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Reviewed by:
  • Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition
  • W. J. Boot
Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition. By Michael I. Como. Oxford University Press, 2008. 256 pages. Hardcover $45.00.

The period stretching from the end of the sixth till the middle of the eighth century was one of the more eventful and important ones in Japan's history. It was during this time that a massive introduction of continental, i.e., Chinese, culture took place; Buddhism spread; the imperial house rose to political supremacy; and a centralized, bureaucratic government was instituted. All of this set Japan on the trajectory that it would follow for the next millennium or more. As a study of this watershed period in Japanese history, Michael Como's Shōtoku should, in principle, be welcomed.

In his approach, Como does not follow the beaten path that I have just outlined. He introduces a few twists of his own, the most important of which are his highlighting of the cult of Prince Shōtoku, his prioritizing of religious over political history, and his emphasis on the pivotal importance of immigrants from Korea in all the events he discusses. His choice of Prince Shōtoku is remarkable. Ever since Japanese historians decided that the Constitution in Seventeen Articles was not his, they have been at a loss what to do with him; recently some have even declared that he never existed. It has become fashionable to refer to the historical prince ("of whom we know next to nothing") as Umayado or Kamitsumiya, and to the figure of legend as Shōtoku. Como follows this usage (p. 5), but he displays a positive interest in the latter figure and uses it to integrate his argument. Shōtoku appears in all seven chapters of the book, and six of them have his name in the title.

To the extent that anything can be innovative in a field as underdocumented and over-grazed as the history of the seventh century, Como's ideas are fresh, and they tickle the imagination. Apart from the emphases I mentioned above, he also displays an innovative interest in silkworms, textiles, and tangerines as value-laden items from the diffusely conceived mystery-country that substituted for the continent in the popular imagination; in such lesser deities as Sukunabikona; and in ports along the Sea of Japan. As one reads the book, however, one encounters a number of major and minor problems.

A minor irritation is the style. Como writes in a style that is intended to bring home to the reader that the times he is describing were not ordinary times, nor the events ordinary events, but that they were marked, "to a surprising degree," by Conflict and Violence and Ethnic Strife. The phrase "to a surprising degree" recurs often in the book, and just as often invites the question "surprising, to whom?" To those who have never heard of the suicide of Shōtoku Taishi's son? Of the coup d'état against the Soga and the Taika Reform? Of the wars in Korea? Of the Jinshin War? Of Shōmu's and Kōken's vagaries and of the sorry fates of Tachibana no Moroe, Fujiwara no Nakamaro, or Dōkyō? [End Page 397]

More problematic is the assumption that ever since Shōtokus death in 621 or 622 a Shōtoku cult has existed. This assumption is basic to the argument of the book as a whole, but as Donald F. McCallum has already explained in his review (JJS 36:1 [2010], p. 191), the evidence for 623 as the year in which the cult of Shōtoku began is extremely weak. Neither do the entries related to Shōtoku in Nihon shoki (720) provide evidence for the existence of such a cult. The first indication of a cult is, to my mind, the restoration of the Hōryūji and especially of its Yumedono by Empress Kōmyō in the 730s, which Como discusses under the heading of activities of the Buddhist priest Dōji (chapter 7) and relates to the untimely deaths that crippled the Fujiwara family at the time...

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