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Downloaded from Brill.Com10/01/2021 12:45:43AM Via Free Access 146 Shields … Journal of Religion in Japan 7 (2018) 145–165 brill.com/jrj After the Fall Tsuji Zennosuke and the Creation of Bukkyōshugi kokushi James Mark Shields Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA [email protected] Abstract Tsuji Zennosuke 辻善之助 (1877–1955), the dominant figure in Buddhist historical scholarship in Japan from the 1930s until the mid-1950s, is known to have employed a broad range of sources in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of his subject. This essay examines Tsuji’s conception of Buddhist history in relation to the emer- gence of both National Historical Studies (kokushigaku 国史学) and so-called State Shintō (kokka shintō 国家神道) and argues against the image of Tsuji as an “objec- tive historian” resistant to nationalist trends in historical scholarship. In fact, Tsuji was involved in the creation of an alternative, “Buddhistic” national history, or bukkyōshugi kokushi 仏教主義国史的. In particular, comparisons are drawn betweenTsuji’s concep- tion of Buddhism and the earlier arguments of New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) and the Daijō hi-bussetsuron 大乗非仏説論, in addition to his more general conception of the contributions of Buddhism to the humanitarian spirit of Japanese leaders— both emperors and military warlords. Can there be—should there be—an objective history of religion? What is the significance of sacred history—and the history of Buddhism more particularly—to the still-emerging “modern” nation of Japan? How does Buddhism, a pan-Asian and “borrowed religion,” fit with the “Japanist” ideology of national uniqueness? These are some of the questions posed by Tsuji in his writ- ings. Keywords Tsuji Zennosuke – kokushigaku – New Buddhism – Daijō hi-bussetsuron – State Shintō © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/22118349-00702001Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 12:45:43AM via free access 146 shields … Kuni no tame Crush may ye Ada nasu ada wa the foe Kudaku tomo that evil does the country; Itsukushishimu beki but forget ye not Koto wa wasure so.1 the love of brotherhood. Emperor Meiji, Ode on the occasion of the Russo-Japanese War, 1905 ∵ 1 Introduction Karl Marx famously remarked that “men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please.”2 This adage applies well to the intellectual climate of Japan in the tumultuous six decades from the Meiji Restoration of 1868 through the beginnings of the Asia Pacific War in 1931. Not only were the Meiji oligarchs engaged in an all-out (though frequently inconsistent) attempt to shape Japan as both fully modern and (still) truly Japanese, a new generation of intellectuals—including academics, educated laymen, and religious reform- ers, the so-called “young men of Meiji”—were equally intent on being part of the creation of the modern Japanese state and society. One result was the emergence of a confusing and often contradictory discourse on the meaning of history itself in the context of Japan’s national identity and future prospects. In fact, as Carol Gluck (1985) and many others have shown, the final decades of the Meiji period continued to exhibit considerable diversity in intellectual atti- tudes towards religion, history and culture, though this diversity was increas- ingly masked within universally shared buzzwords such as the “national body” (kokutai 国体). 1 国のため仇なす仇はくだくともいつくしむべき事は忘れそ. 2 This line forms the first part of the following extended passage, of which the last line is most famous: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living” (Marx 1852: n.p.). Journal of Religion inDownloaded Japan from 7 (2018) Brill.com10/01/2021 145–165 12:45:43AM via free access after the fall 147 A sense of national history (kokushi 国史) would become an important part of the ideological construction of modern Japan in the later Meiji period, as would the attempt to re-establish a national spiritual essence in the form of State Shintō (kokka shintō 国家神道). As is well known, the kokutai ideology that developed in late Meiji stated that one, unbroken imperial line ran from the beginnings of Japanese history, and that the very fact of this uninterrupt- edness stood as testament to the “moral virtues” of the emperors and those who sacrificed themselves for the imperial cause. And yet, this view was com- plicated by the facts of the 1334 Kenmu Restoration, when Emperor Go-Daigo 後醍醐 (1288–1339) defeated the warrior regime and established the Southern court, only to be defeated in turn four years later. Although subsequent emper- ors were all descended from the Northern court, the “Southern court view of history” (nanchō seitōron shikan 南朝正統論史観), replete with a narrative or victimhood