6. Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication

Collcutt, Martin

doi:10.1515/9781400854301.143

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The former topic is still somewhat contentious in Japan, but has been seen by foreign scholars as a cornerstone of religious developments in and since the Meiji period. Introductory studies include Grapard 1984; Collcutt 1986 and Ketelaar 1990 (in English) and Tamamuro 1977 and Yasumaru 1979 (in Japanese), and English‐language site‐specific studies have been made on Mt Miwa (Antoni 1995), Konpira (Thal 2002), the Ina Valley (Inoue 2007), Mt Akiba (Scarangello 2007), Kinbusen (Blair 2007) and Ōyama (Ambros 2008, ch. 7).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shugendo: Japanese Mountain Religion – State of the Field and Bibliographic Review

Sekimori

2009

Religion Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shugendo: Japanese Mountain Religion – State of the Field and Bibliographic Review

Sekimori

2009

Religion Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although this system was legally abolished in the nineteenth century, its imprint remained strong; a key reason for the failure of the aforementioned 1870s haibutsu kishaku attempt to eradicate Buddhism was that the vast majority of Japanese people at the time felt its role of dealing with death and the ancestors was too important to allow Buddhism to be eradicated (Collcutt 1988). This relationship has remained pivotal to Buddhism and it provides the main bond of affiliation between Japanese people and Buddhist temples.…”

Section: Temple Buddhism: the Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Buddhism in Crisis? Institutional Decline in Modern Japan

Reader

2012

BSRV

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Concerns that established temple Buddhism in Japan is in a state of crisis have been voiced by priests in various sectarian organizations in recent years. This article shows that there is a very real crisis facing Buddhism in modern Japan, with temples closing because of a lack of support and of priests to run them, and with a general turn away from Buddhism among the Japanese population. In rural areas falling populations have led to many temple closures, while in the modern cities people are increasingly turning away from the prime area in which Japanese people have traditionally engaged with Buddhist temples — the processes of death and their aftermath. Partly this is due to competition from new secular funeral industries, but partly also it is because public perceptions of Buddhism — which has become over-reliant on death rituals in Japan — have become highly negative in modern times. Even practices which have often been seen as areas in which Buddhist temples have been able to attract people — such as pilgrimages — are proving less successful than in the past, contributing further to a sense of crisis that threatens to undermine Buddhism’s roots in Japan.

show abstract

“…Government persecution of Buddhism in the early Meiji period accounted for destruction of many temples but could not curtail personal devotion (Collcutt 1986; Guth 1993, p. 105; Ketelaar 1990). One of the largest Buddhist denominations, the Shin sect Otani branch, prospered because its clergy early on embraced the new political regime’s modernization efforts.…”

Section: Buddhist Sites Of Worship In the Modern Period Before World mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Visual Culture of Japanese Buddhism from the Early Modern Period to the Present

Graham¹

2011

Religion Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Following the introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the sixth century, the faith quickly became a defining feature of Japanese civilization, in large part because of the diverse and abundant visual culture it engendered that both reflected and shaped its religious practice. Although Japanese Buddhism remains a vital living tradition, until the last twenty years, its visual culture created after the 16th century has received little attention by scholars. Since then, Japanese and Western language studies on focused aspects of Buddhist paintings, sculpture, and architecture, with most addressing the early modern period (ca. 1600–1868), have proliferated but until the publication of Patricia Graham’s Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art, 1600–2005 (2007), no survey of materials spanning this long time period had been attempted. This brief essay does not summarize Graham’s broad analysis of the thread of change over time and the plurality of later Buddhist practice in Japan manifest in its abundant visual culture. Instead, drawing on the examples presented in Graham’s study, it introduces significant and representative sites of worship from the 17th century to the present to highlight the ways the faith became transformed in tandem with changes in Japanese society, manifested in the convergence of patronage, image production, and religious devotion at these sites. Discussion is presented chronologically in four parts beginning with an overview of studies on Japanese Buddhism’s recent visual culture. This is followed by three sections on the sites and related imagery: Buddhist sites of worship in the early modern period, Buddhist sites of worship in the modern period before World War II, and Buddhist sites of worship in the modern period after World War II.

show abstract

6. Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Shugendo: Japanese Mountain Religion – State of the Field and Bibliographic Review

Shugendo: Japanese Mountain Religion – State of the Field and Bibliographic Review

Buddhism in Crisis? Institutional Decline in Modern Japan

The Visual Culture of Japanese Buddhism from the Early Modern Period to the Present

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About