, each from its own per­ spective, and together, they help express the totality and perfection of Amida. However, according to his classificatory logic, which bears resemblance to classical panjiao doctrinal classification systems, there is a clear hierarchy between these three theories; it is because the Amida of cause and effect exists objectively in the west that subjective theories of mind-only Amida and original-nature Amida were made possible. The cause-and-effect Amida is the “root” and the other two theories are the “branches”; the former follows the “practical” words of Śākyamuni Buddha, whereas the latter arise out of the “theoretical” calculations and academic research of bonbu (凡夫, ordinary, unenlight­ ened persons).27 65

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Later sections of Saitō’s lectures address the diversity of interpreta­ tions of Amida’s body and land. Saitō acknowledges that Shinran at times speaks of Amida as eternal, which seems to contradict the myth of Amida’s coming into being ten kalpas ago through the vows and prac­ tices of Dharmākara. Finding scriptural evidence for both views, Saitō applies the framework of root and branch and the Buddhist logic of prin­ ciple (ri, 理) and form ( ji, 事). The principle and root of Amida’s body is eternal, but the form and branch of Amida’s body came into existence ten kalpas ago, when Dharmākara made vows and carried out practices, forging a relationship with the defiled beings of this world and material­ izing the Pure Land in the west.28 Regarding the Pure Land, Saitō acknowledges scriptural evidence for the apparently contradictory claims that the Pure Land lies to the west and that it is unbounded and formless. Again, he argues that both claims must be true. To resolve the seeming contradiction, Saitō explains “unboundedness and formlessness” as the “principle” of the Pure Land and “in the west” as the “form” and “substance” of the Pure Land. He classifies the formation of the Western Pure Land as a case of the Buddha’s “expedient means”: “But here ‘expedient means’ does not mean false or untrue,” he clarifies; here “expedient means” simply refers to “being constructed out of causes and conditions.”29 Amida Buddha constructed the gloriously adorned, substantial Pure Land as an expedient way for ordinary, ignorant bonbu to achieve salvation. To deny the substantial reality of that land and uphold only the view that the Pure Land is unbounded and formless would be to uphold a onesided, evil view.30 In each case, Saitō presumes that all statements within the orthodox Shin canon must be accepted as true and that apparently contradictory statements can be reconciled through the principles of “root and branch” and “principle and form.” In contrast to the secondary lecture of Hirose Morikazu, Saitō is not “mopping up” new data produced by a speech of the chief abbot, but he is taking data from diverse sources— twenty-three scriptural accounts of the legend of Dharmākara Bo­ dhisattva, for example—and fitting them into a box of doctrinal interpretation preformed by Shinran, Zonkaku, and their successors.31 In the case of mind-only and original-nature theories of Amida Buddha, Saitō is somewhat disparaging, but as a rule, he does not clearly privi­ lege the root over the branch. From Saitō’s perspective, root and branch are both essential, so the embrace of one to the exclusion of the other represents an evil, one-sided view. 66

Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies

In summary, traditional Shin studies, as established during the Tokugawa period and carried forward by traditionalists into the modern period, can be characterized by the following five features: 1) a hierar­ chy of scholars, 2) conformity to an established interpretive tradition, 3) intent to demonstrate doctrinal unity among orthodox figures, 4) philo­ logical method focused on defining key terms and overcoming contra­ dictions, and 5) understanding of rebirth in the Pure Land after death as the goal for Shin followers.

Kiyozawa Manshi’s Liberalism Kiyozawa’s followers adopted a new controversial label for their brand of sectarian studies, shinshūgaku, or “Shin studies,” which carried connota­ tions of being one among many modern academic fields of study. In con­ trast to traditional shūjō, modern shinshūgaku can be characterized by the following features: 1) free inquiry, 2) iconoclastic attitude toward the established interpretive tradition, 3) intent to uncover truth within diverse Buddhist and non-Buddhist sources, 4) subjectivist method of introspection and independent reasoning, and 5) understanding of awakening ( jikaku, 自覚) in the present as the goal for Shin followers. Kiyozawa Manshi’s body of Shin studies scholarship is much less extensive than that of his followers, partly owing to the brevity of his life. Even so, his writings established an important foundation for the new Shin studies in various ways. One critical contribution was his advo­ cacy of engagement with fields of knowledge outside the bounds of the Shin tradition. Kiyozawa’s liberal exploration of “external studies” (gegaku, 外学) and their relation to Shin teachings had been fostered by sect administrators concerned with maintaining Shin thought’s rele­ vance and believability in the modern, globalized world. In particular, Kiyozawa’s Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion represents a pioneering attempt to explain Shin thought in Western philosophical terms. In con­ trast to traditionalist scholars, who primarily spoke and wrote for an internal audience of sect members, Kiyozawa wrote for an audience of educated readers beyond the bounds of the Shin sect that was, at least in the case of the English translation of Skeleton, global in scope. In response to Japan’s opening to the world, Kiyozawa and his successors turned out­ ward, developing new ways of speaking about Shin for a national and international audience shaped by Western intellectual traditions. In many cases, this also meant engaging with the international field of his­ toricist Buddhist studies, whether contributing to it or critiquing it. 67

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Kiyozawa’s critics objected to his Western philosophical renderings of Shin teachings. Alluding to Kiyozawa’s philosophical studies and Inaba Masamaru’s study of zoology, those critics accused the modernists of trying to turn Shin Buddhism into a “philosophy sect or an animal sect.”32 In defense of their new, outward-directed scholarship, Kiyozawa and his fellow reformers published an article, titled “Discussing the Kan­ renkai,” that contrasted their approach to sectarian studies with that of their opponents.33 They argued that the traditionalists’ mistake was to confuse sectarian principles (shūgi, 宗義) with the sectarian studies (shūgaku, 宗学) of those principles. The former, presented within Shin­ ran’s Kyōgyōshinshō, are indeed sacred and unchanging, and anyone who denies or directly contradicts the plain words of Shinran is guilty of her­ esy. However, that still leaves considerable room for interpretation. According to Kiyozawa and his coauthors, one of the primary purposes of sectarian studies ought to be to open up Shin teachings to people beyond the sect, and this requires making use of terms and modes of interpretation adopted from other fields. In the modern world, they explain, Buddhism had come under attack on theoretical and practical grounds. Theoretically, Western science and philosophy had generated skepticism toward Buddhist teachings of karma, rebirth, and a cosmos centered on Mount Sumeru. Practically, new social orientations brought about by Western politics, morality, and education had inspired cri­ tiques of Buddhism’s “world-weary tendency” and its teaching of the equality of all sentient beings. To respond effectively, Buddhists must engage with these new systems of ideas. To that end, free inquiry ( jiyū tōkyū, 自由討究) was essential; to require today’s scholars to parrot the terminology and interpretations of past scholars would bring doom to Shin teachings. In “Discussing the Kanrenkai,” Kiyozawa and his coauthors present free inquiry as a strategy for speaking effectively to modern audiences, but it is clear that they also explored broader fields of philosophy, psy­ chology, literature, and Buddhist studies as part of their own quests for faith. Kiyozawa, for example, claimed to attain a firm understanding of Shinran’s teachings on other-power only after studying the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus. Sasaki Gesshō describes his first book as the records of his personally encountering “great spirit” through the inspi­ ration of a host of formative Shin and non-Shin Japanese Buddhist fig­ ures.34 Moreover, Sasaki frequently discusses those figures in connection with Western thinkers such as Socrates, Dante, Tolstoy, and Emerson, all of whom, it seems, helped inspire Sasaki’s personal realizations. 68

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Sasaki Gesshō’s Subjective Empiricism Sasaki Gesshō, one of Kiyozawa’s three principal disciples, is most famous for his role as third president of Ōtani University and for founding the English-language journal the Eastern Buddhist with D. T. Suzuki and oth­ ers. He was also a prolific scholar of Buddhism, authoring more than twenty-five books on topics ranging from Shin to Indian Mahāyāna to Kegon (Flower Garland) Buddhism. His scholarship on Shinran and Shin teachings has not received nearly the attention that Kaneko’s and Soga’s have, but his approach to Shin studies shares much in common with their work. Moreover, like Kaneko’s and Soga’s works, Sasaki’s Shin writ­ ings were deemed heretical by traditionalist scholars. As both an admin­ istrator and scholar, Sasaki played a significant role in the forging of the new Shin studies.35 Sasaki’s works provide a good illustration of modern Shin studies’ subjectivist methodology and emphasis on awakening in the present as the goal of Shin teachings. Building upon Kiyozawa’s notion of religion as consisting of “subjective facts,” Sasaki asserted that faithful entrusting in the Buddha could bring about spiritual experiences enabling one to know the Buddha as clearly and empirically as any other “fact” in the world.36 In a 1901 Seishinkai article, Sasaki explained: We always criticize theoretical knowledge and proclaim the power of faith. However, [the fundamental nature of religion] is not to be found by taking up “doctrinal authority” [kyōken, 教権] as a foundation, by making ideals the basis, by hypothesizing some invisible, unknowable, and mysterious being and locating the fundamental nature of religion in that, telling peo­ ple to have faith in that, to rely on that, to call upon that. In a sense, we are the most extreme kind of empiricist [motto mo hanahadashiki keikenronsha, もつとも甚だしき経験論者]. Therefore, we cannot sim­ ply have faith in some hypothesized, unknowable being. We cannot rely on some invisible being . . . The “Tathāgata” upon whom we call . . . cannot be an unknowable, invis­ ible, unattainable being of the eternally distant future. . . . When we com­ pletely abandon our own calculations and directly enter into Amida’s assembly, we can directly recognize the “Buddha” of great compassion and hear the sound of the “Tathāgata’s” calling us. Reaching this, a person rec­ ognizes in this world no actual reality as clear as “Buddha,” and knows nothing as firmly established as Buddha mind.37

Here Sasaki rejects the custom of relying on the “doctrinal authority” of high-ranking kōshi scholars or chief abbots. Instead of taking their word 69

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about “things invisible, unknowable, and mysterious,” Sasaki claims that his new tribe of Shin studies scholars will seek direct knowledge of the Buddha through personal experience. As such, they ought to be clas­ sified as “empiricists,” albeit of a more “extreme” sort than scientists or historians who deal only with physical, objective facts. Sasaki’s first book, Religion of Experience (1903), applies this subjective empiricist methodology to the study of influential Japanese Buddhist figures from Saichō and Kūkai to Rennyo and Hakuin. The book begins with an assault on the modern academic study of Buddhism through “scientific,” “philosophical,” and “comparative” methods. Here Sasaki seems to be referring to philological and historical methods of Buddhist studies first established in Europe by scholars of Sanskrit and Pali Indian texts and then spread to Japan through figures like Nanjō Bun’yū and Takakusu Junjirō, who studied Indian languages in Europe before accepting teaching positions at Tokyo Imperial University.38 Sasaki com­ pares such methods of Buddhist studies to “picking a plant from the earth or catching a fish from the river and then, without offering a drop of water, seeking in them something that does not wither or die.”39 In this analogy, the “water” needed to bring Buddhist scriptures to life is personal faith. Buddhist doctrines were preached by enlightened per­ sons of faith, Sasaki emphasizes, so a scholar’s goal must be to penetrate the mind of faith behind any given scriptural pronouncement.40 By a process of triangulation, an encounter with the faith of Shinran inspires faith in the scholar, and these together reveal the true meaning of any given doctrine.41 With the exception of the opening and closing chapters, each chap­ ter of Sasaki’s book consists of a long section that emotively evokes that figure’s inner psychology combined with a shorter section of dry historical biography. The text thus displaces the historiography of mainstream Buddhist studies with Sasaki’s own subjective, psycholog­ ical methodology. For example, the chapter on Tendai sect founder Saichō focuses on why he retreated to Mount Hiei, a question that Sasaki claims can be answered not by historical research but only by “asking Saichō himself.”42 Sasaki proposes to do this by considering the psychology evidenced in Ganmon (願文), a short text written by Saichō after arriving on Mount Hiei. Part of Sasaki’s argument runs as follows: Dengyō Daishi [Saichō], here at a pinnacle of self-reflection and self-con­ templation, reached this awakening: 70

Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies “I, lowly Saichō, am as ignorant as ignorant can be, as deranged as deranged can be, a dusty, bald-headed being. Above, I oppose the buddhas. Between, I transgress imperial rule. Below, I lack filial piety.” Dengyō Daishi’s entrance into the mountains was not for the sake of opening a sect; it was for the sake of opening his own mind. It was not to overturn Buddhism of the South; it was to overturn the evil demons within his heart. It was not to save society from its evils; it was to save his own self from its evils. . . . This awakening was the original cause that led Dengyō Daishi to become the founder of Japanese Tendai and a great figure of Heian Buddhism. Dengyō died in this awakening and lived in this awakening.43

Sasaki thus characterizes Saichō’s life and works in terms of a single experience of realization of his own lowliness—a point easily squared with Shin teachings. It pays little attention to biographical or political factors that may explain Saichō’s decision to retreat to Mt. Hiei, nor does it concern itself with Saichō’s subsequent career traveling to China, importing new doctrines and rituals into Japan, serving the imperial court, and working to establish a new precept platform on Mount Hiei. For Sasaki, such later developments are all secondary effects of Saichō’s initial experience of awakening. Outlines of Shin Buddhism, Sasaki’s 1921 investigation of Shinran’s Kyōgyōshinshō, is the work that attracted accusations of heresy prior to his appointment as president of Ōtani University. As announced in the book’s preface, Sasaki’s intention was to prove that Shin Buddhism is not a particular sect of Buddhism opposed to other sects but rather a true expression of the Buddhism of Śākyamuni. In part, he argues this by emphasizing Shinran’s liberal use of quotations from the Flower Garland Sutra and Nirvana Sutra, which he takes to be expressive of Śākyamuni’s thinking.44 The second chapter of Sasaki’s book contains a revealing discussion of what he views to be the differences between Buddhism and academic study: Buddhism is of course not an academic field of study but rather a religion. That being said, it does not reject academic study, but rather pursues wis­ dom [just as academic study does]. Of course, wisdom for the religion of Buddhism ultimately takes the form of faith, whereas wisdom for so-called academic study within the secular world has a completely different mean­ ing. In academic research, one researches an object and makes a discovery. If what is clarified is something people have already researched and discov­ ered, it leads to feelings of disappointment and indifference. When it comes to religious wisdom and the power of faith, the more the same facts of 71

Intellectual Politics faithful understanding were discovered in the past, the more joyful one is. This is perhaps the point of difference between the wisdom of academic research and the faith of religious experience.45

Even as he distinguishes Buddhism from academic study, Sasaki simulta­ neously positions Buddhism alongside academic study as similarly engaged in the pursuit of wisdom through “experiences” that reveal “facts.” The difference is that the “experiences” of religion are personal, subjective experiences (here Sasaki uses the term “taiken,” 体験) and that a successful religious experience is one that rediscovers the same facts from the past, rather than new, previously undiscovered facts. Sasaki goes on to cast the story of Shinran’s career in terms of an initial revela­ tory experience at the age of twenty-nine followed by a lifetime of study dedicated to “confirming that his faith was the same as Śākyamuni’s deepest thoughts.”46 Through his painstaking studies, Shinran discov­ ered in the Flower Garland Sutra, the Nirvana Sutra, and the writings of the seven Shin patriarchs records of others attesting to the same truth of his experiential discovery. Like Saitō’s Shin Faith and Its Teachings, Sasaki’s book also takes up the topic of whether Amida is an eternal being or a being born ten kalpas ago. Sasaki notes that according to the traditional explanation, both statements are true. Not content to just accept such explanations, Sasaki retorts, “But is this really enough for anyone to understand it?”47 His subsequent interpretations are guided by the principle that Shin teach­ ings must relate to the present, specifically to transformative experi­ ences of awakening in the present. This focus on the present is necessitated by his subjective empiricist stance. The past is a matter of hearsay, and the future is a matter of speculation; only present realities can be confirmed for certain. Sasaki first notes that both sides of this traditional argument are concerned with the past. Did Amida come into being ten kalpas ago, or had Amida existed even before then? In either case, Amida’s past exis­ tence seems irrelevant to the matter of Shin followers attaining faith in the present. This observation makes Sasaki suspicious of the commonsense understanding of Amida as having attained buddhahood long ago. Sasaki then recounts the suspicions of others. For example, Dharmākara’s eighteenth vow was phrased in the form “If all sentient beings are not born there, then may I not attain awakening.” Since not all beings have yet been born there, does this not imply the incomplete­ ness of Amida’s awakening? Moreover, Dharmākara was a bodhisattva 72

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presumably committed to the bodhisattva vow that “though sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to save them all.” Since all sentient beings have yet to be saved, shouldn’t Dharmākara still exist in bodhisattva form? To proceed to buddhahood before all beings are saved would reflect selfishness. Such questioning had led others to theorize that Amida had not yet attained full buddhahood. Yet declaring Amida’s buddhahood incomplete is hardly compatible with Shin teachings. A natural third viewpoint between these extremes, Sasaki notes, was to posit that Amida is attaining buddhahood in the present, as individual sentient beings who are the object of Amida’s vows attain buddhahood. Without reaching any firm conclusion, Sasaki then pivots to the ques­ tion of sentient beings’ attainment of buddhahood. Does this take place in the past, the present, or the future? Sasaki notes that the Chinzei denomination of the Jōdo sect emphasizes having proper mindfulness of Amida at the moment of death. Within that framework, attainment of buddhahood in the future is the proper object of faith. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sasaki points to the Jōdo sect’s Seizan denomina­ tion as upholding the view that all sentient beings attained buddhahood in the past when Amida did. Within that framework, faith is a matter of trusting that behind the surface of delusion, one has already become a buddha. By contrast, Sasaki presents the Shin doctrine of “completing the cause [for birth] in ordinary life” as describing attainment of bud­ dhahood in the present. Through a process of “awakening for the first time to the facts in front of one,” one realizes that although one is not a buddha now, one certainly will become a buddha. One’s accomplishment of the conditions for future buddhahood amounts to “completion of what is not completed” (fujōju no jōju, 不成就の成就). In this formulation, Sasaki finds a middle ground between “already completed” and “not yet completed.”48 Disapproving of reliance on “doctrinal authority” and taking up a subjective empiricist approach, Sasaki sees each doctrinal question as a new problem to be solved and speculatively generates potential solu­ tions. In the process, he revisits fundamental questions regarding what Buddhism is, how it should be studied, and how it differs from other fields of study. This corresponds to Kuhn’s description of the period of a new paradigm’s development in terms of “the proliferation of competing articulations, the willingness to try anything, the expression of explicit discontent, [and] the recourse to philosophy and to debate over fundamentals.”49 The old paradigm is in ruins, but the new paradigm is still being formed. 73

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In contrast to Jinrei’s, Hirose’s, and Saitō’s commitment to overcom­ ing contradictions and demonstrating consistency with appeal to prin­ ciples like “root and branch,” Sasaki is primarily guided by the principle that each Shin teaching must relate to and be verifiable within the pres­ ent. Where Saitō, following the Shin patriarchs and Kakunyo, affirms the doctrine of Amida’s achievement of buddhahood in the distant past, Sasaki concludes that Amida’s achievement of buddhahood is ongoing in the present. Where Ōtani Kōen, following Rennyo, calls on Shin followers to contemplate the “great matter of the next life,” Sasaki emphasizes the fullness of the present experience of faith, without mentioning death or the next life. Sasaki allows that, strictly speaking, the true dharma must be infinite and thus unbounded by the three times or ten directions. But as a practitioner of subjective empiricism, Sasaki can only search out the meaning of Amida’s buddhahood or sentient beings’ rebirth in the Pure Land in his present experience. A similar pattern is at work in a 1923 book by Kaneko Daiei in a pas­ sage where he seeks out the underlying meaning of Rennyo’s famous phrase “the great matter of the next life.” Guided by the principle that Rennyo’s teaching must relate to the present, Kaneko argues that the phrase “the next life” is meant to startle Shin followers into recognizing the unreality and insignificance of their current lives dominated by petty, materialistic concerns. Kaneko concludes that in Rennyo’s writ­ ings, “the next life” does not refer to a life after death but to a life lived now in awareness of the transcendent Pure Land.50

Soga Ryōjin’s Iconoclasm Initially a critic of Kiyozawa, Soga Ryōjin eventually became one of Seishinshugi’s most prominent representatives. His turbulent relation­ ship with the Ōtani organization and its university on account of his ­unorthodox views and uncompromising spirit will be discussed in the next chapter. Like Kiyozawa, Soga was a student of Western philosophy, particularly Kant, but his greatest influence outside of Shin thought came from the Yogācāra tradition. In terms of scholarship, he is most well-known for his psychologized interpretation of Dharmākara Bo­ dhisattva as a metaphorical expression of the true subjectivity of Shin believers mindful of Amida, but over the course of his long career, he produced countless lectures and writings on Shin thought that became enormously influential when doctrinal orthodoxy within the organiza­ tion shifted in favor of the modernists.51 74

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Soga’s approach to Shin studies is in line with the subjective empir­ icism of Kiyozawa and Sasaki. In one early essay about what he had learned from Kiyozawa, Soga proclaims, “Seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times. We must intimately hear that thunderous sound, presently look upon that majestic radiant countenance, and directly come into contact with that powerful, divine personality. Dharma teaching through words and writing is useless. It must be dharma teaching of the six faculties of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and cognition.”52 Soga’s point here is that just as Ānanda learned the dharma through a face-to-face encounter with a radiant Śākyamuni Buddha, so, too, should Shin followers today seek out encounters with enlightened teachers and embodied, sensory experi­ ences of awakening. What is distinctive of Soga is the degree to which he radically rein­ terpreted key articles of Shin faith on the basis of his own subjective experiences. Through the efforts of Kiyozawa and others, the notion of Amida Buddha—interpreted as “the Infinite” or as a universal law— had already been rendered more accessible for a modern audience, but Shin doctrines of Dharmākara Bodhisattva, the Primal Vow, and the Pure Land remained so problematic that young Shin followers avoided speaking of them altogether. 53 Soga advanced bold new inter­ pretations of such doctrines and attempted to lend authority to those interpretations through the argument that true insights into reality often take the form of outrageous claims or iconoclastic denials of previous orthodoxy. Within an institutional context demanding deferral to tradition, Soga suggests, the audacity of a claim may signal its authenticity. Soga’s trust in his own subjective experiences, along with his unyield­ ing, combative scholarly approach, are on display in a 1904 essay that critiques historicist Buddhist studies scholars: Unless they hear a sound or see something with their eyes, they do not accept it as knowledge. If it is not in texts, they do not accept it. They are firmly grounded, but they are shallow. They do not know the basis by which sounds and deeds arise. They do not know the basis by which historical records come forth. How can those with faith in eyes and ears have faith in their own spirit? How can those with faith in objective facts have faith in spiritual facts? How is it they believe in objective sounds but cannot accept the authority of their own subjective voice? They do not understand that Śākyamuni does not exist only as a textual object but directly becomes active in the depths of our own individual spirits.54 75

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Soga here characterizes the empiricism of historicist Buddhist studies scholars as “firmly grounded” but ultimately “shallow” because it ignores the inner spiritual source of the outward appearances that are being studied. In Soga’s view, learning to trust in the authority of one’s own “subjective voice” and of “spiritual facts” is the path to uncovering the true meaning of Buddhist teachings. To understand Śākyamuni’s teachings, it is essential not just to study texts but also to discover Śākyamuni within one’s own spirit. In the introduction to his landmark 1913 essay “A Savior on Earth: The Meaning of Dharmākara Bodhisattva’s Advent,” Soga describes how he arrived at his theory of Dharmākara through a series of personal reli­ gious experiences that culminated in a sudden, momentous insight: Toward the beginning of July last year, at the home of my friend Kaneko in Takada, I attained a sense of the phrase “The Tathāgata is myself.” Then, toward the end of August, this time at Akegarasu’s place in Kaga, I was offered the phrase “The Tathāgata becoming me saves me.” Finally, around October, I was made to realize that “When the Tathāgata becomes me, it signals the birth of Dharmākara Bodhisattva.” This may not mean much to other people, but for me—who for twenty years had been plagued by sickness and worldly worries, and who had not understood the mean­ ing of the scriptures on this point, even though I made it my task to read from them daily—the insight I received made me feel as if I was handed a torch that all of a sudden lit up a room that had been kept in darkness for a thousand years. 55

Soga grounds his argument in an appeal to his own enlightened feeling of being “handed a torch that all of a sudden lit up a room.” The essay’s intro­ duction concludes with an apparent expression of humility: “Even now, I am surprised by my boldness and arrogance, and I cannot but lament the shallowness of my thinking.”56 Emulating Shinran’s self-­deprecating atti­ tude, Soga critiques his own thinking as shallow, yet he considers his bold and arrogant reinterpretation of Dharmākara Bodhisattva justified on account of the authority of his personal experiences. In the early 1920s, Soga frequently wrote letters to Kaneko regarding the reform of Shin sectarian studies. In one 1920 letter, he suggested that achievement of a proper scientific attitude toward sectarian studies might require abandoning the priesthood altogether: “I think it no lon­ ger works [for me] to be a priest. I think that to first make a conclusion and then construct the reasons for it is a great sin in the academic world. To the extent that one is not free from the priestly temperament, the construction of a true sectarian studies is in vain.”57 Here Soga implies 76

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that traditional sectarian studies’ reliance on an established interpre­ tive tradition amounts to an unscientific commitment to certain conclu­ sions. A truly empirical, and thus reliable, sectarian studies requires a scientific attitude willing to contradict previous interpretations on the basis of newly discovered facts. Soga’s iconoclastic impulse to disregard previous interpretations and establish new ones is again on display when he writes, “Although it is unreasonable to aspire to the words of the Founder [Shinran], if words at least on the level of Kakunyo or Zonkaku are not produced, the sect is doomed.”58 That is, Soga believes that he, Kaneko, or others will need to stand in the place of Kakunyo and Zonkaku—the earliest interpreters of Shinran’s writings—and author their own interpretations of Shin thought rather than relying on the interpretations of Kakunyo, Zonkaku, and those who followed them. When Soga was accused of heresy and forced to resign his position at Ōtani University in 1930, it was ostensibly on account of views presented in his 1927 book View of the Three Minds as Categories of the Manifestation of the Buddha. In that book, Soga continued to develop his theory of Dharmākara. Having previously explained the myth of Dharmākara as a metaphorical expression of the psychology involved in the mind of faith, Soga had also already gone on to declare Dharmākara (literally, “dharma storehouse”) equivalent to the ālaya vijnana (storehouse consciousness) of Yogācāra thought, likening the “three stages” of ālaya consciousness to Dharmākara’s eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth vows. In View of the Three Minds, Soga argues for the equivalency of the “three aspects of ālaya consciousness”—self-aspect, effect-aspect, and cause-aspect—with the “three minds of the Primal Vow”—sincere mind, mind of faith, and mind of aspiration for birth in the Pure Land. Again, Soga grounds these unprecedented claims in the authority of the “facts of my own present consciousness.” Thus, he claims to carry out “Shin studies that flows within my own consciousness and Yogācāra studies that reflects upon my own religious needs.”59 When Soga turns to an analysis of Shinran’s writings on the three minds, he argues that Shinran was also speaking about the “facts” of his own religious experiences. According to Soga, the evidence that Shinran is speaking from the authority of his own experiences lies in the way that Shinran so flatly contradicts the scripture: “Although Amida Buddha discloses three minds, the true cause of attaining Nirvana is the mind of faith alone.” There is nothing other than this one mind of faith. These are truly bold words [of Shinran’s]. “Although Amida 77

Intellectual Politics Buddha discloses three minds”—to restrain this, and regardless of what is said [in the sutra], to declare that “the true cause of attaining Nirvana is the one mind of faith,” that that alone is enough—he has truly said an excellent thing, and I believe it was precisely because he stood atop the direct fact of strong religious awakening that he was able to say such a thing. Normally, one would say, “Amida Buddha discloses three minds” and automatically bow one’s head in agreement.60

Soga is here commenting on Shinran’s discussion of the three minds invoked in Dharmākara’s eighteenth vow. According to that Primal Vow, rebirth in the Pure Land would come to those who call Amida’s name and who have the three minds of sincerity, faith, and aspiration for birth in the Pure Land. Shinran, highlighting the discrepancy between the sutra’s reference to three minds and Vasubandhu’s appeal to “the mind that is single,” contends that Vasubandhu was correct and that the true cause of Nirvana is the single mind of faith.61 Willingness to go beneath the plain words of the sutras and commentaries and discover a deeper truth in line with the “facts” of one’s own “strong religious awaken­ ing”—such is the ideal for Buddhist studies that Soga identifies in Shin­ ran and seeks to emulate in his own work. A similar ideal is at work in Kaneko’s Outlines of Buddhism (1919) where he describes the history of Buddhism in terms of “the infinite manifes­ tation of the truth of no-self experienced by Śākyamuni.” According to Kaneko, whenever Buddhists become overly fixated on the latest “forms of the teaching,” that signifies the need for further developments in the expression of Buddhist teachings, which must arise from authentic experiences of no-self. He boldly concludes, “Through my own true experience of no-self, I must shoulder the blessings of Buddhist teach­ ings of the past and become a starting point for Buddhist teachings of the future.”62 For all of the Shin modernists discussed here, the novel expression of Buddhist teachings on the basis of personal religious expe­ rience renews the tradition, whereas preoccupation with the doctrinal pronouncements of past figures produces only empty formalism.63

Kaneko Daiei’s Rationalism When Kiyozawa presided over the opening of Shinshū University in Tokyo in 1901, Kaneko Daiei, five years younger than Soga, was a firstyear student in the university’s regular division. At that time, he devel­ oped an interest in Seishinshugi. Later, under Soga’s influence, that interest blossomed into full-fledged membership in the Seishinshugi 78

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movement. In addition to Shin studies, Kaneko’s main scholarly inter­ ests were Kegon Buddhism and Western philosophy, particularly Kant and neo-Kantianism. Kaneko established his reputation with a pair of early books on Shin teachings and with the aforementioned Outlines of Buddhism. Alongside Soga, he then caused waves in the Ōtani community through the publication of Prolegomena to Shin Studies (1923) and The Idea of the Pure Land (1925).64 Although Kaneko is best known for the contro­ versial theory of the Pure Land he proposed in the latter book, he went on to a long and prolific career, like Soga, authoring many influential Shin studies works that have shaped modern Ōtani thought.65 Kaneko’s most distinct contribution to the construction of modern Shin studies was his attempt to systematize that field of study and define a role for independent reasoning in it. Particularly in his 1923 Prolegomena to Shin Studies, Kaneko attempted to define the proper objects and methods of Shin studies and to identify the rational principles underly­ ing the dynamics of Shin practice. Prolegomena to Shin Studies was based on lectures given in October 1922 to mark the promotion of Shinshū Ōtani University to official university status under the University Ordi­ nance. Kaneko explicitly modeled his lectures on Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, which had attempted to define new foundations for philosophy in the wake of Hume’s empiricist critiques. Similarly, Kaneko sought to meet the challenge of modern skepticism by establish­ ing Shin studies on a new, sturdy foundation of carefully reasoned principles. Early in his lectures, Kaneko responds to the common critique that the academic study of Shin scriptures is unnecessary: Some people say that religion is nothing more than faith. We feel this faith directly. We, so to speak, intuit the Buddha’s saving power. Because it con­ cerns intuition, there is no need to study it academically. . . . Other people say that the characteristic feature of Shin Buddhism lies in the recitation of the nenbutsu, which is a very simple practice. Each of us individually recites “namu Amida Butsu” and experiences something in it. There is nothing else to Shin Buddhism. To take up anything else and treat it academically is actually a hindrance . . . Even though it is true that faith or practice is the only important thing in Shin Buddhism, a certain realization [shō, 証], that is to say a certain rationality [risei, 理性], must be working in the depth of faith and practice. No matter how much a human observes an object with a microscope, if he has no brains, it’s impossible to discover any scientific truth. In just the same way, even if it is said that we should just believe or just practice, 79

Intellectual Politics neither faith nor practice will be established as long as we have not been readied by our rational faculties. Thus, a certain rationality must be work­ ing in the depth of faith and practice. Seen in this way, both practice and faith enter into the purview of study. And in this sense, within Shin studies, there is a foundation [of rational principles] that must be established.66

Using the analogy of observing an object with a microscope, Kaneko suggests that the pursuit of truth through Buddhist practice must be “readied” by a certain “realization” or “rationality.” Lacking proper rational understanding, a practitioner of Shin may go about the reci­ tation of the nenbutsu and cultivation of faith in the wrong ways, thus hindering the possibility of a genuine experience of faith. In Kaneko’s formulation, then, Shin studies’ main purpose is to clarify the rational principles underlying the dynamics of Shin faith so that Shin practi­ tioners are better readied for the cultivation of genuine experiences of faith. The subsequent sections of Kaneko’s work define the proper object and method of study for Shin scholars. Based on a review of Shinran’s statements in the Kyōgyōshinshō, Kaneko concludes that the proper object is the Sutra on Immeasurable Life—not Shinran’s Kyōgyōshinshō. He then interprets the importance of Shinran and the seven Shin patriarchs in terms of their demonstration of the proper method of Shin studies. In Kaneko’s view, that method is naikan (内観), or “introspection.” Kaneko’s argument here is contentious insofar as it invites Shin scholars and practitioners to stand in the position of Shinran and the seven patri­ archs and emulate their introspective reading of the sutras—rather than simply receive their interpretations of the sutras as mediated by the orthodox commentarial tradition stemming from Zonkaku. Thus, Kaneko champions the principle of free inquiry initiated by Kiyozawa’s rejection of reliance on Tokugawa period scholarship.67 Kaneko’s lecture builds toward a climactic penultimate section titled “On the Method for Introspecting on the Reason for the Pure Land.” There Kaneko unveils his understanding of the “Copernican revolution” in Buddhism that Shinran had effected by abandoning the study of the circumstances ( jiyū, 事由) of Amida’s Pure Land in favor of inward reflec­ tion on the reason (riyū, 理由) for the Pure Land. The terms translated here as “circumstances” and “reason” are rich with associations. First, they point to the Kegon Buddhist conceptual pair of form ( ji) and prin­ ciple (ri). In this sense, “circumstances” suggests impermanent, external forms associated with the Pure Land, whereas “reason” points to its underlying, eternal reality. Second, considering Kaneko’s engagement 80

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with Kant and neo-Kantianism, these terms also point to Kantian prin­ ciples of empirical “phenomena” as opposed to transcendental “ideals.” As examples of the “circumstances” that account for Amida’s Pure Land, Kaneko points to Buddhists’ aspirations to become buddhas, the difficulties of progressing on the bodhisattva path, and the resulting yearning for a pure land where that path is made easier. In addition, he notes traditional debates about whether such a pure land really exists, whether multiple buddhas can exist at the same time, and whether an ordinary being burdened by past karma can qualify for rebirth in a pure land. Kaneko classifies all these explanations and debates as concerned with the outward “circumstances” that shaped belief in the Pure Land. According to Kaneko, Shinran effected a momentous reversal when he turned instead to introspective inquiry into the “reason” or “princi­ ple” underlying the necessary existence of the Pure Land and its provi­ sion of salvation to sentient beings. To understand Kaneko’s thinking here, it is useful to consider a letter he wrote to a colleague several months earlier that discusses Kantian philosophy and its application to the study of religion.68 In the letter, Kaneko reviews three recent pub­ lished works on religious philosophy by Ernst Troeltsch, Hatano Seiichi, and Georg Mehlis. Kaneko describes how Troeltsch grapples with the difficulty of “how to synthesize religion’s transcendental nature and experiential nature” while heeding “transcendental philosophy’s warn­ ings against becoming metaphysics.” According to Kant, our experience of the world is shaped by transcendental realities, namely the a priori categories of our thinking—including time, space, and cause and effect— that structure our experience of the world. From a Kantian perspective, any philosophy of religion would have to acknowledge that our minds structure our experiences, that we cannot know “things in themselves,” and that metaphysical speculation about God or ultimate reality is inherently flawed. In the same letter, Kaneko lets on that he himself is interested in the project of constructing a transcendental philosophy of religion. He describes himself and his colleague as fellow travelers on the path between the “two rivers,” an allusion to Shandao’s parable of the two rivers and the white path. Kaneko, however, declares the path to lead not to the Pure Land but to “religious a priori,” which is to say tran­ scendental religious realities or categories of thinking. Later, Kaneko suggests that “faith” might be understood as a “higher intellect” (takaki chi, 高き知) or “transcendent intellect” (chōetsu chi, 超越知), by which he seems to mean a form of thinking separate from rationality that pro­ duces knowledge of transcendental realities.69 81

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In Prolegomena to Shin Studies, Kaneko approaches the question of the Pure Land with such Kantian categories and principles in mind. Regard­ ing the term “reason,” Kaneko explains that he is pointing to the “neces­ sity” of a given event rather than the mere circumstantial fact that it happened. Just as Hume and Kant struggled to explain the necessity of the cause-and-effect relationship of a billiard ball striking and propelling another billiard ball, Kaneko is trying to explain the “necessity” of two processes—first, the formation of the Pure Land through Dharmākara’s vows and practices, and second, a Shin practitioner’s rebirth there through the act of faith. In developing his argument, Kaneko enters into a Kantian discussion of the principle of cause and effect as having no neces­ sary connection from the standpoint of realism (as Hume argued). To understand the necessity of cause and effect, Kaneko continues, one must turn to the transcendental world of ideals (kannen no sekai, 観念の世界) (as Kant argued). Departing from Kant, Kaneko then states that such tran­ scendental ideals can be known through awakening ( jikaku).70 If Kant was the first to give satisfactory explanation of the necessary existence of cause and effect and other a priori categories of the mind, Kaneko claims that Shinran was the first to properly understand the transcendental principle by which faith leads inexorably both to the for­ mation of the Pure Land and to rebirth there. Shinran discovered that knowledge of one’s true self—as a sinful, ignorant bonbu—naturally and necessarily leads to the arising of bodhisattva spirit within oneself. As Kaneko explains: We cannot help but experience immediately the bodhisattva spirit adorn­ ing the Pure Land at the source of the path leading to birth in the Pure Land. The path for adorning the Pure Land and the path for birth in the Pure Land are actually the same. In both paths, the Buddha’s Vow-Power makes itself manifest to us. In other words, we do not say the nenbutsu, but the Buddha says it. When we believe in the Buddha and his Primal Vow, it is not we who believe in them. Rather the Buddha’s wisdom or the Buddha’s Primal Vow manifests itself as our faith.71

Kaneko’s explanation here resonates with Soga’s theory of faith as the birth of Dharmākara within oneself as one’s true subjectivity. In the one moment of faith, the two processes of Dharmākara forming the Pure Land and the Shin follower attaining rebirth (or at least assurance of rebirth) are necessarily brought about. For Kaneko, what is crucial here is Shinran’s realization that the nenbutsu must be said by the Buddha, not the practitioner: “People before 82

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Shinran urged us to recite ‘namu Amida Butsu.’ In contrast, Shinran says that we must listen to ‘namu Amida Butsu.’ As long as we are saying the nenbutsu consciously, we are not really saying it.”72 The trick is to allow the Buddha (in the form of Dharmākara Bodhisattva) to enter into one’s subjectivity and generate faith. That is impossible as long as one main­ tains a willful, prideful self. The firmly rooted delusion of selfhood and related reliance on self-power act as barriers, preventing other-power from doing its work. By seeing oneself for what one truly is—an ignorant bonbu—one experiences despair, gives up trying to save oneself, and finally lets other-power in. Where is the Kantian “necessity” in this process? In the same passage that he discusses the principle of cause and effect as belonging to the realm of transcendence, Kaneko also discusses the principle that the self does not exist as another transcendent ideal accessible through selfawakening. And as noted above, in his 1919 Outlines of Buddhism, Kaneko explains the historical development of Buddhist teachings—from Hīnayāna through Shinran’s Pure Land teachings—as a process of gener­ ating new expressions for the same experience of no-self. From that per­ spective, Shinran’s “Copernican revolution” can be understood as a return to the fundamental truth that each Buddhist must seek out an experience of no-self, rather than fixating on the external forms of the teaching. The realization of no-self necessarily brings about an extin­ guishing of the three poisons of greed, delusion, and anger, the end of suffering, and a compassionate desire to save others. On one level, Kaneko seems to be saying that the Shin discourse of realizing the limits of self-power, attaining faith in Amida, and aspiring to be reborn in the Western Pure Land is just a different way of expressing the experience of no-self and the flood of compassion that necessarily results from it. Yet it cannot be denied that Kaneko also speaks of Amida as a pres­ ence that becomes manifest at the moment of faith. In a telling passage, Kaneko compares other-power to the pantheistic conception of deity advanced by Spinoza: People who criticize Spinoza’s pantheism argue that, if God can be found throughout nature, there should be no harm or evil in the world. Similar criticism is directed toward the other-power teaching. But this is a mistake deriving from a one-dimensional misunderstanding of other-power. It is not enough just to place the Buddha and ordinary beings side by side and demonstrate their relationship, that is to say, the circumstances. We can understand the Primal Vow only by going back to the infinite within our selves, by going back to our true selves. Only then for the first time can we 83

Intellectual Politics attain the Tathāgata’s Primal Vow. Only when there is such reasoning, can our religious practice for the first time become pure.73

Similar to Spinoza’s pantheistic God, Amida’s other-power is described in Shin scriptures as a force that pervades the universe (hence Amida’s name, “Buddha of Immeasurable Light”). Yet, in Kaneko’s explanation, so long as a Buddhist practitioner relates to that force as an external reality existing circumstantially, side by side with the practitioner, the connection between the two goes unrealized. For other-power to mani­ fest itself to us, we must discover it within. In Kiyozawa’s terms, we must realize union with the infinite, the great self. This transformation depends in part upon a certain reasoning. Abandoning the idea that other-power exists independently from us, we must seek within our­ selves our essential, necessary connection with other-power.74 Once we reason in this way, approaching Shin teachings as rooted in inner neces­ sity rather than external circumstances, we can properly introspect and open ourselves to true faith. Considering Kaneko’s Kantian framing of the problem, we might understand other-power here less as a force per­ vading the universe and more as a transcendent category of the mind that, when permitted to function fully, causes us to experience the world through a lens of compassion. In The Idea of the Pure Land, Kaneko tries out a different explanation of Amida in terms of Platonic idealism. Through introspection into one’s own sinful, imperfect qualities, one becomes aware of ideals (i.e., “ideas,” “forms”) that implicitly form the basis of our judgments of perfection and imperfection. Our ideal of a wise, compassionate person is none other than the Buddha. Similarly, our standard for judging this world, our ideal of a perfect world, is none other than the Pure Land. Just as Plato argued that ideals are not mere imaginings but necessarily stand as the transcendent source of our world, so does Kaneko argue that the ideals of the Buddha and the Pure Land represent the transcendent source and ultimate destiny of our selves and our world. Referencing Kant, Kaneko argues that we know only the world of phenomena and not the world as it truly is. True, objective reality—the world as it truly is—is none other than the Pure Land inhabited by buddhas.75 Here, the Bud­ dha and Pure Land have morphed from Kantian categories of mind into Platonic ontological forms. Regardless of which version of idealism is used, the important point here is that Kaneko has taken the “subjective empiricism” advocated by Kiyozawa, Sasaki, and Soga and joined it to a rational argument about why 84

Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies

such experiences arise and dependably lead to certain effects. Moving away from reliance on “doctrinal authority” and its claims regarding “things invisible, unknowable, and mysterious,” Kaneko sought to shed rational light on the existence of the Pure Land and the possibility of rebirth there through faith. According to his solution, the Pure Land is not just a place described in sutras, the existence of which Buddhists can choose to accept on faith. Rather, the Pure Land is a transcendent reality that structures all of our experiences and that can be manifested here and now through faith, which Kaneko tentatively characterizes as “tran­ scendent intellect.” Within Kaneko’s new Shin studies, the job of the scholar is to read Shin scriptures introspectively, experience the facts of one’s connection to Amida and the Pure Land, and then define the dynam­ ics by which proper introspection necessarily infuses people with the spirit of Dharmākara’s compassion and enables them to experience the Pure Land, the true world of perfection that lies invisibly behind this imperfect world. If successful, such scholarship would not only render Shin Bud­ dhism more believable to the world of skeptics but would facilitate proper practice and genuine experiences of faith among the Shin community. It should be added here that all the Shin modernists, beginning with Kiyozawa, also offered critiques of rationality and appealed to nonra­ tional forms of knowing. On one hand, Kiyozawa declared that “if there are two propositions, the one of reason and the other of faith, we should rather take the former instead of the latter.” At the same time, he argued that reason was fundamentally incomplete, such that the use of reason alone would never bring one to a realization of ultimate truth. For that, an experience of union with Amida was necessary. Whereas Kiyozawa presented an epistemological argument regarding the limits of reason, Soga went on to advance a psychological argument about the powerless­ ness of reason to overcome instinct in determining human action (see chapter 5). Both argued that letting go of one’s reliance on rationality is a necessary step on the path to awakening. Kaneko’s explanations of the Pure Land also had a nonrational side to them, especially when he spoke of nostalgic longings toward one’s “native home” (kyōri, 郷里) as an emo­ tional force drawing people toward the Pure Land.76 Even so, it can be stated that the Shin modernists held a distinctive view of reason as important in purifying Buddhists’ doctrinal understandings and ready­ ing them for an experience of awakening.77 Traditional sectarian studies as engaged in by scholars like Hirose Mori­ kazu and Saitō Yuishin was incommensurable with the modernist Shin 85

Intellectual Politics

studies of Sasaki, Soga, and Kaneko. Neither side could prove the superi­ ority of its methods or conclusions to the other side insofar as each side appealed to a different set of standards. A traditionalist’s interpretation of Shin teachings was true by virtue of its congruence with the ortho­ dox commentarial tradition and its ability to reveal consistency across the diverse statements of orthodox Shin figures. A modernist interpre­ tation was true by virtue of its grounding in the present experience of a scholar who had engaged in processes of introspection and indepen­ dent, rational inquiry. Ostensibly united in a common project to faith­ fully interpret Shinran’s teachings, traditionalist and modernist Shin scholars went about that project in fundamentally different ways—­ posing different questions, applying different methods, and judging solutions based on different sets of standards. As discussed in the next chapter, traditionalists were primarily concerned with preserving Shin teachings against the dangerous encroachment of science, philosophy, Shinto nativism (kokugaku, 国学), and Christianity, while modernists sought to innovate new doctrinal expressions more appropriate for ­people—themselves included—who had been influenced by those exter­ nal intellectual forces. Scholars on each side had persuasive, albeit circular, arguments in defense of their positions, so a resolution depended in part on persuad­ ing the uncommitted—especially the younger generation. In this regard, a shift in religious orthodoxy required the same conditions that shifts in scientific understanding apparently require. In the words of Max Planck, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventu­ ally die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”78 The type of Shin studies that the younger generation would become familiar with depended on who was in control of Ōtani’s educational institutions. It is to the history of those institutions and the battle to control them that we now turn.

86

Part II Institutional Politics

Chapter 3

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University The emperor and his ministers, acting against the dharma and violating human rectitude, became enraged and embittered. As a result, Master Genku— the eminent founder who had enabled the true essence of the Pure Land to spread vigorously [in Japan]—and a number of his followers, without receiving any ­deliberation of their [alleged] crimes, were summarily ­sentenced to death or were dispossessed of their monkhood, given [secular] names, and consigned to distant banishment. I was among the latter. Hence, I am now neither a monk nor one in worldly life. —Shinran, Kyōgyōshinshō

Kaneko Daiei and Soga Ryōjin’s lifelong friendship apparently began in the summer of 1909 at Kiyozawa’s seven-year memorial services in Tokyo. The two scholar-priests may have been drawn to one another by their shared background, both born into Shin temple families in the northern prefecture of Niigata. Following the memorial services, Kaneko invited Soga to visit his temple in Niigata to give a week of dharma talks. For the next thirty-five years, the two priests regularly exchanged let­ ters. Kaneko, who looked up to Soga as his senpai, or senior peer, kept all the letters he received from his friend and mentor over the years—218 in total. The letters tell a story of two Buddhist scholars plotting their sect’s revolution. As modernists devoted to Kiyozawa’s Seishinshugi movement, Soga and Kaneko did not enjoy cordial relations with the old guard of Ōtani administrators and scholars. Mounting unease regarding the “hereti­ cal” teachings on offer at Shinshū University led sect administrators in 89

Institutional Politics

Kaneko Daiei (left) and Soga Ryōjin (right), 1961.

1911 to relocate the university to Kyoto and combine it with Ōtani’s tra­ ditional seminary, naming the new institution Shinshū Ōtani University (later shortened to Ōtani University). In a letter to Kaneko, Soga remarked that this decision marked the death of the university.1 He resigned in protest along with fifteen others. In doing so, he burned a bridge that would take a decade and a half to rebuild. Having returned to his home temple in snowy Niigata, Soga wrote to Kaneko comparing his and Kaneko’s situation to the banishment Shinran and the rest of Hōnen’s community had suffered seven centuries earlier. Discussing the Kyōgyōshinshō passage quoted above, Soga commented, “The Jōdo Shin sect was born in a place of exile. It was born from adverse conditions [gyakuen, 逆縁]. . . . Now, are we not presently banished to the northern prefectures, quietly moved to tears by the great compassion of the Tathāgata? Upon reflection, are we not the evil monks of seven hun­ dred years ago, cast to the south and north?” Shinran’s exile had served as 90

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

“adverse conditions” leading to the establishment of Jōdo Shin teachings, just as a different set of adverse conditions—Prince Ajātaśatru’s murder of his father—had occasioned Śākyamuni’s original revelation of the Pure Land teachings. In the same way, Soga wrote, he and Kaneko should embrace their situation of exile as a cause for gratitude and an opportu­ nity to rediscover the true essence of Pure Land teachings.2 In 1915, Kaneko published his first book on Shin teachings and moved to Tokyo to take up a position editing the Seishinkai journal. The follow­ ing year, students at Shinshū Ōtani University organized a movement calling for Kaneko and Soga to be hired. Conservative university leaders allowed Kaneko’s hiring but refused Soga’s. Kaneko later recalled that students at the university were “quite dissatisfied, thinking that the ‘flanking attendant’ had come without the ‘main image.’”3 Soga conse­ quently moved to Tokyo to take up Kaneko’s position as editor of Seishinkai and to teach Buddhist philosophy at Tōyō University. Over the following years, Soga’s appraisal of the Ōtani organization’s potential for reform seesawed between optimism and despair. In 1917, inspired by his friend’s accomplishments at Shinshū Ōtani University, he commented to Kaneko that the Ōtani organization was “finally seeing the light of renewal.”4 The following year, he wrote proudly of the suc­ cesses of Seishinkai in attracting a wide readership and keeping the teachings of Shinran alive.5 By 1920, however, Seishinkai had collapsed, and Soga’s outlook turned bleak. He attacked the university’s new jour­ nal Gasshō as “useless” and indicative of the “flaccid atmosphere” at the school. Declaring himself witness to the “destruction of the dharma” prophesied in the sutras, he concluded that he needed to chart his own path outside the sect and perhaps abandon the priesthood altogether.6 The following year, Soga’s attitude changed once again. Excited by Kaneko’s lectures on the new Shin studies and Sasaki’s launching of the English-language journal the Eastern Buddhist, Soga confessed his inabil­ ity to give up the dream of returning to Kyoto to engage in sectarian studies. Expressing interest in the changes taking place at the univer­ sity, he wrote optimistically about establishing Shin studies on a new foundation of “facts” and “principles,” free of preordained conclusions, even suggesting that he and Kaneko could play a foundational role in that endeavor akin to that played by Kakunyo and Zonkaku in the centu­ ries after Shinran.7 Yet by late 1923, owing to the failure of his and Kaneko’s Kenshin (見真) journal and the spread of what Soga viewed as heresy within their neighboring Honganji denomination, Soga’s opti­ mism was deflated: “It is not that I do not think about the sect, but none 91

Institutional Politics

of it is any more than a useless delusion. I think we should completely forget all about reviving the sect.”8 In February of 1924, Soga quit his teaching position at Tōyō University and prepared to move back to Niigata. A colleague at Ōtani University urged Soga to move to Kyoto, where an appointment might soon be arranged for him, but Soga declined. In explaining his decision to Kaneko, Soga likened the tradi­ tion-bound Ōtani University to a display of dolls staged by the adminis­ tration and declared himself the “villain” of the university, announcing that “the time for me to break forever with Ōtani University has come.”9 Six months later, with Sasaki Gesshō as university president and mod­ ernist sympathizer Sekine Ninnō as Ōtani’s head of doctrinal affairs, Soga was finally persuaded to accept a professorship at Ōtani University. Yet even this settlement nearly unraveled when elder scholars at the univer­ sity refused to allow Soga to lecture on Shin studies. Decrying the lack of academic freedom at Ōtani University, Soga informed Kaneko in January of 1925 that he had rescinded his acceptance of the professorship. A month later, he wrote back to Kaneko to explain that Sasaki had resolved the con­ flict, enabling him to lecture on the subjects of his choosing. Acknowledg­ ing the hardships his supporters had gone through to win his appointment, Soga wrote that his hiring had brought about “evil conditions” (akuen, 悪縁) of conflict for the sect, the university, Sasaki, and Kaneko, but that such conditions promised to revive the sect.10 Continuing to lament Ōtani University’s sorry state—its lack of financial independence, academic freedom, or youthful vitality—Soga presciently remarked that he would likely not last at the university for more than three years, so it was urgent that he and Kaneko establish the new Shin studies right away.11 If the history of modern Ōtani Shin Buddhism is one of revolution, Ōtani University was one of the main sites where that revolution unfolded. Kiyozawa had sought to realize his vision for a revitalized Shin Buddhism by reconstructing the university anew in Tokyo and redesign­ ing its curriculum. Soga, Kaneko, and Sasaki all spent their careers struggling to secure a place for themselves at the university, competing with traditionalists to influence the university’s location, personnel, and curriculum. Eclipsing the Ōtani organization’s traditional seminary, Ōtani University became the new site where Buddhist orthodoxy was defined and disseminated to future generations; whoever ruled the uni­ versity controlled the “means of production” for orthodox Shin thought. Yet Ōtani University was more than a site of internal disputes. It was also the Ōtani organization’s means of interfacing with the broader world. Facing a crisis of public perception, Ōtani leaders developed Ōtani 92

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

University in part to display to Japan and the world a modern, intellec­ tually respectable, socially relevant vision of Shin Buddhism. To this end, they recruited outsiders like Nishida Kitarō and D. T. Suzuki—and insiders like Kaneko—to join the faculty and refashion Shin Buddhism’s image. Having exited the university in protest in 1911, Soga waited in the wings for nearly a decade and a half, criticizing the university as a mere “display of dolls.” Once the stage was finally cleared for his return, a dramatic conflict of heresy accusations and protests soon erupted. With students, lay members, and the broader public looking on, sect adminis­ trators backstage were at a loss regarding how to control the unfolding drama. Were Sasaki, Kaneko, and Soga performing the roles of Buddha and flanking attendants, renewing the promise of salvation for an expanding community of Shin believers? Or were they villains bringing about the long-prophesied destruction of the dharma? The authority to interpret these dramas—to identify who was performing the role of Bud­ dha and whether the dharma was in decline or ascent—would belong to those who won control of the sangha and its institutions.

Autonomy and Heteronomy The origins of Ōtani University can be traced back to the early Tokugawa period, when the shogunate issued laws regulating Buddhist temples. Those laws required Buddhist priests to adhere to the fixed, uniform practices and teachings of their sects. As part of the process of codifying those orthodox practices and teachings, Buddhist sects established sem­ inaries.12 In the Ōtani denomination (then known as the Higashi Hon­ ganji denomination), a seminary was established in 1665 just east of Higashi Honganji Temple. In 1754, it was relocated to a new site farther east and renamed Takakura Academy. There, leading scholars estab­ lished orthodox interpretations of Shin teachings and transmitted such interpretations to the organization’s rank-and-file priests, especially through the summer ango lectures.13 The more proximate and relevant origins of Ōtani University are found in Ōtani’s establishment of the Dharma Preservation Hall in 1868. As its name suggests, this institution was established to defend Shin Buddhism against threats that arose during the political transition to the new Meiji state. To understand these threats and their connection to the Dharma Preservation Hall and its successor institutions, it is helpful to review the changed political and social circumstances that con­ fronted Japanese Buddhist organizations at the start of the Meiji period. 93

Institutional Politics

Throughout the Tokugawa period, Buddhists faced persistent cri­ tiques, first from Confucian and then from Shinto nativist scholars.14 The spread of Western scientific knowledge from the early nineteenth century inspired new critiques of Buddhism, as did the return of Chris­ tian missionaries beginning in 1859. Yet so long as the Tokugawa shogu­ nate remained in power, Buddhism enjoyed a stable and privileged place in Japanese society. In particular, Buddhism benefited from the shogu­ nate’s temple certification system. Under that system, each head of household was required to register as a member at a local Buddhist ­temple to demonstrate non-affiliation with heretical teachings like Christianity. Once registered, families were essentially bound to their respective temples in perpetuity; changes in temple affiliation were gen­ erally approved only under limited conditions, such as relocation, adop­ tion, or marriage.15 Buddhist temples benefited greatly from this system through regular fees they could charge sect members for funerals, memorial services, and other temple expenses. In 1868, the new Meiji state abolished the temple certification system. Together with confisca­ tion of a considerable amount of temple lands, this policy change exposed Buddhist organizations to new economic pressures. Shin orga­ nizations, it should be noted, were somewhat less imperiled by these policy changes than other sects due to their large memberships and their distinctive dependence on donations from sect members rather than temple lands for income.16 Also in 1868, the Meiji state issued edicts requiring the separation of kami and buddhas to free Shinto from Buddhist influence, transform Shinto shrines into sites of state ritual, and glorify the emperor as a divine kami. These edicts provided conditions for the rise of “abolish Buddhism and destroy Śākyamuni” riots in which Buddhist temples were attacked and ransacked by Shinto shrine priests and others now freed from the weight of centuries of Buddhist priestly authority. In sev­ eral domains, officials responded to the separation edicts by abolishing most or all Buddhist temples and forcing large numbers of Buddhist priests to laicize.17 Another major policy change was the 1872 law formally permitting Buddhist priests to eat meat, marry, grow their hair long, and engage in other behavior proscribed by monastic regulations. This law was con­ nected to the state’s new household registration system, which treated Buddhist priests the same as the rest of the population, requiring them to adopt surnames and later removing their exemption from the draft. The state’s decisions to extricate itself from Buddhist affairs provoked 94

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

fears among many Buddhists about an impending collapse of monastic discipline. Others welcomed the change. In fact, one of the main advo­ cates for a law decriminalizing monastic marriage and meat-eating had been a Sōtō Zen priest who sought to modernize the sangha and render Buddhist priests more useful to the nation.18 Shin Buddhists, for their part, were unaffected by this particular policy, given their traditional rejection of monasticism in adherence to Shinran’s “neither monk nor layman” principle. The fact that the Meiji state’s new policies brought less upheaval to Shin organizations may help explain why Shin Bud­ dhists were frequently at the forefront of modern Japanese Buddhist reforms.19 Also in 1872, the Ministry of Doctrine enlisted Shinto priests, Bud­ dhist priests, and others as instructors in a “Great Promulgation Cam­ paign” to instruct the populace on the moral imperatives of revering the kami, loving the nation, and serving the emperor. Dissatisfied with the campaign’s narrow, Shinto-dominated agenda, Honganji-denomination Shin priest Shimaji Mokurai led the charge for Buddhists to quit the campaign and demand separation of religion and the state. The Meiji state eventually accepted Shimaji’s position, ending the campaign and enshrining in the Meiji Constitution of 1890 principles of freedom of reli­ gious belief and state impartiality toward religion.20 Each of the above developments exemplifies a process of seculariza­ tion whereby “religion” (shūkyō, 宗教) was separated from the affairs of government and defined as a private matter of belief. In one sense, the secularization process meant that Buddhist organizations were gaining autonomy from the state—from the demands of the temple certification system, from connections to state-managed Shinto shrines, from state enforcement of monastic discipline, and from the state’s national teach­ ing campaign. However, viewed in light of Pierre Bourdieu’s writings on cultural, political, and economic “fields,” this process of secularization can be seen as having brought about increased heteronomy for Buddhist organizations.21 Withdrawal of state sponsorship, loss of temple lands, and diminishment of temple membership, together with widespread ide­ ological critiques of Buddhism as superstitious, foreign, and corrupt, all weakened Buddhism’s standing in Japanese society. In Bourdieu’s terms, this amounted to a loss not only of political and economic capital but also of symbolic capital (i.e., prestige, reputation, authority). The field of Buddhism had previously enjoyed a privileged place within the broader political and economic fields of Tokugawa era Japanese society. Owing to the temple certification system, Buddhist organizations enjoyed large 95

Institutional Politics

and stable membership bodies. Although Buddhist organizations were subject to temple regulations issued by the shogunate and enforced by the governors of temples and shrines ( jisha bugyō, 寺社奉行), in practice, state intervention into Buddhist affairs was generally limited to matters of taxation and civil order; by and large, Buddhist organizations—espe­ cially Shin Buddhist organizations—were able to operate as their own relatively autonomous “social universes.”22 The abolishment of the tem­ ple certification system and associated changes left Buddhist organiza­ tions struggling to retain members, generate income, and regain state support. This rendered Buddhist organizations more heteronomous, which is to say weaker and more subject to ordinary political and eco­ nomic forces. Bourdieu’s discussion of literary and artistic fields offers a useful point of comparison. In his explanation, the fundamental law of artistic fields is “art for art’s sake.” In relatively heteronomous artistic fields (such as existed during the European Middle Ages), this law competes with laws governing the political and economic fields, forcing artists to balance their own aesthetic concerns with the preferences of their patrons. In relatively autonomous artistic fields (such as developed in Europe following the Industrial Revolution, owing to an expansion of education and cultural consumption), the law of “art for art’s sake” exerts more influence, such that artists successfully producing art for art’s sake are rewarded with symbolic capital while commercial artists are scorned. In such a field, which Bourdieu describes as “the economic world reversed,” the most respected artists produce art for a restricted market of fellow artists (e.g., poets writing only for other poets) while the least respected artists (e.g., popular novelists or vaudeville perform­ ers) produce art for the largest and least culturally adept audiences.23 Shin Buddhism can similarly be defined as a cultural field structured by the law of “Buddhism for Buddhism’s sake,” according to which the pursuit of Buddhist goals is valued over political or economic pursuits. In the Shin Buddhist field, the paramount goal can be expressed by the tra­ ditional Shin phrase “[attaining] personal faith and teaching faith to others” ( jishin kyōninshin, 自信教人信).24 Among the most valued “prod­ ucts” produced and consumed within this field are explanations of what faith is and how one attains it. During the Tokugawa period, alongside the chief abbot and his family members, it was high-ranking scholars of Takakura Academy (or Gakurin Academy in the Honganji denomina­ tion) who held a monopoly over the production of doctrinal explana­ tion. Given the sect’s hierarchical system of doctrinal production and 96

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

dissemination (see chapter 2), Takakura scholars could produce their lectures and w ­ ritings primarily for a restricted audience of fellow schol­ ars, whose judgments yielded different lineages and sublineages of doc­ trinal interpretation. Beyond this narrow scholarly world, the broader population of temple priests and preachers could be expected to accept and propagate Takakura-determined orthodoxy, in modified form, to the laity; flagrant violators of such expectations were censured and pun­ ished.25 The temple certification system produced a large and relatively fixed membership body—a captive market of consumers—which further removed any pressure on Takakura scholars to appeal directly to the broader sect membership, let alone those outside the sect.26 Takakura scholars were thus afforded the opportunity to engage in specialized scholarship for a small but doctrinally adept audience of fellow scholars; in other words, they could operate autonomously, producing “Buddhism for Buddhism’s sake” rather than Buddhism tailored to the preferences of a mass audience. In the Meiji period, the abolishment of the temple certification sys­ tem and the dissolution of much of Buddhism’s former economic, politi­ cal, and symbolic capital brought about a need to actively solicit support and patronage from a broad audience both inside and outside the sect. Under these new heteronomous conditions, symbolic capital came to be redistributed away from Takakura scholars to scholars like Kiyozawa, Sasaki, Soga, and Kaneko who engaged new audiences through modern­ ist reformulations of Shin teachings. This provoked a backlash among traditionalists, who warned that the translation of Shin teachings into non-Buddhist discourses represented a dangerous departure from tra­ dition (i.e., from “Buddhism for Buddhism’s sake”). Modernists, by con­ trast, portrayed tradition-bound scholarship as having degenerated into empty formalism and emphasized the importance of growing the field of Shin Buddhism rather than merely preserving it. Unlike the artistic fields discussed by Bourdieu, Buddhist fields are characterized by an ideal of universalist expansion (“teaching faith to others”), so Kiyozawa and his followers could authentically claim that the expedient use of for­ eign concepts and terms in explaining Buddhism for a wide audience was in keeping with Buddhism’s fundamental values. In summary, the transition from a relatively stable and autonomous Shin Buddhist field to an unstable heteronomous one produced conditions for a conflict over the proper audience of Shin Buddhist scholarship and the corresponding forms and content of Shin scholarly discourse. While tradi­ tionalists generally continued to target an established sectarian audience 97

Institutional Politics

using traditional modes of doctrinal expression, modernists reformulated explanations of Shin faith for a new middle- and upper-class trans-sectar­ ian audience influenced by scientific rationalism and prone to skepticism toward Buddhism (an audience that included themselves). This struggle over the proper audience of Shin scholarship was necessarily also a struggle over who was counted among the producers of orthodox doctrinal interpre­ tation. By rejecting the prevailing hierarchical system of doctrinal produc­ tion in favor of free inquiry, Kiyozawa and his followers challenged the monopoly over doctrinal authority held by Takakura Academy seminary scholars and fought to have that authority invested in those inhabiting a new position within the Shin community—university scholars.

