Workshop on "Secularities in Japan"

Myths in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. Elucidating the origins of religious and political secularities

Robert F. Wittkamp (Kansai University)

The leading hypothesis in Elena Esposito’s examination of social oblivion (Soziales Vergessen – Formen und Medien des Gedächtnisses der Gesellschaft) is the assumption that in the course of social evolution the forms of social differentiation and the technologies of communication are governed by the pressure of mutual adaption and constant interaction (2002: 38). Following Niklas Luhmann, religion and politics can be understood as function systems, which successfully executed the process of an Ausdifferenzierung (differentiation). This paper is a philological approach to the technologies of communication, where the discursive distinction between religion and politics presumably has its origin: the texts from the early eighth century, particularly the chronicles Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720). The assumption is that these texts themselves already are a distinct step towards Ausdifferenzierung, and a closer look into the myths of the chronicles reveals concrete words and sentences, which show efforts towards a discursive distinction between religion and politics. However, while this presumably was not completed during the following centuries, one can observe a differentiation between authority (ken’i) and power (kenryoku), which eventually lead to the establishment of the political center in Kamakura, leaving the tennō in Kyōto.

Critical Junctures in Japanese History and the Path Dependency of Secularities

Christoph Kleine (Director, KFG “Multiple Secularities”)

Our cooperative research project “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” builds on the assumption that the multiplicity of secularities, i.e. the differences in the ways how societies negotiate, organize, symbolize, and legitimize the boundaries between religious and non-religious societal domains, discourses, activities, etc., can only be explained historically. Japan usually serves as an example of a society that was exceptionally well prepared for appropriating Western notions of secularity and that underwent a rapid process of secularization since the Meiji restoration. In my paper I hypothesize that this is due to the fact that conceptual distinctions and social differentiations between religious and non-religious spheres were widely accepted early on in history. A conclusive explanation for this supposed inclination towards ‘secularity’, however, requires further historical research grounded in appropriate theories. Accordingly, I will test some theoretical approaches – e.g. path dependency, cultural lag – in order to account for long-term social and epistemic structures favorable for the appropriation of modern Western (?) forms of ‘secularity.’ My historical focus will be on the Kamakura period, but since I am dealing with cultural imprints of a longue durée I will have to put this period in a larger historical context.

Religion and Medicine in Translation: Instances from Pre-modern Japan 

Katja Triplett (KFG "Multiple Secularities")

 

As part of an ongoing research on Buddhism and medicine I will address the question of multiple secularities in a later phase of negotiation of boundaries between religion and medicine in pre-modern Japan. When Japan came into contact with European powers and Ming/Qing China a period of intense linguistic and cultural translation activity. The initiative to rework of texts in European languages came from Jesuit missionaries who started missionary activities in Japan in 1549. With the prohibition and persecution of Christianity not long after the establishment of the Catholic mission during a phase of interior political consolidation and the centralization of temporal power in Japan, the strict governmental circulation of knowledge gleaned from European informants and books initially hampered any occupation with the “foreign” knowledge. However, the influx of ideas and practices in the systems of religion and medicine (and science) from Europe, the European colonies in Asia and new stimuli from China and Korea in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries could, in the long run, not be halted. The paper explores inter-cultural boundary negotiations in the case of direct encounters between Europeans, Japanese Christian converts, Buddhists and Neo-Confucian officials in Japan. The focus will be on translation activities on texts concerned with “healing”, i.e. medical ideas of healing the physical body interlinked with religious ideas of healing as a form of liberation from illness and disease, and the question of proper charity and welfare. New secularities emerged by differentiating between religion that was thought to hamper progress and economic growth, and medicine that was increasingly divorced from the Buddhist context in order to develop new forms of engagement in the early modern Japanese state.

Religious Mentalities Remaining in the Joruri Tales of Early Modern Japan

Kawata Koh (Kyoto Gakuen University)

It was around the seventeenth century when a certain type of ‘secularity’ in Japanese society became strengthened. Before then, that is in the Middle Ages of the Japanese Islands, magical/religious ideas and practices had enormous power in communities and families, extending beyond social class and region. Medieval Japanese society was the ‘magic garden’ in which secularity and religiosity were inseparable in every aspect of social and individual acts.

