Nanzan Guide To Japanese Religions

For updates online, visit the Nanzan Guide site at Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture. The Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions combines, for the first time in any language, state-of-the-field theoretical and critical discussions with concrete resources students and scholars need to conduct research on Japanese religions. Even seasoned scholars typically approach their research in an unsystematic manner, becoming familiar with a particular area of inquiry while remaining largely unaware of what exists in the rest of the field. This inefficient method hinders particularly less-experienced researchers and circumscribes their lines of inquiry. The Nanzan Guide provides both beginners and specialists with a reference that will serve as a basic introduction to Japanese religions and allow them to conduct research more proficiently and in greater depth. Overlapping and thought-provoking chapters, written by leading specialists, offer a variety of perspectives on the complicated and multifaceted field of Japanese religions. The essays are divided into four sections: religious traditions (Japanese religions in general, Shinto, Buddhism, folk religion, new religions, Christianity); the history of Japanese religions (ancient, classical, medieval, early modern, modern, contemporary); major themes (symbolism, ritual and the arts, literature and scripture, state and religion, geography and environment, intellectual history, gender); and "practical" essays (finding references and using libraries, working with archive collections, conducting fieldwork). A chronology of religion in Japanese history is also provided.

"For nearly two decades, the Nanzan guide to Japanese religions has served as a valuable resource for students and scholars of religion in Japan. This exciting update expands the audience to include non-specialists of Japan while also complicating the notions of "Japan" and "religion." Asking the provocative question "why study Japanese religions?" the editors argue that studying Japan is vital for the academic study of religion writ large and make a case for the continued importance of religious topics in Japan studies, broadly conceived. The volume addresses the question of why-and how-to study Japanese religions in seven sections, each overseen by a leading expert in that subfield. The section on "knowledge production" investigates medicine, sacred objects, and the politico-economic structures undergirding academia. "Cosmology and time" reveals how religion shaped worldviews in both premodern and modern Japan by taking up topics such as the afterlife, divination, and relationships between science and religion. "Space and environment" considers geography, relationships between the human and nonhuman denizens of the Japanese archipelago, and religion in Japan's overseas colonies and among diasporic outmigrants. "Feelings and belonging" focuses on affective relationships generated through confraternities, homiletics, and caring professions. "Politics and governance" describes longstanding relationships between religion and the state, covering everything from sacred kingship to contemporary electoral politics. The final two sections include practical advice for conducting fieldwork and helpful introductions to several relevant archives. Overall, the volume reflects the impact of recent scholarly trends in the study of Japanese religions, including material religion studies, affect theory, environmental humanities, and critical secularism studies. The breadth of topics as well as the accessibility of the individual chapters makes The new Nanzan guide to Japanese religions an indispensable resource for the classroom. It will be useful not only for scholars of Japan, but also for anyone interested in the academic study of religion"--

With Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, readers of English can now access in a single volume the richness and diversity of Japanese philosophy as it has developed throughout history. Leading scholars in the field have translated selections from the writings of more than a hundred philosophical thinkers from all eras and schools of thought, many of them available in English for the first time. The Sourcebook editors have set out to represent the entire Japanese philosophical tradition—not only the broad spectrum of academic philosophy dating from the introduction of Western philosophy in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but also the philosophical ideas of major Japanese traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto. The philosophical significance of each tradition is laid out in an extensive overview, and each selection is accompanied by a brief biographical sketch of its author and helpful information on placing the work in its proper context. The bulk of the supporting material, which comprises nearly a quarter of the volume, is given to original interpretive essays on topics not explicitly covered in other chapters: cultural identity, samurai thought, women philosophers, aesthetics, bioethics. An introductory chapter provides a historical overview of Japanese philosophy and a discussion of the Japanese debate over defining the idea of philosophy, both of which help explain the rationale behind the design of the Sourcebook. An exhaustive glossary of technical terminology, a chronology of authors, and a thematic index are appended. Specialists will find information related to original sources and sinographs for Japanese names and terms in a comprehensive bibliography and general index. Handsomely presented and clearly organized for ease of use, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook will be a cornerstone in Japanese studies for decades to come. It will be an essential reference for anyone interested in traditional or contemporary Japanese culture and the way it has shaped and been shaped by its great thinkers over the centuries.

For centuries the accommodation between Japan and Christianity has been an uneasy one. Compared with others of its Asian neighbors, the churches in Japan have never counted more than a small minority of believers more or less resigned to patterns of ritual and belief transplanted from the West. But there is another side to the story, one little known and rarely told: the rise of indigenous movements aimed at a Christianity that is at once made in Japan and faithful to the scriptures and apostolic tradition. Christianity Made in Japan draws on extensive field research to give an intriguing and sympathetic look behind the scenes and into the lives of the leaders and followers of several indigenous movements in Japan. Focusing on the "native" response rather than Western missionary efforts and intentions, it presents varieties of new interpretations of the Christian tradition. It gives voice to the unheard perceptions and views of many Japanese Christians, while raising questions vital to the self-understanding of Christianity as a truly "world religion." This ground-breaking study makes a largely unknown religious world accessible to outsiders for the first time. Students and scholars alike will find it a valuable addition to the literature on Japanese religions and society and on the development of Christianity outside the West. By offering an alternative approach to the study and understanding of Christianity as a world religion and the complicated process of cross-cultural diffusion, it represents a landmark that will define future research in the field.