Buddhism and Education Christopher Ives has effectively narrated the history of Buddhism in Japan from the Meiji Restoration through the Fifteen Years’ War as a quest to construct a “useful Buddhism.”27 Charity work, military chap­ laincy, prison chaplaincy, temperance movements, establishment of hos­ pitals and orphanages, services for the elderly and the disabled, anti-discrimination activism, missionary work in Japan’s colonies, coop­ eration with the state’s “thought guidance” campaigns, patriotic organi­ zations, and various forms of war mobilization are some of the many ways that Buddhists tried to demonstrate their usefulness to the state and the nation. Another path to restoring Buddhism’s symbolic capital was to establish a role for Buddhist organizations in Japan’s new public education system. The new Meiji government had set out to construct a national educa­ tion system worthy of a modern nation-state. The buzzword in debates over education was “practical learning” ( jitsugaku, 実学), with each of the main factions—Shinto nativists, Confucians, and promoters of West­ ern technical-scientific studies—claiming this for its own kind of “learn­ ing” (gakumon, 学問). Fukuzawa Yukichi’s 1872 An Encouragement of Learning argued for the practicality of Western studies in contrast to Confucian studies. Tsuda Mamichi’s 1874 Meiroku zasshi essay “Discussing Methods for Advancing Enlightenment” categorized learning into two types: practical learning and empty learning (kyogaku, 虚学). Tsuda deemed the physical sciences, Western political economy, and Western philosophy “practical” while pointing to the study of Buddhist thought as the foremost example of “empty learning.”28 In the end, the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education defined practical learning as consisting 98

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

of Western technical-scientific study combined with Confucian moral education, but with Confucian learning’s traditional emphasis on indi­ viduality supplanted by the goal of benefiting the nation-state.29 Broadly speaking, during the formative years of the early Meiji period, Western sciences and Confucian moral education were thus defined as “learning,” aspects of Shinto ritual and thought were incor­ porated into an ostensibly “secular” Shinto state, and Buddhism and Christianity were newly defined as “religion.”30 The definition of Bud­ dhism as religion by the government officially excluded it from any place in the public education system. The Ministry of Education and Ministry of Doctrine were established as distinct organs of the state, and the new public education system was not meant to overlap with the Great Promulgation Campaign. In reality, a shortage of sites and resources for the new public education system meant that Buddhist tem­ ples were often used as schools, priests often served as schoolteachers, and sermons were even given inside schools.31 In 1879, a ban on Buddhist priests serving as schoolteachers was overturned for reasons of practi­ cality. Having successfully fought for Buddhism’s withdrawal from the state’s Great Promulgation Campaign, Shin priest Shimaji Mokurai was among those who called for Buddhist priests to take advantage of this opportunity to integrate themselves into public education. In 1888, he penned an article titled “Priests Should Engage in Public Education Immediately” that emphasized the public good that comes of priests being able to run schools at low costs due to their separate income.32 Buddhists framed their contributions to public education in terms of charity and compassion, but the underlying motivation seems to have been that, as one Buddhist layman put it, “Buddhism’s fortunes were dependent on whether or not it actually had authority in education.”33 Buddhist institutions established private primary and secondary schools, and in the case of the Ōtani organization, even assisted the resourcestarved government by investing in and operating a public middle school in Kyoto. In such ways, Buddhists sought to establish a foothold in Japan’s modern education system and thereby increase Buddhism’s social influ­ ence and status. To truly gain influence in the realm of education, Buddhism needed a place at Japan’s highest centers of learning. The 1879 establishment of a lectureship in Buddhist studies for Sōtō Zen priest Hara Tanzan within Tokyo University’s department of philosophy marked the beginning of this process. As discussed in chapter 1, Hara sought to establish Bud­ dhist studies as an empirical discipline rooted in “experimentation,” 99

Institutional Politics

thus rendering Buddhist studies a “practical study” alongside Western sciences. Ultimately, Hara’s physiological approach to empiricism in the study of Buddhism was replaced by the historical approach of Murakami Senshō.34 Murakami and his successors sought to reevaluate Buddhist history through the critical, impartial study of historical evidence, and this led them to take up controversial positions such as the theory that the Mahāyāna sutras had not actually been preached by Śākyamuni Buddha. This historical research proved itself to be not only empirical but also practical, by constructing a narrative about the formation of a uniquely “Japanese” Buddhism that could help promote nationalism within Japan and also demonstrate Japan’s cultural independence and leadership on the world stage.35 Parallel to the development of Buddhist studies at Japan’s top public universities, the study of Buddhism also developed at private Buddhist universities. Scholars have generally cast a blind eye to these private universities, probably due to a presumption that Buddhist studies car­ ried out there was simply a continuation of Tokugawa period sectarian studies. In fact, these sectarian universities were sites of dynamic, con­ sequential conflicts over sect orthodoxy. If Buddhist studies at public universities were most influential in shaping national and international discourse on Buddhism, these sectarian universities played a crucial role in determining the doctrinal views circulating within specific Bud­ dhist communities. Sect-affiliated Buddhist universities took every opportunity to achieve official government accreditation and find a place within the nation’s officially recognized educational system. From 1899, Buddhist schools sought accreditation as private schools under the Private School Ordinance. From 1904, they sought accreditation as vocational schools in response to the Vocational School Ordinance. Such accreditations brought benefits for students, such as exemption from military service and increased ability to go on to higher schools or to obtain better jobs. Government policy took a significant turn in response to the economic boom caused by World War I and the rising demand for more educated workers. The 1918 University Ordinance enabled private schools for the first time to apply for official university status. Graduates of private uni­ versities would have the same credentials as graduates of public univer­ sities like Tokyo Imperial University. This promised higher enrollments and broader social influence.36 The transition from vocational school to university meant accepting a broader public mission. Instead of just training priests and workers for 100

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

their sectarian organizations, Buddhist universities were now responsi­ ble for educating the populace at large, which, according to the first article of the University Ordinance, meant teaching and researching subjects “necessary to the state” and “fostering national thought.”37 While a program for the training of priests could remain as one section of a Buddhist university’s curriculum, this was to be complemented by the objective, academic study of diverse subjects, including Buddhism and religion. Former schemes of classifying Buddhist studies into “sec­ tarian vehicle” (shūjō, 宗乗) and “other vehicles” (yojō, 余乗) departments were refashioned into more modern sounding Shin studies (shinshūgaku, 真宗学) and Buddhist studies (bukkyōgaku, 仏教学) departments. In Hayashi Makoto’s assessment, traditional doctrinal studies gained a “new lease on life” under a “veil of academic objectivity.”38 However, as discussed in the previous chapter, the doctrinal studies carried out at such newly accredited Buddhist universities did not uniformly perpetu­ ate the traditional studies of former eras. A new academic environment centered on the principle of “free inquiry” allowed new forms of doctri­ nal studies to emerge, and from the perspective of many sectarian schol­ ars, academic objectivity was not a mere “veil” but rather a genuine guiding principle. Buddhist leaders had much to gain by winning accreditation for their universities and by positioning Buddhist studies alongside the study of history, philosophy, and science within the university system. By doing so, they could demonstrate Buddhism’s intellectual credibility and its social usefulness in cultivating a wise, virtuous, and patriotic citizenry. Yet these developments ignited intra-sectarian conflicts between tradi­ tionalists wary of the corrosive effects of secular education and mod­ ernists hopeful that a more scientific and universalist grounding for Shin teachings might be established.

Ōtani Administration To understand the conflict over Ōtani University, it is important first to understand how power was distributed within the Ōtani administration. In the early Meiji period, under the direction of the Meiji state’s Ministry of Doctrine, Buddhist organizations restructured themselves in ways paralleling the state’s centralization of power.39 During the Tokugawa period, Higashi Honganji Temple had presided over a feudal organiza­ tion in which local branch temples were administered by regional head temples. Regional head temples generally had considerable landholdings 101

Institutional Politics

of their own and were managed by members of the imperial family or nobility (monzeki, 門跡) and their lay temple retainers (bōkan, 坊官). Within the Ōtani organization, this feudal system of rule was abolished in 1873. Under the ensuing 1876 sect constitution—created to govern the four main Shin denominations following the collapse of the Great Prom­ ulgation Campaign—all branch temples would henceforth have the same status and would fall directly under the management of their respective head temples.40 The head priest of a denomination’s head temple was designated chief abbot, or administrative head, for the denomination as a whole. That figure was also invested with the title of dharma master, or supreme doctrinal authority. As delineated in the 1876 constitution, a chief abbot had the authority to manage his denomination’s head temple and its treasures; oversee the tokudo (得度) and kikyōshiki (帰敬式) ceremonies that bestowed priesthood and sangha membership on Shin followers; revise denominational law; and make judgments regarding doctrinal orthodoxy. The subsequent 1886 constitution specific to the Ōtani orga­ nization retained such powers for its chief abbot and also specified his authority to appoint or dismiss all sect administration employees, including the organization’s top official (who came to be known as “head of sect affairs”).41 In the decades that followed, Ōtani priests increasingly called for democratic reform of the organization. In 1895, a legislative assembly of priests known as the Parliament was formed.42 Over the following decades, the Parliament gradually came to comprise elected members rather than appointees. In 1925, when Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōen became embroiled in a scandal for having run up enormous debts through failed investments, considerable authority over sect finances was transferred to the Parliament and financial committees comprised of priests and laypeople.43 Nonetheless, the chief abbot’s hold on power remained firm. According to a new sect constitution established in 1929, which remained in effect through the Fifteen Years’ War, the Parliament had the power to create, revise, or repeal denominational laws and to draft the budget. However, the chief abbot was in charge of convening, adjourning, and dissolving the Parliament and had the power to veto any of the Parlia­ ment’s decisions. Moreover, he also had the power to issue emergency executive orders.44 Although the details changed from decade to decade, the basic administrative structure of the Ōtani organization through the Fifteen Years’ War was such that the chief abbot, supported by a committee of 102

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

advisors, had the power to appoint and dismiss all Ōtani administration employees, including the heads of sect affairs and doctrinal affairs. It was the head of doctrinal affairs who was directly in charge of appoint­ ing or dismissing administrative leaders of Ōtani educational institu­ tions, including those of Ōtani University. Thus, throughout the period in question, Ōtani’s university was legally managed from above by the chief abbot and his appointed administrators. In addition to such administrative powers, the chief abbot’s symbolic power as blood descendent of Shinran, the sect founder, should not go unmentioned. Just as many modern Japanese subjects revered their emperor as a living kami, many Ōtani members looked upon their chief abbot as a holy figure. His portrait was installed in many sect members’ home butsudan altars.45 In some cases, he was viewed as a living buddha with the power to determine Shin followers’ birth in the Pure Land or descent into hell.46 According to one anecdote from the late Tokugawa period, certain devout sect members drank the water that their chief abbot had bathed in, hoping to imbibe its holy powers.47 In the modern era, such reverential status for the Ōtani chief abbots was tarnished somewhat by a series of scandals. In the 1890s, newspapers and magazines censured Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōei for moral improprieties connected to his relations with geisha.48 Kōei’s succes­ sor, Ōtani Kōen, was also known to have regularly hired the services of geisha, even siring a number of children by them.49 In 1925, Kōen was pressured to abdicate his position as chief abbot owing to finan­ cial mismanagement, and four years later, his priestly status was temporarily removed. 50 Yet responses to such scandals by sect mem­ bers—including those of the modernist camp—generally evidenced firm allegiance to the chief abbot. In their 1896 protest movement, the first point of concern voiced by Kiyozawa Manshi and his fellow reformers was the Ōtani administration’s failure to properly defend the chief abbot against public slander. Similarly, the removal of Ōtani Kōen’s priestly status led modernist priest Chikazumi Jōkan to spear­ head a popular movement in his defense. 51 It is only in the postwar period that widespread critiques of the institution of the chief abbot emerged.

Takakura Academy Throughout the Tokugawa period, the doctrinal education of Shin priests within the Ōtani community took place at Takakura Academy 103

Institutional Politics

in Kyoto, especially at the summer ango lectures given by high-rank­ ing scholars. The curriculum at Takakura Academy consisted largely of “sectarian vehicle” studies of Shin thought and “outer vehicle” studies of other traditions of Buddhist thought. When the Meiji Resto­ ration brought the end of the temple certification system, destruction of Buddhist temples, forced laicization of many Buddhist priests, and a proliferation of discourse criticizing Buddhism as foreign, supersti­ tious, and out-of-step with modernity, sect administrators judged it time to expand the curriculum beyond Buddhist texts. Thus, in 1868, at a site nearby Takakura Academy, the Dharma Preservation Hall was established where Shin scholars took up the study of Christianity, astronomy, Shinto nativism, and Confucianism and lectured on such subjects to rank-and-file priests. The goal of such “external studies” (gegaku, 外学) was to develop ideas about how to confront those nonBuddhist traditions or how to harmonize Buddhism with them. Between the new Dharma Preservation Hall and the traditional Takakura Academy, an ideological divide grew. Takakura scholars sus­ pected the Dharma Preservation Hall scholars of being seduced by the science and philosophy they were studying and of neglecting the study of Shin teachings. Dharma Preservation Hall scholars, mean­ while, grew impatient with the Takakura scholars’ unwillingness to respond directly to anti-Buddhist critiques or to address the threat of Christianity. 52 In 1873, the future chief abbot Ōtani Kōen, along with sect leaders such as Ishikawa Shuntai, went on a nine-month tour of Europe to sur­ vey modern Western societies and the role of religion in them. On their return, they established a new translation bureau to facilitate the study of Buddhist texts written in Sanskrit and other languages.53 They also closed the Dharma Preservation Hall while overhauling Takakura Academy’s administration and curriculum (under the new name Kanrenjō). Now all Ōtani Shin priests would be trained not only in the study of Buddhist texts but also in fields like geography, history, mathematics, natural history, physics, and Sanskrit. 54 The trend over the following decades was to expand course offerings further to include Western philosophy, psychology, English, and German. 55 From 1880, the sect also began sending talented students like Inoue Enryō, Kiyozawa Manshi, and Inaba Masamaru to Tokyo University to pursue more advanced studies in secular subjects. Entrusted with the task of defending Pure Land Buddhism against the onslaught of new West­ ern forms of knowledge, Inoue and Kiyozawa specialized in Western 104

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

philo­sophy, while Inaba studied zoology and Darwin’s theory of evolu­ tion. Wary of such trends, traditionalist scholars in 1880 established the Kanrensha (貫練社), a society dedicated to preserving the academic traditions of the former Takakura Academy through research and publications.56 When Kiyozawa Manshi returned from Tokyo in 1888, he and his asso­ ciates contributed to mounting tensions between modernists intent on promoting free inquiry and strengthening the secular components of the curriculum and traditionalists opposed to such reforms. Together with fellow reformer Sawayanagi Masatarō, Kiyozawa oversaw compre­ hensive reforms both at Takakura Academy—now known simply as the Academy—and at a series of Ōtani middle schools. Two separate tracks were established at the middle schools and the Academy, one of them specifically for students focusing on foreign languages, philosophy, or science.57 When new plans were implemented in the fall of 1894, students at Ōtani Middle School in Kyoto went on strike to protest the new regu­ lations (including one mandating traditional monastic attire). Conserva­ tive Head of Sect Affairs Atsumi Kaien took advantage of the opportunity to intervene, supporting the students, forcing Sawayanagi to resign, and reducing the salaries of others. Ongoing friction with Atsumi’s adminis­ tration led Kiyozawa and five of his associates to resign from their posi­ tions and begin organizing what came to be known as the Shirakawa reform movement (named for the neighborhood in north Kyoto where their headquarters was located).58 In an effort to cool tensions, sect administrators in June 1896 again divided the denomination’s institution of higher learning into two: the old Takakura Academy and the newly constituted Shinshū University. The latter oversaw the general education of priests-in-training, includ­ ing sectarian studies, Buddhist studies, and the various “external stud­ ies” mentioned above. The former oversaw the traditional ango summer lectures as well as the recently established Sectarian Vehicle Institute, which offered a three-year program in traditional sectarian studies for advanced students. Despite their official separation, Shinshū University and Takakura Academy were quite entangled, sharing the same build­ ings and many of the same staff. Most importantly, courses in Shin studies and Buddhist studies at Shinshū University would be exclusively taught by stalwarts of Takakura Academy. Members of Kiyozawa’s reform movement criticized the sect’s establishment of Shinshū Univer­ sity as a deceptive half-measure that failed to bring about needed reforms.59 105

Institutional Politics

Institutional History of Ōtani University Years

Institutions

1665–1754

Unnamed seminary

1754–1868

Takakura Academy 高倉学寮

1868–1873

Takakura Academy

Dharma Preservation Hall 護法場

1873–1882

Kanrenjō 貫練場

1882–1896

Academy 大学寮

1896–1901

Takakura Academy

Shinshū University 真宗大学

1901–1911

Takakura Academy

Shinshū University (in Tokyo)

1911–1922

Shinshū Ōtani University 真宗大谷大学

1922–present

Ōtani University 大谷大学

In October of 1896, Kiyozawa and the other Shirakawa reformers voiced their grievances and reformist aspirations in the new journal Kyōkai jigen (教界時言, Timely words for the religious world).60 In particu­ lar, they called for the resignation of Head of Sect Affairs Atsumi Kaien, the establishment of an elected assembly of priests with legislative and budgetary powers, and expanded educational and propagation pro­ grams. A nationwide reform movement quickly emerged. One hundred students from the newly established Shinshū University issued a decla­ ration of support for the reformers and took a leave of absence from school. When the administration expelled them, those student protest­ ers proceeded to travel the country, drumming up support for their cause. Well-known Buddhist scholars like Murakami Senshō and Inoue Enryō made public expressions of support for the movement. By Febru­ ary 1897, a national reform organization was created, and a petition was drafted and signed by over twenty thousand Ōtani members. Mean­ while, traditionalist scholars mobilized in opposition to the reform movement through the establishment of the Kanrenkai (貫練会), an aca­ demic society equivalent to the earlier Kanrensha. By the end of 1897, the Shirakawa reform movement had run its course. The results were mixed. Kiyozawa and the five other movement leaders received the punishment of name removal ( jomei, 除名) from the register of priests.61 Yet Ōtani’s recently formed Parliament was expanded to include, for the first time, members elected by branch temple priests, and Atsumi Kaien was made to resign. Atsumi was replaced by Ishikawa 106

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

Shuntai, who was more inclined to support the cause of reform and who rescinded the name removals of Kiyozawa and his associates in April 1898. On the educational front, in an effort to restore relations with the expelled student protesters, Ishikawa promised to reform Shinshū Uni­ versity’s curriculum, appoint new personnel, and most significantly, con­ struct a new facility for the university separate from Takakura Academy. Planning for the construction of a new university proceeded, and in 1899, in a sign of the administration’s total about-face, Ishikawa invited Kiyo­ zawa Manshi to serve as its first president. Kiyozawa agreed to accept the position on three conditions: first, it would have to be established in Tokyo, where it could realistically have independence from conservative sect leaders and where priests-in-training would be more in touch with the changes of modern life; second, Kiyozawa must be allowed free rein in designing university policies and curriculum; and third, it would have to be sufficiently funded. Remarkably, these conditions were met.

Shinshū University In designing the curriculum, Kiyozawa continued the trend of expand­ ing beyond traditional Buddhist studies. When the university opened in 1901, courses were offered in an array of Buddhist studies subjects as well as in Western philosophy, world religious history, economics, law, literature, sociology, prison studies, psychology, English, German, San­ skrit, Tibetan, and classical Chinese.62 Students entering a two-year pre­ paratory program would study Buddhist texts while also gaining a broad liberal arts education. Entering into the three-year main program of study, they would proceed to more specialized studies concentrated on Buddhist texts, Western philosophy, and foreign languages. Finally, select graduates from the main program could enter a five-year gradu­ ate program. Altogether, 175 students were enrolled in the university’s first year. As Kiyozawa stated in his address at the university’s opening ceremony, Shinshū University’s mission was “to nurture people who could devote themselves sincerely to the practice of cultivating personal faith and teaching faith to others.” At this time, the university remained a seminary devoted to training priests, but one that would teach priestsin-training how to interpret and disseminate Buddhism for new audi­ ences in the modern, globally connected world. Kiyozawa’s tenure as president was short-lived. In the fall of 1902, Shinshū University students organized a movement demanding admin­ istrative changes. Above all, they wanted the university to petition the 107

Institutional Politics

Ministry of Education to grant Shinshū University graduates an exemp­ tion from the teacher’s licensing exam so that they would automatically qualify to teach at public middle schools and high schools. Kiyozawa strongly opposed this plan, arguing that Shinshū University’s mission was not to train students for worldly employment but rather to train priests who could guide those living in worldly society toward Shin Bud­ dhist faith.63 In October, Kiyozawa resigned over the affair. Less than a year later, he passed away. Nanjō Bun’yū (南條文雄, 1849–1927) took Kiyozawa’s place as president of the university. More than a decade older than Kiyozawa, Nanjō was a prolific scholar and translator of Sanskrit who had studied at Oxford University in England from 1876 to 1884 under Max Müller. Nanjō’s ­studies in England were financed by an Ōtani scholarship similar to the one Kiyozawa received to study philosophy at Tokyo University. During the Shirakawa reform movement, Nanjō sympathized with Kiyozawa’s reform efforts, writing personal letters to friends and family to encour­ age their support of the Shirakawa Reform movement.64 However, all in all, he was an uncontroversial figure not closely aligned with the Seishin­ shugi movement. Under Nanjō’s direction, Shinshū University in Tokyo grew modestly, while Takakura Academy in Kyoto stagnated. In 1907, in an effort to bol­ ster Takakura Academy’s standing in the sect, sect administrators closed Shinshū University’s graduate student program and established in its place a new four-year graduate program in traditional Buddhist studies at Takakura Academy. Even so, by 1911, Takakura Academy was still fail­ ing to attract students. Compared to Shinshū University’s 251 students, Takakura Academy had less than twenty students enrolled.65 Under the conservative leadership of two members of the chief abbot’s family— Head of Sect Affairs Ōtani Eijō and Head of Doctrinal Affairs Ōtani Eiryō—a proposal was made to merge the two institutions once again. However, instead of incorporating Takakura Academy into the new and prospering Shinshū University, the proposal was to move the university back to Kyoto. Ostensibly, this was to enhance the ease of communica­ tion between the head temple and the university and to cut costs, but critics suspected that the deeper motivation was to halt the university’s modernizing trends and stamp out “heretical” views supposedly being fostered there.66 In a 26–24 vote, the Parliament—still dominated by nonelected members appointed by the chief abbot—approved the proposal. Protesting this decision, president Nanjō, professors Sasaki Gesshō and Soga Ryōjin, and others resigned.67 108

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

The new university—now named Shinshū Ōtani University—was tem­ porarily established at the site of the former Takakura Academy while a new campus was being constructed nearby. Shin studies and other Bud­ dhist studies courses came to be taught by traditionalist professors for­ merly of Takakura Academy. The former Takakura professors’ approach to teaching these subjects so frustrated students that many boycotted classes and demanded changes in personnel; 201 of the protesting stu­ dents were subsequently expelled from the university. Ultimately, the students agreed to mediation, and as a result, some traditionalist faculty formerly of Takakura Academy were dismissed, while professors who had recently resigned, including Sasaki, were rehired. A dispute over whom to appoint as the new university’s president persisted until 1914, when the death of influential traditionalist scholar Yoshitani Kakujū cleared the way for the rehiring of Nanjō.68 In the same year, leadership of the sect shifted in a more modernist direction under Head of Sect Affairs Abe Keisui (阿部恵水) and Head of Doctrinal Affairs Sekine Ninnō (関根仁応), a former ally of Kiyozawa.69 As noted above, in 1916, students mobilized a movement in support of the hiring of Kaneko Daiei and Soga Ryōjin, leading to Kaneko’s appointment. In 1918, the Japanese government issued the University Ordinance enabling private universities to achieve official accreditation as univer­ sities. The question of whether to seek accreditation for Shinshū Ōtani University was controversial. In the midst of debates in October 1920,

Shinshū Ōtani University in Kyōto, ca. 1913. Photo courtesy of Ōtani University’s Shin Buddhist Comprehensive Research Institute.

109

Institutional Politics

traditionalist scholar Sumita Chiken resigned from his professorship to protest the plan to seek accreditation. He went on to found his own Shin studies school in Nagoya.70 In 1921, the Ōtani organization’s committee on education submitted a proposal to change Shinshū Ōtani University’s name, mission statement, and curriculum as part of the path to seeking accreditation. A special committee of Parliament members recom­ mended rejecting this proposal, but in a 27–22 vote, the full Parliament approved it. Thus, the term “Shinshū,” implying a narrow sectarian agenda, was dropped from Shinshū Ōtani University’s name, the univer­ sity’s mission statement was altered to reflect a new goal of meeting “the needs of Buddhism and human culture” rather than “the needs of the sect,” and the curriculum was revised to serve the needs of a broader student body. Many new faculty members were also hired, including Buddhist studies scholar D. T. Suzuki and a number of Kyoto University philosophy professors.71 What had been an autonomous seminary devoted to training sect priests would soon become a publicly accredited university with a legal responsibility to “foster national thought.” As far as its university was concerned, Ōtani officials had essentially voted to relinquish the organizing principle of “Buddhism for Buddhism’s sake” in favor of the principle of “Buddhism for the sake of the nation.”

Ōtani University In October 1923, Nanjō Bun’yū resigned as university president. For his replacement, sect administrators selected Sasaki Gesshō. Two years ear­ lier, Sasaki had joined a tour of Europe and the United States sponsored by Japan’s Ministry of Education to observe Western culture and educa­ tion, returning with new ideas about the importance of dormitories and campus construction in the creation of a vibrant student culture. His appointment was opposed by traditionalist scholars like Kōno Hōun and Uesugi Bunshū, who were wary of having a disciple of Kiyozawa as uni­ versity president. They tried to block Sasaki’s appointment by recom­ mending investigation of his recent book Outlines of Shin Buddhism for possible heresy. Such accusations triggered a letter in defense of Sasaki signed by Kaneko, Akanuma Chizen, Yamabe Shūgaku, and other mod­ ernist Ōtani professors.72 In spite of such opposition, the sect administration, still under the lead­ ership of Abe and Sekine, appointed Sasaki as president to oversee the transformation of Shinshū Ōtani University into Ōtani University. This transformation arguably stood opposed to Kiyozawa’s ideal of a purely 110

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

religious institution. Now students would encounter no obstacles in using Ōtani University as a springboard to secular careers like teaching in public schools. In spite of this, such changes were interpreted positively by Sasaki and other followers of Kiyozawa. In a celebrated 1924 convocation speech titled “Ōtani University’s Founding Spirit,” Sasaki argued that the univer­ sity’s decision to accept both priests and laypeople as students reflected the application of Shinran’s “neither monk nor layman” principle to the educational system.73 Similarly, Soga later reflected that through its accreditation, Ōtani University had become a “trans-sectarian university” that could liberate Shin teachings from its previous sectarian confines to the world at large.74 In such ways, the Ōtani modernists endorsed breaking with established traditions in order to reach out to new audiences. As university president, Sasaki rationalized the university’s curricu­ lum, developing a system of academic divisions, major fields of studies, and required and elective courses. Students could major in Shin studies, Bud­ dhist studies, Buddhist history, philosophy, ethics, education, religious studies, sociology, Japanese history, Asian history, Japanese literature, or Chinese literature. The one required course for every student regardless of major was Shin studies.75 Government requirements mandated that this course be taught in an academic, objective way. In his 1924 address, Sasaki interpreted this change positively, saying, “Inasmuch as Buddhism is not the exclusive property of monks, I believe that Buddhist Studies should also not remain the exclusive property of particular Buddhist denomina­ tions. That is to say, insofar as Buddhism is a religion for all humanity, it is necessary for Buddhist Studies to be an academic discipline open to everyone.”76 In Sasaki’s view, the importance of reaching out to audiences beyond the Ōtani denomination—­ideally to “all humanity”—justified the incorporation of academic norms of empiricism into Shin studies. Kaneko and Soga likewise viewed the establishment of Shin studies as an objective, academic field at the new university as an opportunity to further their cause. As discussed in the previous chapter, Kaneko gave a series of lectures in October 1922 titled “Prolegomena to Shin Studies” that attempted to define the new field of study. Those lectures were reprinted in the university journal Gasshō and published as a book in 1923. Kaneko and Soga also promoted their vision for Shin studies in fur­ ther articles in Gasshō and in their private journal Kenshin, which they distributed widely, including to high-ranking Ōtani scholars who would later accuse them of heresy.77 In 1925, owing to the efforts of Head of Doctrinal Affairs Sekine and Ōtani University President Sasaki, Soga was finally rehired at Ōtani University. 111

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Inquiry Committee The transformation of Shinshū Ōtani University into Ōtani University under Sasaki Gesshō’s leadership marked a major advance for the follow­ ers of Kiyozawa in their struggle to gain control over Ōtani’s educational system. Yet even as Ōtani authorities presided over this transformation, they also tightened their system for identifying and adjudicating cases of heresy. Prosecution of heresy trials (or the threat of such trials) was one means by which Ōtani leaders could maintain a check on the mod­ ernists’ push for rapid modernization of the organization’s educational system and doctrinal interpretations. In 1907, alongside efforts to bol­ ster the standing of Takakura Academy vis-à-vis Shinshū Ōtani Univer­ sity, Head of Sect Affairs Ōtani Shōshin had established a new committee of scholars charged with investigating instances of suspected heresy. This committee, called the Inquiry Committee, was made up of members appointed by the chief abbot from among kōshi and shikō scholars.78 According to the 1907 regulations, the Inquiry Committee’s duties were “to respond to queries from the chief abbot regarding sectarian princi­ ples [shūgi, 宗義]” and to assist the chief abbot in investigating those “who run counter to sectarian tenets [shūi, 宗意].”79 In January 1921, Abe Keisui’s administration extensively revised the Inquiry Committee regu­ lations. The new regulations more clearly defined the number of Inquiry Committee members (expanded to fourteen), the length of their appoint­ ments (three years), the position of the Inquiry Committee within the Ōtani administrative structure, and further details related to its leader­ ship structure and duties (e.g., public lectures on sect teachings and quarterly reports to the chief abbot via the head of sect affairs). In addi­ tion, the primary purpose of the committee was redefined: “Article One: The purpose of the Inquiry Committee is to elucidate sectarian tenets and to govern over their academic interpretations [gakkai, 学解].”80 This distinction between “sectarian tenets” and “academic interpretations” recalls Kiyozawa Manshi’s distinction between “sectarian principles” and “sectarian studies” (shūgaku, 宗学), in which the former represents the unchanging truth revealed by Shinran and the latter represents the changing exposition of those teachings by Shin followers. Thus, even the language of the new Inquiry Committee regulations seems to indicate the authorities’ acknowledgment of and attempt to control the growing influence of modern Shin studies. In December 1922—at the same time Sasaki Gesshō was being investi­ gated for heresy and Kaneko was publishing his “Prolegomena to Shin 112

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

Studies” lectures in the university journal—Abe issued an announce­ ment in the Ōtani denomination journal Shūhō (宗報) reminding its members of the unchanging nature of religious truth and expressing regret that “recently there are those who mean to spread the influence of the changing intellectual world into this denomination, not only mis­ taking the correct intent of our fundamental principles but also extend­ ing this to others.”81 The announcement goes on to advise Ōtani members to report on “any monk or layperson within our denomination who har­ bors mistaken notions of faith in the teachings.”82 Further instructions were issued the following year on the specific procedures for reporting on such matters.83 These announcements do not name names, but the timing suggests that the administration was wary of the radical scholar­ ship of modernists like Sasaki, Kaneko, and Soga.84 When Sasaki Gesshō died unexpectedly of acute pneumonia (probably brought on by overwork) in March 1926, the delicate balance that had been maintained at Ōtani University between the competing factions of modernists and traditionalists began to break down. Sasaki was replaced by prolific Buddhist studies scholar Murakami Senshō, whose earlier renegade scholarship espousing the theory that Śākyamuni Buddha had not preached the Mahāyāna sutras had given way to a traditionalist Shin studies perspective.85 In the following year, conservative Kasuga Enjō (春日円誠) was appointed head of sect affairs.86 Shortly thereafter, the complaints of an influential layman led the Inquiry Committee to com­ mence heresy investigations into Kaneko’s writings. Kaneko’s heresy trial, a climactic event in the long-standing conflict over Ōtani Univer­ sity’s development, will be the focus of the next chapter. The history of modern Ōtani politics and education described above presents a complex picture. By founding the Dharma Preservation Hall, by incorporating “external studies” into the curriculum, by sponsoring Kiyozawa and others’ studies at Tokyo University, by inviting Kiyozawa to preside over the founding of Shinshū University, by pursuing official accreditation for Ōtani University under the University Ordinance, and by appointing Sasaki president of that new university, Ōtani administra­ tors evidenced a commitment to establishing a modern university and refashioning Shin thought into modern, intellectually respectable, polit­ ically expedient forms. At the same time, by sponsoring the establish­ ment of the traditionalist Sectarian Vehicle Institute, by censuring reformers like Kiyozawa who called for educational reforms, by return­ ing Shinshū University to Kyoto and reuniting it with Takakura Academy, 113

Institutional Politics

by tightening the organization’s system for prosecuting heresy cases, and by issuing announcements warning against the dangers of secular thought, they also demonstrated a concern to preserve tradition against trends of modernization. Of course, the Ōtani administration was not a monolithic entity. It consisted of various administrators harboring conflicting views and pri­ orities. From the 1870s through the early 1900s, the administrative lead­ ership swung back and forth between conservative Atsumi Kaien and modernist Ishikawa Shuntai. In the succeeding decades, a conservative administration led by members of the Ōtani family was replaced by the more modernist-leaning leadership of Abe Keisui. Behind the scenes, a  succession of chief abbots—Ōtani Kōshō (in office 1846–1889), Ōtani Kōei (1889–1908), Ōtani Kōen (1908–1925), and Ōtani Kōchō (1925–1981)— directed it all from a position of near total legal authority, yet there is little indication that they actively used that authority to steer the sect’s development single-handedly. Rather, it seems the shifting tides of administrative policies reflect the push and pull of competing interests within the administration. The result of this internal administrative struggle was a conflicting series of policies that sometimes enabled the modernists to implement their desired reforms and other times reined them in and lent support to the traditionalist agenda. This dynamic push and pull of Ōtani politics makes sense given the sect’s competing internal and external demands. With the onset of the Meiji period, increased demands on Buddhist orga­ nizations to demonstrate usefulness, practicality, and believability restructured the field of Japanese Buddhism, bringing greater authority to individuals who could meet such demands. Yet those external demands to adapt Shin Buddhism to the modern intellectual and politi­ cal environments competed with internal demands to uphold traditions and guard Buddhist studies against distortion by worldly concerns. Proponents of Buddhist modernism embraced the new external demands to prove Shin Buddhism’s believability and usefulness as an opportunity to awaken the Shin community from its dogmatic slumbers, to rediscover the world-saving potential of Shinran’s teachings, and to grow, rather than merely preserve, the Shin Buddhist field. Critics viewed the modernists’ doctrinal reinterpretations and institutional ini­ tiatives as unfortunate compromises at best or heresies at worst. Bour­ dieu, drawing on the ideas of Max Weber, argues that cultural fields always contain a “struggle among agents who, as a function of their posi­ tion in the field, of their specific capital, have a stake in conservation, 114

Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University

that is, routine and routinization, or in subversion, that is, a return to sources, to an original purity, to heretical criticism and so forth.”87 Yet the dynamics of such continual struggles, according to Bourdieu, depend in large part on a cultural field’s degree of autonomy with respect to broader political and economic fields. During the Tokugawa period, the Ōtani Shin Buddhist field’s high degree of autonomy lent itself to a sub­ dued struggle, characterized by small, incremental adjustments rather than revolutionary upheavals (similar to how periods of “normal sci­ ence” are characterized by incremental advances in Kuhn’s framework). The transition to the Meiji period exposed Buddhist fields to new exter­ nal pressures, compelling Buddhist administrators to develop new insti­ tutions like Ōtani University and to target new audiences. This created space for more numerous and more effective challenges of the leading Takakura scholars’ authority. The result was a more heated struggle characterized by a rapid cycle of reforms and counterreforms. The next chapter looks at how these conditions of heightened con­ flict—the “evil conditions” described by Soga at the outset of this chap­ ter—came to a head in the dramatic heresy case of Kaneko Daiei. In contrast to the metaphorical state of banishment Soga described him­ self as feeling in his letter to Kaneko, Kaneko’s heresy case would bring threats of actual banishment from Ōtani University and loss of priestly status both to Kaneko and Soga. Not only did the stakes of the conflict heighten, but the number of competing voices increased. Owing to stu­ dent protests, faculty resignations, and widespread press coverage, administrators were now forced to contend not only with the voices of scholars, students, and laypeople within the sect, but also with the opin­ ions of the public at large. In an earlier era, when Buddhist organiza­ tions enjoyed the protections and privileges of the shogunate’s temple certification system, public opinion could safely be ignored. But in the modern era, fostering positive relations with the public had become an imperative, and even matters of orthodoxy and heresy became transsectarian affairs shaped by public opinion and national politics.

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Chapter 4

Heresy, Protests, and the Press But the monks and laity of this latter age and the reli­ gious teachers of these times are floundering in ­concepts of “self-nature” and “mind-only,” and they disparage the true realization of enlightenment in the Pure Land way. Or lost in the self-power attitude of meditative and non-meditative practices, they are ignorant of true faith, which is diamond-like. —Shinran, Kyōgyōshinshō

On the afternoon of June 12, 1928, Ōtani University students and faculty were assembled in the lecture hall to hear an announcement by univer­ sity president Inaba Masamaru. At that moment, Inaba’s status as presi­ dent was actually in doubt. Eight days earlier, along with ten other university administrators, Inaba had submitted his letter of resignation to protest the Ōtani administration’s handling of heresy accusations toward Kaneko Daiei. Not only was Kaneko being pressured to resign his professorship, but now the accounting office, in an act of retribution, had slashed the university’s budget. If that was not enough, the head of sect affairs together with his cabinet officials responded to these chaotic events by submitting their own letters of resignation. In his address to the Ōtani University community, Inaba explained that to stave off total collapse of the sect and its university, he and the other university administrators had rescinded their resignations and agreed to a process of unconditional arbitration, to be overseen by Ōtani Eiryō, uncle of the chief abbot. In a tearful voice, Inaba then informed his audience that Kaneko, seeing no other solution and fearing total expulsion from the sect, had resigned from his professorship. According to newspaper reports, “The hall was silent. No one spoke. Each word and 116

Heresy, Protests, and the Press

phrase of the university president pierced the hearts of all the students, producing a grim, tragic scene.” After expressing bitter disappointment about the direction the univer­ sity had taken since its relocation from Tokyo to Kyoto, Inaba concluded his address by urging the students to restrain their anger: “Let us take this occasion to build up the spirit of Ōtani University. Let us really exert ourselves to make use of these adverse conditions [gyakuen, 逆縁]. I ask each of you to check yourselves and avoid any hasty or reckless actions.” The assembly ended and the faculty filed out. But then, suddenly, a student took to the stage: Adamantly striking the table, he called out to the students filling the hall, saying it is easy to imagine how the university president and leaders must be feeling, but this way of resolving the problem only brings defilement to the university and surrender to moneyed influence. Many other students then stood up in agreement, and tears streaming down their faces, they urged on the rest of the students in the hall to sweep away the ugliness of their capitalistic sect, defeat the moneyed tyrants, and fight with all their might for academic freedom. Thunderous applause rang out endlessly. At this point, there arose something like an impromptu general student assembly, and each class promptly formed action committees and got to work preparing for the battle.1

The students’ subsequent battle to defend Kaneko and academic free­ dom against their “capitalistic sect” did not prove successful. Sect and university administrators had already worked out a compromise solu­ tion, so this impromptu student assembly and the meetings and state­ ments that followed were too little too late. Even so, Ōtani University students’ dramatic actions during the Kaneko heresy affair were not inconsequential.2 In responding to heresy accusations against Kaneko, the Ōtani organi­ zation’s normal procedures for managing heresy disputes broke down. As a result, the problem grew into a public controversy involving budgetary conflicts, mass resignations, student protests, and tremendous amounts of press coverage—in the Ōtani University newspaper, the national Chūgai nippō Buddhist newspaper, the national Bunka jihō religious newspaper, the mainstream Ōsaka mainichi shinbun newspaper, and even the Englishlanguage, international Young East Buddhist journal. What should have remained an internal matter of doctrinal clarification erupted into a public debate. Newspaper editors weighed in with commentary on a fun­ damental conflict between Buddhist traditions and academic freedoms. Kaneko and his supporters penned articles explaining their ambitions to 117

Institutional Politics

modernize Buddhist studies. Ōtani administrators responded with arti­ cles defending their right to suppress Kaneko’s work. And students made their voices heard through newspaper articles, public statements, and the publicity surrounding their acts of protest. In those same newspapers at the very same moment, a parallel debate was taking place in regard to “dangerous thought” and the government’s suppression of academic freedom. In April 1928—just when news of the Kaneko problem was beginning to circulate—news hit the national press of the Communist Party Incident (also known as the March 15 Incident), a mass arrest of over 1,600 suspected communists throughout the coun­ try. The government proceeded to ban leftist political organizations and launch a national “thought guidance” campaign. Universities forcibly dissolved leftist student organizations and fired leftist professors. In the midst of these developments, the Ōtani University newspaper intro­ duced the Kaneko heresy problem as follows:

Ōtani University newspaper coverage of the Kaneko heresy affair. Photo courtesy of Ōtani University Library.

118

Heresy, Protests, and the Press The doctrinal controversy surrounding Professor Kaneko Daiei of our uni­ versity’s Buddhist Studies Department, which has even been called our sect’s Communist Party Incident, is being followed with great concern not only within our sect but also by society at large.3

In the debates that followed, Ōtani students identified their cause with that of the proletariat fighting to free themselves from capitalistic oppression. Meanwhile, sect administrators justified their treatment of Kaneko by pointing to precedents set by the state’s censorship of leftist political thought. The background context of a national political debate regarding political and intellectual freedoms helps explain why the Kaneko heresy problem ignited such passions among students and fac­ ulty, why it attracted so much publicity, and how it came to be viewed and discussed. In the intersection of these two debates, we can see how national politics were shaping Buddhist politics and, in turn, the deter­ mination of Buddhist orthodoxy.4

Heresy in the Tokugawa Period In the Kyōgyōshinshō, Shinran disparaged certain beliefs and attitudes as reflecting ignorance of true faith and thus having no place within the community of aspirants for Amida’s Pure Land. In particular, he drew attention to the problems of “self-nature and mind-only” ( jishō yuishin, 自性唯心) views and “self-power attitudes” ( jishin, 自心) (see this chapter’s epigraph).5 The former refers to the Yogācāra-based view that nothing exists outside of our minds, so Amida and the Pure Land can exist only within our minds.6 The latter refers to the most basic and obstinate stumbling block to faith, reliance on “self-power” ( jiriki, 自力), which is defined by Shinran as “trusting in oneself, trusting in one’s own mind, striving with one’s own powers, and relying on one’s own various roots of good.”7 Kaneko was accused of both of these cardinal sins—for his view of the Pure Land as an “idea” (kannen, 観念) and for his method of study based on personal introspection and independent reasoning (see chapter 2). Naturally, Kaneko denied these accusations, insisting that his critics had shallow understandings of both his and Shinran’s views. Accusations of heresy (ianjin, 異安心; literally “different from a mind at peace”) and the convening of heresy trials were commonplace in Shin history. What is remarkable about the Kaneko heresy controversy is how it exceeded the bounds of the Ōtani community and the control of Ōtani authorities, developing into a matter of public concern. During the first half of the Meiji period, an average of one heresy case was prosecuted 119

Institutional Politics

each year by Ōtani authorities; by and large, in each case, an investiga­ tion was carried out, a clear verdict was reached, and the preacher in question was disciplined accordingly, without widespread controversy or protest.8 From the latter half of the Meiji period forward, the number of heresy prosecutions dropped off considerably, although aborted her­ esy investigations—including against a number of priests associated with Kiyozawa—were also carried out. In the few instances of heresy prosecutions in 1890, 1892, 1897, 1911, and 1924, no storm of protests or press coverage was generated, even when the prosecution of modernist Shinshū University president Urabe Kanjun resulted in his expulsion from the Ōtani community in 1899.9 To find cases comparable to Kaneko’s, one must look to the Tokugawa period, when both major Shin denominations experienced prolonged, destabilizing heresy controversies. According to one count, Higashi Hon­ ganji (Ōtani) adjudicated approximately seventy heresy cases during the Tokugawa period, and Nishi Honganji (Honganji) likely had even more.10 The most divisive of these were the so-called three great dharma debates (sandai hōron, 三大法論) within the Nishi Honganji branch and the Tonjō incident within the Higashi Honganji branch. In these cases, doctrinal controversies gave rise to social unrest, violence, and intervention by the shogunal government. A brief investigation of two of these incidents will help clarify how major doctrinal controversies were resolved by Shin organizations in the premodern past, and why the same pattern did not prevail in Kaneko’s case. On paper, the means to resolve doctrinal controversy within Shin Buddhist organizations was extremely simple. Ultimate doctrinal authority was invested in the chief abbot. From at least the time of Chief Abbot Shōnyo (証如, 1516–1554), grandson of Rennyo, transmission of that doctrinal authority was enacted in the ritual recitation of sections of the Kyōgyōshinshō by the chief abbot to his eldest son and successor. This practice persisted in both the Nishi and Higashi Honganji organiza­ tions following the division of the Honganji organization. The chief abbots enacted their roles as chief doctrinal teachers, or “dharma mas­ ters,” through ritual recitations of Shinran’s writings to temple priests assembled at the main temples. Unlike chief abbots, ordinary temple priests were not permitted to discourse freely on the Kyōgyōshinshō but could only engage in the practice of “reading together” (kaidoku, 会読), a circumscribed, question-and-answer form of lecture.11 In the Ōtani denomination, heresy cases during most of the Tokugawa period were dealt with by “hall priests,” who, under the direction of the 120

Heresy, Protests, and the Press

chief abbot, managed the two halls of Higashi Honganji as well as the regional head temples. When a controversy arose, hall priests were dis­ patched to investigate, provide instruction on orthodoxy, and, if neces­ sary, pronounce punishments. Scholar priests from Ōtani’s seminary (established in 1665 and relocated in 1754 under the new name Takakura Academy) sometimes attended the hearings, took notes, and assisted the hall priests but were expressly forbidden from speaking at the hear­ ings.12 By about 1800, these customs shifted, and scholar-priests from Takakura Academy were placed in charge of heresy investigations. Under their management, heresy proceedings came to take place in Kyoto through a standardized, four-part sequence: hearings, correction, conversion, and admonishment. After hearings in which the accused explained his views, a committee of Takakura scholars pointed out the mistaken aspects of those views and required the guilty party to write a letter of acceptance (ukesho, 請書) acceding to the committee’s judgment and a letter of conversion (eshinjō, 廻心状) vowing to reform his views. After a final meeting of admonishment by the Takakura scholars, obei­ sance was made to the statue of Shinran in the main hall, and then any punishments were announced. Punishments ranged from verbal scold­ ing to permanent home confinement to expulsion from the sect. In some cases, study at Takakura Academy was also prescribed.13 With the Tonjō incident of the late 1840s and early 1850s, this process failed to operate smoothly, leading to a major social disturbance. Tonjō (頓成, 1795–1887) was a temple priest from Noto Province who had stud­ ied at Takakura Academy under Reiō (霊暀, 1775–1851), who would become kōshi of the academy in 1849.14 Tonjō’s alleged heresy related to his unorthodox interpretation of the doctrine of the “two types of deep faith” (nishū jinshin, 二種深信).15 In 1847, Reiō reprimanded Tonjō for preaching his own unorthodox ideas, but Tonjō resisted Reiō’s instruc­ tions and instead appealed to the main temple. As a result, a heresy investigation was convened, and over the course of thirteen days, a com­ mittee of Takakura scholars heard Tonjō’s arguments and pronounced its judgment, requiring Tonjō to write a letter of conversion. After the hearings, however, Tonjō reportedly stood by his old views and traveled from province to province, slandering the Takakura schol­ ars and rallying support for his views. Three years later, in 1850, he and four other priests approached the Higashi Honganji authorities with accusations that two of the Takakura scholars who had judged him heretical were themselves guilty of heresy. In response, a meeting was convened for the five priests to debate the two Takakura scholars, with 121

Institutional Politics

kōshi Reiō serving as judge. To the astonishment of both contemporary onlookers and later scholars, that meeting resulted in the firing and home confinement of one of the two Takakura scholars, along with the repeal and return of Tonjō’s previous letter of conversion. Taken aback by this reversal of authority and unprecedented revoca­ tion of a previous judgment of heresy, Takakura students and adminis­ trators appealed for help to a powerful member of the chief abbot’s family. They wrote to him accusing Tonjō and five other priests of plot­ ting with sect officials to bring down the Takakura scholars and secure a lectureship for Tonjō. They also accused certain of those sect officials of embezzling sect funds. The letter is vague about how sect officials would have managed to pressure Reiō into siding with Tonjō. A later letter authored by Takakura Academy students and officials notes vaguely that Reiō was “trapped into fleeing” (shuppon ni otoshiire, 出奔に陥し入れ). In any case, twelve days later, seven of those same Takakura student-priests sent a second letter pleading for help, this time from a temple building on the Higashi Honganji grounds that had been converted into a prison. According to their letter, which was addressed to Takakura Academy officials, a corrupt sect official named Shimotsuma Shikibukyō had deviously imprisoned them there without cause or trial in an effort to hide his and others’ evil deeds. Eight days later, still awaiting help, the same student-priests appealed for help to the Kyoto city office, which responded by requesting further information from Higashi Honganji and Takakura Academy officials. Meanwhile, students and officials at Takakura Academy reported multiple confrontations with sect officials allied with Tonjō and the “five evil priests,” who apparently sought to arrest and imprison them as well. Beginning in the autumn of 1850, a great many priests and sect offi­ cials were summoned to Edo for trials before a governor of temples and shrines. The trials took almost a year to complete and resulted in home confinement punishments for almost everyone involved, including the five “evil priests,” Shimotsuma Shikibukyō, Reiō, and the seven studentpriests who had written for help from the temple-prison.16 As for Tonjō himself, the governor of temples and shrines demanded that sect offi­ cials convene a new heresy trial. With the sect administration and Takakura Academy now purged of suspicious individuals, the new trial reaffirmed the 1847 ruling that Tonjō’s ideas were heretical. Conse­ quently, the governor of temples and shrines placed Tonjō in a jail in Edo and then tattooed him (a common Tokugawa era punishment for petty criminals) and banished him to a town in Kyūshū, where he stayed until 122

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his pardoning at the time of the Meiji Restoration. Incidentally, Tonjō ran afoul of the Ōtani authorities again in the Meiji period. First, in 1874, he was convicted of heresy and sentenced to home confinement, and then in 1884, he was expelled from the organization for good. The Tonjō incident was tame compared to Nishi Honganji’s Sangō Wakuran disturbance that stretched from 1797 to 1806.17 This incident also involved provincial scholar-priests challenging the interpretations of scholars at the organization’s seminary, the Gakurin (学林). Here, they challenged the Gakurin scholars’ view that salvation required the “three acts” (sangō, 三業) of physically, verbally, and mentally taking refuge in Amida Buddha. As in the Higashi Honganji case, meetings were arranged for the competing sides to defend their views, and here also the outcome was surprising—Chidō, the Gakurin’s head scholar, admitted defeat. The chief abbot acknowledged the change in sect orthodoxy by sending an official statement to certain sect members who had inquired about the matter. However, Chidō subsequently reverted to his former position and declared his opponents heretics. Meanwhile, a different scholarpriest from the provinces named Daiei then published a book in 1801 criticizing Chidō’s doctrinal position. Chidō and his supporters per­ suaded the local government to ban the book, but it had already been widely distributed. In addition to banning Daiei’s book, supporters of Chidō and the Gakurin also imprisoned sect members who came to Kyoto to raise con­ cerns about the doctrinal dispute. In response to such heavy-handed measures, opponents of the Gakurin organized protests of thousands of people in Mino Province in January and July of 1802. This provoked Edo’s governor of temples and shrines to issue a warning demanding that Nishi Honganji authorities settle the matter. At this point, Chidō and his supporters proceeded to stage counterprotests, to spread rumors that members of the chief abbot’s family (who were sympathetic to the other side) were plotting to kill the chief abbot, and ultimately to mobilize a mob armed with spears and knives to take control of the sect adminis­ tration, confining the head administrators in their homes and threaten­ ing the chief abbot at knifepoint. The governor of temples and shrines in Edo carried out an investiga­ tion and trial that exposed the violent tactics employed by Chidō and his supporters. It also called on priests on both sides to defend their doctri­ nal positions. Ultimately, the governor invited the chief abbot to submit his interpretation. The affair was concluded when the governor affirmed the chief abbot’s interpretation (that there is no requirement of “three 123

Institutional Politics

acts” for salvation) as orthodox, required all those who had upheld the opposing view to write letters of conversion, and meted out harsh pun­ ishments, including house arrest, expulsion from the sect, and exile, to those on both sides of the conflict. What most distinguishes these Tokugawa era heresy cases from the Kaneko heresy case is the intervention of the government. Having wit­ nessed the potential for rebellion by Buddhist communities during the Warring States period, the Tokugawa government issued a series of reg­ ulations subjecting Buddhist sects to greater government oversight. Those regulations required all temple priests to understand their sect’s codified practices and refrain from innovating “strange teachings” (kikai no hō, 奇怪之法).18 The government-approved leadership of Buddhist com­ munities was given considerable latitude to inflict violence, through imprisonment and home confinement, on those it judged guilty of pro­ moting heresy and schism. When that leadership proved unable to enforce orthodoxy on its own, the governors of temples and shrines could be counted on to intervene and restore order. This system did not uphold the status quo in all cases; in the Sangō Wakuran disturbance, the contrarian interpretation of provincial scholars was ultimately favored over those of the leading Gakurin scholar. However, in each case, the government used violence to support sect authorities and produce a clear determination of orthodoxy. In the modern period, this system came to an end when the state defined religious belief as a private mat­ ter separate from the affairs of government. Buddhist orthodoxy would now be more difficult to enforce.

Kaneko Heresy Affair The origins of the Kaneko heresy affair can be traced to a lecture Kaneko gave in Nagoya in the summer of 1927. Kaneko’s lecture presumably related to his recent writings on the Pure Land as an “idea.” Kaneko’s teachings apparently shocked various laypeople in the audience, includ­ ing Tashiro Jūemon, a wealthy businessman who held a seat on Ōtani’s Accounting Directors Committee. In November, Tashiro telephoned Saitō Yuishin, a kōshi scholar and member of Ōtani’s Inquiry Committee, to raise concerns about Kaneko and to report that his committee was engaged in discussions about possibly defunding the university. Three days later, Tashiro burst into a meeting of the Inquiry Committee to raise the same concerns in person. He went on to send copies of writings by “two professors,” presumably Kaneko and Soga, to Ōtani University 124

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administrators for review.19 Later newspaper reports also identified Iwata Sōzaburō, another wealthy and influential Ōtani layman, as a key player pushing for a judgment on Kaneko’s alleged heresy. In response to Tashiro’s request, the Inquiry Committee promptly ­investigated Kaneko’s writings—in particular his recent books on the Pure Land—and determined that they did contradict sect teachings. They reported this finding to Head of Doctrinal Affairs Nunami Seiken, who served alongside Head of Sect Affairs Kasuga Enjō within the Ōtani organization’s Upper Office. The expectation was that Nunami would forward the report to the chief abbot, who would presumably order an official heresy trial.20 However, instead of forwarding the report, Nu­ nami consulted with university officials to see whether Kaneko would be willing to resign his professorship to avoid the scandal of a heresy trial. At first, Kaneko was willing to leave quietly, but supportive faculty per­ suaded him to defend himself.21 At the end of March, Ōtani University president Murakami Senshō resigned for reasons of health. He was replaced by Inaba Masamaru, a former associate of Kiyozawa Manshi. Inaba suggested as a compromise that Kaneko be sent to China on official business, but Kaneko declined on the grounds of his own poor health. Thus, Kaneko was simply placed on temporary leave. On April 13, Chūgai nippō published its first report on the Kaneko affair, noting that the new semester at Ōtani University had begun with Kaneko on leave. By the end of April, Buddhist studies stu­ dents at the university had organized action committees, communi­ cated their concerns to university administrators, and issued a public announcement in support of Kaneko.22 Inaba’s next tactic was to work with Nunami to arrange a meeting between Kaneko and the Inquiry Committee, so that Kaneko could explain himself.23 On May 24, two members of the Inquiry Committee— Kōno Hōun and Sumita Chiken—met with Kaneko, but Kōno in particular remained unmoved by Kaneko’s arguments. Nunami then took the unconventional step of convening the Sectarian Tenets Advisory Com­ mittee to investigate Kaneko’s works and offer a second opinion. How­ ever, five members of the Inquiry Committee, including Saitō and Kōno, outraged by this undermining of their authority, threatened to resign. Next, on June 1, the Accounting Directors Committee voted to slash the university’s budget. This prompted eleven university administrators including President Inaba to submit letters of resignation on June 4. Ōtani University students responded with a statement of support for the university administrators and for the principle of academic freedom. 125

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Confronting the resignations of university leaders, threats of resigna­ tion from Inquiry Committee scholars, and the ire of the Accounting Directors Committee, Head of Doctrinal Affairs Nunami scrapped the plan for Sectarian Tenets Advisory Committee meetings and on June 6 forwarded the Inquiry Committee’s report to the chief abbot. The next day, Nunami and Head of Sect Affairs Kasuga Enjō also resigned. This shifted the problem to the Committee of Elders, a group of up to twenty sect leaders who counseled the chief abbot on important sect matters. One such matter was appointment of the head of sect affairs. Potential replacements were understandably reluctant to take charge of the orga­ nization at such a time. An added complication was that the annual meeting of Ōtani’s Parliament was scheduled to convene on June 12, and regulations required that the head of sect affairs be present when hold­ ing such a meeting. If a new head of sect affairs could not be appointed in time, the Parliament meeting would have to be cancelled. In addition to selection of the next head of sect affairs, the Committee of Elders also engaged in deliberations regarding Kaneko’s standing at the university, possible withdrawal of the Inquiry Committee’s report to the chief abbot, and possible establishment of a new administrative body charged with protecting academic freedom at the university. The committee chair­ man, appointed by the chief abbot, was the chief abbot’s uncle Ōtani Shōshin. Among the committee members were Ōtani University presi­ dent Inaba and Inquiry Committee members Saitō Yuishin, Hirose Mori­ kazu, and Toyomitsu Shundō. At one point, it was requested that Inaba, Saitō, Hirose, and Toyomitsu leave the room so that reporting on past events could proceed freely. When Saitō, Hirose, and Toyomitsu resisted that request, Shōshin had to forcibly order them to leave. After multiple days of heated negotiations, the committee decided on June 9 that the Inquiry Committee’s report to the chief abbot would not be withdrawn and that Kasuga and Nunami would be instructed to remain in their posts as head of sect affairs and head of doctrinal affairs within the Upper Office. (For a chart depicting the Ōtani organizational structure, see page 127.24) Now that the Ōtani administration had established its course of action, Ōtani University administrators met on June 10 and 11 to discuss their response. Ultimately, they agreed to rescind their resignations and submit to a process of unconditional arbitration to be overseen by Ōtani Eiryō, uncle of the chief abbot who then held the position of chief advisor to the chief abbot. After reporting this decision at a faculty meeting, uni­ versity president Inaba raised the question of what to do about Kaneko’s 126

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Ōtani Organizational Structure, 1928

position at the university. At some point, Kaneko had submitted a letter of resignation to Inaba, and Inaba wanted input regarding whether to forward that letter to the authorities. According to Inaba’s address to the university community the following day, the faculty reasoned that if Kaneko’s resignation were not submitted, it would be likely that a verdict of heresy would lead to his expulsion from the sect. Through “voluntary resignation,” Kaneko could leave the university on relatively good terms and potentially be reinstated at a later date. Thus, Inaba forwarded Kaneko’s letter of resignation to Head of Doctrinal Affairs Nunami. With the acceptance of Kaneko’s resignation, Ōtani administrators considered the Kaneko heresy affair concluded. The Inquiry Commit­ tee’s report regarding Kaneko’s alleged heresy was rumored to be in the hands of Ōtani Eiryō, who had preferred to see the problem settled administratively rather than through an official heresy trial.25 This greatly frustrated kōshi scholars of the Inquiry Committee and members of the Accounting Directors Committee, who would continue to press for a trial and clear judgment on Kaneko’s heresy.26 Such a trial and judg­ ment never materialized, but in January 1929, Kaneko did resign his sta­ tus as a priest, presumably as a result of continued pressure from his opponents. 127

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The Kaneko heresy affair was likely a contributing cause of a number of organizational reforms that took place in the succeeding months and years. In September 1928, a new Sectarian Tenets Committee was estab­ lished to work alongside the Inquiry Committee in investigating issues of orthodoxy and heresy.27 In January 1929, at the time of the implemen­ tation of a new sect constitution, Head of Sect Affairs Kasuga Enjō resigned along with his cabinet (including Nunami). Kasuga’s and Nuna­ mi’s replacement by Ōtani Eijō (yet another uncle of the chief abbot’s) and Shimotsuma Kūkyō represented a shift in a conservative direc­ tion. In July 1929, the Shin Graduate Institute was established to strengthen traditional sectarian studies.28 And to fund that institute, the Shin Ōtani Sectarian Studies Prosperity Foundation was established in November 1930 by none other than Tashiro Jūemon, the wealthy lay­ man who initially approached the Inquiry Committee about Kaneko’s alleged heresy.29 Controversy erupted once again when Soga Ryōjin “voluntarily resigned” from his professorship in March 1930. Soga viewed his work as inextricably tied up with Kaneko’s, so when Head of Doctrinal Affairs Shimotsuma Kūkyō requested his resignation, Soga accepted it as a mat­ ter of course. In fact, Soga had already submitted a letter of resignation back in June of 1928 at the time of Kaneko’s resignation, but university president Inaba had persuaded him to stay on. Soga’s resignation in 1930 caused new waves of critical press, student protests, firings, and cuts to the university budget. In June, all faculty and staff at Ōtani University resigned en masse, and the entire body of over eight hundred students withdrew. By the end of June, a truce was reached. However, in March 1931, President Inaba was pressured to resign, traditionalist Saitō Yuishin was appointed to replace him, and university policies were revised to increase Ōtani administrators’ control over the university.30 In response, university leaders appealed to the Ministry of Education, which rescinded Saitō’s appointment as university president. In June, Head of Doctrinal Affairs Shimotsuma Kūkyō died, opening up room for a compromise in regard to university policies and the appointment of a moderate president.31 Previous chapters have explained the roots of this conflict in tradi­ tionalists’ and modernists’ divergent responses to the challenges of science, nation-building, and religious competition; in their doctrinal disagreements about the nature of Amida and Pure Land rebirth; in the development of a new paradigm of Shin studies incommensurable with the prevailing paradigm; and in demands confronting Ōtani 128

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administrators to develop new institutions capable of demonstrating Buddhism’s believability and practicality to the outside world while staying true to Buddhist traditions. All of that background is relevant in considering why Kaneko’s heresy case developed into such a wideranging, intractable conflict and why the affair concluded without any clear judgment on his alleged heresy. In addition, it is useful to con­ sider differences between Kaneko’s heresy case and the Tokugawa period cases described above. First, Ōtani authorities in the modern period could no longer employ violence to enforce their decisions, nor could they appeal for help to the government. Unlike those accused of heresy during the Tokugawa period, the worst Kaneko and his supporters had to fear was expulsion from the sect. Imprisonment, home confinement, or banishment to dis­ tant provinces were no longer among the possible outcomes. Second, even in the event that he resigned or was fired, Kaneko could easily seek employment from other universities—which he did in 1930 at Hiroshima University of Literature and Science. In the Tokugawa period, there would have been few opportunities for Kaneko to work as a scholar of Shin Buddhist teachings outside of officially approved Shin organiza­ tions. In the modern period, the growth of the publishing industry and of a university system inclusive of philosophy and Buddhist studies departments meant that Kaneko could work as an independent Buddhist scholar, producing doctrinal interpretations that could compete with Ōtani orthodoxy. Modern Ōtani officials did not possess the same monopolistic (or rather oligopolistic) powers over the production of Shin doctrinal interpretation that their Tokugawa predecessors did. Third, it was difficult to specify the heretical aspect of Kaneko’s views. The Tonjō and Sangō Wakuran disturbances pertained to specific doctrinal questions. Is the doctrine of “two types of deep faith” an orthodox expression of Shinran’s teachings, or is it a heresy that arose later? Does the injunction to perform “three acts” of refuge in Amida Buddha conflict with the doctrine of salvation through faith alone? Pro­ ponents of both sides in these disputes agreed that only one side could be correct and that careful examination of the scriptures would reveal which side that was. In other words, both sides were working within the same paradigm of thought. Such was not the case with Kaneko’s alleged heresy, which ostensibly pertained to his interpretation of the Pure Land as an “idea.” As discussed in chapter 2, Kaneko presented the Pure Land not as a physical place but as a transcendental ideal. Kaneko’s crit­ ics were hard-pressed to prove that this interpretation conflicted with 129

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Shinran’s because Kaneko’s Western philosophical language was so far removed from Shinran’s language or the language of the orthodox inter­ pretive tradition. Two Inquiry Committee scholars expressed suspicions to Kaneko that his ideas contradicted the established doctrine of “point­ ing west and positing a form” and had descended into “self-nature and mind-only” views.32 Yet Kaneko reported, “The people who claim [my work] to be heresy don’t point to anything concrete. . . . Even in speaking with the two Inquiry Committee individuals and reading Mr. Murakami [Senshō’s] pieces [in Chūgai nippō], I really don’t get the feeling that this is a problem of heresy.”33 The evidence suggests the real conflict was not about the specifics of Kaneko’s theory so much as about his method of scholarship, which emphasized introspection and engagement with broader religious and philosophical discourses.34 As such, his opponents could not produce any clear argument exposing Kaneko’s heresy. Fourth, broad support for the modern ideal of free inquiry prevented the conflict from being resolved quickly. First, the head of doctrinal affairs elected to delay forwarding the Inquiry Committee’s report to the chief abbot, presumably out of resistance to the idea—or the optics— of Ōtani authorities suppressing the work of a well-respected scholar. Next, university professors persuaded Kaneko to stand up for himself rather than leave quietly, and university leaders supported Kaneko throughout the affair on the grounds that academic freedom ought to be protected. Finally, even Ōtani Eiryō, acting as a proxy for the chief abbot, apparently held on to the Inquiry Committee’s report rather than for­ warding it to the chief abbot. At each level, sect and university adminis­ trators shielded Kaneko from a heresy trial. Only university community members were outspoken about their reasons for supporting Kaneko, but the head of doctrinal affairs and uncle of the chief abbot likely shared similar concerns. Suppression of Kaneko’s scholarship would vio­ late the ideal of free inquiry. A trial and conviction of Kaneko as a here­ tic would deliver a major blow to the Ōtani organization’s long-standing mission to modernize its institutions of learning and establish a place for itself in the national education system, where free and objective aca­ demic study was the ideal, if not always the reality. Finally, as noted above, press coverage played a critical role in exacer­ bating the Kaneko heresy affair by drawing widespread attention, including much critical attention toward the Ōtani authorities’ proce­ dures for investigating and suppressing cases of suspected heresy. Such incessant public scrutiny of the Ōtani administration’s handling of a heresy case was not possible during the Tokugawa era, when printing 130

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technologies and journalism were less developed. Unable to resolve the matter internally and unable to appeal for help to the government, Ōtani authorities were stuck watching Kaneko’s heresy trial play out in the court of public opinion.