However, with the formation of a centrally governed state (the Tokugawa shogunate) in the early seventeenth century, the power of magical/religious beliefs and institutions started to decline rapidly, and people, especially intellectuals, began to have more secular thoughts. The keyword is ‘心’ (kokoro), which means one’s mind or will. Under the influence of neo-Confucianism, the belief that individuals must manage their family, work and everyday life by controlling their own kokoro developed throughout the seventeenth century, and such secular and moral beliefs spread over the whole of Japan after the eighteenth century. In addition, in the late seventeenth century, the idea was born in cities such as the Kamigata region (Osaka and Kyoto) that the spiritual relationship between lovers, also expressed by kokoro or ‘心中’ (shinju), meaning true love or emotion, was of supreme worth. This vision of private and sexual happiness developed as a new cultural trend among common people after the early eighteenth century.

In this presentation, I describe this change of mentalities in seventeenth-century Japanese society and try to show social causes of this change by considering magical ideas, beliefs in gods and goddesses, the formation of the strong state, the role of communities, change of the image of ‘この世’(konoyo, this world) and ‘あの世‘(anoyo, next world), and the concept of kokoro as remains of religiosity. I do this description and consideration mainly by analyzing ‘浄瑠璃’ (joruri) dramas around seventeenth century, which were at the peak of popularity and creativity at that time. In particular, I take up two Joruri tales, Joruri Monogatari (『浄瑠璃物語』) and Sonezaki Shinju(『曽根崎心中』). 

Secularization Beyond the Shadow of God? Reflections from True Pure Land Buddhism

Galen Amstutz (Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley)

 

A Japanese neologism (sezokuka)  corresponding to the complex Western concept of secularization was coined in the modern period in Japan, but in Japan itself has never attained the prominence and controversiality of the term in the West. Why? The paper will reflect on the question from a specific standpoint oriented to True Pure Land Buddhism (Jōdoshinshū, or Shinshū), which has had the largest membership among the legacy Buddhist institutions in Japan. Shinshū has clearly displayed some features associated with general secularization (shifting and overlapping imaginaries, institutional separation of “religious” and “civil” spheres, 20^th century decline in participation). But does it also matter that “secularization” usually contains additional (often tacit) intellectual implications,  rooted in Christian/post-Christian contexts, that refer to more than just issues of structural differentiation or decline in participation? Which may not apply to a Buddhist context in quite the same way?

“Even Three-Year-Old Children Know that the Source of Enlightenment is not Religion but Science”: Modern Japanese Buddhism between ‘Religion’ and ‘Science,’ 1860s–1890s

Hans Martin Krämer (Heidelberg University)

During the second half of the nineteenth century, ‘religion’ was increasingly used as a marker of identity around the globe: Groups, individuals, and thought formations began to employ the concept in order to distinguish themselves from ‘non-religions’. Doing so involved several boundary-drawing exercises between ‘the religious’ and realms understood to be ‘non-religious,’ most crucially politics (or the state) and science. Indeed, the acceptance of the truth claims of modern science as being fundamentally of a different order than those of ‘religion’ was a central feature of an emerging globally shared concept of religion. Conversely, refusing to make the distinction and continuing to claim religious authority over matters of science became the hallmark of ‘esoteric’ movements or ideas.

In Japan, modern science quickly became an aspirational ideal broadly shared by the elites since the 1860s, and Japanese religions were equally quick to identify the challenge posed by the materialistic natural sciences. Negotiating its own position vis-à-vis science became crucial for the self-understanding of modern Japanese Buddhism, and several options and strategies emerged in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The difficulties Christianity was facing in Europe and North America in the face of modern science prompted Japanese Buddhists to emphasize the compatibility of Buddhist doctrine with the causal rationality seen in the natural sciences. Concretely, this could follow the two options outlined above, i.e. either viewing certain Buddhist teachings as identical or congruous with science, or judging that Buddhism and science belonged to different realms but were in no conflict with each other. Towards the turn of the twentieth century, the incompatibility of these two positions became clearer, a process that was abetted by the improved knowledge Japanese Buddhists gained of modern science, Christianity, and esoteric movements such as Theosophy.  

