Shimaji Mokurai and the Reconception of Religion and the Secular in Modern Japan

Hans Martin Krämer

Hans Martin Krämer

Shimaji Mokurai and the Reconception of Religion and the Secular in Modern Japan

University of Hawaii Press | 2015

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824857219

Overview
Contents

About this book

Religion is at the heart of such ongoing political debates in Japan as the constitutionality of official government visits to Yasukuni Shrine, yet the very categories that frame these debates, namely religion and the secular, entered the Japanese language less than 150 years ago. To think of religion as a Western imposition, as something alien to Japanese reality, however, would be simplistic. As this in-depth study shows for the first time, religion and the secular were critically reconceived in Japan by Japanese who had their own interests and traditions as well as those received in their encounters with the West. It argues convincingly that by the mid-nineteenth century developments outside of Europe and North America were already part of a global process of rethinking religion.

The Buddhist priest Shimaji Mokurai (1838–1911) was the first Japanese to discuss the modern concept of religion in some depth in the early 1870s. In his person, indigenous tradition, politics, and Western influence came together to set the course the reconception of religion would take in Japan. The volume begins by tracing the history of the modern Japanese term for religion, shūkyō, and its components and exploring the significance of Shimaji’s sectarian background as a True Pure Land Buddhist. Shimaji went on to shape the early Meiji government’s religious policy and was essential in redefining the locus of Buddhism in modernity and indirectly that of Shinto, which led to its definition as nonreligious and in time to the creation of State Shinto. Finally, the work offers an extensive account of Shimaji’s intellectual dealings with the West (he was one of the first Buddhists to travel to Europe) as well as clarifying the ramifications of these encounters for Shimaji’s own thinking. Concluding chapters historicize Japanese appropriations of secularization from medieval times to the twentieth century and discuss the meaning of the reconception of religion in modern Japan.

Highly original and informed, Shimaji Mokurai and the Reconception of Religion and the Secular in Modern Japan not only emphasizes the agency of Asian actors in colonial and semicolonial situations, but also hints at the function of the concept of religion in modern society: a secularist conception of religion was the only way to ensure the survival of religion as we know it today. In this respect, the Japanese reconception of religion and the secular closely parallels similar developments in the West.

Author information

KrämerHans Martin:

Hans Martin Krämer is professor of Japanese studies at the Center for Asian and Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University.

Reviews

Shimaji Mokurai and the Reconception of Religion and the Secular in Modern Japan covers much more ground than its title suggests. . . . Readers wondering how other regions have grappled with ideas of the secular and the religious, to what extent the secular‐religious binary has assisted the centralization of political power, or the role of specific metaphysical or cosmological systems in determining local constructions of the binary will have much to learn from this book. I expect Shimaji will serve as a firm practical foundation for refining theoretical concerns in the critical study of religion.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	v
Acknowledgments Free access PDF PDF	vii
Introduction Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
Chapter 1: Categorizing Religion in Early Modern Japan Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	21
Chapter 2: Early Meiji Buddhism and the Shintoist Challenge Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	42
Chapter 3: From “Sectarian Teaching” to “Religion” Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	66
Chapter 4: Western Sources of Knowledge Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	88
Chapter 5: The Long History of Religion’s Opposites: “The Secular” and “Secularization” Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	114
Conclusion Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	137
Appendix: Shimaji Mokurai, “Critique of the Three Standards of Instruction” (1872) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	145
Notes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	157
Character Glossary Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	193
Bibliography Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	201
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	229

Shimaji Mokurai and the Reconception of Religion and the Secular in Modern Japan

Details

Formats