Journalists’ Perspective The primary venue for public discussion of the Kaneko heresy affair was the national daily newspaper Chūgai nippō (中外日報). Chūgai nippō was founded by Matani Ruikotsu (真渓涙骨, 1869–1956), the eldest son in a Honganji denomination temple family, who spent four years training to become a Shin priest before turning to the newspaper business. Initially, he founded a Shin-focused newspaper called Kyōgaku hōchi (教学報知), but in 1902, to make the newspaper more economically viable, he changed its name to Chūgai nippō and expanded coverage to all sects of Buddhism, as well as to religion generally. It went on to become the most influential source of journalism on Buddhism and religion in Japan. Generally speaking, Chūgai nippō evidenced a liberal, reformist bent due to Matani’s own predilections and those of his staff, including figures like New Bud­ dhism member Katō Totsudō, Pure Land denier Nonomura Naotarō, Self­ less Love movement founder Itō Shōshin, and philosopher and cultural critic Tsuchida Kyōson.35 Beginning in mid-April of 1928, daily coverage of the Kaneko heresy affair filled Chūgai nippō for more than three months. The April 17 frontpage editorial introduces basic information about the incident and expresses unease over the rumor that complaints about Kaneko’s work were initially raised by a “layman possessing financial might.” It then emphasizes that this case points to a more general problem faced by every Buddhist university: A resolution of this problem must address the fundamental conflict between sects centered on doctrinal authority and universities whose mis­ sion is inquiry into truth. The question is whether free inquiry and doctri­ nal authority can coexist. Will the freedom to conduct research be pressured by doctrinal authority? Or will new ways forward be explored through reflection on doctrinal authority itself?

The authors identify a conflict of authority between “doctrinal author­ ity” (kyōken, 教権)—the authority to make doctrinal judgments that, in the Ōtani case, was invested in the chief abbot and Inquiry Committee— and individual scholars who independently advance theories in an 131

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academic setting. In the very framing of the problem, the authors take a clear stand on the side of “free inquiry” by suggesting that a proper res­ olution would require reflection on the principle of doctrinal authority. Later editorials echo these themes, relentlessly calling into question the actions of Ōtani authorities and the traditions of the sect. For example: This must not merely be evaluated according to the Inquiry Committee’s doctrinal authority but should be considered by the wider general aca­ demic world. Although it is not unreasonable to exclude from the sect a person who opposes the doctrinal authorities, that doctrinal authority itself ought to be carefully critiqued. . . . What is doctrinal authority? How is doctri­ nal authority established? (April 18) As a university, it is fine to fire someone who is deemed to have no value as a university professor, but short of that, it is unacceptable to force someone on leave. This must not be determined according to the convenience or inconvenience of the so-called “doctrinal authorities.” The sect’s course of action and the university’s course of action are separate matters. (May 30) If there is a point of collision with the Higashi Honganji’s so-called “doctri­ nal authority,” the way forward for a powerful academic theory is to bravely counterattack and try to smash that doctrinal authority itself . . . it would certainly not be honest to see this issue buried in vagueness on account of the sect’s skillful deliberations that seek only to deflect the matter. (June 5)

The Chūgai nippō editorials present an idealistic view of the separation of the university and the sect and of the absolute right to free research by university scholars. They also challenge Ōtani authorities to publicize the proceedings and engage in open debate regarding Kaneko’s alleged heresy. The secrecy surrounding the Ōtani authorities’ investigations of Kaneko’s theories prompts the authors to call for scrutiny of those authorities and their doctrinal authority.36 Interspersed with its editorials on the Kaneko heresy affair, Chūgai nippō also printed numerous editorials addressing the Communist Party Incident and the question of how the government and nation ought to react to Japan’s “national thought crisis.” These editorials take it for granted that communist thought is a danger to the nation that must be confronted. Yet similar to their treatment of the Kaneko heresy case, they highlight the importance of avoiding repression and fostering open discussion. Thus, an April 15 editorial condemns an incident of violence against a socialist thinker and argues that the true solution to commu­ nism is to “open up a great theoretical battle that will be won through intellectual might and resilience.” 132

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Although sympathetic to the cause of defeating communism, the Chūgai nippō editors were consistently critical of the repressive tactics employed by Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi’s government to achieve that end.37 One representative editorial remarks: One must also reflect upon the root causes that may be fomenting that [communist] thinking. To arbitrarily apply repressive force will just make that thinking worse, won’t it? . . . Those who need [thought] guidance are first of all the politicians. Politics are about justice. If one loses justice, then confusion of thought is the natural consequence. As such, in regard to thought guidance, isn’t reflection on the part of the political parties and the politicians the first step? (July 14)

Chūgai nippō’s commentary on the government’s treatment of commu­ nist thought mirrors its commentary on the Ōtani administration’s treatment of Kaneko. In both cases, the newspaper warns against super­ ficial repression and instead urges rational critique and debate. To the extent that the authorities in both cases failed to meet these expecta­ tions, the Chūgai nippō editorials question their authority and call upon them to engage in self-reflection. These Chūgai nippō editorials are one example of how public discourse on the Kaneko heresy affair was intertwined with public discourse on the Communist Party Incident and other political matters. The above discussion demonstrates only correlation, not causation. However, it seems most plausible that the national conversation was shaping the Buddhist conversation. During the Taishō era, liberal democratic ideals of self-government, free speech, and academic freedom had blossomed alongside the growth of higher education and the burgeoning of interest in Marxism. With the Communist Party Incident and subsequent crack­ down on leftist politics and scholarship, those ideals were coming under attack. From the viewpoint of the Chūgai nippō editors, the Kaneko her­ esy case was one instance of this fundamental clash between liberal democratic ideals and authoritarianism. Their support for Kaneko’s cause seems to have been grounded in allegiance to the liberal principle of free inquiry, not in a commitment to any Buddhist principle or doctrine. It is possible to argue that free inquiry is itself a Buddhist principle and that the distinction just posited between liberal democratic ideals and Buddhist principles is a false one. Buddhist modernists frequently draw attention to Śākyamuni’s statement in the Kālāma Sutta that Bud­ dhist followers should “not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, 133

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by hearsay, by a collection of scriptures” but instead seek out personal knowledge of the truth. 38 An ideal of free inquiry can certainly be found within the Buddhist scriptural and historical tradition. Yet in this case, I would argue that the pervasiveness of political liberalism in 1920s Japanese society offers a much simpler and more direct explana­ tion of the Chūgai nippō editors’ defense of Kaneko and his right to free inquiry.

An Ōtani Administrator’s Perspective Shimotsuma Kūkyō (下間空教, 1878–1931) was the eldest son of an Ōtani temple family in Himeji. After studying law at Tokyo Imperial Univer­ sity, Shimotsuma began his career as an administrator for the Ōtani organization. In 1912, he left that post to study abroad for two years in Europe before returning to Kyoto to establish his own law practice. In his legal writings during the 1920s, Shimotsuma argued against the establishment of a national religion on the grounds that doing so would impinge upon people’s constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religious belief. He also advanced an uncommon rebuttal to the state’s claim that kami worship at Shinto shrines was non-religious, and he critiqued state support for Shinto as an illegal form of national religion. Even while har­ boring such concerns about the protection of religious freedom, Shimo­ tsuma considered it acceptable for the state to crack down on groups promoting “superstition” (meishin, 迷信) insofar as such beliefs posed a threat to peace and order.39 In January 1929, Shimotsuma returned to the Ōtani administration as head of doctrinal affairs in the new cabinet formed by Ōtani Eijō. In that role, he advised sect members to resist any pressure to worship kami at Shinto shrines. He also pressured Soga to resign and worked toward greater oversight of Ōtani University, triggering the institutional con­ flicts described above. During the Kaneko heresy affair, Shimotsuma contributed to Chūgai nippō a three-part article titled “The Bounds of Sectarian Studies Research and Classes at Sectarian Universities” (May 27–30) that defended the Ōtani administration’s right to censor Kaneko. Shimotsu­ ma’s articles begin with a discussion of the famous 1920 incident in which Tokyo Imperial University professor Morito Tatsuo was perse­ cuted for his writings on anarchist thought. Shimotsuma describes how the government banned Morito’s writings, removed him from his fac­ ulty post, and convicted him of the crime of causing public disorder. 134

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Shimotsuma then presents arguments in favor of and opposed to those government actions. According to Shimotsuma, those who agreed with the government had pointed to the 1918 University Ordinance that placed a duty on universities “to foster national thought”; as govern­ ment employees, university professors were restricted by the official duties assigned them by the government. Those who disagreed with the government had argued that university professors’ primary duty of research and instruction took precedence over their secondary duty of “fostering national thought,” that academic research on anarchist the­ ory should not be lumped into a single category with violent anarchist activities, and that it goes against the very nature of research to begin with predetermined conclusions—including the conclusion that govern­ ment is necessary. Shimotsuma concludes this section of his article with one sentence of commentary, revealing his own position in the debate: “As a matter of fact, the result was a victory for those who agreed.” In the context of the article, the clear implication is that this fact ought to settle the matter for all loyal citizens. Through its actions, the govern­ ment set a precedent that restrictions can and should be placed on uni­ versity research. Turning to Kaneko, Shimotsuma argues that just as anarchism is an unacceptable research conclusion in the context of a public university system, so is heresy an unacceptable research conclusion for Shin schol­ ars. As for the definition of heresy, Shimotsuma simply notes that the Ōtani constitution, like those of all Shin Buddhist denominations, defines the chief abbot as ultimate arbiter on doctrine, a provision that is the very basis for the unity of the Ōtani community. Shimotsuma thus defends the doctrinal authority system in terms of its function and legal basis while leaving out any mention of the historical and theological basis of the chief abbot’s authority—his blood descent from Shinran. At least in this forum, Shimotsuma and his traditionalist peers did not find it prudent to emphasize this doctrine of blood lineage, which pointed simultaneously to the sect’s feudal past and to the nation’s modern imperial institution. Regarding the new field of Shin studies, Shimotsuma notes that cer­ tain individuals doubt whether such studies truly constitute an aca­ demic field requiring freedom of research. He replies that although sectarian studies must promote sectarian goals and conform to estab­ lished teachings, it is nonetheless an academic discipline in that it applies “scientific organization” to its materials and employs “philo­ sophical methods.” Therefore, it merits a degree of freedom of research. 135

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This acknowledgment of Shin studies as a legitimate field of study rooted in scientific and philosophical methods points to Ōtani authorities’ desire to support the growth of modern Shin studies. On the other hand, Shimotsuma ascribes limits to that freedom: [Ōtani University] was established for the sake of the nation and the sect in connection with the necessary training of scholars and preachers. . . . In our nation, there is no absolute independence or absolute freedom of research for universities, whether they be government-run, public, or private. Without even having the power of economic independence, to dream of absolute freedom of research without any interference into research or classes by those who funded the university’s establishment is completely mistaken.

In Shimotsuma’s view, the university’s economic dependence on the sect and mission of serving the sect and the nation necessarily restrict the freedom of Ōtani professors. Shimotsuma’s article series concludes by discussing the relationship between academic theory and heresy. Shimotsuma argues that heresy is a matter of faith while sectarian study is a matter of interpretation, so even academic theories that misinterpret the sect’s teachings are not the same as heresy. However, on a practical level, scholars’ interpretations of scripture can invite heretical faith, so it is right for sect authorities to discipline such scholars. Shimotsuma wrote these articles on the Kaneko affair simultaneous to writing articles on the Communist Party Incident and government “thought guidance” campaign. On May 2, he contributed to Chūgai nippō a front-page article titled “Concerning the Communist Party Incident.” Like the author of the Chūgai nippō editorials, Shimotsuma embraced the goal of defeating communist thought. However, his analysis of the situa­ tion evinces a different set of values. He begins by arguing that total eradication of communist thought is probably impossible for a number of reasons. For one, “There are limits to the power of the government, and it is difficult for it to directly reach into the inner recesses of [peo­ ple’s] thought.” Not questioning the desirability of the state “directly reaching into” the inner thoughts of the people, Shimotsuma merely observes the difficulty in its doing so. He also expresses skepticism that communist thought could ever be defeated by rational argument, noting that “logic and eloquence can be attached to both sides” of any debate. In contrast to the Chūgai nippō editors, Shimotsuma is inclined to sup­ port repressive measures. For example, he urges lawyers to pursue the possibility of instituting a death penalty for violators of the recently 136

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established Peace Preservation Law and of strengthening laws restrict­ ing freedoms of assembly and association. In a July 8 article titled “Guidance of ‘Thought Guidance,’” Shimo­ tsuma takes aim at some of the mistakes he believes national and local government officials were making. The first section responds to “thought guidance” proposals presented by members of Prime Minis­ ter Tanaka Giichi’s Cabinet. One proposal advocated promoting shrine worship; another advocated providing assistance to religious organi­ zations. Shimotsuma’s responses display his scorn for kami worship, for Buddhist traditions other than Shin, and for the principle of reli­ gious pluralism. Regarding worship at shrines, Shimotsuma asks whether the government really wants to promote worship of usurpers like Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu or rebels against the throne like Taira no Masakada and Ashikaga Takuji (all of whom are enshrined as kami at certain Shinto shrines). As for Shinto reverence for the natural world, Shimotsuma incredulously asks how one ought to go about worshiping rocks, pieces of wood, birds, chickens, or geni­ talia. Later in the article, Shimotsuma also mocks local policies pro­ moting shrine visitation as means of “compelling people to urinate who already feel the urge to do so.” In Shimotsuma’s opinion, such policies only further the regrettable practice of praying for material benefits like romance or success in business, doing nothing to advance spirituality or patriotism. Regarding the proposal to provide assistance to religious organiza­ tions, Shimotsuma questions the very premise of supporting multiple religions: Some say the nenbutsu is the act by which one’s path to enlightenment is settled. Others say it is the act that sends one to the hell of uninterrupted suffering. Which view shall be adopted and which rejected? If assistance given to heretics is a sinful act, isn’t it impossible to pay reverence uni­ formly [to different religions]? And of the Land of Bliss, Heaven, or the High Heavenly Plain, which shall be taken as the goal?

Shimotsuma’s opposition to government assistance for religious organi­ zations is evidently not based on principles of religious freedom or sepa­ ration of religion and government; rather, it is based on the exclusivist belief that all religions other than Shin Buddhism are forms of heresy. Shimotsuma concludes his article by offering recommendations on how the government ought to approach the task of “thought guidance.” He writes: 137

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1) The import of communism from Russia in the West should be pro­ hibited. At the same time, the import of hedonism from the United States in the East should be prohibited. 2) The objects of kami worship should be transferred to government offices, and shrine assets should be distributed to the proletariat. 3) Government officials who steal public property should uncondi­ tionally receive a death sentence. 4) Men and women who wear clothes made of materials other than cotton should be punished. 5) The same applies to those who eat any type of fish, poultry, or meat. 6) The same applies to those who live in dwellings that exceed a cer­ tain limit. 7)  Christianity should be strictly prohibited. These extreme proposals would suppress foreign ideas and culture, dis­ establish or ban non-Buddhist forms of religion, crack down on govern­ ment corruption, and impose strict austerity measures on the people. Given such anti-liberal, authoritarian political leanings, it is really no surprise that Shimotsuma affirmed the chief abbot’s total doctrinal authority and the right of Ōtani administrators to crack down on schol­ ars deemed heretical. Here again, the question arises whether it was Shimotsuma’s political views that informed his approach to the Kaneko affair or his Buddhist views that informed his approach to communism (or some combination of the two). In discussing the Kaneko affair, Shimotsuma explicitly looked to the government for a model of how Ōtani administrators ought to address the conflicting interests of eradicating heresy and protecting academic freedom. In doing so, Shimotsuma found an argument in favor of censoring Kaneko. Just as anarchist and Marxist thought threatened the Japanese nation-state, so too might Kaneko’s theories threaten the Shin community. The authors of a June 12 editorial on the Kaneko affair in the Ōsaka mainichi shinbun also appealed to national political norms but arrived at the opposite conclusion. They argued that if the Inquiry Committee were permitted to make arbitrary judgments about the work of Ōtani Univer­ sity professors, “it could end in a situation where everyone is compelled to affirm the sect’s established views. It’s just like if the Ministry of Cul­ tural Affairs determined which ideas and theories were acceptable and then policed the arguments of imperial university professors. One would 138

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then have one’s doubts about whether any freedom of research or aca­ demic independence remained.” The Ōsaka mainichi shinbun authors take for granted that the Ministry of Cultural Affairs has no right to exercise such authority, and by extension, neither should the Ōtani organization’s Inquiry Committee. In this case and in Shimotsuma’s, national politics are presented as a model for evaluating Buddhist politics.

Ōtani Students’ Perspectives In the case of Ōtani University students, we find an even clearer case of national politics shaping Buddhist politics. The period from 1928 to 1932 has been called Japan’s “age of chronic student disturbances.” During this period, hundreds of student protests and disturbances arose throughout Japan, affecting every major university and higher school, as well as women’s schools, music schools, professional schools (dental, sericultural, electrical), a school for the blind, Buddhist schools, and also schools in Taiwan and Korea.40 Henry Smith explains this wave of pro­ tests in terms of a long-standing economic depression (which worsened in the final years of the 1920s), the psychological stresses of an increas­ ingly competitive school system, and the conscious agitation of radical students following the government crackdown of March 1928.41 Burgeoning interest in the late 1920s in the social sciences, including Marxist theory, was also a factor, and in this regard, Ōtani University was no exception. Social studies courses had been taught at the univer­ sity since 1903. According to the reminiscences of Ōtani thinker Yasuda Rijin, an interest in Marxism was pervasive on Ōtani University’s cam­ pus in the late 1920s: “It was an extraordinary age on the eve of the Man­ churian Incident [of 1931]. It was a time when enthusiasm for research on Marxist theory was overwhelming among the students of the univer­ sity and preparatory school. Also, Kyoto was the scene of a somewhat wild faith movement in Shinran among the students.”42 Although the booming popularity of Shinran in the 1920s—which partly derived from popular works on Shinran by Kaneko and other Shin modernists—may have figured into the conflict over Kaneko, evidence from the Ōtani Uni­ versity newspaper points to enthusiasm for Marxist theory as the more relevant factor. One article revealing an intersection of student interest in Marxist theory and Shin studies was published in the Ōtani University news­ paper (Ōtani Daigaku shinbun) on February 10, 1928, by Matsubara Yūzen (松原祐善, 1906–1980).43 Matsubara was a student of Soga’s and Kaneko’s 139

Institutional Politics

who would later go on to become Ōtani University president. In his arti­ cle, he describes Ōtani students’ recent founding of the Religious Move­ ment Research Association as an explicit response to Marxism: Previously, seeing that Marxists were trying to “light a fire on top of ice,” we organized a new religious research group. On the basis of our claim that religion is not the opium of the people but rather “a method of practice for realizing one’s independent self,” we have for the past three months met twice monthly for discussions of faith and for a reading group concerned with the study of proletarian economics.

Matsubara’s metaphor of “lighting a fire on top of ice” (hyōjō nenka, 氷上 燃火) comes from a passage in Tanluan’s Jingtulun zhu (浄土論註), which

discusses the situation of deluded, passion-ridden beings seeking birth in Amida’s Pure Land. According to Tanluan, the “ice” of Amida Buddha’s compassion will melt the “fire” of those beings’ false views.44 Matsuba­ ra’s use of this metaphor implies that Marxists are pursuing the right goal, but in an unwise way. Matsubara’s group was founded not to com­ bat Marxism but to complement it. Both groups were concerned with economic justice and the well-being of the proletariat class, yet Matsu­ bara’s group was skeptical that Marxism would accomplish anything without the aid of religion. Matsubara’s article goes on to answer critiques that socialist thinkers had directed toward their group. For example, Matsubara writes, “At first glance, one might perceive great strength in the arguments against reli­ gion by socialists, who use as their weapon materialist dialectics. Yet I do not think theories of atheism or materialism pose any danger for Shinran’s teachings, which take non-discrimination as the essence.” Matsubara’s point is that Shinran’s teachings do not rest on any theoretical basis—­ theist, spiritualist, or otherwise; rather, they rest on the very opposite, a mind devoid of discrimination and calculation.45 Thus, socialist arguments against religion miss the mark when directed at Shin Buddhism. In his conclusion, Matsubara outlines the two methods by which his group seeks to carry forward its mission: In general, our movement takes two directions. The first is to try to bring universal validity to faith in Shinran’s teachings through the construction of a Shin studies grounded in philosophy of religion. An important motiva­ tion for us in this regard was the progress of contemporary scholarship. The other sort of ossified study of the teachings is no longer the true study of the teachings and is nothing more than a commentarial study that con­ ducts stale analyses . . . 140

Heresy, Protests, and the Press The other direction is to try to reform the content of religion at ordi­ nary temples on the basis of social awareness and to improve the social order on the basis of true Shin studies. Think of how pitiable it is that Shin temples, which originally were without property, today have death regis­ ters [kakochō, 過去帳] as their only capital and are maintained solely on the basis of an etiquette of economic exchange. Moreover, priests who are sup­ posed to be “neither monk nor layman” have become professionalized and are always threatening a segment of the people, rousing their hope for a better life in the next world and peddling tickets of admission to this other world on the basis of their scriptural reading . . . In truth, Shinran’s teachings are not the opium of the people. The vows of Dharmākara Bodhisattva of ten kalpas ago are not simply a story of the past, but are active in the eternal present.

The first paragraph indicates the students’ support for the modern Shin studies of Soga and Kaneko (who were developing Kiyozawa’s “philoso­ phy of religion”), which they view as potentially bringing “universal validity” and new life to Shin thought. The second paragraph indicates their Marxist-inspired goal of bringing an end to economic exploitation of temple parishioners by Shin priests. The third paragraph reveals the connection between these two goals. In Matsubara’s explanation, exploitation of temple parishioners is based on Shin priests’ promotion of a mistaken understanding of Shin teachings oriented toward the afterlife. Thus, Soga Ryōjin’s revelation that Dharmākara Bodhisattva’s vows are accessible here and now in the “eternal present” (along with Kaneko’s argument that Amida’s Pure Land is accessible in the present) contains the seed for social reform. For these Ōtani students, the proj­ ects of promoting modern Shin studies and supporting the proletariat were interconnected and mutually reinforcing. Months later, when the Kaneko heresy affair erupted, Ōtani stu­ dents expressed support for Kaneko and the principle of academic free­ dom in Marxist language. For example, an anonymous May 20 article titled “Proposal for a Student Council” begins with a brief Marxistinspired discussion of historical change through the development of class-consciousness: People living under a soon-to-collapse feudal system always long for and dream of a world of absolute freedom because of the substructure of the time period and the unjust oppression it produces . . . These empty longings and dreams of individuals develop into public opinion through awareness of group unity. With the addition of a theoreti­ cal, scientific foundation, this can develop into material power. 141

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The author’s discussion of the “substructure of the time period,” an emerging “awareness of group unity,” the role of a “theoretical, scien­ tific foundation,” and “material power” clearly indicate a Marxist orien­ tation. Given the controversial nature of Marxist thought at that time, the editors elected to censor various passages in the article, with the original text replaced by dashes. In spite of that censorship, the author is able to convey much of his Marxist critique of the Ōtani establishment and its treatment of Kaneko. For example, in the second section, the author turns to sectarian poli­ tics: “Reflecting back upon our sectarian organization, on the empire of Honganji, one can see that it is in fact a feudal country on its way to future collapse. Although it pretends to have a constitutional represen­ tative system and a parliament, that is like a cat painting itself as a lion.” The author implies that the Ōtani organization’s inevitable transition from feudal authoritarianism to democratic rule will require a revolu­ tion. From that perspective, the organization’s gradual steps toward representative government are mere posturing. Following a censored passage that is difficult to reconstruct, the argument proceeds as follows (with censored text denoted by dashes): One can only be a “priest” insofar as one stubbornly adheres to tradition and acts on behalf of an oppressive class. In such a time, needless to say, the sectarian organization is controlled and dragged along by its ears by a bunch of “rich crooks.” ——this time, there is the case of a certain person, highly reputed within and outside the sect, who acted with no interests other than the pursuit of truth. On account of his thoroughly pure logic, fearless courage, and deepseated passion, he infringed upon sectarian norms regarding scripture. This supplied the means for a partisan sectarian battle launched by a bunch of “crooks” with petit-bourgeois consciousness. All you students working to pursue truth and defend freedom, stand up! This is a place of learning that ought to be free, so let us plan our escape from this imprisoning, feudal disciplinary control! Regardless of what [high] position such persons may have, if they are attacking the clear truth, we must gather together on the side of truth, and bravely take on the mat­ ter and————

In this passage, the author depicts the Ōtani establishment and the majority of its priests as being “dragged along” by those with money; in contrast, the author depicts Kaneko and other modernist Shin schol­ ars as engaged in nothing but the “pursuit of truth.” Again, the lan­ guage of “class,” “petit bourgeois consciousness,” and “escape from 142

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imprisoning, feudal disciplinary control” is all indicative of a Marxist orientation. In the third and final section, the author speaks of the urgent need for a university parliament with power to make judgments on incidents that arise at the university. Only in this way, the author argues, will the outcomes of such incidents derive from “legal processes” rather than the whims of a “contemptible group.” As a first step forward, the author urges students to organize a student council to stand alongside the uni­ versity’s teachers’ association and staff association. The Ōtani University newspaper also contained coverage of national politics alongside its discussions of the Kaneko affair. Thus, on May 5, a student writing under the pen name O Inaura (お いなうら) published an article titled “Our Attitude Regarding the Communist Party Incident” that condemned the violent strategies of the Communist Party while affirming the value of Marxist social science. Criticizing the Tanaka Cab­ inet as reactionary (“They are the type to try to control the sun as it goes to set in the West”), Inaura argues in Marxist fashion that “time periods always change according to a struggle between two [forces] opposed to one another whereby that which ought to arise does so through a process of sublation.” He calls on Buddhists to take part in that struggle, motioning to Shinran as an example of someone who “worked for change in the real world . . . while also contemplating the other world of eternity.” Another article in the same May 5 edition offers commentary on the government’s “thought guidance” campaigns. Criti­ cizing members of the “infinitely vile Diet” as the ones in need of thought guidance, the anonymous author argues that communism should be understood not in terms of the “degradation of thought” but rather as arising out of real economic, social, and political problems that the pur­ veyors of “thought guidance” would do good to reflect on. Whereas the Chūgai nippō editors defended Kaneko on the basis of liberal ideals of free inquiry and open debate, and whereas Shimotsuma Kūkyō defended the Ōtani authorities’ right to censor Kaneko by point­ ing to the state’s authoritarian powers, Ōtani University students understood the Kaneko affair through the lens of Marxism. Their defense of Kaneko and their critique of sect authorities focused on the matter of financial influence. When students defending Kaneko finally dissolved their movement, they issued a statement that concluded with this warning: “If we desire the true revival of this university, let us help it attain economic independence—otherwise, it will mean suicide for the university.”46 143

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Concern over the corrupting influence of wealth has been part of Buddhism since its beginnings. In the Agañña Sutta, Śākyamuni Bud­ dha points to the greed-driven accumulation of wealth as a root cause of the evils of human society.47 Monastic precepts derived from Śākyamuni’s instructions forbade Buddhist monks and nuns from han­ dling money. Theoretically, no Marxist influence was needed for mod­ ern Ōtani Buddhists to conclude that wealthy donors should not be deciding doctrinal matters. But historically speaking, it was Ōtani stu­ dents’ study of ­Marxist theory that gave rise to their concern with the corrupting influence of money. Just as previous generations of Shin stu­ dents had responded to the challenges of science by reinterpreting Bud­ dhist thought and purifying it of its supposed superstitions, this generation of students responded to the challenges of Marxism by try­ ing to purify Buddhist institutions of feudal rule, outsized influence from wealthy donors, and exploitation of temple parishioners through opiatic teachings of a blissful afterlife. The Kaneko heresy affair pre­ sented Ōtani students the opportunity to put this reform project into action. In the charged political context of late 1920s Japan, the cause of Shin modernism was thus buoyed up by the Marxist ideals of Ōtani Uni­ versity students. On June 13, the day after President Inaba’s speech announcing Kaneko’s resignation, former Ōtani University president Murakami Senshō pub­ lished the first part of a three-part article in Chūgai nippō titled “Higashi Honganji’s Orthodoxy Problems.”48 In his article, Murakami compared the Kaneko heresy case with the Tokugawa era Sangō Wakuran and Tonjō affairs. In particular, he contrasted the decisive actions and judg­ ments of the governor of temples and shrines—a mere layman—during the Tonjō incident with what he saw as the lack of decisive action and immature doctrinal understandings of current Head of Sect Affairs Kasuga Enjō and Head of Doctrinal Affairs Nunami Seiken. In part two of his article, published on June 14, Murakami went on to offer the follow­ ing warning to sect and university officials: As an administrator, one’s first thought is to try to let sleeping dogs lie, to try to conclude the matter quietly. When I was still in office, I even had such thoughts. But at this point, with the matter already announced to the world through the newspapers, and with Kaneko himself denying that he can see anything wrong in his thinking, the matter can no longer be concluded qui­ etly. In quietness, there exists a sense of ambiguity, and that cannot stand. One must make a clear judgment of right and wrong. 144

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Murakami’s advice notwithstanding, that ambiguity did stand. In spite of continued efforts by kōshi scholars of the Inquiry Committee and members of the Accounting Directors Committee, no clear judgment regarding Kaneko’s scholarship ever materialized. In the Tokugawa period, such would not have been the case. The Tokugawa government assisted sect authorities in enforcing orthodoxy when circumstances demanded it. In the liberal democratic context of 1920s Japan, even without support from the government, the Ōtani authorities still had the means to hold a heresy trial and expel Kaneko from the sect. However, the problem was that Kaneko was not just a Shin priest; he was a Shin scholar at a modern Buddhist university ostensibly committed to the ideals of free inquiry, open debate, and rational, evi­ dence-based argument. Honoring such ideals meant accepting a diver­ sity of theories—even theories judged incorrect or incomplete in some way. From the perspective of the Chūgai nippō editors, Kaneko’s academic theory, however flawed it might be, ought to be appreciated as material for other scholars to critique, revise, and improve upon.49 The tension between the conflicting demands for unified doctrinal orthodoxy and for free academic inquiry led some to contemplate closing Ōtani Univer­ sity and others to discuss reforming the Inquiry Committee. In the ambiguous resolution to the conflict, Ōtani University lost one of its highly reputed scholars, but arguably, it was the Inquiry Committee that suffered the bigger setback. The authority entrusted to it by the chief abbot to make judgments on orthodoxy and heresy had been severely undermined. Never again would it be effectively mobilized to rectify an instance of heresy within the Ōtani community.50 Ōtani orthodoxy was fracturing. Initial cracks in Ōtani orthodoxy had appeared when Western science and education awakened new doubts about Amida and the Pure Land. Kiyozawa’s subjectivist reinterpretation and quasi-empiricist represen­ tation of Shin thought had helped solidify the faith of some Shin follow­ ers but had also opened up a doctrinal divide between modernists and traditionalists. In addressing this division, Kiyozawa and his allies had argued for a distinction between unchanging “sectarian principles” and always changing “sectarian studies” of those principles. From this view­ point, the “sectarian principles” laid out in Shinran’s Kyōgyōshinshō ought to be revered as sacred and unchanging, but no particular strand of sectarian studies needed to be defined as exclusively correct. In other words, Kiyozawa and his allies proposed restricting the scope of ortho­ doxy to Shinran’s writings while permitting a free proliferation of 145

Institutional Politics

doctrinal interpretation—so long as the interpreters confessed faith in Shinran’s words. Even so, Kiyozawa, and Soga and Kaneko after him, held out hope for a certain level of consensus in regard to doctrinal interpretation. Kiyo­ zawa believed that authentic experiences of unification with the Infinite would give rise to a shared understanding that Amida, the Primal Vow, hells, and pure lands all relate not to the distant past or the future await­ ing us after death, but to our present experience. Kaneko and Soga believed that the “facts” of religious experience could serve as a reliable foundation for a new, systematic Shin studies to be practiced in common by all earnest seekers of Shin Buddhist truth. Kaneko’s heresy incident revealed the limits of this vision. In his speech to Ōtani University stu­ dents, Inaba bewailed the impossibility of getting the older generation to appreciate the views of the younger generation. Kaneko’s and Soga’s writings on the new Shin studies had indeed failed to win the support of traditionalist scholars. Kaneko had been unable to change the mind of Kōno Hōun of the Inquiry Committee. And in the wake of his resignation, Kaneko engaged in a public debate with traditionalist scholar Tada Kanae in the pages of Chūgai nippō for a period of two months. Useful in clarify­ ing the distinctive positions of Kaneko and Tada, this thirty-article debate did nothing to resolve the two scholars’ opposing viewpoints.51 Kaneko and Soga dreamed of uniting the Ōtani community (and beyond that, all Shin followers, all Buddhists, and all humankind) around the indisputable “facts” of Shin experience, but many within that community fiercely resisted such “facts” and the doctrinal view­ points that accompanied them. Reverence for the principle of free inquiry had enabled the proliferation of competing doctrinal interpre­ tations within the Ōtani community, leading to the fracturing of the reigning orthodoxy. The forging of a new shared orthodoxy would not come about through free inquiry and doctrinal argumentation alone; it would require consolidation of institutional authority and further edu­ cational and administrative reforms. In the years that followed, the priorities of Ōtani authorities shifted from liberal educational reform toward the promotion of Japanese impe­ rialism, avoidance of government persecution, provision of support to soldiers and their families, and maintenance of faith in the midst of a devastating global conflict. Wartime politics shifted the balance of power within the Ōtani organization, and this had important consequences for the careers of Kaneko and Soga and the fate of Shin modernism.

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Part III National Politics

Chapter 5

Amida and the Emperor In the final analysis, it would be splendid if all people who say the nenbutsu, not just yourself, do so not with thoughts of themselves, but for the sake of the imperial court and for the sake of the people of the country. —Shinran, Collection of Letters

“Is it the case that as a sect, we have to join together Amida and the Emperor? Without doing so, will Shin Buddhism not hold out? Can they be separate? I would like you to tell us clearly.” Takenaka Shigemaru, advisor to the head of sect affairs, posed such questions to Ōtani schol­ ars assembled at the Royal Pavilion in the Higashi Honganji temple com­ plex on February 14, 1941. Altogether, twenty-six leading Ōtani officials, scholars, and preachers were present at this Shin Doctrinal Studies Con­ ference, including three members of the chief abbot’s family. The chief abbot could not attend because he and his wife were then on a preaching tour in the South Pacific. Takenaka’s questions followed a heated exchange between Akegarasu Haya and traditionalist scholar Ōsuga Shūdō. Akegarasu had expounded at length on his views of the identity of the Pure Land and the land of the kami (shinkoku, 神国) and of a path to Pure Land rebirth through faith in the sun kami Amaterasu and in the emperor, to which Ōsuga had responded with considerable skepticism. Kaneko Daiei was first to volunteer an answer to Takenaka’s questions. On the basis of his research into Japanese history, Kaneko argued that Shinto contains within it “transnational” truths that justify its ideal of join­ ing “the eight corners of the world under one roof” (hakkō ichiu, 八紘一宇). According to Kaneko, these universal truths that were manifested through 149

National Politics

the “laws” (nori, のり) of the emperor were fundamentally congruent with the “laws” of Buddhism. As such, “The Primal Vow of Amida Buddha, just as it is, is the primal vow of the kami. . . . [Amida’s] eighteenth vow is the Emperor’s vow, so the forty-eight vows, just as they are, are the laws of His Majesty.” Kaneko likened the situation to that of two parents communicat­ ing the same lessons to their children in different ways: There are things a father should say, and things a mother should say. There are also cases where it is good to let the mother say what the father should say. We can look upon Buddhist teachings as a case of buddhas having said what the kami say. By coming to think of those [teachings] narrowly as belonging only to buddhas, Buddhists took a medicine and turned it into a poison.1

Abruptly, Kaneko then raised the question of the Pure Land: “What is the ‘land’ of the Pure Land? That’s the fundamental thing. However, I won’t speak of that now.” Less than a year prior, Kaneko’s priesthood had finally been restored on the conditions that his former publications on the Pure Land be discontinued and he refrain from public speaking for a time. By raising the topic of the Pure Land here, Kaneko was asking for trouble. After some silence, he continued: I’m afraid to touch upon this problem. The way of the kami contains within it transnational things. Therefore, it’s not incorrect to say that the Buddha Land [hotoke no mikuni, 仏の御国] is the land of the kami. The land of our ancestors is the Pure Land. The Pure Land scriptures are the nation’s scrip­ tures. The Pure Land nenbutsu, just as it is, is reverence toward the land of the kami. There is no need now for more thinking on Shin Buddhism’s Japa­ nese spirit. We lost sight of that original spirit because we treated it as a private possession. I am so happy to be in the land of Japan.

And then, according to the conference records, Kaneko burst into tears as he continued to explain his views of Buddhism’s harmony with Shinto and loyalty to the emperor. Later the same day, Kaneko again raised the topic of the Pure Land. Addressing traditionalist scholar Kōno Hōun, the most active opponent of Akegarasu and Kaneko’s modernist views at the conference, Kaneko said, “What I want to ask about is the meaning of ‘land’ [do, 土]. The sub­ stance [tai, 体] of land is made up of stone and clay. Would you say that the substance of the Pure Land is made up of gold and silver? What is the substance of that land?” The conversation continued as follows: 150

Amida and the Emperor Kōno: Because the most excellent things for us are the seven precious mate­ rials like gold and silver, it is said that the Pure Land is formed out of the seven precious materials. Kaneko: In that case, since the Byōdōin Pavilion in Uji was built out of the seven precious materials, is that the Pure Land? Kōno: Amida’s Pure Land is formed out of undefiled karma. Our world is formed out of defiled karma, so it is a defiled land. Kaneko and Akegarasu (in unison): The substance of the land is karma?! Kōno: The substance is karma. The resulting formation is gold and silver. Kaneko: What about gold and silver in this world? What is that?

After a brief interjection by another scholar on relevant scriptural pas­ sages, Takenaka Shigemaru responded in exasperation, “That even today, three thousand years after Śākyamuni, we are still debating the meaning of the Pure Land and the defiled land—that is just incomprehensible.”2 Takenaka’s frustrations would be echoed by a number of other admin­ istrators and preachers. A preacher named Kizu Muan implored the scholars in attendance to appreciate the seriousness of the situation: One morning, a bomb is going to come! This head temple is large, so it will certainly come. . . . The problem now is how we can ride out these cir­ cumstances. Up until now, it was fine to deal with doctrinal issues, but now, if this [doctrinal debate] were shown to others, they would wonder about Buddhists’ spirit. . . . We must provide everyone faith that prepares them for death beneath a bomb. There is no time to go on deliberating about the direction to take. At this time, we must point to something very clear. The majority within our sect are now serving as soldiers. At this point in time, the king’s law and Buddha’s law are one. We must be very clear on that. . . . I actually hadn’t known that such strange people would be gathered here. 3

As indicated by Kizu’s remarks, the stakes could not have been higher. The entire nation was being mobilized for war. All eligible males were being drafted into the armed forces. Ōtani leaders were traveling in farflung regions of Japan’s empire promoting the mission of building a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Although war with the United States and Britain was still ten months away, Kizu was correct to antici­ pate that the Japanese mainland might soon be enveloped in bombing raids. At this time of emergency, Kizu believed the overriding priority ought to be to unify around a clear message that Buddhist teachings and service to the emperor were aligned and that death in battle would bring rebirth in the Pure Land. 151

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In spite of pressures to unify around a common message, Ōtani’s mod­ ernist and traditionalist scholars continued to clash, their differing par­ adigms of Shin studies still incommensurably opposed. For Kaneko, the fundamental question upon which everything depended was the nature of the “land” of the “Pure Land.” Confronting the skeptical gazes of tra­ ditionalist scholars, Kaneko urged them, tears streaming down his face, to realize that Amida’s Pure Land and Japan as a land of kami really were one and the same. Likewise, Akegarasu professed that “when the way of the imperial subject is truly put into practice, that is the Pure Land. The Pure Land is just like the land of the kami.”4 Soga also affirmed these views, arguing that although they have different histories, “the Buddha Land and the land of the kami are originally one.”5 These Shin modern­ ists’ convergence on a view that conflated State Shinto with Shin Bud­ dhism had important consequences both for the Ōtani organization’s wartime messaging and for the future of Ōtani orthodoxy.

State-Supporting Buddhism The Pure Land community established by Shinran’s teacher Hōnen evi­ denced an independent streak that was threatening to the religious and political authorities of their day, causing the emperor to ban Pure Land nenbutsu practice, execute four Pure Land priests, and banish others to distant provinces. In the coda to his Kyōgyōshinshō, Shinran condemned the emperor and his ministers for “acting against the dharma and vio­ lating human rectitude” in carrying out such punishments.6 On the other hand, a letter of his to a Pure Land follower facing similar persecu­ tion offered a message of patriotism, recommending that the nenbutsu be chanted not for oneself but “for the sake of the imperial court and for the sake of the people of the country” (see epigraph). In the late 1400s, Shin followers exerted their political indepen­ dence through armed uprisings against local military governors, a trend that Rennyo attempted to moderate by issuing rules of conduct requiring Shin followers to obey government officials.7 As the Warring States period drew to a close in the late 1500s, the Honganji commu­ nity under the leader­ship of Chief Abbot Kennyo battled for ten years against warlord Oda Nobunaga.8 Shortly thereafter, Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu facilitated the division of the Honganji community into eastern and western branches, an act that many scholars have interpreted as a strategy for quelling the political threat posed by the Honganji orga­ nization.9 The resulting Nishi Honganji and Higashi Honganji head 152

Amida and the Emperor

temples were established in Kyoto a few kilometers away from the Imperial Palace and Nijō Castle, the shogun’s Kyoto residence. During the succeeding centuries, both Honganji organizations experienced huge expansions in their numbers of temples and temple members, a strengthening of organizational cohesion and control under the headbranch temple system, and major advances in doctrinal studies at newly established academies. At the same time, earlier trends of polit­ ical defiance and protest dissipated as Honganji leaders and scholars, enjoying generally cordial relations with the shogunate, cultivated Rennyo’s ethic of obedience to governing authorities.10 The pressures confronting Japanese Buddhist organizations during the Meiji period and the resulting impulse to demonstrate Buddhism’s social usefulness have already been discussed in chapter 3. With few exceptions, Buddhist institutions overwhelmingly lent their support to the causes of imperialism and war. As Japan developed an empire from Okinawa, Hokkaido, and Taiwan to Korea, China, and Manchuria, Japa­ nese Buddhists contributed vast financial and human resources through war bond purchases, donations of money and metal (e.g., temple bells), military service, and the repurposing of temples as military facilities. Buddhists also served war efforts through jingoistic sermons, lectures, books, and pamphlets, patriotic organizations, missionary work, mili­ tary chaplaincy, and funeral and memorial services for the war dead. Such services provided valuable reassurance of moral rectitude and post­ mortem salvation to military officers, soldiers, and civilians at home and abroad.11 In this pattern of support for the state and its wars, Shin organiza­ tions were no exception. In fact, Shin institutions arguably outpaced all other Buddhist institutions in their war cooperation. For example, the Shin denominations led Buddhist efforts to assist the new Meiji govern­ ment in colonizing Hokkaido, and in 1876 and 1877, the Ōtani organiza­ tion was the first to establish missions in China and Korea.12 From the 1880s, the Honganji and Ōtani chief abbots carried out Buddhist memo­ rial services at modern monuments for the war dead, including Yasu­ kuni Shrine, and from 1894, they pioneered the practice of granting posthumous names free of charge to sect members who died in battle, with special honorific posthumous names for those who held the rank of military officer.13 Beginning in 1895, memorial services for the war dead were held annually in the main hall at Higashi Honganji Temple. At such services, which included a Rite of Repayment for the Virtue [of the Emperor] (Shūtokue, 酬徳会), the offering table in front of the main 153

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image of Amida Buddha was covered with a fabric decorated with the chrysanthemum imperial crest; also, a scroll listing the names of sect members who died in battle and Japan’s emperors was installed beside the main altar.14 Shin organizations also led the way in financially con­ tributing to Japan’s wars and in providing chaplains for the battlefield; following the Russo-Japanese War, Honganji Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōzui received a special imperial citation for his extraordinary efforts in such regards.15 Thus, in September of 1931, when a staged railway-track bombing in Manchuria was used by Japanese military officers as pretext for a major attack on the Chinese army, initiating what historians have come to refer to as the Fifteen Years’ War (Jūgonen Sensō, 十五年戦争), Shin Bud­ dhist organizations already had a long history of cooperating with impe­ rialist war efforts. The chief abbot of the Ōtani organization at that time was Ōtani Kōchō (大谷光暢, 1903–1993). Following the Manchurian Inci­ dent, Kōchō sent a telegram to the League of Nations declaring the legit­ imacy of Japan’s actions.16 For the next fifteen years, he and his wife, Ōtani Satoko (大谷智子, 1906–1989), did all they could to support the state and its wars. Kōchō had become chief abbot in 1925 at the age of twenty-two when his father, Ōtani Kōen (Kubutsu), resigned on account of financial scan­ dals. The previous year, Kōchō had been wedded to Princess Satoko, the third daughter of Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi, an illustrious army general and field marshal. This was in keeping with a tradition of aristocratic marriages arranged for the Honganji chief abbots. In the same year, Satoko’s older sister Nagako had married Crown Prince Hirohito. Thus, Kōchō and Satoko became brother-in-law and sister-in-law of Hirohito, who became the Shōwa emperor in 1926.17 Kōchō and Satoko were thus ultra-elites with familial ties to the emperor and to military leaders. Incidentally, various reports indicate that in contrast to Kōchō, Satoko had an outgoing, strong-willed personality and greatly influenced her husband’s administrative decisions.18 Kōchō and Satoko took an active role in shaping the Ōtani communi­ ty’s response to the Fifteen Years’ War. For one, Kōchō discussed national politics in the regular addresses he gave to the Ōtani community (which were amplified through “secondary lectures” and commentary by Ōtani scholars, all of it published in Shinshū, the Ōtani organization’s newslet­ ter). Following the Manchurian Incident, Kōchō urged Ōtani followers to remember their debts to the emperor and nation and to exert themselves in patriotic service, in accordance with the doctrine of the “mutual 154

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dependence of the two truths” (nitai sōe, 二諦相依).19 As discussed in chap­ ter 2, this doctrine linked the “absolute truth” of “obtaining a peaceful mind in regard to being born in the Pure Land” with the “worldly truth” of “revering the Emperor, complying with government commands, not turning away from worldly morals, not disturbing human relations, and working hard at one’s occupation.”20 Following the outbreak of official war with China in 1937, Kōchō declared to the Ōtani community that Japan’s war was in line with “the Buddha’s compassionate use of expedi­ ent means” and that all Shin followers, taking heed of Shinran’s instruc­ tion to say the nenbutsu “for the sake of the imperial court and for the sake of the people of the country,” ought to exert themselves in service to the emperor.21 In September 1941, Kōchō gave a twenty-minute radio address, urging the nation to throw off the sicknesses of “individualism, materialism, and liberalism” in favor of “absolute no-self,” to embrace their identities as imperial subjects who undeservedly enjoy the emperor’s “vast and unlimited benevolence,” and to allow their “self-concerned mind” to be absorbed by the “national mind.”22 On the same day, he also gave a lec­ ture to the Ōtani community, urging its members to “transcend life and death” and “volunteer to die for the nation.”23 The following month, Kōchō unexpectedly rode to Ōtani University on horseback to inspect the military spirit and preparedness of its students. The entire student body was duly assembled in rows on the university athletic field, where they marched in file and carried out combat drills for their chief abbot. This event resembled military reviews regularly carried out by Emperor Hirohito on horseback.24 Following the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, Kōchō declared to the Ōtani community that the emperor’s goal of uniting “the eight corners of the world under one roof” was rooted in a desire for shared peace and prosperity among East Asian nations, and that all Ōtani followers ought to abide in “diamond-like, immovable faith” and exert themselves to repay the “unfathomable imperial bless­ ings” they had received.25 Kōchō also contributed to the war effort by administering kikyōshiki rites to soldiers shipping off for war and funeral rites for the war dead. In kikyōshiki rites, initiates take refuge in Buddhism’s three jewels, have their heads symbolically shaved, and receive a dharma name. Carried out specifically for groups of soldiers shipping off for war, this ritual took on particular connotations of preparing soldiers for death. Having been initiated into the Shin community, it was thought that death in battle would lead to rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land.26 155

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Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōchō in 1941 inspecting the military preparedness of Ōtani University students. Photo courtesy of Shinshū Ōtani-ha.

Satoko contributed to the war effort by helping prepare care pack­ ages for soldiers, making condolence hospital visits to wounded and sick soldiers, and composing jingoistic poems and hymns. She also traveled with her husband on trips to China in 1938 and to the South Pacific in 1941. In 1940, she published a book about her trip to China. In the pref­ ace, she expresses her reverence for the emperor using a quotation from the classical Man’yōshū book of poetry: “As the [China] Incident unfolds, we welcome this bright year marking the 2,600-year anniversary of the founding [of Japan], and look with reverence upon the majesty of the Emperor shining forth to the eight corners. Overwhelmed by emotion, I rejoice, ‘Oh, the reward of my living as an imperial subject,’ having been born into this glorious age.”27 Satoko’s book goes on to recount her efforts at fostering friendly Japanese-Chinese relations and her experi­ ences witnessing the bravery of Japanese soldiers. It also includes tran­ scripts of speeches she gave in Japan after her return. One speech given at an “Assembly of Gratitude for Mothers of Our Nation at War” describes Japanese soldiers maintaining “a composed awakening in regard to the oneness of life and death” and “absolutely engaged in the saintly prac­ tice of bodhisattva self-sacrifice.”28 Later, at the 1941 Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, Ōtani scholars would debate whether it was correct to define service in the Japanese military as “bodhisattva practice.” 156

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As chief abbot, Kōchō possessed sweeping legal powers over the Ōtani administration and community. Many Ōtani members revered him as a sacred presence by virtue of his blood ties to sect founder Shinran. He and Satoko’s membership in the extended imperial family only height­ ened their symbolic power. For Ōtani members to question the war was not just a matter of defying the government; it was a matter of defying their sacred and powerful chief abbot. Given Kōchō’s orthodoxy-defin­ ing pronouncements on the war as holy, speaking out against that war would be tantamount to heresy, and those who did so were promptly punished by Ōtani authorities. One rare example of this occurred in Sep­ tember 1937 when Ōtani priest Takenaka Shōgen denounced Japan’s mil­ itary actions and war in general as evil. He was both arrested by the government and censured and disciplined by Ōtani authorities.29

Traditionalist Wartime Doctrinal Studies Within the context described above, Ōtani scholars and preachers increas­ ingly took up the topics of the two truths, debts owed by Buddhists to the imperial house, and State Shinto ideology. “State Shinto” is a term devised in the post–World War II period to describe Japan’s state-sponsored sys­ tem of Shinto rituals directed toward a national hierarchy of kami headed by Ise Shrine’s Amaterasu and inclusive of war dead enshrined as kami at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Established during the Meiji period but fully formed only in the peak war years of 1937–1945, this system of rituals was officially designated “non-religious,” and all Japanese people were expected to participate. The ideology that accompanied such rituals pre­ sented Japan as a single, united “national body” (kokutai, 国体) led by an unbroken line of kami emperors descended from Amaterasu.30 Jason Josephson-Storm’s theory of the “Shinto secular” provides a useful framework for understanding the pressures posed by State Shinto on Buddhist communities during the Fifteen Years’ War. In Josephson-Storm’s explanation, the formation of State Shinto ought to be understood as part of a modernizing process that organized Japa­ nese life into different spheres. In accordance with international expec­ tations, Meiji leaders delineated a “secular” public sphere of politics and education from which “religion” was to be excluded. Religion was defined as a matter of private, interior belief in teachings that were sub­ ject to doubt; the secular sphere, by contrast, was ostensibly defined by scientific facts, historical facts, and national values and responsibilities that all citizens could be expected to accept. However, determining 157

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which ideas, practices, and institutions belonged in which categories was not a straightforward, self-evident process but rather a construc­ tive, political one. Just as aspects of Protestantism were incorporated into public life in the United States, Meiji leaders incorporated certain Shinto ideas, practices, and institutions into Japan’s “secular” politics and education. Other expressions of Shinto were classified alongside Buddhism and Christianity as religions and granted limited legal pro­ tections. Finally, ideas, practices, and institutions perceived as danger­ ous to Japan’s shared public life were defined as superstitious and were suppressed. “Secular” thus designated what was unquestionable and obligatory, “religion” what was uncertain and optional, and “supersti­ tion” what was false and forbidden.31 Josephson-Storm’s work charts the formation of these spheres of life during the Meiji period. In subsequent periods, the boundaries separat­ ing these spheres continued to shift. As discussed below, a push for ideo­ logical purity from the mid-1930s essentially caused the Shinto secular sphere to swell, which shrank the space available for religion. Groups previously accepted as “religions” were deemed “superstitious” and were persecuted. Previously acceptable Buddhist doctrines were called into question. Buddhists could accept the risk of persecution by doing nothing, try to evade critique by redefining or discarding the offending doctrines, or work to secure secular status for those doctrines by dem­ onstrating their conformity with State Shinto ideals. Facing these pressures, traditionalist and modernist Ōtani scholars came to very different solutions. The two most senior and influential tra­ ditionalist Ōtani scholars during the Fifteen Years’ War were Saitō Yuishin and Kōno Hōun. Both had connections with Kiyozawa Manshi and the Seishinshugi movement in their youth but became staunch traditionalists opposed to Kaneko and Soga’s modernism.32 During Kaneko’s heresy trial, both served on the Inquiry Committee that judged Kaneko guilty of her­ esy. At the following year’s main ango lecture, without naming names, Kōno clearly leveled critiques against Kaneko’s views of the Pure Land.33 And in 1939, when Ōtani officials sought Kaneko’s restoration as an Ōtani priest, obtaining Saitō’s approval would prove to be the main obstacle. For Saitō, the two-truths doctrine provided a framework for respond­ ing to wartime demands. In a 1927 essay, Saitō identifies a passage in the Kyōgyōshinshō that appears to associate Buddha’s law and secular law with the two truths.34 From that basis, Saitō proceeds to define absolute truth as pertaining to “our transformations into buddhas” and worldly truth as pertaining to our “upholding of human morality” so long as we 158

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remain unenlightened beings. Saitō then interprets Amida’s eighteenth vow as comprising two sections, one relating to absolute truth and the other to worldly truth. As for the relationship between these two truths, Saitō presents scriptural evidence to show that absolute truth is the fun­ damental truth, while worldly truth is a derivative, provisional teach­ ing. Saitō’s essay thus denigrates secular morality as derivative and pays little attention to the state or state ideology.35 In 1934, Saitō published an essay titled “Buddhist Teachings and Japa­ nese Spirit” that looks more directly at questions of patriotism, civic duty, and the emperor. While Saitō does not explicitly invoke the doc­ trine of the two truths in the essay, a two-truths framework underlies his thinking. He begins by discussing Buddhism’s distinction between a conditioned world of changing phenomena (samsara) and an uncondi­ tioned world of unchanging true reality (nirvana). Worldly ethics, he writes, are based on recognition of the differences within this samsaric world between man and woman, young and old, noble and ignoble, and poor and rich. At an ultimate level, Buddhism teaches principles of abso­ lute non-dualism and ultimate equality, but those cannot be manifested in the world of samsara, so Buddhism is necessarily opposed to visions of society like that of communism.36 Recognition of differences within the samsaric world, Saitō continues, helps foster realization of the Buddhist truths of interconnectedness, no-self, and indebtedness to others. As an example of those who have modeled these realizations, he points to the three Japanese soldiers who famously sacrificed their lives in the 1932 Shanghai Incident.37 In conclusion, Saitō highlights a final instance of samsaric difference: the special character of the Japanese nation, a “Shinto nation of one ruler for all the people.” With an awareness of debts owed to the imperial house, he writes, Japanese people ought to resolve to sacrifice themselves for the nation.38 Saitō thus expressed his support for the emperor and Japan’s imperi­ alist project within a framework of the two truths. On an absolute level, all beings can be saved regardless of their moral actions, and distinc­ tions between ruler and subject are nonexistent. Yet so long as people remain in the world of samsara, they ought to respect natural social hierarchies and fulfill their moral obligations to the emperor. In this framing, one’s path to buddhahood and one’s worldly obligations as an imperial subject are separate, albeit mutually supportive. In a 1936 essay, Saitō revised his position somewhat. Attempting to heighten the patrio­ tism of his message, Saitō called attention to the imperial house’s criti­ cal role in enabling Shin Buddhism to prosper in Japan and declared that 159

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Shin followers’ gratitude and loyalty to the emperor in return were “cer­ tainly not mere worldly truth concepts.”39 Saitō thus stretched the twotruths framework as far as it could go—while conspicuously avoiding the question of how State Shinto teachings of a divine country and emperor potentially clashed or harmonized with Shin teachings. Kōno Hōun’s doctrinal understandings and approach to Shin studies were basically consonant with Saitō’s. Like Saitō, he insisted that the Pure Land exists in an objective sense in the West and that rebirth takes place there after death.40 Unlike Saitō, however, Kōno’s reading of Shin scriptures led him to adopt a strong political standpoint opposed to aspects of state policy. Kōno presents his views on state policies advo­ cating kami worship in a 1930 book titled Shin Buddhism’s Views of Kami. The book begins with an examination of honji suijaku (本地垂迹) thought in Buddhist history. Honji suijaku refers to the idea that the Buddha or buddhas are the “original ground” (honji) from which kami or other beings emanate as “traces” (suijaku). Kōno finds evidence of similar thinking in early Indian Buddhism and consequently denies that honji suijaku thought is a contrived strategy to incorporate followers of other religions into the Buddhist fold. Turning to Shin Buddhism, Kōno pre­ sents scriptural evidence to show that Shinran and his successors pro­ fessed this common view of kami as traces of the Buddha while instructing Shin followers not to worship those kami.41 From a “reli­ gious perspective,” Kōno concludes, the “absolute truth” of Shin teach­ ings is to focus single-mindedly on Amida Buddha; however, expressions of gratitude for the kami’s blessings are in keeping with “worldly truth” and with Rennyo’s instruction to take the “king’s law as essential” (obō ihon, 王法為本).42 Kōno then considers kami worship in modern Japan, noting that the Japanese state has declared buddhas and kami to be separate entities and redefined kami worship as a non-religious, strictly moral practice of reverencing Japan’s ancestors. On a religious level, Kōno argues, Shin fol­ lowers should uphold the consistent teachings of Shinran, Zonkaku, and Rennyo that kami are manifestations of Amida; on a practical level, though, it is acceptable to adopt the state’s definitions and engage in ritual reverence toward Japan’s ancestors. Kōno goes on to note that the majority of shrines do not adopt a purely moral attitude toward kami worship but instead engage in superstitious prayer for worldly benefits. As long as Shin followers avoid such superstitious praying and retain their faith in Amida alone, he argues, there is no problem with partici­ pating in Shinto rituals.43 A problem does arise, however, when the 160

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government campaigns for enshrinement of Ise Shrine talismans in pri­ vate homes, local schools, and town halls. Although officials may be intending to foster morality and national unity through such policies, the reality, according to Kōno, is that such talismans are intrinsically religious objects and their widespread enshrinement works to perpetu­ ate superstitious prayer.44 Kōno expresses hopes that such policies will be abolished and emphasizes that the reception and enshrinement of such talismans remain voluntary according to the relevant laws.45 Like Saitō, Kōno approached questions of civic responsibility and state ideology within a framework of the two truths. In his view, loyalties owed to the state and its kami pertained to Buddhists’ secular obliga­ tions to their ruler. Acceptance of State Shinto ideology and participa­ tion in State Shinto rituals could be allowed to an extent, but if the boundary between secular and religious obligations was crossed—for example, if the state demanded that people pray to kami as divine beings—then Shin Buddhists should point out the government’s mis­ takes and claim their constitutionally granted right to religious free­ dom. As the Shinto secular sphere encroached upon Shin Buddhist beliefs and customs, Kōno’s response was to resist.