In this paper, I will attempt to clarify some of the theoretical issues involved in explaining the historical processes of delineating ‘religion’ and ‘science’ and then proceed to examine the Japanese Buddhist debate before 1900. I will identify the strategies Japanese Buddhists employed to position themselves vis-à-vis science both in the inner-Japanese debates directed towards the Japanese public, their religious competition, and state authorities, as well as externally in their exchanges with European and North American scholars and religionists. I will argue that the processes examined here contributed crucially to creating the configuration of secularity present in Japan until today, including the division between proper religions and esoteric movements.

The redefinition of secularity in Meiji Japan and the role of Neo-Confucian tradition

Andreea Barbu (University of Bucharest)

In this paper I am considering secularity in modern Japan as one form among multiple secularities (Burchardt, Wohlarb-Sahr 2013) and I focus on the Meiji period (1868-1912) since it is a relevant moment for the adoption and adaptation of a Western concept of secularity. This redefinition was possible, firstly, due to the specific context, which includes different religious traditions and historical trajectories; secondly, the particularization of secularization was influenced also by the pre-existent distinctions between the religious and the non-religious (secular) and the influence of specific worldviews such as the one proposed by Neo-Confucian tradition which contains some bridging elements for the Western secularization. 

This paper firstly discusses the terms in which the distinction between the religious and non-religious is formulated within the Neo-Confucian tradition from both Zhu Xi‘s and Wang Yangming‘s lines of thought. At this point I am interested in the concept of Heaven (Tian) from the „anthropocosmic” worldview (Tu 1985) and the role of humans within the triad between man, Heaven and Earth and I will try to see which are the compatible elements with the Western secular worldview, but also the radical differences. 

Secondly, I will focus on the role of religion in governance and society. At this point, the heritage of Neo-Confucianism from the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), through the works of Neo-Confucian philosophers such as Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728) and Aizawa Seishisai (1792-1863) becomes relevant to this issue. Furthermore, I will analyse the debate around the subject of religion and secularity from the Journal of the Meiroku Society, and since most of  its members had  a Confucian education, I will try to see if there still is a Confucian influence on their perspectives. 

The aspects analyzed in this paper reflect the continuities between pre-modern and modern Japan regarding the approach of religion and secularity and the fact that Neo-Confucianism had an influence on the transfer and redefinition of the Western model of secularization due to its „anthropocosmic” worldview and its perpective on the relantionship between religion and governance.

Nihon shūkyō to sezokuka: Some preliminary observations on the Japanese debate

Ugo Dessì (Cardiff University/Leipzig University)

Discussions among Japanese scholars about the applicability of the concept of secularization to Japan started in the 1970s, with the work of Ikado Fujio 井門富二夫, who understood this phenomenon as a process of functional differentiation of politics, law, economics, and other social elements from religion, and that of other Japanese scholars who were instead more interested in exposing cultural/historical differences between the European and Japanese contexts, among whom Yanagawa Kei’ichi 柳川啓一 and Abe Yoshiya 阿部美哉. The second phase of this debate, which started around the 1990s, includes critical contributions by well-known scholars such as Ishii Kenji 石井研士, Shimazono Susumu 島薗進, and Hayashi Makoto 林淳, and some new attempts to apply more or less explicitly the concept of secularization to the Japanese religious and social context. This paper will provide a critical overview of this debate based on a preliminary analysis of the main contributions to it, identify its main sub-themes, and explore some of the ways in which it can be related to the wider discussion on secularization taking place at the international level.

