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8 The Price of Naming the Dead Posthumous Precept Names and Critiques of Contemporary Japanese Buddhism Stephen G. Covell Today, the sects of traditional Buddhism are facing perhaps the most serious threat to their existence since the government’s efforts during the Meiji period (1868–1912) to forcibly separate a ‘‘Buddhism ’’ and a ‘‘Shinto’’ from the fabric of premodern Japanese religion . The contemporary threat is tied directly to the central role of funerals. Until the Meiji period, many temples relied on incomeproducing landholdings for their livelihood. One effect of Meiji-period reforms, however, was that many temples were stripped of their major landholdings and thereby deprived of a critical source of income. Half a century later, land reform efforts (nōchikaihō) in the early postwar period, designed to end tenant farming and lead to an equitable distribution of land, further drastically reduced the landholdings of most temples. Temples in the modern period were thus increasingly forced to rely for income on the performance of rituals. In the preceding essays by Duncan Williams and Mariko Walter, we have seen how providing funerals and memorial services developed as a major role of temples since at least the Edo or Tokugawa period (1603–1868) and became the primary source of income for most temples during the modern period. This chapter builds on the arguments raised by Williams and Walter to demonstrate how this reliance on postmortem rituals for income has in turn become a wellspring for critiques of the institutions of traditional Buddhism. Today, at best, Buddhist priests are criticized as being commercialized—merely salaried performers of empty rituals who are out of touch with contemporary spiritual needs; at worst, they are attacked as taking advantage of people in their most desperate moment in order to turn a profit. The pervasive and growing image of traditional Buddhism as corrupt seriously hampers efforts on the part of the priests and sects of 293 traditional Buddhism to engage positively with contemporary society. Social welfare and environmental movements, such as the Light Up Your Corner Movement (Ichigū o Terasu Undō) of the Tendai sect or the Sōtō sect’s Sōtō Volunteer Association (SVA, or Sōtōshū Kokusai Borantia Kai)—now registered as the independent organization Shanti Volunteer Association (Shanti Kokusai Borantia Kai)—are hidden under the dark shadow cast by critiques of corrupt priests and practices devoid of meaning. Moreover, the negative image generated by the reliance on funerary and mortuary rituals for financial stability creates an atmosphere in which a growing number of Japanese are willing to seek out alternative venues for postmortem care. While still a small minority, the long-term threat they pose to temples is real, and officials of the sects of traditional Buddhism are slowly beginning to formulate policy aimed at addressing the root causes of discontent. In Chapter 7 Walter examined the history and structure of funeral rituals in Japan. This chapter approaches postmortem care in contemporary Japan, first introducing the various ways in which Japanese scholars have framed traditional Buddhism in modern times as corrupt , and then investigating contemporary critiques that Buddhist postmortem rituals lack relevance, as well as the responses of various representatives of traditional Buddhist sects. My discussion focuses on the granting of posthumous precept names (kaimyō, hōmyō, or hōgō), a portion of Japanese Buddhist funeral ritual that lies at the heart of contemporary critiques of traditional Buddhism. Portraits of ‘‘Corrupt’’ Traditional Buddhism Critiques of traditional Japanese Buddhism are in no way limited to the contemporary setting, nor are they confined to scholars. However, the work of scholars contributes to and reflects a more widely held negative image of traditional Buddhism in contemporary Japan. The most influential modern author of ‘‘corruption theory’’ (daraku setsu), as it appears in Japanese and Western scholarship on Japanese Buddhism , has been the prewar scholar Tsuji Zennosuke (1877–1955).1 Tsuji laid out his ‘‘corruption theory’’ in Nihon bukkyōshi no kenkyū (Studies on the history of Buddhism in Japan). In describing what he called the ‘‘origins of early modern Buddhist decline’’ (kinsei bukkyō suibi no yurai), Tsuji pointed to two factors, the corruption of the Buddhist priesthood (sōryo no daraku), and the formalization (keishikika) of Buddhism. Tsuji traced the beginnings of the corruption of the Buddhist priesthood to at least the medieval period and listed five sources of that corruption. First, he cited evidence to show that priests had be294 Stephen G. Covell [3.138.141.202] Project MUSE (2024...

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