Modernist Wartime Doctrinal Studies Broadly speaking, the wartime doctrinal studies of modernists like Kaneko Daiei, Soga Ryōjin, and Akegarasu Haya can be described as forging a doctrine of an “absolute and worldly singular truth.” They frequently spoke of Shin and State Shinto teachings as “originally one,” “in accord,” “similar,” or “the same.” In speaking of the blessings bestowed by the imperial house on the people, they went much further than Saitō and Kōno, all but equating the emperor with Amida. Whereas traditionalists like Saitō and Kōno kept State Shinto at arm’s length by relegating its teachings and rituals to the conceptual sphere of “worldly truth,” the Shin modernists embraced those teachings and rituals as alternate expressions of Buddhism. In their explanations, loyalty to the emperor and service to the nation were not mere “worldly obligations” but rather steps toward buddhahood. From a Buddhist perspective, this sacralized the emperor and nation; from the state’s perspective, it dis­ pelled any suspicion of a clash between Shin Buddhist and State Shinto ideals, bringing Shin Buddhism into the orbit of the Shinto secular. Based on their fuller embrace of State Shinto ideals of a divine emperor and nation, I characterize Kaneko, Soga, and Akegarasu’s position as 161

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“ultranationalist,” as distinguished from the merely “nationalist” posi­ tion of Saitō and Kōno.46 The Shin modernists’ dissatisfaction with the orthodox two-truths framework extends back to Kiyozawa Manshi, who argued that the “worldly truth” of social ethics existed to reveal the limits of people’s moral capacities and lead them toward reliance on other-power.47 Kiyo­ zawa’s followers embraced and further developed this interpretation, denying the importance of successfully fulfilling one’s social responsi­ bilities.48 Buddhist studies scholars have consistently viewed this rejec­ tion of the prevailing interpretation of the two truths as a positive development that created possibilities for an alternative Buddhist ethics that would not automatically affirm loyalty to the state.49 In point of fact, however, Kaneko, Soga, and other Shin modernists ended up sup­ porting the state and its wars more passionately than their traditional­ ist counterparts. For traditionalist scholars and sect members, the orthodox two-truths doctrine served to prevent total sacralization of the state and its wars because it placed Buddhist soteriological teachings and social responsibilities into two separate categories. For the modern­ ists, those two categories fused into one. After resigning from Ōtani University in 1928 and relinquishing his status as priest in 1929, Kaneko took a professorship at Hiroshima Uni­ versity of Literature and Science. In 1932, he became a member of the Ministry of Education’s National Spirit and Culture Research Associa­ tion. From then on, he increasingly lectured and wrote on topics related to the “national spirit,” imperial household, and ancient figure of Prince Shōtoku.50 In 1935, Kaneko published The Forty-Eight Vows as Ideals for the State: The Sutra on Immeasurable Life based on lectures he gave at a statesponsored conference. Kaneko begins his lecture by relating nervous excitement about unveiling a series of discoveries he had recently made regarding connections between the Japanese spirit and Pure Land teach­ ings. The first connection he draws is between the lineage of buddhas and the lineage of Japanese emperors. In the Sutra on Immeasurable Life, Śākyamuni relates the story of a king of the distant past who aban­ doned his kingship, became the bodhisattva Dharmākara, and made forty-eight vows regarding his intent to construct a glorious pure land. Kaneko notes that the buddha whom Dharmākara studied under was named Seijizai-ō (世自在王, Skt. Lokêśvararāja), meaning “world sover­ eign king.” If Dharmākara was abandoning politics and kingship, why did he study under a king? And weren’t his vows to establish an ideal world the act of a king? 162

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The true meaning of the sutra’s narrative was revealed, according to Kaneko, through Shinran’s discovery that Dharmākara did not become Amida; rather, Amida became Dharmākara. Similar to the Lotus Sutra’s representation of Śākyamuni, Shinran described Amida as a pre-exist­ ing, formless reality that manifested in the form of Dharmākara.51 The real story related in the Sutra on Immeasurable Life, as Kaneko tells it, is that of Amida Buddha provisionally relinquishing his identity as Buddha in order to seek the path to buddhahood under the instructions of another buddha. This hidden truth is communicated through the narra­ tive of Dharmākara—a king relinquishing his kingship in order to seek the path to true kingship under the instructions of another king.52 According to Kaneko, the significance of this narrative is something only Japanese people can understand: Only we Japanese can understand this idea of someone who is a king by original nature [honrai kokuō, 本来国王] illuminating the way of kings. That is because in other countries, people who are not already kings try to carry out the way of kings. And so, being a Japanese person, a certain feeling was passed down to Shinran, not just through an ordinary consciousness of Japanese spirit, but on a more fundamental level of flesh and bones. This caused Shinran to open his eyes to the realization that rather than Dharmākara Bhikkhu becoming Amida Buddha, it was Amida Buddha that became Dharmākara Bhikkhu.53

Here Kaneko argues that Japan’s imperial house, allegedly “unbroken for ages eternal,” fostered in Japanese people a unique sensibility. In their “flesh and bones,” Japanese people came to understand that a true king must be born a king, innately possessing kingly qualities. The same applies to buddhas, according to Kaneko; a true buddha cannot be an ordinary person who becomes a buddha through his or her own efforts but rather must be a “buddha by original nature” (honrai no butsu, 本来の仏). As a Jap­ anese person who benefited from Japan’s tradition of imperial rule, Shin­ ran was able to penetrate this profound truth about buddhahood. Later in the book, Kaneko discusses a connection between loyalty to the emperor and faith in Amida. In both instances, he argues, an ideal world is brought about not through our own efforts but through the act of taking refuge in a power outside oneself: “In regard to the imperial mind, we receive that imperial mind, becoming a receptacle [ki, 器] for the manifestation of the imperial mind. When we say that we must be loyal, it is thought that we use our own power to actualize the imperial mind, but the truth is that we are the receptacles for the manifestation 163

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of the imperial mind.”54 Noting that rather than “receptacle,” Buddhists use the technical term “instrument” (ki, 機) to describe themselves in relation to Amida Buddha, Kaneko remarks that the meaning is the same in both cases. Japanese moral teachings of total loyalty to the emperor mirror Shin teachings of reliance on other-power. And thankfully, par­ allel to Amida’s infinite powers, the Japanese are blessed with a lineage of “kings by original nature” whose august minds serve as inexhaust­ ible, infinite sources of power.55 In 1939, Kaneko gave a series of lectures sponsored by the Ministry of Education that were published as a book titled Prince Shōtoku as Seen by Saint Shinran. Kaneko’s first lecture discusses Shinran’s dreams of Prince Shōtoku. During his one hundred nights of prayers in Rokkakudō Hall, Shinran reportedly dreamed that Prince Shōtoku visited him and instructed him to leave Mt. Hiei and join Hōnen’s community. Kaneko argues that such dreams should not be dismissed as mere superstition, and speculates that certain dreams may be a mode of seeing the past akin to memory. He then digresses into a discussion of the feelings of nostalgia Japanese people have when they read chronicles of the ances­ tral kami (e.g., the Kojiki, 古事記; or Nihon shoki, 日本書紀). Perhaps the experiences of our ancestors are physically transmitted to us, he specu­ lates, infusing the cells of our bodies and occasionally bubbling up into our conscious experience through nostalgic feelings or dreams. Although historians may have shown that the first people in Japan migrated from the South Pacific or the Asian continent, Kaneko argues, “for us, it is only our physical bodies that prove what the facts are. These physical bodies prove that we are descendants of the kami.”56 Kaneko then discusses Shinran’s understanding of Shōtoku as a man­ ifestation of Kannon Bodhisattva. In Kaneko’s explanation, Kannon and Prince Shōtoku both belong to a broad category of beings who are mani­ festations of Amida Buddha and who guide ordinary beings toward lib­ eration. Amida, as the true source of salvific power, is the proper object of our worship. Kannon, frequently depicted in a posture of prayer, mod­ els the act of worship for us. In the same way, kami exist to model the proper way of worshiping the Buddha. Kaneko emphasizes that this understanding of kami (as “traces” of the Buddha) does not mean they are inferior to the Buddha. In fact, as with Kannon, it is only because they are the Buddha that they are able to model worship of the Buddha. In the midst of his explanation of kami, Kaneko describes Japan’s emper­ ors and empresses as virtuous figures who model proper behavior for the people, for instance, through ceremonies of harvesting rice and silk. 164

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However, here he stops short of declaring them manifestations of the Buddha.57 In the case of Imperial Prince Shōtoku, however, Kaneko is clear: Shōtoku was a manifestation of Kannon (who, in turn, is a mani­ festation of Amida Buddha). Through his foundational Seventeen-Article Constitution, Shōtoku expressed “the mind of Kannon,” “the way of the kami,” and the “national body of Japan.”58 These two examples of Kaneko’s many wartime lectures and publica­ tions demonstrate the extent to which he went beyond the orthodox two-truths framework in charting connections between Shin and State Shinto teachings. For Kaneko, Shinran’s discovery of ultimate Buddhist truth was made possible by his identity as a Japanese subject ruled over by “kings by original nature.” Moreover, through dream encounters with Kannon Bodhisattva, manifested in the form of Imperial Prince Shōtoku, Shinran was propelled on the path to salvation. In this telling, Japan’s emperors and imperial princes were not just benevolent rulers who allowed Buddhism to prosper, as Saitō and Kōno would have it. Rather, they were embodiments of Buddhist truth, and loyalty to them was a conduit to Buddhist liberation. Compared to Kaneko and Akegarasu, Soga was less active in promoting Japanese nationalism during the 1930s. He did not join any governmentsponsored research organizations or travel abroad giving nationalistic lectures.59 However, he did publish a handful of essays that connected faith in Amida and loyalty to the emperor into a singular truth. Likely because of his lower profile during the war, scholars have paid less atten­ tion to Soga’s wartime views than to Kaneko’s or Akegarasu’s.60 Yet Soga’s standing in the Shin community was arguably higher than any of his modernist peers, so as reserved as it may have been, his voice likely held even more sway. After resigning from Ōtani University in 1930, Soga lived in Kyoto with his second wife and his son, earning income through occasional lectures and publications, while his temple in Niigata was run by his younger brother. He retained his status as priest within the Ōtani orga­ nization but had little interaction with Ōtani University or the Ōtani administration. He did, however, continue to provide regular dharma lectures to his former students, including Yasuda Rijin and Matsubara Yūzen. By 1935, most of those students had returned to their hometowns or taken up jobs outside of Kyoto, so a new journal was established for them to continue to receive his and others’ instruction. The journal con­ tinued until 1944, with Soga contributing a leading article to it almost every month until July 1941. 165

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The name of the new journal is striking: Kaishin (開神). “Kai” means “open” while “shin” is an alternate pronunciation for the character for “kami,” so the journal’s name could be interpreted as meaning either “opening the kami” or “opening the spirit.” The presence of the charac­ ter “kami/shin” likely accounts for why the government allowed this jour­ nal to continue publication until 1944, when many others were forced to be discontinued.61 In his first article in June 1935, Soga explains how he chose the journal’s title. He relates that he discovered the term “kaishin” in a passage in the Sutra on Immeasurable Life regarding the water of the Pure Land’s jeweled ponds, which “opens the spirit and delights the body” (kaishin etsutai, 開神悦体).62 This phrase caught his attention, he explains, because Buddhist writing generally avoids language of souls (tamashii, 魂), deities (kami, 神), or spirits (sei, 精; rei, tama, 霊), speaking instead of mind (kokoro, 心), thought (i, 意), and consciousness (shiki, 識). According to Soga, the latter type of language attempts to express the absolute truth of no-self directly, whereas the former is an expedient, appealing to our emotions. When the sutra invokes “the deities of Heaven” (tenshin, 天神) and the “spirits” (seishin, 精神) of those suffering in hell, “there is between them a distinction between inner and outer, high and low, and great and small, but at the same time, an overpower­ ing feeling of majesty and sacredness is imparted.”63 Soga argues that at the level of absolute truth, such distinctions between high and low are non-existent, yet the language of high and low spirits can be effective in causing us to abandon our rational thinking and “have faith irratio­ nally.” Soga’s sudden interest here in the language of “kami/shin” was no coincidence. At a time when the nation was increasingly debating the divine nature of the emperor and of the “national body” (kokutai), Soga was looking for a way to understand State Shinto ideology within the framework of Shin Buddhism. His solution was to see Shinto as an alter­ nate expression of Buddhism that could purify Buddhism, specifically by facilitating transcendence of self-powered rational thinking. Soga’s wartime investigations of the problem of self-powered reason­ ing—what Shinran called “hakarai” (はからい), or “calculations”—crystal­ lized into an argument about “instinct” (honnō, 本能). In a January 1936 Kaishin article, Soga introduced his idea of “instinct” as follows: I understand “past karma” [shukugō, 宿業] as “instinct.” Although we think that all our actions (all activities of walking, standing, sitting, and laying down) are determined by moral reasoning, if we deeply reflect, we become acutely aware that they are all determined by instinct. Human life is truly 166

Amida and the Emperor pitiful and sorrowful. Life and death are all [determined by] instinct. What layer of phenomena is more basic than this? In relation to instinct, we are all just accidental, unknowing, powerless. That is because we try to resist instinct through the use of reason. Once we have truly reflected upon the delusion of reason and introspected upon its powerlessness, we may come to hear in this dreadful instinct the voice of the summons of great compassion. In moralistic reasoning, by contrast, one only encounters voices dispatching one in wrong directions.64

Soga sets up a dichotomy between “instinct” and “moral reasoning,” where the former is the true determinant of our actions and the latter is our deluded attempt to resist that inevitability. Instinct is “dreadful,” the all-powerful source of our “pitiful and sorrowful” existence, but it is also the means by which we become embraced by the Buddha’s compas­ sion. Through recognition of the futility of self-powered reasoning and through acceptance of the overriding influence of instinct (i.e., past karma) on our lives, we open ourselves up to the call of Amida. While the majority of Soga’s Kaishin articles focus on standard Shin doctrinal questions, such as the nature of karma or rebirth in the Pure Land, a handful of them contain notably nationalistic content.65 For example, a November 1935 article draws various connections between the Kyōgyōshinshō’s preface and the Meiji emperor’s Imperial Rescript on Education before concluding, “We must abandon the calculations of our small intellect and single-mindedly take refuge in the decrees transmit­ ted to us by our [imperial] ancestors.”66 Other articles explore the nature of kami and kami worship. A May  1936 article argues that there is no conflict between buddhas and kami, that the true identity of every Shinto kami is “absolute infinite light” (i.e., the light of Amida Buddha), and that the Japanese people’s faith in kami is not a matter of paying tribute to dead ancestors but rather “introspecting upon the womb of compassion that is alive in the present.”67 A September 1938 article proceeds to endorse prayer to the imperial house and its kami: “We Buddhists of this imperial nation should each morning first pray to the imperial house, second pray to the impe­ rial shrine, and then quietly intone the name of the Buddha.” This does not conflict with single-minded entrusting in Amida, according to Soga, for just as Vasubandhu famously called out the name of Śākyamuni before pronouncing his single-minded entrusting in Amida, so too can citizens of imperial Japan first invoke the name of the imperial kami before con­ templating Amida.68 Only through this great act of “contemplating the Buddha and responding [in gratitude] to the nation” is the true nenbutsu 167

National Politics

established. In the same article, Soga also relates hearing Buddhist head administrators bemoaning how their sect members have been turning to the Buddha and kami for divine protection, rather than the Buddha alone. To this, Soga retorts, “Is it not precisely through the profound expedient means of the kami that Japanese Buddhism will come to prosper, and will increasingly be made purer and more introspective?” Thus, in striking contrast to Kōno’s efforts to define kami worship as a non-religious, strictly moral practice of reverencing Japan’s ancestors, Soga presents imperial kami as manifestations of Amida’s infinite light and advocates kami worship as a means of purifying Buddhism.69 In a September 1939 article titled “The Practical Significance of the Absolute and Worldly Two Truths,” Soga ties his concept of “instinct” to State Shinto ideology. He begins by arguing that Japan’s recent pursuit of independence and self-reliance in foreign affairs ought to be matched by efforts toward spiritual independence and self-reliance. For Soga, this means rejecting reason and taking refuge in “the instinct of Japa­ nese kami”: Our nation is the only nation of instinct in the world. Other nations of the world have all lost pure kami instinct, disparaged the lofty kami of instinct, vainly taken pride in human reason. . . . In truth, the words “national body” belong to our nation alone. “National body” is really a way of speak­ ing of kami instinct. In the manifesting of this instinct, the land and the people are non-dual, and the awe-inspiring path of unity between ruler and subject through the singular virtue of loyalty and filial piety, transcen­ dent to all theorizing, is accomplished.70

As discussed above, by “instinct,” Soga is pointing to Buddhist concepts of past karma, evilness, and ignorance. From a Shin Buddhist perspec­ tive, awareness of the depths of one’s evil karma (or “instinct”) is a nec­ essary step toward abandoning self-powered rationality and relying on other-power. In this passage, Soga claims that Japan is unique in being a “nation of instinct” that has eschewed self-powered rationality and con­ structed an ideal polity in which the land, the people, and the ruler are united as one. And in speaking of “kami instinct,” he seems to be linking Japanese people’s purported propensity to eschew reason and embrace “instinct” with their tradition of kami worship. Soga’s article goes on to interpret the emperor’s mission of joining together “the eight corners of the world under one roof” as aimed at expanding the boundaries of “kami instinct.” Instead of getting bogged down in strategic foreign policy calculations, Japanese people ought to 168

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introspect on “the historical facts that constitute Japanese karma” and work to manifest “Japanese instinct.” To do so, Soga comments, is the practice of bodhisattvas “manifesting the virtues of buddhahood.” Despite its title, Soga’s article does not explicitly mention the two truths at all, yet his argument is clear enough: rather than considering the growth of Japan’s empire only in worldly terms, Japanese people also ought to consider its spiritual dimensions. From a Buddhist perspective, Soga finds sacred significance in Japan’s tradition of kami worship, in the relationship of Japanese people to their land and their ruler, and in the imperialist slogan of joining the “eight corners of the world under one roof.” For Soga, the development of Japan as an imperial nation within a framework of State Shinto provides fertile ground for a prolif­ eration of Buddhist awakening. Where Saitō and Kōno understood the path to buddhahood and the civic duties of a Japanese subject to belong to separate, albeit mutually supportive, spheres, Soga and Kaneko identified deep correspondences between the two, affirming dedication to the emperor and to imperial kami as the actions of a bodhisattva in pursuit of buddhahood. In explaining this divergence of doctrinal views, it is useful to recall the distinguishing features of the modernist paradigm of Shin studies out­ lined in chapter 2. Kaneko and Soga’s free and iconoclastic approach to Shin studies meant they were less bound by established interpretive frameworks, and thus freer to discover new connections between the Dharmākara narrative and the Japanese imperial house or between kami worship and the doctrine of karma. Unlike the traditionalists, Shin modernists were willing to treat texts like the Kojiki, Prince Shōtoku’s Constitution, and the Meiji emperor’s Rescript on Education as scripture containing profound Buddhist insights (just as Kiyozawa had read Epictetus and Sasaki had read Socrates, Dante, and Emerson). Modernist Shin studies was simply more flexible in this regard.71 Soga’s and Kaneko’s introspective method was also a factor that enabled their fusion of Shin and State Shinto teachings. Kaneko appealed to the “nostalgic feelings” he and others had when reading Shinto texts as evidence of the truth of Shinto doctrine. Soga claimed that the true nature of kami and of Japan’s national history are “facts” that reveal themselves when we “open our eyes of individual introspection.”72 In the context of tremendous pressure to serve the nation in a time of war, it is not hard to imagine why Kaneko’s and Soga’s introspective method would have led them to affirm the emperor and nation as embodiments of Buddhist truth. Traditionalists like Saitō and Kōno grounded their 169

National Politics

doctrinal views in a more strictly textual methodology, which prevented them from arriving at the kinds of ultranationalist viewpoints that Soga and Kaneko did. Finally, Soga’s and Kaneko’s understanding of Shin Buddhism’s goal as awakening in the present—rather than rebirth in the Pure Land after death—facilitated their sacralization of the emperor and the nation. Kaneko had described the Pure Land as existing here and now, an invisi­ ble backdrop of eternal ideals behind our visible world of ever-changing phenomena. Soga had presented Dharmākara as our true subjectivity in the present, his vows a recurrent act throughout human history. This immanentalist, this-worldly doctrinal stance ultimately enabled Kaneko, Soga, and Akegarasu to equate Amida’s vows with the emperor’s vows and the Pure Land with Japan. Such understandings were simply unthink­ able for traditionalist scholars like Saitō and Kōno.

Kaneko and Soga’s Reinstatement In November 1939, the topic of reinstating Kaneko Daiei as an Ōtani priest was broached at a meeting of Inquiry Committee scholars and top Ōtani administrators. At least one member of the Inquiry Committee, Saitō Yuishin, was firmly opposed. According to Saitō’s diary, over the course of the next seven months, a series of Ōtani administrators, Ōtani University president Ōsuga Shūdō, and Kōno Hōun all visited Saitō’s home to discuss the matter.73 At Inquiry Committee meetings in June of 1940, Saitō finally relented on the conditions that Kaneko submit a letter of repentance, that his controversial publications be discontinued, and that he refrain from public preaching for the time being.74 The following year, Kaneko was invited to the Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, appointed to Ōtani’s Doctrinal Studies Council, and rehired at Ōtani Uni­ versity. By 1944, together with Soga, he held the rank of kōshi scholar, headed one of four departments at the newly established Ōtani Doctri­ nal Studies Research Institute, and was serving alongside Saitō on the Inquiry Committee. What sparked Ōtani officials to restore Kaneko’s status as priest and promote him and Soga to top positions of doctrinal authority? As noted above, Kaneko was actively serving on a research association estab­ lished by the Ministry of Education to promote “national spirit.” He had also been invited to participate in multiple Religious Issues Research Conferences convened by the Ministry of Education’s Japanese Culture Association. Many of Kaneko’s lectures and writings had been published 170

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by affiliates of the Ministry of Education, and five of his books, includ­ ing the two discussed above, would soon appear on lists of works offi­ cially recommended by the Ministry of Education.75 In contrast to the earlier heresy incidents, Ōtani officials’ reinstatements and promotions of Kaneko and Soga took place without fanfare or publicity, and histori­ cal records do not offer clear explanations of why such administrative decisions were made. However, just a review of the timeline of events strongly suggests that Kaneko’s and Soga’s reinstatements and promo­ tions were part of Ōtani administrators’ response to political pressures to support the state and its wartime policies. Timeline of Kaneko and Soga’s Reinstatement (national events in bold) 1935 Feb. June Sept. Oct. Dec.

Dispute over “emperor-as-organ” theory begins in National Diet Soga’s first Kaishin article Kaneko’s Forty-Eight Vows as Ideals for the State Doctrinal Studies Renewal Council established by Ministry of Education Police raids of Ōmotokyō headquarters

1936 July Aug. Aug. Oct.

Kōno Hōun resigns over article characterizing Amaterasu as deluded sentient being Honganji organization self-censors passages in Shinran’s writings “Doctrinal Studies Renewal” campaign announced by Ōtani administration Ōtani organization self-censors passages in Shinran’s writings

1937 May

The Fundamentals of Our National Body published by Ministry of Education

1939 Mar. Nov. Nov.

Religious Organizations Law passed by National Diet Kaneko’s Prince Shōtoku as Seen by Saint Shinran Kaneko’s reinstatement discussed by Ōtani administrators

1940 Apr. June Nov.

Religious Organizations Law takes effect Kaneko reinstated as priest Celebration of 2,600th anniversary of founding of Japan and establishment of Institute of Shinto Ceremonies 171

National Politics 1941 Feb. Mar. Apr. June July Aug. Aug. Nov.

Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference attended by Kaneko and Soga New Ōtani sect constitution submitted for state approval Ōtani Eijun appointed as Head of Sect Affairs Kaneko appointed as Doctrinal Studies Council member Soga appointed as Inquiry Committee member Soga awarded kōshi status Kiyozawa sympathizer Sekine Ninnō replaces traditionalist Ōsuga Shūdō as Ōtani University president Kaneko and Soga appointed as professors at Ōtani University

1942 July

Soga delivers main ango lecture on the topic of the Tannishō

1943 Aug. Dec.

Modernist Kurube Shin’yū appointed as dean of Ōtani University Kaneko appointed as Inquiry Committee member

1944 July Oct.

Kaneko awarded kōshi status Ōtani Doctrinal Studies Research Institute founded with two of its four departments headed by Soga and Kaneko

In 1935, two events signaled the Japanese state’s intensifying pursuit of ideological purity. First, members of both houses of the National Diet denounced law professor and House of Peers member Minobe Tatsu­ kichi’s theory that the emperor was an “organ” (kikan, 機関) within the state. Minobe’s opponents argued that all sovereignty resided in the divine emperor, who directed the state from a position transcendent to it. Minobe had been among those promoting the “emperor-as-organ” theory since the early 1900s, but State Shinto ideologues, emboldened by imperialist expansion abroad and fascist political developments at home, adopted a new aggressive stance. Minobe’s writings were banned, and he was pressured to resign from the House of Peers.76 Prime Minis­ ter Okada Keisuke then declared the emperor-as-organ theory antitheti­ cal to Japan’s national body and established within the Ministry of Education a Doctrinal Studies Renewal Council that went on to draft the most influential government statement on State Shinto ideology, The Fundamentals of Our National Body. In the midst of the Minobe affair, Kōno Hōun, who was then serving as Ōtani University president, came under fire for an article he published in 172

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Shinshū in November 1935. In the article, Kōno discussed Shinran’s injunctions to entrust in Amida alone and to avoid praying to kami. More problematically, Kōno described kami such as Amaterasu and Hachiman as “sentient beings within the deluded realm of transmigration that results from karma.” In the newly charged ideological context created by the Minobe affair, description of the divine progenitor of the imperial family in such terms was certain to provoke outrage. The ensuing criti­ cisms and administrative actions were not well-publicized, but by July of 1936, Kōno had resigned.77 The following month, Head of Sect Affairs Sekine Ninnō announced a “Doctrinal Studies Renewal” campaign aimed at clarifying Shin teachings on “worldly truth” and countering negative public perceptions of Shin Buddhism as other-worldly.78 The other critical political event of 1935 was the state’s crackdown on the new religion of Ōmotokyō. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Home Ministry’s Police Bureau had focused on eradicating communism and leftist political thought. With the communist movement all but obliterated, the Police Bureau found a new enemy in the new religions.79 Following extensive arrests of Ōmotokyō members and raids and demoli­ tion of Ōmotokyō property, the police continued its official campaign to “eradicate evil cults” by persecuting Hitonomichi Kyōdan, Tenrikyō, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Despite the efforts of Buddhist thinkers and admin­ istrators to position Buddhism on the side of the state in the battle against evil cults and superstitions, it was only a matter of time before the state directed its campaign for ideological purity at Buddhism. The scope of what constituted acceptable “religion” was shrinking. As early as 1932, the Home Ministry ordered Buddhist publishers to censor problematic passages found in Nichiren’s writings. Public cri­ tique and government censorship of Nichiren scriptural passages and of the calligraphic mandala enshrined in Nichiren temples (in which Ama­ terasu and Hachiman are positioned near the bottom) persisted through the Fifteen Years’ War.80 In the case of Shin Buddhism, in 1933, Ōsaka Special Higher Police conducted investigations of Shin writings that contained the term “chokumei” (勅命, imperial command), which Shinran had used to speak of Amida’s commands. Soon, Honganji denomination authorities were self-censoring problematic scriptural passages. For example, in 1936, they issued a new edition of Honganji scriptures in which Shinran’s statement “The emperor and his ministers [shujō shinka, 主上臣下], acting against the dharma and violating human rectitude, became enraged and embittered” was altered to read “The emperor’s ministers [shujō no shinka, 主上の臣下], acting against the dharma . . .” 173

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Two months later, Ōtani authorities issued recommendations regarding the omission or avoidance of similar passages. In 1939, Ministry of Edu­ cation officials prohibited the use of a Ryūkoku University textbook because it contained chokumei and related terms. Honganji officials not only reissued that textbook with the offending passages removed but also distributed orders to Honganji officials throughout the country regarding the rewording or omission of twenty-six problematic scrip­ tural passages.81 Regarding the movement for ideological purity sweep­ ing Japanese society at that time, Kawasaki Kenryō, head of propagation efforts within the Ōtani organization, concluded that Shinto ideologues were again attacking Buddhism with a new wave of “abolish Buddhism and destroy Śākyamuni” arguments.82 In March 1939, the National Diet passed the Religious Organizations Law. Part of a broader project to construct a fascist “New Order” with centralized, authoritarian control over the nation’s political, economic, and cultural systems, this law clarified the Ministry of Education’s cen­ tral role in supervising religious organizations. Drawing on language from the Meiji Constitution, it stipulated the state’s right to disband religious organizations that “disturbed peace and order” or were “antagonistic to subjects’ duties.” It also required religious organiza­ tions within one year to submit new sect regulations for approval. One of its goals was to consolidate smaller religious organizations into larger ones. Through the process of applying for new government approval, fifty-six denominations were consolidated into twenty-eight, but large as they were, the Ōtani and Honganji organizations managed to resist this pressure.83 The new law and approval process also pres­ sured religious organizations to demonstrate the harmony of their teachings with State Shinto. In a speech regarding the new law, Prime Minister Hiranuma Kiichirō declared, “In our country, Shinto is the absolute way, and the people of the nation all must respectfully follow it. Teachings which differ from this and conflict with it are not allowed to exist.”84 Pressure to conform to State Shinto ideology only increased in 1940 when the 2,600th anniversary of the legendary founding of Japan by Emperor Jinmu was celebrated throughout the country and the Institute of Shinto Ceremonies was established to promote Shinto ideology.85 Beyond the terms and passages discussed above, a number of other Shin doctrines and practices were evidently thought to be at odds with State Shinto. One long-standing concern was that of Shin Buddhists’ resistance to the practice of installing kami altars and enshrining Ise 174

Amida and the Emperor

talismans in their homes. Such resistance was publicly denounced by at least one National Diet member.86 State officials also took issue with Shin Buddhism’s two-truths doc­ trine. In 1940 or 1941, Ministry of Education officials questioned Hon­ ganji administrators about that doctrine and advised them to stop referring to service to the state as a matter of “worldly truth,” which seemed to place devotion to the emperor below the “absolute truth” of Shin teachings.87 The two-truths doctrine had sufficed as a means of demonstrating Shin Buddhists’ commitment to the nation and the emperor for over half a century, but now, that same doctrine had become offensive and unacceptable. Perhaps the most problematic of Shin doctrines, however, was Pure Land rebirth. The doctrine of seeking rebirth in another world seemed to fly in the face of State Shinto views of Japan as the land of the kami. In the lead-up to the new sect regulations approval process, a certain private research organization proposed guidelines for religious organi­ zations as they adapted to the New Order. According to a February 1941 report in Shinshū, those guidelines urged religious organizations to embrace “the propagation of Japanese doctrines” as their fundamental mission and to recognize that religious ideas like that of the Pure Land and Heaven are already “contained within the essence of Japan’s national body” and that “Japan is equal to the Pure Land” (Nihon soku Jōdo, 日本即浄土). In response to these pressures, Ōtani administrators prepared to restructure their organization and clarify Shin doctrine. A central fig­ ure in Ōtani’s 1941 transformation was Ōtani Eijun (大谷瑩潤, 1890– 1973), uncle of Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōchō. When Ōtani’s new sect regulations were implemented in April 1941, Eijun was appointed the new head of sect affairs, a position he held until January 1945. Eijun presided over the establishment of a Raise Asia Bureau dedicated to overseas missionary work, military drills, kikyōshiki rites for soldiers, condolence visits to wounded and sick soldiers, funerals for soldiers, and other activities supportive of the war effort.88 He also organized and served as discussion leader for the February 1941 Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference. In his first speech to Ōtani’s Sect Parliament as head of doctrinal affairs, he lamented the public perception that Shin teachings opposed national interests, attributed that perception to Ōtani scholars’ negligence and stubborn traditionalism, and called for the cultivation of personnel who could better respond to the needs of Japanese society.89 175

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Dissatisfied with the orthodoxy stemming from Saitō Yuishin and Kōno Hōun, Eijun and other Ōtani administrators turned to modernists like Soga and Kaneko for more socially relevant doctrinal interpreta­ tions. Soga and Kaneko both went beyond the two-truths framework in discovering sacred significance in the imperial family, affirmed ritual worship of the imperial kami as a Buddhist act, and spoke of the Pure Land as a reality accessible here and now in the land of Japan. As one modernist Ōtani priest later commented, “At that time within Japan, all forms of ideology or faith that opposed nationalism were being pro­ scribed. It was not possible to respond to those circumstances through the Takakura Academy style [of Shin studies], which stood by the theory of the Pure Land as actual substance [ Jōdo no jittairon, 浄土の実体論], so the idea arose to have Soga and Kaneko brought back and placed out front as a bulwark.”90 While the process of bringing Kaneko and Soga back into the fold had begun in late 1939, it was their appearance at the 1941 Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference that marked their full reen­ trance into the Ōtani organization.

Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference The Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference was a three-day event held at Higashi Honganji Temple in February 1941 involving the Ōtani organiza­ tion’s top administrators, scholars, and preachers. Four predetermined topics were discussed at the conference: Shin views of kami, Shin Bud­ dhism’s “tiring [of this world] and rejoicing [in the Pure Land] thought” (engon shisō, 厭欣思想), the absolute and worldly two truths, and “Shin doctrinal studies that respond to the times.” Ōtani Eijun introduced the conference with a short address emphasizing their sect’s “deep relation­ ship with the imperial house” and the need to clarify the harmony between Shin doctrines and “the fundamentals and policies of the national body.” He then explained that if the conference participants were unable to accomplish this, the chief abbot would be left to make decisions unilaterally. The terms were clear: come to a consensus on new interpretations of Shin teachings that better serve the war effort, or be sidelined. The question was not whether Shin Buddhism aligned with the principles and policies of the state; it was how to best articulate that alignment.91 Eijun first called on Saitō Yuishin, Ōtani’s highest-ranked and most senior scholar, to express his opinion regarding the theory of the ­Buddha as the “original ground” and kami as “traces.” After a brief 176

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historical explanation of the varieties of Buddhist views of kami, Saitō arrived at his main point: one hardly finds any evidence in the Kyōgyōshinshō of Shinran propounding a theory of “original ground and traces,” so the Ōtani community should feel free to respond to contem­ porary demands by dispensing with that theory, which seemed to place kami in a position inferior to the Buddha.92 When Eijun opened the discussion to the floor, Akegarasu Haya imme­ diately pushed back against Saitō’s claim. What about Shinran’s hymns praising Prince Shōtoku as a manifestation of Kannon? Saitō answered that Shinran’s claim about Prince Shōtoku ought to be distinguished from a general theory of Shinto kami as Buddhist traces. When Akega­ rasu remained skeptical, Kōno Hōun entered the conversation to present his prior research. Kōno emphasized that “original ground and traces” thought pertains only to the kami of “religious Shinto” that existed prior to the Meiji Restoration. Now that the state had separated buddhas and kami and defined kami as the nation’s ancestors, it was appropriate for Shin Buddhists to set aside “original ground and traces” thought and revere kami on moral, rather than religious, grounds. Akegarasu was skeptical of this answer as well, noting that in practice, most people probably do not make that distinction. Moreover, he noted, norito prayers and harae ritual purification ceremonies were a central feature of State Shinto. Wasn’t it the case that State Shinto involved praying to kami? “That is the government’s mistake,” Kōno responded, denying the appro­ priateness of such prayers and rituals. “We must only ‘respond in grati­ tude to the originators [of Japan] and reflect upon the beginnings [of Japan]’ [hōhon hanshi, 報本反始].”93 After a dozen participants had shared their thoughts on the matter, Eijun asked Soga for his opinion. Soga’s response pushed back against Kōno’s distinction between religious Buddhism and non-religious Shinto, essentially suggesting that Buddhism belongs in the secular sphere together with State Shinto: Everyone here is saying “religious, religious,” and saying that Japanese kami are not religious. But are the buddhas of Buddhist teachings reli­ gious? Are they the same as God in Christianity? I myself think that Amida Buddha is our ancestor. The term “religious” implies [a god having] omni­ science and omnipotence, so there is no causal stage of practice. Because Amida had a causal stage of practice [i.e., as Dharmākara], Amida is differ­ ent from “religious” gods. Japanese kami and Amida are similar. I think that Amida is our ancestor. This is similar to how Amaterasu Ōmikami is our ancestor.94 177

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When asked by Akegarasu whether there was any difference between ancestor Amaterasu and ancestor Amida, Soga replied, “They cannot be compared.” Later, Soga went on to promote a form of “original ground and traces” thought, explaining that whereas Shinran praised Prince Shōtoku as a manifestation of Kannon Bodhisattva, it would be fine for Japanese people today to view Amaterasu as a manifestation of Amida. However, he cautioned that “original ground” and “traces” must not be understood hierarchically. Pointing to Shinran’s description of Shōtoku and Kannon as “father” and “mother,” Soga described Amaterasu and Amida as father and mother figures that together, without any conflict or opposition between them, work toward the people’s salvation.95 Kaneko soon chimed in with his agreement, emphasizing that the bud­ dhas and kami each have their own role to play; the former help in the cultivation of free and unobstructed thinking while the latter define laws and moral obligations. Following Kaneko’s comment, Ōtani Eijun asked Kawasaki Kenryō, administrative head of Ōtani propagation efforts, to summarize the morning’s discussion. Instead of doing so, Kawasaki accused all the scholars present of engaging in “ivory tower thinking” that was oblivi­ ous to encroaching political realities: Rather than debating whether Shinto shrines are religious or not, we need to move forward. We Buddhists are dwelling on the problem of principles and failing to produce conclusions. There was discussion of needing to shift from the perspective of a Shin follower to that of a citizen, but as a Shin fol­ lower, I strongly believe there is no contradiction at all in revering the kami in light of the Sutra on Immeasurable Life. Therefore, rather than rattling on with discussion of principles, we must quickly figure out how to address our concrete problems.96

In conclusion, Eijun suggested adopting the doctrinal position that “kami and buddhas come forth from the life of the universe, which is to say suchness.” Kaneko agreed, reiterating his point that Buddhism per­ tains to free and unobstructed thinking while Shinto pertains to the determination of moral obligations. Kōno agreed as well, but could not resist adding that Shinto had been “empty of content” in regard to morality until it was infused with Buddhist moral teachings of the “three poisons and five evils.” This comment drew the ire of Akegarasu, who countered that Japanese morality was already complete within the commands of Japan’s ancestral kami. As an argument between Akega­ rasu and Kōno began to build, Ōtani Eishō interjected: “Discussion 178

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leader! Are we holding a debate here?! Please put a stop to this argument for the sake of argument.” Akegarasu apologized, and Eijun asked the conference participants to adjourn for a break.97 The contrasts between traditionalists Saitō and Kōno and modernists Soga, Kaneko, and Akegarasu are clear. Saitō took a conservative approach to interpreting Shinran’s writings, refraining from extrapo­ lating a theory of the Buddha as original ground and kami as traces from Shinran’s sparse comments on Prince Shōtoku. By contrast, Akegarasu, Soga, and Kaneko did exactly that, discovering deep connections between Amaterasu and Amida. Regarding kami worship, Kōno empha­ sized the Shin tradition of not worshiping anyone but Amida. In response, Akegarasu, Soga, and Kaneko all explicitly or implicitly cri­ tiqued Kōno’s portrayal of Shinto. Soga undercut Kōno’s argument by asserting that Buddhism, like Shinto, is “non-religious” since it pertains not to omniscient, omnipotent god-figures, but to presences in this world. Soga, Kaneko, and Akegarasu all affirm Shinto as a complemen­ tary expression of Shin Buddhism. Kawasaki’s critique of “ivory tower thinking” is directed at all the scholars, but among those scholars, it is only traditionalists like Saitō and Kōno who are resistant to harmoniz­ ing Shin with State Shinto, as demanded by the times. The clash between traditionalists and modernists only sharpened in the afternoon when the discussion turned to Yasukuni Shrine. First, scholar Kashiwahara Yūgi reported the conclusions of a panel of Ōtani scholars convened the previous October. The relevant passage reads: “Because the spirits prayed to at Yasukuni Shrine are those who carried out the great deed of furthering the imperial mission, we look up to them as those who practiced the great karmic deeds of bodhisattvas. However, the question of whether or not they attain rebirth [in the Pure Land] must be entrusted to the great compassion of the Tathāgata and is not something that we can calculate.”98 Kashiwahara noted that after the report was drafted, argument persisted as to whether it was accept­ able to speak of war service as “the great karmic deeds of bodhisattvas” since many Japanese soldiers were not Buddhist.99 Scholar Katō Chigaku responded with a story about a recent doctrinal affairs meeting. He explained that the director had asked whether it was correct for him to have told the parent of a son who had died in battle that he had certainly gone to the Pure Land. At that time, Katō had replied that it was not okay. Rebirth in the Pure Land hinges on whether one has faith. Moreover, assuring salvation to those who were not even Buddhist would give the Shin tradition a bad name. Tenrikyō followers 179

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or Christians might go to the High Heavenly Plain or the Kingdom of Heaven, but it could not be said that they would be reborn in the Pure Land. To say so would just be deception. The conversation proceeded as follows (the parenthetical remark is found in the conference records): Kōno: Some preachers say that the war dead all go to the Pure Land, but I think that it depends on people’s faith. When I said this previously, my comments were misinterpreted. It was said that I had claimed the war dead were falling into hell. The kami of Yasukuni are kami of morality. The state recognizes the work [of the war dead] and treats them as kami. I think it would be best to remove the sentence on “the great karmic deeds of bodhisattvas.” Kaneko: Isn’t it the case that priests are not so much indicating where the dead have gone, but rather expressing our feelings that it would be good to look upon the dead as having all become buddhas? Soga: Even if individually, it is as Mr. Katō says, historically, they can become kami. Isn’t it the same with Amida’s Primal Vow? Even those who commit the ten evils or the five grave offenses are saved. At the time of death, everyone becomes a buddha. People who die for the country become kami. Becoming kami, they can also become buddhas. Amida’s Primal Vow and the Emperor’s primal vow are in accord. Ōsuga: Even in the Shin sect, the dead are all given the name “Shaku” [Śākyamuni], given memorial services befitting a buddha, and revered as buddhas. From that perspective, I suppose we can treat them as bud­ dhas. Ha! Kaneko: Mr. Katō’s position is individualistic. (From here, the argument gets heated.) Soga: Through the power of history, it can be accomplished. It is accom­ plished through the majesty of the Emperor. Mr. Katō’s explanation is arro­ gant. It leads toward the creation of factions within the Japanese nation. It misunderstands the meaning of “buddha.” All the dead are buddhas. Kashiwahara: Where is there any relationship between the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha and entrusting in the majesty of the Emperor? Akegarasu: I believe that the primal vow of the Emperor and the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha are the same. It would be problematic if they were in conflict. Kōno: What about Tenrikyō followers? Soga: Tenrikyō followers also die through the majesty of the Emperor. Akegarasu: Professor [Kōno] says that [Shinto] was empty until the entrance of Buddhism, but that is not the case. There is the Emperor’s “great mind” [ōmigokoro, 大御心]. There is the virtue of the unbroken imperial line. These can be thought of as manifestations of buddha mind. That is why this war is 180

Amida and the Emperor a holy war. By following the Emperor’s commands, one becomes a kami. You really must not make such outlandish statements. Soga: That’s right. Shin Pure Land teachings are also this way. Even evil beings are saved. All those who single-mindedly take refuge in the Buddha are saved. No matter how evil the person, if one calls upon the kami, one becomes a kami. Ōtani Eijun: Let us end here for the day.100

Katō, Kōno, and Kashiwahara are all resistant to the idea of telling soldiers—or the grieving family members of soldiers who had died—that death in this war would necessarily lead to rebirth in the Pure Land. They view loyalty to the emperor and reverence toward kami as worldly activities unrelated to Buddhist soteriology. To treat this war as a sacred endeavor that would bring its victims salvation would just be deception. Ōsuga tries to resolve the problem by noting that as a matter of practice, Shin funerals invariably involve granting the deceased the posthumous name of Shaku, signifying attainment of buddhahood, with no distinc­ tion made between who had or had not attained faith. Without delving into complex doctrinal arguments, couldn’t the same custom simply be extended to the war dead? Ōsuga asks with a laugh. But Kaneko, Soga, and Akegarasu are not laughing. In their view, “Amida’s Primal Vow and the Emperor’s primal vow are in accord,” so entrusting in the emperor is akin to entrusting in Amida’s other-power. To insist that people outside of the Shin community—Tenrikyō members, for example—will not be saved by Amida is to fail to appreciate the scope and power of Amida’s Primal Vow, which is working even through “the majesty of the Emperor” and “the virtue of the unbroken imperial line.” Soga’s statement that “at the time of death, everyone becomes a bud­ dha” could be interpreted as referring to all people everywhere: “At the time of death, everyone [regardless of how they lived or died] becomes a buddha.” According to this interpretation, Soga would be saying that there is no problem with describing the war dead as “becoming bud­ dhas” since death leads us all to buddhahood. But if that is Soga’s view­ point, it is difficult to understand why he goes on to say, “People who die for the country become kami. Becoming kami, they can also become buddhas. Amida’s Primal Vow and the Emperor’s primal vow are in accord,” and later, “Through the power of history, [attainment of bud­ dahood] can be accomplished. It is accomplished through the majesty of the Emperor.” Such statements highlight the complementarity of State Shinto and Shin Buddhism and attribute salvific power to the emperor. A more plausible interpretation is that Soga is referring specifically to 181

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the war dead: “At the time of death, everyone [who dies for the country of Japan] becomes a buddha.” By following the commands of the emperor and sacrificing their lives for him, deceased Japanese soldiers are recog­ nized as having become kami. That being so, they should also be recog­ nized as becoming buddhas, for State Shinto is an alternate expression of Shin Buddhism. By abandoning self-powered calculations and entrust­ ing oneself to the emperor—who is a kami and thus a manifestation of Amida’s “absolute infinite light,” in Soga’s words—Japanese soldiers can attain buddhahood.101 Soga, together with Kaneko and Akegarasu, thus sacralized the emperor as a living embodiment of Amida’s salvific pow­ ers, and affirmed that Japanese soldiers who die in battle ought to be revered as kami and as buddhas. Such were the remarkable conclusions that leading Ōtani Shin modernists advanced—and that traditional­ ists  like Saitō and Kōno protested102—during the height of the Fifteen Years’ War. On the afternoon of the third and final day of the conference, Kaneko apologized for the trouble he had caused ten years earlier during his heresy affair and declared himself to have learned an important les­ son—that at its core, Buddhism teaches a standpoint of not grasping onto any fixed standpoint. To illustrate his point, he reflected on how Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana in the Vimalakīrti Sūtra both excelled at expounding certain viewpoints, but Mañjuśrī, who responded to his questioners with thunderous silence, was “empty-handed” and so truly understood things. “Ten years ago,” Kaneko continued, “because I grasped onto a certain standpoint, I caused everyone trouble. Here today, I apologize for that. Today, I have come empty-handed. It is neces­ sary for us to abandon standpoints and live in the great path of the nenbutsu which has no standpoint.”103 In Kaneko’s case, the abandonment of “fixed standpoints” entailed adoption of a new standpoint toward State Shinto as fully consonant with Buddhist teachings. Following Kaneko’s remarks, Soga responded with the final comment of the conference: “Everyone understands. It’s understood. There’s no need to say any­ thing.” After a number of announcements, the conference concluded with three cheers of “Banzai!” for the emperor.

Sacred History Why did Soga, Kaneko, and Akegarasu conflate Amida with the emperor and Amida’s Pure Land with the land of the kami? Why did they come to portray reverence toward kami and loyalty to the emperor—at a 182

Amida and the Emperor

time when that meant fighting and dying for the emperor on the bat­ tlefield—as part of the Buddhist path to salvation? It is tempting, espe­ cially for admirers of these figures, to account for this by simply pointing to the great political pressures facing Buddhist communities. Yet as this chapter has shown, different segments of the Ōtani commu­ nity responded to the same pressures differently. Traditionalist schol­ ars clearly opposed such identification of Shin Buddhism with State Shinto. Another possible explanation is that the modernists, lacking doctrinal authority within the Ōtani community, were acting opportu­ nistically, seeking to get back in the good graces of Ōtani officials. Yet this explanation also rings false. The passion and enthusiasm that accompanied their wartime arguments, especially as evidenced in the transcription of the Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, seem to indi­ cate real sincerity. Earlier in the chapter, the modernists’ distinctive embrace of State Shinto ideology was explained in terms of their free and iconoclastic approach to Shin studies and their trust in introspection. Here, I would like to revisit the importance of their belief that Amida was a thisworldly presence and that salvation through Amida’s Vow was a thisworldly process. In his 1935 lecture “Shinran’s View of Buddhist History,” Soga described this world as beating with “the pulse of the immensely wide and profound Primal Vow” that humans throughout history—even before the time of Śākyamuni—have experienced and found salvation in.104 He also explained the Sutra on Immeasurable Life’s reference to “innumerable buddhas in the lands of the ten direc­ tions” as referring to “the tradition that runs through Śākyamuni and the seven patriarchs,” which is “the source of the continuous stream of the nenbutsu practice flowing forth here on earth.”105 For Soga, this world is animated by the light of Amida’s salvific Vow, is populated by innumerable buddhas, and, from the right perspective, is recognizable as the Pure Land. Within such a spiritually charged world, how could the massive events of Japan’s ascendancy as a global power and the total mobilization of the Japanese people for war be viewed as mundane? How else could Soga, Kaneko, and other Shin modernists look upon such world-transforming events except as sacred history expressive of the workings of buddhas and the adornment of the Pure Land? By contrast, traditionalists who were operating within the two-truths doctrinal framework naturally viewed political events as separate from Amida’s bestowal of salvation, which would only come to pass in another world at another time. 183

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In judging the sacred character of contemporary events, Soga, Kaneko, and Akegarasu theoretically could have viewed empire-build­ ing and militarism as manifestations of humanity’s deep ignorance and evilness. Instead of the imperial family, they could have located the presence of Amida’s salvific historical force in political dissidents and pacifists. Such was theoretically possible, but practically, it was near impossible. For most Japanese citizens, love of country and support for the war effort were overdetermined by a host of factors (e.g., education system, news media, mass conscription, cultural chauvinism). Predis­ posed in favor of their emperor and country and lacking any systematic Buddhist social ethic that would mark out Japanese imperialism as wrong, the Shin modernists, like most Japanese Buddhists, embraced Japanese nationalism and offered support to the war effort. The signifi­ cant difference, however, is that the modernists interpreted those con­ temporary events as expressive not just of mundane worldly truth, but also absolute truth. From that perspective, supporting the war was not just a matter of being a loyal imperial subject; it was a matter of fulfill­ ing Amida Buddha’s sacred mission and bringing salvation to the world. In the aftermath of the conference, Soga and Kaneko quickly ascended to the heights of doctrinal authority within the Ōtani community. By August 1941, Soga was awarded kōshi status, appointed to the Inquiry Committee, and invited to give the following year’s main ango lecture. By November, he and Kaneko were rehired as professors at Ōtani Univer­ sity. Soga’s disciple Kurube Shin’yū relates that these surprising devel­ opments were made possible by the establishment in April of a new cabinet headed by Ōtani Eijun.106 Soga points instead to Ōtani Eijō, elder brother of Eijun, as the main force behind his attainment of kōshi sta­ tus.107 In the period from 1928 to 1930, powerful members of the chief abbot’s family had helped broker a resolution to the conflict between traditionalists and modernists resulting in Kaneko and Soga’s ousting. Yet in the period from 1939 to 1941, facing tremendous pressures to pro­ duce doctrinal interpretations harmonious with State Shinto ideology, those same figures engineered Kaneko and Soga’s reinstatements and promotions. The war pressures had fundamentally restructured the field of Ōtani Shin Buddhism, causing symbolic capital to accrue increas­ ingly to the modernist camp. During the remaining war years, Soga and Kaneko became central voices in Ōtani doctrinal affairs. Soga’s July 1942 ango lectures did not focus on questions of nationalism or war, but they did elaborate on his 184

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demythologized views of Dharmākara and the Pure Land as realities accessible in the present—views which undergirded his and Kaneko’s affirmation of State Shinto ideology. In a more nationalistic vein, Soga also published an article presenting “listening to the dharma” (monpō, 聞法) as an essential form of “training” complementary to wartime physical training, an article glorifying the emperor for manifesting Bud­ dhist principles, and an interview full of Buddhist affirmation of state ideology, including the idea that entrusting in the emperor is one path toward the manifestation of the Pure Land.108 Meanwhile, Kaneko gave a lecture to Ōtani administrators discussing the consonance of Pure Land rebirth with state ideology, published an article titled “Prolegomena to Imperial Nation Buddhist Studies” that glorified Prince Shōtoku and described the nation as the ultimate object in which Buddhists should take refuge, and gave the secondary lecture in response to a speech by the chief abbot.109 In that lecture, Kaneko interpreted the chief abbot’s words as supporting his theory that the special character of the common Japanese people, fostered by their relation­ship to the imperial house, enabled them alone to understand the true teachings of Shin Buddhism. Specifically, Kaneko described the “lofty mind” of the emperor flowing downward to the people, forming their national character, and enabling the teachings of Amida’s Primal Vow to seep into their bodies. Kaneko and Soga also collaborated on a short book titled The Essentials of Shin Buddhism that was commissioned by the Ōtani administration and widely distributed to Ōtani branch tem­ ples in late 1944. The book ends with a discussion of Shinran’s letter urg­ ing people to say the nenbutsu “not with thoughts of themselves but for the sake of the imperial court and for the sake of the people of the coun­ try.” Kaneko and Soga comment, “In these words, we cannot help but think of how deeply Saint [Shinran] felt the grace of the imperial house and hoped the people would always harmoniously be of one body (ittai, 一体).”110 In interpreting Shinran’s statement as an expression of hope that the people would always be “of one body,” Kaneko and Soga essentially portrayed Shinran as a proponent of the modern Japanese state’s “national body” ideology. It is difficult to determine what practical effects Kaneko’s and Soga’s reinstatements and wartime lectures, interviews, articles, and books had on the Ōtani community. As a point of comparison, Buddhist studies scholar D. T. Suzuki was also an eminent professor at Ōtani University during the war years. At an assembly held for Ōtani students heading off to the warfront, Suzuki gave a speech that began: 185

National Politics How tragically unfortunate this is. What possible reason do young Ameri­ cans and young Japanese have to kill each other? How long will this absurd war go on? But someday it will come to an end. When it does, it will be the job of you young people to create a new world and a new age. So you must not die during this war. You must come back alive, even if that means being taken prisoners of war.111

While Suzuki urged Ōtani students to come back from the war alive, Soga, Kaneko, and Akegarasu proclaimed that soldiers who died in the war ought to be revered as kami and as buddhas. When the war ended, Japan was left in ruins. Many starved to death as the nation and its new government struggled to get the economy working again. Buddhist organizations faced numerous challenges—the destruc­ tion of temples and temple property, the loss of temple lands due to new land reform policies, a flourishing of new religious movements drawing members away from Buddhist sects, and public resentment of Buddhist institutions for perpetuating anti-democratic traditions. Reforms were desperately needed. Now in a position of considerable doctrinal author­ ity, a modernist faction led by Soga and Kaneko was poised to lead those reform efforts within the Ōtani community.

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Chapter 6

A Democratic Sangha In that land of happiness, every single being is born transformed from the pure lotus of Amida Tathāgata’s perfect enlightenment, for they are the same in prac­ ticing the nenbutsu and follow no other way. This ­extends even to this world, so that all nenbutsu practi­ tioners within the four seas are brothers. —Shinran (quoting Tanluan), Kyōgyōshinshō

In May 1971, Kurube Shin’yū led a reporter from the popular Chūō kōron magazine to a small temple in north Kyoto where Yasuda Rijin lived and held regular dharma talks for a small group of followers. During the pre­ ceding decades, Kurube and Yasuda had become giants in the world of Shin Buddhism. After organizing the independent Shinjin (真人, true person) Buddhist reform movement, Kurube had risen in the ranks of the Ōtani administration, ultimately becoming head of doctrinal affairs in 1962 and overseeing the Dōbōkai (同朋会, assembly of companions) movement. Yasuda had long cemented his place as the premiere disciple of Soga Ryōjin. With Soga now on his deathbed, Yasuda had become the leading representative of the modern Ōtani doctrinal lineage stretching back to Kiyozawa Manshi. The Chūō kōron reporter intended to facilitate a discussion between Kurube and Yasuda, but what occurred instead was a lecture. Despite his status as former head of the entire Ōtani administration, Kurube viewed Yasuda as his teacher and superior. Not heeding the Chūō kōron reporter’s request, Kurube took a seat alongside other students of Yasuda, and Yasuda entered into a wide-ranging lecture on Ōtani poli­ tics, the legacy of Kiyozawa, and doctrinal matters such as the two truths. 187

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Above all, Yasuda aimed to instruct Kurube on the true nature of the sangha: I am not just living within myself. There is something beyond myself. This is the Buddha’s teachings, the dharma. I am called by the dharma, and I live to actualize the dharma. Given such circumstances, people just become a sangha, don’t they? A sangha-like way of being arises, doesn’t it? It’s not that the sangha exists as a part within Buddhism. Rather, the study of Bud­ dhist teachings finally becomes a discourse on the sangha . . . a discourse on the religious organization. [The sangha] is not something ancillary to the teachings. It’s the conclusion of those teachings, isn’t it?1

Yasuda described the process of encountering Buddhist teachings and achieving awakening as occurring through fellowship with others and as naturally producing a community (kyōdōtai, 共同体) of people intent on actualizing the teachings together. Thus, there is no such thing as an individual Buddhist, according to Yasuda; to truly encounter Buddhist teachings is to become a member of the sangha. Throughout his lecture, Yasuda repeatedly lamented how Ōtani administrators had lost touch with the spirit of Shin teachings in their political struggles to control the organization. On multiple occasions, he even directly called out Kurube for his failings: A while back, during the war, there was an attempt to raise the problem of the sangha, but no one paid any attention. After all, until that point, Bud­ dhist studies spoke of “Buddha, dharma, and sangha,” but always skipped over the problem of the sangha. . . . The problem of the sangha is left to politicians, and the problems of Buddha and dharma are addressed by peo­ ple like Soga. The roles are divided up. Political problems have come to be addressed only by vulgar people [zokubutsu, 俗物] like Kurube, isn’t that right? (laughter) Kurube is not a vulgar person. He’s not anything. One becomes a vulgar person. If one neglects the spirit, one soon becomes a vulgar person. If one stops seeking the way, one becomes a vulgar person. That is why the Shinjin Society ended up becoming just a strategy or tactic. That showed that peo­ ple were not seeking the way anymore. Strategies and tactics are just tech­ niques. Lacking spirit, one comes to rely on techniques. With a spiritual standpoint, it’s no hindrance even if one loses on a political level.2

The underlying problem, according to Yasuda, was the incorrect assump­ tion that the study of dharma could be separated from the politics of the sangha. That assumption led Buddhist scholars to neglect the study of the sangha and Buddhist administrators like Kurube to act in “vulgar” 188

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ways contrary to the dharma. The dharma and the sangha cannot be separated, because the growth of a sangha—a community of individuals liberated from their solitary, ego-driven existences and intent on liber­ ating others—is the very goal of the dharma. Yasuda concluded his lecture by discussing a critical characteristic of a community animated by the dharma. In line with Tanluan and Shin­ ran’s principle that “all nenbutsu practitioners within the four seas are brothers” (see epigraph), Yasuda and Soga frequently emphasized the lack of hierarchical distinctions in the community of Shin followers, each person sharing in the same nenbutsu practice, the same faith, and the same vow to save others. Here, however, Yasuda focused on a differ­ ent characteristic—persistent critique. Having berated Kurube and the Ōtani administration for their many shortcomings, Yasuda emphasized the need to acknowledge and accept one’s personal weaknesses, failings, and powerlessness in the face of past karma. As a model of self-critique, Yasuda pointed to Shinran, who described rooting out his own shallow doctrinal understandings through his “three vow conversion.” Self-cri­ tique, according to Yasuda, then serves as a proper basis both for doctri­ nal and social critiques of others. Here Yasuda pointed to Shinran’s warnings “against the wrong, false, and misleading opinions of nonBuddhist teachings” and his critiques of the emperor and his ministers for “acting against the dharma and violating human rectitude.”3 “Doc­ trinal studies without critique and without anger,” Yasuda concluded, “is a doctrinal studies that is dead.”4

Democratic Constitutions, 1945–1947 During the war, Soga and Kaneko had risen to the rank of kōshi, cement­ ing their status as top scholars within the Ōtani organization. How­ ever, they shared this doctrinal authority with about ten other scholars, and above them, there remained the figure of the chief abbot serving as dharma master for the community. The conflict between Shin modernist and traditionalist thinkers was by no means settled. When Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allied forces in August 1945, the Japanese political field was turned upside down, ushering massive uncertainty into the field of Buddhist politics and thought.5 The Allied forces established a provisional occupation government headed by American general Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur’s title was supreme commander for the Allied powers (SCAP), and the occupation 189

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government he directed came to be known by the same name. SCAP’s primary missions were demilitarization and democratization, both of which had major implications for religions organizations. Demilitarization meant dismantling Japan’s military and issuing a new constitution that renounced Japan’s right to conduct war. It also meant rooting out the purported religious sources of Japanese milita­ rism. General MacArthur understood the problem of Japanese milita­ rism as “fundamentally theological,” rooted in false beliefs in the divinity of Japan and its emperor.6 Certain SCAP officials, including MacArthur, sought to rectify the problem by supporting Christian mis­ sionary efforts.7 However, the dominant approach taken by SCAP’s Reli­ gions and Cultural Resources Division was to try to compel the Japanese people toward new understandings of “religious freedom” while also eradicating the ideology and institutions of what they labeled “State Shinto.”8 By January 1946, all forms of government support for Shinto shrines and ideology had been prohibited; the head priest of Ise Shrine and the president of the National Association of Shrine Priests were des­ ignated Class A war crimes suspects; and the emperor was made to pub­ licly disavow that he was a living kami.9 Buddhist leaders feared that occupation officials might persecute them and their organizations as well. A February 26, 1946, editorial in Chūgai nippō attempted to allay those fears by relaying news of a press conference at which SCAP officials had answered questions about “feu­ dalistic” Buddhist organizations that had actively supported the war­ time state—“especially Higashi and Nishi Honganji which were tied to the imperial house through marriage relations.” The SCAP officials clarified that they had no intentions of taking punitive actions and sought only to ensure freedom of religion and separation of religion and state. While that proved true on an organizational level, individuals deemed most responsible for leading the war effort, including various Buddhist lead­ ers, were purged from public life. Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōshō of the Hon­ ganji denomination was purged as a result of his role in the Imperial Rule Assistance Association.10 Within the Ōtani denomination, four Ōtani Uni­ versity professors were purged in 1949, including Soga and Kaneko. This meant that until the Allied occupation drew to a close two years later, Kaneko and Soga were prohibited from working at Ōtani University. In place of militarist devotion to the state and its wars, SCAP sought to promote democracy. In October 1945, it issued a directive guarantee­ ing freedom of thought, religion, assembly, and speech—“including the unrestricted discussion of the Emperor, the Imperial Institution and the 190

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Imperial Japanese Government”—and repealing all laws restrictive of such freedoms.11 In the following months, SCAP officials drafted a new constitution that redefined the emperor as a mere “symbol of the State and of the unity of the people,” restructured the National Diet to consist only of representatives elected by the people, and enumerated a long list of the people’s rights. Also, for the first time, women were granted the right to vote. One law deemed incompatible with the new democratic Japan was the 1939 Religious Organizations Law, which had made the establishment of a religious organization subject to government approval. Under a new Religious Corporations Ordinance issued by SCAP in December 1945, pre­ existing religious organizations were automatically re-registered, while new religious organizations could be established through a simple noti­ fication system. This ordinance led to a boom in registrations, in many cases by businesses just seeking tax exempt status. It also had the effect of enabling temples or groups of temples to freely secede from their sect or denomination without the approval of the sect’s directors.12 The result was a series of major schisms in the Tendai, Jōdo, Nichiren, and Shingon sects in 1946 and 1947. From 1946 to 1951, the number of Bud­ dhist organizations rose from 28 to 260.13 Weeks after the announcement of the Religious Corporations Ordi­ nance, Chūgai nippō brought together a government official, several law experts, and fourteen leading representatives of the religious world for a conference about the ordinance and democratization of religious orga­ nizations. Among the participants were three top Ōtani administra­ tors—Ōtani University president Ōtani Eijō, Head of Sect Affairs Miyatani Hōgan, and Head of Doctrinal Affairs Suehiro Aihō. While a few of the religious leaders embraced the goal of democratizing their organiza­ tions, the overall tone of the discussion was one of caution and worry. For example, the discussion moderator and head priest of Kiyomizu Temple raised questions about a future when ordinary priests and lay­ people would be free to criticize their religious leaders (February 5). Honganji chief abbot Ōtani Kōshō distinguished between the goals of the state and those of religious organizations, arguing that in the latter instance, the mission of elevating people’s faith required a hierarchical system in which not everyone was deserving of the same right to be heard (February 9). The chief abbot of the Jōdo sect expressed qualified support for “a little more freedom” for sect members while bristling at the suggestion of democratic “rule by the people” (minshu, 民主) within Buddhist organizations (February 9). 191

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Lawyers and scholars at the conference assured the religious leaders that occupation officials had no intention of meddling in religious orga­ nizations’ internal affairs and forcing them to democratize. Even so, many conference participants argued that democratization was neces­ sary all the same. As a representative of the new religion Konkōkyō noted, the new ordinance had made secession extremely simple, so if religious leaders did not respond to their followers’ demands for ­democratic representation, they might soon find themselves without a following.14 Given the new circumstances, Ōtani leaders judged it necessary to issue a new sect constitution. Already in November 1945, a committee had been convened for that purpose. The crucial question related to the selection of the chief abbot. Previous sect constitutions had assigned that position, as well as the position of dharma master, to the head priest of Higashi Honganji Temple. Now, Ōtani administrators debated whether to uphold the tradition of “three positions in one body” (san’i ittai, 三位一体) or to separate those positions. At a March 1946 meeting of the Sect Parliament, parliament members called on sect administrators to support democracy and end the “three positions in one body” tradition. Traditionalist head of doctrinal affairs Suehiro Aihō responded by say­ ing he would personally prefer to maintain that tradition, but it was no longer possible given the new conditions of Japanese society.15 In late September—weeks before Japan’s National Diet voted to approve a new national constitution—the Sect Parliament unanimously approved its new constitution. Henceforth, the authority to appoint the chief abbot would be held jointly by the Sect Parliament and a newly established Assembly of Lay Representatives.16 In practice, Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōchō would remain in his position indefinitely, but legally, the potential to select a new chief abbot from outside the Ōtani family had been estab­ lished. More immediately, the new constitution transformed Ōtani poli­ tics by granting the Sect Parliament power to select the head of sect affairs (who had previously been appointed by the chief abbot).17 During the ensuing decades, a modernist faction of priests led by Kurube Shin’yū gradually gained power within the Ōtani administration through electoral victories. Kurube and his allies explain those victories as stemming from their fervent faith and untiring efforts; their critics point instead to savvy political maneuvers and indoctrination pro­ grams.18 What is clear is that the Ōtani community was plagued by numerous problems in the immediate postwar years, including financial shortages, negative public perceptions reinforced by journalistic attacks 192

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on religion, and competition with new religions.19 In 1949, poorly attended, lackluster events held at Higashi Honganji Temple to com­ memorate the 450-year anniversary of Rennyo’s death were seen as a reflection of the moribund state of the Ōtani community.20 Given such circumstances, it is no mystery why a protest faction of priests raising the banner of modernization and advocating wide-ranging reforms would win elections. By winning key administrative posts within the Ōtani administra­ tion, the modernists gained power to proclaim their doctrinal views. Yet proclaiming those views was not the same as effectively propagating them and establishing them as orthodoxy. Whereas Kiyozawa had worked to develop an effective language to communicate his ideas to a broader audience and his first-generation disciples had worked to develop and disseminate those ideas through new educational methods and institutions, his second-generation disciples worked to reform the programs and institutions that propagated Shin teachings more broadly to laypeople and priests throughout the Ōtani community. The remain­ der of this chapter investigates the various institutional reforms imag­ ined and implemented by the Shin modernists as they came to power. One feature of the modernists’ institutional reforms was an increased concern with laypeople. In accordance with the principle that “all nenbutsu practitioners within the four seas are brothers,” the priestly lead­ ers of the modernist reform movement developed new training programs for laypeople that treated them as fellow seekers of awaken­ ing. This did not mean, however, an end to hierarchical relationships between priests and laypeople. Rather, integrating laypeople into the community as fellow seekers often entailed subjecting them to intense training and critique. Another feature of the modernists’ reforms was their framing of the pursuit of individual awakening as a never-ending task. In practice, this meant a head of sect affairs who gave daily morning dharma talks in the main temple, training programs for priests that focused on cultivating their own faith rather than teaching faith to others, and a pervasive dis­ course of self-critique. At the same time, emphasis on individual awak­ ening was balanced by warnings against excessive individualism and by portrayals of awakening as a process of joining a community and rising to action for the benefit of others. A final feature of the Shin modernists’ institutional reforms was their enshrinement of Kiyozawa as a saintly figure who had revived the Shin community from a long period of degeneracy. Through official 193

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declarations, lectures, publications, memorial events, hymns, and even the construction of an actual shrine, the modernists presented Kiyo­ zawa as a new Rennyo whose writings and life story could model the path to awakening for Buddhists living in the modern age. Critics cen­ sured this glorification of Kiyozawa as cultish, but supporters presented it as a means of displacing stale Tokugawa era traditions and leading Shin followers back to the true teachings of Shinran.

