Buddhism in Japan

Buddhism in its spread from India northward and in its triumphant march across China and Korea underwent some radical changes, not only in minor points, but in the very fundamentals of religion. And thus when Buddhism reached Japan in the middle of the sixth century AD it was no longer the pure religion of the founder. It was not the Buddhism of the Pali scriptures and the religion which western scholars usually describe when they speak of Buddhism, but it was that expanded and much modified religion known as Mahayana Buddhism. A part of the original Indian stream and a great many later streams from Hinduism reached Japan through China; so that Japanese Buddhism does go back to India, but the stream had been enlarged by many tributaries from the local cults and religions of other countries, and these were so well mingled with one another that it is impossible to say just what was Buddhist and what was not.

Buddhism introduced ideas into Japanese culture that have become inseparable from the Japanese worldview: the concept of rebirth, ideas of karmic causation, and an emphasis on the unity of experience. It gained the patronage of the ruling class, which supported the building of temples and production of Buddhist art . In the early centuries of Buddhism in Japan, scholarly esoteric sects were popular, and the Buddhist influence was limited mainly to the upper class. From the late Heian period (A.D. 794-1185) through the Kamakura period (1185-1333), Pure Land (Jodo) and Nichiren Shoshu sects, which had much wider appeal, spread throughout all classes of society. These sects stressed experience and faith, promising salvation in a future world. Zen Buddhism, which encourages the attainment of enlightenment through meditation and an austere life-style, had wide appeal among the bushi, or samurai--the warrior class--who had come to have great political power. Under the sponsorship of the ruling military class, Zen had a major impact on Japanese aesthetics. In addition, as Japan scholar Robert N. Bellah has argued, Buddhist sects popular among commoners in the Tokugawa period encouraged values such as hard work and delayed rewards, which, like Protestantism in Europe, helped lay the ideological foundation for Japan's industrial success.

Borne on the current of the continental civilization which brought various forms of art and culture to Japan, Buddhism came through Korea to the island-empire in the second quarter of the 6th century. This was the century of great Buddhist propaganda in China. Many of her immigrants, who were coming in great numbers, seem to have been devoted missionaries. In AD 538, through the agency of the king of Kudara in Korea, a royal gift, consisting of a statue of Buddha, sutras, and banners, was presented to the Japanese Court, accompanied with the message that the Buddhist Dharma, the most excellent of all Laws, which would bring immeasurable benefit to its believers, had been accepted in all lands lying between India and Korea.

The question whether the new faith should be accepted was taken up by two hostile Court parties struggling for political supremacy. The new religion was in the meantime being continually reinforced by the importation of missionaries, magicians, artisans, tutrat, and objects of ritual. It first received Court sanction when Prince Umayado or Shotoku defeated the army of the anti-Buddhistic Mononobe family, and became regent to Empress Suiko in AD 593. He drew up Japan's first' Constitution, proclaiming the 'Triune Treasure,' i.e. the Buddha, the Law, and the Sangha, to be the ultimate object of faith, and single-hearted devotion to it the fundamental factor of an upright life. At the public expense he built Buddhist temples, pagodas, seminaries, hospitals, dispensaries, and asylums for the aged and the helpless. He sent students directly to China to study Buddhist doctrines. The new faith made headway among both the higher and the lower classes.

In the year 624, less than 70 years after the first introduction of the sutras, the temples numbered 46, the priests 816, and the nuns 569. From this time the influence of Buddhism continued almost without interruption to the close of the Tokugawa regime (1868). During the Nara period (708-794), successive Emperors fostered the faith. It became the religion of the Court, and the security of the crown and the peace of the land were thought to be dependent upon the continuous favor of Buddha and his saints. The cenobites, as his followers, were relieved from the public service required from all others. Under the Emperor Shomu, a Buddhist temple was built in each province, and the Tsdai temple in Nara, the metropolis of that time, was the central shrine (741), dedicated to Vairochana (the universe personalized as Buddha), whose colossal bronze image, 53 ft. in height, was cast a few years later. The beautiful consort of Shornu, Empress KomyOo who had great influence with him, was a zealous Buddhist. Shomu and Komyo called themselves' servants of the Triune Treasure,' and on one occasion prostrated themselves before Buddha's image.