“Customary Practices” as Non-Religious and Secular: Parsing the Debate Surrounding the Proposed Revisions to Articles 20 and 89

Mark Mullins (The University of Auckland)

The contemporary debate over “customary practices” and whether they can be subsumed under the category of “religion” can be traced back to the Occupation period (1945-1952) and conflict between SCAP’s Religions Division and the Ministry of Education’s Religions Bureau (Shūmuka). While Shinto shrines had been redefined legally as “religious” as a result of registration as religious corporations under the 1946 Religious Corporation Ordinance (and again in 1952 under the Religious Corporation Law (Shūkyō hōjin hō), the Religions Bureau staff maintained that some Shinto-related rituals still should be regarded as “customary practices” and outside the scope of the strict enforcement of religion-state separation. This distinction has been reintroduced in the proposed revisions to Articles 20 and 89 of the Japanese Constitution advanced by the Liberal Democratic Party. This “emic” viewpoint, which distinguishes “religion” from “customary practices,” was shaped by government policy and public education from the Meiji period until 1945. In spite of the policies implemented during the Occupation period, survey research indicates that this distinction has been successfully transmitted in the postwar period and remains in the consciousness of the majority of Japanese in contemporary Japan. In this paper I will consider why the proposed revisions are likely to be perceived as entirely appropriate for the majority of Japanese. I will also argue that the changes—if ever passed by the Diet and approved by a national referendum—would likely soften the strict interpretation of religion-state separation and eliminate many legal challenges and court cases brought against the government for violation of religion-state separation surrounding Shinto-related practices (jichinsai, kōshiki sanpai). Finally, I will briefly present the arguments for why some religious minorities oppose the constitutional changes, which they maintain will erode individual rights and freedoms by reintroducing coercion into public life and institutions. 

“Religious Secularities” in Recent Japanese Youth Culture 

Satoko Fujiwara (University of Tokyo)

In this paper I will reflect on the changes that have taken place in Japanese youth religiosity during the last two decades. I will argue that recent youth religiosity can aptly be called “religious secularities,” in the sense that they are neither religious nor spiritual (I will of course start by making clear why such social phenomena can still be categorized as “religiosity” in the first place). The examples I will draw in part overlap with what some Japanese scholars of religion have been investigating under the theme of otaku culture and religion as well as what some European and Australian scholars of religion have been calling “fiction-based religion,” “hyperreal religion,” “invented religion,” etc. However, this paper will be different from the former in that whereas such scholars mostly argue that otaku culture has certain religious functions, uncritically based on the familiar concept and theories of religion, I will employ new theories and frameworks that have been developed in Japan for the analysis of youth culture since around 2000 in order to elucidate if there is anything in contemporary youth religiosity that can be called really new. In so doing this paper will also be different from that latter in that I will focus more on practices than on products. Rather than explaining away Japanese “religious secularities” as examples of “fiction-based religion” etc., I will thereby attempt to present analytic perspectives that can further be applied to different societies and cultures and contribute to the discussion of multiple secularities.

World Heritage, Secularisation, and the “Public Sacred” in East Asia

Aike P. Rots (University of Oslo)

 

Since the 1990s, East Asian governments and NGOs have invested heavily in heritage preservation, production, and promotion. National and local authorities alike are actively trying to get as many sites as possible registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and to have their ritual and artistic practices listed as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Japanese scholars have referred to the contemporary period as the “Age of World Heritage”, and declared a “World Heritage Boom”; the same can be said about China, South Korea and Vietnam, which likewise compete for increasing UNESCO recognition for their national treasures and traditions. A significant proportion of the sites listed as World Heritage are places of worship, such as Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, or Christian churches. Likewise, many of the practices on UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage List are ritual traditions and festivals. This has led to the transformation of worship places and practices – into tourist destinations, commodified performances, and reinvented symbols of “national tradition”. In this paper, I will discuss the significance of heritagisation for processes of secularisation – in particular, how it contributes to the deprivatisation of sites. (World) Heritage, I argue, represents a new kind of secular (i.e. non-religious) public property, in the public imagination if not legally. Secularisation in this case does not equal disenchantment; in fact, it goes hand in hand with new types of sacralisation, as World Heritage status often entails the attribution of new sacred qualities to sites and practices, adding to their symbolic power. The paper will discuss a number of cases of “sacred” World Heritage Sites and Intangible Cultural Heritage traditions, from Japan as well as elsewhere in East Asia, to illustrate this argument.