Kurube, Yasuda, and the Shinjin Society, 1947–1950 Following approval of the new Ōtani constitution, a parliamentary elec­ tion was held. At the January 1947 parliamentary meeting, fifty-eight newly elected members sorted themselves into three parties (the Public Harmony Party, One Mind Party, and White Path Party). By a slim twovote margin, modernist Nagatani Gan’yū defeated traditionalist Suehiro Aihō.21 Nagatani proceeded to appoint a number of young modernist priests to serve in his administration. Among them was Kurube Shin’yū, appointed to serve as head of the Doctrinal Affairs Department.22 For the first time, close allies of Soga and Kaneko held the reins of power within the Ōtani administration. Kurube Shin’yū was born into an Ōtani temple family in Mie Prefec­ ture east of Kyoto.23 His father had been active in Ōtani politics, partici­ pating in Kiyozawa’s Shirakawa reform movement and serving briefly as a member of the Sect Parliament. In 1925, the younger Kurube was in his second year of the preparatory program at Ōtani University when Soga Ryōjin joined the faculty. Kurube glommed on to Soga, attending biweekly study sessions at Soga’s home. In 1928, when Kaneko was accused of heresy and placed on forced leave, Kurube and his classmate Matsubara Yūzen led the unsuccessful student protest movement in support of Kaneko. In the 1930s, Kurube worked for a Buddhist publish­ ing house and an Ōtani-run organization for the blind before returning to his home temple in 1937 to serve as head priest. His temple became a frequent meeting place for parishioners to hold discussions late into the night. This aroused the suspicion of local authorities, and in 1939, a Special Higher Police officer attended one of the temple meetings undercover. He then arrested Kurube for spreading unfounded political rumors. For example, the police report describes Kurube discussing Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro’s disapproval of certain army offi­ cials, the transport of maimed corpses of Japanese soldiers back to Japan in cement barrels, and other politically charged topics.24 Kurube 194

A Democratic Sangha

spent a month in prison before the judge ruled him guilty but sus­ pended his ten-month prison sentence. Because of his criminal record, Kurube was ineligible for military service, so he spent the peak war years working at his home temple and as dean at Ōtani University. In 1947, as head of Ōtani’s Doctrinal Affairs Department, Kurube aggressively promoted the modernist doctrinal views of Kiyozawa Manshi. His department announced a goal of eradicating feudalistic elements within the sect and establishing a democratic religious orga­ nization of dōbō (同朋, companions), specifically by turning to Kiyo­ zawa. According to his department’s report, Shin Buddhists who suffered for centuries under Tokugawa era feudalism had sought a solution to their deprivations in the idea of a blissful life after death in Amida’s Pure Land; however, the true essence of Shin teachings, as pro­ claimed by Kiyozawa, lay not in salvation after death but in the attain­ ment of peace of mind here and now, by ascending to the stage of “nonretrogression in the present life” (genshō futai, 現生不退). This attainment brought with it a spirit of freedom, autonomy, and self-sov­ ereignty, which is the essence of the modern spirit of democracy. The report proclaimed that it was Kiyozawa who clarified that “this mod­ ern spirit that awakens and liberates us from the long feudalistic slum­ bers of the Tokugawa era is precisely the original spirit of Shin Buddhism.” Thus, “it goes without saying that it is his disciples, the people of the Kōkōdō, who are transmitting the true life of Shin Bud­ dhism today, lifting up a single spark of light in an organization that continues to decline.”25 Kurube’s department then presented a concrete plan for spreading Kiyozawa-based doctrinal understandings within the sect. Each month, a weeklong training program based at Okazaki Betsuin Temple in east­ ern Kyoto would be held primarily for laypeople. The participants would attend a morning lecture and worship services, participate in volunteer activities at Higashi Honganji Temple, and then spend the afternoon attending further lectures and engaging in faith discussions focused on  self-reflection and self-critique.26 These training programs were reported to be extremely intensive and even violent. Instructors tried to provoke faith experiences in trainees through sharp questioning. One instructor reportedly demanded a trainee take off all his clothes as part of an exercise apparently intended to liberate him from attachments; on another occasion, the same instructor reportedly slapped a trainee on the face, injuring his ear.27 Whether as a result of controversies sur­ rounding these training programs or Nagatani Gan’yū’s unwillingness to 195

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authorize Kurube’s more ambitious reform plans, Kurube and four of his associates resigned in December 1947.28 Having failed to effect reform within the Ōtani administration, Ku­ rube and his associates proceeded to launch the Shinjin reform move­ ment outside it. While the Shinjin Society styled itself as trans-sectarian, it largely consisted of Ōtani priests and laypeople. Kurube and Matsu­ bara Yūzen were the director and assistant director, respectively. The society’s official mission was to serve the birth of a new Japan by clarify­ ing Shin teachings and bringing life to a “people’s religious organization of dōbō.” In Matsubara’s words, this meant an organization in which “male or female and noble or ignoble are not considered, high and low classes are not spoken of, priests and laypeople are of one body, and all within the four seas are brothers, sharing in the same faith and the same practice.”29 In addition to publication of the monthly Shinjin journal, the society sponsored lectures and research activities. The main office was in Kyoto, but close to twenty local Shinjin groups were established throughout the country. Such groups typically hosted lectures by Soga or other leading members, held weekly dharma talks or faith discus­ sions, and published newsletters. The society reportedly came to have approximately two thousand members.30 Soga was the movement’s intellectual leader. Transcripts of his lec­ tures were featured at the start of most issues of Shinjin. In his lectures, Soga delivered the message that Buddhists ought to transcend their individual concerns and recognize their participation in—and responsi­ bility toward—the unfolding of Amida’s Vow in history. Soga had previ­ ously formulated ideas along these lines in his 1935 lecture “Shinran’s View of Buddhist History.”31 In that lecture, Soga had argued—contra modern Buddhist historiography—that Amida’s Primal Vow was a force within history that predated and made possible Śākyamuni’s enlighten­ ment. In a 1948 Shinjin article, Matsubara reflected on how Soga’s lecture had jolted him out of a shallow faith characterized by self-centeredness, introversion, and subjectivity into a new awareness of Amida’s Vow as a “historical fact” manifested through a historical community to which he now belonged.32 Members of the Kiyozawa school of Shin modernism had long been accused of introversion and lack of concern for the world around them; in the context of the Fifteen Years’ War and again in the context of Japan’s postwar reconstruction, Soga and his disciples attempted to demonstrate that the introspective “subjective facts” of individual awakening were windows onto objective truths that were wit­ nessed and acted upon by a growing historical community. 196

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In his first Shinjin lecture, titled “Behold the Man,” Soga argues that the surest path to true faith is through an encounter with Shinran the man.33 In Soga’s explanation, this was made possible not through Shin­ ran’s Kyōgyōshinshō or hymns but rather through the direct statements he made to his disciples as reported in the Tannishō. In particular, Soga focused on Shinran’s statement in the Tannishō’s epilogue: “When I con­ sider deeply the Vow of Amida, which arose from five kalpas of profound thought, I realize that it was entirely for the sake of me, Shinran, alone! Then how I am filled with gratitude for the Primal Vow, in which Amida resolved to save me, though I am burdened with such heavy karma!”34 According to Soga’s analysis, Shinran’s audacious claim that Amida’s Vow was for him alone leaves no doubt that he “has truly practiced and realized within himself the Primal Vow of the Buddha, has cast forth his own self, dying in the Vow and finding life in the Vow . . . cutting down the Buddha and giving life to the Buddha.” Soga understands Shinran’s statement as expressing a twofold realization that he has been saved by Amida’s Vow and that he has a responsibility to actualize Amida’s Vow by adopting the salvation of all sentient beings as his own personal responsibility. This interpretation is consistent with Soga’s earlier the­ ory that attainment of faith signals the birth of Dharmākara within one­ self. The onset of true faith is thus a radical event, so it manifests in radical, iconoclastic statements—ones that an ordinary, unenlightened person could never utter.35 When ordinary Buddhist followers encounter these radical words of Shinran, according to Soga, they cannot help but recognize in them “something that transcended Shinran’s own con­ sciousness.” In that sense, Shinran’s awakening confronts the ordinary Buddhist not as the relatable, but dismissible, subjective experience of one individual, but rather as an astounding “objective fact.” Perception of this objective fact triggers the same realization in the ordinary fol­ lower. Thus, just as Shinran famously declared his faith equal to his mas­ ter Hōnen’s, the ordinary Shin follower achieves “oneness of faith” (shinjin dōitsu, 信心同一) with Shinran. Soga further discussed the idea of oneness of faith in a lecture titled “One Taste of Master and Disciple.”36 There Soga considers interactions between Ānanda and Śākyamuni in the Sutra on Immeasurable Life’s opening narrative. Ānanda notes Śākyamuni’s particular radiance that day, commenting that Śākyamuni is perhaps “dwelling in the Buddha’s abode” and “contemplating the other Buddhas.”37 Referencing Shinran’s hymns on the same narrative, Soga argues that Ānanda’s discernment, praised by Śākyamuni, reveals that he had discovered faith and come to 197

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partake in the same awakening as Śākyamuni’s.38 Soga identifies the same pattern in chapter nine of the Tannishō where Shinran’s disciple Yuien asks why his nenbutsu practice brings him little joy or eagerness to enter the Pure Land, to which Shinran responds, “I, too, have had this question, and the same thought occurs to you, Yuien-bō!”39 According to Soga, Yuien, like Ānanda, had attained faith equal to his master’s. Soga’s point is that attainment of faith brings communion with others of faith, everyone—masters and disciples, priests and laypeople—sharing in the same experience of union with Amida Buddha (everyone “dwelling in the Buddha’s abode” and “contemplating the other Buddhas”). In a subse­ quent lecture titled “Transcend the Individual,” Soga goes on to empha­ size that faith therefore goes beyond individual fulfillment; in bringing communion with others, true faith naturally leads people to rise up and act in concert with others to actualize Amida’s Vow in the world.40 Soga’s ideas on communion with others were further developed in the pages of Shinjin by his leading disciple, Yasuda Rijin. Yasuda’s career as a Shin scholar was untraditional. Unlike Soga, Kaneko, and Kurube, Ya­ suda was not born into a Shin temple family. He first received precepts in the Sōtō Zen tradition but then elected to pursue Buddhist studies at Ōtani University after being impressed by Kaneko Daiei’s Outlines of Buddhism. At Ōtani, Yasuda joined Soga’s circle of followers alongside Kurube and Matsubara. Yasuda was only ordained as a Shin priest in 1944 and never became the head priest of a temple. Separate from brief stints as a lecturer at Ōtani University, he also avoided involvement in Ōtani ­affairs, instead supporting himself and his wife through freelance writ­ ing and lecturing. Even so, he exercised tremendous influence on Ku­ rube and other Ōtani reformers.41 In his first contribution to Shinjin, Yasuda echoed Soga in defining Shinran’s teachings as exceeding “subjectivity” and revealing “objec­ tive” truth.42 Yasuda’s argument, elaborated in greater detail in a lec­ ture from the same time period, presents two processes by which the “objective” truth of Shin teachings is revealed. First is the process of introspection and self-critique modeled by Shinran’s “three-vow con­ version.” In accord with the nineteenth vow, a person first pursues birth in the Pure Land by carrying out good works. When this proves impos­ sible, the next step, represented by the twentieth vow, is to turn inward and pursue birth in the Pure Land by chanting Amida’s name. This introspective, mystical pursuit, however, also inevitably ends in failure, yielding nothing but the discovery of one’s evil nature and the utter impossibility of ever saving oneself. Then, when one does undergo a 198

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powerful experience of entrusting in, and being grasped by, Amida, there can be no doubt that a power outside the self was involved. The experience of receiving Amida’s merit transference (ekō, 廻向) and hav­ ing one’s mind transformed (eshin, 廻心) involves being taken outside oneself and encountering other-power. Through this self-transcending process, the objective truth of the Primal Vow is demonstrated.43 The other process that reveals Shin teachings to be objectively true, according to Yasuda, is the study of Buddhist texts as modeled by Shin­ ran. Shinran developed his doctrinal views in connection with a wide corpus of sutras and commentaries, but especially the writings of Nagar­ juna, Vasubandhu, Tanluan, Daochuo, Shandao, Genshin, and Hōnen. In these seven Buddhist masters’ praise of Amida, Shinran found evidence of the coming to fruition of Amida’s seventeenth vow, which predicted that buddhas everywhere would praise his name. For Yasuda, this his­ tory of Buddhist masters testifying to Amida’s saving powers is valuable not just for corroborating Shinran’s claims; more than that, it shows how faith brings a person into a historical community of the faithful. Without the seventeenth vow, Yasuda remarks, we might treat the Pri­ mal Vow as a mere technique for our own individual salvation and fail to understand that faith is just the starting point whereby we join the com­ munity of buddhas working to actualize Amida’s Primal Vow. Through faith, each person becomes a new instantiation of Dharmākara, taking on the Primal Vow as his or her own vow.44 This marks the transforma­ tion of an individual-centered person into a true disciple of the Buddha and member of the sangha.45 One scriptural passage Yasuda repeatedly highlights in this regard is the opening of Vasubandhu’s Jōdoron (浄土論): “O World-honored One, with the mind that is single, I take refuge in the Tathāgata of unhindered light filling the ten quarters and aspire to be born in the land of peace and happiness.” In Yasuda’s explanation, Vasu­ bandhu’s invocation of Śākyamuni (as World-Honored One) here marks his work not as a monologue about his own faith in Amida, but rather as a dialogue with Śākyamuni who shared that same faith.46 Yasuda was at pains to distinguish this historical faith community—the true sangha—from religious organizations like those of the Ōtani or Hon­ ganji denominations. In October 1949, he published an article in Shinjin critical of the Shinjin Society’s failure to manifest a true sangha.47 While other Shinjin members were discussing how to reform the Ōtani organiza­ tion or were planning to run for election to the Sect Parliament, Yasuda insisted that the true sangha had little to do with how the Ōtani organiza­ tion was structured or run. The true sangha, according to Yasuda, was 199

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simply the community of faithful Buddhists studying the teachings in a spirit of worship, universal love, and responsibility toward all beings. ­Worshipful study of the teachings—as opposed to the academic Buddhist studies of D. T. Suzuki or Tanabe Hajime or the official doctrinal studies carried out within Shin religious organizations—is naturally linked to concern for others and the formation of the sangha, so the sangha is instantly brought into being wherever the teachings are truly studied. As for the religious organization, Yasuda simply comments that regardless of whether democratization is enacted or the chief abbot leaves his post, it will not produce a sangha.48 In a later essay, Yasuda specifically critiques democratic thinking’s optimistic view of humanity as contradicting the Buddhist teaching that humans are fundamentally ignorant of reality.49 The Shinjin journal positioned Soga, Yasuda, and a few others as the movement’s intellectual leaders, but it also gave voice to ordinary lay­ people in a section titled “The Ground of Buddha’s Children.” In connec­ tion with the popularity of D. T. Suzuki’s and others’ writings on myōkōnin (妙好人, commoners of exemplary faith whose stories were propagated during the late Tokugawa period), the Shinjin editors announced their intention to publish “records of your faith experiences and images of myōkōnin from every place in Japan, hoping that these can serve as food for the soul.”50 In one submission, a housewife detailed her realization that instead of awaiting an afterlife, she could find joy in this world in the midst of her domestic duties by simply accepting things as they were. In another, a war veteran described his experience being tortured by his squad leader and suddenly learning to embrace the pains of life as part of who he was. A schoolteacher explained how encountering Bud­ dhist teachings enabled him to shed feelings of anger and pride toward others and to recognize buddhahood in his students. And a father, who reported studying an essay by Kiyozawa and myōkōnin poems, related how he learned to recognize Buddha in everything around him and to be humbler and more appreciative toward his wife.51 All these accounts ­exemplified the modernist tendency to encounter Buddha in this world and to find in Buddhism a path to joy and contentment in this life rather than in an afterlife. Yet a gap can be detected between these laypeople’s doctrinal stances and those of the Shinjin Society’s priestly leaders. While the lay accounts spoke of accepting reality as it was, Soga and Ya­ suda urged their listeners and readers to recognize the great responsi­ bilities associated with joining the sangha and working to actualize Amida’s Vow in history. After less than a year, the “Ground of Buddha’s Children” column was discontinued, and the Shinjin journal essentially 200

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became a vessel for the teachings of Soga and the movement’s other priestly leaders.

Nenbutsu Leader, 1950–1954 In December 1950, the second postwar Sect Parliament election was held. Several Shinjin Society members ran for office, including Kurube. Chūgai nippō reported that the election’s months-long intensive campaigning involved various nefarious tactics, including distribution of mailings containing misinformation.52 Of the sixty-one candidates elected, twenty-nine were first-time members, many of them relatively young (in their forties).53 Kurube and two other Shinjin figures were among those elected. At a Sect Parliament meeting in January 1951, the first order of business was to vote on the next head of sect affairs. When the leading parties reached a deadlock, a faction of six new parliament members including Kurube exerted their influence. Instead of nominating some­ one within the Sect Parliament, they proposed bringing in a neutral out­ sider. According to newspaper reports, their rallying cry was, “In recent times, this religious organization has been suffering from a great prob­ lem. The very source of its life, the nenbutsu, is lacking. Let’s recover the nenbutsu!” The candidate they put forward was Akegarasu Haya. At that time, Akegarasu was seventy-three years old and blind.54 He lived in Ishikawa Prefecture, serving as head priest of Myōtatsuji Temple while continuing to write and lecture. Nationally famous as a preacher and prolific writer, Akegarasu had never served in the Sect Parliament or in any other position in the Ōtani administration. Nicknamed the Nenbutsu Leader (Nenbutsu Sōchō, 念仏総長), Akegarasu’s surprising appointment as head of sect affairs was heralded by many inside and outside the Ōtani community as a source of hope in a dark time. In the assessment of one Chūgai nippō reporter, the hasty introduction of democracy into Buddhist organizations in the aftermath of the war had produced an intolerable situation of partisan battles that were only worsened by the problem of financial debts. In such circumstances, the reporter sympathized with those who looked on Akegarasu’s “nenbutsu cabinet” as an opportunity to change course.55 Although Akegarasu in his youth had harbored dreams of studying foreign affairs and becoming a diplomat, he had since come to revile poli­ tics and politicians. In the same month the Sect Parliament invited him to serve as head of sect affairs, he had written a scathing essay attacking politicians: “Construction of the Buddha Land means destruction of the 201

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land of politicians. For those who are awakened, politics aren’t needed. Those who follow after politicians are walking a path of the three poi­ sons. Of all the people in the world, I think the most despicable, greedy, shameless, selfish, and helpless ones are politicians.”56 As head of sect affairs, Akegarasu entrusted most administrative matters to his cabinet officials—senior figures from the Sect Parliament whom he likely had been forced to appoint, including traditionalist Suehiro Aihō. He chose instead to spend most of his time traveling, giving dharma talks, and meeting directly with laypeople. Setting a striking new precedent for a head of sect affairs, he gave daily morning dharma talks in the main hall at Higashi Honganji Temple. When asked by an official about fundraising strategies, he retorted that money would only come through faith and nenbutsu practice, and if the official did not have confidence in that strat­ egy, he should resign immediately. When Akegarsu was forced to engage in official administrative business, it did not always go smoothly. At the annual Sect Parliament meeting, he broke protocol by declining to answer parliament members’ questions and redirecting questions back at them, at which point his cabinet officials stepped in to speak on his behalf. During his tenure, Akegarasu and his cabinet launched several sig­ nificant reform initiatives. One was the Service to the Mausoleum pro­ gram in which groups of laypeople would spend a week in Kyoto attending religious services, hearing lectures from Akegarasu and oth­ ers, having their photograph taken with the chief abbot, and cleaning and repairing the main temple. This was essentially a less aggressive version of Kurube’s failed program without the intensive training ses­ sions. Another new initiative was the Dōbō Life movement, which estab­ lished an integrated national preaching and fundraising system. Four times annually, a lecture series, organized by the Propagation of the Teachings Institute, would be attended by representatives from Ōtani’s central administration, educational institutions, teaching districts, and various lay organizations, and those representatives would then hold successive lecture events at the district and local levels, spreading doc­ trinal teachings outward while communicating the concerns of local priests and laypeople back to central headquarters.57 By January 1952, less than a year after taking office, Akegarasu was pressured to resign. It seems that the traditionalist faction within the Sect Parliament led by Suehiro Aihō succeeded in consolidating support and ousting Akegarasu, who had only been a temporary compromise figure.58 During his short tenure, Akegarasu gave a three-day lecture on Kiyozawa at an event in Kanazawa city, published a pamphlet on Kiyozawa, and 202

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oversaw a major doctrinal studies conference that Soga, Kaneko, and other modernist scholars participated in.59 However, his ability to trans­ form Ōtani orthodoxy was hindered by his political inexperience, the pre­ carious nature of his position, and the conservative personnel in his cabinet. The fulfillment of a modernist doctrinal revolution would need to come from someone with a base of power within the administration. In the remaining years of his life, Akegarasu dedicated himself to commemorating his teacher, Kiyozawa. In June 1952, memorial events for the fifty-year anniversary of Kiyozawa’s death were held in Kyoto over the course of four days. Akegarasu, as Kiyozawa’s leading disciple, had attended just about every major memorial event ever held for Kiyo­ zawa and had himself organized and hosted a weeklong event for Kiyo­ zawa’s thirty-three-year memorial in 1936.60 This time, Nishimura Kengyō, Akegarasu’s disciple, co-organized the events. Akegarasu had encouraged Nishimura to write a biography of Kiyozawa, which had been completed the previous year.61 The two were also then collaborating on a new eight-volume edition of Kiyozawa’s complete works.62 Akegarasu was one of two former Kōkōdō members who attended the fifty-year memorial events and gave speeches. Also in attendance was Soga, whose speech declared that Kiyozawa’s “The Great Path of Absolute Other Power” could rightfully be called “scripture” (seiten, 聖典) and that the blessings he received from Kiyozawa equaled those he received from Shinran and far exceeded those he received from Rennyo.63 In the same month, Akegarasu published a fifty-four-stanza hymn in praise of Kiyozawa.64 The hymn, titled “Veneration of Teacher Kiyozawa Manshi,” portrays Kiyozawa as a holy reincarnation of Śākyamuni Buddha: Three thousand years after the nirvana of honorable Śākyamuni, into the darkness of the defiled age of mappō a miraculous light appeared. Thus the world’s night became dawn. . . . Śākyamuni of Kapilavastu returned to the world three thousand years later, born in the town of Nagoya and given the name of Kiyozawa Manshi.

The following year, Akegarasu began construction of a new hall on the grounds of his home temple Myōtatsuji in Ishikawa Prefecture. He named the hall Rōsendō  (臘扇堂)  after Kiyozawa, who had used the pen name Rōsen (December fan) for a time. In August 1954, three days of ceremonies 203

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were held to mark the opening of the hall. Close to a thousand people attended. Ashes of Kiyozawa’s body collected from Saihōji Temple were enshrined in a chamber beneath the hall; a ridgepole raising ceremony was performed according to Shinto customs, with a ritual throwing of rice cakes and offering of sakaki branches; wooden statues of Kiyozawa and Akegarasu were ritually transported into the hall, encircled in flow­ ers, and consecrated through an “opening the eyes” (kaigen, 開眼) cere­ mony; hymns were sung, including “Veneration of Teacher Kiyozawa Manshi”; a stone monument was unveiled; and a series of dharma ser­ vices, memorial lectures, and panel discussions were held. For Akegara­ su’s many disciples and admirers, these events were an occasion both for joy and for sadness. Sick in bed, barely able to eat or drink, Akegarasu was not able to attend the events. He did, however, receive visitors, tearfully expressing his gratitude and farewells. Less than a week later, he passed away. After his death, a brief journal entry of Akegarasu’s about the new Rōsendō Hall was published with the title “Last Words.” It read, “To see this form of Teacher Kiyozawa receiving my heartfelt veneration is the greatest happiness of my life. If I go on to die just like this, in the act of revering my teacher, it would truly be a wonderful thing.”65

Rōsendō Hall at Myōtatsu-ji Temple containing statues of Akegarasu Haya and Kiyozawa Manshi. Photo by Morita Hiromi, reproduced with permission from Myōtatsu-ji Temple.

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White Paper, 1954–1958 A new election was held in 1954, and traditionalist Suehiro Aihō was selected to remain in his position as head of sect affairs. However, a bat­ tle over Suehiro’s budget proposal—which included plans to construct a large hotel on the grounds of Higashi Honganji Temple in preparation for the 650-year Shinran memorial events to be held in 1961—led to a loss of confidence in his leadership and the need for a new cabinet.66 Once again, a compromise figure from outside the Sect Parliament was selected—Miyatani Hōgan, who had retired from Ōtani politics after serving as head of sect affairs from 1945 to 1947. Miyatani was viewed as a conservative choice, but he surprised many by appointing two young, modernist figures to his cabinet: Kurube Shin’yū as head of doctrinal affairs and fellow Shinjin figure Minowa Eishō as head of internal affairs. In April 1956, less than two months into office, Miyatani issued the socalled Sect White Paper.67 The document begins with a sweeping critique of the organization: “It is said that the Ōtani denomination has ten thou­ sand temples and one million followers, yet within this sect it has become difficult to find any true followers of the Buddha dharma. One can even say that over these seven hundred years, we in this sect have taken the virtuous inheritance of Saint Shinran and indulged only in idleness.”68 The solution to these problems, according to the white paper, lies in repentance, self-critique, and a new doctrinal focus on the teach­ ings and legacy of Kiyozawa Manshi: The appearance of Teacher Kiyozawa Manshi in our sect in the Meiji period was an inimitable blessing. That Kiyozawa was able not only to make great contributions to Japanese intellectual history but also to cast off the fetters of the Ōtani organization’s Tokugawa era feudalistic doctrinal studies and develop a new Shin doctrinal studies with a global perspective was entirely due to his zealous spirit of self-sacrifice. A great many capable people have been produced under Kiyozawa’s tutelage, such that to this day, the light of an unwavering tradition has shone forth within Ōtani doctrinal studies. This is a magnificent sight in the Japanese Buddhist world rightfully wor­ thy of our sect’s pride.69

In this momentous announcement, the de facto head of the Ōtani orga­ nization thus declared the teachings of Kiyozawa to be the foundation of Ōtani Shin Buddhist orthodoxy. Predictably, this provoked both outrage and joy. Opponents and sup­ porters of Kiyozawa submitted articles to Chūgai nippō, arguing their case. One critic commented: 205

National Politics Needless to say, the heart of our sect (common to all ten Shin denomina­ tions) is Founder Shinran, and our sectarian tenets’ foremost principles lie within the Founder’s commentaries (the Kyōgyōshinshō and his other sacred teachings). In spite of that, the Kōkōdō faction does not conform to this. They revere Kiyozawa more than the Founder. For their foremost princi­ ples, they substitute “My Faith” for the Founder’s commentaries. Distorting the texts, they have even birthed a new “Soga doctrinal studies.” From the very beginning, these people should have left the sect and founded a Kiyo­ zawa sect.70

At a June meeting, Sect Parliament members demanded explanations from Miyatani and questioned whether he and his cabinet were truly unified on these issues. Miyatani responded that the wording of the announcement may have been extreme and clarified that he did not mean to condemn all of Shin Buddhism’s seven-hundred-year history or the entirety of Tokugawa era doctrinal studies; rather, his intention was to promote a spirit of self-critique among Ōtani members today. Head of Doctrinal Affairs Kurube echoed Miyatani’s points, portraying Tokugawa era doctrinal studies as something valuable that had fulfilled its pur­ pose and could now be dispensed with—in the same way that Hīnayāna Buddhism had played a useful role in paving the way for Mahāyāna.71 Following the Sect Parliament meeting, Miyatani issued a statement responding to critiques of the white paper, clarifying his appreciation for the great patriarchs and scholars of the past while doubling down on the need to embrace Kiyozawa’s legacy: This fall, in order to propel new developments in Shin doctrinal studies, we must take on the spirit of Kiyozawa, who did not spare his body and life in his dedication to real practice, and who broke his heart and soul training capable people in our sect. Otherwise, we believe without any doubt that this great opportunity for a second restoration of the Shin sect on the occa­ sion of [Shinran’s 650-year] memorial is hopeless.72

Rennyo had accomplished the first “restoration” of the sect five hundred years earlier; now, according to Miyatani, it was time for a “second resto­ ration” inspired by Kiyozawa. This language of a “second restoration” (daini no saikō, 第二の再興) seems to have come from Soga Ryōjin’s lectures and writings. In his 1941 ango lecture on the Tannishō, Soga explained that he chose to lec­ ture on the Tannishō because its spirit of “lamenting divergences” from true faith was exactly what was needed in order to accomplish a “sec­ ond restoration” of the sect. His lecture went on to discuss the special 206

A Democratic Sangha

relationship that Rennyo, “saintly restorer” of the sect, had with the Tannishō.73 Fifteen years later, when Miyatani was elected head of sect affairs, Soga had just returned from a preaching trip to the United States. His subsequent report on that trip, published in Shinjin in April and May of 1956, was titled “The Second Restoration of the Shin Sect.” There Soga recounts his renewed engagement with Kiyozawa’s “My Faith” essay and his assessment of Kiyozawa as the source of a coming second restoration of Shin Buddhism comparable to Rennyo’s earlier one. Specifically, he emphasizes Kiyozawa’s success in making Shin teachings “simpler and purer” and in facilitating a shift from the “world of reason” to the “world of instinct.” In a 1954 Shinjin essay, Soga had also juxtaposed Kiyozawa and Rennyo, arguing that like Kiyozawa, Rennyo must have arrived at his profound faith through an arduous process of seeking the way. However, unlike Kiyozawa, Rennyo did not leave any account of his personal path to faith, so Shin followers today ought to jettison “Rennyo doctrinal studies” and instead take Kiyoza­ wa’s writings as their guide.74 Given its praise of Kiyozawa and language of a “second restoration,” it is quite possible that the white paper was actually authored by Kurube rather than Miyatani. The white paper’s discussion of Kiyozawa’s casting off feudalistic fetters and of his followers’ shining forth “the light of an unwavering tradition” recalls the 1947 announcement of Kurube’s Doc­ trinal Affairs Department. On the other hand, Miyatani did have a per­ sonal connection to Kiyozawa, having been a student at Shinshū University in Tokyo when Kiyozawa was president.75 Whatever the case may be, Kurube’s influence as head of doctrinal affairs cannot be dis­ counted, especially because it fell to him to implement the new doctri­ nal agenda. In a September 1956 Shinshū article titled “The First Step toward the Formation of the Sangha,” Kurube announced a nine-part plan to ­i mplement reforms in line with the “Sect White Paper.” Kurube’s plan set out to reshape the content of Ōtani doctrine, the personnel in charge of teaching that content, and the programs that would dissem­ inate that content to the Ōtani community. As a starting point, Ku­ rube convened a conference at the Higashi Honganji Temple’s Royal Pavilion for Soga, Kaneko, Yasuda, Matsubara Yūzen, Nishimura Kengyō, and others to work out the key features of a new “doctrinal studies for the [present] age” ( jidai kyōgaku, 時代教学). He also initiated a lecture series on “Kiyozawa doctrinal studies” to be held monthly at the same Royal Pavilion, with Soga invited to be the first lecturer.76 207

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Within a year’s time, the Propagation of the Teachings Institute pub­ lished the results of their research in a five-hundred-page volume ­t itled Kiyozawa Manshi Research.77 Containing seven studies of Kiyoza­ wa’s life and teachings, this work was a collective project with Ma­ tsubara, Nishimura, and other younger scholars writing the chapters and Soga, Kaneko, Yasuda, and Nishitani Keiji serving as general edi­ tors and advisors.78 Soga, Kaneko, and other modernist priests associated with the Shinjin Society also served as instructors for various training pro­ grams initiated by Kurube. For priests seeking certification as fukyōshi (布教師, propagator of the teachings; missionary), Kurube established the Transmission of the Way Training Course. Four times a year, train­ ees would come to Kyoto for a ten-day retreat, living together and studying the tenets of Shin Buddhism alongside instructors like Soga and Kaneko. Whereas earlier training programs had reportedly focused on the best content and techniques for effective preaching, the new program focused on the trainees’ own faith experiences. A prominent theme of the program was the principle, epitomized by Shinran’s own self-description as “foolish and stubble-haired,” that teachers and students, priests and laypeople, are all equal in their “foolishness.”79 For graduates of Ōtani University seeking the rank of kyōshi (教師, teacher)—necessary for serving as head priest at any Ōtani temple—Ku­ rube’s department reformed the required training program. According to participant testimonials printed in the Shinshū journal, what had been a formulaic five-day program offering guidance on sect customs and tem­ ple management was now a seven-day intensive faith-building retreat. Alongside religious services, volunteer activities, and dharma talks, trainees were continuously challenged to describe their own personal experiences and understandings of Shin teachings and to confront basic questions such as whether or not they really believed in Amida Buddha’s existence. Again, Kaneko and other Shin modernists served as the instructors.80 For laypeople, Kurube worked to revitalize the Service to the Mauso­ leum program while also launching a training program for lay represen­ tatives known as the Dōbō Adult Training Course. Like the programs for priests, this course brought participants to Kyoto for a faith-building retreat that introduced them to modernist approaches to Shin thought and practice. Five years later, Kurube would essentially develop that pro­ gram into the radical Dōbōkai movement. 208

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Dōbōkai Movement, 1958–1962 In the 1958 election, forty out of sixty-five priests elected to the Sect Parliament were members of the Shinjin reform group. At that time, the reformers could easily have elected Kurube head of sect affairs, but instead, they chose to have Miyatani stay in power. Prior to initiating any dramatic changes in the organization, it was essential to hold suc­ cessful seven-hundred-year memorial events for Shinran in 1961. In the lead-up to those events, Miyatani functioned as a unifying leader, while Kurube as head of doctrinal affairs continued to cultivate Shin modern­ ist faith among the ranks of Ōtani priests and lay representatives through his various training programs. Compared to the 450-year memorial services for Rennyo in 1949, the services for Shinran in 1961 were a huge success, with approximately one million people in attendance. Viewed by many Ōtani followers as a sign of increased faith, this higher attendance can also be explained as a product of economic growth that had taken place in Japan during the 1950s. One featured event at the 1961 celebrations was a series of lec­ tures given by D. T. Suzuki, Soga Ryōjin, and Kaneko Daiei. Soga’s lecture, titled “Die in Faith, Live in the Vow,” introduced a large audience to his understanding of Pure Land rebirth as taking place here in this world at the moment of faith.81 It also raised the topic of the sangha by comparing the Sutra on Immeasurable Life’s descriptions of Śākyamuni’s assembly in this world and Amida’s assembly in the Pure Land. Soga notes that both are said to be comprised of the same four classes of beings (humans, gods, śrāvaka, and bodhisattvas) and that at one point, the two assem­ blies praise one another.82 Reflecting on a hymn of Shinran’s declaring that all four classes of beings in the Pure Land “possess luminous wis­ dom,” Soga concludes that everyone in these assemblies equally shares in the same awakening, which makes the separate, hierarchical catego­ ries of humans, gods, śrāvaka, and bodhisattvas irrelevant.83 Two months after the memorial celebrations for Shinran, Miyatani Hōgan resigned and Kurube was selected to become the new head of sect affairs. In June 1962, after his leadership was confirmed through another parliamentary election, Kurube gave a speech unveiling his five-year plan for the launching of the Dōbōkai movement. According to Kurube’s speech, the primary goal of the movement was to transform laypeople into active students of the teachings and seekers of awakening rather than mere members of temples who periodically sponsor memorial ser­ vices for their ancestors. Hence the later slogan of the movement: “From 209

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a religion of the family to a religion of individual awakening.” Kurube justified the need for such changes in part by pointing to social trends of urbanization and increases in nuclear families, which were causing sect members to lose connection with their family temples and, in some cases, join new religions like Soka Gakkai. The same trends were also prompting other Buddhist organizations to launch similar lay-centered movements around the same time.84 The times demanded organizational reforms, and Kurube and his allies in the Ōtani administration responded with an ambitious reform movement rooted in Shin modernist ideas. The Dōbōkai movement consisted of three interlocking programs tar­ geted at certain selected teaching districts.85 First, a series of Service to the Mausoleum trips was arranged for priests, laymen, laywomen, and youth to travel to the main temple in Kyoto for dharma talks, discus­ sions, and volunteer activities. Second, a series of Special Transmission of the Way events were carried out in the selected teaching districts where instructors sent by the central Ōtani administration lectured and led discussions for laypeople. Finally, Promoter Training courses were  provided to smaller groups of lay individuals identified through the Special Transmission of the Way events. The culmination of those courses was a Service to the Mausoleum trip to the main temple con­ cluding with a kikyōshiki ceremony, signifying those individuals’ inten­ tional choice to join the Ōtani community as fellow seekers. Those who completed the training became Dōbōkai promoters charged with spread­ ing the movement further within their temples and communities. Ku­ rube envisioned the movement’s activities expanding beyond temples into Ōtani members’ places of residence and work.86 Critics in the Sect Parliament objected to the movement for a number of reasons. Some argued the movement was unnecessary because suffi­ cient propagation efforts were already under way. Others complained that more planning was needed. More significantly, some Sect Parlia­ ment members claimed the movement would contravene the sect consti­ tution’s definition of laypeople as “those who respectfully have faith in this organization’s teachings, belong to a temple, support this organiza­ tion and its temples, and commission rituals for the successive genera­ tions of their families.” By enlisting laypeople into a faith movement separate from their local temples and temple priests, the new movement was said to threaten age-old bonds between families and temples. Critics also voiced concerns about the legality of the movement’s mandatory membership fees, which threatened to substitute for traditional dona­ tions to local temples.87 210

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Despite such objections, Kurube had enough support in the Sect Parliament to implement the program. Once in action, the Dōbōkai movement encountered various obstacles, the most basic of which was local priests’ and laypeople’s resistance to the new modernist ortho­ doxy. In one telling anecdote, a woman attending a Special Transmis­ sion of the Way event explained to the instructor that her seven-year-­old daughter had recently died without saying the nenbutsu and asked whether she had been reborn in the Pure Land. Under the former orthodoxy, the woman might have been assured that recitation of the nenbutsu at the time of death (or at any time) was unnecessary, and that all those who have heard Amida’s name and had even a single thought of faith, desiring to be born in Amida’s Pure Land, are sure to enjoy a blissful afterlife there. Under the new orthodoxy, however, Pure Land rebirth was understood as something to be sought in this life. Rather than fixing their thoughts on a blissful afterlife, Shin fol­ lowers were now urged to seek out a new life in this world through introspection, self-critique, and a transformative encounter with Amida. The Dōbōkai instructor reportedly answered that the woman ought not concern herself with her daughter and should instead focus on the question of whether she herself had been saved. Needless to say, this was not a comforting answer.88 To the extent that Buddhists affirm their tradition as a social endeavor and not a solitary one, they must confront questions of how fellow Bud­ dhists ought to relate to one another and what sorts of communities they ought to form. From the time of Kiyozawa through the period of the Fifteen Years’ War, the Ōtani Shin modernists had broached such ques­ tions in limited ways—in the formation of the Kōkōdō group, demands for an elected legislative assembly, reforms of Shinshū University, move­ ments advocating academic freedom, and war mobilization efforts. But throughout that period, their capacity to effect organizational change was greatly limited by the authoritarian structure of the Ōtani organi­ zation, governed as it was by a head of sect affairs appointed by and act­ ing in service to a hereditary line of chief abbots. When new laws and popular demands prompted the introduction of democratic governance into the Ōtani organization in the immediate postwar years, the Shin modernists for the first time gained the opportunity to take control of the Ōtani administration and reshape the Ōtani community as they saw fit. What had been set in stone became fluid. In such circumstances, as Yasuda remarked at the 1971 “interview” organized by the Chūō kōron 211

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reporter, “the study of Buddhist teachings finally becomes a discourse on the sangha.” This chapter’s account of reforms imagined and implemented by Ku­ rube, Soga, Yasuda, Akegarasu, Miyatani, and their associates reveals the kind of sangha they attempted to bring about. As head of the Doctrinal Affairs Department in 1947, Kurube declared the attainment of faith to be a transformative experience that would instill in people a democratic spirit of self-sovereignty, and he attempted to compel laypeople toward such experiences through an aggressive training program. In their Shinjin writings, Soga and Yasuda presented faith as the moment when an individual realizes “oneness of faith” with Shinran, Śākyamuni, and the Shin patriarchs, and thereby joins an egalitarian community of buddhas and bodhisattvas working to actualize Amida’s Primal Vow in history. As head of sect affairs, Akegarasu attempted to build a community devoid of political strategizing and focused only on constant religious practice and study. Kurube, in implementing the goals outlined in Miyatani’s “Sect White Paper,” developed training programs for senior priests, ­junior priests, and laypeople devoted to the cultivation of personal expe­ riences of faith. Each of these theories and initiatives was grounded in the principle that all people ought to be diligently pursuing experiences of awakening in this life. In theory, previous distinctions between ­administrators, scholars, priests, and laypeople of various ranks were to be collapsed into a single category of dōbō, fellow seekers of the way. In this idealized sangha, no person would stay on the sidelines and play a supportive role, deferring his or her own awakening to a later time. ­Instead of just supporting their local temples and maintaining their family traditions, laypeople were asked to rise to the spiritual heights of the sect’s founder—by descending with Shinran to the depths of humil­ ity through a process of self-critique. There were undoubtedly significant blind spots and hypocrisies pres­ ent within the Shin modernists’ program for institutional reform. Not unlike occupation officials’ efforts to foster a desire for religious free­ dom through authoritarian, repressive measures, Kurube and his allies worked to foster a desire for Buddhist liberation through intensive, con­ frontational training programs.89 While advocating the egalitarian ideal of a community of dōbō, the Ōtani modernists continued to uphold patri­ archal traditions and to perpetuate discriminatory attitudes toward members of the burakumin (outcast) community.90 For a time, they also continued to revere the chief abbot and implicitly support the tradition of “three positions in one body.”91 These contradictions would later be 212

A Democratic Sangha

partly resolved through the toppling of the chief abbot and through movements from below critiquing Dōbōkai leaders and demanding equality for women and for burakumin. The restructuring of the Ōtani organization as an egalitarian community of dōbō, in concert with the dissemination of a new Kiyozawa-based orthodoxy, was an ongoing pro­ cess. But with the ascent of Kurube to administrative power and the launching of the Dōbōkai movement, it can be said that the modernist revolution of Ōtani Shin Buddhism was fulfilled and that a new Kiyo­ zawa-based orthodoxy—together with a new language, a new method of studies, new educational institutions, new norms regarding the sup­ pression of heresy, and a new organizational structure—was firmly set in place.

213

Conclusion

To spread modernist Shin faith to millions of Ōtani members, the Dōbōkai movement needed a textbook. The book created for that pur­ pose was titled Sacred Scripture for the Present Age: Introduction to the Sutra on the Contemplation of Immeasurable Life.1 It begins with a preface by Ku­ rube declaring that people with questions about Buddhism and its rele­ vance to daily life ought not turn to others for answers but should instead read the sutras directly. This new book, by providing a well-­ annotated, easy-to-read version of the introductory sections of the Sutra on the Contemplation of Immeasurable Life, was meant to facilitate that. Following the preface, a short introduction offers some words of warn­ ing: to really understand Buddhist teachings, one cannot just gather knowledge about Buddhism; one must undergo a certain experience (taiken, 体験). Such an experience was possible for everyone, no matter one’s intelligence or level of education. In fact, the special characteristic of the Sutra on the Contemplation of Immeasurable Life, the book’s intro­ duction explained, was its focus on a “weak woman” named Vaidehi who in spite of her weak mind was able to experience the buddha-way and attain profound wisdom.2 Thus, even before coming to the main body of the text, the reader is introduced to core features of Shin modernism: a this-worldly focus, non-reliance on the established interpretive tradi­ tion, pursuit of transformative experiences, and an ideal of egalitarian­ ism (accompanied by underlying sexism). Within the main body of the text, each section of the sutra is followed by a series of questions. For example, the first section of the sutra reads, “Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was staying on the Vulture Peak in Rājagriha with a great assembly of twelve hundred and fifty monks. He was also accompanied by thirty-two thousand bodhisattvas led by Mañjuśrī, the Dharma Prince.” In response to this, eight questions are raised, including, “What kind of person is a buddha?,” “Why are sutras chanted at funerals and memorial services?,” and “What kind of attitude should one adopt when reading sutras to make it worthwhile?” In one sense, these open-ended questions can be understood as an invi­ tation to the reader to take part in defining Shin orthodoxy. Dōbōkai 214

Conclusion

movement organizers prioritized free and open discussions, and reports of those discussions do show lay participants critiquing their instruc­ tors’ teachings.3 On the other hand, the organizers were clearly commit­ ted to certain doctrinal views, which they understood to be grounded in “subjective facts” discoverable by all who genuinely engaged in intro­ spective study of the teachings. To guide Dōbōkai instructors and stu­ dents toward those doctrinal views, transcripts of lectures from a training course given to Dōbōkai instructors were compiled and pub­ lished as a companion volume to Sacred Scripture for the Present Age. A lec­ ture by Kaneko discusses the first section of Sacred Scripture for the Present Age. In response to the question “What kind of person is a buddha?,” Kaneko explains that “buddha” should be understood as including not just Śākyamuni and other figures traditionally labeled “Buddha” but all zenchishiki (virtuous and wise teachers), including Shinran and the seven Shin patriarchs, who have had personal experiences that enabled them to understand and teach others about the fundamental problems of human life.4 Kaneko’s answer generalizes the concept of buddha to include anyone who has had a true experience of faith. According to this interpretation, everyone can become a buddha. “Buddha” does not refer to an exceptional individual; it refers to a community. The Dōbōkai movement was just one site where the new Shin modern­ ist orthodoxy was established. At Ōtani University, Soga was appointed university president in 1961 following the election of Kurube as head of sect affairs. Under Soga’s leadership, a new course specifically on Kiyo­ zawa Manshi came to be taught annually, first by Matsubara Yūzen and then by Terakawa Shunshō. Terakawa went on to publish an influential book on Kiyozawa’s thought based on that course.5 After Terakawa, research and teaching on Kiyozawa’s life and thought would be carried on at Ōtani University by scholars like Yasutomi Shin’ya and Mizushima Ken’ichi. The modernists’ establishment of a new orthodoxy and restructuring of the Ōtani organization sparked considerable backlash. In 1965, tradi­ tionalist priests spoke out against the rising power of the modernist reformers and their advocacy of “Kiyozawa doctrinal studies,” which they claimed was “trampling upon the teachings of our Founder.” In response, the Inquiry Committee was convened to offer its judgment. With Soga and Kaneko serving as senior members on the committee, Kiyozawa’s thought was unsurprisingly judged fully in line with Shin­ ran’s.6 In 1969, Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōchō announced that he would be transferring his authority as chief abbot to his eldest son; however, the 215

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Sect Parliament exercised its legal right to refuse that decision. The 1970s then brought bitter electoral fights, financial scandals, legislative deadlocks, and even physical confrontations.7 In 1976, Kiyozawa’s thought was again subjected to accusations of heresy, this time by a top administrative ally of the chief abbot. Again, members of the Inquiry Committee, including Kaneko, issued judgments affirming Kiyozawa’s thought as orthodox.8 Technically, the chief abbot, as dharma master for the Ōtani community, could have overruled these judgments. That changed in 1981, when modernist sect leaders succeeded in approving a new sect constitution that demoted the chief abbot to an entirely sym­ bolic role, stripping him of all authority to make doctrinal judgments.9 A small subsection of the Ōtani community loyal to the chief abbot and his eldest son splintered off and established an independent denomina­ tion.10 In spite of their vigorous efforts, traditionalists allied with the chief abbot and his sons proved unable to dislodge the modernists from their positions of doctrinal and administrative authority. The new mod­ ernist orthodoxy was here to stay.

Science, War, and Democracy The fiction this book has tried to unravel is that Kiyozawa was the author of that new orthodoxy. Yes, Kiyozawa authored works like “My Faith” and “The Great Path of Absolute Other Power” that served as the founda­ tion of a new orthodoxy. But orthodoxy is not something that is simply authored by putting words on a page. Orthodoxy is established and per­ petuated through the exercise of power. Through his philosophical investigations, ascetic lifestyle, educational reforms, protest activities, and discourse of religious empiricism, Kiyozawa helped initiate a revolu­ tionary reform movement within the Ōtani community, but the narra­ tive later put forward by his followers—and inadvertently reinforced by much Buddhist studies scholarship—of an extraordinary individual and a handful of his extraordinary disciples restoring a degenerate Shin community through their enlightened teachings is misleading in the extreme. Charisma and inspired rhetoric alone did not bring about a new orthodoxy. That required supplanting the old orthodoxy by gaining influence over educational institutions, rallying public support in the midst of a heresy trial, appeasing the state during wartime, revising the sect constitution, and winning elections. These political battles for control of the Ōtani organization were not carried out in a silo separate from the rest of the nation. In the modern 216

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period, owing to processes of secularization, the Ōtani community had become less autonomous and more exposed to external political and economic pressures. Thus, each new doctrinal debate, protest move­ ment, and institutional reform within the Ōtani community was shaped by some broader national or international political issue. Kiyozawa’s development of a discourse of religious empiricism and his disciples’ efforts to gain influence at Shinshū University were especially shaped by the politics of science. The new Meiji state had called on the people to cast aside “evil customs of the past” and seek knowledge from around the world. In the views of many Meiji thought leaders, this meant dis­ pensing with superstitious religions like Buddhism and prioritizing the study of Western science and philosophy. Modern Buddhists tried to counteract such hostilities and demonstrate Buddhism’s usefulness to the nation in various ways (e.g., opposition to Christianity, communism, and the new religions, social welfare activities, contributions to public education, moral instruction), but that entire project depended on making the case that Buddhist teachings were based on real knowledge and not superstition. In the modern world, something was real if it could be proved empirically. Working within such parameters, Kiyo­ zawa, Sasaki, Soga, and Kaneko presented Shin Buddhism as grounded in experience and not contradicted by reason. Demythologizing the myth of Dharmākara and recasting the Pure Land in Platonic philo­ sophical terms, their this-worldly explanations of Shin teachings departed dramatically from the prevailing orthodoxy. Yet such reinter­ pretations did not simply subjugate Shin Buddhism to the dictates of scientific empiricism; rather, they asserted an expanded conception of empiricism that included “subjective facts” confirmable through pri­ vate experience and through study of the records of others’ private experiences. Neither a superficial dressing up of Buddhism in scientific language nor a total subjugation of Buddhism to science, their Shin modernism arose through an attempt to synthesize the methods and language of science with what they took to be the immaterial, spiritual truths of Buddhism. A similar pattern is evident in the Shin modernists’ navigation of the politics of the Fifteen Years’ War, when Japanese citizens were pressured to support the war in material ways and through ideological unity cen­ tered on loyalty to the divine emperor. In this context, Soga, Kaneko, and Akegarasu articulated a new vision of Shin Buddhism as aligned with the ideals of State Shinto and supportive of the war effort. Admir­ ers of Soga and Kaneko may want to explain their wartime statements as 217

Conclusion

a superficial dressing of Buddhism in nationalistic language in the face of extraordinary pressures. If Soga and Kaneko merely said what was required of them while privately maintaining their pure Buddhist faith, it would be easier to excuse—and ignore—their wartime writings as an aberration. However, the evidence presented in this book makes such an explanation untenable. Soga and Kaneko argued forcefully and passion­ ately in favor of the unity of Amida and the emperor when that was by no means required of them. Their wartime theology was not a response to demands foisted on them; it was a proactive effort to make sense of Shinto nationalism and demonstrate the relevance of Buddhist teach­ ings to Japan’s wartime situation. In an earlier era, the Shin modernists had made efforts to adapt Buddhism to a new age of scientific rational­ ism; during the Fifteen Years’ War, they did the same in relation to Shinto nationalism. In a tragic but sincere attempt to ascribe Buddhist meanings to the war and the imperial house, they came to sacralize the emperor as a manifestation of Amida and the war as part of the unfold­ ing of Amida’s Primal Vow. When the war ended, Soga and Kaneko stopped speaking of a path to buddhahood through loyalty to the emperor. In modest ways, they con­ fessed that their wartime views had been misguided. However, they did not abandon their view of Amida’s Primal Vow as an immanent force within human history. During the war, they had interpreted Japan’s imperial house as a vessel for the unfolding of Amida’s Vow; in the post­ war period, they interpreted Amida’s Vow as unfolding through the ongoing formation of a community of dōbō from Śākyamuni and Ānanda to Hōnen and Shinran to the present-day Shinjin Society. In the context of a postwar society intent on democratization, Kurube declared Shin faith as modeled by Kiyozawa to be perfectly in line with modern demo­ cratic values, and Soga and Yasuda promoted the egalitarian principle that all members of the Buddhist community—from sect founder Shin­ ran to ordinary laypeople—can share in the “oneness of faith.” These new doctrinal developments and related institutional reforms could be interpreted as calculated responses to trends of the time or as instances of Buddhism’s subjugation to a non-Buddhist ideology, but again, the reality was more complex. When administrative power over the Ōtani organization was for the first time in history placed in the hands of ordinary priests, that gave modernist reformers like Kurube the oppor­ tunity to reshape the Ōtani community as they saw fit. As a result, ques­ tions about the nature of the sangha and the meaning of “dōbō” naturally became more salient. Prompted by democratization of the nation and of 218

Conclusion

the Ōtani organization, Soga, Yasuda, Kurube, and Akegarasu advanced new ideas and institutional reforms that resonated with widely held democratic ideals while remaining grounded in Shin teachings about ignorance and self-critique. The Shin modernists’ distinctive tendency to adapt Buddhism to the changing politics of the era helps explain why they were able to prevail and establish a new orthodoxy. By rendering Shin teachings more believ­ able and legitimate through incorporation of scientific language and methods of study, Kiyozawa and his disciples generated enthusiasm for Shin modernism among young, educated Ōtani priests and students. By synthesizing Shin teachings with State Shinto ideology during the war, Soga, Kaneko, and Akegarasu met the needs of their community and thereby won reinstatements and promotions. And by advancing a vision of an egalitarian organization of dōbō in a time of democratization, Ku­ rube won election as head of sect affairs. What accounts for this pattern of adaptation? Opportunism may have played a role. Confident in the “subjective facts” of their own faith and devoted to the mission of spreading that faith, Kiyozawa and his disci­ ples were always seeking ways to amplify their voices and speak to more people. In developing wartime views harmonizing Shin Buddhism with State Shinto ideology, Kaneko and Soga may have been partly motivated by a desire for recognition and reinstatement into the Ōtani community. Likewise, Kurube’s appeals to democratic values and his campaigns for the establishment of an egalitarian community of dōbō may in part have been strategies aimed at winning political power for himself and his allies. In fact, Yasuda maligned Kurube for resorting to political tech­ niques rather than remaining focused on the pursuit of faith for self and others. Yet as argued above, there is good reason to believe that the Shin modernists were genuinely passionate about their adaptive responses to science, war, and democracy. A better explanation for the Shin modernists’ adaptability may lie in their this-worldly doctrinal stance. For the Shin modernists, salvation through faith in Amida takes place during this life, not in some otherworldly Pure Land after death. This world is where sacred history unfolds. From this viewpoint, the Japanese emperor’s declaration of war or the establishment of a more democratic Shin community could be understood as sacred events expressive of the unfolding of Amida’s Pri­ mal Vow. Not just witnesses to this sacred history, the Shin modernists concluded they were active participants personally responsible for the fulfillment of Amida’s Vow and the adornment of Amida’s Pure Land. 219

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The growth of the sangha and the salvation of all sentient beings depended on their efforts in this world. This doctrinal standpoint fos­ tered a more engaged attitude toward contemporary historical events. This “socially engaged” Buddhism manifested in a qualified embrace of science and rationalism, advocacy for democratization, and support for emperor-centered nationalism.11 In each case, the Shin modernists sought to adapt to the social and political realities of the day in ways that best advanced their sacred mission. By contrast, traditionalist Shin leaders and scholars developed the two-truths doctrinal framework to explain why Shin Buddhists ought to be loyal subjects of the emperor. The establishment of this doctrinal framework at the start of the Meiji period was certainly an adaptive response to the politics of the time, but the result was a sharpening of the bifurcation of the cosmos into a worldly realm defined by secular politics and an other-worldly realm defined by ultimate religious truth. Natu­ rally, traditionalist members of the Shin community would continue to make efforts to adapt to the times in order to preserve and promote Shin traditions, yet they did not understand those efforts as filled with cosmic significance in the same way that the modernists did. Unlike the mod­ ernists, they did not consider themselves direct witnesses to the accom­ plishment of Amida’s Primal Vow, let alone agents responsible for it. The Shin modernists, urgently seeking awakening in this life and feeling personally responsible for the fulfillment of Amida’s Primal Vow, flexibly adapted Buddhism to the ideological and social-political forces of the modern world. Yet in the process, they facilitated the refashioning of Buddhist teachings by those broader forces and the co-opting of Bud­ dhist communities by the state. The same aspect of Shin modernism that rendered it so appealing and influential—its adaptability—was also the source of its most troubling consequences. Adaptation invited cooptation. The modernists’ insistence on free inquiry, their appeal to sub­ jective facts of introspection, and their avowals that Amida’s Primal Vow was operative in the historical present all brought Shin Buddhist teach­ ings alive for members of the modern Ōtani community. Yet those same reforms helped precipitate a situation in which there were precious few established doctrines or fixed principles.

