Chapter 3. The Meiji Shock: After the Destruction of Buddhism

In 1868, the Restoration government issued successive orders separating kami and buddhas. Shrines and monasteries were forced apart: shrine monasteries were abolished, shrine monks returned to lay life, and Buddhist images and implements were removed from before the kami. The orders said separation; in execution they became an assault. The severity of anti-Buddhist suppression varied by domain. In Satsuma, among the worst cases, every one of more than a thousand monasteries was abolished and all monks returned to lay life. Subsequent land-confiscation orders seized temple holdings, while the Jinshin household register returned registration to the state.1 Overnight, Buddhism lost everything the Tokugawa had given it: its registration function, its temple lands, its legally assigned parishioners. Within this volume's sequence of suppressions, the demand behind this shock was new again. Wuzong wanted Buddhism's assets; Nobunaga its sovereignty; Meiji its position. The new state sought to ground its national polity in Shinto. The narrative of an unbroken imperial line for all ages had no room for a foreign religious organization that had just kept household registers for the shogunate. This was an act of identity, not finance. Yet a rule this volume has seen repeatedly proved itself again: the state could take back the registration function, but not the graveyards. The parishioners' legal duties were abolished; funeral habits remained. Graveyards and ritual services carried temples through the worst years. The conclusion of the Huichang case—real estate could be taken, habits could not (Essay 11, Chapter 1)—was replayed exactly in Meiji Japan.2

In 1872, Grand Council of State Proclamation no. 133 left clerics free to eat meat, marry, and grow their hair, entirely at their own discretion. The state no longer upheld the precepts by law; renunciation changed from a status to an occupation. Within a few decades, marriage and hereditary succession spread from Shin's special case to the norm across the schools. Temples became family businesses.3 Over the long span, this proclamation was the last domino. In 818, Saichō cut the chain of formal communal acts, retaining only the provisions of an apocryphal scripture. In the thirteenth century, Shinran styled himself neither monk nor layman and brought a bloodline into the Pure Land gate. In 1872, the state left even the remaining provisions to free choice. In the three copies, Ceylon held fast to the Vinaya's provisions, Tibet tied the Vinaya to political power, and China's is recited on ordination platforms to this day. Japan completed the fourth route: first the chain of formal communal acts was cut, then the Vinaya's provisions were withdrawn, and finally renunciation became an occupation. Essay 3 called the chain the Vinaya's second role. Over a thousand years, Japan showed what remained of Buddhism once the chain had been broken, section by section. What remained was not a monastic community but a religious organization.

The last domino

“Formal-act lineage” means the transmission chain of ordination established through communal formal acts. The first domino says that Saichō retained the provisions of an apocryphal scripture, not a single apocryphal clause. The closing sentence likewise distinguishes cutting the ordination chain from withdrawing the remaining provisions: in the end, renunciation became an occupation. The English image omits the Chinese image’s baseline timeline but retains the order and dates of the three dominoes.

The fire marks haibutsu kishaku, the anti-Buddhist suppression associated here with 1868. The English phrase “destroy Śākyamuni” is a literal rendering of the movement’s name, not an event involving the destruction of the historical Buddha himself. “Corporation” at the end of the third arrow means a religious corporate body, within the chapter’s discussion of religion and state, not a commercial company. The three arrows mark different paths of adaptation; they do not date every resulting institution to the 1872 proclamation.

Self-rescue after the shock took three routes, together producing something no one foresaw. The first was scholarship. Nanjō Bun'yū went west to study Sanskrit with Max Müller, followed by Takakusu Junjirō. Clerics themselves introduced Buddhist philology to Japan. In 1901, Murakami Senshō declared on historical grounds that Mahāyāna was not spoken by the Buddha and left the Shin clerical register that year. His two-line solution—“not spoken by the Buddha, yet Buddhism”—became scholarly common ground within a generation. Another generation later, Takakusu and Watanabe Kaigyoku supervised the compilation of the Taishō Newly Revised Buddhist Canon. Today the T numbers in footnotes worldwide, including this book's, are all a legacy of Meiji self-rescue.4 The second route was negotiation between religion and state. In the first month of 1872, Shimaji Mokurai went to Europe with a party of Honganji monks. That year, in Paris, he wrote the Petition Criticizing the Three Standards of Instruction, arguing from a distinction between government and teaching and launching a movement to separate religion and state. Buddhism thereby withdrew from the Ministry of Doctrine's system and won a position for itself as a “religion.” It was learning to be one religion within a modern society, rather than a department within the state order.5 The third route went overseas. At the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, Shaku Sōen took the stage. For the following half-century, his disciple Suzuki Daisetsu taught Zen to the West, while Kiyozawa Manshi opened the inward path of spiritualism (seishinshugi). Expelled from the establishment, Buddhism had to win two new audiences: Western listeners and modern academia. To do so, it changed how it presented itself: a Buddhism scientific, philosophical, free of superstition, and accessible through the experience of seated meditation.6 Marked explicitly, as required, the following is this volume's conjecture: the Meiji shock became an unexpected source of today's global Buddhism. The Buddhism the West received at the turn of the twentieth century was principally this Japanese Buddhism, expelled from its home country's establishment and urgently seeking new audiences. The Ceylon line worked similarly: colonial and Meiji shocks shared a structure. The full case joining the two belongs to the next essay. The shock was unforeseen, the new presentation an act of self-rescue, its popularity in the West a still greater surprise. But translating Buddhism into the language of science and philosophy was henceforth irreversible.

