The Religions Of Japan

Author : Jason Ānanda Josephson,Jason Ananda Josephson Storm
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2012-10-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780226412344

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The Invention of Religion in Japan by Jason Ānanda Josephson,Jason Ananda Josephson Storm Pdf

Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of what we call “religion.” There was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning. But when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea. In this book, Jason Ananda Josephson reveals how Japanese officials invented religion in Japan and traces the sweeping intellectual, legal, and cultural changes that followed. More than a tale of oppression or hegemony, Josephson’s account demonstrates that the process of articulating religion offered the Japanese state a valuable opportunity. In addition to carving out space for belief in Christianity and certain forms of Buddhism, Japanese officials excluded Shinto from the category. Instead, they enshrined it as a national ideology while relegating the popular practices of indigenous shamans and female mediums to the category of “superstitions”—and thus beyond the sphere of tolerance. Josephson argues that the invention of religion in Japan was a politically charged, boundary-drawing exercise that not only extensively reclassified the inherited materials of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto to lasting effect, but also reshaped, in subtle but significant ways, our own formulation of the concept of religion today. This ambitious and wide-ranging book contributes an important perspective to broader debates on the nature of religion, the secular, science, and superstition.

Author : George J. Tanabe Jr.
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 583 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2020-06-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780691214740

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Religions of Japan in Practice by George J. Tanabe Jr. Pdf

This anthology reflects a range of Japanese religions in their complex, sometimes conflicting, diversity. In the tradition of the Princeton Readings in Religions series, the collection presents documents (legends and miracle tales, hagiographies, ritual prayers and ceremonies, sermons, reform treatises, doctrinal tracts, historical and ethnographic writings), most of which have been translated for the first time here, that serve to illuminate the mosaic of Japanese religions in practice. George Tanabe provides a lucid introduction to the "patterned confusion" of Japan's religious practices. He has ordered the anthology's forty-five readings under the categories of "Ethical Practices," "Ritual Practices," and "Institutional Practices," moving beyond the traditional classifications of chronology, religious traditions (Shinto, Confucianism, Buddhism, etc.), and sects, and illuminating the actual orientation of people who engage in religious practices. Within the anthology's three broad categories, subdivisions address the topics of social values, clerical and lay precepts, gods, spirits, rituals of realization, faith, court and emperor, sectarian founders, wizards, and heroes, orthopraxis and orthodoxy, and special places. Dating from the eighth through the twentieth centuries, the documents are revealed to be open to various and evolving interpretations, their meanings dependent not only on how they are placed in context but also on how individual researchers read them. Each text is preceded by an introductory explanation of the text's essence, written by its translator. Instructors and students will find these explications useful starting points for their encounters with the varied worlds of practice within which the texts interact with readers and changing contexts. Religions of Japan in Practice is a compendium of relationships between great minds and ordinary people, abstruse theories and mundane acts, natural and supernatural powers, altruism and self-interest, disappointment and hope, quiescence and war. It is an indispensable sourcebook for scholars, students, and general readers seeking engagement with the fertile "ordered disorder" of religious practice in Japan.

Author : 笠原一男
Publisher : Tuttle Publishing
Page : 660 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : History
ISBN : STANFORD:36105111768870

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A History of Japanese Religion by 笠原一男 Pdf

Seventeen distinguished experts on Japanese religion provide a fascinating overview of its history and development. Beginning with the origins of religion in primitive Japanese society, they chart the growth of each of Japan's major religious organizations and doctrinal systems. They follow Buddhism, Shintoism, Christianity, and popular religious belief through major periods of change to show how history and religion affected each-and discuss the interactions between the different religious traditions.