Ethics and Autonomy In his writings on Zen ethics, Christopher Ives highlights adaptability as both a positive trait and potential pitfall in Zen Buddhists’ responses to 220

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ethical challenges. In a positive sense, Zen practitioners who awaken to the Buddhist truth of emptiness are said to overcome attachment to dualistic categories and fixed viewpoints, gaining “flexibility and a greater ability to deal honestly with the gray areas that characterise so much of the ethical realm.”12 In a negative sense, negation of the self and rejection of fixed viewpoints open up possibilities for co-optation: “‘Emp­ tying’ the self also empties out resistance. Sweeping clear the mirror of the mind provides a useful tabula rasa for ideological inscription, for constituting or reconstituting subjects as the political situation dictates.”13 To illustrate the problem, Ives quotes D. T. Suzuki declaring that Zen is “extremely flexible in adapting itself to almost any philoso­ phy and moral doctrine” and “may be found wedded to anarchism or fascism, communism or democracy, atheism or idealism, or any political or economic dogmatism.”14 Kaneko’s and Soga’s adaptation of Shin teach­ ings to the changing politics of the twentieth century manifests the same tendency. By rejecting established orthodoxy, abandoning fixed standpoints, and placing the highest trust in their own personal spiri­ tual experiences, they cleared the way for new doctrinal understandings and ethical stances that spoke directly to present conditions while also rendering themselves more vulnerable to political co-optation. In Ives’s view, the historical facts of war-supportive “Imperial-Way Buddhism,” which implicate revered Zen masters as much as ordinary laypeople, belie the oft-expressed view that Buddhist awakening natu­ rally yields compassionate, socially ethical behavior. If social ethics involve understanding and confronting the underlying sources of peo­ ple’s suffering, it is doubtful that Buddhist awakening alone—unaccom­ panied by critical analysis of social structures—could provide sufficient grounds for a robust social ethics.15 Similarly, in the case of Shin Bud­ dhism, it is worth questioning the idea—implied in Kiyozawa’s “My Faith” essay and in Soga’s reflections on the Fifteen Years’ War—that a transformative experience of union with Amida will naturally lead to more socially ethical behavior.16 The dilemma, as perceived by Ives and Zen thinkers distraught by Zen’s history of militarism and political acquiescence, is how to con­ struct a systematic Zen social ethics while rejecting fixed viewpoints and enabling free and flexible responses to ethical challenges. Ives con­ cludes that such an ethics could best be constructed on the basis of sote­ riological principles set forth in the Four Noble Truths, provided that the Buddhist concept of suffering is expanded to encompass physical and emotional suffering.17 In regard to Shin, Ugo Dessì has carried out a 221

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project parallel to Ives’s, cataloging modern Shin thinkers’ efforts to construct a systematic Shin ethics. A major obstacle confronting those efforts is the core Shin doctrine that good and evil acts are irrelevant to the question of salvation. Despite that obstacle, Shin thinkers have plumbed scriptural accounts of Dharmākara’s vows, Amida’s Pure Land, and Shinran’s life and teachings in an effort to formulate a Shin social ethics grounded in ideals of peace, interdependency, gratitude, compas­ sion, and fellowship.18 For Buddhist communities intent on avoiding political co-optation, the formulation of a systematic Buddhist social ethics is clearly an important and necessary step forward. A more well-defined ethical framework might have led Soga and Kaneko to judge Japanese imperial­ ism differently. However, just formulating a systematic ethics is no guar­ antee that it will become and remain authoritative for a community. During the Fifteen Years’ War, political pressures compelled the Ōtani community to enact a series of politically expedient institutional and doctrinal reforms. Any whispers of pacifism derived from Shin ideals of a peaceful Pure Land were drowned out by calls to mobilize in support of the national war effort. A similar dynamic played out during the post­ war period when facing pressures to democratize. In both instances, the Ōtani community’s responses to outside political pressures ought to be understood in light of its lack of autonomy. During the Meiji Restoration period, the Fifteen Years’ War, and the immediate postwar years, the Ōtani community and its institutions faced threats of an existential nature. A tumult of legislative changes, cultural shifts, and interna­ tional crises again and again rendered the Ōtani community—and Japa­ nese Buddhist communities generally—weak and vulnerable to outside pressures. If autonomy is a prerequisite for moral responsibility, it is worth considering the moral repercussions of Buddhist communities’ relative lack of autonomy during this period. Bourdieu argues that a cultural field operates according to its own laws to the extent that it enjoys autonomy vis-à-vis other fields of power. Regardless of how successful Buddhist thinkers are at formulating and communicating a more robust ethics, Buddhist communities will be unlikely to uphold those ethics if they do not enjoy a certain degree of autonomy and security. What would that mean in practice? In regard to artistic fields, Bourdieu associates autonomy with high levels of educa­ tion and social diversity among the public that consumes artistic goods, high numbers of producers and merchants of artistic goods, and a large and diverse set of artistic institutions including academies, salons, and 222

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publishers. In the case of Buddhism, an autonomous field might be char­ acterized by a sizable and geographically and socially diverse base of devout members, a large and diverse set of members engaged in doctri­ nal studies and debates, an efficiently functioning financial system, an organizational structure fostering trust in leaders and community cohesion, and existence within a stable political system supportive of Buddhist institutions’ autonomy. Regardless of the precise nature of these ideal conditions, the point here is that a well-articulated Buddhist ethics will mean little without a robust, autonomously functioning Bud­ dhist community. Autonomy need not imply isolation from the rest of society. An auton­ omous Buddhist field, in Bourdieu’s terms, would be one sufficiently endowed with political, economic, and cultural capital such that it can adequately support a subfield of preachers, scholars, administrators, and other community leaders, insulating them from external political pressures and enabling authority to be distributed among them accord­ ing to Buddhism’s internal laws, rather than laws external to Buddhism. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Ōtani community conspicuously lacked such autonomy, and this helps account for its pattern of major doctrinal and institutional reforms in response to external pressures. Owing to their this-worldly doctrinal standpoints and flexible prac­ tices of doctrinal interpretation, Soga, Kaneko, and their modernist allies were best positioned to lead Ōtani’s reform efforts. However, it would be incorrect to view them as the primary force behind those reforms. The Ōtani community as a whole brought about changes in its doctrinal and political stances by investing authority in the modernists. The ethics of a Buddhist community, like its orthodoxy, is not the intel­ lectual product of a handful of extraordinary individuals; it is the politi­ cal product of the entire community. Recognizing this, scholars of Buddhist ethics ought to expand their scope of inquiry beyond abstract doctrinal questions to more concrete issues of institutional structure, community composition, and political autonomy.19

Agents of Revolution This book’s narrative has foregrounded the work of leading Shin ­modernist thinkers like Soga Ryōjin and Kaneko Daiei. However, Soga and Kaneko did not single-handedly transform the Ōtani community and usher in a new orthodoxy any more than Kiyozawa did. Just as 223

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Kiyozawa’s voice was amplified and altered by his disciples, so too were his disciples’ voices amplified and altered by others. Administrators like Ishikawa Shuntai and Abe Keisui facilitated the careers of Kiyozawa and his disciples. Faculty, students, and journalists supported Kaneko and Soga in the midst of their heresy scandals. After ousting Kaneko and Soga from Ōtani University in 1928 and 1930, powerful members of the Ōtani family were responsible for reinstating and promoting them a decade later. And in the postwar period, multitudes of priests and lay­ people contributed to the Shinjin Society movement, Kurube’s electoral victories, and the Dōbōkai movement. All these individuals and groups contributed to the establishment of the new orthodoxy. It can even be argued that scholars like Saitō Yuishin and Kōno Hōun, wealthy laymen like Tashiro Jūemon, administrators like Shimotsuma Kūkyō and Sue­ hiro Aihō, and many others indirectly contributed to the new orthodoxy by resisting, debating, challenging, and thereby subtly shaping the views and actions of the modernists. Over the course of this history, the power to determine sect ortho­ doxy increasingly spread to the Ōtani community as a whole. On paper, the chief abbot and his appointed representatives on the Inquiry Com­ mittee continued to possess the authority to determine sect orthodoxy until 1981. In practice, however, that authority was already compro­ mised when the Meiji state adopted policies separating religion and state and ended its involvement in Buddhist heresy disputes. The develop­ ment of Ōtani University produced a growing segment within the Ōtani community committed to free and open study of Buddhist teachings. With the Kaneko heresy affair, an intractable conflict arose between wealthy donors opposed to Kaneko’s nontraditional teachings and stu­ dents and faculty demanding recognition of Kaneko’s right to free inquiry. During the war, the chief abbot and his family members exerted their influence to compel the Ōtani community to patriotic service, but even then, the pragmatic needs of ordinary priests and laypeople may have had decisive influence. When priest Kizu Muan declared, “One morning, a bomb is going to come! . . . At this point in time, the king’s law and Buddha’s law are one. We must be very clear on that,” he was demanding clear and unwavering support for the view that Shin and State Shinto teachings were aligned. The decisions to reinstate and pro­ mote Kaneko and Soga met that demand. In the postwar period, a new democratic sect constitution granted elected bodies of Ōtani priests and laypeople the power to select their head of sect affairs. This gradual dis­ persal of authority from the chief abbot to the broader Ōtani community 224

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made the Shin modernists’ revolutionary rise to power possible. Shin modernist thought ultimately prevailed because a large swath of the Ōtani community wanted it to prevail. As stated at the outset of this book, the Buddha and the dharma are not just contained and transmit­ ted by, but are also generated by, the sangha. Within the world of mod­ ern Shin Buddhism, new this-worldly conceptions of Buddha and dharma were generated by a community of people who had been empow­ ered through processes of democratization, who had come to idealize free inquiry and debate, and who were intent on attaining awakening here and now in this life.

Postscript On the morning of June 3, 2013, I traveled by train from Kyoto to the small city of Hekinan (formerly Ōhama) to attend memorial services at Kiyozawa’s temple, Saihōji. Although the day’s services would mark the 150th anniversary of Kiyozawa’s birth, the site of Saihōji called to mind associations not of Kiyozawa’s birth but of his sickness and death—alone in an unremarkable temple in a small town on Ise Bay, far from Japan’s urban centers. Over the course of his life, Kiyozawa adopted a series of pen names. One of them, Bay Breeze (Hinpū, 浜風), referred to the windy conditions in Ōhama. By way of further explanation, Kiyozawa com­ mented, “It is a suitable pen name for a ghost-like person such as myself, half-dead and half-alive.”20 Over a century after his death, by virtue of a transformation of Ōtani orthodoxy, Kiyozawa’s ghost-like existence has taken on many tangible and lasting forms—books, portraits, statues, monuments, a museum, and more. Arriving at the temple at midday, I was greeted by volunteers sitting at a table with a display of books and souvenirs for sale. I purchased some postcards depicting Kiyozawa and Saihōji, an accordion-folded booklet of Kiyozawa’s “The Great Path of Absolute Other Power,” and a bright green furoshiki wrapping cloth printed with images of two sen­ tences from Kiyozawa’s December Fan Diary: “Know Thyself is the Motto of Human Existence” (in English) and “自己トハ何ゾヤ　是レ人世ノ根本的問題 ナリ” (What am I? This is the fundamental question of life.).21 Like other products of Kiyozawa’s memorialization, these souvenirs both amplified and altered Kiyozawa’s message. The vibrant display of two phrases from Kiyozawa’s diary—English and Japanese renderings of a famous ancient Greek maxim—drew attention both to Kiyozawa’s emphasis on introspection and to his facility with foreign languages and engagement 225

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with foreign philosophies. After studying philosophies and religions from all around the world, Kiyozawa had looked within himself and had discovered that the ultimate truth could be found in the Buddhist teach­ ings of Shinran. The force of this message, however, was dampened somewhat by the kitschy medium used to express it: mass-produced furoshiki cloths, typically used for wrapping gifts or bento boxes. A crowd of maybe a hundred people attended the event. Kiyozawa’s great-grandson, the head priest of the temple, welcomed everyone. A rep­ resentative of the Kiyozawa Manshi Memorial Society then gave a short address on the significance Kiyozawa had accorded to direct personal experience of Buddhist teachings. I jotted down the word “jikken” on my program—noting how Kiyozawa’s followers continued to use a term meaning “experiment” to describe personal spiritual “experiences.” Then followed the main religious ceremonies. As part of those ceremo­ nies, the congregation joined together in chanting the “Verses of Praise of the Buddha” from the Sutra on Immeasurable Life: “The shining face of the Buddha is glorious; / boundless is his magnificence. / Radiant splen­ dour such as his / is beyond all comparison.”22 We then chanted select verses from Akegarasu’s “Veneration of Teacher Kiyozawa Manshi”: “Śākyamuni of Kapilavastu / returned to the world three thousand years later, / born in the town of Nagoya / and given the name of Kiyozawa Manshi.” The juxtaposition of these two texts conveyed the sense that sacred history was continuing to unfold in modern times. Just as Dharmākara had encountered Lokesvarāja Buddha before going on to issue his world-transforming vows, Akegarasu and his contemporaries had encountered a buddha in the form of Kiyozawa. Encountering a bud­ dha, issuing sacred vows, and adorning the Pure Land—all these elements of Shin mythology could be actualized here and now in the present. The event program distributed to all the attendees included a state­ ment by Ōtani Nobufumi, a high-ranking member of the chief abbot’s family. Nobufumi’s statement pertained to Kiyozawa’s experiments in ascetic living and their significance for Japanese people today suffering the effects of a hypercompetitive, consumerist society: “Now, 150 years after the birth of Kiyozawa, we truly live in an age of ‘maximum possi­ ble.’ Now that the harmful effects of that have become so apparent, I think we may want to reconsider and learn from Teacher’s ‘minimum possible.’” Kiyozawa’s asceticism had long been interpreted as a selfpowered effort that Kiyozawa had to abandon before arriving at true faith. But now, in response to the excesses of late-stage capitalism, Kiyo­ zawa’s life and teachings were being mined for new lessons. 226

Conclusion

Following the services, a ninety-minute lecture was given by special guest Miyazaki Tetsuya, a political pundit, television personality, and public voice on religious matters. A self-identified Buddhist who dis­ claims any sectarian affiliation, Miyazaki gave a lecture titled “Bud­ dhism that Progresses with the Times: Tradition and Innovation” that expressed his personal admiration for Kiyozawa. Judging by flyers and online announcements that prominently displayed Miyazaki’s name and photograph together with a list of television programs he regularly appeared in, it seemed the event organizers had hoped Miyazaki’s pres­ ence would attract a large crowd. The struggle to win symbolic capital for Pure Land Buddhist teachings continued. And that meant selecting not a Shin priest or scholar but a TV celebrity with no affiliation to the Ōtani community to speak for Kiyozawa. Over the course of the day’s events, I made the acquaintance of an older man, a layman, who was eager to hear about my research and to show me his heavily worn and marked-up copy of a book of Kiyozawa’s writings, a book that had been published fifty years earlier on the occa­ sion of the hundredth anniversary of Kiyozawa’s birth. The small, ­hundred-page book contained eleven selections of Kiyozawa’s writings, most of them abridged, all but two selected from Kiyozawa’s final Seishinshugi years. It also contained a brief biography, foreword, and afterword written by the book’s editors, two second-generation disciples of Kiyozawa. While scholars at Ōtani University were painstakingly gathering and examining the original handwritten documents of Kiyo­ zawa’s writings, trying to reconstruct a purer picture of Kiyozawa unfil­ tered by his disciples’ additions, this man’s faith in Kiyozawa was rooted in a work very much curated and framed by his disciples. The man and I exchanged information, and weeks later, he mailed me a short letter along with copies of two short collections of Kiyozawa’s writings. He guessed that I may already have owned the books but explained that it was no trouble for him since he had a surplus of copies, apparently for the sake of distributing to friends and acquaintances. Kiyozawa’s writings—rather than the Pure Land sutras, Shinran’s Tannisho, or Rennyo’s letters—were this man’s primary window onto Shin teachings. Advancing in age, he did not direct his thoughts toward rebirth in an other-worldly land of bliss but toward the remaining life he had left in this world: “I am seventy years old, so I think I do not have much life remaining. From my various teachers to Teacher Kiyozawa to Saint Shinran to the Tathāgata, I study the teachings of Shin Buddhism, hoping to live this precious life with no regrets.” 227

Glossary of Institutional Terms academic dean: gakkan, 学監 Academy: Daigakuryō, 大学寮 Accounting Council: Kaikei Hyōgiinkai, 会計評議員会 Accounting Department: Kaikeibu, 会計部 Accounting Directors Committee: Kaikei Jōmuiinkai, 会計常務委員会 advisor: sanmu, 参務 Assembly of Lay Representatives: Monto Hyōgiinkai, 門徒評議員会 assistant chief administrator: fuku-kanchō, 副管長 branch temples: matsuji, 末寺 cabinet: naikyoku, 内局 chief abbot: kanchō, 官長 chief advisor: kyōho, 夾輔 Committee of Elders: Kishukukai,耆宿会 Dharma Affairs Office: Hōmukyoku, 法務局 dharma master: hossu, 法主 Dharma Preservation Hall: Gohōjō, 護法場 Dōbō Adult Training Course: Dōbō Sōnen Kenshūkai, 同朋壮年研修会 Dōbō Life movement: Dōbō Seikatsu undō, 同朋生活運動 Doctrinal Affairs Bureau: Kyogakukyoku, 教学局 Doctrinal Affairs Department: Kyogakubu, 教学部 doctrinal instructor: kyōdōshoku, 教導職 Doctrinal Studies Council: Kyōgaku Shōgikai, 教学商議会 Doctrinal Studies Renewal Council: Kyōgaku Sasshin Hyōgikai, 教学刷新評議会 finance counselor: kaikeibu komon, 会計部顧問 Financial Auditing Department: Zaimu Kansabu, 財務監査部 General Affairs Department: Sōmubu, 総務部 general counselor: komon, 顧問 Great Promulgation Campaign: Taikyō Senpu Undō, 大教宣布運動 hall priest: dōsō, 堂僧 229

Institutional Terms Glossary head of doctrinal affairs: kyōgaku buchō, 教学部長 head of sect affairs: shūmu sōchō, 宗務総長 head of temple affairs: jimu sōchō, 寺務総長 Home Ministry: Naimushō, 内務省 Imperial Rule Assistance Association: Taisei Yokusankai, 体政翼賛会 Inquiry Committee: Jitōryō, 侍董寮 Institute of Shinto Ceremonies: Jingiin, 神祇院 Internal Affairs Office: Naijikyoku, 内事局 Japanese Culture Association: Nihon Bunka Kyōkai, 日本文化協会 Ministry of Doctrine: Kyōbushō, 教部省 Ministry of Education: Monbushō, 文部省 National Spirit and Culture Research Association: Kokumin Seishin Bunka Kenkyūjo, 国民精神文化研究所 New Order: Shin Taisei, 新体制 Ōtani Doctrinal Studies Research Institute: Ōtani Kyōgaku Kenkyūjo, 大谷教学 研究所 Parliament: Giseikyoku, 議制局; renamed Giseikai, 議制会, in 1921 Perpetuation Confraternity: Sōzokukō, 相続講 Private School Ordinance: Shiritsu Gakkōrei, 私立学校令 Promoter Training: Suishin’in Kyōshū, 推進員教習 Propagation of the Teachings Institute: Kyōka Kenkyūjo, 教化研究所 Raise Asia Bureau: Kōakyoku, 興亜局 regional head temples: chūhonzan, 中本山 Religious Corporations Ordinance: Shūkyō Hōjinrei, 宗教法人令 Religious Issues Research Conferences: Shūkyō Mondai Kenkyūkai, 宗教問題研 究会 Religious Movement Research Association: Shūkyō Undō Kenkyūkai, 宗教運動 研究会 Religious Organizations Law: Shūkyō Dantai-hō, 宗教団体法 Sect Affairs Advisory Committee: Shūmu Komonkai, 宗務顧問会 Sect Parliament: Shūgikai, 宗議会 Sectarian Tenets Advisory Committee: Shūi Shimonkai, 宗意諮問会 Sectarian Tenets Committee: Shūi Shingikai, 宗意審議会 Sectarian Vehicle Institute: Shūjō Senkōin, 宗乗専攻院 Service to the Mausoleum: Honbyō Hōshi, 本廟奉仕 Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference: Shinshū Kyōgaku Kondankai, 真宗教学懇 談会 230

Institutional Terms Glossary Shin Graduate Institute: Shinshū Daigakuin 真宗大学院; renamed Shūgakuin, 宗学院, in 1930 Shin Ōtani Sectarian Studies Prosperity Foundation: Shinshū Ōtani-ha Shūgaku Kōryū Zaidan, 真宗大谷派宗学興隆財団 Special Transmission of the Way: Tokubetsu Dendō, 特別伝道 Takakura Academy: Takakura Gakuryō, 高倉学寮 Teaching District Lay Assemblies: Kyōku Montokai, 教区門徒会 Transmission of the Way Training Course: Dendō Kenshūkai, 伝道研修会 University Ordinance: Daigakurei, 大学令 Upper Office: Jōkyoku, 上局 Vocational School Ordinance: Senmon Gakkōrei, 専門学校令

231

Glossary of Books and Articles

Akegarasu Haya “Veneration of Teacher Kiyozawa Manshi”: Kiyozawa Manshi sensei sangyō, 清沢満之先生讃仰

Anonymous “Proposal for a Student Council”: Gakusei shingikai no teishō, 学生審議会の提唱

Fukuzawa Yukichi An Encouragement of Learning: Gakumon no susume, 学問のすすめ

Fumon Entsū Astronomy of the Buddhist Land: Bukkoku rekishōhen, 仏国暦象編 Empirical Explanation of the Sumeru World: Jikken Shumikai setsu, 実験須弥界説

Gijō Records of Experiences of Cause and Effect in the Three Times of the Mundane World: Tsūzoku sansei inga jikken roku, 通俗三世因果実験録

Kaneko Daiei The Forty-Eight Vows as Ideals for the State: The Sutra on Immeasurable Life: Kokka risō to shite no yonjūhachi gan: Daimuryōjukyō, 国家理想としての四十八願: 大無量 寿経 The Idea of the Pure Land: Jōdo no kannen, 浄土の観念 The Ideas of the Tathāgata and the Pure Land in Shin Buddhism: Shinshū ni okeru Nyorai oyobi Jōdo no kannen, 真宗に於ける如来及浄土の観念 Outlines of Buddhism: Bukkyō gairon, 仏教概論 Prince Shōtoku as Seen by Saint Shinran: Shinran Shōnin ni eizeru Shōtoku Taishi, 親鸞 聖人に映ぜる聖徳太子 Prolegomena to Shin Studies: Shinshūgaku josetsu, 真宗学序説 Religious Awakening: Shūkyōteki kakusei, 宗教的覚醒 The World of the Other Shore: Higan no sekai, 彼岸の世界 233

Books and Articles Glossary

Kaneko Daiei and Soga Ryojin Essentials of Shin Buddhism: Shinshū no yōgi, 真宗の要義

Kiyozawa Manshi December Fan Diary: Rōsenki, 臘扇記 “Discussing the Kanrenkai”: Kanrenkai o ronzu 貫練会を論す Draft of a Skeleton of Other Power Philosophy: Tarikimon tetsugaku gaikotsu shikō, 他力 門哲学骸骨試稿 “The Great Path of Absolute Other Power”: Zettai tariki no daidō, 絶対他力の大道 “My Faith”: Wa ga shinnen, 我信念 Notes on the Finite and the Infinite: Yūgen mugen roku, 有限無限録 “Religious Teachings Are Subjective Facts”: Shūkyō wa shukanteki jijitsu nari, 宗教は主観的事実なり “Science and Religion”: Kagaku to shūkyō, 科学と宗教 Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion: Shūkyō tetsugaku gaikotsu, 宗教哲学骸骨 “This Is How I Have Faith in Buddha”: Ware wa kono gotoku Nyorai o shinzu, 我は此の如く如来を信ず “Truth and Religion”: Shinri to shūkyō, 真理と宗教 “A View of Equality”: Byōdōkan, 平等観 “World of Experience”: Keiken sekai, 経験世界

Kono Hōun Shin Buddhism’s Views of Kami: Shinshū no jingikan, 真宗の神祇観

Kurube Shin’yū “The First Step Toward the Formation of the Sangha”: Sōgya keisei no dai ippo, 僧伽形成の大一歩

Kyōka Kenkyūjo (Propagation of the Teachings Institute) Kiyozawa Manshi Research: Kiyozawa Manshi no kenkyū, 清沢満之の研究 Sacred Scripture for the Present Age: Introduction to the Sutra on the Contemplation of Immeasurable Life: Gendai no seiten: Kanmuryōjukyō jobun, 現代の聖典：観無量 寿経序文

Miyazaki Tetsuya “Buddhism that Progresses with the Times: Tradition and Innovation”: Jidai to tomo ni shinka suru Bukkyō: Dentō to kakushin, 時代とともに進化する仏 教：伝統と革新 234

Books and Articles Glossary

Monbushō (Ministry of Education) The Fundamentals of Our National Body: Kokutai no hongi, 国体の本義

Murakami Sensho “Higashi Honganji’s Orthodoxy Problems”: Higashi Honganji no anjin mondai, 東本願寺の安心問題

O Inaura “Our Attitude Regarding the Communist Party Incident”: Kyōsantō Jiken to warera no taido, 共産党事件と我等の態度

Saito Yuishin “Buddhist Teachings and Japanese Spirit”: Bukkyō kyōri to Nihon seishin, 仏教 教理と日本精神 Shin Faith and Its Teachings: Shinshū no shinkō to sono kyōgi, 真宗の信仰とその教義

Sasaki Gessho “Ōtani University’s Founding Spirit”: Ōtani Daigaku juritsu no seishin, 大谷大学 樹立の精神 Outlines of Shin Buddhism: Shinshū gairon, 真宗概論 Religion of Experience: Jikken no shūkyō, 実験の宗教

Shimaji Mokurai “Priests Should Engage in Public Education Immediately”: Sōryo wa sumiyaka ni futsū kyōiku ni jūji subeshi, 僧侶は速に普通教育に従事すべし

Shimotsuma Kukyo “The Bounds of Sectarian Studies Research and Classes at Sectarian Universi­ ties”: Shūmon daigaku ni okeru shūgaku no kenkyū oyobi jugyō no genkai, 宗門大学に於ける宗学の研究及授業の限界 “Concerning the Communist Party Incident”: Kyōsantō Jiken ni tsukite, 共産党 事件に就きて “Guidance of ‘Thought Guidance’ ”: “Shisō Zendō” no zendō,「思想善導」の善導

Soga Ryojin “Behold the Man”: Kono hito o miyo, この人を見よ “Die in Faith, Live in the Vow”: Shin ni shishi gan ni ikiyo, 信に死し願に生きよ “One Taste of Master and Disciple”: Shitei ichimi, 師弟一味 235

Books and Articles Glossary “The Practical Significance of the Absolute and Worldly Two Truths”: Shinzoku nitai no jissenteki igi, 真俗二諦の実践的意義 “A Savior on Earth: The Meaning of Dharmākara Bodhisattva’s Advent”: Chijō no kyūshu: Hōzō Bosatsu shutsugen no igi, 地上の救主：法蔵菩薩出現の意義 “The Second Restoration of the Shin Sect”: Shinshū daini no saikō, 真宗第二 の再興 “Shinran’s View of Buddhist History”: Shinran no Bukkyōshi-kan, 親鸞の仏 教史観 “Transcend the Individual”: Kojin o koeyo, 個人を超えよ View of the Three Minds as Categories of the Manifestation of the Buddha: Nyorai hyōgen no hanchū to shite no sanjin-kan, 如来表現の範疇としての三心観

Tsuda Mamichi “Discussing Methods for Advancing Enlightenment”: Kaika o susumuru hōhō o ronzu, 開化を進る方法を論す

Tsunashima Ryōsen “My Experiences Seeing God”: Yo ga kenshin no jikken, 予が見神の実験

236

Notes Introduction

1 Kiyozawa gave his essay two titles: first, “This Is How I Have Faith in Bud­ dha,” and then in parentheses, “My Faith.” His followers came to refer to the essay by the shorter title. The original essay, as well as the slightly edited version that was published in Seishinkai, can be found in KMZ, vol. 6. For an English translation, see Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 93–98. For the Japanese titles of these essays and other works referred to throughout this book, see the glossary of book and article titles. 2 This quote by Jōdo Buddhist priest Fukuda Gyōkai appears in Collcutt, “Bud­ dhism.” Recent scholarship has nuanced our standard picture of Buddhism in crisis at the start of the Meiji period. First, scholars have shown various ways in which Buddhism and Shinto already existed independently in the Tokugawa period (which suggests that the Meiji edicts were not quite as transformational as they have sometimes been portrayed). Also, a previous view of those edicts as specifically targeting Buddhism for persecution has been debunked (although there is no question those edicts had negative ramifications for individual Buddhists and Buddhist organizations) (Ueno, “Shinbutsu bunri”). Regarding the haibutsu kishaku (廃仏毀釈) riots, Klautau has argued that the extent of those riots came to be exaggerated by modern Buddhist reformers (and later by historians of Buddhism) who sought to portray them as justified popular reactions against the decadent world of Tokugawa Buddhism (Klautau, “Against the Ghosts”; “Nihon shūkyōshigaku”). 3 For discussions of anti-Buddhist discourse in the late Tokugawa period and Meiji periods, see Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs. Regarding Japanese Bud­ dhist responses to the perceived conflict between Buddhism and science, see Okada, “Vision and Reality” and Wasurerareta Bukkyō tenmongaku; God­ art, Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine, 70–118; and Josephson, “When Buddhism Became a ‘Religion.’” 4 Kiyozawa’s childhood name was Tokunaga Mannosuke (徳永満之助), with Mannosuke later shortened to Manshi (満之). At the time of his marriage in 1888 to the daughter of the head priest of Saihōji Temple, he was adopted into their family and granted the new surname of Kiyozawa (清沢). For a short biography of Kiyozawa in English, see Blum and Rhodes, C­ ultivating Spirituality. For fuller treatments, see Johnston, “Kiyozawa Manshi’s Buddhist Faith”; and Fasan, “Kiyozawa Manshi.” For Japanese biographies of 237

Notes to Pages 3–4 Kiyozawa, see Nishimura, Kiyozawa Manshi sensei; Yoshida, Kiyozawa Manshi; and Kyōgaku Kenkyūjo, Kiyozawa Manshi. 5 The foundational Pure Land Buddhist concept of shinjin (信心) is generally translated into English either as “a mind of faith” or “a mind of entrusting.” The latter translation helps convey that shinjin primarily relates to an atti­ tude of giving oneself over to and relying on Amida Buddha rather than a cognitive belief in Amida’s existence or power. However, in the case of mod­ ern Buddhists like Kiyozawa, who were often preoccupied with questions of existence, this distinction becomes blurrier. Kiyozawa and other modern Japanese Buddhists themselves translated shinjin and related terms (shinnen, 信念; shinkō, 信仰; shinzuru, 信ずる) into English as “faith,” so I will do the same. While Kiyozawa did not tend to use the language of “awakening” ( jikaku, 自覚, literally, “own awakening” or “realize for oneself”) in describing faith or its effect, disciples of his like Soga Ryōjin and Kaneko Daiei did so. This identification of faith with a transformative experience of awakening (although not with final nirvana) is an important distinguishing feature of modernist Shin Buddhists. 6 Yoshida, Kiyozawa Manshi and Nihon kindai Bukkyōshi kenkyū; Kashiwahara, Nihon kinsei kindai Bukkyōshi. 7 Generally positive appraisals of Kiyozawa include Ienaga, “Japan’s Modern­ ization and Buddhism”; Hashimoto, Kiyozawa Manshi; and Wakimoto, Kiyozawa Manshi. The most important critical appraisals of Kiyozawa can be found in Fukushima and Akamatsu, Shiryō Kiyozawa Manshi. Hisaki Yukio’s Kenshō Kiyozawa Manshi hihan is a response to such critiques. Kondō’s Tennōsei kokka to “Seishin-shugi” continues in the tradition of Fukushima and Akamatsu while broadening the critique from Kiyozawa to the broader Seishinshugi movement through the Fifteen Years’ War. 8 Hayashi, “Religion in the Modern Period,” 203–208; Ōtani, Kindai Bukkyō to iu shiza, 14–36. 9 One seminal work in this vein is Sueki Fumihiko’s 2004 Meiji shisōkaron, a study of Meiji period Buddhist and Buddhist-inspired thinkers including Kiyozawa, Inoue Enryō, Okakura Tenshin, and Nishida Kitarō. A more recent example is Ōmi Toshihiro’s 2016 Nyūmon kindai Bukkyō shisō, an intro­ duction to modern Japanese Buddhist thought featuring chapters on Shin thinkers including Kiyozawa, Chikazumi Jōkan, Akegarasu Haya, and Kurata Hyakuzō. Among English-language works, most notable is James Mark Shields’s 2017 Against Harmony, which traces the history of socially progressive and radical thought among modern Japanese Buddhists from Akamatsu Renjō and Inoue Enryō through Seno’o Girō and Sano Manabu. Recent years have also seen the publication of numerous books on individ­ ual Buddhist reformers like Chikazumi Jōkan, Uchiyama Gudō, D. T. Suzuki, 238

Notes to Pages 4–7 Shimaji Mokurai, and Inoue Enryō. See Ōmi, Kindai Bukkyō no naka no Shinshū; Iwata, Kindai Bukkyō to seinen; Rambelli and Uchiyama, Zen Anarchism; Suzuki, Selected Works of D. T. Suzuki; Krämer, Shimaji Mokurai; Watt and Yasuda, Demythologizing Pure Land Buddhism; Takemura, Inoue Enryō; and Schulzer, Inoue Enryō. 10 For recent monographs on Kiyozawa, see Yasutomi, Kiyozawa Manshi to ko no shisō; Imamura, Kiyozawa Manshi no shisō and Kiyozawa Manshi to tetsugaku; Fukushima, Shisōshi to shite no “Seishin-shugi” and “Seishin-shugi” no kyūdōshatachi; Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi; Yamamoto, “Seishin-shugi” wa dare no shisō ka and Kiyozawa Manshi to Nihon kin-gendai shisō; and Kondō, Tennōsei kokka to “Seishin-shugi.” For edited volumes, see Fujita and Yasu­ tomi, Kiyozawa Manshi; Yamamoto and Ōmi, Kindai Nihon shisōshi o yominaosu; and Blum and Conway, Adding Flesh to Bones. Recent English translations of Kiyozawa’s essays appear in Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality. Recent articles include Blum, “Truth in Need”; Fujita, “Kiyozawa Manshi and Nishida Kitarō”; Hashimoto, “Two Models”; Yasutomi, “The Way of Intro­ spection”; Nishimoto, “Genzai no shinnen”; Johnston, “The Theme of Sub­ jectivity”; Harding, “Bodily Crisis and Religious Conviction”; Martí-Oroval, “Kiyozawa Manshi no shūkyō tetsugaku”; Fasan, “Freedom in Submission”; Nawa, “Kiyozawa Manshi kenkyū no dōtei”; and Hasegawa, “Shinri to ki.” 11 Regarding critical appraisals of Kiyozawa, see note 7 above. 12 A portrait of Kiyozawa was commissioned following his death, a copy of which now hangs in the main assembly hall at Ōtani University. Regarding popular depictions of his life, the main character for Japanese novelist Na­ tsume Soseki’s Kokoro may have been based on Kiyozawa (Yamamoto, Kiyozawa Manshi to Nihon kin-gendai shisō, 185–189); Akegarasu Haya’s follower Asai Hisao authored a work of historical fiction entitled Kiyozawa Manshi monogatari; elementary school students staged a theatrical production of Kiyozawa’s life in 1980 (Yamazaki, Shinnen no hito Kiyozawa Manshi, 3); and NHK produced a documentary on Kiyozawa in 1986. 13 Here I take inspiration from Talal Asad’s Genealogies of Religion, particularly its well-known chapter “The Construction of Religion as an Anthropologi­ cal Category” that critiques Clifford Geertz’s definition of religion. There, Asad highlights the role of powerful institutions in authorizing certain practices and doctrinal interpretations and thereby shaping the experi­ ences and understandings of individuals. 14 As discussed in later chapters of the book, the construction and mainte­ nance of a unified doctrinal orthodoxy has been a major concern of Ōtani institutional leaders since the early Tokugawa period. In other Buddhist traditions, concern with unity of practice rather than thought may be more operative, in which case a distinction between the study of Buddhist prac­ tice and the study of Buddhist orthopraxy would be more pertinent. 239

Notes to Pages 7–8 15 This viewpoint is well represented in William James’s classic discussion in Varieties of Religious Experience of true religious spirit being stifled by institutions: A genuine first-hand experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses, the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman. If his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others, it becomes a definite and labeled heresy. But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration. (306–308) 16 Durkheim defines “social facts” as “ways of acting, thinking and feeling that are external to the individual and are endowed with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise control over him.” Regarding the example of religion, Durkheim notes, “The believer, from the day he is born, encoun­ ters the beliefs and practices of his religion ready-made; if they existed before him it is because they exist outside of him” (Durkheim, Readings from Emile Durkheim, 47). In addition to examining the “coercive power” of the established Ōtani orthodoxy confronting Kiyozawa and his supporters, I seek to trace how that orthodoxy was supplanted by a new one. While indi­ viduals like Kiyozawa Manshi and Soga Ryōjin played a critical role in bring­ ing about this transformation, the formation of a new orthodoxy—a new set of social facts—cannot be accounted for solely at the level of individuals. 17 The most significant woman in the production of modern Ōtani orthodoxy, as accounted for in this book, is Ōtani Satoko, sister-in-law of Emperor Hirohito and wife of Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōchō. As described in chapter 4, she played an important role in influencing her husband and the workings of the Ōtani organization during the Fifteen Years’ War. 18 In the second chapter of the Kyōgyōshinshō, Shinran describes an intellec­ tual lineage of Pure Land teachings beginning with Indian Buddhist mas­ ters Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu, proceeding through Chinese Buddhist masters Tanluan, Daochuo, and Shandao, and continuing in Japan with Genshin and Shinran’s master Hōnen. For an overview of those seven fig­ ures’ thought from a Shin perspective, see Inagaki, Three Pure Land Sutras. 19 Starling, Guardians of the Buddha’s Home. 20 Geertz, Islam Observed, 56. 21 Klautau, “Against the Ghosts.” 22 Jaffe, Neither Monk nor Layman, 123, 143. 240

Notes to Pages 9–11 23 Regarding Japanese Buddhists’ travels to South Asia to recover Śākyamuni’s original teachings, see Jaffe, Seeking Śākyamuni. 24 Jaffe, Neither Monk nor Layman, 109. 25 Ibid., 169. 26 Ōtani, “The Movement Called ‘New Buddhism,’” 69. 27 Furuta, “Hara Tanzan to jikken bukkyōgaku.” 28 Here I am echoing Jan Nattier’s and Richard Jaffe’s discussions of Buddhists’ varying responses to the perception of Buddhism’s decline—either stricter adherence to tradition or else the introduction of new practices and teach­ ings more appropriate to an age in decline. See Nattier, Once upon a Future Time, 137–139; and Jaffe, Neither Monk nor Layman, 128–129. 29 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 19, 85, 103. 30 “Revolution,” as I am using the term here, specifically entails rupture with the prevailing orthodoxy or paradigm, not with the past altogether. As Pierre Bourdieu notes of cultural revolutions, “A break with the immediately pre­ ceding generation (fathers) is often supported by a return to the traditions of the next generation back (grandfathers), whose influence may have persisted in a shadowy way” (Field of Cultural Production, 58). By contrast, there are argu­ ably also instances of cultural revolutions that mark the onset of something entirely new and unprecedented. For an argument on Shin Buddhism as an “evolved” form of Buddhism connected to advancements in literacy and dis­ covery of the cognitive unconscious, see Amstutz’s “Shinran’s ‘Evolved Inte­ riority’” and “World Macrohistory and Shinran’s Literacy.” 31 Here I am drawing on Bruce Lincoln’s conceptualization of religion in terms of four dimensions: a discourse whose concerns transcend the human, temporal, and contin­ gent, and that claims for itself a similarly transcendent status . . . a set of practices whose goal is to produce a proper world and/or proper human subjects, as defined by a religious discourse to which these prac­ tices are connected . . . a community whose members construct their identity with reference to a religious discourse and its attendant prac­ tices . . . [and] an institution that regulates religious discourse, practices, and community, reproducing them over time and modifying them as necessary, while asserting their eternal validity and transcendental value. (Holy Terrors, 5–7; italics added) 32 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, xliv. 33 “Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta.” 34 Akegarasu Haya composed a hymn for Kiyozawa, depicting him as the rein­ carnation of Śākyamuni (Akegarasu Haya zenshū, vol. 20, 202–215). See chap­ ter 6 for details. 241

Notes to Pages 13–15 35 For recent studies of forms of modernist Buddhism in Asia that fail to fit within McMahan’s and Lopez’s categories, see Havnevik et al., Buddhist Modernities; and also the 2020 special issue on “Alternate Buddhist Moder­ nities” in the Journal of Global Buddhism. For a discussion of problems in applying McMahan’s framework to American Buddhist communities, see Mitchell and Quli, “Buddhist Modernism as Narrative”; and Gleig, American Dharma. 36 McMahan, “Buddhism and Multiple Modernities,” 182–185. 37 Taylor, Secular Age, 299–300. 38 For examples of the critiques I am responding to, see Quli, “Western Self, Asian Other”; and McLaughlin, “Imagining Buddhist Modernism.” 39 Regarding the seven Shin patriarchs, see note 18 above. These seven Bud­ dhist thinkers, whom Shinran claims to be echoing and building upon, were “discontinuous” in the sense of being widely separated temporally and geographically from one another for the most part. The “tradition” of Pure Land Buddhist thought extending from Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu up to Hōnen and Shinran did not exist as such until Shinran created it through his writings, especially his “Shoshinge” (Hymn of nenbutsu of true faith) and “Kōsō wasan” (Hymns of the Pure Land masters). 40 Regarding Rennyo’s innovations, see Rogers, Rogers, and Rennyo, Rennyo. 41 Gleig, American Dharma. 42 According to the Heisei 30 (2018) Shūkyō Nenkan report by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Ōtani organization has 7,780,331 members, ranking just below the 7,908,818 members belonging to the other main Jōdo Shin denomination, the Honganji denomination. According to these numbers, which are likely inflated as a result of over-reporting, Ōtani and Honganji are Japan’s two largest Buddhist organizations, and together with the Shinto Jinja Honchō, two of Japan’s three largest religious organizations. By comparison, the approximate number of members of the other major Japa­ nese Buddhist sects—each of which comprises numerous organizations— are 11.5 million (Nichiren), 6 million (Jōdo), 5.4 million (Shingon), 4.7 million (Zen), and 3 million (Tendai). Soka Gakkai, Japan’s largest “new reli­ gion,” is not included in the survey, as it is not considered a “religion” by the government. Levi McLaughlin estimates its membership as fewer than four million (Soka Gakkai’s Human Revolution, 3). 43 In specifying the main time period covered in this book, I chose 1890 to indicate the approximate year that Kiyozawa’s career as a Buddhist reformer took off. (In this year, he began his “experiment” in asceticism while giving lectures on Western philosophy that would develop into Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion.) As an end point, 1962 marks the fulfillment of the Ōtani modernists’ revolution through the launching of the Dōbōkai 242

Notes to Pages 17–25 movement. Naturally, this book will also discuss much history outside the bounds of these years, including Tokugawa era background. 44 Ianjin (異安心) literally means “different from a mind at peace.” Anjin (安心), or “mind at peace,” is a term that came to be frequently used in place of shinjin (信心, mind of faith or entrusting) (Dobbins, Jōdo Shinshū, 145). The accusation of ianjin implied both a lack of a true faith relationship with Amida Buddha and a threat to the peacefulness of the Shin community. 45 Sueki, Kindai Nihon to Bukkyō, 20. 46 Yamamoto, “Seishin-shugi” wa dare no shisō ka. See also Ōmi, “Twenty-First Century Research.” 47 Shinran reinterpreted the nature of nenbutsu practice, explaining it not as a technique for attaining rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land but rather as an expression of gratitude toward Amida. Shin modernists like Soga Ryōjin attributed additional meanings to nenbutsu practice. According to the Sutra on Immeasurable Life,  in the distant past, the bodhisattva on the path to becoming Amida Buddha vowed, “When I attain Buddhahood, My Name shall be heard throughout the ten directions; Should there be any place where it is not heard, May I not attain perfect Enlightenment” (Inagaki, Three Pure Land Sutras, 249). In Soga Ryōjin’s explanation of this passage, for that vow to be fulfilled, it is incumbent on Shin followers to amplify Amida’s voice and make Amida’s name heard. The power to save all sentient beings is ultimately rooted in Amida’s vast stores of merit, according to Soga, but the coming to fruition of Amida’s vows still depends on the efforts of the Shin community. “Kojin o kotaeyo,” Shinjin, no. 13 (1949): 1. 48 An interest in origins and founding figures has characterized much research in Buddhist studies and religious studies. In response to such trends, Michael Satlow argues that the study of religion could be enlivened through a new engagement with the concept of “tradition” and increased understanding of how the “true origin of a tradition” lies in “the point of transmission across time and sometimes space,” which is not a single point (“Tradition”).

Chapter 1: The Language of Religious Experience Epigraph: CWS, 1:662 (amended). 1 Seishinkai 9, no. 6 (1909): 7. 2 Ibid., 9. 3 Ibid., 13, 31, 54. 4 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 96 (amended); KMZ, 6:333. 5 Seishinkai 9, no. 6 (1909): 59 243

Notes to Pages 25–28 6 Kiyozawa, December Fan, 146 (amended). This essay was actually constructed by Kiyozawa’s followers out of excerpts from his diary. For an annotated edition of the original text, see Kiyozawa, Rōsenki, 73–74. For a discussion of how the published essay differed from the original diary excerpts, see Yamamoto, “Seishin-shugi” wa dare no shisō ka, 62–63. 7 Mizuta and Arisaka, Tominaga Nakamoto, Yamagata Bantō, 616. 8 In The Myth of Disenchantment, Josephson-Storm argues that disenchant­ ment in Western Europe was largely a myth rather than reality. The cre­ ation of a discourse of disenchantment, according to Josephson-Storm, served the contradictory purposes of working to eliminate superstition and of stimulating reactions against scientific modernity. Yet in spite of this discourse, he explains, belief in magic and spirits hardly diminished in Western Europe or the United States. Disenchantment may have been more a myth than reality in nineteenth-century Japan as well, but that would not render it any less important as a causal factor behind Buddhist reform. Whether reality or myth, the idea that the world was being disenchanted was clearly threatening to many modern Japanese Buddhists. 9 Okada, “Vision and Reality”; Wasurerareta Bukkyō tenmongaku. 10 The Oxford English Dictionary provides instances of the verb “experience” meaning “to ascertain or prove by experiment or observation” as late as 1750, as well as instances of the verb “experiment” meaning “to have expe­ rience of; to experience; to feel, suffer” as late as 1727. And today, in French and in Italian, a single word can indicate both “experience” and “experi­ ment.” The English words “experience” and “experiment” (and the French expérience and the Italian esperienza) derive from the Latin word experientia, meaning “trial, proof, or experiment.” The Latin word derives from the Greek empeiria, which is the root of the English word “empirical.” See Jay, Songs of Experience, 10. 11 Sharf, “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism,” 34. See also Sharf, “Buddhist Modernism” and “Experience.” 12 Sharf notes that Suzuki and other members of the New Buddhism move­ ment initially responded to Enlightenment critiques of religion by arguing that Buddhism was “an uncompromisingly empirical, rational, and scien­ tific mode of inquiry into the true nature of things.” However, he then pre­ sents Suzuki’s framing of Zen as rooted in pure “experience” following Nishida’s 1911 publication of Zen no kenkyū (善の研究) as a dramatic shift (“Buddhist Modernism,” 248). My point here is that Suzuki’s and Nishida’s emphasis on “experience” was not novel, even among Japanese Buddhists, and that their rhetoric of pure Buddhist experience may have grown out of the earlier rhetoric of Buddhist empiricism. 13 Yoshinaga, “Hara Tanzan no shinrigaku-teki Zen,” 6–7. 244

Notes to Pages 28–32 14 Stein, “Psychomatic Buddhist Medicine.” 15 Hara, Tanzan oshō zenshū, 100. 16 Ibid., 100–101. Regarding Hara’s “Buddhist experimental studies,” see Licha, “Hara Tanzan”; and Furuta, “Hara Tanzan to jikken bukkyōgaku.” Tanzan taught a course on Buddhist texts at Tokyo University in 1879 attended by Kiyozawa. However, there is no direct evidence to show that Kiyozawa was influenced by Tanzan’s notion of “experimental studies.” 17 KMZ, 1:109–150. Kiyozawa’s thought has often been divided by scholars into two major periods: an early rationalist, self-power phase and a later faithbased, other-power phase. For example, Hashimoto comments: “For Kiyo­ zawa, the path from philosophy to religion, as well as that from thought to experience, was the same as the one from the Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion to ‘Zaishō sangeroku,’ and further still, to Seishin-shugi, which was the shift from ‘choosing reason over faith when these two contradict’ as found in the Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion to ‘abandoning reason and choosing faith’” (“Two Models,” 29). Such a division has been called into question by Yamamoto (“Seishin-shugi” wa dare no shisō ka, 5). This chapter shows that Kiyozawa’s rhetorical strategies changed over time but finds no evidence of a conceptual divide separating an early Kiyozawa from a later one. On the contrary, it finds that basic ideas expressed in Skeleton (e.g., subjectivism, union with the infinite, Pure Land as an allegorical expression, reason’s incompleteness) continued to inform Kiyozawa’s later writings. 18 On the emergence of the category of “religion” in modern Japan, see Joseph­ son, Invention of Religion in Japan; Maxey, The “Greatest Problem”; and Krämer, Shimaji Mokurai. 19 KMZ, 1:143. Kiyozawa lists twelve definitions in all. The first three are somewhat vague and indefinite, while the latter nine can be identified based on Kiyozawa’s lecture notes as representing Fichte, Hobbes, Kant, Jakob Sigismund Beck, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Albert Réville, E. B. Tylor, and Max Müller (see KMZ, 1:35–36, 55–56). 20 KMZ, 1:142. 21 KMZ, 1:57. 22 KMZ, 5:368. 23 KMZ, 1:140–141. 24 KMZ, 1:137 (italics added); KMZ, 1:123 (italics added). 25 KMZ, 1:142. 26 KMZ, 1:140. 27 KMZ, 2:205. 28 KMZ, 2:207. 245

Notes to Pages 32–35 29 KMZ, 1:113–114. 30 KMZ, 2:281–285. 31 KMZ, 2:22–24. 32 Weber, The Protestant Ethic. Weber categorized religious approaches into four types: this-worldly asceticism, other-worldly asceticism, this-worldly mysticism, and other-worldly mysticism. Within this typology, Kiyozawa and his followers might best be categorized as “this-worldly mystics”— focused on attaining union with a higher power while living fully within this earthly world rather than fleeing it and seeking solitude. See AdairToteff, “Max Weber’s Mysticism.” 33 Reader and Tanabe, Practically Religious. Reader and Tanabe include “spiri­ tual” benefits such as “peace of mind” and “salvation” among the practical, this-worldly benefits sought by Japanese religious followers. However, their category of “this-worldly salvation” does not seem to extend to buddha­ hood or rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land (15–23). They briefly grapple with modernist Shin teachings that faith can bring buddhahood in this life and world, but conclude that such teachings are difficult to believe, “not satis­ fying,” and disregarded by many Shin followers (134–135). 34 Sasaki, “What Is the True Sect of the Pure Land?,” 175–176. 35 Skepticism toward the Pure Land’s “objective” existence frequently arose in premodern eras as well, and non-literal, philosophically nuanced inter­ pretations were part of the orthodox Pure Land doctrinal tradition, as seen in the writings of Tanluan, Shandao, and Daochuo (Tanaka, “Where Is the Pure Land?”). Yet the powerful challenge of scientific skepticism toward Amida and the Pure Land together with dramatic shifts in Japan’s cultural landscape provoked a fundamentalist counterreaction. In other words, the threat posed by modern science, coupled with Kiyozawa and his associates’ efforts to develop figurative, subjectivist interpretations of Amida and the Pure Land, provoked self-proclaimed preservers of the tradition to defend a set of literalist, substantialist interpretations that reflect the orthodox tra­ dition only in a very simplified, imbalanced way. 36 Kaku, “Kiyozawa Manshi to Tada Kanae.” 37 Fukushima and Akamatsu, Shiryō Kiyozawa Manshi, 3:159–169. 38 Rogers, Rogers, and Rennyo, Rennyo, 161 (amended). For the Japanese, see Kyōgaku Dendō Kenkyū Sentā, Jōdo Shinshū seiten, 1099. 39 Rennyo’s teachings about Amida and the Pure Land are of course more complicated than presented here. For studies of Rennyo in English, see Rog­ ers, Rogers, and Rennyo, Rennyo; Blum and Yasutomi, Rennyo and the Roots of Modern Japanese Buddhism. In a recent reappraisal, Curley argues that the Honganji community that Rennyo developed ought to be understood as a 246

Notes to Pages 35–37 subversive, autonomous social site where the utopian ideals of the Pure Land—mutual equality, non-ownership, and peace—were enacted in this world. The Honganji community thus served as a “phenomenal double for the transcendent Pure Land” (Pure Land, Real World, 38). While Curley’s argu­ ment is convincing, it is unclear whether any of this subversive message of actualizing a Pure Land in this world was carried forward into the Tokugawa period. Moreover, Rennyo’s persistent emphasis on “the great matter of the next life” (goshō no ichi daiji) is irrefutable, and the argument that “next life” for Rennyo referred to “the life to come” in this world following the experience of anjin is unconvincing (for that argument, see Hayashi Tomoyasu, “Idea of Impermanence in Rennyo’s Letters,” 36–37). Rennyo clearly distinguishes the benefits obtained from anjin in this defiled world from the benefits obtained in the Pure Land (Rogers, Rogers, and Rennyo, Rennyo, 152), and he unequivocally associates arrival in the Pure Land in the “next life” with the moment of death. For example: If the wind of impermanence were to come even now and summon us, would we not suffer illness of one kind or another and die? . . . All alone, we must cross the great river of three currents, at the end of the moun­ tain path that we take after death. Let us realize, then, that what we should earnestly aspire to is the afterlife (goshō) . . . and that the place to which we go, faith having been decisively settled, is the Pure Land of serene sustenance. (162) 40 CWS, 1:383, 564; CWS, 1:391; CWS, 1:579–580. 41 CWS, 1:240 (amended). For the Japanese, see Kyōgaku Dendō Kenkyū Sentā, Jōdo Shinshū seiten, 413. 42 Prior to attaining buddhahood, Amida Buddha as Dharmākara Bodhisattva is said to have made forty-eight vows regarding the kind of pure land he intended to construct through kalpas of meritorious practice. Of these forty-eight, Shin Buddhists view the eighteenth vow as the fundamental vow signaling Amida’s intent to save all beings. As such, it is referred to as “the Vow” or “the Primal Vow” (hongan, 本願). Shinran related the stages in his spiritual path to the nineteenth, twentieth, and eighteenth of Amida’s vows, so the passage quoted above is said to describe the “three vow con­ version” (sangan tennyū, 三願転入). 43 CWS, 1:221, 619, 637–652. 44 CWS, 1:523. 45 CWS, 1:115. 46 The English translation of the sutra passage given here reflects Shinran’s grammatical revisions, such that sentient beings become the beneficiaries of merit “directed to them from Amida’s sincere mind” rather than subjects “sincerely directing” their own merits to others. 247

Notes to Pages 37–42 47 CWS, 1:474–475 (amended). 48 Additional evidence that Shinran viewed birth in the Pure Land as taking place in the future and not at the moment of attaining faith is found in this passage from a letter: “It is when one is grasped [by Amida] that the set­ tling of shinjin occurs. Thereafter the person abides in the stage of the truly settled until born into the Pure Land” (CWS, 1:540). On the other hand, Shinran frequently described faith as bringing about the “stage of non-retrogression” (futaiten, 不退転) and the “stage of the truly settled” (shōjōju, 正定聚), which is “equal to perfect enlightenment” (tōshōgaku, 等正覚) and the “same as Maitreya”—accomplishments that would ordinar­ ily be associated with beings already dwelling in the Pure Land. Moreover, Shinran approvingly referenced Shandao’s statement that “the heart of the person of faith already and always resides in the Pure Land” (CWS, 1:528). For further discussion of Shinran’s view of Pure Land rebirth, including a review of interpretations by major Honganji and Ōtani denomination scholars, see Yasutomi, Shinran: Shin no kyōsō, 131–175. 49 CWS, 1:94. 50 CWS, 1:501 51 CWS, 1:340. 52 CWS, 1:461–462. 53 Nishimoto, “Shinran to Kiyozawa Manshi.” 54 That unfinished work is referred to as Draft of a Skeleton of Other Power Philosophy (KMZ, 2:41–98). 55 Yasutomi, “Kiyozawa Manshi no banbutsu ittai ron.” 56 McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism, 18–21, 50. 57 Dobbins, Letters of the Nun Eshinni, 107–151. 58 KMZ, 4:129. 59 KMZ, 1:144–45. 60 KMZ, 1:144. 61 Godart, Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine, 33–37, 76. 62 Johnston, “Kiyozawa Manshi’s Buddhist Faith,” 95–97. 63 Spencer, First Principles, sec. 3.21. 64 Although Kiyozawa does not explicitly discuss Spencer or the unknowable in Skeleton, that work (and many of his works) contain discussions of evolu­ tion showing the influence of Spencer. In his corresponding lectures on religious philosophy, Kiyozawa explicitly discusses Spencer’s conception of religion as pertaining to an unknowable reality unapproachable by scien­ tific methods (KMZ, 1:56). Prior to Kiyozawa’s lectures and writings on Spencer, Inoue Enryō had already written on Spencer’s concept of the 248

Notes to Pages 42–51 unknowable, equating it with the Buddhist concept of “true suchness” (shinnyo, 真如) (Godart, Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine, 76). 65 In the Japanese version, “observation and experiment” reads “kansatsu jikken” (観察実験). 66 KMZ, 1:134. 67 “Kiyozawa-shi no ikan 1,” Seishinkai 3, no. 7 (1903). 68 Nishimura, Kiyozawa Manshi sensei, 125. 69 KMZ, 3:332–340. 70 Nishiyori, “Shūkyō to kagaku”; Sugawara, “Kiyozawa bungakushi ni tadasu.” 71 Proudfoot, Religious Experience, 192–193. 72 KMZ, 3:341–347. 73 KMZ, 8:425. 74 KMZ, 2:141. 75 KMZ, 2:141–142. 76 KMZ, 7:275. 77 KMZ, 6:35. 78 KMZ, 6:35. 79 Kiyozawa, Selected Essays, 50 (amended). For the Japanese, see KMZ, 7:275. 80 KMZ, 6:283. 81 KMZ, 6:284. 82 Quoted in Johnston, “Kiyozawa Manshi’s Buddhist Faith,” 193–194 (amended). For the Japanese, see KMZ, 7:273–274. 83 KMZ 6: 103–104 (italics added). 84 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 94. 85 Ibid., 96. 86 The notion of “religious experience” also permeated the writings of other members of Kiyozawa’s Seishinshugi group. For example, Sasaki Gesshō published an article in 1901 describing himself and his Seishinshugi associ­ ates as religious empiricists (keiken ronsha, 経験論者) (Seishinkai 1, no. 10, 18). Also, Sasaki’s first book was titled Religion of Experience (discussed in chapter 2). In another example, Kuki Tokuryū published an article in 1902 explaining his understanding of the term “kōkō” (浩々, literally, “deep”), which had been used in naming the Kōkōdō residence. For Kuki, kōkō refers to a mental state of “direct experience” (chokusetsu keiken, 直接経験) in which one forgets everything—self, family, nation, time, space, Buddhist teachings—and just “tastes” the objects of one’s perception with a mind that is “bare.” Seishinkai 2, no. 1 (1902): 14. 249

Notes to Pages 51–58 87 Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 109. 88 In 1895, Motora Yūjiro discussed his Zen koan training in relation to his own “experiences” (taiken, 体験) (Shakai tetsugaku rinri shūkyō, vol. 6, 356). From January 1899, Chikazumi Jōkan began publication of a series of arti­ cles full of empiricist discourse that were compiled into his 1900 book Shinkō no yoreki (信仰の余瀝) (Ōmi, Kindai Bukkyō no naka no Shinshū, 64–68). And in 1900, Katō Genchi argued that modern Buddhist faith must accord with “natural, experiential knowledge” (shizenteki keiken no chishiki, 自然的 経験の知識) (Shields, Against Harmony, 109). 89 In 1897, Jikken jō no shūkyō (実験上の宗教), a compilation of Japanese Chris­ tians’ reports of their own personal “experiences,” was published with a preface written by Uchimura Kanzō. From 1900 to 1904, Uchimura published the journal Seisho no kenkyū featuring reports of Christians’ personal “expe­ riences” (Ōmi, Kindai Bukkyō no naka no Shinshū, 95). And in 1905, Christian Tsunashima Ryōsen published a famous article titled “My Experiences See­ ing God” (Tsunashima Ryōsen shū, 78–87). 90 Chikazumi, Shinkō no yoreki, 11. 91 For a recent overview of this topic, see McMahan and Braun, Meditation, Buddhism, and Science. 92 For a similar argument by a Catholic theologian that science is grounded in unacknowledged faith commitments, see Haught, God and the New Atheism. 93 Seishinkai 9, no. 6 (1909): 17. 94 Ibid., 18, 28, 72. 95 Akegarasu, Shukanteki shinnen, 21–22. 96 Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 95.