Bring the three chapters together, and the fourth answer is complete. Kamakura reduced Buddhism to a piece of portable luggage (Chapter 1). The Tokugawa brought the schools into the household-registration system. Meiji removed that system, and Buddhism entered free competition. The result was surprising: the simplest practices traveled farthest. Zen and Buddha recollection crossed the sea and became the Buddhism Westerners knew. None of the three older copies, by contrast, reached the West in this way. The three cases informing the larger conjecture are now assembled: India's diversity of separate schools, China's inclusive diversity, and Japan's exclusive practice of mutually excluding schools. Three societies, three forms of knowledge. The joint judgment awaits Essay 15. The next essay examines modernity's rewriting.

A theoretical cross-section, appended as the essay closes. The simplifying revolution had a theoretical premise seldom named: Tendai original-enlightenment thought. Mount Hiei's textbooks taught that awakening was original and practice followed awakening. Sentient beings as they stood were buddhas; grasses, trees, and lands all became buddhas. If awakening was original, one practice sufficed: a Buddha-name or a sitting posture was the functioning of the whole. The four practices could be so simple because original-enlightenment thought had already declared that elaborate cultivation could be dispensed with altogether. The question left in the appendix to Essay 6—if everything is originally complete, what is practice for?—ceased to be a question in Japan and became an axiom. Its critics did not have to wait for the twentieth century. The same charge had already been raised within Chinese Buddhism nine hundred years earlier. In the eleventh century, Zhili charged the Off-Mountain line with contemplating principle to cut off the nine realms. The charge was its one-sided focus on pure suchness. He asked: afflictions, birth, and death are the nine realms; how could a buddha destroy or transform those nine? He named his target himself: “numinous knowing” was Guifeng's special term. Volume II recorded this case beside the twentieth-century case and judged the older one better documented, because accuser, accused, original text, and conclusion were all present. The twentieth-century critique of original-enlightenment thought, challenging it with “this is not Buddhism,” raised the same charge a second time. The history of transformation adds only this: the premise that made a thousand years of simplification possible is the very thing that a modern critique judged outside Buddhism.

References

References

  1. For the orders separating kami and buddhas (1868), anti-Buddhist suppression, Satsuma's complete abolition of monasteries, the land-confiscation orders, and the Jinshin household register's takeover of temple-registration functions (1872), see James E. Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); summarized here. Sueki Fumihiko's A History of Japanese Buddhism was formerly cited alongside it and is now removed, for the reason in the next note. ↩

  2. For the survival of funeral customs after parishioners' legal obligations ended, see Rowe, Bonds of the Dead (cited in the notes to 13.2), printed p. 3. This “lifelong, hereditary, and increasingly onerous bond of obligation has its roots in the parishioner system beginning in the seventeenth century; although legally ended in the late nineteenth century, it still sets the tone for dealings between temples and families today” (despite its legal end in the late nineteenth century, continues to set the tone for temple/family dealings up to the present day). The original note also cited Sueki's book above; that citation is now removed. The book does not cover the period after Meiji, and its chronology ends with the 1868 separation order. Its section “The Generalization of Funerary Buddhism” (p. 131) concerns the formation of parish temples and parishioner households in Edo, not continuity after the legal obligation ended. Tamamuro Taijō's 葬式仏教 (Funerary Buddhism) still needs to be checked directly. ↩

