The persecution of Japanese Buddhism, 1868-1871

[FiveSkandhas]

This was a brief but incredibly destructive episode in the 19th century that is often overlooked.

The causes were multiple: The new Meiji-era government was steeped in Nationalist Shinto ideals. They sought to "purify" Shinto of Buddhist influence and control by strictly mandating the separation of the two religions, which had long had a more fluid and interpenetrating relationship.

The people were allowed/encouraged to release pent-up frustration over the previous system, under which they had been forced to support Buddhist temples, often at great financial cost to poor communities.

There was also a sense that Japan needed to modernize to avoid the fate of the declining Chinese Qing Dynasty. The new government saw Buddhism as backwards, intellectually stagnant, corrupt, and associated with China and India. They wanted to replace declining China with the west as the prime locus of foreign cultural and technological inspiration.

One result:

...a nationwide anti-Buddhist outburst referred to as Haibutsu kishaku (廃仏毀釈, lit. "abolish Buddhism and destroy Shākyamuni").

As a result, thousands of temples were closed, their land confiscated, and temple bells smelted for bronze. Bettō (別当), monks who performed Buddhist rites at shrines and jingūji (shrines part of a temple) were given the choice of either returning to lay life or to become Shintō priests...

In some areas, official antagonism escalated into a full-blown outbreak of violence against temples, statues, and priests. According to some estimates, nationwide up to 40,000 temples were destroyed. In some provinces, 80 per cent of all temples were demolished. In Chōshū, modern-day Yamaguchi Prefecture, Buddhist temples had practically ceased to exist.

Quote source:

https://jref.com/articles/shinbutsu-bun ... dhism.468/

The source is worth visiting for the images and additional information.

[Kim O'Hara]

This has come up here several times - Queequeg will probably remember the particular threads better than I do, and perhaps link this topic to them.


Kim

[Queequeg]

I do recall this being mentioned from time to time but can't think of any extensive discussion.

It is worth considering as a study of what can happen when Buddhist institutions become too closely aligned with the state - the fortunes of the particular regime to which they attach become intertwined.

There are a some ironies in this episode - neo-Confucianism played a part in the antagonism toward Buddhism in the lead up to the Meiji Restoration. Confucianism was replaced, too, by the western bureaucratic norms that were brought back to Japan. Democracy, though, was not welcome, and would not be introduced until forced on the Japanese by MacArthur.

Arguably, the vitality of Buddhism was severely damaged by the time Tokugawa took power. It had been in decline since the Heian period and Oda Nobunaga's destruction of Hiei and threat to Koya brought Buddhism to heel under state power. Tokugawa then coopted Buddhist institutions and made them bureaucratic arms of the state, responsible for vital statistics and community organization, but cut off the life blood of intellectual vitality by proscribing people from changing temples. If anything killed Buddhism, it was the regulation during Edo period.

The persecution of Buddhism during the Meiji period was basically just kicking down the desiccated corpse, especially after the responsibility for vital statistics was taken away from the local temples.