Under such circumstances it was but natural that the religion should become an instrument in the hands of ambitious politicians. In the time of Empress Koken (749-769), the ecclesiastical body had grown into a political power which almost overshadowed the Imperial authority. Yuge-no-Dokyo, a notorious bonze, became Imperial abbot and prime minister, and would have usurped the Imperial throne but for the heroic opposition of Wake-no-Kiyomaro, a devoted royalist. At the same time a syncretistic movement was going on. Natural calamities and plagues, which frequently afflicted the people, disturbed their belief in Buddha's protection, and tended to drive them to the worship of the old kami, and the Emperors themselves had a dread that the forsaken deities might be avenging themselves. A religious compromise was arranged by the priest Gyoki, when the colossal image of Buddha, already mentioned, was cast after he had secured an oracle at the Shinto temple of Ise to the effect that Amaterasu, the ancestor-goddess, was a manifestation of Vairochana. This example of combining the worship of native deities with that of Buddha and his saints was followed in other parts of the country, to the advantage of Buddhism. This syncretistic movement was brought to completion by Kukai, who appeared about fifty years later. Whatever may be said of the Buddhism of the Nara period, it made an unparalleled contribution to the advancement of religious arts.

The Heian period (beginning 794) is marked by the introduction of different divisions of Buddhism. The sect called Tendai-shu in Japan was inaugurated by Saicho (posthumously Dengyo, 767-822), a pre-eminent Buddhist of this period, who went to China and studied the doctrine of Tendai, which he rearranged and remoulded into something almost new. Saicho's doctrine is based upon the teaching known as the 'Lotus of the True Law.' Buddha, the historical revealer of truth, is here viewed as the full enlightenment. Realization of such Buddhahood in one's consciousness is the supreme object of all mysteries, virtues, and wisdom. Saicho's system combined different aspects of the Buddhist doctrine which received emphasis in different proportion at the hands of later Buddhists, and thus became the fountain-head of different branches of Japanese Buddhism. Breadth of learning and purity of character made Saicho influential with the Court, and he built a monastery on Mount Hiei (788), which was for several centuries one of the greatest centres of Buddhist learning as well as of ecclesiastical power.

Another division called Shingon-sku ('Sect of True Word') was introduced in the Nara period, and became a power under Kflkai (posthumously K6bo, 774-836). He began his teaching by classifying various forms of religious life in ten grades of development, the last and highest being that of Shingon. It is the state in which full blessedness of Buddhahood is realized. According to Kukai, the entire universe, including all spiritual existence, is made up of the six elements which again may be grouped as two, mental and material. The two are, however, inseparably blended. Matter contains mind, and mind incorporates itself in matter. The two are one, and the one is two. Every particle of matter is, therefore, pervaded by the divine presence of Buddhahood. The universe is but Buddha externalized. The Buddha within us may be called forth by practice of the 'mystery' in conduct, speech, and. heart. This doctrine of Kukai naturally lent support, especially on the theoretical side, to the syncretistic movement of Buddhism that had been inaugurated by Gyoki.

The propagator of the Shingon sect thus became also the originator of Ryobu, namely Buddhistic Shinto, proclaiming that the Imperial custom of kami-worship is, in reality, but disguised adoration of Buddha. Kukai had far greater influence than any of his predecessors. His versatile genius, extending even to the work of engineering and the arts of writing and carving, his untiring energy, and his practical resourcefulness combined to make him a great power both in the Court circle and among the common people. He built a monastery on Mount Koya, which became the headquarters of his denomination, and eventually overshadowed the influence of the hill-monastery on Hiei. A remarkable change that took place in the religious atmosphere. During the earlier part of this period, worldly blessings, such as health, good harvest, prosperity, and peace, were the reward sought in the worship of the kami, or Buddhist deities; and gorgeous rituals and the mystery practices pertaining to the Shingon sect made it attractive, especially in Court circles. Later, however, as the Fujiwara family declined and one civil war occurred after another, both the nobles and the common people felt the evanescence of this world; the yearning after snpramundane bliss became imperative, while pessimism prevailed.

For half a century or more previous to Yoritomo's founding of the Bakufu (military government) at Kamakura (1192), clan struggles involved the country in constant warfare. Bloody combat, exhaustion, death, and the treachery of fortune, all of which were but common occurrences, could not fail to produce a pessimistic temperament. Elaborate rituals and theological distinctions offered no attraction. The religion which could point out a haven of security, undisturbed by the storms of life, was in urgent demand. To meet such a need Honen (1133-1212) and Shinran (1173-1262) appeared.