  3. Grand Council of State Proclamation no. 133 of Meiji 5 (1872), the so-called meat-eating and clerical-marriage order. For the original, romanization, and English translation, see Richard M. Jaffe, Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Buddhism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001, printed p. 72. Issued on the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month of Meiji 5 (May 31, 1872), it says, “自今僧侶肉食妻帯蓄髪等可為勝手事但法用ノ外ハ人民一般ノ服ヲ着用不苦候事”. The book translates it: “From now on Buddhist clerics shall be free to eat meat, marry, grow their hair, and so on. Furthermore, they are permitted to wear ordinary clothing when not engaged in religious activities.” The spread of marriage and hereditary succession is documented in the same book; it need not rest on common knowledge. Printed p. 1 records Kanaoka Shūyū's estimate that about 90 percent of Japanese clerics today are married. A 1987 Sōtō survey found that over 80 percent inherited their temples from family members and over 80 percent were married. Surveys of the Buzan branch of Shingon show that “as early as the end of the Taishō era there were similarly high proportions of married clerics and patrimonial inheritance of temples”. The end of Taishō was 1926, a little over fifty years after the proclamation. ↩

  4. Nanjō Bun'yū studied Sanskrit with Max Müller. The work he compiled was A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripiṭaka (Oxford: Clarendon, 1883), commonly called the Nanjō Catalogue and cited by its entry numbers. The Catalog of the Sacred Teachings of the Tripiṭaka of the Great Ming was his base text, not his compilation. This was the original catalog of the Ming canon, in four fascicles, listed as no. 1662 in Nanjō's catalog. Nanjō states, “The thirteenth Catalogue in existence, No. 1662…is the base of the present compilation” (Introduction, p. xxii). Under no. 1662 he adds, “This is the original Catalogue of the Collection in the India Office Library, on which my own Catalogue is based. The classification and order of the 1662 works contained in it are therefore unaltered” (column 365). The physical copy used was the India Office Library's Japanese reprint of this Ming canon, published by Tetsugen Dōkō in 1678–1681. For his relationship to his teacher, see the opening dedication: “To Professor Max Müller, in grateful and respectful remembrance of his kind instruction, help, and sympathy, this Catalogue is dedicated by his pupil Bunyiu Nanjio.” The introduction also records that when he left Japan for England in 1876, he knew no English. He studied it for two and a half years before beginning Sanskrit and went from London to Oxford in February 1879. Murakami Senshō's On the Unification of Buddhism appeared in successive parts. This book draws on more than one part and therefore assigns no single year. The wording of what the main text calls his two-line solution occurs in Chapter 3, “A Humble View on Whether Mahāyāna Was Spoken by the Buddha” (“大乘佛说に関する鄙见”), of the supplementary discussion in Part I, General Outline. Printed p. 459 says, “之に依て余は大乘非佛說なりと斷定す、余は大乘非佛說と斷定するも開發的佛敎として信ずる者なり” (“On this basis, I conclude that Mahāyāna was not spoken by the Buddha. Although I conclude that Mahāyāna was not spoken by the Buddha, I believe in it as developmental Buddhism”). Both sentences carry emphasis dots; the marginal heading reads, “大乘は開發的佛敎なり” (“Mahāyāna is developmental Buddhism”). Printed p. 460 reiterates: “故に小乘を假りに原始的根本佛教とすれば、大乘は開發的佛敎といはざるを得ざるものあり” (“Thus, if we provisionally take Hīnayāna as primitive, foundational Buddhism, we cannot but call Mahāyāna developmental Buddhism”), with the heading “兩面の開發” (“Development on Two Sides”). For his departure from the Shin Ōtani branch's clerical register, there is his own 予が眞宗大谷派の僧籍を脱するの告白書 (Confession of My Departure from the Shin Ōtani Branch's Clerical Register) (Tokyo: Kinkōdō shoseki, issued on October 30, Meiji 34). The withdrawal request addressed to the Ōtani branch's executive, reproduced in the book, is dated “明治三十四年十月二十五日” (October 25, Meiji 34) and says, “今後派外に立ちて右研究を遂行致度候、依て拙者の僧籍御除き相成度候也” (“I wish henceforth to stand outside the branch and pursue the research mentioned above; I therefore request that my name be removed from its clerical register”) (printed p. 18). In the final section, he says others regard him as an outsider to the teaching and a heretic, comparing his position to “護命僧正が傳敎大師を罵詈し、また明慧上人が法然上人を誹謗せし如く” (“just as Bishop Gomyō reviled Dengyō Daishi, and the Venerable Myōe slandered the Venerable Hōnen”) (printed p. 21). The Taishō Newly Revised Buddhist Canon appeared in 1924–1934, under the general supervision of Takakusu Junjirō and Watanabe Kaigyoku. ↩