Chapter 2: Two Paradigms of Buddhist Studies Epigraph: CWS, 1:662 (amended). 1 Sasaki, Shinran Shōninden, 81–82. 2 Ibid., 4. 3 Ibid., 97. 4 Ibid., 90. 5 Ibid., 99–102. 6 Ibid., 106. 7 Ibid., 107. 8 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 23–24. 9 Ibid., 94. 10 Ibid., 85. 250

Notes to Pages 59–61 11 Regarding the “public” and “secular” status of Shinto in modern Japan, see Josephson, Invention of Religion in Japan, 132–163; and Hardacre, Shinto: A History, 355–402. Regarding Unitarian missionaries in modern Japan and their influence on Buddhists, see Mohr, Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality. 12 Johnston, “Kiyozawa Manshi’s Buddhist Faith,” 189 (amended). For the Japa­ nese, see KMZ, 6:3. 13 See this book’s introduction for discussions of these terms. 14 Kaneko, Jōdo no kannen, 138–139. 15 Quoted in Nobutsuka, “The Ultimate Consummation,” 86. 16 Ibid., 87. 17 Fukushima, Shisōshi to shite no “Seishin-shugi,” 99–103. Tokugawa period sec­ tarian studies within the Ōtani (Higashi Honganji) denomination was by no means monolithic. Jinrei and Senmyō were contemporaries who attracted followers to their distinctive styles of scholarship—Jinrei writing and teaching in a more colloquial style, and Senmyō tending toward a more classical, Chinese style. Jinrei’s genius is said to have been his ability to demonstrate the underlying consistency of the diverse Shin scriptural tra­ dition. His contemporaries, by contrast, were apparently more liable to identify discrepancies and venture critiques, even of the Rokuyōshō. Whether Jinrei and Senmyō represented competing “paradigms” would be an interesting topic for further study. The subsequent tradition of Ōtani Shin scholarship seems to have been most heavily shaped by the approach of Jinrei, who is often praised as the period’s most exceptional scholar. Regarding Jinrei and Senmyō, see Shinshū Tenseki Kankōkai, Zoku Shinshū taikei, vol. 20, 121; and ODH, 1:30. For an overview of Tokugawa period Shin studies, see Shimazu, “Reevaluation and Re-appreciation.” 18 The kōshi system was established in 1715. The rank of kōshi was initially held by a single individual who headed the Takakura Academy. In the 1750s and 1760s, the ranks of shikō (嗣講, secondary lecturer) and gikō (擬講, provi­ sional lecturer) were added. From 1811, the system was reformed to allow for two kōshi. At the start of the Meiji period, the kōshi system was abol­ ished, only to be reinstated in 1883 (ODH, 1:12–19). In 1907, a new system was adopted with four ranks—kōshi, shikō, gikō, and gakushi (学師, teacher)— and no limit on the number of individuals who could hold each rank (ODH, 2:229). As of 1930, the system worked as follows: by graduating from Ōtani University, one attained the rank of jungakushi (準学師, associate teacher). One then proceeded to the rank of gakushi by completing three credits in Buddhist studies and Shin studies and submitting a research paper that was evaluated by a committee of scholars. The third rank of gikō required three to five additional years of research and another research 251

Notes to Pages 62–63 paper. The fourth rank of shikō required five additional years of research and another research paper or presentation. The fifth rank of kōshi was then obtained by special order of the chief abbot, following a recommenda­ tion from the head of doctrinal affairs (Hanafusa, Ōtani-ha tasshirei ruisan, 319–321). 19 Honzan hōkoku (1885–1897), Shūhō (1898–1925), and Shinshū (1925–present). 20 CWS, 1:531. 21 CWS, 1:523. 22 Shinshū, no. 252 (October 1922): 2. 23 In an important early instance of a modern Shin reinterpretation of the “two truths,” Nishi Honganji Shin priest Shōkai described the two truths as pertaining to obedience to the state in a work dated to the Bunka or Bunsei period (1804–1830). Facing critiques of Buddhism by Shinto nativist schol­ ars, as well as a financial crisis and weakening of institutional authority, Shōkai and others after him advanced this new doctrinal interpretation in order to demonstrate stronger allegiance to the shogunate and to better unify the Shin community (Iwata Mami, “Bakumatsu ishinki no Nishi Hon­ ganji monshu shōsoku”). Such innovations were established as sect ortho­ doxy through Honganji denomination chief abbot Kōnyo’s 1871 letter and through sect constitutions issued by both the Honganji and Ōtani denomi­ nations in 1886 (Rogers, Rogers, and Rennyo, Rennyo, 319–327). The 1886 Ōtani constitution defined “absolute truth” in terms of “obtaining a peace­ ful mind in regard to being born in the Pure Land” and “worldly truth” in terms of “revering the Emperor, complying with government commands, not turning away from worldly morals, not disturbing human relations, and working hard at one’s occupation” (Ōtani-ha Honganji Bunshoka Hen­ sanbu, Ōtani-ha tatsurei ruisan, 7–8). Melissa Curley has argued that Chief Abbot Kōnyo should be viewed as modernist in light of his adaptation of Shin teachings to the contemporary political situation and redefinition of Buddhism as a matter of internal, pri­ vate belief. In Curley’s interpretation, Shinran’s and Rennyo’s teachings conveyed critiques of the social order and calls to construct independent utopian communities based on principles of equality and non-ownership. Kōnyo’s reformulation of Amida and the Pure Land as objects of private, internal belief pertaining to the afterlife, and thus in no conflict with the state and its laws, is for her an illustration of Bruno Latour’s argument that modernism displaces religion from nature and society to the realms of inner psychology and transcendent universals (Pure Land, Real World, 24–56). To the extent that Shōkai and Kōnyo were innovating new doctrinal interpretations in response to the conditions of modernity, I agree that their work can be classified as modernist—particularly if such innovations 252

Notes to Pages 64–69 prompted conflicts with others who could be labeled traditionalists (see this book’s introduction). However, by the mid-Meiji period, this new doc­ trinal interpretation had clearly been integrated into both denomination’s orthodoxy, becoming a new aspect of Shin tradition that “traditionalists” were intent on upholding and that modernists like Kiyozawa, Sasaki, and Kaneko would go on to question. 24 Shinshū, no. 254 (December 1922): 2. 25 Ibid. (quotation marks added). For the scriptural passages being quoted, see Inagaki, Three Pure Land Sutras, 284, 304; and Kyōgaku Dendō Kenkyū Sentā, Jōdo Shinshū seiten, 55, 73. 26 Saitō, Shinshū no shinkō, 1, 7–8. Modern historical scholarship had demon­ strated that Mahāyāna sutras (including the Pure Land sutras) were not actually preached by Śākyamuni Buddha but rather were composed cen­ turies later. For a discussion of how two Ōtani Shin Buddhist thinkers made sense of this new information, see Okada Masahiko, “Revitaliza­ tion versus Unification.” For a discussion of a “cult of Śākyamuni” that lay in the background of such discussions, see Nishimura, “Intellectual Development.” 27 Saitō, Shinshū no shinkō, 4–5. 28 Ibid., 21–22. 29 Ibid., 52. 30 Ibid., 48. 31 In the case of non-Shin accounts of Dharmākara, Saitō explains divergent accounts as descriptive of Dharmākara’s earlier or later lives (10–17). 32 Quoted in Mori Ryūkichi, Shinshū kyōdan no kindaika, 464. 33 Kanrenkai was the name of a conservative society of Ōtani scholars who opposed Kiyozawa’s Shirakawa reform movement (discussed in chapter 3). “Discussing the Kanrenkai” has traditionally been attributed to Kiyozawa but may have been written by other members of Kiyozawa’s Shirakawa group. For an English translation, see Klautau and Krämer, Buddhism and Modernity, 73–84. For the original, see KMZ, 7:111–123. 34 Sasaki, Jikken no shūkyō, preface. 35 For discussions of Sasaki’s life and writings, see Yamada, “Sasaki Gesshō sensei”; Conway, Inoue, and Rhodes, “Ōtani University’s Founding Spirit”; and Auerback, “Sasaki Gesshō.” 36 I am presuming here that Sasaki was building on his teacher’s ideas of sub­ jective empiricism, but considering the chronology, it is also plausible that Sasaki’s ideas of subjective empiricism preceded and influenced Kiyozawa’s thought. 37 Seishinkai 1, no. 10 (1901): 18–19. 253

Notes to Pages 70–75 38 Regarding the development of modern philological and historical Buddhist studies in Japan, see Stone, “A Vast and Grave Task”; Klautau, Kindai Nihon shisō; and Hayashi Makoto, “Birth of Buddhist Universities.” 39 Sasaki, Jikken no shūkyō, 1. 40 Ibid., 14–15. 41 Ibid., preface, 14–15. 42 Ibid., 26. 43 Ibid., 30–31. 44 Like Saitō, Sasaki ignores the historical evidence that Mahāyāna sutras were composed centuries after Śākyamuni’s death and instead accepts at face value the sutras’ claims to be the words of Śākyamuni. By contrast, Kaneko addresses the problem directly in Bukkyō gairon (9–10), as does Soga in “Shinran’s View of Buddhist History” (Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 119–138). 45 Sasaki, Shinshū gairon, 17. 46 Ibid., 8–9. 47 Ibid., 46. 48 Ibid., 49. 49 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 91. 50 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 176–178. Here it might be said that Kaneko is attempting to “overcome contradictions” and “demonstrate doc­ trinal unity among orthodox figures” in the manner of a traditionalist scholar. By no means did Kaneko and the modernists reject the entire tra­ dition of Shin scholarship. On the contrary, they often turned to orthodox figures like Kakunyo, Rennyo, or Jinrei for doctrinal insights. However, in contrast to the traditionalists, the modernists’ project of doctrinal reform necessarily entailed casting aside or overturning much of the established interpretive tradition. Committed to the idea that awakening in the pres­ ent is the goal of Shin teachings, they took more liberties in sidestepping or radically reinterpreting that tradition. Kaneko’s interpretation of Rennyo’s phrase “the great matter of the next life” as pertaining to life in this world following the attainment of faith strikes me as a case of radical reinterpre­ tation (see chapter 1, note 39). 51 For a biography of Soga, see Itō, “Soga Ryōjin.” For further discussions of his life and teachings, see Fukushima Kazuto, Shinran shisō; Honda Hiroyuki, Shinran kyōgaku; Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi; Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality; Murayama, “Soga Ryōjin no shōchō sekai­ kan”; Conway, “Introduction”; and Blum and Conway, Adding Flesh to Bones. 52 Seishinkai 8, no. 6 (1908): 104. 254

Notes to Pages 75–80 53 Yasutomi, Kindai Nihon to Shinran, 151; Kaneko, Jōdo no kannen, 2. 54 SRS, 2:5–6. 55 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 108–109 (amended). For the Japa­ nese, see SRS, 2:408. 56 SRS, 2:409. 57 Soga, Kaneko, and Hirose, Ryōganjin, 134. 58 Ibid., 139. 59 Soga, Nyorai hyōgen no hanchū, 24. 60 Ibid., 27–28. 61 In the passage in question, Shinran follows his declaration that “the true cause of attaining Nirvana is the mind of faith alone” with the humbler statement that “it appears to be for this reason that Vasubandhu takes the three together as one” (italics added). Soga’s analysis foregoes discussion of Shinran’s humble, self-deprecating attitude and instead draws attention to his boldness. Regarding Shinran’s hermeneutical approach of boldly rein­ terpreting sutras and commentaries in accord with his personal vision of Buddhist truth, see Corless, “Shinran’s Proofs of True Buddhism.” 62 Kaneko, Bukkyō gairon, 60. 63 An association between iconoclasm and religious experience can also be found in Sasaki’s work. In Outlines of Shin Buddhism, Sasaki recounts the history of schism within Indian Buddhism in terms of a long-standing conflict between genuine religious experiences and trust in “doctrinal authority,” explaining the split between the Sthaviravādins and Mahāsāṃghikas as arising out of Mahādeva’s experiential realization that even arhats are subject to ignorance and sinfulness. Similarly, he explains the development of Pure Land sects in Japan as arising out of Hōnen and his followers’ genuine religious experiences, in contrast to competing sects’ fixation on the precepts and other external forms. Finally, he points approvingly to Shinran’s condemnations of other Buddhist schools and to his audacity in declaring Maitreya and Śākyamuni “good friends” (zenshin’yū, 善親友) rather than saviors (Shinshū gairon, 19–39). 64 Kaneko’s 1926 Ideas of the Tathāgata and the Pure Land in Shin Buddhism fur­ ther developed his theory of the Pure Land and also contributed to the controversy. 65 For biographies of Kaneko, see Kikumura, Kaneko Daiei; and Hataya, “Kaneko Daiei.” For studies of his thought, see Miharu, “Ōtani Daigaku tsuihō jiken”; Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi; Murayama, “Kaneko Daiei to seiyō tetsugaku”; Curley, “Shinshū Studies”; and Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality. 66 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 175–176 (amended). For the Japa­ nese, see Kaneko, Shinshūgaku josetsu, 18–20. 255

Notes to Pages 80–86 67 In The Ideas of the Tathāgata and the Pure Land in Shin Buddhism, Kaneko com­ pares the difference between these two Shin studies approaches to the dif­ ference between “studying philosophy” and “doing philosophy.” Rather than studying Shinran’s thought, Kaneko advocates doing what Shinran did—introspectively discovering the same religious truths that Shinran discovered (Miharu, “Ōtani Daigaku tsuihō jiken,” 15). 68 Gasshō (June 1922): 13–17. 69 In The World of the Other Shore (1925), Kaneko developed this idea further, speaking of “pure perception” ( junsui kankaku, 純粋感覚) as that which enables one to gain knowledge of the Pure Land. For further discussion of Kaneko’s notions of “pure perception,” “transcendentalism,” and “ideas,” see Murayama, “Kaneko Daiei to seiyō tetsugaku.” 70 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 205–206; Kaneko, Shinshūgaku josetsu, 93–95. 71 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 206 (amended). 72 Ibid., 207 (amended). 73 Ibid., 208 (amended; italics added). 74 Commenting on Nagarjuna’s explanation of cause and effect, Kaneko argues that cause and effect are simultaneous. Examining the truth of any phe­ nomenon, one can perceive that it arose as the effect of a certain cause, and moreover that there is a necessary connection between the two. Cause, effect, and necessary connection are all present in the effect. In a similar way, Kaneko seems to be arguing that cause (Amida’s salvific powers), effect (awakening), and necessary connection (bodhisattva path) are all present simultaneously within each of us. 75 Kaneko, Jōdo no kannen, 19, 129. 76 Hataya, “Kaneko Daiei,” 350. 77 Of course, traditionalist scholars also valued rationality and constructed ratio­ nal arguments about Shin teachings. The difference is the extent to which each group accepted established interpretations. For traditionalists, fundamental questions regarding the nature of Amida or the Pure Land were already solved, so they had less need to use independent reasoning to generate new explana­ tions. For modernists skeptical of established interpretations, each fundamen­ tal doctrinal question was a new problem to be solved through wide-ranging studies, philosophical reflection, and introspection. In other words, rational, philosophical inquiry was one of the tools that the modernists used to reorient themselves and their followers to a new doctrinal standpoint. For traditional­ ists content with the established orthodoxy, no such reorientation—and there­ fore, no such reliance on rational, philosophical inquiry—was needed. 78 Quoted in Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 151. 256

Notes to Pages 90–95

Chapter 3: Evil Conditions at a Buddhist University Epigraph: CWS, 1:289. 1 Soga, Kaneko, and Hirose, Ryōganjin, 14. 2 Ibid., 33. 3 Hataya, “Kaneko Daiei,” 282. This refers to the main buddha statue and flanking bodhisattva statues in Buddhist temples. Here Soga is being lik­ ened to a principal buddha and Kaneko to a supportive bodhisattva. 4 Soga, Kaneko, and Hirose, Ryōganjin, 96. 5 Ibid., 110. 6 Ibid., 129–134. 7 Ibid., 138–139. 8 Soga here references the controversy surrounding Honganji denomination scholar-priest Nonomura Naotarō, who advocated abandoning the doctrine of Pure Land rebirth as unscientific. Nonomura was deprived of his priest­ hood and forced to resign from his professorship at Bukkyō University (Kigoshi, “Shinshū kyōgaku no kindaika”; “Shin Buddhist Doctrinal Stud­ ies”). Criticizing Bukkyō University faculty who supported Nonomura on the grounds of academic freedom, Soga commented, “Let’s let perish all those things that should perish” (Soga, Kaneko, and Hirose, Ryōganjin, 221). 9 Soga, Kaneko, and Hirose, Ryōganjin, 228–229. 10 Ibid., 246. 11 Ibid., 246, 249. 12 Dobbins, “Origins and Complicated Development,” 9. 13 For a history of the Takakura Academy, see “Ōtani-ha gakuji shi 大谷派学事 史,” in Shinshū Tenseki Kankōkai, Zoku Shinshū taikei, vol. 20. 14 Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs, 3–42; Nakamoto, Emerging from Meditation. 15 Hur, Death and Social Order, 111–114. 16 Mori Ryūkichi, Shinshū kyōdan no kindaika, 12. 17 See Collcutt, “Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication”; Hardacre, Shintō and the State and Shinto: A History, 368–371; and Kirihara and Iwata, Kami to hotoke no Bakumatsu ishin. 18 Jaffe, Neither Monk nor Layman, 109. 19 Mori Ryūkichi, Shinshū kyōdan no kindaika, 12–13. 20 Regarding the Great Promulgation Campaign, see Hardacre, Shintō and the State; Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs; and Krämer, Shimaji Mokurai, 67–74. 21 Regarding the relationship between cultural fields and political and eco­ nomic fields, see Bourdieu, Field of Cultural Production, 37–39. 257

Notes to Pages 96–97 22 “Social universes” is a term Bourdieu uses to describe autonomous fields. Regarding the autonomy of Shin Buddhist institutions during the Tokugawa period, Amstutz notes that shogunal supervision of Buddhist institutions was carried out by just four governors of temples and shrines together with a small number of Buddhist officials serving as liaisons with the shogunal government: “By the nineteenth century this meant about 125 ‘bakufu offi­ cials’ (all but four of them actually Shin ministers) theoretically observing about nine or ten million Shin Buddhists” (“Shin Buddhism and Buraku­ min,” 76). 23 Bourdieu, Field of Cultural Production, 112–131, 162–164. 24 This phrase comes from a passage in Shandao’s Ōjō raisan (往生礼賛) that is quoted twice by Shinran in his Kyōgyōshinshō (CWS, 1:120, 238). 25 In Bourdieu’s terminology, the Ōtani Shin Buddhist field was composed of at least two “subfields”: a subfield of restricted production (Takakura schol­ ars producing scholarship for themselves and their students) and a subfield of large-scale production (temple priests and preachers delivering sermons for other priests and laypeople). The viability of the restricted market depended on the prosperity of the large-scale market. So long as the Ōtani organization as a whole was booming, it was possible to sustain the highly autonomous subfield of specialized Takakura scholarship. The next chapter will discuss how Ōtani leaders censured and punished sect members who flouted Takakura-determined orthodoxy. It will also discuss rare instances in which the autonomy of Takakura scholars was infringed upon by the chief abbot and the shogunal government. 26 In using the phrase “captive market,” I do not mean to imply that lay mem­ bers of Shin communities lacked agency. Shin communities grew tremen­ dously during the Tokugawa period in response to the convergence of economic growth, political pressures (i.e., temple certification system requirements), and widespread attraction to Shin teachings and social structures (Amstutz, “Shin Buddhism and Burakumin,” 74–78). But if the initial decision to join a Shin temple was frequently a highly voluntary one, the subsequent decision to remain with or cut ties with that temple was much less so, due to the structure of the temple certification system, as well as cultural norms and familial obligations. Even so, lay members were hardly powerless. Legally, it was local temple members, not temple priests, who collectively owned local temples, and temple members regularly par­ ticipated in selecting their temple’s next priest (Hur, Death and Social Order, 226–227). Within their local temple environment, lay members were in a position to exert influence in organizational and even doctrinal matters. Yet that influence, I would argue, did not extend to the “formal orthodoxy” of the sect as a whole, which remained firmly within the purview of Takakura scholars and the chief abbot’s family. 258

Notes to Pages 98–102 27 Ives, Imperial-Way Zen, 13–53. 28 Tsuda, “Kaika o susumeru hōhō o ronzu.” 29 Sawada, Practical Pursuits, 93–102. 30 Both Josephson’s Invention of Religion in Japan and Krämer’s Shimaji Mokurai emphasize that “religion” is a modern category invented through the pro­ cess of secularization and that Japanese thinkers and policymakers exer­ cised agency in deciding how to “invent” or “reconceptualize” that category in a Japanese context. 31 Tanigawa, “The Age of Teaching,” 89. 32 Ibid., 102–103. 33 Quoted in Tanigawa, “The Age of Teaching,” 105. 34 Sueki, “Building a Platform.” 35 Klautau, Kindai Nihon shisō, 89–106; Stone, “A Vast and Grave Task.” 36 Hayashi, “The Birth of Buddhist Universities”; “Religious Studies.” 37 The original text of the University Ordinance can be found on the website for Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, www.mext.go.jp. 38 Hayashi, “The Birth of Buddhist Universities,” 20; “Religious Studies,” 184. 39 State laws governing Buddhist organizations were in flux during the early Meiji period. From 1872, administration of Buddhist organizations and licensing of Buddhist priests were directly managed by the state in connec­ tion with its Great Promulgation Campaign. Even after the ending of that campaign in 1877, Buddhist priests continued to be required to obtain “doc­ trinal instructor” status from the state. That system was dissolved in 1884. A new ordinance stipulated that each Buddhist or Sect Shinto organization would be managed by a chief abbot whose appointment required approval from the Ministry of Home Affairs. That ordinance stayed in effect until 1939, when it was replaced by the Religious Organizations Law. For a his­ torical overview, see Abe, “Religious Freedom Under the Meiji Constitution: Part I.” For an English translation of the 1884 ordinance, see Abe, “Religious Freedom under the Meiji Constitution: Appendices and Bibliography,” 280. 40 Akamatsu and Kasahara, Shinshūshi gaisetsu, 469–474. 41 For a discussion of these two early sect constitutions, see Kashiwahara, Kindai Ōtani-ha no kyōdan, 131–139, and Shinshūshi Bukkyōshi, 149–151. For the full text of the 1886 sect constitution, including later amendments, see Ōtani-ha Honganji Bunshoka Hensanbu, Ōtani-ha tatsurei ruisan. 42 The legislative assembly’s name was changed from Giseikyoku (議制局) to Giseikai (議制会) in 1921. In 1929, a new sect constitution gave this assem­ bly its current name of Shūgikai (宗議会, Sect Parliament). 259

Notes to Pages 102–107 43 Kashiwahara, Shinshūshi Bukkyōshi, 159–160. 44 Hanafusa, Ōtani-ha tasshirei ruisan. 45 David Suzuki, Crisis in Japanese Buddhism, 50. 46 Ōmi, Kindai Bukkyō no naka no Shinshū, 189–190. 47 Tahara, Higashi Honganji sanjūnen funsō, 22. 48 Kōei apparently purchased the freedom of a geisha and brought her to live with him on the grounds of Higashi Honganji Temple. See Yoshida, Kiyozawa Manshi, 116; and Kitanishi, Higashi Honganji kindai shiryō, 178. 49 David Suzuki, Crisis in Japanese Buddhism, 19. 50 Kitanishi, Higashi Honganji kindai shiryō, 162–64; Ōmi, Kindai Bukkyō no naka no Shinshū, 183–186. 51 Ōmi, Kindai Bukkyō no naka no Shinshū, 180–186. 52 ODH, 1:36–56; Montrose, “Making the Modern Priest.” 53 Kashiwahara, Shinshūshi Bukkyōshi, 146–148. 54 ODH, 1:74–82. 55 ODH, 1:97; ODH, 2:120–121. 56 ODH, 1:88. The Kanrensha’s mission statement and bylaws can be found in the December 1880 issue of the Ōtani organization’s newsletter, then titled Kaidō shinbun (no. 36). 57 Yoshida, Kiyozawa Manshi, 76. 58 Ibid., 117–121. 59 ODH, 1:119. 60 The contents of Kyōkai jigen have been reprinted in Mori Ryūkichi, Shinshū kyōdan no kindaika. Regarding the Shirakawa reform movement, see Yoshida, Kiyozawa Manshi, 119–134; and Kyōgaku Kenkyūjo, Kiyozawa Manshi, 55–74. 61 “Name removal” meant loss of priestly status and dismissal from any employment within the denomination. Of six possible punishments, there was one more severe punishment: expulsion (hinseki, 擯斥), which brought total expulsion from the Ōtani community and, in the case of temple priests, a requirement to move out of one’s temple (Hanafusa, Ōtani-ha tasshirei ruisan, 24–25). 62 Regarding the founding of Shinshū University, see ODH, 1:133–158. For records of curricular changes at Takakura Academy and Shinshū (Ōtani) University from their founding through 2001, see ODH, vol. 2. A list of courses offered at Shinshū University in its first decade can be found in “Shinshū Daigaku mai gakunen kaku gakka tannin hyō.” Under the new curriculum overseen by Kiyozawa and his associates, courses were no longer offered in the natural sciences. One professor of 260

Notes to Pages 108–110 “Mt. Sumeru astronomy,” Fujii Saishō (藤井最証, 1838–1907), is listed as a faculty member in 1901, but records show he did not teach any courses. By that time, attempts to defend Mount Sumeru cosmology as empirically ver­ ifiable had generally been rejected, so it is unclear what research Fujii would have been doing at Shinshū University. Regarding Fujii, see Okada Masahiko, “Vision and Reality,” 161–165. 63 ODH, 1:210–211. 64 Yoshida, Kiyozawa Manshi, 123. 65 ODH, 1:248. 66 Nabata, “Shinshū Daigaku no Kyōto iten.” 67 ODH, 1:249–256. Relocation of the university was unpopular with most of the university faculty. In addition to modernists like Sasaki and Soga, tra­ ditionalist scholars like Saitō Yuishin and Kōno Hōun also resigned in pro­ test. In this conflict, it seems that modernist and traditionalist scholars at Shinshū University were allied against administrators and elder tradition­ alist scholars at Takakura Academy. This chapter largely describes a binary conflict between modernists and traditionalists, but the reality was more complex. 68 ODH, 1:261–264. 69 Sekine worked alongside Kiyozawa in reforming Ōtani’s educational sys­ tem, serving as dean of Shinshū University under Kiyozawa’s leadership (Yoshida, Kiyozawa Manshi, 143). An administrator with more of an interest in sect finances than doctrinal matters, Abe’s position in relation to the  modernist-traditionalist divide is more difficult to define. Regarding Shinshū Ōtani University’s accreditation, Abe initially stood opposed, declaring (wrongly) that status as a public university would require remov­ ing the statue of the Buddha from the main lecture hall. Regarding admin­ istrative reforms that followed Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōen’s financial scandals and abdication, a newspaper report characterized him as belonging to the “moderate wing of the reformist faction.” On a doctrinal level, he appar­ ently was given to speaking of Shinran’s teachings in connection with Epictetus and Socrates in the manner of a modernist (Kitanishi, Higashi Honganji kindai shiryō, 18, 24, 182–183). 70 Miharu, “Ōtani Daigaku tsuihō jiken no kenkyū,” 12. 71 D. T. Suzuki was hired in 1921 as a full-time professor of philosophy and English. Many of the other new hires were adjuncts who held positions at Kyoto University, including philosophers Fujii Kenjirō and Mutai Risaku. Nishida Kitarō had already been teaching as an adjunct professor at Ōtani University since 1911. Other famous Kyoto-school philosophers who taught at Ōtani University in the 1920s include Miki Kiyoshi, Nishitani Keiji, and Tosaka Jun. See ODH, 1:276–285. 261

Notes to Pages 110–115 72 Ryan Ward, “Meiji Taishō-ki Ōtani-ha,” 148–149. 73 Conway, Inoue, and Rhodes, “Ōtani University’s Founding Spirit,” 27. 74 ODH, 1:293–294. 75 All students also had to take a course on Buddhism, but depending on their major, this was either an “Outlines of Buddhism” course or a selection of more specialized courses on “Original Buddhism,” “Mahāyāna Buddhism,” and “History of Buddhism.” 76 Conway, Inoue, and Rhodes, “Ōtani University’s Founding Spirit,” 26. 77 Soga, Kaneko, and Hirose, Ryōganjin, 194. One review in Gasshō (December 1922, 44) had high praise for Kaneko and Soga’s work: “The pure subjectiv­ ity research method long advocated by Soga and transmitted to Kaneko is . . . the pride of our university in the contemporary world of Buddhist studies. . . . Together with the continued expansion of the objective research of Professors Sasaki [Gesshō] and Akanuma [Chizen], I wish for the continued deepening of Professors Soga and Kaneko’s subjective research.” 78 For details on the Ōtani organization’s system of academic ranks, see chap­ ter 2, note 18. 79 ODH, 2:229. 80 ODH, 2:277. 81 ODH, 2:285. As noted above, Abe’s position in relation to the modernist-tra­ ditionalist divide is difficult to define. His administration evidenced both modernist and traditionalist leanings, which suggests he was something of a neutral, mediating figure. 82 ODH, 2:285. 83 ODH, 2:286. 84 It is tempting to speculate on a possible connection to Nonomura Naotarō of the Honganji denomination. Nonomura first published his controversial opinions on the Pure Land in June 1922, but they did not gather significant attention until they were featured in Chūgai nippō in early 1923. For discus­ sions of the Nonomura case that include some comparison to Kaneko’s case, see Kigoshi, “Shinshū kyōgaku no kindaika” and “Shin Buddhist Doctrinal Studies.” 85 Ryan Ward, “Against Buddhist Unity.” 86 These administrative shifts coincided with a change in chief abbots: the young Ōtani Kōchō replaced Ōtani Kōen (Kubutsu) in October of 1925 owing to a financial scandal. Having been tutored directly by Kiyozawa Manshi, Ōtani Kōen may have harbored sympathies for the modernist agenda that were not shared by his son Kōchō (or rather by Kōchō’s advisors). 87 Bourdieu, Field of Cultural Production, 183. 262

Notes to Pages 117–119

Chapter 4: Heresy, Protests, and the Press Epigraph: CWS, 1:77 (amended). 1 Ōtani Daigaku shinbun, June 22, 1928, 2. 2 One consequence of Ōtani students’ failed mobilization in support of Kaneko was preparedness for future activism. Two years later, when Soga Ryōjin suddenly resigned in the face of heresy accusations, students pro­ actively demanded meetings with sect administrators, mailed state­ ments of protest to thousands of alumni around the country, and carried out an unprecedented all-student strike. Such actions did not bring about Soga’s reinstatement, but they did mobilize a national network of alumni and help win increased administrative independence for the uni­ versity (ODH, 1:345–354). 3 Ōtani Daigaku shinbun, May 5, 1928, 3 (emphasis added). 4 The simultaneous occurrence of the Kaneko heresy affair and the Commu­ nist Party Incident in the spring of 1928 was not a mere coincidence. Marx­ ism had emerged in Japan at the turn of the century through intellectuals’ engagement with Western thought, rose to prominence in the 1920s partly as a result of the country’s burgeoning university system, and consequently provoked attempts to repress “dangerous thought” and restore reverence for the authority of the emperor and his representatives. Parallel to that, Shin modernism emerged at the turn of the century through Kiyozawa’s and others’ engagement with Western thought, rose to prominence in the 1920s through the growth and curricular transformation of Shinshū Ōtani University, and consequently provoked attempts to repress heresy and restore reverence for the authority of the chief abbot and his representa­ tives. Essentially, the opening up and development of Japan as a modern nation-state spawned patterns of discovery, reform, and conflict in both the Buddhist and political worlds, which reflected and fed into one another. Incidentally, the same pattern played out within other Buddhist organi­ zations. In 1923, the Honganji denomination fired professor Nonomura Naotarō for writings that promoted jettisoning the doctrine of the Pure Land (Kigoshi, “Shinshū kyōgaku no kindaika”; “Shin Buddhist Doctrinal Studies”). And in September 1928, the “true faith dispute” (shōshin ronsō, 正信論争) erupted within the Sōtō Zen community when Zen priest Harada Sogaku and his anti-scholastic supporters condemned Komazawa Univer­ sity president Nukariya Kaiten and his university colleagues. 5 “Jishin” (自心) is ordinarily translated “one’s own mind,” but in context, Shinran is clearly criticizing minds intent on pursuing salvation through “meditative and non-meditative practices” instead of entrusting in Ami­ da’s other-power. 6 Shinshū Shinjiten Hensankai, Shinshū shinjiten, 210. 263

Notes to Pages 119–125 7 CWS, 1:484. 8 Mizutani, Ianjinshi no kenkyū. 9 The associates of Kiyozawa investigated for heresy were Inoue Hōchū (1896), Urabe Kanjun (1897– 1899), Akegarasu Haya (1910), Andō Shūichi (1913), and Sasaki Gesshō (1923). Only Urabe was found guilty, specifically for his unorthodox interpretation of Rennyo’s phrase “tasuketamae to tanomu” (to rely [on Amida] to please save me). The heresy charges against Urabe were instigated by public outcries against Ishikawa Shuntai’s appointment of him as president of Shinshū University in 1897. Rivalry between traditionalist Atsumi Kaien and modernist-leaning Ishikawa was an underlying cause of the conflict. Regarding Urabe, see ODH, 1:125–129. Regarding the other Kiyozawa-related incidents, see Ryan Ward, “Meiji Taishō-ki Ōtani-ha.” 10 Akamatsu and Kasahara, Shinshūshi gaisetsu, 411. 11 Ibid., 396; Nobutsuka, “Ultimate Consummation,” 86. 12 Matsutani, “Ōtani-ha ni okeru ianjin chōri,” 94–96. 13 Ibid., 99–100. 14 Information regarding the Tonjō incident was compiled from Mizutani, Ianjinshi no kenkyū, 121–158; Okazaki, “Tonjō jiken ni tsuite”; and Mori Shōji, “Ianjin Noto Tonjō jiken.” 15 This doctrine appears in Shandao’s and Shinran’s writings. The first type of deep faith, ki no jinshin (機の深信), refers to belief in oneself as an ignorant being weighed down by many lifetimes of evil karma. The second deep faith, hō no jinshin (法の深信), refers to belief in the power of Amida’s Primal Vow to save an evil being like oneself. According to Tonjō’s interpretation, cultivation of the first type of deep faith is itself an expression of selfpower, so the essence of true faith is really only of one type—faith in Ami­ da’s Primal Vow. 16 Altogether, over forty priests and sect officials received punishments. Only one—the Takakura student-priest who apparently led the protests against Tonjō—received the strictest punishment of “permanent home confine­ ment.” All others received lesser sentences of home confinement. 17 A detailed account of the incident along with a review of competing inter­ pretations of it can be found in Shimazu, “The Sangōwakuran Incident.” 18 Tamamuro, Nihon Bukkyōshi, 5–26; Kasahara, A History of Japanese Religion, 337. 19 Miharu, “Ōtani Daigaku tsuihō jiken,” 6–7. 20 According to Ōtani bylaws, the Inquiry Committee could only make judg­ ments on issues of sect orthodoxy “in response to inquiries by the chief abbot” (ODH, 2:277). The committee’s report on Kaneko was meant to prompt the chief abbot to make such an inquiry. 264

Notes to Pages 125–128 21 Mizutani, Ianjinshi no kenkyū, 264. 22 Ōtani Daigaku shinbun, May 5, 1928, 3. 23 The following details about how the Kaneko heresy affair played out are all based on reporting in Chūgai nippō. 24 The Ōtani organization was headed by the chief abbot, who appointed and dismissed all the organization’s leading administrators. The chief abbot was directly assisted by a chief advisor, an assistant chief administrator, and a twenty-member Committee of Elders (replaced by the Sect Affairs Advisory Committee in 1929) that had no executive powers of its own but made recommendations to the chief abbot on important matters such as appointment of the head of sect affairs. The head of sect affairs (prior to 1929, this position went by various names, including head of temple affairs) headed the Upper Office, which comprised the head of sect affairs’ cabinet of himself and two advisors (who also served as heads of departments), as well as one general counselor and one finance counselor. The Upper Office oversaw an extensive administration not pictured in the diagram. In 1928, it consisted of a Dharma Affairs Office, an Internal Affairs Office, a General Affairs Department, a Doctrinal Affairs Department (which managed Ōtani University), an Accounting Department, and a Financial Auditing Depart­ ment. The latter two departments worked in concert with an Accounting Council made up of over one hundred fifty members, many of them lay­ people. Twelve members of that council were selected to serve on the Accounting Directors Committee. The annual budget for the sect had to be approved by the Accounting Directors Committee and then voted on at annual meetings of both the Accounting Council and the Parliament before being forwarded to the head of sect affairs and chief abbot for final approval. The Parliament at that time was made up of sixty elected head priests of branch temples. For a history of the Ōtani organization’s development, see Kashiwahara, Kindai Ōtani-ha no kyōdan. See also the 1886, 1929, 1946, and 1981 sect consti­ tutions (and amendments to those constitutions), which can be found in Ōtani-ha Honganji Bunshoka Hensanbu, Ōtani-ha tatsurei ruisan; Hanafusa, Ōtani-ha tasshirei ruisan; Higashi Honganji, Shinshū Ōtani-ha shūken; and Shinshū Ōtani-ha Shūmusho, Shinshū Ōtani-ha shūken. 25 Chūgai nippō, June 8, 1928, 3. 26 Ibid., 5. 27 Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 334. 28 Ibid. 29 Kitano, Tashiro Jūemon-ō, 87–93. 30 Specifically, appointment to the position of university president was restricted to those of kōshi rank. Also, dual appointment as professor and 265

Notes to Pages 128–139 university staff was disallowed, such that the positions of academic dean and head librarian would be filled by sect administrators rather than pro­ fessors (ODH, 1:355). 31 ODH, 1:347–357. 32 “Pointing west and positing forms” (shihō rissō, 指方立相) is the doctrine that Amida established the Pure Land in “the west” with various “forms” of adornment (e.g., jeweled trees, musical instruments, ponds, birds, pavil­ ions) as described by Śākyamuni in the Sutra on Contemplation on Immea­ surable Life and discussed by Shandao in his commentary on that sutra. Shinshū Shinjiten Hensankai, Shinshū shinjiten, 223. 33 Hataya, “Kaneko Daiei,” 288. 34 Such is the common conclusion found in Miharu, “Ōtani Daigaku tsuihō jiken”; Hataya, “Kaneko Daiei”; and Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi. Tada Kanae’s critiques of Kaneko in the pages of Chūgai nippō confirm this interpretation. Separate from the question of Kaneko’s interpretation of the Pure Land, Tada focuses on critiquing Kaneko’s introspection-based, “free inquiry” method of study, which he accuses of being rooted in “per­ sonal understandings” arising from “a mind of self-power” (Chūgai nippō, June 19, 1928). 35 Ajiki, 20 seiki no Bukkyō media, 21–27. 36 Most other coverage of the Kaneko heresy affair in Chūgai nippō mirrored the editorials in defending Kaneko’s academic freedom and criticizing the Ōtani organization. A few examples are “The Obstinate Three Kōshi of the Inquiry Committee Acting Both as Prosecutor and Judge: Criticism of Their Ignorance of Academics” (June 10, anonymous); “Deep Sympathies for the Approach of a Researcher and Seeker of the Way: Considering the Matter of Ōtani University Professor Kaneko” (June 30–July 3, Kiyama Jūshō, member of Waseda Daigaku Bukkyō Seinenkai); and “An Argument for Reconstruct­ ing Heresy Investigation Law” (July 18–21, Taya Hiroshi, Ōtani scholar writ­ ing from Hokkaido). 37 Under Tanaka’s leadership, various labor organizations, student organiza­ tions, and political parties were dissolved, police agency staffing and fund­ ing were increased, district courts and the Supreme Court came to be staffed with thought procurators, and the Peace Preservation Law was revised to include the death penalty for those aiming to “alter the kokutai” (Max Ward, Thought Crime, 59–60). For examples of Chūgai nippō editorials critical of Tanaka’s cabinet, see the April 20 and 27 issues. 38 See McMahan, Making of Buddhist Modernism, 64–65. 39 Nakashima, “Seikyō kankei ron.” 40 Smith, Japan’s First Student Radicals, 217. 266

Notes to Pages 139–152 41 Ibid., 213–215. 42 ODH, 1:358–359. 43 The author’s name is listed as Matsubara Yoshi (松原善), but this is almost certainly either a misprint or a pen name. Matsubara Yūzen (松原祐善) was a second-year student in Ōtani University’s Buddhist studies department at the time. Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi kenkyū, 316. 44 Tokunaga, Tanluan, 115–116. 45 The phrase “take non-discrimination as the essence” (gi naki o gi to su, 義な きを義とす) comes from Hōnen and appears prominently in chapter 10 of the Tannishō. 46 Ōtani Daigaku shinbun, June 22, 1928, 2. 47 Benavides, “Economy,” 77–79. 48 I translate the term “anjin” (安心) in Murakami’s article title as “orthodoxy” given its function there as an antonym of the term “ianjin” (異安心, heresy). A more literal translation would be “mind at peace” or “mind of faith.” 49 Chūgai nippō, June 9, 1928, 1. 50 In 1930, Soga was pressured to resign his professorship without any offi­ cial heresy investigation or trial. After 1928, Kindai Ōtani-ha nenpyō (edited by the Kyōgaku Kenkyūjo) does not record any significant investigation of heresy by the Inquiry Committee until 1965, when modernists sup­ portive of Kiyozawa’s teachings were accused of heresy. At that time, Kaneko and Soga were members of the committee, which promptly ruled in defense of Kiyozawa and Shin modernism (Tahara, Higashi Honganji sanjūnen funsō, 55–56). The Kaneko heresy affair and the rise of Shin mod­ ernism effectively put an end to the long-standing Ōtani tradition of con­ vening heresy trials and prosecuting heretics. Any new orthodoxy, built on the principle of free inquiry, would not be enforced through heresy prosecutions. 51 For discussions of this debate, see Schroeder, “Insect in the Lion’s Body”; and Miharu, “Ōtani Daigaku tsuihō jiken.”

Chapter 5: Amida and the Emperor Epigraph: CWS, 1:560 (amended). 1 Gyōshin no michi, no. 4 (October 1973): 19–20. 2 Ibid., 22–23. 3 Ibid., 36. 4 Ibid., 18. 5 Ibid., 21. 6 CWS, 1:289. 267

Notes to Pages 152–155 7 Rogers, Rogers, and Rennyo, Rennyo, 85–88. 8 Tsang, War and Faith, 200–234. 9 Akamatsu and Kasahara, Shinshūshi gaisetsu, 322–330; Ueba, “The Life of Kyōnyo.” 10 For general studies of Tokugawa period Buddhism, see Tamamuro, Nihon Bukkyōshi: Kinsei, and Hur, Death and Social Order. For a discussion of Shin Buddhist growth during the Tokugawa period, see Amstutz, “Shin Bud­ dhism and Burakumin,” 72–80. 11 The literature on modern Japanese Buddhism and war is large and growing. For a succinct overview in English, see Ives, Imperial-Way Zen, 13–53. For more extensive treatment, see Victoria, Zen at War; Zen War Stories. Regard­ ing Buddhist and Shinto funerals for the war dead, see Bernstein, Modern Passings, 98–105. For recent works in Japanese, see Ōtani Eiichi, Kindai Bukkyō to iu shiza; Niino, Kōdō Bukkyō to tairiku fukyō; and Ōsawa, Senjika no Nihon Bukkyō. 12 Niino, Kōdō Bukkyō to tairiku fukyō, 152–57. 13 Hishiki, Jōdo Shinshū no sensō sekinin, 31–36. 14 Ibid., 37–41. 15 Küçükyalçın, “Ōtani Kozui,” 182. 16 Fukushima Kazuto, Shinran shisō, 166. 17 A similar situation existed within the Honganji organization, where Chief Abbot Ōtani Kōzui was married to the sister of the Taishō emperor’s wife. Tahara, Higashi Honganji sanjūnen funsō, 23–25. 18 Maruyama, “Ōtani Kōchō,” 235; Suzuki, Crisis in Japanese Buddhism, 22; Tahara, Higashi Honganji sanjūnen funsō, 29, 200. 19 Shinshū, no. 363 (January 1932): 1. 20 Ōtani-ha Honganji Bunshoka Hensanbu, Ōtani-ha tatsurei ruisan, 7–8. 21 Shinshū, no. 434 (October 1937): 1. 22 Hongan 21, no. 10 (October 1941): 2–5. 23 Shinshū, no. 482 (October 1941): 1. 24 Shinshū, no. 483 (November 1941): i. Regarding the resemblance of the chief abbot’s military inspection with the emperor’s, see Tahara, Higashi Honganji sanjūnen funsō, 20–21. 25 Shinshū, no. 484 (December 1941): 3. 26 Kōchō is depicted conducting a kikyōshiki rite for Ōtani members shipping off to war in the December 1937 issue of Shinshū. For a discussion of an 1894 kikyōshiki rite conducted for soldiers by the Honganji chief abbot, see Niino, Kōdō Bukkyō to tairiku fukyō, 63. 268

Notes to Pages 156–160 27 Ōtani Satoko, Kōkashō, 1–2. 28 Ibid., 12. 29 The state sentenced Takenaka to a three-year jail sentence for violating Article 99 of the Army Criminal Law. Ōtani authorities then sentenced him to three years of teihan (停班), which amounted to the loss of his status as priest and right to preach. See Daitō, Sensō wa zaiaku de aru, and Ōtani Eiichi, Kindai Bukkyō to iu shiza, 145–148. 30 In response to earlier depictions of State Shinto as a state-engineered reli­ gion imposed on the populace, recent scholarship has problematized the category of “religion,” questioned how monolithic and coherent State Shinto was, and drawn attention to how many non-state actors contributed to its construction. For a concise history of State Shinto, including a review of past scholarship, see Hardacre, Shinto: A History. Regarding State Shinto ideology, see Skya, Japan’s Holy War. See also Jolyon B. Thomas’s 2017 review of recent Shinto-related scholarship on H-Net.org. 31 Josephson, Invention of Religion in Japan, 132–163, 251–262. Regarding the emergence of the category and language of the secular (sezoku, 世俗) in modern Japan, see Krämer, Shimaji Mokurai, 114–136. 32 In his memorial speech for Kiyozawa in 1909, Saitō described engaging with Kiyozawa in debates on morality at the Kōkōdō residence. Saitō contributed six articles to Seishinkai while Kiyozawa was alive and several more in the years after his death. Kōno had Kiyozawa as a philosophy teacher in the early 1890s. In his 1909 memorial speech for Kiyozawa, he related being inspired by Kiyozawa’s reform efforts during and after the Shirakawa reform movement. For those speeches, see Seishinkai, no. 9 (1909). 33 The relevant passage reads, “Recently, some theorists have said that the Pure Land is a world of ideas [kannen no sekai, 観念の世界], a world of ideals that appears within one’s mind, and that there is no objective Pure Land adorned in jewels and brilliantly illuminated. However, we can say that these people have been taken over by the philosophy of subjectivists . . . these are the words of extremists that treat anything outside their own thoughts, including the theories of buddhas, patriarchs, and virtuous pre­ decessors, as worthless. They are theories of so-called ‘outsiders’ [mongaikan, 門外漢], not those of Buddhists.” Kōno, Jōdoron kōroku, 21–22. 34 CWS, 1:244. 35 Seitokuan, Shinzoku nitai kan shū, 93–107. 36 Saitō, “Bukkyō kyōri to Nihon seishin,” 32–34. 37 Ibid., 39–40. 38 Ibid., 42–43. 39 Saitō, Tariki shinkō no kyokuchi, 76. 269

Notes to Pages 160–162 40 In his critique of Kaneko, Kōno defends the idea of an “objective Pure Land adorned in jewels and brilliantly illuminated” ( Jōdoron kōroku, 21–22). Regarding rebirth, Kōno examines Shinran’s statement that rebirth takes place “immediately, without any passing of time” at the moment of faith, and concludes that Shinran must be referring only to entrance into the “stage of the truly settled” (shōjōju, 正定聚) (Genshō futairon, 3). He also explicitly defends the doctrines of “future rebirth” and “causes and condi­ tions over the three times” (i.e., rebirth from past to present to future lives in accordance with karma) against charges of superstition (Shinshū no jingikan, 163). 41 For an overview of Shin views of kami, see Rhodes, “Shin Buddhist Attitudes.” 42 Kōno, Shinshū no jingikan, 72. 43 Ibid., 72–79. 44 Ibid., 165–166. 45 Ibid., 179–181. Kōno explains that his discussion of Ise talismans is based on the 1922 book Jingi to Shinshū (神祇と真宗) by Honganji Shin scholar Sugi Shirō (杉紫朗). 46 In his study of “radical Shinto ultranationalism,” Walter Skya uses the term “ultranationalism” to indicate “a form of nationalism that merges fanatical religious faith and the nation-state” ( Japan’s Holy War, 22). Classi­ fying Shinto as a religion, he distinguishes the “Shinto ultranationalism” of figures like Hozumi Yatsuka and Uesugi Shinkichi from the secular nationalism of figures like Itō Hirobumi and Minobe Tatsukichi. I follow William Cavanaugh in rejecting the supposition that so-called secular nationalism is inherently less fanatical or violent than so-called religious nationalism (The Myth of Religious Violence). In specific cases, though, I would maintain that fusing Buddhist or Shinto (or Christian, Islamic, Marxist, neoliberal, or racial) ideas with nationalist ideology can produce more potent versions of nationalism worthy of the labels “extreme” or “ultra.” In my view, the Shin modernists’ conflation of the emperor with Amida Bud­ dha accomplished just that. 47 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 77–91; Blum, “Kiyozawa Manshi.” 48 For discussions of the two truths by Kaneko and Sasaki Gesshō, see Seitokuan, Shinzoku nitai kan shū, 39–48, and Sasaki, Shinshū gairon, 136–137. 49 An optimistic assessment of Kiyozawa’s writings on the two truths and their potential to generate an improved Buddhist social ethics can be seen in Yoshida, Kiyozawa Manshi, 175–185; Blum, “Kiyozawa Manshi”; Ama, “Toward a Shin Buddhist Social Ethics”; Sueki, Meiji shisōkaron, 18–51; and Yasutomi, “Kiyozawa Manshi no kōkyō shisō,” 289–303; “Meiji chūki ni okeru shūkyō to rinri.” 270

Notes to Pages 162–167 50 Regarding Kaneko’s wartime writings, see Kondō, Tennōsei kokka to “Seishinshugi,” 192–230. For a general study of Shin wartime doctrinal studies, including discussion of Kaneko, Akegarasu, and Kiyozawa, see Ōnishi, Senji kyōgaku to Jōdo Shinshū. 51 CWS, 1:461, 486. 52 Kaneko, Kokka risō, 26–30. 53 Ibid., 30–31. 54 Ibid., 44. 55 Ibid., 44–47. 56 Kaneko, Shinran Shōnin, 31. 57 Ibid., 34–43. 58 Ibid., 49–61. For example, in the first three articles of Shōtoku’s Constitu­ tion, Kaneko finds Buddhist teachings about social harmony, criticism of self, leniency toward others, the inherent “crookedness” of humanity, and transcendence of personal prejudices and pride through political obedience. 59 Kaneko lectured in Manchuria in May 1943, while Akegarasu Haya lectured both in Korea and Manchuria in the 1940s. 60 There is a considerable body of scholarship examining Akegarasu’s war­ time thought, including Ōnishi, Senji kyōgaku to Jōdo Shinshū; Fukushima Eiju, “Seishin-shugi” no kyūdōsha-tachi; Kondō, Tennōsei kokka to “Seishinshugi”; and Nakajima, Shinran to Nihon-shugi. The only substantial analyses of Soga’s wartime writings I have found are Fukushima Kazuto, Shinran shisō, 116–195, and Nawa, “Shinshū Ōtani-ha no kyōgaku.” Soga’s wartime career is barely mentioned in most scholarship on him, including Itō, “Soga Ryōjin”; and Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi. 61 Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 439–440. 62 Gomez, Land of Bliss, 182. 63 SRS, 5:12. 64 SRS, 5:22. 65 Years later in 1958, Soga’s followers would republish his Kaishin articles in a book titled Kokoro o hiraku (神を開く, Opening the spirit). By assigning the character 神 (kami/shin) the unconventional pronunciation of “kokoro” (which ordinarily signifies “mind” or “heart”), they clearly aimed to shed Soga’s writings of associations with kami and Shintō. A decision was also made (whether by Soga or his followers is unclear) to exclude from the book six especially nationalistic articles, five of which are discussed in this chapter. Those six articles were reprinted in Gyōshin no michi, no. 2 (March 1972): 2–12. 66 Kaishin, no. 5 (November 1935): 2–3. 271

Notes to Pages 167–174 67 Kaishin, no. 11 (May 1936): 2. 68 Vasubandhu’s Jōdoron begins, “O World-honored One, with the mind that is single, I take refuge in the Tathāgata of unhindered light filling the ten quarters and aspire to be born in the land of peace and happiness.” Toku­ naga, The Indian Masters, 45. 69 Kaishin, no. 39 (September 1938): 2. 70 Kaishin, no. 5 (September 1939): 2. 71 This trend is most pronounced in the case of Akegarasu Haya, whose dis­ covery of connections between Shinto and Buddhism led him to convene regular research groups in the early 1930s to study the Kojiki and Nihon shoki (Fukushima Eiju, “Seishin-shugi” no kyūdōsha-tachi, 166–167). Although Kaneko and Soga frequently spoke of kami, Amaterasu, and the Kojiki, the extent to which they actually studied the Kojiki or other Shinto texts is unclear. 72 Kaishin, no. 11 (May 1936): 2. 73 Saitō, Shōdō kyūjū nenshi, 136. At one point, the head of doctrinal affairs mailed Saitō a package of former documents related to Kaneko’s heresy incident. Saitō commented, “Judging from a certain gentleman’s [Kaneko’s] response in these records, it appears he did not understand the truth that he himself was the cause of this incident. Instead, it appears he mistakenly thought I had provoked believers out of my own calculations, causing the problem to arise . . . judging from these records alone, I think that [Head of Doctrinal Affairs] Isato seems to think there is no reason not to allow his reinstatement.” 74 Ibid., 143–144. 75 Ishii, “Ningen Shōtoku Taishi.” 76 Skya, Japan’s Holy War, 91. 77 Kōno’s incident is briefly mentioned in Saitō Yuishin’s diary (Shōdō kyūjū nenshi, 116). It is also discussed in “Dai nana-kai hisen heiwa ten,” an exhibi­ tion program published by the Ōtani organization in 2006. 78 Fujii, “Sen-kyūhyaku-sanjū nendai,” 146–152. 79 Garon, State and Religion, 289–293. 80 Ishikawa, “Nichiren ibun sakujo.” 81 Shigaraki, “Shinshū ni okeru seiten sakujo.” 82 Fujii, “Sen-kyūhyaku-sanjū nendai,” 153. 83 For discussions of the Religious Organizations Law, see Okada Kōryū, “Senji shūkyō sōdōin taisei”; Niino, Kōdō Bukkyō to tairiku fukyō, 253–261; Krämer, “Beyond the Dark Valley”; and Thomas, Faking Liberties, 120–124. 84 Murakami, Japanese Religion, 109 (amended). 272

Notes to Pages 174–182 85 Hardacre, Shinto: A History, 434–438. 86 Niino, Kōdō Bukkyō to tairiku fukyō, 266. 87 Gyōshin no michi, no. 4 (October 1973): 25. 88 Kashiwahara, Kindai Ōtani-ha no kyōdan, 78. 89 Shinshū, July 1941, 2. 90 Sasaki Yū, “‘Tannishō chōki’ to watashi,” 117. 91 Gyōshin no michi, no. 4 (October 1973): 3. The Shin Doctrinal Studies Confer­ ence records were first published in 1973 in Gyōshin no michi (行信の道), a short-lived journal established in the wake of Soga Ryōjin’s death to research his life and teachings. 92 Ibid., 4. Saitō notes that Zonkaku, Shinran’s great-great-grandson, authored a work propounding the theory of Buddha as original ground and kami as traces. However, Saitō downplays the significance of that work by claiming that Zonkaku was simply reiterating a theory that had existed in Japan since before the time of Saichō. By downplaying Zonkaku and returning directly to Shinran’s writings, there would seem to be a modernist element to Saitō’s argument here. Yet Saitō is only downplaying one of Zonkaku’s peripheral works, not the Rokuyōshō, his all-important commentary on the Kyōgyōshinshō. 93 Ibid., 4–6. 94 Ibid., 8. 95 Ibid., 9. 96 Ibid., 10–11. 97 Ibid., 11–12. 98 Ibid., 40. 99 Ibid., 15. 100 Ibid., 15–16. 101 The interpretation presented here of Soga’s statements can certainly be disputed. It is also possible to interpret him as maintaining that all ­people—regardless of attainment or non-attainment of faith—become buddhas at the time of death, while praising the emperor and State Shinto teachings for helping Japanese people to attain faith and salvation in this world. In either case, it is undeniable that Soga is glorifying the emperor by associating him with Amida in ways far beyond what the traditionalists were doing. 102 Saitō continued to make his opposition to the modernists clear in response to their later assertions that the Pure Land was somehow equivalent to the “land of the kami.” Saitō counters, “In that history [of the Japanese nationstate], one cannot see the Pure Land at all. Wasn’t the Emperor sent into 273

Notes to Pages 182–189 exile? Was that really the Pure Land? The idea that [Japan] is the land of the kami and is therefore not the defiled land should not even be an issue for those who understand Buddhist doctrine” (23). Also, in response to Akega­ rasu’s assertion that the Buddha way (butsudō, 仏道) exists within the impe­ rial way (kōdō, 皇道), Saitō invokes the two-truths doctrine and argues that acceptance of Akegarasu’s interpretation would mean the end of Shin Bud­ dhism altogether (27–28). 103 Gyōshin no michi, no. 4 (October 1973): 37. 104 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 124 (amended). 105 Ibid., 135. 106 Tahara and Hashikawa, Kessō Kurube Shin’yū, 230–231. 107 Soga Ryōjin Senshū Kankōkai, Soga Ryōjin senshū geppō, 5:8–9. This is surpris­ ing given that in the wake of the Kaneko heresy incident, Ōtani Eijō had been appointed head of sect affairs and had presided over Soga’s ousting from Ōtani University. In 1944, when Eijō was appointed Ōtani University president, Kurube, then employed as the university dean, submitted his resignation, considering Eijō an enemy of his teacher Soga and of the mod­ ernist faction. Eijō reportedly apologized to Kurube for his past mistakes and successfully urged Kurube to stay on. Tahara and Hashikawa, Kessō Kurube Shin’yū, 234. 108 Shinshū, no. 491 (July 1942): 2–3; Kanren (April 1943): 11–17; Hongan 23, no. 4 (April 1944): 2–7. 109 Kaneko, Kōkoku to Bukkyō; Ishii, “Ningen Shōtoku Taishi,” 64–65; Shinshū, no. 514 (August 1944): 3. 110 Shinshū Ōtani-ha Shūmusho, Shinshū no yōgi, 21. Kaneko relates that Shinshū no yōgi was meant to be a joint work involving Kaneko and Soga together with traditionalist scholars Katō Chigku and Ōsuga Shūdo, but Katō and Ōsuga refused to collaborate on the project. Kaneko led the project with Soga’s assistance. Soga Ryōjin Senshū Kankōkai, Soga Ryōjin senshū geppō, 5:11–12, 14. 111 Quoted in Satō, “D. T. Suzuki,” 104.