Honen, formerly a student of the Tendai doctrine at the monastery school on Hiei, renounced all its philosophy as effete, and disowned the mystery practices and the discipline of conduct as useless. He preached the doctrine of Sukhavati, the Japanese 'Jodo,' or the 'Western Pure Land,' according to which any man, ignorant or wise, high or low, could be saved by faith in the boundless grace of Amitabha. Saintly character, profound piety, and sincere conviction, with his doctrine of the future redemption, made Honen the greatest religious influence with the Court and common people, until the jealousy of his religious rivals caused him to be exiled and some of his disciples to be put to death. The faith which he once preached, however, did not cease to be a powerful influence. Honen had many capable followers, the most eminent of whom was Shinran, who carried his master's teaching to its logical consequence.

Shinran unhesitatingly abandoned the repeated invocation of Amitabna's name which constituted an important part in Honen's doctrine, proclaiming a simple, undoubting trust in the Deliverer as the sole condition of salvation. With a bold stroke of genius, he abolished the prohibition of the marriage of bonzes, practically removing the distinction between the secular and the sacred. He was married himself, and he called himself the gutoku, the 'tonsured ignoramus,' putting himself on the same level as common people. Thus the Shin sect was founded by Shinran, whose doctrine and influence have survived all vicissitudes of time, and are perpetuated to this day in the Hongwanji, the two greatest shrines in Japan.

While religious revivals were thus going on among the mass of the people, a doctrine peculiarly adapted to the military class was introduced by Eisai (1141-1215) and Dogen (1200-63), the respective founders of the Kinzai and Sodo divisions of the Zen sect. The doctrine of ten, or dhyana, maintains that the state of enlightenment attained by Buddha cannot be conveyed by any external means. All doctrinal learning and rituals, therefore, are useless, and meditation or a conoentrated reflexion upon one's essential nature is the only way to realize Buddhahood in one's self. A complete disregard of the letter and of ritual pageantry made the Zen doctrine exceedingly popular among military men, who prided themselves upon extreme simplicity of life. The Dhyana doctrine also helped them to cultivate the spirit of stoical indifference to hardship and the habit of resoluteness in conduct. Many Shoguns became adherents of this doctrine.

In the meantime there arose an extreme form of bibliolatry. Nichiren (1222-82), after the teaching of Saicho, based his teaching upon the Saddharmapundarika (' Lotus of the True Law'). His principal tenet consisted in adoration of Buddha s Truth by repeatedly uttering the title of that scripture in which alone, he held, the genuine and, indeed, the only true doctrines of Gautama are set forth. Persecuted, exiled, almost put to death, he ever grew bolder in his denunciation of the faithless age, holding to the firm conviction that he was the heaven-sent Bodhisattva whose coming in the 'latter age' had been predicted by Gautama.

These religious leaders had in every case many able disciples, who perpetuated and developed the movements which their teachers had begun. Roughly speaking, the Tendai and Shingon sects held influence among the nobles; the Zen among the warrior class; JOdO and Shinshd among the mass of the people. In the 15th and 16th centuries, an age again involved in wars and political disorder, these religious bodies often became militant, and interfered with politics. The Zen sect, being that of the military aristocrats, became influential through its monasteries in educational work and literary culture. It was an age of religious fermentation, and a great number of minor sects arose, finding more or less of a following.

The Tokugawa government adopted a definitely centralizing policy, designed to prevent the rise of any political or social factor to unmanageable magnitude. Religions of any potency were, therefore, either paralyzed by generous patronage or put under proscription. The nation as a whole was compelled to be Buddhist, at least in outward form. At the same time, Buddhism under the ShOgun's patronage fell into spiritual decay, although to its credit is the fact that most of the Buddhist scriptures and literary productions were put into print. The doctrines and ecclesiastical policy of each of the Buddhist sects were systematized. Takuan (t 1645), Hakuin (t 1786), and Jiun (t 1804) were among the most conspicuous priests of this age.

Buddhist funerary and ancestral rites are pervasive in Japan. Although regular attendance at Buddhist temples is rare, partly because many Buddhist sects do not observe community worship, there were in 1991 nearly 75,000 temples and 204,000 clergy. Buddhist as well as Shinto priests marry, and often sons inherit the responsibility for their father's parish at his death. The Nichiren school, based on belief in the Lotus Sutra and its doctrine of universal salvation, was the largest sect in Japan in 1991, with 24,450,257 members. Its wide appeal is based on the broad range of religious and social thought and the lay activities it incorporates.