  5. In the first month of 1872, Shimaji Mokurai went to Europe with four other Honganji monks; that autumn, Higashi Honganji also sent a party. His Petition Criticizing the Three Standards of Instruction (Sanjō kyōsoku hihan kenpaku sho) was written in Paris. It argued from the separation of government (sei) and teaching (kyō), giving rise to the movement for separation of religion and state (seikyō bunri undō). See James Edward Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. A qualification is needed: Shimaji did not bring the expression “freedom of religious belief” (shinkyō no jiyū) back from Europe. Fukuzawa Yukichi had already popularized it in his Conditions in the West of 1866. The freedom-of-belief provision in Article 28 of the Meiji Constitution came only in 1889 and was qualified by the requirements that it “not disturb peace and order or conflict with the duties of subjects.” ↩

  6. Shaku Sōen's appearance at the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago can be checked directly in the proceedings: John Henry Barrows (ed.), The World's Parliament of Religions. Chicago: Parliament Publishing Company, 1893, volume 2. “The Law of Cause and Effect, as Taught by Buddha” is attributed to “BY RT. REV. SHAKU SOYEN, JAPAN” on printed pp. 829–831. The same volume contains “Arbitration Instead of War” on p. 1285. Its closing biography reads, “SHAKU, MOST REV. SOYEN, (also called Kogaku), b. 1858; head of the Engakuji division of the Rinzai Zen sect” (p. 1589). At the beginning of the volume, its account of the Japanese delegation lists “the Buddhist priests Ashitsu, Toki, Soyen and Yatsubuchi”. The proceedings themselves do not mention Suzuki Daisetsu: a search of the entire second volume returns zero hits for Suzuki. For the teacher-disciple relationship and transmission to the West, see Robert H. Sharf. “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism.” History of Religions 33, no. 1 (1993): 1–43, later included in Donald S. Lopez Jr. (ed.), Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, printed pp. 107–160. Shaku Sōen (1859–1919) “came to play a pivotal role in the export of Zen to the West” and in 1893 was “the first Zen master to travel to America”. The English translation of the Parliament address was prepared by the then unknown Suzuki Daisetsu himself: “The English translation of Soen's address to the World Parliament had been prepared by the then unknown D. T. Suzuki, with the help of the writer Natsume Soseki”. After the Parliament, Sōen also arranged for Suzuki to study with Paul Carus in America. Sharf concludes, “In retrospect, Suzuki may well have been Soen's greatest contribution to the spread of Zen in the West”. Suzuki lived from 1870 to 1966. The main text's “taught Zen to the West for the following half-century” refers to this career; Sharf gives no number of years, and the phrase is a general description from its beginning and end. Kiyozawa Manshi's spiritualism now has support both in an original text and in a specialized study. The original is in volume 3, Faith, of the Collected Works of Kiyozawa Manshi, edited by Tada Kanae, Sasaki Gesshō, and Akegarasu Haya, Yukōsha edition, held by the National Diet Library under accession no. 334262, call no. 188.7/Ki348k. “Spiritualism” is the first essay, first item, in that volume, beginning on printed p. 1. It opens, “吾人の世に在るや、必ず一の完全なる立脚地なかるべからず” (“In our life in the world, we must have a complete ground on which to stand”), and defines its subject as “此の如き立脚地を得たる精神の發達する條路、之を名けて精神主義といふ” (“The path along which the spirit develops after attaining such a ground is what we call spiritualism”). For the specialized study, see Okamura Yasuo, “清沢満之の精神主義運動について” (“On Kiyozawa Manshi's Spiritualism Movement”). Suzuki dates the advocacy of the movement to the first-month issue of Seishinkai in Meiji 34. In Meiji 33, the preceding year, Kiyozawa, Tada Kanae, Sasaki Gesshō, Akegarasu Haya, and others had formed the private academy Kōkōdō and lived together; the movement grew out of this shared life. Okamura also records that Kiyozawa's personal participation lasted less than three years at the very end of his life. The main text's phrase “opened the inward path of spiritualism” is supported here. One limit must be recorded: these two sources establish the event, its time, and its definition. Spiritualism's place and influence within Meiji Buddhism remain beyond this note's reach. A remark in the Chapter 4 notes of Ketelaar's book, printed p. 259, says that Kiyozawa and others looked “more toward the world of the spirit (seishinkai) than toward the obviously material concerns of the majority of New Buddhists”. It remains only an aside; the book expressly places this subject “somewhat outside the scope of the present inquiry”. The genealogy of “Buddhist modernism” belongs to Essay 14; a stub at 14-01 has already been attached. ↩