Religious freedom is a founding tenet of the United States, and it has frequently been used to justify policies towards other nations. Such was the case in 1945 when Americans occupied Japan following World War II. Though the Japanese constitution had guaranteed freedom of religion since 1889, the United States declared that protection faulty, and when the occupation ended in 1952, they claimed to have successfully replaced it with “real” religious freedom. Through a fresh analysis of pre-war Japanese law, Jolyon Baraka Thomas demonstrates that the occupiers’ triumphant narrative obscured salient Japanese political debates about religious freedom. Indeed, Thomas reveals that American occupiers also vehemently disagreed about the topic. By reconstructing these vibrant debates, Faking Liberties unsettles any notion of American authorship and imposition of religious freedom. Instead, Thomas shows that, during the Occupation, a dialogue about freedom of religion ensued that constructed a new global set of political norms that continue to form policies today.

Zen Sand is a classic collection of verses aimed at aiding practitioners of kôan meditation to negotiate the difficult relationship between insight and language. As such it represents a major contribution to both Western Zen practice and English-language Zen scholarship. In Japan the traditional Rinzai Zen kôan curriculum includes the use of jakugo, or "capping phrases." Once a monk has successfully replied to a kôan, the Zen master orders the search for a classical verse to express the monk’s insight into the kôan. Special collections of these jakugo were compiled as handbooks to aid in that search. Until now, Zen students in the West, lacking this important resource, have been severely limited in carrying out this practice. Zen Sand combines and translates two standard jakugo handbooks and opens the way for incorporating this important tradition fully into Western Zen practice. For the scholar, Zen Sand provides a detailed description of the jakugo practice and its place in the overall kôan curriculum, as well as a brief history of the Zen phrase book. This volume also contributes to the understanding of East Asian culture in a broader sense.

Manga and anime (illustrated serial novels and animated films) are highly influential Japanese entertainment media that boast tremendous domestic consumption as well as worldwide distribution and an international audience. Drawing on Tradition examines religious aspects of the culture of manga and anime production and consumption through a methodological synthesis of narrative and visual analysis, history, and ethnography. Rather than merely describing the incidence of religions such as Buddhism or Shinto in these media, Jolyon Baraka Thomas shows that authors and audiences create and re-create “religious frames of mind” through their imaginative and ritualized interactions with illustrated worlds. Manga and anime therefore not only contribute to familiarity with traditional religious doctrines and imagery, but also allow authors, directors, and audiences to modify and elaborate upon such traditional tropes, sometimes creating hitherto unforeseen religious ideas and practices. The book takes play seriously by highlighting these recursive relationships between recreation and religion, emphasizing throughout the double sense of play as entertainment and play as adulteration (i.e., the whimsical or parodic representation of religious figures, doctrines, and imagery). Building on recent developments in academic studies of manga and anime—as well as on recent advances in the study of religion as related to art and film—Thomas demonstrates that the specific aesthetic qualities and industrial dispositions of manga and anime invite practices of rendition and reception that can and do influence the ways that religious institutions and lay authors have attempted to captivate new audiences. Drawing on Tradition will appeal to both the dilettante and the specialist: Fans and self-professed otaku will find an engaging academic perspective on often overlooked facets of the media and culture of manga and anime, while scholars and students of religion will discover a fresh approach to the complicated relationships between religion and visual media, religion and quotidian practice, and the putative differences between “traditional” and “new” religions.

Each of the eight chapters deals with a specific topic, such as Shinto, Buddhism, the new religions, and Christianity; there is an introduction that outlines the subject to be considered followed by a series of readings.

This volume examines a category of Japanese divinities that centered on the concept of “world renewal” (yonaoshi). In the latter half of the Tokugawa period (1603–1867), a number of entities, both natural and supernatural, came to be worshipped as “gods of world renewal.” These included disgruntled peasants who demanded their local governments repeal unfair taxation, government bureaucrats who implemented special fiscal measures to help the poor, and a giant subterranean catfish believed to cause earthquakes to punish the hoarding rich. In the modern period, yonaoshi gods took on more explicitly anti-authoritarian characteristics. During a major uprising in Saitama Prefecture in 1884, a yonaoshi god was invoked to deny the legitimacy of the Meiji regime, and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the new religion Ōmoto predicted an apocalyptic end of the world presided over by a messianic yonaoshi god. Using a variety of local documents to analyze the veneration of yonaoshi gods, Takashi Miura looks beyond the traditional modality of research focused on religious professionals, their institutions, and their texts to illuminate the complexity of a lived religion as practiced in communities. He also problematizes the association frequently drawn between the concept of yonaoshi and millenarianism, demonstrating that yonaoshi gods served as divine rectifiers of specific economic injustices and only later, in the modern period and within the context of new religions such as Ōmoto, were fully millenarian interpretations developed. The scope of world renewal, in other words, changed over time. Agents of World Renewal approaches Japanese religion through the new analytical lens of yonaoshi gods and highlights the necessity of looking beyond the boundary often posited between the early modern and modern periods when researching religious discourses and concepts.

The past twenty years have seen the publication of numerous translations and commentaries on the principal philosophers of the Kyoto School, but so far no general overview and evaluation of their thought has been available, either in Japanese or in Western languages. James Heisig, a longstanding participant in these efforts, has filled that gap with Philosophers of Nothingness. In this extensive study, the ideas of Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime, and Nishitani Keiji are presented both as a consistent school of thought in its own right and as a challenge to the Western philosophical tradition to open itself to the original contribution of Japan.