Author : P. F. Kornicki,I. J. McMullen
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 1996-02-08
Category : History
ISBN : 0521550289

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Religion in Japan by P. F. Kornicki,I. J. McMullen Pdf

Peter Francis Kornicki and Ian James McMullen have put together a remarkable collection of essays on different aspects of religion in Japan by an international team of contributors. The essays in this 1996 book cover a wide range of subjects, from the new religions of post-war Japan to beliefs about fox-possession in the Heian period, and from French missionaries in Okinawa in the mid-nineteenth century to the Ainu bear festival in Hokkaido. Other chapters examine the religious life of Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder of the first shogunate in the late twelfth century, and the role of pilgrimage in Japanese religion. The essays offer fresh insights into the rich religious traditions of Japan, many of which have been previously neglected in the English-language writing on Japan.

Author : Ian Reader
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 323 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2013-10-11
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781136819414

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Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan by Ian Reader Pdf

The Tokyo subway attack in March 1995 was just one of a series of criminal activities including murder, kidnapping, extortion, and the illegal manufacture of arms and drugs carried out by the Japanese new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo, under the guidance of its leader Asahara Shoko. Reader looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks, why did a religious movement ostensibly focussed on yoga, meditation, asceticism and the pursuit of enlightenment become involved in violent activities? Reader discusses Aum's spiritual roots, placing it in the context of contemporary Japanese religious patterns. Asahara's teaching are examined from his earliest public pronouncements through to his sermons at the time of the attack, and statements he has made in court. In analysing how Aum not only manufactured nerve gases but constructed its own internal doctrinal justifications for using them Reader focuses on the formation of what made all this possible: Aum's internal thought-world, and on how this was developed. Reader argues that despite the horrors of this particular case, Aum should not be seen as unique, nor as solely a political or criminal terror group. Rather it can best be analysed within the context of religious violence, as an extreme example of a religious movement that has created friction with the wider world that escalated into violence.

Author : Robert Ellwood,Richard Pilgrim
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2016-09-13
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781315507118

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Japanese Religion by Robert Ellwood,Richard Pilgrim Pdf

This book provides an overview of religion in Japan, from ancient times to the present. It also emphasizes the cultural and attitudinal manifestations of religion in Japan, withough neglecting dates and places.

Author : William Elliot Griffis
Publisher : IndyPublish.com
Page : 494 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 1895
Category : Religion
ISBN : WISC:89091855122

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The Religions of Japan by William Elliot Griffis Pdf

Author : William Elliot Griffis
Publisher : New York : C. Scribner's Sons, 1912 [c1895]
Page : 488 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 1895
Category : Japan
ISBN : UOM:39015002766999

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The Religions of Japan by William Elliot Griffis Pdf

Author : Ichiro Hori
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 1974
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780226353340

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Folk Religion in Japan by Ichiro Hori Pdf

Ichiro Hori's is the first book in Western literature to portray how Shinto, Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist elements, as well as all manner of archaic magical beliefs and practices, are fused on the folk level. Folk religion, transmitted by the common people from generation to generation, has greatly conditioned the political, economic, and cultural development of Japan and continues to satisfy the emotional and religious needs of the people. Hori examines the organic relationship between the Japanese social structure—the family kinship system, village and community organizations—and folk religion. A glossary with Japanese characters is included in the index.

Author : William Elliot Griffis
Publisher : Good Press
Page : 463 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2019-11-25
Category : Religion
ISBN : EAN:4057664643452

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The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis Pdf

This book by a Christian missionary Herbert W. Page aimed to present the overall picture of the religious vies in the middle of the Victorian era. The author mentions that Japan at that time had already developed strong boundaries with China and India, yet not absorbed by them. This book is an interesting read in terms of the history of religion or a study of Orient cultures and customs.