and injustice, survived among some schools throughout the Edo period (1603–1868), only to return with a vengeance upon the Meiji Restora- tion of 1868, when the new, “modern” government adopted this view of history. The new imperial subjects would be educated under a system that sanctified the “spirit” (seishin 精神) of these emperors and imperial loyalists throughout the ages. Whereas Shintō—or at least a particular interpretation of such—experi- enced a revival in the decades immediately following the Meiji Restoration, Buddhism was during this time still absorbing the aftershocks of the brief but devastating persecution of the early 1870s. In response to the various challenges of the day, from the 1890s Buddhist scholars such as Inoue Enryō 井上圓了 (1858–1919) and Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治 (1873–1949), and scholar-priests like Murakami Senshō 村上専精 (1851–1929) and Shaku Sōen 釋宗演 (1859– 1919) attempted to bring about a reform of Buddhism in response to encroach- ing “modernity”—especially Western scientific methods. Out of the writings of Murakami and Anesaki—soon to be appointed respectively as the first profes- sors of Buddhist and religious studies at the newly-established Tokyo Imperial University—emerged a trend towards something called Daijōhi-bussetsuron 大 乗非仏説論, the “theory that the Mahāyāna teachings are not true Buddhism.” Inspired by Western scholarly notions of empiricism and scientific method, Daijō hi-bussetsuron sought to clarify and demarcate the limits of what should be included under the rubric “Buddhism.”Though not by any means universally accepted, the Daijō hi-bussetsuron thesis of a widespread East Asian “corrup- tion” of the original, pure teachings of Śākyamuni Buddha would help to pro- vide the theoretical justification for the broader effort to revitalize Buddhism in service to the modern state—i.e., as an ineluctable component of the national spiritual essence. Journal of Religion in Japan 7 (2018) 145–165 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 12:45:43AM via free access 148 shields Within the turmoil of the first three decades of Meiji we can also glimpse the origins and nascent development of various streams of “new” Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教), including the so-called Buddhist Enlightenment (bukkyō keimō undō 仏教啓蒙運動), the emergence and popularization of lay Bud- dhism, as well as reformation movements associated with the kairitsu 戒律 or “praxis masters.”3 While nearly all Buddhist movements during this period can be called “modernist” to some degree, it is difficult to draw clear lines between those that are “progressive” and those that are “conservative,” a distinction that is further complicated by the diverse meanings and implications of the term “nationalism.” If anything, it would appear that during this early period, at least, “conservative” reformation movements were more attuned to the importance of building a broad social base of support for their vision of Buddhism. This is partly due to the fact that, unlike the scholars (and even priest-scholars) who were at the forefront of the Buddhist Enlightenment, those supportive of Bud- dhist Reformation were often more closely connected to Buddhist institutions. But it also shows what we might call a modern or modernist understanding of the power of populism, and a fledgling recognition of “society” in addi- tion to, if not opposed to, the “state.” At the same time, certain Meiji Buddhist movements and figures crossed lines between Enlightenment and Reforma- tion, thereby laying the foundation for the more clearly “progressive” forms of New Buddhism in the final decade of Meiji.4 In short, by the early twentieth century, a self-conscious “academic” (i.e., objective, non-sectarian) study of Buddhism and Buddhist history had emerged under the auspices of Murakami and Anesaki at Tokyo Imperial Uni- versity. The general scholarly consensus, however, is that the historical work of both these important figures was limited by their personal, though non- sectarian, commitments to Buddhist faith (in Murakami’s own words, bukkyō- shugi 仏教主義)—and that the true academic study of Buddhist history in Japan would only begin with their student, Tsuji Zennosuke 辻善之助 (1877– 1955), who would go on to become the dominant figure in Buddhist historical scholarship until his death in the 1950s (see, e.g., Sueki 2005; Shields 2005). 3 For a full analysis of the various forms of Buddhist modernism to arise in Japan from late Meiji through early Shōwa, see Shields (2017). 4 In her illuminating study of the discourse of personal cultivation across Japanese religious movements in early and mid-Meiji, Janine Sawada (2004) suggests that many figures of this period might
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