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C H A P T E R 7 Denominational Resistance and the Modification of Government Policy The ferocious protest that arose following the promulgation of the nikujiki saitai law caught the officials in the Ministry of Doctrine by surprise. In spite of much serious resistance from leading Buddhist clerics, however, ministry officials refused to rescind the new order. During the next six years, Buddhist leaders tested the government’s resolve to stay the course and tried to maintain control of the clergy in the absence of government intervention on their behalf. Although eventually accepting that enforcement of clerical regulations regarding marriage and meat eating were no longer a state concern, clerical leaders continued to claim that they, rather than individual clerics, could set the standards for the deportment of clergy in their denomination. A number of Buddhist denominations made skillful use of the ambiguities of the nikujiki saitai law, particularly the meaning of “voluntary” clerical marriage. As discussed earlier, many Buddhist intellectuals also attacked the law from this standpoint. Resistance to ministry intervention in denominational affairs was facilitated by turning the government’s own newly created rhetoric about the disestablishment and independence of Buddhism and religious freedom against those who attempted to force sect leaders to relax clerical standards. Resistance to the measure thus crossed sectarian lines and, as was so common during the early Meiji, alliances of sect leaders wrote and submitted petitions to ministry officials. It appears that the Buddhist response to the decriminalization was split. The accounts of Fukuda Gyôkai, Kuroda Kiyotsuna, and Matsumoto Mannen, the author of Inaka hanjôki, all noted the confusion and strife that followed the promulgation of the new law.1 Although the clerical elites at first uniformly were opposed to the decriminalization, many clerics seem to have been far less distressed by the measure. Kitagawa Chikai noted, for example, that “since the lifting of the ban on eating meat and clerical marriage due to the promulgation of Grand Council of State Edict 133 in Meiji 5, precept-breaking clerics have been thrilled. The ignorant, without understanding the difference between state law and Buddhist law, 1 Matsumoto’s account of the debate over nikujiki saitai within the Daikyôin is cited by Tsuji (1949, 245). D E N O M I N A T I O N A L R E S I S T A N C E 149 eat meat, marry, and abandon the precepts. They rob Buddhism of its life and condemn it to destruction.”2 Similarly, Hattori Masao argued that the majority of the Buddhist clergy were pleased by the promulgation of the law decriminalizing nikujiki saitai.3 One of the earliest organized responses to the ministry’s new regulation came from the leaders of the Sôtô sect, who disseminated two edicts to their subordinates just two months after the adoption of the law. Sôtô leaders were firm supporters of the movement to end the decriminalization measure. Not content with merely appealing to the Meiji bureaucracy for modification of the law, the Sôtô leadership also warned the clergy at branch temples to continue to adhere to the precepts that they had received at their ordinations. On Meiji 5/6/2 (July 7, 1872) the leaders of the Sôtô head temples, Eiheiji and Sôjiji, sent a directive to all Sôtô clerics who were lecturing doctrinal instructors. Noting that the government had “entrusted ” to the clergy the matter of adhering to the precepts, the authors of the directive warned, “If one does not strictly adhere to the precepts, then it is difficult to practice the Buddhist teaching (kyôhô). If the violence of human emotions is not constrained by the precepts, then one cannot distinguish right and wrong.” The letter admonished all of the Sôtô doctrinal instructors to unfailingly continue to teach the rank-and-file clergy at the branch temples in accordance with the precepts of the Buddhas and Patriarchs.4 Just three days later, on Meiji 5/6/5 (July 10, 1872), a more detailed and forceful statement was issued to all Sôtô branch temples. The new announcement claimed that many clerics had misconstrued—perhaps deliberately—the decriminalization measure as a government order to marry. For this reason the Sôtô leadership intended to clarify the new law. The authors of the directive acknowledged the complaint of such critics as Ôtori that a only a small minority of the Buddhist clergy maintained the discipline...

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