Author : Mitsutoshi Horii
Publisher : Springer
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2018-04-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783319735702

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The Category of ‘Religion’ in Contemporary Japan by Mitsutoshi Horii Pdf

This book critically examines the term ‘religion’ (shūkyō) as a social category within the sociological context of contemporary Japan. Whereas the nineteenth-century construction of shūkyō has been critically studied by many, the same critical approach has not been extended to the contemporary context of the Japanese-language discourse on shūkyō and Temple Buddhism. This work aims to unveil the norms and imperatives which govern the utilization of the term shūkyō in the specific context of modern day Japan, with a particular focus upon Temple Buddhism. The author draws on a number of popular publications in Japanese, many of which have been written by Buddhist priests. In addition, the book offers rich interview material from conversations with Buddhist priests. Readers will gain insights into the critical deconstruction, the historicization, and the study of social classification system of ‘religion’, in terms of its cross-cultural application to the contemporary Japanese context. The book will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including Japanese Studies, Buddhology, Religious Studies, Social Anthropology, and Sociology.

Author : Esben Andreasen,Ian Reader,Finn Stefansson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2013-10-08
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781134238583

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Japanese Religions Past and Present by Esben Andreasen,Ian Reader,Finn Stefansson Pdf

Each of the eight chapters deals with a specific topic, such as Shinto, Buddhism, the new religions, and Christianity; there is an introduction that outlines the subject to be considered followed by a series of readings.

Author : Ted Gerard Jelen,Clyde Wilcox
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2002-04-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781316582749

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Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective by Ted Gerard Jelen,Clyde Wilcox Pdf

Religion is resurgent across the globe. In many countries religion is a powerful source of political mobilization, and in some a potent social cleavage. In some religion reinforces the state, in others it provides the space for resistance. This book contains a series of detailed studies examining religion and politics in specific countries or regions. The cases include countries with one dominant religious tradition, and others with two or more competing traditions. They include Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Hinduism, Shinto and Buddhism. They include states where religion and politics are closely linked, and others with at least a low wall of separation between church and state. The cases are organized by the type of religious marketplace, but allow many other comparisons as well. We develop some generalizations from the cases, and hope that they will be a fertile source of theorizing for others.

Author : Erica Baffelli
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2016-02-05
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781135117849

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Media and New Religions in Japan by Erica Baffelli Pdf

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135117849, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Japanese "new religions" (shinshūkyō) have used various media forms for training, communicating with members, presenting their messages, reinforcing or protecting the image of the leader, and, potentially, attracting converts. In this book the complex and dual relationship between media and new religions is investigated by looking at the tensions groups face between the need for visibility and the risks of facing attacks and criticism through media. Indeed media and new technologies have been extensively used by religious groups not only to spread their messages and to try to reach a wider audience, but also to promote themselves as a highly modern and up-to-date form of religion appropriate for a modern technological age. In 1980s and early 1990s some movements, such as Agonshū , Kōfuku no Kagaku, and Aum Shinrikyō came into prominence especially via the use of media (initially publications, but also ritual broadcasts, advertising campaigns, and public media events). This created new modes of ritual engagement and new ways of interactions between leaders and members. The aim of this book is to develop and illustrate particular key issues in the wider new religions and media nexus by using specific movements as examples. In particular, the analysis of the interaction between media and new religions will focus primarily on three case studies predominantly during the first period of development of the groups.

Author : Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 375 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2021-02-09
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780691224237

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On Understanding Japanese Religion by Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa Pdf

Joseph Kitagawa, one of the founders of the field of history of religions and an eminent scholar of the religions of Japan, published his classic book Religion in Japanese History in 1966. Since then, he has written a number of extremely influential essays that illustrate approaches to the study of Japanese religious phenomena. To date, these essays have remained scattered in various scholarly journals. This book makes available nineteen of these articles, important contributions to our understanding of Japan's intricate combination of indigenous Shinto, Confucianism, Taoism, the Yin-Yang School, Buddhism, and folk religion. In sections on prehistory, the historic development of Japanese religion, the Shinto tradition, the Buddhist tradition, and the modem phase of the Japanese religious tradition, the author develops a number of valuable methodological approaches. The volume also includes an appendix on Buddhism in America. Asserting that the study of Japanese religion is more than an umbrella term covering investigations of separate traditions, Professor Kitagawa approaches the subject from an interdisciplinary standpoint. Skillfully combining political, cultural, and social history, he depicts a Japan that seems a microcosm of the religious experience of humankind.