Chapter 6: A Democratic Sangha Epigraph: CWS, 1:155 (amended). 1 Chūō kōron 86, no. 10 (July 1971): 183. 2 Ibid., 184. 3 CWS, 1:255, 289. 4 Chūō kōron 86, no. 10 (July 1971): 191. One might hypothesize that Yasuda and other Shin modernists’ emphasis in the postwar period on self-critique 274

Note to Page 189 was related to guilt regarding the war. Kaneko and Soga did express regret and repentance regarding the war, but such expressions were not a promi­ nent or sustained feature of their postwar discourse. Generally speaking, Kaneko, Soga, and the Ōtani community as a whole seem to have been mainly intent on burying the past and focusing on the future. The clearest example of Kaneko’s reflections on the war appear in his 1947 book Religious Awakening: With the end of the war, everything has become clear. We were ignorant, and our efforts were in vain. We thought we were upholding morality in regard to our nation, but we ended up not just needlessly disrupting the world, but also bringing calamity to our nation. . . . When I think about my Japan, I cannot but feel painfully sad about how deeply sinful its peo­ ple are. . . . Now is an age when the kami have died and buddhas do not exist. That is not because the kami and the buddhas abandoned us. It is due to our abandoning the kami and the buddhas. Kaneko concludes that the tragedy of the war may have had a greater purpose: “Shouldn’t we understand this great world tragedy as having taken place in order to cause us as individuals to enter onto the true path? This is an unspeakable understanding. However, outside such an under­ standing, I just cannot understand this tragedy of our age at all.” Kaneko, Shūkyōteki kakusei, 15–19. Soga’s most notable statement regarding the war came in a March 1948 lecture in which he attributed Japanese people’s incapacity to recognize the evilness of the war to the separation of religion from public life: From the time of the Meiji Restoration, Buddhist teachings were restricted to private life. In public life, Buddhist teachings unfortu­ nately disappeared. . . . There was Shinto, but that was an extremely superficial thing that had no deep connection to the people’s spirit and was thus powerless. As for school education since the Meiji period, the Imperial Rescript on Education that was promulgated had no relation to religion, so a kind of “national body” faith came to be the educational principle. However, viewed from the high perspective of religion, that could be called a situation of basically no religion. In this way, we Japa­ nese lived within a non-religious world with non-religious politics and society. We passed through forty-five years of the Meiji period and fif­ teen years of the Taishō period. Entering the Shōwa period, we crashed into a terrifying war. As for whether that war was a good war or an evil war, we had no ability to judge. In the name of [fighting] for the country and for the vague goal of peace in the East, millions of people gave their lives. And the war then ended in miserable defeat. I think one can say we were led into this war by certain leaders, yet ultimately, it was each of our responsibilities. We lost our ability to see and correctly judge the 275

Notes to Pages 189–192 war. One can say that was because of how we were educated, but ulti­ mately, we arrived at this situation due to a lack of awakening on each of our parts. Soga, Soga Ryōjin kōgishū, 1:196–197 As for the Ōtani organization as a whole, it issued an official declaration of war responsibility and repentance in 1990. See Hishiki, Jōdo Shinshū no sensō sekinin. 5 The upheaval provoked by Japan’s surrender reportedly led top Ōtani ­administrators to initiate plans to dissolve the entire Ōtani organization. Specifically, in late August 1945, Ōtani Eijō, who was then Ōtani Univer­ sity president and an advisor to the chief abbot, enlisted the help of Ku­ rube Shin’yū, then dean of Ōtani University, to prepare a gathering at Higashi Honganji Temple on August 28 for a public announcement of the organization’s dissolution. However, on the day of the gathering, the chief abbot expressed disapproval of Eijō’s plan, so the announcement was called off. According to Kurube’s reflections, he and Eijō viewed the plan to dissolve the organization as a positive and necessary step toward rein­ venting the Shin community in a less feudalistic form, so they were disap­ pointed by the plan’s failure. See Tahara and Hashikawa, Kessō Kurube Shin’yū, 13–14. 6 Woodard, The Allied Occupation of Japan, 243. 7 Ibid., 212–213. 8 In Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan, Jolyon Thomas argues that this process involved both the invention of the cate­ gory of “State Shinto,” understood as an oppressive state religion disguised as a mere aspect of civic life, and the development and imposition of a new concept of “religious freedom” as a universal human right. 9 Shin Nihon, “Reminiscences of Religion,” 127–144; Woodard, Allied Occupation of Japan, 250–268. 10 This meant he could no longer play any role in administering the denomi­ nation’s public-facing educational institutions (such as Ryūkoku Univer­ sity). He was permitted, however, to continue in his roles as priest and administrative head of the Honganji organization. See Woodard, Allied Occupation of Japan, 187, 203. 11 SCAPIN-93. SCAP Directives, called “SCAPIN” (SCAP Index Number), can be viewed online within Japan’s National Diet Library Digital Collections (https://dl.ndl.go.jp). 12 Woodard, Allied Occupation of Japan, 91, 202. 13 Shin Nihon, “Reminiscences of Religion,” 158–161. 14 Ōtani participants did not stake out any strong positions at the conference. Suehiro, presuming that democratization of religious organizations was 276

Notes to Pages 192–193 required, raised questions about what model of democracy ought to be fol­ lowed. Eijō and Miyatani emphasized the importance of basing democratic reforms on Buddhist principles such as selflessness and awareness of kar­ mic evil. 15 Chūgai nippō, March 13, 1946, 2. 16 The Sect Parliament consisted of sixty-five or fewer members elected for four-year terms. To vote in the election of Sect Parliament members, it was necessary to have the rank of kyōshi (教師, teacher; a rank held by all Ōtani priests). To serve in the Sect Parliament, it was necessary to be twenty-five years or older and a head priest of a temple or head of a teaching assembly (kyōkai, 教会). The Assembly of Lay Representatives, which had the power to vote on the budget and certain types of laws, consisted of three hundred or fewer laypeople appointed by the chief abbot from among members of teaching district lay assemblies (see note 85) and individuals nominated by the head of sect affairs. The sect constitution does not specify the method by which the Sect Parliament and Assembly of Lay Representatives jointly appoint the chief abbot. 17 The 1946 Ōtani sect constitution can be found in the November 1946 issue of Shinshū. In addition to the points already mentioned, the new constitution also abolished the Committee of Advisors (formerly the Committee of Elders), which had stood between the Sect Parliament and chief abbot; gave the Sect Parliament the power to override the veto of the chief abbot through a two-thirds vote; and made many of the chief abbot’s administrative powers contingent on the written approval of the head of sect affairs. For further discussion, see Kashiwahara, Kindai Ōtani-ha no kyōdan. 18 For historical accounts authored by allies of Kurube, see Kurube Shin’yū Ronshū Kankōkai, Shinshū no sōgya. For a rich journalistic account critical of the modernists, see Suzuki, Crisis in Japanese Buddhism. Unfortunately, David Suzuki’s work is marred by a pattern of inaccuracies (e.g., inaccurate dates and names) and unsubstantiated claims (e.g., that Butsugen Kyokai, the Ōtani-run organization for the blind, was a socialist organization or that Soga and Yasuda “found the Shinjinsha to be too politically motivated and resigned”). 19 For discussions of the postwar rise of new religions along with journalistic attacks on traditional and new religions as undemocratic and supersti­ tious, see Dorman, Celebrity Gods. 20 Soga contrasted the 1949 events with events held for Shinran in 1911, attributing the difference to Kiyozawa’s influence: “With the influence of Teacher Kiyozawa, the earlier 650-year memorial services carried out at the end of the Meiji period were truly unprecedented. Inwardly and outwardly, it was truly a splendid memorial. Compared to that, the recent memorial 277

Notes to Pages 194–197 services for Saint Rennyo were unquestionably desolate.” Shinjin, no. 10 (May 1949): 17. 21 In 1928, Nagatani Gan’yū (豅含雄, 1896–1964) had been one of eleven Ōtani University administrators to resign in protest during the Kaneko heresy affair. In 1941, Head of Sect Affairs Ōtani Eijun appointed Nagatani as head of doctrinal affairs, so Nagatani had a role in Kaneko’s and Soga’s promo­ tions during those years. Also, Kaneko relates that Nagatani supported his and Soga’s work on the 1944 book The Essentials of Shin Buddhism (Soga Ryōjin Senshū Kankōkai, Soga Ryōjin senshū geppō, 5:14). 22 At that time, the Doctrinal Affairs Department was housed within a larger Doctrinal Affairs Bureau. It was not until 1956 that Kurube became the head of the larger bureau and truly came to direct doctrinal affairs within the organization. 23 The following account is based on Tahara and Hashikawa, Kessō Kurube Shin’yū. 24 Takagi, Ningensei kaifuku, 71. 25 Shinshū, no. 541 (June 1947): 2. 26 Notes on the inaugural week indicate that one main lecture was given by Akegarasu Haya associate Fujiwara Tetsujō on Kiyozawa’s essay “The Great Path of Absolute Other Power.” The week’s faith discussions focused on the question—famously asked by Kiyozawa in his December Fan Diary—“What am I?” See Shinshū, no. 542 (August 1947): 6. 27 Shinshū, no. 628 (January 1956): 6–7. 28 Tahara and Hashikawa, Kessō Kurube Shin’yū, 37. 29 Shinjin, no. 7 (December 1948): 12–13. 30 Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 510. 31 Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 119–138. 32 Shinjin, no. 7 (December 1948): 11–13. 33 Shinjin, no. 1 (May 1948): 4–5. The title “Behold the Man” evokes the famous words “Ecce homo” used by Pontius Pilate in reference to Jesus’s mutilated body. For an English translation of this and one other Shinjin essay by Soga, see Schroeder, “Soga Ryōjin’s ‘Behold the Man’ and ‘Transcend the Individual.’” 34 CWS, 1:679 (amended). 35 Soga’s analysis here mirrors his analysis of Shinran’s statements on the three minds and the “one mind of faith” (see chapter 2). In both cases, he views outrageous, iconoclastic statements as evidence of an authentic reli­ gious experience. 36 Shinjin, no. 7 (December 1948): 1–2. 278

Notes to Pages 197–201 37 Inagaki, Three Pure Land Sutras, 233–234. 38 CWS, 1:339. 39 CWS, 1:665. 40 Shinjin, no. 13 (October 1949): 1. 41 For an introduction to Yasuda’s life and writings, along with a selection of translations of his writings, see Watt and Yasuda, Demythologizing Pure Land Buddhism. For discussions of Yasuda’s theory of the sangha, see Kigoshi, “Shinshū kyōdanron”; Conway, “Seeking the Pure Land”; and Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 562–580. 42 Shinjin, no. 3 (July 1948): 5–7. 43 Yasuda, Shinran no shūkyō kaikaku, 89–96. 44 Ibid., 82–89. In the same lecture, Yasuda describes encounters between Ananda and Śākyamuni, between Shinran and Hōnen, and between his own contemporaries and Soga as repetitions of the original encounter between Dharmākara Bodhisattva and Lokêśvararāja Buddha (10–19). 45 Shinjin, no. 26 (December 1950): 1. 46 Shinjin, no. 3 (July 1948): 7. 47 Shinjin, no. 13 (October 1949): 1. 48 Ibid. 49 Shinjin, no. 17 (February 1950): 1. 50 Shinjin, no. 3 (July 1948): 17. 51 These four accounts appear in Shinjin, no. 2 (June 1948): 13–14; no. 3 (July 1948): 17; no. 5 (October 1948): 6–7; and no. 6 (November 1948): 4–5. 52 Chūgai nippō, November 30, 1950, 2. 53 Nomoto, Akegarasu Haya den, 710. 54 The following account of Akegarasu’s term as head of sect affairs is based on Nomoto’s Akegarasu Haya den (698–796) unless otherwise noted. A more succinct account can be found in Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 492–508. 55 Chūgai nippō, February 6, 1951, 3. This negative assessment of the state of the Ōtani community was shared by former head of sect affairs and then National Diet member Ōtani Eijun. In a November 1950 Shinshū article, Eijun portrayed the Ōtani organization over the previous four years as lifeless, aimless, and unable to respond to society’s needs, suffering as it was from doctrinal and financial crises. He placed the blame for those problems on the Sect Parliament’s factionalism. The organization’s financial problems had been exacerbated by costs associated with the 450-year memorial events held for Rennyo in 1949. 279

Notes to Pages 202–203 56 Nomoto, Akegarasu Haya den, 699. 57 The new preaching system was integrated with the already existing Per­ petuation Confraternity, which functioned as Ōtani’s major fundraising system. Founded in 1886, this program collected annual payments from all Ōtani members (initially the fee was two yen for men and one yen for women; later, association members were placed into four categories of ascending rank based on payment amount). It also facilitated monthly local dharma meetings for members in service of the cause of “perpetuating” the teachings. As part of the Dōbō Life movement, the Akegarasu cabinet revised the confraternity’s regulations, including a dues increase to ten yen per individual per month (Ōtani Shūmusho, Sōzokukō to Dōbō Seikatsu undō). During Akegarasu’s tenure as head of sect affairs, the Ōtani organi­ zation’s debt finally began to drop—from thirty-five million to twenty mil­ lion yen (Shinshū, no. 628, January 1956, 9). 58 Suzuki, Crisis in Japanese Buddhism, 47. 59 A list of Akegarasu’s writings organized chronologically can be found in the supplementary volume of Akegarasu, Akegarasu Haya zenshū. For his lecture on Kiyozawa, see vol. 19 of the same collection. For discussion of the doctri­ nal studies conference, see Nomoto, Akegarasu Haya den, 726–727. 60 The weeklong series of events held at Akegarasu’s home temple in Ishikawa prefecture in April 1936 commemorated the anniversaries of the deaths of his father (50 years), mother (13 years), Shinran (675 years), Śākyamuni (approximately 3,000 years), Prince Shōtoku (approximately 1,300 years), Rennyo (approximately 450 years), and Kiyozawa (33 years). Akegarasu’s ranking of Kiyozawa alongside Rennyo, Prince Shōtoku, Śākyamuni, and Shinran is striking. To commemorate the occasion, Akegarasu collected donations to sponsor publications on each of the five major figures hon­ ored. For Kiyozawa, the resulting publication was Floyd Shacklock and Kunji Tajima’s Selected Essays of Manshi Kiyozawa, the first English transla­ tions of Kiyozawa’s work since Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion. Regarding the 1936 events, see Akegarasu, Daihōon’e seiganmon. 61 Nishimura Kengyō, Kiyozawa Manshi sensei. 62 Three different versions of Kiyozawa Manshi zenshū (Complete works of Kiyo­ zawa Manshi) have been published by Kōkōdō (1934–1935), Akegarasu and Nishimura (1953–1957), and Iwanami Shoten (2002–2003), respectively. 63 Following the lectures, a panel discussion was held with Soga, Kaneko, Nishitani Keiji, Miyamoto Shōson, and others. The discussion ended with a student commenting, “We would like to study Teacher Kiyozawa, but do not know how to do so,” to which Soga recommended the creation of a “Kiyozawa research group.” For records of the events, see Shinjin, no. 45 (July 1952). 280

Notes to Pages 203–209 64 Akegarasu, Akegarasu Haya zenshū, 20:202–215. 65 Details regarding the Rōsendō events can be found in Akegarasu, Akegarasu Haya zenshū, 25:468–475. The journal entry was dated August 20, 1954, the second day of the Rōsendō events. Akegarasu’s actual last words, as recounted by his biographer, were “Very soon, I will be going to the Pure Land.” Nomoto, Akegarasu Haya den, 935. 66 Kurube Shin’yū Ronshū Kankōkai, Shinshū no sōgya, 114. 67 The “Sect White Paper” (Shūmon hakusho, 宗門白書; officially titled “Shūmon kakui ni tsugu” [宗門各位に告ぐ]) was printed in the April 1956 issue of Shinshū. It is also reproduced and discussed in Fukushima and Akamatsu, Shiryō Kiyozawa Manshi, vol. 3, and in Kyōka kenkyū, no. 151 (June 2012). 68 Kyōka kenkyū, no. 151 (June 2012): 174. 69 Ibid. 70 Chūgai nippō, June 5, 1956, 4. 71 Chūgai nippō, June 19, 1956, 2. 72 Fukushima and Akamatsu, Shiryō Kiyozawa Manshi, 3:505. 73 SRS, 6:19. 74 Shinjin, no. 73 (November 1954): 1–2. For more discussion of Soga’s thinking on Rennyo and a “second restoration of the Shin sect,” see Kaku, “Shinshū no daini no saikō”; “Rennyo’s Position.” 75 Although Miyatani is listed as the white paper’s author, many accounts attribute it to Kurube. Yasutomi Shin’ya reports having been told that the author was fellow Shinjin member Takeda Junshō. However, Yasutomi goes on to state that through conversations with Minowa Eishō, who personally knew Miyatani, he became convinced that the white paper was Miyatani’s own personal manifesto (“Hongan no rekishi ni tatsu,” 20–21). In a speech to the Sect Parliament, Miyatani explains the white paper as stemming from his own experience that spring attending various Buddhist studies conferences and being dismayed at the lack of living voices of faith. Chūgai nippō, June 14, 1956, 2. 76 Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 728–730. 77 Kyōka Kenkyūjo, Kiyozawa Manshi no kenkyū. 78 Yasutomi, “Hongan no rekishi ni tatsu,” 18. 79 Kurube Shin’yū Ronshū Kankōkai, Shinshū no sōgya, 279–280; Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 744. 80 Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 735–741. 81 Soga’s lecture examines Shinran’s commentary on Shandao’s statement that “in the preceding moment, life ends. In the next moment, you are 281

Notes to Pages 209–212 immediately born” (zennen myōjū gonen sokushō, 前念命終後念即生) (CWS, 1:594). Shinran’s commentary identifies “the preceding moment” as the moment of attaining faith in Amida’s Primal Vow. Drawing supporting evidence from Kakunyo’s commentary, Soga argues that “life ends” must pertain to the mind rather than the body, such that faith brings about a new life or rebirth of the mind: “The environment is the same as it was before, but in the moment of attaining faith, a new mental object (shinkyō, 心境) opens up. That mental object is the Pure Land. It is the Pure Land and the gate to the Pure Land.” Suzuki et al., Shinran no sekai, 376. 82 Suzuki et al., Shinran no sekai, 386. 83 CWS, 1:330; Suzuki et al., Shinran no sekai, 389. 84 Fujii Masao lists thirteen different reform movements that arose within the Shin, Jōdo, Nichiren, Rinzai, Sōtō, Shingon, and Tendai sects during the 1960s, beginning with the Honganji denomination’s Monshintokai (門信徒会) movement in 1961 and Ōtani’s Dōbōkai movement in 1962. Kasa­ hara, History of Japanese Religion, 592. 85 The Ōtani community was organized into thirty teaching districts (kyōku, 教区) that were further divided into over four hundred associations (so, 組). Each year, the Dōbōkai movement would target one or two associations within a third of its teaching districts (ten to twenty associations in total). 86 Kurube’s speech introducing the movement appeared in Shinshū, no.  703 (July 1962). For a brief history of the movement, see Tsuge Sen’ei’s threepart “Dōbōkai undō no genryū.”  For journalistic accounts, see Mainichi Shinbunsha, Shūkyō o gendai ni tou, vol. 5; and Suzuki, Crisis in Japanese Buddhism. For personal accounts and scholarly analyses of the movement, most of them from a sympathetic Ōtani perspective, see Kyōka kenkyū, nos. 141, 151; and Ōtani Daigaku Shinshū Sōgō Kenkyūjo, Dōbōkai undō no genzō. In English, see Cooke, “Struggle for Reform.” 87 Cooke, “Struggle for Reform,” 21–23; Mizushima, Kin-gendai Shinshū kyōgakushi, 794–802. 88 This anecdote appears in Mainichi Shinbunsha, Shūkyō o gendai ni tou, 5:73–74. Records of interviews with lay participants in the Special Trans­ mission of the Way courses are also included in Suzuki, Crisis in Japanese Buddhism. 89 Regarding contradictions involved in the occupation government’s imposi­ tion of religious freedom, see Thomas, Faking Liberties, 167–194. 90 All the institutional reform efforts initiated by Kurube, Akegarasu, Soga, and their associates were led by men, and none of those efforts confronted unequal treatment of women within the organization. Kaneko explicitly argued in favor of unequal gender roles in a 1950s pamphlet that was subse­ quently used as an educational resource in the training of priests (Starling, 282

Notes to Pages 212–216 Guardians of the Buddha’s Home, 134–135). In the midst of calls for gender equality in the 1980s, Kurube’s discriminatory statements regarding women became the subject of a major controversy (Heidegger, “Shin Bud­ dhism and Gender,” 197–200). In regard to the burakumin liberation move­ ment, the publication of a 1970 lecture of Soga’s containing discriminatory comments toward burakumin prompted critiques, an apology from Soga, and Soga’s forced resignation from the Inquiry Committee (Itō, “Soga Ryōjin,” 228–232). Kurube also made inflammatory comments regarding the burakumin liberation movement in the 1980s. 91 The Dōbōkai movement eventually came to be criticized as an assault on the chief abbot and the traditions he represented. However, at its outset, the movement was not antagonistic toward the chief abbot or the tradition of “three positions in one body” (at least not outwardly antagonistic). In fact, Kurube’s initial Dōbōkai speech lamented the Ōtani community’s inability to respond to the chief abbot’s exhortations and justified the need for the Dōbōkai movement with reference to the chief abbot’s own words (Shinshū, no. 703, July 1962).

Conclusion 1 Kyōka Kenkyūjo, Gendai no seiten. 2 Ibid. 3 Mainichi Shinbunsha, Shūkyō o gendai ni tou, 5:62. 4 Higashi Honganji Shuppanbu, Gendai no seiten kaisetsu, 21–22. 5 Terakawa, Kiyozawa Manshi ron. 6 Tahara, Higashi Honganji sanjūnen funsō, 55–56. Kōno Hōun had died in 1946. Saitō Yuishin had died in 1957. By the time of the 1965 Inquiry Committee case regarding Kiyozawa, other traditionalist scholars like Ōsuga Shūdō and Katō Chigaku had also died. It seems that the success of Ōtani Shin modernists in establishing a new sect orthodoxy was due in no small part to Soga and Kaneko’s longevity—both lived to the age of ninety-five. 7 Tahara, Higashi Honganji sanjūnen funsō; Mainichi Shinbunsha, Shūkyō o gendai ni tou, vol. 5. 8 Fukushima and Akamatsu, Shiryō Kiyozawa Manshi, 1:593–603. 9 The 1981 Ōtani constitution eliminated the title of dharma master and des­ ignated the chief abbot by the new title of gatekeeper (monshu, 門首). In this role, the chief abbot would carry out many of his traditional duties (e.g., conducting tokudo and kikyōshiki rites, convening the Sect Parliament) but only as directed to do so by the cabinet. Doctrinal questions would be resolved by a newly instituted Inquiry Committee (now named the Tōriin, 董理院) comprising members appointed by the elected head of sect affairs 283

Notes to Pages 216–223 rather than the chief abbot. Shinshū Ōtani-ha Shūmusho, Shinshū Ōtani-ha shūken. 10 The chief abbot’s eldest son established the Jōdo Shinshū Higashi Honganji denomination in 1988 with its head temple in Tokyo. In 1996, the chief abbot’s second son also splintered off, establishing the Jōdo Shinshū Ōtani Honganji denomination with its head temple at Higashiyama Jōen cemetery in eastern Kyoto. Within the long-standing Shinshū Ōtani denomination, the chief abbot’s third son succeeded him as gatekeeper in 1996. For details, see Tahara, Higashi Honganji sanjūnen funsō. 11 For discussion of why certain nationalistic, war-supportive forms of Bud­ dhism ought to be included within the category of “socially engaged Bud­ dhism,” see Main and Lai, “Introduction.” 12 Ives, Zen Awakening and Society, 41, 116–118. 13 Ives, Imperial-Way Zen, 184–185. 14 Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 63. 15 Ives, Zen Awakening and Society, 111; Imperial-Way Zen, 180–183. 16 In “My Faith,” Kiyozawa writes, “I no longer have any need to discern good from bad, right from wrong. In whatever I do, I simply follow my inclina­ tions and act according to what my heart dictates, without hesitation. I have no concern whatsoever as to whether or not my behavior is in error or in sin. The tathāgata graciously takes responsibility for all my actions” (Blum and Rhodes, Cultivating Spirituality, 97). Strictly speaking, Kiyozawa’s point is that union with Amida leads to transcendence of ethical concerns, not to ethical behavior. Yet it amounts to a recommendation to abandon ethical calculation and simply rely upon the Buddha. For discussion of Kiyozawa’s ethics, see Blum, “Kiyozawa Manshi”; and Sueki, Kindai Nihon to Bukkyō, 18–51. Soga’s reflections on the Fifteen Years’ War point to a lack of “religion” and “awakening” as the cause of people’s inability to judge the goodness or evilness of the war (see chapter 6, note 4). 17 Ives, Imperial-Way Zen, 186. 18 Dessí, Social Dimension of Shin Buddhism. 19 Ives arrives at a similar conclusion in his assessment of Ichikawa Hakugen’s Ethics and Society and Brian Victoria’s scholarship on Zen and war: “In response to Ichikawa and Victoria’s explanations of Imperial-Way Zen, I would argue that instead of pitfalls in Zen’s peace of mind or Zen’s connec­ tion to the samurai, a better direction to seek the causes of Imperial-Way Zen is institutional history,” specifically in “the traditional symbiotic relation­ ship between Buddhism and Japanese rulers” (Imperial-Way Zen, 107). Yet Ives’s final constructivist chapter focuses on formulating a more rigorous 284

Notes to Pages 225–226 Zen social ethics—rather than on questions of how Buddhists might build more autonomous communities and institutions. 20 Kiyozawa, December Fan, 90. 21 KMZ, 8:362–363. 22 Inagaki, Three Pure Land Sutras, 236.

285

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303

Index

Abe Keisui, 109, 112, 114, 224, 261n69, 262n81 absolute, the, faith and knowledge of, 41, 45–46. See also the infinite adverse conditions (gyakuen), 90–91, 116 afterlife. See Pure Land; rebirth in the Pure Land Akanuma Chizen, 110, 262n77 Akegarasu Haya: argument with Ōsuga Shūdō, 149; democratization’s impact on, 218–219; as head of sect affairs, 201–203, 212, 280n57; heresy investigation of, 264n9; Kiyozawa, memorialization of, 203–204, 241n34; as Kiyozawa follower, 6, 54; as Nenbutsu Leader, 201; opponents of, 150; response to political pressures, 182–184; at Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, 149, 151, 152, 177–182, 186; support of war effort, 217–218; on Tannishō, 60; wartime doctrinal studies of, 18, 161–162, 272n71 Amaterasu (Amaterasu Ōmikami, sun kami), 149, 157, 173, 177–178, 179 Amida Buddha: attainment of buddahood, 38, 72–74; Dharmākara and, 163; emperor and, 149, 154, 163–165, 173, 180–183, 218, 219; immediate birth and, 37; kami and, 160, 177–178; Kaneko on, 84, 163; Kiyozawa on, 3, 32; nature of, 37–38, 49, 65, 66, 72; past existence, 38, 66, 72; Sasaki on, 69–70; as this-worldly reality, 40, 225; and three minds, 77–78; vows of, 36, 199, 247n42. See also Dharmākara Bodhisattva Amida’s Primal Vow (eighteenth vow): actualization of, 199; emperor’s primal vow and, 180, 181; Jinrei on, 61; Kaneko on, 83–84, 150; objective truth of, 199;

problematic nature of doctrine of, 75; Saitō on, 159; Sasaki on, 72–73; Shinran on, 55, 57, 197; Soga on, 78, 196; this-worldly explanation of, 219, 220; three minds invoked by, 77–78; wartime interpretation of, 218. See also Dharmākara Bodhisattva ango (Shin study retreat), 61, 93, 104 asceticism: Kiyozawa and, 43, 226 Atsumi Kaien, 105, 106, 114, 264n9 awakening ( jikaku): through Buddhist studies, 16; Hara Tanzan on, 28; Kaneko on, 82–83, 170; Kiyozawa’s pursuit of, 3; Kurube on, 209–210; as modernist doctrinal interpretation, 18–19, 212, 220, 225, 238n5, 254n50; and modern Shin studies, 67; priest-lay relationship and, 193–194; Sasaki on, 69–72; social ethics and, 221; Soga on, 78, 169–170, 196, 209; soldiers’ experiences of, 156 Tannishō on, 39; Yasuda on, 188, 198 birth. See rebirth bodhisattva practice, 76, 82, 156, 169, 179–180, 256n74. See also Dharmākara Bodhisattva bodies: of buddhas, 38; facts of physical, 164 bonbu (ordinary, unenlightened persons), 65, 66, 82–83 Bourdieu, Pierre, 11, 95, 96, 114–115, 222–223, 241n30 Buddha Land (hotoke no mikuni), 150, 152, 201 buddhas: attainment of buddhahood, 31, 61, 73, 159, 161, 169, 180–182, 218, 246n33; bodies of, 38; and Buddhist studies, 7; innumerable, 183, 199, 200;

305

Index and kami, 150, 160, 176–179; Kiyozawa on, 48–50; nature of, 215; nonexistence of, 275n4; by original nature, 163. See also Amida Buddha; Śākyamuni Buddha Buddhism: adaptability of, 13; Buddhist fields, 97; challenges faced by Buddhist universities, 1; concern over corrupting influence of wealth, 144; differences from academic study, 71–72; education and, 98–101; during Meiji era, 2, 93–99, 104; need for social ethics, 222; as non-religious, 179; orthodoxy, 6; politics of Buddhist thought, 15–19; reform of, 7–11, 20; role in public education, 99; statesupporting, 152–157; useful, 98; Western critiques of, 68; Western science’s impact on, 26. See also Amida Buddha; Imperial-Way Buddhism; Ōtani denomination; Shin Buddhism; Shin modernism; tradition and traditionalism Buddhist modernism, 12–15, 39. See also Shin modernism Buddhist studies (bukkyōgaku): classification of, 101; conclusions on, 85–86; Kaneko’s rationalism, 78–85; Kiyozawa’s liberalism, 67–68; paradigm change, 57–60; paradigms of, 55–86; Sasaki and, 56–58, 69–74, 111; Soga’s iconoclasm, 74–78; traditional sectarian studies, 60–67. See also Shin sectarian studies burakumin (outcast) community, 212, 283n90 cause and effect, 82, 83, 84–85, 256n74 chief abbots: demotion to symbolic role, 216; as dharma masters, 102; doctrinal authority of, 61, 120, 131, 135, 176, 224; list of, 114; in Ōtani organizational structure, 127, 265n24; power of, 102–103; selection of, 192 Chikazumi Jōkan, 52, 103, 250n88 China: Ōtani missions in, 153, 156

306

chokumei (imperial command), 173–174 Christianity, 31, 52, 59, 94, 99, 104, 138, 177, 190, 217 Chūgai nippō (newspaper): on academic freedom, 145; on Communist Party Incident, 132–133; conference on Religious Corporations Ordinance, 191–192; coverage of Kaneko heresy affair, 125, 131–134, 143, 266n36; on democratization’s impact on Buddhist organizations, 190, 201; Kaneko-Tada debate in, 146; on Kiyozawa, 205–206; Murakami article in, 144–145; on Parliament elections, 201; Shimotsuma article in, 134 Committee of Elders (Ōtani organization), 126, 127, 265n24 Communist Party Incident (March 15 Incident), 17, 118, 132–133, 136–137 community(ies): agency of lay members of Shin, 258n26; burakumin (outcast), 212, 283n90; Kiyozawa as voice of, 19–20; nature of Buddhist, 211; political and religious threats from Pure Land community, 152–153; as venue for Buddhist teachings, 188 consciousness, 28, 31–32, 49–50, 53 cultural fields, 96, 114–115 Dalai Lama, 52–53 death, 32–33, 141, 179–182 December Fan (Rōsen, Kiyozawa pen name), 45, 203 democracy, 190–191, 195, 218–219, 222 Dharmākara Bodhisattva: Amida and, 38, 163; doctrine of, 75; Soga’s theory of, 59, 76, 77, 82; vows and kalpas of practice, 65, 66. See also Amida Buddha; Amida’s Primal Vow Dharma Preservation Hall, 93, 104, 106 dōbō (companions, fellow seekers of the way), 195, 212, 213 Dōbōkai movement, 19, 187, 208–211, 213–215, 224, 282n85, 283n91 Dōbō Life movement, 202, 280n57 doctrinal authority (kyōken), 69, 73, 85, 102, 120, 131–132, 135, 255n63

Index Doctrinal Studies Renewal campaign (Ōtani University), 171, 173 Doctrinal Studies Renewal Council (Ministry of Education), 171, 172 Durkheim, Émile, 7, 240n16 eight corners of the world under one roof (hakkō ichiu), 149–150, 168, 169 emperor: Amida Buddha and, 149, 154, 163–165, 173, 180–183, 218, 219, 270n46; as divine, 2, 94, 103, 157, 166, 173, 190–191, 217; emperor-as-organ theory, 172; familial relationships with chief abbots, 154, 157, 190; Kaneko’s glorification of, 162–165, 185; loyalty toward, 62–64, 71, 152–156, 167–168, 176; persecution of Pure Land priests, 89, 152, 173, 189; Soga’s glorification of, 167–170, 185, 273n101. See also Hirohito, Crown Prince (later Emperor); Imperial-Way Buddhism; Prince Shōtoku; two-truths doctrine empiricism: of Buddhism, 26–29, 40, 52–53, 217; of Buddhist studies, 56, 99–100, 111; Kiyozawa on, 40–43, 46, 53; language of, 26–27; objective versus subjective, 47; religious, 43–54, 56, 69–76. See also experience Epictetus, 45, 68, 169, 216n69 ethics and morality: community and, 223; Confucian moral education, 99; and Great Promulgation Campaign, 95; instinct versus moral reasoning, 166–167; Kiyozawa on, 3, 162; Kōno on, 160, 177, 178; Saitō on, 159; Shinto and, 177, 178; social ethics, 221–223; of this world, 39; worldly truth and, 63–65, 158, 162; Zen ethics, 220–221. See also two-truths doctrine evil conditions (akuen), 92 expedient means (upāya), 32, 60, 66 experience ( jikken/keiken): of awakening, 3, 16, 19; experience (taiken), 214; Geertz on, 51, 53; inner mental, 45, 52; Kaneko on, 78, 80–85, 146, 164; Kiyozawa on, 12, 15, 24, 34, 40, 45–47, 50–52, 146, 217, 226; Kurube on, 195,

212; linguistic conflation with experiments, 27, 226, 244n10; need for language of, 25, 27–28; objective facts versus, 197; Proudfoot on, 44; Sasaki on, 69–74; Soga on, 75–78, 146; of trainees, 195, 208; of union with Amida, 199–200, 221. See also empiricism; language of religious experience experiment ( jikken): experimentalism, 54; Kiyozawa’s language of, 15, 42–43, 46, 53–54; linguistic conflation with experience, 27, 226, 244n10; use of as term, 27–29, 52. See also empiricism; experience external studies (gegaku), 67, 104 facts ( jijitsu): nature of, 44–45; religious facts, 47, 71–72; Shinran’s awakening as objective, 197; social, 7, 240n16; of spiritual experience, 50; subjective, 48, 56, 69, 217. See also objectivity faith (shinjin): attainment of, 197–198; effects of, 50–51; empirical knowledge and, 53; as fancy, 47–48; knowledge of the absolute and, 45–46; Shinran on, 33, 55, 82, 116, 119; subjective realities and, 48–49; translation of as term, 238n5; two types of deep faith, 121, 129, 264n15 Fifteen Years’ War (Jūgonen Sensō) period, 149–186; conflation of religion and politics in, 182–184; Kaneko and Soga’s reinstatement and promotion, 170–176, 184–186; modernist wartime doctrinal studies, 161–170, 184–186, 217–218; Ōtani sect’s response to, 149–152, 154–155, 222; Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, 149–152, 176–182; state-supporting Buddhism, 152–157; traditionalist wartime doctrinal studies, 157–161 Flower Garland Sutra, 71, 72 form ( ji), 66, 80 free inquiry ( jiyū tōkyū), 68, 130–134, 146, 214–215

307

Index Fukuda Gyōkai, 8, 237n2 Fumon Entsū, 26, 52 Gakurin (Nishi Honganji denomination seminary), 96, 123 Gasshō (Ōtani University journal), 91, 111 Geertz, Clifford, 8, 51, 53 Gijō (Ōtani scholar), 27, 52 governors of temples and shrines ( jisha bugyō), 96, 122, 123, 124, 144, 258n22 Great Promulgation Campaign, 95, 99, 102, 259n39 Hachiman (kami), 173 hall priests, 120–121 Hara Tanzan, 9, 28, 52, 99–100, 245n16 heresy (ianjin), 116–146; conclusion to heresy affair, 144–146; great dharma debates, 120; journalists on heresy affair, 131–134; Kaneko heresy affair, 116–119, 124–131; Murakami Senshō on heresy affair, 144; Nonomura Naotarō, 257n8, 262n84, 263n4; Ōtani students on heresy affair, 139–144; Shimotsuma Kūkyō on heresy affair, 134–139; as term, 243n44; in Tokugawa period, 119–124, 129; trials, 112, 119–121 Higashi Honganji denomination. See Ōtani denomination Higashi Honganji Temple: as conference venue, 149, 176, 207; dharma talks by Akegarasu Haya, 202; establishment of, 152–153; and geisha, 260n48; memorial services, 193, 205; memorial services for war dead, 153; and Ōtani administration, 101–102; training programs, 195, 202, 208, 210; use as a prison, 122 Hīnayāna Buddhism, 206 Hiranuma Kiichirō, Prime Minister, 174 Hirohito, Crown Prince (later Emperor), 154, 155, 189 Hirose Morikazu, 63–65, 74, 85, 126 Hōnen (Buddhist master), 56, 57, 152, 199. See also Shin patriarchs Honganji denomination (Nishi Honganji denomination): censorship of

308

scripture, 173; heresy cases, 120; Nishi-Higashi division, 152–153; Sangō Wakuran disturbance, 123–124 honji suijaku. See original ground and traces (honji suijaku) theory Hume, David, 79, 82 iconoclasm, 75–78, 169, 197, 255n63, 278n35 ideas, transcendental (kannen), 81–84, 119, 129, 269n33 immediate birth (soku ōjō), 36–37 Imperial-Way Buddhism, 149–186, 221, 273n102. See also emperor Inaba Masamaru, 43, 104–105, 116–117, 125, 126–128, 146 infinite, the, 3, 30–33, 39, 49–50, 75, 83–84, 146. See also Amida Buddha Inoue Enryō, 41, 104–105, 106, 248–249n64 Inquiry Committee. See under Ōtani denomination, organizational structure instinct (honnō), 166–167, 168–169, 207 Institute of Shinto Ceremonies, 171, 174 instrument (ki), 164, 264n15 introspection (naikan): Dōbōkai movement and, 211; Hara Tanzan on, 28; Kaneko on, 80, 84, 85, 119, 130, 169; Kiyozawa on, 31, 51, 225; modernism and, 86, 183, 220; Seishinshugi on, 3, 59; Soga on, 169; subjective facts and, 48; Yasuda on, 198 Ise Shrine talismans, 161 Ishikawa Shuntai, 104, 106–107, 114, 224, 264n9 Ives, Christopher, 98, 220–221, 284–285n19 Iwata Sōzaburō, 125 James, William, 27–28, 240n15 Japan: anticipated bombing of, 151; demilitarization of, 190; heresy cases in, 124; intellectual freedom in, 118–119; postwar, 186, 189–192; as Pure Land, 175; pursuit of ideological purity, 172–176; religious freedom in, 134; size of religions in, 242n42; University Ordinance, 100, 109; Western science in, 26, 58–59. See also emperor;

Index imperialism; Meiji Restoration and Meiji era; Tokugawa period Jinrei (Kōgatsuin Jinrei), 60–61, 74, 251n17 Jōdo Buddhism, 191, 242n42 Jōdo Shin (True Pure Land) Buddhism. See Shin Buddhism Jōdo Shinshū Higashi Honganji denomination, 284n10 Jōdo Shinshū Ōtani Honganji denomination, 284n10 Josephson-Storm, Jason, 157–158, 244n8 Kaishin (journal), 165–169 Kakunyo, 8, 61, 77, 282n81 Kālāma Sutta, 133–134 kami (divine spirits in Shinto): emperor as, 94, 103, 157, 173, 190–191; kami instinct, 168–169; Kiyozawa on, 3, 49; Kōno on, 160, 173; land of the kami, 149–152; reason for kami’s existence, 164; relationship to buddhas, 2, 94, 160; Shimotsuma on, 137, 138; Soga on, 167; as subjective facts, 48; war dead as, 157, 180–181; worship as non-religious, 134, 160 kami/shin character, 166 Kaneko Daiei: adaptability of, 219, 221; approach to Shin studies, 79–80, 169; comparison with Sasaki, 69; ideological purity and, 176; on Inquiry Committee, 215, 216; Kant and, 79, 80–81, 82; as Kiyozawa proponent, 6; longevity, 283n6; as modernist, 97, 113; Ōtani doctrinal affairs and, 184–185; as Ōtani priest, 170–176; praise for, 262n77; purge of, 190; rationalism of, 78–85; response to political pressures, 182–184; as Seishinkai journal editor, 91; at Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, 149–152, 178–182; Soga and, 76, 89; students’ support for, 141, 194; Tada’s critiques of, 266n32; wartime doctrinal studies of, 161–165 Kaneko Daiei, as educator: at Hiroshima University of Literature and Science, 162; as instructor for training program, 208; lectures by, 209, 215; at Ōtani University, 90–91, 184;

promotion to kōshi scholar, 170, 172, 189 Kaneko Daiei, heresy affair and: accusations against, 17, 113, 116–119, 124–131; donors’ impact on, 124–125, 131, 224; journalists on, 131–134; Ōtani students on, 139–144; restoration as Ōtani priest, 158; Shimotsuma Kūkyō on, 134–139 Kaneko Daiei, views of: on cause and effect, 256n74; defense of Sasaki, 110; on doctrinal interpretation, 146; on Kiyozawa, 53–54; on the next life, 74; on Primal Vow, 83–84, 150; on the Pure Land, 84, 129, 150–152; on sacralization of emperor, 149–150, 163–164, 170; on the self, 83; on Shinran, 164–165; on Shin studies, 59, 79–80, 111; on Sutra on Immeasurable Life, 162–163; on universal truths, 149–150; on war, 18, 180–186, 217–218, 274–275n4 Kannon Bodhisattva, 164–165, 178 Kanrenkai (academic society), 68, 106, 253n33 Kant, Immanuel, 79, 80–81, 82, 84 karma: burden of, 189, 197, 264n15, 277n14; as instinct, 166–169; kami subject to, 173; and mental capacity, 43–44, 47; and nirvana, 33; skepticism toward doctrine of, 68; as substance of Pure Land, 151; of war service, 179–180 Kashiwahara Yūgi, 179–180, 181 Kasuga Enjō, 113, 125, 126, 128, 144 Katō Chigaku, 179–180, 181, 283n6 Katō Genchi, 52, 250n88 Kawasaki Kenryō, 174, 178–179 Kenshin (journal), 91, 111 kikyōshiki ceremony, 155, 210 king’s law and buddha’s law (obō buppō), 62–63, 151, 160 Kiyozawa Manshi: attempts at reform, 9; audience for, 67; critiques of, 33–34, 68, 196, 215–216; influences on, 39, 40, 45, 52, 217; memorialization of, 23–25, 193–194, 202–204, 225–226; name of, 237n4; name removal, 106–107; reception of, 3–7; restoration of

309

Index representation of, 20; Shinran and, 33–39; Shin studies scholarship by, 67; teachings of, as Ōtani orthodoxy, 195, 205–208, 215–216; voice of community surrounding, 19–20; the way of minimum possible and, 42–43; Western intellectual influences on, 30 Kiyozawa Manshi, characteristics: asceticism, 226; as disruptive, 10; as exemplar, 19; experimentalism, 54; extraordinariness, 2–4; liberalism, 67–68; modernism, 97; as not dead, 23–24; reformist aspirations, 106; religious empiricism, 43–54 Kiyozawa Manshi, life of: birth and early life, 2–3; career of, 3; final days and death, 1–2, 108; protest movement by, 103; at Shinshū University, 107, 108; Takakura Academy and, 105; at Tokyo University, 104–105 Kiyozawa Manshi, views of: on Amida, 32, 284n16; continuity of, 245n17; on doctrinal interpretation, 146; on empiricism, 40–43, 53; on experimentation, 43; on facts, 44–45; on faith, 24; on freedom, 45; on kami, 3, 49; on materialism, 42; on modernisttraditionalist division, 145; on objectivity, 46; on Pure Land Buddhism, 3; on reason, 40–41, 85; on rebirth, 32–33; on religion, 29–31; scientific skepticism and, 29; on spiritual existence, 25; this-worldly doctrinal stance of, 25, 33, 54; on Tokugawa period scholarship, 80; on two-truths doctrine, 162 Kiyozawa Manshi, works by: December Fan Diary, 45, 225, 278n26; “The Great Path of Absolute Other Power,” 25, 203; “My Faith” (“This is How I Have Faith in Buddha”), 1, 5, 23, 24, 50–51, 206, 207; Notes on the Finite and the Infinite, 45–46; as Ōtani orthodoxy, 205–206; question of authorship of, 19–20; “Religious Teachings Are Subjective Facts,” 48; “Science and Religion,” 46; Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion, 29–33, 42, 67;

310

“Truth and Religion,” 43–45; “A View of Equality,” 46, 49; “World of Experience,” 40, 42 Kizu Muan, 151, 224 Kōkōdō (communal house), 3, 195, 203, 206, 249n86, 269n32 Kōno Hōun: contributions to new orthodoxy, 224; criticisms of, 172–173; death of, 283n6; during Fifteen Years’ War period, 18, 158, 160–162, 165, 168–173, 176–182; as Inquiry Committee member, 125, 146; on kami worship, 160–161, 168; Kaneko and, 150–151; on rebirth, 160, 270n40; resignation from Ōtani University, 171; resignation from Shinshū University, 261n67; Saitō and, 170; on Sasaki’s university presidency, 110; at Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, 177, 179–182 kōshi (lecture master), 61, 69, 112, 251–252n18 Kuhn, Thomas, 9, 10, 57–58, 73 Kuni Kuniyoshi, Prince, 154 Kurube Shin’yū: adaptability of, 219; as dean of Ōtani University, 172; democratization’s impact on, 218–219; Dōbōkai movement and, 209–211, 283n91; election to Sect Parliament, 201; as head of doctrinal affairs, 194–195, 205–209, 212, 278n22; as head of sect affairs, 209; as leader of modernist faction, 192; on new sect cabinet, 184; planning for Ōtani organization’s dissolution, 276n5; possibility of resignation from Ōtani University, 274n107; as possible author of white paper, 207; preface to Sacred Scripture for the Present Age, 214; Shinjin reform movement and, 196; training programs, 19, 208, 212; on women, 283n90; Yasuda and, 187–188 Kyōgyōshinshō (Shinran), 35–36, 60, 119, 145, 152, 206 land of the kami (shinkoku), 149–152, 175, 182–183, 273n102

Index language of religious experience, 23–54; introduction to, 23–25; Kiyozawa and Shinran, 33–39; Kiyozawa’s critique of empiricism, 40–43; Kiyozawa’s religious empiricism, 43–54; scientific skepticism, 26–29; Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion, 29–33 laypeople: Assembly of Lay Representatives, 192, 277n16; democratization and, 191; Dōbōkai movement and, 209–212, 215; equality with priests, 9, 193, 218; faith experiences of, 200; influence of, 102, 224, 258n26; Kaneko heresy affair and, 124, 128, 131; “neither monk nor layman” principle, 95, 111; training programs for, 195–196, 202 Lotus Sutra, 163 Mahāyāna sutras, 100, 113, 253n26, 254n44 March 15 Incident (Communist Party Incident), 17, 118, 132–133, 136–137 Marxism and Marxist theory, 11, 139–144, 263n4 Matani Ruikotsu, 131 Matsubara Yūzen, 139–140, 165, 194, 196, 208, 215, 267n43 McMahan, David, 12–13, 39 Meiji Restoration and Meiji era: heresy cases during, 119–120; impact on Buddhism, 2, 8, 93–96, 104, 114, 217, 237n2, 259n39; Meiji Constitution on religious freedom, 95; public education system, 98–99; religion versus secular spheres in, 95, 157–161 minimum possible, the way of (minimamu poshiburu shugi), 42–43, 226 Ministry of Doctrine, 95, 99, 101 Ministry of Education, 99, 108, 110, 128, 138–139, 162, 164, 170–172, 174 Ministry of Home Affairs, 173, 259n39 Minobe Tatsukichi, 172–173, 270n46 Miyatani Hōgan, 205–208, 209, 281n75 modernism. See Buddhist modernism; Shin modernism morality. See ethics and morality Motora Yūjirō, 52, 250n88

Mount Sumeru, 2, 26, 68, 261n62 Müller, Max, 30, 108 Murakami Senshō, 100, 106, 113, 125, 130, 144–145 myōkōnin (commoners of exemplary faith), 200 Nagako, Princess (later Empress), 154 Nagarjuna (Buddhist master), 256n74. See also Shin patriarchs Nagatani Gan’yū, 194, 195–196, 278n21 Nanjō Bun’yū, 70, 108, 109, 110 national body (kokutai), 157, 165, 166, 168, 172, 175, 176, 185, 274n4 nationalism, 9, 62–64, 98–101, 149–186, 217–218, 270n46. See also State Shinto National Spirit and Culture Research Association, 162 national thought, fostering of, 101, 110, 132–133, 135 nenbutsu (invocation of Amida Buddha), 20; invocation of imperial kami and, 167–168; Kaneko on, 79, 82–83; at moment of death, 64, 211; Shimotsuma on, 137; Shinran on, 23, 24, 149, 152, 155, 187, 243n47 New Buddhism movement, 9, 244n12 new religions, 173, 192, 193, 210, 217, 242n42 Nichiren Buddhism, 173, 191, 242n42 nirvana, 32, 33, 78, 159 Nirvana Sutra, 71, 72 Nishida Kitarō, 27–28, 52, 93 Nishi Honganji denomination. See Honganji denomination Nishimura Kengyō, 203, 208 Nishitani Keiji, 208, 261n71, 280n63 Nonomura Naotarō, 131, 257n8, 262n84, 263n4 no-self, experiences of, 78, 83 Nunami Seiken, 125–128, 144 objectivity and objectivism: academic objectivity, 101, 130; Kaneko on, 84; Kiyozawa on, 30–32, 34, 42, 44, 46–50; objective existence of Pure Land, 246n35; objectivist language, 37; Sasaki

311

Index and, 56, 70; Soga on, 75, 196–198; subjectiveness in, 45, 46; Yasuda on, 198–199. See also facts Okada Keisuke, Prime Minister, 172 Ōmotokyō (religion), 173 original ground and traces (honji suijaku) theory, 160, 176–179, 273n92 orthodoxy, 6–8, 12, 216, 240n16. See also heresy; Ōtani denomination, orthodoxy of Ōsuga Shūdō, 149, 170, 172, 180, 181, 283n6 Ōtani Daigaku shinbun (Ōtani University newspaper), 117, 118–119, 139–143 Ōtani denomination (Higashi Honganji denomination): autonomy and heteronomy of, 93–98, 223; doctrinal authority in, 102, 120, 135; Doctrinal Studies Renewal campaign, 171; Fifteen Years’ War and, 154–155, 184; heresy cases, 120–123; internal critique of, 205; locus of determination of orthodoxy, 224–225; Nishi-Higashi division, 152–153; postwar challenges faced by, 192–193; schism in, 216; second restoration, 206–207; sectarian studies, 60, 251n17; secularism’s impact on, 217; training of priests, 104. See also Sect Parliament; Shin modernism Ōtani denomination, organizational structure: Accounting Directors Committee, 124, 125, 126, 127, 145; Committee of Elders, 126, 265n24; diagram of, 127, 265n24; head-branch system, 101–102, 153; Inquiry Committee, 112–113, 124–127, 132, 138, 145, 158, 170, 184, 215–216, 264n20, 267n50; new constitutions, 102, 192, 224, 277n17, 283–284n9; new sect regulations, 174–175; Ōtani University faculty and students, 127; Perpetuation Confraternity, 280n57; planning for dissolution of, 276n5; restructuring of, 213; size of, 242n42; women in, 282n90. See also Ōtani University. Ōtani denomination, orthodoxy of: chief abbots and, 61, 102, 120, 157; concern with unified doctrinal orthodoxy,

312

239n14; determination of, 16; fracturing of, 145, 146; Kiyozawabased, 18, 205–206, 211, 213, 214–216, 223–225; Ōtani University’s role in dissemination of, 92, 215; perceptions of, 12. See also heresy (ianjin); twotruths doctrine Ōtani Eijō, 108, 128, 134, 184, 191, 274n107, 276n5 Ōtani Eijun, 172, 175–179, 181, 184, 278n21, 279n55 Ōtani Eiryō, 108, 116, 127, 130 Ōtani Kōchō (chief abbot), 114, 154–157, 192, 215–216, 262n86 Ōtani Kōei (chief abbot), 103, 114 Ōtani Kōen (chief abbot), 62–65, 74, 102–104, 114, 154, 262n86 Ōtani Kōshō (chief abbot of Honganji denomination), 190, 191 Ōtani Kōshō (chief abbot of Ōtani denomination), 114 Ōtani Kōzui (chief abbot), 154, 268n17 Ōtani Satoko, 154, 156–157, 240n17 Ōtani Shin Buddhism. See Ōtani denomination Ōtani Shōshin, 111, 126 Ōtani University, 89–115; Buddhism and education and, 98–101; conclusions on, 113–115; dissemination of Buddhist orthodoxy, 92; establishment of, 89–90, 110–111; impact of, 224; institutional history, 106; introduction to, 89–93; Kaneko’s rehiring at, 184; newspaper, 117, 118–119, 139–143; organizational structure, 127; resignation of faculty, 128; Shimotsuma on, 136; Shinshū University and, 107–110; Soga and, 77, 90–91, 92, 170–176, 184, 215; student activism, 263n2; student enthusiasm for Marxist theory, 139–144; students on heresy affair, 139–144; Takakura Academy and, 103–107 other-power (tariki), 36, 83–84, 164, 168, 181, 199, 245 outcast (burakumin) community, 212, 283n90

Index paradigm change, 57–60, 73–74 Parliament. See Sect Parliament patriarchs. See Shin patriarchs politics. See Fifteen Years’ War (Jūgonen Sensō) period; Meiji Restoration and Meiji era; Tokugawa period press (journalists), coverage of heresy controversy, 117–118, 130–134 Primal Vow. See Amida’s Primal Vow principle (ri), 66, 80 Propagation of the Teachings Institute, 202, 208 Pure Land: classes of beings in, 209; contradictory location of, 66; formation of, 82; as idea, 84, 124, 129; Japan as, 152, 175; jeweled ponds of, 166; objective existence of, 49, 246n35, 269n33; reason for, 80; revolution in study of, 80–81; as substantial, 66, 150–151, 176, 246n35; Western Pure Land, 24, 38, 51–52, 58–59, 65–66, 130, 266n32. See also rebirth in the Pure Land reason and rationality, 40–42, 80, 85 rebirth in the Pure Land: Akegarasu on, 149, 152; of dead soldiers, 151, 155, 179–182; Dōbōkai movement on, 211; empirical evidence for, 27; Kaneko on, 80–85, 150–152; Kiyozawa on, 24, 32–33, 49, 51; Kōno on, 160, 270n40; Ōtani Kōen on, 62–64; Sasaki on, 72–74; Shinran on, 24, 35–37, 248n48; skepticism toward doctrine of, 24, 27, 68, 75; Soga on, 281n81; State Shinto and, 175; Tanluan on, 61. See also Pure Land Reiō (Takakura Academy scholar), 121–122 religion(s) (shūkyō): change in, 8; dimensions of, 241n31; Kiyozawa’s religious empiricism, 43–54; as modern category, 259n30; problem of defining, 29–30; religious belief, 51–52; religious freedom, 276n8; religious institutions, 191–192, 240n15; religious realities, 47–48, 50; religious teachings as subjective facts, 48; Sasaki on religious

facts, 71–72; secular sphere versus, during Meiji era, 95, 157–161; as term, introduction into Japan, 29–30; unity of finite and infinite in, 31. See also language of religious experience Religious Corporations Ordinance, 191–192 Religious Movement Research Association, 140–141 Religious Organizations Law, 171, 174, 191, 259n39 Rennyo: as chief abbot, 61; emphasis on next life, 247n39; Honganji community and, 246–247n39; Kaneko on, 74; on king’s law, 160; as modernist, 14; on obedience to governing authorities, 152, 153; restoration of sect by, 206–207; teachings of, 34–35, 62, 63, 64 restoration, of the Shin sect, 9, 14, 20, 206–207 revolution, 9–11, 15, 80, 83, 89, 115, 223–225, 241n30. See also paradigm change Saichō (Tendai sect founder), 70–71 Saitō Yuishin: comparison with Sasaki, 74; contributions to new orthodoxy, 224; death of, 283n6; on Dharmākara, 253n31; during Fifteen Years’ War period, 18, 158–161, 165, 169–170, 176–177, 179, 182; on Inquiry Committee, 124, 125, 126; on Kaneko’s heresy incident, 272n73; on Kaneko’s reinstatement as Ōtani priest, 170; Kiyozawa and, 269n32; lectures by, 65–66; on modernists, 273n102; as Ōtani University president, 128; resignation from Shinshū University, 261n62; at Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, 176–177, 179; on Zonkaku, 273n92 Śākyamuni Buddha: Agañña Sutta, 144; authorship of Māhāyana sutras, 253n26, 254n44; comparison with Shinran, 56–57; interactions with Ānanda, 197–198; Kālāma Sutta, 133; Kiyozawa as manifestation of, 11, 203; model of virtuous life, 36; name given

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Index to the dead, 180; and Shin Buddhism, 71–72, 78, 91, 183; as spiritual reality, 75–76; revolutionary impact of, 11; Vasubandhu’s invocation of, 167, 199 sangha, 187–213; Akegarasu and, 201–204; conclusions on, 211–213; democratic constitutions, 189–194; introduction to, 187–189; Kurube and, 194–196; lack of study of, 188–189; relationship to Buddha and dharma, 7; “Sect White Paper,” 205–208; Shinjin Society, 196, 199, 200, 201; Shin modernists’ impact on, 211–212; Yasuda and, 198–200. See also Dōbōkai movement Sangō Wakuran disturbance, 123–124, 129 Sasaki Gesshō: attempts at reform, 9; death of, 113; and focus on the present, 72; heresy investigation of, 264n9; on iconoclasm and religious experience, 255n63; influences on, 68; on Kiyozawa, 33–34; as Kiyozawa follower, 6; as modernist, 97, 113; as Ōtani University president, 17, 92, 110, 111; resignation from Shinshū University, 108–109; Shinran biography, 56–57; Soga and, 111; subjective empiricism of, 69–74 Satoko, Princess, 154, 156–157, 240n17 SCAP occupation government (Japan), 189–192 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 30, 31, 39 science: impact on Ōtani community, 216–217; incompleteness, 41–42; paradigm shifts in, 10, 57–58; relationship with religion, 40–41, 47, 53, 99; scientific skepticism, 2, 26–29, 65, 68, 246n35. See also empiricism scripture (seiten): censorship of, 173; Kiyozawa’s writings as, 1, 203; nation’s scriptures, 150, 169. See also Māhāyana sutras; Shin sectarian studies sectarian principles (shūgi), 68, 112, 145 sectarian studies. See Shin sectarian studies sectarian tenets (shūi), 112; committees on, 125–126, 128 Sect Parliament: conflicts within, 216; democratization, 192; on Dōbōkai movement, 210; election of, 194, 201,

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205, 209, 277n16; and lack of head of sect affairs, 126; Miyatani on Kiyozawa and, 206; operations of, 277n16; in Ōtani administration, 127; power of, 102; vote on Shinshū Ōtani University’s accreditation plans, 110; vote on Takakura Academy–Shinshū University merger, 106, 108 secularism, 95, 99, 110–111, 157–161, 217 Seishinkai (journal), 5, 23, 59, 69, 91 Seishinshugi movement, 3, 24, 49, 59, 74, 78–79, 89 Sekine Ninnō, 92, 109, 111, 172, 173, 261n69 self-nature and mind-only ( jishō yuishin), 119, 130 self-power ( jiriki), 36, 61, 83, 119, 166–168, 182, 245n17, 263n5, 264n15, 266n34 Senmyō (Enjōin Senmyō), 60, 251n17 Service to the Mausoleum program, 202, 208, 210 Shaku Unshō, 8 Shandao (Buddhist master), 81, 246n35, 248n48, 258n24, 264n15, 266n32, 281n81. See also Shin patriarchs Sharf, Robert, 27–28 Shimaji Mokurai, 95, 99 Shimotsuma Kūkyō, 128, 134–138, 143, 224 Shin Buddhism: agency of lay member communities, 258n26; as cultural field, 96; doctrinal controversy resolution in, 120; as egalitarian, 9; establishment of, 90–91; Kiyozawa’s formulation of, 2–3, 39; Meiji era changes, 95–98; novelty in, 14; social ethics of, 221–222; war cooperation, 153. See also Ōtani denomination; Pure Land; Shinran Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference (1941), 149–152, 156, 175–183 Shinjin movement, 187, 196–198, 200, 224 Shin modernism (in general): conclusions on, 214–227; Fifteen Years’ War period, 149–186; heresy, 116–146; introduction to, 1–20; language of religious experience, 23–54; Ōtani University, 89–115; paradigms of Buddhist studies, 55–86; sangha, 187–213. See also detailed entries for these concepts

Index Shin modernism (specifics): adaptability of, 219–220; core features of, 214; critique of, 196, 206, 212–213; Dōbōkai movement, 209–211, 214–215; embrace of Japanese imperialism, 182–184; emergence of, 263n4; impact of Fifteen Years’ War period on, 217–218; Kōnyo as exemplar of, 252–253n23; Kurube, Yasuda, and Shinjin Society, 194–201; during Meiji era, 114; modernist Shin studies, 85–86, 161–170; negative impacts of, 220; Nenbutsu leader, 201–204; new orthodoxy, 215–216; postwar reforms, 192–194, 211–212; process of doctrinal reform, 254n50; response to political pressures, 183–184; “Sect White Paper,” 205–208; self-critique, 274n4; success of, 224–225; traditionalism versus, 12–15, 97–98, 179, 256n77 Shin patriarchs: list of, 7, 240n18; mentioned, 14, 16, 57, 60–61, 72, 80, 183, 199, 212, 215, 240n18, 242n39, 246n35 Shinran: biography of, 56; comparison with Śākyamuni, 56–57; dreams of Prince Shōtoku, 164; exile of, 89, 90–91; Kiyozawa and, 33–39; memorial events for, 277n20; modernist commentaries on, 56–57, 59, 77–78, 80, 140–141, 185; “neither monk nor layman” principle, 95, 111; novel teachings, 14; practices of, 55–56; Rennyo’s interpretations of, 34–35; scriptural studies by, 72, 80–81, 83; self-critique, 189; seven-hundredyear memorial events, 209; students’ interest in, 139; three-vow conversion, 198–199, 247n42 Shinran, views of: on Amida Buddha, 37–38, 163; on the emperor, 152; on faith, 33, 55, 82, 116, 119, 248n48; on nenbutsu, 23, 24, 149, 152, 155, 187; on rebirth, 35–37, 248n48 Shin sectarian studies: conflicts over, 100, 105, 112–113, 128, 134–136, 146; modernist Shin studies, 56–58, 67–86, 79–80, 91–92, 101, 135–136, 139–141, 160–170, 176; Prolegomena to Shin Studies

(Kaneko Daiei), 79–84; sectarian principles versus, 68, 112, 145; traditional sectarian studies, 60–67, 85–86, 101, 104, 158–160, 251n17. See also Buddhist studies Shinshū (Ōtani community newsletter), 61, 154, 173, 175, 207, 252n19, 268n26 Shinshū Ōtani University (later Ōtani University), 79, 89–90, 106, 109–110 Shinshū University (later Ōtani University), 3, 89–90, 105, 106, 107–108 Shinto, 2, 86, 94, 137. See also State Shinto Shirakawa reform movement, 105–107, 108 Shōtoku, Prince, 162, 164–165, 178 social ethics. See ethics and morality social facts, 7, 240n16 Soga Ryōjin: approach to Shin studies, 169; attempts at reform, 9; characteristics, 74–78, 176, 219, 221; comparison with Sasaki, 69; friendship with Kaneko, 89; at Kiyozawa memorial event, 203; Kurube and, 194; and language of second restoration, 206–207; language used by, 238n5; lectures by, 209, 281n81; longevity, 283n6; Ōtani doctrinal affairs and, 184–185; praise for, 262n77; purge of, 190; resignation, 128; response to political pressures, 182–184; at Shin Doctrinal Studies Conference, 152, 177–182; students’ support for, 141; wartime doctrinal studies of, 161–162; Yasuda and, 187 Soga Ryōjin, roles of: on Inquiry Committee, 215; as Kiyozawa follower, 6; as leader of Shinjin reform movement, 196–198; as lecturer, 207, 209; as modernist, 97, 113; at Ōtani University, 77, 90–91, 92, 111, 170–176, 184, 215, 267n50; promotion to kōshi scholar, 170, 172, 184, 189; as Seishinkai journal editor, 91; at Shinshū University, 108 Soga Ryōjin, views of: on creation of Jōdo Shin sect, 90; democratization’s impact on, 218–219; on doctrinal interpretation, 146; on the emperor, 167–170, 180–182, 273n101; on faith, 82,

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Index 197, 198, 212; on iconoclastic statements, 278n35; on instinct, 166–167, 168–169; on Japanese nationalism, 165–170; on kami, 152, 166–168; on Ōtani University, 91–92, 111; on reason, 85; on Shinran memorial events, 277n20; on Shinran on Primal Vow, 197; on Shin studies, 111; on war, 18, 186, 217–218, 275n4, 284n16 Soga Ryōjin, works of: “Behold the Man,” 197; “Die in Faith, Live in the Vow,” 209; Kiyozawa Manshi Research and, 208; “One Taste of Master and Disciple,” 197; “The Practical Significance of the Absolute . . . ,” 168–169; republication of Kaishin articles, 271n65; “A Savior on Earth,” 76; “The Second Restoration of the Shin Sect,” 207; “Shinran’s View of Buddhist History,” 183, 196; “Transcend the Individual,” 198; View of the Three Minds as Categories . . . , 77; wartime publications, 185 Spencer, Herbert, 41–42, 45, 53, 248n64 Spinoza, Baruch, 30, 83–84 State Shinto: conflation with Shin Buddhism, 152; Hiranuma on, 174; ideology of, 157; Kōno on, 160–161, 162, 173, 177; modernists on, 161, 183; prohibition of government support for, 190; recent scholarship on, 269n30; Religious Organizations Law and, 174; as secular, 157; Soga on, 166, 168. See also Shinto student protests, 108, 109, 117–118, 139, 194 subjectivism, 30, 31, 46, 48, 56, 69, 72, 217 subject-object transcendence (shukyaku chōzetsu), 31 Suehiro Aihō, 191, 192, 194, 202, 205, 224 Sumita Chiken, 109, 125 superstitions (meishin), 134, 157–161 Sutra on the Contemplation of Immeasurable Life, 214, 266n32 Sutra on Immeasurable Life: kami reverence and, 178; Kaneko on, 80, 162–163; and nenbutsu, 243n47; Shinran on, 37; Soga on, 166, 183, 197–198, 209;

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two-truths passage of, 64–65; “Verses of Praise of the Buddha,” 226 Suzuki, D. T.: Eastern Buddhist and, 69; on experience, 27–28, 244n12; Kiyozawa’s possible influence on, 52; lecture by, 209; as modernist, 26; and myōkōnin, 200; at Ōtani University, 93, 110, 261n71; wartime speech of, 185–186; on Zen’s adaptability, 221 Tada Kanae, 6, 34, 39, 146, 266n32 Takakura Academy, 93, 96–98, 103–108, 121 Takenaka Shigemaru, 149, 151, 269n29 Takenaka Shōgen, 157 Tanaka Giichi, Prime Minister, 133, 137, 143 Tanluan (Buddhist master), 61, 140, 189, 246n35. See also Shin patriarchs Tannishō (Buddhist text), 39, 60–61, 197 Tashiro Jūemon, 124–125, 128, 224 Taylor, Charles, 13, 26 temple certification system, 94, 95–96, 97, 104, 115 Tendai Buddhism, 191, 242n42 Tenrikyō (religion), 173, 179–181 this-worldliness: of Kiyozawa’s Shin Buddhist views, 33, 40; of Shin modernism, 170, 214, 217, 219–220, 223, 225, 227; this-worldly benefits, 33 thought guidance, 98, 118, 133, 137–138, 143 three bodies of a buddha, 38 three minds, 77–78 three positions in one body (san’i ittai), 192 three-vow conversion, 189, 198–199, 247n42 Tokugawa Ieyasu, 137, 152 Tokugawa period: arrival of Western science, 26; autonomy of Shin Buddhist field, 115; Buddhism and Shinto, 237n2; feudalistic Ōtani organization, 101, 195, 205, 206; heresy, 119–124, 129–131, 145; prosperity of Shin Buddhist organizations, 153; sectarian studies during, 60–61, 96–97; temple certification system, 94, 96–97 Tonjō incident, 121–123, 129

Index tradition and traditionalism: lack of adaptability, 220; modernism versus, 12–15, 97–98, 179, 256n77; modernists’ radical reinterpretation of, 254n50; nature of, 6, 243n48; response to political pressures, 183–184; traditionalist wartime doctrinal studies, 157–161, 183; traditional sectarian studies, 60–67, 85–86, 101, 104, 251n17. See also heresy; Ōtani University; Shin modernism Tsunashima Ryōsen, 52, 250n89 two-truths doctrine: influence of, 220; Kōno and, 161; Madhyamaka interpretation of, 63; modernists’ dissatisfaction with, 161–162; modern Shin reinterpretation of, 252n23; as offensive, 175; referenced in Ōtani Kōen’s lecture, 64–65; Soga on, 168; traditionalists’ interpretation of, 162; war and, 154–155, 157, 158–160, 184; Yasuda’s lecture on, 187 two types of deep faith (nishū jinshin) doctrine, 121, 129, 264n15 Uchimura Kanzō, 52, 250n89 Ugo Dessì, 221–222 University Ordinance (1918), 100–101, 135 upāya (expedient means), 32, 60, 66 Upper Office (Ōtani organization), 125, 126, 127, 265n24 Urabe Kanjun, 120, 264n9 Vasubandhu (Buddhist master), 38, 78, 167, 199. See also Shin patriarchs

Vimalakīrti Sūtra, 182 Vocational School Ordinance, 100 Wallace, B. Alan, 52–53 war: Buddhist institutions’ support for, 153; memorial services for war dead, 153–154; modernist wartime doctrinal studies, 161–170, 217–218; preparations for, 151; soldiers’ preparation for death, 155; traditionalist wartime doctrinal studies, 157–161. See also Fifteen Years’ War (Jūgonen Sensō) period Warring States period, 35, 152–153 Weber, Max, 33, 114, 246n32 women, 7, 156, 282n90 World War II. See Fifteen Years’ War (Jūgonen Sensō) period Yamamoto Nobuhiro, 19, 20 Yasuda Rijin: democratization’s impact on, 218–219; on faith, 212; importance of, 187; interest in Marxism, 139; Kurube and, 187–188, 219; on sangha, 19, 188–189, 198–200; self-critique, 274n4; Soga and, 165, 198–200 Yasukuni Shrine, 153, 179 Yasutomi Shin’ya, 215, 281n75 Yogācāra thought, 49–50, 65, 77 Zen Buddhism, 52, 220–221, 242n42. See also Suzuki, D. T. zenchishiki (virtuous and wise teachers), 64, 215 Zonkaku, 60, 61, 77, 273n92

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About the Author

Jeff Schroeder is assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon. His work has appeared in Kindai Bukkyō, Japanese Religions, Religious Studies in Japan, the Eastern Buddhist, the Pure Land, Modern Buddhism in Japan (2014), Kiyozawa Manshi to kindai Nihon (2016), and Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan (2021).