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Darkness dispelled, the moon shining in empty sky within my heart— does it now approach the rim of those Western Mountains? —Monk Saigyo\ (1118–1190)1 BUDDHISM UNDER ATTACK The new Meiji government was quick to implement the intentions of the Constitution of 17 June 1868. The old system of court and shogunate, with considerable local autonomy, was replaced by a centralized authority in Tokyo. “On January 22 [1872] it was decreed that Buddhist nuns might let their hair grow out, eat meat, marry, or return to the laity.”2 Proclamation (fukoku) No. 162 by the Council of State (Dajo\kan) dated 15 May 1873 gave women the right to sue for divorce. With this, “divorce temples” lost their reason for existing. Two years earlier the Inryo\ken had sent a petition to the Kanagawa Prefectural Office requesting that the To\keiji be permitted to continue its services for unhappy women. After the Prefectural Office forwarded the petition to the Council of State, the Office of Civil Affairs (Mimbusho\) advised the council that the request be denied since a uniform code of laws should be administered throughout the country . This was certainly a reasonable decision by the new central government, and the To\keiji was none the worse for it, since its primary mission had never been to be a “divorce temple,” but rather, a genuine Rinzai Zen convent. But a much more serious danger was at hand—the statewide Buddhist persecution of early Meiji known as haibutsu kishaku (“abolish Buddhism and destroy its Scriptures”), whose main ideological impetus was the National Learning (kokugaku) movement of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, represented by such rabble rousers as Hirata Atsutane, whom we met in chapter 1 as an “authority” on the Lotus Sutra. The early Meiji assaults on Buddhism are succinctly summarized by Professor Hardacre as follows: In 1869 an order calling for the complete separation of Buddhism from Shinto\ (shinbutsu bunri), intended to raise the status of Shinto\ and to secure its independence from 137 Meiji through Heisei: To\keiji and Rinzai Zen Continuity 8 Buddhism, was issued. Shinto\ objects of worship were to be removed from Buddhist temples and Buddhist appurtenances were to be stripped from shrines. Shrines and temples were to be set up independently. All shrine priests and their families would henceforth have Shinto\ funerals. The order for the separation of Buddhism and Shinto\ was accompanied by unauthorized plundering of everything Buddhist, collectively known as haibutsu kishaku, in which the pent-up resentment of the Shinto\ priesthood was unleashed in ferocious, vindictive destruction. Buddhist priests were defrocked, lands confiscated, statuary and ritual implements melted down for cannon. The extent of the damage varied regionally, but Buddhism suffered significant material loss as well as the loss of the state patronage it had enjoyed in the previous era.3 In 1872 the Ministry of Doctrine (Kyo\busho\)4 directed that all independent temples be affiliated with a major sectarian headquarters (honzan), and this notice was sent to the To\keiji, as well as to Kamakura’s Jufukuji, Jo\myo\ji, and Jo\chiji, three temples of the old Five Mountain (gosan) system. The Jufukuji and Jo\myo\ji became affiliated with the Kencho\ji, the Jo\chiji and To\keiji with the Engakuji. The nun Junso\ (1825–1902) became abbess of the To\keiji in September 1872, the first to hold that position since Gyokuen left in 1737, and also the last. In 1877 the Main Hall was converted into the Yamanouchi School, providing a meeting place for the children of the neighborhood until a new school building was constructed in 1893. Five halls in the temple compound were reduced to three between 1870 and 1872. The temple office and the nearby inns closed, and the Inryo\ken fell into ruin. The nuns either left or died, and in time To\keiji was left with only one. OLD TIES WITH THE ENGAKUJI RENEWED: KO\GAKU SO\EN ZENJI (1859–1919) Abbess Junso\ was succeeded by Furukawa Gyo\do\ (1872–1961), the first monk to administer To\keiji. A disciple of So\en (1859–1919) of the Engakuji, he was in residence from 1902 to 1905, when he was replaced by his mentor. Ko\gaku So\en Zenji was a man of considerable flair and accomplishment. Born Ichinose Tsunejiro\, he was a native of Wakasa Province (Fukui Prefecture), the locale of So\to\ Zen’s Eiheiji headquarters founded by Do\gen in 1246. But at the age of twelve he began...

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