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Chapter Seven Buddhist Institutions after an Era of Persecution, 1868–1945 the leaders of the Meiji Restoration dealt a heavy blow to institutional Buddhism by tying reassertion of imperial power to the emperor’s divine status as heir to the Shinto deities who created Japan, making Shinto the country’s national religion. Weeks after the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and continuing to 1872, the government enacted separation of Shinto and Buddhism (shinbutsu bunri) edicts, which included provisions that forced temples to close or become Shinto shrines, scattered lay follower networks, stripped temples of their role as census keepers, and mandated retirement of thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns, many of whom became Shinto priests.¹ This derision of Buddhism had actually developed gradually during the Edo period, but near the end of the era opposition to the faith swelled among both the daimyo who led opposition to the Tokugawa and many citizens in reaction to perceived materialism of its institutions and critiques of the faith by staunch supporters of Shinto, who argued “that Buddhism was an alien and distorted creed, inimical to the interests of Shinto, the domain, and the country” (Collcutt 1986, 148). Although the Meiji government maintained that it did not intend to destroy Buddhism but simply to extricate it from close association with Shinto, many local authorities took the new regulations as a mandate to demolish Buddhist temples (eighteen thousand by some estimates) under the slogan “destroy the buddhas, abandon Shaka” (haibutsu kishaku). The incomplete census data from the early Meiji period suggests that persecution of Buddhist institutions and their clerics continued as late as 1876. Among these lost temples, many belonged 178 | buddhist imagery and sacred sites in modern japan to the Rinzai sect, which was closely associated with the old Tokugawa regime. Others, mainly affiliated with Tendai, Shingon, and Sōtō Zen, had few, if any, parishioners , did not regularly perform funerary rites, lacked head priests, or functioned primarily as sites of prayers for personal benefits (Collcutt 1986, 161–163). Although these efforts may have closed temples, they did not diminish religious devotion. As noted by Emile Guimet (discussed in chap. 8), an astute foreign visitor to Japan in 1876, “popular religion was one of the first things the progressive innovators had hoped to destroy; but their efforts in fact resulted in a revival of popular beliefs and forced the clergy to reorganize and perfect themselves.”² This chapter addresses just this issue—the ways Buddhist institutions sought to resurrect the faith in the aftermath of persecution, with particular reference to the central role its temple buildings and sculpted icons played in this transformation . The remarkable resurgence of Buddhism in the Meiji period marks a profound turning point in the way the religion and its monuments have functioned in Japanese society ever since. Reconstruction and Restoration of Temple Compounds Buddhism’s eventual resurrection came about through efforts of diverse groups, including religious organizations, wealthy laity, and officials within various government agencies, each with distinct but sometimes overlapping agendas. Both during and after this initial period of persecution, Buddhist institutions sought innovative strategies for survival. The Jōdo Shin sect was at the forefront of recognizing the necessity of forging ties with the newly established government. Their leaders shrewdly aligned themselves with the Meiji government from the beginning, lending it substantial funds for start-up expenses. They also spearheaded establishment of the trans-sectarian Organization of United Buddhist Sects (Soshū Dōtoku Kairen) in 1868, which promoted “the inseparability of the Kingly Law and the Buddhist Law.” In addition, they and other sects participated in the short-lived (1872–1877) Ministry of Rites to assist the government’s new education mandate (Ketelaar 1990, 73 and 96–105). These Shin Buddhist organizations also recognized that Buddhism needed to encompass modern Western intellectual modes of scholarship in order to survive. They embraced Western approaches to learning, arranging for several members of their clergy to join Meiji bureaucrats on a fact-finding mission to Europe and America from 1871 to 1873. Additionally, in 1876 Higashi Honganji sent two monks to England to study Buddhism under Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900) at Oxford.³ Nishi Honganji also became the first of many Buddhist organizations to found universities on the Western model. Other sects took different approaches to modernization. For example, Rinzai for the first time allowed laity to begin participating in clerical practices.⁴ Lay involvement with [3.144.154.208] Project MUSE (2024-04-26...

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